Wolves (24 page)

Chapter 7

When Red Water Landing is nearly a half an hour out of sight by Huxley's estimation, the door to the big cabin opens, spearing light into the gloom and silhouetting the stout form of the slave master. When the light hits them, Huxley, Jay, Rigo, and Don squint accusingly at it. They stand at the door to one of the long holding cells.

The slave master laughs at them. “Don't look so angry. Did you think I'd trapped you in here?”

Huxley's jaw muscles clench rapidly as he steps forward, his hands resting on the handles of his revolvers. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

“The door was unlocked,” the slave master swings a step aside and motions them out. “But I'm glad you stayed in the cabin as instructed. The Black Hats have been known to travel in groups. Who knows where this one's friends were hiding? Maybe along the riverbank.”

Huxley walks to the door and eyes the slave master before stepping through and onto the deck. He immediately scans the flat expanse of weathered boards, looking into the groups of slaves that are tending the oars. He looks for Lowell, but can't see him.

“Where's the boy?” Huxley asks as Don and Jay edge past him and into the sunlight. Rigo is still standing behind Huxley, looking around the slave cabin but then he too steps through, head down, back out into the light.

The slave master lets the door shut behind him as he steps away. “He's in the crew's quarters, being fitted for chains. Can't leave one like that to chance. He's got a spark in him, that one. Be a shame if he tried to escape. I would have to kill him. And that's like killing money, which I hate to do. Besides, if I have to kill him, then I'll have to toss you gentlemen overboard! Ha! He is your ticket, after all.”

Huxley continues to look around, taking stock of the other slaves being shipped to Shreveport for sale. Many of them are dressed in tatters and Huxley can see the marks on them, mostly on their backs—those that are bare—but some of their faces are bruised or striped with healing scars as well.

“Your slaves are pretty beat up,” Huxley says, and his voice seems like it is easily lost in the breeze that blows downriver with them.

The slave master grunts. “Those are the difficult ones—and a lot of them are difficult. A good slaver breaks his slaves before he brings them to market.” He smiles, enthusiastically. “You wouldn't let me sell you an untamed mustang as a horse. Why buy a slave that might try to slit your throat in the middle of the night?”

“I imagine that would be a constant danger.”

The slave master shrugs and begins walking leisurely toward the front of the barge, Huxley following. “Freedom is not as special as the beliefs of the Old World would have you think. It's much easier to be a slave. Once we break them down and keep them miserable, they're purchased by some rich councilman, or another clan leader out in the Nations, and treated like a member of the household. Well … sometimes they are. If a boy goes to serve a woman, chances are he'll be castrated when his balls drop. Unless the councilman's lady is into that sort of thing. And the girls? Well …” he laughs as he reaches the edge of the boat and looks over the water. “Simple psychology, I suppose. By the time I'm done with them, the people that buy them look like benevolent angels. It's all part of the game. But that's why I'm in business where so many others have failed.” He looks at Huxley, guardedly. “I realize that I know your name, but you don't know mine. How rude. Master Bristow, they call me. You can call me that too.”

I won't call you master.

“Okay,” Huxley says, looking down the river where the ruddy water twists and turns into the distance. To either side, the banks creep by seemingly slow, but Huxley can see that the water is moving quite fast. “How long to Shreveport?”

“Four days, in good water,” Master Bristow says, hooking thumbs into his belt. “Four or five, depending on whether we get stuck in the mud, and how many times we get stuck. The
Misery
has a shallow draft, but the sandbars are a bit treacherous in the southern stretch.” Bristow turns and folds his hands over his wide torso, a stance of repose. He regards Huxley long and carefully. “I told you before that I've hidden men from the Black Hats. I fuck them over any chance I can get. But you … there's something about you that I don't like.”

Huxley stands very still, wondering if this is the moment when Bristow will try to take their weapons by force. Bristow's eyes scan up and down Huxley, lingering a moment on the two revolvers stuck into his waistband.

“The Black Hats,” Bristow says. “Why are they hunting you?”

“I was falsely accused,” Huxley says, thinking about the man in the hallway, Captain Tim's man, the one whose head Huxley had punched through with a knife.

Bristow gives a smile with very little humor in it. “Aren't we all? What's the accusation?”

