Short story fragment
This is an old ss idea I've had knocking around on the hard drive for a bit. Got up yesterday and got re-inspired to work on it. Read it if you'd like--like I say it's a work in progress and just in the formative stages at that. Not spell checked yet either--spell check is the devil's tool, you should know that.
Feel free to comment on it, just know that I pretty much ignore 2 categories of comments on my writing: "that's nice" and "that sucks". Any substantive analysis or critique beyond the aforementioned polarities of pure fluff is welcome.
Trying this cut tag thingy that sidhefire showed me. Tenative working title is
Characters
Bill (Heathen)
(Sir) William
Lady Geonora of the Seven Oghams (or Orgasms)
Mack (after the truck)
Father Belhamy
Tara
Mona
Red (F-red-rick)
Shannon (Bill’s mom-dead)
David (Bill’s dad-dead)
Clan
Runningdog
Numo the invisible dog
Clan leader - with harem
Scott the burner
Edward the overweight crossdresser
Milton the theater operator
Rotbone the wanderer
Harley the biker boss
It’s about noon, the plains are hot.
William looked up ahead at the trail. The sun beat him relentlessly, physically. Lacking only perhaps a half a turn to midday it was hot today. The sweat had dried on his forehead leaving a painfull salt crust, and the day promised only to get hotter. Father Belhamy walked behind him talking occasionally with Lady Geonora of the Seven Orgasms. Seven Oghams he reminded himself…Seven Oghams… One day he’d slip up and call her by that name if he wasn’t carefull, lord only knew what the Father would do to him as his punishment. But then again, why would he defend the honor of stinking Heathen?
The trail wound over higher ground somewhat, the tall dry grass obscuring the broken ground, making it hard to walk with certainty. Off to the right, fools shadows abounded, promising a shade they never delivered. It was only the play of clouds, the wind and a certain trick of light--out here the was nothing but heat, dust, death and rads. Idly he flicked on the clicker. Same as all morning: rads in the yellow, steady.
“Shut that off boy, we know what we need to know”, Father Belhamy said reprovingly.
“Yes sire”-the response was automatic, conditioned.
The bricks were the thing, they gave power to the clicker somehow, like a coal from the fire carried all the long day and taken out at night to start another. But the bricks held the spark of…whatever…for far longer. Lifetimes they lasted untill sometimes they burst giving off a strong smell and yellow powder like campfire ash, but it burned the skin and made you sneeze. Once as a child he’d found a few burst bricks by the camp, in the dark space underneath a blast house. It was cool and damp down there and after he’d killed the momma and papa snakes living there, peacefull. Only a few sluggish cancer bugs down there stirred by the sunlight he’d let in clearing his way down. And those no bigger then his fist-easily enough crushed should they make an attack. But the real prize were the bricks-rusted through and oozing their strange yellow and white ash. These he could take apart in secret without risking eternal damnation from Father Belhamy. And so he had-prying apart the decaying metal with rocks at first and later with a sharply pointed metal tool he’d found down there. The coals had all gone out of those bricks, leaving only the ash in chalky cylanders. He’d hoped to find an explanation somehow, maybe the last glowing spark of the brick, an answer to how they worked-something that would reveal their inner workings. If he could figure that out, maybe he could figure out how to make them!
Even Father Belhamy couldn’t punish a boy who could re-make the secret fire of the Old Ones. He could taste almost taste the beauty of the vision-he would be a hero, unstopable, all powerfull. He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted! Let that bully Billy come and try to punch him on the arm. You just don’t mess with a guy who can make a brick work! He savored the image of Billy the Bully doing his chores for him while he watched on, gloating. Holding the first new brick of power created since the Infernal Burn. He saw Father Belhamy there as well, nodding in approval-the inferior Heathen peoples working as slaves before the true people. The Old Ones ways beginning again as he’d preached, everything true to his profecy for the people and William the center of it all.
