They didn’t make the cave the first day, nor the second, mostly because the gasping, hobbling Skymancer couldn’t keep up with her, no matter how slowly she walked.
They made camp the second night in a spacious cavern in the rock, and Skipper felt secure enough in their shelter to gather several armfuls of old cactus and mesquite and get a medium sized fire going.
“If it starts to rain,” she warned him as they enjoyed the warmth after the cold of night had settled in, “we need to get to higher ground. We’re in the flood zone.”
He glanced at the sky and took a deep breath, apparently to smell the air. “It won’t rain.”
“Here,” she said, “but what about twenty miles up the canyon?”
He glanced back down at her, looking totally confident. “It won’t rain.”
Skipper opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again, lifting her arms to warm her hands with the flames. “Fine. But keep your ears open anyway. It’s a nice camp, but we’re in a bad spot if the water starts to run down the—”
She was interrupted by a low chuckle emanating from the darkness, followed by the sound of footsteps coming up the wash. Immediately, Skipper reached for her bow.
“Not so fast,” the gruff female voice said, and Skipper heard the sound of a revolver cocking. “Let me get a good look at—Skip!” The woman laughed, and Skipper relaxed.
“Hey Jelly,” Skipper said, casting a sidelong warning glance at Ptah, who had gone totally still, watching the darkness like a hunted thing.
“I thought I heard you, Skipper,” Jelly went on, getting closer, “but I wasn’t gonna believe it ‘til I saw it myself! Why on Earth you trapping yourself down here in the canyon like a common scavver when you could be up jumping along the crags where nobody’s gonna find you, you goat?” The big female scavver Skipper knew as Jelly Wilson stepped out of the darkness and came into view of the fire, her smile filled with rotten and missing teeth. “I’d thought for sure they got you in that last raid on One Hop a couple weeks ago. Speaking of, who’s your fri—” Jelly froze, eyes catching on Ptahmohtep’s flowing, translucent hair.
Immediately, the gun came back up, barrel aimed at Ptahmohtep’s head, and her thumb cocked back the hammer again. “Skipper, you better start talking,” Jelly snapped, violence in every inch of her. “What’s this Changer fuck doing not dead?”
“This guy is why everyone in that Changer camp is dead,” Skipper retorted, forcing herself to remain more casual than she felt. “Put the gun down.”
“Bullshit,” Jelly spat, hatred in her eyes as she scowled at Ptahmohtep. She did not lower the gun. “You. Asshole. Get on the ground. Hands behind your back.”
“My shoulder was just disloc—” Ptahmohtep didn’t get a chance to finish, as Jelly shot him in the arm, making him scream.
“What the fuck, Jelly?!” Skipper cried, jumping up in shock. All around them, the sound of the pistol’s retort echoed against the rock.
“Oh you just fucking stay there, Skip,” Jelly snarled, not even looking at her. She moved towards the Skymancer, cocking the gun a second time.
“Don’t—” Skipper blurted, rushing forward to stop her.
The gun came up between them, drawing her up short. There was something vicious in Jelly’s blue eyes. “You get tired of being alone all the time out here, Skipper?” the scavver demanded. “That why this fucker’s not dead yet?” It came out as an accusation, and it made a cold lump of dread pool in Skipper’s guts, because that was exactly what had happened. Jelly was already moving over the fallen Changer, yanking his arms behind his back, ignoring the blood and screams. With practiced ease, Jelly yanked a lithe length of rope from her belt and started to hogtie the man.
“That’s not necessary—he’s on our side!” Skipper snapped.
“You mean you were getting ready to fuck him,” Jelly snorted, his words in complete disdain, nonetheless continuing to make the ties, oblivious to Ptahmohtep’s whimpers.
“Look, he’s not hurting anybody!” Skipper cried.
“Now,” Jelly said. “I tracked him from that camp. He was one of the ones who raided One Hop. Him and one other guy I haven’t found yet.”
“He’s buried under some rocks back where we entered the canyon,” Skipper said. “They had an argument.”
“Uh-huh.” Once Jelly was done, she kicked the crying Changer roughly in the side. “Oh shut up, I only grazed you, you whiny sky-serpent bitch.”
