a date of sorts.

Eleanor Crawford

They go back inside. It's warmer in here, with a fire in the hearth and so many bodies. It's quieter upstairs; maybe some of the children have fallen asleep. There are the two promised poker games going on, and a representative of the Crawford family at each table: Oliver with the penny stakers and Mr. Crawford casually smoking a pipe while narrowing his eyes at his cards.

He does glance up when his daughter comes back in, followed by Deputy Clay. His eyes are too clear for him to have missed the convergence of their absence, or the whispers between Mrs. Ballard and one of the other ladies chatting by the window up front. He doesn't stand up, flip over a table, and demand to know what the hell is going on here, which is just further proof that he's very different from most people in Denver City.

Dagmar, however, is watching Clay with stony gray eyes, tracking him as he walks in. She may be kin and her charge may be a monster pretending at humanity, but she clearly takes her duties as chaperone quite seriously, and is almost as tall and broad-shouldered as Trevor Clay himself. However: she does not flip anything over, either. She just falls into step with Eleanor, preventing him from taking up any more unsupervised time with her.

Miss Crawford doesn't join a table. She visits her father briefly and kisses his cheek, and Trevor Clay is waved over to join one of the games if he will. Eleanor does her rounds as a hostess, chatting with her guests who aren't inclined to play cards. A group of ladies sits together sipping sherry and occasionally eating little cakes. It's quite pleasant, even if near the end, Eleanor starts to look a bit drawn around the eyes.

The evening winds down, as it is wont to do. Hands are folded, pots are won, cakes polished off, coffee brewed, and so on. The guests are all given a small gift at the door to take home: lace-edged handkerchiefs and lace gloves for the ladies, monogrammed handkerchiefs and gleaming cufflinks for the gentlemen. Just a little something to remember the Crawfords by. The kinfolk of the town, who also happen to be leaders in the town, upstanding citizens, trusted friends, make their way to their homes, carrying their sleepy children or leading them by the hand. The public house begins to douse its lights.

Trevor Clay makes his way home alone. His dog is waiting for him near the front door. She begins wagging her tail frantically when he comes in, walking in circles, barking until shushed, the way she always does. Night falls deeply, with a velvet heaviness at the end of a long evening. At one point he wakes, hearing the howl of a wolf again. Farther, this time. Distant. Sleep comes again.

--

A few more days go by. People who were not invited want to know every possible detail about the dinner. Many never think to ask why they weren't invited: they sense instinctively, without knowing intellectually, the difference between themselves and the kinfolk of Denver City. Some people are leaders and key figures in the town; others aren't. It's just their mortality that keeps them from knowing what that difference is. Plenty of people resent it, and don't like it, but few stop to wonder about the why behind it all. So it has always been. The Veil is heavier, thicker, and more pervasive than even most wolves fully understand.

In any case: a bit of time passes. And one day, the Ballard boy shows up at the sheriff's office. He carries messages as a way to earn a bit of pocket money and also as a way for him to burn off seemingly boundless energy. So he comes in running, cheeks red, carrying a note for Deputy Clay.

The stationery is just as high-quality as the invitations were, the handwriting excellent, the paper smooth. And when he unfolds it (whenever he does so), the paper releases the faintest whiff of perfume. Her perfume, which until this moment he likely hadn't realized he picked up on. Would remember.

Dear Mister Clay,

You will no doubt be surprised to receive a letter from one who is almost a total stranger to you, but I hope you will pardon me for my boldness. Perhaps prudence would dictate that I should, for the present at least, withhold, but my nature is impatient and will not be quieted.

I must confess my enjoyment -- nay, my delight -- with our conversation at my father's party some evenings past. Though brief, I find my thoughts and my curiosity turning again and again to this exchange of words. I wish quite fervently to continue such lively discourse with you, apart from the prying eyes and attentions of our beloved neighbors, if only so we may not tempt them to the sin of gossip.

All I expect in answer to this (I fear) imprudent and rash note, is some intimation that I may dare to hope we may pass such time together again. Even impatient, heedless I know that calling on one another is inadvisable in the extreme. Perhaps a letter, though, would not be too much to ask of you? Do you find that objectionable, Mister Clay? I entreat you to write to me, whether with denial or reception. Please: with the same frankness that I have used in addressing you. Speak to me thus.

With great respect,

Miss Eleanor Crawford

Deputy Clay

Two summers past the mayor moved his offices, presumably tired of the rabble and noise that comes with sharing a building with a jail. Now the mayor presides from a fine brick building in the newer, fancier parts of town while Lark has moved into his old offices. The rest of that side of the building has been by-and-large converted into an expanded jail, though they do now have what might one day bear the titles of interrogation room and evidence room.

All of which is to say, Trevor Clay now occupies what used to be the sheriff's office, being the senior deputy. And it's in that office that he pays the Ballard boy a few coins for his trouble, reminding him to close the door behind him.

In the privacy of that office, where his black-and-white dog naps under the desk, he slices open the envelope and extracts the letter. Quite a fine and fancy thing, that, immediately putting to shame all the rumpled scraps of rough-pressed paper on his desk. He scans the paragraphs -- quite a bit more eloquent than the shaky words with which Deputy Ballard once courted Dearest Anabelle -- but the heart of the matter, he thinks, beats in the same way.

Behind closed doors, he writes for a while. Then he steps outside, where the day is bright and the air is just beginning to thaw toward spring. It rained last night. The streets are rutted mud. An unwashed, barechested farmer -- there are men now who plant and sow, and not merely those who dream of gold in the mountains -- is herding his unruly new cow toward home. Prancing the other way is Josiah Withers's daughter, gaudy in a brand-new dress allegedly sewn in the latest Parisian style. Nearer to the sheriff's quarters, a group of small dirty boys yell and roughhouse, and it's in their approximate direction that Clay lets loose a whistle.

A few more pennies and the letter's on its way to Miss Crawford. The calligraphy is passable at best, and the contents are exceedingly plainspoken:

Miss Crawford,

I enjoyed your company. Wanted to write you sooner but your father, your chaperone, your elevated status, and your possible disinterest were daunting. The last matter, at least, is settled. As for gossip, it was never a deterrent to me. People will talk no matter what, and often about things that are not their business.

Perhaps you will allow me to escort you to the site of your future home tomorrow and back. Hardly anyone could fault you for wanting to oversee construction, nor me for assuring the safety of a valued citizen.

T.C.

Eleanor Crawford

It isn't the young Ballard boy who delivers the letter to the public house but another child from town, and he gets no more pennies because he has to leave it in the care of Mary, because Miss Crawford isn't there. Trevor Clay doesn't know this, but he couldn't. It's hours before Eleanor returns, and is surprised to find a letter for her, given to her on the tray along with her dinner.

Dagmar, Oliver, and her father all want to know who it is from, and were she mortal, Eleanor would tell them. As it is, she is not mortal. She is not human. And for once, she uses this privilege without feeling bad for it; she refuses to answer, as it is a private matter. She itches to open the letter but restrains herself. She eats her dinner and reads for a bit and washes up and braids her hair and puts on her nightgown and takes a candle to her bedside before she ever opens it.

It does not smell like him. He doesn't wear cologne. But she can almost smell him anyway, because she needs no artificial additions in order to memorize some scents. The heart of the matter does indeed beat much in the same way as Deputy Ballard and Dearest Annabelle's correspondence, though all the more anxiously: it was not, after all, Dearest Annabelle who wrote the first note. So now, reading by candlelight, Eleanor's own heart is thudding, and simple turns of phrase like wanted to write you sooner make her pulse race. Ones such as your possible disinterest break her heart in half. Never a deterrent does, for some reason, send a tingle down her arms and legs, making fingertips and toes quiver.

Eleanor reads the letter three more times. She is alone, and in the dark, and there is no wariness or worry of judgement: she holds it close for a moment, smiling with her eyes closed. Unabashedly and even unconsciously girlish, she folds the letter up again and lays it under her pillow before she goes to sleep.

--

The downside of all this, however, is that Trevor Clay gets no letter in response the day he writes his own. Nor does he receive one in the morning. His does not come until afternoon -- again. Again, it arrives at the sheriff's office. She must have written in greater haste, for she didn't bother to daub perfume this time, and the words are even bolder than before, but she is no less flowery in her writing:

Dear Mister Clay,

It would be affectation in me to deny that your note pleases me a great deal. Nor will I attempt to disguise that the frankness of your letter agrees with the idea that I had already formed of your character, and inspires me with confidence that you are incapable of any motive which should justly cause a lady to treat you with the severity of greater formality.

I would put to rest other matters for you, if I may: my father is my closest kin, but kin to me nonetheless, and can admit no strident impediment. My chaperone, too, will heed me if I exert such influence as is my right, if not my frequent inclination. However, my status as it relates to yours is of little interest to me in this matter. My heart cannot hear the jingle of coins in a purse; I hope that yours cannot either.

If the idle words of our neighbors is as dull a concern to you as my supposed status is to me, then this revelation lightens my soul considerably. So I say yes, I would permit you as my escort, yes, with or without the suggested pretense. I will await you this afternoon, in all happiness.

Truly,

Miss Eleanor Crawford

Deputy Clay

Clay does not read the letter three times. He doesn't have time for it. Some muddy boy -- perhaps the Ballard boy, perhaps one of his small friends -- runs the letter in flushed and winded, but Trevor Clay is the one to deliver his own response. Detouring only to cross the length of the building, past the half-empty cell blocks mostly occupied by snoring drunkards sleeping it off, he pokes his head into Lark's office.

"Headin' out. Got business. See you tomorrow."

Lark raises an eyebrow, his gaze skeptical and piercing-blue. "What sort of business?"

Clay smirks. It's ever so faint. "Not yours."

Then he's outside, hat on head, dog at heels, swinging astride the blood bay. Denver City's grown, but it's still only a few blocks over to the new district. Vickery's Public House is open for public business again, and the saloon side of things is already crowded. A handful of young men are playing a game of dice on the porch; amongst the contestants, or perhaps the onlookers, is Young Master Crawford.

