Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (31 page)

He said, “The prison is your home,” even though he knew what Bad Dog meant and where this was heading. It happened every time they came here.

No. I meant this is where I
found
my home.

“Yes. This is where.”

When I was little.

“You were very little, yes.”

But I’m big now
, Bad Dog said, raising his head so Cavalo could see just how big he was.
I’m big Bad Dog.

“Very big.”

The biggest?

“In all the world.”

Tell me the story of my home.

“You know it. You’ve heard it many times.” But Cavalo knew he’d tell it anyway. It’s how it always was.

It helps me sleep
, Bad Dog said, making his eyes sad and impossibly big, as only he could do.

Cavalo chuckled and rubbed his hand over the dog’s head. “Fine.”

The dog settled back onto the man and waited.

“One day, not so very long ago, I went to the woods to spend some time away from things. It was in the summer, and it was hot and humid, with thunderstorms almost every night that never seemed to bring any rain.

“The prison was feeling claustrophobic, and SIRS was finishing digging out the last tunnel to the east barrack. I didn’t want to go to Cottonwood, so I decided on the lookout.

“I’d been there only a few times before, enough to assess what repairs were needed and to make sure they were done before the thing collapsed. But for some reason, I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

You knew
, Bad Dog said, a sleepy smile on his face.
Somehow, you knew.

“Maybe. Maybe I did. I got there on that day, just as it was starting to turn into night, and I remember touching the railing on the stairs and thinking,
I should be here. This is where I need to be
. It was the first time I’d felt like that since… well. In a long time.

“I fell asleep almost immediately. I don’t know why I was so tired. Maybe it was the heat. Or the hike up to the lookout. Or maybe it was because I was meant to fall asleep. I remember watching the stars come out like they are now, and I remember thinking how small I really was, how I was really just the tiniest speck of dust in a tornado, and the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes in the full-on dark.”

Why did you wake up?
Bad Dog asked, as if he hadn’t heard the story at least a dozen times before.

“I didn’t know at first. I thought I was still dreaming, though I couldn’t remember what I’d been dreaming about. But then I heard voices from down below.”

Weren’t you scared?

“No, because I didn’t know what it was, or who it could be. I even thought I could still be trapped in my dream somehow, that none of it was real.

“The voices got louder until I was sure they’d found the lookout. I kept the lantern off and the old flashlight off. There was a moon, and it was full, and it was big and beautiful, and it glowed so bright that it almost seemed like daylight. I looked over the railing and saw shadows stretched out around the lookout. Shadows of people.”

Bad Dog whined quietly and shivered.
Bad guys?

“I didn’t know at first. I thought they could be from a caravan. Or maybe they were lost. Maybe they were on their way to Cottonwood. Or Grangeville. Or maybe they just lived in the woods and they weren’t lost at all.

“Or maybe,” Cavalo said, lowering his voice, “they were
Dead Rabbits
.”

Bad guys!
the dog said with a low bark.

“It was good I remembered to pull up the steps before I’d come up, otherwise they might have climbed the steps up to where I was. I would have been cornered. As it was, they couldn’t quite reach. I could see them moving around below, and even caught the sight of an arm and a leg, but I couldn’t make them out in full.”

What happened then?

“Then they moved out into the open.”

And?

“They were Dead Rabbits,” Cavalo said quietly. “Bad guys. Monsters. They had on armbands with little spikes on them, necklaces that looked to be made of teeth. One had no hair, the other had a thick black mohawk down the center of his head. They had knives clasped to their sides. And the bald man had a sack over his shoulder.

“I thought they’d seen me, and I quietly took the rifle out and pressed it against my chest, and I wondered if I would even stop them if they found me. If I would do anything to fight back.”

You would. I know you would.

Cavalo scratched behind Bad Dog’s ears, and the dog sighed in happiness. Before he opened his mouth to speak again, he saw the glitter of a second pair of eyes watching him from across the platform.

He hesitated then, unsure if he wanted the Dead Rabbit to hear this most personal of stories.

