This Burning Man (Future Arizona Book 1)

by Kris Holt

  Chapter 23 – Carrion Bird, Carrion Bird, Sing a Song For Me

  Laying down. Thrown down. Dumped in the Sands, like copper ore castoffs, old furniture or a sack of rotten fruit. Something scavenger-dull nipped at my bottom lip.

  'Is he dead, Cass?' a woman's voice said.

  'Bird seems to think so,' came the reply.

  'Ten grams says yes,' said a third voice, one I vaguely recognised.

  When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the vulture perched on my chest. It pecked at my lip again and then turned its head side-on, all the better to appraise my carcass. When I coughed up the mouthful of desert that I'd swallowed, the bird responded with a string of cawed obscenities that would have made a Hole Town pimp proud and briefly took flight, settling on a rock spar a few metres away.

  'Damn it all.'

  There was a burst of laughter nearby. 'Ten grams, Mar! That's what you said, and that's what you owe.'

  'He could die anytime. Like right now.' That voice again. I turned my head to see the pink-haired girl from the town. She'd been in the process of hiking over my way but when our eyes met, she stopped.

  'It don't count if you shoot him.' I didn't recognise this girl's voice, but I knew her too - the impossibly tall one I'd seen in the town. She was six feet and plenty more, her tan limbs shining like she'd been carved outta something precious and otherworldly. Relaxed and smiling some, she looked altogether happier than I remembered from before. She was walking up the dune alongside a third girl, that hollow-cheeked princess straight outta story books. The girl that Piano Man had called my sister.

  'Cassie,' Pink Hair called urgently.

  Cassie snapped into action in a fraction of a second, and I was pleased to see my sister was no slower. She had her pistol up and pointed at my head just as Cassie brought her rifle around and sighted me. Only when she was satisfied that her companions had me covered, did she lower her rifle. I stared past the lowered barrel for just a second or two. This wasn't the done range for rifles.

  'Good afternoon,' I said, nodding to the two nearest to me before addressing Pink Hair, the girl I now knew was called Mar. 'How's things with you?'

  'He's bounty,' Mar said to her friends. 'Don't take your eyes off him.'

  'He has a name too,' I called back.

  Cassie threaded the rifle through a strap over her shoulder and pulled a wicked looking curved blade from her belt. That was more of a close-quarter affair, and I had no doubt that she was just as deadly with one as with the other. 'He's dressed as a priest,' she said.

  'Everyone needs a day job,' I said, pulling my knees up and adjusting the cassock so that it fell back down around my ankles where it belonged.

  'He smells something fierce,' my sister said.

  'Oh, c'mon now!' Once upon a time, churchwear had been altogether more fancy, and a preacher would have been stepping out to face the masses in silk or faille. In these slightly more backward times, availability was the single most important factor when sourcing clothing and so I'd spent the day sweating under a heavy cotton overcoat tied with a rope. I was hardly feeling my freshest, so to speak.

  Mar waved her gun at me, the same gun that she'd used to save my life in the town. She was gesturing at my garb. 'You packing under that?'

  'Best believe it,' I said.

  For a moment, I thought she was going to ask me to lift the cassock up, but she tipped her head, thought about it and obviously decided that she could deal with whatever I was carrying.

  'What are you doing out here anyhow?' she asked. 'I saw you at the town meet. Are you tracking us?'

  'Not tracking you,' I said, slowly brushing sand off my chest. 'Seeing an old friend, though I got a bit sidetracked. Anyway, you were there. You heard what he said, the new big man. No more bounty hunters. We're done.'

  'Yeah, well, new man's security couldn't stop a bullet if they were a barn door. We ain't worried.'

  'You should be,' I said. 'But not about his security. You should be worried about the sun.'

  'You a scientist now?' Mar asked, deadpan. I'd expected her to laugh. Once again, she was set to surprise me.

  'You know about the perihelion,' I said.

  'Is that what they're calling it?' Mar shook her head. 'We suspected that something big was up. We knew about the hits on the army supply runs, and we know that Nate Di Vio hasn't come south out of the good of his heart. He was looking for something, and he's found it here in Hole Town.'

  'He wants water and shelter from the drought. Anyone who doesn't have those things pretty soon is going to be in a world of trouble.' I looked from one to the other of them, a cadre of weapons pointed my way, though more in caution than threat. 'Now you guys are going to tell me that you've got a whole science lab laid out wherever it is you're holed up.'

  'We work with what we've got. We're not just gunslingers and pretty faces,' Mar said.

  I couldn't think of a good answer to that, but my eyes kept flicking away from her and to my sister and her sun-coloured hair. The more I looked at her, the more the truth was obvious to me. We had the same nose, the same blue eyes, the same lines around the mouth. All the signs were there, and I was sure of it.

  I was also aware from what Piano Man had told me that the clock was ticking, and I wasn't making up ground this way. Turning back to Mar, I said, 'I never got the chance to thank you for what you did in the town. You saved my life that day.'

  'It was a bounty,' Mar said. 'Nothin' more.'

