Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies Page 20

  Chapter 18.

  The next thing I know, I’m looking up from a cot beneath a green tent, and Echo is sitting beside me. Her eyes are bloodshot, but they widen when I catch them. She says my name, and then her hands are on my face, she’s kissing my cheeks, my eyes, my forehead. My hands are in her hair. It’s only now, as she pauses over me, eyes clamped on mine, that I know how much I’ve missed her. We were so bent on pursuing the Grass Man that I submerged everything else. Echo was always on my mind, but forced to the background to keep the emotional noise down. Now the feelings are free to come to the surface, and I’m embroiled in a tide of powerful longing.

  An equally terrible grief arises. I can’t suppress it. Only a step away, Starbucks was struck like lightning from a clear sky. I’m weeping, and Echo sits there gazing at me, her hand running lightly down my face, and I can’t stop or look away. I’m hypnotized. She’s here, willing to accept both pain and pleasure, to share it.

  “I knew you’d come for me,” she says after a time.

  “Starbucks–”

  “I know, Tristan. I know.”

  “Why’d they shoot him? Who are these people?” I ask

  “Soldiers from Last Bastion. They’re at war with Cyberia. They shoot robots on sight.”

  “But Starbucks wasn’t–”

  “They don’t care, Tristan. He wasn’t human. That’s all that matters to them.”

  I look around the tent. There are a few empty cots. No one else is inside. The back of my head hurts. Oh yeah–someone hit me. I wouldn’t stop screaming, so they knocked me out.

  “Where are the others? Where’s Jarvis and Octavia?” I ask.

  Echo’s expression hardens.

  “The Grass Man sold them, Tristan. Milly and Jareth too. I was the only one left.”

  I close my eyes. Disaster. This is a disaster. But at least Echo is here.

  “Who were they sold to?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. An armored car came out of the west, over a broken road. The Grass Man was expecting them. A robot got out. I don’t know if anyone else was inside. I don’t know where they were going…”

  Her voice is shaky, on the verge of breaking.

  “Octavia cried all the time for her brother. When the Grass Man came, when he realized Ambrose wasn’t–useful–he left him behind. But Ambrose ran after us. The Grass Man just burned him down, Tristan. It was terrible … And Jarvis–Jarvis was the bravest. He tried to keep our spirits up. He was sure Starbucks would come. Mudcross was bad, but at least we were all still together. When the others were taken, I thought I would die. I never felt so alone. The Grass Man never talked to us, never told us anything, but I overheard him when he sold the others. He was saving me for someone further north, some kind of collector. I was so scared, Tristan.”

  We let that sit for a time, reflecting. I curse at Last Bastion.

  “Why’d they have to shoot Starbucks? He was on our side. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

  “I know. It’s the way they think, Tristan. Listen, I need to tell you something. They’ve got–”

  “Awake?” a man interrupts, coming through the tent-flap. “Good. You’re to come with me.”

  “Where?” I ask.

  “The Commander wants to see you.”

  “I’m coming too,” Echo says.

  “He didn’t ask for you. You wait here,” the soldier insists.

  “Did I trade one slaver for another? Am I a captive now? If the Commander doesn’t want me with Tristan, fine, I’ll wait outside his tent. Not here,” Echo says.

  There’s a ferocity to her I’ve rarely seen. The soldier looks her up and down a moment, then grunts and motions for us to follow.

  It’s dark outside. We’re at an encampment in the forest. Men are assembled in small groups around three fires, talking, lounging, eating. There are about twenty in sight. Throwing back a devilish orange reflection on a spike near the fire is the Grass Man’s missing head. The skull-mask is still affixed, though a chunk is missing. The black eyes leer at us from the grave. Maybe it’s a petty gesture, but I spit on it as we pass.

  The Commander’s tent looks much like the others, except there are two men standing guard outside. Echo is made to stop at the flap while I follow the soldier inside. The Commander is sitting at a table. He has an impressive white beard, blue eyes, and an aura of authority. He gives me an appraising look as I’m led to a chair.

