Wolves (26 page)

Rigo rises beside him, knowing that it is time without having to be told. He draws two revolvers.

Don stumbles to his own feet, still shivering, still not quite knowing what is happening.

“Uh … hello?” Don says into the darkness displayed before them, a panorama of nothingness, not even the lantern to give them a point of reference.

Huxley nudges him with an elbow. “Quiet.”

In that quiet, Huxley can no longer hear the boot heels striking the deck of the barge. Instead, there is just the unassuming little sound of rubber soles on wet wood, quietly but quickly approaching.

Jay is less than ten feet in front of them before Huxley even sees him. He comes striding out of the mists, walking quickly and confidently. It is hard to see the details of him, but his pale skin and almost-white hair stand out in the gloom. They are splashed with gore.

“Oh my God …” Don moans out a whisper.

“Quiet!” Huxley hisses again.

Jay's pistols are still tucked into his holsters. But he holds his own knife which glistens wetly. And a tomahawk. The one that had belonged to the slaver in the poncho. He has another revolver, this one stuffed into the front of his waistband. He hands the tomahawk to Huxley.

Huxley feels the heft and balance of it. The handle is wet. It smells of blood.

It feels right in his hands. It feels like justice.

“Come on,” Huxley says, turning his back to the darkness that spans out across the Red River and faces the rest of the barge, where the lanterns on the slave cages and crew quarters are still lit like beacons. “Stay with me,” he whispers, and starts walking in that direction.

He feels rather than hears the other three fall in behind him.

He walks through the mist and it feels like his heart is burning so hot that it will sizzle the mist away in his path. The slave cages loom in the darkness like a great ship in and of itself. As he nears it, he can see the glow of lantern light and the hot-burning brazier through the cracks of the wooden slats. There is no one posted outside. On this ship, the slave master is god, and the slavers are his demigods. Their authority cannot be questioned. Their security is infallible. They conduct themselves as though they are safe, because they believe that their confidence will make it so.

But it won't. It won't. Nothing can make you safe. I am your reckoning. I am the toll you must pay for the path your life has taken. I am vengeance and justice.

He knocks on the door and the sound of his knuckles striking wood seems to shatter the night around them. He hears the grumbling of the man inside, a single slaver, armed to the teeth, Huxley is sure, to watch over the broken souls of men and children huddling in their broken bodies and hoping for a kind master at the other end of this trip down the river.

The door opens. The slaver looks at them, clearly expecting someone else. He seems confused.

“You're not supposed to …” he starts.

Huxley splits the slaver's skull open with the tomahawk. The rough-hewn iron makes a strange
thunk
as it splits hair and bone and brain. Almost like chopping wet and rotted wood. The slaver's knees lock, his body spasms, and he falls backward, blood squirting from his nose and ears. Huxley yanks the tomahawk from his head and the body hits the wooden decking.

The slaves inside their cages look on, and seeing their faces in the red glow of the brazier, Huxley cannot tell if they are hopeful or terrified. Some of them are staring at Huxley and the men behind him, and some of them are staring at the slaver that lies crumpled and twitching on the floor, one hand still opening and closing.

Huxley looks down at the tomahawk. He readjusts his grip.

“Jesus Christ,” Don mutters. “What do we do with all these slaves? Did you think about that?”

“I did,” Huxley says, plainly. He looks up at the slaves, taking a step deeper into the slave cages. Everything he can feel is running together now. It's all a vicious tidewater, and he is riding it, riding it on a delicate raft. He finds a young boy, not much older than Lowell himself, pressed up against a set of iron bars, his hands clutching them.

Huxley looks at him while he speaks. “If you want your freedom, you'll stay quiet.”

The boy points to himself, surprised that he is being personally addressed.

Huxley scans the faces, now addressing everyone. “All of you. Stay quiet.”

He steps back, over the limbs of the dead slaver that now lies still and cooling. He lifts a finger to his lips, presses it there, indicating the need for silence, and then he closes the door behind him as he leaves.

In the cold again, Jay whispers, “They'll think we're trying to steal them.”

Huxley nods. “Maybe. But they'll hope that we're not.”

