Dust Devils

by Janz, Jonathan

  He jumped at the death cry of some animal, then realized it was Willet. The small body slithered sideways, and Cody shot an arm out to seize a handful of the boy’s shirt.

  “Canna…” the boy moaned.

  Cody drew the pitiful little body against him and scanned the area for a place to tether Sally. It was too much, he knew, to hope for water, but if they could find a strand of hackberries or willows, he might be able to dig down, find a little moisture. He’d do like his dad had once shown him, use the fabric of his shirt to soak up what he could find and then wring the water into Willet’s parched throat. He doubted he’d find enough to slake both his and Willet’s thirst, but at least it would take the edge off, make their throats feel as though they weren’t lined with nettles.

  “Cannafeel…” Willet moaned, and again his body shifted. One reed-thin arm slapped at Sally’s neck. Cody tightened. He recognized the onset of panic. The kid was at his extremity, had no idea where he was. Who knew how much blood he’d lost, how much worse the pounding of the trail had made his leg wound?

  “Take it easy,” Cody said, mouth rigid with indecision. Had he been smart, he would’ve stopped a half hour ago to examine Willet’s leg, but visions of the devils crawling on all fours, sniffing the ground, following their leaking bodies through the wilds, had compelled him on.

  “Can’t feel my leg,” Willet said, and though the boy sounded lucid now, the meaning of his words chilled Cody worse than the disorientation had.

  Sally’s breathing reminded him of a wobbly wagon wheel, and the feeling grew in him that he’d delivered them all from one kind of death to guarantee one that was infinitely slower and just as terrible. He had no idea where they were. Somewhere west of Las Cruces, but how far there was no telling.

  So stop, goddammit; it doesn’t matter where. Stop and fix Willet up.

  Cody didn’t trust this voice, knew it was born of panic, yet it carried a seductive persuasiveness. He was about to halt Sally when he distinguished, far off and to their left, the gentle stir of a willow, its drooping leaves a mound of incandescence in the brilliant wash of moonlight.

  “Oh thank God,” he said and drew Willet closer to his sheltering chest. With his other hand he guided Sally toward the willow, the weakening mare staggering forward, no longer bothering to skirt the winterfat and paintbrush, her cracking hooves trampling the staring ghost flowers like a mean child squashing bugs.

  Careful not to let the boy slip, Cody leaned forward, urged Sally on, “Almost there, girl. Almost there.”

  They ascended a small rise, and Cody realized with almost transcendent joy that the willow stood atop a plateau, beyond which he could already see a dozen other treetops, a veritable Eden in this godforsaken country. Another minute brought them even with the willow, and when Cody spotted the narrow black shimmer wending its way through the sparse forest, he had to choke back a cry of gratitude. Though her head hung despondently between her forelegs, Sally too seemed to scent the water, and without any prodding from Cody, she began to trot toward the grassy bank. Cody waited until she reached the water’s edge, the old girl nearly lunging toward the lazy trickle, and then he slid off, doing his best to make sure he didn’t jostle Willet too much, or worse, allow the boy to slip off the other side of the mare and break his neck.

  Though his throat burned for the cool kiss of the water, Cody forced himself to concentrate on the boy. The small, dirty head lolled in a way Cody didn’t like as he slid Willet off the mare and toted him the few steps to the creek bank. Willet’s eyes were open, but there was a stolid glaze on them that again reminded Cody of slaughtered livestock, their life force dwindling but their eyes still seeing. As if they were memorizing the last moments of their lives.

  Laying the boy flat on the soft grass, Cody dipped his hand in the creek and patted Willet’s crusty cheeks, his cool forehead. Though the water and dust formed muddy whorls on the boy’s skin, the moisture did seem to revive him a little. The eyes blinked, the cracked lips opening and closing like a hooked perch. Cody endeavored to cup the boy’s head so Willet could sip creek water from his palm. The boy drank, choked on it, the racking coughs croupy and raw; then his skinny arms began to spasm. Cody thought at first of fits, of the weird convulsions he’d seen a classmate pitch on the playground back in grade school. Then he realized Willet was grabbing for his gun-shot calf, the pain of it finally taking hold.

