The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree (51 page)

“Someone is going to have to teach me how to read this stuff,” I said. “It’s frustrating not knowing what anything says.”

“You’re in good company,” said Noreen. “Large parts of the population are illiterate.”

“I’m not sure that reassures me.”

“We’ll figure something out later, though. Maybe after we’ve...done whatever it is that needs to be done.”

Sawyer kicked a rock. “What
are
we doing, anyway?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, what are we supposed to be doing?” he asked. “It just seems like we’re being reactive. We’re turtling up and waiting for something to happen. We should be looking for this guy. We should be helping those people down there in those towers.”

“Patience,” said Walter. “I understand your frustration, but we’ve got to focus. To begin with, we don’t even know where to look yet.”

I said, “That reminds me. I need to ask Normand if he knows anything about Totem.”

We slipped through the fence where the barbed wire had been cut long ago, and hiked out to a patch of pea gravel where someone had left a wooden picnic table, an empty crate, and some large bin with an oilcloth tarp thrown over it.

The sky was a dark swelling thing overhead, darker than the trees, littered with shreds of damp, bulging clouds that threatened us with their blue and orange bellies. I could see the Weatherhead from here, a cathedral at the top of a huge ziggurat of city districts.

It was bleached pale by the miles and the low clouds, but I could still just make out the birds chasing each other around the council keeps. The sun, low and fiery on the western horizon, picked them out for me. I could also see a dozen windmill columns in the distance, their needle-thin props turning in great slow circles.

The Deon sat down at the table and patted its grainy, scarred surface. “Sit. I don’t bite.”

We sat down and plopped the ammo boxes down in front of us.

“This is my favorite part,” said Walter. “Loading up. Take out your guns.”

We did so. He took out his own and tipped the cylinder open, spilling the rounds inside on the table with a clatter. He scooped them back up and held them loosely, like a handful of pebbles. He manipulated them until one was pincered between his thumb and forefinger, and slid it into one of the chambers in the cylinder of his pistol.

“Next to cleaning them, this is one of the most meditative things a man can do. Go ahead, load up.”

He continued to slip the cartridges into the pistol with slow, meticulous gestures, rolling them in his hand like Baoding balls as he did so. They tinkled softly in the evening silence. We were each carrying one pistol, so we each loaded six rounds—Sawyer and Walter twenty-one, since Walter had two seven-shot—one breaktop and one swingout, and Sawyer had his other seven-shot swingout, the one with the inscription.

We took our time. Walter was right, it was a calming, mindless task, and it reminded me of loading magazines for qualification day in the Army. I knew we would probably be cleaning the pistols when we got done. The thought made me instinctively glance around the table for my old cleaning kit.

When I looked up from the revolver, I saw the man-shaped wooden silhouettes standing out in the pasture. They were spaced out at long intervals, bunny-hopping to the left and right in a staggered line, out to a berm at the treeline three hundred meters downrange.

He huddled us together by the table. I stood to the side, my weight on one foot, the heels of my palms resting on the butt of my pistol as it rested in my drop-leg holster.

“Since there are only three of you, I’ll put you up one at a time. Saw first, milady second, and since he’s got a bit of experience with a firearm, Ross third if he wants to go.”

I told him I’d worry about it later. The Deon took out one of his pistols and aimed it in the general direction of the silhouettes. “I’m going to start from the ground up with you two, then,” he said. “Look at me, and watch what I am doing.”

He put his arms out straight, almost locking his elbows. The pistol rested at the apex of the triangle formed from his hands and his shoulders. “Don’t take them out unless you’re going to either fire them, hand them to someone, or clean them. Never, ever point them at anything you do not intend to kill. And do not put your finger inside the trigger-well unless you intend to kill.”

“Gunspinning like the movies is bullshit,” I said. “It’ll get you killed. Leave it to the rodeo stars and Walter.”

He looked over his shoulder at us and added, “Some people would like to tell you that they are nothing more than instruments of brutality, weapons of senseless destruction...
we
know that they are tools of defense and propriety. In responsible hands, they can be a signpost on the way to civilized behavior. It is a wise gunman that knows a battle is best won without a shot fired, or even a weapon drawn.”

I thought about the bullet-hole in Red’s face, the exit wound in the back of his skull. I got a mental image of a bottle-fly crawling around on his exposed brain. I imagined the sound of buzzing flies, and it made me ill.

I knelt down to look at the clover at my feet, occupying my mind by looking for a lucky four-leaf clover. I knew Walter had paused to wonder why I had stopped paying attention and give me a funny look, but I also knew he recognized the faraway look in my eyes because he continued talking.

“Sometimes we stand like this, and sometimes we stand like
this,”
he was saying. I knew he was demonstrating the difference between the Isosceles and Weaver shooting stances by the way he was shifting back and forth. “Most of the soldiers do it this way so they don’t expose the flank, see? Their armor doesn’t have side-plates, so if you lean
this
way, you could get shot in the ribs, perhaps puncture a lung or hit the heart if the angle is strong enough. And you
sure
don’t want a bullet bouncing around under your armor.”

I looked up at him as he canted to the side, putting his strong foot back and bending his left elbow in the Weaver style. “Kingsmen don’t normally wear armor or have need of it, as you probably already know. It weighs us down and makes it hard to maneuver. So we shoot like this for the most part, unless—”

“Unless shit gets
real,”
said Sawyer.

“Err, yes—you might say that,” said Walter. “When ‘shit gets real’, then you shoot with whatever hand your gun happens to be in.” He squinted at them. “You two seem knowledgeable about our world...I’m guessing that you’ve read the books that Lord Eddick wrote? And, you are aware of the limitations and the abilities of the Kingsmen and the Grievers?”

