The Slaughterers Page 2

With that, he stomped out of the saloon, motioning for Badr to come with him.

  *****

  Back at the sheriff's office, Flint opened a side drawer of his desk and pulled out a burlap sack. "I've gotta eat somethin'." Opening the sack, he dug out a hunk of bread and some black strips of jerky. "'Specially if we got some excitement about to begin."

  Badr nodded. "Understandable." He paced the floor, burning with nervous energy. Whether he chose to stay and fight or ran for his life, he would have to leap into action very soon.

  "Want some?" Flint tore off a piece of bread and held it up. "Plenty to go around."

  "No thank you," said Badr. "I am fasting."

  Flint frowned. "No eatin'? Why's that?"

  "Ramadan," said Badr. "One of the pillars of my faith. Once a year, for one month, I fast from dawn until dusk. In this way, I show my devotion to Allah."

  "Okay." Flint stuck the piece of bread in his mouth and talked around it. "How about a drink then? I got water or whiskey. Coffee, too, if you don't mind it cold."

  Badr smiled and shook his head. "No eating or drinking."

  "Sounds hard." Flint gnawed on a strip of jerky. "You ever slip?"

  "With fasting, never." Badr stopped pacing. "Though I fear I may yet break another proscription of the holy season."

  "What's that?" asked Flint.

  "Refraining from all sin," said Badr.

  Flint swallowed some jerky and produced a whiskey bottle from another desk drawer. "What kind'a sin are you plannin', exactly?"

  "Murder." Badr looked out the window. How long until the marauders arrived? "If I stay and fight, such a sin may be unavoidable."

  "Often is." Flint uncapped the whiskey and had a snort, then clapped the bottle down on the desk. "I never met anyone like you, y'know that? Where're you from? Originally, that is."

  "Arabia." Badr started pacing again.

  "You've come a long way, then," said Flint.

  "Only a million miles or so."

  Flint swigged some more whiskey. "So what brought you here?"

  "The desert." Badr grinned. "It makes me feel at home."

  "No, really," said Flint. "Why are you here? Why are you in America?"

  Badr stopped pacing again, and his smile faded. "I am hunting a fugitive."

  Flint nodded. "From justice in your homeland?"

  "From my justice." Badr felt the old anger rising again, the fire that kept him moving ever onward through the savage land of the Americas. How long had he been hunting now? And still that anger rose as fresh as ever.

  Still it was a terrible thing that never let go of him...a response to the terrible things that had been done to him a world away and so very long ago.

  Flint bit off some bread and jerky and chewed them together. "This fugitive. Who is he?"

  "My brother." With that, Badr turned on his heel and marched out of the sheriff's office. He was done answering questions and would wait outside for Flint to finish his lunch.

  *****

  "This is our best vantage point." Badr stopped Reeh al-Qiyamah at the edge of a bluff a mile or so outside town. "The marauders will be ridin' from that direction." He pointed at the desert to the east. Somewhere beyond the horizon lay the ruins of Heart's Desire, with Rusty Hinge still further east beyond that.

  Flint rode up beside him and gazed into the distance. "This is their shortest route to town, that's for sure. Good place to box 'em in, too." He spit tobacco off the bluff. "Just one track between those hills."

  Badr reached into a pocket of his coat and pulled out a brass spyglass. He extended the spyglass to its full length, nearly two feet, and held it up to his left eye. "We will break their ranks, at least. Perhaps give the rest of your people a fighting chance." He lowered the spyglass and shook his head. "But the mathematics of two against twenty do not suggest a promising outcome."

  Flint grunted and walked his chestnut horse a few paces along the bluff. "Ten for me, ten for you. I like the math just fine." He pointed across the way at the crest of a southerly hill. "I stay here, you set up over there. We'll catch 'em in a crossfire."

  The scarf of Badr's keffiyeh rippled behind him in the wind. He wondered if he was willing to die in this fight for Oasis, to give up the quest that had brought him to America in the first place...because that was what would happen, he knew, if he and Flint pursued their present course.

  The marauders had a small army. There were too many enemies to kill or contain, even among the hills and bluffs. Once the shooting started, it would only be a matter of time until someone picked off Badr and Flint from below or sneaked up and caught them from behind.

