by North, Geoff
The mud-covered woman was standing beside him now, rubbing his arm with cold fingers. “You’re a skinny one. Not so skinny that you can’t make babies though, hey?”
Cobe backed away from her. “I’m not making babies with you. I’m not making babies with anyone. Where’s my brother?”
“Give the boy some room, El.” Dirty crawled out from the tree with amazing agility. “He ain’t ready yet. If you want somethin’ to do, pull that dead body outta my house and drag it off a ways.”
“He’s dead?”
“It’s what I said, wasn’t it?”
El looked disappointed. “I wanted to…well, I was hopin’—”
“Go have some fun with his corpse in the woods.” Dirty waved the younger woman away dismissively. “Do whatcha want to him—so long as you do it far enough away the rest of us don’t hear.”
Cobe looked away quickly as the woman bent over to crawl inside the tree. Dirty didn’t miss a thing. “What’s the matter with you? You one o’ those boys that don’t like girls? ‘Cause if so, I’ll gut you right here and now.”
More muddy figures appeared in the trees. Naked girls and boys ranging in age from six to sixty moved towards the fire in a curious cluster. They surrounded Cobe and the old woman, holding weapons as advanced as bows and arrows all the way down to sharp-edged rocks. Some held nothing at all, choosing instead to play with the organs between their legs.
“I like girls,” Cobe said defensively. “Why do you need me? Looks like you have plenty enough boys here to make babies.”
Dirty sneered. “Brothers pokin’ sisters? Uncles fuckin’ nieces? We been doin’ that shit fer years. Trouble is the babies get uglier and stupider the more a family fiddles with each other. I find fresh faces and new peckers makes things better.”
Cobe suddenly found himself wishing he was running with the rollers again. He wanted to be anywhere but here.
A voice called out away from the fire, “Do as she says, boy. Screw one of her ugly daughters and maybe they’ll let us go.” Cobe pushed through the crowd and found Lode fifty feet away, tied to a tree and grinning. “If it’s your first time, don’t let nerves get the best of you. It’ll pass. I’ve already fucked four of them.”
“My brother…Lawson; where are they?”
Lode indicated off to the side with a wag of his big tattooed head. “Your brother’s too young to play with Dirty Gertie’s granddaughters. Not sure why they kept him alive. Maybe they’ll wait for him to grow into the breeding type.”
Cobe found them lying in a mound of dirt and leaves. He shook Willem’s arm until the boy sat up groggily on his own. Lode was still talking. “The lawman keeps drifting in and out. I was hoping the old bastard might stay awake long enough to satisfy a woman or two. Maybe I was too hard on him—one kick in the head too many.”
“We in trouble again?” Willem asked. “Them people gonna kill us?”
Cobe wasn’t sure how to explain it to his little brother. “Trouble? Yeah, I suppose we are. But they ain’t interested in killing and eating us.”
He offered Cobe a weak smile. “Then we’re gonna be okay. We’ll get outta this.”
Cobe ruffled the boy’s hair and returned a grin of his own. “Yeah. We will.”
Somebody groaned beyond the lawman’s unconscious form. Cobe saw something shift, a blanket of leaves fell away, and Trot sat up looking more dazed and confused than ever. He winced in pain, and his fat fingers went to the side of his head. “Oooww…my head hurts.”
Cobe’s jaw dropped. “You’re alive!”
“Was I…was I dead?” Trot wasn’t being sarcastic; it was a genuine question.
“I saw you against the tree with an arrow stuck into your brain.”
“My ear,” Trot said. He showed Cobe the left side of his face. It was caked in dry blood. “The arrow caught my dumb ear and pinned me to the tree.” He looked at his fingers. “Finally stopped bleeding.” He made another pained look. “Hurts really bad.”
Cobe and Willem went to him together. They hugged the man tightly, and all three wept. Cobe whispered in his ear, “Have you ever made babies?”
