Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Are you in pain?”

  “Yes.” The word was only a breath.

  “I’m going to see if I can send . . . For’ster to go kill some meat. I will give you meat and water, and I may put something on the meat or in the water for your pain. If you taste a bitterness, don’t worry. Just eat or drink it anyhow. Will you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  There were a few clumps of the Griffin’s hair on the ground where Needly stood, probably torn out when Sun-­wings had attempted to crawl. Needly crouched to pick them up. “I also have some herbs that prevent infection. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Healing.” The word was only breathed, laboriously, as though her lungs could not get enough air.

  “That’s right. I’ll definitely put that in water. Whatever I give you, eat or drink it all, even it if tastes bad. Only when I give it to you, all right? Can you show me where you’re hurt?”

  Sun-­wings lifted her left wing, slowly, painfully, and only slightly. It was torn, the tear beginning near the wing joint and running along the bone to the outer edge. The feathers at the top edges of the wound were soaked with blood. Sun-­wings whispered, “Other-­side hind leg. Not ’roken, just hurt.”

  She was choosing words that did not require lip—­or beak—­movement, and Needly was amazed that she could keep her wits, wounded as she was. If it was only the wing, then perhaps . . .

  “Lookie out dere,” cried the man behind her. “She c’n git ya ’itha wing.”

  Needly turned and came back to the man. “My helper and I will need to make a small fire. We will need water. Where is the closest place? I will need to feed the creature.”

  “Feed’er? By boghost, not gonna. Feed a critter’m gonna skin? Not gonna!”

  “You can’t skin her for at least three or four days,” said Needly. “It can’t be done. Her hair is already starting to come loose.” She held out her hand, the long neck strands dragging from it. ”If you skin her now, the hair will all fall out, and the hide will rot, too, and you won’t get any good stuff for it. She needs to be fed and watered and made comfortable so her fur is all shiny and thick. Otherwise the hide is worthless. The same is true of the little one. A Griffin can only be skinned when it is in perfect condition.”

  He did not look properly impressed. She put her hands on her hips, using pretended temper to hide her trembling. She shouted furiously, “Time after time Old Forester sends me to help ­people and I find they have already ruined the hide! They’ve gained the enmity of the whole Griffin race for nothing, trying to skin a wounded one.”

  “Amitty o’ griff’n wha’?”

  “When you try to skin a wounded Griffin, she makes a noise that is heard by all Griffins everywhere in the world. Then they all come and find you and kill you. It’s only when Griffins are in perfect condition that they agree to be skinned.”

  “Thasso?”

  Needly drew herself up, adopted a posture suitable to “expert being annoyed by silly questions.” “How many Griffin hides have you seen? How many hunters or trappers have brought in Griffin hides?”

  He shook his huge head, confused. “N’body. Not seen one.”

  “That’s because everyone who has ever skinned a Griffin did it because they found the Griffin wounded, they tried it, and every Griffin from miles around came and killed them! You’ve never hunted one. You’ve never trapped one. The only way you could get one would be to find a wounded one. But you don’t know how to skin her. Skinning her won’t do any good unless you wait for a few days while we get her into proper condition. Then you ask her, politely, because you were so nice to her, will she let you skin her, and she will nod her head. That’s how they were made, Griffins. That’s the way they live and die. Isn’t that right, Willum?”

  “Exactly right. As my teacher told me in skinning school.”

  “Furrier college, Willum,” Needly said in a fussy, schoolmarmish tone. “Griffin hides are classified as furs. Except the males, of course. Those are classified as merely hides, because of the scales. Suitable for making boots! I do wish you’d use the right words for things. I’ll never be able to send you out on jobs alone unless you use the proper terminology! ­People will think you’re not professional!”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said, ducking his head to hide his mouth, which, despite the situation, had turned relentlessly upward at its ends. “I really will try to do better.”

  “I do hope so. You, Yung For’ster, you have an excellent hide. It would do well for gloves, I think. Who have you left your hide to? Family? Friends?”

  He looked confused, slightly upset. “ ’m only part Ahgar. Don’ get peel s’ahfen!”

