The Crimson Skew (The Mapmakers Trilogy) by S. E. Grove (19)

18

The Backwoods

CASANOVA TRIED TO stay awake. It was his third day on the road and his third night without sleep. The night before he had driven the wagon through the night, through an inch of fallen ash that made the ground white and eerily warm. Squinting down at the strange substance, he worried most about whether it would make them easier to track. That morning, in a farm north of Fort Pitt, he had left the surviving mule—exhausted from fear and overwork—in the hands of a farmer, and exchanged half the contents of the wagon for a draft horse. Fortunately, his northeasterly route had prevented him from encountering any New Occident troops. He had chosen the less trafficked path to the state of New York, cutting across the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, on purpose. But for the same reason his journey proceeded slowly; the narrower road made for difficult travel. The draft horse was strong and needed less rest than he had feared. And yet, he knew they could not arrive soon enough.

Theo had woken on the previous afternoon, probably at the sound of Casanova’s rifle when he was forced to shoot the injured mule. When he heard the boy’s groan of protest, Casanova hurried to the rear of the wagon. Theo had not improved since then. He had a high fever. Sometimes he drank water, but most of the time he pushed it away, battling Casanova with his good arm as if fending off a poison draught.

Casanova urged and cajoled him, doing everything he could to bring him to consciousness. “Theo—hey, Theo,” he said desperately. “Wake up. Just for a few seconds.” There was no response. “Theo. Please. You have to drink water.” He felt a moment’s panic when he could not feel the boy’s pulse, and then he saw Theo’s eyelids flutter. “I’ll make it worth your while. You know what? If you just open your eyes and take this drink of water, I’ll tell you the story of the scar. Don’t you want to hear the story of the scar?” he pleaded. Theo’s head lolled to the side.

Casanova took a long, shaky breath. When he inspected Theo’s wound, he found it terrifyingly red and swollen. He knew then that, whether because of a substance on the arrowhead or simply because the injury could not heal properly with the embedded pieces of flint, the wound had become infected.

After that, Casanova redoubled his efforts. As he continued on their route, driving through the evening and night, his weariness grew and he began to drift into that state of exhaustion in which doubts hover like specters and nothing seems certain. He wondered whether he should have sought a doctor in Fort Pitt. But, he argued with himself, the moment the wagon had fled the battle—no, the moment he had driven on, away from the battle—they had become deserters. He could not count on the goodwill of the commanding officers in Fort Pitt. Most likely they would enforce the law against sedition to the fullest extent, because he and Theo were convict-soldiers. Before the boy even had a chance to heal, he would find himself at the end of a hangman’s rope.

So Casanova rode on, though he knew another day and a half on the road lay ahead.

The sun had not yet set, but on the narrow path through the woods, dusk had already fallen. Casanova let his chin drop, the reins slack in his hands. His eyes closed. Before he could drift into sleep, the sudden halting of the horse jolted him upright.

He blinked into the gathering darkness and saw, only twenty feet ahead on the path, a cluster of torchlights. They moved toward him. The men carrying them were at least six in number; they had long hair and heavy boots. If he had not been lulled by the sound of the horse’s hooves and the creaking wagon, he surely would have heard the men, for every inch of their hair and clothes rang with silver. Raiders.

Casanova sat motionlessly, the reins now tight in his hands. There was no place to go. The track was too narrow for him to turn around, and the woods on either side too thick. There was no opportunity for flight. Then it will have to be bargaining, he thought.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said casually, as the raiders approached the wagon. He noted that two of the men wore goggles loosely around their necks, as if in readiness. Casanova waited.

One of the raiders with goggles came up to the side of the wagon and amicably slapped the horse’s haunches. He gave Casanova a wide grin, and his metal teeth shone in the light of the torch he held. “Well, friend. What have we here?”

“I might ask the same. You boys are rather more east than you usually are, am I right?” Casanova asked.

The raider’s grin widened farther. “That we are. War makes for good hunting.”

“Maybe in some places.”

Another raider, this one unsmiling, stared at Casanova. “Bloody Fates, man, you have one ugly face.”

Casanova looked back at him. In the long pause that followed, Casanova heard all the tinkling bells the raiders wore go silent as the men fell still. He waited, letting the firelight of the torches play over his scarred features, knowing well how it would look. Then he smiled wryly. “Seems to me the pot’s calling the kettle black,” Casanova said.

