“There are good people here,” Blake’s voice was quivering. “Out here, things got pretty rough during the war. People, myself included, were just looking for safety, looking for assurance amid all of that chaos; we needed something to believe in. The people you see around here, Mother became that something for them.”
“And the spell just magically didn’t work on you?” Lerah asked.
“I wasn’t drawn by her dogma as much as I was by the promise of safety and community. When the blood started flowing, things changed for me. I just started keeping my head as low as possible and rolling with the punches. Then the Union approached me and I saw a way out, but it almost got me and my family killed. As much as I want to get them out of here, I’m not willing to risk their lives in the process.”
“And we’re not asking you to,” Dominic assured him.
“Yes you are, simply by asking me these questions.”
“Okay, let’s just get to what happened with Micah and Susanna.”
“Like I said, they didn’t just break off overnight, it was gradual. For awhile they were working their way around the settlement, talking to people, you know, just trying to find a weak link in the chain. We’d meet at my place a few days every week. But over time those meetings became less frequent, and those two seemed much more withdrawn. It got to the point where, when we met, I was doing most of the talking and prodding. Eventually they just came out with it and told me they were done with the mission. They said that they’d taken to each other and wanted to try to make a life here.”
Lerah wasn’t having any of it. She knocked the chair over, marched across the room, and stood next to the hyperactive pot of stew, removing herself from the conversation.
“So what’d you say?”
“What’d you want me to say? I nodded and sent them on their way. I wasn’t going to try to convince Union soldiers to complete their mission, I was merely an assistant, and they essentially fired me. I thought things were going to be fine, I saw them around the settlement, but we didn’t really talk after that. I’ll say this, they seemed genuinely happy.”
“But?”
“Can I please sit? The floor is hurting my back.”
“Go ahead, it’s your home.”
Blake brought the chair upright and took his seat with a satisfied sigh. “Zach came in here one night.”
“The one missing the fingers?”
“Yeah, he came in with his brother. He had this splinter that had gotten infected and had caused him to go feverish; it was a damned mess. It was obvious when I was working on him that he’d gotten into Mother’s whiskey, the fumes were leaking from his pores. Riley and Judith were working on dinner, so I was trying to get him in and out as quickly as I could; never felt comfortable having those boys around my family.”
“Can’t say I blame you much.”
“He was talkative too, more so than usual. He was running his mouth about this and that. I was ignoring him for the most part, just working to get the splinter dislodged. Then he said something that almost made me drop my tools.”
Lerah was back in the conversation, standing between Dominic and Blake, listening intently.
“He started going on about how him and Toby aren’t really Mother’s sons. How she picked them up out of the Wastes when they were youngsters and started toting them around and using them to back up her story.”
“Her story?” Lerah asked.
“She didn’t tell you? Oh, it’s her claim to fame, really; miraculous conception. She was just a woman, wandering through the Outland, when one day she got a message from the Creator. He was going to use her to multiply the earth and spread His word. He gave her a book and impregnated her with two sons.”
“And people just believed her?” Lerah laughed.
“People want to believe in something,” Blake sounded sympathetic. “I wanted to believe it myself, but I’m an educated man, or at least I try to be, so it never sat right with me. But like I said, this was always about safety and community for my family.”
“So what happened?”
“Toby was trying to shut him up. I could see by the way Toby was reacting that there was something to what Zach was saying. I tried to act like I wasn’t paying attention, but my damn hands were shaking, there was really no hiding that. I was sure Toby and a few men from the Watch were going to come back for me and my family. But they never did.”
“Why do you think that is?” Dominic asked.
Blake shrugged. “You saw what Mother did to Zach. She cut off his fingers for dishonoring the house of the Creator. She’d have done much worse if she’d found out that he’d revealed something like that; she’d have probably killed him. Toby might be a bastard, but he’s got love for his brother. My guess is they just kept it under wraps, pretended like it never happened. They knew I’d do the same, in the interest of my family.”
“Except you didn’t, did you?”
“Well, I was thinking about going to Micah and Susanna the next day and letting them know that I’d come across the weak link in the chain that they’d been looking for, but the next day Mother had them in lockup.”
“Seems pretty convenient,” Lerah said.
“If someone told Mother what Zach said, they’d have come for you too, right?” Dominic asked.
“That’s what I thought, yeah.”
“And it doesn’t make sense, how’d she find out that they were Union?”
Blake shook his head. “I don’t know; I’ve been asking myself the same question, trust me.”
Dominic stood by the door, thinking and muttering to himself. After a few moments he met Lerah’s curious eyes. “This is our weak link. The Union wants us to take this place from Mother with a minimum amount of bloodshed; this is the way we do it. We expose her to her followers as a fraud, using her own son as our witness.”
“How do you plan on accomplishing this? Are you going to just stroll up to him, as casual as you please, and broach the subject of his mommy issues?”
“I’ve been assigned to the Watch. He’s on the Watch. I’ll use that little bond to feel him out.”
