by Devon Monk
“Vicinity’s not too far out of the way,” Cedar said. “We can take the night there and let the worst of the storm pass over.”
“I’ll tell the Madders we’ll be in town today. I’m sure they’ll be pleased as pigs in a potato patch.” She turned her horse and headed back to the big, slow-moving wagon a ways behind them.
Cedar urged Flint ahead of the party. An hour later, he’d made his way through the constant rain, down a deer trail and up a ridge, bringing him to a flat, short valley between hills. Across that flat valley spread a ramshackle collection of maybe thirty or so houses and shacks made of adobe and wood.
Vicinity.
Both a mining town and a trading post, Vicinity was an easy stop for folk taking the trail to Oregon or California.
Peppered with sagebrush and scrub, built without much thought to roads or the whyfors of coming and going, for that matter, the town washed up the hillsides and out to where the valley closed into a V.
There should be a barn they could stay the night, if the townfolk were hospitable, or agreeable to payment or barter. It was as good a rest as they’d have for miles. A lucky port in the storm.
Still, he paused, staring out across the place, listening for the sounds that usually filled a town. There was nothing but the rattle of rain on his hat, coat, and land around him, and the clack of the bit Flint rolled in his mouth.
No other sounds of life.
But there was a scent on the wind. A scent he knew well. It was the smell of the Strange, and it was more. It was the scent of the Holder, some part of it, here, nearly a state away from where it’d gone flying. He’d promised the Madders he would help them gather up the bits of it. Maybe his chance to do so was coming sooner than he’d thought.
The beast within him slammed hard against his will, raging. The beast, the curse he carried, hungered to hunt the Strange, kill them, destroy them. Cedar had no fondness for the nightmare creatures who slipped across this land either. But he held tight to his reasoning.
He wiped some of the damp off his face and peered through the failing light for a glint of lantern, a puff of chimney smoke. The town was as still as a broken watch. It was as if all the people were off to church, leaving not a child, dog, or chicken behind to stir.
That wasn’t right. Wasn’t the natural way of a town.
They should ride on, ride around this puzzlement. There was death and dying here. And the Strange lurked nearby, maybe the Holder too.
But with night coming on and rain drenching them through, they needed a place to rest. If Vicinity had suffered some kind of sickness or disaster and cleared out months ago, there would still be supplies they could scavenge and a roof and walls against the cold and rain.
Instinct might tell him to run. But reason told him they should check the town first, and ride on by only if there were actual signs of danger.
Cedar clicked his tongue and turned Flint back to rejoin the others.
Bryn Madder was on the little roan, forging the trail, with Rose and Mae right behind him. The bulky wagon brought up the rear, clattering along like a crazy circus sideshow all its own. Cedar didn’t know if Wil rode in the wagon or if he had gone out hunting, as was his habit just before sunset.
“Lovely weather we’re having,” Bryn said when he caught sight of Cedar. The brass monocle over his eye had just a glass lens now. Bryn rubbed the rain off it with the cuff of his shirt. “You find us some place a little drier to stop, like maybe beneath Niagara Falls?”
“Town just up a bit,” Cedar said. “Vicinity. Looks empty. Stinks of the Strange, maybe more than that.”
Bryn’s quick grin split his beard. “Sounds about right. You do have a way of stumbling into the most interesting of predicaments, Mr. Hunt.”
He maneuvered his horse—well, the dead man’s horse—past Cedar, following the trail like he was clopping along in full daylight. A second later, Cedar heard the click and scratch of a match as one of those green globe lanterns the brothers always carried caught flame.
Bryn tied the glass globe to the saddle, secured so the globe sat snug near his knee. From the clever positioning of mirror-polished metal inside that glass, the globe gave out a brighter and wider circle of light than any lantern Cedar had seen. And since it took such a wee flame to throw that much light, the thick glass wouldn’t warm to the touch for a long while.
Rose rode up to him, Mae right beside her. Rose had a lead line on Mae’s mule. He didn’t know when the girl had decided to do so, but he was grateful for her thoughtfulness. Mae must be deep enough in the thrall of the voices calling her home that she didn’t know what Rose had done.
