The Saffron Malformation (40 page)

             
Reggie didn’t know where the napkin had gone to and he didn’t care.  His leg bounced nervously as he waited for Quey to make his way out of the building and around to where the car was parked.  It took fifteen minutes but it felt like hours.

             
“What is it?” Quey asked after opening the passenger’s side door but before he was completely settled in the seat.

             
“You have to see this,” the big man said and moved the sheet from the steering wheel to the dashboard between them then tapped the screen.

             
Quey saw Render stepping toward the camera with a wild face, his eyes caught in a fury.  “We tried to be nice about this.  We tried to be civil, truck driver.”  Quey glanced at Reggie and the big man glanced back, then they both returned to the screen where Render was standing next to a Pickens and Zaul barrel of moonshine with orange light flickering across his face.  “We tried to make things easy but you had to go and lie to us.  Well let this be a warning, we found you out and let me tell you, if you think the bounty on you was high before, the man who put it there isn’t happy.  We are not happy.  Not one bit.”  Render took a long sip of shine and reached forward, gripping the camera and ripping it out of someone’s hand.  The screen jostled into a blur of motion then settled on Render’s enraged face.  “You took us for fools.  You played us as such and let me tell you truck driver,” he barked.  “You can’t hide her forever!  YOU! Can’t hide forever.”  There was another blur of motion as the camera turned and settled on the Pickens and Zaul ranch and the two acres behind it burning wildly.  Quey watched as flames leapt from every inch of the house, lighting the evening sky with brightness closer to late afternoon than middle of the night.  The camera zoomed haphazardly in on the house, then scanned over to the two fenced-in acres.  He could see the tops of the apple trees lit up like torches, the lemon trees burned like candles and below them all were the grape vines and the berry bushes slowly decaying from brilliant orange flames into smoldering embers.

             
Render turned the camera back to his face and said, “Thought this place was pretty tucked away, didn’t you?  We found it, and what you were hiding here.  We’ll find you,” he warned and the video ended.

             
Quey sat back in the seat numb and staring out the window at the road running left to right across his vision and the trees and bushes and lush green grass beyond it.  He saw none of that.  If you asked him then where he was he would have told you he didn’t know because the answer was in his head, trying to make sense of it.  What had happened?  How had the Brood found the ranch?  Why burn it to the ground?  What had he lied about?  What had he hid in the ranch?

             
“You all right?” Reggie finally asked.

             
Quey nodded.

A Glance Back and Then Ahead

             
Quey had been quiet the whole way back to the inn where he went directly to the bar and did not pass go or collect two hundred dollars.  By the time Reggie called Rachel, Dusty and Natalie—still at the medical facility—and filled them in on where they went and why and made it to the bar himself, Quey was already on his third round.

             
“Must be hard,” the big man said in as soft a tone as his deep voice could muster.  “Watchin’ a place you called home go up like that.”

             
Quey shook his head and drank his third round in a single gulp.  “You know,” he trailed off, as if he couldn’t bear to say what he had to next, and ordered another round with a gesturing of his empty glass.  “I don’t mind the ranch burning,” he finally said as a full glass was set before him.  “Never really had a mind to go back.”

             
“What’s got you then?”

             
“I told that psycho in the suit the truth about the girl they were looking for.  What’s got me is why do they think I lied and how the fuck did they find the ranch to begin with?  Place isn’t registered, and the area’s not well enough known that someone would point them to it,” he said then took a sip from his glass.  “Seems sometimes my whole life has been one ass fucking after another.”

             
There was a moment of silence before Reggie ordered a drink of his own and said, “Make it a double.”

             
“I’m ready for this trip to be over.  I’m ready to get back to the robotics compound and be done with this whole mess.  Let Ryla decipher the data and see what comes of it.  Load it into the signal and bust Blue Moon wide open or walk away satisfied, either way I’m ready for this shitstorm to end.”

             
“Funny thing about shitstorms,” Reggie said as a glass was set in front of him.  He took a quick sip before adding, “They’re never light.  You never get a shit drizzle, it’s always a fucking monsoon.”

             
Quey chuckled and Reggie felt better having seen that.  “Tornado spewing hurricanes of shit,” Quey added.

             
This time it was Reggie who laughed, “With shit tidal waves.”

             
“And volcano’s erupting rivers of the stuff.”

             
“And it’s never just one.”

