The Butchers Read online

  All eyes turn on Mo in Auntie’s arms. She isn’t fighting or biting anyone, but she looks wilder than ever—completely naked, dirty and crazy-haired. Her eyes rove around each face and then around the room, nostrils sniffing toward the shelves of goods along the wall.

  More animal than human. And it’s getting worse.

  The old man gets up, joints popping with the effort, and shambles over to Auntie and Mo. He stops a few feet away and looks into Mo’s eyes. She actually looks back, interested in something for more than a few seconds for once.

  “She is one of those they created in the hospital, ain’t she? The girl who is not a girl.”

  I nod, swallowing hard. She’s a girl to me. Or was. “Nessa, the woman at the hospital, did something to her. She used to act human. Now she doesn’t even seem to know me.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this, but for some reason he seems like someone who might help.

  The old man strokes Mo’s cheek. I expect her to bite, but she accepts the touch for a moment before pulling away and scrambling around Auntie’s neck. The old man clucks his tongue. “What is done can never be undone. She is a wild thing. She will continue to be wild.”

  “No, you don’t understand. She was fine. Then Nessa did something to her. I just need her to go back to the way she was.”

  He fixes dark eyes on me and stares for a long time. I want to shout at him, tell him he’s wrong about Mo, but I don’t.

  Finally, he turns away. “You must be hungry. We will hunt and tonight we will feast. Ashki.” He waves to his son, and, together, they gather supplies for a hunt.

  Clay touches my shoulder, making me jump. “I’ll hunt with them. You stay here and keep everyone safe.”

  Walking over, I take Mo from Auntie’s arms. She struggles and squirms, but I hold her tight and convince myself that this old man has no idea of what he’s talking about.

  With those three on a hunt, the rest of us make ourselves at home. Sissy curls up in Ashki’s bed and goes immediately to sleep. Doc and Desi unload supplies from the solar car while Auntie sits in the old man’s rocking chair, her eyes on me. Betsy walks around the room, touching each object and saying its name and then rhyming it quietly to herself. And Ethan has found Ashki’s knives very interesting, though I’ve instructed him not to touch.

  Mo squirms in my arms until I let her down, where she immediately goes to their food stores and tries to devour their prickly pears and jerky. I have to drag her away and get three more bites for my troubles. It kills me to do it, but I tie her in the sack again. I can’t have her ruining our relationship with these people so fast.

  But when she spits at me, gnashing her teeth, I want to cry. There has to be a small bit of her that remembers me. There has to.

  Doc taps my shoulder, handing me a jug of water. I take it, downing a swig, and trying to get some in Mo’s mouth. A lot of it sloshes on the bag.

  “It’s not true what he said.”

  I turn around and stare at Doc. “What?”

  “What the old man said. It’s not true. There’s noting that can’t be undone by the right doctor.” He gives me a sympathetic look.

  But I don’t want it. I don’t want his pity or his understanding. I turn away, trying to give Mo more water. She swings her head out of the way, and some of it sloshes into her hair. I want to scream.

  Doc holds out his hand. “Want me to try?”

  I can’t take it anymore. Fixing him with a hard look, I pull the jug away. “What is this?”

  “What?” he asks.

  “You trying to make friends with me. Is that it? We just go back to before you drugged me and kidnapped my child?”

  “Riley—”

  “I’m not ready to forgive you. I don’t know if I ever will be. So just stop, okay?”

  Auntie moves over, watching us carefully, but I ignore her.

  Doc is stiff. “But I told you why I went. How I was trying to save her.”

  “Not good enough.”

  He tries to touch me, and I pull away. I gesture at Mo. “This is your fault.”

  “Riley,” my aunt warns, but I keep going.

  “Mo is like this because of you.”

  He staggers back like I’ve struck him. He stares at me for a beat. Then he turns and runs out of the room.

  Everyone watches him go. Betsy gives a low whistle from her spot by the empty drink cooler. “You really read him the riot act, didn’t ya?”

