Blaine spent a long day alone and worried, and expecting to stay that way. But just before nightfall, Trey returned, Burl at his side and the redbone hound at his heels. Blaine, caught by surprise near the tiny trickle of a creek not too far away, heard them call and came running, her hair wet from a feeble washing. Unbraided, it fell below her bottom, swirling wetly around her arms and snagging in the pines as she ran to see why they’d come back. It couldn’t be good....
From the looks on their faces, it wasn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Impatiently, she flipped a length of hair back over her shoulder. “What’re y’all doing back so soon?”
“Dacey,” Trey said grimly.
Her heart — her hope — fell so hard that she felt it hit in her tightened throat, her suddenly heavy stomach. “He...he ain’t dead, is he?”
Trey shook his head, exchanged a knowing look with Burl. “He’d be better off that way, from what I seen.”
She looked from one to the other of them and finally burst out with, “What?”
“They got him all right,” Burl said. As usual, he’d taken the opportunity to bring her food; he handed her a sack that she took without even thinking. “They been at him all last night, from the looks of it. They’ve got him blind somehow, though there ain’t a mark on him — leastways, not near his eyes.”
“Blind,” Blaine repeated in a whisper. Struggling to remain calm, she asked, “How’d you find him?”
“Didn’t have to,” Trey told her. “Right before suppertime, they had us at the hall — all the boys that wasn’t out hunting, all the men over from the timbering. They marched him right out in front of us like some kinda prize. Wanted us to know they had ’im.”
Burl added, “And they wanted answers.”
So Dacey wasn’t giving them none. Blaine found that she was twisting her hair, and forced herself to quit. “And?” she said.
“I purely thought Estus was going to give us up, from jitters if nothing else,” Trey said, but from the relief in his voice, she knew Estus hadn’t. “Lucky that the timber men made enough protest to draw attention away. The leader said he’d give us the night to think about it. Seems to want to do it without Taking us all — like he thinks that means he’ll have broke us. He says iff’n he learns who all’s in with Dacey, no harm’ll come to ’em — nor Dacey. He just wants it out in the open.”
“You believe that?” Blaine asked, incredulous.
Burl said, “We don’t.”
“We can’t take no chances either way,” Trey said. “Iff’n no one comes to the leader before then, he’s gonna kill Dacey tomorrow. An’ he’s gonna have all the women and children gathered there to watch.” He paused and put extra emphasis on his next words. “In the hall.”
Understanding dawned. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about any of ’em being left unwarded,” she said. “We’re...we’re gonna do it —” she didn’t have to say what it was, not for any of them — “tomorrow morning.”
“We surely are,” Trey said. “Estus is making the rounds now, telling the boys. We’re gonna stick right to plan, and not tell no men till it’s happening. This is bungled up enough as it is.”
Blaine’s wet hair felt suddenly cold against her shoulders; she wrapped her arms around herself. Something was yet unsaid, else Burl wouldn’t be hovering with such an anxious look on his face. Else — Burl wouldn’t be here at all, not just to tell her this news. She tossed her head, a small gesture that was only false assertiveness, and lifted her chin, taking the conversation her own way. “I’m going after him,” she said. “You all gonna help, or not?”
She half expected them to protest, but Trey only gave a grave nod. “We got to,” he said. “Ain’t no way we’ll get to him tomorrow, in all the fuss. They’ll kill him first thing, iff’n they can. And it don’t matter if we do get him out — all the families will show up at the meeting hall tomorrow like they’ve been told. Everything else is set — the boys know what to do. If something was to happen — well, so long as one of us can use those wards... Besides,” he added, his voice surprisingly casual, “I said it oncet — I been in Taker hands once myself. I just can’t leave him that way, not without trying to do something.”
Burl said, “Me’n Trey are out coonhunting. Thing is, we got some coon from Estus before we come. So we need to find something else to do with ourselves.”
“You just wait for me to braid up this hair, and I’ll show you something to keep plenty busy!”
