When they got to Fallon, Cotton had unloaded on Zip. He didn’t care about Toshi’s death, only that she would have been sexually available to both of them as they traveled. Eventually she would have kept her mouth in check with the proper incentives. He would have made sure of that, even if Zip had not. But now she was dead, and Cotton was frustrated.
The motorcycle that Zip rode started to act up as they drove south on the rough road next to Walker Lake. The shaking loosened something critical. After spending the night and scavenging the parts store, Zip had messed with the wiring and batteries and decided to trust his lacking mechanical skills. Before they got to the junction to Gabbs, the bike lost its charge completely and died. They spent the rest of the day trying to resuscitate it. The sun was out, and the batteries seemed good, but nothing they tried worked. After an afternoon of cursing and waiting for his water to run out, Zip pushed the bike over angrily and told Cotton that they would backtrack and find other wheels.
Before they pulled into town, Zip made a decision. If no suitable ride could be found, he would take Cotton’s bike for his own. Cotton and he had trailed together for a long time, but he had no intention of getting sentimental over it. Since he felt this way about Cotton, he expected Cotton to feel the same way about him.
Strangely enough, Cotton was concerned for Zip. Cotton was loyal to the partnership. If they could not find a vehicle for Zip, he was perfectly content with the idea of sharing his ride all the way to Vegas. He knew that in this desert heat the motorcycle would be working hard and might break down. The bike was well used and originally designed for light use. But he was confident in the abilities of the team. He and Zip would make it somehow.
The convenience store next to the parts business offered a refill on their depleted water. A pack of stale chips was worth considering as well.
Tracks in the sand outside were quickly being obscured by the wind but still slightly visible, were ignored. They would only be in the store long enough to get water and whatever else quickly appealed to them.
Hands full, Zip and Cotton started for the door. The interior they walked through was dimmed by the dirty windows and the overcast day. Dust stirred at their feet.
Suddenly out of a dark corner, someone spoke. “Hold up guys, we need to talk.”
Cotton stiffened and froze. Zip dropped his case of water and spun around, reaching for his pistol. He froze as he realized a shotgun was leveled at his stomach. His gaze rose to meet the eyes of the weapon’s owner. As the stranger emerged from the shadow, Zip realized that it was the man they had parted with in Carson. The old man did not look happy.
§
When Lecti woke, Deo was sitting up already. They did their morning routine and, as they prepared a morning snack, they began to discuss the previous evening.
Lecti, though she was very young at the time, remembered the women that died in childbirth right after their father led them to Roseburg. As she grew she questioned her father about having babies and expressed her fear. As many women were dying as were surviving. Her father had tried to reassure her that there were no multiple births on either side of her family.
He took Lecti to speak with the midwife that was frantically assisting these doomed pregnancies. The old woman was amazing. Her knowledge was enormous. She did not care about the politics of medicine or about the genetic abnormality that produced multiple births. She did, however, curse the doctors of the past and the normalizing of caesarean birth. She cared most about the babies and their mothers, and the guilt of her failures weighed heavily on her.
That part of Eleon’s story checked out. Lecti’s father had inadvertently corroborated part of the tale.
Both Lecti and Deo had seen functioning robots. They were complex machines that gradually broke down, and by the time they escaped Roseburg few functioning units survived. By swapping the information that they shared, they reinforced their trust in Eleon’s confession. They just didn’t know how to feel about it.
It was getting late. Lecti and Deo were getting anxious, though for different reasons. Deo wanted to get on the road. He didn’t mean to sleep late, but he had and was now ready to take up the chase. Lecti wondered where Eleon was. His bike was sitting outside. At first she thought that Eleon was just out to relieve himself. As time went by it seemed more likely that he was scavenging or maybe even out for a stroll. He liked to take a walk before he spent time on his bike.
Deo got up and, opening the door to look up and down the street, wondered aloud that they should go looking for their missing companion. Lecti agreed.
As they stepped out into the wind, they heard a muffled shotgun blast.
Chapter 21
Hal fumed as Lecti stormed from the building. He berated himself for not being able to come up with a way to keep her. He had…things…he wanted to do. Once again he considered turning the dogs loose and once again thought better of it. Climbing to the top of the road grader just off the patio, Hal watched as she and Deo disappeared down Arrowhead Drive, heading east.
Waiting for Hal to come back in, Hey You agonized over the siblings’ departure. She wanted to catch up with them now that they were leaving. As soon as Hal came inside, he returned to the room Lecti had just left. Hey You slipped down the stairs and out the door. She shushed the dogs and ordered them to lie down and stay. They obeyed her better than they obeyed Hal. Hurrying, she ran away from her fear and into her future.
Her plan did not work out. After watching the brother and sister scream past her in the vehicle, she paused. They had come back into town once. They might do it again. Realizing that Lecti and Deo were truly gone took only a short time, however. Walking back to the hospital would take a while and give her a chance to think.
It was mid-afternoon by the time Hey You returned. She slipped back into her home, her prison, without Hal realizing she’d been gone. The dogs knew she was coming and they stayed down, keeping the alarm from triggering.
