Dust Read online

  “Are you following me for a reason?” I snapped at Renee as I pushed into the clearing. The purple was some sort of weed, not violets, but it was still pretty. “It better not be for meat, since you’re too fucking dainty for it I’m not gonna go out of my way to—”

  “I’m sorry I said you looked rotten,” Renee mumbled, all fast and under her breath like an embarrassed kiddie.

  Panicked along with embarrassed, she must have realized she’d insulted her one and only chance at a steady meal. I just laughed. “Well, I do, don’t I? And guess what? I’ve never had a problem with it.” I gave her a shove, enjoying watching her stumble backward. “And if you think ‘rotten’ is that much of an insult, you really are a miserable little piece of hoo shit.”

  She scratched at her skull, nails scraping like fretful, hungry insects at the surgical sutures. “Maybe,” she said quietly.

  She looked like I’d felt when Lisa ran away from me, when Joe screamed about what a useless sniveling hoocow princess I was for not going up to Whiting with him. Billy and Mags laughed their asses off, not at me but at Joe: Gotta watch yourself now, Mister Joseph. Mags grinned, hurling Joe effortlessly to the ground when he tried jumping her. She used to be such a bitch fighter, in her day. Somebody don’t have stars in her eyes anymore.

  “You’re gonna have to learn to hunt sometime,” I said, nearly barreling right into a hidden clump of daffodils. “It’s that or starve.”

  “I know. And I want to, all right? Please? Just, not today.”

  “It’d better be soon,” I said, “if it’s not today, because I’m not your mommy and I’m already running myself ragged trying to feed our bitch-queen, I don’t have to keep fetching you—”

  “I know. I know.” She scratched harder. “I just worried I would want to hunt them. When I saw them.” She gulped and looked back down at the ground. “Eat them.”

  I gave her a steady stare, that look you give someone to let them know they really can tell you, that you’re not gonna fly to pieces or leave them standing there in the dust holding out their hand, but also that if they try to lie you’ll know it and you won’t have a moment’s pity.

  “Did you?” I asked.

  I waited. She didn’t answer. Something went burrowing swiftly through the nearby underbrush, kicking up little leaf and soil clumps in its path, and was gone.

  “Possum’s good,” I said. “It sticks with you. For half a night, sometimes.”

  She nodded. We poked silently around the clearing for a while, fingering purple and white and pink and yellow blooms like shoplifters going through the aisles. I heard footsteps and the soft, soothing sound of insects chewing and there was Joe, looking from me to Renee and back like he couldn’t believe what I was farting around wasting my time with, who could blame him. I hadn’t seen him in a few nights; he was avoiding Teresa, who still smirked at the sight of him, or off on another hoo-hunt. I guess. We hadn’t been out hunting by ourselves, he and I, in a long time. Not ducks or anything else.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. He jerked his chin toward Renee. “Piss off home, ’maldie.”

  She stood there, glaring at him, working nails at her scalp like she was looking to strike a vein of copper. Another thing she desperately needed to learn, how to fight, though here she was cruising for the kind of extended lesson that’d really make her cry. Joe, though, just shook his head and grabbed my arm. “I cannot fucking believe what Teresa drags back from the hoo junkpile these days. Let’s go.”

  Gladly. We headed south, in the direction of the old gazebo—or I should say Joe headed us that way, he kept trudging a step or two ahead and wouldn’t let go of me as we walked. He got that way sometimes.

  “You look funny,” he said, still clutching. “Shadow-eyed. Worn out.”

  “A body can’t get any sleep anymore,” I pointed out, “between Teresa and the deadweight and you beating on the deadweight in the middle of the daytime. Where’ve you been the last few nights, anyway?”

  He looked funny too, Joe did. Even though he gripped my arm tight and hurtful in the old way it was like that was the only flicker of life in him: His shoulders sagged and his feet shuffled along at an old dusty’s pace and his free hand ran slow and meditative up and down his side, half-crushed bugs peeking up indignantly from between the fingers. His brain-chords were monotonous and subdued.

  “Out and around,” he said. “It’s not like you ever wanna go with me, so what do you care?”

