On Crow Water (Part Two of Four)

It's all in the asking.

(Read Part One of this story here.)

The horse, too tired now to fret, picks his way slowly through the mud. Longman lets him go; the animal knows as much as he does about this place. 

Smells of wet sand, creosote and the sweetish tang of something rotting in the brush tickle the roiling in his stomach. He swallows down the nausea and peers ahead.

Dusky shadows fill the spaces between the trees along the banks of Crow Water. And up around the bend -- Longman wipes his streaming eyes and squints into the darkness to be sure -- there’s a little golden light, warm and welcoming.

No, he isn’t fever-mad.  An oil lamp burns in the window of a tidy house made of adobe and wood, standing calm and sturdy in a clearing marked off with a deadwood fence. Longman unclenches his hands from the pommel of the saddle and checks his guns. Then he edges the horse up the skinny road leading back from the creek and through the open gate.

At the sound of hooves, the bushes around the clearing come alive with rustlings and chitterings, creekside dwellers breaking cover in a flurry of wings and feet. 

Longman pulls up the horse in front of the house. A heartbeat later, the door creeps open, spilling warm yellow light onto the porch. 

“Who’s there?” asks a voice, and Longman’s icy fingers relax on the handle of his revolver.  A woman: youngish by the sound of her, most likely alone. If a man were about the place, he’d be the one doing the asking.

The woman peers around the doorframe. To Longman’s burning eyes, she’s just a mass of wild hair and the muzzle of a long rifle, pointed at his head.

 “Who’s there, I say?”  Her voice is steady.  So is the rifle.

“I’ve lost my way,” Longman croaks. The saddle seems to be slipping sideways. He clamps his knees tight against the horse’s ribs. “I need to get out of the rain.”

“Tis a bad night to be out, sure enough,” she says, and the lilt in her words makes him think of green grass and cool water. “Where are you bound?”

“Mexico. Agua Linda. I think.”  Longman’s words sound distant and hollow in his ears.  The ground seems to be rising up to meet him. 

The firelight flickering behind the woman calls Longman like a siren of the sea.  Chill crawls across his damp shoulders and another shiver begins, uncontrollable shaking that starts out deep in his bones.  

“Look. I’m wet. I’m cold. I need to stop here.”

A winged shape, silhouetted against that wondrous warm light, flutters down to sit on the woman’s shoulder.  She shakes her head. “I won’t be opening my door to a stranger with a gun, and him taken with drink to boot.  Be on your way, for I’m not wanting to waste bullets tonight.” 

Longman hauls himself upright. He’s dying, most like, and the coming storm will carry him off to hell on the back of this bone-weary horse, and she’s turning him away like a crazy drunk? 

He never takes a drop when he’s on the hunt, though come to think of it, a good shot of whiskey right now might stiffen his legs a bit. 

A mad thought comes to him: if he ducks low and draws fast, he could shoot the woman, and whatever else might be living in that warm dry room he can’t get to, before she can get a bead on him.  His fingers tighten again on the revolver.

“Listen, woman, I’m sober as --” he begins, but with no warning at all, he slides like water out of the saddle and onto the muddy ground. As burning blackness closes around him, boots thump across the porch and down the steps.  Hair, smelling like wood smoke, tickles his nose.

Summoning all his strength, Longman whispers, “Please. Let me come in.”

The woman laughs, low and rich.  “Not drink at all then, is it?”  

Cool fingers settle upon Longman’s burning forehead, and she draws in a sharp breath. “No, another thing entirely . . . Well, that’s three times you’ve asked, and so I must say yes.  Come along in, man, and be easy, and let Bridie make you whole again.”

---

Behind the Scenes: