Song of Oestend (25 page)

neck again. “I’ll use my hand or my mouth. You can tie me down again if you want.”

“No,” Aren said.

“Then what?” Deacon asked. “Just tell me.”

It was good that it was dark. It was good that Deacon was behind him. It was good that he could hide. “I want you safe,” Aren said. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I have to.”

“I know.” He was trembling, and he felt Deacon’s arms tighten around him. “I want

you to come home. Tell me you’re coming home.”

“Even the wraiths can’t keep me away.”

Which was exactly what Aren was afraid of.

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Deacon was up early the next morning. They wouldn’t even get to eat breakfast

together. Deacon and Garrett wanted to be on the road as early as possible, in case the trouble they ran into was at the shack. Aren did his best not to let his dread show on his face.

He sat in bed, watching Deacon dress, trying to find the right words to say. “Goodbye”

seemed so final. “Be safe” seemed too light.

Deacon pulled on his boots. “I have to go,” he said.

“Come home,” Aren said. “Please.”

Deacon smiled. “You worry too much.” He leaned over and kissed Aren goodbye, a

quick grazing touch of his lips on Aren’s forehead. “I’ll be back in no time.”

Aren didn’t go with him to the courtyard, even though he knew most of the BarChi

would be there to see them off. He was afraid that in saying goodbye, he would betray himself and his feelings for Deacon there in front of everybody. He might break down and beg Deacon not to go. He might cry as he watched him ride away. Aren didn’t want anybody to think he was weak.

He waited, as he always did, until the hands had finished their breakfast before going for his own, and afterwards, he climbed the stairs to his studio. He found it a mess—his paints and brushes scattered on the floor. The picture he’d painted of Deacon was face down in the corner of the room. He sighed and started to clean up the ghost’s mess. He was getting used to her little displays of temper. He’d once come home to find all his clothes scattered on his bedroom floor and holes ripped in half of his shirts. He considered himself lucky this time that no real damage had been done.

He had a new canvas ready. He hadn’t yet decided what to paint, but as he cleaned up

after the ghost, he found himself thinking of Deacon. He thought of the night before—not just the sex, but about Deacon’s submission. He thought of Deacon standing naked in front of him, waiting for his instruction. As he put the previous painting back in its place, he examined the scars on the ranch hand’s skin. He thought about the scar that should have been there, but wasn’t—the BarChi brand.

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And suddenly he knew.

He started out unsure, but as so often happened, his art carried him away. His arm

moved and the paint flowed, and it seemed not so much that Aren created the picture as that the picture was already there. It was only using Aren to find its way free.

He painted for hours, stopping only once when somebody knocked on his door.

“This is for you,” Daisy said, holding a strange stick towards him.

“What is it?” he asked, impatiently. He was still lost in his paints, victim to his muse.

He resented her intrusion.

“It’s a riding crop,” she said.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

She sighed, shoving it into his hands. “Olsa told me to,” she said as she turned to leave.

“She said you’d need it.”

Although Aren had grown used to caring for the horses, he’d never ridden one. He had

no intention of riding one any time soon, either. Leave it to Olsa to send him something he had absolutely no use for.

He tossed the crop into his bedroom and went back to his studio. He surrendered

himself again to the will of his paints. The picture was taking form—Deacon, the brand, images of the BarChi.

He was finally shaken from his reverie by the supper bell. The hands were about to eat.

He thought about his own supper and his heart sank a bit when he realised he’d be eating alone. Still, there was nothing to be done about it.

He stepped back from the canvas to examine what he’d done. He liked it. It was

different from anything else he’d ever painted—a bit more abstract. Almost a dreamscape.

He thought it was good, but he knew it wasn’t finished. He didn’t know what exactly was missing. He only knew he couldn’t sign his name in the corner yet.

He hated the idea of coming back to his empty house after supper—that was when he

knew he’d miss Deacon the most—so he took his sketchpad and pencils with him. There was a new colt in the barn, and Aren hoped to sketch it. He wanted to see if he could capture its clumsy curiosity on paper.

