Dead Iron

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Shard LeFel tightened his grip on the Holder he held tight to his chest as if it were a babe made of glass. In his other hand was a spiked chain looped around the witch’s neck. The same chain noosed the necks of the wolf and the boy.

“Well done, Mr. Shunt,” Shard LeFel said, watching the other wolf twitch and bleed at his feet.

Mr. Shunt bowed slightly, and then bent toward the wolf who struggled to breathe. He splayed his spiked fingers, itching to dig out the wolf’s heart.

“Leave him,” Shard LeFel said. “He will be dead soon. I’ll not have this interruption stop my return.”

Mr. Shunt hissed, then seemed to compose himself. He straightened. “Yes, Lord LeFel.”

Shard LeFel handed the chain to Mr. Shunt and walked through the open door into the car his collection of matics had once filled. Empty now. But he could hear them out on the battlefield, the magnificent screech and hiss and thump of the devices killing the Madders. Music. Sweet and fitting for his last grand night in this mortal world. Fitting to send him back to his own lands and immortality.

An explosion rang out and then a ragged howl of a voice lifted above it: “Mae!”

Shard LeFel paused between one step and the next. “Could it be?” He glanced over his shoulder at the witch, whose eyes were wide in fear, her voice silenced by the leather gag in her mouth and the barbed-wire chain that left beads of blood around her throat every time she swallowed.

“I believe that is your husband, Mrs. Lindson, come back from the grave. Such a pity he is too late to save you.”

He continued through that car and to the next. The door opened before him and one of the Strangework bowed, and stepped aside to allow his entrance.

Shard LeFel strolled over to the center of the room, where the door lay like a coffin on a pedestal.

“Three hundred years of exile,” he said softly. “And now, finally, I shall cheat this death, cheat this mortal world, and mete my revenge upon my brother in the lands from whence I came.”

He placed the Holder at the very top of the door’s frame, pressing it down into a hollow carved perfectly for the device. The device pulsed, moonlight caught there in echo to a faintly beating heart. But Shard LeFel knew it would take more than moonlight to open this door.

It would take three lives.

The three Strange against the walls shifted, a slight moan escaping their lips as the Holder found its place in the door. Each of the Strange was attached to the door by wires and tubes that ran from its neck, wrists, and feet and fed into the door.

Shard LeFel meant to savor his moment. A decanter of threehundred-year-old wine and a crystal goblet awaited his celebration.

“Mr. Shunt, see that our guests are comfortable,” LeFel said. “Then open the sky for me.”

Mr. Shunt gave the witch’s chain to the first Strange who clung to the wall at his left. The wolf’s chain he gave to the Strange at the far end of the car, and the boy’s chain he gave to the final Strange standing nearest Mr. Shard LeFel.

Then Mr. Shunt walked across the floor to a crank set near the door. He turned the crank, and the ceiling of the train car drew aside like a curtain pushed back by a hand.

Shard LeFel uncorked the wine and poured it into the decanter. “And unto this world, I bid my most final farewell.”

Moonlight streamed thick and blue-white into the room, striking the Holder and the door. Light from the Holder poured flame into the runes and glyphs and symbols the Strange had carved into the doorway.

And from outside the train car, bullets rattled the night.

“Beautiful,” LeFel said. “And now all that is needed is the key.” He glanced at the boy who slept curled and chained at the Strange’s feet. He glanced at the wolf that panted in pain. He glanced at the witch who stood wide-eyed with fury, tears tracking her cheeks to wet the leather gag.

“Mr. Shunt, begin with the boy, then the wolf, then the witch.”

Mr. Shunt bowed, his eyes bright, his teeth carving a sharp smile. He walked to the Strangework who stood above the boy, and inserted one of his bladed fingers, like a key, into the Strange’s chest, where a heart should be. He twisted his hand, and the Strangework shuddered. Mr. Shunt withdrew his finger.

The Strange changed.

It spread its arms wide and the front of its body split open, revealing gears and sinew, pulleys, pistons, and bone that worked in dark concert to expose spikes and edges and blades lining every inch of it. A living, breathing iron maiden, remarkable in its ingenuity of both form and function.

