Wolves (40 page)

Huxley pulls himself into his saddle again, but he knows that these screaming voices are not any of his own. Because he can hear the yelling of the ex-slaves, Brie's voice high above the rest of them.

He feels stiff. Suddenly afraid of what he might see.

Fear is weakness
, he tells himself, swallowing the sick feeling that is growing inside of him.

His horse canters to the opposite side of the bridge where the screaming has abated to a single man's moans, and the voices of everyone else have turned to the distinct sound of jeers.

Huxley stands at the top of the embankment, and he looks down the slope, down the little narrow trail, to the clearing just beside the riverbank. There, gathered in a circle, are the ex-slaves, and Lowell and Jay. In the middle of them all lie two men. One is dead, the front of his body an apron of blood from gunshot wounds. The other man is alive, shot in the leg, and he writhes. But his hand is not on his leg. It is holding his head.

Both men—the dead and the live one—have been scalped.

Bright red blood is pouring from where the skin over his skull is missing. It covers his face like a mask, and when he cries out, he splutters blood in a spray. Huxley sees all these things as though he is standing right there amongst the others, he sees them with extraordinary clarity, though he is twenty yards away, at the top of the embankment.

The ex-slaves gathered around are watching the man. Some of them are yelling at him. Others are kicking dirt in his face which coats his open wound, melds with the blood and becomes a red mud that cakes his head.

Jay is standing there, watching, with a knife in one bloody hand, and a scalp dangling from the other. In that moment, Jay takes Huxley back to the Wastelands, back to the woman with the black braid, who watched while her slavers committed atrocities, watched as they raped and murdered their way across the southwest.

Maybe that's you.

Maybe you're the woman with the braid. Standing up here at the top of this embankment, doing nothing but watching … 

“It's not the same,” he whispers to himself. “These men are bad men.”

Although there is no possible way that Jay heard Huxley's voice, he looks up from the man on the ground and makes eye contact with Huxley. His expression is a mystery. His mouth is something that could be a grimace, or possibly a smirk. But his eyes … his eyes are satisfied. They seem to say over the distance between he and Huxley,
My work is done. My task is complete.

From the circle of ex-slaves, Lowell moves into the center where the man's desperate squirming is beginning to slow. He holds a revolver in his right hand and he extends it toward the man on the ground, and he fires a single shot that ends the man's life.

Very slowly he lowers the revolver, staring at the two dead men.

Huxley can see what is dangling in Lowell's other hand.

It is the second scalp.

Chapter 14

Huxley and his group of riders, gun-blacked and bloody, make their way back westward until they meet up with Rigo and the wagon. Leading the procession of horses, Huxley looks from Rigo to the three children who he kicked off the horses. He wants them to look him in the eye so he can communicate to them without words, but none of them are willing to meet his gaze. He wants to tell them that they need to be stronger. He wants to tell them that if they keep being weak, they'll die.

Lost causes
, he tells himself, and strikes them from his mind.
They're useless. Just mouths to feed
.

They are simply there.

Let them be. For now.

They would eventually die, but that's not Huxley's problem. That's for Brie to figure out. Huxley has one problem, and one problem only—and that is Nathaniel Cartwright. After him … after him … 

It didn't matter what was after him.

Focus on the now.

“What do we do now?” Brie asks, leaning forward, crossed arms on her pommel.

“We continue on,” Huxley replies. He thinks about taking his place back on the wagon, but then decides he prefers the horse. The wagon is slow and cumbersome. The horse lets him move freely.

“What about the one that got away?” Lowell speaks up, his voice deadpan.

Huxley looks at him, somewhat surprised. It is the first time Lowell has joined in these conversations.

“He'll alert Delhi,” Huxley says, looking east. “That's for sure. They'll know we're coming.”

Jay chimes in, inspecting the weathered leather of his saddle. “They'll be waiting for us. A lot of them.”

Huxley nods, thinking. “But they'll be on the lookout for a group. Not a single rider.”

“You can't go alone,” Lowell blurts.

Huxley raises his eyebrows. “I can't go in a group either. Alone is safer. Alone, I might have a chance to get in and ask around. Maybe find out if Cartwright came through.”

“It doesn't matter if he came through or not,” Brie said. “That fuck from Monroe told you Cartwright was going to Vicksburg. Why not just go around Delhi and Tallulah and go straight to Vicksburg?”

Huxley shakes his head. “No, that fuck from Monroe said he was going to the Eastern Democratic States. So, by your logic, why not just cross the Mississippi and head straight for there?”

Brie shrugs. “Yeah. Why not?”

“Because we don't know how much shit Philly was feeding us,” Huxley says. “Cartwright could be anywhere between here and there. Shit, he could've gone north for all we know. I can't say for sure that Philly was lying, but I sure as hell am not going to travel halfway across the Riverlands without stopping and asking questions in places that Cartwright might've been.”

