by Jim Heskett
Yorick couldn’t remember how much he and the others had told Xevon already. Given that the big guy appeared to drink quite a bit, who knew what he was capable of remembering.
“My parents.”
“They’re in Cheyenne?”
“No, in Harmony, just south of the border.”
Xevon tilted his head back, letting his mouth fall open. “Ahh, that’s right. Miss Rosia did mention something about the border.” He shuddered.
“What?” Yorick asked.
“To cross the border, you have to go through a tunnel. It’s a strange place. Dark, not the most inviting, even if you have a car. I can’t imagine getting through it on foot. Rumor is there are side passageways and squatters have taken to living in them. Little civilizations down there in the border wall itself. That’s probably only tall tales, though.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
Xevon chuckled. “I bet you will. You four are the toughest kids I’ve ever seen. I’ll give you that much.”
Yorick considered bringing up the guards Xevon had killed back in Pinedale, but he opted not to mention it. Clearly, the man didn’t feel any remorse about his actions. Someone who could be so kind and forthright with some and display no mercy toward others… Yorick was unaccustomed to that sort of up-front duality in a person.
The sun began to rise above the mountains and Yorick noted a gigantic structure set against the wilderness. Walls as tall as the prison he had spent most of his life inside.
Yorick pointed. "What's that?"
"That there is Lord Alfred's plantación," Xevon said.
Yorick felt his insides constrict. "There are others? Serfs and guards? Children in there?”
Other plantacións. The idea had never occurred to him.
"Of course," Xevon said, with an eyebrow raised. "Serf labor is the only way we get any kind of fruit or vegetables or cotton at all in this kingdom. You didn’t know? They’re all over the place.”
Xevon fell silent, stroking his beard with one hand. Breath whistled in and out of his nose.
Yorick needed time to process this new information. He turned and looked into the back seat at his three companions. They all seemed to be as equally as upset and confused. This meant there were thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of serfs forced into slavery, just like they had been until a little over a week ago.
“Almost at Rock Springs," Xevon said. "We’ll stop here to get supplies. And, I hope you won't think less of me, but after we go on and I drop y’all off in Cheyenne, I'm planning to head up north. Reckon I'm not welcome back in Pinedale after all that."
Before he could open his mouth to respond, Yorick noted a low-lying cloud in motion tearing through the valley, like a line moving perpendicular to the road. Took him a second to realize it was the trail of dust being churned by the wheels of a car headed toward the road. Only a few hundred meters away. Something about it felt wrong.
Then, he realized why. This was the same kind of car he had seen when they’d hid in the wreckage of the plane, two days ago.
As the car drew closer, on a collision course with them, Yorick could see the three occupants inside. Three men, but not the female whose eyes he'd met when he'd peeked outside the edge of the plane. Just the trio of males.
Yorick lifted a hand to point, and he just had enough time to open his mouth and say, "Look out," before a hail of bullets pelted the side of the car. Most of them clinked off the armor plating, but a few punctured the windows. Glass sparkling in the pre-dawn light flew through the car like bits of shrapnel.
Yorick dropped down, covering his head with his hands. Loud noises came from the backseat. Motion. He pivoted around to see Tenney grasping his side.
Xevon swerved, swearing in a language Yorick had never heard before.
The rifles were in the trunk, but Yorick snatched a pistol from his bag, and he lowered the window to shoot. In the back, Rosia and Malina had the same idea. Xevon swerved in the other direction, banking the car to the left. Malina's backpack went flying out the window.
Yorick emptied his magazine toward the car. A few of the shots connected, and the car wobbled, the dirt cloud weaving back and forth. And then, a bullet passed within a centimeter of his head. He ducked again, and he heard Xevon yelp. Then, a gasp and a gurgle.
Yorick lifted his head to see Xevon missing his left eye. A single line of blood ran down his cheek, and a drop leaped from his beard onto his overalls.
Within a second, their driver slumped forward, his head hitting the steering wheel.
