Page 21 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Pale Horse of Death

S ister Inez Castillo was a quiet guest.

Safine was also becoming a quiet guest.

“You’re hardly around anymore. The regulars miss your apple cider.

” Decker browsed the collection of oddities lining her shelves as she shimmied on a frilled cream skirt over her wool underskirt—impractical for checking on Lee’s horses that had fallen ill last night, but he wasn’t going to be the one wading through muck in heeled patent-leather boots.

“Been showing Inez around,” she said, swiping a stray feather of red lip rouge away with the edge of her finger.

She rifled through the pile of tossed clothes near her bed before emerging with a pair of white leather boots.

“Do you think she’d like these? They’re the latest fashion.

Or are they too much for a nun? Does she have to follow those rules if she’s just working for Laurie? ”

Decker chuckled and shook his head as he turned the boots over in his hands. “I don’t think Sister Inez is one to follow many rules. I think she’ll love them.”

“Great, I was going to take my chances anyways.” Safine flashed a bright smile as she piled her copper-and-white hair on her head and secured it with rouge-coated pins plucked from her teeth .

The floor wheezed under him as Decker leaned away from the draining sunlight through the lace-framed window. “How’s Willa? Haven’t seen much of her.”

“Fine,” she mumbled through her pins, “she thinks she got another lead in the hills—found a cut-off finger and tracked the rest of it back to a coyote den. Lost the trail, but she told me last night she’s close to finding the doctor.”

“I thought you were with Sister Inez last night?”

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug and she smiled.

Ah.

He should have known there would be something between them once Safine met her. Once the flies died off, Safine insisted on personally delivering a pitcher of her spiced apple cider next door. She’d been gone for hours.

“I’m glad,” he said, and he meant it. For as much as Safine claimed she never needed anyone but herself, he’d seen the longing looks towards couples stopping in at the saloon—rare, as single men frequented far more often—but when it happened, she could never take her eyes off them.

Decker loved her, but he could never love her the way she wanted. The way she needed to be loved.

Safine had her moments, from what she told him. An acrobat from a traveling troupe passing through, a gold widow heading back east, and a woman Decker was suspicious was not altogether human, after Safine told him through fits of laughter what they’d done.

None of them stuck around for longer than a few nights, after which her mind wandered and her room remained locked with the scent of old leather and pungent herbs leaking from under the door until early in the morning. None had stayed until Willa and Sister Inez.

“And how’s Laurie?” Safine bundled the white boots into a brightly-patterned scarf and slung bursting saddlebags over her shoulder.

Decker held the door as she ducked out under his arm and headed downstairs. “Haven’t talked to him since I took him up to the plateau.”

Safine paused on the steps, her voice falling to a hush even though there was no one downstairs to hear. The saloon was woefully slow, a point she liked; it gave her time with the others and space to finally focus on her craft. “How much did you tell him?”

“Only what was necessary to keep him quiet.”

“Which was?”

Crossing his arms, Decker finally gave in. “I told him I killed Elias.”

“Didn’t even spit on it before, huh?”

“Safi.”

She leaned against the railing, propping one boot on the step. “I’m surprised he’s still here.”

“The little bastard wouldn’t leave his chapel even if God himself rained down hellfire. He took it well.”

“What about what else you did?” Safine stared at him, as if she could see the memory of Laurie pressed into him, face tipped to the sky. “You left him on the plateau by himself. You know what kind of shit is out there.”

“He was being stubborn.”

“Interesting. Like you . ”

“Oh, go to hell.”

“Touchy. Just like you with our little reverend?” She laughed, and he mustered up a scowl. There was a pointed discomfort in knowing both men he’d wanted saved no room for him next to the Bible in their bed.

“Laurie won’t last here. Not with his hypocrisy,” Decker finally said. Maybe the problem was him. Evolutionary development kept people from wanting him. Aside from Safine, he’d had no others this long; and even she was slipping away.

Her expression softened, and she leaned over, bumping her shoulder against him. “I didn’t know at first either. Give him time.”

“I don’t want him.”

“You can't look me in the eyes when you lie, darling.” Safine patted him on the shoulder and flashed a smile before she left.

The night turned crisp, the full moon bathing Main Street in silver as Decker shut down the saloon for the night.

Ender’s Ridge had been quiet since Nathan’s article, but those who lived here didn’t mind—some of them were to blame for the disappearances.

Decker would have welcomed the empty streets, if it didn’t mean his business would go under within a few months. Something had to change.

Earlier, he’d caught Willa admiring Sister Inez’s new shoes before she suggested trying them out at the dance hall, and the chapel now lay dark except for the light flickering at the parsonage window.

