Dead Iron aos-1 Read online

  Cedar could feel the restlessness in the little Oregon town. Everyone twitching for a bit of sunlight that gave off enough warmth to last a day. Twitching for moving on, moving up to a better place in the modern world, to a better bit of luck. Before winter caught hold and locked the town tight between the feet of the Wallowa and Blue mountains.

  The people of Hallelujah had been holding out against hard times for too long now. Killing winters, broken supply trains and routes, sickness. They hung their hopes like threadbare linens on the iron track that was being laid, tie by tie, coming their way with the promise of a new tomorrow and all the riches of the East and South.

  No wonder they bowed to the rail man. He was all they had left to hope for.

  Cedar strolled down the street, dodging a slow horse and a passel of kids chasing after a pig that must have gotten loose from its pen. The dirt under his bootheels was still hard from a season of sun, and he made good time crossing one street, then another.

  Didn’t matter how busy town was today. The Madder brothers followed him like a pack of dogs scenting meat.

  He stopped at the end of the street. The western edge of forest crowded up here, making homesteading more difficult. His cabin was about three miles into those trees, up the foothills a bit, by a creek that flowed through the seasons. If the Madders had some business with him, he’d rather deal with it here than at his home.

  He didn’t want a fight, and he didn’t want to draw his gun. But he’d do both to keep the brothers off his heels tonight.

  “There something on your mind, boys?”

  The middle brother’s name was Bryn. Cedar could pick him out of the pack because he was always covered in dirt and grime from the mine—except for his hands, which he kept scrubbed from the wrist to fingertips, clean as a preacher’s sheets. He stepped forward.

  “We think maybe you lost something.” He stuffed one of his clean, calloused hands into his overalls pocket and drew out a pocket watch. He gazed down at it longingly until the oldest, tallest, Alun, said, “Go on now, Bryn. Make it right.”

  Bryn Madder looked away from the watch and held it out for Cedar. “It’s yours. As much as. I . . . found it. A while back. Broken. I cleaned it. Didn’t fix it, though. Wouldn’t take to fixing, and that’s a curious thing.”

  The watch swung like a pendulum, stirred by the breeze: a silver disk, an accusing eye, cold and hard as hatred.

  “A lot of men carry a watch.” Cedar’s throat felt like he’d just swallowed down ashes of the dead. That watch was not his. But he would know it anywhere. It was his brother’s. And he’d last seen it on him the day he died.

  Bryn nodded. Tilted his chin so he could look at Cedar through his good left eye. “This one you lost. We found it. Maybe eight months ago when that rail man dandy came to town. Thought about keeping it . . .” His voice trailed off on a note of longing.

  “But it’s not the sort of thing we’d need,” Alun said, more for his brother than for Cedar. “Now, if it had been something useful to us, like say that striker we’ve seen you carry a time or two . . .”

  “Is that what you want for it?” Cedar could not look away from the watch, gently swaying like an admonishing finger.

  The brothers paused.

  Cedar glanced at the oldest, Alun, who wore a heavier beard than the rest. “How much?”

  Alun did not look away. Instead, he did something very few could do beneath Cedar’s glare. He smiled.

  “Our blood comes from the old country, Mr. Hunt,” he said. “Before Wales had that name. And our . . . people . . . have always been miners. A man sleeps and breathes and sups with the stone, he begins to understand things.”

  A wagon pulled by mule, not steamer, rattled past, taking crates and sacks and barrels of food, nails, mended shovels, and hammers out to the rail work twenty miles south of town.

  “All things in this world eventually soak into the soil and stone,” Alun said once the wagon had taken its noise up the street a ways.

  “It gets to be where a man, one who knows what to listen for, can hear the stones breathing. It gets to be where a man knows what the stones have to say.”

  “The watch.” Cedar didn’t care if Alun thought he could hear rocks conversing. Hell, for all Cedar knew, he was telling true and he could talk to stones. The brothers had strolled into town a year ago, just ahead of the rail man, and quickly struck the richest silver vein in the hills. Maybe they’d gone out and asked the mountain where the metals were hid.

