Only blood. Everywhere. On the trees. On the ground. In the air. Red on his metal robotic arm. Major Debenham hadn’t moved, or at least it didn’t look like it, yet Kindle only saw blood on his fist and a hole in Mastiff’s chest where his heart had been.
Dane howled. She would’ve rushed in too if Kindle hadn’t tackled her.
“I promised not to get involved, but,” Major Dedenham laughed, “I couldn’t keep myself. Look at your faces!” His laugh grew harder, to the point that he snorted. “Alright, alright, alright.” He calmly centered himself. “That might’ve been traumatizing for the rest of you.”
“We can’t. You can’t. He’ll kill us!” Kindle shouted, trying to keep the thrashing Dane calm. Where are you, Bulldog?
“That one’s smart. I like her. I would keep you alive if I could. Alas, that’s not my word. Captain Xan; thoughts?”
“Not much to add, sir. I just want them gone. Let them be a message for the rest of the Caldwells.”
Kindle felt her mind swimming. They were surrounded, no way back through the trees. Squads closed in on them on all sides. They were two women, trapped in a circle of men with weapons of all kinds. Captain Xan nodded to the men, their weapons raised.
They got me killed, Kindle couldn’t help but think. They got me killed. I should’ve never come. She imagined the bullets mowing her down, each individual pain piercing through her skin. An anger filled her, hotter than anything she’d ever felt. The anger went through her in a wave as she heard the familiar clicks of fingers against metal weapons.
She stepped forward. “This is our planet. What do you want?” Kindle asked. “What right do you have to be here?”
“Every right,” Captain Xan said. “It’s your family that doesn’t belong. You’re backwater experiments, nothing more. Firing squad - ”
An explosion of wood and splinters filled her ears as she saw him. Kindle gawked with wide eyes as her father’s massive footsteps hammered into the ground, as he ran like an ape monster from one of the Old Planet vids. He roared, his impossible long tongue whipping through the air, insanely sharp, stained-red teeth.
Appetite leapt and crunched down the men as though they weren’t even there. He shot one of his loaded bullets from Ham Bone, the pellets spraying in the commanding officer’s direction. The projectiles bounced off an electric blue portable shield, put up by Xan. That was all he needed; killing them would’ve been nice, but it wasn’t Woodrow Caldwell’s way.
Seamlessly, he tossed Ham Bone to Kindle, sweeping both her and Dane into his arms instead. And then, just like that, they were off with one of his massive jumps, sailing into the night air.
He carried them through the air, jumping and landing in a rhythmic beat. Kindle fired off one cover round from Ham Bone. The recoil alone almost dislocated her arm. Ignoring the pain, she slung Ham Bone over her aching shoulder to switch to her lighter-weight Coal again, firing off another few shots in mid air. It wasn’t about hitting targets, though given enough time, she could’ve. Coverfire was what they needed right now.
“Dane! Focus!” Kindle shouted.
“Matt’s back there…he’s…”
“He’s dead! And it’s--nevermind. You have a better weapon on you for the job.”
Appetite grunted in something that sounded like an approval.
Dane took a deep breath. That was her brother back there, dead on a forest floor with a hole in his chest. Kindle fought back tears herself. Time and place. Time and place. Dane seemed to realize this too. She fired off rounds from her rifle over Appetite’s back, laying down coverfire in a rain of bullets until they made it back to the Old Grounds. Only a few squads of Bluecoats followed them, the two commanding officers oddly uninterested in the pursuit.
Appetite paused in an empty clearing, puffing from exhaustion.
“You can stop, Papa. You didn’t eat enough today to keep this up.”
Appetite gave another grunt underneath the occasional burst of bullets.
“You have to stop now!”
“W’e’re...almost...there…” Appetite responded in his sluggish voice, taking off again.
They landed outside the Old Grounds near a collapsed multi-layered building. Bulldog sat in the front seat of the Hounds’ jeep. Vermin sat nearby in a large truck of his own. Appetite slowed his speed, the red fur on his arms, legs, and face slowly regressing. He huffed and grunted, allowing his daughter and cousin off his back, wandering over with slow steps to Vermin’s truck. Vermin handed him a box of protein bars, and Appetite ripped open cardboard and scarfed the contents, plastics and all.
