by Alex Wells
“Both those towns got a real reputation.”
“There’s trouble aplenty, if that’s your meanin’.”
“We got our own troubles here, missy. We’re not lookin’ for more.”
Mag licked her lips, tried to think of what she ought to say now that she was here. She should have known that a farmer wouldn’t be eager to jump feet first into the problems of miners. Their worlds were very different. “We’re… not lookin’ to pull anyone in with us. But we’re hopin’ for maybe a business deal. If’n you ken.”
“What sort of business you thinkin’?”
Mag opened her mouth to answer, but Tavris’ son came in, a glass of lemonade in each hand. He set them down, then hurried out on a wave of his father’s hand. It gave her a minute to consider her words, but that didn’t really seem to help. She settled for the truth, because there was no lie in her head that sounded good enough and she was mighty tired of lies. “You all, you can at least eat and such, if say… the trains stopped comin’. Hypothetical-like, say the tracks went out. Your town wouldn’t just dry up and blow away.”
“True enough. Can’t say we could survive without the trains entire, but we could keep ourselves going well enough until track repair were to happen.”
“Ludlow and Rouse, we don’t got that. Everythin’ has to come in to us, twice a week, food and even water if we’re outside of the rains.”
“That’s how it is. I’m sure you’ve got some advantages over us.”
“Mayhap. But we’re lookin’ to get a contingency plan. In case our train tracks go bad.”
He sat back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “And say, if your tracks was to get buried in a rockfall or somethin’, and help wasn’t terribly forthcomin’… you’re lookin’ for a neighborly sort of hand?”
Mag nodded. “Just so folks don’t die of thirst or starve or anythin’ else from deprivation.”
Tavris nodded. “And say… what if you were to lose your food and water from a different mishap. One not so natural. Would you be expectin’ the same manner of help?”
Again, she nodded. “That would be the idea.”
“And in the case of some… unnatural mishap, what’d keep similar misfortune from comin’ to our door?”
That was the rub; she didn’t have a good answer for it, because there was too much uncertainty about everything. “We’d stand by you, if trouble came to your door. If we all go together, makes us stronger than if we’re alone. We got resources you don’t.” He didn’t look convinced, so she said it baldly: “Explosives. More guns than you do, I’d bet.”
“You might be surprised.” He shook his head. “You’re askin’ us to throw in our lot for nothin’ that’ll help us in the long run. What’s the point of farmin’ or minin’ if you ain’t got someone to sell it to?”
Mag sighed miserably. “Mayhap not livin’ under someone’s thumb might sound appealin’.”
“Things are different here, miss, way different than in the mining towns. They let us keep to ourselves outside of harvest time.”
“We’re all here on company time.”
“Mayhap,” Tavris said, finally taking a sip of his lemonade. “But we all got to think of our own, first. Now you drink up and enjoy. I know you’ve come a long way and must be parched. Least I can do is see you back on the next train in good condition.”
“Thank you,” she said, the words bitter ashes in her mouth. She allowed herself a moment to hate this quiet, confident man and his logical selfishness. Because she knew that things were different out here, and in his place, she’d be saying the exact same things.
* * *
The return train was mostly empty, just a few crates in one corner that were stamped with dry goods symbols. Mag guessed that it was likely some handicrafts the people of Blessid had finished, then pooled their resources together to have sent to Newcastle in the hope of making a sale. That was something the farmers did, outside of the growing and harvest seasons. Miners tended to sneer about it, because they never had that sort of time to spare, couldn’t imagine what sort of feckless people did.
Mag swung around the crates and came face to face with a dark young man, maybe a few years older than her. He had a black eye and a sullen expression on his face. “Car’s already taken. Go away.”
She ignored him and squatted down behind the crates. “Didn’t see your name on it.”
“I still got here first. You’ll get me caught.”
“I try to leave now and I’ll get us both caught, since Tavris has probably moved on now.”
He scratched at the back of his neck. “Tavris put you on here? You don’t look like kin of his.”
“I’m not. I was just here to talk with him.”
He looked at her, lip curling up slightly, and snorted. “And?”
Mag laughed softly. “And he didn’t much like hearin’ what I had to say, so now I’m goin’ home.”
His mouth opened to guffaw, but he laughed silently, just little exhalations of air so he wouldn’t draw attention. “Where’s home?”
“Ludlow, now.”
“Now?”
She shrugged. “Was somewhere else, once. What’re you doin’ here?”
He shrugged, expression closing up to nothing. “Felt like a change of scene. Ain’t much of a farmer.”
“So you gonna try your luck at bein’ a miner?”
He looked wiry enough, but she wasn’t sure if someone accustomed to open skies all the time would do well in the mines. “Mayhap. Or some other job. I was workin’ for the veterinarian, doctorin’ oxen and the like. Can probably learn to do the same on people.”
“I could prolly introduce you to the doctor in Ludlow. Not the company one, he only comes about once a week to check up on things.”
He smiled. “I’d appreciate that greatly.”
She stuck her hand out toward him. “Maggy Vigil.”
He took her hand readily enough. “Davey – I mean David Painter.”