  I say nothing. My heart is pounding. Did I mean what I said? Doc used to be my best friend. But he did betray us, and I think Mo being this way is his fault. “I’m not sorry,” I mutter to myself.

  “Riley,” Auntie calls.

  “Don’t lecture me right now,” I say, standing up. “I can’t take any more.”

  “It’s not that,” Auntie says. She points out a grimy window. Something out there is moving.

  Driving away.

  I run out of the front door in time to see the solar car turn out of the drive and speed down the road.

  Doc is gone.

  Riley

  We don’t talk about Doc leaving.

  We don’t talk about the fact that I drove him away with my words, that what I said put him over the edge, that he left without any food, water, or guns. That he’ll probably die because of me.

  We don’t talk about that.

  We talk about Broken Arrow, the old man, and his grandson Ashki, about their people. About how the Navajo used to rule this area, and then the white folks came and shoved them on reservations of the worst kind of land. That they tried to stomp them out like bugs, but little did they know they were making Indians the toughest of the tough. That when the apocalypse came, the Indians were ready because they knew how to handle hardship, how to survive living on nothing. So their people were fine. For a while.

  But then the white men came again, stealing what they had, taking their women. And the Navajo fought like they’d done when the first white settlers came. But the fighting wasn’t enough. Too many died on either side. And babies stopped being born. And Ashki is the last baby, that they know of, in the Navajo bloodline. Ashki looks away when his grandfather says this. Looks at the small fire burning in the little cook stove.

  It’s a sad story. About as sad as I feel, so I like it. I like that I’m not the only one feeling terrible right now.

  Because I shouldn’t have said those things to Doc. I should have tried to see things from his point of view. And it’s too late.

  And is it too late for Mo? Have I doomed her to this life, feral and angry? Even as Broken Arrow talks, she thrashes in her sack until he gives her something to eat and holds her rocking until she falls asleep. I watch this feeling helpless. Feeling broken.

  I’m not a mother. I never will be.

  But then he gets up and lays her in my arms, and by the light of the flickering fire, warm and scented with some herbs I can’t name, I stare at her soft face. Tracing the curves of her cheeks with the lightest touch of one index finger, I feel like crying. Broken Arrow watches me.

  “She needs you,” he says softly. “She’ll need you to be brave her for before this is all over.”

  I look up into his deep dark eyes, like pools of bottomless water. “I’m not enough,” I whisper.

  He puts a gnarled hand on my shoulder. “You will be.”

  Then everyone goes to bed, heading to their respective corners. I take Mo to a bench by the window where I can watch the road in the moonlight. There’s no motion, no cars. No Doc coming back.

  Clay comes over to me and wraps his arms around me, but I can’t be anything for him now. He seems to sense this and eventually goes to sleep beside Ethan. Only Auntie watches me from her chair, rocking and rocking as the fire burns low.

  Eventually I sleep, Mo’s body pressed against mine. Heartbeat against heartbeat.

  In the morning, I’m stiff and more tired than I’ve felt in a long time. Most are still sleeping, and Mo is still in her sack, her pink mouth puckering like she’s
suckling from her mother. The one Doc and I killed.

  Out the window, gray dawn lights the road. Beside the pavement, Broken Arrow and Ashki stand, doing some sort of movements toward the east.

  Quietly I get up, slip out, and walk over to them.

  “Morning, Riley,” Broken Arrow says, bowing down again to touch the dirt before raising his hands up to the sky. “We are greeting the morning. Join us.”

  Ashki nods and shows me what to do.

  We touch the earth, we touch our hearts, and we touch the sky. Doing this several times, I’m no longer stiff, and the sky is no longer dark. Pink light glows in the east. Broken Arrow starts praying in a language I don’t understand, but it’s beautiful. His words flow over me and through me as I close my eyes and breathe in the air.

  When he’s done, Broken Arrow turns to me. “Now we run to greet the day.”

  I look back to the building where my family sleeps.

  His eyes follow mine. “They’ll still be here when we get back.”

