Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady (Lightfall, Book 3) Read online

  Book Three

  Luck, Lost, Lady

  Jordan Taylor

  Copyright © 2014 Jordan Taylor. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or animals—living, dead, or otherwise—is coincidental.

  Adoxography Books

  Very special thanks to Leigh Allen Taylor, Matt Feisthammel, Angel Prado, and Patty Erdmann.

  For my mother.

  You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?

  ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

  Thirty-Sixth

  Chiricahua

  Ivy wakes or blacks out again intermittently through the dawn. Still sick and vomiting, still in agonizing pain which seems to grow until her body is on fire—hands searing, abdomen alive with throbbing pain, every limb blazing.

  People speak to her, or about her. She cannot understand their words. Hands touch her, turn her. She is lifted, carried somewhere, or does she only imagine arms around her?

  So hot—real fire now. She must make them put it out, but she cannot see the sky, only dim shapes and walls and people. Her father stands by her bed, telling her mother the fever will break tonight, that she need not worry, their baby girl will be all right. Baby girl. They don’t take infants on the trail. They light fires indoors. She must be indoors or she could see sun or stars. Or is it still raining?

  Hands on her face, her side, pressing something cool to her burning, throbbing flesh. Infection. Her fever will break. Her mother sponging her brow. Many years ago, when scarlet fever trapped her in bed, sheets soaked in sweat, all kinds of strange images and sounds and smells swarming about her which she has never known since. She was someone’s baby girl then. Now ... who is she now?

  Hands and words. Something cool, moist, against her lips. She chokes. Her eyes sting and blur. If they would only open her bedroom window for ocean breezes in the evening. Or bring her a cup of ice. How she needs ice.

  Why are they speaking like that? Her friends must have found her, looking after her. Or she is already back to Santa Fé. But she is hallucinating. She has to be, because she has never heard or imagined anything like this.

  Izdzán, yo’įį, yiyąą, di—stray words reach her which make no sense, hold no meaning, only sounds ranging in scale from the sweet trill of birds to guttural growls, though with less meaning to her than either. Silly sounds, noises children make in play.

  Just when she was making an effort with Spanish. She can pick out a few words now: days of the week, numbers, greetings, foods and small polite phrases. Why do they have to change everything?

  Heat fades. She sleeps, knowing she sleeps because she is sitting on a pier in the middle of the night, waiting for an Old World steamer to come into port. She would never do that. She would never walk about the docks on her own at night. When she turns to see the person sitting beside her in moonlight, she feels no twinge of surprise to see Grip rather than Kitty or her father or mother. As if she has known all along he would be waiting here. Motionless and silent, staring eastward as if he can see across the Atlantic.

  “What happened?” Ivy asks. “You were all there, then ... the water came.”

  He ignores her.

  When she shifts her gaze across the water, she notices someone else sitting on her other side. Sam, motionless, silent, also watching the horizon.

  “I’m sorry,” Ivy says. “I never ... you know I would not have really—” she stops, swallows. Would she? Would she have ridden away?

  Ivy looks east with them, watching cold black and silver: reflected moon broken into a million slivers of light skipping over salty waves.

  Shivering, she reaches to take Sam’s hand, feeling only frigid, clammy skin against her fingers without return pressure. Uneasy for the first time, she looks at him. Sam is gone. In his place, a black-eyed, silent, pale shell of a human being—deadly cold, without breath, without soul, filthy and bloody and rotting away. It turns its head slowly, no moonlight reflecting in the dead eyes, mouth open to bite.

  Ivy screams, leaping away, lashing out with arms and feet, fighting back, fighting the water, hands holding her down, blankets crushing her.

  Voices murmur words which mean nothing, only sounds beyond writing or spelling. The hands which hold her face, her arms, are warm, gentle, the voices almost crooning.

  Ivy opens her eyes. Sunlight filters through a roof of sticks and brush above her, like a tent made from wilderness rather than canvas. Who in this place has a tent?

