Crossroad (The Gunsmith Book 3)

by C. K. Crigger

  I plodded on, mostly keeping my eyes on Teagun’s back and the Weatherby pistol in its scabbard bobbing above the top of his head. Once, twice, three times, I took mouthfuls of water from my bottle. Sweat ran from my hairline underneath the close fitting glasses, the salt stinging in my eyes. Queer little sparkles of black bounced in my vision.

  The outlaw staggered once, sort of drifting off to the side as though disoriented. Teagun paused long enough to pull a soft, veiled hat from one of the burnoose’s ubiquitous pockets and place it over the man’s head. He ripped the tape from his prisoner’s mouth and let him have a few swallows of water before forcing him to move on once more.

  The highway was built along the high ground. The further we went from the road, the more the ground dropped. Teagun made canny use of the natural contours of the land, dodging in and out of long dry gullies, and weaving around rolling hills. I became irretrievably lost knowing that, without him, I’d never find my way back to the hotel or the camp.

  “How about a break, Teagun?” I asked—well, whined—knowing my face must be as red as this morning’s sky. I drank the last of my water, aware that true to his word, Teagun hadn’t so much as moistened his lips.

  He didn’t pause. “We’ll be there soon.” And finally, and in a very roundabout fashion, he did lead us to the mouth of a high-walled canyon.

  We entered the canyon through a narrow cleft. The entrance was almost completely sheltered from the blistering sun. As soon as we passed into the shade, the temperature dropped as much as twenty degrees in a single step. A shadowed dark, a true blessing, ruled between the narrow walls. I could barely see in the contrast of sun and shade.

  The outlaw stumbled, reeling from one side of the canyon to the other and bumping into walls until he finally stopped, sinking down on a rock. His head hung.

  I yanked on Teagun’s burnoose. “Is this it? Where is your farm?”

  He motioned with his head to where sunlight once more glared up ahead. “A few steps past the end of this passage. We’ll break through into a fertile valley. The lake is up another canyon a little way beyond the nearest field to our right.”

  “A real lake? “ I licked my cracked lips. “A real field?”

  He shrugged. “I told you there was a farm.” He rousted the outlaw to his feet and got him moving. “Let’s go.”

  Too quickly, it seemed to me, we came again into the sunshine. Only this time, to my pleased surprise, the heat felt no more than an ordinary scorching hot day in my own century. I heard the whir of an insect’s wings flying close to my head, and the drone of a bee in the green crop of . . . Well, I wasn’t real sure what the crop was. A new kind of legume? Peas, lentils, beans, or soy. I stood amazed. My feet halted of their own volition.

  Across the valley I saw trees. Some were dark conifers—okay—fir trees. Others had the unmistakable vase-shaped pruning of a fruit orchard. The sight drew a little gasp out of me. There were no buildings so far as I could tell. No matter.

  “Wow!” I stopped still, the better to survey the vivid green. The growth, the simple normalcy filled me with the greatest sense of relief. All had not been lost in the last hundred years after all. Life still held promise. “A real farm.”

  Teagun paused, too, his lips quirking at my reaction. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “I see it, now I believe it. Where’s the Columbia, Teagun? Are we close?” The river’s proximity might explain the orchards and canyons, I speculated, still not entirely sure of our location.

  His head jerked, indicating direction. “A few miles. Come on. I want to dispose of this guy. The sooner he’s off my hands, the sooner I can go after another.” He continued walking, taking a path around the fields, next to the canyon walls.

  I didn’t much care for his choice of words. Dispose of? And I can’t say as I liked that my/I business either. In the twenty-four hours I’d been here, two outlaws had been accounted for, and I had certainly done my share of the accounting. Still, he was right. Time was our main priority. When was it ever anything else?

  “I’m waiting on you,” I said, earning myself one of his stern looks. I hurried to catch up when, with a businesslike attitude, he shoved the prisoner into a shambling trot. My approach spurred him on to greater effort, I observed.

  “What is with this guy?” I asked, exasperated. “Doesn’t he like girls?”

  It wasn’t that I wanted him to be my best buddy, you understand, but I was getting sick of him acting like I carried the bubonic plague.

