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  I glanced at Captain Mercer, who nodded gravely.

  “The future of the West,” he said, “may be at stake.”

  I stood there in shock. The corners of General Sanborn’s mouth quirked up as he regarded me. My eyes darted to Captain Mercer but his hard expression told me nothing.

  “Excuse me, sir?” I finally said. “The entire West?”

  “The Captain is exaggerating,” General Sanborn said with a wry smile.

  “Perhaps not, sir,” Captain Mercer retorted.

  The general waved his hand in dismissal. “We don’t know.” Then he turned to Lieutenant Caldwell. “Please fill Lieutenant McCarty in on the situation.”

  “The Sioux,” he nodded in their direction, “arrived at the gates of Fort Randall five weeks ago. They said a new town had appeared in the Black Hills, consisting of well over three dozen buildings. They also said it was not there last autumn, and so must’ve been built over the winter.”

  “That’s fast,” I murmured before remembering I was with the General and clamped my jaw shut. I needed to listen, not talk.

  “Indeed,” Lieutenant Caldwell continued. “When the Sioux tried to approach, horsemen rode out and fired arrows at them. They decided to meet with us before engaging further.”

  “To make sure the town wasn’t ours,” Captain Mercer added. “It is not.”

  “We sent a patrol to investigate,” Lieutenant Caldwell said. His face tightened as he chose his words. “They did not return.”

  “Didn’t return?” I blurted. “They were killed?”

  “The Sioux think so,” he said with another nod toward the Indians. “But it’s possible they were caught in a snowstorm as well. Captain Logan dispatched a patrol to look for them at the same time he sent me here.”

  “The Indians,” Captain Mercer said with a glance in their direction, “wanted to talk with someone with more authority than Captain Logan. He won’t promise to help them destroy the town.”

  “I won’t either,” General Sanborn said. “But I did say we’d help.” He looked at me.

  I swallowed hard. “So what do you want me to do, sir?”

  “We’re only a few weeks away from launching our next attack on the Jotun. We can’t afford to send a sizable force into what is, for all intents and purposes, our rear area. However, the Captain,” he nodded toward Mercer, “believes an elite team could investigate and perhaps resolve this problem.”

  “The town shouldn’t be there,” Captain Mercer said. “We don’t know who they are, we don’t know where they came from, and we absolutely cannot have a hostile force arrayed behind us.”

  "And both the Crow and Sioux claim the Black Hills," General Sanborn said. "These intruders could trigger a war between the tribes.”

  “Worse,” Captain Mercer said, "these newcomers might just be the start. What if it's a new invasion from another realm?”

  I tried to calm my racing pulse.

  “You will lead the reconnaissance team,” General Sanborn said.

  I blinked in surprise. Then I realized he was waiting for a reply.

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  “I’m leading the raid on Knoxville,” Captain Mercer said with a sour smile. “I’m sorry you won’t be along.”

  “You want me to take my current squadron, sir?” I asked.

  “No,” General Sanborn said. “When I said elite, I meant elite. I want your team to return, do you understand?”

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  “These are your orders, Lieutenant. Assemble an elite team. Accompany the Sioux to the Black Hills. Investigate the new town. If you determine there is a threat to the United States of the West, eliminate it.”

  I sucked in my breath. Those were big orders.

  “And do not start a war with either the Sioux or the Crow,” he added. “Any questions?”

  “Sir, no sir,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “You’ll receive those orders in writing shortly.” The corners of his lips turned up as he looked at McNab.

  “I’m assigning Sergeant-Major McNab to you,” General Sanborn continued. “His orders are to make sure you return to us alive. We can’t have the Hero of Louisville getting himself killed out there, now can we, Sergeant-Major?”

  “No, sir!” McNab said.

  “I suggest you make plans with Lieutenant Caldwell as soon as his team has rested,” General Sanborn said with a nod toward Caldwell. Then he turned back to McNab and me.

  “We’ve been discussing your role in the army, Captain Mercer and I,” General Sanborn said. “We think that if you do well on this mission, we could make it your permanent assignment.”

