Unicorn Western Full Saga - Paperback

Clint dismounted near the top of the hill, dropping the group’s overall height to make them less visible. Teddy dismounted too, but his horse was so short that the boy’s head ended up only slightly lower than when he was riding. 

Edward turned to Teddy, apparently fine speaking with the boy as long as his words were insults. 

“What is this creature’s name? Jeb? Cletus? Eeyore?” 

“Pinto,” Teddy said. 

“Fantastic. Reminds me of my old pal, Stumpy. He kept running into doors whenever he tried to enter a room. Liked to drink kerosene. Not good, the time he peed on a fire.”

“Teddy,” said Clint. “Do you still have that spyglass?” 

Teddy patted a pouch at his side. 

“Give it to me.” 

“Sure. Once we get up to the top.” 

“No. Just give it to me.” 

“We’re a team, Marshal. I’ll give it to you up top. You gotta let me come if you want my glass.” 

Clint opened his mouth, ready to tell Teddy that he could break his neck six times before the kid could raise a wrist to stop him. Instead, he closed it with a sigh and started silently up the hill, leaving Edward and Pinto where Teddy had him tied to a scraggly tree. Edward was looking at the small horse as if it were an oddity at one of the Sprawl’s traveling freak shows, his face a blooming rose of disgust. 

Thirty feet farther up, they found a spot where they could spy the hill’s far bottom, maybe a quarter mile off. There were, as Edward had said, five men sitting around a stew pool, refilling waterskins. 

Clint slapped Teddy’s jacket with the back of his hand. Then he did it three more times until the boy reached into the pouch, removed the spyglass, and handed it to Clint. 

The gunslinger extended the glass and peered through the tiny lens at its small end. The men looked a month’s worth of dirty and were dressed head to toe in dark gear. They had five horses, all tied to hooks driven deep into several large rocks surrounding the away-facing edge of the stew pool. The horses were all carrying overstuffed saddlebags and seemed too heavily burdened with gear. 

“They’re not traveling light,” Clint said to Teddy. “Not a day trip. Wherever they’re going, they’re planning to stay.” 

“Solace?” said Teddy. 

“Yar. Likely. I can see their path, and it stretches behind them. They’ll climb this hill once they’ve finished resting. Unless they spin off into the Sands, which they won’t, they’ll hit Solace in her nose. These men are either coming to stay or merely passing through. A stack of chips on the former.” 

“Is Stone with them?”

Clint adjusted the glass and scanned the short row of men. 

“Nar. But they could be an advance party. The Water Reader said he saw Stone riding with a … another man. None of these men are he.” 

Clint didn’t tell Teddy the reason he knew that the dark rider wasn’t among the men: There was no dark unicorn among the horses. Few people knew about unicorns of a different color, and even fewer understood what they did or what they really were. A dark unicorn could get them killt like nothing else, and Clint didn’t want to worry the kid. He didn’t exactly care if Teddy was scared, but he figured if the kid were frightened, he’d be more of a liability than he already was.

“Maybe they’re just travelers,” Teddy suggested. “Good guys.” 

“I don’t think so.” Clint shook his head. “How often do people cross the Sands, willing to get lost in the Sprawl? How often do new people arrive in Solace? Nar, I’d say the chance of random travelers arriving on the same day as Stone is about as likely as magic true on the dusty side of the wall.” 

“Okay,” said Teddy. “Let’s kill them, then.” 

“Have you ever killt anything?”  

“Rats. And I once had to shoot a mad cat. Winged it right across its left ear.” 

“A rabid cat?” said Clint. You heard about rabid dogs sometimes, but not usually cats.

“A mad one,” said Teddy, in a voice suggesting that Clint should probably pay closer attention.

“And now you want to ride into a group of five armed men and kill every one?”

“You could do it,” said Teddy. 

“Yar, but you said we. Why do I have to get dragged into a we situation filled with stupidity when I’m not the one needing a bib to soak up my drool?” 

“You just said … ” 

“I said they’re probably part of Stone’s party. Stone and this other rider aren’t with them. Can you think of how we might find Stone and the other? It doesn’t involve killing them all outright.” 

“Follow ’em? Spy on ’em?” Teddy suggested.

“Good for you,” Clint growled. “Finding a way to use that worthless shoulder pumpkin.” 

Teddy turned his head, looking from one shoulder to the other. 

Clint tapped the boy on his back, waited for Teddy to turn, then gestured with his head toward where Edward and the pathetic Pinto were standing. The pony was nibbling grass, eyes split in two directions. Clint could tell from the poor creature’s defeated body that Edward was insulting it, and probably hadn’t stopped or even slowed since they’d started up the hill. 

They returned to their mounts, and Clint told Edward what he’d seen. The unicorn nodded since he’d seen most of it with his magic already. 

“Now I suppose you want to go down there,” said Edward. 

“Yar. We need listen in on their conversation.” 

“We?” said Teddy.

“Stone and the other rider aren’t with them,” Clint told Edward, ignoring Teddy. “We need to find where they’ll meet, and what they’re doing.”

“We, like … all of us?” Teddy repeated, swallowing. He looked like he was trying to solve one of The Realm’s Problems Without a Solution. 

“Fine,” Edward agreed. “The sooner you kill whatever needs killing, the sooner I can return to my turkey pie, and the sleep that follows.”