Mr. Shunt picked up the sleeping boy and deposited him deep inside the gears and spikes, pressing him back, but not far enough to prick his skin. Not yet.

Then he moved to the wolf, who was too injured and too drugged to fight. Mr. Shunt shoveled him inside the spiked guts of the Strangework there.

And lastly he walked to the witch.

“I will not miss this wretched land.” LeFel sipped the wine, savoring the heat and flavor of ancient blooms across his tongue.

“Nor will I mourn its destruction.” He sipped again, and pressed one of the jewels on the bent cane in his hand, releasing the pure silver blade cased within it. A blade that would carve out his brother’s heart.

“Mr. Shunt,” LeFel said. “It is time to spill the blood of our coin.”

Rose Small watched as Cedar Hunt ran, limping hard, to the train car where Mae must be trapped. She ducked behind the thin stand of trees, put her back to a fir trunk, and pushed her goggles out of the way as she reloaded.

The Madders were still out there, standing in the open in front of the trees, firing off those blunderbusses and shotguns, shrouded in smoke and fire and moonlight, and laughing like wild jackals.

The matics were coming. Five of the most amazing devices that would each have struck her dumb with awe if they weren’t so hellbent on killing her and the Madders. Rose chambered the bullets, her hands trembling, her heart pounding, then glanced out from behind the tree.

The full moon set the devices into full contrast, even at a distance. She didn’t know how, but the matics were working in conjunction with one another. Through the smoke and blasts from the Madders’ guns she could see one of the doglike beasts was down and twitching, and the other stood stock-still, steam gushing up out of it like a geyser. But the others, the Goliath with steam-hammer arms, the battlewagon, and the huge, spiked wheel, were bearing down faster than the Madders could shoot them dead.

And if that weren’t enough, the railmen from up a ways had come into the fight with more guns than an army. She like as not figured one of the train cars up the line had to be an arsenal of weapons.

Rose swallowed hard and tasted the oil and burn of spent black powder. She didn’t reckon there was an easy way out of this alive.

She fitted the goggles back over her eyes and fired cover shots at the hulking Goliath that hammered an arm down so near the Madders, one of the brothers fell flat from the impact. The big beast reared back, screeching and clacking. It was recharging, ratcheting up its firing device to slam its arms down again.

Rose shot at the thing, aiming for what she prayed were vulnerabilities: tubes, connecting valves, and gauges.

But the matic did not slow. It rolled this way on strange tracked feet that chewed over the terrain as if it were riding on rails.

The Madders used her fire as a chance to run back behind the screen of trees with her.

“Do you have a plan, Mr. Madder?” she yelled to Alun as he skidded to a stop behind the tree to her right, both his brothers half a tick behind him, grinning and breathing hard

Bullets zipped through the night air. Needles and dirt sprayed down around them.

Rose leaned out again and fired off the last of her shots at the railmen, who were holding ground behind the metal monsters.

“Plan to kill the matics and crack LeFel out of his fortress,” Alun said. “Reload, Miss Small. The boys are going to need cover.”

Rose was already reloading. She glanced up at the Madders. Bryn and Cadoc were gone.

Just then the rapid fire of what sounded like a hundred guns tore flashes of light through the night.

“That’s the battlewagon,” Alun yelled over the peppering recoil of bullets. “Figure it has a twenty-five- or thirty-shot cartridge.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe, then sparked a wick with a tiny striker, and puffed until the tobacco caught.

Rose’s heart beat harder than a hammer. She’d heard tales of the rapid-fire guns used in the war, but she had never seen such a device, and didn’t want to become intimately acquainted with one now.

“That one’s done,” Alun yelled into the sudden pause of gunshot.

“Fire, Miss Small.” He clamped his teeth down on the pipe stem and leaned out from behind the cover of the tree. He sent off a volley of bullets. The battlewagon had extinguished its cartridge and must be reloading. But how much time would that take?

Rose Small shouldered her shotgun and aimed back at the field. The battlewagon was indeed reloading, but the hulking Goliath rumbled toward them on its tracks, hammer arms pulled back and ready to tear down the trees they stood behind. Rose took aim at the Goliath, but nothing seemed to stop it.

“Look low,” Alun yelled.

