Free Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes by Rob DeBorde Page A

dominated by the latest “sewer beast” sightings. A few pages in was an article about the expansion hearings that described a “giant redwood of a man with bark as black as night.” The story also made reference to Andre’s “eloquent and educated articulation,” as well as the nickname first bestowed upon him by Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians, the Voodoo Cowboy. It was silly, but Andre rather liked it, even if it wasn’t particularly accurate.
    Was it ever? Andre thought not. There wasn’t an ounce of voodoo in him and there never had been—he believed that. Unfortunately, a few more of his mother’s words chose that moment to refresh his memory:
    “Go on an’ tell yo’self whatever you needs,” she’d said. “Gawd, he know inna end.”
    Andre had his suspicions about God, but his mother was rarely off target. What did his intentions matter if the end result was the unleashing of so much evil? He’d wrestled with this line of thinking before and, as a result, had sacrificed much of who he’d been to make amends. On his darkest days, he knew his best efforts would never be enough. How could they?
    Andre slapped his hands to his face sharply, breaking the spell before it could steal another moment. He was shocked by the strength of it, the bleakness, and how quickly it had filled him with despair. It wasn’t a true spell, not by half, but rather the memory of the thing calling to him from across a great distance. It had been so long and yet it felt as if it was in the room with him.
    That would at least make the damned thing easier to find.
    Andre decided to pack, regardless of how he felt. He’d barely unlatched the trunk when the door to the suite opened. Naira strode into the room and stopped in front of him. Both her wide-brimmed hat and worn leather coat were damp, though not overly so. At first glance, she looked more like a teenage boy than the twenty-one-year-old woman Andre knew her to be. He thought it might be the pants.
    “Did you find passage?”
    Naira nodded. “Seven A.M., pier seventeen.”
    “Good.”
    Andre turned back to his trunk. Naira stood her ground, never taking her eyes off the much larger man.
    “No trouble with the arrangements, I assume.”
    “None.”
    Andre smiled. There wouldn’t have been any trouble, of course. In their seven years together, Naira had never failed a task he’d given her, regardless of the situation. She had a way about her that simply put folks at ease. It was her eyes. They were larger than any Andre had ever seen, and when a man looked into them, he couldn’t help but feel comfortable, trusting. It wasn’t magic but rather a kind of ocular hypnosis that Naira claimed was a common trait among her people.
    Andre had long ago learned there was more to see in Naira than what her eyes revealed, but to him she’d offered the information freely. He had been decidedly slower in sharing his secrets in return.
    “I am fine,” he said, folding a shirt and placing it in his trunk.
    Naira sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped in her lap. She said nothing.
    “You can sit there and stare at me as long as you want, but there is nothing wrong with me.”
    “Can you still feel it?”
    Andre didn’t answer right away. He slid open the bottom drawer of the armoire to retrieve a pair of neatly folded shirts. When he turned back to the trunk, Naira leaned in, making her stare even more obvious.
    “Yes, I can still feel it. It will not go away, not by itself.”
    Naira leaned back on the bed and pulled off her hat. A wave of long, black hair rolled down her back, making it much harder to mistake her for a boy.
    “I don’t like it,” she said.
    “Neither do I, but would you have me ignore it?”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “Nor should you think it,” Andre said, flipping the trunk lid closed. “I know you were not with me then—I am thankful for that—but this is not a trivial matter.”
    “I know.”
    Andre sat on the bed next to Naira.