Coyote - A Novel of Interstellar Exploration Part 18

In the stillness of the moment, everyone watched as he stamped his boots on the floor and removed his drenched cap. Carlos couldn't help but notice the attention he was getting. "Am I missing something?" he asked as he pulled off his rain-slicked poncho and hung it next to the door. "Is there a problem?"

"No problem." Lew had already taken a mug off the shelf and was holding it beneath the keg. The colony eventually would get around to reinventing money; for now, though, your currency was the sweat of your brow. You got as good as you gave. "We were..."

"Lew," Henry said quietly, and Lew quickly shut up. Too late, he remembered how Jorge and Rita Montero died.

"We were talking about hunting for game." Gill half turned to face Carlos, one hand on his drink, the other tucked into his old uniform belt. "I was just saying that we don't get enough meat in our diet, and it's time we start living off the land."

"Seems to me we're doing that already." Jim pushed his mug across the bar and shook his head when Lew silently inquired whether he wanted a refill. "Robert Lee told us at the last Town Meeting that we'd be bringing down the rest of the livestock once we've figured out how to take care of the swoops."

"I'm just saying that we've got an islandful of game that we've barely touched." Gill glanced over his shoulder at Lew to point to his mug and raise a finger.

"They're migrating back up here, but so far all we've done is trap creek crab... and I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of pulling bones out of my teeth."

Scattered chuckles from around the shack, and more than a few nods this time. Lew remained quiet as he finished filling Carlos's mug. As he placed it on the bar, the colonel stepped aside to make room for him. "Here y'go, boy," he said, pushing the mug a little closer. "Elbow up here and have one on the Service."

The Service. Hearing this, Henry winced. After all, the United Republic Service had rounded up left-wing intellectuals like Jorge Montero when they didn't go along with the draconian measures of the National Reform Program. Yet Carlos had either forgotten what his parents had suffered through or had simply chosen to ignore it as a thing of the past; Henry had noticed how the kid had recently taken to treating Colonel Reese with more than a small measure of respect. His father would have sickened... but then, his folks had been on Coyote for less than three days before they had been killed.

"Thank you, sir." Carlos squeezed in between him and Gill. There wasn't a vacant stool, so he had to lean against the counter. Carlos picked up the mug and took a tentative sip; noticing the colonel's watchful eye, he drank more deeply, and Gill gave him an ever-so-slight nod of approval. "So what are you thinking about hunting? Creek cat?"

Oh, no, Henry thought. Don't go there...

Reese shrugged. "Well, that's a possibility, I guess. Might be good for fur, but they look a little too stringy for meat." He paused, then looked Carlos straight in the eye. "I was thinking more about boid."No one said anything, although everyone in the room seemed to be watching Carlos.

Carlos stared at the colonel for a moment, then gazed down at the bar. "What makes you think they're worth hunting? They're nothing but feathers and claws."

"So's a chicken, if you look at it the wrong way," Gill said, "but there's a lot of meat beneath those feathers, and there's got to be some muscle behind those claws. I've taken a close look at one..."

"The one who killed his parents?" Henry asked.

Carlos stiffened, and Henry immediately regretted having spoken. But Reese didn't. "The very same, yes, now that you ask, Dr. Johnson." Although he was addressing Henry, he was also talking to Carlos. "If you don't remember, I'm the guy who shot it. Take my word for it, they're not bulletproof."

"So long as you've got enough bullets."

"Bullets, sure... but guts, too. We've set up perimeter guns around town, and that's kept them away, but what do you hear late at night when you're lying awake in bed? Why do we send no fewer than three people... three armed people... into the brush at any time?"

"Because they're the dominant species, that's why." Lew reluctantly pushed Reese's mug across the bar.

He had given him a refill, but it seemed that he done so only to avoid trouble; any other person who carried on a rant in his place usually got cut off.

"That's where you're wrong." Gill gave Lew a patronizing smile. "We're here to stay, and the sooner we get that across to those... those overgrown ostriches... the better off everyone's going to be." He picked up his drink, turned to Carlos. "And I think you've got some payback coming to you," he added.

"Are you in?"

"Carlos..." Henry began.

"Let him make up his own mind. He's a man now."

Henry caught a flicker of fear in Carlos's solemn brown eyes. He was being challenged, not only by someone whose respect he wished to earn, but also in front of everyone in the Cantina. Henry realized that, if Carlos said no, he'd never be able to walk into the place again... or at least not as a man.

Gill silently awaited his reply.

