Conversation disposed with, Ixchel turned back to Marizol, still frozen in a dumb-show of acquiescence. Telling her: “Now, child, you have spent enough time away from Court. I need you to take up your seat at my side once more, as is your ancestral charge and right, and . . .
feed me.”
Marizol bit her lip even harder, for all the world as though she were trying to make the skin tear. As though she wanted to bring the red flowing freely, if only so she wouldn’t have to make use of the thorn-rope again.
“Si, señora,” she managed, through her pain.
“Good girl,” Ixchel said, laying a half-fleshed hand to her forehead. And with a concussive flash, they were gone.
From Fennig’s side, Clo Killeen let out one long-held breath in a fit of coughing; Berta embraced her from the side, stroking her chest soothingly, while Eulie — typically the most gentle of the three — squinched her pretty face up, and actually spat.
“She’s gonna kill that girl,” she remarked, to Rook, sounding like she hoped he’d deny it. “Ain’t she?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Goddamn it all to hell, then. She’s — good, that one, even if she ain’t hexacious.”
Rook nodded. “A few more like her on either side, and maybe we wouldn’t be in this fix.”
From her place in the corner, Missus Followell shook her head. “Pure foolishness, and y’all know it. ‘Nice’ that gal may well be, but she ain’t never gone be one of us — no way, no how. Whereas the Lady, awfulness and all . . . is.”
“She’s a monster,” Clo whispered, lips barely moving, so fast Berta didn’t have time to clap a hand over her mouth. But Followell merely turned her too-calm eyes back on the Irish girl, replying, “And we ain’t?”
CHAPTER FOUR
“From my vantage, those who do not consider themselves entirely committed must, of course, feel free to move on,” Sophronia Love said, voice even, though still loud enough to fill a close-packed room. “Each of you must seek grace in your way, as your understanding of the Lord’s word prompts you, since I believe we all share the sure and certain knowledge that each man’s path is his own business.”
The small group of supplicants before her — disadvantaged by a good three feet of extra height granted the woman most simply called “Widow,” along with Bewelcome’s other town elders, by virtue of the stage on which they sat — shuffled where they stood, leader shifting his hat from hand to hand. “Ain’t like we want to go, Missus Love, what with the town still under fire. But . . . our families . . .”
“Mister Trasker, if you truly feel your family better served by cowering upon your land and hoping to be overlooked, then by all means — go ahead and cower. I’ll note, however, that this same strategy entirely failed to save either the Harmons’ cattle, the de Groots’ breeding studs, or those men who died in guarding them.” Her eyes flicked sidelong, to skewer a man uncomfortably tapping one boot in the front row. “And you, Mister Russell — Hiram? Did a similar policy save your daughters, when Satan’s servants came to carry them away?”
“You know full well it didn’t, ma’am.”
“Well, then.”
From the back of the hall, Morrow and Doctor Joachim Asbury watched this spin out, in silence. For the sin of arriving late, they’d been forced to seat themselves next to a frantically scribbling Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose Palmer Method shorthand was as unintelligible to Morrow as his overtures of friendship were unwelcome. A yellow journalist of some repute in first New York, then ’Frisco, this fashionably dressed fool had been touring the area writing exposes on Hex City when Pinkerton began his assault, and stayed to play war correspondent — from a safe distance, naturally. He had a way of smiling that barely reached his eyes, and a vulture’s keen instinct for the unwary quote which made Morrow almost loath to open his mouth wide enough to spit, whenever he chanced to find hi
mself in the man’s company.
“She’s quite the fearsome virago, our Missus Love,” Ludlow murmured, admiringly. “A true Madonna-in-armour, equally suited for battle and worship alike. And pleasingly buxom, too; that boy of hers is a fortunate young man, indeed.”
“Sheriff Love sure wouldn’t’ve approved of you saying so, at least within his earshot.”
“Oh, no doubt. How lucky for me, then, that my arrival in this town chanced to fall after that inestimable gentleman had already been dispatched to his reward!” Ludlow turned, hand still scratching away unchecked at his note-tablet. “But I’d almost forgotten: you were there that day, weren’t you, Mister Morrow? Quite close by, as I recall — though the mysterious Missus Kloves, naturally, was closer. Perhaps you might see your way clear to relating the story of that adventure to me, one of these days, in detail. . . .”
“Sir, if you’ll excuse me, I really am trying to listen.”
Sophy had already returned her attention to Trasker, who seemed increasingly spooked, while the dignitaries sharing podium space with her — Mayor Alonzo Langobard, his bulk more fat than muscle, white shirt already sweat-stained in the stuffy hall; Captain Washford, looking somewhat embarrassed to be so elevated; young Reverend Oren Catlin, not half the Nazarene Sheriff Love had been, who’d nevertheless taken up the town’s vacant ministry under the apparent conviction that an easy smile and clean-cut good looks were all a new pastor needed in order to thrive — stirred in a milder form of discomfort.
“We will miss you, of course,” Sophy told the man, “you, and all you take with you. But I will have no compelled soldiers in my husband’s army.”
Here Mayor Langobard cleared his throat and sat forward, perhaps hoping to regain control by sheer force of bodily mass alone. “Widow Love . . . much as I hate to be indelicate, your husband has nothing to do with this.”
“He was Sheriff here, sir. He founded this town, along with its militia — swore in each and every man-at-arms who defended this place against iniquity in its infant stages, long before Mister Pinkerton or Captain Washford made their appearance, on this very Bible.” She tapped the tome, drably bound in practical oilskin, which even now rested close by her right hand, where her gurgling son could play with its well-worn edges. “My husband is the reason Bewelcome exists.”
“For which we all thank him, and kindly. But in case you hadn’t yet noticed — he’s dead.”
Reaction to this ran through the crowd like a ripple, and Morrow watched face after face turn Sophy’s way, studying her steel façade for any sign of a crack. None came: the woman was immaculate, grief-hardened like stoneware. Even with her youth, bereavement and stern beauty sentimentally leavened by the baby balanced on one knee, Mesach Love’s former bride might as well have been a corpse herself, her coarse black weeds and implacable regard erasing any hint of allure.