The Butchers Page 4

  I take a step back before I clock him. “Far as I can tell, I found you. And don’t think for a minute just because you helped her that you mean anything to her. You’re her friend. Nothing more.”

  He stares at me like he could kill me, and half of me wants him to try because my blood is boilin’, but then there are tears in his eyes and I realize, maybe I took it too far. I should back down, but I just can’t.

  He stares long and hard before turnin’ and mutterin’ at me. “You can bring those horses back your damn self.”

  Doc

  That bastard. That son of a bitch.

  I practically run across the scrubland back to the compound, ready to punch something or kick someone’s head off. But the worst part is, I can’t lay a finger on Clay. Riley would kill me. Then she would die.

  Before he was here, I thought I had a chance. That moment we kissed was amazing, and I think about it over and over. But now? Shit. Now, she watches him like he’s the morning sun, bringing life to the valley. And I’m just an afterthought when she’s worried her baby is sick.

  Doc, what’s wrong with Mo? Can you look after her? Fix her, Doc. Fix her.

  And I do. I try to keep Mo well, but I see how her confidence in me is waning. How she looks at me now, wondering if I know what I’m talking about. She turns to Clay more and more, like he can do any better. He can’t shoot his way to getting Mo well.

  I can’t tell her how much it guts me when I see them touch.

  But yet, here they are, and here I am, watching. Alone. I should just run off, but where would I go? Back to Merek Bullets and Ammo? I have friends there, but Nada’s grave is still fresh. At least in my mind. I don’t think I could see it again without unspooling. Without losing myself completely.

  I may be suicidal. I don’t know.

  So when I get back to the compound, and Riley’s there in the shade holding the comatose Mo in her arms, my gut both clenches and churns. I want Riley to need me, but not in the way I know she will.

  She looks up as I shuffle over. Her eyes are glazed from lack of sleep. Road dirt streaks down her face in lines that make her look older, worn out. Still, she’s too damn beautiful. I wish many times she were ugly, dumb, and mean. But I think I’d still love her spirit all the same.

  “Doc,” she says as if waking from a dream. “Where’d you go?”

  “To help Clay water the horses.”

  She looks past me. “Is he still out there?”

  “Yeah, he told me he could do it alone, and that I should check on you.”

  “That’s nice of him,” she says, looking down at naked Mo in her arms.

  Gritting my teeth, I let the comment slide. “Any change?”

  She shakes her head. “I keep giving her prickly pear juice, but most of it keeps sliding out of the corners of her mouth.”

  “Some is getting in. We have to keep trying to get her glucose.” I touch the tiny thing’s arm. She really is sweet. “So we ride at sunset?”

  She nods sleepily. “What do you think Corra will do?”

  “Try to shoot our heads off?” I surmise. “Then take her from you,” I add quietly. “Are you prepared for that?”

  Riley strokes a finger down Mo’s small cheek as her mouth twitches. “She can’t die, Doc. If she does, then it’s my fault. I’m the one who took her away from her medicine.”

  “I’m the one who killed her mother,” I say, sitting next to her in the wall’s thin shadow. The brick is hot against my back. “If anyone is to blame it’s me. They could’ve been out there, one big happy family if I hadn’t shot that thing.”

  “Not your fault,” she says. “Corra would’ve captured her eventually.”

  I stare across our little compound. “Think we’ll come back here?”

  She looks around at the brick walls, the dirty concrete floors we swept and cleared until it looked almost like a home. At the holes where we sleep. It isn’t much. It’s kept us safe this long.

  “I like it here,” she says quietly. “Mo liked it here.”

  “But she can’t survive here,” I say.

  “No, she can’t,” she admits.

  “So we go tonight. Ethan’s excited.”

  She gives a small laugh. “He’s always excited.” Then she squints in my direction. The heat is growing exponentially with the rising sun. “Did he tell you what we found?”

  “Clay did.”

  She nods, rocking Mo slightly. “With so many people dead, why couldn’t it have been all the bad ones? Why couldn’t the people left all be good?”

