Medicine for the Dead

by Arianne Thompson

  A persistent licking finally demanded her attention. She blinked, and belatedly realized that her neck was being kissed by a dog.

  The dog.

  Elim’s brown dog.

  Día glanced back up at the bruise-colored horizon – the western horizon – and was suddenly stricken with horror. She’d been going the wrong way.

  For how long?

  And the road – where was the road?

  She staggered up to her feet, her cassock clutched between her hands like the rag-stuffed lovey of a lost child. An indifferent, inanimate sea of gray brush and crumbled rock stretched out in every direction. There was no river. There was no road. There was only the desert, the dog, and Día.

  She smothered her mouth. Tears welled up in her eyes, distorting the drought-stricken landscape – inviting her to imagine one in which she died alone, uncountable anonymous miles from home. Inviting her to imagine her mother again, wandering in heat-stricken ecstasy, deaf to the baying of the hounds.

  The blurry brown spot trotted on ahead, toward the last smear of daylight on the horizon. Día hurriedly wiped her eyes. “No!” she said, her voice cracked with panic and thirst. “No, don’t – please don’t leave me.” The words provoked fresh tears – probably the only water for twenty miles – but she blinked them away and put her hands to better use. She still had her knife, thank heavens – and by some minor miracle, the three plums were still nestled safely in the black cotton pocket of her cassock. “Look – come here, Mother Dog,” she said, holding out one of the oversized red-orange fruits with dry, trembling fingers. “Come have supper with me. Here, you see – this is yours.” She cut it in half and squeezed the pitted side enticingly.

  The dog turned at the sound of her voice, and finally consented to come ambling back. Día sank back down in boundless relief, and led them in thanks-giving.

  “Divine Master, blessed are we who share your providence. Guard us and keep us in your sight, and let us be ever faithful stewards of your bounty. Amen.”

  It was a modest setting, to be sure: there was no table but her own ashy knees, and only half a plum to set on the tablecloth of her dusty white chemise. Gratitude is a feast we serve ourselves. And as she cut and savored every warm nectar-sweet bite, she filled the remainder of her stomach with sense, gratitude, and intentionality.

  She was not injured. She was not dead. She had a strong body and an almost-perfectly-able mind, a little food and a sharp knife, and – for now, at least – a friend faithful enough to follow her even through delusion and error. She would rest tonight, and start again at the earliest glimpse of morning. That would give her a good five or six hours before the heat of the day. She did not need the road to find her way back to Island Town: it sat squarely in the middle of the Etascado – a north-south river – and all she had to do was walk east long enough to find it. Then she’d have water, and a cool blue-green ribbon to lead her the rest of the way home.

  Provided she could hold even that one sober thought in her head.

  Día looked into the dog’s vacuous brown eyes. “Tomorrow,” she said, “it’s your turn to navigate.”

  The dog did not seem to have any use for the joke or the plum. It licked the fruit once by way of experiment, and thereafter sat wagging – waiting – as if ignorant of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion alike.

  Día wished for even half so much innocence. As it was, she had heard altogether too much about the people, and the beings who were no longer people, who did their living in darkness.

  So as the world cooled to true night, Día slipped her cassock back on, hiding her white undergarment and gold necklace under a camouflage of natural, complementary blacknesses. She made no fire, nor any more conversation than the small, coaxing noises needed to convince the dog to lie down with her. And she lay still thereafter, with her head resting on the dog’s musky flank and her hand pressed protectively over the bruise at her neck, where her papá had bitten her in farewell.

  It was a défaut amoreux – a love-flaw – and one of the very few things Fours had consented to teach her about his people. In the Penitent faith, evil originated with the Sibyl. For most freshwater mereaux, it came from the Amateur. He was the Lover, in that oldest original sense of his name, the sinister deathless Coveter of Things. Lacking any generative talent in himself, he lusted after the living crafts of the Artisan – a feminine God, the amphibious Architect of the Universe – and was ever likely to steal away the most splendid and lovely among them. The imprint of Fours’ teeth on Día’s neck defied the Amateur, warding off his greedy, roving eye. This is mine, it said. I’ve spoiled her, so you won’t.

