Across the Middle Desert

Chapter 1: Rice and Shooters

The woman brought her mount to a pause atop the trail before it led down a winding path through the heavily forested mountain. The valley below appeared too flat, as if the steep rock totems were placed by an unknown hand to arrange a barrier around it. She watched how the valley widened, flat and green, irrigation channels glinted the noon sun. A slow river about the color of mud snaked through the valley and vanished between a gap in the nearly vertical stone rises.

The valley extended beyond the river, but the sight and detail were lost from her current vantage. Below her, a pale dirt road curved back and forth until it reached the valley floor. If not for the irrigation channels and the paddies for growing crops, she guessed nobody had touched this plot of land since creation. The air was thick, stifling, and the sun’s heat felt trapped and magnified by the humidity.

She patted her horse’s mane, heard the large animal snort, flicking its ears at tiny pests that had taken notice of their scent and sweat.

When she nudged the horse forward, she swept her broad-brimmed hat from her head to fan her face. The leather in her vest creaked as she adjusted in the saddle. The trail took on a sharper decline before rounding a hairpin turn further down. Her left hand held the reins, her other rested on her trousers, faded tan fabric with holes at the seams running along her thigh. Her boots hung in the stirrups, appearing rough worn from the soles to the leather cord laces fed through the eyelets.

At her waist hung a knife and pistol and she preferred to keep a spare hand near the holster and sheath.

A brace of high noon wind kicked dust from the sharp trail curve and faded out over the tops of squat bushes and grass so compacted together that it hid the sheer mountain rock.

Her horse tracked down into the bottomland along a raised spit of land between the paddies and reeds. She looked back at the sharp rises from which she descended and never felt smaller. It was as if these mountains broke through the ground like teeth and threatened to swallow all it contained.

Ahead, she spied a bridge leading over the river. The wood and rope looked recently tended to, boards replaced, new ropes without any fraying in the fibers held it firm. Even on horseback, she felt the river’s smooth and steady current through the mud-caked deck boards.

Once past the river, the irrigation channels gave way to flat land so green with reeds it looked unnatural. Nowhere had she seen such fertile ground, in recent memory anyway. Coming here alone meant risk. She knew that. She was accustomed to it. But as her horse carried her along a dirt road, cupped in cart tracks and the remnants of boot prints, she knew her destination would not be far. Down that road carried a name. Names were her business, though only in part. What comes after… that determined whether it was a worthwhile risk or death.

In all the heat, down that dirt road in the heart of the farmstead lives her current name. The face that came with it was poorly sketched on a cheap, pulpy scrap of paper, but it would have to be enough. The man’s name was Karl Grady that she knew, and whether or not Grady knew, it would be his last day. The woman figured he’d know soon enough.

***

Karl Grady busied himself by filing boards that morning for roofing tiles.

Before noon, he sent the workers from the paddies to the western crop further into the valley. Today, he felt better spent repairing the roof to the shared kitchen where workers prepared food and ate together, empty now, save himself and a single cook.

Grady stood with an arm propped on an empty window frame, sipping a cup of water and seeing that muddy, slow river snake far into the jungled mountain rises. The morning mist that held the mountaintops faded early on, and now Grady could see the steep and rounded green summits. He was a man satisfied with his labor, though unexpectedly. When he first arrived at this once overgrown, dense land, choked with heat and bugs and other critters best kept at a distance, he felt an air of defeat. As if the mountain range were prison bars and his sentence was to scrape a living off the land.

Now, those prison bars were a barrier—no, he decided, a border. People came to him to find opportunities and he would demand to know their aptitude for hard labor. Once finished, he’d bring the new worker or workers in for the morning shift, work them all day, and at the day’s close, he’d spoil them with rest, food, and their first payment. An initiation, he called it. “If you can make it the first day, then you’ll make the rest,” he told them.

At forty strong, Grady was confident this was the largest farmstead west of the nearest township. And the best part, as far as he was concerned, that distance made him more profit. The work crews weren’t going to brave the winding mountain passes every day just to spend some coin at a tavern, to repeat the same trip with a hangover. And as each passing season brought on more profit, each passing day restored his pride. He felt far removed from the old days of thieving.