Ptahmohtep panted, forehead pressed into the floor of the wash, jaw gritted, clearly in great pain. The wound she’d sutured in his scalp was bleeding again, the stitches quickly crusting with blood and sand. Jelly had, Skipper realized with a start, intentionally tied him so that it put pressure on his injured foot and shoulder.
…Just like I would have done, Skipper thought with a wince.
“There,” Jelly said, finishing her work on the knots. She hesitated. “Wow, look at this hair…” She reached down and pulled a lock up from the Changer’s trembling shoulders and sniffed it. “Shampoo,” she said, grinning. Then she licked it. On the ground, Ptahmohtep made a face, but wisely kept his mouth shut.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Tastes like ozone,” Jelly said, grinning. “I hear Changers come from the clouds. Like thunderbolts. Isn’t that what those robed fucks back in the Silver say?” Lightning hit a volcano when the stars were falling just right and the first Blood of the Serpent was born?” Jelly made a disgusted sound and, without preamble, yanked a knife from her belt and began cutting the silken locks off his head in ragged clumps, stuffing the hair into her belt pouch even as it started to go stiff, losing its life.
“What…” the Skymancer gasped, as Jelly jerked his head back and forth. He grunted and grimaced as she nicked his scalp in her haste, leaving little rivulets of blood to trickle down his ears and face.
“I can see what you were all excited about,” Jelly chuckled, holding one of the pearlescent locks to the light, rubbing it between her filthy fingers. “Fuck, this shit’s at least three feet long. I’ll get at least sixty rats for it, easy.”
The Skymancer’s lips had tightened into a grim line, but he didn’t say anything in his defense as the blonde woman casually wrenched his head around and cut his hair free, making sure she got every last lock.
“Technically, that was mine,” Skipper muttered as the last lock disappeared in Jelly’s pouch, though she felt bad for the Skymancer who, after Jelly had viciously cut the final lock free, had dropped his head back into the sand, staring at the ground in front of his face, panting.
“You hadn’t laid claim to it,” Jelly said. She sat down on a rock across the fire from Skipper, casually setting one foot on the Skymancer’s back. Cheerfully, she picked up a piece of the leftover food bar Skipper had left with Ptahmohtep—he’d only eaten half in her absence, Skipper realized, impressed—unwrapped it, and took a big bite, chewing loudly. Over Ptahmohtep’s whimpers, she said, “So. How’s Life?”
“He’s got information I need,” Skipper said, nervously eying the man under the scavver’s boot. In truth, the thought of Ptah dying now was making her heart pound. She’d gotten attached to his nervous chatter, the awkward way he kept looking at her like he thought she would scalp him in his sleep. “You kill him, we’re gonna have a problem.”
“Uh huh,” Jelly said, clearly not worried about it. She leaned forward, the little packrat tails dangling from her jacket and swinging against Ptahmohtep’s face as she speared a purple cactus fruit from the meager pile Skipper had gathered and held it over the fire to burn off the spines. Looking at Skipper over the burning fruit, Jelly raised a blonde brow.
“I’m serious,” Skipper said. “Don’t kill him.”
“Oooh,” Jelly said, cocking her head at Skipper as the spines burned away in the flames. “That almost sounded like a threat.”
“What do you want, Jelly?” Skipper demanded. Every nerve was on edge, knowing that the woman could shoot her before she could get her bow limbered and an arrow nocked. She just hoped Jelly didn’t notice that, too. “You pop in here after nightfall, take my food and harass my prisoner—I should fucking shoot you.”
“You sound sore,” Jelly chuckled, grinding her boot into Ptahmohtep’s spine, making him groan again. “Lookin’ forward to some good Changer dick, Skipper?” She grinned cruelly. “You and I both know they’re no bigger than a natural. Maybe ribbed a little, but otherwise nothing special…” She nudged him again in the side, eliciting a groan. “You got a lizard dick there, you Changer fuck?”
“I told you,” Skipper said, her face reddening. “I need him for information.”
