A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Read online

  Close, now. Vincent could picture Ripley, an arm's-length away. Fat hands reaching, still moving, leading with his head like a charging bull.

  Vincent hated Ripley, abruptly. Ripley was one more thing Vincent could never really escape.

  He waited a fraction of a heartbeat longer.

  Now. One step to the side. One quick extension of his leg—not even a real kick, toes barely connecting, just enough to put Ripley's forward charge out of balance.

  Ripley tripped past Vincent and crashed into the men in front of him. He staggered into the open near Tucker Ellis and bellowed in wordless anger.

  "You." Ellis's clipped, brandy-powerful voice cracked like breaking ice in the brittle air.

  Ripley's permanent sneer thinned. He got his feet under him and turned toward Ellis.

  Ellis stared at Ripley with a fearless cold Vincent had never seen from anyone.

  "I am seeking muscle, but intelligent muscle." Disdain dripped from Ellis's voice. "Thank you for providing a prime example of what I am not looking for. You are dismissed."

  Silence. Ripley's sneer wavered, nearly vanished altogether. Ellis maintained his icy demeanor, still staring at Ripley.

  Ellis was waiting for Ripley to obey, Vincent realized. Vincent froze as neatly as Ripley, caught by a flash of insight.

  For all his fancy clothes and fancier words, Tucker Ellis was a man who held power. No one had ever handed him a thing. A man like that took what belonged to him, and no one argued with him.

  Ripley hesitated a moment longer. Then his sneer reasserted itself.

  "Fuck yourself bloody," Ripley said. "Who wants your damn job?"

  Ripley shot a look at Vincent, his pale eyes squinted into hell-blazing pinpricks.

  Still caught up in an awestruck moment of wanting to be as powerful and fearless as Tucker Ellis, Vincent stared back. Then self-preservation instinct returned, and Vincent lowered his gaze.

  He'd been stupid, so very stupid. He'd done exactly the sort of thing he'd warned Kellen against doing. Now he was Ripley's number one target—and if he wasn't careful, he'd be taking a beating for two. Ripley couldn't touch Tucker Ellis, but that wouldn't keep Ripley from taking out his fury on someone else.

  Vincent didn't see Ripley storm off the dock, but the sound of boots stomped away. The lighter patter of Fox's hurried steps followed after.

  "Intelligent muscle," Ellis repeated into the silence Ripley's stalking departure left behind. "Men who can move mountains not only with their backs but with their minds."

  Vincent lifted his gaze, but Ellis wasn't looking at anyone in particular. He certainly wasn't looking at Vincent. Vincent couldn't run off to join Ellis's silly little army and leave Kellen behind. What did he even know about Ellis or his militia? He didn't know anything.

  "A dozen men," Ellis said. "Only twelve. If you're willing to accept the terms and believe yourself qualified, you will be at the north end of the Centre Square at daybreak tomorrow. You will not be late, and you will be prepared to leave on the spot, should you be chosen."

  Ellis looked the men over one last time.

  For one perfectly silent fraction of a second, Ellis's eyes landed on Vincent's face. Vincent felt a shudder of something he might have termed a calling, if he had any religion.

  A steady job. Money. Stability.

  A chance to get out—away from the wharves, away from Burke Ripley, away from the trap Philadelphia had become.

  Ellis turned around. Vincent watched the man's expensive boots strike the worn cobblestones of the street as he led his horse a few steps before mounting and riding up the hill into the city.

  I want that job, Vincent caught himself thinking. God help me, but I want it.

  Chapter 4

  Crates. Barrels. Sacks. Inside the ship's hold, the stevedores lifted and hauled and stacked. Kellen came behind them to knot the cargo into secure bundles before they were winched up and then lowered from the ships. From there, other dockers would put the goods into the barrows and shove the barrows to the warehouses.

  After crawling in the holds all day, Kellen's knees ached. Her fingers cramped and twitched from working the knots, and her back felt fractured nearly to splinters.

  But it paid, and that beat going home empty-handed. And something to do was surely better than worrying whether what few coins she earned would be enough.

  Vincent would figure something out. He always did.

