“Twice-blessed, twice-cursed. You got my gift, and hers.” The preacher man leans in, his dry, fetid breath ghosting across your face. “But I didn’t come out here just to scare you. There is a storm brewing, little one. Something bigger than you can understand, brought here by the men who came on the train.”
That gives the desert pause and she coils in you like a waiting snake. Your heart is beating so fast that if you were still human, you would worry about passing out. But before you can try to force words out, to ask him what he means, a voice rings across the plain.
“Ellis?”
There’s a small figure in the distance, one arm raised to shield their eyes. It’s Marisol, her bandana tied around her face, pulled over her nose to protect her from the dust. No horse this time; she must have run after you on foot.
No, no, you don’t want her to see you like this. Your dust storm kicks up into a twisting column, sending howling gusts to buffet her slight form. Marisol staggers back.
“Dammit, Ellis! Stop!” You can barely hear her over the storm, and the preacher man chuckles.
“What a loyal friend. But remember, child—bad things happen to men who marry the desert. Don’t forget what they did to your father, out on your mother’s territory, when they thought no one could see.” The preacher man touches your forehead with one long, thin hand, and his fingers are stiff and ice cold. “People fear what they don’t understand. That’s why, no matter what you choose, you will always end up alone.”
“Ellis!” Marisol is struggling, fighting her way through the blinding gale. When you glance back, the preacher man has vanished. “Ellis, please, get a hold of yourself!”
The power roars through your veins still, but with the preacher man gone, so is some of the intense pressure in your head. No, you think, tamping it down forcefully. If he is right, then this power is yours—a gift from your mother and from your father, to do with as you please. You will make it obey.
And for the first time in your life, for the first time since your father died and the desert began to cast its madness on you in his stead, you can feel your mother’s power bend to your will, into a shape you can control. You clench your fist, and the winds die down to a quiet whisper. At the same time, you search back through yourself for the human frame that feels familiar to you, a boy with a small, bony body and earth-dark skin. A shape to fit your own power into.
No sooner have you slipped back into your own body than Marisol’s arms are around you, clutching you tight. “Lord. I thought I’d lost you.”
You sag into her embrace, feeling drained but so full. You’ve never come back to yourself like this before, not until your mother was ready to let you go. “I thought so too,” you murmur against her cheek. “But I’m here. I’m not leaving.”
“Chrissakes, I’m always cleaning up your messes.” The bite in her voice makes you flinch, but her arms are gentle around you. Her footprints have been wiped away behind her, but even the wind can’t scour away the deep, sharp divots her heels carved out of the ground as she fought her way to you.
“I’m sorry,” you say. God, you love her so much. And not the way so many men desire women; you’ve never felt that, for anyone, in all your life. But Marisol has never touched you that way, and the warmth of her body here, now, is more than enough.
Still, the preacher man’s words ring in your ears. You will always end up alone.
“It’s all right.” She begins to tug you away, back toward the direction of the town. “I’m used to it by now.”
“Wait.” You hold her hand, and she looks back at you, her braids framed in the scant light. “Marisol… you saw me. Like that.”
“Yes.”
You suck in a breath. “Weren’t you scared?”
Her grip on your hand tightens. “I’ve seen worse.” And she has; you both have, from the cave-in that orphaned the both of you, in different ways, to the haunted look in her eyes as you help her tighten her corset strings every evening, her hand shaking as she unstoppers the tiny bottle of laudanum she keeps behind the vanity mirror.
But she has never seen you as desert-wild as you were tonight, a mad creature stripped down to the bone. And there is some comfort in knowing that she has witnessed you, and that she can still look at you without turning her face away.
“Let’s go back,” Marisol says, very gently. She doesn’t say home, and you’re grateful for that.
Madam Lettie’s hand cracks hard against your face. “Where have you been?” she hisses. You don’t answer her—she knows already where you’ve been, you smell like the coyotes and animal piss and dried blood—and she hits you again. “I told you not to run off like that. You shamed me in front of our guests, fleeing past them like some mad, filthy creature. Thank the Lord they still want to use the saloon on Saturday.” Lettie wipes her hand on her skirt like she’s touched the most disgusting thing she’s ever seen. You remember the times, when you were little and your father was still alive, when she used to touch your face with kind, gentle hands. When she held you because she wanted to, not because she had to. You remember the soft look in her eyes. You remember when she still used your name.
You think she might have loved you, once, before she learned to fear you.
“Now, now, Lettie.” She starts—it seems she hadn’t heard the two company men walk up behind her. It’s the pale, princely one and his nervous, dark-haired companion. You wonder, briefly, if the latter is the one who had spent that first night with Marisol. The princely man has a cultured accent; you can tell by the way Madam Lettie straightens her shoulders unconsciously when he speaks to her. “It’s quite all right. I don’t think we’ve had proper introductions, though.” He looks straight at you, not through you the way so many people do. “My name is William Lacombe. And your name is?”
Madam Lettie’s lips purse. “The girls call him Ellis.”
He barely looks at her. “Are you Ellis, then?”
“Yes,” you say, very quietly. The preacher man is not with them, and you can’t sense his presence any more. You’re not fool enough to think he’s gone, though.
William’s gaze travels to Marisol, who is standing silently behind you, and stops. “And the brave girl who ran out after our new friend. Who might you be?”
“Marisol,” she says. William reaches out and takes her hand; then he brings it to his lips and kisses the back of it. Madam Lettie’s expression goes sour enough to pickle a jar of vegetables. William’s companion’s brow tightens.
“Marisol.” He says her name the way the desert says yours, like the heat crackling across the rocks. Marisol. Heat crackles across your face, too, at the sound of it in his mouth. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Has Lettie told you why I’m here?”
“No, sir.” She withdraws her hand, uncertainty flickering through her eyes, and takes a step back. William only smiles and straightens up, looking from Marisol to you.
“Well, the Lacombe Mining Company owns the land that this town is built on. We developed the mine just outside the bluffs. It took a few months to hear of the tragic news of the collapsed shaft—so many good men were lost, and for that, I offer my deepest condolences.” His eyes look sad, and he holds his hat to his chest. This gesture makes you trust him exactly as much as you did before, if not less. “Of course, the vein of silver was blocked off as well. Samuel—my companion here—and I have been sent to evaluate the damages to the mine and draw up the appropriate compensation for the families of the lost miners.”