ARC: Peacemaker Read online

  MARIANNE DE PIERRES

  Peacemaker

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  Chapter One

  Gold faded to purple and then a dying red. Sunset from the butte.

  In my mind it was called a tabletop, but the company insisted on butte because the tourists liked the name. It fitted with the Wild West park theme.

  Visit the Wild West in the heart of a Southern Hemisphere super-city. Just plain weird.

  But the park wall, the haze of city pollution floating in, and the glare of the dying sun, hid the city skyline. Right at this moment I could believe that my beloved piece of outback was more than a mere oasis in a sprawling conurbation.

  Conurbation. I’d learnt that word from Dad.

  He liked to use words that others had forgotten, remind us all of the old ways. That’s why he raised me to love the land and hate the wankers who ruined it. Dad was the reason I preferred sunsets alone in the park, to the city bars. The reason I was a ranger and not a corporate hellcat.

  Dad was the reason for everything really.

  If I could, I’d live in the park, but the company scientists deemed it too environmentally fragile to handle the impact of permanent residents. Tourists did enough damage.

  And we had to have tourists.

  So instead, at the end of each work day, I got to go home to my one bedroom in the Cloisters multi-rise and stare at the 3D spinifex and iron-red rock photos that hung on my wall. Dad had taken them when he was young, before the city had devoured most all of our countryside.

  He spent ten years out there – the real outback – learning to live dry, letting the iron leach into his blood. When he came back he started the park lobby. He could see the way things were going; knew that we’d already gone further than we should.

  And he brought me up to continue the fight.

  That was OK. That was good. I believed. And I could handle the indifference of politicians, the political maneuvering of my colleagues, and the crap pay. What I couldn’t deal with was being considered not good enough at what I did.

  I slid down from my rocky perch and trod carefully, avoiding the fragile desert grass clinging to the foot of the butte.

  It was half an hour until dark, and another half hour until I picked up my new co-worker from the airport. Time to shift arse.

  My phone rang as I climbed into the saddle and nudged Benny’s sides. She loped in the direction of home without guidance from the bridle – we’d done this many times.

  “Virgin Jackson,” I said into the mouthpiece.

  “It’s Hunt.”

  “Yeah boss?”Bull Hunt hated it when I was casual, which was most always.

  “You haven’t forgotten have you, Virgin?”

  I sighed. “Gate 65, Terminal 21. Tall guy wearing a uniform. His name’s Nate.”

  “Not just Nate, Virgin. Marshall Nate Sixkiller. Great fricking grandson of Johnny Sixkiller the–”

  “–greatest Native American lawman in history. Yeah, Bull, I know.”

  “And don’t you go all defensive on me. Nate Sixkiller’s good. Maybe the best.”

  Well that sure prickled me. “Good for him. But I still don’t see why you’re spending all this money on bringing him here. Why now? Is there something I don’t know?”

  Bull hesitated.“Don’t push me on this, alright.”

  “I just don’t get it. One tiny amphetamine bust in the park a week ago and suddenly I’m being lumbered with a hotshot cowboy from the other side of the world. I know my own territory, Bull. Been doing a good job of looking after it. So what the hell’s going on?”

  “Something’s been flagged at the top levels. I can’t talk about it yet but I need you to make him welcome and help him in anyway you can. Am I clear on that?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Like a glacier.”

  Bull Hunt was Superintendent of Park Ecology and an expert fence sitter. If there was a person alive who could balance the tightrope between politicians, greenies and the tourist and resource industry, it was my boss. But I’d never known him to jump so high over a park arrest; especially one that didn’t involve land damage. The two guys I’d stumbled on out by Salt Springs over a week ago had been exchanging a parcel of drugs. It happens. There’s lots of space out here. So why the fuss?

  “Virgin.”

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “Don’t talk like that around Sixkiller. You sound like you’ve never even been to school.”

  My three university degrees would argue. “Yeah, boss.”

  I hung up, slipped the phone into my coat pocket and slumped in the saddle. Benny slowed to a trot and I didn’t bother to raise for it, letting myself bump around like a sack.

  Soon we were at the windmill and the outcrop of desert palms that hid the water trough and the gate to the stables.

  I let Benny drink from the trough, while I slid down and buried my head in her neck. My horse was the most grounding thing in my life, the warmth of her skin and the faint tang of hay that clung to her.

  I paid for the real thing; had bales of it flown in from New Zealand every month. It was freaking expensive, but the Land of the Long White Cloud produced a good part of the raw produce that sustained the Southern Hemisphere these days.

  When Benny finished drinking, I led her through to the Interchange– several interlocking gates, identity protected and monitored. Red dirt became cement and a wall rose unexpectedly out of the desert in colours that graded from golden yellow up to sky blue. From this angle, the top of it blocked the sight of even the highest downtown skyscrapers.

  I slapped the DNA sampler so the gate would open and led Benny through into the stables.