Huxley sniffs, spits over the side and into the river. “Murder, I suppose.”

“Hm.” Bristow nods, slowly, thoughtfully. “It's a very serious thing to have the Black Hats hunting you. And, frankly, you can tell me all you want that you were falsely accused, and maybe you were. Maybe you were falsely accused for that one crime that they're hunting you for, but I can see that you're not innocent. I can see it in your eyes, Mr. Huxley. You're a dangerous one. I feel like you're trouble.”

Huxley's teeth are ratcheted together so that they hurt. “So what are you going to do?”

“Well …” Bristow makes an unpleasant face. “Unfortunately, I'm not a fair-weather Easterling. Or a savage Wastelander, like yourself. I'm a man of the Riverland Nations, and around here, when you shake a man's hand, it means something. I won't go back on my word. I'll transport you to Shreveport. But once we pull into port, the second you step off of my boat, that promise is concluded. I will have fulfilled my obligation, and if you so much as look at me from that point on, I'll gun you down dead on the docks.” Bristow gives this a moment, as though he is reviewing his own words to make sure that they are accurate. He seems satisfied that they are, and he nods. “Until then, keep yourselves on your best behavior. You can break the peace of my promise just as easily as I can, and then the Black Hats will find you floating on the river like a bloated gray bobber. This is my boat, and on my boat, I am god. And I will smite anyone that challenges that. Understood?”

“Understood,” Huxley says, managing to keep his voice calm.

“Good.” Bristow makes an expansive gesture. “Ground rules, then. First of all, no fraternization with the slaves. Don't even talk to them. You can sleep on the decks when we put them in the cabin at night. If you have to shit or piss, do it over the backside of the boat. Don't interrupt my men in their work or try to befriend them. They are not your friends. Do not, in any way, shape, or form, undermine my authority, or the authority of my men. That is very important. Lastly, if we're accosted by another boat, report directly to me. There's a place in my cabin that I can put you in case we're boarded. If you violate any of my rules, then my obligation to you is over. Very important that you are clear on all those rules.”

“Very clear,” Huxley says.

“Then I'll leave you to yourselves.” Bristow nods curtly, and then strides off, surprisingly light on his feet for such a large man.

Huxley watches him go, standing there at the front of the flatboat. The big slave master hollers an order to a team of slaves and the slaver watching them, a dark-skinned man with a scattergun and two pistols, both holstered on his right side, a giant bowie knife on his left.

They're well armed, for sure. But so are all the slavers, and we've dealt with them before.

Huxley looks sidelong at Don.
Well, Jay and Rigo and myself have dealt with them. I'm not so sure about Don.

They are relatively alone, and the occasional shouted order of the slavers, the grunts and groans of effort from the teams of slaves as they pull the oars, the sloshing of the river underneath them, and the wind that scours the deck and causes the dried jawbones to clatter atop the slavers' poles, all these noises will drown out their voices. Huxley is sure that they cannot be heard when Don leans in close to him and speaks in a level tone.

“What are we going to do?” Don's voice is filled with nerves, boiling over. “There's six of them, and they're armed to the teeth.” He is shaking his head. “This is a bad idea. Bad idea.”

Huxley looks away from Don and finds Jay, standing next to him, his brow knit in question. Huxley pushes Don gently away from him with the back of his forearm, a dismissive gesture, and Huxley does not care whether it is insulting or not. Don makes a little noise of displeasure, but says nothing.

“Can you give us a minute?” Huxley says, gesturing between himself and his two actual companions.

Don's eyebrows squinch down into angry little jags. “Fine.”

He turns and walks ten feet away.

Huxley and Jay turn, Rigo following, and they walk another ten feet. They speak quietly.

“Don is a problem,” Jay says.

“He's weak and I don't trust him,” Huxley nods.

“All flame and gunsmoke when it's a family of three armed with sticks and an ancient revolver, but when it's actual men with real guns, all of the sudden it's a bad idea to act.” Jay shakes his head, looking over his shoulder at the other man. “He's a coward. That much fear in a man … it makes them unpredictable.”

“But who does he fear more?” Huxley asks. “Me or the slavers?”

Jay shakes his head. “Hard to tell.” Then he fixes Huxley with an evaluating look. “Why are we really going to Shreveport?”