He soon found his words and his breath. “What happened? Who was that?”
“Where’s Mastiff?” Bulldog added.
“He’s….dead,” Kindle choked. “Major Debenham killed him...I--I couldn’t do anything. I tried to tell them…”
“Not to go,” Dane whispered. “She told us not to go. It wasn’t her fault. We ...dragged her along.”
Appetite pulled Kindle into his arms and hugged her tight, kissed her on the head. In that small moment, she felt the hardened walls in her soul come crashing down. Emotions swelled in her stomach. Grief? Fear? Relief? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was happy to see her dad.
They held the embrace for a little longer and took a deep breath before breaking apart. Again, Kindle wanted to cry. She knew this wasn’t the time. The Bluecoats were still on their heels; it was only a matter of time before they closed that considerable gap Appetite had made.
“This ain’t like nothing I’ve seen before. Major Debenham and Captain Xan aren’t the run-of-the-mill boys we’ve been dealing with.” Kindle reloaded her weapon. “We have to get back to the Mountain. This isn’t something we can handle here.” She saw the shock on everyone’s faces. “We gonna have to go.”
“She’s right,” Appetite said after a small pause. “We gotta go now.”
Chapter 4
The Workings of a Patient Man
Appetite
“They want us dead and that’s unfortunate; whether for us or them, I can’t say, I reckon” - Montgomery “Moses” Caldwell
This was the drop of nitroglycerin, ready to blow their little world to pieces.
They hadn’t pursed them, hadn’t even cared to pass the first bend on the main road. Whether they knew the Caldwells had their own defenses or not was irrelevant. They hadn’t tried or bothered to find out. The Bluecoats knew where they lived, knew where they stayed. At any time, they could mount an offense on them. They had all the time in the world given their resources.
Appetite recognized the workings of a patient man. They would wait, and that alone left a bad taste in his mouth. Don’t look back. Gotta focus on what’s going on ahead. The only real regret he had was not getting Shepherd’s kid’s body back. If that was Kindle, I would’ve wanted the same. The very thought of her dead sent an indescribable anger shooting up his chest. She’s right beside you, he had to remind himself. She’s right beside you. He went to grab at her much smaller fingers, but she had grabbed his middle and index fingers instead. Appetite swallowed his tears and found he still didn’t like the taste of them.
They sat in silence in the bed of Vermin’s massive truck, staring up into the sky. Small threads of morning rose from over the horizon, the soft pink glow of the sun peeking over the belly of the world. Threads of stray light touched the horizon, bleaching the dark land in patches of pink and yellow here and there. Cool air breathed against Appetite’s bare shoulders and his face as they drove down the back roads leading up the mountain. They took the long way around through the Copperhead Plain and close to the Dusk Mountain Valley. The raw smell of vegetation hit them the moment they punched through the grassy lands. They drove through a field of orange poppies on their way, their petals torn into the air by the tires and gently drifting up by the wind. Appetite tried to think of the positives, see the beauty in all this, but he couldn’t find the effort. Not when his da
ughter struggled to even sleep.
Kindle thrashed in her sleep, kicking and shouting every so often. He watched her, frowning. He was there when she had colds, flus, and a rare virus known by the Breaux in the swamp as wild bloom. He remembered the last one clearly. That night was like this one, quiet and beautiful. Appetite had hated every second of it. That night had been the longest night of his life, watching her thrash out in pain, her thin broken breaths. He had brought her maternal grandfather up the mountain. It was one of the few times that tested his resolve to take things slow. There was nothing more tortuous than watching your child in pain. Physical pain or nightmares, it was the same.
He couldn’t bear it any longer. He nudged her awake.
“Pa…”
“I’m here.”
“I keep…” Kindle centered herself. Sometimes she didn’t allow herself to be a fifteen year old girl. “I keep seeing him. Everytime I close my eyes.”
“Yeah…” Appetite frowned. His thoughts drifted to the people that he had lost; cousins, nephews, nieces and friends. Of course his mind unwillingly went to her. She was living. She was only gone. To put her in the company of the dead...was both wrong and sickening.
