Chapter 1 | l’aperitif

Barrel-aged whiskey, served at room temperature.

The sky darkened with the shadow of wings, and the raucous caws of hundreds of crows cracked the afternoon stillness.

“Whoa there, Noah!” John MacClellan tugged the reins.

Noah’s ears flicked back in annoyance, but the donkey slowed to a stop. The wagon he pulled creaked to a halt on the half-vanished track.

John scowled upward as the birds churned through the sky.

“Somethin’ musta spooked ‘em,” he muttered. He only recalled seeing so many crows together in winter when they hunkered together or—

He jerked his head north, back the way he’d come, half expecting to see smoke and the flicker of flame, but what he saw was much worse. A roiling brown-black wall gobbled up earth and sky, rivaling even the nearby mountains.

John swore. “That don’t bode well for nobody.”

He clicked his tongue, but Noah, being a donkey and thereby imbued with an indomitable will, did not budge.

“Goddamn sandstorm comin’. You want to get caught out here in that?” John asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “It’ll scour the meat right off your bones, fool thing!” He glanced back again and found the wall of sand noticeably closer. “Git! We gotta find shelter!” He flicked the reins, popping Noah’s rump. The donkey brayed, but perhaps sensing John’s urgency or realizing the impending danger, he pulled in his traces. The wagon groaned into wobbly motion once more.

“Pueblo’s too far. We’ll never make it,” John said, thinking aloud.

Noah brayed.

“You think I don’t know we need to find shelter? What’s it look like I’m doin’?” John clapped a hand atop his bowler hat to prevent the strengthening wind from ripping it off as he scanned the far horizon. No hope there. He cast his gaze west, toward the base of the mountains. No safety there—

“Wait! What’s that?”

Noah did not answer, but John hadn’t expected one. Salvation was at hand. There, between the road and the distant mountains, stood a structure. He rubbed at his eyes to make sure it wasn’t an illusion. The outline remained. He could make out few details, but it could be nothing else.

“Go on, git!” He clucked his tongue and hauled on the reins. For once, Noah did as the driver bade him without complaint. The wagon jounced over ruts and over the berm that marked the edge of the road. It slowed as Noah struggled to move the wagon’s bulk over the uneven ground, but only for a moment. Then they were headed west, toward the mountains, and what John fervently prayed was a house and not a figment of his imagination. The wind howled out of the north, sand spray biting into his face and hand. John pulled his coat collar higher for protection, but it did little good.

“Git on!” he shouted over the rising wind, although Noah needed no encouragement. His eyes rolled, the whites showing all the way around as he brayed his unease.

“We’ll make it if you stop complainin’,” John shouted.

Noah’s reply was lost in the roar of the wind. The same wind that ate the donkey’s bray was now threatening to upend the wagon and ripping at John’s body. He finally lost his grip on the bowler hat, and it was off like a shot, a dark shadow soon lost in the growing gloom. Just as John was about to give up hope and say his final prayers before the wind devoured him, dark walls loomed up ahead.

“Ha!” he shouted. It looked to be the remains of an old mission, its adobe crumbling here and there, but largely intact. John said a silent prayer that it would remain so. A darker shadow to the west turned out to be the mission’s stable, and the merchant wasted no time in retiring both Noah and the wagon. A dusty bit of rope was more than enough to tie Noah to a post with room to lie down in his stall. John gave a moment’s thought to the wagon and its contents, but shrugged his worries away. Any thieves brave enough to break into the stable and lift his goods in the heart of a sandstorm were welcome to what they could carry off. The door boomed hollowly as John shut it behind him. Then, clutching his coat together with one hand and shielding his eyes with the other, he ran for the mission.

Ornately carved oak doors sat deep within a doorway shaped not unlike a keyhole. John pounded a sand-coated fist against the faded wood on the chance there was someone to answer. When no response came, he tugged the handle. The door moved, then groaned to a stop. Wind-whipped sand seared John’s face, and he gave a huge heave. For a moment, he feared the door was stuck fast, but with a shriek of tortured wood, it jerked open. Gasping, John half-fell into the dark interior, closing the door behind him with all his strength. It slammed shut with a sepulchral boom.

“Hello?” John called. “Anyone here? Padre?” No answer came.

Inside, darkness reigned. Lines of gritty gray light limned the shuttered windows, and sand crunched beneath John’s boots. He began to make out something of the interior as his eyes adjusted. The nave was in shambles; the remaining pews lay overturned, with only a handful still upright. The neglect wrenched at his heart. He was no papist, but the austere beauty of the old missions had always spoken to him. To see this one desolate pained him.

The hall led westward, where John assumed the sanctuary proper stood. If it was like most he’d seen, the sanctuary would be raised a foot or so higher than the nave, perhaps with a railing to further separate the clergy from the parishioners. Grit and what felt like small bones crunched under his boots as he slowly walked the length of the hall, careful to avoid tripping. Breaking a leg and dying alone in a deserted house of God was not high on his list of priorities.

Well before he reached the sanctuary, he could tell something was not quite right. Where the railing should have been stood wooden planks nailed together to form a rough wall across the width of the sanctuary. A narrow door had been set in the wall, and a thin band of flickering, reddish light puddled at its base.

“Hello?” he called again, softer this time, suddenly unsure he wanted to attract the notice of whoever was squatting in the ruins of God’s house.