"I'm in." Carlos met Reese's forthright gaze and raised his mug. "h.e.l.l, yeah. I'm in."

Murmurs from around the room. A couple of men clapped their hands in approval. Gill grinned and tapped his mug against Carlos's, then he turned to look at the others. "Anyone else who wants to join us, you're welcome to tag along. The more the merrier." Then he glanced over his shoulder. "So, Doc... are you coming or not?"

Later, in retropect, Henry still didn't know for certain why Reese invited him to join him and Carlos. He didn't like Gill, and Gill didn't like him; there was no reason why he'd want Johnson in his expedition.

Perhaps the colonel was just drunk, or perhaps he believed Henry would wimp out and thus humiliate himself. Nonetheless, he now had Henry cornered as well.

"Yeah, I'm with you," he said, and had the satisfaction of seeing a glimmer of surprise in Gill's eyes. He told himself that it was only to shepherd Carlos, but the fact of the matter was that he had his own prideto keep. "When do we go?"

"Tomorrow morning." Gill turned to the others. "If you're coming, we'll meet at the grange hall. We'll be heading south down Sand Creek, so bring overnight gear... bedrolls, lamps, and two days' rations.

We'll check out guns and kayaks before we leave. Any questions?"

"What happens if you find a boid?" Lew asked.

"Are you coming?" Reese inquired, and chuckled as Lew shook his head. "Then whip up some barbecue sauce. We're bringing home supper."

An hour or so later, Henry left the Cantina, began making his way home. He'd tapped the keg more than a few times; his boots sloshed through the mud as he staggered down Main Street, pa.s.sing the darkened windows and bolted doors of log houses. At the far end of town he could make out the white drumlike shapes of the Alabama's cargo cylinders, still resting where they had been dropped from orbit late last summer, since then turned into water tanks and grain elevators.

He'd neglected to take his flashlight from the pocket of his slicker, but he didn't need it to see where he was going. The rain had stopped, at least for a few hours, and the clouds had parted. Looming above the horizon was the vast hemisphere of 47 Ursa Majoris B, its ring plane jutting straight up into s.p.a.ce.

He stopped in the street to take in the view. He also badly needed to take a leak, and his house was a couple of hundred feet away. There weren't any Prefects in sight, though, and with this much mud in the street a little p.i.s.s would go unnoticed, so he unb.u.t.toned his fly. The night sky was brilliant with alien constellations and new worlds. Bear's ringed brother Wolf was rising to the east; he could make out three of Coyote's companion moons, Dog, Hawk, and Eagle.

If he waited a little while longer, he even might see the Alabama fly over. Henry was searching for the orbiting starship when his meditation was shattered by a scream.

Think of a madman in a sanitarium. Think of a victim of the Spanish Inquisition being tortured in a prison dungeon. Think of an insane rooster crowing after midnight.

That's the mating cry of a bold.

Henry froze, waiting for the scream to come again, praying that it wouldn't be any closer. Somewhere down the dark street, someone hastily opened a window to close their storm shutters. The perimeter guns had always been able to detect boids when they approached Liberty, and the boids had quickly learned to keep their distance. Nonetheless, no one took chances.

The boid screamed again. It sounded a little less near this time, a little farther away from town. Yet the night wasn't quite so peaceful, the stars not quite so benign.

Six men met in front of the grange hall early the follouuing morning... or rather, five men and a boy wanting to become a man.

Henry expected Jim and Bernie to show up. Despite his earlier skepticism, Jim had been one of the first to join the party, and wherever Jim went, Bernie wasn't far behind. When Henry arrived they were already helping Carlos haul the catskin kayaks from the boathouse behind the grange; Gill was inside the hall, signing out six semiauto rifles from the armory. Yet he was surprised when he saw Lew come walking into town, backpack slung over his shoulder, bedroll beneath his arm. Carrie was with him, but she didn't seem very happy about his last-minute change of mind; she scowled at Gill when Lew sheepishly explained that, if he was going to cook something in his cantina, he preferred to kill and dressit himself. Henry didn't know if that was the full truth, or whether Lew simply wanted to take an adventure, but since the kayaks were two- seaters and there weren't any other volunteers, they welcomed him to the party.

Carrie gave Lew a farewell hug and kiss, then turned and silently walked off.

