Dead Iron aos-1

by Devon Monk

  Far off, the steam whistle blew. An engine grunted like an old drum beating, slow, heavy huffs that never seemed to come nearer. The railmen were working, feeding great gobs of wood and coal into the matics that winched and lifted and dropped: giant, ingenious beasts ripping the land apart and stitching it back together with iron and steel.

  The Madder brothers were right. There was a change coming. Coming on that rail.

  Cedar set the watch on the mantel, where it should have stayed in the night, and took up his coffee cup instead. He hefted the bucket of water off the ceiling hook, drank until his stomach stopped cramping, and did his best not to think too hard about the rail. That wasn’t his business. And he’d long ago learned it best to keep his mind on his own affairs.

  He crouched in front of the cold fire and ate the beans and cornmeal and venison with the wooden spoon he’d left in the pot. It wasn’t the food he hungered for—meat and marrow and blood—but it was plentiful and filling.

  Feeling more civilized, he searched the one-room cabin for his clothes and found them, folded upon his bunk against the wall.

  Folded.

  He shook his head. The change from man to beast was never clear to him, and things like this woke a powerful curiosity within him. Did he linger in some sort of half state, where his hands were still those of a man, or did the beast take him on full? Did he change back into a man but have no conscious thought and sleepwalk his way through half a night? When, exactly, did he find the time to fold his clothing?

  He didn’t know, and there was no one to tell him. Staring in the mirror had brought him few clues.

  The first change, four years ago, still held strongest in his mind’s eye. He remembered the fear, remembered the painfully satisfying stretch of his body and bones reshaping into lupine form. Remembered looking over at his brother, who, even in wolf form, still carried his own scent and copper brown eyes.

  He remembered most watching as Bloodpaw, the wolf he had been tracking, stood up and revealed himself as not a wolf, not even a man, but a god native to this land. The god had shaken his head and spoken in the tongue that the people of this land still spoke—a language Cedar did not know, yet for that one night, he had understood.

  “Your people come like rabbits running from wolves. They spread far and wide,” the god said. “Dark magic follows in their path. Poisons the rivers and the earth. Then come engines breaking the mountains down, punching holes from this world into the other.

  “Strange things cross through these holes. Strange things hunt and eat and thrive in this world.

  “But you are not a rabbit. You are a wolf. You will turn and hunt. You will drive the darkness back through the holes and send the Strange from this land.”

  The next thing Cedar remembered was waking far from that place, gripped by fever and nausea, the taste of blood and meat in his mouth. Wil was gone.

  A bloody trail led Cedar to the carcass of a wolf, whose throat had been torn out.

  He had killed his own brother.

  The fever lasted a full week. When he finally came to, he was miles away to the west, just outside a small town. He begged clothing and supplies from a Mormon family, who took him in and nursed him to health. Since he was more recently out of the universities and handy with matics, he repaired their boiler to repay the debt. Then he kept walking west, putting his past behind him.

  The jingle of a bridle and the sound of hooves brought Cedar back to himself, and his current state of nakedness. He dressed quickly, trousers and shirt dark enough that the dried blood on his hands would not visibly stain them. He dipped a second handkerchief in the bucket, wiped his face, jaw, and neck, and washed his hands. Then he rolled the handkerchief and tied it around his head against the cut.

  He didn’t know who was riding past, but the only people who came this far into the forest were looking to either end trouble or start it.

  He pushed his feet into socks and boots, lifted his hat from the hook. He left his goggles on the hook, and settled his hat over the kerchief on his head. Near the mantel he hesitated, and finally decided to tuck the watch into his pocket. He didn’t want it out of his sight.

  Then he took up his holster and gun, not a tinkered pistol, but a crystal-sighted Walker, gauged to the goggles he usually wore, and modified by his own hand for a faster reload. He strapped on the gun and holster and unbolted the door.

  The door had gotten the worst of the night, claw marks gouged knuckle deep all the way up to eye level. Something else he’d need to repair.

