“It’s the kid’s room,” he whispered, rummaging under the sagging and faded straw mattress, “This cinches it.” Gary Wayne tossed a heavily thumbed Montgomery Ward catalog on Boris’ side of the bed. It fell open to women’s undergarments.
Boris glanced at the illustrations of corsets and stockings and smiled in spite of himself. “Probably so,” he agreed and moved silently to the door.
It was only partially closed, so Gary Wayne eased it open wider to get a better view of the rest of the house. The kid’s room opened into a common room. Gary Wayne saw no one in the room, so motioning Boris to remain behind, he crouch-crawled in. To his left, he saw that the back porch had been converted into a small kitchen, probably the source of the rotted smell that was stronger here than in the kid’s room. At the opposite end of the room, another room, probably Laney’s room, opened to the right of the closed and barred front door. Gary Wayne leaned back into the kid’s room and motioned Boris to follow him.
Once back in the common room, Gary Wayne signaled Boris to keep watch through the front and western windows while he checked the remaining bedroom. Boris nodded and moved to the center of the room where he could maintain an unobstructed view through both windows and the back door. When he was in position, Gary Wayne nodded and moved to the second bedroom.
As he neared the door, he stopped again, almost certain something had moved inside the room. It could have been the tree in the front yard casting a final shadow from the last of the setting sun, but Gary Wayne was certain he had seen a shadow swing just inside the bedroom door. Holding his breath, and drawing his LeMat, Gary Wayne rose from his crouch and moved quietly into the room.
“Son of a sorry assed sawed off son of a bitch,” Gary Wayne made no attempt at silence. “Boris, you better see this.”
“What is it, Gary Wayne?” despite Gary Wayne’s exclamation, Boris still maintained at least a half-whisper.
“Just get in here,” Gary Wayne’s voice sounded a perfect blend of disgust and despair.
Boris rose from his crouch and, taking one last look through the windows to make sure they were unobserved, entered the front bedroom. As soon as he stepped through the door, the rotting smell hit him like a solid wall, and Boris had to stop himself from vomiting. Then he saw the source of the smell.
“Fuck me, Gary Wayne,” Boris said, trying again to keep his lunch down, “Fuck me all to hell.”
Elaine Corbin Murratt hung from the rafters at the end of a rope, her neck clearly broken.
III.
“I guess we know what’s next then,” Boris leaned on the blackened shovel they had found in the ruins of fallen-in, burned barn. It was almost dawn.
They had carefully taken Laney’s body down from the rafters and wrapped her in the bed linens. Gary Wayne had then gone back for the horses, tying them to the porch railing and using the rope hanging from his saddle to tie the bed sheets tightly around the body. While he had been bringing the horses back, Boris had searched the house and remains of the barn for tools. That’s where he had found one shovel still in serviceable use. He had found two kerosene lanterns in the kitchen with full tanks. They waited until pitch dark to light them and kept them on the lowest possible flame to conserve fuel. They took turns digging a grave next to Jim Murratt’s in the back. When he wasn’t digging, Boris fashioned a crude cross and used his hunting knife to carve Laney’s name. Gary Wayne then used bootblack to darken the letters and hammered the cross in to the ground. Thankfully the second lantern finally sputtered out as Boris tamped the last shovel of dirt onto the grave.
Gary Wayne finished blacking the letters and rose up from his haunches. He held his left nostril closed with the fore-knuckle of his right hand and blew out a sticky glob of dirt and snot, then repeated the process with his right nostril.
“What do you mean?” He asked, wiping his knuckles on the seat of his pants.
“Well,” Boris leaned the shovel against the railing of the little graveyard fence, removed a tobacco pouch and papers, and began to roll a cigarette, “somebody’s gonna have to tell the kid his ma’s dead, and I don’t see anybody else available. I reckon we need to grab a couple of hours sleep here and head on back to Bretton.”
“The hell we do!” Gary Wayne grabbed the cigarette from Boris’ hand and shoved it into his mouth, pulling a match from his vest pocket and striking it on his boot. “We do not have time for that kind of detour. It took us long enough to get on his trail in the first place.” He put the flame to the end of the cigarette and inhaled. I do not aim to let his trail get any colder than it already is.”
