Archive of Our Own ^beta

     On a cattle drive, you meet the kind of folks who didn’t have the good sense to travel with a wagon train. It is absolutely NOT Gil Favor’s job to shepherd them through the rough Texas countryside, but some how he always ends up picking up every mangy stray who crosses their trail. Jim Quince once said he was the softest touch in the west. He got a smack upside the back of the head for that, but he wasn’t wrong. 

     So, Gil Favor, scouting for water, really wants to pretend he doesn’t see the broken down wagon and the funny little man trying to haul it out of a ditch. But it’s too late, the man is waving him down for help. Gil scowls. The fool probably would have followed their dust anyway. 

     “What seems to be the trouble?” He calls out as he approaches. He can tell right away that his overloaded wagon is stuck in the mud. But, mud means water, so maybe this isn’t such a curse. He can take a little good news back to camp, along with whatever this is.

     “I seem to have driven myself into a bit of a quagmire,” The dark featured Englishman announces. He’s brown as a nut, and dressed up fancy as a banker. He slides off his horse, rolling up his sleeves, and instructs the man to grab the other wheel. He’s not as spry as he used to be, but this wagon definitely weighs far more than it should. He can see now, why some poor settlers might choose oxen to pull their carts. He should have been doing more pulling and less thinking. One of the team rears, and that jerks the wagon loose, leaving Gil flat on his face in the mud. 

     “Oh dear, I’m dreadfully sorry my good man!” The Englishman is fast to offer him a white handkerchief to wipe his face. 

     “What you got in that wagon after all?” he coughs and spits mud out of his mouth. 

     “Ah, books, I’m afraid. I know it seems foolish, but they’re quite precious, and I did try to pare down my selection,” he apologizes good naturedly. “My life’s work, actually,” and Gil knows he’s about to hear a speech. He might as well make the most of that white hanky, and scrapes some more mud off his face as the Englishman rambles. At least he’s polite enough to help Gil to his feet. “I guess I’m much more used to donkeys and sand- didn’t expect the horses to get me in such trouble,” The man explains, checking his team and wagon. Finding them in order, he approaches, literally, with his hat in his hands. “I’m terribly sorry to trouble you,” 

     Gil has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He knows exactly how this goes. 

     “But could I please help you find your way back to civilization, even if it means traveling with a bunch of dusty, stinking cattle for a few days,” he replies dryly. 

     “Well... yes, that is about the long and short of it- did you say cattle?”

      “Yep.”

    “I see. How... appropriate.” he swallows down his surprise. “Really, I just need a bit of a leg up, as it were, to hire another wagon as I should have done in the first place-”

     “Come on, we’ll sort it out on the way,” he’s already tying his horse to the wagon as the man thanks him profusely. “Didn’t catch your name, mister,” Gil finally asks, kicking some more mud off his boots.
     “Professor Julian Siddig el Fadil,” he extends his hand proudly. Gil wipes his on a clean part of his shirt before shaking. 

     “You sound English, but your name doesn’t,” he remarks.

     "My mother was,” the man explains, practiced. “My father is from Sudan- that’s uh, south of Egypt. Technically I'm a dual citizen.”

     Gill lets out a long, low whistle. “And uh, what brings you all the way out here?” The man’s face lights up, and Gil gets settled on the buckboard for another rant as they turn around to drive on to noon camp. He’s got heavier things on his mind.

     On the way, he catches something or other about libraries, the rigors of PhD programs, and “outrageous Oxford elitism," after a few minutes, all he can think about is the coffee waiting for him at camp. But hell, this might entertain the crew for a few nights, and stop them whining about being slow to reach a town

     He’s right about the Professor being entertaining, as it turns out, but he suspects he might regret letting the man tell so many stories. 

“My field of study, gentlemen (someone laughs at the description of drovers as gentlemen) is Egyptology.” A wave of puzzled murmurs passes through the camp. 

     “Egypt, my friends, is a wonder of the ancient world, in Northern Africa, on the banks of a river to rival your Mississippi. And grown up around it, as around any great river, is a civilization that is still with us today,” he catches boredom in his audience, and like a good storyteller, pivots. 

     “Have any of you men ever heard of a mummy?” A few curious ears perk up. 

     “Saw a traveling show parading one around Atlantic City when I was little,” someone piped up. Another man denied that he’d ever been in Atlantic City. 

     “How ghastly,” the professor muttered. “Well, mummies are a way that ancient Egyptian Kings and nobles tried to assure their safe arrival in the afterworld. Mushy, fetch me that map case, yes that one,” he instructs. The Professor slides a long roll of strange looking paper out of the tube, and waves it before the crowd. The men are enthralled, their stew long forgotten. Gil’s entertained enough, and cleans his plate with a slice of bread. 

