Page 30 of Suncatcher

Pearl huffed and stood. “Fine, I’ll get back to work. Sundering blazes.”

“She’s in quite a mood today,” Molly shout-whispered to the sheriff.

“Oh, I know,” Sheriff Oak replied meaningfully as she followed Pearl back outside.

“Get off my back,” Pearl snapped. “I’m getting it done.”

Sheriff Oak caught her wrist to stop her when she started to pull on the apron. “I came to talk to you about something. Can I do that without you jumping down my throat?”

“Fine.” Pearl wrenched her wrist free and folded her arms. “Go on.”

“One of the fences got broke last night. Two dozen cattle loose. We’ve managed to find most, but a few are still missing.”

“Shit. Faltsprings?”

“Likely. But I also wondered if it might’ve been that goyle, if it’s still hanging around. A few people said they’ve seen shadows on the horizon at night. They’ve been known to take calves occasionally.”

Pearl’s heart accelerated. “It wasn’t her.”

“How d’you know?”

Driz didn’t hunt mammals. That was her first thought, but Pearl couldn’t say that because she had no reason to know it. She shook her head. “If the goyle took a calf, she wouldn’t need to bother with the fence.”

The sheriff shrugged in consent. “Not need, no.”

“What d’you know about them? Gargoyles? Why do they bother you so much?”

Sheriff Oak studied her from beneath the wide brim of her hat, as if deciding whether to answer.

“They were created by the lesser god Garga, before the Sundering War. It’s said the first ones were humans she encased in clay and stone, molding them into warriors for herself. She created a small army. When she died in the war, it broke something in them. They went rabid and got driven from the city, turned feral with the other beasts out here for the past centuries. They’re usually skittish and keep to themselves. Usually. And I don’t like the idea of one lurking around. Especially if it’s nearby during the day.”

“Because she might wake?”

Sheriff Oak nodded. “Never wake a sleeping goyle. No bullet will stop a ton of living stone on a rampage.”

“But why’d you think she’d rampage?”

“Because that’s what they do,” Sheriff Oak snapped. “They’re mindless and violent.” An unusual darkness edged her tone.

A shiver ran down Pearl’s spine. “You’ve seen that, haven’t you?”

Sheriff Oak appeared to study the freshly painted boards of the wall, but Pearl knew she was far away.

“Two days before I arrived in Salt Bluff. I was almost twelve, coming out with my pa and a dozen other families to start a life. We stopped in the foothills, a canyon to water the horses and mules. I’d made friends with another boy about my age. He found a statue. But it wasn’t no fucking statue. Over thirty people were in the canyon that day. Five walked out.”

“I never knew that,” Pearl whispered. She knew her grandfather had survived too. Pearl didn’t remember him, but she’d heard accounts of him helping to build some of what still stood as their town.

“It’s not a nice story. And there’s no one left to remember it but me now.”

Pearl could too easily imagine it. She’d seen Driz’s strength in her breathing flesh form. If she were made of solid stone…

Pearl put a bracing palm on her mother’s shoulder and squeezed. Sheriff Oak covered Pearl’s hand with her own, cracked and roughened from years of use, sun, and salt. Pearl’s were only somewhat less so, and given another twenty years, she knew they’d be the same.

“You certain that goyle wasn’t after you, Pea?”

Pearl frowned. “Why?”

Sheriff Oak met Pearl’s gaze, hard intensity to the gray. “That’s not the end of that story. After we settled here, I went hunting. Not for meat, but for revenge. With two of the others who survived. We never found the one who did it. But we found another. And those creatures do bleed at night.”