“Yes, he would.” Dek holsters his own gun. “Stand down, Ren. You did good.”
But Ren still doesn’t lower the pistol, and his eyes are all wide-pupilled and spooked, his breath coming in short pants that wreathe him in mist. Dek has to walk over and put his hand on Ren’s wrist, ease his arm down, before Ren will look at him. “I could have....”
“No. You did exactly the right thing at the right time. You saved our lives, and damn, you’re good.” And a lot scarier than the poacher, Dek thinks, because Ren gave no warning. He moved so fast, so naturally, even Dek was taken in by his playacting. The guy had no chance. “Come on—we need to sort this mess out.”
Ren clenches his jaw as if he’s about to puke, and Dek gives serious consideration to just mounting up and moving them past this, but his practical nature says they can’t. “Ren, I need your help. Freak out later.”
Ren nods jerkily and dismounts. Hoping the familiar activity will calm him down, Dek lets him secure their animals while Dek goes back to the body to search it. He doesn’t bother with ID—doesn’t care who he was or where he came from. He just wants whatever they can use and to strip the man’s urtibes. The man was low on supplies but not so low they can’t supplement their own with what’s left (Dek won’t make the obvious observation that they’ve got back about the same amount as they gave away, because Ren won’t take that well.)
He briefly considers butchering the tjuwai because the waste is appalling, but they’re not good eating, and Dek figures the stress that looking at the sad little pelt will cause Ren, isn’t worth it. So he drags it off the path so it can be returned to the great circle of nature, and become another tjuwai. The poacher, he shoves over the edge with Ren’s help because burying’s too good for him. By the time anyone in officialdom discovers it, if they ever do, the poacher will be nothing but scattered bones, and Dek will hopefully be back in his own home, hundreds of pardecs away.
They take the man’s knives and guns and blankets, but Dek smashes the illegal traps because he hates that kind of viciousness. The pelts they keep to trade or give away, and the same with the other equipment they can carry easily. They leave the saddle at the side of the trail and let the urtibes go, since they don’t need a fourth, and it’ll do just fine out here on its own. They make good eating but Dek didn’t even consider killing it—it would have been an insult to his own faithful three. He decides not to mention his reasoning to Ren, though it would probably amuse him.
Ren’s gone very quiet and white, and is holding himself like the foetus is kicking him again, which it has been with increasing regularity over the last two weeks. “Come on,” Dek says. “Let’s move on a bit and make early camp. Hot pools tomorrow with any luck.”
Ren mounts up without a word, and doesn’t speak at all for the rest of the day, even when Dek makes camp and they’re sitting around the fire. It’s awkward, because Dek’s lost any knack he ever had of offering comfort, and the last thing he wants to do is get Ren to open up, but at the same time, he’s seen soldiers who looked like this, get up and blow their heads off with their own weapons before now. So he gathers his courage and puts his hand on Ren’s wrist. “He really was going to kill us. Seen the type before. He was just getting us into the best position for him. Probably would have made us dig our own graves if the ground wasn’t frozen.”
Ren’s face is bloodless, despite the heat from the fire. “I know. I don’t know how I knew, but...I could sense his...glee. His smugness. But that wasn’t the reason I...I just knew. And it was like it all laid out in front of me, how I could stop him. I just did it. I didn’t warn him. I just executed him.”
Dek squeezes Ren’s wrist again, hard enough to feel through the layers. “It was him or us. If you’d warned him, he’d have killed us there and then. I bet he’s killed before, on this very trail, on this trip even. You were right—he would have taken out those other people. You’ve got no reason to feel guilty.”
Ren turns to look at him with stark eyes. “But I don’t. That’s what horrifies me. I’m glad he’s dead. It felt good to kill him. And that’s revolting. That’s...not what I am. What I trained to be. I’m a doctor.”
“You’re also a soldier. You didn’t kill wantonly, you didn’t kill for fun—you did your job and that feels good. Let it go. You got plenty of reason to chew on things—don’t let this be one of them.”
Ren closes his eyes, shakes his head a little as if arguing with himself. “I don’t think I’d have done it before,” he murmurs. “They changed me.”
“Everything changes us. They didn’t make you a bad person. If they had, I wouldn’t be doing this. Think about that.”
