The Breeders Series: The Complete Box Set

by Katie French

  A gun shot cracked in the distance. Nessa snapped upright, looking at Doc. Someone was after them.

  Doc stiffened, a hand clutching the side of the rocking carriage. His wide eyes, magnified by his spectacles, looked back at Nessa in surprise. From beneath his travel duster he drew out a small silver revolver. He swiveled in his seat and slid back a panel of wood in the wall behind him, revealing a patch of hazy blue-white sky.

  “What in the hell’s goin’ on out there, Jerrin?” Doc said, gripping the sides of the opening to keep upright with the sway of the carriage. Another gun shot, this time from the left. Doc cringed and then leaned into the hole. “Jesus Christ, is it harriers?” he shouted.

  Fear pumped through Nessa’s body as she struggled to keep from slamming into the carriage walls. They hit another dip. The carriage flew up and slammed back hard. Nessa’s jaw snapped down and a tang of blood filled her mouth. Then another pain cramped in her abdomen. She moaned. It didn’t feel like Braxton Hicks.

  Splinters of wood spewed into the carriage. A bullet tore through the wooden siding near Nessa’s head. She screamed and covered her face. The horses skidded left and her shoulder smacked into the wall.

  This was how she’d die.

  When she opened her eyes, Doc was yanking off a panel in the wall behind his head. He threw the board to the floor and slid out. Then he stood, his legs inside with her, his torso bobbing in the open window. He fired twice, the gunshots loud in the carriage, the smell of smoke curling inside. Two shots answered. The carriage swerved and Nessa tumbled to the floor. Another pain in her abdomen, a fist that squeezed and squeezed until she cried out. She curled into herself and tried to breathe.

  Doc pulled back into the carriage, panting. Blood slid down his sleeve from a wound in his arm. His white hair fluttered in wild tufts. He sat back, wide-eyed. “Goddamn it.” He dug in his pockets. With trembling fingers he pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

  Nessa’s eyes rested on the smudge of blood on Doc’s pristine white collar. “Who’s after us?”

  Doc looked up at her. “Gonna have to kill ‘em. Was gonna leave ‘em well enough alone, but now….” He flicked out the revolver’s chamber, thumbed in two more bullets and snapped it shut. Then he hefted himself back through the hole in the window. He disappeared, leaving a rectangle of sky inside a wooden frame.

  More gunshots. A bullet pinged off something metal above her. The carriage careened and Nessa rolled uncontrollably around the floor. Another cramp squeezed her abdomen. She winced and pressed her palms to her stomach. The baby had gone surprisingly still. To lose him now… What a waste of nine months.

  The carriage lurched to a stop. Nessa flew into the bench, knees smacking into the paneling. Outside men shouted. Two more gun shots. A scream. Nessa curled into a ball and trembled. Another pain quaked through her body. She bit her tongue and waited for the cramp to subside. Cramp, who was she kidding? The book called them contractions. She’d have this baby on the floor of this carriage while marauders killed everyone outside. Then they’d come for her.

  The carriage door flew open and a blast of light blinded her. A shadow reached in.

  “Don’t!” she shouted, scrambling into the carriage.

  Hands tugged at her arms and hauled her up. “Baby,” he said. She opened her eyes.

  Marlin. She pressed her face to his sweaty dirt-streaked chest. He was alive. She pulled back and looked him over. A cloth had been tied over a large c-shaped wound on the side of his face. Otherwise, he looked intact.

  “You came.” She wrapped her arms around him, suddenly close to weeping.

  “Yer sure as shootin’ I did,” he said, smiling, revealing his front teeth, pink with blood. Then he pressed his mouth to hers.

  The kiss was like their first. Her body flooded with want as he pulled her to him. He locked his arms around her back. She gripped his shoulders, leaning closer until her belly prevented it. Only now it didn’t seem like an intrusion. It seemed like part of their whole.

  Another contraction tightened her stomach. She balled her fists against Marlin’s back and moaned.

  He pulled back. “The baby?” Fear flooded his face.

  She nodded, her face tightening as the contraction intensified.

  “Shit,” he said, turning. “Come on.”