Huxley feels the heat of the question on his neck like hot coals being held an inch away from his skin. He dislikes the question. It pulls away protective layers that Huxley has spent time building up. It reveals things that he does not want revealed.

“Because that's where the slavers go,” Huxley responds, shortly.

“Yes, that's where the slavers go,” Jay echoes, quietly. “But you have other reasons for going where the slavers go. I don't think you and I are on the same page here.” Jay folds his arms across his chest. “I want to kill every single one of them. And here? In the Riverlands?” he laughs. “You can't miss! But you … you want to go to Shreveport. Right into the belly of the beast. Because you're looking for someone.”

Huxley makes a noise in the back of his throat, as though he is trying to discredit Jay, but can't find the words. He's picturing scorpions.

“So, who are you looking for in Shreveport?”

Huxley looks away, jaw working without words.

“Huxley,” Jay pries. “Who are you looking for in Shreveport? There are plenty of places to cross the Red River, by ferry or by bridge. We take this barge, we can run it aground anywhere we want. We don't have to go to Shreveport.”

Huxley looks up at him sharply. “No. We're going.” He holds up a finger. “Leave it alone. Focus on the matter at hand, please. Focus on how we're going to get Lowell back.”

Jay watches him for another long moment, then looks away, smacking his lips loudly. “Well, that's easy. We kill the slavers and free the slaves. It's simple enough.”

“They outnumber us almost two-to-one.”

“It's a fight with a man twice as big as you,” Jay says. “You don't shy away from the fight. You circle and you wait for an opening and you take advantage of it when it comes. That's all we have to do. Circle and wait. Watch for our opening.”

“We only have a few days.”

“Big men's weaknesses are easy to find. They trust in their size.” Jay looks around them. “These men, the slavers, Bristow … they trust in their numbers and all the weapons that they have strapped to them. But there will be a point when there'll be a level playing field. Soon. Sometime soon. And then we move. Quickly.”

“Without hesitation.”

Jay nods.

Huxley nods along with him.

Maybe Rigo speaks more English than he lets on, or maybe he doesn't. Either way, he looks at Huxley, his hands gripping Huxley's shoulder tightly. “Los lobos,” he says quietly. “Make them bleed.”

Chapter 8

Misery
floats southward, and on its weathered decking Huxley and the three others keep to themselves, huddled in the fore of the big square flatboat. At midday, the slavers allow their charges to break from manning the oars. They are given food, and Huxley and his two companions dip into their own meager provisions. Afterward, the slaves are ushered into the expansive, shit-smelling cave of their cabins. Their chains clink solemnly as they go in teams of threes and fours, always a careful grouping, Huxley realizes. Any adult males are linked with women or children. To keep them cautious. Complacent. No grouping has two adults in it. There are a lot of children, Huxley observes. Some about Lowell's age. Some slightly older, nearing adulthood. A few that are very young—six or seven, by Huxley's guess.

They file into the cabins with downcast eyes, save for a few who take cautious, almost accusatory glances in the direction of Huxley and his group, but none of them make eye contact with him. The ones with the scars, their faces are full of bitterness and spite, but the fight has gone out of them, like all that is left of their fire is cold, pale ash.

Bristow's right,
Huxley realizes as he watches them.
They're not even thinking about freedom anymore. They're just hoping their next master will be kind to them. They're down to their last bit of hope, like a skin with only a few mouthfuls of water left in it, and miles of desert left to go.

Oh, I've been there. I've been to that point where hope dies.

Huxley looks away from the sight of them. He still has not seen Lowell.

Without the crews to man the oars, the barge drifts with the river, Lizard Eyes manning the rudder and steering them away from the banks as the river pulls them on its gradually winding course, mostly south, sometimes to the southwest, sometimes to the southeast. Ahead of them, the midday skies are darkening and the wind is beginning to howl.

Jay sits with his arms around his knees, his face uplifted to the sky, eyes closed, smelling the air.

Huxley watches him for a time.

Perhaps he senses being watched, or perhaps his eyes are not truly closed. Jay takes a big breath of the dank river air and smiles, face still uplifted. His voice is very quiet. “Storm's a-comin'.”

