Market Theocracy

1.

Dawn found him on the north side of the mountain, sheltered against the wind. His small fire from the night before still lived, and took only a handful of gathered twigs and a few moments of stirring to set to dancing again. He unpacked the aging enamel coffeepot from his pack and filled it with icy water from the nearby stream, sitting it precariously on the cross made by the two largest pieces of mostly burned wood in the fire. When it approached boiling, he threw in a handful of ground coffee and waited.

There he sat, as the world faded into view with the rising son and took notice of him; a tall-for-his age fifteen year old, thin and lanky, with close cropped black hair and the first smudges of a beard. Gray green eyes reflected the new light calmly, lacking the usual teenaged surliness. They simply observed and—more often than not—enjoyed what they saw.

The state of his campsite reflected something of his character as well. Other than himself, his fire, a backpack and a sleeping bag, the area looked undisturbed. No tracks led to this place and none would be found leaving it. No litter defaced the ground. He considered these hills and this forest to be his home, and he had been taught by his mother from an early age to keep his home in order.

As he sipped the bitter first cup he thought of his mother and smiled. She would not approved of his style of coffee making—considering it wasteful and messy. The strength and sheer number of his mother’s opinions was one of the reasons that he often spent nights on the side of this and other hills.

The main reason, however, rested a half mile downhill and a mile uproad, dreams still singing behind her closed eyes.

It took only two cups of the brutally strong coffee to get him in a walking mood. He made quick work of cleaning the pot and re-packing his meager gear. Before he left he paused by the trickle of a steam. In the flow of the water he lightly sketched a double hex, a composite blessing and ward against ill. Etched in the surface tension, the magic quickly spread. From this humble beginning, gravity would create the many forks and branches of Grassy Creek, and—with one skillful shape—he blessed all who lived on her banks.

Smiling, he wished them a silent good day, and began his journey down.

The trails he followed were known by few and fewer every year. One of the reasons he was accepted and liked by the old timers in the area was his curiosity and willingness to use such knowledge. Unlike the majority of his generation, he found the past to be a vast and fascinating treasure trove, as important to existence as present and future.

He moved along the trails with a sure step and surprising speed. He followed them from instinct rather than memory, a map drawn on his soul rather than his mind. He made it down the hill in less than ten minutes, emerging in a natural field by the two lane blacktop that everyone called Farmer’s Road. The narrow field was separated from the passing traffic by the Cow Fork of Grassy Creek, and shielded from sight by a copse of elm and oak.

He followed the foot trail a slightly uphill quarter of a mile east until he came to a natural crossing of the creek. He stepped nimbly over the flat stones and emerged on Farmer’s road in time to return the amiable wave tossed to him by a passing coal truck.

If he continued east, a twenty minute walk would bring him to the highway that led north to his home. But he turned west, intent on his morning business.

As usual, his stomach clenched with worry and anxiety rose in him. He called himself a fool. He knew that she was all right. The connection they shared was the most powerful he’d ever experienced: he knew when she had a cold or stubbed her toe. Even as he worried he could feel her calm heartbeat and knew she would wake up no worse for wear, though probably hungover.

He fretted anyway, and would until he saw her face and watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed.

Just over a half mile up the road he caught sight of the car. The dirty while Cavalier was it’s usual battered self, no sign of accident or injury.

He smiled as he drew closer. Cat was waiting for him, patiently cleaning herself on the roof of the car, knowing his habits as well as he did.

“Keeping an eye on her for me, girl?” he whispered when he arrived, running a hand down her sleek spine. She favored him with a sidewise glance and resumed her routine.

Cat had been with him for almost five years now. She’d been living with a town couple and had simply decided to follow him home one afternoon when he’d passed her on his way. The people she had lived with called her—for unknown, probably horrific reasons—Bootsie. She’d shed that awful tag with her former life, and had been just Cat ever since. She was his friend, companion and—in most things—his co-conspirator.

He looked in through the window and the tension left him. He grinned with real pleasure. Laine was curled up in the backseat, her face a serene and innocent mask of slumber.

It was a face that inspired a thousand conflicting emotions on the deepest levels of his self. A face that haunted his thoughts and dreams. A face he cherished and adored.

The face of the woman he loved.

Laine Wallace was a short dark haired girl who tended towards chubby. She had the most lovely gray eyes—like looking into an oncoming storm. He thought she was incredibly beautiful. Some guys considered her plain or even ugly, but he dismissed them as fools too blinded by spoon fed ideas about beauty to recognize the glory of such a unique face.

As he stared, her eyes opened. She gazed at him blearily for a moment, then smiled and yawned.

“Good morning, Kevin.” she said, stretching from her uncomfortable position. “If you have a cigarette I promise I’ll love you forever.”

Even though he knew she wasn’t serious, you’ve never seen a pack produced quicker.

2.

Kevin made himself comfortable in the passenger seat while Laine smoked and woke up. She told him the story of the previous night and he listened as if he hadn’t observed it all—laughing and gasping and expressing shock in all the right places.

In truth, though, he had quietly followed her through the entire night. From the moment she left her parent’s house until the instant she parked her car and passed out in the backseat. He’d watched her dance and laugh and joke with her friends. Watched her drink Absolut and apple juice past the point of stupidity. Suffered through her long makeout session with some guy he did not know but now hated like fire. He’d watched—hidden by a short distance, simple shadows, and an elaborate glamour. Watched and waited, ready to step into the situation and do what needed doing if anyone or anything threatened her with harm.

This is what he did every weekend.

Laine was sixteen—one year and three days older than Kevin. She viewed that as an almost uncrossable gulf. They had known each other since birth, had gone through every grade of school together, and been friends since infancy. Kevin knew that Laine loved him, but that her love was brotherly.

It tore his heart out.

But he did not allow it to show—the heartbreak or the love—just as he did not let her know that he watched over her while she partied. Kevin’s kin—and those like them—were old hands at hiding reality behind an illusion of the commonplace.

“I’m getting old.” she complained as she crawled from the backseat and climbed behind the wheel. To do this she steadied herself on Kevin’s shoulder, and he held his breath, memorizing that touch, savoring it.

“You just drink too much.” he replied, keeping any judgment out of his voice. She smiled, and refrained from disagreeing.

She started the car and the sound of the engine made Kevin wince. The damn thing sounded like a herd of dying buffalo. Shifting into drive and pulling out only increased the hideousness of the noise. Laine drove as if the car was a brand new dragster—gaining too much speed far too quickly. Under his breath, Kevin muttered a hex of protection, empowering it with his very real fear.

“You should really bring this car to the house, girl.” he told her when the hex was complete. “Let Dad look at it. It sounds…”

“I know.” she sighed, casually passing a loaded truck around a curb marked no passing. “I hate to bother him, though. I’m broke.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “You know he wouldn’t charge you. He likes you.” He paused until they rounded a particularly bad double curb without dying. “And everybody else seems to live with asking him to work for free.”

Laine’s face took on a surprisingly prim set. “Just because everybody else is doing something doesn’t make it right for me to do something.” Kevin stifled a laugh, and wondered if she knew how much she sounded like her mother.

“I’m not a bum.” she informed him. “Hey…gimme another smoke.”

He shook his head and laughed. Laine didn’t seem to catch on. He smoked on occasion, but mostly kept the cigarettes for her. He lit one and passed it to her.

They reached the end of Farmer’s Road and Laine turned to him. “You want a ride home?”

“Nah.” he told her. “I’m heading to Edge Hills. If you’re not doing anything you should take me. They want a twenty sack. I got some of that kill shit like I got last year.”

Laine’s eyes widened. “Aww, hell! It is harvest time, ain’t it!” Her face broke into an expression of delight and surprise. She pointed the car towards Edge Hills and sped off without another thought.

“If you forgot about that you really are drinking too much.” he told her.

She just grinned at him.

Halfway to their destination, the muffler fell off. They ended up announcing their arrival at Edge Hills with great fanfare and much annoyance.

Eric Lancaster came up from unconsciousness in layers; gently managed stages designed to reduce shock and disorientation. Godiva, the familiar he had carefully designed and built since the age of six, was an old hand at this. She’d certainly gotten enough practice. A youth spent on the rougher streets of Houston and a long decade as a Charleston soldier for hire had given her the experience to manage something as simple as unconsciousness.

The final stage before full waking was a pleasantly dim space filled with soothing music and warm memories. He called it The Lobby.

Eric, love, I may as well be blunt. Godiva told him. You’re a prisoner.

“Shit.” he muttered.

Calm down. Deseret Union is well known for humane prisoner policies. They’re more interested in ransoms than honor killings. Godiva chuckled. Some claim that’s the main reason they bother with fighting. But I suspect that’s mainly anti-Mormon prejudice.

Eric smiled, but shook his head. “May not be a ransom this time.” he reminded her. “I’ve let my dues to MidAmerican slip in the past month. And Charleston hasn’t bothered insuring grunts since the fuckin’ union insisted on combat bonuses in lieu.”

I said calm down, laddie!

Eric sighed. He hadn’t programmed the stern motherly tone Godiva often adopted, but that was the price for high functioning individual cognitive software: random variations in the personality were a given. Things could be worse, he knew. He had a friend who’s familiar often went off into hour long rants about the Masons. And he knew a gal who’s proxy often did impressions in moments of stress. A little mothering, he figured, was a small price to pay.

I was allowed a half hour of full access, in order to make bond arrangements. she explained. I contacted Meline.

Eric groaned. “You mean you contacted Amelia.”

Godiva’s voice could barely conceal her smirk. Of course. Meline was sleeping. Amelia promised she’d arrange your release as soon as she got the go ahead from her girly.

“Are you two ever going to stop scheming to get us back together?” Eric asked her,knowing the answer.

Certainly not. Godiva said, rather insulted at the suggestion. Are you two ever going to admit that your familiars know what’s good for you and let what’s been obvious since you were both toddlers happen?

“I’m currently at the mercy of Mormons.” he reminded her, darkly. “Can we talk about this later?”

If you please. But her voice had that infuriating Mother-knows-best shading. You ready for reality?

He sighed. “As I’ll ever be. Am I alone?”

Godiva laughed. No. These are Mormons, baby. First they’ll try to convert you. Then they’ll simply make sure your ransom will be paid — all the while making sure you’re comfortable, cheerful and aware of how disgustingly nice they are.

“Better than hot rods and bamboo skewers I guess.”

Marginally. Here we go…

The Lobby faded. Light intensified. Ambient sound intruded. Around Eric Lancaster, the world came out of hiding.

Godiva wasn’t kidding. His warden’s smiling face was looming over him as soon as his vision focused.

“Well welcome to Deseret, Mr. Lancaster!” the voice was annoyingly chipper and scarily sincere. This guy was honestly welcoming a prisoner of war to his happy little community. “I’m Brother Thaddeus. I’ll be your host and liaison.”

Eric attempted an experimental move and discovered that he was completely paralyzed.

