by Devon Monk
Just as she’d thought, each brother had stepped away from the bars. As a matter of fact, Bryn and Cadoc were even farther back in the cell, each of them leaning one hand against the stone wall there, as if loitering in front of a saloon.
Only Alun stood in front of the sheriff. And he was smiling.
One thing Rose had learned in the time she had known the Madders was a smile like that meant they were intending to make trouble.
“These metal bars are more than strong enough to hold us right where we stand. Only thing is, I can’t say the same thing about the stone in which they’re anchored. Do you see that?” Alun pointed to the ground.
The sheriff looked down. “The floor?”
“The floor,” Alun agreed. “Brick and mortar. Stone held together by more stone.”
“Your point, Mr. Madder?”
“Well, stone isn’t at all the same thing as metal. Stone is known to crack, break, to move about if it so chooses. Metal? It stays in one place unless a man goes through some hard sweat to shift the stone aside and break the metal free. If a man really wants to set metal free, all he has to do is convince the stone to step aside a bit.”
Bryn and Cadoc both had something small and shiny in their hands that looked like a brass piston. They placed the bottom of the piston against the wall where they were leaning and then depressed a button at the top of the device.
The building filled with the sound of ice cracking. Rose glanced at the ceiling and floor. The sound wasn’t coming from outside the building; it was coming from inside. Every wall around her, the floor, the ceiling, was breaking apart. Cracks in the stone nearly a finger width snaked out from the base and top of each bar of her cell and ran lines up the walls.
The entire jail was cracking apart, all the stone crumbling.
“Rose!” Hink yelled. “Are you all right?”
“Fine!” she yelled back.
But the noise had brought all the rest of the lawmen crowding into the hallway.
“What in the hell is going on?” the deputy demanded.
The sound faded like the last rumble of a distant drum, and it was eerily quiet inside the jail again.
Until Alun spoke. “The rocks moved aside a bit,” he said. “So the metal could come free.”
And then Alun pressed one finger against one bar of his cell. The bar creaked and fell out into the hall.
Like a cascade of dominoes that just needed a push, all the other bars of his cell fell out too. And so did all the bars of the other cells.
There wasn’t even time to take a deep breath before the entire jailhouse erupted into a brawl. Prisoners rushed for freedom, prisoners rushed the lawmen, prisoners rushed prisoners, raising bare-knuckled fists or brandishing the bars of their cells.
The Madders were right in the thick of it, throwing punches at every man who wore Vosbrough green and laughing their fool heads off.
Rose ducked through the space of two fallen bars and kept her back against the side of the hall as she made her way toward the main room. The fight was an undulating sea of men and sweat and swearing. There were twice as many prisoners in the place as she’d seen on her short walk down the hall. Maybe the jailhouse was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside.
Right behind her was the cell with the dying man. She glanced in. He turned his head and opened his eyes, just slits of pain.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask her to save him or give him mercy. Still, there was something that caught at her, caught at the deep parts of her, and made her want to help him.
“Time to be moving.” Hink came up behind her and grabbed hold of her arm.
“We have to take this man with us.”
“No, we have to get out of here,” Hink said.
“I’m not going if he’s not going,” Rose said.
Hink scowled down at her, and she held his gaze.
“Oh, for the love of glim, woman.” He gave her a small push out of the way so he could enter the man’s cell. “Death of me. Always thought it’d be my ship, or some pirate come to stab me while I sleep, but now I’m pretty sure it’s going to be you. You’re death in petticoats.”
He bent and without much fuss, picked up the man and slung him over his shoulder.
The man groaned, and promptly passed out.
Hink turned. “You.” He pointed at Rose. “Get walking. Now.”
Rose turned to do so and nearly ran into Bryn Madder.
“Rose? Thought you’d be long gone. Hey, there, Captain. What are your plans with that man?”
“Rose wants him carried out of here. I’m carrying.”
“Aren’t women curious contraptions?” Bryn asked.
