Chapter Five 1

isitors, a man and a woman, were both tall and fair, though the woman was the taller of the two; she was maybe six feet. They stood when they realized I was coming to the cabin. I didn't look at them too closely, because I wanted them to go away. Ignoring people never works like that, though. "Lizbeth Rose?" I nodded. No point in denying it. The two seemed to expect me to say something, but I didn't. I waited. I didn't want to give them my words, much less my time. I was sure these were the two grigoris Army had talked about. I had made a mistake, letting him mention my name to them. He'd seen them much sooner than I'd thought. I shouldn't have stopped at the grocery or my mom's. The man was the younger of the two. He had a broad face with high cheekbones, a full mouth, long light-brown hair pulled back in a braid. The tattoos on his neck were just barely visible inside his shirt collar. Over his shirt he wore a vest with a score of pockets. Grigori vests contained herbs and spells inside the pockets, or so I'd heard. The woman, somewhere in her late thirties, was a blonde. I'd never seen a woman so tall. Her tattoos made his look modest. There were symbols on her face, crawling up her cheeks. It made me wince to look at them. She wore a vest, too. Grigoris for sure. None of the magic users from the Holy Russian Empire liked to be called grigoris, though. They liked to be called wizards. I disliked the two wizards even more because they were clean and they didn't smell. And the both of them looked rested. I was so tired my bones hurt. Finally the tall woman said, "You're with the Tarken Crew?" "I was until a few days ago," I said. "You quit?" She tried to sound like she cared. "The Tarken Crew quit living. All but me." I was surprised they didn't know. Could be they hadn't talked to Army long enough. The grigoris glanced at each other, a little taken aback, but not for more than a second. "We need to talk to you," the woman said. Maybe the man was looking a little harder, because he finally spoke. "We could come back in the morning," he said, his voice quiet and even. She half turned to him to say something, and he made a little hand gesture. She shut up. But she wasn't used to taking hints. She was the boss. "Any time is better than now. But most likely I won't do whatever it is you want," I said. "Why?" She just couldn't stop herself. I picked the simplest reason. "I don't want to have nothing to do with you," I said. My mother would have given me the evil eye for bad grammar, but she wasn't there and I was out of civil. The woman opened her mouth again, but the younger man—he was maybe five years older than me—made a "stop" gesture with some force behind it. He must have had to quiet her a lot. "Tomorrow," he said. "In the morning. We'll be back then." The two of 'em left, passing me on the narrow path, not getting too close. Smart. At last I was able to go in my own place and shut my own door. And I locked it. I needed to clean myself, but I'd run out of energy and will. I turned the faucet to find the water was running, so I washed my face and arms and took off my shoes before I fell onto the bed. If anyone else came by or knocked on the door, I didn't know about it. I didn't dream, that I remember. Next morning I woke up looking forward, not back at the catastrophe on the road to Corbin. I was still alive. I had to plan what I'd do next. I had to make my living. I showered, scrubbing top to bottom. I fired up the woodstove. It was one of the last times I'd use it till fall; when the weather got hot, I cooked outside as much as I could. I made myself a big meal—cantaloupe, oatmeal, bacon. I felt much better after that. Much. I was feeling dandy as I started on the dishes, but then I had one of the black moments when grief stabbed me unexpectedly. I had to fight back. Tarken, Martin, and Galilee were gone, but with honor. I had to be strong, all by myself. I made myself look out the window at the peace of the hillside. A vireo was in a bush nearby, and it was full of bird conversation. I took a deep breath in and out, and returned to my job. As I scrubbed the oatmeal pan, I began singing a cowboy song about beautiful women, loyal men, and plains covered with flowers. My scratchy voice wouldn't bother anyone, least of all the vireo. The little houses down the slope, they weren't real close and this time of day they'd be empty, except for Chrissie and maybe her little boys. I'd realized it had to be Monday. The other grown-ups were at work; kids were at school with my mother if they were old enough. In Segundo Mexia everyone has something to do. I'd stopped school at sixteen, which was a little old to still be in a classroom. Being my teacher and my mother, Mom had wanted to pass along as much knowledge as she could. It had been hard come by, since in the middle of her teacher training, when she herself was sixteen, she'd come up with me. My grandparents had watched me while Mom rode the bus to Little Bend to finish up. That bus hasn't run in the past five years, but then it ran to the larger town and back daily. Grandma and Grandpa died when I was six, and my memories of them are sketchy: worn, lined faces, kind voices, stern discipline. The influenza took them, but they left behind a daughter who could support herself and her child. My mom was a good teacher and a good mother. She did not believe that ignorance was bliss. She believed just the opposite. A lot of people didn't want to talk about the past, because it was painful. But Mom thought I should know how things had gotten to be the way they were: the dead president, the dead vice president (influenza), the banks crashing, the drought, and the influenza . . . again. The population had dropped, the government could not protect itself, and other countries had grabbed pieces of America. "USA got big bites taken out of it: by Canada from the north, by Mexico from the south, and by the Holy Russian Empire from the west, where the Russian tsar settled when he fled his own country. To the east, the thirteen original colonies—all but Georgia—voted to form a bond with England, to keep from becoming part of Canada. They picked the name Britannia. The southern states banded together as Dixie. Georgia