  Día did not subscribe to the faith of her mereau parent. But she’d heard no better explanation for mankind’s natural genius for damaging what they loved.

  From somewhere far to the south, a gunshot rang out. Día lay still in the dark. There was no answering shot.

  That was a good thing, she told her hammering heartbeat. That meant that there were human beings out here, and that any inhuman ones would be drawn to the sound of the gun. They would not even notice her.

  And she would make sure of that. She would not get up. She would not run. She would not give into fear, regardless... because if she were going to start crying, it would not be by quiet, dignified half-measures – and if she were going to die, it would not be because she’d been found out by the sound of her sobbing.

  So she fixed her gaze on the faint smattering of stars overhead, set her thoughts on calming the throbbing, insensible fear in her pulse, and bit her thumb until it threatened to bleed.

  SIL WALKED ALL that day.

  He walked as the afternoon turned to evening.

  He walked as the evening turned to night.

  And as the sun slipped away, it occurred to him that perhaps he’d miscalculated things.

  The droppings on the road were fresh, though. So were the few tracks heavy enough to stand out in the dirt. There was no question that he was on the right path, and every step he took was a step closer to his goal. Who could think of stopping now?

  Still, there were things said – unwholesome, unsavory things – about the sort of encounters one was likely to have after dark. Whiskey-drenched ramblings, most of them. A few neurasthenic veterans, last-of-the-regiment and all that, whose sensational reports were endlessly amplified by the echo of rumor-hungry gossips. A grain of truth in a whole pile of chaff. And yet...

  ... and yet, even an ordinary highwayman wouldn’t be much deterred by one asthmatic boy with a pocket-knife – or terribly pleased on finding no pickings richer than a set of brass brace-buttons and a scuffed pair of boots.

  Perhaps it would be foolish to tempt that sort of mishap.

  And perhaps Sil had had enough foolishness for one day.

  So at no point particularly, he wandered off the road, counting out twenty paces, changing direction, and then marking off ten more. When he could no longer distinguish the road from the rest of the ink-dredged wasteland, he made a folded pillow of his jacket and lay down.

  There was a stone, or some shard of old wood, digging into his side. Sil shifted, reaching under his ribs to remove it.

  But if he dislodged that stone, he’d also have to kick away the one jabbing his knee. And fill in the uncomfortable dip under his shoulder. And flatten down whatever obnoxious weed kept tickling the back of his neck. And on reflection, maybe the world had had about enough of him rearranging it to suit himself.

  So he rolled onto his left side, curled over until he occupied the smallest reasonable space, and made no further imposition on the dry autumn night.

  THAT NIGHT, DÍA slept, and dreamed that she was an infant nursing at her mother’s breast.

  SIL DID NOT sleep at all.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FOOD FOR THE LIVING

  ELIM WOKE TO a kick in the ribs.

  His eyes snapped open, but the light was already so poor that it took a moment to make sense of things.

  The sun was gone.
Bootjack was walking past. And the evening breeze was absolutely enchanted by the smell of bacon.

  Elim sat up. He was surprised all over again by the canteen and moccasins that fell to the ground – less so by the persistent, blistering ache in his back.

  But where was the bacon?

  Bootjack paused, a looming shadow visible mostly by the muddy red of his shirt and the glowering white of his eyes. He jerked his head at the blue-glazed pot on the ground, and walked on.

  So maybe that was Elim’s slop-trough – and maybe he didn’t need to wait for a second invitation. He pulled off his poncho and scooted stiffly over, equally eager to air his skin, spare his feet, and find his supper.

  The pot was cold to the touch, its insides still crusted over with dried oatmeal. It was too dark to see the contents, but if Bootjack had filled it with scorpions, they smelled heavenly. Like a bear at a beehive, Elim gingerly dipped a hand in – and was rewarded with the cold, greasy feel of hours-old bacon.

  That was fine. Better than fine. He shoved it in his mouth, wildly invigorated by the first taste of salt and fat and savory summer pork, and reached for more.

