Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (9 page)

Cavalo steeled himself against the impending touch, the bees buzzing in the back of his head telling him to
run
to head for the
trees
and back to the
mountains
so he didn’t have to be around these people. So he didn’t have to answer their questions. They always had questions.

Before he could get his legs to work, Hank was on him, grabbing Cavalo’s hand, squeezing it hard as he pumped it up and down. Other hand slamming onto Cavalo’s back, once. Twice. A third time. Cavalo didn’t have to crane his head upward to know that Hank was smiling, a wide thing filled with large, square teeth.

“Hank,” Cavalo said.

Hank glanced over at Psycho as he let go of Cavalo’s hand and stepped back. His expression remained neutral, but Cavalo knew that mind under that balding head was whirling faster and faster, calculating, processing. Cataloging. Planning, though for what, Cavalo couldn’t yet say. While they’d known each other a long time, Hank was still a mystery to Cavalo. He supposed he was to Hank, too, but then there wasn’t much he wanted to do to change that.

“Bad Dog,” Hank said in greeting. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of deer jerky. “Pray.”

Bad Dog immediately rose up on his hind legs, sitting on his haunches. His front paws came up under his snout and he rolled his head toward the lead sky, tongue hanging out.
Dear Jesus-Dog
, Bad Dog said, though only Cavalo could hear him.
Please let BigHank give me that jerky. I love jerky. So much. Love, Bad Dog.

Cavalo rolled his eyes as delighted laughs went through the crowd. Any other command Hank (or anyone else) would give, Bad Dog would ignore. Every one except
pray
. And with that, he would only do it for Hank. Cavalo had tried it once, after returning to the prison from a provision trip into Cottonwood. Bad Dog had just rolled his eyes, snatched the jerky from Cavalo’s hand, and gone to sleep.

Now Hank tossed the jerky into the air, and Bad Dog came out of prayer, snapping up the meat before it could hit the ground.
Oh yes. I love it! I love it so much!

“It’s not
that
good,” Cavalo said. “You act like you never eat.”

“What’s he saying?” Hank asked, and Cavalo suddenly remembered that they weren’t alone. Far from it. Hank had never questioned Cavalo’s half-crazy (for that’s what it had to be, when Cavalo really thought on it) assertion that Bad Dog spoke, at least not to Cavalo’s face. Maybe he even actually believed, though the man didn’t want to ask him to find out. Sometimes not knowing was better than knowing the answer to that one question that sounded like bees.

“He says thank you,” Cavalo muttered, feeling what seemed to be thousands of pairs of eyes upon him, judging. Mocking. Laughing.

Crazy, crazy, crazy
, the bees said.
Crazy man with the crazy dog. Dogs don’t talk, crazy man.

I’m not a normal dog
, Bad Dog reminded him, sniffing the ground, obviously hoping jerky had fallen from his mouth.
I can talk because I am Bad Dog. And I didn’t say thank you. I said I love jerky.

“You’re welcome,” Hank said, leaning over to drag his knuckles over the dog’s ears. When he spoke again, it was directed toward Cavalo, though he didn’t look up. “Busy summer?”

“I lost track of time,” Cavalo said, ignoring the unasked questions.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Up there? In the prison?”

“Yeah.”

“That right.”

Hank was trying his patience and, aside from his initial assessment of the Dead Rabbit, hadn’t looked at him again. The boy himself still crouched in a defensive position, eyes darting wildly over the growing crowd. His fingers twitched behind his back, moving one after the other, as if he was counting all those in the town who watched him. For all Cavalo knew, he was. It didn’t matter, though. Chances were he wouldn’t be leaving this place except to be buried in an unmarked hole at the edge of the woods.

“You knew where I was,” Cavalo said, his voice laced with accusation.

“I did. Even started to go up there a few times.”

Cavalo could play this game. “Oh?”

Hank didn’t look away. “You bet your ass. Stopped myself, though. Figured you were old enough to take care of yourself.”

Cavalo snorted. Hank was only a few years older than himself.
And if it’s October
, he thought,
that means I’m a year older. Christ.

