What had been a bar was empty. No rings of fresh condensation. No cigarette ash. No commotion, chaos, conversation. No pop of the till and the familiar rustle of coins, or the paper-bark laughter of an old timer with steel-wool hair. All the scenery of what had once been a hotspot. The floors were new. The tables. The chairs. No mention of the past in this establishment. As much as Charlie had loved it, it was time for a change. No more bloodstains in the boards. Madison didn't like ugly reminders. Madison couldn't stand the sight or smell of blood anymore.

Funny that.


Check waltzed in half-past nine as he promised, grinning his casual grin, peeling off his jacket to hurry his pace to Madison and embrace her. It was a good hug. As they pulled away it was all the impression of a sigh. Relief. Maybe.


"You lookin good, Madi. I can't believe what you did to this joint. Came by to drop off some of those bins you wanted out back yest' afternoon and cripes!"

Madison smiled, Madison laughed, she leaned against the counter and gestured for him to fill the stool beside her. Check did so. "I mean it. You.. the place.. it's lookin' real swell. You did him proud."

"Hope so"

"You couldn't do bad in his eyes. You know it."

Her eyes twinkled with a moist shine. He squeezed her shoulder. She laughed some more, sniffled. "I try." Check looked upon her fondly and tipped his eyes at her, dead-on. So she knew. So she really knew.


She headed around what was left of the counter, stacks of plywood for the office, to fetch him a mug and fill the kettle, to pull out a bottle of gold rush kept in the metal cabinet to give that coffee some bite. "I'll pay you handsomely if you come back on board. The Lofton money is there for that." The weight of her words spun like a decision in the air. Heads or Tails.


Flip.

Spin.

Catch.

What is it?

"Yeah, course I will, but I can't do it everyday. Got a girl now, got a kid on the way."

"I know, I know. But you were such a help with the kids before, with the Riverside job. I can count on you. Most of those I used to be able to are gone."

"Brentan still around?"

"He left months ago."

"Andy?"

Madison scrunched up her face and scratched at her brow, distracted from the piping kettle and the empty mug. "I...I don't rightly know, Check. Last I knew he was skipping town..."

"No, I meant, uh.. You know. You know right?"

"What?", fresh alarm sliced through her stomach, thinned her voice.

"Check?"

He tousled at his fawn-brown hair, rubbed his palms together. "Well, Madi, Andy Jacob is back in town. And so's the Orpheum."



Terrible bells tolled in her ears.

Madison was gone again. Right into thin air, or so he would have it, knowing there was no way to really know, only that he had to accept her disappearances as one accepts night and day. He had checked in with the Charlie's crew and no one had a lot to offer; Check and Laurice were playing mum though Heil did not feel their quiet a nuisance, he felt that they did not not know and perhaps that was the deal: Madison went away sometimes and you didn't ask why, or for how long or if she was coming back.

He had walked past her many a time in the West End, or seated by him at Seaside Sam's. Brushing shoulders, he on his way into the bar, and her out, he had wondered where she was going, where she had been. She had given him a sidelong smile with her apology, it bespoke mischief and he remembered feeling like she was letting him in on her joke. When she had approached the Watch he had felt like he was always waiting, like there was a connection to the woman. Sometimes there was no logic to apply to such sensations, only action. He may not have always understood her reasons for moving as she did, but he knew he was in on her joke, that she had his back and that he had hers too.


The night had grown cold quickly, picked up in strong winds coming off the coast. With it, a smell of seasalt and steel, one of the bigger ships he'd seen was at port and spilling men onto the docks in droves. He stood a while with a cigarette and watched. Then he got thinking about what he should do alone, if perhaps Madison was using the distance as a test, if maybe her absence held some significance he had not sussed out. He felt he was right. So Heil ashed his cigarette, his hesitation, and strode out away from the pier and towards town. He stopped in at the nearest pawnbroker and bought himself a spare blade, a few personalised "wires" and "ah, you got any matches?"


Then Heil Dhorgood pulled down the brim of his hat and marched to West End, whistling all the way. He would do what needed be done. They knew where the Orpheum had set itself up again, as some great reptile curled in West End, its dreary silhouette obstructing the sun as it set. Heil whistled all the way there and stopped only to load his bullets. Paused a few moments later to tell the guard, Andrei, that he was tonight's bouncer.

"Wait, some guy already showed up. Who tha f*ck are you?"

"Big show tonight pal, they asked for a few."


Andrei's eyes were not convinced, but he waved Heil in behind him, instructed him where to go.