Chapter 33
She had been called Gertrude originally. It was a name her mother had given her from a time long ago when names had some sort of meaning. Gertrude’s mother didn’t know much about meanings—she liked the sound of it, and that was good enough for her. As Gertrude grew, the name was shortened by her family and friends living in Rudd to Gertie. She grew tired of being raped nightly by her father, and late one evening when she was of an age older than Willem but younger than Cobe, Gertie bashed his head in with a heavy stick. Gertie’s ma told the town folk she’d done the deed herself because her husband was a filthy, two-timing cocksucker. Killing cheating spouses was acceptable in Rudd. Daughters killing fathers wasn’t—even if the cause warranted it. The abuse didn’t end there. Gertie’s ma took up with more men—banged half the town, according to old Dirty. The molestation continued, and Gertie killed two more men in their sleep. Gertie’s ma never told the truth of things—she kept on taking the blame—and she was hanged for it.
“How’d you end up in these hills?” Willem asked. The boy was sitting across the fire from her. Almost all were gathered there: Willem, Cobe, Trot, and three or four dozen of Gertie’s daughters, sons, and grandchildren. The only ones not listening to the old hag’s story were Lode and the lawman. Lawson was still in a semi-conscious state, sleeping in the dirt, and Lode was still tied to his tree some distance away.
“Most folks took my ma at her word, and she swung for what I did.” The single green tooth rubbed away at her upper lip. “But some knew the truth…the wives, the sisters, and the daughters of the men what fiddled with me could see the hate in my eyes—clear as hate and twice as strong. Finally left town one night figurin’ I’d be killed before the sun could come up again. Ran to the hills, and I ain’t never gone back.”
Cobe didn’t like the idea of his little brother listening to such a gruesome story, but he couldn’t help himself; he wanted to know more. “You call yourself Dirty now. How come?”
“You need to ask?” She spread her arms out and clawed at the smoke rising from the flames and into the night. Clumps of mud were tangled in the thatches of her underarm hair. Tracks of grime ran down her arms, all the way to the tips of her wrinkled, hard fingers. The woman’s leathery, stinking skin hadn’t been washed in years, Cobe guessed, and that was being generous. He looked away as Dirty thrust out her chest and showed them her breasts and ribs. “I was a bad girl…I done bad, dirty things. Saw no sense in hidin’ what they done to me…what fuckin’ civi-lie-zaeshum made me.”
Civilization. Cobe had heard the word spoken only once or twice before by his mother. It was an old idea, something lost and hard to reclaim, she’d said.
Trot spoke honestly; his childlike mind left him little choice but to say things as he saw them. “But you’re all so dirty and ugly… Why would you want other people to see you naked?”
“These are my hills, twit. I ain’t got nothin’ to hide, and neither do my children. You start hidin’ shit and pretty soon the truth gets swallowed up, too. Men lie to their wives…folks get fucked over. Not here, boy. Dirty Hills is a haven of honesty. It’s a family place.”
Dozens of heads nodded, and voices whispered agreement. Cobe studied their grisly features in the firelight. Trot had it right—they were dirty, and they were especially ugly. A child with hair hanging down to her knees picked away at a nostril large enough to stuff three fingers into. Her eyes were two different colors and the space between was too wide. The woman standing behind her wasn’t any prettier. Her eyes were set even further apart, reminding Cobe of the lawman’s ugly old horse, Dust. One of her hands rested on the girl’s shoulder. There were only two fingers, each as fat as a well-fed grass snake. She had no thumb at all. Cobe saw more people in the crowd missing fingers and limbs. Some had more than normal. A little boy wriggled his twelve fingers over the fire fo
r warmth. The man next to him had no ears or nose, but a third arm was sticking out of his chest, all wrinkly, gray and dead. Ugliness was the one thing they all had in common. The man could’ve been the boy’s father. The two-fingered woman might’ve been nose-picker’s mother. Maybe they were all brothers and sisters, and cousins, and aunts and uncles. It was impossible to tell.
Trot broke the silence. “Do I still have to make babies? I ain’t done something like that in a long time…and only to myself…never been with a woman.”
