Under the Empyrean Sky (The Heartland Trilogy)

by Wendig, Chuck

  Boyland Barnes Jr.

  His buckethead comes roving into view, trailed by the rest of his crew: Mole, Felicity, and Gwennie.

  Gwennie.

  Cael’s palms go sweaty.

  Pop tenses. “That’s not good.”

  Homer leans in. The sonic shooter is back in his hand. “You want us to handle it?”

  “We’ll fix it,” Cael blurts.

  Rigo and Lane give him a quizzical look.

  “Son—”

  “If they’re here, they’re here because of us. I don’t know why or how, but they are. This is our mess, and we’ll run them off.”

  Pop claps Cael on the shoulder. “I trust you. Go do what you have to do. And above all else, don’t let them find out what we have going on here.”

  UNEXPECTED GUESTS

  BOYLAND’S CALLING HIS NAME.

  “McAvoy! I know you’re here.”

  The words echo through the dead town of Martha’s Bend.

  Cael and his friends come up through the trapdoor behind the icebox inside Busser’s Booze. Out the greasy, dust-caked window they spy the Boxelder Butchers walking down the street. Felicity’s got a corn sickle. Mole’s dragging a comically large chain behind him. Gwennie’s hanging back, arms crossed, looking none too pleased about any of this.

  “They’re itching for a fight,” Lane says. “That’s not good. Rigo, why don’t you go kick all their asses while me and Cael here sip some Micky Finn’s gin.”

  Rigo bugs out. “I’m not going out there!”

  “Hey. You said you were a tough guy. Always talking about putting the beatdown on the Butchers. Here’s your chance, stud.”

  Cael gives them both a scowl. “Hush up. We’re all going out there.”

  He sucks in a breath, puffs out his chest, and exits the store.

  Boyland and the others have already passed by—but Mole hears the door and turns his squirrelly little head toward the sound. “Whistle-pig at the hole!”

  The Butchers turn and face Cael just as Lane pushes Rigo out the door and follows after.

  “Hey, McAvoy,” Boyland says, laughing. “Funny seeing you here. I don’t remember the Empyrean opening up Martha’s Bend yet. Did you get a special dispensation from Proctor Agrasanto? Did he, Mole?”

  “I don’t think so!” Mole says, cackling, the chain rattling behind him.

  “I don’t think so, either. What gives, McAvoy? Lottery’s not till tonight. Did you think you won early? Did you think you’d bust your way in here, get first pick on the scavenge, and make off like a magpie with money in his beak?”

  Cael shrugs. “Guess that’s exactly what I figured.”

  Boyland walks forward, closing the distance between them. He tilts his head left and right—the bones in his neck pop and grind. “That’s not gonna happen.”

  “You could’ve just told your daddy. Begged and whined and had him put in a call to Agrasanto.” Cael watches Boyland’s lip twitch. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Maybe I like to handle things myself.”

  “That ain’t it. You think you’re gonna get first pick instead of us. You just couldn’t stand it. Just the thought of us coming out number one really burns your hide, doesn’t it? How’d you know we were here anyway?”

  “Field shepherd saw you heading this direction. I grabbed the yacht, and we took a ride. Followed your stench all the way here.”

  That corn sickle of Felicity’s is rusty but sharp. Cael can see the edge whetted to a steel gleam. Mole might not do much with that chain of his; but if Felicity wants to, she’ll cut them all up pretty good. And out here in the middle of nowhere, too.

  The slingshot feels heavy in his back pocket.

  Cael’s fast. Real fast. But can he draw a bead on her before she puts that blade to Lane’s neck? Or sticks it in Rigo’s stomach? He wouldn’t put it past her. She’s crazy, that one. Always was a bully. Cael’s pretty sure she has a thing for Boyland, too. Can’t be happy about Gwennie being on his arm and with them now.

  Gwennie’s watching the whole thing, not saying a word.

  “What do you want to do here, Junior? We gonna throw down? Is that the plan?”

  “Might be, McAvoy. I still owe you for sucker punching me back at that turd-box you call a farm. We all know I can take you.”

