All characters are over the age of 18
The Ballad of Decker Crane
Harp Strathe
Chapter Nine
(Decker)
Decker waited until he thought Bane and the herd were elsewhere and went looking for his pistol. His replacement sat-reader still hadn't come, although he'd fucking paid for it. Things were gruesome as he sifted through what the brikens had left uneaten, which wasn't much. There was no way for him to identify the particular parts of Emmet or his duster. Decker kept his eye on the horizon.
After a time, he gave up. It was useless. He was disappointed. He'd liked that pistol. It had been with him a considerable time, like an old friend.
They only had five pistols and a shotgun left. All of them needed to be armed. He carried another he'd had, but it felt strange on his hip, the weight off by just a little. It nagged at him. He squatted in front of what was left of a gristle-ridden human ribcage, the remains of armor still clinging to it, one of the five men who'd been wearing it. Decker reached out and turned it over, wiping his hand on a rag.
When he saw it, he went still, staring at what was in front of him. He shook his head. That wasn't possible. The chest plate was pierced through, a huge hole rimmed with gore. Nothing could get through Prime armor except safron-tipped bullets. Yet there it was. Decker stared down at it, but he wasn't seeing it.
Instead, he was seeing Josie. Josie, who'd been in Rocher Prison for almost twenty years and Decker's cellmate for two of the three years Decker had spent in that shithole.
Josie had told him all about Briken Ranch, trapped in their cell with nothing to do. He'd made it out to be a paradise, talking about the healthy woodlands and the streams and meadows, things Decker hadn't ever seen before. Sometimes it had pissed him off, but Decker had killed his previous cellmate with his hands, and the one before that, too. Anybody could annoy someone else in constant proximity, and Decker had hated being locked up.
At that point, the guards had gotten together to beat him, the cowards, and made it clear if Decker did it again, they'd put him in the hole and let him rot. They weren't just saying that, either. They did that sometimes. Prime didn't care about the rights of criminals.
Josie had been dying at the time. Decker wasn't even sure Josie had been aware what he was saying. Certainly not to Decker, who'd barely spoken to him, listening to him go on day after day and endeavoring not to kill him.
But when Josie went, it wasn't Decker who took him. Josie had gotten into a fight with another inmate and their jailers had put Josie in the hole for a couple weeks in the cold. When he'd come out, Decker could tell right away he was going to die of it.
"It's good there with the brikens, where a man can breathe," the older man had wheezed in their cell at the very last. It was where they'd dumped him, no doctoring and his lungs ruined by the damp. His face had been bright red with fever and his fingers blue. It had been the same old things he'd been saying for two years.
At the time, Decker had just been looking forward to the relief of the man finally shutting up. The heat had been coming off of him in waves.
"The caves. The brikens. It's in their heads," Josie had said.
"What's in their heads?" Decker had said, deciding to talk to him at this point. Josie had never said anything like that before.
"Safron. The brikens guard it. They arrested me before I could get to it."
It was bullshit that hadn't made any sense, and after that, Josie had simply raved, talking about his sister in mid-system. After a time, he wasn't talking about her so much as to her, asking her forgiveness, which was pitiful. Decker didn't talk to him after that. Maybe it comforted Josie, thinking she could hear him. He'd died shortly after.
Decker's next cellmate had been Kay, probably because they were each people to whom the guards gave inmates they didn't like. Decker heard later they'd taken bets. After Kay had decided not to try to rape Decker and Decker had decided to let Kay live, they'd gotten along. He was sure it had been a big disappointment all around. They'd found they were both evil, sensible men who liked dakas and could maybe work together. When they'd gotten out, Decker had invited Kay to do a job and it had stuck between them.
When Decker had been released, he'd been just as wild as when he went in. But he'd also increasingly seen his own fate tending toward Josie's. When one of their jobs had paid well, he'd toyed with the idea of going straight for a time and seeing what that was like. He had wanted to see if he could leave his name, which had grown larger than he was, in his opinion, behind himself. So, out of curiosity, he'd come to Sur to see this ranch Josie had talked about incessantly.
When Decker had seen it, he'd bought Briken Ranch that same day. It was everything Josie had described, and he'd found himself pondering sometimes on the old man. Maybe if he'd known Josie was being truthful, Decker wouldn't have minded listening so much. Well. At least he hadn't killed him.
Decker hadn't believed about briken heads made of safron in the caves, of course. Men in prison often wanted to appear to be more than they were, and stories about outside exploits were a part of the everyday patter of prison life. Boasting and promising. Chatter and natter. Men liked to talk. Insisting and giving their opinions. Decker had ignored most of them, which was him being friendly, and they'd avoided him.
Prime had mined this place. The safron was too dispersed in the soil. It wasn't concentrated anywhere. There were a few caves, sure, but they were deep in briken territory, far from any shelters. The rough ground made it impossible to bring in air transport or even drop anybody in there, and it hadn't ever been safe to get so close to the animals with no way to protect yourself.
Which made it the perfect hiding spot, if you thought about it.
Now, looking down at the pierced chest plate, Decker was remembering Josie's words.
It's in their heads.
Decker's eyes focused again. He looked up, his nape prickling. Cote began dancing and snorting. Bane was there, silhouetted, his row of horns, gold at their base, white at the ends, strangely translucent. Like safron metal was translucent. They ate animals who ate plants out of the same soil, didn't they?
The brikens shed those horns every six years, after which they grew back, the animals looking bald in the meantime. But unlike the deer he bred, Decker had never found even one shed briken horn on the ground in the briken enclosure. It had been a mystery to him. It was like they knew and went somewhere to do it. His eyes shifted to the caves in the far hills.
Beyond sifting through huge piles of briken shit while dodging Bane, which he had no interest in doing, Decker supposed he had to accept that his favorite pistol was gone. He got himself and Cote out of the briken enclosure before Bane attacked.
But he thought maybe he'd take a small trip to the caves deep in briken territory soon.
#
When Decker returned, he was ambushed. There he was, sitting at the table in peace eating synth rations, and here they came. Bai sat across from him, reversing the chair and straddling it, Dawine next to Bai. Then it was Chione. Even Kay was there, Adya leaning on his chair. Persya arrived last. She was in on it, he could tell.
"What," he said, wary.
"Dawine wants to start a garden," Bai said, starting things off. "She likes gardens. They had one on Pedige."
"Persya likes to garden, too," Dawine said. "She could help me."