  Kellen dragged herself out of the close, smelly warmth of the Mary Katherine's hold and into a world of gray skies and rolling deck. Freezing wind blasted her face, forcing her to squint against it. She hunched her shoulders and lifted her collar and started along the rail toward the gangplank. All around her, other dockers grumbled and shouted to each other as they left their day's work.

  "Kellen, lass! What's what?"

  Brian Byrne, black-haired and blue-eyed and nonchalant as the day was long, tilted an easy smile at Kellen. Byrne was a good foot taller than Kellen, but the way he slouched put him near to eye level. From cap to coat to frayed trousers and the short knife he wore on his belt, Byrne was dressed much like Kellen—much like every other dock man on the wharves.

  Kellen smiled. Talking to Byrne was as easy as breathing. Listening to his rolling brogue was easier yet, which was a good thing since it was hard to escape. He'd gotten hired on at midday, and from where she worked deep in the hold, Kellen had heard his tongue wagging pretty much nonstop since then.

  "Day's done." She fell into step with Byrne and they started across the deck. "And that's better than the start by a long shot."

  Byrne grinned. "Can't argue that. A mite chilly on deck, though."

  "Breathing ice is better than smelling pig shit and walking through piss-poor spilled ale."

  As Kellen spoke, Em Jacobs—Jeremiah Jacobs, but most everyone called him Em—stomped across the deck and came up beside Byrne.

  The wind whipped straw-blonde hair into Em's eyes. He squinted through it and smiled one of his vague, half-witted smiles at Kellen. Em was sweet, but he could be outright stupid. He swung a mean cargo hook, though, and he worked every second from the time he was told to start until the time he was told to stop.

  Byrne's gaze slid sideways toward Em, and his smile turned sly. "Did y'hear that, Emmy? Did you hear what Kellen thinks of you? You stink like pig shite and piss."

  "Byrne," Kellen said.

  Em's brow furrowed.

  "I think she meant that's what the hold smells like." Em's reply was utterly serious. "Not me. I don't smell like that."

  Byrne's lackadaisical grin deepened. Kellen refused to grin back, but she also remembered how Byrne and his fists had calmly and efficiently taken care of Alvie Fox the last time he messed with Em. No one was as loyal as Byrne. She guessed he'd earned his right to be obnoxious.

  Byrne flashed a wink at Kellen and slapped Em on the shoulder as he turned toward the gangplank.

  "That's my Emmy. Come on, you two. It's well and good to let the fresh air blow the stink off you, but frankly, it's damnable cold. Let's get off this boat and go home."

  Em's forehead smoothed out briefly and then furrowed again into irritated determination—a sure sign that Em was about to try to out-clever Byrne. Em hurried after Byrne, and Kellen picked her careful way across the deck behind the two of them.

  They eased down the gangplank, over the dark water lurking between the Mary Katherine's hull and the wharf it was moored to. Byrne walked a little ahead of Kellen and Em, calling out greetings to other men they knew. Em strolled quietly beside Kellen, still frowning. They joined the press of men pouring off other ships and making for the pay lines. The mass of bodies blocked the wind some, at least.

  "Colley, me friend!" Byrne called out as he tramped ahead of Kellen and Em. "What's the news?"

  Patrick Colley stopped and turned. Although shorter than Byrne, Colley was every bit as dark-haired and blue-eyed an Irishman. Colley's eyes were too big for his narrow face, lending him a permanently startl
ed expression. A hesitant smile flickered at the corners of his mouth.

  "Last blast of winter, that's the news." Em butted in before Colley could answer. He gave his blonde head an exaggerated toss and rolled his eyes. "Damn, Byrne, you don't have to be a brilliant intellect like Colley to figure that one out."

  "Aye." Byrne glanced back and caught Kellen's eye before answering Em with a perfectly deadpan expression. "And you're a towering example of not-a-brilliant-intellect if ever I saw one, so you ought to know."

  Kellen frowned at Byrne.

  Em scowled and declared, "That's cold, Byrne. That's well and truly cold."

  Byrne slapped Em's shoulder again as they fell into step with Colley on the wharf. Em heaved a good-natured, long-suffering sigh.

