"Black Lucy"

by Ryan Kunz

In a saloon somewhere in the west end of the Indian Territory, Wyatt Halleck wondered how many shots he’d have to down before the dragons left him alone.

A man like Wyatt didn’t choose a cause lightly. It had taken him years to figure out what was worth fighting for and to adjust his loyalties accordingly. He’d thought he was right, then. He’d thought that once he wore the right uniform, things would work out. That providence would protect those who fought for right and their families. And so it had seemed, for a while. The South had been on the run. They’d been licked. He’d been so certain of it.

And then came Lynchburg, when General Lee had let his pet dragons off the chain. When it was all done, when the tide of the war had turned and crashed like a spring gale over the heads of Wyatt and his fellow boys in blue, he’d been one of the lucky ones. One of those who’d managed to make it out alive from the inferno that had been the final days of the war. So he’d taken all he had and fled into the sunset, intent on making a new life—one dragonfire couldn’t burn down.  

And yet the dragons had managed to once again steal it all. He peered into the bottom of the glass, trying not to let the swirling whiskey remind him of the cold waters of the Arkansas, into which the steamer Natchez had sank two weeks ago, taking half the people aboard down with it. He tried not to remember the flames wreathing the ship from bow to stern as she sank, throwing a cruel mantle of red over the dawn. He tried not to wonder which it had been, the hungry flames or the remorseless water, that eventually snuffed Amelia’s and Jack’s lives. His wife and infant son hadn’t stood a chance.

So many dreams had died with the coming of the dragons. The dream of an inseparable Union, the dream of freedom for those who lived and died under the plantation whips . . . and dreams like Wyatt’s, who only ever wanted a sturdy house, a nice view, and someone he loved to enjoy it all with. Was that too much to ask for? Especially after all he’d risked in the name of doing what he’d been sure was the right thing?

The dragons had taken his heart and burned out what was left, leaving him hollow. They’d taught him a lesson he could never forget—that no matter how far he ran, the dragons always kept up.

Despite it all, Wyatt tried to forget.

With each subsequent shot of whiskey, the fire and screams were stuffed deeper and deeper into a cavity somewhere in the recesses of his brain. The memories were consigned to mental prison cells and sealed there by the sheer force of Wyatt’s will and the coagulation of five glasses of the strongest stuff the Indian Territory had to offer.

He was good and drunk when the men next to him started to raise a toast.

Wyatt could see them out of the corner of his eye. They were sitting around a table by the window, playing cards and making themselves generally merry. Tankards of beer sloshed on the table as one of them slammed his cards down, flaunting his victorious hand. As the winner helped himself to the pile of Confederate gold in the center of the table with one hand, he raised his mug with the other and shouted, “To luck—may it and the mugs in our hands never run dry!”

A few of his friends guffawed appreciatively. One of them raised a mug of his own. “To bounties—may they always be too slow to outrun us!”

Not to be outdone, another man hoisted a mug into the air. “And to good old President Nathan Bedford Forrest! May he guide our great nation to victory over them sorry Yanks!”

This was greeted with enthusiastic applause—not only from the men at the table, but from the saloon’s other patrons. Even the fellow at the piano took a moment to pause from whatever ditty was plunking out and gave a whoop for the good ol’ South.

Wyatt shouldn’t have been surprised. The half-civilized lands that still bore the name Indian Territory served as a neutral buffer between his United States and the fledgling Confederacy, but somehow, in his drunken stupor, he’d chosen a saloon with significant Confederate leanings to seek further intoxication. Simon had warned him against this place, but Wyatt wasn’t in a state to care. He’d known from the start what kind of establishment it was. Even if he hadn’t, the giant flag of the Confederate States of America over the entrance—the old stars ‘n bars, with a dragon sewn over the top for good measure—would have tipped him off. He reckoned that deep down, he wanted to be surrounded by the men whose who had particular reason to hate him. Deep down, he wanted what came next.

“Damn President Forrest,” Wyatt murmured. There was nothing smart about the words coming out of his mouth, but they were the words of a man with nothing left to lose. And if any of those words landed a blow, however blunted, upon the men who’d held the leashes of the beasts who’d burned down everything he’d once had to live for, so much the better.

Next to him, a wiry, unassuming-looking fellow in a flat-brimmed hat looked up in alarm and gave a minute shake of his head. Simon Crawley had followed Wyatt here, despite what Wyatt was sure were his best instincts. He thought of Simon as a peculiar sort of guardian angel, the kind people didn’t even notice till he’d shot a hole through your head.  Simon looked out for Wyatt, had done so since the war, but sometimes Wyatt was too stupid to listen.

Over the general whooping and hollering in the name of the South, nobody much heard him. So Wyatt—all his good sense drowned in whiskey—said it again, a little louder.

“Damn Forrest,” he said, “and damn the Confederacy, too. Lot of cowards, that’s all y’all are.”

The saloon went silent. The barman, a barrel-chested man with his shirt opened to let out copious amounts of body hair, stepped back and reached one hand surreptitiously under the bar. Wyatt knew what he was reaching for down there. And he didn’t care.

“Great men should drink with harness at their throats,” Simon grumbled to Wyatt. Someone nearby heard that and gave Simon an odd look, but Simon was used to drawing odd looks in those infrequent moments when curious phrases escaped his lips.

“Say that again,” said one of the men at the table. It was the man with the winning hand who had spoken first. He was a tall fellow who still wore the wide-brimmed hat with gold trim of a Confederate cavalryman. “You—say what you said again! I dare you.”

It was actually pretty merciful of the man, Wyatt reflected, but he didn’t much care. “I said,” Wyatt spat, “that your president’s a damned coward, and that the lot of you ain’t much better. Yellow-livered sewer rats, all of you, and you’da never won if wouldn’ta been for the dragons. We’da whooped you all.”

The reaction was predictable and immediate. Simon reached for the pistol at his belt, but he didn’t pull it out. Dozens of table legs scraped over the wood floor as men launched themselves to their feet, but the first one to reach Wyatt was the man in the cavalry hat. Wyatt went for the gun in his holster, but before he could get a grip on his Remington Model 1875 the man’s fist crashed into his face and sent him spinning onto the ground.

Wyatt looked up from the ground at a circle of angry faces. He rose to his feet, and they let him, probably just so they could have the pleasure of knocking him down again. But this time Wyatt wasn’t going to go down so easily. He picked up a barstool and swung it, against the protests of the barman, right into Cavalry Hat’s face.

The swing went wide, but it connected with the chin of the man standing to Cavalry Hat’s left. As someone’s uppercut missed him by an inch, Wyatt grabbed a bottle of whiskey at the bar—it was just about empty, of course—and brought it to bear upon someone’s forehead.

At the same time, Simon took a good hard swing at one of Cavalry Hat’s cronies. He had a mean swing, and his opponent went down without a sound. People tended to underestimate him, and a lot of those people were six feet under now.

For the next few moments, Wyatt and Simon dodged and punched with a ferocity and litheness that belied Simon’s diffident nature and Wyatt’s intoxication. Wyatt grabbed someone’s cravat and slammed his face into the bar, then kneed someone else in the groin. But there must have been seven of them against two of them. He went down in the end. So did Simon, who lay in a heap somewhere Wyatt couldn’t see from the flat of his back.

As he looked up once more, Wyatt entertained the thought that this was the end. He’d heard of plenty of men going out like this—shot like dogs in some frontier outpost or beaten to death and left in the dust. It happened that way out here. And it could happen to him. Wyatt didn’t much care. There wasn’t much left for him to live for, anyway. Hadn’t been for the last two weeks. He felt a dull remorse for Simon, however—the man didn’t deserve to go out this way.

Someone raised a barstool over his head and brought it down with a world-ending crash.

