CRYERS (22 page)

Chapter 37

Most folks
backed away when Lode walked by. Cobe turned and watched the woman stick her
head further out the window. She leaned against the wooden frame with a
horrified look on her face, oblivious to Cobe, Willem, and Trot shuffling by.
All of her attention was drawn to the big man and his reluctant champion a
dozen steps ahead.

Cobe’s
brother had noticed the woman as well. “She ain’t never seen a monster before?”

“Not many
seen the likes of Lode, I’m guessing,” Cobe replied.

“Keep
walking,” one of the guards said. He was called Tog, and he had a pinched in
face as ugly as his name. Tog was short—not much taller than Willem—but what he
lacked in height was made up with in width. Most of his adult work duties had
obviously been stationary—guarding the bridge on the west side of town—because
the walk across town had left him winded and sweat-drenched.

Cobe nodded
at the man and continued on. Both were carrying big clubs on their shoulders,
but neither had needed to use them. They weren’t like Lode’s followers; these
men didn’t have to smack, kick, and curse the three along. They weren’t
animals. Ard, Beff, and Devon had lived brutally, and all three had died
equally brutal deaths. Cobe had seen enough death in the last week to last him
a lifetime, and he would see a whole lot more in the days to come. He had
learned to control his temper in that short time, and he kept his mouth shut
when told to. Willem had learned the same lesson. Both boys went where they
were told to go, and there was little backtalk. If they were going to
survive—and Cobe still had every intention of doing so—they had to play by the
rules.

They were led
across another bridge built up from an accumulation of rocks on the eastern
side of Rudd. The night before, when they’d arrived in the dark, Cobe could
only imagine what might have lurked in the depths of the trench that encircled the
town. Now, the early morning sky penetrated into the shadows revealing a still
body of black water. It reminded him of the lake sitting at the bottom of the
crater that sat atop Big Hole. That cesspool reeked, and had made his eyes
water. The stuff sixty feet below them now wasn’t much better. He could make
out garbage floating in the sludge. Trot stumbled, and a loose rock bounced
down the steep wall to splash into the oily mire. Curly pinches of dog shit and
thicker logs belonging to humans bobbed up in down in the black soup. Cobe held
his breath in disgust and kept walking. He had to remind himself that the
citizens of Burn weren’t any better. Cobe had carried many a pail containing
the excrement and splashing urine of his family to the river bordering town.
Everyone used it as their personal dump. In fact, Burn was worse than Rudd. At
least the people here only surrounded themselves in their own filth—Burn’s
residents shared theirs with every other living thing downstream.

Cobe almost
fell over top of Willem. The boy had come to a stop about three quarters the
way across. “Quit looking at the shit,” Cobe said. “It don’t make it any
prettier or easier to smell.”

“I ain’t
lookin’ at the turds…What’re them ropes sticking out of the rocks?”

Cobe noticed
them for the first time; a web of heavy ropes poking out from the wall of
stones less than three feet above the sewage. It ran the entire length of the
bridge’s base.

The other
guard spoke up. “It’s what you call a defence mehkism.”

“Mechanism,”
Cobe said.

“Yeah,
mehkism—just what I said.” His name was Remee, and he was Tog’s direct
opposite. Remee was tall, a collection of long bones gathered under a thin
layer of skin. He talked more than Tog, but didn’t have much intelligent to
say. “There’s four bridges leadin’ in and outta Rudd. If the guards ever feel
threatened of bein’ overrun, they can give the rope a tug and bring the whole
thing down.” He beamed at the boys and stuck out his chest as if he’d invented
it himself. “It’s all…how do you say…inter-waggled throughout the rocks. Ten or
twelve small stones pop out at the right spot, and the whole fucker goes.”

It would also
discourage anyone attempting to enter Rudd from the bottom, Cobe guessed. Those
falling stones could crush anyone trying to sneak in. He heard a trickling
sound coming from somewhere. He pictured the rocks starting to loosen deep
under his feet, smaller pebbles leaking down into the cracks. Cobe’s heart
started to race.