Rose lowered her rifle.

Another matic, the huge spiked wheel, was rolling their way, rattling over dips and tree stumps, one hundred yards and closing fast.

Rose fired everything she had at it. So did Alun. But they didn’t have nearly enough firepower to stop that thing.

Alun was no longer laughing. He was cussing up a lung. He pulled something from his pocket and lit the wick of it with his pipe, then lobbed it at the rolling matic.

A ground-shaking explosion rang out, but the wheel kept coming.

Rose was out of bullets. She pulled her handgun and stood her ground, setting off shot after shot at the spiked wheel. Bullets didn’t stop it. Bullets didn’t even slow it.

Fifty feet out. Thirty. Twenty.

Rose turned to run.

And in front of her rose a monster out of nightmare.

Mr. Jeb Lindson.

Rose froze and stared into the eyes of a dead man.

“Move!” Alun hollered.

Rose threw herself to the side.

Jeb yelled.

Just as the spiked wheel bashed through the trees. Limbs cracked and crashed to the ground with skull-splitting impact.

Rose tucked up tight behind a boulder and covered her head with her arms. She peeked out just in time to see the wheel come to a crashing stop in front of Jeb Lindson, the forward-most spike pulling back like a cannon ready to fire.

With inhuman strength, Jeb Lindson swung the huge round tickers attached to the chain around his wrists. He slammed them into the matic. Metal met metal, crashing and sparking. Steam gushed into the air as the wheel matic faltered under the blow. Jeb didn’t wait for it to fall. He lifted the giant chain and ball and smashed it into the matic again, busting seams, popping rivets. The wheel matic exploded, hot scrap and ash raining down out of the air.

Then the big man went walking. Toward the rail. Toward Mr. Shard LeFel’s train cars, where his wife, Mae Lindson, was held captive.

Rose smelled hair burning and patted at her shoulders. Her hair was on fire! She pulled at the base of her braid, dragging her hair forward over her shoulder. A very bad mistake. The fire licked up the side of her cheek. Rose yelled and slapped at the fire, blistering her palms. She snuffed it out just before it reached her ear, and sat there, for a second or two, trying to get back her breath and her courage.

The night filled with bullets again. The battlewagon was rolling closer, firing another deadly round off into the night.

Blinking back tears of pain, and swallowing down her fear, Rose scrambled for her gun and prayed she had enough bullets in her pockets to end this.

Mae Lindson had no weapon except her magic. It would take her voice to curse or bind, or draw upon magic of any kind. And she had no voice.

Jeb yelled out in agony. He was alive, trying to find her. Trying to save her. But that monster Shard LeFel was right. He was too late. There was no time left.

Time.

Alun Madder had given her a pocket watch. She knew it carried a speck of glim. Could she use it as a weapon?

As Mr. Shunt turned his back to stuff Elbert inside the gory clockwork of the Strange, Mae worked to get the pocket watch out of her coat. They had bound her hands together in front of her, but she could still move them.

The Strange that held the chain around her throat was hypnotized by Mr. Shunt’s work. If it noticed what she was doing, one hard tug on her chain would crush her neck.

Mae fingered the watch into her hand, then slowly pulled it up to her mouth. She tugged at the leather gag, but it wouldn’t move. Over the top of the pocket watch she whispered, more song than word, more breath than voice, calling on magic, begging magic to come to her, hoping the glim would work as an amplifier, a cupped hand, a bullhorn, to call the magic and make it stronger. She begged magic to not so much break a curse but interrupt it and hold it away for one single minute, for one single man: Cedar Hunt. And then she pressed down the watch stem, stopping the watch, and stopping Cedar Hunt’s curse, for just one minute.

Cedar Hunt gasped for air and pushed himself up onto his knees. He didn’t know how, but he was a man, even though moonlight filled the sky. He saw the gun on the platform beside him. The gun Mr. Shunt had shot him with. He picked it up and pushed onto his feet, nearly blacking out from the pain. He staggered through the train car toward the child, toward his brother, toward Mae.

