by North, Geoff
“Our parents are dead,” Willem mumbled.
No one had heard him. They were too busy hoisting Bloody-nose off of his competitor and up and into the air. The kill him chant had been replaced with the victor’s name.
Arlo! Arlo! Arlo! Arlo!
Willem looked up at his brother. Cobe saw fear and dread. The boy’s coveted seat up in the dead tree was the last thing on his mind now.
Chapter 38
The hole in Edna’s head had healed over well. All that remained of Lothair’s intrusion into the woman’s brain was a patch of white skin he’d burned the hair away from, and some dried blood. Jenny hated the man for doing it—for chipping through her mother’s skull with a sharp stone until there was a hole big enough to feed the pail-handle wire through. Jenny had fought in vain against the strength of her father’s arms as her great-great grandfather burrowed in with the crude hook and fished inside for the piece of grenade shrapnel lodged somewhere up against the underside of her skull. He had found it, and he’d worked it deftly back through the opening while Jenny’s mother had stared off into space with strings of drool hanging from her chin.
Jenny hadn’t wanted him to perform the crude operation—she didn’t believe her mother could survive anymore trauma. She hated Lothair for proving her wrong, and she loathed herself even more for trying to stop it. Edna Eichberg was aware now. Her pink eyes were no longer vacant and unfocused. She could see Jenny, and she knew Jenny was her daughter. But for some reason, Edna still hadn’t spoken. Perhaps there had been more brain damage caused from Lothair’s prodding. Or maybe she had decided to remain silent. Jenny thought it might be the latter—her mother knew who she was, and she was keeping quiet for a reason.
She wants to talk to me alone. She doesn’t want the others to know that she’s…back.
Edna was more aware than even Jenny gave her credit for. It was if she could read her daughter’s mind. The woman offered her the hint of a smile that said follow me, and closed her eyes.
Jenny looked around the forest to see if anyone was watching. A number of people they’d found living in the trees had scattered after Ivan Tevalov took an arrow in the gut with a grim smile. He’d pulled it out and chased the boy down who’d shot it. An even greater amount had fled when he’d grappled the boy to the ground like a pouncing cat and torn his spine out of his back in one swift, bloody movement. Those few brave fools left had attacked Tevalov and were quickly brought down by Jenny’s father, Aleea Shon, and Lothair. Leonard Dutz didn’t like killing—there wasn’t a shred of violent capability in the man’s heart—but he ate the people the other cryers had slaughtered without hesitation.
Jenny looked at Lenny now, sitting up against a tree with a partially consumed leg spread across his lap. He looked dull and sleepy—gorged from eating the rotting roller eyeballs he’d carried from the plains into the hills and on human flesh to the point of mindless intoxication. Aleea and Ivan were nowhere to be seen. A scream sounded from somewhere deeper in the forest—an agonizing wail of fear cut off in mid-wail. It wasn’t the first scream Jenny had heard in the last hour. Aleea and Ivan were hunting, and they were good at it. That only left Jenny’s father. He was standing in front of the big tree, next to the black slit Lothair had dragged the old woman into. The colonel was on guard—as if any of them needed it.
Jenny gave him a warning look, and her father turned away. He would guard over the old fucker inside the tree with his life—that’s what men like him were trained to do. But another part of him was her father, and she sensed he knew what Jenny and Edna were up to.
Jenny closed her eyes and went to see her mother.
***
Dirty glared at the pink-eyed monster sitting across from her and showed him her green tooth. She rubbed it along her upper lip, working up a mouthful of saliva to either spit in his face, or swallow back the dry fear in her throat.
“We can sit hear all day and night,” Lothair said. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where the two men and the two boys went.”
“Ain’t sayin’ piss to you.”
“You will eventually. I have all the time in the world.”
“You killed my children…my grand-children.”
“You have more family hiding in the forest. We won’t kill them all if you tell me what I need to know.”
“You’re a bunch of gawdamn murderers. I ain’t talkin’ no more about nothin’.”
