Killing Rhinos

by Herb Hughes

  “I’ll do that. Thanks, Lobie. Good-bye.”

  Lobie nodded and went back to his work.

  On the return trip through town, Jack nodded at everyone who waved, knowing they had heard the story about how the world’s most famous Rhino hunter had watched Slim save Sheffie’s life without doing a thing to help. It was irritating that the story was so widespread, but he had to put it behind him. Leaving would help.

  After a hasty breakfast, they mounted their horses and were off. From Wilsey, the road to Lisbon widened enough so that two wagons could pass each other with plenty of room to spare. As they descended the slope and reached the valley, the road became even wider. Once they were on the floor of the valley, four wagons could have ridden abreast of each other. Travelers going in both directions became more numerous as Jack and Sheffie passed through several small communities. Unlike the small towns in rural areas, the streets were not lined with people waiting to see what Jack Wheat looked like. This was different.

  Late morning, as they were nearing Lisbon, they saw a group of men working on the side of the road. There were seven workers performing tasks from digging to supervising, and one ranger on horseback with a homebuilt in his hand and another in his saddle holster. The workers had placed a stripped, limbless tree trunk, about four meters tall, into a hole they had dug in the ground. They were gathered around the trunk, working to plumb it as they backfilled the hole. Beyond, receding into the distance toward Lisbon, a row of plumbed, limbless and leafless trees rose and fell in gentle curves, matching the soft rise and fall of the valley floor, until they became mere dots in the distance. All the cut trees glistened with preservative.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen,” Jack said as he and Sheffie stopped beside the workforce. “What are all the tree trunks for?”

  “These are telegraph poles,” a red-headed worker answered. “Another crew will come back and run wire between the poles. The wire carries an electric signal that allows people to communicate with each other over long distances. We’re putting in a line that will eventually reach all the way to Wilsey.”

  “Telegraph!” Sheffie said. “I’ve read about it in the old books, but I didn’t dream it was a reality.”

  “It’s real, all right,” the black supervisor said. “Telegraph lines run down almost every street in Lisbon. We’re connecting the neighboring towns now. There’s a crew on every road.”

  “Sooner or later,” the ranger added, “The whole world will be connected by telegraph. Then you can send messages anywhere almost instantly.”

  “That’s marvelous,” Sheffie said.

  “Yeah,” Jack agreed. “That’ll be something. Well, we’re on our way to Lisbon now. Good day to you.”

  “Good day to you both,” the ranger said. “Enjoy your stay in Lisbon,” The workers nodded and waved their good wishes as Jack and Sheffie rode on.

  “Telegraph!” Sheffie repeated to Jack. “And it’s already in Lisbon! How exciting!”

  Jack smiled but said nothing. He thought about the implications of instant communication. Even though someone could be out of sight, several days horse ride away, they might not be out of mind. They would still be able to reach you, to talk to you. The world was shrinking.

  Soon, they were passing houses on the edge of Lisbon itself. These were large neighborhoods with dozens of homes in each, all jammed together. Every house had a small patch of grass in the front and the back, but no land for farming.

  “There are hundreds of houses here,” Sheffie said. “Maybe thousands. Nice houses. How do these people make a living? They’re not farmers. They don’t have any fields behind their houses.”

  “Most of them work in town.”

  “But it’s still a few kilometers away. And look at all these houses. How could so many people work in one town?”

  “Let’s get to Lisbon and find out,” Jack said.

  Chapter 15

  Greg Bonner, sitting on a jutting rock in a small cove in the foothills and staring at nothing with great disinterest, waited at the prearranged spot. In an otherwise blue sky, an odd cloud became visible on high, off to the west. The cloud drifted down, coming directly over the spot where Bonner waited. Moments later the shuttle sunk below the low-hanging cloud and landed smoothly, only meters away. The hatch opened, and Ethan emerged.

  “You have the tissue,” Ethan said. It was not a question but a flat statement, something that passed for social pleasantry. There was no formal or informal greeting between them. Never had been.

