The Grand Ballast (39 page)

Skullprute scratched at
something on the table.

Valen went on. “Music
wasn’t like food or shelter. Or even friendships. They couldn’t
manipulate its effects the same way.” His soft voice was nearly
lost in the clamor of the saloon. He took another sip. “That’s how
I kept myself from giving in. How I stayed sane.”

Bode’s chest felt tight. He
wondered why Valen hadn’t told him this before. He tuned out for a
while, thinking about the people at the guard hut. About Dee, and
about Skullprute, who was still keeping an eye on him.

“
I just like to think we’ve
created a wonderful place,” Horse Leg said. “Where people want to
stay forever.”

“
You do have something
good.” Bode hadn’t planned to speak. The others looked at him. “You
have a place where people are awake. Where you seem to care about
the world. You’re lucky.”

Skullprute stretched an arm across the table
and tapped on Valen’s wet paper coaster. “Lucky. Mmm, I know
someone here who’s lucky.” He grinned at Valen. “Wouldn’t want you
to leave without giving me a chance to lose some money to you.”

“
Ohhh.” Valen laughed,
sounding anxious. “I wouldn’t mind feeling lucky again.”

“
And I’m the only one at
this table you haven’t played.”

“
Then we gotta fix
that.”

“
Valen,” Bode said quietly,
not sure what was going on.

Skullprute withdrew his arm
but didn’t break eye contact with Valen. “Is luck the same as
chance?” he asked quietly.

Valen lifted his brows.
“What?”

“
Luck is based on what you
deserve, isn’t it? Chance is random, but luck…luck is the universe
smi-iiiiling at you…” Skullprute’s grin seemed to curl, dark and
slow, like the wick of a candle. “So the question is: Do you think
you win because you deserve to? Or is it just chance?”

“
I’m lucky,” Valen said
evenly.

“
You’re drunk.” Bode put a
hand on his shoulder. “Maybe we ought to go lie down.”

Valen shrugged him off.
“I’m fine.”

“
You’re a gambling man, Mr.
Valen. So what about a friendly game tomorrow night? Maybe you’ll
put down some of that money you’ve been stashing away.”

“
Deal.”

“
Valen, no,” Bode whispered
fiercely.

“
Let me
be!” Valen turned to him, eyes blazing. “I’m more than
just
chance
. What I do matters.”

Bode leaned close to him,
placing his lips close to Valen’s ear. “I know. And a stupid card
came is not the way to show it.”

“
Tomorrow, then?”
Skullprute put a hand out for Valen to shake. He was grinning.
“Unless the wife won’t let you.”

“
Shut your mouth, you piece
of work,” Bode snapped at Skullprute, looking up.

Skullprute just kept
grinning.

THE SACRIFICIALS

Up in the loft, Bode filled
Valen in on Dee.

“
What’s she doing here?”
Valen stank of beer and seemed woozy. He sat on the edge of the
mattress.

“
She says she’s a tourist.
That she left the Grand Ballast the night of the fire.”

Valen’s fingers flexed by
his side. “Do you believe her?”

“
I don't know. I don’t know
how to trust anyone here.” He paused. “Do you feel that
way?”

Valen didn’t answer. Then
he slowly shook his head. “I like them.”

Bode nodded.

“
I like it here,” Valen
went on. “I feel like…”

“
Like you have a purpose,”
Bode finished gently.

“
We liberated the farm.
What happened to that boy was awful. But we did something
good.”

Bode sighed. “They love
you, the others. I can see that.”

Valen closed his eyes
briefly. “If you think we’re in danger, we’ll leave.”

“
We need time to plan where
we’ll go. But we should think about leaving soon.”

“
And live like outlaws,”
Valen muttered. But Bode didn’t see anger in his expression. Only
disappointment.

Bode caught his wrist. Drew
him to his feet and kissed him. Now that the shock of seeing Dee
was gone, and now that he was away from Skullprute’s gaze, he
wondered if he was being paranoid in wanting to leave as soon as
possible. “I like being an outlaw with you.”

Valen snorted but kissed
Bode back. Touched his forehead to Bode’s. “I feel like one. All
this gambling and drinking. Your idea for a quiet place is looking
better and better.”

Bode felt a flood of hope.
“It’ll be good, right?”

Valen grinned. “I’ll try to
win us a little more cash before we go.”

Bode stroked Valen’s cheek,
returning the smile. “Just don’t gamble everything we have,
okay?”

“
I promise.”

Bode leaned back slightly.
Kept his hand on Valen’s cheek. “You
do
deserve good things. Don’t look
so surprised,” he added, as Valen’s mouth fell open
slightly.

He went to their closet and
pulled on a sweatshirt.

“
Are you going
somewhere?”

Bode turned, yanking the
sweatshirt down. “I want to have a talk with Calamity
Zane.”

“
Zane?”

“
I want to figure out if he
stopped Dee when she came into town. Horse Leg seemed pissed at him
for letting her through. I want to know what Zane and Dee said to
each other.”

“
Do you know something I
don’t?” Valen eyed him suspiciously.

“
I’ve told you what I
know.” He thought guiltily of his conversation with Skullprute
about Kilroy growing up here. For some reason, that felt
private.

“
I’ll come with you,” Valen
said.

***

They waited until nearly
dark and then walked down Main Street. Past the hotel, past the
mesa, which was catching the last rays of twilight, and on to the
guard hut. A lamp was on in the hut window. Calamity Zane was quite
a ways out in the desert, repeating a command sharply to his horse.
The horse would lift its front leg each time and bring its hoof
down hard on the ground.

Killing
scorpions?

Bode had Lein’s gun in his
waistband. They sneaked around to the hut’s entrance and tried the
door. Locked.

“
Is this a good idea?”
Valen asked.