“Gary Wayne,” Boris began to roll another smoke for himself, “the boy needs to know his ma’s dead. That’s all there is to it.”
“And I am not disputing that Boris,” Gary Wayne inhaled his smoke deeply then slowly exhaled. “I just do not see the profit in telling the kid now. He can do nothing for her but grieve and blame himself, and she will be just as dead after we find Lancaster as she will be if we go back now. Let him have a few days of freedom before we hand him his unnecessary guilt.”
Boris looked at his friend as if he had sprouted a second head and an extra horn. “If you ain’t the goddamndest hypocrite I have ever seen, Gary Wayne. All your talk about family and honor and loyalty and you’re willing to let Jim Murratt’s boy go along thinking his mother’s just fine. You are going to deny that boy his right to grieve and make peace. All while you are off on your quest to avenge your own brother’s death.”
“I have no intention of denying that boy’s anything, Boris. I have to delay telling him, but it is not like he will go to his grave never knowing his ma died. I will gladly bring him back here myself when we’re done with Lancaster, so he can put down flowers and make his peace. Hell, I will even pick the damned flowers, but we are not leaving off our business to fix something that cannot be fixed.”
“It ain’t right, Gary Wayne,” Boris stared at the freshly filled grave and took a drag from his cigarette. “It just ain’t right. The boy needs to know his mother died, and he needs to know as soon as possible.”
“Why, Boris?” Gary Wayne gave his partner a hard stare, then pulled from his own cigarette. “There is nothing the boy can do. The woman killed herself plain as the nose on your face. I suspect she did it the night he run off. All he can do is feel bad, and he has a whole life time for that. Garrett was murdered in broad daylight by a man should of known better. I have a slim chance of catching him and getting justice for my brother, but it is a chance all the same. If I turn back now, my slim chance is gone.”
Boris glared at his friend and to a frustrated drag from his own cigarette. “Well, Gary Wayne,” he said as he exhaled, “let me make sure I understand you…You have no intention of turning back to tell Percy his mother has passed because you do not want to jeopardize your mission to fix something that cannot be fixed to fix something that cannot be fixed.”
Gary Wayne ignored this, flicking his butt to the ground and toeing it into the earth before turning to the house. “Let’s talk about this after we get some sleep,” he said, making his way out of the graveyard. “You are right about one thing: we do need to get sleep before we head in whichever direction we head in. Come on.”
Boris, too, snuffed his cigarette with his shoe and headed toward the house and the few hours’ sleep awaiting him there. I am not going to let him do this, he thought as he stepped onto the porch, opened the door, and headed to the couch in the front room. That boy needs to know what happened, and Gary Wayne won’t go on without me. He knows he needs my help to handle Lancaster.
IV.
Lancaster and Gary Wayne rode east for days, sometimes following Greene’s back trail, sometimes looking for it, sometimes trusting in Providence and riding on nothing but the hope of going in the right direction. One morning, after they had traveled a full week, and as they drew within a day’s ride to Abilene, as Gary Wayne hunkered over the smoldering embers of the previous night’s fire brewing coffee in a t
in coffee pot, he looked up to find three tow-headed women standing opposite the fire ring.
“Hey, Lank,” he called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes of the newcomers. “We got company.”
“Will you please, help us?” The oldest of the ladies, perhaps sixty years old by the look of her, moved her hands slowly as if she were patting two dogs’ heads. Gary Wayne felt his suspicious caution fading.
“Our lives are in danger,” the second woman, in her mid-thirties was Gary Wayne’s guess, explained. She, too, was patting invisible dogs.
“We ran from a man who wanted us dead,” The youngest girl couldn’t have been more than fifteen at the outside. She moved her hands in exactly the same way as her companions. “He wasn’t going to stop till he had us all strung out behind his horse.”
The longer Gary Wayne looked at them, the more at ease he felt. Sure, they seemed to appear in the camp out of nowhere, but that was just plain foolishness as anyone would tell you. No one just comes from nowhere, especially three beautiful women in the desert.