went with them." She was pointing out the new countries on the map. "So what about us?" I asked, looking at the old map. She pointed to the place where we lived. "Texas and Oklahoma and New Mexico and a bit of Colorado became Texoma, where we live. We live in Segundo Mexia, in Texoma. And this big area north of us, the plains, that's New America." My mother also told me no one had ever heard of real magic until the Russian Christians left their own country, driven out by the godless people, to wander until they found a home on the West Coast. The movie industry welcomed them with open arms and pocketbooks, and when the crash came, the army the tsar had brought with him convinced California and Oregon to unite under him. The Russian royal family had brought the grigoris with them, and the grigoris rejoiced in the open under the California sun. Now the Holy Russian Empire rules with lots of show and lots of mystic bullshit. It's the only country in the world to openly admire magic. And now there are all kinds of scum with a little bit of ability traveling around, putting on magic shows for the kiddies and selling "spells," and one of them spelled my mom to hold still long enough to beget me, was what I had been thinking as my mother told me about the map. I figure maybe Mom had been thinking about the same topic. The mistake one particular grigori scum had made was coming back to this area a second time. I smiled remembering that, but my happy minute was interrupted by a knock at my door. I dried my hands and reached for a gun. I opened the door real quick and stepped to the side. I figured the odor of the soap I'd used—I'd found a scented bar in Corbin—had masked the grigori smell until they were real close. So much for my little talent. The man and the woman looked the same as they had the afternoon before: tall, well nourished, well dressed, rested. Today they seemed a bit more worried. Now that I was clean and had had a night's sleep, and some food in my stomach, I felt I could deal with them. I'd planned on cleaning my guns after the dishes were done, and they were all spread out on the table, on sheets of old newspaper, along with everything I'd need: clean cotton rags, Hoppe's, soft brushes. I was ready to work. It was a good reminder to them. "May we come in?" the woman asked. She didn't sound Russian, something I'd been too tired to notice the day before. I figured her for a British import. I jerked my head, and they stepped in. I pointed to the bench on one side of my table, and they sat. I had a stool and my back to the wall, so I could see out the door, which I left open. It was a mild morning, and I enjoyed the little breeze coming in. I didn't feel obliged to open the conversation. They were the ones who wanted something, not me. I took apart Jackhammer first. My grandfather's Winchester was utterly familiar to my hands. The feel of the cleaning rag, the brushes, the smell of the solvent, the care I was taking of the tools of my livelihood, all felt good and comfortable to me. Plus, I'd had a good look at the neglected bandit pistol. It seemed basically sound. If I put in some work, I'd get a good price for it. "I'm Paulina Coopersmith," the woman said. Yep, she had an accent. I'd only heard one like it at the movies. "Are all these guns yours?" "Yes, they're all mine," I said. "I took 'em off the bandits who killed my crew." "You killed them all," the man said. I nodded. They didn't have anything to say about that for a goodly bit of silence. "I'm Ilya Savarov," the man said finally. "Please call me Eli." No doubt about him being Russian. He had a slight accent. He might make his name more American, but I was willing to bet he'd been in the ships that had come from Russia. "Lizbeth Rose," I said. But I realized they knew that. I almost told them not to call me anything. Paulina and Eli and Lizbeth. We were pals now, for sure. I finished the cleaning and reassembled and loaded Jackhammer. I set my cleaning stuff in a neat line back on a heavy pad. "What do you want?" I said, satisfied with the job I'd done. I'd had my silence. Now it was time to get the conversation moving, so it could come to an end. So they would go. I ran my hand down the walnut stock of Jackhammer one last time and laid it down. I made myself look directly at the grigoris. Paulina's eyes were frosty blue and fixed on me with no very pleasant expression. Her accent was English. A lot of English magicians had migrated to California after hearing how friendly the HRE was to wizardry. They were tired of being ignored in their own country. Looked like the court had given 'em a big welcome. "We need a guard and a guide," Eli Savarov said. "We're hoping you can be both." I looked at him directly. His eyes were green. I'd never seen that before, and it was striking. "For how long?" I said. I was going to turn them down, but not before I found out what they were doing in Segundo Mexia. "For at least a week, maybe as long as three." "While you're doing what?" I began to clean the small parts of the pistol, because I couldn't just sit and look from one to another. It was necessary to concentrate on my hands, but I wasn't so busy I didn't catch the look they gave each other. "We're searching for a particular man," Paulina said. She was picking her words one by one. "And the last trace we have of him is in this area." "Huh. No strangers here recently. You mean another one like you? A grigori?" "We lost track of him some time ago," Paulina said. "And he is a wizard, yes." But her mouth twisted sour at giving him the title. Eli said quietly, "He's an embarrassment to us." "Yeah?" I didn't want to meet someone they'd be proud of. "So, who is this guy?" "A Russian-born wizard named Oleg Karkarov." Jackhammer was pointed at them before they could get to their feet. "Get your hands up, now!" I said. They made a great show of looking astonished and scared as they threw their hands up. You had to keep grigoris' hands in front of your eyes; you couldn't let them weave spells with their hands or reach for their vest pockets. "What did we say?" Paulina said. She was pretty pissed off. "You know he's dead." But they didn't. Even I had to admit they'd been taken by surprise. "But—but where? When?" The