Priscilla Hogarth drew out the final note, letting it fill the saloon like smoke. There was no enchantment in her song tonight but still all eyes were on her, drawn to her as if she had cast one of her spells. Everything was still but the thick vibrato of her voice – glasses suspended just before men’s lips, dealers’ hands lingering on a deck of cards. She had them all in her grip and she wasn’t even trying.
The corner of her lips rose imperceptibly. If she had been trying…
She ended her song but the note still resonated through the room. Only as that echo died away did the other noises of the saloon emerge from wherever they’d been hiding. The chink of glass on wooden tables, the scuffing of boots, the collective groan as a table of men folded their hands.
No one applauded. She didn’t expect them to. That wasn’t why she sang.
Only one set of eyes still lingered on her, winking from under a wide brimmed hat. She ignored them, stepping away from the piano and walking gracefully to the bar. But even with her back turned she could feel his gaze upon her.
That gaze had once raised goosebumps all over her arms – and not the good kind. Gus Ratwell had eyed her like a piece of meat from the minute she’d come to town. At first the burn of his steely eyes and the way his calloused hands always seemed to wander to places they shouldn’t had felt threatening. Dangerous.
But several years had passed since then and she knew she had the upper hand now. Knew she could contain Gus Ratwell. Overpower him if she had to.
They had all underestimated her when she’d first come to Lost Wood. They’d seen a pretty face, an hourglass figure, noted her rich, husky voice. They’d vied for her and shown all their cards as they did so. She’d taken it all in, used it all to her advantage; now she had the whole town wrapped around her finger.
The double doors swung open and Timber Owens stepped in, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his worn denim pants. Despite the casual stance, his broad, muscular frame seemed to strain against the confines of his shirt, his badge gleaming as it caught the dim light with every rise and fall of his chest. Priscilla saw several hats lower as men shied away from that badge on Timber’s breast, from the lasso coiled at his waist.
“Evening, Timber,” she drawled, fixing her large brown eyes upon the sheriff.
Timber’s grey eyes flashed as he turned, tipping his hat.
“Evenin’, ma’am,” he said, stepping towards the bar.
Priscilla could still feel Gus Ratwell’s gaze upon her as Timber Owens slid onto one of the barstools, setting his hat down beside him. She made a point of leaning low over the bar in front of him.
“Can I get you anything, sheriff? Ale? Whiskey? Something warmer, sweeter?”
A grin toyed at his lips. “Whiskey,” Timber said.
Priscilla smiled and turned to fix his drink, her eyes grazing over Gus. She didn’t let them linger, didn’t want them to. She just liked knowing where he was, and at present he was still brooding in the back of the room, sipping his bourbon and probably fantasizing about her in ways she didn’t want to know.
She muttered a quick spell to chill the glass, then poured Timber’s drink and turned her attention back to the sheriff, sliding the glass across the bar from him like a cat playing with a mouse. He gave her a nod of thanks.
“I don’t poison the drinks, you know,” she said as he took a tentative sip. “Well, not if it isn’t deserved.”
That got the sheriff to smile, and Priscilla felt an inkling of something – was it pride? – well up in her chest. Sheriff Owens was a hard man to read. He was too obstinately nice. Too respectful. Too much of a good guy. He was the only man who hadn’t come onto her like a dog to a bone and it had driven her half mad at first.
Priscilla found that men tended to reveal important bits of themselves when they were desperate for something. They exposed cracks they’d spent their lives trying to hide. Priscilla had learned how to take a chisel to those cracks and bust them wide open, using whatever came pouring out to her favor.
Timber Owens didn’t have any cracks.
“Any poisonings, well deserved or otherwise, I should know about, Miss Hogarth?” he asked.
“None lately,” she smiled. Then her eyes flashed to the man at the back of the room and the corners of her mouth turned back down. “Though there may be soon.”
Timber didn’t even need to turn around to know who she meant. “Causing trouble again?”
“He is trouble, Timber,” she answered, grabbing a glass and pouring herself a drink. Gin. Neat.
“What did he do this time?”
There it was again, his protector of the people voice. The voice that was all work, no play. The voice that belonged to Sheriff Owens, not Timber Owens. The voice that gave Priscilla nothing to work with.
She sent a silent curse in Gus Ratwell’s direction, as an outlet for her disappointment more than anything else. But the sound of glass shattering on the floor didn’t bring her as much amusement as perhaps she’d hoped for.
