Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (40 page)

“No. We will wait. She cannot escape me now. It is only a matter of time.”

“Well, then, let’s settle in. Ya look pale, Lord. Need a little pick-me-up? I’ll bet the girl tastes pretty sweet. I kin hold her for you, if you want.”

“Leave her alone,” Espejo said sharply, and La Bruja just laughed. She dug out a hip flask and offered it to Espejo, who shook his head with a grimace. I guess the Lord of the Smoked Mirror doesn’t go much for mescal. I also rejected La Bruja’s offer, but before Espejo could intercede, she forced the flask against my mouth. Despite my frantic head-shaking, a few foul drops got through my clenched lips and burned my mouth.

“Put the flask away!” Espejo said. “Show some restraint!”

La Bruja obeyed. I lay back in the dirt, my side throbbing, my jaw aching, thinking hateful, hateful thoughts about La Bruja, about Espejo—and waiting. The fork was tucked up in my sleeve. The Oatmeal Word lingered at the back of my palate. I was ready for the hot moment. I had to hit Espejo before nightfall, before he came into his full power. Espejo sat silent and still, his legs crossed, his hands folded on his knees, the painted golden eyes glittering. Next to him, La Bruja was crouched on her heels, braiding some strands of horsehair, humming tunelessly to herself. She was blocking my line of fire. I didn’t think I could say the Word twice, so I sure as fike did not want to waste it on her. But maybe I could draw Espejo over to me.

“Your Grace,” I said in a quavery voice. “Could I have some water—”

“We ain’t got any water,” La Bruja said swiftly, before Espejo could answer. “Shut yer trap and keep it shut, or I’ll shut it fer yer.”

“Go down to the wash and get her some water,” Espejo ordered. Thank the Goddess! As soon as she was gone, I’d hit him hard, with all my might.

But instead of obeying, La Bruja stood up and said, “Here, I fergot I had a canteen. Drink.”

Fike. I took the canteen from her and drank. The water tasted like ashes. The throbbing in my side was receding, but it was being replaced by a great wave of tiredness. I yawned so widely, I thought my skull might split.

“Ye ever been to Matapatos, Yer Grace?” La Bruja asked.

“No,” Espejo answered.

“I was down there last year. There’s this dama there named Loosey Lucia; she run the best rat fights in all of Arivaipa. She got a champion ratter, Teacup is his name. Oh, when that terrier is on a roll, he can bite fifty rats in five minutes, no trouble ’tall. His bite’s sharper than an ungrateful child. Yer oughter go down there sometime. It’s something to see. I won seventy-five divas and aim to take in more still. I’m saving up fer a new ditto suit...” On and on and on La Bruja went, yammering about poker games, and long-dead horses, and the Broncos she’d killed, and the drunks she’d had, and the hunts she’d been on, and the shirts she’d worn, and the BBQshe’d eaten, and the men she’d loved. Several times Espejo bid her shut up but she didn’t remain silent long.

I tried to think of another plan, another way to get Espejo within my range, but my eyes were growing heavier and heavier and I could no longer hold my head up. My bones felt as though they were melting into jelly; my flesh was wooden, heavy I closed my eyes, La Bruja’s voice one long drone that carried me away to darkness.

I woke to a boot heel in the ribs. I sat up, groggily, head swimming, and said, “You drugged me.”

“Naw,” La Bruja said. “Ya just didn’t like my stories. Come on.” She yanked me to my feet and I stood shakily My head felt as though it were full of wet sand. Outside, the bright glare was beginning to fade. Oh, pigface, fike. I had slept my advantage away It was now or never.

Espejo was already standing. He said to me, “Can you walk?”

I started to say,
Fike you,
and bit the words back. “I think La Bruja broke one of my ribs,” I said, twisting my voice into a whine. “It hurts to breathe.”

He leaned over me. “Why did you not say so earlier?”

“Aw, she’s malingering,” La Bruja said. Espejo pushed her away.

