Dead Iron (8 page)

Down the grade a bit, the great hulking matic worked. Long screwlike wheels shaped like bullet cartridges the size of small canoes were attached to either side of the device. The spinning of the screws propelled the matic, and allowed it to scramble up and across the roughest terrain even while dragging a ten-foot iron blade at its base that leveled the ground behind it.

Alongside the rail, two matics the size of draft horses with brass boiler bellies, continuous track wheels, and loads of wooden ties on their backs trundled over the leveled grade. They dropped handhewn ties like setting coffins in graves, straight rows so close together you couldn’t roll one without hitting its neighbor.

Steam puffed white and gray plumes from the pipes in the matics’ heads while heavy brass centrifugal governors spun tight circles of gold and steel, and iron pistons pumped and turned gears.

Not a spot of rust on LeFel’s matics. Not a drop of oil out of place. These metal beasts were well and lovingly tended.

Behind the matics worked the men. A crew of thirty rawboned French, British, Scots, and Indians heaved the iron rail down upon the ties already dropped, and used pry bars, spike mauls, and shovels to dig, lift, and hammer the rails into place.

It was hard work and broke a man down slowly. Likely as not, it killed him too. It was the kind of work, the kind of pain, LeFel enjoyed watching the men shoulder. He kept their rations low and their pay modest, always seasoned with a small promise of better times ahead.

The wind snatched at bits of their crude work song and threw it his way, a sorrowful chant longing for hot meals, hard drinks, and the women they’d left behind. He inhaled their sorrow, their pain, and swallowed it down like an elixir, savoring every note. The rail had brought him more pleasures than he’d imagined it could.

The rail was moving forward, pounding forward, steaming forward. And soon the Strange would follow it out of the pockets and crannies of the land to every shore.

“Good morning to you, Mr. LeFel,” a cheerful voice called out. A young woman walked toward him, her dun horse plodding behind her.

She didn’t look a thing like her mother or father. She wore a plain cobalt blue dress with a split riding skirt, the dress so tight across her narrow ribs and waist that it required no corset. Her hair was pulled back in a braid, and a silk bonnet covered her head. He half expected her to be barefoot, but instead sturdy boots that may have been her father’s castoffs adorned her feet.

Her cheeks were tanned and freckled, giving her a bit of a wild look, but when she smiled, she took the light out of the sun.

There was something about her that set his blood on fire.

“Good morning, my dear lady,” LeFel said, surprised at his rise of emotions. “I don’t believe we’ve met. You are . . . ?”

“I’m sorry. Where are my manners?” She blushed and LeFel’s heart tripped a beat. Why did this border ruffian stir him so? She was certainly not the first woman he’d laid eyes upon, nor the most beautiful or refined.

“My name is Rose Small. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” She did not extend her hand, but instead gave him a small curtsy, her gaze boldly holding his just a moment too long. There was no hint of fear in her eyes. No, the only emotion he could pin to her was faint distrust and far too much curiosity than was healthy.

A sweet flower with an iron spine. What an interesting dish.

“It is my pleasure, alone,” he said. LeFel stepped forward and caught up her hand, intending to kiss the back of it, to taste what she was made of. But something around her neck made him pause.

She wore an oval locket the size and color of a robin’s egg. That charm should not be in her possession. The locket was gold and silver washed in blue, carved with protection spells no mortal should set eyes upon, much less wear as an adornment.

It was an object of the Strange realm and given to very few.

“What a lovely locket you’re wearing,” he whispered.

Rose leaned back as if his words were heat and fire. She pulled her hand away from his and drew a leather envelope out of the satchel she wore over one shoulder. “Thank you kindly, sir,” she said. She held the envelope out for him to take. “My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Small, asked for me to bring this out to you.”

LeFel took the envelope from her fingers, his eyes still on the locket. “And where did you come by such a bauble?” He did not open the ties that kept the envelope closed, but instead peered down into the woman’s eyes, and held her with his gaze.

He smiled, knowing the power of his attention when turned upon the fairer sex.