  I let the question hang, reaching for Mo instead. “Go get some rest. I’ll hold her. You’ll fall off your horse at this rate.”

  She hesitates, but when I carefully pull Mo into my arms, she gets up, patting my shoulder. “You’re a godsend, Doc. Really. What would I do without you?”

  I watch her walk, holding her child in my arms. There’s only one answer to her question, and I don’t like it.

  If she had to live without me, she’d be just fine.

  Riley

  Sleep is fitful. I wake with a start, something inside me going off like a warning bell. When I look around, the hovel is dark with evening light. I’m alone down here. For a moment I panic, but then I realize I left Mo with Doc. Mo is sick, and tonight we take her to Corra. Remembering that feels like someone let out the air in my lungs.

  Pulling my stiff body up, I climb up the ladder onto the hard soil. The smell of roasted meat and wood smoke draws my eyes to the bonfire and the figures around it. When I walk over, I see everyone gathered, a wild boar roasting over a spit Clay built when we moved here.

  “Clay shot it,” Ethan says, running over to me. “Isn’t it big?”

  Taking Ethan’s hand, I scan the group for Mo. I see her sleeping form on a tattered blanket on the ground beside Doc. “Since when do you get excited about an animal being killed?”

  He shrugs. “Clay is teaching me. They give their life so we can live.”

  “Hell, I’ve been saying that for years.”

  “You said hell,” he says, pulling out of my hand and running around the fire to where Clay is turning the spit.

  Clay’s eyes lock with mine across the blaze. “You ready?”

  I turn and Doc is there, looking tired but clean. Freshly scrubbed, he wears his newest clothes, a long-sleeve T-shirt with only one hole in the sleeve. The shirt has a gray wolf head on the front and the word LOBOS underneath. His jeans and boots look washed, too. He’s been busy.

  “How’s Mo?” I ask. “I’m a broken record, I know. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he says, his green eyes watching me. “You care about her. I like that.”

  Why do I get the feeling he’s flirting with me? Across the fire, Clay is watching carefully.

  I turn the subject back to Mo. “Any changes with her?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing good, but nothing bad either.”

  I gaze up at the stars. “Soon we’ll be there. Then we don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

  “You’ll still worry about her,” he says quietly.

  But Clay is walking around the fire, and Doc fades into the night so quickly I’m not sure where he’s gone. Clay pulls me in for a hug, planting a kiss on the top of my head. “Everything okay?”

  “I slept. Did you?”

  He presses his lips into my hair again. “Enough.”

  “I can’t have you tired tonight. Corra will likely see us coming.”

  “Last time I checked, her electrical systems had been blown to hell and she was runnin’ on backup power. It’s her, Betsy, and a few guys. They’re crippled. They should be willin’ to parlay if we play our cards right. They won’t want Mo dead. We need to get ’em to talk before the shootin’ starts.”

  “Listen to you and your ‘talk before shooting.’”

  “Firin’ a gun isn’t always the way. A gunslinger knows when not to shoot.”

  “Right,” I say, gazing out onto the fire.
Auntie is helping Ethan turn the spit, the hog’s skin browning and crackling with a delicious aroma that is making my mouth water. “Have to be careful about coyotes.”

  Clay nods, showing me his gun holster. “I’ll just add ’em onto the feast. Haven’t had coyote in a coon’s age.”

  “We can’t spare the bullets,” I say.

  He goes quiet. I know running out of bullets is his worst nightmare, and we’re almost there. Again.

  “Pig’s ready!” Auntie calls as she and Doc haul the damn thing off the fire. For a while, we forget our journey. The roasted boar is so good, smiles burst onto our faces as we eat. But I can’t be joyful when Mo lies there unconscious. She would love some boar. But I just have to focus on getting her well. I eat for strength and nothing more.

