Chapter Text

I

April 1890

McRory , Oklahoma Territory

The weather-wards had worn out sometime halfway through January.

The town council ruled they didn’t have the money (or the means) to contact the weather-worker in Oklahoma City, thus shifting the unfortunate town from mildly uncomfortable to snow-bound prison for the rest of the season. Only now (with the warmer air blowing in from the west, carrying with it the hope of the far, far-off sea) was McRory - a small land-rush town built deep in Oklahoma Territory - starting to wake up.

The early spring breeze was warm as it blew over the slowly budding prairie, licking away the remnants of grey, slushy snow. The water running in the street turned it into a pit of rust-tinted mud, and the creeks that surrounded the town positively thrummed with the run-off, silver-blue in the sunlight. Songbirds flitted to and fro, back and forth from fence post and tree limb, flower stem and berry-bush alike, all the while chirping merry descants to one another.

The townsfolk of McRory almost imitated them; taking advantage of the mild weather to visit one another, standing in little flocks on the hewn-wood sidewalks or lounging in front of the barber shop, chatting back and forth excitedly about everything and nothing at the same time. Everyone already knew the news – the telegraph office had received word early that morning, the first communication in three months with the outside world; someone must have finally repaired the winter-damaged line – and it had spread like wildfire.

The mail was coming.

*

“Excuse me!”

Sophie Devereaux dove through flocks of drab, clucking housewives and stolid farmers like a hawk, her musical voice drawing many an admiring stare.

Duly deserved, of course.

“Excuse me, kindly allow me through!” Her words (and a truly justified elbow or two) parted the crowd around the stable yard, letting her sweep through as if the horses were her audience, the stable a stage, before anyone realized that they had as much right to be in their place as she did.

Most people, in Sophie’s experience, never realized this, and she could live with that fact. She sat down primly on a toppled barrel, shaking the rumples from her peacock-shaded skirt before brushing a strand of hay from her hem, crossing her legs at the ankles and straightening her back until she almost felt she could be sitting in a tearoom in Boston or New York, rather than some horsey smelling stable in the untamed West.

Unfortunately, the scent of animals, winter-limp hay, mud and too many townsfolk made that, alas, an unattainable fantasy. She allowed herself a moment of self-pity as she watched the open stable doors and the twisting, narrow road that led to the outskirts of the new town. She had been promised fame and fortune in this place; the fortuneteller she’d spoken with before throwing her lot in with the travelling troupe of actors, singers and other assorted performers had assured her that the signs all converged, that this was the best decision she could possibly make.

She’d stopped considering the fact that he’d sorely misrepresented the situation months ago, right about the same time she began fantasizing about his wagon’s step-by-step invasion by termites.

“Mornin’, Miss Sophie,” came a low, lazy drawl from her left. Sophie barely managed to hide her start when the voice hit her ears. She hadn’t peered far enough back into the recesses of the stables, it seemed; for a figure soon stepped out of the shadows cast from the loft. She peered at the figure for a moment before the knot of tension between her shoulders eased a bit.

“Oh, hello, Sheriff,” she replied, beaming at him – half to further mask her unseemly moment of discomfit, half out of genuine happiness. Sheriff Nathan Ford simply raised a sardonic eyebrow at her, any emotion in his blue eyes hidden in the shadows of his hat and the dim light of the stables. She held his stare for a long moment before finally he looked away, clearing his throat.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, lightly, before he waved a hand out the open door at the road that wound its way out of town. “You still waitin’ on that letter?”

There was a moment of blazing, mingled humiliation and anger at the simple sentence. She let it flare for a second before forcing it to cool; forcing her words to come smooth and noncommittal. “I don’t know what you’re referring to, I’m afraid…”

“Tom Pettigrew’s Traveling Performers?” Ford said, something of a small smirk playing on his lips. Sophie narrowed her eyes. “Left you behind when they hit the trail back in…. oh …September, was it?”

His words brought back the shocked dismay and the stronger sensation of betrayal, and Sophie turned her back on the lawman, fingers tapping against the rough-hewn boards of the barrel in a dangerously quick tattoo.

“It was a mistake,” she said acerbically. “The troupe was large, more than one wagon, I’m sure they just thought I was riding with someone else…” The certainty in her words didn’t reach her own thoughts, didn’t reassure her one bit. “I was simply…forgotten.”

Even if the story she kept telling herself was the truth, which –when she allowed herself to be honest– didn’t seem likely, the mere idea of being overlooked stung worse than a shot of whiskey with no chaser. Ford shifted beside her, the creaking leather of his duster, and his gun belt loud in the suddenly cold silence.

