Core Drive: A Westworld Story

Áine Part 7

The ride to the outpost takes half a day. Half a day filled with a strange silence, with only the heat of the wilderness between me and the reigns of The Deputy's saddle. The horse languidly canters into the outpost and I catch sight of guards equipped with newer, more modern weapons patrolling the area. There's also a makeshift horse stable next to a rundown shack.

The Deputy stops her horse near a hanging tree. Two park visitors are strung up with rope, a few outlaws trade snide remarks as the guests in out-of-place clothing plead for mercy. The crack of gunshots going off makes my heart pound, but for the first time, it's not from fear of being hit by a stray bullet, it's a rush. I bite back that feeling as I watch several revolvers smoke up the air when a band of four outlaws take turns shooting at the standing post where a guest struggles to remain standing, rope burns scraping off his skin.

Abruptly, the sharp lash of The Deputy's whistle rings out. I winced from the high pitch and The Deputy lifts her hat to wave about at the men by the hanging post.

"Where's the boss?" she asks with the ease of a Sunday breeze.

"Out with Teddy, I'm pressumin'," a man with rattlesnake boots answers. "Pretty trout you got there." He means me.

I glare at the man in rattlesnake boots, and The Deputy laughs. I can all but picture her smirking.

"This one ain't no trout, got ourselves a bear cub here," she says with a hint of near sincerity, but I don't know what any of it means.

Another gunshot rings out, followed by the sagging sound of a neck snap and a rope creak. This gunshot echoes for longer, a grave hush falling over the expanse. The other outlaws holster their weapons, and The Deputy looks out to a silhouette brandishing a rifle on the far end of the outpost. The man strung up to the tree no longer struggles to keep his balance, his body spasms as the last of his air supply leaves him. He dies before our very eyes. I watch everyone else, they all seem entranced in those seconds, like children pulling wings off flies and waiting to see if they'll sprout new ones.

I remember him now, the hanging man with rope burn around his neck. As he grows bluer, my memory gets clearer. I served him champagne after he played five finger roulette with another server. I remember how he twisted the knife in the server's hand, waiting to see him flinch or gasp.

"I know him," I say.

"Don't get attached darlin', chances are, they don't care to remember you," The Deputy intones as she disembarks from the horse. She stretches out her hands for me to lean into, then she tugs me off the horse. It's only when I'm swaying on my feet that I realise how sore my thighs are from the ride.

The silhouette with the rifle is close enough now for me to see she's a woman. Beautiful in a Victorian way, all cheekbones and spotlight-stealing eyes, with a grim line where a smile used to live, as evident from the deep laugh lines in her fair skin.

"Clementine," The Deputy tilts her hat in greeting.

"Bringing strays now?" Clementine looks me over with seldom a tick or flinch working over her features.

I feel myself wanting to wither from her gaze. Clementine's petite fingers grab my cheeks. I feel her polished nails leave crescent marks. She holds her winter gaze until I relent and look away.

The Deputy clicks her tongue, "Not too long ago, I was the stray."

Displeased with what she sees, Clementine lets go of my face. "She isn't like us."

"Not yet," The Deputy hooks a thumb in her belt loop.

"We'll see about that," Clementine makes her way towards the hanging tree. "Restrain her in the shack, Delores will know what to do with her when she returns."

"Yes, Ma'am," The Deputy locks her fingers around my wrist and pulls me forward.

"I never pegged you as the type to take orders," I say in an effort to get some form of emotional response.

The Deputy licks her lips, "Every revolution has a hierarchy, but you're right, I don't like takin' no-one's orders. Maybe I just want you to myself."

I gulp, and The Deputy barks with laughter. In my peripheral, the dove returns, stark white against the red horizon.

The shack may have looked hostile and unwelcoming on the outside, but lo and behold, it was even worse on the inside. There was no furniture except for a single table and a chair with a broken leg.

The Deputy nudges her head at a spot by the panelled wall, I follow. Then she shrugs off her leather vest and starts unbuttoning her shirt. She lets the thin material of her stained shirt fall to the ground. I notice her breasts are small, but not disturbed by the cooling desert air. She grabs her vest and buttons it back up. Now she's all leather and bare skin. She gestures for me to sit on the shirt.

In a strange way, there's a gentleness to The Deputy's actions when it's only the two of us. A kind of hidden softness. The shirt doesn't keep me warm, but it does keep the dust off my body.

"For the last touch," The Deputy unties her bandana from her neck and holds my hands against a protruding piece of metal in the structure. She ties them fast and winks, digging into her pockets for a cigar and a matchbook.

"What's going to happen to me now that you've brought me here?" I ask at the exact same moment more gunfire goes off outside. I imagine that sagging sound of rope creaking under the full weight of a body. I taste the rising acid from my stomach and I'm left feeling queasy.

The Deputy takes a drag of her cigar, the tobacco chases after me as she exhales a puff of smoke. "Well," she begins, "so long as them scorpions or snakes don't get in, nothin'."

I roll my eyes, growing impatient with this game of tug and war we've been playing for next to two days now.