They left Pit, Shepherd, and the rest of the Hound branch of the Caldwells to their sorrow in the cemetery. Drifter pulled Jo and Appetite away from mingling with the rest of the family, staring with those hard eyes over his shoulder at the group of men and women huddled around the grave.
“It’s a dang insult.”
“What?”
“They sent us the body this mornin’,” Drifter said. “Like they’re better people after they killed Pit’s boy. Like it was some sorta mistake. Like it was some sorta joke. This ain’t a joke.”
“Pa, calm down,” Jo said in a low, careful voice.
“I’m tryin’ to keep face, Jo. I really am. But I’m close to losing it in front of everybody.” The thick accent of their clan continued to grow harsher and harsher in his tone, his face turning redder than a fresh radish. “What were they doing out there anyway? They know not to mess with things they can’t handle. Everyone knows the rules. Everyone.”
“They’re young, you can’t expect them to follow rules. I didn’t at their age.” Appetite felt small all over again. For a second, he wasn’t the massive man over three hundred pounds and close to seven feet tall. He wilted to the small chubby boy with a mop of red-brown hair faltering under the gaze of a father on the porch after doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Done messed up now, he thought as he saw his father’s face remained unchanged in his wrath. Appetite coughed, trying his hardest to stand up straight. “I was just sayin’ that young people aren’t known for playing by the rules, Pa. No need to give me the death stare.”
“I--” Drifter frowned, shaking his head. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
“Perhaps you need to sit, come on. We’ll make something.”
The throng of the rest of the family hadn’t subsided. Though the Hounds remained under the cold overcrop, everyone else was scattered again among Appetite’s and Drifter’s yards. Doc and Big Thunder sat at a plastic table with their children and grandchildren, a miniature clan within a clan. Their discussion of theories and politics served as a stable ground in these reunions. Today, they spoke in hushed tones instead of their normal heated voices. Appetite almost wished they bickered instead. This odd brooding didn’t fit the family. It’s what the Bluecoats want, Appetite thought. We aren’t ourselves. He pondered that thought all the way to the porch. The Caldwells didn’t brood, stew for revenge, and fight things they didn’t have a chance of winning. They wrangled a good time out of nothing, even at the worst of times. He stroked his chin again.
Appetite lumbered onto the porch to rearrange the plastic chairs. Drifter heaved a radio onto the table before sitting down and turning the big black dial. He tuned the radio signal for a moment, lingering over one channel, then the next. He settled on where he always did - Loner’s radio channel. Loner broadcasted from his outpost, serving as a news and music outlet. An old song filled the air, one of Drifter’s and Pit’s favorites - not a sad song; some might even call it upbeat. Though he was a quiet hermit, Loner knew his family and what they needed from him. Thanks for that, Evan. Perhaps they weren’t as good at putting stuff behind them as they thought. Drifter reclined in chair, color returning his face with each second.
Jo appeared again with a pitcher of lemonade for the three of them. She smiled and sat down. “There’s our pa,” she said, putting a hand on their father’s shoulder. “Calm down.”
“I didn’t mean to blow up on ya. It’s been awhile since we lost one of our own folk. Kinda a sour spot.” Drifter poured himself a lemonade. He drank the whole cup. “There’s things that I haven’t told you. People you don’t remember. I ain’t ready to talk ‘bout it yet. Some people don’t like us very much because of what we can do. We’re different. Something they don’t want to talk about.” Drifter eyed the crashed, rusted spaceship on the edge of the Homestead. He hadn’t ever talked much about that ship; all Appetite knew was that Drifter and his brothers came to the planet on it and never left.
Drifter poured another cup. “That life ain’t for y’all. It’s something we left behind.”
“We’re still caught up in it though.” Appetite shrugged. “This is gonna hurt. It always does.” He looked over the throng of people back to the cave on the other side. The crippling fear of his own child in that graveyard filled his chest once again, deep enough to claw a hole in his ribs. What would you be doing right now if that was the case? You wouldn’t be just sad. You would want to boil their bones too. “I’ve never asked about the Bluecoats, Pa. I know who they work for.”
Drifter’s body grew rigid for a second, followed by a savage toothy smile. He said nothing.
Up until now, the Civilization hadn’t messed with C’dar or, more importantly, its people. The Bluecoats were their military, their strong arm. Their presence on this planet was scarce enough to be considered a police or military force. They brought things to the planet, and they suffered through the thefts. This was different. They wanted them gone this time. Appetite remembered the fear on Kindle’s face when she saw the Major. Appetite felt it too. He remembered the dark words of his mother in all this. They had clung to him that night as tight as they did now.
“You think they want us dead?” Appetite asked. “For what? For being their--”
“Experiments.”
Kindle stood on the foot of the porch with tired eyes. She hadn’t slept well, he saw it in her eyes. She wandered over to her grandfather, wrapping a single arm around him. She did the same to her aunt and finally came around to him. She plopped in the chair. Appetite rubbed his fingers through her hair, grinning. “Hey champ. You missed the funeral.”
“ I know. I’m here, ain’t I?” She shook her head. “What are we to them? The Bluecoats?”