Blake stood and started towards the cook pot. “It’s not a bad idea. I imagine he’s not too fond of Mother at the moment, she was the one that had his fingers chopped off, after all.” He stirred the soup and sipped some broth from the ladle before setting it aside.
“Well, it’s as good a place to start as any, so I say let’s go with it.”
Lerah threw her hands up, obviously not fond of the idea, but absent a better one. “I suppose it’ll have to do.”
Dominic opened the front door and turned to Blake. “I can trust you, right?”
“If Mother finds out you’re Union, and that we had this conversation, I’ll be just as dead as you.”
“Keep your head up, Doc. You’ll be hearing from us soon.”
36
Monte had escorted Glaspell, and the chest of coin, east, into the unknown settlements, without incident. When he returned he had ten men at his back. He chose to move north, staying off the main road, preferring to avoid a toe-to-toe fight with the Union while he searched for his fellow Saboteur and the Union bitch. He trusted Glaspell to get the chest of coin to his brother and the rest of the Rebels. Glaspell had proven his loyalty to the cause many times over. He’d served beside Monte and his brother during the war. He’d been there towards the end, during the worst part of the conflict, when the Union was hammering their asses day and night; he’d gotten muddy and bloody. He could have deserted, like so many others. He could have run back to the ashes of his home and the carcasses of his family, but he chose to stay and fight. To a man like Glaspell, it wasn’t about coin, it was about principle; Glaspell was a rare breed.
Monte didn’t recognize half the men at his back. They were mostly new blood. They were a patchwork of fighters that hailed from settlements all across the wastes. They’d set out with a common cause: to join up with the Rebels and fight the Union. For Monte, that was all
that mattered, they could disagree on everything else between heaven and hell, but as long as their ultimate goal was to dismantle Genesis brick-by-brick, they were okay in his book.
They’d been hiking most of the day, stopping occasionally to rest their legs and fill their bellies. It was during one of these intermissions that Monte spotted an anomaly on the horizon. It was a ransacked settlement. He’d seen enough of them during the war that he could pick one out simply by sniffing the air. The black skeleton fingers of burned down houses beckoned for him across the parched brown sea.
“I’m familiar with that settlement,” one of the men spoke softly, as if the attackers were still nearby. “I went through there once last year.”
“I’m assuming it was in slightly better shape,” Monte said.
“Yeah, slightly.”
“I suppose we should go have a look.”
What Monte had viewed from a distance gave no heed to the true power of the destruction. Death was a deceitful friend, always keeping its back turned at a distance, luring with curiosity, refusing to show its ghastly face until the very last moment. Every home had been consumed by flame; the smell of burnt wood still hung heavy in the air. The only building that hadn’t burned was the main hall, though it’d seen its fair share of gunfire, and some crazy bastard had blown a hole through the wall.
“Looks like a war took place here.”
“It would appear it was a rather one sided affair.” Monte kicked a crumbling piece of timber aside, leading his force further into the settlement.
They came upon a handful of men and women with shovels, working a makeshift burial site. There were three bodies stacked nearby, still waiting for a hole in the ground. There were mounds of dirt all around them, with black crosses protruding from them. When the diggers saw Monte and his men they jumped back from their work and raised their broken-down shovels, as if the thin metal and brittle wood could deflect bullets.
“We’ve got nothing worth taking. All that’s left are these bodies,” the woman speaking had shielded herself behind a man that appeared to be no less scared than she was.
“We’re not here to rob you,” Monte said. He hadn’t raised his gun and neither had his men, but it wasn’t a gesture that seemed to be working in their favor. “We’re looking for some people and saw your settlement. Figured we’d come over and see what happened.”
“What happened is the Union, that’s what happened.”
“The Union did this?”
“That’s low man, even for them,” one of Monte’s men muttered.
“Yeah, they did this. Came tearing through here. They started burning everything, shooting folks down. They were going on about their coin… how we’d taken their coin and they wanted it back. We had no idea what they were talking about. So they just kept on burning and shooting.”
“How’d you make it out alive?” Monte thought it best to avoid mentioning the fact that his people had been the ones responsible for ruffling the Union’s feathers.
“This man and woman came out of nowhere. They killed all of them.”
Monte could hardly believe his ears, or his luck. “This man, was he a big guy? Scar on his face? Beard?”
“Sounds like him. The woman seemed to know the bastards, or they knew her.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Monte gathered his men into a huddle. “We got us an interesting situation, boys.”
“I’ll say, boss. What do you make of this?”
“It sounds like these two don’t have a loyal bone in their bodies. They’re riding the line, taking it right down the middle. That’s a dangerous place to be.”
“They’re good, boss.”
“Yeah, they’re good. I’d be disappointed if they weren’t.”
“They took out a lot of Union, boss. You sure we got enough people?”
“Shoot first. Shoot low. Like I said, I want them alive.” Monte turned his attentions back to the grave crew, still standing with their shovels at the ready. “I’ll leave a couple of my men here to help get the rest of these bodies underground.”
“We’re fine, we don’t—”
“Nonsense, Outlanders stick together.” After picking three unfamiliar faces from his crew, he took the rest of his men to the main hall to rest their legs among the blood and the shell casings.
