“We’ll need to be going,” Cedar said. “Traveling away from here, traveling east. We’ll go at your pace. Are you ready?”
In answer, Wil walked to the door and waited there.
Cedar took one last look at the cabin, his gaze resting on the heavy chain and leather collar pounded into the hearth. Mae and Rose hadn’t asked him about it, though he supposed they knew very well what he’d used it for. His fingers strayed to the Madders’ chain around his neck. He’d be more than glad to leave the heavy chain and collar behind.
Mae finished cleaning up and poured the last of the herb water over the coals in the fire. She dried her hands on her skirt, and came to stand next to Cedar.
“Well, then,” she said. “Shall we, Mr. Hunt?”
Cedar took one last look at the cabin, then opened the door. Wil slipped out quickly. “Yes, Mrs. Lindson,” Cedar said, “I believe we shall.” He held his hand out, ushering her through the door, and then followed her into sunlight.
They had gotten three miles or so out of town when Cedar heard a clattering of wheels following them.
He looked back. A tinker’s wagon, painted bright as a bordello bedspread, top-heavy with a crazy assortment of metals and gears and whim-wham, followed them. Atop the rattling monstrosity sat the Madders. Alun Madder smoked his pipe and held the reins of the two draft horses who pulled the contraption at a quick clip.
They pulled up behind Cedar, Mae, Rose, and Wil.
“Evening, fine folk,” Alun called out. “Where you headed?”
“Down the road,” Cedar said, leaning forward in the saddle a bit to ease the pain.
Alun chuckled. “We’ve been thinking we’d travel with you a piece.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“You still owe us a favor, Mr. Cedar Hunt,” Alun Madder said with a wide smile. “And we’ve come to ask for it.”
Cedar tipped his hat back and loosened the strap on the gun he kept lashed to his saddle. “That so? Seems to me your favors do nothing but bring trouble.”
“We’re looking for you to hunt for us.”
“My time’s previously committed, Mr. Madder. I have people to tend to and promises to keep.”
Alun puffed on his pipe, considering. “We’re patient men, Mr. Hunt, but you promised you’d find our Holder, and bring it to us.”
Wil, who had stayed at Cedar’s heel, pricked his ears up and whined.
“The Holder?” Cedar asked, searching his memories for what they had told him. “Don’t know how I’d likely find it if I don’t know what it is.”
“The Holder is a device of seven pieces, made of the seven ancient metals. Each piece is a talisman, an artifact, a device to be used for good: healing the sick, blessing crops, bringing peace unto a land. When this New World was discovered, the Holder was brought here as a gift by like-minded men who wanted peace and prosperity for settlers and natives alike.
“But Shard LeFel caught rumor of it. He sent his Strange to sniff it out.” Alun paused, his gaze lost to a distant time. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “They killed for it, tortured for it, committed such horrors. Relentless, until they had stolen each and every piece. Then they worked their dark devising. The Holder is now a weapon of pain, plague, war. Each piece broken and remade Strangewise, so that nothing but sickness, ruin, and chaos fall to any who find it. And if someone is clever enough to put those seven pieces back together again, then they’ll be clever enough to understand the Holder can also be a weapon of a magnitude that has never been seen in these lands.
“We’re of a strong mind to put an end to such things, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “And we’re of a stronger mind you’re the man who can help us do it.”
Cedar glanced at Mae Lindson and Rose Small. Neither of them said anything, though Rose’s eyes were wide. The decision would be his own.
“And”—Alun Madder’s tone was light as he pointed the stem of his pipe at Cedar—“while we travel together, it’d only be neighborly of us to offer up the back of the wagon for anyone who grows weary. The wolf, perhaps?”
Cedar looked down at Wil. The Pawnee god had deemed to make Wil’s curse different from Cedar’s, though Cedar did not know why. For the obvious, Wil remained a wolf even after the full moon, and even in daylight. But perhaps less obvious, he did not seem overwhelmed with the killing rage of the beast. He was possessed of the sharp intelligence of both wolf and man at all times.
Wil looked up at Cedar and in his eyes was the agreement, the determination, to help find the Holder. Cedar nodded.
Wil trotted to the back of the Madders’ wagon. Cadoc Madder quickly lowered a step from the back and Wil limped up it, and inside the wagon.
Alun laughed. “Looks like it’s been agreed for you, Mr. Hunt.”
Cedar sat back straight in the saddle and turned his horse to the east. “Just so long as our paths remain the same, I’ll hunt your Holder for you.”
“That’s fine, fine,” Alun shouted as he flicked the reins. “I have a feeling our paths will remain the same for a long time, Mr. Hunt. A very long time.” He and his brothers laughed, and started singing a bawdy parlor song.
Cedar glanced over at Mae Lindson. She seemed caught in her own song, as if the wind carried words to her, her gaze set firmly east. He imagined it would take her a long time to recover from losing her husband, her home, and all that was dear to her.
He curled his fingers around the reins, to keep from reaching out to her, to keep from touching her. A fine woman like her didn’t need a man encroaching on her grief. Not just yet.
“What thoughts are you keeping, Mr. Hunt?” Rose Small asked.
“It’s a strange path life leads a person down. Never know how it will all turn round. For bad or good.”
Rose thought on that a moment. “I suppose you’re right. I’m looking forward to where the path will take me. Aren’t you looking forward to your path, Mr. Hunt?”
Cedar made a point to stare at the horizon ahead, instead of where his gaze wanted to linger: on the beautiful Mae Lindson.
“Not so long ago, I didn’t think I was,” he said.
“And now?”
“Now I think I’ve changed my mind. Might be a thing or two I can look forward to.”
“Finding the Holder?” she asked.
“I suppose.”
Rose looked over at Mae, then turned an innocent look to Cedar, though there was a wicked sparkle in her eye. “Is there something else you’re looking forward to?”
“I suppose.”
“Don’t reckon you’d tell me what?” she pressed.
“Nope. Don’t reckon I would.” He nudged his horse into a trot, then a slow lope, and began down the road to the east, and all the promise this fine land could hold.
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EPILOGUE
Mr. Shunt sat cross-legged in the shadows by the shattered and burned train car, the last bits of him hooked, stretched, and sewn into place. It had been a slow and grueling process to piece himself back together, and he had used spare parts from the other Strangeworks to fill the holes Jeb Lindson and that cursed man Cedar Hunt had left in him.
His gray, gore-covered coat wrapped him from chin to boot, his face hidden beneath layers of silk and cotton