“I find it hard…” he slowly began, and she turned to look at him. His eyes were on the horizon, and he seemed to be picking his words carefully. “I find it hard to believe anyone could simply forget you, Miss Sophie.”

For a moment, he looked as if he was about to say something more, but the cry suddenly went up from the children keeping watch on the outskirts of town.

“The stage! The stage is on its way!”

She was glad of the distraction, because for once she didn’t know what to say.

*

“C’mon. Let’s go greet our guests.”

The sheriff pushed away from the wall, offered her a hand up, which she took – though she tried very hard not to think about how warm his calloused fingers were when they wrapped around her palm, tried not to notice the smooth slide of his wedding band against her skin. She felt her cheeks flush before he released her hand again, already looking away.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” The words were barely audible over the babble of the crowd: children playing in the streets; their parents calling them back. “Is that…”

“What?”

“I think Miss Parker’s on top of the bank. Again.” Sophie looked towards the bank, catching a glimpse of a tiny, lithe figure walking the peak of the roof before Ford cursed beneath his breath. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Sophie…”

“Of course, Sheriff,” she replied, demurely, and he was gone, wading through the townsfolk; leaving her alone. She watched his narrow shoulders and slouching stride until he was out of sight, then turned her gaze toward the girl balanced on the bank’s front eaves. There was something playful and innocent about the way Parker leaned over to watch the people, open curiosity in her eyes, and Sophie couldn’t help but smile before returning her interest to the oncoming stagecoach.

The clatter of the horses’ hooves in the mud of the street was louder than she’d heard it before. It took a moment for the reason to become evident, and once it did, the crowd rippled like a wave, uncertainty echoing in the words surrounding her.

The team of horses leading the coach was well matched, wild-looking creatures with a high stepping gait, the breed something Sophie couldn’t name, though she knew well-trained beasts when she saw them.

The loud clatter, however, came from the single horse galloping beside the coach team: a massive creature with a deep chest, easily twenty hands high, solid black from nose to tail. It moved like a living thing, but the emerald light that gleamed from its eyes, the sparks that flew from its hooves and the ruby gleam of eldritch runes etched over neck and wither gave lie to the illusion of life. It panted steam into the air with every motion, and something ground and grated deep within its throat when it reared, tossed its head back and bugled to the sky, nearly unseating its cloaked rider.

Sophie glanced toward the bank roof to find Parker so entranced by the elegant Construct that the girl hadn’t even noticed the Sheriff making his stiff-legged way across the roof. The actress stifled a giggle, the only audience to the ongoing drama unfolding above their heads, and glanced back at the stagecoach.

It had pulled to a stop right outside the stable, the team standing obediently in the circle of the crowd – wary, but well behaved. The Constructed horse, however, seemed to be enjoying the attention, hopping stiff-legged over the packed earth and bucking like a wild bronco beneath its rider, who clung with a tenacity born (no doubt) of sheer desperation. The coach driver turned in his seat, took one look at the gamboling not-beast and his handsome face twisted into a scowl.

“Damn it, Hardison!”

Children stopped in their tracks to stare open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Their scandalized mothers put hands over their ears. The driver paused, eyes flickering over the assembled crowd before deciding that apologizing could wait until he rescued his friend. He leapt from the top of the coach, caught the massive beast’s reins in one outstretched hand, and practically swung from them as the construct didn’t budge an inch; didn’t even seem to realize it had a fully-grown man hanging from its head.

Hand over hand, he pulled himself up to the creature’s head before he transferred the reins to one fist, reached up the other and clapped it – hard – over one eerily glowing eye.

The construct went mad, whipping its head back and forth, but it planted its feet at the same time, clearly focusing on the pest half-blinding it, and not to its rider – who scrambled half out of the saddle with a paintbrush. One arm stretched out halfway up the thing’s neck, carefully covering one of the sigils with paint the color of midnight.

The result was immediate. The glow of life faded from the network of interlocked lines, the lattice of symbols and the emerald eyes. The grating whining groan disappeared, leaving the stable yard in complete silence. Sophie glanced to the bank again, but Ford and Parker were gone.

“Whoo!” The silence was shattered by a boyish, metal-tinged cry from the robe-swathed young man now perched on the construct’s saddle, both hands raised in victory. “I did it! They said it couldn’t be done, but I just did it, ‘anythin’ larger than a dog’s uncontrollable,’ my a-”

“Hardison.”

