He’s right. I grit my teeth. No matter what tattoo she has, she is a child, she is hurt and I am the one with the medical kit. I clean her head with some of the bandage and stitch the wound as best I can through her hair, hoping for her sake that she doesn’t wake before I am finished. When I pull the last stitch tight, she stirs and bares her teeth, but her eyes remain closed.
The man doesn’t make a sound while I work, only keeps his eyes fixed on the child’s face. Too late, I see what the effort has cost him. The redness has vanished from his skin, leaving it blue-white, drained. He is dying.
His white military-issue vest is sodden with blood. A dark, shining snake pulses from the wound between his ribs. A piece of shrapnel from the crash is embedded there, dug deep. He must have turned on his side at the moment of impact, and taken the brunt, sparing the child.
‘Leave it,’ he gasps, when I touch the piece of metal. His voice is full of liquid. ‘I know it’s bad.’
I nod. Little use in lying to him.
His eyes find mine. ‘She will live?’
‘If she regains consciousness, and if there’s no damage to her brain, and if the wound does not fester—’
A bloodied hand grasps my sleeve. ‘She can’t die.’ He hauls himself towards me, using the last of his strength. ‘If you hurt her, you’ll pay with your life.’
‘I will not hurt her. I told you, I’m a medic. You have my word.’ I stare down at him. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
For a moment he can only heave breaths. The stink of gore and sundered flesh fills my nose.
‘What’s the nearest town…?’
‘Redcrop. A day’s ride. Mining township.’
‘The Accord – have authority there?’
I laugh, humourlessly. ‘They like to think so.’
He sags back. ‘Take her there. Find a wire. She will know— what to do. She must…’
A noise catches my ears and I stop him with a gesture. In the distance, but coming closer, something is droning: the distinctive, double-cough of an overhauled engine. I swear and spring up.
‘What?’ the man asks, as I rip the tarp free and bundle it onto the mule.
‘Seekers, most likely,’ I say, piling everything into the medkit, ‘coming to scavenge the site.’
‘Seekers? Bandits?’
‘More like a cult.’
I see a light in his eyes, and know what he’s thinking; even a cult can be bribed, can be traded with.
‘Forget it,’ I say, ‘the Seekers are crazy. If they see you are hurt, they will kill you both and take your organs before they listen to a word you say.’
I bend to retrieve the unused bandage. For the space between breaths we are eye to eye. I see myself reflected there, and it’s a face I hardly know, the eyes shadowed and squinted tight, the skin wind-whipped and scar-peppered. The engines grow louder. A dust cloud appears in the distance.
‘Go then,’ he chokes, ‘take her, and remember your oath.’
I don’t argue. The options are two living and one dead, or three corpses, plundered by the Seekers. I know which one I prefer, and anyway, no matter who the child is, the tally doesn’t lie. I lift her awkwardly and wedge her among the bundles on the back of the mule. Then I’m in the driver’s seat, pulling the scarf over my mouth.
‘Tell her I died for her,’ the man’s cry comes over the noise of the dirt mule’s engine. ‘Tell her I didn’t know their plans. Tell her she must fight.’
I don’t answer, just take off towards the horizon.
* * *
I ride for Redcrop. There’s nowhere else. Much as I dislike being in a settlement, it is as safe as anywhere and at least I have a few contacts. As for the girl… I glance back to where she lies, slumped upon the mule.
Tell her I didn’t know their plans.
A shiver ripples across my skin, despite the heat. No child should have military tattoos, no matter how patriotic her family. They couldn’t be real.
Perspiration collects beneath my hat, dripping from my scalp into my eyes, so I stop the mule in a strip of shade cast by a boulder. The child mumbles as I lift her down, her eyeballs swivelling back and forth beneath the lids, as if reading from some giant book. Her skin is hot and dry, her breathing shallow. With a sigh, I feel for my pouch of beads. Don’t want to waste one, but it might be enough to wake her, and I need answers.
The instant it shatters between her teeth, her eyes fly open.
They are bright hazel-brown, the whites bloodshot. For a second they roam the sky, contracting in pain at the brightness, before settling on me. Something like fear crosses her face, still a mess of dried blood, and she opens her mouth to cry out, but chokes.
I grab the flask of water from my belt and hold it to her lips. She swallows greedily, stale as it is, until I take it away.
She gasps for a few breaths. ‘LaSalle?’
‘The large man with the red hair? He is gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Dead. He was badly injured in the crash. You remember the crash?’
The child winces, raising a hand to her head.
‘You were hurt,’ I tell her warily. ‘But I have stitched the wound. I believe you’ll live.’
The child blinks hard, her lips trembling – on the verge of tears. I sigh, relief surging through me. So she is just a girl, hurt and afraid, no matter what the tattoos imply. A military ward, perhaps?
‘There’s a cut on your head,’ I say, trying for simpler words. Alone for so long, I’ve forgotten how to speak to anyone, let alone a child. ‘And I think the crash may have bruised your brain. You will probably feel sick, for a while. Do you understand?’
She seems to see me for the first time, taking in my face, my clothes, the dirt mule behind us.
‘You won’t