     “This is one of the most important spiritual texts on the afterlife, written millenia before the Bible even happened!” he declared, proudly and dramatically unfurling it. “This, is the Book of the Dead!” His showmanship draws gasps, and even Gil, uninterested in much but sleep, peers to get a look at the thing. 

     It’s a bizarre scene- men with the heads of animals, hundreds of little black shapes, like the tallies on a bank ledger, and a horrible looking creature in the middle of the page, with a face like a gator and the back end of a pig. A cacophony of voices started up, overlapping, almost as loud as the herd.

     “What in tarnation?!”

     “Why that’s gibberish!”

     “They’s wearin’ nothin but Indian loincloths,” 

     They gawked until one loud voice interrupted. “Simmer down, I’m sure the professor’ll explain it.”

     Siddig gave a polite nod, though Mister Favor had somewhat spoiled his showmanship. 

     “This is, I regret, a cheap copy of the original, but a rather helpful example,” he explained. 

     “This is really what the ancient kings expected after death, and this was their trail map, so to speak,” he began to explain. “I’m sure plenty of you have been before a magistrate- excuse me, a judge, before?” Plenty of them nodded. “That’s this fellow, right here,” he pointed to the figure with the dog-like face. “The jackal headed God Anubis.”

     “A jasper headed God?” Mushy interjected in amazement. 

     “A jackal,” Wishbone smacked him on the arm.

     “Whas a jackal?” Quince asked, not too proud to admit ignorance 

     “Like a coyote,” Pete supplies, and no one questions him. 

     Professor Siddig goes on to explain the whole thing to those who care to stay awake. Gil must be too full of coffee to have the good sense to rest. He listens in about Thoth the Ibis and Ammit, which was apparently the name of the little chimera monster in the middle. The whole thing sort of makes his head spin and his gut feel funny. Normally, he would attribute that to a long day in the sun and Wishbone’s cooking- but something about it has him uneasy all over. 

     “Spooky stuff,” a cluster of them agree. 

     It’s not until the first shift of nighthawks ride in, that he realizes just how late they’ve been up. “Alright, get to bed, we’ve still got beeves to watch in the mornin’” he orders, with far less of the spit and vinegar than he usually has. 

     “Quince, Scarlet, you get out and try to keep your minds on the beeves instead of old ghost stories.” 

     They don’t have to be told twice, and Favor gratefully shuffles under his blankets to sleep off this unsettled feeling. 

     Gil walks across a sandy stretch of desert, wondering why the hell he’d do something so foolish. Reaching for his canteen, he finds it empty, as usual, but when he looks up, there’s a clear stream ahead of him, where none had been before. Cattle graze beside the water, and it’s almost peaceful. So, he kneels to fill his canteen, and when he rises, he hears drovers whooping, somewhere behind the herd, urging them across. There’s no man on point, but there’s a dark bay horse beside him, so Gil mounts up. He doesn’t question the lack of reins- the animal knows what it’s doing. This is no old cow-pony though. As it lunges into the water, Gil can see it’s a beautiful, black mustang with a star blaze on it’s face. Cattle splash beside him, he waves them on across the creek, which seems a mile wide. He can’t see the other bank, and he’s afraid the cattle will turn back, but they swim on, as if guided by another point man. 

     The black mustang lunges forward, and a sudden wave of water sweeps into him. He’s afraid for a moment that he’ll drown, but there’s no saddle or stirrups to tangle him, and he takes his next breath on dry ground, laying on his back. The herd is still swimming across in the placid waters. He could almost rest here, watching two Golden eagles circle. He can so clearly see the gold in their broad wings, and the powerful features- not the dingy brown of buzzards, or the ugly naked heads of vultures. 

     He almost looses himself in the sight, when a red-tailed hawk soars past, screeching, and he rises to see what it’s after. 

     There’s a small hill before him, and atop it, lies a coyote, only his head visible above the dry grass, framed by an endless sky.

     “Gill Favor, come,” it orders quietly. Seems sensible enough, so he follows to a bare, sprawling tree where the red-tail has perched. His feet crunch along the terrain. Some one’s set up a cooking tripod there, but no fire. There’s just a little clay pot, hanging where a coffee pot should be. 

     Several strange figures come into view as he trudges up the hill. The coyote stands, revealing the body of a man in a dark suit. Another man turns his head, to reveal the red feathers and long, scythe beak of an Avocet. (somewhere in his thinking mind, Gil vows to get rid of that pocket Audubon book Rowdy got him as a birthday present and read something else for a change.)

