“And when they are done with you, Mr. Jeb Lindson, not even the witch will recognize your bones.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mae Lindson rode down the mountain, her mule, Prudence, slow and surefooted through the loose shale path. She glanced over her shoulder again, scanning the ridge for Cedar Hunt. She had thought he was leaving and had hoped to ride with him awhile. Not to convince him to help her—she’d given up on that. He’d made up his mind, and told her no twice. She was sure there wasn’t anything she could do to change that.
But Cedar Hunt ranged the mountains and hills tracking cougar, wolf, bear. She intended to ask if he’d seen any sign of her husband. But since he wasn’t riding out, she’d just have to find the killer her own way.
Her mule settled into a plodding pace, head down. It would take more than a few hours to reach her cottage. And by the time she provisioned, it’d be too late in the day to set out to hunt the killer. It would have to be tomorrow, then. Tonight, she would pack supplies, tend the goats, and cast a scrying spell to lead her in the right direction.
Tomorrow would be soon enough to start her journey.
She thought about riding through town again and buying supplies, but she had all she needed at home. Still, Rose’s smile and the promise of the rhubarb pie almost made her head into town for no other excuse. It had been a sure comfort to see a friendly face. But instinct told her the night would come on too quickly, and she had best be tucked up tight in her home before it fell.
Even though the day was still warm, she shivered. The Madder brothers had some strangeness about them. She was sure of that. It wasn’t witchcraft. When she put her fingers on Alun Madder’s arm, she had felt like she was touching the deep roots of the mountains themselves. And then, when she had offered her skills to him, she had felt a power in his presence, an authority about him.
Finding Cedar Hunt mixed up with the brothers was a surprise. Mr. Hunt kept to himself almost as much as she and Jeb did. She’d never thought him to have dealings with the brothers who were known for brawling, drinking, and driving hard bargains. What, she wondered, would send Cedar up the mountains today, asking the brothers’ favor?
Perhaps she and he both had problems that required the brothers’ particular abilities.
Even though she hadn’t let on back in the mine, the shotgun was a magnificent piece of genius. If it worked half as well as it appeared to be built, it was a very powerful weapon indeed. But she didn’t dare fire it to get accustomed to how it performed. Five bullets meant she would have no more than five chances to end the killer’s life.
She had bundled the gun in a blanket and lashed it to the back of her saddle. The shells were safely tucked in her saddle pack. But even though the shotgun was safely behind her, she wasn’t unarmed. A woman traveling alone, even near town, or perhaps especially, was most likely to draw trouble. Therefore, Mae kept a Colt in the saddle holster near her knee.
By the time Mae reached the outskirts of town, the day was burning down to evening. She decided to take the route through the fields outside town, rather than navigating the roads that would be traveled by the rail workers coming into town to gamble and drink.
Prudence seemed to walk slower each mile they covered and it was closing in on dusk by the time she had put Hallelujah far behind her. Mae pulled her shawl closer about her shoulders, feeling more than darkness closing down with the ebbing light.
The field and hill were interrupted ahead by a wallow, where a dense stand of fir stood between Hallelujah and her home.
Mae guided her mule into the forest, where dusk had already taken claim, stretching the shadows, cooling the air. As she rode through the trees, Mae felt something else, felt something following her. She shifted in the saddle and looked all around, but could not catch more than a slide of movement at the edges of her vision. No ground nesters rustling, the birds, the animals in the forest were strangely silent, as if they too knew something dangerous moved between the trees.
A cool stroke like a finger against bone sent a shiver down her spine.
“Witch.” The word was breathed and seemed to come from all around her.
Mae’s heart jumped.
The shotgun might be tied behind her, but her Colt was in the saddle holster near her knee. She pulled the handgun and put her heels to Prudence, urging her to break into a trot.
The mule jolted through a few steps, then settled back into her numbing plod. No matter how Mae wanted to hurry, the mule would not.
“Witch.”
Not her sisters. No, their call was dulcet tones. This voice hissed, scratched, scrabbled through the air.
Whatever that was, the voice, the follower, was danger. She scanned the ground, the underbrush, the shadows of the trees around her, ahead and behind. With every slow step closer to her cottage, the forest was swallowed deeper and deeper into darkness.
A rattling behind her, a scattering of leaves. She turned. Nothing but shadows.
Then one of the shadows behind her moved. The shadow was a man standing, watching her, his long, thin hands folded. Tall, he was stretched taller by the stovepipe hat upon his head. His black coat brushed the ground, the large collar hiding his neck and face, so that all she could see of his features were his eyes. And his eyes burned red.
“Who—,” Mae started, but the man was gone.
She clicked her tongue and urged Prudence faster. “Get on now,” she said. “Get on up.”
This time the mule worked up to a jarring trot, then stumbled into a lope. The tree line was just ahead. Beyond that was a sky with more light than the forest, a field, and the safety of her home.
Mae leaned forward, keeping her heels to the mule. “Get up, Prudence, get up.” She guided Prudence through the brush and trees, hooves churning the soft needles and loam, the mule’s breath coming out in snorts. Mae’s pulse ran faster than the mule’s hoofbeats, pounding in fear.
That man hadn’t walked away, nor had he hid himself. He had simply disappeared as if he were made of nothing but shadows.
She had seen spirits, and she had seen the things magic could do, but she had never seen such a Strange thing here, in this world, walking in the last light of day. Whoever he was, he had not come calling with gentle intentions.
The edge of the forest and pale evening light were just a few strides away. Light might not stop the man, but escaping the shadows of the forest would make him easier to see.
There. There—she was almost through the trees.
A hand grabbed for her reins, cold as stone and sharp as knives. Mae lifted her gun and fired, just as Prudence reared back.
The wind lifted, a hard breeze that shoved branches aside, letting a stream of light into the trees. Mae watched, horrified, as the man sidestepped the bullet as if it were a feather driven by a lazy wind. Then he was on her, long arms reaching up to her elbows, oily fingers catching at her shawl and skirt and skin, scratching, hooking, dragging.
Mae held her seat and fired point-blank at his face.
The man recoiled, knocked back, bent back, but still on his feet as if his boots were glued to the earth, long fingers of one hand securing his hat to his head. And then, as Mae raised her gun to fire again, he fell apart.
Like grain emptying a silo, or water from a tower, it was as if the pin had been removed from the undercarriage of his skeleton, and he crumpled, first from his boots, then dissolving downward in a rush that clattered and clanked like old chains. His hat was the last thing to hit the ground, falling into a dark smudge of shadow where just a moment ago flesh and bones had stood.