“
Probably not.” Bode rapped
softly on the door.

“
Who goes there?” called a
voice from inside.

“
No, no,” said another
voice. “It’s more like ‘Who the fuck’s there?’ Because he’s a
badass.”

“
But seriously, who’s
there?” asked the first voice.

“
Bode and Valen,” Bode
replied, hand on the gun.

“
Oh my God, oh my God,”
said the first voice.

“
No way.” The second voice
had sharpened. “Is this a test?”

There was some fumbling,
and then the door opened. Bode’s breath caught.

The man at the door had
Bode’s narrow, almost delicate features. His brown hair was cut
exactly like Bode’s; his bangs swept his forehead at exactly the
same angle. His eyes were precisely the color of Bode’s. There were
dotted lines inked around his mouth, and little numbers on the
skin. Bode stared in shock.

A second man appeared in
the doorway. He was broad shouldered and muscular, with tawny skin,
and large, dark eyes. A fuzz of black hair on his scalp. He also
had numbers and patterns on his skin. He was the man Bode had
noticed through the saloon window. A figure far off in the
distance, and yet his body had looked so familiar that Bode had
been unnerved. He looked like Valen.

“
Come
in.” The second man sounded awed. “Come
in.
” He stood back to let them in.
Inside were two cots, and clothes strewn across the floor. “Did the
Leg send you?”

“
Are we being tested?” the
first man asked anxiously.

“
Who
are
you?” Valen demanded. “What the fuck is going on?”

“
Valen,” Bode said quietly.
He stepped forward. “What are your names?” he asked the
men.

“
I’m Hoster,” said the man
who looked like Bode. “He’s Blunz.”

“
Skullprute hasn’t finished
our faces yet,” Blunz said apologetically.

“
What’s he doing to your
faces?” Bode’s grip on the gun handle eased. He was confused, but
not afraid.

Blunz and Hoster exchanged
glances. “We’re gonna look like you two.”

“
What?” Valen stepped
alongside Bode. “Why?”

“
So we can be sacrificed,”
Blunz said. “If necessary.”

“
Yeah.” Hoster rubbed his
drawn-upon nose. “Zane says if anyone comes looking for you—if
they’re armed and won’t take no for an answer—he’ll direct them
here.”

“
You can’t be serious,”
Bode said. “The man who’s looking for me would know a decoy if he
saw one.”

“
But we can buy you time.”
Blunz leaned forward eagerly. “If your pursuers are directed to
this hut, and then we burst out of it and look enough like you to
lead them on a goose chase…”

Hoster’s eyes shone.
“You’ll have time to slip out via the back roads, or hide somewhere
in town.”

“
We’re working on acting
like you too,” Blunz said. “But it’s hard, because we hadn’t met
you. Until now.”

“
I don’t understand,” Bode
said. “Who told you to do this?”

Blunz twisted his mouth.
“Well, let’s see. I think it was Bettina’s idea…”

“
Skullprute offered to do
the surgery,” Hoster put in.

“
Horse Leg’s been
supervising. All the liberators agreed this would be—”

“
We don’t need you to do
this,” Bode interrupted. “We wouldn’t want you to sacrifice
yourselves for us.”

“
But
we
want
to,” Blunz said.

Hoster nodded
enthusiastically. “We want to do something for the
greater—”

They were interrupted by a
series of trilling whistles, and hoof beats approaching.
“Intruders!” yelled Calamity Zane from outside. “Intruders! In
the
hut
!” More
whistles. “Horse Leg! Come quickly.”

Bode and Valen reached the
door of the hut just as Calamity Zane vaulted from his horse and
charged toward them, a whistle in his mouth. He spat the whistle
out as he approached.

“
What’s
going on?” he shouted. “There’s four people in there. Did you think
I wouldn’t see your
silhouettes
?”

“
It’s us.” Bode put his
hands up “It’s Bode and Valen.”

Zane stopped moving.
“Oh
no
. What are
you doing here?”

“
We came to talk to you,”
Valen said. “And found this.” He jerked his head toward Hoster and
Blunz, who’d crowded into the doorway behind them.

Zane fiddled with the
whistle, looking down. “You weren’t supposed to see the
sacrificials,” he said in a small voice.

A moment later, they heard
a rhythmic squeaking. Horse Leg and Bettina arrived, out of breath.
“What is it?” Horse Leg asked wheezily. His mustache dangled from a
thread of glue, spiraling like a caterpillar on a strand of spider
silk. He took in Bode, Valen, and the decoys. “Oh. Oh
my.”

“
Sorry,” Zane said. “I saw
four people in the hut, and I assumed the worst. I was, uh…” He
scratched his head and flushed. “You know, I was off killing
scorpions, and—”

“
Again?” Horse Leg
demanded.

“
I can’t help myself!” Zane
shouted.

“
We
talked about this.” Horse Leg’s voice was low. “You need to
be
vigilant
.” He addressed Bode and Valen. “I’m sorry you had to see
this.”

Bettina came forward. “It
was just a precaution we took. For your protection.”

“
You were
going to do
surgery
on two people to make them look like us?” Bode
demanded. “On the off chance that we might need decoys?”

“
We had multiple
volunteers. We had to hold auditions.” Horse Leg threw a hand up.
“Anyone here would be honored to sacrifice themselves for
you!”

“
Not me,” Bettina said
quietly. “I wouldn’t die for you.” She oofed as Horse Leg elbowed
her.

“
Good.” Bode turned to her.
“You ought to have your own life. With your own purpose.” He looked
around. “All of you should.”

“
Call off the
doppelgängers,” Valen agreed.

Hoster pressed a hand to
his mouth.

“
We’re just tryin’ to set
your mind at rest while you’re here.” Horse Leg smoothed his
mustache. “So that you’ll stay,” he added softly.