Heil took off his hat, tied back his ponytail and changed. Stepping out into the hall, eyes narrowed and he set about setting up, wire after wire followed by the life of a flame. He was only moments behind Tag.




Life was funny like that.

Coming to, the world tipped over and the wrong way around, Madison instantly looked for Torrence. She'd seemingly forgotten about the broken rib and the ache in her mouth. She was still on the floor, that much she registered about her own whereabouts, her condition. Her eyes panned across the room to the bed. Empty. The window was smashed wide and she didn't want to know what lay beneath it now. Somebody, some stranger, was hamburger.


"Torrence?"

The rasp of her own hoarse voice frightened her, though loathe would she be to admit it. Her throat was raw and her lips, though she could taste blood. Not good. Hauling herself up, the room and the world coming into better focus and a sight that made sense, she crawled to her feet. Steady, Belle, steady. The door was wide. No one on the landing.


"Torrence?"

Had he actually left her there?


It was then that she noticed his cordobe. Upturned, in two pieces. You always know something is wrong if a cowboy leaves his hat behind. Torrence had left his hat behind.


Her gut turned and went lukewarm. Boots shuffled her over to the bed. A hand under the pillow. The reassurance of known iron filled her with a chilly relief. She hadn't thought the intruders would have left an inch of her room untouched. This had been an ambush, yessiree, but no ransack. That was even stranger. Her eyes scanned over the room again. Again. She glanced at that window. No, she definitely wasn't going to peer over the edge. Her stomach was already sore with hunger, and no doubt the kick the Lofton vill had given her, she didn't need a retch to hurt her guts any further. With a stagger, a wince and a clenched-teeth groan, she carried herself to the door, down the stairs, tripping down a trio of them with a clumsy grip on the rail, but that gun held at that right angle - as exact as that place on the neck a lover knows to nibble. The stairs creaked. The boards of the hotel whined with the howl that tore in through the open kitchen window.

Madison took a peek inside. The table was made, the chairs tucked in. She watched the curtains float in and as soon be sucked back out as the winds tore. Their ends were threadbare as she felt - just a scarecrow, just some woman sewn together by crazy circumstance and the wheel was turning and she was rolling with it, doing exactly what she didn't want to be doing - holding a damn gun in her hand. She was meant to be waking up about now in Torrences' arms. Making another round of the vertical tango. Stolen kisses. Then he'd leave and she'd go and make herself a nice breakfast, make it a long breakfast, take her time with every bite. A lot of syrup on her waffles. Two or three sugars that black coffee. A smile almost got Madison but it was shortlived. An I.O.U was scribbled up in her mind - she wanted that breakfast. Even if she ended up having it for dinner.


A quick check over the entire bottom floor assured her that she was the only soul to stir. Not even Stovepipe-Hat - the proprietor. Nor the cook. The maid. No one. Just her, some creaking wood and a gun.


Madison moved for the main door. "When will it f*cking end."


And why, why now, had that prick wanted Elijah?




Why now?

With a scowl, she kicked open the door without pleasure nor ceremony and stormed into daylight.

Cadentia wasn't home yet. Almost, but most definitely not yet. You cannot turn on that feeling when you want to, rather moving into a house, it moves into you. You're talking to someone, telling them about the change of scenery, and it falls out of your mouth. Home. Home for her, for so long, had been a picturesque meadow with enough hills to keep it interesting and peeling-paint white house with a white fence-line, horses and a husband.


But all of that was now dead.


The ride back from the Inn that night was immensely lonely. She didn't know why she'd gone, but for the time she was there, she'd felt good. Some whiskey in her, some conversation. A devil in a suit. A sailor in a mood. A silver elfess always obliging. But now was the dust and the road, all haggard, all as tired as she looked.


Redemption, home, none of it felt good just yet. But all of it, every inch, was hers.

10am.

Her back was to the lime green wall of the OBDM (Office of Births, Deaths Marriages) her eyes on the ceiling, fingertips picking and tearing at the ticket in her hand. Number 13. Of course. She whistled under her breath, sometimes hummed, watching people come and go, change their lives, their names, their history. Was it really that easy? That too, was an "of course!" Of course it was that easy. Just forget it all.


"Madison Acony-Belle Ryyyyeeeee Donaldson."


"Jesus", she quipped to no one but herself. She'd never heard her name go for a month. What accent was that anyway? Madison headed for the booth where the short redhead sat. Her hair looked like tiny coils. Clips were fighting the war admirably but the hair was winning, like mad weeds growing up around her skull. Her glasses were primly on the tip of her nose, which seemed ironic, given the crazy mane. "Madison?", she asked, and when Madison nodded, the booth door was opened and Rita led her inside to a table and chair, securing the swing door behind them.

