Revenge and the Wild (9 page)

The next morning Nigel and Westie left for town to pick up Alistair from Doc Flannigan’s office. Westie breathed slowly through her mouth. It was hot as a kiln out, but she shivered as her nausea crept up again. After James had left the evening before, Westie had snuck into Nigel’s office, where he kept a stash of absinthe on hand for entertaining guests. She’d only meant to have one drink, but somehow one became four.

“Stop the wagon,” she said, hopping down before he had the chance. She bent over, hands on her knees on the side of the road, and stayed that way until the feeling passed.

Nigel frowned. “Is this something I should be concerned about?”

Westie spit in the dirt. “Must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”

He mumbled under his breath, then went to his medical bag and
pulled out a cup. He filled it with water and dropped what looked like a sugar cube inside. When it started to fizz, he handed it to her.

“Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

She wrinkled her face in disgust upon tasting the chalky drink, but once she got it down, her stomach began to settle. They climbed back into the wagon without another word spoken between them.

Their next stop was in front of the doc’s office, where an old man sat in a chair, whittling away at a piece of basswood. Westie jumped out of the wagon, her clothes clinging uncomfortably to her skin. A few horses waited in the shade of an awning, but the streets were mostly abandoned.

She reached for one of the boxes Nigel had brought to give to the doc in exchange for Alistair’s care.

“What the hell did you pack in this thing?” she asked, lifting the box with her machine and steadying it with her flesh arm. It was big enough that she couldn’t see a thing in front of her. She balanced the box on her knee before trying to brave the steps. “Are you and the doc cutting up dead bodies again?”

Westie had been only eleven years old when she’d walked in on Nigel, the doctor, and the old sheriff performing an autopsy. What took less than a minute to witness took years to finally get out of her head.

“Just a few inventions I came up with. Thermometers and alarms, mostly,” Nigel said.

As Westie reached the top step, a scream punctured the doldrums of the lazy day, the kind of shattering sound that turned blood
to ice and muscles to stone. She dropped the heavy box and heard the tinkle of something delicate breaking within as it tumbled down the steps.

“What in the heavens was that?” Nigel said.

The sheriff barreled out of the jail next door. His shirt was untucked, drool crusted on his chin, and he had the puffy eyes of someone woken suddenly from a nap.

Westie’s heart jittered as she looked around, waiting for something to happen.

A woman erupted from the dark space between the general store and the tailor, tripping over the wagon ruts in the road and landing on the ground before pushing herself back up and running again.

“Help me,” she cried, her eyes wild, blond hair unraveling from its bun, dress torn and bloodied.

She was just a streak of color and noise as she passed Westie, who pulled the sword from her parasol.

The sheriff reached for his gun, but he wasn’t wearing his belt. “Dammit, my gun’s still in the jail. Wait right there,” he said to Westie, but it was too late. She was already running in the opposite direction, toward the alley where the woman had come from.

Westie’s mind scrambled for the different scenarios she might encounter. The hard soles of her boots made it difficult to maneuver over the ruts, and several times she nearly went down when her ankles buckled. She was vaguely aware of the sheriff’s shouts from behind her and of the slower steps following behind her. By the time she reached the darkness, whoever had been there with the woman was gone.

Westie panted as she buried her blade in its sheath, the heat of the day making her feel light-headed. Behind her, Nigel leaned heavily on his cane, trying to catch his breath. “Anything?” he said with the toothy grimace of a man in pain.

“Nothing.”

The woman had collapsed in the sheriff’s arms in front of Doc Flannigan’s office, her body quivering from her racking sobs.

Others spilled out of shops, cluttering the porches to see what all the commotion was about. Isabelle stood in front of her parents’ apothecary, eyes alight with intrigue. Westie took Nigel by the elbow and helped him make his way back to the sheriff.

“Westie, I told you to wait,” the sheriff said in his Texas drawl, and spit a thick stream of tobacco juice on the ground beside her.

Westie wasn’t sure why all the women in town thought he was the handsomest man in Rogue City. Sure, he was tall and lean and packed with muscle. But he was also hairy and slightly horseshoe legged. But mostly it was his personality that made him ugly to Westie. If he were a horse with a disposition like that, he would’ve been put down by now.