“Pleased to meet you.” She looked him deep in the eye, taking that moment to try to read everything in him, listen to all the things that hung over his head that he wasn’t willing to say. It was almost a tangible thing to her now, like her senses had been sharpened by all the grief, and she could almost – almost but not quite – hear solid words whispering off him in waves. She couldn’t make out the details, but she knew one thing for certain – he was running from something, some sort of pain and anger that he’d never talk about no matter how many times she asked.
That gave them something in common. She shared her water with him and they chatted all the way to Ludlow. When it came time came to slip from the freight car, they were fast friends.
Chapter Seventeen
With Makaya dead and the Wolves trapped in the canyon, Hob found herself in the strange position of going from being the disappointment, the pup that had been forced to redo her whole basic course, to Nick’s right hand. No one wanted to bother him, probably because his temper when he was feeling off was legendary. Made her a good sacrifice, she supposed. Everyone asked her about plans, about rationing, about this idea or that regarding how they might get out of their predicament. Even Geri asked her things, listened to her when she told everyone to rearrange their layout of tarps to something that’d be harder to spot in the harsh light of day.
One day into their hiding, a dust storm blew up, to everyone’s relief. They wouldn’t be hearing the chopper rotors while the wind howled. They all hunkered with their backs to the wind, every square centimeter of skin covered so it wouldn’t be scoured off. Hob scrambled to make sure everyone had coats and gloves, and checked everyone’s neck to make sure they didn’t have a gap between jacket and helmet.
It wasn’t that everyone had gone stupid or forgotten how to survive. It was more like every Wolf had gone into shock, all at once. Three dead, Nick maybe deadly ill, though no one was willing even to give voice to the fact that he wasn’t healthy, that they were taking orders off a girl who couldn’t be mo
re than twenty because she was the closest thing Nick had to a mouthpiece.
They waited out the storm, keeping radio silence because no one had a damn thing to say. Hob wondered if they all felt like her, if they kept running the ride to Rouse, the fight, everything through their minds and trying to pick out the moment where they could have stepped in and changed things. The hell of it was, she could find no place to make it all better; anywhere she could have stepped in, could have tried to stop Nick, she knew it would have just led to her being put out on her ass and what followed unchanged. It was like trying to pick out a single pebble to prevent an avalanche: the events felt like fate, Nick crashing against the town of Rouse like rocks falling to the inexorable pull of gravity.
Something in Hob half expected and half hoped that the Bone Collector would blow in with the storm, ready to spout more incoherent messages. At least then there would be someone with more power and strength than her that she could look to, what with Nick refusing to meet her eyes. But he never did turn up when he was wanted.
The Wolves were gung-ho to break camp and get back to base as soon as the storm had ended; they were achingly thirsty, tired, and hungry. Hob put her foot down and made them bide. Running in the storm’s wake was exactly the sort of move she’d expect from a bunch of dumb-as-shit bandits, and the company thought every miner and farmer was a proper idiot. She argued for that, not long and hard because she didn’t want to make the noise, but in emphatic hisses at Dambala and Geri. “She’s right, you know,” Coyote had added now and again for emphasis, and Hob wasn’t sure if that helped her or hurt her since no one was ever that inclined to heed him either. But she argued them into a standstill until an hour after the storm had died down – and then the sound of chopper rotors echoed down the canyon again.
They settled into another day of hunger, thirst, and boredom. A few of the men started betting over when the next chopper pass would be, though all they had to bet with was stones.
As the sun went down, Coyote bellycrawled under Hob’s tarp. He’d aged about twenty years in two days, the lines in his face like they’d been cut with a chisel, but his accent was still as clipped and precise as always even with thirst thickening his tongue. “I think we need to run for it when night hits,” he said without preamble.
“I think you’re fuckin’ crazy. They’re still lookin’ for us. We could run without lights, but it’s too risky.”
“Nothing is without risk. We’re running out of rations. Half of us have no water left. I think some have been sneaking drinks when no one’s watching.”
Or maybe they’d just forgotten to refill their own canteens. Who knew. Hob couldn’t watch everyone as they hid under their tarps. “One day without water won’t be fun for anyone, but I think we got it in us. We’re layin’ as low as can be.”
“Maybe most people. But I’m…” He hesitated, voice dropping to an almost theatrical whisper, “I don’t know about the Ravani. Whatever is wrong with him, all the heat and breathing in dust constantly is only going to make it worse. We need to go back now, while he’s still strong enough to drive himself.”
Hob wanted to deny what he said, but she’d spent more hours with Nick in this living hell than anyone else. The man looked worse with every passing hour; he needed to be in a clean bed, not curled up under a tarp in the middle of the dust bowl. “You sure he can still make it?”
“I think so. He’ll at least be able to give it a good try. But we need to leave now.”
Hob closed her eye tightly for a moment, rubbing at her face with her hand. “Why the hell are you askin’ me this, Coyote? You should be talkin’ to Dambala, or Akela, even Freki and Geri afore you talk to me. I’m green to the ears.”
“You’re the only one I trust to actually give me an answer I can work with,” Coyote said flatly. “We like to play at being some sort of paramilitary mercenary company, Hob Ravani, but we’re not by a long shot. I know what a real army is like. Whether we admit it or no, we’re a family first.”