  Cedar stepped outside into the cool morning air that hung heavy with the honey spice of pines and pollen.

  A gray saddle mule made its way through the buzz and brush of late summer. On top of the mule rode a yellow-haired, light-skinned woman. Pretty. No, more than that, stunning.

  His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her and he felt as if a string had been plucked deep inside his chest, shaking off the ice that had numbed him for so long. Though it had been years since his marriage, and this woman did not resemble his wife, Catherine, an unexpected longing filled him.

  She was beautiful. And he found he could not bring himself to look away from her.

  Her eyes were deep brown, her face fine-boned and sweet. She wore a simple straw hat, with a sage-colored ribbon wrapped round it to match her paisley dress, as if for all the world she was out to enjoy a morning ride.

  But as she drew nearer, there was no mistaking the anger that set her lips in a hard line. No mistaking the flush to her cheeks that looked more from crying than the meager heat of morning.

  He didn’t recognize her, which surprised him. He thought he knew all the people in town.

  “Mr. Cedar Hunt?” she called out from a short distance.

  He blinked hard to end the staring he’d been doing, then walked a bit away from the door into sunlight.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He tipped his hat and wished he hadn’t. The band scraped the kerchief and got the cut bleeding again. “And who do I have the pleasure to be addressing?”

  She pulled back on the reins and stopped the mule. Not too close, which said a lot. She was a cautious woman. She did not dismount to his level. He would bet she had a gun hidden in her sleeve.

  Beautiful and smart.

  “My name is Mrs. Jeb Lindson.” She tipped her chin up, as if admitting such a thing usually brought on a fight.

  Jeb Lindson. The Negro who kept to himself out a ways on the southeast side of town. Mr. Lindson was a farmer and sometimes hired himself out to work other plots of land. Cedar recalled he was a strong man, and didn’t complain about hard labor, nor people’s manners toward him, so long as it brought him a coin or a quart of fresh milk.

  Cedar had done his share of roaming the area, and he’d seen the Lindsons’ stead, a neat place with sheep and chicken and a team of mules. Ordinary, except for the plot of ground near the house carefully marked off with a white picket fence and a row of river stones around it. Green always seemed to be growing inside that fence, no matter the season. Green and blooms. He’d suspected it was tended by a woman’s hand. He’d just never seen the woman before.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Jeb Lindson,” he said.

  His reaction seemed to catch her off guard, and her stubborn mask cracked to reveal the grieving woman beneath.

  It didn’t take a scholar to see her pain.

  “And yours,” she whispered.

  “What brings you out my way?”

  “I am looking to hire your services.”

  “Trouble with your stock?” Wolves weren’t the only thing he’d hunt, and hunting wasn’t the only answer he had for vermin. Certain plants took care of grazers, certain fences repelled smaller varmints, and certain matics took care of both.

  “Trouble with my husband’s death,” she said.

  Cedar frowned. “Don’t think I understand you rightly.”

  “My husband, Mr. Hunt, has been killed. Last night. Somewhere here in this valley. I want yo
u to find his body and his killer.”

  “If you don’t know where his body is, how is it you know he’s dead?”

  “I am his wife. A wife knows these things. A wife has . . . ways.” She twisted the reins in her hands. Even though she had repaired her mask, her hands betrayed her grief.

  “You don’t think an animal killed him, do you, Mrs. Lindson?”

  “No.” She opened her mouth to say something more, then looked away from his gaze. “No,” she said again.

  Cedar took in a deep breath, and let it out quietly. This was something he could not do. The town didn’t trust him, and if he killed a man among them, they’d just as soon hang him as listen to his reasons for it.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Lindson,” he said softly. “But if it’s justice you’re looking for, you’ll need to talk to Sheriff Wilke. I have little sway with the law in these parts.”

  “I am not looking for justice,” she said, her hands gone cold as her face now. “I am looking for revenge.”

