Buffalo Soldier

by Maurice Broaddus

  “Look here. I have the duration of everyone’s life. I hold them dear to me, but when that final flame fades”—she snuffed the flame between her thumb and forefinger—“I claim them.”

  “Is my candle here?” the young man asked.

  “Everyone’s candle is here. But I have brought you here to show you your gift. I’ll make you a celebrated physician. When you are with a patient, I shall always appear to you. Now, if I stand by the head of the patient, you can tell them that, without a doubt, they are going to be healed. If I stand by their feet, then there is nothing they can say, do, or pray, I shall claim them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he said, though his eyes never left the dancing flames of the candles.

  Soon, he became the most famous physician in the world. It was rumored that all he had to do was glance in a patient’s direction and know how they were going to turn out. Far and wide, people came to this here famous doctor.

  One day, a great baron became ill. He was a shrewd businessman with money and power and contacts. It was said that all knowledge found its way to the baron’s fingertips. He knew the secrets men vowed to take with them to the grave. So great was his influence that even kings feared his outstretched hand. He summoned the young man. When the young man came into the bedchamber, the baron held up his hand.

  “How close is Death?” the old man asked.

  The young man couldn’t help but glance at Death as she stood at the baron’s feet.

  The old man held up his hand again, silencing the young man before he could pronounce his condition. The baron snapped his fingers and his attendants rushed to him. He whispered his orders to them and they wheeled his bed around so that now Death stood at his head.

  “Now tell me my fate,” the baron said, his mouth a-grinning like a wolf ready to pounce.

  The young man pronounced that the baron should live. He anointed the old man with ointments, and soon the baron’s health returned.

  Now you see, the way Death saw it, the baron had bound her and used her for his own purposes, so she grew dark with anger and she had to take it out on someone.

  “All is over for you,” she said to the young man. “A candle was meant to grow dark this day, and if not his, then the lot falls to you.”

  Death had to be true to herself and to her calling, no matter how unfair it might seem to the young man. With that, they returned to the cave beneath the earth. Thousands upon thousands of candles flickered in the dark.

  “Show me the flame of my life,” the young man said.

  Death picked up a small one whose flame threatened to go out with the merest movement. “Here.”

  “Blessed godmother, if you ever loved me or cared for me even a li’l bit, light me a new candle.”

  “I cannot. The baron had made a new candle for himself with yours. One must go out as another is lit.” She raised her thumb and forefinger to the flame. There Death wavered.

  “How do you think the story should end?” Cayt asked. “Does Death simply snuff out the young man’s candle, his life having run its course? That’s fair, right? Maybe it was just his time to put himself in her lap for a final sleep? Should Death take hold of a new candle and light it with the old? Maybe the young man escapes Death to find someone new to instruct him in the ways of his gift? Does another sacrifice himself for the young man? You see, that’s the thing about old stories: the endings get retold so many times, depending on the audience, that it’s difficult to remember how it should go.”

  Lij turned away from her and rocked back and forth. The strange boy fascinated her. This was the one who brought countries to the brink of cold war with one another. The businesses and their executive officers bent decree and oath to secure for their own interests. Though he was no more than a package for her to deliver, Cayt had to admit to a certain amount of curiosity about him. And she had a way of peeking inside of this particular package without leaving any trace.

  “I don’t know if you’re worth all the nuisance.” She knelt down on one knee in front of him. “Let me see what all the fuss is about.”

  She stared into Lij’s eyes. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and opened her thoughts to seek out his mind. Crossing the blackness between them, she swam through the ether, that connecting space between people. As she headed toward him, she met a wall of resistance. She hadn’t encountered anything like it since she had last trained with other adepts. On the horizon of her mind, a dark cloud beckoned her in. The yawning abyss threatened to devour her. The earth ripped out from under her; her mind tumbled through the ether. The space thickened, like fingers wrapping into a fist around her as her mind collapsed onto his. His green eyes filled her. Bits of her personality broke off into shards, her memories fragmenting such that she couldn’t tell hers from the boy’s. Unmade in an instant, then stitched back together. Reduced to an idea. Potential. Possibility. Oblivion.