***

Wyatt knew he wasn’t in heaven when he woke up. His head hurt too bad.

Hell, then? he thought. Nah. Too many flowery patterns on the walls.

He didn’t dare open his eyes too wide—the light streaming in through the massive windows sent spears of agony through his throbbing skull—but through slits he could see elaborate floral engravings on the walls. He rolled over and realized he was in a bed—and a comfy one, at that, the kind he hadn’t slept in since his days in Washington.

He chanced a moment’s good look around. Before the bright light smacked him with further waves of pain, Wyatt glimpsed rolling green fields out the window. Fence-lined pastures dotted with brown specks stretched as far as he could see.

That was when Wyatt also saw the man sitting at the foot of the bed.

He was elegantly dressed in a finely tailored waistcoat and cravat, his thinning gray hair pulled sharply back over the curve of his skull. A neat little beard framed thin lips. Wyatt knew him—if not by sight, then by description. You couldn’t spend much time in this part of Indian Territory without hearing of Elias G. Roeborn, the richest rancher for miles around.

Simon sat in a chair next to Roeborn. There was a fresh bandage around his head, poking out underneath his hat, but otherwise he looked no worse for wear.

Roeborn made a polite coughing sound. “At last. Your companion has proven a less-than-eager conversationalist,” he said to Wyatt, inclining his head toward Simon. “He’s not much of a talker, is he?”

“Not much,” agreed Wyatt.

“It’s good to see you awake, Mr. Halleck,” Roeborn said. 

“In a manner of speaking,” Wyatt mumbled. “Feels like God himself took a hammer to my skull, though.”

“The cumulative effects of taking furniture to the head and imbibing enough alcohol to mortify your liver,” said Roeborn mildly. He had a soft voice, the kind that invited easy trust, but Wyatt didn’t much like him. People who put that much effort into sounding nice usually were playing a long game to kill you.

“You’re Roeborn, ain’t you?” Wyatt said, still squinting through the light at his host. “Where am I?”

“You know me, then? I’m flattered,” said Roeborn. “You’re on my estate. My men carried you here after stopping half a dozen brutes from putting various implements of destruction through your skull. You should thank them if you get a chance. Without them, the undertaker would be fitting you for a coffin about now.”

“Shoulda left me there,” said Wyatt. “The buzzards would have come eventually.”

“Ah, but the buzzards wouldn’t pay as well as I would,” said Roeborn.

Before two weeks ago, Wyatt’s ears would have perked up at that. Now money was the pursuit of happier men. Whole men. So he just waited for Roeborn to go on. Wasn’t much he could do beyond that.

“I have a job for you,” said Roeborn after Wyatt failed to respond. “To be quite honest, I was disappointed to find you left for dead in an alley behind the saloon. I’ve heard of you, Mr. Halleck. You and your friend Mr. Crawley here. The gunslinger and his silent specter of death. A number of wealthy individuals up and down the Mississippi have attested to your ability to track down unsavory characters and bring them to justice when our noble officers of the law fall short. And then there’s the matter of your war record. You, Mr. Halleck, seem to have had commendations from both sides, though the ones from your time in a gray uniform have been rescinded. . . .”

“I’d be curious to know where you dug that bit up,” said Wyatt.

Roeborn shrugged. “Money encourages the flow of information.”

“If money goes before, all ways do lie open,” Simon chimed in by way of agreement.

Roeborn gave him a puzzled look. “The Merry Wives of Windsor—act two, I believe. You don’t say a word this whole time, and then the first thing you utter is an obscure quote from the Bard?”

Simon said nothing else, and Wyatt shrugged. “Simon here was a fancy literature professor before the war,” he said. “Specialized in Shakespeare. Cannonball grazed his head at Vicksburg, though, and he’s never been the same since. When he needs to communicate, I figure his brain pulls out little bits and pieces of the stuff he knew before.” Wyatt had saved his life then, pulling him out of a writhing morass of the dead and dying and heroically dragging him to safety. Or at least that’s how Simon seemed to see it. Wyatt figured he’d just been lucky, but Simon refused to leave his side since then.

Roeborn raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say his vocal repertoire consists entirely of lines from—”

“Look,” Wyatt cut in, “I ain’t here to discuss Simon’s peculiarities. I’m much obliged to you for savin’ us back there, but we’ve got places to be.”

Roeborn frowned. “And by that, you mean other establishments of ill repute in which to seek oblivion at the bottom of a glass.” His expression shifted to distaste as he regarded Wyatt in the bed. “Your reputation suggested someone less . . .”

“Unconscious?” Wyatt supplied.

Roeborn made an appreciative noise in his throat. “And yet, I’ve had difficulty filling this particular job. You may be the last there is. But I think you might have a particular interest—”

“There’s always someone else,” said Wyatt. He pulled down the bedsheets and was gratified to see that he was fully clothed, minus his boots. Hangover or not, it was time to get the hell out of here. If Roeborn didn’t have the decency to let him to drink and fight himself to death, he’d have to rid himself of the rancher. Simon would come, too. He always did. “My boots and hat around here somewhere?”

Roeborn motioned to the foot of the bed, beside his chair. “Of course. You may want to stay, however, when you hear—”

“Don’t care,” said Wyatt. He slid sideways to let his legs hang out over the bed and immediately regretted it, feeling fresh hammers beating away at his skull, but he persisted. “Hand me the boots, will you? Simon, let’s get outta here.”

“Mr. Halleck—” Roeborn protested, but Wyatt ignored him.

“The boots and hat, please,” said Wyatt. “Mr. Roeborn, sir, I’m much obliged to you for bringin’ me here to your nice, cushy estate to convalesce and all that, but I’ve got places to be.”

“I much doubt that,” said Roeborn. His impatience was straining through the veneer of calm. “Mr. Halleck—”

Pulling on his boots, Wyatt again interrupted him again. “There’s plenty o’ wanderin’ gunslingers and outlaw wannabes out here in these parts. Hell, I got a name or two you can try. But I ain’t your guy. Maybe you can get Simon to take whatever job you’ve got.”

“I looked into him as well,” said Roeborn, “and your Mr. Crawley is deceptively adept with a firearm, it seems. But without you . . .”

Simon was silently shaking his head.

“That settles it,” said Wyatt. “Simon, let’s go.”

“My cattle have been disappearing,” said Roeborn as Wyatt got unsteadily to his feet, hat in hand, and began to dizzy saunter toward the door. Simon unseated himself and followed. “For weeks, it’s been unclear what might be taking them. But two days ago a few of my hands got a good look.”

“Cattle rustling has been the pastime of many an outlaw starved for creativity and gold,” said Wyatt. He pushed open the door to reveal the hallway beyond. “Nothing new there. Like I said, find yourself a good—”

“Mr. Halleck,” said Roeborn. “It was Black Lucy.”

Wyatt froze on the threshold, his insides suddenly transformed to a cascade of ice. His hand went rigid where it gripped the doorframe for support.

“Ah,” said Roeborn, with more than a hint of satisfaction. “Yes. Do I have your attention now?”
“You’re sure?” Wyatt asked without looking at him. “It was her?”
“Biggest sow my men ever saw,” said Roeborn. “Bigger than most bulls, even. Scales black as night. Eyes like amber. Wings that blotted out the sun, or so my hands reported. And her most distinctive feature, of course—”

“Artillery scars across her belly,” Wyatt finished, speaking the words in unison with Roeborn.

He turned to see Roeborn nodding. “Indeed,” said the rancher.

For a moment, Wyatt was no longer standing unsteadily in an upper room of Roeborn’s ranch estate. He was in the cold waters of the Arkansas again, flailing in the river as the steamboat Natchez burned low, bathed in the glow of the ruined steamer as overhead a black shadow blotted out the stars.