“Did I hear you say the town’s ahead?” Rose asked wistfully. “That’s about the sweetest thing I’ve heard for weeks.”
“Might be trouble,” Cedar said.
“What sort?” Rose asked, glancing at Bryn riding off with a ray of sunshine tacked to his saddle.
“The town looks deserted. And I smell the Strange.”
Rose shrugged. “You always smell the Strange, Mr. Hunt. You’re made for it. Why, I’d bet if there was a bogey or ghooley in a ten-mile range, you’d know it.”
“I would. And I believe there is. So keep your gun handy.”
“Always do, Mr. Hunt.”
Mae didn’t say a single thing. She just sat her saddle, fingers working against each other like she was shucking peas from a pod. Her eyes were glassy, dazed, her lips pale. Full caught in the madness.
One thing was sure. When they made it to the sisterhood, and the witches gave Mae back her slipping mind, Cedar was going to sit down with each and every one of those women. No one should be driven from their good sense because of an old promise. A promise based on fear.
Mae had mumbled plenty during the three weeks on the trail. Pleading to the voices in her mind, maybe pleading to the memories of her past. Saying she wasn’t evil. Saying magic didn’t so much go bad in her hands as just set things to happening in the most final of ways. Her magic leaned toward curses, the making and breaking of them. Leaned toward vows and binding things and people together.
The sisters had turned that sort of magic on her, and bound her to the soil of the coven. So if ever she strayed too far from the sisterhood, she’d have to return home.
No matter what was in her way—weather, mountains, or madness.
Mae might not complain of the fine cruelty of such a binding, but Cedar wondered if maybe the sisters really didn’t want her home. Were maybe working hard to make sure she died trying to get there.
The wagon rattled up, Alun in the high driver’s seat. He’d traded his kerchief for a battered sombrero, the wide brim keeping most of his bulk dry beneath it. The pipe clenched in his teeth drew cherry red and the sweet smoke of tobacco rolled circles under the brim.
Cadoc Madder must be inside the wagon.
“Trouble, I hear, Mr. Hunt? Or town?” Alun called out.
“Could be both,” Cedar said. “Or the Strange. Vicinity is just ahead and empty.”
Alun reached down and pulled a shotgun the size of a small cannon up at his side, resting the barrel across the brake board, where his foot was braced. “Suppose this town has a saloon?”
“Reckon it does,” Cedar said.
“Then lead the way! One thing about the Strange, they aren’t much for drinking. Should be plenty for us no matter the state of things.”
Cedar gave Rose a look, but she already had her gun resting across her saddle horn.
No need to warn her to take care of herself again. Girl had good survival instincts. And that gun of hers had gained a scope and a few other bits he knew weren’t attached to it just a day ago.
“You tinker with the gun?” He turned and followed the bobbing green bubble of light on Bryn’s saddle, Rose and Mae falling in behind him, the Madders bringing up the rear.
“Just a little,” she said. “Last night I wasn’t sleeping much and I got to thinking that the shotgun has a heck of a kick, and I could probabl
y harness that energy and use it for a coil, if I had some copper wire and a spring, and a second barrel…” She pressed her lips together, then chuckled. “My apologies for rambling, Mr. Hunt.”
“No apology needed,” Cedar said. “Devising is a skill men hock the farm for. The wild sciences aren’t easy for most to comprehend, much less make practical of. You’ve a gift, Miss Small.”
“You’re kind to say so,” Rose murmured, looking down modestly and fussing with the metal trinkets in her pockets.
Mae was silent, swaying with the saddle, her face tipped up just high enough that her lips and chin caught the fall of rain off the brim of her bonnet.
Cedar caught sight of Wil moving through the scrub, following along cautiously. Wil had been captured by the Strange, used as a slave by them for years. He would know better than to do anything foolish.
