3. Shit Goes Down
Shit Goes Down
Driz stretched, the stone sleep crumbling off her as she shook the heaviness from her wings.
She clambered up onto the crest of the canyon wall, inhaling the scent of rain.
Dark clouds gathered and lightning struck in the distance.
The energy of it sent shivers of pleasure through her just as she heard the voices.
Several were raised in anger, carrying up from the gorge below, along with the odor of gunpowder.
Driz lowered herself into a crouch. Tucking her wings back and letting them drag to keep herself hidden, she edged closer to look.
A fight had occurred, apparent from the blood coating one man and the three bodies on the ground.
The violence humans showed to one another confused Driz, though if she spent any time with others of her kind, perhaps they would have conflict too.
In a world where everything wanted to hurt them, humans were their own deadliest enemies.
And yet they stayed. And somehow they thrived despite it all, creating the strangest and most wonderful things in the process.
Three men argued. Several guns pointed between each other and brandished toward someone who knelt, hands bound behind her back.
Her fair hair was coming loose from a braid over her shoulder and obscuring most of her face, but she watched the men intently, like a snake sizing up its prey before she struck. No, not a snake. More like a goat.
She rammed her head into the bloody side of the one closest to her, and he fell back with a scream.
The other fired, sending a cloud of dust up from the ground.
The woman rolled up onto her knees, the gun of the fallen man in her still-bound hands.
She twisted sideways and aimed, firing off four shots.
Driz flattened herself, unable to look away.
The woman seemed to be speaking, but Driz couldn’t hear through the gag.
She shimmied and contorted her body, reaching for the remaining weapon in her other holster.
But not all the men were dead. One had struggled back to his knees, a shaking gun in his own hand.
Driz had the urge to call out a warning, but it was already too late.
Blood streaked across the woman’s arm, and she stumbled back, dropping to the ground and scuttling behind the large wagon loaded with butchered trees.
Her pursuer was also bleeding, but he managed to get to his feet. He shuffled around and fired again, meeting only more dust.
The intense scene captivated Driz. Her heart thumped, and her wings twitched with excitement and a restless desire to do…
something. An instinct that had no home rose up in her, and she had to force herself to remain fixed to the stone beneath her.
She curled her extending claws into the dirt, scraping and crumbling the ridge of limestone beneath her.
Driz was frightened of the fight unfolding below, and of herself. She breathed in, scenting the rain as the first drop fell, but instead of calming her, it only made the desire to protect rush louder.
Pearl scrambled back as the revolver fired again, burying another bullet in the earth where her feet had just been. She barely registered the pain and warmth of the blood ruining her shirt. The man rounded the cart, and his gun clicked. Out of bullets. She just hoped it was his only revolver.
And she was out of blight. She was pushing up, the pain getting worse, when he tackled her.
She curled inward since she didn’t have her hands to push him away.
Grunting, he fumbled at her hip, trying to take her revolver from her holster.
She twisted the other way, jamming her knee upward and pinning his groping hand, to keep him away from the handle.
He let out a strangled noise and Pearl took advantage of his distraction.
As she finally got her own hand around her weapon, she kicked him off her and rolled.
She wasn’t a great shot while prone with her hands tied behind her back, but she was good enough. Perhaps she should practice.
When he didn’t get back up, Pearl collapsed, letting her head drop and catching her breath as a smattering of raindrops dappled the scene. Adrenaline and the aftermath of the blight rushed through her and her heart thrummed like a piston.
Hauling herself onto her knees, she used one of the discarded wood axes to saw through the bindings on her wrists. She yanked out the gag, reaching for her slim flask of bourbon and swallowing a mouthful. And then a second for good measure.
The river swirled with dangerous promise as she did her best to hastily rinse the wound on her arm. It was a shallow graze, but still bleeding. She poured the rest of her bourbon over the wound and used the scarf from her neck as a bandage, binding it for now.
Willy and Billy lay side by side on the bank. She knew they were dead, but she checked anyway. They stared unseeing at the sky, surprise on their faces. Rain gathered in the corner of Willy’s eye and Pearl brushed it pointlessly away.
A storm that mirrored the sky brewed in her gut. They would’ve died even if Pearl hadn’t been here. But she had been here. What if she’d been quicker to act? That regret would add to the thoughts and memories that haunted her each night. And which she did her best to avoid.
She reached for their belts, adding the weight of their weapons around her own waist. She also slipped off the wedding bands they each wore and tucked them in the pocket of her waistcoat, along with Willy’s handkerchief his mother had embroidered and the empress-embossed coin on a chain Billy always wore for luck. Hadn’t worked for him today.
Pearl was wasting precious time. She wasn’t entirely certain she’d be able to bring her own body back home, let alone theirs. But she could do this much for their families.
She arranged their corpses as comfortably as possible. They wouldn’t know, but she would.
Then she made herself turn away and surveyed the others, blood darkening the parched earth, which the rain would soon wash away. Six dead so fast. Two she cared about, four she didn’t.
She’d seen worse. But that revelation didn’t actually make it better. She checked quickly to ensure they were truly all corpses, not bothering with any sentimentality with the strangers, though she did take their bullets.
Pearl had to leave. She shrugged on her coat and turned toward the mouth of the gorge.
She wasn’t alone.