She hesitated. Her weight shifted to the edges of her feet, perhaps to run, to flee.

“It’s been mine since birth, I’m told.” Her words tumbled a little too quickly. “Found on me when I was left at the Smalls’ doorstep.”

She swallowed and pushed tendrils of hair stirred by the wind back away from her face. A thimble left forgotten on her right ring finger glinted in the morning light, and he noticed the black smudge of coal at the edge of her hand.

She was blushing again, understandably embarrassed she’d admitted she’d been abandoned. “Just a trinket of brass and tin, a silly thing.” She gave him that smile again and tucked the necklace beneath the collar of her dress.

LeFel held her gaze, letting some of his hunger play through his expression. “I consider it a lovely trinket, no matter its common beginnings. From such humble soil rare beauty has grown,” he said smoothly.

“I don’t know that its beauty is all that rare,” she said.

“I wasn’t speaking of the locket.”

Her eyes widened as his words sank in. But instead of falling for his sweet words, she took a step backward, her hand falling to the pocket hidden in her skirt. He wondered what she kept there. From the beat of her heart, he’d assume it was a gun.

“That envelope has the papers I was asked to bring to you,” she said with a nod. “I’m sure my mother and father are looking forward to your reply. I’d better be on my way. Good day, Mr. LeFel.”

“Oh, come, now.” LeFel smoothly caught her elbow before she could walk off, effectively keeping the gun out of her reach. “Won’t you have a cup of tea with me before you go, Miss Small?”

“I don’t believe—”

“Surely, your parents wouldn’t think poorly of a few moments indulging my humble hospitality. I so rarely find time to socialize with the fine ladies of Hallelujah, what with all the work I must do to see that the rail is completed. We shall sit there”—he pointed at a distance toward the trees and away from the rail—“beneath the canopy my man Mr. Shunt has erected, and oversee this fine morning. Mr. Shunt, fetch our tea.”

Mr. Shunt bowed, and slipped silently up the stairs to the train carriage.

Rose looked after Mr. Shunt, then back at LeFel. He could tell she was sorting her options, looking for a way out. Fear had taken the sun out of her smile and he savored the shadow of her distress.

“You are too generous, Mr. LeFel,” she finally said. “I’d be happy to sit awhile. A cup of tea would be very welcome, thank you.”

“This way, then, my dear.” He stretched his arm, pointing toward the red silk canopy set at the edge of trees not far from his train carriage. Rose kept a tight hold on her horse’s reins, her other hand tucked in the pocket of her dress. Bits of metal and wood jingled quietly at her touch. Perhaps she did not carry a gun.

They made their way across the dirt and grass, her horse following quietly behind her.

“I was unaware you were orphaned,” LeFel began, probing for her pain. “Did the Smalls know your parents?”

“No one knew my parents,” she said steadily, as if she’d been repeating this statement all her life. “It’s assumed my father was likely killed in the war. And my mother couldn’t care for me. Plenty of speculation as to why that was.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “Such a tragic state of things, the war.” They had reached the silk canopy, where two red and gold tapestried chairs sat beside a marble and wrought iron table.

Rose led her horse over to the nearest tree and wrapped the reins over a low branch. LeFel pulled a chair out for her and waited.

Rose walked back to him and paused beside the chair. He could see the fear in her, could see the hard line of her back as she fought not to run. That fear tasted sweeter to him than any rare wine. What was it about this woman that burned so bright within? It was more than the locket. There was something about her. Something Strange.

Sit, my little bird,
he thought
. Drink at my table so I can better see your delicate bones.

A gunshot rang out. Loud. Close. Two more followed.

LeFel and the men working the rail looked toward the sound, toward the other side of the rail track. The crew boss, a one-eyed Norwegian who was as wide as he was tall and as merciless as LeFel himself, rode the tinder cart, keeping a high watch over the workers and matics. He turned and swung his shotgun toward the thick undergrowth beyond the rail.

The three Madder brothers stumbled out of the brush, rifles in their hands. All three men were so drunk they couldn’t walk a straight line if their feet were tied to it.

