Aubrey was coming in behind him.
Bad Dog barked impatiently, whining that BigHank was taking his goddamn sweet time and he needed to hurry up because there was MasterBossLord—
The moment the gate had parted wide enough, Bad Dog squeezed through, hurtling through the snow toward Cavalo, his voice coming out in high-pitched yips that were almost strangled.
Cavalo fell to his knees and held out his arms, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. The twinge in his wrist and fingers.
Bad Dog plowed into him, knocking him back on his heels. He jumped up, paws going to Cavalo’s shoulders, scraping down his front, tongue everywhere on available skin, Cavalo’s nose and cheeks and throat.
You’re okay, Bad Dog whined frantically. You’re okay. You are awake. You’re okay and awake and don’t smell like sick and dying, and I am your Bad Dog, and I’m sorry I left you, but I went with Smells Different to keep him safe, so please don’t be mad because I love you and will be with you forever because you are my MasterBossLord, and I am your Bad Dog and—
“Hey,” Cavalo said quietly. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay.” He ran his hands over Bad Dog’s face, fingers rubbing over his ears, and Bad Dog kept yipping at him, panting and pushing closer and closer as if he wanted to crawl inside Cavalo and never leave.
Cavalo never wanted him to.
He remembered then that they weren’t alone. He looked up and saw Alma smiling faintly, talking with Hank and Aubrey. Behind them, the people of Cottonwood spilled out of the prison, bright-eyed and questioning.
And Lucas.
Lucas stood off near the gates, looking almost unsure of his place. The scowl on his face was normal, the tense way he held himself, but Cavalo knew him by now. Knew him better than anyone here aside from Bad Dog.
Cavalo stood as Lucas eyed him warily. The evidence of his torture had started to fade from his face, the bruising now a mottled green. The swelling around his eye had gone down. His usual painted mask was gone, and he wore Cavalo’s coat around his shoulders.
Bad Dog pressed against Cavalo’s legs as he walked slowly toward Lucas.
He stopped when they were a few feet apart.
They watched each other, for a time.
Eventually, Cavalo said, “You all right?”
Lucas narrowed his eyes, gesturing back at Cavalo with an angry flap of his hand. Should you even be up now?
“I’m fine,” Cavalo said, but he didn’t know that he was. He didn’t know if he could be, after everything. “Maybe not fine. Better. I’m better.” He wondered how much of that was true.
Not dying anymore?
“I was never dying,” Cavalo said.
We’re all dying, Lucas retorted. Every day. We’re already dying.
“But we’re alive while doing it,” Cavalo said.
Lucas snorted and shook his head. James, ever the optimist. Who would have thought we would live to see such a day? It was mocking and tart, but his hands were shaking, eyes darting up and away.
“It’s a start,” Cavalo said, taking another step toward him.
Is it?
“I think so. It has to be.”
He looked at Cavalo then, as if seeing him for the first time. Only there was no rage like there had been on that long ago day in the woods on the other side of the road. That had been nothing but anger and desperation. This was something almost like a revelation.
He mouthed a single word.
James.
Cavalo didn’t know if it was love. He didn’t know if he was even capable of such a thing anymore. But what he did know was that he had descended into the depths of hell for the man standing in front of him, and he would do it again. No hesitations. No questions asked.
He reached out and rested his hand on the back of Lucas’s neck. He brought their foreheads together, and even if he was a clever monster, a clever cannibal, he belonged to Cavalo now just as surely as Cavalo belonged to him.
Those glittering eyes never closed, watching him as they breathed the same air.
Lucas said, You came for me.
“You killed your father for me.”
His smile had many teeth. I would do it again.
And Cavalo said, “Yes.”
LATER, THEY stood in front of the people of Cottonwood, and Hank spoke of the abandoned Dead Rabbit encampment that Lucas had led them to. Crude houses on the ground and built into the trees. There was no sign of any recent life, the fire pits covered in snow, no tracks leading in or out.
It was as if the Dead Rabbits had never been at all, and they’d stumbled across a tiny town from Before, where people got their kicks from Route 66 and Charlie had never lost a single thing, no matter what anyone had said.
“So they’re gone?” a tremulous voice asked from the crowd.
Hank hesitated and looked to Cavalo.
Cavalo sighed. “Maybe,” he said. “Many of them, at least. SIRS… he would have seen to that. He sacrificed himself for us.”
“But what if they come back?” a man asked. “What will we do then?”
“What we did before,” Cavalo said. “We’ll rise up. Fight back.”
A woman scowled at them, angry tears on her face. “You say Patrick is dead. That you killed him.”
Lucas tensed next to Cavalo.
“Yes,” Cavalo said. “He’s dead.”
“Then what was the point of all of this?” she cried. “Why the hell did we do any of this? You didn’t get what you needed from him. People are dead. Half the town is destroyed and for what?”
Cavalo thought the mob would swarm them then. That they would tear them apart piece by piece until there was nothing left of them but gristle and bone. He wouldn’t blame them. He’d wanted to do the same when he’d found out.
But they didn’t.