  “He’s afraid of witches,” Teagun said. “And mutant creatures.”

  “I’d like to know what put such an odd-ball idea in his head! Why don’t you just tell him that I’m no such thing?”

  Teagun grabbed the outlaw’s collar, effectively stopping him in his tracks, and loudly overrode my protest. “Here we are.”

  He’d halted in front of what appeared to be a part of the unbroken canyon face. Taking a gadget like a keyless car entry thingamajig from a pocket, he pressed a button. In response, a solid block of stone receded, providing us with entry into a cave. Half natural, half-hewn into the living rock, the cave was totally dark inside. I couldn’t see a thing.

  I took my glasses off and started to flip back the burnoose hood, but Teagun stayed the motion.

  “Keep yourself covered,” he whispered, his voice low.

  “Why?” I complained. “It’s hot. I can’t see—”

  “Leave the hood up,” he said, on a note of command.

  This, I decided, was getting to be ridiculous. I did as he asked— insisted—pulling the sides open for the cooler air to circulate. Only slowly did my eyes adjust to the dim light. I saw Teagun pick up a device about the size and shape of a small clock. It flickered to life as he either punched a few keys on a hidden keypad or tapped a code on a blank pad. I couldn’t tell which. He had what looked like a button poked in one ear.

  Before long a man’s face swam into view, the cave wall serving as a screen. The definition of the picture wasn’t great, though good enough I’d have no trouble recognizing the man if I saw him in person. Like everyone else I’d seen so far, he had dark skin and eyes. His nose had a Scandinavian ski-slope tilt, and his hair was light, though not white like Teagun’s.

  Shoot, I thought, disappointed. I’d been thinking a hologram like on Star Wars might appear.

  This method of contact was more practical than a one-way hologram, however. Teagun and the man were able to speak to one another in real time, and they seemed to be arguing.

  “Petra?” The man’s voice carried to me, so he must have been yelling. Teagun murmured a reply.

  “. . . now,” the man said, the sound fading in and out. “Three . . .” Teagun spoke.“. . . duty. After . . . Where? Got . . . I . . . there.”

  Without any more discussion, Teagun shut down the computer, or communicator, or connector or whatever the thing was, certainly more than a vid-cam, and turned to the outlaw. “That was Captain Clive Hawkinson of the NBP,” he announced. “He’s the Border Patrol-FBI liaison man for this territory. He’ll be coming to pick you up soon.”

  The outlaw spat at Teagun’s feet, loosing a spate of what must have been expletives, though I didn’t understand a single one of them.

  Teagun, with short-tempered violence slugged him, though not quite hard enough to take the man down, then winced with the pain in his already-swollen fingers.

  “Smooth move,” I said. “Keep it up and you won’t be able to pull the trigger on the Weatherby if your life depends on it.”

  He glowered, his temper still running high. He didn’t argue, for a change.

  “Of course,” I added, “you could turn the pistol over to me. I haven’t been hitting anybody.” I flexed my fingers at him, which only provoked the stupid outlaw into jumping around like he thought I was flipping juju dust at him. “Oh, for God’s sake! Do me a favor. Biff him one for me, while you’re at it.”

  When encouraged in his bad-boy behavior, Teagun demu
rred. Instead, he herded all of us out of the cave, the door silently sliding shut behind us, and led the way through a rocky, road-wide passage into another canyon, an off-shoot of the larger one.

  Here, at last, we found Teagun’s lake. I hadn’t fully believed him before, when he said it existed. I should have had faith.

  Don’t get me wrong. There would be no mistaking this body of water for an inland sea, but a respectable acreage elevated it above pond status. Water the color of unripe hazelnuts lapped enticingly at a grassy bank. A grove of cottonwoods made music with gently clattering leaves. A few birds, larks and sparrows and robins, flitted among the branches.

  Here we found a couple of real buildings. One, a utilitarian shed, looked like all other machine sheds I’ve ever seen on farms. The second, a ramshackle old building, was a bunkhouse; Teagun’s quarters where he’d been staying when the outlaws took over the hotel at the crossroads.

  I didn’t realize I’d asked a question until Teagun answered.

