The Native Star (3 page)

“Go on to your dance, Em.” Pap’s voice was gentle. “You deserve a little fun.”

“Or you can stay and listen for a while.” Mrs. Lyman tapped a luridly colored illustration on cheap newsprint. “Listen to this one I been saving out … a real
juicy
one!
‘Her Tragic Mistake’
…”

“No thanks,” Emily blurted, letting the brushes drop with a clatter. “I guess I
had
better get a move on.”

After bolting up the ladder to her garret, Emily sat on the edge of her bed for a moment, closing her eyes and trying to swallow down her hard-thudding heart. Then, flinging open her trunk, she dragged out a vibrant spring calico that had been packed away since fall. She gave it a hard, mean shake. She debated whether to forego her long underwear; the dress would look better without the red flannel showing at the ankles and wrists. But if she shed the flannels, Mrs. Lyman would certainly notice and nag poor Pap about it all night. And after all, what did it matter? Dag was going to fall in love with her anyway.

What a depressing thought.

Well, at least she could spare Pap the aggravation. She left the flannels on, then slid the dress over her head and did up the blackened bone buttons. Smoothing the fabric over her hips, she then bent to retrieve an embossed morocco case from under her bed. From it, she withdrew two long, heavy hair sticks of beautifully engraved silver—one of the few inheritances from her mother. She twisted her heavy braids on top of her head and stabbed them through with the sticks. Regarding herself in her bit of cracked mirror, she rubbed stray streaks of paint from her face with a wetted thumb, then nodded soberly. At the very least, falling in love with her would not be a downright embarrassment.

Since she’d be walking home late, and she knew from recent experience just how cold April nights in the Sierras could get, she threw on her big buffalo coat before shinnying down the loft ladder.

She took Pap’s big leather charm satchel from its place next to the door and slung it over her shoulder. When Pap had been younger, he’d carried it with him everywhere like a badge of office—and since she’d assumed most of his responsibilities, she never went without it either. She tucked Dag’s painted hex into the satchel and pulled down the flap.

Mrs. Lyman wagged a finger at Emily. “Now, if it gets too late, you stay in town at Annie Bargett’s, or walk home with one of my girls.” She leaned toward Pap conspiratorially. “Things just aren’t safe anymore! Why, I heard tell of the most awful spate of Aberrancies outside of Sacramento. Mrs. Foster’s boy, Harlan, he was just telling me the other day …”

Emily slipped out of the cabin quietly, smiling to herself. Mrs. Lyman loved to talk about the Aberrancies—“the horrible, slavering monstrosities that roamed the wilderness in vast numbers; terrifying beasts of native legend that beggared description and made strong men blanch and tremble” (in the words of a true-to-life account from
Men’s Adventure Monthly)
. In fact, Emily felt certain that Mrs. Lyman would be positively tickled if she could actually encounter one of the semimythical terrors. But while Emily had often heard talk about the Aberrancies that bothered the trains, she’d never seen one, and would be willing to swear that she never would.

You never will now, anyway
, she told herself.
For you’ve set yourself to become a good wife. And good wives don’t have much to do with slavering monstrosities
.

Emily was surprised at how disappointing this thought was, but she lifted her chin resolutely. She’d take disappointment over starvation any day.

Following the well-worn trail that led from the cabin, Emily headed down the ridge toward Lost Pine, Dag Hansen, and her future.

Dag Hansen’s new timber shed was being raised near the planned terminus of the narrow-gauge railroad tracks he was having laid into Dutch Flat. He’d managed to build half of the side line the past summer. This year he intended to finish the job and bring prosperity to Lost Pine. The way he said “prosperity,” with such delicious anticipation and pride, made it seem as though he were talking about an actual person: a big jolly fellow with luxurious face whiskers and gold-capped teeth.

Over the past decade, prosperity had been no stranger to Dag Hansen. He’d made good money selling his timber to the railroad companies. The new side line would allow him to send moss-covered logs down from the slopes of Moody Ridge to the mills in Dutch Flat year-round.

Emily followed the ringing of hammers and the rasping of saws. There wasn’t much to Lost Pine—a small saloon, a smaller general store, a few diminutive homes, and the silver-gray buildings of the old timber camp. The shed was being raised at the edge of the settlement, in a big sunny clearing. The smell of fresh-cut fir hung in the air, and the clean new wood gleamed golden in the warm afternoon light. The walls had been raised already, and Dag and his men were nailing up stout crossbeams.

