by Tonia Brown
Mab knelt over David and held out a photograph, comparing the dead man’s face with the captured image. The lamplight hit the picture just right, lighting it up with a clarity that nearly made my heart stop. I gapped, slack jawed and wide eyed, not believing what I saw.
“What’s wrong, Sam?” Stretch said.
“He’s probably never seen a photograph before,” Mab said.
I didn’t answer, I just kept on watching in shocked silence. In some snide way, I wanted to tell her I had seen plenty of photographs in my short life. More than a few clients had their picture made with their favorite lady, as a memento of their time—as well as money—spent at the Limping Mare. The men often gave a duplicate of the work to the object of his desire, and the girls treated these stolen moments of time like precious jewels. No, Miss Maribel, I had seen photographs.
That wasn’t what had me staring. I was shocked into silence for an entirely different reason. There, in the picture Mab held aloft, caught in a moment that was certainly far happier than the last one I spent with the man, smiled Mortimer Tinsdale. The man who sacrificed his life for mine. Just as Mr. Theo had done.
The same man who tasked me with making sure his cure got into the right hands.
What on earth was Mab doing with a picture of Tinsdale? I thought about the possibilities for a moment. Mab. A bounty hunter sent here specifically to look for people that escaped into the Badlands. This was more than coincidence. This was Fate working her strange magic once more.
Before I could make further sense of what I was seeing, the image of Tinsdale was gone. Mab shuffled it into the pile and held up a few other photographs and sketches, comparing those with the corpse as well. Finally she shifted over, motioning for Stretch to follow her to Gerry’s body. She cycled through the pictures again, lingering a bit on both Tinsdale’s and one other photograph before packing them up again.
“Didn’t think so,” Mab said. “It never hurts to double check.”
“All done?” Stretch said.
“Yup.” She grabbed the shovel and motioned to the bodies. “I’ll help you bury them if you like.”
“Yeah, I reckon we should. Don’t want their bodies to attract a bunch of revs.” Stretch began to strip the men of their belongings with that same cold detachment he showed at their deaths.
After he got what he wanted off of the dead men, Stretch helped Mab dig a larger hole. They dragged the bodies into the pit and covered them up with dirt. I said nothing during this. I didn’t offer to help. I didn’t get in their way. I just stood there, wondering why Mab had a photograph of the man who sacrificed himself to save me.
Mab brushed the dirt off of her hands, then held one out to Stretch. “Thanks again.”
Stretch looked down at her open palm for a moment before he took it into his. “What for? I nearly got ya killed.”
“For taking care of Sammy here.”
“I nearly got him killed too.”
Mab let go of Stretch’s hand and nodded to me. “Take care, young man. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I, uh, I…” I stammered, unsure of how to put my sudden thoughts into words. I had to tell her about Tinsdale. About the cure. I had to warn her. Warn both of them. Warn the world! Instead, all I did was dither and turn about five different shades of red in my frustration.
“Aw, geesh,” Stretch said. “I think you’ve made the kid nervous, saving his life and all like that.”
“It’s all right,” Mab said. “You can owe me one. Two if I get you to the border.” She leaned in closer to me. “Three if I get you there alive.”
“He recognized me!” I blurted out.
Mab straightened up with a start. “Who did what?”
“Gerry did recognize me. From the bordello, I mean.”
“Oh.” She smiled to Stretch, then glanced back to me. “You worked there then?”
“I did.” My face burned hotter with my admission. My secret shame laid bare.
“Did you know the woman he killed?”
“Yes. We were…” I paused here, wondering how to frame my relationship with Gertrude. “We were friends. Good friends.”
Mab patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear that. At least that bastard got his, right? I’m sure you will find another good friend one day.”
Stretch gave a small chuckle.
The laugh mocked me, and all at once I knew what they mistakenly thought. “It’s not like that. We weren’t just friends. We both worked there. Gerald thought I was a house boy. I wasn’t a boy.”
Mab blinked a few times in surprise while Stretch scratched his beard.
“You mean, you were one of them there fancy lads?” the man said.
By fancy lad, Stretch meant a male prostitute. A man for hire, as it were. Just as bordellos employed girls and women of all ages, some places put males of all ages to the same work. I had seen a fancy lad as young as seven. Of course, I was only eight years of age myself at the time, and on my way to the bordello at which I would spend the next few years of my sorrow filled life.
What can I say? The world is cruel.
“You aren’t listening to me,” I said, shaking my head. “I wasn’t a boy at the bordello. Not a fancy lad, nor a stable hand, nor a houseboy.”
“I don’t where you are going with—” Mab started.
“I wasn’t a boy because I am not a boy.”
The pair of them grew quiet again as they stared at me in silence. Mab, in particular, narrowed her eyes and took me in from head to toe. Stretch glared with his lips parted and tongue poking out ever so slightly. Nothing leering or inappropriate, no. Just the pose of a man thinking too hard on an impossible problem.
“Yeah,” Mab said with a genuinely warm smile. “I see it now. In your face. Your hips too, but mostly in the face. I don’t want to believe it, but I see it.” She had that I’ll be damned pleasant smile that touched her eyes. The same look Mr. Theo got when he discovered my truth.