  Totes, the techie, was waiting there, sitting on a stool in front of his monitors, eyes closed, ear buds in his ears, foot tapping, sucking on a USB stick.

  I yanked the buds out as I walked past and he fell off the stool in fright.

  “Jeesus, Virgin. Don’t do that. How many times…”He jumped up, smoothed down his suit and patted his cornrows, searching for stray, out of place hairs.

  “There’s dandruff on your shoulder,” I lied and walked off.

  I could hear him fussing behind me, dusting his jacket. Could picture without looking, his angular pale face, lips pursed up like a prune.

  “Virg-in!” he bitched.

  “Just jokin’, Totes,” I called back.

  He chased me down to Benny’s stall where I slipped her bridle off and un-cinched the saddle.

  “You’re the last one in.”He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to. I was always the last.

  “Sunset’s not the same from city. You know that.”

  “I know that you’re spending too long in the desert and not enough time in the real world. Besides, I’ve got places to go.”

  I pulled a face at him. “Liar!”Totes ha
d less social life than me.

  “Well you could have at least rung me. I was getting worried,” he grumbled.

  I slipped my hand in my coat at the mention of my phone. It wasn’t there.

  I groaned. “Crap. I must’ve dropped it near the trough. I’ll be back in a minute. Get Leecey to rub her down, will you?”

  “Leecey’s gone home. And you can’t go back in there now that it’s dark.”

  “Keep your undies on,” I said as I headed to the gate and tickled the ID pad again.

  As I stepped back through, the locks clunked closed behind me and I found myself back in the park in near dark and almost dead quiet.

  Even though I’d been ranger here for a few years, I was suddenly a little nervous. The sand and rock and palms that I knew so well during the day had taken on an eerie quality.

  The company didn’t like us “on board” (their expression for being in the park) after dark – something to do with insurance. I always pushed that directive to the limit because I like to see the sunset.

  The sun was gone now though, and I could hear, rather than see, the trickling of the water into the trough.

  A dozen or so steps and I’d be close enough to the trough to start feeling around on the ground for my lost phone. Nervousness was replaced by exhilaration. I never got to be on board completely alone. My horse, Benny, was imbedded with recording equipment that sent information back to Totes and then onto the company storage and processing centre, aka the Black Hole.

  But right now, I stood alone and unobserved, even by the satellite spies, for the first time.

  A desire to disappear and lose myself in the thousands of hectares gripped me. I knew the land, could maybe survive on the food and water the park would throw up.

  But…knowledge of the penalty, if I was caught, sobered my fantasy. The Federal government hadn’t spent billions of dollars on creating the park to suffer squatters. Last I heard, it was a lifetime jail sentence.

  Shaking those thoughts down, I stepped towards the sound of trickling water. The damn ball valve was leaking again!

  As I bent to fumble with the pump, I felt my phone underfoot. Then another sound attracted my attention – muffled voices from the other side of the semi-circle of palms that skirted the interchange area.

  Voices? Impossible! I was the last person out of the south east sector every day. Park scanners and satellite imaging confirmed it, as well as my own visual sweep.

  I picked up my phone and crept towards the sound, my boots silent on the sand. There were two of them, arguing, but I couldn’t get a handle on the thread.

  “…the next wet moon,” said one.

  “How could you know that?” said the other.

  There was a moment of silence. Then one figure raised an object. A strangled cry got me running towards them, hauling my pistol free from my holster.

  I barreled through the line of palms and bellowed! “Stop!”

  But the pair had fallen down onto the sand.

  I flicked my phone light on and shone it at them. Only one person was there. Blood trickled from a small, deep wound on his neck.

  Impossible! There were two!

  Keeping the gun cocked, I stepped over, knelt, and felt the man’s pulse with my phone hand.

  Dead. Shit!

  Chapter Two

  Still kneeling, I shone the light around. The other guy couldn’t have escaped. I was watching them the whole time.

  Nothing.

  As I glanced back at the dead guy, a shadow seemed to detach from his neck and bird’s cry cut through the night, chilling enough to make my muscles clench. Wings beat close to my ear, feathers scraped across my cheek and pain knifed across my neck below my ear.

  I clawed at the shadow… or whatever it was and hauled my pistol up. Four shots at point blank range sent it spinning but rather than fall to the ground it seemed to dissolve.

  I was left staring at empty space.

  What the…?

  The sting from the wound brought me back. I fumbled in my pocket for a handkerchief and pressed it against the already slick wound. Involuntary shivers started over me, as if the warm desert air had plummeted in temperature. I shoved my gun in my pocket and re-checked the man for life signs.

  Nada.

  I knew I should call this in, the Park would want to investigate, but my wound was seeping and I had an overpowering urge to get the hell out of there. The carcass crew would be in before me tomorrow though, removing any dead fauna, so Totes needed to warn them.