“They are at that.”
“Curious contraptions?” Rose said. “It’s not as if men are exactly a deciphered wonder.”
“Rose, darlin’,” Hink said, “let’s finish this argument after we escape from prison.”
Bryn Madder stepped aside, and held his arm out for her like he was escorting her to a dance.
She took his arm, and they made a dash for the door, avoiding fists, broken bits of chairs, and swinging metal bars.
They were separated only once, and Rose made use of a lost boot to hit a man over the head, and then Bryn pulled her forward and out the door, Mr. Wicks on their heels.
Alun Madder stood outside the jail, smoking his pipe. “I do love a good morning brawl,” he said as he exhaled smoke. “Helps to get the blood moving. What exactly are you thinking of doing with that man, Captain Hink?”
“Ask Rose,” he said.
“What connection to him do you have, Rose?”
The fight seemed to be dying down inside, or at least there were fewer sounds of fists. There was, however, a gunshot.
“I think we can talk that over on the run, don’t you, Mr. Madder?”
“I surely do,” he said.
They took off at a run down the street and Rose couldn’t help but think of what a motley crew they made: Hink, with a man bleeding over his shoulder; the well-suited Mr. Wicks; the three rugged Madders; and herself—still dusty and unbelted—dashing away from the jail and down streets and darkened alleys at break-leg speed.
A few people stopped and stared, but no one took after them, nor stood in their way. That was nearly unimaginable to Rose, though she was grateful for their indifference. In the small town she’d grown up in, there would have been half the population of Main Street out to chase down people running away from a jail.
Here in the city, it appeared to be nothing more than a passing curiosity.
And then a great whistle went off, piercing the air and rolling over the rooftops like a banshee screaming. It must be a siren telling the city they had escaped. It must be calling in more men, more guns, more matics to stop them.
“Where are we going?” Rose asked as Mr. Wicks paused at the end of the alley and turned left.
“Did you bring your ship, Captain Hink?” Alun asked.
“No. Came in by other means,” Hink panted. He looked a little flushed and Rose suddenly remembered that he’d been shot before pounding his way through a brawl. Some of that blood on his coat might not be from the man he was carrying. It might be his own.
“Train,” Hink added. “And air cable.”
“Both?” Bryn asked, suddenly seeming interested in the conversation. “How so?”
“I’d be happy to tell you, Bryn Madder,” Hink said. “So long as we survive this. You gents have any notions up your sleeves? Like, say, a bomb or two?”
“Not as much as,” Alun said. He pulled up short at the next opening to the street and reached out and grabbed hold of Wicks’s coat to drag him back into the shadows. “You hear that?” he asked.
Mr. Wicks shook his head. “Hear what?”
“Wagon wheels.”
“It’s a city, Mr. Madder. It’s filled with wagon wheels.”
“But these wheels are special.”
“How so?”
“They’re mine.” He stepped out a
nd put his fingers to his lips, letting off a piercing whistle Rose had heard many times when traveling with them.
“Your wheels?” she asked. “Someone has your wagon?”
“I’m hoping it’s Mr. Hunt or Mae Lindson.”
“Hoping?” Mr. Wicks said. “You’re betting our lives on a vague hope?”
“I’ve bet more on less,” Alun said. “Haven’t regretted it. Often.”
“This…this is ridiculous. Risky.”
“Says the man who just broke out of jail.”
Wicks shut up and gave Madder a slight smile. “You and I have had too little time to come to a full understanding of where we each stand for the good of this great country,” he said.
“Let’s not lose the mystery.” Alun patted Wicks on the shoulder, then stood out in the middle of the street and waved the wagon down.
27
Cedar knew that whistle. He guided the horses down a side street and up another.
There, in the middle of the road, stood Alun Madder. He had his pipe in one hand, blood drying on his knuckles. One eye looked like it was swelling shut. He also had a huge grin on his face.
