Desmond grabbed the nearest man. He spun him around to use as a shield against the remaining men. In formation, the men moved like armored vehicles. An agent threw a slow, telegraphed blow. As a squad, they depended too much on their armor to absorb much of the punishment. Desmond sidestepped the blow. He jammed his sword into the gears of the man’s arm. This severed the limb at the shoulder.
Desmond blocked two punches with the sheath of his cane. He thrust it into the man’s gut. Desmond dropped to one knee and spun. His blade sliced across the man’s legs. It clanged, metal on metal. He rolled before the man stomped where Desmond’s head once was. Scrabbling to his feet, Desmond barely managed to avoid a punch. He turned to his left and ducked. He hooked his cane handle to the man’s ankle. Sweeping his feet out from under him, Desmond cracked the man in the head as he fell.
Cayt slid under a wild punch, pivoted, and slammed her elbow into a man’s groin. Twice for good measure. The man dropped his weapon. She head-butted him and let him drop to the ground.
Lij stood near the door, between Desmond and Cayt. “Beautiful Dancer” played like a mechanical flute.
“We have unfinished business, you and I.” Cayt took in ragged gasps of air.
“How so?” Desmond breathed heavily, taking a slow step away from the pile of men.
“You need to hand the boy over to me.”
“The boy is my charge.”
“And I have an employer to report to.” Cayt held out her arm. No weapon sprang to her hand. She hunted for a pulse weapon.
Desmond grabbed Lij with such force, the boy dropped his music box. A low wail grew to a mad howl as Lij kicked and screamed. Dashing through the saloon lobby, Desmond ran with the boy under his arm to the street. A mechanical horse was parked at the curb. He slung the keening boy on top of the horse, pressing him hard—he was afraid, too hard—into the horse’s nape for fear the lad in his fit would wriggle free and fall off. With a yell, Desmond spun the horse into action.
Cayt ran onto the street and fired once after them.
Desmond’s side burned, but he couldn’t chance checking his wound until they got free of Tejas’ borders. With their enemies pressing in on them, they had to keep moving to make it into the Five Civilized Tribes territory.
III. : Fire
BLOOD PUDDLED at Desmond Coke’s feet, creating clumps of ruddy mud. He’d opened his wound again. The ache in his side reduced to a dull throb, he braced himself against the outcrop of exposed tree roots, his pulse gun drawn. Pressed into the makeshift hutch, his breath issued in thick plumes on the unusually frigid air. Palming the modified Colt Mustang with both hands to secure his blood-slickened grasp, the gun grip fit into his palm like a smooth stone. Palming it during the melee at the Redeemer, he never trusted the weapon, but he realized its necessity. He even managed to acquire a new charge pack for it. He preferred his sword, but that was back at the camp. Desmond lowered his head and closed his eyes, straining his ears, knowing he’d hear nothing. He chanced a peek above the ridge. He swore shadows skulked among the tree line, drawing nearer to his position moving through the woods, little more than a determined breeze barely rustling leaves in their passing. Searching for him and the boy.
The air thickened with the threat of another incoming storm, redolent with the cloying smell of budding trees. The nearby creek swelled high along its bank, full due to all the recent rain. Its harsh susurrus joined the chorus of night sounds. Birds called to one another and the trees thrummed with the calls of cicadas. The gentle breeze picked up, deepening the chill and flecking the occasional drop of rain from overhanging leaves onto him. Desmond turned up the collar on his jacket. A voice echoed among the trees. No, not among the trees: in his mind. Perhaps. Low and raspy, something just north of sultry yet with the steel edge of mocking to it.
“You have something my employer wants,” Cayt said.
“Someone,” Desmond corrected, not sure if he spoke the words or thought them.
“People. Minerals. Technology. Everything is a resource. The more scarce the resource, the more value it has to those who wish to control them.”
“And you are no more than your master’s mawga foot lapdog.”
“Maybe so. Tell me how much you enjoy my bite.”