  I got to my feet and ran back past the trough to the interchange gate.

  Totes was waiting for me on the other side.

  “Jeesus, Virgin. Where the hell’ve you…Oh, crap. What happened?”

  “Not sure,” I said pushing him away and heading for the wash station.

  He hovered over me as I sloshed my face and neck and examined my neck wound in the mirror. It was small but deep, and hurt as bad as a dozen wasp stings.

  “What did it?”

  “I don’t know. It kinda looked like a crow, but it was dark, and crows don’t attack people, especially at night. But I found a dead guy out there past the trough. I’ll tell Hunt. Search the sat feed and let the carcass crew not to touch anything.”

  “What do you mean a dead g–”

  “What’s the time? Crap.” I cut him off because now I was running late to meet the famous lawman. “I’ll call the cops on the way to the airport and I’ll tell you about it in the morning. Gotta go.”

  I ran down the corridor to my office grabbed, a band aid from the first aid kit hanging by its strap from one of the upturned horseshoes adorning my only shelf and left the Interchange station at a run.

  The transition into the city was like a face slap. Red rock, sand, desert palms and space left behind; noise, people and buildings in their place.

  Night time on the Park Esplanade was fast. The road ringed the entire park circumference and a city eco-chain had birthed to service it. Motels for the tourists, plazas that sandwiched never-closing restaurants, travel agents, Net-parlors rubbed alongside each other.

  The Park had saved our country’s tourism industry and the people were grateful. They were also hungry to benefit. We knew how to make a buck Down Under, despite what the international community thought.

  Getting a taxi to pullover on the Esplanade was hard; none of them wanted to leave the dense traffic stream and then have to try and re-enter it.

  I gave up trying to flag one and took the pedestrian underpass to the nearest plaza. The rank there was full of empty cabs, so I jumped in the lead car and told him I had to be at the airport ten minutes ago. Hunt was going to carve me to pieces over this.

  Being a Park Road cabby he didn’t spare the juice, but the flyover to the airport was at crawl-pace and I got to the International a half hour after Nate Sixkiller’s scheduled arrival time.

  There was no one at the gate so I sprinted down to the baggage lounge and found the right conveyer. I would have known him right away despite the fact that he was standing alone by the rent-a-car kiosk looking pissed.

  His hair was seriously straight and dark, dipping below his shoulders and crowned with a Stetson you could tip upside down and take a bath in. He wore jeans and a white-collared buttoned-up shirt; his build was muscled, heavy and gave the impression of power.I knew some hand to hand moves but Nate Sixkiller had me wondering if I could handle him.

  He had a presence, no denying it, and His Presence wasn’t happy.

  “Marshall Sixkiller?” I said striding up with my hand outstretched.

  We were almost on the same eye level and he narrowed his without responding to my handshake.

  I let my hand drop. “Apologies for being late. I had a… er… problem in the park.”

  His glance flicked over me then up to the plaster on my neck. “Thet yer problem?” he asked in a slow drawl.

  My hand slipped automatically to the wound. Then I glanced down at my shirt. Blood flecks across my br
east. “Sure. Maybe. Look let’s get you back to your apartment first. You must be tired.”

  His expression stayed stony. “I don’t get tired.”

  “Good for you. But you need to drop your bags off.” I turned on my heel and didn’t to bother to see if he followed.

  The taxi ride back home was quicker. Hunt had rented Sixkiller an apartment in the Cloisters, a floor down from me. I wasn’t happy about it, but it made sense if I was going to be his babysitter.

  I already had the key and handed it to him when we got to his room. He stood for a moment or so staring at the door.

  “Problem?” I asked after the silent scrutiny started to get uncomfortable.

  He exhaled and shook his head, then passed the key over the lock.

  I didn’t follow him in. “My room is the floor above, number 20-20. Come up when you’re settled, or call me, and I’ll come down. I’ll take you out for a bite.”I was hoping to hell he’d say no, but his brow creased.

  “Bite? What’s thet?”

  “Food. It’s dinner time here.”

  He nodded slowly. “I could do with a bite. I’ll be in the foyer in thirty minutes.”

  Damn. Not only had he accepted but he was calling the order of things. I’d cut him some slack tonight, tomorrow would be a different story.

  Nodding curtly, I turned on my heel and left.

  Once in my apartment I stripped off, removed the band aid on my neck and stepped into the shower, running the water hot as I could stand it, letting it beat against the wound. Trails of blood swirled to the floor tiles. The wound still oozed, like the thing that attacked me had somehow injected some anticoagulant.

  What the hell had I seen out there in the park tonight? It couldn’t have been a bird. Could it?

  I shivered despite the scalding water and kept on shivering until delayed reaction finally subsided. Then I toweled off. I should report it to the cops now but no one went into the park after dark, not even them, so what was the point? Tomorrow morning would be fine. I’d just have to fib a little, say it happened just before dusk.