Clay doesn't whistle to catch the youth's attention, at least. No, he calls him by name:

"Oliver! Your sister ready to survey her estate?"

Eleanor Crawford

It's late notice, but to be fair: he's the one that suggested tomorrow when all she needed was a reply: a letter, or just a note, telling her one way or the other. Did he want to spend more time with her? Did he want her to leave him be? She wrote her second letter in a rush that morning, rather than in multiple drafts. But even then, there was sleep and breakfast and trying to find privacy to send something back to him.

Even so. He puts on his hat and tells the Sheriff he'll be out and whistles for his dog, who trots along after him as he saddles the blood bay and rides over to the public house. It's a warm afternoon despite yesterday's rain, a wildness in the weather that the people here have come to joke about as much as they complain about it.

Oliver is sitting perched on the fence around the porch, one leg hanging down, watching the dice game. Dagmar is keeping an eye on him, knitting in the corner. She levels her gaze at Deputy Clay when he rides up, too, but Oliver only glances up when he hears his name. He blinks in bafflement at the question, and Dagmar frowns, but even as he's stammering,

the front door opens. Miss Crawford emerges, dressed in a simple gown without layers upon layers of pinafores and hoops. She has a new hat on her head to shade her fair skin from the sun, and a wicker basket that perhaps holds something to eat. She would only have reached the door this soon if she were, as she said, waiting for him. If she had seen him from an upper window, his horse bringing him to the public house. She must have been, because as she comes outside, ignoring Dagmar and her brother, she is saying,

smiling,

"She is."

Trevor Clay

Yes, she is.

Trevor Clay's eyes track up from Oliver Crawford. Between the distance and the shade of his hat, most everyone misses how his eyes find a trail up from her feet to her face. Flick down again. Flick back up.

He takes his hat off, hanging it on the horn of his saddle. "Miss Crawford," he greets her. "You ridin'?"

Eleanor Crawford

A pause. Dagmar is not knitting but staring at her, frowning. Oliver is just staring, looking vaguely impressed. Everyone else is politely trying to pretend they don't notice a thing.

The young lady hesitates a moment, then says: "Well... I haven't a horse."

Trevor Clay

A beat of pause.

He is keenly aware of all the eyes on them. Still: just a beat of pause.

"We'll just have to rectify that," he says, "won't we."

And he extends his hand to her.

Eleanor Crawford

A small smile begins on her lips, and presses at her cheeks until she cannot -- and would not -- stop it. It breaks over her face in a grin, and she heads for the edge of the porch. Dagmar nearly rises to her feet, but restrains herself and clears her throat loudly instead. Eleanor, at the steps, tosses a glance over her shoulder and just smiles.

"He's a deputy, Dagmar. Don't be rude."

Oliver, at that, is having trouble keeping himself contained and pretends to be coughing into his fist. Dagmar's knitting becomes more... intense. Miss Crawford sweeps off the pourch and over to the blood bay, looping her little basket over her arm and looking up at Deputy Clay, unsure of what to do next.

The blood bay sidesteps suddenly, wildly, shaking its head, and Eleanor flushes pink. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I didn't even think --" she says, all in an exhale. She closes her eyes a moment, breathes slowly once or twice, and then opens them again. The horse is calming. Calmer. Calm now, stretching its heavy neck and long face towards the girl, who looks at the horse curiously even as it clearly longs to sniff her for treats.

Trevor Clay

All those people watching: none of them know why the blood bay startles like that. Maybe some of them think it's her perfume. Maybe rumors will start up about this too -- that Miss Crawford, so fancy and august, wore perfume high-falutin' enough to startle horses. Har har!

Trevor knows, though. And at once he exerts pressure with his knees, reaching down to pat the side of the blood bay's neck.

Moments later the animal is calming, anyway. And Miss Crawford is sauntering over, and Deputy Clay is sincerely slightly amazed she isn't carrying a parasol. Though, golden as she is, perhaps she loves the sun as much as it clearly loves her.

"It's all right," he encourages. "Rub his nose. He'll be happier to carry you."

Eleanor Crawford

They are being watched. By Dagmar, who is scowling and knitting. By Oliver, who is no longer laughing but also pretending not to be watching but who is certainly curious (and a little envious: he would never get away with half of what his sister does). By the people playing cards on the porch. He and Dagmar know why the horse shies from the pretty golden-haired girl; Trevor knows. The others don't. They know she sets them on edge, she 'annoys' them, because they would never in a million years admit that the feeling is something more like being alone in the dark between towns and thinking you hear something slavering nearby, something coming closer, something hungry. She wears goddamn roses in her hat and lace gloves on her soft hands. They could never imagine being afraid of her.

But they are.

So is the blood bay, for a brief moment. And then he isn't anymore, and he seems keen on getting to know this young woman. She smiles at the deputy and does as she's instructed: rubs the horse's nose softly, in the direction of his coat, marveling at its shine and the soft darkness of his eyes. He whinnies softly, taking a step closer to her, making as though to place his head over her shoulder, rest his neck against her cheek. She laughs brightly, looking up at the deputy as she strokes the animal's neck. "What about you, Deputy?" she says, and if he spies a glint of coyness in her eyes,

he isn't wrong.

Trevor Clay

Trevor takes a breath. Smirks.

"There are answers to that question, Miss, that aren't fit for your ears."

He fits the hat back on his head. Extends his hand again, gloved still in heavy leather. "Come on," he says, trading one scandal for another. "Put your foot in the stirrup, and I'll pull you up. We'll find you a horse from the Sheriff's stables 'til you get one of your own."

Eleanor Crawford

The people on the porch don't hear what Clay says back to her. They do see how Miss Crawford's cheeks go red. She turns quite a pretty pink, and every last person on the porch no longer quite buys that this is simply the innocent escorting it seems. With nothing more aloud than a glance and some raised eyebrows, some of the men on the porch start laying bets on how long before Miss Crawford's belly starts rounding out. They're too polite to bet out loud, of course, but they know each other well enough to indicate that's where their minds are at.

It is not where Eleanor's mind was at. She looks a bit startled, and says: "I... I'm sure I don't know what you mean." Then, primly: "Take care you don't forget yourself, Deputy Clay."

All the same: she isn't angry. He'd feel it like a wall of heat if she were angry. The charmed bay would feel it through his enchantment, if she were angry. But she isn't. She's a little embarrassed; she only meant to ask him what he'd do if the horse was carrying her. But it answers itself: apparently the horse will carry them both. So she hands him her basket, which loops easily over the pommel. And then she gives him one hand, uses her other to lift her skirts a bit from the dirt, and puts one foot neatly in the stirrup. It's a touch awkward, if only because she's clearly out of practice, but there's a grace to her that's hard to lose. When her foot is set he helps her up, getting her situated in front of him, her body angled with two legs draping down one of the horse's sides. She holds the pommel herself then, but to guide the horse, his arms go to either side of hers.

She tips her head forward and unties the ribbon under her chin a bit, letting her hat fall from her hair so it doesn't bump against his hat. Or his eyes. Her hair smells like her perfume, but it's so light that it's hard to place what flower it comes from. She smells a bit like something baked, too, whatever is in that basket. Did she make something herself?

"Away we go," she says breathily, half delighted by being atop the horse and half something else entirely.

Trevor Clay

"Beggin' pardon, miss," the deputy mutters, appropriately abashed. "We ain't got much polish to our manners 'round these parts, and not many ladies like yourself to help us polish 'em either. I'll mind my tongue here on out."

Flick of the reins and the blood bay gets moving. Natural gait seems to be a canter, probably because Deputy Clay doesn't have the patience for anything less. Since there's a lady in the saddle, though, he slows to a trot, smooth and easy.

"We got our own stables behind the jail," he says. "Could get you on a horse if you like. Or we can head straight on up to your estate."

Eleanor Crawford

"Don't be silly," is her response to his apology. "It's forgotten."

Though it isn't. And won't be. But not for her too-prim performance of affront. For the suggestion of the words themselves, the way they've set her mind spinning. She doesn't let on to that, though. She seems to enjoy riding, though clearly it is only possible to her with one of the magic tricks her kind can work.

And then he tells her what he does, and she's torn: on the one hand there's propriety, or the appearance thereof, and perhaps a touch extra comfort. On the other, there's this dangerous physical closeness, his heavy arms bracketing her, his chest behind her, his breath on her neck. She's considering both, which explains the moment of silence his question is greeted with.

Then, a quiet exhale: "No use wasting any more of the day with a detour, is there?" she says, ever so lightly, perhaps a bit wary of her own brazenness.

Trevor Clay

Must be on both of their minds. The closeness of the saddle; inches between their bodies, and that's only because he is, in fact, trying to be a gentleman. With her hat off he can catch her scent, subtle smell of that same perfume she daubed onto her first letter.

Baked goods, too. Whatever's in that little basket of hers, which he is at once amused and charmed by.

"None," he agrees, guiding the blood bay toward the outskirts of town where the Crawfords were building their estate. Past the bank they go; past the dressmaker's and the butcher's. A turn to the north, then to the west, and now they're away from the bustling town center, on quieter streets that, in another mile or so, would peter out into trails and plains.

"What's in the basket?" he wants to know.

Eleanor Crawford

"Oh, nothing much," she says. "Some corn muffins. Some berry scones. Provisions for our dangerous journey. The muffins caught a bit on the bottom, I'm afraid," she adds, with a touch of dismay.

The trot won't be terribly far; they could walk it, if they wanted to take the time. But Mr. Crawfords seems of a mind that the town here will expand greatly, because he still talks about being in the thick of things. He's bought quite a bit of land, though, seeming to want grounds and gardens around the large house he's building. Still: it's visible from town, and occasionally the noise of the work going on there reaches the people of Denver. It makes Eleanor glad of the slow trot. All pretense to the contrary, this little trip of theirs could be more efficient, and she's pleased that it isn't.

"I'm not a very good cook," she admits, though she doesn't seem terribly bothered by it. "I'm quite good at other things, though."

