Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 44 of 60

Eduardo drove the last nail into the porch board and stood up. The retraction had been out for days now. Half the town believed him. Half did not. He could live with that if it held still. But it would not hold still if his cousin kept talking somewhere he could not see. He drove to the feast hall to ask Gwen. She kept a door open to everyone. If his cousin had been sitting at a table stirring men against him, she would know. The hall smelled of onions and bread. Gwen stood at the long table wiping it down. She looked up when he came in and set the rag aside. "You heard anything about my cousin?" Eduardo asked. "Where he's been." Gwen picked the rag back up. "Not here." "You'd tell me." "I'd tell you." She wrung the rag out over a bowl. "Try the angel woman. Men who've been called out go looking for a priest before they go looking for a friend." He thanked her and left. The keep sat at the edge of the wood, its carved wood wrapped in vines, stained glass angels catching the late sun. Mother Angel opened the door before he knocked. Behind her, Ananda leaned in a doorway holding a purple stone in one hand. "He came," Mother Angel said. Her voice was soft and even. "Two nights ago. He wanted a blessing." "Did you give him one?" "I gave him water and a chair. He wanted me to say you were lying. I would not." Ananda tossed the stone and caught it. "He went to the saloon after. Been there since. Buying rounds with money he doesn't have and telling every man who'll listen that you called him out to steal his standing." Eduardo's jaw set. "How many are listening." "Fewer than yesterday," Mother Angel said. "But enough. He is running a tab against your name." "He'll swing at you if you go in," Ananda said. "Just so you know. Crystals told me. Also common sense." Eduardo drove to the saloon and stopped across the road. He could see his cousin through the open door, arm around a man's shoulder, mouth moving. The old pull rose in him. Go in. Answer him. Break something. He put his hands on the wheel and breathed until it passed. He would not go in. Going in was the fight his cousin wanted. He had the location now. That was the thing he had come for. He drove to the tea house and told the white-haired woman where his cousin was drinking and what he was saying. He asked her to pass it to the old man at the feed store and to Gwen. Let the people who had signed his book hear it from him first. He drove home. The tab would run. He would keep working while it did.