by Tonia Brown
* * *
Armed with little more than my fading wits and my mentor’s sacrifice, I headed east traveling as fast as my feet could carry me. The area was dry and rocky, with small hills and valleys all along the way. Hours spent climbing, only to find the plateau dropped down again into another recess. It didn’t take long for my belly to begin griping, and after a few hours it was all I could do to move, much less climb the uneven path before me. I needed rest. Even worse, I needed water. In my haste to flee the burning town, I failed to stop and fill my now useless bottles.
Above all, I needed a lookout. There was no way I could sleep safely with the undead wandering the area. Just as I began to wonder how I would survive the night, I came across a single, scraggly tree. Its lowest branches were only a few feet off of the ground, which made it accessible for even my worn out body. There was a chance that the undead could climb those low branches as well. I knew the risks, and I was willing to take them. Better the advantage of slight height than lying around as an easy target on the ground. If they wanted to have me, they would have to work for their meal.
It took a nearly overwhelming amount of effort to get my aching bulk into even the lowest branch, much less climb high enough to feel safe. Safe of course was a relative term. Yet, I did feel safe. Safe enough to fall asleep right away. I supposed I would toss and turn in the cradle of the branches all night. I did not. Nary had I settled down when sleep swept me into her merciful arms. It was a benevolent empty bliss, free of worry, of pain, of nightmares. It was free of any kind of dreams, good or bad. I am uncertain if I was just too tired for dreams, or if it was the after effects of coming off Bowden’s morphine. That night in that tree I slept a single, dreamless span of untold hours.
It would be the last such peace to befall me for many nights to come.
The next morning came with what was surely a hallucination. The smell of frying bacon woke me from my deep slumber, sending my stomach into fits of agony. The doc had kept me on soft foods and liquids the last week or so because of my surgical site. I wasn’t sure of the last time I had a decent meal, much less bacon. I opened my eyes and looked up at the slowly brightening morning sky, wondering what kind of madness would lead me to imagine such a delicious smell.
“You finally awake?” someone said.
I froze on my perch. First the smell, now the voice. Surely I was losing my mind. Perhaps I had picked up an infection in my wound. Or maybe this was a further symptom of my morphine withdrawal.
“Answer me,” the voice said.
Clutching my bag to my chest, I leaned over the edge of my perch and peered down. A few scant feet beneath me stood a sight I never thought I would behold in all of the Badlands. I had, of course, seen many things that I never expected to see. Young men tied to crosses and infected with the virus to create clean revenant pelts. The undead leash trained and branded. Not just one, but two men who survived the virus, and were as different as night and day. Still, based on everything I knew about the Badlands, this sight was totally unexpected.
A woman stood at the base of the tree, aiming a rifle at me.
I rubbed my eyes and blinked. When my vision cleared, she was still there. A woman, back lit by the early light of dawn, but undeniably female. Unlike me, she didn’t try to hide her feminine features or obscure her figure. The first thing I noticed was the silhouette of her flared hips and prominent chest. In fact, I all but stared past the barrel of her rifle right down her blouse at the curve of her breasts peeking out above her under clothes. Bowden was right, I was spending too much time around the menfolk!
“Well?” she said, tightening her grip on her gun. “Cat got your tongue?” She spoke with the clipped accent of a northerner. Bostonian, or near as damn it.
“You’re a woman?” I said.
“Yes, yes I am. Does that bother ya?”
“No. I reckon not. I just wonder what a lady is doing in the—”
She laughed so suddenly, I jumped at the sound of it. I nearly fell from my precarious perch.
“Lady?” she said between fading giggles. “I know plenty of men who would argue that point. Personally, I wouldn’t go that far.” She kept her gun tight on me as she gave me a wide grin. “Well then, young man, I take it that it’s been some time since you’ve seen a woman?”
Young man? It took me a moment to realize that my façade still held true. My clothes and cropped hair and rude mannerism continued to sell me as a boy. Excellent. “Yes, ma’am. Been some time since I laid these sore eyes on the opposite sex.”
“Ma’am?” she said with a snort. “You kiss ya momma with that smart assed mouth?”
I started at the unexpected question. “My momma’s dead, ma’am.”
She held the gun on me for a few heartbeats, as if considering just how much of a threat a small thing like me could possibly be. I couldn’t blame her for that. I’d been around long enough to know that those who appeared least threatening tend to be the fiercest fighters.
“Tell you what,” she said as she lowered the gun. “Ya come down from that tree and break your fast and maybe we can talk about what you’re doing out here on your own. Deal?”
I thought on this a moment. Despite the gun, she seemed kind enough, which made me immediately suspicious of her. Folks in the Badlands didn’t get there from being nice to other folks. On the other hand, considering I didn’t have much more than a hanky full of dried beef and nothing to drink, there was nothing she could do to me that slow starvation or dehydration wouldn’t get done far slower and crueler. I peered past her form, to the cook fire and the pan of freshly made bacon. My stomach rumbled as I accepted her offer and slowly made my way down from my roost.
