5. A Grave Big Enough for Four
A Grave Big Enough for Four
The horse moved fluidly beneath Pearl as they galloped over the drying earth. The storm had moved on and the warmth of the morning was already stealing the moisture for itself.
Sheriff Oak rode beside her as their mounts ate up the distance with ease. A few others from town would follow with a new pair of mules for the cart unless Pearl and Sheriff Oak headed them off. Pearl pushed her horse to go faster.
She’d slept only a little. Her arm throbbed dully beneath the stitches, bandage, and her second-favorite shirt.
She’d see if Molly could work her own form of magic and repair the blue pinstripe one.
Pearl’s sewing skills were effective but not particular.
Molly was exceptional with her hands. At many things.
The terrain changed from scrub grass and thorny yucca to patches of sand and gravel as they entered the gorge, the old riverbed misplaced by time. The water ran high and Pearl’s heart sank.
Sheriff Oak slowed her horse to a walk and withdrew her rifle.
Eyes never straying from their circuit of the surroundings, she licked a trail of white powder from her finger and tossed Pearl a circular blush compact, like the fancy ladies of the cities used to make themselves pretty.
Pearl flipped it open and helped herself to a dab of blight, letting it dissolve on her tongue.
Tossing the compact back at her mother, Pearl yanked her own rifle from her saddle. The choice was better than her revolvers for long shots, and they might be riding straight into an ambush.
Like yesterday, the world sharpened around her as the blight flooded her system.
They rode past the old stumps, scrutinizing the shrubs around and above, and the slopes that steepened into cliffs on either side.
Pearl’s heightened mind lingered on the antics of courting mice in the brush to her left, until she viciously tore herself away.
It was easy to get distracted by anything when everything was so clear.
The cart appeared, loaded with damp logs.
It wasn’t where they’d left it. It was farther up the shortened bank, tucked against the trees.
“Someone’s been here,” Pearl murmured.
The bodies were there too, all six of them, laid in a neat line out of reach of the rushing water.
Pearl and Sheriff Oak dismounted, still scanning the area intently.
Pearl inspected the bodies and the ground.
The rain had washed away much of the evidence of the conflict.
Still, when she shifted what used to be Marcus, the earth was clean beneath him.
“Whoever was here moved them after they’d bled out. ”
“Who would’ve done that?” Sheriff Oak asked. “You certain there were only three strangers?”
Pearl looked at the incredibly heavy cart again, now resting at a different angle from yesterday. “Only three humans,” Pearl replied, her eyes dragging to the cliffs above.
When she’d recounted the story of yesterday, she’d skipped over the part about the blinkboars and the gargoyle.
Specifically, Pearl’s agreement. Pearl was still confused by it, and she planned to figure out what the goyle actually wanted before she brought her town into it.
Because if her mother knew, she wouldn’t let Pearl meet her alone.
Perhaps for good reason. But Pearl had made a promise, and she was going to uphold it.
Partly because of obligation, and partly because she was curious.
Not many things grabbed Pearl’s curiosity, but that conversation certainly had, especially after it was over and she wasn’t expecting to be eaten at any moment.
The goyle had moved the cart. No other explanation made sense, yet that didn’t make much more.
The sun burned high in the sky. If Driz had returned to this place, she would be stone now.
Was she sleeping somewhere above them? Pearl listened, but all of the concealed heartbeats she could hear were too fast and faint for a creature the size of a goyle.
Did goyles even have heartbeats when they were stone?
“Cover me,” Sheriff Oak said, resting her gun and unstrapping a shovel from her saddle.
Pearl stood with her back to her mother, watching and listening. Even if it was the strange goyle who had been back, Faltsprings could still be sending another party as easily as Salt Bluff.
“We’ll bring a few more carts and clear out as much of this grove as we can today and tomorrow. Before they do. Now they know about this place.”
Sheriff Oak’s shovel thudded and scraped against the gritty soil as she dug a grave big enough for four. They’d send Willy and Billy back with the cart to be buried in their cemetery behind the mayor’s house, but the others would rest here.
Pearl helped roll their enemies into the pit. Each one she had killed. She didn’t bother taking too much care with them. As the dirt covered their faces, Pearl tried to erase them as effectively from her mind.
Molly sat on her back porch, a dead cigarette between her teeth, and the rocking chair drumming a steady rhythm on the wooden planks. Her sun-darkened skin showed her fondness for the spot and her equal disdain for hats. It looked as good on her as always.
