Wrangler Read online

  Chundra scampered onto his shoulders and stared back down to where Cascadia had disappeared.

  Braddock watched for several minutes and called her name over and over, but it was no good.

  She was gone.

  23

  “Cascadia saved you, husband,” Philia said through her tears.

  “That must have taken incredible strength to redirect a powerful flash flood,” Tilly marveled.

  “She loved you,” Philia said, sounding awed. “It’s the only explanation for her being able to do what she did. I misjudged her. She truly loved you.”

  “Cascadia!” Braddock called again.

  Philia hugged him tightly, kissed his cheek, then fixed him with sad eyes and shook her rain-bedraggled head. “I am sorry, husband. What she did shouldn’t have been possible. Cascadia spent all her strength and more saving you. She is gone.”

  Tilly wept harder. “I keep picturing all that debris.”

  Braddock stared down at the devastation, gutted with loss.

  Tilly was right. The flood had been as much wood and stone as water. Trapped in that torrent, exhausted, even a water sprite stood no chance of survival.

  He stared down glumly through the sheets of rain.

  The initial flood wall passed. The waters dropped away, revealing a changed world. The river churned thickly, filling the entire canyon to a height of ten feet or more, so full of mud, boulders, and snapped off trees it looked more like a mudslide than a stream.

  “Come on,” Braddock said, and started uphill.

  They rejoined the fur folk, who shivered beside the buckskin. Chundra’s people looked confused and frightened. There were forty or fifty of them. It was hard to say for sure since it was raining so hard, and the fur folk shifted constantly.

  Miraculously, the little bearlike creatures had all escaped the flood. But they had lost their home and the bulk of their possessions, and they wore the same shocked expressions Braddock had seen on the faces of other survivors and refugees.

  The fur folk needed help and leadership.

  Atop his shoulder, Chundra pumped a furry fist overhead. “Braddock! Braddock! Braddock!”

  The fur folk echoed his chant with a blend of confusion and new hope.

  Braddock smiled down at them, suddenly leaden with exhaustion and grief over Cascadia’s sacrifice. He shuffled forward and freed the mustang, who nuzzled Braddock until he patted the buckskin’s muscular neck and let him know he was okay.

  “Philia,” Braddock said, and his wife appeared, still weeping with relief and, he suspected, for the water sprite who’d saved Braddock and Chundra.

  “Yes, husband?”

  “We will take in the fur folk.”

  Philia’s eyes grew large. “That is very generous of you, husband. Magnanimous, even. But we have so little space, and the fur folk are a lively people with big appetites. They would crowd our cabins and quickly devour our stores.”

  “Yes, Meadow Master,” Tilly agreed. “With winter coming, perhaps—”

  “Enough,” Braddock said. “I will not let friends go without. So long as we have a roof, they have a roof. So long as we eat, they eat.”

  Philia bowed her head, looking ashamed. “Yes, husband.”

  “Now tell them they will be moving in with us.”

  “Yes, husband,” Philia said, “of course. Your wish is my command.” She started squeaking to the fur folk, who rallied around Braddock, hugging his legs and cheering.

  Chundra clamped his arms around Braddock’s head in a bear hug that smelled of wet fur. “Braddock friend!”

  Braddock reached up and patted Chundra’s back, remembering how the brave bear-man had stuck with him even in the face of certain death. “Chundra friend, too.”

  Braddock climbed into the saddle and started uphill, followed by a forty-some displaced fur folk, all soaked to the bone, with a pair of soaking wet sprites flying to either side of him.

  They would need to use every second they had to gather whatever food they could before the first snow.

  There wouldn’t be time to build another cabin for the fur folk, especially because Doal was rarely around these days. As the bargle’s hibernation drew closer, he spent more and more time underground.

  So they would house the fur folk in both cabins, the smokehouse, the stable, even the outhouse if necessary.

  Whatever needed to happen, Braddock would wrangle it.

  Wearily, he knew there was one person above all others who would not be happy about this.

