| |
Intermission continues
A Kat gets wet
––––––––
Kat followed Reverend Weeks as the preacher strode along the road parallel to the river as if he had but one goal, to reach his destination in the shortest possible time and by the most direct route. They were half a mile past the last dwelling before she remembered the preacher’s tent camp lay not far ahead, on the east bank of the Owens River. With his Bible in one hand and no other gear, his destination appeared obvious.
So not going to burn down a church, kill anybody, or rob a bank. Merely headed to work, like any other somewhat normal person in the real world. Following him would net her nothing but blistered feet—haven’t these people heard of decent socks? What Geyser Falls needed was an Eddie Bauer outlet. Maybe an REI.
Kat clumped to a full stop, her round-toed boots kicking up puffs of dust. The trail veered close to the river, where willows clung to the crumbling banks and overhung chuckling shallows. The hot, dry air convection roasted Kat’s skin and baked her like a potato inside her oversized clothes. The river begged to be jumped in, its cool water ready to flush away the heat and sweat and grime coating her body.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, “what I wouldn’t give for a king-size bottle of Head & Shoulders and a curved block of Dove soap right now.”
Still... water washing was better than no washing at all.
Kat turned in a slow circle, studying her surroundings. Weeks had disappeared far ahead, and no one else shared the road with her. In fact, she had passed no one since the north edge of town, where two deputies snoozed under the brown tree by the rickety house. They had kept their heads down and paid no attention to her as she passed. For all intents and purposes, she was alone. She wasn’t ashamed or afraid of nudity, and in ordinary circumstances would have loved to go skinny-dipping. Even so, stripping and jumping in the river seemed unwise. We’ve seen that movie before, right? Naked girl in river. Unseen eyes watching. Bad things happen.
But... water. Cool water.
“What the fuck?” With a final shrug, Kat walked to the river’s edge, paused for a second, then stripped off her boots and kept walking, splashing into the deliciously cool water until it flowed up past the knees of her heavy britches. Her pants and shirt could stand washing, just as much as her body. She sat down and moaned. “Sweet Mother Earth.”
Kat dipped her head back and scrubbed her fingers through her hair. “Die, mutant vermin.” Then she just floated for a while, her butt anchored against the sandy river bottom and the sun warming her face. The river’s low, deep voice lulled her into a near-trance. A Katatonic state. She smiled with her eyes closed.
When the heat on her forehead warned her of imminent sunburn, Kat submerged for one last dip then climbed from the river. Water streamed off her soggy clothes and splattered the riverbank. She tugged on her boots, slogged to a grassy patch under the willows, and plopped down, shivering a little in the mild breeze.
“Huh!” She jumped when a pair of quail burst from the undergrowth upstream and curved away. Kat eyed the spot from which they sprang, but nothing else moved. She stretched out with her eyes shaded by an elbow and let the sun pour its energy into her body. She dozed to the lullaby of the flowing water and the mild breeze.
The first indication she was under attack arrived by way of a tiny arrow zinging past her chin. The whiff of it passing startled her awake. The second arrow smacked into her right triceps, punching her the same way her brother did when they were kids and Mom wasn’t looking. Kat blinked at the feathered shaft, no bigger than a crossbow bolt, stuck in her arm.
Rustling from the bushes. A half dozen or more of the pygmy people appeared as though magically conjured. Eyes glowered. Nostrils flared. Some had arrows notched to bows, and the tips of the arrows, Kat observed from a great distance, glistened with brownish liquor.
Fuck. Poisoned.
She could feel it now, working up through her shoulder and into her neck. A spreading heat stole through her muscles and robbed her of movement and of willpower.
Kat focused on her magic and forced the muscles around the arrowhead to loosen. In slow motion, her left hand traveled up, clasped the shaft, and pulled. Funny, she felt no pain. The poison must have been numbing the flesh as well as seeping through her veins to attack her nervous system. Had it soaked in too far? Only one way to know.
Kat channeled a thick band of power that contracted around the wound in her arm, squeezing it like a blood pressure cuff. She watched with detached interest as thick, gummy blood spurted, soaking the sleeve of her plaid shirt. Tighter. More blood pulsed. A weak fountain this time. Kat willed her magic to push from the inside, and she felt the hole in her arm tear wider, though the pain was muted. More bloody gunk came out. It trickled down her arm, leaving warm, sticky trails. It smelled bad.
Fuzziness crept into her vision. Sounds arrived in her brain long after the cause of the noise. Kat’s world zeroed to a tunnel of light. At one end, her conscious mind slowly grew dim. At the other end, the bullseye of the arrow wound pulsed with crimson. She was able to give it one last, good squeeze before the tunnel dimmed, diminished...
Winked out.
#
Blackie had done his best. His frustration all but vibrated through our mental link, scraping on my nerves and adding dollops of anxiety to my cup full of jitters. It wasn’t that the dog couldn’t find the trail but a case of too many trails, all crisscrossing and meandering throughout the bracken and bristly trees between Geyser Falls and the western foothills of the Inyos. The exhausted pooch dropped to his belly under the meager shade of a scrubby greasewood and panted, sending me the dog equivalent of I give up, dude. This shit is way too hard.
I dismounted and poured water into my cupped palm for the dog. “That’s all right, buddy. I’ve had about enough of this too.” I eyeballed the sun’s position and estimated the time at somewhere around four p.m. “Let’s head back to town. By the time we get in, it’ll be suppertime.”
