Instead she had seen acts of incest, mothers beating children, husbands beating wives. She had seen a gang of boys out west'rds of town (it would have amused Rhea to know these swaggering eight-year-olds called themselves the Big Coffin Hunters) go about enticing stray dogs with a bone and then cutting off their tails for a lark. She had seen robberies, and at least one murder: a wandering man who had stabbed his companion with a pitchfork after some sort of trivial argument. That had been on the first drizzly night. The body still lay mouldering in a ditch beside the Great Road West, covered with a layer of straw and weeds. It might be discovered before the autumn storms came to drown another year; it might not.
She also glimpsed Cordelia Delgado and that hard gun, Jonas, sitting in Green Heart at one of the outside tables and talking about . . . well, of course she didn't know, did she? But she could see the look in the spinster bitch's eyes. Infatuated with him, she was, all pink in the face. Gone all hot and sweet over a backshooter and failed gunslinger. It was comical, aye, and Rhea thought she would keep an eye on them, from time to time. Wery entertaining, it would likely be.
After showing her Cordelia and Jonas, the glass veiled itself once more. Rhea put it back in the box with the eye on the lock. Seeing Cordelia in the glass had reminded the old woman that she had unfinished business regarding Cordelia's sluttish niece. That Rhea still hadn't done that business was ironic but understandable - as soon as she had seen how to fix the young sai's wagon, Rhea's mind and emotions had settled again, the images in the ball had reappeared, and in her fascination with them Rhea had temporarily forgotten that Susan Delgado was alive. Now, however, she remembered her plan. Set the cat among the pigeons. And speaking of cats -
"Musty! Yoo-hoo, Musty, where are ye?"
The cat came oiling out of the woodpile, eyes glowing in the dirty dimness of the hut (when the weather turned fine again, Rhea had pulled her shutters to), forked tail waving. He jumped into her lap.
"I've an errand for ye," she said, bending over to lick the cat. The entrancing taste of Musty's fur filled her mouth and throat.
Musty purred and arched his back against her lips. For a six-legged mutie cat, life was good.
5
Jonas got rid of Cordelia as soon as he could - although not as soon as he would have liked, because he had to keep the scrawny bint sweetened up. She might come in handy another time. In the end he had kissed her on the comer of her mouth (which caused her to turn so violently red he feared she might have a brain-storm) and told her that he would check into the matter which so concerned her.
"But discreetly!" she said, alarmed.
Yes, he said, walking her home, he would be discreet; discretion was his middle name. He knew Cordelia wouldn't - couldn't - be eased until she knew for sure, but he guessed it would turn out to be nothing but vapor. Teenagers loved to dramatize, didn't they? And if the young lass saw that her aunt was afraid of something, she might well feed auntie's fears instead of allaying them.
Cordelia had stopped by the white picket fence that divided her garden-plot from the road, an expression of sublime relief coming over her face. Jonas thought she looked like a mule having its back scratched with a stiff brush.
"Why, I never thought of that... yet it's likely, isn't it?"
"Likely enough," Jonas had said, "but I'll still check into it most carefully. Better safe than sorry." He kissed the comer of her mouth again. "And not a word to the fellows at Seafront. Not a hint."
"Thank'ee, Eldred! Oh, thank'ee!" And she had hugged him before hurrying in, her tiny br**sts pressing like stones against the front of his shirt. "Mayhap I'll sleep tonight, after all!"
She might, but Jonas wondered if he would.
He walked toward Hockey's stable, where he kept his horse, with his head down and his hands locked behind his back. A gaggle of boys came racing up the other side of the street; two of them were waving severed dog's tails with blood clotted at the ends.
"Coffin Hunters! We're Big Coffin Hunters just like you!" one called impudently across to him.
Jonas drew his gun and pointed it at them - it was done in a flash, and for a moment the terrified boys saw him as he really was: with his eyes blazing and his lips peeled back from his teeth, Jonas looked like a white-haired wolf in man's clothes.
"Get on, you little bastards!" he snarled. "Get on before I blow you loose of your shoes and give your fathers cause to celebrate!"
For a moment they were frozen, and then they fled in a howling pack. One had left his trophy behind; the dog's tail lay on the board sidewalk like a grisly fan. Jonas grimaced at the sight of it, bolstered his gun, locked his hands behind him again, and walked on, looking like a parson meditating on the nature of the gods. And what in gods' name was he doing, pulling iron on a bunch of young hellions like that?
Being upset, he thought. Being worried.
He was worried, all right. The titless old biddy's suspicions had upset him greatly. Not on Thorin's account - as far as Jonas was concerned, Dearborn could f**k the girl in the town square at high noon of Reaping Fair Day - but because it suggested that Dearborn might have fooled him about other things.