The cook behind him dropped a ladle and the clattering tore his attention away from outdoors. He was an older man, no longer able to break his back in the paddies like he was able to two harvests ago. Grady didn’t comment as the man braced against a counter to pick up the utensil from the unswept floor. Dried flakes of mud clung to the floorboards.

“How’s that soup coming along?” Grady asked.

The old cook leaned back up, ladle in hand, wiping a dusty hand on his stained apron. “It’s ready. When you want this to go to the work crew?”

“Half an hour or so. I’ll help you carry the pot to the mule cart, then take it up to them.” Grady drained the last of the water and set the clay cup on the edge of the windowsill. He glanced outside, not expecting to see movement on the red-dirt road leading up to the mountains. A lone figure on horseback, too far off for him to gather much detail, but he saw a white poncho flap in a gust of breeze atop a chestnut horse. The rider rode ramrod straight, alert, and observing thatched huts on either side of the road on their approach.

Grady shot a look back at the cook. “Hold off on that task, Mac. We may have ourselves a new employee.”

Mac placed the metal lid back on the soup pot. “Either that or a customer.”

“You ever remember a single buyer making the trip?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Grady crossed over to the cooking area and passed the cook his knife. “After you see to the rider’s horse, stay behind them when you come back in. I’ll hold onto the iron.” He indicated the pistol on his hip. It had been a long time since he needed it. Years, probably. Not that he enjoyed it when he did. After all, the ammunition was so expensive. Even with the proceeds from the farmstead, he’d hate to shell out such a price.

The woman left the paddy fields a half-hour ago and came upon what appeared to look like a small village. There were quaint-looking thatched huts spaced out on either side of the wide road. The owner, presumably Mr. Grady, allowed some thick vegetation to remain, providing shade—and cover from peering eyes. The flattop trees clustered together prevented her from seeing much detail from her overlook.

Ahead, she saw a large, rectangular building made of dark lumber. Sections of the roof were bare, missing the carefully installed shingling, exposing the wooden slats which held the roof together. White smoke drifted up from a stone chimney, and the pleasant smell of cooking food and hickory tree set her stomach to rumble. The woman had only eaten tough jerky on the trip and whatever hapless bird or fish she could catch.

A ladder sat off to the side of a glassless window. A bearded man, hair mopped with sweat, watched her for a moment and disappeared back into the interior. She did not see anyone else.

As she approached further, she realized the road she traveled veered off into several branching dirt paths. Some of the trails cut through the vegetation behind the wood building. A muddy footpath snaked off to her left through a small creek lined with tall, leafy grass.

“Good business,” she murmured, bringing her horse to a halt. As she climbed off the saddle, the front door to the wooden building swung open and out walked a tall, wiry man in a stained button-up onto the flat porch. Another, an older man followed behind him, wearing a filthy apron.

The tall man was too far away for her to see distinguishing marks, and so she adjusted her straw hat and held the reins with one hand. Her horse snickered as she walked him forward.

They met farther off the porch under the shade of flat-topped trees.

Grady misjudged the rider’s height in the saddle. On approach, he felt a flutter of uncertainty watching the stranger approach. Old instincts from an older life crept into him. He became watchful of their surroundings, no matter how familiar.

Now, face to face, his posture relaxed seeing a woman’s face peering out from under the straw hat. The poncho hung loosely from her body. He noted her worn boots and patches woven into her pants.

“What’s your name, miss?”

“Mayes,” she said, her tone light. “I take it this action’s yours?”

“You’d be right to guess that,” he said and stuck out a hand. “Karl Grady.”

They shook hands. Mayes kept her expression pleasant, her grip soft. Though, Grady felt the roughness on her palm. “You a worker?”

“Everyone works or begs. There isn’t another way to go about it,” she said.

“True enough. How long have you been riding?”

“Long enough to ask for a bite to eat and seat to perch from.”

Grady nodded, flicking his eyes at the cook behind him. The tension in the older man’s shoulders relaxed. Mayes felt the mood shift to something more agreeable than standoffish conversation. That suited her work just fine. “Mac here can tend to your horse. I got a meal prepped for the men under my employ, but there’s always extra. Why don’t you take lunch with me and get out of this sun?”

Mayes passed the reins to Mac, who then guided her horse to a water trough some distance from what she now guessed was the kitchen. She didn’t like allowing someone to tend to her horse without supervision. Still, she was willing to keep up appearances as the genial, travel-worn stranger grateful for the assistance.