  “It’s not like you ever bother telling me where or what you—”

  “Why don’t you try asking me about shit that actually matters?” he said, gripping a bit harder like he’d enjoyed hearing the hurt in my voice. “Why don’t you ask me why Teresa’s gone. Again.”

  I shrugged. “Out and around. Right?”

  I hadn’t told Joe any of what had happened: the woman in the woods, the strange stink of Teresa’s flesh. He hadn’t been around to tell. But the thing was, I’d been waiting for someone else in the gang, anyone—other than Renee, who didn’t know shit anyway—to notice that Teresa looked strange, that she smelled strange, that even after I brought her the goddamned meat she’d been moaning for she ate about two bites and then threw the rest away. There were a half dozen of us there to witness that and it wasn’t like we didn’t spend a whole lot of waking hours scrabbling to find each other’s weak spots—if Teresa suddenly had a dusty’s bad appetite what other vulnerabilities was she hiding? You’d think Ben, or Billy, both convinced they were the gang’s anointed One True Leader, would at least sit up and say something. Not a word.

  “She’s acting strange,” I said. “And she looks strange. And she smells really strange—”

  “You think?”

  “What do you mean, I think? I know. Anyone with the remnants of a nose can—”

  “You eating lately?” Joe asked me.

  That was such an insane question it stopped me right in my tracks. Joe tried to keep on going and I yanked my arm free. “I’m eating,” I said, anger starting to snake its way through me. “Unlike some folks, I’m eating just fine, in case you didn’t fucking notice me all over the carcass on the last deer hunt, what the hell are you asking me that for? It’s Teresa who’s not eating, I keep trying to tell you, she’s acting nuts and playing these senile little power games and her skin smells like she took a bath in—”

  “Senile,” Joe repeated, and chuckled. “Well, see, Jessie, that’s about what I think too. And not just me. Trust me on that. It’s just I thought I wouldn’t have to tell you what that means, but I guess I do.” He took a step toward me. “I think it’s past time you challenge her.”

  That was the last thing I’d thought to hear. I’d never forgotten what Teresa did to Lillian, how she made Joe and me finish her off, but then it’d been Lillian who jumped her first and if you finished off the gang leader all by yourself like that, no help, you’d more than earned the right to boss all the rest of us. Annie, everyone who knew Annie better said she might’ve challenged Teresa in turn, but Annie died; Joe, Billy, Ben, they all talked a good game but come right down to it, they just didn’t want the big fun of herding feral rot-kittens and always sleeping with an eye open. Damned if I did either. “So fine,” I said, “she’s losing it. Let Mags challenge her, she’s a better—”

  “Mags’s gone soft,” Joe said, yanking at a big, healthy tree branch heavy with clustered blooms. “Her and Ben. Too much sitting around the woods doing nothing. Billy’s a shit fighter, you’ve seen I can’t fight the bitch, Sam and Florian are too old, Linc’s scared of his own fucking shadow, who the hell else is gonna do it? You’d have backup, Jessie, trust me, we’re all sick and tired of—”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said, as he worried the branch until the living wood started shredding, bending like tendons under teeth. “It’s not fighting you.”

  “And I wish you’d goddamned listen for once when I talk, how about that?” He let go of the branch, too late; it dangled limply like my
dead arm had once done, strips of detached bark curling in thick wood shavings from the tree trunk. Yellow petals showered the ground. “It’s why she’s down your neck all the time lately, why she’s grabbing up stupid ’maldies who can’t find their own asses—she’s at the tail end and she’s scared and you’re her only big competition. And we’d back you up.”

  “I don’t want to lead a gang,” I said, plucking blossoms off the twisted tree branch. Not like they’d live much longer anyway. “And bullshit you’d back me up—yeah, you would, but Ben hates everyone who isn’t Sam, Mags and Billy would sell their grandmothers for a deer’s heart—”

  “You could fight her,” Joe said stubbornly, grabbing my hand away from the flowers. “Even without the arm. You could do it.”

