Dark eyes fluttered open. Kat looked down the alley to the side street as traffic passed without concern. The natural light was turning dim. Did I fall asleep? Her head tilted up. The sun was no longer overhead.
“Dammit!” she cursed while rising to her feet. She had promised to haul water for Reynolds. How late am I? She launched herself toward the street at a ramrod pace. Just as suddenly, she skittered to a stop and looked back for the tangle of brush she had hauled from the desert. It lay, exposed, in the middle of the alley along with her carton. “So stupid of me,” she berated aloud.
Kat untied the brush and tucked the woody remains as inconspicuously as she could along the trash wall, covering her hard-earned firewood with loose debris. She quickly looped the cord around her waist and concealed her rusty wire. Better prepared for the dangers of Shantytown, she snatched the carton off the ground and walked a hastened pace for the Beggar’s Market.
Spurred on by the thought of breaking her agreement, Kat took under thirty minutes to reach a gate and queue for entry. Late afternoon was fading and the knowledge that she had let the doctor down weighed heavily on her mind. She reflected upon the “old” Kat. Was she a woman of her word? Did she keep her promises?
She moved gradually forward and watched the yellow-shirts process the line. The guards were efficient but insistent as they kept the sequenced herd moving through the gate. Realization dawned on her as she remembered the charges against the man stoned to death the night she awoke in Shantytown. My God, they’re doing cursory searches for contraband! I bet only licensed merchants are allowed to bring goods into the market!
Kat quickly stepped out of line and walked away from the gate. Once at a street corner, she looked guiltily around before folding the paper carton as flat as possible and trying to slip it between the waistband of her pants and her hip. Her pants were far too tight and the carton too full. Next, she tried to wedge the container into the loops of her bandage dressing, but there was no way it would stay securely in place. Finally, she placed the compressed carton to her hip and pulled her soiled gown over the top, pinning the bulk to her side with her left arm. She thought it looked obvious that she was hiding something.
Grumbling, she pulled out the carton and studied it. The empty top was much flatter than the fuller bottom. She pressed the top closed, inverted the container and tucked the leading edge into the band of her pants, sucking in her stomach to make the slightest more room. She pulled her gown down and inspected the lay of the fabric. She would have to be careful not to let the carton squirt free but at least she could carry her left arm in a more natural position.
Kat reentered the queue and feigned innocence. Each step toward the gate engendered a growing dread. What’s the penalty for smuggling goods inside the market? She recalled again the horrifying sounds of the public trial on the street her first night. When she was second in line, Kat lifted the right side of her gown to expose her bandage. She pressed her elbows to her sides, ostensibly to minimize her discomfort, but instead to keep her carton pushed neatly against her torso. She winced as she limped to the beckoning guard.
“I need a doctor,” she croaked with a pain-filled expression.
The yellow-shirt’s eyes swept over Kat, stopping at her injured, right side. What may have been a look of sympathy flashed over his face before he waved her through. Kat continued the charade until she was well past the gate. Once safely out of view, she picked up her pace and made a beeline for Reynolds’ small cul-de-sac.
There were people at the clinic’s service counter. A man with a child no older than five waited at the front of the shack. Kat approached and smiled at the young boy. His response was a concerned and somber expression worn by men decades older than him. She raised herself onto her toes and looked over the man’s shoulders. A middle-aged woman lay prone on the examination table inside. A long strip of bloody gauze circled her lower, right leg. The pant leg was in tatters and Reynolds was pressing one of Kat’s newly cleaned bandages against the woman’s thigh. The patient whimpered as the doctor leaned on the wound.
Reynolds moved the woman’s hand to the bandage and ordered, “Keep pressure on it, honey.” She walked to the service counter and her eyes washed over Kat. “Kat, why don’t you take the boy around the side and let him see his mother?”
Kat extended her hand and smiled. “Let’s go see your mom, sweetie.” The boy reluctantly took her hand only after receiving assurances from his father. Kat wrapped her slender fingers around the boy’s grip and walked him through the side door. The woman on the table turned her head and reached out to her son with her free hand.
The mother was a ghostly white and her lips were nearly blue. There was a tourniquet high on the woman’s thigh. A sheet of dark, red blood covered the rest of her leg and a majority of the table’s surface. Kat wondered how much more blood had been lost before the woman had reached the clinic. The little boy clung to his mother’s arm. Two meters away, Reynolds and the father spoke in hushed tones. Tears were streaming down the man’s face.