  This place. New Mexico. She is in New Mexico Territory. She was just caught in a flash flood. She almost died. But she did not. She lies on her back in a stick room with two women leaning over her, pressing her to the soft fur of a bed of skins. Dark, leathery faces with black hair like ravens’ wings and black eyes gazing down at her in concern.

  Pain and thirst rack her body, sweat breaks out on her brow, fever still nibbling away. One of the women, the younger of the two, holds a wood dish to Ivy’s lips to drink, smiling at her. Ivy tastes warm mud, but the consistency of water and she gulps it down. They chatter over her like birds, rapid, flowing, meaningless.

  Light shifts. Ivy turns her head to see two half-grown children in what must be a doorway to the stick dwelling. They stare, wide-eyed, nudging and murmuring to one another, before the older woman shoos them away.

  Ivy lies back, wondering if it can hurt any worse to be scalped than to be thrown from horses, kicked in the arm by a rider at a gallop, impaled by tree limbs in a thundering current. Probably.

  No one lifts a blade. As she glances about the small space, she sees little in the way of tools at all. No decorative beads. No war paint. She’s not even in a tipi. No feathers adorn these women’s hair, no evil glint in their eyes. They look worn and tired and dusty. Everything looks brown, brush-colored, just as dusty. Most striking about them, as Ivy watches their arms and faces shift above her, is how thin they are. Sharp bones seem ready to burst from skins stretched across bumpy wrists and knobbly fingers.

  Ivy listens for whooping of warriors outside, clatter of weapons, neigh of horses. She hears desert breezes, soft voices of her two nurses. Nothing more.

  She watches the stick ceiling, shifting in and out of focus. Why does everything she thinks she knows turn out wrong while everything she never imagined flies at her with each breath?

  Soon, her own pain takes all her thought and energy. Her hands, her head, a stabbing and tearing sensation across her lower ribs on the right side, her legs, particularly the left shin. Her whole body feels thick and swollen, battered to a pulp. Dazed, her vision unclear, the women offer her warm broth so bitter it almost makes her retch. Firelight flickers, or sunlight, or reflections off the ocean.

  The next time she wakes, she is alone. Carefully, she sits up. Fire inside after all, though only glowing coals. Sunlight filters in through cracks in brush walls and an open entryway. Outside, she catches voices blending with the still audible breeze.

  She drinks from a wooden cup beside her on the earth floor, holding it gingerly with her fingertips, her hands bandaged with some sort of rough linen. There’s little else in the structure. Only a few skins of animals and blankets, a single clay pot, a pair of child’s moccasins, nothing more. No, hanging from the stick wall beside her are her own clothes. The tattered, ripped, stained yellow dress, streaked in blood, now dry and stiff, along with the equally battered chemise. Beside these, her underg
arments hang, the pliable corset from Santa Fé ripped and blood-stained across the bottom. Dazed as she is by pain, she still finds the sight disconcerting.

  She peers down at herself to find the rough fur side of a deer skin resting across her. Below that, she seems to be wrapped in some kind of fabric garment—a rebozo? Brown and red and so worn and sun-bleached it is nearly the color of sand. Below this, and judging by searing pain, she does not want to speculate. She takes several long, deep breaths, feeling her lungs burn, fighting her. Something catches in her throat and she coughs, gags, then vomits more brown water and bile and bits of desert flora on the floor. Shaking, she pushes straggly hair back from her eyes, jerking her hand away as her fingers touch bruised, swollen skin across her temple.

  When she gets her breath, she folds back the hide and starts a hesitant search of her own skin. Several slow minutes reveal bruising from head to toe; a wide, painful swelling on her left shin from the impact of a hoof; many abrasions across her skin, especially limbs, where debris ripped at her; fingernails torn to blood; and a sharp pain across her upper arm and shoulder, which she suspects to be from a pulled muscle. Worst of all, she catches her breath when she sees blood seeping into the bandage wrapping her middle, pressing some kind of ointment into her false ribs. She feels too sickened by the sight of black blood and apparent size of the wound to try unwrapping anything for a look. Like this tear in her side, the small cuts are all sticky with some kind of green, translucent ointment.

