Chapter Text
T H E C A S T
- Celeste Preston (Brie Larson) – a murderess.
- Lotte Barton (Ashley Graham) – the saloonkeeper of the Pax Parley.
- Charles (Sam Elliott) – a stagecoach driver.
- Josie Barton (Karen Allen) – the cook at the Pax Parley.
- Cottonwood “Cotton” Webster (Matthew Lillard) – a deputy.
- Rodrigo Christopher François y Alvarez (Vincent Perez) – a banker.
- Seung Bae (Byung Hun Lee) – a gambler/sharp-shooter.
- Dr. Hermann Pendergast (Paul Giamatti) – a doctor/barber.
- Jenny East (Jodie Comer) – a hedgewitch.
- Yvonne Bae (Pom Klementieff) – a matchmaker/reporter.
- Yi Ze (Jessica Henwick) \
- Yu Jie (Gemma Chan) / sisters who own the Jade and Pearl Tea Room.
- Nova (Chella Man) – Doc’s 18-year-old adopted son/apprentice.
- Wint Boessenecker (Jim Beaver) – a (former) woodcarver.
- Brunhilda “Hildy” Gruben (Gwendoline Christie) – a brothel madame.
- Liesel Gruben (Elizabeth Debicki) – a schoolteacher.
- Liberty “Libby” Hawk (Zazie Beetz) – a “pillow-warmer”.
- Abraham “Bram” Hawk (Winston Duke) – owner of The Hazeldine Hawk.
- Ianto Llewellyn (Kim Coates) – a handyman.
- George Godfrey (David Harbour) – owner of Godfrey’s Goods.
- Valentine Collins (Fran Kranz) – a deputy.
- Herschel Gillenwater (Will Patton) – a rancher.
- Miguel San Toro (Danny Trejo) – a rancher.
- Will Tupelo (Anthony Ruivivar) – the mayor.
- Hawley Tupelo (Lou Diamond Phillips) – an undertaker.
- Boston Drake (John Boyega) – a cowboy.
- Javier Nuñez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) – a cowboy.
- Filipa Sanchez (Eréndira Ibarra) – a cowgirl.
- Luisa Mariposa (Salma Hayek) – a cowgirl.
- Rachel Campbell (Millicent Simmonds) – a 15-year-old farmer’s daughter.
- James Campbell (Nyle DiMarco) – a farmer.
- Rosanna Tupelo (Ashley Callingbull) – the sheriff.
- Greer Perdillo (Gina Carano) – the blacksmith.
- Blythe Carlyle (Jordana Brewster) – a seamstress.
- Caleb Rutledge (Kevin Durand) – the postman.
- Leland Rutledge (Kris Kristofferson) – a scientist.
- Emmett Ingram (Michael Sheen) – a farmer.
- Morgan Mayne (Indya Moore) – the town druid.
- Pete Steele (Ben Foster) – a cowboy.
- Nellie Hoobler (Amandla Stenberg) – a witch.
- Luther Dupree (Jeff Fahey) – a woodsman.
- Odessa Pavelich (Margo Martindale) – a brewer.
- Snori Sorensen (Bill Fagerbakke) – a pig farmer.
- Avonlea Reynolds (Madison Curry) – a mischievous eight-year-old.
- Jeb Dunne (Mahershala Ali) – a cowboy.
- Eduardo Ruiz (Pedro Pascal) - the notary public/record-keeper.
- Jessika Dupree (Angela Bassett) - a laundress/fisherwoman.
- Zane Dupree (Michael B. Jordan) - the Duprees' son, traveling Outside.
- Qu Tran (Tzi Ma) - a chicken farmer.
- Annamaria Doherty (Billie Piper) - a fashionable divorcee.
- Bobbie Lacy (Billy Porter) - the milliner/haberdasher.
- Leah Ginsberg (Jenny Slate) - a potter.
- Chen Tran (Wang Yibo) - a teenaged fenghuang.
- John "Blackjack" Solomon (Jon Bernthal) - a cardsharp.
- Ming-Wa Zhou (Justin Min) - a farrier.
- Ellen Hegel (Luca Hollestelle) - a textile witch.
- Beverly Layton (Tessa Thompson) - a farmer's wife.
- Cricket Katz (Ezra Miller) - the record's hall clerk.
- Xiang Tran (Lucy Liu) - a fenghuang.
- Henry "Hank" Layton (Trevante Rhodes) - a farmer.
P A R T O N E — T H E N E W A R R I V A L
Wyoming was greener than Nevada.