Once inside, Mayes doffed her hat to fan her face. Heat from the woodstove blew out the many open windows. Many wooden chairs were neatly aligned at three rows of tables. Some smaller tables sat closer to the walls. When she sat, crossing her legs, she placed her hat on a knee. She made sure to make a tired groan, settling onto the chair’s hard bark.

Grady ladled two bowls of soup and, to her surprise, two slices of fresh bread. He set the meal down and offered her a cup of water.

“Thanks,” she said. She noticed Grady positioned her with her back to the door. His eyes glanced once at the open door and settled on her. “I haven’t eaten in a spell.”

“Normally I’m not one to give handouts, but hell, I’ve been at the roof since sunrise. This is my break too.” Grady tore his bread slice in two and dipped it in the soup broth.

“I didn’t ask for none,” she said, “but this does smell pleasant.”

“Go ahead, it’s something my mother used to make. That’d be the sweet peppercorn you’re smelling. It’s got a bite to it.”

Mayes bit down on the spoonful, feeling the spice water her eyes. If anything, it helped perk her up. She smiled at him. “It’s good, yeah. Could hardly believe my eyes when I came over that mountain pass and saw the rice paddies. After nothing but wildland three days on the trail, the hills, those mountains, I thought the sun was making me see things.”

“Well, lucky for you it’s real. Bought this place—oh, it’ll be four years coming up.” Grady wiped the broth from his beard. Mayes noted the twin scars along his jawline, almost hidden by his black beard.

“Looks like you’ve done well enough with it.”

“Wasn’t like this at the start,” he said, “everything was wild, overgrown. Me and five others dug the irrigation channels.” He gnawed on the last bite of bread. “Over time, word got around of an honest farmstead turning over honest bits, others wanted in on the action. The next thing you know, I have a live-in work crew. Mac out there assisted with the first harvest, matter of fact. The Lazuli township being my first and primary customer, but I do make private sales in bulk. Whenever a group of wide-eyed explorers plan a trip across the Desmid.”

Grady brought the bowl to his mouth while she watched the windows behind him, listening for footsteps on the porch outside. He set the bowl down with a sigh. “So, you looking for work?”

“Funny enough, I’m on my way to it,” she said. “I passed through Lazuli on the way here.”

“Did you stay long?” Grady asked.

“I passed through. Didn’t feel like catching a disease at the speakeasy or fire-lice at the hotel.”

“You mentioned being on the way to finding work. You got a trade?”

“I do.”

“I hope it’s useful for labor. You’re at the rim of civilization, darlin. Outside a few stopover settlements to a strip mine, minor farmsteads, it’s all wild territory—and all the dangers that come with it.”

Mayes sipped at the water, feeling bits of sediment from the water well grind in her molars. “And after that, it’s nothing but the badlands and the Desmid, right? Geography ain’t my strong suit.”

“Last time I checked.”

Was that a flicker of suspicion across his features? Mayes figured a lone rider, let alone a woman, would cause him concern. Whether the case or not, she kept herself relaxed in the chair, both hands within sight.

“Means I came out here for nothing,” she said, adding a false sense of irritation to her voice.

“Here’s a bit of advice,” he said. “Unless you know the person offering you a job, don’t take it. Could be whoever offered wanted to lure you out and…well…” Grady left the end of his advice to her imagination.

“Then I guess it’s back to Calla for me,” she said, resigned. “If I make it in time, my old job still might be there.”

“Which was what?”

“I tended bar. Served drinks. Kept an eye on the card tables for my boss.”

Grady raised an eyebrow at the town’s name. “Down in Calla? You served drinks at the Devil Claw?” He let out a small laugh. “Hell, that town’s a rotten place as I’ve ever seen, but good customers’re living there who like what I grow.”

Mayes sat up in the chair. If Grady was jumping to a different subject, at least it was one she no longer had to lie about. “It’s not the Devil Claw anymore. The old owner died…I’d say two years ago. We’re the Suncup Speakeasy and Hotel now. The gambling is still there, so have no fear on that score if cards is your vice of choice.”

Grady appeared amused to her. Mayes studied him as she finished the cup of water. Reminiscing about older times, perhaps?

