“I can’t. We go any faster and we’re in
for a world of hurt.”
Baylor spun and grabbed Bobby by the
collar. “You fucking listen to me, kid. You listen good and hard. We don’t do
this, we all fucking die! All our efforts wasted! It’s not going down like
that! Been too long. Been at this too long! This is our last resort, and it
either works or we die! All of us.”
Bobby thought of Sophie and Randal, of
Baylor’s story, of all the people lost this day, and in that chaotic moment he
saw the future stretch out before him. A future that depended on what he did
now. He forced Hoss’s animated corpse to dump more coals on the fire. The beast
roared. The tracks began to squeal louder, louder, louder still.
“Get me to the ass end,” Baylor said.
Together they moved through the cars.
When they reached the kitchen car, they were met by a bloodied Price. Sparks
shot up around his massive frame from the straining of metal on metal beneath.
The pitch of the squeal was out of control—a constant whine that threatened to
puncture Bobby’s ear drums. Price looked unmovable, as if he’d become a part of
the very steel of the beast.
“Been a long time, Price. Been a long
fucking time!”
“It’s not over yet, boss. Not by a long
shot!” Price nodded and knelt down. He grabbed the peg holding the cars
together and pulled, his muscles moving beneath his skin like tectonic plates.
“No!” Bobby reached out to stop him, but
Baylor grabbed him and yanked him back. He swung his elbows back to free
himself from the Mad Conductor’s grip.
“It’s all right, kid,” Baylor shouted in
his ear.
Bobby tried to get loose. He reached for
his knife, watching the massive man toss the chains aside, but Baylor had him
wrapped up tight. Even with the Mad Conductor injured, he couldn’t break that
grasp.
With a nod, the giant man moved into the
darkness of the doorway. Bobby screamed after him, but he was helpless. The
cars began to drift apart.
“Get them all, brother!” Baylor yelled.
“It’s all right, kid. They’ll be all right.”
“No, no.” Bobby fought, but his limbs
grew so tired. He couldn’t break the hold. The rest of the train drifted farther
away. He moved into Hoss’s dead mind, searching for the brakes, but if he
stopped them now the back end would crash right into them. A loud hiss ripped
from that line of thought. He watched the roof of the kitchen car explode
outward. Long sheets of metal glinted in the sun then spun away.
Suddenly the cramped kitchen made sense.
What Bobby thought was machinery for the ovens was a different machinery
altogether. A gigantic platform rose from the supply boxes, and Price sat atop
it like a throne. The sun cast long gold streaks along the massive Gatling gun
in his hands.
“Do it!” Baylor laughed.
“Sophie!” Bobby shouted as those huge
hands pulled hard on a lever. The rear of the beast fell away, sparks screaming
as the brakes bit into the wheels. The riders scattered up and around the
train. As the last of them passed between the cars, Price opened fire.
The noise was unlike anything Bobby had
ever heard before. Even a good distance away, the building whine and eruption
of bullets sent a trembling wave through his body. One moment the riders were
there, scattered around the tracks, and the next, Price cut them down,
evaporating some of them in clouds of misty blood. The big man aimed high to
spare the horses. Bodies were cut in two. Cascading streams of ropey muscles
and innards hung on the orange backdrop like beautiful brushwork before raining
down on to the hot sand.
The big man’s aim had been perfection.
The horses were free of their burdens but coated in their blood. Bobby lost
sight of the train and the carnage as they passed a rippling dune.
“Price got them!” Bobby cheered. “We got
them!”
“Yeah, kid, we did. We got them.” Baylor
finally let him go.
The Mad Conductor slid back against the
car, feet dangling over the edge. He scratched his stubbly scalp, staring off
into the distance.
“I’m going to stop us so we can put the
beast back together.” Bobby stood, smiling. The weight of the fight lifted from
him.
Baylor put his hand on Bobby’s shoulder.
“Can’t let you do that, kid.” Baylor’s voice was utterly defeated. He carried
the weight of his decision clearly, and the loss of his men even more so.
“They’re heading home. Can’t risk it. Can’t risk your son. He’s too important.
Can’t risk my ladies. Shit, can’t risk Price either.”
“No,” Bobby said.
