Lucila Wells had only seen her father cry twice in her entire life. Once when she was eight, when the first Bearer queen their town had ever encountered had tried to hurt her and her sisters, and then another eight years later when she left for Montana.
She hadn’t been that far from tears herself as her departure approached. Sometimes they were tears of joy and other times of anguish. It seemed that the months and days would crawl on by, but other times Sila would look at the date in shock. The far off concept of leaving Bushkill Falls, the only place she had ever known, its people, among them her father and two sisters Kendra and Anya, ceased to be an abstract. It crystallized and became as clear as the cerulean blue sky above her. As it grew more concrete her father grew more despondent, and he needed her more and more.
Father had always needed her, more than Kendra and Anya, more than the other townies, more than the one woman he had managed to become intimate with for a while, who he absurdly felt guilty over, she knew, and pushed away to focus more on her and her sisters, though he denied it. It was as if he knew she would leave and was clinging to her. Sila loved him for it, but there were times she resisted it in ways subtle and not so subtle. She sensed the friction and the gap widening between them. She knew a break of some kind was needed, especially as Kendra, freshly thirteen, grew up. The middle Wells sister wasn’t one to rebel or act out, but being unable to talk and with the style and pace at which she learned she required a great deal of personal care. And Anya was going to be an issue when she caught up to her sisters, they all knew that. Curtis Wells needed his strength. He seemed almost relieved when she made her decision.
Still, he had tried to convince her to stay. The Bearers had been growing stronger as of late, he said, and there was talk of another king or queen leading them. I need you here with me.
Sila supposed it was true, but it still made her shudder to contemplate. Memories of the last terrible attack were still fresh. Accordingly, the gate and walls of Bushkill Falls had been considerably beefed up. The mayor had also instituted a regular, uniformed force of militia. The core of that force had been trained by none other than her father and a few other pre-war veterans, all of whom took turns leading it until others were ready. Father had served his time as its commander, and then stepped down, as terms were something the townies had been adamant about when the militia came to be. No one wanted a power hungry commander with a lot of armed soldiers under their command to get the wrong ideas.
Father wouldn’t have refused her request to leave, however. They both knew it. Instead, he promised to make it happen.
Everything had changed for her almost overnight with the arrival of the horse traders. Sila hadn’t ever been more scared or more excited when they had spoken to her father and he had given his consent. It felt as if her life was about to truly begin.
**
The lead horse trader’s name was Kitchi, and the name of his town in far off exotic Montana was Snakewater Bend. Sila lived to ride, and second to that to see the lovely steeds the natives brought east with them. It was roughly a five month overland trip by horse, she knew, and the horsemen and horsewomen, most of them dusky hued like her, so different from most everyone in her town, spent a month at home with their tribe and families before heading out again. The horse traders had been coming twice a year for as far back as she could remember.
Kitchi was tall and thin as one of the icicles that studded the overhangs when the cold came. He wore rough and serviceable horseman’s skins, furs, robes and boots. It wasn’t unlike the clothing her family and the other townies wore, but somehow he wore it differently, as if his garb served a purpose. It made him and his riders stand out.
He had rode into Bushkill Falls that day, an old lever action rifle in .38 Special slung across his narrow back. At his side was his second in command, a fearless, grim-faced female rider named Elu, whose name, she learned much later, ironically meant “fair” or “beautiful.” She was neither, but like all of the natives Elu looked as if she had been born ahorse.
The natives entered Bushkill Falls with an armed townie noting each of their faces, searching for someone new, someone whose teeth hadn’t been checked six months ago. There were none.
Kitchi and Elu rode as if they feared no one, heading up a double column of native warriors, each one bristling with brass ammo and steel weapons. That day they rode into town with only ten horses for sale, with a loaded down wagon and a team of oxen to pull it. More and more steeds had been sold on the way, Sila knew, in the many places between this remote mountain in western Pennsylvania and Montana. It was the end of a long and perilous cross country trip for all of them. The horses were their town’s most precious commodity, and were never put into service. If they became lame over the journey they would lose all of their value and the trader’s profits for the last five months would dwindle.
Father owned some fine horses, the best in town, though he never had the affinity Sila did for them. But even his stable was put to shame by the resplendent beasts the natives raised and sold. The warriors all rode bay and gray Andalusians or spotted Appaloosas, tough and hardy animals who looked not at all diminished from the last five months of travel. For sale the traders brought Tennessee Walkers, Hackneys, draft breeds, and many more. Once, when she was a little girl, they had even brought an Arabian. The sight of that golden and spirited beauty would stick with Sila the rest of her days. She loved horses in a way that felt familiar and overwhelming all at once. No one or nothing held her attention or occupied her thoughts like horses, and the natives had the best in the world, everyone said so.
The town’s scouts and hunters would only get a few hours' notice that the natives and their horses were coming, so she preferred to watch for them when the six months was almost up. Sila was permitted to watch for the horse traders so long as her school work and chores were all completed. But she had already aged out of what passed for schooling in Bushkill Falls, and with her the teachers were largely going through the motions. Sila learned much more working on her father’s horses, reviewing lessons with her sisters to refresh her memory, or talking to people about the goings on around town or outside its walls. More often than not when the day was approaching, whether she was supposed to be there or not, Sila could be found at the gate, shooting the breeze with the militia posted there.
But that day was special, because Father was with her, calming her when she grew too excited and nearly shook or retched. Sila had always been keyed up, anxious. Father had taken after her “real” dad had been killed in the war, and his voice and eyes had soothed worries ever since. That day was no different. She was glad he had come.
Kitchi and Elu entered the town without a word to the soldier waving them through. For an instant, Sila thought that the former’s coal black eyes settled on her, but perhaps that was her imagination. She watched in rapt fascination as the procession streamed through the open gate. When the natives dismounted they swaggered in a bow legged manner that a few of the townies found hilarious, but she knew that it was because they spent so much time in the saddle. That was nothing to laugh at. For her, it was something to envy.
Sila couldn’t begin to imagine it, but the five month cross country ride had to have been dangerous and exhausting. The native warriors would go to the pubs to drink the town’s whiskey or to the armory to trade or to Bushkill Falls’ shops to eat. She knew more than a few had girlfriends or boyfriends in town, away from their families at home. It was probably the same across the entire continent, she thought.
Kitchi reigned up when he saw her father. He smiled, showing off widely spaced white teeth.
“Hiya Curtis,” The native said. “Hope you had a holly, jolly Christmas.”
“...yeah, you too.” Father said uncertainty.
She knew that he was wondering if Kitchi even celebrated Christmas, if the remark had been a sly poke or something. Usually, when more chatty people made her father uncomfortable Sila took a quiet delight in it, because she did the same. But today she wanted everything to go smoothly. Her stomach was aflutter, but she kept her face neutral.
“You know my daughter, Lucila?” Father went on. He gave one of his rare smiles that came so slowly to his honest, open face, as if the gesture cost him great effort. “She’s the best rider in town.”
“I’ve seen her around,” Kitchi acknowledged. His tone was more businesslike now. “How do you do, Miss Wells?”
“I’m Wells, I mean--I’m well,” Sila fumbled. She felt her face flame and could already foresee herself reliving this awkward moment in her mind for months on end. The teenager tried hard not to cringe.
But the men shared a laugh, and it made her blush harder. Her face burned from anger. But from the looks on their faces and the sound of their laughter she realized it wasn’t mockery. They were doing it to diffuse the tension.