             
Quey nodded and both men drank slowly and silently for a spell.  It was good catharsis: bitch a little, joke a little, drink a little and move on.  By the time Rachel and Dusty came back from the field trip any ominous air there might have been around the two men was gone.  What was left was an emphatic cheer for Rachel’s clean bill of health, though somewhere in the back of Quey’s mind he wondered what else Natalie had seen on that scan.

             
Dusty ordered another round of drinks and Quey let his curiosity go… though he did note that Rachel didn’t touch her drink.

             
It was just starting to get dark when there was a knock at the door.  Natalie had tomato sauce simmering on the stove and meatballs frying in a pan beside them, so she hurried through the living room to open the front door.  Quey stood on her stoop, obviously floating at least knee deep in a bottle of something, judging by his sway and lean.

             
“Hey,” he said.

             
“Come in,” she invited hastily and started back toward the kitchen.  “I have dinner on the stove,” she added.

             
He entered, closing the door behind him and wandered through the living room and into the kitchen.  Steam rolled up from the pot and pan on the stove in heavy wafts that permeated the air with the scent of garlic, onions, tomatoes and herbs.  He took a long breath and felt his stomach beg.

             
“Have a seat,” she said and he did, in the chair across from where she was working.  “What brings you by?” she asked as she stirred her meatballs, browning them evenly on all sides.

             
“I was out walking and I smelled something delicious,” he joked.

             
Natalie laughed.

             
“No,” he said.  “Really I wanted to…”  He watched her stir her sauce before bringing the spoon to her lips, blowing, and giving it a taste.

             
“Yeah?” she asked, glancing at him.

             
He sighed.  “Do you have any questions?”

             
She stopped.  The air seemed to thicken.  “Everything you told me is true?” she asked dully.

             
“Saw with my eyes and heard by my ears.”

             
Natalie nodded and finally replied, “Nope.”

             
“I’m sorry,” he said, standing.  “I didn’t want to intrude, I just… we’re leaving tomorrow and I wanted to make sure…”

             
Natalie smiled at him.  “Thank you.  And you’re not intruding,” she continued after a brief pause, “As a matter of fact I insist you join us.”

             
He grinned and was about to protest but he only got as far as, “I think,” before she cut him off.

             
“Amber will be back any minute and it’s just the two of us and as you can see,” she indicated the stove, “I always make too much.  So please, sit.”

             
Quey smiled and sat.  “Well alright then.”

             
“If you need a sip I think that shine you brought by is still in the cabinet down there.”

             
“Thanks,” Quey replied, “But maybe I’ll just have a glass of water?”

             
She pointed to a cabinet above and to the right of the sink and when he opened it he found an assortment of drinking glasses.  He selected what he thought was the largest one, filled it from the tap and drank it down swiftly.  He’d been teetering on the edge of functionally drunk and sloshed when he knocked on the door and he didn’t want to fall over.

             
Amber came in through the back door, her dark red-brown hair done up in braids and looked at Quey then to her mother.

             
“Quey’s going to join us for dinner,” Natalie told the girl.

             
Amber nodded but said nothing and Quey smiled at her, his head swimming in the alcohol echo downing a glass of water brought on.

             
“You’ve got like, ten minutes, and then it’s everyone for themselves,” Natalie informed her daughter.

             
Amber chuckled, “Right mom, and what might happen then?  You’ll have only one container’s worth of leftovers?”  Then the girl started through the kitchen and to her room to put her bag down and change into something comfortable.

             
Quey laughed under his breath and filled his glass again.

             
“Just hurry up smartass,” Natalie said, pushing the back of her head as she walked by.

             
“She’s twelve right?” Quey asked, sitting down.

             
“Thirteen, for the time being,” Natalie replied then dumped her pan of meatballs into the sauce, splattering a bit across the top of the stove.

             
“Woah,” Quey called.

             
“Yeah,” she replied, “Gets a bit messy but it’s the only way to get all that flavor into the sauce.”

             
Quey sipped his water.

             
“You think you could do me a favor?”

             
“Name it,” Quey said immediately, between sips.

             
“Well two really.”

             
He chuckled, “Sure.”

             
“Tell stories about him at dinner.  Not the… you know… just the ones his granddaughter might like to hear.”

             
Quey smiled and nodded, “I know just the ones.”  She gave him a thankful look and he asked, “And what’s the other favor?”