“Conductor’s orders, kid. No exceptions,
and it’s not up for discussion. I thought long and hard on this one. If we’re
to have even the slightest chance of seeing this shit through, they need to be
elsewhere. Hate me, fucking hate me all you want. Take your shot. I see it in
your eyes. Take the fucking shot. I’m a piece of shit. I know. I’ve been
thinking about this since we got the message. Shit’s not even about the fucking
coast anymore. Fucking pipe dream. It’s different.” Baylor shook his head and laughed.
Sweat and blood covered every inch of his weathered face. The end of things was
a fucking badge of courage on that mug.
Bobby flexed his fingers, clenched his
fist, and unloaded on Baylor. His knuckles crashed into the Mad Conductor’s
face. He had no intention of pulling the punch and he dug his knuckles in for
full effect.
“You’re right,” Bobby said robotically.
The coldness settled on him. He stood and flipped the rifle from his back. He
racked the bolt, checked the action, inspecting the weapon for damage, then
counted his shells. He fell into the litany of structure, of order, the only
thing keeping him from giving in and losing it all. It didn’t matter what
Baylor was about to say to him. There were no words. There was only fighting,
always fighting, always struggling. They were gone, and everything was wrong.
He kicked one of Baylor’s bloody teeth over the edge with his boot.
“I know, but that doesn’t make me feel
any better.”
“Now what?”
“Now we figure out what the fuck is
going on. I lost a lot of men today. Men that shouldn’t have died. Not from the
wounds they had. How bad was Hoss?”
“Bad.”
“It doesn’t make sense. They were fine,
and then there were—”
“Creepers. Hoss was the same way. He was
yelling at me to keep the fire going and then he was gone.” Bobby kept the
details to himself. Baylor didn’t need to know what he’d heard, what he’d
discovered. It was his burden now.
“What’s he like right now?”
“Hoss is gone. There’s nothing there.”
Bobby…
a familiar voice called.
Suddenly a monitor flicked on for the
briefest of moments then it was gone, snatched away by speed and distance.
Bobby tried to catch the images but they’d come and gone so quick. Though there
was no mistaking the voice.
It was Price’s.
Moya found the soldier fascinating.
After more than twenty years, here he was. After his world had been
annihilated, obliterated, and forgotten, here he was, still fighting. He
battled not out of survival or instinct. He fought for belief, wearing his
uniform proudly, neat, even covered in viscera. She silently cheered him on,
but knew it was unnecessary. He would not fall to them.
She watched him work the edge of the
pit, always in motion, never in the same direction, a little clockwise, pulling
the horde, then counter. He moved in measured steps and applied just enough
force to drop them, and then he went to the next, conserving energy. He
purposely pulled the fresh ones first, leaving the paper targets for the end.
He always struck at the temple, horizontally, never down—a quick crack, sending
shattered bone into the delicate brain matter. Brutally beautiful.
Moya stirred in the saddle as she leaned
over for a better view. The ropey muscles of his forearm glistened with sweat,
flecks of blood, and bone hung from his hair, but he never wavered in his
mission, in his belief. It was clear to her, as it had been since she’d first
laid eyes on him. He believed he would see it through, that the old ways would
win out, and he believed it with the same conviction she believed her army
would pave the new way. She admired him on a level she never thought possible.
Her men upped bets, cheering him on.
That is, all of them but Keaton. She watched fear linger on her right hand’s
wrinkled brow, but also noted a measure of respect.
“Quite the prize isn’t he, Keaton?”
“Soldier boy’s cut from a cloth they
ain’t making no more. God and country. I know the type.” Keaton spat. “Tough
son of a bitch too, like them boys I saw fight outside Cheyenne. Fucking walked
into the lions mouth. Bunch of bullshit if you ask me. Dying for the sake of
dying is fucking stupid.”
“Well said, Keaton. Well said. We know
better.”
“That’s right, Miss Moya. We do.” Keaton
adjusted the brim of his hat. He traced the scrap of hair and scalp poking out
from the band with a gloved fingertip.
“Wise man you are, Keaton. You never
forget,” Moya said with an understanding nod.
