Dead Iron

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Mae woke with a start. She hadn’t planned to sleep, but only to rest in the living room chair. From the slant of light coming through the window, it was noon, or later.

She held her breath a moment, waiting to hear what had woken her. It was the creak of the bed frame. Mr. Hunt was moving.

Mae stood and smoothed her dress. She had taken the time to tend her own wounds again, to wash, and pull on a dress that was not torn and dirty.

“Are you up, Mr. Hunt?” she called out as she walked toward the bedroom. “I’m coming in.”

Cedar was standing next to the bed, the blanket wrapped haphazardly around him, his hair stuck up and tousled. But his eyes narrowed a little when he filled his lungs for a deep breath.

“Afternoon,” he said. “I’d be in your debt if you have something I could eat.”

Relief washed over Mae. She hadn’t known if he would make it through the night. “So I see the fever’s broke. You do heal quickly, Mr. Hunt. Are your wounds bothering you?”

“They will mend.” He took a step and placed one hand on the back of a chair beside the bed. He was moving slowly, not limping, but guarding a pain. “Food, though . . . if you have it.”

“I’ll see to changing your dressings after I put some coffee on to boil,” Mae said. “You’ll find some clothes in the drawers. They’ll fit you with room to spare.”

Cedar looked up at her, his hazel eyes clear. “I want . . .” Whatever he had intended to say he thought better of. “Thank you, Mrs. Lindson. For your kindness.”

Mae nodded and walked off to the larder. She heard him open the chest of drawers, and then the jangle of belt and suspenders.

Mae stoked the fire, added wood, and got the coffee on. She set bacon to cook in a pan, and mixed water and cornmeal together for jonny cakes. By the time the jonny cakes were in the pan sopping up the bacon grease, Mr. Hunt was done dressing and had walked out into the room.

“Could you reach down the honey from that shelf?” Mae asked.

Cedar did so, his bare feet making little sound against the boards.

“This here?” he asked.

Mae set the empty bowl down on the table and glanced over at him. It was an odd thing seeing a man in her husband’s clothes. He had on Jeb’s work breeches, belted around his narrower waist, and the blue flannel shirt tucked in tight to show the width of his shoulders. No undershirt, no shoes. Looked like he was at home, comfortable in a state of undress around a woman. But he kept his left arm near his side, still holding the compress there, she’d wager.

He was pointing to the top shelf with his other hand, his hazel gaze watching her with an expression she could not quite place.

“That’s the one,” Mae said, taking her eyes off the man and off the clothes he wore. She swallowed back a lump of pain. Wouldn’t do for nothing to cry. Wouldn’t make Jeb come back alive, or bring justice down on his killer. No, that was in her hands alone now.

Cedar Hunt put the honey on the table, found two plates, and set them out also, then stood there uncertain while Mae flipped the jonny cakes and turned the bacon.

“Have a seat, Mr. Hunt. It will be done in a moment or two.”

Cedar pulled a chair away from the table and sat.

“How did you know,” Cedar began, more of a voice in his words again, “last night—how did you know it was me?”

“I told you—I can see your curse. Though there’s more to it than I thought. You’ve angered someone in a terrible manner. Someone very powerful. What did you do, Mr. Hunt?”

“Survived.”

“Don’t think whoever cursed you did it just because you’re breathing. You’re certain you did nothing to anger them?” She pulled the pan off the rack and turned toward him. She slid one jonny cake and a bit of bacon onto her own plate, then filled Cedar’s plate near heaping with the rest of the breakfast.

He eyed the food, and Mae could tell it took everything he had not to dig in and start eating. She wondered what held him back, then realized it was manners. He picked up the fork and waited for her.

“I walked on the wrong land,” he said, while she poured coffee for them both and took her seat. “Pawnee land. I did no harm other than to be under the wrong god’s scrutiny.” He glanced over at her, his knuckles white around the fork, holding back a hunger she could almost feel from across the table.

She picked up her cup and took a sip, nodding at him slightly. “Eat your fill, Mr. Hunt.”