“A mistake.” Drifter shrugged. “They meddled with my parents and their parents and their parents and created us after a time. Hadn’t thought much ’bout it. Didn’t care. We’re kinda the smudge on the Civilization’s swanky record. Didn’t think that it was important enough to get their attention like we have. But eh. It is what it is.” His face turned serious for a moment. “I appreciate what you did, Cassie. You kept them safe as best you could. You got a lot of this old man in ya, that’s for sure.”
“Yuuup,” Appetite said with a sigh. Too much of her grandpa, some might say.
“But be careful from now on, y’hear. Don’t go running off like that without your pa or myself. I would’ve been happy to check out the lake with ya if you only asked. We gotta stay together. It’s our only strength.”
“What are we gonna do now?” Kindle asked.
“That’s a fair question,” Jo said, sipping more of her lemonade and leaning forward. “It won’t be long before the family turns to you, Pa.”
“I’ve been thinking ’bout it. Wood mentioned something interestin’ before this all happened. They brought stuff with ’em, right? We can give ’em hell for messing with us and maybe get a lil out of it too. Make it worth our while, I say.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” Jo said with a grin.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that at all.” Appetite heaved his daughter upwards with the ease of a man handling a child. She groaned. “You need to pay your respects. I’ll go with you if you want.”
Kindle shook her head. “I want to stay for a bit longer. I - I can’t go right now. I can’t see him.”
“You couldn’t have done anything better, sweetie.” Jo grabbed Kindle’s hand, smiling.“You did the best you could. Better even, from the sound of it. You can’t save everyone; a good way to drive yourself crazy is thinking like that. I know from experience.” Appetite saw the brief longing in his sister’s eyes of a lost past and a simpler life. The love of her life rested in that place too. We're a mess, aren’t we, Jo? It made Appetite think of his love - not dead, but as lost to him as if she was. “You can’t change what happened. You have to live on for the sake of them. That’s the best you can do.”
The rigidness locked into Kindle
’s shoulders softened with the thought. She had seen death before; it wasn’t something completely unknown out here. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less. This was someone she had grown up with, much different than seeing an old relative you hadn’t known pass away. She had watched her cousin die. Moments like that stuck with you, made you who you are. She softened a little more, resting and breathing. She wasn’t ready to go to the grave still. Appetite respected that.
“Hey champ, wanna walk your old man back to our place? Starting to feel like I’m lookin’ right now.” He gave her a small nudge, groaning and leaning forward. A sharp crack of twisted plastic rippled underneath them. “Alright get up, don’t think this chair can take much more, buddy.” He shooed Kindle out of the chair before heaving himself out of it. The chair didn’t last long after that, falling apart and leaving its twisted remains crumpling to the porch. He stared at it for a moment and shook his head. We need better chairs, he thought with mild embarrassment.
Only a few of the family members had the audacity to laugh; the rest knew better. Today, Appetite let it slide. Kindle almost didn’t though. Her nostrils flared and she balled her fists. He shook his head, catching her by the arm. Not worth it today, too tired for that crap. Let ‘em laugh, give them something to talk about.
Appetite waved his goodbyes and headed back to his home, Kindle in tow. The family was slowly gaining their livelihood back. Big Thunder had brought out crates of beer and moonshine, and it broke the monotony of today’s drag. Laughter rose among his people, contagious to the rest of the branches of the family like a happy sickness. They would recover.
Right now, Appetite needed to get away from it all. There was too much going on in his head. He loved his family, but having too many people around made his head spin. Loner was onto something with the staying to himself thing.
Weary, Appetite and Kindle returned to their cabin. The thick walls gave him some degree of quiet; only the loudest of shouts from his increasingly drunk family members seeped through. Kindle said nothing for a while, walking to their lone dining table. She swiped something off of it and handed it to him.
What’s this, kiddo? he thought to ask. The words never came out. Her stone-serious face squeezed it from his mouth. Her eyes were sharp enough to cut glass.
Appetite held the letter she had given him, feeling the oddness of paper in his hand. The letter was unmarked, a water stain on the page as a signature postage. He caught a faint whiff of old wood, fungus, and swamp water on the page. Familiar smells. His heart lurched in his chest. How or when this letter got here, he didn’t know. Weirder things happened around the folks where this letter came from.
“It’s from my other grandpa, isn’t it?” She had read the note, knew the name at the end. She asked all the same.
Appetite gave a soft nod, opening the letter with careful fingers. She said nothing else as he read the note. “He wants to meet at the Bayou.”
She had never been. In her fifteen years on this planet, she hadn’t gone down the mountain to see the Breauxs. She had heard stories of them, met with other families within the swamp. She avoided her kin, despite his best efforts to change that.
Appetite swallowed, feeling a tightness in his throat. An odd feeling all together. He could digest and swallow anything but this. He put the note down on the end table, the pristine cursive handwriting of Remy Breaux etched into his mind. There was a transcendental way the man spoke in a letter. When he asked you to come, you came, much like anyone on the planet would for the Augur of Owls. Crocodile’s Walk and its Crocodile was available to everyone on the planet on one condition: no weapons, no violence. That alone made visiting a scary thing for the Caldwells; that, and they didn’t quite like things they didn’t understand.
