The Grand Ballast (37 page)

“
Everyone,
keep moving
!” Bettina
ordered.

“
Mom?” The kid’s gaze
searched Bode’s. Bode could feel Valen tense beside him.

“
Shh
. Quiet now.”

“
Should we try to carry
him?” Valen whispered. “We have to keep moving.” Something about
the boy seemed to transfix Valen.

The kid struck his head against the ground.
Did it again and again, while Bode and Valen both tried to still
him. The boy was twisting his neck and rolling his eyes as if to
try to see something. Suddenly, his gaze locked, and a slight smile
came over his face. A second too late, Bode spotted a sharp stone
sticking out of the grass.

“
Valen—”

The kid brought his temple
down on it with a
crack
. He lay still.

To you, to you, to you and to our

Happiness, right now here at home

The kid’s dull eyes cracked open, their gaze
fuzzy and distant. A wet shadow seeped down the rock.

Scootle dootle doo doo doo da-doo

Every rain and every shine

Will bring me home to you

Dootle doo da doo doo doo da doo…

“
No!” Valen touched the
boy’s face. “No, no, no.”

Bode gripped Valen’s shoulder. “Let’s get
him to the truck.”

“
He’s—”

“
He’s not dead. But we have
to go quickly.”

He and Valen lifted the boy together. Bode
supported his head, pressing his shirt to the wound on the boy’s
temple. They started down the hill.

All around Bode there was land; there was
freedom. If you took away people’s words and cruelties, the greed
that slithered belly-down toward people and pulled them to their
knees in a swamp kiss—then there was just land. Nobody owned
anything, and nobody broke or felt cold. The world sewed up its own
wounds, yanked its sacrifices into jagged scars.

They reached the truck. Bettina made room
for the boy to lie down on some blankets on the floor of the truck.
Valen insisted on sitting with the boy.

Bode stared at the unmoving body and thought
of what Valen would have looked like drawn from the pool a moment
too late, his lungs full of water, his death a closing act. The
lights dimming and the people clapping and the end. An easy
end.

A freedom wider than the land.

Bode knelt beside Valen on the floor and
covered the boy with his jacket.

***

The boy died a few hours
later. Subdural hematoma, Skullprute said.

Valen wouldn’t leave the
loft.

In spite of the boy’s
death, Belvedere Farm was dubbed a resounding success by the
Liberators. Bode received his share of the congratulations numbly
over the coming days. No, they hadn’t rescued everyone. A few
performers had gone back to the barns, or had disappeared into the
woods. But Harkville had made off with enough of the farm’s cast
that Belvedere would be out of commission for some time.

“
Look at
this!” Bettina thrust a copy of
The
Rustler
at Bode. He scanned the
headlines.
Radicals ‘liberate’ Belvedere
Farm.
And
E-I-E-I-Oh-no!: Beloved Belvedere Farm shut down for killing
performers without a permit.
And
Harkville suspected in the freeing of Belvedere’s
stock.

“
Where did you take them?”
Bode asked suddenly. “The performers?”

Bettina folded
The Rustler
. “We have a
network. Other anti-X-show activists all around the country let us
know if they have space to harbor ex-performers. It’s not always
that the runaways are in danger of being hunted down—lots of
X-shows allow their performers to break contract without much fuss.
But sometimes the performers end up so psychologically scarred that
they need help reintegrating into society.”

“‘
We have space,’” Bode
said softly, remembering the protestors’ signs.

Bettina nodded. “The
activist network includes doctors, psychologists, teachers. We
lined up as many safe places for the farm performers as we could.
Those people aren’t just scarred—they’re brainwashed.”

Bode thought guiltily of
the things he’d said about the Liberators. That they were all talk,
that they didn’t know what they were doing. A mix of regret and
resentment came over him.
Where were you?
Where were you when I needed you?

The boy, his eyes blank as
his blood spread down the rock.

Why do only some get
saved?

WHAT GOOD MEN
PROTECT

Valen was withdrawn for
days after the liberation. Bode stayed with him as much as
possible, but Valen seemed to want time alone.

Bode spent his days
wandering, disguised, through the less populated parts of town. If
he stood on the low stone mesa behind the hotel, he could see all
the way out to the guard hut at the town’s entrance, to Calamity
Zane on his appaloosa. It was a nice climb too. The mesa had a
ridge at the base that was full of interesting gaps and crags.
Sometimes Bode curled in those gaps and enjoyed the feeling of
invisibility.

He was standing on the
plateau one day when he heard the click of pebbles behind him and
whirled.

Skullprute stood
there.

“
What’re you looking at?”
Bode asked.

“
Almost didn’t recognize
you.” Skullprute stood beside Bode. “What’re you doing up
here?”

“
I’m not gonna live penned
up like an animal.”

Skullprute pulled out a
cigarette. “Ahh, this town.” His voice rumbled. “It can make you
crazy.”

Bode turned to him,
ignoring that edge of danger he always felt around the man. “Do you
think you’ve found something real here? Or is that just what you
tell yourselves because you’re afraid you’re just like everyone
else?”

“
What a question,”
Skullprute said around the cigarette, cupping his hand to light it.
He took a puff then exhaled. “I think I’m alive and have been given
a chance to do extraordinary things. That’s enough for
me.”

“
I used to think I was
extraordinary. I thought I felt things no one else did. But it
turns out, I’m only very simple.” Bode leaned close to Skullprute,
feeling, for a second, like Kilroy. “Kilroy Ballast helped me see
that.”

“
Did he now?”

Bode realized suddenly that
he didn’t have his gun on him. When had he stopped carrying
it?

“
He was raised here, you
know,” Skullprute said softly.

“
What?
” Bode couldn’t remember Kilroy
mentioning Harkville until that day with O’ Fauh. “You’re
lying.”