“You’ll have to forgive her. She’s been looking forward to this moment for years.” Father gave her a heavy look. Sila was astonished to see his usually hooded eyes slightly moist.
“I know you sometimes take in good riders. Not good riders, good horsemen and horsewomen. This young lady has a gift. I can shoot hard and straight and reel in a muskie on my first try. But she’s even better with beasts. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s almost spiritual, watching her do something she was put on this earth to do. I know you’re a big sports fan. So was I. You remember how it felt watching Messi score a goal for Argentina, or Canelo Álvarez win that fifth division boxing title? That’s what its like to watch Lucila ride.”
Sila had no idea who those people were and only a vague idea of the magnitude of the compliment. Either way, it was quite a speech for her father, and Kitchi knew him well enough to realize it. The horse trader’s face had softened considerably. He was nodding by the time Father finished up.
“You and me have done business for a long time. I know what your word means, to me and to your town.” The trader waved forth his right hand woman, Elu, who made her way over to them. “My second in command has the gift, too. She will be the judge.”
Both the natives had braids, and even though Kitchi’s were tinged with frost his face was almost unlined and looked gentle, humorous. Elu’s was a road map of scars, of experiences, of worldliness and world weariness. Her ears were fleshy, overgrown cauliflowers. Her nose had been broken many times and not set correctly the last. But the worst part was her black eyes. They resembled two furious, upset anthills and the whites were long yellowed from exposure to the sun.
For once, Sila’s anxiety and her motormouth did not get the better of her. She noted that Elu’s seat was solid and true, better than Kitchi’s. It reminded her of herself. The teenager stared back at the other woman, locking eyes without hesitation.
A long moment passed. A stray breeze blew Sila’s long, curly black hair, but she didn’t flinch, not for a moment. Elu was the first to blink.
“I will vouch for her if you do,” The native woman said simply, and after another meaningful glance and the most cursory of nods, trotted off on her mount, her hand reflexively resting on the pistol and saber at her hip.
“Elu knows.” Kitchi was smiling, but he dropped it when he addressed them both next. “Mr. Wells, I hope you don’t mind me laying it all out for your daughter bluntly.”
“Please do.”
The native turned in his saddle to face her more squarely. “This isn’t going to be easy, kid. To even be considered you have to bring the tribe a fresh horse, something quality to improve the bloodlines of the beasts we sell. That means you’re depriving your dad here of an animal he needs. Then we’ve got to ride all the way back to Snakewater Bend. That’s five months, sometimes more. A lot can happen in five months. We could get caught in a storm, or one of us could catch something and infect all of us and then we’d be in for it. Not all the towns between here and the reservation are like Bushkill Falls, you know. We could all be robbed or killed. The Bearers aren’t as numerous out west, I’ll grant you that, but like everywhere they’re gaining footholds and now they’ve got their damn kings and queens. If your mount gets hurt or dies even a mile outside of the rez you’ve got to either find another horse as a gift or you go all the way back home. That’s 3600 miles, round trip. Our school teacher says that’s bigger than the whole ocean. Even if you make it all that way you could be turned away. We test your horsemanship the moment you step foot on our land. If you pass, you get to stay, but you don’t get to ride again until you earn it. And you can be cast out at any moment if the tribe elders say so.”
“I’m ready.” Sila didn’t mean to sound brash, because she didn’t feel that way. Everything the horse trader had said was music to her ears. For her entire life, it seemed, she had been waiting to earn something this meaningful. Her father had been right, and Kitchi’s trying to warn her off only nailed it home. She was put on this earth for this. It went deeper than confidence. It was her reason for being. Nothing could scare her away, not words or Bearers or the perils of a long journey. She was born to ride.
“I always knew one day I’d have to say goodbye.” Father smiled again, and there was so much sadness in it and his quavering voice that her heart broke as it went out to him.
**
The land west of the mountain fell off sharply, a sudden downward slope that seemed to spread out into endless, flat forests. Among the party of native warriors was a young woman of twenty, the closest to her age. Her name was Sas, and the first day she had come riding up beside her.
“This is the farthest east we can go,” Sas, whose name meant Sun, told her. “East of here there are just too many people, too many Bearers. We could be easily overpowered.”
“What is it like east of here?” Sila had never been east or west or any other direction, for that matter. But the prospect of a lot of people didn’t seem dangerous to her, but exciting.
“I’ve never been,” Sas admitted. “But a few people back on the rez have. And sometimes we take in a rider or a trader from that far east. It’s very dangerous. Lots of cars, even military vehicles, and cold hearted men and women who drive them. There are tiny kingdoms and big ones hacked out by strongmen. Have you ever heard of a tank, girl? Back east, they’ve got them. Too many guns for our little band.”
Her joy at being so far away from home eclipsed quickly. They made camp that night. Sila had slept outdoors before, but never like this. Instead of a snug sleeping bag and the comforting sight of her warm home close by she had only a hard pallet and the darkness lurking just outside the ring of firelight. The night was alive all around her. There was always the whicker of horses, and other animals who had been driven off by the fire.
She had been so frightened because of all this newness that she told herself she couldn’t possibly sleep, but at some point she must have dozed off. Sas shook her awake as weak light was filtering through the treetops. Sila sat up to scoot closer to the last few guttering embers of the fire, and took a long look at the battered but well maintained M16 assault rifle over the other woman’s shoulder. She felt grateful for the protection and for having made it through the night. After that, making camp was much easier.
The natives put her to work from day one. This wasn’t a free ride, Ktichi told her. It won’t be now and it certainly won’t get any easier once we reach Snakewater Bend. Every morning she was expected to fetch the water for the horses to drink, for them all to do a bit of washing up and to brew the morning’s tea. The Ohio River here was wide, tranquil, and required very little purification to become potable.
“East of here, east of your town, the river and the land and the people grow meaner,” Sas told her. “The water is foul, trash everywhere, and the villages are dangerous leading right up to the ‘Burgh.”
“The ‘Burgh?”
“Pre-war metropolis. Steel City, some called it, though today its called the ‘Burgh or sometimes Rusttown. You’re lucky to have been raised where you are, where its still good and unspoiled. That place is a shithole.”
All of the native warriors talked that way, hard and salty. They rode their horses hard, too, and if they weren’t on night watch they would drink deeply from leather bags of Bushkill Falls’ precious whiskey and sometimes fight among themselves. Sila wasn’t wholly unused to people from other cultures, and had heard all about these folk long before she had met them. She had been told that all the natives were dark and small, men who didn’t smile and women who didn’t know their place, who fought alongside and talked back to their men.
It was only partially true, like a great deal of stereotypes. Every night she heard laughter, warm sounds within the copses of trees, and music playing over the firelight. Some of the natives were paler than her, with blue or green eyes, and others were darker than her littlest sister, Anya. Much later, she learned that while the majority of the tribe still carried the same blood they always had, eons before the war, they had extended membership to anyone who could ride and who had ritually proven themselves. It was necessary to keep their people healthy and strong, like the horses they bred.
But other times she was reminded just how cruel and savage these people could be. Sila supposed it was the land and their lives endlessly journeying through it that made them that way.
