3
True to his word, Cal arrived with the dawn. Viv had placed the tack crate out front and was sitting and watching the shadows take shape in the morning sun, contemplating how excellently a mug of coffee would suit her.
The hob hauled in his box of tools and placed it inside the big doorway.
“Morning,” she said.
“Hm,” he said, but he nodded genially enough. He removed his copy of the materials list from a pocket and unfolded it. “Lots to do. Some of this we’ll have directly, some will take time.”
Viv produced her purse. Her platinum and most of her sovereigns were in the lockbox, but she figured there were sufficient funds to cover what was needed. She tossed it to Cal. “I think I can trust you to place the orders, if you’re willing.”
Cal looked surprised. He sucked his teeth thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “I reckon you’ll not get the best prices if I’m the one dickering.”
“Think it’ll go better if it’s me?” Her smile was sardonic.
“Well. Maybe it’s a wash. And you want to trust me with all of this? Don’t fret I’ll stroll away with it?” He bounced the purse in his hand.
She gave him a long look, and her expression didn’t lapse.
“No…” he said, as he took in the size and the shape of her. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”
Viv sighed. “I’ve lived a long time knowing I’m a threat walking. I’d rather that wasn’t the shape of it for you.”
He nodded and tucked the purse away. “I’ll need some hours.”
Viv stood and stretched, knuckling the ache in her lower back. It was always stiff in the cold. “I need to rent a cart, something to haul the junk with. And someplace to haul it.”
“The mill for the cart,” said Cal. “Figure you can find it. As for the rest, there’s a midden out west and off the main road. Cart track hooks south.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll be off, then.” Cal tipped his cap and ambled back down the street.
* * *
He was right.The mill was indeed willing to rent her a cart—less a pair of animals—for a full silver, which was certainly more than it was worth. The miller grinned smugly after she paid, no doubt imagining the trouble an orc would face hitching up a horse, but she gripped the traces in both hands, lifted, and easily got the cart moving by herself.
The miller watched her roll it away, scratching the back of his bald head bemusedly.
Viv worked up a healthy sweat and loosened herself up on the trip back. Along the way, she haggled with a stonemason who had three or four ladders at a job site. He parted with one for ten coppers too many, and she tossed it in the back of the cart.
* * *
Laney was backon her porch, broom in hand, attacking what Viv had to imagine was the cleanest stoop in the entire Territory. She gave her a neighborly nod and began the hard work of clearing out the old building.
It quickly became apparent exactly how much junk had accrued in the place—rotten lumber, horseshoe iron, a set of rusted and bent pitchforks, a baled stack of grain sacks, crumbling tack, an assortment of saddle blankets thick with mold, and plenty of awkward, cumbersome, and decrepit miscellany. The office had its own share of debris—moth-eaten ledgers, shattered inkwells, and an inexplicable set of winter underclothes gone gray with dust.
Viv snapped the broken ladder, threw it in the cart, set up the new one, and climbed to the loft. Thankfully, there was only a little old hay, the pigeons’ nests, and a few scraps of this and that. Blackblood lay there in the dust, already gathering some itself. She picked it up, hefted it in her hands for a second, and then leaned it carefully against the slanted ceiling.
By noon, the cart was piled high.
Filth covered Viv from head to toe, and the livery’s interior looked like a sandstorm had passed through, with little dunes and drifts of dirt having resettled after the disturbance. She thought with amusement that she should hire Laney to broom it out, but when she looked in that direction, the old woman was absent.
There was, however, someone else shadowing her own doorway.
Viv’s back prickled with a sense she trusted implicitly. It was the reason she was still moving around and breathing, after all.
“Help you with something?” she asked, dusting off her hands and thinking about Blackblood leaning up in the loft, out of reach.
