The next draw on his pipe was a slow one, the glow lighting Geranof's face so that it seemed almost of hell itself with its scars and damages. When he spoke he held the pipe this time, not speaking around the stem. He wanted her to hear him clearly. "Not for certain, but I have a list. One of the men who was in the attack was following you in town. The armless one. Lost that arm to a boiler plate he says. I saw a certain young girl run him over with a wagon, cutting the arm off with the wheel." He chuckled at her gasp. "Relax, debeitsa, feel no sorrow at wounding him, he knows who the money came from."
Elisa thought about it long and hard. "There were three in town that watched me, other than you."
"Three? I noted only armless and the hat man, who else?" The beat of time marked by the pipe's glow sped up in irritation as Ivan Geranof realized he had missed something, and that could spell more danger.
"A young man, native, black tattoo or mark on his right arm." Elisa went on, describing the man's clothing, walk, which she suddenly recalled was the bowlegged stroll of a person who spent much time on a horse, and where he had stood, how he had stood, the actions she remembered seeing, and which ones she inferred during the steps she had not been able to use reflections in the windows to keep track of him.
After she stopped, the pipe slowly was finished, the glowing ribbons reduced to ash as Geranof closed his eyes, trying to recreate the street in his mind. A ferocious frown was now framing the stem of the pipe in his mouth. He had missed something, which was against his personal goals to save his niece. Outside, the calm air was filled with the sounds of insects of the night, the crickets, mosquitoes and other night flyers. At times the flutter of a bat's wings came close to the skylight. Elisa began to worry he had drifted off to sleep, until he carefully began emptying the pipe of the ash and other residues.
"Aach. I know the one. Yes." A rustle of materials came for a few minutes, followed by another flaring match in the confines. "So, the malchik came looking for you. I had no clue you would be in Decatur, of all places. Yet he never goes anywhere since that day without a purpose. Was he watching you, or the others?"
This thought was not one she had considered. Now, as Ivan waited with a full stomach and pipe as she tried to bring out more from what she had seen. "His eyes.. moved, many times yet they kept finding me in the reflections, like he knew I watched him as well. And I caught him once directly, just before you came. He winked and.... the arm, the mark was like a coyote who howls.... " Elisa's voice trailed off. The native guide of the caravan had his son along, a son who also survived the attacks. "Black Coyote." It was not challenged by Ivan, who moved suddenly to the door, tossing it open with his good hand, stabbing the darkness outside with his sinister steel arm.
Yet, even as Ivan struck, hands grabbed his metal forearm, yanking him outside into the darkness. On the right forearm, the mark just discussed stood out. Elisa reached for the pistol she normally had kept hidden in her bustle. It was a short barreled thing, but that barrel had been rifled to spin the slug for balance and accuracy. Even if it was Black Coyote, she had no idea which side he was on. Or if he had some other reason to be here.
One thing she had made certain worked on the wagon before heading west, and after leaving every town, was the trap door in the floor to escape. This time, remembering her classical literature and history lessons, it was to be a sally port, for launching a sneak attack. Any one with the young Coyote would be watching the doors, not the bottom of the wagon. The trick, she found, was in making it to that egress without advertising motion inside. When the slide-outs were open, the balance of the bed was not what it was when they were closed. In recovering the pistol, she had already found that out.
Slowly moving to the center seemed to work, until she reached the point of setting feet to floor. That alone took her a precious minute, while the silence outside spoke of the dangers she dared to risk. A local would have waited, writing off the slave as dead. For her, Ivan was a man, and deserved to be rescued. It was that difference that she hoped would lead Coyote or any with him to make wrong assumptions. The minute moving from bed to floor was excruciating to her legs, taking the weight at a weird angle and holding it with no re-positioning. The trapdoor moved as it should, and she lowered herself to the floor, thankful for the time spend helping Ivan curry and feed his horse. The beast never stirred a bit, as her feet touched the grass gently.
Luck had them parking near an area bison grazed upon recently, so the shortened grass stems made less noise. Remembering her previous experiences, she moved only when the wind touched her, stopping with it. Two sets of legs were outlined by moonlight ahead of the wagon, but a third set was moving well back, she could hear the footsteps.
"Reckon she fled or was taken?" A bass voice in the darkness, neither her uncle or the Coyote.
"I conjure that freak with the metal arm done kilt her already. Rightly do." Tenor voice. Both the men who had spoken were the men at the front of her moving home. The one circling was silent still, behind the wagon, the shadow made it hard to see. The moon was nearly to the western horizon, setting hours before dawn. She had to act and act soon, but still had no idea where her uncle and Coyote hid. Or lay dead, the morbid side of her brain warned.
The wind was rising in fitful gusts, and she noted dim flashes below the moon, flashes inside towering thunderheads that marked a change in weather again. As the waxing moon shrouded itself in those clouds, their exhalations tossing the grass and shrubs more, as they become more frequent and the flashes approached. By the time she had worked to the forward wheels, crouching in silence, the storms had come close enough to begin bothering the horses and men.
"Hell with this, get in there and take her. She resists, kill her." The circling man moved to the horses after giving the order, a flash of lightning showing the broad brimmed hat, whose band had something scattering the light from it. At night, there colors never showed enough to be verified, even under a full moon, one trusted to color sightings only as one must, or if some light source illuminated the object or person in question for more than a few seconds. But certain things, such as darkness or lightness of color, could be told. The man with the hat's hair was white or pale blonde. It was not the same man as in Decatur.
The order made her decision for her, using both hands, she took careful aim, gently squeezed the trigger as she had been taught by a former soldier before leaving Ohio. The bass voice hollered, as tenor dropped to the ground trying to breath with his neck blown apart. Too high, she thought, and aimed for the gut of the deep voiced man, again moving with steady gentle pressure to fire. Another body fell, crying softly for help, as footsteps and fighting broke out at the back of the wagon.
She took that to be Ivan or Coyote, so she decided to rattle the leader a bit, firing two more bullets in his direction, unable to take aim as the clouds swallowed the moon at last. Wisely, and as she had been warned to do, she moved after firing. Forward being the direction few would expect, especially from a woman. That she missed did not matter, the screams of the fourth man made up the leader's mind. Spurring his horse into motion, headed south, where the Elkhorn and the Platte River Railway lay. Two loud booms shook the night, as a shotgun discharged over her. Looking up, there was Black Coyote, with Ivan coming around the wagon cleaning his horrid gauntleted left hand.
Looking over the bodies, the men noted that her pistol was tracking still the retreating hoofbeats. Ivan and Coyote's eyes met.
"See, she is everything a western man wants, pretty and shoots straight. I remember she cooks nicely too." Coyote's comments made Elisa stand and face them in rage.
"Hell of a temper though, son. Best steer clear of her until she controls it." Ivan laughed, as he reached down to drag the bodies away.
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