Two
“WHAT’S THAT?”
Rain glanced at Sutter then followed his pointing finger. She frowned as she swiped sweat off her brow. It was hot and getting hotter. “Don’t see anything.”
“At the base of the cliff over there.” His voice was insistent.
Rain pulled out the binoculars and trained them on the cliff base. She’d radioed in their find before she and Sutter left the site of Caine’s Last Stand. By now the scavenge team would be loading up the ordinance on hand carts and hauling it to the compound. That left her and Sutter to make their way home by a different route in the hopes of finding something else worth scavenging.
She scanned the bottom of the cliff looking for whatever it was that was getting Sutter all worked up. She frowned when she saw a lump the size of a human huddled in the shade. Who would be out this far from any known compound?
“Could be a Wanderer.” She handed the binocs to Sutter. Wanderers were odd ones. They eschewed the company of others, preferring to roam the wastelands alone instead of settling on a compound.
“Whoever it is, he isn’t moving. We should go see if he’s okay.”
Rain frowned at that. “Could be a trap.”
“Or it could be someone needs our help.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll check it. You hang back. If he so much as twitches wrong, shoot him. You got that?”
“When have I ever let you down?”
She smiled at that. Sutter was Rain’s right arm. Without him she’d have been dead a thousand times over.
Leaving Sutter to watch her back, she slowly picked her way over the rocky terrain. The sun beat down, making the back of her neck itch with heat.
The lump at the base of the cliff was definitely a person. A man, and a badly injured one at that. As she drew closer, she saw his body was twisted at an odd angle, a broken bone in his arm protruding through skin. She fought back the urge to vomit. Food was precious and throwing it up was a waste. Padre Pedro had drilled that into her.
She scanned the man’s body and then glanced up at the top of the cliff. It was pretty obvious he’d either fallen or jumped from the top. Poor bastard. He was buzzard food now.
And then she heard it. So soft she thought for a moment she was imagining things.
“Help me.”
“Shit. He’s still alive. Sutter!”
Sutter came running, worry etched across his dark face. “What is it?”
“He’s alive, Sut. He’s frigging alive.”
Sutter frowned and leaned over the fallen man, checking over injuries with the ease of years of practice. He glanced up at her, face grim. “Not for long.”
Sutter had been trained as a field medic. Or at least as much of one as anyone could be these days. If he said the man would die, it was fact.
She tugged at her dark-blond ponytail. Crap. She hated shit like this. There was nothing they could do for the man short of putting him out of his misery. From the looks of things, it’d be a mercy.
Rain knelt beside Sutter. “What do you think?” She could tell by the look in his eyes he knew exactly what she was asking.
“Nothing else to do. We can’t leave him. Not like this.”
He was right. Leaving the man to die a slow painful death was cruel in the extreme. Better to end it quick. Her hand drifted toward her knife.
Sutter stopped her. “Let me.” Darkness was in his eyes.
“Damn.”
He shrugged. “It’s what I was trained for.” These days field medics did more than just treat injuries.
Sutter slid his own knife out of its sheath. Gently holding the man’s head still, he laid the blade against bare throat and quietly mumbled a few words under his breath.
Rain crossed herself like she’d seen Padre Pedro do. It meant nothing to her. It was another thing they’d had drilled into them. They honored the dead. Ensured safe passage into the afterlife. Rain hoped that whatever was there waiting in the afterlife, it was better than the here and now.
Sutter’s arm tensed for the killing blow.
“Please ...” It was a mere whisper of breath.
“Wait, Sutter.” Rain crawled in close to the man. “I’m sorry, mister. There’s nothing we can do.”
His hand groped weakly for hers. She grabbed it and held on as he struggled to get the next words out. “Don’t let them ... My body ... don’t ...”
“I’m sorry, mister. Don’t let who do what?” She frowned, trying to make sense of his words.
“Don’t ... let ... Marines take my body. You don’t ...“ The man coughed and gasped for breath. “You don’t know ... what they do to bodies.” His voice trailed off. “Please,” he whispered, “please don’t ...”
Rain glanced at Sutter. His face was grim. “I’ve heard rumors about the Marines taking dead bodies.”
“Why?”
“No idea. Some say they experiment on the bodies. Desecrate them. Who knows?”
Her face turned grim as she leaned back to the dying man. “Don’t worry, mister. We won’t let the Marines take you. I promise.”
The man nodded ever so slightly. “Thank ... “His voice trailed off into a death rattle. Rain felt relief Sutter hadn’t had to end things.
“How we gonna make sure the Marines don’t get his body?”
“Burn it,” Rain said.
“The drags ...”
“It’s daylight. By the time the dragons wake we’ll be long gone.”
“Marines then.”
“Screw the fucking Marines,” she snapped. “We’re the best Trackers in the compound. By the time they see the smoke, we’ll be gone, and this poor man’s body will be burned to a crisp.” And hopefully useless to anyone wanting to experiment with it.
Sutter nodded.
They were quiet as they built a funeral pyre from the surrounding dry scrub and a small amount
