Wolves (48 page)

“And if I find her?” Huxley's voice trembles a little. “If I can free her? Then what?”

Davies stands up. “Your tally will still need to be paid, Huxley. Either by you, or by your boy in the wagon there. Return yourself to me inside of two days and the boy goes free. But if you're not here by the dawn of the third day, I kill him. And then I find you anyway. And this time I don't talk. I just do what I do.”

“And what are you getting out of this?” Huxley cannot keep the bitterness from his voice.

Davies shrugs. “I'm unleashing you on House Murphy. What you do there is up to you.”

Huxley glares. “I'm not …” the protest dies in a hiss through his teeth.

Davies snorts a harsh laugh. “You're not
what
? Not a violent man? Bullshit. I'm not a preacher here to tell you that repentance turns your life around. Penitence is just an admission. An acknowledgement. Your near-death experience has not changed you, Huxley. You still have blood on your hands. You may not have wanted any of this shit to happen, you may not have wanted all those deaths to wind up on your shoulders, but they did.”

“And the people that burned up in that church?” Huxley asks. “Does the collector ever have to pay his tally?”

“Yes, I do,” Davies nods without hesitation. “I take responsibility for what I did, and I'm certain that I will have to pay my own tally someday. And when it comes, I won't flinch away. But it's not my bill that's come up. It's yours. So, what will you take responsibility for?”

Death.

Murder.

Lowell.

My daughter.

“Find a way,” Davies says. Then he points east. “Vicksburg Landing is two miles east. You'll need to cross the Mississippi. The Murphy Township is just outside of Old Town Jackson. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.”

Huxley raises his hands and looks down at himself as if to demonstrate how empty-handed he is. “I have no money. No weapons.”

Davies reaches into his coat and pulls a satchel out of his pocket—a small leather satchel that Huxley is very familiar with. He tosses it and it lands in the dirt at Huxley's feet. The contents jingle loudly, densely.

“Your stolen gold,” he says. “I don't want your blood money. Use it for whatever you want to buy. Give the rest away, or sink it in the river, I don't care. But it should be more than enough.” Davies looks at the sky. “It's two hours past dawn, Huxley. That means you have less than sixty hours.”

Huxley stoops and picks up the satchel of coins. When he stands again, he looks past Davies to the boy that still sits, quietly listening to all of this, in the bed of the wagon. The boy looks back. Huxley nods. And Lowell nods back.

To Davies, Huxley says, “You'll be here?”

Davies points at the ground. “This very spot.”

“What about the other Black Hats? What if they're still looking for me?”

Davies smiles without humor, and Huxley can feel the other man's eyes traveling over his face. “You haven't seen what the burn did to your face. I don't think they'll recognize you.”

Huxley feels his face smarting, as though in response to the words. He reaches up a finger, but holds back from touching his burned face for fear that it will only hurt more. It hurts, but not near as much as his arm. He hopes that means it is not quite as bad of a burn, but then he realizes that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether or not his skin is burned off. It doesn't matter that he is exposed to infection. It doesn't matter about the pain or the disfigurement.

The end of his time is in sight.

It lies just around the corner, three days from now.

He turns away from Davies and begins putting one foot in front of the other.

My daughter is not dead.

And now there is another fear.

Would she even recognize me?

If he lived long enough to find her, and if he were able to stand in front of her, she would only see a burned and ravenous animal. No trace of the man who had been her father.

But then, that man had failed her.

This new one, as repugnant as he might be, would not fail. And in the end, what his daughter saw in his eyes was not half as important as making sure that she was free, and alive. Maybe he would only be a cruel shadow of what she remembered, but at least she would know that he came for her.

I won't forget about you.

I won't throw you away.

Time is wasting. And the shadows are lengthening.

Facing east, Huxley begins to run.

