CRYERS (4 page)

Willem didn’t speak a word. He was
too busy stuffing his mouth with cooked meat and washing it down with warm
water. The water didn’t taste fresh, and he had no idea what animal or bird he
was devouring, but he didn’t complain.

Cobe didn’t eat as fast as his
brother, and his eyes never left the rifle resting across the lawman’s knees.
He wiped the grease from his lips and broke the silence. “Is this like a last
meal?”

The lawman stared back, his gray
eyes flickering in the firelight.

Cobe tried again. “You gonna kill
us after we eat, or are you gonna see us swing back in Burn?”

Willem stopped chewing. A piece of
burnt skin hung from his open mouth.

Lawson reached for an old, dented
metal kettle resting on a flat rock next to the fire. Cobe watched as he poured
steaming coffee into an even older, more dented cup. Not many people owned
metal eating utensils. Metal was used mostly to fashion weapons and tools for
farming. And no one drank coffee except for the lawman. No one Cobe knew grew
the stuff, but old Lawson always seemed to have a pouch of grounds on his
person. He swallowed noisily until it was empty and poured another. His throat
and gut must be made of metal too, Cobe thought.

“You remember the last time we
spoke?” the lawman asked.

Cobe nodded slowly. “Couple days
ago. You told me my sixteenth birthday was coming up.”

“Why would I know a fact like that,”
he reached for something tucked in his vest pocket, “and why would I mention it
at all if I planned on killin’ you a few days later?”

Cobe answered the questions in
sequence. “I ain’t got no clue how you knew my birthday was coming up. And I’m
pretty sure you weren’t planning on killing me two days ago ‘cause I wasn’t
even planning on running from Burn ‘til yesterday.”

Lawson reached into another pocket
and pulled out a crumpled brown leaf. He placed the wad of dried tobacco—more
stuff only the lawman seemed to possess—from the first pocket into its center
and rolled it together, his eyes never leaving the boy. “I hold lawbreakers
accountable. I bring ‘em in to see justice served. But I was also the man what
taught yer dad to read and write long before you and yer brother were born. We
were…friends.” He pulled a stick from the fire, by the end not in the flames,
and lit his cigarette. He inhaled deeply and exhaled blue. “Some way for
friends to treat one another, hey?”

“Pa said you two became friends
after you was hurt bad in the Rites. He said my ma patched you up and saved
your life.”

Willem’s mouth dropped open even
wider. A piece of meat fell into his lap. “You
fought
in the Rites? Holy gawdamn.”

Lawson nodded slowly. “That was a
long time ago. One could argue I was a young man then. Felt older than hell
when the match was done. Yer ma patched me up good, and I returned the favor by
teaching Elward how to read and write.”

Willem looked to his brother. “You
told me only the weak and old ones fought.”

Cobe winced. Why did his brother
have to keep asking questions? Why couldn’t he just eat and keep his mouth
shut?

“That’s mostly true,” Lawson said. “But
The Rites was also a good way of gettin’ rid of troublemakers. People in Burn
didn’t know what to make of me back then. They volunteered me for the Rites,
hopin’ I wouldn’t survive.”

“What happened to the other one?”
Willem asked.

Lawson regarded the boy with a
raised eyebrow. “The other what?”

“The one you fought. Did you kill
him? Did you blow his gawdamn brains into the dirt?”

“Guns ain’t allowed in the Rites.
You fight with yer fists…and with this.” He tapped the side of his head with a
long finger.

“Pa said you shoulda died,” Cobe
added. “He said Ma ain’t ever patched up anyone since that lost so much blood
and lived.”

The lawman shrugged and stared back
into the fire.

Willem tossed a bone to the flames.
“Can I see the guns?”

“Shut-
up
,” Cobe urged.

Lawson ignored them both and flicked
the spent butt in after the bone. They ate the remaining pieces of chicken—or
what Cobe hoped was chicken—in silence. Something started to wail out of the
hills the way they’d come.