Cedar fell to the meal in front of him with vigor and made short work of the food. She wondered if the change to wolf made him ferociously hungry or if it was because of his wounds.

Mae ate more slowly. “A lot of men have crossed the gods, I’d imagine, and not been turned into a wolf for it. Have you any idea why the Pawnee gods would curse you so?”

Cedar swallowed coffee, even though it was hot enough to scald. “Told me there were Strange rising in the land. Told me I was to hunt them. Kill them.”

“Have you?” Mae asked.

Cedar paused, the cup not yet tipped to his mouth. “Yes, ma’am, I have.”

“And that hasn’t broken the curse,” Mae mused. “Have you tried any other things to break the curse?”

“By the time I came to my senses, I was walking west.” He took another drink. “I’ve stopped in any town that had books, but there aren’t many universities out this way. Any book I’ve found that mentions curses is a conflagration of legend and myth with very little scientific thinking to support the theories. . . .”

He took down another forkful of food and chewed thoughtfully. “There’s no logical, tested remedy that I could find; that much I can say.”

Mae took another sip of her coffee to cover her surprise. The man who sat across the table from her right that moment was more than a hunter, a loner, a mountain man. He was thoughtful, educated. She had never suspected he might have been university bound before he wandered out this way.

“Maybe in the books back East? The library in Philadelphia?” Mae finally said.

Cedar nodded. “It’s crossed my mind.” He spent some time and attention on the food again. “Haven’t had a lot of desire to head back that way. More people, more chances I could harm more than just the Strange.”

“How often does it strike you?” Mae asked.

“Every full moon. And I come out of it hungry as if I’ve been a week into a fast.” He drained his cup, then poured himself another, and looked up, the pot still in his hand, offering to pour for her.

Mae held her cup out, enjoying his company and the meal despite the circumstance for it. “And when you’re beneath the thrall of the wolf, can you reason things out? Remember what you do?”

“Not before the Madders gave me this chain.” He poured the coffee. “Last night is the first of my recollections as a wolf.”

“Is that why you went out to their mine?”

“No. Went out asking for something to help me find the Gregor boy.” Mae was silent at that.

Cedar waited a bit, then finally asked, “Did you find that man you were hunting for?”

Mae met his eyes, hazel with flecks of copper thick at the center, and more green at the ring. There was a kindness behind them, a compassion. It surprised her.

“I know who killed him. What killed him. That Mr. Shunt. And I cannot bear to think what he must have done to turn that child into such a beast. . . .”

“Wasn’t a child. It was a Strange too, come out of the pocket of Shunt.”

“He looked so much like Elbert. Warm, soft. He even cried like a child.”

“It wasn’t a child,” Cedar said again. “Had the smell of the boy upon it, though. The blood of him.”

Mae took another drink of coffee. “I’ve never seen such a Strange,” she said. “So . . . alive and solid.”

“They’re more than storybook tales and wisps of light,” Cedar said. “They’ve always been around, been more alive than God-fearing folk want to believe. I’ve yet to see any good follow in their path. Pain, madness, blight—seems to be all the Strange leave behind them. Maybe the Pawnee god wanted them killed before they became a force.”

Mae finished her food, and placed her fork on her plate. “Dark words, Mr. Hunt. Do you think the Strange are here to kill?”

“I haven’t seen proof otherwise.” He looked away from his coffee cup and up at her. “Have you?”

Mae could not hold that gaze. She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders.

“I should thank you, Mr. Hunt, for coming to my aid in the forest last night. I don’t know how I would have come out of that unscathed. What can I do to repay you?”

Cedar rested the cup between his palms. He took a long bit before he answered, seeming to be thinking through many things, and discarding them one by one. Finally, “Other than a fine hot meal?”

Mae smiled at that, and he smiled back, then grew serious. “You can see my curse. Can you break it?”

“I can do some good for you,” Mae said. “But I am not sure if I can break such a powerful thing on my own. It would be best done at the time of your change, when body and soul are tugged by the moon. I will need some things. Some herbs. Maybe . . . maybe my sisters.”

