Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall

by Charles Ingrid

  He understood now what he had not understood then, what it meant to be human, and he wished that he could have told Charlie so that his friend might not have suffered the stigma of his heritage. Too late. Always too late.

  As for what Lady wanted of him, he did not know if he could provide it. She had her methods for fighting to protect the fragility of life and he had his. He loved her the way she was. It cut deeply that she could not do the same for him.

  Harley stumbled, bringing Thomas sharply into the here and now. Behind the chestnut, the little burro tugged at his lead rope as if to remind him that the animals should be sleeping now, and grazing in the early morning, or he would not reach his destination by midday.

  He found hard rock to guard his back, with no overhead ledges or brush to conceal potential stalkers, pegged the burro out, and hobbled the gelding. He laid his wards out with a murmur and a click of the stones, banked a fire despite the mild Indian summer night, rolled into a groundsheet and slept.

  He was deep in dreamless sleep when Harley's sharp nicker of cold fear shattered the quiet.

  Chapter 4

  Somewhere it was written that cockroaches were going to inherit the Earth. Thomas knew he'd seen it and the evidence chittering in front of him would support that statement. He kicked his rifle loose from its sheath, scrambled to his feet, and grabbed it up. Harley was making admirable speed even hobbled, but the little burro was at the rope's end, braying in terror.

  Cockroaches came in several sizes. In-City roaches were usually ankle- to knee-high, but this out-country dumpster size easily qualified as a "tank," big enough to make even a wolfrat reconsider. Antenna whipped at Thomas as mandibles moved. A string of slime dropped from a hairy jaw. The scent of the corpse had drawn it and it was hungry.

  A fire flash wasn't going to deter it for very long. Thomas dropped the vial out of its chamber and patted down his jacket, searching for something with a little more kick to it. The inside flaps of his brown leather jacket were lined with sleevelike pockets, filled with vials of this and that, handy little concoctions. He slid his hand inside. The knobby end of a crooked finger bone slipped eagerly into his grasp. The last thing he needed now was a fight with witch power and his haunt. "Oh, no, Gillander, not now," he said and dropped the bones hastily back into a pocket. Another fumble for a vial with its embossed seal telling him what it contained and he grasped it in triumph.

  The burro let out a squeal as the tank charged. Almost dwarfed by its shrouded burden, it spun at rope's end and kicked out. Thomas dropped the vial into the loading chamber and cranked the rifle. The roach sliced a second time and caught the burro along his shaggy withers. In the night, the blood looked blue-black as it welled up. The roach skittered around into position to charge again.

  Thomas shot into the dirt at the creature's cable-width legs. The vial shattered on impact and exploded. In a shower of dirt and gravel, the roach flipped in midair and came down on its back with a death rattle of shell and insect anger. He helped it along with his wrist blade.

  The little burro stood stubbornly at its pegging rope's full length, ears flicking forward and back in uncertainty. Thomas approached it, talking gently, and wrapped an arm about its shaggy neck. He could feel its heart thundering in its body. He pulled another vial from his jacket pocket and uncorked it between his teeth. The medicinal smell would stay on his mustache until he had a chance to wash, he thought ruefully. He poured the vial over the burro's shoulder and watched as it fizzed and a cloud of foam rose. The little beast shuddered under his ministrations, but Thomas knew the liquid didn't hurt, not really. And the carrion poison of a cockroach would be far more lethal. When the gash stopped foaming, it bled cleanly for a moment, then clotted abruptly.

  Thomas slapped the creature's neck. "You'll be fine, old son. Now," he whirled, peering into the gloom. "Where the hell did Harley go?"

  Harley had gotten pretty far down the canyon by the time Blade caught up with him. He'd kicked his fire site apart and moved camp with the search, knowing that neither animal would rest well with the roach carcass twitching all night. Plus, where there was one, there were bound to be more. He hiked with his saddle and tack thrown over one shoulder, rifle in the other hand, eyes squinted against the darkness until he sensed before he saw animal heat.

