-Slit-
We stayed all through the night. Crank stopped by the tarped up window to peel back the barrier against the wind and speak into the hole in the dark.
"He's alive, needs sleep. Everyone's staying put," he said
Incredible that a whole crew, or clan, would stop for a single man. Everyone else's bruises and bumps were minor by comparison. I'd never known a grouping of people willing to shoulder the risk of sitting idle for one man whose chances are slim to none. I spent a while thinking about that after Crank left to go back to Wilson's bus where I assumed the rest of his family were. I thought about the word family too, and how sometimes it seemed like Crank wasn't Crank anymore. I called him by his repair boy name out of habit but maybe the pedestrian name he'd taken fit better now because he really wasn't who he used to be.
Crank always had hard words and warned Nux and me that being soft got you harder knocks. He didn't even tolerate us sleeping in the same bunk and Nux always bawled about it but... Crank was the one saddled with us when we got dumped on Tank's crew.
He was maybe seven thousand days of age at the time, give or take a few hundred. I remember being that age, not knowing jack shit while believing I knew every damn thing. He had to chew my grub for me and drip feed me cola when my throat hole tried to swell closed from the infection of my shredded face. He even managed to get Organic, who was only an assistant in the bloodshed at the time, to come in secret to flush out the festering flesh with cola and liquid flames. V8 knows what he had to trade the gluttonous letch for that. I don't want to know. I vaguely remember the night I was a hair's width from burning out a quarter-life. Covered by a wet sheet and feeling like I was freezing to death rather than roasting alive. I was convinced for years that the hand on my head and prayers to V8 along with every god of the Wretched pantheon had been only a feverish dream. It was Crank, I'm sure of that now when I recall his smiling face the next day. It was the kind of smile that hides countless things, all the stuff our kind aren't supposed to think or feel. If I was in Bones' place instead, would Crank demand that the clan stopped for me? I think maybe he would, and that maybe he was always hiding Phil under the rough exterior named Crank.
Dune kept me stuck under her through the night, which was fine. V8 my head felt like it was being crushed in a hydraulic press and my arm like it was being twisted off, but the maniac wasn't raving or whimpering. Crank was right when he told me at the harvest hoedown that he thought the nutball and I were two losers hovering just over and just under thirty who do nothing but cuddle. Yeah, we eventually got around to the naked games he was so damn concerned about but I could probably have gone on just doing my best impression as the Loon's mattress and remained satisfied with that. The paint trading hadn't actually changed anything. It wasn't the world-shattering revelation I was trying to avoid. Screwing around with no threads on just feels great and we probably could have been happily defiling each other a long time ago in place of bickering over dumb shit out of boredom. That's my only regret over it.
Dune interrupted the thoughts in my skull, something she's always been good at, by shifting about and pulling her knee up into my crotch. Couldn't help the involuntary grunt and choked cursing. She was out, that wasn't intentional but count on her to crush a ball bearing in her sleep. If you don't have those bits, imagine being punched in the gut when you have to take a shit but your grit grinder is also trying to turn itself inside out. I sat up, adjusted my junk, and pulled her up with me as I recovered. She muttered and asked what was wrong. I told her and, almost sweetly, she said it served me right. Mean little still turned to put her rump on the cold seat so she could reach up my shirt with the shine hand and appreciate how tense a man's gut will get after having the fun stuff abused.
I had a dumb thought as I pulled the imp back into my lap and buried my face in her hair to snort up her stench. Nux never got to have this, did he? Not too long ago I'd have mocked him for it, and a day before we met the Crow Fishers, I had definitely imagined myself laughing at his ghost about it. It felt cruel now.
It had been one of those nights, my head was too full of rust to get any sleep. Dawn would arrive soon, there was the faintest band of light glowing along the jagged peaks of the mountains when I turned my head to look out the back window.
"Tell Dune about the green at The Citadel, Ducky. Please? I just... I've had enough of the color red lately."
I thought about home, garden terraces, and patches where the same crops as always got planted and rotated. All the shit and death produced in the War Tower got recycled there, then what grew out of our filth and fester was sold or traded for bullets and guzz. She didn't ask about how we kept the green fed and what we got back for it through trade, though.
"It's green," I huffed to get a reaction.
"Arse," She slurred, jabbing my navel with a cold finger and getting her hand slapped for it. She snorted her tired laugh, resting her head against my collarbone as she spoke "What kinds, Slit?"
I squeezed her with my right arm, pulling in the aching left and tucking my hand against the warm softness of her belly. She's always so soft, and lately, I luxuriated in her feel in my hands.
"Leafy ruffage, mostly. There's root stuff, more potato. Wheat, not a ton of it, though. That went to Gas Town, they'd send back cooking dust for hard tack. Red things. We never got to touch um, though. They'd get traded for real chrome stuff, engines even." I told her as she fidgeted against my fingers caressing the plush rolls of skin she had when she was curled like this.