  Flint pulled a rifle from the sling on one side of his saddle. "You're good with one of these, aren't you?" He tossed it at Badr.

  "Yes." Badr smiled as he caught it. There wasn't a weapon known to man that he hadn't mastered. His line of work demanded that kind of skill, both in America and home in Arabia.

  "Here." Flint pulled a box of cartridges out of a saddlebag, and Badr rode over to take it. "Get over to that hill and get ready."

  Badr stowed the box in his own saddlebag, then accepted a second box. "Are you sure about this?" He could have been asking himself the question, because his own doubts were legion.

  "Hell no." Flint leaned out and spat another glob of tobacco off the bluff. "But I reckon that won't stop me. Someone's gotta give these dumb sons of bitches a chance." He nodded toward Oasis.

  "All right then." Badr tucked the second box in his saddlebag, then took out the spyglass and had another look east.

  This time, he glimpsed a faint cloud of dust stirring over the horizon, as if kicked up by the hooves of a small army approaching from that direction.

  "They're coming." Badr collapsed the spyglass and stowed it in his pocket. "Good luck." He nodded once at Flint, then spoke in Arabic to Reeh al-Qiyamah, who turned away from the bluff.

  "Ain't gonna need it." Flint snorted as he climbed down off his mount. "But good luck to you, too. I hope that Allah fella looks out for you."

  Badr smiled back at him. "He always does."

  *****

  Even as Badr rode back down the winding trail from the bluff, he wasn't sure what he would do. His mission was the higher calling, surely; apprehending his brother was a burden laid upon him by the king of the Al Saud himself.

  And yet, his honor and compassion compelled him to consider the victims of the onrushing horde. Could he live with himself, knowing he'd condemned the men, women, and children of Oasis to being slaughtered like the inhabitants of Heart's Desire and Rusty Hinge?

  To stay true to his faith in this time of Ramadan, he had to avoid all sins, such as murder. Yet wasn't it a greater sin to allow monsters to slaughter innocents if they could be stopped?

  These were the thoughts that filled him when he reached the ground and turned toward the hill he'd been chosen to occupy. His heart beat faster as he faced it; that sand-swept hump might very well be the last place he'd draw breath in his life on Earth. Was this what everything had been leading up to all along for him, only he hadn't been able to see it until now? Was this the ending Allah had had in mind for him from the moment of his conception?

  Suddenly, the sound of hoofbeats shocked Badr out of his reverie. He spoke a command in Arabic, and Reeh al-Qiyamah spun around. In the same instant, Badr grabbed Sahar from its scabbard with one hand and a revolver from its holster with the other.

  But what he saw was not what he'd expected to see. Instead of advance scouts sent ahead by the marauders, four boys rode toward him, all blond, all scruffy, all carrying guns, none older than sixteen.

  The young men stopped twenty yards away and stared. None of them looked afraid in the least, though Badr's gun was trained in their direction.

  "I'm Jack Haines," said the one who looked the oldest, in the neighborhood of sixteen. He nodded. "These are my brothers. We came to help."

  Badr smiled and didn't lower his weapons. "But I wasn't expecting any help."

 
; "It's the least we could do," said Jack, "after the way you helped out our sister."

  Badr nodded slowly. "You're Meg's brothers."

  "That's right, Mister Badder," said Jack. "And every one of us can shoot a penny off a goat's nose."

  His brothers grunted and hooted behind him in assent.

  "We wanna kill us some bad guys!" said the youngest brother, who looked about six years old.

  "You tell 'im, Eddie!" Jack laughed. "So where do ya' want us, Mister Badder?" He pointed at the top of the bluff with his rifle. "Up there? Over there?" He pointed at a nearby hilltop.

  Badr thought for a moment. He and Flint needed help; he resisted bringing boys so young into what would be a brutal fight, but he doubted they would leave even if he told them to.

  Perhaps, if they could shoot as well as they said, they might help turn the tide. "All right." Gazing up at the surrounding heights, he rethought his plan, which had been designed for two men. "Who is your best shot?"