Timber raised an eyebrow, his grey eyes looking at her in that frustrating, intoxicating way of his. He set his glass down on the bar.
“Did you kick out two men from Bartley this morning?,” he asked, changing the subject.
She sent another curse in Gus Ratwell’s direction, just because she could. Timber didn’t even acknowledge the sound of a chair toppling of the string of curses that came from the back of the room.
“Miss Hogarth,” he merely pressed, his voice low.
“So what if I did?” Priscilla pressed back.
“Ford Sampson had a mare go missing this morning,” Timber leaned over the bar. “Bessie Landry says she heard a pair of drunks make their way across town ‘bout a half hour earlier. Old Gary Rutledge says he heard you give some scoundrels a right talking to just before dawn.”
“They were causing trouble,” she answered, taking another sip of her drink. “They’d passed out at midnight and woke up still drunk and making a mess. They were gonna wake up half the inn if I didn’t take care of it.”
“Did you get their names?” he asked.
“No,” she said. Any sultriness in her voice was gone, replaced by something sharper. She didn’t like it when Timber Owens played the sheriff in her domain. She had control here.
“Descriptions, then?” he asked.
“Take a look around you, Sheriff,” she said sharply. “Drunks all look the same.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
She rolled her eyes. “One was tall and thin, one shorter and stocky. I think they were brothers – they both had the same nose, a bit on the wider side. Blue eyes. Blonde. They were celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?” asked Timber.
“I didn’t ask,” she said. “But they mentioned a job for Barlow West Rail, so nothing good, I’m sure.”
“Hmm,” Timber swirled his drink around in his glass. Priscilla watched the deep amber liquid reach the lip but never spill over.
A shadow had fallen over the sheriff’s face and Priscilla knew why. Where Isaiah Barlow was concerned, Timber Owens’ jurisdiction ended. The rail tycoon held the deed to Lost Wood and as a result, got away with things others couldn’t. For everything Priscilla still didn’t know about the dear sheriff of Lost Wood, for all the cracks she had yet to find in that hard exterior of his, she knew his inability to touch Barlow or his goons was one of his greatest sources of shame.
Unfortunately, though she’d never met him personally, everything she’d heard about Isaiah Barlow made her hate him, too. It didn’t feel right to use that particular crack of Timber’s to her advantage. Damn conscience.
“A drink, ma’am,” came a voice from beside them, causing Priscilla to jump.
She scolded herself for being startled, then schooled her features into cool indifference as she turned to face Gus Ratwell. He was leaning against the bar, putting his toned arms on display. His sharp jaw was tensed around the toothpick sticking out from the corner of his mouth and there was a cut on his thumb, presumably from the jagged shards of the shattered glass he’d placed on the counter before him.
“You broke one of my glasses,” she drawled.
The corners of Timber’s mouth rose ever so slightly. Gus Ratwell’s eye twitched.
“Guess I’m just clumsy,” he said. “Another drink.”
~
It was another hour before Timber Owens took his leave of Priscilla Hogarth.
He knew he shouldn’t have lingered as long as he did. He had an investigation to write up before he could make his way back to his lodgings above Halpert’s General Store. The thought of kicking off his boots, climbing into bed and sleeping until Sampson’s roosters crowed almost made him want to put off paperwork until the morning.
But Timber Owens didn’t put things off.
Well, most things.
He did put off leaving Old Wood Saloon whenever it meant spending time with Priscilla, apparently. The woman had a certain charm to her, an intrigue. The threat and thrill of danger.
He’d sensed it when she’d first come to town three years ago. Magic and power practically radiated off her. She hid it well – most people hadn’t noticed, too blinded by her good looks and her quick tongue. But he’d seen it.
At first it had set him on edge. He was the sheriff, after all, and it was his job to keep Lost Wood and its residents safe. The day someone like her rolled in you practically had to go on high alert. Lucky for him the townsfolk were just as curious as he was, and Bessie Landry and Rosamund Coon – ancient, clever witches in their own right and probably the only other people in town to see her for what she was – got to her fast. He hadn’t been there for their talk, as Bessie had called it, but she and Rosamund assured him when it was all said and done that they trusted Priscilla. She’d had a rough life, just wanted to live quietly in a place like Lost Wood.
Lost Wood – the town full of people, magic and merely mortal, who had lived rough lives and just wanted to live quietly. Lost Wood – where people go to disappear.
