“In the meantime, stay awake if you can. It’s better to sleep in a bed and we should get there before nightfall. Any questions?”
They had questions. There were four or five all speaking at once.
“Sorry people, you know about as much as I do.”
He shut his headset off for five minutes. That should cure the problem. Let them yap amongst themselves.
If they thought he was listening or even cared they were wrong.
They were out in the taiga now. The horizon seemed a hundred kilometres away when they crested a hill, and yet it was probably only five or six. It was hard to pinpoint exactly which contour line on the map display might correspond to exactly which distant ridgeline or notch in the green-clad ridges in front of them. The clarity of the air was startling, and in this light, with the sun low on the horizon, the hills and valleys stood out in stark detail.
The only time they knew where they were, and all this in spite of the satellite mapping and location system, was when they came to a place.
It might seem odd, but a planet with no places was hard to navigate across. Thirty-seven k’s up the road was a crossroads.
Until then, they were smack dab in the middle of nowhere, and they hadn’t passed a human being, an animal, or any sign of habitation in the last half hour.
What was really strange was the lack of garbage—this had to be the cleanest planet Newton Shapiro had ever seen.
It also bespoke a poverty, of a kind Newton had never seen before. He was supposed to report his findings. Most of the people he’d met had never seen a doctor in their entire lives.
That was one thing.
They were a remarkably cheerful people, which was another.
Newton had been struck by the absolute lack of law and authority out here. What was really strange was that they didn’t seem to miss it.
It was like where there was no temptation, there was no crime, no matter the poverty of the place. Basically there was nothing to steal and nothing to buy with the proceeds since everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. Unfortunately that sort of solution couldn’t be applied to more populous worlds, or anywhere but in the strictest isolation.
***
Monday and Tuesday were the worst for Hank. Wednesday broke with low, dark clouds, high winds and a falling barometer. To stay indoors was unthinkable without anything to do so Hank lit a couple of extra lamps, as oil was in good supply. He hardly used it with the longer summer days.
Beginning in the back bedroom, privately admitting that it was a bit small and dark to share with a wife, (and the more beautiful she was, the more unsuitable it was,) Hank swept and brushed and wiped every surface, removing the blanket and sheets for laundering, getting them started by soaking in water, while he polished any wooden surfaces that were varnished. That meant mostly the top of his narrow dresser and the turned posts of his bed, which was fairly narrow but long enough and of good, store-bought quality. If this worked out, they might be needing a new one.
One of the best investments he had ever made, a lot of folks made their own mattresses—bracken was a crop with many uses, and Hank had slept on a hand-stuffed bracken tick for years before his business got around to turning a buck. He had been hankering for something to spend it on when he saw Peltham had one in the store, all wrapped in plastic and covered with sticky labels. The half-price label was the one that caught Hank’s attention. The fact that the plastic was yellowed and torn on a corner made no difference to him.
Hank did the floors with a bucket of hot water and oil-soap, a local product but not made from bracken. There were flowers that grew in nooks and crannies, tall shoots with blue heads on them.
The roots were all oily. There was a word, but Hank couldn’t recall it. It had something to do with breaking surface tension or something like that. His education wasn’t bad, he’d finished high school aboard ship. He went to the ship’s one small college and studied mechanics, although he didn’t actually finish and graduate. The point was that the soap was cheap and it cut the dirt.
Hank cleaned the windows with one of the few store-bought cleaning products he used. While he had wide overhangs on the roof, they still got grimy, especially on the inside from the fireplace and cooking. Wrapping the glass in old towels and sheets, he’d been fortunate to get it here without breaking any.
What with all the activity, plus a short half-hour session with the net-making project, Hank curled up with a good book after having a nice stew for dinner. He made it through another day.
He loved the old western genre books. They were among the few that could bring a tear to his eye, for the better ones carried a lot of romantic and emotional overtones, especially for a lonely man a long ways from home, all on his own, way out on the lonesome prairie.
***
Thursday brought relief early, when a brilliant sun dawned and promised to stick around for a while, and a couple of hours later Red showed up all flushed with success and dying to talk about it.
“I did just what you said, Hank.”
“Hmn.” Hank had no idea what Red was talking about.
“I did. I went up there, right up by Blindman’s Bluff.”
“Oh, yeah?” That was fifteen or twenty kilometres due north of Oak River.
No tracks really led that way, although Hank believed it was pretty open, all savanna grasslands and clumps of what passed for trees in these here parts.
“Did you see where the herd went by?” Hank told him about him and Polly.
“Yeah, I crossed it! Very impressive. I’ve never seen one before.” Red’s eyes lit up. “How many animals did you see?”
“Lord. Thousands. Tens of thousands.”
Red nodded, and then went on with his story.
“It took two days of hard walking. But it’s virgin country up there, Hank, and I shot a bunch of meat.”