Then again, she mused, everything was greener than Nevada. It would be nice to breathe air that wasn’t constantly full of dust.
Nevada had more people, though, and towns. Visible hallmarks of civilization. All Wyoming seemed to have was swells of grass, lowing big-horned cattle, and thousands of sheep. Since the coach had left Bitter Creek three hours earlier, she’d seen perhaps six men on horses, their features and race obscured by the requisite wide-brimmed hats, barely more animated than the placid cattle they watched.
The stagecoach’s wheels dipped into a deep furrow and she swayed violently, one hand bracing against the door while the other kept tight hold of her worn carpetbag. From within came the telltale clink of bottles. Her tools of the trade, as it were. She must not have wrapped them well enough for the journey. She’d have to be more careful next time.
Necessity called for this nomadic lifestyle, but she didn’t really enjoy it. The constant packing and unpacking and repacking. These interminable, uncomfortable hours spent rattling along bumpy trails first carved by optimistic pioneers. The cramped confines of coaches that always smelled like other – usually unwashed – people.
This one wasn’t as bad as most, though. It was roomy, with space for six; currently, she was the only occupant. It was sturdy and well-kept, the hard seats padded with canvas cushions that had become downy soft over years of use. The curtains that could be drawn over the windows smelled of something tangy and faintly medicinal, like sage, rather than the stink of cheap cigars. And the soles of her shoes rested against clean boards; not once had she felt the crunch of an insect or peanut shell underfoot.
The driver was one of the friendliest she’d encountered, as well. When she’d stepped out of her hotel in Bitter Creek, carpetbag in hand, and set her suitcase by her feet to catch her breath, he’d pulled up as if summoned and looked down at her with a smile.
Well, a luxurious white moustache completely covered his mouth, but the crinkling around his bright blue eyes was unmistakable.
“Where’re you headed to, miss?” he asked in a deep, mellow drawl.
“Little place called Hazeldine.”
“Somehow, I just knew you’d say that,” he chuckled, swinging down from his seat and taking her suitcase. He was tall and lean, rangy and weathered in that way so many prospectors and cowboys were. The oddest thing about him was the way he was dressed: like an undertaker rather than a driver, not in buckskins and plaid but in a faded black jacket and trousers, a snow white shirt beneath his ebony waistcoat, a bolo tie neatly knotted at his collar. His hat was black, too, a felt Stetson with a wide brim that cast his wrinkled face and shaggy white hair into shadow.
In the last six years, she’d become adept at reading men. Sensing when the smiling façade was just that: a benevolent mask covering a violent or greedy heart. She could tell when a man was going out of his way because he wanted something dear.
But the driver set off none of her internal alarms. All she could sense from him was sincerity, and his warm voice was downright soothing. He carefully tied her case to the top rack of the coach, opened the door, and offered her his hand in a courtly fashion.
“Don’t I pay you first?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.
“No payment until we reach your destination,” he replied. “That’s always been my policy.”
“Then aren’t we going to wait for other passengers? The trip can’t be worth it if you’re just taking me.”
“Not a lot of folks go to Hazeldine. And there’s nothing between here and there. You’re my only fare for the day, Miss…”
“Harper. Sally Harper,” she lied smoothly. That was what her last husband had called her. What the next one expected.
The driver looked at her, those blue eyes bright as polished sapphires, and for a wild heartbeat she was sure he knew the truth. Those eyes saw straight through her affected charm, right into her heart, and just knew.
Then he blinked, and tipped the brim of his hat to her politely, just another old man who drove a stagecoach to keep body and soul together, and said, “Pleased to meet you, Miss Harper. You can call me Charles. Just about everybody does these days.”
His hand was warm and callused beneath her fingers as he helped her into the coach and waited for her to arrange her skirts. “How long of a drive is it, Charles?”
“Near four hours. The folks of Hazeldine like their privacy.”
“Apparently. Small, is it? I noticed it wasn’t on any of the official maps yet.”
“It’s a tight-knit community. The people pride themselves on their self-sufficiency. And their individuality. There’s a place for everyone and everyone’s in their place, in Hazeldine.”
Charles touched his hat again and shut the door gently, swinging up into his seat with the ease and grace of a much younger man. The four horses – two black, two white – tossed their heads as he flicked the reins with a soft, “Hey-up.”
She glanced down at the small pocket watch pinned to her pine green blouse. They had to be close now. Time for her final preparations. It was important to make a good first impression.
