Ready, I hope, for whatever happens next.
But nothing attacks me. No huge claws reach for my body, no teeth try to tear out my throat. What kind of half-assed monster is this? Doesn’t it know the rules? I have so much adrenalin pumping through me that my own teeth are bared and my knees are shaking.
Come and get me, Bozo!
A long-fingered, wide, furry hand appears, reaching down from the ledge where my rescuer and potential devourer must be crouched. It waggles its fingers at me.
Bye-bye for now, Little Food. Play nice with the birdies.
Then the hand is pulled back up out of sight.
What the . . .
I fight the impulse to roll out of my former slammer to get a glimpse or a shot at the sarcastic son of a bitch messing with my head. Maybe leaping out is just what it wants me to do. Is it enemy or ally? Playing cat and mouse?
Whatever. Just wait, girl. Slow your breathing down the way your father taught you. Count.
One and one pony . . .
When I get to one hundred, I crawl slowly out. No sign of my furry friend or foe. Or its pry bar. Maybe it has gone back to working on the railroad. Why hasn’t it attacked me? Why did it help me?
I’m not going to find the answer to that riddle right now. I have bigger fish to fry first. Or should I say fowls?
I pick up the trail bike. It has a few scratches on it, but is otherwise unharmed. Guy will be happy about that if I keep breathing long enough to return it to him. But I am not about to use it now or get back into plain sight on the road yet.
I stow the bike in my previous sarcophagus, then make my way stealthily toward the arroyo to the east.
Deer hunting time.
CHAPTER TEN
Bait
I look up from my bloody work. Nothing overhead yet within my vision. But it does not mean I’m not being watched from farther overhead than I can see.
The deer were just where I knew they would be. It took only one shot to bring the doe down, made easier by the way she turned her side to me, giving herself. That was good. I am moving fast, but not so fast that I have neglected to give thanks properly, to gut her out and then to hang her carcass up from a cottonwood limb in a cool shady spot in the arroyo so that the meat will not spoil while I am gone. I pray that I will be able to come back to this place and take her meat to my family.
Hanging the deer’s body also made it easier to drain her blood into the intestines, slick and rubbery as an endless white inner tube.
I sling the guts across my shoulders, smearing more blood all over myself in the process. It stinks.
Good.
I crawl up from the arroyo and out onto the wide stretch of road above it. The deer’s guts are wrapped around me like a bloody pale python. I drop to my knees, reach back to make sure my neck is covered by my hood, make sure the intestines don’t cover the parachute—just in case—check that all my weapons are secure, and then lay down. Quiet as roadkill, and hoping I will not have to wait long. Otherwise I might end up baked instead of bait.
Or choked by the smell of the deer’s innards, a thick miasma that gets worse as they get hotter, making me want to vomit.
But I don’t. I stay where I am. I wait and I count.
I’m up to five hundred and about ready to get up when I hear it: the whistle of wings as a huge body dives down, and then its cry.
SCREEEE!
THWOMP!
Most of the air in my lungs is knocked out of me by the impact. It has just thudded down over me so hard that even though most of its weight fell on the road surface, my back would have been broken had I not been protected by the body armor. One claw is dug a foot deep into the road next to my face. It came so close that it grazed my cheek. I feel warm blood flowing down my cheek, wonder if the gash it made will leave a scar. Assuming I live long enough to heal.
Its beak taps the back of my neck. Not that hard. Just probing to see if I am really dead.
Then it strikes three more times. Each time harder than the last.
I now have the worst headache in history. But the armoring fabric hardened with each blow. It prevented the beak from piercing my neck and separating my vertebrae. I am still more or less conscious. And aware of what is going through the Monster Bird’s brain. It is frustrated, puzzled that it hasn’t been able to cut into my flesh. It reaches back, tears at the deer intestines wrapped around me.
Ah, blood. Good.
And now it has made a decision.
Take prey to nest.
The claws tighten around me. Out of the corner of my eye I see the wings spread out so wide that they seem to go on forever.
