The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

features of the room. One wall was lined with shelving that contained boxes and glass bottles. On the other was a row of large burlap sacks filled with dry goods. Harte realized then that the uneven pallet he was currently sitting on was a pile of those sacks, which had been emptied and stacked along the third wall. His father had mentioned that he owned a store—maybe he’d brought Harte there?

In the corner, Harte could hear something scratching and rustling—a rat, probably. Maybe a couple of them. But otherwise, the room was silent as a grave. The wide, rough floorboards that made up the ceiling above were quiet. If anyone was up there, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t plan on sticking around to find out.

With effort, he managed to get to his feet. He took one step and then two, and just as he thought he might be able to make it to the door, the room tilted again. Harte felt his legs going out from under him, and then the floor gave way and he collapsed. Since his hands were still tied behind him, he couldn’t catch himself, and he landed hard, rattling his already-throbbing head again.

The earthen floor felt cool and damp against his cheek, and Harte couldn’t do much more than breathe in the scent of dirt as he tried to keep his stomach from revolting.

He needed to get out of the ropes. It should have been easy enough—already he could tell that they weren’t tied with any kind of expertise. He writhed a little, twisting his hands and shoulders to work at them, but every movement made his head spin and his stomach rebel. The only thing that helped was to close his eyes and hold perfectly still. His head was pounding so sharply within his skull that Harte was sure he could actually see his heartbeat.

It was a long time later when he realized that his position on the floor should have been more uncomfortable. The necklace with the Djinni’s Star and Esta’s cuff had been secured beneath his shirt. He’d wrapped the two artifacts close to his skin with a length of material, because he wanted to make sure that no one could lift them from his pockets—and because Seshat seemed to retreat when they were close to his body. They should have been poking into him—uncomfortable lumps between his body and the hard, earthen ground. But they weren’t.

Harte sensed Seshat laughing then, a low rumble of mockery. I told you, she said. You were soft and let an old man get the best of you. How could you ever expect to stop me?

Harte rolled to one side and then the other, pressing his torso against the floor in a desperate bid to find some sign that the artifacts had simply shifted. But the movement made him dizzy, and panic made his vision blur and darken around the edges, and as he slipped back into unconsciousness, Harte knew that no amount of wishing or anything else would change the fact that the two stones that had been in his possession were gone.

THE TRIALS OF OTHERS

1904—Denver

Once he was officially hired, North immediately threw himself into his new position with the Curtis Brothers’ Show. He mucked stalls, brushed down horses, and lifted bale after bale of hay. By the end of that first night, his muscles ached something fierce. As long as he was working, he wasn’t thinking, which was fine by him. Because if he started thinking, he’d have to make a decision—whether to forgive Maggie for what she’d done to him. Or for keeping it from him for so long. Whether he even could.

He didn’t go back to town that first night or the next. Instead, he finished each day by collapsing into his assigned bunk and letting himself be pulled into a dreamless sleep. Then he rose early the following morning to start all over again. He’d figure things out with Maggie soon enough, he reasoned. It wasn’t like he had anything to tell her yet, anyway. Three days in, and he’d only managed to see Bill Pickett from a distance. Cordelia had been right—the bulldogger kept to his own work and minded his business.

But then, everyone around the grounds was keeping to themselves. A few of the hands had been arrested during the raid, and no one was much interested in getting to know the newcomer who’d taken their place. North’s experience in the mess tent had been the worst part, at first. There, men sat in small groups arranged by position and race, their backs turned and their heads down to ward off any intrusion.

Pretending not to notice the unspoken boundaries between the various groups, North sat directly in the space left between a couple of sullen-looking white cowboys and a couple of older gentlemen with skin even darker brown than Pickett’s.

The older men turned out to be soldiers, veterans of the 10th Cavalry, who’d mostly served after the Civil War and out in the western territories, where they’d worked to maintain the peace by fighting against some of the same Lakota they now shared the arena with each afternoon. At first the men were pleasant if distant, but after a bit they warmed up enough to start regaling North with stories of their days in the cavalry. The stories grew more fantastic as each man tried to outdo the one who’d spoken before. Their good-natured competition wasn’t exactly a chore to listen to, and North’s enjoyment of—and growing respect for—the men wasn’t an act, even if he was still angling for an introduction to Bill Pickett.

North felt a certain camaraderie with a sergeant named George, an older man with a long, narrow face capped by heavy brows. His brown eyes were speckled with amber, deep-set over a hooked nose, and his droll mouth drooped a little on one side when he talked. It was the result of a fever, he explained, after the