Dag was large and sturdy, with cornsilk hair and elk-brown eyes, a deeply tanned face and a strong brown throat. He’d unbuttoned his shirt against the heat of the day, and the sweat filming his bare arms and powerful chest made him seem to glisten. All in all, he wasn’t exceptionally difficult to look at. A perfect target for a designing Witch.

She’d known him since they were children. He had been a unique specimen of boyhood—one who did not find it great fun to do painful things to her long braids—and had grown into a stalwart, kindhearted man. Not an overly deep thinker, but an excellent lumberman.

When Dag saw her, he laid down his hammer and hurried over.

“Hey, Em!” he said, slightly breathless. He gestured to the shed proudly. “What do you think? We’ve made some progress, eh?”

Emily made herself smile.

“I painted your hex,” she said. With trembling hands, she drew the oak plaque from the satchel. Dag pushed his hat back with his thumb and smiled broadly—a smile of real pleasure. A good, kind, honest smile.

The smile almost made Emily lose her nerve. She couldn’t go through with it, she just couldn’t!

Then what happens next winter?
a hard, determined part of her whispered.
What happens next time Pap gets sick and there’s no money for medicine?

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Emily thrust the hex plaque at Dag. He took it in his big dirt-stained hands, bringing it up to admire it.

“That
is
fine!” he said. “Much nicer than one of those tin jobs from Baugh’s …” Then he paused, scrutinizing her work more closely, as if he’d found a flaw. A strange look came over his face—an abrupt, yawning discontent. He blinked in slight confusion. He looked at Emily, and there was something expectant in his eyes, as if he’d suddenly remembered that she had come to tell him a secret, or deliver a large sum of money.

“That’ll keep your lumber safe from wandering spirits, baneful curses, fire, and most varieties of … rot.” Emily choked over the last word, her throat suddenly dry. But Dag didn’t say anything, just looked at her with odd expectancy.

“You sure look pretty today,” he murmured. “Is that a new dress?”

“I put away my winter clothes.” Emily felt strangely shy. “I figured it was warm enough.”

“You look fine,” Dag said. “Really … fine. You … ah … stayin’ for the dance later?”

“I guess,” she said.

“You know … you know, ah …” Dag’s stammering made Emily wince. Usually, he was as direct as a hammer. “This is … ah … this is just the beginning. Once the track is completed, then Lost Pine will really be on the map.” He twisted the oak around in his hands. “What I mean to say is, I plan to make real things happen here. I’ll be doing more building … probably a new house. A big house, nothing but the best.”

“Oh?” Emily felt slightly dizzy, as if her entire torso had been inflated with cold air.

“A
family
house.” He blushed and looked away. “Anyhow, the thing is … I’ll need more hex paintings like this one here.” He looked at it. “Such a pretty job. You’re so—” he stopped. “Anyway, maybe tonight, we could go off walking and … and talk. Talk about …”

“Sure, Dag.” Emily gave him a bright smile. She punched down the feeling of sickness in her stomach and covered it with steely resolve. She wasn’t about to lead him on a coy chase. She’d made her bed, and now she’d … well, maybe that wasn’t the right metaphor.

Or maybe it was exactly the right one.

She took Dag’s hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

“I’ll look forward to it,” she said.

Dag’s eyes widened with elation. He took two dizzy steps backward, grabbed his hammer with a fumbling hand, and shinnied up the skeleton of a wall, all the way up to the roof eaves. He nailed the plaque to the topmost beam, then gave a loud whoop that echoed off the mountains high above.

Dag’s men shouted at him and laughed. Emily turned away quickly, blushing. She hurried off along the granite-bouldered main road toward the timber-camp kitchen to help the women with the food. It seemed the thing to do.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of biscuit rolling, china washing, chicken frying, and child chasing. By the time the platters of steaming food had been carried down to the new shed and set out on a long trestle table and the lanterns had been lit and someone had pulled out an accordion to commence the dancing, Emily was exhausted and slightly numb.

