Dusk Mountain Blues

by Deston Munden

  “’Ey,” Appetite began. “Y’all doing alright?”

  “We’re managin’,” Dane said. She missed a chord in the song she was playing. Told him she was growing uncomfortable. She adjusted her fingers, her dark hair covering one side of her face in a crow feather-dark veil. Hadn’t slept well since this all started. Haunted was the only thing tougher than scarred.“Is this ’bout - ” Dane began to ask.

  Appetite wiped his brow of sweat.“No. No.”

  Bulldog made a face. He did look like his namesake; squashed face, beady eyes, and small nose.“Where’s Cassie?”

  “She’s with her other grandpa at the swamp right now. Learning a few things.”

  “Ah…” The two Hounds nodded.

  “I wanted to pull ya aside to tell you and your family that you don’t have to do it alone. My pa ain’t that good with things like that, not good at all. What I’m tryin’ to say is that, yeah we’re tough, but we don’t have to be quiet ’bout it. My pa and your granddad Pit, they aren’t used to talkin’ bout things. They keep it inside until it boils over outta their control. I want you to know that ain’t good. You’re better when you talk ’bout it. Cassie likes you guys and I won’t want her to come back to see y’all like that. So, don’t keep it inside. Let it out. I want y’all at your best too.” The two young pups nodded. They weren’t gonna do it now - too embarrassed. One day, though, they would. No rush in that.

  They shuffled away. Appetite watched their backs. They were good kids.

  “Hey, Woody.” Appetite turned his head to see Vermin grinning. The tall, four-armed man cocked his head and gave his cousin a quick punch in the shoulder. “What’s gotten into you, man? You sounded like your dad. Shucks, you have me believing we can do this.”

  “’Cause we can. All it takes is finding our footing.”

  Chapter 13

  Red-Touched Dreams

  Drifter

  “Burned. Bloodied. Beaten. Broken. The Daedal taught me what those meant. Gettin’ blasted reminded me of it. Don’t like it. Don’t like it at all.” -- Luke “Drifter” Caldwell

  Drifter hadn’t woken in days. He figured it was ’cause his dreams were usually shorter than this.

  Vivid dreams were a side effect from the dream waters of the stasis pods in his youth. This wasn’t for the comfort of the prisoners; more for the safety of the officers. Turned out that it was much easier to control a man after hours or days manipulating their dreams.

  Decades later, sleep still came with long streams of lucidity some nights he controlled it, others he didn’t. In the days locked within his own mind, he experienced a little of both this time - a twisting river of consciousness, writhing and coiling around bends and smashing into the shore of his own noggin. There were places he recognized, places he ain’t seen in years.

  Then there were places he hadn’t ever seen before in his many years in this galaxy. This part of the dream was one of those.

  Drifter looked around, feeling the air on his face and water underneath his toes. He caught his reflection on the waves. There was a younger man looking back at him - in his thirties, with long clay-red hair, bright eyes, and sunburnt, pox-scarred skin. Boy, he was a tall one, all wiry muscle and sinew. Had he gotten shorter?

  The red flare of his mustache twisted up into an uneven smile of chipped, yellow teeth. He still had that. Good thing, too. Seeing too much of his younger self without seeing something he recognized now would’ve been mighty disappointing. Drifter straightened his back, grinning like a dang fool.

  It’s a dream. But dang it felt good to be young again. He forgot that every moment hadn’t always come with a small sting of pain. Felt good. Felt real good.

  His dream led him to an open field not too different from the one at the bottom of the mountain. A small trail of smoke rose into the air, coming from deep within the sea of the grass. The blades of grass tickled the hairs of his arms as he walked. He heard the faint crackling of embers among the soft whistling of wind. There was a fire somewhere in the distance. The smell caught his nose a few times, the taste of clean smoke bitter on the roof of his mouth. He knew the taste of a camp or bonfire from a wild or house fire. Maybe desperation ruined the taste. He didn’t know; he knew it tasted different and that was ’bout it.

  He kept heading for the direction, following his nose. Ain’t like my other dreams. Not at all. He was a few minutes into the dream and nothing had exploded yet.

