Behind the Ruins (Stories of the Fall) (22 page)

“What
do the guards say?”

“Harris
strung them all up when he shot Jones.”

Sam
heard Creedy sigh, and shuddered when he ran the folded width of the belt up
between her legs.

“I
need to get dressed, then. Gregor, can you tidy this up, please? Have one of
the housekeepers neaten up the room and clean up Sam.”

“Yes,
Mister Creedy.”

She
heard his bare feet pad around the bed, felt his breath on the side of her face
as he bent to whisper. She kept her eyes shut, but she could smell his sweat.
He smelled sour and bitter under his aftershave, like bad wine going to
vinegar.

“I
may have to call a meeting tonight,” he said, a finger tracing her cheek. “I’ll
want you looking presentable. The blue dress, I think.”

She
managed a nod. Even that motion hurt the band of battered flesh across her
midriff.

Word
reached Harris that Creedy wanted to see the company commanders in the exercise
yard. He reported within minutes, climbing up the steps from the basement
barracks his men inhabited under the north wing and entering the dusty
quadrangle surrounded by three-story concrete walls. Others were there before
him, and more arrived over the next few minutes. Creedy stood near the raised
platform of marble blocks that marked the yard’s center. It looked like the
base for a statue, but had been empty when Creedy first took over. It worked
well as a reviewing stand or speaker’s soapbox, whatever its original function.
The square whipping post rose a few yards from its southern edge. Harris looked
at it with loathing, and the scarred skin on his back ached at the memory.

Creedy
stepped onto the dais and scanned the ten unit commanders and their aides. The
small crowd fell silent, standing or slouching as their natures decreed, eyes
on the trim man in khakis.

“Gentlemen,
good afternoon.” Creedy laced his fingers behind his back, his voice carrying
well over a few whispers and the scrape of shifting feet on gravel. “I’m sorry
to say that we have a disciplinary matter to address today.”

All
shuffling stopped. There was one strangled, nervous cough, then absolute
silence. Harris wondered where Gregor was. Gregor was the hideously efficient
tool Creedy preferred to enforce discipline on his officers.

Creedy
scanned the crowd, his gaze stopping on Harris. At the same time a massive hand
reached around Harris’s right side and deftly took the pistol from his holster.
Harris started to turn, but another huge hand gripped the back of his neck,
fingers digging painfully into the muscle and tendons, and lifted him onto his
toes. He was pushed forward, gasping and stumbling along. Those who stood in
the way scrambled clear as Gregor, holding Harris at arm’s length, frogmarched
him to the dais.

Harris
opened and closed his mouth, but nothing emerged. The big man held him at the
edge of the platform, and Creedy stepped forward, looking down into Harris’s
eyes. The company commander was crying, Creedy noted.

“Harris
killed one of my commanders for stealing from me,” Creedy said, his voice
echoing from the surrounding walls as he raised it to a dramatic, amused tone.
“That’s not normally a problem, except the man he killed wasn’t the thief.”

“I
didn’t know!” Harris cried in a high, crackling wail.

“But
you should have. That’s the point,” Creedy said in a patient tone, as though
lecturing a slow student. “With minimal work, it became obvious that someone
else had brought Jones the stolen items. You, however, decided to kill the
garrison before you questioned them. To make you look efficient, I suppose.”

Harris
started to say something, but Gregor slammed his free fist into the side of his
captive’s head. It sounded like an axe hitting a tree stump.

“Don’t
interrupt,” the big man whispered. Harris whimpered, blood seeping from his
ear.

“Being
good at the job you have means being smarter than this man,” Creedy said, eyes
again scanning the crowd. “And if you’re not smarter, you’ll come to an
unfortunate end.”

Harris
began to flail, his hands clawing at the fingers gripping his neck. Gregor
picked up his right foot and kicked, twisting his body to increase the force.
His boot connected with Harris’s right leg above the ankle, and it popped with
a sharp, wet sound. Harris howled, panicked and bucking against Gregor’s grip,
his right foot hanging askew.

