His sling conjured from his belt. A river stone pouched and held back in his left hand, high above and behind his head. With his right, he holds the release cord and his arm points at Levi.
Adam wonders how Kane managed to pull it off without making a sound. Not even the ghost of a sound.
The gang looks equally stunned. Every last one of them. In particular, Wyatt. His sling falls slack and he looks at Kane, his face puce with anger.
Adam sees the gang go for their weapons, but Kane’s voice brings them up short.
“Best leave ’em be, else your boy here loses an eye.” He says it without a smile, eyes on Levi. There is no emotion in his voice.
Wyatt gawps at him. A purple vein pulses on his temple.
Levi says nothing. He looks at Kane with dark eyes, narrow as slits.
Kane, without a trace of fear, returns his gaze.
Impasse.
Then another voice cuts the tension.
“Go on, get lost! Beat it!”
Adam whirls round and comes face to face with Sadie. She grips a sling in her right hand. Her eyes are hard and her stance is all business. Adam shifts his gaze from Sadie to Kane to Levi.
Levi doesn’t take his eyes from Kane. He looks tight as a coiled spring. Then his shoulders relax and a slow smile spreads on his face. The easy charm of the smile makes liquid warmth run through Adam’s body, fear combined with helplessness.
Levi flicks his eyes to Sadie. “Taking sides, Sadie?”
Sadie doesn’t flinch. “Protecting my property, is all.”
“Your property?”
“That’s right. Mine.”
“Bykemonger Station is Colonel property.”
“You know he gave it to me, Levi.”
Levi points at Adam and Kane. “These boys your property too?”
The Scorpions laugh nervously.
Sadie stands there, looking at Levi. “You’ve said what you came to say. Now clear out.”
“Watcha gonna do?” Wyatt says. His teeth are crooked and yellow in his sunburnt face. “Take out your claws and scratch us up?”
She swivels on him, gripping her sling. “Try me.”
“I figure she will, Wyatt,” a scrawny Scorpion kid pipes up. His skin looks raw and cracked, taut across his cheeks—another victim of airborne toxins. “She’s crazy as a panther,” he says.
Sadie looks fierce. Her eyes blaze.
Levi smiles and holds up his hands in mock submission. “All right. All right. Wyatt…put your sling away.” Wyatt shakes his head and, with cheeks reddened in mute rage, he returns the sling to his belt. He shifts his gaze to Kane, keeps his eyes on him. Nobody says a word.
Levi clamps on his riding goggles. “I’ll be seeing you boys,” he says in his dry, whispered voice. Then, with a last glance at Adam and Kane, he pulls his byke round and heads back the way he came. The Scorpions throw mean looks and do the same.
Adam, Kane and Sadie watch the Riders until they’re out of sight.
Sadie turns to look at Adam. “You’ll need a weapon,” she says. “Now more than ever.”
“I don’t believe in ’em.”
Sadie snorts. “Yeah. I forgot. You don’t like violence.”
She shakes her head and returns to the gloomy dusk of the Bykemonger Station. Adam can see by the way she walks—tight, upright, and the way she clenches her fists, the whiteness of her knuckles—that she isn’t as cool as she wants them to believe. He wonders then if she saw him black out. She must have.
Must think I’m a coward.
Kane looks at Adam and grins. “Don’t believe in ’em?”
Adam shrugs to hide the hotness of his cheeks. “Longthorn’s all I ever needed.”
Kane smiles. He replaces his sling in his belt. “That girl is something, right?”
There isn’t a hint of concern in his voice.
“Don’t you realize what you’ve done?” Adam says, turning on him.
“Me? I ain’t done nothin.”
Adam shakes his head. “Levi’s no joke. They’ll come. They’ll come find us.”
Kane just smiles. His eyes are wild and bright. “Let ’em come.”
On the western shore of the lake, the water is dark and deep. An obsidian cliff surges up a thousand yards or more—a precipitous wall of rock exposed to the wind. On one side, a plateau escarpment stretches into the desert and on the other…a sickening drop to the lake. At the top, the view to the west is staggering. Nothing but desert haze into the distance.
