Page 11 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Chained to the Press

W illa never missed a Sunday service.

“I don’t aim to start now.” Digging beeswax polish from the tin, she worked it into the deep creases of her boots.

Safine had been happy to make her a fresh batch infused with powdered toe-bones—likely from Rotham, processed with carrion beetles and ground to a fine powder—to aid her travels and keep her safe.

Doubt she needs any extra protection even if her gun’s two arm lengths away.

Safine sat in one of the chairs, resting her crossed arms on the back. “There’s a fancy church in Silver Creek. You’d be able to make it if you left early.”

“As long as there’s a preacher there who wants to preach, I don’t give a rat’s ass what it looks like.”

Since Mr. Lane insisted he wouldn’t be ready for a sermon tomorrow, Willa moved her sights, and Mr. Lane had disappeared behind his chapel to feverishly polish the large brass bell for the tower. Decker suspected he was trying to take his mind off the justice he’d witnessed.

“Go with Willa.” Decker marked his place in his book to take a sip of whiskey, not letting his nightly ritual be disturbed by the arrival of his old friend. “Business is always slow on Sundays. Especially now.”

Safine brightened instantly, as if she’d been waiting for a nudge. “I could take my bag and check on the Dillon’s girl.”

“I’m sure her family would be grateful after she got taken.” Willa’s shined boot thumped on the floor and she picked up the second.

A smile touched Decker’s face. If Willa left without her, Safine would have done nothing but mope around all day. It was good for her to have companionship, for however long Willa was in town.

After catching a few hours of sleep, the two set off well before sunrise, leaving Decker in his empty saloon.

Cricket had his fill at the dance hall and was still fast asleep upstairs. No one else was there to play chipped ivory and drown out bits of the sermon Mr. Lane practiced.

Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

Fingertips rustled against pages.

As far as the East is from the West, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

The soft hush of a fountain pen scratched across paper.

Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God—

Decker got to his feet, drowning out the rest of his holy words with flowing whiskey and cold ice.

Verses about forgiveness and piety did little to get under Decker’s skin. No, it was how the preacher spoke. Like he could peel back the layers of his soul and select exactly what knife in his back was bothering him at this precise moment .

The knife this morning came in the form of his mother. Or rather, a memory like a jolt when a young couple knocked on the door as the sun rose.

He thought of her when he’d looked into hesitant brown eyes.

He thought of her when she’d haltingly asked how to get to Silver Creek from here.

He thought of her when she’d smiled, murmuring a blessing in a language he could almost understand and thanked him, newly married hands with swirls of fading red pigment cradling his own. Hands that looked like his own.

And for the first time in years, Decker wanted to go home.

Home could be anywhere by now.

Near rolling hills of green or snow-laden pine branches. Or maybe home met a worse fate. Trusted the wrong person, let the wrong words slip.

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye—

The last chunk of ice in his glass rattled as he set it down.

He needed some air, and there was a hastily scrawled note left on the door for Safine this morning. The least he could do was try to help before she returned.

Protection against the rising sun was a well-practiced ritual, though infrequent.

Dusk or dawn he could get by with his worn hat, a shirt buttoned high above his throat, thin leather gloves, and the common sense to not stay out longer than necessary.

Safine offered him a lacy parasol once, but he declined and said black leather was more his preference .

Today, sun sickness was preferable to the preaching from next door.

Leaving the barren saloon behind him, he turned left across the veranda towards the livestock yards at the river’s edge. At least the cattle wouldn’t preach at him.

Main Street was choked with the dust kicked up by fifty head of longhorn as vaqueros herded them past the saloon towards the shrieking steam-train in Ridgewater.

One man, dark eyes gleaming in his handsomely tan face, tipped his hat at Decker as he rode by, and he knew he could count on at least one customer later. Likely more, as the vaqueros tended to stick close to each other when they were this far north.

Keeping under the thin swathe of shade provided by the porches and storefronts, Decker skirted around McKinney’s Mercantile and greeted the stout, rosy-cheeked man as he arranged sacks of grain and bolts of cloth nearly as tall as him into organized displays.

He nodded to the blacksmith who jerked his heavily-bearded chin at him between ringing blows of his hammer on a red horseshoe, then ducked into the livery to avoid the sun.