  "Most of the day's news has been about the weather." Despite the hesitance of his smile, when Colley spoke it was with quiet authority. He was one of the few dock men Kellen knew who could read, and the only one willing to spend his hard-earned coin on newspapers. "The thaw, if it ever comes, will bring flooding. God alone knows if the bridges over Schuylkill side will stay put or wash away."

  The Schuylkill River flowed along the western side of Philadelphia, but it could have been across the ocean so far as Kellen was concerned. She'd never laid eyes on it. Everything she'd ever known or needed was in the blocks of the city clustered up close to the Delaware.

  Em flashed a triumphant smile at Byrne. "You see? The weather. Told you."

  Byrne only slid a sideways look at Kellen and smirked.

  "Some sailors off the Lovely Sisters were telling about ghosts in the water," Em said. "Slow-moving 'cause of the cold, but doing a lot of hissing and whispering."

  "Ghosts." Kellen snorted.

  "Where I come from, that's called 'wind,'" Byrne said.

  "You think it's the wind." Em nodded with grave earnestness. "But it's ghosts in the water."

  "Ghosts in your head," Byrne cheerfully replied.

  Em sighed, and Colley smiled one of his quiet little smiles.

  Byrne laughed. "And what else, Colley?"

  "News? Aside from the weather? The usual heckle and jibe between Federalists and Jeffersonians."

  "If even half those fools were waving weapons instead of words, the world would be shy a few more fools, so it would." Byrne motioned at Colley's paper. "What else?"

  Colley took his paper out from under his arm, held it up, and glanced it over.

  "'Unrest in the northwest,'" he read a second later. "The chiefs out in the Indiana Territory are already going back on their word."

  "Old Horse-dealin' Harrison is having a time of it with the Reds, is he?" Byrne clicked his tongue and shook his head.

  "More likely the British." Colley folded the paper and tucked it under his arm again. "The Indians have surely learned by now that breaking treaties only leads to bloodshed. It's the British who get them stirred up."

  "You'd have to be a blamed fool to move out west." Em nodded emphatically. "Those Reds, they'd as soon scalp you as look at you."

  "They ought to round up all these damn Paddies we have slinking around the city." Kellen tried not to grin as she spoke. "Send them off west to deal with the Indians."

  Byrne tipped back his head and arched a single brow at Kellen. Colley smiled.

  "I dunno." Em's brow furrowed. "I mean, Byrne and Colley aren't so bad. Couldn't we keep them?"

  "Oh heavens, no." Byrne lowered his eyebrow and shook his head with great solemnity. "Those two are the most incorrigible of the incorrigible. They most certainly have to go."

  Colley smiled a little more. Em blinked and eyed Colley's smile uncertainly. Then, finally, he grinned, too.

  "That reminds me." Byrne swatted Colley on the shoulder. "I've a thing to speak with you about later, Patrick."

  "What?" Em asked.

  "If I told him now, it wouldn't be later, would it?"

  They reached the end of the wharf and joined the lines of dock men queued to collect their day's pay. Byrne waved Colley into line ahead of him, and Em barged after him, tossing what Kellen was sure he thought was a withering look at Byrne as he passed. Kellen stood beside Byrne and peered past the clerk as she waited.

  "Did your beau stand you up?" Byrne jabbed Kellen with an elbow.

  Vincent was an uncomfortable topic with her friends. They didn't like him, and he didn't like them. Mostly, Kellen just tried to keep a safe middle distance between them.

  "My beau is probably still swinging a hook or shoving a barrow," Kellen quipped back.

  Vincent shaped up for a different company than Kellen—foremen and clerks were regulars, but mostly everyone else got hired day to day. Nothing was guaranteed, but the different foremen had their favorites. Kellen and Vincent ate and slept together each night, but each day they went their separate ways. The gangs Vincent would be a part of—assuming he'd gotten on that day at all, because nothing was a given—were only now beginning to wend their way down distant gangplanks.

  "A shame, that is. You'll let me know the very second you get disenchanted and disentangled, aye?"

  It wasn't the first time Byrne had made such a remark, but Kellen was pretty sure he didn't mean a word of it. She shook her head. "Not happening. Sorry, Byrne. You'll have to keep living without me."

  She was rewarded with one of Byrne's low chuckles.