“My captor, you mean. Or do you paralyze every guest as a matter of course?”

Thaddeus chuckled, appreciating the joke. “A security precaution, I’m afraid. We’ve had more than a few guests come up from the bed swinging. As soon as you prove you’re civil and cooperative, the stasis will be released and you’ll have full run of the guest dorm.” Thaddeus beamed in such a way that suggested he could not imagine a more enjoyable thing to have full run of.

His captor glanced at a wristcom. Mormon doctrine proscribed implants and familiars. Wearable tech was as state-of-the-art as they got. “Your ransom has actually been paid, so you have little to worry about.” Another glance. “A Miss Meline Kennaly, I see. Girlfriend?” His eyebrow raised to suggest this was a just-us-guys thing.

He took Eric’s silence as a rebuke, actually blushing a little. “None of my business I suppose.”

Eric shrugged. It wasn’t that, really. It was that he himself wasn’t sure what his relationship to Meline Kennaly actually amounted to. Friends, most certainly — they’d practically been raised together in early childhood while Eric’s father served as head of James Kennaly’s security detail. When his father was killed in an attack on headquarters, Eric had run away rather than deal with his grief and confusion. He spent five years on the streets. In that time, the only person he made contact with was Meline, who could always be counted on to lend him cash or a sympathetic ear. After his last stint in City Jail, she’d even helped him get the soldiering job in Charleston.

And, he admitted, he loved the girl. A deep down love and affection he felt for no other living thing. And no non-living thing with the possible exception of Godiva. But girlfriend? Not exactly.

Sometime during this little brood the stasis was lifted. He sat up, joints a bit cramped and skin tingling.

“Care for a bite to eat?” Thaddeus asked. “The cook here does an excellent lunch.”

Eric realized suddenly that he was starving. He thanked his captor, who muttered into the wrist com to order. While they waited, Eric asked the only real question he dreaded.

“So. How did the battle turn out?”

Thaddeus sighed. “Inconclusive, the way these ridiculous border flare ups usually go.” He cocked his head at Eric and, smile drifting a little, asked a question of his own.

“Why on earth would Charleston side with thugs like United Secular Utah? Deseret has never had anything but amiable relations with Charleston or any of the Southern Citystates.”

Lunch arrived — fried chicken and ample sides — and Eric dug in. He shook his head at Thaddeus’ question.

“I’m a grunt, my friend. We don’t get the lowdown on why or what.” He paused to use a napkin. “If I had to guess, I’d say some convoluted treaty bullshit.”

Thaddeus opened his mouth to speak, when the alarm screamed from his wrist.

At the exact moment, Godiva screamed in his head: Incoming! Down Eric!

The world exploded. Eric grabbed Thaddeus and yanked him towards him, rolling off and under the bed, his half finished lunch disintegrating in the blast that took out the facing wall.

“What the hell?” shouted Eric.

Godiva was powering up combat system, enhancing senses and searching feeds desperately for answers.

Don’t know yet, but stay down!

Eric glanced at Thaddeus. He was unconscious and bleeding from a wound on the side of his head, but seemed in decent shape. His vitals were solid and regular.

He chanced a look at the destroyed wall. Smoke and flashes kept him from seeing anything. Vague raised voices, screams, and the sound of gunfire poured in from various directions.

Frying pans and fire, he thought. The life a soldier, eh?

While Godiva swam the infostreams, Eric prepared himself for a fight. He wondered if the guest house had a weapons cache anywhere.

He gently picked his captor up in settled him over his shoulder. For psychological reasons, he grabbed a large chunk of wood. Not much of a weapon, but swingable.

Once more into the breach, he thought. Holding his breath, and cranking his eye implants to max, he stepped through the shattered wall and into bedlam.

Old Spider is having trouble. The car just died on him, with neither complaint nor shout of warning, and sits refusing to start on the shoulder of this great wide highway that runs from Somewhere to Somewhere, right through the middle of Nowhere.

Old Spider is not a patient being. He is not willing to wait for help as the universe spins its mad dance around him. He gathers his rucksack and its bounty, and prepares to head west on the path he was taking. It was a stolen car. He can steal another, even in this age that makes a damn hard thing of stealing. He wont mind a little footwork until then. The night is beautiful and the stars hang above him in their web. He smiles at them.

Before he leaves, Old Spider shoots the car twice with the blunt and powerful pistol he carries on his left hip. It’s not clear if he is murdering the beast or putting it out of its misery. Knowing Old Spider, he could just be shooting to hear the report or to see the fake glass windshield turn into an oddly beautiful web of clinging sharpness, or just to savor the sound rushing away from him there on the flat expanse of desert.

Old Spider is a few miles up the road when a coyote finds him, and growls a respectful hello. Old Spider invites it to walk with him a stretch. He and the coyote swap stories for a while. Before they part, the coyote whispers that his kind can feel the Mother approaching. His kind are happy. They tire of the old stories and long to feel her gleaming presence, if only briefly. She is moving with great speed, they know, in a flat out run, and will only pass them by. Still, it is a moment much anticipated.

Old Spider smiles at this news, for his own reasons.

The coyote has never heard of Los Angeles, though.

Sometimes when Meline got the headaches she did stupid crazy shit.

This, it appears, is one of those times.

Vegas is boring, she thinks lying in bed and holding her head in both hands. It’s too freakin’ gaudy. And she wants suddenly — unexpectedly — to see her mother.

She packs the quick way, tried and true by grifters and little rich girls in a snit since Babylon. Open suitcase, dump contents of hotel room drawers into suitcase, add whatever you might like from the mini-bar and top it with a soap as a souvenir. Crumple and batter said mess until suitcase encloses it.

Then she’s off, out the door that refuses to slam, toting a grossly distorted bioplastic imitative suitcase trying diligently to conform its contents into something a bit more seemly as she strides. She’s a slight blond girl, with absolute zero cozsurgery. Pretty but plain, guys who didn’t know how much she was worth usually judged her. All her mods are on the inside. She has no taste for the currently extreme faddish body alterations.

They always remind her of people trying to be someone else.

Her brain and nervous system are a different story. A few million dollars worth of state of the art was spread out through the thinkfeel. But that was business.

Meline emerges from the maze of drop and lift tubes in the old fashioned lobby, all natty oak framing and mollydeep replicas of antiques. On the trip from her room to lobby, she has taken care of the details — paid the bills and left a note for her father. She bypasses the clerk with a wave and holds her breath until she makes it through the looking glass iris that opens and closes for her in the hotels diamond facade.

She gulps the hot dry air, and it seems to make her head pound a little less. She wakes up Amelia and sets her to work getting out of the city, into her car, and down the road through nowhere.

An airbus drops down into a public slot and she makes her way to it, prodded by her familiar. From here on out she can let Amelia handle the details, and try not to remember that her head feels like a rotted tooth.

The airbus is only half full, and its turbines hum happily as they fling their cargo over the City Of Shows.

Meline Kennaly stares out the window at the strip flowing along below her. Her head hurts.

She is sixteen, worth seven billion standard dollars, and is considered a full Sovereign entity by the World Court. Technically, she could start a freaking war. Not that she knows how.

It would be pretty easy to start one between Zimbabwe and Charleston. Amelia tells her in the deadly serious tone that means she is joking. The High Redeemer is still holding three Rothbardite missionaries and threatening to hang them. You have a lot of pull in Charleston.

Meline mimes disgust in her sensorium. You mean my scarily mutating and engorging trust fund has a lot of pull in Charleston, she corrects.

Honey, I’ve told you a million times. Don’t think of it as a big black cloud that hovers over you. Think of it as a big black viciously sharp axe that hovers over you, ready for anyone who wants to fuck with you.

Meline smiles at the old joke despite the pain.

She can do anything she wants to do, and what she wants to do right now is talk to her mommy.

The bus trip is short. Ten minutes later she is deposited in a drop spot in Beulahland, one of the vast parking spaces that now surround Las Vegas like a fortress. Private vehicle use is forbidden in the city. The not-really-private airbus and autocab services rule the streets and skies of the city proper.

Like most American cities east of the Mississippi and north of the Mas-Dix, Vegas has a strong state apparatus running it, and the only capitalism they believe in is the crony kind. None of that laissez-faire shit here. Vegas is actually more of a committee based aristocracy, with some of the most bewildering and jungle like estate laws in the world, making sure the economic power the Showbiz city generates stays in a carefully maintained pool of families. It is said that the Vegas Independence Constitution is one of the thickest and most rigidly adhered to documents in history.

Her father always says that constitutions are far better devices to encourage states rather than limit them. Vegas proved that he was right. The bastard usually is.

Like its fellow suburbs, Beulahland resembles a small town devoted to the business of parking vehicles. The same people who work here live here, deep below the flat stacked pancake rises of car and flyer ports. She wonders idly if, in a few generations, the families that remained would start giving themselves names like Valet and Gatekeep.

Meline follows Amelias gentle prompting down rows and ‘vators and finally to her car. Each step she takes makes her head scream at her.

Get in, slap the safeties, turn over control to me and close your eyes, baby doll. Amelia tells her. I’m going to dope you up. You need to sleep. Soon as we hit LA you are hiring a good medlab, sweetie. These headaches are getting ridiculous.

Meline’s car of the month is a Ferrari McQueen. All the Italians do now is build ridiculously fast cars. It’s a niche market, sure, but a niche market with vast pockets. They only make groudcars. ‘No Fly’ is the unofficial motto of the weak AI that functions as the Italian state. Of course, the AI says it in Italian, and it is orders of magnitudes prettier than the English statement.

It’s an anomaly that annoys her father, Meline knows. That the Italian people happily converted to a society where only 16% of the population work for a living creating a fine product beloved the world over. The rest are given the barely missed largesse of that 16% and live fine lives. Such a thing seemed unnatural to a raving plutarchist like James Kennaly.

It is a wide, sleek, muscular machine. Meline herself views it only as transport. Amelia, on the other hand, is something of a car nut. She likes power and luxury. The Ferrari has both in spades. The induction drive is axle-less and friction free. The Firestones are guaranteed puncture free for a half-million miles. It can do 0 to 120 km in under 3 seconds. Its cruising speed is 260 km per hour.

It is, of course, black.

Meline is barely in the car before the safeties engage. Amelia floods her with opiate analogs from the pharmacopeia implant. The pain muttered into silence. Meline smiles, and is asleep in moments.

Amelia takes control. She pumps the engine, enjoying the sensory link to the crackling power plant. She slams out of the carport, makes the slows and turns necessary, and exits Beulahland in a near silent thrum of speed. The gate clocks her at 300 km, and tickets her accordingly.

The landscape a blur, Amelia orients and heads for Los Angeles, giving into the rush of the speed and the roar of the road passing below.

Sleeping, Meline dreams of a gleaming coyote, running down the center of a black highway, sparks screaming from her feet as she lopes, the howl of the hunt all around her.