  There was still time for that, he reckoned.

  He made it to the campfire without any incident, much to his disappointment. It was a modest little thing; a few decent-sized logs, a flame whose crown barely reached his knees. A small bird of some sort roasted on a spit, turning on its own by a small mechanism.

  Drifter frowned, looked around. There was no one here. Dang well shouldn’t be without him knowing about it - his brain, his rules. But there was no denying it; there was stranger here.

  The beauty of the landscape darkened around him in the way it did when a big cloud blotted out the sun. He was that cloud. An odd sense of urgency hit him in the way the only a dream could. He reached to his side and found that he didn’t have a weapon on him. Huh. That wasn’t like him. For the first time, he wondered if this was his dream at all.

  “Oh, it worked.”

  A dark, swirling shape appeared. It approached from the opposite side of the dreamscape where the plain’s grass grew shorter and became the color of wheat, wearing a long, tattered, dirty red cloak, much like Loner wore when he was forced to go outside. The shape didn’t appear like Evan - much too short and slim around some areas.

  The shape sat down across from him, tossing back their hood.

  Kindle.

  The sight of his granddaughter brightened the world again; orange flowers even bloomed around the ring of the clearing.

  “Hey Granddad, wassup?”

  Those simple words pumped even more life into him. This was better than explosions. Much better.

  She stopped the spit and pulled the crispy, browned bird from its pike. “You got hurt pretty bad saving Toby,” she said softly, voice touching on hesitation. “They got you pretty good.”

  “Yeah they did.” Drifter frowned. His body remembered for a second that this was a dream. A sharp pain flared all over his skin, bringing tears of pain to his eyes. He shook it off. Dreams were for getting away, at least for a little bit. “Are you - ”

  “Here? Yes. Can’t explain, don’t got a lot of time.” She ripped off a wing from the bird and handed it to him. “Eat up. It ain’t real food but it’ll help you survive. Give you somethin’ to hold on to.”

  He didn’t question it. The dream did feel different, now that she mentioned it. Deep inside he was holding on. Drifter took the roasted bird from his granddaughter and bit into it. Duck, sweet and savory. He hadn’t had duck in a long time. Out of all the animals brought over from the Old World, ducks were oddly rare in certain galaxies. Don’t ask him why. No one knew or cared that much at this point. Maybe they should, though.

  Ravenous, he chewed through to the bone and beckoned for seconds and thirds. Kindle smiled and watched. “You look nice, Grandpa,” she said after a time. “I’ve never seen you so…”

  “Not old,” he laughed. “Well before your time.”

  She laughed. “I’m glad that I can see it.” The look in her eyes and lips changed for a second to an expression Drifter couldn’t pin down. “I don’t know what’s happenin’ here. There’s things that Remy isn’t telling me. He has his reasons and I know that...but there’s more. I don’t know what to do, Grandpa. Y’all need me. I know it. I’ve seen it. You almost died, but if I was there…”

  “It would’ve gone the same way.”

  “You’re probably right. Don’t seem right.”

  “Whatever he asked you to do, can ya say it’s not important? What did I always tell you? Always - ”

  “Handle your business,” she finished. Kindle brought her knees to her chest and sighed. “I miss y
’all already. It don’t say much, do it? I haven’t been gone for very long, and I’m already pining to be back at the cabin. I don’t like it here.”

  “’Bout time you left the coop though. You’ve been a good kid. Maybe too good for Woody.” Drifter laughed. He tossed the bones into the sea of grass. “But that ain’t why you here, are you? You got somethin’ on your mind. Or on my mind? I don’t know. Either way you have somethin’ important to tell me.”

  “You need to talk to the Hounds and the rest around my age. Pa laid down some foundation but they need to hear it from you. They backed you into a corner before and you reacted like they expected you to. Not what they needed. They needed to see this man. They needed some kindness, not force. They aren’t like Uncle Pit. He’s much more emotional and it almost got y’all killed. Get to him. He needs to hear that you care; it might get y’all on track.”