A hare was flushed out of the brush in front of them. It dashed to cover while the brothers hollered. One of them took another wild shot at the animal and hit the side of a pony-sized matic hauling a cart of water, the bullet ricocheting like a snapped piano string.

Rose’s horse spooked and reared, tangling bridle and reins in the tree. “I’m sorry, Mr. LeFel,” she said as she hurried away to her horse. “I do think I’d best be heading home. Perhaps I can stay for tea another time?”

She didn’t wait for his answer. Just swung up into the saddle and turned her horse east, away from him, the rail, and the Madder brothers as quickly as she could.

LeFel snarled in irritation. He had barely had a taste of her. Rose Small was a question he wanted answers to. Especially since the Madders seemed to have gone out of their way to show up just as he was sitting down with her. Perhaps, he thought, she was connected to the brothers. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

The brothers had been a thorn in his side for years. He didn’t know what their drunken game was today, but he knew they would not come out here, to the rail, to his place of power, on a whim.

They wanted the Holder and they suspected he had it. But they did not know where he kept it hidden, nor that he had devised a door for it to fit upon. It was particularly satisfying that it was here, right beneath their noses, and yet they could not see it nor do him harm without fear of letting the device loose in the world. For if it was freed, the Strange-worked metals would bring about destruction to the land, and the people who stumbled upon it. Worked within each metal was a curse. Depending upon where the metal lodged, plague would spread, the undead would rise, and insanity would claim the minds of reasonable men. Left alone in the world, the Holder was sure poison, and would bring about bloodshed, blight, and war.

He had his finger on the trigger of a gun that could do more than kill a man—it could demolish this new land. Such a sweet dilemma the Madders found themselves in: unable to call his bluff for fear of destroying the very land and people they protected.

The crew boss yelled at the men to get back to their shovels and irons, then strode over to the Madders and yelled at them to take their guns and leave before he dragged them back to town behind a wagon.

The Madders laughed, patted one another on the back, and seemed to finally get it through their thick, drunken skulls that they were outnumbered.

Mr. Shunt arrived at LeFel’s elbow, a shadow sliding upon shadow, the silver tray and tea balanced on his fingertips.

“Tea, Lord LeFel?” Mr. Shunt asked.

“Yes, Mr. Shunt. Tea.” LeFel settled onto one of the chairs and watched the brothers stumble back into the dirt and brush, singing a tawdry song.

Mr. Shunt poured tea from a kettle made of gold, the aroma of flowers and honey filling the air.

“They can hunt their hare. They can play the fools,” LeFel murmured. He brought the tea to his lips, and glanced back the way Rose Small had gone. “They can snoop, they can pry, but they’ll never find the treasure I have beneath lock and key. This game is still mine. And before two days are out, I will drown them in their own blood.”

R
ose eased her horse down out of a trot as soon as she was over the hill and well out of Mr. LeFel’s sight.

The voices whispered to her as they always did. Trees saying they were trees, growing upward and digging deep, settling in for the season’s turn. Plants underfoot calling out a breathy little song of root and wind and long days burning short.

Rose turned them a deaf ear insomuch as she could. She’d always been able to hear the thinking of living things. Over the years, she’d tried to make it stop. Not much seemed to help. The living world had a hundred and a half things it thought needed to be said, though most of it was just the babble of growing and dying.

Wearing the locket helped quiet the ruckus some. So did keeping her hands busy making and devising.

She knew it was crazy to say she could hear things. She’d told her father about it once when she was just about six. He’d beaten her soundly, then kept her on her knees for three and a half days, praying for a saved soul.

Though it pained her, she’d lied to him straight to his face and said all that praying had done the trick, and the voices were gone. He’d told her to tend to her chores that had languished while she was atoning for her sin. And then he’d never smiled at her again.

Somehow, Mrs. Dunken caught wind of what she’d been on her knees for—likely Mrs. Small had told her. Then the whole town knew it. Knew she was crazy.

No one had looked at her the same since, no matter how hard she’d tried to hide her strangeness.