The Savage Boy

29



“THEY SAY THEY’LL pay the bounty in the morning, which is fine for our purposes,” said Raleigh as he chucks and clicks the wagon team to follow the Chinese guide up to the paddock.

They were being directed to the “Old School,” which was a wide field where they could camp for the night.

“MacRaven will start the attack at dawn. The Chinese will be real busy right about then, so we can get these bodies strung up in peace. After that, maybe we can join the fight.”

Raleigh looked at the Boy for a long moment, then, as if answering some unspoken question, he sighed.

“All right, I’ll tell you the plan. Once they breach the walls with MacRaven’s Space Crossbow, you’ll need to link up with the chief and lead him up here so the tribes can find the bodies all strung up like they got executed by the Chinese. Dunn’ll come up with our horses and gear. Then we can join the cleanup and start looting.”

Real careful now, Boy. You done all the work to gain his trust. Now, don’t overplay it.

The Boy waited.

“I don’t get it,” said the Boy.

“Why do we have to string these bodies up? Seems like the point’s made if the tribes find ’em slaughtered already. They’ll think the Chinese did it anyways.”

Raleigh sighed. There was a moment of things weighed. Scales balancing.

“To the tribes one and all, dyin’ in battle is one thing. But strung up for crimes is another. They’ll be so angry and ready for all the Chinese blood they can spill, they won’t even realize they’re leaderless and under Mac’s total control. “

As an afterthought, as Raleigh turned to back the wagon, he added, “Brilliant, when you think about it.”

“My guess is,” continued Raleigh. “The Chinese will make their last stand down at that old courthouse. That’s probably where the work will take place. I bet that’s where the Chinese keep the guns and women, and that’s where we’ll want to get to, quick-like, once this tricky corpse business is done. First to fight, first to find, eh?”

Raleigh seemed happy, as if a fine breakfast had been announced for the morning and it would be something to look forward to throughout the long night.

They set to making a fire and then feeding the horses from the plentiful hay pile left on the Old School field.

In the early dark, they watched the fire as Raleigh heated strips of dried venison.

“I like it warmed even if it has been dried,” he mumbled.

The meat was tough.

They ate in silence.

They’ll slaughter these people, Boy. You know it and I know it.

You said, Don’t get involved, Sergeant.

I know.

These are Chinese.

I know, Boy. And they’re people too. Remember those salvagers outside Oklahoma City? Savages just like MacRaven’s army murdered those people. Are you gonna let that happen here, again, to people like your friend Escondido?

“Whatcha thinking so hard about?” asked Raleigh from the other side of the fire. Evening shadows made his sad brown eyes even gloomier as they stared out from his long face above the drooping mustache.

I know, Sergeant.

“Meat’s tough,” said the Boy.

“Good for the teeth,” mumbled Raleigh through a mouthful. “Unless you got bad teeth. You got bad teeth?”

The Boy nodded.

You know what you’ve got to do, Boy.

I know, Sergeant.

“Can I see your knife?” asked the Boy.

Raleigh stood and pulled it from his belt. He handed it pommel first to the Boy and sat back down.

Raleigh was biting into the venison once more when a thought occurred to him.

In that moment of chewing, thinking about warfare and food and rifles, Raleigh understood he’d made a mistake. But he was tired and it had been a very long life. He had, he knew, no one to blame but himself. He had always known this.

The Boy was standing.

The Boy’s arm was back.

What the Boy lacked on one side, withered and bony, he had on the other—a powerful machine, just like MacRaven’s Space Crossbow thought Raleigh. I have no one to blame but myself.

His teeth close on their final chew.

The Boy hurls the knife straight into Raleigh’s chest.

All the air was driven from Raleigh at once as he fell backward from the impact. The darkness was already consuming him and the Boy. Raleigh thought, as he felt that one powerful hand about his throat, the Boy was like an animal.

THE BOY WAS up from the body. Raleigh, eyes bulging, stared sightlessly up into the stars and the night beyond.

By dawn they’ll be all over these walls, Boy. Whatchu gonna do now?

He’d heard that question from Sergeant Presley before, many times in fact. Whatchu gonna do now?

I can find Escondido, Sergeant.

Then what?

Tell him what I know.

Then what?

I . . . it’s up to them after that.

That’s right, Boy. Do all you can do. Then let it go.

The Boy walked back toward the ancient courthouse down in the center of the outpost. Warm yellow light shone within the windows he passed.

Ahead he saw a Chinese guard at the intersection of two curving streets.

“Escondido?” he asked.

The guard mumbled in Chinese and shone a lantern into the Boy’s face.

“Escondido?”

The guard’s slurred Chinese seemed angry, and for a moment the Boy realized how much of his plan hinged on simply being understood. But after a pause the guard began to walk, lighting the way for the Boy and insisting he follow along. A moment later they turned down a side street and up a lane, almost reaching the outer pine-log wall.

The guard climbed the steps to an old shack and banged loudly on a thin door.

The racket and voice within belonged to Escondido.

When the old hunter opened the door, he hit the guard with a stream of Chinese, then, seeing the Boy he stopped. His tone was softer as he sent the guard off into the night.

The guard retreated down the steps and was down the winding lane, back toward the center of the outpost, his lantern bobbing in the darkness.

“Never thought I’d see you alive. What happened to your horse?”

“No time. There’s an army of tribes out to the east. They’re going to attack at dawn.”

Escondido reacted quickly.

He only asked questions that mattered. Strength. Numbers. Proof.

He didn’t waste time on disbelief.

I guess, thought the Boy as he followed after the old hunter, when you’ve lived through the end of the world once, you’re more ready to believe when it happens the next time.

Shortly, they were standing on the steps of the old courthouse, their faces shining in the soft glow coming from within the old building. Chinese soldiers were speaking with Escondido. Every so often messengers left and returned. More and more of the soldiers were mustering in the old parking lot beneath the courthouse. As for the conversation, the Boy understood little of it.

Escondido turned away as the Chinese conferred among themselves.

“They believe you, all right. That patrol is well overdue. They seen your friend’s body and they’ve put two and two together. The question for them now is, what’re they gonna do? Yang, the garrison commander, wants to send the civilians and the Hillmen out tonight. He’s only got forty soldiers, but he thinks he can hold the courthouse.”

And how much is this, Boy? asked Sergeant Presley long ago.

Five.

And this? He holds up all ten fingers.

Ten.

And if each one of these fingers represents the total of all my fingers?

One hundred.

Good, Boy. Next you’ll make me take off my moccasins. But we’ll save that for another time.

There were far more tribesmen than one hundred. Far more than forty.

“If they go, do you want to go with ’em?” asked Escondido.

The Boy shook his head.

“I’m half tempted to run myself.” Then, “The Hillmen are sending messengers out to their villages. That might even things up a bit. All right, you’ll fight with me. I’ll be on the eastern wall. You can reload my rifles. You know how to do that?”

The Boy shook his head.

“Well, we got all night to learn.”