“Ah. Good. Wonderful.” Hank’s face was wreathed in smiles at two things, the sheer relief of having someone to talk to, and of course his friend was always boom or bust—and lately his old friend had been having the wrong end of it. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Red swallowed and took a deep breath.
Hank pointed to a stool, a rotating one with a back on it, by the end of his kitchen table. If he was shelling beans or chopping something, Hank would very often sit there.
“Let me get you a cup of tea.”
“Why sure, Hank.”
“So, what’s up?”
“Ah, well.”
Hank busied himself. The water was still hot although his little cast iron stove was pretty much dead, just some small embers glowed inside. He stuck a few bits of light kindling in there to put life in it.
“This will just be a minute. But we can talk while we wait.” Hank opened the cupboards.
There had to be some biscuit, hard-breads or whatever in there. It didn’t taste much like bread but it filled your belly and passed the time.
“So, ah, anyways, Hank. I was wondering if you’d take some meat.”
“What? Sure! I’d like that. How much you got?”
While they were friends, Red was shrewd enough to try and take a look at it through Hank’s eyes. And, he was really hoping for cash money—in coin or even a bill, which was obviously the best form of money if you could find someone to break it for you.
For that reason, coin might be better.
“I could let you have twenty smokers. Varmints. You know, the yaller burrowers.”
Hank thought about it. Any kind of meat was good of course, but he couldn’t quite recall what it tasted like, as he hadn’t had it in at least six or eight months.
“How much?”
“Ten dollars.”
No wonder Red was here—that was a lot of money. Fifty cents each.
“How big are they?” Red was at least honest.
He wouldn’t lie, and sure enough when he brought them around he’d have to look you in the eye.
But Red was a friend a
s well, and a friend in some need. Would Hank have loaned him the money? An interesting question that was, too, and Hank wished he had time to think on it.
“The small ones are maybe a half-kilo, I got a few that are two and even three kilos.” Red took a deep breath. “I’ve got a bunch all hanging around an even kilo or so.”
The implication was that was the ones Hank would be getting, and he understood that.
“What? That big? That really is virgin territory up there.”
The burrowers were still around of course, and Hank saw one here and there from time to time. But they had become cagey around men and their mounts. They knew what a rifle was by now.
He thought about it. Red at least knew the proper way to preserve them, lots of salt and a lot of smoking time.
“Sure, why not. I’ll take them.”
Red beamed at him with watery blue eyes and the suspicious wash of initial tears and Hank got up so he could turn his back and go looking for the money, which he kept in an old and genuine Earth-made coffee tin. This was under a carefully-fitted but otherwise loose floorboard and involved sticking his head under the bed.
What in the heck he would do with all of that meat was another question, but Red had a bill at Pelthams and no doubt other places besides. All of that riding, and most likely walking, and all that hauling out of the meat. Red must have worked his sorry old ass off. No wonder he was wrung out. He smiled to think on it. It would take Red a few days to dry his gear, the way the weather had been lately. The thought of old Red going all that way, all on his lonesome, spoke somewhat of desperation, but then they all got desperate from time to time.
Half the town lived that way, and Hank was lucky to be able to help a friend out, when he thought about it. Red probably had the meat smoking now, or would start the minute he got back home, which come to think of it was an assumption. But he’d have the meat within ten days or two weeks. He could live with that, it gave him something to look forward to.
The box was reassuringly heavy when he pulled it out and of course Red would need to spend some right away.
Hank took Red a heavy handful of coins and the talk turned to other things.
“This may seem like a stupid question, Hank, but, ah…”
“Go on, spit it out.”
“What are them crazy nets for? There’s no fish around here, just the ones you got, or I’d know about ‘em. I’d be going for ‘em too. You know we go way back…” There was no hint of pleading in the tone, it was more one of mildly-exasperated accusation.
Yeah, that was the hell of it. Sooner or later he had to explain his idea to somebody, and after all he would need help.
Hank laboriously explained his idea of driving marsh runners along their habitual runs, using maybe a half a dozen guys, a few more if he had the nets would be good. They could capture a bunch of hens, which weren’t exactly poultry or even birds really. They just acted like semi-flightless birds and resembled them in body type. Red’s eyebrows rose a bit but he seemed interested and didn’t think the idea was too far-fetched. Of course Red didn’t really know what a bird was, either. Hank patiently went over it again.
Chapter Eleven
Back to a State of Despair
Friday, Hank was back to a state of despair. It was like he was going to be hanged or something but still thought he should try and enjoy his last day. Theoretically, he should be able to get through it.
That didn’t make much sense.
He found it extremely difficult to even eat, and his guts were queasy and nervous.
There were rows and rows of clouds in the sky but it had been dry for a full day so far and things were looking pretty cheerful when he went outside in mild desperation. He could either work on his net or see if there was something he could do to kill time in the small barn. Normally the horses wandered in and out as they saw fit, minimally restrained by rail fences barely a metre high. The critters were almost more loyal in some ways.
