behind a gag.
He turned. And saw the youngest Madder, Cadoc, pointing a gun at him.
CHAPTER TEN
If the day could match Mae Lindson’s mood, it would be raining ice and the sun would be cold as stone. She walked to the barn, her skirt catching in the knee-high grasses, the honey warmth of summer rising on the air.
Her gaze lingered the longest on the eastern horizon and she paused, feeling the tug of the call to return to the coven’s soil at the soles of her shoes.
Not yet. She couldn’t go home until she found Jeb’s killer. She gathered up saddle, blanket, and bridle, and leaned it all against a fence post while she shook a bit of grain to call her mule, Prudence, to come round. Once Prudence had eaten the handful of corn, she saddled and bridled her, then swung up, taking nothing more than herself, her shawl, and the shuttle tucked safely in her pocket.
Mae turned northwest toward town, riding the shortest route to Hallelujah.
It was not yet noon when she came down Main Street. The town seemed quiet, even though the clatter of horses, wagons filled with crops and material for the rail, and men and women going about their errands lent to the busyness of the place. It wasn’t until she stopped outside the Smalls’ mercantile that she realized what sound was missing—the ring and beat from the blacksmith’s shop that pounded out from dawn to dark ever since the rail’s approach.
The rail depended on the smith to keep them in nails and bolts and repairs of the matics. All the farmers, ranchers, and millers in the area kept the blacksmith and his apprentices plenty busy. She couldn’t imagine what would bring all that work to a day’s halt.
She was sure Mrs. Horace Small would be happy to pass on that information and every other scrap of gossip if she asked. Mrs. Small didn’t like Mae much, but she was more than happy to buy and sell the fine lace Mae tatted, and had never turned away a single sturdy wool blanket Mae wove.
Mae had been saving up the bit of money she made from cloth and lace for years, adding it to any extra Jeb brought in. They weren’t rich, and she had never supposed they would be. But they had money set aside.
She eased down off her mule and tied her to the hitching post below the porch. A rise of men’s voices, laughter mostly, rolled through the air along with the clank of the piano from the saloon down the street. Plenty of people hoping for better days. And it seemed some of them were more than happy to celebrate early.
Mae walked up the front steps and then along the whitewashed railing to the open shop door. She didn’t like entering the mercantile. Not because it was always dark, filled from floorboard to rafter with things folk needed to live a civilized life, some items like the dishes from China or the fine glass lamps shipped all the way from the old country. There was something about the clutter of the place, of so many things from so many lands all crowded together, that made her restless and wanting for the simplicity and quiet of her home.
Mae walked into the shop, the cooler air scented with the straw and dust of newly delivered goods. Mrs. Horace Small must be out for the day. Rose Small stood behind the counter in the dim-lit room, minding the till.
She looked over and a smile lit her up.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Lindson,” Rose said.
“Good afternoon, Miss Small.” Mae walked across the room. “I hope all is well with you.”
Rose nodded, though a cloud passed over her eyes. “I’m good as glim. And yourself? Come into town with a few blankets before the weather turns?”
Mae shook her head. She should have thought of that. Should have brought in the blankets she’d finished over the long summer nights. But ever since she had felt Jeb’s death, she’d been thinking of no other thing than revenge.
She wasn’t even sure if she had eaten this morning.
“No blankets today.”
“Lace, then? Mrs. Haverty was discussing her daughter’s wedding dress and hoping we’d have a lace collar on hand. The shipments from back East didn’t make it this far out. I reckon someone in Carson City must have a hankering for fine lace.”
“No, no lace.” Mae stopped at the counter where the coffee grinder sat next to candy in glass jars. She tugged off her leather gloves, one finger at a time. “I’ve come to withdraw from my safetydeposit box. I don’t suppose your father is in?”
“He’s gone to meet with some of the out-of-towners who came in early today. Investors and businessmen looking to set up business now that the rail’s going to tie us to the oceans on both sides. We’ll have all the news from the world at our fingertips and plenty of new people passing through. Might even get a telegraph office. Looks like Hallelujah’s going to put itself on the map.”
“Looks like it is,” Mae said. “But about your folks. Is your mother round?”
“She’s just down the road a ways. At church seeing about the wedding. These things take time and plenty of effort from all the able women.” Rose looked down at the counter, and pulled a cloth from her pocket to rub at the wood. “Seeing as how it’s the banker’s daughter and the timberman’s son, it will be a wedding of some importance.”
“All weddings are important,” Mae said. “Even for the most humble groom and bride.”
“I reckon that’s true.”
Rose went back to wiping down the counter, though Mae thought there wasn’t a spot of dirt left to rub. The thimble she wore on the top of her ring finger winked nickel gray in the wan light coming in from the shop’s two windows.
Mae took a moment to really look at Rose. She was no longer the young girl she’d found running a kite in her fields back when she and Jeb had built their home seven years ago. Rose must be eighteen or so by now. And unmarried.
No wonder she wasn’t lending a hand at the wedding preparations. The womenfolk had probably deemed her unfit for such things.
“You’ll be a wife someday,” Mae said gently. “There’s still plenty of time for that.”
Rose looked back up at Mae, and for a flash, there was hope in her eyes. Then she set her mouth and all Mae could see in her expression was clear resolve. “You’re more than kind to say so.” She put the cloth back in her pocket, ending the conversation.
“Now, about your business today,” she said, digging up one of her sunlight smiles. “Can I help you in any way? Maybe go fetch my mother or father for you?”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary. If you have the keys to the safe boxes, we won’t need to trouble your parents.”
“I know just where they’re kept.” Rose opened a drawer behind her and pulled out a set of master keys. She turned a glance over her shoulder. “I haven’t seen Mr. Lindson in a long while. He working the rail?”
“No. He’s dead.”
Rose stopped, still as a deer under the eyes of a wolf. And the sorrow that crossed her face was heart-deep, bringing tears at the bottoms of her eyes. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. She didn’t say any more, didn’t ask how he’d died, didn’t ask if she was planning a burial, a funeral, a service with black lace.
Mae nodded, and Rose got herself busy with the locked drawer that held the keys to the safety boxes.
“Did you hear the Gregors’ boy, little Elbert, has gone missing?” Rose asked softly, as if there was more than rumor resting on her words.
“I hadn’t heard.” Mae tried to remember how old the Gregors’ boy was now. Maybe three? Four? She was glad for something different to think upon, even if it was bad news. “Did he wander off?”
Rose walked out from behind the counter, things in her apron pockets clacking quietly. “No one knows. He disappeared in the night. Right through the closed window and the locked door.” She paused between one step and the next. “Is that something you’d have a way of knowing about?”
Mae looked down at her shoes. She’d never told Rose she was a witch, but Rose had a way of knowing about