By the afternoon, the dark clouds on the horizon have become dark skies. In places along the river bank where the trees are clear and the banks are shallow and flat, Huxley can see the rain lashing down a few miles from them and coming closer, an ominous gray haze that marches toward them. It still seems to be a mile or so from them when the first few fat drops start to slap the deck boards around them, tiny icy spots on their skin. Huxley grits his teeth, not wanting to get wet, but knowing there is no way to avoid it.

“Unusual for this season,” a big voice says.

Huxley turns where he is sitting and finds Bristow there, pulling on a long, leather duster, something of a storm coat, Huxley supposes. It is black, or at least was black once. Now it seems more a grayish green. Bristow is looking out at the skies, but then he looks down at Huxley with a frown.

“Not sure if that's a good omen or a bad omen,” the master says. “But I'm pretty sure it's an omen about you.” Then he laughs, a short sharp bark. “The storm will surge the river, so we won't have to worry about the sandbars. But the current might try to slam us into one of the banks. You men might want to hold onto something. It's going to be a wet, miserable night, but this is the
Misery
, so I suppose that's quite fitting.”

Bristow laughs again, and turns away from them, calling over his shoulder, “Don't get accidentally thrown overboard!”

A few minutes later, the rain hits in force. Giant gales of it that come out of the sky like falling curtains and scatter themselves over the deck and over the men and turn the big red-brown mess of the river stretching before them into a great, gray snake. Huxley, Jay, Rigo, and Don huddle in the cold rain, cursing and wishing they were anyplace else, as the slavers pull teams of slaves from the cabins to man the oars. The rain is cold and the slaves are poorly dressed for it, as are Huxley and his companions. But Bristow and his slavers have no obligation to see that Huxley or his group remains in good health, while losing a slave to pneumonia would be money out of their pockets. Huxley can see one of the slavers starting the big brass brazier that sits in the middle of the slave cages, and billows of thick gray smoke begin to rise out of the metal chimney.

Huxley wishes fervently for the fire, but Bristow doesn't want them inside. He doesn't want them fraternizing with the slaves.

After the first onslaught of rain, the wind all but stops, but by now the river has begun to creep over its banks and it is moving fast and hard carrying them around corners with an uncomfortable speed as Lizard Eyes bares his teeth and works the rudder around the curves of the river and the teams of slaves groan at the oars, slamming them back and forth, first the right side of the barge, and then the left, lashing at the water around them.

One of the slavers stands at the port side of the barge as they work it into a starboard turn. He is a large man, entirely shrouded by a brown poncho that glistens wetly in the lashing rain so that Huxley cannot tell what it is made out of. He cannot see anything of the man's face, and even his arms are hidden in his poncho. But he can hear his voice, shouting orders to the oar team.

“Pull. Pull. Break. You! Get on the end and leverage that fucking thing! Pull. Pull.”

The slave that he'd addressed, a young man, slides down to the end of the oar, his chains extended tight with the others, who are all smaller children. The oar rattles and creaks in its brass lock. Each stroke pushes the big barge a little more to the right, but not quite fast enough for the river.

“Pull that shit faster! Pull! Pull!”

The bank looms up at their right side, the river pushing them into it.

The slaver in the poncho moves rapidly. A hand emerges from under his poncho and he pulls a pin from the oarlock, freeing the long wooden oar. Then he points to the bank as the slaves pull the oar loose. “Brace it on the bank! Brace it hard! Hold that shit!”

The slaver himself grabs hold of the end of the oar, along with the young man. All the slaves instinctively spread their feet, getting their base and balance as they raise the oar up so that it protrudes sideways out from the barge, leveled at the encroaching bank.

“Push off!” the slaver shouts. “Push off!” and he rams the head of the oar into the rising mud of the bank, the slave team around him following suit, so that the flat blade of the oar disappears into the red clay wall. “Push!” the slaver yells. “Push!”

Misery
groans underneath them, the current pushing her underbelly in one direction, the slaves with the oar pushing her topside in the opposite. The bank keeps reaching for them, the river keeps pushing, but everything slows, slows, and gradually stops, amid the silence of the other slave teams, and the grunts and straining effort of the team with the oar embedded into the bank.

The slaver is no longer yelling.

They are all pushing. They cannot push any harder.

Then suddenly, they are off the bank. The river catches them back into its current, the momentum of the big river barge overcome. The barge tries to yaw in the water, but Lizard Eyes leans into his rudder and straightens her out again.