But the Old Ones ways were not so easily divined, even to a true child of god. The power of the bricks had long since gone. He squated there in the cool, damp darkness, bending and twisting the rusted metal that contained the bricks. He took out the rotting cylanders and held them into the shaft of light, turning them over and over with the tool he’d found, poking and prodding them. Spurred by the purity of his vision he’d spent most of the day down there, twisting, prying the stuff apart and holding it to the light of day.
After a time, he’d grown weary of metal on metal, mystery on mystery. Somehow the Old People coaxed fire from coals without heat and kept them preseved. And the secret of doing so was beyond him. The yellow chalk was burning his hands, making his eyes water and making him sneeze painfully. In the end he’d picked up a great rock and smashed all the bricks, smashed everthing down there, raising huge clouds of burning dust that even the cancer bugs avoided. Choking and coughing he’d run from the place, kicking the sagging sheet of metal back over the opening he’d found with a tremendous boom that echoed in his ears all the way back to camp and all the way to the river where he’d washed himself clean and cried huge silent sobs in his secret place by the big tree.
“Boy!”, snapped Father Belhamy, interrupting his reverie.
The father was not more then ten paces behind William now, and closing fast, angrily.
“What the Hell’s wrong with you boy?” the father asked, grabbing William by his elbow and spinning him around.
William realized he’d been daydreaming again, and this time as point-man on a movement. The Father would have his ass for this, figuratively if not literally. He needed an excuse, and quickly. He said the first thing to come to his mind.
“The heat, Sire.”
“Yes?”, he asked impatienly, his face florid in the unrelenting sun.
“It’s making me…” see things he was going to say, but decided that would be a sure sign of madness and impurity. Worse likely then admitting to daydreaming while under holy duty. “It’s…just…I…don’t feel well suddenly”, he finished lamely.
“You pussy”, spat the father. “You want me to call a fucking Pagan up to the work of holy man?”
“NO SIRE”, he said with real conviction. Having Bill up at point would seriously hurt his claim on Tara, and Father B knew it. Not to mention his honor among the people.
“Then get your ass up to point and LEAD like a man of god. If such you would be…” Father Belhamy let the implication linger in the heated air between them.
“GO!”, he said sternly, “and take a rad read up on the crest of the next hill, it’s been nearly a full turn and the breeze has changed somewhat”
“Yes Sire”, he said, relieved to be moving out from under the fathers watchfull gaze.
He touched the clicker at his side absently, ensuring it was still there. The heavy bulk of it re-assured him, the familiar weight and heft of it comforting and somehow cool in the hot, heavy air. He alone was entrusted with the care of it, it was a symbol of his supremacy amongst the people. Moving swiftly and with purpose he strode ahead of the people up a long slope of summer dried, neck-tall grass. The dust of his passage hung low in the grass in the still dry air, diffusing slowly into it in a broad fan. Of this “breeze” Father had mentioned, William could see no trace. The reading on the hill was the same as had been for at least a moons time: rads in the yellow, steady.
Bill struggled through the heat of the day at the trail end of the People. The dust wasn’t so bad back here he thought, but the pace was agonizing. He guarded the elderly, the sick and the lame on the long march into…somewhere. Someplace foretold to Father Belhamy in a Grand and Holy Vision. There was clear water there he said, and an enclave (whatever that was) of Old Ones. The vision was pure and true he said. Life would return again, the Old Ways would be restored, the power of the rads would be diminished and cast back unto the fires of hell he said. And on and on for whole evenings he’d go sometimes, when the liqour mash fever was running strong in him. He said he drank for the purity of visions, for the clear seeing of things to come, forbade anyone but himself to drink the mash, but Bill had seen him with his mug sometimes around dark. Sitting alone by his tent and taking small sips, lips puckering up by the fire in the water, his eyes clouded over, exhaling hugely with every taste.
