Hells Acre - 6

There was no wind howling, in Hells Acre. Despite the darkening sky, and the cold that would eventually settle down on the land, wind had long ceased to exist. Some of the older folk remembered a time when a cool breeze might grace their forehead, but nowadays it was a rare occurance when the air shifted. Stagnancy lay like a layer of dust, and settled on man and earth.

Dimitri sat a few feet away from Darling, who had been positioned in such a way that her bound hands were far from anything that might free her. Librarian sat nearer, watching the woman with a weary eye whenever she tried to shift her weight. They made camp in the middle of a dust town; one of the old settlements where the only living were the dead. Old structures that had once been houses surrounded them, boarded up decades ago against the dust storms. They were all but abandoned, now, their innards stripped long ago of anything valuable. Holes in their structures, combined with treacherous architecture that would fall at a moment's notice, made the houses uninhabitable for even the a few hours. There were too many ghosts, it was said. Waiting for someone foolish enough to make one of them their tomb.

Librarian was busying himself by gutting a jack rabbit he'd trapped. It was skinny and had little fat on it, but good enough for a meal between himself and Dimitri. Their dried goods were too precious to waste when fresh food was available, and a recent kill far more appetizing than the leathery squirrel jerkey in his pocket.

"Hand me that stick, green-back," he grumbled.

Dimitri retrieved a long stick that they had left to soak in some of their precious water, and handed it over. His face was expressionless, his thoughts on memories that teased the edge of his brain.

"So, 'green-back'," Darling said, smiling contently. "Ain'tcha gonna ask me why you're takin' me in?"

"No," Librarian answered quickly, before Dimitri had the chance to. He turned toward his young companion, shoving the gutted rabbit carcass on to it's roasting stick. "No point in knowing. You get too close to your dinner, it don't become dinner anymore. Becomes a pet. Read me? She's the same. She's dinner. Not a pet."

Darling laughed, leaning back a little to rock against the ground. "Well if you ain't the biggest sour-puss I ever seen! C'mon, ain'tcha curious?"

A hollow silence followed her question. Dimitri cleared his throat. "I am curious about that thing you wear. Whats it for?"

"S'a key. Key to heaven," she replied easily, nodding. "This here's my ticket to salvation."

Librarian grunted, but didn't speak. Dimitri prodded further. "Howsit work?"

"Well, look here," the woman answered gently, her hazel eyes softening in the firelight. "You got all these different beads, see? An' each bead is like another prayer. So you pray each of 'em, over an' over, 'till you reach the end. Then once ya get to the end, you're done with one big long prayer."

Dimitri raised an eyebrow, looking skeptically at the rosary. "Doesn't sound very special. Just sounds like a lot of asking."

"Well o'course it's a lot of askin'! What else ya gonna do? But it's more'n that, it's like a reminder. See, this here's my reminder that even when I'm on the lamb, or, when I'm runnin' or being caught by low-life bastards who can't find 'emselves a decent--"

"Watch it, sugar," Librarian warned, his eyes on the rabbit as it roasted over the fire. "Lot worse men out there lookin' for ya. Yer lucky we got to ya first."

Darling smiled gently, "Who said you got to me first?"

Another hollow silence filled their brains. Darling rocked back and forth again.

"Anyway, this here's a reminder that there's better things out there. Maybe not here, maybe not in Hell, but there's better. And if I keep doin' good things, maybe I'll make Hell better. See?"

Dimitri wanted to reach out and take the rosary into his hands. The beads looked smooth and comforting. He'd never really seen beads like them, so soft and gentle looking. They reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite recall. "So, what is it you do that's good?"

"Careful," Librarian grunted, pulling the rabbit from the fire. "You're making nice with our dinner, green-back."

"Aw, let the boy be curious. Whats'a'matter? Scared 'e's gonna grow a heart or somethin'? Ain't you hunters allowed a heart?"

"No," Librarian replied gruffly, sniffing at the meat. "I trust him not to be stupid enough to listen to you. I just don't care to get too used to your voice, considering where we're taking you."

The fearlessness in Darling's eyes impressed Dimitri. He didn't know where Librarian intended on taking her, but he knew it couldn't be good for him to be so serious about it. "Well.. you wanna hear what happened, or doncha?"

Dimitri glanced toward the other man, but Librarian didn't return his look. He nodded and settled back to get comfortable.

"It's an easy one, buddy," she sighed dramatically. "I broke a man's heart."