  “Commander Boris Bellring, Special Operations, Fourth Battalion, of the Last Bastion of Mankind. And you are?” he asks. His voice is deep and slow.

  “Tristan,” I say.

  “Tristan. Very well. What were you doing in the company of a machine, Tristan?”

  “You mean the robot your men murdered?” I ask, feeling a flush of anger.

  “You can’t murder what was never alive, boy.”

  “He was no threat to you. You had no reason to kill him,” I say.

  “It had a laser rifle. And we have every reason to put down every walking machine between here and Laska. Now answer my question.”

  “We were after the Grass Man,” I say.

  “The what?”

  “The robot you killed–I mean, the other robot, the one whose head is on a spike out there. He abducted our friends. We were trying to get them back.”

  “Is that so,” he says. For some reason, he sounds doubtful.

  “Yes,” I say emphatically. He looks at the soldier behind me, then back at me.

  “Start from the beginning,” he says.

  So I do. I tell him how we boarded the caravan, but then I have to go backwards to how we met Starbucks and Jarvis in the ruins. I talk of Byron’s betrayal and the zombies at Mudcross. He shares more looks with the soldier. Doubt brews among them. When I’m done, he sighs and says, “Bring in the other one.” I assume he means Echo.

  I’m wrong.

  “You!” Byron yells when he sees me, his eyes going wide. He lunges at me. The soldier has to wrestle him back. He’s yelling things about betrayal and trickery. I’m so startled I can’t properly react. I’m just staring slack-jawed.

  “We have a dilemma,” the Commander says, his voice grave.

  Byron was picked up by Last Bastion scouts on a small boat north of where we left him. He must’ve told the scouts something about the caravan being ambushed and the Grass Man heading north. He probably wasn’t expecting the men to radio back to a larger encampment, let alone bring him along. Byron had to know that if the soldiers freed anyone from the old caravan, he’d be identified as the betrayer. By now he’s pumped them full of his version of the story, which, I’m both astonished and outraged to discover, holds that I betrayed the caravan.

  When I grasp what he’s saying, I rise from my chair, hurling curses at him, and he falls back convincingly as though frightened. All his reactions are calculated to put me in a bad light. But nobody could possibly believe him–could they? A soldier pushes me back into the chair.

  “Just ask Echo!” I shout, looking at Bellring.

  “Oh, right, ask her! You turned them all against me, you and your tricks and your empty words, you son-of-a-bitch,” Byron yells. “You made them think I was you, even as I was caged and dragged away–and where were you and your robot friend during the ambush? Out in the woods, waiting for them to take us! Go ahead, deny it.”

  I’m aghast. The temerity of his lies is beyond me. Rage chokes me. I’m lunging for him before I know it, wrapping my hands around his neck, and the soldier has to put an immobilizing headlock on me.

  “Enough,” the Commander declares. He’s on his feet, glaring at us.

  “I take it you deny the charges?” he asks, looking at me.

  “Me? It was him, don’t you see?”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. But you were in the presence of a machine when we found you, which in Last Bastion territory is a crime in itself, and that puts you in a ver
y questionable light.”

  “Starbucks was on our side,” I sputter.

  “There are no machines on ‘our’ side, boy. ‘Our’ side is the human race. And these robots are as dead as any of the plague-walkers, only smarter. In the south you may have things confused, but out here we know who the real enemy is. In any case, one of you is a very convincing liar, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with convincing liars. While I waste breath on you, there’s a war going on, and I have a mission to attend to. So. I’ll let the courts deal with you. If you’re lucky, they’ll only hang one of you.”

  He nods to the soldier and waves us toward the flap.

  “What courts? What’s happening?” I ask.

  “The courts of Last Bastion. I’m already losing two men to escort your female friend. Now they can escort all three of you.”

  What does he mean by that–he’s sending Echo to Last Bastion? I’ve heard the city-state mentioned a time or two in Farmington, but I know nothing of it. I want to protest, but I don’t know what to say. The soldiers are already bringing us outside. In keeping with his role, Byron spits at me. It sends me into another rage. They have to drag us to separate quarters.