He sighed as he headed out of the door. Sketching a horse seemed like a pitiful

replacement for the way he’d have preferred to spend his evening.

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“I’ve been waiting for you, boy,” Olsa said as soon as he walked in. His plate of food was already waiting on the table. “I have questions to ask you.”

Aren put down his pad and the satchel that held his pencils and penknife. “All right,”

he said, as he sat down and started to eat. He supposed he’d better not waste any time, in case one of his answers prompted Olsa to snatch his food away.

“Has what’s in your cellar been keeping you awake at night?” she asked.

“Not so much anymore. She makes noises. She tries to get out, then she cries. That’s

about it. I’m getting used to it.”

“What about Deacon? Does it keep him awake when he’s in your bed?”

Aren felt himself blushing. He didn’t bother to ask how she knew that Deacon had

spent the night with him. “It seems to spook him a bit,” he admitted.

She nodded. “Good.”

It seemed like a strange thing for her to say, but Aren didn’t have time to ponder it before she asked her next question. “Have you checked the ward we painted?”

“Yes.” In truth, he probably checked it far more often than he needed to. “It’s fine.”

She sighed. “Guess that will do for now.”

He thought about that as he ate more of his dinner. The sign on the cellar door seemed to keep the ghost confined. It was similar to the wards over the doors and windows, and yet Olsa and Deacon claimed they no longer kept the wraiths at bay. “Olsa, why is it the ward on the cellar door works, but the wards over the doors don’t?”

“Symbols have power,” she said, “but only so long as people know.”

“You told me that once before, but I still don’t understand.”

“Give me your paper,” she said, holding out her hand. Aren handed her his pad. She

opened the tablet and began to turn pages. Many of the sheets were loose from the time the ghost had torn the pad apart. Olsa’s blind eyes stared at some point over Aren’s head as she went through the sketches. She stopped at each page as if she could see it, and although she wasn’t looking down at the paper, she seemed to be looking for one in particular. “Here,” she said on about the eighth one. “This one has a mark.”

Aren walked around the table to stand next to her, looking down. It was the picture

he’d drawn ages before, on the day Deacon let him move into the house. “It’s just a bull,” he said.

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“Bah! Not the drawing. The mark!” And her gnarled finger came down with uncanny

accuracy on the corner of page, right where Aren had signed it. It wasn’t much. He never signed his full name. Only the letter A, with the second leg stretched longer than the first.

“That’s how I sign my work.”

“It’s a symbol,” she said. “To you, it means it’s finished. It means it’s good. It tells the world, ‘I’m proud of this.’ That’s its power. Now,” she flipped to the back of the book, where the pages were empty. “Give me your pencil,” she said. Aren pulled one out of his satchel and placed it in her hand. She put the lead to the paper and drew. Her hand was shaky and the lines wavered, but what she drew was simple—a circle with a line within it.

“What is it?” she asked him.

“The BarChi brand.”

“Right. You go into town, or any ranch in Oestend, and you make that mark, people

know. You put that mark on the cattle, people know it belongs here. You put that mark in a ledger in the store, they know which account to charge. Folks know this mark’s for the ranch, so it has power. If you went home to the continent and you put that mark on a cow, what good would it do?”

“None. Nobody knows the brand.”

“Right,” she said. “Wouldn’t matter if you told them it was a brand. Wouldn’t matter if you told them about the BarChi. The power’d be gone. To them, this mark’s only lines on paper.”

“That’s what happened with the wards?”

She nodded. “People forgot the meaning behind them.”

“But they say the generator uses them to make the net.”

“Bah!” She waved her hand at him. “Bull dung. The generator makes noise. It’s

unnatural. Smells like metal and gears. It’s an abomination to them, so they stay away.”

“So it
does
help deter them?”

“Sure,” she said. “But it’s got nothing to do with the wards.”

“Could the wards be made to work again?”

