Ain't Talkin'

Alex Markus was silent for the first several miles of the gallop. Roche brought Lucky to a slow canter and then a trot somewhere miles from the crater where the Corporation had laid out a trap for the hunter.

There was shelter in the lee of a sand-covered hill. Roche woahed up his horse and scanned the area with his eyes.

Alex Markus flopped from the horse, gripping and massaging the insides of his thighs.

“Goddamn.”

“Yeah, riding bitch ain’t always a good time but it got you the fuck outta there.” Roche put boots to ground and fished through the bundles on his saddle for a wrapping of dried grass for the horse.

“Hey. Thank you.” Alex stood to his full height, which wasn’t much height at all, scrawny thing that he was, and held out a hand.

Roche looked at the young man over his shoulder and went back to the saddle bags.

“I’m thanking you.”

“I get that, kiddo. No thanks necessary. You’re a job. Daddy paid me well to get you back.” Roche handed a fistful of hay to Lucky. The horse dropped it to the ground and ate it from there.

“That’s just it though.” Markus dropped his hand, seeing that the hunter wasn’t going to shake it and put his hands on his hips. “I don’t have a father.”

“Everyone’s got a father. Just because you ain’t met him don’t always mean he won’t pay to get you back.”

“No. I’ve met my dad. I’m saying he’s dead. He caught a chest cold back east during a hard winter. We were foodless and he never made it through.” The sun was setting behind Alex’s ruddy hair when Roche turned to him with a palm on a revolver out of instinct.

“Who paid me then? He paid me well enough. And the fuck is this all anyhow?”

“All what?”

Roche drew his gun.

“Woah! Wait, hold it, c’mon man!”

“Who paid me? I knew this whole thing stank from way back.” Roche clicked the hammer back on the revolver for effect. That kinda theatricality worked on putzes like this kid in the buttoned shirt.

“Wait! Put the gun down and I’ll tell you. C’mon.” Markus almost had tears in his eyes and his cheeks had gone red. This was a man who wasn’t used to having guns pulled on him. Probably less used to being kidnapped by Corporation soldiers and dragged halfway across the Mojave.

Roche flipped the revolver onto his finger and slipped it into it’s holster. He was just as well off threatening this one with harsh words as a gun.

“Okay, shitstain. Spill it.” Roche took Alma’s bottle of vodka from his pack and dragged on it.

“May I?” Alex’s eyes got all kinds of wanting at the sight of liquor. Roche relented and handed him the bottle. “And do you have any water?” His mouth turned down at the taste of the potato liquor. Roche threw a water skin at him and he drank fully of that too. When Roche held his hand out for the bottle of vodka Markus handed it back.

Gasping a thank you, Markus sat down hard in the dirt. The liquor had already hit him. Roche cocked his head and frowned.

“Look. I’m gonna go find something light for a fire. You sit the fuck still and wait. When I get back I want answers. Got that?” Roche scuffed a boot.

Settling back with his palms behind him Alex Markus nodded and breathed deep.

The wind picked up for a few minutes while Roche was away gathering tinder and anything dried enough to burn. In the sand and dust that skimmed the edges of his sight, Alex Markus watched carefully lest the ether-thing that he and the Corporation knew as a construct would show itself again. He had been important enough for the Corporate boys to weed one out to guard him, and only they and his ‘father’ knew why. Was it worth telling this hunter?

If Markus’ sense was right then it might be worth it, but that was always a gamble with walkers.