  VII. : Tomorrow People

  THE WIND RUSTLED THROUGH the leaves. Thunder rumbled from the woods, deep and hideous. Desmond, Inteus, and Kajika stood before the great wooden doors. Wewoka glittered before them under the chilly night sky. Security officers rushed about in search of Cayt.

  “Do you hear it?” Inteus asked.

  “A storm comes,” Kajika said.

  “A storm of war.” Inteus turned to her. “You must remain here.”

  They didn’t bother switching to their native language. Desmond didn’t know whether he should step away to allow them a moment of privacy.

  “This better not be any of your masculine preening,” she said.

  “It’s my practical nature. You are a leader as well as with child.”

  “Your child.”

  “And as your chief of security, my duty to our child, you, and our village is to keep you all safe.”

  “Come back safe or . . .”

  “ . . . I know. ‘Shits Like Deer.’” Inteus kissed her.

  Kajika laid her hand to his heart, then pushed him away. Inteus signaled two guards to follow her. Warriors continued to take up positions, armed and ready.

  “You’ll need these.” Inteus snapped his fingers twice. One of his men brought out Desmond’s cane and the Colt Mustang.

  “Now I’m dressed for the occasion,” Desmond said.

  Inteus and Desmond rushed to the courtyard. They stopped short when they saw what stormed the city.

  A tide of steammen washed up on Wewoka. Military prototypes, more sophisticated than the automata of Tejas, but there was something dangerous about them. Like madmen woken from night terrors, something about the steammen was wrong. The lead troops had faces like a series of blank plates. Their builders barely bothered to make them look human. Rather, they appeared more like helmeted soldiers. Large eyes, like recessed headlamps, visible from the shadow of their visors. Brass casing tubes ran from their necks to their chassis like bulging veins. A thin trail of smoke issued from their packs. Like miniature cities, they were all mechanical force and clouds of noxious fumes. A series of valves and knobs calibrating their steam engines prevented stealthy movement. But stealth wasn’t the point. Their noise, like Albion’s red jackets of yore, announced their presence in order to terrorize their enemy. Gleaming in the moonlight like knights to the rescue, their march an iron synchronicity. The strange song of machine noise clanged like a hymn of pistons and gears. They brought their weapons to bear at the same time and fired balls of revolving fire, miniature stars careening into space.

  The next wave brought heavier units like walking tanks. One of their arms fixed with a pulse cannon, the other little more than a mechanical pincer. Hydraulics hissed with each stuttering step. The Union Jack emblazoned their chests like a red, white, and blue target. Their top swiveled, disengaged at the waist to spin about to lock onto a target.

  Last was their colossus steamman. Like a personalized locomotive, a mountain of machinery billowed smoke. Human troops attended its zombie-like ambling, running up and down the ladders along its spine. It spilled co
al dust as it moved, like an ancient traveler brushing the dirt from their cloak during the course of their travels. Fitted with a dozen arms, each tipped with blades like metal scorpion tails.

  The procession of steammen clanked along the sidewalks. They moved at a slow, steady pace, unhurried by the pulse fire showered on them by Inteus’s troops. A few human operatives ran among the robotic drones, flanking them as they thundered down the boulevard. Some men had modifications similar to Inteus’s, though the gears and chains that powered the muscles of their limbs had been left exposed. Again, the attachments were cruder than those of Inteus’s, perhaps in the early stages of development. Their mechanical limbs attached to a brace, which fastened at the collar and ran to the waist.

  If part of him was aware that he was in the sights of an assassin’s weapon, Desmond was long past listening to it. Inteus slammed into him, knocking him out of the path of fire. The wave of heat from the near miss focused Desmond’s attention. Inteus fired once, then twice. The marksman’s body tumbled off the nearby roof. Giving a slight hitch to his shoulder, Inteus dislocated his arm and spun it around like a mace of death. Generous arcs slammed into soft bodies and cracked skulls.

