Broken Angel

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Perfect.

  As perfect as the injury on Mason’s head. Who wouldn’t believe Mason’s version of the events now?

  But he needed Carney around to believe those events. Another kill he’d have to put off for the greater pleasure of getting Outside. Because what was far from perfect was the fact that the girl was gone.

  Mason popped open the clasp of the door to the feed room.

  The big man who managed the stable was conscious again, coughing and struggling against the twine that bound him.

  “Fire,” Mason said.

  “Cut me loose,” the man said. “I can help you with Carney.”

  “Can’t. The boy that set the fire stole my knife.”

  Mason had no intention of coming back, but if the man somehow survived, Mason didn’t want a witness to put him in an awkward spot. “I’ll come back for you.”

  With his good hand, Mason grabbed Sheriff Carney by the ankle.

  Mason dragged him out of the room toward the livery doors. All he needed to do was get Carney to the ground outside, but he wanted to be seen on the surveillance camera, and dragging him the extra fifteen yards took so long that when Mason turned back to the livery, the flames inside were dangerously high.

  Good, Mason thought. Now, if it came down to it, nobody could fault him for staying out in the open. In a minute or two, it would be too late for anyone else to rescue the stable man.

  Which meant Billy would be wanted for arson. And murder.

  TWENTY-ONE

  There was enough moonlight to give Caitlyn a clear view of the road. She wished she could put the horse into a gallop. Even a trot. But she was too keenly aware that she and Theo were fugitives, out after curfew, and afraid that the sound of thudding hooves would draw attention.

  “I like the moonlight.” Theo sat in front of her on the horse. “In the factory, we never saw the moon or stars.”

  He was leaning back, and she had wrapped an arm around him because he was shivering so badly, but she held the reins in her right hand.

  “Hush,” Caitlyn said. Any noise unnerved her, even with the sound of the fire engine sirens echoing through the valley. Her focus was on escape. When they cleared the edge of town, she could risk putting the horse into a trot.

  The moon cast shadows, and the paved road ahead looked like a pale ribbon that disappeared at the curve of the hill. If she turned in the saddle, she’d be able to see the glow of a fire behind them. The livery. It wasn’t her concern, she told herself, and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.

  Her attention returned to Theo’s shivering. She realized she’d been too harsh. Would it really endanger them if they whispered a conversation?

  “You were brave in the livery,” she said. “You rescued me like a hero.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  She could almost feel him grinning. Little rascal.

  “What number after 941 can only be divided by one and itself?” she asked.

  Maybe that would put the boy to sleep. There were hours ahead of them, lonely travel on the road. If Theo slept, maybe his shivering would end.

  “You really want to know?” he asked. “Really?”

  “Really.” Caitlyn smiled in the dark.

  “Then I’ll figure it out and tell you.”

  For a moment, it seemed peaceful. Without the past and the future on each side of this moment, it would have been idyllic. But the past and the future were inescapable—and were immediately imposing on the tranquillity.

  “What’s that?” Theo said, sitting straighter. “I hear something.”

  Caitlyn pulled the reins. Too late. A man on horseback came out of the trees and blocked the road.

  He was armed the way Mason had been armed. Shotgun. He swung it up and pointed it at the horse.

  Finally. A decision easy for Billy to make.

  He’d been following the girl and the boy, staying back far enough not to be seen, wondering exactly how to ask for help without scaring them.

  He needed them as witnesses because Mason was right. The surveillance camera did show Billy to be guilty. But to arrest the girl and the boy would be breaking his word. Maybe there was a way, though, that Sheriff Carney wouldn’t arrest them. Carney would take away Billy’s badge for letting the fugitives go, and Billy could be relieved of his law enforcement duties, maybe even go back to work in the livery. Except it was burned down now, so he’d have to find other work until it was built again.

  Billy felt like it’d been a lot of thinking for him, while walking and half jogging to stay close enough to the horse not to lose the fugitives, but far enough back so they didn’t know he was there.

