Cedar clicked his tongue and turned Flint back to rejoin the others.
Bryn Madder was on the little roan, forging the trail, with Rose and Mae right behind him. The bulky wagon brought up the rear, clattering along like a crazy circus sideshow all its own. Cedar didn’t know if Wil rode in the wagon or if he had gone out hunting, as was his habit just before sunset.
“Lovely weather we’re having,” Bryn said when he caught sight of Cedar. The brass monocle over his eye had just a glass lens now. Bryn rubbed the rain off it with the cuff of his shirt. “You find us some place a little drier to stop, like maybe beneath Niagara Falls?”
“Town just up a bit,” Cedar said. “Vicinity. Looks empty. Stinks of the Strange, maybe more than that.”
Bryn’s quick grin split his beard. “Sounds about right. You do have a way of stumbling into the most interesting of predicaments, Mr. Hunt.”
He maneuvered his horse—well, the dead man’s horse—past Cedar, following the trail like he was clopping along in full daylight. A second later, Cedar heard the click and scratch of a match as one of those green globe lanterns the brothers always carried caught flame.
Bryn tied the glass globe to the saddle, secured so the globe sat snug near his knee. From the clever positioning of mirror-polished metal inside that glass, the globe gave out a brighter and wider circle of light than any lantern Cedar had seen. And since it took such a wee flame to throw that much light, the thick glass wouldn’t warm to the touch for a long while.
Rose rode up to him, Mae right beside her. Rose had a lead line on Mae’s mule. He didn’t know when the girl had decided to do so, but he was grateful for her thoughtfulness. Mae must be deep enough in the thrall of the voices calling her home that she didn’t know what Rose had done.
“Did I hear you say the town’s ahead?” Rose asked wistfully. “That’s about the sweetest thing I’ve heard for weeks.”
“Might be trouble,” Cedar said.
“What sort?” Rose asked, glancing at Bryn riding off with a ray of sunshine tacked to his saddle.
“The town looks deserted. And I smell the Strange.”
Rose shrugged. “You always smell the Strange, Mr. Hunt. You’re made for it. Why, I’d bet if there was a bogey or ghooley in a ten-mile range, you’d know it.”
“I would. And I believe there is. So keep your gun handy.”
“Always do, Mr. Hunt.”
Mae didn’t say a single thing. She just sat her saddle, fingers working against each other like she was shucking peas from a pod. Her eyes were glassy, dazed, her lips pale. Full caught in the madness.
One thing was sure. When they made it to the sisterhood, and the witches gave Mae back her slipping mind, Cedar was going to sit down with each and every one of those women. No one should be driven from their good sense because of an old promise. A promise based on fear.
Mae had mumbled plenty during the three weeks on the trail. Pleading to the voices in her mind, maybe pleading to the memories of her past. Saying she wasn’t evil. Saying magic didn’t so much go bad in her hands as just set things to happening in the most final of ways. Her magic leaned toward curses, the making and breaking of them. Leaned toward vows and binding things and people together.
The sisters had turned that sort of magic on her, and bound her to the soil of the coven. So if ever she strayed too far from the sisterhood, she’d have to return home.
No matter what was in her way—weather, mountains, or madness.
Mae might not complain of the fine cruelty of such a binding, but Cedar wondered if maybe the sisters really didn’t want her home. Were maybe working hard to make sure she died trying to get there.
The wagon rattled up, Alun in the high driver’s seat. He’d traded his kerchief for a battered sombrero, the wide brim keeping most of his bulk dry beneath it. The pipe clenched in his teeth drew cherry red and the sweet smoke of tobacco rolled circles under the brim.
Cadoc Madder must be inside the wagon.
“Trouble, I hear, Mr. Hunt? Or town?” Alun called out.
“Could be both,” Cedar said. “Or the Strange. Vicinity is just ahead and empty.”
Alun reached down and pulled a shotgun the size of a small cannon up at his side, resting the barrel across the brake board, where his foot was braced. “Suppose this town has a saloon?”
“Reckon it does,” Cedar said.
“Then lead the way! One thing about the Strange, they aren’t much for drinking. Should be plenty for us no matter the state of things.”
Cedar gave Rose a look, but she already had her gun resting across her saddle horn.
No need to warn her to take care of herself again. Girl had good survival instincts. And that gun of hers had gained a scope and a few other bits he knew weren’t attached to it just a day ago.
“You tinker with the gun?” He turned and followed the bobbing green bubble of light on Bryn’s saddle, Rose and Mae falling in behind him, the Madders bringing up the rear.
“Just a little,” she said. “Last night I wasn’t sleeping much and I got to thinking that the shotgun has a heck of a kick, and I could probably harness that energy and use it for a coil, if I had some copper wire and a spring, and a second barrel…” She pressed her lips together, then chuckled. “My apologies for rambling, Mr. Hunt.”
“No apology needed,” Cedar said. “Devising is a skill men hock the farm for. The wild sciences aren’t easy for most to comprehend, much less make practical of. You’ve a gift, Miss Small.”
“You’re kind to say so,” Rose murmured, looking down modestly and fussing with the metal trinkets in her pockets.
Mae was silent, swaying with the saddle, her face tipped up just high enough that her lips and chin caught the fall of rain off the brim of her bonnet.
Cedar caught sight of Wil moving through the scrub, following along cautiously. Wil had been captured by the Strange, used as a slave by them for years. He would know better than to do anything foolish.
Cedar navigated down the muddy path that served as a road into the town. He caught the scent of the Strange on the wind again, and again the odd tang that he’d last smelled on the Holder. Just strong enough to sense before it faded away.
They came upon the first houses set out in a fairly straight row along both sides of the road. The homes looked strong and weather-worthy and hadn’t fallen into disrepair.
But there was not a light in a window, not a stir in a yard. The smell of the Strange lay heavy here, like a low fog clinging to the ground, kicked up by their horses’ hooves. Bryn Madder paused where the road took a sharp turn to the left, leading into the heart of Vicinity.
Cedar pulled up beside him. The house ahead was situated so that the front door was visible. And so were the man’s legs across the threshold.
The man wasn’t asleep—held too damn still for that. Cedar smelled death and blood.
“Will you look at that?” Bryn asked. “Terrible way to let the draft in. Maybe we should roust him up, see if he’s breathing.”
“Maybe we should warn the womenfolk,” Cedar said.
“They’ve seen worse,” Bryn said.
That was true. Cedar took point and urged Flint down the road. More houses, none of the doors open, no other sign of people, except for the smell of blood and rot, and nothing and no one at the windows.
The town opened up into an area that had been cleared and flattened, likely for gatherings. They stopped there.
“Where do you suppose all the people are?” Rose asked. “I mean the live ones?”
“There are no live ones,” Cedar said.
“That fella laying in the doorway?” she said.
“Dead,” Bryn answered.
“Don’t think this is a place where wise men shelter,” Alun Madder said. “We’d best be moving on through.”
“Might be a thicket off east a bit,” Bryn suggested. “I’ll see if there’s anything to stand between us and the rain.”
“But we could find supplies here,” Rose said. “We need more than what we have to get the horses to Fort Boise.”