Wyatt’s hand went to the Remington at his hip.

“You’ll do it, then?” Roeborn asked.

Wyatt drew in a sharp breath. How could he say no? The faint, futile hope of revenge was all that had kept him alive this long. He pushed back through self-erected barriers into the corridors of memory, and he saw Amelia again, as pretty as she had looked on their wedding day, with their son James in her arms. He saw her the way she had looked the last time he had seen her, as they had gone to bed that last night aboard the Natchez. She had gotten up in the middle of the night to tend to Jack, to walk along the main deck with their little boy, unaware that the little world they had built together after the war was about to end in fire and horror.

“I’ll do it,” Wyatt said.

Roeborn nodded. “Very well. Now, the price—”

Wyatt hardly heard that part. Maybe it would matter later, but it didn’t now. He was thinking of his plan, the plan that had been sitting there half-discarded in his mind for nearly a fortnight.

“. . . to be delivered to you upon your arrival,” Roeborn was saying.

Wyatt waved a hand impatiently. The motion offset his fragile sense of equilibrium, but he ignored the fresh throbbing in his skull. “I’ll need help.”

“Of course,” said Roeborn. “You have license to hire whomever you desire, though be warned—the most likely candidates have already turned me down. Ebenezer Grant wanted nothing to do with this venture, and Ten-Shot McClanahan just laughed in my face—”

“All I need are two,” said Wyatt. “Simon, you in?”

“To the last gasp,” said Simon.

“Look at that,” said Wyatt, letting out a faint chuckle. “You heard two sentences out of him in a single exchange, Mr. Roeborn. You’re a lucky fellow.”

“And the other?” asked the rancher.

“I want Frank Beatty,” said Wyatt. “Fancy Frank, people call him.”

Roeborn raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard the name in connection with the two of you and your exploits. He was next on my list of potential hires, as it happens. I seem to remember, though, hearing something about a falling out between you and—”

“Never you mind about that,” said Wyatt quickly. “We’ve partnered up plenty. I’m sure he’d be up for one more job. We’ve done good work together—him, his brother Damian, Simon, and me. We brought in the Flanders twins. Caught the Clabbert gang, too. He’s had my back before. I’ll need him.” He ignored the way Simon’s face scrunched up when he said Frank’s name. For years, Wyatt had wondered what Simon had against Frank Beatty. Simon, naturally, hadn’t been particularly forthcoming on the matter. “More importantly, he lost someone to Black Lucy, too.”

“Where is he?” asked Roeborn.

“Not far,” said Wyatt. “We came down the river together, a few weeks back. Back when . . .” He trailed off. They’d heard there was a lucrative job down in Shreveport, with a payoff big enough to set up Wyatt, Amelia, and James somewhere nice and cozy for a very long time. Somewhere far from where the Union licked its wounds and the Confederacy itched to take its dragons north and snuff out the Yanks for good. And so Wyatt had been stupid, had taken Simon and his family down the river with them, so they could all head out together once the job was done. He’d even begged Frank and Damian to come along.

Once again, the steamer Natchez burned low in the waters of his mind. “Well, I suppose you know what happened on that trip.”

“I know the important parts, yes,” said Roeborn, and Wyatt caught the unspoken request for more information. But Wyatt wasn’t inclined to relive it all. Nevertheless, it sprang unbidden back to his mind—how he’d gone to bed one night on the river with a head full of dreams and awakened in the middle of the night to his cabin on fire and the bed beside him empty. Wyatt had managed to get out of the cabin as the boat sank. He’d screamed over the roar of the flames for Amelia, for Jack, but soon the flames’ advance had forced him to leap from the boiler deck into the cold river. And as he’d bobbed in the water, clutched in the throes of a nightmare, a great black form had swooped overhead and launched one final gout of flame at the dying Natchez. The flames rising from the pilot house had been enough to cast a bloody glow upon the creature’s belly, upon the distinctive artillery scars borne by the beast feared up and down the Arkansas. Upon Black Lucy.

He banished the memories. “Frank’s brother Damian was along for the ride, too. He didn’t make it. If there’s anybody who’ll be willing to risk his neck for a chance at revenge, it’ll be Frank Beatty.”

Roeborn nodded. “Very well. Find Mr. Beatty, then. Find him, Mr. Halleck, and then bring me Black Lucy’s head.”  

***

Wyatt’s hangover almost disappeared immediately. Or that’s how it felt, at least. It was still there, throttling his brains inside his skull whenever he moved, but the steady agony seemed to be blunted by the fresh sense of purpose that descended over him. He’d never hold Amelia again or look out together upon the sunset from a porch of his own construction, never teach Jack how to shoot, but if he could sink the monster who killed them all the way to hell, it might prove a nice opiate. At least for now.

For the first time in weeks, Wyatt had a reason to get in the saddle other than to find a saloon he hadn’t yet been kicked out of. For the first time in weeks, his mouth quirked into something resembling the grimmest of smiles.

Invigorated by the prospect of revenge, Wyatt took Simon and rode for Bethel.

After entire towns had been depopulated by dragonfire during the war, droves of people fled somewhere less likely to be decimated by fire-breathing reptiles. Some of them made it all the way to California. Others ran out of money halfway there, and towns like Bethel were born.

It was always a little disheartening, then, to see sights like the charred gap between Bethel’s dry goods store and the barbershop, conspicuously empty like a swath of missing teeth in blackened gums. Despite their best efforts to keep their beasts penned, the Confederates back in Richmond lost a dragon every year or so, the creatures winging their way out west in search of—what? Hunting grounds? Mates? Or maybe dragons were like people—they just had an ache to leave the cities behind and make for wide open skies. Whatever reason the loose dragons had for going west, towns like Bethel suffered for it. It was no wonder that the most important building in town was the one that housed the fire brigade.

Wyatt and Simon rode through town, taking in the people who milled about. Wyatt hadn’t seen Frank since that day two weeks ago when they’d both pulled themselves from the river, but if Frank had stayed in the Territory he’d be here. They had the sturdiest jail and tended to pay the highest bounties here, which made it the sort of place Fancy Frank Beatty would frequent.

Wyatt dismounted and took a good long look at the notices nailed to the timbers on the front of the dry goods store. There was the usual smattering of small-time outlaws with meager bounties. He also saw one or two larger bounties, including some desperado brothers from Texas and a few rogue Confederate dragontalkers. The government in Richmond didn’t like to lose the men who could order dragons around any more than they liked to lose the dragons themselves, and any such men who thought they could make money outside the Confederacy’s employ tended to find themselves with sizable bounties on their heads.

Those would be the kind of mark Beatty would be going for. The money was good, but there was something about dereliction of duty that tended to get Beatty’s blood boiling. Wyatt had first seen it the time they’d tracked down deserters from the border patrols, and he hadn’t forgotten.

Wyatt peered more closely at the wanted posters. The higher bounty’s name was Cagney, a dragontalker from Georgia. The Confederacy was offering more for him than most folks out here got paid in a year. Wyatt gave a low whistle and exchanged a glance with Simon.

“You’re too late, mister,” said a voice.

Wyatt looked up to see a little girl in a flowery bonnet standing on the store’s steps. “What’s that?” he asked.

“You’re too late,” said the girl. “I seen you eyin’ the poster there for Dragon Eye Cagney. You just missed your chance. Fellow came by just this mornin’ with Cagney in tow.”

“What did he look like?”
The girl scrunched up her face, apparently deep in thought. “Tall, thin fellow. Mustache. Dressed like city folk do.”

The inchoate grin Wyatt had been wearing since leaving Roeborn’s estate curled into something more fully formed. The expression felt good but unfamiliar, as though he were trying on someone else’s fancy clothes. “Where might I find him?”