Stars glittered down through the fresh-hewn beams of the yet-unfinished roof. The night air held winter’s frosty memory, but the lively music and the large bonfire in the yard—not to mention the mugs of hard cider and the frequent nips of whiskey—kept everyone pleasantly warm.

Dag wasn’t about to let anyone else dance with Emily, so she was in his arms all the way from the waltz to the schottische and on past that to the cheat-and-swing. He kept pulling her closer. After a couple of hours of his hands resting heavy on her back, his chest pressed against hers, his lips getting closer and closer to her face, Emily felt flushed and anxious. Pushing itching wisps of hair back behind her ears, she evaded Dag’s invitation to jig-and-reel and slipped out the back in search of calmer air.

Outside, she paused under the hanging lantern, leaned against the fragrant new wood, and closed her eyes. Through the siding boards she could feel the pulse of noise and conversation, and it was like another heartbeat. A new heartbeat that would become her own, over time. She’d seen the robin on her windowsill, the omen of true love. She liked Dag Hansen an awful lot. She’d get used to his hands. She’d fall in love with him eventually, sure as spring followed winter. Pap would be provided for, time would pass, and this would become her life.

And it would be just fine.

She was still trying to convince herself of this when she heard the soft clanking of metal on metal coming from a ways off in the darkness. Reaching up, she unhooked the lantern and held it before her as she took a few steps forward.

“Who’s there?” But then, the lantern’s light illuminated the clatter, and an answer became unnecessary.

He was an angular gentleman, tall and extremely lank, hardly more than a wired-together aggregation of very large bones. He wore a dark suit of a cut too fine to have come from Lost Pine, or Dutch Flat, or even Sacramento for that matter. His name was Dreadnought Stanton.

Emily let out a sigh and prepared to be annoyed. For when it came to being annoying, Dreadnought Stanton never disappointed.

He was a Warlock, and the manner in which he typically declared this left the distinct impression that the word must be spelled in strictly capital letters. He was a Warlock, a member of a lofty brotherhood whose kind ran factories, advised ancient monarchs, and were appointed to cabinet posts in Washington, D.C.; doers of great deeds who turned the tides of war and vanquished monsters; superior men who shored up the underpinnings of reality and other extremely splendid and eye-popping things.

Dreadnought Stanton was a Warlock, and during his tenure in Lost Pine, he seemed never to tire of reminding people of that fact.

Emily was similarly fond of wondering (aloud) what such a fabulously powerful being was doing in a backwater like Lost Pine. The answer? Having studied at a prestigious institute in New York, he was on some kind of humanitarian mission to bring the light of modern magical methods to the nation’s dimmest corners. And because Pap and Emily were the only ones in this particular dim corner with any interest in magic, he’d focused his attentions on them.

The first time Stanton had ridden up the ridge on his black horse, she’d thought he was a tax collector. Or a census taker, maybe. Someone from as far away from Lost Pine as it was possible to be, at any rate. She’d stared at him until he was close enough to stare back, examining her as one would a peculiar exhibit at the zoo. Only then did she remember that it was the middle of wash day, and she was wearing one of Pap’s shirts soaked to the sleeves, old pants tied at the waist with a rope, and boots crusted with mud.

It was right then that Emily decided she despised him.

Obligingly, Stanton had gone on to give her ample reason to continue doing so. That first visit, he ended up stealing hours of Pap’s valuable nap time with a derisive lecture on how the methods the old man had used for more than four decades were ludicrously outmoded.

As if Pap needed teaching from a puffed-up pedant with a head too big for his black felt bowler. It made her blood boil. After that, Emily had been downright inhospitable, turning the Warlock away whenever he came riding up on one of his pair of expensive black horses. Then, winter snows had made the cabin nearly inaccessible, and though she and Pap had endured awful hardships, at least they’d been blissfully Warlock-free for almost five months. Now, however, with spring’s return, Mr. Stanton had shown every indication of resuming his assault on Pap’s outdatedness. He’d ridden up to the cabin once already while Emily was out, and had managed to corner Pap with a lecture on something called “new herbalism.” Pap had found it fascinating, and Emily had thought him rather a traitor for thinking so.

“Exactly what are you doing, Mr. Stanton?” Emily asked. The question hardly needed answering, for it was clear that Stanton was rummaging through the tools that the laborers had laid aside.