On the tenth day of their trek they were passing through a village called Minster, a beautiful little town that reminded her a bit of home, which Sila took great comfort in. The people were all metal workers or dairy farmers. She had never seen such wondrous, artistic pieces or intricate machinery like this. The town had been insignificant before the war, Sas told her, but now with its machinery factory still up and running it had grown rich, far richer than Bushkill Falls. The natives all chuckled at how swept away Sila was in such a tiny but well to do community.
In the town square there was a ring of tents and stands where the merchants all showed off their wares. There were places where one could buy fresh butter, cheese or milk, jewelry, nails, and other tools. The bakery tent was the one tempting her. Sila stood by it for minutes on end, but the rows of tiny cakes and little jars of jams and jellies were unattended. Sas, swaggering bowlegged, came up to her. Sila watched her without comment. Will I walk like that one day? She wondered.
“You read my mind, Lucila.” Sas shaved the sides of her head and let the rest of her hair fall down to the center of her back. When she rode the mane of hair so black that it appeared to be tinged with blue flew out over her shoulders. But now that she was in town the native woman had tied it into a simple ponytail.
“I have a sweet tooth.” She went on. “Is Matthew here?”
“Who is Matthew?”
“The baker’s son, he runs the stand while his mother bakes all day. I guess not. Let’s try going to their home.”
“I don’t need a sweet that badly.”
“Come on. We aren’t leaving until tomorrow, and we’ve got nothing else to do, anyway.”
The women picked their way through the small crowd. The townsfolk instinctively steered clear of these two odd looking strangers in their midst, but both went armed just in case. Sas had her rifle and at Sila’s hip was the snubnose revolver her father had given her the day she had left him. The memory of that parting was enough to distract her so much that she didn’t hear the noises coming from inside the small home until it was too late.
Sas had called out a number of times but the door to the baker’s home was partially open, so she had stepped inside. Not even her voice or a creaking floorboard alerted them.
Them was Tauri, a native scout in their party, and a young man, presumably Matthew, the baker’s son. The native had taken one leg out of his camouflage BDU pants and the other was still bunched around his knee. The long limbed young Matthew had been thrown over the arm of a sofa and pinned down, with his arms in a hammerlock behind his back so he couldn’t struggle. Tauri liked to wear a tie dye handkerchief around his neck when he rode, but for embarking on this particular ride he had balled it up and shoved it deep into the boy’s mouth to muffle his shrill cries of protest. The native was so greedily wrapped up in his own pleasure he didn’t hear them enter, only pushing the other man away when Sila screamed.
Tauri was yelling back at them to get out, hurling curses at them as he awkwardly tried to pull up his pants. Matthew curled up on the sofa, sobbing, spitting out the improvised gag. Sila had never seen anything like this in her life, and found herself nearly retching at the entire scene, hot, angry tears squeezing out of her eyes. She wanted to go home and almost cried it out loud.
The native’s man yelling had gone from curses to bargaining, but Sas merely hauled him bodily out of the house and straight in front of Kitchi and Elu. Tauri didn’t even have time to fully clothe himself before he was making excuses to the party’s two leaders.
The judgment was swift. Within a few hours the natives were summarily ejected from the town of Minster and ordered never to return. Their trade wagon was also considerably lighter, because for the crime he had committed Tauri had forfeited his share of profits for the entire five month journey. That alone had saved his life. Matthew’s baker mother looked as if she wanted to roast them all in her oven, but she said and did nothing.
Instead of bedding down in the Minster’s cozy boarding house they had to travel far enough away in the dead of night to set up camp, all in the cold rain. The other natives were cursing Tauri, who had been forced to give up his spot as lead scout and relegated to guarding the wagon, far to the back of the train. That was near Sila’s place, too, and for long days afterward she could almost feel the heavy, malicious gaze of the disgraced man burning holes into her back.
**
The plains marched inexorably in all directions, a neverending carpet of golden autumn as far as the eye could see. Sometimes they rode on the interstate, the hooves of their horses echoing hollowly on the cracked asphalt, but Sila didn’t like that as much. The old superhighway was destroyed in places, crumbling. She didn’t want to think about that, about the aftermath of the war that had loomed over all of their lives. She preferred to feel and imagine that the entirety of the world was spread out before her. After sixteen years in one place it sure felt that way to Sila.
They were able to make a smarter pace after they left the more industrialized areas behind. The land was wholly unspoiled and vacant, but she loved it all the same. Sila had never been permitted to ride for so long, and to her astonishment she found herself aching after each day’s ride. There simply had never been enough room for her to ride for hours on end, back on the mountain now so far behind her. Sas told her to gallop a mile and then walk a mile, pacing her horse and herself for the long journey.
The natives now trusted her enough to ride out ahead of the column, or in any direction she chose. After all, where was she going to go? Sila could ride back home or off on her own, but that was almost a surefire death sentence. Despite her being armed and growing more sure and steady in her seat every day, danger was all around her and would certainly close in if she left them.
One benefit of the flat, featureless landscape was that a bit of elevation went a long way. They spotted the towering rock the day before they reached it. When they were approaching the tall outcropping it the sun was just peeking over it, spilling out over the land in a flood harsh white light.
A native warrior named Kwahu now lead the scouts. He had keen eyes but lacked Tauri’s brilliance in the saddle and his situational awareness. Kwahu proved it when what sounded like a cannon boomed over them and he was hurtled toward the grass as if he had been yanked by a great string. When she chanced to peer down at him she saw that Kwahu’s throat was a great ruin, and that his head was hanging by the merest thread of bone and meat.
Sila froze, but Sas was already yelling at her to move. The riders scattered and rode in a half dozen different directions. It must have dismayed whoever was shooting at them, because the next few round struck nothing but dirt.
A half dozen ragged people on horses crested one of the tiny rolling hills that flowed over the great plains, whooping as the hooves of their horses furiously beat away handfuls of hard packed dirt. A few of them wielded rifles, and raised them to their shoulders even as another ungodly loud thunderclap of gunfire boomed above them. Those with pistols waited until they were in range.
They were roadside killers, and had clearly done this before, riding in a ragged but practiced line as the attacked. Sila was pounding hard over the terrain on Hawthorne’s back, snuggled down low in the saddle, almost clutching the horse’s neck in fear. She thought it would be prudent to have her revolver in her hand, but she was terrified that she would drop it with how fast she was riding. It didn’t seem safe to slow down.
The attackers appeared to have no semi or automatic weapons. They fired off what rounds they had chambered and took much longer than the natives to reload, and their pistols clicked rapidly dry.
In response, the horse traders squeezed off small chattering handfuls of weapons fire or three round bursts and tore into the mounts and bodies of the ambushers. One of them slumped over the saddle, wailing. The precise counterattack sent the survivors off in a brief retreat. Above them all the big caliber rifle boomed out yet again, and this time it punched the life out of a native rider. The woman was dead before she hit the ground, and was dragged off into the distance with her foot in the stirrup by her hysterical horse, leaving a crimson streak across the prairie grass.
Sila reached the base of the high rock. She slowed Hawthorne to a walk, letting him have his head. Her breath burnt in her lungs and the blood roared in her ears. She realized she was crying and angrily wiped her face.
A pair of grimy hands flailed at the edge of her vision, going for her reigns. With a yell of revulsion, the teenager yanked them away.
Hawthorne had always been able to pick up on her moods, and the horse acted instinctively to protect her, it felt like. He turned his great head, and the powerful bones of his jaw thwacked into the temple of the grimy little man trying to pull her from the saddle. He was dumped unceremoniously into the dirt. Hawthorne whickered and Sila thought she detected a note of macho pride in the sound. She patted his neck soothingly and thanked him sincerely. Then she pulled her gun.