They spent another half hour loading their gear aboard the beached kayaks. By then a small crowd had gathered on the dock. Jim's and Bernie's wives showed up to see their husbands off, and Carlos put his sister, Marie, in Sissy Levin's care. Henry didn't have a wife or family, so he stood off to the side, chatting with,friends as he waited for the others to finish their goodbyes. Captain Lee showed up just as they were about to depart; apparently he had been among the last to hear about the hunting trip, and he wasn't very pleased. He and Reese stepped into the grange; the others didn't hear their argument, yet just as Henry was Alien M. Steele beginning to think-and secretly hope-that Robert would cancel the sortie, the two men emerged from the hall. Reese, a smug grin on his face, walked to his kayak, picked up a two-bladed paddle, and proclaimed to one and all that they were ready to go. The captain said nothing; arms folded across his chest, he silently watched as the men shoved the kayaks into the creek.

The weather was on their side that morning. The rain clouds had parted, allowing the warm sun to beat down upon the narrow banks of Sand Creek. They'd removed their jackets and peeled back their shirtsleeves before casting off, but the day soon became hot, and before long they were taking off their shirts as well. When Henry looked back from stern of the boat he shared with Lew, the rooftops of Liberty had disappeared far behind them, and even the tall mast of the weather station was nowhere to be seen. Less than two miles downstream, it was impossible to tell that there was a human presence on Coyote.

Sand Creek weaved its way through marshland thick with gra.s.s, brush, and trees. Henry's shoulders and arms ached as the blades of his paddle dipped right and left, right and left, into the tepid brown water, until his lungs became accustomed to working hard in the thin atmosphere and he settled into a regular rhythm. A pair of curious swoops circled the boats for a while, their harsh screeches echoing off the riverbanks, until they gradually lost interest and drifted away, and again the flat landscape was silent.

Silent except for the sound of Gill Reese's voice. He insisted on keeping in front of the others, telling Carlos to paddle a little harder whenever Jim and Bernie threatened to catch up with them, as if they were in some sort of race. Lew and Henry brought up the rear, in no particular hurry to get anywhere soon, yet even from thirty feet away they could hear Reese after everyone else had fallen silent, telling stories about basic training at the Academy (". . . second in my cla.s.s..."), about rowing a canoe down the entire length of the Suwannee River ("... from the Okefenokee Swamp clear down to the Gulf of Mexico...") and rock climbing in the Utah badlands ("... and there I was, clinging to the side of Pistol Peak...") and his first shuttle launch ("... and so I grabbed the stick and...") and after a while it was just one long monologue. The life and times of Colonel Gilbert Reese, a man among men.

"Hemingway would have loved this guy," Lew muttered over his shoulder at one point.

"Hemingway, h.e.l.l," Henry replied. "Let's try Aesop."

All the while, Carlos remained quiet. At first he interjected a question or comment now and then-"So what happened then?" "Really?" "And did he... ?"-until eventually he became silent altogether, still giving Reese his audience, yet letting his gaze drift across the savannah stretching out around them. Henry couldn't tell whether he was actually listening or simply pretending, but his reticence made Henry uneasy in a way he couldn't quite fathom.

Shortly after midday they reached a fork where Sand Creek branched off into a tributary. By then thesun was blazing hot; they had been paddling for over four hours, so they lashed their boats together and dropped anchor near the point. While they lunched on the sandwiches Carrie had sent with them, Jim dug out an orbital map of New Florida and stretched it across the gunnels. Studying it, they saw that the tributary split off to the southeast for about twenty miles before meandering westward again to rejoin Sand Creek just south of the long, skinny sandbar formed by the two streams. Past the confluence, the creek gradually became wider until it joined East Channel, one of the two major rivers that bordered New Florida and eventually flowed into the Great Equatorial River.

No one had yet explored this tributary; it didn't even have a name on the map. Perhaps that was what prompted Reese to insist that they go down it instead of continuing down Sand Creek, even though it would take them farther away from Liberty. Since they hadn't yet spotted any signs of boids, he argued, it made sense for them to explore the tributary, but Henry thought he had another motive. Maybe he was only curious, or perhaps it simply appealed to his vanity to name a stream after himself.

"Let's try it out," Carlos said. "If we don't find anything, we can always paddle back to where we started, right?"

This was the first time he had said much of anything. After listening to Reese talk about himself for four straight hours, one would have thought he'd be aching for decent conversation. Instead he sat quietly in the bow of his kayak, hunched over his paddle as he stared at the gra.s.slands. The sun must be getting to him, Henry thought. Either that, or he's regretting his decision to go on the trip. Henry knew he certainly was.