Hal was occupied with several things. He always had a project or two that needed his attention. Noticing the weeds that were starting to grow in the dirt around his fortifications, he determined to remedy their encroachment. Sometimes he sprayed, but he didn’t like to. Afraid the spray could rise and damage his garden, Hal thought that it was better to till the soil. Besides, it was comforting to his sense of well-being. Whenever he got on his little tractor, he felt good. He often thought he should have been a farmer.
The tractor ran on biofuel. Hal learned to make it precisely because he wanted to run the tractor. Keeping the machine behind the building in a shed with a sloped floor, he learned to start it by compression. The tractor’s battery and starter motor were largely unnecessary once Hal perfected a compression start. Working the ground, the tractor hummed along. It was a good machine, and Hal also started to hum. Hal started to think about Lecti…and then for some reason, he started to think about Hey You.
Watching and reflecting, Hey You vacillated once more. As she walked back from failing to approach the siblings, she made up her mind to finally deal with Hal. She knew that unless she was willing to leave, alone, she would have to kill him or live in fear. Hey You knew that she was in terrible danger. She knew, but now she was afraid of being alone if she killed him.
Hal drove the tractor, a pleasant smile on his face, a song on his lips. He loved the old machine and enjoyed the smell of newly turned earth. He was only scratching the surface. Hal didn’t want to damage the soil, only get rid of the weeds. After a while in the hot sun, he aimed the machine at a small hill that would allow him to restart it by compression once more. Setting the brake, he stepped down and ambled through the pure scent of earth beneath his feet. He was thirsty, and he couldn’t wait to open a juice. He had several good ones left.
Lilly broke from cover just as he crossed the midpoint on his return. How she had gotten off her lead was puzzling, but Hal was more concerned with the situation he was in. The last time Lilly was off her lead in this space, she was playing her deadly ga
me with a human toy. Hal carried no weapon. Though he was usually armed whenever he went scavenging, he had gotten careless about it when close to home. He silently swore under his breath.
The dog sat in front of him, well out of reach, her ears pricked, her eyes locked with his. Hal knew that posture to be a signal of danger. She was reading him, waiting for him to run. He almost succumbed to the urge. There was a knife on the tractor, but Hal knew he would never reach it. His best bet was to face the dog down and act like he was in command. He started forward, trying to mask his terror.
Taking her time, Lilly backed off and sat again. She knew the man was frightened. She was familiar with the wonderful odor of fear. Again, and then again, she rose and retreated, then sat and played coy.
Wishful thinking encouraged Hal. He began to believe that he must have mistaken Lilly’s intent. She was just being playful. Hal started to move more confidently. His strategy was working. He was gaining the ground to safety and started to congratulate himself.
It was time. As the space closed between Hal and the road-grader, Lilly established the final place to turn and reposition herself. She bunched herself in anticipation.
Hal thought she was readying herself to move back again. As she launched, he had no time to turn and run.
Watching was too difficult for Hey You. After Lilly had taken Hal to the ground the first time, she turned away.
Lecti’s pistol still lay next to Hal’s Uzi. She picked it up and weighed it in her palm. It felt good, a heavy but not unwieldy weapon. Sitting inside the door with Bregor on the floor beside her, she waited just in case Hal by some miracle escaped Lilly’s attentions.
The sky was dark before Hey You got to her feet and went to get something to eat. Bregor padded beside her and received a cup of kibble from the dog food bin. He rarely got to stay inside for any amount of time. It was spring, and too warm to be brought in. Puzzled but content, he lay at his preferred master’s feet.
Even though Hey You had spent time training Lilly, she didn’t trust her. Recognizing that the Dobie was not dependable, in fact dangerous, she had made the decision to rid herself of the dog. The simple solution was to let the animal wander off. Without food, Hey You was reasonably sure it wouldn’t take long.
Lilly was hungry. She normally got fed along with Bregor, and it was always before dark. Pacing back and forth, she whined and scratched at the door. Before she lay down in front of the door for the night, she went back to Hal a couple times and licked his face. The blood tasted good, but she was used to having her meal cooked or at least mixed with dog food. She knew nothing of preparing her kill. Someone had always done it for her.
Lilly hung around for one more night before she got hungry enough to start searching for food. She knew the girl and the male dog were in the building. What she did not know was why she was not being fed. The blood on Hal was all gone by the first morning, and even though she took some tentative nibbles around the puncture wounds and gashes, she avoided any more damage. Maybe she had made a mistake. Hal was the provider. She got hungrier, and after the second night without food, a light scent on a random breeze enticed her to investigate.
Looking out of the windows, Hey You noted that Lilly was absent. At least she was not visible. Hey You wondered if Lilly was lying in wait or was out looking for something to eat. She was surprised that Lilly had not started to eat Hal. He was getting ripe and would soon start to decompose quickly. Hey You didn’t realize that most dogs needed to be taught to eat their kills. It was rare that a domestic dog would figure it out.
Hey You stepped out, commanding Bregor to stay behind. She moved cautiously toward the grader and mounted it to look around. No dog in sight. Carrying the pistol and being cautious, she crossed the dirt to the ancient tractor.