  When they reached the enclosure, he hollered for Elizabeth to unlock the gate.

  The rain was falling harder and colder than ever.

  A short time later, they heard Elizabeth lifting the bar. “Just a moment. How did the drive go? You must be soaked.”

  The gate swung open.

  Elizabeth stood there, hunched beneath a coat. Seeing the fur folk, her eyes widened with surprise. “Oh, hello.”

  As Braddock explained all that had happened, Elizabeth’s face shifted visibly through a range of emotions. Excitement and disappointment, concerning the herd; surprise and concern and horror at the tale of the flood; grief over Cascadia; relief and sympathy for the poor fur folk.

  Finally, she looked shocked when Braddock told her the plan.

  “Can’t we build them a cabin or something?”

  Braddock shook his head and turned to Philia. “Divvy them up. Half in our cabin, half in Elizabeth’s.”

  “Wait, Mr. Braddock, surely…” Elizabeth cut off with panicky, incredulous laughter. “I mean, there must be some other way. My cabin is…”

  “Your cabin’s neat as a pin. I’m sure the fur folk will appreciate it. Now, if you can get everyone settled, Philia, I have to take care of my horse.” He gave Chundra a hand down. “You’d better help them get settled, little buddy.”

  “Wait… but… what if…” Elizabeth sputtered.

  As Braddock turned away, Philia called the fur folk forward, and they moved into the enclosure, squeaking with curiosity.

  “Hey,” Elizabeth said, “that one is wearing one of father’s silk handkerchiefs as a cape!”

  Braddock took the buckskin into the stable and dried him off and rubbed him down as he ate. The roof had a couple of small leaks. Braddock would need to mend those when the weather broke. They weren’t bad yet, but water never quits, and once it pokes a hole, look out. You don’t do something about it, you’ll have a downspout in no time.

  His mind chewed on their new problem.

  The girls were right to be concerned. They didn’t have space for the fur folk, and although he and the girls had done a good job storing food for winter, they had none to spare.

  But Braddock would make it work. Somehow, he would wrangle this. A man who turns his back on friends in need is no man at all. He’s a pack rat at best and a leech at worst.

  All these thoughts were haunted by his final vision of Cascadia and the echo of her final words as the flood tore her away.

  Was she really dead?

  It didn’t seem possible. And yet, after years on the frontier, he knew that death often worked that way, plucking away vibrant folks in the prime of their life, quick as a lightning strike.

  One way or the other, there was nothing he could do about it now, nothing he could do to help her.

  All he could do was honor her final request and remember that. No problem there. He would never forget the beautiful blue nymph who’d saved his life.

  The weather grew colder, and the rain began to crackle off the roof. Braddock parted with the buckskin and headed for the enclosure.

  Splashing across the muddy meadow, he felt the sting of sleet mixing with rain.

  One step closer to winter.

  While Braddock had been tending to the buckskin, Doal had risen from the muddy ground. The giant bargle sat there, looking drowsy and somber.

  Braddock spoke to him.

  Doal merely grunted and sat there blinking in the sleety rain.

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nbsp; Walking over, Braddock patted one huge toe.

  Doal smiled down at Braddock and closed his eyes.

  Braddock could hear the rush of the flooded river down in the canyon.

  There would be plenty of game bedded down on the ridge now, but it was raining too hard to hunt. In the morning, the game would be slow to rise, but he reckoned any remaining migratory animals would head south now.

  For the next several days, the hunting would be good. After that, game might get downright scarce. The salmon, upon which they had relied so heavily, would have been swept away with the flood.

  That thought reminded him again of Cascadia. For an instant, a dagger of emotion peered his heart.

  Was she really gone? Had she really died saving him?

  The thought was too terrible to bear.

  Ultimately, he couldn’t be sure of Cascadia’s fate and couldn’t help her now, so he pushed these thoughts from his mind as best he could.

  Which wasn’t very well at all until he got inside and beheld the chaos within his home.