They’re pulling the rope! They led us out onto
the bridge, and they’re going to bury us here.

“Couldn’t you
wait until we got back on solid ground?” Willem complained.

Trot tucked
himself back in and grinned sheepishly over his shoulders at the boys. His
muddy feet were spotted with a last few hurried drips. “Sorry…couldn’t hold it
no longer.”

Cobe almost
laughed. He’d been afraid someone had pulled a rope and sealed their fate. The
only rope being pulled now was the one holding Trot’s pants up.

They crossed
another bridge, a rickety wooden thing stretched over a narrow point of the
nameless river running past both Rudd and Burn, and headed out into the plains.
Cobe had prepared for a long walk; it seemed that’s about all they did when
they weren’t fighting for their lives—walking, running, fleeing from some
horrible menace across sand-blasted ruin and cracked earth. A ridge of giant
boulders less than a mile away was their final destination. Cobe watched the
line of workers ahead of them file towards the outcrop of stones like a stream
of ants returning to their hill.

Remee spoke
up again. “It’s where Rudd holds the Rites every second year when it’s their
turn to host. Them rocks form a natural circle. Inside’s like a big bowl where
the men fight. Folks have been carving out places to sit and watch up in the
rocks for decades. I got my own seat nice and high up just on the other side of
that big bastard right there.” He pointed to an exceptionally jagged piece of
stone jutting up another twenty feet over its closest neighbor. “Any fucker
tries and takes it…well let’s just say there might be an extra fight for the
folks to watch. Wouldn’t be much of a contest, though.”

Tog laughed.
“Yer pa was the one what carved out that place to sit, and no one would
want
to sit there after all them years
his dirty, fat ass was planted there.”

“You take
that back.”

“Fuck
yerself.”

The two men
argued back and forth while herding their prisoners along. Cobe briefly
considered grabbing his brother and making a run towards the north. Tog
wouldn’t be able to keep up, and Remee would likely trip over his own big feet.
But there was nothing in that direction that looked any more promising. Even if
they did manage to distance themselves from the guards, what would they find?
Another herd of rollers? A pack of foraging howlers? No, Cobe had learned the world
beyond Burn’s walls held nothing for them. Running was no longer an much of an
option.

Trot
staggered on beside him, looking back over his shoulder every few seconds to
make sure the guards weren’t about to take their argument out on him. Cobe
ignored their yelling and focused on Lawson and Lode forty feet ahead of them.
The lawman’s shoulders were stooped; his back had a forward bend in it, as if
the ground was constantly calling up to him to fall down and die. Why was Lode
forcing him to fight? Burn didn’t stand a chance of winning the Rites with
Lawson as their champion. Was the giant’s hatred of him so intense that he
would sacrifice his own home town’s chances? If Lode himself volunteered, Burn
would be victorious every year. Maybe it didn’t much matter who won and who
lost. No prizes were handed out at the end of it all. Neither town got anything
of value if they won—nothing but bragging rights. And the losers went home
feeling beaten.

Perhaps
that’s what it all came down to. Lode was willing to sacrifice Burn’s
reputation just to see the lawman beaten, humiliated, and dead. It would make a
statement to everyone back home. If anyone fucks with Lode,
everyone
pays.

Cobe heard
the sounds of shovels in wet dirt and workmen cursing as they followed Lode and
the lawman through a narrow cleft in the rocks. They worked their way down on a
sandy trail engulfed in shadows. The pit was smaller than Cobe had imagined it
to be. Perhaps that was due in part to the sheer number of men clearing out mud
and rock fall. Or maybe the ring of surrounding stones looming over everything
and everyone made it appear that way. It didn’t much matter. Once the lawman
was thrown into fight, pit size and land layout would be of little help to the
man.

“I wanna sit
up there,” Willem was pointing to the same jagged ledge of rock Remee had
bragged about minutes earlier.

“Piss on
you,” the guard said. “That’s
my
spot.”