  It was harder to know what to make of his second handful. The peculiar round thing was too thick to be a tortilla, too heavy to be a pancake, and too rubbery to be cornbread. His first chewy, gluey bite suggested plain flour dough fried in lard.

  And that was fine too. Elim wolfed it down in two bites, amazed and delighted to find the whole pot full of more of the same – a dozen flour cakes and easily a pound of bacon. All his.

  “You should know –”

  Elim startled, and nearly choked.

  Not ten feet away, almost invisible in the dark, Hawkeye sat smoking his pipe. “– that’s to be your breakfast tomorrow as well,” he finished, unperturbed.

  That was a disappointment. He’d been empty for so long, and the urge to eat ’til he hurt was overwhelming.

  “Sure,” Elim said, though it took him a minute to get his mind around it. He could still eat the whole thing now, if he really wanted to. The job was convincing himself that he didn’t really want to. Maybe he’d just have half, and then decide when he got there. “Sure, that’s fair.” And then, before he could think too much more about it: “Where’s Ax?”

  Hawkeye pointed, but it was hard to see anything more than a vague ‘thataway’... especially when you were stuffing your gullet over a dirty clay pot. “Tied at the wagon. When you’ve finished eating, perhaps you could help me settle him for the night.”

  Elim had long since learned that ‘perhaps you could’ was polite for ‘you probably better had’. And he hadn’t forgotten what Hawkeye had told him earlier: he was going to have to pull his own weight on this trip – provided he didn’t want to risk having it dragged again. Elim smothered a sigh with more food. He’d do anything they wanted, if only he didn’t have to stand up. “I don’t expect we’d be allowed to make a light?”

  “Me neither,” Hawkeye said, and took another long pull from his pipe.

  Elim stoppered his mouth with another flour cake before he could say anything unkind. The whole thing was begging to be made into some kind of colorful language: darker’n a black gelding on a clouded night tied by a wise-ass Sundowner with a blindfold. He’d be glad to swap it for whatever clever cuss words Dirty Merl and Clydie’s Tom had cooked up in his absence, when he got home. If he got home.

  Elim ate more slowly after that. He listened to the crickets rasping, and the quiet, unfathomable talk from Bootjack and Way-Say sitting about ten yards away, and the dry, snuffly ripping sounds Ax made as he meticulously de-vegetated his half-circle allotment. He smelled the sweet tang of Hawkeye’s pipe, and the faint roasted-vegetable aroma of someone else’s supper.

  But when the wind shifted just-so, there was a whiff of something more sinister... something a little too reminiscent of the raccoon that had expired under the front porch last summer. Elim couldn’t see for beans, but he had no trouble imagining the source.

  As it worked out, he wasn’t so hungry after all. Elim set his supper-pot aside. “Hawkeye,” he said, “would you... could you tell me again, please – who’s that boy in the box, there?”

  He knew he’d heard the name before. He had no business forgetting it. But after that last night in town, everything had just up and gone to hell, and it was only now, with half a day’s food and rest in him, that he was beginning to recollect what his business even was.

  There was a shifting sound as Hawkeye moved closer. “Dulei Marhuk,” he said, softly enough to avoid his masters’ attention. “The prince’s nephew.”

  “Do-Lay,” Elim repeated, likewise quiet enough to keep the words for his own personal use. Well, shit. That explained things, all right. That hateful look in Bootjack’s eyes. His casual, violent contempt. His plaited hair and the silver cuffs he’d been wearing – just like the dead boy in the stall.

  A nephew... a brother or sister’s son.

  Elim had no such thing, but he tried to imagine if it had been one of Boss Calvert’s girls. If some no-name godless Sundowner had holed up in the barn and shot Merry dead, then what? Elim might have lowered his gun, sure – but to have to keep looking at his ugly, guilty face, day after day? To cook for the sorry son of a bitch?

  And that was for Merrily Calvert – a rancher’s daughter. “He, uh...” Elim reached for unfamiliar words. “Was he royal, too?”

  “Yes,” Hawkeye said. “The children of Grandfather Crow are his sons, his daughters, and the sons of his daughters.”