  “And this is all for my benefit, right?” I demanded. I yanked my hand back, snatching up another handful of soft yellow flowers; pollen smeared my fingers, the loose, ashen nails going a faint pale orange. “Nothing to do with you. Other than that I stick my neck on the chopping block so you can be the big power behind the throne, you think, and convince yourself you actually stomped her and whisper orders into my ear, if I survive, which without any backup at all isn’t exactly—”

  “You never listen to me, do you? You never, ever listen to a word I—”

  “Jessie?” someone called out.

  We both turned. Linc was standing there, blinking blearily, pollen dusting the dark snarl of his hair and yellow petals sticking to his feet; he looked as out of sorts as I felt, up at this ungodly hour of the afternoon. Doesn’t anybody goddamned sleep anymore? “I was looking for you,” he said, “I’m on watch right now and Florian’s not—”

  “Fuck off,” Joe snarled, before I could.

  He and Joe stood there, bullied boy and bully-boy glaring dagger-teeth at each other and I hoped to God there wouldn’t be a fight. Linc might be quiet but he was not in fact scared of much of anything and I wasn’t in the mood to try to pull them off each other. “Florian’s not what?”

  “He’s meant to be on watch with me, but he had to go back. He’s not feeling good.” Linc shook his head. “He shouldn’t be doing that anymore anyway, so if you could—”

  “What do you mean, not feeling good?” I dropped my handful of flowers, scrubbing my pollen-caked hand against my leg. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “What d’you think is wrong with him?” Joe interrupted. He’d always thought I made too much fuss over Florian, said it was stupid hoo-kiddie sentiment to go beating the bounds for some random used-up dusty to call Grandpa. “He’s too goddamned old to be tramping around like—”

  “He’s just tired,” Linc told me, like nobody else was standing there. “So if you could come finish the watch with me, I wanted to talk to you anyway about—”

  “We’re busy,” said Joe, voice dropping into that low, quiet register that meant you straightened up and flew right out of his sight before you got your wings torn off. “You want company so bad, take the ’maldie. And set her on fire, if you wanna do us all a real favor.”

  “Are we busy, Jessie?” Linc demanded. His mental piano chords were going discordant and abrupt and his nails were curled inward digging back and forth into his palm, his peculiar little gesture whenever he was angry. “Or do you have anything to say about it yourself?”

  God almighty. Gimme this, gimme that, feed me, love me, go to my gravesite, come on watch, go fly a kamikaze plane up Teresa’s ass—can I please just crawl into a ditch somewhere and go to sleep? “I can barely put one foot in front of the other,” I told Linc, baring my teeth, “speaking of tired. I’ve been babysitting the ’maldie for days on end and she’s worn me out and now you two are seriously pissing me off so please just take Renee, okay? She’s wandering around here somewhere, probably sniveling about Mommy and Daddy again. I’ll kill you an entire deer herd if you get her off my hands because I really don’t have time for any of this shit.” I pushed him hard enough that he nearly tripped over a rock. “Especially not yours.”

  Joe let off a loud, sputtering little chord of triumph. Linc sawed at his palm again, like Renee clawing her own scalp, then his fingers subsided and he just shrugged.

  “Sorry,” he said, and gave Joe a jaundiced glance. “Should’ve known you’re not allowed.”

  He turned and staggered off without looking back. As soon as he was into the trees again I felt like an asshole: We were friends (or I guess we were—we never talked much but when Joe and I got in our worst fights Linc always jumped in on my side, even when it got him kicked stupid), he wanted to tell me about Florian, he was one of our best hunters, and I sent him packing like he was the new foundling. Joe just laughed and spat a mouthful of coffin liquor on the ground, splattering the crushed flower petals with a sticky, tarry stream full of drowned insect carcasses; then his guitar chords started slowing down again and he stood there with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, dejected, tired.

  “Should we kill Renee?” I asked, both to distract him and because I was seriously starting to wonder. I liked her, sort of—don’t ask me why, clearly I was losing it in my sort-of older age—but she was a useless burden and with all her moaning about being resurrected it wouldn’t be like sending up Lillian. We’d be doing her a favor.