  “No,” he said. “Before my father was killed, there used to be a real house and barns in the outer valley. His killers burned them. They didn’t find the passage to the lake, so the bunkhouse was spared. The shed is one Petra and I built.”

  “Do you swim here?” I asked, gazing longingly at the placid lake.

  “Swim? No.”

  The outlaw pulled away from Teagun, and though his hands were still bound, he knelt at the lake’s edge, plunging his head into the foot- deep water. I watched him enviously; Teagun with care to make sure the guy didn’t try to escape.

  “But, it is good water, isn’t it? Not acid or brackish or anything?” The birds, I’d already noticed, had no fear about bathing in the shallows. As I watched, a family of wild ducks, mother and four babies, swam into view. Tracks, which I identified as belonging to deer, were cast in mud at the edge, away from the beach.

  “Of course it’s good,” Teagun said, sounding testy. “I told you water is one of our crops. That means we bottle it and sell to the big specialty stores in the towns. Customers think they are getting elixir of life because it originates in the Great Empty. Miracle water.”

  I turned to him, frowning. “You and your mother are people of many parts, aren’t you? Hoteliers, farmers, water bottlers, bounty hunters. Must keep you busy—and make you rich.”

  He rolled his shoulders. “Busy, yes. Rich? Depends on what you call rich. My heritage is here. Records of my line go all the way back to 1933, when one of my ancestors accepted a few acres of orchard in lieu of wages.”

  His pride made me smile. “My own father was more than fifty-years-old when I was born,” I told him. “He was born in 1939. What do you have to say about that?”

  Now, at last, I pushed the burnoose’s hood from my head allowing the slowly moving air to reach my damp skin. Evaporation dried the perspiration. I fluffed my hair and finally, put the glasses away.

  “I’m going to say you look very good for your age.” He smiled, his face softening, teeth gleaming white in his dark face. His accent thickened. “Different than I visualized a person from the old world.”

  Our eyes caught and held, and I took a quick breath. What was he really thinking? What was I thinking?

  The outlaw, sated by drinking all the lake water he could hold, and cooled by the air ruffling his wet head, looked much refreshed as he came in answer to Teagun’s call. It was when he saw me, bare head exposed, that things fell apart.

  “Aaii! Bruja! Mutant!” he yelled, total fury and perhaps a touch of anguish in his cry. He ran full tilt, propelled by powerful legs, across the patch of shore and straight at me. He was fast—so very fast. Equally shocking was that his hands remained bound, though he didn’t seem to care. He blasted into Teagun, knocking him aside when Teagun stepped in front of the charge. The outlaw’s foot lashed out in a high kick. Teagun reeled away as the blow struck him in the chest.

  The outlaw screamed unintelligibly, hysterically at me. A spate of cursing from the cadence, although I didn’t understand one word out of ten. He cannoned into my middle, so I crashed to the ground. The air gushed from my lungs as he flung himself on top of me.

  I felt something in my ankle—bone or tendon—give way. I smelled the stench of unwashed clothing, of his sweat-soured body. He sat astride my belly, and though I twisted and bucked, his considerable weight held me pinned. His bound hands groped for my throat. His teeth gnashed, as though in his lack of any other weapon, he would chew me to bits.

  “Teagun!” Though my lungs ached for air, I tried to scream. With the outlaw’s constant yelling in my ear, and his thumbs pressing like steel claws into my neck, I came close to blacking out. Twice in one day, I was thinking. This must be a world record. Where was Teagun? What the heck was keeping him?

  Too late, I tried reaching for the LadySmith. All the pistol did for me was to bruise my back as it was caught between me and the ground. I couldn’t stretch my hand as far as the Guardian’s ankle holster either. Frantic now, I aimed for what I could reach, hitting at the outlaw’s face, doing my best to smash the heel of my hand into his nose. But he was wise to this move.

  He jerked his head beyond my flailing punches, releasing the pressure on my neck long enough to clout me on my cheek

  I was weak and getting weaker. The folds of the burnoose I wore bound me like serpentine ropes. I couldn’t move. My hands weighed too much to lift in my own defense any longer. I was going to die here in this godforsaken place. This godforsaken time. I knew it.

