Bulletproof Witch Page 14

  Lessons from her mother’s geography classes floated through her skull, but most of the actual words were lost to her. Instead she remembered the other little things: the smell of soap every time her mother drew close, the warm sunlight drifting in through the window. The worry that her grandfather might show up at any moment to drag her back to her real training.

  The memory was a bundle of emotions she didn’t even know where to begin untangling. So much of her life in Cold Valley felt that way now, it was easier to leave it all packed away at the back of her head like an unwanted carpet bag.

  With a start, she realized the boy was still waiting for her reply. “Nice to meet you. I’m Temperance Whiteoak.”

  She stumbled over the last word, the sound of her family name growing numb on her tongue. Images of her parents rippled through her skull like a dark storm cloud. The boy, however, did not appear to notice, and held out his hand.

  “Daniel Hamlin. You staying with us a while, Miss Whiteoak?”

  “Please, call me Temperance. As for staying, I suppose I’ll be here for as long as I need to. Mister Blackfire has offered to train me as a Pistol Warlock, same as yourself.”

  The boy’s eyes grew wider than before. “Really? He took you on as an apprentice?”

  “He did.” Temperance gave him the hardest stare her thirteen years of living could muster. “You got a problem with a girl training to be a Pistol Warlock?”

  “No, not at all. I’m just surprised Martin agreed to teach you. He’s turned away everyone else that’s made their way up here, and there’ve only been two in the last three years that managed it.”

  “If he’s so particular, how did you become an apprentice?” Temperance winced as the words past her lips. She hadn’t meant the question to sound so critical. Fortunately, Daniel didn’t appear offended.

  “Truthfully, I still don’t know. I was living on the streets of Arkton after my mum kicked me out—she said I was one too many mouths to feed with winter coming on—and Martin came across me begging for change on a corner. I don’t know if it was pity or what, but he offered to bring me back here.” The boy gave a slight shrug. “I didn’t even know he was a Pistol Warlock for the first few months. The training came later, after he said I showed an aptitude. Guess I’m a special case.”

  Temperance stood there wordlessly, taken aback by Daniel’s blunt demeanor. At last she gathered herself back together. “You could say I’m something of a special case too, in that regard.”

  She waited for Daniel’s questions, unsure of how to answer them. Instead, he held out a hand. “In that case, here’s to special cases. Welcome to the family, Temperance.”

  They shook, the feeling of the boy’s hand strange in her own. It wasn’t exactly a sense of homecoming, but it was the closest thing to it she had experienced since the life she had known came to an end.

  * * *

  When Temperance awoke the next day, sunlight was already creeping through the cracks in the shutters. She cursed and leapt out of bed.

  Martin was downstairs, munching on a slice of bread. He grunted as she dashed into the kitchen before returning to his food. Temperance slipped into a chair across from him.

  “Mister Blackfire, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I slept so late.”

  The old gunslinger gave another grunt. “Because you needed the sleep, I expect. Why, you had plans this morning or something?”

  “You mean you haven’t been waiting on me?”

  “Nope. Just rose out of bed myself. Never been one for folks like your grandfather that always had to be up before the rooster crowed. Early morning hours are too cold this time of year, anyway.”

  “But we got up at dawn every day while traveling . . . .”

  “That was different. No point lying on the dirt for that long at my age, or I might never get back up again.”

  Temperance paused for a moment, then bulled on. “What’s my first task today?”

  Her grandfather had often set her to running up the western slope to “freshen her legs.” Unless it was winter, throughout which she usually had to climb the eastern slope, which was smaller but much sharper. She had to return with one of the stones her grandfather left at the top to prove she had made it the whole way.

  “Hmm. First task, eh?” Martin rubbed his chin. Temperance leaned forward in her chair, eager to start on her journey to being a Pistol Warlock. Her legs bounced under the table with excitement.

  “First order of business is . . . food, I imagine. Can’t do much on an empty stomach, now can you?”

  Temperance, who in fact had long ago learned just how much she could accomplish while hungry—even before being forced to endure several months of constant malnourishment—leaned back in her chair, shoulders slumping in disappointment. It appeared the old gunslinger was still not taking his promise to treat her like the rest of his students seriously.

  She pushed the chair back and climbed to her feet. “In that case I’ll go find Daniel, see what you set him to doing while I was still lazing in my bed—”

  Her words cut off as Daniel stumbled into the kitchen, red flannel pajamas wrapped around him like an oversized blanket. The boy smiled at the both of them as he rubbed sleep from his eyes and collapsed into a chair.

  “Morning. What’s for breakfast today, Martin?”

  “Whatever you can make yourself.” The old gunslinger resumed eating his toast. “You know I’m no wet nurse.”

  “Sausage and eggs it is. Same for you, Temperance?” The boy glanced at her and gave the same shy smile as the night before.

  Temperance realized her mouth was hanging open and closed it, only to reopen it again just as quick. “If it’s not too much trouble. Anything I can do to help?”

  “Sure, go see if there are any fresh eggs in the coop. My Ma always used to say they tasted best still warm from the hen.”

