Sunday 13 March 2016

Chapter 6 - Jayci

'You ain't Emmanuel Duguid.'

'Ain't nothing gets past you,' I said.

Jayci Clemence nudged at my shoulder with the steel-toecap of her size five.  'So where is he?'

I looked down, past my feet, and she moved that way.  When I sat up, she was holding Duguid's corpse by the lapels.  His head was lolling behind him like a melon in a sack.  There was a terrible smell in the air, like bacon gone bad.

'Goddamn it, you killed him!' Clemence said.

'Hey, he killed hisself,' I shrugged.  'I told him not to go pulling that trigger.'

Clemence glanced down at the gun, distracted for a moment by the laser, which wasn't the sort of thing even a seasoned hunter saw often.  But that girl wasn't the sort to get easily derailed when she was pissed.  She dropped Duguid like a bad habit, grabbed me by my collar and started shaking for all she was worth.

'This is still your fault, you dumbass!  Who gave you the right to stick your nose into my business?'

The blood was rushing from my head to my chest and back again, making me feel like I was floating.  'Hey, it was you who nearly blew me to kingdom come.'

'Damn shame I didn't,' she said, with feeling.

By now my eyes were trying to roll back into my head and my breakfast wasn't resting so well.  'Can you stop shaking me now?'

She let me go, and my strength returned a half-second too late to stop the back of my head crashing onto the floor.  The timbers cracked beneath me.  When the amber lights behind my eyes died down, I opened them to see her pacing from side-to-side and kicking at the rubble.

'Fuck,' she said.  'This is bullshit!'

'I'm sensing you're a bit upset,' I said.

She rounded on me again, and leaned in so I could see the fire in her mud-coloured eyes.  'You think so?  You know we don't get full bounty for dead men.'

I pulled myself upright.  'You don't get no bounty at all.'

Her expression changed from angry to dangerous.  'Say what, now?'

Ah, what the hell.  In for a cent, in for a buck.  'You said yourself that I was the one that killed him.  That means whatever bounty there is, is mine.'

She shot me a look that could have curdled milk and kicked me full in the shin.  No mule could have done better.

'Owww!  Motherf...goddamn it.'  I retreated, picked up my gun, checked it and put it back in the holster.  Jayci smouldered in my stead, her expression unchanging.

'Don't make me shoot you,' she said.  Her lips were so thin that they basically weren't there.

'As if I'd do something like that.'

'Do you know how long it took me to find out that our man here was on a religious guilt trip?  Do you know how many deacons I had to sweet-talk?' 

'How exactly d'you go about sweet-talking a deacon?'

'Some of them holy men ain't so pious as they pretend,' she said.

'So you-'

'No!  Goddamnit.  I just know people, okay?  God.  Then there was the charge for the hovertrike, plus-'

'How in hell do you afford a hovertrike?  Those things don't come cheap.'  Hovertrikes worked like small, underfoot rotors that carried a charge, though juice was expensive and charges didn't last long.  Still, when you weighed as much as Jayci Clemence, there wasn't much to carry.

'It's none of your goddamn business how I afford anything,' she growled, puffing up like a angry bird.  'Maybe I just happen to be really good at this bounty-hunting business.  That is, when other dumbfucks ain't killing the bads.'

'I kinda thought...'

'Kinda thought what?'

'I thought maybe you were out here with a partner.  It didn't seem likely that you were gonna bring Duguid down on your own.'

She laughed mirthlessly.  'What, you think I can't take care of myself, is that it?'

'Not at all.'  My shin was still throbbing.

''Cause at least I can fire a taser in a straight line, unlike some people I could mention.'

'Lobbing the grenades into the tower was a keen trick,' I said.

'Would have worked too if you hadn't been here,' she said ruefully.  'Those things weren't cheap either, you know.  You gonna pay me back for those?'

'No,' I replied.  'I'll let you off this time.  But don't try to kill me again.'

She laughed again, for real this time, I think.  The roof creaked above us and a beam crashed down a few feet away, throwing up another pile of dust.

'This was a nice church before you arrived,' I said.

'Ah, God doesn't care about us down here,' Jayci replied.  'If he's up there at all, he's probably got a lot more things to worry about than what we get up to.  You know, he's probably like...cloud racing, or something.'

'Is that a thing?'

