His wound had been bleed freely under the chirurgeon’s close attention until he was satisfied that no rot had set in, then he’d been tucked onto a cot in a small room off the main hall, since he could not climb the loft he'd been given. Three full days after that were spent sleeping restlessly, someone feeding him broth until he could feel it pressing from within and the need to pee drove him to his feet, staggering across the room to use the pot, then staggering back to bed, until he felt the need to do it again.
Beyond him, Gabriel had the sense of waters surging, currents of salt and sulfur running through the clear crispness of stone-fresh streams, and the squelch of mud under the feet of people passing by. He knew without asking that the waters had drawn back, and hoped that the winter crops hadn't been ruined, that no homes had been flooded, before he dropped back off to sleep.
At one point, he opened his eyes to see Henry standing at his side, hat in his hand, and a look of constipated regret on his face.
"I'm not sorry. For bringing you here. For... keeping you here. But I am sorry you were hurt."
Gabriel would have laughed, if it didn't hurt so much. "That's mighty generous of you."
"You were supposed to apologize.” Greta came up behind him, glaring fiercely at her husband.
"I just did!"
"That was a sad excuse for an apology, and you should be ashamed of yourself." She scowled at him again for good measure, then reached down to pat Gabriel's shoulder, like a sparrow attempting to console an ox. "Joseph says you can sit up and eat a proper meal now, if you're ready for it. I've brought fresh bread, and some bits of chicken."
He allowed as how he might be able to do that, now.
Greta fussed about, settling a tray across Gabriel's lap and tucking blankets behind him in case he tired while sitting up, while Henry pulled the sole chair in the room closer to the cot, and sat down.
"You did all that? Call the waters up?"
"Not me." A half-truth. "What happened? Don't look at me like that; I truly don't know." Or, he knew only what the waters had shown him, and was blessedly forgetting most of it, already.
"Creek rose, came over the banks like a flash storm had hit, even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Ran up every path like it was heading for home, straight uphill. Never seen water do that before, never want to see it again. And the well..."
Henry's eyes were haunted by more than the grey shadow under his lids.
"Glad I missed all that." He didn't bother asking if the well-water was drinkable again; it would be, eventually.
"You should be more glad we decided to keep your part in all that quiet," the old man said, clearly ignoring Gabriel’s denial of responsibility. "Blamed the bandits, claimed it was the well's medicine coming after 'em."
"And people believed it." Of course they did, people would believe anything, especially if it made them feel safer. And it was not entirely an untruth.
"Helps that the Tua elders are coming down, rise of the new moon, to do their thing over the well, clean it out and appease it or whatever it is they do." Henry didn't seem to be a man of religion, white or native, but his tone was that of a man who would refuse no aid.
Much like the town’s founder. Wise men, both of them.
"And the bandits?" He remembered at least one going down, but after that it was a foggy blank.
"Hauled 'em to the bridge and booted 'em over. Told 'em if we saw them again, even at a distance, we'd shoot instead of talking nice."
Gabriel had his doubt that the guns he'd seen in use here were accurate enough to kill a man, as old as they were, but he suspected they'd not lack volunteers to try.
"You might want to change the town's name," he said, settling back into the pillow with a sigh. "Rabbit's Swim, maybe?"
"You best stick to Riding and not naming," Henry said gruffly. "We just want to put this behind us, not linger in it."
Gabriel didn't doubt that. He also suspected they weren't going to have much choice in the matter once word got around, and it assuredly would. But that would be their problem, not his.
It was another two days before Gabriel was able to leave the cot without feeling as though he'd been stabbed, but the sticky, tacky feeling of salt water lingered on his skin no matter how many passes he made with a damp cloth, how often he dried himself off. Eventually, he resigned himself to living with it, grateful it was only a trace.
Henry was a regular visitor during those days, with Gerta and Joseph the chirurgeon close second, but other than that, he saw no-one, only hearing their voices outside. Henry might have blamed the bandits, but the coincidence of him coming to town just before all this all happened, Gabriel knew it would be too much for most.
"You rode off without the mule? Or supplies?"
The irony of a Greenie monk lecturing him was not lost on –Gabriel—nor Gerta or Henry, from the sly grins they –exchanged—but he supposed he had earned it.
"I was able to trade for basics at the mercantile," he said, frowning at Gerta as she took a shirt out of his pack and shook it out, then tossed it onto the pile she’d said was for washing. "About a week’s ride southeast?" He thought it was that long, but wasn’t quite certain
Henry was looking at him oddly, his earlier smile nowhere in sight now. "There’s no mercantile for a week’s ride or more. There’s nothing at all the way you came, save a few winter camps, until you come to Blackback Creek."
