Peacemaker (9780698140820) (11 page)

Caleb swept his hat from his head, crouching down to look at Ernst. “If this is too hard, forget it. I don't want you to harm yourself.”

Again, the two jackalopes spoke in unison. “I'm fine. Just hurry.” The Indian woman babbled something at him, pointing emphatically at Caleb. “They wish to know what you want.”

That made Caleb sit back on his heels and think for a moment. What
did
he want?

“Ticktock, Caleb. Grains through the hourglass and all.” The two Ernsts' noses twitched in perfect unison.

“Why are they alone? Where are their people?” That seemed as good a place as any to start.

The question was relayed, though Caleb found it disturbing to hear Ernst repeating his own words back at him. The woman drew herself up stiffly, holding her daughter tightly and pulling her son close.

“Five days ago, I took my children to gather greens away from the camp early in the morning. Sometime before noon, we heard gunshots and screaming, and we hid away. When things were quiet, we returned to find that everyone had been killed and our teepees burned. We took what we could salvage, and our horses, and we are going south to find my sister's people.”

The memory of Caleb's dream haunted him, the bodies tossed about negligently as if they'd been no more than debris in the way. “Who did this?”

“The white man. We saw the tracks of the skyfire horses.” He could hear the accusation in her voice, even if he could not understand her words directly.

“Which white men? From the town?” He pointed in the direction of Hope.

“I do not know.”

“And you have no idea why?”

She shook her head. “We were peaceful. We did not venture into the plains to taunt and raid like the Dog Soldiers. But they came anyway. A woman of the People led them.”

Caleb frowned. “A Cheyenne woman was with them?”

It was the boy who answered this time. “I saw them days before the attack. They moved among the rocks, and she spoke to the spirits of the earth, asking them questions they did not want to answer. She forced them, and the ground shook.”

The earthquakes.
“Do you know what she was asking them?”

The boy shook his head. “Foolish questions that made no sense. Seeking rocks within the earth.”

Ernst's form wavered, growing thinner by the moment. “Hurry, Caleb.”

“Why did you not butcher the horses if you are hungry?”

This time, the mother spoke. “The man with the dead eyes has been known to poison carcasses and leave them. We did not dare touch them.”

That could only be Schmidt, and Caleb hated him a bit more knowing that. “Tell them to wait here, Ernst. I'll be right back.” He didn't wait to hear the message relayed.

His transport was right where he'd left it, with the packs of food attached. He lead the construct back to the little family, and unpacked what would have been his lunch and dinner. “Here. It may not be what they're used to, but it's food. Hopefully, it'll last until they can find their people.”

The woman looked grateful, if suspicious. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because it's right.” He gave the little girl a small smile, and she hid her face shyly against her mother's shoulder. “And I have something that belongs to you, I think.” He produced the tattered doll, and the child's dark eyes lit up with delight.

“She says thank you, Caleb.” The jackalope's voice was fading, as if he could hardly catch his breath.

Caleb knew he had only moments left before Ernst had to end whatever it was that he was doing. “Travel at night if you can. And don't fight them if they find you. Just disappear like before.” He looked at the boy. “You take care of your mother and sister, you hear?”

The child nodded, and Ernst gave a sad little moan, his doppelgänger disappearing like mist. Once more solid, the original Ernst flopped onto his side, his chest heaving. Caleb knelt to gather him into his arms, feeling how slight and frail he now felt.

The boy grew brave enough to move close, peering at the animal in Caleb's arms and asking a question.

“I think he'll be all right. He's just very tired.” Caleb held very still, holding his arms out toward the boy. “You can touch him, if you like.”

After glancing at his mother once, the child extended a hand, stroking Ernst's soft fur lightly. The exhausted familiar managed a tiny purr, only for a few seconds, but the young warrior was obviously entranced.

Caleb let both children pet the jackalope for a moment, knowing how much Ernst enjoyed it, then carefully deposited the animal on the back of the hauler. As Caleb swung into the saddle, the woman came to look up at him, questioning him again. Though he didn't understand her, he could guess what she was asking.

“I'm going to see what they were looking for.” He pointed toward the mountains.

