Dead Iron aos-1

by Devon Monk

  Mae looked into her eyes. Rose had seen pain in her life, but Mae knew she’d never lost everything in the world worth breathing for. “The pain of loving someone never heals.”

  Rose pulled her hand away, flinching like she expected a switch to her back. Mrs. Small had obviously never learned to curb her temper before using the switch.

  “I don’t mean to overstep—,” Rose said.

  “And you haven’t.” Mae forced a smile. “I do appreciate your concern.”

  Rose nodded, and started off toward the back of the room. “If you’d wait out here, Mrs. Lindson,” she began.

  “Mae,” she said. “I’d think by now you’d be calling me by my given name. As a good friend ought.”

  Rose tossed a smile over her shoulder and Mae marveled at the joy in it. There was something alive and glowing to her. She was the kind of woman folk should be drawn to, men should be drawn to. A strong charisma. But she’d learned to hide that light under a bushel. Mae figured she rarely showed anyone her true self. No wonder she wasn’t married.

  “If you’d wait a tick . . . Mae,” she said, “I’ll bring out your box.”

  Rose slipped through the doors at the corner of the shop. The mercantile wasn’t a bank, but they had safe vaults made of cast iron. So heavy, it was said, each plate had needed a barge of its own and a full team of oxen to drag it to town. The Smalls had hired up the blacksmith to weld together the plates and set clever locks, so that anything within that vault needed a combination of keys to retrieve.

  Fireproof, bulletproof, and heavy enough it was thief proof. People of town deposited money at Haverty’s bank, but other valuables, jewels, rings, notes of property, and such, were often as not given to the Smalls for safekeeping.

  Mr. Haverty wouldn’t deposit money from a black man, but Jeb had done the odd job for Rose’s father, Mr. Small. In return, Mr. Small tolerated keeping their money, so long as Mae gave them a blanket or length of lacework every season in payment for the safe box.

  Rose once told Mae that Mrs. Small sent the blankets and lace down to her sister in Sacramento, where they fetched a high price from city folk.

  Mae walked through the store, not much seeing the items for sale. Outside, the noise was starting to pick up as the men who worked LeFel’s rail came into town for a midday meal, drink, or gamble.

  “I think I have it all here.” Rose pushed open the door, the box propped under her arm and hard against her hip. “One box?”

  “That’s right.”

  Rose carried the box to the countertop and set it down. “I forgot to ask if you have the key. My father keeps the box keys in another location I’m not privy to.”

  Mae withdrew the key from her pocket. “I have it here.” She walked over to the counter, then set the key in the lock and gave it a turn. The internal gears snicked, and the lock sprang open.

  The light in the shop grew darker as one of the railmen shadowed the door, stomping his boots of dust before removing his hat and stepping into the store.

  “Afternoon, sir,” Rose said, moving out away from the counter. “Can I help you find something?”

  “You the owner?”

  “No, sir. Owner’s daughter, so I know my way around the shop. Maybe you’re looking for the doctor, though?”

  Mae glanced over at the man. He was rawboned, tall, looked like he drank far more than he ate. His left hand was wrapped with a dirty cloth, stained with blood. Like all the railmen, he carried a gun at his hip.

  “If I was looking for a doctor, I’d of found one,” he said. “You got any of the fireproof gloves for sell? Those damn matics boil the meat off a man.”

  Rose gave him a smile that would sweeten honey, but still had a bit of sting to it.

  “We sure do. Right back there on the shelf to the right, below the washboards. Cowhide suede with wool felt inside. Come in special from Chicago just last month.”

  He headed down that way, and Mae was very aware that Rose did not turn her back on him, but instead put her hand in the pocket of her apron. Mae wasn’t certain what she carried in those pockets, but from the set of Rose’s jaw, she’d guess it wasn’t a Bible.

  Mae opened the lid of the box and picked up the canvas bag. She pulled at the cords and glanced inside. This purse held more silver than copper, and no gold. She hesitated. It was enough to buy a horse, or a small matic to sort or thresh the crops, or plow the field. Maybe enough to set her right for the long winter ahead. She’d been saving it in hopes she and Jeb would one day need to put a room on the house for a child, or to send that child to a good school down in California, or back East.

