They moved north through the back half of town. Colt kept them off the main streets, cutting between buildings where the gaps were wide enough. Clay had the rope. Colt had the dagger.
They put down seven on the way. No ceremony. Clay lassoed, Colt stabbed. The rhythm had settled into something automatic by now, easy as splitting wood.
PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.11
Puha: 114.8
The buildings thinned out at the north end. Pavement gave way to cracked concrete, then gravel, then dirt where the road just stopped. A tree line sat maybe two hundred yards out, dark and still.
Clay crouched and looked at the ground.
“She came through here,” he said. “Not long ago.”
Colt looked at the dirt. Prints everywhere, overlapping, going every direction. “How the hell can you tell?”
Clay pointed without touching anything. “Shamblers drag. See how the toe cuts in but the heel just smears? Like somethin’ bein’ pulled.” He moved his finger to a different set. “These are hers. Full stride. Heel to toe. Weight shifts forward.” He stood. “And she’s runnin’. See the spacing? These prints are four, five feet apart.”
Colt looked at the two sets side by side. Once Clay laid it out it was plain enough.They hit the tree line and slowed down.
“C’mon.” Clay said.
The tracks continued into the woods. She hadn’t slowed either, just kept going straight into the dark between the trunks.
Colt followed them in.
The trees were close together, second growth stuff that had taken over whatever used to be here. Branches low enough to duck. Ground soft with old leaves. The light dropped fast once they got twenty feet in.
Clay tapped his shoulder and pointed.
Colt caught movement ahead through the trees. A figure moving between the trunks, maybe fifty yards out. Not running. Not panicked. Moving deliberate, parallel to them.
The woman from the roof.
She hadn’t gone far. She was working the tree line, circling back toward something.
Then he saw what she was tracking. A shambler pushing through the brush off to her left, moving slow, coat snagging on branches as it went. It hadn’t spotted her yet.
She let it come. Waited behind a trunk until it passed her, then stepped out behind it. One hand grabbed the back of its collar and she drove something into the base of its skull. It dropped without a sound. She crouched over it, pulled the weapon free, wiped it clean on the dead thing’s shirt. Stood up. Already scanning for the next one.
Colt opened his mouth. “Hey—”
“Damn it,” Clay said.
She was gone.
Clay pushed forward without a word, eyes on the ground. He picked up her prints and followed them left, then right around a thick trunk.
Then he disappeared.
A thud. A curse from below.
Colt stopped at the edge of the hole and looked down. Clay sat in the dirt eight feet down, one hand pressed to the back of his head.
Colt stepped back.
The ground gave way anyway.
He dropped and hit the bottom beside Clay, knees bent, shoulder catching the dirt wall. Loose soil rained down from the edges above.
The hole was maybe four feet across, walls shored up with scrap lumber on two sides. Deep enough that the rim sat well above Colt’s reach.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Colt looked at Clay. “Didn’t think to warn me?”
“Didn’t see it either,” Clay said.
“Just a master tracker then, yeah.”
Clay punched Colt’s arm.
Colt let out a grunt.
Then someone cleared their voice above them.
They both looked up.
She stood at the edge. Both hands wrapped around a length of pipe. Dark hair loose around her face. Eyes steady, no panic in them at all.
“Who are you,” she said. Not a question. A demand.
She was looking right at Clay.
Clay cleared his throat. “Uh. I’m Clay. This here’s my brother Colt.” He paused. “We—”
“Where are you from.” Still watching Clay.
Colt said, “Wyoming. Earth 2—”
Clay’s elbow caught him in the ribs.
“What?” Colt said.
Clay leaned in close. “We can’t start with earth numbers,” he muttered.
Clay straightened and looked back up at her. “We’re from Wyoming, ma’am.”She stared at them both for a long moment. Two men in dusty hats and trail gear standing in a hole in the ground.
“Wyoming,” she said.
She turned and walked away.
“Wait—” Colt called.
A wet squelch somewhere in the trees. A thud.
Then her boots appeared at the edge again.
“Climb on out, I guess.”
