That part of her story she would not tell. But the Change . . . he would understand the hardship and loss of surviving it.
“When the monsters came, everyone said it was
el fin del mundo
, that we would see plagues of locusts and blood from the heavens. No traffickers were willing to risk being shot on sight by the New U.S. military. So we looked for help. Somewhere safe.” Rosa fell into the hole of her memories. “We were near starvation when we met our first skinwalkers. They were human at first. We thought we’d found some measure of sanctuary. When they turned on us, I tried to fight. I told José to run . . . and he did. They chased him down. Tore him to shreds while I—”
A long, shuddering breath escaped her.
Enough. He’s seen your pain. It’s a fair trade. You pushed to see his scars, so you deserve this.
She didn’t wait to see what he would say in response. “It’s late. The funeral will begin early tomorrow. In lieu of a priest, I speak the words.”
Rosa hurried out of the workshop toward her house, praying to silent, uncaring gods that he wouldn’t follow. She couldn’t take any more of Chris Welsh right now. Already she felt as though she would die if she didn’t have time to shore up her walls. Otherwise he would edge closer than any man ever had.
Many had known her body; none had ever touched her soul.
“Wake up.” José had a cup of weak coffee in his hand. They couldn’t afford much of it, so they brewed it sparingly, sometimes reusing the grounds.
Rosa didn’t know their legal status, living in their grandmother’s house. Death had taken her months earlier.
Abuela
had not left any papers saying the
casita
belonged to them. Not that the collapsing governments respected property laws from before the Change. If a person wanted something badly enough, he found a way to take it. Rosa only had one thing of value to fend off starvation. What men wanted, no matter the world’s chaos. So she peddled her body with determined desperation, though there were a thousand other girls just like her in Juárez.
But when she saw José, only fifteen years old and dependent on her for survival, she put aside her aversion. It was only a job, like any other. Better that he believed her lies about working in the factory. He was a friendly boy, if a little slow—and that was why she did not send him out into the world to look for work. She worried that he would be hurt or someone would take advantage of his innocence.
She took the coffee and drank it, eating some cold corn tortillas for breakfast. It was all they had. As she had no protector, she sometimes had to run from men who wanted to take but not pay. Juárez was a rough town, and she dreamed of escaping. Rumor had it that even the New United States was slowly succumbing to the ravages of the Change. Maybe the border patrols would relent. Maybe they could still find somewhere safe.
The scene shifted and Rosa realized, stirring uneasily, that this was wrong. Not real. But she couldn’t shake herself awake. With growing horror, she watched as the scene settled into the arroyo where they’d encountered the skinwalkers. She did not want to see this played out again. Not ever again.
She was sweating furiously when she willed herself awake. Thinking about him always brought dreams of her brother, as if his spirit could not rest.
With no way to sleep again, she got up, lit a candle, and took down one of her books. She read the words she must speak in the morning for the sake of Manuel’s soul, committing them to memory. Officiating at funerals was her least favorite part of the town leadership, but she would never shirk her responsibility.
By the time morning dawned, she was ready. The same robe she wore for the consecration service also served as funereal vestments. She donned them once more. This was the first time she could recall wearing them two days in a row. She hoped it was not a sign of things to come.
With great gravity, she stepped out the door and found Chris waiting for her. He’d assimilated enough to be wearing the black armband, although he couldn’t mourn someone he had not known long. Yet it was a sign of respect.
“We need to talk,” he said without preamble.
She shook her head. “I need someone to stand watch this morning. And I’m choosing you.”
“The watchtower’s on the other side of the valley.” A muscle bunched along his jaw. “Away from the funeral. Away from
you
. Am I being punished?”
She sighed. There was no time to explain that she needed someone she could trust up on that tower. Right now, not knowing how deeply Falco had swayed the other bravos, she only trusted Chris, because he was new. And he was
hers
. In a deeper way than the others.
“Just go. Please.” She attempted to soften the order with the last, gentle word. By the angry sound of his boots as he turned, it hadn’t worked.
I can’t deal with this now.
Rosa hurried toward the plaza. Everyone was already assembled in their best, with black armbands tied in respect for Manuel’s passing. This was the only time they all gathered without weapons. She’d often worried it would be the perfect time to strike, but no outsiders understood that much about their customs. If the dust pirates ever found out, she’d know they had a traitor in their midst.
The idea sent a cold chill through her.
She focused on the congregation, the grieving and the sorrowful. How odd for a former whore to become a leader and a part-time spiritual counselor. The change had brought with it many strange and wondrous things. In some ways, for all its brutality, the new world was cleaner and simpler.
“We have lost one who was dear to us,” she began. “But time will take that pain, until we remember only the sweetness of his life. And there is always the possibility of return. It is nature’s way to reuse what goes back to the earth. Why would it be different with the soul? Perhaps we can look for Manuel in a new baby’s smile.”
She glanced at Tilly when she said that, hoping the other woman wouldn’t mind her child being used in such a fashion. The other woman merely nodded.
Reassured, she went on. “We will begin the honor of memories with Manuel’s closest friend, Rio.”
Rosa stood aside so that he could take the center focus.
The boy bowed his head. “I remember when Manny first arrived in Valle. He was only a little older than me, and we got to be such good friends. We drank together, had our first woman together.” A soft rumble of laughter went through the crowd, and Rio colored up. “Well, not exactly. I mean, we grew up together, I guess, and life will be shit without him.” His voice broke. “I’m going to miss you,
mano
.”