Ren looks at him, slightly startled. Starts to speak, then closes his mouth. He brings his other hand up and covers Dek’s with it, on his wrist. “Thank you. I know...talking about this...to me...makes you sick. But thank you. It helps.”
Dek wants to say, you don’t make me sick. He wants to say, it’s not actually about you at all. But he can’t. Instead, he just pats Ren’s hand and gets up, looking for more wood. Crisis averted, he thinks, and knows he’s a broken human being for not being able to offer Ren more. He’ll never be that kind of man again, but it’s something he’s made an accommodation with long ago. He’s had no choice but to.
Walk A Lonesome Road: 11
They reach the hot pools in the early afternoon the next day, and more than ever, Dek’s glad he’s planned to stop here. He’s been anticipating the pure relief that soaking in the steaming springs will give his strained muscles and aching bones, for hours, and the sight of the little oasis of warmth and greenery in among the starkness of the surrounding basalt range, gives his spirits a badly needed lift. The smell of rotten eggs isn’t exactly wonderful, but doesn’t take away from the surreal beauty of the place. Bubbling water is restrained by pure black stone, vapour rising into air that’s below freezing a few midecs above the surface of the pools. Snow banks up at their edges, but melts elsewhere as the rock is heated from below. Where it does, the startling green of opportunistic bushes and plants, even a few gnarled, deformed trees, contrasts sharply with the monochrome environment and come as a welcome relief after the harshness of the mountain path.
He’s no stranger to the joys of thermal baths. He sometimes makes the trek to a small hot spring a hundred pardecs from the house, too small and uninspiring to attract visitors, too unattractive to tempt a resort owner. He can bathe in hot water in his house, of course, but the sulphurous mineral springs are good for his many aches and pains, and it’s his secret treat, known to him and few others. Though most aren’t as famous as those of the Nuri Inn, such springs and pools are dotted all over Pindone, and many are tourist attractions. These, thousands of midecs above sea level, and nestled in one of the most rugged mountain ranges in western Pindone, probably don’t get a human visitor more than once every ten years.
But he’s not just looking forward a long soak and a chance to ease the aches of the trail. He’s hoping it will help Ren. The man’s still not talking, still brooding over his action the day before, and the discomfort the pregnancy’s causing him is becoming more and more evident as the days pass. His energy levels are dropping, his ease of movement slipping away. He walks as if his back’s killing him, and not just because of the loss of the sleeping furs. The temptation to cut the foetus out and be damned to the consequences would be overwhelming, if it was Dek in this situation. But he’s not and Ren’s not that desperate—not yet—so he can only hope this short interlude will boost him physically and mentally. They’ve got a long way to go yet and Ren can’t afford the depression that seems to be enveloping him.
Under heavy skies that promise more of the snow that’s falling lightly as they arrive, they set up the tent on the edge of a pool over thermally heated rocks. The animals are tethered near the greenery which they attack with gusto, and wash down with buckets of snow-cooled water Dek hauls for them from the pools. Then he takes the dirty clothes a little downstream to wash
. He tells Ren to take it easy and soak his feet—he can’t bathe properly because it’s dangerous for the foetus—while Dek attends to the chore. Ren’s so tired, he doesn’t even make a token protest. The warmth of the water and the rocks means they can shed their outer gear, a real luxury. Being clean will be blissful.
They’ve done minimal laundry on the trail so far—socks, the underwear they wear closest to their skin when they have a place to dry the clothes near the fire—but now’s a chance to wash out shirts, longjohns, and themselves, of course. Dek tells Ren to strip and chuck over his clothes, and while Ren huddles under a blanket at the edge of a pool, his pale legs dangling over in the water and snowflakes falling around him, Dek pounds and soaps up their rank belongings, laying them out on the rocks to dry, before stripping himself and washing what he’s been wearing. It’s refreshing to smell the sharp scent of his coarse soap instead of his own body reek, although it’s strange to be naked like this after nearly a month on the trail. A little primeval and liberating, in fact. Belatedly he realises he’s flaunting himself in front of a man whose issues about nudity are nothing to do with modesty and everything to do with the trauma and abuse he received in prison, so he wraps a blanket around his middle before he walks back over to Ren.