  Greg nodded toward a lumpy blanket strapped across his horse’s back but said nothing. Ethan flicked his hand, and a small black object landed on the ground in front of him. It quickly expanded into a large sheet.

  “Bring it here.”

  Greg unstrapped and removed the blanket-covered body, easily lifting it from the horse. He carried it over to where Ethan stood and dumped it unceremoniously onto the black sheet that had spread itself across the ground like black oil bubbling out of the earth. Even though Greg was a large, hulking man who could carry an average body with little effort, Ethan was easily the stronger of the two. But Ethan only watched, making no effort to help.

  Greg backed off. Ethan, a tiny device barely visible in his hand, swept his arm over the body. Flaps extended from the edges of the black sheet and curled over to cover the top of the body, then sealed themselves. Bonner continued to stare with disinterest as the black film constricted tightly, revealing the shape of the man inside the blanket. The things that Ethan could do no longer intrigued him. He’d seen them enough times before.

  “You sure Wheat’s using a laser?” Bonner asked.

  “Oh, there’s no question of it. We’ve seen him in action, though he does not realize it, of course. You doubt my sincerity?”

  “Naw. Just checking. Never could find that last Rhino he shot, so I got no evidence. It’s my word against his and that lying dog’s word carries a lot of weight down here.”

  “Inconsequential. Your job is tissue collection. You have no need to worry with Jack Wheat. Unless he becomes a tissue match, of course.”

  “I get your dirty work done for you. I’ve still got time for entertainment. Some day I’m going to bring the mighty Jack Wheat down to the size he really is. Then I’m going to kill him.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” Ethan said, a look of exasperation on his face. “Even though he’s using a small laser, which is against your planet’s ridiculous laws, he is still physically accomplished. For a human. He might become quite useful some day. Perhaps an agent? We believe he would make a good one.”

  “You’d never get him to agree to it. He puts on this high and mighty act. Thinks he’s better than anybody else and all the time he’s only a filthy cheat.”

  Ethan waved the device again. The wrapped and sealed body lifted off the ground then began to float back toward the shuttle. “Perhaps. Still, I’d prefer you left him alive. Here, let me replenish the power in your bracelet.”

  Bonner held out his arm, the one with the Rhino hunter bracelet. Ethan held a small device against the bracelet for only a moment. Then Ethan flicked his hand at Bonner and said as he turned to go, “It has been as pleasant as ever. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we must get this tissue prepared while it’s still fresh.”

  “What if Wheat tries to stop me from making a ‘collection’ for you?”

  Ethan stopped and turned around, staring directly at Greg Bonner. “In that case, Mr. Bonner, Jack Wheat would be expendable. But that situation shouldn’t arise.”

  Chapter 16

  In spite of Mac’s whisperings, the mule refused to go further. Toadstool was thirsty, and there was no more water. Without water, he would not budge. Mac sat down in the sand and stared up at the stubborn animal. “We ain’t there. And I don’t rightly even know where ‘there’ is. We ain’t seen no Rhino nowhere.” He patted Toadstool on the leg. “I don’t blame you for stopping. I wouldn’t follow some old fool out into the desert either; leastways, not witho
ut enough water. If I had a choice, that is. But I don’t reckon I do. I sure as hell followed myself all the ugly way out here.”

  The cracked and weathered white rock of the Spine, obviously not natural stone, towered high above them. Mac stood and walked some distance away from it, about a hundred meters away, so he could see it better. Toadstool still stood motionless beside the Spine. Even though it was only a day’s ride from the oasis to the Spine, at the closest point, Mac had not seen it in decades. It still filled him with wonder and awe as he looked at it, perhaps more now than it ever had. Smooth white rock rising high out of the earth, the top in a line straighter than straight as it traversed north and south for hundreds of kilometers. In places, the rock, or whatever material it was, had cracked and chunks had fallen during the vast amount of time since the original construction, but most of it was still flat, smooth, and unbroken, a testament to the builders. Everyone knew it was some sort of ancient highway, the only artifact left on the planet from a long-departed civilization, one that had been gone many hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps millions.

