Skin Trade Read online

  “What ya thinking?”

  “I’m not thinking. I’m trying to sleep. You should too.”

  “I’m thinking I was right. I told you he would be a good boss man.”

  “That still remains to be seen.”

  “Can’t you ever trust anyone?”

  I lolled my head to one side and caught sight of the glowing tip of Mr. Boudreaux’s cigarillo. It seemed fixed upon me, like some cyclopean beast staring out of the darkness, and I knew he was watching us. Watching me. Did I trust him? Did I trust anyone?

  “No,” I said at some length. “Now go to sleep.”

  Pete grunted a small laugh. “Well, I trust him. This is a good job, and we are lucky to have this chance. I could be happy here, Sam. And I just wish you could be happy too.”

  I ignored his insinuation, as well as Mr. Boudreaux’s prying gaze, and tried to get some sleep. How dare Pete suggest I wasn’t happy? This life was far better than what I’d left behind, so how could I not be happy?

  I was happy.

  Wasn’t I?

  I soon heard the soft snore of Pete as he fell into slumber, and with it, I drifted into a troubled sleep, thoughts of discontentment coursing through my unconsciousness, coloring my nightmares with dashed hopes and broken dreams.

  Just as he promised, Mr. Boudreaux woke us at first light. I found myself sore in places I didn’t expect to be sore, though not so much as to complain. Pete, however, moaned and groaned with every movement.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I don’t feel right,” he said.

  With the funk of his words, I waved away a stink that was stronger than usual. “Phew, Pete. You smell like ya swallowed a skunk.”

  “Well, I feel like I done been whooped with a cane all over. I’m all stiff and sore.”

  “Me too,” I said, rubbing my aching back.

  “It’s from sleeping on the ground,” Mr. Boudreaux said. “You will get used to it.”

  I didn’t comment that I wasn’t quite as sore as my friend seemed, but then again, there was far less of me to ache than there was of poor lumbering Pete. I put his discomfort down to this greater surface area and thought no more of it.

  After a small breaking of the fast—which Pete seemed to have some difficulty choking down—we broke apart the camp and set out again in the same riding arrangements as before. It was back to the slow travel with less chatter now that Pete felt unwell. Mr. Boudreaux regaled us with a few trapping tales, and Dominic hummed an occasional tune, but most of the time we spent watching and listening for the dangers of the undead.

  At lunch break, it became apparent that Pete wasn’t just sore.

  He was truly sick.

  If his pallid complexion and lack of energy weren’t enough to prove this, then his complete absence of appetite was more than a clue. Pete, a bottomless pit of youthful hunger, refused to eat that afternoon, citing his griping stomach as the main culprit of his dubious state.

  “You gotta eat something,” I said.

  “I can’t,” he moaned. Again, his breath was rotten to the core. More so than his usual funk. “I feel like if I eat, it won’t stay down long.”

  I eyed his bandaged hand and the yellowing stain that accompanied the wound underneath. “How’s your hand doing?”

  “Leave him be,” Mr. Boudreaux commanded. “He will come round to his appetite at dinnertime. It is a travel sickness. I’ve seen it many times before. He isn’t used to so much momentum in such a short span of time. He will adjust. They all do, eventually.”

  While I must admit I didn’t enjoy long sojourns by train or coach, I had never been subject to the sickness brought on by the rough motions of travel. “Are you certain? Pete didn’t seem to mind the trip into Stanley, nor the ride out to Camp Jackson. Nor has he mentioned being susceptible to travel sickness before this.”

  “Would you admit to it? Especially now, when so much depends on your need to travel? No, he was wise to keep quiet. I might have left him behind otherwise.”

  “I suppose not. But still-”

  “We’ve lingered long enough.” Mr. Boudreaux got up from his spot in the shade of the wagon and motioned to Dominic. “Put the lad in the back. He can ride the rest of the way.”

  “Is that wise?” I asked. “If the sickness is brought on by travel, maybe-”

  “Did I ask your opinion?”

  I realized at once that I had overstepped my boundaries, but I was concerned for my friend. “No, sir. I just worried-”

  A sharp slap across my cheek silenced me.

