Trophy Grove Page 6

  Chapter 6 – A Mudder’s Price

  It feels nice to contribute to our small group as we progress through the mudder’s work camp. Usually, I’m only tagging along with my audio recorder and digital notebook, an unnecessary observer during most of the events I cover. On Tybalt, however, I possess experience that’s very beneficial to our expedition. I’ve spent more time with the mudders than any good man should, and I’ve learned to recognize many of the subtle markers the clones employ to mark the trail to a mudder gin joint. The scratches of green and red markers on the bottom of the camp’s cardboard and plastic walls do not miss my attention, nor do all the small piles of gravel set before each of our needed turns. The bounty hunter’s direction placed me on the trail, and my keen nose for drink locks onto the track leading to the gin joint.

  I raise a hand after another turn. “Everyone hold their breath. Do the two of you hear it?”

  “It’s not very loud, but I think I hear a melody now that you say something,” Marlena responds.

  Teddy slaps my shoulder. “I didn’t know I got a tracker when I invited an electronic tabloid reporter. Nice work, Zane. The mudder music should guide us the rest of the way to the gin joint.”

  Mudder music is a jangling and clanging kind of a melody. Mudders keep the beat with bottle cap tambourines and polished steel drums. They turn plastic water bottles into wind instruments, and some clones posses enough know-how to make growling guitars out of optic wire and ready-to-eat meal tins. Mudders never sing. Maybe all the care the clone engineers invest in their genetic coding curses them with ugly voices, or maybe the mudders lack the courage to throw their voices into song. Still, playing that jangling and clanging kind of music is a mudder’s second favorite thing to do behind soaking up the booze.

  We take a couple more turns down our mudder road, and the melody’s increasing volume welcomes us. The mudders have managed to drag to the middle of their camp a half dozen of the steel shipping containers the obliterators tie to the back of their star freighters to haul supplies into the system. It looks like the clones have used a cutting torch and welding rig, no doubt pilfered from the obliterators’ equipment inventory, to fuse the containers together into the largest structure in their cardboard community. A crowd of a dozen or more mudders share contraband cigarettes before the structure’s entrance, but none of them turn to pay us any attention as we approach the leaning square of plastic that serves as a mudder door. It wouldn’t do that group any good to attempt to deny us our entrance. They’re powerless to prevent us from going anywhere we desire. Now that we’ve found their gin joint, the mudders will assume that the best way to insure that we don’t go reporting the place to their obliterator foremen will be to invite us whole-heartedly to the party. The clones will be very happy to show us a good time in exchange for our silence. They’ll flood us with the cheap, mudder gin, and they’ll offer Teddy and myself the newest, unbruised models of female, mudder pleasure gals. Among the myriad types of dive bars I’ve visited during my hops among the stars, I regard a mudder gin joint as the safest and most affordable place to find a good time.

  Still, I always remind myself that mudders seldom fear much, seeing how fright’s an emotion bred out of them. I remind myself I shouldn’t take anything for granted as long as there’s some monster out somewhere in the wilderness capable of sending so many mudders fleeing their work crews regardless of the bounty hunter threat.

  “We’ve got good drinking company tonight, boys.”

  A short and slender clone, likely one of the mudder models bred for mining and tunnel work, waves us welcome. The clone wears a fake mustache and wig of dark hair, not enough to shroud any part of those blue rings circling his right eye, but enough to threaten the clone with severe punishment should an obliterator foreman spy him manning the bar.

  The clone wipes the bar counter clean to coax the three of us forward. “We’ve got plenty for everyone, as long as you can stomach our stink.”

  That stench is thick in even my trained nose. The mudders are undoubtedly bubbling vats of their stew in some backroom of this gin joint. I rotate on my barstool and take a look at my surroundings. There appear to be two-dozen or so clones - all of them sharing the same three, template clone faces - milling about the main drinking chamber. There are few women with the same blonde hair, the same curvy figures and the same faces of blue eyes and soft lips, no doubt pleasure models who’ve come to visit on their nights off from the obliterators’ private barracks to hand out a little pleasure to warm bodies of their own choosing.

  “How do you tell them apart, Zane?” asks Marlena. “They even dress the same.”

  I chuckle. “Yeah, the obliterators have but one style of work clothes for most all of them. You can say fashion’s low on their list of concerns. You have to pay attention to the little things, like who’s got a grease spot on his knee, or which of the mudder girls wears the most eye shadow.”

