An Easy Death Read online

  I held one hand palm up. Anybody’s guess, I was telling her. I didn’t want to jinx us.

  Most likely, nothing would happen. We’d done this run dozens of times since I’d joined the crew. We’d had firefights, sure. We’d lost one crew member, an older guy named Solly. He’d taken a bullet to the stomach.

  His had been the opposite of an easy death.

  But we’d always gotten our cargo where they intended to go, except for two souls. One woman’s appendix had ruptured (at least that’s what we thought had happened), and she’d died in the middle of nowhere. One boy had been snakebit, and we couldn’t control snakes. So we had a good record.

  I clamped down hard on my bad feeling and stuffed it away to nowhere. I had to be all in this moment.

  “You don’t look any older than my seventeen-year-old,” said the older farm wife. Her husband had called her Ruth. Ruth glanced at her daughter with pride and fondness.

  “I’m older.” By barely two years.

  Ruth wanted to say more. She was trying to look at my shorn head without making a federal case of it. She decided against comment. Good. I didn’t want to talk to them, get to know them. In less than a day, they’d be gone.

  I remember running my hand over my short hair. Thinking my skull felt clean and cool as the air whooshed over it. I was pleased with the feeling, though Tarken had given me several more fierce faces while we were loading up.

  But Martin had laughed. “You better buy a dress,” he’d said, “so we can remember you’re a girl.”

  “You’d never mistake this one for a boy,” Galilee had answered. “Now, me . . .” And she’d looked down at her slim body. But Martin had looked as though he liked her just like she was. It was nice.

  When we set out, there was enough light that we could make out the landscape—scrubby bushes and cactus, the low, rolling bumps we called hills. Same as everywhere around Segundo Mexia. There were rocky outcrops here and there. Lots of bare dirt.

  As Martin usually did, he followed the remains of the north road. After an hour he had to go slower. We’d reached a section in much worse shape. Might have been laid sometime in the late twenties, never repaired since.

  The little kids had been talking to one another or asking their parents questions that couldn’t be answered. How long it would take, if Uncle Joshua would be in Corbin when they got there, how long it would be before they got to his farm, if he had children they could play with, how many cattle he had . . .

  At first the adults tried to say cheerful things, and act like all was easy and well. But gradually they began to snap a little, and the kids shut up.

  Two hours into the run, there was no talking or laughing. The moon was full, but there were some clouds between me and it, and I only caught a peek at it from time to time. I didn’t like my view of the sky being blocked. With my left hand I held on to one of the slats; I felt a nailhead, about my waist level, sticking out. I ran my thumb over it. I told myself I’d see to that when we returned.

  Because of the clouds, Martin was running with headlights, had to. So even if the engine noise didn’t announce we were coming, the headlights did. Galilee and I were paying attention, watching for anything on the ground on either side of the dusty road. That was our job. And we were doing it just as well as usual.

  Every other time we’d been attacked, we’d seen movement, heard yelling, caught a glint of our headlights reflecting off metal. Some clue, some warning.

  Tonight the bullets came out of nowhere.

  I yelled “Down!” as I fired back, working the lever immediately to chamber another round. I’d marked the flash pretty accurately. The bandit was close. A scream told me I’d gotten him. But there was someone else a bit farther back from the road, out of my range, and I didn’t kill him in time. He didn’t die before he got a bullet through the cab.

  Later I figured the bandit killed Martin with that shot. Because the truck started veering all over and I had to grab the slats to stay in the truck. No way I could fire back. I’d heard the sound of Galilee’s Krag, but she was closer to the open rear of the flatbed than I was. I guess she couldn’t grab hold in time. One second Galilee was there. The next she was gone, without a sound.

  Tarken must have reached over to grab the wheel to try to keep us going, because we straightened out for a few seconds. That was long enough for me to get my balance, fire a shot to let the bandits know we were still putting up a fight. I heard the familiar sound of the driver’s door opening, and I glimpsed Martin’s body tumbling out of the cab. Tarken had shoved him out to take the driver’s seat. When Martin’s body hit the road, it kind of bounced and then lay still.

