The Shepherd Read online

downward. The lock came undone with a pop. When they slid the door’s latch open, it squealed in its track and sent echoes over the walls. Opening the big metal door on its rusty hinges was even worse. They waited for several moments, letting the noise die off the room and listening for any signs of alarm before they stepped inside, leaving the door cracked behind them.

  Everything appeared to have been unloaded from the crate except for the merchant’s own portable booth and a layer of dusty woolen blankets, laid out across the floor to keep the dirt off his finer fabrics. The blankets looked too thick somehow. Blatcher narrowed his eyes and gave Toler a look. A look that told him they were both thinking the same thing. Together they yanked the blankets away.

  “Dolls?” said Andover Mays.

  “Coffing... cloth dolls,” said Blatcher.

  Long, shallow wooden crates lined the floor, each one filled with an assortment of stuffed figurines, dressed in clothing of every color, with burlap skin and big round button eyes and rough-spun woolen hair.

  Blatcher frowned. “He isn’t hiding anything valuable. He’s just saving himself some embarrassment. Shit.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Andover Mays. “When was the last time we visited a city that had more than a handful of kids?”

  “Never.” Toler grabbed one of the dolls for a closer look. It was heavier than it should’ve been. Its head flopped against its back as soon as he lifted it off the pile. Thank goodness. There’s more than stuffing in here. He flicked his knife open and turned the doll over. There was a rough seam along the back of its head. He made a vertical cut through the seam, and in the candlelight something glimmered from within. “Embarrassment might not be enough to shut him up,” Toler said, “but a shit-ton of nine-millimeter ammunition is.”

  Blatcher was confused. “Lemme see.” He dug around inside the doll’s head and plucked out a bullet. “Ammo? Dolls with coffing bullets in their heads? Why didn’t he just register this with Vantanible and bring it in a box? It’s not like there’s a law against shipping ammo.”

  “Have you been to an arms dealer lately?” Andover Mays said. “Everything’s handloads and custom work these days. Some of that shit I wouldn’t touch if you paid me, let alone put it in my gun. This is factory-grade, from before the Heat. Rare as grass anymore. This haul makes most inventories I’ve seen look like piles of slag.”

  Toler looked out across the floor to take in the vast collection. The dolls stared up at him with blank eyes and joyless smiles. “You’d have to be insane to register a crate worth this much. You’d have every bandit in the Inner East after you if people knew you were carrying something like this. Why would you broadcast it if you didn’t have to?”

  “Because Vantanible hates smugglers,” Blatcher said. “Calistari knows that as well as anyone. Once we tell him we found his stash, he’ll keep his mouth shut. He’ll have nothing but praise to give Vantanible about us. Now, I say we take a little of this for ourselves.” He tossed Toler the bullet he’d taken, then crouched beside the nearest box of dolls.

  “Hold on a second,” Toler said, shaking his head. “You’re overlooking an enormous detail, big dway. We have no idea where any of this came from.”

  Blatcher put his hands on his knees and stood. “Who cares?”

  “You don’t know what kind of operation Vantanible runs, do you?” Toler said.

  “I’ve been working for him twice as long as you have, Glaive. And Mays longer than me,” said Blatcher.

  “That’s great, but you’re not understanding me. What if Calistari got this stuff from Vantanible?”

  Blatcher opened his mouth in dissent, but he stopped when the realization hit him. “Well shit, Glaive. Son of a bitch. If that’s true, we’re coffed. Calistari won’t care that we know. And we can’t steal from the boss.”

  Andover Mays muttered a curse under his breath as a drip of hot wax caught him on the knuckle. “Why did I let you two jackasses wrap me up in this? He wasn’t gonna give me a bad report. You coffers are here trying to save your own skins, and now I’m gonna get shafted too. Some deal this turned out to be, Glaive.”

  “We’re not coffed, and I’ll tell you why. Maybe this shipment isn’t from Vantanible. If not, we have Calistari by the balls. If it is, we’ll have to get creative.”

  Blatcher wrung his hands. “Doesn’t matter either way… does it? The only way to find out is to ask Calistari. If Jakob and Vantanible are working together, we’re not just coffed. We’re dead. How are we gonna get outta this one, Glaive?”

  “You need to start thinking with your gut, Blatcher. You have guts in there somewhere, don’t you? Come with me.”

  7

  Toler made the knock sound urgent. Calistari opened the hollow panel door after a few moments, his hair in pillow-borne disarray, his belly draped over a pair of underpants of alarming size and color. It was a sight Toler had never imagined could be so disquieting. It was one he’d never imagined in the first place. He got hold of himself and pretended not to mind.

  Jakob rubbed his eyes and blinked against the candlelight, standing on the threshold with a look of dim recognition. “What’s this? Come to lynch me, have you? The young punk and the bullying brute have come to show me what-for, along with their silent partner. Very well. Have at you!” He put up a set of fists, his breasts undulating at the prospect of moving the ham hocks he called arms.

  “Sorry to wake you, Jakob,” Toler said, ignoring his rancor. “We need to talk to you. Someone just tried to rob your crate.”

  A look of horror passed over the merchant’s face, his chins tremulous. He slammed the door, reappearing moments later in a nightcloak of soft blue toweling, his own candle in hand. It was in keeping that a man who sold cloth would wear the finest himself, even down to his pajamas. He made a move to shove past them.