On the other hand, Stretch scrunched up his face, thinking extra hard about the whole thing. He said nothing, just stared.
As quick as Mab’s pleasant smile came, it was gone. “What were you thinking, huh?” She stomped toward me as she lost her soft grin. Mab swatted me on the shoulder, slapping one of my many cuts into a burning sting. “What in the hell are you doing all the way out here? And try telling me the truth this time, young man. Unlike you, I don’t have time for dress up and games.”
“Please,” I said, backing away from her. “I didn’t mean any harm. I was just trying to get back to the border.”
“Then you wasted both of our time, you fool. I never planned on—” Mab bit her lower lip as she slipped into a sudden silence, but it was too late. The words were out there, hanging invisibly between us.
“Never planned on what?” I asked, though I already knew.
Mab looked to Stretch for help. None came. The man was still busy staring at me, hard, trying to figure it all out.
“Ma’am,” I said. “You told me you would come back for me and take me to the—”
“I’m not coming back for you,” Mab finally said. “I was never coming back for you.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. I lied. All right? Welcome to the Badlands. We all lie out here.”
No heroes, I reminded myself.
No heroes.
I balled my fists. “So you foisted me off onto these men just to, what? Clear your conscience of me?”
“Something like that, yeah,” she said. “It was that or just walk on by that tree and leave you as sleeping bait for the revs. Sending you with Stretch at least gave you a fighting chance.”
I sneered as I pointed to the deepest of my lacerations. “I could’ve done without this kind of chance.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Mab gave a ti
red sigh. “If I could take you to the border, I would. But you would never make it across. Border crossings are very controlled. There is a—”
“A lot of trouble, I know,” I said. “They go through all of your things and go over every inch of your body. Every inch. I was prepared for that. I am prepared.”
“It’s not just being prepared. They won’t let just anyone cross back over. You have to be on the list.”
“I know, and I am. I signed in when I crossed over with Mr. Boudreaux. A soldier took my measure and everything.”
She cocked her head at me. “I thought you said you wandered over the border looking for your master?”
I crossed my arms and set my jaw. “I guess you were right, we do all lie out here.”
That shut Mab up for a blessed moment. I kept my eyes locked on hers, daring her to say something else. I could shoot down anything that she tossed into the air between us. Everything. I wasn’t some sniveling little snot nosed houseboy she could just dump off on a passing caravan of miscreants. I had purpose. I had meaning. I was Samantha Martin. I had survived a life of sexual slavery, near death and undeath at the hands of Boudreaux, and a run in with the leader of the Syndicate. Not to mention, I was the only apprentice to the very father of the skin trade. I was Mr. Theo’s chosen student, and, hopefully, his friend.
In the silence that followed, Stretch snapped his fingers, pointed to me and said, “You’re a girl.”
Mab snorted a laugh, which got me to giggling, and the next thing I knew we were both doubled over laughing. Lilly stepped to and fro, nervously snorting at our sudden outburst of humor.
When we both paused to take a much needed breath, Stretch glanced between us, his face long and worried as he asked, “What’s so funny?”
This set us both to laughing again, longer and harder this time. I don’t know if it was the tenseness of the moment finally breaking, or if we were both just so damned tired, but we laughed and laughed as if we would never laugh again in our entire lives.
Stretch turned and strode off, taking the light with him and grumbling under his breath about things never making much sense in this hell hole.
Mab threw her arm around me, not caring about my various cuts, and drew me tightly to her. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get back to your camp and you can tell me all about it.”
I knew there was a risk unburdening myself on these strangers. I knew giving away my entire story was probably a mistake. I also knew I couldn’t do this alone. I needed help, and these two seemed willing to lend it. So, I did exactly as she asked. Stretch poured us all a much needed slug of whiskey and I told them as much as I could, as quickly as I could.
“I came to the borderlands to escape the bordello I worked at,” I started. “I pretended to be a boy and landed a job in a workhouse, which lent me to the employ of Mr. Boudreaux. He took a friend of mine and me straight out to his ranch. Pete, my friend, didn’t make it. That bastard Boudreaux spared me because I am what I am.”
“So you know what happened to the boys in his charge?” Mab said.
“Yes. I witnessed it firsthand.” I shuddered a bit, thinking about those poor, infected young men lashed to Roman style crosses, left to rot and wither in the elements, all for the sake of an undamaged pelt. “I also know what happened to Boudreaux. I was there when Mr. Theo took him down.”
“Wow,” Stretch said. “That must’ve been something to see.”
“It was,” I paused as I searched for a word to describe the righteous fury of Theophilus Jackson. “It was enlightening. It was also how I ended up in Mr. Theo’s service.”
“What do you mean his service?” Mab said.
“He took me on as a journeyman. I traveled with him for some time.”
Mab snorted a laugh. “Forgive me for calling a delicate bullshit on you. Now, the parts about your flight from the cathouse, and getting mixed up with Boudreaux, I believe that. But I am going to have to call you on mentoring under Jackson. He might have rescued you, and you might have followed him around like a grateful pup for a few days, but that is where it ended. Everyone knows Theo Jackson wouldn’t take a journeyman if his life depended on it. Much less…and trust me when I say I know how horrid this sounds because I have heard it a thousand times before…much less a little girl.”