It’s the place Adam feels most vulnerable. But when he needs to think, something inside him, some unnameable force, pulls him here to an abandoned railway track right up against the cliff edge. Parts of it have fallen away, down into the lake. Great chunks of metal and rock rise twisted from the surface, far below. Adjacent to the rail line is a gravel path that skirts the edge.
It’s here he brings Kane.
They ride slow, inches from the drop, sending stones and rocks skittering over the lip. They come to a rocky ledge where a sheer canyon cuts into the lake and obstructs their ride. The other side of the canyon is a whole klick away at the widest point—where it meets the lake—and it narrows into a jagged channel inland, a giant crack, ripping into the desert. The only way forward is down, into the canyon, through a steep gully.
Adam brakes and swings off his byke. He feels the pull of a lonely wind behind him, buffeting him, billowing his jacket. He narrows his eyes to the dust and faces away from the desert, towards the lake and the town beyond.
Blackwater looks perfect from above. Peaceful even. A silent crescent of buildings. Like a secret sign for the gods, stamped out in the desert sand. There is grandness in the neat perfection of the shape, a measure of what Blackwater might have been. But the effect of the concentric rings and straight roads is also disconcerting. A paradox of order and technology in a world governed by whim and terror.
“Welcome to hell,” Adam says, under his breath.
On the far side of the lake, a gray, windowless tower rises up from the earth. At the top of the tower is a platform over a thousand yards into the sky. More or less the same height as the escarpment. Adam sees tiny figures, like termites, moving on the platform, hustling between industrial structures. And far below, at ground level, a constant stream of miners flowing in and out of a brightly lit entrance. Hundreds of them, changing shifts. A human tide.
Adam feels a sudden and powerful sense of estrangement. Of not belonging.
“One of them drills in every town I been in,” Kane says. “Pulling up all that Voddenite from the Earth’s core, like it’ll last forever. Death traps all of ’em. Suck a person’s soul right out.”
Adam doesn’t speak. He remembers the dim, predawn light. The front door creaking open, closing with a soft click. His pa’s footsteps, scraping the dirt outside. Fading away. Every day. An early rise to catch the drone and march into the mine.
A turbine throb carries to them. Adam feels it in his legs first, shuddering up through the byke into his spine. Then an airship descends from the haze. Cylindrical and gray, powered by four turbines, two each side. It makes a series of neat adjustments to bring it horizontal with the platform. Then it sinks behind the structures that crown the platform and is lost from sight.
The throbbing sound cuts out and the jarring in Adam’s spine fades to a murmur.
“Voddenite carrier drone,” Kane says.
Adam steps to the cliff edge, feeling reckless, and staggers back. The height makes him dizzy. He watches sunlight shimmer on the lake surface. Then he stares at the drill and pictures his pa traipsing into the towering edifice. Each day, every day. Until his last day.
An accident, they called it. Adam hates the word. Accident. It doesn’t begin to cover the turmoil, the fractures left behind. Just an accident—that’s all—a mistake.
Sorry, your pa was alive. Now he’s dead.
They say he came up here for the view, every evening, before coming home. Then one day he slipped. That�
��s all. Lost his footing. It happens.
But Adam doesn’t believe the official story.
He jumped is what he did. He filled his pockets with stones and he jumped.
Kane hauls out his sling, loads a stone from his hip pouch and shoots it—with an astounding bullwhip CRACK!—into the air. They watch it arc through the sky and fall…
Down, down, down.
A muted splash.
Kane contemplates the drop. “These blackouts you get. Might be a problem when you ride.”
Adam picks up a stone, lobs it into the air. Watches it disappear. He turns to face Kane, aware of the cliff edge a pace to his right, a yawning chasm, tugging at him. “It’s nothin. Things go dark. It just happens. I wake up after and don’t remember. Doc says I need meds, same as my brother, Frank.”
Kane nods. “All kinds of sickness going around. Sky-Base got meds for that. Cure it all.”
They stand and watch the wind whip the surface of the lake. Adam feels uneasy. He’s not accustomed to speaking his mind. He’s the quiet one. The one in the shadows. The one no one sees.
