Valuable, that whimsy. He wondered where she had come by it. That delicate of a matic, a fine thing of little practical use, never survived this far west for long.
Beautiful things got crushed to dust out in these wilds.
Outside, the steam clock blew the pattern for ten o’clock. Town was mighty proud of that whistle. The blacksmith, Mr. Gregor, had put it in place of a clock tower right over his shop at the north end of town. Not half again as nice as the steam bells back East, it was still Hallelujah’s pride and joy and could be heard clear on the other side of Powder Keg Bluff.
“Is Mr. Hunt troubling you, ma’am?” asked Cadoc, the shortest and widest of the Madder brothers.
Cedar picked up the flour with the two smaller bundles stacked on top. He tucked the ink into his pocket and nodded at the brothers, who all wore overalls, tool belts, and long coats loose enough to cover whatever it was they kept stuffed in their pockets. “Just a discussion of good citizenship is all, gentlemen,” he said. “Afternoon.”
He headed out onto the stretch of porch that gave shade in the summer, and the chance of shelter against rain and snow in the other seasons.
The Small Mercantile and Groceries was set on the corner of Main Street—the only street with real gas lamps in the town. The other buildings, thirty or so of them with pitched roofs and walls of milled or plank wood, were laid out in neat rows following the curve of the Grande Ronde River north.
A bustle of people were on the streets this morning, come into town for the new shipment, to pick up mail, or to trade harvest goods to settle their bills. It brought back his memories of the big cities, though there were more steam matics trundling about in the East. Horses, carriages, wagons, and folk on foot added to the clatter of the place, added to the living of the place, and reminded Cedar of things long lost.
Even the ringing of a hammer on wood reminded him of the civilized life that was once his.
He glanced up the street. His gaze skipped the bakery, butcher shop, tannery, and mill, drawn, as it was always drawn, to the clock whistle atop a turret made of iron and wood and tin, sticking up like a backbone above the blacksmith’s shop. A coil of copper tubes wrapped through the structure and supported a line of twelve glass jugs, round as pearls and big as butter churns. Water poured from the top of the tower downward, like sand in an hourglass, and filled the glass jugs one at a time, until they spilled over into the next and turned the gears inside the tower toward the next hour.
Town needed a thing to be proud of. Needed a thing more than wool and timber and silver to keep it alive. Needed something beautiful. Needed hope.
Cedar looked past the tower to the mountains that cupped the valley, two ranges of snow and hardship, blocking Hallelujah from easier lands and the great Columbia River. He knew there was ground enough between the town and the rise of the Wallowa Mountains that an airship could land and lash, but he had never once seen a ship venture over these mountain ranges—not even to deliver supplies or drop mail.
Hallelujah was in dire risk of being forgotten by the world that traveled easier roads to brighter skies.
A song piped out from near his elbow, soft and breathy. Cedar looked down.
Rose was on the porch, her back pressed tight against the clapboard siding, one toe of her boot propped on the lower rung of the whitewashed railing. She was talking to herself or maybe singing, her head bent, amber hair beneath her bonnet catching the gold out of the sunlight and falling in a loose braid over one shoulder, hiding much of her profile from him.
Around her neck was a little locket the size and shape of a robin’s egg. It looked to be made of gold and silver, though it might just have been the shine of the morning sun upon it. He’d never seen her without that locket around her neck.
She balanced a small wooden plate with gears set flat atop it on the palm and fingers of her left hand. A tiny tin top with a copper steam valve followed the spokes of the wooden gears and gave off a sour little song that changed with its speed as it followed the height and width of each cog. Rose pulled a gear off the plate and replaced it with another from her apron pocket, sweetening the song, all the while talking, talking.
Clever, that.
He’d bet she fashioned it herself. She had the look of the deviser’s knack—a quick mind that trawled the edge of madness, and clever, busy fingers. She had practical smarts too, though, like knowing how to stay away from the back of her mama’s hand.
“Reckon I put your mama in a sour mood, asking her about the Gregor boy,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard when he got himself lost?”
“Last night is all,” she said, stopping the top with her finger and slipping it into her apron pocket. “Didn’t run off, I heard.”
“Didn’t run? Think he flew out the window?”
She tipped a glance out from behind the brim of her bonnet. Those eyes were blue and soft and wide as the sea. She smiled, the corners of her mouth tucking dimples into her tanned cheeks. Folk around town had their opinions of the girl abandoned when she was a babe. Thought she had too many wild ideas spinning through her head than was proper for a woman. He’d never seen her be anything but kind and steady in the years he’d been here. Deviser or not, madness or not, she had a good heart; that was certain.
Didn’t seem the other men in town thought the same. A woman her age and unmarried was almost an unheard-of circumstance.
“No, Mr. Hunt,” she said. “I think he got took.”
“Took? That what his folks are saying?”
She shrugged.
“They saying what took him?” There wasn’t a night predator brash enough to cross a closed door, and there wasn’t a soul foolish enough to go without a lock or brace in these parts. Maybe the boy wandered when he should have been sleeping.
“Said it was the man.”
“What man?”
“The bogeyman.”
Cedar blinked and went very still. She wasn’t lying. That was clear from the curiosity in her eyes. She’d heard someone say that, someone who meant it. He just hoped whoever had said it didn’t know what they were talking about.
Under his sudden silence, Rose clutched the wooden gear plate tighter and pulled her braid back so it fell square between her shoulders. She did not look away, but lifted her chin and studied his face, his eyes, the angle of his shoulders, his clenched fists. She weighed and measured his mood as if he were made of parts and the whole, more curious than cautious, though she rocked up on the balls of her feet, ready to bolt if need be.
And for good reason. He’d been staring at her. He knew what she saw in his gaze. Knew the beast that twisted inside him. He looked away.
“Mr. Hunt?” she asked. “Are you not well?”
Like he thought, she had good instincts. Cedar found a smile and gentle tone left over from better days.
“Well enough. Thank you for your time, Miss Small.”
“Do you think it was?” she asked. “The bogeyman?”
“I think a lady like you shouldn’t need to fret about the bogeyman.”
She did not smile. “They say he came in the night,” she said. “Slick as a shadow. Took Elbert from his bed. Didn’t even leave a wrinkle in the sheets. No one saw him. No one heard him. No one stopped him. Not even his daddy. It’s unnatural.” She nodded and looked him straight in the eyes. “Strange. I think that might be worth a fret or two, don’t you?”
Mr. Gregor was a big man. A strong man with hair and beard as red and wild as the fire he toiled over. Probably looked like a giant from the eyes of a girl growing up in this town.
A crash from inside clattered out; then Mrs. Small’s holler drifted through the doors. Rose flinched, tucked back down into herself, her hair falling once again to cover her face. He didn’t sense fear from her. No, he sensed frustration. She took a breath and let it out like a filly settling to the chafe of bridle and cinch.
“Don’t worry yourself, Miss Small,” Cedar said. “You’re safer here in your home than if you hid away in the blacksmith’s pocket.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m of a positive considerance not even the bravest bogeyman would dare cross the temper of your mother.”
That tipped a laugh out of her, sweeter than the top’s song, and Cedar couldn’t help but smile in response.