  Later I’m in a tent with Echo, under guard. They weren’t going to let her in, but she threw a fit with such ferocious determination that the guard backhanded her once and shoved her inside, whereupon Echo took a deep breath, fixed a strand of hair and sat calmly beside me, as though she’d just won an argument.

  My rage has dipped toward depression. I can’t believe we’re here–Starbucks dead, Jarvis and Octavia missing. First robots want to capture us, then humans. The goddamn zombies have been our best allies yet!

  Echo’s presence is the one good point. We’re in this together now. It’s us against the world again, as it was in the desert. She still has her necklace, and she fingers the heart-shaped jewel absently in the tent.

  “Why did you keep that?” I ask.

  “I kept all the things you gave me. They were like treasures from another world. This is necklace all I have left.”

  I nod. Then I remember something.

  “Did you know they were planning to send you to Last Bastion?”

  Echo probes her cheek with her tongue.

  “Commander Bellring implied able-bodied young women are in high demand in Last Bastion … They need babies,” she adds when I continue to stare at her. “They’ve lost a lot of people in the fighting with Cyberia, and Commander Bellring said a sickness left many of their women infertile. If they don’t find more soon, in a generation or two they’re not going to have enough people to hold down the city.”

  I’m almost afraid to ask what she thinks of that possibility. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to be forced into anything–but strong walls, steady food, a sense of community? Better than starving in the wild, evading hostile robots and mindless roamers.

  “Cyberia. That’s the same place the Doctor warned us about,” I muse. “He said it was run by one of his brothers. One of the Seven. Last Bastion is at war with them? Still, Starbucks was on our side. Killing all robots indiscriminately can’t be the answer. Foundry, Cove, Last Bastion–I have yet to hear of a single city-state I’d actually want to live in.”

  “Haven will be different,” Echo says, though she casts her eyes downward, and I can hear the hope stretched thin in her voice.

  “Yeah. Different,” I say, lying on the lone cot they’ve left in my tent. Echo squeezes in next to me, and things feel a little closer to right, even here. We create our own psychological bubble, shielding us from the outside world. Her breath tickles my neck, her frame moves against me.

  “I missed you,” I admit.

  “Tristan, I … I don’t want to be apart again. Just stay with me, wherever we go,” she says, and despite all that’s happened, it’s gratitude that fills me most as I drift off to sleep.

  A soldier wakes us in the morning. My arm is numb, my brain slow, and it takes me a minute to get my bearings. When I do, there’s an awareness of all we’ll have to face today, and it brings a profound disappointment–this life again? Echo moans concordantly.

  We’re on the road before we know it. Two men are sent to guide and guard us–Sampson and Barabas. They’re both wearing camouflage. Each carries a rifle and has a plasbrid pistol holstered on their hip. There’s no pretending Echo is free now. The three of us are tied in a line by our wrists: myself, Echo, and Byron. Barabas leads while Sampson brings up the rear. Our packs, along with rations for the trip, are on a small cart pulled by Sampson. They say our stuff will be returned to us if we’re found innocent, but I suspect they’ve brought it only to sell for themselves after we’ve been hung. Volume Seven is still in my pack. It’s been so long since Toyota gave it to me.

  As we head north into the wilderness, I think of Starbucks lying dead in the forest. Will they just leave him there by the Grass Man until the earth covers them both? Probably. He deserves better. Someone should pay for his death, but who? The soldier who shot him? What about all the others who would’ve done the same? It was the Last Bastion mentality that killed him more than anything.

  What will I tell Jarvis?

  Who am I kidding? We’ll never see Jarvis or Octavia again. The tides of fate have swept them away, drowning Starbucks in the process.

  Once again, our path leads north. We stick to the wilderness, keeping off the roads. These parts are travelled mostly by sentient robots. At one point we cross a stone bridge leading northwest over a bend in the river. A road runs west from the bridge, and a stone tower sticks into the air from a small town in the distance. Echo asks about it.