Here is an excerpt from my in-progress story Two Hundred Head Of Pig:

i. surveillance

Of course he sees them arrive. They won’t understand, but what they understand is based on ancient paradigms that no longer matter. He sees them arrive via a hundred cell phones and cheap digital cameras, flashed towards them in quick, subversive gestures: their own hard built surveillance state attitude turned against them as it must be turned.

He watches the various feeds, watches them troop from the planes. Ninja black, body armored. Faces hidden behind hoods and masks. They do not look human, as their heavy boots tromp in synchronized rhythm down landing ramps onto tarmac. No longer human, by their own conscious choice.

Pigs, the lot of them.

But only fifty. He is, for a brief moment, disappointed. Far from his goal. Far from the finish line.

But fifty is the most they’ve ever sent in one go.

Fifty, for the moment, will have to do.

Everybody’s world ends personally. That’s a truth that can’t be denied.

Some die in fire, some in the quiet leech of freezing cold. Some wracked in agony by poison. The lucky at the end of a long life, drifting away after a delicious dinner and many sweet goodbye kisses.

His died as he hunkered like a coward in a hiding hole, accompanied by a symphony of enraged dogs.

His ended with the sight of a two year old screaming, frantically rocking a baby doll in her arms. A baby doll with melted hair and a deformed head. Rocking, rocking. Seeking comfort by trying desperately to give it. Seeking comfort in a world falling apart before her eyes.

When he thinks back, when he dreams of that moment (as he does nearly every night) he realizes that this vendetta has more to do with that horrible moment in the short life of his baby cousin than the deaths of his uncles. He lies when he claims otherwise. He lies to himself, most of the time.

Every shot fired, every trap sprung, every skull collected. Urged on by that single image — by that unholy justice demanded for a child who cannot articulate the desire for justice.

Justice that demands two hundred head of pig.

ii. in brief

“What is this son of a bitch’s name?” Agent Dangeld asks his new assistant.

She’s a quick, polite sort. “James Franklin Farmer, sir.” she says in her crisp, perfectly modulated voice. She passes a depressingly thin dossier to him. “No real criminal record. No real records of any sort.”

The agent pretends to glance through the file, catching glimpses of Ms. Amanda Tate as he does so, assessing her, letting the voices argue.

He’s not schizophrenic — a dozen doctors have assured him of that. The voices — which have been with him for as long as he can remember — make no pretense of control or play none of the noted power games amongst themselves.

“Ugly but nice bod.” says Rickie, the perpetual teenager. “Consolation prize.”

Hiram sniffs. “First in class at UofM, Top 10 percent at Arlington. Her looks are the last thing we need to worry about.”

“A wild card.” mutters Rook, ever paranoid. “And too young to really judge.”

Dangeld drops the file on the desk in front of him. Amanda Tate stares at him attentively.

“Why the lack of records? Child of hermits?”

A half smile. Dangeld reflects that Rickie is right. She’s not a pretty woman. That smile is far from seductive.

“Not quite, sir. Just a hillbilly. Born and raised in these mountains.” She grabs the file and pages through it, using it as a reminder. “High school dropout. No college. Busted once for possession of marijuana.”

“No different than half the hicks in this hole in the world, then.” Dangeld snorts.

“Exactly.”

“Why then?”

Tate settles back, cocking her head in thought. “Local consensus is revenge.”

“Revenge?”

Tate returns to her file. “Last year — 6 months and three days ago to be precise — A heavy DEA/BATF CoOp Unit performed a routine raid on the property of Paul and Elmer Farmer.”

“Relation?”

“Uncles, sir.”

“Reason?”

“Propagation.” Tate returns. “Dead to rights with almost two hundred mature plants. Real connoisseur strains according to the final reports. Extremely potent NoCal/BC boutique hybrids. 450 dollar an ounce stuff, even in these boondocks.”

Dangeld sighs and rubs his forehead. He can almost guess the rest of this story.

“The Farmer’s were well known to be firearms freaks and pretty damned hard core anti-gov types. The CoOp Unit went in hard and heavy.”

“Results?”

Tate shrugs. “Five dead agents from a 20 man unit. The Farmer Brothers had armor piercing ammo and both the steel and the will to use it. Both men killed. Their house was burned. The crop that wasn’t destroyed was seized.”

Dangeld shook his head. When he started this job a story like that would have made the rounds to every agent in every agency as soon as it happened. These days, it was so common that it barely registered on the grapevine.

Tate wasn’t finished. “The Joint Unit didn’t know that Paul Farmer’s daughter and grandchild were visiting from Georgia.”

“Jesus.”

“Neither were killed, but both spent time in hospital. Both have developed some deep seated psychological problems as well.” Tate had a nasty smirk, and she showed it off. “Though it wouldn’t surprise me if that was mainly an attempt to snag a government check and a lifetime script for Xanax.”

Dangeld ignored that.

“So their nephew decides it’s up to him to get revenge.”

“Until we received his…pleasant little manifesto…he was actually thought to have been either killed in the raid or fled the state when informed of it. He was a known accomplice — dealer and errand runner — for his uncles.”

Dangeld picked the single sheet of paper from his desk, the message that had started this whole mess. The message that had sent him to this civilization forsaken sprawl of hills and impassable roads, as head of a Homeland Security CoOp unit of fifty troops. A contingent of the best DEA/BATF/FBI anti-terrorism forces available:

ATTENTION —

THIS IS WHAT IS LEFT OF YOUR WOEFULLY UNPREPARED AGENTS. THESE HILLS ARE MINE. STAY OUT OF THEM. I WILL KILL ANY PIG WHO SETS FOOT IN THESE MOUNTAINS. I WILL TAKE TWO HUNDRED SKULLS BEFORE I AM THROUGH. TWO HUNDRED HEAD OF PIG BEFORE I MAY REST. LEAVE US BE OR SEND THEM ON. YOUR CHOICE. MY PLEASURE.

-J.F.F.

Tate has read it a hundred times at least. I had been found on the bodies of two DEA agents on secret maneuvers in these hills, looking for commercial pot grows.

The agents had been missing their weapons, body armor, electronics and heads.

Not fled, nor hiding. The voice was Rook. There was something unmistakably satisfied about it.

Fighting, by God.

iii. dear momma

I write this simply to say goodbye, and to plead with you to leave this area. Go stay with Aunt Flora in Gatlinburg, or your cousin Jean in Ohio. But please leave. This is not a situation that will resolve itself or blow over. No disrespect, but this isn’t a matter for prayer and trust in the Lord.

If the Lord has anything to do with this, it’s the Lord who parted the sea and dealt with Pharaoh. It’s the Lord who made the rock call out ‘No hiding place!’ when the unfaithful sought sanctuary from his wrath.

I know what you are thinking: that your Jimmy finally found an elaborate enough form of suicide to suit his temper. I won’t argue with that, Momma. You may even be right.

But I know this:

What they did to Uncle Paul and Uncle Elmer was wrong. Flat wrong. They were hurting nobody. Taking from nobody. They weren’t stealing or killing or touching a hair on an innocent head. They were growing a flower they liked to smoke.

I have to do this. This is what I’ve been left with. The only path open to me.

Remember when you used to tell me that the Lord put every soul on this Earth for a purpose? And that one day every soul discovered that purpose?

I’ll leave it at that.

I don’t expect to convince you of anything but leaving. Please go. This will be over soon enough. But go to where it’s safe.

Give my love to the family, especially Autumn and Cecee.

Know that I love you, always have, always will.

Goodbye, Momma.

Your son,

Jimmy.

10. Trapshoot

Ends await.



She knew who she was and where she was going, but the fact of the matter remained that: the ends await. This is a truth all human kind must eventually admit, a blunt admission of pragmatics no matter how optimistic or mystical minded.

The basic template of existence is the mystery.


Thousands of days and that many or more miles away she’d find herself in a dark and noisy saloon.

She was wearing a much older body; a thing of dense muscles and leathery skin. A face filled with wrinkles and a long crown of iron grey hair pulled back and plaited into a practical mane. Her eyes, if anything, had grown sharper as her body grew more brittle. There was nothing of weakness about her, no hint of softness, no flash or glimpse of mercy.

She was pure Charity now, charity of the blackest and most honest sort. She’d made a vow to rid the world — a second world even — of a monster who walked like a man. Her own pleasure and enjoyment had been set aside to accomplish this end. Her own life curtailed to chase this duty.

The saloon was dark in more ways than simple lack of light. They were very near The Ends here, very close to the blank grey wall of roiling mist that marked the border of the Borderlands. The grey chasm that ate the bleak desert terrain. The grey from which no traveller returned.

Stories abounded about that mist. A cult of rejects made a religion of it — camping near it in tattered tent cities, sending prayers into its unresponsive face. They claimed to hear voices from the blank wall of grey, hear songs of eternal sadness and the weeping of old gods. The muttered confessions of ghosts.

Occasionally, she’d heard, the mist shifted by some cosmic whim and entire tent cities were lost. Vanished. Gone when morning light touched their scoured grounds again.

Such was the price of so flippant a religion, she figured.

Kerosene lamps burned in the saloon, since electricity refused to flow here near The Ends. Motors wouldn’t crank. Watches stopped ticking and even levers failed to shift as much.

Physical laws broke down, it was said. And mortal laws? Justice and fairness?

She laughed aloud, just thinking of them. Such human laws were chancy in even the most stable of times and places. Near the Ends, to hope for them was a fool’s errand.

She touched the bulky talisman that hung from her neck, gently. She felt the smooth cool touch of bone and let it relax her. She laughed again, a bit louder, thinking of Justice and fool’s errands.

Across the room three men sat at a table, speaking pretty lies to a pretty young girl. Charity had been watching them for the past half hour. She wondered what the child was doing here. She was out of place here near The Ends. This was a place for the worn and near broken, the aging and the dull. She was a jolly thing, lively and sweet. She moved with quick liquid grace and the fiery red of her hair seemed to scar the dark of this rotting saloon.

What was she doing here? Charity guzzled the last of her piss warm beer and pondered that. Lost or a runaway, she figured. A fugitive from an ugly past, hoping for a brighter future in a dark place she was too young and stupid to hate and fear on sight. Another pilgrim in search of justice and fairness in a world scant of either.

And she laughed a third time. The third time proved the charm. The three men and the pretty out of place girl looked at her. The men looked wary. The girl smiled an innocent smile.

"What’s so damn funny, old lady?" one of the men asked.

"No need to be rude…" began the young girl, but she was shushed by the other two.

The speaker raised his voice. "I said what’s so damn all fired funny?"

Charity took a deep breath. She wondered if the fool had realized they were all alone in the saloon. That they had been all alone from the moment she’d stepped through the door. Those with good sense and not intent on tonight’s rough pleasure had exited quickly as she sat. Even the owner of the joint had hauled ass as soon as he set the complimentary beer in front of this woman who radiated power and purpose. You got to know such things when you spent time near The Ends. They reacted with the atmosphere, created something like a halo.

They warned those with sense.