But Blaine’s fingers were too riled up, like the rest of her, to braid hair without a lot of fumbling and dropped sections. She was taken flatly by surprise when Trey stepped in. He muttered something about braiding his little sister’s hair, and quickly finished the job for her, even binding them together in the back like she often did.
They moved out with surprisingly little fuss and bother, heading over the ridges to the meeting hall, and getting there just as final darkness came over the mountains. Now Blaine stole a glance at Trey as they eased themselves to the ground above the meeting hall barn. He wasn’t fussing at her any more, challenging her every word like he’d done when they’d met. Only days ago, now. Part of her didn’t believe it; part of her was more grateful than she would have anticipated. He just, she decided, had other things on his mind.
Far, far back up the ridge, Blue sounded an indignant bark; he and the redbone waited tied and unhappy. Mage lurked somewhere close by, unobtrusive and omnipresent. Below them, the barn waited — a blot of darkness under a waning moon and an increasingly cloudy sky. There were no streaks of light peeking from around the shuttered loft and closed doors, nor was there light coming from the meeting hall.
“Don’t they even have a night watch?” Blaine asked, in quiet disbelief.
“I reckon they do,” Trey said. “Reckon he’s just not pointing hisself out with a light.”
“It was what we were hoping you could help us with,” Burl told her. “We’ll check it out on our way in, but we need you to watch for us while we’re getting him out. Someone could come up on us.”
“But — what’ll I do iff’n he does?”
Trey dismissed the question with an impatient shake of his head. “It don’t matter. Any noise you make’ll warn us — tell ’im you’ve come to talk to the leader about Dacey, for all o’ that. He won’t see you well enough to know you ain’t been around before. We’ll get you out of it before it comes to that.”
She wondered if he was as confident as he sounded. And she thought it was all easy for him to say — she’d rather be fetching Dacey and let Trey do the watching. But on the hill above the enemy camp wasn’t a good time to argue about it, so she said nothing, discretion newly acquired. Instead she stared at the barn, a building in which she’d often played.
It was built into the side of the hill, and the lower level had a main door that faced the hall, while the side against the hill had a loft door. It was possible to walk into either one of them. The loft held hay and grain, and the lower level had four stalls and a big fat aisle. Dacey, the boys thought, was in one of the stalls. In two of the others were plains mules, creatures they would take great care not to alarm.
Without discussion, they crept down the hill to the loft door, tucked into the darkest shadow the night offered. They moved slowly, step by step, steadying one another at the awkward places, Trey at the lead and Burl coming down behind Blaine.
Just outside the door they put their heads together, and Trey, in a murmur so low there was barely any sound at all, said, “We go in slow. But there might be one of ’em in there — the first any of us makes a big noise, we all got to go for it. Once we’re below, Blaine, take the main door.”
She nodded, and moved in against the barn, out of the way and as out of sight as she was ever going to get. And she waited, thinking she’d never realized that a body could open a door so slow, while Trey and Burl inched open one of the small double doors of the loft. Then again, she’d never thought anyone could open that door without making the biggest kind of squeak, either. One after another, they slipped into the loft, making no more noise than the sound of Burl’s shirt brushing against wood.
Once inside it got harder. There was a narrow walk space between the piled hay and the outside wall, but there was also enough hay scattered under their feet to make the going excruciatingly slow. Opening the door had been an instant’s work compared to moving so carefully, transferring her weight so slowly, while her muscles trembled with fear and burned from the unusual effort.
At the edge of the loft Trey paused, the only one able to see below — if indeed he could make out anything in the darkness. Blaine heard nothing but the rustle of one of the mules as it spread its legs to make water.
Under the cover of that noisy stream, Trey moved out, ignoring the ladder and swinging down to hang for a moment before lightly dropping to the floor; Blaine did not need Burl’s prodding to do the same, and even though she was less graceful than Trey, her light weight made no more noise. She felt more than heard Burl join them, and by then their cover was gone, except for the slight shuffling of the mule.
While Trey and Burl silently checked the other stalls for Dacey, she backed up against the mule stall, close to the main door, and waited, every nerve trying to jump right out of her body.