“Probably off celebratin’ in the saloon,” the girl supplied. “Why? You fixin’ to shoot him and grab his money? Lot of folks’ve been eyin’ the gold he got off that bounty.”

Wyatt snorted. “Doubt it. If I know Frank Beatty, that’d be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Ah,” said the girl, evidently disappointed that she wouldn’t get to witness any violence. “Well, you’ll find him over there.” She pointed over to where a freshly painted SALOON sign hung over a set of swinging doors across the dusty avenue that bisected the town. “You sure you ain’t gonna at least knife him?”

“Not today,” said Wyatt. Though he might try it, he thought grimly. He turned and guided his horse across the street, leaving the girl behind. Simon followed silently. They tied up their horses there. Wyatt, adjusting his hat and the gun at his hip, led the way inside.

It was a typical establishment for the pursuit of vice, the kind Wyatt had gotten drunk at a hundred times before between here and Washington. Piano music floated over the din of general merriment and carousing, punctuated by laughter and the chinking of glasses on the tabletop. Squinting in the dimmed lighting, Wyatt spotted Frank Beatty sitting at a table on the far side. His bowler hat was pulled low over his face at a jaunty angle, but Wyatt knew him by his posture and the cut of his clothing. Frank was currently enjoying the attentions of a pair of women in voluminous, low-cut dresses, so Wyatt waited a few moments until the girls scampered off to get drinks before approaching.

When Frank saw Wyatt and Simon, his expression tightened. Maybe it was Wyatt’s imagination, but he thought he saw Frank’s hand disappear from the table. Was it slipping toward the gun at his belt?

“Wyatt,” said Frank.

Neither of them said another word for perhaps ten seconds. A few nearby patrons, perhaps sensing the mounting tension, left to get drinks at the bar.

“Didn’t think we’d have reason to cross paths again,” said Frank evenly, though Wyatt could sense the anger at the frayed edges of his voice. “And yet here you are.”

Wyatt frowned. He’d been expecting this, but he kept his hand away from his own gun. No need to let this get any uglier than it was.

“Hello, Frank,” he said.

Frank’s voice warped into a growl as he fought to maintain composure. “Something I can help you with?”

The last time Wyatt had seen Frank Beatty, over a fortnight ago, they’d both been standing on the banks of the Arkansas, soaking and weary, watching what was left of the Natchez commend itself to the indifferent embrace of the river. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other there, just locked eyes. The steamboat was mostly gone, but the top of the pilot house was still visible above the water, crowned with flames, which gave off more than enough light to illuminate the rage on Frank’s face. Rage, confusion, and a desperate need to make sense of the nightmare—Wyatt knew it all because it was mirrored in his own heart, twisting his own face.

Frank had looked at Wyatt, the one who’d insisted they come down the river on this venture. Wyatt could see the accusation in Frank’s eyes. This is all on you, he seemed to say. Damian, Amelia and Jack . . . it’s all on you.

Frank had turned away then, fleeing into the growing darkness with only his grief for company, and Wyatt had gone to find Simon.

Now, in the saloon in Bethel, Wyatt saw the same accusation in Frank’s steady gaze. He ignored the look and pulled up a chair across from Frank. Frank was, in many ways, Wyatt’s exact physical complement. Where Wyatt was thick and brawny, his chin rough with stubble and his clothes rough with wear, Frank was tall and lanky, with an elegantly trimmed mustache and the sartorial taste of a wealthy Virginian plantation owner.

Wyatt had always suspected that Frank had grown up the scion of the Southern gentry. Frank’s accent was smooth as butter, and what little Wyatt had gleaned of his past indicated that he’d served in a Virginia regiment during the war. But they never talked about their lives before they’d both ended up on the frontier; they knew they’d fought on opposing sides of the war and left it at that. Maybe they were just afraid of what they’d do if they found out more. Their occasional partnership had so far been too profitable to let national grudges get in the way; it had taken a grudge of a far more personal nature to do that.

“They found her,” Wyatt said. It was all he needed to say.

Frank sat up straight. “Black Lucy?”

Wyatt nodded. “You up for going after her?”

Frank hesitated. Both hands reappeared on the table, and Wyatt allowed an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. He had Frank’s attention, at least. There’d be no shooting today.

Frank seemed to notice Simon for the first time. He nodded toward the quiet man. “Simon,” he said.

Simon returned the nod politely, but there was distaste in his eyes, just as there had always been. Simon had been there on the steamboat, just like Wyatt and Frank, another of the lucky ones who’d managed to get to safety. Simon hadn’t been the one to insist that their little posse—Wyatt, Frank, Simon, and Damian—take one last job together down in Shreveport. Frank had no reason to resent him like he did Wyatt. And yet Wyatt wasn’t sure Frank’s eyes were totally devoid of hatred when he looked at Simon. Because, despite Simon’s lack of complicity in the decision to take the ill-fated trip downriver, Simon had lived where Damian hadn’t. And it seemed that was enough for Frank.

Wyatt drummed his fingers impatiently on the tabletop. Frank was still thinking. “You in or not?” Wyatt asked. The unspoken question was there: Can you put aside your misplaced hatred for me for just a few days? Wyatt could understand if the answer was no. Nobody but Wyatt had insisted they go down the river. In that, at least, Frank’s unspoken accusations were aimed in the right direction. No one else had wanted to take that job—but Wyatt had been adamant. It’ll set us up for the rest of our lives, he had insisted. The irony did not escape him now.

“Who found her?” Frank demanded.

“Rancher,” said Wyatt. “Elias Roeborn.”

“Figures,” said Frank. “He’s offering a lot of money, I suppose.”

Wyatt nodded.

“Damn the money,” said Frank.        

Wyatt’s mouth quirked. “Hoped you’d say that. I didn’t think the money would be the thing that gets you going. Not this time. Especially after you caught yourself a runaway dragontalker and found yourself with a tidy score.”

Frank waved a dismissive hand. “Hardly did much anyway. All I really had to do was drag his sorry corpse to magistrate’s office.”

Wyatt raised an eyebrow. “He’s dead?”

Frank’s jaw tightened. “The bounty said dead or alive. I’m not averse to financial compensation, but sometimes the best part of the job is the chance to be the one who delivers final justice.” A bitter chill seemed to blow through his eyes. “He was a deserter to his cause. Man like that deserved what he got.”

Wyatt leaned forward. “You gotta stop stallin’, Frank. What’ll it be? You fancy yourself a dragon slayer?”

“My experience is dragon slayers end up dead,” said Frank.

“Cowards die many times before their deaths,” said Simon. “The valiant never taste of death but once.”

Frank snorted angrily. “Are you calling me a coward, Simon?”

“What’s he’s saying,” said Wyatt hastily, “is that if you happen to die in this little venture of ours, it ain’t gonna be a coward’s death.”

Frank frowned. Wyatt waited as Frank stared into his glass as though the answers lurked somewhere in its depths. Wyatt knew the feeling, but he suspected Frank already made his mind about going after Black Lucy. Maybe from the moment Wyatt had mentioned the dragon’s name. Frank was drawing this out just to get under his skin now. 

But Wyatt knew he’d come around in the end. They’d worked together in a world where scores needed settling; sometimes that meant money, and sometimes that meant blood.

After an agonizing minute, Frank sighed and asked, “You got a plan?” His lip was curled in distaste when he looked back up at Wyatt, but his eyes were as resolute as they’d ever been. So he was interested; Wyatt still wasn’t sure Frank wouldn’t give in to the temptation to knife him in his sleep if he got the chance, but that was why Wyatt had Simon.