And so the people followed him to the East-to the land of the rising sun. A fine thing this, to go to where the sun was born. Perhaps there where the sun was birthed they’d find this “enclave”. Bill hoped that there would be a place for him there, in the belly of the sun. He hoped the old people in their wisdom would treat him and his kind better then the Father was. But then again the Old Ones had unleashed the rads on the earth, grievously wounding the Mother. That much he knew for certain, whatever the Father said to the contrary. He could feel her pain and her struggle to become healthy and whole again.
Old Elena stumbled then, on a small clump of clay, catching herself on the ancient withered staff she carried. The day was hot beyond reckoning and she was old and worn down from near a moons daily journey. Her time was near and she knew it. Bill was at her side immediately, helping her to steady herself. She was panting heavily, winded, and trembling with fatigue.
“I must rest soon”, she sighed, knowing there was no rest when the Father was moving.
Bill said nothing, could think of nothing to ease Old Elena’s pain. The Father had no mercy in his heart for the “weak and impure”. If she couldn’t keep the pace she was “free to follow her own path”. That meant she was cast out from the people, left to wander alone in the wastes. Without food and water she’d die in a night, Bill was sure of it, her body would feed the den of the cancer roaches before it was cool. Rads curse Father Belhamy’s heart he thought, heart and maybe some of his other innerds.
The thought of the father in the slow agony of rad sickness brought a grim smile to his face, but did little to help Old Elena. She stood panting in the heat, clutching him for support, her eyes gone into some hidden place within her. He hoped it was cool and peacefull there, where she was. He briefly considered slipping away, quietly leaving the old woman to make her peace and prepare for her time.
Her eyes lost their glaze for a moment and she looked at him, looked into him, looked through him. He felt the Godess there, strong and powerfull, serene even amid such pain. He saw her as she must once have been; a strong, powerfull woman-beautifull even. She said continued to struggle for breath, saying nothing, but he eyes pleaded with him clearly “don’t let me die out here, not like this.”
Father Belhamy would punish him severely and perhaps even his own Lady of the Seven Oghams would reproach him for interfering in the weird of another, but the image of Old Elena out here alone in the heat and the dust, dying forsaken and without ceremony was too much to bear. He answered the appeal in her eyes with a short nod of his head-he’d give her what aid he could.
The people were spread out now, a long column of slowly moving specks against a backdrop of dead dried grass. In the distance, the point man was lost in the shimmer of heat and dust. Miles ahead the lead must be now and who knew when the all-mighty Reverand would call the next rest. The closest straggler to them was a good quarter mile ahead and that was Blind Jessica. She wasn’t totally blind, but the rads had left their mark on her face and her eyes were a covered with a pale, unhealthy white film. She was strong in the second sight for sure, but perhaps because of this she was completely mad. Her laughter, and odd and somehow disturbing wheeze that sent chills up his spine reminded Bill of an old machine he’d found a long time ago.
It was some sort of pump-it’s ancient metal rusted and flaking. He’d felt an odd space, a kind of gap in the animals out near there. Curious, he’d walked most of the day, tracking and tasting the wind as he went. The wind however was at his back for most of the morning and fairly strong so he did not smell the thing untill he came to the top of a low hill and saw the beast. It was a great metal bird of prey anchored to the earth. It was still alive somehow, it’s long beak making slow cyclical thrusts into the earth. Who knew how long ago it had been birthed at this spot, yet here it stood as if in defiance of The Burn, slowly slowly thrusting itself into the ground, marking the passage of moons and full cycles with it’s creaking cadence. The sound it made was a thing Bill would never forget-a never-ending scream from somewhere deep, dark, and forbidden. A cry for release from the endless repetition; it was as if the thing was at war with itself-driven to be forever damned to dredge liquid darkness from some hidden place deep in the core of the great mother, wanting only to be finished yet compelled to dip its beak into the blackness again and again. He wanted desperately to make it stop, to stop that endless grinding scream, but the thing terrified him and the scent of death hung heavy in the air. Even the snakes avoided the thick black goo around the base of it-only the meanest of the cancer bugs lived there-the ones who could spit. Perhaps they’d learned to live on whatever foulness the thing brought up.
