The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(93)

Isobel pressed her thumb harder into her palm, forcing herself to listen not only to the words but what snaked underneath. Fools die. The first thing a child learned in the Territory. But Tousey had not died. Not a fool, then, or his luck had been stronger than his foolishness.

Luck was medicine of a sort for some. A man with luck could beat the devil with his own cards.

“And what did you use as bait to entice them to listen to you?” Gabriel’s tone tore her attention away from the marshal; she had never heard his voice that cold, not since . . . not since that first day on the Road, when they’d encountered a posse who’d looked at her wrongly.

He was angry at the wrong thing, the wrong person. She knew that, but she didn’t know why—or who.

“What does it matter? You’ve already judged me and measured the rope.”

Gabriel could move like a ghost cat when he chose to. Tousey and he had seemed evenly matched, but the rider had him up against the far wall, a hand wrapped around his neck, before any of the others could react. “What. Did. You. Use?”

“Mister Kasun.” The judge’s voice wasn’t as cold as Gabriel’s, but it carried a distinct chill. “This is my bench, if you please.”

She could see the muscles bunching under the back of Gabriel’s shirt, but then, slowly, they eased, and he released the other man, stepping back just enough that he could still lunge again, easily. She couldn’t read most people from behind, but Isobel had spent enough time riding behind him to learn Gabriel front and back. He wasn’t angry. He was afraid.

Of what?

“There is no rope,” the judge said, stepping forward so that Gabriel had to take another step back or be pushed aside. “That is not how it works in the Territory.”

“What, a knife? A bullet? Or was Anderson right; do you turn us over to the savages?” Tousey didn’t spit the word the way Anderson had, but it still tasted sour in the air, anger and fear and disdain mixing with the lingering smell of sweat and blood to make Isobel’s stomach churn with upset.

“We would be well within our rights to do so,” the judge replied. “Your actions caused them direct harm, and this would show them that we took that harm seriously.”

“Well, that’s just lovely,” Anderson muttered, still sitting on the bench. He hadn’t so much as flinched when Gabriel attacked Tousey, slumped against the wall, still staring at his boots. “We’ll end up stretched on poles and shucked into stewpots, then. Tell them where you got the damned idea, Tousey, and maybe they’ll kill us outright instead. That’d be a better fate.”

The American’s jaw clenched, the muscle in his jaw twitching hard enough to make his eyes squint half-shut. “I was told, if I encountered a magician, that the only thing they respected, the only thing they coveted, was power . . . and the only thing they wanted and didn’t have was freedom.” He exhaled, his chin lifting not in defiance but an odd sort of . . . pride? “I was authorized to offer them passage across the Mississippi if they so desired?—”

“You are mad.” Gabriel’s voice was flat, brooking no dispute.

“The United States Government—”

“Has no idea what they were offering. And you—you told them what? That they would have free range there? What would they have to give you first?”

“To bring down the boss.” Isobel knew she was right, felt it in her bones. “That was it, wasn’t it?”

Tousey’s gaze flickered sideways. “That was not in my orders.”

“No.” She stepped closer, but where Gabriel had attacked, she slid, winding herself around him, until there was barely a handbreadth between them. Rosa taught the new girls how to do that, to distract and set a man back on his heels when he got too rowdy. If you could confuse them, she’d said, you could control them.

Isobel knew she wasn’t Rosa, didn’t have the swing of hips or perfumed hair, in her worn traveling dress, her hair a mess, stinking of blood and sweat. But his breath caught and his gaze flicked down at her, then away anywhere else, discomfort writ in his face. She refused to allow sympathy to soften her, pushing forward, her hands flat on his chest, the flesh under her skin pulsing with that flowing, hot power.

She could feel his heart beating under her hands, feel the quickly indrawn breath, the panicked scurrying of his thoughts, wondering what sort of witch she was, suddenly realizing, remembering that it had not been Gabriel who had bound the magicians but her, that she was the dangerous one. . . .

She stepped back, her hands pressed together, palm to palm, touching fingertips to her mouth.

“He was told to offer them whatever it took,” she said, not looking away from his eyes. “If they could bring down the boss, make people doubt his ability to keep them safe. It was an open pot with no limit. With that much of a lure . . . they were willing to work together to achieve it.”

She tried to imagine it, seven versions of Farron, agreeing long enough to not try to destroy one another to gain greater power. . . .

Yes. Enough of a lure, and they would. And they would not stop—would not be able to stop and consider if the bait were true or empty, the way LaFlesche’s crossroads trap had been empty.

We tell you nothing you do not already know.

“But they couldn’t hold it, could they. It wasn’t only that what they were trying to do was too powerful . . . they turned on each other the moment they had the ancient spirit in hand.”