After more whispered discussion, Reynolds stepped toward her shelves at the back of the room. “I can give her something to take the edge off the pain but I don’t want to use anything that will lower her blood pressure further. Keep the tourniquet on until you get back to your home. Then loosen it every twenty minutes and see how badly the blood is still flowing, then tighten it up again as needed. Keep pressure on the bandage at all times.” She poured a mixture of herbs into a paper packet. On her return trip to the counter, the doctor smiled at the boy. “Your mom’s going to be just fine, honey. You can help her by staying brave.” She handed the man the packet and turned her hand over to receive payment. Kat saw several coins drop into the doctor’s hand before she gestured toward the door. “Come around and help her out. You’ve got to get her home before it’s time to release that tourniquet.” She leaned close to the man and added, “Let her say goodbye to the boy before you do it.” She frowned. “You might not want him in the same room when you do release it. It’ll drop her blood pressure and in her condition…” She shook her head.
The man wiped at his face and thanked her.
Reynolds turned to the examination table. The doctor’s blue eyes flittered between the coins in her hand and Kat. “I’ll pay you a small to help the patient to her home.”
The hopeful expression on the man behind the doctor made Kat’s heart lurch. “Sure, Doc,” she agreed. She removed the carton from her side and placed it on the top shelf. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“We’ll talk when you get back,” Reynolds stated tersely before looking Kat over with a critical eye. “Are you feeling well enough to do the job?”
Kat nodded and waited until the man entered the shack to circle to the opposite side of the table. Together, they eased the woman up and to a supported stand. It was clear she was in agony but she endured it with a stoic silence. Kat and the husband put arms under each of the woman’s shoulders and around her back, and the trio slowly hobbled away from the clinic and out of the Beggar’s Market, little boy in tow.
It took an hour to help the family to their home, a black sheet of plastic strung over a clothesline between two huts near the outskirts of Shantytown. The woman was nearly unconscious by the time they arrived. The father thanked Kat profusely and offered her a cup of cloudy water. Kat politely refused, anxious to escape the tragedy sure to unfold. More than anything, she wanted to be far enough away to avoid hearing the inevitable cries of the child. As she walked briskly back to the market, she chastised herself for her cowardice. Is this the person you wish to be? she asked herself critically but her pace only quickened when the first, distant wails started.
Doc Reynolds was sitting in her chair when Kat returned. Uncharacteristically, she wasn’t reading one of her journals, instead, just staring blankly into a void that only she could see. The blood that had covered the table was gone. The dirt floor had been swept, leaving only faint reminders of the abattoir that had been present less than two hours ago. Kat’s dark eyes somberly assessed the doctor. “I’m back,” she said timidly from the service counter.
Reynolds’ eyes rolled in Kat’s direction. “Attacked by a pack of dogs,” she said softly. “Everything is getting meaner these days.” The heavy woman shook herself and began the slow process of rising from her chair. Once at the service window, she reached under it to retrieve Kat’s carton and placed it on the counter. “Where’d you get these?” she asked while inspecting the contents again.
Kat took the carton and dumped the different leaves onto the counter, sorting them as she spoke. “I left Shantytown early this morning and walked toward the mountains. While I was grinding your herbs yesterday, I figured they had to be local flora.” She pushed the leaves into distinct piles.
Reynolds eyed Kat dubiously. “How’d you know which ones to pick?”
“I memorized them,” Kat answered simply.
“Sure,” Reynolds replied skeptically. She pointed at the largest pile of leaves. “What’re those?”
Kat continued to sort and answered without looking up. “Top shelf, third from the left.” She pushed a broken leaf to a smaller pile while stating, “Bottom shelf, cigar box.” She pointed at the final pile and looked to the doctor. “I didn’t recognize this one but the bush was close by so I picked it anyway.”
“It’s gumweed,” Reynolds noted. “I can use it to treat asthma or bronchitis.” She looked again at the herbs on the counter. “And you picked those because you happened to remember what the leaves looked like from yesterday?”
“No, I memorized all of them. Will you buy these?” Kat asked hopefully.
“Do you know your numbers, Kat?”
Dark brows furrowed over Kat’s eyes. “Uh, yeah. Who doesn’t?”
“What’s five times ten?”
“Fifty.”
“Sixty-six divided by two?”
“Thirty-three,” Kat answered easily.
Reynolds’ eyes narrowed. “Fifty-one divided by six?”
“Eight point five,” she echoed.
“Okay,” Reynolds continued, “Eight hundred forty-one divided by seventeen?”
