Wolves (22 page)

The guard looks at them both dubiously and opens his mouth, as though to ask another question.

Jay quickly raises a finger. “Copper wire and a magnet,” he says abruptly.

“What?” the guard seems confused.

“You pass a magnet in front of a coil of copper wire and you get electricity. Didja know that?”

“No.”

“Well, now you do.” Jay smiles, then spits into the dirt. “Electricity ain't all that complicated. Couple windmills passing some big magnets around some big coils of copper wiring and you got yourself a generator. You look young—you know what a generator is?”

The guard looks irritated again.

“It's a machine we used to have back in the Old World. Had an engine in it and it would make electricity for us. Turn on lightbulbs and whatnot. You ever imagined such a thing? How old are you?”

The guard takes a marginal step back and waves them through. “Just go,” he says, boredly. “Good luck with all that.”

“Alright now,” Jay says cheerfully.

Huxley buzzes, his stomach in knots. He snaps the reins quickly, not waiting to give the guard a chance to rethink it. They pass through the flimsy gates of the town and then they are inside Red Water Landing. The streets are dirt, pounded and compacted over the years, to nearly a cement-like consistency. Most of the buildings are wattle and daub, particularly on the second stories. The first story of the buildings, or at least the foundation, looks to be an even mix between stacked stone and timber.

The old road that led them here becomes the main street of the town and it bisects Red Water Landing in a perfectly straight line, as wide as four of their wagons put abreast, and it descends steadily to the river. Even from just inside the gates, Huxley can see the docks that he'd not been able to see before. Only a single boat is berthed.

“Go right,” a small voice says behind him.

Huxley looks over his shoulder at Lowell. “Right?”

Lowell nods. “Straight is the market. You'll want to go around. Far to the right. Follow the wall. It'll take you around the market to the docks.”

A few residents of the town are walking around along the main street, heading to or from the market, carrying some items that Huxley recognizes, and others that he does not. A mule and a single-axle cart, laden with what looks like drums of river water, struggles up the inclined street, led by a man with a whip.

No one seems to give them a second glance.

Huxley steers the wagon onto the street that follows the wall. The horse plods along steadily. The street is a narrow one, but well used. Their horse's hooves clop steadily down the hard-packed dirt. Pedestrians push to either side to allow the wagon to pass—there is only enough room for one wagon. Huxley hopes they don't come face-to-face with another, or he would have to back the wagon. He'd create a traffic snarl. He'd call attention to himself. Not to mention he had no idea how to back a wagon, or if it could even be done.

As they proceed, they glimpse the main street through flashes as they pass by other narrow streets and alleys that cleave across this quarter of the city to the main drag. The streets are all oriented in a straight-edged grid, very little curve to any of the roads, save the one they are on that follows the wall.

At a point, Huxley sees what he can only assume is the market. The glimpses that he gets are no longer of a wide street, but instead of carts and stalls and a hundred different colors blazoned boldly in dyed fabric that stretches over each vendor's stall. Huxley can hear the criers in the market, yelling out catches and deals and whatever things they have to hawk that day.

Huxley does no more than glance into the back of the wagon but when he turns back, a hooded figure has appeared in front of their single yoked horse and has put a hand to the mantle, steering it off to the side.

“Whoa, hey!” Huxley drops the reins and grabs for a pistol, but doesn't want to pull it. There are people on these side streets and he doesn't want to call attention to himself. Nor does he want to yell. So he hisses at the man, “Get your fucking hands off my horse!”

The man keeps his head down so that the hood completely covers his face and he ignores Huxley's order like he didn't hear or didn't care, take your pick. He is moving quickly, guiding the horse toward the mouth of an alley that cuts from the street that follows the wall back toward the main drag. He is moving with purpose.

Leading us into an alley.

An ambush.

“What's going on, Hux?” Jay says from the back.

“What the fuck?” Huxley snaps, and rises, partially, his eyes flitting about, looking for the ambush, but there are only townsfolk milling about, carrying on with their business. He gets a few dirty glances for raising his voice, but that's about it. “Hey!” he hollers at the man in front of him. “Hey!”