37
Lerah had set out early for her job assignment at the greenhouse. Dominic didn’t know where the girl got the energy. She practically skipped out the front door, more than happy to shoulder him with the difficult work of wooing Zach. She’d kept him up most of the night, riding him like he was the last horse out of town. He’d tried his damndest to stay mad at her. He’d curled up on the floor and shut his eyes, trying to block her from his thoughts. But she’d stripped down and stretched her body across the bed, whispering his name and coaxing him with breathy sighs. Soon his willpower was as useless as a three legged chair. He felt woozy, like he’d been sucking on the business end of a whiskey cask for the past eight hours. That was Lerah, a strong drink, intoxicating, able to strip a man of all good sense.
After a stretch of time he managed to dress and pull his ass outside. The only thing he’d been instructed to do was report to Jeb and get squared away. It reminded him of his first day with the Saboteurs, stepping into a roomful of battle hardened men, all of them searching for a sign of weakness to exploit. Back then he’d had everything to prove. By the end of his first day he’d broken one wrist and splintered a few noses. But these guys weren’t Saboteurs, hell, they weren’t even Rebels. They were just regular guys with guns, no special skills, the spray and pray type; he didn’t think he’d have much of a problem carving out a place among their ranks.
Dominic moved like a bull through the settlement, lumbering this way and that. Conversations stopped and started as he maneuvered around idle groups of sweaty laborers shooting the shit between hammer swings. He was still an outsider to them. Not to be trusted. That was fine, he wasn’t planning on hanging around long, and he wasn’t there to make friends.
Dominic heard gunshots nearby, one ringing off right after the other. There were two guards watching the front gate, but they didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned. Quite the opposite, they were tickled about something, laughing breathlessly and speaking in monosyllables. “Hey, it’s the new guy,” one of them said, wiping the tears from his eyes, still sputtering between words. “I forgot your name, I’m sorry.”
“Dominic.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right; war hero and all that. I’m Luis and this is Russ. We weren’t laughing at you. Things just get a little dry around here; we tend to jack around to pass the time.”
“No explanation needed, I’ve been there myself.”
Another series of gunshots rang out.
“I’m guessing you’re here to get yourself outfitted?”
Dominic nodded.
“There’s not really much to it; just a rifle and a patrol pattern.” Luis held his rifle up by the barrel, turning it like a top between his fingers. “You won’t ever get to use the thing. Bandits haven’t come around here in years. We shot a few of them and the rest got the message. I didn’t personally get to shoot any, but Russ here put a bullet in one of their legs.”
“I would have finished him off if Justin hadn’t started spraying,” Russ sounded like he’d expended a fair amount of mental energy on the incident over the years.
“Anyway, you’re gonna wanna see Jeb, he’ll get you set up. Just follow the gunshots around back of the lockup.”
“What’s the racket about?” Dominic asked.
“Jeb’s doing target practice with nubs.” Luis latched on to Russ as the two men broke into another fit of laughter, slapping the stocks of their rifles against the ground.
Now he knew what they’d been so tickled about.
“Don’t tell him we call him that,” there was a real trace of fear in his voice.
“Your secret is safe with me,” Dominic assured them before starting
towards the lockup.
He didn’t have to search long to find Jeb and Zach. They’d set up a crude little firing range, complete with a single target: a wooden square with chunks blown out of it. Zach was reloading the rifle, the stock propped between his knees, when Dominic announced his presence. “I thought you two were executing someone back here.”
“You come to volunteer?” Zach asked without looking up.
“Let’s see how Watch duty works out first.”
Zach set the magazine and slammed it home with impressive speed and agility, given his limited faculties.
“Watch this,” Jeb intoned as he backed up and stood beside Dominic.
Zach moved the rifle to his shoulder and clamped down on the stock with his cheek. He set his sights and blew a hole right through the center of the target; not more than a few seconds passed between reload and trigger pull.
“Hot damn, boy, you’ve got it. You’re as ready as any man out there.” Jeb moved towards the target to get a closer look at the damage.
“Why don’t you show us what you’ve got, big shot?” Zach offered the gun to Dominic.
“Oh, I’ve got no interest in trying to follow that show. That was some fine shooting.”
“Damn right it was.” Zach brought the rifle to rest with a self satisfied little grin.
“Well,” Jeb came waddling back over with his thumbs jammed in the waistband of his pants, his pistol holster rattling loosely at his side. “I guess I’m supposed to be getting you set up.”
“That’s what I was told,” Dominic replied.
“Ya’ll have fun. I’m going to get me some shut eye.”
“Good shooting today,”
“Yeah-yeah.”
“He’ll grow on you or he won’t, either way, you’ll learn to tolerate him.” Jeb was leading him back around the lockup. “There’s not much to it, my boy, pretty boring and hot. These are all mostly good guys. You were lucky to get the day shift. Nights drag and men tend to fall asleep.”
“I’m assuming Mother doesn’t take kindly to that?”
The Fall of Man: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 1 Page 30