"So, you want to change your name? Quite a file you've got. I have to warn you that due to your incarceration, though brief, I have to run some things by you, ask you some questions. Is that going to be okay?"


Madison had almost forgotten about that. Almost. Liked to think she had. The night Jin put cuffs around her wrists and led her to that coach. Jesus.


No hope of forgetting that. This city wouldn't let her. It kept rearing it's especially ugly head. But what did she expect - to carry the graceless outlaw title and get away with it? Oh my god, Trebor no! This city would trip her up. It had before, it would again.

"Do what you have to do", murmured frankly, as she settled deep into the seat, toyed with the end of her sleeve while the other hand pushed number 13 down into her jean pocket. Rita sat opposite her. "Your file is extensive. You had a lot of people looking into your life." Rita was almost apologetic. Madison sensed her pity and looked her dead in the eye. "Can we move this along?"


Rita voiced her apology then, tidied the file before her frantically, then steadied her hands covered in gold rings and lifted her kind but direct gaze to meet Madison's. "Madison, can I ask, firstly - why do you wish to change your name and why is it there are two... distinctly different names on file."


"I'm divorced. Two, what names?"

Sure, she'd had some, but they were known and often given by co-workers, allies and poker players.


"Cade Munroe?"

"Monroe", Madison corrected. "Cadence Monroe, as it came to be."

"That's correct."

Madison lifted her eyes. Yes, she knew her own goddamn name. In full.

"Look, Madison, I need to do this. I need to verify these details, I will not be long and you're on your way."

Madison issued a breath, let her shoulders drop and sat forward. "I killed a man called Cade. Shoot-off in a county. Different laws there, Rita. Different laws. I took his name on the road with me. But people started asking.."

"Why, yes, Cade IS a man's name", Rita interjected.


Madison arched a brow. "Really?" Deadpan.

Rita apologised. "Go on?"

"You know about Lofton, studied up on that pile of bullsh*t I'm sure. I had to wear someone else for a while. Okay?"

Rita nodded, licked her lips, tidied the file. Madison almost had the nerve to steal that file onto her lap and leaf through it. God, wouldn't she love to see what they wrote up.


"The divorce, well, what do you need to know about that?"

"...Madison.."


The other brow shot up. "Yes?"

"Why is it.. why is it someone like you, someone.. who holds herself together, attractive, established, why do you live the life of a man? I cannot help but ask it... I mean, aren't you parents alive?"

"They always ask me the same thing, angel."


Rita chortled a little. Somehow, it appeared, she'd charmed prim Rita.


"Rita, why do you care?"

"I can tell you do not have anything to prove. So I don't understand why you'd pretend to."


Madison was lost for an answer there. "It's a story I don't want to add to that file. There's enough of my damn dignity in there." A pale hand gestured flippantly at the pages.


Rita stood, tucked in her chair, nodded a few times, smiled to herself, maybe with more of that lousy pity, and hurried off to a corner of the room where she assembled some official looking pages.

"Shall I keep Cadence Monroe on file?"


Madison laughed, but it was bitter. "No. You can file her away, too."

"What if...."


"If they want me, they can say my goddamn name."


Rita smiled. "You have spunk, Madison."

"No, just no more time for eggshells."


"How is your new bar?"


"Good."





When Madison walked out, she was Madison Acony-Belle Rye. Madison Donaldson had gone to the same place as Cadence Monroe. Now she was herself. Whoever the hell that was.

1958, on the set of Jezebel.
Williams, Colusa County, California, United States


"Mer, I know its a doozy out 'ere, but the hundids and hundids we make on this baby gon' be wort' every sweat you drop outta them pretty lit'l pores."


Meredith held a hand up to shield her fair face from the glare that seemed to rise all around. She thought to herself it was like the desert wasn't happy about all this heat either, that's why it kept throwing it back up, in shafts of eye-watering bright - around her everything was bleached and dry and glowing. Sometimes, the air seemed to bleed and warp out of itself, what were those things, mirages? She hadn't been drinking nearly enough water. Erl said it made her piece more authentic, if she looked as bad as she acted to feel.

"I just.. I just don't understand it." She twisted her ankle, her young face pained. "Why would she want to shoot her husband? It's the most awful thing I've ever heard!" She exclaimed her words against the dead heat and sighed. "I can't do this if I don't understand it?" Earnest as they came.

"Kid, Hollywood is pullin' posters down for this epic as we speak. Now are you gonna do this, or am I gonna have to call up Dolor..."