  Mac turned and walked further away from the spine.

  At the southern end, about a week’s travel from where Mac now stood, the old man knew the white rock of the Spine followed the ground right into the ocean. Although he had never been there, more than one hunter had told him about it. The top of the Spine, the ‘highway,’ could be seen disappearing into the water many kilometers from shore. No telling how far out to sea it traversed under water. Nobody could get to the ocean bottom to check. And nobody wanted to. The Spine was nothing more than a continent-long anomaly in the middle of a dry, hostile desert, an artifact that no longer had any relevance for living beings.

  For almost four days, kilometer after kilometer, Mac and Toadstool had trudged north along the east side of the great ruin. But in spite of his best rationing efforts, the water had run out hours earlier. They found no dead Rhino.

  Mac remembered that Greg Bonner told him to go north, not Jack. “Bonner lied on purpose,” Mac mumbled to himself. “He sent me away on a fool’s errand, and that fool’s errand is going to cost this old fool his life! There’s no doubt about it. He knew I wouldn’t return and he’s laughing at my ghost right now.”

  Mac took a few more steps then turned around and looked at the spine again. At this distance, almost two hundred meters, it was hard for Mac’s old eyes to tell that Toadstool was a mule. The animal looked more like an oblong dark spot with legs standing in front of a white stone wall. Mac looked around and found that from his vantage point, he could see the northern end of the Spine, the place where a long, smooth, gentle arc curved the ancient road down toward the desert floor instead of parallel to it. The end wasn’t that far away, but he had been unable to see it while walking directly beside the Spine. Now he could easily see the point where it disappeared into the sand.

  “Damn! I’ve come a long ways north, all the way to the end of the Spine. I’ll walk to the end without Toadstool,” Mac said. “From there I’ll be able to look out on the other side of the spine. Maybe there’s an oasis in the western part of the desert. Maybe not. I’ve never heared-tell of one. If I don’t find nothing, I’ll turn around and go home.”

  Mac started walking but stopped immediately. “Who the hell do you think you’re fooling, you old fool?” Mac screamed at himself. “There sure as mule shit ain’t going to be no going home now. We ain’t got no water and no way to get none. And Toadstool won’t move without it.”

  He trudged through the sand and rock of the desert toward the end of the spine. He decided to allow himself one quick peek then he would go back and lie down beside Toadstool. He’d die there, lie down and die. They’d die together, he and Toadstool. And, damn it! That was Bonner’s plan all along. He’d fallen for it like the blithering old idiot he was. He glanced back at the motionless mule. “Yep. A blithering old idiot,” he shouted back at Toadstool. “Maybe both of us, Toadstool. Me for believing Bonner, and you for believing me.”

  A quarter of an hour later, Mac was standing at the point where the weather-beaten white rock disappeared beneath the desert floor. There was no Rhino, dead or alive, no water, no nothing. He looked on the other side of the Spine, the west side, and it looked like more of the same desert he had been walking in for days. It was flat and he could see a long way. If anything, it had even fewer scraggly green things growing than the desert he and Toadstool had traveled.

  “Bad place to die,” he said to no one. “But I guess it don’t much matter where you are when you’re dead. I sure hate I let Jack down so.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. Even this far north it was still warm in the middle of the day.

  He turned and looked at the barren desert to the north. There were even fewer plants in that direction, but he noticed a large dark spot not too far beyond the end of the Spine. Why would there be a black spot in the middle of the desert? Then it hit him. “An oasis!” he shouted. “Water! I’ll be damned! I never heard tell of no oasis way up here. I’ll be black lily damned!”

  He started running toward the black spot, but as he got close he realized it was not an oasis, not water at all. It was a hole in the earth. A well? An underground oasis?

  Once close, he crept up to the edge and peered down into the hole, hoping to see water somewhere beneath the surface. The hole was deep but there were no ripples and no reflection to indicate water.