  And maybe the mountain had sat down and told them.

  Talking to rocks wasn’t near the strangest thing Cedar had encountered on his walk across this country. He had seen the Strange—the true Strange—creatures that hitched along from the Old World, tucked unknown in an immigrant’s pocket, hidden away in a suitcase, or carried tightly in the darkest nightmare. He had seen what the Strange could do when set free in this new land. He had seen it more clearly than someone fixing to blame the bogeyman for a missing child. He had seen the Strange personally, been touched by them.

  And he still hadn’t recovered.

  It looked like the Madder brothers’ Strange had done them benefit. They were wealthy by any man’s standard, even though they never spent much, never left the hills much, and lived like they didn’t have a penny between them.

  They had a way with metal; that was sure. It showed in their buckles and buttons, each carved with a symbol of a gear and wrench, flame and water. It showed in the glimpses of brass and copper contraptions that rode heavy in the pockets of their oversized coats.

  And it showed in the customized Colt pneumatic revolvers glinting in handworked silver and brass, holstered at their hips.

  He was of a mind they were also devisers, though they’d never come out and said such. Made him curious why they didn’t want to admit to their skill. A deviser could make things of practical applications that stretched the imagination. Yet folk in town always turned them a blind eye, while looking instead with hope to the rail man, LeFel.

  “The watch isn’t yours, is it?” Alun Madder said. “Stones say this belonged to someone close to you. Someone gone. A brother?”

  Cedar held out his hand for the watch. “Those stones of yours talk too much.”

  That got a hoot out of all three of them.

  “What is your asking price for the watch?” Cedar said.

  “The striker. And a favor.”

  “What favor?”

  The Madder brothers all shrugged at the same time. “Don’t know,” Alun said. “Don’t need a favor yet. But when we do, you’ll answer to us and pay it.”

  Cedar paused. He didn’t like being left owing to any man, much less three. But that was Wil’s watch. Rightfully his now. He wanted it. More, he wanted to know how it had suddenly appeared, all the way out here, almost four years after his death.

  “One favor only,” Cedar said, “not one for the each of you. I’ll do nothing that brings harm to the weak, the poor, or to women and children.”

  “Yes, yes.” Alun rubbed his meaty hands together. “And the striker.”

  “You’ll have it next time I’m in town.”

  “Agreed,” Alun said.

  The Madder brothers leaned in and extended their right hands as one, palms pressed against knuckles so they all shook Cedar’s hand at the same time. Practiced, unconscious—they’d probably been sealing deals that way since they could talk.

  Cedar held his hand out for the watch again. Bryn released the chain and sighed as the watch slipped through his fingers into Cedar’s.

  It should be cold, made of silver and brass with a crystal face. But the watch was as warm as if there were a banked coal tucked inside. It didn’t tick, not even the second hand. It was still, dead. And warm as a living thing.

  He tried hard not to look surprised or look away from the brothers.

  “Just a watch, you say?” he asked.

  Bryn answered. “So much as. Broken when we found it. Not much of a timepiece if i
t can’t tell a man the time.” He shrugged.

  Alun was still smiling. “Enjoy your time, Cedar Hunt,” he said. “Don’t forget our striker. Come on now, Bryn.” He punched Bryn on the shoulder—a hit that would have staggered a much bigger man, though Bryn barely seemed to notice—and the two of them started back into town.

  Their brother, Cadoc Madder, lingered behind as Alun and Bryn angled south toward the saloon and the boardinghouse, whose rooms hadn’t been full since the gold rush. Next to that stood the bordello that had never needed to worry about an empty bed now that the rail, and its workers, had come to town.

  Cadoc, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke.

  “If you ever want to know what else the stones say, about . . . things and such . . . you know where to fetch us up.”

  “Didn’t figure your rocks were quite so conversational,” Cedar said.

  Cadoc rolled his tongue around in his mouth, pushing out his bottom lip, then his top, as if washing the grit off his words before using them.