  "That's me." One of the middle boys, who carried a long rifle and looked about twelve or thirteen, rode up beside him. "Name's Ray."

  "Get riding." He pointed with Sahar at a hill a half-mile to the east. "You'll be farthest forward. Shoot around the edges, push them together. Drive them toward us like cattle, understand?"

  Ray grinned and nodded. "Yessir!"

  "Who's better at close range?" asked Badr.

  "He is." Ray pointed at the other middle boy, who looked slightly younger than he was. "That's Carl."

  Badr pointed at the closest hill, a low one near the base of the bluff. "You'll be right there, Carl. Pick off whoever gets through."

  "Yessir." Carl started off toward his post at a brisk trot...then stopped and spun. "Mister Badder, sir?"

  Badr was distracted sizing up the next position. "Yes?"

  "It's for your own good," said Carl. "Sorry, sir."

  Badr heard hoofbeats charging toward him. Adrenaline blazing through his bloodstream, he whirled with sword and gun in hand...just in time to see Jack and the other middle boy cast lassos at him on the move.

  Badr slashed at one lasso with the sword, batting it away, but the other rope landed over his upper body. Jack cinched it tight as he rode past, dragging Badr out of the saddle.

  Teeth clenched against the impact, Badr came down hard on his side and kept going. Sliding and bumping over sand and rock, he lost his grip on the sword and gun. Still, Jack kept dragging him onward.

  Badr rolled and bounced, fighting to draw the other revolver. Before he could unsnap the holster, Jack swept him around to the left, and a lump of rock seemed to leap up at him like a big red fist.

  He tried to dodge, but it came up too fast. His head caromed off the side of the rock, and he shuddered with the force of the impact.

  Whatever happened next, he wasn't aware of it. The world suddenly fell away, leaving him suspended in a void of perfect darkness.

  *****

  This time, Fayd didn't kill the bird.

  Badr went back to his tenth birthday, as he sometimes did when the waking world was far away, and saw that beautiful bird in her gilded cage. She was the prettiest creature he'd ever seen, feathered in turquoise and scarlet and emerald green. She even said her name when he asked, as the man who'd sold her to his father had trained her to do.

  "Nonni." She whistled when she said it. "Nonni Nonni." She rocked on her little gold perch and cocked her head to the side, fixing one deep blue eye on him.

  Badr loved her beyond imagining. His heart pounded whenever he saw her, just as it did years later at the sight of Reeh al-Qiyamah. He'd always had an affinity for animals--their purity, their clarity, their link to the divine--but Nonni had always had and always would have one of the strongest holds on his heart.

  Even though he'd only known her for less than a day. Even though Fayd had set her free out of jealous spite, ruining that birthday gift as he ruined everything, and she had never come back.

  Only this time, in this particular dream, she never left. Badr stood and watched her in her cage, heart pounding, and Fayd never came to take her away.

  He wished he could stay like that forever, gazing into her deep blue eye, listening to her chatter and chuckle and whistle. He wished he could stay there in his family's sun-bleached house, feeling the hot desert winds caress his cheeks, smelling baked bread and honey and spices from his mother's kitchen in the room next-door.

  He wished he could hold onto it all forever, this happier time, and not let Fayd cast it upon the four winds as he eventually did.

  But then, the next time Nonni spoke, she did it with a different voice--the voice of a girl, not a bird. And the words that came out of her beak were not the squawks or snippets or gibberish of a parrot, but fully-formed sentences mainlined from a place beyond sleep.

  "Can you hear me, Mister Badder? It's me, Meg Haines."

  *****

  Badr's eyes fluttered open to the sight of Meg's familiar face, lit by flickering candlelight.

  "Thank God you're awake." She smiled. "How do you feel?"

  Dimly at first, Badr became aware that he was lying in bed. Meg sat on the edge of the bed, smiling down at him.

  As for how he felt, it wasn't good. His head throbbed with intense pain, and so did his left knee. His back wasn't much better.

  Being lassoed and dragged across rough terrain hadn't done him any good. Not that he intended to dwell on it. "Where am I?"

  "Safe," said Meg. "You're at our farm, west of town."

