Seeds - Eleven

Part 11

Conway ran after her elongated shadow, watching it meld and disjoin through the stretched bearded black streaks. She ran into the din of many voices as one, and it sat ill with her like the trail of disturbed needles belching fresh acidity onto her path, she pulled her nose and breathed through her mouth as she went.

Balt had gone somewhere up ahead and she would find him. Bannon could only be ahead.

Her shadow had scarcely grown when she stopped, yanked up her rifle and hastily shuffled to the stone, she knelt, pressing her shoulder against it to stabilize the sight against her breathing. The forest blurred away at one edge of the lenses and the ancient stone became a hard grey smudge on the other. She listened.

She saw Bannon in her mind's eye by the sound, clink, he would shake and depress the needles in the shape of his boot, clank, and his weight would leave a print with the other. Clink, clank, clink, clank; his belly swaying. Conway's finger moved involuntarily towards the trigger as the thick figure ran in tree shadow, black as the night and stark red where fresh blood spattered in its wake. The shoulder seemed grotesquely swollen. If not for the whites of the eyes, she might have fired the killing shot. Instead, she pulled her grey coat across her body and pressed herself to the grey stone, and watched.

Bannon passed within ten feet of her, huffing laboriously under the weight of a body slung over his shoulder, and missing her presence completely.

Careful to keep her voice light, 'Hey, buddy!' she called.

Bannon tried to turn, but he did not so much stop as fall onto his back, his blunderbuss exploding between them.

Conway dipped into her coat as splintered chips, like razors, sprayed from the hole beside her. Standing, she wiped blood from her gashed cheek and brow, she aimed the rifle at his head.'

Something wet rolled from his hair as he squinted at her, 'Ahh, fuck! It's you.'

'It's me, alright.' she gritted at him, 'I'm going to take that thing away from you, you fucking baby!'

'Don't start on me now.' he said, rolling over and crawling into a kneeling position. He tried to stand but his leg wobbled and he sat sideways, 'We gots to go.'

'Not yet, we're running tactics and the other half of my team is still ranging.'. Pressing her lips together, she whistled a keening note that the mountain did not answer.

'Get a new one, those things is coming. We gots to go, now.'.

'We all heard you.' she replied calmly, turning the scope to the east, 'From the ringing in my ears, I wonder if you can still hear yourself.'. She dropped the rifle swinging into its harness then extended a gloved hand towards him, his fingers were slippery and he almost fell again. 'You'd never have outrun them, you know.'

'The fuck else was I gonna do?'

Conway pointed at the crumpled bundle still on the ground, 'I'd have expected you to leave the extra weight behind.'

'I like her.' Bannon said defensively, 'Helping me find Reince.'

'Oh, you want to find him? Do you even know if he's still alive?'

'They took him.'

'Says who?'

Bannon pointed at Luri, his fatigue pressing down on his bubbling fury.

'And now?'

'Now,' he bent slowly and drug the unconscious body up by the harness, 'we go back.'

'What was the plan?'

Luri's torso flopped over his shoulder, then he just stood, staring back at her.

'What is the plan, Bannon? You can't possibly be this stupid, why are you out here?'

'Why the fuck are you out here?'

'I'm being paid to bring you back.'

He turned his back on her and began for the west.

'I have a plan.' she called.

Bannon stopped, 'Let's hear it.'

'Mom!' Balt called from above, he noticed Bannon, 'Is that him!'. Loose hair darkly framed his face, peering at them from a fifty-foot ledge.

'We go up.' Conway told Bannon. Craning her neck, she answered Balt through cupped hands, 'Yah, buddy! Throw the rope!'. To Bannon, 'Are you in a condition to climb?'

'If my life depended on it.' he grumbled, nudging Luri with his head, 'But not hers.'

'Bring her here, we'll loop under her arms and pull her up.'

'Thank you.'

Conway smiled warmly at him. 'You're welcome, you big baby.' she replied as the rope snake tailed beside her. She handed him two metal handgrips. Bannon took the devices blankly. Conway explained, 'Belay devices; they lock on the rope when you pull down. They open when you pull up. Get it?'

'Yeah.'

Conway waved her fingers at him, 'Give her here. And you're pack too.'

'You ain't takin my shit.'

She spread her hands, 'If you want to climb with the weight.'. Luri was offered and taken, then the big ranger shook himself out of his backpack. 'Go.' she told him,

Conway walked up the stone wall at his back, climbing hand over hand with gloved hands. At the top, Bannon could not drag his belly over the ledge. She walked up until the rope grew taught in his groin. She found footing in a split, twisted her forearm around the rope several times then lay flat against the wall, between his dangling legs. 'Step on my shoulder.' she told him, guiding him by the ankle. He found the footing and she helped push him over. 'Help me.'. Conway took the rope and pulled, 'Together on pull. One, pull.' they pulled and the weight lifted, 'One, pull. One, pull. One, pull.' She dragged the load onto the ridge, 'Right,' she said, 'I'll carry the girl.'

'Where's your team?' Bannon said struggling to his feet.

'I don't know.' Conway whistled, untied the rope from the base of the needle-bush then threw Luri over her neck, 'Let's go.'.

They hadn't gone ten feet when Bolt sprinted round a narrowing in the ledge, 'Mom! I found him! The other ranger guy, he's back there with those things.'

'Ahh, fuck me!' Bannon bewailed.

Conway looked at him past Luri's hanging leg, 'You said you wanted to find him, mister.'

'Sure. Yeah, yeah.' Bannon snorted and spat red over the ledge.

Suspicious, she said, 'What's this one got over you?'

'None of your fuckin, business.'

'So?' she asked, 'You want to save your friend?'

'You have a way forward?' he challenged.

'You want to save him or not?'

'Sure. If you have a way forward.'

She smiled, 'I do.'

His head dropped.