Broken Lands (Benny Imura 6)

The fight was over.

Sam reached out a hand, fighting to make his arm work, and he gripped the soldier’s wrist. Pulled. The hand came away, revealing half a face. Sam pulled the other, and he looked into the soldier’s eyes. There were tears there. And pain. So much pain, and none of it had to do with his wounded leg, of that Sam was positive.

“How . . . how do you know my name . . . ?” he begged.

The soldier, against all sense and reason, smiled. A great big smile filled with an unvarnished joy of a kind the hunter had not seen in many years.

The soldier brushed years from his eyes. “You’re saying that you don’t recognize me? After everything we went through? All those years? All those fights? Come on, Sam . . . it’s me.”

Then Sam suddenly saw it.

In a flash of insight and recognition he saw through the bruises and the blood, past the dirt and gray hair and the distortion of years. He cried out in alarm and scuttled clumsily backward.

“No!” he gasped, and he could feel the whole world began to crack and tear and come apart. The fractures in his mind turned to fissures, and he wanted to scream. All the years of fighting to stay sane in an insane world crumbled away and here—right here in front of him—was proof that his mind was already gone. “You’re dead. You’re dead . . . you have to be dead.”

The soldier tried to stand but hissed in pain and collapsed back. There was fresh blood on his injured leg. He spoke through the pain, and his voice was kind, gentle, almost pleading. “I’m not dead, Sam, but it’s not like the world hasn’t been trying.”

The hunter shook his head, still unwilling to accept it.

“Sam,” said the soldier gently, “it’s me. It really is. I didn’t die. I’m not a ghost. This is happening. It’s really me, Sam. I’m Joe Ledger and you’re Sam Imura. And boy do I have some things to tell you.”

PART NINE

NEW ALAMO, TEXAS

LATE AUGUST

RUMORS OF WAR

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war,

while defeated warriors go to war first

and then seek to win.

—SUN TZU, THE ART OF WAR

44

THE GUARDS ON THE WALL asked Gutsy and her friends a lot of questions but didn’t make too big a thing of the fact that three teenagers had spent a night outside the wall. Not after Alethea spun a convincing tale about them bedding down in an old gas station that had secure windows and doors. The guards said that they would have to report it anyway, but Gutsy doubted they would. A lot of people went into the Broken Lands for days at a time. As long as they didn’t come back infected, the guards seemed blasé about it. Well, more like if anything happened, it was on you. It wasn’t really much of a relief. Not that Gutsy wanted a fuss made, but the fact that it was all waved away so easily made her uneasy. Alethea, who was driving, wasted no time getting the wagon in through the gates.

They stowed the wagon, took care of Gordo, and walked the long way to Gutsy’s house, making sure to avoid the Cuddlys’ place.

As they went into the house, Spider asked, “You think those soldiers are going to come back here?”

“Probably,” said Gutsy, “but not in broad daylight.”

Morning light sparkled through the windows and there was birdsong everywhere and hummingbirds droned happily from one rose to another in the yard. Sombra immediately went over to the couch and jumped up on it.

“Hey! Off,” said Gutsy sternly. She pointed down the hall. “Kitchen.”

Sombra got down and trudged out of the living room.

“That was mean,” said Alethea.

“He’s filthy and he stinks. We all do. You two are also in trouble. The Cuddlys probably reported you to the town council by now.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Alethea, though Spider looked nervous. The Cuddlys never used corporal punishment on any of the foster kids—though they threatened it when they were mad—but there were always tons of extra chores for anyone who broke a house rule, the worst of which was cleaning the bathrooms. A few dozen orphans could do a lot of damage to a couple of bathrooms, especially when they knew one of the house “weirdos” had to clean it up. Spider once said that he would rather floss the teeth of a dozen los muertos than clean those toilets again. From the look on his face now, Gutsy knew that he was imagining long hours of disgusting work.