  Harley's ears flopped forward and back in embarrassment as he walked up. Lather dried the gelding's neck and flaked off as Thomas thumped him in greeting.

  "Even handicapped, you made pretty good time, old man."

  The horse bumped him in the chest.

  "I'm glad to see you, too. Your saddle was getting heavy." Thomas dropped it. "The bad news is, you now get pegged out like a common donkey." Harley snorted in disbelief, but Thomas was true to his word before dropping back down in a hollow of dirt and sand to sleep what he could of the remaining night away.

  He could not put clarity into his dreams, but there was a sound, a hissing voice calling and it was that hiss that woke him again.

  "Thomasssss."

  His eyes had gone gummy. He got up on an elbow and rubbed at them, trying to see in the purple-gray night. The fire he'd banked before sleeping roared in a gout of flame—cool flame—and the illusion of a skull rippled in it. Cavernous eye sockets blazed orange. Thomas could see through the haunt to the rocks and scrub brush. He sat up with a yawn.

  "Gods, Gill. It's too late for antics. What do you want?" He would not look directly at the phantasm, keeping its vision in his peripheral view. The ghost of his mentor, weighed by spectral motives rather than the goodliness of natural flesh, could not be trusted.

  "Thomasssss." Like rain drops hissing on hot rocks, the specter's voice boiled up at him.

  "Gillander." Thomas kept his voice flat and neutral.

  With abruptness, the fire subsided to its banked embers, and the fleshed, if translucent, outline of an elderly man sitting cross-legged floated above it. The pants were dark, cuffs frayed, knees threadbare, the shirt light, with a ticked design, sleeves rolled to the elbow. The suspenders were bowed out, their stretch leeched away by the years. Thomas knew the figure well. But its face remained gaunt, as if the aspect of flesh was laid over it too lightly. He could see the skull dominating its expression. Fire danced deeply in the eyes. Gillander, irascible in life, loved scaring the hell out of people in death.

  "Getting careless." The ghost grinned. The teeth bared all the way to the jawbone.

  "Getting tired. What do you want from me?"

  Gillander rubbed a rawboned hand through his thin thatch of hair. It had been yellow-white when the man had been alive and taught him. Now it was nearly colorless. "Maybe I'm here to avenge the dead, boy." He pointed at the shrouded burden across the burro's back.

  "I have nothing to fear from you. I carried out the sentence on a guilty man."

  "If you really thought so, you wouldn't be here."

  "I'm satisfied he's guilty. Maybe I just want to understand why he did what he did." Thomas pulled out his canteen, took a swig of water, spat it out, then took a fresh swallow.

  Gillander made a snorting noise through a nose that had been broken three times in life. Its high, knobbed bridge gave a look of arrogance to the man. "Last time we talked, you were in search of what it meant to be human. Now you're trying to define truth?"

  "Maybe." Thomas shrugged into his groundsheet. The dirt had chilled down considerably during the night. "What's your excuse?"

  "Maybe I like finishin' a job I started. You raised these old bones by walking across them. You're strong, Thomas. You've got talents they haven't even classified yet. You've got magic. Do they know that?"

  Thomas had been drifting into looking the ghost flush in the face. He blinked now and angled his gaze back away. "It's possible some of them guess."

  "Lady, now, she ought to." The phantasm hiked up his pants cuffs. He had never worn socks with his down-at-the-heel boots and there was a flash of cadaverous green-gray skin. "You have work to do, boy. Deliver the body and git h
ome. There're students waiting to be taught. That's your life's work. Learn and pass it on. We've got a whole civilization's worth of know-how to catch up with and pass on. You're wasting time. Use the road, Thomas."

  A cold wind touched the back of Blade's neck. "No."

  "I taught you how to move Time itself. Do it. Do what you have to do and get home."

  Thomas felt his skin prickle. This was precognition, even if it came out of a ghostly mouth. But even this could not drive him to use the ghost road. He could not control the passage if he did. The road wove its way through a time and place unknown, its beginning and end anchored God knew where, fueled by the anger of lost souls. He had used the road before only because life and death drove him to it. He would never use it again. "Never again."

