humans and Archaics, but their conversation was easy. Hollister supposed he should have been more wary, but something about this woman convinced him she was no threat. She would fight, she would kill if necessary, and she wore the mantle of leadership uneasily. And if forced to she would defend her people to the death, but she would not seek out confrontation.
But what he mostly saw in her was someone who wanted to protect her people and be left alone. She told him that until Malachi had gone rogue the Archaics had not fed on humans for centuries. They realized it was a losing proposition and so retreated high into the mountains and fought no more. He had no evidence of this but for some reason he believed her. According to her only a few hundred of her people remained. They were vastly outnumbered and once Malachi was stopped, she repeatedly assured him, they would pose no threat to humankind.
Hollister found her fascinating, and not just because of her beauty, which was immense, and not just because he had not been with a woman in literally years. She had a curious mind and she didn’t laugh often, but when he made her laugh, it was like he’d won some sort of prize. As the miles rolled on, he found himself more and more attracted to her. He also knew this attraction was probably not a good idea. And he didn’t care.
Nothing would likely have happened had there not been a problem with the train. After they had traveled a couple hundred miles from Denver and they were almost to Wyoming, the train slowed and stopped. Monkey Pete poked his head through the door of the main car.
“Got a problem, Major.”
“What?” Hollister asked.
“Don’t rightly know yet, something’s gone wrong with one of the baffles. Might have sprung a leak and we’re low on water, going to have to wait here a spell while I figure it out,” he said. He went on with another long explanation, but to Hollister he might as well have been speaking Russian.
“I thought this train was indestructible,” Hollister said.
“It purnt near is,” Monkey Pete said, his face starting to redden, “but ain’t nothin’ mechanical that can’t break down now and again. So you want to keep insultin’ my train or you want me to fix it?”
Hollister held up his hands, “Fix it, by all means, Monkey Pete, I didn’t mean anything by it. Do what you need to do.”
“Hummph,” Pete said, turning on his heel and leaving them behind.
“He makes all of this work?” Shaniah said, waving her hand in the air.
“He does,” Hollister said.
“He is a genius?” Shaniah said.
“I guess that’s as good a word as any to describe him,” Hollister said.
“Where does it all come from?” Shaniah asked.
“What’s that?”
“This. All of this,” Shaniah said waving her hands again. “Your trains, your weapons, your ‘tactics’-where does it come from?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Hollister said.
“We Archaics live in our mountains, away from humanity. We do so purposely, but we do not invent, we do not make advanced weapons or trains,” she said. “We hunt. We live simply. It is not in our nature to ‘invent.’ But the human capacity for invention is…” She struggled to find the words.
“Without limits?” he offered.
“Yes. You have an answer for everything. If you don’t have an answer, you build something. Or solve it. Or destroy it. How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” Hollister said. “Maybe it’s just how it is. You mentioned lions earlier. Lions don’t invent. They just are. Maybe that’s the way it is with Archaics. They just are. They are faster, stronger, more ruthless, so they don’t need to invent.” Hollister smiled.
“I had a dog when I was a kid. Little black mutt. Named him Apollo, after the Greek God of the sun. That dog loved to chase birds. Chased them every day of his life but never caught one. The birds saw him coming and just flew away. They didn’t have to invent anything or shoot back at the dog-they just took to the air. Maybe some things are just like that. Humans like Monkey Pete have to figure things out. You and your people, you don’t have a need to.”
Shaniah thought about this for a moment. “Perhaps you are right. Except perhaps now it is a skill we need. It is far too late for us to develop this skill, and it is not in my people’s will to surrender. So what do we do?”
“I’ve seen you in action. You don’t really appear to need trains or advanced weapons when it comes to fighting,” he said.
“Perhaps, but you humans learned not only weapons, but the elementals”-she pointed to the devil’s traps-“while we learned nothing but hunting and killing. And now, if Malachi succeeds, we are done.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If we do not stop him, you will send armies against us and we will be destroyed,” she said.
He said nothing for a moment, because he knew she was right. If word of the Archaics spread, there would be an all-out assault and they would be wiped out.
“If for some reason we don’t find him what will you do?” he asked.
“If we don’t stop him, if we are discovered, we will die. I will do what I can to prevent that.”
“But you just said yourself, you can’t win,” he said.
“True, Mr. Hollister, but what would you do?”
“I guess I’d do the same, fight, try to survive.”
She said nothing else for a while and Hollister tried hard to think of something more positive.
“It’ll be dark soon. What would you say if we took the horses for a ride? They could probably use the exercise.”
“I would welcome that.”
The stock car was at the rear of the train. Hollister had Rose saddled in a short while, but Demeter was unwilling to let anyone but Shaniah come near him.
“Beautiful animal,” Hollister said. “Little temperamental though.”
“Demeter is bred for Archaics. Most horses, animals in general, shy away from us. He has been taught since birth not to fear us.” She removed her cloak from her saddlebags and shrugged herself into it.
They rode up to the front of the train. Monkey Pete, covered in grease, stuck his head out the window of the engine.
“Pete, we’re going for a ride, we won’t go too far. When you’re ready, give a couple of blasts on the whistle and we’ll come back.”
“Sure thing, Major. And don’t worry. I nearly got this licked.”
“I have no doubt, Pete, no doubt at all.”
From the back of the train, Chee watched as they spurred their horses and rode away from the train, heading west until they disappeared into the trees.
Chapter Fifty-three
While Shaniah and Hollister had talked on the train, Chee had lain in his bunk, thinking about the woman, Dog taking half the bed as usual. After Absolution, he could not deny that her fighting skills were unparalleled. If what Hollister had told him about this Malachi was true, then she would be a valuable asset. And he had no reason to doubt the major.
Still, there was something off about the woman. There were words she did not speak. Important words. Things Hollister needed to know before he went into battle against this man, and yet she kept secrets. Chee was very good at telling when someone was lying. And what’s more, the woman knew Chee was aware she was lying. He made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was his juju, maybe the spells and signs his grandmother had taught him as a boy-the things one could do to protect oneself from the supernatural.
He had tried to tell the major of his concerns, but so far, his suspicions had fallen on deaf ears. And the reason for that, Chee knew, is because the major was smitten with Shaniah. More than smitten. Chee could tell the