“Gregor,
please illustrate why it’s important to use your head in the employ of the
Castle,” Creedy shouted above the screaming.

Gregor
nodded. He didn’t smile, but a wet gleam touched his colorless eyes as he
dropped Harris. His broken leg failed him instantly and he fell in the dust,
his coat rucked up around him. Gregor watched as he rolled onto his stomach and
began to crawl rapidly, crablike and moaning. The big man walked after him as
the crowd shifted, keeping the pair in the center of a cleared ring. He took a
skipping step and kicked again, faster than his bulk would seem to allow for.
Harris’s arm snapped and folded under him, dropping him into the dust again.

Creedy
watched, a hint of a smile on his features, as Gregor circled Harris in a
considering way, kicking him with studied disinterest. Bones continued to break
and after a while Harris stopped trying to crawl. After a little longer he
stopped screaming. Gregor continued on, nevertheless, working up a sweat that
gleamed on his face as he reduced Harris to a semi-liquid bag of meat and bile.
Eventually, the big man became bored, stepped back and mopped his brow with a
sleeve.

“Harris’s
men are now under Fish,” Creedy said, stepping down from the dais, tugging the
bottom of his khaki jacket and straightening his collar. He stopped by the
bloodied lump on the ground and considered it briefly.

“I’ll
forgive any of you getting beaten by a better man,” he observed, “but I won’t
tolerate stupidity. Dismissed.”

Creedy
was quiet that afternoon, and Sam, barely able to walk, avoided him. After
cleaning up, Gregor returned to his post outside Creedy’s office while his
commander finalized lists of materials and men for the move north. The big man
was surprised to see Hollis approach, escorted by one of the perimeter guards.
The tiny blonde woman, dressed in her usual black, nodded to Gregor. He eyed
her clothing, which was covered with dust.

“I
need to see Creedy. It’s urgent.”

Gregor
knocked and ushered Hollis inside, then returned to his desk and resumed
reading a book he’d found in one of the castle sub-basements. There were halls
down there full of books and stored documents, many of them behind locked steel
doors that only he held the keys for. Most of the locked doors had tiny grilled
windows, and you could see the bookshelves beyond, looming in the dark. This
particular book was on osteopathy. Gregor found it boring, but the anatomical
information might be useful. He was a little worried that Harris had died too
quickly, and hoped to do better next time.

As
soon as Gregor had shut the door, Creedy gestured to the chair facing his desk
and raised an eyebrow.

“Hollis,
you look worried. What’s happened?”

“The
CDF is in Pullman,” Hollis said, mouth curving down in a bow of distaste. “I
had two days to get myself and men I trusted out of there. I had to leave most
of what I’d planned to bring north behind.”

Creedy
exhaled sharply through his nose, placed both palms on the scarred surface of
his desk and drummed his fingers.

“How
many men did you bring?”

“Twelve,”
Hollis said. “There were fifteen more between two eastern posts that I wanted,
but there were patrols in the area and I decided the risk wasn’t worth it.”

Creedy
stared at Hollis for a while, his eyes distant. “Fuck.”

“We
need to move,” Hollis said. “We need to move now.”

“I
need to decide exactly what we’re going to do, and we need to get word to
Shafton and Straud. Hopefully we have at least a couple of weeks, but we’d
better assume we don’t. If we don’t, we’ll go without them.” Creedy drummed his
fingers again, faster this time. He stopped as Gregor knocked and thrust his
head around the door.

“I’m
sorry to interrupt, Mister Creedy,” he said. “But there’s a rider here from
Mattawa. He says someone attacked their post.”

Doc
was pretending to argue over the proper way to cook ground squirrels with
Georgia; Mal and Grey had finished untacking their horses. The camp was pitched
in a gentle swale between a trio of low hills that screened it from the wind
and kept the nightly campfire from being visible. Somewhere on the shadowed
hilltops Sowter and Clay sat, blankets drawn around their shoulders, watching.

The
moon had just risen when the tethered horses whickered and called, greeting the
shapes descending the slope.