Yes, yes, yes. Blackie jumped up and lapped at my face. Food translated well in any language.
“Glad you agree.” I palmed water for Misery, slung the canteen over my shoulder, then reached for the stirrup to get my foot seated prior to mounting.
A bullet whapped into the leather of his saddle, followed closely by the dull boom of a rifle fired from a distance. A bright streak in the leather seat marked the spot where the bullet had struck a glancing blow across the saddle. Misery’s fatalism and near-catatonic depression apparently didn’t cover getting shot. The horse bolted like a three-year-old at the starting gate of the Preakness, spinning me to the dirt in his passing. I ate sand and wriggled blindly into the dubious cover of the low-hanging greasewood bush. I pawed grit out of my eyes while Blackie danced in a circle, barking.
“Get down, dog,” I growled. “And be quiet.”
Blackie bellied down next to me, tongue flopped to one side and panting happily at the new game we played. The desert air soaked up sound. The sweat dried on my face as quickly as it formed. High above, a buzzard glided in slow circles, joined moments later by another. Low brush limited my view, and raising my head for a look-see seemed unwise. I estimated the time from bullet strike to gunshot and came up with a distance of three hundred yards, which required considerable skill using iron sights and nineteenth-century black powder. The bullet had nearly taken my head off on the first shot, and giving him a second chance at my noggin was not a plan I favored.
“I think we’ll wait here awhile,” I told Blackie. “See what happens next.”
Blackie thought that was a fine idea and commenced chomping at a flea under his foreleg.
#
I limped into Geyser Falls well after dark with Blackie. Spending a hot, sweaty afternoon under a greasewood bush had done nothing to improve my outlook or disposition. I had given up the vigil for the sniper as purple dusk filled the valley, with no signs of the shooter appearing after that first bullet. As the light faded, I had crawled for a distance away from my original spot then clambered off the ground and set off at a walk toward the distant lights of the town.
Misery remained AWOL. I couldn’t decide if I was annoyed by the betrayal or proud that the horse had enough sense to stay away from a hidden sniper.
I passed some folks out and about on the lamplit streets. A few called greetings, and I responded with a raised hand. For the most part, I stayed in the shadows and close to the buildings wherever possible, scanning for threats, though nothing triggered my threat sensors, such as guys skulking along with scoped rifles and guilty expressions. Business as usual in Geyser Falls. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
Yellow light spilled from the Bannerworth’s windows. Along with it came the mouthwatering smell of grilled beef and baked bread. The sound of voices and cutlery carried out to the porch, and Blackie whined a query that needed no special power to understand.
“Yeah, me too,” I assured him. “Let’s get some chow.”
I pushed through the front doors with the dog following close behind. The lobby had been cleaned of dead pygmies, and raw wood slats patched the banister and stair treads. The burned rugs had been removed, and the place smelled of strong soap and fresh-cut lumber.
Merilee Soames looked up from the front desk, where she conferred with a clerk I had never seen before. She had regained her poise somewhere in the past few hours and appeared as coolly disengaged as a maestro in front of her orchestra. She had her hair pinned up and wore a starched white blouse with a high collar and an arch to her brow that suggested I had trodden raw shit on her mopped floors.
“What have you done with her, sirrah?” was her greeting. Along with her bearing, she had also recovered her drawing room diction. All traces of Cockney had disappeared.
I tromped up to the desk and stopped. “With whom, madam?”
“You know quite well with whom.”
I sighed and scratched my bristly chin. “Pretend I don’t.”
“Miss Krawczyk.”
“Miss Krawczyk? I haven’t seen Kat since breakfast.”
Merilee stood erect and fairly vibrated. “Are you saying you have nothing to do with her disappearance?”
“Disappearance? She’s missing? Since when?”
“Since this morning. You were the last one seen with her.”
A trill of irritation tightened my jaw. Now what? Another setback to getting out of Geyser Falls and back to where I belonged. I clamped down on the feeling, recognizing it as selfish and unworthy. Krawczyk wouldn’t have disappeared without good cause. Blackie whined and butted his head into my thigh.
“She was going to...”
“She was going to what?” Merilee asked after I stopped speaking.
I had started to say she was going to keep an eye on Weeks then remembered that Merilee and the reverend were close, perhaps even intimate. Suggesting we had cause to surveil Weeks might not be the most diplomatic thing to tell the woman.
“She was going for a walk, last I heard.” I patted the dog’s head. “Blackie and I were backtracking the little people all day, then... then my horse ran off, and we had to walk back.”
“Your horse?” Merilee blinked. “The one who looks like last month’s chopped beef? He ran off?”
“It’s a long story.” I lifted my hat and scratched my fingers through tangles of damp, greasy hair. “Can you find something of Miss Krawczyk’s? Something she wore, maybe? Blackie here’s a pretty good tracker. I need to eat and fill my canteen, and we can get after her.”
Some of the stiffness went out of Merilee. “James, show Mr. Shivers to the dining room. The dog may stay on the porch, sir, as he smells... quite strongly. But we will bring him a bowl of water and some table scraps. I will retrieve some of Miss Krawczyk’s clothing while you eat. Is that agreeable?”
“Yeah, sure.” I cupped the dog by the jowls. “You good with that, buddy?”
Blackie woofed, and his tail thumped the floor.
“Don’t get too happy,” I warned him. “We’re going right back out as soon as we eat. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”