“Plus,” Hank said, “I couldn’t quite get away from Cottonwood. Not with our new guest here and all.”

Before Cavalo could ask about that, he saw movement through the crowd and people moved as a woman pushed her way through, eyes like steel, blonde hair plaited down over her shoulder. Her plaid button-down work shirt was opened at the throat, exposing creamy skin. Cavalo watched her throat bob as she swallowed down whatever angry words she had almost let out. He looked at her hands. He’d first been drawn to them years ago because they were unlike most women’s hands he knew. Working hands, they were. Callused and rough. He knew them well, or as well as he allowed himself too.

Alma Marsh didn’t step out of the crowd, but she knew that
he
knew she was there. She was alone. Her brother, the constable of Cottonwood, still hadn’t shown himself. Cavalo knew even before he asked.

“Warren?”

Alma looked away.

Hank did not. “Gone, my friend. In July.”

“How?”

“Dead Rabbits.”

But Cavalo knew this already. Somehow. What had the black man said, back in the forest on the other side of the divide?

You’d think the good folk of Cottonwood would have learned by now. But maybe they need a reminder.

He looked at Alma again, but she had turned to the psycho. Hate like he’d never seen before filled her eyes. Alma was strong. She was brave. But above all else, she was kind. There was no kindness now. There was only rage. The man wondered what she was capable of, though he thought he knew. Everyone was capable of darkness.

“Shit,” Cavalo muttered. He didn’t know what else to say.

“That about covers it,” Hank agreed.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” That wasn’t a fair question. Not by a mile.

Hank chuckled dryly. “Would it have mattered?”

Yes
, he told himself.
It would have mattered. It matters now.

He felt like a liar. He didn’t answer, but then he didn’t think Hank expected one. Whatever they were—friends, acquaintances—it didn’t matter because Hank knew him. Whether Cavalo liked it or not, Hank knew him as well as anyone could. It rubbed against him the wrong way, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

The throbbing in his head was back. He realized his face was still crusted with blood. He was probably quite the sight to Cottonwood. It would undoubtedly add to the whispers about him.
The bloody man
, they’d tell each other later.
The bloody secret man.

He ignored the crowd, though their eyes wandered over him. “You sure it was the Dead Rabbits?” he asked Hank. It was unnecessary, that question, but he didn’t know what else to say. He saw Psycho tense out of the corner of his eye but didn’t know if that was to his words or the growing crowd.

“They left his head on the road thereabouts,” Hank said, his voice as calm as if he was commenting on the weather. He pointed back toward the gate to Cottonwood. “Wrote there into the dirt to stay on this side of the divide. It was a message.”

“A warning,” Cavalo said. He almost pulled the rifle from his shoulder and shot the boy in the face. He didn’t because of the children in the crowd, peeking out from behind their parents’ legs. But it was close. It never crossed his mind that it would be murder. He didn’t think of it like that.

“Sure,” Hank said. “A warning. A threat. Just for the hell of it. Whatever it was, Warren died screaming.” This last was said quietly.

Cavalo winced at the anger he heard in Hank’s voice more than the words. “You heard?”

Hank shook his head. “Could see it on his face.”

Cavalo believed him. Warren. A young man, younger than his sister. Not very bright, but always lending a hand. He took his job seriously. He loved his tin badge. Loved it with his whole heart. And now. Now….

A voice from the crowd, lit up with fear: “Is that a Dead Rabbit?”

Murmurs rolled through the people of Cottonwood. It sounded like the wind through the stunted forest near the Deadlands.

“Why is he here?” another voice cried out.

“Could he hurt us?” said another.

And another: “What if he was followed?”

And another: “What if more are coming?”

“Are we safe? What about the
children
?”

“Are we under attack?”

“This isn’t right! They killed Warren!”

“That’s right! They took him! They took that poor man!”

Cavalo waited as the voices rose as he knew they would, waited for the minds of men to form into the mob he hoped they would not become. Waited for the one person to put the idea in the rest of their heads. He waited to see if this town had become like the rest.