Trevor Clay

Trevor guffaws: dangerous journey. Or perhaps her inability to cook. "Well, find me a slab of beef 'n a couple potatoes and I'll cook you a supper to remember."

By foot the journey is likely less than a quarter-hour. On horseback it's a matter of minutes, though neither of them seem to be in a rush. As they near, they can hear hammering, sawing, voices of workmen taking advantage of the lengthening days.

"Now you'll have to elaborate," he adds. "What 'other things'?"

Eleanor Crawford

He has her attention there, for a moment. Slab of beef. Potatoes. The offer to cook for her. She almost finds herself turning in the saddle, but doesn't. To herself, she smiles a bit. It doesn't abate when she answers his question.

"Oh. Well, war."

Trevor Clay

A quieter huff of amusement this time. "A full-moon, then?"

Eleanor Crawford

"I am," she says, her tone difficult to read without full view of her face. But then it's easier to understand, just a moment later, because she half turns, and he can see something in her eyes: measuring, weighing, hopeful but also self-possessed. It's the self-possession that is most striking: her entire persona seems at odds with it, an attempt to come across to others as though she is in want of their approval, their good will. And yet that look in her eyes seems set apart from it entirely; she needs no one's approval. It is a part she plays, the daughter of a respected gentleman, the heir to a certain kind of throne, a young lady who wants very much to be liked.

So somehow it is not that, not a need for approval or approbation, that motivates her to ask him: "Is that all right?"

It's something less about what he thinks of her, and more about what she should think of him. What sort of man he is.

Trevor Clay

There is more to her than dinner parties and love letters. There is more to her life than privilege and comfort. She is a warrior; a full moon, destined for a glorious but short life.

There is a pang through his breast at that thought. To find her again. To lose her again. That complexity is in his eyes as well; a furrow to his brow, a tenderness to his regard, stoic and guarded as he can be. Spontaneously, he reaches up as she turns, his gloved thumb rubbing over her cheek.

"Why wouldn't it be?" he says, gruff. "Long as you're all right with me bein' poorly educated, ill-mannered and penniless."

Eleanor Crawford

The furrow to his brow is a mystery to her; perhaps she has not quite come to terms with her mortality in that way. Her life is glorious, she is glorious, and everything else pales in comparison to that truth. But there's also the mere fact that she is not really Merriweather, and has no memory of Merriweather, because -- unbeknownst to both of them, at least -- Merriweather is more than a hundred years from being born.

She does see the frown, and the tenderness, and doesn't quite understand it. What she does understand, instinctively, is the way he touches her face. Her eyes close for a moment. She can imagine she feels the warmth of his skin through his glove. Her eyes open again, and they are looking up at him.

"You don't seem very ill-mannered to me," she says softly, as though this is the only trait worth responding to in the list he gave. "I quite like your manner."

Trevor Clay

She is looking at him. Finds him looking at her. It is a nakedly honest moment; neither of them pretending to be coy.

Then, as though remembering the time, the place, their situation, Trevor lets his hand drop. He picks up the reins again, clicking his tongue to urge onward the blood bay, who has by now wandered to a stop.

"Reckon that goes both ways, Miss," he says, gruff, as they trot on toward her future home.

Eleanor Crawford

They are not somewhere in the wilderness all alone. And Trevor remembers this a heartbeat before Eleanor does, if only because she carries some of that wilderness everywhere she goes. She is part of, in fact, a wild thing pretending to be tame. So for a moment there, she is utterly without mask, without pretense, without human enculturation. She is entirely honest, and there's an open -- if a trifle unsettling -- willingness and infatuation in her eyes.

Trevor releases her cheek, and picks up the reins, and she remembers herself. She hadn't even realized the horse had ceased walking and was looking for grass to nibble on. There are some horses who, untouched by the rein, will continue plodding along obediently in the direction they set out on. Not this bay of Trevor's, apparently; a more willful creature, closer to its nature than some of the others.

As she turns her head around again so she isn't so twisted in the saddle, a pink blush touches Miss Crawford's cheeks, but not one of embarrassment. Just pleasure, simple and uncomplicated. She can scarcely contain herself, yet she does, as they approach the building site. It's rather noisy, full of wood and hammering and bricklaying. It's coming together nicely, though, fully framed and on its way to being filled in. Mr. Crawford is on what will one day be a wrap-around porch, hat on his head, jacket off but shirtsleeves still cuffed. It's not yet hot enough in the year for someone who isn't actively working to be sweating. He is smoking a pipe, observing the work, listening to a foreman go over some plans, when he spies his daughter.

Riding on a horse in front of one of the deputies, her hat off and her cheeks pink.

There's a sudden keenness in Mr. Crawford's piercing blue eyes. It isn't savage, not by any stretch, nor even rageful. Just aware in a way that brings rapidly to mind the very totem of his family's tribe. He removes the pipe from his teeth and excuses himself from the foreman, striding out to greet the blood bay even as it is slowing to a stop.

"Papa," says Eleanor happily, "I made muffins. Hardly even burnt."

And despite the sharpness in his gaze, even Mr. Crawford can't help but soften a touch, to hear her sound so self-satisfied about baking something without setting a house on fire.

Trevor Clay

Mindful of her father's regard, Trevor dismounts and stops the horse with a hand at the bit. Reaching up, he takes the basket from her and sets it aside, then reaches up again to help her from the horse. There's an unavoidable intimacy to his hands at her waist, but their bodies scarcely touch, and a moment later he steps back. He sweeps hat from hair, nodding a terse hello to Eleanor's father.

"Afternoon, Crawford. Construction looks like it's going well. Your daughter wanted to have a look, and to speak truth, I wanted to escort her."

Eleanor Crawford

Trevor is, at least, a gentleman, though few who bear the title would recognize him as such. He stills the horse and dismounts first, the better to assist Miss Crawford. She looks elegant even in this, sweeping off the saddle and into his hands, landing daintily on her ever-so-expensive shoes in the dust. She's putting her hat back to rights atop her head to shield from the sun, even as Trevor is removing his out of respect for her father.

Mr. Crawford notices that, even if Eleanor doesn't. He nods at Trevor: "Deputy." And then smiles at his daughter. "I'm sure they're delicious, my dear," he says, and bends to kiss her on her cheek, which she presents like this is an old custom of theirs. He turns to Trevor and nods, glancing the way of his soon-to-be estate as well. He hears Trevor, particularly that last bit, but his regard doesn't falter.

Eleanor, however, busies herself unfolding the kerchief covering the muffins and scones in her basket, pretending she didn't hear that and isn't blushing again.

"The plans were drawn up back east, but the fine people of Denver have only improved upon them," he says. "Coming along very fine, indeed. Daresay we'll be able to invite the town over, come... summer solstice, wouldn't you think, Nora?"

So that's what her family calls her. Didn't call her aloud, at dinner. Haven't called her that in front of other townsfolk, at least. Maybe it means something, Mr. Crawford letting Trevor see that. He doesn't seem to be the sort to do much of anything accidentally.

She looks up, smiling. "I do hope so," she says, and offers one of the corn muffins to each of them, her basket hanging from her forearm. They are a tad browner than they should be on the edges, and the bottoms are likely black, but otherwise they are golden and fragrant, and quite appealing.

"Nora, dear," says her father, "I'm sure the foreman and some of the others would be glad of a bite to eat and one of your smiles just now." It has the air of a suggestion, and even flattery, but that doesn't seem to bother her much.

She gives him a wry, knowing little smile and glances at Trevor. "Thank you so much for chaperoning me, Deputy Clay," she says, with the smallest of curtsies. "Don't let him talk you into helping, you have other duties in town," she adds, with a glance at her father that is not quite a warning, but something in that neighborhood, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with Trevor helping with construction in the slightest.

But then she's off, because she is not just a wolf, and not just a daughter, but something of a representative. Not just of her family, but of her tribe. Of wolves. Of whatever it is her family wants to create here, in the shadow of an ancient caern held by tribes that are actually native to the land.

Mr. Crawford tears off a bit of the corn muffin an pops it in his mouth, his eyes on the worksite, and on the flowered hat of his eldest, rather than on the man he begins speaking to. "I hope this excursion isn't drawing you away from any pressing matters," he says.

Trevor Clay

With only a hint of trepidation, Clay takes the proffered muffin. Eleanor -- Nora, it turns out, amongst her family -- is sent on an ambassadorial mission, and her law-enforcing escort does his best not to look disappointed.

"Hm?" Takes him a moment to process the elder Crawford's words. "Nah. Done for the day. Town's growin' up. More law-abidin' citizens than not these days." He looks down at the corn muffin, breaking it open and sinking his teeth into one half. There's the slightest crunch.

"Aim to behave honorably towards your daughter, sir," he adds. It sounds offhand; it isn't.

Eleanor Crawford

"For now," Mr. Crawford says, of Denver. "But that's a blessed thing, to be between a waypost and a city. To be a community."

Of course it isn't offhand, what Trevor says. Mr. Crawford wouldn't have asked about his intentions for some time. Near the end of the conversation, perhaps, or maybe some later evening, sitting by a fire, sharing some whiskey. But Trevor cuts right to the quick, and rather than being put off or offended, Mr. Crawford just permits himself a small smile.

"I don't doubt it, Deputy," he says. "Stories have it you were one of the ones who stayed here in town, when Sherman Kane and his lot rode through. Takes a certain kind of honor to do that. More than most men have."

He's quiet a moment, before he says this next part.

"No matter how we cleave to the portrait of any other family, however, in the end I am not the party to whom you need make your case." He looks at Trevor again. "Nora's mother is not the most traditional of our tribe, but she is a keeper of the law, and quite beholden to it, particularly when making first impressions to... let's say more conservative tribes. She'll want to do things by the book, as it were, if only to ensure that future Silver Fangs face an easier time of it. She thinks of the future, you see. Making a better world. So if she resists, please know it isn't due to any default in your character.

"Perhaps... if you knew of some lupine relatives of your own in the area?" he prompts.