The boy laughed, but Darling didn't. Quickly, he silenced himself.

"S'alright, kid. It is funny! Imagine, a man's heart bein' broken by someone like me. But it's true, an' that's why yer aimin' t'take me in."

"Well.. how did you do it?"

"Only way ya can break a man's heart; I left 'im. Left 'im an' humilliated 'im. See, used to be a time when I was young an' dumb. I thought that a good man was a handsome man, one with lots'a pieces, lots'a men in 'is corner. An' I thought I'd be too ugly t'ever catch me a man like that, scrawny as I was.. mixed as I was. I'm a Hispanola, y'see? Half, on my daddy's side, but ya can't tell. Not at first. Anyway.. one day, he sees me, an' I smile an' it happens. He's latched t'me. So, I follow 'im an' become 'is girl, an' that's that."

Librarian kept quiet, but kept roasting the rabbit. It was nearly brown now, from front to end, and the smell of roasting meat tickled Dimitri's nose.

"'cept, that wasn't that. See, I said before, I thought thats what love is. It's havin' the best lookin' man, with the most pieces, an' the most friends. But that ain't love, an' that's why I'd pray every night. T'this rosary. I'd pray that I fall in love with this man, b'cause I liked 'im okay, but it wasn't love."

Dimitri scratched the dry patch of skin on his neck. Since the sun had gone down, he removed his covering to cool himself a bit. The sun had been enough at dusk to still dry his skin, and it itched like mad. "What's the difference?"

"You'd know if ya tried. Anyhow, I din't love 'im, an I din't know why. 'till one day I realized, it's 'cuz 'e was such an ass to the Hispanolas. Such an ass that 'e'd torment the hell out of 'em, whenever they came by. Made ma so gaddamn angry.. I din't know if 'e even realized I was one of 'em. My momma might'v been white as milk, but my daddy was a red one. 'e spoke Spanish an' red, both. Died when I was young, but still, I was one too. But I guess 'e din't see that. So, one day, this family rolls up. Beautiful horses, all of 'em mustangs, with pretty splotches o'red an' white. Would'v been good for the town, with rich folks livin' or even just stoppin' by for supplies. But then we saw they was Hispanolas."

Dimitri nodded, thinking back to the last time he'd met a Hispanola. They were tattood with black symbols, and wore feathers like the red indians. Except, Hispanolas spoke Spanish, mostly mixed with English, and sometimes a red language. They had allied themselves so closely with the reds that when the Hispanolas began to thrive, so did the reds, and they conquered the lower lands of what was once the United States with a vengeance. He'd been educated by Librarian on the violence that happened in those days, and how American fought American over domenance over what they knew was a dying land. Nobody cared, they just wanted what was left, and damned be those who would try to stop them.

Eventually, the Hispanolas and the reds outnumbered everyone else in those lower lands. Those they didn't drive away with force either stayed behind, as allies, or left of their own choosing to the North. Many of them met their deaths in the unrelenting cold that beat down from the farway land of Canada, but many of them too stayed and lived on in townships and cities on the coast.

"So these Hispanolas ride up; a momma, daddy, an' two kids. An' the man I'm with is so gaddamn pissed at the sight that 'e just walks up in front of 'em. Says, 'Mornin', folks. What can we do ya for?' And they says, 'Just passin' on through. Wonderin' if we can't get us some supplies for the trip.' He asks, 'where ya headed?' an' they says, 'San Fransisco'. Well.. the idea o'them on such a trip, with enough pieces an' supplies t'get there? Somewhere he ain't never been, and couldn't afford t'go, even if the train was in 'is back yard? Well, that pissed him off somethin' awful. So 'e gives a nod t'one of 'is goons, and right then an' there 'e shoots 'em all dead."

Dimitri's stomach sunk. He couldn't tell whether or not he was being lied to, or if he and Librarian were suddenly in a rough spot, but he certainly understood what his mentor warned him about.

"Shoots 'em dead, right there," Darling continued. "So I says to myself, Darlin', this ain't right. I tell 'im 'e's a right coward for doin' such a terrible thing, knowin' that nobody'd pay it no mind 'cuz nobody likes reds or Hispanolas, an' d'ya know what he says? He says, 'Darlin', someone so pretty should keep 'er pretty mouth shut."

The sentence resonated throughout the camp. Librarian held the cooling stick of meat in his hand and picked at it, tearing off a leg.

