Today's Art-ifact (Patreon)

Finished piece.  I just realized everything is shiny because the rain stopped.  And this piece has been locked up 'for years!'

Scene 4- The Proposition

Fury spent, the thunderheads left Shaniko Valley awash in a violet dusk.  Xyk followed Rosa's pale form as she sidled through the humid gloom.  Passing the edge of town, they left the pungent tendrils of civilization for the craggy foothills beyond.

Rare scents bloomed in the wet desert air.  Mesquite, juniper, acacia... ghosts conjured from the deadwood haunting the landscape.  Invisible insects trilled.

Rosa crept across stone when possible, leaving few prints.  Her azure eyes stole back to Xyk, their blue a bright counterpoint against the burnt shades of rock, and then she continued.  Silent.

He shambled after, legs quavering as they pulled his boots forward again and again.  That brawl, capping days of hunger and thirst, had left him spent.  He realized he was engaged in another fight, this time with his eyelids.

"No one comes out here anymore," whispered Rosa.  "We won't be seen."

Come on Xyk.  Keep your wits.  Bodies are piling up around here.  If you don't figure out what she has planned, the next one might be yours.

The coyote nipped the tip of his tongue, perking up and peering around.

Weathered pagodas stood like sentries, surrounding what remained of a temple.  Rough stone walls had once sheltered the sanctuary, but time and rifle fire had brought them low.  Talus littered the interior amidst eddies of sand.  A few stray prayer statues remained, forgotten in their vigil.  Fingers of shadow stretched to the town below, where lights were flickering in the tenshu.

Xyk folded his arms as though he could hold himself up that way and watched the cat.  She was picking through the temple, deftly checking pockets of darkness.  The coyote racked his brain for a debonair phrase that would tease out the truth.

"Hey.  It-"

His legs gave out and he sat down abruptly.  Maybe it had looked intentional.

Rosa inclined her head, a small sigh lowering her shoulders.  "Strip your coat off," she said.

"I'm not sure if-"

"And your shirt."

"You...  brought us to a temple for this?"

She produced a slim enamel case and took measured paces to Xyk's side.  "Your wounds need to be cleansed and bound.  If you don't want any new ones, I would advise against... humor."

Interrogating his captor might be harder than- hell, just getting out of his coat was proving to be a challenge.  Muscles cramped in his back, aches walling off his range of motion.  Cool hands intervened, peeling the heavy duster back.  She pulled off his shirt as well, pushing him back to rest against the warm stone base of a prayer statue.  Xyk hated the sensation of helplessness.

In the deepening luster of twilight, Rosa's face was inscrutable.  She whispered to the statue- a squat approximation of a frog- until a faint glow wavered to life in its carved lantern.  Under the weak light, she clacked her case open and set aside ointments and bandages.

"Are you sure that's necessary?" asked Xyk, nodding up at the statue.

"I need to see what I'm doing.  It's too faint to be noticed from the city."

"That's not what I mean.  Prayers only remind me of funerals, and since I’m the one bleeding here-”

He broke off in a hiss as Rosa swabbed his side with, apparently, condensed knives.

"I pray for nothing.  I said what they like to hear so we could get a bit of light.  That is all."

She continued tending his wounds with a furrowed brow, silence frosting the warm desert evening.  It was disconcerting being inches away from someone so distant.  Xyk was formulating a new angle to pry at when she spoke again, eyes to her work.

"I'm hiring you."

"Hiring- for what?"

"15 ounces of gold, a reliable mount, and all the supplies you can shoulder."

He blinked at the sum.  "Yes, but… for what?"

She unfurled a strip of clean linen and wound it gently around his torso.

"Junior wears a pendant around his neck at all times," she said.  "I saw your skill in the cantina.  I want you to retrieve it for me.  That is all."

"No."

Her hands paused momentarily.

"You wish to haggle over compensation?"

"I wish to leave this valley alive.  Meddling with the local lord doesn't suit that.  And anyways, you sicced a pair of his thugs on me.  Not a polite way to tender an employment offer, ma'am."

Head down, Rosa tied off the last bandage and sat back.  "You feel that my actions were unethical."  She cupped her palms, thumbs touching.

"Well, we have just met," Xyk said.  "For all I know, you did a whole bunch of ethical stuff before lunch, and it all balances out."

Settling into a lotus pose, her glacial demeanor was betrayed only by the hard edge creeping into her voice.

"I will explain myself once, coyote.  Mark my words on the matter, or I shall become cross."

She locked him in a calm blue stare.

"You were marked the moment you entered this valley.  Strangers are uncommon here.  That wallet would have been missed.  You would have been remembered.  And then tracked down.  Relentlessly.”

“I chose to initiate the process while I could still control it, determine the participants, and...  adjust their capacity to convey information."

Her quiet, firm tone unsettled Xyk more than any amount of shrieking.  Beneath the tranquil ice, raw currents surged.  He had to know who and what he was dealing with, had to see that tumult break through.  He swallowed dryly.

"'Adjust'.  You don't even have the guts to say it straight.  You shot your friend back there.  And now you expect me to be next in line."

Rosa's frame tensed in the darkness, her tail lashing once.

"He was no friend of mine.  None of them are.  Last week, he strangled a bar owner who fell behind on his lease.  Last month, he helped execute miners who were caught discussing a strike.  I merely settled his debt in life."