  I blinked in surprise and then looked at Captain Mercer.

  “Troubleshooter at large,” he said, “like Captain Cassidy.”

  My heart raced, but I forced myself to nod calmly.

  “Dismissed,” General Sanborn said.

  McNab and I both saluted, turned, and marched out.

  In the foyer, I realized my gut was churning, as much with excitement as nerves. My heart raced as we trod across the wooden floor.

  “Did you hear that?” I exclaimed. “Troubleshooter at large. Did you hear it?”

  McNab chuckled. “He spoke pretty clearly.”

  “Like Cassidy! I could be like Cassidy! I could set my own rules!”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “Even Cassidy had to follow the rules when he was in the fort.”

  I snorted. Who cared? Cassidy was barely ever at the forts, at least according to the books.

  Of course, the books weren’t wholly true. That brought me up short. Cassidy had also died on his last mission. The memories of that took the wind out of my sails. At least it didn’t send me into a sad spiral like so often before.

  McNab seemed to know what I was thinking. He shook his head with a grin.

  “We’re going to The Black Hills,” he said. “We’ll miss the attack on the Jotun.”

  “We won’t be there,” I corrected. “We won’t miss it. At least I won’t.”

  McNab ruefully chuckled. “There was a time you couldn’t wait to kill giants.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled up short before we went outside and glanced back toward the conference room. It was closed, so the general and the others couldn’t hear me.

  “I killed plenty,” I said quietly. “How many more do I hafta kill?”

  McNab snorted but didn’t otherwise reply.

  “Besides,” I added, “too many of our men died last time.”

  “That’s war.” From the tone in his voice, I knew that was his rote response. It wasn’t particularly comforting.

  Before I could say anything else, the conference room door opened and Lieutenant Caldwell, Private Brody, and the Sioux came out. Brody’s eyes lit up when he saw me and his pace quickened.

  “You’re coming with us!” Brody exclaimed.

  I nodded. Then I caught Lieutenant Caldwell’s gaze as he approached. “Your doing?”

  “Suggestion,” he said. “The general liked it, though.” His eyes darted to Brody, and when I raised my eyebrows, Lieutenant Caldwell nodded. No need to ask who the suggestion had really come from.

  “I’ll show you to your barracks and the mess hall,” McNab said to Lieutenant Caldwell.

  The Sioux had come up behind the lieutenant. Otaktay’s jaw was set. His eyes darted everywhere.

  “Horses,” he said.

  McNab furrowed his brow, but Lieutenant Caldwell nodded knowingly.

  “Are the barracks near the stables?” he asked me. “The Indians aren’t going to let their horses out of their sight.”

  McNab muttered something but forced a smile. “I’m sure we can make something work. Come on.”

  I kept thinking about what the general had said as we got the horses stabled and quarters assigned for the Sioux. Troubleshooter at large. My own team.

  Part of me wanted it more than anything. But I knew how much work it was. How hard it could be. And part of
me was scared to death.

  I knew the books weren’t true, but people still died in them. Only the witch Maria had been with Cassidy from the start. And sometimes a lot of innocent people died. People that Cassidy couldn’t save. In the books, their entire life got reduced to a sentence: “We found the bodies.”

  Except I’d be the one doing the finding. I’d be the one wondering if they’d still be alive if I’d just done a little more.

  Before he’d died, Cassidy told me not to be a hero. He’d said it was an awful life. Better to be a sharpshooter in the army, he’d said. Well, I’d been a sharpshooter in the army. It stank.

  I didn’t want to be a hero. Not anymore. I knew that so clearly now. I hated the hero worshippers like Private Brody. No, hate was too strong a word. I just seriously disliked their naivety. Mine had been burned off in blood.

  But I wanted, oh I wanted, to be on the road. And if I succeeded at this assignment, I could have that.