  When we’ve eaten until our bellies bulge, Clay and Doc work on cutting hunks of meat and wrapping them in cloth. We don’t have time to make jerky so the food will only last us a while. The rest we’ll leave for the coyotes in the hopes that they are well fed and off our trail. What little we own is already packed so we saddle the horses and mount up. I ride one mare who pulls the cart loaded with our goods and Mo. Clay and Ethan ride the stallion. Auntie is on the last mare with Doc walking for now. If we take turns walking and riding, we figure we can make thirty miles in two days.

  That is, if nothing gets in our way.

  We ride through the night, trying hard not to fall asleep and tumble off the saddle. When I find myself dozing, I insist that Doc ride and I walk. It’s enough to keep me awake, being down on the road like that. But Clay can’t stand me down there for long. He insists on putting me on the stallion with Ethan. It’s a much bigger horse, and I have to worry about Ethan nodding off, which happens about every twenty minutes. I wrap my arms around him and lean forward so his head rests on the horse’s neck.

  Somehow a full day passes that way. Riding. Fitful sleep in the heat of the day. Eating. Riding again. The water dwindles so fast.

  We’re lucky Doc has an amazing sense of direction because he’s able to find the town where we first met Mo and her mother. Just seeing the burned-down strip mall again gives me shivers. Doc and I almost died in there. He glances over at me from his horse and we lock eyes. We don’t need words to know we’re both reliving the moment he saved our lives after I told him I was pregnant. That was after he saved my life at Merek Bullets and Ammo. I owe him everything. And I have nothing to give him. Nothing he wants anyway.

  Clay’s nervous now that we’re back in town. He won’t ride the horse, choosing to walk tensely beside us. When we get out of town and onto the road that slopes down to the underground bunker, he stops the caravan.

  I wake Ethan and slide off the horse, dropping into the dirt on stiff legs. A full day of riding and I can barely walk. How will I be able to fight if it comes to that?

  “We’re close.” Clay’s eyes are wide but red-rimmed. I know he didn’t sleep yesterday or probably the day before.

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “I remember it being farther.”

  “It’s just down the road. We don’t know what we’re headin’ toward, so I think I should recon and report back.”

  I grip his arm. “You’re barely standing you’re so tired. I can’t let you go on alone.”

  “Riley, I—”

  “I’m going,” Doc says, walking up leading his mare.

  We both turn to stare at him. I’m the first to answer. “Doc, why would you go?”

  He holds up his hand, ticking off fingers as he goes. “One: I’m the one who shot Mo’s mother. Two: I’ve had rest. Three: I know where the hell I’m going, not just pretending I do.”

  Clay interrupts. “Now you wait just a goddamned minute.”

  “Clay,” I say, putting my hand on his chest.

  “And four,” Doc continues, “I’m not really a part of this family, so no one will give much of a damn if I get killed.”

  “Doc,” I interject, but he’s already handing me the horse’s tether and walking away.

  “If I’m not back in four hours, conclude that things went south.”

  “Doc!” I start to go after him, but Auntie puts a hand on my arm.

  She gives me a withered look. “He needs this. Let him have it.”

  “He needs to go off alone?” I watch Doc walk up the dark road, panic flitting around in my chest.

  “Yes. He needs to blow off steam, to do something useful. Then he’ll feel like he’s earned his place with us.”

  “He doesn’t need to earn his place with us.”

  But she tilts her head at me like I should know different. “He’s been sulky as a polecat since Clay got back, and you and I both know why. He needs to work it out or find another tribe. The alpha male always pushes another challenger out eventually.”

  “We aren’t wolves,” I say, still watching Doc’s shadow blend into the dark background of the roadside. I hate it, but maybe she’s right. But he’s my friend, second only to Clay. “I don’t want him to leave,” I whisper.

  Auntie clucks her tongue, letting go of my arm to scratch under her eye patch. “This ain’t about you, puddin’.”

  The waiting feels like someone slowly pulling out my stuffing.

  Minutes pass. Hours.

  The sun comes up, coloring the scrubland around us an orange-pink. Ethan is sleeping in the cart as the horses graze in the field. It’s a risk, letting them wander and being this close to the road, but they’re hungry and thirsty. The water we packed is gone. If we don’t find some with Corra, we’re dead.