Meredith was shaking her head frantically.

"..get her to sign up a new lady. Know how many gals would kill to be in your ...", he looked to the dust-enamored cowboy boots. They'd been beat against rocks by wardrobe, to give some more authenticity to the costume.

"Your boots. Know how many women?"


The young woman gave another long sigh. "I can't relate to this woman. I'm nothin' like her!"

"Is why yer an actress!", Erl replied emphatically, throwing a hand at her to further the point. He always spoke with his hands and his eyebrows. They went everywhere as he rambled.

"Now, come on, Kid."

Meredith lifted her baleful eyes as wardrobe rushed up to powder her moist cheeks, her chin, adjust the hat so it sat low. Erl could tell she wasn't having any of it. They freed her hair from its braid. Long brunette waves fell across her front, down to her hips - Ruby, head of wardobe, combed through it quickly.

"How about I put it to you like this: what if she had to shoot 'er husband, cuz if she didn't, he'd put a hole through her instead."


Mer gasped. Ruby was attending to her collar, unbuttoning a few down. Erl waved her away.

"Hey hey hey, we gettin' somewhere", he rubbed his oily little hands together, moving from foot to foot, hopping with greedy joy. "How about DAT!"


Something subtle changed in the young actress' features. A hardness that before was absent. She turned and dropped her hand and stared into the harsh desert. Her jaw set. She looked older, angrier, that was for sure, but it was as if she'd altogether turned into someone else. This wasn't acting. This was shapeshifting.


"Ya heard me? Scare me. Scare me, Meredith!"

Meredith retrieved her pistol, aimed it at a point known only to her mind, one eye shut against the dust. Erl had never seen someone so fierce in all his life. Erl was definitely scared by what he saw. She wasn't baby Meredith anymore. Goosepimples broke out over his skin.



"Now we gettin' somewhere."

"He misses you, Acony. Won't you reconsider, dear? Your Father says it might be good for you to come home this time and stay, and give your marriage a chance."

Exasperation filtered back down the line. Watered down her voice. It rasped with cigarette smoke and the bottle she was sucking as her Mother tried to condense several years into a few well-meaning sentences. She was not angry for the concern and the shade - Tag had taught her she needed it more than she had liked to discern for years, but coming from your Mother, it just didn't hit the same place. Tag knew her better than her Mother ever had.

"Ma, you didn't listen to me. I said no. I a'int got the time for this anymore, or the spirit. Do you really want me to end up in jail again?"

"If you come here, let us take care of you, it'll be the farthest thing from true."


Madison flinched with laughter - threadbare as it was, extinguished her smoke in the remnants of the rum that sat on the edge of the bureau behind her. The afternoon played amber along her mouth, up close to the phone and murmuring the frayed prayer.


"I'm fine."



She'd been saying that to herself every night. One day she'd believe it. One day, her parents would too.


"Well, I think you're being obdurate for the sake of it. Eli cares about you."



"Marriage a'int only about Carin', Ma." Her drawl thick.


"That's not what I'm saying! You two had a life - it was ripped in half. You blame him for his absence. He did it to save your life."


"And what good did it goddamn do, Ma? I still got dragged on my stomach down a long road I don't ever, EVER want to see again."


Her Mother panted her own exasperation.


"What happened in Rhydin, what did he do?"


"We don't work anymore, Ma."


"Is it someone else, tell me?"


There was no answer for a long time.


"Just me, Mama. Just me."

For the first year of their marriage, Elijah didn?t tell her about his history with the Hexx. He refused to, on the principle that in the early days of their courtship he wanted what they had to be as distant from his work, his associations, his past, as could be. Madison wasn?t like anyone he had ever met, to his mind, and there was a sense that he had to keep her alive that went beyond the bonds of marriage. It felt like something above both of their heads ? nothing he could explain.

But some things won?t stay dead. Elijah knew at some point the telling would have to be ? she was canny and she was seeing things that soon made it hard for him to abide in his secrecy. This was his wife, he figured, the only one who knew him as a man is made to known, and if he couldn?t ever tell her the tale then maybe he shouldn?t have married her in the first place. But that was wrong; he knew she was for him, that he had to protect his Madi. And that if he owed her anything, other than his loyalty, he owed her the big picture.