“Think it will take some time?”

“To break a god’s curse? Yes. A night, I’d say. Maybe a day too. And we will both need to be strong. Certainly stronger than I’m feeling now.”

Cedar nodded. “Then it will wait.”

“Perhaps I’ll be strong enough tonight.” Mae stood and gathered the plates.

“Not so sure I want to be free of the curse tonight,” he murmured.

“Have you seen that other wolf before?” Mae asked.

“No.”

The tone of his voice, more breath than word, made her turn.

“But you know of it?”

Cedar drained his cup. He weighed something, decided something. She walked back around to the fire, and did a bit of tidying there, waiting for whatever thought had taken him to bring him back.

“Do you suppose you could break a curse, a curse like mine, for another?” he finally asked.

“I’d have to see this other before I could say.”

Cedar was silent so long, Mae wondered if he’d gone to sleep sitting there with his eyes open, staring at the wall.

“It’s my brother.” Soft, those words, as if they had never been said before. “The wolf was—is—my brother. Wil. Wiliam.”

Mae gave him some time longer. Waited for him to ask her fully, the favor he wanted.

He cleared his throat and seemed to come back from a long distance, breathing deep and rubbing a hand over his face.

When he turned and looked at her again, he was composed. “I still have the boy to find—Elbert. But once that’s set aside, I’ll help you find that killer,” he said. “If you’ll break the curse my brother carries. Provided he’s still alive.”

Mae searched his face, his eyes filled with the pain of losing a loved one. She understood that pain. “I’ll do what I can, certainly,” she said. “Do you know where to find him?”

Cedar thought a moment, as if trying to drag memories out of a thick mud. “Mr. Shunt was there last night. In the forest. He took him. I’d say he’ll be where Mr. Shunt is. If Mr. Shunt is who killed your husband, then our intentions are in agreement. We both want Shunt dead. But I should tell you, I’ve two other promises to keep.”

“You’ve told me as such, though last I asked, it was only one promise you were beholden to. I suppose if we’re going to be hunting and killing together, we may as well tell each other full what we’re beholden to.”

“Don’t recall saying we’d be hunting or killing together,” Cedar said.

“That shotgun was given to me, Mr. Hunt. I’ll be the one who pulls the trigger.” She held Cedar’s gaze until he nodded.

“First, I’ll want my boots.” Cedar stood, and hissed, bending to one side, his elbow tucked tight into his ribs.

“First,” Mae said, “I’ll tend that wound of yours.”

“It’ll heal,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“It will heal faster and far better after I dress it. Remove your shirt, Mr. Hunt,” she ordered.

Cedar’s eyebrow hitched upward at her tone. For the briefest moment, a smile curved his mouth. Then his lips flattened as he carefully kept his face neutral. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s better,” Mae said archly, though her cheeks flushed with color. There was something about him that she found pleasant, though she shouldn’t. The man turned into a killing beast at the full moon—not much pleasant about that.

Still, there was a sorrow in him, a familiar pain.

She gathered up fresh cloth, the steeped water, and the last bottle of alcohol she had. She rinsed out her herb pot, a pretty little copper pot she’d bought three years ago from a man traveling from the East, and pumped fresh water into it. She placed the pot on the hook over the fire.

“I’ll wash it out first, then soak another compress.” Mae dropped comfrey into the water and prodded the fire to rise up and bring the water close to a boil.

She turned around. Cedar Hunt stood there, bare to his waist, holding her husband’s shirt in one hand. She glanced up to look into his eyes, which were soft, apologetic, and a little curious. She had a feeling he hadn’t stood half-naked in front of a woman for some time. She had a feeling he didn’t mind it so much.

Mae looked away from his eyes, and studied his chest. Wide claw marks scarred from collarbone to hip, but otherwise, he was strong, lean, the muscles of his body hard from a lifetime of work.

“Would it be easier if I sat?” he asked.