  'Well, I owe you regardless. But if I'm going to pay you back, I need to go into town to pick up my wallet.'

  'Let me guess,' Cassie said. 'You want us to give you a lift.'

  I nodded, smiled, crashed like a three-foot wave trying to topple a mountain. She snapped, 'We've got things to do that don't include playing tour party to your skinny ass.'

  'Besides,' my sister said, 'the city is crawling with the new man's security. Why would we take that risk?' Her voice was softer than the others. Maybe it was because she was younger than them, or maybe it was a sign that she was meant for things that didn't involve pointing guns at strangers in the desert. I wanted to know more about her, ask her her name, but I knew if I did, I would get shot down. Possibly literally.

  'You said not a minute ago that their security were useless,' I said, shrugging and glancing around. 'Plus I can pay you, of course. You can even take what I have up front.'

  I reached for the bag between my knees, prompting a flurry of ballistic safety clicks and warning noises from the three of them.

  'Relax, now,' I said, moving more slowly. I dragged my change of clothes out before me and then tipped the contents of the bag out onto the sand. It was a pretty motley collection of dust, wrappers and small-value chits, as well as the now-empty coin case. The second nickel I'd thrown into Piano Man's tip jar to stop him from eating my brain.

  'There ain't much there,' Mar said.

  'There's more back at the hutch,' I said, aware that my voice was growing ever more desperate. I had only truth on my side now. 'Listen...I need your help. My friends, they have the knowledge and the skills to help us figure out what to do about the perihelion, but they're not going to make it out of Hole Town unless they have some arms on their side. They're sitting at home right now, waiting for me to come and help them formulate a plan, but unless I get help from you, I'm not going to make it back there in time.'

  Three stares. One indifferent, one judgemental, one curious despite herself, but inclined to trust her older, more sceptical companions.

  I was losing. I could feel it. And any chance I had of saving my friends, of saving my town, of saving whatever there was left that was good in the world was all slipping away then and there.

  ...it'll tip on the tiniest things...use your better judgement, and use it quick...

  I turned back to the girl with the yellow hair, the one who shared my eyes, my face, my hope.

  'Besides,' I said directly to her, pushing everything I had into the centre, 'you have to help me.
My friend, he told me. I'm your brother.'

  'What the fuck?' Cassie was the no-nonsense type; she might have shot me right then if she'd been holding a gun. I could hear Mar protesting too, but as I watched the girl with my eyes look at me, really look at me for the first time, I could see her making the same mental calculation I'd been making the minute before.

  See her coming to the same conclusion.

  She was fingering a locket round her neck by the time that Cassie hauled me upright. I was still staring at my own flesh, unresisting, when my sister cried out, 'Mama Smokes! Could he be telling the truth?'

  I had Cassie's knife at my throat and Mar's gun to my head, but everyone was frozen and staring at the figure now cresting the dune before us.

  She was an immense, perfectly round woman of sixty or more, wearing a long leather jerkin and sitting astride a tiny hover scooter that ploughed a slow, zig-zag trail towards us in the sand. A cap was set on her head at a jaunty angle and her eyes were ringed with aviator goggles, the better to keep out the dust. Her face was a mess of post-hormonal bristles, but it didn't matter none, as the patchy facial hair was a fine compliment to the sawn-off shotgun she had balanced in the crook of one massive tattooed arm.

  The scooter puttered to a halt. Mama Smokes stepped away from it and lifted her goggles so she could better stare at me with her hoggish eyes.

  'Locket,' she barked. The jewellery piece that my sister had been holding was handed over, held up next to my face and inspected.

  Time stood still. Even Cassie and Mar seemed like they were holding their breath. On his rock spar in the near distance, the vulture who'd been pecking at me earlier tipped his head hopefully. Maybe he'd get what he came for after all.

  Finally, Mama Smokes pulled the goggles down and spat like a trooper. The shotgun came up to a resting position and she rubbed her bristly chin thoughtfully before addressing my sister by her name.

  'Well, it's been ten years, Rat,' she said, in sweet Marlboro tones, 'but you'd have to admit, he certainly looks the part, don't he?'

  Chapter 24 – The Eyes Have It

  'It seems like one hell of a coincidence to me.'

  Mama Smokes gave Mar a cold stare. 'You put your gun away, and stop acting up. If he's the kid from Rat's locket, then he's family.'

  'And what if he isn't?'

  'Then you can cut his balls off as soon as you find out for sure. Are you happy now?'

  Mar and Cassie backed down. Rat looked to me, to the picture of a child's face in that locket and back to me. 'Holy Mary. I found my brother!'

  Mar made a motion with her hand, but Rat wasn't of a mind to listen. Instead, she was gonna stare at me from now till next Christmas. Straight on, her cheeks sunk in, making her face look long and her eyes huge. Her smile was warm like summer. 'You're my brother. You're my actual, actual brother!'

  'And you're my sister,' I said. Just hearing it out loud made it seem that little bit more real.

  Her nose wrinkled. 'I'd, uh...I'd hug you, but we should probably clean you off at the oasis first.'