"No, no." Gill shook his head as he talked around a mouthful of potato salad sandwich. "If we go that way, I don't want to come back until we've reached the end." He brushed the crumbs off his hands, then jabbed a finger at the map. "If we need to, we can pull off and make camp for the night, but I want to see where this takes us."

Once again Henry wondered how Gill had become the de facto leader of this expedition. Probably because he was so accustomed to command, he automatically a.s.sumed it whenever possible. Since he hadn't been elected to the Council, this was his way of a.s.serting himself. Bernie mumbled something about trying to get back home before sunset, but Jim nodded as if surrendering himself to the inevitable.

Neither Lew nor Henry said anything. For better or worse, this was Reese's trip; the rest of them were just along for the ride.

The tributary wasn't like Sand Creek. After the first mile, its banks became so narrow that they had to paddle single file, so shallow that they could easily touch bottom with their oars. Dense walls of spider bush crowded in upon the kayaks from all sides, their roots extending into the stream like veins, their branches arching overhead like a tangled canopy, casting angular shadows across the water. They had entered a swamp darker and more forbidding than the sun-drenched gra.s.slands they'd left behind, and it wasn't long before Henry was certain that they had taken a wrong turn.

Yet Gill insisted that they continue, even after Bernie and Lew begged him to reconsider. He had stopped bragging about his exploits; now his eyes prowled the stream banks, and Henry noticed that he had shifted his rifle between his knees, where he could reach it more quickly. Henry soon found himself doing the same.

They were about three miles downstream when they came upon a small clearing on the left, a place where the spider bush parted almost like a doorway. As he and Carlos rowed closer, Gill suddenly raised a hand, then silently pointed to the stream bank. Lew and Henry looked at each other, then slowly paddled up alongside the other two kayaks, carefully sliding next to Jim and Bernie.Sourgra.s.s grew in the clearing, yet it lay low along the ground, as if something large had recently pa.s.sed through, pushing down the gra.s.s on its way to the water. Gill used his paddle to point to the water's edge, and Henry saw what he had spotted: a distinctive three-clawed impression in the mud.

"This is it," Gill whispered. "Here's where we'll find 'em."

Once they beached the kayaks and gathered the rifles, the hunters set out on foot through the opening in the spider brush, following the trail of trampled gra.s.s left by the boid. It led them out of the brush and into a broad, open meadow surrounded by groves of blackwood and faux birch. On either side of the narrow trail the sourgra.s.s grew shoulder high, so dense that they could barely see through it. The meadow was humid in the midafternoon sun, hot as a furnace and still as a painting.

They marched two abreast down the trail, clutching their guns to their chests, trying their best to remain quiet. It wasn't easy; the gra.s.s crunched softly beneath their boots with each step they took, and Her- nie's canteen sloshed and clanked on his belt until Gill irritably motioned for him to take it off and leave it behind. Gill and Jim were in the lead, with Carlos and Bernie trailing them; as before, Lew and Henry were in the rear, not an enviable position since boids were sometimes known to attack from behind., Henry frequently glanced over his shoulder, trying to watch every corner of the meadow at once.

Soon the stream could no longer be easily discerned, and even the path itself seemed to be disappearing behind them. A warm breeze drifted through the meadow, wafting through the gra.s.s in a way that suggested movement. Sweat oozed down Henry's forehead, stinging the corners of his eyes, tasting sour on his lips.

But they were almost halfway through the meadow; if they could only reach the far end, he prayed, perhaps Gill would give up, and they could return to the safety of the kayaks.

He glanced at Lew; without having to ask, he knew that his partner had the same thought. It was then that it occurred to him that everything was much too quiet. No swoops, no swampers, no creek cats...

nothing moved except the wind in the gra.s.s.

And them.

Reese stopped. He raised a hand, bringing the column to a halt, then he crouched on his hips, studying something he had found on the trail. Jim glanced around, then bent over to look at the same thing.

Although Henry couldn't see what it was, he intuitively knew what they had found: a pile of boid scat, the ropy brown t.u.r.ds sometimes found just outside town. The wind shifted a little just then, and he picked up a heavy fecal scent. The droppings were fresh.

There was something else, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Again, Henry looked all around, searching for any movement within the meadow. Everything lay still. The breeze died, and now nothing stirred the high curtains of gra.s.s, yet there was a p.r.i.c.kling at the nape of his neck. The atavistic sensation of being watched, studied...