Rose Small looked for Alun Madder. He was sprinting over the matic Jeb Lindson had reduced to a pile of rubble, and headed straight at the Goliath, an ax in each hand, his pipe cherry bright in his mouth. The battlewagon trundled over the terrain, headed right for him, reloading a cartridge as it picked up speed.

It was suicide. There was no cover, no way Alun would survive a rapid-fire round from the matic.

“This way!” Alun Madder yelled. “Quickly! The boys will take care of the men.”

Boys? Rose heard Cadoc and Bryn let out a hoot from down the rail. The two younger Madder brothers had clambered up inside the big rail-matic scraper with bulletlike wheels that leveled the land. Somehow they’d powered the thing and were now riding it down over the bank of men, Bryn looking like some kind of bug as he worked the levers in the cab—his goggles reflecting moonlight and gunfire. Cadoc, wild-haired and laughing as he hung by one hand and one foot off the side of the beast, unloaded shot after shot into the rail workers’ rank.

The railmen returned fire on the big ticker, but bullets pinged off the huge metal scraper. The rail matic powered forward relentlessly, smashing flat roots and stumps and anything else that got in its way, big screw wheels covering the ground with ease.

The rail workers were outgunned. Those that could turned tail and ran from the nightmare scene. The rest were crushed where they stood.

Alun was at the foot of the Goliath. Far too nimble for a man his size, Alun Madder ducked low and jammed both axes into the bottom links of the matic’s wheel track, then followed that up with another lit bomb that he lobbed up into the beast’s chassis.

“Run, Rose,” Alun Madder yelled. “Run!”

The matic hammered down with a mighty whump and the earth itself bent beneath its blow.

She couldn’t see Alun, didn’t know if he had been injured or killed by the hammer. The other two Madder brothers were driving the rail matic up behind the battlewagon, on a clear collision course that would crush the mobile gun.

They were crazy, all of them. Plainly suicidally brained. But she didn’t take the time to ponder further. She ran. Toward LeFel’s train cars, toward Cedar Hunt and Mae Lindson. To save them if she could. Before it was too late.

Mae Lindson threw her hands up to ward off Mr. Shunt, but he slapped the watch out of her hands and then, for good measure, struck her hard across the face. Stars filled Mae’s vision as the barbed-wire chain around her throat tightened and bit.

She couldn’t breathe.

The hot, wet heat of the Strange surrounded her as Mr. Shunt shoved her into the clockwork monster behind her. Spikes scratched, slashed, clamped. The heat and oil inside the Strange caused every open wound on her body to sting as if salt had been rubbed in it. She tried to scream, but had no air.

“Now, Mr. Shunt,” Shard LeFel said. “The blood. Turn the key and open our door so that I may see to my brother’s end.”

Mr. Shunt spun so quickly, his coat billowed around him like dark wings. Then he was at the Strange door where Shard LeFel stood waiting, hunger twisting his hauntingly beautiful features.

Mr. Shunt triggered a switch. And the Strange that held the boy, Wil, and Mae began to close. Mae pushed at the creature swallowing her whole, but it was like pushing against a bear trap. Spikes pressed into her back, her legs, her shoulders, her arms. Sharp agony drew a ragged scream out of her throat as her blood was sucked up and pumped down into the tubes that ran to the door, mixing with the blood of the howling wolf and the screaming child.

The door began to open, hot white light pouring through the cracks and shattering the shadows of the room. And in that light, Mae saw her death.

Cedar Hunt lurched through the empty train car, blinking blood and sweat out of his eyes. His lungs felt heavy and full of blood. He cocked the trigger back on the gun and stumbled into the next car, parceling his breath so as not to pass out.

He lifted the gun and shot the first person he saw—Mr. Shard LeFel, who stood bathing in an unholy light coming up from the floor of the car. The shot caught Shard LeFel in the shoulder and knocked him flat on his back.

Cedar cocked the gun, fired again, this time aiming for the tall, skeletal figure of Mr. Shunt. He missed.

And then, just as sure as a watch running down, Cedar was no longer a man. He was a wolf again. He lunged for Mr. Shunt, jaws, claws, and rage. Mr. Shunt was made of blades and hooks, razors and pain—too fast to catch his throat, too slick to snap his bones. Cedar tore at flesh that tasted of rotted blood, but could do no true damage to the Strange.