  'That's totally fair.'

  Mar called the girls together to talk quietly. Mama Smokes gestured me over, out of earshot of the others, and instructed me to help reorganise the load on her trike. 'You look stunned, boy.'

  'I didn't even know about my sister until a little while ago. I'm racking my brains, thinking back. I should remember her.'

  'Your mama was a brave woman with a lot on her plate. She was a proper hunter - none of this bringing in patsies for rich men that you see now. Them was scary days. Bounties were slim, and your mama went for the real bads, the gangsters, the rapists, the killers. But she had her problems, and there weren't nowhere she could call home. She had to keep you split up. The church wouldn't look after her daughter, and the girls at the Oasis weren't keen on having a boy there. You gotta understand,' she said, squinting at me, 'a lot of them were there because they'd been mistreated by men. They'd damn near lost everything, and they all knew people that had. Having a boy around the place would have unsettled them, bought back memories. But a young girl like Rat, she was different. They could bring her up as one of their own.'

  Mama Smokes then turned her back to the drifting sand and lit a cigarette. 'So when your mama went, that's what we did.'

  'Mama Smokes,' I said, 'can you tell me what happened to her? I need to know.'

  Mama Smokes held out her cigarette 'til the end was done charred. There was a story there, I knew it. 'I heard what you said about your friends. Time's a tickin' and Hole Town's new leader is gonna be bad news for everyone. Go with the girls and when you get back, we'll talk about your mama.'

  'If they didn't want me there as a boy,' I said, 'what's gonna be different if me and another man come rollin' up now?'

  'Times have moved on, to an extent,' Mama said cryptically. 'But as long as you do what you're told and are right respectful, we can make this work for a short time, which should be all we need.'

  'You'll let us stay at the Oasis?' I said.

  'We'll sort something out - come to an arrangement. But let me worry about that. You heard what I said. Get out there, get your friends, and then we'll talk.'

  I walked alongside Mama Smokes as she punted the trike forward with one wide, flat foot. Ahead of us, Rat had moved away and Mar and Cassie were still whispering to one another, Cassie bent down twelve whole inches so that her lips were on a level with Mar's ears. When we approached, they separated and stood next to one another, arms folded.

  'We ain't going,' Mar said.

  'Excuse me?' Mama Smokes replied. The girl might as well have spat at her. Mar looked away. It was the first time I'd ever seen her look downright uncomfortable.

  'Mama,' Cassie began, holding her hands out all conciliatory. 'We know how you feel, but there ain't no leader up at the Oasis. No-one tells anyone to do anything. We choose by consensus. That's how we do things.'

  'And this is your consensus?' Mama replied, scorning the word and all its bastard children. 'Not helping someone who came right out and asked you for help.'

  Mar said, 'This guy and his friends are bounty hunters, you know that, right? There's a bounty out there somewhere, on us.'

  'Age ain't struck me dumb yet, Marigold.' I knew right then and there that we both had to live just so I could call Pink Hair that to her face, at least one time. 'But the army's done, and the bounty hunters are too. We all know it. You think this new man from the North is going to leave us alone? Besides. We need to get inside, find out more about what they're planning. The more of us there are that can carry a gun and help with that, the more likely we are to be able to save ourselves.'

  Cassie sagged. Mar set her jaw and refused to back down. 'You wanna go, you go. I'm out.'

  Rat, momentarily forgotten in the showdown before me, stood up from where she'd been sitting in the sand. 'I'm in,' she said.

  Mar and Cassie both turned to Rat and begged her to change her mind, but the girl filled all five-feet-nothing of her frame and wouldn't be persuaded. 'I'm helping my brother, and I'm bringing him and his friends home. You just try to stop me.'

  'You don't know that he's your brother! You'd never even met him an hour ago!'

  'True, I hadn't,' and Rat turned to me. There were my eyes again, staring right back. 'But I have now. And I'm going to help out. If you guys are my friends, I mean, truly my friends, you'll help out too.'

  'Rat, he's gonna get you killed,' Mar said, glaring at me.

  In a moment, it was over. Cassie turned to Mar. 'I'm not going to let Rat go alone.'

  Mar's face screwed up in disgust and she threw her arms up in the air. 'My lord! You're all losing your goddamn minds!'

  Cassie said, 'Mar, let's just do it. It's one job, help out one time. We'll do it and then we'll head back.'

  The girls were still arguing as Mama Smokes' scooter buzzed into life. They looked up, as I did, to see her putting away to the North, her sandy groove marking her trail.

  'Get out there,
' she called, 'Get it done. Watch yourselves, don't be sloppy. I'll see you all back at the Oasis in a few hours.'

  Mar waited until the old woman's trike disappeared behind a rock outcrop before rounding on me. She grabbed the front of my cassock and might have started wailing on me if Rat hadn't been there to jump between us.

  'Rat, get out of the way or I'm gonna throw you out of the way.'

  'Don't even think about it, Mar.'

  'He's taking advantage of you, don't you see? He's playing you for a fool!'