Mae nodded. “It’s just the wound at your side that’s still hurting?”

“Mostly.” He sat on the edge of the chair, turned so that his injured side was facing her.

“Let me remove the compress.” Mae stepped over and touched his elbow gently.

Cedar moved his arm, propping his palm on his knee, his elbow straight. She pulled the compress off. The wound was red and raw and about as big around as her cupped palm. Fluid and blood oozed from the depth out over the burned edges of skin. It didn’t carry an odor, thank goodness, and didn’t seem to have any more black oil in it.

“Feels like I have a hole all the way to my spine,” Cedar said.

“Does the open air pain it?” Mae asked.

“Yes.” He craned his head, and shifted his shoulders, trying to get a good look at the wound. “Stitches, you think?”

“No. Not enough skin to sew together. I think it needs another cleaning, a better cleaning, and then some time to drain. Hold still, now. You’re just making it bleed more.” She pressed the cloth back over the hole. “Just hold that there, while I brew up a new compress and get something to clean it with. It won’t take long.”

Mae pulled over a bowl and put some of the warm water from the copper pot into it, then dropped a cloth into the pot to let it soak. She poured a little more cool water in with the water in the bowl and brought that to the table, dipping a handkerchief into it and, without squeezing it out, traded its place with the compress on the wound. She placed a dry towel at his waist to catch the water cleaning the wound, then squeezed the wet handkerchief into the puncture.

Cedar narrowed his eyes at the pain.

“So where are you from, originally?” Mae asked, hoping conversation would help ease his mind away from the discomfort.

“Boston.”

“Pretty city, or so I’ve heard.” She dipped the handkerchief back into the water and squeezed it against his side again.

“It can be,” he said on a held exhalation.

“Not much need for a bounty hunter in a city,” she said. “Did you come out west for the land or for the work?” She removed the handkerchief, filled it with water, and pressed it against his side again.

“Neither.”

“Family? Your brother?” she guessed.

“West just meant more land between me and a life I’d never have again.”

He might mean the war. Might mean property or family he lost because of it. Mae figured it wasn’t her place to pry into matters that private.

“And yourself, Mrs. Lindson?” he asked, filling the silence before she could. “What drew you so far west?”

“The land.” She soaked the cloth again, pressed it into his side. He wasn’t wincing every time she touched him. She hoped the willow in the water was numbing the pain a little.

“Good rich land here in the Oregon Territory. Plenty of it. Thought we’d follow the river all the way to the sea. But when Jeb saw this valley tucked against the mountains, he said he’d never seen a more beautiful corner of God’s earth. So we set to farming here, living here. It’s been a good life. . . .”

She realized she’d stopped working and was instead just kneeling there, thinking of a life she also could never return to.

Cedar Hunt caught her gaze. There was sympathy there. Understanding. Maybe something more she couldn’t quite describe. A kindness and warmth. In that moment she knew he too had suffered death. But instead of giving her gentle words that would do no good for her pain, he simply nodded once. “Your pot’s boiling.”

Mae was grateful that he didn’t ask her any more. She stood and walked to the kettle, pulling it with a poker away from the fire. Outside the wind lifted on the day, pulling birdsong through the air.

She had known she’d never have Jeb again, but had pushed the reality of it away as often as she could, using anger to keep her mind on her task. But seeing Mr. Hunt here, a man who had left a life behind, who had suffered death and never returned to the life he had once lived, made her realize she was alone. Truly alone. And would have to find a way to carry on, build a new life with no one beside her.

“Mae?” Cedar stood beside her and gently pressed his fingertips onto her arm.

How long had she been standing there, the copper pot hanging from one hand, the wind stirring and nosing between the wooden trinkets on the shelf?

“I’m fine, just fine,” she said. “Have a seat. This will be hot, but we’ll wrap it tight to keep the injury clean.”

Cedar hesitated a moment. He glanced out the cracks in the shutters, and held his breath. Listening, she realized. Listening for whatever thing had distracted her.