Wyatt launched into a full-on smile. “Yeah. Remember the job with the Union Pacific? You still got any of that dynamite left over?”

***

And so Wyatt, Simon, and Frank rode, following Black Lucy’s trail.

They weren’t riding blind. A few of Roeborn’s men, it seemed, had possessed the balls to follow Black Lucy after the most recent attack on the cattle. Spurred on by the prospect of a hefty bonus from their employer, they mounted up and followed the black shadow in the sky as far as they could before it vanished from sight.

Now the three of them followed the bearing Roeborn had supplied from his men for the first day or so. It was half a day’s ride from Bethel to the edge of Roeborn’s ranch, where the trail began. Another day or so following the directions from Roeborn took them over an endless plane of tallgrass prairie toward the blazing confluence of sunset and land.

By day they rode. There was little conversation between them. Wyatt and Frank had little to say to one another, and Simon never had much to say in the best of times. They had their three horses, along with a pack mule carrying the cargo they would need when they finally caught up to Black Lucy.

At night they camped, spreading thin bedrolls around a comfortable fire. Wyatt and Simon secretly slept in shifts. While Wyatt hoped Frank could withstand the urge to wreak petty vengeance on Wyatt long enough to get the bigger job done, he still slept easier knowing Simon was there.

When they reached the point where Roeborn’s men had lost sight of the dragon and turned back, they turned to the locals for guidance. An encampment of Comanche warriors had seen the dragon three days back, winging its way like a dark blot among the clouds. Wyatt knew a few words of Comanche, and the rest they reasoned out after an animated bout of hand signals. Wyatt, Simon, and Frank passed through a few small towns, places like Bethel that had once dreamed of being refuges from dragonfire, and the people there were happy to point the would-be dragon slayers in the right direction.

At the close of the third day, Wyatt watched the frenzied dance of the fire in the firepit and tried to stave off the despair that still threatened to creep back into the corners of his mind. The chance at revenge had bought him a few days of renewed life, but when he thought about, even if he got his chance to bring down the monster who’d burned his family alive, they’d still be languishing in watery graves, and he’d still be wandering the plains without them.  

Did it matter, then? Did this pursuit across the prairie really make any difference? Wyatt wanted to think so.

There were so many things that didn’t really matter, once you stopped to think about it. He’d tried to be good. He’d had a commission in the Confederate army once, nice lieutenant’s bars gleaming on his collar. He’d had a life in Richmond. But he’d traded all of that for an enlisted man’s pay among the blue uniforms of the Union once he’d finally given into the persistent call of his conscience. He’d done everything he’d thought was right. 

In the end, none of that had made a difference. He’d chosen the wrong side, and he’d paid for it.

Once, Wyatt would have given his left nut to know where old Robert Lee had found dragons, or where General Lee had learned words in a language the dragons couldn’t resist obeying. But knowing that now wouldn’t bring back all the good men who’d died under the unrelenting sheets of dragonfire at Lynchburg, where the South had gleefully played its hand and revealed its new weapon, or those who had died at the countless, increasingly hopeless battles that came after. It wouldn’t bring back the stately streets or friendly people of Washington, which the Rebel dragons had reduced to vast, blackened fields of gently blowing ash. President Lincoln had managed to get out in the midst of the holocaust in the capital, but a lot of people—senators and congressmen, rich folks, and regular folks alike—hadn’t.

After that, it hadn’t even been days till the Union surrendered. It was licked, no doubt about it—maybe even lucky to be there at all.

There had been rumors that Lincoln had been training a handpicked unit of counter-dragon troops right before the war’s end. Wyatt wondered if that would have made a difference. Any secret weapon Lincoln had found would have come far too late to prevent a total Rebel victory. Now the dragons of the South patrolled the border between the two nations, getting bolder every year. They said another war was inevitable before the decade was out. Wyatt had hoped to be long gone by then. He’d heard nice things about the California coast, and there were no dragons there.

But again, none of that mattered, either.

Wyatt went to sleep, and his dreams were dark.

On the fourth day out, Wyatt, Simon, and Frank passed a long groove of burned grass. Wyatt and Simon dismounted and dug through the ash, while Frank in his fancy clothes waited from the safety of horseback. Simon dug out charred bison bones, as if there had been any doubt that Black Lucy had passed this way, and they rode on.

They followed the tracks of the bison herd, and on the fifth day they found the dragon.

A herd of bison was always something to behold. There was something undoubtedly majestic about the creatures, roaming as they did in vast companies of fur and hooves that made the whole earth seem to shudder at their passing. They were the true kings of the prairie. Or at least they had been once. The coming of men to the plains had usurped the bison’s throne—and now there was something else that dared to challenge the might of the herd. Wyatt and his companions were at the top of a bluff, watching the dark stain of the bison herd as it grazed below, when Frank pointed up at the sky.

Something huge and black detached itself from the firmament and swooped down like a giant bat. Wyatt remembered that first terrible day at Lynchburg, where he and so many others had first laid his eyes on a dragon—it had been a great green beast, at least twenty feet long from nose to tail, fire and smoke leaping from its jaws. This one was twice that big, her sable belly still pockmarked from lucky Union artillery fire. If there was ever a creature of hell set loose upon the earth, it was Black Lucy. She dropped among the bison with her jaws opened wide, and then a white-hot spear of fire poured from her throat into the center of the herd like the flames of perdition itself. The bison fled in terror, the air filled with their baying and lowing, as Black Lucy dropped into their midst with claws outstretched and plucked a newly roasted meal—one of the smaller ones—into the air.

Then she took off, her prey still clutched in her talons.

“Come not between a dragon and his wrath,” Simon said, awe in his voice, even after all these years.

“You said it, buddy,” Wyatt growled.

The three of them spurred their horses after her. They followed her for hours until at last she alighted upon a cliff overlooking the rushing Arkansas. There were a few more flashes of light as she finished the cooking of her food—it had always been a little disturbing to Wyatt that men and dragons shared a liking for well-cooked meat—and settled in to devour it.  

And Wyatt, Simon, and Frank settled in to watch and plan.

As the sun set, the clifftop still flashed now and then with tiny bursts of flame from the dragon’s jaws. They set to work with Wyatt’s plan, unloading what they’d brought with them from the mule’s back and working well into the night. Eventually, the flashes of fire atop the cliff subsided. Still Wyatt and his companions worked.

When it was done, they retreated to a nearby cleft in the rock with their horses and the mule, where they surveyed their handiwork.

“You know we have to get the timing exactly right, don’t you?” Frank asked with a grim twist of his mouth underneath his mustache. It was the longest sentence he’d said to Wyatt since they’d left Bethel.

“We’ve got the right amount of dynamite,” Wyatt reassured him. “Don’t you worry about that.” It was hard for Wyatt not to feel a little proud at what they’d managed to throw together. It would never fool a human, but they said dragons’ eyesight was poor, so maybe the plan he’d laid out to Frank might stand a chance. It was an effigy in the vague shape of a cow, or maybe a large sheep, with four stumpy legs made of lashed-together branches and a head made from a real bison skull. The whole thing was drenched in cow blood, which Wyatt had brought in sheepskin bladders all the way from Bethel. Its most important component, of course, was the dynamite at its heart. Dragons were immune to fire, maybe even down to their innards, but Wyatt doubted Black Lucy would hold together when a blast meant for leveling mountains went off in her throat.

It was a fine plan. It was almost a shame it would never work.

The night crept on. Frank and Simon slept, but Wyatt stayed awake, his gaze stuck on the dark lump silhouetted against the stars up there on the cliff. Black Lucy used to be short for Black Lucifer, because during the war she’d wreaked havoc upon the Union like the devil himself, but at some point people had figured out that male dragons had horns, while the females had none. This one didn’t have them, and so the name Lucifer didn’t seem to fit anymore.