“There’s some dead wood over
yonder,” the lawman indicated with a thumb over his shoulder. “You and yer
brother go gather as much as you can. We’ll need to keep a good fire goin’
through the night.”

Rollers are scared of fire, Cobe
thought. He’d never seen one, but he’d heard of people who had. They were all
skull and teeth and ran on thick wrists with claws curled back into their furry
forearms. None of those people had ever said anything about how the rollers
sounded, but Cobe had no difficulty matching those awful noises with creatures
that had half-foot long claws instead of fingers. “You taking us back to Burn
in the morning?”

Lawson stood and stretched his long
limbs. He sauntered over to his horse. Horses were as rare as guns, coffee, and
tobacco, but the lawman had somehow managed to take ownership of all four. “Ol’
Dust here don’t much care for them night sounds either. Don’t you go worrying
about where we might be headed tomorrow. I haven’t made up my mind one way or
the other.”

A surge of hope flooded through
Cobe. “You’re going to let us go?”

The wailing started up again, much
louder and closer. “Go and get the wood.”

Over yonder was less than ten yards
away, but both boys ran after securing an armload of wood. Willem worked twice
as hard, tearing the bigger pieces free and resting them into a pile at his
feet first, with only one arm to work with. Cobe scooped some up along the way,
helping his brother out as much as he could. Lawson comforted his nervous horse
as the boys worked. Cobe watched from the corner of his eye as the big man
stroked its muscular neck and whispered into its ear.

Willem dropped his second load next
to the fire. “Why’d you name him Dust?”

“I had another horse once,” the
lawman started. He whispered more soft comforts after an especially long howl. “His
name was Wind, ‘cause nothing could run as fast or free. The town folk put him
down after he broke free from his pen during a storm.”

That’s when the townsfolk turned
against him, Cobe guessed. It probably wasn’t long after that they put him up
to fight in the Rites.

“But you’re the
lawman
,” Willem said. “How could they do
a thing like that without you…well…without you getting mad?”

“I got mad as hell.” It looked like
he was going to explain further but changed his mind. “I found Dust here a few
years later, wandering out in the plains. He was ugly as sin, what with only
one eye and his hide all cracked and peeling. Guess he ain’t much prettier to
look at these days neither.” He patted the horse’s back and a small cloud of
dirt puffed up around the lawman’s hand. “I called him Dust ‘cause that’s about
all that’s left of him, and when he runs…well, he ain’t as fast as Wind was,
but he does alright. He still leaves all other animals in the dust.”

He looked at the boys and waited
for them to laugh. They didn’t.

The fire was built up and the
sounds in the night lessened. Lawson drank more coffee and Willem fell asleep.
Cobe was grateful for that, because he didn’t want his brother to hear what had
to be asked next.

“Why’d you let them kill our Ma? If
you were such good friends, why’d you just sit there and watch as Lode done
what he did to Pa?”

“Yer pa was a drunk.” Lawson looked
quickly at the boy; the hint of an apology lingered for a moment before he
continued. “That’s to say there was nothing anyone could do for him that hadn’t
already been tried. Once you mix drink with a loud mouth, you’re on yer own.”

“But you could’ve spoken up for Ma;
you could’ve stopped it.”

The lawman added one of Willem’s
sticks to the flames. “I couldn’t have stopped it. I only enforce the law…I
don’t make the rules.”

“You’re good at breaking them.”

Lawson regarded him with a scathing
look. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“The biggest rule of them all—no
books, no reading. You taught Pa how to read, and that’s what got him and Ma
killed in the end. Where’s the justice in that? Shouldn’t you have to pay for
breaking the rules too?”

“I’ve paid more than you could ever
imagine, boy,” Lawson said in a rumbling whisper. If any of Cobe’s accusations
were going to end up with him receiving a hard slap or worse, that time had
passed. The boy started to breathe again and the lawman continued. “Yer ma was
a natural healer…I seen that with my own eyes as she saved my life. I needed
her to know the things I’d learned from my…my travels. I needed her to become
the best she could be. But some of the other folks in Burn became suspicious o’
what she’d accomplished by healin’ me. They saw more to fear in the good she’d
done. People are like that. Ignorance makes ‘em afraid.”

