Blood Bounty by Liza Street

Author:Liza Street [Street, Liza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liza Street

Thirteen

The next morning dawns cool. I wake to the sound of chewing mixing with the sound of a lark’s song. Opening my eyes, I sit up and stretch. Sheriff’s munching a piece of stale bread. When she sees me watching her, she holds out the other end in offering.

“No, thanks,” I say. I don’t care to eat first thing in the morning, in general. Like my gut needs a minute to wake up.

My body’s still sore from the fae attack yesterday morning, so I rummage in one of my saddlebags and pull out a mending stone. I like to hoard them, save them for when I’m desperate. Today feels like one of those days. I poke one of my fingers on the point of my knife and smear the blood on the stone.

“Mend,” I whisper.

It dulls the pain, and I sigh. The world around me looks a lot better now. I can appreciate the colors of the pink and orange sunrise, and the sounds of birdsong.

Hardin gives a loud snore. The man ain’t even quiet in his sleep.

Sheriff comes over to sit next to me. “Want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Risking a glance at her perceptive gray eyes, I say, “Not particularly.”

“Hardin seems to be getting on your last nerve,” she says in a low voice.

I look to the man in question. He’s asleep with his hat covering his face, his boots off, and brown wool socks sticking out the ends of his trousers. Carson’s asleep, too. I swear that man would sleep all day if we let him. Boone and Wesley are sitting a few yards away, breaking their fast with hardtack and jerky.

“He’s just loud as anything,” I finally say. “I asked him to keep it down and he’s still stomping around like he’s tryin’ to kill a snake.”

Sheriff swears in irritation. Boone looks up sharply. I give him a sarcastic wave; we don’t need his judgment on what kind of language we use. Just because we’re women doesn’t mean we can’t use colorful epithets from time to time. Instead of appearing angry or annoyed, though, he looks concerned. I shake my head and turn back to the sheriff.

“I can get over it,” I say. “Especially if he can start makin’ an effort to be quieter.”

She sighs. “I feel bad for Mrs. Hardin. She works her fingers to the bone. Hardin’s the lucky one in that marriage. I wanted to give him a chance when he offered to help hunt down the outlaws. I hoped he’d surprise me and be useful for a change.”

“People surprise me all the time.” I run my hand over the scar on my neck, feeling the puckered skin. “Sometimes with their goodness, but oftentimes with their dark sides.”

“I reckon you see a lot of that,” she says, standing up.

“I wish it weren’t so.”

Once everyone’s up, we saddle the horses to try another hill. I look toward the southwest, in the direction of the grave site. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to revisit my impulse to free another one of the dead and follow it to its sire.

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