Scars of the Adobe

Could a body burn from the inside out without catching fire?

My collarbone answered that with every step Ocotlan took. Black heat pulsed through my chest, thick and greasy like burned kerosene. The venom from that mutated shifter's fangs had sunk deep into the meat above my ribs. Every jolt of Ocotlan's boots against the hardpan sent white-hot spikes through my skull.

"Stay with me, rancher," Ocotlan muttered under her breath.

Her arm was locked around my waist, though she favored her left side with every stride, her bandaged shoulder graze from our canyon climb pulling tight under the strain of my dead weight. My good arm hung over her broad shoulders, my fingers hooked into the collar of her denim work jacket. She smelled like copper, diesel fuel, and dry mountain juniper. Under normal circumstances, that scent would have had my wolf pacing the perimeter of my ribs. Right now, my wolf was curled in the dark, snarling at the black poison spreading through our bloodstream.

"I'm awake," I managed to rasp. The words tasted like dry lime. "Still breathing."

"You sound like a busted carburetor."

"Flattery won't make me lighter."

She gave a rough snort, but her grip didn't slip an inch.

We cleared the rim of the salt creek wash. Ahead, half-swallowed by red sand and brittle creosote brush, sat the old sheep waystation. It was a low, thick-walled adobe ruin built fifty years ago by Spanish herders before the border packs carved up the valley. The cedar roof had rotted away, but the three-foot-thick mud walls still stood against the desert sun.

Ocotlan kicked the sagging plywood door aside. She hauled me over the threshold and lowered me onto a relatively clean bench of packed clay.

The cool shadow of the adobe hit my skin like cold water. I leaned back against the wall, chest heaving. The simple movement made my left arm go numb to the fingertips.

"Let me see it," Ocotlan said.

She dropped her first-aid roll on the dirt floor and knelt between my knees. Her hands were fast and stripped of wasted motion. She pulled back the sliced, blood-crusted edges of my canvas shirt, exposing my left shoulder.

I hissed through my teeth. The air touching the bite felt like lye.

"Bad?" I asked.

"Worse than bad," she said flatly. "The puncture tracks are black. The tissue around the bite is turning grey."

I forced my eyes open to look. Two deep gouges sat right over my clavicle. Dark, oily fluid seeped from the torn edges, smelling faintly of bitter almonds and rotten copper.

"Flotation reagent," I said, my voice dry. "Baltazar mixed synthetic rattler distillate with cyanide leach. He wanted a dirty kill. One that rots the flesh before the shifter healing can trigger."

"Drinking snakeroot won't touch it, will it?" she asked, her eyes darting to the black puncture wounds.

"No," I said. "Snakeroot purges natural viper venom. This synthetic solvent binds to the red cells. It tricks the wolf into attacking healthy tissue."

"Tlalli. Cut the science lecture. What do you need?"

"Creosote root," I whispered, the room tilting slightly around her dark eyes. "The deep taproot carries resin that neutralizes petroleum solvent. And sulfur. There should be yellow crust in the bottom of the old cistern out back. Sheep dips used raw sulfur to kill scab mites."

Ocotlan didn't ask twice. She stood up, drew her heavy tactical knife, and vanished out the doorway.

I slumped against the mud brick, trying to breathe through my nose. My head throbbed in time with my pulse. My uninjured right hand tightened around the rolled dispatch ledgers Ocotlan had pressed into my grasp, resting safely beside me on the clay bench. Baltazar Ramos's signed orders to poison the wells and massacre the highway pack.

Proof enough to stop a war. If I lived long enough to carry it to the border.

Was my brother already loading rifles at the home ranch?

Yaretzi was proud, stubborn, and terrified of looking weak. If Baltazar's trucks dropped poison drums at Mile Marker 42 before four o'clock, Yaretzi would cross the arroyo with every gun we owned. Mateo would be right behind him, baying for blood.

A scrape at the threshold broke the silence.

Ocotlan came back through the door. In one hand, she carried a thick, fibrous creosote root, dark with damp red soil. In the other, she held a chipped enamel bowl filled with pale yellow sulfur crust scraped from the cistern stones.

"Found both," she said.

She set the bowl on the floor and pulled a battered metal Zippo from her pocket. She struck the wheel. A yellow flame danced in the dim adobe room.

"This is going to hurt," she said quietly.

"I survived three years of Mateo's marksmanship drills," I murmured, trying for a smirk that fell flat. "I can take a little desert weed."

"Don't get cocky, rancher. You haven't seen me operate yet."

She crushed the creosote root between two flat river stones, mashing the fibrous pulp until thick, pungent sap oozed out. She dumped the bitter mash into the bowl with the sulfur, adding a splash of clean water from her canteen. She stirred the mixture with the tip of her knife, working it into a thick, mustard-colored paste.

Then she held the broad steel blade of her knife directly over the Zippo flame.

The metal began to smoke, turning a dull, cherry red.

My wolf stirred inside my chest, claws digging into my lungs in sudden alarm. Fire. Danger.

"Ready?" Ocotlan asked, her eyes locking onto mine.

Her gaze was steady, dark, and utterly devoid of hesitation. There was no pity in her face, only pure, uncompromising intent. The kind of strength that didn't ask for permission to survive.

"Do it," I said.

Ocotlan packed a wad of the sulfur paste directly into the gaping bite wounds.

The chemical reaction was instantaneous. Cold fire flared into boiling lava beneath my skin. The sulfur bit into the synthetic solvent, hissing softly against the open flesh.

I choked on a scream, my spine arching off the clay bench. My right hand shot out and clamped down on Ocotlan's bicep. My fingernails bit through her denim jacket, digging into hard muscle.

She didn't pull away. A sharp hiss escaped her teeth as the strain pulled against her own wounded shoulder, but she used her full body weight to pin my shoulders flat against the wall.

"Scream if you need to," she growled. "No one out here can hear you."

I clamped my jaws shut until my molars ground together. Tears leaked hot down my temples, but I held my voice in my chest. I wouldn't howl like a wounded pup in front of the highway enforcer.

Then came the knife.

Ocotlan pressed the heated flat of the steel against the sulfur pack.

Steam puffed up, carrying the foul, suffocating stink of scorched creosote and burnt hair. The agony was blinding. White light exploded behind my eyelids. Every nerve ending from my ear to my elbow screamed in unison.

My wolf surged forward, desperate to shift and fight the burning iron.

"No," Ocotlan snapped, her voice cutting through the ringing in my ears. She brought her face inches from mine. "Don't shift, Tlalli! If your bones break into wolf form now, the poison locks into the marrow. Fight it. Look at me."

I forced my eyes open through the red haze.

Her face filled my vision. Sweat beaded along her strong jawline. Her pupils were blown wide, dark amber rimmed in gold. She was leaning so close I could feel the heat radiating from her skin.

Then her scent washed over me.

It wasn't just cedar and diesel. It was clean rain on sunbaked slate, hot iron, and something fiercely protective that belonged entirely to her.

Mate.