  He helped her out of the carriage into the daylight. Seeing the bloodshed temporarily took her mind off the pain. A dead man was splayed in the road, half his guts in bloody coils beside him. She turned away and found Marlin’s posse: three men, one securing several horses to the back of the carriage, one writhing on the ground in a pool of his own blood and another tending his wounds. Marlin led her over to the man who was tying strips of cloth around his friend’s wounded leg.

  “Slim, my lady’s in a bad way. ’Bout to deliver. Can you help?”

  Slim looked up from the strip of t-shirt he was cinching around the other man’s thigh. He wiped blood on his jeans and looked Nessa over. He shook his head and went back to knotting the bloody rag. “Don’t know nothing ’bout babies.”

  Marlin yanked on Slim’s shoulder. “Well, you better figure it out.” He drew his gun.

  Nessa put a hand on Marlin’s arm. “I can do it myself,” she said, blowing out a breath. Could she? She’d sure as hell find out.

  Marlin gave her a questioning look.

  “I’m a woman, aren’t I?” she asked, waddling back over to the carriage. Doubt and fear pressed down on her as another cramp circled her abdomen.

  When they got back to the carriage, she found Doc. He sat with his back to a tire, a giant red stain on his abdomen. He lifted his head and held a hand out to Nessa as she gripped the doorway to go in. His face was ancient, wrinkled and sallow.

  “Didn’t want this,” he wheezed, blood dribbling down his chin. “Didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  Marlin snorted. “Didn’t want anyone to git hurt? You think you can take what’s mine and not git hurt, ol’ man?” Marlin spit into the dust. “I ain’t yer lackey anymore.”

  “Enough, Marlin,” Nessa said, through gritted teeth. The pain in her belly radiated out until her whole body pulsed like a poisoned heart. She doubled over. Maybe she couldn’t do this. Maybe she’d die right here in the dirt.

  Doc touched her ankle, his bloody fingertip pressing a red oval onto her skin. “’Member what I said,” Doc wheezed. “Love fades. He can’t keep you safe.” He flicked his hand toward Marlin.

  A gun went off behind her. Nessa lurched forward, hands flying to her face, ears ringing. When she realized she wasn’t dead, she whirled around. Marlin held a smoking revolver in one hand, his eyes dark and unforgiving. She swiveled to Doc. A large red hole had sprouted on his chest. He was dead.

  “Christ,” she said, turning to glare at Marlin. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Marlin holstered his gun and shrugged. “Wanted to.”

  Nessa felt a cold chill run through her arms. She was about to scold Marlin when another contraction drove the thought out of her head. She pulled herself inside of the carriage, dragging her weak legs behind her. Her body prickled with sweat. She pressed her forehead into the cushioned seat and rode out as many contractions as she could, sucking musty air with her face buried in velvet.

  Finally, the urge to push overtook her body. She locked her mind away and let her body tell her what to do. She found the strength to heft herself up and squat, holding onto the bench with white knuckles. The pain tore through her. Marlin. She needed him. He stood, white-faced in the open doorway.

  “Help me!” she shouted.

  Marlin held his hands up, useless. “What do I do?” He could shoot a man from 200 yards, but when it came to birthing babies he froze.

  “Help hold me up.” Nessa gritted her teeth as pain snapped through her body. The baby was ripping her open.

  Marlin shuffled in. “Where do I–”

  “Just get in here!” Nessa leaned over and panted.

  When th
e pain was a raw shock-wave in her groin, she pushed. She pushed and pushed and pushed. She held onto Marlin’s hand until his fingers whitened. She shuffled around and pushed. She sat and pushed. This baby would gut her from the inside out and leave her unraveled like the dead man on the road. Still, she pushed.

  “Oh my god,” Marlin breathed. He reached down and drew the child from her.

  The baby squalled. Nessa fell to her knees and sobbed. She closed her eyes. It was finished.

  She lay on the floor, unable to move. Marlin went out and came back with a t-shirt to wrap the baby in. He held the bundle out. Nessa shook her head, but he placed the boy on her chest and was gone. She called after him but got no response. She pulled the bundle to her sweat-soaked chest and looked down.

