by Fran Wilde
He patted his holster for effect and shoved the reins into Shadow’s hand. Shadow didn’t say anything. But he got up on the horse.
“What way?” he asked Wood.
Wood shrugged. “Whatever way your magic says, Barefoot.”
Shadow looked at me with exasperation. He didn’t want to go—didn’t believe he could find whatever he was being sent for, I gathered. But I didn’t know what to tell him.
“You’ll be alright, Shadow.” I gave him a pleading, go-on-now sort of look, because dammit, I didn’t feel like getting bit by another bullet.
“I’ll go, Utah Sullivan,” Shadow said. “But it’s not for this town that I go. It’s for you.”
Then he kicked the horse into some sort of lilting trot, taking off into the desert.
When Shadow was out of earshot, I turned to Wood. “I’ve not known that man for long. He got no loyalty to me. What makes you think he cares to come back? He might just go on his merry way now that he ain’t got your gun pointed at his back.”
“Didn’t you hear him just now? He’ll be back. As you put it, he’s your damn savage.”
Wood tipped his hat and sauntered back into town. I turned back to the desert. Shadow was a speck of bronze, leaving a dust cloud in his wake. On one hand, I wished he would hurry and return as soon as possible. On the other, I wish he’d just keep riding into that blazing sun.
* * *
I couldn’t tell how may people lived in Wood’s town. I didn’t see much folk on the streets. A few faces flashed by in the windows, and they looked mostly the same. They had a flat look to them, skin even with the color of the sand. It was like the dry had crept beneath their doors and slipped into their beds at night. Slipped into the very people themselves and made a home right beneath their skin.
With nothing to do but wait, I took a seat at the bar in the saloon. The barkeep filled a glass with whiskey.
“Hold up now,” I said. “I got no money to pay for this.”
The barkeep stared at me. It was the same empty stare I’d seen from the townspeople behind their dusty windowpanes. But he didn’t answer. Just kept polishing his glasses.
“This is Woodstown, and Wood’s fellas don’t pay here.” It was the old saloon girl, standing on the stairs.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I ain’t nobody’s fella.”
“Who are you kidding. He’s got you by your man parts now.”
She looked much like the rest of the folk I’d seen. She had some curve to her, and her hair had probably been blonde once. Now it was an ashy color. Grains of sand sat in the wrinkles of her skirt and laces of her corset. The dry sure was trying to get into her, too, but her eyes weren’t all flat so maybe she was fighting it off a little.
“You and your friend shoulda never come here,” she said as she sat down next to me.
“I reckon there aren’t that many towns left, ma’am. We thought you might have water.”
“Our well has given nothing but mud for weeks. We’re left to the whiskey now. At least it makes for a pleasant death. Might not burn so much when the dry comes and the devil arrives with it to collect our souls.”
She was eyeing my glass. I pushed it toward her. She drank it in one gulp.
“Wood seems to think my man can bring water,” I said. “Some magical creature from a canyon someplace.”
“The Fishgirl. He tried to get Dogbait to find it for months. That old barefoot tried, but he couldn’t do it, and the desert killed him for his trouble.” She locked my gaze. Seemed her drunkenness was gone. “Nothing can stand against the dry once it decided it wants you. It eats everything. People, animals, towns. Everything has turned to dust by now. Or turned to evil.”
“This town is still standing, ma’am,” I said. “You all are still here. Wood is.”
“Like I said. Or turned to evil. Dust settles on everyone’s souls sooner or later. I think it started to settle on you, too, when you sent your friend out in the desert just now.”
She slid off the stool, more gracefully than I would have expected. For a moment I imagined her in her glory days, in a full saloon. Perhaps singing, definitely dancing. Definitely enjoying all the eyes on her, too.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She shook her head. “‘Ma’am’ will do just fine. But you shouldn’t talk to me again. You keep your hatred for this place. Hate it, so you can leave it.”