Flap.
Up, up, and away we go.
My arms are pinned to my body by the claws wrapped around me. No way to get at my weapons. That’s not good.
However, I am face down and thus have a lovely view of the land below and of where we are headed, right toward that highest cliff face where a nest as big as a boxing ring has been built on a boulder-strewn ledge.
Little birdies (if you could call pin-feathered horrors the size of hippos “little”) are thrusting their eager heads into the air and cheeping with delight.
PAPA BROUGHT DINNER!
How nice it is to be wanted.
Papa doesn’t bother to land. He just opens his claws as he swoops over the nest. Luckily for me, his aim is good and I slam-dunk between my new nest-mates.
All I can do is pull myself into a ball to keep my face and hands out of reach as the four baby monsters hop eagerly in. My legs are caught, though.
They shove each other back and forth, each one trying to be the first to tear at what they think to be my flesh. In no time at all they have stripped the bloody deer guts off me, swallowed every bit, and inflicted even more bruises on my body—which is going to look like I have been run over by a herd of elephants after all this. But I think nothing is broken, neither bones nor internal organs. And though I’ve been brutally banged around, I still have my strength and my wits about me. The melee has freed my leg from between those woven saplings. And as the four nestlings settle back, swallowing, I scuttle out from between them and get my back against one side of the deep nest.
No sign of Papa Bird now, who circled once, then soared away over the peak to the left of the nest after dropping me. My guess is that he’s gone back to hunting, like his yet-unseen mate, for more food for their ravenous little ones. I could use my gun, but the sound of its shots would surely bring him back. I have my belt knife, but I don’t want to get within range of those sharp beaks. I unsheathe my staff, pull it out to its full length, each of its segments clicking tightly into place. I twist the handle and the blade pokes out of the end and locks.
Four sets of big, hungry eyes have fixed themselves on me in response to my movements. They don’t see me as a threat but as an entrée. Once again they come swarming in, flapping their unfledged wings, each trying to shoulder aside the other and get this last morsel.
They are scaled like their father, but the spaces between those scales have not yet closed up. Feathers haven’t grown into the gaps. I aim quickly and carefully to thrust up at the first one as it strikes down at me with a beak half as big as my upper body. My sharp blade pierces between the scales on its exposed throat. As its head still presses down, trying to strike me with its beak, the blade pierces its brain. The monster chick quivers, stiffens, falls off to the side as I wrench my weapon free. I’m just in time to catch the second chick in its throat in almost exactly the same way. But as it falls, it pulls me off to the side and its two nest mates are on top of me.
Kawk! KAWK KAWK!
Anger and fear. Calling for help.
Their wings and beaks and claws are striking at me. The body armor is absorbing most of the impact, but I am being whipped around like a willow branch in a storm. I wrap my left arm partly around the beak of one of the chicks. I am still holding my staff with my right hand. I pull it back, stab it deep into the center of an angry red eye.
The bird drops on top of me. I am trapped under the weight of its body. Yellow ocular fluid and blood ooze out from the blade buried in its eye. My other arm is pinned under my body, my face exposed. If the final chick attacks now I’m a goner. But I don’t see it.
I manage to pull myself out from under the limp, heavy body.
It is made easier, unpleasant as it is, by the fact that the nest and everything in it is now slimy. As they attacked and died the chicks were voiding themselves and there is yellow monster bird crap everywhere. And I thought the deer guts stunk!
I climb up the side of the nest and peer over the edge.
Ooops! There, far below, splattered on the sharp stones of the valley is the last of the four chicks, which saw how the battle was going and chose flight as its option—before it was ready to soar.
Somehow I have won.
SKREEEE!
The whole nest shakes and the air is shattered by the scream of Papa Monster Bird as it lands.
Too late to save its young, but way too soon for yours truly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Female of the Species
My spear is still stuck in the scaly throat of baby bird number three. There is a three thousand foot cliff behind me, and a forty-foot-tall horror staring down at me.