Trevor Clay

A community. A novel thought, that. Part of him wonders if that's just Crawford waxing poetic. Taking a romantic view of this little frontier town. Part of him thinks: ah. That's why the dinner. That's why these careful steps, these diplomatic little overtures -- the muffins for the workmen, for one. He wants to build a community. They all want to build a community.

They think of the future, see.

A brusque shake of his head, then. "Afraid I haven't any," he says. He pats dust from his trousers with the brim of his hat. "Not in these parts anyhow. Might be some back east, but I came out here on my own."

Eleanor Crawford

That surprises Mr. Crawford a bit. "None?" he repeats, before he gets the better of himself. Then he blinks, settles into the knowledge. "Why did you come out here, I wonder?"

Trevor Clay

Clay huffs a soft laugh. "Same reason any half-grown boy without a penny to his name goes west. Lookin' for work. Adventure. Maybe a plot of land to call my own. Lot of kids in the family, not a lot to go around. Figured I had a better chance striking out on my own."

A sideways glance at Crawford. "Probably ain't many stories like that in your family."

Eleanor Crawford

Either the Crawfords did some sort of research about the kin in the area, or it was simply Eleanor's senses that told them of the tribes present, the breeding. But regardless, Mr. Crawford seems to know that Deputy Clay is of a tribe other than his own. And perhaps a less genial man would make a joke of it: Fianna. Big families. He doesn't. He's far too collegial for that. He takes another dry bite of his daughter's corn muffin.

She's on her way back to them. She's handed out muffins and scones and smiles and is swinging her basket idly, its edge rolling along the outside of her leg over her skirts. She can't hear them yet, but she's watching them both.

"No," Mr. Crawford says, with a touch of wryness. "We keep our own close as we can. Even the ones meant to leave us. Especially those."

Trevor Clay

The ones meant to leave us.

It's the same sensation that flickered through him earlier. A realization; an awareness of inevitable loss. Clay's brow furrows. His mouth sets. Even if he had something to say, there is little enough time for it -- and anyway, he has nothing to say to that. Nothing significant enough, worthy enough, to fill the yawning hole implied by such words.

So instead, the easy out: he eats the last of the muffin. Dusts his hands off, setting his hat back on his head. "Well," a retreat to clearer waters, this, "worked out fine for me. I like it out here. The land, the mountains. Even this waypost on its way to becomin' a community. This is where I became the man I am; suppose I don't really know nothin' else."

She's within earshot now. He nods to her, touching the brim of that hat like they're meeting anew.

Eleanor Crawford

Whatever Mr. Crawford might say to that, there's not really time for it. His expression seems approving, or something like it. Maybe understanding. Perhaps a touch envious: to make one's way in the world, more independently than Mr. Crawford has, or has ever had to. Maybe it all boils down to something far simpler than approval, or understanding, or envy:

respect.

Eleanor is back. She smiles at Trevor, at his hat doffing. Her eyes twinkle a tad. She smiles at her father, showing him the empty basket. "It looks marvelous, papa," she tells him. "The foreman showed me where my room will be, but he wouldn't let me go up the ladder."

"Let," Mr. Crawford echoes, raising an eyebrow.

Eleanor gives a small shrug. "I thought it impolite to press the issue," she breezes. "I thought... I might take a walk around the grounds with the deputy, if he's amenable."

"Well, that's up to him, my dear," her father says, and steps over to her. "Myself, I must beg both your pardons and return to my observations and supervisory duties. I may even pick up a hammer once or twice. Deputy," he says, with a nod to Trevor. "Nora," he says, and gives her another peck on the cheek. Goodbyes done, he heads back towards the soon-to-be house, leaving 'Nora' looking up at Deputy Clay.

"What do you say?" she asks him, smiling. "Fancy a stroll?"

a dinner invite.

Miss Crawford

In the days that follow, life proceeds as normal: signs of spring flourish while the grip of winter weakens. Children who were babes at the breast this time last year are toddling around, clutching their mothers' skirts. Animals are randy, rains are frequent, and there is less snow and more green on the ground every day. It's muddy. When news comes, it is mostly of the war.

But there are other things, less regular: the Crawfords are building a house, you see. A large one, framed in wood and heavily bricked to withstand fire, with a solid foundation against floods. There is a great deal of activity over at the soon-to-be Crawford Estate, and within a matter of days it's provided a boost to the burgeoning (and often stagnant) Denver economy: they are hiring extra hands left and right to help with the sawing and hammering and bricklaying an clearing. They hire people to run back and forth between the construction site and the public house with messages or lunches. They hire people as though they've never wanted for money in their precious lives.

And if the ever-increasing gossip is to be believed, they never have. Mr. Crawford, one hears, is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist: words that are still new and have to be defined and re-defined every time the story is retold. He has been involved in textiles, gold, oil, international trade, even banking. Rumor has it that his family did lose some business in recent years due to cutting ties with slave-owning manufacturers in the South, because Mr. Crawford -- unlike his father -- is a staunch abolitionist. Other (less friendly) rumors concern young Master Crawford, who is not quite old enough to enlist but older than some of the boys who are enlisting and fighting anyway, and why he is not fighting to preserve the Union. Mary, Vickery's plump wife, doesn't like this talk and interjects that any one of them can gripe about who fights when they up and go off to lose their limbs themselves.

Mary likes the Crawfords, and dotes especially on the boy and his sister. But even she doesn't know what to think about the absence of a Mrs. Crawford in their party. She's afraid to ask. The rumor most believe is that Mrs. Crawford is in heaven, but no one knows how she may have punched her ticket on that golden train.

The Crawfords themselves, while they await their new home, stay at the public house. Mr. Crawford spends most of his days either at the construction site or the telegraph office, keeping in touch with his businesses back east. If he has new business he plans on starting here, no one knows what it is yet. Master Crawford, who keeps telling people to call him Olly, which is short for Oliver, tries and often fails to get into trouble because no one wants to offend his father by letting the boy play poker. He is already making friends with other young men, which is enough to make some of the mothers wary and now they're talking about starting a proper school.

And Miss Crawford, genteel and lovely, spends most of her days on long walks around the town and its outskirts. She is usually accompanied by the family's housekeeper, who has no house to keep yet and so is serving as chaperone to the unmarried lass in a wild town. The housekeeper is formidable, a very tall and firmly built woman with straw-colored hair turning white at the wings and wrinkles that have come from more frowning than laughing. The rumors about her are that she carries a six-shooter beneath her shawl and looks itchy to use it every time someone stares overlong at her charge.

Strangest new occurrence of all occurs when Deputy Clay receives a hand-delivered note brought by Young Oliver Crawford himself, the envelope smooth to the touch and addressed in rich black ink, sealed at the back with deep blue wax. It is an invitation to join the Crawfords at a private dinner to be held in the public house, with a number of other distinguished guests. The honor of his reply is requested. Sincerely, James S.A. Crawford, Esquire.

Oliver stands on his porch as twilight unfolds around them, hands neatly held behind his back, awaiting Clay's response.

Deputy Clay

So far as the rough frontier folk of Denver City as concerned, people like the Crawfords may as well be angels out of heaven. They simply don't exist out here, or didn't. Now that they do, the town itself seems altered by their presence. They have things like estates now. They have things like private dinners. The womenfolk are thrilled. At last, civilization comes to their parts of the West. The menfolk -- especially those here since the days of yore, when this town was little more than eight buildings and a flock of tents -- are perhaps a little less so. Some few are outright suspicious.

Clay isn't one of those. Still, the invitation is received with perplexion. Few more years and this won't even be the edge of town anymore, but for now Clay's house is still on the outskirts. Night's falling and those razor-cut mountains are fading into twilight. Somewhere an owl's hooting. Clay's black-and-white dog is underfoot, sniffing surreptitiously at Young Master Crawford's trousers whilst pretending to no such thing.

"Didn't have to run this down yourself," Clay says cautiously, scrubbing the envelope open with a thumb under the flap. "The Bowers boy is happy to do your runnin'-round for a penny."

He unfolds the note. Paper this fine didn't exist in Denver City either, but it does now. He rubs it between his fingertips, stops short of sniffing at it. Squints at the fine handwriting, which he deciphers not without difficulty. Had a few years in a schoolhouse, Clay, but not a whole lot. Most his education's involved lead, steel, and horseflesh.

Gets to the bottom of the note and folds it up, slipping it into his pocket.

"All the deputies invited?"

Miss Crawford

Oliver is just as surreptitious about how he offers his fingers for the dog to lick, though he is even less of an effective dissembler than the collie.

"My father requested it, Deputy Clay," says the young man -- boy, really -- when he's told he didn't have to deliver it himself. "I'm delivering all of the invitations," he adds, with something almost like pride, as though he is being trusted with something meaningful.

He doesn't look young enough to be dumb about what is and isn't meaningful, though. He has the same eyes as his sister, serious with intellect and bright with curiosity about the world. There's no trace of dishonesty to them, but also no indication of idiocy.

Oliver thinks a moment, then shakes his head. He pauses, then decides to be clear about things: "All the kinfolk in town are invited, sir. And only kinfolk."

There's a beat. Then, one final addition:

"Sheriff Lark has already accepted the invitation to join us. I don't think he'd mind me telling you that."

Deputy Clay

Ah. So that's what it's about. Clay thinks he understands, and understanding is in his eyes. That, and the sense of a wall coming up.

Maybe a very small hint of disappointment, also.

"I'll go to your pappy's dinner," he says, "but Lark, Charlie and I've been lookin' out for ourselves and our ilk just fine. In case someone in the family's concerned for our wellbein'."

Miss Crawford

Maybe Oliver, for all his brightness, isn't a good read of people: he doesn't seem to notice the wall. He just looks pleased. He smiles at the first few words, another 'yes' for the dinner. And he doesn't seem bothered by the assurance that the kin in Denver have been fine so far on their own. "I don't think it's that," he says breezily, giving a little shrug. "But I'll make sure to pass it along! Thank you kindly, Deputy! You have a good evenin'. Evening." He corrects himself.