  Puffy, purple and mewling, it didn’t look like a baby at all. This creature’s coned head was plastered with dark, whorls of hair. Its eyes were squeezed shut, but its red mouth was wide, wide open, a yowling maw of want. She stared at this thing, tyrannically waving its little fists. What was she supposed to feel? She held a life she’d created inside her own body. He shared her blood. He was still, in fact, connected to her. She looked into his face and tried to see any resemblance. Then he opened his eyes.

  They were blue, large and her exact shade. She stared into those blue irises and a window opened into her soul. Her heart began to melt. Her son. He had her eyes.

  She was about to try out the nuances of nursing when Marlin appeared in the doorway, wide-eyed and breathless.

  “Son-of-a-bitch! Doc told them where to find us,” he said, looking back over his shoulder.

  “Who?” She pulled the baby protectively to her chest.

  “The Breeders.” He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “They’re coming.”

  Three days of running, of sleepless nights plowing down dark roads, of spying headlights in the distance and praying to any god that would listen. All for nothing. Nessa’s eyes flicked between the Breeders’ trucks and her family. Marlin held out his hands. “The boy. Give ’im to me,” he said. “Now, Nessa!”

  She sucked in a breath and pressed her nose to the baby’s head. His smell sent shivers up her spine. He squirmed a little, but settled as she stroked him. Her baby. She’d never wanted much, just to survive, to live day to day without being abused, but now she wanted him. Her son. He was a second heart beating outside her chest. And the Breeders would cut that heart away.

  She pulled his little body closer. She wanted him near enough to feel the flutter of his chest as he drew breath.

  Marlin stalked back and forth, yanking up his hair. Nessa watched, sifting through her thoughts as quickly as she could. She loved Marlin. She loved this baby. If they ran and hid, maybe they could get away and she could have a life. She’d have the family her parents died for.

  She dropped her head, tears tracing down her nose. What kind of life would that be for her son, her boy? She stroked a finger down his cheek. No matter how big her love, they would always live in peril. She would always be hunted. Her son would always be in danger. And Marlin, too. Her boy would grow to resent her for always being the bait that brought the snakes.

  She looked down at her baby. Love could fade, but safety…that was a promise that lasted.

  She ran to Marlin, holding out the boy. “Here. Here!” She shoved the child into his arms. “Run! Go now before they see you.”

  Marlin took the boy, cradling him awkwardly to his chest. He raised wet eyes up to her.

  “Take care of him,” she said, sobbing. She’d already hollowed out a place inside herself for her son and now it was empty. She felt herself begin to crumble, but she couldn’t until they’d gone.

  “Go!” she screamed.

  Marlin reached out a hand to touch her, but drew it back when he saw the wildness in her eyes. He took the child, tucked him under his arm and fled.

  Gone. Her heart cracked wide open, a canyon of loss for her to fall into.

  A coldness fell over her as she stepped into the road and eyed the trucks speeding toward her. She swiped at the tears tracing her cheeks. She wanted to face them with dry eyes. As she walked, feet shuffling through dirt, she thought about the pictures of cancers she’d seen in her medical textbooks, bulbous tumors, and skeletal patients gasping for breath. Love was a cancer in her heart. If left to fester, it would unfold itself and paralyze what was left of her soul until she’d suffocate beneath its weight. Like a tumor, love must be cut out for her to live. She dropped her eyes and banished the image of her baby from her brain. She vowed to never think of him again. It was the only way she could keep breathing.

  Three white trucks screeched to a stop. Men jumped out, drew guns and shouted for her to drop to the ground.

  She stood stock still. “You don’t have to do that,” she said calmly. “I’m coming with you.”

  One of the men lowered his gun. His short red hair fluttered up in the breeze as he looked at her. “You’ll come easy?”

  She nodded, walking up to him. “Yes,” she said, thinking of the endless technologies, the evolutions of science it would take to perfect a procedure to produce female zygotes in a world that now destroyed them. Her brain suddenly flooded with possibilities, like a humming machine in her head.

  And she liked it.

  She held out her hand to the gunman, in a gesture of greeting. He eyed it suspiciously, then finally he dropped his gun. He slowly shook her hand.

  Nessa smiled. “I’m Nessa Vandewater. We have much to discuss.”

  THE END

  Clay

  A Breeders Story

  Chapter 1

  It should have been me.