The mule behind her remained restless, nosing its hay and shuffling in the straw; if the boys made any noise she couldn’t hear them. She was aware when the mule came up behind her, and half expected it to nudge or lip at her — curiosity she could do without. She’d move closer to the door, then, maybe peer outside —
Two strong hands clamped down on her arms and Blaine gave a muffled shriek, too startled to do anything else but stiffen in fear.
“Well, well, missy,” said a voice in her ear, his breath on her neck making her skin crawl, “wandering around in the dark, are you?”
Men make water, too, said a sarcastic inner voice. Out loud, Blaine stammered, “I — I — come to see the leader. ’Bout that man.”
“Did you now? And you thought our boss might be sleeping out here in the barn?” The man tightened his grip on one arm so tightly it felt near pinched in two, and used the other to close and latch the stall door after he came around it. The mule snorted.
“No, I — I —” I’m babbling “ — I done got scairt, is all. Changed my mind.” Trey, where are you?
“Too late for that now.” He shoved her toward the door. “You won’t have any say about it once he touches you.”
Blaine didn’t like the way he said it; she didn’t like his flatlander accent in her ear and his flatlander hands on her arm.
She bit him.
He jerked his fingers out of her mouth with a curse, never loosening his other hand despite her struggles. She cried out as he reeled her in and she felt more than saw him draw back his hand — but the blow didn’t come. His grip convulsed around her arm; his whole body stiffened. When he fell, he took her down with him, dragging her to the dirty floor. Then his bowels voided, and she realized that those tightly clinging fingers belonged to a dead man, that he was dead, and he was never going to let her go.... Blaine slid away into panic, scrabbling for purchase on the slick plank flooring while animal noises of fear grew inside her throat and forced their way out of her mouth.
The boys were tugging on her then, as a strong broad hand clamped over her mouth and Burl’s anxious and angry voice hissed, “Then cut it off, Trey, I don’t care!” In her ear, soothing words — “We done got him, Blaine, it’s all right now, c’mon —” and then she was free, and heaving great hysterical breaths, but finally returning to herself. Burl patted her arm, suddenly awkward, and moved back from her.
Trey’s voice came from near the door. “No one’s moving,” he said. “It warn’t all that much noise, anyway.” He came back to them and from the sound of it, wiped something on the dead man’s clothes. His knife, Blaine thought dully. He was the one who had killed the man. She ought to say thank you.
“Did you find Dacey?” she whispered instead. “I done did my job — I found the guard.”
Burl snorted from near one of the back stalls, while Trey whispered a curse. To Blaine, he said, “We found him. We can’t rouse him none, though. He wasn’t himself this afternoon, neither, but I was hoping....”
“Let me see,” Blaine said, not waiting for his response before she tripped to her feet, making an over-wide detour around where she imagined the dead man was, and aiming for where she’d heard Burl. “Is he in here?”
“Right by the door,” Burl told her, his voice low. She crouched down and felt around with her hands until she found Dacey. She thought that at one point he’d probably been propped against the wall, but he’d fallen over. She found his hands in front of him, but though her fingers brushed the cleanly cut ends of the rope that had bound him, his fingers remained tightly entwined. She took those hands, tried to unclench the fingers and couldn’t, shook him to discover he was tense and almost stiff.
“Get a mule,” she said quietly.
“We can’t take a —”
“Yes we can! We got to get him away from here! They done something horrible to him, we got to get him away, get him out of it —”
“Maybe he’ll never get out from under it at all,” Trey muttered, but she heard him lift a halter from the nail by the stall and open the door. The mule snorted distrustfully at him. “Don’t give me no fuss, mule,” he muttered, flat dire threat in his voice.
The mule must have believed him. There was silence, aside from the little snicking noises of the halter buckles; Blaine ran her hand up and down Dacey’s arm, trying to warm some life into his limbs. The quiet hollow clopping of hard oval mule feet in need of a trim came down the aisle and stopped beside her.
“Here we go, then,” Burl said, bending down beside her to snag Dacey’s arm and leg, shift his grip a few experimental times, and then heave Dacey up without so much as a grunt — except on the mule’s part.
“He ain’t going to stay,” Trey said. “And we got to get out of here — we done fooled around long enough.”
