“Red?”
“Red.”
“On account of what?”
“On account of it being my name.”
Kane grins.
Red rolls his neck, pulls each elbow in turn to his chest, an elaborate show of stretching. “I aim to fix that grin for you.”
“That a fact?”
“It sure is.” Red squats, bounces on his hamstrings. Leaps up. Squats again. Leaps.
Kane doesn’t move.
Red paces, eyes on Kane, cracking his knuckles, snarling up phlegm, spitting.
“FIGHT ALREADY!” a voice yells from the crowd, and they begin to goad the fighters, hurling abuse at Kane, taunting him.
“He your friend?” a sour-breathed kid says next to Adam. In the weird light, Adam can see two missing front teeth. Dog Soldier.
Adam tries to move away, but the kid moves with him and leans into him.
“Tell him to walk away, brother. Walk away before Red here makes him crawl away. He ain’t got the size. He’s got nothin. Red’ll turn the dirt red.”
“Red is dirt,” Adam says, surprised at himself. “I got a dollar says my friend takes him.”
Friend.
The word comes bursting out. It surprises Adam. He didn’t expect it. But he said it.
The two fighters circle, fists up, eyes locked onto each other. Red’s fists are slabs of meat; his knuckles dent inwards. Kane moves with grace, light on his feet.
Without warning, Red explodes forward and swings. Kane ducks the blow and, lightning-quick, slinks to the side. Red wheels and launches after him. Another wild swing. Another miss.
Each assault thrown down by Red is countered by an athletic sidestep, a slink out of the way from Kane. Red swears and comes after him and Kane, yet to break sweat, moves as a wolf would move—fast and lithe. Untouchable.
Red’s face burns the same color as his name. Each evasion from Kane produces in Red a reaction of increasing rage. He thrashes and stumbles after Kane like a bull.
Kane is too fast. Too slick. The crowd watches, wide-eyed and silent.
Kane torments Red, dodging and weaving, making a mockery of his attacks. And the strain begins to tell on Red. He lunges and Kane, quick as a wolf, slips out of the way. It’s as though he disappears and reappears, out of reach. He seems not to be watching Red at all. He even looks away from him, towards the crowd, or rather beyond them, to some unseen encouragement.
Red’s eyes are wild. He swings and he grunts and he misses. Then he rushes Kane. A mistake.
Kane turns, sidesteps, plants a kick in the seat of Red’s pants, sends him flailing to the dust. Red pauses for breath, on his hands and knees. He leaps up, roars and barrels forward.
Kane dances away, this time delivering a kick to Red’s knee from the side, and Red goes buckling down with a howl, clutching his leg, his face contorted in agony.
It’s not over. Red staggers to his feet, bends forward, rubs his knee. Then he straightens and comes at Kane, limping and snarling.
Kane grins. He keeps his fists up, shielding his face, the way good bare-knuckle fighters do. Red swings. Kane angles out of the way. Red swings again, a huge uppercut, and Kane slinks, just in time. The crowd roars. The fighters pace. Red sweats and his chest heaves. Kane has him beat. Anyone can see that.
Then it changes. Kane looks at Red, glances at Adam and he drops his guard. A fraction. Lowers his fists so his face is exposed. Red sees it and flies at him, swinging wild haymakers. The first enthusiastic swing misses, over Kane’s head, but the second connects. A shocking blow. It sends Kane stumbling back into the crowd.
They collect him, like a human wave, and throw him back into the circle with loud shouts. Red swings and connects again. Kane stumbles back and slams to the ground. Now a figure comes flying from the crowd.
Sadie!
She leaps up onto Red’s back and digs her nails into him. Red roars and turns about, reaching over his shoulder, trying to dislodge her.
“SADIE!” Adam’s voice is drowned by the noise. He sees a rush of people come to take her. A kid throws a punch and Adam launches forward. He barrels into the kid, takes him at the waist with a dropped shoulder. A thumping tackle. They go sprawling across the floorboards. When he looks up, the kid is being hustled from the ring by the referee.
Sadie is hauled from Red’s back and dragged, kicking, into the crowd. Adam feels hands on his shoulders and he is plucked up and shoved into the throng. He staggers round and watches Kane rise.