For a moment, Yorick had the bleak hope that Xevon might still be alive. That the shot hadn’t been fatal, and they could somehow still reach Rock Springs and get their driver help. He tried to figure out how he could get his feet over to operate the pedals and take control of the steering wheel.
Then, the big guy slumped to the side, his lifeless body sliding off the steering wheel. He folded over, head in his own lap. No chance he was still alive.
Another bullet slammed into the car’s engine, and the hood flipped up as sparks and smoke billowed out like steam from the snout of a moose. Xevon's Camaro jerked back and forth and then crashed into the bank of a ditch next to the road.
Yorick slammed against the extent of his safety belt. His body tightened. The wind knocked out of him, he struggled to catch his breath.
"Out, out!" Yorick shouted as he popped a fresh magazine into the pistol. He turned to look at them. Rosia and Malina were alert and uninjured in the crash.
Because his passenger side was pointed down into the ditch, Yorick had to climb over Xevon to exit the car. He popped up and shot at the enemy vehicle again. He must've hit something because the car immediately changed course and sped away. Yorick fired a few more shots as it disappeared over a hill back to the west. The dirt cloud grew smaller and smaller.
He shoved the gun in his waistband and opened the rear door to help Malina and Rosia out. He wobbled as he tried to pull the door free. Adrenaline spiked his heart rate, and his ears filled with white noise.
"Are you okay?" he asked Rosia at what he thought was a normal volume, but he had probably yelled the words.
Rosia nodded, but a frantic Malina pointed at Tenney. "He got hit. It’s bad.“
Tenney was in the back, hands over his stomach. All three of them pulled him out of the back seat, gurgling and wincing in pain. They set him on the ground. Yorick ran around to the back, popped the trunk, and removed their bags. He even took the one belonging to Xevon. Yorick didn't feel good about that, but their driver wouldn't need it any longer. Maybe he had medical supplies inside it, or something else useful.
He then joined his companions at the side of the car, dropping the bags.
“What do we do?" Malina asked. Her eyes were locked on Tenney, who appeared to be fading fast. The big guy sucked labored breaths between clenched teeth.
Yorick looked east, in the direction they’d been heading.
Rosia pointed as she picked up Xevon’s bag. "I can see the edge of the city. We have to go before they decide to come back. We’re too exposed out here in the open.”
And with that, Rosia, Malina, and Yorick helped the bleeding Tenney to stand so they could hike to Rock Springs.
Chapter Seventeen
ROCK SPRINGS
Unlike Pinedale, no exterior walls were constricting Rock Springs. Nothing to contain the buildings. It looked like there had been some sort of wall at one time, but it had mostly crumbled. A bomb or a missile had taken out a large part of the southern side of town, in fact. The unblemished area of the north met a harsh line where everything south of it had been destroyed.
Whatever the past state of the town’s defenses, it now meant no trouble getting into civilization this morning. Yorick felt grateful for that as he, Rosia, and Malina rushed the injured Tenney off the highway and onto a regular street. A trail of blood drops lined the road and most of the kilometer they’d trudged to get here.
Tenney’s wound app
eared to be somewhere in his lower abdomen, but they hadn’t stopped long enough to check exactly. He could walk, but not fast, and the three others had supported him for the entirety of the journey into town. Any time he tried to speak, Malina would shush him and tell him to save his strength. They’d pressed a green shirt against the wound, and it had turned to maroon in the short span of time they’d hiked.
There was no main gate to enter to welcome them into the town proper. Without walls, the town spread out from a central area of buildings that were marginally taller than the rest. Yorick saw no building he could identify as a hospital.
The paved roads crisscrossed, at least in the developed half. A few of the roads in the war-torn southern section were broken, covered with grass and weeds. The buildings to the south were dilapidated and grown over with vegetation. He spied a pack of wolves or coyotes sitting on the open third floor of a half-building, watching him and his companions scurry through town.
