Forging Horseshoes at Devil's Cut

The forge behind the livery sat half in shade and half in glare, as if the building itself could not decide whether to sleep or sweat. Inez Mercer stood at the anvil with one boot braced on the plank floor and her sleeve rolled to the elbow, shaping a front shoe for a bay gelding that had already snapped one nail and tried twice to tell her he was offended by the whole arrangement. The horse did not speak English, but he managed the tone well enough.

The town of Devil's Cut was already awake. Somewhere out on Main the bakery door slapped open and shut. A cart wheel rattled past on the packed road. From the boardinghouse came the smell of burnt coffee and fried ham, and from the church yard came the peevish cry of a crow trying to steal a crust from the picnic table. The day had that dry, glassy look that meant heat now, rain later, and trouble either way.

Inez quenched the shoe, tested the curve against the gelding's hoof, and nodded to herself. Good enough. Better than good enough, if anyone asked. She set the hot iron aside and took a rasp to the hoof wall, shaving off a curl of horn that fell like pale sawdust at her feet.

The livery boy, a narrow kid with freckles and a hat too big for his head, leaned in the doorway. He had a tin cup in one hand and a biscuit in the other.

—You leaving after this one? he asked.

—That was the idea, Inez said.

—You say that every time.

—And every time somebody in this town finds another reason to need a horse standing upright.

He grinned at that, which was fair enough. She grinned back only a little, the kind of grin that admitted the joke without inviting more conversation.

She fitted the shoe, drove the first nail, and heard the clean bite of iron into hoof. That sound always pleased her, no matter how tired she was. It was one of the few things in life that answered back honestly. No speeches. No grand notions. Just fit, pressure, correction.

By the time she had clinched the nails and brushed the hoof clean, sweat had slipped down her spine and the gelding had gone from sour to smug. Inez wiped her hands on a rag and reached for her hat.

She was folding the brim flat when the church bell gave one hard, ugly note. Not a call to worship. Not a funeral. A warning.

The livery boy looked out toward the west and swore under his breath.

—Slide on the cut, he said. —Broke loose after sunrise. Folks are saying the road's half buried.

Inez paused with one strap in her hand. Of course it had to be the cut. Nothing simple ever happened in Devil's Cut, and the valley seemed to take a private pleasure in proving it.

—How bad? she asked.

—Bad enough that old Hiram's wagon turned back. Bad enough that somebody's mule sat down in the road and refused to budge until three men carried its feed sack.

—That's not weather. That's judgment.

—Could be both.

Inez slung her leather roll over one shoulder and stared toward the west, where the sky had gone the color of tarnished pewter. She had a board payment settled. Her shoes were packed. Her mare was rested. By noon she could be on the south trail, away from this town and every hand that knew her name.

She was not in the habit of revising plans for the sake of bad luck.

Then she heard hooves outside, hard and hurried, and the livery boy stepped aside as a broad-shouldered man in a dust-streaked coat came in with a ledger under one arm and irritation already fixed on his face.

Bram Keene did not waste time on greetings. He planted his boots in the doorway like a claim stake and looked around the forge as if he owned the nails in the wall.

—You still here, Mercer?

—Last I checked, yes.

—Good. My drive is pinned down south of the cut. Two riders, eighteen head, and three horses that need shoeing before we can move them through the pass.

Inez set her hat on the bench and folded her arms. —Then you'd best find a woman with four hands.

Bram's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. He had the kind of face that could turn a joke into a threat by standing still long enough.

—I'll pay for the whole lot now.

—That isn't the same as changing the day, she said.

—It ought to be.

The livery boy took a careful step back, which was wise. Bram Keene had money, land, a temper, and the certainty of a man who had never been told no by anyone he respected. He also had a cattle herd caught in the wrong place and the kind of weather gathering in the west that made hard men harden twice as much.

Inez picked up the rasp again and ran a thumb over the edge of the gelding's hoof. —Your herd can wait till the road clears.

—The road won't clear on its own.

—Neither will your manners.

That earned her the first honest look he'd given all morning. Not anger. Not yet. Calculation.

—If I lose those animals, he said, —I lose half a season.

—If I stay, I lose my patience.

The boy snorted into his cup and turned it into a cough when Bram glanced at him.

Bram lowered his voice a notch. —There are families east of the cut depending on that herd. Feed. Cloth. Lamp oil. You know how this town runs.

Inez did know. She knew that stores ran thin by fall, that flour got dear when roads failed, that one delayed shipment could make a porch full of people feel the winter twice. She also knew a man could dress necessity up as righteousness and still be asking for special treatment.

—Bring your horses after I finish what I started, she said.

—That won't do.

—Then it won't do.

Bram's jaw worked once. He was about to answer when a wagon wheel clattered outside, followed by the sharp complaint of a mule whose opinion of travel had clearly been asked too often.

The noise stopped at the door. A woman's voice came next, steady and tired.

—Is this the farrier shop, or did I take a wrong turn into a church of stubborn animals?

Inez turned. A wagon stood in the lane with one wheel sunk deep in dust, a pale mare hitched at the front, and a mule planted so hard in place it might have grown there on purpose. A widow's black dress can make a woman look smaller than she is, but not this one. She was broad in the shoulders, square in the jaw, and carrying her worry like a fence post: straight, practical, unadorned. A boy of about twelve stood in the wagon bed, one hand on the sideboard, the other on the mule's harness as if he expected it to bite him for touching the wrong strap.

The mule stared at Inez with deep, offended patience.

—That one yours? Inez asked.

The boy answered before the woman could. —His name is Judge. He thinks roads are a rumor.

Judge flicked one ear.

—It suits him, Inez said.

The woman climbed down and laid a hand on the mare's neck. —I'm Willa Crane. We came from the north farm. The road's blocked near the cut, they said. I need to get this mare across before the weather turns worse.

—You and half the valley.

—Then I won't take long.

Bram made a small sound in the back of his throat, half irritation and half disbelief. He had not come for company. Neither had Inez. Yet here was the day, bringing her a widow, a mule named Judge, a boy with a crooked grin, and a herd boss with no use for waiting.