“We shall learn a valuable lesson from the face of Blind Jessica” the Reverand had yelled one evening during his sermon. Bill had been largely ignoring the Rev up to that point. He was allowed to fletch during the meetings as he was the best shot among all the people with his bow. A small luxury but an important one to him, as it meant he could tune out the seemingly endless flow of words of the Reverand and focus on something tangible. Arrows he could at least touch, and shape. The mans words were gone as he said them, less then dust, a continual string of broken promises that stretched back to Bill’s earliest memories. And yet the people followed him, trusted him, listened to him and followed his orders. It was hope, he’d decided one night, walking alone in the light of a full moon. Hope kept the people listening, kept them believing the Rev and kept them following his orders.
It was somehow like baiting a crow he thought. As his father, his real father had shown him. You laid out the small bundle of pungent herbs dipped in fat, making sure to tie it down to the ground. Around that you laid your rope, and then there was only the waiting and the watching. The crows came down fast and hard, eager to snatch their meal and depart back to safety. They were too fast to sense most of the time even, you had to keep your eyes open and your head clear or you went home empty handed. If you’d gotten that bait tied down good and tight, then the only trick was pulling the noose closed on the birds leg fast enough. Otherwise they got the bait and ran, or dropped the bait and flown off in a great huff. Letting every living thing in earshot know that a hunter was near.
* * *
Out in the flatlands Runningdog was hurting. All day with the wind driving sand into his face he’d made the long lonely march back to camp. Two days out into the secret place he’d dreamed about and no real food the whole way. His dog trailed behind him, listless in the heat, following because he’d always followed, following because his owner was in front of him and perhaps would find some water ahead. Of the two, beaten and bedraggled by heat and dust and rads it was hard to say which was worse off: the boy or the dog.
The sun was low into the sky now, her belly being slowly scraped by the teeth of the Mountains ahead. Her heat had largely gone, but the last light of day shone directly into the boys eyes, making bright starburst rays of the swirling dust and sand.
Runningdog stumbled and caught himself…barely. Two days gone now and no food
Feel free to comment on it, just know that I pretty much ignore 2 categories of comments on my writing: "that's nice" and "that sucks". Any substantive analysis or critique beyond the aforementioned polarities of pure fluff is welcome.
Trying this cut tag thingy that sidhefire showed me. Tenative working title is
Characters
Bill (Heathen)
(Sir) William
Lady Geonora of the Seven Oghams (or Orgasms)
Mack (after the truck)
Father Belhamy
Tara
Mona
Red (F-red-rick)
Shannon (Bill’s mom-dead)
David (Bill’s dad-dead)
Clan
Runningdog
Numo the invisible dog
Clan leader - with harem
Scott the burner
Edward the overweight crossdresser
Milton the theater operator
Rotbone the wanderer
Harley the biker boss
It’s about noon, the plains are hot.
William looked up ahead at the trail. The sun beat him relentlessly, physically. Lacking only perhaps a half a turn to midday it was hot today. The sweat had dried on his forehead leaving a painfull salt crust, and the day promised only to get hotter. Father Belhamy walked behind him talking occasionally with Lady Geonora of the Seven Orgasms. Seven Oghams he reminded himself…Seven Oghams… One day he’d slip up and call her by that name if he wasn’t carefull, lord only knew what the Father would do to him as his punishment. But then again, why would he defend the honor of stinking Heathen?
The trail wound over higher ground somewhat, the tall dry grass obscuring the broken ground, making it hard to walk with certainty. Off to the right, fools shadows abounded, promising a shade they never delivered. It was only the play of clouds, the wind and a certain trick of light--out here the was nothing but heat, dust, death and rads. Idly he flicked on the clicker. Same as all morning: rads in the yellow, steady.
“Shut that off boy, we know what we need to know”, Father Belhamy said reprovingly.
“Yes sire”-the response was automatic, conditioned.
