Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (35 page)

“Did you hit it?” I asked hopefully.

“I don’t know, sir. It ran off, and I ran back here, right into the corporal who told me about Pongo.”

Mustadine led us to the area of his makeshift bog. There, on the rock, we found some enormous dusty paw prints and a cholla with a tuft of black fur caught on it. A few feet away stood a saguaro cactus with a gaping hole in its middle.

Apparently Private Mustadine was a lousy shot. What a fiking pity

“What shall we do?” Oset asked.

It took a second for me to realize she was talking to me. Everyone was looking at me expectantly, hopefully—Captain Oset, the corporal, the cluster of enlisteds behind them, even Major Rucker. I guess they figured, if I could take on a chupacabra, then I could get a jaguar, too.

So that was exactly what I would do. Turn the tables on Espejo. Hunt him down before he could hunt down Tiny Doom.

“The chupacabra can wait,” I said. “Let’s get this cat before he gets someone else.”

“Too bad La Bruja isn’t here,” Captain Oset said. “She can track anything. When she’s sober, that is.”

“So can Flynn,” I said. With a little help from a Locative Sigil, that is. “As soon as it gets light, we’ll mount up and head after it.”

Major Rucker looked skeptically at Flynn, but agreed. We left Captain Oset supervising the gathering up of poor Pongo and returned to the main post. A guard accompanied us, so Major Rucker couldn’t question me further on my plan, for which I was grateful, as it didn’t include him or the patrol.

“I’ll order the patrol at first light,” Major Rucker said, at the ramada of the UOQ.

“I’ll be ready,” I promised, thinking,
I’ll already be gone.

By showing his hand—or paw, that is—Espejo had done me a favor. It was possible that he was just trying to draw me out, but if it was a trap, it wasn’t going to work.
Come up from behind,
Nini Mo said,
and put your knife to his throat.
Espejo could track me, but he didn’t realize that I could track him. That’s exactly what I would do. Get him before he had a chance to get Tiny Doom. Night was his time, Cutaway had said, and though she had cheated me, I believed her. During the day, he was weak. During the day, he had to hide from the sun. I would use this weakness to my advantage.

I sat a spittoon outside the bedroom door to act as an alarm when Captain Oset came back, then had another swig of Madama Twanky’s. I settled down to create a Locative Sigil, using the tuft of fur from the cactus as my locus point. Locative Sigils are easy; they are one of the cornerstones of rangering, and before I had been forced to drop my Gramatica lessons, I had gotten pretty good at them. When the sigil was done, I took Captain Oset’s sawed-off double-barreled shotgun off the gun rack and made sure it was clean. A carbine rifle would have longer range, but Captain Oset’s was gone from the rack, and it was too late to go down to the Ordnance Stores and requisition one. But a shotgun is more powerful than a carbine and doesn’t require any finesse. It would do just fine. Then I charged four shotgun shells with an Abacination Sigil. Let’s see Espejo stand against that!

Just before dawn, I hot-footed it down to the corral and got Evil Murdoch saddled without encountering anyone other than the night corral guard, who did not dare stop me. By the time the sun crested the eastern mountains, I had left the post, Flynn trotting along beside me. The Locative Sigil was tucked away safely in the breast pocket of my buckskin jacket. Two nips of Tum-O had soothed my bubbly tummy and I felt cool and collected. The weight of Captain Oset’s shotgun, now loaded with two of the sigil shells, hung comfortingly over my shoulder. The extra sigil shells, along with a few regular shells, were stashed in my other pockets. After running scared for so long, it felt good to act fearlessly.

I rode east, away from Sandy As soon as the flagpole was out of view, I dismounted and called Flynn over. He sat at my bidding, tongue lolling. The sun was already baking away the dawn chill.

“Sorry, baby dog,” I said, tying my lead rope to his collar. “I don’t want you to take off without me.” I took the sigil out of my pocket and fixed it to his collar, but as I activated it with a Command, Evil Murdoch strayed to the end of the reins to nibble on a mesquite tree. I jerked him away from the bush, which he didn’t take kindly to and jerked back. He pulled one way I pulled the other, and then the reins flew out of my hand. Evil Murdoch ambled away.

“Hey!” I made a grab for the reins and missed. Sensing my pursuit, Evil Murdoch picked up his pace. Dragging Flynn, I lunged at the saddle and came tantalizingly close to grabbing the right stirrup before Evil Murdoch lashed out with a back leg. I twisted away just in time. Murdoch gave another little kick, dust puffing in the air. He brayed derisively once—a mulish
fike you
—and then dashed into the river, back toward Fort Sandy.