And hope makes people do stupid things.

Huxley turns away from the slave cages and begins walking with the boarded walls to his left, around the structure toward the crew's quarters, where he might find this Master Bristow, this purveyor of
Misery
. Where he might find Lowell, whom he had never intended to leave for the slavers.

They make it to the corner of the slave cages before someone inside begins to scream.

“Help! Someone help! They're trying to kill the master! They're trying to kill Master Bristow!”

Chapter 10

Huxley freezes there at the corner of the cabin.

Inside the slave cages, the voice is still yelling—a man's voice, Huxley is almost positive.

“Well, shit,” Jay growls, sliding his knife away and pulling out his revolvers.

Rigo flattens himself against the wall, revolvers held up and ready.

Huxley's hands wrench down on the tomahawk. He sees it splitting skulls. He doesn't know who the hell is screaming in the slave cages, but he wants to split their skull open too. Bristow had been right apparently: some of these creatures can't even comprehend their own freedom.

“What do we do now?” Don whines. “What do we do?”

Around the corner, shouts of alarm are being raised. The sound of running feet on wooden boards. The sound of the doors to the crew's quarters slamming open.

Huxley switches the tomahawk to his left hand, pulls one of his revolvers with the right. “We fight. We kill. You know what to do.”

Huxley pulls himself away from the wall—it is a false sense of security, he knows. It is only thin wooden slats, and the gaps between might give him away. He holds the tomahawk at the ready as the foggy night fills with shouts and bellowed commands, the sound of the crew stirring to life, making for weapons.

The danger of it is lost on Huxley. In the moment, he can only see blood and fire. He wants to destroy. To maim. To mutilate. There is nothing else. Perhaps this isn't justice. Perhaps it is only vengefulness. But such high-minded things escape him in this moment. He only knows his weapons, and what he wants them to do.

Boot steps clatter down the side of the slave cages.

Huxley extends the revolver out, stepping out in front of the others.

A man's face turns the corner of the gloom—Lizard Eyes, perhaps? His eyes land on Huxley, but by then it is too late. He tries to level a scattergun, but Huxley is already aimed and ready. He pulls the trigger and the hammer falls. Smoke and flame belch out, briefly turning the gray-white mists around them to amber and gold.

The man staggers, choking. The lead ball caught him in his throat. He tries to shout, but only sprays blood. One hand goes up to the wound, his scattergun forgotten for a moment. Huxley sees the weakness in him and it is like fuel to his fire. It only spurs him on. He cannot be stopped now.

The man with the hole in his throat stumbles forward another step. Huxley strides in quickly and lands the tomahawk on the side of his head, cleaving the top half of his cranium off and killing him instantly.

Abruptly, muzzle flashes pierce the fog all around them. Guns blazing. The sound of scattershot pebbling over the decking.

Huxley feels something nick his side.

He has no time for it. He aims for the blossom of a muzzle flash and he fires, once, then twice.

He registers that Jay is off to the side, both revolvers brandished as he moves through the mist along the slave cages, punching out with this weapon or the other and firing a shot at some target that Huxley cannot see.

Huxley himself is suddenly moving through the mist, his feet pounding the decking like they are doing their own thinking.

Bristow. I need to find Bristow.

Shapes in the darkness.

He strikes out at them with the tomahawk. One parries his stroke, and then Huxley puts the barrel of his revolver under the other man's chin and the top of the man's head pops, smoke coming out of his mouth as he falls.

Another comes, and Huxley shoots him in the gut. The slaver crumples against the side of the slave cages, screaming as he clutches at the fire in his guts. Huxley scoops the scattergun up from the ground and leaves the man who had carried it to die his slow, agonizing death.

Huxley fumbles with his weapons. He stops at the beginning of the crew quarters, both hands filled, and now the scattergun in his arms. It is loaded, the filament still hot and glowing red. Huxley jams his revolver back in his waistband, the barrel warm against his groin like some horrible lover that he cannot leave. He slides the tomahawk through his belt. He holds the rough-hewn stock of the scattergun at hip level and moves toward the crew quarters, winding up the filament a little more to make sure it is hot enough.

The door is hanging open, just barely.