  “Do they have names?”

  “They can,” I respond, “but the mudders don’t hesitate to change them from day to day just for kicks. The obliterators simply identify them by scanning their eye rings.”

  The mudders pay us hardly any regard. They’re too occupied with getting to the bottom of their porcelain mugs of cheap, but potent, mudder gin. I envy those clones in some ways. They’ll drink all night long until their sight turns crooked; but give them an hour’s worth of sleep, and those hard-drinking mudders will wake up as if they never sipped a drop of alcohol the night before. I’ve nearly killed myself on a few occasions trying to keep pace with a mudder’s rate of drinking, but I’ve never managed to open my eyes with any of them the following morning.

  They’ve welded together a small stage from metal refuse brought back from their worksites, and a band of clones grins as its members pound and pluck away on makeshift instruments. The music’s attracted a small group of the large, lifting mudders, and the ground shakes as the clones stomp their feet. I’ve always thought it a strange thing that the mudders, so carefully bred for optimal health and strength, possess so little rhythm. A couple more of the blonde-hair mudder women twirl in the center of that group, no doubt encouraging the males to fight over them.

  Teddy smiles at the mudder behind the bar. “We’ll all have whatever you’re serving.”

  “So long as you know it’s powerful drink,” winks the barkeep.

  I smile. “We’ll drink it slow.”

  The barkeep opens a faucet connected to a plastic pipe hanging along the ceiling and gravity pours three paper cups of mudder gin. Teddy and Marlena hesitate as they accept their drinks. Though I promised the last time I partied with the mudders to never again place that gin recipe upon my tongue, I slam my first drink down my throat and hold my paper cup out for a refill. Mudders regard it as poor manners to wrinkle one’s nose at the host’s first offered cup, and I tell myself I’m enjoying the warmth of that gin spreading through my blood for the good of the group.

  “That’s a fine batch of gin,” I wink to the barkeep.

  “Thank you for saying so, sir.”

  Truth is that mudder gin always tastes the same, no matter what planet you’re standing upon when you swallow it, no matter what vat of mudders distill it. The bitterness of the first drink makes your tongue recoil, but it quickly throbs through your veins. A second paper cup gives your muscles a massage from the inside-out, a surprisingly pleasant feeling. The next drink will tickle your vision and summon halos around everyone’s head. I never know for sure what the drinks following that will do, and that’s part of the charm about partying with the mudders. Still, I hope we’re not planning to stay long with the clones, because I’m not sure I want Marlena to see that side of me that smiles when I drop the last of my virtues and throw myself head-first into partying with mudders.

  Teddy leans forward and whispers to the barkeep. “We’re looking for information.”

  I feel the mudder eyes on the back of my neck, but all the mudders turn away from my glance when I
twirl around on my barstool.

  The barkeep doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard Teddy.

  Teddy sips from his gin and winces. “We’ve come a long way to reach this planet. We’re looking to finish the job all you mudders cannot. We aim to hunt the beast that scares the hell out of rest of you.”

  This visit is off to an inauspicious start. We haven’t been seated at this counter for five minutes, and I’m already downing a second paper cup of mudder gin to soothe my nerves. The joint’s turned quiet, because none of those jangling instruments are making a sound. I feel the eyes burning again on the back of my neck, and none of those mudders look away when I turn around for a second time.

  “I’ve no intention of telling the obliterators where they can find this gin joint,” Teddy still smiles, and I fear I’m going to hate that grin before we reach the end to our expedition. “I didn’t mean offense. I’ve killed my share of creatures scattered about these stars, and I know that sooner or later, every hunter meets the animal he can’t kill, sooner or later runs into the beast that it’s not in his nature to claim. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. But I aim to kill whatever creature’s obstructing your work on this planet. Money’s no concern. You name the price for your information, and I’ll pay it.”

  The barkeep stares at his work boots. Teddy’s curiosity has frightened the mudder to the spine.

  One of the large lifting mudders, as big as that clone claimed by the bounty hunter, mumbles at our back. “What good’s your money to a mudder?”

  Another mudder who shares a face with the barkeep shakes his head at the larger clone. “Forgive my brother for his growl, sir, but you likely don’t possess the type of currency that’s needed to persuade us to tell you anything about the hampering the obliterators’ efforts to reshape this planet.”