The night before she had left them all her father had gifted her with the Smith and Wesson Model 19 and with it a fairly precious commodity, five rounds of high powered .357 Magnum. She had reloads in her saddlebag for days, but only in .38. The entire package must have cost him a fortune, as the gun was as close to new as she had ever seen. At the time Sila had thought it an ostentatious, showy going away present, but now as she pointed the big blued steel revolver at the strange man she was eternally grateful.
The little man had been straightening slowly off the dirt, whether from infirmity or caution. He stopped moving when his eyes locked in on the snubnose, the dull yellow, heavy bullets peeking out from the loaded cylinders, each one looking inert but deadly, like a slumbering hornet. Sila felt that her voice would quaver if she spoke, so she let her weapon do the talking. She tried to brandish it at him as if she meant business.
The fellow was filthy, but from how he moved and the look he gave her Sila was sure right away that he was no Bearer. He didn’t snarl or shriek at her and though he was unkempt and dirty, almost starved looking, he wasn’t utterly encrusted with filth from having lived solely outdoors. A ragged mop of nappy gray curls topped his head, all matted and grown over itself, as if it hadn’t been cut in a long time. The angles of his face were sharp, and he was dotted all over with sores. Sila had not seen someone in such poor shape in a long time. Her heart almost went out to him.
“Please,” Was all he said.
If it hadn’t been for that word and the anguished look in his eyes Sila might have pulled the trigger simply out of reflex or revulsion. The man was eyeing her saddle bags, each one laden with food and supplies.
She heard shouts and curses as her companions chased off the last of the raiders. The fellow looked as if he was going to slink off any minute. After a moment of hesitation, Sila holstered her revolver, and pulled out a foil wrapped MRE. It was old, and soaked with horse sweat, but she offered it to him anyway.
The man cackled in glee and made a sudden grab for her. Sila was too caught off guard and angry to defend herself this time. With a surprising strength he hauled her skinny form off of the saddle and let her tumble to the ground. Her wrist was trapped beneath her at an odd angle and she felt an explosion of pain, then numbness. Tears gathered in her eyes as she found her feet.
Hawthorne hadn’t fought the man, not this time. It took the brigand a few tries but he had been able to throw a leg over the only friend Sila had left in the world. The man gave another ghastly laugh as he rode off.
Sila’s only answer was an anguished wail as Hawthorne and her entire life was taken from her before her very eyes. Hoofbeats and a curse made her turn her head.
Tauri rode like nothing she had ever seen before, a fiery wind sweeping over the plains. In an instant the scout was beside her and slid smoothly from his mount, an old but lovingly maintained Kalashnikov already up to his shoulder. Tauri snuggled his cheek against the stock, flexing his neck so the tie dye handkerchief there wouldn’t impede his aim. He pulled the trigger no more than three times and far off in the distance the horse thief’s heart was punched out of his meager body by precise hits from thirty caliber bullets. Hawthorne seemed to be aware that something was amiss. He stopped his gallop and began to munch on a handful of grass, the dead man lying heavily across his back.
“Well trained horse.” Tauri turned his deep brown eyes on her, a sneer on his lips. “Better trained than you.”
“I…thank you.”
“I just saved your horse and your life. You’d be headed home if it wasn’t for me. So you’re going to do more than thank me, little bitch.”
There was a look in his eyes that frightened her, almost as much as when the thief had ridden off with Hawthorne. Sila’s hand groped for her father’s revolver, but it must have slipped from the holster when she was thrown to the ground. Her sprained wrist gnawed at her. Tauri stepped closer to her, blotting out the sun overhead.
“Tauri!”
Sila had never been so happy to see Elu, whose fearsome face she often shied away from. The big native woman handed her weapon to her in a practiced way, butt first, one thick finger snicked behind the trigger, rendering the revolver unable to be fired so long as she held it.
“Tauri, there is a sniper on top of that rock,” As if to highlight Elu’s words another booming gunshot echoed. “Go deal with it. And you, girl, help Sas gather the horses that scattered.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Neither of them needed any further prompting. Tauri took one look at the tall rock and began to ride around its base, looking for the path up. Sila found her weapon, cleaned it off with her shirt, and gave a shrill, ululating cry. Hawthorne came trotting over, saddlebags shaking, reigns at his chest. The corpse on his back slid off and hit the dirt.
“What happened?”
“The man tried to steal Hawthorne.” He was snorting, seemingly in frustration, so Sila reached out and laid her hand on the horse’s neck, quieting him.
“And Tauri?”
“He saved me.”
“I meant what happened after, girl?”
“...I don’t know.” But deep down she did. For the last few years Sila would catch a man from town looking at her in a strange, sly way. It made her skin crawl. She knew what they were thinking and what Tauri had been thinking, too. She was glad of the other natives around her for this trip, especially the women, and even more so for her father who had gifted her the heavy revolver at her hip.
“I think you do, or you’re touched. Girl,” Elu’s yellowed whites and black eyes were locked onto hers. “We do not tolerate injustice. But we also will not coddle you. You’d best take care of this problem with Tauri, because he has no concept of mercy, either.”
Sila didn’t have to be told twice. After she spent the next few minutes gathering the horses, Tauri was soon trotting back to the rest of them, a satisfied smirk on his face. His mount seemed spooked, jumpy.
“You get that fucker?” One of the riders asked him.
The scout wordlessly held out a large handful of leaves he had gathered, and his horse nearly reared. Sila squinted closer and realized that he had a dirty fistful of human hair. Not just human hair, she realized once he dangled it. A scalp, complete with a ragged strip of freshly bleeding skin and meat. She turned away, setting her jaw, trying not to vomit, but all Tauri did was laugh.
“We need a new outrider since Kwahu bought it. I will talk to Kitchi. We cannot afford another ambush.”
**
Lucila’s days entered into a sure and steady rhythm after that. The former great cities came and fell: Fort Wayne, South Bend, and more, towns without names any longer. They weaved a path through them all, avoiding people. As they rode, Sas told her that going north any appreciable distance was a bad idea.
“Chicago, Detroit, those names mean anything to you?”
Sila only nodded her head, hoping the other woman wouldn’t press her. Schooling back home in Bushkill Falls wasn’t much to write home about. She could read, write, count money, the basics of many other subjects. Her school had very few textbooks and no running water or electricity. Sila had never seen the need to carry her studies much further, anyway.
“What have you heard?” Sas asked, throwing back her proud mane of blue black hair.
Pressed, Sila could only offer up, “Huge pre-war metropolises. Detroit was known for automobiles.”
“Exactly,” The native rider said. “They have no gas to make those vehicles go, but they trade for it. Anywhere there is a large city there are bullets, gas, and killers. Remember that as you go riding about in the wide world for the first time.”
It was good advice, she thought later, as the party made camp. Their movements, including hers, were almost on autopilot at this point. She was expected to feed horses and then throw her pallet close to the wagon, so she would be awakened if anyone tried to make off with their goods. The riders set up a defensive perimeter, those that had been unlucky enough to draw watch. Some of them regularly volunteered for the unpopular task, mindful of their duty and proud to serve it, with none of the clucking and begrudging she experienced back home when townies were made to work.