  Auntie rests with her back to the cart’s wheel, her head lolling against her shoulder, intermittent snores echoing from that direction. Clay is lying on the ground a few feet from them, passed out from lack of sleep. When begging him to rest didn’t work, I had to threaten. I watch his chest rise and fall, the fabric of his T-shirt tightening against the strong muscles there.

  That leaves Mo, here in my arms as I sit with the gun beside me and my eyes on the road. She’s sleeping, breathing shallowly. I gave her the last prickly pear juice an hour ago. Who knows now if it’s helping or not. She doesn’t even have diabetes. She is genetically different than humans and has a genetically different disease. Only Corra really knows what that means. Only Corra can fix her.

  I pull her warm body toward me and wrap her in a ratty blanket. The air here is cooler, which is a blessing, but it makes me feel anxious. Any change makes me feel anxious. There are no safeguards on the road.

  The sun grows high and drives me under a scrawny tree. What time is it? Noon?

  Doc’s been gone longer than four hours.

  Shit.

  “Riley.”

  When I turn, Ethan is standing to my right, rubbing sleepy eyes. “What time is it?”

  I shrug, adjusting Mo in my arms to air out the sweat that has collected in creases. “It’s late. Too late.”

  “Doc back yet?”

  “Nope.”

  Clay appears, staggering up and stretching his back. “Maybe he ran off.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” I say without confidence.

  Clay doesn’t respond, but Auntie gives me the side-eye from her spot by the wagon. This is exactly what she was talking about. The alpha male running off the challenger.

  “How long do we wait for him?” Ethan asks, watching a bird trace lazy circles in the hot afternoon sun.

  “As long as it takes.” But I know that isn’t right. Either we go forward or back. And we don’t have enough water to go back.

  “I’ll go on ahead. Shoulda gone myself in the first place,” Clay says, reaching for a pack.

  Grabbing one of the pack straps to stop him, I look up, meeting his eyes. “What if whoever is still alive at the compound killed Doc? What if that’s why he didn’t come back?”

  Clay meets my eyes. “They won’t kill me.”

  I don’t let go of the pack strap. “Just give him a little bit more time.”

  He studies my face for a moment. “Two hours
. I go on at dusk if he isn’t back.”

  I nod, letting the pack strap slip from my hands.

  But time stretches on and Doc still doesn’t return. I get up, too anxious to keep sitting and doing nothing. Clay looks up from where he’s been napping in the shade. He holds a hand out to me.

  “Where you goin’, beautiful?”

  “To stretch my legs.”

  “Want me to come?”

  I shake my head.

  “Don’t stretch ’em too far.”

  I give him a smile, squeeze his hand, and walk toward the rise in the road. I won’t go far, but I have to see what’s over that bend, even if it’s nothing.

  The road climbs gradually up, the busted blacktop rising into the blazing-hot sky. Out from under the shade, my dark hair drinks up heat. I wish I’d thought to grab a hat, but this won’t be a long walk. My eyes scan across the baked landscape of scrub, cactus, and thirsty trees. No animals dare to come out now. The blacktop, or what’s left of it, boils in the heat. It feels like we’re the only people alive on the planet. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before we’re gone, too.

  Something catches my eye. A curl of dust on the shimmering horizon. Someone on the road. My heart starts to pound. For good or bad, someone’s coming.

  Christ.

  “Clay!” I call, turning. “Get everyone off the road. Hide!”

  I sprint down the ridge toward where they’re lying. “Hide. Hide!”

  He hears me, springing up and grabbing Mo. Ethan and Auntie are on their feet, snagging the horses’ tethers and trying desperately to lead them away from the road. There aren’t many places to hide—a couple of trees might block a few of us, but not the horses. Clay knows this better than me. He’s already pulling them behind the horse’s wooden cart and drawing his guns. It’ll be a firefight if it comes to it.

  I run to the cart and skid in the dirt as I slide in beside them. “Give me a gun!”

  He hands me one of his revolvers, the other in his good hand. “It could be Doc.”