The assurances of Bessie and Rosamund were all he’d needed, and now he could appreciate Priscilla Hogarth for what she was. Beautiful, powerful, sexy.
From afar, of course.
Or, from across the bar.
He didn’t let himself get closer. He was the sheriff and Lost Wood didn’t exactly attract the most law-abiding crowd – generally people wanted to disappear for a reason, after all. He didn’t have time for love, or whatever it was he may have sought in Priscilla.
His pants grew tighter as all the things he’d seek from her if he could just let loose for a while flashed through his head.
He shook those thoughts away.
You’re no better than that scoundrel Ratwell, he chastised himself as he pulled a set of skeleton keys from his breast pocket and unlocked the door to the station.
It was a rare night in which all three cells were empty, so he’d let Deputy Farley go for the rest of the evening before wandering off to Old Wood himself. Farley’s daughter was home from Harken, the next town over about fifty miles away, where she attended Mabel Grey’s Witchery School for Girls, and Timber knew his deputy would want to spend as much time with her as he could – “Before she gets too powerful for a small town like Lost Wood,” Farley would practically sob.
So the station was quiet and dark.
Timber groaned as he settled into his chair, unbuttoning his trousers to make room for his other deputy, who was still fresh from thoughts of Priscilla. A quick gesture of his hand saw the nearby oil lamp light just enough to illuminate the array of papers he’d left strewn across his desk.
Ford Sampson’s claim, Bessie Landry’s statement. A photo of the missing mare, a little roan pony named Smokey.
“Time to add one more to this mess,” he said to himself, materializing a fresh sheet of paper before him and writing down everything Priscilla had told him about the two men.
He didn’t realize he’d been clenching his teeth until he set the pen down, looking back at the words he’d underlined: Barlow West Rail. He weighed his options – either he’d have to go pay a visit to Isaiah Barlow to question him about two possible employees of his, or he’d have to tell Ford Sampson to cut his losses and find a new broodmare.
The mere thought of sitting down with Lost Wood’s proprietor sent a chill down his spine. The man was cunning, corrupt and crooked as a dog’s hind legs. Set aside the fact that he told lies so well a man would be a fool not to believe them, or that he had a nasty habit of marrying young women with a penchant for disappearing; he held the fate of the whole town in the palm of his hand, and since before Timber had been born, he’d been tightening his grip, strangling it long and slow.
“Back in the day,” as his father used to say, Lost Wood had been a thriving town, three times as big as it was now. The lands had been fertile, the mines up in the Spineridge had showered them with gold, and the train had brought merchants and traders and people.
Then the rain stopped falling and the ground dried up. The farmers sent their sons to the City to learn how to magic the lands back into fertility. It worked for a few years, but even magic can’t make something out of nothing, and eventually the crops simply grew wrong and soured the soil for good. So they turned to raising cattle. But most of the pastureland was owned by Barlow West Rail, and Isaiah Barlow charged them a pretty penny to let their cattle graze. Too pretty a penny for most in the end – before long, many families simply gave up and used all they had left to take the train through the southeast pass of the Spineridge in search of something better. “We’ll come back when the rains do,” they’d all said, but not one of them had returned. All that remained of the Lost Wood acreocracy were the Sampsons and Ratwells, but even they would be forever beholden to the Barlows.
And then the rivers of gold that had flowed through the mountains dried up as well. Isaiah Barlow – because of course the Barlows owned the mines, too – announced one morning that he was shuttering the whole operation, leaving a lot of good men without work or pay. When word came that silver had been found in the Kasgaard mountains, many packed up their families and took the first train to the North. “We’ll see you all again when we’re rich,” they’d all said, but no one saw them again.
“At least we still have West Rail,” said those who remained, but as years passed it became clear that without crops or gold, few stopped in Lost Wood anymore. No one could say it came as too much of a surprise when Isaiah Barlow announced one morning that he was moving Barlow West Rail to the City and expanding the tracks northward. Another wave of workers lost their livelihood. They packed their family’s bags and made their way northwest, to the City. “We’ll see you –” they all started to say, but then they shook their heads and turned away.
They weren’t coming back to Lost Wood.
And now the town was as Timber had always known it. Half empty, half alive, with nothing but a crumbling train station, an old saloon and stories of “the good ole’ days.” If it weren’t for the fact that Timber had been born and raised in Lost Wood and had sworn on his father’s deathbed to carry on the Owens family legacy of protecting the town, he’d be gone in a heartbeat.
