Looks Away glared at him, but then he snorted air out of his nostrils and nodded. “Very well, damn you.”
“Good. Let’s go, but keep your eyes open.”
They rode down the slope into the green valley. The closer they got the worse it all was. There were huge burn spots on the grass, and most of the dead animals had been charred. Some had burst apart, or been torn asunder. Some of the trees looked like they had been torn from the ground by some force Grey could not comprehend. They lay on their sides trailing roots that snaked away into the troubled dirt.
Looks Away touched Grey’s arm and nodded to something that glinted in the trampled grass.
“Shell casings,” he said. “Lots of them.”
“Heavy caliber. Gatling gun?”
Looks Away nodded. “Or something with a heavy rate of fire. There are two or three weapons manufacturers with newer, faster models than the Gatling. Want to guess what makes them work so fast?”
Grey sighed. “Makes me long for the old days. I mean… is anyone trying to use ghost rock for something other than war?”
“Of course they are, but science tends toward warfare first and humanitarian purposes later. Airships and faster trains will carry food, goods, and people as easily as guns and cannons.”
“Mm. Nothing humanitarian about what happened here.”
They dismounted and studied the house.
“You see any bodies?” asked Grey. “People, I mean.”
“None.” And under his breath the Sioux added, “Thank god.”
“Under any other circumstances that could be a good thing,” said Grey. “It won’t be here.”
“No,” agreed Looks Away glumly. He slung the Kingdom rifle over his shoulder and slid the chunky sawed-off shotgun from its hip holster. They tied Picky and Queenie in the shade of one of the few remaining unburned trees, nodded to each other, and approached the house. Grey checked the loads in his Colt, and then held it down at his side as they moved in.
As they did so, Looks Away shifted off to the left of the main entrance and Grey went right, both of them moving without haste and making maximum use of cover. Aside from smoke and heat-withered grass, nothing moved at all.
Grey gestured to indicate that Looks Away should cover him as he approached the door. The Sioux ran low and fast to the front wall and knelt beneath one of the fire-blackened windows, holding the shotgun in both hands. Once he was in position Grey walked straight up to the door and only angled to one side as he got within twenty feet. The big oak doors were pocked with bullet holes and splashed with blood. Grey used the toe of his boot to ease the door open. It swung inward with sluggish reluctance.
Grey waited.
Nothing. No voices. No shots.
He nodded to Looks Away, steeled himself against whatever might be waiting, and then went in low and fast, the Colt held out in a firm two-handed grip. He immediately cut right and swept the room with the gun, his eyes tracking in concert with the barrel. Looks Away dashed in a heartbeat later and went right, the shotgun stock braced against his hip.
The entrance foyer had been smashed apart and was open to the hall on Grey’s side and to a drawing room on Looks Away’s left. The walls were shattered. Bricks were shattered, exposing the wooden bones of the house. The red foyer carpet was singed black by ash and a figure lay half in the hall and half in the drawing room. Perhaps it had once been human, though whether man or woman was beyond telling. It was a set of bones wreathed in crisp layers of ash. The tendons, shrunk by heat, had contracted and pulled the corpse into a fetal position. Though clearly an adult, the posture called to mind one of the cruelest aspects of death. To Grey it looked like a dead infant rather than a grown man or woman, and in his mind he imagined he saw the newborn baby, the tottering first steps, the simple joy of a toddler at play, the full potential of a life unsullied by influences, choices, or actions. Snuffed out now like a match, and discarded by whoever had done this.
Even though this was the house of a probable enemy, Grey felt a small stab of grief and another deeper one of anger.
“It’s not her,” said Looks Away, and the sound of his voice almost made Grey jump.
“What?”
“That body — I think it was a woman named Anna Maria. See the right foot? It’s clubbed. Anna Maria Ramirez had a club foot.”
“Was she another friend of yours?”
“Anna Maria was a shit,” said Looks Away. “Nolan hired her as a maid, but she was really there to spy on his wife. Veronica was a virtual prisoner in this place.”
“Are there places Veronica could have hidden during all of this?”
“God, I hope so. But, Grey, there’s something else. Anna Maria is the first body we’ve seen. Don’t you find that strange? I mean, there are forty people working for Chesterfield. House staff and hired guns. More if you count the wranglers and yard servants. But, there’s clearly been a war here, and except for livestock this is the first body we’ve found. Human body, I mean. I dare say that Chesterfield lost this particular engagement. Do you agree?”
“It’s a goddamn slaughter. But… you’re right, where are the other bodies?”
Looks Away crossed to the doorway to the connecting room. “No one here, either. Should we search the whole place?”
“I think we have to at this point.”
They were talking in hushed voices, and in the same hushed tone he added, “Shall we do this stealthily or like bravados?” His smile was small and wicked.
“Much as I’d love to kick doors and take names, friend, until we know who — or what — did all this, I think we should creep around like mice. Then we find Veronica and get the hell out of here. How’s that for a plan?”
“Jolly good, actually.”
So, they went with only as much speed as caution would allow.
They took turns entering rooms with one or the other providing cover. They found more devastation. The place was decorated in the very height of style, with imported French furniture, paintings from Italy, a library with every English classic ever written and thousands of volumes of poetry and history, Turkish rugs, and curios from China and Japan. All of this magnificence was ruined, though; stained with soot, splashed with blood, torn by some savage claw, or holed by ordinary lead bullets. In the upstairs master bedroom, Looks Away knelt at the edge of a Persian rug that Grey was sure cost more than the entire value of the town of Paradise Falls. The embroidery within the rug showed a series of episodes from the life of Sinbad.
Grey began to leave the bedroom but stopped when he realized that Looks Away wasn’t following.
“What is it?” he asked.
The Sioux nodded. “Come over here for a minute. Tell me what you see.”
He came and stood next to him and studied the carpet. It took him only a moment to catch what Looks Away had already seen.
There was considerable debris strewn across the floor as well as some ash residue that covered everything. However in the center of the carpet was an outline. It was large and probably male. But there was no body.
“They took the body?” Grey wondered. “Why would they do that?”
However Looks Away shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what happened. See…? There’s the outline of where a man fell. But what I don’t quite get is that it looks like he stood up again and walked off. See there? That’s a handprint like a man might make if he was leaning on the floor to push himself up to his feet. And there, those are his footprints.”
“So he fell down and then got up again. I’m not sure why this is so fascinating.”
“You’re not reading it the right way,” said Looks Away. “I may not have spent much of my adult life among my people, but from the time I could walk I was taught how to track, to read sign.”