“So you taught my Pa to read and
write. You wanted him to teach Ma in private so all the other people in town
would leave her alone.”

Lawson nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Still doesn’t change the fact
they’re both dead and you ain’t.”

Lawson pulled his revolver out and
aimed it towards the boy. Cobe held his breath and waited. The lawman’s thumb
cocked the trigger and he took aim. Cobe shut his eyes. The explosion it made
was terrible. Something fell somewhere beside and behind Cobe. The boy opened
his eyes and looked down at his wet crotch. He’d pissed himself. Willem was
sitting up, his lips moving but making no sound. Cobe followed his terrified
eyes and looked over his shoulder. A creature with two arms and two legs was
lying in the dirt less than six feet from Cobe’s back. Half its head was
missing.

Lawson stepped past Cobe and kicked
it over. “Howler. Must have got separated from its pack and smelled the smoke.”

Cobe and his brother remained
speechless. Both boys stood side by side staring down at the horrible remains.
The thing’s naked body was more human than Cobe had imagined a howler to be.
The head, however, was a different story—what was left of it. The lawman’s
bullet had torn most of the brains out on the left side. It only had one eye
left. But even that wasn’t right, Cobe thought. Instead of an eyeball and
closed lid, there was only a scarred patch of black.

Lawson returned from the fire,
carrying a stick still burning on one end. He lowered it to the howler’s face
after lighting another cigarette. “Their eyes are burned out at birth to help
‘em develop their other senses. Helps ‘em become better hunters.”

Willem began to vomit.

Lawson rested a big hand on Cobe’s
shoulder. “Take yer brother back to the fire and get him settled. I’ll drag
this thing a ways off.”

“Our Ma…our Pa…they’re still dead
‘cause of you.”

“Yeah. Still. What’s yer point?”

Cobe had nothing more to say. He
watched the lawman drag the howler into the dark by its ankle. He helped his
gagging brother the other way towards the flames.

Willem sat and drank more of the
warm water. “Not so sure I wanna keep running from Burn,” he gasped. “Maybe it
would be better if we took our chances with Lode. I don’t think I can do this.”

“We don’t have a choice no more.
The lawman’s got us and we gotta do what he says and go where he goes.”

“We don’t got to,” Willem whispered
as he wiped strings of puke from his chin. “We can run back once he’s sleeping.
We could bash his head in with a rock.”

Another howl sounded in the night.

Lawson appeared out of the shadows,
his revolver drawn once again. “More out there,” he whispered. He ran to Dust
and pulled his rifle free from a holster that was strapped to the ugly horse’s
side. “I’d think twice before beating my head in with a rock. You’re lucky you
made it this far on yer own. Turning back now, without me, would be a tragic
thing.”

He returned to the fire and dropped
the revolver in Willem’s lap. Willem gasped at the cold weight resting between
his legs.

“Either pick it up and start
defending yourself, or hand it to yer brother and keep yer mouth shut.”

Cobe reached down and made the
choice for him. He lifted the massive gun in both hands and pointed the barrel
end out into the dark.

Lawson was on one knee, his rifle
aimed in the same direction. “You’re gonna shoot the ground twelve feet in
front of you. Lift the barrel up and keep a good grip. Move yer face to the
side. Wouldn’t want it to kick back and bust yer nose.”

Cobe had a thousand more questions.
He didn’t get the chance to ask one. Something big and white was moving towards
them. It started to make a high-pitched crying sound. Cobe clenched his eyes
shut and turned his head. He pulled the trigger.

Cobe’s ears were buzzing. Something
or someone was yelling at him. He pulled the trigger again. A big hand gripped
his wrist and forced the gun down.

“Quit shooting!” Lawson yelled. “It
ain’t no howler.”