Men of Truth (The Wasteland Soldier #4)

Yuan hardly blinked, not wishing to miss a thing. Panola Avenue thrilled her and she almost danced on the spot, clapping her hands.

It was a whirlwind of noise and sights that eclipsed the dark moments of the past few days.

A man limped by on crutches. He had saggy skin, a bushy grey beard. There were pieces of shiny metal and ribbon pinned to the front of his coat. Men tipped their hats at him as he passed and Yuan wondered why. She turned her focus toward the Junk Men, rugged faces half-concealed beneath grilled helmets, crossbows hanging from their shoulders. She had heard stories of them, even in the stifled community she had been born into, but never seen them. There were customers who argued heatedly with the Junk Men over the valuation of lumps of Tech and other relics but they took no nonsense and the prices demanded were the prices paid or the customer was moved on. She listened in, undecided at what was more fascinating; the scratched pieces of first-world oddities, with names and purposes she did not understand, or the Junk Men, whose existence was shaped around digging in the wastelands.

Two young men rode through on bicycles, squeaking wheels and rusted frames, and a man howled and rattled a cane at them as his foot was almost crushed. She watched as a man lifted something from a trade table and slipped it inside his coat. She gasped and in the blink of an eye he had melted into the crowds. The stallholder hadn’t even noticed. She swivelled her head at the sound of young children squealing and saw a large group gathered beneath a rain-battered tent, entertained by a man with puppets on strings. He was skinny and long-limbed and almost as comical as the puppets he was operating. She had never seen anything like it before.

She turned once more to Stone but he appeared less engrossed with Panola Avenue. He must have seen a hundred places such as this on his travels.

Then a young girl came into view, possibly five or six years old, and Yuan’s smile began to fade. The child was pale-skinned, sitting upright in a handcart, wheeled by an adult. There was a flimsy canopy offering her some protection from the rain but she was still getting wet. She wore a sleeveless dress with frayed edges. She had no legs and no hair and her face was heavily pock-marked.

Yuan sucked in her breath. She couldn’t help but stare. The handcart leaned from side to side, its wheels worn and uneven. The adult pushing the cart was an angry looking woman with lank hair bundled inside a hood.

Her mouth twisted into a snarl as she saw Yuan staring and she shouted words that were incomprehensible.

A few people looked over.

Stone grabbed Yuan by the arm.

“Stop drawing attention to us.”

He stared into the crowd for a moment.

“Cali,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet. “Take Yuan and go order some food.”

He gestured toward a half-empty food stand a little way ahead.

“Wait for me there.”

Yuan ducked her head, cheeks blazing red. She followed Cali, glancing once over her shoulder, and saw a bearded man swear at the woman with the legless child as she almost rolled over his boots. Yuan wondered how a little girl ended up like that. It seemed terribly sad, unfair and cruel. Had she been born that way? Or had she been in a tragic accident? Hospitals were primitive in the second-world. She’d heard a story once of healers with magic hands but that was only a story. There were no healers in Batesville or anywhere in Kiven.

She looked at Cali. Her lips were horribly swollen and her left eye was battered. She wasn’t hiding any of her wounds. She was the same as the girl in the handcart. Adhesive covered her cheek but once removed she would be scarred for life, like Stone, like the little girl, and all at once Panola Avenue lost its shine and colour. The rain seeped into her clothes, and she felt the chill of the wind, and a piece of light inside dulled and hardened.

“Don’t stare at me,” said Cali. “Alright?”

“I wasn’t …”

“You were, like you were staring at that little kid. People don’t want your damn sympathy. It don’t do shit for no one.”

“I can’t change the way …”

“I don’t want you feeling sorry for me.”

“But I do feel sorry for you.” Her voice trembled. “Look at what happened to you.”

“I know what happened to me. I was there. Fuck all that shit.”

“You’re just angry because …

“Shut the fuck up, Yuan. You feel me? Just shut the fuck up.”

They sat on round stools. Rain beat against the awning overhead. A young man and woman waited for their food, talking in low voices. Yuan saw them glance at Cali but she was looking elsewhere, into the crowd, probably seeking out Stone.

“Why has Stone left us?”

Cali didn’t answer. Yuan sighed.