“Who is it?” Lancaster called from where they had hitched the horses beside a shallow stream. “Where’d they come from?”
“Norns,” Gary Wayne replied almost to himself, though he did not recognize the word. “They did not come from nowhere.”
Lancaster came up, pulling his white jacket on as he walked. His hair was damp. He smiled at each lady in turn and bowed at the oldest. They responded in kind.
“Top o’the marnin’, ladies,” he said as he buttoned his jacket, all but the bottom button. “Will you be wantin’ some coffee? If not I’m sure the laddie’ll be more than happy to wet the tea for you.”
The oldest lady turned to Lancaster, but instead of patting the invisible dog, she began to make pushing gestures with her hands, as if she were repulsing an awkward advance. The other two followed suit.
“Will you please help us?” the old woman repeated.
“Our lives are in danger,” continued the middle one.
“We ran from a man who wanted us dead,” finished the youngest.
Lancaster’s smile wavered but a second. He stared at the women’s hands pushing air.
“Are ye fashed or summat?” he asked nodding to the hands. “can ye not stop that?”
The older woman nodded, and her companions lowered their hands. Gary Wayne felt himself growing leery of the women but allowed his mentor to take the lead.
“Now,” Lancaster said, bending over Gary Wayne to reach the coffee pot, “About the coffee,” he slowly poured coffee into one of the two cups Gary Wayne had warming by the coals, “Will ye be wanting any?” He then offered the cup to the old woman who shook her head slightly.
“No,” she replied, “We will not be wanting any. Thank you kindly.”
“As ye will,” Lancaster took a long sip from the cup and nodded approvingly. Gary Wayne then filled the second cup and began sipping it cautiously, his eyes moving back and forth from the women to Lancaster.
“Well, then,” Lancaster said as if he had just come to an important decision, “My name’s Lancaster O’Loch, and this young gentleman is Gary Wayne Orkney. Who might you be?”
“My name is Beatrice Morrigan,” the middle woman replied and nodded to her older companion. “This is my older sister, Willah, and this,” she gestured to the girl, “is our younger sister Bennah.”
Lancaster nodded to each woman as she was introduced. “And what may we help you with?” he asked when Beatrice had finished.
It was Bennah, though, who answered. “We wanted to ask you for help.”
“There is a man, Bart Selleck,” Beatrice interrupted her sister and calmly laid her hand on her shoulder, “who wants to do us a grievous harm.”
“Huh,” Lancaster took another thoughtful sip from his mug, glancing at Gary Wayne, who sat by the fire warming his face on the coffee’s steam and never taking eyes off their three visitors. “And why d’ye reckon he wants to be doin’ that?”
“He is an evil man,” Beatrice replied, “He …”
“He killed our family,” Bennah interjected, a fierce gleam in her eye. “Our aunts, our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. We did nothing to him. He came to our village like a storm, scattering us to the four winds. Those he caught, he …” Bennah’s voice broke with emotion, unable to form the words.
“He is no gentleman,” Beatrice said softly. “He has little honor.”
Both men waited patiently for them to finish their tale, Gary Wayne silently sipping coffee and considering the women. I should pity them, he thought. Feel some kind of outrage. There is something not squaring, though.
Bennah swallowed hard and looked again at Lancaster and Gary Wayne. “When he finished with them, he killed them,” she continued softly, as if in a trance, “right there, on the ground, their clothes all a-tangle, weeping and beaten. He put a bullet in their heads if they were lucky. Others he left squalling over their loss and their shame and their dead, and he took another and another and another.”
Lancaster sighed, “Where were your men?” he asked. “Surely, someone fought back.”
“The like of us,” Beatrice replied, “have no men. We are alone on the plains with nought but our wits to protect us.”
“And our wits,” Bennah added, “were a thin shield that day.”
“Yes,” Gary Wayne added, “but a whole village, even a village of nought but women…”
“When you watch your own children die,” Willah glared at Gary Wayne, and he could not meet her eyes, “your own family, perhaps, you will see. Then you can come back and tell us how to fight a force you cannot withstand while you watch your children perish in agony.”