Chapter 6

Vicksburg Landing. Another river-port town, ferries going across the great, wide expanse of brown water. It is like Red Water Landing, but with wider streets and more people. Like Shreveport, but less dilapidated concrete roads and buildings and not so many miscreants walking around. But if you were to close your eyes, it would sound the same. The sound of business. The sound of lives going about in a great big jumble, all ignorant of each other.

Ignorant of what walks among them.

Down the main street Huxley walks. Most of the buildings were constructed when Vicksburg Landing was a little municipality called Delta. Here and there between them he can see the Mississippi. At Vicksburg Landing, the width of the river is not quite so legendary. A sandy shoal comes off the western bank and protrudes out into this little bottleneck almost a quarter of the way across. Small boats tethered to deeply sunken posts on each shore pull small groups of passengers and small loads of goods across purely by muscle, the boaters walking the length of their little crafts with the ropes on their shoulders. Sometimes sitting and pulling the boat along, if the load is not causing the boat to take too much draft.

There is a bridge there also, spanning the entire river. Old World construction. But it is being dismantled. Huxley cannot imagine why, but huge throngs of working crews scurry over it and every so often a blast from dynamite to break the concrete superstructure. It is obvious that the bridge is closed to travelers, and so everyone is relegated to the ferries.

Why the hell would they destroy the bridge?

Huxley walks stiffly down the street. The salve that Davies put on his wounds is numbing some of the pain. But still, people cast glances his way. He doesn't look at them back. He does not want to be noticed beyond their peripheral observation that,
There goes a burned man.

In another life, another time, the pain might have weakened him to the point of debilitation. But what is it now? Pain. A firing of nerves. They've fired so much over the course of the last year that Huxley finds it easier and easier to ignore them. His pain receptors are collectively crying wolf. Someday, they will tell him of something truly, terribly wrong. But that will be the day that he dies, and until that time, he can continue to put one foot in front of the other. It is the least he can do for his daughter.

It should never have been about Nathaniel Cartwright. It should've always been about you.

No point lamenting things too far gone to retrieve. Now is not the time to lament.

Huxley has nothing. His clothes are burned. His flesh is burned. All he owns in the world that is still whole are his shoes and a satchel of gold. But gold can buy new clothes. It can buy weapons. It can buy bandages.

Gold can even buy a life.

And sometimes, it can buy the things to take that life back.

He goes to a healer first. He is an old man. He asks no questions about Huxley, or where the injuries came from. Huxley would not have given the answers anyway. He gives the old man half a gold piece for clean bandages. He doesn't care about the healing of his face—that is unimportant. He cares about covering the burns so his face is not so memorable. The half piece buys him enough bandage to wrap around the burns on his arm, too. He leaves Davies' salve on them so the skin can't meld to the bandages.

As he gives the old man the half piece, Huxley asks him, “Where is the general store?”

The old man eyes him, as though the request is somehow meaningful. “Two blocks east,” his frail voice croaks. “He's got what you need.”

Huxley frowns, just slightly. “And what is it that you think I need?”

The healer looks at him smartly, his wrinkled old lips drawn up into a little smirk. “A man with burns wants something for the pain. And yet you only want bandages. The only thing that kills pain so naturally is anger. You're a man that seeks vengeance. And a man must have weapons if he wants vengeance.”

Huxley lets out a tiny snort. The old man thinks he is wise, but age does not always bring wisdom.

“Old man,” Huxley says, softly, “I've had my fill of vengeance. If they want to give me back what they took from me, I'll just take it and walk away. But … I don't think that's how it's going to happen.”

The healer purses his lips. “Weapons are weapons. They do the same thing regardless of why they are carried. Your motivations don't matter.”

“They absolutely matter,” Huxley says, a bit sharper in his tone now. Then he turns and pushes out of the door before the argument can be pressed any further.

At the general store he finds the shopkeeper the very opposite of the burly one from Delhi. The one that had betrayed him to Nathaniel Cartwright. Huxley stands there in the doorway of the shop, staring at the shopkeeper as he remembers the other one's stupid warning.
Beware of Wild Nate
, he told Huxley, while in his mind he plotted how to turn him over.
You said you didn't want to be involved
, Huxley thinks bitterly.
But then you got yourself involved, and where are you now? Dead in the ground. Not how you thought that one would turn out, huh?