Wyatt had chased the devil all the way out here, and in the morning it would all end. With a little luck, Amelia and James could go to their eternal rest now knowing they’d been avenged. The monster that had taken their lives wouldn’t live to see another sunset. He imagined the end of everything—his grief, his pain, his anger—glowing on the horizon like the impending sunrise. Just a few more hours, he thought. 

“You awake?” came Frank’s voice.

“Yeah,” said Wyatt.

“How does it feel?”

Wyatt didn’t answer. The question surprised him. Were they on speaking terms now? Or was Frank just trying to pick at a scab, scraping the bare edges of Wyatt’s soul for his own sadistic enjoyment?

“Knowing you’ll have your revenge tomorrow,” Frank prompted, as if Wyatt hadn’t figured out what he meant. “How does it feel?”

“It doesn’t,” said Wyatt.

“I’m sure it feels like something,” Frank insisted.

“Ain’t about how I feel,” said Wyatt. “It’s about what needs doing. ‘Sides, it’s your revenge, too.”

“Damn right,” Frank said darkly. “I loved Damian—always did—but even if he hadn’t been my kin, I couldn’t have let it go when that creature killed him. Evil men and evil beasts throw the world out of balance, and it’s up to men like us to do what we can to pay the bill when it comes due. However we can.”

“I intend to pay that bill in full,” said Wyatt.

“As do I,” said Frank.

Insects chirped in the distance, nearly muffled by the steady murmur of the river. “I’m sorry about him, you know,” Wyatt said. “About Damian. About makin’ you all take that steamboat south.”

Frank’s mouth twisted. “No doubt you are,” he said. “But sorry never set the world right, now did it?”

They passed the ensuing moments without speaking, the silent terms of their truce reinstated. After a time, Frank retreated, and after a few more moments Wyatt could hear Frank’s snores. When he was awake, Frank was the picture of fastidiousness; when he was asleep, the man could snore like a bear with bees caught in its throat.

Still Wyatt couldn’t sleep. Not on the day before. . . well, whatever happened tomorrow. After a time, it was Simon’s turn to sit next to him and stare up at the cliff in the darkness.

“You don’t have to be here, you know,” Wyatt said. “Wasn’t your family that got burned up on that steamboat.”

Simon studied the darkness with his typical silence.

“Words are easy, like the wind,” he said after a dozen heartbeats. “Faithful friends are hard to find.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Wyatt darkly. “If any of us manage to come home after this, your debt to me is paid.” Might not be anyone left to owe a debt to, he thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. “Whatever you think it is, you’re free to follow me, work with me, but you do it because you want to, not because you feel you owe me. You got that?”

Simon gave him a look. Somehow that look said, How is that any different than now?

More silence. This time, it stretched for a few minutes before anyone said anything.

“Yeah, I know,” said Wyatt. “Don’t you worry, the plan’ll work. I got too much ridin’ on this for it to fail.”

Morning came, heralded by the dragon’s fiery snorts of wakefulness. Wyatt and his companions were already up. He doubted he’d slept more than three hours, but it was enough. They took their places within the cleft of the rock, each with their rifles pointed outward.

Frank pointed his Winchester up at the top of the cliff, where Black Lucy would soon arch her scaly neck, while Wyatt and Simon each had their Colt army rifles out. The scent of the cow blood drenching their handiwork would be wafting on the morning breeze toward the dragon, and then things would get interesting.

Sure enough, Black Lucy’s head poked up over the cliff’s edge, and Wyatt thought he could see her nostrils widening eagerly.

“Steady,” he murmured to his companions.

The dragon began to rise, her enormous wings unfurling like black sails on a pirate ship.

“Any second now . . .”

Black Lucy took to the sky with a celebratory gout of fire from her jaws, then dove in the direction of the false cow. The dragon plummeted toward the ground, jaws wide. Then Black Lucy unleashed a column of flame upon the effigy.

Wyatt could hear Frank’s triumphant whoop, muffled as it was. In theory, the dragonfire would ignite the dynamite, and that would be the end of Black Lucy. It was a good plan. It wasn’t the plan, though.

Wyatt heard Frank’s murmur of impatience a few seconds later as Black Lucy looked up from the bait with blood across her teeth. The dynamite was silent.
“Why isn’t it going off?” Frank demanded.

“You sure it’s dynamite?” Wyatt wondered. 

“Of course I’m sure!” Frank snapped. “You saw how it worked on the Union Pacific job! It’s the same . . .”

He trailed off as Black Lucy looked up suddenly, her eyes training on the cleft in the rock where the three men hid.

“Damn it all,” said Frank.

Black Lucy’s nostrils flared, sending tiny geysers of smoke into the air. Her yellow, slitted eyes swiveled in their direction, and Wyatt could swear his eyes met hers.

The icy tongue of fear ran itself along his spine.

Black Lucy launched herself right at them, the false cow and its failed dynamite forgotten. Frank screamed and fired a round at her, but the action stemmed from instinct more than anything else; soldiers had learned the ineffectiveness of a rifle against a dragon’s hide a thousand times.

The dragon came at them, jaws wide, and Wyatt could see a tiny ball of flame coalescing in its throat—

“Vralthra’aska!” Frank barked, his voice low and guttural.

The dragon’s eyes went oddly slack, her jaws snapped shut, and she peeled off, winging into the sky.    

But Wyatt didn’t watch her go. By the time Frank turned around to face his companions, both of them had their guns leveled at his face.

“So,” said Wyatt, fighting to keep the grim satisfaction out of his voice. “Seems I was right.”

Frank looked from Wyatt to Simon, going pale. “I . . . I . . . you knew?”

“No,” said Wyatt. “But I suspected. Hoped it wasn’t true.”

“So what?” Frank asked, eying the rifles pointed at him. “What of it? So I was—am—a dragontalker. Still the same old Frank Beatty. Can you blame me, hiding it from you? You know the bounty the Confederacy offers for people like me. How was to be sure you’d never turn me in for the money?”

“We were partners,” Wyatt growled. “Partners ain’t supposed to do that sort of thing.”

“No, but . . .” Frank trailed off, gesturing with a flick of his head at the false cow. “The dynamite—why didn’t it . . .”

“Switched out the dynamite the night we left,” said Wyatt. “The real dynamite’s sittin’ in a warehouse in Bethel still. Bit of a gamble, what with the dragon about to take our heads off, but—I had to know if it was true. Had to know if you were what I thought you were. And . . .”

I ain’t got nothin’ to lose, he thought.

“So what?” Frank said again. “Is that what this is about now? Despite your high talk, you’re going to bring me in? I didn’t abandon the Confederacy, you know—I was drummed out of the dragontalker ranks. Insubordination, they said. They tried to kill me after, but I was too—”

“We gonna bring him in, Simon?” asked Wyatt.

Simon shook his head decisively.      

“Nah,” said Wyatt. “See, regularly, I wouldn’t care much about who you were. We were all somethin’ else before this. Everyone’s runnin’ from who they were during the war. I was willin’ to let bygones be bygones.” His lip curled. “But you weren’t, were you, Frank?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“How’d you find out?” Wyatt asked. “How’d you know what I did during the war?”

Frank looked more nervous that Wyatt had ever seen him. Flustered wasn’t a good look on him. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said again.

“Then let me refresh you,” Wyatt said. He chanced a glance skyward. There was no dragon in sight, not yet. Frank’s command in dragonspeak had sent it flying far enough away, he hoped, that they could make sure everyone was on the same page before the shooting started. He needed to be absolutely certain. “You knew I started out wearin’ a Rebel uniform. Like you.”