“Put Blaine up behind him,” Burl suggested.
“I don’t know how to ride no mule!” Alarm laced the protest in her voice, but Burl paid it no mind; his hands nearly met around her waist as he lifted her up and plopped her on the mule behind Dacey. Dacey’s hair tickled her forehead and his back warmed her as she clutched frantically for the mule’s sparse mane, her arms tight around Dacey’s ribs.
“Don’t worry,” Burl said. “We’ll stay right here on either side.”
Trey pushed the main door open, letting in the fresh smell of the damp night, the sound of gentle rain against the ground. Compared to the pitch dark of the barn, the overcast night seemed almost bright. “Nothing there,” he whispered. “Let’s go!”
Blaine squeaked as the mule moved forward and she lurched backward; the mule snorted testily but moved on out of the barn, and she quickly learned the rhythm of its walk. Dacey was so close she had to turn her head aside, resting it on the broadness of his shoulders and trusting that the boys would not lead them under some low branch.
Blue’s sporadic, frustrated bark led them to the top of the hill and far down the ridge, a slow process — full of grunts and “get him!” when Dacey tipped too far one way or the other, while Blaine’s fingers cramped so tightly in the wiry mane that she lost the feeling of them. The trees protected them from most of the slow rain, pattering in the leaves and only occasionally down her neck. She figured that the odd procession must have nearly reached Blue and the redbone when the mule gave an unexpected pitch, a snort of effort, and scrambled up one last projection — leaving Blaine behind. She slid right off its rump, with one loud, indignant cry of protest that ended in a grunt when Dacey landed on top of her.
“You all right?” Burl asked as he separated them, sitting Dacey up against a tree and standing Blaine on her feet. She staggered a moment, thoroughly disoriented in the dark. At her side, Mage appeared, whining anxiously.
“She’s fine,” Trey said abruptly, turning the mule around, tying the rope up behind its ears, and giving it a hard smack on the butt. The animal kicked out at him and ran down the hill. “We’ve come far enough. Ain’t no way to take him as far as the clearing, and it’ll just mean a longer walk for Blaine come morning, iff’n we do.”
“You mean...you mean you figure I’m gonna stay out here in this rain all night?” Blaine sputtered, building up a good head of indignant.
“It’s not that far a walk,” Burl said quickly. “I’ll fetch your pack. You head on home, Trey. I’ll be along shortly.”
“Don’t get lost,” Trey muttered, but added, in the silence that followed, “I’m obliged to you, Burl. Reckon I’m plumb tuckered.”
Burl’s response was offhand, but startled Blaine — and made her instantly forgive any shortness of temper Trey might have shown this night. “That man done run you some today. You’d think he coulda found some others of us to run word around and gather us all up.”
Trey shrugged, visible only in silhouette. He moved a few steps away, stopped again. “Meet us by that biggie sycamore below the hall, Blaine. Just after first light. Things’ll probably hop fast when they find that guard.”
“Our luck, they’ll start Taking people right away, looking for answers,” Burl said, as if he was just now realizing it.
“Oh, I’m betting they will,” Trey said dryly. “We’ll just have to get there first.”
Blaine’s voice was hard. “I’ll be ready.”
They left her alone then, getting wetter as the rain fell hard enough to come through the leaves. She fumbled to close the buttons of her coat — she’d lost one tonight, somewhere — and went to Blue. The dog’s entire bottom wagged with his tail, and instead of his usual deep-chested noise he gave her anxious whines. When she loosed him from the tree, he ran straight for Dacey, snuffling and nosing him, and finally giving one sharp, frustrated bark.
“It’s all right, Blue,” Blaine said, even though she didn’t think it was. Blue flung himself to the ground and rested his chin on his forefeet, mournful, as Blaine knelt by Dacey, wishing it were light enough to see his face well. During the ride he’d loosened up, but it only meant that he was more like an old rag doll than a plank of wood. She found neither reassuring.
She moved up until her knees bumped him, and — hesitantly — touched his shoulder.