  By the time Temperance returned with a half-dozen eggs, the smell of orak sausage was wafting through the kitchen, carrying with it a hint of nutmeg. It set her mouth to watering before she even stepped across the doorway. Martin had kept her fed during the trip from Cold Valley, but his skill at cooking wasn’t exactly his most redeeming feature.

  “You found some!” Daniel gestured to a bowl next to him. Temperance gently deposited the eggs and retreated as the boy shooed her away. She watched as he cracked them one at a time with a single hand, using the other to flip the sausages sizzling over the cast-iron stove.

  “You want any beans with this?” he asked. Temperance’s stomach gurgled, and she shook her head.

  “Suit yourself. Martin?”

  “No thanks, I’m still fixing to lose some of my winter belly before the ladies come a’calling.” Martin patted his gut, which as far as Temperance could tell didn’t have an ounce of fat on it. He picked up a stack of papers and set to reading while the apprentices ate their breakfast.

  As Temperance mopped up the last of her yolk, she noticed him looking at her. “What is it?”

  “You about ready to get started?”

  Temperance launched to her feet before the last few words left Martin’s mouth. “Yessir! Let me get my coat.”

  There were a hundred small items she had tucked away in the pockets of her jacket. Hardtack, lucifers, a small mirror, a length of twine, her mittens, and the bag of sand from her grandfather’s safe, to name a few. There was no telling what sort of tests the old gunslinger might have in store for her first day. Best to come prepared.

  Martin stood and waited in the kitchen until she returned, then led her outside. They passed by the smokehouse—Temperance could tell what it was now that she got a better look—and crossed bare field to where a fence leaned slightly to one side, serving no purpose other than to show where the homestead ended and the forest began.

  “Wait here.” Martin moseyed over to the fence line, and busied himself setting up several old cans. From their dented state, it appeared they had been the subject of many a target practice.

 
“Thought we’d take today to assess your skills. I’m sure your grandfather taught you all the basics already, but I need a measure of your abilities if I’m to know what to teach you first.”

  He returned and handed her a small box. Inside were perhaps fifty or so bullets packed in orak grease.

  “These should work for those old guns of James’s, if I’m not mistaken. Why don’t you work on some target practice until the box is empty.”

  Temperance stared at the box in her hands. “You want me to do target practice?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what else?” She eyed the cans warily, as if expecting them to start dancing around at any moment.

  “What else?” Martin frowned at her. “Not sure I follow. Just stand over there and shoot the cans until you’re out of bullets. Simple as plucking a chicken.”

  “But . . . .” Temperance paused, and bit at her lip.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s only that Grandpa usually had some puzzle for me to figure out. Or he added some twist to the task, like hiding traps all over the shooting range or swinging me by my legs from a rope.”

  She glanced around. There weren’t any trees near the fence, but it occurred to her that the field between there could be filled with all manner of unpleasant surprises. Martin was apparently as skilled a trap-maker as her grandfather, if the road here had been any indication.

  When her question was met with silence, she turned back and saw the old gunslinger looking at her with a strange expression. It almost looked . . . sad?

  “Listen, Temperance, there’s something you need to understand. I’m not James, and I never will be. I prefer things to be simple and straightforward. No traps, no complicated puzzles, and certainly no ropes. Just shoot the cans.”

  “Um, alright, if you’re sure.”

  “I am. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my back porch enjoying some coffee. You come get me when you need more ammo, you hear?”

  Temperance nodded, and the gunslinger set off across the field, a slight limp to his gait she hadn’t noticed during their travels. For the first time since they had shook hands in Cold Valley, she wondered if she had made the right decision. Martin had always been such a legendary figure to her, almost as unreachable as her grandfather. Right now, he looked nothing of the sort. He seemed old and tired, worn down by all the years of hard living that had gone into them.

  Is that what she had to look forward to? Is that what Martin had been trying to save her from? Not the failure of death in a ditch—as he had so eloquently put it—but the tragedy of a fading life of success?

  She shook her head to clear it of such dark thoughts and turned back to the task at hand. Loading the revolver, she took aim at the first can, the world falling back into clarity once again. Let the future bring what it would; she still had the present to deal with.

  Temperance spent most of the morning doing target practice, and a fair bit of the afternoon besides. After that Martin set her to chopping firewood for “strength building”, as he called it. She suspected that he just needed his supply of split logs built back up after the long winter.

  Still, it was satisfying work, made more so by the strength she could feel building in her. The weeks of good meals on the way to Oceanside had done much to restore her former self. Now it was time to build on that foundation.

  They dined that evening on a wild game bird that Daniel prepared in a stewed pepper sauce. Already Temperance found herself relaxing around the two men, joining in Daniel’s constant banter, and laughing at Martin’s occasional gruff comment or two. Between the food and the conversation, she even forgot the weight of everything hanging over her, all the loss that had haunted her the last few months. For a few minutes at Martin’s rough kitchen table, she let herself be the thirteen-year-old girl that she had stopped feeling like a long time ago.

