Ex-colleagues
, he reminded himself. It
was time he stopped thinking of himself as a bourgeois university
student from the most cosmopolitan city on the continent. He was
now a bookkeeper for an Oestend rancher.
“You work for Jeremiah?” Aren asked
Deacon.
Deacon frowned at the question. “Guess
so.”
“Are you his son?”
“Nope.”
“Are you the foreman?”
Deacon tipped his head a bit to the side,
squinting as if the question confused him. “Guess I’m the closest
thing we got.” He glanced over at Aren, looking him up and down in
an appraising way—though not as if he were interested in Aren
sexually. Aren thought it was probably closer to the way he might
have examined a cow he was taking to market. “You’re not married,
are you?” Deacon asked.
It seemed like such a strange question,
completely out of nowhere, and it surprised Aren. “No,” he said.
“Why?”
“Possible Fred McAllen’ll be throwing one of
his daughters at you tonight.”
Aren found that alarming. It was bad enough he
might have to face women who wanted sex, but if his host was
expecting it for some reason, things were going to be even more
uncomfortable than he’d imagined. “You mean he encourages his
daughters to ‘tuck in’ the guests?”
Deacon laughed. “Hell, no! He catches one of
them doing that, he might take a shotgun to you.”
That was something of a relief. “Then
what—?”
“I mean a bride.”
Any fleeting sense of relief Aren had felt
disappeared. “A
what
?
”
“The McAllens have a lot of daughters, and not
many eligible sons around here to marry them off to.”
“I’m not getting married!”
Deacon laughed. “No, not tonight you ain’t.
I’m just saying, they’ll likely be sizing you up as a possible
husband.”
“Holy Saints, that’s the last thing I
need.”
“It’s possible they’ll hold off. Wait to see
if you pan out before letting one of their girls marry
you.”
“Is there anything I can do to discourage
them?”
Deacon laughed, and somehow the look he turned
on Aren seemed far more congenial than it had been before. “Make
yourself look like bad husband material, I guess.”
“How do I do that?”
“I don’t know. Never thought about it before.
I suppose act stupid. Or mean.”
Nobody in the world would believe Aren if he
tried to act mean. Stupid, though? Stupid he thought he could
do.
A couple of hours before sunset they rode over
a ridge and the McAllen farm appeared below them. There was a
house, a barn, and a few small outbuildings. Lined up behind the
barn were pen after pen of pigs. Rising high above it all, casting
its long shadow over the house, was the biggest windmill Aren had
ever seen. It was also the strangest. It obviously wasn’t part of
any mill. Its base ended in a giant contraption that looked like an
engine that had fallen off a passing train.
“What is that?” Aren asked.
Deacon laughed. “Ain’t you ever seen a
windmill before?”
“Not one like that.”
“Runs the generators,” Deacon said. “That
transformer at the bottom stores the energy so we still have juice
even if the wind stops. Not that it does that too often out
here.”
“There weren’t any windmills in
town.”
“Generators run on different things. Most
people in town use coal. These will burn coal too, if they need to,
but hauling wagonloads of it out into the prairie ain’t exactly
efficient.”
They were getting closer to the farm. Aren
could hear the pigs now, and even worse, he could smell them. The
stench was horrendous.
“Hog farm,” Deacon said when he saw Aren
covering his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. “Good news is, no
hogs on the BarChi. Cows and horses shit too, but somehow, it don’t
smell near as bad.”
“Thank the Saints for small favours,” Aren
mumbled.
They were greeted outside the barn by six
young women. Four of them wore rough-spun trousers and blouses, and
Aren noticed all four of them had opened the top few buttons of
their shirts. Their necks were tanned, but the soft swells of flesh
below their temptingly gaping necklines were pale and creamy, and
the girls seemed completely unashamed as they jockeyed for the best
position to display them to Deacon.
The other two girls stood apart. They wore
ankle-length dresses covered by long white aprons and had lace
kerchiefs over their neatly-braided hair. And every single button
was done up tightly. They ignored Deacon and came straight to
Aren.
“Hello,” the taller one said to him, shaking
his hand. “I’m Beth. This is my sister, Alissa. We’re so pleased
you’re here.”
Aren felt himself blushing. He could have
sworn his throat was closing up, blocking off any words he might
wish to speak. He’d spent most of his life in all-male boarding
schools, and the rest of it at the all-male university. The only
woman he’d ever known at all had been his nanny, but that had been
twenty years before, when he was only a child. He’d avoided the
society parties his father had thrown and had never gone to the
red-light district with his classmates. Whether they were whores or
maids or true ladies didn’t matter—Aren had no idea how to behave
around women. He looked over at Deacon, hoping for some help, but
Deacon was lost amongst giggling maids.
“You’ll join us at the house for dinner, I
hope?” Beth asked. She had golden hair and blue eyes, and Aren
supposed she was pretty.
“Ummm...” He looked to Deacon again but
couldn’t even manage to meet his eyes. Beth followed the direction
of his gaze and seemed to think she understood his
thoughts.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “The maids will make
sure he gets dinner in the barn.”
Next to her, Alissa snorted. “Dinner—plus
dessert, I’m sure.”