  I decide to trust this old man and his quiet son. I follow them as they jog toward the east, toward the rising sun. We run and run, but instead of feeling tired, I start feeling alive. Only when we crest a hill, digging into dirt that scrambles out from beneath my feet, do I tire. When I get to the top of the hill, Broken Arrow and Ashki are waiting for me. Ahead, the buttes dot the landscape, tall and stoic, but there is one off in the distance that stands out, looking like a jagged arrowhead pointing toward the sky.

  “See that,” Broken Arrow asks, pointing. When I nod, he drops his hand. “That is Shiprock. That is where you will find the people you seek.”

  “They’re up there?” I ask, marveling at the structure. It’s a giant landmass with lots of perilous drops and sheer cliffs that make it easy to defend. And they would see us coming for miles. “How could we possibly conquer that?” I ask, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach.

  Broken Arrow shakes his head, his braids trailing slowly. “You don’t need to conquer it. Think of yourself more like a virus. Creep in undetected and infect it from the inside out.”

  “How do we do that?” I ask.

  He swings around, looking back down toward where we came from. In the distance I can just see his red shack. “We barter with those you would seek to destroy. They come in two days’ time at the end of the month. If you take over their trucks, you can ride them into Shiprock. Once you are inside, it’ll be up to you what you do. It won’t be easy. But weeding out evil has never been a smooth road.”

  I soak in his words, keeping my eyes on the land form. “Will you go with us?”

  He shakes his head. “I owe it to my grandson to try to stay alive as long as possible. I don’t want him to be alone.”

  I look over at Ashki, but he is stoic as ever. “And when you die, what will he do?”

  Broken Arrow looks over at his grandson with pure love on his face. I know that love. “He will go on, like our people have always done.”

  “I will carry our traditions, Grandfather,” Ashki says quietly.

  Broken Arrow pats him on the back. “I know you will.”

  Their love is beautiful, but I have to look away. Soon, they are turning and jogging back down the rise. I follow, going as fast as my tired legs will take me.

  When we get back, most people are awake. Clay bursts out, looking terrified, but when I explain it to him, he just pulls me in for a hug and lets me go. Sissy stands outside when we come up, her eyes following Ashki. What an interesting pair those two would make. One all talk and the other no talk at all.

  Once I check on Mo, I pull Clay and Desi aside to explain what Broken Arrow told me. Desi narrows her dark brown eyes. “Attack a supply truck? I mean, yeah, easy to ambush, but don’t you think those bozos at Shiprock will recognize us the minute we drive up?”

  “People aren’t that observant, trust me,” Clay adds, chiming in. “If we put on their clothes and do a decent job of trying to pass for them, I think it could work.”

  “Or we could die,” Desi says, hefting the new bow and arrows that Ashki gave her. He apparently is a wiz at making them.

  “We could always die,” I say. “I thought you wanted to find your mother.”

  Her look is penetrating when she turns on me. “And suddenly you’re all gung-ho on this plan? I thought you didn’t want to go.”

  I glance back at my family gathering around a fire Broken Arrow is building. “They deserve better than being hunted down like dogs. We’ve finished Nessa. If we finish the Butchers, we can finally be free.”

  “And you want that fur baby to love you again,” Desi says.

  My eyes snap up.

  She holds out her hands in a way that says no offense. “I don’t blame you. I just want us to make all our intentions here clear. I want to kill all those motherless bastards. Revenge is sweet, and I want to use every one of these goddamned arrows to finish whatever man put his hands on my mother.”

  “Understood,” Clay says. “I’d be happy to take out as many as I can, too. Make sure you share.”

  She winks at Clay in acknowledgement.

  “So it’s settled then,” I say pushing up to stand. “Two days.”

  They both nod. “Two days,” Desi says. “That’ll give me time to make a shit ton more arrows.”

  The two days fly by in a flurry of preparations. We have to hide the Mack truck, which isn’t easy to do because it’s huge and loud and leaves giant tracks. Clay has to drive it a few miles down a side road to park it behind an abandoned building, and then we have to walk back using old blankets to cover over giant tire tread. And there’s the ammo preparation, the storing up of food, and keeping Sissy and Betsy from killing each other.

