Devon Monk - Dead Iron

He whimpered, a faint hurt sound in the back of his throat, but did not move.

The water welled out of it, bringing up with it a skittering of black bugs that swiftly died and liquefied into oil.

Mae rose up quickly and traded the water for a jug of whiskey. Whatever Mr. Shunt had broken off in Cedar, it had turned into creatures that crawled, and likely bit and bred inside his flesh. If she didn’t kill them quick, and clean the wound thoroughly, they might just nest inside him and eat him from the inside out.

Mae kept talking. “That’s good, Mr. Hunt. I know it’s a deep wound and it hurts, but I’ll be able to ease some of the pain and burn. First, though, you’ll feel fire.”

She knelt again and opened the wound with her fingers, pouring the alcohol into the wound. Cedar whimpered and growled, but still didn’t move, as if even that much sound exhausted him.

She soaked a strip of rag in the whiskey and tamped it as deep as she could into the wound, then pulled it out. It was covered in dead black bugs that smeared into an oily mess.

Mae threw that cloth in the fire, and poured more whiskey into the wound. She repeated the process a dozen times until the last cloth came out bloody but mostly clean. Then she packed the wound with herbs that would soothe and draw out infection.

Cedar had long ago gone unconscious.

Mae still talked to him, her voice as much soothing her nerves as his. “What manner of curse do you bear? I’ve never seen such magic used on a man to change him. The old lore speaks of beast and man exchanging skin, but I’ve never seen a curse thrown so heavily, so bone deep.”

She paused, letting her hands rest gently upon his side, well away from the wound. Magic came best with herb and earth and song. A curse was like a spider’s web—silken and difficult to see, but strong and clinging, knotted tight. And this curse was more powerful than she’d ever seen. If she had the right herbs, if she had enough time, and perhaps a circle of sisters to support her work, she might be able to break his curse.

But she had no time, herbs, or sisters’ helping hands tonight.

“I’m going to touch your legs and see if there is blood anyplace else,” she said, giving up for the moment on the magical, and tending to the practical. She ran her hands quickly down his legs, over his back and hindquarters, then drew them up to his head.

He was scratched and bitten on his muzzle and by his eye, and one ear was torn and bleeding. There was a puncture at the top of his head too, and all the scratches and wounds seeped. But there was nothing like the wound in his side, and no other oily black bugs.

“I’ll clean your head next. Mind you, keep your teeth to yourself.” Foolish to bathe a wolf on her hearthstones, but Mae had given up being afraid of him. Oh, she should be, but either the events of the night had dulled her good sense, or the look of intelligence in the beast’s eyes before he had fallen asleep had won her over.

She gathered cup and cloth and did what she could to clean and dress his other wounds.

After an hour or so, exhaustion near stole her breath, but she wasn’t yet done with his scrapes. She reckoned the shallower cuts could wait until morning.

“That’s enough for now,” she said. “There’s still a bucket of water if you want it, Mr. Hunt.” Mae pushed up onto her feet, and locked her teeth against a moan. Pain stitched down her back, her hips, her arms. Not only had that creature torn her up, but she’d also taken a fall from the mule.

She longed to crawl into bed, to curl up and sleep away this nightmare her days had become. But she couldn’t bring herself to lie again in the bed she had shared with Jeb. The rocking chair would have to do. That way she could be on her feet if Mr. Hunt woke.

Mae kept the gun with her and stepped back to the bedroom and pulled off her dress, boots, and stockings. Standing in nothing but her underdress, she pulled the heavy wool blanket around her shoulders and walked out to the living room. The wolf was still sleeping.

She picked up the shotgun where she had left it on the kitchen table, and took it and her Colt with her across the room. She sat in the rocking chair, nearer her spinning wheel than the hearth, and turned so she could keep an eye on Mr. Hunt. She propped the shotgun across her lap, and kept the revolver tucked inside the blanket with her.

She closed her eyes and slept.

The sound of water sloshing woke her.

Mae opened her eyes.

Cedar Hunt—a man and not a scrap of animal left—sat on his knees, the blanket he had been lying on now wrapped about his legs and waist, leaving his wide, scarred chest bare. He scooped water out of the bucket and drank handful after handful.

His hair was wet—he must have poured some of the water over his head—and lines of water trickled down his neck, shoulders, back, and chest, falling along the chain and tuning fork he wore, to drip upon the blanket.

It had been a long, long while since Mae had seen a bare-chested man, and Mr. Hunt was so much lighter skinned than her Jeb, she caught herself staring.

The thin light of dawn pushed in through the shutters, scattering splinters of light over his bowed head and the thick muscles of his arms and shoulders and back. With the sunlight glinting off the crescent moon and arrow clasp of his chain, he almost looked like a man knelt to pray, or repent.

Cedar pressed a palm of water over his face, wincing as he sat back a bit.

He held one arm tighter over the wound in his side.

“Good morning, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said quietly, not knowing quite what else to say.

He turned his head, hung still so that his hair brushed over his eyebrows and dropped water into his hazel eyes. The scratches on his face were nothing more than thin red lines that went pink and healed to new white skin even as she watched.

Must be the wolf in him that healed him so quickly, the wolf in him that looked out at her with such heat, such hunger in his eyes.

“Could I offer you breakfast?” she asked, hoping to spur the man behind those eyes to come forward. “I’ve a bit of bacon and cornmeal, and coffee too.”

He closed his eyes, swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding along his throat. He needed a shave.

“Did I kill?” Raspy, but the words were clear.

“You did. That creature . . .” She paused, wondering what the boy had been. “That nightmare that looked like Elbert. You saved me from it. And I’m obliged to you. Let me begin to show my thanks with breakfast.”

Mae stood. “It will be difficult to cook with a gun in each hand. I’d appreciate it if you gave me your word I don’t need to worry about your company, Mr. Hunt.”

He nodded once, swallowed again. “You have my word, Mrs. Lindson,” he whispered, still not enough voice to the words. “And my thanks.” He tried to stand, got his feet under him, but his knees wouldn’t hold. He folded back down. He panted, his color white as lye, one arm braced on the floor all that held him upright.

“Let me see the wound,” Mae said.

She didn’t know if he heard her, so she touched his shoulder. He twitched, but did not tell her no.

She pulled the cloth away from the puncture in his side. It was bloody. And pus yellow. Infection.

“I think it best you come to the bed, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said. “You’ll need a bit of rest yet, and someplace better to heal than the hard floor.”

“Fine,” he whispered, “I’m fine.”

Mae raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She knew when a man said things out of stubborn pride. She’d been married for nine years.

And she knew better than to ask his permission. “Up now. Take a deep breath. On three. One, two, three.” She wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him up onto his feet. He leaned heavily on her, breathing hard, but somehow managed to get his feet moving. With her help, he limped across the room to the bed.