Ghostwalkers (27 page)

“He went to see this Deray character?” asked Grey.

“Indeed.”

“And we think that Deray somehow turned him into a Harrowed? Or one of those lesser undead?”

“The man is, after all rumored to be an alchemist of some note. That certainly stands against him. And Brother Joe claims that he's a necromancer as well,” said Looks Away.

“A what?” Jenny asked. “That some kind of wizard?”

“Yes,” said the Sioux. “One who has power over the dead.”

“That fits,” Jenny said sourly. “Deray's army are all monsters.”

“That's just swell,” said Grey. He grunted and sucked a tooth thoughtfully for a moment. She looked at Grey. “Does that scare you?”

“Of course it does, but if you think it's going to chase me off, think again. What about Chesterfield? Is he a wizard, too?”

“No,” said Looks Away. “He's an asshole.”

Jenny gave a short, hard laugh.

“He doesn't have power over the dead or any of that?” asked Grey.

“No. Why?”

“Nothing … I'm just working it all through.”

“Working what through?” asked Jenny.

“Maybe Lucky Bob had a good idea.”

“But we know how that turned out,” said Looks Away, shaking his head.

“Right, so I'm wondering if Jenny's pa went out to see the wrong man.” He tapped the map. “Chesterfield's place is pretty close. Couple hours easy ride. If Deray is the kind of monster we all seem to think he is, then maybe Chesterfield's only a corrupt asshole.”

They looked at him.

“That's almost certainly the case,” said Looks Away. “However what possible leverage could we use on a rich man who is, as you so eloquently phrase it, a corrupt asshole?”

“You ever hear the expression, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

“Yes. But in my experience it's almost never as simple as that.”

Jenny snorted and nodded. “Chesterfield is every bit as bad.”

Grey picked up the Kingdom M1. “Then I guess we'll have to be worse.”

The smile that blossomed on Jenny Pearl's face was one of the most disturbing things Grey had ever seen.

“Hold on right there,” he said quickly. “You are not coming along.”

“The hell I'm not.”

“The hell you are.”

She stepped toward him. Five foot two to his six four. But her sudden anger seemed to fill the room. He'd read so many dime novels about women with fiery tempers, but not one woman in any tale could hold a candle to the swift fury of Jenny Pearl.

“And why not? I can ride and shoot as well as any man, and better than most.”

“I do not doubt that,” he said. “But I need you to stay here in town.”

“Why?”

“Because who else is going to keep these people safe if something else happens?” he asked flatly. “Brother Joe? Mrs. O'Malley? Come on, Jenny, you're the only one around who everyone's afraid of, which means they'll listen to you.”

“He's jolly well right about that,” said Looks Away. “You're more valuable here in town than as another gun in what is ostensibly a diplomatic venture.”

“My ass.”

Neither man dared make a comment. They let their silence do their talking for them, and Grey could see Jenny work it out. Her expressions showed on her face. Every expression did. She was lovely, but she had no poker face at all. He wondered if she'd ever wanted to play cards. He'd learned a kind of poker from a frisky lass in Louisiana. Loser had to shuck a garment.

Her answer snapped him back to the moment.

“Very well, damn you both,” she said.

 

Chapter Forty-Two

Looks Away argued that no such expedition could be undertaken in their present condition. They were dead for sleep, filthy, and hungry. So they did their best to lock up the workshop and they trudged back to Jenny Pearl's.

With the deputies all dead and the town's well free—at least for now—they were able to get enough water to take actual hot baths. Jenny heated big pots of it and corralled a couple of the town's kids to run them out back to where Looks Away and Grey sat, naked but uncaring, in a vast metal washtub. The men scrubbed and scrubbed and finally wrapped themselves in sheets and tottered inside. Jenny gave them a choice of spare bedroom or couch. Grey let Looks Away take the bedroom and he flung himself down on the couch and slept all through the day and into the night.

He'd left orders to be awakened if absolutely anything untoward happened.

However the night passed without incident.