Pain sliced through his side with the exertion. The reopened wound nagged at his muscles, taunting his every movement. He feared infection. With the air temperature dropping, the cold cut deep to his marrow. Long used to the warm Jamaican sun, his blood ran thin. The bleak winter had been long and hard and he thought he might never know warmth again.
Through the brush, the raised tracks of the maglev train snaked through the woods. His ears had popped the last time a train sped through. He could only guess its speed as it wound its way through the Five Civilized Tribes’ main cities. The nation spread all along the West Coast of the continent. Sure-footed as a goat, Desmond climbed down the embankment along a path he traversed. He crouched low at the sudden crunch of leaves. He held his breath, hoping that a falling branch caused the sound. Brushing aside the still-bare branches, he spotted them long before he heard their tell-tale mechanical whirl.
A mechanical beast approximating the shape of a wolf stalked through the trees. When the moon peeked from behind its cloud cover, Desmond managed to make out two other similar shapes in the patrol pack. Pairs of red eyes peered in his direction. Pushing his back against the thick tree trunk, he shielded himself from their photoelectric stare. He timed the interval between their patrols and was thankful for the increased cover spring leaves would bring to help hide them from the view of the mechanical eagles which soared by day. Still, the pattern of the patrol had changed, bringing them too near to their camp. In the morning, he and the boy would have to make their way farther along the river. Perhaps they might make their way into Canada within the month, and maybe then he might feel a little bit safer.
Desmond limped back to the camp. His time as a member of the Niyabingi had prepared him well, just as his training allowed him to mask his pain. It would only worry the boy to see him hobbling about. He foraged for wood that would burn without smoke. Again, as he approached the camp, Desmond made enough noise to avoid startling the boy.
Lij barely turned his head in Desmond’s direction, as if noting him from the corner of his eye was all the acknowledgement needed. Never the chattiest of children to begin with, Lij had become more withdrawn in recent weeks. Much longer on the run and Desmond feared he might lose him altogether. Constantly retreating to his thoughts, Lij’s mind slowly collapsed under its own gravity, from which he rarely escaped. He wore a simple drop-shouldered collarless white shirt under a soot-colored sack coat and matching hat. Looking at his mud-smudged face, Desmond was reminded how young the boy was.
Desmond had become alert to the fact that they were the prey to some unseen hunter when they trekked through northern Tejas. They had rented a room at a hotel on the seedier side of Amarillo, both to disappear among the ranks of the poor and forgotten and because everywhere else they had traveled, they stuck out too much. Ever the obroni, the outsider, as his people called him. A Jamaican in a grey, single-breasted pinstripe suit, its full jacket draping down to his knees. A light red shirt, mostly hidden by a yellow cross-hatched vest, topped with a green bow tie. And he was still too brown, with too much accent.
In retrospect, he might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on the pair of them.
They left Tejas with a much lighter pack and a wardrobe more appropriate for their travels. Desmond still favored wearing a suit, but it was coal-colored, with no flamboyant shading to his shirt nor pocket square. The suit had not been spared in their march through the woods. Mud smeared the underside of his sleeve and he didn’t want to contemplate the source of the greasy stain along his pants. His black trilby hat perched at an odd angle on his head, yet he stopped to pick free a stray thread from his cuff.
Heading into the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes was a dangerous-enough gambit, but they�
��d crossed over the contested California border without incident. Despite the day’s newspaper proclaiming Regent Clinton’s latest dalliances, the expansion engine of Albion marched inexorably forward. Not content with their portion of the American colony, the Albion Empire had its hands full: flexing its muscle in an attempt to rattle rival power Jamaica; disputes with Tejas; and distracted by their attempts to compromise the aboriginal people’s border. Albion’s forces were more focused on those who might attempt to sneak out rather than in.
Desmond tended to the campfire to keep it low. He would murder a small village to roll a spliff. But chiba leaves were in short supply these days, and he had more urgent needs rather than draw further attention to them with his inquiries: he needed to close the wound in his side. His mother had taught him to sew a long time before, and though he’d forgotten the finer points of technique, he could make do with a needle and thread. Without those at his disposal, he opted for a cruder measure. Withdrawing the blade hidden within his cane, he placed it in the fire.