  She needs a real doctor, a bed, a bath to wash away contaminated flood water. Clean food and water. And her companions. She cannot get back to any of these things without the others.

  Arms shaking, Ivy unsteadily dresses herself in underclothes and chemise, lacing over her bandages, but under the shawl. She is unable to make it to the dress, so tired and weak she finally falls back, shivering though sweat coats her skin.

  A woman’s voice speaks above her. A gentle hand touches her cheek.

  She wakes with the outside world growing gloomy. Twilight. An evening chill clutching her. So, so cold.

  Ivy sits up to find the two women, accompanied by two children, sitting about the dwelling, all facing her in a semicircle. The older woman stirs something in the pot, the younger mashing something smelling bitter and acidic in a wood dish with a stone. The children lean away when they see Ivy move, eyes terrified. The younger woman glances up, but goes back to her work. The older never shifts from her slow stirring of the steaming pot.

  The fire is tiny, mere coals and a few nibbling flames at the base of the pot, though brush waits at hand to be added.

  Shivering, Ivy tentatively lifts a piece of this dry scrub to add to the flames.

  The younger woman reacts at once by dropping her stone and waving both hands in Ivy’s face. “Dooda, dooda, dooda!” She goes on shouting incomprehensibly, obviously frightened, a flow of strange sounds.

  The older woman says something, whereupon the younger subsides.

  “I’m sorry,” Ivy says. “Do you know any English?”

  A polite smile from the older and blank looks from the rest answer her.

  The older woman points to coals. Dropping her spoon, she uses both hands to mime the fire built up into a blaze, then she points outside and shakes her head.

  “Ya’áí,” she says gravely, pointing to the ceiling. She cups her fingers into a circle above her head, as if to show the sun or moon, then lowers the circle, then points at the fire and shakes her head sadly.

  Ivy gasps. “You know. You know about light and risers. Then how are you still alive?”

  The woman beckons for her empty cup and Ivy hands it over to receive a few spoonfuls of bitter, scalding broth. Ivy waits, watching them talk among themselves and wrap up in skins, but this seems to be the extent of dinner.

  Where is the rest of the tribe? Why are they here? Uncle Charles told her long ago not to worry—there were no Indians left in the central part of the Territory. There are reservations. She has seldom even seen a peaceable Pueblo in Santa Fé, most having fled in the spring. After hearing of nothing but the danger and animal savagery of other tribes, she wonders if these women are from those vanished Pueblo families.

  In the morning Ivy manages, with help from the older woman, to pull on her boots and tattered dress, then venture out. Here, she discovers two old men and a young one to complete the family. The young man leaps to his feet as she appears, black eyes bitter with hatred and mistrust as she stares back uneasily. The older ones seem unimpressed by her. One faces her, giving a little speech about ... something. The flood? The landscape? The other holds something out to her, nodding solemnly. Her gun belt, the Colt Lightning and cartridges still miraculously on it.

  Amazed, Ivy lifts it from his leathery hands with thanks. Even more of a miracle, she looks up to the dusty plain and wind-blown scrub to see a blue roan stallion making every effort to browse through low branches.

  “Chucklehead,” she gasps, limping forward as he looks up, pricking his ears.

  He wears no saddle or bridle, only a horsehair rope tied about his neck. He steps toward her, snorting, tossing his head. Amazed that he seems pleased to see her, she rests her face against his neck and hugs him with trembling arms. So he remained with her that night after she collapsed on the bank?

  “Thank you,” she whispers as her tears wet his fur. “You saved my life.”

  Wiping her stinging eyes, she leans back to stroke his nose. He lifts his head, ears up, gazing at something far away and of great importance.