  They finally reached the paymaster. After they'd collected their coins and jostled free, Byrne tipped his hat and walked, whistling, after Colley and Em.

  On warmer days, Byrne might have stuck around a while, chucking rocks into the water to make ripples while Kellen pitched her own stones neatly into the center of the makeshift targets, a game they'd been playing at for years. But tonight was too cold for games, so instead he'd head to the nearest tippling house with Colley and Em to drink a round before going home. With a vague sense of longing, Kellen watched the three of them go, their boots clomping on cobblestones.

  Then she turned toward the foot of Walnut. This time when she got there, Vincent was already waiting.

  ~

  "No."

  In the time it had taken for Vincent to tell Kellen about the man on the docks that morning, looking for soldiers, the other dockers had mostly dispersed. Only a handful of sailors from Saint-Domingue lingered, trading lively words in French and laughing among themselves. Waves stirred restlessly around the pilings. Wind creaked through masts and spun clouds across the gray sky. Along the Delaware's far shore, the outlines of Camden darkened.

  Kellen swore she felt that darkness, pressing close around her. Vincent wasn't serious—he couldn't be serious.

  Vincent stepped closer, reaching for Kellen. He stank of salt and sweat, a sweetly metallic combination that Kellen had never minded. She went willingly enough into his arms. When he bent and kissed her, his mouth tasted salty and sweet, too. The heat of that kiss flowed into her blood and through her limbs, chasing away the cold as if he were bringing her to life.

  "You can't just say no." Vincent spoke with his mouth still close to Kellen's. She couldn't see him at all, but his breath warmed her face.

  "How could you go?" Kellen whispered. "You can't go."

  She felt Vincent tense. He pulled his face back from hers, far enough that she could look into his eyes—dark eyes, glinting like coals.

  "We have to consider—" he started.

  Fear chilled the heat of his touch, like a bucket of river water down Kellen's spine. She tried to step back, out of Vincent's arms. "Consider what? You'd up and leave me, just like that?"

  Vincent refused to let go of Kellen, but his gaze slid away from hers. Despair swooped low through Kellen's belly. Up in the city, the Christ Church's bell tolled, and others trembled out in its wake.

  "I'm trying to look out for you," Vincent said.

  "You can't look out for me if you're not here."

  "I can send money."

  Kellen yanked free and took a step back.

  "Screw the money!" Heat flooded Kellen's face, tra
iling after the words she hadn't realized she was going to shout at him.

  Vincent's face darkened, and his mouth twisted. He threw his hands into the air and shouted back.

  "I didn't work today at all! How is that helping us?"

  They stared at each other for a heartbeat. By now, even the Santa Dominicans had cleared out, but voices drifted down from further north. Prostitutes by the plenty gathered at the end of Market, and sailors by the plenty gathered with them. Hell Town took on a second life after dark.

  "I'm trying to find a way to get us through this." Vincent's jaw clenched but he spoke more quietly. "Out of this. It wouldn't be forever, just until we have enough to—"

  "Spring is coming." Kellen felt her life spinning away from her, out of control, and she snatched at the only hope she could think of.

  "Not soon enough. It won't be enough. This would be enough." Vincent's jaw worked again. "You'll hold me back because you're afraid to be alone for a little while?"

  Kellen stared into Vincent's stone hard eyes and willed him to stay with such intensity that tears prickled in her eyes. Vincent looked back at her, and the lines of his face slowly relented. He took a visible breath and reached for Kellen's hands. His hands were cold, colder even than hers.

  "We could make this work."

  Kellen didn't know if she read the truth in his eyes or heard it in his voice, but she suddenly knew.

  "You made up your mind before you even said anything to me." She pulled her hands away from his. "You're going to do this no matter what I say."

  Vincent stared at Kellen just long enough for her to know she was right.

  "I don't like it," Kellen said.

  "I don't like it, either. But that's how it is."

  If she'd had any doubt before, Kellen had none now. Vincent fixed Kellen with a look that she knew meant the argument was over.

  "Supper will be cold." He tugged at Kellen's hand, pulling her toward the steps leading up from the wharves to Front Street. "And the Widow will be pissed off for us being late."

  Kellen tugged the opposite direction and refused to move.