A few of the riders had spoken with her about her first battle, the fight with the ragtag band of road scum that had tried to make off with their goods. It seemed that the incident had bonded them all together to a degree. So lately the natives had been offering her a sip from the leather skin they passed to one another as they sat around the fire. Sila wasn’t unaccustomed to alcohol. Her father had always enjoyed a neat glass of whiskey and sometimes would allow her a small glass of wine that he would keep in their cellar. So when the leather bag was handed to her on some nights, like tonight, she took a sip. The wine was sour and dark as blood, heavy on her tongue. Already Sila’s head was swimming, so she handed it back and steadied herself with a big cleansing swig from her canteen.
A rider named Ichtaca had packed a guitar. He always kept it in the wagon and cradled it securely so it wouldn’t break. It had been passed down for several generations in his family, and he was proud of it. It was unlike any guitar that Sila had ever seen before. Its strings were made of dull, translucent nylon, and it sounded both grittier and livelier than otters that she had heard. The scarred wood was a faded yellow, and it had taken some rough knocks over the years. That only served to make the old instrument more lovely, both to behold and to hear.
Ichtaca had long black hair and the darkest colored red gold copper skin that Sila had ever seen. He told her early on in their journey that he came from a place far to the south, a town called New Aztlan. The guitar had been made there in the old style, he said. Sila didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but somehow it made sense and fit.
He sang in a language that meant nothing to Lucila, but it seemed to hit her ear just right. Spanish, she knew, the one her first father had spoken. It was supposed to be her language, too, but he had died without her ever having known him, and had given her to his old war buddy to raise. It was difficult for Sila to have any strong feelings toward that man who had died. But shouldn’t she?
The thoughts troubled her, so she acknowledged them and let them go. Her…father, Curtis Wells, often told her to do that when she couldn’t get bad thoughts out of her head. He had seen and been made to do a great deal of awful things, she knew, and was always having bad dreams, sometimes screaming or flailing at night. When Sila was very young she had crept into his bedroom to check on him in the middle of one of these fits, but he admonished her for it, telling her she needed her sleep. But Sila knew he hoarded away all his pain so none of it spilled out onto her or her sisters.
More bad thoughts. She leaned back to listen to the ongoing song, feeling the nip of wine take hold on her. Whenever Itchtaca played, the other’s quieted, even the drunkest and moist boisterous of them. His foreign words reached her over the crackle of the fire and the constant horse noise:
“Cuando un amigo se va
queda un espacio vacío,
que no lo puede llenar
la llegada de otro amigo.
Cuando un amigo se va,
queda un tizón encendido
que no se puede apagar
ni con las aguas de un río.”
The guitar and Itchtaca’s scratchy, soulful voice faded.
“Una hermosa cancion sobre la muerte,” He grunted at the firelit circle of faces, and a few others nodded. He must have seen that she didn’t understand.
“A lovely song about death,” Itchtaca translated. “It makes one feel melancholy because a friend has died.”
“To Kwanu!” A female rider raised the leather skin, and squirted the red liquid into her mouth. She handed the skin to Itchtaca, who drank deep and then underhandedly tossed it to Sila.
“I’d take a drink,” Sas whispered to her. “It would be disrespectful not to.”
Lucila thought she needed a drink, anyway, after all this sadness and song. When she lowered the skin she automatically handed it to the person next to her.
“Thanks so very much,” Tauri had sneaked up beside her. His voice made her jump and he was smirking when he drained the skin. “It’s about time I take my turn at watch. Sweet dreams, ladies.”
After that scare it was very difficult for Sila to go to her bed, far from the fire’s warmth and light, but she was duty bound to guard the wagon. The straw pallet she slept on was somehow less comfortable than sitting on the ground near the campfire, but she was tired and she had drank more wine than usual. The teenager was asleep one yawn later after slipping under the coverlet.
She was awake before her eyes had even opened. It felt as if her body still slumbered but her mind was alive, and feeling the comforting squeeze of the bedding around her. Sila was utterly still. She could feel that the night wasn’t yet over. Her bladder pressed on her. She tried to will herself back to sleep, but it was useless. She opened her eyes.
The firelight was still going strong, tended by the men and women on watch, but the stars had changed positions above her. Sila reluctantly stood and slung her belt around her hips, the big revolver filling the holster within easy reach of her right hand.
She wound her blanket carefully across her shoulders and over the top of her head. There were sentries’ torches off in the distance, guttering in the slight wind. It was January, and cold. The earth beneath her was covered with a thin layer of frost, overturned by her feet to churn up dark clumps of soil. She aimed for the nearest torch and walked, her breath vaporizing before her.
“It’s the middle of the night,” The native told her when she came within hailing distance of him.
“I have to pee,” Sila told him.
He used his torch to point. “Be careful. The land slopes off in that direction.”
She moved off without a word. When she reached a suitable sized tree Sila made sure the sentry couldn’t see her and went about her business.
Sila was beginning to pull her dungarees up when she heard the noise.
skeeeeerlick
She froze, every muscle tense and still. It was a rustling off in the distance, deeper into the primeval woods, away from the warmth and light of camp. When the sound repeated itself she began groping for her weapon as she tried to yank up her pants. She was so afraid and jumpy that she accomplished neither.
skeeeeer…lick. skeer
In the dark, with the moon high above grinning lick skeer down at her like a skull boiled clean of flesh, her imagination got the better of her. The sound grew a lick tale behind it, a story, a hunger. Suddenly the boles of hoarfrost skeerlick covered trees, all of them gnarled and fearsome looking oaks, pressed in far too close to skeer her. Their bare branches curled like skeletal fingers toward the uncaring stars above. lick
Despite the cold air across her skin she couldn’t even shiver, even though she was feeling freezing, dizzy. Her stomach was like a bubbling over cauldron, the barrel of a gun that was so superheated that the rounds resting in it cooked off of their own accord. The thoughts in her brain were the same, each one more hurrying than the last. Angry, nervous, sad, she told herself. That’s how I feel.
Sila’s breath sounded enormous and fast in her lungs, just like the roar of blood in her ears. schlllooonk And somehow the air seemed to be rushing at her face. The teenage horsewoman thought she must be riding at a terrific, blinding speed, when in fact she was struggling to remain composed, and losing, badly, as she stood utterly still there in the forest, so far from home.
much closer now what who is it what could it be oh daddy i shouldn’t have ever left you now i
SCHEEEEEK!
It was only footsteps. In fact, she saw the feet making them. They were clad in well worn riding boots just like hers. Sila hunkered down behind her tree, resisting the urge to hug it, unable to shut her eyes.
A native man with a wicked looking assault rifle slung over his shoulder was standing not far from her, peering right in her direction. She willed herself not to move a muscle, not even to breathe. After a long moment of hard staring, the fellow drew a knife, a blade so large and oiled that she could see it shine even in the weak moonlight filtering through the stripped tree tops. Sila thought that her heart might burst from panic.
The man turned and very deliberately began scratching at the tree trunk behind him. It didn’t take long. She could just make out a very large X now freshly carved into the bark. Task complete, a bit of whetstone was run over the edge of the blade followed by a quick wipe with a rag. The man walked off, tying the rag around his throat.
Sila had identified him already. The flash of color at his neck only served to puzzle and frighten her further. Why was Tauri scratching up the bark of a tree?