Then he tips his hat. Then he turns and jogs off, heedless of his fine clothes, to head back the way he came.

--

Night of the dinner rolls around, but in a town this size nothing happens in true privacy; most people know, and most people know they haven't been invited, and they're not so sure what's so special about the folk who have been. Not just Lark and two deputies but close to a dozen others: children invited as well. That's odd, too. There is certainly curiosity, and a bit of resentment, as night falls and people start gathering at the public house. The proprietors have even been asked to cede their home for the night, a feat that no one can fathom: how on earth were they convinced?

Yet they were. And so many eyes are looking out of windows as some of their neighbors head into the inn, faced scrubbed and wearing their Sunday best. Dagmar is greeting people, along with a manservant of Mr. Crawford's, taking coats and hats and shepherding children into an upstairs room to play games and have their dinner separate from the adults. Inside there's enough candles lit to keep things bright and cheerful, and the smell of cooking meat wafts from the kitchen. Oliver is showing people to their seats and a boy a year or two older than him is pouring wine. Mr. Crawford is shaking hands and greeting people as they're seated, but Miss Crawford is missing, and the chair at the head of the table is empty.

Deputy Clay

Sunday best, for Trevor Clay, isn't much of an improvement over the typical. The shirt's still cotton, though actually bleached in this case and a few shades closer to white. The vest looks new...ish. The trousers are heavy cotton instead of wool, not so scratchy and stiff. The coat is the same duster he wore that morning on the street. He hands it along with his hat to the manservant with a hint of uncertainty, unaccustomed to this sort of behavior.

Then he's shown to the dining room. Hasn't been to Vickery's establishment often, except once to throw out a drunken guest who was harassing the barmaids. Can't really afford it, hasn't got reason to try either. It's only a couple years old, and far more sturdily built than the previous claptrap inns, half of which burnt down in last year's fire. Vickery's escaped with only a few scorches to its brick facade and perhaps a few yards of charred wainscoting, none of which Clay can see anymore. Must have been renovated since the Crawfords took up residence.

Dinner smells hearty, rich. More meat than most folk get out here, and better cooking too. Clay had boiled potatoes for dinner last night, so his bar's set low. Extent of his interaction with Mr. Crawford is a firm handshake, and then he finds his seat. He's nowhere near Lark, and Charlie Ballard is over on the other end of the table. Mrs. Ballard is to Clay's left. He gives her a nod as he takes his seat and at once finds himself the outlet for her excitement and delight and oh, aren't the Crawfords the most wonderful people.

"Don't know much about them," is his response, when he manages a sideways word. "Seem all right."

Eleanor Crawford

With wives here and the sound of children playing upstairs, the room has a lively, pleasant atmosphere. There are, of course, questions. Wariness. Sheriff Lark seems to share Clay's wariness, and even looks openly stony as he sits -- near the head of the table, close to Mr. Crawford himself. Pride of place, of course, for the Sheriff, but he doesn't seem swayed by it. He meets Trevor's eye a moment; they share a brief version of the nonverbal understanding they've developed over the years.

Mrs. Ballard, the young mother, is almost quivering with excitement to be out of the house, free of her children, dressed nicely for something other than church, and treated to a fancy dinner with fancier people. Even Clay's reticence can't dull her; she shares Charlie's easygoing nature.

Momentarily, once it's clear that all the guests have arrived, the front door is closed. The curtains stay drawn, as they were before. Dagmar the sturdy housekeeper remains upstairs with the children, and the manservant slips into the kitchen with the footman who filled everyone's glasses with wine. The chatter is starting to quiet down, but hasn't reached full silence, when Miss Crawford enters. She is wearing a fine dress, cream-colored with a pink floral pattern an pink ribbons at the hems. Her hair is softened into curls and braids, with a pearled comb tucked into the golden locks. She has a shining look about her, though not really apologetic for her lateness.

As she enters, the gentlemen -- beginning with her father -- rise to their feet, as they have for each lady to join the table. Miss Crawford smiles graciously as the footman appears to draw her chair for her. She steps in front of it,

now standing at the head of the table. "Please, sit," she says, though she remains standing for the time being. When the table settles again, she reaches forward and lifts the glass of wine beside her plate.

"Welcome, everyone," she says, warmly, her eyes drifting from person to person, eye to eye. "In a very short time here, my family and I have heard stories from your neighbors telling how each of you has contributed to the prosperity and growth of this territory. So know that when I say we are truly honored that you have joined us this evening, it is not simple flattery or empty sentiment. Know that your presence here tonight means the world to us, and gives me great hope and optimism for the coming years.

"I'm sure you are all eager to taste some of what we can all smell cooking in the kitchen," she goes on, a twinkle in her eye, "but indulge me a moment more, and forgive me for speaking plainly: we are a family of Silver Fangs. And I know that our tribe and some of yours have had their conflicts in the past. But my family is not here to claim dominion, or leadership, except that which we earn. We welcome you here tonight as we hope you will welcome us to your town. We are here to see this town flourish, and to flourish with it. To that end, we yoke our fortunes with yours, and pledge our will to the good of this town and those within it. We are the Crawfords. We are, humbly, your servants."

Her glass lifts. She waits for the toast to be joined, and then she drinks.

Deputy Clay

Take a quick glance and one might even mistake this for some dinner party the Crawfords might throw back home. Some gathering of eastern seaboard aristocrats -- or at least the not-too-nouveau riche.

Take a closer look, though, and the details aren't quite there. This is the fanciest hotel in town, and by far the nicest room-and-board. The chandelier is brand-new, though, even as the paneling on the walls already show nicks and smudges here and there. Most of the women seated around the table have no idea which fork to use first. A few have crossed their legs at the knees. A good number more aren't even crossing their legs; sit with their feet as wide-apart as any man might. And as for the men: well. Some of them have shaved their filthy beards off so freshly that their cheeks are still raw and pink. At least one has nearly burst the collar of his shirt. It must have fit once, perhaps on his wedding day, but that was several years and several pounds ago.

They stare as Miss Crawford makes her entrance. There are no women like her in Denver City. There may be no women like her anywhere. All at once the gentlemen -- for her presence makes them aspire to be such -- remember their manners, taking their cues from Miss Crawford's male relatives and from those amongst them who are a little more civilized than the rest. More or less as one, they rise to their feet, remaining so as they lift glasses to mirror hers.

When she finishes, a few eyes swing toward the Sheriff. There is an unmistakable sense that he, for these past years, has served as an unofficial leader for these kin. A focal point around which a straggling community has not-quite-coalesced. He watches Miss Crawford now, carefully, his flinty eyes keen beneath eyebrows no longer so uniformly black as they were some five or so years ago.

Not that Miss Crawford remembers. Not that she was here, no matter how much she resembles the one who was.

"We're glad to have you, Miss Crawford," Lark says carefully, after a measured sip, "though you oughta know this town owes allegiance to a Sept. Mostly they leave us to our own devices, but territory is territory. Seems to me you oughta make your introductions to them, too. If they welcome you here, why, then I can't think of a reason why we wouldn't."

"Yes," Mrs. Ballard is more than happy to leap to conclusions, beaming, "welcome. Oh, it'll be such a breath of fresh air, havin' you lovely people around."

Eleanor Crawford

The people of Denver City aren't... quite the same. Denver City itself isn't quite the same. This isn't New York or Boston or Philadelphia. There aren't women here like Eleanor Crawford; there aren't men like her father and brother. But at the same time: neither Miss Crawford nor her family give odd looks to the strained collars or raw cheeks or uncrossed legs. They are among kin; kin who have survived much, if the stories are true. Kin who they will, one day soon or one day far, need on their side. There is only one certainty in this part of the country: anything might happen. No one should be on their own. Lone wolves don't live long in the wild, or in wild cities such as this.

A few eyes swing to Sheriff Lark; Miss Crawford notices. She looks at him, too. The table toasts; drinks. And Miss Crawford seats herself, and the footman tucks her seat in. The room relaxes a touch; men sit as well as the Sheriff speaks of the sept, and allegiances, and territory. A look crosses her face, not quite angry, but a trifle dark for a moment, and where her disturbance is directed is hard to tell, for the glance passes quickly.

She ends up smiling, and warmly, at Mrs. Ballard. "You are very kind," she says to the woman first, if only to acknowledge that what she said is, indeed, a kind thing to say. The newcomer's eyes, blue as summer sky, turn back to Lark. "I hope you will always speak to me with such clarity, Sheriff," she begins, "in part because it is a skill in which I need further instruction. I did not mention, for I incorrectly assumed it would not be of great concern, that my mother is even now at the Sept of Forgotten Questions, and has been for some time. It takes... some doing... for tribes such as ours to earn the trust, or even tolerance, of tribes who are native to this sept and have protected its caern for untold generations. It is going well, though, and she bid me gather you all properly like this."

Miss Crawford smiles again, ever the lady. She sips her wine, thoughtful. "I must say, I am a trifle surprised to hear you speak of allegiance." Her father glances at her, his eyes momentarily sharp, as though he wants to chide her, but he holds his tongue. Besides: she appears to be ignoring him. "Stories have it than some years ago, this town begged aid of the sept, yet they sent no one to help you against dangerous invaders."

The first course is arriving: cream of barley soups in deep cobalt bowls, each decorated with a sprig of fresh parsley.

Deputy Clay

Lark's brow darkened, equal parts discomfort and sting. He draws himself straighter in his chair, clearing his throat gruffly.

"I have to believe the Sept had its reasons for doing as it did," he says, "even if they aren't readily apparent to me. But maybe your mother would be so kind as to find out what they are, because we sure would like to know."

It is a sort of olive branch.

Eleanor Crawford

Five years ago, they asked for help.

Five years ago, a lawman and a medicine man arrived, but they were not from the Sept of Forgotten Questions.

Just shy of five years ago, Lark began to forget that anyone ever came at all. His mind has filled in other ways that the town survived.