  They’d turned around, though. Riding just ahead of another man on horseback, also with a shotgun like Mason Lee’s.

  Billy had no doubt this was a bounty hunter in Mason Lee’s gang. A whole band of them were in town. That meant Mason would soon enough have the young woman captive again. Billy also had no doubt that Mason would kill her, if for no other reason than she was a witness to the events in the livery.

  Billy stepped into the shadows behind a tree as they approached. He wasn’t armed, but he’d have to stop the bounty hunter.

  The woman and the boy on the horse passed the tree. Then came the bounty hunter on his horse, holding the shotgun.

  Billy turned sideways. The tree probably wasn’t wide enough to hide him completely during the day, but the branches would serve as a shroud. He crouched to push off, and he ran forward on his toes, staying bent, coming up behind the horse. A slight scuffing of his shoes on the ground gave him away. The bounty hunter reacted too slowly as he tried to turn in his saddle, and by then Billy was close enough that the hunter couldn’t get the shotgun barrel around and between them in time.

  One handed, with a powerful heave, Billy grabbed the man by the back of his collar and yanked hard, pulling him loose from the saddle. For a moment, the man hung there, feet flailing. With his other hand, Billy found the shotgun and yanked it loose from the man’s grip.

  Without letting go of the man’s collar, he let the man fall to his feet. Billy threw the shotgun away, so he had a free hand.

  The man twisted but couldn’t get loose. He swung at Billy with a wide punch that Billy caught in the center of his palm. The smack of flesh echoed.

  Billy held the man’s fist.

  “Stop,” Billy said. “I don’t like hurting people.”

  The bounty hunter tried to kick Billy’s knee, but his shifting of balance was enough to alert Billy, and with his iron grip on the man’s fist, Billy jerked him sideways.

  The man kicked at Billy’s crotch. When Billy turned and took the blow on his hip, the hunter threw his other fist, catching Billy’s eye socket. It felt like his eyeball had exploded in a flash of white. Something else was white too, the explosion of rage inside Billy.

  Time and again he’d been pushed around and beat up and mocked. No more. No more pain. As the next fist came swinging in, Billy blocked it with his bicep. He let go of the man’s other fist, and for the first time in his life, he threw a counterpunch, hooking it into the man’s ribs.

  The audible crack surprised Billy. The man sagged.

  But it wasn’t enough. Billy hooked another one around, pounding the man’s head with the side of his fist. As the man was falling, Billy grabbed with both hands and tossed him like a sack of feed.

  There was a horrible thump. The man didn’t move.

  Billy’s rage immediately became remorse. But he turned to the bounty hunter’s horse, which had sidestepped away in confusion. Billy grabbed the loose reins and pulled it close.

  He discovered he was panting, amazed and perplexed and sorrowful at what he’d inflicted on the bounty hunter.

  “Wow,” the boy said, teeth chattering. “Do that again.”

  Billy didn’t have time to answer. The young woman pushed Theo against the mane, goaded the horse, and sent it into a gallop.

  No time to think either. Billy pulled h
imself into the saddle of the bounty hunter’s horse and began chasing the two fugitives. It took him a couple of seconds to get into the rhythm of the gallop.

  Slowly he closed the gap but only because the woman on the other horse was fighting to keep the boy in the saddle. Then the boy fell.

  A moment later, she eased out of the gallop and pulled her horse to a stop.

  “Keep it walking,” Billy said. “Let it cool down. We’ll turn it back to Theo.”

  She hesitated, as if preferring defiance, then kicked the horse’s ribs to nudge it forward and away from him.

  “I’m all right!” Theo yelled from behind them. “Really.”

  “You,” the young woman accused. “You made a promise not to chase us.”

  “I did.” Billy thought of the unconscious bounty hunter behind them. Or maybe the man was dead. Even if witnesses cleared him of setting the fire, how could he explain that?