Clay laced his fingers together and dropped into a crouch. Colt stepped into his hands and Clay shoved him up. He grabbed the rim and hauled himself over. He turned back and reached down. Clay jumped, grabbed his wrist, and Colt pulled until his brother’s boots scraped over the edge.
They stood and brushed the dirt off.
She was already walking.
Clay jogged to catch up with her.
She spun. Her hand caught his wrist and her hip dropped and Clay went over it hard, face down in the dirt with her knee driving into the middle of his back and a knife at his neck before he could get a sound out.
Colt pulled his revolver out just as fast.
SIDEARM EQUIPPED:
Colt Single Action Army — .45
6/6
“What are you doing,” Colt said.
“Colt.” Clay’s voice came out strained. “Put it away.”
“She’s got a knife on you.”
“I know that. Put it away.”
Colt pulled the hammer back.
“COLT.”
“Damn it.” He lowered the gun and holstered it.
“We ain’t here to cause no trouble,” Clay said into the dirt. “Okay?”
“Then why are you here.” She pressed harder with her knee. “All the way from Wyoming.”
“We came here for Puha,” Colt said. “That’s it.”
Clay huffed out a breath. “For fuck’s sake, Colt.”
She went still. “Puha.” She said it flat, like she was turning it over. Then she shook her head. “West of the Mississippi is coyote ground.” She pressed the knife into Clay’s neck. “You working for them?”
Colt frowned.
Coyote ground.
He thought about the interrogation room in New York. Tahvo’s sleeve pulled back. That tattoo. Long snout, pointed ears. Naha’s hand on the cop’s forehead, that yellow-violet glow traveling up his arm. The coyote in the hallway tracking him through Dead Eye, head turning to follow him even through slowed time.
He stepped closer.
"Hell no," he said. "We ain't with them."
He didn't dress it up. Didn't explain it. Just said it the way you say something you mean all the way down.
She looked at his face. Whatever she was reading there, her expression changed. The hard set around her eyes loosened. Not trust. Just the absence of the thing that had been there before.
She got off Clay and stepped back. The knife stayed in her hand, point down but not put away.
Clay pushed himself up and brushed dirt off his face.
Somewhere off in the trees a howl rose up. Then another answered it, further west.
Not wolves.
Colt's jaw tightened. He knew that sound now.
"Who was that man," Colt said. "On the balcony."
She had her back to them. Her shoulders went still.
"That was my dad," she said.
She looked towards the direction the last howl came from, then started walking north.
Colt looked at Clay. Clay looked at the ground.
They followed her.
They ran into a couple shamblers along the way. She killed them both without breaking stride.
She walked in silence. Colt and Clay didn’t say a word.
They knew what it was like to lose a dad.The trees thinned. No more shamblers. The ground leveled out and the brush dropped away and then the clearing opened up in front of them.
Walls. Real ones. Plywood and sheet metal bolted together, maybe twelve feet high, running in a rough rectangle around whatever was inside. Towers at two corners with figures in them, long guns resting on the rails.
“They built all this,” Colt said quietly.
“It’s a damn fortress.” Clay answered.
She raised her hand toward the towers without looking up. The figures relaxed. She walked toward the gate and it swung open before she reached it.
A man came through first. Fifties, thick through the chest, gray at his temples. Hard eyes that moved over Colt and Clay the way you look at something before you decide what to do with it.
Four people filed out behind him wearing body armor — mismatched pieces strapped over their clothes, enough to stop a blade. Each one carried a spear, they flanked them without saying a word.
The man didn’t look at them yet.
“Where’s Bill,” he said to the woman.
She held her head down.
Something moved across the man’s face. There and gone in a second, grief folding back under something harder.
“Take them,” he said.
The four moved toward Colt and Clay. Colt put his hands up. “Hang on. Just wait a second—”
A shot cracked from the tower. Dirt kicked up an inch from Colt's boot.
The man looked at him. "Next one's in your head."
Colt kept his hands up. Clay leaned in close. "Don't say a damn word about earth numbers."
The spears closed in from both sides.
Hands pulled the revolver from Colt’s holster. Another hand found the Conduit Dagger at his belt.
Clay’s bowie came out next. His jaw tightened but he didn’t move.
They walked through the gate.