The slaver at the oar steps away from it. “Pull her out. Don't lose that fucking oar.”

The team strains backward now, back into the ship as the big bulk is caught in the current and carrying them away. They stagger as the barge starts to move downstream again, the head of the oar caught securely in the bank and not wanting to free itself. The team of slaves stumbles and is suddenly dragged, all four of them, five feet toward the aft. A few of them cry out, but none of them let go, because they know if they lose the oar, they will pay.

The slaver is shouting again. “Pull the fucking oar out!”

The slaves begin to yank, panicked, as the deck of the barge begins to dwindle under their feet, the oar dragging them closer to the edge. They scrunch together at the end of the oar, leaning back, yelling with the effort. The oar is working free, Huxley can see, and it comes free very suddenly, knocking the entire group to the deck at the slaver's feet. All but one—the young man, who is the biggest of the four. He loses his footing and slips.

His legs hit the water, the chain attached to his ankle yanking at the next slave in line, a small, wisp of a boy, and pulling him toward the edge. The older slave panics, doesn't think, and reaches out for anything to hold on to. He catches the ankle of the small boy, the one who does not have a chain and manacle around it. The small boy is no support. They both begin to slide off, the small boy suddenly screaming, a high-pitched wail.

The remaining two slaves—a boy and a girl—cling desperately to the cracks in the decking.

The glistening black poncho is suddenly over top of the slaves, the hood sweeping back to reveal a hard, blocky face and long, wet tangles of black hair. The slaver's arm emerges out of his poncho, holding what looks like a tomahawk in his hand, and for a second Huxley thinks he is going to use it to give the boys in the water something to hold to.

Then he rears back and strikes the chain.

Sparks fly off.

Someone yelps out a scream.

Another strike, and this time the sound of the chain breaking, a harsh, final sound.

The young man and the wispy boy, nothing left to tether them, plunge into the cold, silty river.

The slaver's other hand rises out of his poncho, this time with a revolver.

In the river, to the port side of the barge, the two slaves flail in the water, their heads and arms barely above the rain-lashed surface, liquid in their mouths, slipping down their throats so that they can't scream for help or mercy, only choke and gag on the muddy water as chains and currents pull them under.

The slaver on the deck aims his revolver and fires once.

The young man's head snaps back, red and purple and white, and then sinks.

The slaver cocks his revolver again and lets out a second shot, very quickly aimed. The smaller boy, Huxley cannot see where he is struck by the lead ball, but he can see his body jerk and stiffen and then he too sinks.

Within seconds, both are gone.

The slaver with the poncho retracts his hands, both the tomahawk and the revolver disappearing again. His face remains out, cold and hard, staring at the rushing water in front of him. Behind him, the remaining boy and girl from that team of slaves cling to the deck and they both sob loudly, though Huxley cannot tell if it is from relief or terror or sadness.

The slaver swears loudly at the water and then flips his hood up again to shield his head from the driving rain. He turns and scoops the two children up, one in each arm. He does not carry them gently, nor does he handle them roughly. He does it with indifference, as though they are sacks of grain. He takes them quickly to the cabin, kicking the door open with his foot then setting them down inside.

Huxley watches through the open door as the slaver manning the brazier comes away from his warm place at the fire and takes possession of the boy and the girl.

“Lost two to the river,” the slaver in the poncho says. “Need another team to man the port oar. Now. Quickly.”

The slaver inside says nothing, but acknowledges with a nod and hurries the two children back into the cages. He selects another team—this one a man, two boys, and a small woman, and unchains them from their spot on the wall.

At the portside, two other slavers sink the oar back into its lock and man it while they wait for the new team to be dispatched into the driving rain.

The slaver with the poncho turns. The open shadow of his hood seems to be looking at Huxley, who stares back through the rain. Inside of that hood, all that Huxley can see is the man's lips, just a grim, thin slash across a grizzled face.

Huxley stares into the darkness, knowing that it is staring back.

“Better to lose two than four,” the slaver's voice says, matter-of-factly. “And it's better to be shot dead than drowned in cold mud. Wouldn't you agree?”

Huxley remains silent.

The thin lips smirk at him underneath that hood.

With a strange, musical tone to his voice, Jay says again, “Storm's a-comin'.”