the wage demands would be met and everyone should get back to work.
There was some minor grumbling, but the drill operators were ecstatic and the complaints from others seemed to be voiced mostly out of obligation. The truth was, they all thought they were performing
'extra duties,' and they could all see the prospect of increased pay in their future, and Jeb left the miners much happier than he had found them.
Returning to town, he stopped off to tell William. He was starving and could use a drink, but he knew William would want to hear the outcome as soon as possible and to discuss it with the vendors who sold the ore to the government.
As he rode up to William's house, he saw Isabella, digging in her garden. She waved to him as he passed, smiling against the sun.
He tipped his hat, nodded.
He'd never admit it to William, but he'd felt a small surge of pride and the faint seductive tickle of revenge as he'd watched Isabella take care of those three strangers in front of the saloon that day. They were probably not bad men, not in the ordinary sense, but they were ignorant and intolerant, belligerent bigots, the type of people who had for years been persecuting their kind, and it was nice to see them finally get a taste of their own medicine.
William, of course, had been shocked and outraged, torn in his reaction despite his unwavering devotion to his wife. That's what made him William. But Jeb was more ambivalent, less sure of the morality involved, and while he'd offered his friend a sympathetic ear as always, secretly he'd supported Isabella's actions.
William's wife was growing on him. He hadn't liked her at first, he could admit that, but unlike most of the other people in town, he had come to appreciate her unusual charms. He supposed it was because he and William were so close. He was the only other person who had really gotten to know her, and he now understood what his friend saw in Isabella. She was not only beautiful but intelligent, and she was not afraid to speak her mind or act on her impulses. He admired that..
Most of the others did not see it that way. To them, she was a usurper, a temptress who had seduced their friend in order to achieve her own nefarious ends. The way she had dispatched those three strangers and had gotten off scot-free, without even a reprimand, when William's policy had always been to attract no outside attention, proved that.
Jeb could understand their concern. The fact was, however, she hadn't done anything else to engender any mistrust or suspicion in the townspeople. They simply did not like her, resented her because of how close she and William had become in such a short time, and he could not help thinking that they were behaving just as people had always behaved toward them, with prejudice and a reckless disinterest in the truth.
Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe that's what happened when people lived together. Hell, maybe they'd all be better off if they just spent their lives moving from one place to another, living a nomadic existence as they had before.
Jeb hopped off his horse, tethered it to the porch rail. 'William!.' he called out.
A tap on the window of the den captured his attention, and behind the glass William motioned for him to come inside. Jeb nodded and walked in the house, traipsing through the parlor and into his friend's room.
William was standing next to his desk, waiting for him, and Jeb told him how he'd gone out to the mine to see what was what, and how the drill operators wanted compensation for work that involved manual labor rather than the use of magic.
The use of magic.
For the first time since last night, his attention was brought back to the fact that his own ability to use magic seemed to be slipping away.
He paused for a moment in his narration, and William looked at him quizzically, waiting. Jeb was suddenly tempted to tell him about the strange and gradual diminution of his power. He looked into William's face and knew that his friend would understand, that he might even be able to come up with a solution for it. He was about to broach the subject, but then he heard the front door open and close, heard heels on wood, heard Isabella's throaty voice ask if either of them wanted anything to drink, and decided against it. The situation was probably only temporary. He was wrong to panic. His magic would probably come back on its own. Hell, for all he knew, this was a natural occurrence.
Maybe the power ebbed and flowed. Maybe it even began to fade as one got older.
As quickly as it had come, the impulse disappeared, and he sat there silently as William asked his wife to bring a bottle and two glasses, waiting until Isabella left the room before continuing his story of the miners.
Ten years.
Wolf Canyon was coming up on its tenth anniversary, and
William wanted to do something special for the occasion. A celebration. He wanted to involve the entire town, from the first settlers to the most recent arrival, but he also wanted it to be a surprise. This was something he wanted to do for the town, and he thought that it would be nice to be able to dazzle them with something entirely unexpected.
Still, he could not pull off what he had planned by himself, so he had, out of necessity, involved Jeb and Isabella, the two people to whom he was closest in the word. He could trust them not to talk. Isabella had thrown herself into the planning with fervor, getting into the spirit of the occasion, but Jeb had seemed somewhat preoccupied lately, distant, not quite himself. William had asked what was wrong numerous times, had even tried to reach out and read him, but his friend remained stubbornly closed off. What worried him the most was that there seemed to be a touch of anxiety behind Jeb's recent reticence.
Not for the first time, William looked up the street and down. He consulted his pocket watch. A quarter of an hour late. Jeb was supposed to have met him this morning in front of the assaying office, but he had not yet shown. William found that worrisome. Jeb was seldom late, and when he was, the reason was always serious.
He walked through the narrow space between the assayer's and the fire brigade to Back Street, seeing if perhaps Jeb had misunderstood and was waiting at the rear of the building, but no one was on the street save Grover Farland, sweeping the wooden walkway in front of his small shop.
William walked up to the haberdasher. 'Morning, Grover. You seen Jeb this morning?'
The other man stopped sweeping, shook his head. 'Can't say that I have.' He scratched his beard. 'You looking for him? } 'He '
was supposed to meet me Isabella's scream sliced through the morning stillness. What had been curiosity accelerated instantly into fatalistic dread as William ran across the dusty gravel and down the street. The scream came again, and he increased his pace until he thought his muscles would snap, dashing between buildings and across Main until he had reached the front yard of his home. He ran around the side of the house to the source of the scream.
Jeb was lying on the back porch. Or, rather, something that had once been Jeb was lying on the back porch.
For the dried white form that lay spread over the weathered boards only vaguely resembled a human being. It was naked, but all gender identification had been obliterated by whatever had vacuumed out the insides of the body. Crinkled milky skin was stretched over a partial skeleton. The features of the face and body had somehow been wiped away, leaving only a uniform blankness. He was reminded of the monster he and Jeb had come across in the canyon all those years ago, and while anger and agony battled for supremacy in his heart, terror overtook them both and set tied in his gut.
Isabella screamed again.
'What is it?' Grover called, hurrying around the corner. He had followed William through the town and a crowd had come with him, concerned and curious people who had heard Isabella's cries.
William shook his head, looked at Isabella. She was staring down at Jeb's unmoving form, and she glanced up, her eyes meeting his. She ran over to him, through the garden, not bothering to watch her step, trampling flowers and vegetables in her hurry to reach him. She threw her arms about his shoulders, and held him trembling.
