A Snake in the Grass (30 page)

The thing’s face split into a wide, toothy
grin. “Yes! I am Henry, for James Dawson. We have a deal.”

“All right, Henry, go on now. I’ll see you
soon, okay? After you’ve had a chance to listen and learn more
secrets.”

It didn’t even wave at me, it just poofed
into a cloud of black mist that dissipated on the breeze.

This may or may not work, but maybe now I
could get some info that wasn’t filtered through Axel. Maybe now, I
could start to plan my own moves.

Also from K.A. Stewart:

Peacemaker

An Arcane West Novel

Available now from InterMix!

The bead of sweat rolled down Caleb’s nose to
hang there, quivering, before it fell to join its brothers in the
fabric of his denim shirt. It was a testament to the length of his
journey that he hadn’t even bothered to mop his face in the last
hour. Beneath the low brim of his hat, he squinted toward the
horizon, his gaze following the seemingly endless chain of
telegraph poles as they disappeared against the haze of the distant
mountains .

“Are we lost?”

Caleb sighed, leaning on the pommel of his
saddle. “They said follow the telegraph wires. So we are.”

“This isn’t a road, you know. This is barely
a path. Maybe the poles are a mirage, leading us to our doom.”

Caleb turned to look at his companion,
pillowed on Caleb’s own coat on the rear of the transport. “We’re
optimistic today, aren’t we?”

The odd creature sniffed, its quivering nose
a clear expression of irritation. “You try riding back here while
this thing goes to pieces. See how optimistic you are.” The
rabbit-like animal gave a toss of its head, nearly gouging the man
with its spiny antlers.

“Hey, watch where you swing those things.”
The jackalope just rolled its deep brown eyes and sulked. “And it’s
not really a comfortable ride up here either.”

Somewhere in the last fifty miles, the

transport had developed some kind of hitch in
its hindquarters, resulting in a nasty grinding noise and lurching
stride. Caleb wasn’t an arcanosmith, but if he had to guess, he’d
say the bearings had frozen up. No surprise, with the constant dust
and heat they’d been suffering for the last two months.

“Hopefully, they’ll have a smith at the next
stop, and we’ll get it repaired.” If the next town didn’t have an
arcanosmith, they’d be stuck for at least a month until one could
be sent on the stage from Kansas City. That was going to put Caleb
seriously behind on his circuit.

The jackalope grumbled under its breath as
Caleb kicked the transport back into a trot. The normal wheeze and
sigh of the mechanical construct was marred ruined by the grinding
in the back end, and every other step was enough to painfully jar
his teeth together. If they couldn’t get it fixed, he was going to
shoot it himself.

They’d ridden for another twenty minutes
before the furry passenger remarked casually, “I think I see a
crack in the casing.”

“What?!” Caleb nearly knocked the jackalope
off its perch, turning in the saddle to examine the glowing blue
casing at the transport’s flank.

The animal scrabbled frantically with its
claws to remain aboard. “Damn, Caleb!”

The casing was pristine, not a single flaw
marring the transparent surface. Beneath it, the blue arcane energy
whirled serenely with no sign of having found an escape route.
Caleb’s heart pounded in his ears as he fought to calm himself.
“That wasn’t funny, Ernst!”

“Well, it was before you tried to knock me
off the transport.” Ernst smoothed his brown fur,

twitching his long ears to express his
displeasure.

“You do that again, and I’ll skin you for a
hat.”

“You have no sense of humor, you know
that?”

“So I’ve been told.” The man turned to face
forward again. The dusty track stretched out before them, barely
visible in the tall prairie grass. Only the never-ending line of
telegraph poles marked where the road might be. “It can’t be much
farther. We ride any more west, we’ll wind up in Indian territory.”
The Rocky Mountain range had been claimed as the land of final
retreat by many tribes in recent years, leaving a nearly impassable
wall across the budding U.S. frontier. Only the desperate and the
foolhardy ventured close to that wilderness these days.
Which
one are you, Caleb?

“You know, it’s possible that they gave you
bad directions.” Ernst settled himself in his little coat nest
again. “They didn’t seem to warm up to you.”

