Devon Monk - Dead Iron

Nothing strange about dust at the end of summer. But the shale loosened a whirlwind, two small dust devils one-toeing ahead of him, picking up bits of leaves, twigs, and carrying them along.

Nothing strange about whirlwinds either. Except these whirlwinds didn’t die out as they should. The wind went flat, but the whirlwinds danced on ahead of him, toe-to-toe and out again, a waltz of dirt and air. With no wind to drive them, they sailed against the natural world, and tottered up the road, right up the slope, right up, he reckoned, to the door of the Madder brothers themselves.

The dust devils folded in half, a bow; then the spinning wind and bits of leaves stretched out to point off toward the mountainside ahead, looking so much like two gentlemen lifting a welcoming palm toward an entrance to some kind of fancy hotel. They held like that a tick, then busted apart, leaves and dust flying off in every direction, whatever force that had kept the devils together gone now.

If there was a natural explanation for dust devils spinning when there was no wind, Cedar didn’t know it.

He didn’t cock his gun. Shooting at the wind would do him no good. He did rest the barrel across the saddle horn, ready if he needed it.

He clicked his tongue and urged Flint up the rise in the path, steeper than it looked, and lined with mountain mahogany and brush with thorns as long as his thumb.

At the top of the rise, the air grew damp and cool. The green scent of a stream running nearby mixed with the taste of stone and dust in his throat.

Huh. He didn’t recall a year-round stream out this way. Didn’t recall the Madders sluicing for gold. He wondered if they’d diverted a creek, wondered how they’d gotten it to run against its way, if that was so.

No other sign of the Strange here—no dust devils waiting to escort him on. No matics, small or large, at least none that he could see. The trail died off, leaving him surrounded on two sides by brush. To his right stood gunmetal gray stones that looked as if they’d plunged from the top of the mountain and buried themselves into the ground. Behind him was the shale and dust path.

He scanned the ground. No boot prints, no broken branches, no sign of anyone moving this way. Looked like no one traveled past this point, even though this was the only path that he’d known the Madders to take up to their mine. He’d seen them bring their wagon this way, loaded down with supplies. Not that he’d seen them bring out rail carts of stone. The brothers just brought out pockets full of silver.

It was looking like he’d followed a false trail.

Cedar cursed under his breath and checked the sky. Nearly noon now. He’d wasted half the day heading to a hole full of devisers that wasn’t even where it was supposed to be.

And all that time, there was a boy out in the elements, caught up by such Strange as walked the land.

“Afternoon,” he called out. “If the Madder brothers are here, I’d be obliged to a little of your time.” He dug in his saddlebag and threw a purse full of coins onto the ground. It fell with a fat clink.

Funny how the sound of coins falling caught the ear louder than a man could yell.

The eldest brother, Alun Madder, pushed through the brush, looking to all the world as if he were out on a stroll, a long-stemmed corn pipe caught between his teeth, his overalls dirty and grease stained beneath a duster too heavy for the heat in the day. He had a red kerchief tied tight over his head, and sweat darkened it over his brow.

“Morning, Mr. Hunt. Bring us that striker?” he asked. He didn’t so much as glance down at the bag of money between them.

Cedar pulled the striker from his saddlebag and tossed it to him.

Alun Madder caught it quick and nodded once before tucking it away in his coat.

“I’m looking for a device someone of your caliber might be willing to sell me,” Cedar said.

Alun’s dark bushy eyebrows notched up and he took a puff off the pipe, exhaling smoke that smelled like cherrywood. “What sort of device, Mr. Hunt?”

“Something to track the Strange.”

“Oh, now, you don’t believe in those old fairy tales, do you? The Strange? Elfsies and faeimps, and creatures that lurk beneath a bed?” He grinned wider and pulled his pipe out to point at Cedar with it. “I thought you a level-minded man.”

“A tuning fork of pure silver.”

Alun’s head snapped up. His smile was gone, his gaze sharp with a hangman’s delight. “Now, isn’t that a pretty thought? Forks of silver, spoons of moonlight. What do you suppose your knives should be made of, Mr. Hunt? Tears?”

Cedar cocked the hammer back on the Walker and aimed it at Alun’s head. “Don’t know about my knives, but my gun’s made of pain.”

Alun replaced the pipe in his mouth, slowly clamped down on it, watching Cedar’s eyes. Finally, he laughed. “Can’t help a man if I’m dead.”

“Then it might be to both our favor for you to give me a straight answer. Do you have a silver tuning fork I can buy with that bag of money?”

“First you tell me exactly what you’d use such a thing for, Mr. Hunt. Silver from this mine doesn’t just drop into any man’s hand.”

“I’m hunting the Gregors’ boy.”

Alun frowned, a fold crinkling between his brows. “The blacksmith’s boy? Wee thing?”

“That’s him.”

“Lost?”

“Gone missing in the night.”

“Just missing, you say?”

“Taken in the night is what I reckon. And the only trail left to find him is the music in his windowsill.”

Alun smiled again, but this time it was a look of respect.

“Come on this way,” he said. “Any man with an ear to hear it must have reasons to follow it. Who am I to stop a fool on his quest?” He bent and snatched up the bag of coins, stuffing it away in some inner pocket of his coat. Then he turned to his left, and strode toward the solid stone of the mountainside. “Leave your horse out here. He’ll come to no harm.”

Cedar dismounted, caught up his canteen and gun. By the time he’d shouldered his gear, Alun Madder had disappeared, taking a jag behind a standing stone that looked solid, but was really two stones so cleverly fit one in front of the other that the eye skittered right past the shadow of the doorway between them.

Cedar glanced back at Flint, who was already drowsing. No one seemed to be watching. Cedar’s ears, sharpened as they were with the beast so close beneath his skin, could not pick up any other movement around them. Alun Madder had two brothers. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine them waiting in ambush.

He hesitated.

“You’re a cautious man for someone who uses a gun to end his sentences,” Alun called over his shoulder, his voice echoing as if he was already surrounded by stone. “Come in, Mr. Hunt, before I close the door behind me.”

Cedar adjusted his hat and stepped between the stones. Alun stood a good way behind the doorway in what looked to be a torchlit cave entrance. Cedar stepped into the cooler air of the cave and Alun spun a brass captain’s wheel on the wall, guiding the heavy slab of stone to slide on rails silently until daylight was shut away.

“Now, then, Mr. Hunt, let’s see what your money will buy you.” Alun twisted another smaller valve and gas lamps flickered to life along the highest edge of the chamber, sending out a soft blue light over the furnishings and walls.

It was a chamber indeed. Three times as large as his one-room cabin, with walls that were smooth and slick, burnished to a soft glow, like ice under firelight. They were bare, except for a few wooden shelves with food and tools hooked and hanging. The only thing that caught the light was the pipes that stretched from ceiling to floor against one wall, and lined the room about knee-high. The ceiling was lost to the darkness above, where things Cedar could not see delicately scratched and skittered against the stone.