  "The more fool you, then. God gave you Talents. You'd not cut your gills, would you?"

  Reluctantly, the answer was drawn from him. "No."

  "Then use the road. It was meant for you, boy."

  Thomas looked at him. The flame points in the sockets' depths flared slightly. "You walked the road and it killed you. Do you want the same for me?"

  "Part of me does," the phantasm admitted. "I'm a lonely old man. But the best part of me says that what you have is a gift meant to be used. Find out how. You may need it.''

  The ghost's honesty fazed him. Thomas licked dry lips and said, "Rest in peace, Gill, and leave me alone. Consider me warned."

  "Pshaw. I could kick you in the ass and you wouldn't know where it was." With an abrupt blink, the specter was gone.

  In the cold silence, Thomas sat quietly. Then, he reached forward with a stick and stirred the fire's coals, sifting the embers about. A sharp hiss spat at him. He jumped in spite of himself. "Shit!"

  There was a disembodied laugh. As it faded away, Thomas knew he was truly alone.

  Get home. Why? What was going to happen? He lay back down, watching the cloudless sky overhead. The stars were brittle and brilliant. He named them to himself, saw a few he did not recognize, and drifted to sleep for a final time that night.

  He knew when he was in nester territory by the red-tailed hawk which had been flayed, its skin left on a lone fence post, its natural beauty dulled both by its death and by the clay paint upon its feathers. The Prado Dam overshadowed them though it was another quarter day of leisurely riding away. He surveyed the rangeland about it. It was sere, overgrazed, the grass burnt to brown husks, with mesquite woven abundantly through the range. The foothills were blackened with char marks from last year's fires. This year would be worse, until the rains came.

  He reined the gelding upwind of the burro and dismounted Harley, dropped the reins into a ground tie, and squatted down. He took his battered leather hat off and wiped the sweaty band marks across his forehead. He had no need to find the nesters now. They would find him. He squinted into the late afternoon.

  His muscles hadn't even tired of his hunkered down position when they appeared, loping over the flat, their faces burned dark by too much sun and wind. Grass stalks split and shattered under their pounding feet, bare soles callused hard as rock.

  They circled him quietly. Unwashed and heathen, they were no more fragrant than the corpse he brought back to them, their sweat profuse and sour. He drew his lips tight in concentration, tapping his Protector abilities, and projected trust and calm toward them.

  The lead nester, his brown-streaked black hair thick and matted upon his head and face, the whites of his eyes startling against the color of his skin, jerked a thumb. "What be that?"

  "It's a dead man."

  "His name?"

  "You tell me. He was a son of a bitchin' water poisoner, but he was one of yours." Thomas rose to his feet slowly. They'd encircled him, but he could smell them almost sharper than he could see them.

  "You kill 'im, Blade?"

  He was not surprised they knew his name. His light yellow-blond hair and mustache and white scarf set him off. "I executed him."

  "He tell you the truth?"

  Straw stalks rustled as someone moved behind him. Blade moved his wrist ever so slightly, loosening a knife in its sheath. "That he did. He poisoned the well. Now you tell me the rest of the truth."

  The nester relaxed. He waved the other runners from around Blade. "He come t'listen," he said. "Bring him in." He turned and ran back the way they'd come, toward the eroded and charred hillside to the north.

  Thomas caught up Harley and swung aboard. The gelding loped at an easy pace on the heels of the nester pack, snorting now and then at the dust they kicked up.

  The nester encampment on the lee side of the foothills was small. The hide teepees staked out would hold no more than six families. The stench of middens in the hot afternoon sun told him this was an old camp, due to be moved shortly when even the nesters could not tolerate the smell. A dented and primered Chevy truck rested on the ground, freight packs leaning up against its wheel rims. Three slat-sided and wormy looking horses cropped the bare hills nearby. There were looms set up between the trees and women hunched over them, ignoring the dirty children rolling around at their feet. They scarcely looked up as the pack entered camp.