“Fucking stupid to forget too. The rest
of my kin did and, well, you know that story, Ma’am.”
Moya nodded. She knew the limits Keaton
had gone to, and in some cases surpassed, to make it to this point. She’d heard
the story many times, over many fires, and it never changed, not even a single
detail. It was truth and it was why she could trust him.
He’d been a part of another group once,
but one fateful night, the night she met him, the night both their lives were
forever changed, she knew him only as an enemy. She was much younger then.
Somewhere in her mid-twenties. A lithe thing with the whole world wide open to
her. She’d been scrounging out a living on the outskirts of San Antonio,
raiding houses, slipping into the wilds, and returning only for supplies.
She’d gotten quite good at it, but she
made a mistake. She didn’t cover her tracks. She’d fallen complacent after
months of having her fill. And it was that night that they caught her.
They toyed with her at first, poking and
trying to intimidate with all their bravado, using terror as a weapon, but
Moya, even then, was unfazed. She’d been caught, though that did not mean
captured. She needed an opening. A full on assault would only get her killed.
So she waited. She feigned fright, played what they expected—the frightened
little girl, the vulnerable maiden. And they ate it up.
Keaton was among them. There were six
men in all. She did not know their names, with the exception of Keaton, but
that came later. They taunted her while they ate rank meat and drank strong
liquor from dusty bottles. They spoke mundanely about what they were going to
do to her. Threats of rape, of torture, speaking of the vices of weak men.
Power and no substance, and while they waxed ape-like, Moya plotted. She would
take the life from the black-haired man when he lay atop her. She would rip his
throat out while the others drank, using his spasms to feign intercourse.
The black-haired man came for her,
slapping her face with the power of a weak branch in the wind. Moya cried out
to him. Her lips trembled as she fell back. He lay atop her and so it began.
She kissed him on the throat. He froze in surprise, and then Moya ripped him
wide open. The blood was a welcoming warmth across her face on such a cold
night.
“You were weak, predictable, and that is
why you die,” she whispered to the man, tasting the saltiness of his life as it
drained from him. When he twitched his last, she rolled him aside and lay in
the shadows crying.
The next man came, thinking his friend
done for the night. He didn’t make it two steps. Moya rolled up and launched
her body at him. Her fingers and nails, honed and powerful from years of rough
survival, entered the man’s throat easily. One quick rip and he was on the
ground gurgling.
Drenched in blood, she stood in the
light of their fire. Those that remained simply stared. Their eyes filled with
terror. Moya collapsed the next man with a series of sharp-knuckled blows that
cracked his jaw, eye sockets, and temples. Then the strangest thing happened.
“Allow me, Ma’am,” one of the men said,
using his pistol to shoot the two men next to him.
Moya slipped from the past, seeing
herself in the soldier. A body honed by years of war. A wrathful but stoic
soul. She turned to Keaton and said, “Your own brothers.”
“I’d do it over again. It’s one of those
moments you’re so fond of, Ma’am. One of those moments. . .”
Moya flashed him a smile. “And here is
another.”
“I wouldn’t call it that yet, Ma’am.
Seen his type before. All bark and no bite, like my brothers and their crew.”
“He is different, Keaton.”
“We’ll see.”
* * * * *
Post dropped the last of the fresh ones
and he spun with the club, cracking skulls in such quick succession it was
almost a song. He stood over the bodies, heaving, gritting his teeth. He stared
up at those cheering, cursing faces. He stared up at Moya, pointed the club at
her.
“Well done!” She clapped, a thin smile
parting her small face. The sun caught her hair, setting a fiery aura about
her.
“Fuck you, lady!”
Several men jumped down at Post’s words.
He gladly accepted the challenge. He ducked the strike of the first challenger
a little sluggishly. The knife left a gash across his shoulder. He swung the
club back, turning with the strike to face the other two. The knife-wielder was
not as quick to react. The club caved in the front of his face.
* * * * *
“I told you.” Moya felt those feelings
she’d thought long dormant stir inside her again. The very essence of them
frightened her.
“I see a smart man fighting a bunch of
drunk idiots,” said Keaton, a little agitated. “They’re all sloppy.”
“They are merely protecting their
queen.”