  Teddy doesn’t flinch. “What if I agree to pay the mudder’s price?”

  I gulp down my third paper cup of mudder gin, and the halos are starting to swirl behind everyone’s head now. Teddy has to know what he’s asking for by suggesting he’ll pay a mudder’s price for the information he craves, but I can’t believe he’s just slammed that card onto the table. I’m sure Teddy Jackson was one tough son-of-a-bitch in his day. I’m sure old father Thaddeus trained his boy Teddy to do a hell of a lot more than simply defend himself in a street fight. But to offer to pay the mudder’s price is an offer to go to war. A man has to stand in the center of a circle of the big, nasty mudders. It’s not enough for a man to pommel the attacking clones into bloody silence. A man who wants to pay the mudder’s price has to show that he can take whatever punishment the mudders can deliver to him. And then, when that man’s trying to see through eyes that are swelling shut, when he’s trying to breath through a bleeding and broken nose, he’s got to break the will of his mudder attackers. I once watched an intoxicated and idiotic shipping jockey on the Rhodan colony offer to pay the mudder’s price so that he could take a clone pleasure gal away with him, so he could keep some warm comfort in his rig for those longer hops through the stars. That contest didn’t last long, and that shipping jockey likely went bankrupt from his medical bills and the time he had to spend away from his rig in healing stasis while his body accepted a set of artificial ribs.

  The larger, lift mudder nods. “You pay that price, and then we’ll consider you another mudder brother. We’ll share our stew, and then we’ll answer whatever questions you still have.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Teddy throws back a second paper cup.

  Yet the mudders remain cautious. They can’t afford to attract the obliterators’ attention if they give Teddy just what he’s asking for and beat on him too badly.

  The bartender politely offers Teddy a new cup of gin. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t mean to be rude, but don’t you think you’re a little old to pay a mudder’s price? Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  Marlena glances at me. “What’s this about?”

  “Your father’s offered to show the mudders that he’s as tough as any of them, and that he can take whatever the mudders can give.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “Basically, your father has to first get his teeth kicked down his throat, and then he has to turn around and do the same thing to the mudders.”

  Marlena gasps. “That’s asinine.”

  I shrug. “We’re talking about mudder custom. Did you expect differently?”

  Marlena throws her first drink on the ground and jumps onto the counter. “He’s too old! I will pay the mudder’s price!”

  My knees knock, but no matter how madly the cosmos turns, I don’t dare knock back another paper cup of gin after I so quickly burned through my first three. Even the cautious mudders can’t help themselves as they snicker and snort. They refuse to even look at Marlena.

  Marlena shouts at the mudder women loitering around the stage. “And what do you ladies think? Wouldn’t you like to have a chance to show that a woman can take a mudder’s punishment? I suspect all of you have taken your share. Don’t you think a female should have the chance to give a little of it back?”

  One of the female mudders, whose nose runs a bit more crooked than her peers, snarls a smile.

  “Yeah, missy, I think you should have the chance to pay the mudder’s price,” and the mudder spits towards the feet of the nearest male clone. “None of you mudders hesitate to slap me around at the end of your work days, but you all turn coward once a woman says she’ll pay the mudder’s price.”

  Marlena winks. “Good girls.”

  I growl a whisper at Marlena. “You’re mad. They’re just happy to see something feminine other than themselves get a beating before the next sun.”

  “We’ll give you that shot if that’s what you’re wanting,” speaks the large mudder.

  The bartender squints at Marlena. “But know that you asked for it. Just promise us you’re not going to go running to the obliterators after we’re done with you.”

  “I promise.”

  Teddy helps Marlena off of the counter. “You sure you want to go through with this? I was the one who made the offer, and I’m the one who’s looking for information.”

  Marlena shakes her head. “We both want to find that beast, and you’re too old for this kind of work. I don’t doubt you could pay that price when you were younger. But that’s not you anymore, father.”

  Teddy smiles. “Then be careful.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to let them do too much damage to this pretty face.”

  All of the mudders hurry out of the gin joint to regroup at the back of the building of steel shipping containers, where they’ve built a caged combat ring out of cheap fencing discarded by the construction crews. The floor made of pressed plywood doesn’t look the least bit forgiving. That fist-fighting cage surrounded by rusting, metal benches intimidates the hell out of me, and I squeeze Marlena’s hand.