I didn’t see her again for a while after that. Or perhaps I did, and she just blended in too well with the rest of the townsfolk, going about their bland lives.
With no water in town, I drank whiskey for the next several days. It should’ve killed me, drinking so recklessly. But it seemed rules were different in Woodstown. It left me in a state of constant fuzz where the world had round edges and moved slowly. I slept some of the time, having dreams of vampiric mustangs with their hide splotched with blood. In those dreams, the desert had turned black. The sky, the sand, my soul, too. Everything.
My wound ached as if it missed Shadow.
* * *
After four days, Shadow returned. With magic, if I ever saw any.
She sat strapped on Shadow’s back, her tail flapping in the dry heat. She oozed water from her eyes, the corners of her mouth. It beaded from her pores, too, and ran down her belly and made her green scales glisten. The water was crystal clear, and where a drop landed on the ground, a flower grew. A flower. My jaw dropped at that.
Shadow looked tired. I don’t know what had happened to the horse he’d left on, but from the way his legs trembled, I guessed he’d spent at least a full day carrying the Fishgirl back to town. He allowed two of Wood’s men to unstrap the girl from his back. Then he walked into the saloon, not turning around. I went after him.
“You found her,” I said.
“Yes.”
Shadow found a glass of whiskey that seemed to be waiting for him on the counter. He downed it. That was a bit of a shock—I had never seen Shadow drink before. I noticed he’d hung bone tokens from his belt and painted himself with protective symbols. Twice as many as he’d put on himself when he was in the desert with me. Seemed it hadn’t helped much. A claw of some kind had slashed his left cheek open, and his arms were scratched up real bad.
“Something chased you?” I said.
“Not me. Her.”
“What was it that came after you?”
“Everything.”
He looked at me. Who knew how old he really was, but now he looked much older than when he’d left. Older, and hurting. And that pain, it didn’t come from tired legs or scratched arms. It came from deep inside of him.
“I rest tonight,” he declared. “But tomorrow, we go.”
“Don’t you wanna wait and see if that girl’s gonna bring water like Wood says? Then we might be able to stay for a while.”
“No. We leave, while we still can.”
I gathered that Shadow hadn’t slept for all four days he was in the desert, and that perhaps he would come to his senses once he’d gotten some sleep. Woodstown wasn’t a very nice place to be, but I figured it would be slightly nicer if there was water in the well.
Shadow finished his drink and went up to our little room. And me, well, I couldn’t help it. I went to see the Fishgirl.
Wood had taken her to the well. Two of his men were rigging a chain with a harness so that they could lower her down into the shaft. Wood himself stood to the side, staring at the creature Shadow had brought.
She was the opposite of all the creatures in the desert. The dry devil’s creations were all made from claws and bone, with hard shells and rough angles. They had red eyes and razor-lined maws spilling bloody froth. But this creature was soft and limber, small and delicate. Scales covered her tail and arms, leaving her belly and breasts bare. Her hair was stringy and her mouth nothing but a slit, but her face was beautiful anyway—pale and smooth like the surface of a pearl.
She still spilled water. Flowers sprouted up from the sand, all ar
ound, in all sorts of colors. It was beautiful, but Wood seemed mostly annoyed.
“Hurry with the harness,” he told his men. “I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.”
She had eyes—big milky ones, and she sure looked around. I didn’t know how much of a mind she had, but I guessed she understood what was happening. Water still streamed from every fold in her pale skin. It wouldn’t stop. I don’t know how—perhaps it was from the way her eyes seemed to smile at everything—but I realized that she was doing it willingly. She wanted to help.
“Why you gotta put her down in that hole?” I asked Wood. “Why don’t you let her see the sun at least.”
Wood glared at me. “I want her to help the town,” he said. “Not drown it. She’s a damn fountain. Gotta contain her somehow, or who knows what’ll happen. This place might turn into a jungle.”
The Fishgirl didn’t protest when she was lowered into the hole, the pulleys squealing. She looked upwards, her eyes large and unblinking. I felt sorry for her, having to go down that pit.
