The envelope was creased in half from where he’d shoved it into his pack, a corner now dog-eared with use and travel. He held it in his hand but didn’t remove the letter from within. There was no need: the words lingered in his thoughts, like flies on a carcass.
He might have left the States, but he hadn’t forgotten them, and he never made the mistake of thinking the States had forgotten the Territory. He tried to keep an eye on the political machinations, more out of wariness than actual interest, but he hadn’t seen a broadsheet since Patch Junction, and even that had been weeks old.
But it seemed that Jefferson had taken his election to the presidency as justification to run every harebrained scheme he’d ever thought of—or stolen from someone else with even less sense. And Congress . . . Gabriel didn’t have the familiarity that Abner did, obviously, but he knew the type well enough from his time at William and Mary: arrogant with education and privilege, certain that a thing must be right because they determined that it was right.
And they all thought that they had a right to the land to the west of the Mississippi River, the Espiritu Santo, where the devil had first stopped the would-be conqueror de Soto, the first time the devil had stopped an armed force but not the last.
Unlike the Knife’s snow-coated peaks, the Mississippi could be crossed easily in force if one had enough boats, enough guns. An expedition, funded with the coffers of a solvent nation?
The devil did not block anyone from crossing his borders in peace. Settlers, trappers, scouts—even the Spanish monks had been, if not welcomed, tolerated.
Gabriel smoothed one finger across the envelope, hearing the faint crinkle of paper like a guilty secret. Would this letter prove intent of threat? Would the Master of the Territory—or his Hand?—consider it such? And if so, what would they consider him? Gabriel Two Voices, split between two lands and settled in neither.
He slid the letter back into his pack and picked up the loaded flintlock, resting it across his knees until it was time to wake Isobel for her turn.
Hand
Not a voice, not a whisper. A noise, that filled the spaces between heartbeats.
Hand
It wanted something. Wanted her to . . . what? She tried to form the question, but she had no mouth to speak, no arms to sign, no eyes to see, only the sense of something pressing and pulling her, needing her, rough and hot under her skin—
Isobel’s eyes opened, lashes stuck together, a taste like ash in her mouth. Her vision focused enough to tell that sunlight was only beginning to filter through the trees, and most of that was blocked by something large, warm, and bristle-haired.
She scrunched her face up in disgust at the too-warm breath on her cheek and shoved the mule’s head away, but it refused to move, reaching down again to lip delicately at her hair and then, when she didn’t move, to take a larger chunk and pull.
“All right. All right.” She slapped at the side of its face until it let go, then reached up and scratched one floppy ear to show there were no hard feelings. It was still the hero, after all, and those strong blunt teeth could as easily have taken a chunk of flesh, but it had been gentle?—as gentle as a mule knew, anyhow.
She shoved its head away again before it could decide she wasn’t moving quickly enough, and crawled out of her bedroll, shivering as the cold air hit her bare skin. The light was oddly green, filtering through the trees overhead, but she thought it just past dawn, if that. Gabriel was a lump nearby, his blanket pulled over his head, only the faint snoring proof that he was alive. In the dim light, the blanket’s colored stripes looked faded and grey. She had fallen asleep on watch, she realized. The thought shoved her into full wakefulness, searching the surroundings for any sign of disruption or danger. The air was still, the horses with their heads down, dozing as well, only the mule awake, staring at her with liquid brown eyes as though expecting her to produce carrots for his breakfast.
“If we had carrots, I’d be eating them myself,” she told the mule. “And maybe I’d share. But we don’t, sorry.”
The mule snorted as though it understood, and ambled back to where the horses slept, cropping unhappily at the grass as it went. She dressed as quietly as she could, fastening the buttons of her blouse and skirt, drawing fresh stockings up over her legs, and shaking her boots out to make sure nothing had crawled in overnight before lacing them onto her feet.
She ran a hand down the fabric of the skirt, frowning. Gabriel had warned her to pack light when they left Flood, but simply airing out her clothing whenever opportunity arose was not the same as a good laundering, and she’d pay all the coin in her purse for a new skirt, one without darns or stains.
“And carrots,” she said, compiling a list. “And fresh bread and butter, and a pillow and linens, too.”