  It was good advice. Their anger and confusion led to more mistakes than anything. Not only that; revealing how they came to be hadn’t helped much. The young’uns picked up on the smaller things like that. Drifter knew that despite his best efforts, he’d gotten caught in the moment and almost got them all killed.

  They couldn’t go on like that. They couldn’t pretend that everything was gonna be okay. Some people needed to talk ’bout bad things; others needed to talk more and never could find the words. A well of thick shame bubbled to the surface of his chest. The feeling tainted the dream world this time with a light, grey colored rain falling from a cloudless sky. The campfire hissed steam like a back-alley cat and then choked like a man spewing on seawater.

  “I gotta do better,” Drifter whispered. “I gotta do better.”

  “You would’ve gotten to it eventually.” Kindle smiled. She looked up to the crystal blue sky, raindrops bursting on the bridge of her nose and dripping down her face. “It’s ’bout time for you to wake up.” She stood up, dusting the dirt and grass off her pants. “Stay safe, Grandpa. I don’t wanna lose you.”

  “I don’t wanna lose you either.”

  Kindle walked over, the camplight glowing against her darker skin. She did look like her mom, but he couldn’t help to see a little of Woody and a little of himself in her too. She bent down to him and wrapped her arms around him into a strong hug. Drifter frowned, feeling the tightening fingers against his back. What’s going on, Cassie? What can’t ya tell me? She broke away before he could return it and turned from him.

  “I’ll come back when I can. Stay alive, all of you.”

  Drifter went to tap her on the shoulder but she vanished into a flurry of marigold leaves. She was gone as quickly as she came, leaving her old man alone at the campfire.

  The dream world rained cats and dogs without her.

  ***

  Drifter was back to being an old fella.

  ​It wasn’t too bad, aside from being wrapped from head to toe with bandages. The choking smell of antiseptics and burn treatments filled his nose, followed close by an intolerable itch on his right arm.

  He looked around. He was in his bedroom, small as it was. The only window in the room remained open, letting raw and unfiltered light blast him in the face. After a few painful blinks, he searched the room. His wall of his favorite guns right over his bed was dusted and unperturbed. Every corner of the room was clean and swept, his clothes packed into a closet on the side. Someone had taken the time to organize his bookshelf and maps.

  What was new was that the same person that cleaned his room brought in the flag from his workshop and hung it on the opposite wall in clear sight. The morning light managed to catch the tattered thing at the right angle, brightening up the pinkish-red and dirty white stripes, and the stars on the faded blue corner - most definitely blue, now that he got a good look at in the light. One of these days he was gonna fix it up with the respect it deserved.

  He had to fix himself first.

  ​Drifter rose upright in his bed. An IV pulled at his forearm, tucked deep within the folds of the bandages. A soft beep of the heart monitor chimed on and on. He hadn’t noticed it at first. Now that he had, he only wished for it to can it. He went to rip every wire off of his body - until the sheets beside him stirred.

  Mary Lu was sound asleep on his stomach, curled up and quiet. He often wondered how she slept with his loud snoring and endless stirring and still managed a good night sleep. Ripping out the IV would sound the heart monitor and she didn’t deserve that. Groaning, Drifter forced himself to lie down. No sleeping though. He’d had enough of that for a spell. He placed his hand on his wife’s head, running his fingers through her hair. There were worse things than being stuck in bed with the love of your life; much worse things.

  ​He lay there for a little under an hour, musing through hundreds of thoughts. In the forefront was Cassie, his little fire, at the swamps. He had seen some weird crap in the Dusk Orbit planets in the times he went off planet - some real weird crap. He even knew of the Flame and what it could do - or, at least, he knew what Kindle’s mom had told him. It wasn’t so odd that she could speak to him in his dreams. Her words and his worry of her clung deep to his mind. Her advice was what gave him a little strength, beat up as he was. There were things he needed to make right.

  ​Moses walked into the room, gliding in his hempen brown robe. He looked more himself with his dreads up into a tight bun, amaranth stems and marigold petals woven into the grey. They made eye contact for a brief second. He placed down his concoctions and his kit, walking over to check Drifter’s vitals. He had learned all he could about medicine, energy, and farming - the good and just things in life. He wasn’t meant for killing, raiding, blood and guts. Not his style. Power like his belongs to people like him. Too bad life didn’t work on the same morals.

