Tin Swift(17)

No. He very much did not want them to be carrying dead bodies around like kindling. He didn’t know how long this break of clarity she was experiencing was going to last.

“Keep your guns ready,” he said. “Both of you. This night is filled with harm.”

“We’ll do just that.” Rose gave him a look that meant she’d also keep an eye on Mae. “If we need for anything, we’ll come calling.”

Cedar nodded. Rose could more than look after herself and Mae to boot. Gathering wood, even in the night where wild things crept, was a fair shake better than dragging dead folk into a pile.

Wil skulked out of the shadows, his eyes catching copper from the low light of Rose’s lantern. He padded silently over to Rose and Mae and looked up at Cedar. It wouldn’t be the new moon for a few days yet, which meant he would remain in wolf form until then.

He’d go with the women to gather wood and watch for danger.

Rose nudged her horse off a bit while Mae swung up atop her mule. “Since we’re gathering in the center of town,” Rose said, “let’s see if there’s a woodpile near to it. If not, then we’ll check other houses close by.”

“Good,” Mae agreed.

“Didn’t figure you to be the kind of man who endangered the people under your care,” Alun said as the women headed off. “Some other reason you’re fired up to bury the dead?”

“The Strange are near. The ground stinks of them.”

“All the more reason for us to be moving on. Hastily.”

“The bodies have been picked apart by Mr. Shunt.”

Alun fell into a full-halt silence. “That can’t be so,” he breathed. “You killed him.”

“Jeb Lindson killed him,” Cedar said. “Those bodies we found have been gleaned and cleaned. Bits missing. Specific bits, as if just the best of each person was taken.”

“You’re sure it’s not an animal?”

“Yes.”

“Savages?” Alun asked.

“No.”

“And you’re certain it’s Shunt?”

“I know that devil,” Cedar said. “The smell of him on the bodies. The song of him left in the things he’s touched.”

Alun just stood there in the rain as if that news rolled like an earthquake under his boots and changed the landscape around him.

“We should look for him,” Alun said.

“He’s not in the town,” Cedar said. “Come and gone, maybe far on as a week ago.”

Alun got moving again and Cedar paced him atop Flint.

Finally Alun said, “Dark things slip in this night, Mr. Hunt. You can feel the Strange?”

“Yes.”

“They can feel you too,” Alun noted. “They know the one man who can track them, hunt them, tear them apart. They know you’re here, you and your Pawnee curse. And they don’t fear the dark.”

“That suits me fine,” Cedar said. “Because neither do I.”

It didn’t take long to reach the center of town. Cedar and Alun got to work moving the dead, starting with the family in the general store, and lifting, or as the circumstance required, dragging the bodies to the clearing.

Cadoc finally returned with the wagon, having found Bryn. After a brief talk with Alun, they unloaded several crates and a boiler out of the wagon. Bryn got busy assembling pieces of a device that looked more suited to pumping a well than digging a grave, while Cadoc and Alun took the wagon farther off to gather up any more people they could find.

It was grim work. Silent work.

Cedar had done his share of digging graves in his life. He’d stood above far too many saying his last farewells. His wife’s. His child’s.

Many more.

These people were strangers to him, yet the shame of so many lost, stripped and picked over like a feast of convenience, burned a deep anger in him.

He carried a small body toward the pile, each step slower than the last.

The beast within twisted and stretched. It wanted out. It wanted to hunt. It wanted to destroy the Strange. It wanted to destroy Mr. Shunt.

Cedar found it more and more difficult to find a reason to fight that need. A man’s hands could do as much damage as the beast. A man’s hands could tear a person limb from limb. Why not let the beast take his mind and use his hands for its needs?

“Mr. Hunt?” Rose said. Again, he realized.

He blinked until he could see the world. He’d been standing for some time now.

There was no rain, just the cold exhalation of the night against his skin.

“You can put her right there,” Rose said gently.

Cedar looked down. He held a girl in his arms. Maybe two or three years old. Not much bigger than his own daughter had been when he held her, dead, in his arms.