Page 33 of The Salt-Black Tree
At least Nat had an answer forthat. “She’s not for sale.” The log had a divot just right for sitting on, and she wondered how many other people had rubbed their behinds on it.
Or if it had appeared just for her.
Raven snorted, his hands dangling loosely. He crouched atop the boulder easily, knees splayed to either side as if his hip joints were other than human—they probably were, and despite the firelight, his feet were lost in thick shadow. “Thought you white people were all about buying and selling.”
“A fair assumption,” she allowed. You had to agree with the truth. “But Baby’s not for sale, sir.”
“Sir,she says. Like I’m a fuckin’ preacher.” The shadowed man shook his hair back as the fire popped, sending up a burst of crimson-orange sparks. “Just tell her, get it over with. I’ve got business in moonlight tonight.”
“Night’ll last as long as it lasts, cousin.” Coyote studied Nat through smoke and rising sparks. “It wouldn’t killya to be polite. This here’s a brand-new bonafide. Shame about her feet though. Should have hooves.”
“Pff.Thatone’s not a deer woman.” Raven shifted, and a dry brushing sound like feathers across a taut drumhead flattened the campfire’s smoke, pushing it to Nat’s right. “Probably doesn’t even know what that knife she’s carrying is for.”
It was like listening to Mom and Leo on nights when they weren’t quite arguing, but it was only a matter of time. Nat hunched, crossing her arms over her midriff, and stared at the fire. The wood was corkscrewed; ancient knotted roots andshapes suspiciously close to horrified openmouth faces lingered on tortured loops and curves. The flames shifted color—driftwood, probably, though they were a fair bit inland.
Orange at a distance, different up close. Would anyone normal see this burning, follow it through the wet, quiet forest?
“She’ll find out soon enough,” Coyote said, and the silence returned.
Finally, Raven sighed, moving again. He drew his knees up a little further, heels shifting on the granite boulder, and nodded sharply. The posture might have been uncomfortable, but his face didn’t change. “Well, Drozdova?” The challenge in his tone was familiar, mocking as Dmitri’s. “Gonna offer your throat to your hungry white mama?”
It was almost a relief to have someone just spit it out, without pussyfooting around. “I…” Nat couldn’t make herself argue, or defend Maria. There was no defense for some things, no matter how much you loved someone. But she didn’t aim her reply at Raven. “You knew. Back in Ohio, youknew.”
“Of course. I’m not a dumbshit.” The laughter had fled Coyote’s easy tenor; a growl lingered under the words. “White mamas always eating their babies. They eat everything, the assholes.”
“I ate the sun once.” Raven’s outline blurred, swelled, and shrank again as he shifted. The light turned blue on his jacket, and his hair rustled softly as it moved. “Don’t recommend it.”
“That’s a story for another time,” Coyote sniffed. “You gonna smoke, or just sit there and talk about has-beens?”
“I could talk about how your wife lost your testicles,cousin.” Raven’s laugh was a harsh croaking caw, and he turned his head, eyeing Nat sidelong. “Bet the girl would like to hear that one.”
I drove cross-country for this?Still, the pulling in Nat’s bones had softened. Right here on this log, looking at this strange shapeshifting fire burning through yellow and blue at its tips, was where she was supposed to be. The same sure, soft internalknowledge also told her Maria Drozdova was still alive, all the way on the other side of the continent.
Maybe not for much longer, like everyone kept saying. But Nat hadn’t failed completely, not yet. Maybe there was a way out that didn’t involve being… eaten.
How exactly did something like that happen, anyway? Did it involve knife and fork, or her mother’s jaw distending like a snake’s, or…
Did she even want to know?
“Thought you had other things to do tonight.” Coyote’s gaze rested on her as well, bright and pitiless.
“I do.” The other man sighed, a deep, aggrieved sound. “So we just give her the thing, end of story.”
“No story ever ends.” Coyote leaned down, and a stick appeared in his deft coppery paw. He poked at the fire, loosing a tide of multicolored sparks. “What if I want to keep it?”
“It ain’t yours, cousin.” But the hatless man kept a beady eye on Nat, probably waiting for her to object, to say something useless. “You wanna be like them?”
“Seems like the only way to get ahead. We were here first, and what did it get us?”
“We came from elsewhere, too.” Raven’s tone softened, though not by much. “The People brought us—more fools they, but we can’t control what others carry.”
“Listen to you, being all philosophical.” Coyote sighed, finally looking away from Nat, out into the night. He tossed the stick into the fire; it curled up like paper, emitting a faint whispering protest as he dug in the pocket of his fringed jacket. He produced a small blue package, and Nat almost smiled.
Cigarettes. Maybe he changed them every time, like Dmitri. What, she wondered, would the god of gangsters make of these guys?
If he was here, nothing would get done.The thought sounded abit like her mother’s voice, but it lacked some essential venom.He is, after all, a man.
Coyote tapped up a single slim cylinder, twist-closed at both ends. Then he tossed the pack to Raven, who caught it with a flutter, his unseen feet scraping stone, a harsh whisper. “You want one?” the man in the black suit asked, somewhat grudgingly.
