Six shots rang out. Tracy let go of the breath she'd been holding. Whoever the mysterious stranger was, taking cover on a rooftop beneath his broad-brimmed hat, he didn't seem to want them dead. At least, not yet. He had fired on the machines, and six of the robots had fallen.
Mike, katana in hand, cleaned up the last of the mess, and the group gathered around the car.
No one was hurt too badly. Reaper had been shot through the leg, and Mercy and Junkrat were knocked out, but within a few minutes everyone was stable and relaxed. Everyone except Junkrat, who was glaring with smoky eyes at the newcomer.
The newcomer was handsome in a rugged way. His dark face, hidden beneath the shadow of his hat, was covered in coarse hair. He had clearly not shaven in days, perhaps weeks, and his hair looked equally messy. He wore a red quilt, wrapped around his shoulders, perhaps to protect himself from the sun. His body armour, though simple, looked effective. Like many of the others in the group he wore a belt of ammunition slung low around his hip, from which dangled a holster.
The six-shooter was still in his hand. It had been reloaded. Tracy dragged her eyes away from it with difficulty.
'Who the hell are y'all?' he asked.
'Just travellers, passing through,' Mike answered, hands raised defensively, though Tracy noticed his katana was loose in its sheath.
'Heavily armed travellers,' the cowboy drawled. Tracy noticed the cigar poking out from between his lips for the first time.
'Aren't we all?' Mike asked.
'It's a necessity,' Mercy agreed.
The cowboy nodded slowly, lifting his hat to scratch his scalp with his left hand. Tracy wondered vaguely why he was wearing a glove on his left hand, but not his right.
'Well, y'all are right about that,' the cowboy grinned. 'Lots of dangers outside a' this canyon. None in here though, I hope. Can I expect any shenanigans from y'all?'
'We're just passing through,' Mike repeated. And finally, with an acknowledging tip of the head, the cowboy gestured to the shanty town.
'Well in that case,' he said, 'make yourselves at home.'
They made their way up the dusty road, examining the simple wooden buildings as they passed. Tracy was impressed. They were more solid than she had originally thought; there was no way the cowboy could have built them on his own. She followed the jangling noise of his spurs.
'Do you have a name, sir?' she asked.
'He does.' It was Junkrat who spoke from the back of the pack, and there was a bitterness to his voice. 'It's Cassidy.'
Cassidy stopped and sighed heavily. 'I should've known letting you live was a mistake.'
'You two know each other?' Tracy asked.
Junkrat pushed past Mike and ignored Road Hog, when the fatter man tried to get in his path.
'Sure we know each other,' Junkrat snarled, 'this is the bastard that took my leg. My family, my friends, we built this entire village. That's how Road Hog knew about it. Took us months, but it was home, ya know, a safe place to stay and build and live.'
'Junkers.' Cassidy spat onto the dirt. The sun sizzled the speck of moisture.
'Yeah, we're junkers, so fuckin' what?' Junkrat looked heated. 'It was a life, ya pistol-toting bastard, and you took it from us.'
'Desperate times,' Cassidy replied, his voice low and uncompromising. 'I had people to care for too. You'd have done the same to me.'
Junkrat hoisted the grenade launcher into the crook of his arm. 'I still might!'
Cassidy thumbed back the hammer on his six-shooter, preparing to shoot. Mercy gripped her staff. Tensions rose on all accounts as everyone prepared to fight if necessary.
Tracy stepped defensively in front of Cassidy. 'Look, Junkrat, he's saved our lives. It doesn't take back what he did, but it's a start. We can look to the future now. There's still a life for us, we just need to work together to keep it.'
Cassidy turned his back and walked away. 'I should've killed ya, Junkrat.'
'Aw, fuck off!' Junkrat called after him. But that was the end of the conversation. The group split ways, each claiming a shanty building, and found some rest. Road Hog took the first watch.
Tracy checked on Reaper first. He was lying on a pile of stolen blankets in one of the small huts. Mercy was standing over him, healing him with the glowing staff. If it was science, it was nothing Tracy understood, but she wasn't quite ready to admit it was magic either.
'Should you be doing that?' Tracy asked.
Mercy looked up. 'Why wouldn't I? Reaper has been my companion for weeks now.'
'Half an hour ago you were unconscious,' Tracy countered. 'If you over-exert yourself…'
She watched as the muscles and skin of Reaper's leg stitched themselves back together under the basking golden light. Mercy took a deep, shuddering breath, and stepped away from her partner.
'I'll be fine. And besides, wounds like this are always easier to heal when they are fresh.'
They sat in silence for a minute after that. It was a silence they enveloped the room like a bubble, and, Tracy imagined, the rest of the shanty town. After Junkrat's terse exchange with Cassidy hardly anyone had known what to say. Half an hour later they still didn't.
'Where is Mike?' Mercy asked.
Tracy shrugged.
'Junkrat? Road Hog?'
More shrugs. Tracy didn't know where anyone was. They'd parted ways, each finding their own room to cool down in. If Road Hog was still keeping watch he should be on a roof somewhere. But Tracy didn't care enough to go and check. It was so damned hot outside.
'In that case,' Mercy began, 'why don't you go and find our host, this ranger Cassidy. He seems like a loner, but he knows this land better than we do. He's probably been here some time. We could use his help.'
Tracy wasn't thrilled about the idea. Cassidy was tough and handsome, and had had a strange way of allowing her to feel safe in the few moments she'd spent in his presence, in a way that Mike did not. But he was also dangerous, and a stranger.