Lothair looked at the collection of human skulls and bones hanging all around the hollowed-out section of trunk interior Dirty Gertie called home. “You know nothing about murder?”
“Trespassers get what they got comin’. We fuck ‘em, and sometimes people get killed…at least we don’t eat ‘em.”
Lothair shrugged. It would’ve been a disturbing comparison for any sane human to grasp. But Lothair wasn’t human any longer. He couldn’t see the moral difference—or maybe he just didn’t care. “I can wait. You will tell me what became of these four.”
He went to the opening and peered out. Colonel Strope asked. “Anything?”
“She knows where they went, but she isn’t talking…yet.”
“You want me to speak to her?”
Lothair spotted his great-granddaughter sleeping under a tree. Jenny was sitting next to her; the girl’s back was bent over, her head slumped down even further. It wasn’t the first time he’d caught her like this. None of them required sleep, so why was she napping? Perhaps she was sick. Or maybe it was something entirely different.
Lothair answered Strope. “No…you don’t need to talk to her. Keep an eye on your family…I have something else to look into.”
He slipped back inside the tree and found Gertie still huddled down in a twist of ancient roots and rotted leaves. She reminded him of a demon-hag from a tale his mother used to tell him when he was a small child growing up in Germany. If any small part of him had still been human, the sight of her filth-encrusted body and filmy grey eyes would have terrified Lothair. But a thousand years had passed since the telling of those childhood tales, and Lothair no longer knew what fear was.
“Get out,” he said to her.
“Eh?”
“I want to be alone.”
“Then go find another fuckin’ tree. There’s plenty out there.”
“I want to be alone in this tree. Leave now, or I’ll hunt down the rest of your family and feed them to mine.”
Dirty Gertie scrambled out on her hands and knees without further persuasion. Lothair settled in between the roots she’d left and leaned his back against the inside of the tree.
I haven’t slept in centuries. My eyes remained shut most of the time in that cryo-tube because I had nothing else to look at in the dark. But my mind never tired…I kept busy. I never once considered that I could sleep. I didn’t need to sleep—I didn’t want to.
Lothair closed his eyes and stepped into dream.
Chapter 39
“Fight!”
Lode pushed Lawson into the clearing of dirt towards his opponent. Lawson stumbled down onto one knee, but bounced back up quickly enough. He scolded himself inwardly. With all the shoving, kicking, and hitting he’d received the last few days, he figured he should’ve known by now when it was coming. He’d been humiliated and made a fool of for too long, and there wasn’t a gawdamn thing he could do about it—not unless he could find a big rock to hide under and left to recover for a month or two. There were plenty of rocks circling the pit, but the lawman knew he wouldn’t have the opportunity to hide under any of them.
The only chance he had to rest was to go through the man standing in front of him. If he could beat him—prove that he wasn’t too old and too busted-up to compete in the main event—the good people of Rudd would give him the rest of the day and night to rest. Mighty decent of them, he thought. It was a whole hell of a lot more than Lode would grant him. But the big man had grudgingly agreed to the terms; if Lawson bested his practice partner, he would allow the lawman a day of rest. No one
had asked what would happen if Lawson lost this preliminary. It wasn’t a fight to the death, but the lawman figured Lode would have some fitting punishment in mind.
Lawson’s opponent wasn’t in any hurry to rush into things. He was young, maybe only a year or two older than Cobe, and not much heavier. The lawman circled around him warily, like an old wolf summing up its prey. He didn’t want to hurt the kid too badly if he could help it.
Finish it quickly without breaking any bones. Give the boy something to think about before he volunteers to fight in any future Rites.
Lawson saw he had no fingers on his right hand. The skin there was smooth and freckled. The boy had been born that way. He doesn’t want to fight any more than I do. Volunteer my ass.