Can I call a time out?
As the Monster Bird leans down over me, one foot raised to crush me with its claws, its beak poised to drive down at my face, the words of a poem by Kipling or Stevenson or one of those old poets Dad used to quote come to my mind: The female of the species is deadlier than the male.
Namely me. The few seconds’ pause has given me time to unclip the strap and pull my gun from its holster. I raise the .357, hold it firmly in both hands and fire it three times.
Ka-pow! Ka-pow!
Maybe one shot would have been enough, but a girl can’t be too careful in moments like this. And I have always preferred a double tap. At this close range, it is not much of a compliment to my marksmanship to say that my aim was true. I hit the bull’s eye—or rather the bird’s eye—twice in the exact center. And, with that many ounces of lead outbalancing its ability to keep breathing, Papa Bird immediately perishes.
And still might kill me. I scramble aside as it falls. Its enormous slack-winged body thuds down, filling most of the nest aside from the one corner where I was crouched.
And now what? I climb over its body to the top of the woven branches of the aerie and survey my surroundings. There’s nothing but sheer cliff behind me. I am not equipped to scale that. And in front, there’s just a straight drop from this jutting-out ledge.
I look around and weigh my options. They’re limited. Despite the crappy accommodations, I do have shelter and enough poultry to feed an army. But the only water is in my two canteens. At most I can survive here for a week or two. And no one will be coming to rescue me in this world without helicopters. Aside from Mama Bird, nothing is flying here.
I study the sky as I hold up my palms. No sign of her yet, and no tingling to tell me she’s nearby. But she’ll be back eventually. I’d rather not encounter her—or the big stones she might drop on me—here on this little point of rock.
No point in putting off the inevitable. Jump time. I reload the chambers of the .357 and seat it firmly in its holster, fasten the strap. It takes a bit of effort to get my spear out of the throat of the dead chick—which Daddy Bird crushed, but I could still reach at an angle. By working it back and forth I manage to pry it loose.
I heft the lance in my hand. It feels as if it belongs there. It’s perfectly balanced and just the right weight. This is a weapon my namesake would have loved. Maybe even named.
But I’m not that imaginative.
“Thank you,” I say.
I collapse my unnamed lance down and resheathe it.
I climb to the top edge of the cliff over the deepest drop. I recheck the security of the straps, pat the pack on my chest, and spread out my arms. As I do so, I find myself remembering a corny joke my father made.
It’s about what the Apache paratrooper did when he leapt out of the plane. “He didn’t yell ‘Geronimo,’” Dad said with a straight face. “He just shouted ‘ME!’”
I’m smiling as I bend my knees, jump and yell, “Meeeee!”
The wind whistles past my face as the ground rushes up toward me. There’s a feeling of exhilaration and plain old dread as I plummet down like a rock. Or maybe an egg about to be scrambled is a better comparison. Despite my body armor, there would be no way to survive this high a drop. The mangled remnants of the monster chick far below me bears witness to that.
I yank the rip cord. The parachute streams out, a red and white ripple in the wind. Then it opens and I feel as if I’ve been caught by a giant hand and jerked upward as the chute cups the wind. I begin gliding along like a hawk above the canyon. I reach up with both hands to grasp the lines that fasten the chute to my body. I pull on the left line and I change direction. Pull on the right and turn the other way. It’s just as Guy said it would be. I can fly this thing like a glider and choose my landing spot.
Is this how an eagle feels when it is soaring? I love it!
“HIIII-YAAAHHHHH!” I yell, my triumphant voice echoing off the walls of the canyon.
I felt so happy and free for that one brief moment. I just had to shout! I couldn’t help it.
But maybe that was not such a good idea. A familiar feeling makes my hands tremble.
By the twitching of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.
I pull on the right line and turn in the direction in which I know I am going to see it. And Judas Priest! There she is. Diving right at me with outstretched claws—and even bigger than her mate. Her angry cry tears the fabric of the sky.
SCREEEEEEEE!