  As full awareness returned, Badr noticed his arms and legs could move freely. In theory, he could get up and leave whenever he felt like it.

  Not that he felt like doing much of anything at the moment except resting...and eating and drinking. He hadn't had any food or liquid since before dawn; his stomach rumbled like the hooves of a hundred horses crossing a valley.

  "Why did you bring me here?" Badr tried ignoring his rumbling belly and forced himself to sit up.

  Meg put her hand atop his own. "To save your life. It was the least we could do after the way you saved me from Clancy and the Rumsey boys."

  "But I thought your brothers came to help fight the marauders." Badr frowned. "Are they fighting them without me?"

  "Not exactly." Meg leaned away and drew a white cloth from a basin of water on a bedside table. She wrung out the cloth, then opened it up and folded it into a square. "They're here with us."

  Badr's frown became a scowl. "Then who's fighting the marauders?"

  "No one." Meg patted his face with the damp cloth, working from the left cheek to the forehead and down to the right cheek. "Just like always."

  Badr started to say something, but his stomach rumbled so loudly, it cut him off.

  "Oh my!" Meg laughed. "You sound like you're starvin'."

  Badr nodded. "I haven't eaten since before dawn."

  "But why?" asked Meg.

  "My faith." Badr looked at the room's only window and saw no light beyond the makeshift burlap curtains. The exact hour was uncertain, but he could see that it was night. "It is a fast, for the holiest month of the year."

  "Then you don't want anything to eat?" asked Meg.

  "No! I mean yes, I do!" Badr's stomach growled louder than ever. As was often the case during Ramadan, he could barely control his spiking hunger after dark. Even the pain of his injuries couldn't keep his mind off it anymore. "The fast ends at dusk. I am free to eat as I like until dawn arrives."

  Meg got up from the bed. "Well, it's a good thing I saved you some dinner." She dropped the cloth in the basin and headed for the door. "I'll bring it right now."

  When she'd left the room, Badr took a quick look around. The only thing he saw that belonged to him was his keffiyeh, hanging over the back of a stiff-backed wooden chair.

  His guns and sword were nowhere to be seen. That would complicate his getaway, though it was true he was a force to be reckoned with even without weapons in his hands.

  But it was also true that his need to eat was
much greater than his need to escape just then, especially when Meg returned with a tray of food and drink.

  "Soup's on!" She brought the tray over and placed it on his lap. "Cold chicken and biscuits, anyway."

  Badr smiled. The humble food looked like a sultan's feast to him. Best of all, there wasn't a trace of pork, which followers of Islam were forbidden from eating. He'd been served it often enough in America and walked away with an empty stomach every time.

  Badr bowed his head and closed his eyes, softly offering up a du'a, a prayer, to Allah. "Bismillahi wa 'ala baraka-tillah."

  When he opened his eyes, he saw Meg listening and watching him with intense interest...but she didn't offer comment.

  "Thank you for this." Badr nodded and picked up a fork from the rough wooden tray. "It looks delicious."

  Meg stopped staring and grinned. "Well don't just sit there. Dig in."

  Badr smiled. "If you insist."

  As he speared a hunk of gravy-covered chicken and drove it toward his mouth, Meg poured water from an earthen pitcher into a tin cup. "There's more where this came from, if you want it," she said. "It wasn't easy, but I set some aside and got the boys to promise not to eat it."

  Badr chewed and swallowed, then went after some more. "Well, it's delicious. Jazaak allahu khairan."

  She frowned and tipped her head to one side.

  "It's how my people say 'thank you.'" Badr grabbed the cup of water and drained it, instantly soothing his parched mouth. "'May God reward you,' it means."

  Meg smiled. "Jaza kalla to you, too, then, for what you did to help me."

  "No need to thank me," said Badr. "Just tell me what you meant when you said 'just like always.' You said no one's fighting the marauders, 'just like always.'"

  Meg's smile faded fast. "This is a terrible place, Mister Badder. You shouldn't've come here."

  "Why?" Badr shoveled in more chicken and biscuit as soon as the word left his mouth.

  Meg looked down at her hands. She seemed to be searching for the right words. "You can't save no one here. They won't help you fight."