The Feathers of Fire [1st DRAFT]

4. Unwanted Enemies

                          "Oh C'mon," he teased, giving me a coy smile. I marched over to him and gripped his forearm tightly. Now he looked worried, (he's seen me break a man's arm before). "You basically just sent up a becon to the whole city that we're here, and no, I don't have anything with me at the moment because I'm not stupid enough to carry my goods out in the open before I'm sure that you're here and that nobody's kidnapped, robbed, or murdered you!"

                         I let go of his arm and he took a step back. "You teenagers are so dramatic, I do that fancy stuff all of the time, nobody cares. Now, go get your stuff so we can trade." My eye twitched, but I turned around, climbed down the building, whistled for Benito who came trotting over from an alleyway, grabbed several things from his saddle bags and threw them onto a lower level of the roof before climbing up myself.

                           Luis's eyes lit up with shock when I showed him the best loot I had scavenged in years. I'll admit, I was proud of myself for scoring such good stuff.

                          He knelt before my small backpack full of cowpeas, two waterproof cloth ponchos, a few hats that I knew would fit his style, several pieces of stolen jewelry, three newly polished hunting knives, eleven dried up strips of meat, and a hydro flask. I had risked my life to get that hydro flask, but when I saw Luis's awed expression after laying eyes on it, I knew that it had been worth it.

                            He examined each of my items carefully, making sure that I wasn't ripping him off by having one of them broken or fake. Then he giggled, clapping his hands together like a little kid. I didn't know his exact age, but I knew he was in his mid twenties. As for details about each other's pasts?

                          He knew that I got my gun from my father who had passed away years ago, that I'd lost my family during the disaster of Restos, and that I'd gotten Benito by trading my mother's music box. Other than that, I wasn't really open to sharing, but believe me, he's the only person in the world that knew that much about me, so by my standards, I trusted him very much.

                            What did I know about him? Like I said, he was in his mid twenties, he lost his parents in the evacuation of Restos, and he had lots of distant relatives that settled here in Durango, making up most of his clients. "This is fantastic!" he said looking over my loot. "Boy do I have a surprise for you.

                        There was this old man that hoarded some great stuff in his little hideout, well he recently died, it became a free for all, and guess who got there first!" He silently mouthed the words 'this guy' as he smiled and pointed two thumbs at himself.

                        I rolled my eyes and pretended not to care, but it was actually very good news. We moved my stuff to the base of the tower and he brought out his. Now it was my turn to be amazed. There was spyglass. It was small but I recognized the model from the 80's. The 2180's that is. From what I could remember about the commercial, it could zoom in, or out, had settings such as "night vision" and "heat vision" and could even record things like a camera and then play it back in slow motion.

                        It was the ultimate hunting tool. I could see animals at night and based off of their heat signatures. There was also a pair of what looked like gently used combat boots similar to my own only dark red instead of brown.

                          There was a bag of rolled oats, some silver shears, an old solar power apple watch that had a hairline crack in the glass, a wicker basket with five ears of corn in it, several rolls of gauze, duct tape, a white plastic bottle the size of a shot glass with a medicine dropper leaning against it, a few needles and a spool of surgical thread, some sticks of mini deodorant, and chapstick in cherry or peppermint flavors.