Huxley noses it with the muzzle.

The door bursts open.

Huxley senses the force of another man at the other end of his gun. The barrel is being pressed suddenly skyward. He sees the shape, backlit by the glow of a fire—a big man, thick in the shoulders, thick in the hips. Fat, perhaps, but powerful, and Huxley cannot get the muzzle of the scattergun back down. Simply out of reflex, he pulls the trigger. The gun fires, a gigantic, enveloping
boom
and then it is being ripped from his hands. The cloud of gunsmoke hangs there, mixed with the mist, and Master Bristow pummels through it, the scattergun in his hands, and for a moment, Huxley thinks that the man will use it to try to beat him to death.

He manages to get one of his revolvers out.

But Bristow throws the scattergun aside and rushes headlong into Huxley. The weight and simple mass of the man cannot be resisted. Huxley feels the air going out of him as the slave master hits him. Huxley is tipped backward, the world upended, and it seems to him that he is in the air for a long time. And then his back hits the decking hard, and he feels sharp pains and dull pains, and the sensation of things cracking inside of him.

Hard, iron hands on his neck, rough like sandpaper.

Hot, rank breath in his face, like a furnace wind cutting through the dank fog. “I fucking knew you would do this! I knew you had no honor, you piece of shit! You couldn't resist, could you? I'm gonna fucking squeeze the life out of you! Gonna squeeze it right out of you!”

Huxley feels his windpipe closing under the pressure of those hands.

He realizes the revolver has been knocked from his grip when he fell.

The stars in his vision clear momentarily, now replaced with black at the edges that wants to creep in, but still, in the center of his vision, he can see Bristow's face, all fury and rage and darkness, his teeth bared, spittle clumped white at the corners of his mouth like he is a rabid dog.

A rabid dog. That's all you are.

I am not weak.

I will survive this thing, this slave master, this human filth … 

Huxley ignores the hands around his neck. The moment is strange because he can think so clearly in it, where it seemed impossible to him before. In that moment, with oxygen in his system running out, and pain in his body screaming at him, and the sensation that his larynx is going to collapse, he knows for certain that he will never be able to pry those hands from around his neck. So he ignores them. He moves to a different option.

Bristow is so incensed, he cannot feel Huxley's hands scrambling for the other revolver in his belt. Huxley's fingers quest across his belt line, his waistline, searching for the cold wooden grip, that curved, hard combination of metal and wood.

Where? Where? It's gone. Where did it go?

Then he feels it, jabbing in his back.

Must have shifted positions on him.

Now it is pinned beneath him.

He tries to roll his body, to hitch himself up enough that he can get his hand underneath him and draw that second revolver, but Bristow is a big man, and straddled completely atop of Huxley, choking the life out of him, bearing all his weight down. He can't roll. He can't get to that gun.

Not now! Not this!

The blackness is advancing across his vision now, swallowing him like the fog had swallowed the slave barge. He can see almost nothing, except for Bristow's eyes, the cold, dark eyes, just barely visible in the night, like they have some inner glow of hellfire.

Is this how it ends?

Failed?

Weak?

Then the pressure on his neck is gone.

Air floods his lungs, so cold that it feels hot.

The black retreats from his eyes.

He sees, but does not immediately understand.

Bristow backpedaling. Two hands that are not his own are clutching the sides of his face, the fingers sinking into his eye sockets. The big slave master is bellowing like a beast in combat. He is rearing back, trying to reach ineffectively to whoever is behind him.

Rigo.

Rigo, clinging to the big man's back with a manic look of terror and ferocity on his face.

Bristow slams himself back against the wall of the crew quarters. Rigo yelps, but he doesn't let go. He's latched on like a fighting dog to another's jugular, refusing to release. Those fingers, formed into claws, sinking into Bristow's eye sockets, scraping red lines through his flesh.

Huxley stumbles to his feet.

Bristow thrashes about, still trying to slam Rigo back into the wall, trying to get the smaller man to release the hold on his face. His hands and arms are up, reaching for Rigo, trying to unlatch him. Exposing himself. Exposing his whole great, wobbling midsection.