“Suppose you didn’t get much sleep last night,” he said as she brought the pot over to the table and used a clean knife to draw up the soaked cloth.

“Not so much as I prefer, but enough.” She opened the cloth with her fingertips, and scooped out the leaves and bark and seeds.

“That Strange, the one that looked like little Elbert,” she said, “you said it smelled of his blood. Do you think the boy, the real Elbert, is still alive?” She folded the cloth around the herbs like an envelope, then wrapped it up in a long strip of cheesecloth she would tie around his ribs.

“The blood was fresh,” Cedar said. “And it was Elbert’s.”

Mae pressed the compress against his skin. “Hold this.” Cedar held it in place with his right hand. “So there’s a chance the boy’s still alive?”

“I’ve seen Strange, Mrs. Lindson, but none that uses gear and bone and blood like a child plays with sticks and mud. These are something more. Stronger. Wicked.”

Mae walked across the room and pulled down extra strips of cloth and brought those over. “Mr. Shunt. Do you think he somehow devised that Strange boy?”

“Yes.” Cedar grunted as she bound the cheesecloth, then the length of cloth, around his ribs. “But I don’t know why he would want to. And I don’t know why he would want such a fine woman as you, Mrs. Lindson.”

Mae swallowed at those words and kept her eyes and attention on laying the cloth down smooth and wrapping it evenly. She didn’t want that compress to slip.

“He has killed my husband. The one true love I vowed my life unto. I don’t know what he wants with me. Now that Jeb is dead, there’s not much of me left to hurt. Maybe the Strange don’t approve of our marriage vows. A colored man and a white woman.”

She stood and handed him Jeb’s shirt.

Cedar paused before putting it on. “Don’t think the Strange much care about the color of a person’s skin. Don’t think love much cares either.”

Mae held her breath at those words. They were likely the kindest thing she’d ever been told in her life.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

Cedar shrugged his good shoulder and buttoned the shirt, not meeting her eyes. “You suppose the Strange want you for the spells at your disposal?”

“Spells?”

“You are a witch, aren’t you, Mrs. Lindson?” Cedar tipped his eyes up and caught her gaze. He was not afraid of her—no, she’d be surprised if he were afraid of anything or anyone. He wasn’t encouraging nor demanding. And yet, she felt a need to answer him, to tell him what so many had gossiped, what so many had feared.

And putting this truth in his hands could mean her life. The townsfolk did not like her, were afraid of the simplest blends of herbs she made for healing. What would they do if Cedar told them she was indeed the ungodly thing they feared?

And what would they do if they found out the hunter they trusted with their herds, with finding their children, was a cursed and killing beast?

It seemed they both had equal to lose, and to gain. That made up her mind.

“Yes, Mr. Hunt, I am a witch. And I trust my secret is as safe with you as yours is with me?”

“Yes, Mrs. Lindson, it is.” Cedar smiled, and it did his face good. She found herself smiling too.

“I’d wager,” he said, “that particular skill is why the Strange are looking for you.”

“Well, I can’t undo what I am. It’s not so much a choice, Mr. Hunt, as a way you’re born. I’d follow the ways of magic whether I knew to call myself a witch or not.”

“Wasn’t saying anything needed undoing. Are there others of your sort around these parts? Your . . . sisters?” he added.

“I don’t really know. I’m from a small coven—a community. And I was seventeen when I came this way with Jeb. Hallelujah is tucked off of the trails. Well, until the rail finishes, that is.”

“If there were a witch nearabouts, do you think they’d contact you?” he asked.

“Perhaps.”

“Could be just that you are the only witch in a hundred miles, and that’s why the Strange are looking for you. Or it could be that you have something particular that they want. Something particular Mr. Shunt wants.”

“All that I have you are looking at now. Do you see anything worth killing me for?”

“Never know what whets the interest of the Strange. Sometimes it’s a bit of metal, a bob of glass. Sometimes it’s a song or a dream, or a rare skill. Is there something you specialize in?”