  “Stop this. It’s crazy.”

  Marlena laughs. “Then put it in your next book, Zane Thomas.”

  I plead with Teddy. “You can’t let her enter that cage. The mudders will destroy her.”

  “I doubt that very much, Zane. Marlena knows how to take care of herself.”

  Though everything’s turning fuzzy thanks to the mudder gin, I can’t resist the temptation in my nervous condition, and I grab an unfinished paper cup out of a clone’s hand and drink it as quickly as I can manage while I follow Teddy and Marlena to the gate of that fighting cage.

  I try to urge Marlena to change her mind before she steps through a gate. “You can still turn back. It doesn’t matter what the clones think of you if you do. They’re only mudders.”

  Marlena ducks through the gate and enters the octagonal, fighting ring. The mudders politely wait as Marlena removes her riding boots and bends through a series of stretches. The mudders are strange like that. They have every intention of pounding on Marlena anyway they can, and they’re not going to hold any punches o
n account their adversary is of the finer sex. But the mudders will do their best to harm Marlena as kindly and politely as possible.

  Marlena nods when she’s ready, and three of the big and nasty lift mudders stomp into the cage with their eyes glaring at Marlena, who takes a strange stance in the center of the floor. I hold my breath. It’s not going to be long now, and I raise a hand to catch another female mudder’s attention to receive my fifth serving of gin. My hands just need to hold a paper cup. I don’t dare drink that helping. I’m only sitting down, and my balance is still swooning. Only I just want a drink in my hand, just to know there’s something to push me deeper into oblivion when those mudders start blasting away at Marlena.

  I pray she quits it all quickly, and I pray the clones remain sober enough to recognize the sense in stopping their beatings before they permanently ruin Marlena’s beauty that I’ve quickly come to cherish.

  Teddy points as one of the large mudders stomps towards Marlena. “It’s on.”

  I close my eyes. Unfortunately, mudder gin sharpens your senses just as it robs you of coordination. I vainly try to cover my ears at the sound of the first blows Marlena absorbs in that cage. I hear her grunt. I hear her pant for breath. Yet I don’t hear her scream or cry after those mudders deliver several volleys upon her.

  I cautiously open my eyes and see that Marlena remains standing in the center of that cage. All three of the mudders circle her, snarling as they deliver kicks and punches all over their enemy. The identical faces of the lift mudders have never looked so ugly. I’m surprised to watch how deeply those faces flush from the exertion of their attacks. I’m surprised to notice how frustration comes to those faces when Marlena doesn’t fall. Marlena moves her body a fraction of a moment before the mudders deliver a strike against her. She turns and twists her arms and legs before receiving each impact so that much of the force is diverted away from her. It’s graceful movement, the gestures of some exotic martial art I’m sure her father has been teaching Marlena since she started to read and write. I wouldn’t want to tangle with her. She doesn’t dodge any of the blows, but she dictates where each of them land, regaining her composure with a quick breath before the next fist or foot can boom against her.

  As impressive as her train might be, it’s not what the mudders are interested in seeing. They don’t care about how many years Marlena has practiced defensive moves and postures. Mudder clones are cursed with such short lifespans devoted fully to their masters’ labor that they lack much chance to develop the skills Marlena exhibits in that cage. Thus Marlena’s unobtainable combat craft doesn’t inspire them. The mudders want to see how well Marlena takes the punishment. They want to see how she bleeds. They want to see if she can humbly accept all the hurt a man demands a mudder take.

  “You’re the cruelest kind of insane to let this continue,” I growl at Teddy. “Ask them to stop. The mudders will stop pounding on her if only you ask them to. They don’t want to give you any reason to inform the obliterators where they can find this gin joint. We’ll find your information someplace else.”

  “I’ve watched her take harder blows from her robotic trainers,” Teddy answers. “Marlena knows what she’s doing. She’s only wearing out her attackers to take the sting out of their punches. Be patient, Zane. You’ll see Marlena give this crowd exactly what they want.”

