Silence.
“The ones that came before you.” He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking up, beyond the mountains. “Let’s say you’re in an inn or a bar. Hell, it could be any structure. The roof is crooked, the doors don’t shut all the way, every step you take sends your feet through the floorboards, and eventually the whole damn thing collapses on top of you. Now, where does the blame lie? With the structure? With the wood and the nails that were used to build it? Or does the blame lie with the craftsmen?” He paused and looked at her, wetting his lips, giving her time to consider his words. “I gave this a lot of thought. Just last night I was mulling it over. It swam circles in my head until I passed out from the exhaustion of it all. Bottom line, I don’t blame you, Lerah. I blame the craftsmen. I blame the fuckers and motherfuckers that trained and indoctrinated you.”
“No one indoctrinated me.”
“Of course they did. Every child is indoctrinated by the ones that raise them. I was indoctrinated, my brother was indoctrinated. Those children over there, watching you right now, they’re being indoctrinated. To believe any different is foolish.”
She thought back to her childhood. To the time she spent talking to her father across the dinner table. To the time she spent in the classroom, training to become a Shadeux. The Rebels are our enemy; do not hesitate to kill them, because they will not hesitate to kill you, those were the first words that had left her instructors lips. Her father was fond of saying, They are a vicious people, Lerah. Out there, one has to be vicious in order to survive. Dominic was the first Rebel she’d met that had shaken the foundation of her belief system. Still, he was the exception, not the rule. She saw that clearer than ever.
“I was told and taught things. I had preconceptions. But all you and your people have done is reinforce everything I was taught. If I was sitting here untouched and you were feeding me bread and water, maybe you could sit there and talk to me about the fallacies of indoctrination.”
“We are what we are because you and your people have made us this way.”
“Bullshit! The only thing you’re a victim of is your own ignorance!”
The back of his hand swept across her face.
Lerah tongued the blood, her eyes flashing rage. It was good to feel something other than sadness.
“I warned you once! Don’t test my generosity, girl!”
She closed her eyes, disconnecting from the conversation as she inhaled the noxious breeze coming off the ocean.
“You’ve put the Union on a pillar. You paint it all up like you and your people are somehow the picture of decency. How long does a Rebel last in the dungeon of Genesis?”
She could probably fall asleep if she tried hard enough. The smell in the air wasn’t pleasant, but the force of the breeze quickly induced a yawn.
“You don’t think I’ve heard about the man with the mask and hammer? All Rebels know of him. They know what awaits them should they ever fall into Union hands. But out here, when death comes for you, you’ll see it. We don’t hide behind a mask.”
Was there anything out there on the other side of the irradiated seas? Hawthorne seemed to think there was. The rest of them must have believed it as well. After all, they were building a boat. Perhaps, if she swam fast enough, she could reach some distant shore before the poisoned water took the skin off her bones.
“You burn our villages. Your men rape our women. You torture our boys in your dungeon. And yet, you’re going to sit and talk to me about how I’ve reinforced the beliefs you were raised on. Really? Who do you think we were before the Union came marching into our lives?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“My grandfather and grandmother founded a settlement. My grandfather spent his years working the earth, planting seed, fighting the heat and the lack of rain. He helped the other men build homes for their families. He gave freely of what he had. He never asked for payment. He only asked that the others work by his side. Together, with those men, the settlement prospered, they created a good life. It might not qualify as a good life to you and your lot. But they had shelter, they had protection, they had food, and they had family. One day, the Union came knocking. They wanted him to swear loyalty to their flag. They wanted to build Genesis towers. My grandfather refused. He was happy with his way of life, he didn’t want another, and he didn’t want anyone telling him what to do.”
“Sounds downright awful. Someone tried to offer your family a better life, my deepest sympathies.”