man, Eli, stammered as he spoke. He looked . . . dismayed. As if his world had taken a big turn for the worse. "Five miles away in Cactus Flats," I said, not lowering Jackhammer. "Eight months ago. He your kin?" "No," said Paulina Coopersmith, disgusted at the very idea. "How did he die?" Eli asked, right on her heels. "Gunned down," I said, glancing from one to another. "On the head of the tsar," Paulina said, "we did not know." She was smart enough to see that their ignorance was real important to me. I didn't doubt her after that. Holy Russians, that was a serious oath to them. Alexei I was the symbol of everything they'd left behind, and their hope for the future. Eli and Paulina were smart enough to keep their mouths shut while I thought. After a minute I laid down the rifle, but I kept it close. Meeting the eyes of each grigori in turn, I nodded, so they could lower their hands. I wasn't going to shoot them until I learned more. They wouldn't spell me until they did the same. I sank back onto my stool, but I didn't relax. I started to work on the filthy bandit pistol to keep my hands busy, because my fingers were all itchy to shoot. "You don't need me to go on that big search of yours, now you know he's dead," I said. Maybe this would be the end of it. In the silence after that, I calmed myself by thinking of what my hands were doing, and I planned what I'd do next. When I finished this pistol, which would take a long time, I would set to work on Tarken's gun. Maybe I should give it to his boy. I was no favorite of the boy's mother, Leisel, and she wouldn't want to talk to me. But I was obliged to offer. And I had to talk to Freedom, Galilee's son, who worked at the tannery, the one whose room I'd rented after he'd moved out of his mom's. The grigoris were murmuring back and forth in Russian, still being careful with their movements. It was a long conversation. I got a lot of work done. All I learned was that they couldn't read each other's minds. That was good to know. Also interesting and of note was that Paulina had been in the HRE long enough to be fluent in Russian. They stopped talking. They'd reached a conclusion. "If Oleg is dead," Eli said, "we need to find his brother." I was glad I was looking down, so they couldn't read my face. I was thunderstruck. It was news to me that Oleg Karkarov had family. Now that I knew he did, I didn't like it. My hands stilled for a moment. "Where is this brother likely to be?" I said cautiously. "We know he was traveling with Oleg," Eli said. Paulina nodded. That was another bit of news I didn't like. "You need to talk to him? What about?" "We need to find out if they were full brothers," Paulina said. "If they were, we need his blood." I was able to look up at her with a genuine smile. "That's my kind of quest," I said. Paulina and Eli both looked surprised that I knew an uncommon word. Fuck 'em. "My mom's a teacher," I said, before they could start trying to think of a nice way to ask. "You've always lived in Segundo Mexia?" Eli said. I could feel he was trying to get me to relax, to like them, or at least to be at ease with them. Paulina didn't seem to care about that, and I kind of respected her point of view. "Yes," I said, looking through the barrel of the pistol. My hands had been busy while the Russians talked. The barrel was clean as a whistle. I reassembled, loaded. Another job done. I still didn't want the gun, but at least it was sellable. The familiar smell of oil and Hoppe's was calming me. Instead of Tarken's pistol, I picked up Galilee's bolt-action Krag. It had bullets in it she'd never gotten to fire. That thought gave me a pang of grief. I put the Krag down and sat with my head bowed. I changed my mind—I'd clean it next. I was thinking of my friend's big smile. I'd never see it again. And that was wrong. There were two wizards in my home, and I should not be paying attention to anything but them. Eli cleared his throat. He'd asked me a question. "Do your parents live here, too?" he said again. Eli was asking if they lived in Segundo Mexia. It was easy to see no one lived in this house with me. "Why?" I made sure to meet both pairs of eyes, blue (Paulina) and green (Eli), so they'd see how serious I was about not answering questions about my family. And since I was looking up, I saw a shadow. Someone had crept up to the door, and by the time he stepped fully into sight, his pistol up, I had jumped to my feet, Jackhammer ready. Since I'd had to waste a second by standing, so my bullet would clear the grigoris' heads, the other gunnie got off a shot. I felt my back hit the wall, and I slid down behind the stool. "My God, it's the Tatar," Paulina was saying from far away. "Was," Eli said briefly from much closer. "Come over here." "She's alive?" "Yes." There was lots of shoving and clattering. They were moving my table and stool out of the way. I was lying against the wall. I caught a flicker of Eli's face, broad and calm, but unhappy. I could hear someone yelling in the distance. Chrissie. Sure, gunfire would get even Chrissie's attention. Glad she was here . . . I didn't want these two in charge of me. . . . My mother was sitting by me when I woke up. I was on my bed. She was sitting on the stool, which had been pushed over beside it. "Good," Mom said. "You're conscious." She sounded half sad, half angry. "He was after them." I couldn't talk clear. But I wanted her to know it wasn't my fault. "Yeah," Mom said. "He was a gunnie, like you. Josip something. Papers in his pocket." I'd heard of him. "Josip the Tatar. He had a big name." "Your name is bigger now. You killed him." She turned her face away, and I could tell she was biting back the words, But that might have been you. "I'm okay?" I said, after flexing my muscles a little bit. I was pretty sure I was, but I had to ask what injury I had incurred. I hadn't exactly recovered from my bang on the head. Now my head felt bad again, sore and stiff. "Bullet grazed your skull," she said. "And since you just cut off all your hair, it was easy to see the wound. It just made a messy . . . crease. Those two wizards had patched you up by the time I got here." Her face was all tight with trying to hold in stuff. "I have cleaned up all the blood," she