“Yes,” said Noreen.

“Perhaps at some point we will see about putting you both through the ceremony of the Acolouthis, if that is what you wish.”

“That would be pretty great,” said Sawyer. “I already know that’s what I want to do. I—”

He seemed to pause, and a curious look passed across his face, an expression that made him look as if he were trying to remember where he’d misplaced something. He seemed to be scanning the clover underfoot, and his eyes passed across mine. He blinked at the eye contact.

“What is it, babe?” asked Noreen.

“I was about to say
I’m done with my other life,”
he said, and his brow furrowed. “That made me remember I actually
have
another life. An
old
life, I guess.”

“Is
this
your new life?”

Walter let his pistol sink to his side. “No one blames you for being homesick or regretful, brother. You were meant to come here one day, I think. You aren’t betraying anyone. And you will be able to go back one day, I’m sure, even if it’s just to visit because.... Well, don’t lose hope of seeing loved ones again.”

“I realized I don’t feel the way I
used
to feel anymore. Not completely. I’ve always felt out of place, like I was on the wrong bus in the wrong part of town,” said Sawyer. “I don’t know. Did I
have
a life back there?

He looked into Noreen’s eyes. “I feel like I actually
have
one here. I had acquaintances there. I have
friends
here. I had a job
there.
I feel like I have a duty
here.
I don’t feel
trapped
anymore. I feel like I’m
supposed
to be here.”

Walter gestured at him with his empty off-hand. “It’s that feeling of duty that will keep you going when shit gets
real.
Despair and uselessness will kill a man just as dead as any bullet.”

“It’s getting to you, isn’t it?” I said.
“Vero nihil verius.
Nothing truer than truth. It’s true. It’s real. And you’re feeling the importance of scarcity. Everything matters more here. You feel like
you
matter more here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Sawyer. “I do. Back on Zam—Earth, I mean—I was just going through the motions. Some people say they feel like everybody else got an instruction manual for life and they didn’t...but I felt like all I was doing, was following the instruction manual. Putting my life together by the numbers, like Ikea furniture. Here I’m just playing it by ear. And it feels good.”

“The air is sweeter, huh?” I asked. I plucked a four-leaf clover and handed it to him. “For good luck.”

“Thanks, I guess,” he said, with a half-smile. He tucked it into the band of his hat.

“Anyway, from what you’ve said of the Sacrament and since I know you’ve read of our adventures from Eddick’s books, I’m assuming you know something of how it is to be in the grip of it,” said Walter, holstering his pistol. “Those of us accustomed to the effects of the Sacrament experience gunfighting in a much different way. We will worry about that when it comes to it—Ross, I will address your training soon—but for right now I want you other two to able to defend yourselves with the fundamentals.”

He beckoned Sawyer up and bid him take out a pistol. “Since you’ll be wearing the soldiers’ armor until the ceremony, I want you to stand square to front. Don’t expose your sides. Like I said, the armor protects your front and back, but not your ribs. Okay, extend your arms all the way out and point the pistol down the field. There you go, hold it that way, overlap your other fingers. You can hold it that way for now, we’ll worry about using the hammer later, when you’re more comfortable.”

Walter stood beside him, one hand on his shoulder blade and the other on Sawyer’s hands.

“Now, I want you to look down the ironsights and center the front sight on one of the silhouettes. Without moving the pistol, I want you to close your right eye.”

He did so.

“The sight is no longer on the cutout, correct?”

“Yep. I mean, no—no, it isn’t.”

“Now close your left and open your right. Now it’s on the cutout?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s your dominant eye,” said Walter. “To begin with, you’ll want to aim with that eye. With time and practice, you won’t need to close either of your eyes. Aiming and shooting will be as natural as throwing a stone or pointing your finger.”

He slid his fingertips from Sawyer’s shoulder, down his arm, all the way to the tip of the barrel. “The gunslinger’s pistol is part of his body. Part of his soul, even. It is the end of your arm, the tool at your hip, and the dragon-fire in your throat.”

He noticed someone standing behind him and turned to find Noreen standing there, her own pistol extended.

“I’m gonna get in on this,” she said.
“If
you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Mis’ra—” He paused.

Noreen’s brow crinkled. “I guess I’m not a Mears, am I?” she asked. “I’m a Kaliburn.”

“You are who you always were,” said Walter.

Sawyer said, smiling at her over his shoulder, “A rose by any other name, hon.”

“Okay, let’s get on with it. There will be time for that later,” said Walter. “Now, what you want to do is put the front sight in the middle of the silhouette’s chest. Focus on the cutout and allow the front sight to blur. Breathe. Breathe steadily, breathe slowly, breathe with your stomach, not your chest. Pay attention to your heartbeat. Squeeze the trigger
between
the beats. In time, you will learn to delay your heartbeat to give yourself more time with a steady hand, but for now—”

“Delay my heartbeat?” asked Sawyer. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Oh, it very much is. It takes focus and conditioning, but it’s possible. Here, holster your weapon and give me your hand.”

He put away the revolver and put his wrist in the Deon’s open hand. Walter curled back Sawyer’s smallest two fingers and pressed his index and middle finger to the softest part of his own throat, between his larynx and neck muscle, where blood pulsed through the carotid artery.

Walter took a few deep breaths and shallowed his respiration until I could barely see his chest moving.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. ...Thump.

“Oh!” said Sawyer. “I guess so! It was only, like, a half-second.”