Straining his hearing, Laurie’s fervent whispers came to the surface, muffled through the walls. Decker expected he was sitting on the edge of his bed, paging through that damn Bible, searching and praying for both condemnation and acceptance of his feelings.

Decker pushed him to the back of his mind.

Laurie’s words were for God, not him.

The path to justification, and a willingness to accept that one thing might have to be cast aside for the other to be true, was a long and torturous road.

It was a journey Decker never started, and Thomas never finished.

Though Abigail was lovely to him, they’d never had children; Thomas had never looked at her the way he looked at Decker, had never touched her the way Decker touched him when no one other than the wide-open sky was around to see.

He supposed Thomas’s love for his wife was like how Safine loved him.

Lavender in the midst of sagebrush where men were meant to love women and women were meant to love men and neither could be anyone else.

The only difference was Safine knew, and Decker knew, and they did not have to pretend with each other.

Sitara pretended with no one. She wasn’t above gnashing her teeth at a child, and she was a force of nature badly in need of a hunt for the last two days.

Hay rustled under Decker’s boots, the only sound in the quiet, dark barn. He lit the lantern hanging off a rusty nail and light flooded the stalls, their fly-specked boards hosting piles of hay and bags of feed.

Sitara stood in her corner stall, one leg cocked to the side as she slept.

Decker whistled. Her head bowed and she shivered and shifted her weight to another leg as he slipped through the gate.

He ran a hand along her neck and winced at the knob of her bones rippling under his fingers.

Decker murmured softly to her as he lifted her eyelids, their normally pink tinge now dull and grey.

She’d never been sick before. Bad blood aside, creatures that had been turned didn’t come down with illness. Decker caught a rat lost in the bag of grain and pressed droplets of blood to her gums, sitting with her as they waited for the one person that could help her.

Dust shook from the barn doors as Safine burst through them two hours later, heaving now-empty saddlebags on the floor before she started untacking her horse with hurried, frustrated movements.

Decker got to his feet. “Keep her in the outside paddock.”

She sharply turned, as if not expecting him to be there, before she heaved the saddle to its resting place. The latch clicked open on her stall, and Decker snapped.

“Dammit, Safine, leave her outside.”

She whirled to face him again. “What in God’s name is your problem?”

“Did you figure out what was wrong with Lee’s horses?” His breathless question was met with suspicion.

Safine pressed her lips together. “Won’t know until the morning. ”

“Shit.” He glanced back at Sitara. Veins spiderwebbed across her neck and spine as she hung her head. “She’s sick. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s burning up, she lost weight overnight.”

Safine wiped her hands on her dirty skirt and released her horse in the outside paddock before she joined him. She frowned and pulled away from the heat blistering from Sitara’s hide.

“This is all wrong. Everything has been wrong, Safi.”

Helplessly, she shrugged and wrung the small, limp body of the rat, coaxing blood past Sitara’s teeth. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Because you’re distracted.”

Safine cocked her hip. “You jealous? I’m sorry Laurie’s doing the same thing Thomas did, but it’s not my fault.”

“No,” Decker bit out. “This isn’t about Laurie.”

But it is.

Nothing had been right since he’d arrived. And now he’d moped about worse than a lovesick teenager for the last two weeks, making no attempt at a kill to quench the ache, or to find Nathan again. “I don’t know if the flies brought diseases with them, or why she’s sick, but please , help her.”

She sighed and laced her fingers through Sitara’s limp forelock, brief spat set aside. “She looks bad, darlin’. I don’t know if there’s much I can do, but I can try.”

If only Cricket’s infernal luck extended to others—he’d drag him here himself, make him drape his stupid lucky necklace across Sitara’s brow to save her.

Safine’s magic was more practical. The concoction she forced down Sitara’s throat made her breathing ease and brought some color into her blue eyes as she blinked slowly at Decker .

Wiping her hands on a towel, Safine frowned as Sitara hung her head again. “That’s all I can do. She’s stronger than Lee’s horses, maybe she’ll pull through overnight.”

Decker gathered Safine in his arms, her brief sound of surprise muffled in his shoulder. The pungent scent of herbs still lingered on her hands as they brushed down his back and curved around his shoulders. “Thank you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss against the crown of her head.

Safine smelled like home.

He had a suspicion her home was starting to smell like gunpowder and anointing oil but he let the thought go with her. “Willa and Sister Inez went to the dance hall while you were gone.”

She brightened and pecked his cheek before casting a last glance towards the pale form in the stall. “You’ll be alright if I go?”

Decker gave her a little push towards the door, swallowing down his bitterness. “Have fun, Safi.”

Nothing more can be done.

He stayed with Sitara for hours, stroking her neck across his lap as her breathing rattled deep in her chest.

Decker’s vigil was disturbed by a tinny click whispering into the stall.