Essentially, there was nowhere for them to go and so they stayed.
It always felt good. The animals lazily strolled over and bunched up around his open hand for a lick of salt. One old codger followed right at his shoulder, always, even nudging rivals away on occasion.
Hank fed them, put out salt licks, and gave them fresh straw.
The barn was warmer and drier than living in the bush. They were all friends and he treated them well enough.
He soon opted for working on his net. Hank had been at it for an hour or two, and was just feeling the rumblings of hunger when a curious note on the air caught his attention.
Voices!
Spinning, he stared at the line of brush to his immediate northwest, in appearance an unbroken line of vegetation, uneven in size but cresting four or five metres high in places. He saw no one and the noise was gone.
He didn’t think he had imagined it. He tried to work but was more and more convinced, rather than doubting his senses. He’d been out here a long time, and he had survived on his wits pretty much since day one.
Finally he heard a distinct clink, the sound of metal or glass on stone, and then the low murmur of people talking.
They were a couple of hundred metres off yet, but they were definitely coming his way.
***
He knew they were right there of course, what with their thrashing and crashing around in the bush, and then they came out into the open, tripping over the last of the creeping vines and blinking in the sunlight before they caught sight of the house, and the barn, and finally, him.
“Halloo! The camp!”
Hank raised an arm and waved.
“May we come in?”
“Surely.” Hank bit back further talk. “You are welcome.”
He knew all about this sort of thing, he’d heard all about it and had even done it a time or two.
No one had ever turned him away, and he remembered that with some gratitude.
There were three of them, a male about his age, clearly the leader, black of hair and with oddly deep blue eyes, and then a lad, the spitting image of his dad, and the girl, this one with lighter blue-grey eyes and long, straight, silky blonde hair parted in the middle and hanging halfway down her hide skirt at the back.
“Are we okay to bring our women-folks?’ The man grinned, it was an old joke, but his listener just seemed a bit slow.
Hank, guts sort of quivering in the novelty of the situation, plus all he’d heard about drifters, thought bringing the girl along was a hopeful sign, although she was armed with a rifle. It was slung over her shoulder on a narrow strap like the others. They all had small rucksacks.
“Ah.”
They approached the edge of the longer grass and stepped out onto his yard, beaten down by traffic and work and just plain walking around. The folks stood and looked around in a kind of wonder. It might have been a long time on the trail for them, Hank thought.
“Them’s some mighty fine horses.” The man eyed up the mounts, equines and critters in the corral.
“Thank you.”
“We was just noticin’ smoke on the horizon and maybe even a light at night.” The expression on the man’s grizzled face seemed apologetic and the boy downright timid.
Only the girl seemed to have any confidence.
“Ah.” Hank hadn’t thought of that.
The land up there was pretty high, but he wouldn’t have thought the difference was that great.
These had to be the drifters from up yonder. Or at least some of them.
***
It turned out there were only the three of them in the whole party.
Hank invited them up to the house, finding it close and warm inside with the four of them. The boy kept silent, and the older man was indeed the father. As for the girl, she remained quiet, not sullen or fearful, but sending bold looks about the place. They had a strong smell of wood-smoke and other things.
“Yes, well.” The man looked earnest, which was what he said his name was. “We were sort of wonder
ing if we might do a little trade.” The boy was Freddie and the girl Dana.
“Oh, really.” Hank put cups of steaming brew down in front of them, with him and the lad standing as Hank only had two chairs for the six places at his kitchen table.
He had an old crate, one that he could drag over in the unlikely event that he had company. He pulled it out for the boy.
Two’s company, or so they said. Three’s a crowd and four was a lot of people in such a small space. The girl sank onto her chair with a look of sheer bliss, her eyes meeting Hank’s all of a sudden.
She nodded and sighed deeply, a curious compliment but no doubt heartfelt.
“What were you thinking of?” There was no way in hell that Hank would give up a horse or a mount, the critters as they were called were better than horses in some ways, albeit a mite slower and harder to train to the master’s will.
One they got the idea, they sort of latched onto it.
They thrived on local forage and could go up and down a ridge a horse would be advised to reconsider. Strong animals, they would work cheerfully as long as they were fed and cared for.
Hank had never used a whip or spurs. He found he didn’t need them the way some folks claimed.
“Do you have any canned goods?” Ernest leaned forward and stared Hank right in the eye.
“Ah, yes.” Hank thought carefully. “What have you got to trade?”
“A few bullets, a half a bottle of pain pills. A few other things.”
The girl mentioned sewing needles.
Hank had all kinds of stores put away. He didn’t eat all of them over time for various reasons.
Some required other ingredients to make a meal, some he was saving for a treat—those would be hard to part with, like the chocolate-nut cake in a tin, which he remembered from a few years ago as moist, soft, sweet and very chocolatey, if indeed that was a proper word.
Third World Page 9
