The Benders (3 page)

“I’m safe with Clay,” I say, letting my eyes linger up the moonlit ridge. “We take care of each other.”

“No bender is safe. Not with a man.”

I sigh, thinking about how I should explain this without giving away too much. “Clay’s different. He wouldn’t—”

“There’s a bounty.” She stares at me, eyes wide.

“A bounty?”

“It’s big. Big enough that every trader, every wannabe trader, too, is snatching up benders. No place is safe.” She drops her eyes to her dirty jeans. “You should just kill me now.”

“I’m not gonna kill you.” My insides are cold. I don’t like hearing there’s a bounty on benders. That means I’m not safe no matter where I go. Even passing as a bender won’t keep me out of harm’s way anymore.

Beside me, Nada begins sniffling. I try to touch her shoulder, but she shies away and goes back to digging at the bonds around her ankles.

“Here, stop that,” I say, putting my hands on top of hers. Her fingers tremble under mine. This is all too much. I can’t stand the suffering look on this poor bender’s face. I draw out my hunting knife and slip it through the twine. When the rope frays, I look at Nada, my heart pounding.

She looks between me and her free ankles with disbelief.

“If you want, we can try to drive you someplace safe. We’re headed north to a town ther—”

Before I can finish my sentence, Nada springs at me. Her hands slam into my chest, bowling me over into the dirt. I’m so shocked, I don’t even think to fight back when she grabs my knife.

“What’re you doing?” I manage to yell. I reach for her, but she’s quick. She jumps off me and runs around the fire.

I push up and after her, but she has a big head start. She sprints around the campfire toward the shotgun. Maybe she thinks I’m too big to kill with a knife. Instead she’ll shoot me.

I was so stupid.

She skids to her knees beside the man who’s bound and lying face down in the dirt. She must want the keys to his truck. We found it parked behind a butte. But she can’t get his keys and shoot me at the same time. I’m about to pounce when the knife flashes upward. What’s she—

Nada plunges the knife in a slashing arch down into the man’s back, two stabs right where his heart would be. The man twitches and is still.

I skid to a stop a few feet away and stare, the shock freezing me in place. She just…killed him. Bright red blood jets from his back.

I can’t believe it.

Nada runs into the dark like a coyote skittering away into the night.

“What the hell, Riley?”

Clay comes barreling toward me with Ethan in tow. His stares at the giant puddle of blood under the dead trader. Then his eyes flick back to the discarded rope that had lashed the bender’s ankles together. “What happened?”

I cringe and dig for the right words. “I couldn’t just leave her tied up.”

“You did this?” Clay asks, tugging a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why?”

“She was scared. She said benders were being rounded up.” I twist my hands together, still digging for answers that don’t come. I shrug. “I felt sorry for her.”

“You felt sorry for her?” Clay asks, throwing his hands in the air. “Feel sorry for us when she comes back with half an army of traders.”

“She won’t do that.” I bite my lip. God, I hope she won’t.

Clay flashes me a look. Ethan comes over and stares at the dead body. I draw my brother to me. I don’t shield his eyes from death any more. God knows he’s seen enough of it, but I can’t help reaching for him.

“How’d he die?” Ethan asks, staring at the man’s blood-soaked shirt. “You kill him?” He looks up at me.

“Hell no,” I say, feeling sick that he would even ask. “The bender did it. She couldn’t wait to kill this bastard. Then she ran off. Didn’t even take the truck keys.”

“Well, kill him she did,” Clay says, crouching down and inspecting the knife wounds. “Right in the heart.” He looks up at me. “You’re lucky she didn’t go after you.”

I say nothing and lift my eyes up at the blanket of stars. Lord knows I’ve made mistakes, but freeing that poor bender sure didn’t feel like one. I only hope I don’t come to regret this. For Ethan’s sake. For Clay’s.

“One thing’s for sure,” Clay says, standing and brushing dirt from the knees of his pants. “We ain’t sleepin’ here tonight. Let’s hope that truck over yonder’s got fuel. We need to put distance between us and your bender friend.”

I roll my eyes, but I know he’s right. Distance is all we’ve ever needed. From every goddamned person on the planet.