“Good?” he asks.
“Wonderful,” Ren says, looking up with a sad smile. “Going for a swim?”
“Yeah. You don’t mind me...?”
“Being naked? No. You’re sort of cute. Tik was cuter.”
Dek blinks at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Tik. Your brother. Good-looking guy. Good in bed too.”
Dek stares, wondering if Ren’s having him on. Ren’s giving him an innocent look, which tells him nothing. Dek decides not to rise to the bait. It’s ancient history if it’s true, but if it is, it’s news to Dek that his brother’s bisexual. Tik probably doesn’t know Dek is, not that it’s anything but theoretical now. “You talk too much,” he says gruffly, and Ren grins.
He takes off his brace and then gingerly edges into the pool. The water’s fucking, deliciously hot and he slides in slowly with a deep sigh. If Ren could share this, it would do him good, but he can’t, so Dek concentrates on enjoying himself.
He finds a convenient place to sit, and then he looks over to Ren. He’s let the blanket slip from his shoulders and is peering at his protruding stomach. Dek wonders what’s so fascinating but then, with a queasy feeling in his own gut, he sees the skin’s rippling. He wishes it didn’t remind him so much of infested dead things he’s seen on the trail whose hides move like this as they’re consumed from the inside out.
Ren catches him looking. “I used to watch Geya’s stomach move like this,” he murmurs. “She’d complain about the little fellow kicking and I’d...put my hand on him. Like this. I’d talk to him, tell him his Da would really appreciate it if he’d make life a little easier for his Mam. Sometimes it even worked.” His voice catches on the last words, and tears start to spill out of his wide eyes. “I was so happy then,” he whispered. “Looking forward to the baby, looking forward to being a father. I loved Meram, my boy. This....” He slaps his belly painfully hard and Dek starts in shock. “This is a fucking nightmare!” He hides his face in his hands as his shoulders start to shake.
Dek doesn’t know what to do. Ren’s never let it go this bad before, not in front of him. What can Dek say? ‘It’ll be all right?’ That’s a plain lie—it probably won’t. Nothing can give Ren his son back. This...whatever it is, isn’t a substitute by any means.
Ren’s hugging himself now, his head hanging, his breath coming in hard sobs. Under his folded arms, his stomach is still moving. Dek can’t imagine what that feels like, can’t imagine what it is to be reminded every second of every day of the rape of one’s body, one’s integrity. He’s almost starting to think being blown up by a mortar was getting off easy.
He slides across the pond, and put his hand on Ren’s ankle. Ren’s head jerks, and he stares down at Dek. “You can’t give up now,” Dek says. “The worst part’s nearly over.”
“Is it over for you, Dek? How many years has it been since she died?”
Dek clenches his teeth. “I don’t want....”
“To talk about it, no, of course not. But you can mouth platitudes at me, can’t you? ‘Good job, Ren.’ ‘Don’t let it get to you, Ren.’ ‘The worst is over, Ren.’ And yet you’re so fucked up you can’t even tell me how your wife died or when. Me? I’ve got no choice. You can see what’s wrong with me,” he says, a bitter twist to his mouth, a slash with his hand at his obscenely bulging belly. “But your wounds are so special and beyond a mortal’s ken that I daren’t even allude to them. You sit there, revolted at me, judging me, and yet I’m not even allowed to know who or what is doing that judging.”
“Shut up. Shut your damn mouth, Ren,” Dek says, squeezing his ankle painfully and making him wince.
“You act like you’re ashamed of her. Like I should be ashamed of Meram, never mention him. Never mention...how much I miss him. How....” He stops, gritting his teeth against the tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I...just want to talk about him sometimes, because I miss him and I...can’t really believe I’ll never see him again. I don’t understand why she did that,” he says almost to himself. “She didn’t hate me. I’d have known if she....”