added between gritted teeth. Head wounds bled like a bitch. "Them two still here?" "Those two," she said. "Those two still here?" "They're sitting outside. Jackson came to have a look at you. He talked to them for a moment. He'd seen them at the Antelope." "You won't believe what they . . ." I'd been going to warn her. But then I was out again. My next little moment of consciousness, I realized I'd been ready to tell my mom something she shouldn't know about. I blessed the fact that I'd gone to sleep before I could. It went like that for what seemed like hours, a drifting time of sleep and dreams and hurting. I would be conscious just long enough to know where I was and that I'd been shot, and then I'd be out again. When I woke up for real, my head was still hurting, though not as bad as I'd expected. Maybe I was just getting used to my head hurting. My mom was still there. Or there again. "You better?" she said. "I made some soup while you slept. Chrissie went to the store for me. If you can get to the bathroom on your own, I need to be getting home." "I can," I said. To prove it, I sat up. And though it was in doubt for a moment, I didn't pass out. Another head injury, not good. But—I thought for the second time—I felt better than I had any right to feel. I made myself look at Mom steadily. If I winced or closed my eyes, she would feel worse about leaving me, and she'd spent enough time here. If the sky outside the window wasn't lying, it was close to evening. I'd lost most of a day, drifting in and out of sleep. And now that Mom had mentioned the bathroom, I needed to go bad. I got up, none too steady, and shuffled into the little room. I didn't shut the door. If I did, and I passed out, she wouldn't be able to get in because my body would hold the door shut. While I was taking care of myself, Mom said, "The grigoris went back to the Antelope. They said they'd come back tomorrow. You get Chrissie to come for me if you can't manage." She looked like she'd say something more, but then she didn't. "I will, Mom." Chrissie would get paid, as she'd already been paid for her trip to the store. She needed whatever cash she could bring in. I made my mouth turn up in a smile, so Mom could leave with a clear conscience. My mother looked at me doubtfully. I could tell she was torn. I gave her a nod, to let her know I was fine. After a moment's hesitation, she patted my hand and left. Sure enough, there was a pot of something simmering on the stove, and she'd put a bowl ready on the table for me, spoon next to it, biscuits in the pan set beside the bowl. The smell got my feet moving. I was determined I wouldn't lie down again until I'd eaten. I swore only a time or two getting across the room to fill the bowl from the pot. As soon as I sat down with the soup in front of me, and breathed the smell of it, I knew this was what I should be eating. My mom is a very good cook, and she knows how to season. This soup had chicken in it, and vegetables, and dumplings. The biscuits were bites of heaven. I tried to eat slowly, and with every bite I felt stronger. When I'd broken up with a boyfriend, my first—he thought I'd neglected him, and I guess he was right—I'd asked Mom how she'd stayed with Jackson so long. She'd said, "From my side, this is how it looks. Jackson would stand by me if I poisoned his best friend. He never cheats. He works hard, he's a great provider. Just as important, he's been real good to you. That's my side. And from his side, best I can tell . . . he knows I'm loyal and I won't gossip about his doings, the sex is great, and the cooking is even better. Having both in your own home is damn near perfect." She'd grinned at me like a girl. So this was why I was not put out that she needed to go home to be with Jackson. I was glad she had someone who put her first. It was pure pleasure to finish the soup slowly. I felt like a new person when I'd eaten the bowlful. I took the dishes to the sink, washed 'em up, put 'em in the drainer, smothered the little fire in the stove. I'd have to finish the soup tomorrow. I didn't have a refrigerator. Hardly anyone did, especially on the hill. I gave myself permission to go back to bed. The next morning I was brave enough to look at my reflection. I'd chanced on an intact mirror in an abandoned house where we camped on one of our jobs. I'd brought it home to hang in my bathroom. The electricity was on today, so I pulled the chain. The exposed bulb made everything in my bathroom glaringly clear. I took a deep breath before I turned to have a look. It would have been better if the power had been off. I'd been hurt worse since I started work. But I had to wince at the sight in the mirror. I looked exactly like someone who'd been shot in the head. I took off the little bandage real carefully in order to clean the wound. I said, "Ew," from somewhere deep inside me. There was a raw furrow on the left side of my scalp. It had been stitched together real precise. I was kind of surprised at the skill of it. Had my mother done that? She'd said something about it, but I couldn't remember what. Once I'd gotten used to the ugliness of the scalp wound, I moved on down to notice that the left side of my face was swollen and bruised. No surprise there. After I had looked at myself enough, I told myself some hard truths. The Tatar's bullet could have taken off my ear—or the top of my head. It hadn't. I should be grateful instead of dismayed. Mom had cleaned my wound and put some thick pink ointment on it, closed it with a sticky bandage that covered the stitches. I'd had to take the bandage off when I washed. I leaned closer to the mirror and eyed the stitches. I was convinced Mom could never have done so neat a job. Sure of that now, I had to wonder about the bandage. It was purpose-made, not a rag with sap applied. There were clean ones waiting to be put on. The grigoris had taken care of me. I was sure the bandager had been the man, Eli. I didn't like the thought of him touching me, but somehow it was better than when I imagined the woman's fingers doing the job. Shit. Now I owed them. As if thinking about the grigoris had conjured their appearance, I could hear 'em coming up. They knocked soft and polite.

