Chapter 3: Whispers of the Mare
The whiskey in Thieves’ Landing tasted like turpentine and regret. Alessandro swallowed it without flinching, his eyes fixed on the two men arguing by the spluttering fireplace. The tavern was a carcass of a building on sagging piers, the air thick with river damp, cheap smoke, and the sour tang of failed ambitions. A jukebox in the corner wheezed a warped tune about a hanged man, the notes dissolving into the cacophony of dice games and low negotiations.
Silas and Eli were across the room, playing a half-hearted hand of blackjack with a riverboat gambler who smelled of mildew. Alessandro had sent them away. He couldn’t stand their worried glances, their unspoken questions. He needed the noise, the anonymous crush. He needed to listen.
The two men by the fire were deep in their cups, their voices rising and falling like crows fighting over carrion. One, a grizzled trapper with a mangy beard, slammed his tankard down.
“I’m tellin’ you, Clem, it weren’t no normal animal! It was a demon, straight from the pit!”
Clem, younger and missing two fingers on his left hand, snorted. “You saw a shadow and pissed your britches, is all. Too much of that山寨 whiskey.”
“The hell I did!” the trapper roared, drawing a few glances from nearby tables. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper that carried perfectly. “Up at Beaver Hollow, two weeks back. Me and the Larson brothers was camped. Heard something moving in the trees, quieter than an owl’s fart. Then it was just… there. In the clearing.”
Alessandro’s fingers tightened around his glass. Beaver Hollow. Northwest of Valentine. The direction a rider might have fled.
“What was it?” Clem asked, skepticism warring with curiosity.
“A horse. A mare. Black as a preacher’s heart, but not… not right. Too lean. All muscle and tendon like a coiled spring. And its eyes.” The trapper shuddered, a genuine spasm of recalled fear. “They wasn’t animal eyes. They was… knowing. Like it was reading the sin right off your soul.”
A cold thread pulled taut in Alessandro’s chest.
“Probably just some wild mustang,” Clem grumbled.
“Wild mustang my ass!” the trapper spat. “This thing was shod. Clean, sharp irons. And it stood there, calm as Sunday, while the Larson boys tried to corner it. Thought they’d caught themselves a fine piece of horseflesh.” A nasty grin split his beard. “Jeb Larson got within ropin’ distance. That demon didn’t even rear. It turned its head, slow-like, and looked at him. Then it fucking moved.”
He paused for effect, draining his tankard.
“Moved how?” Clem breathed, leaning forward.
“Faster than a striking snake. One minute Jeb’s there, the next he’s on the ground screaming, his leg bent all wrong below the knee. Kicked him? Bit him? God knows. Then it went for Tom. Didn’t charge. Just took two steps, all that power in its haunches, and swung its whole back end like a goddamn catapult. Caught Tom in the ribs. We heard ‘em crack. It stood over ‘em then, snorting steam in the cold, like it was waiting to see if they’d get up. They didn’t. I was frozen. It looked at me. Just a glance. Then it turned and walked back into the trees, quiet as smoke. Didn’t run. Just… left.”
The tavern seemed to grow quieter. The story had hooks. It felt true.
“The Larson brothers?” Clem asked.
“Crippled. Both. Jeb’s got a limp that’ll never leave him. Tom’s got ribs that ache when it rains.” The trapper shook his head, a shadow of genuine awe in his bloodshot eyes. “That was no horse. That was a weapon. Someone’s weapon. And whoever’s riding that hell-beast… well, God help anyone who crosses ‘em.”
Alessandro set his glass down. The sound was a sharp tok in the sudden quiet of his own mind. The description seared itself into his thoughts: black mare, preternaturally calm, viciously efficient, shod. Not a wild thing. A tool. A partner. The only living creature that had been present at every theft, every disappearance. The only witness that knew the ghost’s true face, their scent, their habits.
His ghost rode a phantom. And the phantom left a trail of broken men.
Obsession, once a smolder, ignited into a white-hot flame. He wasn’t hunting a person anymore. He was hunting a shadow mounted on a darker shadow. The frustration of the past weeks—the near-misses, the knife in the saloon, the mocking words—coalesced into a single, brute need. Not just for answers, but for domination. For a release of this coiled, furious energy.
He caught the eye of a woman leaning against the bar. She’d been watching him watch the trapper. Her hair was the color of stale hay, her dress a faded red that clung to narrow hips. Her expression was neither inviting nor reluctant; it was a simple transaction waiting to happen. He jerked his head toward the rickety stairs at the back of the tavern.
She pushed off the bar, finished her gin, and followed without a word.