"So I says t'myself, this ain't right. It really ain't, and that night, I think, I don't wanna be pretty if this is what pretty does. So I cut off all my hair, and boy, let me tell ya.. I had some hair. Beautiful black and long, and full of curls, and I cut it off. I cut it off 'till I was usin' my daddy's old razor to shave it down, an' then, well, I took the old shotgun 'e had, an' I stole one o' them pretty horses."

Dimitri glanced back behind them, "Was that..?"

"Peaches? Naw. Peaches I got a year back. That horse I stole was so damn beautiful, that once I'd gone far enough, I got picked out by some reds. They says that's a red indian horse, and I tells 'em I don't want no trouble. Want to help 'em get revenge on the bastard what stole 'em, an' they was suspicious at first, but they let me stay. Became my new family. I traded 'em my pretty horse for a plain one, an' supplies. Bullets n' clothes, n'water n' such. They taught me t'shoot, t'hunt, t'do everything that I needed to learn t'do t'be one of 'em. I learned good, an' one day, I went back t'my town. I wanted t'visit my momma, tell 'er I was okay. When I got there, th'house was dead."

Dimitri understood what she meant by a house being dead. He'd seen many dead houses in his lifetime, and in some ways, they were worse than seeing dead people.

"Talked t'some folks, turned out that 'e killed 'er. Soon as I stole 'is horse, 'e came t'my place an' found I was gone. Momma was in bed, an' 'e killed her. So I says t'myself, I'mma kill 'im. I'mma go t'his place, kill 'im th'way them reds taught me. So I go t'this bar where 'e likes t'hang, an' see him an' all 'is goons. I go t'that place an' walk in, and I say.."

Dimitri held his breath.

"Tom Barrow! You get your narrow ass over here an' you take what I got t'give you for killin' my momma!"

Her voice echoed a bit in the heads of both men. Librarian still kept his eye on the food, and after Darling shouted, he passed Dimitri half of it, but the boy was too enthralled to eat. He watched the bound woman in front of him, captured in the spell of her storytelling, his mind's eye seeing everything that she described.

"Tom comes up t'me an' 'e says, 'Well well.. if it ain't my pretty lil' Hispanola. Come back home? Well, I already got me a new girl,' an' then 'e laughs at me. Well, I wasn't laughin'. I whip out my daddy's shot gun, an' I shoot the shit outta that boy. He goes down like a sack'o rocks an' stays down, bleedin' like a pig. An' I step over 'im an' I says, 'that's fer killin' my momma.' 'Cept.. I been gone so long, I didn't know. Tom Barrow was the gaddamn mayor, an' all 'is goons was deputees an' cops. So they pull out their guns an' they says, 'don't move!' But hell to that, I was too fired up not t'move! I shot one of 'em right in th'face, an' jumped behind the bar. They was shootin' like crazy, an' the bartender was scared shitless, so he ducked down with me. I din't know how the hell I was gonna get outta there, so I grabbed th'first thing I saw, a bottle. I popped the cork, stuffed it with my bandana, an' lit that sucker on fire. You shoulda seen the face on that bartender, but I thought t'myself.. better your bar'n my life! I tossed that bottle over th'bar an' heard a big noise, an' screamin', and you'd better believe that shootin' stopped. The bartender ran, but I stayed. Stayed 'till th'smoke choked my lungs.. then finally, when I could hardly see, I crawled outta there."

Dimitri chewed idly on his rabbit flesh, not bothering to lick the grease on his bottom lip. "How did you get out of the town? Didn't anyone see you?"

"Well yeah, but not at first. That place was connected t'some other buildings, so they was too busy puttin' out th'fire t'pay me any mind. I managed t'make my escape, but by th'time I looked back, that whole town was blazin'."

"So.. you killed the mayor, and burned down a town?"

A moment passed, which allowed Darling to think. She let out an amused laugh, and nodded in defeat. "Well yeah, guess I did. But for good reason, you understand."

Finally settling down to his meal, the boy passed a look to Librarian, who was already on his back. Darling had no way of escaping, but the younger of the two promised to take the first turn in watching their prisoner. Moments ago, he might have considered asking Librarian whether or not it was right to take her in, but now, he couldn't be sure. Thinking back on the rosary, he thought about what was wrong, and what was right. Was Darling right, for getting revenge? Was Barrow right, for hating the Hispanolas? Was any of it right, and would her prayer lead to salvation? He couldn't know. All he knew was that her conscious seemed clear, and in an age where people killed one another for survival, that might have been enough.