This Burning Man (Future Arizona Book 1)

by Kris Holt

  Nimble as a cat, I was through the tiny window at the top of the tower and crouched on the platform just inside. Below, I could hear a man praying in a language I only vaguely recognized. Spanish, maybe, or Creole. I had no ear for that sorta thing.

  I leaned down as low as I could. Duguid had his back to me, kneeling down in front of the altar. Slipping down the bellrope silently, I assumed a position behind a pew at the back of the room and breathed a prayer of my own.

  For a short while, there were my words, and there were his words, and it was like the Lord hisself was stood between us, counting steps before the duel.

  When the whispering had stopped and the silence got to lengthen, I slipped my taser out of my pocket and pointed it at his back. 'Emmanuel Duguid. I need to talk to you about Catholic Compound Twelve.'

  Chapter 5 – Shit Gets Real

  Duguid didn't so much stand up as unfold, one set of joints at a time. He had a casual way about him, like he wasn't gonna hurry for no man, regardless of the circumstances. His legs were long enough that he could have stepped over me without so much as realising I was there. His nose and chin were pointed in a way the photo hadn't captured. The sharp edges they created just made him look all the more dangerous. The handgun holstered on his hip looked powerful enough to punch a hole in a hovertank.

  'Taser is a hunter's weapon,' he said. His voice was rich, echoed around the space above me with all the threat of a forthcoming storm.

  'As God is my witness, I'm not here for bounty,' I said. 'I want to talk about someone from your past, someone you knew once a long time ago.'

  Muscles rippled under his vest. 'I'm listening,' he said.

  'Years ago when I was a kid, you used to come to Twelve. After the services, you used to stay behind sometimes and talk to my mother. Short woman, long hair, leather boots. Maybe you remember her.'

  'Maybe I remember her. Why do you care?'

  'She went missing after you left,' I said. 'I want to find her.'

  His handsome face twisted then, like one of those demons they tell you about in stories. 'Are you accusing me of something?'

  'I ain't accusing no-one of nothing. Be honest, nothing is all I got. I want a lead, some new information, something I haven't heard before. I guess...I want to know if you can help me.'

  'So you say you want help, but you sneak up on a man while he's praying and point a taser at him.'

  'Yeah, well, maybe you'll forgive me for that. I thought if maybe I came in the front door, you might not give me a chance to talk at all.'

  Duguid squared onto me but made no attempt to approach. For my part, I lowered the taser maybe an inch, but I wanted something there that at least gave me a fighting chance if he changed his mind.

  'This woman...your mother...I remember her. Very pretty girl. The bluest eyes. But she had a troubled mind. She was a hunter, and she was looking out in the desert.'

  'For what? What was she was looking for?'

  'For who. She'd heard a story about a group of women holed up in an oasis a hundred miles or more out of town. She thought the person she wanted might be with them, and wanted to know if I could verify the stories.'

  'And could you?'

  'I hear things all the time. But who's to say what's true? The Sands are alays shifting. Whatever's there today ain't always gonna be there tomorrow.'

  My hands were trembling now. 'Who was the person, and where was the oasis?'

  He scowled at me, and I got a sense that his patience was wearing thin. 'Boy, we're talking conversations that are ten years old. How much are you really expecting me to remember?'

  'Can you give me a direction for this oasis?' I said.

  He snorted with laughter. 'A direction. You gonna go out there and pick up her trail?'

  I levelled the taser. 'If you give me the direction, I'll go now and get out of your face forever.'

  'Ten years it's been and more,' Duguid said, turning away from me. 'Trail is cold, and so is she. Go on. You go runnin', now.'

  I was so furious right there to see my mom's life written off in that way that I was all set to drop my taser and pull out my pistol. I never got a chance 'cause at the same time, a dark blur moved across the stained glass windows to my right. Duguid saw it too. A harsh female voice that I recognized only too well rang out from outside.

  'Emmanuel Duguid, you're wanted for crimes against the state of Arizona. Get your ass out here now!'

  Duguid's gaze flicked back to me, and his face curled into a snarl. 'Oh, I see how it is. You bought yourself time to set a trap. So much for God being your witness.'

  I pointed to the blur outside. 'Now, she ain't nothing to do with me.' But he wasn't buying it, and in his shoes, I wouldn't have either.

  For a big man, Duguid could move. I fired the taser but he dodged it with ease, and his gun was in his hand in the same movement. I ducked as he stood up and his round shredded the pew to my left, turning it to matchwood.

  I rolled, laser tight now in my hands, but if I shot this man, I was risking losing any chance of finding my mom. The cold metal grip was just another reminder of her.

  A second round crashed over my head and tore an effigy of Jesus off the wall. A third shattered one of the stained glass windows. I popped a candy jack. Duguid's absolution was going to have to wait a while.

  'Taking your time getting out here and you can't shoot worth a damn,' Jayci Clemence called. 'Hurry on up, now.'