She nodded, and said something that had to be “Be careful.”

“I'll try.” He gave a small smile and kicked the hauler into motion.

The small family disappeared in the tall grass behind them, and the mountains loomed large before him. Caleb glanced back once to check on Ernst and found the creature snoring softly. “You get some rest, buddy. Hopefully, I won't need you anytime soon.”

Chapter 8

The afternoon was already waning by the time Caleb found the charred remnants of the Indian village. He'd have found it faster if he'd simply followed the memory from his dream, but he'd resisted, taking a few wrong turns along the way out of sheer stubbornness.

“What the hell am I doing here?” he wondered aloud, very aware that being in Indian territory, alone, near nightfall, was virtually suicidal. No doubt, had Ernst been awake, the familiar would have had some commentary on the subject, but he slumbered on, snoring faintly from time to time.

The village looked much like Caleb recalled it from his dream. The teepees had been reduced to lumps of blackened, charred leather, but were no longer smoldering. The bodies had been moved, arranged with dignity in low tree branches and wrapped in whatever cloth had been salvaged from the wrecked homes. The smell was pervasive, the sickly sweet odor of death and decay, and Caleb tried to breathe through the fabric of his shirt to keep the taste out of his mouth.

Beneath the reek of corrupted bodies and burned leather lingered the faint tang of ozone, the remnants of the magic that had been used here. It was more than the amount needed to fire augmented bullets. They'd used it to set fire to the teepees, to send bolts after fleeing victims. There were more than a few places where the soil had been melted into a slick, shiny surface, spider-webbed with cracks from the intense heat. They'd been frivolous with their power, the men who came here. Frivolous and arrogant.

For one split second, Caleb was certain he heard the whistle of descending cannon fire, the distant boom of a shell as it hit, the crack of rifles all around. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth until the dizzying sensation went away.

“All right. What was so important that you had to destroy an entire village to get at it?” There was no doubt in his mind that the woman the child had seen had been Warner's Mary Catherine. But what had she been looking for?

Caleb pressed his palm to the blackened earth.
“Zoek.”
Seek.

The area of the village proper was devoid of all life. Even the worms and grubs had deserted the scene of such carnage, driven from the place by the taint of so much magic. The tree roots were curled and blackened in their earthen beds; the smallest ones near the surface burned to ash. Only the oldest of the trees would survive in this location, the ancient roots sunk deep within the bedrock.

Almost directly below him, his sparks of power snuffed out abruptly, leaving a void that showed clearly where a vein of nullstone passed beneath this camp.

Caleb opened his eyes, frowning thoughtfully. Aside from the nullstone, he could sense nothing unusual within the earth, and even the nullstone was too far underground to be of any harm or use to anyone. There weren't even any underground water sources nearby that might carry a taint down into the prairie.

“Maybe . . . the vein surfaces farther up the mountain?” He glanced at Ernst for the jackalope's opinion, to find him still sound asleep. “Well, only one way to find out.”

He reached for the nullstone with the next seeking pulse, feeling along its edges, following its jagged path farther into the bedrock. It climbed, almost unbroken, higher into the foothills. It was never thicker than Caleb's wrist, and though it was fractured in many places, it remained almost a solid line, pointing west.

Caleb continued the pulses, pushing higher and deeper, mapping the lay of the vein in his mind as surely as if he'd seen it himself. And just when he was about to give it up as a lost cause, something pulsed back.

It was barely a brushing of power, more residual than directed, but Caleb's eyes snapped open, and he yanked the rest of his scattered power back into himself. For a long moment he waited, senses alert to feel the first tickles of someone else's power moving against him, but there was nothing. Perhaps his intrusion had gone unnoticed after all.

“Ernst. Ernst!” He shook the jackalope until the little creature opened one eye. “I'm leaving the hauler here. Can you keep up with me on foot?”

“Mmph. Heartless man.” The furry creature stretched and yawned, displaying a tiny pink tongue and rather vicious-looking sharp teeth. “I suppose I'll have to. Someone has to keep you out of trouble.”

Caleb eyed the darkening sky, painted in shades of purple toward the east where the sun had already bid the world good night. “I'm more worried about getting lost in the dark.”

