“Let’s not. However let’s not let a shred of self-interest cloud this particular conversation.”
“Okay then. If you have a straight question, ask it.”
Looks Away sucked a tooth for a moment. Grey noted that the man’s hands hung loosely at his sides, well within range for a quick grab for the pistol butt in his stolen holster. The Sioux’s fingers twitched ever so slightly. Grey shifted his weight to be ready to dodge as well as draw if this all turned bad.
“I’ll ask three questions,” said Looks Away, surprising him.
“Shoot.”
“That’s a rather unfortunate choice of word, wouldn’t you say?”
They smiled at each other. They kept their gun hands ready.
“What’s the first question?” asked Grey.
“Have you ever been to the Maze before?”
“No,” said Grey flatly. “Second question?”
“Abrupt, aren’t we?”
Grey just looked at him.
“Very well,” said Looks Away. “Are you hunting for ghost rock?”
“No.”
“And you’re telling me the God’s honest truth?”
“Is that your third question?”
Looks Away shook his head. “No.”
“Then I’ve already answered it once. I’ve never felt the need to repeat myself.”
“Fair enough, and therefore I must take you at your word.”
“Seems so. What’s your last question?”
Looks Away took a breath. “Are you now, or have you ever been, in the employ of Aleksander Deray?”
“I never heard of the man before you told me about him the day we met. And that,” said Grey, “is the God’s honest truth.”
They stood and studied each other, and Grey felt as if something shifted between them. Looks Away had an almost comical way of speaking, which Grey figured was more than half put-on, but there was nothing funny about the keen intelligence in the man’s eyes. They were hard, cold, and sharp as knifepoints. Grey would not have wanted to stare into those eyes on a bad day if he didn’t have a well-oiled gun within grabbing distance.
“Well then,” said Looks Away.
He watched a slow smile spread across the Sioux’s face. It looked genuine, and the man appeared to be relieved. Probably not so much at what Grey had said in answer to those questions, but at whatever Looks Away had seen in Grey’s eyes.
And Grey found himself making a similar decision about the strange Sioux renegade.
The sun beat down on them and the horses blew and stamped.
“If I’ve offered offense, my friend,” he said, “then please allow me to apologize. I would take it as a kindness and a pleasure if you accompanied me on my little mission. I will, in fact, pay you for your services and would value both your protection and your company. Here’s my hand upon it.”
Grey couldn’t help but return the smile. “You don’t even know how much it costs to hire me.”
“Are you expensive?”
“I’m a little saddle-worn but I’m not bargain counter.”
“Then by all means state me a price.”
Grey did and the Sioux’s smile flickered. “Dear me, you think very highly of your skills.”
“Others have in the past. I’m giving you my last rate with only a five percent increase.”
“Ah,” said Looks Away. “Well… done and done.”
“All right then.”
Neither of them moved. Not until the moment had stretched between them. However it was Looks Away who broke the spell and held out his hand. Still smiling, Grey took his hand and shook it. Before he let it go, he asked a question.
“What would you have done if you didn’t like my answers to your questions?”
“Shot you, I suppose.”
“What makes you think you can outdraw me?” asked Grey.
“Oh, I have no doubt you’re a faster draw than me.”
“Then—?”
“I anticipated a moment like this, so I took the liberty of emptying your pistol while you were sleeping last night.”
Grey’s smile vanished and he whipped the pistol out of its holster, pivoted and fired three quick shots at the mound of skulls. The bones exploded as heavy caliber bullets smashed through them.
Thomas Looks Away shrieked. Very high and very loud.
The echoes of the gunshots rolled outward like slow thunder and faded into the desert shimmer.
“And I reloaded them this morning, you mother-humping son of a whore,” said Grey.
Looks away took several awkward steps and then sat down heavily on the sand. “By the Queen’s garters!” he gasped.
Grey opened the cylinder, dumped the three spent casings, and thumbed fresh rounds into the chambers. Then he slid the pistol into his holster.
“And that,” he said quietly, “is why you’re paying the extra five percent.”
He turned and walked back to his horse.
Chapter Twenty
They entered into the broken lands of California and rode into the hills. As they climbed away from the desert floor they left the relentless brutality of the Mojave behind and found small surcease in the shadows beneath green trees. All around them, though, were remnants of what had been and hints of the new realities. Some of the most ancient trees had cracked and fallen, their roots torn by the devastating quakes and aftershocks of the Great Quake of ‘68. There were deep, crooked cracks torn like ragged wounds through the rocks. Mountains had been split apart. Massive spears of rock thrust up through the dirt. Forest fires had swept up and down the hills, turning forests to ash. Rivers and streams had been changed by the new complexities of the landscape. And not very far across the border from Nevada lay the edge of the world. Instead of the miles upon miles that had once stretched to the bluffs and beaches west of the Camino Real pilgrims’ road, a new range of shattered mesas had risen up as most of the rest of California had cracked like dry biscuit and tumbled into the churning Pacific. Millions had died in what anyone within sound of that upheaval must have truly believed was the true apocalypse warned about in the Revelation of Saint John.
Even now, a decade and a half later, the land still looked like an open wound. Grey fancied he could feel the land moan and groan as it writhed in agony.
And yet…
And yet, the ash from those burned trees had enriched the soil and now there were new trees reaching up to find the sun. Riots of flowers bloomed in their millions, and even the desert succulents were fat and colorful.
At least that was how Grey saw it for the first day of their journey.
All of that changed the deeper they ventured into the broken lands. The lush growth waned quickly as they climbed a series of stepping-stone mesas that marched toward the shattered coastline. The soil thinned over the rocks and was more heavily mixed with salt from ocean-born storms. The flowers faded to withered ghosts and gasping succulents and austere palms replaced the leafy coniferous trees.
As the hours burned away, Grey found himself sinking into moody and troubled thoughts. His life had taken some strange, sad paths since he had gone to war. And stranger still since he’d tried to leave that war behind. No matter how far he rode the world did not seem to ever wash itself clean of hurt and harm. And everything seemed to get stranger the farther west he went.
Not that the south was any model for comfort and order. That’s where his luck had started to go bad.
That’s where he began to dream that the dead were following him. That he was a haunted man. That maybe he was something worse.
Doomed, perhaps.
Or damned.
Maybe both.
Even now, as he drowsed in the saddle he could catch glimpses of silent figures watching him from the darkness beneath trees, pale faces that turned to watch as he passed. It would be easier, he thought, if all of those faces belonged to strangers. If that was the case he could resign himself to accept that it was the land that was haunted. He’d heard enough stories — and recently had enough experiences — to accept that any definition of the word “death” he once possessed was either suspect or entirely wrong.