Chapter 3: High Water, Pt. 3

They ate together as the light died, sitting in a noisy circle around the fire, trading off watch shifts by twos. The meal was a soup, thick and smelling of heavy spice. Lily waited until the rest of them started eating before she took a bite.

They were eleven in all, ten men and Malinda. All ages. A few had sun-brown skin, others were winter pale. One man had long copper braids plaited with decorative metal beads.

He caught her staring and flashed a wicked, gap-toothed grin, and Lily looked away with a start.

She felt his eyes on her as the other traders asked half-mocking questions: where did she come from, where was she going? Was ‘Michael’ her lover or her hired man or maybe both, since it got so cold at night? Could he use that big knife, or was he compensating for something?

Lily shrugged most of the questions away and didn’t look at 74. Her skin felt too small. They howled with laughter and shoved each other as she forced a smile, waiting for them to lose interest.

Jean tossed more wood on the fire. “This used to be Union land, didn’t it?” He picked his teeth. “It’s a pity. They always bought guns.”

“You trading guns?” That was probably what was in the locked wagon, Lily rationalized. Please. Let that be what was in the wagon.

“We’re trading everything.” Jean grinned, and laughter circled the fire again. “Even though the Coalition wiped our best customers off the map.”

The little cook fire seemed to roar and swell until it was a city-devouring inferno, and she was back on that hill outside Omaha Base, watching the night turn red.

She had to get away from this circle of eyes and teeth. Lily choked down panic and stood, mumbling an excuse. 74 moved like he was going to get up with her, but he returned his gaze to the fire and stayed put.

In the wagon with the door shut it didn’t matter anymore. Firelight seeped through the cracks in the wall, snatches of sound filtering in with it.

Lily crawled onto her pallet, the pleasant ache of a full stomach superseding her other pains. She drifted away with the scent of wood smoke sharp in her nose, and woke to the crack of a single gunshot.

Wagon. Traders. Caravan.

She let her breath out in a rush. The light had faded to a red glow and the conversation was silenced.

Had she imagined the sound? She’d been dreaming of the battle by the river, the Regular’s boots gouging the mud as he died. The last man she’d shot hadn’t died like that.

Something moved in the dark. The floor creaked. She smelled smoke and sweat and the lingering odor of alcohol.

Lily held her breath and still heard the sound of air entering and leaving human lungs. The knife was a hard lump in her hand; she felt the click as she unfolded it, and her heart beat a little faster.

A hand clapped over her mouth. Another latched onto her arm.

Lily rolled off the pallet as a dark shape lunged for her, bearing them both to the floor. She slashed blindly but he grabbed her wrist.

Adrenaline buried pain. Lily kneed him in the side, tore her hand free, stabbed upward in blind terror--

He screamed, choked and garbled. She scrambled on top of him, driving the knife down again and again, scraping bone. Blood splashed her face, ran hot down her neck.

He gasped and went limp.

Lily covered her mouth with a sticky hand. Her chest heaved. Her legs trembled, spilling her out into the cool air; she wheeled in a circle, sucking in deep, agonized breaths.

A body lay splayed out behind her; she saw copper braids and clothes stained a much darker red before she staggered away, knife clutched in her bloody fist.

The fire had burned to coals. Horses shifted at the ends of their tethers. Lily froze by the embers of the fire, arm wrapped tight across her torso, waiting.

Malinda shuffled out of the shadows. Her strained smile showed none of her teeth.

The adrenaline was gone and Lily was just scared, now. She brandished the knife. “Stay back and I'll let you live.”

“Funny. That's what your friend said."

Jean leaned against one of the wagons, dabbing blood from a split lip, all traces of cheerfulness gone.

"Where is he?" The words came out harsh and shrill.

“Bleeding out where I left him,” he spat. "Fucking waste. You know how much they pay for Operatives in Dallas?"

The bottom dropped out of Lily's stomach as she retreated.

Jean pushed off the wagon and limped toward her, giving the knife a mocking smile. "Put that little thing down and I won't hurt you. Danny was supposed to keep his hands off you 'til we made Freeport, but he’s always been impatient."

"I killed him," Lily snarled. "You come any closer and I'll kill you too."

Jean lunged, still smiling.

He wasn't a drunk in a dark wagon. He caught her wrist as she struck at him, wrenching it until the knife tumbled out of her hand.

"There, now," he sighed, twisting harder. Lily dropped to her knees with a whimper. "Malinda, come and--"

Lily grabbed a chunk of wood from the pile by the fire and swung it into his knees with all her strength. She surged up, put her whole body into a blow that connected with his jaw and sent him staggering, and she roared at the top of her lungs as she swung again, going for his stomach, his head, his arm.

He landed two blows to her ribs and fireworks of pain burst across Lily's eyes, but she collapsed away from the next punch, falling to one knee, ducking—

Jean's jaw was at a bad angle. He advanced, snarling, and they went down together as Lily tackled him. She screamed without words as she pummeled him with both fists.

A pair of arms like steel bands grabbed her from behind and dragged her off, kicking.

“Stop,” Malinda wailed. “You can’t—”

Lily elbowed her in the stomach and kicked at her shins, but Malinda grabbed a handful of hair and yanked, bringing tears to Lily's eyes.

