Book cover art by Angela Taratuta, graphics by me. Featured chapter artwork of Fiona is by the incredible Laura Hollingsworth, the writer/illustrator of The Siver Eye webcomic at http://www.thesilvereye.com/.
Storm moved slowly, leaning heavily on Fiona as she guided him to the bench in the kitchen. He'd thrown on some jeans and and a soft, well-worn coat obviously made of a colorfully striped Hudson Bay blanket. His feet were bare. Lily didn't much like that he was up around, but there wasn't much she could do about it other than give him a disapproving look. She had been drying the dishes from supper, and quickly tossed aside her towel to assist him as he sat. A sheen of perspiration had broken out over his brow and upper lip. She frowned sternly.
"Don't you think you should be resting?" she scolded, noting with concern his shallow breathing.
"Don't ask me," he countered breathlessly. "Bender says I need to walk around."
Lily paused, then nodded in understanding, her scowl softening. That's right. Moving around a bit will help keep his breathing clear.
"Bender's concerned about pneumonia," Fiona said, worry tinging her voice. "He says if he stays on his back too much and doesn't breath deeply, his lungs could fill with water."
"That's what he said," Storm gasped. "I'm surprised he doesn't have me standing up in a horse stall with a sling holding me upright."
"Oh, now." Lily smiled at the mental image. "Mr. Bender is doing the best he can, I'm sure."
"All I know is I'm glad I didn't break a leg. He'd have to come out with a rifle and put me down."
Fiona narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't even joke about that, Lights the Storm Peltier." She turned to Lily. "He wants to wash up a bit. He says he stinks."
"I do stink. When I can smell myself, it's bad. And my scalp itches...it's driving me crazy."
Lily hadn't really noticed. It isn't like anyone here is a stranger to the smell of sweat and horses. "Well, you can't wash your head till the stitches heal a bit more. But we can get you some hot water to sponge off with. Will you need help? We can call Luis or Jesse..."
"Just help me with my hair and I can manage the rest. Raising my arms is not so easy right now." He drew in a shaking breath, trying to force air deeply into his bruised lungs. "Let's just get the clots out, I can't stand it."
Fiona was working the pump and filling a pail with water. Lily turned to the stove and started coaxing it back to life. The coals were still hot from supper, so it flared quickly back into a flickering orange glow.
"So," Storm said as he unfastened his coat and gingerly eased it off his shoulders, revealing an incorrectly buttoned and untucked flannel shirt. "I heard I missed some excitement in here. Was that the same man Saint said was here before?"
Lily felt her face flush. "Yes, you did. You were probably better off for missing it, too. I think you've had plenty of excitement already." She stood up and went to get a towel out of the cupboard. "That was Richard Galloway. He's that lawyer that was here before."
Fiona quickly scooped up the coat and hung it neatly on a chair back. Lily watched Storm's black eyes silently follow her friend's movements with an intensity she felt certain that Fiona must feel on her back from across the room. She wasn't entirely sure she believed Saint's claim that Fiona and Storm were simply dear old friends. She'd seen the desperate fear on Fiona's face when the express rider been injured. Of course, she would be upset if any one of her charges had some back in that kind of state, but there seemed to be more to it than just that. As he furtively watched Fiona work, Lily wondered what was going on behind those black eyes. Is he thinking about how Fiona had slept fitfully in the chair beside him all night as he lay in and out of consciousness? He doesn't even know how distraught she was...does he?....how she held onto his hand and prayed at his bedside when his fever was at it's worst. Does he remember any of that? She couldn't read his troubled face earlier when she'd told him Fiona had stayed with him all night, and she couldn't read it now, either.
"You're right," Storm shifted his focus to Lily. "So much for the eastbound route being easier. I hope things go better for Wash and Saint."
Fiona hoisted the tin pail onto the stovetop with a grunt. "I must admit, I'm quite concerned about them headed west. Don't tell us it was 'just' a fire at William's station, either... and all you men should be ashamed for trying to keep us from finding out what really happened."
Lily's head jerked around, suprised. "What really happened?"
"That the station was burned and the crew all murdered," Fiona said. "Oh, don't look at me that way, Mr. Peltier, we have as much right to know what's going on as you lot."
Storm looked guilty and shifted on the bench. "We didn't want to worry you..." he started.
Now it was Fiona's turn to scowl. "We work here, too," she snapped, her voice rising slightly. "You needn't mollycoddle us..."
A flash of exasperation flickered across Storm's fine features. "So who told you?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Ah." Storm's shoulders drooped, defeated. "Luis."
Lily felt that kernel of helpless fear that was becoming all-too-familiar flare to life again like the banked coals in the stove. Jesse had very obviously told her an extremely watered-down version of this story. He'd made it sound like someone had gotten careless with a lamp or the stove. Attacked? Murdered? She stirred the warming water with her hand. "Mr. Storm, Jesse wasn't entirely honest about this when he told me about it."
Storm looked frustrated. Crushed between Lily's worrying and Fiona's anger, he cringed visibly. "It was a Paiute attack." He muttered. "I don't know what triggered it. It...it was bad." He leaned against the sink and tilted back his head as Lily lifted the bucket off the stove and brought it over. "That's all I really need to say about it. Now you know what I know."
Lily's hands shook as she carefully poured the warm water over Storm's tangled mane,carefully avoided his scalp. Fiona deftly combed through the clots and snarls, releasing swirls of brownish red as what was left of the dried blood trapped there dissolved and washed away. Staring at the black tendrils waving in the water like river weeds, Lily tried to focus on something, on anything, that would pull her mind away from the fledgling nightmares forming on the edge of her imagination.
Suddenly, she understood exactly what it was Fiona felt when Jesse had at first walked into the kitchen with news of the burned station. Only Storm had been headed east. Wash and....and Saint...are headed west. Right towards Williams Station and Paiute territory, where another mail crew just like this one was killed, probably horribly. She couldn't bear the thought of the two of them riding into such certain danger...Wash with his disarming grin and his sweet, lilting voice. Saint with his forwardness, and his coffee and tobacco addictions, and his penchant for rude comments and brawls in saloons. Saint with his fondness for raw cookie dough and his vulnerable eyes, who stayed up all night so the rest of us could sleep...
The bucket was empty. Fiona was carefully wringing out the sopping, heavy mass of Storm's hair. They were bickering lightly and familiarly with each other, but Lily didn't even hear what they were saying over the frantic chatter of her own fears. She distractedly set the bucket down.
Storm was looking at her with concern, studying her unhappily. "Lily... that's why we didn't want you ladies to know."
"Fiona's right," she managed to say, her face burning. "Keeping this from us isn't right...I..." She hastily picked up the towel and handed it to Fiona. "Here. I'm going upstairs for a while."
*****
Lily whirled into her room, closed the door behind her, and then leaned on it, inhaling deeply. It was as if the only breathable air at the station existed here, in the quiet, wildflower-scented darkness. She willed her heart to slow down, to stop pounding in her ears.
Shadows spilled across the room and pooled in the corners, standing out sharply in the moonlight pouring through the windows. A thick candle sat inside a cracked porcelain bowl on the windowsill, gleaming white in the dimness. Lily reached around on the fireplace mantle until her hand fell on the tinderbox she kept there. She deftly struck a spark onto the well-used tinder cloth, then stuck the end of a brimstone match to it, watching the match hiss to life.
The candle flared brightly when she transferred the flame to the wick, then died down to a warm glow inside the ivory wax pillar. Gazing through the bubbles and flecks trapped in the window glass to the silvery darkness outside, she whispered a prayer.
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