Broken Lands (Benny Imura 6)

A vulture shadow swept past again and Gutsy glanced up. They were close and hopeful and hungry.

“Not today, Señor Buitre,” she said. There was no anger in her voice. Vultures were being vultures. This was what they did when they could. “Go find something else. Vete, vete.”

The bird didn’t go away. He kept circling.

It struck Gutsy that the shadow of the vulture was actually less dark than the coydog, as if he was more of a real shadow. Some of the lines came drifting to her from an old song her mother used to sing. “Sombra.” The shadow.

“No,” she told herself firmly. “You are not going to name him. No way. That’s stupid. Don’t even think of getting attached.”

Gutsy poured a little water on her gloved fingers and touched them to the dog’s mouth, moistening the lips and the lolling tongue. The animal twitched and, after a few moments, took a weak lick. If the coydog minded the roughness of the gloves, he didn’t seem to want to complain. Gutsy dribbled more water and the dog licked and licked. His eyes opened and looked at her with a mixture of fear, need, and a pathetic desperation.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s all okay, Sombra.”

Then she heard her own words as if they were an echo. Sombra. She winced. But despite her firm decision to the contrary, Sombra he became.

After a little more water she capped the bottle and set it aside, then continued her examination of the coydog’s injuries. There were a lot of them, and she wasn’t positive the animal had much life left in him. Maybe all he needed was a little kindness before death came whispering. Gutsy could understand that.

What mattered most, though, was the fact that none of the many injuries seemed to be from human bites or boar bites. There was no evident fever, either. Sombra was hurt, but none of his wounds were infected. Which meant he wasn’t infected.

“Well,” she said, “that’s something, anyway.”

The leather collar was buckled on, but the fittings were rusty and it took Gutsy a few minutes to unfasten it. Removing it revealed a vicious red band of hairless skin, and it sickened her to realize that the dog had probably worn that collar all its life. She studied it, noting the workmanship to determine whether it was from before the End or something made in the after times.

“After,” she murmured, talking to herself as she often did. “Good leatherwork, though.” It was two inches wide, a quarter-inch thick, and ringed by sharp studs that had been painted flat black. There was a name burned into the band between two studs. KILLER.

She gave a dismissive snort. Stupid name. The kind of unimaginative name an actual killer would hang on a dog forced to fight for its life against other dogs, and she was pretty sure that’s what had happened. She thought of a few names she’d like to burn into a leather collar and cinch around the neck of whoever used to own this dog. None of them were nice names. Some of them might have gotten her slapped by . . .

Mama.

And just that fast it was all back.

The reason Gutsy was here. The grief, the bottomless pain. She closed her eyes and clenched the collar in two strong brown fists. She heard a sound and whirled to see a vulture come fluttering down to land on the wooden side of her work cart.

“No!” cried Gutsy, and without thinking about it flung the collar at the bird. She had a good arm, and both heartbreak and anger put velocity into the throw. The collar struck the bird and it squawked in pain and alarm and fled back to the sky. Gutsy ran to the cart and peered in, dreading what she might find; but the sheets were undamaged. The bird hadn’t had time to peck through.

The figure inside the shroud twitched and struggled and moaned.

Mama.

Gutsy rested her forehead against the cart and tried not to cry again. She pounded the side of her fist against the wood slats. Once, twice. Again. The pain steadied her. Slowly, but it steadied her.

She pushed off from the cart and looked down at the collar, which lay almost at her feet. Whoever had made it knew what they were doing. For all that, it disgusted her. She studied the rope. It had not been cut. The end was frayed and gnarled, and she figured the dog had chewed through it. For reasons she did not understand at the time, Gutsy picked it up and tossed it into the back of the wagon. Then she turned to see Sombra struggling to get up.

She stood and watched it, offering no help at the moment.

The coydog took a shaky step toward her, paused, and gave a few small, weak, hopeful wags of its tail

.

“Um, no,” said Gutsy firmly, “don’t even try. I’ll give you some water and something to eat, but that’s it. We’re not doing this.”

The dog continued to wag his tail.

“Not a chance,” she insisted. “No way. Uh-uh.”

6

THE DOG SAT IN THE shade of the cottonwood, chewing on strips of beef jerky and taking sloppy drinks from water poured into a tin cup.