“This is Freedman Salt’s.” Mr. Gabriel’s tone was very even. “I’d tell you not to go in here, ma’am. It’s a pawnshop.”
I hardly think I shall faint at the news. “Indeed,” she murmured. “I am not blind, Mr. Gabriel. I can see as much.”
“Well, then I’ll tell you something you can’t see. Russ Overton’s our chartermage. People want respectable mancy, they go to him. But there’s people what want something different, and they come here. Haven’t quite figgered what Salt ran away from back East.” He stood beside her, thumbs hooked in his belt, his chin up, staring through the window as if he wished to shatter it with the force of his gaze alone. “When I do, it might be time for a Federal Marshal to come this way. But until then, I just watch.”
Well, he certainly received no points for grace or finesse. “I do believe that’s the most I’ve heard you speak so far, Mr. Gabriel.” And now I believe it’s time for this conversation to take a different course. “Your theory, I presume, must hold true for yourself. What trouble did you come Westron-ward to escape?”
He was silent for a long moment. Sweat collected under Cat’s arms, her lower back was soaked, and a thin trickle slid down from her hair. Even under the parasol’s shade and the awnings and porches extending from almost every building on this main thoroughfare, the entire town was oppressive. The dust was rising in creeping veils, too.
Still, she was cold all through, and a taste of bitter brass filled her mouth. A wave of shivering rippled down her back, and the fringe on her parasol trembled cheerily. She could not cease staring at the gleam that had caught her gaze.
There, on a pad of threadbare red velvet, lay a square locket. It was small, a golden shimmer, and the tau etched on its surface held a single tiny garnet in its center. The chain was a mellifluous spill, but it was broken, and as she gazed at it, another finger of sweat sliding down her neck, the ends of the break twitched as if the metal felt her nearness.
“Well now.” When the sheriff spoke, she almost started violently. She had all but forgotten him. “You start asking that question, and people are likely to get itchy.”
What question? She remembered, and had to swallow twice before she could speak. “I see.”
“Good.” He touched his hatbrim. “I’ll be around, should you want a guide. Or need help. Ma’am.”
And with that he was gone, those unhurried strides of his carrying him neatly across the crowded street and between the swinging doors of the Lucky Star Saloon. Even at this early hour there was tinny piano music coming from the ramshackle building’s depths. His shoulders were broad and his dun-colored coat blended with the dust; he did not precisely dodge the traffic. Rather, it seemed that it parted for him, and he waltzed through the chaos like a…she could not think of what, for a roaring noise had filled her head.
Cat turned back to the window. Her stays dug in, and she had to force herself to breathe. The glass was streaked with dust, humming with carnivorous mancy. Her charing-charm had gone chill against her throat, again.
Danger, Catherine.
Robbie’s locket winked knowingly at her. He would never have pawned it, would he? The chain was broken. How had that happened? He wore his charing on the same chain—double the safety, he had always joked. For if Mother found out bad mancy had been lodged near an heirloom, there would be an Incident of Temper.
His charing was not in evidence—of course, if some dire fate had befallen him, it would be broken. Or perhaps he had found another means of securing his charing to his person, and had been forced to sell the locket? And yet that was ridiculous; he had left with plenty of money. What would make him give up an heirloom, especially one he had worn since childhood?
If she could hold the locket in her bare hand, perhaps she could find Robbie. Her Practicality would certainly stretch that far. Further, indeed, if she pricked her finger, for blood always told—though blood-work was bad mancy, and not something a respectable lady would dare.
I have already done something no respectable young lady would do, coming here. She sought to collect her wits, failed, tried again.
There were too many people about. She was hardly discreet, and who was to say Mr. Gabriel was not still watching her?
The pawnshop’s door had a bell attached. It tinkled, and a man stumbled out onto the raw-lumber walkway. He was unshaven, bleary-eyed, and smelled powerfully of rancid liquor. His hat was askew, and he held guns in both callused, dirty hands.
Cat turned and walked briskly away. Her skirts snapped, her parasol fluttered, and she hardly remembered retracing her steps to the tiny cottage behind its freshly painted gate.
She was, as Robbie would have no doubt recognized were he present, far too occupied with scheming.
Chapter 7
Those with true business didn’t visit the shop by day.
Every once in a while, Gabe would settle in a patch of shadow near the mouth of a dusty alley, and watch the chartershadow’s back door. It was useful to see who was visiting Salt. It was also useful to see how they approached—swaggering or creeping, desperate or slinking.
Very rarely, Gabe found himself collaring one of the desperate and telling them to go elsewhere. It wasn’t his business, and Salt didn’t need to know how closely he was watched. In fact, the less Salt knew about anything involving the sheriff, the better.
But sometimes, some nights, he couldn’t stop himself.
Tonight was not one of those nights. He watched, noting who came creeping down the alley. And while he waited, he thought things over.
Here came thin, dried-up Mandy Carrick, keeping to the shadows and paying who knew what for protection when he decided to jump another claim out in the hills, stealing some other man’s rightful work. That was outside Gabe’s jurisdiction, certainly, but he still took note of it. Struthers slithered down the alley, a blur of fawn coat and stickpin flashing, looking for cheat-card mancy. A Chinois man was closeted inside the back of the pawnshop for quite a while, and Gabe didn’t like the looks of that. Their mancy was different, even if it lived comfortably within charter, and he wondered just what one of them would want with Salt.
It was late by the time the trickle to the chartershadow’s door dried up. The saloons would be rollicking, and there had been a few crackling gunshots. Nothing out of the ordinary here in Damnation. He’d made sure the schoolteacher’s house was in a quieter part of town. Respectable, almost.
As respectable as you could get, out here.
Will you stop? Irritated with himself, he took a deep breath and slid out of concealment. She’s just a Boston miss a long way from home, and you’re a goddamn idiot.
He smacked the unlocked door open without even a courtesy to knock, almost allowing himself to grin with satisfaction when it banged and Freedman Salt, his lean scarecrow body seeming put together from spare parts and his thick white wooly hair shocking atop such a wasted face, actually jumped.
This back room was low and indifferently lit, and the chalked charter-symbols on the floor were all subtly skewed. Some were scuffed and others redrawn—Salt had been a busy little boy tonight. He wasn’t quite a sorcerer, or a chartermage; the man didn’t have the discipline. Instead, the twisted drained bodies of small furry things lay at certain points within the diagram, false-iron nails driven through skulls, paws, tails. It stank of spoiled mancy and clotted-thick rust.