Ronald
rode into camp, his left sleeve and side soaked with blood that looked black in
the firelight. Blood spattered his left leg, and speckled the flank of his horse.
Another riderless horse followed behind. Ronald looked about, his head moving
like a sleeper’s, and reined up but did not try to dismount. Doc scrambled for
his bags.

Georgia
moved to grasp the halter of the second horse. The bloodstained young man stared
for a moment, then grunted and dropped the horse’s lead rope.

Grey
walked to the head of Ronald’s horse, capping its nose with a palm. “Harmon?”

Ronald
shook his head.

“You
followed?” Grey asked.

“I
don’t know,” Ronald said in a rusty voice. “I don’t think so. I’m thirsty.”

Doc
returned with a canvas bag and a faded tarp. He dropped the tarp near the fire,
kicking it until it unrolled.

“Get
him over here where I can see,” he said, crouching and unlacing the satchel.

Grey
asked Ronald to dismount, but he stayed where he was and stared at the fire.
Mal stepped closer and repeated the order, helping him when he finally kicked
his foot free of the stirrup.

“They
shot him. He burnt up,” the boy muttered. “He was on fire, and he shot
himself.”

“Come
on over here, let’s get your arm looked at,” Mal said. He looped an arm around
Ronald’s waist and walked him to the tarp, supporting him when he staggered.
Grey handed the reins of the boy’s horse to Georgia where she stood holding the
reins of Harmon’s. She stared at Grey for a moment, studying his face before
she led the pair off.

Doc
worked quickly, cutting away the clotted shirtsleeve, exposing the blackened,
swollen upper arm with the crusted hole drilled through the bicep. Blood oozed
sluggishly from the wound. He turned Ronald before making him sit down, bending
to look at the back of his arm.

“The
bullet’s still in there,” he said. “I’ll give you something, and then we’ll get
it out and bandage you up.” Mal supported Ronald as he sat, still staring at
the fire.

 Grey
squatted, facing him.

“Can
you tell me what happened?”

“We
couldn’t get in,” Ronald said. His face was pasty under the soot, dirt and
blood that masked it. Doc snapped orders at Mal, who laid Ronald prone and
propped his feet up on one of the saddles. The injured man blinked up at the
stars, his eyes wandering lazily, like a dreamer’s.

“The
windows were sealed up. We tried to use the door but the three guards were
there from before.”

“Did
they chase you?”

“No,
I shot two, and Harmon killed the other one.” Ronald’s eyes squeezed shut and
he bared his teeth in a grimace. “They were on fire. They burnt. Both of them.
Harmon looked at me and then he shot himself in the head.” He opened his eyes
and stared at Grey, his gaze confused. “He was looking right at me.”

Doc
had powdered some big white pills in a steel mug and dissolved them with a
splash of water. He elbowed Grey aside and made Ronald drink it.

“Once
that kicks in he’ll be out for an hour or two,” Doc said. “I’ll clean his arm
up then.” He wrapped a cloth tightly around the wound. “Keep his feet up, and
let him rest, Grey.”

Ronald’s
eyes stayed on Grey.

“I’m
sorry,” he said.

“It
wasn’t your fault, Ronald.” he stood, feeling his knees pop. “We’ll talk later,
after you’re all fixed up. You just rest and listen to Doc, right?”

Ronald
blinked and looked away, his eyes reflecting the moon but seeing something
else.

The
old physician worked quickly once the drugs took effect, and he removed a
flattened slug from where it nested deep against the bone, then stitched tissue
as best he could while Mal and Georgia held candles and handed him whatever he
asked for. Clay came down to check on his friend while Doc worked, cursing the
light, then went wordlessly back to his post for the remainder of his watch.

Eventually
Doc rose, wiping his hands on a rag.

“If
shock doesn’t kill him in the next few hours - or infection in the next few
days - he’ll be all right,” he said as he walked to where Grey stood at the
edge of the firelight. “I think the slug fractured the humerus, but it’s a
miracle it didn’t do a lot worse.”