  Mr. Boudreaux bore down on me with a snarling growl. “I don’t care what you think. I have been tolerant with you thus far, but I grow weary of your disobedient tongue. When I want drivel, I shall ask you to speak. Until then, you will remain silent. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” Mr. Boudreaux drew a deep and concentrated breath as he gathered his anger to him, trying to regain his self-control. “Then you can take up first watch by yourself. And if I hear anything from you that isn’t about an approaching revenant, I will shoot you in the back without hesitation. Do I make myself clear?”

  I nodded again.

  “Off with you, then,” he commanded.

  I raced to the front of the goats rather than risk another blow. As I walked along, I rubbed the spot, still stinging with pain and embarrassment. It wasn’t the first time an employer had struck me. I was sure it wouldn’t be the last, and I deserved it this time, with all my sass talk. I received the back of Mrs. Fathom’s hand more times than I cared to admit for the same reason. (Though my arguments with her were of a completely different nature, to be sure.)

  We traveled a few more hours without incident, bedding down again just as dusk fell. That evening, I lay wide awake, listening to Pete’s discomfort. He rolled about in his bed sack, griping about his painful belly and lamenting his terrible state. I’ve never been good with sick people. I never did know what to do for a sick man, so I decided to try to take his mind off his illness by means of small talk.

  “Pete?” I asked quietly.

  He stopped groaning long enough to let out a soft “What?”

  “You notice anything weird about this place?”

  There came a long silence from my friend. I was forced to assume he was either thinking it over or had nothing to say on the matter.

  After a full minute of no answer, I said, “For the Badlands, things don’t seem, well, very bad.”

  “I still don’t get it,” he whispered.

  I rolled toward him, putting my back to the men at the wagon. “Where are the revenants? We’ve been here two days already, and we haven’t seen so much as a hint that this is the Badlands.”

  “So?”

  “So … where are they?”

  “For someone so disgusted by the idea of the skin trade, you seem awful eager to get started.” He gave a chuckle, which burbled over into another smelly moan.

  “That’s not what I mean. I just … look … it doesn’t … never mind.” I pulled my blanket up over my head to block his stink and tried to go to sleep.

  “I’m just joshin’ ya,” Pete said in a pitiful little voice. “No need to get sore.”

  I lowered the blanket and stared at him lying across from me in the thin moonlight. “I’m not sore. I’m worried. Something doesn’t seem right in all of this. I can’t put my finger on it, but it just doesn’t feel right. I feel like-” I cut my own words short to glance back at Mr. Boudreaux and Dominic. Turning back to Pete, I whispered, very low, “I feel like he’s lying to us.”

  “Nah. You’re just mad ‘cause he laid into you.” Pete paused here to grunt a small expletive of pain followed by a belch. “Mad. That’s all. Just sleep on it. Everything will look right in the morning.” This said, he settled back onto his blanket and into his moaning and groaning.

  He was relying on me. Me and my big mouth. I made a promise to Pete and myself that I would strive to behave better. After all, I
didn’t want him to lose the work because of my persistent need to speak out. I pledged to work doubly hard and salvage Mr. Boudreaux’s confidence in me.

  For Pete’s sake.

  ****

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  ****

  Chapter Seven

  The next a.m. found my friend even worse than before. He graduated from an upset stomach to full-blown vomiting, and traded his pale pallor for a sickly green hue. His neck and face bulged to a terrible, swollen degree. A simple touch proved he hosted a fever, with further evidence in the sheen of sweat that covered him from head to toe. And to make matters worse, a thick pus oozed from his bandaged hand.

  This was far more than just travel sickness.

  “You all right?” I asked as I stooped over his bedroll.

  Pete turned his watery eyes to me, staring at me with a pitiful gaze, but said nothing.

  “Mr. Boudreaux,” I said. “Pete is looking pretty bad. I know you want to move on, but can’t we set up camp for the day and let him rest?”

  “Nonsense,” Mr. Boudreaux said. “He will be fine. As I said, it is travel sickness. All he needs is to get used to the pace of-”

  “I hesitate to argue, sir,” I said over him, risking his ire for my friend’s safety. “But I worry he’s suffering from something aside from travel woes. You should look at him. I think he’s really sick.”

  Mr. Boudreaux stared me down with fire in his eyes, but didn’t lash out as I expected. “You care for him. Don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, sir. He’s my friend.”