  “They peel the Ahgars . . . do they?”

  “Peel’m fer the stuff. Yep.”

  She lost the sense of that, but ignored it. “Very well. I didn’t know. Now, sir.” She approached him. “We need meat and quite a lot of it, a deer, perhaps, a mountain sheep or an elk?”

  “Y’mean now?”

  “The later we start, the more hair she will lose and the longer it will take.”

  The huge face wrinkled in unaccustomed thought. “Howkum you knows, huh?”

  “Does your father know all this?”

  “Did, I ’spose.”

  “Didn’t you ask him for help?”

  A nod. “Sorta said Pa’d know how. Not loud.”

  “And he sent me.”

  “He’s dead, mos’ pars rottin’ inna groun’. ”

  “Mos’ parts?” The words slipped out before she thought. She bit her lip.

  “Pars ’ey din’ want. Sum pars ’ey kep fer a nex’ one.”

  She set aside for the moment the parts they didn’t want, some parts kept for the next one, making a mental note to remember it. That and the Ahgars. “You asked your pa for help. His spirit, from the ground where his . . . parts are, his spirit heard you. His spirit is not dead. He sent us from the spirit world. We work there. We work here, too.”

  If expression meant anything in such a creature, this one was confused. Which was more or less what Needly intended. Cursing, slavering, mumbling, the creature got to his feet, wandered to a tree where he had a hung a quiver full of arrows and a bow taller than most men. He put the one over his shoulder, took the other in his hand, and wandered off into the trees.

  “Oh, boy,” said Willum. “He’s sure . . .”

  She silenced him with a gesture and went to speak into his ear. “He’s smart enough to have heard us coming. He’s smart enough to know we can’t move Sun-­wings, and he knows she can’t move. He’s smart enough to know we came here with the little one. He’s smart enough to know he can track us, anywhere we might try to go, right? So smart or not, he’s taking a gamble that we’re real.”

  Willum spat. “And we know he’s real because the smell is real.”

  “Oh, Willum, doesn’t he stink! I’ve never smelled anything that awful: like rotten and swampy and dead and . . . all at once! It does make you spit.” She did so. The stink seemed to thicken her saliva, making it syrupy, dreadful. “He’ll be back with meat. Let me have the pan and our water bottle.”

  Willum put down his pack and dug it out. While he was occupied with this, Needly turned away from him and fetched the little pouch tied beneath her skirts. She selected three of the little bottles and removed them, returning the pouch to its usual hiding place. Looking carefully at each bottle as she did so, she put one in her skirt pocket, one in her jacket pocket, and one she thrust into the top of her sock. When Willum handed over pan and bottle, she poured the pan half full, took the two bottles from her pockets, added about one-­quarter of the contents of one, and a spoonful of the other to the water and carried it to Sun-­wings, holding it while the Griffin drank it all, beakful by beakful, lifting her beak to allow swallowing each time. Needly thought her throat must have been dry as dust. She had had no w
ater.

  “Not so bitter,” Sun-­wings said very softly. “You will feed us?”

  “We will feed you, Sun-­wings, and Dawn-­song. Are you still thirsty? I’ll bring you more water now.”

  Willum was suddenly beside her, holding out the pan, full of water.

  As the Griffin drank slowly, Needly murmured, “If you feel me on your back or fiddling with your left wing, don’t throw me off. I may be able to do some good there, too. You’re going to sleep now. I’ve given you something to let you sleep and something for the pain. The pain will lessen, it may even go away. I don’t know how much to use for something . . . someone your size, so you must tell me if it doesn’t work. Somehow, we will get you healed and down off this mountain, though I don’t know how.”

  “Despos?”

  “He’s gone, as we planned, to kill the male Griffins who live in the far, icy north. His search will take him a very long time. I am told the land up there looks alike, everywhere, all snow and ice. He’ll have trouble even remembering where he has looked.”

  “And the others?”

  “They’re going south. The children have been picked up, the eggs have been returned. We had a conflict with three of them, but your friend Golden-­throat and her friends helped us. And I have wonderful news. The Griffin we named Bell-­sound because of her voice—­”

  ”I know which one.”