  No hope of that now. That tomorrow was gone. All the good this money would do now was buy her a man’s death. She tucked the purse into her other pocket and closed the lid on the empty box.

  Rose came back around the counter, dusting again, her gaze never leaving the rail worker for long.

  Mae glanced over at the man. He slid looks their way, nervous, as if waiting for something. He did not seem to harbor intentions of the neighborly sort.

  That was the downfall of having the rail push through. Too many men and women who followed the great landway were desperate folk who had supped on hard luck too much of their life. Robberies, shootings, and more followed in the wake of the rail.

  Hallelujah might be putting itself on the map, but that mark would be made in blood, as well as iron.

  Mae locked the box and took back her key. “Thank you, Miss Small.”

  Rose nodded and put the box at her feet behind the counter, out of the man’s sight.

  “Is that all for you today?” Rose asked.

  “I’ve a mind to wander the store a bit until your father arrives,” Mae said. “I have a pertinent question for him. He’ll be back any moment now, isn’t that right?”

  Rose shot her a look of thanks for the lie. “Why, I suppose he will. Said it wouldn’t take him but a shake to finish his business with the sheriff. Said Sheriff Wilke might even come back to check the new rifles we got in yesterday.”

  At that, the man in the back stopped dawdling and came up to the counter to pay. Mae stepped aside and found herself interested in a collection of fragile glass globes with thin copper wires threading them set in a straw-filled bucket not far away. The man paid, took his gloves without a word, and left just as the tiny bird on the windowsill chirped the hour.

  Outside, the water clock tower whistled out the noon bell, a melodious, lonely chord.

  “I’m obliged to you,” Rose said. “Never know what those sorts of men have in their mind. Mr. LeFel works them like demons. Come in wild-eyed and mean, near often as not.” She made it sound matter-of-fact, but Mae could see the slight tremble in her hand as she brushed her hair back from her face. Rose might be too old to marry conventionally, but she was very pretty. Too often a man took that kind of beauty to be his right to spoil.

  “You keep a gun in your pocket?” Mae asked.

  Rose gave her a level gaze. “A proper woman wouldn’t,” she said. “But don’t suppose I’m so proper as some.”

  Mae nodded. “That’s well and wise of you.”

  Rose’s smile was sunshine and summer breezes again. “Such talk! If my mother heard me, I’d be left scrubbing floors for the remainder of my God-given years. Is there anything else you’ll be needing today? I cooked up a rhubarb pie this morning. I’d be happy to bring it out to your place this evening, and maybe sit for a bit of tea?”

  “No,” Mae said, “don’t bother yourself.”

  Rose looked disappointed. Mae realized she wasn’t asking to give the pie out of pity, but out of a need for friendship.

  “I’m just not in the conversing mood, Rose. I’ll come by again soon. To bring those blankets I’ve finished. And the lace, of course. When again is Mrs. Haverty’s daughter being wed?”

  “Not for three weeks, if a minute,” Rose said. “Though they’re going on about it as if Becky and John are going to burst out into vows any minute now.” S
he’d picked up a small spindle from the shelf and she was rolling it between her hands, the wood clicking against the thimble on her finger.

  Rose never held still, her fingers always flying from one thing to another as if all the world were something that needed touching, changing.

  “I’ll bring the lace before then. Will you tell Mrs. Haverty that for me, if you see her?”

  “I’d be more than happy to.”

  Mae started for the door.

  “I don’t suppose you’re looking for the Madder brothers?” Rose asked.

  Mae turned in her tracks and gave Rose a long look. She still held the spindle, but was no longer rolling it between her palms.

  “Why would you think such a thing?” Mae asked, deeply curious. Rose might be winsomely clever, but she didn’t seem to have a knack for reading thoughts. Mae was certain she hadn’t mentioned the brothers to her.

  Rose shrugged but didn’t look away from the spindle and string.

