Rose walked to the back of the room, the lantern light swinging shadows and bright at each other like trapeze artists reaching for the catch. She picked up a shovel and then, without a word, walked across the room and out the door, leaving the dark to swallow Cedar whole.
He took in a lungful of it and sighed. The girl meant well, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was dig a grave, much less dig one big enough for four, or who knew how many more. He walked over to the counter and rested his hand there.
A song, like sour trumpets trembling in the distance rose up through his fingertips. He knew that fleeting tune, knew its haunting rhythms and trills. It was the song of the Strange, of one Strange in particular.
Mr. Shunt.
Suddenly, the chill of the night and the dark and death squeezed down around him. They’d killed Mr. Shunt. He’d seen him killed, seen his innards stretched out and pounded to a mash even the crows wouldn’t pick over. He’d seen the bits of Mr. Shunt smashed apart by Jeb Lindson, Mae’s dead husband.
There was no possibility a man, nor any other creature, could come back together after the taking apart Mr. Shunt had received.
The wind huffed against the rafters, silencing the song as a fresh scatter of rain broke from the sky.
But then, there was no man nor creature like Mr. Shunt. If there was anything in this world unkillable, it would be him.
Suddenly, the harvest made sense. Mae had said Mr. Shunt fell into pieces and sewed himself back together again. Maybe he needed more parts.
But if Shunt were still in the town, hell, if he’d been within thirty miles of the place, Cedar would know. He wasn’t here. But he had been.
“Mr. Hunt?” Rose said from the door, her lantern clutched tight in one hand, the shovel in the other. “I think you’d better see this.”
“We’re leaving,” Cedar said, making to walk around behind the counter for the supplies. “Now. Come take an armful.”
Rose didn’t say anything. Not a peep. Wasn’t like her.
He glanced up. She was still standing in the doorway, the shine of light carving out holes of dark against the sweet angles of her face. There was more than just rain falling from the brim of her hat to wet her face. There were tears.
“Rose?” He came out from behind the counter and walked to her. “Rose?”
“I looked into houses. A half dozen houses,” she said. “They’re all dead.” She looked up into his face. “Children too, Mr. Hunt. Little babies missing their feet and hands, all carved up…”
Cedar wanted to tell her not to worry about the dead. To tell her that if they left these people behind it was a civilized choice. But that was not true. The place stank of the Strange. And he had seen the Strange do terrible things with the unburied dead.
“We’ll do what we can for them,” he said. “Give them a grave and a prayer, the only mercy still in our hands.”
Rose wiped at her nose and nodded. “We’ll need to gather them all up. Maybe in the middle of town? The clearing?”
“That should do,” Cedar said. “Let’s get the Madders to help. Quickly.”
Cedar followed her back out into the rain. They mounted up and tracked back to the wagon.
Alun was leaning at the side of it, the huge brim of his hat and the angle of the wagon blocking rain and wind. He puffed on his pipe while the youngest and tallest Madder, Cadoc, paced about, a strange device in his hands.
The device resembled an ear trumpet. He held it up to one ear, a rope running from the ear trumpet to wrap around the top of a cane in his left hand that he stuck into the ground. He paused for a moment, as if listening through the ear horn, then pulled the cane tip out of the soil and swung it to tap the ear trumpet before spiking the cane back into the wet ground again.
Cedar didn’t know what Cadoc Madder was doing, but then he rarely could fathom the man’s actions.
“We’ll be needing your help,” Cedar said. “Bryn’s too.”
“Are we hunting the Holder now, Mr. Hunt?” Alun asked.
“No. We are hauling and digging,” Cedar said. “There’s dead in this town. Rose and I have agreed we’ll see to their burial before we move on.”
Cadoc Madder had stopped pacing. He turned to look at them as if they’d suddenly dropped out of a blue sky and brought the moon down with them.
Alun pulled the pipe from between his teeth and pointed it at Cedar. “What do you think killed all these people? The Holder. It fell into this town, and snuffed their lives out like a wet wick. If a piece of it remains behind, the death will spread, creep to the next town, and kill off the living there. Finding the Holder is a damn sight more important than burying the dead.”
“The Strange have been here,” Cedar said. “Surely you know what sport the Strange can have with the dead.”
“Of course I know! Hang the dead and hang the Strange. If we find the Holder we won’t need to stay here to see any of it.”
Cedar drew his gun and cocked back the hammer. “Rose Small, myself, and these bullets disagree with you.”
Both Madder brothers went stone cold. Even the smoke from Alun’s pipe seemed to stop moving.
“No need for guns,” Mae said as she came round from back of the wagon leading her mule. “Let us tend those who have been lost.” She wore a duster—Cedar thought it might belong to one of the Madder brothers, and though she’d rolled up the sleeves, it was huge on her thin frame. She’d changed her bonnet for a man’s hat—again, Cedar guessed it to be one of the Madders’.
He had no idea what she was doing out of bed, nor if she was in her right mind.
“Enough standing and pointing weapons,” Mae insisted. “Let’s put these people to rest so we can move on and find the Holder.” Her voice was clear. Strong.
Alun stared at her warily, as one might a bowl of nitroglycerin left to boil on the stove. “The sooner we’re to it, the sooner we’ll be quit of this place,” he finally said. “Cadoc, fetch up brother Bryn, and bring the wagon and the steam shovel along.”
Cadoc swung up into the wagon and started off, the wheels sending a spattering of mud to slap their boots.
Alun turned an eye on Cedar. “I hope you know what it is you’re doing, Mr. Hunt. Whole town of the dead is going to take time to bury, and we haven’t that to spare.”
“You bring out the digging device, I’ll gather wood to fire it.”
“Rose and I can gather the wood,” Mae said. “Unless you’d rather we gather the bodies, Mr. Hunt?”
No. He very much did not want them to be carrying dead bodies around like kindling. He didn’t know how long this break of clarity she was experiencing was going to last.
“Keep your guns ready,” he said. “Both of you. This night is filled with harm.”
“We’ll do just that.” Rose gave him a look that meant she’d also keep an eye on Mae. “If we need for anything, we’ll come calling.”
Cedar nodded. Rose could more than look after herself and Mae to boot. Gathering wood, even in the night where wild things crept, was a fair shake better than dragging dead folk into a pile.
Wil skulked out of the shadows, his eyes catching copper from the low light of Rose’s lantern. He padded silently over to Rose and Mae and looked up at Cedar. It wouldn’t be the new moon for a few days yet, which meant he would remain in wolf form until then.
He’d go with the women to gather wood and watch for danger.
Rose nudged her horse off a bit while Mae swung up atop her mule. “Since we’re gathering in the center of town,” Rose said, “let’s see if there’s a woodpile near to it. If not, then we’ll check other houses close by.”
“Good,” Mae agreed.
“Didn’t figure you to be the kind of man who endangered the people under your care,” Alun said as the women headed off. “Some other reason you’re fired up to bury the dead?”
“The Strange are near. The ground stinks of them.”
“All the more reason for us to be moving on. Hastily.”
“The bodies have been picked apart by Mr. Shunt.”