"You mute, old woman?" the speaker went on. "Just an idiot laugh left in that empty old head?"

Charity smiled at him. The weight of the talisman around her neck soothed and grounded her.

"You ever hear of the legends they got a bit east of here?" she began. Her voice was strong and loud. It surprised the men. They seemed to shrink a little. "The legends of the Woman Who Hitch Hiked With Cats?"

The wariness in the eyes of the men grew bright and painful. They tensed. "I ain’t in no mood to hear fairy stories, lady." said the speaker, but his voice broke on the last words. And that was the moment the girl chose to speak up.

"Why, I’ve heard them!" she said, excited and please. "Been hearin’ ‘em my whole life seems like." She closed her eyes and recited, with the air of one telling a favorite story:

"The Woman Who Hitch Hiked With Cats moves through the world on a path all her own. She came from someplace beyond and her destination is not for common folk to understand. The cats who follow her speak to her in a secret language, and those folk who help her on her path are rewarded in a thousand different ways."

"Shut up that nonsense!" one of the men hissed. But Charity over rode him.

"You go on, honey."

"On her hip is a gun as old as the world and almost as big. With her travels an army of wild cats who know secret paths across the land."

The three men heard enough. They were up and guns were drawn.

But they found that a gun was already waiting for them. They hadn’t even seen her move.

"You go on over by the door, honey." she told the red haired girl. "Stay there. Listen. But get ready to run."

The girl backed away from the standoff. But she had the fire, well and true. She stayed. Stared. Her eyes were intent and curious.

Charity smiled at her, then turned the smile on her targets. "Girl tells a story well, don’t she?"

Silence. Electricity coursed the room.

"Well, I know a story of that Woman. One ain’t nobody heard. Want to hear it?"

The men just stood frozen. She looked at the girl. Warming her heart, she got a little smile and an even tinier nod.

Oh, there was fire in this one.

"One night the woman had a dream." Charity began. Her voice became quieter, but her eyes never wavered. "In the dream that first cat — the one who had been with her on the whole hard road — had came up to her and found a voice to speak. This struck the woman as odd until she realized — the way you do sometimes — that the cat had been speaking to her in dreams since the day she’d met him."

"’Mizz’, the cat said ‘I’m getting old and this here game were playing is getting tired and lonesome.’"

"The woman was taken aback. ‘What game are you referring to, Cat?’ she asked."

"’The game where you pretend I’m a cat and I pretend I’m a cat and such.’ he told her. ‘It’s just tiresome.’"

The youngest of the men whimpered and his hand twitched. Charity shot him three times, carefully paralyzing him, and had her gun back at its exact point before anyone else could even breathe different. The thud of the body to the floor was ignored. So was the whimpering. Sweating increased. Blood pressure rose.

The girl, to her credit, didn’t flinch.

After a moment, Charity continued.

"The woman got all insulted and acted like that cat was crazy. The cat was an old hand at his and just told the story again, patiently."

"’I ain’t no Cat, Mizz. I’m just a part of you that you got separated from a long time ago. Your spirit, some might call it. Your will. That fire that makes a person a person.’"

"’You shut up!’ that stupid ignorant woman said. She didn’t want to hear it."

"The cat ignored her, and went on. ‘I’m old and tired of this form, Mizz. Time for you to do what you need to do.’"

The oldest of the men, the one who’d spoke first, broke. He screamed and fired. He missed by a mile.

Very carefully, almost regretfully, Charity blew his head off.

Centimeter twitch, bone and muscle and skin and tendon like steel. She blew the second man’s head off even as he tried to apply pressure to the trigger.

In the sudden silence came a laugh. From the floor. The paralyzed man laughed like he expected nothing less.

The red haired girl helped her pull him outside, where there was a little more light. The girl eyed her like a vision gone bad.

"You need to head on back home now." Charity told her.

"No home to go to." the girl said.

"Well. Away from here will be an improvement."

The child smiled. "You’re right." She turned to walk away, then stopped. She looked Charity in the eyes when she spoke.

"I’m glad I got to meet you." she said, simply. "I’ve been hearing about you all my life. When I was a kid I believed in you utterly. When I got older, not so much." She laughed. "It’s a nice thing to know that the faiths of your childhood are not in vain."

Charity nodded. "What’s you name?"

"Annie." the girl told her.

"A good name." Charity said, with the hint of irony.

"Good enough." the girl agreed. Then she turned and walked away.

Charity focused on the dying man in front of her.

"Where did he go?" she demanded. "Your Boss?"

The dying man smiled at her. "I’ll tell you if you finish the story." he said, voice slurring.

Charity was startled. "What?"

"The story about the cat." he reminded her. "I figured where it was going. I…I know how tales go." he said. There was a pause. "You ate him, right?"

Charity actually laughed. She produced the talisman. It was the gleaming skull of a cat. The empty eyes were as black as space.

"Yeah." she admitted. "When I woke up he was dying at my feet. Old and tired. I petted him a little and he was gone. But his voice was strong in my head. I skinned him and ate him. Shared bits of him with the braver of his army. Then I set his skull on a fire ant pile and let them fashion me this here talisman."

"He was always you, and with you he stays." the man said, blood bubbling on his lips. "I won’t say I’m sorry or anything like that. But I’ll ask you to make it quick."

"Where did he go?" Charity demanded, but her voice was soft.

"He ran into The Ends." the man admitted. "He’s gone. Please. End it quick."

She did so.

Then she headed for The Ends.

She didn’t truly believe it until she neared that ugly grey curtain and saw the abandoned caravan wagon. She caught sight of one of the mules — skinny, near starved, almost wild from abuse — grazing nearby.

She followed a set of tracks until she came right up against that grey border.

Charity stood there, staring into that blank grey wall, and the footprints that staggered so recklessly past it. She stood there feeling the cold emptiness inside, as it echoed the cold emptiness of that grey expanse.

After these miles and these years. After these struggles. Could this be all there was to find? Another set of footsteps leading into the unknown?

Go on, a secret little voice inside whispered. Go on. Keep following. Keep on his trail. Don’t let him escape. She trembled, listening to it, torn.

"Don’t listen." said another voice, familiar and not secret at all.

She turned, gun coming out and up in reflex.

The Smoke Man stopped, hands out in peace.

"He’s gone." he told her, plain and simple. "Gone and past chasing."

"I failed." she interpreted.

He laughed. The laughter held no mockery, no bitterness. It was a laugh of true friendly humor. "Oh, Lord woman. You are too hard on yourself. Ugly Jim was right about you. Nothing by half. Nothing."

"He escaped me." she said. Tears threatened. For the first time in years past God’s counting, her vision wavered and tears threatened. Rage and frustration clashed inside her.

The Smoke Man shook his head, still chuckling. "You terrified the man." he told her. "You hounded him. Even death didn’t give him escape, you followed him even there. You followed no matter the space or the obstacle he threw up. Every mile he got brought him stories of you growing ever closer."

The talisman grew warm. She felt it invading her body.

"You hounded him." he continued, obviously enjoying his words. "All these years, all these miles, and every one brought him tales of you on his trail." His smile grew fit to split his face. "Tales that tore him apart. Tales that made you a queen and a goddess and a goddamn hero. Made you what he’d pretended to be for so long in that other world. What he’d lied himself to be. And the thing that ate him the most, the thing that harried him past all reason was….why, he knew the stories about you were true." That smile no longer looked even the slightest bit pleasant. It was a portrait of revenge, well and true.

"You hounded him, lady. You hounded him right off the edge of the fucking world and into the certainty of extinction. Hounded him with fear and shame and the plain old ugly facts of the matter."

The tears were falling now, but they were a different sort. The gun in her hand sank away, but The Smoke Man didn’t move. Through the prism of those tears she was stunned to see the trails on his own face.

"You hounded him." his voice was quiet, almost a prayer. "Mostly you hounded him with the fact that what your Daddy said was true — no matter what he took away, no matter how hard he hurt you, what your Daddy said was true. You were a good girl."

The Smoke Man turned and spat, into the grey Ends. As near to the clumsy footsteps as he could reach.

"You did him in." said the quiet voice that did not waver despite the tears. "Good riddance. Good girl. Thank you."

And she saw that the shape of the Smoke Man was becoming vague. Dissipating.

The gun was at her side now. "What are you?" she asked. There was no demand, only a desire to know.

His voice was already growing indistinct. But he answered.

"No man is born evil." he said. "In fact, to become evil a man has to kill what is good in him and send it away, into the Borderlands, to trouble his whims no more."

She tried to step up and hold the Smoke Man’s hand as he faded, but he was beyond that now.

He glanced at the implacable grey curtain. "That creature killed me long ago. Sent me here long ago. I’ve been walking this ground for a long time. I did what I could. Life is a trapshoot, and we take our shot. We grab on every chance hit to stay in the game. If we manage to get the chances to stay in long enough, we might get good enough to hang on till something right happens."

Charity fell to her knees and tried to cling to him. She failed, he was truly smoke now, almost gone.

"I was killed long before he set eyes on you. But somehow I knew about you. I waited for you. I hung on till I got to meet you. I felt him come and knew you’d be on his trail."

She wept without shame. He faded.

"Go back east." came the whisper. "Time don’t matter much here. Go to the east and look for your home."

She barely heard his last words over her own grief.

"I’m glad I got to meet you, Annie. I love you. You’re a good girl."

And then the wind took the last of him.

She sobbed for a good long time, and the universe was kind and let her have the peace to do it.

When she finished, she stood up. She dusted herself off. She looked around.

The world abided. From every hiding spot curious eyes peered out. They waited, wondering what came next.

She sighed. She stretched. She hoisted the backpack up and secured the straps. She turned away from the grey nothing of the ends of the world and started walking.

"Let’s go, dammit." she told the cats.




And so she headed back east, in search of a place she’d once known. She wasn’t certain of finding it, of course, but certainties were not the point.

The point was the journey, and that blazing need, that desire. The seeking of a thing was the worthwhile part of living, not the finding.

As she travelled the cats came to her. Ferals from the wilderness, barn kittens who got the itch and urge to travel when she passed. They followed her as birds follow the seasons, as leaves turn to follow the rain. The came to her and fought for her, and loved her up close and from a distance. They responded to something in her that was like themselves, some strength and independence. Some instinct to move together but to never be herded.

To an instinct to forever hunt.

As she travelled the legends whirled and grew around her, shimmering and splitting and becoming great sagas and simple cautionary tales. They became boogie stories and bedtime treats. They became sermons and drunken jokes. They became stories great and simple and none of them were any more or less true than the others. That is the nature of legends. The beating heart of myth.

Legends. Myth. Explorations of that eternal basic mystery, and the simple truth that the investigation of it is what matters.

Legends.

Of the grim, quiet wanderer with the kind heart and a soul full of justice.

Of the army of cats that travelled on secret paths and could not be left behind.

Of the huge steel gun that sounded like thunder.

Of the fall of governments and the rise of new nations.

Of the slaying of dragons herded off the end of the world.

