A Rope of Thorns (33 page)

And then, as if her recognition-spark had jumped the gap from living to dead, Uther Kloves’ lone remaining eye slid snail-track slow ’round to hers, and blinked.

Nothing in there to call “alive”, not any more. But God, oh
God
, all the same—

“They’re
screaming
,” she heard herself say, core-stricken. “Inside, deep down. Almost too deep to get to, for anybody but me.”

Each in turn, the rest all cocked their heads, bringing their dead gazes to bear—Haish, Frewer, Hoffstedt . . . Pa. Their soundless shrieking went up forever like some Hell-made alarum, setting her whole skin to sizzling.

“Missus Kloves,” Geyer said, “we can’t hear a thing, really—”

“What’s that to me? Point is, they’re still here, some tiny part of ’em at least. And they just damn well
shouldn’t
be.”

Abruptly, Morrow turned on Love. “Who is it told you could do this, you bastard? Goddamn
God
?” She felt the rage beat from him like heat, in waves. “You lay those people
down
again! They’re dead, and they got the right to stay that way!”

Love seemed unimpressed; Yancey thought there probably wasn’t much could even startle him, these days. “But this isn’t
my
doing, Agent Morrow—only miraculous Word I know’s our Lord’s, and unlike Reverend Rook,
I
employ it correctly. As Mister Pargeter’s Enemy told me to tell you, this is all
his
fault, and only likely to get worse.” Those dry eyes narrowed. “But see, I almost didn’t need to, for he knows it already. Ask him to deny it, if he can.”

Chess spat. “Why would I? Just admitted the same, not twenty seconds back.”

Love nodded, as though this only went to prove his point.

“No,” he repeated, “wasn’t
me
threw these poor souls into purgatory. But if He’s given them to me for use, I’ll certainly point them in whatever direction He sees fit to lead me.”

“That ‘He’ you’re talking of—that wouldn’t be God, now, would it?” Yancey hurled the words at him, hands settling into proper, draw-ready grip on her hand-me-down shooting irons. “
Our
God? Or don’t you even pretend to be doing His work anymore?”

“What good would that do me? I’m damned no matter, Missus, by
this
malefic creature’s hand.” Indicating Chess, Love gave a smile so bitter his lips wrenched apart in sections. “Yet if I cannot pull myself back up, I can pull
you
all down here with me.”

“I
knew
it!” Splitfoot Joe yelled from an upstairs window, startling all concerned. “I damn well
knew
it! You’re the fuck-all bad-luck king, Chess Pargeter!”

“Oh, shut your pie-hole!” Chess shouted back, shutting Joe’s window with a flip of one hand—then smashing the shutters closed over it, for good measure.

Love looked up, over Chess’s head, and raised his gravelly voice, calling out: “That’s sadly so, innkeep—you’ll burn just as long and bad as this creature here, for harbouring him and his. Though if you turned against him, joined the side of Right for once in your miserable life . . . well, things, might go different. You have my word, as a man of faith.”

Chess’s bark of a laugh was oddly steadying, for sheer familiarity. “Damn, Sheriff. How almighty stupid you think that man
is
, anyhow?”

“Given he sold
you
room and board, even at gunpoint? I’ll take my chances.” Love shifted his gaze to Morrow; the big man paled, but didn’t flinch. “Maybe you’re thinking to buy the sinners dwelling here time to flee? You’re soft enough to care more for them than yourself, I reckon, however much a waste it is.” To Geyer, meanwhile: “And you, a Pinkerton man yet, standing in the whirlwind’s path—allied with oath-breakers, demons and inverts. Will you die in their defence?”

“Stand by a friend, when I have to. Seems the thing to do.”

Love shook his head. “Foolishness. You know Pargeter won’t stand by
you
, any of you. Not if he thinks it’ll cost him.” Moving his dead, salt-white eyes back to Chess: “For that’s all you’ve ever done, even before you met Rook. Kill and steal, and run when you’re done. You leave nowhere better for your presence. Even the green growth you sow is poison, unnatural, as you always have been. Invert. Faithless. Worthless.”

Chess’s fists tightened; the power-mist about him drew in, like shoulders hunched against a blow. When he answered, his voice fair hummed, wound whiplash-tight. “I pay my way, Sheriff. And I pay my debts.”