“Ho there, Mr. Hunt. Have you found the Holder yet?”
Cedar set the brake on the wagon. “We came to break you out of jail.”
“Kind of you, but as you can see, unnecessary. As we told you, we Madders come and go as we please. The Holder?”
“I know where it is.”
“Is it at hand?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then by all means, be exact, Mr. Hunt.”
“There’s no time. We need to get you…” He glanced up, saw Captain Hink, Rose Small, a man who he didn’t know, and the other Madders.
“Rose,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Currently, I’m running for my life. Mind if we put this man in the back of the wagon? He’s hurt terribly.”
And that’s when Cedar realized it was Father Kyne over Hink’s shoulder.
“Yes, of course,” Mae said, hopping down from the wagon and rushing to the back, where she helped Hink and Rose get Father Kyne settled.
“Did you bring your ship?” Cedar asked as Hink strode by.
“Nope. Flew a train.”
Cedar wasn’t sure he’d heard that correctly.
“We won’t be needing a ship, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “We need an answer.” He rested his hand on the side of the wagon. “Where is the Holder?”
“Nearby, but beyond my reach.”
Alun grinned. “You’re beginning to sound like my youngest brother, Mr. Hunt. Can’t have that, he’ll get jealous. Tell me.”
“I’ll tell you when we’re out of town.”
“Perhaps you haven’t been listening to me,” Alun said. “We can’t leave this town. Can’t. Not won’t, not might. Can’t. That man?” He tipped his head toward the back of the wagon where Father Kyne was being laid out. “We’re bound by our promise to his words and his exact words were…” He looked over at Cadoc.
“‘You will find every child lost by this city and return them to their family and homes, and will not leave this city until you have done so,’” Cadoc intoned.
Alun nodded. “Those words, Mr. Hunt, those exact words bind us. We must find every last child and bring each home. Our feet won’t cross the boundaries of the city until we do just that.”
“Maybe it’s time you consider breaking a promise.”
“Thought about it,” Alun admitted. “If we let Father Kyne die, then we’d be released from the promise. Should we let the man die, Mr. Hunt?”
“Some might.”
“Maybe we should. But then, that’s the problem with promises. Each side offers up a little something of their soul for them and has a vested stake in the outcome. I don’t see any reason to leave, or to break our promise to the father back there, if you’re not doing your part to fulfill your promise to bring us the Holder. You say it’s here; I see no reason to leave.”
“I said it’s beyond my reach.”
“Where?”
“Beneath the ice, beneath the river,” Cedar said. “Out of my reach and any other man’s. Now, are you going to get in the wagon or wait for the lawmen to find you standing in the middle of the street?”
“Depends on where this wagon is going.”
“Father Kyne needs medicines,” Mae said. “We go back to the church and tend him.”
“Mae,” Cedar said, “We don’t have time.”
“He’s dying,” she said with a blank sort of matter-of-factness that did little to hide the anger in her eyes. “He’d want to do that in the heart of his church. That much we can give to him for what he’s given us.”
“Doesn’t much matter where a man exhales his last breath,” Alun said.
“I disagree with you, Mr. Madder,” Mae said, and her words were made of iron. “He’ll have the house of God around him.”
Then she climbed up into the seat next to Cedar. “As quickly as you can, Mr. Hunt.”
Alun caught the running board as the wagon started rolling. “Don’t suppose you know what injured him so?” Alun asked.
“He carried the curse while I hunted,” Cedar said. “While Wil and I hunted.”
Alun was silent, then finally shook his head. “The Kyne men are some of the toughest I’ve even known.” It was the first time Cedar had heard respect in Alun’s tone for the father.
“I’ll clamber back,” Alun said. “The church is as good as any place to hole up while you go get us the Holder, Mr. Hunt.”
“I’m not doing that for you, Mr. Madder.”