Kane stumbles in a circle round Red, until he stands with his back to Adam. Red lashes out. A left jab to Kane’s chin. Connecting hard. A right, low, to the solar plexus. Kane doubles forward. A blow to Kane’s cheek sends him flying into Adam.
Adam catches him under the arms. “What are you doin? You had him beat!”
Kane turns, grins, blood smeared on his teeth. “You got dollars, you put ’em all on me.”
Then he ducks a swinging fist and staggers forward, back into the circle.
Adam thinks about the story Sadie told him. He begins to understand. There isn’t anything ordinary about Kane. A slave boy thrown, chained, to river gators. Left to die. Kane has nothing to lose. Maybe Kane needs the pain. Needs pain to feel anything at all.
“He’s dead,” the Dog kid with the sour breath says next to him.
Maybe Kane is dead. Maybe he’s a ghost after all.
Adam shakes his head. “You’re wrong. He’s not finished.”
Red attacks again. This time, Kane slinks right and takes Red with a hard jab to the jaw. Red staggers and blinks. He rounds on Kane. Swings. Misses. Kane snipes left and jabs. One…two…three. Clean punches that stun Red.
His arms drop to his sides. Kane walks up to him and takes him by the shoulders, a benign gesture, as if they were about to embrace, and then he dips his head and slams it forward.
The head butt is pin perfect. He catches the bridge of Red’s nose with the top of his forehead and Red, spouting blood, goes down like a tree.
Game over.
The referee comes from the crowd to raise Kane’s hand. But Kane is gone.
Adam reconnects with Sadie on the edge of the crowd. She stands there, brushing dust from her jacket. She looks furious. Her face is red and her eyes are narrowed, bright and fierce.
“Did you see that?” she snaps at his approach.
“I know. Never seen anyone fight like that.”
“They pulled me off him! The morons.”
Adam reaches out to help her brush away the dust and she pulls back.
“What happened?” she says, glaring at him.
He throws up his hands, a gesture intended to display surprise and inevitability. “Kane won.”
Even as he says it, he feels another prick of jealousy in his heart.
Sadie shakes her head. Her eyes lose a fraction of their hardness. Then she exhales a long, shuddering breath and smiles. Smiles. “I saw what you did. With the tackle. Nice move.”
Adam feels heat climb his neck. “It was nothin.”
“I know. Thanks anyway.” They look at each other and the moment stretches. Adam feels warmth in his gut. A strange sliding feeling.
“Some fight,” he says.
“Yeah,” she answers. “Kane’s a crazy bastard.”
—
They find him in a dingy and stale-smelling alcove of the saloon, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. Jhet Fuel. The table is bare in front of him. Outside the wind screeches and howls. A shutter bangs. The saloon shakes and groans. The storm has hit.
“That was something,” Adam says, sliding into the booth opposite him, making a quick scan of the huddled shapes moving through the place. His instincts are buzzing.
Kane rolls the glass in his hand. His cheek is bruised. There’s a cut above his right eye.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Sadie says, slipping in next to Adam, still flushed.
Kane says nothing. All he does is stare at his drink, holding the chipped glass up t
o a dim candle flame.
Sadie watches Kane. “Levi won’t like Red being made a fool of.”
“Well, then he should pick others to ride with.”
“You don’t understand what he’s capable of. He can—”
“Do as he pleases,” a new voice says.
They turn abruptly. The voice comes in a dry whisper from a figure cast in shadow. It’s a voice that sends a chill right through Adam. Right to the bone.
“Well. Look at the brave scrapper,” the voice says.
Out of the corner of his eye, Adam notices others in the bar shift themselves away from their table. They slink into the darkness.
The figure steps into the pool of yellow light and his face materializes from the gloom. Levi Blood’s eyes gleam as he turns from Kane, to Adam, to Sadie.
“Sister,” he says, looking at Sadie.
“Levi,” she answers.
A flash of light. A loud KA-BLAM! The shock of rolling thunder outside.
Here he stands. The kid who killed Frank. The devil’s son. Flesh and blood and bone. Right in front of him.