             
“Reach down in the cupboard and pour me some of that shine first,” she answered and he laughed.

             
“Can do, darling,” he said as he stood and fetched the bottle from the cabinet and a glass from another.  “That is a definite can do,” he added as he poured.

             
Quey could tell the first tale was hard for Natalie to hear, that she was toughing her way through it, fighting the urge to cry every few moments, but by the end she was laughing.  By the time he was spinning the third tale she was joining in, interjecting her own antic dotes and letting them carry her away into other stories that were new to Quey.  He and Amber shared a glance from time to time and then often a laugh as they listened to Natalie’s nostalgic recanting.

             
They went back and forth for nearly two hours like tennis players, volleying the phrase, “Wait let me tell you about this one time.”

             
When dinner was through Quey had devoured more than his share of spaghetti and meatballs and laughed about an equal amount.

             
“I’ve got homework,” Amber said as she stood.  She kissed her mother on the forehead and gave her a long hug then said, “Nice to see you,” to Quey and headed from the room.  Quey watched her with a smile.

             
“Got a lovely little lady there Nat’lee.”

             
She smiled and answered, “Yeah, I do don’t I?”

             
Quey drifted in his thoughts and said absentmindedly, “Five years she’ll barely be eighteen.”

             
Natalie peered at him queerly for a moment and said, “That’s an odd thing to note.”

             
Quey tried to shake it off.  “It’s nothing.  I just was reading something, said maybe the wastes would be planetary within five years.”

             
Natalie nodded, “Ahh.  Well you know all the rumors and speculations floating about on such matters is mostly whoopla.”

             
Quey chuckled with a smile.  “Hope so.”  A moment passed silently and he asked, “You’re happy here?”

             
Natalie grinned, “Absolutely.”

             
There was another moment and then he asked, “Say the world was going to end in five years…”

             
Natalie sat back in her chair and sighed.  “I don’t want to play this game,” she told him, a slight annoyance had crept into her.

             
Quey shook his head once and said, “Neither do I.”

             
After that he laid it all out for her.  He started with his story about driving through the wastes and catching the eye of some Once Men who’d come upon working cars at some point and the pursuit that followed.  He told her about Ryla and pulled out his sheet computer so he could bring up maps and show her locations.  He told her about the Brood attacking Fen Quada and showed her Geo’s app while he explained the reason he was still making the rounds despite not having any shine to sell.

             
At first she didn’t believe him and just when he thought she was going to get angry and throw him out she asked, “You’re serious aren’t you?”  He confirmed he was and afterward she sat quietly and let him get through the rest.

             
“I don’t understand,” she said hollowly.

             
“What?”

             
“Why are you telling me this?”

             
“Because Railen was part of the crew, not necessarily when I was around but he and Cal…” Natalie looked at him in a way that told him she remembered the days of Railen and Cal, and maybe they weren’t the best for her.  After a hesitation he went on, “And he would want me to.  And if you wanted to come along you’re welcome to.”

             
She peered at him, “What does that mean?  That I can leave my home and my job and roam the world with the rest of you as some sort of vagrant?”  She crossed her arms across her breasts.  “You think that’s a good life?  You think that’s a life I’d like for my daughter?”

             
“If things go the way I think they will,” Quey told her.  “It might get bad.  If we find what I think we will, that the planet is dying and no one is doing anything about it or can’t do anything about it and it’s going to get real ugly.  I’m talking planetary lockdown and extreme police actions.  Massive uprisings and demands.”

             
Natalie started shaking her head and laughing.  “You’re crazy,” she finally said.  “Not about the planet dying stuff,” she added before he could speak.  “But… Quey, you think just because you load a bit of data on the signal people are going to lose their minds?  You think, what?  There’s going to be an overthrow of the government and the people as a whole are finally going to come together and save themselves?  Shit Quey, you know how many truths are floating around out there on the signal right now just waiting for people to pick them up?  How many solutions to problems that are literally killing millions of people are just lingering out there on the network and what do people do?  They watch cute kitten videos, or people falling off rooftops, or morons slingshotting themselves over things.  They look at episodes of their favorite series.  They listen to music and play games.  You really think your little robot data will make them sit up and take notice?  Shit Quey, the planet’s been dying our whole lives and nobody cares.  There’s always a new distraction to keep them from noticing what’s become of their lives.”