"Come in," I said, but I had my gun trained on the opening door, because all of a sudden I was angry. As soon as Eli saw me, he froze. Which was smart. "I thought your mother might still be here," he said, trying to sound relaxed. "No." "Can we come in?" "You alone?" "Paulina and I," he said. "Nobody followed you this time?" "No." Eli sounded guilty and a little angry. "Okay then." Eli stood back to let Paulina precede him. They sat on the bench on the other side of the table, as before. Paulina looked . . . nothing. Her face was blank. I waited for one of them to open the conversation. "We'd been here for a week without seeing him. We figured he'd given up," Eli said, by way of explaining. "He likely to have anyone following him? Did Josip have a partner?" "As far as we know, Josip the Tatar always worked by himself," said Paulina. She looked down at her hands. "That was a quick decision you made, to shoot. How'd you know he was an enemy?" "Your enemy," I said, wanting us to be clear about that. "Around here, friends knock. Specially when they can hear you've already got company." Her eyes kept returning again and again to the wound in my head. "Does it hurt?" she asked, and you could tell she'd been dying to ask. "What the hell do you think?" Of course it hurts, bitch. Get shot in the head and see how you feel. "We stopped in to see how you were," Eli said. "And to ask again if you'd work for us while we search for Oleg Karkarov's brother." "And his name would be?" "Sergei." Of course. It would have to be either Sergei or Dmitri. Those seemed to be the most popular names in the Holy Russian Empire. "And what do you need him for?" They glanced at each other. Eli said, "As we said, we need his blood." "On the ground? In a cup? Over an altar?" There were all kinds of religions popping up now. The old church had been half-broken in the Great Depression, when people had discovered faith would not save them from poverty and starvation. There were plenty of believers left, especially in Mexico. I'd heard there was a different kind of Christianity in the HRE. Eli said, "No, we need him alive, so we can . . ." Paulina scowled at Eli. He shut up. They sure did take turns hushing each other. I thought of asking, What's wrong with the tsar? But then they'd have to kill me . . . at least, they'd have to try. I felt pretty safe. The grigoris would never believe I could think it through. Here was my reasoning: It was expensive to send two grigoris traveling outside the HRE, to search for a man they didn't know was alive or dead. If the grigoris, finding Oleg dead, needed this Sergei alive for his blood . . . the only person I knew of who was both rich and afflicted with a blood disease was the Holy Russian tsar, Alexei I. Even for a lowly gunnie like me, that was not so hard to figure out. I didn't have any notion what Sergei's blood could do to help the tsar—but if the grigoris were involved, there was a magic ritual or some such shit. My head began to throb with all this thinking. I wanted to sleep again. "Does it make any difference what we need the man for, if we pay you to help us?" Eli asked. That was a question I could answer, though I didn't have to tell the truth. "No," I said. "How long you need me for? How much you offering?" "Considering we're not tearing you away from anything else," Paulina said with some quiet sarcasm, "here's what we'll pay per week." She named a price. In Holy Russian currency. That would convert to Texoman/New American bucks with an advantage for me. The sum was enough to keep me for two months. If I lived to spend it. I had money at the moment, but I wasn't going to keep all of it. And I needed a stash. Hard times were always around the corner. "As for how long," Eli said, "we'll keep searching until we decide we're not going to find him . . . or until we've got him." "Minimum of three weeks, guaranteed." After all, if I was guarding and guiding them full-time, I couldn't be looking for another job, a permanent job, which was what I needed. "Ridiculous," Paulina said. I liked her not at all. "I've already saved you from getting shot in the back. For nothing." I smiled at the grigoris, and not in a nice way. "Not even a thank-you." Eli's mouth dropped open, and I could tell he was casting his mind back over the conversation and coming up with zero. Zilch. Nada. I raised my eyebrows, as if to say, Right. He was mortified, but too proud to say so. She was too proud to even acknowledge their debt. "You saved your own life," she pointed out, raising her nose in the air. "Oh, you think he would have opened my door and shot at me if you hadn't been sitting there?" Josip had aimed at me only when I'd stood and offered to fight back. Paulina shut up then. After a long moment Eli said, "Thank you, Gunnie." It was stiff but pretty sincere. "You're welcome, wizard. And thank you for taking care of my head. Good stitching. And I guess you had something to do with me feeling not as bad as I thought I'd feel." I didn't know how he'd done it, or how they'd done it, but I had to acknowledge their help. After all, might as well be polite. They'd at least disposed of Josip's body, which was something. I started to ask what had happened to it, but then I realized I really didn't care. "Where do you want to start looking for this mysterious brother?" I said. I could tell it hadn't escaped their notice that I hadn't said yes or no. I wanted to learn as much as I could. I figured that first on their agenda would be a trip to Cactus Flats, where Oleg Karkarov had been shot. (His death had been in the regional newspaper, which came out every week. It hadn't been any big secret. The grigoris couldn't be surprised I knew about it.) "We should go to the place where he died," Eli said. "Are the roads to Cactus Flats any good?" "No," I said truthfully. "Best way to get there is by horseback. Do you both ride?" "Yes, of course," said Paulina, looking down her nose. "How long will it take?" "It will be a day trip," I said. "If we get started early in the morning, we might be back here by midafternoon. Depending on what we find out, of course." "We'll set out first thing in the morning," she told me. "Meet us at the stable." Without more conversation, Eli and Paulina left. Eli did tell me good-bye; Paulina