Adam feels anger churn inside him. And fear too, weaving through the hate. Fear mixed with anger. Anger threaded through with vengeance. His right hand slips beneath the table and goes for his sling. He glances around the saloon. Too many eyes on them to kick-start anything. He sees Wyatt saunter through the gloom, slim and tall. He leans against the bar counter, knee cocked, boot on the railing behind him.
“Mind if I take a seat?” Levi says.
There’s nothing hurried about the way he speaks. Everything about him radiates self-assuredness. And something else. Frank would call it evil, but Adam doesn’t believe in evil. He believes people make decisions and these choices make them who they are. Make enough bad decisions, you get to be plain bad.
“I mind,” Adam says, unable to mask the waver in his voice.
Levi looks at him, at his bandaged fist resting on the table. “I understand the wolves took your thumb. Riding must be…rather a challenge.”
Under the table Adam’s hand traces the corrugations in his braided sling.
Not now. Not yet.
At the bar, Wyatt picks his teeth and watches them.
Kane says nothing. He stares at his glass. The scar on his cheek is livid in the half-light.
Levi grins. He turns to Sadie. “I’ll ask you to come with me.”
Sadie stays put. “You go where you like. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You’re a Blood, Sadie.”
She looks up at him, both hands flat on the scarred and dented table. Levi slides his eyes from her to Kane, from Kane to Adam.
He sighs. “You boys know about Bloods?”
Nobody answers.
“Pigheaded, most of them. Bloods have been in Blackwater longer than anyone,” he says. “When the Bloods first came to Blackwater, they say the lake was filled with fish. You imagine that? Fish!” He grins at them. “Anyway, do you know what they did? Those Blood forefathers?”
Adam finds himself shaking his head despite himself.
“They fished them out,” Levi says. “Fished them all out, until there wasn’t a single one left. Not one. And they didn’t bother creating colonies either. No plan for sustainability. They left that lake barren as the desert.” He smiles. “Might be the sole reason we rely on Sky-Base for supplies.”
He pauses. No one speaks.
“You do understand what I’m telling you, right? They got rid of their food source. That old lake is full of death now.” He looks at Adam. “Isn’t that right, Stone?”
Adam grips the table, white-knuckled. Kane contemplates his glass, rolling it in his hand.
“What’s your point?” Sadie says. Her voice is tight.
“My point, Sadie, is that Bloods own things. When we want something, we hunt it down. We never quit until we take it. All of it. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. Right or wrong. Consequence, no consequence. We don’t answer to anyone.” He looks at Adam. “We have principles, if you can call them that. We never ride with Stones.” Then he looks at Kane. “And we certainly don’t tolerate scum. Not in Blood country.”
Kane tilts back his head and throws down the fiery-colored liquid in one gulp. He smacks the glass, empty, back on the table and pulls a grimace as though he’s bitten into a wedge of lime. When he speaks, he looks down at the glass, not raising his eyes to Levi. “We passed through Blood country a long way back,” he mumbles.
The wind screams and batters the saloon windows.
“Speak up, Outsider!” Levi says, leaning forward.
Kane looks at him, slow and cool. “Sadie asked you to leave. She’s asking nice. I won’t.”
Levi massages his chin. Holds his head raised so he looks down his long nose at them, through lowered eyelids. His mouth contorts to a sneer. “You and me will have us some words,” he says. He stares at Adam and Sadie. “Some words are comin all the way around.”
Then he turns and nods at Wyatt and both slide away into the shadows.
He sails high above the desert, looking down at the corrugated sand, the rock sentinels, boulders riven with deep cracks, ragged and crumbling mountains. To the east, a silver sun rises and cirrus clouds streak across the sky. A green valley snakes up through the mountains. And in the middle of the valley runs a river and the color of the water is blue.
“Adam?”
He glides over the valley and he knows he’s not awake. He knows it’s a mirage. A dream. Green valleys and blue rivers don’t exist.
“Adam, you hear me?”
The valley warps and blurs and the colors fade to uniform whiteness.
“ADAM!”
He opens his eyes and sees Sadie standing over him. He blinks and looks up at her. Her face is lit by candlelight and her eyes burn out of the shadows.