He turned to his daughter, pressed his head on hers. “Don’t think that ain’t normal, buddy. You did good out there. Bulldog told me that without you, they might’ve died. And from what I saw, I agree. You kept your head there when no one else did. Ain’t no better leader than that.”
“I shouldn’t have gone in the first place.”
“Without you, though, they were dead.”
Kindle rubbed her raw red eyes. “How do you think Shepherd’s gonna take the news?”
“He’s not gonna take it well. He’s been wanting a war like this for years. He’s never been okay with the pot shots, the heists and the smuggling. Nothing satisfies him. This might put him and his pa over the edge. But we can’t fight the Bluecoats like they can fight us. There’re more of them than us. Now with these bigwigs on planet, we’re only in more trouble. We gotta play it smart.” Appetite tried to ignore his creeping headache and heavy eyelids. “Right now, I just wanna go home. That’s all I’m asking for.” He leaned his heavy body against the back window of the truck, only to get a rather irritated knock from the inside of the truck. “Hey! You don’t get to be annoyed, Vermin. I’m a big boy! Now shutya trap and keep your eyes on the road before we get in a dang wreck, ya dang fool.” He reclined in the truck bed further, wrapping his arm around his daughter. “Go ahead, take a nap, champ. Enjoy the ride, as best you can with this man’s terrible driving.”
Kindle laughed a weak laugh. She rested her head on her father’s chest and promptly fell asleep.
He was weak, too. His mutation left him tired beyond reason. For her safety, for her peace of mind, he would stay up all night if he had to. You would do the same for me, he thought with a smile. Appetite held her head and let his hero rest with the knowledge that her father would protect her. The cold air pressed his long, auburn hair against his neck and over his shoulders. The trees rolled by, the wind continued to blow, the moon shone as bright as it always did. He still felt wrong. The world felt wrong.
***
They stood over the remains of Matthew Caldwell the next cold morning.
Appetite had awoken in his recliner at his cabin, still clothed in the armor of yesterday’s debacle. He hadn’t bothered to clean himself up; he looked as grungy as he felt. His oily and sweaty hair clung to his forehead, stray beard on his lips. There was blood still on his armor, forcing him to change into whatever he had on hand. Wiggling out of his war clothes, he threw on his overalls and headed to his room for a few more z’s when he saw the crowd outside on the Homestead.
He wandered out rather underdressed, bare feet slapping against the wood of his porch and his hairy arms raising with goosebumps. Everyone was here; a rare display of the entire family. Appetite wandered over, wiping sleep from his eyes and drool from his mouth. That was when he saw the body of the young man lying on flattened grass, arms crossed, and pale as the snow on the caps of their mountains. At the forefront of the chaos was Buck Caldwell and Spencer Caldwell, the boy’s grandfather and father respectively. Anger boiled off the two men in thick waves, their eyes unwavering as they stared at the corpse as though hoping he would wake. An odd silence drifted between the core families, each huddled around a smoking bonfire. Appetite approached his pa in the crowd of kin, standing beside his sister Jo.
The Rancher Queen looked over her shoulder first and invited her brother into a hug. Appetite accepted it with grace.
“You look a mess, honey,” she said gently. They couldn’t have been more different. Though she almost matched his height, she was thin with a veil of golden hair, and much better-looking. She released her hug, turning back to the dead body of a boy forever lost in the prime of his life. “We’ve really messed up this time, haven’t we?” Her voice was soft against the whistling wind. “I’ve never seen Pit and Shepherd like this. I’m worried that they might lose their cool.” She tapped her boot against the dusty dirt road. “Pa and I was talking; if they do decide to go to war with the Bluecoats, we’ll most definitely lose. They haven’t colonized hundreds of planets by givin’ out birthday cards.”
Drifter nodded in a solemn silence, tugging his mesh green cap over his head.
“But,” Jo began again, “we can’t sit by and do nothing either. If we are gonna do something, we’re gonna have to play it smart and do what we do best.”
Appetite cocked an eyebrow. “And what’s that, Jo?”
