The White City Read Online Free PDF Page A

He lit the leaves, which began to burn slowly. A thin, fragrant smoke formed. He took a glass jar from his rucksack and dropped the burning sage inside. The smoke escaped from the jar’s mouth. Climbing back into the saddle, he handed the jar to Jolie. “Can you hold it?”
    She nodded.
    “If it burns down, let me know and I’ll get another branch.”
    She gave no reply but rested the smoking jar on her thigh. Ray kicked his heels to Élodie’s side and shook the reins. The little quarter horse galloped across the land with the sweet-smelling smoke trailing behind her.
    They grew ever closer to the steamcoach, keeping whenever possible to the north side of the hills out of the agents’ sight. When they were only a mile apart, Ray could make out the men with their bowler hats tilted low over their brows. No head turned. No reaction showed that they had spied the horse and its two riders passing around them.
    “It’s working,” Ray said. Jolie didn’t reply.
    Late in the day, Ray stopped Élodie in a dry riverbed. Kicking the mud with his boot heel, he opened up a small hole for the horse to drink from. Ray kicked open another and sifted the silty water through his bandana into the mouth of the waterskin. He looked up anxiously at Jolie. She sat on Élodie’s back, her eyes half closed. Ray handed her the waterskin. “Drink,” he said. She took the skin with a nod.
    Ray walked out a ways while the horse continued watering. He reached a spire of earth and climbed it. Gazing around in the fierce late-day sun, he saw the enormous range of mountains to the west, rising like a wall beyond the flat waste. Turning around, he spied the steamcoach’s smoke several miles behind.
    “We’re ahead of them!” Ray said excitedly. “And those huge mountains are up ahead. They have to be the Rockies. We’ll hopefully catch up with Sally before—”
    He looked back just as Jolie dropped the jar of smoking sagebrush and slumped forward across the saddle, her hands barely holding onto the horn.
    “Jolie!” He scrambled down the spire, leaping the last eight feet. Élodie was stamping nervously, and Ray had to tug at her bridle and whisper in her ears to calm her. He put his hands to Jolie’s shoulders to brace her as he asked, “Jolie? Can you hear me? Jolie!”
    She lifted her head. “Keep going …,” she muttered. “Do not … lose … the steamcoach.…”
    “Shut it,” Ray said, climbing up behind Jolie to help hold her in the saddle. He forced the waterskin to her lips. “Drink some more.”
    But she didn’t take the waterskin, and Ray felt her growing limp. He drew one arm tightly around her waist and with the other shook Élodie’s reins. “Ride!” he called out.
    Racing westward, Ray searched for B’hoy with his thoughts. He could not find him. B’hoy was still out scouting somewhere ahead. Ray raced Élodie, scattering dust and loose stones. Heat made the horizon wavy, and the blistering sun scorched through his coat. Ray squeezed his eyes shut against the glare and sand and the terror growing in his chest.
    As the sun finally set behind the distant mountains, Ray spotted the black form of the crow ahead in the falling light. Ray quickly linked to him with his thoughts. B’hoy began a long stream of rasps and caws, but Ray had no energy to focus on the bird’s speech. “Not now! We’ve got to find a river.”
    B’hoy swooped down across their path and began to lead the way. The horse raced through the night. The moon rose at their backs and the stars swung overhead. And when dawn eventually broke, Ray spied tufts of grass at Élodie’s feet, and the hills ahead had low, gnarled trees. They had made it out of the wasteland.
    “Are we getting near?” Ray called out to B’hoy, fear shaking in his voice. “She hasn’t much time!”
    Even as he said it, he saw the green tips of cottonwoods peeking from a depression in the ridge of hills. He kicked Élodie’s flanks, and she raced down, foam