Huxley's feet feel like wooden trunks underneath him—dull, and insensate. But he takes one staggering step forward, pulling air through his swollen throat. He yanks the tomahawk from his belt and takes a single swipe that strikes Bristow in his midsection, opening his abdomen from hip to hip.

Bristow curls inward with an odd, unmanly scream, and Rigo releases him. The large man doubles over, hands going to his stomach as he falls to his knees, trying to keep things from tumbling out. He hits the ground and pitches face-first onto the deck, still screaming.

Huxley plants the blade of the tomahawk in the back of the man's head, silencing him.

Die. Die like the dog you are.

He stares down at the dead man, then up at the rest of the slave barge, breathing hard, smelling the smells of death and sulfurous gunsmoke. In the fog, all across the dark deck, men are crying out. Some of them are the slaves, and they are scared. One or two are slavers, crying out in agony as they die. Huxley feels no horror at what he's done. He feels a burgeoning sense of vindication, an undeniable sense of satisfaction. And it is this sensation, and only this, that gives him pause.

He is baring his teeth as he breathes hard through his swollen throat, and the air feels like hot rage, and he wonders how much his face looks like he is grinning in that moment.

They wouldn't recognize you
, the little thought needles at him.

But they are dead. And I am alive.

I am avenging them. They would understand.

They would have to.

Because it's too late. Too late to turn back now.

“Did we get them all?” Huxley asks, feeling his own pain beginning to make it through the veil of adrenaline.

Rigo looks up at Huxley like he doesn't recognize him for a moment. Then he shrugs and nods toward the crew quarters where the door still hangs open.

Huxley touches his side and absentmindedly notices it is wet.

I've been hit. Shot or cut. Not sure which.

Am I okay?

I'm still standing, so I think I'm okay.

He brandishes the tomahawk and takes out the fully loaded revolver he'd been trying to grasp around his back.

Huxley and Rigo move to the open door of the crew quarters. Huxley uses the blade of his tomahawk to pull it open the rest of the way. It bangs loudly against the back wall. Inside the quarters, it is light enough to see clearly. Two oil lanterns hang from the ceiling, rocking back and forth. A heavy brazier of some dubious construction sits in the middle of the room filled with red embers. It sends up tendrils of smoke that wander up to the ceiling and slip out a small ventilation hole.

It is stiflingly warm inside the crew quarters. As he steps closer to it, the heat from the brazier tightens the skin around his face. He feels sickly and out of sorts for some reason. Unsure of himself like a small part of his old mind, his weak mind, is trying to reassert itself, trying to tell himself that he does not have to be an animal, that he can still be civilized, but he knows that is not true. There are no more civilized people left in the world. They have all been murdered by the animals.

The room is one big square. There are bunks on the walls, simple affairs that are lashed in place with ropes and pieces of wood, the bedding made of old wool blankets that look half-eaten away. Everything is tossed about, a scene of disorder and panic that lies still while their recent inhabitants die screaming outside, or are already dead.

Most of them are already dead.

Except, perhaps the man that Huxley gut-shot.

He is probably the one still loudly clinging to life.

Huxley steps past the brazier, feeling sick again, but this time it is different. Not sick with the things he has done—this time he actually feels faint. He scans the room, feeling a clammy sweat break out across his forehead, his nose, his upper lip. Things seem watery and unsteady to him.

“Lowell?” he says, his hand going again to his side, this time pressing into the wetness there, finding the hole in his jacket. He feels the wound underneath, ragged and moist, and it smarts from his touch, the salt of his skin.

Where's Lowell? Did they hurt him? Did they kill him?

Maybe he was hit with a stray round.

He remembers his hallucination the previous night, the boy standing there, but in Huxley's mind, he saw the girl … 

Huxley clears his throat, then spits. Blinks rapidly.

If I lose him, I will forget … 

“Lowell!” he says again, louder.

This time there is a stirring from the back of the room. The shadows underneath the bunks are deep, but Huxley can see the movement in them. First it squirms, and then it slides out, very slowly, very cautiously. The boy is looking around the room, his eyes wide. On his wrists are manacles, chained together, and bolted to the wall nearest to the bunk he'd emerged from.