No one they encountered seemed interested in helping them. Maybe a bleeding teenager wasn’t anything too unusual for these people, but they seemed more involved in going about their early morning tasks than offering assistance. Yorick noted a trio of sun-blistered men wearing goggles, lingering on a sidewalk, casting judgmental eyes at them.
The first structure that appeared to be in any way inviting was the Red Rock Inn. A blinking sign above reading vacancy. Yorick wasn’t sure what the word meant, but it seemed to be a positive.
They burst through the doors of the inn to find a reception area and a bar, much like the hotel in Pinedale. Piano music drifted from the bar, muted and jangly.
A sign near the bar stood out: sun worshippers not welcome here. Right next to that, a copy of the same wanted poster from Pinedale, featuring the grainy photographs of the four of them.
“Doctor!” Yorick shouted. “We need a doctor.”
A heavyset woman lumbered out from behind the reception desk and waddled over to them. She had severe eyebrows and her hair tied into a series of knots on top of her head, adding a dozen centimeters to her height. A lime green uniform covered her expansive frame as she stopped in front of Yorick and his friends.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Someone shot him on our way here,” Rosia said. “Road people. Please, is there a hospital in town? We don’t know where to go.”
The woman shook her head. “Closest proper hospital is in Rawlins. There’s a doctor in town though. Well, he’s an animal doctor, mostly, for the cows and horses in the farms to the north. But, he treats people, too.”
“Fine,” Yorick said. “Can we see him? When can he be here?”
The innkeeper hustled back to her reception area and grabbed a set of keys. They jingled in her hand as she returned to them. “Come with me. I can put you in a room and send for him.”
“Thank you,” Yorick said, his spirits lifting for the first time since the sun had risen today.
But then, as they escorted Tenney toward the stairs, he took a good look at the people gathered at the inn’s bar for breakfast. Many of them were casting narrowed and suspicious eyes at Yorick and his crew. They were mostly dressed like the White Flames who had shot at them, in yellow and brown. Bandannas atop their heads, some with expressive and brightly colored hair.
Yorick tried not to think about it. Priority number one had to be saving Tenney’s life. Anything else going on in this town could wait until they’d stabilized him.
They hustled him up the stairs to the second floor, and the innkeeper opened a door for them. They moved Tenney over to the bed and set him down, his face slick with sweat. He grunted as he reclined. Rosia pulled away the shirt over his wound, and Yorick got his first good look. An oozing hole in his lower right side. Rosia grabbed a towel from the nightstand and pressed it over the wound. This brought a fresh round of moans from Tenney.
Malina dropped to her knees beside the bed, weeping as she caressed his face. Rosia put Malina’s hands in her place, and Yorick realized he’d been paralyzed, standing next to the innkeeper by to the open door of the room. He rushed to the sink and wet more hand towels. These he placed on Tenney’s forehead and under his neck.
The big guy’s breathing was erratic and labored. He didn’t look good at all.
Rosia approached the innkeeper and held out a bar of gold. Looked like at least a quarter kilo. The woman’s eyes widened when she saw it.
“My stars,” the innkeeper said. “That’s solid gold?”
Rosia pressed the gold into the innkeeper’s palm, and she bounced it, feeling the weight.
“Hurry, please. Bring the doctor. Whatever you have to do to get him here.”
“Of course. Right away.”
As the woman fled from the room and closed the door behind her, Yorick stared at his girlfriend. “Where did you get that?”
Rosia set Xevon’s large black bag down on the ground. “You dropped it a little ways back. I thought it might have something useful in it." She unzipped the top of the bag. Inside, dozens of those shimmering gold bars stared back at Yorick.
Chapter Eighteen
Because Malina wouldn't leave Tenney’s side and Yorick wanted to keep an eye on the quasi-doctor treating Tenney, Rosia volunteered to leave to find food for them all. Since recovering the gold from Xevon's backpack, they shouldn't have the same trade issues in this town. Unless of course, in Rock Springs they used some other strange currency like bird feathers, or something even weirder than that. Maybe hunks of wolf mierda.
