Etsi pulled on her magic.
A small dry whirlwind sprang up, bright and hot, and entered the house. A moment later Etsi’s words and magic had convinced the housekeeper that she was an expected visitor. The girl told Etsi a tale of woe about the troubles of the ranch as she let them into the coolness to wait.
A man took a fast horse to find Mr. Turner while the maid brought tea to the study where Etsi insisted she be allowed to wait. Ayatas was given a metal cup of water and sat on the cool floor in front of the closed study door, the place a man of his color and race would be expected to wait. In reality, he was his Everhart woman’s lookout and guard while she searched the office and desk for important papers and evidence of Amandine’s past.
A little over an hour later, he heard horse hooves coming at speed. He scratched on the door. Etsi opened it a crack and said, “This man is a rascal and a scoundrel. I think he’ll make a wonderful story for back east. I’m ready to bring him down,” she said.
“You will be cautious,” he murmured as the sound of boots rang on the front tile stoop.
“I most certainly will not.”
Ayatas sighed. Etsi made a harrumphing sound and closed the door. Moments later, the man who had sold his wife entered and stomped to the back of the house to wash up and to use foul language to the pretty housekeeper. And to hit her. Ayatas placed his hand on the hilt of his knife, ready to help the woman, but Turner slammed a door and stomped towardthe study, Etsi’s business card in his hand. The white man ignored him as trash. It galled Ayatas when fools thought him unworthy of notice, but it was a useful tool.
The door opened, and Turner started to speak, but Etsi demanded, “You will tell me where my dear friend Amandine is, Mr. Jessup Turner, and you will tell me this instant.”
“Who the bloody blazes are you, and what kind of woman works for a newspaper?” He spun the card across the room, like a stone tapping across water.
Ayatas caught the door with one hand and slid inside, into the shadows behind a chair. The door closed softly on its own. The room was dim, but his eyes had adjusted. Turner’s eyes had not, or he would not be still standing in the room. Several strands of Etsi’s hair had come free from her bun and from beneath her hat, and they spun in the wrath of her magics, a slow tornado about her head.
A cool breeze blew through the room, carrying the smell and tingle of power. “Amandine and I met when she attended San Francisco Girls’ High School. Now that I am out of mourning for my dear departed husband”—her voice trembled as if she had begun to cry—“I was invited to visit her and her father at their ranch, to do a story on the daily life of a young female rancher. And as my publisher’s own daughter went to school with her, he was most eager to send me. As of our last correspondence, all was arranged. However, I arrive and poor Mr. Carleton is dead and buried, and Amandine is both married and missing, all in a matter of two months.” She lifted a hand as if to wipe away a tear. “All my... wealth is no protection against the vicissitudes of life and fate.” The power of compulsion surged through the room. “You must tell me what has happened,” she finished.
Ayatas smiled into the shadows. She had told the man that her whereabouts were known to the wealthy back east, and that she had wealth of her own, yet was foolish enough to travel into dangerous territory. His fire woman appeared to be in need of protection. A victim. Which she was not nor ever would be. She also acted young and the man did not look beyond her words to the woman’s face or the underlying steel.
“My dear Mrs. Everhart, my heart breaks to tell you that my father-in-law died only last month after a horse fell on him. It was most unexpectedand sad for us all. Yet yesterday’s news has proven much worse. Please be seated.” He indicated the leather sofa where Etsi had been sitting, and when she sat again, he sat beside her and took her hand. Ayatas gripped his knife at the man’s presumption, though Etsi did not indicate that she needed his help.
“There is no good nor kind way to speak the news,” Turner said. “Amandine and her personal servant rode out into the desert to bring me a picnic dinner yesterday. She never returned. I and all of my men have been out searching for her, all night and all day. All we found was a dead horse and a place of struggle. I fear a mountain lion or a small band of Ute or Apache may have taken her.”
“Oh. Oh no! What did the sheriff say to the attack? We saw him in town last night. He wasn’t leading a search? This is truly dreadful. You must tell me more!”
Ayatas smiled and listened as the man wove a tale of lies, and what his fire woman called seduction—his words leading her to trust when there was nothing to trust at all. As they talked, Ayatas slipped from the room and learned the layout of the house. He found the room where Turner slept. He found the location of the ranch’s gun collection. He discovered that the housemaid was covered in bruises and cried softly in a tiny crevice of a room at the back of the house. He controlled his rage. Wrath would help no one.
—
It was the hottest part of the day when Turner offered Etsi a small repast and left the room to order a bowl of fresh greens, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine to be brought to the study. Ayatas slipped inside, and Etsi whispered, “He thinks I am a fool, to be drugged.” Her expression was stern, and he knew she feared the food would contain the peyote mushroom or opium.
“You have never been a fool, my fire woman.” Quickly he ducked back out and into the shadows. Turner and the housemaid came and went, leaving the door open. Turner continued his seduction, but Etsi ate little, drank only water, and, as soon as the meal was over, insisted that she and her guide would walk back to town. Turner countered, equally insistent, that he drive them back. Etsi agreed.
The buckboard was brought around, and Turner helped Etsi up to theseat. They rode back to town on the bench seat. Ayatas sat on the back of the wagon, staring into the distance, planning how he would kill the man who sought to woo his woman.
—
“Is she still in room seven?”
Ayatas dropped his chin in theTsalagiway. The scent of Turner’s wife had come out of the window, along with the scent of opium. She had been drugged. The two of them would free her before the sun set. And kill her husband by morning.
“Where is the sheriff?” Etsi asked, her voice low so that Mrs. Smith, if she came back from her errand early, would not know that she had a man in her room.
“The sheriff and the dead man are at the ranch.”
“Ayatas,” she protested, laughter in her voice. “Dead man. Really. Here. Help me into the boots.”
“They drink and play cards,” Ayatas said, inserting the boot hooks in the leather loops. “In the morning, they will tell you that the ranch hands found what was left of the body and brought it in. They think you will not know the difference between the bones of a deer and the bones of a woman if there is no head.”
“Of course. Women are uniformly stupid and gullible. And when not, then easily bruised and forced. Pull.” She stood and Ayatas lifted the metal hooks against her weight until her left foot slipped in and then the right, snug. Etsi was dressed in dark gray and black, men’s breeches and riding boots, black shirt, and a scarf over her hair and face. She wore a small gun at her waist and a knife at her thigh. He had taught her to fight. She was not a warrior, but she was capable. And she had magic.
“Is Mrs. Lamont still at the bakery?” Two hours past, they had talked to Mrs. Lamont, telling her the story of Amandine. The baker did not want to believe that Turner had sold his wife to the saloon, the sheriff assisting, claiming that no white man would do such a thing. But she had been convinced and would help with the rescue and then care for Amandine through the night.
He dropped his head in agreement again, but this time his fire woman gripped his chin and pulled him to her. “What we do is good.” Her kiss was heated, and she laughed low in her throat. Long minutes later, theywere sprawled on the narrow bed, her shirt unbuttoned and his discarded. She whispered, “We’ll be late if we keep this up.”