  “The railroad is coming. Can you hear it, Mr. Hunt? Crawling this way on hammers and iron. Breathing out its stink and steam. Thing like that brings change to a place, to a people. There’ll be more metal above the ground than below soon.

  “Leaves a hollow that needs filling. Scars more than stone deep.” He paused and studied Cedar a little closer. “But then, you know about the things that can change a land, or a man, I reckon. You and your brother.”

  Sweat slicked under Cedar’s hatband. He didn’t know what Cadoc knew about Wil. About the change. The curse. Didn’t even know how the Madders could know. Cedar had not spoken of his brother in nearly three years.

  The wind laid a phantom hand between his shoulders, pressing there, telling him it was time to move on, move away, move west. Before his past caught up with him again.

  Before there was blood.

  But it was Cadoc who left, rambling down the street to join his brothers, not one of them with a care to look back at Cedar.

  Cedar fought the urge to go after them, to force them to explain the watch, and what they knew of his brother’s death. To tell him why the metal was warm as spilled blood.

  Instead he stood there, a sack of flour on his shoulder, his fist clenched around the only thing of his brother’s that remained, while the Madders bulled down the street through the crowd, looking like they’d welcome a brawl just for laughs.

  He’d come back later with the striker. He’d see if their talk was crazy, or if they knew something more. Something true. By then he’d have a firm hold on his anger and his hunger. By then he’d be less likely to do them permanent harm.

  And he would find out just exactly what their rocks had said about his brother.

  Cedar took a deep breath, trying to calm the beast within him.

  In the distance, the pump and chug of the steam matics working the rail set a drumbeat as the brown jug whistle sounded out lonely and hollow, like dreams coming this way to die.

  He crossed the road to the trail that led to his cabin up in the hills. He’d cook up some coffee, fry up some bread, and have a meal before the moon rose. After the moon set, he’d hunt for the boy.

  Because that was what a man did. And Cedar intended to remain a man for as long as he could.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It had been years since Mae Lindson called on the old ways. She promised Jeb she wouldn’t use them anymore. Not out here, so far west, where there was no coven to hide her. It was enough trouble, he had said, for a man of color to marry a white woman. Telling people she was a witch would only bring them quicker to their doorstep with torches in their hands and hanging in their eyes.

  But it had been three months. Three months waiting for him to come home. She was done waiting. Done wondering if he would ever come home to her. When she made a vow, it could never be unbroken—so was the way of her magic within the sisterhood. She had vowed her heart and soul unto this man, until death did them part. That vow, that promise, should have guided him home to her by now.

  She pushed the basket of dirt sprinkled with rose hips and wormwood closer to the hearth where the light of the rising moon would soon find it. The fire was crackling hot and strong enough to burn on to morning.

  The whistle and pop of the steam matics working the lines had quieted since nightfall. All the world of man had quieted. Now was the time for magic.

  Mae glanced at her door. A strong bolt made of brass and springs held it tight. That, Jeb had given her as a wedding gift. He had fashioned it with his own hands, as he had fashioned all the other beautiful things of wood and brass that filled the shelves alongside her pots and dishes and herbs and books. Just as he had fashioned her spinning wheel and her loom. He was never without a gear or fancy to carve, but only ever showed his creations to her.

  Still, the bundle of protective herbs wrapped along dried grapevines and rowan above the door did as much to keep her safe as Jeb’s bolts and devices. Herbs and spells to keep the Strange at bay.

  She pulled her shawl close around her shoulders and knelt next to the basket of dirt. The people of town were beginning to whisper about her. When she walked to town to trade her weaving for supplies, people talked. Said her husband had long left her. Said he was dead.

  But they were wrong. She still heard him, heard her husband’s voice in the night, calling her name.

  Mae rolled up her left sleeve, exposing her wrist and forearm, strong from tending the field, strong from tending the sheep and chickens. She placed her fingers in the basket of dirt and stirred, fingers splayed, counterclockwise. The dirt warmed slowly, soaking up the heat from the hearthstones. She hummed, settling into the feel of this soil beneath her hands, between her fingers, and breathed in the scent rising off the soil—of summer giving its life away to autumn.

