Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) (37 page)

The winds. Magicians took their direction from the wind, and that made them a little mad. If the storms were confused, then would a magician be even more mad? Izzy felt her stomach clench at the thought, a lingering voice whispering at her,
Run
.

She couldn’t run. The bones cracked, and the winds were in confusion, and Izzy had no idea what any of it meant, except that everyone thought she would fix it.

“There are balances to be kept, little rider.” The magician was looking at her again with those, eyes dark-rimmed and too intent for any kind of comfort. His hand was on Uvnee’s bridle and the mare’s ears were back, but she was not shying away or retreating. “There are balances that’ve been tipped turvy. It has to be made right.”

Gabriel snorted. “By you?”

“By her. I’m just along for the entertainment.” The magician smiled again, bone-hard and brightly, and stepped back, his earlier intensity breaking. “It’s always a merriment when the wind changes. And it has changed, my dear ones, oh, lucky ones. The wind whistles me up and down, and it tells me of power and the crackling of bones, spilling marrow into the waters for predators to eat.”

Izzy sat upright in her saddle, her hands tightening on the reins, and Gabriel’s knife was halfway out of the sheath, as though he had heard a threat in those words.

“Ah, ah. None of that,” the magician scolded, and the knife slid back into the sheath, Gabriel’s hand flying off it as though it had suddenly burned him. “I am not your threat, rider. Not at this moment, anyway. Show me some respect.”

“Are you here to help me, Farron Easterly? Or to claim whatever power you sense?” Izzy felt the brush of something against the back of her neck, the rustle of something softly invisible across her arms, but she refused to shiver.

“If you wish my help, I may lead you to where the wind whistles me, but beyond that, it is not for me to say. As for power . . . it is the only true currency, little rider.” The magician looked up again and away, head tilted as though listening to something. “And we should be on our way; it is not wise for us to remain overlong here. How those little diggers spend so much time within the teocuitlatl and still remain dross, I cannot understand . . .”

“The what?” Gabriel was still upset; she could see it in him, the rising need to control, direct, understand, despite none of it remaining still long enough to for them to pin it down, think it through.

“Silver, man, silver!” the magician said. “To touch on the veins and unsheathe it from the bones, purify and form, and still they know not what they handle; they cannot feel it . . . But it would feel you, little rider, as much as it feels me. And we do not want that to happen, oh, no. No waking the silver for us.”

Waking the silver? Did he mean . . .

Gabriel looked at Izzy, who gave a faint shrug, as much with her face as her shoulder, then she remembered the feeling she’d had when passing the mineshaft opening, the equal pull of curiosity and push of dread, and this time let the shiver take her, with understanding. It hadn’t been
her
feeling that; it had been the ore.

Waking the silver. No. Impossible.

But it might explain why the boss never went to the mines but had them send the silver to him, smelted and tamed.

“We need help,” she said quietly. “He may not be ideal, but he’s the only one who’s offered.”

Gabriel ran his hand through his hair and put his hat back on, marking the end of discussion. “He’s come back more mad than before, and we’re just as mad to accept him. But fine. He may be of help. But I’m not taking him with us on my errand.”

“Who?” Farron asked, more indignant than curious. “Who is so important—”

“I carry a package for Graciendo,” Gabriel said, and the magician
stepped back as though the other man had finally surprised him.

“Ah. Ah, and now I see more, I do.” Farron’s eyes were merry again, his smile full of teeth. “No fear, rider, no fear. To Graciendo we shall all of us go, thee and thee and me, and see what we shall see.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes, clearly about to protest the magician’s inclusion of himself, but Izzy could see no other choice, despite renewed unease. They had no idea what they faced, and the magician claimed to—although she did not look forward to the headache of unraveling his half-mad speech. If he insisted on coming with them to see Gabriel’s friend, how much harm could it do?

Izzy twisted the silver ring on her finger, feeling it warm comfortably to the touch, and rubbed the mark on her palm against her skirt. She couldn’t risk alienating someone who might have answers. And, she admitted to herself, as unpredictable as the magician might be, for now he seemed to be on their side. Or, she checked herself, the winds that drove him were.

For now, as they followed Gabriel up the trail to meet with the mysterious Graciendo, she wondered what had happened to the magician after his not-death, what he had seen, and why, now, she could feel the strangeness in him.

Had he changed, she wondered uneasily . . . or had she?

Graciendo’s cabin was only a day’s ride from De Plata, but with the magician on foot, it took them longer than expected, and Gabriel thought it better not to approach the cabin once night fell. They made a rough camp on the trail itself, the ground on either side too rocky for sleeping.

No road led to Graciendo; Gabriel was unsure if the old man had chosen his location for that or simply prevented a road from reaching him, but the end result was the same. The woods pressed around him, as they did each time he made this trip, and he found his neck aching
from the times he looked up, trying to see the open sky through thick green leaves and failing each time.

Isobel might feel uneasy in the hills; he could never rest properly if he couldn’t see the stars.

He was not alone in being uneasy; they kept the animals close and the fire small, as though to attract as little attention as possible, and declined to step off the trail to hunt, relying on the beans he’d set to soak that morning, and a chunk of salted goat meat.

“Does she know?”

“Know what?” Gabriel knew he was defensive, but the magician gave him no less unease now than he had on first encounter. He fought the urge to flinch, to move away, to find running water and put it between them.