“Can’t afford to gamble my money away, ma’am. I’d hate to see it go. But if you’re still serving drinks, I’ll drop in.”

She slid the clay cup back along the wooden tabletop. “Your first would be on the house, then. Consider it an appreciation for helping out a lonesome gal on the road.”

“Much obliged,” he said. His crooked smile gave him a youthful look. Mayes figured he’d be a charmer in any cardhouse.

“Though, I guess there are perks to my old job—those being the stories I hear. When you tend bar, you know to keep your ears pointed at the customers. Conversations, arguments, flirting with the drink maids or the whores, all kinds of things get heard when the liquor is flowing. Funny things too.”

Grady half-shrugged. “Drunks are usually a rowdy bunch.”

Mayes feigned a look of humor, giggling to herself. “Mind if I tell you one?”

“Sure thing. I often hear the same stories time and again.”

Mayes didn’t skip a beat. “One day, I’m tending bar. It’s past sundown. We had our regulars, some travelers—not a ne’er-do-well within sight. Well…they weren’t so combative. I still wouldn’t trust them as far as my horse can ride.

“But then a new customer comes in, twitchy-like fellow. He gets a good hand in cards and sweeps a mountain of copper bits toward him, but the man he played had a violent air about him. Naturally, a fight breaks out, one calling the other a cheater, drinks are spilled and I’m left with a big fucking mess on the floor and I cry over spilled liquor.” She placed the back of her hand to her forehead in mock anguish. “Woe is me, right?” Grady snickered, nodding.

“I get the glass cleaned up, the two men make amends, and the offended party left. Only now, the winner is vindicated and has a handful of bits and an eye for a fresh whiskey. Of course, my work clothes are more…amenable to conversations with lonely men.”

Grady made a low sound. “That drunk chat you up?”

“The man wouldn’t stop talking to me if he tried. And he did try. Tried to get us together in bed, and he pulled out all the stops. Somewhere I imagine in his life he heard tale of how women are drawn to dangerous men. He played it coy, showing me his iron—the shooter on his hip, not his cock.” Mayes tried not to grin at the redness spreading out over Grady’s face. He may have been used to rough talk from his workers, but not from what he assumed to be a delicate barmaid.

She continued. “Gets to telling how there’s free money on the trails and the Desmid if one had the sand for it.”

“The sand?” Grady asked.

“He meant fortitude—and attempt at humor I guess.”

“I take it he wasn’t successful,” Grady said.

“With?”

“Taking you in the back to show you his iron.”

“Ah,” Mayes snorted, “but he never despaired. He spent a few bits on two more drinks, sipping them the way slow drinkers do, the real drunks who know how to pace themselves. Anyway, he pulls out what looks to me like a bundle of sticks with long, green leaves. He plucks one or two off, chewing them between yellow teeth. It was like a bolt of lightning hit him. He chatted and chatted away, sometimes while I chatted back, he ground his teeth together.”

Grady nodded slowly. That hint of suspicion crossed him but was gone again. “Kaat addicts.”

“Then he tells me his name,” she said.

Grady’s attention broke off and she found him looking at the soup pot on the stove. “Listen,” he said, pushing his chair back, “I would like to talk more but this meal’s got to get to my workers at the north crop.”

Mayes continued as if he never spoke. “It was a fancy name. Mikael Lyon Aldermann. He said it made him sound like a nobleman of old.” Grady stopped mid-rise from his chair and sat back down. “I’m assuming, what with the kaat and the drink, he fried his brain. And if poor Mikael is what became of nobility, we’re all in for harder times, aren’t we?”

“You said this was about stories.” Grady’s voice came lower with not a trace of the geniality it held before. Mayes saw as much. The set of his shoulders, the rush of blood to his ears…throughout this song and dance, Mayes finally had his direct attention.

“He told me one,” she said, still keeping herself relaxed, voice light. “About the railcar. Mikael Lyon Aldermann, the nobleman of old, was also the scourge of the Desmid railcars traversing the scorched flatland. I know railcars haven’t made it this far northwest, even years later, which says to me this story Mikael told was of his last score, the big one that would set him up for life. Only life went on a little longer than Mikael planned—judging from his poor station. Or rather, I don’t think Mikael and his crew of bandits knew what was on that railcar.”

