SILAS STOOD IN front of the washstand in his and Lainie’s room in Coltor’s house, shaving. It was really a very soothing, relaxing thing to do; he should consider doing more often. But if he did, soothing would probably turn into tedious. Once every nineday or two was enough after all, he decided, as long as Lainie didn’t mind.
In the mirror he saw Lainie behind him, wrestling with her pants. He watched her struggle for a moment as he finished shaving. “Something wrong, darlin’?”
“I can’t button my pants. I could just button them yesterday, if I sucked in my stomach, but I can’t today.”
He wiped the last traces of soap off his face, then went over to her. She was standing next to the bed, looking somewhat forlorn with her pants unbuttoned and her shirt hanging out untucked. He put an arm around her shoulders and rested the other hand on her belly. The changes from day to day hadn’t been noticeable, but it was definitely rounded, big enough that his hand couldn’t quite cover it. “I thought that was what the dresses are for.”
In the wardrobe hung three dresses made of printed cotton, loose-waisted to allow for a pregnant belly. Mrs. Coltor owned a sewing machine and had a neat, quick hand with it; she had helped Lainie sew up the dresses in just the nineday or so since they’d arrived back at the BC Crown.
Mr. and Mrs. Coltor had welcomed them back heartily and insisted they stay at least until the baby was born. “You don’t want to be wandering around without a roof over your heads when Mrs. Vendine’s time comes,” Coltor had said.
Silas wasn’t sure he liked the idea of accepting Coltor’s charity for that long, but Color did have a point. And Mrs. Coltor was a great help and comfort to Lainie, being just a few months further along in her own pregnancy.
“Yeah, I guess that’s what they’re for.” Lainie blew some stray hairs out of her face. “It’s gonna feel strange, wearing dresses every day.”
“You’ll look pretty. Not that you don’t look pretty anyway, whatever you’re wearing.”
“Mrs. Coltor sure did a nice job with them. They’re almost too nice for everyday.” She went to the wardrobe and stared at the dresses as though trying to decide which one was the least unsuitable for day-to-day wear around the house and ranch.
In the distance, a bell rang to announce visitors to the house. A moment later, Silas heard men’s voices down the hall. They sounded serious and businesslike.
Coltor had told Silas and Lainie how he and Jasik had dealt with the three Hidden Council mages who were trying to take over Bentwood Gulch and then had gone to run off more Hidden Council men in the towns of White Cloud and Fairbank. In the process, Coltor had had to reveal his magical power, much to the shock of the people of Bentwood Gulch. Fortunately, out of respect for him and his position, or, at least, his money, and out of gratitude for saving the town, the folks here seemed to be doing their best to come to terms with the fact that their leading citizen was a wizard. At least, no one had tried to hang him or run him off. Coltor now wore his mage ring openly, though Silas and Lainie still kept their new mage rings, which they had obtained only a few days ago, on their wedding fingers most of the time.
Despite the general attitude of acceptance, Silas couldn’t shake the feeling that trouble was just biding its time, waiting to jump out at him when he was least expecting it.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door. “Vendine? Mrs. Vendine?” Coltor said. “The mayor and some other fellas from town are here, and want to speak to all of us. They say it’s important but nothing we need to be worried about.”
The mayor? Silas looked at Lainie; her face was drawn in worry. “Wonder what that’s all about?” she said.
“We better go see,” Silas answered, and she nodded. She glanced once more at the dresses, then quickly buttoned her shirt the rest of the way up, leaving it untucked to hide the open buttons of her pants. Then they left the room, Silas’s mind working through one possibility after another, none of them especially pleasant.
Three men stood in the front room, the mayor of Bentwood Gulch, another local rancher, and the chairman of the local cattlemen’s co-op. They shook Silas’s hand and greeted Lainie politely. Mrs. Coltor, who was too far along in her pregnancy to go to her office in town every day, sat on the couch, her hands folded so tightly together her knuckles showed white. Lainie stayed close to Silas’s side, holding his arm and looking nervously from one of the visitors to the next. Silas didn’t feel any less uneasy, himself; what could a prominent rancher, the mayor, and the co-op chairman, all Plains, want with them?