  She sang the song slowly, words forming the spell that would find Jeb. Little matics and tickers on the shelf hummed along with her, echoing to the notes of their tuning.

  “My hand touching this soil, this soil touching all soil. All soil beneath my hand. All soil I know. The heartbeat, the soul of two who have vowed until death do us part. Jeb Lindson, husband, lover, soul.”

  She closed her eyes, held her breath. Pushed away the awareness of the wind outside the door, pushed away the sound of the fire scratching across the wood. Pushed away everything except the one clear need to feel Jeb’s heartbeat, somewhere, anywhere, in this world of soil and stone.

  After a long, long moment, there, beneath her palm, she felt a slow thump.

  Never before had one man been so difficult to kill. Mr. Shard LeFel watched with detached interest while Jeb Lindson balanced on one good leg and one bad ankle on top of a bucket. The rope around the man’s neck was thick and strong. So was the limb of the oak over which it was thrown.

  Plenty strong enough to bear the weight of the man, even though he was twice the size of LeFel and the opposite of him in every way. LeFel’s silver white skin rivaled alabaster, his features so fine and fair, artists and admirers begged to paint his likeness. His hair was moon yellow, left long and sleek with a black ribbon holding it back from his high, white lace collar.

  He wore no facial hair, nor powders, and dressed in the finest clothes, no matter the occasion. Suit, tails, and top hat from Paris, black gloves from Versailles, and one of his favorite vanities: a blackened and curved cane, carved from the breastbone of an African elephant, and plied tip to tip with catches of gold, silver, and deep, fire-filled rubies.

  But even if all those things were stripped of him, it would still be his eyes that held him apart from any other man. Glacier blue, heavily lidded, they drew people to him witless and wanting, as if they had suddenly seen their dreams come alive and breathing.

  It had proved a useful thing. In many pleasurable ways.

  The big man atop the bucket shifted again, his unbound hands reaching into the night as if the shadows could aid him. He was stone dark, skin and hair and eyes, his wide hands blistered and
calloused from a life of toil, his trousers and plaid shirt torn and stained—even before the five bullets ripped holes through his coat—directly over his heart, which continued to stubbornly, slowly beat.

  LeFel had killed him twice. Once with a knife, a rotting scar he bore at his neck. Once with a gun, the small bullet holes in his coat belying the amount of lead burrowed in the meat of his chest. Each time, LeFel had watched his servant, Mr. Shunt, bury the big man. Each time, Jeb Lindson had found a way to crawl out of his grave and go walking.

  Not much of a man left to him, really. Still, something drove him. Away from death and toward the living world. A heart like his, a soul that strong, was rare.

  And it was a great inconvenience to LeFel’s plans.

  LeFel glanced at the canopy of limbs above them. The moon would be up soon, full and strong. Strong enough to make sure Jeb Lindson stayed dead this time.

  “Please . . .” The big man’s voice scraped low, ragged. Too much the same as it had been in life.

  “You beg?” LeFel tapped the toe of his Italian boot against the wood bucket the big man stood upon. Not hard enough for the bucket to shift. Just hard enough for the hollow thunk to make his eyes go wide. It reminded him he was about to die. Again.

  LeFel smiled. It was a lovely thing to see that even in death there was still fear.

  Mr. Shunt, waiting at the edge of shadows, shifted, the satin and wool of his coat hissing like snakes against his heels. Too tall, too thin, Mr. Shunt kept his face hidden beneath the brim of his stovepipe hat that seemed latched to his head as if stitched there, and his turned-up black collar. His eyes, if ever they were seen, evoked fear, showing just what kind of creature lurked within the layers of silk. A very Strange man, indeed.

  Next to Mr. Shunt crouched a wolf. Common as scrub brush, that wolf was Shard LeFel’s newest and most useful toy. It wore a collar of LeFel’s own devising—brass and copper with crystal and carved gears—and a leash, which Mr. Shunt held in the crook of one finger.