The bricks were the thing, they gave power to the clicker somehow, like a coal from the fire carried all the long day and taken out at night to start another. But the bricks held the spark of…whatever…for far longer. Lifetimes they lasted untill sometimes they burst giving off a strong smell and yellow powder like campfire ash, but it burned the skin and made you sneeze. Once as a child he’d found a few burst bricks by the camp, in the dark space underneath a blast house. It was cool and damp down there and after he’d killed the momma and papa snakes living there, peacefull. Only a few sluggish cancer bugs down there stirred by the sunlight he’d let in clearing his way down. And those no bigger then his fist-easily enough crushed should they make an attack. But the real prize were the bricks-rusted through and oozing their strange yellow and white ash. These he could take apart in secret without risking eternal damnation from Father Belhamy. And so he had-prying apart the decaying metal with rocks at first and later with a sharply pointed metal tool he’d found down there. The coals had all gone out of those bricks, leaving only the ash in chalky cylanders. He’d hoped to find an explanation somehow, maybe the last glowing spark of the brick, an answer to how they worked-something that would reveal their inner workings. If he could figure that out, maybe he could figure out how to make them!
Even Father Belhamy couldn’t punish a boy who could re-make the secret fire of the Old Ones. He could taste almost taste the beauty of the vision-he would be a hero, unstopable, all powerfull. He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted! Let that bully Billy come and try to punch him on the arm. You just don’t mess with a guy who can make a brick work! He savored the image of Billy the Bully doing his chores for him while he watched on, gloating. Holding the first new brick of power created since the Infernal Burn. He saw Father Belhamy there as well, nodding in approval-the inferior Heathen peoples working as slaves before the true people. The Old Ones ways beginning again as he’d preached, everything true to his profecy for the people and William the center of it all.
But the Old Ones ways were not so easily divined, even to a true child of god. The power of the bricks had long since gone. He squated there in the cool, damp darkness, bending and twisting the rusted metal that contained the bricks. He took out the rotting cylanders and held them into the shaft of light, turning them over and over with the tool he’d found, poking and prodding them. Spurred by the purity of his vision he’d spent most of the day down there, twisting, prying the stuff apart and holding it to the light of day.
After a time, he’d grown weary of metal on metal, mystery on mystery. Somehow the Old People coaxed fire from coals without heat and kept them preseved. And the secret of doing so was beyond him. The yellow chalk was burning his hands, making his eyes water and making him sneeze painfully. In the end he’d picked up a great rock and smashed all the bricks, smashed everthing down there, raising huge clouds of burning dust that even the cancer bugs avoided. Choking and coughing he’d run from the place, kicking the sagging sheet of metal back over the opening he’d found with a tremendous boom that echoed in his ears all the way back to camp and all the way to the river where he’d washed himself clean and cried huge silent sobs in his secret place by the big tree.
“Boy!”, snapped Father Belhamy, interrupting his reverie.
The father was not more then ten paces behind William now, and closing fast, angrily.
“What the Hell’s wrong with you boy?” the father asked, grabbing William by his elbow and spinning him around.
William realized he’d been daydreaming again, and this time as point-man on a movement. The Father would have his ass for this, figuratively if not literally. He needed an excuse, and quickly. He said the first thing to come to his mind.
“The heat, Sire.”
“Yes?”, he asked impatienly, his face florid in the unrelenting sun.
“It’s making me…” see things he was going to say, but decided that would be a sure sign of madness and impurity. Worse likely then admitting to daydreaming while under holy duty. “It’s…just…I…don’t feel well suddenly”, he finished lamely.
“You pussy”, spat the father. “You want me to call a fucking Pagan up to the work of holy man?”
“NO SIRE”, he said with real conviction. Having Bill up at point would seriously hurt his claim on Tara, and Father B knew it. Not to mention his honor among the people.
“Then get your ass up to point and LEAD like a man of god. If such you would be…” Father Belhamy let the implication linger in the heated air between them.