His eyes flew open. They stared at her, black in the darkness, and there was no change on his face, no recognition in his expression.
Nothing.
“Dacey?” Blaine asked, tentative and thinking of the jimson. Had they broken his mind with it? Or simply used some other vile, unimaginable magic? She trapped Dacey’s cold and lifeless hand between both her own, warming it. “Dacey,” she said, and squeezed the hand. “C’mon, Dacey, it’s me, Blaine. Look at me. Look at me!” Her voice rose and cracked, and momentarily gave out.
It had no effect on Dacey.
She couldn’t look at his dull stare any longer; she looked at Mage instead. The hound pawed his master, and not gently. In his throat, frustrated canine words gargled out as modulated whines. Blue responded, until both of them were whining in Blaine’s ear, enough to drive her to distraction. Mage was always the ringleader, always setting off the whole dumb pack — always setting off....
“Howl, Mage!” Blaine urged, startling the dog into silence. Damn. “C’mon — he’ll hear it if he hears anything!”
The dog stared at her, his ears low, cocked back in his resentment of her interference. Blaine rolled her eyes, beyond exasperation. “Ow-wow-wo-ow,” she tried, not finding it easy to hit the right tones without the dogs guiding her. “C’mon, Mage,” she muttered, tightening her grip on Dacey’s hand. “C’mon.”
“Oowh,” Blue offered, the quietest of monotone howls.
“Yes, Blue!” She repeated the sound just as he’d done it, only louder, and he talked back to her. Mage had had enough. He burst into full and glorious howl, and Blue sat up to sing with him; Blaine joined them, never taking her eyes off Dacey.
After a moment, Dacey blinked.
He blinked; his vacant expression turned to a frown. Blaine stopped howling, suddenly feeling silly, and the dogs faded uncertainly into silence. “Dacey?”
He shook, shudders that came deep from within and trembled through his frame — wave after wave of them, while she held his hand and ached with the need to help, to make them stop. And eventually they did, fading into shivers that might just as well have been from the rain. His free hand reached slowly for his eyes, stopping a mere whisper away before falling to the ground again. It fumbled at the leaves and pebbles there, and slowly became sure enough of the earth to leave it be. What she could see of his face in the darkness showed her his confusion — absolute, unmitigated by anything he’d heard or touched.
“It’s me,” Blaine said softly, convinced they’d somehow fooled with his mind. “It’s all right, now, I’ve done found you and you’re safe.”
He shook his head, more like a dog with water in its ear than a man saying no. Then he closed his eyes, and took a deep breath; Blaine held her own. Waiting. Hoping.
“How long has it been?” he asked, his eyes still closed, another shudder running through him..
“Just a day,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “Me an’ Burl an’ Trey just stole you back from ’em. Are...” she hesitated, not knowing if she should ask, not able to stop herself. “Are you back to yourself, Dacey?”
“As near as I can tell,” he muttered, and seemed to be taking inventory. “Just...trying to put it all together.”
“What did they...I mean, how did they —”
He gave a low laugh. It sounded on the edge of a sob. “They didn’t,” he said. “That is, they done plenty...but it was me who had the last say. Old seer’s trick — I’d heard of it from my gran-mamaw. Didn’t ever think I had it in me.” He covered his vacant eyes with his hand, squeezing hard on Blaine’s at the same time. “Spirits,” he whispered. “I didn’t ever think I’d need to have it in me.”
“I was so afraid I wouldn’t get you back...Dacey, I didn’t know what to do.”
He laughed again, sounding the same as the last one. “So you started a howl. Right clever of you. Takes another seer, usually. There ain’t no coming back from that place on your own.” He squeezed her hand again, a clear thank you, and then withdrew his own. “You were right. Oughtn’t to have gone back to that camp, not feeling like I did.”
“You had a seeing, didn’t you,” she said, letting the accusation into her voice. “Right then, when we were talking about it. You were gonna let me go, and then suddenly you wouldn’t.”
He nodded. “I had a seeing,” he admitted. “You and Blue...” He didn’t finish, and clearly didn’t intend to. “Just goes to show you there’s more to being a good seer than getting a seeing now and then. It’s what you do with them.”
