Shadows by Ilsa J. Bick Read Free Book Online Page B

But he’s real sick. Doc and Alex worked, like, six, seven hours and then Doc was so wiped, she stayed. You’re sure she’s not here?”
    “Positive. They’re saying she ran. Nathan said she beat up Jess, too.”
    “What? Alex? No way. She’d never do something like that.”
    Privately, Lena thought there was just no telling. Ask her a couple years before her stepfather entered the picture if she’d have the courage to slip a butcher knife up her sleeve, and she’d have wondered what you’d been drinking. “Greg, how can you not know any of this? Don’t they radio or send a runner when something like this happens?”
    She watched Greg think about that. “Yeah.” His frown deepened. “Weird, that I haven’t heard anything. I don’t think anyone else has either. How’d Chris get hurt?”
    “Nathan said Night shied and kicked him.”
    “Night?” Greg was incredulous. “You’re kidding. I’ve seen Chris shot at. Even then, he never loses his saddle. Night’s real steady.”
    “Well, there’s a first time for everything. Look, we need Kincaid. Do you have a radio?”
    “No, but . . .”
    Waving for her to follow, Greg jogged to the horses. “Chris does. Ho there, Night.” The horse was shivering and snorting, and a fine frill of ice had formed on the animal’s mane. At Greg’s touch, the horse’s muscles quivered, and then Night was stamping hard enough that Lena danced out of the way before one of those hooves could come down and break a foot.
    The other three horses began to toss their heads in sympathy. “Whoa, what’s got into you?” Greg put a calming hand on Night’s neck. “You’re all lathered up, boy. Calm down. Lena, grab his bridle while I check out the saddlebags.”
    “Sure.” She didn’t love animals, but there’d been plenty on Crusher Karl’s farm and she knew what she was doing. Lena hooked a hand over the horse’s bridle and murmured nonsense: “Good boy, there’s a boy, good boy.” But she was thinking: Tori was right. They found a Spared by Oren. They brought back a boy. There was a squawk, followed by a fizz and then a series of mechanical clicks. At the sudden noise, Night suddenly swung his rump and Daisy, already jumpy, started barking again.
    “Daisy, shut up !” She wrestled with the big blood bay as the golden pranced around her legs, still yapping.
    “What’s that sound?”
    “Message on the handset,” Greg said, unbuckling a saddlebag.
    “You guys don’t talk?” She swatted at the growling dog. “ Quit it.”
    “No, we use Morse. Saves the batteries and we still got a good eighty-, ninety-mile range. A hundred at night.” Greg staggered as Night and a small sorrel gelding backed into one another. “Grab that sorrel, would you? I’m gonna get kicked.”
    “Easy, boy,” she said, hooking the sorrel’s halter. Bobbing, the gelding snorted and stamped. “Guys, just take it—” The words died on her tongue.
    “Lena?” Greg looked at her over Night’s saddle. “You okay?”
    “Fine,” she said. The word came out a bit flat, almost unreal, which was how she felt, too, because what she now spied on Nathan’s saddle didn’t quite compute. She knew John rode the dapple gray, and the chestnut was Jess’s. John’s rifle was still in its red saddle scabbard. Chris’s gun was seated in a scabbard on Night’s off-side, barrel down and butt at horn height. Jess’s chestnut mare had no scabbard. The sorrel gelding, Nathan’s horse, did: a short leather tube with big brass buckles. The scabbard held a pump shotgun—and there was blood, a fair amount, smeared on the stock. Hair, too. Some was long and gray, which would tally if Alex had smashed Jess hard enough to break her face. But there was also a gluey clump of shorter, very dark hair.
    Chris’s hair was black. Chris had a head wound.
    But John said Night kicked him. Her eyes dropped to Night’s hooves. Clean as a whistle. Of course, the snow might’ve scrubbed away blood and hair.