  From the cover of trees, Seminoles stepped into the clearing and fired. Groups of men provided cover fire while others gathered any bystanders out of harm’s way. Up close, the Seminoles were little to no match for the steammen, but their weapons outranged the steammen’s more powerful weapons. Trained to fight in units, a group of Seminoles scrambled together. They shot handheld pulse cannons, only firing a handful of shots before dispersing and then regrouping at another location.

  The steammen marched toward the nearest mushroom-shaped water reclamation unit. A group of operatives deployed toward the structure. The men ignored the steammen as they fired at the shadows where the Seminoles were. One man began to photograph the structure. The others quickly set to dismantle its face-plating to get a better look inside.

  Industrialists.

  Desmond flew into a rage. The steammen were glorified distraction, cover for Cayt and espionage agents to gather intelligence. Two soldiers emerged into the light. Desmond leapt onto them. He broke the first one’s neck before grabbing the rifle of the second when the man struggled to bring it to bear. Desmond flung the weapon aside. He head-butted the man. The man’s fingers slipped loose of the rifle. Desmond turned it around and fired at the man. Other soldiers came. Desmond fired at them. The rifle’s recoil kicked like a nanny goat, nearly wrenching Desmond’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure where his shots landed. Somewhere along the treeline, shadows bobbed and weaved. The next shots cut down one man and scattered the rest. Desmond made his way back to Inteus’s side.

  “We need to end this now,” Inteus said.

  “Agreed. Reinforcements might be coming.”

  “I’ll take the fight out of them.”

  Desmond nodded. “I need to find Lij.”

  “Though we are of different tribes, tonight you are as my own brother.”

  Desmond clasped his hand. “Watch your step and walk good.”

  Desmond provided cover for Inteus and his men.

  Inteus launched two campaigns. The first offensive charged the initial wave of steammen and their attending soldiers. Flanked by mechanical wolves, a column of warriors swarmed against the force of steammen. The second outmaneuvered the relief column, cutting the steammen from one another. A series of ambushes and quick raids, not giving the enemy a fixed point to focus on.

  “Yohoehee!” Inteus’s war cry began as a growl but ended as a shrill yelp. He charged the colossus, almost too fast to keep sight of. A whir of blades and metal ground against one another. Its nearest arm swung but was blocked by Inteus’s left arm. He tried to spin in order to position himself for a close-range shot but was equally hampered. Inteus slashed while the robot pivoted and whirred its arms. Neither found an advantage in such close quarters.

  The metal beast churned in fury, its arms pistoning in attack, like fan blades spinning in desperate arcs. Inteus bobbed between metal arms, not retreating an inch but overmatched by the gleaming monstrosity. Their moves attuned to one another, the picture of slow grace. Inteus’ movements were as fluid as the forms of bangaran; it was a mesmerizing display.

  Steam rose from the boiler sheltered in the beast’s chest. The overworked chassis nearly glowed red from the heat. Avoiding one of the whipping blades, Inteus fell against it. He screamed as blisters creased his back.

  Inteus jammed his left arm into the underbelly of the automata and fired. The pumps wheezed and slowed, the gears shuddered to a halt. Its stacks mewled, the sound of steam escaping the punctured tank. Its body slowed, then slumped. Iron fingers grasped at the night air until all movement stopped.

  * * *

  Bursting through the smoke and flames, Desmond stalked the streets. Explosions kicked up dirt all around him. He gave the hilt of his cane a twist and freed his blade and dropped his scabbard. His sword in one hand, the Colt Mustang in the other, he cursed as a few men rushed him, but he separated them from their limbs with quick dispatch. No doubt they would turn up on a future battlefield with mechanical limbs and a hatred for all things flesh.