“We can use any kind of seer tomorrow,” Blaine said. “We...we’re making our try, Dacey. Taking the hollers back. Come morning.”
He needed a moment to think about that. “Is Trey keeping them boys in line?”
She nodded.
“Blaine?” he asked, his face and voice filled with an uncertainty that was foreign to her.
Nodding. Stupid. “Trey’s done fine,” she said quietly, and without thinking, brushed sorrowful and uninvited fingertips across his brow and lashes.
He took her hand away from his face and gripped it hard, and Blaine realized that he again drew strength from her instead of the other way around. Hatred flared in her. Annekteh, she thought, making it into a curse. “We’re going to drive them out,” she said, and that hatred found its way into her voice.
It was Blue, naturally, who lightened the mood. The big dog came up behind Blaine and stuck his cold nose down her neck, eliciting her undignified squeal.
“You sit on the wrong thing?” Dacey asked, wry humor in his voice.
“Just Blue an’ his cold ol’ nose,” Blaine told him. She looked at the hound — he panted amiably in her face — and thought of his sour companion. “Dacey,” she said, “about Maidie —”
“I figured she was hurt pretty bad,” Dacey interrupted, his voice flat. “She...she was a good ol’ dog. Too old to be taking on men.”
“I don’t think she suffered none,” Blaine said, stroking Blue’s absurdly long ear. “She was gone by the time we reached the bearskin, and Blue drug me there right quick, soon as we heard Mage howl. Nearly kilt me, he did,” she added, a complaint made to keep up her end of that disaffection. She realized she was petting the dog and quit.
Dacey seemed to be struggling, still trying to gather his thoughts. “Tell me about tomorrow.”
“They were going to kill you in front of the women and children. We don’t know what they’ll do now, but everyone’ll gather up like they’re supposed to, and we can ward ’em all if we take the hall. I...I told Trey and Burl about the wards — I had to, it was the only way to convince them we still had to make a try at it —” She hesitated, but Dacey only nodded.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You done good to keep ’em thinking about an attack at all.”
“They got the boys divvied up, give ’em their roles. I’m s’posed to meet ’em at the bottom between the river and the hall tomorrow morning.”
“Where are we now?”
“Not so far from there,” Blaine said, her own question in her voice as she heard the intent in his inquiry. “You ain’t planning —”
“I can set the wards, Blaine, an’ it’ll free you up to do something else — talk to the women, most likely — they’re gonna be some scared, not knowing what’s happening and all.”
“But Dacey...” Blaine protested. “It won’t be safe getting to the hall, an’ you ain’t gonna be able to do any ducking.”
For a moment, he said nothing; he was quiet when he did speak. “You can leave me here, and there ain’t a thing I can do about it. But iff’n those flatlanders manage to follow the trail you made getting here, I’ll be waiting for ’em, pretty as you please. Or you can move me to a safer place, an’ if you don’t duck right, no one’ll know where I am — including me. That’d suit the Annekteh just fine.”
Blaine didn’t answer with anything more than her sigh. “Then you ought to get some sleep,” she said. “Burl’ll be coming back with the pack, and I’ll rig a shelter from the tarp. Be some food, too, I reckon — beans an’ bacon, mostly.”
“A stomach as empty as mine ain’t apt to be picky.” For the moment he was Dacey as she knew him best — laconic, seeming like he knew his world better than anybody.
“How’d they do it?” she asked then, unable to contain a horrified curiosity. “Does it hurt?”
Dacey turned his head away. “No,” he said, “it don’t hurt. It’s their magic. They wanted answers, and didn’t get none. I reckon they thought it was a way to hobble me.”
“Maybe it won’t last,” Blaine offered hopefully. “Plains magic ain’t too strong hereabouts.”
He said nothing.
“I won’t have you giving up, Dacey Childers,” Blaine said, suddenly fierce. “We’re gonna lick those Annekteh tomorrow, an’ everything will be just fine. Including you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dacey said, but she was glad to hear a little fire beneath his teasing meekness. Still Dacey, despite it all.
~~~~~~~~~~