  Cael sneers. “I wouldn’t be so quick on the stick with that one.” A little voice inside his head is screaming: You’re supposed to be getting rid of them, not getting caught up in a pissing match. But here? Now? In front of Gwennie? With his father watching on camera? Cael wants to tussle. He wants to make this thick-necked dope eat a whole fistful of ball bearings.

  “Wait!” Rigo says, stepping between them. “Wait. We’ll give you what we found.”

  “Rigo,” Cael hisses.

  “What’d you find?” Boyland asks.

  “Buncha cases of Micky Finn gin,” Rigo says. “Good stuff. Old stuff. Worth a ton of ace notes. Get you all the recognition you want. Heck, with a find like that, they’ll be carrying you around on their shoulders for a week.”

  Their drunken shoulders, Cael thinks. Hope they drop you on your head.

  “Micky Finn, huh,” Boyland says. “What else?”

  “That’s… that’s it,” Rigo says.

  “Rest is picked over,” Cael lies.

  Boyland shoves Rigo out of the way, thrusts his face up in Cael’s. “You think I’m mule kicked?”

  “I do,” Cael says.

  A fist pistons into Cael’s stomach. Pain radiates up into his chest and down into his balls. Boyland doesn’t let him fall, though. He hauls Cael to his feet. “I know the drill, dirtbag. You give me the Micky Finn, and meanwhile you’re sitting on something here that’s a hundred times bigger. I come home thinking I’m the champion and then you roll into town like Jeezum Crow himself. No way.” The mayor’s son reaches down, grabs Cael’s wrist, turns the hand over. “And what’s with the pink hands, anyway? You smell like a girl.”

  Cael, still hurting, can’t help himself. “I was with your mother last night.”

  Pow. Another gut-punch. Cael doubles over. Feels a string of drool creep out over his bottom lip and dangle there.

  “You’re dead, McAvoy. All of you are—”

  “Put him down, Boyland.” Gwennie steps in next to the mayor’s son.

  “What?”

  “I said, put him down.”

  Boyland drops Cael, whose legs barely manage to keep him standing.

  “Now,” Gwennie says, “we’re going to take their deal and go. We shouldn’t even be here. You really think a mayor’s son should get caught in a place like this? You really want your father to pay for what you did here today?”

  Boyland’s thinking about it, his eyes roving. The thought bouncing back and forth around the inside of his skull like a rubber ball whipped against the wall. “Hell with all that. I want what they found.” Boyland points at Cael. “And I want his head on the end of my boot.” He practically barks it as he says it, lips wet with a shining froth.

  It’s then that Gwennie gets real close to Boyland.

  “You like the things we do together, Boyland? You like kissing me? Getting your hand up under my shirt? Or inside my pants?” She says it loud enough for only Cael and Boyland to hear. Those words cut Cael to the heart—he’s not sure whether she’s trying to help him or hurt him.

  But then he sees that it cuts to the heart of another as well: Felicity’s knuckles go white around the handle of her sickle. So she heard, too. Gwennie keeps talking. “You want those things to keep on keeping on, then I suggest you leave this alone and we all say our good-byes. Otherwise, you and me will have a problem.”

  It takes a moment, but Boyland nods. “Fine.” He steps back and points to Rigo. “Go start bringing out the gin, you little piece of crap.”

  “Boyland!” Felicity snarls. “You’re just gonna bend over like that?”

  “Felicity, leave it.”

  “For that cooze?”

  “She�
�s my Obligated, Felicity; you keep your damn—”

  It all happens so fast.

  Cael tracks Felicity’s gaze. Sees how it falls on Gwennie. Sees how it burns with a kind of hatred he doesn’t even see when Boyland looks at him.

  Felicity pushes past Boyland.

  The sickle knife is in her hand.

  Gwennie’s facing the other way.

  Lane cries out. Boyland, too.

  The knife rises—the watery sunlight glints off the edge.

  Then: a sharp crack.

  The bones in Felicity’s hand snap like firecrackers going off.

  The ball bearing—the one that just flew from Cael’s slingshot—falls to the dirt.

  Alongside the corn sickle.

  Lane swoops in and snatches up the knife. Boyland pulls Gwennie aside in a protective hug—a movement that burns Cael deep. Felicity drops to her side and rolls in the dirt like a shot dog, cradling her shattered hand, howling, sobbing. Somewhere in those bleats of pain, Cael hears her trying to scream Boyland’s name.