  “Just a guess is all. If my husband had gone to his death suddenly, I suppose I’d be looking for a gun, in the least. Maybe other contraptions in the most. The Madders have a way with contraptions that’s better than the best in the old states, I’ve heard whispered.”

  She shrugged again and looked up at Mae. “It’s known they devise, though no one talks about it in the cold light of day. Only by candlelight when they think there aren’t ears around to hear.”

  “Do you know where the brothers are?” Mae asked.

  “They haven’t come into town today. I’d guess they’re up at the mine. You aren’t going out there alone, are you?”

  “I won’t be unarmed,” Mae said. “I’m not near proper as some either.”

  Rose nodded. “That’s well and wise of you.”

  The door opened again. This time a handful of women just come back from church sashayed in. They chattered like scrub jays before spotting Mae. One look at the golden-haired weaver and their perky demeanor snuffed right out, taking on the high-chin stilted manners of a trial, instead of an afternoon’s chance meeting.

  “Mrs. Lindson,” said Mrs. Dunken dismissively. The baker’s wife had a face that looked like it’d been pressed out of dough. Her eyes were deep set and nut brown, her nose a knot, and her cheeks round. She’d piled her hair up so high, it threatened to push her blue taffeta spoon bonnet right off her head, roses, lace, feathers, apples, and all. Mrs. Dunken had her nose in everyone’s business, though she didn’t lift a finger to keep her children—some of them, like her Henry, older even than Rose—out of making such trouble that the sheriff had a nightly seat reserved at their supper table. “Have you finally brought a scrap of lace today?”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Dunken,” Mae said. “No, I’m afraid not. I’ll be bringing it to town next I come, though.”

  “I heard your man is gone looking for work,” Mrs. Dunken went on. “Pity the rail man wouldn’t take his kind. Employs all sorts. Even the savages. At more than a fair dollar. I can’t imagine how you’ll survive until spring.”

  Mae’s shoulders drew back straight and hard. She’d heard worse, been through worse than four women’s scathing stares and bitter barbs. She’d likely endure more before the day ended, what with the death she was contemplating. “We’ll manage, thank you kindly,” Mae said. “And thank you, Miss Small, for your time,” she said to Rose.

  “Been a pleasure,” Rose said. “I’ll let Mrs. Haverty know we’ll have that lace in plenty of time before the wedding.”

  As soon as the word “wedding” left Rose’s mouth, the women started up again like a flock of hens tattling over scraps of seed.

  “We’ll settle this nonsense for good,” Mrs. Dunken said to one of her hangers-on—the long-faced, sad-eyed Mrs. Bristle. “Rose, fetch us the newspapers immediately.”

  The women bustled into the store, taking themselves back a ways toward the pharmaceutical counter, where glass bottles and waxes cluttered the shelves.

  And before Mae could step out the door, a man was blocking her way. Tall, and wearing the newest style from New York, Henry Dunken, the baker’s son, took his hat off his head and stepped inside. His eyes were green as river rocks, his jaw square as a sawed-off railroad tie, the rest of his features just as rough-hewn. He’d always had a meanness about him, and today was no different. He ignored Mae’s presence and scanned the store like a surveyor judging the yield of his claim.

  He pushed past Mae without a decent pardon-me and leaned an elbow on the counter. Then he helped himself to a handful of candy out of the jar and stared at his mother and her women, obviously waiting for something.

  Rose came from the back of the room with a booklet of papers. “Here’s all we have from the last year or so, Mrs. Dunken.” She looked up and caught sight of Henry. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth took on a stubborn line.

  “Where are your manners, Miss Small?” Mrs. Dunken snatched the papers from her. “You have a fine gentleman waiting for you. See to your customer.” She waved a hand at Henry, and in the same motion dismissed Rose from her service.

  Mae caught Rose’s gaze, and Rose gave her a bored look. She didn’t seem concerned about Henry. She stomped across the wood floor and stood behind the counter.

  “Good day, Mr. Dunken.” No honey in those words. Luckily, Henry’s mother was too busy arguing about sleeve lengths to hear her tone.

  Rose pulled out a ledger book and flipped through the pages. “I’ll add that candy to your father’s tab. Is there anything else your father will be buying for you today?”