Jelly ate the fruit in silence, watching Skipper’s face. “Nah,” she said finally, shaking her head. “You were gonna fuck him.” She leaned down so she could see the side of the Changer’s bruised face. “You hear that? You juicy cockhead. She was gonna fuck you.” She kicked sand into his face, making him sputter and blink.
“Come on,” Skipper growled, gripping her knife in rising rage. “There’s no need—”
Jelly gave her a sharp look, all her amusement fading in an instant. “No need? Maybe I’m wrong, miss cragnanny bitch, but I was pretty sure those were your tracks coming from the east. You saw what they did to One Hop.” She cocked her head, her weather-tanned face troubled. “So what I want to know, Skipper, is why this fucker’s still alive.”
“There are a couple Hummers up there,” Skipper said, trying not to sound desperate. The last thing she wanted to do was tell the woman the secret she had stumbled onto. “I’m trying to figure out where he put the keys.”
That seemed to mollify Jelly a bit. “Yeah, I saw those.” She grunted and stabbed another fruit to cook off the spines, watching Skipper over the flames. “They working?” she asked shrewdly. To the shorn Changer, she raised her voice and shouted like he was hard of hearing, “Hey! Changer! Those Hummers on the rim back there working?!”
He nodded, clearly about to pass out from the pain.
“Uh-huh.” She kicked him again. “Where you put the keys, you dumb sack?”
The man whimpered and said, “Ten feet from the front tire. Right hand side. Up in a crack. Under a rock.”
Hold on, Skipper thought, watching him sweat and blink blood from his eyes. He obviously couldn’t concentrate on blowing off the woman’s head with the way she’d wrenched his shoulder back.
“There, can I kill him now?” Jelly demanded, casually raising the gun to the back of his head.
“Not yet!” Skipper cried, realizing the scavver was about to do just that. “I need him alive. He can show me how to drive.”
“I can show you how to drive,” Jelly laughed. “Close as I can figure, anyway. It’s just pushing a lever or two, right? Not superscience.” But she lowered the gun against her leg. Biting into the fruit, she gestured out at the darkness. “Well? You gonna go find the keys?”
Skipper bit her lip. The keys were in her pocket, but she was relatively sure that the Changer’s life now held in the balance. The last thing she wanted to do was leave the Changer alone with the scavver, but Skipper knew she’d know she was lying if she didn’t go look for the keys.
“That’s a two day walk,” Skipper muttered, estimating high.
Jelly made a disdainful snort, looking her up and down. “For you? One, if you hurry.”
Which was painfully accurate. The scavver might be a suspicious bitch, but she wasn’t stupid.
Skipper glanced at the Skymancer, who was still panting through his teeth, shivering. Both his shoulder and his ankle, Skipper realized, weren’t facing the right direction.
“Don’t kill him,” Skipper repeated.
Jelly muttered something incoherent and gestured at the darkness again, apparently absorbed with her eating of the fruit.
Skipper hesitated. “And keep your hands off my shit.” She saw the Skymancer glance up at her in alarm, and she willed him to keep his mouth shut.
“Or what?” Jelly laughed. “You’ll shoot me with a gun without a magazine and no bullet in the chamber?”
At Skipper’s surprised look, Jelly gave a vicious grin. “Yeah, I pay attention. I’m holding the cards here. Get fucked, girly. Go look for those keys. Leave all your shit here.”
“What are you saying, Jelly?” Skipper asked, very carefully.
“I’m saying,” Jelly said, around a mouthful of fruit, “I plan on figuring out why you’re so buddy-buddy with a Changer all of a sudden. Not much like you, is it? Miss I’d Rather Fuck a Cactus Than Feed A Changer.” She cocked her head like she thought that was funny. “Thinkin’ maybe you had something to do with that attack on One Hop, maybe you been behind them attacks up and down this canyon all along—someone had to be leaking intel to the Changers—but I’m hoping when I go through your shit I prove me wrong. Then, if it’s just like you said and there’s a couple Hummers up on the ridge, I’ll take the Hummers, kill the Changer wriggler, and let you go back to hiding in your crags.” Purple juice ran down her chin as she bit into the fruit with half-missing teeth, smiling. "Now git."