Thompson-Blaine sat up and put the tiller over. The skiff came into the wind and tacked over. It was time to return to the yacht basin, then home for dinner, then…
The blacksnake whip flicked across his back.
“Get working there, you!”
Piggot-Blaine redoubled his efforts, lifting the heavy pick high in the air and swinging it down into the dusty roadbed. The guard stood nearby, shotgun under his left arm, whip in his right, its lash trailing in the dust. Piggot-Blaine knew every line and pore of that guard's thin, stupid face, knew the downward twist of the tight little mouth, knew the squint of the faded eyes just like he knew his own face.
Just wait, buzzard meat, he silently told the guard. Your time's a-coming. Just wait, wait just a bit.
The guard moved away, walking slowly up and down the line of prisoners laboring under the white Mississippi sun. Piggot-Blaine tried to spit, but couldn't work up enough saliva. He thought, you talk about your fine modern world? Talk about your big old spaceships, your automatic farms, your big fine fat old hereafter? Think that's how it is? Then ask ‘em how they build the roads in Quilleg County, Northern Mississippi. They won't tell you, so you better look for yourself and find out. Cause that's the kind of world it really is!
Arny, working in front of him, whispered, “You ready, Otis? You ready for it?”
“I'm a-ready,” Piggot-Blaine whispered, his broad fingers clenching and unclenching on the pick's plastic handle. “I'm past ready, Arny.”
“In a second, then. Watch Jeff.”
Piggot-Blaine's hairy chest swelled expectantly. He brushed lank brown hair from his eyes and watched Jeff, five men ahead on the chain. Piggot-Blaine waited, his shoulders aching from sunburn. There were callused scars on his ankles from the hoofcuffs, and old seams on his back from earlier whippings. He had a raging thirst in his gut. But no dipperful of water could ever cut that thirst, nothing could, that crazy thirst that brought him in here after he'd dismembered Gainsville's single saloon and killed that stinking old Indian.
Jeff's hand moved. The chained line of prisoners sprang forward. Piggot-Blaine jumped toward the thin-faced guard, his pick swung high, as the guard dropped his whip and fumbled to bring up the shotgun.
“Buzzard meat!” Piggot-Blaine screamed, and brought the pick down fair in the guard's fore head.
“Get the keys!”
Piggot-Blaine grabbed the keys from the dead guard's belt. He heard a shotgun go off, heard a high scream of agony. Anxiously he looked up…
Ramirez-Blaine was piloting his heli above the flat Texas plains, heading for El Paso. He was a serious young man and he paid strict attention to his work, coaxing the last knot of speed out of the old heli so he could reach El Paso before Johnson's Hardware Store closed.
He handled the balky rattletrap with care, and only an occasional thought came through his concentration, quick thoughts about the altitude and compass readings, a dance in Guanajuato next week, the price of hides in Ciudad Juarez.
The plain was mottled green and yellow below him. He glanced at his watch, then at the airspeed indicator.
Yes, Ramirez-Blaine thought, he would make El Paso before the store closed! He might even have time for a little…
Tyler-Blaine wiped his mouth on his sleeve and sopped up the last of the grease gravy on a piece of corn bread. He belched, pushed his chair back from the kitchen table and stood up. With elaborate unconcern he took a cracked bowl from the pantry and filled it with scraps of pork, a few greens, and a big piece of corn bread.
“Ed,” his wife said, “what are you doing?”
He glanced at her. She was gaunt, tangle-haired, and faded past her years. He looked away, not answering.
“Ed! Tell me, Ed!”
Tyler-Blaine looked at her in annoyance, feeling his ulcer stir at the sound of that sharp, worried voice. Sharpest voice in all California, he told himself, and he'd married it. Sharp voice, sharp nose, sharp elbows and knees, breastless and barren to boot. Legs to support a body, but not for a second's delight. A belly for filling, not for touching. Of all the girls in California he'd doubtless picked the sorriest, just like the damn fool his Uncle Rafe always said he was.
“Where you taking that bowl of food?” she asked.
“Out to feed the dog,” Tyler-Blaine said, moving toward the door.
“We ain't got no dog! Oh Ed, don't do it, not tonight!”
“I'm doin‘ it,” he said, glad of her discomfort.
“Please, not tonight. Let him shift for himself somewhere else. Ed, listen to me! What if the town found out?”
“It's past sundown,” Tyler-Blaine said, standing beside the door with his bowl of food.
“People spy,” she said. “Ed, if they find out they'll lynch us, you know they will.”
“You'd look mighty spry from the end of a rope,” Tyler-Blaine remarked, opening the door.
“You do it just to spite me!” she cried.
He closed the door behind him. Outside, it was deep twilight. Tyler-Blaine stood in his yard near the unused chicken coop, looking around. The only house near his was the Flannagan's, a hundred yards away. But they minded their own business. He waited to make sure none of the town kids were snooping around. Then he walked forward, carefully holding the bowl of food.
He reached the edge of the scraggly woods and set the bowl down. “It's all right,” he called softly. “Come out, Uncle Rafe.”
A man crawled out of the woods on all fours. His face was leaden-white, his lips bloodless, his eyes blank and staring, his features coarse and unfinished, like iron before tempering or clay before firing. A long cut across his neck had festered, and his right leg, where the townsfolk had broken it, hung limp and useless.
“Thanks, boy,” said Rafe, Tyler-Blaine's zombie uncle.
The zombie quickly gulped down the contents of the bowl. When he had finished, Tyler-Blaine asked, “How you feeling, Uncle Rafe?”
“Ain't feeling nothing. This old body's about through. Another couple days, maybe a week, and I'll be off your hands.”
“I'll take care of you,” Tyler-Blaine said, “just as long as you can stay alive, Uncle Rafe. I wish I could bring you into the house.”
“No,” the zombie said, “they'd find out. This is risky enough… Boy, how's that skinny wife of yours?”
“Just as mean as ever,” Tyler-Blaine sighed.
The zombie made a sound like laughter. “I warned you, boy, ten years ago I warned you not to marry that gal. Didn't I?”
“You sure did, Uncle Rafe. You was the only one had sense. Sure wish I'd listened to you.”
“Better you had, boy. Well, I'm going back to my shelter.”
“You feel confident, Uncle?” Tyler-Blaine asked anxiously.
“That I do.”
“And you'll try to die confident?”
“I will, boy. And I'll get me into that Threshold, never you fear. And when I do, I'll keep my promise. I truly will.”
“Thank you, Uncle Rafe.”
“I'm a man of my word. I'll haunt her, boy, if the good Lord grants me Threshold. First comes that fat doctor that made me this. But then I'll haunt her. I'll haunt her crazy. I'll haunt her ‘til she runs the length of the state of California away from you!”
“Thanks, Uncle Rafe.”
The zombie made a sound like laughter and crawled back into the scraggly woods. Tyler-Blaine shivered uncontrollably for a moment, then picked up the empty bowl and walked back to the sagging washboard house…
Mariner-Blaine adjusted the strap of her bathing suit so that it clung more snugly to her slim, supple young body. She slipped the air tank over her back, picked up her respirator and walked toward the pressure lock.