  He’d thought as much. Folk got it in their heads that once a man made his living by the gun, any target was as good as another.

  “I don’t hunt men, Mrs. Lindson.”

  “I don’t consider my husband’s killer a man, Mr. Hunt. I consider him a monster.”

  Her anger was fueled by sorrow, by a broken heart. He understood it. Understood what it was like to lose a loved one, a spouse. He knew what it was like to lose a child, and a brother too. He’d been at death’s elbow all his life and felt death’s chill sickle slice through his heart more than once.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t hunt men.”

  She folded her hands calmly across the horn of the saddle. Stared at him with a widow’s eyes. “I have money to pay you, Mr. Hunt.”

  “Money you shall keep, Mrs. Lindson. I have another job, a more urgent task, to fulfill this day.”

  “Well, then. If money won’t change your mind, consider this: I see the curse upon you and I know how best to break it.”

  Cedar’s heart kicked at his ribs. Was she telling the truth? Could she be a messenger, an angel from the god who had torn his life apart and cursed him with a beast’s skin? Could she know some way to end his nights chained to the moon? Or was she just a woman gone crazy with grief?

  “Find my husband’s killer,” she said again, “and I will free you from what ails you. I will wait until sunset.”

  “You’ll wait for what?”

  “For you to change your mind, Mr. Hunt.” She clicked her tongue and turned the mule, urging it into a trot, then a ground-eating lope.

  Cedar stared after her, his heart pounding so hard, he couldn’t hear the mule’s hoof beats over the noise of it.

  The ear-cracking pop of a rail matic expelling steam ricocheted through the hills. Then the low hum of the matic chugging, and another pop, finally shook Cedar clear of his racing thoughts.

  Sunset. Just one day to decide if ending his curse was worth finding a man’s killer, and abandoning his hunt for the Gregors’ boy.

  It seemed far too many decisions for such an early hour. Though he was sorely tempted to ride after the widow, he couldn’t abandon the boy lost in the wilds, who might still have a chance at living if Cedar was quick enough to the hunt. Cedar decided his own curse, and what the widow Lindson knew of it, would wait a while longer.

  He took a deep breath and nodded to himself. First, he’d go looking for the Gregors’ boy. If he could find him fast enough, there might still be a chance he could talk to the widow, see what she knew about his curse. The boy, if he was still alive, didn’t have much time left.

  Cedar strode into the cabin and shut and locked the door. He lifted the lid on the trunk against the wall. His hunting gear was there, wrapped in a wool blanket. Everything a man could cobble together to aid in tracking, catching, and killing lay within those folds. Waiting.

  Cedar removed the first wrapped parcel and placed it on his bunk, deciding his course of action.

  Time was running out to save the boy. But the dead man would stay dead no matter how long the widow Lindson grieved.

  Jeb Lindson did not like the dirt or rocks or worms. It was cold. It was too cold.

  But there was a need pulling him. Like a sweet song calling. Something he should rise for, something he should fight for, on the other side of this dirt and cold that weighed his bones down. Something he loved more than life and wanted more than death.

  His brain, not being all it used to be, took time to worry an answer free. By and by it came to him.

  Mae. His beautiful Mae. She was the answer. She was waiting for him. Calling.

  He had vowed to be hers until death did them part. And he was not dead.

  It took time, maybe minutes, maybe hours, until his right hand found the silver box over his heart.

  The iron key was there. Colder than the grave, silenced by the dirt.

  It took time, maybe minutes, maybe hours, before he knew what to do. Finally, thick fingers dug away the dirt around his heart. And his thoughts singled to one slow chant: The key. The key. Turn the key.

  He grasped the key between his fingers and thumb.

  Cold. So cold.

  But cold could not stop him. Death could not stop him. Nothing could stop him. Not even Mr. Shard LeFel.

  He turned the key. Once. Twice. Thrice.

  His heart rushed with something warmer than blood, liquid fire pulsing fast and hot as the clockwork dragonfly’s wings rattled to life.

