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“Will he lead?” she asked Ann. “Your Yancy?”
“I’d say he and Sal will help run things, as much as they’re run. Yancy’s quiet, but he’s nobody’s fool. And Sal doesn’t take crap for certain.”
They walked to a box of a building with two chairs on a narrow porch. Inside, the prisoners sat on the floor, bound hand and foot.
Sal had her booted feet on the desk while she sipped whiskey. She’d been a redhead once, Fallon noted, as streaks of ginger still wound through the gray of her long braid. Like Yancy, she wore a cowboy hat, hers tipped down over her forehead. And a gun belt with a pistol rode on her narrow hips.
“Hey there, Ann, how are those knuckles?”
“Just fine now. This here’s Fallon Swift, and—sorry, I didn’t get the other names.”
“That’d be young Travis and Meda. Had my ear to the ground,” Sal added. “I’m pleased to meet you. Maybe a little sorry you figured you should heal up these assholes, but pleased just the same.”
“It’s easier to talk to them if they’re not bleeding.”
“Got nothing to say to you, devil whore.” One, black-bearded, potbellied, spat on the floor. “Or any of your like.”
“Oh, I think you’ll have plenty to say.” Tapping her fingers on the hilt of her sword, Fallon circled the bound men, arranged back-to-back on the floor.
The potbellied one wore boots with toes as pointy as needles, a fancy flag—red, white, and blue—sweeping up the sides. And soles worn so thin they showed holes at the balls of the feet.
She decided to start with the youngest—bearded as well, but scraggly, patchy. He wore a faded denim jacket that carried a poorly embroidered PW AND PROUD! on the back.
He’d taken an arrow in the hip, and though she’d healed it, she hadn’t taken the pain. She imagined it ached like fire.
He couldn’t have been older than Ethan.
“What’s your name?”
“Ain’t got nothing to say to you, whore.”
She gave Travis a glance, then crouched down to stare eye to eye. “I can smell your fear.”
“Fuck you.”
“You follow Jeremiah White.”
His eyes, a faded blue, held hate as well as the fear and pain. “He’s gonna wipe you and your like off the face of this earth.”
“How many have you killed? How many women have you raped in your quest for purity as defined by Jeremiah White?”
He twisted his mouth into a sneer that helped dampen any pity for his pain. “Many as I could.”
“You tell her, Ringo.”
She glanced to her left, to the bald man with a grizzled gray beard.
“Really? Ringo?”
“He goes by that,” Travis said easily, “because it makes him feel badass. His name’s actually Wilber.”
“Looks like a Wilber,” she said as he shot a wide-eyed glance at Travis. “I’m going to call you Wilber. Where’d you come from, Wilber? Where’s your base? How many in your base?”
“Fuck you, whore!”
“Excuse me.” Travis nudged by Ann, walked over, slammed a fist into Wilber’s face. “Call my sister a whore again, I’ll pull your guts out through your broken nose.”
The move surprised her, she couldn’t deny it. Travis preferred diplomacy over fists. But at the moment, the glint in his eyes didn’t have a hint of the diplomatic.
“That’s all right, Travis. Being called a whore by a cowardly rapist named Wilber doesn’t bother me. You know these people want to string you up like you’ve strung up the innocent magickals you’ve tortured.”
She cocked her head, smiled in a way that drained the color bravado had put into Wilber’s face. “Maybe I’ll let them. After all, their community, their rules. Or I could try to reason with them if you tell me what I want to know. Where’s your base?”
Though tears leaked from his eyes, blood streamed from his nose, he said nothing.
“California,” Travis supplied. “The northern part, sort of central, he thinks. They called their base Second Eden.”
“Shut your mind down, asshole,” the black-bearded one snapped. “That demon’s pulling thoughts out of your head.”
“Try shutting your own down . . . Pete,” Travis suggested. “Wilber here’s afraid of the rope.”
“He oughta be.” Enjoying herself, Sal drank more whiskey. “It’s something we’ve got plenty of around here.”