Cedar navigated down the muddy path that served as a road into the town. He caught the scent of the Strange on the wind again, and again the odd tang that he’d last smelled on the Holder. Just strong enough to sense before it faded away.
They came upon the first houses set out in a fairly straight row along both sides of the road. The homes looked strong and weather-worthy and hadn’t fallen into disrepair.
But there was not a light in a window, not a stir in a yard. The smell of the Strange lay heavy here, like a low fog clinging to the ground, kicked up by their horses’ hooves. Bryn Madder paused where the road took a sharp turn to the left, leading into the heart of Vicinity.
Cedar pulled up beside him. The house ahead was situated so that the front door was visible. And so were the man’s legs across the threshold.
The man wasn’t asleep—held too damn still for that. Cedar smelled death and blood.
“Will you look at that?” Bryn asked. “Terrible way to let the draft in. Maybe we should roust him up, see if he’s breathing.”
“Maybe we should warn the womenfolk,” Cedar said.
“They’ve seen worse,” Bryn said.
That was true. Cedar took point and urged Flint down the road. More houses, none of the doors open, no other sign of people, except for the smell of blood and rot, and nothing and no one at the windows.
The town opened up into an area that had been cleared and flattened, likely for gatherings. They stopped there.
“Where do you suppose all the people are?” Rose asked. “I mean the live ones?”
“There are no live ones,” Cedar said.
“That fella laying in the doorway?” she said.
“Dead,” Bryn answered.
“Don’t think this is a place where wise men shelter,” Alun Madder said. “We’d best be moving on through.”
“Might be a thicket off east a bit,” Bryn suggested. “I’ll see if there’s anything to stand between us and the rain.”
“But we could find supplies here,” Rose said. “We need more than what we have to get the horses to Fort Boise.”
She was right. They all knew it.
Cedar nodded. “Let’s see if we can find a mercantile. Take what’s been left behind for ourselves, then check the barns for grain.”
“Might as well see if there’s liquor at hand while we’re at it,” Alun said. “For medicinal purposes, Miss Small.”
Rose shook her head. “No need to make excuses for me, Mr. Madder. I know you and your brothers polished off the last of the moonshine a week ago. And blew up your still.”
“All the more reason to restock,” he said.
“Would you help me get Mrs. Lindson into the wagon first?” Rose asked. “I don’t think she can sit the saddle for much longer and with dark coming on, I’d hate to discover she’d dropped off in a ditch come morning.”
“It’d be my pleasure.” Alun swung down out of the driver’s seat, dropping to the ground much more nimbly than expected from a man his size, and tromped over to her.
He and Rose coaxed Mae to dismount, then Rose led her carefully through the muck and mud to the back of the wagon.
Cedar stayed right where he was, one hand on his gun, his gaze restlessly searching the streets and houses for movement. The beast within him had gone still. Not because the danger had passed. No—because the danger was near upon them.
“You feel it, don’t you, Mr. Hunt?” Alun asked, coming back around the front of the wagon. He’d brought that monster of a gun with him and it rode slung across his shoulder with a wide leather strap so it could rest at his hip, in easy reach.
He took the reins of Rose’s horse and Mae’s mule from Cedar.
“The Strange?” Cedar asked.
“And more,” Alun agreed. “Death.”
“The Holder’s been here,” Cedar said quietly.
Alun’s head snapped up like he’d just been slapped. “Are you sure?”
Cedar nodded.
“How? How can you tell?”
“I can taste it on the wind. In the rain.” He could feel it in his bones too, just like he could feel the touch of the Strange left lingering in the crannies and nooks of the place. This near to a piece of the Holder, he felt like his bones were tuning forks, resonating with the awareness of that odd device.
“You’ve a promise to keep us, Mr. Hunt,” Alun began, “to retrieve the Holder.”
“I’ll see it stays kept, if it’s near,” Cedar said. “But not while Rose and Mae are in this town. Whatever thing drove off the townfolk lingers. Once the women are safe, I’ll hunt the Holder.”
“Then we best be quickly moving on,” Alun said. “See to the womenfolk.”