Caleb didn’t respond, only kicking the
transport into motion yet again. The last town had seemed rather
cold, welcome-wise. As had the one before it. If this was how the
entire circuit was going to be . . . He was sorely tempted to turn
and ride back east, if it wouldn’t mean career suicide.
What
little career I have left.

His “career” currently consisted of a lonely,
miserable circuit in the wilds of the frontier. Over the course of
the next year, he’d range from the southern-most reach of the U.S.,
skirting the still-contested Texas-Mexico border, all the way to
the north and Canada. He would mark a trail straight down the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, the very edges of what was
considered the borderlands, and cover

everything between there and Kansas City.
Such was the life of an itinerate lawman.

The mountains to the west never seemed to get
any closer no matter how long they rode. The behemoths merely sat
there, watching over the grassland from a bank of purple mist.
Small clouds played ring-the-rosie around the peaks, teasing with a
promise of rain that never came. The lack of moisture showed in the
prairie grass, which had long ago gone brown and brittle in the
summer heat.

Caleb finally broke down and wiped at his
face and neck with a bandana, fanning himself with the wide brim of
his hat. It brought middling relief at best.

“Can’t you just put the heat elsewhere? I’m
turning into stew back here.”

The man eyed the dry prairie and shuddered.
Yes, he could have taken the heat around them, shifted it
elsewhere. But anywhere he put it would spark a fire, and in a dry
environment like this… “Better stew than turned to charcoal.”

“Says you. You’re not wearing fur.” The
antlers jabbed Caleb in the back again, and he grimaced.

“Enough! I’ve got four days of stubble on my
face, five gallons of sweat in my shirt and not an ounce of water
in my body, and my ass feels like someone’s been at it with a
carpet rod. If you don’t like fur, shift form. Not another word out
of you until we hit town.” Immediately, Caleb felt bad for
snapping, and his shoulders sagged. They were both hot and
increasingly miserable, but that was no reason to bite the poor
creature’s head off. “Sorry, Ernst.”

The jackalope gave a peculiar little
purr,

indicating that there were no hard feelings.
“Wake me when we get there.”

About an hour later, “there” appeared
suddenly out of the tall grass like a jack-in-the-box. It was a
decent- sized town, bigger than the last two they’d visited, and
Caleb stopped the transport long enough to evict Ernst and inspect
the transport one last time.

Built to resemble the horses they had
replaced, they had four metal legs that moved with arcane-powered
gears and pistons. Though some inventors back east were
experimenting with arcane powered wagons, on four wheels, the
transport design made them better at irregular terrain and simply
had more power. Transports were capable of great speed and,
strength, and only rarely had to be recharged with arcane energy,
as opposed to a horse, which had a limited range it could travel in
a day, and had to be fed and watered often.

This particular model had been one of the
newest available when he’d left St. Louis, a gift from his
director.
A banishment present
. It was fast, to be sure, but
it had been designed for paved city streets and short country
strolls. The extreme conditions of the west were taking their toll
on it, and quickly. The ball joints in the knees were still moving
freely, but the gears in the rear workings were grinding audibly,
and it was only a matter of time before it wheezed its last. Caleb
simply didn’t have the knowledge to repair it himself, and once it
quit, they’d be on foot. In this heat, it’d be a death
sentence.

Mindful of protocol, Caleb shrugged into his
heavy duster and adjusted the star badge pinned over his heart with
a sigh.
Wonder if they wouldn’t be

happier to see me without it.

As if his familiar knew his thoughts, the
jackalope mused, “We could just say no one was home and go on to
the next one.” The plucky creature hopped around the dusty trail a
few times, stretching his furry legs.

“You know as well as I do, this thing won’t
make it to the next town.” In spite of his misgivings, Caleb
squared his shoulders and tugged his hat down over his eyes. “Come
on, one last short ride, and then we can turn this heap of scrap
over to someone else.” He scooped Ernst up, depositing him on top
of the battered trunk attached to the back of the transport, and
swung himself into the saddle.

As they rattled and clanked their way into
the town, Ernst peered at the high sign spanning the width of the
road. “And what’s the name of this place? Dusty Hollow? Dry Gulch?
The Backside of Hell?”