Out of the carpetbag came a small bottle labeled “vanilla extract”. Unlike most of the bottles in her possession, this one actually contained what the label said it did. She dabbed a touch at her neck, behind each ear, and on her wrists before she tucked it away and carefully drew a brush through her thick, wheat-hued hair. It tended to curl when left to its own devices, giving her a girlish air when unbound.
She considered the tone of John Godfrey’s letter – would he prefer girlish? No, he sounded like a practical older man, someone who had little patience with coquettish behavior or half-grown girls. Better to come across as mature and capable, a no-nonsense woman who would be ready to handle the store’s accounts and heft thirty-pound bags of feed. Smiling grimly, she pulled it all back into a tight braid, smoothing the flyaway strands down with several hairpins.
She unfastened the obsidian brooch securing her black lace shawl – her usual concession to mourning – and folded it carefully so it would be unwrinkled when she donned it next. Pulled the cheap wedding band off her left hand, grateful this one hadn’t turned her finger green, and dropped it into the inner pocket with the others. Smoothed and straightened her linen blouse and brown wool skirt; they weren’t the height of fashion, but they weren’t cheaply made or too worn yet. In them, she looked like any other virtuous young woman from a decent family seeking out a new life.
There were hundreds just like her flooding the West: newly-arrived immigrants, eldest daughters tired of grimy Eastern cities, upper-class girls fallen on hard times thanks to wastrel fathers, teachers and nurses dreaming of adventure on the rugged frontier, women afraid of becoming spinsters and desperate for husbands…
Except she wasn’t just like all of those women. She had been like them once. Six years ago. An orphan working in a stifling, dangerous factory for pennies a week. A twenty-year-old with one true friend in the entire city – Sibyl, the sweetest girl who had ever smiled – who had answered an ad for a mail-order bride, hopeful and optimistic and hungry for a new life far, far away from the smoke and noise of New York.
And for one year, life had been good.
Mason drank a little too much, yes, and was rough with his hands. But he did what he promised. He gave her a new life. Clothes. A house of her own. Work in the clean, fresh air growing vegetables and tending chickens. He even paid to have Sibyl come stay with them and offered to help her find a job in town, so she could move to Missouri and always be near. She’d thought her heart would burst with happiness.
And then it did burst.
Just not with happiness.
She walked through the door with a basket of vegetables, eager to start preparing dinner, and found Sibyl lying on the kitchen floor, skirts twisted around her knees, brown eyes staring into eternity. Mason was kneeling over her, panting, face red with drink and hands red from choking the life from her.
“You tried to fight me,” he muttered when he realized she was standing there. “You should’ve just let me have my way.”
She looked into his ruddy, alcohol-dulled face and saw a monster. A monster that had mistaken Sibyl for her. Gone was the man, the convenient husband. This was a beast crouched over his kill, as unrepentant as any wild animal.
Without a word, without expression, she dropped her basket.
Took the knife from the table.
And slit his throat.
It proved far easier than slaughtering pigs.
Then she knelt beside Sibyl, covered in her husband’s warm blood, and sobbed. For minutes, for hours, who knew? She cried until she had no more tears to cry and then she kissed Sibyl’s forehead and stood up. Threw off her bloody dress and donned a clean one. Shoved clothes, jewelry, and all the money in the house into her carpetbag.
She doused the lanterns and locked the door. Went to the barn and opened the cow’s stall, the gate to the pigs’ pen, the wire door of the chicken coop. The farm was more than two miles outside of town and they rarely saw their nearest neighbor. She had enough time to disappear.
And she’d turned disappearing into an art as she pursued her new calling. For six years she had hunted men. Answered ads and propositions. The lonely and harmless she walked away from, taking only some of their money to compensate her for her time.
But the angry? The violent, the demanding, the heartless? She punished them for their cruelty with cruelty in kind. She was a widow thirteen times over now, though none of her husbands ever knew this, and generously gave most of her inheritances to charities and schools, reserving a tidy sum for her “retirement” under a name she had never worn.
Though she doubted if she would – could – ever stop. Some nights, she thought the anger and sorrow in her breast would burn forever, like hellfire, and she knew she was damned. The monstrous had made her a monster, too.
But she couldn’t stop. Not when she still saw Sibyl’s face every time she closed her eyes. Not when she knew there were others like Mason out there, abusing and using and killing women because they thought they were owed more.
Not when she could stop them.
Celeste Preston tugged the fine gold chain up from beneath her collar and kissed the tiny cross that never left her neck. It had been Sibyl’s, her most prized possession. Now it was Celeste’s talisman and compass, the precious reminder that kept her focused on her work.