**
As the plains became more and more hilly the days of their journey became weeks, then months. The snows gradually came and then petered out to nearly nothing. It grew less cold and finally springtime bloomed on the plains. Sila had never seen so much harsh beauty in one place, not even back home in the plush woods. Sas told Sila that they were entering the Dakotas. The land was still mostly flat, but off in the distance a mountain range cut a black jagged line through the clear blue sky. Despite their familiar beauty they filled her with a vague unease.
The tranquil spring was deceptive. Within the party of riders there was fear everywhere now. Sila could feel it as they rode every day, made camp each night and awoke each morning. Lulling the party into complacency with an easy winter, the blooming spring earth of the plains had claimed more of them than customary, she gathered from some of the talk going around. Four had been slain by the ambushers, the same ones Sila had almost lost her life and her horse to. Sickness had taken a fifth, a hoary and hairy old woman, a nameless rider that she had hardly spoken with. For nights the woman had kept the rest of them up with her clearing phlegm and coughing. It was some kind of lung ailment that struck her suddenly. The sick woman had been a loner, anyway, but Elu and Kitchi had ordered the rest of the pack to stay clear of her. Special tea was brewed for her, along with invocations, but neither medicine nor prayer worked. When the end was near the woman, wheezing, promised to scout ahead for them as long as she could, to alert the train of any upcoming dangers. Days later they came upon her horse, idly munching grass, and soon after the woman’s corpse, all of her wet, anguished hacking finally ended.
Sila hadn’t told anyone about Tauri’s secret night scratches. But she had observed him at the next few camps making the same marks. Perhaps it was some native ritual he was performing? She didn’t have the guts for fear of attracting his attention.
Despite his crime in Minster, Tauri was now leading the entire train again, at least during the day. At night he was condemned to sleep farther back than her from the warming campfires. It meant that she had to rest with his eyes on her, interfering with her ability to fall asleep no matter how hard she curled up and squeezed shut her own, so tight that the tears felt as if they were being forced out. Father, she would think as she laid there. I was wrong. Help me.
The plains hadn’t stopped thirsting for blood, greedily drinking from not only the men and women but from their animals, as well. As the Black Hills ceased to be a dark, artistically wavering smudge on the horizon and became reality, Kitchi’s mount, a splendid Andalusian, stepped in a hole and twisted its heavily muscled leg. The formerly spirited horse was reduced to a splintered limbed horror in an instant, twisting in an unnatural way and nearly throwing its rider, who rolled gracelessly onto the dirt. The horse’s screams raked at Sila’s ears, and she covered them and then her eyes when the horse had to be put down, fighting back tears. The riders were a hard and unsentimental people who were accustomed to their horses dying. They saw her reaction and laughed coarsely at her, mocking her weakness, among them Sas, who Sila had thought a friend. They had to shoot the poor tortured animal, then butchered its carcass for meat. The horse’s death and the prospect of having to eat it made her physically ill, and she was in a black mood for days after.
In that Sila wasn’t alone. Kitchi now had to ride in the wagon, as there were no mounts left for him. The wagon’s cargo had to be repacked, and Itchaca’s guitar was damaged. The dark native’s wrath was so fearsome that he flung himself at the offending fellow, and both men brawled in the bright green grass until they were pulled apart. Heated arguments like this became increasingly commonplace as the party trudged toward the mountains.
Some of it was directed at her. Tauri, of course, was forever in the background, filling her days with unease and her nights with dread. A few of the riders had been whispering that the stranger among them was the cause of all the misfortune, especially when she spilled water one day and had to trudge back for more, delaying breaking morning camp. Every setback, she was told, makes the crossing more deadly.
“There was a group of white people, your people,” Sas told in front of the others, just to make her feel bad. “They were riding west just like you, up hills just like these. The Donners, they didn’t respect the land either. The snows stopped them and they had to eat one another to survive.”
“I’m not white,” Sila protested weakly. No one had ever raised an issue against her skin color back home, not like this, with so much scorn and hate in their voice.
“Doesn’t matter, you aren’t one of us, the tribe,” The rider spit back. “You’re out of place and doomed just like they were. You don’t belong and if I have to I will eat you first.”
**
When the Bearers came it seemed to Sila that the entire train, herself included, was grateful for the fight, some common enemy for them to all focus on besides one another.
They had been able to outrun every other Bearer they had come across, or the scouts had dealt handily with them well before the majority of the riders happened upon them. But Tauri came galloping back to them one day, his horse well lathered. Approximately twenty or twenty five of the enemy, he said, using the dispassionate military term immediately, were waiting less than two kilometers, dead ahead. They couldn’t be avoided or flanked, thanks to the increasingly narrow and treacherous paths leading up to the Dakota’s Black Hills. Tauri recommended they draw up a battle plan and fight.
The three senior riders, Kitchi, Tauri, and Elu squatted together, each with a stick to scratch a map into the dirt. Sila focused on her breathing, resisting the feeling that she was already behind, that she would have to suck in air faster to make up for it. Beneath her, Hawthorne restlessly rocked back and forth on his mighty hooves, lifting one and then the other. To her it felt as if the horse was itching for the action. In a way, so was she. Sila had been angry, growing more angry and worried and sick with panic and worry ever since the incident in Ohio with the baker’s son and Tauri. Another fight would be a kind of release, the teenager told herself.
But Elu, the stone faced second in command, dispelled her of that notion quickly. “We cannot spare anyone to watch over you. Remain here. At the first sign of any trouble, ride away as far as you can and then find us after the danger has passed. If you can’t survive two or three days on your own you are of no use to the tribe, anyhow.” With those not very inspiring words the grim woman rode back to her fellows.
The riders were methodically checking and rechecking their weapons. Sila decided to do the same, if only to give her nervous hands something to do. Her skin was so damp that it took her two tries to snatch up her revolver. Five chambers were loaded with .357 magnum cartridges. Her father had always taught her that to always leave one chamber empty, so if dropped the hammer would strike nothing but air, not spark off a negligent discharge. The little bit of homespun wisdom steadied her. She not as shakily filled the final slot with a .38 wadcutter and snapped shut the cylinder. Locked and loaded, Sila thought hurriedly to herself. I’m ready.
Tauri was shouting out the battle plan to the assembled cavalry. He would ride as close as he dared to the Bearers and pretend to retreat, baiting the mindless, wild people into following him. He would then ride back to them all, and together they would cut the enemy down in a classic L-shaped ambush. Sila gathered from his tone and the answering nods that this wasn’t the first time they had performed this maneuver, but the first time performing on this particular terrain. It worried her. Her father had always told her that the best laid battle plan mattered little unless one also knew the land being fought over.
Sas half turned in her saddle to face her. “Remember, if you encounter trouble, run. Just ride away. You will be able to find us. Don’t look back.”
“Díkwíísh ninááhai!” Kitchi yelled at them all, raising his weapon above his head. He had swapped out his old lever action rifle for something a bit more tactical. It was an AR-15 style assault rifle, which Sila had seen Father use many times before, but with an underslung grenade launcher protruding from just below its barrel. Kitchi had loaded it with a hand sized 40 mm projectile, and had more of the deadly, rare things slung in a bandolier around his chest. Sila was glad to see such a premium piece of ordnance, which, thanks to her father’s tutelage, she could see was well maintained. But the native horse trader didn’t look entirely at home with the big weapon as he set off, his party riding close behind.