“Help you?” the shopkeeper asks, his voice bordering on uncomfortable.

Huxley looks at the scene from the shopkeeper's perspective—strange man enters, bandages on his face and arm, clutching a purse of gold and standing in the doorway, staring for a long, awkward moment at the clerk, eyes probably going murderous for a moment.

“Sorry, friend,” Huxley shakes off the memory of the shopkeeper from Delhi. “I was trying to remember what I needed. I would've written a list, but as you can see, I'm a little down on the luck right now. Fire burned most of my stuff.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” the shopkeeper says, more friendly, but still cautious. He is mousy. Small. A round, bald head. Wiry gray hairs protruding. Large glasses that make his eyes seem buggy. He is lucky to have them though.

Huxley steps up to the counter and lays his satchel on the wooden top. “I'd like to buy a gun. A few guns. And some ball and powder …” Huxley looks up and off into nothingness. “… actually … I've heard rumors about cartridge weapons floating around the area. Would you have any cartridge weapons?”

“Mm,” the shopkeeper makes the noise a negative sound. “Yeah, there's some floating around, but ain't nobody got 'em but outlaws. All the legal ones are being sent to the front lines. Arming the councilmen that border the EDS. Anyone got the capability of making them cartridges is …” he waves his fingers, conjuring the correct words from the air. “… 
contractually obligated
to send all he has to the front.”

Huxley nods, eyes still fixed to the shopkeeper. “Oh, I see.”

The shopkeeper's buggy eyes flick toward the satchel of gold on the counter. “Uh … well …” he adjusts his glasses. “How much gold you got?”

Huxley lifts the satchel by its thong, then sets it back down sharply so that the shopkeeper can hear the clank of gold, so he can see the weighty quantity of it. “Plenty,” Huxley says.

The shopkeeper's wide, mousy eyes squint down so he seems to be taking stock of Huxley. “Reckon you don't strike me as a councilman's man. And you damn sure ain't no Black Hat. Is you?”

Huxley smiles, plainly. It hurts the burned side of his face. “No. Me and the Black Hats … we don't get along.”

“So, a fugitive then, huh?”

Huxley taps the satchel again. “I'm a man with some gold to spend.”

The shopkeeper looks at the gold. Then at Huxley. Then over his shoulders at the door. “Alright,” he says, suddenly. “Come on then.”

He leads Huxley into the back. There is machining work there. Hand-cranked metalworking devices.

There are brass casings lined up near the machining tools. Some large, some small.

Revolver and rifle
, Huxley thinks.

The shopkeeper folds his arms, looks at his things with pride. “It's not so hard, if you know what you're doing. And if you have the right tools. Gotta have the right tools. But revolvers? They're simple things.”

“You got any to put those cartridges into?” Huxley looks at him.

The shopkeeper gives him a sidelong glance. “Now, let's just be clear. I ain't no traitor or nothing. I work hard for the Riverlands. For the council. It cost me damn near an arm and a leg to start machining this shit. Then, just when I'm about to break even on my investment, the chairman wants it all for his people, and at a damn steep discount. Did I complain? No I didn't. I did my duty. But if I make a few more than my quota and sell them on the side, then is that really breaking the law? I don't think it is.”

“How many and what price?” Huxley presses.

Instead of answer, the shopkeeper walks to a table and pushes it out of the way. Then he bends down, uproots a floorboard and pulls out three revolvers and sets them on the table. He waves a proud hand over them. “Bored out the cylinders to take cartridges. Takes me about a week of work to get each done on the side. So I ask a week's wages per.”

Huxley looks at the revolvers. They look identical to the ones he had before, but for some minor modifications to the cylinder. “Which is?”