Pearl crouched on the steps, rubbing Buster’s scraggly ears, as Molly inspected Pearl’s torn shirt. The heat of the day had dried it already, and the blood had mostly washed out.
“The pattern makes it easier to hide. I’ll make it work,” Molly said with a nod. “Think I got a bit of the fabric left. Might need a patch.”
“You’re the best.” Pearl stood, took a cigarette from her pocket, and lit it before reaching down and replacing the one in Molly’s mouth.
Molly grinned up at her. “Thanks, doll. I just fit this one to you last month. It looks too good on you to become scrap already.”
“Good on me? I’m gonna start blushing.”
“Oh, I know how to make you blush.”
Pearl returned Molly’s grin. “Yeah, you do.”
“You got time now?” Molly looked her up and down. “For this old matron?”
“You’re only five years older than me, so don’t say things like that. I’ve actually got another favor to ask.”
Molly pouted. “That doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be as fun as my idea.”
“Sadly, you’re right. You got any big shirts or trousers lying around? Maybe Big John’s size?”
Molly dragged on the cigarette as she thought before crushing it on the stone slab beside her. “I might. Lemme check.”
Molly levered herself from the rocking chair into the wheeled one that rested beside it, and Pearl followed her back inside.
The back room where Molly lived was simple and tidy, the pink wallpaper faded and carefully patched.
But in the front shop, an explosion of fabric had gone off.
It was chaos to Pearl, but Molly knew what she was looking for.
She produced a simple cream shirt with wooden buttons.
Pearl held it out, sizing it up. “Any way you could make it a bit more…feminine?”
Molly raised her eyebrows. “You got a big lady friend, Pearl?”
“Something like that.”
Molly watched her intently. “I don’t know of any ladies that size in this town. And trust me, I’d know.”
“I’ve no doubt you would. She’s not from around here.”
Pearl kept her expression bland as Molly continued to watch her. “I’ll put in a few darts. But it won’t be anything special without any idea of her measurements.”
“Thanks. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to the sheriff.”
Molly snorted. “You worried your mama gonna find out you enjoy mare instead of stallion?”
Pearl rolled her eyes. “We’re at least fifteen years late for that.”
Molly wheeled past her to another pile, sorting through several pairs of trousers. “Wanna give me any more hints to your large friend’s size? Build?”
“Strong,” Pearl replied immediately. “And tall.”
Molly sighed, mostly in annoyance and perhaps with a hint of envy. “I saw you dancing with Rosie a lot at Wallace and Clara’s wedding. You aren’t playing with her too, are you? You know how she is.”
“I’m not playing with nobody. And Rosie’s too sweet for me.”
“She is,” Molly agreed easily.
Pearl refused to let that hurt.
Molly sighed again, and then she grinned and held out a pair of trousers. “I hope this big lady of yours knows what she’s getting too.”
“She certainly isn’t sweet,” Pearl muttered.
Pearl didn’t know what Driz was. Yet, for some reason, Driz had helped, even after Pearl left.
It consumed her thoughts, distracting her for the rest of the day, making her careless.
She nearly dropped her forkful of mash when her mother kicked her beneath the table as they sat and ate in the back of Spencer’s Saloon.
It was a quiet evening, most people tired from two days of partying for Mayor Wallace’s wedding.
“Wanna talk about it?” Sheriff Oak asked, her eyes keen on Pearl’s face.
As usual, her mother read Pearl with ease. She’d never been able to hide things from her well. She thought of Molly’s comment earlier and the corner of her mouth lifted.
Her mother had been the first person to know about Pearl’s preference for women, when Pearl was only twelve years old. Sheriff Oak had shrugged and told her it didn’t matter who she wanted between her legs, so long as she was careful about it.
Molly had been her first, when Pearl was sixteen.
From the way people talked, they thought Pearl slept in a different bed each night.
Pearl didn’t bother correcting them. But in truth, she’d only been with a handful of women in her life, and most of them were travelers or outsiders. It was less complicated that way.
She’d enjoyed two sweaty summer nights in a room above where they sat now, with a leggy prospector on a sanctioned mission from the empire to locate fresh pockets of blight in the wilds, who got weathered in town on her way through.
And an evening with a voluptuous baker in Plainsburgh when Pearl had accompanied a salt shipment there last autumn.
A few of her lovers had written to her afterward. Pearl never responded.