She was left alone with her thoughts and the dust cloud they have left in their wake. Silence descended, and soon the riders left her sight. Sila realized she was clenching the butt of her revolver tight enough to make her knuckles ache. She sheepishly put it back into her holster, taking three ties to get it right.
The Black Hills off in the distance looked like accusatory fingers poking judgmentally at the crystal blue sky. It was such a beautiful spring day. Nearby, a bird twittered merrily, without a care in the world.
Off in the distance Sila heard the grim, dismal retching of many throats that were forever shredded and damaged from screaming. It sounded like a whole lot more than twenty or so of them. It was loud enough to make her shiver and Hawthorne whicker restlessly. She spoke to him in a low voice, gripped the reigns to steady herself and soothingly patted the horse’s long, elegant neck.
Gunfire was popping off crazily in the distance, resulting in more shrieks and screams from the awful, fanged wilderness people.They were called “Bearers” because they bore a terrible curse, everyone knew that. They lived outside, didn’t make villages or towns, but attacked settlements of normal people. They mated in the fields and ate like savages because they had lost all reasoning to plan for their next meal. They took no prisoners, only attacked and killed. Until Lilith, their queen, Sila hadn’t ever heard of a Bearer having anything like human emotion or speech. They were the nameless, timeless enemy in the dark come to life, Sila had heard her teacher say once.
Big puffs of smoke were now visible on the horizon. It worried her. Not many of the native rider’s weapons used black powder, certainly not enough to cause the big roiling clouds of angry back and gray. Then a smell tickled her nose, one that triggered her fight or flight into overdrive, a hardwired, vestigial instinct in response to this particular stimuli.
Something was burning.
Hawthorne’s snorts were growing uneasy. He didn’t like the sight or smell of smoke any more than Sila did, but the animal’s senses were more keenly attuned than her own. He noticed the screaming four legged beast before she did. He whinnied in alarm to notify her.
It was one of the tribe’s best mounts, a hardy warhorse, a veteran of half a dozen cross country treks. Its rider had been slain or knocked off and another terrible form had taken their place. A form who moved too jerkily and aggressively to be human. It was clinging to the side of the animal’s barrel ribs, a howling mad man, red eyes wide as he snarled. The Bearer was raking out handfuls of the horse’s bowels as the mortally wounded beast shrieked past her. Sila had to keep Hawthorne well in hand as he chuffed and nearly reared beneath her.
She wanted to bolt, just as Elu and Sas had said, but she was unsure. Had the natives lost? There was simply no way to know without riding further ahead, and that she had been expressly forbidden to do. But the call was soon made for her, all of her indecision gone in an instant.
From over the slight rolling plains came a storm of angry black dots, wild men and women dripping with blood, a whirlwind of flailing limbs and shrill battle cries like nothing human. It wasn’t the twenty or twenty five that Tauri had promised. She couldn’t even begin to estimate the number. They blotted out the darkening sky and the spring grass.
Sila was frozen, unable to even draw her weapon or kick her heels into her mount. Luckily, Hawthorne had better situational awareness. The Welsh Cob flattened his neat ears down against his skull and took off, instinctively steering them both out of danger. He was streaking in such a ferocious gallop that Sila was afraid he would twist his leg like Kitchi’s long dead horse, but his gait was more sure and steady even as he bounced her unmercifully hard in the saddle, rattling her very bones. She gathered the reins in her hand and leaned with her animal, guiding him with her weight. Hawthorne’s gallop lost all of its frantic rhythm and the pair of them flowed across the torn plains smooth as silk, every hoofbeat music to hear ears.
A well trained horse, especially one as fit as Hawthorne, could outrun any person, but the Bearers were already beginning to make their numerical superiority feel known. As many times as Sila turned she came upon even more and was forced to change directions yet again. They were all pressing around her in a rough semicircle, like a pack of hyenas hemming in a wounded wildebeest. She yelled a growling, wordless curse at all of those slavering and maddened faces.
A filth encrusted hand raked its long, brittle nails deep into the soft skin of Hawthorne’s forehead. He reared in anger and lashed out with his right foreleg, stoving in the head of the Bearer who had dared to strike at him, sending the man spinning away, spouting fresh blood from the crown of his skull like a gristly fountain. The sight of it all rattled Sila but it also gave her a bit of breathing room, and an idea.
Once he had gathered how well she could ride, her father had taught her how important horses were in battle, how knights had been the armor elements of combined arms in olden times. “A horse with a skilled, armed soldier,” Curtis Wells would say, warming to the words as he spoke them. Despite his taciturn nature when he talked about history or warfare, he would get a seldom seen dreamy look in his eyes. “They’re once again the heavy hitters of battle. The battering rams, the big guns.”
Instead of wheeling away from them again, SIla charged.
What had once been a small, meagerly built man disappeared beneath the horse’s churning hooves in a blur of pained roaring. Without letting herself dwell on the terrible sounds and sights around her the teenager snapped up her gun and fired off a round that sent another Reaper hurtling towards the dirt as if pushed by a mighty hand. In response a handful of them to the ground, despite them outnumbering her. They hadn’t been expecting a fight after they had torn through the native riders.
It bought her a brief reprieve. Sila coaxed her willing mount forward again, and this time the enemy that was standing jumped to the side, away from the dangerous horse and rider. There were still dozens of the enemy in front of her, but they were no longer pressing in so dangerously close. She galloped toward the opening.
She was riding through a tornado of teeth and fingernails. Once one of them tried to tear her from the saddle. Sila angrily brought the barrel of her pistol down onto a man’s nose, turning it into a gory mask. The man screamed at her in protest, so instead of drawing her weapon back she pulled the trigger, giving him a close range taste of lead. What was left of the Bearer’s head was kicked to the side, and he slithered bonelessly to the earth.
The teenager gave a primal shout, but her bloodthirsty joy was short-lived. Mindless beasts or not, Bearers could still adapt to the situation like the predators they were. One of them got the idea to attack Hawthorne, not her, and many others followed suit. The horse shied away from the swelling numbers of people around him.
“Hiyah!” Sila cried out, kicking her heels. Hawthorne gained some much needed distance and then stretched his legs again, mightily thundering over the bloody plains.
She was moving fast enough that only the fittest and strongest of the Bearers was able to keep up. A menacing looking man was chasing her, splendidly built, as if all of this time outdoors in the wild, away from civilization and living off the land, was causing him to thrive, not only survive. Had Slla been born earlier and experienced more of the world before it ended she would have been reminded of a professional football halfback in the prime of their career.
But no athlete had red slaver dripping from its jaws, or fangs glinting in the sunlight, or made such unholy noises. The Bearer ran at her with a sure and powerful stride, his bare feet thumping over the ground seemingly almost as rapidly as her horse’s. He leaped at Hawthorne’s hindquarters as if he had been spring loaded.
Hawthorne was caught entirely unawares and midstride, giving a terrified trumpeting cry of very human sounding pain. Sila felt the shrill pity of her mount’s cry like an icicle through the heart, all of her panic and self preservation forgotten. For a moment the Welsh Cobb’s hooves churned unsteadily, and it was very nearly dragged down by the immense man. Sila screamed back at him in anger and revulsion, but he couldn’t hold on for long. He howled as he slid off, and was soon left behind in the dust with all the rest.
There were more of them, all around her, but she had a clear avenue of escape now. The fire roared red and orange all around her, outlining all of the terrible forms in smoke. She had no choice.