She sat back hard. It was almost insulting, acting like they were just playing at their roles as soldiers, as if it was dress-up instead of deadly serious. Looking at Coyote, Hob realized that he didn’t think it was a bad thing. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. And how the hell did he know those things anyway? She wanted to ask, but one of the few hard and fast social rules they had was that life began when you joined the Wolves; what happened before was no one’s business.
“Good, I take from your silence that you’ve listened. Well done. What’s it to be? Stay or go?”
The real choice was, try to save Nick and risk their lives, or play it safe and risk his. Hob knew the choice she should make, after Nick had made her promise to put the Wolves first. But she also knew that she wasn’t the only one Nick had fished out of the dunes or given a second chance.
She couldn’t live with herself if she made the smart decision instead of the right decision. “Tell everyone to pack it up. We’re goin’ home an hour after full dark. So long as the choppers don’t come back by then.”
Coyote nodded, foxy face neutral, not a flicker in his eyes betraying what he thought. “Aye, sir.”
* * *
It was a long road home, made longer by the constant sound of Nick’s labored breathing over the radio. Hob had turned his helmet mic to vox, because she wanted everyone to know in an instant if Nick took a turn for the worse. He was at the heart of their formation, him and the others that were injured. The two that were worst off rode with Dambala and Lobo, who had the biggest, heaviest motorcycles and were strong enough to hold them upright if they fainted.
It was a neverending nightmare. A ride that normally should have taken three hours at the most stretched out more than twice that long as they picked a course the injured could navigate, and that wouldn’t get them killed in the dark when they couldn’t afford running lights. The moons overhead only made the shadows trickier, casting everything in dim doubles. Dawn washed out the horizon when the base finally came into view, reassuringly quiet and dark.
She didn’t have to give orders. Coyote and Dambala threw together a quick team to go inside and make certain everything was safe. Hob straddled her motorcycle and stayed next to Nick, one hand resting on the right grip of his bike to track every little shift of balance. He slumped over the battery stack, arms crossed and helmet pillowed against them.
It scared her that he didn’t even seem to notice she was there, didn’t snap at her for treating him like an invalid.
The sun oozed to a bloody sliver up over the horizon by the time Dambala signaled the all-clear. They were a sad dust and blood-flecked pack that rolled into the garage. As soon as Hob parked, she saw to Old Nick, pulling his helmet off and helping him off the bike. A thin thread of blood dangled from his overly large nose, vivid against his dead white skin. “Can’t breathe in that fuckin’ thing,” he wheezed.
She slung one of his arms around her shoulder, and did her best to ignore just how much he leaned on her as she took him to the little ground-floor room that served as an infirmary. There were only two beds in it, and a couple of chairs; she settled him onto one of the beds, helped him pull off his coat and made sure he had a big glass of water to drink.
He took a few swallows then waved her away, laying back on the thin, stained pillows and closing his eyes. “You see to the others. I caused enough trouble already.”
“Never thought I’d see a day when you were tired of bein’ trouble,” Hob joked.
He snorted, but that made him cough, and she regretted opening her mouth. “Stop hoverin’ over me, girl. You’ll smother me to death.”
“I got a name, you know.”
He cracked his one eye open, gave her a wan smile. “’Course I know. It’s the name I gave you. But you’re still my girl all the same.”
She was too stunned to try to argue with him again. Maybe that had been his intention; she retreated in confusion, to get caught up in the fuss over the motorcycles.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder when she was halfway done with cleaning Nick’s bike, clearing sand from one of the valves. She glanced up at Geri. He looked ready to fall over, deep circles around his eyes, too tired to even hate her. “My brother reminded me that you’re a good hand with the needle.” She half expected some crack about her being a girl, that being what girls did, anything, but he just continued on, “Need you to sew some folks up.”
She swallowed hard, then offered her rag to Geri. “Can you finish with his bike?”
“Yeah, no problem.” He squatted down next to her, peering into the engine. “And I’ll get yours too, if you’re not back by then.”
“Thanks.” She was too tired to hide her surprise.
A little of his old nastiness returned, but his tone was halfhearted at best, like he just felt he ought to say something and really didn’t believe it himself. “But don’t you dawdle.”
Hob laughed, more like a bark than anything else. Her voice cracked from dryness; she might have given Nick some water, but hadn’t thought about it for herself. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Any love for sewing she’d started to feel when Mag taught her died in the infirmary. Sewing flesh had its similarities to fabric, and Hob made neat enough work of the stitches just because she knew how thread was supposed to pull and move. But the pale, sweating faces, the blood, the voices worn down with thirst that squeezed out little whimpers, that she couldn’t handle. She kept her lips tight and teeth clenched as she sewed and sewed, bullet wounds and gouges and long knife slashes. When the last was done, she scrubbed the worst of the blood off her hands, then went outside to get some fresh air.
It was for the best she hadn’t eaten at all, or drunk much of anything yet. She dry heaved into Lobo’s desiccated little kitchen garden, retching and shuddering in the bare shade of the mess hall. She didn’t think the skeletal, dead plants would mind.