Clay knows, though. He remembers the lawman. The medicine man. Golden-haired, one, and with hair the color of wildflowers, the other. But even they admitted, they were not sent from the Sept.

Miss Crawford doesn't know this. The Sept doesn't know this; they heard the wyrmcomers plead for help to save their weaver's foothold in the wilderness, and the elders did not heed them. Let the weaver-lovers defend the weaver, if that was their way. The only one who knows what happened is Trevor Clay: help did come. But not from the sept.

--

The woman at the head of the table watches Sheriff Lark as he speaks his peace. She sips her wine about halfway through. Her head tips after another quarter.

She nods, at the end.

"I will speak of it to her. I will try," she says, and there's sincerity to it. She means it. She doesn't understand giving allegiance to someone who would leave you and yours to die. She doesn't understand being unwilling to send aid to kinfolk, even if they are not of your tribe. She doesn't understand this place at all.

An older, wiser version of herself might understand that Lark is extending an olive branch. All this version of her understands is something far simpler: they're on the same side. Neither of them really know. He has chosen his loyalties despite it. She has not yet decided where her loyalties lie.

Her eyes shift briefly to Deputy Clay, whose gaze she has safely avoided thus far. She looks away when she realizes she has looked at him at all. "Please," she says. "Enjoy the meal. I will endeavor to cause less trouble over the courses." A smile. She is making the promise to Lark. But really: she is making the promise to all of them.

Including her father.

Deputy Clay

No more trouble over dinner. They have a civilized meal together, even if some of them are less civilized than others. There are several courses -- the luxury of that alone delights Anabelle Ballard -- and the guests chatter and mingle. Often, Miss Crawford has half the table or more attending to some thought she relays, or some charming anecdote or other she tells. For the most part, her guests are charmed. Later on, walking home in small groups, her guests will decide that Eleanor Crawford's all right. Don't know a thing about how Denver City works, maybe, but she's all right.

After dinner, when a proper East Coast party would split with the gentleman taking cigars and brandy in the library and ladies gossiping politely in the drawing room, these heathens decide they'd rather play poker. There's some talk of setting up two tables, one for the serious players and one for the penny-stakers. While the details are getting worked out, Trevor Clay catches sight of Miss Crawford momentarily alone by the front windows.

He drifts over to her. No spurs on his boots tonight, but his step is still solid enough to be felt. He has the last of his dinner wine in hand, and he looks out onto the street for a moment. Quiet outside tonight, frost shimmering in the light of the public house's fancy new gaslamps.

"You ever heard of a woman by the name of Merriweather?" he asks quietly.

Eleanor Crawford

These heathens offer to play poker, and Eleanor blinks in clear startlement: she was going to suggest brandy and cigars, in fact, but...

She looks over at her father. He quite charmingly pretends she is not looking at him but says that sounds wonderful, he hasn't played a real game in too long. He is quite involved in working out the details, and even when he has to take a visible breath at the suggestion that women are going to join them, he rolls with it politely. People start scrounging for decks of cards and splitting tables and so on.

Meanwhile, Miss Crawford excuses herself briefly, and Trevor Clay sees her crossing to the door of the front porch, perhaps to slip out for a moment and take some air. She takes no shawl with her, reaches for no coat, despite the chill in the air and the evident frost. But then: she's like a flame, herself, lit by something more potent than oil.

The door shuts behind her. Her shadow moves through the glass, visible through the thin curtains. Perhaps he checks to see if anyone is watching him before he goes outside, alone, to speak to Eleanor Crawford. Perhaps he doesn't care.

She looks at him when the door opens, but isn't jumpy. She looks curious, where a mortal woman would be wary, or perhaps overly genial. It occurs to her a moment too late to cover her curiosity with a smile, but she gets ther. She smiles at him. He asks her the oddest question, which makes her reflect on the odd way he looked at her the day she arrived in town, and the odd way he stomped on her hat to keep it from blowing away. He's an odd man, but then: she's met more than a few Fianna kinfolk back east, and they're all a little on the strange side, in her mind.

"Isn't Merriweather a man's name?" she inquires, which is enough to suggest that no, she hasn't.

Deputy Clay

Clay utters a faint huff of a laugh. "Thought the same when I first heard it," he says.

It's cold outside. He hasn't a coat, or he might offer it to her. Or wrap it more tightly around himself. She doesn't seem to need it though, and he settles for finishing his wine and setting the glass down. Wrapping his arms across his chest.

"She was a law-woman, of the wolven sort. Came here with a friend, a medicine woman. Helped out during those troubled times you spoke of earlier, when Sherman Cane and his gang rode through. At first we thought the Sept sent 'em, but that weren't it. They came through some other power, and they fought off the Cane brothers. When it was over they vanished without a trace. Most everyone forgot about them. Hell, most everyone even forgot what it was we really faced that night. You ask around now, you get nothin' but tall tales about a ragtag band of brave men fightin' off Sherman Cane the robber baron and his gang of miscreants.

"I was there. I know what I saw. I remember. Sherman Cane was one of the twisted ones, wolves gone foul. His brothers too. Rest of his gang, humans ridden by the Wyrm. The Sept didn't send help, but someone or something did, and Merriweather and Lightfoot -- that's what the other one went by -- they were the ones who were sent."

A small pause.

"Thing is, Miss Crawford, when you stepped out that coach yesterday -- I thought you were Merriweather come back again."

Eleanor Crawford

[it wasn't yesterday, it was a few weeks ago! i forgot too. lol]

Eleanor Crawford

This confuses her: two wolves did come? But in a moment or two, he explains: the sept didn't send them. Some other power, he says, and Eleanor takes a small breath to hear it. When he speaks of their vanishing, of the townsfolk forgetting, her hand goes to her breastbone and rests there. She can feel her heart quicken.

Her lips press together, and emotion fills her eyes as Clay tells her just how bad it really was, and how Gaia herself -- for this is what she has decided, instantly, to believe -- sent them aid. It is a story she is moved by, and honored to be told, especially because it is not hard to understand that Deputy Clay has not shared this story with many. Perhaps not anyone.

Miss Crawford lets her hand drift from her chest as she turns to look out at the town in the darkness, the edges of its buildings just barely visible under moonlight. She exhales, and her breath clouds in the air. She tries to process what she just heard, but she doesn't look shocked: she is a wolf herself. And she knows that magic is real, and works more strangely than any human god.

But then Clay goes on. He says her name and she turns to look at him. What he says next makes her dark brows furrow. "Do I... resemble her?"

Deputy Clay

"Miss," he is blunt, "you are her spittin' image."

Eleanor Crawford

"Oh."

It's a soft sound, and a soft little purse of her lips around it. She blinks and glances away again, back into the darkness of the town's main thoroughfare. Her eyes fixate briefly on a point in the darkness and her spine straightens a tad; a moment later he sees the glint of some passing animal's eye, maybe a fox or a coyote, before it trots off again. Its existence passes from her thoughts. She returns to what Deputy Clay has said.

"That's... terribly strange. Was she... of my tribe, as well?"

Deputy Clay

His eye follows hers into the dark. A moment after her, he sees the target of her attention, caught and then lost: some small canid, some night-predator venturing close to the town's burgeoning borders.

Her eyes return to his, and his to hers.

"She was," he affirms. "And her companion. But they were ... strange. Out of place. Not the way you're out of place here -- beggin' pardon for speakin' plain -- but like as though she come from a different land or world."

Eleanor Crawford

Not the way you're out of place --

A smile. One she fights. But he can see it there at the corner of her mouth, trying to take over. It's amusement, but something deeper, too. She eyes him as he begs her pardon, and perhaps coyly, she doesn't immediately grant it. Or perhaps she's just distracted at the moment: he is telling her, after all, a very odd story. But one she believes. She doesn't think he has reason to want to trick her, or play a joke on her.

"Not one I know, I'm afraid," she says, regarding different lands, different worlds. "I've never met a Merriweather or a Lightfoot in my tribe, or heard of them. I know of no branches of the family who may have produced such a creature. I am... only myself, I'm afraid."

Deputy Clay

Corner of his mouth quirks up too. "Only yourself," he echoes. "Well, Miss Crawford, I don't reckon you have any reason to apologize for being that."

Clay straightens up, one hand drifting to his hip. When he doesn't find a gun to rest his palm on, he tucks his thumb into his pocket instead. Seems he might head inside then, but then a little more conversation bubbles out of him.

"So what brings you and your mother out this way? Hardly a place for Silver Fangs."

Eleanor Crawford

"I wasn't, Deputy Clay," she retorts, regarding her reasons for apologizing... or not. She grins at him. It's brazen, and she must know it, because it's also brief. She resettles herself, but she doesn't look out at the town again. She is looking at him. Her eyes flick to his hip, and his hand resting there, and then quickly brings her eyes back up to his face. He's quite a bit taller than she is, though she's rather tall compared to most women. She can feel the cold, though it doesn't sink into her the way it would someone else, and she is thinking of saying something to him about it.

She does, in fact, at the same time that he starts speaking again.

So what brings you and your mother --

"Would you like to go back insi-- I'm so sorry," she says, realizing she's stumbling over his words. "Go on, please."

And perhaps he does. Or repeats what he was going to say. She thinks on it a moment.

"It was my father's idea, actually," she says, after deciding quietly to speak truthfully rather than demur. "Even in the North, his politics aren't very popular. He's worried about what will become of this nation, and thinks it's safer to seek new ventures in the west. My mother was hardly opposed; she does not want Oliver to be enlisted to fight a war."

Her tone is a touch dry, there. Not quite bitter, but not far from it.

"So naturally, she sought out one of the oldest, most powerful caerns she could find, and here we are."

Deputy Clay

Again a hint of humor; this time more cynical.

"We've our own wars out here, Miss Crawford. Just different kinds."

He straightens, then, holding his hand out toward the door. "Shall we? Before tongues start waggin'."

Eleanor Crawford

It's on the tip of her tongue: harsh words. Angry words. Words that would hint at the hurt in her own heart. But she's only just met this man. She doesn't say them. She just murmurs a hmm with a noncommital nod.

