Tin Swift by Devon Monk Page A

blocking rain and wind. He puffed on his pipe while the youngest and tallest Madder, Cadoc, paced about, a strange device in his hands.
    The device resembled an ear trumpet. He held it up to one ear, a rope running from the ear trumpet to wrap around the top of a cane in his left hand that he stuck into the ground. He paused for a moment, as if listening through the ear horn, then pulled the cane tip out of the soil and swung it to tap the ear trumpet before spiking the cane back into the wet ground again.
    Cedar didn’t know what Cadoc Madder was doing, but then he rarely could fathom the man’s actions.
    “We’ll be needing your help,” Cedar said. “Bryn’s too.”
    “Are we hunting the Holder now, Mr. Hunt?” Alun asked.
    “No. We are hauling and digging,” Cedar said. “There’s dead in this town. Rose and I have agreed we’ll see to their burial before we move on.”
    Cadoc Madder had stopped pacing. He turned to look at them as if they’d suddenly dropped out of a blue sky and brought the moon down with them.
    Alun pulled the pipe from between his teeth and pointed it at Cedar. “What do you think killed all these people? The Holder. It fell into this town, and snuffed their lives out like a wet wick. If a piece of it remains behind, the death will spread, creep to the next town, and kill off the living there. Finding the Holder is a damn sight more important than burying the dead.”
    “The Strange have been here,” Cedar said. “Surely you know what sport the Strange can have with the dead.”
    “Of course I know! Hang the dead and hang the Strange. If we find the Holder we won’t need to stay here to see any of it.”
    Cedar drew his gun and cocked back the hammer. “Rose Small, myself, and these bullets disagree with you.”
    Both Madder brothers went stone cold. Even the smoke from Alun’s pipe seemed to stop moving.
    “No need for guns,” Mae said as she came round from back of the wagon leading her mule. “Let us tend those who have been lost.” She wore a duster—Cedar thought it might belong to one of the Madder brothers, and though she’d rolled up the sleeves, it was huge on her thin frame. She’d changed her bonnet for a man’s hat—again, Cedar guessed it to be one of the Madders’.
    He had no idea what she was doing out of bed, nor if she was in her right mind.
    “Enough standing and pointing weapons,” Mae insisted. “Let’s put these people to rest so we can move on and find the Holder.” Her voice was clear. Strong.
    Alun stared at her warily, as one might a bowl of nitroglycerin left to boil on the stove. “The sooner we’re to it, the sooner we’ll be quit of this place,” he finally said. “Cadoc, fetch up brother Bryn, and bring the wagon and the steam shovel along.”
    Cadoc swung up into the wagon and started off, the wheels sending a spattering of mud to slap their boots.
    Alun turned an eye on Cedar. “I hope you know what it is you’re doing, Mr. Hunt. Whole town of the dead is going to take time to bury, and we haven’t that to spare.”
    “You bring out the digging device, I’ll gather wood to fire it.”
    “Rose and I can gather the wood,” Mae said. “Unless you’d rather we gather the bodies, Mr. Hunt?”
    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