“Mr. Shunt,” Shard LeFel yelled as he regained his feet and strode back up to the doorway. “Kill them. Spill their blood now!” Shard LeFel used the bladed cane to help him stand on the edge of the opening doorway beneath him, one boot at the threshold.

Mr. Shunt skittered away from Cedar’s hold and flicked a lever on the device at the top of the doorway. The device lit up.

Screams of agony filled the room.

Cedar could not kill the three Strange creatures in time to save Mae, Elbert, and Wil, and he had no time to choose between them. Little of a man’s reasoning filtered through the pain now. His mind was all wolf, and the wolf would kill the one Strange in front of him.

Cedar jumped over the door, past Shard LeFel, crashing down on Mr. Shunt before he could trigger another lever in the device.

Cedar snapped at Shunt’s face, caught scarf and a hank of hair. Mr. Shunt unhinged and slipped free, then pulled up the gun that had fallen from Cedar’s hand. Mr. Shunt aimed that gun at Cedar’s head.

Then the train car exploded—walls bashed apart as if a boulder had torn through them.

“LeFel!” A great, hoarse bellow shook through the night.

Jeb Lindson had come calling.

Another wall shuddered from the impact of the huge matics Jeb swung like a child swings a stick.

Mr. Shunt turned the gun on Jeb Lindson. And squeezed the trigger.

The shot took Jeb straight through the middle of his head, leaving a trail of smoke spiraling up out of the hole.

Jeb smiled, bloody, charred, torn apart, and shredded so that he barely resembled the man he once was. He picked up one of the huge ball tickers and pounded it into Mr. Shunt, knocking him flat before turning toward his true goal, Mr. Shard LeFel.

Shard LeFel raised his cane. “You will not stand in the way of my revenge! You will not stop me!” He lunged. The silver blade pierced Jeb’s ribs, clean out his back.

And the big man let out a huge wet chortle.

Shard LeFel’s eyes went wide with horror.

“Can’t kill a man more’n three times, devil,” Jeb Lindson said. “Said it yourself. You plain can’t kill me no more.”

Mr. Shunt seemed just as shocked as Shard LeFel and stood, weighing his options. Cedar barreled into Mr. Shunt and tore into his neck, shaking and breaking it. Then Cedar ripped Mr. Shunt apart, limb from limb, stringing bone and guts and metal out of him like pulling the meat out of a crab, until Mr. Shunt stopped moving, stopped twitching, stopped ticking.

It took no more than a minute before Mr. Shunt was reduced to a mess of cracked bits. It took a few seconds more before Cedar could reclaim enough of his mind to realize Wil, Mae, and Elbert were still trapped. Trapped by the Strangeworks.

Cedar attacked the first Strange, sinking teeth into its head and throwing himself backward, twisting off the head with the strength of his jaw.

The Strange wriggled and shrieked and sprang open like a popped seed. From that bloody mess, the little child Elbert tumbled out onto the floor.

Cedar paused just long enough to be sure the child was breathing, then ran to the next Strangework.

“No!” Shard LeFel screamed. “Release me. Fall to the ground and worship me.”

Cedar glanced at him. The door was closing, and Shard LeFel was not walking through it. Jeb Lindson was there instead, big hand wrapped around Shard LeFel’s throat, holding him one-handed in midair above the door. With a vicious smile, Jeb Lindson lowered Shard LeFel just enough, the tips of his boots slipped into the door, before he yanked him up again.

“Only gonna do one thing, devil,” Jeb said. “Gonna kill you, me and this dead iron. And it’s only gonna take me the one time.”

Jeb used one hand to smash the ball matic into the Holder at the head of the doorway.

The Holder exploded in a roll of thunder and a blast of lightning. Seven distinct bits of the device flew straight up into the night and then whisked across the starry sky faster than anything on this earth.

Cedar was on the next Strangework, biting, killing, twisting, destroying, until it disgorged his brother, Wil, who was broken, bloody. But he still breathed.

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.

The widow Mae Lindson stood for a long, long while, face tipped up to the glow of the eastern sky, her eyes closed as if she could not yet find the strength to look upon the world now that her husband was no longer upon it.