Frank’s eyes flashed, and Wyatt went on. “But man’s gotta choose eventually, and too many things on your side felt off to me. We ain’t got time to go into all of it, but I’m sure you’ve hear the arguments before—the sanctity of the Union, for instance. And your clingin’ to the abomination that’s slavery. So I switched sides.”

“You brought valuable intelligence with you,” said Frank. “Intelligence that got a lot of good Southerners killed. They were my friends, Wyatt. Long before you masqueraded as my friend, I lived and ate and fought beside those men. And they’re all dead because of you.”

“Ah.” Wyatt said. “So you don’t deny it?”
“Deny what?” Frank snarled. “That I knew who you were? I didn’t—not for the longest time. I only found out a few weeks ago. Something you said felt off to me, so I paid a private detective to look into you. When he told me who you were, what you’d done . . .”

“A few weeks ago, eh?” Wyatt said softly. “You were already makin’ plans for revenge when I suggested we all head down the river for a last job.”

Frank’s lip curled in a silent growl.

“I came out here to take down the beast that killed my family,” said Wyatt. “But really, that was never really Black Lucy, was it? She was just doin’ what she was told, because dragons can’t resist you when you speak their language. We all know who it was that really brought down death on the Natchez.”

There was no denial in Frank’s eyes, so Wyatt went on, his gun and Simon’s still pointed at their former partner.

“You couldn’t just shoot me while my back was turned. Not then, not now—not with Simon guardin’ my back. Sure, you coulda got Damian to help you with your little revenge plot, but we both know he was crap with a gun. You probably didn’t want to get him involved, anyway. Too much of a risk for your beloved little brother.” Once again, the irony tasted bitter on Wyatt’s tongue. “Simon always knew what you were, though, even if I was too stupid to see it. You didn’t want to try anything while he was around to beat you to the draw. So you waited till there was a dragon close, and you used your dragonspeak to order it around,” said Wyatt. “As it happened, when the dragon came, we were all right there. And so was my family.”

He felt any semblance of levity drain from his voice. But he didn’t fear the righteous fury he’d thought he would when he finally confronted his family’s murderer. It all just felt empty, tired.

“I wasn’t supposed to live, but I did. But you know who didn’t? Amelia, Jack, Damian—”

Frank exploded. “Their blood is on your hands! I did what I had to in order to find justice for the men you betrayed during the war! I was only looking for order, for justice. You’re the one who got them all killed!”

“How do you figure?” Wyatt scoffed. “I wasn’t the one commandin’ Black Lucy—”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Frank insisted. He must have meant to sound defiant, but his voice came out pathetic and pleading. “It wasn’t my fault. I was never fully trained in dragonspeak before they drummed me out. I thought I could control her, but . . .” He shook his head, his mouth forming silent, aborted attempts at his own absolution.

“She’s a wild beast,” said Wyatt. “You and all the South thought you could control them. Damned fools, all of you.”

“It was your fault,” Frank said again, repeating the phrase in a desperate litany. “It was your fault.”

Wyatt almost pitied him. He could see the guilt eating Frank up inside. But instead of owning up to it like a man, Frank found a way to blame him. What had happened to those Confederates during the war, all because Wyatt had switched sides, that was his fault, even if he thought he’d done right by himself at the time—and God in His mercy would judge Wyatt for that when the time came. But he’d be damned before he shouldered the blame for Frank’s stupidity—and all the people who’d died because of it.

“You blame me for that night, and you knew where to find me,” said Frank. “Why not shoot me in the back somewhere in Bethel? Why lead me out, here only to kill me?”

“I ain’t that kind of man,” said Wyatt. “I ain’t gonna kill a man just because I think he did me wrong. I had to be sure. What was I gonna do, accuse you of bein’ a dragontalker? You’d have denied it to your dyin’ breath, especially with the bounty hunters lookin’ for dragontalkers from here to Sacramento. So I had to force your hand, make you use your dragontalkin’ skills. I knew if I could prove that, the rest would come easily.”

“I should have killed you weeks ago,” said Frank. “That night on the banks of the river. I should have just shot you then. Or any of the nights since.”

“You know Simon would have just shot you right back,” said Wyatt. “My guardian angel, he is.” He grinned wryly, keeping his eyes on Frank. “And that’s why you agreed to come along, right? So you could try again? Work your dragontalker magic and sic Black Lucy on both me and Simon where there’s no more innocents around?”

Frank looked from Wyatt to Simon, his eyes flicking between his two would-be murderers.

“Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself,” Simon bit out.

“Oh, shut it, you half-wit,” said Frank. “I’ve put up with you for too long.”

Simon’s hand was a blur as it brought his revolver to bear. His gun went off, but Frank threw himself to the side so that the rock behind which they hid obstructed Simon’s aim, and the shot went wide. Wyatt, however, still had a clear shot, and he squeezed off a shot at the same time Frank returned fire. Wyatt’s shot took Frank where his left arm met his shoulder, spattering blood on the rock behind him, but Frank’s shot took Wyatt somewhere between his ribs. Frank’s second shot grazed Simon’s head as the quiet man jostled for a better shot, sending him spinning backward down a slope out of sight.

Wyatt let out a bellow of fury, but in the moment it took him to recover his wits after being shot, Frank had leaped through the cleft in the rock and was making a run for it—not down toward the bloody remnants of the false cow, but into the trees to the side of the cow and the cliff. Wyatt managed a few shots, but the pain turned his vision into a red haze, and he missed.

He looked over for Simon, craning his head to see down the slope where his partner had fallen, but he couldn’t see him. Wyatt cursed and bounded through the cleft in the rock after Frank. He left his rifle where it lay and ripped his Remington from its holster. Every step jarred the wound in his side, but Wyatt had been dead for two weeks. He could live with the pain.

He made it only a few feet into the trees before a bullet shot past his ear. He ducked behind a scraggly pine, revolver raised. He chanced a brief glance around the edge of the tree and caught fleeting movement maybe twenty feet out. Wyatt reacted and sent a shot in Frank’s direction, but there was no rewarding cry of pain.

Wyatt ducked back behind the tree, suddenly remembering he’d left the spare ammunition for the Remington back in his saddlebags. A belt at his hip was loaded with ammo for the rifle, and Wyatt found himself cursing his stupidity for leaving the rifle back at the rock. It had seemed like a good idea to bring something more maneuverable into the confines of the trees, but now he had five bullets left and nothing he could do about it. He could make for the rifle, but the moment he was in the open again Frank would pick him off.       

Damn it, Simon, where are you?

A branch cracked, and Wyatt whipped around. For Simon’s sake he waited to see a flash of Frank’s bowler hat before he fired, but once again the shot missed and Frank vanished into the trees. Four.

At that point, Wyatt realized he couldn’t hunker there behind the tree forever. It was meager cover as it was, and Frank would already be flanking him, ready to get a good shot from a different angle.

And then there was that dragon to worry about. Somewhere overhead was Black Lucy. Wyatt wasn’t sure if she was awaiting a new command from Frank or still engaged in carrying out whatever it was Frank had ordered her to do the first time—what was it that he’d said, anyway? Don’t eat me? Get the hell out of here? Fly away and come after my companions later? Black Lucy represented a big, scaly variable that made Wyatt’s eyes dart to the sky every few seconds.

Frank’s next bullet took him through the shoulder. Wyatt swore and ran deeper into the trees, hearing another bullet whistling over his head. There was an oblong rock on its side that wouldn’t quite provide the cover he needed, but it was sure as hell better than standing next to some damned pine tree.

How many is that for you, Frank? But Wyatt couldn’t afford to count Frank’s bullets; for all he knew, Frank was carrying fresh ammunition on his person. Wyatt leaned against the edge of the rock, gritting his teeth as he pushed the pain away. His gut and shoulder clamored for his attention, and he could see a trail of blood, like tiny dark footprints, marking his path to the boulder. He looked down and saw blood spreading from the wound in his abdomen down his pants. He could even feel something wet in his right boot.