Of the jet black talisman with the space dark eyes.

Of poor Faith, brave Hope and grim Charity.


Of the woman who hitch hiked with cats.





When I was a child, I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face: now I know in part;
but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three;
but the greatest of these is charity.
(1Corinthians 13:11-13)



(For Claire and Sharon, and all the other daughters of Columbia. I love you, sisters.)

9. Rituals

Truth hurts.

In every sense that matters, there is quite a bit of magic to a simple campfire. On the deepest level of elemental truth, the basic act of forcing dead, cold matter to give forth light and heat is the very heart of what magic is and will forever be. Life from death, action from the void.

Between human beings there is magic in the campfire as well. The flickering light scaring away the shadows can act as a portal for wisdom. Can allow truths to be told that would sound false in the light of the sun.

The Smoke Man obeyed the ritual as he sat at Hope’s fire. He nodded a greeting to The Cat and his army. They accepted his presence with silent politeness. He brought forth a pouch and a pack of rolling papers. To an offered fire, one brings their own offering: be that a drink, a bite, a smoke or a story.

"Care for a smoke?" he asked.

"I don’t use tobacco." Hope informed him.

"This isn’t tobacco." he admitted with a smile.

"I don’t smoke pot either."

"Nor is it cannabis." His fingers rolled with simple deft motions.

Hope smiled. "What is it?"

"Called dreambreak. Only grows in the Borderlands. Some say it opens the mind and the memory when they’d rather stay closed." His eyes were unreadable when he finished the smoke and put it to his lips. He lit it and took a long, crackling drag. Hope smelled the herb then, faintly. It hinted at spice and something deeper. A musky scent, like the den of a burrowing animal.

"You still don’t know how you came to be here, do you?"

She shook her head no.

"This could help." He offered her the smoke.

She considered a moment, before finally taking it. She had little to fear from the Smoke Man, who was the only person in the Borderlands who had ever answered any of her questions.

She didn’t choke. The dreambreak was surprisingly smooth. Spice and musk, yes — and the surprise of a peppermint aftertaste, that turned sweet as it lingered on the tongue.

She took another drag. She held the smoke until it expanded to the point of pain in her lungs. She let it go, and watched the ghostly whorls emerge from her mouth, dancing through shifting focus, bright and somehow…significant.

It’s already affecting me, she understood.

Across the fire, the Smoke Man’s grin seemed to grow. "Just let it come. Don’t fight it. Relax and let it come."

"Why are you helping me?" she asked, while she still could. Around her, the night grew distinct.

"Maybe you’re helping me." he said.

And then she was gone.


In the first vision she and the cat are in a very familiar hospital room. She recognizes the room, having spent two horrible weeks there. She doesn’t know why the cat is with her, but she appreciates his company.

They stand in a corner and watch. In the bed, invaded by tubes and dying, lies her father. Sitting before him, all weeped out, holding a shoe box, is herself.

How small and thin and weak she looks, Hope thinks. How feeble.

"You brought it." her Father says. It isn’t a question.

The old Hope simply nods.

"You’re a good girl." her Father tells her. He always told her that. His voice is thin and weak and raspy. The cancer has taken all of his strength, all of his energy and vigor. It hasn’t taken his will, yet. That much she knows. If it had, he couldn’t have requested this final favor from her.

She sits the box on the nightstand. She kisses her Father goodbye. She hugs him for a long moment and even finds a few more tears to shed into his chest. Finally, she stands. She hesitates. She leaves, unable to say anything more.

From the corner, Hope and the cat watch what follows. Hope knows what is coming, and — in her old life — often wished she’d been strong enough to stay by her father’s side as he did what he had to do. That she’d had the will and strength to hold his hand as he’d taken his life. He’d ended the pain as a sane man, with his mind and memory intact. She’d been too weak to do so. Too weak and too scared and too childish.

But she isn’t that person any more. She’s not weak, or scared, or childish now. She’s a woman of iron and cordite, a dealer of death and justice. She’s grown and ancient in the way of the hard path.

She and the cat step up to her father as he struggles with the box containing his old gun. The tubes that get in his way are torn unceremoniously out, and he ignores the increase in pain. All that will be over in a moment.

As he places the gun to his temple, hand shaking but sure, something focuses in his eyes. She steps as close as she can. She wills him to see her.

Her ghost hand takes his free hand. That big strong hand that protected her for so long.

A smile flickers at the corner of his mouth. Perhaps he sees her. A little. Enough.

"I love you Daddy." she whispers, and he pulls the trigger.

It is messy and awful and sad, but she doesn’t look away. She owes him that much.

As the flurry of the aftermath happens, she is surprised when the ghost stands up from her father’s dead body, the ghost of his gun still clenched in his hand. He looks insubstantial but somehow stronger in death than in those last moments of life.

He sits there on the bed, as nurses and doctors rush and sigh and shake their heads in sadness and pity. He seems to listen to a faraway voice. Finally he nods, and smiles.

He stands up and, carrying the gun, walks out of the room.

She follows him, with the cat. They follow him as he leaves the hospital, and the manicured grounds, as he finds a road and heads west. His stride is determined, his manner happy and purposeful. As she follows him he seems to grow ever more substantial. More solid.

After a long time, he comes across the old truck. She begins to understand when he takes the gun belt and holster from the front seat, and straps them on. As he drops the now familiar gun into place.

She climbs into the passenger seat as he takes the wheel. As they drive into the desert. He navigates by that unheard voice for a while, until it apparently tells him to stop. He does so. He settles back, to wait.

He will wait here for a long time, she knows.

She gets out of the truck, opening and closing the door unnoticed by the ghost of her father. A ghost that is no longer a ghost here in the Borderlands. A flesh and blood man who will wait past a second death, and turn to bone, and finally dust, waiting for her. To deliver that gun to her hand.

She smiles at him there. He looks patient, content even. A little smile lingers on his face. His head is cocked as he listens to that unheard voice, and his eyes are closed as if hearing a lovely melody. Perhaps the voice is singing to him. She hopes so.

"I love you Daddy." She says again, and starts to leave.

Reality warps and folds in upon itself.

She is sitting at the campfire again. The tears on her cheeks surprise her.

The Smoke Man reaches the still smoldering dreambreak to her again. She is not finished.

She takes it. The taste this time is one of citrus, and a slight burn like cayenne as the flavor fades. The smoke from her mouth eddies in a great whorl, shifting color from white to blue, to join the black of night as she fades and travels again.



The courtroom is as silent as the grave.

"Guilty." the foreman of the jury announces.

The silence ends and the great circus erupts. The judge bangs for order with no success. It is over, at last — after months of testimony and tears and accusations. It is over and the husband killing bitch has been found guilty, just as she was judged by the media and the public before she ever set foot in this courtroom.

Her tales of rape and abuse were not believed. Her stories of why she killed her husband and his three friends. To make matters even more horrible, all four of her victims were decorated police officers. Paragons of virtue and pillars of their community. Their records were spotless and their names respected. The idea that they had gathered every weekend to rape and humiliate the small and quite plain woman before them was ridiculous. It was obviously part of the murderous psychopathic fantasy that her deranged mind had created. She was jealous of her husbands success and reputation. The suicide of her dying father had been the final push over the edge of madness. Three noted psychiatrists testified to this.

She and the cat sit in the back, lost amidst the circus of the guilty verdict. Hope keeps her eyes on the timid and washed out woman being led, handcuffed, from the courtroom. The woman who shows not a single emotion. Who rarely even blinks those puffy, sleep starved eyes.

She and the cat stand and follow as the bailiffs lead her towards her cell. The sentencing will take place the very next day, the judge has decreed. The most predicted outcome is the electric chair. There is a certain grim satisfaction to the reporters as they make note of this, as they prepare the news for a slew of special editions.

Hope follows the woman. She knows what is coming.

She sees the wife of one of her victims before anyone else. Watches as the red haired, scarecrow thin woman steps up, face a mask of hate and pain, and shoots the murderess three times.

"Die you murdering whore!" the red haired scarecrow screams, before the bailiffs tackle her, releasing the bleeding, silent murderess, who crumples to the floor.

She is not surprised this time, when the ghost stands up from the dead body. She simply follows as her past self discovers that the handcuffs are gone. She remembers thinking how lucky she was that all three bullets missed her. How she had a chance to escape. How she took it and ran.

Hope and the cat follow, easily, knowing every step now, but curious. Drawn to watch.

They follow, as she flees through the streets of the city. As she steals an outfit from a clothesline. She grows substantial as she does so, already in the Borderlands, the city but a copied memory.

As she makes her way to a Salvation Army, where she outfits herself for a trip.

As she hitch hikes west, forgetting as she goes, remembering only the terror and the reckless desire to flee.

Miles from the city she encounters Char — old Charon — who picks her up and ferries her across a Styx of solid black flow, a river of asphalt.

Into the Borderlands proper. Into the great Inbetween. She runs, seeking revenge and retribution against the bastard who continued to hurt her even after she’d killed him.

Chasing the ghost of her husband into the land of the unquiet dead.


Reality demanded attention.

She gasped. The still burning stub of the dreambreak singed her fingers.

Her body tingled with an almost electric charge as she emerged from the throes of the vision.

It was near dawn. Mellow grey light seeped up over the horizon. The rising mountains of the Free West were etched in shadow in the distance.

The Smoke Man regarded her. She tossed the stub of the dreambreak into the guttering remains of the fire.

"So. Now you know." he said. His voice was gentle.

"Yes." she told him. "Thank you."

He shrugged and stood up. She followed suit.

"Now what?" he asked.

She considered. After a moment she smiled. "Nothing has changed." she told him. "I just know why I’m doing what I’m doing. I still have to hunt the bastard down and put him away. Not just for myself, anymore. Whatever evil he carried in his heart he brought here to the Borderlands. He harried the people as The Boss for however long it was before I crossed over on his tail."

"That’s not a very Hope-ful attitude to take." The Smoke Man reminded her.

She nodded. "That’s the truth. But maybe the time for Hope is gone. Maybe I’m yet another person now."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "Names as a tool and a purpose."

That struck her as proper. "It’s not just for me, now. It’s for those he abused after I sent him here."

"Charity."

"Charity." she agreed. "From now on I am Charity."

The sun broke over the horizon and the day dawned clear and bright, the beckoning mountains beneath a cold blue sky. She gathered her supplies as the cats prepared for travel.

She turned the offer of a ride down. "I give Charity. I don’t accept it."

"As you like." The Smoke Man said. She watched him head back east. She knew she was not done with him yet.

West they moved, Charity and her army. The day brightened, the clarity of her purpose pushed her on.

West, towards the Ends. Towards revenge. Towards conclusion.

To spread the Charity of a cold, hard heart.

8. Longwalk

Secrets flee.


The walk was dreary and unrelieved by a single ride for the first fifty or so miles. Then she reached the Highway.