  McNab and I huddled with Lieutenant Caldwell and Otaktay in the mess hall after dinner. It was a filling meal—goat stew and some winter potatoes. We’d picked the end of one of the long tables away from the door for our conference. Lieutenant Caldwell clutched both hands around his mug of coffee and occasionally shot grateful looks at McNab. In his role as quartermaster, McNab had somehow wrangled up some of the precious drink. With Galveston the only good port left for shipping from the south, coffee was hard to come by. I had my own mug, which I sipped slowly.

  We sat close, but despite my full stomach, I didn’t feel at all relaxed. “So what are we facing?”

  Lieutenant Caldwell shrugged and looked at Otaktay. The Sioux warrior crossed his arms across his chest and his lip curled into a frown before he spoke.

  “Big town,” he said. “Many buildings. In hills. Has wall.”

  “It has a wall?” I asked.

  “Yes. Like your forts, but stone.”

  “They put up a stone wall in six months?” I said incredulously. I looked to Lieutenant Caldwell for confirmation.

  “I haven’t seen it,” he said with a shrug.

  “What about soldiers?” I said to Otaktay. “The general mentioned some riders?”

  “Many,” he said. “Two hands worth. More.”

  “With bows,” McNab said. Otaktay nodded in confirmation.

  “Not guns,” I said. “So they’re probably not ours.”

  “That was Captain Logan’s thinking,” Lieutenant Caldwell said. He took another sip of his coffee.

  “How far are you accompanying us?” McNab asked Lieutenant Caldwell.

  “To Fort Randall,” he said. “From there Otaktay and his men will lead you to the new town.”

  I frowned. I didn’t like the idea of having the Indians as my only guides. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them, but…

  Well, I didn’t trust them. Not because they were evil or anything, but because we weren’t on the same side all the time. There’d been too much blood spilt between the Sioux and the army before the Jotun had arrived and forced a necessary truce. I had a sneaky sense that Otaktay wouldn’t hesitate to leave us lost in the wilderness if it suited him. I wanted my own guides.

  “Do you know the Black Hills?” I asked McNab. “Ever travel there with Cassidy?”

  “No. We never had any reason to go into Sioux Territory,” he said with a shrug. "Cassidy's orders always kept us near Jotun lands.”

  I frowned and looked over at Otaktay. He kept his arms crossed and his stare flat. I definitely did not like this Indian being the only thing between me and trouble.

  “Jeremiah might know someone who’s been there,” McNab said.

  “Yes,” I said. “We need to talk to Jeremiah. About the book as well.”

  Three

  We agreed to meet Lieutenant Caldwell and the Sioux at noon at their barracks. I figured I could get most of my team recruited that night and McNab thought he’d be able to get us provisioned in the morning. I already knew I was taking Zeke if he wanted to go, and I was sure he would. He was the best man in the army with a sword, even if he was a lousy shot. I wanted him at my back.

  Which meant the next stop was Jeremiah. Him, I knew where to find. He’d been assigned to train some green recruits as their squadron sergeant. The smartest man I knew, the best writer I knew, and the army had him instructing fresh fish on how to salute and stand in line.

  Because he was a Negro.

  It rankled me. When we’d fought the Battle of Golden City, we’d all been the same—White, Negro, Mexican, Indian. The only thing that mattered was stopping the monsters.

  But the army forgot that the very next day.

  Jeremiah seemed to make the best of it. At least he never complained to me.

  So McNab and I walked through the night toward a barracks that was the farthest from the well and closest to the latrines. We could smell the faint stench in the still air. We could also hear a guitar from one of the barracks we’d passed, but none from Jeremiah’s. Only a thin beam of light leaking out from under the door gave hint of anyone’s presence.

  As we got closer, I noted more light coming from numerous cracks between the wallboards. They’d been sealed with mud instead of plaster over the winter, and some of it had washed away in the spring rains. We could now hear the sounds of low conversation.

  We stepped up to the door and knocked twice. The talking paused and, after some shuffling, the door opened a crack. A Negro private I didn’t recognize stuck his head out.

  “Lieutenant McCarty and Sergeant-Major McNab to see Sergeant Freeman,” I said.