  “Now, now, Rose,” Henry said. “Once I’m mayor of this town, a bit of free candy every once in a while might sugar my feelings toward your interests.” He glanced down at her bosom, then gave her a wide smile.

  “Miss Small,” Rose said coolly. “I’d be obliged if you used my proper name, Mr. Dunken.” She leaned a little closer to Henry and lowered her voice. “But I think you may want to reconsider your offer.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?” he asked, warming to her presence.

  “Because my interests all require you to cross lots off the short end of the earth.”

  Henry stood up tall and glowered down at her. Rose met his gaze with a bland expression. He glanced over at his mother, but she had heard none of it, then scowled at Rose again.

  “And I’d be obliged if you treated me with the respect due my station,” Henry said.

  Rose put her hand over her mouth and coughed to cover her laughter. “Of course, Mr. Dunken. Anything more I can get for you? We have a fresh batch of pride carted in from the East, if yours has gone and gotten bruised.”

  Mae hid an approving smile and walked outside. Rose could take care of herself. And it’d take more of a man than the troublemaker Henry to match her.

  After the warmth of the shop, the cool air felt like she had plunged into clean water. Her mule stood, head lowered, dozing in the afternoon sun.

  The wind stirred, bringing with it the voices of the coven sisters calling her home.

  East. She needed to be walking, needed to be packing, needed to be riding east. Mae could hear their voices as clear as the rattle and thump of the matic on the rail, as clear as the clatter and jingle of horses and gear making their way between the shops of the town, as clear as the laughter rising up from somewhere off by the butcher’s shop. A pain in her chest flared out as the bind between her and the coven tightened like a string being pulled.

  No. She swallowed hard and held tight to the porch rail until her mind cleared and the sisters’ call eased.

  She knew the sisters’ call would only grow stronger. And each day she held off returning to her own soil, the more time and effort it would take for her to resist.

  Mae took a few deep breaths, then rubbed Prudence’s nose to wake her. She untied the reins and hitched back up into the saddle.

  She looked up the street. More people walked between the wagons that were loading and unloading crates and barrels and bushels, people scurrying from wagon to storehouse
. Winter was coming. The whole town knew it. Like ants desperate to get the last bit of food beneath the ground before the frost hit, the folk of Hallelujah were working to stock up against the coming storms. But farther off north, cool as the heart of a sapphire, stood the Blue Mountains. And at their feet was the Madder brothers’ mine.

  The sun shifted from behind a cloud, a dark shadow skittering down the street as the wind on high blew the clouds across the fields, tearing them apart until they were gone.

  Sunlight poured down, strong as summer ever was, lighting the way north. As good an omen as she’d likely receive. With the sunlight on her back, Mae headed down the road toward the shadow of the mountains.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Shard LeFel knew Mr. Shunt lingered, a dark shadow among shadows, inside the doorway at the far end of the railroad car that served as LeFel’s living room. LeFel was always aware of the Strange, as one is aware of a draft that lets in the frigid breeze.

  But it was not the Strange that held his interest most today. It was the two other creatures in the room—one a wolf and the other a boy.

  The wolf was a mottle of black and gray, its underbelly and legs white, the tips of its ears and the top of its head pure black. It was chained and shackled, its neck caught so high and tight in the collar that it panted to breathe. Even so, it strained to reach LeFel, hungry for his blood, and would likely break its bonds if not for the brass collar with clockwork gears that let out a pitch only the beast could hear and clouded its mind.

  The boy lay upon a simple cot, wrapped in a striped wool blanket as if tucked tight against a fever. His eyes were glossy; his red hair stuck up in unruly curls that were darkened by the sweat on his brow. He was staring at LeFel as if he could see right through him.

  It took no collar or geis to keep the child quiet. No, LeFel had found that all it took to keep the boy complacent was the correct mixture of drugs.

  “Mr. Shunt,” LeFel said, more to get rid of the Strange than out of any sense of compassion, “bring the beast a crust of bread and water, and for the whelp, a bit of porridge.”