kept her good-byes to herself. Since I had the rest of the afternoon on my own, I paid the visits I had to pay. Though my head ached, I could walk and talk, and I should not put them off. If I was going somewhere with the grigoris, I might not come back. I went to Freedom's little house when I figured he'd gotten off work. I gave him half Galilee's portion of the money, and I offered him her Krag. He gave me a hug, took the money, declined the rifle, but was glad to take the bandit pistol I'd cleaned. "I know you loved her," Freedom said. I nodded. I wasn't going to cry anymore, but that was a hard resolve to keep. It helped that a stranger was there. She turned out to be Freedom's girlfriend, a shy and pretty youngster I'd never met. I could see she was pregnant. Freedom told me, "If it's a girl, we'll name her Galilee." Next I walked back into the older part of town for the visit I was dreading even more, but for different reasons. Leisel, mother of Tarken's son, disliked me quite a bit. She and Tarken had been living apart for the past three years at least. I knew Tarken had had other women before he and I had begun being together, but I seemed to be the one Leisel objected to. No matter how Leisel felt about me, Tarken had been a good father, and I had to honor that by visiting his son. "Well, it's you," Leisel said when she opened the door. "I didn't know if you'd come by." She was a tiny woman with red hair and a strong right hook, as I'd discovered when she'd come by Tarken's while I was there one night. This evening there was no fire in Leisel. James Lee, who was twelve, and small like his mother and father, was deep in a shadow of grieving. He glowered at me. "Why did my father count on you to protect him?" James Lee said, his voice all jagged with emotion. He was a quiet boy. He had always treated me with respect when he'd been with Tarken. Not anymore. "Because I'm one of the best shots there is," I said. "But there were too many of them firing at us. I was the only one left. And I tracked them down and killed them all." That was all I had to offer the kid. James Lee ran outside and let the screen door slam behind him. I thought about going after him, but Leisel said, "He needs some time. He's a brooder. He'll see it straight, sooner or later." I gave Leisel Tarken's whole portion, for James Lee. That wasn't the normal thing to do, any more than giving Freedom some of Galilee's share. No one would have said anything if I'd kept it all. But I figured Tarken would have liked me doing that. I knew now that we hadn't been in love, but I'd cared about him something ferocious. I had nothing more to talk to Leisel about. She did know where Tarken had been buried, but I didn't think I'd go to the cemetery, at least not yet. He wasn't there, to me. Martin's wife and his daughter had been killed by a Mexican raiding party years ago. His brother, Thomas, wasn't entitled. I felt free to keep Martin's fourth, and I was glad to be spared another visit. Early the next morning I took most of my money to my mother's. No one would dare to break into Jackson Skidder's home. Mom was at the school and Jackson was at one of his businesses, so I hid the money in a place I'd made in the wall behind the bed in the room I'd had growing up. Mom knew to check it if something happened to me. I left her a bag of oranges smuggled in from southern Dixie. Army had acquired the bag (I didn't ask any questions how he'd done that), and I'd bought it before anyone else could. Mom would divide some of the oranges among the kids at school, but maybe she and Jackson would have one apiece. I left a note to tell her I was guarding the grigoris and where we were heading. If I didn't come back, Jackson might track them down. Maybe. But if they got the better of me, they deserved to live. I had assembled what I needed, a task that had taken me less than five minutes. If we were going to Cactus Flats, we wouldn't be there long. I liked riding a horse, and I liked going slow enough to see the land, but the trip would have been really interesting if the road there had been good enough for a car. Evidently, the grigoris had one. Though I'd been in a truck many a time, I'd ridden on a train once and in a car once. Those had been real events. According to my grandmother, when this big space had been one country, a lot of families had had their own cars. Tarken and Martin had saved for the truck, bought it piece by piece, searched junkyards, found old manuals, and put the truck together from old parts, new-fashioned ones, and imagination. Our crew's truck had been part Ford one-and-a-half-ton, part Kenworth, Martin had said. I remembered the hours they'd spent building the truck, how proud they'd been. When I remembered what it looked like the morning after the ambush, I got angry all over again. There was a practical reason I regretted the loss of the truck, too. If it hadn't wrecked, I could have sold it for almost enough money to retire. Or I could have started my own crew, an idea both scary and exciting. Right at this moment shade-tree mechanics all around Segundo Mexia were combining pieces of our crew's truck with their own vehicles. Eventually, most of our truck would hit the road again. I was okay with that. Bodies could be claimed, but vehicles were fair game if no survivors were on the spot. Long way around to say that when I met the grigoris in front of the stable, they were talking with John Seahorse, the owner. They were asking John to recommend the three horses least likely to give us trouble. I learned from their conversation that the grigoris had left their car in an unused room at the stable. We set off at eight thirty or thereabouts, riding Briar, Star, and Birdie. We weren't carrying much besides ourselves—I'd brought a little emergency food, my guns (of course), and a canteen full of water, and Paulina and Eli had canteens only. The weather was clear and bright, the sky cloudless, and the talk . . . well, we didn't, besides a comment or two from Eli about some feature of the landscape from time to time. We reached the scraggly outskirts of Cactus Flats about two hours before noon. Eli and Paulina told me to lead them to the sheriff's office first. This was going to be very