A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)
Charlaine Harris
To all the people who have handsold my books through these years: bless you for believing in me and my stories.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Paula, my friend and assistant, for her help and encouragement and tenacious research. Thanks also to Dana and Toni, who are friends, allies, and sounding boards; to Sarah Byrne, who volunteered her name; to my editor, Joe Monti, whose faith in me never seems to waver.
Saint Moses the Black (also known as Abba Moses the Robber and Moses the Ethiopian) was a real man who lived from 330 AD to 405 AD. He was one of the first Africans to achieve sainthood. Though he lived his early life as a criminal, he became a patron saint of nonviolence.
CHAPTER ONE
It had been a long time since I was on a train, and I found I hadn’t missed it a bit. The rocking made me a little uneasy in the stomach, and also sleepy, a real bad combination. Our crew sat at the west end of a car on a train going roughly west to east, from Texoma to Dixie. It would be a long ride. We’d have to switch trains in Dallas.
“Was that your boyfriend who brought you to Sweetwater?” the woman sitting across from me asked. Her name was Maddy Smith. She was wearing guns, like me.
“Nah,” I said. “I’ve known Dan Brick since we were yay-high.” I held my hand out. Maybe I’d been four years old.
“Good-looking man.”
“Really?” I’d never thought about Dan’s looks. “He’s a good friend.”
Maddy looked at me, smiling. “If you say so. He don’t feel that way.”
“Huh.” As far as I was concerned, talking about Dan was at an end. I looked out the window again.
The land outside was open to view till there was a ridge of low hills. The sun was beginning to cast long shadows for the small trees, the few farms. The towns were far apart in this stretch of Texoma. We’d gone through miles that were entirely empty. The population of Texoma wasn’t what it had been before the fields dried up and the farms got repossessed and the influenza took people from every family. When it had still been Texas.
Our car was half-empty. Not too many passengers wanted to share space with gunnies.
My new crew, the Lucky Crew, was all in the same half-drugged condition I was. Across the aisle, gray-whiskered Charlie Chop was out and out snoring. Rogelio was staring out the window looking angry and handsome, which seemed to be his resting face. Jake, the crew leader who’d hired me, was looking ahead resolutely, making sure he was alert. He and I had run out of things to talk about thirty minutes before. Jake and I were turned toward Maddy, who was about my age, as she sat on the crate. That crate was our cargo.
Even if I was going to Dixie, it felt good to be working. My last job had almost killed me, but the long recovery had ended in me feeling as antsy as I’d ever felt in my life.
So I’d needed a new crew. Jake had needed another shooter. Here I was. This was not the job I’d have picked for my first one back, but it was better than none.
“That your grandfather’s rifle, you said?” Jake remembered what I’d told him about the Winchester.
“Yep. He left it to me.”
“He a shooter?”
“Not by profession, but he shot just about everything we put in the pot.”
“So it’s a family trait.”
“If so, it passed my mom completely and came to me doubled.”
Jake laughed. “Your mom teaches school in Segundo Mexia, doesn’t she?”
I nodded.
“She married?”
“To Jackson Skidder.” Who had spotted my shooting talent early and encouraged me to learn. Didn’t matter to him that I was a girl. A skill was a skill.
“He’s a well-to-do man,” Jake said.
I nodded. Jackson worked hard, was clever about people, and took chances when he had to. He also took good care of my mother, Candle.
Jake glanced at his watch. “Time to shift,” he said.
We all stood and stretched.
Maddy looked grateful to get onto some padding, as she took her new seat by me. Jake took the crate. Rogelio and Charlie took the seat Jake and I had vacated. Some of the other passengers turned to look at us, though they should have been used to the drill by now.
A couple of them were from Texoma, like we were. Then there were some older and more prosperous people returning to Dixie from wherever they’d been. Lots of trains terminated in Dallas. Not too many went from Dallas to Dixie.
There were two passengers I was keeping my eye on. They didn’t fit in. The closest was a blond woman, about ten years older than me and Maddy (both of us were around nineteen). She was dressed in a straight skirt and short-sleeved kind of tailored blouse, with a little hat and low heels. She was no Dixie woman, for sure, and no Texoman, neither. Either. I guessed Brittania.
The other passenger to watch was bareheaded, short, and black-haired. He wasn’t nearly as impressive. But he hummed with power. When he stood for a moment and I saw his vest, I knew for sure he was a grigori, a Russian wizard. When I looked hard, I could see the ends of a tattoo above his collar. Another sign.
Jake was crate-sitting, facing the west end of the car with a line of sight over my shoulders. I heard that door open. Jake’s hand went to his gun. The newcomer was a fancy man, dressed sharp like the blond woman, and also wearing a hat. He took a seat by her and they exchanged a few words. Jake turned to watch them.