There was a moment more of silence, and then the raiders burst into laughter. Casanova shook his head good-naturedly and took up the reins. “Well, my handsome friends, I know what you’re here for, and I know there’s six of you and one of me. However, what you don’t know,” he added, and the raiders’ laughter died away, “is how much damage one of me can do. I make it a point of aiming for the face, just so you have a little something to remember me by. So I recommend you keep your good looks. Help yourself to anything you like, excepting enough food and water for the boy.”

The raiders gazed at him warily, and he could see that they were deciding whether to take offense. Casanova put up his hands in mock surrender. “You’ve got me. I won’t say fair and square, but nonetheless. All I want is to get that sick boy in the back of the wagon to safety, and I need enough food and water for one day and a night. If you’ll do that for me, I’ll be much obliged. By way of thanks, I’ll tell you what I know of the nearest troops, and I’ll throw in a pair of goggles. Looks to me like you might need them.”

The raider who had first spoken stared at Casanova through narrowed eyes, and he turned to the man next to him. “Check the back of the wagon,” he said curtly.

The man ambled off with a sound like a purse full of coins falling down a set of stairs. Casanova waited. There was silence as the raider peered into the back of the wagon, and then the same metallic cacophony as he returned. “Yeah. Full of loot. Very sick kid,” he muttered. Then he said something to the leader that Casanova could not make out. It sounded like “lucky.”

“All right,” the first man replied gruffly. “Leave them food for two days and clear out the rest.” He turned to Casanova. “That should tide you over.”

Casanova nodded. “I’m grateful to you.”

The raiders emptied the remaining contents of the wagon, taking all of the major’s linens, wine, and costly preserves. Casanova watched with some regret as pickled vegetables, bags of fine flour, coffee and chocolate from the Indies, and jars of summer fruit jams vanished in the raiders’ arms. He told their leader about where he had seen troops, and about what had happened to his own company under the leadership of Major Merret. The man listened in silence, and nodded gravely when Casanova described the archers who sprang from the side of the road. “Their masks covered their mouths,” Casanova commented, “not their eyes.”

“Did they, now?” the raider said, intrigued. “Might be they know more than we do. Haven’t had the good fortune to see any red cloud myself,” the raider said dryly.

“A red cloud? Is that what the goggles are for?”

The raider gave a curt nod. “I take it you haven’t seen it, either.”

“No.”

“Red clouds that turn the mind. Make your own flesh and blood appear as monsters, they say. Hard to know the truth of it, since I’ve only heard secondhand, but a man two days south told me he met a boy who speared his sister with a pickax. He thought she was a bear.”

Casanova scoffed. “Sounds improbable.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” The raider turned away, and Casanova heard him climb into the back of the wagon. After some silence, he got out and walked some distance into the woods, where his own horse was presumably tied up. He returned with a small cloth pouch, which he tossed up to Casanova. It was light, its contents like pieces of frayed rope under the cotton cloth.

“What’s this?” Casanova asked.

“Dried beef,” the raider replied. He gave Casanova a keen look. “The boy needs food with iron in it.”

Casanova blinked in surprise. “Is that right?”

“He’s Mark of Iron,” the raider said. “Won’t survive without it.”

Casanova looked down at the pouch and back up at the raider, whose teeth, glinting in the flickering torchlight, seemed less forbidding now. “Thank you. Can I ask your name? To tell the boy who helped him, when he wakes.”

“You can tell Lucky Theo that Skinny Jim and the gang passed by. He’ll remember me from old times.”

Wordless, astonished, Casanova watched Skinny Jim follow the other raiders back up the path. They led their heavily laden horses into the woods, and soon the light of their torches flickered out among the trees.

He sprang to his feet, his energy renewed. He tied the reins and hurried to the back of the wagon, where he found that the raiders had left them more than enough food. A lighted gas lamp was standing on a barrel of water. They had even left Theo’s bedding, propping him up between the major’s fine cotton quilts. Casanova felt a spasm of relief. They had gotten off easy. He knelt down and reluctantly shook Theo awake.

“Theo—Theo, you have to wake up.”

Theo’s eyes opened, and he looked up at Casanova uncomprehendingly.

“You’re going to have some water and food,” Casanova said, putting his arm under Theo’s head. Theo did not even react when Casanova accidentally brushed his injured shoulder—a bad sign. He gazed blankly ahead, and Casanova tipped the water canteen into his mouth. Theo choked, coughed, and then swallowed. Casanova gave him the smallest piece of dried beef he could find. “Chew that over, Theo,” he said quietly. “Skinny Jim says you need iron. So chew on that, and get better, would you?”

Theo chewed obediently and swallowed, but his eyes remained glazed over, and when Casanova lay him back against the bedding, he turned and closed his eyes without uttering a sound.