Caleb smiled a bit to himself as they rode
under the sign. “Hope.”

The townsfolk stopped to watch the stranger
ride into their town midst, as Caleb had known they would. He
tipped his hat to those who would make eye contact, but most kept
their gazes down, only daring to stare only once he’d passed
them.

They rode past a small barber shop, what
appeared to be a dressmaker’s shop, and several nondescript
structures that might have been personal dwellings. A church with a
modest steeple dominated the north side of town, and a
half-constructed something sat just beyond that. There was no sign
of a hotel or boarding house until Caleb spied a card in the window
of the tavern that said “Rooms To Let”.

“Looks like this is our best bet, Ernst.” He
dismounted, stretching muscles that were cramped and complaining
from the long hours in the saddle. Even after three months, he was
still green enough that the long rides hurt. “Watch the transport.,
I’ll be right back.” If the jackalope grumbled about being reduced
to guard duty, Caleb missed it as he stepped up on the wooden
walk.

The inside of the tavern was just as hot as
the outside, but the dimness was a startling change after hours
under the ruthless sun. Caleb pulled his hat off, surveying the
room to allow his eyes time to adjust. The tables were empty but
clean, and a piano stood in one corner, carefully covered with a
linen cloth against the predations of dust . On the far side, the
staircase would presumably lead to the promised rooms for rent, and
the bar stood to the right of the swinging doors, backed by mirrors
and a wall of glass bottles of varying alcoholic content. There was
even a cold box, hissing softly as the arcane power in its tubes
cooled the air within. All in all, it was one of the nicer places
they’d been, lately.

“Hello? Anyone here?”

An answering yell came from a doorway on the
right, and it the door soon swung outward to admit one slender
fellow with dark black hair and shockingly blue eyes. He grinned
through his beard, drying his hands on a towel. “How kin I help
ye?” The brogue was unmistakably Scottish.

“Looking about a room to rent. I saw the sign
in the window.”

“Oh, yessir! Rate’s two dollars a week, meals
not included.” The dark-haired Scot came out from behind the bar,
offering his hand, but his smile slipped a bit when he saw the star
pinned to Caleb’s

coat, the six-gun on his belt. “The last
Peacemaker used ta take rooms out at the Warner ranch, about ten
miles south of here.”

Caleb took the offered hand for a firm shake,
feeling a faint tingle against his skin. If he had to guess, he’d
rate the barkeep on the low end of the power scale. Nothing someone
like Caleb couldn’t handle. “My transport’s not going to make it
another ten miles, so I think I’ll just stay here if that’s all
right. Name is Caleb Marcus.” Digging his wallet out of his coat,
he presented five dollars to the tavern owner. “For meals,
too.”

The Scott’s eyes lit up at the sight of the
money in advance, but there was still a caution there, a wariness
that Caleb had seen in the other towns he’d visited. “Teddy
MacGregor. Owner of this establishment.”

“Well, tell me, Mr. MacGregor. Do you happen
to have an arcanosmith in this lovely town?”

The man snorted, retreating behind the bar to
put the money safely away in his cash box. “That’ll be just Teddy,
thank ye. And we got a smith on the west end of town that can do
for most things. Otherwise, you’d have to ride out to the Warner
place. Abel keeps his own arcanosmith out there.”

“I’d rather shoot the thing myself than ride
another mile.” Caleb grinned and was relieved to see the tavern
keeper return the expression, though the man’s gaze kept drifting
to the right side of Caleb’s face. Inwardly, the Peacemaker sighed,
but if the Scot wasn’t going to ask, he wasn’t going to bring it
up.

Finally, Teddy shook himself and tossed Caleb
a key attached to a large chunk of wood. “Up the stairs, last door
on the left. We serve food from five to nine, and whatever you’d
like to drink until

midnight.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tipping his hat as he put
it back on, Caleb stepped back out into the searing summer sun. He
glanced to the west and paused to look at the mountains, suddenly
looming large over the plain. When did they get so close, and why
did it feel like they were watching him just as much as he watched
them?