“Let’s see what kind of a man you are, John Godfrey,” she whispered, looking down at the latest envelope tucked into her bag.
***
Leaning forward as the breeze caressed her face, Celeste could see the square shapes of manmade construction growing clearer on the immediate horizon – and looming behind the doll-sized town was an immense butte, craggy and rocky at the edges but rounded and mossy green at its peak. It was too big and wide to be considered a hill, not quite tall enough to be a mountain.
“They call him ‘the Grandfather’,” Charles called back from his seat without turning around. “The local tribe is very protective of him.”
Celeste disliked when people used “him” or “her” to ascribe personhood to inanimate objects when so many actual people were still considered possessions. But in this case, she wouldn’t argue. The mound felt like a he.
On the edges of town, bracketing the brown ribbon of the wagon trail, were small farms with carefully plowed fields and clumps of fruit-bearing trees clustered close to rough-hewn cabins. Some were only a handful of years old, new enough in construction for the wood to be unseasoned – but then so much in the West was newly constructed, as more settlers pushed further into lands that had always been wild in search of gold or silver or fertile farmland.
As they rolled by the last farm, a signpost appeared. But it was like no signpost Celeste had ever seen before: it was a massive lightning-struck oak tree that had split in two, and someone had thrust a board between the halves, the words burned black into the reddish wood:
| H A Z E L D I N E |
FREE, FORGIVING, HOME
A lovely, welcoming sentiment. Which was completely spoiled by the dozens of skulls hanging from the tree’s gnarled branches. Cow, deer, goat, horse, bird… Celeste stared with wide eyes as they passed – at least there didn’t seem to be any human bones in the collection. As the breeze picked up, long strings of feathers, beads, and tufts of fur fluttered in place of leaves.
Charles didn’t offer an explanation.
Several dogs began barking as the stagecoach left the uneven ruts of the trail and picked up speed on the smoother, harder packed main street of Hazeldine. Celeste noted a long store with a chair-dotted porch that boasted GODFREY’S GOODS in five-foot-tall gilt letters. The red-and-white spiraled pole in front of the doctor/barber’s office. A brightly painted tea shop with Chinese characters written beneath the English legend. The formidable-looking bank with its barred windows and door. As they passed each building, more and more people stepped out into the bright spring sunlight to stare.
The coach came to a stop in front of what had to be the most popular saloon – it was the town’s largest structure, a full three stories. Celeste stared up at the sign hanging from the red awning with a frown.
“The Pax Parley?” she said as Charles opened her door. “Did they mean to put ‘parlor’?”
“Roughly translated, it means ‘peace talks’,” said a cheerful voice. Charles stepped aside with another moustache-hidden smile to reveal a buxom, plump, beautiful young woman with a thick mass of auburn hair pulled up into a wilting bun. Taller than Celeste by an inch or two, she was also wearing a brown skirt – though hers had a generous slit that revealed a brown boot and thick calf – and a man’s white shirt tucked into a broad leather belt. “Welcome to Hazeldine. I’m Lotte Barton, proprietress of the Pax.” She held her hand out with a smile. “My saloon’s neutral territory, meaning any and everyone is welcomed and safe here. Do you need a room for the night?”
“Well, uh,” Celeste began slowly as she shook Miss Barton’s hand. There were an awful lot of eyes staring at her, from every direction. She’d been to smaller towns than this and hadn’t garnered such unwanted scrutiny; in her line of work, being noticed made everything more difficult.
“Try to ignore them,” Miss Barton said firmly. “Newcomers are rarer than diamonds here, so we’re all nosier than we should be. Shall we go inside and have a drink? Something to get the taste of stagecoach out of your mouth?”
“I left Miss Preston’s suitcase right inside the door, Lotte,” Charles said with another gentlemanly tilt of his hat.
“Thank you, Charles. Sure you don’t want a drink before you go?”
“Much obliged, Lotte, but no.” The slender driver stepped up to his seat.
“Wait,” Celeste said quickly, reaching into her bag, “I haven’t paid you!”
“Don’t worry, Miss Preston,” those pale blue eyes twinkled. “You will. I hope you enjoy your stay in Hazeldine. Hey-up.”
The horses lunged forward and the coach rolled swiftly down the street. The dust kicked up by the wheels obscured the old man from view just as Celeste realized he’d called her Preston, not Harper, and felt the hairs stand up along her neck.
