Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Sorcha
Neal and Ansel let me choose our horses.
It was a goodwill gesture, placation, apology.
Neither commented on my decision as we left Fredericksburg with the biggest, happiest, laziest draft crosses available—slow but sure-footed, capable of carrying at least five times the gear we had on hand.
Mine was named Peanut. Ansel seemed disgruntled as always, but I was thrilled.
Our first day on the road was almost entirely uneventful.
After almost a week on the train, it was oddly exhilarating to be back on the saddle and on our own again.
The highway was well trafficked, we passed dozens of donkeys and oxen pulling carts, stagecoaches and mail coaches, others riding, and many on foot.
Baby liked the blueberries and cinnamon, and I hadn’t vomited once.
And then it started to get dark.
“Ansel, weren’t we supposed to reach an inn before dinner?” I asked, shifting in my saddle. We’d been out too long. My hips were screaming. Neal was clearly starting to lag. Ansel had said we’d reach a town two hours ago.
“I may have misjudged the distance from Fredericksburg to Dale City,” Ansel admitted. “I’m sure it’s up ahead soon.”
“What does soon mean?” I snapped.
“Soon.”
The night ground on. It was nearing ten o’clock. We still hadn’t reached Dale City. But suddenly something on the road felt different, wrong. There was something in the trees. Neal pulled back his horse, gesturing for me to do the same. I expected deer or maybe coyotes.
But instead we were suddenly face to face with four large masked men, armed to the teeth.
“This doesn’t have to be difficult,” one of the bandits said. “We’d prefer if it wasn’t.”
I shot Neal a panicked glance. He simply nodded in Ansel’s direction, otherwise unmoving.
“Let’s not do anything hasty,” Ansel said. “We’re just trying to travel up to Washington.”
“And you’ve picked a toll road. You can pay up nicely. Or . . .” The bandit trailed off, pulling a gun.
I glanced back and forth between Neal and Ansel waiting for someone to do something.
“Just tell us how much you want,” Neal said. He sounded eons calmer than I felt. Then again, he always sounded calmer than I felt.
“Depends how much you’ve got,” one of the highwaymen replied with a sneer.
And then he fired a shot straight up into the air.
And then the horses panicked. I reached out instinctively, to the horses, yes—to calm them.
But into the surrounding woods too. We were seconds away from a gunfight. And maybe, just maybe, I could stop it.
As my gentle gelding reared and fought, terrified by the shot, I felt something tugging at the edges of my consciousness.
A big predator. Maybe two? I wasn’t entirely sure. I didn’t bother to check.
And then I felt my magic drain. More than I anticipated. And suddenly five full-grown black bears burst through the trees, barreling at the bandits and huffing aggressively. A cub followed, barely the size of a spaniel.
I watched with a bizarre sense of detachment as the bears trundled along, growling and baring their teeth, until the highwaymen were far down the road. One of the men dropped his gun as they stumbled over each other to get away.
I felt myself start to slip from the saddle, horse still pawing at the dirt, unsettled by the upset. And I fully expected to hit the ground—hard. Neal was still in the saddle. Ansel too. There was no way either of them would be able to intervene.
But I didn’t. Instead I fell on something soft, fluffy, yielding—a bear.