  “I don’t think so,” Toler said, holding up a hand. “You’ve got some explaining to do first. Would you mind telling us about this?” Toler held up the doll he’d taken, its stuffing spilled from the split in its head, brass glittering within.

  Jakob didn’t reach for it. Instead he let his head laze to one side, examining the doll as if it were something foreign to him. His eyes were glossy, his expression morose and disbelieving. “Tell me what happened,” he said. “Did you see who broke in? Did they see you?”

  “We were coming back from the bar. We thought we’d inspect the flatbed and make sure it was stowed properly. The door was hanging open and there was no one around. We took a look inside and found a whole bunch of these.” Toler had to hand it to himself; he was a good liar when there was truth involved.

  “Have you notified the guards?”

  “We thought we’d better tell you first.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in peoples’ crates, Calistari, but dolls with ammo in their heads...” Blatcher shoveled a hand toward the doll in want of explanation.

  Jakob was flustered. “I had nothing to do with those.”

  “You didn’t put these in here?” Toler asked. “You’re telling us you’ve been hauling these dolls around for two weeks without knowing it, and you had no idea your crate was full of pre-Heat, factory-loaded ammo?”

  Jakob paused. “I knew about the dolls, but I don’t know how those got inside them.” His expression was almost convincing.

  “You registered these dolls, then,” Toler said. “And you expect us to believe this ammunition just... appeared.”

  Jakob scoffed. “Of course I registered them. The dolls are on the ledger. I’m bringing them to Lottimer, to sell to my cousin Maynard. The whole reason I came on this Infernal-forsaken route was to visit him and his family. Lottimer City trades over the sea, you know. No one makes children’s play-things anymore. There are enough children in the Amber Coast and around the Horned Gulf to create demand for them. Fine dolls like these will fetch a high price.”

  “Especially with bullets in their heads, right?”

  “You think I’m lying, boy? I don’t know anything about bullets. My employees check and re-check my stock, and I triple-check their work before anything is added to the shipping ledger. I hold myself to an exacting standard.”

  “Be that as it may, there’s no way to know what the ledger says until we get to Lottimer and check in with Mr. Vantanible. That won’t happen for another month and a half. How do you figure something like this got past your exacting standards?” It was a fair question. Calistari gave no answer, his discomfort showing in the pallor of his skin.

  “The time it must’a taken somebody to sew a few rounds at a time into dozens of stuffed dolls…” said Andover Mays. “Hate to break it to you, Mr. Calistari, but someone had hold of these for hours. If you really didn’t know about the ammo, it sounds like you got a crooked employee or two.”

  “You think someone planted these without him knowing?” Toler turned to the merchant. “That’s a little hard to believe. Regardless of your claim, the likelihood of you not knowing about this is incredibly small.”

  “I’ve told you. Until a moment ago, I had no knowledge of there being anything of value inside this crate besides the dolls.”

  “Did you make them all yourself? Did you see what went into each one?”

  “I am a trader, Mr. Glaive, not a seamstress.” It was the first time Calistari had ever called him anything more respectful than boy, but Toler supposed nerves were to blame for his sudden cordiality. Jakob’s face had gone from beyond the pale to bright red. “I will remind you that the person or persons to whom this shipment is being delivered may be on their way back at this very minute to make off with the goods.”

  Toler had almost forgotten that Calistari still didn’t know they were the ones who’d broken in. “Listen, Jakob. I was kidding about finding your crate already open. We
broke into it ourselves.” Toler noticed Blatcher begin to fidget when he divulged the secret. Calm down, big dway. Don’t blow it now. Keep yourself together. I can pull this off if you keep it together.

  Jakob stared in disbelief. “You shepherds are not the only people who must think me the perfect unsuspecting fool. Do you have so little respect that you would lie about this?”

  “Less than a little,” Toler said. “I don’t respect you at all. I don’t even like you. But since you do business with Vantanible, I do business with you. Now I’m sorry, but evidence is evidence. This is contraband, and it needs to be reported. It looks to me like you’re trying to start some kind of war. Whatever your plan might have been, forget it. You’re not selling any of this. This ammo and these dolls stay right here in this crate until we get to Lottimer.”

  “Selling it is exactly what we should do,” said Jakob. “We should sell it all. And you should help me do it. Split the profits. You know the kinds of people who buy this rubbish. Do you have any idea how much we can make?”

  Toler did have an idea; a pretty good one. But Blatcher and Andover Mays didn’t look happy with the suggestion.

  “You want to make street salesmen out of us?” said Mays.

  “No coffing way,” shouted Blatcher. He glanced down the hallway with a sheepish cringe, then lowered his voice to a sharp whisper. “Of course he wants to sell it. He knows his smuggling is gonna get him skinned. I say the ammo stays with us. Let the boss deal with him when we get to Lottimer.”

  “You’re right,” Toler said. “Jakob, we can’t do anything with those dolls, including selling them to your cousin. You’ll have to tell Vantanible the truth and let him decide what to do.”

  A pained look twitched across Calistari’s face as he considered the implications. His expression dimmed. “Very well. Maynard will be disappointed, but since I had nothing to do with any unregistered goods in my crate, I’m certain that when I explain the