  That task might be the hardest one of all.

  Just now, as I sit cataloging and organizing bullets, I can hear them bickering across the other side of the large open warehouse that Broken Arrow and Ashki call home.

  “Your feet stink,” Sissy’s high-pitched voice wails. “Get them away from me.”

  “Stink shmink. You’re not the boss of me, you ugly girl.”

  “Ugly!” Sissy shrieks. “You’re the one who looks like a boiled pig in a dress. And that wig. It looks like the kind they put on the dead nannies for their funeral.”

  “Take that back,” Betsy says, a wail starting in her voice.

  I grip a bullet and think about muzzles. Two twin muzzles that would fit nicely over flapping mouths.

  “That’s enough of that.” Auntie’s voice booms through the space. When I turn around to look, she’s heaving herself out of the rocking chair and limping over to where the girls sit on the floor. They’re supposed to be sharpening arrowheads for Desdemona, but they haven’t gotten very far. When Auntie looms over them, one gnarled hand on her crooked back and the other extended pointer finger out, they clam up real fast.

  “I’ve heard enough of this bickering,” Auntie snaps. “You are the only two here that have been through what you’ve been through. You’d think you’d be best friends.”

  “Who can be best friends with her?” Sissy mumbles.

  Auntie shushes her and the girl dips her head. Sissy’s had too much Breeders training to talk back to a nanny. “Where is the compassion? You don’t know what’s happened to Betsy.”

  Sissy looks up, eyes filling with tears. “You don’t know what I’ve been through either.”

  The anger leaves Auntie’s face. “I’m sure a lot. A hell of a lot. We all have.”

  “Which is why,” Clay says walking in the front door, “we’re going to finish this once and for all. End the Butchers. And then we all can live in peace.”

  I look at him, standing in the doorway, the harsh desert sun framing him, a silhouette of the strongest, bravest man I’ve ever met. And the thought of riding into battle, of losing him, guts me. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but this may be the hardest trial we’ve ever undertaken. We might not all make it back.

  He walks in, setting down
the animals he’s hunted for us—a lizard, a rabbit, and a big black bird. I follow him with my eyes as he goes out back to the pump to wash up. Making sure Mo is quietly gnawing on a bone and tied to a pipe to keep her from running off, I follow.

  Leaned over at the pump, one of his hands works the lever up and down while the other lets cool water wash the blood away. For a moment I watch him, the water spilling over his mangled hand. So many scars on his body. More than I can count, and he’s just turned nineteen. And most of those scars he got on account of me.

  I place my hand over his on the pump. “I’ll do it.”

  His face lights up. He lets me take over while he scrubs the blood and dirt off both hands. “Thanks.” He dries them on his jeans and then squints at me. “Everything movin’ along here?”

  Stopping the pump, I catch the last bit of water and press it to my mouth for a drink. “Betsy and Sissy hate each other, but that’s not new. Auntie took care of it. I’ll be glad to be out on the road if only to avoid their bickering.”

  Clay scratches the stubble on his cheeks. “They’ll learn to get along. Will have to if we’re gonna stay together.”

  “Do you think we’ll all stay together? I mean, after all this is over?”

  “Probably. They can’t survive on their own, even if the bad guys are stopped. They’ll need us. Like it or not, we’re all they have. Unless we find their mothers in that compound.” He steps over, putting his arms around me and drawing me into his warm, strong body. When his scent washes over me, it sends a tingle down my spine. He’s so good, so right. So confident when I’m unsure.

  Pressing my face into the fabric on his shoulder, I try to memorize this, to breathe it in until this moment is a part of me, woven into the fabric of my being. His smell, the feel of his body on mine, the way his chest resonates when he speaks.

  I look up at him. “I want you to know you were always right. Any time I tried to fight you or get in your way, you were always right. But you never made me feel like I was wrong. It sounds stupid. Maybe it is, but I’m sorry if I ever fought you. I shouldn’t have.”