“Could I ride him in a western saddle?” she asked.
“English saddles suck if you are riding in the mountains.” Kage grinned. “Of course you can. Heylight won’t care. He’s all about getting down the road and having fun.”
Evidently they weren’t going to get the western saddle now, though, which was kind of what Anna had been asking. Anna eyed the itty-bitty scrap of leather that was missing the horn for her to grab on to.
“Don’t worry about it,” Charles said as he adjusted her stirrups. “Western or English style, it doesn’t matter. Ride balanced. The seat support is still there. Your rump will know it even if your eyes tell you differently.
“The turn signals for English are like steering a bicycle: turn by pulling his nose a little in the direction you want to go and give him a little more rein with the other hand so you aren’t just pulling back.” He demonstrated with his own hands, moving them together. “You’ll still steer mostly with your body and legs—just like at home.”
“If I screw up on the steering,” she told him, “we’ll just go round and round in circles, anyway.”
He gave her a quick grin and stepped back. She asked the gelding to move off.
The little gelding had stood perfectly still when she got on, but the minute her calves put pressure on his sides, he powered off at a trot instead of the walk she was expecting. It wasn’t the gentle slow trot her usual mount had, either. She bounced around like a rubber ball until she found her seat a little farther back than she was used to. After a few more minutes she settled in and felt a big grin cross her face. He was probably going slower, as far as distance traveled, than the first mare had been with her long striding gait, but it felt like they were flying. The gelding was like a high-performance sports car. The faster he went, the more responsive he got. The best thing about him was that although speed was always available, so were slow and stop.
Reluctantly she slowed him and brought him to the middle of the arena, where Charles, Kage, and Mateo watched.
“Usually we post that trot,” commented Kage with a grin when she stopped. “Not many people would try to sit it.”
“Is that bad?” she asked.
“Heylight’s ears are up, so you weren’t hitting him in the back—but it’s a lot of work to sit a big trot like that.”
She wasn’t sure he’d answered her question until she glanced at Charles, who gave her a nod—it was a compliment.
Charles walked all the way around the horse and then asked, “Does he even make fourteen hands?”
“Wasn’t it you who was just complaining because we’re breeding Arabs bigger and bigger?” asked Kage. “Yes, she could take him in a pony class. Still, she doesn’t look too big for him. I wouldn’t have brought him out for you. He could carry you, but it would sure look funny. We’d have to put wheels on your stirrups or they’d drag in the dust. How big is he, Mateo, do you know?”
Mateo shrugged. “I’ve put a measuring stick on all the horses. I can get his real height from the office if you want me to. But it’s easier to categorize horses as small, medium, and big. Most people can’t tell the difference between fifteen hands and fifteen two anyway, so why confuse the issue? This horse is size small with a size big heart.”
Anna patted the horse and laughed when he leaned into her hand.
Kage put his hand on the horse’s forehead and rubbed lightly. “I kept waiting for this horse to grow. It shouldn’t be about size, but this guy really just isn’t tall enough to compete in the big ring. He also has the problem that in an English class his gaits are sometimes too big and he gets penalized. In a park class his gaits usually aren’t big enough and he gets penalized. We could maybe fix that if we grew his feet out to the maximum and stuck the heaviest shoes that are legal for the show ring on him. But his right front foot is soft and the big shoes don’t stay on it. So we’re selling him as a junior-to-ride horse: English pleasure. He’s not nationals quality, for the reasons I told you, but he could take a regional championship with a good round and a judge who didn’t care about size. That’s why his price is as high as it is.”
“Have you ridden him outside a ring?” asked Charles.
Kage nodded. “Well, not me. Hosteen took him out on one of his weeklong treks into the desert last fall. Said he did fine after the first couple of days. It was just the once, but he also has two years of showing, too. That will sack out a horse but good.”
“Sack a horse out?” Anna asked, picturing people beating on a horse with paper sacks.
“Desensitize him to the kinds of things that could make a horse spook,” Charles said. “They used to take feed sacks and rub them all over the horse until it quit being frightened. The sacks were handy—and scary because they were light-colored and noisy. Showing exposes horses to all sorts of situations, and they learn not to be afraid every time they run into something new.”
“Most of them do,” said Kage. “Eventually. But he’s honest and brave. Mackie’s riding him in the show, and I wouldn’t trust my girl to just any horse.”
“We’ll keep him on our likely candidate list,” said Charles.
Anna slid off reluctantly. “Don’t I get a say in it?”
“The big grin on your face already said a mouthful,” Charles told her. “Mere words are not necessary.”
“You might try her with Portabella,” said a breathless voice just outside the arena.
“Dad?” Kage sounded shocked. “What are you doing down here—you should be in bed.”
Sure enough, Joseph Sani stood watching with both hands on the upper surface of the arena fence. “I’ll have plenty of time to lie down when I’m dead.” He nodded at Anna. “Portabella is full of fun like that. She’d like to spend her days in the mountains up there in Montana. She’d like that.”
“You named a horse after a mushroom?” asked Anna.
“Her name is Al Mazrah Uhibboki,” Mateo said. “We had to call her something pronounceable. Her grandsire is Port Bask—so Portabella.”