  “Pillar,” Barabas says.

  I glance back into wide blue eyes. Echo mouths the name to me. For a moment I can’t think of where I’ve heard it. Then I remember. The Doctor, speaking of Haven: an enclave north of the z-line, west of Pillar. My heart pounds a little faster. We continue north, however, leaving Pillar behind us. Echo looks wistfully west, as if to catch a glimpse of the sanctuary from her dreams.

  As for our guards, Sampson is big and strong but simple-minded. Barabas is more on edge and orders the simpler man around. I almost forget Sampson’s name at one point because all we ever hear him called is “Dumbshit.”

  Last Bastion is a week away, which gives us a little time to maneuver. At night, we’re bound to a tree. I have no idea how we might escape, but I do know all three of us have no intention of reaching the city-state.

  On the second day, Echo manipulates the situation. Her tactic is unsurprising really, because it’s the same brutally simple genetic appeal she’s been forced to survive on since being orphaned at Farmington–though I’ve never seen her use it this deliberately. It starts when we reach a small stream. We’re untied temporarily to fill canteens and wash up. Echo takes off her boots and rolls up her sleeves, relishing in the water. She splashes it on her face, washes her arms and hair. She throws back her head and runs a hand down her face and neck, pulling at her collar as the water drips down her skin. Wet streaks appear on her shirt. The fabric clings to her skin. It’s impossible not to realize that she’s the only female in the group. She comments in an offhand way how she’d just die to stay there and bathe in the stream all day. All four of us are staring at her, probably picturing the same thing.

  The next part I don’t actually see. She has to use the bathroom, and Sampson unties her and escorts her into the forest while we wait. When they come back, she’s leaning heavily on the big man’s shoulder, limping. What I notice most is the careful way in which he supports her.

  “I stepped on a rock,” she says, wincing.

  “Why were your boots off?” Barabas asks, scowling.

  “In Farmington, I never wore shoes. You can drag me to Last Bastion. You can’t tell me how to live,” she says, then turns sweetly to Sampson and thanks him in a private voice for all his help, holding out her wrists
docilely to be tied back into line. I’ve never seen her act this feminine, and in a way it’s intimidating. She’s better at charming people than I realized.

  From that point on, whenever she needs help, it’s Sampson this and Sampson that. She calls him “sweetheart” when he gives her a better portion of meat and flashes a secret smile when Barabas isn’t looking. It’s all very casual. She’s careful not to overdo it. On the third day, I play into it some. When Sampson fumbles with the rope to untie Echo for another bathroom trip, I mumble something involving the word “brainless.”

  “At least he has the wits to be on the winning side. I don’t see him tied up,” Echo says, glaring at me. Byron chuckles. Despite our mutual hatred, he can’t want to face a trial at Last Bastion any more than I do. His eyes flit to the plasbrid pistol on Sampson’s hip. He’d probably love to use that gun on all of us. Echo is actually in range to make a grab for it. Barabas is watching closely though, and we’ll only get one chance. We have to choose the moment carefully–before Byron does.

  Sampson escorts Echo a short distance into the woods again, and after they return this time, he throws a lot of uneasy looks at his fellow soldier. I wonder exactly what seeds she’s planting out there.

  The rest of the day, Echo and I are subtly at odds. She gives me dirty looks and disagrees with anything I say. It actually generates some real anger, even though I know there’s a purpose behind it. It gives her more opportunity to defend Sampson, for one thing, and any deception seems worth cultivating, even without an exact plan. Meanwhile, Barabas grows suspicious and starts snapping at Echo to shut up whenever she speaks.

  “Don’t be such a bully,” she mumbles.

  He overhears and his eyes widen in outrage.

  “Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing? Keep your mouth shut, bitch. You forget where you are,” Barabas says.

  “Where I am? I’m not on trial. Commander Bellring said I’d be free when we reach Last Bastion. He said Last Bastion needs women like me. I’m only tied up because he was afraid I might get some silly idea and try to help one of these two escape, or run off into the woods, isn’t that right?” she asks.

  Barabas moves in close to her, seething.

  “We’re not in Last Bastion yet, and if you ever want to get there in one piece, I suggest you shut your mouth. You think this is a game? You know how many men died to free you?” he asks, flushing in anger.

  Echo is silent a moment.

  “How many?” she asks.

  “Six,” Barabas says.

  This has a sobering effect on us all–or all except Byron. We walk in silence for a time.

  “I’m sorry,” Echo says quietly, then asks Sampson, “Did you fight against the Grass Man too?”

  “Yes,” Sampson says.

  “You must be very brave.”

  He can’t help but stand a little straighter. Barabas has a deep scowl. There’s a brittle tension.

  Late in the day we stop for a meal, and Echo argues with me about what we’ll do when we get to Last Bastion. She hints that she’ll need a real man to protect her, because she can’t rely on me to live past the trial. False or not, her words sting me. Sampson says nothing, but he sits up and his eyes rove toward her.

  “I thought I was quite clear about the talking,” Barabas says slowly, glaring at her. There’s a knife in his hand. He was using it to cut the meat, but his words give it a sinister aspect. An oppressive silence falls. Barabas goes to re-secure the rations in the cart. When he’s just out of earshot, Echo whispers:

  “Why’s he always ordering everyone around?”

  “Barabas? He’s just cranky,” Sampson says.

  “Well, I don’t like the way he bullies you.”

  “Bully? He doesn’t bully me.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’re the same rank,” Sampson says, frowning.

  “He sure doesn’t act like it. Personally, I think he’s jealous.”

  “Jealous? Of what?”

  “You, obviously. You’re much stronger than him,” Echo says.

  Sampson looks dumbfounded. He doesn’t know what to say. He buries himself in his food, embarrassed.

  “To tell you the truth, he scares me,” Echo goes on.

  “Barabas nothin’ to be scared of,” Sampson says.

  “Maybe not for you. But me? He doesn’t like me. I can tell. You … you wouldn’t let him hurt me, would you?”

  Sampson’s headshake is fervent. Echo gives him a grateful smile just as Barabas returns. He glares at her, angry and suspicious.

  Toward dusk, it happens.

  We’ve set up camp in a grassy enclave a safe distance from any roads. It’s been a long day and tempers are short. Echo calls for a final bathroom break before we’re to be bound for the night. Sampson moves immediately to untie her but Barabas intercepts him.

  “I’ll take her,” Barabas says, reaching for Echo’s wrists.

  Echo shies away in fear, and this time her reaction is genuine–Barabas really is angry at her, and alone in the woods, there’s no telling what he’ll do. Her eyes go to Sampson. She says nothing, yet the mute appeal is plain on her face: you wouldn’t let him hurt me, would you?

  “No–no need, Barabas. I’ll go,” Sampson says. His first “no” is a bit too emphatic, however. It brings forth the deeper tension. He too reaches for the rope. Barabas looks at him in disbelief.

  “Let go, Dumbshit.”

  “I think–I think I should take her,” Sampson says.

  “You do, do you? Tell me, why’s that?”

  “Just … Just think I should, is all.”

  “You really are a dumb shit, you know that? Can’t you even see she’s manipulating you, you blind oaf? Stay here and watch the others. I’ll take her. And when we come back, I don’t want you talking to her. Not a single word.”

  “Is that so? Well, I like talking to her. I like it, Barabas. And–and we’re the same rank, you know that? You can’t just–”

  “Listen, you stupid f–”

  Their voices rise with their tempers. They try to talk over one another. They’re both in front of Echo, easily within her reach, their rifles slung over their shoulders, their pistols at their sides. Echo is in the middle of the rope-line, with I and Byron tied five or six feet to either side … which means I’m only a few steps from Barabas. Sampson is just beyond him. With our wrists bound, it’s going to be hard to un-holster a gun fast enough to threaten them with, but one of us has to try. We may not get another chance like this.