Of course they are
, the bees said.
They’re human, aren’t they?

Bad Dog flattened his ears and backed up slowly until his hind legs bumped into the man.
Angry
, he whined.
I can hear them. Like your bees. It’s coming.

“No,” Cavalo whispered as Hank turned toward the town, holding his hands up as if to ward them back.

But then it was said by the one person Cavalo did not expect. “We should kill him,” Deke Wells said. “For what he did to Warren. He should be dead.” He looked surprised at his own words, and he averted his eyes from his father.

Can’t take that back, kid
, Cavalo thought.
Can’t.

Yes
, the crowd sighed.
Yes. Yes. Kill him. He needs to die. He needs to die for what he has inevitably done. If not him, then his people. He will answer for his people.

They pushed forward. Cavalo saw that Alma did not stop them. He didn’t know if he blamed her.

He looked down at the boy, expecting to see fear for the first time, expecting to see him shrinking away. Hiding his eyes. Cavalo wondered then if he would let it happen. If Dead Rabbits showed they were human, could he let this happen?

Daddy!
the bees said, sounding like his dead son.
Daddy!

The boy Dead Rabbit, the prisoner with his hands chained behind his back, was not cowering. His face showed no fear. His teeth were bared, a silent snarl on his face. His shoulders were tensed, body like a coiled spring. He knew they would take him, and he did not care. Cavalo knew he would bite and kick. Rise up and fight back.

“
Stop
!”

The voice was like thunder. Cavalo was reminded of that haunted place long ago, when everything had been at DEFCON 1 and it was NOT A DRILL. The memory eclipsed his reality and the townspeople were all sickly thin coyotes, fat red tumors hanging off their faces and stomachs, swollen and ready to burst. He saw murder in their canine eyes and had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming.

Then it faded, and a man pushed his way through the crowd. A thin man with dark eyes wearing a scowl and a uniform that Cavalo had never seen before. It reminded him of the camo in that hidden fort, and he thought, for just a brief moment, that the man had followed him out of the nightmare. But that couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again. The man was still there. In his hand was a cone made of plastic, and he lowered it from his mouth.

Amplifier
, Cavalo thought.
A… phone? Phone. Something-phone.

“What is the meaning of this?” the stranger asked. His voice was high. Reedy. His eyes narrowed as they landed on Cavalo. “Who are you?”

“Cavalo,” he said.

“Cavalo?” The stranger frowned. “Is that your first name? Last name?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not on my list.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?
Oh
?”

“Yes.” Cavalo shouldn’t have come here. He pretended not to notice how the Dead Rabbit had inched his way toward him, his shoulders bumping into his leg. He tried not to notice how Bad Dog had done the same on the other side. He tried not to notice these things because they were so easy to notice.

“Do you know who I am?” the stranger asked.

“No.” Cavalo did not care.

When the man spoke again, Cavalo began to wish this day had never happened. He thought again of the tree. Of
her
.

“My name is Carl Wilkinson, and I represent the United Federated States of America. Your government has been rebuilt, and this is the beginning of a glorious future, blah blah blah. Now who the fuck are you?”

alma’s song

CAVALO WAITED
outside Alma’s door, unsure of what to do next. He wasn’t good with other people’s grief. Especially when he didn’t understand his own. It was complicated.

But he owed her. Something. She’d given him much without ever asking for anything in return. Like Hank, she was his… friend. Maybe. Possibly. Warren had been a good man. Naïve. He was young, so that was to be expected. Brash. Idealistic. Headstrong. Cavalo winced at that word. Probably not the best to describe him now. No one deserved that death. No one. The man didn’t want to know what had been done with the rest of the body, though he had a good idea.

You gonna knock?
Bad Dog asked as he turned in circles. He settled on the old porch and yawned.

“Just give me a minute,” he muttered.

We need to get back home, MasterBossLord.

“I know.”

SIRS is going to yell at us because we’ve been gone so long.

“He’s just a robot.”

He’s still going to be mad.

“I know.”

Cavalo raised his hand to knock on the door when the dog spoke again.

The boy.