  Feeling like a fool, Cody gently laid the grimy head on the bank and crawled forward to take a look at the injured leg.

  The wool covering it was tattered and black, the wasted fabric a discouraging curtain of besotted ribbons. He pushed the pant leg up, but a small hand clawed at his arm, indicating plainly that Cody should swear off the examination.

  Cody glanced down and saw the scared eyes, the abject twist of the mouth. Unaccountably, he remembered a time when he’d eaten some delicious-looking red-capped mushrooms as a very young child and had been tortured with stomach cramps for the better part of two days. His dad had sat with him the whole time, leaving only to empty the bedpan and bring him fresh water and food that wouldn’t aggravate his system. God, his father had been patient…loving…better than any nurse could’ve been. Could Cody do as well by this boy as his father had done by him?

  The boy watched him with large eyes.

  “Hurts a lot,” Cody said, nodding. “Wish I could tell you the pain will go away quickly, but you’re smarter than that.”

  Willet shuddered, but he was listening.

  “I gotta take off your trousers to see what I’m dealing with, and either way I do that, it’s gonna hurt like a bastard.”

  Willet whimpered. From downstream came the harsh soprano trill of a plover.

  “You rather I cut ’em off? They’re ruined anyway.”

  Willet frowned and shook his head.

  Cody sighed. When he reached over, unbuttoned the boy’s fly, Willet’s eyes narrowed, something other than physical pain seeping in.

  “I’m not going to mess with you,” Cody said. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

  “It isn’t that,” Willet said, his voice miserable. “What am I gonna wear if you throw my pants away?”

  Cody tried not to smile, but lost. He shrugged, peered up at the overhanging boughs. “We need to, we can fashion some new pants out of those willow leaves.”

  Willet’s brow furrowed momentarily. Then he chuckled softly. “You’re fulla shit, aren’t you?”

  It felt good to laugh. He unzipped the boy’s fly and slowly lowered the trousers, noting as he did how grubby the boy’s underpants were. It reminded him how long Willet had likely gone since his last change of clothes, and because that brought back memories of the devils, Cody shook his head to scatter the thoughts.

  “What?” Willet said.

  Cody set his mouth in a firm line. “Hold still. This is gonna sting something fierce.”

  Though he did his best to keep the wool from scraping the wound, it did anyway, and to make things worse, he remembered too late what his dad had told him about dressing a wound: put the new bandages over the old, but don’t remove the old unless they’re really filthy.

  Willet screamed as the wool ripped the clotted blood off his calf.

  “Dammit,” Cody muttered as the boy’s bare feet drummed on the grass. “I’m sorry about that, but I couldn’t see the—” He cut off as the boy kicked him in the ribs.

  “Stupid sonofabitch,” Willet was moaning. “Aw, it hurts.”

  “Hey,” Cody said, his ribs throbbing. “Take it—” The foot lashed out again, but Cody deflected it. The sight of the boy’s grungy face writhing from side to side restored some of Cody’s pity. “Okay,” he said, moving up to cradle the boy’s head. “Okay, Willet. Shhh…”

  Willet was crying, but some of his anger seemed to dissipate. Cody pushed the filthy hair off the kid’s forehead, spoke what soothing words he could summon. After a time, Willet drew in a deep, shuddering breath and returned his gaze.

&nb
sp; “I gotta wash out the wound,” Cody said.

  Willet’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

  Cody glanced about, chewed on his lower lip. “I guess we scoot you forward till you can dangle your legs in the creek.”

  “Then what?”

  Cody shrugged. “Then I guess I splash water on it till it’s clean.”

  Willet eyed him doubtfully. “You don’t know what the hell you’re doin’.”

  “My dad knew something about this kind of thing,” he said. “He learned about it in the war, and he treated me plenty of times.”

  Willet’s eyes were defiant. “You never got shot.”

  “I got stabbed tonight.”

  Willet’s gaze swept Cody’s torso, his stomach.

  Cody shook his head. “Mine’s in the leg, too.” He brought his right leg closer, but it cost an effort. “See?”

  Willet’s eyes settled on the dark blotch behind Cody’s knee.