“Be scoundrels.” She smiled. “Think about it: what’s got us to this point? We need to turn it up a bit. Reckon that we can pull that off.”
“That we can do,” Appetite agreed.
Drifter tapped his fingers against his lip, nodding. There was something chilly about how quiet he had been. Without a word, he walked in the direction of his brother.
Appetite and Jo tried their best to follow their father’s stride. There was a certain purpose to his walk as they followed him. Drifter came upon his younger brother, dwarfed by Pit’s size and mass. Pit’s hair hadn’t gone white with age; only his beard threatened the transition with its flecks of grey. Pit - or Buck, as his momma named him - towered over Drifter, beard to his navel and eyes the crimson color he passed down to all of his children. Beside him was his son Spencer “Shepherd” Caldwell, the father of the Hounds; tall and made of wiry muscle, his appearance looked to be forged from an underworld of some kind. There was a certain hate in both of their eyes when the branch of the senior Caldwell approached.
They blame us. Of course, there was nothing that any of them could’ve done to change what happened, but they dang well needed something to blame.
“He’s dead,” Pit began, staring blankly at his grandson’s body. “He’s dead, Luke. He’s dead with a hole punched in his chest. Why aren’t we burnin’ those Coats to the ground? I want their bones, Luke.”
“Buck.”
“Why are you calm ‘bout this? He was your family too. Or do you just don’t care ’cause it’s wasn’t K--”
“Buck.” Drifter repeated the name, this time with a sharpened tone. “Don’t you dare say that. He was like a grandkid of mine.”
“But Matt was my kid,” Shepherd said. Some voices grumbled. Others rumbled. His was the sound of a machine without oil, guttering out sentences in a deep tone. “He deserved his family, his own piece of the world. Not some plot in the ground before his old man. No one deserves that. I - ” The lines on the man’s face grew dark on his hard features. He dipped, cradling the body in his arms. “We’re burying him here on the Homestead. He deserves to be with rest of his folk.”
Drifter nodded and led the way.
Tucked in the far edge of the Homestead and below an overcrop was a graveyard for the family. Among the gravestones were lovers and kinfolk lost to sickness, age, or bullets. Some were marked, etched with the names of peo
ple Appetite did and didn’t recognize, including an aunt he hadn’t had the chance of meeting. Others remained blank slabs pressed into the old dirt, curling ivy and white flowers being their only decoration.
Wordlessly, Shepherd began digging the fresh grave. Appetite couldn’t help but notice he was digging beside his wife, Audrey. Shepherd had dug her grave himself, too, in the cold of winter and pelting rain, shoveling through the frozen dirt to lay his sweetie to rest. He wasn’t the same after that, nor did anyone expect him to be; but this felt different. Where before he raged, this time he was quietly and softly broken as he shoveled the plot.
Uncle Montgomery “Moses” Caldwell wandered in his hempen robe over to speak some words over the grave. His black robes and long grey dreads decorated with flowering weeds and bronze chains fluttered in the air around his neck. He stepped through the graves, careful of the mounds. Where the other brothers were territorial, vicious, or sly, he spoke of peace and honest work. That didn’t mean he was a foolish man in this harsh world. Appetite knew underneath the gentle smile, soft voice, and warm eyes was a man who knew where to shoot to kill a man. First and foremost, however, he was religious, with a simple but large family in the Valley.
Moses straightened his back, pulling a leather-bound book from the back pocket of his robe and saying a few words over the body.
It was the briefest of ceremonies.
When it came to funerals, the Caldwells didn’t dwell on it long. They didn’t dress up, they didn’t linger. As quickly as they dug the hole, put the young man in, and covered him with dirt, they were saying goodbye. One at a time, they placed a flower on his grave, picked from the nearby wildflowers growing in gardens around the cemetery. They each took one of the five colors, one for each branch of the Caldwells. Before long, the plot was covered from stone head to dirt toe with them. Uncle Moses bowed away, leaving a cyan flower signifying his family. Perhaps if he had died peacefully, they would’ve stayed longer and talked about his life and achievements, but hey didn’t dwell on things that they couldn’t fix; not when there were things that they could.
Dusk Mountain Blues Page 5