“Auntie’s slippers.” The young man – Hardison – amended, clearly changing the words from whatever uncouth remark he had undoubtedly been seconds from making. Sophie hid a smile as the coach’s driver shot his companion a dirty look.

“You call that controlled?” He snapped back, and in the calm following the heavily shod storm, Sophie recognized the way his hair was pulled into braids beneath his hat, the intricately carved knives hanging from his belt – about the same time as many in the crowd, it seemed, if the sudden renewed murmurs were anything to go by.

Trailwalker.

But the ire in his eyes was nothing like the Wilderland clan’s typical inhuman calm, and perhaps that put the townsfolk at ease. “That thing coulda taken your head off!”

“Could have,” Hardison pointed out, hopping off the hibernating construct’s back in a flourish of robes and scarves. The brilliant purple symbol of the Alchemist’s Guild practically glowed from the back of his duster, and every other inch of his skin was hidden in the flowing silk, dusty wool and creaking leather of his craft. His voice was years younger than that of any alchemist Sophie had ever encountered, and there was something in his stance that seemed to radiate good humor. “But she didn’t. I’m tellin’ you, Lucille and her kind will re-vo-lutionize…”

“Lucille? You gave it a name-”

“Of course I gave her a name, Eliot, that’s the best way to keep them from stomping on your spine-”

The bickering showed every sign of continuing for hours like this, but the two men at least worked as they talked, and soon they were surrounded by a small pile of mailbags, padlocked boxes and assorted other baggage. The Alchemist, Hardison, shut the back door to the coach, though, before Sophie could get a good look at the miniature laboratory that filled most of the cramped space.

She knew a little about the old arcane art. The last Alchemist she’d met had been an utterly charming old man with a white beard and absolutely no hair. He had been convinced that he could find the fabled Philosopher’s Stone. Sadly, his experiments had not yielded the coveted Holy Grail of Alchemy. They had, instead, given him something foul-smelling that made his skin go cream colored and his hair grow back.

That was the main reason she had left the East when she did. It wasn’t the Stone, so he’d thrown the formula away. All she’d had to do was take the torn notebook pages to the other Alchemist across town.  All it had taken was a quick solution for the smell, and the following massive increase in his funding that had led to a massive – if somewhat less legitimate - increase in her monies. How was she supposed to know the first Alchemist’s brother was a police commissioner who never heard the golden rule?

Finders, keepers.

Needless to say, the alchemists were the main reason she was out here in the uncivilized reaches of the United States instead of back in Boston skimming off the success of others. The alchemists were the main reasons she was here, waiting for a letter of profuse, flowery apology from Pettigrew. One she was going to derive a great deal of pleasure from burning.

“All the same,” the Trailwalker - Eliot, Sophie reminded herself - growled as Sophie drew her attention back to the stagecoach and its deliveries, “I don’t ever want that thing near my team again.”

“That’s just bein’ judgmental!” Hardison snapped back, picking up three of the mailbags and slinging them over his back. “Judgmental an’ mean. You’re just scared that-”

“I hate to interrupt the banter, gentlemen,” Sophie said, smoothly, and the men turned as one, bright blue eyes and flame-orange goggle-lenses focused on her. She smiled, sweetly, and indicated the bags over the Alchemist’s shoulder. “But we were told to expect the mail…?”

The two coachmen exchanged looks. Eliot spoke first, scratching the side of his head with an expression that could only be described as politely baffled. It was almost remarkably endearing, and Sophie raised an eyebrow, trying to gauge if she was being played for a fool.

“I don’t know how you plan to do this, miss,” he said, apologetically, “But you see that stamp there?” Hardison spun the bag at Eliot’s words so the curled dragon-and-eagle logo of the United States Postal Service was visible. Sophie didn’t quite care for where this was going, but she couldn’t form a protest as Hardison disappeared towards the post office. “I can’t open those bags. I’m jus’ a middleman. You’ll get your mail come Monday, once it’s been…sorted and marked as delivered an’ all that. It’s all very…technical…”

“No,” Sophie pointed out, feeling her cheeks flush as this stagecoach driver corrected her in front of a crowd, “Back in October. The coach. We just…picked up our mail when it arrived…”

She needed that letter. Needed that apology. Needed a we’ve made a terrible mistake, we’re coming back to get you, just stay there. Otherwise, she’d spent the entire winter in this tiny town teaching English to unruly small children for no reason and she did not like wasting her own time.