  Mole runs away. He drops the chain into the dust and hightails it.

  “Get out of here,” Lane hisses, gesturing with the sickle. “Go on! Go home. Tell your daddy if you want. Take this moon-cat with you.” He nudges Felicity with his shoe, spurs her to scramble to her feet and come up alongside Boyland—who pulls away from her.

  To Cael’s surprise, they do as Lane says.

  Boyland holds Gwennie close. And she holds him right back. Felicity flags behind, sobbing, begging for him to wait. The Big Sky Scavengers watch as the Boxelder Butchers retreat from the streets of Martha’s Bend, chastened, defeated.

  The victory tastes of dust and bitter fruit.

  GAMES OF CHANCE

  HE SHOULD FEEL good right now, but he doesn’t. Cael instead feels as if he’s got a nest of snakes balling up in his gut. His heart won’t stop pounding in his chest. He’s already gnawed his thumbnail down to the bloody quick. The scene replays out again and again. Boyland. Gwennie. Felicity. The breaking of bones. The knife in the dust.

  This should be a good day. But it’s not. Not anymore.

  “Go home,” Pop says. “It’s going to be dark before long.”

  “Pop, that went sideways, and it’s all my fault.”

  “You stood up for yourself.” Pop musses his hair. “You saved Gwennie.”

  “I shot a girl.”

  “Felicity Jenkins is barely a girl. She’s more like a wolverine in a dress.”

  Cael feels as if he should laugh, but he can’t find the humor right now. “What if Boyland tells the mayor?”

  “So he tells him. He tells him he caught you here. Or maybe he doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to admit he went sticking his hands in the honey jar. It’ll be okay.” That last sentence is a lie. Cael can feel it. It’s not going to be okay.

  “I think I love Gwennie.”

  “I know you do.”

  “But I can’t have her. She’s Obligated to him.”

  Pop smiles a soft, sad smile. “I’ll tell you a funny story sometime. But all I’ll say right now is, don’t count your ace notes till the deal is done. In the meantime, we need to get you out of here. Just in case Barnes comes poking around our farm looking to confirm what his son tells him. Least that way we don’t get you in trouble.”

  “Shoot, Pop, don’t even bother. Wanda’s boat ain’t any faster than a donkey with both his back legs broken. We won’t get home before dark. We’ll be lucky to get home before morning the way that piece of crap boat drags along.” Cael presses his face into his hands and moans.

  “That’s why you’ll leave the boat here. Take the rail-raft.”

  “The what-now?”

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The twin rails dead-end against a backstop made of logs and railroad ties. Homer comes up behind them with Marlene, the two of them carrying a raft made of wooden planks lashed together.

  Pop twirls his finger, asks them to turn it over.

  “Look here,” Pop says, pointing out the four metal caltrops—one bolted to each corner of the raft. To Cael they look like a child’s jacks. But he knows what they are—he’s scavenged a couple dozen over the years.

  “Magna-cruxes.”

  They’re all gleaming steel and hard edges. A magna-crux is a simple-enough device—a person could make his or her own given time and materials. They’re just big magnets shaped into three-dimensional Xs. Cael’s never seen them in action before, and when Homer flips over the raft—one-handed—he places it on the tracks. The magna-cruxes fit over the rails, letting the raft hover.

  “A raft-rail,” Cael says. “Genius.”

  Rigo and Lane show up with a couple of bags full of fruit and veggies.

  “For the trip,” Lane says, biting into a pepper.

  Pop puts his foot on the raft, moving it back and forth. “The raft is frictionless. She’ll go pretty fast if you want her to. We’ve cut a few short oar-poles; all you need to do is give it a few good pushes, and you’ll be zipping along at a fast clip.”

  “Where’s it go?”

  “Underneath our stable.”

  Of course. “That’s why I saw the vagr—er, Jed there.”

  Pop nods. “He was coming to fetch me with the raft. Now, you boys go home. Get some sleep. It’s been a challenging day. I’ll try to come home later tonight. Oh, hey, the Lottery’s on tonight.” He winks. “Maybe we can forget all this garden nonsense if we win.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Cael steps up to his father, gives him a sudden hug.

  “I love you, Cael.”

  “Love you, too, Pop.”

