Storm of Locusts

Chapter 19

“Is Caleb going to be okay?” Ben asks. She and I are sitting across from each other at a long table in the building that was once Lupton’s refugee mess hall. Enough room for fifty people to sit and eat at once, but it’s only me and Ben now, and her voice echoes around the place like a bat in a cave.

“I think he’ll be okay,” I tell her, rubbing my eyes, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a lie. My nerves are so frayed it’s hard to tell. Once Rissa arrived, Caleb started screaming, and he didn’t stop for the better part of an hour. Nothing the twins did could calm their brother. Finally, Rissa found a flask of some kind of booze in the guard barracks and forced some down his throat. He seemed to calm after that, rolling in and out of consciousness, which was better than the alternative, I guess. The three Goodacres were still holed up in the infirmary, but I’d begged off, saying I needed some air and should check on Ben. Mósí had wandered off somewhere, as cats do, and I found Ben in here, listlessly picking at a can of Spam with a fork.

I say, “Clive’s got him stabilized and he’s resting. It’s a good thing there’s a medical facility here. If we’d been out on the road, things might be a little bleaker.”

“Is Clive a doctor? Or, I mean, was he a doctor before the Big Water?”

“No, but I think he did some EMT training or something. He knows what he’s doing. And he’s got plenty of hands-on experience from dealing with the lot who end up staying at Grace’s. Most of us roll in with some kind of damage.”

“He patch you up before?”

“Not me, but Kai. Before we knew about his Medicine People clan power.”

Ben gives me a beleaguered smile. “Why do you think they did it? To Caleb?”

“I don’t know. As a warning? Once Caleb’s able to talk, we’ll know more. Until then . . .”

“The White Locust is a monster,” she says, voice hard as the Wall outside. “Just like his followers. They all deserve to die.” She stabs the potted meat with her fork.

“Ben,” I start. I consider telling her she didn’t kill the archer, but once again I decide the timing is shit. Besides, there’s nothing she can change about it now, and I’m not sure whether the truth would help her or hurt her more. “Don’t think like that. It’s not good.”

“It’s funny,” she says. “I’ve never felt like I had a purpose. Like, I used to wonder why I survived the Little Keystone Massacre when my parents and everyone I knew at the camp died. It never felt right.”

The Little Keystone was one of the last battles of the Energy Wars, and calling it a battle would be overly generous. The Protectors’ camp housed whole families, sitting in protest at the site of a proposed pipeline through Osage territory. The Osage and the oil companies were tied up in court, since many of the battles were fought with lawyers and legal briefs as much as they were with guns. But there was a posse of violent men who worked to support the corporations. Those men’s souls were as dark and as slick as the crude itself, so most folks just called them “Oilers.” The Oilers decided the courts weren’t moving fast enough. They took it upon themselves to clear Protector camps by any means necessary. Little Keystone had been one of those.

“I didn’t know there were any survivors at Little Keystone,” I say.

“I hid.” Simple words, but her voice is anguished.

I know that shame. It’s all too familiar. And even though I don’t believe it about myself and my nalí’s death, I try to offer her something. “You were a child.” She’s still a child, but I don’t tell her that. She’s lived through the kind of thing that strips one’s childhood away.

“Doesn’t matter,” she says, voice flat. “Other kids didn’t hide.”

“If you hadn’t hidden, you would have died.”

She looks up at me. “If I had died, my uncle would still be alive.”

I could try to tell her she doesn’t know that for a fact, that a lot happens between one person’s life and another’s death to make things fall out a certain way. But what do I know about why things happen the way they do? Maybe she’s right.

“I’m too soft,” she says, like an admission. “I thought I was tough, because of . . . stuff. But I couldn’t take seeing Caleb like that.” She pushes the fork into the flesh of her hand, the tines making little indents.

“Ben.”

“Don’t make excuses for me, Maggie,” she says, her voice low with anger.

“I wasn’t going to.”

She gives me a half smile, like she’s relived. “It’s okay. I get it now. I know what I’m supposed to do.”

I lean forward, arms folded on the table, not sure I like the sound of that. “What exactly do you think you are supposed to do?”

“Kill the White Locust.” Her eyes meet mine, hard and uncompromising. “I’m supposed to avenge my uncle. Caleb, too.”

“It’s not your job to avenge anyone.”

Her jaw tightens, fingers flexing around the fork she’s still holding. “If not me, then who? Who fights the evil in this world?”

“I kind of thought that’s what I was doing.”

Her mouth twists, cynical. “Did you really?”

I blink, caught off guard. But I can’t lie. “No. Maybe. Sometimes.”

She nods, confirmed. “My uncle told me about you.”

“I gathered that from what you said back at Lake Asááyi.”

“Don’t be mad at him. He only told me the truth. You can’t help what you are. None of us can. And you do have some good qualities.” She rolls the fork back and forth across the table. “You have a gift for violence. I—I don’t have that naturally, but I can find that in myself. I know I can.”

“You don’t want that,” I say gently.

“I do if I’m going to kill the White Locust. And I am going to kill him. I need you to understand that.”

“I do, but—”

“It’s my new purpose. You get that, don’t you? Having a purpose?”