Hello, Mama Bird!
There’s no time to pull out a weapon or take aim. Just one tactic that might work. In the second before its claws strike home, I yank hard on the left line and pull up my legs so I change direction and become a much smaller target at the same time.
I’m buffeted by the wind from her passing, but her claws miss me. Unfortunately, my parachute is even more affected by her dive. It folds up and I start to fall again.
Luckily for me, the parachute flutters, straightens and grasps the air once more. I’m back to a more or less controlled glide. And I’m much closer to the ground. No more than maybe two hundred feet below.
Not so luckily, however, here comes my feathered nemesis back to resume our pas de deux. Or pas de trois, if you count the parachute. As she comes in for a killing strike, the combination of my frantic pulling on the lines and the vortex created by her own body results in something unexpected. Not only does she miss me, but the parachute lines tangle around her legs and the chute itself goes over her head, covering her eyes.
If I weren’t still connected to those lines, that parachute, and a monster bird flying blind, it might be funny. She rises, climbing out of the canyon, and pulls me along with her. We glide over one ridge after another.
Can’t just hang here. Trailing behind her like the tail of a kite, I’m likely to be smashed like a bug on one of the sharp canyon spires we’re whipping past. I pull myself up hand over hand. I want to get close enough to get on her back. The muscles in my arms burn, but I keep going, a foot at a time. I’m close enough to grasp at the huge feathers that ridge her neck. But we’re losing altitude. I see around her shrouded head that we are heading down at an angle into a narrow canyon. I brace myself as best I can for a hard landing.
Thud-a-thud-thud. I’m bounced along the bony spine of a sprawled-out, somewhat stunned, but certainly pissed-off raptor as big as a bomber. At least we’ve stopped moving. The chute lines have tangled around me so much that I am trussed tight to her back. Shifting myself, I manage to work one arm free. Now there’s enough slack for me to roll to my side. I pull out my Bowie knife and begin to slice through the nylon lines.
Something wiggles against my leg. Then I f
eel a sharp stabbing pain.
I look down to see what has bitten into me where the body armor has shifted to expose bare skin. It’s one of a dozen pale eight-legged critters, each one the size of a marmot. They chitter as more of them swarm toward my legs.
Bird lice? That has to be what they are. Giant bird lice on a giant bird. Wouldn’t that be an irony to be eaten by parasites after bringing down their host? I kick at their fleshy bodies but they keep coming. Then one of them bursts like a fleshy water balloon as the heavy heel of my boot comes down hard on the center of its body. Green goo oozes out. It stinks even worse than the bird crap I am coated with. The other lice, obviously discomfited by their sibling’s demise, scuttle away back under the feathers on Mama Big Bird’s back.
I slice through the last line, push myself up. I roll, crawl, stumble, and slide as I try to get off. The feathers are slippery and so am I. But I can’t stop. Mama Big Bird is also starting to move, trying to push herself up to her feet. I tumble, roll, hit my feet running.
Good thing that I do.
CHUNK!
Her beak hits the ground where I would have been if I’d stopped to survey my surroundings.
Keep running, girl. Don’t look back yet.
CHUNK!
Another beak strike, but not as close as the first. I leap over one boulder after another, cover perhaps a hundred yards before I dare to take a quick glance back over my shoulder.
I’m not being pursued. From this distance I can see that my winged attacker is not going to be coming after me or anything else. Not with a wing that is so visibly broken, blood dripping around the exposed bone halfway to her shoulder. She is trying to right herself, but she is stuck on her side, wedged between the sharp-angled rocks that broke her wing. Her weakly kicking feet are digging grooves in the sand. Her struggling is getting her nowhere.
Part of me feels sorry for her. I can’t help but admire the beauty of something so perfectly made to be a predator, to rule the air like no other winged or feathered creature that has ever lived on this planet. And now the cloudland is lost to her, her mate dead, her little ones no longer destined to be part of an empire of death from above.
Killer of Enemies Page 6