Once I was on my feet, the stranger backed away, returning to her camp without another word. She scooped up a plate of beans and pork, and sat it down on the ground to the far side of her camp, closest to my tree. I took this as an offering meant for me. Warily, I crept to her camp and snapped up the plate. I tried to pace myself, but I couldn’t mask my naked hunger. It didn’t help that the food was so good. In my time in this dreadful area, I had taken many a meal with quite a number of fellow outcasts, and while they were wildly different in company, there was common thread amongst the menfolk of the Badlands.
They were all mediocre cooks.
This woman, whoever she was, possessed a level of talent in the kitchen. It is a common mistake to think of the ability to cook as an inherent trait of the fairer sex. I, personally, never managed to master the culinary arts. Few of the women at the bordello could boil an egg, much less cook a meal. We had no one to teach us. Fortunately for me, this woman knew what to do with a pot of beans and bacon, and I showed my gratitude by gobbling my meal in quick mouthfuls.
“Whoa,” she warned. “Slow your horses there, kiddo. You’ll just throw it back up if you eat it that fast. Whatever you puke up, you’ll be eating for lunch.”
“Sorry,” I said around a mouthful of food. “It’s just so good.”
“Thank you. I always had a talent for cooking. My momma taught me, and her momma before her. My momma is dead too, in case you were wondering.”
I slowed my eating to a healthy speed, enjoying each warm morsel as it passed down my grateful throat.
“Here,” the stranger said, passing me a tin cup. “Before you ask, it’s just water.”
She hadn’t needed to explain. At that point, I would’ve eaten a lump of poison if she had baked it into the shape of a biscuit. Heck, I probably would’ve eaten it in pure lump form, hungry as I was. I accepted the cup eagerly and emptied it in a few gulps. She didn’t offer me another one. I finished my meal and unashamedly licked the plate of every scrap until it was clean enough to pass as washed.
I sat the plate and cup near the dying fire and scrambled away to sit with my back against the tree. My stomach still hurt, only just from the stiches and not such raw hunger. I
palpated my wound, pleased at how much less it pained me today than even yesterday, though it still hurt quite a lot to the touch. I reckoned in a few days it might fade to a dull ache, and a week or so it might stop hurting altogether. Bowden was a hell of a surgeon, and I bore the proof.
As I surreptitiously inspected my wound, the stranger busied herself packing down her campsite. She leaned over to pick up my well licked plate and smiled at it, then at me. “Git your fill, did ya?”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I said. I suppose it sounded like such a rude question, especially after the kindness she had shown me. But I knew better. If my time in the Badlands taught me one lesson it was that everything, even a simple meal, came with a price.
At my question she lost her pleasant smile in favor of worry. “How long have you been traveling out here?”
“Long enough to know nothing is free.”
With a heavy sigh, she piled up the dishes, pulled her bedroll nearer to me and took a seat on it. Slowly and not too close, as if situating herself beside a wild animal. She propped her arms on her knees and stared at me for a quiet moment. I did my best to look as though her proximity didn’t bother me, though in truth I wanted to scurry back up the tree and wait for her to get on her way and leave me alone.
“If I wanted to hurt you,” she finally said at length, “I’d have killed you while you slept instead of wasting food on you. I just want to know who you are and what you’re doing out here alone. I promise, that’s all.”
“Who are you?” I said.
“Fair enough,” she said. “My name is Maribel Deacon. Though most folks call me Mab.”
I digested the tone of her voice, and decided she can make up any name she wants. I was already lying to her about my sex so I went whole hog. “I’m Sam. Sam Martin.”
Mab held out her hand. I eyed it warily, then took it into my own and bore down as hard as I could in my grip, just like Mr. Theo taught me. The stranger matched my firm grip with a powerful grip of her own, though I could tell she was holding back a bit considering my lesser size. She gave a low whistle as she released my hand.
“Quite a firm handshake you have there, Sam,” she said.
“You too, Miss Deacon,” I said. I don’t know why, but this simple fact made me want to trust her. I pushed that feeling down and continued to appear unperturbed by her presence.
“What were you doing in that tree by yourself?”
“Sleeping.”
“Alone?”
I shrugged. “Tree’s best place to sleep when you ain’t got a lookout. Undead aren’t as active around these parts. Still, don’t want to be on the ground should one come sniffing by.”
“I meant why are you traveling alone, kiddo?”
She asked the question so gently, it made me want to weep and bury myself in her arms. The terror from the last few days welled up inside me, begging to be let off like the steam of a raging boiler. Instead, I looked away, swallowed the rising panic and shrugged again.
“Look,” she said. “I’m not trying to pry, but you’re just a child. I know you weren’t put out to pasture by those bastards back east. At least, I hope to God you weren’t. Last time I looked they weren’t in the habit of exiling children. So, what in the hell are you doing out here by yourself?”