But this wasn’t about the Dead Rabbit watching him. This was about Bad Dog. This was about his friend.

“I know,” he said finally. He looked back down at Bad Dog. “Now. But then? I don’t know. I don’t know what I would have done. It doesn’t matter now, though. The decision was made for me.”

How?

“The Dead Rabbits looked to be leaving. They couldn’t reach the stairs and seemed to have given up. They pointed at a few clusters of trees around the lookout. I think they were trying to remember what the area looked like so they could come back. But as they turned to leave, I heard something. Something that changed everything.”

What?

Two sets of eyes watched him.

“A little cry. It was high-pitched and sad, and I thought maybe I’d misheard it. Or maybe it was a bird. But then it came again from below and I knew that whatever had made that sound was in the sack. I thought….”

He’d thought it’d been a child. A cold grip had sealed around his heart as he sat crouched in that forgotten lookout, remembering the first time he’d heard Jamie cry, right when he was born. A high-pitched sound. A mournful sound. A sound so hard on the ears that it caused the heart to break. Within Cavalo then, something had flared to life, something that had been dead and buried for a very long time. Yes, he might have let himself die. Yes, he was more shell than man, but that moment, that burning moment however brief it had been, he felt to be something more, something bigger, something
alive
.

So what if a rubber band broke and he thought it could be Jamie in that sack? So what if he thought there was a chance that his son had not died after all and that he’d been searching for Cavalo all this time, only to fall into the hands of the Dead Rabbits? So what if the reason he descended from this lookout tower, from his tower of madness, was to rescue his son? Did it matter?

It did not.

MasterBossLord?
Bad Dog asked, sounding worried.

Lucas did not move. He didn’t blink.

“I thought something was wrong,” Cavalo said, continuing the story as he always had. He shielded the insanity as best he could. He didn’t know how well it worked. “Something
felt
wrong. Whatever they had shouldn’t have made that noise. Not if it was okay.

“I didn’t think when I jumped down from the landing. I didn’t think to lower the stairs. All I could think about was getting down as fast as I could, getting down to them before they left and disappeared into the Deadlands.”

But you caught them.

“Well. Not really. They heard me jump down and turned around. I landed awkwardly, and the rifle fell out of my hands, but I pulled myself up quickly and stood across from them. They were only feet away.”

Monsters
, Bad Dog whispered.
Bad guys.

“‘Who are you?’ the bald one asked me.

“‘He’s all alone out here,’ the other one said with a sneer. He was missing two of his front teeth, and he spit when he talked. ‘No one can save him!’”

But you had the boomstick!

“Yes, I did. The big boomstick. I picked it back up and pointed it at them. And do you know what I said?”

I am Cavalo!

“‘I am Cavalo! These are my woods, and you are trespassing! Unhand what it is you carry, and leave now with your lives! If you do not, I will take from you everything you hold dear!’

“‘You are just one man,’ the bald-headed man said. ‘We are two. There is nothing you can do, and you will be the one who suffers.’

“‘We will cut you to pieces,’ the other one said. ‘You will never see the light of day again!’

“The bag wiggled again, and I heard another little cry.

“‘I think that what you have does not belong to you,’ I said to them. ‘This is your last chance, Dead Rabbits. You are monsters. You are bad guys. Give the sack to me. No more warnings.’

“They looked at each other and laughed. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ they chortled. ‘This is our food. We’ll never give this up!’

“So what did I do?”

Boomstick.
His tail thumped on the floor as his eyes dropped slightly.

“Boomstick,” Cavalo agreed. “I fired right between them. The dirt sprayed up onto their legs, and they saw how serious I was. ‘He’s crazy!’ said the bald man. He looked very scared and was starting to blubber.

“‘He’s out of his mind!’ said the mohawk man. His knees were shaking.

“The bald man carefully set the sack on the ground, backing away as he cried. Snot ran down his nose into his mouth. The other man looked like he was ready to run at any moment.