“Raasclaat!” he cursed when he pressed the heated metal against his wound.
“Raasclaat,” Lij echoed.
Desmond paused for a moment, then burst out laughing, a dark, hiccupping shudder over his pain. The boy turned to him with a curious expression like he was trying to identify an insect he’d never seen before. “No, Lij. You shouldn’t say that. It’s not . . . appropriate.”
The boy turned back to the bobbing flickers. Desmond fixed them a simple stew of game meat and ate it with biscuits he’d picked up from the last town they’d passed through. Desmond longed for a plate of ackee and saltfish. He’d never truly developed a taste for it when Lij’s age. He’d hated the way the heavy aroma filled his house when his mother fixed it every Saturday morning. But nothing would taste more like home, would nurse the true parts of his soul, like a plate of it right now.
“Home,” Lij said without preamble. The word came so sudden and unexpected, it somewhat alarmed Desmond.
“You want to go home?”
“Home.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean. We have to keep moving if I’m going to keep you safe. . . .” Desmond’s voice trailed off with the realization that this was their life now: never settling down, always on the move. Sweat beaded Desmond’s forehead, his skin flushed with fever. Checking his wound for striation, he feared he might be succumbing to infection. If chills set in, he would be in serious trouble. He had been on excursions in worse conditions during his time as a member of the Niyabingi, but the boy shivered, despite being so close to the fire. This was no life for a child. Even one as special as Lij.
“Can you tell me a story?” Lij asked. A ring of command hinted at the edge of the boy’s voice.
“We Jamaicans are some of the best storytellers on the planet.” Desmond smiled broadly, allowing the rare glimpse of the full whites of his teeth. “Stories are our cultural inheritance, passed down, parent to child, connecting us to our past.” The boy said nothing but stared absently into the fires as if calculating the mathematical rhythms of the flames’ dance. Perhaps what they both needed was somethng with the familiar ring of home to it. Desmond cleared his throat.
“Each of the great rivers of Jamaica were guarded by water spirits known as the River Mumma. Some people say that they protected the source of those rivers. In the sun, they looked like the most beautiful of women, their long black hair falling down across their bare bodies. From the waist down, they had the body of a large fish. Few dared to anger a River Mumma, not even risking to fish near where one might rest. The fish of that river were thought to be her children, so no one ate them. Some people whispered that if the River Mumma was captured, the river would dry up. And if you ever met a River Mumma’s eyes, then dog nyam yuh suppa!
Desmond found himself imitating his mother’s voice and cadence as he slipped into Jamaican patois. He’d been very conscious of not speaking in patois around Lij. The old lessons of language were hard to unlearn and be free of. It had long been drilled into him that patois was spoken by the common people. Proper English was the language spoken by and to outsiders. Maroon, true descendants of the Ashanti people, spoke Asante-Twi with each other. Neither he nor Lij were truly Maroon, though raised among them. They were obroni who only had each other. Nearly lost in the telling of the story, he paused to see if he still held what passed for Lij’s attention.
Lij’s eyes flicked from the fire to Desmond, back to the flames: the man’s cue to continue.
In days gone by, people would go to the river at sacred times and make sacrifices to her when they wanted to cross the river she guarded. They would come and dance myal for her, but you don’t know about that. Myal was deep magic, the dance that called on our ancestors. And they brought food for the River Mumma.
“Why?” Lij asked without turning to Desmond.
“Because the River Mumma were the guardians of secrets and secrets, like mysteries, were to be respected.
There came a time when a great drought fell upon the land. The workers at a sugar estate persuaded the owner to sacrifice an ox to the River Mumma so that she would cause it to rain. The owner had little use for his workers “superstitious nonsense,” but curiosity arose in him and he wanted to see this guardian for himself. If she were as powerful as they claimed, then perhaps the secrets she protected would also be of great value.