"Red things?" she asked, curiosity rising in her voice alongside wakefulness.
I nodded, cringing at how even that made my skull pound, "Yeah, first a yellow flower, then a little green button, then a shiny round red thing."
"That sounds like tomatoes!" Dune chirped, heard her lips smack too.
"Must've been real chrome in your mouth if a handful of those got you trucks of scrap and a few more got you the truck, too. Imperators never let us near 'em. You ever had one?" I had to know, even if it was only vicariously, what all the fuss over them was about.
"Yeah! All the time! We had a problem with 'em around our house when I was a sprout, they kept comin' up and then if we didn't pick fast enough, fruit would fall and more would come up. Mum had to give 'em away. Rus, Flick, an' Dune got stuck eatin' the overripe ones to get rid of um before they could rot. By the time somebody came up with the bright idea to cull off some and make a big batch of soup for a potluck, we were already sick of 'em..."
She kept on chattering, tried to explain the flavor too, but it was lost on me.
"Must be nice, coming up like that," I said, not bothering to hide the jealousy over it.
"I'd kill a man for one now," she sighed.
"Nah, you're too soft," l declared getting her back for stabbing me in the belly button with her icy digits by sliding my middle fingertip into hers and giving it a wiggle.
She yipped, snatching me at the wrist quick as greased lightning. That sent hot lead up my arm and the moment the struggle broke I turned away from her and cradled the angry limb. Dune was immediately doing what she does even better than shooting, coddling.
"Oh, poor Duck. You really should have that in a sling," she hummed at me. I was finally starting to catch it when she treats me like her pup rather than- nevermind.
"In a sling, like it's a brat that shits itself instead of my shifter hand. No thank you."
"I'll do your shifting or else that arm really will shit out," she was talking in first, which meant she wasn't taking my refusal.
Dune crawled into the back and rummaged. Crank arrived at the window again just as she was tying a wide strip of my old bandages around me and trying to get the gauntlet off my wrist, which wasn't happening. He pulled back the tarp and leaned in to look over the seat into the back where we were.
"Talked to Heta, were moving out in a half hour. Gotta talk to you for a minute once yer done on that tit, gettin' babied."
I growled and lifted my right fist at the insult, willing and more than able to punch the geezer between the eyes if he lingered too long. He coughed a single chuckle and went away just fast enough to avoid a set of knuckles. Dune was muttering and groaning, turning all red in the face. Bones must be doing alright, though, if Crank had regained his perverse brand of humor.
Clumsily, with a wrecked arm and only one leg, I began climbing back over the seat to step out. Dune leaned over the backrest to grab at me, pulling me back with her hands clenched around my scarf. I started to complain but she cut me off by briskly mashing her lips over mine. Bizarre. We exchanged a look. Unsaid questions and unsaid answers. She looked like a two-day-old dried turd but I guessed that she wasn't pissed off at me anymore. I grabbed her by the back of the head and gave it back, it felt kind of like getting the last word in, then I got out.
Crank was standing apart from the others near Wilson's bloodshed bus, watching as Featherknife lifted Bones out of the back like a pup. He was limp, already pale skin had taken on a gray color, and right arm missing at the shoulder under layers upon layers of crude bandaging. Looking like that while missing his boots and bone encrusted jacket, the only thing which visually gave away his identity was the red-blond hair and the man carrying him to Crank's truck. Crank merely smoked from his pipe and watched on. The bruise in the crook of his elbow told me that he'd given up blood, too.
I didn't come any closer until Bones was laid in the bed of the truck with the pups. The old black thumb eyed me as I stood next to him.
"How bad is that arm?" he asked.
"Trashed for weeks, Loon's gonna have to work the gear shift," I answered.
He did no more than grunt in understanding.
"People lost family, Slit. They're pretty rough,"
"It's not like they didn't know what could happen, right?" I quizzed him, to make sure he hadn't implied to them that it would be easy.
"O'course they knew. Made sure of it. Doesn't mean they aren't hurtin',"
I didn't want to look at his face, I was sure he was feeling something or other too, so I drew circles in the sand with the foot of my metal leg.
"Ain't the same as back home," I muttered.
"Might have been different if we'd spared the witnessing and permitted a little hurtin'," Crank gritted tersely and my guts churned up acid even if I knew it wasn't me he was cross with. "They're in mourning. Pups are getting split up to be with their parents since the worst is over. Couple hours, Pup. Then, we gotta make that trip on a bike with the white flag."
I didn't speak, didn't have much to say for all the things I already knew
"Haven't seen home in so long, boy. Being up front, I never expected to see it again," he said, voice soft now.
"Neither did I," I wasn't sure I wanted to go where this discussion could take us, so I changed the subject after catching myself anxiously plucking out threads of the sling my arm hung in. "Are we getting in formation any time soon?"
