The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

43: Too Present To Imagine

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Storm by Diego Candia. All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

"Peltier, you get your sorry Crow ass thrown in the brig again..." Dev poured himself another cup of coffee and sat back down on his bunk. "...I'm going to recommend they just go on and shoot you."

Lundy Bad Medicine huffed, grimly amused as he pulled on his boots. "He gets his sorry Crow ass thrown in the brig again, you probably won't have to."

Storm stirred yet another spoonful of sugar into his cup of terrible bunkhouse coffee and grimaced, feeling self-conscious. "I didn't mean to make trouble," he muttered. "It's been a while since I've been here and had to play the game."

Many Stars and Wounded had already left for breakfast in the mess tent, and Storm could hear Dev's belly rumbling from across the room. Dev was looking at him and Bad Medicine expectantly. He got up, the slats of the bunk groaning with relief."You two coming?"

"Yeah," Bad Medicine said, jerking his head towards Storm and shooting him a glance. "We'll be along."

Dev nodded and hauled a sagging suspender over his shoulder as he headed for the door. "Don't be too long, Peltier." He arched a bushy eyebrow at him and frowned. "We need to keep an eye on each other. We have enemies here." He closed the door firmly behind himself as he left, his footfalls fading across the stone paving in front of the doorway.

Storm smiled to himself, mentally translating what Dev had really said to him. I need to keep an eye on you so you don't get your fool self killed, you damned Crow idiot. He turned towards Bad Medicine, cocking his head. Clearly, the young man wanted a word with him.

Bad Medicine sighed heavily. "I guess I don't have to tell you that you don't want to get too much attention from Collins. But I'm telling you anyways."

Storm sat down on his bunk, feeling embarrassed. "I know. I forgot myself. I know his kind."

"He's dangerous," Bad Medicine said. "He's arrogant and doesn't have control of his temper."

Storm nodded, narrowing his eyes. "No. He doesn't. But that's not why you wanted to talk to me."

"No." Bad Medicine's rusty eyebrows knitted together across his freckled brow. His tawny eyes seemed to belong to someone older. "I wanted to show you something."

He bent over, reaching for his rucksack under the bunk, and carefully removing what looked like a hinged book. He opened it, and a middle-aged couple stared out at Storm from the mirrored surface, their faces rendered in shades of black and gray and silver. The man was dark and stern, his straight black hair pulled back into a long braid. He wore buckskins with a Hudson's Bay point blanket coat, the colors hand painted onto the image in shades of red, yellow, and blue. The woman was pale, her features European and delicate and lightly dusted with the freckles that showed up so boldly on Bad Medicine's face. Her graying hair was tinted the color of rust, pulled up into a modest bun, and softened with loose strands and curls finding their way loose.

He knows. And it's no accident he's here, and I'm here. I have to pay attention. I am being shown something my spirit needs to know. Storm's heart began to pound, and he knew he was peering into the world of spirits and Mystery. "An ambrotype," he breathed, taking it gently in his hand. "Haven't seen these outside of Lynch's house." He was stunned, his eyes drinking in the image stained into the silvered surface. The couple's hands were intertwined. "Is this...are they..."

"My parents," Bad Medicine said.

Staring at the photograph, unable to look away, Storm had the otherworldly, lightheaded feeling of being given a vision after a long fast. "She's...I mean, your mother is..."

How? How is this true? Things were bad enough for my own parents with my mother being Absaroka. A white man might take an Indian wife, but there's no way a white woman...

"She's Scottish," the young scout went on. "From Glasgow. They both worked for Hudson's Bay. My family's always worked for North West, way back before the companies merged. That company had a better attitude towards..." He licked his lips, choosing his words. "...things."

Storm had told himself it might work, that his relationship with Fiona might be manageable. He told himself that during the times when she was in his arms, warm and soft and clinging to him, when her lips were on his skin driving him crazy, sending all rational thought out of his head. He had told himself all manner of insane things in the last couple of weeks. But when he was alone, when he was thinking clearly, he knew the truth of it. The despair of it. It was destroying his sanity and his soul, one piece at a time.

"Was..." He heard the whispered words from his lips as if he were hearing them from outside his body. "Was it hard?"

"Yes," Bad Medicine said.

"What happened to her? To them?" He looked up, searching Bad Medicine's cinnamon face and bracing himself for the terrible truth. The young scout was the fate he was creating, a glimpse down a secret trail that should be hidden from him, and he could not force himself to look away. It was rude, he knew, to hold the man's eyes. But he needed to know. Surely a man wouldn't deny water to man lost in the desert, or air if he needed to breathe...

Bad Medicine gazed back, his eyes bright, showing his soul. His lip tugged upwards in a crooked, barely-there smile. "Happiness."

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