Devon Monk - Dead Iron

Cedar Hunt wasn’t done killing yet.

He threw himself at the last Strange. And this time, it was Mae who fell from the monstrous creature, Mae who took a hard, shuddering breath, pulling the gag from her mouth and the barbed wire from her throat.

Jeb Lindson lifted Shard LeFel away from the closed doorway in the floor, his huge hand crushing LeFel’s windpipe. Jeb Lindson laughed and laughed, his ruined face drooping with the effort to smile as he dragged Shard LeFel behind him over the rubble of the train car and down to the ground outside.

Shard LeFel scrabbled, reaching for the door, reaching for the stairs, trying to scream through a throat that could do no more than gurgle.

And then Jeb stopped laughing. “For Mae,” he breathed. “ My Mae.”

Jeb pounded LeFel’s face methodically with his fists, breaking his beautiful features, snapping his elegant neck, cracking his graceful back, then every other bone in his body, before crushing his skull and digging his brain out with his knuckles. Just for good measure, he pounded the bloody scraps of Shard LeFel with the metal ticker, until all that remained of him was pulverized into a fine mash.

“Mr. Hunt?”

Cedar looked away from the bloody spectacle.

Rose Small stood on what was left of the platform, her rifle smoking, her goggles pushed up, little Elbert hugged close against her hip. She was dirty, singed, a little bloody. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her smile so brightly.

Rose assessed the damage to the railcar. “Don’t know if you can jump down, and I wouldn’t advise you to drop too close to Mr. Lindson. He’s of a powerful single purpose right now. Can you make it here to the platform next to me?”

Cedar took a step, looked back at Mae, who had somehow pulled herself up on her feet and was walking, a bit dazed, toward Rose. Cedar nudged Wil until his brother gained his feet and blindly followed him. The door in the floor was closed, the white light gone. Cedar knew he’d need to break that door, maybe burn it down, but could not summon the effort, nor could he begin to think of the method to do so.

He was suddenly very tired, very much in pain, and very hot. All he wanted to do was lie down and lose himself to the soft, luxurious promise of sleep. What was wrong with him?

He glanced at the sky behind Rose Small. It was no longer dark and star-caught, but instead blushing with pink. How had dawn come so soon? Rose was helping Mae to sit, and looking over both Mae’s and Elbert’s injuries.

Dawn was on its way.

Rose glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “That’s good, Mr. Hunt. You’re almost there. Mae and Elbert are torn up pretty bad, but they’re mostly whole. A fair bit better than I reckon they should expect to be.”

The slide of dawn and the grip of pain blurred Rose’s words and made her seem far away. He wanted to go to Mae, to touch her and know she was safe, but he could not move. So he listened to Rose Small’s words and knew they meant safety and tending. Cedar lay down to rest. Then the moon drained away, taking the wolf with it and leaving him free to be a man once again.

Rose Small did not avert her eyes as Mr. Hunt slipped his wolf skin and stretched out into his bare naked self. It didn’t take long at all for him to turn from wolf to man, and he made no sound, gave no indication that it hurt.

He simply was looking at her from a wolf’s eyes, then rolled his shoulders, stretched his legs, arched his back that had three bullet wounds clean through it, and was kneeling in his man form. Near as she could tell, he fell asleep right there. The wounds in his back started mending some, even as she watched, though they leaked a strange black oil.

She looked over at the other wolf, who regarded her with eyes the color of old copper. He limped over and laid himself down next to Cedar.

“I’m supposing you’re not just a wild animal,” Rose said as she took a step toward Cedar. “But seeing as how everyone here is still bleeding, I think we’ll need to find some water and shelter before folks in town come looking for what all the noise was about.”

She shifted the pack on her back, sliding her arm out of one strap. The wolf closed his eyes, and seemed to fall asleep just like Cedar.

“Well, don’t that beat all?” Rose knelt and pulled her blanket roll off the bottom of her pack and unrolled the wool blanket—one that she had bought from Mae—over Mae and little Elbert.

At that touch, Mae seemed to come to, brushing back her hair with bloody hands, and fixing Rose with a clear-eyed stare.

“Jeb?”

“He’s here, as much of him as can be.” Rose nodded to where Jeb knelt, unmoving, above the gory mash that had just a moment before been Mr. Shard LeFel.

Mae moved the blanket so that it was wrapped around Elbert, and handed the boy to Rose. Then Mae walked down what was left of the train-car stairs, toward what was left of her husband.

“Husband? Jeb?”

Jeb raised his head. “Mae?” The word was a sigh, almost unrecognizable from what was left of his mouth.

“I’m here, my love.”

Jeb struggled to stand, finally pushed onto his ruined leg and broken ankle, steadying himself with will alone.

Mae was smiling as if an angel had just descended from heaven and landed there in front of her.

“Oh, Jeb.” She stepped right up to him and put her hands in his, while he looked down at her, love and devotion shining from his eyes.

“My Mae,” he said. “To have and to hold.”

Mae nodded. “Yes, love. Always.” She glanced at his shackles, running her fingers along the cuff of one of his hands, looking for a way to release him, while he looked at her in adoration.

Jeb held perfectly still as she worked her hands around the shackles, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t find a way to release them.

Finally, Jeb pulled one hand out of hers and gently placed a single finger beneath her chin, tipping her face upward.

“Mae,” he said again. “My wife.”

Even though her face was tipped, her eyes were closed. The gloss of tears ran a clean line through the blood on her cheeks. She took a deep breath and finally opened her eyes.

Sorrow and pain cast fleeting shadows across her features as she studied the shredded remains of the man before her. Then she smiled.

“It’s going to be all right, my love,” she said, her voice hitching. “You’re going to be just fine. We’re going to be just fine.”

The sky grew brighter, the sun pressing just below the horizon’s edge.

Jeb shook his head and softly drew one thumb across her cheek, as if he had done so a thousand times before, wiping her tears away. “It is too late for me. Has been for some time. We know that.”

“No,” Mae said. “Don’t say that.”

“What should I say, my Mae?” he asked.

“That you’ll stay with me. Always.”

Jeb cupped the side of her face in his bloody hand. “To love and cherish,” he said.

“I do love you,” she said. “I will always love you.”

“The vow,” he said, his voice soft, sad. “Say the vow, my beautiful wife. To love and to cherish.”

Mae searched his face. “To love and to cherish.”

“Until death do us part.”

“Until death do us part,” she whispered.

Jeb took a deep, shuddering breath. “I love you,” he exhaled, “always.”

He bent to her, and she stood on tiptoe. They kissed gently, husband and wife for one last moment as the sun burned bright over the horizon.

Sunlight poured down over them, cloaking them in a golden veil while they kissed. Then Jeb Lindson faded away, shackles falling to the earth, until he was nothing but dust that glinted on the wind, gathered up and carried in a rejoice of morning birdsong, to the sky.