  Desmond scanned the area for any hint of Cayt and Lij. His instinct was to head directly to the woods. After a few jogged steps in that direction, he stopped. Something wasn’t right. The movement of the steammen, their angle of approach . . . someone waiting on their arrival wouldn’t hide directly in the path of two clashing forces. He headed toward the rear of the ruined wall line.

  Desmond entered the woods, then slowed. The woods looked so different at night. He knew they were near, could almost feel them. Somewhere in the dark, Cayt stalked him, preparing for her attack. Desmond quieted his mind for battle and measured her movements. Young and fast, she would be a serpent in combat. He pictured her with a blade flicked out to slash his throat, her movements mercurial and spidery. A feint to lure him within striking distance. Him barely avoiding her kicks. Her retreating to the edge of his vision, attacking from his blind spots. Him dancing out of the way of her blows. He’d have to be wary of her hands, quick to draw her guns in less than a breath. Maybe she’d raid his mind to distract him.

  “You’re old and weak. Couldn’t even keep the boy safe.”

  Desmond stepped to the edge of a clearing. “I’m here. Where are you?”

  “Around,” Cayt said from the shadows. Her voice was off. Almost afraid.

  “Not going to show yourself?” Desmond held up the Colt Mustang. “I have something of yours.”

  “The boy is across from you. Take him and go.” Her voice trailed from the shadows.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The boy is dangerous.”

  “Only as dangerous as an idea,” Desmond said.

  “Some ideas should remain . . . ideas.” Cayt sounded tired now. “I thought about killing him.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Just as I could have killed you as you approached.”

  Desmond set the Colt Mustang on the ground and backed toward the boy. “Some ideas, even dangerous ones, need a chance to develop.”

  Without so much as a snapped twig, he knew she was gone. So was her Colt Mustang.

  A figure shivered against a fallen tree. Wrapped in the woman’s jacket, Lij rocked back and forth. He cupped his hands over his ears and kept his eyes shut. Desmond kept his back to the boy, still half-expecting an ambush, but one never came.

  “Lij, it’s me. Desmond. Only me.”

  The boy continued to rock. The sounds of the firefight began to subside.

  “It’s okay, Lij.” Desmond hugged the boy. “It’ll all be okay.”

  VIII. : Many Rivers to Cross

  IN THE EARLY MORNING, Desmond found a spot he liked—within sight of his chickee but surrounded by trees and a creek. If the sun hit him at the right angle and he closed his eyes, it reminded him of Jamaica. A brown bird with an orange breast approached. It eyed him
ruefully. As if not considering him a threat, it began to scrape at the dirt. It pecked a small, dirt-encrusted worm and gripped it like a lost treasure. It cast one last glance at Desmond, checking to see if he were after its prize. Hopping off, not bothering to take flight, it opted to dine out of sight.

  Lost in his own thoughts, Desmond no longer felt hunted. He had a chance to tour one of the mines and thought about working there. Work might make him feel useful again, make him feel connected. If only to be able to approach people again without them having that hint of fear in their eyes.

  He left the Seminoles alone to bury their dead. The death ritual struck him as important, a very private affair not welcoming to strangers. The entire family of each warrior mourned for four days. On the fourth morning, they used the herbs the medicine man made to either drink with tea or wash with. Their widows wore black and mourned for four moons. Once the body was placed, family would abandon the camp and leave the deceased to make their journey. They took the belongings of their loved one who had passed away and threw each item into the river. To hold onto a loved one’s possessions was to hinder their journey and hold them back.

  Desmond knew a portion of what they felt. To have the carpet suddenly pulled out from under him and become lost in emptiness. That sense of drowning that came with simply trying to make it through another day. In the past months, he had tried to find meaning in having his home ripped from him. If only to fill the void in his heart, to complete those inner spaces so that he could at least breathe again. That was the thing about shared loss. Total strangers could open themselves up. They could share wisdom. They could muddle through the dark times together and cling to hope.

  “Someone was looking for you.” Kajika strolled along the path, holding Lij’s hand. His free arm clutched a new cornhusk doll.