Though, that was not entirely true. It passed without violence. It passed without trouble.

But not without incident.

Deep in the night, the moon still riding the sky and long before the first cock crow, Jenny Pearl came down the stairs in a cotton gown and nothing else. Grey heard the creak of the stairs and opened his eyes to what he thought was a spirit in a dream. Her blond hair was unpinned and fell around her shoulders and her eyes were smoky and half closed.

For a heartbreaking moment she looked less like Jenny and more like Annabelle, but Grey felt ashamed of thinking that. Annabelle was long gone now. All except for the ghost that haunted his life. She was gone and Jenny Pearl was alive.

So alive. So real.

So beautiful.

Without saying a single word she unfastened the gown and let it puddle around her ankles. Grey's heart beat wildly inside his chest as he saw her painted in silver moonlight. Slim but ripe. Full breasts with nipples the color of dusty roses. White blond hair on her head, a dark blond below. A flat stomach and lovely legs that were strong and graceful. On her sternum, between her breasts, was a dark scab left from the bullet that had nearly killed her. It was right over her heart.

She raised the corner of the blanket under which he lay and crawled onto the couch, on top of him. She wrapped her legs around his hips and even as she sat astride him she deftly guided him inside of her.

Grey began to speak, but she silenced him with a kiss.

“Please,” she said in a husky whisper. It was the only word she spoke.

They made love with infinite slowness. It was a gentler encounter than he would have guessed from her fiery nature. Slow and soft, unhurried and unforced. A sweeter encounter than any in Grey's experience. And all the sweeter for that.

Neither of them rushed toward any cliffs. They discovered a rhythm that was the song of their mutual connection. And when Grey felt himself lift finally toward the inevitable, she was there with him. Even then it was not a screaming climax, but a warm release that nearly brought him to tears. It was in those moments that he realized how far his life's trail had taken him from any true understanding of what gentleness was.

He kissed her lips, her throat, her breasts, her forehead, and then held her to him, feeling the hummingbird flutter of her heart against the walls of his chest.

They fell asleep like that. As one. Safe in the moment, safe in each other's arms.

When he woke, though, she was gone.

Weak sunlight slanted through the shutters on the window and drew yellow lines on the floor.

Grey wondered if it had been a dream.

But the smell of her was there. Perfume and sweat and natural musk.

It was no dream.

For a long time he lay there and stared at the ceiling and thanked whoever was running the universe that the world was not so broken that it had run out of perfection.

Like Jenny Pearl.

Then he got up, washed, dressed, strapped on his guns, and braced himself to face whatever the new day offered.

 

Chapter Forty-Three

The morning was bright and cold. A wet wind whipped in off the ocean but there were no storm clouds anywhere to be seen. Grey stood on Jenny's porch with a cup of coffee in his hand and a bellyful of eggs and grits. He watched a boy walk up the street leading Picky and Queenie. Looks Away walked with him, and he had a large canvas slung over his shoulder.

“Penny for your thoughts, cowboy,” said a voice and he turned with a smile to see Jenny Pearl standing in the open doorway. She wore a yellow dress that was buttoned primly to her throat, and a light wool shawl that was the exact color of her blue eyes. Her hair was tied into a loose tail by a ribbon that was the same color as her shawl. She also wore a knowing smile, but almost at once her throat and cheeks flushed a brilliant scarlet.

“What I'm thinking is worth more than a penny,” he said. “Maybe as much as a whole dollar.” He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You're something else, Miss Pearl.”

The moment was sweet and they smiled at each other for the span of maybe three heartbeats before it suddenly changed, turned, became incredibly awkward. It was immediately clear to Grey that this kind of thing was new to Jenny. Maybe not the sex, because that was no virgin who'd swept like a ghost into his dreams, but maybe the rest of it. The tenderness after the fact. The intimacy of conversation that followed those times when the passion was right, when the connection was correct.