     The worst of all in this terrible scene, is a monster rising up from  the tall grass. It’s got a knobby dark snout full of pear white teeth and a gator’s hiss to match. Huge tawny paws knead the ground, and the muscular shoulders of the panther are followed by the familiar hind end of a bull, scraping it’s hooves.  

     Gil’s last sane thought is that, when he wakes, he’s going to give Wishbone the cussing out he deserves after ten years, and hire someone whose cooking doesn’t give him such hellish nightmares.

     The Coyote-headed man speaks again. “Gil Favor, you will be judged.” He stares the creature up and down, trying to place the voice. His gunbelt is gone, so he resorts to his other strategy.

     “Ain’t you supposed to be a jackal?” he asks warily.

     The Coyote opens it’s jaw in a wide yawn, full of very sharp teeth. “Not for you, Mister Favor.” 

     “Fair ‘nough.” he hooks his fingers in his belt loop, stretching and rocking on the balls of his feet. “And, who’s that?” he nods his head sideways at the bird man. He’s holding a ledger in his hands, and an old fashioned quill, poised to mark the tally. 

     “Our accountant, Mister. Favor.” The Coyote answers. Behind him, Gil hears the familiar lowing of cattle. The herd has finally crossed the river, and proceed in an orderly line, past the man with the ledger. The long, curving beak of the Avocet sways like a scythe, tallying up the steers.

    “Seems he don’t need a partner to tally beeves.” Gil nods. 

     “Look in your hand, Mister Favor,” the Coyote replies with a hint of a smile in his voice. Gil does, and finds a knotted rawhide cord there. 

     “Would you care to wager how many head?” The Coyote asks, staring down it’s long nose. 

      Gil frowns, shaking his head. “Oh, I don’t think so. I’m not much of a gambler.” His gut tells him that would be a wager he couldn’t afford by any means. “Looks like a big herd, more than I’m drivin’ north.” He feels another knot on the cord slip through his fingers as the cattle thunder by. 

     “Look at the brands, Mister Favor. Are you sure?” Favor doesn’t have the skilled eye of a herd cutter, but as he looks, he sees only one brand on their flanks. 

“A... cross? Odd choice.” he remarks. “Not my trail brand- or any one I recognize.” 

     “Perhaps a closer look.” The Coyote turns to the monster with the alligator face, and it springs towards a white-faced cow, sinking huge jaws into it’s neck and hauling it to the ground. Gil feels a cold jolt in his chest, seeing beeves fall to predators like that. The Coyote holds a lariat in one hand, stilling the steer’s legs. Gil approaches cautiously, and sees another brand, clear as anything. “Dylan Watts,” he reads aloud. “I’m sorry, I don’t know that name.” he backs away as both the lariat and the monster let go and the steer jumps to it’s feet, shedding only a few drops of blood. 

     “You knew him only as Boston.” The Coyote answers, as if Gil should know, but he can’t recall. He swings the lariat again and pulls down another steer at Gil’s feet. The monster holds it down with long panther claws. Tasunka. Gil racks his brain, stepping back once more. He can see the names on the brands now. 

     “I don’t know,” he pleads, fear coiling in his belly. “I don’t...” he looks around him for some clue, and his eye lands on the ledger. He looks over the shoulder of the bird-man, and sees the names clearly printed. It’s a damn long list, and he starts to recognize names.

Fernando Colinas

Lucky Markley

Maeve Lismore

     “They’re all dead,” his heart sinks in his chest- he can hardly feel it beating, and his hands turn icy with the realization. “All graves I dug or prayed over... men I shot,” he swallows hard. “Drovers who fell on the wrong end of a stampede.” He can’t tear his eyes away from the ledger, until the Coyote turns him by the shoulder to look at the tripod. Now it’s a balance scale, like a merchant might use to measure out gold dust in payment. The quill from the Bird-man’s ledger alights on one side, perfectly balanced on the tip.

     “Do you remember, Gil Favor, what happens next?” The Coyote stands tall before him, holding the clay pot in his large hands, and the monster ambles up to sit beneath the scale, basking with mouth open wide. He doesn’t answer, cause he knows it won’t make a bit of difference. 

     “Now, we weigh your heart against truth,” the Coyote answers, and hands the clay pot to Gil. It feels like it’s made of lead. His heart gallops his chest and thunders in his ears, unwilling to be surrendered to the eager jaws. “Place it on the scale.”

     “And what happens if I don’t?” 

     The Coyote tips his head, and Gil swears there’s a smile on his maw. 

     “You will.” 