  I’ve been too concerned about what those mudders might do to Marlena’s face to recognize that strategy. I see how Marlena’s working her assailants just as my gin-soaked vision starts seeing streamers of light trailing behind all the punches and kicks those panting mudders are throwing at her. Marlena lowers her arms and sways at her hips as the mudders gasp for the breath required to refocus their efforts on her exposed face. No matter how well the mayhem might be unravelling according to Marlena’s plan, it’s not easy to watch as Marlena starts blocking punches with her face. Her face instantly starts to swell. A cut opens above her left eye, and a fist to her mouth sends a tooth arcing out of the cage – where a mudder quickly wraps the incisor in a cloth just in case we find a dentist on this rock of a planet with the skill to implant the tooth back into Marlena’s gums.

  The mudders are starting to lose their tempers as Marlena refuses to fall. Marlena starts grunting, the first indication that she’s struggling to shake off the pain. One of the mudders attempts to grab her from behind, likely hoping to put her into some kind of a wrestling hold so that his friends can really increase their hurt. Marlena easily ducks away from the effort.

  Teddy winks. How can he wink while the mudders are turning Marlena into a bloody mess?

  “She’s done it now, Zane. She owns her attackers.”

  I can’t belief how all the mudders drops their fists at the same time. Marlena raises her chin, and her battered face smiles. She’s taken everything the mudders had to throw at her, and those clones wheeze to catch their breaths while they lean forward with their hands on their hips.

  I swallow that gin I’ve been holding without thinking. I’m going to pay for my thirst come the morning, but I want those streamers of light that infect my sight to burn nice and brightly for the next stage in this contest.

  Marlena’s leg flashes upwards and forwards, catching one of the mudders square in the throat before he realizes the moment passed for him to transition from attacker into defender. Marlena twirls and strikes another in the knee before focusing all her momentum to slam that poor mudder’s face into the cage and crumpling him onto the ground. The remaining mudder attempts to throw a punch, but Marlena catches his arm and slams the clone over her shoulder, slamming her rival onto the wooden floor with such force that the entire cage shudders. She doesn’t release her grasp of that last mudder’s arm. Bending to a knee, Marlena twists, and I gulp at the sickening sound of bone snapping in that mudder’s arm.

  The door to that combat cage was never locked, and Marlena exits that ring to return to us. She looks terrible. The mudders have smashed her nose, and one of the punches has ripped her right ear. Her right eye has swollen shut, and she’s struggling to squint through her left eye before it too closes. Blood matts her hair, and she’s limping upon one of her knees. Bruises cover her arms. She’s proven her mettle. She’s paid the mudder’s cost. But I worry that Marlena sacrificed too much of herself to give it.

  And I worry that I’m going to feel as terrible as Marlena come the morning if I don’t lay off the mudder gin.

  “You have a drink for me, Zane?” Marlena gives me a painful wink.

  I hold out what remains in my paper cup. “The stuff’s going to sting really bad.”

  “You think that’s going to bother me?”

  Teddy ruins any chance for celebration when he points back towards the cage. “What’s that mudder going to do with that iron pipe?”

  I raise my finger for another paper cup after I look towards the cage. No matter if it kills me, I’m going to need another drink.

  “That’s the best medical support the mudders can give,” I sigh.

  The mudder with the iron pipe walks to the center of the cage where the larger mudder sprawls upon the floor with his arm bent at a sickening angle. The mudder with the pipe kneels and whispers something in the injured fighter’s ear. Then, the mudder with the pipe stands tall before lifting that iron pipe far above his head. He slams it down upon the head of the injured mudder before I have time to wink, before Marlena and Teddy have any time to turn away.

  “Why?” Marlena stammers.

  “A mudder can’t work with an arm broken so badly,” I answer, “and the obliterators don’t offer their mudders any healthcare.”

  “So the obliterators will just kill him?” Marlena’s hands tremble.

  I shake my head. “No. The mudders do the killing themselves. They think there’s pride in it, and pride’s something a mudder seldom has any chance of knowing. The mudder with the pipe likely asked the hurt clone if he wanted to try to hide from the bounty hunters or if he just wanted to have it end real quickly when he
bent down to whisper in his ear. The broken mudder made his own choice out of the possibilities set before him.”

  Marlena hesitates to follow Teddy and me back into the gin joint. It’s not easy for her turn her back on that mudder corpse left in the fighting cage. The sight of that dead clone likely hits her harder than any of the other punches she’s taken in that cage, and it’s going to leave a bruise on her that isn’t going to heal along with all the other hurts delivered upon her body. That dead clone’s just another part of paying the mudder’s price.

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