“Fifteen pieces. For each. And the cartridges are separate,” he adds quickly. “I can do six for a piece, or a dozen for one and a half. And you won't find these anywhere else. Well … I mean … You'd have to travel a ways. You won't find anyone else in Vicksburg Landing—or Vicksburg proper, for that matter—that has the capability to even make them.”

“And they work?”

“Damn right they work,” the shopkeeper is miffed. “Same ones I send to the front, and they woulda told me if thems wasn't working.”

“Okay,” Huxley nods. “I'll buy.”

The satchel is emptied, its contents counted. Fifty-six gold pieces, including several that had been halved already, and a few that had been quartered. Huxley buys two of the revolvers. The shopkeeper can only sell him twenty cartridges—there are more, but he is afraid that selling them will impact his quota and raise suspicions. It totals thirty-one and three quarters.

Huxley also buys new clothes. He discards his pants for some new ones. The shopkeeper offers to take them in for him because they are loose, but Huxley buys a leather belt to cinch the waist. He also buys a jacket of some sort. He had seen them worn around. Something like a duster with a hood on it, but made of wool, rather than leather. It is heavy, but it is warm, and the hood is voluminous. When he pulls it up, it does a good job of hiding his face.

He also buys himself a knife to go on his belt, because he'd carried one all this time, and it feels strange to be without it. It's not as nice as his old one with its stainless blade and its bone handle. This one is homemade, it looks like, with a leather-wrapped handle. But it will do for the day or two that Huxley has left on this earth.

Before he discards the old pants, he takes out the piece of parchment and the charcoal piece. He puts them in the inner pocket of the wool jacket.

He loads the two new revolvers with their cartridges and he seats them in his waistband. The shopkeeper tries to sell him a holster, but Huxley doesn't want it. He's grown used to carrying his guns in his waistband. Odd, because he'd never considered himself the type of man to have a preference for the placement of a firearm. But things change, don't they? They are always changing.

The remaining eight cartridges Huxley puts in the pockets of the heavy woolen jacket—four in the right pocket, four in the left. In case one arm is injured, he figures.

He leaves the general store with eighteen-and-a-half gold pieces left.

He hopes it is enough for a ferry ride for one. And then maybe for two.

What do I feel?

Hope, maybe. Not for me. For her.

If I can be hard enough. If I can be strong enough. Then there's hope for her.

But there is also dread. Dread is seeping in, through the urgency. The dread that a doomed man feels when he looks at the gallows and knows that the fresh, tight ropes are being strung just for him, to snap his neck cleanly. He keeps trying to push the fear away from him, but it lives with him now. All he can do is ignore it. Keep brushing it aside and convincing himself that it isn't growing.

He makes his way toward the water. The street bends down a slight bit, then levels out. None of the construction here is Old World. Everything here is “new,” in the way that slatboard construction is “new.” Insufficient for people a dozen years ago, now the best that can be had. At least this lumber looks fresh, which means someone has managed to rig a mill of some sort, water or steam powered, possibly. Advances are being made. It should make Huxley feel hopeful, but it only makes him feel like something valuable is slipping through his fingers.

I'll never see life return to the way it was. This is the world I will die in.

He begins to notice the number of people in the streets. Not just the fact that they are in the streets, but the fact that they are all going the opposite direction as him, making their way from the riverbanks where the large ferries berth in docks, and the small boats run aground on the sandy shore.

They have the look of tired people. There is not a pack animal to be seen amongst them. They are heavy-laden with things that are not what you would see someone take to market. These are their belongings. Their entire lives, wrapped in moth-eaten blankets and stuffed in old burlap satchels and leather bags, odds and ends strapped to the side of anything that something else can be strapped to.

Refugees
.

He keeps his nose down, keeps the hood of his woolen coat shading his face, and he keeps moving. He veers off the road before he reaches the docksides and he takes a set of old timber steps down to the sand where two johnboats without motors sit under the dripping ropes that will pull them across.