The owner, a beautiful creature with elegant, swooping dark eyes that glowed from within, glanced up from under a hat they’d wrestled over pointed ears and straight, inky hair.

They flashed a smile. Wiping their long tan hands on the shirt that hung loosely from their lithe frame, Lee dropped their bristle brush into a bucket and fastened the door behind them.

In the metal-lined stall, a black horse snorted sparks and stamped dinner-plate obsidian hooves as the other two peered from their own reinforced stalls. Born from eggs smuggled carefully all the way from their hometown, Lee’s herd of three was their life’s work.

“Can we help you, Decker?” Lee’s voices softly echoed, overlapping like soft notes on piano keys.

He retrieved the crumpled paper from his pocket. “Mr. Gibson left a note for Safine, but she won’t be back until later tonight. Was hoping I could find him here.”

“We think he’s out back with his herd. He’s in an awful way this morning.

Cattle are coming down with something.” Dropping their tenor to a hundred whispers, they gave into their nervous habit, tucking thick strands of hair behind their pointed ears.

“He was scared yesterday night when he rode in. We could smell it on him. Never had a problem with us before now.”

Others were noticing the shift stealing into the heart of their quiet town. Decrease in business, wariness from humans that had once been neighbors and only saw what they wanted to.

“I’ll look into it,” Decker said, offering them a small smile.

Lee and their herd often kept to themselves, except when out-of-towners needed to rent a dependable, ordinary horse—when the traveler reached where they were going, Lee would send one of their own herd to retrieve it under the cover of darkness.

The herd held parts of their soul, they said when McKinney questioned them one night.

Lee could see what they saw, hear what they heard.

All the more distressing for them when their herd sensed Mr. Gibson’s unease.

Decker followed the fence behind the livery to the stockyards where cattle lowed and kicked up dust, nearly obscuring the towering windmill at the center .

When Thomas left him the Haven ranch, Decker had no interest in becoming a rancher, and he offered it to Gibson. The newcomer in town was an honest man looking to start his life as a free man. He’d done well for himself since.

Scrubby trees cast a film of shade into the paddock nearest the river, and under them he found Gibson, worry soaking his tired, deeply lined face as he wiped down one of the steers.

“Mornin’, Mr. Gibson.” Slipping through the gate, he joined him, cow dung and straw squelching underfoot.

The ground stank of rot. Most of the frogs had disappeared into the river—some weren’t as lucky and drifted along the back of the livery.

Their bloated, leathery bodies mingled with the stench of the herd.

Ragged clumps of flesh and hair wedged into the rough boards as cattle raked their ribs along the fence, lowing desperately.

Gibson thrust a rag in the water bucket, wringing it between broad, deep brown hands before moving to the other side of the beast where he tried to provide relief with the cool river water. Finally, he met Decker’s eyes.

“It’s not good. Me and Callie brought ‘em in last night and all of ‘em were healthy. Got up this mornin’ and not a single one’s not got it.” He said it like Decker was to blame, but he couldn’t find it in him to bristle at the accusatory language.

The cattle were his livelihood, and keeping them well-fed and fending off rustlers on the old Haven ranch took his life, only repaid with the prospect of sending them off on the train. His work would be for nothing if they were diseased.

Decker frowned, taking in the weeping pits scraped across their bodies where the cattle rubbed themselves down to sinew and bone. “Any of the horses affected?” His gaze caught on a bloody hipbone jabbing through the mangled haunch of a steer.

“Not so far,” Gibson muttered.

Just more strange shit.

“I’ll get Safine over here as soon as she gets back. She’ll help as best she can,” he promised, scratching one of the bolder steers between the horns. The white hair shifted under his gloves and the strands writhed alive. Decker recoiled and snatched his hand away from a thousand tiny creatures.

“Keep wiping down the cattle and change your clothes before you go inside,” he said, trying to ignore the phantom insects skittering up his spine and burrowing into his skin.

“Didn’t start until we brought ‘em in last night,” he said in that tone again.

“What are you implying, Mr. Gibson?”

“Folks say things.”

“What folks?” Decker bit out, the words leaving an acidic taste in his mouth.