  Ivy smiles. “No more fussing. I won’t embarrass you in front of your new friends.”

  As she turns, noticing two roping saddles and bridles resting outside the stick dwelling, she sees a second horse: a bay mustang with a placid expression and ears lifted toward her. His mane and tail are thick with debris, and a deep scratch across his face is smeared with greenish ointment. A foreleg is tied in bloody rags.

  He nickers softly, a puff of air, as he steps to her, his head lowered to press against her chest.

  Ivy hugs his head, kissing his tangled forelock. “How did they find you, Elsewhere? Or did you find us?”

  She looks up, stroking his neck, scanning the camp and horizon in all directions. No one else appears. Only the seven silent, watching Indians, two horses, and herself.

  At least the horses were tacked up when they arrived. The saddlebags are empty, having torn open in the water, but still attached, along with Melchior’s lariat. Other small packs are gone, as are water bottles, bedrolls, the Henry repeating rifle, and the fire-shooter.

  How many days has she been here? How long since a proper meal? Where are the others? Head spinning, muscles trembling as pain and hunger make her dizzy, Ivy steps from Elsewhere to lift Chucklehead’s heavy bridle off the saddle.

  The children are both petting and talking to Chucklehead as he stands, watching her. When Ivy returns, they scatter, hiding behind the young man, who has not taken his hostile gaze from her.

  “Good boy,” Ivy says quietly. “Can you be decent? Elsewhere doesn’t look fit for a rider.”

  She tries to lift the bit into his mouth, but the tall stallion moves his head out of her reach without effort, once more gazing to the horizon.

  The old lady comes to Ivy’s elbow and gestures toward the stick hut, talking to her gently.

  Ivy shakes her head. “I can’t. I must go.” Ivy points to herself, then emphatically north.

  The woman gazes at her with a sorrowful gravity for some moments, her thin face appearing deeply lined below morning sun. She says something to the young man, gesturing for him to come.

  He backs away, arms crossed. Her tone grows sharp, demanding. The children flee to the hut. The young man averts his eyes, but finally approaches them.

  He snatches the bridle from Ivy’s hands, throws his arm over Chucklehead’s poll, and slips the bit into his mouth.

  At more words from the older woman, he saddles the horse while Ivy holds the reins. Chucklehead
does not seem to mind, giving the young man none of the trouble he generally shows Melchior in the mornings.

  One of the older men saddles Elsewhere and fits the bridle over his head, moving as if he has also just been through a flood.

  Ivy weakly tosses reins over the stallion’s black mane. Now what? Can she safely sit sideways on that roping saddle? Can she ride astride in her skirts? Probably, they are so torn. She will have to try.

  She stares dumbly at the large saddle and sheer bulk of the horse. Chucklehead is nearly sixteen hands—massive compared to the average cowhorse. Luck is not even fifteen. Elsewhere presents a more appealing picture of a typical cowhorse, but Ivy glances once more to his wrapped leg and looks away.

  She looks down at the gun belt still in her hands, starts to lift it to her waist, then turns to see the five adults and two children watching her and the motionless horses.

  How do they even stand with bones poking from their skins like handles? She swallows and holds the belt with the Lightning out to the young man, feeling she should be offering both horses and anything else she can find.

  “Thank you.”

  He does not move.

  Ivy takes a limping step closer, pressing the belt at him. “Please, take it. Maybe you can hunt. It’s powerful enough to kill a jackalope, even a mule deer or wild hog if you are close. Please.”

  At a word from the older woman, he at last takes the belt and weapon.

  She lifts a boney hand to Ivy’s shoulder, gazing into her eyes. She says something clearly profound, important.

  Ivy can only stare back.

  The woman lifts her fingers to her mouth, pressing down as if to seal her lips.

  Ivy’s eyes widen. “A secret? You being here?” She looks around, each face grave. Ivy lifts a finger to her own lips as if hushing a child. “Shhh.”