Glen Cook - Dread Brass Shadows

"Nope. Got a boat following us. Shouldn't be." Maybe Skid was still alive because he hadn't used up his ration of words.

Winger was one of those freaks of nature who just open their eyes and are wide-awake. She was upright, looking aft, before I managed to sit up.

"Where?" I could see lights back there, sure. On about two hundred boats, most of them just like our own, what landlubbers politely call bumboats, home and business for the families operating them.

Skid got down so I could sight along his arm. "Skylar Zed's tub. Works the east-west, same as us. Don't come north.

"Oh " I couldn't see the boat he wanted me to see, let alone tell who owned it. I faked it. I told Winger, "This is getting irritating.

She grunted. She'd sprawled out again, completely without self-consciousness. She reminded me of Saucerhead more and more. Yet she was different. Less intense, more relaxed. Tharpe does worry about what people might think. Winger plain didn't care—or faked that so well it made no difference, I guess when you're as oversize as she is, you make adjustments.

I looked some more. At least in the light of the running lamps there was nothing wrong with the way she looked. She was just big. "Hey. Tell me about Winger." I wasn't sleepy anymore.

"What's to tell? I was born and I'm still around. What you see is what you get."

"The usual stuff. Where are you from? Who were your people? How come you're out here with me instead of holed up somewhere with a house full of little Wingers?"

"Where'd you come from, Garrett? Who're your people? How come you're here instead of back to your place with a pack of little Garretts?"

"I see. Only I don't mind telling." I told her about my family, none of whom are alive. I told about my years in the fleet Marines. I tried but couldn't really explain what I was doing on the boat. Not in terms she understood. "As for kids, I like them fine but I think I'd make a lousy father. I still have some growing up to do myself, at least by the accepted standards."

"That ain't fair, Garrett."

"Hey, I was just passing the time. You don't have to tell me anything."

"We going to be friends, Garrett?"

"I don't know. Could be. Hasn't a lot gotten in the way so far."

She chewed that some, leaned back, spat over the side, turned to check our tail, laid down again. "How old you figure me for?"

"My age. A little younger, maybe. Twenty-eight?"

"You're more generous than most. I'm twenty-six. I do have a kid. Be almost twelve now. I couldn't handle that life. I walked. It's usually the man leaves the woman with the brats."

I didn't say anything. Not much you can say when somebody tells you something like that. Nothing that doesn't sound judgmental or insincere.

"I lug around a lot of guilt. But no regrets. Funny, huh?"

"Things turn out that way sometimes. I've been through some of that."

"Like this little jaunt?"

"Huh?"

"You don't hide so well behind the smart mouth and weary attitude, Garrett. We ice this Chodo, you're going to take on a shitload of guilt."

"But no regrets."

"Yeah. And you know something? That's why I wanted in. The money and the rep I can use, but it wasn't just for that. It's ‘cause I figure you for one of the good guys."

"I try." Probably too hard. "But when you get down to it, there isn't much difference between the good guys and the bad guys." I used some of my cases to illustrate.

She told me how she'd become a bounty hunter. Mostly by accident. Right after she'd left her family she'd killed a much-wanted thug who'd tried to rape her. She traded the remains for a reward and had found herself with a reputation for having more guts than sense and a big chip on her shoulder.

"The rep's the thing, Garrett. You build it right, you nurture it, you save a lot of trouble. You take this Chodo. Nobody bucks him because of his reputation."

"He backs it up."

"You got to do that. Ruthlessness is the key. You, now, your rep is wishy-washy except for keeping your word and not letting people mess your clients around. You might be tough, but you ain't hard. You get what I'm saying? Somebody hires you to get him out from under blackmail, you don't just go cut some bastard's throat and have done with it. You try to finagle it so nobody gets hurt. Lot of people figure you for soft in the center, you go that way. Figure they've got an edge."

"Yeah." I understood. But I didn't make any sudden New Year's resolutions.

"I figure you'll waste this chance. You off Chodo, you'll never let anybody know."

"You're beginning to depress me."

She laughed. "You heard the one about the nuns, the bear, and the missing honey?" She told the story. It was about what I expected. She followed it with another. She kept telling them. She knew every bad, off-color joke ever invented and this world, with all its tribes, offers plenty of absurd possibilities.

"I surrender," I said "I won't be depressed if you won't tell any more stories."

"Great. So now let's figure out what we're going to do about that other boat."

I glanced downriver. I still couldn't tell anything. "Skid. Can you run inshore and let us off without them back there knowing?"

He reflected. "Around Miller Point, up ahead. Be out of their sight maybe twenty minutes. But I thought you wanted to go to the Portage."

"You go ahead upriver after we get off. Lead that boat along with you."

"You're paying the freight. You heard the man, laddies. Cut it close going around the point. Lucky for you," he said to me "Channel's close in there."

When the time came, we did it fast. It worked. Skid headed upriver. Winger and I heard the second boat creak past as we worked our way through the dense growth beside the river. She punched my arm, grinned.

We started our hike cross-country. My body kept threatening to put a curse on me for mistreating it so.

I guessed it was just past midnight. We were a mile from Chodo's place, which was easy to see. "Party must be roaring," I observed. "Either that or there's a forest fire over there."

"We're coming in from the north, we better head over there, move in closer later."

"Yeah. Better stay behind this ridge, too. Never know who might spot us if we don't." We were in a vineyard. There were grapegrowers' houses nearby.

"You said that already."

"You said that about heading north three times, too." "You nervous, Garrett?"

"Yeah. You?"

She seemed cool. "Scared shitless."

"It doesn't show.:

"You learn."

The sky went berserk toward Chodo's place. I said, "Sounds like the morCartha brought their show to the country." We couldn't see them, light or no, with the ridge in the way. We decided not to go over and look. Everybody at the kingpin's place would be out gawking.

We found us a comfortable jump-off place fifty yards north of Chodo's property line. The morCartha were still at it, off and on. "Those flying rats could wake the dead," I grumbled.

"We got time to kill. We're ahead of schedule." The plan was to wait for Crask and Sadler to draw the thunderlizards around front once they gave up on me and decided to take their best shot. Then we'd move, hoping my amulet still worked.

"Yeah." I tried making sense of the racket. "I don't like that." I stood up. Standing, I could see the occasional dot swoop through the light over the kingpin's house. A deadly battle over there, near as I could tell. "Why did they bring it out here?"

"Oh, sit down and sweat blood like I am."

If there was no attack by Crask and Sadler, or none we could detect, we would move about three o'clock, the coolest hour of the night, when the thunder-lizards would be sluggish. With them slow and maybe ignoring us on account of my amulet, we'd only need to worry about dogs, armed guards, booby traps, and whatever I didn't know about.