“Yeah?” Eliot seemed sympathetic, but to Sophie’s eye there was something highly sarcastic in the Trailwalker’s mannerisms. “Well, when was the Post Office built?”

Sophie’s mouth drew in a thin line at that point, feeling disappointment transmute to pure annoyance at the realization that he was right and he wasn’t even having the good grace to act smug about it, he was still just acting kind and she drew herself up to her full height – which, she noted with no small amount of smugness on her part, made almost as tall as he was. She opened her mouth, fully prepared to let him have it, and-

“Eliot.” the Alchemist interrupted, appearing again at the trailwalker’s shoulder.

Eliot went still. The sudden calm that appeared– the one that most Trailwalkers were known for and feared for – sent Sophie back a step, her perfectly planned, cutting argument stripped away.

“Yeah, I see him,” Eliot murmured, almost too low to be heard. Just what he saw,Sophie didn’t know. She was too busy trying to process what he’d just said. It had been months since she’d had word from anyone, ages since she’d seen any job prospects. She didn’t even know if her letters to Pettigrew had even reached their destination, but this…

“I…have to wait until Monday?” The sentence sounded so small compared to her planned rant, and she hated that, but there was something in the Trailwalker’s eyes.

“I just said that, ma’am.” Eliot said, politely; he kept watching over her shoulder. “I can’t let you have even as much as a picture postcard.”

It wasn’t his fault, truly it wasn’t. Mail was a federal thing, if he disobeyed the law, it would be worse than her alchemy recipe games; it would mean a penitentiary or a hangman’s noose.

But there was something thoroughly unfair about this, and Sophie felt the unfairness gathering in her like a storm-cloud over dusty land, forming in the back of her throat: an arrow strung taut on a bowstring, simply seeking a target. She opened her mouth to aim, just as Eliot’s eyes focused on the space right behind her.

“Sheriff,” he said, respectfully, though there was still something in his stance that tugged at her curiosity. She turned to see Ford right behind her, her heart skipping its usual beat at his proximity.

The sheriff met Eliot’s eyes mildly. “Trailwalker,” he replied, mirroring back a measure of that respect – and with reason. One did not simply disregard any member of the oldest Wilderlands clan. That was a good way to be found along the only road out of town, pinned to the ground. “I trust your trip was uneventful?”

“As it could be,” Eliot replied carefully, pushing the few strands of hair that had escaped his braid back from his face. The clan markings that slashed across his jaw and cheekbones were newer looking than Sophie would expect in a man of his age, but the easy grace with which he moved was familiar.

“Good,” Ford replied, carefully. He reached out, taking Sophie’s wrist in a careful, gentle grip. “Now, I need to borrow Miss Sophie, if you don’t mind.”

“’course not.” Eliot said with a shallow sketch of a bow and a flourish of one tattooed hand, as if doffing an imaginary hat. Sophie smiled -charmed, despite herself- and curtseyed before allowing Ford to lead her away.

*

McRory didn’t have much, but it did boast an impressive collection of creeks and streams, the natural protection of running water a boon against the various arcane creatures of the prairie.

Sheriff Ford paced across one of the foot-bridges that spanned the largest creek, eyes on the horizon when he paused in the middle for Sophie to catch up.

“Miss Sophie, I’m afraid I’ve asked you here under false pretenses.”

From anyone else, the words might have given her pause. Even trusting the sheriff as she did, she pretended to be watching that same horizon while her fingers twitched, almost reaching for the derringer hidden in her skirts.

“Oh?”

“Might you, perhaps, know how to tell when a document is legitimate?”

 

The question was so far from what she had been expecting that she turned to look. And was met with a remarkably accurate rendition of her face (though the eyes were too small, the jaw too pronounced) staring back at her, unattractively large text claiming “REWARD” above her head in big letters.

“….Oh.” She said, lightly. “Well. That one certainly looks…less than authentic.”

The look he gave her in reply was not amused. “It was on the stage,” he offered, dryly, and she was about to protest the fact that he was allowed to get his mail when she was not when he continued. “I’m almost frightened to ask for an explanation, as I am of the opinion that none will be forthcoming.”

“Don’t be so hasty, Sheriff,” Sophie replied, secretly pleased to note the small look of disappointment in the sheriff’s face. If Ford hadn’t ever thought of things between herself and him, surely he wouldn’t look so….crestfallen around the edges. “I can be a reasonable woman.”

His eyebrows climbed charmingly high, though the set of his smile was sarcastic. “Pray, then, be reasonable. Explain.”