  Now that the moment’s here, I’m terrified. I’m not ready for it. I see things going wrong in my head. Nevertheless, I’m inching closer. Barabas is facing away from me, and just as I steel myself to lunge and make a grab for his sidearm–

  –he turns, sensing danger. I freeze, gaping. My intentions are plain as day.

  “What do you think you’re–” he starts, his hand straying toward the pistol.

  He never finishes.

  Byron, unnoticed, has found a rock just big enough to matter. Wielding the implement in his bound hands, he strikes Sampson in the back of the head. The big man falls forward into Barabas’s back. As his companion collapses against him, Barabas stumbles and spins toward Byron, drawing his pistol. Time slows down. The gun is coming up, Byron is ducking behind Echo, and all I can picture is the plasmic mass going through her. I’m charging forward. My shoulder hits Barabas from behind as he’s drawing, bowling him over. The gun flies from his hand. I go down with him, on top of him, on top of Sampson too.

  Sampson is senseless, but Barabas is angry. He’s rolling out, shoving me off. It’s hard to fight with your wrists bound. Where’s the gun? I don’t know, but Sampson’s pistol is still in its holster. I’m reaching for it–

  There’s a formidable thud. Another, like wood splitting. It’s a sound I’ll never forget–the sound of Barabas’s skull cracking. Byron is smashing h
is head in with the rock. My hands are on the gun, I’m trying to pull it free, but then Byron is towering over me, the rock in his hands, triumph in his eyes. I’m too late–I’ll be his third victim. Four high-tech weapons on hand, and he’s killing everyone with the simplest and oldest instrument of all.

  Echo screams.

  She yanks the rope with both hands. We’re all still tied together. Byron is swinging the rock, but the rope pulls his wrists off-course. The blow comes down to one side of me. Now the gun is coming free from Sampson’s holster, and I swing it around. I’ve got Byron in my sights.

  He’s sees it. He knows he’s covered. Rage flickers through his eyes. Then the mask comes down, the smile, the twinkling eyes. His false face. He drops the rock and straightens.

  “Good job. We’re free. Let’s get the hell out of here!” he says. “Find a knife to cut this rope–does he have one on him?”

  He’s checking Barabas. The side of the soldier’s head is a grisly mess, partially caved in. Byron isn’t bothered by it at all. I haven’t moved an inch. Echo stands apart, staring at Byron with shock and loathing.

  “What? We’re free, aren’t we? What are you waiting for?” Byron asks, looking between us, exactly as though he hadn’t just tried to brain me.

  “Yeah, Tristan. What are you waiting for?” Echo asks, but her eyes never leave Byron, and her voice is grim. I’m still aiming the pistol, which lends her question a different meaning. Byron puts his hands up, palms forward–or as forward as his bound wrists will allow.

  “Woah. I just freed us, okay? You guys owe me. Don’t try and–”

  “Owe you? You would’ve killed us!” Echo shouts.

  “–pull this bullshit now. I saved your asses, that’s–”

  “You tried to hit Tristan with a rock! Do you think we’re stupid? We wouldn’t even be out–”

  “–what I did. You ought to be thanking me. Now find–”

  “–here if it weren’t for you. You’re poison. That’s what you are, poison.”

  “–a knife so we can the hell out of here,” Byron finishes.

  There’s a brief pause as they stare at each other, chests heaving. Echo’s expression is pure fury. Byron affects mild outrage, as though he’s been wronged.

  “You can’t talk your way out of this one, Byron,” I tell him.

  Keeping the gun aimed, I maneuver to stand. The pistol’s rubbery grip is warm in my hands. Maybe I should’ve shot him right away, before there was time to consider things. Why didn’t I? I don’t know. I like to think things through, I guess. To be sure. It’s something you can’t take back. True, I’ve wanted him dead since the morning of the ambush. Still, I hesitate.

  Byron licks his lips.

  “So this is how you treat your friends, huh? This is what you do to the people who help you most,” he says.

  That sends Echo into another tirade. She takes a step toward him, her hands like claws, trembling with rage. She screams mutated vulgarities. Names are mixed in: Ambrose, Kitra, Jarvis.