After everything that had happened, after everything they’d been through in the past weeks, the man named Cavalo was still surprised when they looked to him to tell them what to do. They were lost, he knew. They lived in the borderlands in a world that was all teeth and claws. Messiahs came from the east and were killed by an enigmatic murderer living in a haunted prison with a robot and a dog only he could talk to. This man meted out justice as he saw fit and made them fight against the monsters in the Deadlands. They had won, seemingly, but at a cost.
So of course they looked at him. Of course they looked to him.
James Cavalo said, “What’s done is done. It’s over. If they come back, if there are any left, we will fight them too. Go home. Go home and mourn your dead. Go home and rebuild. Just… go.”
And they listened. Eventually.
THAT NIGHT he dreamt of Mr. Fluff reaching for him with spider-fingers, and he woke shaking in the dark. Lucas was curled around him. Bad Dog lay across their legs, snoring heavily. He took comfort from it, even as he stayed awake for the rest of the night.
“ARE YOU sure about this?” Hank asked two days later as the people of Cottonwood prepared to return home. It was early morning, and the clouds above were as thin as they’d ever seen them. They would make it home before it started snowing again. “You could come with us.”
Cavalo shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Not now. I have to….” He searched for a word and came only upon “heal.”
Hank didn’t visibly react. “And can you? Heal, I mean.”
No, Cavalo didn’t think he could. He thought he was too far gone to ever go back to the man he once was. Or become the man he could have been. The bees were too strong and had built their nest in his head far too long ago to ever be exterminated. He was what he was, and the best he could hope for would be to find peace. To be able to sleep through the night without dreams of death haunting him.
But he could see the hope on Hank’s face, so he said, “Maybe. I don’t know. Lucas and Bad Dog will help.” Or he’d make it worse for them.
“I expect you around more, Cavalo,” Hank said. “The three of you. We’ve come too far and done too much to have you dis
appear now. They look to you now. The town.”
That old familiar anger rose, though it was shaped like unease now. “I didn’t ask for that.”
Hank shrugged. “I know. But there it is.”
“I’m not right for that, Hank.”
“Are any of us?”
“I can’t,” he tried desperately, even though he felt it a losing battle.
“Can’t isn’t the same as won’t, James,” Hank said.
“You should hate me,” Cavalo said. “You shouldn’t even want to look at my face. Deke is dead. Your son is dead. Bill won’t look at me. Why do you? Why the fuck do you care? I brought this down upon your house. Your home.”
“You didn’t,” Hank said, not unkindly. “We did that on our own. Without you, we wouldn’t be free.”
“But not all of you,” Cavalo choked out, angry at himself for the burn in his eyes. “Not all of you are free.”
“And I will mourn him,” Hank said, “for the rest of my life. He was my son, and he died fighting for something good. I am going to go home and stand upon his grave, and I will rant. I will rave. I will suffer. But I will know why it happened. And one day, I will be able to remember him with nothing but an ache and a smile.”
Cavalo shook his head, unsure if he deserved even this smallest kindness. “Bill,” he said.
Hank sighed. “Bill is angry,” he admitted, “though it’s misplaced. Richie knew what he was doing when he volunteered. It’s a father’s anger, nothing more. It too shall pass. It’ll have to. We’ll need him. We may have lost Dworshak, but we still have something very valuable in our hands, and Bill is going to be the only one who can help us.”
“What is it?” Cavalo asked.
“Lucas,” Hank said, and Cavalo could barely breathe. “We have Lucas. And that means we have half the schematics. If we have half, we may be able to make a whole. And if we can make a whole, then maybe, just maybe, we can change the world. There will be other Dworshaks, Cavalo. And I aim to find them.”
A MAN, a boy, and a dog stood in the snow and watched the town of Cottonwood until they disappeared into the trees.
“What happens now?” Cavalo asked before he could stop himself.
Lucas took his hand, entwining their fingers. It was a good grip, a solid grip. Warm and callused, and it felt more like home than Cavalo had known in a very long time. He looked over at Lucas to find the Dead Rabbit watching him.
James, he mouthed.
And then he said two words. When Cavalo thought on it later, he could never remember if Lucas spoke them or if Cavalo made them up in his head. He could never remember a day when he couldn’t hear Lucas’s voice in his head. He couldn’t remember a day when he didn’t want to.
Lucas said, We heal.
And James Cavalo believed him.
It started to snow again, light and soft. Flurries, really.
Bad Dog rubbed up against them, grumbling about jerky.
Lucas kept his hand in Cavalo’s as he led them inside.
The outer doors shut behind them.
A moment later there was a sharp hum as the fence around the prison electrified.
Somewhere in the forest, the winter wren sang a song of ulalume, crisped and sere, withering and sere.
In this, the most immemorial year.
prime directive
SPRING WAS approaching.
He could see it in the way the storms came, wetter and warmer, the snow thick and heavy.
He felt as if he hadn’t seen the green of the trees in years. He missed it.
He thought maybe he would cut down her tree, just to see it done.
But he could decide that later. He had to focus now.