  He smelled possum stew and though he hadn't eaten at midday, he knew he wasn't hungry. From the looks of the clan, there wasn't much to go around. He dismounted Harley and tied him in the shade of a tree. He let a nester take the burro's lead rope from his hand.

  "The burro stays with the clan," he said. "It's for the widow."

  The man's brow raised at the gift of wealth. He nodded briskly and towed the animal after him. One of the women stood up suddenly and her wail broke through the camp. She lunged into a run, made awkward by her advanced pregnancy and the bone structure of her right leg, which seemed fused at the knee. He could not guess if it had been a birth defect or an old injury. Were it not for her weaving skills at the loom, even the nesters might well have found her a liability. Thomas turned away as she reached the burro's flank. Her grief grew louder.

  The pack leader motioned him into the shade of a tree and presented him with a dipper of water. Blade took it without hesitation, knowing that its untested condition might well cost him a day or two of intense gastric problems, but he had vials for that. It was these people who had to live with it.

  The dark-haired nester nodded in approval as Blade drank it down. "Clean water," he said to Thomas. Thomas did not dispute him. Water enough to wash the trail dust down his throat.

  He looked into the barrel. The level was low. "Not much."

  "No. The cowmen let the wells go dry. They say the herd strays into our territory after water. We take too much meat. So they want to leave us no water at all. The man you brought back found our well gone alkali. He killed a sheep and threw it in."

  "Deliberately?"

  "Yes." The nester headman led him to a stump. They sat. The nester tapped his chest. "I'm Clancy." He Hashed a grin. "Black Irish."

  The last startled him. In a land where they struggled to survive, where the meaning of what it had meant to be an American, or even a Californian, had long been swept away, this man reached for roots older than the disasters. Thomas did not know how to take this. Finally, he nodded. "Clancy, who was this man?"

  The dark-headed nester scratched his chin reflectively. "He didn't tell you, did he?"

  "No. But I was not the judge or the jury. Nor did he tell his name to the woman who healed him, who wanted to save his life."

  "We called him Kurt. He was younger than I. He wanted to force the cowmen to dig new wells, to replace the water they took from us. He never poisoned anyone. They killed one of their own.''

  Thomas had guessed as much. He dug his boot heels into the pebbly earth. "They took wells from you?"

  "Yes." Clancy flashed him an annoyed look.

  Thomas held up his hand. "I have to be sure of this, Clancy. It's against our treaties to deny you water. You have chosen to live outside our society and laws, but you're survivors, just like us. You have water rights."

  "W
e don't need rights. We can take what is ours." Clancy straightened in stubborn pride.

  "Your nester clan is known," Thomas said, by way of acknowledgment of this prowess. He couldn't afford to fight his way out of camp and neither could they. He stood. "Thank you, Clancy."

  "You won't share dinner with us?"

  He shook his head. "I have a long ride ahead of me." There wasn't much he could do immediately for the lot of the nesters, but he could and would bring pressure to bear against Boyd and Deigado. They had forced the nester into action that the community had found intolerable. Water poisoning was inexcusable. It was a fact of life that wells dried up or went bad. But it was a convenient fact of life for the cowmen who didn't want their herds straying into nester territory looking for water. As Thomas looked out over the camp population, he didn't see any evidence of beef-fed youngsters. These people were subsistence. How much beef could they have stolen?

  Thomas had a lot of respect for Boyd, but he knew Boyd hated nesters. His own tailed ass made him more prejudiced than most. Blade would have to find a way to deal with him gracefully. A sense of failure stabbed through him. Was the man he executed innocent or guilty . . . and in this case, was there a truth to be found and Read, crystal clear, among all the events? Had he failed himself as well?

  The sobbing woman reminded him that, as Lady had told him, he was found lacking and too late. Thomas took a deep breath. In the meantime. . . .

  "Clancy, your middens are overflowing, your wells have gone dry. I suggest you find a new camp."

  The nester nodded in agreement. "We will bury Kurt, then load the wagon. There is a well over the hill. It will last for a short while." He paused. "Pray for rain, Lord Protector."