“Just like falling off a log,” Gabriel said to him. “But let’s not rush into any gallops, all right?”
Only a fool or a cavalryman galloped at night, on unfamiliar terrain, and only a fool of a cavalryman would do so while injured. Only a fool would travel before they were ready, too, but Gabriel couldn’t wait any longer.
If Isobel had found trouble, he needed to find her.
When he’d offered to mentor the sharp-eyed saloon girl if she’d the itch to see more of the Territory than the walls of her saloon or the borders of her small town, Gabriel hadn’t known that that slip of a girl was destined to be the Devil’s Hand. He hadn’t known what that meant, what it would drag him into.
Truth, he regretted none of it, not the offer, nor the fact that when Isobel herself turned him down, the devil had said yes. But the irony was not lost on him: he’d made the offer for free, only to have the devil tell him to name his price. To have the devil owe you a debt was a powerful thing, but Gabriel intended to never collect on it. He couldn’t afford to collect on it. To collect would be to accept, to accept would be to bind himself, and that was the thing he could not, would not do.
Not if he was to remain himself, avoid a fate too similar to the Jack’s.
There was a deeper irony in the threads that bound him now, his dream less portent than common sense. If he concentrated, he could feel the slow trickle of water in the creek, low in the summer dryness but still enough for watering the animals, for him to wash and water without concern. As usual, it wanted to heal him, to slough off the scabs and seal the skin, and he couldn’t any more than he could take the devil’s payout. Couldn’t let the water-sense in that deep, so close to his bones.
He’d learned the hard way that what the Territory claims, it keeps. But he would not let it own him. Isobel might yield under the forces reshaping her, yield to the devil’s plans, whatever they were, but he could not. He would not.
And if the water’s rush felt like a quiet chuckle in his ear, mocking his thoughts, Gabriel’d had years to learn how to ignore it.
He looked up at the sky: a few stretched clouds overhead, scraping around the distant peaks and fading into pale blue. The ground was soft under his boots, the grass rough-edged, and the air smelled green and dry.
Good riding weather.
The sun warm on his shoulders, he slanted his hat so the brim cast shade over his eyes, then pointed Steady north and west. The ground was a series of sloping and rising hills, the footing firm, and he rested the reins against the gelding’s neck and sank deeper into the saddle, trusting the beast’s common sense to keep them at a slow, easy walk. The mule kept alongside, longer ears twitching, occasionally moving faster and then looking back with an almost-human impatience.
“I know you like her more’n you do me,” Gabriel told the mule. “No need to rub it in.”
Steady snorted and ducked his head, likely pure coincidence, but Gabriel slapped the solid flesh once, lightly, in mock reproach. “Don’t you sass me none neither. We rode for years without her or that mare; a few days apart won’t break your hearts.”
Now that they were moving again, the knot of tension that had gripped him eased somewhat. Isobel had common sense, a dependable sense of direction, and a solid mare who could outrun anything shy of a storm. And the skies were clear, so weather wasn’t a worry. She knew how to handle a demon, and to speak polite to a native, and if she ran into a bear or a ghost cat . . . well, she had become a better shot since he’d gotten her the buccaneer’s musket that fit her hands better, and this far into warmer weather, any predators would be well fed and lazy.
In all likelihood, she’d been delayed a bit dealing with the corpses, and they would cross paths soon enough.
And if not? If she had lost her way in the rising hills and narrow meadows, so unlike the wide-open plains she’d been raised on, despite having taught her how to find the Road underfoot?
Well, there was a reason he’d allowed her to ride off alone: he had a trick up his sleeve to find her.