Beth glared at her. “Alissa, don’t be
crude.”
Alissa blushed deep red and ducked her head.
She was shorter than her sister and skinnier, with none of her
sister’s alluring curves. Her hair was darker than Beth’s, and she
had freckles across her long nose. She glanced sideways at Beth,
then glared with open hostility at the maids surrounding
Deacon.
Poor Alissa
, Aren found himself
thinking. Lost in her sister’s shadow when potential suitors
arrived, held hostage by the rules of her class, not allowed to
unhook her top button and try for Deacon’s attention
either.
“Come on,” Beth said to him, turning towards
the house, obviously expecting him to follow. “I’ll show you to the
guest room.”
“What about Deacon?” Aren asked. He knew it
was foolish, but he wasn’t about to let himself be led like a lamb
to slaughter by Beth and Alissa. “Shouldn’t you show him to his
room, too?”
Beth seemed at a loss for words, but Alissa
wasn’t. “He sleeps in the barn,” she said.
The rigidity of the social structure was
starting to become clear. Back in Lanstead, society was also
stratified by position and income, but for some reason, he hadn’t
expected to find the same type of issues here in
Oestend.
“I’ll sleep with Deacon in the barn,” he said,
then felt himself blush when he realised how that might
sound.
“Don’t be silly,” Beth said. “We have a bed
for you at the house.”
“W—well...” he stammered, unsure what to say.
He was saved by Deacon, who walked up behind him and clapped him on
the back.
“Listen, ladies,” he said, and he seemed to
include all six women in that statement, “Aren and I have to get
these horses unhitched and brushed and fed, and there’s not much
daylight left. If you’ll just bring us a bite to eat, we’ll be
happy enough.”
It was obvious the maids were thrilled and the
daughters less so, but they all left, and Aren did his best to help
Deacon unhook the team, although he felt he probably got in the way
more than anything. Eventually, Deacon handed him a brush and
pointed him towards one of the horses. The beast stared at him with
black eyes, its ears back, and Aren could have sworn it was daring
him to step within kicking range.
“I don’t know how,” he said to
Deacon.
The big cowboy rolled his eyes. “You never
used a brush before?”
“Not on a horse.”
“Not much to it,” Deacon said. “Just go in the
direction of the hair.”
Aren wasn’t exactly reassured. He was afraid
the big mare would suddenly decide she didn’t want to be tended to
after all, but he didn’t want to look too craven in front of
Deacon, so he slowly approached the horse and started to brush.
Deacon was in the next stall, brushing down the other horse. He’d
taken his hat off, and one of the maids had obviously undone his
queue while flirting with him, because his thick, black hair hung
loose down his back.
“Can I ask a question without you laughing at
me?” Aren asked.
“Probably not.” But his tone was friendly, so
Aren asked anyway.
“The wraiths are real?”
Deacon didn’t seem surprised by the question.
“Yup. They’re real. You boys from the continent never believe the
stories, but you wander out after dark, you’ll find out they’re
true right quick.”
“They only come when there’s no
moon?”
Deacon laughed. “That’s another story you boys
always have in your heads.” He shook his head. “If it’s dark, the
wraiths can come. Only a fool relies on the moon to protect
him.”
“But we’re safe as long as we’re
indoors?”
“Might be safe enough if everything’s locked
down tight, but the only way to be sure is to be inside the
net.”
“What net?”
“You seen the wards, right? Over the doors and
windows?”
“Yes.”
“Used to be the wards was enough. But over the
years, they stopped working. Don’t ask why,” he said, glancing at
Aren. Aren snapped his mouth shut on the words, which had already
been halfway out of his mouth. “Nobody rightly knows. But then
along came a man figured out how to fix it.”
“By making a generator?”
“Exactly. The generator connects them all.
Makes a net the wraiths can’t get through.”
“Like a fishing net?”
“Well, you can’t actually
see
the damn
thing, but I guess it’s the same idea.”
“So as long as the generator’s on, it’s safe
to walk outside between the buildings?”
“Wouldn’t recommend it,” Deacon said. “They
say wraiths can get through the net if they want to. They just
don’t like it. Long as we’re all indoors, they got no reason to
bother. But you go walking around in the dark, they may just decide
it’s worth a try.”
“What do the wraiths look like?”
“Can’t really say. Never seen one. If you
watch out a window, you can’t see much. Things blowing around in
the wind, dust devils. Some people think they’re in the wind. Some
people say they’re invisible.” He shrugged. “I only know they’re
there. Seen enough people they’ve killed to know it ain’t a
story.”
“How do they kill you?”
“Can’t really say that, either. Never any
blood or wounds. Bodies are blue, like they suffocated, or froze to
death.”
“What about animals?”
“What about them?”
“How do you keep the cattle safe? Do you have
to bring them all in each night?”
“Wraiths only kill people.”
“Why?”
“Saints, I don’t know!” Deacon said, although
there was something in his voice that made Aren wonder if he was
telling him the truth. “That’s just the way it is.”
***
For more information visit
Totally
Bound
By Marie Sexton:
Chapter 5 and the Axe-Wielding Maniac
Apartment 14 and the Devil Next Door
By A.M. Sexton: