Dust & Decay (Rot & Ruin, #2)(54)

“Don’t even joke,” he chided as he cleaned the entry and exit wounds, placed sterile pads over them, and began wrapping a white bandage around her arm. “I’ve seen my share of bad luck already today.”

Tom tied the ends of the bandage with neat precision, but inside he was beginning to feel a slight edge of panic. It was now too dark to track Chong. Tom helped Sally sit up and let her drink from his canteen.

“Don’t suppose you saw my horse anywhere, did you?” she asked. “I left her tied to a tree, but she must have spooked.”

“No,” said Tom. “Look, Sal, what happened and who did this?”

“It’s complicated,” she said. “I ran into a couple of the White Bear crew. You know White Bear?”


He nodded. White Bear had once run with Charlie Pinkeye’s gang but had dropped out of sight years ago. “Heard of him but never met him. Big guy from Nevada. Used to be a bouncer at one of the Vegas casinos before First Night, right? Tells everyone that he’s the reincarnation of some great Indian medicine men, though from what I heard he doesn’t have a drop of Native American blood in him. What’s he doing here?”

She hissed in pain as Tom began stitching her stomach wound. He wished Lilah was here.

“OW—damn, son! You using a tree spike to sew that up?” she snarled.

“Don’t be a sissy.”

She cursed him and his entire lineage going back to the Stone Age. Tom endured it as he worked. Curses were better than screams.

“What about White Bear?” he prompted.

She took a breath. “Since Charlie’s gang got chomped by those zoms last year, there’s been a lot of talk about who was going to take over his territory. Charlie always had prime real estate. Mountainside, Fairview, couple of other towns, and the trade route all through these mountains. White Bear wants it all. Brought a bunch of his guys with him. Most of them are jokers who don’t know which end of a rifle goes bang! But he has a lot of them.”

“How many?”

“The two I saw tonight, and maybe twenty more. Maybe twice that number if the rumors are true … and he’ll probably try to scoop up any of Charlie’s guys who are still sucking air.”

Tom tied off the last stitch and began applying a fresh dressing. “Why’d they attack you?”

“They didn’t. I, um, kind of attacked them.” She touched Tom’s arm. “Tom … I think they have your brother, Benny.”

“What?”

“I saw them slapping the crap out of a Japanese-looking kid. Your brother’s, what, fifteen, sixteen?”

“Fifteen. What was this kid wearing?”

She thought about it. “Jeans. Dark shirt with red stripes and a vest with a lot of pockets.”

Tom exhaled a burning breath. “That’s not Benny. That’s his friend, Louis Chong. He’s Chinese, not Japanese. Besides, Benny’s half Irish American.”

“What do I know? It’s dark, he’s a kid, I’m shot for Pete’s sake.” She squinted at him. “That who you’re looking for? The Chinese kid?”

Tom filled her in on what he was doing.

“So … you’re really going to leave?” she asked.

“That’s the plan, but we seem to be off to a bad start.”

“So—asking me to meet you at Brother David’s … that was what? A good-bye?”

He nodded.

“Damn,” said Sally. “Things won’t be the same around here without our knight in shining armor.”

Tom snorted. “I’m a lot of things, Sally, but I’m no one’s idea of a shining knight.”

Sally didn’t laugh. “If that’s what you think, Tom, then you’re a bigger damn fool than I thought. There’s no one in this whole chain of mountains who doesn’t know who you are and what you do. And I mean before you served Charlie and the Hammer to the zoms on a silver plate.” She paused. “A lot of people look up to you. No … they look to you. For how to act. For how to be.”

“Come on, Sal, let’s not—”

“Listen to me, Tom. You matter to people. During First Night, and in the years after, a lot of us did some pretty wild things to survive. You don’t know. Or … maybe you do. Maybe you did some wild things too, but the thing is that since then you’ve been the kind of guy people can look at and say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s how people are supposed to act.’ There aren’t a lot of examples around since the zoms, man, but you …” She smiled and shook her head.

Tom cleared his throat. “Listen, Sally, I’m thinking that this is pain and shock talking here, so let’s get to the point. Where did they take Chong and how’d you get hurt?”

Sally laughed. “Modest, too. Real shame you’re leaving town. Jessie Riley was the luckiest woman in California, and strike me down if that’s a lie.”

“Chong …,” Tom prompted.

“Okay, okay. It was about two hours ago. I was heading to Brother David’s when I heard someone yelling. I snuck up and saw this kid trying to fight off a couple of goons. Kid was doing okay at first. Had a wooden version of that sword you carry. The goons were trying to take the sword away from him barehanded, making a game of it. Pretending they were zoms and that sort of stuff. You’ve seen it before.”