“It’s too late,” she said. “Nobody left who believes. Only me. Deacon, maybe, deep

down in his heart, though he won’t yet admit it.” She shook her head. “We’re not enough to protect all of Oestend.”

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Aren still wasn’t sure he understood. He stared down at the symbol on his paper. It was only a brand, right? How could it have power? But looking at it made him think of the painting at his house—the brand, with Deacon in the centre.

Olsa’s hand suddenly gripped his arm tightly, more tightly than he would have

thought the little old lady could manage. “You’ve changed it,” she said in awe.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“I can feel it! You painted this!”

“Well, yes, but—”

“What does this symbol mean?” she asked again, pointing at the brand.

“It means the BarChi—”

“Not to Oestend, boy!” she snapped, slamming her hand down on the counter. “To you!

What does it mean to you?”

“It means…” He stumbled, embarrassed by his answer. “It means Deacon.”

“Take me,” she said. “I need to see the painting.”

Aren didn’t understand, but he knew better than to argue with Olsa. He led her across the grass to his house, up the steps and in the front door, then up the stairs to the spare room he used as his studio. He was holding her arm to guide her, but as soon as they stepped into the room, Olsa shook herself free of him.

She walked into the room, her arms outstretched, moving slowly. He only had two

easels, so most of his other paintings sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. “This one isn’t done,” she said as she passed one. “No mark.” She came to the next one. “This one is,” she said, but she didn’t stop. She moved to the next one. “What is this one?” she asked.

Aren felt his cheeks turning red, but he answered her. “It’s Deacon.” It was the first painting he’d done, of Deacon in the barn.

“The mark on this one is strong,” she said. Then she moved on to the new one.

She stopped in front of it, drawing in her breath. Her sightless eyes looked up over the edge of the canvas, seemingly at the corner of the room, but she held her hands out towards the painting as if she wanted to touch it. “What is it?” she asked.

“It’s him again,” Aren said, blushing even more.

“What else?”

“The brand,” he said.

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She sighed in frustration. “Curse you, boy! Stop being embarrassed and tell me all of it!”

“It’s the brand,” he said, “around the outside, like a frame. Deacon’s in the centre.

There’s barbed wire wrapped around them both, tying them together. There are horses and cattle and the houses around him, too, except small. In the background, like they’re part of a dream. Mostly it’s just him, and the brand, and the wire, all holding each other in place.”

“Aww,” she breathed, and he was surprised at the reverence in her voice. “You said

once that Deacon was the heart of the ranch.”

“Yes, but—”

“You made it true,” she said, nodding. Aren didn’t know what to say to that, so he held his tongue. She held one hand down towards the bottom right corner, where Aren usually signed his paintings. “There’s no mark yet.”

“No. It isn’t quite done.”

“You’ve changed the way of things,” she said in awe. “There have always been many

paths, and most of them led to death. But now you’re shining light on a new course.”

“I’m
what?
” Aren asked. “I don’t know what you mean. It’s only a painting.”

But she seemed not to have heard. She turned to him, and even though her eyes were

white, they seemed to bore into him. “Show him this,” she said. “When he gets back. He has to see the symbol is him!” She pointed her finger at him. “This is important, boy. Tell me you’ll do it.”

“All right,” Aren said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “I’ll show him.”

“Make sure that you do,” she said. “This could be what saves you both.”

Shortly before supper on the fourth day, a lone rider appeared at the top of the ridge, leading a whole string of horses behind him. Two men had gone out, but only one was coming home.

Aren felt as if his heart stopped beating. Dread seemed to expand inside his chest,

nearly choking off his breath. From a distance, there was no way of knowing which man it SONG OF OESTEND

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was, but as he drew nearer, Aren was able to make out his body shape, the slope of his shoulders, the way he ducked his head against the falling sun.

He felt as if he might sob with relief. Some of the other men had gathered to watch as Deacon rode into the courtyard, and Aren let himself fall back into the shadows by the kitchen door. He didn’t want to betray too much by rushing to Deacon’s side, or by the sheer relief he knew had to be evident on his face.