“‘You’ve done what I’ve asked,’ I told them. ‘Now leave! And if I ever see you around here again, you will know true fear and the breaths you take will be your last.’”

And did they leave? The bad guys?

“They did. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them. They screamed and cried as they fled, saying they would never come back to the lookout, never come back to these woods, and that all other monsters and bad guys would stay away because of the man with the gun.

“But then I heard another noise. Coming from the sack that lay on the ground.”

Were you scared?

To death. I thought my dead son was in that bag.
“No. I wasn’t. I wasn’t scared because I knew I’d done the right thing. I knew that I had saved a life, no matter what was in the sack.

“So very carefully, I walked over to the bag. There was this tiny lump outlined by the burlap. It moved a little bit. It cried out again. A small sound.”

Bad Dog’s tail thumped again.

Lucas continued to watch.

“I hesitated, only for a moment,” Cavalo said quietly. “Then I reached down and untied the rope around the sack and carefully opened it. And do you know what I found?”

You found a Bad Dog!

“Yes. Inside, there was this little thing. All black and gray and hairy. A little white stripe between his eyes going up to his ears. Paws bigger than his head. And you know what happened then?”

I saw you
, Bad Dog said sleepily.
I saw you. I don’t remember anything that happened before because I was so little, but I remember seeing you. That’s the first thing I remember.

“Yes. You saw me. You looked up at me with your pretty eyes, and you saw me. You watched me for the longest time, trying to figure out if I was a good guy or not.”

I knew you were. You smelled different.

“Eventually you barked at me, this high-pitched little bark, and you tried to jump out of the bag. But it was too big and your legs were too little, and you couldn’t quite make it.”

So you helped me.

“I did. I reached in, and you sniffed my hand. Then you pressed your head against it, and I picked you up. I only needed one hand to do it back then, that’s how small you were. And as I lifted you up out of the sack, I could feel your heart beating against my hand. It was fast. And strong. You were shaking. I didn’t know if you were cold or scared.”

I was just cold
, Bad Dog said.

Cavalo waited, as he knew he should.

And scared
, Bad Dog admitted.

“I pulled you against my chest and wrapped you in my shirt, and we sat there for a while. In the dark. Eventually you fell asleep, but not before you gnawed on my thumb with your little puppy teeth and I called you a bad dog. You’ve been with me ever since, and you always will be.”

I remember
, Bad Dog whispered and then closed his eyes.
This is my home. You’re my home.

“I know.”

The dog huffed. Sighed. And then snored.

Cavalo waited until he was sure the dog was asleep. He stroked an ear and the white stripe between the eyes.

He looked over at Lucas. The Dead Rabbit’s expression was unreadable.

It’s Wormwood
, the bees said.
It’s all the star Wormwood. Repent! Repent!
They laughed.

Cavalo held the gaze until he followed his dog into sleep.

HE WAS
awoken sometime later, a great weight on his chest and a sharp pressure at his neck. He opened his eyes and stared into glittering blackness.

Lucas straddled Cavalo’s chest, holding a knife against his throat.

Cavalo darted his eyes to the right. Bad Dog slept, having curled away from him during the night.

He looked back up at Lucas.

The Dead Rabbit had a dark look on his face, teeth bared, eyes wide with rage. The hand holding the knife did not shake as it pricked his skin. Cavalo felt a trickle of blood roll down his neck and drip to the floor near his ear.

“Lucas,” Cavalo said quietly. He didn’t want Bad Dog to wake because then someone in this lookout would die. Cavalo didn’t know who. “Is it the bees?”

Lucas nodded. Pursed his lips and blew.
Yes. The bees. They’re loud.
He pressed the knife harder.
They want me to kill you. To see your blood.

“We all have bees. You said it yourself. You have to push them back.”

Yes. But sometimes the bees are stronger.

He leaned forward until their noses almost touched, eyes locked.

To Cavalo, it was like looking into the sky on a clear winter night. Cold and impossibly vast.