Ain't Talkin'

“You were gone a long time.”

“Scared I wouldn’t come back?” Roche walked up on the backside of the general store. Markus had the A-Mat beside him, taken again and was scooted close to the dead fire, getting what little warmth was left from it.

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t leave your horse behind.” Lucky nickered on cue. Good horse.

“You were right there. Paid good coin for this’n.” Roche patted the mare’s neck, dust puffed off her in little clouds.

“Where are we headed today?” Markus stood, his knees cracking stiffly, and stretched.

“Into the white. There’s a hole near here that don’t go far, not too deep, a peripheral one that’ll save us some time getting back to Parmiskus.”

“That’ll cut out how much?”

“We can bypass most of the 50 around Tahoe.”

“And you didn’t take that way down because you might have caught us sooner, unawares?”

“You’re catching on.” Roche realized he was still holding the empty vodka bottle. Bypassing Tahoe would also mean he wouldn’t have the chance to get more from Alma. But, there was good whiskey in Parmiskus. The walker threw his saddle over Lucky’s back and cinched the leather girth snug. “Good girl.”

They set off east again, the rising sun a blotch in the sky that made Markus squint, and Roche don his sunglasses. A few precious hours of silence ebbed on with nothing to show for their progress but footprints in the dust and the slow clockwork of the moving sun before either spoke. In true form, it was Alex Markus who broke the quiet.

“Have you thought any more about what I said? While you were on your evening walkabout?”

“What part of it?” Roche lit a smoke and longed for a chew, at least the dip didn’t dry his mouth so bad.

“The part about choosing sides?”

“Nope.”

“And why is that?” Markus was genuinely curious.

“Why choose sides that ain’t my own. I’m on my own side here, kid.”

“You keep calling me kid and you’re not a boatload older than I am. In body, I mean. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Also nope. When you’ve been around more than a century even geezers is kids.”

“I suppose. But being on your own side isn’t the way to go in this, Mr. Roche.”

“Just Roche.”

“Roche, right. As I said, you’ve no reason to not pick a side. Though I’d recommend the Res.”

“Why can’t I just be me and do what I want in this world, then?” Roche asked flippantly. “A schoolgirl’s gotta be a schoolgirl, right?”

“Not anymore. The Ethercorp, they’re executing the likes of you.”

“Like to see them try.”

“The have and they are!”

“Prove it.”

“Fine!” Markus stopped walking abruptly and whirled on the walker. Had he been anyone else Roche’s hand would have gone to his revolver but Markus was unarmed, and was probably even less dangerous if he was armed, clumsy thing that he was. “Think about it. How many walkers have you seen trotting their way about the world in the last year? How many? Somehow you’ve managed to avoid the conflict until now, wherever you’ve been and whatever you’ve been doing. . .neither here nor there. But, somehow you’ve been missed.”

“Been exactly that. Been here and there doing this and that. Hunter stuff. Jus’ been doing hunter stuff. And for the words they’re worth, kid. . . hunters and walkers don’t necessarily even fucking like one another. I like them all about as much as I like anyone who talks as much as you do, and that ain’t much at all. Been years gone by where I ain’t seen but a few souls anyway, and none of them hunters or walkers, besides. Not that uncommon. What other evidence I got from you?”

Markus got stupid and quiet. “Nothing, I guess. Except the construct that came after us when you picked me up.”

“The there-and-not-there-armored-gorilla-madness thing? Yep, that was something I’ve never seen before.”

“Then what I’m telling you is credible.” Markus punched his palm.

Roche smoked quietly, sitting in the saddle with this small man in front of his horse, heaving breath and sweating with excitement or exasperation, one tiny balled fist clutched in his tense, spidery fingers.

“Is it though?”

“You’re so fucking stubborn.”

"That at the very least is true.” Roche wheeled Lucky around Alex Markus and kept her walking down the cracked pavement. Along the 50 going east, the burned trees that petered across the landscape gave the faint appearance of movement, when in truth it was just a trick of the eye in the way the dust storms swirled through them.

Markus fell in step beside the walker atop his horse and stuffed his hands in his pockets like a pissed off kid.

“Tell me this at least. Who is killing the walkers. If there’s one thing I know about people like me it’s that the older we get the tougher we are for human beings to kill.”

Markus answered matter-of-factly. “Other walkers. One’s who’ve turned their coats.”

“That makes sense, too, I suppose.”

“What do you mean ‘human beings’? You’re human too, Mr. Roche.”

“Nah, I ain’t. I ain’t been like you for a good long while.”