Devon Monk - Cold Copper

She smiled. “Such fine manners, Mr. Hunt. A brief encounter with civilization suits you.”

“Perhaps it does,” he said as he walked out the door.

But that was not the full truth. The beast lingered just beneath his skin, growing strong as the moon grew fat. Just like a veneer of moonlight over shadow, his civilized manners were fleeting at best, and misleading at worst.

Back outside, he untied his horse from the watering trough, and swung up into the saddle. The wind shifted, bringing the first scents of the night—a razor cold sharpened by ice.

The clouds had thinned enough he could see the angle of the sun near the horizon. An hour perhaps until dark. No more.

He should turn back to the church. Give Mae and Father Kyne time to break the curse.

Instead, he guided his mount toward the jail. He needed some answers, and the Madders seemed to be the only people who could provide them for him.

The townspeople sensed the failing light too. The few, very few, children he saw on the street with parents were held firmly by the hand and taken into homes where doors were shut, bolted, and shutters latched tight.

All before the sunset. There was a hurriedness to it, an apprehension in the air, a tangible fear. Fear of the night. Or of what happened in the night.

By the time he made it to the jail, the streets had half emptied out, leaving only the saloons and parlors full with laughter.

He rode around to the side of the jail, hitching his horse out of the way a bit, out of the wind that was hard rising.

He walked through the front door without knocking.

There was only one lawman there, Deputy Greeley, who stood behind a desk drinking coffee.

“Evening,” Cedar said.

“Evening. Mr. Hunt, wasn’t it? Something I can help you with?”

“I understand you have three men behind bars here, Alun, Bryn, and Cadoc Madder.”

“That’s so.”

“I’d like to speak to them.”

The wide-built deputy considered him, then sucked his teeth a moment, making the scar on the side of his face pucker. He placed his cup down and walked out from behind the desk. “I’ll need your weapons. All you got on you, blades included.”

Cedar complied, placing his guns and knives on the desk.

“They’re back in the far holding cell at the end of the row. Put them together so it’d be easier to shoot the lot of them if needed.”

Cedar nodded and strolled down the line of cells, passing by hard-eyed or desperate-looking men until he came to the cell at the end.

The Madder brothers had made themselves at home, somehow between the three of them managing to sling up three hammocks and turn the bunks into a table and chairs, at which they currently sat, playing poker.

“Nice of you to visit, Mr. Hunt,” Alun called out cheerily. “Any news on how construction on the gallows is going?”

“Haven’t looked in on it myself,” Cedar said. “Could stop by tomorrow morning to let you know, if you want.”

“I would indeed. There’s been a startling rise in the preference toward the new drop systems. I myself would prefer a bucket I could jump off of, don’t you agree, brothers?”

“I don’t know,” Bryn mused. “Snapped neck is quicker than slow strangulation.”

“Bah,” Alun said. “You want to go that easy? Crack and it’s done? Rather kick and spit and make a scene as I choke to death. Last chance to be on stage. Shouldn’t want to waste it.”

“I didn’t come here about the gallows,” Cedar said before Cadoc could enter the argument.

“What then, Mr. Hunt?” Alun asked with a twinkle in his eye. “Something on your mind tonight?”

“Roy Atkinson.”

The brothers stopped smiling. All of them, simultaneously, seemed more interested in their card hands.

“Don’t know that I know a man by that name,” Alun said.

“I wouldn’t suppose you would.” Cedar placed one hand around the thick cell bar. “Seeing as how he’s dead.”

“That so?” Alun said. “I’ll take two.”

Bryn thumbed two cards off the top of the deck.

“Did you kill him?” Cedar asked quietly enough; even the deputy out front shouldn’t be able to hear him.

The brothers played their hands a bit longer, Bryn giving Cadoc four new cards, though Cedar was sure he hadn’t asked for them, and Bryn taking only one.

“Aces high. Cadoc loses,” Bryn said.

Cadoc heaved a sigh and pushed up to his feet. He walked over to the bars and stood in front of Cedar. “That man is dead. It is true. Not by our hands, though we helped with his crossing. He wasn’t meant for this world, Mr. Hunt. He’d done his good. And we gave him his reward for it. The reward he asked for.”

“Death?”

“Only to some eyes. To others, we gave him eternal life.”

“Careful there, brother,” Alun said quietly. “All the world is made of ears.”

“Eternal life. Is that a fancy way of saying murder?” Cedar asked.

“We…” Cadoc looked up to the ceiling and frowned, as if working his way through his thoughts. Finally, he returned his gaze to Cedar and regarded him, for just a moment, as if he were gauging a stranger’s trustworthiness.

“You’ve seen things, Mr. Hunt. Been affected by a world most people can only imagine. One might think there are other curious things set near our world. Perhaps even other places that are wholly difficult to discern. Like darkness hides in shadow, some things and places hide in plain sight.”

Cedar tried hard not to sigh. He usually didn’t much mind Cadoc’s roundabout riddle answers. But tonight the moon was calling. Calling for blood.

“Just so.” Cadoc nodded toward Cedar as if he had listened in on his thoughts. “Things beyond the naked eye that are nonetheless very real. Things that can speak and even…change us.”

“What does this have to do with murder?”

“Why, everything,” he said, clearly surprised. “Haven’t you been listening to me?”

“You are difficult to parse on the best of days, Mr. Madder,” Cedar said. “And tonight is not my best day.”

“Tell it to a child, brother,” Alun suggested while Bryn reshuffled the deck.

Cadoc raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh. Well, then.” He patted Cedar’s hand like an uncle to a fond nephew. “Mr. Hunt. Cedar. We just made him appear dead so that he could live a different life. His time of being a mayor was over and only the illusion of death would release him from his promises.”

“To whom?”

“To us. Or as much as.”

“As much as,” the other two brothers repeated.

“So you faked his death?” Cedar said. “But the mayor found him dead. Robbed. He put a price on your heads for it.”

“That devil found what he wanted to find,” Cadoc said. “No more.”

“Did you break into the safe? Did you rob Atkinson?”

“No,” Cadoc said. “Those valuables always belonged to Roy Atkinson. No one took them from him.”

“So where is he?” Cedar asked. “If you tell me, I can bring him here. He can stand as witness, as proof that you didn’t kill him. You’d go free.”

“Free?” Alun said. “Why…I can’t…” He exhaled one hard grunt. “Mr. Hunt,” he began in the tone of an orator as he stood and strolled slowly over to the bars of the cell. “We do not wish to be free. If we wanted to be free, we wouldn’t be in a jail cell, now, would we?”

“Can’t say as I’ve ever seen the logic in what you do and don’t do,” Cedar said.

That made Alun grin. “Even so, this should make sense to you. We are here to buy you time. Time to fulfill your promise to us. A promise that if gone unfulfilled will mean disaster and death for many innocent people. A promise that you are apparently not doing since you are instead standing here talking about something long finished in days gone by.”