Eleanor Crawford glances over her shoulder as he gestures. She sees the curtains flick shut again, quickly. She glances at Deputy Clay. "Oh, they already are. Have been, since you stomped on my hat."

Deputy Clay

Ah, the hat. "I did think you looked rather perturbed," he notes. "Sincere apologies if I ruined it. Just seemed the best way to stop it in its tracks."

Eleanor Crawford

"It was destroyed," she says, and laughs. She clearly isn't perturbed anymore. She thinks it's hilarious.

Deputy Clay

To his credit, Clay looks chagrined.

Yet a moment later, a brand of dry, sly humor: "So, sure as hell stopped in its tracks."

Eleanor Crawford

To their side, the curtain's edge has moved again. Someone inside, spying on them, sees her laughing. And laughing again, anew, her hand on her breast. He can see her teeth. He can see her eyes glint. It's real.

"It is also forgiven," she says, when she settles herself after the burst of amusement. "You did try, after all, to be a chivalrous gentleman. And the reward is in the effort, as my mother always says." She pauses a moment, then nods at the door. "Shall we, before the tongue-wagging gets any more fervent?"

Deputy Clay

Might be on his mind to ask what rewards she has in mind. But then, as she said, he's trying to be a chivalrous gentleman. And there are tongues wagging.

"After you," he agrees.

a trampled hat.

Eleanor Crawford

Winter is beginning to melt away. It not a long one or a deep one; the only people who will remember it as such are the poets, for whom every winter is long and deep and colder than the last, darker than any. For those who do not put on such airs, it was just another winter. Ice melts off the trees and snow melts from the mountains, swelling Cherry Creek. The beer already being made here has a cold, crisp taste. Men who haven't accepted that the veins are running dry are already planning their next excursions to find gold. Supply lines have started running again.

Coaches have started arriving again, as well. The sort with people in them, not just tradeable goods. Families, or young men seeking their fortune. They usually come in groups, carried out on the road by experienced men whose lives consist of going back and forth between the East and this wild place where people trade property and estates at poker games, where some say that here, "a man's life is worth no more than a dog's".

A dog showed up at Trevor Clay's porch this past winter. A black and white collie, her eyes bright even though her speckled fur was matted with mud and her paws were swollen red from walking across snow and ice. Somehow he ended up letting her stay. Ended up giving her a wash. Started feeding her. Let her follow him to the sheriff's station, and the saloon, and all over town. Fur's not matted anymore and her ribs don't rub against his hand when he pets her. Eyes still bright. She's a good dog.

Tonight there's a cold snap, the sort that makes one think winter is never going to let go, no matter how long the sun shines every day, no matter how much snowmelt fills the rivers. There's a waxing moon in the sky whose light edges in past the curtains of every window in town.

Wherever he is, whatever he's doing, when Deputy Clay hears a wolf howling, the hairs on his arms rise slowly to attention, and a chill whispers down his spine like a touch.

Wolf's fairly close to town.

Trevor Clay

Half a decade or more now since that fateful blood-red day. Denver City's changed. Grown up. Grown big. Grown from a shantytown of tents and clapboard houses into something a little more townlike. A grid of three streets by four, and nearly as many families as there were wild-eyed miners frantic for that priceless yellow metal. Trade coaches come through this way now. There's talk of a railroad, maybe. Hell, last fall a dressmaker's even opened up next door to the bank. Folded halfway through the winter, but word is a new one's due to hang up the shingle come spring.

Sheriff's forces have expanded too. Seven men wearing the star now, plus John Lark himself. Still stretched thin. With people comes crime; all sorts of stupid misdemeanors, a pair of shoes stolen, a chicken taken and slaughtered. Sometimes bigger things. One year, a spate of shootings in the street. Some hotheaded young guns rode into town, rich boys from back east who'd heard too many stories and paid too much money for their shiny new guns not to draw on a dime's drop. Stopped after Lark laid down the law and hung one of those brats high.

Nothing again like Sherman Kane's raid of '58, though. Nothing so terrible, nothing so deadly. Nothing, either, that welded the community together quite like that, making warriors out of drunkards and lowlifes, heroes out of men. At least, so go the legends. No one's really sure anymore. No one seems to really remember all the details. The who and the where and the how and the what: of the dozen or so men who were there, who saw and survived the day, everyone has his own story, his own harrowing tale of horror and heroism. Most all of them aren't even in Denver anymore, anyhow. A good handful moved on when the veins ran dry. Oliver met some girl from the new state of Kansas, moved over there to be a farmer. Jack drank too much one night, took a tumble into a well and drowned. Sheriff's still around. Little greyer at the temples. Moustache still black as thunder. Eyes still blue as lightning. Wasn't there at the fight, though.

Leaves him. Trevor Clay, survivor, deputy. He remembers. He remembers in his bones -- in that arm that aches when the weather turns cold most especially. He remembers most everything, and most everyone. Even that strange girl with the pink hair. Even that god-like man with the golden arrows. Even that glorious, queenly woman, whose kind he's never seen again this far west, in this uncivilized a land.

--

Fire crackles in the hearth. Built this house two summers past, small but sturdy, better than the leaking frigid cabin he used to live in. Main room up front, scullery in the back. Second story even, though little more than a glorified loft. Cellar. Actual glass in the windows, even if he's only got two of them -- one up front, one upstairs. Indoor commode, what luxury! His own little well in the back, which he damn well doesn't plan to drown in.

And a dog napping at his feet.

And a wolf howling out in the dark.

Dog raises her head, ears perked up. Low growl in her throat, more fear than aggression. He sits up too, reaching down to give her a pat. Mutters for her to stay as he rises to his feet. Takes up the rifle leaning against the wall as he opens the front door. Sept would have his hide if he shot one of their own, but not all wolves are kin just as not all men are kin. Some wolves get a taste for violence, just as men do. Not as many as men do, maybe, but some. Man's got to protect himself out in this cold, wild land.

Bootheels on wood. He steps out on his porch, breath white in the night air. Didn't bother with his coat because he doesn't intend to be out here long. Shirt's cotton and thick, but cold still seeps through. He narrows his eyes into the darkness.

Eleanor Crawford

The summer of '58 should be the stuff of myth and legend now, but it isn't. People should remember the sun-spirit who stood on a roof and fired arrows made of pure sunlight into the hearts and limbs of monsters. They should remember the way the earth itself opened up beneath Sherman Kane and the Kane Brothers Gang. They should remember the flood. They should know it as gospel that the town drunk Mad Dog Caradoc died as a true hero. But no one does -- not quite. Not the details, or the truths. Even Sheriff John Lark and the other kinfolk in town have forgotten exactly what happened that searing, bloody afternoon.

They should remember Merriweather and Miss Lightfoot. But the only one who really remembers them is Deputy Trevor Clay.

And he does remember them. The small one who laid her hands on him when it was all over and healed a punctured lung, a shattered arm, either of which might have killed him, and slowly. Painfully.

The bright one, golden-haired, who caught his eyes once across the way and looked at him with something between regret and thankfulness, before she shapeshifted and went out to meet the devil.

The one who kissed him before she was gone.

He remembers.

--

Things have gotten turbulent since the war broke out. Denver, even as far west as it is, has not been untouched; volunteers went south to fight Confederate Texans one year in the bitter cold of February. Most did not return. Their families and businesses stagnated. That summer a fire took half the buildings downtown. Most of what's replaced them has been made out of brick. There are laws about these things now. People here, especially the people who were here five years ago, seem to want this place to survive with a fervor that borders on religion. Come blizzard, fire, or flood: this place seems like it's going to stay.

So he built a house. Near the edges of town, because it's quieter out here, and has a sort of peacefulness on days when he needs that. It's not uncommon for him to see coyotes past his property, or foxes darting for underbrush, but wolves are rarer. They, even more than other canids, seem wise enough to sense the danger that mankind poses. Humans are not good hunting, and they are not good neighbors, and this town is more of a dot on a supply chain from coast to coast than a gathering place for ranchers.

But Trevor is right: some wolves get a taste for violence. Some, especially in winter, feel hunger that betrays every other sense of what is dangerous or what is wise. So he takes his rifle and goes out on the porch, firelight at his back.

He sees nothing. No golden eyes peering at him from the shadows. No glint of moonlight on fur. The trees and brush that rustle are moved by wind. If it weren't for the dog's reaction he might think he imagined that howl, but

he's not really the sort whose imagination gets away from him like that.

Trevor Clay

So he stands there looking into the dark a while. Firelight at his back, dancing shadows between his feet. Dog pokes her head out from between his knees, too. She's small but she's smart. She sniffs the night, at least until he nudges her back inside.

Goes with her. And maybe that's it, maybe he's satisfied and will go to bed now. Except that's not it. Door opens again after a moment. Now he's got a vest on, a shearling coat over it. Jams a hat over his head as he steps down from the porch, feet crunching on thin snow.

Dog scratches on the door behind him. He doesn't let her out. "Stay," he calls over his shoulder. Rifle cocked over his shoulder, he steps away from the light and warmth and safety of the house, looking into the night.

Seems important, somehow, that he sees what's out there.

Eleanor Crawford

Seems important, but like so many of the important questions men ask themselves on long nights in late winter, early spring, it goes unanswered. Denver gets bitter once the sun goes down, even if the day was mild. Shearling against his shirtsleeves keeps him warm, as does the hike, but his breath steams in the darkness and after a while, it becomes clear that if there was really a wolf out here this close to town, it's long gone by now. Or is hiding. He doesn't come across the pawprints. Just a wildness in the air that lingers, keeps the hairs on his neck standing on end even after he goes back inside, hangs his hat and coat, and beds down for the night.

--

The next day is bright, and warmer than the last. The thin layer of frost he walked out on is melted, and while he sees no robins perching on branches yet, he does happen to be out near the main road when today's stagecoach comes through. It looks normal enough, one of those that carries six or more people, but it's in fine repair even after being on the road from the east. The roof is piled high with trunks and parcels. It comes to a stop outside the public house that serves as a sort of inn to travelers and newcomers, and this is where Trevor's general abstinence from town gossip fails him.