She stood and paced away.  A light breeze whispered amidst the stones, loosening the grip of humidity and warmth on the world.  The evening seemed to deepen in her wake and her voice returned, sliding evenly through the calm.

"Retrieve the pendant, and I will ensure your protection.  Now, if your cowardice has been sufficiently consoled, might we return to my offer?"

"Fine," Xyk said.  "So why do you want this pendant?"

Rosa missed a beat, as though the question were an unexpected stranger at the door.

"It does not concern you," she said.  "You simply need to retrieve it."

"No I don't.  Not unless I understand what I'm getting into.  You can keep your fifty ounces of gold, lady."

"Fifteen."

Xyk chuckled through his teeth.  "Now who’s haggling?"

Rosa's ears twitched as she resumed pacing, arms folded tightly.  "Enough.  If charity is lost on you, then I can drag you back to town where you will face the consequences of your actions.  Help me, or face execution, coyote.  You have no other choice."

"Well shoot.  So, when they're stringing me up, what if I tell them about this little offer of yours?  How does Junior deal with betrayal?  Is he the forgiving type?"

Rosa became still, her voice lowering to a hiss.

"I could kill you right now."

"Yeah, but you won't."

She pulled her derringer from a concealed thigh holster.  Kneeling to her case, she pushed aside bandages, ointment, and a quill to retrieve an ampule of gunpowder.

"You make a compelling argument," she said, calmly pouring a measure into the gun’s muzzle.  "If you won't help me, then you are in fact a liability.  One that must be tended to."

It was coming down to the wire now.  Xyk prayed to the gods that he was right and she was bluffing.  Only one way to find out- and, like most truths, better sooner than later.

"Or," he said, "You could leave.  With me.  Shaniko is a hellhole.  You seem to have no love for Junior and his enforcers.  Both of us free, with a fresh slate.  What do you say?"

Rosa tore a tiny corner of linen and pushed it down into the barrel, chasing it with a wicked iron ball.  "I can't."

"Yes you can."

In one economic gesture, she pivoted, aiming the gun at his chest.  "I cannot leave- will not leave- until I have that pendant.  Now.  Are you going to help me or not?"

"Is it so important you would kill a scruffy wanderer over it?"

"Answer the question."

"Why not just get it yourself?  Grab it when he's not looking, or-"

"He never leaves it, never takes it off, never."  Her arm began to tremble ever so slightly, like a cedar branch strained near the breaking point.  Staring at the dancing black bore in front of him, Xyk tried to keep his nerve, kept pushing forward.

"Alright, well- he didn't seem that bright.  Couldn't you get him drunk?  Seduce him?"

"He doesn't... He prefers foxes.  Exclusively.  It was nearly impossible to get hired, even after proving my martial ability.  He’d never want me for anything else."

"You couldn't just punch his lights out and take it?"

"That's why he's got bodyguards!" Rosa shouted, voice rasping.  "I can't take it without a bloodbath, and if I'm wrong, I won't…”  She sighed resolutely.  “It has to be taken without him knowing."

"Wrong about what?"

Rosa pressed closer, grinding the derringer into his sternum, whispering with livid deliberation.

"It is not your concern.  All you need to decide is this.  Are you going to help me, or are you going to die?"

"Why do you want it?"

"Decide."

Her face inches from his, blue eyes drilling into him, the glaze of obsession was stark.  But the gleam wasn't savagery, wasn't bloodlust- it was the gleam of desperation, of pain.

Of hope.

Or so Xyk prayed, because he was about to stake his life on that sliver of reflected starlight.

He took a deep breath, feeling the metal against his chest, and exhaled.

"I may be a nobody, but I'm not a pawn.  If I don't understand what's at stake here, I'll leave.  Because I know you're not going to kill me."

Her features twisted with frustration, and for a moment, Xyk was certain he had bet wrong.

But then she slapped him hard across the face, recoiled and slumped against the nearest wall, her back to him.

Xyk rubbed the stinging numbness along his jaw.  He had guessed right.  Called her bluff.  Survived.   But his sense of victory seemed to dissipate, dragged down by a nagging, crushing weight over his heart.  Guilt?  But for what?  He looked to Rosa, her withdrawn form gazing vacantly towards the valley below.

The city was a sea of darkened windows.  Scarcely a candle lit the twisting streets.  But in the center of town, golden lanterns blazed about the palace, with birthday banners streaming down.  An oasis of merriment amidst the black.

It was getting cold.  The statues sat unimpressed, their vigil unfaltering.

Rosa's voice wandered over, strangled and weak.  "There's no other way.  You have to get it."

For the first time since he had met this woman, she seemed terribly small.  A tiny white shape under the endless expanse of sky.

Dammit Xyk, it's not your problem.  Don't get carried away again.  Just tell her you're sorry, and then you're leaving.  It's time to go.

"Rosa, I'm sorry...  But you need to tell me."

...Not how we rehearsed it, Xyk.

"Just me," he said.  "I can keep a trust.  That's part of what... got me into this to begin with.  For what it's worth."

Fine, I tried.  Whatever happens next is on you, bucko.

Slowly, Rosa straightened.  Took a deep breath.  Above, an audience of stars gathered amongst the ragged clouds.

"If that pendant contains what I believe, I take Greenwell's life.  Tonight."