The old piece of equipment had a small loader bucket. Starting the tractor on the juice accumulated in the battery by Hal’s use, Hey You waited to let it warm up. Hal always insisted that it be warmed up.
Soon Hal was in the bucket and being bounced across the field and around the building. The graveyard with the new dirt was bypassed and his body found a resting place in the gully with his last victims. Hey You pushed some dirt over the remains before she parked the tractor back in its shed. It was more than Hal would have done.
§
Domestic chickens are surprisingly intelligent, and once gone wild they get vigilant. The aroma of chicken led Lilly for a long way, further than she had ever been. The birds avoided her first attempt easily. They took to the trees immediately, way too far off the ground. The scent of chickens was strong in Lilly’s nose. Now she sat and drooling, contemplated the birds in the trees and tried to figure out a way to get one.
The big male mountain lion liked chicken. But usually he preyed on deer and small varmints. Dog was an interesting change. Lilly was easy to kill, and filling, but venison was better.
Chapter 22
The rifle and the shotgun were poised and ready in their hands as Lecti and Deo opened the door to search for Eleon. With the wind kicking up and grit stinging their faces, they looked toward the sudden report of the gun. There was enough dust in the air that they could barely see down the street. Just visible, the outline of a parked motorcycle sat at the convenience store. Deo started to run with Lecti on his heels.
A man burst from the entrance and mounted the bike. Goosing the throttle, the bike spun around, showering the storefront in a rooster tail of sand. Then, getting traction, the rider accelerated into the storm away from them.
Considering a shot as the bike left town, Deo wavered. He knew the rider was not Eleon. The lack of visibility could not disguise the clothing enough to give him any doubt. But he did not even know whether Eleon was involved. He wanted it to be one of his targets, but he had to be sure. He would not kill a man without a basic assurance of reason. He ran on.
Lecti knew who it was. If she had the rifle, she might have attempted the shot. The exiting bike disappeared before she could have swapped weapons with Deo. She really didn’t care. Her concern was for the man she knew must have discharged the shotgun.
Stepping through the door, Eleon met them as they arrived. Shielding his eyes with a hand, he tracked the path of the retreating bike. It had disappeared into the heavy air and was no longer visible. He was pretty sure the rider wouldn’t return.
Eleon turned his attention to Deo. “That was Cotton. You can go after him if you want, but he didn’t kill her. I figured that if they were having trouble with a bike, they would likely be back. So I waited for them. Zip admitted what he did, and I killed him. I thought that Cotton was going to draw on me, but he didn’t. I let him leave. If you want to go after him, I won’t even try to stop you. But, he didn’t do it.”
Looking inside, Deo felt a warm satisfaction. Zip’s body lay on the floor, a red stain leaking from beneath him. Justice had been served, even though Deo wasn’t the instrument of judgment. Anger drained from him. The adrenaline of the moment flowed from his body in waves of relief. After the outpour of information the previous evening, his suffering over Toshi seemed almost petty. The horror of humanity’s failure had given him perspective, and he was able to reevaluate his intended resolution. He would let it go.
As he moved to enter the store to view the body more closely, Eleon placed his hand on Deo’s shoulder.
“Don’t,” pleaded Eleon. “You don’t need to go there. Just walk away. We’ll all just walk away. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Residual anger made Deo pause. Then it dissipated and was gone. He turned around, and grasping Lecti’s hand, led her away. Eleon followed.
There was no reason to delay their departure from town. Mounting his bike, Eleon smiled. They would return to Fallon and decide their course from there. The kids followed in the trike.
As they left town and began the trek on the broken road surface, the wind started to lessen. By the time they reached the viewpoint that they had stopped at the day before, the sun was out and the bre
eze was much lighter. They stopped to skip rocks and enjoy each other’s company.
§
Giving the old man and his sidekicks time to get well down the street, Zip rolled off the catsup on the floor. It smelled nasty and covered his jacket. He tore open a roll of paper towels from a shelf and smeared it around as he tried to clean it off. The old piece of shit had gotten the drop on them, and as he remembered, he narrowed his eyes in anger.
At first Zip had an expectation of a swift and sudden end, but as the old man spoke he relaxed. It pissed him off when the old fart started asking questions. Zip tried to lay the blame for the bitch’s death on Cotton. Of course Cotton blubbered all over himself denying it. It didn’t matter anyhow. The cut lip and the bruises on Zip’s knuckles gave him away. He should have quit pounding on her.
Nervous again when he was ordered to give up his weapons, Zip almost did something stupid. As they backed away from the guns, the old man explained his plan and his motivation. He was trying to keep the young kid from killing them. Zip didn’t understand why. If he were in the old man’s place, he would have pulled the trigger himself.
But fine. Zip could go along with it. Just in case, he kept his knife hidden and planned to use it if necessary.
Eleon unloaded the weapons awkwardly as he held the shotgun on them. Then he kicked the shells into the cooler and threw the guns into the broom closet. A hasp and padlock from the parts store, mounted with tools from the same, secured them.
Cotton was told to watch for the kids and Zip to lie down in the catsup and be still. When the kids appeared at the carpet store door, Eleon let fly with the scattergun, and Cotton launched out the door.
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