  “But mine isn’t as deep,” Cody said, lowering the leg. “That’s why we’re dealing with yours first. The bullet went clean through your calf.” When the boy’s eyes widened and darted to his own leg, Cody added, “Lucky for you, the bullet did exit your body. Woulda been worse had it stayed inside.”

  The fear and mistrust seemed to drain from the boy’s eyes. He peered up at Cody, his dirty face like an ink smudge surrounded with old hay. “Will it hurt much?”

  Cody held his gaze. “It’ll be painful, yes.” When Willet’s face began to crumple, Cody squeezed the boy’s arm. “But it’s gotta be done. Get the pain over now so the leg doesn’t get worse.” Cody stared meaningfully at the boy. “We don’t want that to happen, do we?”

  Willet swallowed, his expression sobering. Cody could see him thinking it over, chewing on the possibility of losing the leg. Then Willet clenched his jaw, sat up a little. Together, they scooted him forward until his legs dangled over the grassy bank into the slow-moving creek. The water didn’t smell like manure, which gave Cody hope it would cleanse the wound the way he wanted it to. He was dying to bury his face in the creek and gulp from it the way Sally was gulping a few feet downstream, but he knew he had to put all his energy into the boy now. Willet would be watching him, and he had to give the boy courage.

  “All right,” Cody said, standing and unbuckling his pants.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I’m getting in,” he said. “Someone’s gotta hold you still so the water can do its work.”

  Praying some flathead catfish or water snake wouldn’t swim along and bite him in the penis, Cody stripped naked and eased into the creek. It was deeper than he’d suspected, nearly up to his chest, but after the brutal ride through the wilderness, the water felt exhilarating. The creek bed was comprised of sand and pebbles—another good sign—and the gritty feel of the creek bottom on his bare feet almost took his mind off the sting behind his knee. Goddamn, but it hurt. And if Cody’s wound ached this badly, how much worse would Willet’s be?

  He placed his hands on the boy’s knees as gently as he could. “Now, I want you to think of your family.”

  Willet blanched as if Cody had struck him. His voice thick, the boy said, “Why the hell would I wanna do that?”

  “Because it hurts,” Cody said, hating himself, “and remembering that hurt’s gonna remind you of what you gotta do.”

  A tear spilled down the boy’s sooty cheek. “And that is?”

  “Make sure you have two good legs to finish this on.”

  Chapter Seven

  Willet sniffed, but Cody could tell he’d gotten his attention.

  He said, “You didn’t ride all this way to kill three of them, did you?”

  Willet’s eyes widened.

  “’Cause that’s what we did, right? We know for certain that bastard Horton’s dead. You got him in the face, remember? Hit him square? That was a hell of a shot, kiddo.”

  The boy nodded, something other than fear and grief coming into his eyes. A hesitant species of pride perhaps.

  “Penders is dead too, unless he knew how to fall more than a hundred feet without dying.” Cody cocked an eyebrow. “The son of a bitch weighed so much I swear I felt the earth shake when he hit.”

  Willet’s mouth threatened a grin.

  “And I can guarantee you that Seneslav twin, whatever the hell his name was—Dmitri, Dragomir, Dragon Dick—he ain’t walking away from what I did to him. His head was damn near off.”

  For the first time in a while, Cody saw Willet smile, heard the boy’s sweet, silly laugh and thought, Do it now. Cleanse the wound before he has time to worry about it.

  But something held him back. He didn’t want the kid to feel betrayed. Willet had experienced enough heartache for twenty lifetimes already; Cody didn’t need to add any more, even if he was doing it for the boy’s own good.

  He said, “So here’s the plan, Will T. Black. I’m gonna wash out this wound, and I ain’t gonna lie—it’s gonna be awful. I gotta do it quick, and I gotta do it thorough. It’s the only way to make sure the flesh doesn’t turn sour.” He studied the boy’s eyes. “You know what I mean by that?”

  Willet nodded.

  “Then I’m gonna wrap it as well as I can. That’ll have to do until we get to Mesquite.”

  The boy’s brow furrowed.

  “It’s where they’re going next,” Cody explained. “They’ve stuck to the main road for the last several nights, and even though their party’s busted up, I suspect they’ll keep doing what they’ve been doing.”