So it was that wolf season came upon the prairie. Elijah would walk out on the back porch and let off a warning round into the sky. He didn?t want one of their foals taken. When he wasn?t there to do it, Madison would do the same. Except one day, in thigh high grass, she?d walked beyond the perimeter of their property, ducked her head under wire, closer to where the rocks lifted their heads out of the dirt, where old salt lick decayed, where fox dens stared back, where the trees grew dense. A howl and a snarl had died away, mournful and agonised, footfalls and heavy breathing, then silence. A minute passed. There was the unmistakeable sound of a man?s scream. Madison bolted back for the yard. It was a sound she?d never heard before, there was something in it, and shaking bad, when her boots hit that porch, she was glad she had run. Sun was setting and she was strangely sure that the rifle wasn?t going to do a thing for her out there. The land out there was wilder than wild. Even Elijah only went so far, had stapled palings that weren?t going to see either of them having to do a close on the cattle near the wooded basin that ran off and eventually dropped into a lonely gulley.

It was next day that a rider found a man in the woods with a bullet hole through his side. Elijah had hauled her into the lounge, pinned her to the wall and asked her severely if she?d hit anything when she?d gone out the day before. She?d fired at the sky, not into the trees, and was insistent on the fact. Alarmed, but her aim was always good, and that barrel went over the branch line. Satiated, with his belief, they didn?t speak of the incident again, up until a few days before he left their house for good and he asked what happened that day. on the property line. She?d told him in detail about the sounds. The way her skin had crawled because something was off.

?Wendigo, Madison. Don?t you ever, ever go out that far again. You sleep with that gun under your bed every single night.?

It was there Madison learned, warily, that what she knew of the Hexx was not nearly enough.

It was there she learned they were more than man but less than human.

Dead of night, she left the bed and the glorious pile of naked that still slumbered in it. The phone was ringing. Her breaths harried. She picked up the receiver.

"They're up there."

The wind mourned in the background. It sounded rough and wild. The leaves were screaming. The grass.

"Sh*t."

"Sh*t indeed, 'Cony."

"I'm coming back."

"When?"

"Soon."

She looked back down the hall, towards her room. "I gotta go, Eli", she whispered, regret informing her voice. Not Glenn, not Eli, not the mourning wind and the grief in her heart. Just that it always came back to that goddamn town and what she had left behind. She rubbed sleep from her eyes. Stared blearily at the window.

She could still hear the wind whistling wherever he was. Sometimes she almost asked. But it didn't matter anymore, so she never did.

"You come down then I will too. Not gonna interfere. But I'll be there."

"And they'll kill you. More than one dog. They killed some ex-deputy up here. One of their own."

Eli cackled. "How you know one of their own did the deed? A'int you just the funniest little thing, 'Cony Belle."

Madison looked off back down the hall. "I gotta go."

"Bounty issued out here. Got a few their pinnin' it on. Eliot Palmer, Ryder Pinkley, Glenn Douglas..."

Her shoulders squared under the shirt she stole off the chair back - Glenn's. Worn and too big. She pulled it around her. "I'll keep an eye out for the bills."

"Careful, Belle."


Click.

Lofton. I never want to hear the word again.

Eli,

I will trust that you find this message well.

I've not heard from you about Sara Road and whether or not Hawthorn and Co. will be processing the sale. I've sold up the house I had out here and can't keep waiting for letters from your Mabel. Nothing has come through in months and I am starting to fret about the details as they stand and where her writing has ended up. Check it for me. Please.

I need to tell you too that things are sharp. Whatever happens with my share when all is finalised, please instruct your Birdy to ensure the split is between my parents and Tag. Anything I had left at the house you are free to burn or sell. I care not which. Isn't omen talk I'm having. Just a bad feeling in the nature of things that turns me to putting this all down on paper. I feel like there is something I've missed along the way and it's nagging at me. Maybe you know what it is I am meaning in this letter. I am reaching myself out towards it but can't grasp it. I am getting to what I mean... but first...


Send all correspondences to Charlie's. Not Heil and definitely not the address I last gave. Things have been compromised.


Tell me, are you acquainted with the business of a man named Foley? He means to buy my house but I've been told he's been asking about me. I have this feeling I should ask you this because it tends to fall back to those parts in time. I know not which Madison Rye he thinks he knows - yours or Glenn's, or mine. Send me reply soon.


Ho,

Madison

Going Deep again.

Damned if I'm not nervous this time.

Daddy didn't speak to me much. Tag tells me it'll be okay. He'll be there. That nerves only cloud the mind. But this is everything.

Glenn walks around like it's nothing, even though I hear it in his voice, see it in his voice, that he worries too. But he makes it all look easy. He's got a new girl, Salome. Livewire like him. I hope he is happy. I think he should be.

Eli is coming West. Never thought it would ever come to this. That all of us would ever be in the same place.