Had it been only them, her and Gabriel, and perhaps only one magician, she might have risked allowing it. She was curious what might remain of them, away from the rage of the ancient spirit; if there might be a way to reclaim them, the way a stream filtered clear again after a storm, or at least learn what they had done, what they had woken. But she could not risk it. The road marshal might have accepted her position and authority, but the other two, the Americans, had no reason to believe she was anything more than what she appeared: a young female, with a horse they could use to escape. If they thought for an instant that she was distracted . . .
After two days, she was reasonably certain that Marshal Tousey would not be so foolish, but she hadn’t needed Gabriel’s side-glance cautions to know the sort of man the scout was. Not everyone who came into the saloon back in Flood had been gentle, or kind; folk made deals with the devil for revenge as often as for survival. If he saw opportunity, Anderson would slit their throats and steal their horses, the mule, and their boots. She would not give him the chance.
And Gabriel was hiding something from her. It was likely nothing, and Isobel suspected she was being foolish, but it wore on her nonetheless. And there never seemed a private time to bring it up, traveling with so large a group.
They came to the creek Gabriel had said was just before their destination, this one low enough that the water barely brushed the horses’ hooves. The marshal glanced at Isobel, who gave the other woman a go-ahead sign, the water too sluggish to pose much risk, although she took up position between the horses nonetheless as they moved down the slope and into the sun-warmed current.
“Gentlemen, bound hands does not make your legs suddenly shorter or slower. Lively, now!” LaFlesche called out, having noted a distinct slag to their pace as they slogged, wet-footed, to the top of the bank on the other side. “And there we are,” she said in satisfaction, coming to the rise of the bank and looking out.
Isobel brought the horses up and checked to make sure their burdens hadn’t shifted, then went to stand by LaFlesche. A wide dirt road elbowed toward them, then cut across a squared-off plain backed by low-sloping hills. Squinting, she saw the road led to the tall brown shape of a palisade wall.
“Our destination,” LaFlesche said with no small relief.
But despite chivvying the prisoners, it took them most of the available daylight to reach the gates. It hadn’t rained recently, and dust from the road flew up into their faces and into their mouths and noses, forcing them to cover their faces with kerchiefs to breathe cleanly, and slowing their pace.
“I’d near forgotten why they call ’em the dust roads,” LaFlesche grumbled after she’d had to wet down her kerchief a third time, wringing it out with a moue of distaste at the dirty water dripping from the cloth. “Worse than cottonwood. Worse than mud, worse than anything.”
“From dust ye came and covered in dust ye shall remain,” Gabriel said. LaFlesche glared at him from behind the reaffixed cloth over her mouth and chin, while Isobel pulled her hat down further in a vain attempt to keep the dust out of her eyes and hair as well.
When they’d come within a dozen paces of the tall wooden gate, they saw an odd dozen long-barreled muskets aimed at them over the top.
LaFlesche paused, putting out a hand to stop anyone from taking a step closer. “Marshal Abigail LaFlesche, bringing prisoners for judging,” she called out. “And honored guests” was almost an afterthought, and Isobel felt something inside her growl at the insult.
“Hush,” Gabriel said quietly, and she felt herself flush again at evidence it hadn’t been as inside as she’d thought.
Half the muskets were pulled back when they heard her voice, the remaining seven remaining tilted down at them.
“So much for them not havin’ military,” Anderson sneered, looking at Tousey, but loud enough for the others to hear. “Lyin’ savages, even the whites.”
“I will gag you,” LaFlesche said almost conversationally. “Unless you’d rather me simply cut your tongue out?”
The scout glared at her but clenched his jaw shut without another sound.
There were male voices on the other side, and the gate slid open, revealing a small forecourt and a cluster of buildings beyond.
The moment they crossed the threshold, Isobel felt something shiver up her legs; the town’s warding, noting the arrival of strangers. Her throat closed in a panic, realizing that she hadn’t considered that the warding might object to the magicians or to the binding laid on them, but the wooden gates of the town closed behind them without alarm or outcry.
A judge lived here, LaFlesche claimed. Perhaps the warding had been crafted to allow for prisoners coming in and leaving? Isobel took a deep breath and felt the bump of a hand against hers; Gabriel had shifted Steady’s lead to his other hand and now stood next to her, his hat tipped forward against the afternoon sun that angled over the low rooftops of the buildings, reflecting almost too brightly against . . . She squinted, then tilted her head. Yes, there were bits of metal on the roofs, angled against the edge.
“Snow-breakers,” LaFlesche said, seeing where her attention had gone. “Winter here, the snow piles up, gets heavy enough to break a roof if you’re not careful. Ice, too. So you want it to come down . . . but not all at once.”
“The snow slides off the roof . . . The bits are sharp, breaks it up so it doesn’t all come off at once?”