I'm gonna have to shoot this sonofabitch … 

And then they are in the alley and the man sweeps his hood back off of his face. Brown skin. Wide eyes. One is dark, the other is cloudy and drooping. He is motioning to them to get off the wagon, and pointing around the corner, back onto the street they just came from.

“Ándele!” Rigo hisses at them. “Black Hats! Black Hats!”

Chapter 5

Huxley stands frozen for a few beats. “Rigo?”

That's all he can think to say.

Rigo becomes more animated, gesturing rapidly around the corner and speaking so fast Huxley can barely even make out the few English words scattered in with the Spanish.

Don is standing up in the back, nearly beside himself. “Did he say Black Hats? What the fuck is he talking about? Who the fuck is this guy? You know this guy?”

Huxley turns quickly on Don. “Could you just shut the fuck up for once?”

Rigo has not stopped rattling on.

In the wagon, Jay is standing up now, revolver in hand, looking back toward the corner.

Huxley throws the reins down and jumps from the wagon. The landing on hard-packed dirt makes his knees tingle. “Rigo,” he has to reach out to put hands on the man, make sure that he's real. “Rigo, I don't understand a word you're saying! Slow down! Are there Black Hats?”

A voice from the wagon, small, and matter-of-fact: “He said there's a Black Hat and a captain here in town.”

Huxley looks around, still holding Rigo by the shoulder.

Lowell stands there in the wagon, looking at Huxley. “He said they've been going around telling everyone that they're looking for you. And that you're wanted for murder. Of a guardsman. And some farmers. Flower farmers, or something like that.”

Huxley's brain feels like it's on fire. He realizes his mouth is hanging open.

There are Black Hats here. After him. After
him
. Well, of course they would be after him. They wouldn't bother going after slavers. They're part of the system. Part of the Riverlands. Part of the whole corrupted thing. But after
him?
For murder? The guardsman—yes, Huxley killed him, and yes, it was about as cold-blooded as could be. But just the fact that they'd also charged him with the murder of the poppy farmers … 

How dare they?

Rigo is pointing up at Lowell, eyebrows raised. “Se habla Español?”

Lowell just nods, seeming momentarily as bewildered as the rest of them. “I guess,” he says.

Like he didn't remember that he spoke it.

Jay is at the corner of the building, peeking out. “Shit, Huxley, you better see this.”

Huxley releases his grip on Rigo. Is he happy to see the man again? Yes, he is, but it's covered up by the sudden panic of the moment, him trying to wade through a million dissident things and make them all come together in a way that makes sense.

He stalks quickly to the corner. The building is stacked stone on the base, wattle and daub for the rest. It smells of mildew and dirt. Wood smoke. Yesterday's fish. A woman in the second story opens shutters made of reeds and glares down at him.

“You can't park that shit in the alley!”

Huxley points up at her so she knows that he is talking to her. “I'll fucking kill you. Go back inside.”

The woman, startled at his response, ducks back inside and pulls the shutters closed. He can faintly hear her yelling to someone inside the house.

“What the fuck …?” Don is still looking around, distraught, just a little more confused than the rest of them, just a few more dots unconnected in his picture.

At the corner of the building, Huxley leans out, just letting one eye make that corner.

Two men on horseback, floating high above the rest of the people who are traveling on foot. They are speaking to a shop owner and they don't see the little sliver of Huxley's face peering around the corner. One has a black hat, the other a dingy, white cowboy hat.

A Black Hat.

And Captain Tim.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Huxley pushes himself off the wall and moves quickly to the wagon. “Out, out!” he barks at Lowell, but the kid is already clambering down. Huxley reaches in and grabs a few satchels—useful things stolen from Lowell's trailer, a little bit of food, a little bit of water, a small collection of Riverland gold coins. There are two satchels, and he throws one to Don simply because he is the closest person, and slings the other one on his shoulder.

Huxley skirts down the alley. Rigo is already jogging along and he slows to let Huxley catch up. “Glad you're alive, Rigo,” he says almost as an afterthought.

“Is hokay,” Rigo says hurriedly. “We go.”