  The mettle Cody had seen in the boy’s eyes back at the valley was slowly returning, and as before, it made Cody rue his own lack of courage.

  Willet asked, “How’ll they do their play with only two men?”

  “I don’t know about that, but I know the kind of men they are. They’re not going to stop killing just because of a setback.”

  Willet’s voice was barely audible. “They enjoy it.”

  Cody nodded. “They’ll be in Mesquite by tomorrow night, which means we gotta be there too.”

  In that same soft voice, Willet asked, “We gonna kill ’em?”

  “Right after we find someone to tend to this leg.” Cody cleared his throat, tapped Willet on his good knee. “You ready now?”

  The boy stared down at his wounded leg, nodded several times. Steeling himself, Cody could see. You’re a brave kid, he thought.

  He submerged Willet’s leg in the water.

  The boy hissed, sat forward and nearly toppled into the water onto Cody. But Cody braced the boy with a shoulder, one hand grasping Willet by the thigh, the other massaging the wounded calf underwater to work as much of the dirt and lead residue free as he could. Willet howled, batted at Cody’s face, but Cody kept at it, kneading the meat of the boy’s calf in the cool dark water.

  “Son of a biiiiiitch,” Willet groaned, but the words sounded like sobs.

  “Almost done,” Cody said and swished the leg around in the water. The boy’s body was a tense, shivering plank, and without thinking Cody heard himself whispering words his father had whispered long ago, whenever Cody had torn himself on a nail or sprained an ankle horsing around: “I know, honey. I know.”

  The words seemed to have an effect on Willet, whose body relaxed just a little, so Cody repeated them, a trifle louder this time. Willet still sobbed, but it sounded like the tail end of a cry now, the worst having spent itself in the crisp night air. “I know, honey…” Cody whispered. He swished the leg slowly, the small, bare foot making tiny eddies in the water. “I know.”

  Carefully, he eased Willet backward onto the creek bank. He bent the boy’s knees, placed the wet feet on the soft grass. Then he hauled himself out of the water, plucked the leather saddlebag off of Sally’s flank and fished out the cleanest thing he had, a once-white handkerchief Angela had bought for him a couple years before. Funny, but as he swaddled Willet’s leg with the cloth and tied it, he didn’t feel anything at all at the thought of his dead wife. He doubted the emotional numbne
ss was permanent, but it was a welcome change from the mixture of shame and rage that had been afflicting him since that night outside Tonuco.

  The night he’d watched them murder Angela.

  “You called me honey,” Willet said.

  Cody gave a little start and glanced down at the boy, who was eyeing him from the bed of grass. Getting to his feet and fetching their clothes, Cody answered, “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay,” Willet said, his voice subdued. “My mama used to call me that.”

  “Yeah?” Cody said. He sat down on the moist grass beside the boy. Careful to use the present tense, he asked, “What’s she like?”

  “Pretty,” Willet said. “She’s big for a woman, but she’s pretty. Light hair. Nice smile. She’s got a pig tail on her lip.”

  Cody frowned, worried the boy was slipping into incoherence. “What do you mean she had—she has a pig tail on her lip?”

  “It’s a scar,” Willet said, smiling a little. “She got it when she was a kid. Her brother—my uncle Matthew—was whippin’ around a rock he’d tied up with a piece of string.”

  “Hit his sister, did he?”

  “The rock did. When it came loose of the string.”

  “Bet that hurt.”

  “I’m sure. But her daddy—my granddaddy—said, ‘Martha, if you don’t stop cryin’ long enough for me to stop the bleeding, you just might die from that rock’.” Willet grunted. “I guess that did it. She stopped cryin’ right away.”

  “Tough gal.”

  “They dragged her outa the house,” Willet said, his voice suddenly thick with grief. “They made her go inside that goddamned coach of theirs. The black one.” Willet shivered, stared up at the night sky with brimming eyes. “I heard her screamin’. I heard those bastards laughin’ at her. She kept screamin’ and—”

  Willet broke off with a convulsive sob. Cody lay next to him and held his hand. They stayed that way several minutes, Cody telling the boy it was all right to cry, that he didn’t blame Willet for feeling the way he did. After a time the tears subsided, and Willet lay there in a morose silence.