'It should be.'  She moved over into the space where the tower had been and stared upwards into the sky.  The sun was hot, and the light shone off those jet-black braids.  I wanted to ask, but I figured now maybe wasn't the time.

'You got room for a dead one on the hovertrike?' I asked.

She looked over her shoulder, and in profile, I could see her long, thin nose, which was more red than the rest of her face.  For a desert girl, it looked like a long while since she'd seen the sun.  'Changed your mind about the bounty?'

'I feel bad,' I said.  'I wasn't here for the bounty anyhow.'

'I ain't even going to ask,' she said, and went outside to retrieve her bag.  My rope and grappling hook were both long gone, blown to smithereens with the whole west side of the building, but Jayci had the full kit and in no time, our cadaver was trussed and resting comfortably on the rear of the hovertrike.  She tested it, and it bounced a bit on the sand, but once she'd adjusted for the weight, it was clear she could manage.  I retrieved the bike, and in no time, we were headed back south to the Quartermasters.

* * *



I was sitting outside on a rock in the shade when Jayci returned.  Truth is, I was lost in thought and didn't even see her coming.  First I realised she was there at all was when she dropped a small canvas bag between my knees.

'Half and half,' she said.  'Don't let no-one say that Jayci Clemence don't play fair.'

'Oh,' I said, before resting my head back on my hands.  'Thanks.'



'It's okay, pardner,' she said, exaggerating her accent on the final word.  'I'm not expecting your gratitude or nothing.  Some people would've just shot you when you were lying on your lazy ass in the middle of the desert.'

'I am grateful,' I said.  'Truly.'

'You sound like a man grateful for syphilis,' she said, and it was my turn to laugh, even though my heart was hurting.

'Aw...it's not the money.  I've got water for six weeks and rent for three more,' I said.

'Then why in hell are you so cut up?'  She scuffed at the dust between us, moved it around with her toe.

'Duguid knew my mother.  He might have been the last person who met her before she disappeared.'

'That sucks,' Jayci said, stretching and adjusting her hat.  'How long ago did she go missing?'

'Ten years.'

'How is it you can find a bad in the desert in a few hours, but can't find your own mother in ten years?'  Jayci seemed genuinely perturbed, and she scanned the horizon with her eyes as she talked.  The braids brushed her ankles as they moved in the breeze.

'I don't know,' I said, beginning to regret that I'd brought up the subject at all.  I scooped up the canvas bag, shook it slightly out of habit.  All chits weighed the same, but it still felt far too light when I thought about the six-month bounty I could have had for bringing Duguid in alive.  'You kind of interrupted the conversation before he could tell me anything useful.'

'He say anything at all?'

'Not much.  Rumours about a group of women living out in an oasis somewhere.  It was a hundred miles out or more.  Not the kind of distance you just do without planning.'

'There are settlements out in the Sands,' she said.  'Maybe your mom got to one of them.'

'There's a lot more than settlements out there.  There are bandits and thieves.  Killers.  All sorts of weird, freakin' wild animals.  Things that science can't explain.  They say if you go far enough, it's like stepping into another world.  Someone wants to disappear, it's the place to go.'

'You think she wanted to disappear?'

I thought about it, thought about the signs.  I had no way of knowing whether Duguid had been right about my mom's troubled mind.  Looking back now, I could remember long silences, times that we didn't talk.  But everyone's got a right to space in their own mind.  Who could say what else was going on in there?

'I don't know,' I admitted.  'I know she was looking for someone, but that's not much to go on.  She was a hunter.  But going more than a hundred miles into the Sands...that's different.  I make a decent living and I've never needed to travel close to half that distance.  I've spent all my adult life out in the Sands and I'm sure I ain't seen more than a tiny bit of it.'

Jayci looked at me properly then, like she was seeing me for the first time.  She done screwed up her eyes like she was looking at the sun.  I could practically hear her thinking.

Finally, she said, 'I ain't gonna promise you nothin', Phoenix.  But maybe, just maybe, I can help you.'

I looked inside the canvas bag.  It was every bit as light as its weight had suggested.

'How can you help me?' I asked.

For the briefest of moments, Jayci's eyes flashed with something other than her customary anger.  'Because I know a man that knows the Sands.'

Go to Chapter 7 > > >

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