“Just you and me now, horsey,” Sila whispered against the lathered flesh of Hawthorne’s neck. His triangular ears perked up at the sound of her voice. “Just you and me. We’ve got to make a run for it, Hawthorne. You know what to do.”
Her mouth set in a grim line, her weapon sure in her hand, she chose a spot and together they plunged between the screams and dancing flames.
****
Every week, the reservation’s watch commander quietly let her soldiers shoot dice to determine who would draw the night shift. There was an official duty rotation, of course, but at the start of the new week in Snakewater Bend, Sundays, inevitably one of her troopers, after the entire barracks clacked dice, would propose an alternate list. It was always accepted.
And its always me, Tonio thought with a stomach full of well earned resentment. This stupid country.
Even now, so many years later, Antonio Ranieri harbored a bit of resentment against the old US of A. It hadn’t been his idea to travel here, but his father’s, the owner and champion gentleman breeder of rare Napolitano horses. They had traveled all the way from lovely, ancient Turin, huddled just a few kilometers from the Italian Alps. From the Mole Antonelliana and the mountains to a flat, desolate town in Montana whose only dubious claim to fame was a UFO sighting back in the Fifties. And all of it was located in the middle of the lovely sounding area of Malmstrom. One glance at the place and Tonio felt as if he had learned all he could, experienced all it had to offer. He was ready to leave before he even left the cab of his trailer.
And now, here he was, a permanent resident, a member of the tribe. The horse traders his father had been dealing with had offered succor during the war, and even with his head swimming from grief at the old man’s death Tonio had gratefully accepted. Over time, the natives among them had taken the lead and seized the nearly empty Air Force base in town, and only those with anything to offer got to stay. Tonio’s inheritance of hundreds of millions of euros was no more, but he was the grateful recipient of his father’s trailers, equipment, and the small but dazzlingly rare herd of horses they had brought. Eventually, he had been inducted with great ritual into the tribe, and the base had become their town, Snakewater Bend. His new life had begun.
Maybe it ended there, too, he thought ruefully. Over his shoulder the short, squatty little rat faced man had a well worn M16 rifle, and an old fashioned crank air raid siren from World War II at his belt. He was cold, hungry, and his feet hurt. I am miserable at dice. Maybe next time I should cheat, but I’d probably mess that up, too.
Despite his being one of the original members of the newly formed tribe, Tonio knew he wasn’t well loved in the Bend. It wasn’t that he was white, or still struggled with English. Tribal hopefuls and new members came from all over the globe, it seemed. There is no room for hatred in this new world of ours, the elders had said, when the town had been founded. No room for prejudice or cowardice or pettiness. And the chief was quick to punish it.
And no room for me, either. It all grated on them: his former wealth, his attitude, his lack of any skills besides having a great deal of horses. At first, everyone who could stand and still had two hands was needed to work. But after the town had been cleared, secured, crops planted and watered, the tribal council of elders had started to appoint people to permanent jobs.
A few times over the years they had pressed him into different duties, trying to find his role in the community. Tonio had been ordered to teach the schoolchildren Italian, and he’d failed at that, never having much of a mind for scholastic endeavors, anyway. Instead, they had ordered some snot nosed punk of a kid to tag along with him, day in and day out, and listen to him speak in his mother tongue. Within a month or three the kid had learned enough to start instructing the others in the basics. Tonio’s standing in the tribe sank even lower.
Then his permanent dismounting had come, almost his exile from town and tribe. I only lost one horse, he thought, beetling his brow. But it had been an important draft horse, a majestic creature, all of eighteen hands, and one of the most prized in the entire herd. Just my luck.
The elders stripped Tonio of his right to ride, which essentially made him a non-person in the Bend, and ordered the watch commander, Soyala, to see to his discipline and reform. Ever since then, it had been nothing but night watch and latrine duty. A founding member of the most famous and richest horse trading town in the midwest and he was condemned to a lifetime of shoveling shit.
Like tonight. It was a lovely and crisp evening in early autumn. Tonio’s meandering patrol along the rez’s ramparts were taking him past every scene of homey comfort in town, it seemed. The barracks were awash with light and heat, his fellow soldier’s voices raised in song or muttering in low, half drunk voices. Past that there was the ever present whicker of horses in their stalls, with their familiar sounds and comforting smell. Tonio had always loved them, a deeper love than he had ever felt for a woman or another man for any reason. The stables looked well lit and inviting. Not many places in Snakewater Bend had heat and light all day long, but the people of the town forewent their own comfort for their animals' health. This place and its people weren’t all bad, he thought.
Far more common than electricity were the campfires. Countless of them lay before him now, all over town, like a tumbled blanket of sparks. Someone not far off was roasting apples in a pan with cinnamon and brown sugar, crisping the fruit and skin until it was hot and sweet. Tonio’s dinner had consisted of a pre-war Meal Ready to Eat, military surplus. Just thinking of it made his stomach go all acidic and wobbly. At another fire a half dozen voices were raised in song. How comforting it is, Tonio thought, in a rarely pensive moment, to know that people still sing these days.
The song was punctuated by rapid fire hoofbeats, and at first he thought one of the beasts in its stalls was having a fit, stomping at the earth. But no, it was a rider, coming in hard and fast from the night like a bat out of hell. Panic rose and froze in his gullet, like a vomited up bellyful of something hard and foul.
Tonio was the only sentry in sight. He had two tools tonight at his disposal, his weapon and his air raid siren. He had used the damn siren when he lost the chief’s horse and had never heard the end of it. So he opted to unsling his rifle, an old pre-war M16 that he had never fired in anger. The campfires were all clustered farther into town, so their heat and light were lost to him. It was him, his dubious shooting skills, against the fury of the wild. Was it a Bearer? Even worse, one of their royalty?
None of the wild enemies had ever displayed such smooth horsemanship, however. Whoever it was, they were a demon rider, skillfully picking their way over the zigzagging, booby trap strewn trail, adroitly dodging the gopher holes that dotted the plains. The rider spotted Tonio long before he thought to shout out a challenge.
“Badate!” Tonio shouted, forgetting all his English. He was surprised at the anger in his own voice. He was truly scared. “Chi siete?!”
It was a woman, a tall one. She was wearing mismatched buckskins, not a bit of them unmarred by bloodstains, holes, or smoke. The woman’s boots were lolling two tongues apiece, their soles nearly detached. A well worn Kalashnikov assault rifle was poking up over her shoulder, ready to rock and roll. Tonio thought she may be unwounded from how well she was riding, but he was wrong.
A light flared in her hands. Her hair was curly, dark brown, almost black, and fell just below her shoulders. It was matted and tangled from the wilderness. Her right eye burned brown and it was utterly without fear or surprise, all of the emotions seemingly drained from it, calmly studying Tonio as he stared back at her, his mouth agape. The left side of her face was all bunched up, scorched and colored an ugly red from a point blank gunshot wound that was only slowly healing, puckery and weepy. It made him cringe and he nearly dropped his rifle.
“I’m Lucilla Wells,” The rider didn’t shout, but only raised a voice calm and confident to be heard. She held up a dirty bunch of red and brown grass cinched off in a tie dye handkerchief.
Not grass, Tonio realized. Hair…
“Find your boss.” Sila told him in a tone that invited no alternative. “They’re going to need to hear this.”
***
THE END