“Her real name is what?” Anna asked.
“Al Mazrah is the stud farm that bred her,” Kage said. “Uhibboki means, we think, ‘I love you.’ So Al Mazrah Uhibboki. Al Mazrah stud is in Indiana and no one there speaks Arabic. No one here speaks Arabic, either, so I don’t know for sure. And we are probably pronouncing it wrong anyway.”
Joseph laughed, and then he coughed harshly a couple of times.
“Dad,” said Kage.
“Don’t fuss,” Joseph said. “When I’m dead you can fuss. I needed to smell the horses again.” He closed his eyes and took a shallow breath. He opened them and said, “Better than medicine for an old man. And I need to talk to Charles. Ernestine said you were at the barn.”
“How did you get here?” Kage asked.
“I took the last UTV,” he said. “But I think I’ll let Charles drive me back up. We can talk on the way.” He glanced at Kage. “You and Mateo might want to show Anna some of the new babies. I hear that our Kalli had a filly yesterday that everyone is over the moon about.”
Charles waited at Joseph’s unspoken request while Mateo and Kage took Anna off to look at the foals. When they were out of sight, Charles said, “Do you need me to carry you? Won’t be the first time.”
Joseph laughed. “That’s for damned sure. There was that one week I was determined to drink every bar in the town dry.”
“I don’t remember that,” said Charles gravely. “But I was thinking about when that mustang dumped you and you broke your leg twenty miles from anywhere. Horse made it back and your dad and I finally went out as wolves to find you. He ran back for help and I carried you halfway home before help came.”
“Really?” said Joseph tentatively. “You don’t remember?”
“Someone asked me not to,” said Charles. “And I told him I would oblige him. So no. I don’t remember.”
Joseph nodded. “You know, I think I could make it back to the UTV, but I’m sure that if I did, I couldn’t talk with
you and that’s important. I’m too old for pride.”
Charles picked him up with considerably less effort than he’d used to carry Joseph on that long-ago walk into town, because a frail old man weighs a lot less than a wiry cowboy. Charles wondered if the reason his dad did not associate much with humans was that they grew old and died. He did not enjoy the sorrow, but he would not have missed the years that he and Joseph were friends, either. Such joy was worth a little sorrow.
The lights were off in the big arena, and no one saw Joseph being carried out to the utility vehicle. The old man had pushed himself too far. Even if the spirits had granted him strength, muscles that had lain in bed for three months were not as able as they could be.
He didn’t say any of that, because Joseph knew it as well as Charles did.
He put Joseph in the passenger seat and climbed into the utility vehicle beside him. “You’re going to have to tell me how to start this thing,” he said.
“You don’t use ATVs or UTVs up in those mountains of yours?” Joseph asked. “I thought there was a lot of country too rough for trucks in Montana.”
“That’s what horses are for,” Charles told him, and Joseph laughed, though Charles hadn’t meant to be funny.
With the old man’s help, he got the vehicle started and heading the right way.
“Chelsea,” said Joseph in a low voice. “Was that because I wouldn’t let you change me? My father thinks it is.”
“Chelsea was because of Chelsea,” Charles told him. “If she had not belonged to your family, I’d have done the same thing.” And because it was Joseph, he shared the full truth, shameful as it was. Consent was important; it ought to be necessary. “I’m glad I knew she was Kage’s wife, that I could contact him to get permission. My wolf admired her toughness. There aren’t many people who can face down a fae geas. I think that he would have insisted we Change her no matter what Kage had said.”
Joseph listened, and said, “That’s pretty messed up. But it will probably work out okay.”
“I hope so,” Charles said.
“Brother Wolf isn’t going to try that with me?” Joseph’s voice was wary.
Charles laughed, a small laugh that sounded like it could have been something else. “Brother Wolf is already in mourning for you. He’d roll over and die for you, but he won’t do something you’ll hate him, hate me, for. You’re safe.”
They drove for a little while.
“I like Chelsea,” Joseph said, breaking the comfortable silence. “She stands up to Hosteen when everyone else backs down. She is tough.” He paused. “I would not have chosen this for her, though. Death is a gift, Charles.”
“When you are ready to go,” agreed Charles. “But not when you have three young children who need you. Do you think she would have chosen death over being a werewolf?”
Joseph didn’t answer. It was a big question, and he liked to take his time with those.
“He’s softer than I remember him,” Kage said as he drove Anna back to the house. “Your husband, Charles. Dad would be so happy when he’d come visit, but he scared the pants off me. Mom would get this funny look and do her best to find some reason to go visit relatives. Sometimes she’d take me with her. He always looked at me like he was deciding how best to kill me.”
Anna couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve seen that look,” she said. “If it helps, I think it’s his default when he’s worried about something. Not usually murder.” Usually when he kills, his face is very quiet. It doesn’t look like he’s thinking at all.
“But he wasn’t like that today,” Kage said.
She made a neutral noise and then caught herself. She didn’t talk about her husband to people, but he was right, Charles had been softer with him. “You know what his job is, right?”
Kage nodded. “Bran’s troubleshooter and assassin.”