'Please,' Mercy added. 'It would help put me at ease.'
'Fine,' Tracy answered. 'But only because you asked, and I like you.'
As Tracy left in the direction she had last seen Cassidy, she had to wonder if Mercy was sending her because she was young and pretty; a non-threatening peace offering. The idea grated her, so she kept her twin pistols loose in their holsters, ready to draw if necessary.
She found Cassidy smoking on a rooftop on the furthest building. His boots dangled over the veranda and, as she climbed the ladder beside him, she noticed his belt buckle for the first time. BAMF.
'Howdy,' he grunted as she took a place beside him.
From here the entire village seemed empty. There was no sign of Road Hog keeping watch, or any of the others for that matter, all of whom were probably hiding indoors. Tracy didn't blame them. Even after only two minutes of the sun her skin was prickling, and sweat was sliding down her brow. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.
'I'm definitely getting my haircut, as soon as I can,' she said, and then wondered why she'd started with that.
Cassidy's mouth twitched into a smile. 'I can arrange that. There's a pair of scissors downstairs.'
Tracy smiled back, then blushed and looked away. His dark, beady eyes were so different from Mike's narrow, bright ones.
'Maybe later. Thank you for saving us earlier. We may not have made it if you hadn't been there.'
He shrugged. 'Time was I'd've left y'all to die. But these days, well… my time's as limited as yours. No point us fighting over it.'
For the first time Tracy realised that Cassidy was here alone. Of everyone she'd seen since they entered the desert, and there had been precious few people at all, they had all been travelling in pairs, if not larger groups.
'How have you survived so long by yourself?' she asked, hoping it was not a rude or hurtful question.
'I wasn't. There was a large group of us, back a month. Travelled together, watched each other's backs. We used to get into fights with the Junkers all'a time, until one day we got the better of them. Big fight. A few of them escaped, like that Rat downstairs, but they weren't in good shape. I imagine he's the last of them now.'
'Where are your friends now?' Tracy asked.
'Abandoned me when we ran out of food. The well here is damned fine for water, but you can't get far without food.'
'Why didn't you go with them?'
Cassidy pulled back the red quilt draped around his neck, and then removed the glove from his left hand. With the glove gone, the hand seemed to disappear. Tracy realised that from the elbow down Cassidy had no left hand. The glove was a prosthetic, simple and black. He passed it to her, and she looked closer. Not even a prosthetic; just plastic stolen from a store mannequin somewhere.
'I ain't much use without a hand,' he answered. 'I can fire a weapon alright, thumb back the hammer with this here lump of shit, but I can't hunt or climb without it snapping off. And there's more to life in this world than just shootin' every damned thing.'
Tracy nodded. She and Mike had learnt that the hard way.
'So if you can't hunt and you're out of food, how did you survive?'
He smiled wryly, hairs on his cheek bristling.
'Two days after the others left I was ready to die. In my head, that is. The body wanted to keep on living for some reason. Had many three or four days left before I became too empty to move. I'm a tough son-of-bitch. Started hunting around for a nice, dark place to sit and waste away. Found it at the back of this here canyon, behind the shanties. Except it wasn't empty, my little hovel. It was full of food. Probably the Junker's storage. They're like fuckin' squirrels, them junkers.'
Tracy was impressed. 'How much?'
'Enough. But I don't want to be sharin' more than I have to. Y'all can stay the night, I s'pose.'
Tracy had not even considered this, but the sun was drooping in the west now, and it seemed a wise suggestion.
'Thank you for that. You should come with us when we go.'
He shook his head. 'Not a chance. I've got enough of a life here to last a little longer, then I'm putting the Peacekeeper here under my chin and saying goodnight. There ain't no better life than this, darl'. Not anymore.' He paused. 'Hell, why don't you stay with me?'
She blushed again, replied quietly, 'I don't think Mike would like that very much.'
Cassidy shrugged. 'That's on you. The offer is there.'
She decided to change the subject. 'If you spend most of your days hiding in a little cave behind the canyon, how come you arrived just in time to save us?'
'Y'all were lucky. I'm always up and out at midday. It's the time I stretch my legs, get some fresh air, enjoy what little is left of life. When the sun is right at the top of the sky, that's my favourite time of day. High noon, we call it. The hour I live for.'
'You can live for more than that,' Tracy said, softly.
'No,' he said. 'I can't.'
Tracy didn't realise how close they were sitting, how his fingers were brushing against her thigh, until they heard Road Hog's bellowing voice from across the shanty village.
'We've got incoming!' the big man yelled. 'Not robots, or walkers. We've got vehicles!'
Tracy was on her feet in an instant. 'Shit… what if they're not friendly?'
'They ain't,' Cassidy promised, glaring into the distance as he pulled his cigar from his lips and stamped it out. 'That'll be my old pack of marauders. Best we don't stick around.'
Tracy helped him put his prosthetic back on.
'Won't they be glad to see you alive again?'
He snorted. 'They'll be glad to see my food storage. Yours too. Then they'll kill us all, drain the well, dump the bodies, and keep moving. They're locusts, no concept of how to survive in this wasteland.' He spat on the dirt in disgust. 'You know, we were never as different from the Junkers as I remember.'
They got to the bottom of the ladder, and found the rest of the group already gathering by the Ute. Cassidy scratched his stubble-covered chin.
'You know,' he drawled, 'I'm thinking it might be best I hitch a ride with y'all. Just until your next stop, that is.'
Tracy smiled, and they hurried to join the others.