See, he does not know that the inn has been expecting these passengers, and that's why the rooms were cleared out and cleaned out last night. He doesn't know that Mary laid out fresh linens in the rooms, and even went out and cut wildflowers into vases for the nightstands. He has no idea that a great deal of lumber and brick and other such supplies have been set aside in recent weeks. There are new people coming to town all the time. There are people leaving, too. There are new buildings going up regularly enough. He doesn't know the flurry of town talk that folk like Mary have been casting about in anticipation of these particular newcomers, or whatever it is they're going to build.

He just happens to be outside, the sun on the tips of his boots, when the stagecoach bounces to a stop outside the inn and its passengers step out. They are sweaty and tired from the road, but quite well-dressed: patterned dresses and flowered bonnets on the ladies, clean shoes and new-fashioned hats for the gentlemen. And there is no word for them except ladies, except gentlemen. What else would you call the dark-suited man with the silver hair and gleaming blue eyes who steps out first, turning right away to hold out his hand for one of the ladies? What else would you call a the woman wearing the lace gloves, stepping carefully out of the coach beside the man and looking around the town from beneath the shade of her bonnet? Even the younger man who gets out behind them has bright golden hair, a handsome face, a neat and tailored suit.

There are others, coming out gradually, but it's that first young woman who arrests Trevor Clay's gaze. The flowers in her bonnet are real, and that bonnet is a fashionable sort they wear out east. Her dress and waistcoat are made for travel, so the sleeves aren't quite as puffed out, and she does not wear a wide hoop beneath her skirts. She is dressed in pale blue, and the flowers are pink, and her hair is gold, and her smile is

glowing.

It's been half a decade or more, but somehow she looks younger. And he saw what she did and how serious she was at the battle with Sherman Kane, but right now she's grinning, she looks effervescent, she looks thrilled. But it's her.

It's Merriweather.

Trevor Clay

Deputy Trevor Clay isn't much of a gossip. Doesn't care about the latest news in town, and now that he lives on the edge of it, even passing word comes rarer.

Deputy Charlie Ballard knew, though. Young Charlie, who's now family man Charlie. Married Dearest Anabelle after all, shakily written love letters or no. Little boy's two years old already. Got another on the way. Between his own good nature and his lively young wife, he keeps up on the news. Come to think of it, Charlie was talking about something of the sort this morning. Someone coming to town. Important man. Clay stopped paying attention; in his mind, a man's importance was judged by deeds. Still, must have been why Sheriff put stationed him at the public house (they have one now: opened up two years ago, because a public house sounded to be a more respectable establishment than a saloon) in the first place. Keep an eye on things, Lark said. Make sure there's no funny business today.

So that's what he's there to do. Stands in the shade of the overhang, batwing doors of the public house to his right, newly-crowned town drunk Sam Grady asleep and a-snoring to his left. Sunlight catches on his boots. No sunlight catches on his guns or the star on his chest, though both gleam all the same. Enough to catch the eye, and enough to keep the peace.

Stagecoach rolls up, crunches to a stop. Driver's quick to dismount today, quick to open the door. Fine-clothed gentleman steps out first, then some fancy lady with fresh flowers in her hat. Fresh flowers! Clay's mid-smirk when she turns his way, and the shadows under that wide brim are thrown aside, and he sees her face.

Must have been something like awareness and intent in the way he straightens up, because Sam Grady chokes on a snore and wakes up. Looks around, mumbling. "Go back to sleep, Sam," Clay mutters, stepping forward, but the proprietor of the house beats him to it. Comes bursting out of those swinging doors, hustling his way down the steps and across the dusty, rutted road.

"Good sirs!" Vickery is the proprietor's name: fat, redcheeked, friendly, huffing. "Sweet madam! Welcome! Welcome to Denver City!"

Eleanor Crawford

She doesn't recognize him. Heartbreaking, that; her eyes pass right over him but don't settle on him any more than Sam Grady. He's as much a part of the landscape as everything else: all new, all wild, all surprising to her. To be fair, though, she doesn't seem to even hear Vickery, but Vickery is really addressing the man who is obviously her father. She drifts away a bit, out into the street, taking in the town, and beyond it: the mountains. Her mouth is open with something like wonder. Behind her, her father is coming to chat with Vickery, As Men Do.

A bit of a breeze kicks up, as is wont to happen this time of year, and kicks the brim of her bonnet. It goes soaring off her golden head, rolling through the air and then bouncing along the ground.

Trevor Clay

The lady's hat goes skipping merrily along the dusty ground. Clay is a proud man, and a hard man, and hardly the sort to go gallivanting after a lady's bonnet -- or her favor. Yet here comes the hat, tumbling in his general direction, and he finds himself stepping out of the shade.

Three swift steps down to the dirt and then a quick, firm stamp: the hat caught, pinned, and one is honest, somewhat crushed. He frowns. He stoops to pick it up, his big gloved hands jarring against its big-city finery. The full, clear sun of the mountains is upon him now, picking out the traildust on his clothes. He raises his head and squints at the bonnet's owner, hesitating but a moment before he ambles toward her.

No one back East walks like this, looselimbed, bowlegged. He dusts the bonnet off -- for all the good it does -- then holds it out to her.

"Miss."

Beneath his hat, his gaze is direct, fixed. No one back East dresses like this either, weathered duster and battered, riveted trousers of heavy wool; a rough-shaven face almost hidden between bandanna and brim.

Eleanor Crawford

Clay catches the bonnet with his boot, and if he were looking right at her then, he'd see she looks a bit upset. More than a few petals fell off during its tumble, and now there's dirt and a bit of dried mud on it from both the ground and his boot. But he picks it up, and carries it to her, and tries to dust it off a bit, but the cream-colored fabric is a bit stained now.

She hesitates a moment before she takes it from him. She is looking at him now, sees him now, but there's no recognition now. Clear eyes take in his star, his pistol, but it's nothing like the way a woman identical to her looked at him for the first time from horseback: like she intended to ride him next.

Still: it's not innocence. It's something else in her eyes. The word pure comes to mind, but that's not quite it, either.

She doesn't try to put her hat back on. The breeze pulls her hair from how she has it pinned, and strands brush against her face. She squints a little at him, because of the angle of the light. Her father is still talking to Vickery; her brother is already headed inside, to see if he can get something to drink, perhaps.

"Are you the sheriff?" she asks him, without thanking him for her hat, but also: without demanding to know why he stomped on her hat.

Trevor Clay

He understands then: she doesn't know him. It isn't that she's forgotten him -- bruising enough in its own right, given what they survived together, given the way she'd looked at him before the fight and kissed him after. It's that she doesn't know him at all. Has never known him, perhaps.

"No, miss." The hat thus traded, and a little worse for wear, their hands fall apart without touching. His fall habitually to his gunbelts, strapped low and asymmetric, but never to the guns themselves. "A deputy. Clay's the name."

He looks over to her father; the proprietor. Her brother is nowhere to be seen. His eyes come back to her.

"You have family 'round these parts? Got a familiar look about you."

Eleanor Crawford

A flicker at the corner of her mouth; almost a smile, or a smirk, or even a laugh, but it never quite gets there. She tips her head to the side. She gestures over at her father. "Right over there." Her eyes flick briefly over him, thoughtfully: "Maybe others. I can't say that I'm sure yet."

Odd thing to say. She has a way of looking at the world that's odd, too: doesn't blink much. Drinks in everything she sees like she's thirsty for it, yet gasping for more. Up close, even though that was what made it clear that she didn't know him and never had, there's something else odd about her that is a little hard to name. Or would be, if he didn't know who he is. If he didn't know about the sept, about John Lark. If he'd never once in his life seen a wolf before, or stood next to one brimming with rage. Would be hard to name, too, if he hadn't felt it just last night, searching the darkness for something he never found.

Standing here in broad daylight he feels that wildness in the air again; with every breath the young lady standing near him takes, the hairs on his arms stand on end.

--

She has extended that lace-gloved hand, palm down, arm straight. "Crawford," she tells him. "Miss Eleanor Crawford. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Deputy Clay."

Trevor Clay

Though not a man of great polish, he does have certain powers of perception. At once he sees that her outstretched hand is not there to shake but to kiss, and even had he not just watched her descend from on high in all her feathers and finery, he would have known something about her station.

Her forwardness tells him something about her, too. Few are the fine young ladies who would extend their introduction to a strange man, even if he were a lawman. Fewer still are the ones -- ladies, young, fine, or otherwise -- who sear the very air around them with that unspoken quality she has.

He takes her hand, glove to glove, her lace catching on the dirt or rubble or debris embedded in his leather. It's possible he's never in his life kissed a lady's hand, and he certainly doesn't now. Chooses instead to merely give something of a perfunctory bow over it. As he rises, he adds a tug of his hat, as though to greet her greeting with one of his own.

"Trevor Clay," he supplies. Then another of those surveying glances around, followed by a terse nod and a step or two backward. "Welcome to Denver City, Miss Crawford. Sheriff's office is at your disposal. I'll let you get settled in with your brother and your pappy, now."

Eleanor Crawford

Even through the glove, her hand is warm. It's a delicate thing, like the bonnet, like the rose, but even if her appearance is that of spun silk and spring flowers, even this slight touch tells him that she is not like the bonnet, or the rose, or her own glove. She's not a spring flower. She's not a gentle rainfall or even a proper young lady.

But he's not the sort to dwell on poetry, or to try and sort out exactly what expression might capture her je ne sais quoi. He's not even the sort to kiss her hand.

She withdraws it. He makes to excuse himself, and she seems a bit curious, but she's not that forward. She simply nods, staying where she is as he steps away. "Thank you, Trevor Clay," she says. One dark brow lifts slightly. "For my hat."

She watches him a bit, as he walks away. Turns as well, to find her father frowning, and Vickery trying to explain that it's fine, that's Deputy Clay, good man, good man, all that.