The terrain had changed to slightly hilly scrub forest, somewhat harder going but cooler in climate. Both game and water were more plentiful, and shelter from sun and night’s damp were easier to find.

Hope became aware of her shy following congregation slowly, in stages. First was the actions and attitude of the grey tom. He growled often, looking into the distance, especially when camped and continuously while food was cooking. She at first feared that darker visitors hid amongst the shadows. But every morning she’d find gifts of game and the tell-tale prints of cats. They seemed to ring her campsites at night in a rough circle, just out of sight but close enough to keep an eye on her.

She was amused at first, then curious. Why were they following her? What did they expect to gain from this trek? She supposed that it didn’t matter in the end - as soon as she caught her first ride they’d be left miles behind. A twinge of guilt accompanied that thought. She hoped they’d be able to find their way back to whatever home they’d had before she’d passed through. She’d never meant to be a pied piper, and didn’t appear to have the callous heart to do such work.

This was, of course, before she discovered that cats — in the Borderlands at least — had their own secret paths of travel.

It was late on the third day after leaving Summertime City when she crested that last small hill and caught sight of the Highway. She’d been hearing it for hours before; at first puzzled at the odd sound, then disbelieving when it became familiar enough to recognize. Seeing it washed away the last of the disbelief, but did nothing for the disorientation that the sight brought.

In the old world, she knew, the Highway would have been common. In fact, it would have been less than impressive. It was merely a four lane paved blacktop that ran a true East/West rather than the smaller, barely two lane cracked asphalt trail that had led her northwest from Summertime City. It would have been a road to roll her eyes at in her old life, a stretch where she’d have to drop the Buick down a notch in speed or risk a ticket.

But here, in the Borderlands, it trumped every unusual and weird event since she’d arrived. Not so much for the size of the thing, but for the traffic.

The past fifty miles had seen not a single car or truck or bicycle pass her, either way. The Highway was busy. Not rush hour busy, but a steady stream of vehicles made their hurried way both east and westwards, rushing along to unknown destinations on errands mysterious. The vehicles were — much like the gaudy collection that motored about Summertime City — an eclectic mixture of eras and technologies.

The sight of the Highway, its sudden vitality and speed, both excited her and made her uneasy.

Nevertheless, she made her way onto it, glad to find a wide shoulder suitable for walking. She headed west, thumb out, a single cat by her side and perhaps a dozen more in the overgrown field that flanked the Highway, pretending secrecy.

She caught her first ride less than a half hour later.


"Glad to have the company ma’am, being honest." Glynn Felbeck told her with a smile and only the slightest glance at the gun on her hip. He also smiled at the cat, who regarded him coldly from the dash where he’d stretched in lazy splendor. "It gets lonelier’n hell on the road to Golden."

Hope nodded, mind still on the never seen flock of cats she was rapidly leaving behind. She still felt a little guilty, despite the fact that she hadn’t exactly lured them after her.

Glynn — a bearlike young man with flaming hair, beard and boyish eyes — took care of his truck, that much was certain. Despite its obvious age, the Chevy gleamed with the sparkle only loving maintenance can impart. The bed of the truck was loaded down and tarped snugly. Whatever Glynn was hauling was secure enough. Despite healthy curiosity, Hope didn’t ask and her driver didn’t offer. She figured it was none of her business.

"You headed for Golden?" he asked, voice trying for amiable but his tone giving away that he hoped for company all the way. And his eyes betrayed the fact that he certainly wouldn’t mind getting to know his passenger quite a bit better.

"I’m headed as far West as I can get." she told him, rather charmed by his attention.

He nodded wisely. "West is the way to go. The whole Middle Reach is falling into the shit, you ask me. Damn CRA bastards are getting ridiculous." He spat out the window in disgust. Then looked a bit ashamed. "Pardon the gesture, ma’am."

She laughed. "No worry. And my name is Hope, not ma’am." she reminded him.

His smile grew in size and scope. "That’s a pretty…" he stopped and stiffened as he caught sight of something in the rearview.

"Aww fuck." he muttered, going pale.

"What is it?" Hope asked, craning her head around to look.

On the distant horizon, faint but growing brighter, was a set of flashing lights.

"Fuckitallllltohell!" Glynn whispered fiercely. He instantly slowed his truck to a point, took a deep breath and concentrated on driving as solid and unassuming as possible.

"What’s the problem?" Hope asked again, beginning to get nervous. The cat was eyeing the approaching lights in a way that she didn’t care for.

Glynn glanced at her nervously, but turned his attention back to the road. "CRA Troopers. Smuggler Patrol by the look of ‘em."

"What the hell is this CRA?" she asked, confused.

He goggled at her for a second, then managed a weak smile. "That’s right — you’re fresh outta the East. East of Sum City is all Free Territory, ma’am..uh, Hope." He swallowed hard, trying to force himself calm. "Same as the West from Golden on." He kept glancing in the rearview, almost hypnotized by the approaching lights. Hope could also hear the beginnings of a familiar siren wail.

"But we’re smack in the middle of the Middle Reach, and that’s under the control of the Central Reach Authority. They’ve been around forever, based out of Port Louie on the Big River."

"They’re…what? The government?"

Despite his fear, Glynn spat again. "Claim to be. Claim all sorts of shit. Claim everybody gets together ever so often and votes on who runs the Reach. Nevermind that I got no clue how that gives them any right to do anything to those of us don’t bother to indulge in their ritual. Never mind I ain’t never actually met anyone who claims to have done so. They claim it, they levy taxes, and they got the guns to back it up."

Hope sighed. "Yeah. Government." She remembered something. "You said Smuggler Patrol."

Glynn was silent, but nodded.

"And you’re awful nervous." She grinned. "What are we smuggling, Glynn?"

His silence stretched on a bit. Then he shrugged. "Worst thing you can get caught smugglin’."

"Drugs?" she guessed.

He looked surprised. "Naw. Food."

Hope nearly choked. "Food?!"

"Food." he repeated. "Soybeans mostly, and some choice beef in coldboxes. Grown in the Free East, needed in the Free West. Untaxed by the Unfree Central Authority that claims it has the damn right. Food. One of the few things even scared folks won’t suffer without."

Her head swam. But she held onto the practical. "And what’s the penalty? Massive fines? Jail time?"

Glynn’s smile had little humor. "The penalty is on the spot execution."

Hope heard a growl. She glanced at the cat, but discovered that the growl was coming from herself.

Glynn seemed to shrink. "I…I…apologize for getting you mixed up with this…"

She waved him off, pushing the rage that threatened to rise down at the same time.

"Don’t apologize for being a decent man, Glynn." She could hear the siren wailing like a demon now, and make out the bulky armored car that was rushing towards them, red and blue lights strobing in angry flashes. "Can you outrun them?"

He shook his head. "No way in hell."

She sighed. "Any chance at all that they’ll just pass on by? After someone on up the road, maybe?"

"I think they might have been tipped. Last town I was in, I got the feeling that one fella..well…" He looked guilty again. "Like I said, ma’am. I’m sorry I…"

"My name is Hope, dammit!" she snapped at him. "And I told you not to apologize for decency! Don’t apologize for giving a woman on the side of the road a lift. Don’t apologize for trying to make a living hauling food to folks who need it! Don’t apologize for shit brought on because arrogant fuckers think they got the right."

She began to load her gun. The process soothed and steadied her.

"They think they got the damn right. The right to interfere with other people who ain’t doing them a damn bit of harm. The right to harass peaceful people for their own gain. They claim they took a vote or made a vow or got the word from God himself. All bullshit." She slapped the gun closed and laid it in her lap. She stroked the cat, who was as relaxed as warm butter.

"All they got is their own arrogance. Their own greed and lust and desire for power. And guns." The cat purred, a rough rumble against her hand.

"But I got a damn gun, too." She looked him in the eye. "Do you?"

He was looking at her with something like awe. "Yes m…Hope. I got a shotgun under the seat."

She nodded. "Then, before they get any closer, how ’bout you swerve us over into that field? Give us a bit of time to prepare them a proper reception."

Glynn, despite fear and awe and what looked a damn sight like his own approaching death, laughed loud and long. "You sure about this?"

She smiled at him. "Glynn, all they got is arrogance and guns. But we have guns too. If everybody with a gun decided they’d had their fill of arrogance and stood up, they’d be outnumbered. They’d find out quick what their right amounted to."

He smiled back at her. His eyes gleamed with something new.

"Brace yourself." he said.

She grabbed the cat and did so.

The squeal of the brakes on the Highway sounded like a battlecry.




That was where it started she figured later. The legend of The Woman Who Hitch Hiked With Cats. That was where it started, in that moment in a field in the middle of no where, when a CRA Smuggler Patrol with a hot tip got more than it bargained for.

They were expecting a single man and a shotgun and an easy bust.

They weren’t expecting a berserk Viking with flaming hair and beard, laughing joy as he blasted them with a wild assortment of everything from three inch magnums to bird shot.

They weren’t expecting the thin, black eyed wraith with the hell dealing pistol who never seemed to miss. Who walked into their own fire with no fear and sighted with the cold precision of the Devil herself.

And they certainly weren’t expecting the goddamned army of cats that swarmed them from the field, attacking with rabid ferocity, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere. Cats that circled the devil woman like protective demons. Cats that seemed to replace every fallen animal with two. Cats that blinded and tore jugulars and the thick veins in wrists and seemed to know exactly where to go to bleed a man to death.

And they didn’t expect to end their day dead and strapped naked to the Patrol cruiser, a gruesome frame for a message on the windshield in huge letters of their own blood:

A message that was soon on the lips of every smuggler and rebel and anti-authoritarian rabblerouser in the Middle Reach. A message they’d hear again and again, tied to the rambling but seemingly unstoppable path of The Woman as she made her way west through CRA territory.

As the legend grew, and resistance rallied behind her.

As the power of the CRA crumbled and fell to a writhing death:



It was a long walk later, and many rides, and a thousand fights, and weeks and months, but she passed out of the Middle Reach and into the Free West.

The border was marked with a sign that had once read "You are now leaving the Central Reach Authority." It was now defaced by the slogan she’d first left on a windshield a thousand miles east.

She chuckled at it, and kept walking.

The cats were all around her, a secret silent army that formed and reformed like waves against the rock of her self. The tom, far from his growling original attitude, now proudly stood as their king. Only he was allowed the place of honor by her feet, after all. Only he was allowed food from her hand and the touch of affection. His subjects were allies and accepted, but he’d fight any and all that tried to intrude upon those privileges.

Hope left such things to him.

She’d stayed on the trail of The Boss. He fled ever west and she’d followed. He was leaving his own path as he went, it seemed: dark stories told to her after dark by ride after ride, in town after town.

She was philosophical. She’d find him eventually. Then she’d have her answers, and her revenge.

She laid camp her first night in the Free West about a dozen miles from the defaced sign. As she was settling in, sleepy, she was thinking of the approaching fact of The Ends, and wondering if her confrontation with her past would happen before she reached it. She hoped so.