“You ain’t no queen, Ma’am. You’re
different. That was the point of all this.” Keaton waved his arm around the
camp. “Ain’t it?”
* * * * *
Post tripped one man with a broad sweep
that cracked kneecaps while he drove the club into the gut of the other man. He
smashed both of their faces in. He stood slowly, blood running down his cheeks.
He held the club up to display the row of teeth embedded in it.
“Bravo, soldier, bravo.”
“Fuck all of you! You want me? Come and
get me!” Post shouted. He shook the club at them, turning in a circle amidst
the corpses.
“Now, I let the first insults slide, but
this—” Moya jumped from her mount— “I cannot allow.” She walked to the edge of
the pit. Powerful hands resting on her hips, she said, “Poor manners. Isn’t
that right, Mr. Keaton?”
Post could hear his own ragged
breathing, Moya’s words, and nothing else. The entire camp was silent. Those
rough faces looked only at Moya with an obedience borne of respect. He watched
her carefully. Her powerful hands rested on her thin hips, rested on the scalps
of her enemies. She leaped into the pit. Her body flipped once, landing between
a twisted heap of old time Creepers.
“So, soldier, you wanted me, now you
have me. Cowards first,” she said with a bow.
“I’m no coward.”
“You are. Only a coward willingly makes
sacrifices for the beliefs of others. So come now, coward. Show me you’re ready
to die by my hand. Prove my point.” She walked towards him.
Post gripped the club. Keaton laughed
from above.
“I never hit a woman before,” Post said
as he charged her. He stepped to the left and came from the side.
“And you never will.” Moya slid left,
then bent down beneath the sweeping arc of the club without even lifting her
hands. Then she twisted back and around and set a right cross at Post’s jaw.
Post took the punch, or rather, the
punch took him. He felt teeth jarred loose, only to end up in areas teeth had
no place to be. An explosion of light and pain ripped his head apart. He was
falling. The world ceased to be. Only deep black depths and that sickening
sensation in his gut. The drop. The long, long drop.
* * * * *
Moya drank from a large water skin. A
row of maps lay on the table in front of her. Her closest followers stood
silently inside the comfortable shade of the tent. A rogue scorpion scuttled
across the sandy floor.
“This is the closest thing I’ve had to
real wine in quite some time, Mr. Pathos.”
“Thank you, Miss Moya. I paid it special
care. We found a way to bring the garden with us. Times are a changing.”
“Do you ever wonder what happened to the
others with whom you shared a destination?” Miss Moya flipped through the rough
charcoal drawings as if bored with them.
Pathos Two rubbed his giant belly. His
bald head dripped sweat like a fountain. “All the time,” he said with a wave of
his tubby fingers. He smacked his lips as Miss Moya passed him the wine skin.
He took a sip and jotted down a few notes on the pad he kept at his side. “All
the time. One day perhaps, when things are set to the right, they will
surface.”
“Or they are already dead.”
“There’s always that possibility.”
“What do the numbers look like since we
crossed the old border?” Miss Moya stood up, rearranged the maps, tracing a
finger across their yellowed surfaces.
“We’ve lost 637. Most of them in the
battle with this Wyoming Blue, but some to natural causes. The horde was
thinned by 768 to my best estimate. It is quite the task to keep track of them,
and we lost 3 prisoners due to suicide.” Pathos Two flipped the notebook to a
fresh page. He licked the tip of an old pen.
“Keaton, talk to me.” Miss Moya sat on
the table and cracked her knuckles.
“Well, we took a hit, but we knocked
out, as far as we know and as far as folks tell it, our biggest obstacle in
soldier boy’s people. They were the best armed, best equipped to give us a
fight.”
“And they did.”
“They did, but we’re still here. I left
a good chunk of calvary to deal with the train man. They were to give ’em hell,
and if any lived absorb them into the fold. The main objective, of course, is
to keep the train intact. It’s our quickest way east to establish a better base
of operations.” Keaton spat a wad of chew on the sand.
“Such a piece of technology would be a
welcome addition. But it’s not our only objective. How have the scouts fared?”
“Haven’t heard back from the Oregon boys
yet, but. . .”
“But what, Keaton?”
Keaton avoided her eyes.