Skullprute blew out a dark
cloud of smoke. “Stayed here until he was twelve or so.”

Bode was stunned. “Did you
know him?”

“
Pretty damn
well.”

Bode tried to resist the
temptation to need anything from Skullprute. But finally he broke
down and asked, “What was he like?”

Skullprute glanced at him.
“You’ve seen images of bullfighting, like they used to do in Spain?
And the matadors, they had red capes? The bulls would charge, and
the matadors would whip their capes away.” Skullprute shook his
head. “Oh, Kilroy Ballast. He’d charge anything you put in front of
him—any idea, any story. Any feeling. He wanted you to whip it
away, wanted to see what was behind it. He was never satisfied with
what
is
. He was
always looking for a punch line. He wanted the truth to be a prank,
and for his fantasies to step in as fact.”

“
But how did he get here?”
Bode asked.

“
His parents were criminals
looking for safe harbor. They brought him here. He was just a
kid—bright gold hair, blue eyes. Strange kid, but we liked him.
Then his parents got word they were in danger again. So they left
Kilroy and took off.”

Bode struggled to take this
in. It made a certain amount of sense. Eccentric Kilroy Ballast,
with his bizarre clothes and uncertain origins. His taste for
spectacle mired in a craving for something true. “So he…maybe
that’s why he…he’s not right. I mean, if his parents abandoned
him.”

Skullprute grinned. “You
want there to be some easy reason. There ain’t.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
A man ain’t that batty
just because his mommy left him. No, that boy was born
sick.”

Bode swallowed. “Why do you
think that?”

“
You know sickness when you
see it. Don’t you?”

“
Apparently not.” Bode thought of Kilroy.
“Something’s very wrong inside of me…”
And yet it had taken Bode so long to believe
it.

Skullprute laughed. Jammed
the cigarette back in his mouth. “No, I suppose you got fooled.” He
took a drag. Blew the smoke out, tilting his head thoughtfully.
“Kilroy likes to break things and put them back together. And when
he can’t repair what he’s broken, he’s terrified. You
understand?”

“
Yes.”
He wants to control. By
creating what looks like chaos.
Bode
stared at Skullprute a little desperately. Right at that moment,
Skullprute seemed to have all the answers. His presence was broad,
comforting.

Why didn’t I see? Why did
I see beauty? Why did I see fucking
tenderness
?

“
And what if he can’t do
it?” Bode asked. “Break the thing he wants to break?”

Skullprute shrugged. “Find
something else to break, I guess. Or get pissed.”

They were silent a long
while.

“
He was a good gambler
too,” Skullprute said finally. “Won a damn lot of money off me.
Then split.”

***

Bode returned to the loft
and found Valen on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. “You all
right?” Bode asked quietly. He didn’t know whether to share with
Valen what he’d learned from Skullprute. Didn’t know if Valen would
care.

“
I’m not lucky.” Valen’s
voice was hollow. “I can’t win without losing.”

Bode sat on the bed. “Now
who’s wallowing in self-pity?” he teased gently.

Valen shook his head. “Why
him? Why do I keep seeing that boy? There were others who didn’t
make it.”

Bode took his hand. Rubbed
the back of it with his thumb. Valen went back to looking at the
ceiling. Bode watched him silently.

“
She must have been
grateful for it,” Valen said thickly. “My mother? She must have
looked at death and thought, you know…what a—” he swallowed “—what
a gift.”

“
I don’t know,” Bode said
honestly. “I don’t know what she thought.”

“
Will you lie with me for a
little while?” Valen asked. He looked at Bode again then turned
quickly away, as though he couldn’t bear the thought of Bode saying
no.

Bode climbed onto the bed next to him.
Realized that Valen was naked under the blanket. Slowly, Bode
removed his own clothes, and they lay there skin to skin.

Valen rolled onto his side. Tilted his head
forward then stopped. “Can I? Please…?”

Can you touch me when it’s convenient for
you? Love me only when you need to be loved? Of course.

He nodded. Valen’s lips met his. Bode closed
his eyes and sank into the kiss.

He jolted as Valen brushed his hip. Rocked
gently from side to side, his cock rubbing against the coarse hair
of Valen’s groin. He enjoyed the slow flood of pleasure from his
core up through him, wrapping his heart like a fist. He muffled a
thin whimper as Valen’s fingers drifted just below the small of his
back.

Breathe in. And out.

He squeezed his eyes shut more tightly,
listening to the shouts of tourists outside, imagining what it
would feel like if Valen were to move his hand lower.

“
Shit,” Valen
said.

Bode opened his eyes immediately.
“What?”

“
Just…” Valen lifted the
blanket and gave a nervous laugh. “See?” Valen’s cock was dark,
swollen, dribbling a strand of fluid that caught the light coming
in through the window. “I usually don’t… But you’re making me…”
Valen mumbled. He hovered a hand over his groin, like he wanted to
touch himself.

Bode touched him instead. A long, slow
stroke down his cock, watching lines appear between Valen’s eyes,
hearing his breath quicken.

Valen pressed the heel of his hand just
below Bode’s collarbone and dragged downward, splaying his fingers
so they skirted Bode’s nipple. Bode stroked Valen again, loving the
silky, damp feel of the skin. Pressed his own swelling cock to
Valen’s hip, letting Valen feel it.

Valen traced a wide circle on Bode’s
stomach. It tickled, and Bode laughed but fell silent quickly,
quivering under Valen’s touch. A spark seemed to nip Bode’s skin
just as Valen wrapped his hand around his cock. Bode clamped his
legs together and rolled all the way onto his back, opening his
legs.

He didn’t feel self-conscious, though he
wished he could tell Valen what his body used to be like—lean,
perfect muscle. Everything carefully toned. He looked too thin now.
Flat.