  Too soon, the joyful moment came to a crashing halt. Daniel looked over at her, still wearing a crooked smile over something Martin had said. “Temperance, didn’t you say your last name is Whiteoak? Why does that sound familiar? I keep thinking I’ve heard it before, but can’t recall where.”

  A cold vein of ice ran along the back of Temperance’s neck, straight towards her heart. Her mouth opened, but no words found their way out for once.

  “Did you hear? Cold Valley has been destroyed. Wouldn’t surprise me if that old James Whiteoak had something to do with it. Never could trust somebody like him.” The voice of the general store owner in Smithton rang inside Temperance’s skull. She didn’t know if those had been the man’s exact words, but it was how she had recalled them as she had lain awake at night for weeks, belly aching with hunger.

  Just when she thought the pain had begun to scar over, the memories fading with the distance stretching between her and her old home, Daniel’s words felt like they had torn everything open again.

  Martin leaned across the table and smacked the back of Daniel’s head so hard the boy dropped his fork. “Watch your tongue! Don’t you know it’s not polite to pry into a lady’s business?”

  Daniel rubbed the back of his head and looked sheepish. “Sorry about that. I only wanted to find out more about our newest member, is all.”

  “Well, try to use those beans you got in your skull next time. I don’t recall you offering up your life story ten minutes after you walked through my door, and I’ll be damned if—”

  Temperance stood up. “Thank you for the meal, Mister Blackfire. I’m tired after all that training. Time I got some shut-eye.”

  She turned and fled the table as quickly as possible without it actually looking like she was running away. She heard a few words mumbled after her, but couldn’t tell either their meaning or source. Already her whole body was shaking, and it took every ounce of her strength to climb the stairs to her room.

  Inside, only a meager amount of blue moonslight made it through the shutters. Temperance fumbled about in the dark until she located her bags, still unpacked, as if she expected to pick up and run at any moment.

  A quick search turned up what she was looking for, and the moonslight glinted on the dark glass bottle she cradled in her hands. Temperance had planned to dispose of her remaining whiskey once they reached Martin’s house, but it appeared that plan had been rather short-sighted.

  Just a little sip to help me sleep, is all, she told herself. Something to put these bad memories back where they belong. Martin will never know, and tomorrow is another day, after all. I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll have earned these guns on my hips. Until then, just a little sip.

  Maybe two.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They rode westward through the night, close enough to the ocean now that hints of it drifted on the breeze. The twin moons hung overhead, lighting their way through most of the night, the blue-green glow leaving the world around Temperance calm as a mountain spring.

  Later, when the moons faded, she lit a lantern that Mister Dunpeal had gifted her. The orange glow showed open prairie around them again as they cut their way inland. Somewhere ahead lay the salt marshes, and behind them . . . well, best not to think about it too much.

  The night was still. Other than the occasional hoot of an owl, it felt as if they were alone in the entire world. Temperance fought sleep, but it was a losing battle.

  Only when dawn’s early rays appeared over a distant hill did Temperance call a halt. She led them to the first clearing that presented itself, little more than a depression in the surrounding plains. William slid from his saddle with several coarse words, legs twitching like he had a jitterbug in his boot. It occurred to her that the boy likely hadn’t been on a horse before. He would pay double for the ride in saddle sores before the journey was through, of that she had no doubt.

  She attempted to climb from her own animal, and a wave of lightheadedness washed through her. It was all she could do to keep from crumpling into the dirt.

  “Temperance? Are you alright?” William looked up from rubbing the k
nots out of his legs. She waved away his concern, and the effort almost pitched her over.

  Ignoring her protests, the boy appeared at her shoulder. “Here, lean on me.”

  “Just tired, is all. Haven’t slept in over a day, thanks to a certain someone.” She tried to grin, but the expression felt hollow somehow. She glanced down and noticed a line of red coursing along the outside of her leg, leaving droplets in the dirt. “Blood loss might also have something to do with it.”

  William grunted and led her to a flat stone. There, he bandaged her wound with fresh linens, hands steadier than a surgeon. Temperance breathed a sigh of relief as he tied off the last of the cloth.

  “A girl could get used to this. Any chance I could get one of those bags for myself?”

  “Perhaps, but it would be no small thing. Extra-dimensional bags are difficult to create. This one was the work of a solid month of stolen sleep.” William glanced at her, and a grin split his face. “For you, though, I would be willing to put in the time. I owe you that much, after last night.”

  They sat in silence while Temperance worked on getting her wind back. Besides the wound to her leg, her neck felt like she had stuck it into a laundry wringer. There would be a colorful bruise there for a while, thanks to Lucius, but at least he hadn’t snapped it in two.

  She almost jumped when William’s voice broke the quiet. “Thank you for coming to get me. I was not certain I would ever see you again.”

  “I said I would, and a Whiteoak keeps their word. Besides, you promised to fix my coat, remember? Couldn’t let you run off.”

  “Is that all?” William looked at her. “You need my skills?”

  “Should there be anything else?”

  “It is just . . . I thought perhaps, since you came after me, you might . . . .”

  Temperance blinked and watched as the boy rubbed at his neck. He looked far younger than fifteen standing there like that, bathed in the early morning light.