  “I just want you to record something on my vidpod,” Billy said. The horses were breathing hard. “So Sheriff Carney will know what really happened in the livery. ’Cause the cameras make me look guilty. That’s all. And now that I might have killed one of Mason Lee’s bounty hunters…how will anyone believe me if you don’t help?”

  Billy looked at the girl, waiting for her answer. He held his breath. If he went back to town without something from her, it’d be worse than losing his deputy badge. He’d probably be sent to a factory.

  Theo reached them. “Don’t want to do that again!”

  Caitlyn ignored Theo and cocked her head. “What’s your name?”

  “Billy Jasper.”

  “Billy, you think anyone is going to believe anything I say, on the vidpod or even in person? Someone that Mason Lee is chasing? Think they’re going to believe that a near-blind kid climbed the rafters and dropped a rock on his head?”

  She was right. And better at thinking than Billy. His hopelessness overwhelmed him. “What do I do?”

  “Forcing us to go back won’t help you.”

  For the first time that he could remember, a decision came to Billy with suddenness and clarity. It almost stunned him. It certainly frightened him—but there was no other way.

  “Let me come with you two,” Billy said.

  “You don’t know where we’re going.”

  “I know you can’t go back. I can’t either.”

  For several long moments, she studied him. Billy held his breath again.

  “Hand me your vidpod.”

  He was surprised at how much her answer disappointed him. He’d been ready to change his life with that simple decision. Now he’d have to go back and hope her testimony would protect him from the factory.

  He unclipped the device from his belt. She held her hand out for it. Instead of speaking into it, with a quick movement of her cloaked arm, she flung it into the trees.

  It was far more shocking to Billy than if she’d pulled out a shotgun. He couldn’t even react by speaking.

  “There it is, Billy Jasper. You can go look for your vidpod. Or you can join us.”

  * * *

  DAY THREE

  Caitlyn, unlike you, I could not entirely endure the solitude inflicted upon us by the deep and rugged valleys of the Appalachians. In the years before we joined the collective, on Sundays, at times, I would lock the door and leave you in the cabin for a few hours and go to church. I first went because it was the safest way to lose myself anonymously in a small crowd; I could listen to others and make small talk when pressed, without placing myself into an intimate conversation or friendship. The music offered distraction. I enjoyed listening to unsophisticated preachers and dissecting their sermons for errors in logic, syntax, science, and omission. That was my weekly entertainment. Yet truth is a diamond; even mishandled, smeared with grease, or buried in mud, it cannot be marred and waits for one with a cloth to polish it clean. That was how God spoke to me again. Through those ignorant preachers. I finally understood, despite their manipulative distortions.

  As a scientist, I had never found it difficult to acknowledge that there was a Creator behind this universe—the marvels of DNA, the exquisite dance of electron and proton, the boggling forces of gravity and light; all of it forced many of us in science away from agnosticism. Yet to comprehend that this Creator loved us more deeply than I loved you, Caitlyn, gave my life renewed meaning.

  Deep in the Appalachians, I had found the most important diamond any man can find—God loved me and forgave me, even with you as a daily reminder of how terribly I had sinned…

  * * *

  TWENTY-TWO

  As the fog of morphine faded, Jordan’s nerves shrieked with a pain that brought him back to consciousness. His throat was so constricted, it felt like each breath was a red-hot iron into his lungs. His body raged with thirst. His muscles were like heavy granite, and he couldn’t even turn his head.

  He was on his back. Narrow cracks of light pierced the darkness around him. Trying to make sense of it, he blinked.

  He willed himself to lift his right hand. Nothing.

  It wasn’t only that he was constricted by bindings. His hand simply would not move. Nor his fingers. No amount of willpower could force them to wiggle in the slightest. Nor his toes.

  He tried to speak into the darkness. But his jaws were slack, his vocal cords mute. He was totally paralyzed.