  Some excited gunman had shot at the movement of the body, and the bullet ricocheted off the hood of the truck, and I was stung by the tiny fragments that were flung out by the impact.

  But I couldn’t think about any of this because the headlights raked a figure scrambling through the scrubby trees along the road to keep up. Even as I fired at the bandit, I saw he’d stopped and aimed. The truck lurched, my gun belt caught on the damn nail, and the world came to an end.

  CHAPTER TWO

  For a while.

  When I came to, I was in the middle of a clump of bushes and large rocks. It wasn’t dawn, but it was close. A snake was gliding by me. I could just make out that it was a rattlesnake, its tongue flickering out to catch movement. I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure I could, anyway. I pretended to myself I was choosing not to stir.

  The birds were singing, so the gunfire and screaming were long over.

  The birds didn’t care that I had a bitch of a headache.

  I wanted to groan, but I knew I had to make not a scritch nor a screech till I got the lay of the land. When the snake was gone, I looked at myself, as best I could without much movement. I couldn’t see a bullet hole; I couldn’t see more than a little blood. That was on my hand where it had been under my cheek. My hand was waking up now, and it stung.

  Maybe I’d been shot in the head? Because I could tell now that was what really hurt; it throbbed like hell. If I’d taken a bullet to the head, I couldn’t imagine why I wasn’t dead.

  My gun belt was gone. Jackhammer was gone. It was as bad as being naked in public.

  I had to get up and find my crew.

  I really tried to move, but my head pounded with a terrible pain, and I just couldn’t.

  Hoping it would ease my head, I even shut my eyes. It was hard to think, I hurt so bad, but I made myself focus out. At first I heard nothing but the damn birds. Then I heard the wind, its quiet, smooth noise moving the grass and tree leaves. Then, it seemed to me, I heard a sigh, a human sigh. Repeated. Repeated.

  When I heard nothing more threatening than that, no voices or shots, I figured it was safe to get out from behind the rocks. The first time I made it to my hands and knees, I vomited.

  I waited a bit, trembling.

  The second time I made the attempt, I managed to crawl out of my little hidden space. Being cautious, watching and listening. I moved real slowly, stopping every few seconds to taste the air like the snake had done. I wanted every clue I could gather about what had happened around me before I made it known I was alive. If there was anyone to tell.

  The truck had rolled over onto the driver’s side, but it had landed propped up thanks to a boulder with a flat top. The door on the passenger’s side was open. The bandits had been in there searching for whatever they could loot. Or maybe someone had crawled out. After I saw the truck, saw the damage, did not see any living person, I threw up again. I felt better after that, but very thirsty. I’d had a drink from my canteen back in Segundo Mexia, before we’d set out. That must have been twelve hours ago now, give or take.

  Some people would never be thirsty again.

  The almost-grown girl in the older family, the seventeen-year-old, she hadn’t made it. There must have been more gunfire after I’d been hit. She’d tried to run. Lots of families taught their girls to run, figuring that a bul
let in the back was quicker than what waited for them after capture. My opinion, sometimes they were right.

  Sure enough, the wound was in her back. She’d died very quickly. I knew ’cause there wasn’t much blood. She was sprawled in the middle of the road, as if she’d been running back the way we’d come when she was hit.

  A few yards past her, I could see Martin’s body, lying in a heap at the point where Tarken had shoved him out of the truck. Though my vision was fuzzy from the poor light and whatever was wrong with my head, I could see a long, dark line a few yards beyond that; that would be Galilee. From the way Martin and Galilee were lying, it was clear they were dead. I could see blood around them, as extra proof. I did not have the strength to reach them to close their eyes. And I did not have a gun.

  I could see something sprawled a ways back, figured it was the bandit I’d shot. There should be another one back in the brush off the road. I didn’t have the energy or inclination to find the body.

