Wolves (35 page)

He catches Brie and motions her up into the wagon. She climbs up, glancing back and forth between the rifles and him. Huxley takes one up, shows it to her in the dim light of his lantern, opening and closing the breech.

“You know how to work one of these?” he asks.

She gives him a half smile. “Do you?”

Huxley looks at the rifle in his hands. “Just what I've read in books. Never seen one before. But I guess the concept is pretty simple.” He points to the open breech, the chamber a hole in the center of it. “It's a cartridge gun. Like they used to have way back in the day. A long time before the Old World. Like an old buffalo rifle. You put the cartridge in the chamber. Close the breech. Like this. Hammer back. And then you shoot.”

She inclines herself over the breech, brushing hair back as it hangs in her face. Huxley can smell her sweat and stink from being on the road all day. He is sure that he smells much worse. They all probably do. He had hoped in the back of his mind to afford the time for a bath, but hadn't anticipated being run out of Shreveport so quickly.

“Okay,” she says. “I got it.”

Huxley hands her the rifle. “How many of yours do you think can handle one of these?”

“How many of mine?”

“Your people.”

She looks up at him oddly. “Not just mine. But I'd say maybe … most of them.”

Huxley looks at the pile of rifles. They have more than enough to go around. “Give them to whoever you think can handle one. And then get everyone on this wagon. We're leaving as soon as I light that fire.”

She doesn't ask him why he is lighting a fire, and he doesn't give her a chance. He slips over the side of the wagon and stalks to the house where the slaves have stacked up the broken crates.

“Is this good?” one of them asks.

The way it is said. Almost pleading with Huxley. Almost desperate to please him.

Or afraid that they've angered me.

Huxley frowns at the speaker, a teenage boy. Slightly older than Lowell. “Yes, it's fine. Go to the wagon.”

When the slaves have left him, Huxley stoops to the pile of wood, grimacing at the pain it causes in his side. He scoops up the straw and wood shavings that had been inside of the crates and stacks it up underneath all of that dry, brittle wood. He pours a charge of gunpowder to make it light easier and strikes a flint into it. The sparks fly and after a few tries, the gunpowder ignites in a hissing flash and a plume of white smoke. He leans away from it, squinting. The straw and wood shavings catch quickly and it takes no encouragement from him. The boxes are old, dried wood. They go up like they are dipped in tar.

He makes his way back to the wagon with urgency in his step, absently holding his side. He can still feel the heat of the fire at his back as it spreads hungrily. Everyone is packed into the wagon, and the horses do not seem happy about their load, but then, they have not even begun to tow it.

Give it time, boys. You'll like it even less.

Brie and Lowell sit on one side of the wagon, Rigo on the other. Jay is sitting in the front bench seat, a new, breech-loading rifle in his lap, and he looks pleased.

Huxley pulls himself up into his seat and grabs up the reins. He snaps them and the wagon groans and creaks back into motion, the pair of horses chuffing their displeasure at the load. With the fire burning, consuming the house behind them, and sending up a huge pillar of smoke, they leave the abandoned neighborhood for the main road east. Plunging themselves into the Riverlands.

East, where the slavers go.

Chapter 7

They come across the small ranch, visible from the crest of a hill about a mile to the west of it. Stakes driven into the ground with less than a few inches between create the fence, and corralled inside, Huxley can see several horses. A large stable. A barn of faded scrap wood that is stuffed with what looks like hay. A small cottage built of stone and timber sits just outside the fences. Smoke pours from the squat little chimney. A banner is displayed on the canted flagpole—some image of yellow and green that Huxley cannot make out and suspects he wouldn't recognize anyway.

Huxley eyes the little cottage and the ranch, the fresh horses inside. He tries to clear his throat but finds it gummed up and dry. He grabs a water skin and sips from it very conscientiously. He swishes the cold water around in his mouth, then swallows.

He is exhausted. The effort of anything seems too much for him. His hands feel frozen around the reins, and the horses look no better than he does. They are close to blown. Or maybe they are blown already, just barely hauling the heavy wagon on. They've had little to no fodder in the day since Shreveport—only whatever they could graze on while Huxley and his group took turns sleeping in the warmth of the day. None of them has had food but what they had been able to carry in their hands off the slave barge. And no human or beast has had more than two hours of rest since they fled Shreveport. Brie has put a fresh poultice on his side, but it is only to keep from infection and does nothing for pain. And pain he is learning to deal with.

But we have good rifles,
Huxley thinks, finally clearing his throat.

He blinks, and even that feels hard and sluggish. His eyelids don't want to come open again. “How many do you think there are?” he asks Jay who is sitting next to him.

Brie leans in from the back where the rest of them are dozing off fitfully, jounced awake by every pothole in this long road. She looks at the little ranch with a calculating eye, as though the question was posed to her.

“People or horses?” Jay asks, rubbing life back into his face. His eyes are squinty and bloodshot.

“Both.” Huxley leans on his elbows.

“It's a horse swap,” Brie announces. “Councilmen's business only.”