“This woman folk isn’t going anywhere,” Rose said, striding over from the wagon with a lit globe in one hand. “Unless it’s looking for supplies.”
“Miss Small—,” Alun said.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Madder, but my mind’s set on this. We need food. We need blankets. And any coal, bullets, or medicines this place might have stashed. Plus, there is no way in tarnation those two hayburners of yours are going to find enough to forage once we hit the snows.”
“This town isn’t a proper place for a lady such as you, Miss Small,” Alun insisted.
Rose pushed her hat back, the tips of her fingers bare and dirty at the nail though a knit glove covered the remainder of her hand.
“Look in my eyes, Mr. Madder. What you’re going to find there is exactly what kind of a lady I am. But since you’re in a hellfire hurry, I’ll spell it out quick for you. I am a very determined lady. And tonight I am determined to loot this town.”
She took the reins of her horse out of his hand, leaving Mae’s mule in his keep. Then she swung up into the saddle. “You menfolk can do what you want, but I’m going hunting.” She turned her horse into the town.
“I’ll go with her,” Cedar said. “Stay with the wagon.” He clicked his tongue and Flint started after Rose.
“There’s Strange afoot, Rose,” Cedar said.
“So you’ve said, Mr. Hunt. We have guns. They don’t. Between the two of us”—she paused and glanced off to her left, where Wil was slipping through the shadows between houses—“the three of us,” she corrected, “I think we’ll manage.”
Cedar smiled despite himself. The girl had more spunk than a pot full of peppers.
“I think that place there has a sign on it,” Rose said. “Maybe a post office and general store?”
They got close enough that the light from the globe Rose held up caught at the whitewashed letters on the sign, neatly outlined in black. “Brown’s General Store,” Rose read out loud. “Good place to start.”
She swung down out of the saddle and threw the reins over the hitching post.
Cedar did the same, cocking his gun before walking up the step to the door. “Hold the light high, Miss Small.”
She did so, the light coming down over his shoulder and dusting off the shadows. He pushed the door inward with only a bit of a creak.
The smell of death hit him hard and full in the face. In the light of Rose’s lantern, the bodies of four people lyi
ng on the wood floor came clearly into view. A man, a woman, and two young boys. Dead as dead could be.
“Oh, God rest their souls,” Rose breathed behind him.
Cedar strode into the room, but Rose hesitated. He heard her pull the shotgun she carried before stepping in.
He didn’t see anyone else in the long, narrow room. Nothing was moving, not even a scratching of rats. He crouched next to the bodies and turned the man over so he could see what injury had felled him.
The man’s eyes were missing. As if they’d been sucked out like a grape from its skin, leaving clean bloody sockets behind.
He was also missing his thumbs.
“Was it man or animal?” Rose asked, bringing the light with her. She caught sight of the man’s face and made a small sound in the back of her throat.
“It was the Strange. Or at least they smell of it.” Cedar rested the man back the way he’d been and moved the woman enough to see that she was missing both her ears and her nose. As for the young’uns, both of them had holes where their hearts should be.
“Indian don’t mutilate like this. Could be a white man who likes to collect souvenirs.” He frowned. “Not an animal, at any rate. I’ve never seen anything like this from Strange either. The injuries don’t add up to the thing that killed them. Well, except for the boys.”
The other injuries weren’t enough to kill a person right out, and certainly not enough to drop the entire family in a heap, as if they fell dead at the exact same moment.
Was that something the Holder could do? Fall down over a town and kill everyone dead? If that was the case, who, or what, had strolled through town gathering up body parts like they were out picking berries?
The bodies were cold, but no longer stiff. Fresh enough it hadn’t been long, but not so long the bodies had bloated. Whatever had dropped them dead had done it within the week.
“They look picked over,” Rose said. “Just bits taken.”
“Harvested.” Cedar stood and looked around the room. Stock and supplies filled the floor-to-ceiling shelves. There was enough food and blankets here to outfit them for the road. They’d just need to find grain and hay for the horses to finish stocking up.