Townsfolk gathered in the square, and they all peered into the well, one after the other. I watched the commotion a good hour, seeing their eyes widen at what Shadow had brought them. Many ran to their homes, fetching large pails to carry water with. I expected to see hope in their eyes, and perhaps some wonder at this miracle creature, but all I saw was desperation. That bothered me. On her behalf, it bothered me.
When I returned to the saloon, Shadow was sitting at the counter again. Didn’t look like he’d even tried to sleep, with the desert still dusting his clothes. Two glasses filled with whiskey were in front of him. A cluster of empty ones sat next to them.
I took a seat and slid one of the shots to me. Didn’t really need another drink, but he needed it less. “That creature is a spring,” I said. “From the gods, I reckon.”
“From God,” he corrected me.
“From God, then. My point is, she can save this town. Maybe the whole damn world.”
“Didn’t bring her to save the whole damn world.”
His voice was clipped, and it frustrated me. “There are innocent people here, Shadow. They need our help. But I think they don’t know how to handle that Fishgirl right. I think she might need our help, too, or things could go bad.”
“Can’t help both town and Fishgirl.” He looked at me again, pleading and piercing at once. “Perhaps neither. Shadow just knows how to help you. That’s why God sent you to me in the desert.”
“God sent me to you so that you could drag me out into the desert to die, when we’ve got water right here? God must not realize that a desert doesn’t do much good to a man.”
Shadow didn’t pay me no mind, even though I was baiting him—and his God—pretty hard. He put his glass down. “Remember, Utah. At dawn, we go.”
But that night something took hold of Shadow. Perhaps it was the dry finally getting to him, finding its way past his barefoot magic.
It made him sick. For hours, he retched and coughed in the little room. Fever raged his body, flaring his tattoos bright red. He cried. By the time dawn arrived, I knew there was no way in hell we could leave as I’d planned.
* * *
I was no barefoot, and I had no special powers to fight what wrecked through Shadow. The next morning I intended to wait out Shadow’s illness at the bar, maybe strike up a conversation with Ma’am to feel less of a helpless fool. But I couldn’t stand the sound of Shadow upstairs. He wailed through his fever, cried like a woman with a broken heart. It pierced my eardrums like rusted iron nails. I took a seat outside on the porch instead where I couldn’t hear him. And I wanted to see the flowers.
The well had a nice patch of grass around it now. Tall, moist grass, the sort my old horse loved to graze on when he was still alive. Pretty flowers were growing, too. Roses and lilies and tulips heaping over each other.
When the splendor of the flowers lessened to daisies, and dandelions, and then droopy weeds, I grew suspicious. There were still noises down in the well, and droplets still splashed over the edge, but they came less and less. As the afternoon passed, the grass around the well turned yellow and brittle-like. The townsfolk frowned as they pulled up half-empty buckets. Eventually, they didn’t get anything but mud. Despite the white-hot morning, I grew cold at the sight.
By the time that chilled curiosity got the best of me, and I went to peer down the well, I knew I wasn’t gonna see anything good. The sunlight shone down into the pit. At the bottom of the well, on her back, lay the Fishgirl. She was still writhing, but there was no water springing from her anymore. Mud seeped from beneath her scales. Mud and grit. Even through the layer of dirt that covered her face, I could tell that she was frightened and confused, as if she didn’t understand what was happening.
And it had only been one afternoon.
With my heart twisting uncomfortably at the sight, I decided that I’d wait in the saloon, after all. Ma’am was there, perched on a bar stool. She had a glass in front of her, but it wasn’t whiskey this time. It was water, and she was using it to clean the desert off her velvet shoes. Her face looked cleaner, and her dress wasn’t so dusty anymore. The sequins around her neckline even sparkled. I gathered she’d taken a bath, gotten her clothes washed. Strangely though, it didn’t make her look any better. Just made me see her wrinkles clearer, and showed how old she really was.
