“Don’t know,” the man said, cowering back from Hink’s questions as if each word was a rock thrown at his head. “Just heard Barlow say something about a holder and Vicinity and Marshal Hink Cage. I don’t know nothing more. I swear by it. I don’t know nothing more.”
Man was half scared out of his mind, that was sure.
“Captain,” Molly said. “You might want to step back a bit.”
Hink frowned and looked at Molly. She nodded toward his hand.
In that hand was the man’s shirt, and in that shirt was the man. Hink had reached out and grabbed him and hauled him onto his feet so he could yell in his face proper. Had done it without thinking, that temper catching hold of his hands and using them before his brain could send in suggestions.
No wonder the man was quaking.
“Sure thing,” Hink said. “Sure.” He let go of the man and took a step or two back. “Molly, we got anything hot to drink on this boat?”
“Might,” she said.
“See to it the sailor here gets something to knock the freeze off.”
Molly nodded and headed back to the keg stove at the rear of the ship to rustle up some tea.
Hink took off in the opposite way and came up behind Guffin. “Give over the wheel,” he said.
Guffin untethered and stepped back.
“We putting down in a pocket, Captain?”
Hink latched line to the frame and stomped his boots into the floor bracers. “We’re cutting over the range.”
“Over? Where to?”
“Vicinity,” he said. “Before the Saint’s devils get there first.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Cedar Hunt eyed the rising dead piled up in the center of the town. He needed to get Rose to the wagon, then ride out of here before the undead could follow. Only problem was the undead were between him and the wagon, and Rose was bleeding badly from that shoulder wound.
He backtracked, working in the shadows of the buildings and trying to get to the wagon around the other way.
The idea of leaving an entire town full of bodies being trotted around by the Strange set a rod of fear down his spine. How long would they stay in this town, and if they got loose, how many people would die?
The stack of bodies was still unstacking. Some of them slow and awkward, with no hands, arms, feet, or eyes to guide them. They crawled about, moaning and mewling. They might have once been human, but it was clear and sure from the way they moved, and from the unholy sounds coming out of them, that they were human no longer.
Others pulled up quick, catching on to the hows of walking. If not exactly graceful, they were at least steady and growing steadier with every step. First they walked. Then they broke into a jog. Fast. Headed his way.
He shifted his hold on Rose Small, who was still unconscious in his arms, and pulled his gun.
Shot down the two in the lead, but there were more, too many more, behind them. He couldn’t fight without putting Rose down. The townfolk paused over the two men he’d shot, they pushed at them, pulled at them. And then the men he’d shot stood back up.
Didn’t look like a bullet could kill a thing that was already dead. Leastwise not a shot to the heart or the head.
Cedar swore and started running. He needed an open door, solid walls, and something that could cause a whole hell of a lot more damage than his revolver.
The crack of a shotgun blew apart the night. Cedar jerked toward the blast.
The Madder brothers were driving the wagon hard his way, coming up from behind the undead and rolling over the ones who got in the way of the big iron-rimmed wheels.
Alun sat the driver’s seat, snapping the reins to push those big draft horses to full speed. The horses were more than willing to give it to him, dinner plate–sized hooves smashing through flesh and bone just as easily as through mud.
Cadoc Madder stood on the buckboard braced next to Alun. His geared-up shotgun was slung low at his shoulder. He took aim for the middle of the unalives again as the wagon rolled through them.
The flash of gunpowder lit up the night and Cedar’s sight went muddy.
When he could blink his focus back, he saw the dead that had just fallen picking themselves up, while others, too broken to walk, still found ways to crawl or drag themselves toward him.
“Don’t know what you did, Mr. Hunt,” Alun yelled, “but you’ve angered up a mess of Strange tonight. Never seen them so intent on taking one man down.”
“Rose is hurt,” Cedar said. “She’s bleeding.”
The Madders pulled the big wagon up beside him. Bryn was on his horse, and Rose’s and Cedar’s horses were tethered to the back of the wagon along with the mule.
Where were Mae and Wil?
Before he could ask, Mae leaned out of the wagon, throwing down the wooden steps.
“Hurry,” she said.
Cedar was up the stairs and into the wagon fast.
The undead were still coming, still running, slogging through the mud and muck. Not just the pile of people they’d gathered. More townfolk poured out from houses up a ways, places Cedar and the Madders hadn’t gotten to yet. Most of them seemed to have good strong legs beneath them, and were closing the distance fast.
“Put her on the bed,” Mae said as she found her satchel and started digging for herbs and bandages. Cedar set Rose down as gently as he could. He braced for the wagon to start rolling, expecting the lurch of the drafts pulling fast, but they were not moving.
“Go!” he yelled, not knowing what the Madders were waiting for. “Where’s Wil?”
Mae was already bent over Rose, pulling her wool coat open and unbuttoning her dress so she could see to her wound.
“I don’t know,” she said, her words coming out fast and slippery as if she was fitting them in between a conversation she was trying to listen to. “Oh. Oh, no.” She had pulled Rose’s dress away to reveal her shoulder, neck, and her chest down to the blood-soaked edge of her shift.
“I need…” Mae started. “No, not that. Not those things.” She brushed at the air as if pushing away hands that were not helping. “I need hot water. I need herbs to stanch.” She looked up at Cedar, her cheeks flushed but her eyes clear, if a bit startled. “I might need tines if there’s a bullet in there to be dug out. Can you help me see if it shot her all the way through?”
“It wasn’t a bullet,” he said, propping Rose up so Mae could hold the lantern closer to her back.
She finished pulling Rose’s coat off, then examined the back of her dress. “No blood here, so it didn’t go clean through. What hit her?”
“A key. A tin key. About half the size of my pinky,” he said. “We ran into the Strange. A trap. Triggered the fuse and”—he hesitated to go too clearly into detail about the girl exploding—“the house blew to bits. Could be wood, metal, or bone in there too.”
Mae slipped Rose’s dress the rest of the way off her so that she could look at the bare skin of her back.
Cedar supported Rose through Mae’s inspection. Why wasn’t the wagon moving? What were the Madders waiting for?
“I can’t see anything inside the wound. Nothing,” Mae said. “All right, lay her down again.”
Cedar did so.
“I’ll need water,” Mae said to herself as she turned to the kettle hung up on the ceiling hook.
It wouldn’t be hot. There was no time to stop and make a fire. And still the wagon wasn’t moving.
“I’ll be right back,” Cedar said.
Mae poured the cold water onto a cloth.
