by Sean Platt
Stone began playing into this, turning quickly when the children followed, then drawing and firing imaginary guns in their direction. This was immediately popular. Within two days, some of the village children were packing their hair with clay and teasing it out in an attempt to replicate Stone’s giant hairstyle. The effect was always comical. Stone showed them gun tricks while Clint watched with crossed arms, uninterested in having children hang on him but attentive to their like of Stone.
It would be dangerous to grow attached, Clint thought. The last time Clint had become truly attached to innocents, he’d seen them buried in their mesa hovel near the Edge. That was a rough time, and had torn him in a way he swore he’d never again allow himself to be torn. So through Precipice, then Nazareth Shiloh, Aurora Solstice, and San Mateo Flats, Clint had kept his distance. It was like a game for the gunslinger. Townsfolk were numbers to count, nothing more. As long as the numbers at the end were more positive than negative, the encounter was a win. It was nothing personal.
Still, Clint and Edward spent most of their time with Stone (at least when the gunslinger wasn’t wetting Mai’s lips with river water, readying her in the ways that Edward instructed), and so the children followed the man and white horsey as well. Clint shooed them off. Edward pretended to be offended by being called “horsey.” But over time, the hard man found himself softening. Since their stay with the Leisei, they’d felt nothing but dryness and scorn through their travels. Since Solace, Clint hadn’t felt like he truly mattered to anyone. But they mattered to the children, and the children were innocent, and there was no helping or stopping their reluctant attachment, and so Clint soon started drawing phantom guns the same as Stone had — but only while Edward wasn’t watching. And once, after whittling a trail whistle from a reed, Clint was playing it as a girl approached him, watching. He handed it to her and she took it, running off with it clutched in her small hands like a jewel.
Three days passed. Little changed. Clint started showing the villagers how to fight so they could help the posse help them, and so they wouldn’t be defenseless when the visitors left. But there was little to show them without guns.
The villagers fed them what they could, including the most amazing (yet most commonplace — at least among the villagers) chili any of them had ever imagined. They polished Buckaroo like a relic, until he shone despite his flaws. They fashioned a bed for Edward made of their own mattresses, in a sheltered alcove rather than in the barn with the donkeys.
Through it all, Clint wet Mai’s lips with the magical water from the Rio Verde. Clint wanted her to drink, but Edward said that as long as they had the time — and they did, since they wouldn’t summon El Feo until the harvest was completed — it was wisest to wait until she recovered more on her own before shocking her system with the water. So Clint moistened her lips, and watched as her skin tightened and began to improve. He watched as her bones filled out, and he brushed her hair when no one was watching.
On the third day’s dusk, Edward came to find Clint sitting beside Mai. She was asleep as usual, though she’d been waking more and more often. She hadn’t repeated Clint’s name or given any further indication that she was anything other than a husk of her former self and was still waxy and wrinkled, but she was better. Clint wouldn’t allow himself to hope, but it was something.
The unicorn stood beside the gunslinger. Both the man and his almost-bride were on cots in a breezeway, a large drapery parted to the surprisingly warm outside air. The sun had set but there was a moon, and the sky was clearer than they’d seen since leaving Solace four and a half years before. Clint could smell the river’s water on the air.
“It’s time,” said Edward.
CHAPTER FOUR:
INTENTION MATTERS
The water was a bright green that Clint could see even by the moon’s sparse light. He’d seen the Rio Verde during daylight, but the color had scarcely changed despite the loss of the sun. Clint didn’t see how it was possible. Edward said it was the magic.
According to the unicorn, the river, in addition to being magical, was also insanely dangerous. Just shy of the village, the Rio Verde dove underground, rushing away as a subterranean river. The southernmost point of the north/south river was a pool slightly wider than the river’s body above. All around the pool was the scabbed, impassable cavity of what had once been a massive lake. The river’s current was fast — but because the pool marked the point where the river went underground, the current at the pool was also downward. Previously, Edward had warned Clint to hold his distance and to dip water from the river using the long dipper that the villagers left in the crook of a tree. Anyone who fell into the pool would be taken on the magical ride of a lifetime, but they’d only get to enjoy it for the minute or so they could hold their breath.
So on the moonlit night when Edward suggested Clint take Mai to the river so she could drink, the gunslinger raised a bucket he’d dipped that afternoon and said that there was no need to go anywhere. Edward shook his head and repeated what he’d said many times before: “Intention matters to magic.”
Edward’s decree that Mai would have to sip from the pool with her own lips may have been a symbolic act of contrition, but the logistics involved scared the gunslinger silly. She would need to regain consciousness and semi-lucidity long enough to sip. Clint would have to convince her to do so, despite the obvious peril. He’d have to make certain that in her addled state, she didn’t simply roll into the pool and drown. She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t even crawl. Clint would have to drag her to the pool’s edge himself, and place her in position.
When they were within fifty feet of the bright green, moonlit pool, Edward wished them both good luck.
“Wait,” said Clint. “You’re not coming with us?”
“I weigh twelve hundred pounds and the pool’s lip is fragile. I’d just spill us into it.”
“Then magick us over to it. Make us hover.”