Lawson wanted to incapacitate him without causing serious damage. How could he do that? He remembered an old trick the young Cobe had retaught him days earlier out on the plains. He smiled grimly and staggered in a ridge of dirt. The boy saw his opening and lunged forward. Lawson fell back down onto one knee, anchored his other boot into the ridge, and drove his big shoulder into the boy’s stomach. He grabbed onto one of the flailing arms and flipped the kid onto his back. The lawman crawled over his winded opponent’s body easily enough and took hold between his legs. The boy was having enough trouble catching his breath without the added pain of having his testicles squeezed.
“Tap out,” the lawman ordered. “Smack the ground nice and hard or I’ll make jelly outta yer nuts.”
The kid answered by punching Lawson in the nose with the stump of his hand. The lawman heard his nose break before the pain hit. He felt blood on his lips, and his vision started to blur. Gawdamn, the kid’s dumber than he looks. Lawson squeezed harder, and the boy thumped against the dirt with both arms. Dumb, but not suicidal.
Lawson crawled off of him and wiped the blood away from his face.
“He’s a fucking cheater,” Lode yelled. “Make them go again!”
“Rules is rules,” Tog said. “Young Hareld tapped out. The match is done.”
Other competitors and workers started to shuffle away, booing and cursing at the result. Another young man walked by Hareld and spat in his face.
“Tough crowd,” Cobe said. He kneeled down with Willem next to the lawman. You want a cloth, or something?”
“Ain’t the first time I had my nose busted.”
Lode stood over the three. “You’re a coward, lawman. You fight dirty.”
“I fight to win.”
Trot appeared out from the receding crowd. “You’re the coward.” He thrust a finger up towards Lode’s face and yanked his pants up defiantly with his other hand. “You pick on folks when they’re down. You hurt and kill people that can’t look after themselves.”
Cobe expected the giant to kill him with one blow. Instead, Lode offered them all a malevolent smile. Trot cringed as the big man’s hand patted the top of his balding skull. “You amuse me sometimes, Trot. You shoot off your mouth without thinking… I’m not laughing today. I want to wipe that stupid look off your face.” He looked around at the men working in the dirt with their shovels and spades. “But then again, if I tore your head off now, a hundred of these men would likely be on me with their tools. I wouldn’t be around to see the lawman properly killed tomorrow.” He leaned down into Trot’s face. “But when this over, I’m coming for you first before the others.”
Cobe watched the crowd give way as Lode strode through. No one said a word until the giant had settled onto one of the higher rocks to keep an eye over things.
“I wish one of them rollers had stepped on his big ugly head a few days back,” Willem said.
Cobe was thinking the same thing. All of Lode’s men were dead. The rollers had crushed some, and the ones that survived that night in the plains had either been killed by Dirty Gertie’s family, or fled off into the woods to be picked off by something equally horrible. That only left Lode. And that was more than enough to guarantee none of the four would survive.
“You gotta watch that mouth of yers,” the lawman said.
Cobe thought he was talking to Willem, but saw Trot sitting next to him.
“Couldn’t help myself,” Trot answered. I just get so mad when he picks on folks. Besides, I don’t figure it much matters what I say now.”
Lawson spit a string of blood into the dirt. “Yeah… I reckon you got that right.”
“Some things never change,” a voice called out. They all turned and saw a woman with a younger girl approaching. “You couldn’t avoid punching people when you were younger, and I see you’re still at it.”
Lawson didn’t recognize her at first. The broken nose was still making his eyes water. He wiped the tears away with his big knuckles and smiled when the voice from his past matched up with the face. “Still gettin’ into trouble, yeah…but it seems like I’m takin’ more punches these days than I give.”
He tried standing but the woman guided him back down. “Stay where you are, old fool. Stand too fast and your friends here will have to pick you back up.”
The lawman did as he was told. “Sara…gawdamn…How long has it been?” He asked the woman, but his eyes were on the girl beside her.
“I seen you,” Willem interrupted, “you’re the woman that was gawkin’ out the window back in Rudd.”
“Mind how you talk, boy,” Lawson warned.