"There is," Gabriel said, frowning back at him. "I bought the coalstone you’re holding, there."
Henry put the coalstone back down on Gabriel’s pack with more haste than was seemly for a grown man. "This mercantile. You catch the shopkeep’s name?"
"Nashon. Odd fellow with an odder partner?"
The three of them looked at each other, Greta’s eyes wide, Zacarías’ worried.
Gabriel thought of the spirit-snake, of Graciendo lingering at his campfire, and the tree that grew out of nothing, and made note to tell none of that to them, if this was how they reacted to a relatively ordinary transaction. "Come now, Mouse-Face was a surprise, I’ll grant, but—"
"There is no mercantile there," Henry said again. "There was a settlement, once. Long ago. Odd folk, scholars, only men. Led by a man named Nashon. They set up a camp in land nobody’d claim, and for good reason. And then they... disappeared."
Gabriel’s eyebrows raised. "Disappeared?"
"Men, horses, buildings. Lost in a mountain mist, and when the mist cleared, they were gone. Most assumed they’d annoyed a spirit. But that was nearly fifty years past. There’s been nothing built there, since then."
The expressions on their faces… Gabriel had seen it with Isobel, too many times, even with those who didn't know what she was. Even those who should have known better, who’d been born to the winds and waters of the Territory, too often thought the world was as they saw it, with nothing hidden below or above. He tried to imagine a spirit-snake visiting any of them and had to bite back a burst of inappropriate laughter.
"They seemed remarkably solid for haints," he said, "and content in each other, whatever had befallen them." Mouse-Face had spoken of others, as well. So they were not alone. "And a wise man never refuses aid." He took the pack back from Henry, tucking the coalstone away and out of sight.
"Even for the Territory, you have stories," Zacarías said finally, when the others seemed struck dumb by his nonchalance. "I will pray for the health of your soul."
Gabriel ran a hand through his hair, feeling how long the strands were getting, thinking he might ask Gerta to cut it before he left, and said nothing in response.
The visits tapered off after that, to Gabriel’s lack of surprise, and when a day later Joseph deemed him well enough to move, he wasted no further time. Gathering his belongings back into the pack, he –went—slowly—to reclaim his horse, thankful that the walk from hall to shed was short enough that he did not encounter anyone.
It might be rude to leave without farewells, but he had not yet forgotten or forgiven Henry’s earlier trick, and with the tribal elders coming for the ceremony, Gabriel wanted to be gone by then. A man's business might be his own, but a Water Society member would have no hesitation about asking questions of him he still wasn't sure he could answer.
He might have been imagining things, but he thought Steady was glad to see him, the gelding reaching over to huff at his hair and nip on his sleeve when he came close. “I see you stayed nice and dry." The old rugs underfoot had doubtless seen worse than rising water in their time, but they were dry and dusty with straw, with no hint of mold or damp. "You were bored, were you? Only so much rest and grooming you could manage?"
After checking to make sure that the horse had in fact been well-cared for while he was abed, Gabriel bent, carefully, to pick up the saddle, wincing a little as he lifted it.
"Stand still and let's do this easy, all right?" he said, and Steady's left ear twitched once, his flanks shuddering as the weighted leather came down on his back, and the belly-band wrapped around.
"No tricks this time? You must be as eager to be going as I am," he told the gelding, sliding the bit into his mouth and waiting until the beast had mouthed it into place.
There was a creak of the door sliding open behind them, and Gabriel tensed for a moment.
"So. You're riding on."
Zacarías. Gabriel finished adjusting the bridle and slapped the gelding affectionately on the neck. "Your hospitality's been... interesting, but yeah, I'm riding on."
"If you must, then."
He came around to face the monk, raising an eyebrow at the canvas bag hanging by a strap from the monk's hand.
"This..." Zacarías lifted it, offering it to him. "Some supplies, for your journey. It was the least we could do, after..."
After chaining him to the town, after forcing him to do things none of them wanted to acknowledge? Gabriel didn’t say any of that, but merely took the bag, his nose identifying yeast and sour curds.
"It won't keep for long, but..." The Spaniard's voice kept trailing off, as though he were swallowing words.
"It's appreciated." Fresh bread and cheese were things the Road didn't supply much of; he'd enjoy them until they were gone. "Not sure where I'm heading next, but I doubt I'll see fresh-made bread any time soon."