“But why?” Lancaster added. “Why would he do this? What was his reason?”
“Why?” Beatrice looked quizzically at Lancaster with a patronizing smile, “Why does the tornado rip a church apart, yet leave the gallows standing? Why does a wildfire burn the field and not the bramble? Why are the Buffalo disappearing?” She gave a hollow chuckle. “Why ask why? The reason does not change the action. Our family is still dead. Will we weep the less for it if we understand why?”
“He said we were witches,” Bennah added. “I suppose that was as good a reason for him as any.”
And are you? Gary Wayne wondered, taking another sip of coffee.
“He will kill again,” Willah added, shaking her head sadly. “He will keep trying to kill us because he hates women.”
Beatrice nodded. “He is a beast,” she said looking fiercely at Lancaster. Gary Wayne, seeing this, quietly set his mug down and slowly moved his hand to his side, near his gun. “He must be put down before he kills us all.” Beatrice glanced unconcernedly at Gary Wayne and smiled thinly.
Lancaster cleared his throat. “Well, now,” he said. “How d’ye know we an’t harriers ourselves?” Lank caught Gary Wayne’s eye and almost imperceptibly shook his head. No, lad, his look said, we are still in control here. Be at ease, but stay vigilant. Gary Wayne moved his hand to his lap. “We could be beastly killers, too, for all ye ken.”
“You came from Bretton,” Bennah said before Beatrice could reply.
“You are Ardiss’ men,” Beatrice added, almost as a question.
“You will not harm the like of us,” Willah smiled. “It would not fit your characters.” She turned to Gary Wayne. “Yours least of all.”
“Aye, well,” Lancaster held both hands out with a shrug and a bow, “I cannae argue with that.” He winked at Gary Wayne then smiled thinly at the three women. “So how exactly d’ye suggest we help you, damsels?”
Willah looked gravely at Lancaster and swept her gaze to Gary Wayne, whose eyes glared at her over the rim of his mug as he took another sip of coffee. “He will ride by here soon,” she said.
“He is close on our trail,” Beatrice interrupted.
“Has been for days,” Bennah put in.
Willah spared a slightly irritated look for her companions, then turned back to Lancaster
. “You should wait in ambush for him,” she advised. “and then kill him as he passes.”
Gary Wayne spit coffee at his feet and glared at Lancaster. “Ambush him?” he seemed dumbfounded. “Lancaster, now, I will not be a party to…”
Lancaster again gave his apprentice a stare and shook his head slightly. Gary Wayne stopped in mid-sentence and stared coldly at the three women.
“There is a stand of yucca just over the horizon,” Beatrice added. “
“It will make an adequate hiding place,” Willah continued. “He will be here soon. If you hurry, you will reach it on foot before Selleck arrives.”
“You should leave now,” Beatrice added.
“Should’ve left already,” Bennah mumbled.
“I do not like this, Lancaster,” Gary Wayne muttered as he drew his LeMatt and hunkered down behind the stand of yucca. “I don’t cotton to back-shooting a man,” he added, giving his mentor as hard a stare as he could manage. “Don’t care how many women he is supposed to have despoiled and killed. It is a coward’s way.”
“Agreed,” Lancaster said quietly, hunkering down himself. “Though that didn’t seem to fash ye in the case of Nat Greene. Ye shot him in the back easy enough, it seemed.”
“That was different,” Gary Wayne said earnestly, “and you damn well know it. He was about to kill Ardiss. Greene had to be expecting somebody to try something; the man is no fool, obviously. This man will not be expecting an ambush…”
“Nae much of an ambush if he were.”
“That’s the difference.”
“Well, laddie,” Lancaster replied, “I cannae fault your reasoning, but I will point out this man allegedly raped and killed near an entire village of women.”
“Makes no difference, Lank,” Gary Wayne was adamant. “If I aim to kill a man, I reckon I aim to shoot him from the front unless there is no other choice. We got a choice here.”
“Agreed,” Lancaster repeated.
“If he even did all that,” Gary Wayne muttered more to himself.
Guns of the Waste Land: Departure: Volumes 1-2 Page 11