Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (39 page)

“I hate this place!” Munds yelped. He didn’t seem grateful that I was saving his life.

“Shut up!” I wasn’t in the mood to listen to whining.

“I wish you’d-a let me drown.”

“Suck it up. And shut up. That’s an order.”

“My knee hurts.”

“Your hinder is going to hurt when I kick it. Sit down.”

Munds sniffed and plunked himself down, drew his knees up, and laid his head on them. My boots were squelching, my drawers were already chafing, and it was cold.

Rest while you can,
Nini Mo said. Clearly we weren’t going anywhere, so I, too, drew my knees up and lay my head on them, trying to stay warm. Surely Espejo would be dead by the time the storm was over. Then I’d regroup the patrol, get back to Fort Sandy, and try to send a message to Tiny Doom that it was over. She was safe. I was safe. I didn’t feel safe, though. I just felt tired, as though I could sleep forever and never wake up.

For what seemed like a very long time, the storm howled, rain sheeting down like steel curtains, lightning bursting through the dark clouds like fireworks. But gradually, the thunder and lightning faded, leaving only the rain to pour down. I dozed a bit and woke up chilled but less wet, then dozed again. Munds sat silently, his head still pillowed on his knees. Eventually, I realized the rain was lessening. I stood up, my knees creaking, my feet as solid as blocks of wood, and peered out from the overhang. The torrent had softened to a patter, and the sky was slightly tinged with blue.

“Get up,” I said. Munds raised his head and looked at me defiantly.

“You go, Captain. I’m staying here.”

“Move.” At the bite in my voice—pigface, I sounded just like Buck!—Munds staggered to his feet. Compared to the earlier deluge, the rain now felt almost gentle.

The ground was a muddy morass, churned into channels and littered with debris: rocks, broken branches, smashed cacti. Below us, the boulders where we’d camped were in a rushing river of foamy water, brown as baby shite and cluttered with uprooted bushes. A dead animal—a javelina, maybe—bobbed by. To the east, the sky was clearing, bisected by a gloriously iridescent rainbow. We clambered through the mud until we could see the mouth of the cave in the rocks above. A figure waved at us. Corporal Tzinga. He was yelling something.

I hauled myself up the last few feet and accepted Tzinga’s outstretched hand for a boost onto the cave’s lip. Two other troopers hauled Munds in after me. I leaned over, breathing heavily, and wiped the water from my eyes.

“Good news, Captain!” Tzinga said. “Captain Oset’s awake.”

T
ZING'S WORDS HIT ME
like acid to the face. For a moment, I thought I might faint. I looked past him into the dimness of the cave. When my eyes adjusted, I saw Espejo, still wearing Oset’s skin, sitting against the wall. He looked wet and muddy, but he was definitely alive.

“Corporal, disarm her,” Espejo ordered.

Tzinga looked startled. “Sir?”

“Disarm her! She is under arrest! She tried to poison me!”

“Captain Romney said you fell and hit your head, Captain.” Tzinga seemed mighty confused, and so did the other troopers, who were wide-eyed, brows furrowed.

“A lie!” Espejo said. “She poisoned me. She tried to kill me.”

I said, “Corporal, you have to listen to me. He looks like Captain Oset, but he’s not. He’s a Birdie nahual. He killed Captain Oset, stole her skin. He’s going to kill me and all of you as well, Corporal.”

Espejo laughed weakly. “Don’t listen to her! She’s an imposter. She’s not a captain; her name isn’t even Romney. She’s here under false orders. I order you to take her gun, Corporal.”

“I know he looks like her, Corporal, but he’s not! I swear to you on Califa’s grave, you have to listen to me—” I said.

“If you do not take her gun and put her under arrest, I shall have you arrested, too, Corporal.”

Tzinga looked agonizingly indecisive. He was in a tough spot, caught between two officers. But he had to follow the orders of the officer he thought was his superior. Behind him, the troopers were muttering uneasily staring at the spectacle.

“Please, Captain,” Tzinga said. “Just give me your side arm. I don’t want to have to take it.” He was two feet taller than me. He could take it easily I unbuckled Oset’s belt and tossed it toward Tzinga, who gave it to Espejo.

“Bind her hands!” Espejo ordered.

I took a step back. A Gramatica Word rolled sourly in my mouth, but I didn’t dare spit it at Espejo—the cave was too small and Tzinga was in my line of fire.

I said, “I can prove what I say. Nahuals shun the sun. Step out of the cave, into daylight, if you dare—”

“I would be happy to prove your lie,” Espejo said. “But I am too weak to move from this spot, thanks to your poison. Corporal, obey me!”