  Caleb or my father⏤they would never know what happened to me. What my dad always preached about, his worst nightmare, looked to be coming true. I would be lost in another world.

  And I was going to spoil Scott’s wedding.

  Wedging my good foot against a rock, I sought purchase. Energy, summoned from waning resources, sputtered in reply. With a last wrenching effort, I rolled, surprising the outlaw enough to throw him off to the side.

  By some miracle, Teagun met him there. They went down as the outlaw rolled into Teagun’s legs, both of them falling out of my line of sight.

  I lay, totally spent, striving to simultaneously refill my lungs and at the same time listen to the heavy thud of fist upon flesh. Teagun’s a shoo-in, I told myself. But I couldn’t bring myself to sit up and watch. All I could do was to at last draw the LadySmith from under my back and wait, holding the gun in my hand.

  The sounds of fighting tapered off. Quit. I heard the sound of waves lapping at the lakeshore. One of the ducks squawked.

  Footsteps approached me.

  Maybe, I prayed, if I didn’t move, didn’t open my eyes, didn’t even breath, whoever had won the fight would think I was dead.

  CHAPTER 10

  Above me, a man coughed, paused, and cleared his throat. His body, between me and the sun, threw my face into shade. Blood was trickling from my jaw in a sticky stream, down my neck, and into my hair. Besides any original hurt he may have inflicted, the outlaw’s blow had reopened the oscillator cut.

  The man, whichever one it was, squatted beside me, exposing my face to the full blast of the sun. Involuntarily, my eyelids flickered. “Boothenay?” Teagun said. “Do you plan on sleeping all day?”

  That did it! I sat up, eyes wide, panting in fury. “Is every single person in this freaking world freaking crazy?”

  His dimple blipped in and out. “Dunno. Very likely.”

  “Well, isn’t that just swell? Thanks so much for bringing me. Travel is so broadening, isn’t it? I really needed this little visit in order to complete my education. Just think. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have known that one of these days, the world population is going to evolve into a bunch of crazies and degenerates.”

  I hated it when, at the end of this tirade, I spoiled the effect and surprised myself with the big, old cow tears that welled up in my eyes. My chin trembled, reminding me once again, as if I needed another, that I was bleeding.

  “Ow,” I added, touching a finger to the wound.

 
Teagun slapped my hand away, not being gentle about it either. “Leave that alone. You want to catch an infection? Come on, get up. I’ll put an anti-infection agent on it. I’m going to give a dose of the drug we found to the outlaw. Enough to keep him quiet. He won’t bother you again.”

  But when I tried to stand, I came crashing right back down.

  “Ow!” I said again, louder this time, with a trace of panic showing through. “I think that bastard broke my ankle.”

  Sighing with exasperation, Teagun picked me up. “There is a medical kit in the bunkhouse. I doubt your ankle is broken, but I’ll look.”

  “Caleb, my fiancé, is a PA-C,” I told him, for some reason feeling a need to reaffirm Caleb in my own mind. This close to Teagun I could see the skin on his scalp was as dark as that on the rest of his body, kind of a nice toasty brown. His white hair stood out in stark contrast, like snow layered atop a tall mountain.

  “A PA-C is almost a doctor,” I added. “What are your qualifications?”

  “I’m here,” he answered simply. “Caleb, your fiancé, is not. Do my qualifications meet with your approval?” He stopped in front of the bunkhouse door and tapped a code—I knew it for a code, this time—on a rubbery-looking lock-plate similar to the one that had activated the communicator thingy. The door swung open. A gust of stale, over- heated air erupted into our faces.

  “Unacceptable,” I retorted, wrinkling my nose at the odor. “I prefer my own doctor.”

  “Too bad.”

  Teagun was a testy bugger, and callous, too. Could be he hadn’t liked being grouped in with the crazies, but that didn’t change the facts. The bunkhouse, no larger than an average-size bedroom in a suburban tract house, contained a stack of bunks along one wall. Teagun dumped me unceremoniously onto the lowest. The built-in bunks were sandwiched between cupboards which, when opened, revealed a store of essential items: bedding, medical supplies, and books, among other things. He grabbed a handful of packets from the nearest shelf and tossed them to me.