  After five minutes of crawling and collapsing, pushing up to crawl again, I rounded the truck to find Tarken on the other side. It was him making the noise. He’d taken a bullet in the leg and one in the shoulder, small caliber. That’s why he was still alive to sigh. I tried to get to my feet so I could move faster, but I got all dizzy. Not possible. In fact, I could not stay up on my knees any longer. I inched along on my belly until I reached him.

  “Tarken,” I said, just to let him know I was there. I eased onto my side, so I could look at him. We hadn’t been together long, not even sharing a roof yet. But this was very hard.

  “Lizbeth,” he said. “You’re alive.” He sounded pleased. He sounded like he was dying.

  “Yeah. At the moment.” My head hurt so bad I wasn’t sure that was going to last.

  “They said I wasn’t . . . worth a bullet. They could tell I wasn’t . . . going to make it. They took . . . the clients.” He got all this out between the deep breaths. He’d turned his head enough to look me in the eyes. “I climbed out of the . . . truck. Hoped I could follow ’em.”

  With two bullets in him.

  “The oldest girl, she’s dead,” I told him. “She took one in the back.”

  “Her mom told her to run.” Tarken took a deep breath, let it out. The sigh.

  “Her mom was smart.”

  “She screamed a bit, though. When the girl died.” Tarken’s mouth turned up a little, almost smiling at the silliness of human nature. I knew him well.

  “Yeah. Can’t help it sometimes.” I had to close my eyes and wait for the nausea to subside. I didn’t want to; I wanted to look at him as long as he could look back.

  “Galilee and Martin?”

  I wasn’t sure he was still alive until he’d spoken again. “Yeah. It was quick.” Maybe. There was a lot of blood.

  “Glad you made it,” Tarken said in a fainter voice. “Glad I had you for a while. You’re a good gal. You know what you got to do.” He said all this in a rush. And then he did die, at what turned out to be the last sigh. He just never drew a breath back in.

  So I lay there for a while, planning what to do, in case I lived. I wondered if maybe I hadn’t been shot at all. Maybe I’d hit my head on something when the truck had gone over. It was good I didn’t have any broken bones. I pondered all this.

  My throat was so dry it ached. I needed water. I had to move.

  Tarken’s water bottle was still in his bag, and his bag was still on his shoulder. He’d hooked it around his neck before he climbed out of the truck, after the bandits had left. He’d taken it for himself—he couldn’t have known I was alive—but he hadn’t had the strength to drink from it. It was under his body.

  I worked it out from under him. That didn’t feel good, but I knew he’d be glad for me to have it.

  After I drank, I felt better, but I had to rest for a little bit. I guess it was about nine or ten in the morning before I was able to stand and walk. I’d searched around as much as I was able, creeping and crawling to the bodies of the men I’d killed. Their friends had stripped those bodies of anything helpful, but I did find a gold coin they’d missed, tucked in one man’s boot. I didn’t make it as far as Galilee or Martin. I knew they would have been searched, and I didn’t want to see them up close. Though I’d been glad to keep Tarken company in his last moments, those moments had just about done me in.

  I’d hoped to find a gun, but no luck. My gun belt had been torn off by the nail, I figured, and who knows where I’d flung Jackhammer when I’d flown from the back of the truck? I must have crawled into the bushes to hide. I guessed the bandits hadn’t counted how many of us there were, or maybe they hadn’t even asked the farmers. Our attackers had left with all our arms, the two families, the household goods they’d brought with them. Everything.

  The bandits must have thought they’d really been lucky. Though they’d lost two of their number, they were probably laughing about how easy it had been. That thought stiffened me up. I was very, very angry.

  When I could stand up long enough to search the sideways-tilted cab of the truck, I did find Tarken’s handgun, wedged under the seat. In the dark the bandits had missed it. I wondered if Tarken had groped for it, been unable to find it. . . . I made myself quit the thought. This gun was a big, wonderful present from Tarken to me, and I almost wept when I held it. It had seven bullets in it. So seven shots was what I had to work with.

  There weren’t truck or car tracks anywhere close. The bandits were herding the farm families on foot. The kids wouldn’t move fast. I had a chance of catching up. I just had to get going.

