Chapter 13
Pendleton McKenzie was the kind of man who tried not to think about things too deeply, a useful trait for a mercenary; as long as the pay was right, he did what he was told and had no trouble sleeping. It was the soldier’s mantra, following orders for rewards, and one he’d adopted without ever being near a uniform.
This attitude made life simple. And a man needed simplicity when he turned his hand to so many things; across his long career he’d dug mass graves, been a bodyguard for a wealthy heiress, robbed banks to help their owners claim on the insurance and been a deputised sheriff. It didn’t really matter what was needed of him or why so long as the dollars rolled in.
But his current job was one of the oddest he’d done. Even he couldn’t avoid thinking about it, wondering. Their customer asked for some mighty strange things; placing strange trinkets around their tents and camp fires, digging up corpses to inject them with writhing masses held in darkened glass needles, bleeding themselves into that strange box every morning. The why of it all meant nothing, didn’t need to, but he had to admit the job had some odd requirements.
And another night of oddities was about to start.
He, the boss and the boss’ cousin Romano were sat at their camp in a wide Badlands plain, breathing in the scent of cooking food and a baked land. They’d dismantled their tent moments ago as the boss cooked and were hunkered round a camp fire that warmed the food, not the mercenaries.
Warmth they had plenty of; the hot sun beat down at them as they ate chilli and beans, giving them so much warmth they were drowning in it. Some shade would’ve been nice but the boss’d said the tents had to go and sitting near a Badlands tree wasn’t good if you fancied holding onto your life. So they were forced to prepare for another long night under the sun’s draining attention.
Pendleton looked at his partners. He didn’t know what, good or bad, they were doing here. Alongside the damned-odd orders, the three of them went across to that small town and used that strange box their customer had given them to summon… things. Inhuman things. On the boss’ command, these things worried at the town’s chapel, keening and moaning as they did so, in some attempt to destroy it. But they weren’t doing a good job of it. He, the boss and Romano had tried joining in by shooting the chapel as well but that was whilst they’d had rounds. They’d run dry a few days ago and only had the box at their command.
Whatever they were doing, it didn’t seem to be achieving much. But the boss and the customer must have a plan of some kind though and that was enough for Pendleton.
That and the money, of course.
Pendleton finished his portion of chilli, spiced warmth sliding easily down his throat, and gestured across the fire with his tin plate. “Pass us some more beans, boss.”
“I think you’ve had enough beans already. I can smell you from here,” Romano said with a wide grin. He was missing three teeth beneath that ridiculous moustache of his, the buck teeth and one from the bottom row.
“Shut up, Rome,” the boss said. Then he handed the pan across to Pendleton.
Pendleton just stared at Romano, the greasy fuck. Five foot two and thin as a fork, Romano would crumple beneath Pendleton’s big hands if he had his way but the prick was under the boss’ protection on account of him being family. And boy did Romano love testing the limits of that.
Boy but it was very hard to believe they were related; the boss couldn’t have looked much more different from Romano if the weasel’d been born a woman. The boss was tall, though not so big as Pendleton, and had white teeth he polished after every meal with some paste a quack’d given him. His face was angular in a way women seemed to appreciate and he always took things seriously. Romano was precisely none of these things; he and the boss seemingly had in common was some grandparent long ago.
Taking the pan, Pendleton spooned a few more beans into his plate and handed it back with a nod of gratitude. That nod was returned; the boss might be vicious and quick but he was also fair, someone who believed in the sanctity of an honest transaction.
Pendleton looked down at his beans then started eating. Normally, he’d do so in peace but the Badlands were as oppressive as the heat; they crowded around the silence in his head, made him think.
And naturally, he thought about the job.
It was kind of funny, he supposed, that this job was so much like his first with the boss. They’d met when the Mexican had been running a scam on a town called Pearlsville; he’d been racketeering, pretending there were harriers in the area, and had needed someone to convince the locals it was true. Work had been hard to come by so soon after the Badlands had erupted so there’d been plenty of men after the job. Pendleton’d got it because he had his own guns and a healthy disregard to the law.
The next night, Pendleton had scared the Hell out of Pearlsville, riding like an Angel of the Lord into Gamorrah. By the time he was done, the locals paid through the nose to get rid of him. The boss’d been thrilled. After handing the bloodied heads of some Indians in as proof that he’d killed the harriers, he’d asked Pendleton to come along for his next job. Pendleton had accepted and three years of good money had followed.
And here they were again, scaring fools for cash. It was enough to bring a smile to his broad, scarred face.
“What’s so funny, lummox?” Romano asked.
“That you have the guts to say someone else smells bad; you reek like a whore’s spittoon.”
That grin of his fell. Pendleton’s widened.
“Easy now,” the boss said. “Let’s keep things civil.”
Romano gave Pendleton a look sharper than a knife but said nothing.
Pendleton wished he’d kept going. No, really he wished the boss’ cousin hadn’t had to come along but the customer had insisted this was a three man job. Pendleton couldn’t see why but you give a customer what they pay for and the customer had paid for three men. Though with one of the men being Romano, they’d probably short-changed the customer.
“You scared, lummox?” the fuck asked, knocking him from his train of thought.
“Why would I be?” Pendleton asked, shovelling more beans. He chewed, swallowed, enjoying the taste as much as he enjoyed keeping Romano waiting. “Fear ain’t something I’m used to.”
“Well maybe you oughta get used to it, real comfy with it, because the customer’s coming here. Ain’t that right, Kaspera?”