  For a moment, all was silence and I lay still as the dead, straining my ears to hear movement. From Duguid's direction there was nothing, but from behind me, I heard three soft thumps, like baseballs hitting a glove.

  In slow-motion, I looked round to see the small, ball-shaped devices that had followed my route down from the bell tower. Nestled in the dust, they might have been goose eggs, except for the trigger and handle on the top of each that told a different story.

  Jayci Clemence most definitely had a plan. She was gonna flush the bad out.

  I ran then, and there was only one way to go.

  The explosion took out the wall, the tower, half the roof and it also forced me through every intact pew left in the building. When I came to, I was looking up at the sky, turned crazy grey by the dust, and then when my eyes refocused, I was staring down the barrel of my own gun. Duguid's weapon might have been lost to him, but it was clear he wasn't a man to turn down an opportunity.

  I said, 'Wait a minute here. You don't want to be doing that.'

  'No trigger on this chigger. I'm guessing you just squeeze this little plastic bit here?'

  'Emmanuel, believe me, you don't wanna go pressing that.'

  'I don't think you can go telling me to do anything,' he snarled.

  'Tell me which direction the oasis was,' I begged. 'I need to know.'

  'Enough of that shit.' He pulled me up only as a precursor to throwing me down again, and then kicked me in the midriff.

  Doubled up, I looked past him at the crumbling masonry overhead, and then glanced to the side where the wall had been five minutes before.

  'You can still get out of here,' I said. 'We can still get out of here. I'll come with you. We can talk. But do not, do not squeeze that trigger.'

  'You got a funny way of begging for your life.'

  'This isn't about me.'

  'Not for much longer, anyhow.' Duguid slammed me down again and again. Fury set his eyes hard, like cut gems from the heart of the earth. I could see him now, the man that could slaughter an entire family, kids and dogs and all, just for breaking a promise.

  'Please.' One last try.

  'Any last words, momma's boy?'

  It was hopeless. 'Ain't none you're gonna listen to, are there?'

  'True, that.'

  Duguid squeezed the panel that released the laser bolt. Green lights ran the length of the barrel, and something in the gun began to sizzle, like meat on a skillet. His head jerked upwards, and his limbs spasmed out, like he was dancing to music only he could hear. The gun fell from his gr
ip, and he dropped to the floor beside it. He lay there, perfectly still, smoke rising from his hair, mouth and eyes.

  The candy jack must have kicked in at some point, but I wasn't feeling it. Instead, I laid back down, my eyes watering, and willed the whole damn place to fall in on me.

  Chapter 6 – Jayci

  'You ain't Emmanuel Duguid.'

  'Ain't nothing gets past you,' I said.

  Jayci Clemence nudged at my shoulder with the steel-toecap of her size five. 'So where is he?'

  I looked down, past my feet, and she moved that way. When I sat up, she was holding Duguid's corpse by the lapels. His head was lolling behind him like a melon in a sack. There was a terrible smell in the air, like bacon gone bad.

  'Goddamn it, you killed him!' Clemence said.

  'Hey, he killed hisself,' I shrugged. 'I told him not to go pulling that trigger.'

  Jayci Clemence glanced down, distracted for a moment by the laser in Duguid's hand, which wasn't the sort of thing even a seasoned hunter saw often. But she wasn't the sort to get easily derailed when she was pissed. She dropped Duguid like a bad habit, grabbed me by my collar and started shaking for all she was worth.

  'This is still your fault, you dumbass! Who gave you the right to stick your nose into my business?'

  The blood was rushing from my head to my chest and back again, making me feel like I was floating. 'Hey, it was you who nearly blew me to kingdom come.'

  'Damn shame I didn't,' she said, with feeling.

  By now my eyes were trying to roll back into my head and my breakfast wasn't resting so well. 'Can you stop shaking me now?'

  She let me go, and my strength returned a half-second too late to stop the back of my head crashing onto the floor. The timbers cracked beneath me. When the amber lights behind my eyes died down, I opened them to see her pacing from side-to-side and kicking at the rubble.

  'Fuck,' she said. 'This is bullshit!'

  'I'm sensing you're a bit upset,' I said.

  She rounded on me again, and leaned in so I could see the fire in her mud-coloured eyes. 'You think so? You know full well we don't get full bounty for dead men.'

  I pulled myself upright. 'You don't get no bounty at all.'

  Her expression changed from angry to dangerous. 'Say what, now?'

  Ah, what the hell. In for a cent, in for a buck. 'You said yourself that I was the one that killed him. That means whatever bounty there is, is mine.'

  She shot me a look that could have curdled milk and kicked me full in the shin. No mule could have kicked harder.

  'Owww! Motherf...goddamn it.' I retreated, picked up my gun, checked it and put it back in the holster. Jayci smouldered in my stead, her expression unchanging.

  'Don't make me shoot you,' she said. Her lips were so thin that they basically weren't there.