The other man settled too comfortably next to him, resting against the log they’d dragged over for a bench. “What you are.”

Gabriel looked over his shoulder at where Isobel was fiddling with something in her pack, the horses a darker shadow beyond, then back to the work at hand. There was enough wood here to make a decent fire, and it had caught nicely, but it couldn’t ward off the chill he felt.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and neither do you.”

“You think I can’t smell it?” The magician stretched his long legs out in front of him and grinned up at Gabriel, teeth too white and sharp to be soothing. He might look human, Gabriel reminded himself, might even sound human, but he wasn’t, not where it counted. No magician was. “How many generations?”

Gabriel pulled the coffeepot out of the pack and set it aside, then dug deeper to find the fresh packet of coffee and chicory. “Generations of what?” He was hedging, he knew he was hedging, and part of him wondered why he even bothered. All the years of pushing it down, the denial and the running, and it followed him anyway. The devil had stripped it from him in one sentence, laid him bare and needy, and now this . . .

But what he would give freely to the devil he’d give to no other, not even himself.

“Gabriel Kasun.”

His name carried the dry dust of the road and the sour tang of the ocean, the taste of honey from his mother’s bees, and the feel of documents shuffled under his hands. Gabriel looked at the magician, his gaze brimming with anger. “Do not attempt to compel me again,” he warned, feeling his entire body shift against the need to respond. “Or I’ll kill you in your sleep and not have a moment of guilt in it.”

“That would presume I slept,” the magician said, but relented. The sensations faded, but Gabriel didn’t relax. He wouldn’t relax for as long as this bastard traveled with them, and not even after that now.

“Fine. I will say it for you. You’re bound,” the magician said. “As bound to the Territory as I am—nay, more so. Leaving didn’t work so well for you, did it? Did nobody warn you?”

The bastard actually sounded . . . concerned.

“I’m none of your business,” he said, checking the water level in the bag and frowning. This was the second to spring a leak; they would have enough for coffee tonight or tomorrow, not both, and there was no fresh water until they could use Graciendo’s well.

“Oh, give me that,” the magician said, and took the leather bag from his hands. He held it a moment and then handed it back.

The bag, half-empty before, now bulged with water, without a single drip.

Farron leaned back, watching him with those uncanny eyes. “I’m not your enemy,” he said. “I don’t have to be a friend; in fact, you’re wise to keep in mind that I’m nobody’s friend. But I’m not your enemy. Not here, now, in this time and place.”

Gabriel grunted, scooping coffee into the pot and adding water, then placing the pot on its tripod over the flames.

“It doesn’t have to be a terrible thing, you know. . . .”

“Leave it,” Gabriel said.

Much to his surprise, the magician did.

Approaching Graciendo’s home at night wasn’t wise even for someone who was expected, much less strangers. But it wasn’t exactly safe even during the daylight. Gabriel had Isobel dismount as they approached the cabin, the mule halter-tied and the horses on leads.

The cabin itself was barely visible until you were within shouting distance, the planks blending into the trees around it, the roof overgrown with plants, and no windows to let light escape, merely a single wooden door.

“You’re both gone distressingly quiet,” Isobel said. “Who
is
this Graciendo, anyway?”

“Old,” Gabriel said. “Very old and crotchety. And not fond of strangers. You’ll stay here with the horses.”

“But—” Isobel started to protest, then subsided when he gave her a sidelong look.

“You too,” Gabriel said to the magician.

“Oh, believe you me, I have no interest in getting in the old bear’s face, and he has no interest in seeing mine. I will keep our little rider company here, and we shall while away the moments until you return.”

Gabriel snorted, then took off his hat and hung it on the pommel horn of Steady’s saddle, and rooted in his bags for a battered envelope, about the size of a lady’s reticule and the thickness of two fingers, and checked to make sure that there were no rips or tears.

“What would you do if it had been damaged?” the magician asked, idly curious.

“Left it on the doorstep and run,” Gabriel said easily. “Stay here.”

He walked forward, trusting that they would do as they’d promised. But before he could even reach the cabin, the wooden door slammed open and Graciendo emerged.

“Oh, hellfire,” Gabriel said.

“You’re late.” Graciendo, in a bad mood, filled the entire doorframe. He had the bronzed skin and broad cheekbones of half a dozen native tribes, but his chin and cheeks were covered by the same glossy brown hair that ran from his scalp down to his shoulders, curling wildly; his
jacket and trousers were styled like a northern trapper’s, and his style of speech was curt enough to be American.

“I told you I’d be back in the spring. It’s spring. I should have come earlier?” Gabriel went on the offensive, hoping to distract Graciendo from the fact that he’d brought companions. When it had been only Isobel, he could have justified it, playing the girl as weaker than she was, helpless and therefore not a threat. But the magician changed that story too much and—

“And you bring
that
to my door?”

“Technically, I am not at your door, nor even within your yard.” The magician’s voice carried clearly, but Gabriel was relieved to not hear the usual half-mocking sneer in it. “Consider me passing by, with no interest in your pettish and petulant self.”

Gabriel was convinced he was the only one on this mountain with a lick of sense or survival. Well, him and the mule, mayhap, since Flatfoot was quietly minding his own business, grazing on a bush.