Brie rubs the back of her neck. “Whatever. It's your skin.”

“Yeah, it is,” Huxley says. “We'll find a place for you guys to wait. An old house or something. Out of the way. Away from the main road here. Then I'll go in alone and figure out our next step.” Huxley looks around at the gathered faces, rough and young. “Besides, I think everyone could use a rest.”

With nothing further to say, they ride out, continuing east. They pass the bridge. No one looks over the side of the bridge, where the dead horses are floating in the water, or down the embankment where the two scalped bodies are lying motionless.

Brie rides alongside the wagon, keeping conversation with the younger kids to distract them while they pass over the bridge.

She should let them see it
, Huxley thinks.
Let them get used to it.

The sun is nearly touching the trees and Huxley estimates they are only ten or so miles out of Delhi, when they find a road that seems less traveled than the one they are on, but clear enough, carved out of the forest. He cannot tell if it is a preexisting road, or one that was made out of nothing. If there is blacktop there, it is buried under a decade of fallen leaves turned to dirt.

But the dirt is full of weeds, indicating a road not welltraveled, and there are no fresh marks. No hoofprints, no wagon wheel marks, not even a boot print from a traveler on foot. The abandonment of the road, the closeness of the trees, it makes Huxley feel edgy and he holds to his rifle and scans the woods carefully. But logically … logically it is a good place.

They follow this road and about a mile in they locate the remnants of an old brick mailbox.

Huxley stops at it, looks down at it from horseback. “This must've been an actual road if it has a mailbox. Not just some path cut through the woods.”

Lowell is beside him, looking up and down the road. “Is that a good thing?”

Huxley squints into the trees behind the mailbox. “Well … it means there's probably a house back there.”

The only evidence of a passageway through the woods—what once may have been a driveway—is a strand of new-growth pines, all standing about seven or eight feet tall, while everything else around them towers thirty and forty feet high.

“We gonna be able to get back there?” Lowell asks.

Huxley gives the strand of new pines a calculating look. “I bet the wagon will be able to roll right over those skinny little things.”

And it does. The slender two-inch saplings simply bend as the wagon rolls over them, the horses slightly hesitant and irritated as the saplings pop back up and smack the harnesses with a
whoosh-thwack
sound. But when the wagon has traveled down the driveway, all the trees stand back up to their original positions and it is like no one had ever passed through them.

When the whole group has made it through to the other side, they find a brick house. A ranch. On one side the roof is caved in where half of an oak tree has fallen into it. But the rest of the house seems surprisingly intact. The windows are unbroken, though they are nearly entirely covered by green mold. There is no graffiti on it. All around the base of the house, weeds and saplings have started to grow, nearly half as high as the walls of the house itself. To either side of the door, two holly bushes left to their own devices have grown into monstrous hedges, nearly hiding the door, which, miraculously, is not ripped off its hinges.

Huxley looks back behind him at the forest, and he can barely see where they have made it through. Only someone deliberately looking would notice it. A casual passerby would just keep on traveling with no hint of the band of people a hundred yards into the woods.

“This is good,” Huxley says. “This is perfect.”

Huxley stays on horseback while the others dismount and make their way inside. Jay stays beside him. Lowell jumps down from his horse, but loiters nearby, not sure whether to go in or stay with Huxley. After all the ex-slaves have gone inside, Brie comes out again, rifle swinging loosely in her hands. She stops in front of Huxley's horse.

“You still plan on going into Delhi?”

Huxley nods.

“If you insist on going,” she glances behind them. “We could use some food.”

“We're out already?” Huxley mumbles.

“We've been out since last night,” she says. “You told us to only take what we could carry, and we've been on the road for days now.”

Huxley rubs his finger under his nose, then smooths his mustache and beard. “I'll get what I can. One guy buying food for a dozen might look suspicious.”

“One guy asking around about Nathaniel Cartwright will look suspicious,” she shoots back. “I don't think buying food will be the thing that gives you away.”

Lowell speaks up from where he stands, hands still hooked to the reins of his horse. “We should go with you. Me and Rigo.”

Huxley shakes his head. “No. You should stay here. Make sure everyone is safe inside that house.” He looks at Lowell sternly. “I don't want to hear anything else about it. And don't let me catch you following me.”

Lowell looks displeased, but turns away.

Huxley makes it to the road before realizing that Jay has followed behind him. Huxley stops his horse and lets the man catch up. “Go back to the house, Jay. They know us. They know us from here all the way to the Wastelands. We walk in together, we might as well turn ourselves in to the nearest Black Hat.”

Jay keeps his eyes on the road ahead. “I didn't ask you to wait up for me. Go on. Go do your business. I'll hang back.”