Cavalo stopped in the trees, listening. At first there was nothing but the clump of snow falling from branches, the birds calling.
It was perfect.
He gave a sharp whistle, a single blast, signaling his friends.
He knew they were moving, and moving fast.
He drew the arrow back on the bowstring. His wrist twinged, but it was negligible these days. It could be stiff in the mornings, as was his shoulder, but Cavalo knew that was his age too. It wouldn’t get any better.
He saw them coming from his perch in the trees. Lucas from the north, Bad Dog from the east, both heading toward him.
Ahead of them ran a deer. A buck from the looks of it, young and fast. Four, maybe five-pointer. Fat, fatter than it had any right to be this time of year. Especially in this place.
He waited until it was ten yards away. He breathed out slowly and let the arrow fly.
It slammed into the buck’s neck, a true hit. The animal cried out, a high, fractured sound. It stumbled forward, blood splashing against the snow as it fell chest first onto the ground.
Cavalo shot another arrow.
Then another.
The animal kicked and tried to get up.
Bad Dog was there, teeth bared and snarling.
Before the buck could find its footing, Lucas appeared at its side and slit its throat.
Blood sprayed, a flash of color in the winter woods.
Lucas grinned up at him as the buck died, eyes narrowed slightly. He wasn’t wearing his mask. He hadn’t done so since they’d returned from Dworshak.
You gonna stay up there all day? he asked. It’s going to be dark soon.
Blood, Bad Dog said, sounding like he was in a dream. There’s so much blood.
And yeah, Cavalo thought maybe he could breathe.
BAD DOG sat in the office, looking at a wall next to the monitors.
“What are you doing?” Cavalo asked.
It’s like he’s still here, Bad Dog said.
Cavalo looked away, and the bees crawled inside him.
HE WALKED through the tunnels toward the barracks.
For a moment he thought he saw Mr. Fluff on the stairs.
It turned out to be just a trick of the light.
“COULD USE your help,” Hank said. “Trying to salvage as much as we can from Grangeville before the caravans come again. “See if there’s anything to scavenge. To trade.”
“Yeah,” Cavalo said. “Okay.”
There turned out to be many things to scavenge, even though Grangeville was haunted with the stink of death.
HE FUCKED up into Lucas, holding him from behind, Lucas’s back against Cavalo’s chest. Lucas rested his head on Cavalo’s shoulder, mouth open and eyes hooded. Cavalo bit down into his neck with blunt teeth, marking but not breaking the skin as he came.
LUCAS SLEPT with the knife pressed against Cavalo’s stomach later that night.
THE NEXT night, the knife was stored away, and Lucas slept deeply.
BAD DOG stared at the wall in the office.
Cavalo left him alone.
“DO YOU think they’ll come back?” Cavalo asked as they walked to the old fire lookout.
Lucas didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, No. I don’t know. Someone will come. They always do.
THAT NIGHT in the lookout, Cavalo held Bad Dog in his arms and told him the story of finding a puppy in a sack and how a dog found his home.
CAVALO STOOD outside the prison late into the night, looking up at the sky.
There was a break in the clouds, and Cavalo saw stars.
His hands shook.
SOMETIMES, BAD Dog said, I think I hear him. SIRS. What if he’s a ghost?
“Ghosts aren’t real,” Cavalo said.
He felt like a liar.
HE ISN’T who you think he is, Jamie had said.
Cavalo still didn’t know who he’d meant.
He didn’t know that it mattered anymore.
HE FOUND a purple flower, curling out from the melting snow.
He stared at it for hours.
BILL SAID, “I figure if we can map what’s on his skin, we can try and finish it.”
“Will it work?” Alma asked from a place in front of Hank’s fireplace.
Bill shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m no
t a physicist. Or an engineer.”
“He’ll have books,” Hank said. “We’ll find something. Patrick had to have gotten it from somewhere.”
“It’s a start,” Cavalo said.
“We finished?” Bill asked. Without waiting for a response, he walked out of Hank’s house and didn’t look back.
“He’ll come around,” Hank said quietly.
“Yeah,” Cavalo said, glancing at Lucas. “I don’t think he will.”
“DID HE?” Cavalo asked as they walked back to the prison.
Did he what? Lucas said.
“Get it from somewhere.”
Lucas shrugged. I don’t know. He never told me anything.
Cavalo believed him.
Mostly.
BAD DOG whined once as he stared at the wall in the office. Then he was quiet.
THEY CAME across a Dead Rabbit in the woods.
He looked as if he were starving. His eyes were leaking blood.
He saw Lucas and said, “You.”
He had a knife thrown into his chest before he could take another step toward them.
The bees laughed and laughed.
The three of them waited, but it seemed as if the Dead Rabbit had been alone.
They left his body where it had fallen. Something would scavenge it. Eventually.
BAD DOG stood up and scratched at the wall.
Cavalo looked away from the monitor. “What are you doing?” he asked with a frown.
I hear him, Bad Dog panted. MasterBossLord, I hear him. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.
“Who?” Cavalo asked, skin chilled.
He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.