“Reckon Sadie’s okay?” Kane says.
Adam flashes him a look. He doesn’t want to talk about her. Not with him.
Kane smiles. His amber eyes burn. “You gonna go back and give her the cash?”
Adam shakes his head.
“I’ve got something to show you,” Kane says, wheeling his byke round. “Some place I went yesterday. You’ll like it.”
“I don’t know. It’s getting late…and the bykes—”
“Don’t be scared your entire life. C’mon!”
—
They descend the gully path into the canyon. It zigzags along a steep ravine wall, down to the dry river, and they slide and skid on a slope of scree. Kane leads, sweating with the effort. Adam tails him.
He thinks about Sadie to steady his nerves. He feels deflated. Heartbroken. He saw the look she gave Kane. He feels split in two when it comes to Kane. Part in thrall to him. Part hating him.
Adam’s back wheel slides and he turns his attention to the task.
It takes them twenty minutes of hard, technical riding to get to the bottom. They stand off their seats all the way down, fingers pressed to their brakes.
Now they follow the stony river, leaving broad tire tracks winding like ribbed snakes on soft sand. They ride through a terra-cotta canyon. Above them the sky is wild vermilion. Everything comes afire with the setting sun. There’s no sound of water from the riverbed.
Gotta move. Sun’s gonna set. The cold will come soon.
Adam motors hard. The byke throbs under him. He overtakes Kane and rides out front. Kane catches him quick—lightning quick—and he’s past him in a flash.
Adam watches the lithe form ahead. Kane rides effortlessly, smoothly. Up and down over rises—a stone skipping water. Adam guns hard after him, swerving and skidding and leaping ditches. But Kane is too quick. He fades to a shadow ghost in the rising dust. Then disappears.
“WAIT UP!” Adam yells.
Exhausted, he pulls up. His lungs are on fire. He’s covered in grime and sweat.
“KANE!”
The canyon walls throw back his voice. KANE…Kane…Kane.
Adam drives the Longthorn forward and works up a fresh sweat. He rounds a bend and Kane is there, three hundred yards ahead, standing astride his byke.
“IT ALL BEGINS HERE!” Kane calls. And then something else, but his voice is snatched by the wind and Adam hears nothing more.
Painted white stones are placed equidistant from one another, about ten yards apart, in long parallel lines that follow the contours of the canyon. Either side of the stones are flags. Bits of red and white ribbon stuck on tall poles. They snap and gust in the wind.
Adam feels excitement and fear build in him. He knows this place.
Blackwater Trail starting line.
It’s cold on the starting line. They gather a pile of driftwood and build a pyramid. Adam brings out his sparker and sets the pile ablaze. They watch a nest of spiders scatter.
Kane unfolds two silver sheets from his supply pack. He hands one to Adam. It’s light, almost insubstantial, but large enough to drape over Adam’s entire body. More than just a cloak or a blanket—an enclosed thermal shelter.
“Heatkeeper,” Kane says. “Waterproof. Can survive extreme temperatures.”
“You always carry two?”
“Sky-Base supplied ’em. Last two Races.”
Adam wraps himself up and immediately feels the difference.
They huddle close to the fire, crouching, watching sparks skitter. Each boy wrapped in the silver cocoon of his heatkeeper.
Stars blink above them. It’s always this way. The storms come, the haze cloud lifts and, for a brief respite, the sky is clear and the night drilled with stars. It doesn’t last. Not more than a day or two. Then the haze returns, often thicker, and Adam soon forgets about the blueness of the sky.
He stares at the gathering darkness beyond the fire. Listens to the bykes ticking as their Voddenite frames contract in the cold and he feels a sick thrill.
“What’s out there?” he whispers.
Kane, on his haunches, pokes the fire with a stick. “Dust mostly.”
Adam watches him. “S’pose that desert track won’t be easy.”
Kane narrows his eyes against the heat of the fire. “Desert aims to spit you out. Dead or alive. It doesn’t care. You don’t just ride against other Riders. You ride against the sand. Against the heat of day and the cold of night.”
A log collapses. Sparks swirl.