Huxley grunts, as though Brie has said something darkly amusing. “Of course.”

Jay stretches his back. “I'd guess about a dozen horses.”

“Probably just a family to tend to them,” Brie says. “A man and a woman, at least. Maybe some kids. Maybe they're old, maybe they're not. But we could take them.”

“We could take them?” Huxley asks, though the conviction of his question—the shock of it—is lackluster. He wants to believe that he wasn't thinking about just riding in and wiping out this family for the horses that he so desperately needs, but it seems he cannot lie to himself.

“Easily.” Brie nods.

Huxley snorts, then spits off to the side. “We'll try to pay for what we take. But we need the horses. And I won't be negotiating. Have everyone loaded up and ready. In case things go badly.”

Brie passes it along to the others in the back of the wagon, and then Huxley spurs the tired duo of horses on down the mild slope of the hill toward the ranch. Behind them, the sun is just barely above the horizon, and as they descend the hill, the shadows swallow them up. Dusk is here again, a reminder that they need sleep, and also that there are many, many miles to cross and time is running out. This day is at an end.

Which means it has been over one day since they left Shreveport.

Black Heart Davies is after me now. He'll be on my trail, all the mercy used up.

He's just a man
, Huxley tells himself, but he feels the weight of that one man on his head, the feeling a field rat might get when a hawk's shadow passes over him.

Forward is the only way.

They emerge from the shadow of the hill into tame, ochre sunlight. It is cold and ineffectual. It does not warm and it barely provides light, skewing everything into the same odd hues of orange and gray, a messy palette where shapes are hard to see. Onto the dirt drive, a man steps in their path, holding a long gun similar to the ones they
procured
from Overman.

The man is middle-aged, it seems, but gone almost completely gray. He is a big man, and he holds the rifle in his grip, not exactly pointing it at them, but not holding it in a welcoming way either. Huxley pulls the reins back and the horses readily stop, huffing plumes of steam from their giant, flared nostrils, happy to no longer be pulling their load.

The man with the rifle stands resolutely and eyes them up and down. “What's your purpose here?” he challenges.

Huxley looks over top of the man's head at the little cottage behind him. The smoking chimney. The two dark windows that face them on the front of it. There is no one else that Huxley can see. The rancher talks big for a man by himself.

Tiredly, Huxley addresses the man. “My horses are blown. I'd like to trade them for fresh ones. And I need some additional horses to be saddled. For riders.”

The ranch keeper looks Huxley over again, his face all but a complete sneer. Then he looks at the ragged group that fills the back of the wagon. Huxley knows that it has not escaped the man that they are all holding rifles, but the man does not budge.

“Where are your markings?” the man asks.

Huxley's exhausted mind tries to work through the question. “Our markings?”

“Your sigils. You have no banner,” the ranch keeper says, almost as though he is making up his mind. “No banner. No councilman's protection. These horses are for council's business only. You should move along.”

The words float through the air, slipping into Huxley's ears and bouncing around, swallowed by the caverns of his mind. Like stones down a well, they skitter and scatter down and stir things sleeping in the darkness. All the while, Huxley stares at the other man, and nothing about his face changes, no tremble on his lip or twitch of his eyebrows.

The beard around Huxley's neck begins to itch again.

Huxley's finger creeps up, but fastens itself to his collar.

“Council's business?” he asks quietly.

So quietly that the ranch keeper leans forward a bit, eyes squinting as he tries harder to hear.

A horse whinnies loudly, tossing its head around as though it smells something foul on the wind.

Huxley's finger finds the spot in his beard that itches. His fingernails scrape at the dirty flesh. It stings raw and he withdraws his hand, then leans forward, elbows on his rifle. “Council's business, I asked. Just what is ‘council's business'?”

The ranch keeper leans back, licks his lips. “Well …”

“Running slaves to and fro?” Huxley says, his voice coldly calm. “Ripping children from their mothers? Sons and daughters from their fathers? Castrating the boys? Raping the girls? Is that the sort of councilman's business you're talking about?”

The ranch keeper opens his mouth to argue.

Huxley stands up, throwing down the reins of the horses. He towers over the man in the road, who suddenly seems smaller, and by the look on his face, feels it too. Huxley has his revolver in his hand, but he doesn't point it, doesn't cock it. Just stares this little man down.

“Fuck this guy,” Jay says from beside Huxley. The pale man leans forward, his rifle resting across his lap, almost lazily. “That's a nice house you have behind you, my friend. I had a house once.” Jay's voice gets quiet and breathy. “I bet you got a nice little family up in there. You know I had a family one time? I did. So did my friends. We all had nice little families. You know what happened to them?”

“I-I …”

Huxley interrupts him with a shout: “Do you know what happened to them!”

Silence.

Jay taps his finger steadily on the frame of his rifle. “Councilman's business. That's what happened to them.”