“Your friend ain’t getting better, Utah,” she said.
“He’s strong, Ma’am. He’ll pull through.”
“No, honey, he won’t.” Her words came out with pity, but they had a sharpness to them. “The dry got into him, don’t you see? Did it to Dogbait, too. I sat at his bed when he died. That old man sounded just like your friend. He don’t have long, believe me.”
“He’s a barefoot,” I snapped. “He can handle himself.”
“Being a barefoot ain’t gonna do him any good,” Ma’am said. “His soul is damned now. You don’t go sacrifice a creature like the Fishgirl to someone like Wood without paying the price. Your friend shoulda known better. God knows why he went and did something so foolish.”
“He did it to save this town. To save Wood, and the people here, and you.”
She shook her head. “Do you see what this town is doing to that girl? Do we look like we deserve saving? I told you days ago that you shoulda left, while you still could. It was always too late for Woodstown. Now it looks like it’s too late for you and your friend, too.”
Then Ma’am turned back to her shoes and didn’t say anything more to me. Above me, Shadow still wailed in pain.
Ma’am was right—Shadow should’ve known better. He shouldn’t have to listened to Wood, or to me, or to God, even. What purpose had he served, taking a magical being and giving it to a town that didn’t know how to handle her? Who was he trying to save?
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Yeah, it was true, perhaps I could have made a decent home for myself in Woodstown. There was a bit of water, and other people, and right here there was even a woman I thought I might be able to grow fond of. But that wailing from above cut right through that idea. Because what was happening out in that square just wasn’t right.
I stood on the stairs for a while, just to hear Shadow’s pain. Reckoned it would be easier to do what had to be done with his cries ringing in my ears.
* * *
Wood was more than happy to find me a horse when I asked him. He even supplied two saddle bags full of grub and several water skins. My revolver was in one of the bags, cleaned and loaded. He sure wanted rid of me.
“Guess it’s the least I can do for you who saved us,” he said as he handed me the reins.
“Don’t think I saved you much at all,” I said. “Looks to me like your well’s drying out.”
“The town will hold on.”
“But will she?” I shaded my eyes from the sunlight and peered at Wood, but his leathery face gave no emotion.
“If she dies, she dies,” he said. “We got lots of water
out of her. Bought us at least another few weeks. More time that we had before, in any case.”
Don’t know if I would have been quicker at the draw than Wood, but in that moment I would have liked to have my gun at my side rather than packed up in my saddle-bag. “You reckon it was worth it? That pretty creature dying for you to have a few weeks?”
Wood didn’t seem to be bothered by my tone. He just gestured toward the east. “A few months before you got here, we had a fellow come from the mountains. Said there was a town still standing there. Even had a patch of grass and a spring near it. Don’t know how much truth there was to it, but I reckon that’s a good place for you to go.”
“Sounds as fair a plan as any,” I said, even though I doubted very much there was a town with a patch of grass and a spring left anyplace in this sorry mess that remained of the world.
“Sorry about your barefoot. I hear he might not make it through the night, from the looks of him.”
I stared at my scuffed boots. “I sure had hoped for a different fate for Shadow. And for me. For all of us, really.”
“Well, I’ll make sure Ma’am takes care of him, as long as he lasts. And you be sure to wait until dusk to leave. No need to let the sun get to you sooner than necessary.”
I tipped my hat to Wood. He tipped his back. It was, again, mighty civilized.
I took the horse back to the saloon. I didn’t have much in the way of belongings to load up, so all I had to do was wait. This time, though, I waited in the little room with Shadow. I forced myself to watch him as he slurred in delirium, sweat running down the sides of his face, grit and sand coming out his nose and corners of his ears and his mouth as he coughed. I forced myself to watch because I had made that happen to him. I had cracked him.
“Shadow,” I said, taking his hand. It was hot as coal. “Can you hear me?”
He just moaned. I imagined it to be an affirmative. Gave me a reason to keep talking, anyway.