Wolves (36 page)

Is this justice?

Is this right?

To kill, or to show mercy?

They stand in a world of conflicting magnetic fields, and the needles of each of their moral compasses simply spins and spins and spins and never seems to point one way or another.

“Come on,” Brie insists, taking Lowell by the hand.

And Lowell stands up.

From the direction of the cottage, there is the sound of a final argument, and then a gunshot. A moment of panicked shouting. Then silence. Lowell does not seem to notice any of this as Brie walks him to the back of the wagon. The two of them jump down and make their way to the cottage.

Now in the wagon, there are only Jay and Huxley, and Rigo, who is silent in the back.

Jay takes in a great breath, like he is smelling and tasting the air. He lets it out slowly, languorously. He watches the backs of Brie and Lowell as they make their way toward the cottage. There is no more arguing coming from inside of the cottage. Now there is only the sound of pillage—things breaking and being overturned, everything rifled about in search of whatever might offer some immediate value.

“Are you going in?” Jay asks.

Like it's a backyard party.

Huxley just stares, the cold making his eyes water. “No.”

Jay sniffs, makes a grunting noise of realization. “That one. Brie.”

“What about her?”

“She's either your best friend or your worst enemy.”

Huxley doesn't respond. He just stares at the little cottage with all the criminal sounds coming from inside. He stares at it for a long time and tries to feel something bad, something self-recriminating, but there's nothing. Only a dark, sludgy sort of satisfaction.

Finally, Huxley stands up from the wagon's bench. “Come on. Help me burn this place to the ground.”

As the cottage goes up in a giant pyre that reaches fifty feet into the dusky-dark sky, Huxley and Jay and Rigo, Brie and Lowell and the whole ragtag assortment of freed slaves, stand outside, a safe distance away, and they watch the fire consume it entirely, the heat washing over their faces, burning away whatever sins they committed inside.

Huxley doesn't know what happened inside. He didn't go in to look.

In the orange glow that is more powerful and hotter by far than the setting sun that is no longer to be seen, Huxley looks around at these young, grim faces. Some of them are weeping for the things that they did, or the things that they witnessed inside. Some just look on blankly, seeming untouched by it all. Still others pass around a bottle of liquor that they found in the house—several bottles, actually—and they shout at the sky and howl at the fire, and they seem something unstoppable, a wave that Huxley is riding.

They had the hate. I gave them the guns.

Just like Brie promised.

Just like Brie herself.

A healer and killer, all at once.

He finds her face in the line of people standing at the edge of heat and firelight. She is smiling brightly, her eyes twinkling merrily as she passes a bottle to the next person in line, and she holds hands with Lowell around this great, joyful bonfire. And Lowell smiles uncertainly, his lips wet from liquor, his eyes glazed.

They take the horses and string them all onto the same lead, which is affixed to the back of the wagon. They finagle the harnesses from the two blown horses and they replace them with fresh horses from the ranch. They find saddles and saddle blankets that smell of horses and sweat and the outdoors. They set everything aside, and then they eat the food they had taken from the ranch keeper and his family, and they drink his liquor, and they sleep in the glowing warmth of the burning cottage.

Chapter 8

They encounter a rider as they approach the town of Minden.

The day is full of cold wind and clouds that rush from south to north across the sky, like they are in a hurry to get somewhere. They darken as the day goes on, first a few wisps, and then the sky around them starts to blot out with more, and by late morning there is no sky to be seen.

They are heading east. The rider is heading west.

Neither party seems to react much as they see each other from a half mile off.

Huxley keeps the wagon moving, all the freed slaves either resting in the back with their horses strung in a line behind it, or riding. Some of them sleep in the saddle. Some of them are alert and hard-looking, their expressions much sharper than their youth should allow.

“Just one,” Jay observes as the rider draws closer and it is clear that no one is following behind him. “One lonely little man.”

Huxley just keeps the wagon moving, thinking,
If we don't react to him, he probably won't react to us … 

As the rider draws up abreast of them, Jay puts a hand on Huxley's, forcing him to pull the reins back and stop the wagon. At the same time, he partially stands from the wagon bench, looking at the rider. “Hello there, friend!”

