TheSilver Starnestled between the telegraph office and the laundry.
Red long johns and clean sheets snapped from the lines behind the buildings like lye-scented flags. The doorknob rattled under his hand and when he peered through the dusty glass, the counter hosted nothing but stacks of newspapers and a recently doused lamp. Slipping Laurie’s note under the door, Decker trailed to the side window, away from prying eyes parading down Main Street.
When Nathan was his neighbor, he was pleasant and dull, keeping to his barber shop and rarely meddling in other business. Decker found it hard to believe the newspaper would have hired the quiet man as a reporter, and the marks gouged into the windowsill that left chips of brown paint strewn across the ground confirmed his suspicion.
Nathan had used force to spread his message to Ridgewater, if he was truly the one who had printed and delivered the newspapers. There could be others, but creatures like him usually favored loneliness; Decker knew the late nights between them at the saloon years ago meant little to Nathan, but that hadn’t stopped them from indulging.
Decker thoughtfully rubbed his glove over the bare wood. By the lack of grime worked into the cuts, he’d broken into theStarrecently—a few days before Laurie bought the first paper in Ridgewater. They would be vigilant now, ensuring another break-in couldn’t swoop in under the fluttering laundry of their neighbors.
Dead-end.
He replayed his last encounter with Nathan over in his mind.‘I won’t be in danger’.His snapped words and wild actions were far from the man he’d known before. Nathan wasn’t one to accepthelp, but the words he’d written about Ender’s Ridge weren’t his own.
What hand are you playing, Nathan?
What would drive a man to aid the unveiling of his own people? Neighbors he’d lived with, drank with. Back turned on his own, but guided by something possibly holding a larger role than what Decker could see now.
Helplessness snapped at his heels and Decker kicked it away. People like him never gave up easily.
People likethem.
Snatching his hand from the windowsill, Decker glanced over the emptyStarbuilding once more and left to find Laurie.
Now, preacher, where the hell have you gone?
He searched for him in the web of heartbeats and sorted through a dozen others before he caught his faint rhythm blocks away.
Laurie’s heartbeat was fast. Anxious about crossing the street or trying to ask someone for directions if he had to guess.
Ducking through the crisp sheets, Decker followed a path worn through the sharp, dead grass past a doctor’s office, around the telegraph station, and kept in the shadow of the houses.
He heard the other heartbeat when he caught sight of Laurie underneath a creaking sign.Sheriff,the wooden plank spelled out in jagged gashes of paint.
They stood close.
Laurie smiled, laughing at something the other man said as he leaned against the post, body relaxed even as his heart pounded in Decker’s head, drowning out anything they said to the other. Laurie’s cheeks were ruddy from the wind and he bundled the black wool coat around him, his hands folded in the pockets.A smile hovered on his lips when the sheriff gestured towards his office.
His soft, polite smile had been cast in Decker’s direction so many times. Strange, seeing the slight tilt to Laurie’s head as he listened intently, the second flash of a smile to someone who wasn’t him.
Righteous celibacy.
Laurie was a fool if he thought celibacy absolved him in God’s eyes from how he looked at other men. Decker tore his gaze away from how Laurie leaned closer, as if senselessly seeking warmth from the cold shoulder of the law.
The second heartbeat wasn’t the lawman’s. The sheriff’s was slow, unaffected by Laurie.
There it was, behind him. An off-kilter beat, a pulsing familiarity itching at Decker’s mind as his gaze flickered over the trodden grass.
Only a stray orange cat disturbed the stillness. Green eyes peered at him between two barrels before he flicked his tail and stalked into the alley. The striped fur on his back arched when he stopped, one paw hovering in place.
Footsteps shuffled through the space between buildings and a hiss ripped from the cat, tail fluffing, as he streaked away.
Decker caught a glimpse of Nathan’s face under the wide brim of his hat.
He had a haggard look to him, like he’d been stretched thin, cheeks sunken and sallow. Under the rusty stains bleeding through his coat, his chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, as if someone had taken a knife to him.
Decker lunged at him. Nathan threw himself to the side. Blood oozed between Decker’s gloved fingers from a damp fistful of theother man’s shredded shirt before he twisted from his grip and fled. Sheets flapped around him like startled gulls as he ducked under, leaving blood streaked across the clean fabric.
Nathan ran like a wounded deer, stumbling around the corner of theStar.Decker shouted, boots slipping on the sharp grass, racing under the clotheslines. He came up short on the busy street.
