Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(32)

The chieftain caws like a brassy crow, shooing the women away. They scatter to the winds, dragging stupefied children after them. In their wake he turns again to Jenny. “Show me.”

She keeps her gun trained on the Lowlander as she dismounts and circuits to the back of the wagon bed. He shadows her, feet kicking up a sea of dust, as Jenny leans in and pulls out several coarse-haired blankets.

He grumbles in disinterest. “What else?” Jenny tosses the blankets aside. Uncovers a hoary, suntanned hide. He glances at her out the corner of one eye. “How long dead?”

Jenny shrugs, pulls a contemplative face. “Couple weeks? Crows didn’t get him.”

He nods. Looks over the rest of her wares. “I’ll take the hide. What else you got?” He leans forward to snatch up the skin and paw at the jumbled contents of her wagon.

She gives him a sly grin. “Got his bones.”

He looks up at her with newfound respect. “Fresh?”

“Same as the hide.” She smiles, yellowing teeth looking a little whiter than true in the harsh light.

“Mmm,” he grumbles. Juts his chin at the cart. Impatient.

Jenny grins wider. Grunts as she pulls the concealed lockbox from under the coarse blankets and throws back the simple catch. The box opens with a creak and the bones within rattle feverishly, straining to be heard as the lid cracks wide.

He shakes his head. Glares down at the jumble of bleached bits bathed in their own light. “Won’t take the bones. Still got life in them.”

“They’re dead,” she says, as the dry bones rattle.

“Gallows stink is still on them.”

“You don’t want them? Fine.” She slams the lid of the lockbox down. Heads back to the seat of her wagon, calling back over her shoulder, “Plenty of medicine men who’ll take them in Spiritwood.”

“I’ll still take the skin,” the Lowlander calls after her as she settles in. “You want dog for it?”

“Gold.”

“Gold.” He spits in disgust. Looks away. “Always trinkets with you people.”

Jenny stares down at him from her perch, shotgun resting on her arm. Her horses knead the ground, restless.

The Lowlander chieftain looks up into Jenny’s eyes, appraising her. After a time he lowers his head. “Gold.”

“Good,” grins Jenny. Catches up the reins and whips her team on. “I’ll be at the other end of the wheat fields. Bring it by tomorrow.” Her twin blacks canter off, raising a man-high trail of dust in their wake.

The chieftain stares after her, squinting against the chalky silt. An old woman comes to stand beside him. Paws at the skin. He hands it to her without taking his eyes off Jenny. The Lowlander woman coughs as she wraps the skin around her shoulders and rubs it to her skin.

Grumbling, the chieftain stalks off to his covered wagon. Doesn’t look back as the woman wearing the bought skin breaks out in a slow sweat. She hacks up something fierce and slumps to the ground, dry heaving, teeth rattling loose in her skull.

? ?

The wagon cuts through a high swath of blackened wheat, the stunted crop long ago gone wild, carefully trained borders overrun generations back: now a small lake of stalk and chaff. Jenny uncocks her shotgun and slides it into the wagon bed without looking back. Around her the stalks bend as the wagon tramples them, springing back in the cart’s wake.

On the other side of the wheat field she pulls up the reins, her team snuffling loudly and shaking their manes. She leaps down from the cart and pats the side of the older stallion’s head. The Clydesdale nuzzles up to her, rearing his head several times against her chest, and snorts. The other Clyde brays and lowers his head to bite at scrub grass growing beyond the ragged borders of the wheat.

Jenny runs her palm down the panting stallion’s sharp-boned cheek as she rounds the wagon to fetch the feedbags. She watches the encampment, a haze of slow smoke and huddled wagons far in the distance and down a stretch of hill, as she pulls out the heavy leather sacks and secures them over her team’s muzzles. They chew noisily, tearing at what passes for feed – hard maize and scrub root. Jenny pats the flank of the younger stallion out of long habit as she clambers back into the wagon seat to wait.

? ?

They come in the night, the rustling of the wheat giving them away. Jenny has been waiting for them since the sun went down. She lies in the back of the wagon, the long gauge in her hands, one eye closed, the other looking down the cylindrical length of the barrel balanced flat atop the lockbox.

Her finger rests lightly on the trigger, hammer already down. Beneath her the lockbox shudders as the bones rattle. “Shut up,” she rasps, and takes aim. Squeezes her trigger finger back and the explosion of the 12-gauge rips open the night, the thick slug slamming out of the hot barrel in a burst of light and powdery fire. A Lowlander falls apart wetly as the slug rips through his chest and knocks him back through the air. The others come at her fast and she drops them one by one, one eye shut tight as she fires, reloading cartridges two at a time and firing off shots in pairs. The muzzle of the gauge is red-hot and smoking when she finally stops shooting. Steam hisses off the slowly cooling metal.

The echoes of the shots fade into the darkness as she rises and gently hoists herself over the lip of the wagon, shotgun still in hand. She lands in a crouch by the side of the wagon. Waits for the telltale rustle of more Lowland men moving through the stunted wheat.