Dirty’s children started to giggle. The old woman waved them quiet. “That was the idea—it’s why I had my kids fetch you here. But I ain’t so sure that’s the way things should go now. That big fucker tied up over yonder already done near tore one o’ my girls in half. Poor thing asked fer a man and she got a monster. Maybe he’s spread enough seed in the other three to change things up a bit. Maybe provide ol’ Dirty with some big, strong grandsons to do the heavy work ‘round here.”
“You’re letting us go?”
Gertie shrugged. “You three ain’t like the others we found you with. Them bastards was loud and foul-mouthed. No respect for Dirty. Not sure about the old one. That bruised fart hasn’t woke long enough for me to judge one way or other.”
“He ain’t a bad man like them others,” Willem insisted. “He was with us, and we weren’t with them.”
Dirty picked something out of her gums and flicked it into the fire. “Maybe I’ll let you go in the morning…maybe I won’t. I’ll sleep on it.”
Sleep didn’t come easy for Cobe. Dirty’s children split off into groups amongst the trees, and the sounds of baby-making kept him awake even longer. Trot started to snore loudly, and Willem’s nose whistled. Cobe stared across the smoking remains of the fire, into the black slit that led to Dirty’s home in the tree. She still terrified him, but after hearing how hard her life had been in the early years, he couldn’t help but feel some sense of connection to the old woman. They had both fled from home villages at a young age after seeing their parents die horrible deaths, knowing they would be next. In Dirty’s case it had been far worse—she’d killed her pa for the things he’d done to her. How could a pa do something so horrible to his own child? What kind of evil lived in the souls of the men that followed in his place?
Cobe’s feet were cold. He reached off to the side for more leaves to bury them in and his hand struck metal. He tried sitting up and his head hit glass. Cobe was trapped inside one of the cylinders back down in Big Hole. How had this happened? Who had brought him back to this awful place, and why had they put him in here?
Willem. That gawdamn Willem shoved me in here. Cobe started to giggle. His little brother had a wicked sense of humor. Cobe pushed up on the window. I’ll kick his ass when I get out. I’ll tell Ma what he done, and we’ll see if he pulls any more tricks after that.
It wouldn’t open. He pushed harder, realizing his brother didn’t have the strength to drag him all the way back over all those miles of flat ground and through all them roller ruts. He was a four-foot nothing with only one arm. Cobe punched the window. He pounded away at it with two fists. The lawman brought me back here. That mean old fuck strapped me across Dust’s back and kept me asleep. He shoved me in here to die. He thinks I’m a coward. Doesn’t think I’m worthy to carry a gun.
“Sssshh…”
Cobe lowered his fists and stared through the window. The girl with the long red hair and the glowing green eyes appeared a moment later. “You…It was you that put me in here.”
“You won’t be in there for long. I just needed somewhere quiet to tell you something.”
Cobe tapped the glass. “How can I hear you?”
“Never mind that.”
“I saw you…just before the explosion. I saw you sitting in the corner. What’s your name?”
“Quit asking stupid questions and listen. I’m trying to warn you.”
“You don’t look the same. Your skin isn’t gray now. You look more like me. Please let me out. I want to touch your hair.”
The girl was losing her patience. “We’re coming for you. Tell the others—tell everyone.”
“Who’s coming for us? What’s your name? “A scar appeared between the girl’s eyes. Cobe watched another one form above her lip. Dark shadows threatened to drown her eyes; the skin on her cheeks turned white.
“The cryers are coming. We’re going to kill all of you.”
“Your name. Tell me your—”
Cobe’s words were choked off. Something warm and hard covered his mouth and nostrils. He couldn’t breathe. The girl vanished and was replaced with Lode’s ugly face. The red tattoos glistened deep purple in the moonlight.
“Don’t make a sound,” the man whispered. “I just killed the three men Dirty had watching over me. If any of the others wake up and see, they’ll finish us off. No chance of escape… No more fucking… We’ll be dead. Understand?”
Cobe nodded and Lode removed the hand from his face. “She was gonna let us go in the morning. You ruined everything.”