Fike!

Flynn pulled at the lead, whining, and it was taking all my strength to hold on to him. The Locative Sigil was working, but I wouldn’t be able to keep up with him on foot. I had no choice but to return to the post and get another mount. I strained to reel the lead in so I could take the charm off his collar. Snapperdog did nothing to help me, just quivered and pointed and let out a few anguished yelps. He wanted to go!

A voice hailed me. “There you are, Nini!”

I turned and saw Captain Oset, reining in at the head of a detail. Behind her, a mounted private held the reins of a very pissed-off-looking Evil Murdoch.

“He’s a real clown, Murdoch is, Nini,” Captain Oset said. “You should thump him good. It’s the only way to get the message across. He’ll dump you in a cholla bush if he gets the chance.”

“He isn’t going to get the chance.” I took the reins from the private. “You are going to be a good boy, Murdoch, or you are going to be dog food. Your choice.”

Murdoch rolled a large yellowish eye at me as if to say
You think, puggie,
but he stood meekly as I remounted.

“Were you going to leave us behind?” Captain Oset said reproachfully.

“I’m sorry, Captain, but it’s best if Flynn and I track the jaguar alone. It’s very dangerous. No offense, but I need to focus on the hunt, not worry about bystanders.” Needless to say, I did not want Captain Oset around when I ran down Espejo.

“I don’t really feel very good about letting you go on alone,” Captain Oset said. “Major Rucker—”

Evil Murdoch suddenly lashed out and bit at Oset’s mule. The mule brayed angrily and snapped back. Murdoch bounced. I leaned backward, trying to keep my balance, and in doing so, dropped Flynn’s lead rope. Like a shot, Flynn flew down the road, the lead trailing behind him.

With a bellow, Evil Murdoch took off after him as I fought to stay on his back. I regained my balance and sawed at the reins, but it was like cutting wood with cheese. He didn’t slow down. Oset and the patrol were right behind me, whooping and hollering. Flynn showed no sign of stopping. The die was cast. For better or worse, we were on the hunt. When we caught up with Espejo, I’d just have to shoot first and then be surprised after that he was a man. The Abacination Sigils would be harder to explain, but I’d worry about that later.

As far as I knew, Flynn had never tracked anything in his life, but with the help of my sigil, he was like a bloodhound. He tore down the road and our mounts were hard-pressed to keep up. A mule at a fast clip is bouncy. My teeth rattled; my hinder jolted on Evil Murdoch’s spiny spine. Down the road, down the wash, up the wash, up the ridge, over the ridge, down the ridge Flynn went, our detail bounding after him.

“That dog can run!” Captain Oset hollered.

“I told you he was a great tracker!” I hollered back.

“Señor Jaguar is going to wish he’d never been born!” Captain Oset crowed.

Ahead of us, Flynn’s rope had gotten caught up on a cactus; he was struggling to free himself. I urged Murdoch forward, but with a writhing wrench, Flynn jerked free, leaving the rope tangled in the spines, and loped across a rocky riverbed. I followed, but Captain Oset shouted a halt.

“Why are you calling a halt?” I had pulled Evil Murdoch’s nose around to confront her.

“That’s the Line.” Oset pointed. “We can’t cross the Line.”

I looked back at the riverbed. Flynn was already scrabbling down the rocky grade.

“It looks like a wash.”

“Maybe so, but it’s the Line.”

“Do you want this jaguar or not?” I asked impatiently. “It killed one of your troopers. It could kill another.”

“Of course I do, but we can’t cross the Line,” Oset repeated. “It’s strictly against orders.”

“You all don’t seem too keen on orders out here,” I answered. “You openly practice magick. You’ve got ice elementals and sigil lights. Now we’ve got a man-eater in our sights, and suddenly orders are all that matter?”

“Some rules are too important to break.”

“You go back, then. I’m going forward.”

“I can’t let you do it, Captain,” Oset said. Suddenly I was staring down the barrel of her revolver. “I will have to put you under arrest.”

“If you want to shoot me, shoot me, but you are not putting me under arrest.”

“Better to be under arrest than dead.”

“I don’t think so. But let’s find out.”

Oset was chewing on her lip, and by that I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to shoot me. Her next words proved me right.