interesting for the sheriff and me and all the inhabitants of the town. I was counting on the people of Cactus Flats to be cool with this situation. The sheriff, Cal Trujillo, was sitting in the front room when we came in. He was gripping a pen. The day deputy, Maria Hannigan, was filling out paperwork at a smaller desk in front of Cal's. Cal and Maria looked up with a certain amount of eagerness. The fact that there was paperwork on their desks may have had something to do with that. Since both Cal and Maria knew me, it would have made sense for me to introduce my employers and explain their mission, and I'd opened my mouth to do so. That was wasted effort. It didn't seem to occur to either Paulina or Eli to step back and let me do this. They walked in ahead of me, taking it for granted that I was falling in somewhere behind them, just in case they needed me. They might as well have tied me up outside like one of the horses. Cal shot me a quick look that translated as What the hell is up with these people? From behind their backs, I shrugged, raised my hands, palms up. I got no idea. I'm along for the pay. "Sheriff," Eli said, correctly identifying Cal, "I'm Eli Savarov, and this is Paulina Coopersmith, my partner." He did not introduce me. He did not refer to the fact that I was in the room. "Yes," Cal said after a pause. He didn't think slowly, but he liked to let people believe he did. "Welcome to Cactus Flats. I'm Cal Trujillo, elected sheriff of this town. This here is Deputy Maria Hannigan." Maria looked past Paulina at the fresh bandage on my head. She raised an eyebrow. I raised my hands again. "How can we help you two this fine morning?" Maria said, deciding that since my employers were ignoring me, she would, too . . . for the moment. Maria, mother of three, wife of one, was a better shot than Cal, but he was a better tracker. They made a good law enforcement team. Naturally, Paulina and Eli took the two good chairs in front of the sheriff's desk. They did not look to see if I'd been seated. I sighed, but real quiet. The gait of the horse over the rough terrain hadn't done me any favors. My head had been feeling better—a lot better—but now it wasn't so good. I found the only remaining chair, a wobbly one that had been pushed into a dark corner for good reason. I tugged it around so I could watch the door with my left eye and the people with my right. "We'd like to ask some questions about a shooting that took place here," Eli said. "Yeah?" Cal was trying hard not to look at me. Paulina said, "Some months ago a man named Oleg Karkarov was killed here, we were told. He was a low-level magic practitioner. What you call a grigori." "We don't get that many shooting deaths here," Maria said. "Lots of bar fights, with knives, things of that sort." She was trying just as hard not to glance my way. "So you remember it well." Eli was doing a good job of looking relaxed and concerned. And he didn't seem to be picking up on anything. "I do." With a creak of his old swivel chair, Cal rose and walked to the front of Maria's desk, where he parked his butt. He leaned against the desk like he had all the time in the world. Maria opened her mouth to tell him to move, but then she thought again and bent back over the paperwork. I noticed her pen didn't move much. "Can you tell us how Karkarov was killed?" Paulina said, as delicately as if talking about it would rake up terrible memories for Cal. Cal covered his mouth with his hand for a moment. "I can do that," he said, real sober. "Oleg Karkarov had passed through this part of Texoma round eighteen, nineteen years ago. He made quite an impression then. People were real interested when he came back. He started asking some odd questions around town. But then, after he'd been here maybe three days, someone caught up with Oleg behind Skelly's place—that's a bar, Elbows Up—and shot him." "He died right away?" Cal laughed. "Yes, ma'am. He'd been shot four times before he hit the ground, so he definitely died right away." Paulina turned to look at Eli, her eyes narrowed. She knew there was more to the story now. "Was Karkarov alone?" she asked in a much brisker voice. "When?" The grigoris looked at Cal blankly. "He was alone when he died," Cal said. "Except for the shooter, of course." "Did he arrive here with a companion?" Eli said. "Yes," Cal said. "With two." And here I sat up straight, because this part of the story was new to me. "Oleg checked into the hotel with a whore. Becky Blue Eyes, her name is. Oh, and there was a man with Oleg, too. Oleg told the hotelkeeper he was his brother. But the brother—Sergei, I think, was his name—he didn't get a room at the hotel. He slept in the car. He said he was afraid thieves would pick on it during the night if he didn't stay in it." "That true?" Eli asked. "Possibly," Cal said. "Mostly good people here, but every now and then someone wants an item that ain't theirs." "Did you have much conversation with this Sergei?" "I only know what other people told me," Cal said. "I don't think I ever did more than nod to the man when I passed him on the street. Either man, really. I just heard who they were. And I kind of remembered Oleg. When I heard the shots and ran behind the bar to find out what was going on, I came upon Oleg, dead as a doornail. While I was examining Oleg's body, the brother, Sergei, took off in the car." I hadn't known that, either. "So Oleg was killed perhaps three days after he got to Cactus Flats?" Paulina was going to get it straight in her mind. That's the kind of person she was. "Yeah." "Someone followed him here." "Or someone learned he was here as soon as he checked into the hotel," Maria said, as if she was determined to be fair. "Was this Becky Blue Eyes a local?" Paulina said. "She is now." Cal smiled. "What? Why?" "She didn't have any way to leave," he said. And that was that. Becky Blue Eyes was "plying her trade," as Maria put it, from a back room at the bar across the street, Elbows Up. Many of the people in town (men) were pleased to have a "new" prostitute, since Miranda Redhead had passed away from a miscarriage, and Harvey Sweetcheeks was getting old. Paulina and Eli both got this narrow-lipped look, like they were about to crawl down a sewer, even