The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

She cleared her throat. “She died before that. Bad husband, bad marriage. Either he killed her, or he drove her to do it herself. Either way, it was a bad time for me, and for my grandson, too. He was only a tiny boy when his momma passed, so I took him on. His daddy didn’t want him, anyway. So my no-good son-in-law stuck around like nothing had happened. ”

Rector frowned. “And no one ever punished him?”

“No, that didn’t happen. He had two things about him what made him more important than my daughter so far as the law was concerned. One, he was a man. Two, he was white. And my daughter wasn’t neither of them things. ”

They walked down the Chinatown streets, among men who looked at Rector as if he’d just come visiting from the moon. Angeline ignored the small crowd and curious stares, reached over to Zeke, and ruffled his hair with one gloved hand.

Angeline said, “This boy here, his granddaddy was the sheriff back then. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. ”

Rector nodded. “Maynard. ”

“Right. I told him what’d happened, and he came out to my daughter’s home one night. We hunted for some kind of proof that Joe had been the one to do her in, but we never turned up nothing between us. ” She sighed and stuffed her hands into her pockets. “And I knew Maynard was right. He couldn’t bring charges against Joe just on account of I said he was bad. It was my word against … against everybody’s. ”

She paused. “Still, I appreciated the sheriff taking the time. He didn’t have to, and don’t I know it. ”

“So … what happened to…”—Rector picked up on the name—“… Joe? Nothing?”

“A couple of years after the Blight, my no-good son-in-law picked a different name and came to live down here. He hired a right-hand man, a Chinese fellow named Yaozu—you must know of him. Yaozu tried to stop me from killing him, but he couldn’t. He stabbed me, though, and left me a bad scar. Between ’em, Joe and Yaozu wreaked a lot of havoc, as Miss Lucy might say. ” She finished up fast, then changed the subject. Oh look, there’s Ruby’s,” she said, indicating an open door flanked by two open windows—glassless, like all the rest. From inside the establishment came a rush of steam, bearing with it the odors of unfamiliar food sizzling on a grill.

Rector said, “I thought there weren’t any women in Chinatown. Who’s Ruby?” but no one answered him.

Angeline went to order their food. When she returned, she sat on the bench and leaned forward over the table, her knees splayed and her fingers folded together. “Boys,” she began in a conspiratorial tone, “I want to run something past you, and I don’t want you to spread it around. Understand?”

Huey and Zeke nodded vigorously, but in Rector’s case, it was more tentative. After all, it depended on what she was going to tell them. There was always the chance he’d need to share it with his boss. Unless he didn’t go back to the Station … although he had a good idea that that wasn’t an option. Well. He’d see what he could do about that.

“Good, good. You’re good boys, I’m quite certain,” she said, flicking only a hint of a glance at Rector. “But other people might think it’s a little nuts. And by ‘other people’ I mean the Doornails and the rest of the white folks. Huey, I can’t say about you and yours. ” She unfolded her fingers and placed her hands flat on the table before them. “Rector, Huey, I think you saw something that ain’t human. Something that weren’t never human. Something inexplicable, to use the word the Station men are throwing about. A monster, but not a monster. ”

Rector said, “I don’t get it. ”

She fished around for the right words, and upon finding them, she laid them out carefully.

“Imagine that none of you boys had ever seen a bear before. Now, if I told you there are bigger bears than the ones we got here—up in Alaska they have ’em twice the size of an outhouse—you’d believe me, maybe. Wouldn’t you?”

“Kodiaks!” Houjin exclaimed. “I’ve heard about them. ”

“So imagine you didn’t know what a bear was, but you were out in Alaska, looking for gold or some fool adventure. And say a Kodiak popped up out of the woods, stood up on his back feet, and came right for you. If you didn’t know what a bear was beforehand, and if you survived the meeting, you’d run home and tell people you’d seen a monster, wouldn’t you?”

Solemnly, Zeke said, “Yes, ma’am, I believe I would. ”

She continued. “But a Kodiak isn’t a monster—it’s nothing but a big ol’ bear, as natural as the sun rising in the morning. But no one sees Kodiaks much, because there’s never been too many of them. And the same applies here. My own people have been in this land for more years than you folks have been keeping history, and even we—”

Houjin interrupted, pointing at Rector and Zeke. “Longer than their history, maybe. ”

“Oh, all right—I don’t know how long they’ve been writing books in China. But my people have been here an awful long time, and we barely know a thing about these creatures. But when we talk about them, they’re called ‘the elder big brothers. ’”

“Elder … big brothers?” Rector repeated slowly.

“Yes, yes. Elder big brothers. That’s what their name means in Duwamish. Sometimes they’re called ‘sasquatch’ for short. The sasquatch are shaped something like you and me, but they’re covered toes-to-top in hair, just like the hair I picked up back in the alley, and they’re an awful lot bigger than men tend to grow. ”

Houjin peeked over at the counter, but didn’t see their food yet. He chewed on his bottom lip. “That’s why you call them big brothers. They look like us, but they’ve been here longer than we have. ”

“Right. Now, I think a sasquatch has gotten inside the wall, same as those foxes and raccoons. That’s what we’re looking for. And finding him won’t be easy. ”

Before she could add anything else, Houjin’s spine stiffened, and one of his fingers shot into the air. “You know what this reminds me of?”

Rector was dumbfounded. “It reminds you of something?”

“In China, there is something like it that lives in the mountains. It’s called the Kang Admi. The Snow Man. ”