The truck’s a beater—a rusted front grille that’s barely hanging on, pitted doors that groan when you open them, no back or side windows, and a wicked crack through the windshield that makes it difficult to see—but she drives. The tires are full and the gas tank doesn’t echo when you knock on it, so we count ourselves lucky. We pile all the dead man’s supplies into the truck and toss in our own scant belongings. The shotgun is a great find, but even better is the box of twelve cartridges and nearly a full box .22 caliber birdshot. Clay wrinkles his brow at the birdshot. He likes bullets, but I run my hands through the cool metal spears gleefully. Arn used birdshot from time to time. This means hunting in the air. I’d love hawk or crow for dinner. It can’t hurt for defending ourselves, either.

We also score two jugs of water, a pair of boots, a cast-iron pan, a pouch of jerky, and jars of canned peaches, prickly pear, and tomatoes. A good haul. I feel some guilt for the dead trader, but if Nada would rather have killed him than take the truck, he must’ve done awful things to her. He must’ve deserved to die.

We drive through the night and into dawn, Ethan in the middle of the cracked bench seat, Clay driving, and me riding literally shotgun with the dead man’s rifle on my lap. It’s nice to have a loaded gun again. Nothing feels so empty as a hollow chamber. Ethan’s head rests on my shoulder as he sleeps. My eyes are red-rimmed and stinging, but Clay insists on putting at least five hours between us and the bender before he pulls over. The landscape here is flat and brown, with cactus and scraggly brush the main attraction. Sometimes we pass decaying homes or leaning gas stations, long empty and picked over, sliding to rot. My heartbeat always skyrockets when we drive past shells of old buildings. The only thing they hold now are dangers.

I look over at Clay, driving into the gray dawn. He didn’t scold me for letting the bender go, though I know he thinks it put us in a tight spot. I study his profile for a moment. His jaw is clenched like it always is when we’re on the road, vulnerable to any number of dangers. His cowboy hat’s thumbed back on his head, showing one damp brown curl that laps over his forehead. It’s all I can do right now not to reach over Ethan and slip my fingers around that curl, then trail my hand down the rolling hills of his face.

He looks over, sensing me watching, and meets my eyes. The hardness in his face recedes and he offers me a tight smile.

“You okay?” he asks, maneuvering past a bad patch of sand blown over the highway.

I nod. “I’ll be better when we find a place to settle down for the day.”

“Me, too.” He squints at something in the distance, his jaw clenching again.

I reach over, careful not to disturb my sleeping brother, and place my hand on his neck. “You want me to drive?”

He shakes his head, smiling again. “I got this, pretty lady. We’ll only go another half hour or so ’fore we stop. Not sure how much gas we got in this baby since the gas gauge is busted. Next place that looks good, we’ll stop and call it a day.”

“Think we’ll make it to town in this truck?” There was one half-full can of fuel in the truck bed, but it’s gone now.

He frowns and runs his knuckles through the stubble on his cheek. “Maybe. We can’t be more’n forty or fifty miles outside city limits.”

“I thought this road looked familiar.” I stare out the window at the scrubland and lump forms in my throat. Home. Mama’s death still feels fresh as a new stab wound, and thinking of home drums up more pain that I was ready for. Staring out the open window so Clay won’t see my tears, memories trickle through the dam I’ve built. Mama running toward the crevasse, the determination on her burned face as she leapt to save her son.

“Riley.”

I blink out of my sorrow and turn to Clay.

“Look,” he says, pointing.

I follow his finger out toward a shape forming in front of us. It’s a house, a white ranch with a windmill and a barn out back. I gasp when I realize what I’m looking at. It’s
our
house. Arn’s and Mama’s and mine. Or at least it was our house before the sheriff came, before we left with Clay to save Mama and Auntie.

“Should we?” he asks, nodding to the farm house. “I mean, will it hurt too bad?”

I swallow hard. “You’re going back to your home. Only fair that I should swing by mine.” The words come out too fast. Do I mean that? Can I stand to see it again? “Besides, the windmill’s still turning. Means fresh water and we’re almost out.”

His brow furrows. He’s worried about me. I like when he’s worried about me. Still my grief, my fear of what memories await inside this place, sit so heavy on my chest it’s hard to draw breath.

“You sure?”

I stare at the farmhouse growing bigger on the horizon. “I haven’t been sure about anything since we left.”

We cut the headlights and drive up real quiet, guns at the ready. I shake Ethan awake. He sits groggy but wide-eyed in the truck cab as Clay and I slip out, guns drawn. If we’re gonna sleep here tonight, we need to make sure the coast is clear. That means walking every room and the barn to make sure no vagabonds are waiting to strangle us in our sleep. So, together, Clay and I tread around my family’s farm house and approach the open back door.