Reese stood up, beckoned for them to continue onward. As he and Jim started walking again, Carlos glanced over his shoulder at Henry. There was a boyish grin on Carlos's face, but Henry saw fear deep within his eyes, and that was when the boid attacked.

The boid had been lurking only a few meters away, keeping breathlessly still, perfectly camouflaged within the tall gra.s.s. Perhaps it had been stalking them ever since they entered the meadow. The moment it saw that their guard was relaxed, if only for a second, it moved in for the kill.

Jim Levin was dead before he knew it. He heard a swift motion to his right side, whipped around just asBernie yelled, and the creature was upon him. Its ma.s.sive orange beak darted forward on its long neck, snapped and twisted in one swift movement. Henry caught a glimpse of a large lump flying off into the tall gra.s.s. He didn't realize that it was Jim's head until it hit the ground.

The next few seconds became minutes, as if time itself had dilated. In those moments, Henry saw: The boid in the middle of the path: an enormous, flightless avian, like a pale yellow ostrich crossed with a small dinosaur, standing upright on long backward-jointed legs, still holding Jim's decapitated corpse in its slender, winglike arms. Six feet and two hundred pounds of instant death.

Reese, somehow having managed to dash past the boid, in a perfect position to fire, yet standing stock-still, staring at the creature, rifle frozen in his hands.

Bernie, on his hands and knees, scrabbling for his gun where he had dropped it, screaming in terror as the boid dropped his friend's body and turned its enormous eyes toward him.

Carlos, standing his ground in the middle of the path, bringing up his rife, settling its stock against his shoulder, squeezing off a round that went wild.

The boid, startled by the flash-bang of the shot, stopping in midcharge, its bloodstained beak open as if in dumbfounded surprise.

Bernie was still screaming, and Henry was just beginning to raise his own gun, when Carlos fired again.

Two shots, three, four... at least two of them missed, but Henry saw bits of orange bone splinter from the boid's beak and small feathers spray from its body.

The boid staggered backward, making that awful screech Henry had heard only the night before.

Just behind him, Lew fired, his gun so close to Henry's right ear that he was deafened. Henry couldn't tell whether he missed or hit, but it was enough to make the boid change its mind.

Abandoning Jim's body, it turned and began loping back down the path...

Straight for Gill.

Reese saw the boid coming. He was at least twelve feet away, and he had his gun half-raised to his shoulder. The boid was at full charge, but it was wounded and in a panic. He had enough time to empty his magazine into the creature, at point-blank range.

But he didn't.

He remained locked in place, his mouth open, even as the boid descended upon him.

And in last few moments of slow time, Carlos lowered his rifle.

"Shoot!" Henry yelled. "Carlos, shoot... I"

The boid lowered its head, snagged Gill within its beak. Reese screamed once, a terrible howl abruptly cut short a half second later as the creature, dragging his body with it, plunged back into tall gra.s.s.

As quickly as the boid had appeared, it vanished.

The hunting party made it back to Liberty a feuu hours after sundown. The clouds had moved in again, so it was in a cold, dark drizzle that they rowed the last few miles up Sand Creek. The most welcome sight of Henry's life were the lights of town as they rounded the last bend, but even then they didn't ease upfrom the paddles. Behind them, the boids were making their nocturnal cries, as if rea.s.serting their territory.

Someone had spotted the kayaks as they approached town; a small crowd stood waiting for them at the boat dock. They watched in stunned silence as Jim Levin's corpse, wrapped in a bloodstained sleeping bag, was unloaded from the bow of Bernie's kayak. Henry saw Wendy Gunfet ther push through the mob; she flung her arms around Carlos, who stood alone, with a rifle in one hand. Then Henry turned away; he joined Bernie and Lew as they went to the Levin home to tell Jim's wife and kids what had happened.

At least Jim was lucky to have a grave. Although his companions managed to bring Levin's remains back to Liberty, Gill's body was never found; the boid had taken its victim away into the gra.s.s. Yet few in Liberty felt much remorse over his death. Reese had been a bully; everyone knew that. He had badgered the others into taking the trip, then turned coward when he had to walk the talk. Coyote was a hard world; humans had named it after a trickster demiG.o.d, and you can't lie to the G.o.ds and expect to live.

For a time, Henry believed that was the lesson Carlos had learned.

Gill Reese had intended for Carlos to become a man that day; perhaps the boy had taken a step in that direction. Yet although Henry would share many drinks with Carlos at the Cantina, never once did he ask why he'd lowered his gun at that critical moment on Levin Creek.