She went limp. When Malinda's grip loosened she tore free and grabbed the other woman by the legs, toppling her, slamming her into the ground.

"Keys to the wagon," she panted, clutching her side. “Now.”

Malinda sobbed and pointed to where Jean was crawling away from the fight.

A hot swell of anger replaced all fear. Lily stopped to claw a rock out of the dirt, holding it in both hands.

Even limping, she caught up to him easily. Kicked him onto his back. Straddled him. Jean grabbed her knees and managed to pull her down. He reached for her face, his fingers clawed—

He screamed like a rabbit as Lily brought the rock down onto his head. Her second blow had him flat on his back, but as she raised her hand to finish it someone grabbed her wrist.

She whirled, snarling, exploding up—

74 kept his hand on her arm. A shocking amount of blood covered his face and clothes, but he was very much alive.

A cold rush of inexplicable relief fought anger and bone-deep weariness.

"Let go," Lily said. Forming words was difficult, like someone else was using her tongue. "Don't try and stop me."

Wordlessly, 74 released her. He held out a pistol.

Lily rose on unsteady legs. The weapon was a deadly weight in her hands, familiar and comforting. She trained it on Jean, trying to fill her heart with rage again.

Nothing came.

"I want to go," she said, lowering the gun.

"I can—"

Jean tried to sit up, blood oozing from his mouth, and Lily fired a single shot. The resulting screams and the red stain seeping across his groin failed to stir anything in her at all.

"I said I want to go." Her arms and legs felt leaden. Her heart too.

Malinda sobbed brokenly on the ground. She reached out as Lily passed, but Lily booted her in the stomach and kept walking.

The wagon was dark and silent.

"Get away from the door," Lily shouted, taking aim at the padlock.

She counted down from five and fired, wrenching the smoking remains of the lock away as 74 joined her with a torch.

"We need to leave.”

"Then leave." Lily ripped the chain away and flung open the doors, throwing her arm over her nose and mouth as a foul smell assaulted her.

She held out her hand for the torch, and 74 gave it to her.

Fresh anger flared red hot. Ages were impossible to determine beneath the dirt and bruises, but the four girls in the wagon couldn't be out of their teens. Chains linked them together at the wrists, and they shrank away as she raised the light higher.

"It's all right," Lily said. "It's ok. You can come out, I'll get you out…"

74 hovered. "We have to go."

"Go then, I don't care!" The girls stayed huddled in the wagon. "Please, please come out. I won't hurt you."

74 left.

Why weren't they moving? Lily stepped back, waiting, but they stared at her and clutched their knees against their chests. Two were visibly pregnant, bellies hard swells under their tattered clothes.

"Please," Lily whispered.

Soft footfalls sounded behind her, and heavier ones. Something clinked and jingled.

74 led one of the massive horses. He slung a canvas bag over his shoulder and tossed her a ring of bloody keys.

One of the girls began to weep. It was a thin, cracked sound.

Lily let the torch fall from her hand and climbed the steps, laying the keys down in easy reach. They shrank back from her, holding each other.

"It's over," she said. “They’re all dead. You’re in free territory. Take the horses, don’t go east.”

The girls stared at her, mute and trembling. Like animals.

She turned away. She’d wasted too much time and there was nothing more she could do.

"Help me up," she said, and 74 boosted her onto the horse. He swung up behind her and it was terrible. The pressure. The heat of his body. She twisted the coarse, bicolored mane around her hands as the sobs from the wagon cut into her like broken glass.

74 kicked the animal into a plodding canter, and that was that; the firelight, the wagons, the bodies, all of it contracted to a speck of brightness behind them and vanished.

There was no light left anywhere in the world.

—

Lily shuddered awake sometime after dawn.

The horse ambled over rocks and hillocks, head low. At some point in the night 74 had slumped against her back. He was heavy. Dead weight.

She elbowed him and he woke with a start, hauling back on the makeshift reins. The horse blew out a puff of condensation and stopped, tossing its head.

74 dismounted, shaking himself like a dog shedding water. Lily ignored his offered hand and wriggled down alone. Her whole body screamed in pain. How far had they drifted? In what direction?

She meant to ask 74, but he was busy. He’d opened his coat and was examining a maroon stain that started just above his hip and continued most of the way down his thigh, exploring a small tear in his shirt with reddened fingers.

The same stains covered Lily's arms, her hands, her chest and stomach. She braced herself against the horse's side and vomited into the bracken, then pressed her face into the warm neck and closed her eyes.

"Are you hurt," 74 asked, the question behind the question very plain.

Lily fumbled for the canteen and washed the taste out of her mouth. "No. Is that your blood?”

He hesitated, then shook his head.

The wind picked up again and Lily's stomach turned over. She didn't care that he was lying. "Give me your knife."

74 extended it hilt first, and she grabbed a handful of her hair and sawed it off, cutting until there wasn't enough left to grip. Wind blew cold against the back of her neck and sent the shorn clumps tumbling out into the scrub grass.

Lily returned the blade, daring 74 to say something. He looked at everything but her.

"I think we kept going west," he said at last, clearing his throat. Even his hair was tacky with dried blood, plastered red against his scalp.

The body in the wagon. Her knife grinding against bone. Hands. Screaming—

74 stepped forward, and Lily recoiled.

“No.” She pointed at the horse. "You ride in front, this time."