Kat’s eyes rolled upward as she blurted mechanically, “Forty-nine point four, seven, zero, five, eight, eight—”
“Alright,” Reynolds interrupted. “That’s enough.” She brought her hand up to her chin. “Do you remember where you went to school?”
Kat stared through the doctor for several moments. Her head began shaking slowly. “No. All I can remember is my name. At least, I think it’s my name.” A wry smile appeared. “Be kind of funny if the reality is I just owned a bunch of cats in my former life.”
Reynolds snorted and returned her attention to the three piles on the counter. She brought her head up and looked cautiously around the cul-de-sac before sweeping the herbs back into the carton. In a quiet tone she stated, “I can use these. Come around inside and we’ll negotiate a fair price but you’ve got to be more subtle. You aren’t licensed so you’re committing a crime by selling these and I’m risking my own license by buying them.”
Kat ducked her head between her shoulders and spun around to search for the yellow-shirt that had hung around the day before. He was wandering near the intersecting street with his back turned. “I’m sorry, Doc,” Kat whispered. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Just come inside.”
Kat slipped around the shack and walked through the side door. She sheepishly stood near the examination table.
Reynolds looked her over. “It’s okay, what you did. Everyone here does it. Just don’t get caught and if you do, make sure you have some coins to bribe your way out of it.” She pushed off the counter and headed for the back room. “My scale is back here, let’s weigh them. I’ll pay you what I pay the others.”
The fair price was three smalls. Added to what she had earned for helping the wounded woman home, Kat held four worn, silver coins in her palm while Reynolds looked over her swollen ankle. Kat knew the money would be quickly spent. The doctor had told her that it took five smalls to make a large. To Kat, possession of one of the large coins seemed almost an impossible dream.
“Well, the bites aren’t going to kill you but they’re going to itch something awful for a week or so,” Reynolds proclaimed. “Think of this as a good lesson about going off into the desert without knowing what you’re doing.” She pointed at Kat’s cheeks. “Your sunburn is close to second-degree burns too.” She snorted before adding, “At least it evens out your complexion now. If you go traipsing around the desert again, cover your skin with mud if you can find it. It’s a damned good sunscreen. Even when it dries and cracks off, the film it leaves helps block ultraviolet damage.” She stepped away from the examination table.
Kat swung her legs off the side. “I’m sorry I didn’t haul the water today, Doctor,” she apologized again.
The woman smiled. “It’s okay. I admit, I was a little mad when I thought you’d overslept because you spent your money on booze. Stew told me this morning that he saw you at one of the hooch huts near closing time yesterday.” She gestured to the empty carton on the table. “But there’s no way you drank all that and still had the gumption to go on a morning stroll in the desert. So why’d you buy it?”
Kat grinned. “Rent. Do you know Rat?”
“There are probably a thousand ‘Rats’ running around this place and that’s just the ones on two legs.”
“Oh. Well,” Kat continued, “there’s an old man that lets me stay in his alley at night. He hasn’t tried to touch me for two, whole nights so I guess that makes him Shantytown’s saint.”
“Or you aren’t his type, if you know what I mean,” Reynolds countered. “Either way, it’s a win.” She moved slowly over to her chair and settled in with an audible sigh.
“At any rate, the deal is two cartons a week for a spot on the ground, a little water and fire,” Kat summarized as she finished tying her shoe. She scooted off the table and walked to the service counter to look up at the sky. The sun was brushing the top of taller structures in the market. “Doc, can I get anything for you?” She jiggled the coins in her hand. “You’ve already paid me today so if you need anything, I’m happy to help.”
Reynolds shook her head. “No. I’m closing early today. I want to head into Waytown to see something.”
Kat’s gaze remained toward the cul-de-sac, catching on a yellow-shirt running up to a hut. A customer and vendor argued viciously back and forth before the sentinel stepped between the pair to separate them. Finally, the implication in the doctor’s reply sunk in. “You can get into Waytown?”
Reynolds smiled wistfully. “I wasn’t always a beggar’s doctor.”
Kat turned from the dispute and leaned her backside against the counter. “What happened?”
“I honored my Hippocratic oath,” the doctor answered cryptically. She pressed her lips briefly together in a frown and shrugged a meaty shoulder. “It doesn’t really matter. I’m lucky that I have a visa even if it’s just a simple day pass.” She casually raised her right arm to show her bare wrist. A faint scar betrayed the location of the identity chip embedded into her wrist at birth. “They revoked my citizenship but at least I still have a valid visa for the town. I’d have never been able to stay afloat without the help I got from my friends when I first lost my citizenship. They took a lot of risks to help me.”
