Gabriel explained that, hoping that the elder would not ask him how she meant to accomplish such a thing when she had failed before. This might well get him killed, but it wasn’t as though he couldn’t die any number of ways otherwise. All flesh failed, and every story he’d ever been told of those who wished otherwise ended badly.
Grandfather walked with them without speaking after Gabriel told him what Isobel meant to do. It would have been rude to interrupt his thinking and equally rude to speak to Isobel before the elder had indicated he was finished, so Gabriel contented himself with studying the landscape in front of them, trying to determine where their trackers were at any given moment, wondering if they were part of Grandfather’s tribe or another group, and very carefully not wondering what would happen when they rode through the entrance to the valley again.
“Je sais ce qu’elle est maintenant. Est-ce qu’elle le sait?”
I know what she is now. Does she?
When he looked to his side again, the old man had disappeared as silently as he’d arrived, with neither Steady nor the mule, moseying along behind them, so much as twitching an ear in reaction.
He was not fool enough, though, to presume that they were alone now. The old man was keeping an eye on them, had likely been doing so ever since they first came to the valley.
Gabriel wasn’t sure if that was comforting or made it all that much the worse.
He wiped his forehead and replaced his hat, refusing to give the old man the satisfaction of seeing him look around.
“What did he say?” Isobel asked finally.
“Nothing of use.”
“Of course not.” She pulled the brim of her hat down over her face and slumped in an exaggerated fashion in the saddle. “Native or spirit or . . . when a magician gives more answers than the rest of you, what’s the use?” she asked, loud enough that anything with sensitive ears could hear her from twenty paces back. “Fine, then. Let them leave us be, and the devil won’t have to look in after them in turn.”
As indirect threats went, Gabriel had to admit that should be a particularly effective one.
She knew that Gabriel was watching her. The boss used to do that too, then he’d sit back in his chair and light the cigar he never smoked, watching the pale blue plume of smoke twist and turn in the wind, or he’d open a new deck of cards and shuffle them against the dark green felt of the card table, spreading and rearranging the cards like they told him something new each time, waiting to hear what she would say.
But where once she would have looked anxiously at the boss, hoping to find some clue as to what she should do, some approval that she’d made the right choice, now she sank deeper into Uvnee’s saddle, wrapping the reins comfortably around her right hand, feeling every patch of her body, where it pressed into the saddle wrapped around Uvnee’s body, where the warming air touched her skin, where the sweat trickled under her hatband, sliding down the back of her neck, the occasional ruffle of breeze against her skirt, her boots now comfortably broken in, no longer chafing against her unmentionables or causing blisters on her heels.
The familiar rocking motion of Uvnee’s walk was as soothing as folding linens, the repetition allowing her to move her awareness away from herself and outward, that sense of the Road below her no longer requiring the touch of ground directly. The push-away she’d felt before, the refusal that had left her feeling oddly hurt and uncomfortable, was not here; the bones allowed her to reach out, using them to spread herself further, though it felt more difficult here, as though she pulled a laden wagon behind her, weighing her movements.
Ahead, the Road faded into mist and shadows. Isobel felt an urge to push into it, but that was not her immediate concern. Aside, behind: that was where the stranger-eyes watched, more than just the old man, their regard a tactile sensation here, sharp pricks of attention tapping at her, hail on the window or rain on a creek, impossible to deflect.
Attention, focused. Aware of them. But nothing else: no anger or hunger, no fear or worry. No emotions, no distractions; merely a sensation of follow-watch-follow-watch.
More than human eyes watched them.
Isobel blinked, suddenly solidly within her own bones and flesh again. She swayed forward, wrapping her free hand in Uvnee’s mane, feeling the coarse strands against her skin, the smell of leather and trail-sweat and sun-warmed air and grasses and dirt in her nose. She tilted her head back to the sun, opening her mouth as though to drink it all in.
Next to her, Gabriel rode closer than usual, ready to catch her if she became too dizzy to ride. She could feel him watching her, although his own attention seemed focused ahead of them, constantly scanning the rock face and brush for something that shouldn’t be there. Maybe he was waiting for the old man to appear again, or a Reaper hawk to land in front of them. Or the ground to shake suddenly, or any of a handful of things that could very well happen. Again.
“We’ve gone into sacred ground and come back down again,” she said. “And now we’re going back. They’re watching to see what happens to us.”