My panic changed, shifting from the aftermath of dealing with Dillon to this new unexpected threat. In my rushed escape, I never thought about a cover story. What was I doing by myself in the Badlands? I didn’t know anything about this woman. I couldn’t tell her the truth, least she take it and me right on back to Dillon’s clutches. I had planned on telling the border patrol exactly why I needed to get across, or at the very least get a message across the line. I couldn’t tell this woman the truth of that either. The truth about the cure. Not, at least, until I knew more about her and her purpose here. Not until I knew I could trust her.
I scrambled, piecing together a narrative from truths and creative lies.
“I’m training,” I said. “For skinning revenants.”
“Apprenticing for the skin trade?” Mab said and raised her eyebrows. “Under who?”
“Excuse me?”
“Who has been teaching you?”
“Nobody so far. My new master never came for me.” I swallowed hard again, the lump of lies catching in my throat. “He was supposed to meet me at the border. He didn’t show.”
“How long did you wait?”
“Almost a week. The border guards said I couldn’t stay there anymore, eating up their supplies, so I headed out to look for him. They warned me not to go. I should’ve listened to them. I didn’t know it was like this. I should’ve went home.” That part at the very least was true. I can still remember that handsome young soldier warning me to turn back while I still could. I should’ve heeded his warning and ran as far from Boudreaux as my legs could carry me.
“Yes. You should’ve. How long have you been traveling out here by yourself?”
“Couple of weeks.”
She blinked in surprise. “You survived on your own out here for a couple of weeks? Congratulations, kiddo, you’re one heck of a fighter. Most folks die within a few hours.”
“Do they?”
“Yes. The rest of them end up in the company of…well, let’s just say if the undead don’t get ya out here, you’ll end up wishing they did. Know what I mean?”
“I think I do.” I left it at that, knowing better than to embellish my tale. It was a lesson I learned in my time at the workhouse, when I first cut off my hair and took on my new male identity. Keep your story simple. Always make them ask for more. Never volunteer information.
“Who was supposed to be teaching you?” Mab said. “I know most of the trappers in this area, maybe I can get you to him.”
Ah, geesh. That was a delicate question with nothing but unsuitable answers. She would never believe the truth, that my mentor was the reclusive Theophilus Jackson. I only knew one other soul involved in the trade, and I hesitated to mention him. “Um, I’m not sure. My workhouse boss sent me out to meet the man. Something French, I think.”
“French?” She eyed me again with cautious worry. “Does the name Aleixandre Boudreaux ring a bell?”
“I think so. That sounds familiar.”
“In that case, consider yourself lucky. Boys under his care tend to have very short lifespans.”
“Not to doubt you, ma’am, but it seems boys everywhere have very short lifespans these days.”
She smiled. “True enough. Well, in this case, there was an accident at his place a few weeks ago. Took out him and his entire crew. I’m surprised your workhouse boss didn’t find out about it before you left. Must’ve just missed the news.”
Either she didn’t know about his revenant ranch or just didn’t want to share the disturbing information. “I’m not surprised. Those places are pretty overcrowded. He probably knew and pushed me out the door anyways.” I faked a sigh of disappointment, not difficult considering my real situation. “What do I do now? I can’t go back to the workhouse, but I can’t stay here.”
“Not to worry. I can run you back to the border if you like.”
Hosts of heavens, hosannas and hallelujahs! All at once, the burden of the last few hours lifted from me, leaving my aching soul lighter than it had been in a long time. Passage to the border in the company of at least a sensible caretaker? It was too good to be true. I almost pinched myself at her words.
“Can you?” I said. “Will you?”
“I can and I will,” she said. “I plan on heading back after I finish my work here. Won’t be any trouble at all to let you tag along.”
My hope slid a little. How long would her work take? “You have business out here?”
“Sure. You don’t think I just wander around this place for the fun of it, do you?”
“Of course not.�
�� I paused and gathered my manners, trying not to sound too eager to learn more about her. “If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of work do you do?”
“The kind I don’t talk about.” She stood and began packing her things again as she explained the way of things to me. “It might take me a while to finish my business out here, but until then you can stay with a friend of mine. I won’t lie to you. He won’t be happy to have another mouth to feed. But if you work hard and earn your keep, he’ll warm up to you. I should only be a week or so, maybe less if things go well. Once I am done, I’ll swing back through here and pick you up on my way back east. Sound good?”
My heart sank at the news. A week? I supposed the world waited fifteen years for a cure, they could wait another week or so. An extra week spent waiting on a well-armed and supplied escort was far better than going now with no escort and no supplies and only a slim hope of ever reaching my goal.
“Sounds good,” I said.
Mab must’ve heard the disappointment in my voice, because she stopped packing and looked to me. “You can go on now if you like. I won’t make you come with me. I mean, you’ve survived this long by yourself. Surely you don’t need me to walk you back to the line.”
I stared into the distance, toward the east, then looked back to Mab. “No ma’am, I probably don’t. Still, I’ve waited before, and look where it got me.”
She smiled and gave me a wink. “I’ll be back before you know it.” Mab got back to packing her camp down. “You might even find yourself wanting to stay. It’s a meager little township, but the folks are nice and it’s as good a place to call home as anywhere in this miserable country.”