Huxley looks at the boy, trailing behind their little group. “Lowell, cover your face.”

The boy has a wide scarf around his neck that can be pulled up to form a hood over his head. He looks at Huxley, unsure, but he slowly puts his hood up.

“We have to go into the market,” Huxley explains. “We can't keep going on that road along the wall. And we can't have the wagon or you seen in the market. So we'll just skirt the edges. Just skirt the edges and everything will be okay. No one will recognize you if you're with us and you have your hood pulled up. Right?”

Lowell considers it, pulling the hood closer around his face. Then he just shrugs. “I don't know,” he says.

As they near the mouth of the alley, Huxley slows his pace. He doesn't want to run through the market. Running will only draw attention. He needs to move at the same semibusy pace as everyone else.

Huxley holds his hand close to his midsection, the fingers resting on the grip of his revolver, still not drawing it just yet. Jay has tucked his away as well. They move into the market, skirting the edges, trying not to be noticed. Many-colored awnings and loud people trying to gain attention and arguing over the prices of things that people used to throw away. Busy place. Safe place. Everyone too preoccupied to notice a few men and a boy passing through.

Don has shouldered his way up to Huxley. “I don't know what the fuck's going on, but I'm out.”

Huxley doesn't hesitate. He puts all his effort into looking casual, even smiles nicely for a lady as he passes by her. He reaches out with his left arm and grabs a tight hold of Don's elbow, like a child being towed by his mother. Huxley's left hand gets a firmer grip on one of his revolvers.

“Why? So you can dime us out to the Black Hats?” Huxley says quietly as they move through the market.

“What?” Don seems genuinely taken aback. But Don is scum, and Huxley wouldn't put it past him to be able to lie so smoothly. “Of course not! I just don't want to get shot with the rest of you idiots! I'm done! I told you I would duck if things got dicey …”

“Well, it's too damn late,” Huxley says. “You try to run, I'll gun you down in the street and deal with the consequences.”

“You wouldn't.”

“You don't think so, fucking Riverlander? You think I give a fuck about you or anyone else in here? I'll shoot my way out until I'm out of bullets and I'll die a happy man. Test me.”

They are Jay's words, coming out of Huxley's mouth. But whether or not he believes them, they appear to give Don pause. And Huxley doesn't want the man getting away. Because he knows that's exactly what he will do. He will try to cut a deal with the Black Hat to save his own neck. That's just the kind of person Don is. And to him, Huxley is just a
Wastelander.
Just an ignorant savage.

“Stick around,” Huxley says, faking an amiable tone for the benefit of those passing by. “When there's no Black Hats for you to run to, you can leave with my blessing.”

“Fuck me …” Don moans. “You're gonna be the death of me.”

Ahead of them, the road dips down into the river. The dock, a long, cobbled-together thing that looks on the verge of collapsing into the waters, juts out creakily over the swift-moving brownness, and from their current vantage, seems to extend halfway across the river.

There is still only the one boat.

A large flatboat, Huxley can see now. Huge logs for its hull. Weathered planking for the deck. A big, square box in the middle where the quarters would be. Stations along the sides and back for oarsmen. No sail or other mode of speeding it along is visible. This one is simply carried by the flow, or pushed by oars to get it back upstream. The deck is crowded with people. People sitting, people laying. A few men standing, with rifles or scatterguns.

As they draw closer, Huxley can see what it is and his stomach drops like an anchor.

Along the cabin, slavers' poles have been erected, their grisly ornaments clattering with the motion of the water underneath the decks.

A slave barge.

I'm fucked at every turn!

The five of them make their way down the main street to the docks. Here the street is steeper. Huxley keeps glancing back behind them to see if they are pursued or followed. He does not see Captain Tim. He does not see the man wearing the black hat.

Not seeing them does nothing to extinguish the urgency burning in his legs, in his gut. The desire to suddenly be rid of this small town.

Huxley glances up and down alleys. To his right, as they pass by a long, narrow lane, he can see people moving along the street that follows the wall. And then he sees them again at the next alley, and the next after that. Like they are shadowing him. A man with a handcart. A woman with two wooden cages, stuffed with wriggling, angry chickens.