  “Yes, sir,” the private said. He disappeared and a minute later the door swung wide. Jeremiah stood straight in the entryway.

  “Lieutenant McCarty,” he said after a quick salute. “Sergeant-Major McNab.”

  “It’s me,” I said. “You don’t have to salute."

  Jeremiah’s eyes darted back toward the busy barracks. “Sir, we are in the middle of the fort.”

  “How’d you like to hit the trail instead?” McNab said.

  Jeremiah cocked an eyebrow and looked at me.

  “We’re going to the Black Hills,” I said. “We want you to join us.” I quickly explained our orders.

  Jeremiah nodded as he listened and his grin grew.

  “It’s a small team?” he asked. “Just us?”

  “Just like old times,” McNab said with a broad grin.

  “Then I’d be delighted to come,” Jeremiah said. “Who else is part of the team?”

  “Zeke,” I said. “Maria. After that, I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know if they’ll let Maria go,” McNab said. “They’ll need a good witch when they head east.”

  I nodded. They’d need her, but we might need her more.

  “She's not the only witch in the army,” I said. Well, there weren’t that many, but still. “The general said he wanted an elite squad. I want her.”

  “I know someone else we might want,” Jeremiah said. “He’s from the Black Hills, but it’s too late tonight. When are we leaving?”

  “At noon,” I said, “but we can go meet this soldier mid-morning.”

  He nodded and started to salute, but I waved him off.

  “One other thing,” I said. I gestured for him to step further away from the barracks. “The book.”

  “Ah. Just a minute.” Jeremiah stepped back inside and said something. When he returned, he closed the door behind him. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “I think this is between you two,” McNab said. “I’ll wait here.”

  Jeremiah and I headed away from the barracks, past the latrines, and toward the garbage dump. Slowly, the sounds of the barracks faded and were replaced by the chirps of crickets. I’d been thinking about what to say for a while, and in the end I decided to go with the question I cared about most.

  “So,” I said, “one of the men from Fort Randall had the book. About me. How come you never showed it to me?”

  He slowed his pace and let out
a sigh. “You said you didn’t want to see it.”

  I blinked. “When?” I honestly couldn’t remember.

  “The night after I finished it. We were sitting outside the shooting range, talking about Cassidy.”

  That I remembered. Not him mentioning the book, but the evening. It’d been cold, but clear. I’d shivered a lot as we talked. I’d been having bad dreams about Cassidy, and so Jeremiah and I’d slipped off to talk. The conversation had meandered and I’d wished for some alcohol to drown my sorrows. Instead I’d gotten all wrapped up in my memories and worries. The pit in my stomach had felt immense.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You just shook your head when I offered to have you read it.”

  I shrugged. I still didn’t remember.

  “You started talking about Cassidy again and how sometimes you wished you didn’t think about him. I figured that was your way of saying you didn’t want to see the book.”

  I sighed, but Jeremiah didn’t push. We walked in silence for a while.

  “I…,” I finally said. “I dunno. I kinda wanna read it, but I kinda don’t. I mean, I know you lied in it.”

  “No lies,” Jeremiah objected with a smile. “Just some… storyteller liberties.”

  “Do you have a copy?”

  “A couple,” he said. “They also sell them in town.”

  I nodded and we walked further. My mind was awhirl. Did I really want to read it? I kind of wanted to see my name in print. But then my gut tightened when I remembered what had actually happened, and I wanted to vomit.

  “You don’t have to decide now,” he said. “I’ll bring a copy with us.”

  I nodded at that. “Plenty of time on the road.”

  “There always is.”

  “I just don’t know if I want to read your ‘liberties.’”

  He paused in our walk and looked up at the stars for a minute. I stopped beside him as the stillness descended once again.

  “The thing is, Billy,” he said without turning his head. “The world’s a difficult place right now. We’ve got the Jotun trying to conquer us and the trolls trying to eat us. We’ve barely avoided wars with the Indians. All over the place, there are people starving and being cruel to each other and too many of our politicians aren’t looking out for the people they should.”