  “Her egg hatched. It is a male baby, Sun-­wings, and not from Despos. She is taking the baby to Tingawa.”

  The huge eyes opened wide, actually glowed. “Oh, that is wonderful, that is good!” She struggled to speak. “But that is good only if the others don’t know, if they don’t tell Despos when he returns. Is help coming?”

  “You hid us well, Sun-­wings. Golden-­throat will tell those in Tingawa that we need help.”

  “You gave her a good name. She would have been helpful.” She blinked drowsily. “Did you name her child?”

  “We named her Amber-­ears. They have all been told about Tingawa, and how to get there? The one we call Silver-­shanks was not very helpful.”

  “White feathers down to her feet, that one?”

  “Yes.”

  “A few of us are like that. Not many . . .”

  “The ones Despos fathered. Only those.”

  The medication was working. The huge eyes were falling closed.

  “Sleep,” murmured Needly, bending toward Dawn-­song. “You too, little one, Dawn-­song, sleep. Nothing is going to happen to you. Not while Willum and I are watching.” She turned wearily and went to the place where the giant had had his fire. Willum had already shaved tinder and laid a small fire for them. He had his fire starter in his hand. The sun was very low in the west, it was already chilly; the two of them wrapped themselves in blankets and sat beside the blaze.

  “I got the water behind that rock left of you,” murmured Willum. “A tiny little spring comes down there. There’s plenty for us and for Sun-­wings.”

  “Good. She’s had enough for now, but she needs liquids, so we must bring her water as soon as she wakes. Are you as tired as I am, Willum?”

  “I’m tireder. I been doin’ all the thinkin’.”

  “Willum, you’re shameless.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Ma says. You n’ her got a lot in common.”

  Needly rested for a time, watching Willum closely. His face was gray with weariness, and his eyes were bloodshot and tired. After a few moments’ rest, she dug food from their packs and set it to cooking. Willum, eyes half closed, murmured, “Tell me about the angels, Needly.”

  It was something they told each other about, to heal the loneliness, to fight the weariness, to keep away the fear. She murmured, “I told you, they’re here, among all our busy-­ness. Their shadows lie under the trees. They hang their wings in the closet of the forest, hidden among the leaves.”

  “Yes. But you’ve seen ’em.”

  “Sometimes when it’s raining they come out, leaving their shadows and their wings behind. They do a dimness dance, only their naked selves glinting like wet ivory between the falling drops, silver on silver, gleam upon gleam.”

  “Wish I could see ’em.”

  “Like Grandma said: ‘Dawn discloses, but that most urgent for our sight appears in darkness and vanishes in light.’ ”

  “That’s a riddle.”

  “Kind of. It means there are certain wonderful things we can see only when we’re not looking for them, Willum.”

  Willum slept. Needly wondered about the huge hunter, about the yellow bottle she had in her sock. She had seen him drink from a bottle he had, one he carried with him. If she could get some a few drops from the yellow bottle into his food. Or drink. But how much? Grandma said a drop, a few drops. What if he took it and it didn’t work, only made him sick or angry? So angry he simply killed everything he could reach? Too early to know. She had to watch, see what he did, how he did it.

  It was quite dark when the hunter came back, the carcass of a large deer across his shoulders. He found Needly and Willum beside a small fire with a pot steaming over it. He dropped the deer at some distance. “Y’wanna feed ’er.”

  “Drag it over here,” said Needly, walking toward the sleeping Griffins. “Put it here, where she can reach it.”

  “Take a leg for us’n.”

  “We have food. Take some for you, if you like.”

  He took a bloody slab from the hindquarter, then dragged the carcass over to where Needly stood, beneath the Griffin’s beak. She pointed. He dropped it and retreated toward the fire. Needly whispered, “Dawn-­song, if you’re hungry, the man has cut the hide. You can eat what’s exposed.”

  “Leave it for Mama . . .” A breathless whisper.

  “There’ll be plenty for Mama. It’s getting dark, and I won’t be able to do anything more until light, so eat. Then curl up beside her and go back to sleep. Do you need water?”