She thought her blatant sarcasm would earn her another slap, but Silas kept his composure and continued. “It wasn’t help they were offering, it was tyranny. And what makes your life better? Did it not ever occur to you and your people that the lens through which you view our way of life is the same one through which we view yours? Sweating it out under the sun, forging my own path, being my own man, that’s freedom; there’s nothing that can replace it. Waking up every day, being told what I’ve got to do and when I’ve got to do it, confined to the same small space day in and day out, my loyalty forced rather than earned, I don’t want that. Your way of life is no life for me or mine. But you know what the difference is, Lerah? We didn’t come and try to force our way of doing things down your throat. Your people killed my grandfather. They burned his settlement to the ground. You’re the ones that started this battle. You created us. You created the Rebels.”
23
Dominic was battling the blazing sun, sipping strategically from his water skin, and praying to whoever was listening that his horse wouldn’t give out on him; it was a Union horse after all and had probably never ventured beyond the stables. He was deep behind the Rebel lines, journeying through the heart of the unknown settlements. Though, calling them settlements was a stretch. It was rare to find more than two or three hovels grouped together, and it was rarer still for someone to lay their head in the same place twice. It was a land of the restless and the destitute. A land of victims and victimizers. A land that’d been forgotten by time.
Dominic passed through tent cities occupied by filthy, wild-eyed men and their filthier female counterparts. They stood from their cook fires, toting lever-action rifles, and rusty wheel guns, coveting his horse and weighing their chances. Dominic held tight to the reins with one hand and made a show of his pistol with the other, pulling it just far enough from his waistband for the bastards to get a good view of the cocked back hammer and the nickel plated body. He passed through the gangs of hungry mutts real slow, his eyes cast down at them, giving his best don’t-fuck-with-me stare. He knew how crews like that worked. Hell, he used to run with crews like that. They were anglers. They were always looking for the soft targets. It was all about minimizing risk and maximizing reward. They’d set their camps up and cast their nets, preying on traders, sometimes venturing west into the known settlements if they got desperate enough. When they ran the wells dry, they’d pack up and move on. With Dominic, they could find no angle, no soft spot. Sure, they could take him down. That wasn’t the question. The question was how many of them would fall in the process?
The Glass Mountains grew taller as he drew closer, biting at the neon sky with jagged, obsidian fangs; a distorted mirage beyond the thick screen of hazy, undulating heat. The horse carried him through many more miles of unforgiving desert before the town of Skarwood slowly began to rise from the earth at the base of the mountain; an expansive stretch of lawlessness hidden beneath the apparition of civilization. The buildings looked like half fallen trees, resting against one another for support.
A few hundred yards outside of Skarwood was a hitching post. It was mostly used for mules. Behind it was a one room shack with a porch attached. On that porch was a flimsy rocker. In that flimsy rocker sat a soggy looking man, with a crumb filled beard. He watched Dominic’s approach with bloodshot eyes, hands resting across a bolt-action rifle in his lap. The old man’s droopy eyes remained locked on Dominic as he pulled the horse up beside the empty hitching post.
&n
bsp; “Know where I can fill this up?” Dominic slid from the horse, holding up his depleted water skin.
The old man tilted his head towards the screened, front door; it was hanging half open. “You go on inside, wife’ll set ya up. If you’re plannin’ anything underhanded, just know she’s a meaner shot than I ever was.”
Dominic looked down at the pistol on his hip and quickly covered it with his shirt. “Pay no mind to that, old timer. It’s just to keep the vultures off my back. There’s a lot of ‘em between here and where I came from.”
“And where might that be?” The old man shucked a peanut with his yellow teeth and made a meager effort to spit the shell, depositing most of it into his beard.
“It’s mostly the known settlements these days.”
“What kind of work you do?” The old man cast a shaky hand towards the saddle bags and the menagerie of firearms protruding from the cracked leather.
“Folks pay me to carry their burdens.”
“So you a gunman.”
“I suppose I am. Pulling a trigger is the only thing I’ve ever really been worth a damn at.” Dominic stepped onto the porch and leaned against the railing; it gave slightly beneath his weight.