  When they lower his little brother’s coffin into the dirt, Clay squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to cry. He shivers instead. The desert twilight is losing heat fast. Soon, the sun, red as blood on the horizon, will sink into the dirt. They’ll need to get the hell out of there then, or they’ll waste all their bullets on coyotes. He can hear them howling now, off a pace, but closing in.

  Clay turns wet eyes up and tries to focus on what’s happening. Darby, the only guy in Pa’s gang who’s ever touched a Bible and the only one who can read, makes some ridiculous gestures over the grave. With his greasy hair and the purple hickey on his neck, Darby is the last person Clay wants to send his brother to everlasting peace. Darby can’t pronounce half the words in the passage he’s reading. He stammers over refuge, desolations, and even mortal.

  “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Darby says, tracing the passage on his well-worn Bible with his finger. “First Corins 50:55.”

  It’s Corinthians, you motherless bastard, Clay thinks. His hate for Darby gives him something else to focus on. Something that’s not the yawning hole at his feet.

  Darby closes the Bible with a thump. “Does anyone want to say anything?”

  All eyes lock on Pa. Sheriff Marlin Tate—head of the town and the surrounding lands this side of Albuquerque—screws up his mouth and spits tobacco into the dirt. His men, ringed around him in quiet deference, shift uncomfortably. Tate’s not a big man, but he’s scary. The jagged, C-shaped scar decorating half his face shows he’s seen his share of brawls and lived. No, not just lived, but killed every sonofabitch who’s ever crossed him. There’s a rumor floating around that Pa killed his first boss and mentor with rusty pruning shears… nice and slow.

  Clay has to work to stay still. His legs want to tear across the scrubland, run until he falls down in a deep drift. Let it bury him. Just like Cole. At least they’d be together.

  Darby clears his throat. “Sir, anything you wanna say before we wrap up?” he asks again.

  Pa scratches a bug bite on his bald head and spits in a disgusted way. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say. It’s what I brought you here fer, Darby.” Pa locks Darby with a look and turns to Clay. “You got somethin’ to say, boy?”

  Clay’s throat clenches. Do I got somethin’ to say? Only ‘bout a million things. Starting wi
th, this can’t be real. Cole can’t be dead.

  “Sorry,” is what he mumbles. It’s worse than saying nothing.

  “You sorry?” Pa laughs dryly. His smile is jackal-like, fierce. The men ringed around them take a quiet step back. “Ain’t that cute?” He cups his hands around his mouth and hollers down at the coffin. “Hear that, Cole? He’s sorry. No big deal. We kin all jist forget this mess. You git on up now.”

  No one moves.

  Clay’s heart is pounding like a rusted piston. Part of him expects Cole to jump out of the piecemeal wooden coffin like it’s all been a big joke. They’d all laugh at Clay, but that’d be all right. Let them laugh and laugh. He’d have Cole.

  But he’d seen the knife slide into Cole’s chest. He’d carried his lifeless body home.

  Pa backhands him hard. Clay staggers forward, arms windmilling out over the open grave. As he lands hard on his hands and knees, the wood of the coffin makes an awful thunk beneath him. He feels a jolt of pain and a trickle of blood slide down his ribs. The day-old stab wound has split its stitches.

  Through the slats in the hastily made coffin, he can see the blue fabric of Cole’s shirt, the white flesh of the back of his hand. On either side of Clay, the earthen walls and tangles of roots seem to close in.

  Clay shoots up and claws at the dirt. It rains down on him. He spits and claws some more, but he makes no headway. “Help me, Pa!”

  Pa’s dim shadow appears at the top of the grave. He squats down and regards his remaining son. Even in the twilight, Clay can tell there’s no mercy on his face. Pa spits a gob of hot tobacco at him. A wet splat lands on Clay’s shoulder.

  “Help your damn self.”

  He turns and stomps away. The rest of his men follow.

  Clay stills, panting, seething. The pain at his side is pulsing with each throb of his heart. The night is dark. The grave cold. He sits down.

  “Cole,” he whispers, licking dirt from his lips. “Don’t be dead.” He pounds a fist into the wood of his brother’s coffin. The tears come.