“Do you want to go?” Appetite asked carefully.
He expected her to say no. Maybe any other day, she would’ve. Today, she thought about it. Her eyes flicked to the people outside. “They’re my family too,” Kindle said in soft words. “I might never get another chance to meet them.”
Sad but true. “It’s better late than never. It’s about time for you meet the Crocodile.”
Chapter 5
A Somewhat Quiet Kinda Hoedown
Drifter
“Good times and bad times aren’t mutually exclusive. When you havin’ a bad time, sometimes you need to have a good one to balance it out.” -- Bobby Joe “Big Thunder” Caldwell
Bringing Bobby Joe Caldwell was a dang good idea, if Drifter thought so himself. They needed someone with his demeanor. Big Thunder was a very lively and excitable type of fellow, given to outbursts of all different types; he flicked through the radio channels like a child, unable decide what channel he wanted. On the opposite side of that boat, Pit brooded in the back of the truck, squeezed into the back corner like he always did in a bad mood - a bad habit that the old man still carried hard. He hadn’t uttered a full sentence since they started this little journey. His mood had improved a little since the funeral - he had only wished death, plague, or fire to everything in existence once today. Probably the best Drifter was gonna get outta him at the moment, but he enjoyed the time with his brother all the same. It reminded him of old times, long before they settled on the planet.
Good ol’ times and more to come. That’s why they were here, after all - to have a good time. Sometimes you needed to get out of the house and do something.
They drove down the main road, enjoying the day and looking for some mischief. It had been quiet, all things considered. The beds of their trucks were filled with surplus: ammo, weapons, and salvage of value from the Old World. That along with their illegal beverage trade was how they kept afloat in complete solitude. The Caldwells and the Breauxs were the only two major families and served as the pillars of humanity left on the planet, besides the growing military presence. There were other people on C’dar; nomads and scavengers, for the most part. They didn’t stay for long - either the planet got them or the people did.
Over several decades on the planet, they still hadn’t found everything of value. Whatever happened here had left marks on the world forever. The further away from the Dusk Mountains, the deeper the scars on the world became. Buildings rose all around them, broken and slanted with old shattered windows and chunks missing from their bodies like half-eaten corpses. More scraps of old rusted cars, hollowed out shuttles, and ancient first-model mechs littered the former city, gathering flora and ivy on their metal. A few determined hills devoured most of the city now, cutting through the once-metropolis with mounds of dirt and lines of trees.
Drifter didn’t know anything about how the Civilization and their colonies tore this world to pieces; nor did he care much, if he was gonna be honest. He’d found this planet off sheer dumb luck, filled with things the Civilization hadn’t cared about in years. Still, there was history involved here, things that might be mighty helpful one day.
Drifter focused on riding the hills, feeling the all-too familiar ups and downs underneath his wheels. Of course, this was a bit dangerous. His truck wasn’t built like Pit’s jeep or Big Thunder’s weird flying thingmabobs. It wasn’t made for this type of travel. The motor wheezed and the tires groaned with each conquered hill. Big Thunder cheered after every one, grinning and howling like a young child. Drifter spun around a corner, slamming into an old fence and crushing it as though it wasn’t even there. Though it dented the truck a bit, it was worth the small happy howl from the back of the truck, the first sound Pit had made that hadn’t been an angry growl or a curse. Already, today was a success.
“Oh, you’re not asleep back there,” Big Thunder said, leaning backwards and staring at his other brother with his dark almond-shaped eyes. He was a thick man like Appetite, though a bit more round and a lot shorter. He often reminded Drifter of a barrel. Every hair on his head and in his thin patchy beard had remained the silky black texture of his mother’s, a woman Drifter never knew. None of them shared both father and mother, which was wh
y they all looked remarkably different, but they were brothers all the same. “Good to see that you’re still with us, pal.”
“I’m still with ya,” Pit muttered. Drifter hit a hard bump. “Alright! Alright! I’m here. Don’t go off the deep end on me.”
Drifter grinned, adjusting his rear view mirror. What he saw was an upright Pit growling, brow furrowing and teeth bared. Age hadn’t done much to him either, come to think on it. He was as mean, angry, and intimidating as he was when he was in his teens and twenties. It made Drifter feel a kinda way, like time was reserved for creeping up on him alone.
He knew that wasn’t true, all in all. He had a lotta years left on him if his father was any indication, the bastard. Sometimes he wondered if he was still alive so he could stomp on his throat. He shook off the thought. There was a time and place to think about that.
“You need to get outta the house,” Drifter said. “Get your mind on something else for a while.”
Pit nodded. He sat a little straighter in the backseat, stretching his legs. “It doesn’t get easier.”
“It doesn’t,” Drifter agreed. He remembered Jo’s husband and son, his first grandson. He would’ve been a little older than Kindle if had made it. “It really doesn’t.” That wasn’t easy either. His brother and the rest of the family had brought him out of that stupor. He turned the wheel of the truck, leading them down a steadier path. The roads smoothed out to a broken asphalt road. “Sometimes, I wonder why we’re still here...but we can’t think on that.”
Dusk Mountain Blues Page 6