  I leaned against the truck for a few moments. I hated the way it lay on its side like a helpless bug. The tires were blown, the doors dented, and the glass broken, and I thought an axle would have to be replaced. It looked a sad mess, all broken. I remembered Martin and Tarken working on it the day before. I bit the inside of my cheek.

  I knew what I had to do. Martin and Tarken and Galilee would have done the same.

  I began tracking. I had Tarken’s water, and I had found a sandwich in his bag; that would have to do. I ate it and made myself keep it down. I was slow, because of my head. And my muscles were beginning to hurt from the force of the landing when I’d hit the ground. But I kept moving. There was no one else to do it.

  The trail was easy to follow. Lots of people on foot. The two families had taken all their bags and boxes, which was probably the doing of the bandits. They wouldn’t have wanted to walk carrying all that stuff, not after the shock of the shooting and the death of the oldest girl.

  Early the next morning I found the baby lying by a campfire. It was dead. I don’t know why. I didn’t unwrap it. Why it died made no difference. Looking at it would only make me angrier. The ashes were still faintly warm at the center. I smiled to myself, maybe. I couldn’t tell what my face was doing because my head still hurt fierce. I told myself I was going to catch them in good time.

  I put one foot in front of another. I tried not to think about how much I wanted sleep. We’d already lost two of our clients. I didn’t want to lose any more.

  A couple of hours later I paused under a tree. I let myself sit down, and the relief of it was huge. When I rubbed my face, my hand came away with dried blood speckles. I reached up real careful and felt my scalp. I’d made up my mind I hadn’t been shot. I’d just banged my head, and somehow my ear had been cut. That was where the blood had come from. I didn’t have the guts to check myself out all over. I didn’t want to see all my bruises and scratches. I’d just feel worse if I did.

  I had a drink and got to my feet.

  Later that afternoon I caught up with the bandits because they couldn’t wait to rape the women. They’d started with the younger wife. I thought her name was Martha. Since I could hear them from a far way, it was easy to creep up, hide behind a live oak. The assholes didn’t have a watch settled. They thought we were all dead.

  I counted four bandits: the redheaded one pumping away on the woman, the one holding a gun on th
e husband (who was screaming, words I couldn’t understand), a bearded man holding Jackhammer, and a short man who was enjoying the rape so much he was holding only his own dick.

  The red-haired rapist was intent on his pleasure, so I started out the killing with the ones who might be able to act quick. The bearded man must be first, since he had Jackhammer. When I raised Tarken’s pistol, Bearded Man caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and began to swing around. I had to shoot him twice to make sure he was dead, so that left me five bullets.

  The armed guard went second, before he could even turn around. I was only worried I’d take out the screaming husband, too. The third man, the one who’d been pleasuring himself, dropped his dick to dive for a rifle. I got him before he could reach it, and he was dead. By then the one who’d been in the saddle had pulled out and was scrambling to his feet. Since he was in midmovement, it wasn’t a killing wound, but he was hurt enough. They were all on the ground in a few seconds. Not bad.

  I discovered a second later I shouldn’t pat myself on the back, because the guard wasn’t as hurt as I’d thought. He twisted around to get off a shot in my direction. To my surprise, it came close as a blown kiss. I fired again, and he was out of the picture.

  One bullet left, in case the rapist was still breathing.

  I spared a glance for the farm people, checking I hadn’t shot any of them by accident. None of them were bleeding. They were stuck in the same positions with their mouths hanging open, not yet understanding they were free.

  Dammit, the rapist was still moving. I’d wanted to save a bullet. Redhead tried to crawl away, as though he had somewhere to go. I raised the gun again. But I got to keep my last shot.

  The husband, with a roar of rage, leaped on top of the rapist with his heavy boots, and then he lifted a large rock and brought it down on the rapist’s head, or what was left of it. I waited till his frenzy was through. I figured he needed that. He stood, panting and speckled with blood, and he looked me in the eyes. I nodded toward his wife, who’d turned on her side after pulling her dress down. She was crying, harsh and loud.