  After Moses finished his checks, he unplugged the medical mess set up where Drifter’s nightstand once was. “Time to get up; gotta check your burns. Get up, steady now, don’t blow out your back.”

  ​Drifter squinted. Moses laughed softly and grinned; Drifter did as he was told, carefully wiggling from Mary’s grasp. Once he was upright, Moses wasted no time peeling the bandages from his skin. No matter how much care he took, the burns underneath wailed in an intolerable and agonizing pain.

  Drifter caught an eye of the dozens of thick burns on his body from the lasers. Pink, black, brittle skin covered every part of body, which was feeling kinda like tenderized meat after a few goes with a hammer. Drifter poked at one on his chest and got a shock of pain for his trouble. Stupid decision.

  Moses shot him a sharp glare. “You’re healin’ okay. It’ll scar pretty bad.”

  ​“Always wanted some burn scars. You know this.”

  ​“Yeah, when you were twelve…”

  ​“It never went away, Monty, but I was never stupid enough to get ’em on my own.”

  ​“Glad to see that you got a little sense left, Luke.”

  ​They went quiet for a while. “I messed up,” Drifter said, keeping his voice low. He told himself it was not to wake Mary; he always told himself the best lies. “I only put us in danger taking that fight at the Drum. I got baited and we almost died for it. We got lucky. That’s all it was - dumb luck. A stroke of dumb luck.”

  ​“If we wasn’t there, Toby might’ve not been here right now. That little boy is safe ’cause of you, Luke.” Moses rewrapped him with new bandages. “You said the same thing when we were flying here to C’dar. Stroke of good luck here and there. It piles up. There’s an old saying I heard a while back: once’s chance, twice’s coincidence, and third’s a pattern. You ain’t dumb luck. Never have been.”

  ​“Tell ’im again, Monty.”

  Seeing his beautiful wife in the morning light brought a tingling to his face; they’d been together for decades, but that hadn’t changed. Maybe he was a sap, a hopeless romantic caught in an endless loop of affection. Waking up to her happened to be one of his favorite times of the day, now and forever. He took her by the hand and gently pulled her up and into his arms by th
e small of her back. For his troubles, she kissed him on his cheek.

  A stupid level of warmth hit his cheeks like a young man on his first date. He doubted there was a luckier bastard in the whole world. They left the comfort of their bed together, Moses bowing out gracefully to give him some time to get ready. They took their time after he was gone.

  When they were ready, Drifter escorted his wife - or she escorted him - out of the bedroom and into the living room. To his surprise, all his brothers were here. Pit played with his dog, Sprinkles - a massive black-furred beast with three heads, almost the size of her master and drooling pink silva. Doc tinkered with Thunder’s new cobbled-together prosthetic arm on the floor, going through routine maintenance and referencing his several dozens of red and orange screens. Moses began on breakfast in the kitchen not too far away, the mess of the cooking meat stirring excitement in all three of Sprinkles’s heads. It was nice to see his mishmash group of brothers sitting around. At least our pa did one thing right. He didn’t give us a mom, but gave me a family.

  “Look who finally decided join us,” Pit muttered. He always tried to be tough. Can’t be too tough when petting a goofy three-headed dog named Sprinkles. “Thought we lost you.”

  “I didn’t,” Doc said, unamused. “He’s tougher than that.”

  ​“Dang right. So…” Drifter looked around, peering from person to person. “What’s going on here? Why’re y’all in my house?”

  ​“Woody asked us to come,” Big Thunder said. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Too tight. My stump’s still healin’.”

  ​“Stop bein’ a baby, Bobby,” Doc growled.

  ​“Well I’m the - ”

  ​“You’re well in your fifties, you can’t use that baby brother excuse anymore. Man up.” Doc pulled a lever on the prosthetic limb for good measure. Big Thunder slapped his knee with his other hand, blinking tears from his eyes. “Alright, it should be working. Evan did a good job with it. I don’t know how it works, but it does. Your boy’s a genius.”