and scratch the dirt from my skin in little circles.
The skin where the bullet pierced me is pink and rough, but it’s finally closed. It still hurts when I breathe deeply, but the pain is only an echo of its former self. I pass my fingers over the scar, regretting how fast it’s healed. Every day, I’ve examined the wound in the old, cracked hand mirror the bullet catcher uses for shaving and ticked off the days in my mind. Soon he will force me out.
I’m still shivering as I head back into camp. The fire crackles. A pot of coffee boils and steams above it. The bullet catcher gives a curt nod as he heads down to the lake for his turn. By the time he returns the coffee is ready. He pours out two mugs and hands me one.
We’ve honed this routine over the months and, dare I say, I think he’s taken a shine to my being here, our little morning ritual of coffee and near silence before the work of the day begins.
He sips, sits in his chair, pulls out his pipe, and begins cleaning the bowl with a knife. “Your wound has healed,” he says. “It’s time you were moving on.” He packs the bowl with tobacco, lights it, and puffs a zero into the air.
“It still hurts when I breathe,” I stammer. I pull my shirt down one shoulder to reveal the spot above the collarbone where the skin is still raw.
He raises his hand to stop me and says, “You will have food enough and water to make it down the mountain. You helped with the hunting and preserving. You have earned your share.”
“I have earned more than that.” My face is hot despite the cool mountain morning.
He puffs calmly on his pipe and says, “You are young and without ties. I offer you enough food and water to get to town. From there you can go any direction you wish. You could even go north, out of the desert, for as few ties as you have to the Southland.”
“You talk like it’s a blessing to be an orphan.”
“There are blessings and misfortunes to every walk of life. The orphan is lonely, but weightless, and can fly anywhere. A person from a large family is tied to others, but also to the ground, and finds it difficult to travel.”
“And if I tie myself to you?”
“This is not the life for you.” He had been watching the smoky zeroes as they floated skyward and unraveled, but now he looks at me and says grimly, “Your brother came to understand that, but too late.”
“You’ve already been teaching me, whether you realize it or not.” I take a deep breath and say, “I’ve learned to trap, and clean wounds. I’ve learned to build a fire. I’ve learned so much.”
“This was your brother’s dream. Not yours. I advise you to find a dream of your own.”
“And what would you recommend? What opportunities do you think there are for a girl in places like Sand or any of the other one-horse towns in the Southland? Dishwasher? Bartender? Prostitute? I’d rather die.”
The bullet catcher studies me. Smoke curls up out of his nose. “You should know the consequences of the decision you are about to make. To be a bullet catcher is to be an outlaw. You will be hated. You will be feared. If you are lonely now, you will be lonelier still. You will most likely die young. There will be pain that I cannot describe.”
He looks at me, his eyes studying my face, judging every twitch and tiny reaction. “Now,” he says. “Does that sound better or worse than being a dishwasher?”
Though I know I shouldn’t, I look down at my boots. They’re polished and mended—another skill the bullet catcher has taught me in my time with him. I don’t want him to see how frightened I am by his words, just in case it shows on my face. I take a breath, summon my courage, look him in the eyes, and say, “It’s not about better or worse. This is what I want.”
“Have you ever heard of the merchant’s curse?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“The merchant’s curse is to get everything you ever wanted.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a curse,” I say.
He looks at me for a long time, then simply says, “Very well.”
• • •
We wake before dawn each day. The squirrels and wood mice are still asleep; the foxes and wolves are still out on their night hunts. We stalk with them for a time. The bullet catcher leads, his steps silent and light so as not to break twigs and hoarfrost underfoot. I’m his shaky, half-asleep shadow, trailing loudly behind him. When the light breaks and the nighttime animals bed down, we are still out, tracking through the woods around camp. We aren’t hunting for anything in particular. The bullet catcher’s just testing me. Each morning, I’m sore, but stronger than the previous day.
“Exhaustion is good for focus,” he says. And I scowl and clamp my mouth shut to keep from cursing.
We get back to camp in time to see the sunrise over the eastern peak of the mountain. Winter is in full swing. And though the sun lights the sky a bright orange-purple, it does nothing to warm the morning. When we break into the clearing, the bullet catcher’s breath is slow and even; only his flared nostrils give away any sign that we just ran for miles through the craggy mountainside. I collapse in the dirt. I’m so tired my eyes water. The dirt sticks to my face, turning my skin the same color as the earth, and I wish I could just melt into the ground and sleep forever.
The bullet catcher ignores me and prepares to bathe, gathering up his scratching stone and rug to dry with. I crawl to the fire pit and begin arranging tinder onto the blackened remains of last night’s fire.
“What are you doing?” the bullet catcher asks from over my shoulder.
“Building a fire for breakfast.”
“Do not crawl in the dirt like an animal unless your legs have been shot out. And even then you should do your best to stand.”
I scowl into the cold campfire and struggle to my feet. “I can’t feel my legs,” I say. “They may as well have been shot out.”
“Then it is good practice.” He waits for me to finish preparing the fire and to pull out the flint before he says, “A bullet catcher does not eat with dirty hands.”
I drop the flint into the sooty dirt and can almost feel the hairs on the back of the bullet catcher’s neck standing on end. He glares at me, his eyes telling me to pick up the flint, to respect my tools, but I’m too tired to care. I stomp past him on my way to the lake, and as I’m passing him, I spit in the dirt by his boots. He doesn’t say anything. But hellfire flickers behind his eyes.
• • •
Back in camp, my hair is wet and freezing, but the bullet catcher has the fire burning. It warms my bones, soaked through with ice water from the lake. He’s fed up with me, so he says nothing when he grabs his things and goes down to the lake for his turn.
When the bullet catcher returns from the lake he starts breakfast. Today there is boar meat. The bullet catcher turns it on a spit. The fat crackles as it drips into the fire. And there are eggs, and greens I don’t know the name of, too. And the bullet catcher piles it all onto my plate because he says I’ll need my energy. Then he sits back in his chair with his own plate, heaped
