Chapter 12
Certain Affinities
Laurie didn’t visit.
Not the next morning, when news spread of tiny blood-sucking bugs infesting the rest of the cattle on their side of the river, or that night, when Safine concocted a viscous liquid for her hair and demanded Decker do the same.
He thought he looked a fool, but he didn’t wish to end up like some of the shaven others, so he grudgingly complied, closing theLoose Goosefor the day with one last glance at the immovable doors of Laurie’s chapel.
Laurie didn’t visit the day after, when Willa returned dusty and bone-tired. She hardly had a chance to catch a drink and mutter that her lead on Dr. Whitton was a dead-end before Safine pulled her out of her coat to fuss over her.
Decker polished the glasses for the tenth time, waiting for Laurie to appear with his familiar pattering heartbeat.
The doors never opened.
On the third day he caught a glimpse of him as he leaned against the poles of the veranda.
Laurie was on the roof again.
High on the peak this time, rigging a pulley system fastened to the brass bell polished until it gleamed. He knotted ropes around his waist, tethering himself to the steeple, before he hung his weight against the bell. Clanging, it wobbled off the ground and rolled along the side of the clapboard, and he slowly winched it higher, shoulders taut and straining, and very, very bare.
Decker took a sip of his coffee, savoring the bitter, half-liquor brew. He could have helped. He had no intention of moving out of the shade, but he could have.
Except he enjoyed watching Laurie fight, slipping against the shingles until he braced himself, one leg on either side of the peak as he dragged it into position, chest heaving with a sheen of sweat despite the cool morning. When he caught his breath, he glanced down at Decker. Laurie dragged a dirty arm across his forehead and threw himself back into his work without a word.
On the fourth day, theLoose Goosehosted a single customer. A vaquero, exhausted from keeping his herd isolated outside town while the outbreak was contained and finally declared clear by Safine. The rest of his group left when their cattle were loaded on the train at Ridgewater, but he said he was heading to Silver Creek to surprise his sister at the church. He swirled the glass of gin, called Decker amigo, and claimed he didn’t care about the rumors.
Decker had smiled faintly, eying the powder dissolving in his drink. Flexing his hand at his side, he stretched out the aches setting in, his body breaking down from hunger. No amount of liquor or coffee could stave it off. He finally snatched the glass from the vaquero’s hand before it touched his lips, muttering about friends needing cold gin for the long ride.
Safine called him a fool for wasting a kill.
Decker thought he was a fool for thinking of Laurie when he lay in bed that night.
On the fifth day, Laurie tested out the new bell, wrenching on the rope until chimes pealed through Ender’s Ridge and rousted Decker from his hungry stupor in the upper rooms of the saloon.
He hammered another quilt to the wall between him and the chapel to muffle the noise. Safine ripped it down and flung it over his bed—dramatic, she laughed—when she returned from a stroll with Willa to Ridgewater.
She told him the stand at the depot was filled with fresh newspapers talking about the late autumn and beef sales and the new Silver Creek governor.
Nothing about missing people or their home. Perhaps fate swung in their direction.
Exhaustion and starvation rooted him in town, knowing damn well Nathan still plotted against them from wherever he hid. Decker didn’t have the energy to question how the defector breaking into theStarconnected to the fade of Ender’s Blessing.
He didn’t question many things.
Decker thought he should start to question things when the flies hatched.
Late.It was too late and cold in the season for flies. He tended to memorize patterns when forever was his only option, and this was too damn late. Striped, fat, and with a bite stinging worse than acactus spine, they came in droves borne on a harsh western wind, hanging in the air like snow.
Cricket galloped back into town the day they appeared. The banging of the back door instead of the barn door made Decker stop stirring a fresh batch of spiced apple cider, suspicion turning his tired eyes to the back room.
“Cricket?”
Hooves clopping on floorboards was his only answer.
Goddamn kid.
He joined him as Cricket heaved the foam-slicked saddle from Marshal’s back and slung it on the floor.