Lode slapped two giant fingers across Cobe’s nose. It didn’t make a sound, but the pain was real enough. “Don’t you start with me, boy. Maybe she would’ve let us go, maybe she wouldn’t. I’m not letting the old bitch make that decision. I’ve already dragged the lawman halfway out of the hills. You’re going to wake your brother and make sure he keeps his mouth shut. The four of us will be back on our way to Rudd before the sun starts to rise.”
“What about Trot?”
“I don’t give a fuck about Trot. They can have him.”
Cobe could feel blood leaking out of his nose where he’d been struck. He wiped it away and stared defiantly back at Lode. “He comes with us or I start yelling.”
Lode looked ready to give Cobe another hit—a much harder one. He reined his temper in and rose to his feet. Trot was still sleeping soundly as Lode kneeled down and punched him in the face. The snoring stopped. Cobe covered Willem’s mouth and shook his brother awake. The younger boy appeared disoriented and confused for only a few moments. Cobe didn’t have to say a word. It was time to go.
They caught up to the lawman twenty minutes later. He was finally awake and crawling out of the last bit of forest on his hands and knees. Lode dropped Trot to the ground and dragged Lawson up to his feet. “You two can pull that fat idiot along. I want to keep the lawman close to me.”
“Please don’t beat him no more,” Willem begged.
Lode pushed Lawson ahead of him. “No more beatings, I promise. We need him strong and able to compete for us in the Rites.”
Trot groaned at Cobe’s feet. “My hands…my ear…my nose. It all hurts so bad.”
“Can you walk?” Cobe asked.
“Yeah, I can walk.” He whimpered some more and pulled at the rope-belt around his waist as he stood. “It’s about all I can do.”
A scream broke out from the hills. It was a mournful, raging wail that echoed off into the plains for miles. More joined in as the five trudged off towards Rudd, leaving the Dirty Hills behind them.
Chapter 34
The group of ten didn’t need to rest. They had stopped in the open plains with the looming forested hills less than a mile away because Eunice Murrenfeld had insisted. Her fat feet were swollen like things dead and looking set to burst.
Clouds from the northeast had drifted over their heads throughout the night, and as morning took hold they became a solid, roiling bank of gray tinged with dull green. “A few more minutes,” the obese cryer said while she sat in the dirt, rubbing her sore toes. “They’re starting to feel better already.”
She’d said the same thing half an hour earlier.
Lothair squatted down in front of her. “We need to keep moving. I would like to reach those hills before it starts to pour.”
Eunice sneered at him. “You afraid of a little shower? What about all those remarkable enhancements you’re always going on about—they gonna wash away in the rain?”
“
This is a different world from the one you and I once lived in. Those clouds…I don’t like the color. There may be more than just water falling on us.”
“Clouds are clouds. Ran is rain. What’s the big deal?”
“Chemicals. Acid. Radioactive fallout.”
Eunice looked at Eichberg concernedly. She rubbed at the bloated purple veins a little faster. “One more minute, I promise.”
The group of ten didn’t need to rest, but Jenny had slept anyway. In an attempt to reach out again to her catatonic mother, Jenny had sensed someone else in her dream. He was trapped in one of the cryogenics cylinders, but unlike the horrors she had discovered in her first dream, this one was different. She knew who this was, and she had felt his fear. Jenny didn’t know him well—she had seen him only once in those brief moments before the grenade had blown her mother apart. She thought his name might be Colby, or something close to Colby. Jenny should’ve hated him for a being a part of that, but the boy had pointed a gun into Lothair Eichberg’s face. How bad could he be? In a previous life, Jenny might have been attracted to him. He was tall and gangly, maybe a little too skinny, but he was good-looking. A thousand years ago she might have told her teenage friends he was cute.
Michael Strope had been watching his daughter. He left Edna sitting in the dirt, propped up uncomfortably on one elbow, and went to her. “That’s the second time I’ve seen you sleeping. Are you sick?”
“Just resting my eyes.”
“Your lips were moving.”
“I was singing.”
“No you weren’t.”
“Isn’t it a few centuries late for fatherly concern? You didn’t care about me when I was growing up, why try now?”
Strope’s face remained grim and emotionless. “You’re my daughter. It’s my duty to protect you. Be careful of what you say, and what you do.”