Edward shook his head. “Intention matters. If you want what’s in the pool, you must humble yourself to get it.”
“But the pool’s lip is strong enough to hold us, surely.”
“That’s the spirit,” Edward said.
Clint breathed deeply several times, then unhitched the travois from behind Edward. He rolled Mai from it, then painstakingly dragged her limp body to the pool’s edge. As Edward suggested, the lip was incredibly fragile. The current in the pool created a slow whirlpool that had eroded the land under its edge. As they drew close, a clump of tough brown grass broke off and dropped into the water under Clint’s hand, almost causing him to pitch in after it. He watched the clump of sod swirl downward into the fathomless green depth.
“Careful,” shouted Edward, keeping his distance.
“Thanks!”
“Stay flat,” said the unicorn.
Staying flat, of course, was pretty much all that Clint would be allowed to do. Edward’s instructions had been specific. Mai must drink from the pool with her lips. With her lips. She couldn’t reach in with her hands. Clint couldn’t dip it out for her. All of this was why Edward had wanted her as strong as possible before they attempted what they were attempting, but now that Clint was at the pool’s edge and gazing down into forever, Mai’s slight “improvement” seemed absurdly inadequate. She couldn’t even hold her head up. Clint would have to thread his fingers through her hair to hold it high, thus keeping her face from dropping into the water and drowning.
After a few minutes by the pool, Mai’s eyelids began to flutter. She looked up, then at Clint. Her head itself didn’t move.
“I had a dream,” she said.
“Mai,” said Clint. “You need to do something. I need you to take a drink.”
“Okay.” She blinked. “Are you the one who will give it to me?”
“I’m Clint.”
“Okay.”
“But you must take the drink yourself.”
“Okay.”
“You are too weak to move. I’m going to roll yo
u over so that you are face-down, then push you to the edge and hold your head up. You’ll need to sip the water directly from the pool. Then I’ll pull you back. If you can move, don’t. You will fall into the pool and die.”
Mai looked up at him. “Okay.”
“Do you trust me?”
“I don’t know you,” she said. “But I’ve always trusted you.”
“Let’s try, then.”
“Ever since Solace.”
Clint had one hand across her, grasping her far side at the ribs, and was preparing to roll her. They both had to stay flat, to distribute their weight. It would be awkward at best. But now the gunslinger stopped, his hands tensed to pull. “What?” he said.
Mai closed her eyes, then deeply inhaled. “It smells so nice here. Like memory.”
“What do you remember?”
“Roll her over!” Edward shouted from behind.
“What do you remember?” Clint repeated, speaking more softly.
“I remember a dream.”
Clint waited a moment to see if Mai would say more, but Edward yelled again, and she said nothing. So Clint flipped her. It was easy, light as she was. He positioned her above the pool. He threaded his hand through her hair and repeated the instructions. Then he lowered Mai’s face to the pool, sliding up to watch her lips and ensure he wasn’t submerging her nose. The pool’s lip faltered and Clint tried shifting his weight, but it crumbled away and he had to tense his back muscles to stay up, to keep Mai alive.
Finally she finished and Clint wiggled back, terrified to move. He asked her if she’d gotten any drink, then looked at her lips and into her mouth. He saw her weathered throat working, then slowly pulled her further away. When they arrived at the unicorn’s feet, Clint stood and looked down at Mai. She had again fallen unconscious.
“What now?” Clint asked.
“Now we wait,” Edward said. “And hope.”
CHAPTER FIVE:
FIST OF FURY
The next day, Mai didn’t wake at all. Edward told Clint not to worry, that this was how things were with magic and that if the water from the Rio Verde had helped her, time was required to show it. Clint asked Edward if he was telling the truth, or simply telling the gunslinger what he wanted to hear. Edward didn’t answer. Instead the unicorn left the room, heading out to meet Stone after suddenly remembering he had an appointment.
Regardless of Mai’s lucidity or lack thereof, Clint soon decided that sitting and hoping by her bedside wouldn’t speed up her recovery. The marshal had a well-hidden soft side, seldom indulged, and after the adrenaline of the poolside encounter and the subsequent night of disappointing unconsciousness, Clint chastised himself for being too soft.
Speaking tenderly to a dying woman. Hoping for the impossible. Making whistles for children! Get ahold of yourself, gunslinger!
Attachment and softness were both absurd. The marshal had a job to do, and part of the job was preparing for a bandit and teaching villagers — all of them only numbers, nothing personal — to fight. Not because he cared about the villagers, found them noble, or sympathized with their plight. Not because it mattered to him whether they lived or died. He must do it because the Darkness was now El Feo’s employer, and was working him like a puppeteer as he had with Independence Lee. Kold and the Darkness were keeping settlements south of Meadowlands from thriving, and it was Clint’s job to throw a wrench in those plans.