Sara waved it off and dug into her sack for a clean shred of cloth. “It’s alright, Lawson—I was gawking…thought I’d seen a ghost when you walked by the house.” She wet the cloth from a bottle of clean water her daughter held out and started cleaning the lawman’s busted face. “How long?” She glanced briefly at Kay. “At least fifteen years.”
Cobe stared at the young girl along with the lawman. All four of them could see plainly enough who Kay resembled. It left an unsettled, uncomfortable silence amongst them that Trot finally had to break. “You look just like the lawman, only a lot prettier and a whole lot younger.”
Kay forgot she had fingers and dropped the water bottle to the ground. “Ma?”
Lawson took hold of the woman’s wrist and gently lowered the blood-stained cloth away from his face. “Sara?”
“I don’t get it,” Willem said. “What’s going on?”
Sara’s bottom lip started to quiver. She spoke to none of them in particular and stared at the ground. “Stupid idea…Bringing her out here like this…I knew I should’ve left her at home.”
The lawman stood back up with a speed that defied the days of abuse his body had been through. He gave Cobe a little shove. “Take yer brother and go fer a walk.”
“Walk where?” Willem asked.
Cobe grabbed his arm and started away. “Come on.” Tog and Remee fell in behind the boys and followed them to another section of the pit where a second practice bout was about to begin.
Trot tugged at the lawman’s shirt sleeve excitedly. “I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but I think this girl is a relation of yours. I think you have family in Rudd!”
“Go away, Trot,” Lawson rumbled.
Trot gave him a final confused look and jogged off in his awkward way to join the boys.
Kay was torn between running after them and staying where she was. She decided to stay put. “Ma? Is this my… Pa?”
“Yes, he’s your father.”
Lawson dusted off his pants and tried straightening his shirt in an attempt to come off as more presentable. The pants were ground with mud, and the shirt was torn and stained in blood. “You both have one on me here, I’m afraid.” He offered Kay an apologetic look. “First I heard of it, miss.”
“I named her Kay.”
“You told me my Pa was dead—that a pack of howlers had caught him out on the plains when I was just a baby.”
“I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with howlers, but none of ‘em have finished me yet.”
He tried smiling, but the effect only startled Kay more. He was a bloody, loose-toothed mess. The girl ran away, skirting by worker
s and fighters, through the boulders, and out into the flat lands beyond.
Lawson wanted to go after her, but Sara held him back. “She’ll be alright. She just needs some time to let it sink in.”
“It ain’t safe out in the open.”
“It’s the middle of the day. Anything and anyone that could hurt her is here, inside this pit. She’ll run home…She’ll be safe.” Sara reached down for the bottle her daughter had dropped and spilled the last bit of water inside onto the cloth. She resumed wiping the blood and dirt away from the lawman’s face. “I wanted to tell you. There were days when she was still small that I almost packed up all we had to come south and find you.”
“Thirty miles,” Lawson whispered. “All the places I been and seen in the last fifteen years and I never once travelled the thirty gawdamn miles between towns. I never knew…”
“Maybe it was for the best.” Sara threw the wet cloth into the dirt. It was more red than white now. “You haven’t changed…Still thinking with your fists instead of your brains. What kind of life would that have been for her?”
“I ain’t here by choice. I was headed west—towards Victory Island with them other three. I was gonna start over—show them boys a different way of livin’. The older one is special…He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and I figured I could teach him some things…Maybe steer him on a path someday that could help all the other folks in these shit-forsaken towns.” Lawson spit more blood and pointed to the big figure sitting in the rocks. “That monster-sized fuck up there is called Lode. He caught up to me and brought the four of us here.”
“You fought and almost died in the Rites sixteen years ago. Do you remember the reason?” Sara shook her head and answered for him. “Some people in Burn put your horse down and you beat up half the town in a drunken rage. Now here you are, all this time later, preparing to fight again.”
“I said it wasn’t my fault. Not this time.”