She was getting ready to turn in, when she saw the headlights approach. She waited for them to pass on, but they moved towards her with determination.

She reached for the gun and stood. The cats surrounded her, fearless and loyal. They were ready for a fight.

But something about the headlights and the sound of the engine was familiar. Something about the shape of the truck as it pulled up.

She was still and ready as the motor went silent and a door opened and closed.

The tall, grey man was smiling as he stepped into the light of her fire. His rifle was strung across his back and his hands were out in a gesture of peace.

"Why, Mizz Hope." The Smoke Man said. "Fancy meeting you out here."

7. Firefight

Hopes burn.

On the morning of the day The Boss and his boys were due to collect, a message arrived. The rider who brought it slid it beneath the door of the Sheriff’s office and slipped out before the sun showed his face.

The message was simple and direct: in addition to 2000 coins, 500 pounds of flour, 20 bushels of potatoes, a ridiculous amount of ammo, drugs and even small luxuries like candy and shampoo, The Boss demanded three girls. All under the age of 20. A redhead and two blondes. "Purty & Clean" the note insisted.

Jim let Hope read it and scowled along with her. "Figured they’d wait till the last minute. Let folk get used to the idea of giving in and have the loot all gathered before they hit ‘em where it really hurt."

Hope crumpled the note and flicked it toward the trash can. She brooded for a moment. "Before you came along, Jim, did folk really send what amounted to their children out to serve these scum?"

Jim whistled, a low note. She understood this to be a habit when he was collecting his thoughts. "They did, I’m sad to say."

Hope’s voice rose despite her best effort. "How in the hell could they…"

"Settle down, Mizz." Jim insisted, holding his hands out in a peace making gesture. "It wasn’t exactly as simple as all that. Hell, sometimes they had volunteers. Girls itching to get out of town and into what they figured was a more exciting life." He paused. "And not every Sheriff looked at his duty the way I do, hurts to say. More than a few were tinpot dictators just as bad as The Boss."

Hope gave him the look that meant she wasn’t in the mood for excuses.

"True as Tuesday, Mizz. And Summertime City was small and truly weak for a long time."

"Did they ever resist?"

Jim nodded, thoughtful. "Yes ma’am. This town has burned twice in the past two decades. The first time damn near wiped her off the map and she had to be resettled. The second time was near as bad but most folks lived. Just had to rebuild." He sighed. "But they haven’t resisted since then."

A sick look passed her face.

Jim smiled, a ghastly thing she had grown used to and now admired for its sincerity. "But the Riders took their losses as well. It’s also true they haven’t asked for girlfolk near as often since that last Burn. Summertime City killed half those that came for ‘em, and put ‘em to route eventually."

Hope smiled. "We gonna have any trouble with those that might prefer to appease?"

Jim shook his head, dismissive. "Naw. They know my mind is set. Those sort cleared out the minute you agreed to fight."

"Good enough. And the rest can be counted on?"

Jim stared at her for a moment. "My folk are decent and somewhat simple, Mizz. They don’t itch for trouble. But they ain’t cowards and they know the way the world works. Never doubt that."

Hope just nodded. Instead of an apology, she said "Then I think you need to drop that Mizz shit."

Jim was truly puzzled. "Ma’am?"

She laughed. "And that ma’am shit while you’re at it." She stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. "If we’re going to fight this scum back to back I think you should call me Hope."

Once again, Ugly Jim Harris proved he could blush.

"Now." she said, turning to the door. "Let’s go get us some volunteers."


Hope and the cat and Ugly Jim sat staring at the citizens of Summertime City arrayed before them. Hope was near tears, causing the smile she couldn’t repress to wobble slightly.

Three hundred and six men, women and children had shown up, from the ages of 6 years to 86. They were armed with everything from pitchforks and hay scythes to the one old codger who’d lugged a dusty but functioning hand cranked Gatling from some ancient shed. They stood there, scared but with spines straight, and gave their word to fight to defend their homes and families and neighbors.

It may have been the finest moment of her life so far, and she caught the Sheriff wiping a tear himself here and there.

It took most of the afternoon to sort the best prospects into some sort of fighting force. They had nothing spectacular planned — just a direct ambush when the Riders got close enough to take fire. The real trick was letting them get close enough with trust intact. Hope and Jim agreed that half The Boss’s boys wasn’t good enough this time. They had in mind a complete victory — and maybe an end to the whole damn cycle.

The girls were the key to that little trick. Hope ended up with 16 volunteers under the age of 20, willing to play reverse Trojan Horse. They ended up being more trouble than the young men and boys when it came to their desire to serve - to the point of several brawls breaking out.

But eventually she had her three. Two pretty, clean blondes and a pretty clean redhead. The two blondes were twins — Gina and Georgia Montrose. They won their place because they’d inherited beautifully made and highly concealable little derringers. Hope would no more have these girls play bait unarmed than she’d send them swimming with anchors attached.

The third had to borrow a gun but won her place because she was the only redhead in town. She looked familiar to Hope. The resemblance lingered until she caught a glimpse of her from the corner of her eye and realization crashed down.

"Are you…?"

The redhead grinned pure sunshine and her blush was hard to catch under all those freckles. "I’m Betty Castleberry, Mizz Hope. Carina’s grandgirl." She stuck out her hand all formal like. Hope hugged her instead.

"I been meaning to come by Gran’s and meet you. She talks a mile a minute on you. All good o’ course. But Mam’s been sick for a while and I got six brothers and two sisters to look after, and…"

She was interrupted by the Gran herself, shotgun at the ready. Pride and fear warred in her expressive face with no clear victor.

"You be careful." was all she finally said. "Gran’ll be up on the bank roof."

"Now you follow directions, Gran." Betty warned her. "Don’t you be lookin’ after me. We all got our parts to play."

Hope was torn from the tragic little scene by Jim’s voice.

"Places folks! We got dust sighted and on the way! Half an’ hour tops."

Faith felt the cat at her feet, responding to her own fear and pride. She took deep breaths and counted heartbeats. She forced her mind to relax. She willed the cold heart of the gun to invade hers.

It was time.

The fight was on them.


It would be years later and small details of that fight would still come to her, often in dreams, surprising her with their ability to move and effect her. Little glimpses, small sounds, stabs of remembered fear and vicious joy.

The Last Firefight Of Summertime City, as it would come to be called, was not the worst piece of action she’d see in her life. In many ways, it was the most successful and clean. But it happened at the very beginning of her transformation from one thing to another. It was the fire that burned the last of her old self away so that the newer, stronger, harder self could grow in its place.

And, like all fires — no matter the need for their renewal — it hurt as it burned.

It was not a battle of individual heroes. It was not a set piece of heroic stands. It was, like most serious warfare, a brutal and pragmatic thing.

They set their blonde and amber bait amongst the loot of food and coin and luxury. There on the main street, alone and lonely. One force of gunmen(led by Jim) occupied the roof of the bank. Hope’s gang laid low on the roof of the saloon.

Like a ritual, the riders came. They gathered indolently in a wide arc flanking the face of the town. There were close to a hundred all told, all armed with rifle and pistol and plenty of ammo. All on horseback save The Boss, who travelled in a caravan wagon pulled by a mule team. The Boss hung back several hundred yards, waiting for his treasure.

A dozen men entered the town to escort that treasure out. They were less than a hundred feet from their goal when Hope gave the order.

Rifle fire rained down on the would be kidnappers from the saloon. Of the twenty under her command, she had set ten to concentrate on death from above. She led the other ten down the back of the saloon and around for another angle of fire.

At the edge of town, from the stonewalled safety of the bank roof, Jim’s fifty volunteers opened up on the rest of the riders, gathered so thoughtfully in such a nice group.

Hope screamed at the three girls to take cover. They ignored her, preferring to instead add to the lead headed towards their kidnappers.

That was the moment when the world, and time, and sense broke apart. What followed was a shattered twenty minutes that would only come to her over the course of the rest of her life. A bit here, a piece there.

Of the gory sprawl of a dozen dead men and horses. Of the escort not a single creature made it out alive.

Of a pretty blonde girl weeping, with a once blonde head in her lap now stained red with blood.

Of the roar of men and women fighting for their lives, and the roar of men dying for their mistakes.

Of those who fell before her own gun, so like trick pins as the sharks teeth caught them again and again.

Of the deep red calm of reloading, as if she’d performed these motions a million times.

And of the cat, moving through out it all, between bullets and blood and bodies, seemingly indifferent. Graceful. Leading her.

And that moment when the broken army outside their town turned to flee, and the folk who only had pitchfork and scythe set on their trail like hounds, the bedeviled turned to devils. She was in front, urging them on. To the caravan of The Boss, frightened mules swinging it dangerously around in flight.

And the image that stopped her in shock, that caused her to drop to her knees in horror. The angry, scared and hateful face in the window of that caravan.

The face of The Boss.

The face of her husband.

A face filled with recognition.



Moments, broken and shattered. Some moments never last long enough.

Some moments take the rest of a life to deal with.




"…and to thy care and mercy we commend them O Lord, these our beloved."

"Amen."

Hope stared at the face of Ugly Jim Harris in his casket, a ruined face that had gained something approaching beauty in a proud death. A slug had caught him in the leg just before the Riders broke, and he’d tumbled off the bank and broke his neck. Went painlessly the doctor said.

Went proud, Hope knew. With principles and duty intact.

She lingered a moment by the casket of Gina Montrose, and spoke silly comforting words to poor Georgia. The abandoned twin cycled from fierce pride in her sister to crushing despair, but seemed basically all right to Hope.

The rest of the dead, 11 in all, she knew only fleetingly or not at all. Still, she paid her respects and spoke to the families. They had all died for the same cause, had all died facing one of life’s bad days. They deserved what she could give them.

And, outside town, 64 unmarked graves marked their triumph.

She made her way back to the rooming house with a heavy heart, the cat trailing beside her as usual. He had escaped the battle without a scratch despite being in the thick of it. Much like herself.

The respectful nods and greetings added to the heaviness she felt. She was treated as a hero in town. Perhaps she was being given the reverence that Ugly Jim could not accept. No matter — it just made her decision harder.

She cried as she packed, knowing that she was going to miss this place. It was an awful moment. She had come this long way, walked this hard path, and found the closest thing to a home since the death of her father. And now she had to leave.

How awful that love for a place can push you away as surely as hate.

Carina and Betty and Albert were waiting for her when she came downstairs, back from the services. Carina in the wheelchair, healing from the slug that had grazed her spine. She began to weep when she saw the packed bag and the travelling clothes Hope wore.

"Please, Mizz Hope…" Betty spoke for her. "We need you. This town. Gran. Me."

Oh, she was tempted. But it wouldn’t be right. Instead she just hugged them and said goodbye.

The tears dried as she moved away from Summertime City, onwards into the West once again. The direction the caravan wagon had fled.

The old feeling returned, the bone deep song of the road. And in place of sadness came anger and the steady pulse of desire.

A desire for answers.

