Roan

Summer replaces spring as Shadow and I pursue our new mission.

Slash marks encircle my waist.

I forge my path, stalk my prey, and set my traps, only venturing into human settlements when I need to resupply food staples or ammunition.

I am silent. Going back to being mute is easy. Maybe it’s how I look or smell, after weeks living in the forest—but the people who see me avert their eyes, and seldom ask me anything. Even when I crave a cup of coffee enough to darken the door of some small establishment, my silence is a given—and appreciated.

People don’t want to see me and they don’t want me to see them.

The first terrible wave of the Scorching has passed, and most of the bodies are buried, burned, or rotted into the ground. The secondary infection remains, randomly striking, ripping through communities, reminding us all that we are never safe.

No one is safe.

The cities are gutted husks, burnt and looted. A decimated population remains, desperate to survive: small towns clustering their resources, and little communities of people like the Lucianos, banding together for strength in numbers.

The Great Nation America movement extends its reach with a strategy of force and persuasion, promising a rise to the old greatness, preaching in its churches a new nation “under God” cleansed from the impure.

Rumors circulate that there is a growing movement to take down Great Nation America, to replace it with a legitimate democracy fashioned on the bones of the old. And gossip is, there’s a man hunting skinheads…someone they call the Gray Man.

I am the Gray Man.

Have I become truly evil? Or am I finally good?

I leave Shadow to guard the gelding, Mist, on the edge of a little town called Amity, nothing but a row of shops and a few hardy souls running them. I can’t stand the smell of myself for even one more night, and my body is sore from a big raid yesterday. I want a room and a bath in the combo diner and boardinghouse that anchors what remains of Amity’s main street.

“The Gray Man struck again,” says the woman pouring me a cup of coffee. Her brass name tag reads Alice and she accepted my trade of two rabbits for the coffee and a slice of strawberry pie. I could have pointed to any of the four kinds of pie on the chalkboard, but of course I picked the one that reminds me of Lucy.

I dig my fork into the golden crust and take a bite bursting with berries, tart and sweet, closing my eyes to savor it.

“You’re a stranger in these parts,” Alice says. “Do you know about the Gray Man?”

I look up at her, and she sees something in my gaze that turns her away. A garrulous woman, she moves on with her tidbit of news to the next customer, a man in overalls who wears the grime of a farmer under his nails.

“I’m glad the Gray Man is working on the side of the Resistance,” Farmer says, holding up his mug for a refill. “Wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.”

The Resistance is a sporadic, knee-jerk response to the depravities of Great Nation America rather than an organized movement.

Are my kills helping the Resistance, or hurting it?

“They say he tortures the skinheads for information,” Alice says to the Farmer. “That he uses a knife to get them to talk, then cuts out their tongues before he shoots them.”

I only did that once, but it has become legend.

Is that good or bad?

The Great Nation America cultists are alert, prepared, and travel in larger numbers. It’s getting more difficult to find small groups to attack.

I guess they want to keep their tongues.

The thunderclap of a gunshot in the enclosed space of the diner sends me diving behind the serving counter. Listening to the gossip and savoring the pie preoccupied me, and I didn’t notice the group of three skinheads, two men and a woman, entering the joint.

I pull my weapon as one of the men, a big guy with dark stubble on his head and jaw, grabs Alice, wrestling her to the wall. “Pay up, bitch!”

The woman skinhead, tatted and scarred, advertises her allegiance with a buzz cut just like the men. “Time to contribute to Great Nation America!” Her voice is the screech of an owl descending on a mouse.

The second man, bald with a gray beard touching his chest and swastikas tattooed in red on both forearms, orders the farmer to empty his pockets.

I bide my time.

When they’ve taken everything from the restaurant patrons, the woman heads for the cash register with her AK hanging loose. “Doubt there’s much actual coin in here.”

“I’ve told you shitheads before. We mostly trade.” Alice’s voice is high with rage. “You ripped us off just last week.” Dark Stubble backhands her across the face, the sound as loud as the gunshot.

I unfurl from behind the counter, raising my Colt. Gray Beard is by the door, and I nail him in the chest. Blood explodes onto the glass behind him. The woman is closer, and she’s got her AK up when I turn and fire on her. Her head flies back, taking the rest of her body with it, crashing into the coffee maker and clattering to the floor, the scent of fresh coffee and blood blooming in the air. Dark Stubble gets off a shot that thunks into the counter in front of me. Before he can try again I fire, hitting him right between the eyes.

Taking that shot reminds me of shooting that weasel in the mine to free Lucy.

She never doubted me for a moment. Even when I pushed her away, she never doubted I could be the man she thought I was. Such a silly, loving, beautiful girl.

The farmer and few other patrons beat a path to the door, leaping over Gray Beard’s body to exit. Alice, with her plump freckled cheeks and the creases of good humor beside her eyes, dabs her split lip with her apron. She looks at the bodies strewn around the restaurant, the blood spattering her windows and walls, her gaze finally landing on the destroyed coffee machine.

“You’re the Gray Man, aren’t you?”

I say nothing, as usual, and her gaze softens, looking me over. “Thank you for getting rid of those hyenas. They’ve been hassling us for months.” Her eyes travel up and down my bloodied leathers. “You want to stay awhile, take a shower? I can clean those for you.” Alice meets my gaze. She gestures to my clothing. “My husband wore leathers like that.” She’s not afraid of me. She sees me.

I nod, and follow her upstairs to her boarding rooms.

I wake up the next morning from the best sleep I’ve had in weeks to find that Alice has left a meal on a tray outside the door, and my cleaned leathers.

Alice enjoys gossip. I can’t see her keeping quiet about something as sensational as having entertained the Gray Man under her roof. They’ll know what I look like, and the skinheads will be even more prepared.

Smart move would be to kill Alice so she can’t talk, but the idea turns my stomach. There is still good in me.

It’s time to take a break, to find a new direction…but without the killing purpose of this summer, without the hunting to fill my days, I immediately feel a black vortex of meaningless heartbreak waiting to swallow me.

If I’m not the Gray Man, I need something else to live for.

The broken eagle feather catches on my buckskin shirt as I pull it over my head. The quill digs into my cheek, getting my attention. A sign?

Phil Standing Rock gave me the feather, and he’s the only man who can help me—if he’s still alive, and will speak to me.