Dek never had this. He knows Lomare loved him like he knows he has brown hair and eyes, just a fact of existence. She died, loving him, and he let her go, loving her to the very end. He can’t imagine how a wife could be so cold-hearted as to toss her husband to the fates like that. “Thirteen years,” he says. Ren looks up, blinking tears away. “She died thirteen years ago. An accident at work. There was an equipment failure, she was trapped.” Doesn’t really cover it, but Dek can’t make himself put into words the horror of watching her die, watching her know she’s dying. For years, he went to bed every night knowing he’d wake with his mind full of the memories of her grey, cold skin, her failing, laboured breath, the smell of blood and of burning metal from the failed rescue. Now he has different nightmares. He’s almost grateful for Denebwei for that.
Ren clears his throat. “Ah...is that how you hurt your leg?”
Dek shakes his head. “No, that was a lot later. I...just got promoted to utag, and when she died, I asked for a posting overseas. Was stationed all over, but ended up at Denebwei. I was there for three years. I got caught in an ambush. At Altiri.”
“Altiri...the one where the entire squad....”
“Yeah. That’s the one. They said I was lucky to survive. Lucky to keep my leg. Yeah, I was real lucky.”
He closes his eyes, and just like that, like he’s right there, like every time this happens, his nostrils are full of smoke and explosive and blazing fuel, of blood spilled on hot metal and dust mixed with bone ash and flakes of skin, blinded by blazing tropical sun and the blood running into his eyes. He can hear the screaming, the guns in the hands of dying men, the moans and grunts as bullets hit their bodies, and he can’t...fucking...help...can’t...fucking...move....
“Come back, Dek. It’s all right...let it go....” He can hear a quiet voice, a new voice, among all the other sounds, the explosions, the screams, and he doesn’t understand. Who’s talking to him here?
“That’s it...ease out...it’s a memory, not real...come back....”
He opens his eyes and blinks, wondering for a moment why everything’s all black and grey and cold white, instead of sun-gold and blood-red. There’s red, but it’s only Ren’s short hair, the colour of burnished copper, bright and beautiful. Not like blood at all.
Ren has his hand on Dek’s head. “Don’t touch me.” He means to snap, but it comes out as a harsh, husky whisper, like his throat is full of ash. He scoops up some of the pool water and washes out his mouth, letting the mineral taste drive away the other.
“All right.” Ren withdraws his hand unhurriedly then hitches the blanket around his shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to trig
ger a flashback.”
“What the fuck did you just do to me?” He can’t remember the last time he came out of a flashback that easily, without his heart trying to pound through his chest and his gut threatening to empty out. He just feels...sad. Like he does when he thinks of Lomare. Like it’s some ordinary grief and not the thing that smashed his body and his life to pieces.
Ren gives him a painful smile. “Just a little benefit of travelling with an empath. I’ve done it before to you in the night, when you’ve had nightmares.”
“I told you not to fucking touch me!”
“You mean in that tent where we have to lie in each other’s arms if we don’t want to end up outside? Yeah, really easy not to touch you there.”
Dek scowls and swims across to the other side of the pool, feeling like a idiot for being angry that Ren’s actually helped him. But Dek doesn’t need his help, and since Ren’s only a few weeks from being out of his life for good, his help’s pretty pointless anyway. Why the hell hadn’t he just left the stupid sod where he found him that day?
Ren’s huddling under the blanket, not looking at him. However angry Dek is—and he’s plenty angry—they’re stuck with each other, unless Dek just leaves him now, which might be tempting, but he’s given his word. He just...needs to make sure the ground rules are clear. Again. So he swims over to Ren, preparing to lay down the law, but Ren forestalls him. “You know, I was pretty much starving to death when you found me that day, but food wasn’t the only thing I was starving for.”
Dek stops. “What?”
“Dek, I’m an empath. Empaths need people. They need to be around positive emotions. They die if you take them away from people, and surrounding them with people who are dead and cold inside like the ones who had me prisoner, is nearly as deadly. I’ve been feeding on you because I have to. But with that goes the need to give back as well. I can’t not do that. I can’t really even control it. So until we part, until we stop being near each other, you’re going to be affected by my talent, and I’m going to be affected by the way you keep choking off your emotions. I don’t know what’s worse—feeling this damn thing kicking me in the guts non-stop or feeling your hostility and anger all the time.” He bends and scoops some water up with his hands, lets it trickle through his fingers with a faraway expression. “I hoped you might have got used to me by now. Guess I was wrong.”
Walk a Lonesome Road Page 9