“You could just wait until morning, you know.”

“No. There's someone up there right now. I want to know who.”

The pair set out on foot, able at first to follow trails broken by the Indians and even game paths when the cut trails exhausted themselves. But ultimately, as the night settled in, Caleb was forced to light the end of his staff with a murmured
licht
just to keep from walking headlong into one of the many trees that clung tenaciously to the mountainside.

He kept the blue glow as small as he could, not wanting to alert anyone else of his approach, and it made for slow going in the thick underbrush and rough terrain.

Ahead of him, he could barely see Ernst dimly outlined in the light, and the little creature sat straight up, ears pricked and alert. “Ernst?”

“Shh! Listen!”

Caleb crouched next to his familiar, straining to hear what the small creature's better ears had detected. For a long moment, there was nothing but the slightest of breezes, rustling the leaves around them. Not a bird sang; not an insect chirped. The forest was silent.

The noise, when it came, was barely more than an impression of sound, something felt through the bones as it bounced from a distant source. Once Caleb caught it, he could focus on it more, and it grew clearer to him. It was the distinct sound of metal on stone.

“How far ahead?” he asked Ernst in a whisper.

The jackalope's whiskers quivered as it scented the air. “Another hundred yards upward. Douse the light.”

Caleb cut all power to his staff, leaving them in darkness. “If I break my neck, I'm blaming you.”

“Hush. Follow.”

For a six-foot-tall man, following a barely two-foot-tall creature through thick underbrush was easier said than done. And doing it quietly was virtually impossible. After the hundredth time Ernst had shushed him, Caleb was ready to skin the creature and make gloves. His face was bleeding where branches had scratched him, there was God only knew what crawling in his short hair, and he'd barked his knees against more trees than he could count.

He was so intent on keeping himself in one piece, he nearly stepped on Ernst when the small animal froze, ears quivering at full height. “Hsst! Get down!”

Cautiously, Caleb lowered himself to the ground, peering over the edge of a small ridge to see what had attracted his familiar's attention. A warm orange glow emanated from the hillside ahead of them, too steady to be an open flame, but the wrong color to be from any arcane source. The incessant pinging noise was louder here, and as his eyes adjusted to the new light, he could see why.

Lanterns adorned the trees, hung on posts, anywhere they could give off a bit more illumination. The brightest light seemed to come from within a cave, barely a jagged crack in the mountain's face, and there men were bustling to and fro, some of them pushing heavy carts, others with picks and shovels over their shoulders.

At the edges of the lanterns' light, other men stood guard, armed with rifles and handguns, their eyes scanning the dark forest all around them.

“Are they looking for us or just looking in general?” Caleb whispered.

Ernst shook his head, his antlers rustling the bushes. “I don't think they heard us. I think they're just on watch.”

“What the hell are they doing?” Caleb silently cursed having left his binoculars with the transport.

“Obviously, they're mining.” Even in the dark, Caleb could see Ernst's disdainful look.

“In the dark. In Indian territory.” Caleb looked for a clear path that might take him closer, but found none. There was a trail carved through the brush, no doubt put there by the miners and their guards, but it was completely open to view from the mine, and there was no way Caleb would avoid being seen.

“Maybe they're shy.”

“Can you get closer without being seen?” Caleb shielded his eyes a bit in an attempt to see if he recognized anyone at the site.

“Not a chance. Can't you feel that? The place reeks of nullstone.”

Once it was pointed out to him, Caleb could indeed smell it on the air. Though it shared no other properties with the harmless substance, nullstone always smelled like sodium bicarbonate. Reflexively, Caleb snorted softly, trying to clear the scent from his nose. “Why would they risk working around so much nullstone? They have to be totally cut off from their powers by now.”

Ernst edged forward, nose twitching. “They're scoured. Or barren. Every one of them. Not the guards, they still glow, but see how they're staying away from the mine?”

It was true. The armed men kept a careful distance from the mine and the miners alike, lest the nullstone sap them of any ability they might possess. Caleb counted six guards, and at least that many miners. There was no telling how many were still within the mine. Here, then, were Warner's barren employees. “Wait. . . . Is that Schmidt?”