“Weaving and lace, though I imagine there are those better than I at it. And vows, bindings, and curses,” she added quietly.

“What?”

“It’s not something that’s spoken.”

“Maybe not. But I think it’s something that needs to be heard.”

Mae walked over to her spinning wheel and dragged her hands over the blankets in the basket. She didn’t want to give this secret words to cling to. Didn’t want to give it shape to fill. Even words—no, especially words—carried magic.

“I am particularly gifted to using magic with vows, bindings, and curses. It’s not approved. It is not even the correct way to guide magic. But it is the way of me.”

“Must be that,” Cedar said as if talking about magic in this civilized world were commonplace. “Though I still don’t know why Mr. Shunt would want to harm you. Maybe he’s doing Shard LeFel’s bidding. Maybe it’s Mr. LeFel who wants what you have.”

“I don’t see as how that can be. I don’t think I’ve seen Mr. LeFel but once since he’s come to town.”

“Once is enough when a man sees what he wants.” Cedar said it slowly, softly, his gaze holding her. He hesitated, as if he would say more, then cleared his throat and changed the subject. “I don’t suppose you have a pair of boots I could borrow?”

“I should.” Mae oddly found it a little difficult to breathe. There was something about Mr. Hunt. Being near him caught her up in most confusing ways. “Let me go fetch them. Then will you be leaving?”

“I’ll follow the trail of the boy’s blood. See if I can find Wil. See if I can find Elbert.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said over her shoulder.

Nothing but silence filled the room. Mae found Jeb’s old boots near the bed. They had holes in the sides, and might be too big for Cedar’s feet, but she had spare socks he could use to take up the difference.

As soon as she stepped back out into the main room, he stopped pacing and slanted a look at her. “No, you most certainly will not.” It was a commanding voice. A stern, lecturing voice.

Mae ignored it. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a lawyer, Mr. Hunt. Declaring your opinions as if they were fact.” She held out the old boots and socks for him.

He scowled. “A teacher,” he said.

Mae smiled. “I’ll be going with you. That shotgun is the only thing I’ve seen that can stop Mr. Shunt in his tracks. Not that it kills him, no, he snaps and pulls and stitches himself back together again as easily as he falls apart.” She swallowed hard at the memory of him. “He’s not made of the natural world.”

“Not this natural world, at least,” Cedar said. “Which is all the more reason you should stay here where it’s safe.”

“There is no safe place for me.” Mae didn’t mean it to come out quite so plainly, but there it was. So long as she was a witch in this God-fearing land, with Strange things that crept through pockets of shadow and cozied up to nightmares, she would be pointed to as different, and killed for her ways.

“Mrs. Lindson,” Cedar tried, then, “Mae.”

She looked up at her name, surprised.

“Listen to me. To reason. I know you can stand on your own. You’ve proved you have a strong spine. But first I’ll be headed back to the Madders to reclaim my weapons and clothes. There’s no need for both of us to deal with the three brothers. Their doors too easily turn to walls. I owe them favors I’d never promise another man. If you hold tight here, with the gun at hand, then when I return, well before nightfall, we can set out together to track the boy and the Strange that killed your man.”

Mae had had enough of men promising her they would take care of things a man should, and then return for her as a man should. She’d had enough of men going away and not coming home.

“I’ll be back for you soon,” Cedar said. “I give you my word.”

Mae looked him straight in the eye. “That’s what my husband told me, Mr. Hunt. And now he’s dead.”

Cedar took a breath, and let it out slowly. He walked over to the door and opened it wide, letting in the clean promise of daylight. He paused there, one foot in her home, the other out in the afternoon light, his eyes scanning the horizon before he turned back toward her.

“That may be true,” he said gently, “but I am not your husband, Mrs. Lindson.” He moved to close the door.

Mae spoke up. “Take the mule. She’s out back. You can just point her toward my house when you’re done. She, I’m certain of, will find her way home.”

Cedar nodded, just the quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Thank you, Mrs. Lindson, I’ll do just that.” Then he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.