“I didn’t realize you were talking to me,” Westie lied.

“Do you see any other dumb shits around here with a death wish?” The sheriff rarely cussed, but when he did it was usually at her. He still hadn’t gotten over the embarrassment she’d caused him when he’d nearly hanged an innocent man for cannibalism.

“Like the kind of dumb shits who forget their gun belts in jails?” she said.

The sheriff’s mustache covered his mouth, but the gathering of skin on his forehead suggested a frown. He tilted his tan Stetson, pointed a finger at her, said, “Watch yourself,” and focused on the woman once more.

“She was right behind me,” the woman said. “Please, you have to do something!” She clawed at the sheriff’s shirt, nearly climbing up the front of him in her frenzy.

“She?”
Westie said.

“Whoever it was is gone now,” Nigel assured her. He leaned over, massaging his bad leg.

Westie persisted. “What do you mean,
she
?”

“A woman,” she said through weeping hiccups. “She paid for my services and then she . . . she bit me.”

Westie noticed for the first time the woman’s rouged cheeks and red lips. Black paint melted from her lashes down her cheeks. She was older than most of the prostitutes Westie had seen at the blood brothel. Her scant clothing showed off a plump body, round in all the places men liked.

When most of the gawkers saw she was a prostitute, they lost interest and went back indoors. Only a curious few remained.

“Go on, then, you vultures,” Isabelle said to them as they muttered their insults about the woman’s profession.

“What’s your name?” Westie asked the woman.

The sheriff glared at Westie. “I’m conducting this interview.” His voice was so deep it sounded like he was growling when he talked.

“What’s your name?” the sheriff said.

Westie bit her words back and pressed her lips shut, afraid if she pushed him too far he’d make her leave.

“Nadia.”

“Did you say a woman bit you?” the sheriff said, as if women couldn’t possibly be capable of such derangement.

Nadia pushed the loose hair from her shoulder, revealing a deep oval wound gouged out of the curve of her neck. The sheriff paled and brought his handkerchief to his mouth. Nigel used his pocket square to dab away the blood, but as soon as he stopped, the deep crater filled up again.

“You’re sure it was just a woman and not an entire family?” Westie said.

Nigel shot her a look full of daggers.

The sheriff seemed too ill to reprimand her.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Hubbard, Cain, James, and the mayor stepped out of the apothecary, each with a stack of pamphlets in his hands.

“No, just a woman.”

So it wasn’t the Fairfield men, but what of Lavina? She was nowhere around.

“What did the woman look like?” Westie asked, desperate for any detail that might link Lavina to the attack.

She could tell by the distant look in Nadia’s eyes that she was going into shock. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her. She whispered to me in the shadows, handed me a bag of coins, and told me to—”

“I don’t think we need all the sordid details with ladies around,”
the sheriff said, cutting her off. He glanced at Westie. “And I use that word loosely.” He put his handkerchief back in his pocket. The color had seeped back into his lips and he stood straighter. “Let’s get you to the doctor for patching. I’ll take your statement when you’re through.”

Westie kicked at the dirt, knowing justice was unlikely, given Nadia’s employment.

When the sheriff was gone, Westie said to Nigel, “This is a cannibal’s doing.” There was no need to say names. Nigel knew exactly who she was talking about.

“Cannibals?” With the excitement of the event, Westie had failed to notice Isabelle behind her. “You really think so? There hasn’t been a cannibal attack in these parts for years.”

Isabelle was right; there hadn’t been cannibals near Rogue City for some time. Cannibals used to be a problem back when Westie’s parents and others like them were still traveling the wagon trail, but by the next year, after the creature war officially ended and air travel became more affordable, there had been very few attacks. The only ones Westie heard of were in the valley where she’d been hunting them.

“Rubbish,” Nigel said. “It wasn’t a cannibal. The woman was working. You see, sometimes when two people are in the throes of passion—when they are . . . let’s see, how do I put this?”

Isabelle giggled into her hand. Westie made a gagging sound.

“Copulating,” Westie said. “Yes, I know what two people do when they’re alone.”