So the owner followed his workers to the great rock where the River Mumma rested. The noonday sun crawled across the sky. From a distance, he saw a figure reclining, combing her long black hair. At the sound of his approach, she turned and their eyes met, but only for an instant. She disappeared. When the owner reached the spot where she once sat, the only thing remaining was her long, gold comb. Then he caught a flash out the corner of his eye.
The owner turned to the waters. Something bobbed just beneath the surface. It was like a table of pure gold. Intricate drawings carved onto its surface and along its side, like an old story inscribed onto it, before any language put its tale into words. It was beautiful, and its terrible beauty stirred his heart more than if he stared into the eyes of the love of his life. But the lust it excited soured just as quickly, turning into a dark obsession. He had to claim it as his own. He reached out to the water and just as he disturbed the waves, the table sank, taking its mesmerizing beauty and story and secrets with it. Clutching the gold comb, the owner vowed that the golden table would belong to him and him alone.
The next day, over the protests of his workers, the owner drove a dozen high-shouldered oxen to the great rock where the River Mumma stayed. None of his workers accompanied him, refusing even his direct orders. He fixed mighty chains to the oxen and waited for the midday. When the sun shone overhead, the table reappeared. The owner dove into the water and hitched the chains to the table before it had a chance to sink. He bobbed at the surface, shouted commands to his oxen team, but before they could move, the chains snapped taut. The owner barely had a chance to glimpse the table before it dragged the chains, and the oxen team attached to them, under the waves.
The owner thrashed about in the water, caught in the undertow of the water’s current, the tangle of chains, and the desperately terrified keening oxen. Something lashed against his foot, then dragged him under the waves. Only then did he have a moment to recognize the River Mumma against the darkness of the water. Her teeth green as the barnacles under a rotting boat. Wizened hands, long and veiny. Flexing claws as sharp as shark’s teeth. Her red eyes against the shadow of her face, framed by her hair, which floated lifeless, like seaweed caught in the swirling eddies of water.
The river claims all who try to remove that which does not belong to them. And that is why the duppies of all who try haunt the bridges of rivers as the noonday sun passes overhead.
Desmond let a silence settle over them. There was no awkwardness to it, though it wasn’t quite the amiable quiet between friends. Lij observed the flames with the intensity of them possibly being extinguished withou
t his constant stare.
A wary itch tickled at the edge of Desmond’s mind, like the ghost of a presence. Something was wrong. A primitive part of his brain, some survival instinct he’d long learned to listen to, urged him to full attention. The stillness grew thick with measure. More an awareness of not being alone than anything else. A fistful of dry brush in his hands, he cocked his head, craning it toward any hint of sound, any careless crackle of leaves or snap of a branch. Nothing. But the nothing chilled him even more. No birdsong. No frog warble. No cicada hum. No smattering of night noise. Only the palpable silence.
“Shhh.” Desmond put a lone finger to his lips.
Lij matched the gesture as if Desmond made too much noise with the movement.
Grabbing his tan-handled cane, he twirled it once with a flourish, tipped his hat to Lij, and crept to the edge of their camp. Desmond circled with his back to the child while scanning the forest line. “Lij, stay behind me.”
The boy looked up, turned about as if he’d been called upon in class, then shook his head.
“Lij!” Desmond spoke in a stern stage whisper through clenched teeth, but Lij turned his attentions back to the flames.
“I think he knows you’re surrounded.” A man suddenly appeared, within an arm’s reach, as if stepping from Desmond’s shadow. Desmond casually took in the man, not betraying any surprise, though he hadn’t heard a whisper of his approach. Powerfully built, he wore a blue shirt over dun trousers. A maroon print shawl wrapped about his head, neck, and shoulders. Desmond couldn’t place the man’s accent. He had none of the affected drawl of a man from of Tejas, but there wasn’t any trace of an Albion accent. Yet he spoke English with the same ease as wearing an uncomfortably fitting shoe. He pronounced each word slowly and clearly, precise, the way he moved.
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