     “And then I suppose, if I’m found wanting, this critter jumps on me like it did those steers?” He tries to hide his nervousness behind a dry laugh. 

     “If your heart weighs heavy against the truth, She will devour it.” The Coyote answers. The Alligator’s jaws fall closed, and she crosses her huge panther paws in front of her like a house cat, the paintbrush cow tail whipping behind her.

    “And that’s it? That’s death?” He guesses. There's  hollow feeling in his gut where the fear was.

     The Coyote shakes his head, gesturing around him. “This is death, all around you, from the River to the top of the hill. But to carry on beyond that, you will need your heart intact. Without it, you will find no rest.”

    “Never expected anything more than what I deserved.” He wonders now, if he really believes that. The clay pot is so heavy in his hands.

     “Without your heart, you go no further than this. Either you stay here, and the living forget who you were. Or you cross back over the river, without your life, to haunt that world.” The Coyote bears his teeth. “Will you lay down your heart to face Truth, Gil Favor?” He points an accusing hand at the ledger book, and the endless line of cattle marching to the pens. Faces and names flash by him, bloody, bruised, pale and cold. His heart thuds to the rhythm of the executioners hammer at the end of that line. He grips the line of knotted cord in his hand; how many? Another steer bellows, and he wishes he were standing in perdition’s flames instead of this dry plane. His eyes squeeze shut, and still there’s the rushing of blood and the pounding of his heart. 

     “Lay it on the scale,” The Coyote whispers again, and Gil knows it’s the only thing that will bring relief. He lets it drop onto the pan of the scale. The noise and trembling stops, and Gil knows his answer. 

     “I never killed a man I could have spared. I never killed in anger or hate or drunken stupor.” The words come to him as easily as breathing. “If I ever ordered men to their death, or made a mistake that cost their lives, I accepted that responsibility. I never left the dead unmourned or unburied. I’ll answer for every name on that list, if it takes me from here to eternity! I ain’t never begged for my life, and I won’t beg for my soul. If I can’t stand up to the truth, I won’t go back there and haunt the people I lived for. I won’t beg them to remember me as something other than what I was!” He stares past the scale, into the Coyote’s cold, dark eyes, for any hint of recognition. Only the sky and the land are reflected there.

    “I learned from those deaths,” he insists. The memory of each one burns in his chest where his heart ought to be. “When ever I could... looked for any way to stop it from happening again- stop the same hurt happening over again.” He bows his head, silently waiting for the snap of jaws or the Coyote’s answer. He thinks of the people he didn’t have to bury, the ones he was lucky enough to share his life and his love with; silently hoping they’d remember that part of him. 

     “Take back your heart,” The Coyote’s voice comes from far away. When he opens his eyes once more, the little clay pot is in his hands, light as anything. No cattle, no Coyote, no heart devouring monster, no Avocet nor ledger. Just his heart and the land ahead of him, so on he walks.

     Gil Favor wakes up, tangled in his blankets, damp with cold sweat, and his head pounding from some kind of hangover, though he handn’t touched a drop. He groans as he feels his stomach turn over the idea of getting out of bed. Maybe if he just lies here, very still, it will go away. 

     “Hey, you’re not dead,” Rowdy’s soft voice lilts with a laugh. “You complained somethin’ fierce last night, once you hit that bedroll.” he smirked. “Wishbone thought you were comin’ down with ague or something.

     Gil just stares at him, bleary eyed, trying to piece together the vague recollection of a dream, and Rowdy’s banter. 

     “The uh Professor, he left a little while ago to try and buy another wagon for his books and such. I think he was kinda scared actually. Wish told him off about tellin ghost stories, cause Mushy had a real bad nightmare, nearly woke up the whole camp, hollerin’ about mummies or some such,” He grins, scratching his stomach. “I uh, saved you some breakfast, and there’s some coffee left, if you’re feelin’ better.” Gil manages to sit up and rub the sleep off his face. He looks for the cook fire, and feels a cold chill down his spine.

     “Say, you still look a little peaked, boss, sure you’re alright?” Rowdy tilts his head like a curious dog. His concern is genuine. He hauls himself out of bed and packs away his blanket. “I’m fine, pour me a cup of coffee ‘n a biscuit. I’ll eat on my way to the herd.” he mumbles, voice still rough from sleep.

      “Sure thing, boss.” Rowdy grins wide. Gil can’t quite shake off the strange, lingering feeling of the dream he had- not until he’s got food and hot coffee in his belly, and a saddle under him. Rowdy’s dutifully riding ahead, whooping to the rest of the crew. 

   “Head ‘em up! Move ‘em out!”