  “Don’t forget Starbucks,” I say.

  “I didn’t hurt any of those people. You’re delusional,” Byron says. “It was all the Grass Man–and he’s dead now. You got your revenge. So–okay, I took some money, is that what you want to hear? I took money to carry something in my pack, God help me! I didn’t know it was going to lead to all this. I was desperate. I needed the coin. You can’t blame me for that, man. Bad people were after me. If I didn’t do something, I would’ve been dead before I ever got on that caravan.”

  “I wish you had been,” Echo says.

  Byron looks stricken.

  “How can you say that? Didn’t we have good times? Echo, I–the things I told you, those were true. I bared my heart to you. Why do you wanna rip it out now? Remember what we had. I never meant to hurt you. I would never do that. I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

  It’s amazing–he sounds so sincere. I think he even believes some of it. He goes on and on. I get the feeling he’ll talk forever. It’s his best survival skill, and he’s honed it well. He contradicts himself in the same sentence and thinks of nothing it. He tries everything to get a reaction, to gain some semblance of sympathy or pity. It’s like he’s rolling down a hill, trying to pull us along, to get us headed in the same direction, and whenever he hits a bump, he just keeps on rolling.

  “Enough,” I say.

  I know what I need to do. It will be justice, not vengeance. More than that, it will be a preventative measure. If we let him live, he’ll get someone to come after us or go back to ambushing caravans or both. The world will be better off without him. And it’s not that I can’t pull the trigger. I’m just … waiting. For an alternative, perhaps, or a mental trigger, some sign that the time has come for the final drastic act.

  “Christ. Do it then. Do it! What are you waiting for?” Byron says angrily, then switches moods without a moment’s pause. “You can’t do this. Not you, Tristan. Where’s your honor? I thought you were a good person. I thought we understood each other. You know I was just trying to survive, man! You going to kill me for that? Why? I set you free, and now want to murder me? What kind of trick is this? Can you live with being a murderer, Tristan? Can you?”

  All the while, he’s gauging my reactions, but he sees not the slightest change. He changes tactics again.

  “Okay, listen. I’ll leave, okay? You’ll never see me again. I swear it. The truth now, the real truth. Just cut the rope and I’m gone for good, and may the old American gods strike me dead if I’m lying. I’ll go east across New Sea. I’ll never touch another caravan. I swear on my life. What … What do you want, man? You want me to beg? I’m begging. Okay, look–I’m on my knees. Is this what you want? Echo, talk to him, make him see reason. I don’t want to die, Tristan. You’ll regret this if you do it. You’ll think about it ‘til the end of your days. You’ll have nightmares about it. Let me go. It’s the right thing to do. Deep down, it’s what you want to do. I know it is…”

  He looks at us both in turn. We’re emotionally stonewalling him. There’s a heavy silence. His eyes rove. He looks at the remnants of the sinking sun. A sheen of tears is reflected in the dying light. Byron shakes his head slightly.

  “I didn’t want it to be this way,” he says quietly, and for once I believe him. He’s doesn’t mean the caravaners and such–he couldn’t care less about them. He means his life as a whole. It’s his last resort: sincerity. He’s touching something real, a feeling beneath it all, a memory perhaps, a lost hope. Now I wish I had shot him that first instant.

  I’m silent still. His breath goes out in a sudden huff. He deflates like a balloon. His head drops. When he raises it, he’s lost all hope. He knows I can’t be swayed. And with the hope, everything else has fallen away; the masks and tricks, the goals and worries, the burdens of the living. Here, for the first time, is the real Byron: the bleak and tortured soul struggling for all its years to outmaneuver a hostile and uncaring world, a place full of thorns and nettles, where tricks and bold talk were the only tools capable of clearing a path. Now the world has beaten him. The path has reached its inevitable conclusion.

  “Do it then,” he whispers.

  I don’t hate him now. But it doesn’t change anything.

  “Better luck next life,” I say.

  The roar of the pistol echoes through the hills.