The column of Nigel’s throat moved when he swallowed. He put a hand on his shoulder, massaging a knot. “Right, anyway, sometimes when two people are intimate, they can get carried away.”

“I’m telling you, Nigel, that wasn’t a love bite,” Westie said.

Nigel ran a hand down the front of his face, stretching his skin. “I need to go see if the doctor needs help with the stitching,” he said, hurrying to escape the conversation.

As soon as he was gone, Westie asked Isabelle, “What were the mayor and the Fairfield men doing in the apothecary?”

“Well, the mayor came in to complain about the Wintu, creatures, and pretty much everything else in Rogue City. I think that ridiculous little man just likes to hear himself talk. As for the Fairfields, they talked mostly about Emma. Cain told me they’re spending a fortune on Nigel’s invention, so they want to spread the word about its capabilities.”

The hairs stood on Westie’s arm. “You’ve been talking to Cain Fairfield?”

Isabelle smiled the devilish smile she wore when talking about boys. “A little. Though I have to say, it’s difficult to focus on Cain when James is around, wouldn’t you agree?”

Westie looked at James, who was about four feet away, still in front of the apothecary. Their eyes met and his lit up. She scratched the back of her neck and brought her attention back to Isabelle. She wanted to tell her to avoid the Fairfields at all costs, but wasn’t sure how to do it without revealing her secret about them being murderers. Isabelle loved secrets. She had a trumpet for a mouth,
and gossip was her favorite tune.

“He’s all right, I suppose,” Westie said.

“Well, I’d best get back to the apothecary. I’m sure the doctor will need alcohol and medicines to patch the woman up,” Isabelle said, though Westie was sure Isabelle was less concerned about the doctor’s needs than she was about being present in case any of those sordid details the sheriff seemed so concerned about just happened to slip from Nadia’s groggy lips.

After Isabelle left, Westie realized she’d forgotten to grab the extra set of clothes she’d brought for Alistair. On her way back to the wagon, she noticed someone strolling down the center of the road and froze.

Lavina wore a bright-yellow gown with lace trim and held a parasol shading her from the sun. Her hips swayed ever so slightly. So casual compared to Nadia’s screaming and fumbling as she ran down the same path.

As Westie watched Lavina join the Fairfield men, she remembered briefly wondering, while she’d been drinking in the Tight Ship, if the Fairfields were still cannibals. Most who had turned to cannibalism on the wagon trail did it only to survive and stopped once they were rescued. But for some, it became a craving, or maybe it was just madness. Either way, they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—stop.

It took animal savagery to tear at someone’s skin with their teeth, gnawing through fat and muscle, to hear someone’s agonized screams and feel nothing. Westie saw no compassion, no regret, as Lavina tilted her head back, laughing at something James was saying.
Perhaps the rest of the family hadn’t been involved. Maybe they had moved on from hunting helpless families in cabins, but there was one thing Westie felt certain of: Lavina was still a threat.

The Fairfields headed toward her. She was reminded again of being back in the cabin, woken up by the screams of her mother.

“Westie, so good to see you again,” Lavina said when they were facing each other. Her dress was exquisitely made. There were no bumps or wrinkles at all in the fabric. Not something Westie imagined a cannibal would wear when on the hunt, but maybe that was the look Lavina was going for.

“Good to see you too,” Westie said with some semblance of grace. She held her ground, not wanting them to see her squirm. She kept her parasol close and twisted a gear at the wrist of her machine that made her middle finger twitch. It reminded her she was no longer that helpless little girl in the cabin, even if she still felt like it. “What brings you out today?”

“Actually,” the mayor said, “I was hoping to speak with the little savage girl I’ve seen you running around with.”

Westie bit the inside of her cheek, wanting to tell him that Bena was a woman, not a girl, and she was far from savage. But that would’ve meant sticking around to give a lecture. Without Alistair and Bena by her side, she wanted to be away from her present company as soon as possible.

“I’m sure I can get a message to her,” Westie said.

“Good. Some folks around here are concerned about what’s happening with the dome.”

When Hubbard took a step toward her, Westie flinched, nearly raising her arm to ward off an attack, but she stopped herself, remaining calm outwardly even when her insides rattled.