“Please consider this carefully,” she pleaded.

The soldiers were staring at us avidly; it’s always fun to watch officers threaten each other. I glanced at the Line; it looked like nothing, just a rocky wash. You could ride across it and not even realize you had done so. But it represented an agreement between the Broncos and Califa. Major Rucker had said one more incursion and the deal for the jade might be off.

Espejo was on the other side.

And there was a good chance Tiny Doom was as well.

It’s not all about you, Flora.
These words echoed in my brain, although I couldn’t remember now who had said them. This was about more than just me. It was about the future of Califa, a future that I might never get a chance to share but that mattered more than anything else.

You aren’t the center of the world, Flora,
the voice said.

And neither was Tiny Doom. Not when Califa’s freedom was at stake.

But Flynn, stupid Snapperdog with the sigil on his collar—I shouted at him to come back, but he had already reached the other side of the wash. The patrol set to hollering and calling:
Good dog, come back, sweet dog, happy boy, come back!
Captain Oset found some jerky in her pocket and waved it enticingly to no avail. Snapperdog had crested the opposite edge, and in a few seconds he had vanished.

“He’ll come back when he’s hungry,” Captain Oset said reassuringly “I don’t think the Broncos care about dogs crossing the Line. And if they find him first, well, they like dogs. I’m sure they’ll take care of him.”

“He won’t come back,” I said. “He’s got a Locative Sigil on his collar. He won’t stop until he’s found the jaguar. He can’t stand against a jaguar. He’s as good as dead.”

“Fike, I’m sorry Nini,” Captain Oset said, but so what her sorrow?

I shouted again, but my cry was pointless. Flynn was gone. Swallowed up by the brittle brilliant landscape.

Captain Oset ordered the detail back to the post, but when I clicked my reins, Evil Murdoch refused to budge. I hammered my heels against his sides and whacked at his head, but he just flicked his ears, dropped his nose, and stayed rooted to the ground.

“Go, you fiker! Go!” I shouted, and still he did not move.

Captain Oset drew around and jogged toward us, her swagger stick held at striking level. But before she reached him, Evil Murdoch bounced straight up into the air and gave a little kick. Suddenly I was lying on the ground. I rolled over, grit burning my hands, and saw Evil Murdoch bouncing across the wash, kicking joyfully The troopers were shouting; a private jumped down to hoist me to my feet.

I wished I could have lain in the dust forever.

D
UTY GOES ON,
despite your own personal sorrows. When we got back to Sandy, I discovered that an unfortunate side effect of impersonating an officer is that everyone expects you to act like one. All I wanted was to go back to the UOQ. curl up in a ball, and howl. Instead, I found myself assisting Captain Oset at sick-call, helping her hand out bandages to privates with hangnails and doses of calomel to corporals with the polka. After sick call came stable call, and after stable call I was ordered to supervise the completion of the forage returns. I had come a thousand miles and was stuck in the same old dull routine.

Only now, instead of worrying about my future, I was worrying about Flynn. He’d be safe until sundown, when Espejo crawled out of whatever hole he was hunkered down in. But the desert is full of dangers above and beyond a Birdie nahual. Rattlesnakes and thirst and javalinas and holes and Goddess-knows-what else. Flynn had heart, but he lacked the sense that would keep him from investigating a rattler or falling into a prairie-dog hole. Seeing my worry, Captain Oset tried to console me with stories of miraculous dogs who had miraculously survived floods, shipwrecks, avalanches.

“And, anyway,” she said, “maybe Evil Murdoch stuck with him. I once saw a mule stomp a mountain lion to death.”

I appreciated her effort, but somehow I didn’t think Evil Murdoch would be much help to Flynn. Or to anyone.

Flynn had trusted me, had followed me willingly, and I had sent him to his death. I knew now I would never be a good officer. Nini Mo said that to win, an officer must sacrifice for that which she loves most—her soldiers. I didn’t have the stomach for such sacrifices. I would have let Espejo live a thousand years if only Flynn were back with me.

After the forage returns were completed, Captain Oset tried to get me to help her with water call, but I played the shirker’s card, pled a horrible headache, and so was dismissed back to the UOQ_I could not go one minute longer without bursting into howls of regret and sorrow. When had I last slept—really slept? It was so long ago, I couldn’t even remember. But when I lay down, my nerves were like little wires, razor sharp and humming, and they would not let me rest. I took a big swig of the Tum-O and that did the trick, darkly.