“I’m sorry, Captain Romney,” Tzinga said, pleadingly. I took another step back, and another—and ran into someone who said, “Advancin’ in the opposite direction, darlin’?”

I could tell by the smell, a ripe combination of bug juice, sweat, and mud, that it was La Bruja. She took my arm in a not-so-friendly grip, and when I tried to shake free, the grip became squeezy.

Espejo ordered, “Corporal, bind her hands!”

Corporal Tzinga and a private moved toward me, but La Bruja forestalled them. “Oh, I got her. She ain’t going nowhere. Looks like I am missin’ a dance. Can I join the fun?”

“He’s not Captain Oset,” I told her. “He’s a nahual who killed Oset, took her skin—”

“She’s deranged,” Espejo interrupted.

“She does sound kinda crazy, I’ll admit,” La Bruja answered.

“Let go of me.” I twisted in her grasp. She just laughed and pinched my arm more tightly.

Espejo turned to Corporal Tzinga. “Corporal, take the troopers and go round up the mules.”

Tzinga protested, “Sir, it’s not right to leave you alone with Captain Romney, if she did try to kill you—”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Tzinga,” La Bruja said encouragingly. “I got madama here in good hand and will make sure everything is nice and fine. You better cross that wash while you can—the flood ain’t over yet, not by a long shot.”

“Obey me!” Espejo hissed to Tzinga. “And you may go as well, madama. I have no need of your services.”

“No, I guess I’ll stay. I got no place else to be and this is interestin’,” La Bruja said cheerfully Espejo gave her a withering look, but she didn’t budge. Tzinga ordered the troopers to follow him, and they did, with many backward glances. We stood at the mouth of the cave, La Bruj a firmly gripping my arm, and watched the troopers slip and slide down the hill in the warm flood of sunshine, dodging crushed cacti and torn bushes. They waded carefully through the still-foamy wash, then disappeared among the rocks on the other side.

“Did ya try to poison him?” La Bruja demanded, turning back to me.

“Ayah,” I admitted. La Bruja had said
him,
not
her.
Did she believe me?

“This is Army business,” Espejo said. “Leave us!”

She ignored him and asked me, “What with?” “Madama Twanky’s Tum-O.”

“Cure ya or kill ya. Tum-O is nothin’ but straight laudanum, with a little ginger to give it zing. Stop up yer bowels and send you to an endless sleep if you guzzle the whole bottle. So I gotta wonder.” She turned to Espejo. “How is it that you drank it down and are fresh as a daisy?”

“The bottle must have been mostly empty,” Espejo answered.

“It was almost full,” I protested.

La Bruja said, “Now, a pophead could drink that bottle, have a little nap, and ask for more. But Oset, she wasn’t no pophead. Dead set against the stuff, actually. Seems strange, then, to take such a big dose so easy. What do you say to that,
Captain?”

“This is none of your concern,” Espejo snapped.

“Yer peeling,” La Bruja remarked.

Startled, Espejo put a hand to his head. The skin on the left side of Oset’s face was beginning to sag, drawing the lip down into a snarl. He leaned over, clawing at his head, and the entire thing slid off in an awful slimy rush. I gurgled. Espejo straightened up, Oset’s face dangling in his hand like a soggy discarded rag. His own face—his true face—was covered with a slick red bloody film, like a newborn baby.

“That is a relief,” he said. “I do not know how the Flayed Priests stand it.”

La Bruja gasped and dropped to her knees, yanking me painfully down with her. “Yer pardon, Great Lord!” she cried. “I didn’t recognize yer before! I thought Captain Romney was plumb crazy! Fergive me!”

“You know me?” Espejo said in astonishment.

She had grabbed his slimy hand and was kissing it—yuck. She said as she slobbered, “Ayah, Your Grace. My ma, she was a Huitzil. I know I ain’t turned out like much, but she brought me up to honor the Smoked Mirror. Once, she took me to the Harvest festival in Anahuatl City, and I saw ya give a hundred men to the Lord of the Smoked Mirror. I could never forgit the Duque de Espejo y Ahumado. I am yer servant!”

“You witch!” I hissed.

I didn’t see the swing, only felt the sickening blow to the side of my head. I fell over in a heap, wheezing, and somewhere behind the tummy-turning pain was the thought that when I got my chance with La Bruja I wouldn’t be squeamish, not at all. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard her say eagerly “This girl ain’t got no respect fer you, yer grace. Let me kill her for yer.”