  The little one limped across the harsh grasses and lay down next to the carcass. While she tore pieces of meat from it, Needly examined her feet one by one, rubbing salve into the abraded pads. She reflected that Griffins really were not designed to walk, though their front legs were very catlike. The back legs were catlike, but the feet were stranger, with fowl-­like attributes including huge curved talons that did not retract fully. That too made walking difficult. Or it was perhaps possible that they merely chose not to walk and thus never strengthened their legs or developed calluses on their feet. When and if she got a chance, she would make two pairs of Griffin shoes!

  “Don’t need water,” said Dawn-­song, chewing sleepily. “The meat is nice and juicy and warm.”

  And fresh, thought Needly, feeling momentary sorrow for the deer. It, too, had deserved to run and live and be. Humans should have evolved as herbivores. They would have been very different. Not so quarrelsome. Not at all violent . . . except during breeding season.

  “Mama,” whispered Dawn-­song. “Will Mama be all right?”

  “She’s better,” said Needly. “Are you listening to me, little one?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “That bad man must not know you can talk. Understand. Do not say a word where he can hear you.”

  “I heard you tell Mama.”

  “Good. Just be very patient. You see, food has come. Water has come. And somehow, from somewhere, I hope help will come, too.”

  INEVITABLY, MORNING CAME. SURPRISINGLY, BOTH the children had slept well, though that was due more to exhaustion than tranquillity. Needly, resting against Sun-­wings’ side, had felt her move painfully in the early hours and had fetched a pan of water for her, water with a few drops of the stuff that stopped pain. Needly herself had needed no help to fall back into sleep the moment she lay down.

  As soon as it was light in the morning, Needly woke. She took a long look across the clearing at the sleeping form o
f the hunter, a hummock beneath the trees, snoring with great, irregular eruptions, like a volcano with an upset stomach. The meat he had taken last night was partly eaten. She didn’t see any kind of drinking vessel, cup, bottle that she could sneak anything into. If he carried one, it was in a pocket. As soon as she was sure he was not going to wake at the least sound, she took Grandma’s long red scarf from her pack, the one that had served as a Namer’s headdress. It was lined in white silk, and she snipped the threads holding the white lining to the other side, then began unraveling the silk threads that made it up, each thread the length of the entire, long scarf, winding each one around a smooth stick. Needles she had, thread she had, but not the lengths and lengths of it needed to sew a Griffin’s wing together. The warp threads would be long enough, and both lining and bright outer layer were heavy fabrics, not fragile ones. The lining threads were preferable, as they had no dye in them. Dye might not be good in a wound. Once the threads were wound carefully on the stick, she would soak the assemblage in water with some cleansing stuff in it so it would surely not infect the wound. Then she would double the thread and use her darning needle. It would be strong enough and long enough to go through the Griffin’s hide. During the morning, she took several more pans of water to Sun-­wings, the last one dosed again with Grandma’s recipe for healing and another few drops for pain. The substances that controlled pain had a tendency to cause sleep as well, and Sun-­wings went back to sleep shortly after drinking it.

  “What you gonna do?” asked Willum from among his blankets.

  “I will endeavor to sew up her wing,” said Needly very seriously. “The big lump over there is still asleep. Be sure to let me know if he stirs or wakes.”

  “N’ if he asks me something?”

  “You’ve been to furrier college, Willum. Just answer the man.”

  Willum chewed on that for a moment or two and then grinned at her. He looked better this morning—­or at least less tired.

  Sun-­wings was a mountain of flesh to be climbed, and Needly climbed it as carefully as possible, foot on left front foot, walk up left front leg to joint, climb onto upper leg, walk up that to shoulder. Climb onto shoulder, which she managed by hanging on to clumps of hair. She stood there examining the injured wing. She wanted access to the injured part of the wing, but it lay against the great creature’s side and back, and Needly was burdened with the pan, a water bottle, her bottles, and a great many lengths of thread carefully aligned and wound. She tried it several ways, eventually returning to Willum to say, “You’ll have to help, Willum. I can’t get the wing into position, not alone.”