Adam looks at him. “How many Races you seen in all?”
“Enough,” Kane says.
“Then why race the Blackwater? It’s the toughest. Isn’t it smarter to keep building up your base points on some easier Circuit Races? Get to Sky-Base that way?”
Kane shakes his head. “I’m done with that. I’ll take my chances on the biggest. The ultimate challenge. I’ll ride the Blackwater. Then I’ll ride no more.”
Adam shakes his head and looks up at the night. He searches the sky for a cluster of lights. And sees them. Three blazing stars, bigger than the rest. But they’re not stars. Not planets either.
Space stations. Three great ships that make up the Ark of Sky-Base.
Balthazar, Jaspar and Melchior.
“What do you think it’s like?”
“Sky-Base? Aim to find out.”
Adam fans the sand with his boot. “I heard stories. They say it’s a place where food isn’t pills and biscuits. Where people aren’t dying. They say they got endless supplies of fresh water.”
Kane shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. People say things aplenty.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I will when I see it.”
“They say people live to a hundred and fifty up there. Lose a leg and they grow you a new one. Got no disease. No sickness. Nothin. Like you say, they got the meds.”
“That’s what I heard.”
Adam wraps himself up tight. “I believe the stories. Things are different up there.”
Kane says nothing, stirs the glowing embers with his stick. His face floats in the light of the flames and his yellow eyes are ablaze, amber stones woven through with threads of fire.
A full moon comes up, the color of fish scales. It’s eerily quiet and the night is cold.
“I like the quiet,” Adam says. “Hardly any sound out here.” He pauses and looks up. “It’s something, though, right?”
“The quiet?”
“The moon.”
Adam considers the pearl disc. Earth’s companion. Aloof and impossible to fathom.
“No matter what we do down here, she just sits up there all peaceful, floating in the middle of all that darkness, watching us.”
Kane faces the fire. He reaches a hand to his shoulder, massages the muscle, arches his back and rolls his neck to click the bones.
“Some nights you feel the moon can save you,” Ad
am says with his head flung back. “You know. Protect you. The sun…that’s another story. But the moon is different.”
“You’re wrong,” Kane says, flicking a red-hot coal with his stick. “It ain’t.”
He stands and he hurls the stick into the flames, watching it burn. Adam looks up at him and a cold wind gutters the fire.
Kane stares at the flames. “It’s just a hunk of rock, messed up with scars and craters. Don’t be fooled. The moon is dead. Stone dead. Dead as Blackwater Lake.”
Adam shifts in his seat. He looks beyond the fire, into the dark. For a second, he sees Frank’s face, swirling in the woodsmoke, and he feels a sudden pang in his stomach. The familiar ache of guilt. Then it’s gone.
“My brother raced the Blackwater,” he says.
“That a fact?”
“Took an arrow on El Diablo. Never raced again.”
Kane looks at him. “Racing’s the only way for people like us. We’re lords of dust and gods of dirt. There’s nobody and nothin gonna save us but ourselves.”
Adam feels a chill rise up his neck. He looks up at the night sky, at the scudding clouds and the silver moon. Then he remembers where he is and the kid he’s with. An Outsider.
Said he was from other side the desert. Hell does that mean?
All thoughts of the moon turn to dust.
He stands and kicks earth on the fire. “We gotta go. Bykes won’t have much charge left.”
He looks at Kane. He’s dangerous; there’s no mistaking it.
It’s like Frank says. Trust no one. You’re on your own.
But Adam understands people, even better than Frank, maybe. He’s spent his life watching, deciding who to trust, who to fear, who to run from. Kane might be dangerous and complicated and he might also be the one Sadie wants, but Kane has another side to him. Adam can sense it.
Besides, it never hurts to keep your enemies close. Frank says that too.
“Don’t reckon you got a place to stay,” Adam says.
“Don’t reckon,” Kane says.
Steep cliffs rise behind the farmhouse, maroon against the dark sky. The cabin squats in their shadow—a simple, three-room, cedarwood structure. More a shack than a cabin. Wreathes of smoke rise from a leaning stone chimney.
Stone Rider Page 4