  It fueled him. It strengthened him. Jeb Lindson pushed at the dirt and rocks above him, digging his way free from the stones, digging his way into the world of daylight, into Mae’s world.

  Because he had a new thought now. A thought that filled him with a different kind of fire. He was going to kill Mr. Shard LeFel.

  Beneath the shadow of a tree, a small matic clicked and whirred. Sensing the tremble of stones and dirt falling from the dead man’s grave, it rose up upon spider legs, balancing its portly copper teapot body. The gyroscope and compass set within its belly pointed the ticker east. It skittered off on quick, spindly feet. East. To the rail. To the man who had left it spying here. To Mr. Shard LeFel.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cedar gave the cinch on his horse, Flint, one last tug, then swung up into the saddle. It hadn’t taken long to gear up. Guns and goggles in the saddlebags, canteen of water, and fry bread wrapped and warm. He’d hunt for the boy in the day, then find his way home before the beast took him.

  He had two more nights of the change. Fight as he might, he’d never been able to push off the change for the three nights when the moon came full. For three nights a month, a beast he’d be. Empty of a man’s thoughts, with nothing but a killer’s hunger. And he was not going to spend this night or the next as a blood-hungry beast out in the forest. It would be too easy to kill the very child he was looking for.

  Day was his charm right now. He’d need to talk to Elbert’s father and ride by their house to catch a scent or sign of what stole the boy.

  Cedar turned his horse’s nose to the wind, and started off to town. It was still early enough that dew clung to the underbrush of the forest and birds sang and rattled in the high branches of the ponderosa pines. He could taste the green and sage of needles crushing beneath Flint’s hooves, could hear the distant cluck of the creek over stones. Days after the change always made the world seem clearer somehow, like he’d been stretched out so far, he needed to take in the whole world to fill up his senses and the space inside him.

  Days after the change, he still carried some of the beast close beneath his skin, keen sight, keen smell, keen hearing. Enough that hunting the boy would be easier for him than any other man. He didn’t like it, but admitted it was the other gift the curse gave him. And he’d used it to his advantage more than once.

  Slants of sunlight through the pine and Douglas fir promised an afternoon warm enough to melt the morning’s dew. Far off, the clatter and chug of matics working the
rail sent out a stuttering pulse. They were crawling closer every day, trees falling, rocks crushing, iron and spikes driving, as the rail pounded down.

  He’d heard folk in town say the dandy was going to run the rail from Council Bluffs straight through town, and then clean over the seam between the mountains, breaking them in two. The track would snake onward, catching the mighty Columbia River, and opening the town to traffic from both the east and the Pacific Ocean.

  If it was true, the rail would be a life vein to such a little town. But Cedar reckoned there were easier ways across this territory. A man didn’t build and blast his way over a mountain unless he had a powerful need to.

  And it made him wonder why, of all the little towns in Oregon, Mr. Shard LeFel was aiming to bust his way right down the middle of Hallelujah.

  Cedar rode out from under the cover of the forest and made his way down into town. In contrast to the general commotion of yesterday, things seemed settled, folk going about their business of readying for the coming winter. About a dozen people halfway down Main Street surrounded a coach that was unloading three passengers and their trunks. One of the riders was striding off to the mercantile, a large letter bag with the wing and horseshoe patch clearly marking it as air-trail service. The month’s mail had arrived from Portland.

  Cedar rode on past. He knew there’d be no letters for him. There wasn’t a soul in this world left for him, not a home that would welcome him in.

  Folk looked up, and looked away as he went by, conversations dying out, then picking back up as if he harrowed winter’s chill behind him. It used to bother him, back when he’d first been cursed. But he’d grudgingly accepted that he could no longer count himself rightly among civilized men and women. Surviving these untamed lands took having a healthy sense of self-preservation. And even though he wore a man’s skin on the outside, folk sensed the beast in his soul.

  They were wise to shun him.