  The cold meat in Elim’s stomach turned colder still. He knew about the Crow people. They weren’t the most violent of the four so-called Great Nations – that title went to those horrifying wolf-riders from the northern plains – but they were easily the most dangerous. The Crow were cowardly and clever, staying behind, falling back, sending just a few of their black-feathered necromancers to prop up some other tribe’s mustering warriors... but that was enough.

  That’s how you know you’re done for, Leslie Fields would say, once he was far enough in the bottle to remember his voice. You empty your chambers on their front line, mow down maybe twenty or thirty on the first round... but then your ears quit ringing, and you hear those peculiar rattles, and the smoke clears, and you see them black singers far at the back, and by then the dead ones up front are getting up again, and you know you’re done-for. You can fill ’em so full of lead that they ain’t nothing but holes and war-paint, and they’ll still come running right at you, hell-bent and fearless. It’s like they don’t even know they’re dead.

  You oughtn’t be talking like that, Jack Timson would usually say then. You oughtn’t be drinking like that, neither.

  Don’t matter, the old dragoon always answered, his malty voice by then as empty as his glass. I was done-for a long time ago.

  That was probably so. Which was why, even as a boy, Elim had taken precautions. He’d practiced faithfully at home, lining up his toy soldiers against the lead slugs he collected when Boss took him hunting. Your tactics changed according to the land and the numbers and the particulars of the enemy, but your first job in any action was always to find the two most dangerous Sundowners on the field: the martial one calling the shots, and the mystic one powering them. Once you had a bead on those two...

  Elim looked up at a sudden snort of laughter. Bootjack and Way-Say were invisible, nothing more than a pair of soft voices in the dark – but in his mind’s eye, he could see them as clear as day. Bootjack with his shield and spear. Way-Say with his black-feather cloak.

  How in God’s name had he missed it?

  “For what it’s worth,” Hawkeye said, “I think the prince understands that it was an accident.”

  The prince. The necromancer. The crow god’s son. Way-Say.

  The nephew. The boy in the box. The crow god’s grandson. Do-Lay.

  Elim smothered his mouth. No, that couldn’t be right. Not at all. It would be bad enough to have shot some relation of mean, merciless B
ootjack. The alternative was unthinkable. “He’s – Way-Say was his uncle?”

  From the other side of the dark campground, the conversation stopped.

  “Yes,” Hawkeye said, with the first touch of impatience Elim had heard from him, “and as I’ve said –”

  A sharp, questioning bark cut him off. “Hihn u nikwi?” Bootjack demanded.

  Hawkeye replied in kind, his voice sinking under the intolerable noise in Elim’s head.

  Hallo! he’d said, coming at Elim with a friendly smile and a shoemaker’s knife.

  Bien – ‘bien’ conoses? he’d said, before he put the wet cloth to Elim’s wounds.

  Hsst – trankilo, Ylem, he’d said, as he covered his bare feet.

  Elim’s thoughts savaged each other like cats in an icebox. Knocking the lead slugs over with his wooden corporal – seeing the pigtailed boy sprawled out in the hay, and the red spray on the wall behind him – feeling Way-Say’s touch at his ankle, flinching as he nicked the leather all around Elim’s foot – grabbing his ankle in turn, staring at his yellow-beaded moccasins and begging incoherently for something to let him go on living – and all of it, all of it done in the most thoughtless, helpless ignorance.

  “Sir? Are you not well?” Hawkeye’s voice was just barely audible over the sound of Elim’s own heavy breathing.

  “Hawkeye – what’s...” Elim worked at dredging the foreign sounds up from the garbage-pit of his memory. He could see Way-Say’s mouth moving, speaking words stranger than Marín: once yesterday, as he fixed the poncho and patted his shoulder, and again, this very afternoon, as he patted his knee. “What does it mean, ‘tla-hey ah chan?’”

  There was a silence then, and Elim was afraid he’d mangled it beyond understanding. “If I’ve heard you correctly,” Hawkeye said at last, “it’s an idiom. It means ‘suck your teeth’. In other words, ‘hold fast – there is more still to come’.”