Protecting the town… how would telling Ford Sampson that his Smoky was a lost cause without even trying be “protecting” anyone? No, he’d have to pay Isaiah Barlow a visit whether he liked it or not.
He laughed grimly to himself. The best thing Isaiah Barlow had done for the town, his father had told him, was to leave. Timber had been a boy when Barlow left for the City, to oversee the expansion of the rail. He’d lived most of his life beneath the watchful gaze of the old, empty Barlow mansion perched in the foothills of the Spineridge like an eagle looking out over its prey.
But six months ago, for reasons no one could figure out, Barlow came back. And suddenly, “paying Isaiah Barlow a visit” became an unfortunate part of Timber’s job.
With his deputy once more at ease, he rebuttoned his trousers before piling the loose papers into a neat stack and sticking them into a cabinet behind the desk. Another gesture and the lamp faded, casting the room into darkness.
A lonely darkness, he thought. The kind he knew well.
After locking the station back up, Timber got only steps away from the door before he heard his name from behind.
“Timber Owens,” spat Gus Ratwell, stepping out from where he stood hidden in shadow beside Cooper O’Malley’s stoop.
“What do you want, Ratwell?” Timber said with a sigh as he turned back to face the man. He was too tired for this.
Their interaction at Old Wood Saloon hadn’t exactly gone well. After Priscilla had gotten Ratwell another drink, he’d made a move on the woman. She’d said no, and he’d tried again.
“I believe the answer was no,” Timber had raised his voice when he’d watched a third attempt – this one involving a slap on the ass.
“This ain’t none of your business, sheriff,” Ratwell had drawled.
“It’s going on in my town, so it’s my business.”
Gus had reached for his gun then, but Timber’s fist had connected with his eye before he could draw it from its holster. Then the scoundrel had gone stiff, risen to his feet and walked out of the saloon without so much as a word.
“You know we don’t allow for blood magic in these parts, Miss Hogarth,” Timber had said to the woman.
“Good thing it wasn’t blood magic, then,” she purred with that intoxicating voice. “Come on and finish your drink Timber.”
Timber had finished his drink then, and it seemed he’d be finishing what he’d started with Gus Ratwell here and now. His hand moved to the lasso coiled at his hip and he felt his power surge through him.
“You made a fool of me, sheriff,” Gus sneered, drawing his gun and spinning it in his hand in a way he clearly hoped was threatening. “I don’t take well to being made a fool.”
“You made a fool of yourself, Gus,” Timber corrected the man, but his attention was focused on the coil of his lasso. He channeled his power through that spiraling loop, polishing it, refining it as it coursed through the rope. Other sorcerers had staffs or wands to focus their magic, but Timber found them impractical – items too cumbersome or easy to forget. So he’d made his lasso his staff. It was his greatest weapon and he didn’t even have to unhook it from his waist.
“She’ll be mine in the end, you know,” Gus lifted his gun and pointed it at the sheriff. Timber saw Gus’s muscular forearms flex with the movement, saw his jaw shift as he spoke around the toothpick that still stuck out from the corner of his mouth.
“No, she won’t,” Timber said coolly. “You burned that bridge years ago.”
“She sure as hell won’t be yours,” Gus spat. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”
Timber flicked his wrist and with a sharp crack, two nearby barrels splintered and shifted, reforming themselves into vaguely human shapes that lurched towards Gus. Gus fired his gun but with another gesture of Timber’s hand the bullet turned to smoke halfway between the men.
Timber saw Gus’s face twist in disgust at the show of magic. The Ratwells were a powerful wizarding family – Amelia Ratwell had been a renowned healer, Garret Ratwell a master sorcerer – but Gus had gotten none of their magic. While his sister had graduated from Mabel Grey’s and his brother had followed in their father’s footsteps and taken over the family farm, Gus was stuck as the non-magical laborer and cattle herder for hire, with nothing but his good looks and his gun.
“Still too scared to face me man to man, are you, Owens?” Gus sneered.
“Ain’t that what we’re doing here and now?” asked Timber coolly.
“A real man wouldn’t hide behind his magic.”
At that moment the wooden golems had their arms around Gus, gripping him hard and making their way back to the station. Gus spat on the ground and shot Timber a look that promised revenge.
Let him try, Timber thought. But first let’s see how a night in a cell treats him.
E. R. Presma 