“GO!”, he said sternly, “and take a rad read up on the crest of the next hill, it’s been nearly a full turn and the breeze has changed somewhat”
“Yes Sire”, he said, relieved to be moving out from under the fathers watchfull gaze.
He touched the clicker at his side absently, ensuring it was still there. The heavy bulk of it re-assured him, the familiar weight and heft of it comforting and somehow cool in the hot, heavy air. He alone was entrusted with the care of it, it was a symbol of his supremacy amongst the people. Moving swiftly and with purpose he strode ahead of the people up a long slope of summer dried, neck-tall grass. The dust of his passage hung low in the grass in the still dry air, diffusing slowly into it in a broad fan. Of this “breeze” Father had mentioned, William could see no trace. The reading on the hill was the same as had been for at least a moons time: rads in the yellow, steady.
Bill struggled through the heat of the day at the trail end of the People. The dust wasn’t so bad back here he thought, but the pace was agonizing. He guarded the elderly, the sick and the lame on the long march into…somewhere. Someplace foretold to Father Belhamy in a Grand and Holy Vision. There was clear water there he said, and an enclave (whatever that was) of Old Ones. The vision was pure and true he said. Life would return again, the Old Ways would be restored, the power of the rads would be diminished and cast back unto the fires of hell he said. And on and on for whole evenings he’d go sometimes, when the liqour mash fever was running strong in him. He said he drank for the purity of visions, for the clear seeing of things to come, forbade anyone but himself to drink the mash, but Bill had seen him with his mug sometimes around dark. Sitting alone by his tent and taking small sips, lips puckering up by the fire in the water, his eyes clouded over, exhaling hugely with every taste.
And so the people followed him to the East-to the land of the rising sun. A fine thing this, to go to where the sun was born. Perhaps there where the sun was birthed they’d find this “enclave”. Bill hoped that there would be a place for him there, in the belly of the sun. He hoped the old people in their wisdom would treat him and his kind better then the Father was. But then again the Old Ones had unleashed the rads on the earth, grievously wounding the Mother. That much he knew for certain, whatever the Father said to the contrary. He could feel her pain and her struggle to become healthy and whole again.
Old Elena stumbled then, on a small clump of clay, catching herself on the ancient withered staff she carried. The day was hot beyond reckoning and she was old and worn down from near a moons daily journey. Her time was near and she knew it. Bill was at her side immediately, helping her to steady herself. She was panting heavily, winded, and trembling with fatigue.
“I must rest soon”, she sighed, knowing there was no rest when the Father was moving.
Bill said nothing, could think of nothing to ease Old Elena’s pain. The Father had no mercy in his heart for the “weak and impure”. If she couldn’t keep the pace she was “free to follow her own path”. That meant she was cast out from the people, left to wander alone in the wastes. Without food and water she’d die in a night, Bill was sure of it, her body would feed the den of the cancer roaches before it was cool. Rads curse Father Belhamy’s heart he thought, heart and maybe some of his other innerds.
The thought of the father in the slow agony of rad sickness brought a grim smile to his face, but did little to help Old Elena. She stood panting in the heat, clutching him for support, her eyes gone into some hidden place within her. He hoped it was cool and peacefull there, where she was. He briefly considered slipping away, quietly leaving the old woman to make her peace and prepare for her time.
Her eyes lost their glaze for a moment and she looked at him, looked into him, looked through him. He felt the Godess there, strong and powerfull, serene even amid such pain. He saw her as she must once have been; a strong, powerfull woman-beautifull even. She said continued to struggle for breath, saying nothing, but he eyes pleaded with him clearly “don’t let me die out here, not like this.”
Father Belhamy would punish him severely and perhaps even his own Lady of the Seven Oghams would reproach him for interfering in the weird of another, but the image of Old Elena out here alone in the heat and the dust, dying forsaken and without ceremony was too much to bear. He answered the appeal in her eyes with a short nod of his head-he’d give her what aid he could.