Despite the bandana covering the lower half of his face, there was no mistaking the cold-eyed gunman. The slender man stood in the shadow of a large tree, separate from the other guards, and he was still enough that only the gleam of light off his rifle betrayed his position. In spite of himself, Caleb held his breath for a few heartbeats, expecting to see the sniper shoulder his weapon and take aim at him at any given moment.

His attention apparently focused on the mouth of the mine, Schmidt never moved.

“Why in the world are they digging up nullstone?” Caleb muttered to himself.

Before Ernst could offer up any more theories, the earth beneath them gave a great heave, almost like the mountain itself had taken a deep breath. The shaking followed immediately after, and Caleb could only duck his head, protecting it from the falling branches and twigs that rained down on him. The quake was hard enough to rattle his teeth in his head, and he got the impression that the mountain was trying to shudder them right off its skin, like the unwanted parasites they were.

Rocks large enough to crack a skull bounded down the mountainside, narrowly missing Caleb and his familiar, but still peppering them with pebbles hard enough to bruise. The smell of nullstone grew stronger, and Caleb did his best to cover his mouth and nose with his shirt. Ernst burrowed against his side, taking shelter from the largest of the debris.

At the mine, the men were shouting, their voices raised in fear. When Caleb could lift his head again, he saw them scrambling from the hole in the earth, coated top to bottom in white dust. One of the carts had overturned, spilling its load of chalky white stone into the clearing, and the guards shifted anxiously into the trees, avoiding the weakening effect. One of the lanterns had overturned, and several men beat at the flames frantically until they were smothered.

A tall figure appeared at the mouth of the cave, staggering out ahead of several of the workers. Clearly a woman, judging by her dress, but ghostly because of the nullstone powder that covered her from head to toe. Only then did Schmidt move, snatching her by one arm. He dragged her away from the mine entrance, flinging her to the ground negligently once they were clear of the nulling cloud. She lay there for a long moment gasping for air.

“Mary Catherine. I knew it.” Despite the nullstone dust that made her appear an apparition of her true self, there was no mistaking the tall Indian woman. Caleb's moment of triumph was short-lived, however. Schmidt pulled the bandana from his face and aimed a kick at the downed woman, who curled up to avoid the blow.

“I not do! I not do!” The woman sobbed, protecting her head with her arms. “Please do not!” Schmidt kicked her again with no expression at all. Her pleas received no response. When he drew back to kick her again, she made a gesture with one hand, and a tiny dust devil rose beneath the raised foot, white with whirling nullstone dust and peppered with pine needles and fallen leaves. Unbalanced, Schmidt landed on his rump, and the dust devil broke apart, drifting to the earth.

Caleb blinked in amazement, certain that his eyes had played a bizarre trick on him. The woman, covered in nullstone dust to the point of being ghost white, had conjured the very wind to do her bidding. It wasn't possible. There was no one in the world with enough power to overcome that much nullstone.

The gunman sat for a moment merely looking at the Indian woman with his emotionless eyes, then rose to his feet and dusted off his clothing. The next kick was to her head, and she slumped to the ground.

Caleb took a better grip on his staff, preparing to rise. He couldn't sit and watch a woman be beaten.

“Are you insane?” Ernst poked him with his antlers, hard. “You can't fight all of them, even if most of them are scoured.”

“Schmidt has to be breathing in that dust. There's no way he's at his full ability. If I can take him out . . .”

“And do what? Kill him? Kill all of them? You're a Peacemaker, Caleb. You don't kill.” Ernst put a paw on the staff, and it might as well have been made of solid granite. Caleb couldn't have picked it up if he'd wanted to. “Wait, and watch. There has to be a better chance than this.”

Curse the little creature, but he was right. There was no way to intervene without it ending in bloodshed.

Schmidt left off abusing the Indian woman, gesturing for one of the others to help her up. They dragged her to her feet, depositing her on a fallen tree at the edge of the light, where she wobbled drunkenly. Two guards moved to stand over her.

One of the nullstone-coated miners approached Schmidt, careful to keep a safe distance. “The left tunnel is collapsed. It's going to take at least two days to dig out to where we were. We may have lost that vein.”