Wyatt spied something dark in the trees. It was a bowler hat, all right. He fired, and the hat flew through the air and disappeared somewhere into the foliage. Stupid, he thought. Of course there hadn’t been a head in that; Wyatt should have been too smart to fall for a decoy. The blood loss must have been taking a toll on his brains.

Or maybe not. Wyatt fired right into the greenery next to where the hat had been suspended, and finally he heard the welcome grunt of pain. Frank bolted from cover, limping and bleeding from his upper leg. Wyatt fired again, but Frank managed to get to safety.

Damn. He must not have hit Frank too bad, because the blood wasn’t squirting.

Another shot cracked through the still forest, and the tree above Wyatt’s head quivered. Wyatt ducked as low as he could. He could see Frank hunkered low himself, on his knees behind a fallen long as he took aim with his rifle. Wyatt fired again, and the splinters danced from the log an inch from Frank’s head. Frank returned fire, and Wyatt felt the bullet nick his left ear. Something cool trickled down the side of his face, but he didn’t much care. He’d never liked that ear anyway. It had always been a little high.

Frank cocked his gun and jumped up, taking temporary refuge behind a straight vertical tree as he fired another shot. It missed, and Wyatt took the opportunity to get off a shot of his own. Frank yelped; the bullet had struck his leg not far from where Wyatt had shot him the first time. With any luck, Wyatt would have hit an artery this time.

No such luck. Frank was limping heavily now, but in his face was a demonic smile of triumph as he lurched forward, gun pointed at Wyatt. “I may not be as educated as Simon,” he said, “but I can count to six well enough.” He flicked his chin toward Wyatt’s empty revolver. “You’re a dead man, Wyatt. You were always a dead man. The reaper just took his time tracking you down.”

But just as he raised his gun, he spun drunkenly, blood spraying from his chest. He fell onto his back. Simon stepped from the trees to Wyatt’s right, his own rifle in his hands and wrath barely contained on his usually mild features. Simon’s hat was gone, revealing the pale scar on his grooved temple where the cannonball had long ago deprived him of regular powers of speech. The old wound was complemented by a new red streak where Frank’s earlier shot had grazed him.

“From this time forth,” said Simon, breathing heavily, “my thoughts be bloody, or nothing worth.”

“Go to hell, you half-wit,” Frank snarled, reaching for his gun, but Simon shot him in the hand and Frank yelped in agony.

Wyatt rose and came up behind Simon, and together they regarded their fallen enemy.

Simon held out his gun to Wyatt. His expression seemed to say, He’s all yours.

Wyatt took the rifle and cocked it, but Frank looked anything but defeated. He was looking up at them, blood staining his fancy clothes, but his mustache framed a devilish grin.

“What was it you said earlier, Simon?” Frank asked. “Come not between a dragon and his wrath.” He took a shuddering breath, then screamed, “Alatha’kal’kar!”

Wyatt should have seen it coming; a black shadow darkened the forest, and then something vast was descending over them with the speed of a thunderbolt. Wyatt barely had time to spin around before Black Lucy hurtled down upon them, jaws open.

Some part of him was ready. Some part wanted to let the flames from Black Lucy’s throat wash over him and sweep him away from all of his pain, at last. But Frank was still there, wounded and bleeding but somehow grinning like a conqueror, and that just didn’t sit right with Wyatt. He knew it wouldn’t quite sit right with Amelia and Jack, either.

And so, in those final seconds with the specter of death approaching with its mouth yawning wide, Wyatt spoke.

“Arthrath’ka,” he said.

Once more, Black Lucy pulled out of the dive, fire quenched in her throat, and she pulled away. But this time she didn’t make for the skies; she arced up and then looped around to perch twenty feet away, eyes never leaving Wyatt.

On the ground, Frank’s eyes bulged. “You . . . you . . . how?”

Wyatt shrugged. “Yeah.” Not that it mattered. What good were a few words in dragonspeak if he’d been asleep when Black Lucky swooped down on the Natchez? “Lincoln was training a few of us before the war ended,” he said. “Worked with a captured Rebel dragontalker, getting all the words out of him we could. I only know a few.” He glanced over to where the dragon awaited another command. “Seems like enough.”

“There were rumors . . .” Frank was saying, almost to himself. “But I never . . .”

“Figure I’m the last,” said Wyatt. “The others didn’t make it out of Washington.”

“You could have been rich,” Frank wheezed, coughing up a great bubble of phlegm and blood. He sounded desperate, questioning—a man groping for something that made sense when the world had turned against him. “The last Yankee dragontalker . . . the Union would pay you a king’s ransom . . .”

“Never wanted that,” said Wyatt. “Only ever wanted one thing.” He was still holding Simon’s rifle. He aimed it at Frank’s head almost casually, as though he were sighting it in for the first time. “And you took it from me.”

He pulled the trigger.

The echoes of the shot were still receding into the forest when Wyatt collapsed to his knees beside Frank’s body. His vision was starting to blur, but he could see the wound from the first time Frank had shot him well enough. It was a nasty black pit from which a red tide flowed, sticking his shirt and his right pant leg to his flesh. He tried to rise, but the strength deserted him.

He felt Simon’s hands under his shoulders, and he nodded gratefully. Now that it was all done, the reserves of strength that had kept him going were dry. He doubted he could stand on his own. He took Simon’s arm and rose to his feet, stumbling back away from where Frank lay, and with Simon’s help he hobbled toward the dragon.

He could tell her to leave him alone, but what for? The deed was done. Wyatt hadn’t envisioned much of a future past this point anyway. Black Lucy towered over him, her neck craned over and her yellow eyes locked on him. They were like twin portals to eternity. He was locking gazes with the reaper. There was no escaping it. She regarded him as a predator, as though deciding whether to make a morsel out of him. Do it if you’re gonna do it, Wyatt thought, more out of impatience than fear.

His leg gave out and he found himself on his hands and knees before the dragon. “You damned beasties,” he muttered. “Couldn’t escape you during the war. Couldn’t escape you after, either. You’ll follow me everywhere, looks like.” Except now, he realized. Where I’m going, no dragon can follow.

Wyatt’s eyes met those of the creature whose fiery breath had burned the steamboat Natchez. He looked deeper, peering into the amber abyss behind the slits, and saw no malice there. He tore his eyes away, looking down at the ground, and collected his thoughts. The effort was more than he expected.

He looked over at Frank’s corpse. The bill is paid, he thought.

A clenched fist around his heart, one he’d grown accustomed to over the last few weeks, seemed to loosen. He was aware of the tremors of pain that racked his body, but now he was just an observer, an objective witness to someone else’s agony. He felt detached from his own body now that the task was done. Somehow, as the pain his soul fled, it took with it the pain in his body. Or maybe his nerves were just shorting out as he approached death’s threshold.

“Sorry you ain’t gonna be able to collect the reward from Roeborn,” Wyatt said to Simon. “Everything I’ve got is yours, though. Whatever you can find.” He knelt before the dragon. “Asha’lakth,” he murmured. It was the only other word he knew. Fly. Fly far away. With luck, Black Lucy would never trouble Elias Roeborn’s cattle again.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth than the dragon launched herself into the sky. Great wings scooped the air and flung fifteen tons of reptile toward the heavens, and within seconds Black Lucy was nothing more than a splotch of ebony amidst the endless azure.

He fell forward on his face, darkness swallowing his vision. He rolled over, looking up at Simon for the last time.

“The valiant never taste of death but once,” said Simon.

It was the last thing Wyatt ever heard.