“If you want this man’s death to be worth anything, if you want the world to be safe from plague and famine and destruction, you will change your mind, Mr. Hunt. You and I can have a difference of opinion, but in the end, all that matters is the Holder. If we don’t bring it to rest, then the living won’t be living for long. And there will be no hope to save a single soul from the devastation that will befall us all.”
Alun worked his way back along the wagon, nimble and quick, then swung in beneath the cover.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Mae asked.
Cedar nodded. He knew the danger of the Holder being loose, knew the poison it could spread in the land, and in the people. And he knew that if it fell into a man’s hands, a man like Mayor Vosbrough, that the warning Alun Madder had just given them wouldn’t be nearly dire enough.
“First we tend Father Kyne,” Cedar said. “Then we decide what to do about the Holder.”
Mae reached over and slipped her hand up beneath his arm and tucked herself more tightly against his side. He could sense her worry. He could sense her fear. And more than that, he could sense the magic that leaped to her hands, eager to be used.
“Were you able to heal him?” Cedar asked.
“I…I bound his soul to his bones with magic, and that is all I could do with my supplies here. But I will need to release his soul before…before he passes. Otherwise he’ll be trapped there. Dead, but knowing.”
Cedar didn’t say anything. He could feel the shiver of revulsion that ran through her body. Once again he cursed the sisters of the coven who had gone to great lengths to convince Mae the power of binding and vows turned to nothing but evil in her hands. Many times her skill with spells had done just the opposite and seen that a merciful outcome was assured.
“You made a good choice,” Cedar said. “A kind choice. It will give him time—give us time to get him home.”
They rode the rest of the distance at as leisurely a pace as they could afford so as not to attract attention. Though Cedar saw lawmen on foot and on horseback obviously looking for the escaped prisoners, he did what he could to look all the while as if he were just going about his business and nothing more.
It helped that the Madders’ wagon wasn’t much to look at. It blended in well with all the other street traffic.
“Can you feel him?” Mae asked once they had made the far end of tow
n and were turning down the lane that led to the church.
“Who?”
“Father Kyne. I can sense a bind still between you. It’s thin, faint, but there is still something of him that clings to you. To your curse.”
Cedar hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he could feel him. “Some,” he said. “An occasional drifting pain, or warmth or cold. No thoughts, no images.”
She nodded. “His body won’t hold against those wounds for long.” She took a breath, then shook her head slightly and let it out.
“What?” he asked. “What were you going to say?”
“I could—I think I could bind health to him, strength to him.”
“Would he heal from it?”
“Yes. I believe he might, if it’s done soon enough.”
“Why do you hesitate?”
“The strength would need to come from somewhere. The health I bind to him would have to come from somewhere. His body is too injured and lacking in resources to heal on its own. He would need another living person to offer their strength to him. And the wounds and pain he bears would slowly drain that person, giving the healing time to take.”
“And if the healing didn’t take?” Cedar asked.
“I think I could break the binding.” Then, she said, stronger: “Yes, I could break it.”
“I’ll do it.”
She thought on that a moment. “We already know you can be bound to him. That he can carry your burden.”
“And I’ll carry his. For a short time. Long enough to know if he can survive.”
Mae squeezed his arm a little. “You are a good soul, Cedar Hunt. A very good soul in this world.”
Though Mae’s words made his heart swell, he wasn’t sure he could agree with her. He had done bad things, many bad things. And one kind gesture didn’t erase his past. Still, he was glad she, at least, found comfort in his decision.
He pulled the wagon up to the back door of the church. No use hiding it. If the sheriff and his men were looking for Father Kyne, they’d come out this way. If they were looking for the Madders, they might be on their way now to see if Cedar and Mae and Miss Dupuis were involved.
They might have only an hour or two or even just minutes before they were found.
Everyone, including the new man, Wicks, got busy taking the supplies—guns, dynamite, blankets—into the church. They moved the wounded Father Kyne as gently as they could on a makeshift sling and took him off to his bedroom, where he was to be laid out upon his bed.