Devils Unto Dust(84)

A scream pierces the quiet of the desert, a human-sounding scream; a second later a gunshot rings out. The litter stops immediately, and I scramble out, my heart pounding in my ears.

“Where did that come from?” I ask.

“Not sure,” Curtis says, his voice clipped. “Ben, do you see anything?”

The boys drop the litter to the ground as soon as I’m clear, and Ben jerks his head around like a madman.

Another gunshot sounds, and I whirl around, straining to see anything.

“There, straight ahead,” Sam says, pointing. I follow his arm and see a pale cloud of what looks like rifle smoke rising up.

“Damn,” Curtis says, his eyes narrowed to slits, “it’s on the road. I can’t make out how many.”

He throws a loaded glance to Ben, his good hand already on his gun. The brothers are coiled tight as snakes. Curtis looks at me, and I give him a sharp nod.

“Go. I’ll keep up as best I can.”

“Stay with her,” he says to Sam, already starting to run. Ben has a head start, but Curtis gets even with him in a matter of seconds. Their boots pound the dirt solidly, kicking up huge billows of dust.

My hands are trembling something awful, but I help Sam quickly roll up the litter. I throw my pack on my back and we start after Ben and Curtis, Sam letting me set the pace. I grit my teeth and break into a run, adjusting my gun where it bangs against my thigh. Another shot sounds and I push to go faster, but my legs start to quiver and my lungs are burning in my chest. I can’t keep up this pace for long, but I focus on Ben and Curtis ahead of me, keeping my sight fixed on their backs. The gunshots have stopped, and now the only noise is my own labored breathing and Sam’s feet next to mine. The distance diminishes step by step, and I realize Ben and Curtis aren’t shooting. That, and the silence, means I should prepare myself for what we’re about to find.

Ben is putting his gun away when we pull alongside him.

“Too late. Nothing’s moving.”

I use the last of the walk to catch my breath and steady my nerves. The land slopes up gently, and my legs protest even the slight incline. Sweat drips off my nose and chin, and I wipe my face with my sleeve. My eyes go immediately to the lumpy figures in the road, maybe three of them; it’s hard to tell the shapes apart. I would take them to be piles of wood and dirt if it weren’t for the red smears. The blood looks out of place, the color so bright against the sand. It is out of place, I remind myself; it belongs on the inside.

Curtis swears under his breath and stops a good ways away from the scene. I can make out individual faces now, separate the bodies from one another. They’re not from Glory or I’d recognize them. Hunters on a supply run, I reckon, judging from the bags scattered in the sand: salt, feed, nails, and the like. It’s easy to tell how they died, but I try to keep my eyes off those mangled parts. One man still has his gun in his hand, so he must’ve gotten off a few shots before he bled out. The shake that did it is lying close, slumped against a large rucksack like he’s just sitting.

Ben walks around to look at the shake more closely and his eyes widen. He looks up quickly and sniffs.

“We should go,” he says, his voice far too casual, “before any more come.”

I march up to where he’s standing and make for the shake.

“Willie, don’t,” Ben says. He catches me by the arms but doesn’t protest when I break away.

I smell the liquor coming off him before I even see Dollarhide’s face. I give a quick, sharp inhale, not quite a gasp but more than a breath. His mouth is wet with blood and the skin over his eyes looks almost translucent. There are bullet holes in his shoulder and stomach, but I guess they didn’t slow him down much. I bite my lip hard, fighting the rising nausea that comes with understanding. I did this. I bled on him, I infected him, and I turned him loose on these people. That’s three more deaths to place at my feet.

“You couldn’t know—”

“Don’t,” I say, cutting off Ben. “Just don’t.”

He held out longer than me. I wonder if I would have lasted longer, too, if I were stronger, if I always got enough to eat. Did he know what was happening to him, or was he too drunk to even tell how sick he was? I didn’t like Dollarhide, but I wouldn’t wish this on him. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“Should we move him?” Sam asks, rubbing the back of his neck. “He was one of y’all.”

“He was a damn cur and a poor excuse for a hunter,” Curtis says calmly. “He ain’t one of us.”

Sam shrugs, but he doesn’t argue. He comes to stand next to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. I turn away, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Come on, Sam,” Curtis says. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.”

I take one last look at Dollarhide, Sam standing over him, and only then do I see his chest rise.

“Sam!” I yell as Dollarhide lunges forward, Sam in his sights, and everything slows down to a crawl. It all becomes very simple in my mind. All the wrong choices I’ve made in my life, all the mistakes, they lie out behind me like faulty footsteps. I can see it: every time I should have been kinder, or quicker, or better, every point I should have turned back or started over; it’s all there, written in the dirt. I can’t erase it, can’t undo it or fix it. I can’t go back to make things right, all I can do is go forward. And maybe this, this one thing, I can do right.