She caught Singer gazing at him with liquid sympathy. Rio had been trying to interest her for months, and it looked like she had a soft spot for him after all. Poor kids. To grow up in a world like this. But the pre-Change world had been no paradise either.
Brick took his turn next, speaking of Manuel’s valor. Ex talked about his willingness to pitch in, and Jolene wept as she admitted to being his first bed partner. That was more information than anyone needed, but people grieved as they would. It wasn’t up to Rosa to find it fitting or not. Once everyone who wanted to had spoken, she closed the service with a brief prayer, the same one she’d offered for his soul as he lay dying. She didn’t know very many of them, after all. It would have to serve.
Rio led the procession out of town toward the rocky ground where they built the bonfire for their dead. Since the Change, they had adopted rules about disposing of human remains, aware of new diseases to guard against. With such limited medical care available, they could not afford to invite pestilence with careless hygiene.
Everyone except Rio would remove the black armbands before bed. As chief mourner, Rio had the right to wear his for a full month. Then the town would move on. Here in Valle, they tried not to let the dead linger. The border between life and death was dangerously thin, and no one wanted to invite trespass between the two realms.
Just because the dead haven’t risen doesn’t mean they won’t.
Once she would’ve considered skinwalkers a monstrous fiction created by moviemakers. But she’d seen differently, firsthand.
Manuel had been arrayed on his pyre with as much reverence as they could summon, surrounded by dry leaves, fragrant herbs, saguaro wood, and dried flower petals. That was Viv’s doing. In her way she always tried to make such events easier and more respectful. Rosa was always thankful for the older woman’s presence.
Brick led the town in singing a farewell hymn, something deep and moving. Rosa let her mind wander right up until Rio lit the fire and the smoke curled skyward, supposedly bearing Manuel’s soul toward his rebirth. She didn’t know if she believed that; she only said she did because it comforted the others. Rituals mattered. And so did self-awareness.
That’s all, then
.
Manuel is gone. And it’s my fault.
TWENTY-TWO
Chris climbed up the rusted iron ladder to the watchtower on the outskirts of town. From up in its crow’s nest he would be able to see the entire lay of the valley. But at the moment he saw nothing but red. She’d banished him.
He pulled to the top and flopped down to sit. His feet dangled over the edge. With an automatic rifle lying between his shoulder blades, he felt the scrape of metal and fabric over the bandages covering his new tattoo. Marked for life. And not a damn thing to show for it.
What was worse? That he’d opened up to Rosa about his ex-wives—and, more painfully, about watching Angela die? That Rosa had found the courage to reveal a few dark corners of her past? Or that she’d completely shut him down afterward?
The wind ferried away his curse. One step forward, five steps back.
Down below, at the north edge of town, the procession began the slow walk toward where Manuel’s body was laid out on a pyre. From that vantage Chris could only make out the dead man’s form wrapped in pale cloth. He hadn’t known Manuel well; the armband he wore was out of respect, not mourning. But Rosa had excluded him. Purposefully. The crow’s nest might as well have been an emotional Siberia.
For such a strong woman, she was behaving like a damn coward.
Chris stretched and felt the strain of the last two weeks in his muscles. He’d had another dream of Rosa—only in this dream she’d been younger, wide-eyed and hardened at the same time. Tears looked wrong on her face, but so did a girl’s bright smile. It had been like watching a grainy home movie of her life Before. But no matter how realistic, that dream hadn’t held the aura of magic and strangeness that the ones bearing premonitions did.
He was beginning to tell the two apart.
After what he’d witnessed since the Change, and after what he’d recently experienced firsthand, he wouldn’t put it past the ways of this new world. The science he once trusted and explored and, hell, even loved—it no longer mattered. He had needed to grieve for that passing too. It was not the gut-wrenching pain of losing a human being, but the quiet loss of part of one’s soul.
He stood and surveyed the valley, making a circle to appraise each horizon. Sunlight had just crawled over the distant eastern slopes. Long, long shadows licked across the desert floor, reminding him of the tattoo still healing on his back. But then he was back to Rosa again.
Damn.
Fatigue made him tight and sluggish, as did a tension he hadn’t known in years. When walking the wasteland, he had been his own person. His solitary years spent studying mountain lions had been equally liberating. The whole continent had fallen into chaos, but he had been at peace with the silence and the wild. It was lonely. It was grueling and violent. But anything that bothered him too much became a memory come morning. He just kept walking. No wonder even calm, studious Tabitha had eventually demanded a divorce.
This...
Staying was much harder.
With his track record, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Itchy feet had been his life’s opus. She gave him reason to stick around and try for something better, but what if Rosa wasn’t an option? Could he stay in Valle if its leader kept stealing into his dreams but turning her back on him in reality?
It bothered him a great deal that the answer was no. The vow he’d taken during the initiation had been, in truth, a commitment to the settlement as a whole. But he knew better. And if she was being honest with herself, so did Rosa. He had spoken those words to
her
.
With nothing better to do, Chris checked the sights of his weapon and its ammunition. The clip was only half full, maybe less. One day even this basic means of survival would change. “Kill or be killed” would revert to clubs and rocks.
The scent of burning wood teased into his nostrils. He looked north. Flames and heavy tendrils of smoke danced up from the pyre.
God bless, Manuel.
Soon he could give up this exile and go to work. The new girls needed a full medical appraisal, the bravos injured during the raid required his care, and he should look in on Tilly. Then, that evening, he’d settle in and read the book Rosa had given him.
The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
. That morning he’d meant to ask about her reason behind it. Had she just pulled the fattest one off the shelf? Had she given it any thought at all?