  “Give a kiss to your mother for me. Tell her I’ll be home soon.”

  Cael pulls away and steps onto the raft. Rigo follows, waves. “Later, Mr. McAvoy.”

  Before Lane steps on, he looks to Pop. “You really are a badass, you know that? I wish you were my dad. Then I could be proud.”

  Pop shakes Lane’s hand. “We’re family, Lane. Don’t ever think we’re not. Now, go! Go!”

  The rail-raft starts to drift even before they use the oar-poles. They climb on board and Lane and Rigo man the oars, thrusting them downward and giving a good push—and the raft zips along like a greased-up piglet down a metal chute.

  The back of the mayor’s hand cracks hard against Boyland Jr.’s face. Junior’s head snaps back, the cheek reddened, his teeth biting the inside of his mouth. He immediately tastes blood.

  “You dumb shit,” the mayor says.

  “You’re drunk,” Junior mumbles.

  “Better than dumb!” The elder Barnes rounds his desk and plops down into the chair behind it, slouching as he does so. With a thumb, he spins the cap off a bottle of Jack Kenney whiskey, takes a pull right from the bottle. “Martha’s Bend. Martha’s Godsdamn Bend? You want to get me fired? Maybe you don’t like this house? Perhaps you don’t enjoy the comforts that my position affords—”

  Junior’s mother pokes her head into the office. “Everything okay in here? Lottery’s on the Marconi in fifteen minutes. Just in case you want to listen.”

  “Woman, get the hell out of here,” the mayor slurs. He waves his hands dismissively, still holding the whiskey bottle. The booze sloshes up inside the bottle, almost spills. She leaves, and when she does, Junior feels the heat of his father’s gaze. “You’re as bad as she is. I see her in you.”

  Boyland Jr.’s face still stings with the strike. He licks away a drop of blood trickling toward the inside corner of his mouth. He hates it when his father gets like this. Which is all too often these days. And it’s not just him. Half the town is drunk and pissed off anymore. It’s like they don’t appreciate what they have.

  Savages. All of them. He won’t be like them.

  He cinches up his wounded pride and says, “Sorry, Daddy.”

  “Damn right you’re sorry.” The mayor tilts the bottle toward his son. “You want?”

  “Nah, I’m… I’m okay.”

 
; “For your face. Your cheek. It’ll numb it.”

  “I’m all right.”

  The elder Barnes narrows his eyes. “When a Heartlander offers you a drink, you don’t say no. That’s just good manners.”

  Junior nods gamely, reaches for the bottle, takes a swig. It tastes like hot, scorched sugar. He coughs. His eyes water. He hands back the bottle.

  “Smooth, isn’t it?”

  “Real smooth,” Junior lies, his throat feeling as if he just swallowed a bunch of angry yellow jackets. He turns to go. “I’m gonna go grab something to eat before the Lottery.”

  “Hold up. What happened out there anyway? What’d you find at Martha’s Bend, boy? I remember going there as a kid. When the road there was still open and not grown over with all that damn corn.”

  “Nothing,” Boyland lies. Images flash before him: Cael’s defiance, Gwennie talking him down, Felicity going at her with a sickle. With a damn sickle! She can’t be on the crew anymore. Not after that. Damnit. Damnit. He shakes it off. “Place was, uh, already long picked over. The Empyrean, probably. You know how it is.”

  “But you saw the McAvoy boy there.”

  “Yessir.” He thinks to add, “And we beat his ass real good.”

  “He didn’t find anything, either?”

  “Not by the looks of it.” This isn’t a lie, but Boyland suspects Cael found something.

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “No. I don’t—I’m not sure.” Junior just wants to leave. He doesn’t want to be in this room anymore with his stinking skunk-of-a-drunk father. “He had pink hands.”

  “What?”

  “His hands were pink. Sweet smelling, too.”

  “Like perfume.”

  “Yeah. Like perfume. Strawberry perfume.”

  Mayor Barnes leans back in his chair. The furrows in his forehead are so deep you could tuck a few ace notes in there and they’d stand up straight. The man takes another deep swig of whiskey. “Strawberries. Shit. Shit.” He sets down the bottle and recaps it. “That’s it. Lord and Lady, come and kiss my bum-cheeks; that’s it.”