“Yes, but—”

“I just can’t do it alone. I need your help. And Clive and Rissa, probably, too.” Her face falls, like she just remembered something. “What do you think they’ll do now that they’ve got Caleb back? Do you think they’ll go home? Forget about us?”

“I don’t know what they’ll do,” I admit.

She straightens. “They won’t leave,” she says, sounding confident. “They know the right thing to do. They’re going to want revenge too.”

“You know this is a rescue mission, right?”

“Do you think Caleb can travel?” she asks like she didn’t hear me. “He’ll have to. Maybe Mósí will let him sit in her sidecar. Do you think she’ll share?”

“Speaking of Mósí,” I say, grateful for the chance to change the topic, “do you know where she went?”

“She said something about going back over by the gate where we found Caleb.”

I stand up, eager to end the conversation. “Did she say why?”

Ben looks at me a long minute, and I feel like I should say something, but I got nothing. I don’t really do platitudes, and she asked me not to lie. Finally, she nods. “It’s okay, Maggie. I appreciate you trying.” She puts a forkful of Spam in her mouth and chews. “And no. I don’t know why Mósí went back to the gate. I mean, I didn’t ask her why. I just assumed it was a cat thing.”

Sure enough, I find Mósí standing in front of the open gate. She’s sitting primly, legs tucked under, back straight, and hands folded in her lap. And she’s staring through the open gate into the space beyond. Into the Malpais. In the chaos of finding Caleb, I hadn’t even thought to get a look through the gate at the lands beyond Dinétah. If I’m honest, the idea of leaving still makes me queasy.

I approach, my moccasins silent on the paved road. She turns slightly to acknowledge that she knows I’m here, and no doubt to remind me that I can’t sneak up on a cat.

“What do you see?” I ask, curious. I know her eyesight is better than mine. Her hearing, too. I’ve reconsidered my initial reluctance to have her along, admitting—to myself at least—my prejudice. I know full well that Caleb might still be hanging from that wall if it weren’t for her.

“What do I see, child?” she says, her voice soft with wonder. “I see darkness. And monsters moving in the darkness.” She twists her body to face me. “A great force came through here to remove these people. When you come face-to-face with it—and you will—do not underestimate it.”

“Was it Kai?” I ask, remembering the metal pole littering the road.

“No,” she says, “but don’t underestimate him, either. Chaos trails him like death trails you. But no, what happened here was not his doing. The people of Lupton left here willingly.”

“Kai could convince them.”

“With Bit’ąą’nii? No. They would be no threat to him, and the effects of Bit’ąą’nii . . . It cannot make you a slave. It cannot convince you to do something you don’t already want to do.”

“I don’t know much about it,” I admit, interested. “He never explained.”

“You mean before you killed him?”

Damn cat. “Yes.”

She smiles in a way that makes me decidedly uncomfortable. “Bit’ąą’nii is like a lover’s whisper. It persuades, but it does not destroy the will. It is a subtle power. This”—she looks around the empty town—“was not subtle. They abandoned their home for something they wanted more than a home.”

“I don’t understand that. A home is all I’ve ever wanted.”

She tilts her head. “You know much of want, Battle Child. Careful it is not your undoing.”

I step forward to stare into what feels like a solid wall of black beyond the Dinétah border. “Why is it so dark out there? The sun is still up for a few more hours. Is there no daylight on the other side of the Wall?”

“There are many places the sun does not reach, and darkness can be a balm to those who belong to the night.”

“But there is daylight out there?”

“What is illuminated does not always—”

“Just answer the question. No riddles.”

Her whole body flickers with annoyance. “There is daylight.”

“Good.” I shake off a shiver and rub my arms to try to get warm. The afternoon sunlight on this side of the Wall suddenly doesn’t feel like enough. “So, you’re still coming with us, right? You haven’t changed your mind?”

She blinks, surprised. “Oh, no. Not at all. Why would I when I have a monsterslayer as my bodyguard who wields the sword of a great warrior?” She glances back at Neizghání’s sword still strapped to my back.

“About that.” I take a steadying breath, ready to admit the truth. “I’m more of a sword escort.”

Her small face wrinkles in concern. “Can you not wield the sword? Did he never teach you how?”

“I was more the guns and knives side of the duo.”

“You cannot wield the lightning sword,” she says flatly. Her face falls in disappointment.

“I just need some time to practice,” I protest. “Figure out a few things.” Like how the hell it works.

“You promised to keep me safe.”

“And I will. Just not with the sword. I still have all my guns.”

She smooths her hands across her lap. “I suppose I do not care how you do it, as long as we are agreed. To break a promise of safe passage is an offense to the Diyin Dine’é. Plus, it is very rude.” She looks over her shoulder. “Someone is coming. One of the red ones.”

I hear it too. Heavy footsteps and the quiet slap of an automatic rifle against padding. I turn to see Clive, a lone figure coming toward us up the road.

“How is he?” I ask as he gets into earshot.

His face is set in a grim mask, lips thinned to nothing, hazel eyes dark and haunted. “He’s awake. And talking. And he’s asking for you.”