“When it suits you, yes. When the whim amuses you. And when you do pay, it’s not in gold but with others’ blood, or whorish sin—others’ corruption, even if the means of it doesn’t seem corrupt to you. Muddy everything, kick it all down and crow over the ruin . . .
real
companionship, love,
family
.” Love’s face warped, as though some torrent pulsed beneath it. “So prove you have some worth, Chess Pargeter. Your heretics would gladly spill blood to see you thwart me once again; refuse them. Face me
without
that Hell-borne potency, if you dare.”

Chess said nothing for a moment that became so appallingly long, Yancey’s stomach clenched up.
Oh, no, he can’t be thinking
—

Luckily, however, he obviously wasn’t.

“Opinions aside, one thing I
ain’t
is a fool,” was all Chess said. “And since I well remember how our last fight went . . . this time, we’re gonna try somethin’ different.” He turned his head just slightly, not so’s he had to take his eyes from Love, yet just far enough to throw a nod in Yancey’s direction. “Missus Kloves, if you please.”

Before he’d even finished, both guns were in Yancey’s hands, muzzles already bead-drawn. The first bullet went straight through Lionel Colder’s forehead, freeing a burst of jellied blood and pulped matter, along with something brighter—something nobody but her saw, feeling a whip-crack of grief-struck joy as that final soul-shred rocketed upwards. Uther went down a second later, double-load of loss and relief splashing past as his vine-ridden corpse crumpled. With both blasts, Love howled, clapping hands to his head like
he’d
been shot.

And then—the fallen bodies stirred. Dragged themselves clumsily back up, empty puppets now, tools turned weapons. Yancey kept the Colts level, unwavering.

Love straightened too, almost as slow. “Pointless,” he rasped. “The dead cannot be killed. And I cannot be stopped by pain.”

Yancey cocked the guns. “Maybe not. But it’s worth the effort, just to try.”

’Cause I sure do like that sound you make, when I do.

As she opened up again, a cold prism dropped over it all. Time slowed. Each trigger-pull felt leisurely, the possibility of missing a bad jape. Brains flew like sap. To either side, she Morrow and Geyer stepped to follow her lead. Their combined shot-storm chewed its way through the corpse army’s ranks, knocking them spinning. Yancey cheered each released fragment as it leapt upwards. Though she realized she was weeping, she kept blasting away—watched Love, fallen to his knees, arch backwards in agony, his own screams lost in the deafening roar.

Then her pistols ran dry; a second later, Morrow and Geyer ceased fire as well. Yancey gasped, breast heaving, barely able to breathe for cordite stink. Grey-white clouds of smoke rolled away. The dropped Weed-revenants stirred still, a ripped-raw fan of carnage, fresh shoots knitting back together with dreadful inexorability. Yet Yancey only had eyes for Love’s own feebly shifting form, her eyes swollen yet heart exultant.

Though it might well be her life’s last act, by God, she had
hurt
him, finally—made him know pain for what he’d done. And that was worth something, certainly.

As though she’d spoken, Chess’s eyes slid back her way, with no mockery at all in them for once, only respect. A look even one without her gifts might have read as meaning:
Yes, that’s right. Now you see. Now you understand.

As a few revenants made what was left of their feet, Love pushed himself up as well, even though his face’s very shape was beginning to soften. Salt sprayed wet from his mouth, guttural words nigh-incomprehensible: “
Daaammnashun
,” he croaked. “
Ghaaadzss
Judzhh . . . ment—!
”

One half-melted hand lifted. At its cue, the Weed-corpses trudged on toward Chess, who watched them come.

“Not that I’m lookin’ to
hurry
you,” Morrow muttered, hand rising protective to Yancey’s shoulder, “but it’d be useful as all get out, to know what you’re fixed to pull from that trick-bag of yours, if and when.”

Chess raised a finger. “Not just yet, Ed—wait a minute. Hold position.”

“This ain’t the front lines, Chess!”

“Ain’t it?”

Even Geyer’s hard-won calm was starting to crack. “Um—
no
?”

Chess paused, eyes gone abruptly narrow, like he’d spotted something off in the distance—then grinned broadly, half born killer’s incipient battle joy, half boyish delight. “Here it comes,” he said.

Here
what
comes?
Yancey wondered, reloading frantically.

Seconds later, however, the question was answered: A vast hoof-clattering overbore the ringing in Yancey’s ears, while a high-pitched whooping rose above, nearly drowning the general riot. At the valley’s southward entrance, a bright yellow dust-plume mushroomed—and a gang of riders came streaming up over the edge of the rise, long black hair flapping, armed to the teeth with bows, rifles, pistols. Wide-set young men with fierce eyes sported head-scarves and war paint, riding saddle-less, using their knees to steer. At their head rode a yet more unsettling figure, to all appearances another handsome brave with a haughty, knife-blade nose, copper profile subsumed ’neath the powder-black outline of a grasping hand . . . ’til “he” drew closer, vest flaps twitching apart, and Yancey saw how
her
breasts moved free beneath her shirt.