The people were spread out now, a long column of slowly moving specks against a backdrop of dead dried grass. In the distance, the point man was lost in the shimmer of heat and dust. Miles ahead the lead must be now and who knew when the all-mighty Reverand would call the next rest. The closest straggler to them was a good quarter mile ahead and that was Blind Jessica. She wasn’t totally blind, but the rads had left their mark on her face and her eyes were a covered with a pale, unhealthy white film. She was strong in the second sight for sure, but perhaps because of this she was completely mad. Her laughter, and odd and somehow disturbing wheeze that sent chills up his spine reminded Bill of an old machine he’d found a long time ago.
It was some sort of pump-it’s ancient metal rusted and flaking. He’d felt an odd space, a kind of gap in the animals out near there. Curious, he’d walked most of the day, tracking and tasting the wind as he went. The wind however was at his back for most of the morning and fairly strong so he did not smell the thing untill he came to the top of a low hill and saw the beast. It was a great metal bird of prey anchored to the earth. It was still alive somehow, it’s long beak making slow cyclical thrusts into the earth. Who knew how long ago it had been birthed at this spot, yet here it stood as if in defiance of The Burn, slowly slowly thrusting itself into the ground, marking the passage of moons and full cycles with it’s creaking cadence. The sound it made was a thing Bill would never forget-a never-ending scream from somewhere deep, dark, and forbidden. A cry for release from the endless repetition; it was as if the thing was at war with itself-driven to be forever damned to dredge liquid darkness from some hidden place deep in the core of the great mother, wanting only to be finished yet compelled to dip its beak into the blackness again and again. He wanted desperately to make it stop, to stop that endless grinding scream, but the thing terrified him and the scent of death hung heavy in the air. Even the snakes avoided the thick black goo around the base of it-only the meanest of the cancer bugs lived there-the ones who could spit. Perhaps they’d learned to live on whatever foulness the thing brought up.
“We shall learn a valuable lesson from the face of Blind Jessica” the Reverand had yelled one evening during his sermon. Bill had been largely ignoring the Rev up to that point. He was allowed to fletch during the meetings as he was the best shot among all the people with his bow. A small luxury but an important one to him, as it meant he could tune out the seemingly endless flow of words of the Reverand and focus on something tangible. Arrows he could at least touch, and shape. The mans words were gone as he said them, less then dust, a continual string of broken promises that stretched back to Bill’s earliest memories. And yet the people followed him, trusted him, listened to him and followed his orders. It was hope, he’d decided one night, walking alone in the light of a full moon. Hope kept the people listening, kept them believing the Rev and kept them following his orders.
It was somehow like baiting a crow he thought. As his father, his real father had shown him. You laid out the small bundle of pungent herbs dipped in fat, making sure to tie it down to the ground. Around that you laid your rope, and then there was only the waiting and the watching. The crows came down fast and hard, eager to snatch their meal and depart back to safety. They were too fast to sense most of the time even, you had to keep your eyes open and your head clear or you went home empty handed. If you’d gotten that bait tied down good and tight, then the only trick was pulling the noose closed on the birds leg fast enough. Otherwise they got the bait and ran, or dropped the bait and flown off in a great huff. Letting every living thing in earshot know that a hunter was near.
* * *
Out in the flatlands Runningdog was hurting. All day with the wind driving sand into his face he’d made the long lonely march back to camp. Two days out into the secret place he’d dreamed about and no real food the whole way. His dog trailed behind him, listless in the heat, following because he’d always followed, following because his owner was in front of him and perhaps would find some water ahead. Of the two, beaten and bedraggled by heat and dust and rads it was hard to say which was worse off: the boy or the dog.
The sun was low into the sky now, her belly being slowly scraped by the teeth of the Mountains ahead. Her heat had largely gone, but the last light of day shone directly into the boys eyes, making bright starburst rays of the swirling dust and sand.
Runningdog stumbled and caught himself…barely. Two days gone now and no food