  Joe grabbed the half-torn tree branch again, twisting, wrenching. I didn’t say anything, it was too late to salvage it anyway. “You never know,” he said. “She could end up okay. Annie was a ’maldie, she straightened herself out. She could fight.” He looked melancholy for a moment. “Goddamn, but she could fight.”

  She could fight. Joe liked anyone who could fight, anyone who liked fighting. I liked Annie too. Everyone liked Annie. She could’ve torn Teresa to pieces no-handed, everyone said, she’d have been our leader after Lillian if she hadn’t had to go and surprise a hoo bum at his little campfire during a hunt; she surprised him and he panicked and pushed her into the flames. She melted off the bone, bubbling all over like roasting duck fat, and Mags threw river water but that only stopped the fire itself, not Annie’s flesh and then her bones sloughing away in increments while she could still feel it. The bum ran off, we never found him. Annie’s screams stayed in my head for months.

  “This one’s no Annie,” I said. “She’s barely even a Billy.”

  “We’ll see.” Joe snapped the last twisty greenstick strands connecting the branch, throwing it down into the mud and liquid muck. “I guess we’ll see.”

  He stared down at the fouled tree branch, smelling vaguely of annoyance and guilt like he’d just now realized he’d ruined something pretty, that he’d hurt something that never did anything to him but be in front of his eyes at the wrong time. He looked that way at me sometimes, after our most awful fights. We didn’t fight, though, the time I got it in my head he liked Annie better than me and got angry about it, knuckle-splitting angry. He loved seeing me jealous. He spent so much time jealous of whoever I was with when I was out of his sight, I suppose he thought of it as something of a righteous payback. Even angry as I was, though, when I thought that, I couldn’t hate or fight Annie, I still just liked her too much. I couldn’t help it. She was one of those kinds.

  Teresa, though. Yeah.

  “Let’s go hunting,” I said. I was still exhausted, Renee and the very thought of running up against Teresa had drained everything I’d had left, but Joe looked weirdly sad and a meal never failed to cheer anyone up. “Just us. We haven’t in ages.”

  Joe pushed his toes at the fallen branch and shook his head. “I’m tired,” he said. “Gonna go back and sleep. You should too. You wanna hunt? You said you could barely stand up.”

  “I’ll be all right. Come on, Joe, we never—”

  “I’m tired.”

  He picked up one of the old shoe-worn forest paths and I followed him. The insects traversing his legs and shoulder blades and the back of his neck looked shriveled up, withered; some were dead, you could tell looking closely when they were hibernating and when they’d just given
up their tiny ghosts. Fifty or so years out isn’t at all an unusual time to start going dusty—Florian was an outlier, being so old before it happened—but the thought of Joe bugless and bone-stripped and so near the second death made something in my chest and stomach seize up and I took his arm from behind, quickened my pace to keep up as he walked. He stopped suddenly and I thought he’d shake me off, mutter about how it wasn’t enough the goddamned beetles had their hooks in him and now I had to start up too, but he just looked down at me and my hand holding him like he’d never seen me before, like I was some sort of intriguing stranger.

  “I just want you to be all right, Jessie,” he said, still gazing at my fingers. “Whatever happens. You just gotta be all right. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I shrugged, not letting go of him. I knew this already, he’d spent the entire time I’d known him trying to make things all right for me. He didn’t need to embarrass himself saying it. “I just don’t necessarily think getting in Teresa’s face right now is the best—”

  “Maybe not,” he said. He laughed again, a short little fuck-it laugh. I couldn’t decide if it was directed at me, or himself, or Linc or Renee or the moon. “You might know better, Jessie. You might know a lot better.”

  He took off walking again and I stumbled for a second, trying to stay in step. The sky was clouding over and I could smell a heavy rain coming; not great for dead flesh but not as bad as a lake swim, you needed to be completely submerged before real trouble began. The air was odd, almost tingling. There’d be thunder. I liked a good thunderstorm. The leaves and branches around us shutting out the fading sunlight already seemed damp and dark with the drops that hadn’t yet fallen. Joe kept walking, stone quiet.