Balls of pink meat sizzled in a pan. The food vendor hummed, his voice deep, and added finely chopped peppers and a pinch of powder. He handled the pan with his left hand, kept a large spoon in his right, constantly turning and rolling the meat. His sang as he cooked, his eyes sparkling. The rain continued to flood down. The wind rattled through the street. The vendor scooped the food into bowls and tipped in a portion of shredded vegetables from an open tub.

He slid the bowls toward his customers.

“Eat, enjoy, and come back.”

The food smelled good. The young couple began to tuck in. The vendor turned to Cali and Yuan, smiling.

“Can I help you, ladies?”

It was Cali who answered him.

“Three of the same,” she said.

“That’s all there is, miss.”

He pointed at a hanging piece of chalkboard with one price scrawled on it. Cali reached into her pocket and counted out the last of her low value coins. She did not want to flash around the high value ones from Triple Death. They would draw too much attention and Yuan had that covered already.

The vendor slid the money into the front pocket of his apron. He put on wax gloves, grabbed a tub of meat and prised off the lid.

“Only one dish with me. No choice. Just get what I’m serving. Eat, enjoy, come back. That’s my slogan. I cook the same shit. You pay, you eat, you come back. It works. I give you something different and maybe you don’t enjoy and don’t come back.”

He laughed, winked at Yuan, speedily rolling the meat into balls.

“I’m Josh. First time in Panola? What are you after? I can point out the stalls you want to avoid.”

“Thanks,” said Cali.

“That’s all good. Lot of business in Panola. That’s what it’s all about.”

The meat went into the pan, followed by the peppers and a nip of powder.

“We need a vehicle,” said Cali.

A few minutes had passed since Kody had witnessed the freak-faced, legless mutant in the handcart.

The grimy-haired bitch pushing her had barked a gutter language, unique to the Black Region, broken down from the Kiven tongue. Broken down? He laughed. The words had been pulverised and slewed around in the mud. He understood a smattering of it. Kody reckoned there was nothing funnier than someone missing limbs or a loon shouting for no damn reason. The Black Region was full of them. He’d never seen so many messed-up halfwits. It was a seriously crazy place and he couldn’t wait to get out of the wasteland and back to the streets of home.

He continued to lean against the wall of the building, growing impatient as he was kept waiting. He drew his pistol, carried in a shoulder holster beneath his jacket. He ejected the magazine, studied the bullets inside, slammed it home. He thought about the whore. What was her name? Tisha? That was it, Tisha. He knew her name. Who was he trying to con? Himself? He’d liked her from the first moment he’d seen her. He’d never tasted skin so dark and so sweet. She had a fine ass and a fine body, and he was tempted to go back in for a second dip. She also had great eyes. And a light, soft voice that he imagined would send him to sleep. She wasn’t a hard bitch, like some he’d bedded. Why hadn’t he told her she had great eyes? Why hadn’t he told her his name? She’d only wanted to know his name and he’d blown her off with the hard man routine.

“You’re a dickhead, Kody,” he muttered.

He glanced back at the whorehouse.

“Come on, you assholes. I ain’t standing here all day.”

But something scratched at the back of his brain and Tisha and his companions were no longer in his thoughts.

He cocked his pistol and moved into the crowd. The men with the turned-up collars and steely eyes watched him closely. A few heads turned at the sight of a raised gun but it wasn’t the most dramatic event in the history of Panola. Kody shouldered his way through the rain-drenched rabble, thinking back. The loud-mouthed loon with the legless kid had been spewing her gutter words at a girl with dark hair and olive skin, a pretty hot girl. But she hadn’t been alone. There had been another girl with her, a girl with long dark hair and pale skin, a girl that someone had recently beaten up, a girl he hadn’t recognised at first.

“Cali Lopez,” he whispered.

She was there, straight ahead, sitting at a food stand, rain sliding off the awning, no doubt spending the stolen money, ripe and ready, without a care in the world.

“Fucking bitch,” said Kody.

An arm curled around his throat and his boots came off the ground. Kody couldn’t breathe. The pistol slipped through his fingers and clattered on the ground. No one rushed to help. Kody gasped, spluttered, his legs jerking, boots scraping the rain-slick asphalt.

His neck snapped, and Stone let the body drop.

The men in the big coats with the turned-up collars and wide-brimmed hats rose from their seats.

Big Red looked at Stone. He had a split-second choice where to place his loyalty; the crew inside or the brooding man with the scar.

He beckoned his head toward the whorehouse, held up three fingers.

Stone nodded and Big Red and his crew slowly backed away, one step at a time.