Chapter Text
The dust of Eden's Gulch had a habit that no geologist from Back East could have explained: it rose a full minute before anything important arrived. The miners said it was the wind. The old-timers knew the wind had nothing to do with it.
At noon — because of course it was at noon — the cloud went up on the desert side of town, and out of it emerged a black utahraptor in polished leather harness, moving with the wounded dignity of a creature that considered sand a personal insult.
On its back rode a man in a dark duster and a low-brimmed hat, wearing round spectacles that nobody in the street dared to question — half the territory would have hidden their own eyes if they could, and the other half knew why.
He stopped in front of the only building on the main street with scrubbed shutters and a freshly painted sign:
A. Z. FELL & CO. — BOOKS, CAKES & CURIOSITIES
The raptor stretched its neck up and bit the shutter — delicately.
"Bentley," the man said, without turning his head. "No."
He pushed the door open with his boot. A bell rang — sweet and scandalized.
"Your sign says CLOSED, angel. For as long as this town has had a name, that sign has said CLOSED. One of these days somebody's going to sue you for false advertising."
Behind the counter, between a stack of books no one would ever buy and a glass dome of cakes no one would ever eat before paying, a round little man in a pale waistcoat looked up with the expression of someone who hadn't been surprised in a decade and wasn't about to start today.
"Crowley. What an enchanting surprise. Would you kindly inform your... mount that the shutters are not edible?"
"He doesn't eat shutters. He disassembles them. On principle." Crowley tipped his hat onto a hook and sat on the counter, which no civilized man would do. "I bring news of the extremely important and the profoundly inconvenient variety."
Aziraphale closed his book slowly, without losing his page.
"Ah. You vanish for two months, ride eighty miles of desert at noon, and come back with news."
"Eighty-three."
"Eighty-three." The town's angel folded his arms. There was flour on his linen sleeves all the way to the elbow, which suggested the news was about to spoil something. "Very well. I'm listening."
Crowley took off his spectacles. The pale scar cut through his left eyebrow like a line of chalk. His amber eyes were the only thing in the territory the sun couldn't warm.
"The railroad is coming, angel. And it isn't coming from Denver." He leaned forward, and the lamp flame shivered with no wind at all. "It's coming from below. And the men who own it paid me up front."
"Up front for what, exactly?"
"For you." The words came out low, almost gentle, which was a very bad sign. "Three days, angel. I'm supposed to talk you into talking this town into selling the valley. And you're going to hate me — because it's going to look like I said yes."