The room upstairs was a closet with a cot. A single candle guttered on a crate, painting everything in leaping, hungry shadows. The air smelled of mildew and old sweat. She closed the door and leaned against it, already working the buttons of her dress with practiced indifference.
“Two dollars,” she said, her voice flat.
Alessandro didn’t answer. He pulled a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket and tossed it onto the thin mattress. It landed with a dull thump. Her eyes flickered to it, then back to him, a faint spark of interest cutting through the professional glaze.
He crossed the small space in two strides, his movement all pent-up aggression. He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t touch her face. He grabbed her hips, his fingers digging into the soft flesh above her pelvis, and spun her around to face the wall beside the door. She gasped, her hands slapping against the rough planking for balance.
“The dress,” he growled, his voice rough from whiskey and something darker.
She complied, pushing the faded fabric down over her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. Her back was pale, a map of old scars and the knobs of her spine. He yanked his own belt open, the buckle clanging, and shoved his trousers and long johns down just enough to free himself. He was already hard, a tense, aching thickness fueled by rage and a desperate need to exert control over something, anything.
He didn’t prepare her. He didn’t use spit or pretense. He spat into his own palm, a rough, wet sound, and smeared it over his cock, giving himself a few rough, slick strokes. He heard her breath hitch. With his other hand, he gripped her hipbone so hard he knew it would bruise, and positioned himself at her entrance.
“This what you want?” he muttered, though the question was for himself.
He drove into her in one brutal, shallow thrust. She was tight and dry, and she cried out, a sharp sound of genuine pain that was swallowed by the wood against her face. He didn’t stop. He held himself there for a second, feeling her inner muscles clench and flutter in shocked protest, then pulled back and shoved in again, deeper this time, forcing her body to accept him. A low groan tore from his throat. It was a punishing friction, a ragged, raw joining.
“Fuck,” he breathed, the obscenity a puff of air against her neck.
He set a relentless, punishing rhythm, his hips pistoning against her buttocks. Each thrust was an attempt to slam the image of the black mare from his mind, to replace the ghost’s mocking eyes with the reality of a submissive body. He fucked her with a focused, angry intensity, his grip on her hip unyielding, his other hand now fisted in her hay-colored hair, pulling her head back. The cot squeaked in protest, a rapid, pathetic rhythm against the wall.
She took it, her initial cries softening into choked grunts with each impact. Her submission was absolute, professional, and somehow that made it worse. He wanted a fight. He wanted the resistance the ghost had shown him. He wanted to break something that could be broken.
“Harder,” she whispered, a performance, but it stoked his fury.
He obliged, slamming into her so fiercely her breasts shook against the cold wall. The wet, slapping sounds of their coupling filled the tiny room, a vulgar counterpoint to the distant tavern noise. He could feel his climax coiling, a pressure building from his balls, a temporary oblivion. He chased it, his movements becoming frantic, animalistic. He pictured the mare’s knowing eyes. He pictured the slender hands that had held the knife. The images collided, fused, driving him on.
“Come on, you bastard,” he gritted out, unsure who he was taunting.
With a final, deep plunge that made her gasp, he came. It was a violent, emptying surge, a hot flood into the depths of her. He held himself there, shuddering, his forehead pressed against the sweaty skin of her back, his breath roaring in his ears.
The release was physical, nothing more. The frustration remained, a stone in his gut. He pulled out, a slick, uncomfortable separation. He turned away, swiftly tucking himself back into his trousers and fastening his belt. The woman slumped against the wall for a moment, then straightened, moving with a weary efficiency. She didn’t look at him. She bent, picked up the five-dollar piece, and then her dress.
“You want me to go?” she asked, her voice devoid of anything.
“Yeah.”
She dressed in silence and left, closing the door softly behind her.
Alessandro stood alone in the candlelit room, the smell of sex and his own sweat thick in the air. His mind was brutally, perfectly clear. The empty climax had scoured away everything but the essential truth.
The ghost was a mystery. The horse was real. A creature that could be seen, tracked, caught.
He descended the stairs, ignoring Silas’s questioning look. He walked straight to the trapper by the fire, who was now slurring a new version of his tale to a fresh audience.
Alessandro dropped a twenty-dollar gold piece on the table in front of the man. It landed with a final, heavy sound that silenced him.
“The black mare,” Alessandro said, his voice low and stripped of all emotion. “You draw it for me. Every mark, every scar, the shape of its head, the set of its ears. You draw it until I can see that demon in my sleep.”
He wasn’t hunting the rider anymore. Not directly.
He was hunting the thing the rider loved.