“How many on your base?”
When Travis punched Wilber again, Fallon brushed him back. “Jesus, Travis, enough.”
“You didn’t hear what he was thinking about you and Meda, and these other ladies. Trying to keep his mind off the question. Give me a minute, they’re all thinking at once. Earthquake. Ah, okay, okay.”
Travis shut his eyes. “They had about two hundred. The bald guy—hi, Tom—he and some others made it up there from the L.A. area. Earthquakes there drove them out. Then bang, they get hit with another in their Eden. Leveled the base, killed most. The ones they rode in here with lived through it. They’ve been riding for weeks—lost a few on the way. Haven’t had much luck hunting, mostly because they’re dicks, got good and lost a couple times. Again, dicks. They’ve been out of supplies for days now, then spotted the settlement here.”
Nodding, Fallon rose, circled them again. “I can take it from there, follow the logic. They’d kill everybody they could, rape and enslave the rest, take the food, the horses, cattle. Maybe settle down right here until they figured where to go next.”
“Time to get that rope.” Sal tossed back the rest of the whiskey, winked at Fallon.
Wilber began to blubber, literally blubber, with tears and snot leaking.
Fallon walked over to ease a hip on the corner of the desk. Ann leaned in to whisper in her ear, “She doesn’t mean it.”
“I got that. Would you mind if we talked outside, Sal? And maybe Ann could find Yancy. Travis and Meda can stand guard here.”
“I could use some air. That’s some trick you’ve got, young fella,” she told Travis. “And you got a solid right jab along with it. Ann, I think Yancy went on down to the livery.”
When they stepped outside, into star-struck night, Sal hissed out a breath. “Sam Tripper was a friend of mine, a good friend. I’m not going to tolerate any lynching, but we’re not going to cut those bastards loose, either.”
“I have a solution that should satisfy you and the rest.”
“Is it a dark hole where they’ll never see the light again or have one minute of joy? Because, goddamn it, Sam was a friend of mine.”
“I think it’s close. Tell me this before Yancy comes. How many of the women could be trained to fight, and be willing?”
“All of them.” No hesitation. “Every blessed one.”
“Good. I can send someone to help with that, and with your security. How many would you estimate are battle-ready now?”
“What kind of battle?”
“Major.”
She took off her hat, slapped it over her thigh a few times. “Maybe a dozen here could handle that. Maybe.”
Fallon watched Yancy walk, a lanky stride, from the paddock. People rushed toward him, obviously asking questions. He took the time, she noted, to answer before moving on.
“Would he be one of the twelve?”
“He would. He’s not as placid as he looks. He can ride like a son of a bitch, and shoot the same. Got a level head on his shoulders.”
“That was my impression. And you?”
“Yeah, I can handle myself. Yancy,” she said when he joined them.
“Sal. Ma’am, I want to thank you and those with you for helping dig the graves. We’ll have a memorial in the morning, say some words. I asked Old Eb to say them, Sal.”
“That’s a good choice.”
“My Faith’d like to have you all to supper. You’re welcome, Sal. We can get somebody to watch the prisoners.”
“Will you let me take the prisoners?” Fallon asked.
“I’d be ha
ppy to give them over.”
“Just hold on,” Sal interrupted. “I’d like more particulars there.”
Yancy puffed out a breath, looked up at the stars. “We can’t keep them here, Sal, and that’s a fact. Somebody’s bound to get their blood up and do them in. Too much of me, I gotta say, wants to let them, and be done with it.”
“We have prisons,” Fallon explained. “Travis and Meda can take them back tonight. They’ll be locked up. They’re murderers. They’ll be locked up for life. We have the means, the system. It’s your place, your people, your decision, but I can promise you if you let us take them, they’ll pay.”
“You talking bars and locks?” Sal demanded.
“I am. We have other facilities for prisoners of war, those who qualify. But these aren’t POWs. They’re killers. Bars and locks.”
