a bend, she was surprised to see a half dozen men chatting quietly outside a boxy white church. She knitted her brow. It wasn’t Sunday, was it? She was under the impression that it was a Friday. She wondered how she could have lost track so quickly.
Stanton stopped at the general store to inquire after the gentleman he’d met outside Colfax. Emily waited outside, thumbs hitched in the pockets of her vest. There wasn’t any traffic to watch, so when a man came driving an empty buckboard up the road, he was an object of scrutiny by default. The driver was stocky, with a particular hunched way of sitting that suggested both weariness and extreme physical power at the same time … dark tanned skin, cornsilk blond hair …
She put her hand over her mouth.
Dag!
Coming to New Bethel to purchase hay … on today of all days! She stepped back into the shadows of the overhanging porch, wondering where she could hide, but then remembered that he wouldn’t recognize her anyway in her hideous man’s suit. She pulled her hat down over her eyes and watched him from under the brim. He rode past her, up the main street to a feed store at the far end of town.
Quickly she ducked into the store where Stanton was speaking to the counterman.
“Elijah Furness?” the counterman was saying. “Why, sure.” He pointed in the direction of the whitewashed church they’d passed. “Preparing for Friday evening service, I imagine.”
“He never misses them?” Stanton said.
“Never misses ’em?” The man smiled slightly, and for some reason it struck Emily that it was probably one of the man’s most riotous expressions of amusement. “Why, it would be a shame if he did, given he’s the preacher and all.”
Stanton thanked the man and went to the door. Emily followed him onto the porch.
Stanton looked down the street at the church, at the people gathered in front of it. His jaw rippled, and he sighed heavily.
“Did you see the church?” Stanton said, low. “More to the point, did you see the red cross on the church?”
Red cross? Emily wasn’t entirely sure what Stanton meant, until it came back to her in a flash. The street preacher they’d seen in San Francisco, the one outside the soup kitchen …
“It’s a Scharfian church?”
Stanton nodded grimly.
“Not just a Scharfian church, a whole Scharfian community. And the man who’s offered to buy my horses is the town preacher.”
“We have another problem,” Emily said. “I saw Dag.”
“Your lumberman?” Stanton’s brow knit. “Where?”
“He was riding up to the feed store, probably to buy a load of hay for his teams.” She paused. “Listen, let’s not risk it. Let’s take the horses and ride out of here. This all just feels … wrong.”
“And go where?” Stanton said. “With what money? With what supplies?” He put his head closer to hers, spoke lower. “We need what Furness is offering to pay for train tickets to New York. We’d have to ride all the way back to Sacramento to get the price he said he’d pay, and that would give the Maelstroms time to catch up with us.”
Emily chewed her lip, looked in the direction of the church.
“Well, he doesn’t have to know you’re a Warlock, right?” Emily said.
“Right,” Stanton said. He took a deep breath and let it out. “You stay by the horses here. I want to get Furness as far away from his church as possible. Keep your hat down. And for God’s sake, don’t say anything. You’re entirely unconvincing as a man.”
Stepping down from the porch, he paused by the horses, laying a silent hand on each glossy neck before striding across the dusty road to where the people stood before the white church. He hailed one of them. Emily leaned against the wall of the store and watched.
Stanton removed his hat and held it in his hands as he spoke to a white-bearded deacon. The deacon nodded and called inside the church. After a moment, the knife-faced man she remembered emerged, now in the clothes of a preacher: long black frock coat and a high white collar. A large red cross rested on his chest. Tucked under his arm was a massive Bible bound in black leather. The preacher looked at Stanton, and then toward the store, at the horses. He gestured a few of his parishioners to follow him.
“Been to Sacramento, eh?” Emily heard him saying as they approached. “I just saw you near Colfax a few days back. You were