  “Just a friend?” There came again that smug grin from Mr. Boudreaux and a base chuckle from his manservant.

  I was confused by this turn of conversation. “I suppose I consider him family, if that’s what you mean. That is what you mean, isn’t it? Sir?”

  The smug grin spread into a poor attempt at a friendly smile. “But of course, mon ami. Family. Of course.” Mr. Boudreaux snapped his fingers at his manservant. “Put the lad in the wagon again. We need to move out. As they say, we are burning daylight.”

  Dominic did as asked, helping Pete onto the back of the wagon.

  I couldn’t argue.

  With Pete quiet, our travel grew silent, so much that it was almost unnerving. I came down with that strange sensation one gets just before a large storm arrives. That eerie calmness that said something huge and disturbing was on the way. Considering how deep into the Badlands we had already traveled, I expected that something would be of an undead variety. But no, we came across no revenants that morning. Or that afternoon when we stopped to take lunch. We saw no undead activity, no sign that they even existed.

  That was until Pete took a turn for the worse.

  At first I thought he was just resting, exhausted by his illness and this incessant need to keep moving forward. I made up a small meal of bread and water for him and brought it to his side at the wagon.

  “Pete?” I asked, tapping him on the shoulder.

  Pete stirred under my touch, shifting his bulk with small grunts as he tried to awaken.

  “Peter?” I asked. “Wake up. You need to eat to keep up your strength. Mr. Boudreaux says we aren’t far now. I don’t know how all this trapping stuff works, but I suppose we are headed to a starting point, or maybe a home base. Do you know? How did … your … dad …” my words grew disjointed, fading into a whisper as Pete lifted his head to look dead at me.

  And I do mean dead in every sense of the word.

  My friend—nay, my best friend, the best pal I ever had, despite the short time we had known one another—had turned into the very epitome of my every nightmare. He raised his face, bringing his eyes to meet mine, only instead of those soft hazel irises that I had grown fond of, I stared into a pair of milky orbs surrounded by swollen purple lids. His skin was shot through with lightning strikes of red, from swollen face to bulbous neck, as if his very veins were on fire. I gasped, to which Pete snarled, curling back frothing lips to expose blackened gums and teeth. The smell that rose from his mouth and bandaged hand was horrendous, stinging my eyes and pricking my nose with just the faintest passing whiff. Pete lifted himself from the wagon onto his haunches, in a crouch, as though ready to pounce upon me.

  “Mr. Boudreaux,” I said, taking a few steps back from the wagon. “Something’s wrong with Pete.”

  “Domi!” Mr. Boudreaux yelled as he rushed up and pushed me behind him. “The harness. Be quick about it.”

  Dominic reached beneath the buckboard to pull free a leather yoke. He crawled over the seat and into the bed of the wagon behind Pete, where he loosened the straps of the harness and held it out in the fashion of a lasso. Mr. Boudreaux grabbed Pete’s attention by shouting and waving his arms, while Dominic slipped the harness over Pete’s head and yanked hard. The boy struggled, growling and grunting and kicking for all he was worth, but it did him little good. Dominic was quicker and stronger, binding Pete with the ease of a seasoned professional until the boy was caught fast in the harness. After Pete was secure, Mr. Boudreaux produced a wax-paper packet from the depths of the wagon. He unrolled from the paper a short leather strapping that bulged oddly in the middle, which he used to bind Pete’s snapping mouth. It was over in a matter of moments; Pete lay across the wagon bed with his arms strapped by his sides and his frothing mouth filled with a chunky bit which he chomped at like some rabid horse.

  “There we are,” Mr. Boudreaux said. “He should be safe enough now.”

  Pete continued to moan and growl beneath the mouthpiece, but he ceased his struggle.

  “Safe?” I asked. “He’s sick. He needs help.”

  “He isn’t sick,” Mr. Boudreaux said. “Not anymore.”

  “How can you say that? Look at him. He’s worse than before.”

  “I should think so, because he’s dead.”

  I started at the pronouncement. “Dead? He can’t be dead. He’s moving around.”

