The Madder brothers all shrugged at the same time. “Don’t know,” Alun said. “Don’t need a favor yet. But when we do, you’ll answer to us and pay it.”
Cedar paused. He didn’t like being left owing to any man, much less three. But that was Wil’s watch. Rightfully his now. He wanted it. More, he wanted to know how it had suddenly appeared, all the way out here, almost four years after his death.
“One favor only,” Cedar said, “not one for the each of you. I’ll do nothing that brings harm to the weak, the poor, or to women and children.”
“Yes, yes.” Alun rubbed his meaty hands together. “And the striker.”
“You’ll have it next time I’m in town.”
“Agreed,” Alun said.
The Madder brothers leaned in and extended their right hands as one, palms pressed against knuckles so they all shook Cedar’s hand at the same time. Practiced, unconscious—they’d probably been sealing deals that way since they could talk.
Cedar held his hand out for the watch again. Bryn released the chain and sighed as the watch slipped through his fingers into Cedar’s.
It should be cold, made of silver and brass with a crystal face. But the watch was as warm as if there were a banked coal tucked inside. It didn’t tick, not even the second hand. It was still, dead. And warm as a living thing.
He tried hard not to look surprised or look away from the brothers.
“Just a watch, you say?” he asked.
Bryn answered. “So much as. Broken when we found it. Not much of a timepiece if it can’t tell a man the time.” He shrugged.
Alun was still smiling. “Enjoy your time, Cedar Hunt,” he said. “Don’t forget our striker. Come on now, Bryn.” He punched Bryn on the shoulder—a hit that would have staggered a much bigger man, though Bryn barely seemed to notice—and the two of them started back into town.
Their brother, Cadoc Madder, lingered behind as Alun and Bryn angled south toward the saloon and the boardinghouse, whose rooms hadn’t been full since the gold rush. Next to that stood the bordello that had never needed to worry about an empty bed now that the rail, and its workers, had come to town.
Cadoc, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke.
“If you ever want to know what else the stones say, about . . . things and such . . . you know where to fetch us up.”
“Didn’t figure your rocks were quite so conversational,” Cedar said.
Cadoc rolled his tongue around in his mouth, pushing out his bottom lip, then his top, as if washing the grit off his words before using them.
“The railroad is coming. Can you hear it, Mr. Hunt? Crawling this way on hammers and iron. Breathing out its stink and steam. Thing like that brings change to a place, to a people. There’ll be more metal above the ground than below soon.
“Leaves a hollow that needs filling. Scars more than stone deep.” He paused and studied Cedar a little closer. “But then, you know about the things that can change a land, or a man, I reckon. You and your brother.”
Sweat slicked under Cedar’s hatband. He didn’t know what Cadoc knew about Wil. About the change. The curse. Didn’t even know how the Madders could know. Cedar had not spoken of his brother in nearly three years.
The wind laid a phantom hand between his shoulders, pressing there, telling him it was time to move on, move away, move west. Before his past caught up with him again.
Before there was blood.
But it was Cadoc who left, rambling down the street to join his brothers, not one of them with a care to look back at Cedar.
Cedar fought the urge to go after them, to force them to explain the watch, and what they knew of his brother’s death. To tell him why the metal was warm as spilled blood.
Instead he stood there, a sack of flour on his shoulder, his fist clenched around the only thing of his brother’s that remained, while the Madders bulled down the street through the crowd, looking like they’d welcome a brawl just for laughs.
He’d come back later with the striker. He’d see if their talk was crazy, or if they knew something more. Something true. By then he’d have a firm hold on his anger and his hunger. By then he’d be less likely to do them permanent harm.
And he would find out just exactly what their rocks had said about his brother.
Cedar took a deep breath, trying to calm the beast within him.
In the distance, the pump and chug of the steam matics working the rail set a drumbeat as the brown jug whistle sounded out lonely and hollow, like dreams coming this way to die.
He crossed the road to the trail that led to his cabin up in the hills. He’d cook up some coffee, fry up some bread, and have a meal before the moon rose. After the moon set, he’d hunt for the boy.
Because that was what a man did. And Cedar intended to remain a man for as long as he could.
CHAPTER TWO
It had been years since Mae Lindson called on the old ways. She promised Jeb she wouldn’t use them anymore. Not out here, so far west, where there was no coven to hide her. It was enough trouble, he had said, for a man of color to marry a white woman. Telling people she was a witch would only bring them quicker to their doorstep with torches in their hands and hanging in their eyes.
But it had been three months. Three months waiting for him to come home. She was done waiting. Done wondering if he would ever come home to her. When she made a vow, it could never be unbroken—so was the way of her magic within the sisterhood. She had vowed her heart and soul unto this man, until death did them part. That vow, that promise, should have guided him home to her by now.
She pushed the basket of dirt sprinkled with rose hips and wormwood closer to the hearth where the light of the rising moon would soon find it. The fire was crackling hot and strong enough to burn on to morning.
The whistle and pop of the steam matics working the lines had quieted since nightfall. All the world of man had quieted. Now was the time for magic.
Mae glanced at her door. A strong bolt made of brass and springs held it tight. That, Jeb had given her as a wedding gift. He had fashioned it with his own hands, as he had fashioned all the other beautiful things of wood and brass that filled the shelves alongside her pots and dishes and herbs and books. Just as he had fashioned her spinning wheel and her loom. He was never without a gear or fancy to carve, but only ever showed his creations to her.
Still, the bundle of protective herbs wrapped along dried grapevines and rowan above the door did as much to keep her safe as Jeb’s bolts and devices. Herbs and spells to keep the Strange at bay.
She pulled her shawl close around her shoulders and knelt next to the basket of dirt. The people of town were beginning to whisper about her. When she walked to town to trade her weaving for supplies, people talked. Said her husband had long left her. Said he was dead.
But they were wrong. She still heard him, heard her husband’s voice in the night, calling her name.
Mae rolled up her left sleeve, exposing her wrist and forearm, strong from tending the field, strong from tending the sheep and chickens. She placed her fingers in the basket of dirt and stirred, fingers splayed, counterclockwise. The dirt warmed slowly, soaking up the heat from the hearthstones. She hummed, settling into the feel of this soil beneath her hands, between her fingers, and breathed in the scent rising off the soil—of summer giving its life away to autumn.
She sang the song slowly, words forming the spell that would find Jeb. Little matics and tickers on the shelf hummed along with her, echoing to the notes of their tuning.
“My hand touching this soil, this soil touching all soil. All soil beneath my hand. All soil I know. The heartbeat, the soul of two who have vowed until death do us part. Jeb Lindson, husband, lover, soul.”