before we walked through the door of Elbows Up. I didn't know if it was the prospect of talking to a prostitute or going into a workers' bar that had stuck something up their asses. Inside it was dark and there was music on the record player, some Mexican guitar group wailing about dead cowboys in Spanish. Since it was early in the day for drinking, there was only one person at the bar, a tall man with no flesh on his bones. He was a living cadaver, and locally he was known as Skelly. However, since we weren't dealing with locals, I introduced him to my employers as Jorge Maldonado, his christened name . . . if his parents had bothered to have the water put on his head. "Can I get you something to drink?" Jorge asked, moving back behind the bar to the serving side. "If you don't want to start your day with something strong, I have tea or lemonade." Jorge had a refrigerator. I envied him. Someday I would save enough to get one, and by that time the electricity in Segundo Mexia would be more reliable. While I stared at the refrigerator with longing, Eli and Paulina were polite enough to order some lemonade . . . or maybe they were just thirsty. This time Eli remembered I was a human being and offered me some, too. I accepted. Something cold might help my head. Skelly leaned across the bar to hug me. He's tall, I'm short, so I had to boost myself up with one of the high stools. But the hug warmed me, after my stint of being invisible. "You two know each other," Paulina said. Couldn't get anything past her, no sirree. "Are you kidding?" Skelly asked, and he was about to go on when he caught my warning eye. "Ah . . . Lizbeth here's one of the best-known gunnies in all Texoma. And I'm sorry for your loss," he added just to me. "I heard what you did. Tarken would have been proud. Heard you got 'em all." I appreciated his kind words. "We understand there's a prostitute named Becky working out of here?" Eli said. "Becky might be up by now," Skelly said. "If you want her to take on the both of you, though, better give her another hour." I would have kissed Skelly if I'd been tall enough. It was all I could do to keep the laughter inside my mouth. "No," said Paulina, who sounded as though she were being strangled. "We just need to have a conversation with her." At that moment the door to the right of the bar opened and Becky stepped out. I'd never met her, but the minute she appeared, I knew I'd seen her before. I tried to blend into the wood of the bar. When Becky saw me, she froze. I gave her a little finger wave, both hands open and empty. She relaxed enough to smile at the two grigoris, but from then on she kept half an eye on me. "Becky, this here's Eli and Paulina from the Holy Russian Empire, and they want to ask you a thing or two about that man you came here with," Skelly said. I was certain Cal had called the bar the minute we left the sheriff's office, and that Skelly had knocked on Becky's door two seconds after that. Becky's glossy brown hair was put up, with ringlets hanging down, all her makeup was on, and she wore a polka-dotted skirt that came just below her knees. Her red blouse had a big collar that was spread wider than it should have been to show her boobs. And she wore high heels, which not too many women in our part of the world did. Hard to find, really expensive, couldn't run in 'em. It was quite a production. "Oh, what kind of thing or two would you like to know?" Becky said, sounding all flirtatious, though she flicked an anxious glance at me. Since Paulina and Eli were looking away from me, I gave her a wink. The brilliance of Becky's smile increased. "Let me see. I was aiming to be a priestess in your Holy Russian Empire, but my bad, bad daddy spanked me for praying too long, and I developed a taste for it. I just love to be punished for my wicked ways." Eli turned red, but he was also mashing down a smile. Paulina had turned to stone, far as I could tell. "Not about your . . . livelihood," Eli said. "About Oleg Karkarov." "May he burn in hell if there is one," Becky said, and spat on the floor. The bar floor was used to way worse, but Skelly looked pained. "Why?" Paulina had made up her mind this conversation would be on point. "He brought me here from Juárez, where I was . . . vacationing. He said we'd be in this hick town a week while he tracked down a rumor he'd heard. Something he could turn to his advantage. Then he'd take me back home," Becky said. She turned to look at her host. "Scuse me, Skelly, them's his words. I didn't know no different. He told me he hadn't been hereabouts for nearly twenty years, time was ripe for him to visit again. He was sure no one would remember him from before." Skelly and I both smiled. "So here I am, stuck in beautiful Cactus Flats, and Oleg's in the graveyard, I guess. I didn't check to see where they put him." She raised an eyebrow at Skelly. "Traveler's corner," he said. "And I'm saving up enough money to get back to Juárez, or somewhere close," she finished. "I had me a good job there. I'm exotic, to the Mexicans." "What about the man driving the car?" Eli sounded wary. Maybe he'd realized there was more to the story than he'd been getting from the people of Cactus Flats. Becky yawned, a jaw-cracking gape that showed she was missing some back teeth. "Truth, I didn't talk to either of them that much. They wasn't interested in my conversation." "Do you remember his name?" Paulina's voice was sharp. "Oleg," Becky said, looking at the grigori with surprise. "No, the driver," Paulina snapped. "Don't take my nose off, bitch! You ain't paid me anything, you don't own my time." And Becky, who'd set herself down at a table, tapped the area in front of her. Skelly brought her a glass of tea. They had a routine. I enjoyed the sight of Paulina's lip curling before she apologized. "I am sorry. We're anxious to know his name, the driver," she said more civilly. "Hmmmm." Becky made a big show of remembering. "Russian name," she said thoughtfully. "I think it was Dmitri. No, wait, Sergei." She looked at them as though she was waiting for applause. "Thank you, Becky," Eli said. "Do you have any ideas about where this Sergei might have gone? Or if it's true he was Oleg's full brother?" He didn't sound too optimistic.