Grady’s frown was pulled taut beneath his black beard, more like a scowl to her eyes. Footsteps on the floorboards behind her meant that Mac finished tending to her horse. “You said you were traveling to find work,” he said, flicking his eyes to the doorway. Was that a subtle nod to the old cook leering behind her? “What are you doing here?”

Mayes reached under her straw hat and pulled her shooter out in a flash, thumbing the hammer back. She held a small metal object aloft in her left hand, conical in shape and pock-marked with dozens of small pits.

“I found my work,” she said, “keep both hands on the table and tell your cook to put the knife down.” She turned her head to address the cook, her eyes fixed to Grady’s. “Mac, that’s your name?”

“Yes,” the old man replied.

She waved her raised hand, holding the metal object back and forth. “You know what this is, Mac?”

“No ma’am, I can’t say.” Mac pulled the knife from his belt and tossed it across the room. She heard it clatter off against the floor, sliding to a stop by the woodstove.

She heard Grady scoff. “How much do you wanna bet that thing’s defective?”

“You’d need a new cook either way,” she said.

“Should have figured you for a bounty hunter the moment you pulled up,” Grady said, his temper rising.

“That’s your mistake then,” she said.

“You’re the one makin mistakes. There’s not a bounty on anyone here, myself included, so you’re not here on any real business. Drag my corpse back to Calla or Lazuli, try it and see how long you can dodge the rope waiting for you.”

Mayes pressed a small button on the bottom side of the cone-shaped object she held with her thumb. Everyone in the room heard it make a beeping noise. The device was armed. Grady’s face paled.

“As I was telling you—the kaat-head cocksucker tells me of this heist he’s on. Tells me they found a small supply of silver bars, copper bits, and something else. Seems to me that you’ve done well with your share, Mr. Grady. Matter of fact, it was fifteen men who took that railcar. Fifteen men stumbled onto something they had no business stumbling into, let alone knowing about it. Now thirteen of them are dead or disappeared—which I consider natural to their line of work.”

Beads of nervous sweat broke out on Grady’s forehead. “I wasn’t on that heist—I’ve never broken a law on any part of this land. This place was bought and paid for through hard labor settlement and I have the fucking bill of sale to prove it. You want proof of my claims? Head on down to Lazuli and speak to Ricard. His signature is on the line next to mine.”

“I spoke to Ricard,” she said.

“You…know him?”

“Speaking to him and knowing him are two different things. Though, I think his speaking days are over.” Maye’s lips broadened into a pearly-white smile. “It was Mikael led to me Ricard, which led me to you. And Ricard let slip the secret about your crops. Rice isn’t as profitable as kaat, which is what I’m guessing your workers are tending to now.”

“Oh please, I don’t grow kaat and you’ve no proof. You haven’t—”

“I’ve watched your farmstead the last four days.” Grady’s hands clenched on the tabletop. “Relax, I’m not about sabotaging the way you make your living. Grow all the kaat you want. This isn’t about that. This is about the secrecy Mikael swore you to—the cargo of your final heist. Through many cuts and bruises throughout the night, Mikael says that it was trusted to you to keep it close. Closer than any other person in your life because you know what it’s capable of—and what it means.

“See, Mikael wasn’t so tight-lipped since the days you knew him. If he’s willing to pull off all the stops like that in the fruitless hope of fucking me, imagine who else he might impress with that kaat buzzing through his brain? He’s not much of a sketch artist, but he tried.” She traced the tip of the gun barrel down her cheek. “He did get the scars right.”

Grady sagged in his chair, the tension in his shoulders gone. He must have known he would have eaten a bullet, or worse—risked her detonating the device. And whoever would survive that, nobody knew, not even the stranger wielding it.

“Are there other parties involved?” He asked.

“None that I know,” she said.

“It’s just you then,” he said, a wicked glint to his eyes. “You’re dumber than I thought, coming here alone.”

“Oh Mr. Grady,” she said, affronted, “surely you’ve given me more credit than that.” Without explaining further, she let out a shrill whistle through her teeth.

Grady and Mac flinched at the sound of the kitchen’s backdoor thumping open. A scrawny young man entered, holding a bow with the string pulled taught. The arrow loosed, and it blurred past the table where she sat. A meaty thwack, followed by Mac’s howling, sounded her partner’s arrival.