“Here we all are,” Coltor said. “Now, what is it you have to say to us?”
The mayor cleared his throat ostentatiously. “In light of recent events involving a group of wizards with ill intent towards our rights and freedoms as settlers in the Wildings, and in consideration of Mr. Brin Coltor’s actions in defense of our town and the role of wizards such as Mr. Coltor and Mr. and Mrs. Vendine in fighting against their own kind to defend the Plain settlers of the Wildings, the voting members of the Bentwood Valley Cattlemen’s Cooperative Association and of the citizenry of the town of Bentwood Gulch have taken up and approved a resolution with the purpose of –”
“Get on with it,” the rancher said.
The mayor gave him an affronted look. “A resolution that no wizard or suspected wizard may be hanged, imprisoned, or otherwise harmed or punished without being found guilty of a crime in a fair trial before an impartial jury, being a wizard not to be considered a crime in and of itself.”
Silence followed this pronouncement. Silas’s mind grappled with what the mayor had said – in the Bentwood Valley, it was now against the law to hang a mage without a trial first. And being a mage was not in itself a crime. “It’s safe for us to stay here,” he finally said.
“We don’t have to worry about getting strung up?” Lainie added uncertainly.
“Long as you keep your nose clean an’ live by the same rules as everyone else,” the head of the cattlemen’s co-op said. “Wizards have caused us a lot of grief, but wizards also saved our town – and, we’re told, a lot of other towns. And our herd and our livelihood.”
“So we figure,” the rancher said, “just like with normal people, there’s bad wizards an’ good ones, so why not try living side-by-side and see if we can be peaceable neighbors.”
“In short,” the mayor said, “Mr. Coltor, Mr. and Mrs. Vendine, the law is now on your side.”
They were safe here, him and Lainie. The realization finally sank into Silas’s head. The mage hunters were no longer looking for them, and the Plain folk here in the Bentwood Valley weren’t allowed to hang them or harm them just for being mages. “I…” he said, struggling to find words for what he was thinking and feeling. He seldom found himself speechless, but this had done it. “That’s…”
“That’s mighty good news,” Coltor said. He started shaking the men’s hands enthusiastically. “Good news, indeed.”
“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Coltor added, rising from the couch. Smiling widely, she came over to the men and shook their hands, too. Behind the round lenses of her spectacles, her eyes shone. “I’m not surprised that the people of Bentwood Gulch would do the right thing.”
Silas finally collected himself, and he and Lainie joined in the handshaking and added their thanks, as well. Lainie’s smile was bright enough to light up the whole room, and years of worry seemed to have fallen away from her face.
After one more round of handshakes, the visitors tipped their hats and bade them all good day, then left. “Well,” Coltor said as he closed the door behind them, “I guess that means the two of you will be sticking around for the time being. Nikalsdon isn’t as young and healthy as he used to be, so he’s thinking about cutting back on work. I’d like to hire you on as an assistant foreman, if you’d be willing. I’ve got a second foreman’s cabin that’s been standing empty for a while, so you folks can make yourselves to home there if you want.”
Home, Silas thought. Something Lainie hadn’t known since she was run out of Bitterbush Springs more than a year and a half ago, except for those few short months in that one-room cabin in Windy Valley. It was a word that hadn’t meant anything to him in years. A roof over their heads, a kitchen, a bed of their own to sleep in every night, a place where they belonged, where they could live in peace and raise their children, honest work that didn’t involve getting shot at, at least not very often…
A smile stole onto his face. He’d still like a spread of his own sometime, but this was a good place to start. He put an arm around Lainie’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. She smiled up at him, her face alight with happiness and hope.
“Sounds good to me,” he said.
The End
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