Huxley stares at him, jaw clenching and unclenching.

Jay looks at him. “You're wasting time. And you know you can't get rid of me.”

Huxley spurs his horse, mumbling, “Yeah. I know that.”

Huxley takes his horse up to a gallop for a while, the miles slipping by quickly as the road stretches toward Delhi and the sun sets. Whatever shops might sell food will probably not be open much later than sundown. He should go there first. Then, if he needs to, he can ask around at the local tavern.

Cartwright and his men need food, too. Maybe the guy who sells me supplies will know something. Then I can just get in and get out. No muss, no fuss.

Whatever happens, he does not want it to be Monroe again. He does not want to drag someone out by their collar and leave a string of bodies behind him. It was effective—as Jay had promised it would be—but for once, Huxley wants to avoid drawing attention to himself. He would like to make it back to their hideout without a posse in pursuit.

Just go in, keep your head down, and don't look too obvious.

The sky is a splash of orange and black, like magma has been thrown across it. He passes through the dilapidated wreckage of the old suburbs that surrounded Delhi. Up ahead, what has become Delhi “proper” stands low and sprawling, the walls lit up by the setting sun behind him.

The gates are open. Surprisingly.

But it's obvious that bad news has come recently.

There are a dozen guards at the gates. The front four are obviously guardsmen by trade—they wear something that might be considered a uniform, and they wear armbands. But the rest that crowd behind them and clutter the catwalk that overlooks the gate are just townspeople with scatterguns, old homemade muskets, a few bows, a crossbow.

They look scared.

They look nervous.

Like everyone's on a hair trigger. And that's bad for him.

They'll know who I am. They'll be able to see it. They'll see it like Ol' Reggie saw what was inside me. He saw the thing lurking in me and he knew, even though he was blind … 

“Stop!” a voice calls out.

Huxley pulls the horse to a stop. He's about fifty yards from the gate. He hazards a glance behind him, hoping and praying that Jay will not be there. But the road behind him is empty.

“State your business,” the voice calls out.

Huxley looks forward again, and can see that he is being addressed by one of the regular guardsmen. He considers running for a second or two. But at this distance his odds are dead even that someone would get him with a bullet or an arrow.

Stick it out. Act normal. See how it goes.

Huxley clears his throat. “I'm here for food,” he calls back. “Just trying to buy food before the market closes. I don't plan to stay the night. Just want to buy food and leave. I have gold, or I can trade. Whichever you prefer.”

“The market closes in twenty minutes,” comes the answer.

Huxley bites his lip. “Then I guess I better hurry.”

There is some hesitation, a brief discussion amongst the actual guardsmen. The volunteers huddle around them, eavesdropping.

Finally, the speaker for the guardsman calls out again: “Put your hands up above your head and approach slowly. I'll tell you when to stop.”

He raises his hands up and then he nudges the sides of his horse gently. The beast plods forward at a steady, rocking pace. Now, he feels the dozen weapons aimed at him. Twitchy fingers hovering over questionable triggers. Everyone looking at him with suspicion.

He nears the gate, now within ten yards or so.

The speaker for the guards steps forward, standing in the middle of the road and holds out a hand, a scattergun in the other. “That's far enough. Stop right there.”

Huxley stops the horse. He doesn't want to reach down and grab the reins, so he says, “Whoa,” and that seems to do the trick.

The guard looks up at him, peering with discerning eyes.

He knows me. He recognizes me.

“Who are you?” the guard asks.

Huxley knows that any name he gives them will reek of a lie, so he tells them the truth: “Just a traveler. Looking for some food.”

The guard is not happy with the answer, but he doesn't press—he knows as well as Huxley that people, particularly transients, don't like to announce their names. “Where'd you come from?”

“West,” Huxley says, carefully.

You're being too evasive. Someone is going to realize what's happening.

“You must've come through Monroe,” the guard says.

“Three days ago,” Huxley says, the lie coming out fluidly enough.

“Three days?” he questions. “Monroe is only a day's ride from here.”

“I stopped to hunt the woods in between.”

The guard looks at Huxley's paltry belongings. “Don't look like you were too successful.”

“Two squirrels and a rabbit,” Huxley says. “Those I ate. Haven't seen hide nor hair of a deer. Not in two months.”

The guard smiles. “You must be an unlucky man. They're all through these woods. At least, when you don't have a gun in your hand.”

Huxley forces a smile of his own. It feels wooden and brittle. “Perhaps I should take up the bow. Maybe it's the gunpowder they smell.”

The guard nods. “I've thought the same.” He looks back behind him, seeming much more at ease. “Market's straight through on the main stretch. If you want to buy anything, you better hurry. Most of the stalls are closing down now. General store might still be open, though.”