As I walk up to the sagging back porch, my anxiety rises up along with memories of my childhood. Images flood my head—me racing down the porch with Ethan in my arms the night of the sheriff’s attack, the time I stood on this porch and cussed Clay out for trying to help when Ethan had been bit by a coyote. Older memories too like Auntie braiding my hair as I sat at her feet right there on the porch step, or weeding with Mama in the garden which is now just a dry patch of land to our right. Memories submerged me. How could that life be gone? It was only yesterday.

Clay and I step up the porch steps, weapons at the ready. He’s got the dead man’s shotgun and I have his hunting knife. Would be nice if we had two loaded guns, but beggars can’t be choosers. It’s unlikely anyone’s got bullets, so we have the advantage. Still, that thought doesn’t dampen the harsh thrumming of my heart as we take our places on either side of the open door, press our shoulders to the wood siding, and listen.

Clay’s eyes meet mine and he raises an eyebrow to ask if I’m ready to go in. Everything inside me screams no. No, I’m not ready to stalk into my childhood home and search it for people who want to kill me. How will I stay clear and focused when all I’m already searching for the face of my Mama in every corner?

I nod and follow Clay into the tense darkness, my knife ready.

We creep down the hallway, doing our best to tread light. Still, the aging boards creak under our feet. If anyone’s inside it won’t take much to alert them. Clay stalks through the hall and into my old room with the shotgun raised. I can barely breathe as I follow him inside.

The chipped wooden bed frames are still in place, but the mattresses, blankets and even our little dresser are long gone. A few large muddy boot prints mark up the floor, but the mud is old and flaky. Hopefully, the prints are months old. Still, I hate seeing them. Someone came in here and took our sheets, stole our mattresses. I hate seeing the room stripped naked. The memory I have of our room, warm and happy, will be replaced with this husk. With shaking breaths, I nod for Clay to follow me out. Then I turn and stalk toward the living room.

The living room was in poor shape when we left it—nearly blown to bits by the sheriff and his men the night he killed Arn and stole Auntie and Mama—so seeing it doesn’t hurt as badly. The bullet-riddled walls have seen storms and animal invaders since we were here, and the floor is carpeted with sand and debris. Any furniture we had—the couch, Auntie’s Victrola—is gone. Still, my heart seizes up when I spot the picture frame with my hand-drawn family in pieces on the floor. I walk over, pick up my picture, and dust off the dirt. There we are, the stick figure family I drew as a child. I trace my fingers over Mama’s scrawled face and then Arn’s. A sob stutters in my chest and the tears come. The urge to cry is so powerful I stumble into the wall, dropping my knife.

I can’t do this. I can’t go on in a world where they’re dead.

Clay strides to me, his face awash in sadness. Then suddenly he stops and swivels to the window, the look of a buck sensing a hunter. Something’s wrong.

Outside, Ethan cries out.

Dear God.

Clay’s running before I can register what’s happened. The next beat, I’m after him, sprinting for my life. For Ethan’s life. Please God don’t let anyone hurt him.

We barrel through the broken screen door and thud down the porch steps. Ahead, the truck sits off to the side in a patch of dirt, the rusty paint job turning red in the last rays of dawn. My eyes snap to the figure tugging open the driver’s side door. A man. A man is climbing into the truck cab after my little brother.

Panicked, I scream. “Leave him alone!”

The man, halfway into the truck cab, turns. The right side of his face is carved up like a sliced ham. One eye is missing, as are half the teeth on one side. His long hair is a straggly mess, and he’s skin and bones. Starving men do desperate things. I realize this as he pulls up a crossbow and aims it at my head.

I jerk right as the bolt releases with a sharp
thwack
. The air next to my ear parts as the bolt zips past, inches from my skull. I stumble and fall, rolling into the dirt. Pain flares in my shin and blood blooms in my mouth. I roll to a stop, flip over, and am up on my feet as quick as I can.

A shot cracks the air to my left. Clay. The man’s chest explodes as the bullet hits him, blood and tissue flying like a human firework, splattering the truck, the ground. The man topples into the dust, not a twitch to be seen. Just like that the threat is snuffed out. Clay stands with the shotgun set into his shoulder, his eyes sighting down the barrel. Once he sees the man isn’t moving, he turns to me.