I felt his ice-cold hands fumble at my side. I almost puked at the smell of him, so noxiously close. I mewed and whined, and eventually he hoisted me to my feet, an arm around my shoulder. I didn’t have to pretend very hard to be wobbly.

“Let’s leave her here,” La Bruja said. “She’ll only slow us down. I’ll tie her tightly and we can come back later.”

“No,” Espejo said. He hoisted me up and half carried, half dragged me out of the cave. La Bruja was right behind us.

Outside, the sky was purple and yellow, dusk but not yet full dark. We skittered down the incline, rocks rolling under our feet. Below us, the wash was still flooded with rushing water, brown and foamy, seeded with broken tree limbs and drowned tumbleweeds. The steep grade was treacherous with uprooted plants, slick with mud. About a quarter of the way down, I went limp. Espejo sagged under my sudden weight, gripping hard as he tried to hold on to me. I flung my arms around his neck, almost choking from his foul breath on my face. I let my heels slide, felt his footing start to falter.

He grunted, fingers digging in, and said, “I won’t let you fall.”

The moment couldn’t have been hotter if the air had been on fire.

I spat. The Oatmeal Word seared my throat, scorched my lips. Glowing like molten glass, it hit Espejo square on the nose. He let out a gurgled yelp and dropped me. I hit the mud and skidded several painful feet before catching my boot heels and coming to a stop. Rolling over, I saw that Espejo had collapsed and was wiggling on the ground like piece of bacon in a frying pan. A blackish pink glow suffused his skin.

“Fike!” La Bruja shouted. I turned my head and saw her skidding down the incline toward me. Scrambling to my feet, I lunged at her, stumbling, and felt the fork sink in—I wasn’t sure what part of her I’d hit, but her yelp sounded glorious. I got one good twist in before she shoved me away. Below, Espejo was still quivering, his back arching almost into a bow, his arms and legs stiffening like boards.

I skidded in the mud and clambered as fast as I could back toward the cave and Oset’s gun. I tripped and a rock hammered a bright pain into my knee. I scrambled back to my feet. A horrible howl filled the air, reverberating off the canyon walls, curling up my spine.

I looked over my shoulder and saw La Bruja braced on the incline, a thin black rope looping lazily above her head. The horsehair she’d been braiding in the cave was now a lariat. Below her, a black jaguar crouched in the dust, tail whipping back and forth, puking up a roiling mess of blackish pink coldfire. The cat coughed and hacked, shaking its head, as the loop of La Bruja’s rope whipped faster until it was a whistling blur. The jaguar looked up and sprang. The loop was moving so quickly I couldn’t see if it caught the cat, but when La Bruja jerked the rope tight, the jaguar fell out of its leap into a tangled sprawl.

I didn’t waste any more time; I scrambled the last few feet to the cave’s mouth. Inside the cave, it was pitchblack. I fumbled through the darkness to where I remembered seeing Oset’s gun belt. I almost screamed in relief when my groping hand felt leather. Oh, happy gun!

Outside, the dusk had darkened to night. The coldfire the jaguar had sicked up had spread to an uprooted bush, which now burned with an eerie blackish-pink light. The jaguar was still struggling at the end of La Bruja’s rope, and she was having a hard time holding it. Her heels were dug in, but she was sliding.

“Come on, you snapperhead, come on!” she shouted. The jaguar writhed and sprang into the air, yanking the lariat out of her grip. La Bruja fell back and sat down hard in the mud. The jaguar surged up the hill toward her like a streak of black lightning, the lariat whipping behind it. La Bruja’s moccasins weren’t getting a grip in the mud. She fumbled at her waist, but I fired first.

In the dark, the moving cat was a hard target, and my shot went wide, exploding a harmless cactus. La Bruja was yelling something, but the gunshot had deafened me. I fired again, and the hammer snapped on an empty chamber. Fike.