  Philia was trying to control twenty-some fur folk, who were exploring every nook and cranny of the cabin, laughing and squealing with delight as they poked through the small dwelling’s contents. Braddock saw fur folk on the beams, lumps moving in his bedroll, a furry butt poking out of the flour bin.

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  That got their attention. The fur folk stopped whatever they were doing and stared at him with wide eyes.

  Braddock didn’t see Tilly or Chundra anywhere and reckoned they were in Elizabeth’s home.

  Good luck with that, my friends, he thought.

  For his own part, Braddock understood he needed to lay down some rules and with them, a definition of ownership, which he knew from previous experience varied widely culture to culture.

  He didn’t want these crazy little bear folk gobbling their stores, playing with firearms, scratching the golden goblet, or misplacing the orange stone with the little woman locked inside.

  “Fur folk, you are our guests, and you are welcome, but you will not eat anything without our permission. The things in this place are our possessions. If you wish to use something, ask. If you are given permission to use something, do so with care, and return the item in good condition as soon as you are finished. Do you understand?”

  Philia translated.

  The fur folk nodded. One youngster wiggled out of the flour bin and sneezed, reminding Braddock of the day he’d met Chundra. The other fur folk went back to their exploration, laughing and squealing with excitement as they ran back and forth, peeking and sniffing and touching everything.

  This was going to be a challenge.

  A moment later, Elizabeth burst through the door. She was soaked to the skin, and her bosom was heaving with emotion. A strand of rain-darkened hair split her pale forehead and shot down between her stormy blue eyes like a red lightning bolt.

  “Mr. Braddock, I insist that you get these little bears out of my home this instant! They’re rooting through my things and getting mud everywhere and the whole cabin smells like wet fur!”

  24

  Though they had lost most of their possessions in the flood, the fur folk had saved a few tiny casks of wine.

  Which said something about their priorities, Braddock supposed.

  They broke these open during dinner, which they consumed heartily. A dozen different bear men and women offered Braddock wine, but Tilly privately assured him that fur folk wine tasted horrible and would give him a three-day headache, so he politely declined.

  It was alarming to watch his guests devour the meal of tubers and venison. Even his grimmest initial estimations of the food he would need to host those guests had been way off the mark. In the morning, he would talk to Chundra about getting the fur folk to help gather food.

  For now, Chundra was beaming and laughing and more than a little drunk. The fur folk jabbered incessantly, frequently pointing at Chundra and adding pantomimed actions to their stories, which always ended with bursts of laughter and female fur folk ducking in to kiss Chundra’s smiling cheeks.

  After dinner, the lot of them hoisted Chundra onto their shoulders and carted him around the cabin, singing with gusto a song that sounded suspiciously like “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

  “He’s a hero to them now,” Philia explained as Braddock watched, feeling somewhat numbed by the constant movement and jubilation of his guests.

  Elizabeth had calmed down and sat to his left, staring ahead with a stunned expression.

  Braddock hadn’t budged on his decision. Elizabeth, like Braddock and his sprites, would share her home with their many guests.

  The news had driven her to drink. Between long bouts of staring, Elizabeth raised the cup to her lips, which were stained a deep purple.

  “Pin berries,” Tilly explained. “Strong but unsophisticated.”

  Elizabeth grimaced with each swallow but kept drinking, and the little fur folk kept refilling her cup.

  Over time, as they talked of new challenges, Elizabeth started smiling and blinking sleepily. She hadn’t spoken during the meal or the discussion, so Braddock was surprised, when she finally did speak, to hear her slur her words.

  “Ish a shame,” Elizabeth said, clamping a hand on Braddock’s forearm. “You’re such a… such a handsome man.”

  Elizabeth hiccuped and roused up, shaking her head, trying as so many drunks do to look serious and calculating. “That is not flattery, Mr. Braddock. It is empirical truth. You are a savage. But a very good-looking savage. It’s empirical! No offense, Philia.”