"You could stay," the monk blurted out. "If you were not heading anywhere in particular." Zacarías looked at the horse then, then at the roof, anywhere but directly at Gabriel. "The town... I know you only stayed because Henry bound you, but it's a good place to be, and will be better without the threat of bandits hanging overhead. If you had nowhere else calling you."
Gabriel turned away, latching the canvas bag to the rest of his packs, taking a moment longer than necessary to make sure it was secure. "I'm not a farmer, or a weaver, or anything that's needed here."
"It's not about what the town needs. It's about what you need. What your soul needs."
Gabriel chuckled then, reaching out to slap a hand against the other man's shoulder. "And there's the monk I've been expecting. I'm a Rider, Zac. I'm best on the Road."
Zacarías ignored the nickname. "A Rider, riding to what? If it is true, that the Agreement is failing, if all that we are building is for naught, then what good does running ahead of it do?"
"It keeps you one step ahead." Everything set and latched, he adjusted his hat securely, and pulled the gloves from his jacket pocket, taking Steady's reins up in the other hand to lead him out. "Take care of yourself, Brother Zacarías."
"I will pray for you, Gabriel."
"You do that."
Simply being in the saddle again made the lingering pain in his torso and chest fade, the familiar stretch-and-press of riding more comfortable to him than walking, and the reassuring rock of the gelding's four legs underneath him soothing as a lullaby. It took far less time than he'd anticipated to reach the road where Henry had hailed him a little over a week before. He’d thought they’d traveled further, that night in the rain.
Perhaps they had.
Gabriel reined Steady in, looking out and ahead, toward the north.
He'd had a reason to be heading that way, he was reasonable sure of it. But at just that moment the reason seemed far distant, as far as the hazy blue blur of the mountains on the horizon.
The Agreement was failing. He'd known that, even before the bandit had spoken. He'd seen it, with every incident Isobel responded to, every argument made about why this should be allowed, or that. The looks of the people in Red Stick, the skittishness of the native folk they encountered, the fears the chiefs couldn’t bring themselves to name. The way the marshals were spread thin now, with so many people settling in and setting roots, bringing their kin and spawn and problems.
"A Rider, riding to what?" Zacarías had asked.
Gabriel thought of the tree, growing overnight from nothing save restless dreams and despair. Stone for bones, roots for veins; the marshal’s sigil, enclosed by the glow of the rising sun. Justice, justice thou shalt pursue.
Gabriel was not a marshal. But he thought of the waters rising, still whispering in his veins. He felt the Road beneath him, and remembered what he had taught Isobel, that anyone could reach the Road, if they listened.
The devil had known. Had he seen the future, when he stood on the banks and told the would-be conquistadors that they could not have this land? Had all this been to buy them time—time for children to be born into the Territory, to have the Touch on them, to bind them to it so they might not leave? To ensure that against every new settler, there was someone who belonged?
If so, from a logical, tactical view, it was brilliant, the brilliance born of desperation, under the weight of inevitability. And Gabriel had played his part, however unwilling. He'd given way to the illness that brought him back within the Territory’s borders. He had mentored the Hand, giving them another layer of protection, pushing the inevitable out a little –further—a month? A year? A decade? How much would have been enough?
He should be –angry—he should be furious. He’d been used, played the way the devil shuffled his card, exactly as he’d sworn he never would be.
Graciendo's warnings echoed in his head and his own uncertainties hung low and heavy in his heart. But where fury should have been, he found... resignation. Amusement. The memory of Isobel’s sigh, and the flickerthwack noise of the devil’s cards against green felt, and the gentle push of water running against his legs.
You’ve healed, Graciendo had said.
Mayhap. Mayhap not.
He’d dreamed of being someone else, once. But this, his horse under him and the Road ahead; this was good, too. The banter of Nashon and Mouse-Face, caught out of time. The grumbling of Graciendo, even the sly insinuation of the spirit-snake. The unnamed village building itself under the unsleeping rage of the firebird’s haint, and Rabbit’s Mound and Andreas, and even Red Stick, as roiled as it was right now.
"The river runs, the mountains rise and fall, the winds shatter, and the bones... the bones remain. Remember that," the devil had told him. "The bones remain."
Maybe there would be enough time. The Dust Roads were built from their bones, after all. Build enough roads, and everything stayed connected.
Picking up the reins again, Gabriel pressed his heels in, and they rode on.