The jaguar was barely a foot away from her when, with an echoing bray, Evil Murdoch exploded out of nowhere. Murdoch caught the cat by surprise, grabbing it by the neck and lifting it off the ground, tossing it like a toy. The jaguar twisted, paws lashing, and with a bray of pain, Murdoch let go. The jaguar was rolling when Murdoch lashed out with a hoof, caught the cat in its side. It flew through the air and landed in a cactus, shrieking.

During all this, La Bruja clambered to her feet and ran up the hill toward me, a very large unsheathed knife in her hand. I still couldn’t hear her over the ringing in my ears. But I would be fiked if I stood there like a snapperhead and let her gut me.

I screamed. The Word tore what was left of my voice from me. Lucky for Tharyn he hadn’t swallowed that Word at the ZuZu’s ball. It ignited when it hit La Bruja, and she exploded into a ball of coldfire, lost her footing, and tumbled backward. The jaguar had torn himself loose from the cactus, but now La Bruja and the coldfire rolled into him, and he was enveloped by the blaze as well. The ringing in my ears was overlaid with a dull roar. A flash flood was filling the wash. I watched as the burning maelstrom bounced down the hillside. Then a wall of water burst through and washed La Bruja and the jaguar away.

M
Y KNEES WOULDN'T HOLD ME
anymore, so I sat down on a rock by the mouth of the cave. I wished I had my canteen. My mouth tasted of oily blood, and my throat felt as though it had been cut to ribbands. It was too dark now to see the wash below, but I could hear the roar of the water. Plenty of water, but none to drink. Evil Murdoch ruffled my hair with his furry lip. There were some scratches and blood on his neck, but he otherwise seemed all right.

And then I thought I saw a dim pink spark in his eyes. “Pig?” My voice sounded like a dying accordion. Where had he come from? I hadn’t summoned him. And yet he had still come. Tears pricked at my eyes. I scratched his nose in thanks. He
hee-hawed,
yellow teeth gleaming in the darkness, and then bounded away to nibble on an uprooted mesquite bush.

Until the water in the wash went down, I was stuck. One of the privates had left his blouse lying in the back of the cave. I put it on and found a small bottle in the right pocket and, in the left, a tintype of a man holding a lacy baby in one arm and a bull terrier in the other. The bottle contained apple jack; it burned as it went down, but it also soothed the soreness. He had a hankie, too, relatively clean, which I used to wipe the mud off my face. I ejected the faulty round from Oset’s revolver and reloaded, then sat back down on my rock and waited for the water to recede.

Somehow I fell asleep and when I awoke, stiff and tired, it was daylight again. Evil Murdoch was standing a few yards away, head drooping sleepily. When I sat up, he let out a bray that even I understood:
Let’s get the fike out of here.
We made our way down to the edge of the wash. The water had gone down to a trickle. Evil Murdoch allowed me to clamber up on his spiny back, and then he picked his way slowly through the debris.

We rode through the bright morning, as new-scrubbed and blue as the first day of the world, and, about a quarter of mile or so down the track, came across the patrol’s camp. The mules brayed out a welcome to Evil Murdoch and he
hee-hawed
back, scattering the soldiers from their makeshift beds.

Sergeant Tzinga rushed toward me, asking anxiously “Are you all right, Captain? Where’s Captain Oset and La Bruja?”

“The jaguar attacked us,” I said. “It went for La Bruja, and when Captain Oset tried to help her, they were all swept away in the wash.”

It was obvious that Corporal Tzinga wasn’t sure if he should believe me or not, and that my wild accusations regarding Captain Oset still weighed on him. But he didn’t dare question my account. Rank does have its privileges.

We spent the rest of the morning wallowing along the wash, looking for some sign of La Bruja and Espejo. We found La Bruja’s hat and one of her moccasins. We found tangled tack and soggy saddles; Private Pinto’s knapsack, contents soaked; a busted tin oil lamp; a crate that contained a porcelain figurine of the Warlord, wrapped in straw and somehow unbroken. We found a dead javelina and a lot of brush. One of the mules was lodged up on the bank of the wash; the vultures were already on the job.