  “None taken, sweet sister,” Philia said cheerily. “I am happy to hear you finally confessing the truth. Perhaps now, at last, you would like to—”

  “Enough,” Braddock said, cutting off his mischievous wife.

  Philia laughed. “Yes, husband.”

  Elizabeth lifted her hand dramatically and leaned back into her chair, making her head wobble. “It’s too bad you’re such a brute.” She drowsed forward, blinking heavily, head nodding. “Such a handsome brute.”

  Tilly went to her side. “I will see Elizabeth to her home, Master.”

  “Thanks, Tilly.”

  The little sprite helped Elizabeth to her feet.

  The red-haired woman summoned a measure of dignity and stood very straight, chin slightly elevated, wobbling unsteadily. She raised one hand, thanked them for a lovely dinner, thanked the fur folk for the wine, and staggered out the door, attended by Tilly.

  Philia leaned close and nipped Braddock’s ear. “You should bring her into our bed tonight, husband.”

  He frowned at her. “You know how I feel about that. Taking advantage of Elizabeth’s drunkenness would be no different than having my way with her when she was under a charm spell.”

  “Not Elizabeth,” Philia laughed. “Tilly. She adores you. And she saved your life today. What she did with that vine was nothing short of incredible given her level of power and experience. Which reveals much about her feelings for you. What better way to thank her than bringing her into our bed?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, darlin.”

  “Why?” Philia asked, regarding him with genuine puzzlement.

  It was a good question. Why wasn’t he jumping at the chance to bed Tilly?

  She was gorgeous and likable. Tilly wanted to bond with him, and she had saved his life. His wife wanted him to seed her handmaiden, and doing so would bring all three of them power and increase the chance of other sprites joining the meadow.

  Part of his hesitation was her size, though he assumed the sprites had some fix for that. Things had worked out between Philia and him, after all, and she had only been three inches tall.

  But that wasn’t his primary hesitation.

  It wasn’t the fur folk, either, though it would be awkward to bond with her while a couple dozen little bear people danced and sang drunkenly in the room.

  “I reckon it’s mostly Cascadia.”

>   Philia hugged him and kissed his cheek. “I understand, husband. I keep remembering her brave sacrifice as well.”

  “Do you think she’s really gone?”

  Philia nodded.

  “Dead, I mean.”

  She nodded again, frowning. “Otherwise, I have to believe she would be here. She knows the way now, after all.”

  He stood and went out the door and scanned the gloom. The rain fell steadily. Doal squatted there like a somber statue.

  There was no sign of the beautiful, blue-skinned nymph.

  “Cascadia? Are you out there? Cascadia?”

  Doal groaned mournfully. The only other sound was the constant patter of rain.

  Looking toward the other cabin, Braddock saw light in Elizabeth’s “window,” which was simply a small rectangle covered by tightly packed bottles fitted into grooves above and below. It had been her idea and her insistent request.

  The girl knew how to stand up for herself, that was certain. She was not afraid to ask for whatever she wanted. Lately, she’d been demanding a plank floor, a clothesline, and that Braddock, come spring, start building a schoolhouse, which seemed a ridiculous notion to him.

  Though honestly, her ideas were far more frequently inconvenient than ridiculous. She was an intelligent, pragmatic woman who valued planning and quality at the expense of others’ time and energy—but not a fool.

  And what about tonight? All that drunken nonsense about him being a handsome brute?

  Were those her true thoughts? Did she want him?

  No.

  That had just been the wine talking.

  Maybe it was a good thing he had taken Tilly’s advice and abstained.

  Philia called him back inside. “Cascadia is not here, husband. I am sorry.”

  He nodded, closing the door.

  The fur folk were gathered before the hearth, where a gray-bearded bear-man with an enormous belly had entranced his drunken friends with a story that involved a lot of gesturing. Wrapping up with a happy shout, the gray beard pointed at Chundra, and the laughing fur folk rushed forward, hoisted Braddock’s little friend onto their shoulders, and started parading him around the room, singing their squeaky version of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” again.