"Yeah, get out front. I'll be in the jeep with Barks and we're taking point ahead of you. Ard's driving the truck and keeping near the middle with Wilson and Heta."
Alright, I knew what I needed to know and felt sufficiently awkward about everyone else's loss to wish not to speak for a while. I somehow felt to blame for everything up until that point. It's different than riding with brothers. There's no congratulatory "witness" for the slain, only second-hand grief.
Dune wasn't in the Impala when I came to pull off the tarp and stuff it into the back. I found her talking to Ardith as I pulled past the truck and called her back in. The two parted with an embrace, they did that a lot. Others were shouted at and directed by Dune standing up through the roof hatch after she was told what order rigs were to be lined up. Once the spiny Jeep took its place in front of us with Crank at the wheel, we moved on.
Dune did as she said she would, operating the gear stick for me since she insisted that my arm had to stay slung against my chest. She was a bit lazy about it though, head in my lap and left hand only lifting to do its job when I roused her with a shake of the stump in its leather socket. Caught her breathing like she was asleep a few times, too.
I wound up pulling my arm out of the dumb sling and resting my hand on her head instead. She was all bruised up and still had blood in her hair. I didn't want to wake her, so I put up with the sharp stabs in my elbow every time I had to shift gears. It wasn't that big a deal, a few more hours and it could sit in the damn sling as long as it had to, hopefully.
She was spooning her rifle, not loaded at the moment of course. I watched her whenever there was no hill of unstable sand to climb and no turns to negotiate on the sparse roads Crank found. Maniac sand witch. Murderous cannibal scavenger. Pain in the ass. Crank had his brats and his clan to make this trip for, at that moment I quit denying that everything I'd done in the last six months had been for the lunatic and no one else. I wasn't going to the Citadel for any reason except to get her out of Scav Country for good. I had no intention of talking her back to the cave unless I absolutely had to. Maybe I was concussed. That question Ardith asked me more than a month ago popped into my head at random. 'Do you love her?' she'd demanded to know. Shit, do I? I didn't give a damn what happened to me, but Dune- Is that what it is? When your own bullshit stops mattering next to someone else's bullshit?
One of the clan women called out and I looked into the rear glass. Featherknife was speeding out from behind the bus and pulling ahead to the driver side window of the Jeep. The noise woke Dune, she sprung upright and clutched the Enfield close. We both heard what he bellowed to Crank, he didn't need to call out at us a moment later.
"Mack truck and pursuit cars! Same tags as the ones in the mountains!"
Dune, groggy but wide-eyed, was already popping the full magazine in place and putting a round in the chamber. I had a blood pump trying to hammer its way out of me. I knew it. I knew those sandstorm worshipping fucks wouldn't just let us go.
The formation tightened up uselessly, they were scattered the moment they were threatened by the plow blade on the nose of that quarry hauler the lightning lovers had. How could they have that?! The only place I'd ever seen one of those monsters on tires was The Bullet Farm. They made Scrotus' Land Mover look anemic.
Things moved slow, sluggish, my skull meat took its time to digest what was happening. It couldn't stuff the dread into a neat box to put away. That truck, the massive beast with an engine bigger than my whole car, wasn't swerving to crush the Crow Fisher convoy which had parted, almost as if in a hypnotic vehicular dance, around it. It was racing ahead, it was coming for the Impala.
"SEATBELT! SEATBELT, DUNE!" Who was that screaming? Oh, it was me.
Forget the convoy, there was no space inside me but the horror gripped instinct to avoid being rammed by that. I broke away, stupid, wove left and right to keep that thing from having a still target to accelerate at. We were falling back, the caravan raced ahead and my brain switched back on to remind me that keeping up with the herd was just as important as not getting crushed. My ears rang, Dune was shooting behind us from the hatch. She ducked back inside to reload, screeching at me to steady up as she stuffed her last three rounds into the mag.
"PUT YOUR FUCKING SEATBELT ON! DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!?" I howled, unbelievably enraged that she didn't have the sense to know that if we got hit by this she'd be ejected from the car like a shell casing from her rifle.
I'm an idiot. I was too busy fighting the psycho to get her strapped in and trying to catch up with the others to notice what was casting a shadow over us on my blind side. Last second, I turned my head and saw, swerved left and almost rolled the Impala to avoid being crushed under a tire two men high.
I saw the face of the man behind the wheel, barely heard him screaming, and recognized him instantly.
"YOU CRIPPLED MY GUNNER!" Raged the very same demon that had been behind the wheel of the Storm Mustang on the Storm Chaser's road.
I locked up as the mining truck fell back, felt bile rise up my throat. V8, Nux, Crank, help me!
"SLIT! SLIT, LOOK OUT!"
Dune's screams, her terror, was the last thing I heard before we hit a high drift of sand. For a precious second, we flew. Everything has to come back down sometime, even birds. The grill and ram bar hit the dirt first, then my face hit the steering wheel.
