Bloodmoon (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 2) by Ben Galley Page A

still gleamed with opportunity for the taking. Homesteaders . He heard the word on the women’s lips, along with others such as ‘madness’, ‘fools’, and affirmations such as ‘They won’t get far’. Merion wondered what that meant. He thought about asking, but in truth he did not care that much. He put the yelling crowds at his back.
    Cheyenne was older than Fell Falls, but only by a few years. The railroad had quickly left it in the dust of its search for the Last Ocean. It looked startlingly similar, but then again, to Merion, so did everything out west. The streets were lined with box-shaped, flat-roofed wooden buildings, the big painted boards above their doors long-faded by the hot sun. There was a saloon of course—the prerequisite of any frontier town—a general store or two, and a few houses with curtains drawn tight across their windows. Several horses stood outside, tethered to stakes. They whinnied at the sand. It was odd to find this quiet a stone’s throw from such chaos. Merion did not mind one bit.
    The boy wandered along the street, eyeing signs and hoping to find at least one of the things he was looking for. If he couldn’t find any blood, then he would at least send a letter. It took him a few minutes to find the postal office, squeezed in between two other buildings. A queue stood outside it, idly shuffling forward. Merion joined it and tapped his feet impatiently.
    Inside, the air was hot and stuffy. Instead of the stench of horse-shit and sweat, he was greeted with the smell of old paper and ink, and something about it calmed him. Perhaps it reminded him of his father’s study. There was a dog-eared poster pasted on the wall, half-torn away as if somebody had tried, and failed, to remove it. Merion squinted at its ripped lettering. It said something about a circus.
    ‘Next, please,’ called a young woman from behind the desk. She looked tired, as if she’d already had enough of letters for one day. It was only a few hours into the morning. With one elbow propped up on the desk, she stared blankly at the boy stepping forward. ‘Yes?’ she said, in a monotone. Her hair was a jet black, and hung in sweaty curls against her forehead.
    ‘I would like to send a wiregram to London,’ Merion told her. The woman nodded, obviously bored, and slid a piece of paper across the desk with lines printed on it.
    ‘Do you have a pencil?’ he asked, and there was another sigh. A pencil followed the paper, rolling across the desk. Merion thanked her and went to scribble his wiregram. He did so with great deliberation, taking his time over his words.
    His message finished, Merion went back to the desk and returned the wiregram and the pencil.
    ‘Two sil’erbits,’ she said, half-yawning. Merion paid her, and she turned the paper over and made the necessary marks and signatures. ‘And the recipient?’ she asked.
    Merion leant closer. ‘Mr Witchazel.’
    *
    It was noon by the time he made it back to the edge of town, where his aunt and Lurker were waiting. Rhin was nowhere to be seen—as expected. Cheyenne was still in the grip of its madness, and behind Merion, the crowds still ebbed and flowed, waiting for trains.
    ‘Any luck?’ he asked Lilain. She knew exactly what he meant.
    ‘Nothing,’ she replied, and beside her, Lurker muttered something. His eyes were bloodshot, and his shoulders more hunched than usual. He did not look happy, not in the slightest.
    ‘What about you?’ Lilain asked, and Merion shook his head.
    ‘All I managed to find was some of Doctor Jabber’s viper oil, which sounded about as useful as a chocolate teapot.’
    ‘That con artist?’ Lilain looked back towards the town. ‘I ought to give him a piece of my mind.’
    ‘I think it might be a waste of your breath,’ Merion sighed. ‘What of the trains?’
    ‘That’s what the crowd is all about,’ Lurker grunted. ‘ ‘Parently there’s a war on. Most of the trains comin’ in or goin’ out are full, and