Willem could
see a series of crudely-shaped hollows carved out near the top. He pointed
again. “Not there—I’m gonna watch the Rites from up
there
.” They followed the line of his dirty finger to a grey,
leafless tree hanging over the highest edge. The roots of the old thing had
buried deep into the stone after what must have taken centuries of struggle.
The tree had lost in the end, however. Its dead trunk hung out over the pit an
improbable angle. Soon—a decade, a year, perhaps by the end of the day—gravity
would give one final tug and bring it crashing down.

“You’re
not
sitting up there,” Cobe said. Willem
tried to ask why not, but his brother cut him off. “Maybe you should be more
concerned with
who’s
fighting,
instead of worrying about a good seat.”

Willem saw
Lawson resting on a wooden barrel lying on its side at the edge of the pit. He
was having trouble catching his breath, and there was hardly any color to his
face. Lode hovered over him, badgering the lawman with what looked like threats
if he put up a poor showing during the Rites. Willem hung his head guiltily.
“Yeah…I guess you’re right.”

A fight broke
out seconds later. Men spread out to give the two combatants room. Shovels were
dropped and hands started clapping. The workforce had become a cheering,
jeering audience, calling out encouragingly and cursing profanities at the same
time. Cobe and Willem pushed through the crowd and watched as two old men
squared off against each other in a miniaturized ring of mud less than twenty
feet across.

“Gawdamn!”
Willem shouted. “Them farts are like twice as old as the lawman. Someone’s
gotta stop them.”

Both men were
crouched over and circling. Their skinny arms were held out in front of them,
swaying and feeble like the branches of the tree hanging above. Ancient fists,
swollen and knobby, quivered with anticipation. One of the old men’s faces had
already been struck. His crooked nose was bent off at an angle and blood
continued to drip from both nostrils.

“They ain’t
stopping now,” Tog said. The guard had pushed past the workers and was standing
next to Willem, his gut poking into the boy’s shoulder stump. “They still
haven’t figured which one is going to compete in the senior event.”

“Senior
event?” Cobe asked.

“You two
ain’t never been to the Rites before, have you?”

“Our Ma and
Pa wouldn’t let us go watch,” Willem answered. “Said it was too violent.” One
of the old men staggered forward and tried to bloody the other’s nose some
more. His punch fell short and struck a boney shoulder. Both howled out in
pain.

“Your parents
got that much right,” Tog replied. “It’s an awful sight to behold sometimes.”
Bloody-nose swung back a moment later and lost his balance. He fell into the
other man and both collapsed into the mud. “Fuckin’ humiliating, too.”

Cobe had to
step back as the old pair rolled towards them. “You mean to say they
volunteered to fight? Why would men that old volunteer to do such a thing?”

“Some men
volunteer all their lives to be picked—most never get chosen. These two
bastards have been tryin’ since before I was born.”

Cobe had
always been led to believe that only the weakest, the most expendable, and the
most hated competed in the Rites. He never realized there was a lineup of
volunteers from both towns
wanting
to
fight and die. But when you lived in a town—or towns—where every second citizen
was either a drunk or a drain on society, the number of actual fighters
competing yearly in the Rites was far less than the actual number that could.

The man with
the bloody nose was on top of his attacker. He pounded at the other’s forehead
with the sides of his fists. The sound it made reminded Cobe of a time his
mother had hammered away at a raw chunk of wild dog meat on the table where
they prepared meals and ate. She’d used a wooden mallet to tenderize it enough
for her family to chew through. Cobe’s pa had hunted the animal down on the
plains—said the animal was a wolf, and that it deserved to be killed and eaten
before it could harm someone else—as if that made it any better. It still
tasted like shit, and neither he nor his brother had swallowed more than a few
bites.

The old man
underneath had fallen unconscious, or he was dead. It was difficult to tell
whether he was still breathing or not, all covered in mud with his competitor
straddled on top of him. Bloody-nose was heaving for air of his own. He was
exhausted and shaking. The crowd shouted louder for him to finish it. Shovels
were picked back up, and the spades beat against the earth in rhythm to their
chants.