Brown liquid.
Ryan hopped down into the pit and put a finger in it.
It was thick. Slimy between his fingers. It didn’t smell bad, though.
“We’re going to have to boil the hell out of that stuff before we try to drink it,” Mildred said.
Ryan looked up at J.B. and said, “Better start scrounging up some wood for a fire.”
J.B., Doc and Jak immediately set about kicking apart a surviving, thirteenth century mud-daub wall, this to pull out the mat of dry sticks that reinforced it. Anasazi rebar.
Mildred and Krysty joined Ryan in the bottom of the cistern. The three of them got down on their knees and sopped up the precious moisture with rags, then carefully squeezed it, drop by drop into their battered tin cookpot. Before trying to boil the mess, they filtered it through several layers of clean fabric. This removed the bigger chunks, but it was still brown, still thick.
The water of last resort.
While it bubbled and frothed in the pot, the companions moved to the edge of the ledge and took in the spectacular view.
“The people who lived up here must’ve thought they ruled the world,” Mildred said. “They built. They farmed. They stored for hard times. They prospered. And now there’s nothing left. Not even ghosts. It makes me think of that sad, sad poem…I forget the title.”
“You are referring to ‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley, I believe,” Doc said. “Words found inscribed among decaying ruins, buried in drifting sands.”
“‘Science Blows,’” Ryan said, quoting the ubiquitous Deathlands’ craphouse graffito.
“Bravo,” Doc said with a smile. “You have it precisely, dear Ryan. It is nothing less than the paradigm of human existence, forever blinded by our pride, and victims of the inexorable march of time.”
“Over there!” J.B. exclaimed, pointing up at the sky.
They all turned to look.
The buzzards, perhaps thirty of them in all, were mere specs in the distance down-canyon. Circling in a slow spiral at three thousand feet, the carrion birds became visible, one by one, as they turned and were momentarily sidelit by the sun.
“Something’s below them, for sure,” J.B. said to Ryan.
“From the height they’re flying,” the one-eyed man replied, “something not quite dead enough.”
His speculation was punctuated by the crack of a single gunshot, its echo rolling up the canyon.
The flat, unmistakable report of a shotgun.
“That boil is going to have to do,” Ryan said. “Fill up the canteens and kick out the fire. Let’s move!”
After scrambling back to the canyon rim, Ryan led the others at a full-out trot, despite the building heat and the now dead still air. Out of food, and on scant rations of barely potable water, the companions absorbed this new punishment without complaint. The buzzards weren’t a good sign, but at least one person was alive. If they waited until evening to investigate, they might never catch up to whoever had fired the shot. And that could mean the difference between life and a very unpleasant death.
As Ryan ran, he kept his eye on the flock of buzzards, watching them slowly descend from altitude, then spiral down into the canyon, out of sight. He marked the spot ahead where they disappeared. There was no more gunfire. The shooter was either out of ammo, or out of luck.
It took five minutes to close the gap. The canyon beside them had grown much wider, if not deeper. It was impossible to miss the vultures against the beige of the dirt and rock—black feathers, seven-foot wingspans, angry red heads. A mob of them, fighting over the spoils. Ryan flipped up the lens covers on his telescopic sight and scanned the crude campsite. He counted four sets of human legs half-hidden under the flapping wings and snapping beaks. Legs that were kicking, shuddering amid the frenzy.
“All dead?” Mildred asked.
“Let’s find out,” Ryan said. He tucked the Steyr tight to his shoulder and squeezed off a 7.62 mm round.
The bolt gun bucked hard and downrange, a lone buzzard exploded in a puff of blood and dark feathers. As the loose bag of bones tumbled to the ground, the other birds abandoned their feeding positions. Squawking, flapping, they hopped to the safety of nearby rocks.
Ryan surveyed the now-still human forms through the scope, then said, “Yep, they’re all dead.”
“Shooter must’ve taken off,” J.B. said.
“Can’t tell from up here,” Ryan said. He handed the Steyr to his friend. “Jak and me are going to go have a look-see. Watch our backs.”
They found and followed a narrow chimney of rock that led to the canyon floor and the gruesome campsite. Four of the bodies were clustered together; the fifth lay a short distance away.
“Been dead awhile,” Jak remarked of the four.
Because of the heat, it was hard to say how long. The torsos and limbs were swollen up like balloons with the gases of decay. Two of the bodies that lay on their backs had actually burst open, exposing sun-shriveled, sun-blackened guts. The buzzards had stripped the flesh from all four of the faces. Red, eyeless skulls poked out from fringes of hair and sagging skin. It was impossible to tell what they’d died from.
With no hint of breeze to shift the overpowering stench, it took a supreme effort of will not to turn away. That stink had ridden the canyon thermals, soaring high, spreading far and wide, attracting carrion feeders for hundreds of miles.
As Ryan and Jak moved to look at the fifth body, the big birds shifted their perches on the surrounding boulders. Brooding, watching, wary, waiting their chance to resume the feast.
“This one’s fresh,” Jak said.
The last dead man lay on his side in the dirt. So far he had been left alone by the vultures. They preferred their meat aged to the point of liquefaction.
It was the shooter, no doubt about it.
Ryan picked up the shotgun. It was a single shot, top break, 12-gauge with an exposed hammer. Cheap, long-barreled gun. Mass produced in the hundreds of thousands in the century before Armageddon. He tried the break lever; it moved, but the breech wouldn’t open because it had been crudely welded shut. Somebody had converted the weapon from centerfire to black-powder muzzleloader. Not an unusual modification in Deathlands, where black powder was easier to find than cased ammunition. Ryan sniffed the barrel. It had been recently fired.
With devastating effect.
The dead man had put muzzle under his chin and then depressed the trigger. There was a stick on the ground beside his hand. He might have used it to get the necessary extra reach. His head was a mass of powder-scorched ruination. The front of his face gone from chin to midcranium, his brain pan emptied. The hollow glistened.
Ryan and Jak did a quick survey of the gear that lay scattered around the site. They found a few meager valuables. Battered black-powder weapons, skinning knives sharpened down to slivers, cooking utensils, empty canvas packs. The bodies hadn’t been stripped of clothing and boots. There was the remains of a firepit, but no food scraps among the ashes. No food, period. Of course, they could’ve eaten it all before they got this far.
The one-eyed man scratched the black stubble on his chin. What’s missing? he asked himself. The answer came to him at once. Canteens. There were no containers, nothing to hold water.
“Something triple ugly happened here,” Ryan said. “No one tries to cross the desert without something to carry water in.”
“Footprints