“I believe her,” Stretch said.
“Oh yeah?” Mab said. “And what makes you believe this little slip of a thing?”
Stretch shrugged. “It’s all over the Badlands. Theo got himself a kid to teach. Might as well be her.”
Mab laughed aloud in surprise. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I told you, hon, you’ve been gone too long this time. Things have changed around here. I mean, hell, she seems smart enough to learn under Jackson. She fooled me. Fooled you. If the rumors are true, she sure as hell fooled Dillon.”
Mab whipped about to face me again, a look of horror settling on her. “You ran into Dillon?”
“Dillon captured us, actually,” I said. “Well, captured me and another man. Mr. Theo helped me escape. The other man was someone I think you’re—”
“Dillon didn’t get Jackson?” Mab said.
“No,” I said, losing track of my story at her sudden concern for Mr. Theo. She visibly relaxed until I added, “That came later. After we escaped Newton, Dillon eventually followed us to Convergence. He took Mr. Theo, killed everyone else and burned the town to the ground.”
“But you got away?” Stretch said.
“Yes,” I said. “Mr. Theo traded himself for me. Dillon left me there to burn alive but I managed to get away.”
Stretch let out a low whistle. “You sure are one lucky little lady.”
“Surrounded by a whole lot of unlucky people,” Mab said, and crossed her arms as she eyed me suspiciously. “Tell me exactly what happened to Theophilus Jackson.”
I backed my story up to the point where Mr. Theo discovered my well-kept secret and ran through the rest of my narrative, right up to the point Convergence burned to the ground. I left out a lot of the little details, like my hatred for Gill, my surgery, and my sickening sorrow at watching them carry Mr. Theo away. Those were my private pains. I would deal with those, and perhaps share them, in time.
Mab and Stretch looked to one another when I mentioned Mortimer Tinsdale by name. At the word of a cure for the rev virus, Stretch’s mouth dropped open. Mab neither flinched nor floundered. I suppose I should’ve suspected that, considering she was looking for the man. Surely she already knew about the cure, or at the very least that Tinsdale was working on something of the likes.
After I was done, they both stared at me quietly.
“Well?” I said after a few moments of no reaction from the pair of them.
“A cure?” Stretch said.
I nodded.
“Dillon took Jackson away?” Mab said. “Alive? And he went willingly?”
“Yes,” I said, wondering what her interest in my mentor could be.
“There’s a real cure?” Stretch said again.
“As far as I know,” I said.
Stretch barked with a laugh and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
Mab grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me to her, bringing her face inches from mine. “Are you sure Dillon has Jackson?”
“As far as I know,” I said.
“Alive?” Her eyes searched mine, as if looking for a lie underneath the surface of my story.
“I can’t be certain, but I am willing to bet he will keep Mr. Theo alive as long as he can just out of spite.”
She thrust me from her, not hard, but enough to send me reeling. “Shit. God damn it. Shit. Shit. Shit!”
I cringed at the unladylike language pouring from her mouth. “Now you see why I need to make it back to the border. Tinsdale is dead. I need to speak to his contac
t about his notes.”
Mab rubbed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do you mean Jacob Bowing?”
I gasped in surprise. There was no need to say yes. Mab could read it on my face.
“In that case, I have some bad news for you.” She went to her horse’s pack again and pulled out a sheaf of papers. The same sheaf she had used to double check David and Gerry’s identity. Mab held up a photograph. “This is the man you’re looking for.”
A hard knot formed in the center of my stomach, dropping like a stone into my already aching gut. “What do you mean?”
“This is Jacob Bowing. I only know this because am also looking for him.”
“No,” I whispered.
“He went missing about a month ago, along with Tinsdale and a whole slew of other folks.” Mab recited a line of names as she held up each picture. “Mortimer Tinsdale. Jacob Bowing. Timothy Long. Christopher Barnes. Paul Mannering. All of them.” She tossed the papers at me. “Everyone assigned to Tinsdale’s project went missing around the same time. Most of their work is gone as well.”
“No,” I said again, unwilling to believe it.
“None of them have been seen for over a month. If my sources are right, Dillon has all of them.”
“All of them?” I echoed weakly, that stone turning into a boulder.
“Those that are left,” Mab said with a tired sigh. “And now he has Jackson.”
I closed my eyes, as if I could shut out the truth as easy as I shut out the lantern light.
“Forgive me if I seem a little slow,” Stretch said. “But what does ornery old Theo have to do with a cure for the sickness?”
“His blood,” I said. “He survived naturally, so his blood holds the key to saving us all.”
“His and that bastard Dillon’s,” Mab said.
“And now Dillon has Mr. Theo.” Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes as I said this. I squeezed them tighter, trying to shut out the awful truth. “Which means he has the cure all for himself.” Warm wetness ran down my face.
“Damn,” Stretch said. “That is the last man in the world I would trust with such a thing.”
“You aren’t the only one,” Mab said.