He rips the O2 mask away from his mouth and tries to swallow. His throat is dry. He props himself up on his elbows. He’s lying on a bed of cushions. His riding suit hangs at the foot of the bed. His body is lean and covered in a film of sweat.
“You look pretty jacked up,” Sadie says. “Where were you?”
“Some other place,” he answers, looking around. The curtained room is lit by candles and reeks of bodies and incense.
Adam reaches past Sadie and pulls the moth-eaten curtain back a foot. In the gloom, he sees figures lying on cushioned beds like his own. Clamped over their faces are the O2 masks connected to clear pipes fixed in the wall. The O2 is free here. Courtesy of the Race. A first-generation service GRUB moves through the room, checking the connections.
Adam lets the curtain fall shut. “Storm still blowing?”
“Wind has died. But it’s all sulfur dust out there. No one’s going anywhere.”
He sits up and rolls his shoulders. Pins and needles dart in his legs.
Sadie sits down next to him. “Feeling okay?”
He nods, hearing the springs creak with her added weight. He does feel okay. In fact, he feels good. No headache and, apart from a burning throat, no significant pain to speak of. Not even from his ankle or the shredded nerves of his left hand.
“Not bad,” he says.
She nods. Her eyes gleam. “It’ll be fine. I know it will.”
Without understanding why, Adam doesn’t share this sentiment. Perhaps it’s the dream, lingering in his memory. It always unsettles him to dream this way. No point to it.
Sadie takes his left hand in hers and turns it. She touches the place where his thumb should be. He lets her manipulate his hand and says nothing.
“What do you think?” she says. “About us?”
Adam hears a buzzing in his ears. The look in Sadie’s eyes is something he has never seen before. Not fierce, the way they always are, something else. Something like hunger.
“About…us?”
“What happens to us? When the Race is done.”
“I guess…I mean, I never…” He struggles to find something else to say, anything.
Then Sadie pins him back down and kisses him. Hard. On the mouth.
She pushes against his shoulders, levers herself upright, locks her arms at the elbows and looks down at him, studies his face. He lies there, trying to make sense of all the sensations running through him. Shock. Surprise. Lust.
Sadie bites her bottom lip. She leans forward. Her tongue is hot inside his mouth. He cups a breast, without thinking, his pulse quickening. He feels her body heat and smells her skin. She smells of dust and grass, of woodsmoke and sun-warmed stones. A need contracts in Adam’s gut.
He aches for her.
Sadie breaks away, breathless, and he stares up at her. She draws down on him again, her breath blasting warm jets on his face. Her eyes are so close he can chart red capillaries and follow iris fibers, like unspooled threads of colored cotton. He looks at her skin, dirt trapped in the fine lines, pebbled sweat under her eyes.
Her fingers dig into his shoulder muscles. The pain is beautiful. Fevered thoughts swirl in his head.
This is it. Me and Sadie Blood. It’s real.
His hands come alive. They grab at her riding suit—pulling, tearing, ripping. His calloused fingers tremor against her skin. The sight of her naked freezes his hand. His eyes fix on the hollow curve at her throat, a tiny vein jumping beneath drum-taut skin. He follows the birdlike ridge of her collarbone, the hard undulation of her ribs, the flatness of her stomach, the dark mouth of her navel. She lifts his chin and looks at him.
He leans in and pulls on her lips like a drunk on a bottle of Jhet Fuel.
—
They lie next to each other, their slick bodies covered in a fine film of sweat. A heat still on them. A haze. Adam’s internal clock has been blown apart. He has no idea how long they’ve been lying side by side, fingers interlocked. He stares at the rafters of the roof. Crossbeams of a heavy wooden timber. Old, dark and knotted. No makeshift hut. The encampment must be used every year. Then he remembers what just happened and feels the heat of the body next to him. Adam lies still and stares up, arms pinned to his sides, thrown by the impossibility of it.
He hears the rustle of cushions, feels Sadie move next to him.
“God…Sadie. I…This is…” His face throbs.
Sadie releases his hand and he feels her roll onto her side. Away from him. She grinds her back hard into him. “You didn’t want to?” she whispers.
Stone Rider Page 17