The door juddered open, scraping across the stone flags of the floor. “Inhospitable out there.” A man’s voice, rough but faded, sanded away by the desert. Then the speaker appeared around the door. He was sixty if he was a day, with a shock of white hair atop his head and a thick beard.

“It is that,” John replied. “Not fit for man nor beast. I sought shelter in the mission. Didn’t know it was taken, though. My apologies.” John felt no real remorse for the minor trespass. There was no way he could have known, and had he, he would still have entered. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, he held.

“No sin in seeking to save your hide. That storm would gnaw you clear down to the bone.”

They stood there for a moment longer. The wind keened through gaps in the mission’s adobe. John thought of his mother’s teapot, but then almost immediately, of her tales of the bean sidhe, those fell spirits that stalked the old country.

“Well, if you’re gonna sit here till it blows itself out, might as well come in and get comfortable.” The man pushed the door open wider, and now John could see a small fire set in a ring of stones, with a couple of well-mended chairs set about it. Candles stood flickering around the rest of the space.

“If you don’t mind, I’d be much obliged,” John said with some relief, stepping through. The other man closed the door behind them.

“Who’da thought a little bit of wood could make it so much quieter in here?” John selected a chair and eased himself into it. Not yet fifty, he nevertheless felt every year since his birth in his knees. His host seated himself in the chair opposite.

A glance around the space told him little. Another chair stood off to the side, its woven seat half-repaired. A narrow table next to his host’s chair held what looked to be sliced vegetables and a bowl of chokecherries. Another small table against the wall held a flat-topped, wide-brimmed vaquero hat nestled atop a gun belt. John caught sight of a pair of ivory grips.

“Big irons.” John nodded toward the guns. “Peacemakers?”

The other man snorted. “Relics.” He coughed into a handkerchief. “But Colt put his name on ‘em, same as any other Model P’s out there.”

“You got much call to use ‘em?”

“Not since I retired. Ain’t much use for huntin’ rabbits or coyotes. Work decent for the occasional mule deer, though. And shells are awful hard to come by out this way.”

John’s stomach rumbled, and the other man laughed. “S’pose it’d be impolite not to offer you some chow.” He lugged a large, earthenware jug out from under his chair, pulled the cork with a pop, and offered it to John. “Wet your whistle first? Found a whole damn cask in the cellar.”

Not one to deny hospitality when it was offered, John accepted the jug. Cool, smoky whiskey slid across his palate. “Whoo-boy, that’s mighty fine, thank ya.” He handed it back, and the other man took a slug before replacing the cork.

“Retired from what?” John asked.

“What’s that?”

“I asked if you had much call to use those guns. You replied that you hadn’t since you retired. What did you retire from? Musta been a lawman or a bandit, one.”

“Not much difference t’ween the two at times, you ask me.” His host frowned. “Lawman. Sheriff, if you’ll believe it.”

John nodded, thinking of those ivory-handled guns and how their weight might sit in the hand, and of the Colorado sunlight glinting off a sheriff’s star. “I can believe it.” He reached out a hand, careful to keep it to the side of the fire. “Name’s John MacLellan, travelin’ drummer.”

The other man grasped John’s hand and shook. “Kit Caine. Seen the wagon coming up.” He set a Dutch oven in the coals and removed the lid. “Got anything worth ponderin’?” Kit added a dollop of bacon grease, followed by a small bowl of diced meat. “That’s deer, not coyote.” Kit grinned, seeing John’s interest.

“I’ve et coyote. Too stringy to be good, but it’s somethin’ in the belly.” John thought for a moment. “Some bits out there you might have an interest in, dependin’ on your needs. Good needles, heavy shears, knives, and flour. Still got a bit o’ sugar and maple syrup.”

Kit pondered for a moment. The meat sizzled in the pot, and he gave it a rough stir. “Could use some flour, truth be told.” Satisfied with the doneness of the meat, he poured in water from a skin slung across the back of his chair. Next came onions, potatoes, leeks, and carrots from the table beside him. “What about ammunition?”

“Oh, ayuh, I carry ammunition everywhere I go. My best seller, God’s truth.”

“Once this storm lets up, I’d be keen to take a look.” Kit pulled the jug out once more. “Be a bit ‘fore it’s ready. Care for another nip?”

John happily accepted the offer. He sighed, feeling the liquor burn its way down to his stomach. “So, how’d you end up here of all places? Seems more apropos to a hermit than a retired lawman. Shouldn’t ya be set up somewhere in a rocking chair with yer boots up?”

Kit chuckled. “You been listenin’ to stories. Most of the lawmen I knew have already gone back to the dust. Reckon my turns comin’ soon enough.” He coughed into his handkerchief again, and John noticed a spreading red stain on the cloth. “As to how I came to be here, well, that’s a long story.”

“Seems to me we got nothin’ but time. ‘Less you got somewhere pressin’ ya need to be?”

“Reckon yer right.” Kit took a pull from the jug before setting it down and retrieving his tobacco. He rolled a smoke and handed it to John, then rolled and lit one of his own. He sat for a moment, gathering his thoughts, watching the flame consume the matchstick. “I s’pose it’s best to begin at the beginning. Or as near as is possible for mortal man to get.” He fixed John with clear, blue eyes. “Her name was Alys, and it’s safe to say I loved her from the day I first saw her.”