Shit.

The other rider stops, looking up at Jay curiously, his eyes searching for some sort of recognition, but of course, he doesn't know Jay. Politely, he says, “Hello there.”

Huxley gives Jay a sidelong glance. “Jay …”

Jay ignores him. “Weather looks bad today, friend.” Jay is holding his rifle, but it is cradled in his arms, the barrel pointing down. The perception of nonthreatening.

The rider looks skyward. He is young, Huxley realizes. He has a full, reddish beard that hides much of his youth. “Yup.” He looks back down, a slight frown on his face. “Something I can help you gentlemen with?”

Jay smiles, very charmingly. “Where you headed?”

The man fidgets, just very slightly in the saddle. “I don't believe that's any of your business.”

“Oh, you know. The Slavers' Trail is my business,” Jay says, and his voice is cheerful, but his words carry a warning. “Let me ask you, friend … you on council's business right now?”

The rider frowns and points to the sigils that are prominently displayed on his saddle. “On business for Councilman Barkley and under protection,” the man's voice is almost haughty.

Huxley hates him in that moment, and he can't explain why.

Jay grins at the other man, his eyes twinkling. “Interesting.”

Then he raises his rifle and shoots the man in the heart.

Huxley jerks and almost comes to his feet, almost grabs his revolver—but what would be the point?

The gray smoke washes over him.

The rider topples from the saddle, dead.

The gunshot echoes back to them, just one time, and then it is silent. Just the wind in the trees, unmoved by what has happened.

Now Huxley does stand up. “What the fuck?” he hisses.

Jay reloads his rifle and sits down. “Councilman's business doesn't pay.” When his rifle is reloaded, he looks into the back of the wagon and singles out one of the freed slaves, a teenage girl with an expression on her face as though she's been shocked by what she's seen. “You. Take his gold, his guns, and any provisions. Leave the sigils on his body. And leave him in the road.”

The girl stares back.

Huxley doesn't even know her name.

Beside them on her horse, Brie clears her throat. “Now, hold on …”

Jay raises his arms in plaintive innocence and Brie trails off.

“What?” he says. “I didn't tell her she had to do it by herself.”

The girl whose name Huxley can't recall—or never learned in the first place—slides down off the wagon, ending any further discussion. Two of the younger guys accompany her.

“There you go,” Jay says quietly, rubbing the gunblack from his rifle's muzzle. “All's well.”

Chapter 9

They skip over Minden altogether. Huxley weighs the costs and benefits. He doesn't think that Cartwright or any of his men would be sticking around the first stop on the Slavers' Trail. It just didn't make sense—too close to Shreveport. Too close to home for Cartwright. He was on the run, and he needed distance. Huxley intended to go into some towns and ask about Nathaniel Cartwright, but Minden seemed like a waste of his time. Too much risk. Not enough reward.

They have enough stolen provisions to last them a few days. They make camp in an abandoned neighborhood a few miles off the Slavers' Trail, and in a place that Huxley judges to be about halfway between Minden and the next town, Ruston.

Jay volunteers for watch, along with two of the boys. They wander off into the night, away from the campfire.

Huxley sleeps, but he wakes in the middle of the night to gunfire.

It is distant. A muted, popping sound.

He sits upright. He strains to listen. He can only hear the sound of everyone's steady breathing around him. No one else has been stirred by the gunfire. Was it a figment of his imagination? Was it a part of a nightmare that he just couldn't remember he was having?

Distantly, maybe just wind, the sound of a scream.

Huxley looks around, but no one stirs.

You're imagining it.

But he should check on Jay and the others.

He takes his rifle and his pistol. He slides out of their campsite, quieter than he expected he would be. He slips through houses and overgrown natural areas turning back into forest. He stops and listens for a while, and he hears voices, and one of those voices is Jay. He continues through the wooded neighborhood, stopping and listening every once in a while. As he gets closer, he hones in on the noise of voices, and he is almost positive that one of them is Jay. And he does not sound angry, or under duress. He sounds happy.