  “He certainly is dead.” Mr. Boudreaux stared into the boy’s milky eyes and then up the lad’s flaring nostrils, one at a time. “Très dead, too. Must’ve kicked off about an hour ago. I’m surprised he didn’t rise before now.”

  I refused to accept what Mr. Boudreaux insinuated. “No, no, no. Pete can’t be dead.”

  “Technically he’s undead. He passed on, and the infection brought him back from the brink. And so quickly too. I’ve never seen anyone take to it so fast. I suppose you were right, Domi. We should’ve waited a bit longer.”

  Dominic grinned and nodded.

  “Now we have to walk him the rest of the way.” Mr. Boudreaux sighed, deep and troubled, as he looked Pete over again. “What a bother.”

  Still reeling from the news of my friend’s death, I had trouble understanding what they were talking about. “But how can he … You said it was just travel sickness.”

  Mr. Boudreaux shrugged. “I lied.” He pulled on the lead, rolling Pete off the wagon and onto his feet.

  Its feet, I corrected myself in silence. It wasn’t a he, because that thing wasn’t Pete. Not anymore. Not since Pete became sick and died, then came back as one of them. He was well before we left, but got sick while we were traveling. Sick after we crossed into the Badlands. He got sick after he cut himself and Mr. Boudreaux treated him with that strange powder.

  With a sudden clarity, I at last comprehended what was happening.

  “You did this,” I said softly.

  “Oui,” Mr. Boudreaux said, as calm as ever.

  “You made him sick.”

  “Yes.”

  “You infected him.”

  “Mon Dieu but this is becoming tiresome. Shut up and go water the goats so we can move out again.”

  “Why?”

  Mr. Boudreaux turned his back to me, leading the struggling revenant away from the wagon a bit. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  “Why did you kill him?” I screamed.

  Mr. Boudreaux whipped about to face me, gritting his teeth to hold hi
s anger in check.

  “Please,” I begged, tears streaming down my cheeks. “He was my best friend. I need to know.”

  “Because it is easier this way,” Mr. Boudreaux said.

  “Easier than what?”

  “Trapping them. Tracking them. Hunting them.”

  “I don’t see what killing Pete has to do with-”

  “Do you know how hard it is to get good leather from these things? Most of the undead are nothing but shreds of skin barely hanging on to rotting muscle and broken bones. Letting them wander about in the wilds ruins their pelt. Every little nick, every little cut, every little bruise under the skin is value lost.” He paused to pat the revenant on the head. “But fresh, whole specimens, tended and cared for, create perfect whole pelts.”

  I stared on in silence, unsure what to say to such lunacy.

  “Trapping them is work,” Mr. Boudreaux said as he passed me and tied the leather lead to the rail of the wagon. “Hard, backbreaking, dangerous work. Hunting them down is even worse.” He tested the strength of his leash on the revenant with a quick tug. “Why work harder when you can work smarter? Everyone knows Boudreaux delivers the best product, and I intend to keep that reputation. My only regret is that bastard Gerald promised me something more exotic this time. Instead he strapped me with another fair-skinned pelt. As if I didn’t have enough of those. Ah well, I suppose one must take what one can get.”

  The calmness with which Mr. Boudreaux spoke chilled me to the marrow, his heavy words driving the very breath from me. “You’re going to use him. For his skin. You infected and killed him so you could have his skin.”

  “His pelt, yes. Speaking of smarter, you are quite the clever child.”

  I repressed a retch, my stomach turning sour as I understood the full scope of his madness. “And what of me?”

  “What of you?”

  “When is it my turn? Or will you wait a bit? Is it easier to tend and care for us one at a time?”

  “Oh no, mon cheri.” Mr. Boudreaux smiled wide and wicked. “I have other plans for you, Samuel. Or is it Samantha? Or perhaps, young lady, you have a different name entirely. Oui?”

  For a brief moment, the world narrowed to a pinpoint of that terrible, knowing smile. I stared, slack jawed, at that smile, unsure how to react to the sound of my name on the stranger’s lips. This brief moment of surprise passed just as quickly as it came, dumb surprise exchanged for understanding, and I turned to flee. I was fast on my feet, small and nimble, but Dominic was much faster. He was on me in seconds, tackling me to the ground, where he pinned me. I squirmed under his weight, but then stopped when I realized I was wasting my time and energy.