A desire for revenge.

And the immense desire to see them come to the same point on the horizon, even if she had to travel to The Ends to do so.

The cat resumed his travel pattern as if they’d never paused. He scouted and wandered and circled her.

Behind her, unknown as yet, other cats followed, shyly for now. Some from Carina’s house, some from the streets of the town. Cats suddenly possessed of a desire to follow this strange woman and the brutal grey tom who shared her aura and her fate.

From the center of this tangle of woman and cats and their mingled desire, Hope extended her arm, and waved a thumb at the random.

They walked until a ride came.

6. Showdown

Idyll’s end.

The cat woke her up on that last peaceful morning. Hope attempted to ignore him, and that resulted in the first and only time that he laid the claws to her. Despite her cursing and empty threats, it really wasn’t all that bad. No blood drawn at least.

After she’d wiped the sleep from her eyes and splashed cold water on her face to aid the wake-up, she was thinking of coffee when she saw the cat staring out the window, tail swishing in agitation.

And she heard that laugh.

That goddamn familiar, awful laugh.

She looked out the window and there stood Ugly Jim in the center of town, facing down three bulky men on horseback.

Riders.

She moved quickly, tossing on her clothes and the gunbelt, then racing down the stairs to the porch of the rooming house. Despite her non-committal tone when Jim had pressed her on signing up for temporary deputy duty, she had no intention of allowing assholes to harass and harry her friends and neighbors. In fact, the main force behind her refusal was a gut feeling that getting paid to stand up to such assholes was on the less than honorable side of the ledger. And Hope had no desire to live on that side of the ledger anymore.

Later, she’d wish she’d stayed at the window. Had taken advantage of the height and the surprise to shoot those bastards down where they stood. Spilt milk being what it was; she may have had the instincts of a gunfighter, but the hard lessons of experience only get learned the one way.

She was coming off the stairs when she stopped. Carina Castleberry stood at the ready by the door, grimly holding a huge and ancient shotgun. The sight struck Hope as both comical and moving. The idea of this sweet and indulgent woman instantly ready to defend herself and her own caused tears and a laugh to war inside her heart. And steeled her resolution to end this situation in the town’s favor.

Mizz Castleberry saw her and moved away from the door in a manner that functioned as a vote of confidence.

Hope stepped into the sun of the morning, heart racing but will steady and strong.

Ugly Jim didn’t take his eyes from the Riders, but all three of them turned to look at the new arrival.

Hope’s heart sank when she saw those faces. Rage and fear and an old and secret shame she’d hoped to never feel again welled up inside her.

All three of the riders wore the faces of her husbands friends. His particularly close friends. The ones he’d shared with.

Rapists. Scum. What they’d done to her was horrible enough — but that was the past and a world away. What truly angered her — what caused the rage to drown out the fear and shame — was that they dared to follow her into this world.

The middle rider laughed that hateful laugh again."Looks like Ugly Jim done found him a purty Deputy."

Her skin crawled. She felt her stomach knot in revulsion.

Then she felt the soft brush at her leg. Felt the rumbling purr vibrate through denim and skin and bone and into her soul.

The cat was with her. No matter what she faced she did not face it alone. That purr settled her stomach and calmed her nerves.

She smiled. It was a vicious smile. And she was rewarded with the smile leaving the face of the rider. And a gleam of fear in his eyes.

"Mizz Hope" Jim said, quietly, eyes not leaving his enemy, hand hovering at the ready above his holster.

"Jim." she replied. "We got trouble? Seems a shame to bloody up such a pretty morning."

As she spoke she moved to stand beside him. Casually, as if she were just ambling to the General store. The cat followed in his usual way, weaving around and about her feet in a feline dance.

The riders — those hated, familiar faces — stared at her in contempt and dislike, but there was no recognition that she could see. Unlike her, it seemed that they had not made it into the Borderlands with memory intact.

Or, another part of her opined, perhaps she no longer resembled the timid and frightened woman she had been.

"Well, I guess that depends on the boys here." Jim drawled. He was as casual as her, but Hope could sense the fierce appreciation radiating from him. "How about it boys? You on a mission to ruin a perfectly good morning?"

The middle rider sneered. Then he shook his head. "Just bringing in the word, Ugly. The boss is coming. He’ll be here in three days. He wants the usual. You see that he gets it."

"Or what?" Hope said. She almost spat the words.

All three riders laughed, as if she’d said the dumbest thing in the world.

"Pretty but stupid, I see. Listen well girly: the boss gets what he wants or Summertime City burns. To the ground. And we piss on the ashes."

For a moment the rage threatened to boil over. An image of the gun in her hand and falling trick pins bloomed in her mind’s eye, and it was an image of almost impossibly seductive beauty.

"Is that the way of it?" she asked.

"That’s the way it’s always been."

"Things change."

The rider raised an eyebrow. "That so? You think you got the steel to change the way of the world?"

The words of the boneman came to her, clear as a bell and as sweetly chiming. Find a world to challenge.

"And then some, boy." She emphasized that last.

The look on the rider’s face was deadly. He spat on the ground before looking away, addressing Jim.

"You see we got the usual waiting, Ugly. You know what’s good for you. Best not let addle headed girls with big ideas go turning your head from sense."

And he spurred his horse, wheeled and rode out. His companions followed suit.

As the dust cloud they stirred up drifted and settled, people began to emerge. They tossed looks at Jim and Hope as they did. Quick looks for the most part, with a mix of emotions. Mostly fear. But there was a measure of respect there, as well. And more than a hint of some dark amusement.

Jim chuckled. When she looked at him, he was shaking his head. Those blue eyes in that ruined face gleamed with the same mix of emotions as the townsfolk — but the respect dominated with him.

"Mizz Hope, I must say — you don’t do nothing by half." The chuckle became a full laugh and he put a hand on her shoulder with real affection. "I’d say those riders haven’t heard a challenge like that in all their days with the Boss."

Hope considered telling him of her personal connection with these particular riders, but thought better of it. Instead, she gestured to the shade of the porch. As they made their way to a more comfortable spot, she asked some questions.

"Who is this Boss?"

Jim just shrugged. "Bandit. Old and smart and mean. Plays about three towns for this yearly tribute business. Lives well on it I suppose."

"And what is this usual they mentioned."

Jim sighed. "Coin and lots of it. Food and plenty. Dope. ‘Botics, painkillers, that sorta. And sometimes…" He paused.

Hopes chest tightened. "Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes they want a couple women. Girls. You know." Hope hadn’t known that the scarred flesh of Jim’s face could blush until then.

The tightness in her chest turned to ice. "And you think this year is one of those sometimes?"

He just nodded.

"So. What do we do?"

Jim was silent for a moment, eyes closed. Then he took a deep breath and looked her right in the eye.

"I been Sheriff for three years, Mizz Hope. All three of those years I knuckled under when the riders came. I figured that coin and food and drugs — no matter how precious — were a better price than a load of dead townsfolk, than fighting off dozens of hardasses. And they’ll come in dozens, ma’am — count on it. The Boss has an army at his disposal."

His face grew still but his eyes danced with passion and conviction.

"But I swore that when they asked for my folk…when they went beyond things into demanding I co-operate with slavery….I swore I’d be buried first."

Hope smiled at him, relieved.

"And I didn’t swear that lightly." His hand went to the gun on his hip, an instinct. "And I swear it still."

"You’re a damn fine man, Jim."

He just nodded. Then his eyes met hers again.

"And what about you? You with me? You gonna back that challenge up?"

Faith stood. She thought about who and what those men had been in the old world. She thought about the words of the boneman. She thought about the welcome the people of Summertime City had given a peaceful stranger. About Carina Castleberry at the door with a shotgun. She looked down at the cat. He was staring right back, inscrutable face radiating the only answer she could make.

She gave Jim the same scary smile she’d offered the riders. Her hand dropped to the cold and ready steel of her gun.

"You’re damned right I’ll back it up, Jim."

She looked around the street. Saw that all eyes were on her and the Sheriff. So she raised her voice to take in all who watched.

"We fight."

5. The Smoke Man

Mysteries disperse.

She wore the name Hope with more confidence than she’d ever worn Faith. She figured that maybe faith was always a thing to be lightly held and wondered over. That maybe it was the very uncertainty of the thing that gave it a worth.

She grew to love Summertime City in the idyll she spent there, and fell into the towns odd and paradoxical rythyms. What looked slow and sleepy on the surface was a sharp and practical thing beneath; she discovered that she did not need to introduce herself. Her walk through town and meeting with Fowler had been introduction enough, and on some invisible all hearing grapevine her arrival had been heralded. Even on the walk from the General Store to the boarding house she’d received smiles and bows and hat-tips, along with more than a few repetitions of ‘Mornin’ Mizz Hope.’

Carina Castleberry did indeed love cats. What’s more, cats loved her. The reaction of the scarred gray tom to the plump, shining little woman was almost embarrassing. He purred and rolled and lost himself in an orgy of petting and clumsy affection. All the while, the hidden eyes of other cats glinted jealously from one nook or another — none quite bold enough to challenge the newcomer for the attention of their missus.

"My husband, God rest him, always called me Catnip Carrie’, Mizz Castleberry said, by way of explanation, as she retrieved a dish of milk for her trail worn guest, and a cup of sweet coffee for his human friend.

Hope dealt with the pragmatics of her situation after the cat had swaggered off to deal with his. She assumed hers was far less violent and much more amiable, however. She rented a second floor room with meals for 25 coins a week. One week paid in advance with the provision for first choice to renew the deal. Once again, the deal was sealed with a handshake. Mizz Castleberry introduced her own tradition, and broke out a bottle of brandy to toast their transaction with proper good cheer.

Five of those coins had gone to secure one of the few rooms with private plumbing, and that night Hope luxuriated in a hot bath. The simple delight of hot water and brisk lye soap made her grin foolishly for an hour.

The cat lay near the door, cleaning some new wounds. These were the products of his negotiations with the resident felines. There was a certain smugness about his eyes and the indolent way he stretched that informed Hope that said negotiations had ended in his favor.

"I like it here, cat." she told him, for no reason, soaping herself up for the third time, just because.

He purred, slit his eyes, and kneaded the wooden floor in answer.


Dinner was an informal affair, held right in the kitchen at a big table that could seat twenty by the look of it. Only three were in attendance that night. In addition to Hope and the Missus, there was a resident named Albert Combers, a charming elderly man who dressed with style and spoke like a Harvard scholar.

Mizz Castleberry made plates right from the stove, where her concoctions bubbled and simmered in the alchemy known only to good cooks. The menu was salisbury steak, baby peas, early corn buttered and peppered to perfection and thick wedges of cornbread that tasted like heaven dipped in the steak gravy.

Hope ignored all manners and had thirds.

When everyone was done and sighing, Mizz Castleberry produced a bag of tobacco and rolled herself and Albert a trim smoke. Hope demurred.

The conversation became interesting after that. Mizz Castleberry had never even heard of Th