There is laughter.

Huxley pushes through a dense patch of briars, cutting his legs and arms, but emerges on the other side to a lone, narrow, two-lane road and a glimmer of firelight from a lantern. It is a tiny stage scene in the middle of black emptiness.

There is a single horse, bearing a very small wagon. Not really even a wagon. More of a cart. The horse seems unperturbed. The cart has a few large plastic drums in it. The lantern is sitting on one.

Beside the cart, Jay has punctured the side of one of the plastic barrels with his knife, and Huxley can smell the sweet, yeasty smell as liquid pours out. Jay is bending his face to the arc of the stream and drinking it deeply. He switches spots with one of the boys that went with him for the night watch, and the boy bends, gulping down the liquid. The third boy is on the ground, rummaging through the pockets of a dead man who lies facedown.

Jay finally notices Huxley standing there. “Whoa! You fuckin' snuck up on me!” he points to the barrel. “Ale! Fucking barrels of it! You want some?”

Huxley is staring at the dead body, at the boy, probably no older than thirteen, looting the pockets, pulling items out and inspecting them by the dim firelight. Tossing some away. Keeping others. Huxley drags his eyes back to Jay.

“What are you doing?” Huxley demands.

Jay smacks his lips. Ale is dribbling down his chin. He wipes it away. Huxley can't really see his eyes in the lantern light. But he does see Jay tilt his head in that way that he seems to do. “It's blood and death, brother. It's what you wanted. Remember?”

Huxley points his gun at the dead body. “And what did this guy do, huh? More council's business?”

“Fuck no,” the boy looting his pockets says. “He ain't even got a sigil.”

“Then why the fuck did you kill him?” Huxley can feel his volume rising.

Everyone stops. Jay looks at him. The boy next to Jay stops slurping the ale that is pouring out. The boy standing at Huxley's feet stops looting the body and cranes his neck to look up at Huxley. The two boys … they seem confused. Very confused. Almost like they want to say, “Wait … we thought this was what you wanted!”

Is this what you wanted?

Just the sound of the ale, splashing onto the ground, creating a puddle.

To answer Huxley's question, Jay simply shrugs. “I wanted his beer.”

Huxley's jaw works. No more words forthcoming.

Jay pushes himself off the cart and steeples his fingers in front of him. It is an odd stance. Like a teacher speaking to his pupil. “Why don't you go back to sleep, Hux? You're tired. Leave the night watch to the night watch. Okay, brother?”

All three of them. Just staring at Huxley. Staring at him like … like … 

Like I'm the one who's wrong. Like I'm the one who's fucked up.

What can you say? What
do
you say?

Huxley turns around and heads back into the brush, thinking,
What the hell is happening? What did I start?

They had the hatred. You gave them the guns.

Behind him, he hears Jay's voice calling out after him, “Blood and death, Huxley. That's all it is.”

Chapter 10

On the road to Ruston they happen upon a group of slavers. Five slavers with a wagonload of eight slaves in chains, mostly girls and women. Huxley sees the slavers' poles and their trophies of jaws from a long way off, and there is no stopping his rabid group, and he does not even try.

He doesn't want to try.

The slavers feel safe here in the Riverlands, and they are unprepared to fight.

All five slavers are slaughtered. One woman dies in the crossfire, and a girl. A second girl is wounded. Huxley tells himself that it was the slavers' bullets that caught these innocents. The women don't weep for their loss—maybe they barely know each other. And they don't seem to react at all when Huxley's freed slaves begin to pull the jaws from the bodies of the slavers. They leave the jawless bodies there at the side of the wagon with the slavers' poles and the broken chains inside, so that anyone who found this massacre would know exactly what happened, and fear would strike them.

They would not feel so safe in their Riverlands anymore.

The women and girls are given the choice—run away, or grab a gun and fight.

Two of the girls stay. The rest flee.

They loot the slavers' provisions, money, and guns. These are given to the girls.

They leave the blood-washed roadway behind them. Huxley decides to skip Ruston as well, and head straight for Monroe, the last suspected location of Nathaniel Cartwright.