Exit Kingdom (Page 16)

The Moses realizes something.

The car, he says.

What about it? Abraham asks.

It’s around front with them.

So what? We’ll find us another one.

It’s got our things in it.

Nothin we can’t replace.

Moses thinks about the weapon in the trunk, the bladed mace made for him by the tinkerer Albert Wilson Jacks. Abraham is right – most things in the world are replaceable, but that is not one of them. And this is a time of cherishing unique things.

We ain’t leaving without our things, Moses says.

Abraham looks off into the distance, as though he would rush headlong into it were he unleashed to do so.

All right, he says. So what’s your suggestion?

Then, suddenly, there’s another voice behind them, a man. He has crept around the corner of the wall while they were talking, and now he aims a gun at them.

If it’s any help, he says to the three of them now, here’s my suggestion.

The gun in his hand fires, and Moses’ brother Abraham cries out and falls to the ground.

Five

An Injury, a Murder and a Hostage " Fletcher " A Test of Mettle " A City Hotel " A Jar of Olives " An Operation " A Note of Farewell " A Search " Fountain Hills " A Bandit Camp " Rescue and Reclothing " A Mountain Stream " Mademoiselle from Armentières " Interlude " A Bronze Disc

Aw, f**k! Abraham yelps. He lies on his back on the ground and clenches his thigh with both hands.

Before Moses can determine his next action, he sees the Vestal already running towards the man with the gun. The man wears jeans and a pair of boots and a baseball cap, but no shirt. His bare chest is gaunt and taut against his ribs, his skin tattooed with homemade designs. The Vestal runs straight at him, in spite of the fact that the gun is pointed directly at her chest. This is something Moses will remember about the girl. It’s not bravery – he wouldn’t call it bravery. Nor is it fury or daring or hard mettle. Not exactly those things. In fact, it is nothing she possesses in the positive but rather something she lacks. There is a blankness in her action – an absence that allows her to move rapidly and without hesitation. Yes, that is it. It is not bravery but instead the absence of fear.

Whoa, says the bare-chested man to her. Hold it there. I’ll shoot you, I swear to—

But he doesn’t shoot. Instead he begins to back away, and he can’t even complete his sentence before she is on him. She seems to pass right by the gun, as though he were merely holding his finger out to her in playful mimic of warfare. She moves past it, leaping at him, her small form still dressed in the white robes tossed absurdly against the larger man, her body itself a weapon, her thin elbow cracking him across the face, something snapping in his jaw, a jet of blood, black in the night, spitting from his nose.

Her movements are not beautiful or elegant – she is no graceful spectre or lithe athlete. Her violence is not art but simply the act of a weary and brutal practitioner.

The man drops the gun, and screams loudly.When he stands upright again, Moses can see that his jaw is dislocated, his lower teeth jammed at an oddly angled underbite, the bony hinge protruding at the side of his face, tenting out the flesh of his cheek and giving an inhuman droop to his eyelid. The man has been made immediately monstrous, and he is suffering – his hands up around his jaw as if wanting to put it back in place but at the same time afraid to touch it lest it pop off completely.

Moses sees the Vestal retrieve the man’s pistol from the ground, and before he can call to her to stop, she has aimed it at the man’s head and pulled the trigger.

A charred hole appears in the man’s cheek, and a thick soup sprays from the exit wound at the back of his head. He collapses first to his knees, his hands still held up near his skewed jaw, and then falls forwards on his face. There is an absolute stillness to him now, and the bullet through the brain means he won’t come back.

What’d you do? Moses calls to the girl.

She turns to him, still holding the gun, looking confused.

He rushes to her and seizes the pistol away from her.

What? she asks. He shot your brother.

In the leg, Moses says, pointing to Abraham who sits up in the distance, gritting his teeth and grasping his thigh.

I know him, the girl says about the corpse at her feet. He would of killed all of us give him the chance.

And besides that, Moses goes on, the racket’s gonna bring em all—

But it’s too late, because beyond the girl’s shoulder he can see them coming around the perimeter of the wall, a group of men with rifles and baseball bats. There’s one man in front, wearing a wide sombrero. He would seem ridiculous if he weren’t so putrid with evident corruption. There are tears all over his flesh, wounds kept open by picking fingers. Some are scabbed over and some are dripping blood or pus. Others are sealed closed but still fresh. It seems as though, riddled with plague and offence, he cannot keep it all contained behind the walls of his thin, translucent skin. The sombrero, with a neck strap that hangs down like a disembodied grin below his chin, is a horrific joke. The displaced laughter of a man cursed by hell to giddy misfortune.

It’s Fletcher, Moses knows, recognizing him from the description Ignatius gave. And it’s not surprising, such a torn and bloodied little man. A relay of brutality – inflicting on the world the same mundane suffering he feels daily.

Moses hesitates not a second. He rushes forwards while the men are still startled and confused by the corpse of their companion lying on the ground, gets one big arm around Fletcher’s neck and spins him to hold him from behind, the gun in his hand shoved against Fletcher’s temple.

What Moses hopes for is some loyalty on the part of Fletcher’s men – and it’s a risk, because loyalty is a quaint and toylike notion in this ravaged place.

But there must be some impulse that touches on loyalty, because when Moses tells them to drop their weapons, they lower them at least.

Moses pressed the barrel of the pistol harder against Fletcher’s head, and it feels like it will slip away on the greasy film that covers the man’s skin.

Goddamnit! Fletcher says to his own men. Do it! Drop the guns, you pricks, or I’ll kill you myself!

So it’s not loyalty so much as fear. But it works in any case. They drop their weapons.

Now who the f**k are you? Fletcher asks Moses, trying to angle his head to see the man who has him by the neck. And what do you want? You might as well wish big, cause you’re gonna be dead by dawn, you cocksucker.