  'As if I'd do something like that.'

  'I've been following this guy's trail since he left Catholic Compound Twelve. Do you know how long it took me to find out that our man here was on a religious guilt trip? Do you know how many deacons I had to sweet-talk?'

  'How exactly d'you go about sweet-talking a deacon?'

  'Some of them holy men ain't so pious as they pretend,' she said.

  'So you-'

  'No! Goddamnit. I just know people, okay? God. Then I had to charge the hovertrike, plus-'

  'How in hell do you afford a hovertrike? Those things don't come cheap.' Hovertrikes worked like small, underside rotors fixed to vehicles that carried a charge, though juice was expensive and charges didn't last long. Still, when you weighed as much as Jayci Clemence, it wasn't like there was much to carry.

  'It's none of your goddamn business how I afford anything,' she growled, puffing up like a angry bird. 'Maybe I just happen to be really good at this bounty-hunting business. That is, when other dumbfucks ain't killing the bads.'

  'I kinda thought...'

  'Kinda thought what?'

  'I thought maybe you were out here with a partner. It didn't seem likely that you were gonna bring Duguid down on your own.'

  She laughed mirthlessly. 'What, you think I can't take care of myself, is that it?'

  'Not at all.' My shin was still throbbing.

  'At least I can fire a taser in a straight line, unlike some people I could mention.'

  'Lobbing the grenades into the tower was a keen trick,' I said.

  'Would have worked too if you hadn't been here,' she said ruefully. 'Those things weren't cheap either, you know. You gonna pay me back for those?'

  'No,' I replied. 'I'll let you off this time. But don't go trying to kill me again.'

  She laughed again, for real this time, I think. The roof creaked above us and a beam crashed down a few feet away, throwing up another pile of dust.

  'This was a nice church before you arrived,' I said.

  'Ah, God doesn't care about us down here,' Jayci replied. 'If he's up there at all, he's probably got a lot more things to worry about than what we get up to. You know, he's probably like...cloud racing, or something.'

  'Is that a thing?'

  'It should be.' She moved over into the space where the tower had been and stared upwards into the sky. The sun was hot, and the light shone off those jet-black braids. I wanted to ask, but I figured now maybe wasn't the time.

  'You got room for a dead one on the hovertrike?' I asked.

  She looked over her shoulder, and in profile, I could see her long, thin nose, which was more red than the rest of her face. For a desert girl, it looked like a long while since she'd seen the sun. 'Changed your mind about the bounty?'

  'I feel bad,' I said. 'I wasn't here for the bounty anyhow.'

  'I ain't even going to ask,' she said, and went outside to retrieve her bag. My rope and grappling hook were both long gone, blown to smithereens with the whole west side of the building, but Jayci had the full kit and in no time, our cadaver was trussed and resting comfortably on the rear of the hovertrike. She tested it, and it bounced a bit on the sand, but once she'd adjusted for the weight, it was clear she could manage. I retrieved the bike, and in no time, we were headed back south to the Quartermasters.

  * * *

  I was sitting outside on a rock in the shade when Jayci returned. Truth is, I was lost in thought and didn't even see her coming. First I realised she was there at all was when she dropped a small canvas bag into the space between my knees.

  'Half and half,' she said. 'Don't let no-one say that Jayci Clemence don't play fair.'

  'Oh,' I said, before resting my head back on my hands. 'Thanks.'

  'It's okay, pardner,' she said, exaggerating her accent on the final word. 'I'm not expecting your gratitude or nothing. Some people would've just shot you when you were lying on your lazy ass in the middle of the desert.'

  'I am grateful,' I said. 'Truly.'

  'You sound like a man grateful for syphilis,' she said, and it was my turn to laugh, even though my heart was hurting.

  'It ain't the money. I've got water for six weeks and rent for three more.'

  'Then why in hell are you so cut up?' She scuffed at the dust between us, moved it around with her toe.

  'Duguid knew my mother. He might have been the last person who met her before she disappeared.'

  'That sucks,' Jayci said, stretching and adjusting her hat. 'How long ago did she go missing?'

  'Ten years.'

  'How is it you can find a bad in the desert in half a day, but can't find your own mother in ten years?' Jayci seemed genuinely perturbed, and she scanned the horizon with her eyes as she talked. The braids brushed her ankles as they moved in the breeze.

  'I don't know,' I said, beginning to regret that I'd brought up the subject at all. I scooped up the canvas bag, shook it slightly out of habit. All chits weighed the same, but it still felt far too light when I thought about the six-month bounty I could have had for bringing Duguid in alive. 'You kind of interrupted the conversation before he could tell me anything useful.'

  'He say anything at
all?'

  'Not much. Rumours about a group of women living out in an oasis somewhere. It was a hundred miles out or more. Not the kind of distance you just go without planning.'

  'There are settlements out in the Sands,' she said. 'Maybe your mom got to one of them.'