“What’ll it be?” Miss Barton asked matter-of-factly, shattering the surreal moment. The woman exuded an earthiness that left no room for flights of fancy. “Whiskey, beer, tequila, wine? You name it, we probably got it – we’re very proud of our selection at the Pax.”
***
The saloon was as impressively stocked as Miss Barton said: the three tiered shelves beneath the thirty-foot-long mirror that stretched the full length of the bar held hundreds of bottles of varying sizes and shapes. Pops of red, blue, and green stood out from the predominately brown and gold sea.
“Charles said your name’s Preston?” Miss Barton asked as she set down two spotless glasses, reached blindly for a bottle over her shoulder, and uncorked it with a satisfying pop! She poured a double shot in each glass.
Celeste took a slow sip from hers to buy herself time while her mind raced. She hadn’t used her birth name in seven years, and authorities in Missouri would know her as Celeste Sullivan. Given how remote Hazeldine was, and the general lawlessness of the West, what were the odds someone would find out she was here, after all this time?
Of course, John Godfrey would be expecting Sally Harper, not Celeste Preston, but she could talk her way out that. Explain Sally was a friend who got cold feet or something. Given her face and figure, she doubted he’d be unwilling to accept her in exchange – she knew how to weaponize her beauty when she needed to.
“…Yes,” she said finally, a little breathlessly, as if the strong liquor had temporarily stolen her voice. “Celeste Preston.”
“And what brings you to Hazeldine?” The saloonkeeper’s voice was casual but the gaze she fixed on her was direct. This was a sharp, observant woman. Those were the hardest people to hoodwink.
Time to fight fire with fire. If she wanted to be direct, she could give her direct.
“A husband,” Celeste said. “I’m here to answer a want ad.”
“You’re a mail-order bride?” Miss Barton hesitated. “Somehow you don’t strike me as the type.”
“What, starry-eyed? In my experience, most of the women who answer these sorts of ads are pragmatic. We want a steady life, a guaranteed home, the chance to have a family. We’re not romantics in search of a Romeo.”
“Never did like that story,” Miss Barton said. “Foolish kids killing themselves because they think they’re in love after a couple days. Not my idea of a good story.”
“I agree. Love is a bad fairy tale.”
“Now, I didn’t say that,” the woman countered sharply with a knowing grin, lifting her glass again. Celeste’s eye fell on a gold band as it caught the light and she realized Miss Barton wasn’t actually a miss.
And yet she operated a saloon? Her husband must be a very modern thinker.
“So, who’s the lucky man you’re hitching yourself to? Gotta say, I’m surprised to hear anyone here sent away for a wife he’s never even met before. We’re a pretty close community.”
“Mr. John Godfrey,” Celeste replied.
Miss Barton’s smile instantly vanished. “Oh.”
Celeste’s heart rose while her face remained perfectly calm. Clearly Godfrey was a bastard of the highest order, if this warm woman’s cheerfulness disappeared at the mere mention of his name. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m afraid so. You’d better come with me, Miss Preston…”
***
Celeste stared down at the wooden cross emblazoned with
JOHN H. GODFREY
REQUIESCAT IN PACE
HE WILL BE MISSED.
“…This isn’t some sort of sick joke, is it?”
“I’m afraid not. Heart attack. He died right at his counter, arguing with Deputy Webster over the cost of a shirt short a button. It didn’t come as a big surprise to anyone – the man practically drank bacon grease and argued like it was his second job. Plus, he was creeping up on seventy.”
“And when did this happen?”
“Three days ago. The funeral was yesterday. My father-in-law – he’s the undertaker – made his coffin out of fresh-cut pine and packed it with clean sawdust, so at least he was sent off right.”
“I’m sure your father-in-law did a lovely job of it,” Celeste said dully. She’d just arrived and now there was no reason for her to be here. All that planning and traveling, for nothing. And she didn’t even have the next fish baited and hooked yet.
“I’m sorry, Miss Preston.” Miss Barton laid a reassuring hand on her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Let’s head back to the Pax, hmm? We’ll figure something out for you, don’t worry. John Godfrey wasn’t the only bachelor in town, and some of them are far more eligible for you than he was.”
Celeste nodded slowly. That was a good point. Men willing to marry complete strangers may be more mercenary than most, but that didn’t mean they were the only ones worthy of her special attention. “Thank you, Miss Barton.”
“Please, call me Lotte. And can I call you Celeste? We’re an informal lot in Hazeldine; I’m sure you’ll make friends in no time...”