This startling figure paused as her followers milled about her—’til at last her gaze met Yancey’s square on, cleaving fast with a passion that quite took Yancey aback, which only made
her
smile . . . and
wink
, too, by God. Like they were flirting ’cross a crowded room, ’stead of fending off the risen dead, or leading warriors headlong into slaughter.

Ah, I see you
, a voice said, at the same time—some mix of Savage tongues sliding fast to echo-chamber English, setting Yancey’s already-spent head tolling.
Too young, untrained and out of bullets, as the Spinner said you’d be. For you must learn to hold your fire ’til the anger passes if you want to do true damage, little
bilagaana
dead-speaker.

Like you,
Grandma had said, in last night’s dream.
But . . . not.

And what
was
that name the old hex-woman’d called her by, when she’d claimed she was sending aid? Started with a “Y” as well, Yancey recalled.

From inside the building, another muffled yell from Joe, peering through the shutters: “Aw shit, is that
Injuns
, now? Might as well set the damn place on fire, then rebuild from the bottom up!”

“You see me tryin’ to stop you?” Chess threw back.

But the woman on the ridge was already singing out a fresh cry, eagle-harsh—“
Haaaah!
”—and urging her companions forward, whipping out a tomahawk whose blade shone a rich and burnished brown, fashioned from the jawbone of horse or stag. Her fellows armed themselves similarly and set those dreadful weapons to whirl and plunge, breaking over the Weed-creatures’ back-ranks at full gallop. Bone blades sheared through spongey new-grown limbs, popped the lids off skulls, split spines without seeming to break a sweat—mowing Love’s army down wholesale once again, with the quotidian, brutal efficiency of reapers cutting grain. Love’s resultant yells almost set Yancey to giggling.

“Just who
is
that sumbitch?” Morrow demanded, backing up, like he thought he might get splashed.

“I think that sumbitch’s a woman,” Geyer replied, doing the same.

Yancey nodded, gulping back her mirth. “Name’s . . . Yiska, that’s it. Navaho, though she rides with the Kiowa—the Apache, we call ’em. It means . . .”

“. . . ‘The Night Has Passed,’” Geyer filled in, snapping his fingers. “Hot damn! This might be a bit of luck, after all.”

“Sounds like you know her pretty well, for a bitch you’ve never met,” Chess said.

Geyer shrugged. “
Of
her, sure—Agency’s got five hundred on her head in New Mexico alone. That squaw’s the very definition of a Bad Indian; robs, scalps and burns wherever she can, ’specially if the Army’s involved, plus cattle-rustling and gun-running. And that’s without even goin’ into those
other
rumours—how she’s either a shamaness or somethin’ too close to tell the difference, and wears those trousers ’cause she likes meddlin’ with the ladies, to boot.”

Here he had the grace to break off, no doubt suddenly remembering just who it was he’d been talking to, in the first place. But Chess surprised all three of them by barely seeming to acknowledge he might’ve had reason to take offence.

“A queer hex, huh?” He commented. “Can’t have
that
, now, can we?”

More howls rose up, as Yiska’s band pulled up sharp and swung ’round in the opposite direction, coming in so fast and close that this time Love was actually able to grab one horse by its mane and tug, hard enough to snap its neck. The stallion plunged dirt-wards headfirst, catapulting its unlucky rider free. But an odd updraft caught the Apache mid-fall, twitching him deftly free of gravity’s trap—set him screwballing straight for Yiska, who swerved and flung her free hand out, all but plucking him from the air to slam down on her mount behind her. Her horse whinnied in surprised discomfort at his abruptly doubled load.

“
Cricona de mujere!
” the brave yelled back at Love as they swung by, just out of his range; Yiska roared with laughter. Love snarled, casting Chess a particularly foul look, to which Chess simply fluttered one hand, fingers waggling dismissively.

Two more braves pin-cushioned Love with arrows, which he ripped free, spraying bits of himself everywhere. But none bothered to target the Weed-creatures directly; instead, they stuck to sweeps and darts, slicing and hacking, leaning out dangerously far to strike blows and ducking clumsy swings and grabs in return, all with the casual ease of long-practiced technique.