Cedar took a step back. There was something in her words, a push, a power. It reminded him too much of the Pawnee god, and the curse the god had invoked. Fear, instinct, a good head for danger, made Cedar lift his gun, barrel tipping just up from the floor. He took a breath, ready to level the gun at her if need be.
Mae Lindson let go of Alun’s arm. He exhaled like he was coming up from underwater. His face flushed red as a hot coal. “Keep your hands to yourself, witch. Our kind have no quarrel with you. But I’m not unwilling to reconsider my stance.” He turned on his heel and barked at his brother. “Bring the gun she wants, Bryn. I want her out of here.”
Bryn scurried across the room and through the same door into the room Alun had entered to retrieve the tuning forks.
Mae looked after him. Unconcerned. Calm, except for her fingers that tapped against the purse she held in one hand. At that motion, the clink of coins rubbed like spurs inside the purse. Between Cedar’s and Mae’s offerings, the Madders would be making a grand wage today.
“Will the coin cover your price, Mr. Madder, or will other agreements be necessary?” Mae asked.
“Agreements,” he muttered. “Curses, more like. And you of the white magic. What would your sisters say if they saw you bargaining for a gun?”
“My sisters are not here, Mr. Madder, and I would thank you to keep them, and any mention of them, out of our business.”
Alun opened his mouth, but Mae spoke first.
“Please, Mr. Madder. Some mercy.”
He paused, then clamped his mouth shut with an audible click, and stomped to the table. He filled the cup again and drank the moonshine like it was water, shifting his glower between Mae and Cedar.
“You, Mrs. Lindson, are too quick to offer up such things that are in your power. And you, Mr. Hunt, are too reluctant to do the same. But when you both come to my mountain asking my favor, on the same bright morning after the full moon, it is I who sets the price.”
He rolled the cup between his palms as if kneading his temper down to a soft lump. When he spoke again, his voice was even, controlled. Weary. “These times about us,” he said. “They can’t be escaped. There are dark things walking the soil, burrowing into the heart and marrow of the earth, and of the living. You have a part in this, Mrs. Lindson. I didn’t think so, but now, seeing you here . . .” He nodded. “You have a part to play.”
He set his shoulders in a hard line, pulling his chin up. He somehow looked more noble, more regal, than a dirty miner who banged around inside rock crevasses, scraping for a nugget and spark. He looked like the sort of man who had not only fought in wars but had also led men into battle and on to victory.
Cedar always knew there was something odd about the brothers, and now he had suspicions that they might be very closely tied to the dark things that burrowed in bones and walked this land. The Strange.
“If I’ve a part to play in anything, it is for my own benefit,” Mae said. “And no other.”
Alun pressed his lips together, something like sadness crossing his eyes. “I’d think two times before taking the weapon you asked for from this hill. If you want a life with joy left to it, leave the gun here and walk away from any involvement with myself and my brothers.”
“There is no joy left for me, Mr. Madder. There is only death.”
Bryn walked into the room, short-barreled shotgun held low in one hand, a box of bullets in the other.
“Pity, that. Then this gun will bring you what you ask for.” Alun poured more moonshine, slugged it back, washing away the steely resolve of a commander and becoming once again a miner and mad deviser.
Bryn held the gun out for her, butt first. It was the color of wet stones, gray and black steel, stock and butt, as if it had been hammered out of one piece of metal. But the glint of brass cogs, worked in a clockwork fashion all along the forestock, and the copper tubes that created a cage around the trigger with room for a hand and finger —much like the hand guard of a swashbuckler’s cutlass—gave the steel some relief. It was the copper tubes that most caught Cedar’s eye as he tried to reckon their use. Each tube lifted up from the hand guard, like the head of a snake, right behind the bolt handle. And atop each tube was a thumb-sized glass vial.
“There is only one gun of this devising,” Bryn said. “Chamber the shot, and this lever will lock these gears into action.” He pointed at the gears. “A very small vial of oil within the gun will heat with the friction of the gears, fill the tubes, and send a gas into these vials, which is released on squeezing the trigger.
“It will take some time for a full charge, but as soon as you can no longer hear it whining, and you see the needle of that gauge there on the stock holding on the red, you can blow a hole straight through the great divide.
“These,” Bryn added, “are the shells.” He opened the wooden box and withdrew a cylinder as long as his hand, balancing it between two fingers. “A blend of mineral only we brothers know. There are only five bullets. That’s all we’ve made, and all we’ll ever make.”
“All we’ll ever make,” the other two brothers echoed quietly as if it was a vow that needed repeating.
“This shot,” Alun picked up now that Bryn had gone silent, “this gun, will kill any man, woman, child. It might even kill things that walk this land dark and hungry, so long as the gun is fully charged. Might kill the things that had a hand in the killing of your husband.”
Mae took the weapon without hesitating. She looked natural to the heft of the gun, determination setting her jaw as she pivoted and lifted the butt to her shoulder, sighting right between the center gap in the copper tubes. She lowered the barrel to the floor and inspected the box of shot. She nodded.
“This is worth more than the purse I brought.”
“That’s true,” Alun said. “The purse and a favor.”
“I don’t think I’ll be here long enough to settle a favor,” she said.
“Coin. And the favor, to be repaid whenever our paths should meet,” Alun countered.
She considered it. “Done.”
Cedar thought she might have agreed to almost any terms to keep hold of that gun.
She held out the purse, and Bryn exchanged the box of bullets for it. He loosened the strings and looked inside. “Done,” he said.
“Done,” Cadoc, to one side, echoed.
“Done,” Alun pronounced. “Cadoc, see her out.”
Cadoc gestured toward the door with the slightest bow. Mae looked askance at Cedar. If she was offering him to follow, or looking for him to challenge her on her fool quest for vengeance, he didn’t have the right to act on either request.
“Good-bye, Mr. Hunt.”
“Ma’am,” Cedar said.
Mae walked with Cadoc toward the door. Cedar started off after them.
“Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “One last thing.”
Cedar glanced over. “I think our business is done, Mr. Madder.”
“All except one question that lingers with me.” He poured two cups of moonshine, holding one out in invitation.
“There’s a boy gone lost, Mr. Madder. Your curiosity will have to carry on without me.” The door swung open behind him. He could tell the door opened only because a wash of air filtered into the room. The door itself, a slab of stone that ten men couldn’t shoulder closed, moved silently on those well-oiled rails.
Mae stepped through the doors and Cadoc closed them quickly behind her. The youngest Madder moved over to stand in front of the door, fists on top of his hips pulling back his duster just enough to let Cedar see the guns holstered there.
“Tell me, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “How did you repair the watch?”
The question was unexpected.
The Madders had said they’d tried to fix it and couldn’t. And now, just a day in his keeping, the watch was running again. It appeared the Madder brothers didn’t take kindly to being out-tinkered.
“Dropped it.”
“That so?” Alun said.
Bryn, who stood near Alun, cleared his throat and held both hands up to show no weapons were within them. “Might I could see it, Mr. Hunt? Timepiece deviled me for weeks. Won’t go so far as to open it up, but it’d be a pleasure to see it working as it should.”
“That door behind me going to open up if I show you the watch?”