“That’s right,” she said. “It means that he can’t care about anyone, you know? Because that might be the guy who goes nuts and starts a bloodbath Charles has to finish. It was worse after the werewolves came out because it meant that little bit of gray area that allowed him not to kill every-freaking-body who didn’t toe the line disappeared.”
Kage stiffened.
“Chelsea’s not home free,” she told him. “But she’s tough and she controls herself, right? I’ve seen her kids; they’ve grown up with rules tempered with love. That’s a good place to start if you become a werewolf.”
“But he could be the one called to take care of her if something goes wrong,” he said.
“Probably not,” she disagreed. “That would be your grandfather.”
“Hosteen?” Kage swallowed. “He’d kill her just because.”
She started to protest, then swallowed it. She didn’t know Hosteen; she couldn’t offer reassurances about what Hosteen might or might not do.
They bumped along quietly for a little and then, when the lights of the house were visible, Anna said, “Anyway. Charles is hard. He has to be. Justice and law, right? Because without those he cannot function. He doesn’t get close to people—just his father, his brother, his foster sister, and me. And Joseph. That makes you important to him.”
He looked at her like he couldn’t figure out why she’d told him that.
“You can go to him for help,” she said. “That’s why he made you get mad at him—so you’d know he was safe. Hosteen has issues with Chelsea. If you think things are getting out of hand, you call us, okay? Charles isn’t soft. He can’t afford to be soft. But he is always just.” She smiled. “And he’s not afraid of Hosteen.”
Kage nodded. “Okay. I’ll keep it in mind.”
They pulled into the parking area next to the house. Kage walked back to the bedroom where his wife was, and Anna walked with him.
Chelsea slept, curled up in the corner of the bed. They’d left the lights on because nothing short of a nuclear explosion was going to wake her up.
Maggie was seated in a rocking chair, reading a book that she’d set down as soon as Kage appeared. Hosteen had a book, too, but his brooding unhappiness was strong enough that Anna’s wolf took a decided interest.
Maggie watched her son and then stood up. “Anna?” she said. “Could I have a word with you?”
“Do you think I did the wrong thing? Changing Chelsea instead of letting her die?” Charles asked, again. They were coming up to the house, but Charles drove past the turnoff for the driveway.
“Do I? Yes.” That was his friend. Blunt to the point of rudeness, but only with Charles. “Does she?” Joseph made an ambiguous sound that might have been a sigh if he’d had more air. “I think that in the heat of the moment, she would have fought for her life. Any kind of life. I think if you asked her right now, she’d say she was grateful. What she will say in five years or ten?” He shrugged.
“Did you know she was a witch?” Charles asked.
Joseph nodded. “She told me before she married my son. She wanted Maggie and me to understand what we were getting ourselves into. Black witches hunt down people like Chelsea; untrained witches apparently can feed them a lot of power. She’s pretty sure that her first husband was killed by a witch hunting her. She changed her name, bundled Max up, and moved from Michigan to Arizona. I told her that we already had werewolves; a witch would be a welcome change.”
“And Maggie?”
Joseph said, “It was the worst argument we ever had—and I don’t think either of us said a word about it.” He shrugged. “My father likes to argue, to use words. I think his way is better—but it is not Maggie’s way. So we were silent for a while and things went back to normal. Maggie likes her now.”
“But not Hosteen.”
Joseph frowned fiercely. “He keeps the old ways so alive he forgets what is true and what is false. He believes witches are evil because the Navajo stories of witches are all about evil witches. He still believes in the monsters in the stories his mother told him and her mother told her.”
“Navajo witchcraft is such that
Navajo witches are evil. If they are not evil, then they are not witches,” Charles said. “And your father is right about the monsters. I’ve met a few of them. The worst monsters hide in plain sight.”
Joseph frowned at him. “Monsters here?”
“I’ve seen skinwalkers who wear the skins of dead men so they look like the person they have killed. I have seen the Cold Woman,” Charles said. He’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to Joseph. “So have you. Do you remember that woman in that old bar in Willcox? The persistent one who tried to get us both to come home with her?”
“Yes,” Joseph admitted. “You were pretty adamant that we had to wait for a friend we didn’t have.”
“Two men went missing that night and were found dead in their car a few weeks later a couple hundred miles away,” Charles said.
“She was the Cold Woman,” he said. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t know then, just knew that she didn’t smell human. She was gorgeous. In a room full of richer-looking, certainly better-looking men”—Joseph nudged him with an elbow—“she picks two dirty, tired cowboys? Felt like a trap. I figured out who she was after the bodies turned up. There were no wounds. Just two dead men sitting in a car in the middle of a pleasant spring day, frozen all the way through. The coroner figured someone had murdered them in an ice locker or commercial freezer, then staged the bodies.”
“The Cold Woman … why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“By the time I figured it out, you’d met Maggie. The Cold Woman wasn’t as important as other things.”
“I think I’m glad I didn’t know,” Joseph said.
“Too much knowledge can make you paranoid all the time,” Charles agreed. “It can also make you a target.” They came to the junction where the Sani road met the highway. He turned the UTV around and headed back to the ranch house.
“So if my father is right about everything—is Chelsea evil?”