“I gather,” she began, “from your accent, you are from the East. Boston?”

“We’re talking about you, Miss Devereaux. Not me.”

She almost winced. It was back to Devereaux now, was it? No more Miss Sophie?

“A girl has to make a living, Sheriff.”

“Is this why Pettigrew left you behind?”

“No, he did that because I wouldn’t warm his be-”

The sheriff’s eyes flashed in some small victory. “Ah. It was not an accident, then?”

Caught in the truth, Sophie glowered. The sheriff rolled up the crisp poster, held it between two fingers.

“If the poster tells the truth, you’re wanted for several confidence games back East…” Sophie just fumed. The sheriff pretended to slip, half-dropping the wanted poster before catching it again. “It’d be a shame for you to simply hole up in some town, lay low…never be heard from again…” He dropped the poster again, scooping it from the air at the last second. “Whoops, how clumsy of me.”

“What do you want, Sheriff?” Sophie demanded, crossing her arms to prevent herself from lunging for the accusatory poster. The sheriff sighed, tipping back his hat.

“Help.” He held the poster still then, clutched tight. “On two fronts. I’ve got half a dozen papers in the bank, land deeds. They’re…” He shifted from foot to foot, and Sophie arched an eyebrow, suddenly very curious. Ford finally blurted, “They’re somewhat less than legitimate. I need you to watch the bank, make sure they….stay there.”

“Mister Ford!” Sophie gasped, and she didn’t have to try very hard to feign dismay. She knew there was something odd with the sheriff, but forging legal papers wasn’t one of the things she would have ever suspected. “I never would have expected-”

“Don’t pretend you know me,” the sheriff snapped sharply, interrupting her. “Most people come out here for one reason, Miss So-Miss Devereaux.” She noted the slip with a tiny smirk, amused despite the confusion roiling in her brain. “They want a new start.”

For a moment, his dark blue eyes were wistful, and Sophie wondered, for that moment, why, what new start the Sheriff would need. “When I swore to be sheriff of this place, I swore to protect that new start. I didn’t swear to protect people playin’ the same old games with the same old rules, but….” He shrugged, helplessly.

And then she knew what, exactly, he was talking about.

Mayor Ian Blackpoole and his toll scheme, financed by Victor Dubenich and enforced by Jed Rucker. The running water protected the town – but each of the streams was too deep to safely cross in a wagon or stagecoach. Blackpool had started out owning one of the east-most bridges. Four weeks after the first building had been constructed, Blackpoole started charging tolls. In the months that followed, he had slowly gained control over the other bridges.

She’d suspected he had outside help – she just never thought it would be Ford.

McRory was a border town – you had to go through it to cross into the Wilderlands, or the Clans would turn on you faster than a bored matinee crowd. Blackpoole had the town over a barrel, and they all knew it.

“Blackpoole?” She asked; just to confirm her gut instinct.

The sheriff nodded tightly, taking off his hat to scrub his hand through a riot of curls. “You know Jack Hurley?”

Sophie’s mouth twitched in a small smile. Jack Hurley was easily the sweetest man in the entire town. He owned the grocery store; always had penny candies and slate pencils for the children, usually overlooked the tabs of people stretched too thin by the long winter.

Ford gave a little chuckle, shaking his head. “Yeah, I know.” His face went serious again. “He’s been talkin’ to anyone who’ll listen ‘bout the roads, the bridges and the tolls. I’m pretty sure that Trailwalker’s here on account of him. And Blackpoole…I can’t…” He grimaced. “I can’t talk him out of his damn fool ideas all the time.

He doesn’t like the tolls, but he can’t fight them. Sophie thought, watching the Sheriff. And Hurley’s in danger…

Sophie finally gave a small shrug. “You said you needed help on two fronts?”

“Keep an eye on our new visitors.” The sheriff tapped the poster with nimble fingertips. “They don’t have this. They don’t know you.” He held the rolled poster over the side of the bridge, and let go. The current was strong with the spring runoff. The paper was out of sight in less than a minute, carried downstream by the rushing water. “Help me, Sophie. Please.”

There was something truly endearing in those blue eyes, Sophie decided; something rather like a puppy. She thought back over the last few months. Aside from a single dance at the Promenade back in September, her actual contact with the sheriff had been minimal. Nothing the townsfolk would think of.

“You’ll destroy any poster that comes through?”

The sheriff nodded, wordlessly. Sophie nodded, once.

“All right then, Mister Ford. You’ve got a deal.”