  Yet Jordan’s nerves registered enough sensory awareness to feel where the weight of his body pressed on his back and his buttocks and his legs. He realized, too, that even if he could speak, there was a gag around his mouth.

  If he was paralyzed, why did he still have sensations? What had happened? He remembered the dogs rushing toward him, remembered bits and pieces of moving through the night as he alternated between consciousness and the welcome relief of a black void without time. He even remembered a bed and a man leaning over him. Then the black timeless void again. Until now.

  More blinking as he ignored the screaming pain and tried to make sense of where he was.

  His vision became accustomed to the darkness, and he could see peripherally that whatever enclosed him was hardly more than the width of his body.

  As if he’d been put in a cheap, unlined coffin.

  “I heard people just disappear,” Theo said. He was on the horse, now sitting behind Caitlyn, his hands gripping the sides of her cloak. “Or they become floaters. But no one explained that. What’s a floater?”

  Billy led the horse by the reins, walking. After taking care of the bounty hunter, he’d walked all night, letting Caitlyn and Theo sleep in the saddle.

  “There’s a dam as part of the divide,” Caitlyn said. “One of the rivers that feeds the lake comes from the Clan area. It’s how the Clan gets rid of people who enter their valley. Strapped on planks of wood, floating down to the lake on the river. Floaters.”

  The sky was just beginning to turn from black into the first shades of gray, showing the dark outlines of the tops of the mountains on each side of the narrow valley.

  “What about people who disappear?” Theo asked. He still shivered, as if morning could be nudged along by shaking it. “Do they make it out? How do they make it out?”

  “I don’t have the answers. Billy? What do you know?”

  Caitlyn watched Billy’s broad back leading their way. She felt warm gratitude at his uncomplaining endurance. She’d been awake for a while in the saddle, holding the unregistered vidpod in her other hand to establish their position.

  Billy turned toward her but smiled shyly and ducked his head, unable to meet her eyes. “Don’t know. Nobody knows how the Clan does it…or if they do, really. Sheriff Carney says it’s all just stories. But if someone makes it Outside, we’d never know, right?”

  His first words, all night.

  He smiled again. She felt compassion and wanted him to relax. “I’m glad you’re with us.”

  “Where are we?” Billy asked, as if unable to accept a compliment.

  Without road signs and vidpod GPS, an a
rtificial software voice directing them, Caitlyn knew he couldn’t tell. But the GPS signals gave the location to both those traveling—and those watching them.

  “I’d rather not tell you,” Caitlyn said. “But we’re almost ready to go up into the hills.”

  A half mile ahead, according to her vidpod, maybe twenty more minutes of travel, there would be a fork, with one road leading into an even narrower valley. It wasn’t much of a margin. In less than half an hour, nightly curfew would be lifted, and other travelers would be on the road.

  “She’s like that,” Theo mumbled. “She keeps secrets.”

  “I have to,” Caitlyn said.

  “Why?” Billy asked.

  Caitlyn didn’t answer. She was doing her best not to think of all the reasons, not to think of Papa, not to think about what they were fleeing or what was ahead. She wanted to stay numb, without allowing the weight of the seriousness to push through and allow the grief to cut at her again.

  Theo leaned forward. Although the early morning air was humid and warm, his teeth chattered as he spoke. “All of it’s secret. Who she is. Why the bounty hunter wants her. She doesn’t really want us with her, but she’s afraid if she doesn’t keep us near, we’ll tell the authorities the last place we saw her.”

  “Is that true?” Billy asked her. She saw by his wide, honest face that there was no possibility of guile ever hiding his thoughts.

  “I don’t know why Mason Lee wants me, but as you can see, it’s not to be friends.” A slight shiver took her as she remembered the knife plucking at the fabric above her belly, the hot breath of the bounty hunter, and the unnatural excitement gleaming in his eyes.

  Billy waited a few seconds. “And the rest of it? That you don’t want us?”