It had been a long time for Grey, too. He'd loved many women but had only been in love once. A sweet girl named Annabelle. She was dust and bones now. Though, sometimes at night, he feared that her ghost was part of that shambling horde that followed just beyond his line of vision. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he caught a glimpse of her as he'd last seen her—bloody and broken—staring accusingly from the corner of his eye. One of the many people he had failed and left behind.

Now here was Jenny.

Was he in love with her?

Last night was sweet and pure in its way, but had it ignited something important in both their hearts? Could love possibly blossom that quickly? It seemed perverse that it could happen in the midst of tragedy and horror.

Or maybe that
meant
something. A thing that was important to know when all other knowledge fails or is proven false.

These thoughts tumbled like an avalanche down the slopes of Grey's mind as she stood there with her, feeling a tender moment turn sour.

“I—,” he began, but she just nodded and walked past him to stand at the edge of the porch to watch Looks Away and the boy lead the horses.

He tried again. “Jenny, about last night…”

“Last night?” she echoed softly. “Last night was a dream. Don't you know that?”

She did not look at him as she said it, and before he could assemble a response, Jenny stepped down off the porch and went to meet Looks Away.

Grey resisted the urge to bang his head on the porch column, though it seemed like a reasonable choice. Instead he thrust his hands into his back pockets, pasted on an expression that he hoped looked entirely casual, and followed Jenny.

“I think I have everything we'll need,” said Looks Away brightly. He set down the canvas sack and knelt to open it. His mouth tightened momentarily as he did so.

“How's the back?” asked Grey.

“Medium rare. Brother Joe was kind enough to give me more of his entirely offensive-smelling salve.”

“Does it help?”

“Hard to say, though considering the amount of animal fat in it, I will probably attract every hopeful carrion bird in this end of the state.”

“You do smell … interesting.”

“Please go and stick your head in an ant hill.”

“It's not that bad,” said Jenny. “And don't worry—Brother Joe's salves and poultices do a power of good. They work like magic.”

“Magic,” said Looks Away, “is not a word I want to hear just now.”

From the bag, Looks Away produced the Kingdom M1 rifle and its ammunition, along with a spare ghost gas cylinder. “We don't have any rounds so if we use it, we should probably keep to single shots. And … besides, I've never fired it so I don't know what kind of kick it has. Quite frankly the ruddy thing scares the bejeebers out of me.”

“That's comforting,” complained Grey.

“Then take comfort in this.” Looks Away produced a conventional Winchester .30-30 and handed this to Grey. “Courtesy of Deputy Perkins. I found his horse and this was in a saddle scabbard. I doubt he'll need it henceforth.”

Grey took it and checked the action. It had clearly been cleaned and oiled since the rain.

“I had the guns seen to,” said Looks Away. He removed a double-barreled shotgun from the bag, too. It was a snubby little thing with both stock and barrels hewn short. It came with a modified pistol holster.

Grey smiled. “Where the hell'd you find that?”

“It was among the weapons taken from the undead. Twelve gauge with lots of shells.”

“You expect me to carry that frigging thing?”

“No,” said Looks Away, “I expect
me
to carry that frigging thing. You're the crack shot of this outfit. I'm okay on a good day with a stationary target, but overall I'm an indifferent shot. Scatterguns fire in a wide spray, so I'm likely to hit something useful.”

“It doesn't have a stock. You can't use your body to brace for the kick. Gun like that'll knock you on your ass.”

Looks Away sniffed. “Then I'll reload while sitting.”

“Fair enough. What else you got in there?”

“A pair of excellent hunting knives, a compass, and lots of ammunition. Two boxes for your Colt as well.”

“Nice.”

They shared the supplies between them, stowing the extra boxes of shells and cartridges in their saddlebags. Jenny watched all of this without comment. She stood with her arms folded, head cocked to one side like someone at a gallery appraising art. Or, Grey thought, someone judging pigs at a county fair.

As they swung up into their saddles, she broke her self-imposed silence. “I still think I should be going with you.”

Grey crossed his wrists on the saddle horn and leaned forward. “And for two pins I'd take you along.”