Rosia took the stairs down to the first floor of the inn, and she passed another bar of gold to the innkeeper. The woman's eyes ballooned.
"Please see to it that we are not disturbed," Rosia said. "It's important that our friend be allowed to heal in peace."
"Of course," the innkeeper said, shoving the bar of gold underneath the counter immediately. When she popped back up, she beamed a brilliant smile.
“I know I’m overpaying you,” Rosia said. “So I expect top-notch service. Understood?”
The innkeeper nodded. “Of course. Anything you need, you come to me, and I can get it for you. Anything at all.”
Rosia adjusted her cloak, keeping her finger on the trigger of the pistol. She considered sending the innkeeper out for supplies but changed her mind. She wanted to see the town for herself, at the least to complete a threat assessment of Rock Springs.
As she walked across the lobby of the inn, she had a look into the bar there. Fewer now than when they’d come in, now that the breakfast hour had ended. But there were still a half dozen patrons dressed similarly to all the road scavengers they'd seen so far. Not a friendly bunch.
Did this town have a Jefe? Who was running things here?
“Hello,” said a voice from behind her in the lobby.
Rosia craned her neck to see a man approach her from the side. She shied away, and he held up his hands in surrender.
“Don’t run off now. I won’t hurt you.”
She swept her eyes from head to toe. He was older, tall and thin, with bony fingers and varicose veins in his hand. But he was dressed in the most peculiar way. He wore a gray suit with a vest and a bowtie. A tall black hat sat atop his head. Rosia had seen pictures of this sort of dress and knew it was a style from a hundred or hundreds of years ago. Not a single other person she’d encountered wore clothes like this.
“Aren’t you hot?” she asked.
He smiled a warm smile. “Indeed, m’lady.”
His accent was strange as well. He had an almost musical quality to the rise and fall of his words. “You look like you see a ghost.”
“No,” she said, “I’ve just never encountered anyone like you before.”
His smiled widened, and he took off his hat and held it to his chest. “That’s because there is no one else like me under all the stars, m’lady.”
He reached into his interior jacket pocket and Rosia stiffened. Her hand closed around the pistol under her cloak.
But, he pulled out only
a small piece of paper. He held it out to her. “Fancy some theater? You look like the type who appreciates the cultured arts.”
She put the pistol back into her waistband and accepted the paper. An advertisement for a play at somewhere named West End Playhouse. She didn’t recognize the name of the play.
“You have theater in Rock Springs?”
“Indeed we do. The best in the world. Or, the best in this part of the world. I suppose I can’t speak for the entire globe we travel upon.”
With that, he slipped his hat back on and spun on his heels. He gave her a wink as he slipped away, back out the front door of the lobby. When he was gone, Rosia bit her lower lip. Not sure what to make of the exchange.
Rosia looked down at the paper. Even though it had only been a couple weeks, part of her missed the evening plays at the plantación. One of the few sources of pleasure and certainly the only sanctioned means of entertainment allowed.
She crumpled the page. No. Very likely, this theater invitation was a trap. There was no sense in trusting anyone out here. She trusted Yorick, Tenney, and—to a lesser extent—Malina, and no one else. Changing her mind on that topic could mean death for all of them.
Even if it wasn’t dangerous, they had no time for entertainment. Somehow, they had to get to Harmony in only a few short days. If they could move Tenney at all, which was not looking good.
Rosia scurried out of the inn before anyone else could engage with her. Not one of those faces in the bar had seemed friendly. She wandered down the street, looking for a grocery store, market, or something similar. Unlike Pinedale, the streets here were paved, many of the buildings well-kept, and there were many more of them. This place was three or four times as large as that dusty town. And that didn’t even include the vast southern section that looked like it had been obliterated in some previous battle.
Rosia did find a market, but all the stalls were empty, and a sign near the entrance indicated it was only open on certain days of the month. Today was not one of those days.