The ranch keeper is clutching his own gun now, nervous. If he had strength to show, he would have shown it now. He is exactly what they thought he was. One lonely man, perhaps with a wife and child huddled in the cottage behind them, praying that the words of protection blessed over them by some councilman is enough to keep them safe, despite all signs pointing to the opposite.

Huxley spits in the dirt between them.

The ranch keeper stumbles over his words. “Listen … I'm not a slaver. I don't do that stuff. I just … I just give them fresh horses …”

“You sit here,” Huxley interrupts. “In the middle of nowhere, on this so-called Slavers' Trail. Just you. And a dozen or so horses. And no one robs you.” Huxley snorts. “Is that the power of a councilman's banner? Is that how much fear they wield? That you feel that you and your family are safe here, just resting under the threat that if anyone takes anything from you, they'll piss off a councilman? Those banners hanging on your ranch house … is that all the protection you need?”

Nothing. Stammering.

Jay tilts his head, just slightly as he speaks, like a curious dog. “What if we don't give a fuck about your banners? What if we're not afraid of your councilman?”

“You … you should be!” he stutters, powerless.

Huxley reaches into the satchel at his feet and pulls out the sack of crude gold coins—melted and cast with Riverland Nations stamps. It is enough gold to pay for twice the horses that the ranch keeper even cares for. Huxley throws the entire sack of gold onto the ground where he just spat. The leather pouch loosens and spills as it strikes, scattering little golden disks across the hard-packed dirt.

The ranch keeper stares at it, then up at Huxley, not quite sure what to do.

“What the fuck?” Jay says to Huxley. “Don't give him the gold …”

“Shut up,” Huxley cuts him off with a hand. He stands there in silence for a moment, then speaks to the ranch keeper in low tones: “Take the gold.”

The ranch keeper is visibly shaking. But he draws himself up and raises his chin.

Just take the money
, Huxley thinks, trying to will it into reality.
Just take it and let me on my way.

“I am an official of the Riverland Nations, appointed by the Great Council,” the ranch keeper announces in a loud, but quavering voice. “Deputized by Councilman Barkley. I will not be bribed by outlaws. This is Barkley land that you're standing on, and I'll extend you the kindness of warning you that Councilman Barkley doesn't take to outlaws. Leave now and I'll forget about you. Continue trying to take what isn't yours and Councilman Barkley's men, and his Black Hats, will hunt you down and have your skins hanging on the side of the road by the end of the week.”

Huxley is shaking his head, his teeth clenched together. He points to the coins on the ground. “Just take the fucking money,” he hisses. “For yourself and your family. So they don't have to watch you die. So we don't have to murder them in their own house.”

The man raises his rifle in unsteady hands. “You … you're all under arrest!”

A plume of gray smoke erupts from beside Huxley. He watches the ranch keeper stumble backward, blood spinning in ribbons out of his chest. His rifle swings wildly and goes off, the round zipping off to Huxley's left. He hits the ground, dead as a sack of rocks.

Huxley looks to his right. Jay is standing there, levering open the breech of his rifle, smoke pouring out of it. He inserts another cartridge and snaps the breech closed. “That man,” he announces loudly. “Was a part of the slave trade. He deserved to die. He's taken from people like us and our families long enough. I'm done with these people feeding off of us. I'm done with these people.”

Huxley stares at the body.

What do I feel?

But he refuses to think about Charity, about Nadine, and what they would think of him. So when he looks at the body he feels … nothing. He raises his eyes to the cottage, but speaks to everyone standing behind him. “Everything he has is yours. Restitution for what's been stolen. Take what you want. You have ten minutes before I burn that house to the ground. Take what you want and get out.”

Huxley can feel the wagon shaking as the occupants hop down out of it. Some of them are running for the house, rifles held up to their shoulders, aware there might be others inside. Some of them seem eager, but some of them seem hesitant. The eager ones spur on the hesitant ones, and they become a wave. A mob. A riot, small in scale, but with the same sense of general anonymity. Out here in the middle of nowhere, there is no one to witness the sharing of their sins. No one but God himself, and in these wildlings' hearts and souls, they have forgotten that such an entity exists.

“Come on,” Brie's voice speaks from behind him.

Huxley turns, thinking that she is talking to him. But he sees that she is standing up in front of Lowell, her hand extended while Lowell keeps his seat on the side of the wagon. At first he is staring at Brie, and it seems he is about to take her hand and go with her. But a gunshot snaps his attention to the house. Then there is screaming—a woman screaming. And another gunshot. And another. And each one makes Lowell flinch, and each flinch seems to sink him further into his seat.

Brie takes him by the face and forces him to look at her. “Don't feel bad for them, Lowell. They're bad, bad people. They deserve what they get. Do you trust me? Do you think I know what I'm talking about?”

Lowell stares up at her, eyes glistening. But he nods.

“Then come with me,” she smiles, disarmingly, and there is something horrible and beautiful about it as the screaming and shouting crescendos within the cottage. Someone pleading for their life. And others, not sure what to do with the person pleading, an argument being set forth, voices shouting at each other. Huxley cannot hear the words, but he can imagine the context of the situation.