“What’s it like? Waytown.”
“It’s a shit hole compared to Northport or any other big city,” Reynolds snorted. “But what else would you expect? We live smack dab in the middle of nowhere. God-awful place to lay a settlement, even one as backward as Waytown.”
“Then why is it here?” Kat asked. Behind her, the market argument seemed to have been resolved.
“The mine,” Reynolds stated matter-of-factly. She stared into Kat’s eyes. “You really don’t know, do you? Your bout of amnesia is fascinating, Kat. Have any of your other memories returned?”
“Just my name.” Kat’s eyes dropped and she stared at the ground for a brief moment. “How do you get a day pass?”
“What were you thinking about when you remembered your name?” Reynolds asked. When no reply came, she answered Kat’s question first. “CINless can apply for a pass at either Westpoint or Eastpoint but you have to show how your visit is for the betterment of the town. Most CINless can’t demonstrate proof of betterment.”
“CIN?”
“Corporate Identification Number,” Reynolds explained.
Kat moved away from the service window and walked to the examination table. She ran a hand over the heavy, hardwood surface. For the first time, she noticed the mosaic of dark stains that had soaked into the grains over the years. “I was sitting right here,” she half-whispered. “You were my first stop after almost being… attacked by a preacher from the Strip.”
Reynolds harrumphed. “I heard some crazy things this morning about a preacher being stabbed yesterday. Most of it was pure hogwash. The rumors said some acolyte went nuts and slit a minister’s throat. He bled out before they could get him help.”
Kat’s shoulders slumped and her eyes shimmered at the news. “I killed him… I didn’t mean to.” She leaned onto the table with her elbows and collapsed her face into her hands. Her words started slowly but quickly gained momentum. “I was just trying to get away. He told me he’d cleanse my wound but then pulled me into a room with a bed.” Her body shivered as her breath came in gasps. “I knew what he was going to do to me.” She raised her head and wiped tears from her face before inhaling deeply to calm herself.
After several moments, she looked at Reynolds. “I fought back,” she explained as emotion drained from her voice. “I stabbed him with a wire I was carrying for self-defense and ran out of the building.” Her tortured expression grew slack as she recalled her escape. Her words took on a sterile, mechanical quality. “Two guards at the front double doors. One point eight meters tall, maybe a hundred kilos each. One had an Elven Star tattoo on his right cheek. Both were armed. Long guns but low-powered DefCors. Seventeen HMR, poor terminal ballistics…”
Kat trailed off completely and only the noise of distant commerce filled the silence in the clinic. Finally, light returned to her eyes and she looked at Reynolds again. “I didn’t mean to kill that man, Doc. I was just desperate to get away.” She resumed her inspection of the wood grain of the table and shook her head. “Those guards had me dead to rights but they didn’t even fire a shot.”
Reynolds simply gawked at the riddle by her table. More silence followed. “Katharine,” Reynolds finally whispered.
Kat offered no response other than to run slim fingers down the grooves in the table’s surface.
“Katrina?” Reynolds tried quietly again, garnering no reaction. “Kat.”
Kat turned her head toward the woman in the chair.
“I’m closing up,” Reynolds announced. “Here,” she said, reaching for a medical journal resting on the tiny end table next to her chair. “If you promise to return this, I’d like you to look this over, honey. It’s no big deal if you don’t want to.”
Kat stepped across the room to accept the periodical, a thin gazette about medicinal plants. Her face lit up. “Thank you! I’ll read this tonight and give it back tomorrow when I come to haul the water!” She brought the flimsy pages to her chest and squeezed. “I promise I won’t lose it.”
“I know you’ll take care of it,” Reynolds said with a warm smile. “I know them all by heart anyway but do me a favor and try not to let others see it.”
“I won’t divulge your trade secrets,” Kat insisted. She threw the doctor a light-hearted wink.
The older woman chuckled. “I don’t care about that, hon. Honestly, I wish more people took an interest in home remedies. I’m just worried that people will pick the wrong plants and kill themselves. You seem to have a natural talent though.” She lifted a cautionary finger. “If you pick more herbs, you bring them here so I can double-check your work. Agreed?”
Kat flashed brilliant, white teeth. “Agreed!”
Reynolds waved her away. “Now get. Go buy yourself some food, you’re too skinny. Best deals will be in the market center. The prices go up the closer to closing time so you better be on your way.”
Kat squeezed the journal once more and smiled. “Thank you again, Doc. I’ll see you tomorrow.”