Devon Monk - Dead Iron

He stepped up close to her, too close, and offered her the candle he held. He smelled of booze and smoke and sweat. She didn’t know where he’d spent his day, but she’d guess it was in the saloon.

Rose took the candleholder, but Henry did not let go. He smiled, and nice Henry, quiet Henry, melted away, leaving that cruel boy she’d known all her life.

“You grew up real pretty, Rose. Got yourself curves that keep a man awake at night. If it weren’t for that smart mouth of yours, and all those wild contraptions you busy yourself with, you’d be married off, softened up, and have six babies tugging at your skirts by now.”

Rose tucked her left hand in her apron pocket, but did not let go of the candle that Henry still held.

“Henry Dunken, if you don’t have the decency to treat me like a lady, I will leave this attic and tell your mother what a hog you are.”

That got a smile out of him. Not a nice smile. “You’re gonna run and tell my mama? That didn’t work when you were ten. That ain’t gonna work today.” He stepped tight up into her. “And there ain’t no Mr. Gregor to run to here.”

Rose got her fingers around the gun she kept in her pocket. She jabbed the barrel of it below Henry’s belt. His eyes went wide.

“You feel that, Mr. Dunken? That’s one of those wild contraptions I busy myself with. It shoots a man clean through. Then the powder and oil I devised eats away at flesh and bone until there’s a hole left behind wide enough to stick two fists through.”

Rose smiled. She reckoned it was not a nice smile either. “You step away from me, Henry Dunken, or I’m going to blow your manhood to kingdom come.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed, and a bead of sweat trickled down his temple to catch in his sideburns and beard. She could tell he didn’t believe her. Maybe didn’t believe she had made such a thing. Maybe didn’t believe she would use such a thing.

But she had. And she would.

Rose cocked the hammer, and the click of gears sounded like knuckles breaking.

Henry Dunken let go of the candle and took a step back. His hands were in fists. Rose remembered how much those fists had hurt when she was nine. She vowed then she’d never let a man hurt her so again.

“You’re a hell-spawn woman. Made of the devil’s rib. No wonder your mama squatted you out in the dirt on the Smalls’ doorstep. You’re nothing but evil.”

Rose nodded. “So it appears I am, Mr. Dunken. And now that we agree to my nature, I’d say it’s best to your advantage to gather up those candlesticks and carry them down these stairs.”

“Man doesn’t turn his back on a rattlesnake,” he said.

“Might be he should, if the snake’s pointing a gun.” Just to make sure he believed her, Rose took the gun out of her apron pocket. Plenty enough candlelight to show the bulky weapon—not the little derringer she carried. This was a modified Remington revolver. Warmed her heart to see the shock in his eyes.

“Candlesticks,” she said.

Henry got busy piling up the carved, polished candlesticks like rough kindling into his arms. When he walked across the room again, he glared at her. “I’ll be mayor of this town, Rose Small. And I will make your life more miserable than even your mad mind can imagine. If you live that long. After all, I know where you walk at night. And where you sleep.”

He stormed down the stairs, bootheels hard and heavy with his anger.

Rose stayed at the top of the stairs for a few moments. Her heart was beating so hard, she could feel it in her throat, hear it in her ears. That man meant to kill her for his bruised pride. And if he caught her alone again, he’d do just that.

She tucked the gun back in her apron, but kept one hand on it. She didn’t want to shoot a man in front of his mother, but if he tried to hurt her, she wasn’t above it either.

Rose was halfway down the stairs when the steam clock whistled. Three short blasts and one long. There was an emergency. Something was wrong. That whistle would call all the townsfolk from miles around to the church, to find out what the trouble was and what they needed to do about it.

Rose stayed on the stairs a minute or so more, waiting to see where, exactly, Henry Dunken would position himself in this emergency.

He dropped the fancy candlesticks in a pile along the wall and rushed outside, the women aflutter behind him. If Rose wanted to leave the building, now was her chance, out the back door. Easy to slip out unnoticed when an emergency was rising. Course she might just run off into the very emergency the town was rallying against if she wasn’t careful. But if choosing between an unknown danger and Henry Dunken, she’d take the unknown.

She blew out the candle, ready to leave

Then it struck her. Maybe it was little Elbert. Maybe Mr. Hunt had found the child alive and brought him home. Maybe he had discovered the bogeyman that took him and all the town was being gathered up to go hunt it down.

Rose moved up the steps just enough the shadows from the attic hid her from a casual glance. She wanted to know what the trouble was, but didn’t want to be volunteered just yet in the fixing of it.

“Bring him in here, Mr. LeFel.” Sheriff Wilke’s voice filled the hall. “Mr. and Mrs. Gregor will be here any minute now.”

Sheriff Wilke strode into the room; then Mr. Shard LeFel, resplendent in his velvet long coat and silk ruffles, strolled in behind him. He held an unconscious child in his arms. Little Elbert Gregor.

The rest of the people, and there was a crowd of them gathered behind him, stayed well back from Mr. LeFel and his man Mr. Shunt, who followed, as he always did, on Mr. LeFel’s heels. Mr. LeFel walked across that floor like a king, his head high, his eyes filled with a sorrow Rose did not believe. He placed the child gently upon a pew at the front of the room, and Doc Hatcher went to one knee, his hands on the child’s stomach, chest, then face, where he gently drew back the child’s eyelids.

The sheriff had taken the stage behind the pulpit. Mr. LeFel and Mr. Shunt stood to the sides and behind him.

“Come in and have a seat, everyone,” Sheriff Wilke called out. The whole town, and then some, seemed to be trying to wedge themselves into the building.

“Mr. LeFel has some information we all should know,” he continued. “First, though, I’ll tell you the Gregor boy is breathing.” He looked over at the doctor.

“He’s in bad shape,” Doc Hatcher said, and if Rose hadn’t been looking right at his face, she wouldn’t have heard him over the chatter of the crowd. “He needs rest.”

“Sit down,” Sheriff Wilke hollered over the crowd. “Take a seat. Make room for your neighbor.”

“Out of the way,” Mr. Gregor bellowed from the door. Rose knew the blacksmith’s voice, though she had never heard that mix of anger and panic in his tone. And just like snowmelt before the fire, the crowd receded, leaving a clear path between the pews for Mr. Gregor and his wife. Little Mrs. Gregor bobbed down that aisle, one hand pressed over her mouth, holding back the sound of her sobs, the other clutching up the hem of her skirt to keep from tripping.

Mr. Gregor stormed down the aisle behind her, his hands curled as if he wished the weight of a hammer and vise lay within them.

“Where is my son?” he demanded.

“He’s here, right here.” Sheriff Wilke pointed to the pew. Mrs. Gregor was already pulling Elbert up into her arms and sobbing over him.

Elbert fussed and then cried softly, clinging to the fabric of his mother’s dress.

Mr. Gregor glared at the men on the stage, the sheriff, the rich dandy, and his servant, Mr. Shunt. “Who found him? Who had him? Where was he?”

Shard LeFel stepped forward and it was like every candle in the room leaned his way, every eye locked on him, every head bowed to hear his words.