They reach the docks, and here at the edge of the worn, wooden planking, Huxley stops, his breathing elevated from their quick strides down the hill to the river. He takes another glance behind them, then a glance to the flatboat in front of them, rising and dipping slowly in the undulating river water. He stares at the slavers' poles around the cabin. The mess of bodies about the deck, and noticing for the first time that they are chained together in groups of four.

Why? Why a slave barge?

“Now's not the time, Huxley,” Jay's voice says, quiet and practical as he too stares out at the barge. “Not the time to worry about who owns the boat. It's a boat and we need to get across the river. That's all there is to it.”

“It's a slave barge,” Huxley says, like the words are putrid on his tongue.

This time Don answers. “Yes it is. And it's the only boat on the dock. If you're real lucky and you blow the captain real nice, he might let you run his oars for him. The few slavers I've known are real assholes and they tend to not care about other people's problems.”

“Huxley,” Jay says again, this time more insistent. “We need to go.”

Huxley looks over at Jay.

We have to go. We have to.

Huxley turns, holding his meager pack of provisions at his side, his fingers still gripping his revolver, and thinking,
I will not give them my guns. I will not disarm myself for this slave master or captain. They are slavers. If you let them disarm you, they will put you in chains, or more likely they'll just kill you—they've no use for a middle-aged man with no skills besides teaching. They do not care. This is dangerous, murky water you are treading in. Be careful of the things you can't see through the silt. Go carefully, and keep your weapons ready.

Huxley heads down the pier, the others in tow.

The slave barge is berthed at the last spot on the docks and it seems that Huxley has arrived in the nick of time. Whatever business was to be conducted here at Red Water Landing, the slave barge is finished and already crewmen are untying their lines from the dock. Teams of slaves are taking up the massive oars—four to a single oar.

Huxley jogs the rest of the way to where the gangway is still attached to the dock. As he approaches, one of the slavers, a man armed with a fine, muzzle-loading rifle, steps onto the gangway, his rifle held low, but ready.

“Whoa there, friend,” the man says, his smile a lie below lizard's eyes. “You can't just come walking aboard the
Misery
. We're not a public water taxi.”

Huxley holds one hand up, but the other remains close to his revolver. This does not go unnoticed by the slaver. “I need passage on this ship,” Huxley doesn't want to sound desperate because he knows that it will come down to bargaining, and he does not want to lose his bargaining position. “For me and my friends. Can you let me on, or do I need to speak to the master?”

The man with the lizard's eyes chews thoughtfully on the inside of his lip, but anything he had planned to say is cut off when a big, wide man lands a hard hand on the slaver's shoulder and peers down the gangway at Huxley and his unfortunate crew.

“Some dock waifs trying to stow away?” The big man asks.

“Something like that,” Lizard Eyes replies.

Huxley takes another glance over his shoulder. The way is still clear. No Black Hats behind them. But for how much longer? “No stowaways. We can pay for our passage.” He is thinking of the meager stash of gold they'd found from looting Lowell's trailer, and he doubts it would pay for all their passages. “Where are you headed now?”

Where do slavers go?

The big man takes his meaty hand from his compatriot's shoulder and rubs his belly obscenely with it, though his face remains pensive, considering the group he has before him, and why he should even be talking to them. Of course he would be swayed by money. Money is all the slavers care about.

“
Misery
is headed for Shreveport. Now. And you're going to make us late. River's running low and we're overburdened with forty head as it is. The longer I sit here, the longer the dry season keeps running this river lower. Strong chance of running aground and having to waste time digging ourselves out of a sandbar. Probably will lose two or three head to that, I can imagine. So now you're costing me time
and
money. I should tell you to fuck off.”

You should, but you haven't.

“Shreveport,” Don mumbles under his breath. The word is dirty, the way he says it. “Nothing there but niggers and outlaws.”

Well, we should fit in well.

To the slave master, Huxley inclines his head, hopes that the slave master can't see his pulse throbbing in his neck. “Shreveport,” he says, casually enough. “Is that where all the slavers take their hauls?”