“Do not touch her!” Espejo said sharply.

“You kin bank on me!” La Bruja whined. I sat up dizzily, the world swooning about me. For a moment, there were two La Brujas groveling at two Espejos’s feet. The blurred figures resolved down to the proper number, which were still two too many. Espejo pulled away from La Bruja and leaned over me, saying, “Are you hurt?”

“Fike you!” I spat, tasting blood through the bright pain in my mouth. I had bitten my tongue. “Don’t touch me!”

“Don’t yer flap at His Grace like that,” La Bruja said sharply.

“Fike you, too!”

La Bruja made as though she was going to slap me again, and Espejo said swiftly, “This girl belongs to the Lord of the Smoked Mirror. If you truly honor him, you will obey me.”

“This girl?” La Bruja said scornfully, “Why does the Lord of the Smoked Mirror want this girl? She sure ain’t much. She’s just a dirty Blackcoat, a soldier dog. And not a very good one, neither. She ain’t hardly worthy of him.” “That is not for you to decide,” Espejo said. “This girl’s family belongs to the Lord of the Smoked Mirror. Until now, she and her mother have escaped his embrace. But I have found her now, and soon I shall find her mother. They will return to Ciudad Anahuatl to honor the Lord with their lives.”

“Let me help you!” La Bruja said eagerly “I kin find her mam—I’m a great tracker. An’ I know everyone in this country. Who is she? I’ll go out and get her, bring her to ya.”

“She is hiding from me. I do not know her name here.”

During this conversation, I had managed to leverage myself upright, despite the burning pain in my side. I noticed a little gleam in the darkness near the discarded blanket. I oh-so-slowly reached out and hooked the gleam in, pulled it toward me. It was an Army-issue fork: threepronged and plenty sharp. I slid it up my sleeve, and just in time, for Espejo was kneeling before me.
Wait until themoment is hot before you strike,
Nini Mo said. This was not a hot moment.

La Bruja turned on me. “Do you know where she is? Tell us or I’ll make you sad you kept yer trap shut!”

“I’m already sad you didn’t fall off your mule and break your neck,” I said. La Bruja raised her leg as though she was going to boot me, and I cringed in anticipation.

“Did I not tell you to leave her?” Espejo interjected, pushing La Bruja away. “I have other methods to know her mind. She can conceal nothing from me. If she knows where her mother is, I shall know, too.”

He bent over me again. In the murk, his eyes gleamed goldly, flat and reflective. “Where is she,
muñeca
?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do not lie to me,
por favor.
You know that I can find out, whether you wish to tell me or not. I can take the information from you, but I allow you to give it to me. I am being kind. I know she came to see you. What did she tell you?”

“Fike you.” The bravado was ruined by the quaver in my voice. He
could
take the knowledge from me, and I could not stop him. I had tried to forget what had happened in Barbacoa, but I could not, and the memory made me weak with fear.
Don’t be a hero,
Nini Mo said.
Everyone breaks eventually. Save yourself the pain and give in.
I said, “She said she’s going to kill you. And I should sit tight and let her.”

“And then she left. Where did she go?”

“Across the Line. That’s all I know.”

“I followed that trail. It looped around and came back, and then disappeared. Tell me where she is!”

“I don’t know,” I said. “And that’s the truth. With the Broncos, I guess. You are welcome to find them. I’m sure they’d be happy to roast you like a pumpkin—”

La Bruja shut me up with a sharp kick to the ribs. I flopped over and lay there, clutching my side and trying to distract myself from the pain by focusing on what I would do to her. Through my gasping, I noticed something else: Oset’s gun belt. Espejo had tossed it aside, and now it lay ignored on the gravel.

Espejo had stood up threateningly when La Bruja kicked me, but before he could admonish her, she said quickly, “Across the Line? With the Broncos—listen—I’ve had some truck with them Broncos, camped with them from time to time, and I know their ways. There’s a woman rides with them. She pretends to be a Bronco, but she ain’t. She got red hair and I ain’t never seen a Bronco with red hair. I know where they camp. I can show you. I’ll wager you’ll find her there, or else they’ll know where she is.”

That snapperheaded bitch. A Gramatica Curse hovered on my lips but I bit it back—for now. You could bet that when I was done with her, La Bruja was going to wish she’d never been born.

Espejo said, “We will go as you say But we shall wait for nightfall.”

“I can go on my own, bring her back to ya, Your Grace, so as not to waste any time. Take the girl with me—”