“Son, anyone can pull a trigger,” the old man said, spitting another barrage of peanut shell.
“That they can, but it’s about knowing when to pull it. Trigger discipline, that’s why they pay me.” The old timer was right, anyone could pull a trigger. Guns were an easy solution, the first solution a Rebel soldier was taught. It’s how men waged war: arm a couple grunts and send them screaming towards the frontlines, prepared to hack away at the ankles of the enemy. But that’s not how wars were won. Wars were won through trigger discipline. They were won using elite men. Men like Dominic and the Saboteurs. Men that could move in the shadows. Men that knew how to target the knees and the elbows of the monster while the cannon fodder ran distraction. That’s how wars were won. “Would it be alright with you if I tied my horse up to your post for the night? Suppose you wouldn’t mind feeding and watering the old girl? Maybe you could look after the munitions for me too; doesn’t look like you’re in any position to be running off with them.”
The old man nodded, his beard flattening against his chest. “You got coin?”
“How much coin?”
“How much you got?”
“What makes you think I got any?”
“The hardware, the horse…call it an old timer’s intuition.”
Dominic thought about explaining how he came by the horse, but that would involve explaining the Union and his involvement with them. He didn’t think it was prudent to raise eyebrows this deep in Rebel territory. “I’ll give ya what I can, but I still need enough to put a roof over my head tonight and food in my belly.” Dominic slipped the coin purse from his pocket and turned his back as he counted out what he hoped would satisfy the man. “Will this do it?”
The old man accepted the offering, closed his fist, shook the coins up next to his ear, and grunted. “I s’pose it’ll do for now.” The man deposited the coin in his pockets and took to shucking another peanut. “What’s your business in Skarwood?”
“It wouldn’t be my business if I told ya. I’m gonna fetch that water now if it’s alright by you.”
“Suit yourself, ya salty prick,” the old man grumbled as Dominic disappeared through the screen door.
***
Dominic sauntered into Skarwood, pistol on his hip. He’d only been through the town once, way back in the day when he first joined up with the Rebels. It was a cesspool back then, a shelter for the worst sort of scum, giving access to every twisted indulgence a man could dream up, a panorama of human nature at its most aberrant; the dirty, throbbing asshole of the Wastes.
Not much seemed to have changed.
Dominic entered Skarwood from the north side. He passed a row of open-air outhouses on his left. A man stood in front of them hugging on a shotgun. There was a box by his feet with “2 Pieces” scrawled across the front in block lettering. Even taking a shit cost coin in Skarwood. The last outhouse had a sandy-haired, pale skinned, sphere shaped woman sitting on the commode. She caught Dominic staring at her and stared right back, her face all corkscrewed as she fought to move her bowels.
“Want to come over and hold my hand for me, ya bastard?”
“Believe I’ll pass, ma’am. Good luck with everything.”
“Asshole!” She spat into the dirt as he continued on.
A few steps further, on his right, from a narrow, dirt strewn alley, he heard an animalistic grunting. A pale, chicken-legged man, wearing a cracked brown vest, had a raven haired woman bent over, her dress pulled up around her waist. He was pumping away at her, his face turned towards the sky as she braced herself against the side of the building, expressionless. Her bustier was untied, her ample tits swinging to the rhythm of the aggressive fucking.
She looked sideways at Dominic and forced a haggard smile. “He should be finishing up soon. You want a go? Five for my mouth, seven for my pussy.”
Dominic just shook his head and kept it moving.
The street was lined on either side by broken down storefronts, occupied by transient merchants plying their trade: bullets and guns, shaves and haircuts, hot baths and blowjobs, Skarwood had it all. The shops would be filled with new faces next month after the current ones left to replenish their supplies. No one paid rent because no one owned Skarwood. There were no landlords. No laws. It was for the people and by the people, for better or worse. If someone or something upset the balance, Skarwood would purge itself of the irritant, no need for outside influence. Dominic found some relief in walking the streets. The rickety structures around him cast soothing shadows that forced the temperature down to something reasonable. The buildings creaked and swayed as strong winds blew through the passages like blood through constricted veins. Foot traffic was scarce. It was an unusual development. The last time he was there, the storefronts were packed and arguments and fights were pouring out into the middle of the street as traders and their patrons haggled over prices.