Still, in spite of Clint’s newly cold stance on the detachedness of his task, his party wasn’t helping. Pompi seemed to be courting Rigo’s sister, Paloma. The courtship was hilarious, because Paloma was petite even amongst the villagers and Pompi could pick her up in his hand. Rigo, despite his affection for the visitors, was protective of his sister and took to stalking Pompi and Paloma on whatever they did that passed for dates. Buckaroo, who was a source of unending fascination since he was both artificial and built by The Realm, began to gather the townspeople and tell long-winded stories of life behind the wall — which, given that he’d never actually been behind the wall, ended up being stuffed with Realm propaganda that painted it as an enviable paradise. Stone watched these gatherings and heckled from the back, throwing anti-Realm sentiment into Buckaroo’s stories wherever he was able.
Even Edward was forming attachments, despite the unicorn’s grating nature. Unsurprisingly, Edward’s bonds were founded in mockery. He mocked the donkeys, especially to the villagers who owned them. He wandered the countryside, ostensibly scouting, and reported finding a group of wild horses who drank from one of the Rio Verde’s less-perilous (but less pure) offshoots and hence, thanks to the magic, had learned to talk. According to Edward, these horses were irretrievable idiots who ran around being clotheslined by low branches and telling each other tired humorous observations about their world. One would say, “Have you ever noticed how rabbits hop?” and another would say, “Hey… RED CAMARO!” and then they would both laugh, despite the fact that there was nothing Edward had ever heard of called a “Camaro.”
The dumb horses’ antics were a source of unending entertainment for Edward until the sixth day, when the horses began explaining to him how smart they were. They told him horses were fathers to the unicorn, but that it was okay if Edward didn’t understand and that he should never be embarrassed by his horn. This made Edward go from enjoying himself to wanting to gore the talking horses. To make things worse, the horses had somehow heard the ancient song about the horse named Ed, and they sung it to him because his name was Edward, and he was almost as good as a horse.
All of this bonding irritated Clint beyond measure, but he couldn’t control the others. He could only control himself. And so, when Mai failed to wake on the second day following the pool incident, he closed his eyes and promised the gunslinger inside of himself that he would harden his heart enough for all of them. The best way to face reality and squash innocence, he decided while chewing on a toothpick, would be to do his dagged job — to teach the villagers to fight and kill.
So Clint pulled Stone from heckling Buckaroo and enlisted his help in gathering a group of able-bodied men and women. Infuriatingly, Rigo was ready and smiling at every gathering. Clint said he was too young, that he should protect the younger children and stay hidden once the fighting started. Rigo argued to the point of screaming (the only display of aggression among the villagers; Clint couldn’t decide if this was good or bad) that Clint was being ridiculous. El Feo cared not for age. He’d steal Rigo’s food just the same as anyone else’s, and leave him killt if he stood in the bandit’s way. Besides, fourteen among farmers made him a man already. He added that he could fight well. Very well. Clint scoffed, asking how well a farmer’s son could possibly fight, having been raised in a village of pacifists who had lived under a boot heel since before he’d been born. Then Clint sent Rigo off and resumed trying to teach the villagers, which was mostly pointless.
There were no guns to be had, but Stone knew how to build bows, so he did. He had a few reservoirs of gun magic (the recharge capsules that had allowed him to fire without reloading against the birds in San Mateo Flats) and sprinkled each bow with the special Realm magic resin when finished. He claimed that he hadn’t always slung a gun, and that he’d once been a woodsman. This all seemed bogus to Clint, but the bows Stone made were shockingly easy to fire. They were also very accurate. Soon the villagers were hitting targets fifty yards off on the nose, over and over again.
Rigo was relentless. He insisted he was old enough to carry and fire a bow. That he was old enough to wield a machete, or at least a club. He told Clint that the villagers might lose their bows during the battle, and should therefore learn how to fight hand-to-hand. He repeated that he would be an excellent teacher, and begged Clint to let him try. But Clint cuffed him away, hardened beyond affectionate rebuke.
Then one day, Rigo arrived at a gathering of warriors-in-training ahead of Clint and began class without the gunslinger. What the farmer’s son could do made Clint’s eyes nearly fall from their soc
kets.
The kid was ridiculously fast, ridiculously agile, ridiculously intuitive in his fighting. While Clint watched, Rigo asked the farmers to charge toward him holding pillows in front of their chests to deflect his retaliatory blows, to throw things at him, to strike at him with sticks. Rigo dodged the objects, ducked or leapt over the sticks, parried around every attacker and planted his foot or fist in every pillow. When one man who seemed to be particularly enjoying the play-fighting came at Rigo, Rigo tucked and rolled twice before springing up ten feet away, came to a strange one-footed crouch (his other foot shot outward in a sweep, sending another man’s feet flying from under him), and struck at a third attacker’s pillow, which the man had fortunately or unfortunately held in front of his crotch.
As the demonstration progressed, Rigo’s practice attackers started throwing more and more items at him, determined to find the kid’s breaking point. As far as Clint could see, Rigo had none. His opponents threw heavy clumps of dirt, rocks, and even melons. Rigo dodged the dirt, struck at the rocks with fists and feet, and caught the melons. While continuing to parry, he then rolled the melons toward the spectators because something as rare as a melon should never be wasted. He improvised with what he had on hand. When one man dropped a stick, he picked it up and turned it into a fighting staff. He jumped and swung across the fight circle using overhead branches. He ran up a skinny tree trunk, rolled overhead, and landed flatfooted behind his attacker.