“Hey, fella,” Dominic called to a dark skinned man arranging a table of trinkets; he was missing an ear.
“What can I do ya for, big man?”
“You scare all the customers off?”
The man shook his head. “Some bullshit has been brewin’ the past few days. Head done finally popped off. It’s gettin’ dealt with over in the square. My guess is folks will be back around shortly.”
“What sort of bullshit?”
“Only kind we got. The kind where folks get killed.”
Dominic advanced further up the street. There was a bend up ahead. As he got closer, he could hear the murmurings of a large, rowdy gathering. He picked up the pace, curiosity propelling him along. He turned the corner and found himself facing the town square. It was lined by a saloon, an inn, and a gambling hall where drunkards could play rigged games of chance, get mad, and shoot each other. There was a large circle of bodies occupying the center of the square. Many of them held cigarettes and sipped unlabeled bottles of watered down swill. Dominic began working his way through the press of sweaty flesh.
“Watch out!”
“Can’t see shit past this bastard!”
The insults flew as Dominic bumped shoulders with and pushed aside the untamed horde. He didn’t antagonize, he just kept on moving. He found a comfortable spot on the front deck of the gambling hall, one that allowed him to see above the crowd, giving a clear picture of the drama unfolding at the center of the mob. Two men wearing weather beaten cowboy hats circled each other across a small patch of earth, their boots cutting shallow valleys in the dust. They each clutched butcher knives with unpolished blades. They were hunched over, practically touching noses, exchanging violent promises.
“What’s the quarrel?” Dominic asked the alarmingly clean shaven man standing to his right.
“Idiot on the right says the idiot on the left fucked his wife and drank
his last beer.”
“What’s the idiot on the left say?”
“Says he was thirsty after fucking his wife.”
The wife fucker made the first move, slashing at his opponents face and simultaneously kicking out at his knees. He nicked him good on the cheek. The idiot on the right recoiled and before he could recover from the assault, the wife fucker sank his blade in between his ribs. The idiot on the right dropped his knife and collapsed against the wife fucker, face on his shoulder, lips moving, producing rivulets of blood where there should have been words. For a moment they remained frozen like that, staring into each other’s eyes, as if they were preparing to waltz. Then the wife fucker removed his blade and stuck it in again, and again, and again, and again. He smiled with each penetration, mocking his dying opponent, promising to take care of his old lady. The dying idiot could say nothing in return. All he could do was bleed…a lot. The wife fucker dumped the idiot into the dirt and the crowd cheered as he raised the gore-soaked blade in victory.
“No justice out here,” the clean-shaven man said as he stepped down into the crowd.
“Nope, just cold steel and steady hands.” Dominic would wait for the mob to dissipate before he made a move for the tavern across the square.
As the dead idiot laid there with his blood congealing in the dirt a rather rotund brunette threw herself across his leaking body in a full-blown, frothing frenzy. She cursed the crowd and their flippancy and promised to seek revenge against her husband’s killer. Folks just laughed and kept moving; an angry widow was nothing new in these parts. As Dominic watched the woman blubber over her fallen spouse, he thought she was hardly worth dying over. Aside from her considerable girth, she was riddled with pustules, and her thin hair was greased flat against a scabby scalp; she was a frightful woman by any standard. The idiot should have seized her infidelity as an excuse to bail, let the wife fucker have her. But knowing the nature of man, the fight hadn’t been about preserving the sanctity of matrimony, it’d been about preserving pride. The wife fucker had pissed on the idiot’s front porch, so he was gonna shit on his. Dominic had seen men kill and be killed for less.
The Glass Mountains: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 2 Page 18