  “Damn!” he said. “Damn! Damn! Damn! I’m gonna die and they’ve opened up a hole to hell for me.” He leaned back and scratched his bald head. “Or maybe I’m already dead and I’m supposed to go down there. I sorta thought I’d be headed in the other direction. Okay, okay. I’ll make the best of being in Hell. I’ll get there early and figger the ropes and be ready to bother the slop out of Bonner when he gets there ‘cause I know damned well that’s where he’s going. Dirty, lying son-of-a-bitch!”

  Mac lay on the ground and stuck his head down into the hole to look around. There was a large pile of rocks of all sizes directly beneath. It looked as though the whole desert floor had given way and fallen into a chamber below, maybe a cave. The top of the rock pile was not too far down, perhaps seven or eight meters.

  Then Mac noticed the rock pile was resting on a flat, smooth floor. It was a room of some sort! The floor was about twelve meters down, perhaps a little more. He could tell the room was large, but because the broken, jagged walls of the hole went down almost five meters, he couldn’t see far enough in any direction to see a wall. It couldn’t be a cave, not with a smooth floor. It had to be a room, a big underground room.

  At the bottom of the five meters of desert floor, what had been the ceiling of the underground room, the hole opened up to the sides and, amazingly, was lighted below that point. It had to be lighted. The low-level glow he could see in the hole was brighter than could be explained by sunlight going through the relatively small opening he was looking through. It was only a few meters across. But what was making the light down below? There was no flickering from an oil lamp. It was a steady glow.

  “Maybe I’m as crazy as they say. Maybe this hole is here and maybe it ain’t. It sure don’t look like hell because there ain’t no fires. I might be imagining things. I’ve heard tell of people seeing things in the desert when they run out of water. Maybe I’m seeing things and this is one of those mirages. And maybe I’m not and it ain’t. Might as well find out. If it ain’t a mirage then this’ll be the only place around here where I’ve got a gnat’s ass chance of finding water.”

  Mac walked all the way back to Toadstool, his mouth reminding him every step of the way that he was thirsty. It felt like there was dust in his mouth and he couldn’t gather enough spit to clean it away.

  Mac retrieved an empty water skin and a rope from the saddlebag. The rope was short, only a quarter-roll. “Damn Bill Miller! He should have a full coil of rope in here, not this stupid stub rope.”

  After wasting a few minutes trying to get Toadstool to come with him, Mac gave u
p on the mule and walked back to the hole. He tied one end of the rope around one of the rocks that lay scattered through the desert, making sure to pick one much heavier than he was, and dangled the other end down into the hole. It almost touched the rock pile, off to the side, not on top.

  “Good thing that rock pile is there,” Mac said. “I don’t have enough rope to reach the floor. I guess that rock pile is what used to be the desert up here and it collapsed into that big room down there.”

  He began to lower himself into the hole, squeezing the rope as hard as he could grip it. For a wrinkled old man who was little more than skin and bone, he had surprising strength. He carefully lowered himself, one hand at a time, until, moments later, his toes touched the rock pile. He rested his left foot on a rock and started to move his right foot down, loosening his grip on the rope. The rock under his left foot slipped. As he flailed about to keep his balance, he lost his grasp on the rope.

  Mac began sliding down the rock pile. He made one last desperate grab for the rope but missed. Unable to reach it, he slid down the rubble hill almost, it seemed, in slow motion. Smaller rocks were falling and scattering everywhere like a miniature landslide. His arms cartwheeled about as he tried to maintain his balance. He began to pick up speed. Trying to stop the slide, his arms groped for and tried to hug the rocks in the pile, but this only caused the sharp edges of the broken rocks to scratch and cut him as he continued to move downward at a faster and faster pace. He had given himself up for dead and was starting a prayer when suddenly both hands managed to catch a larger rock that was firmly in place. It broke his slide.

  Slowly, carefully, he worked his feet until he found a firm place for each. Lightly bleeding from dozens of small scratches on his arms, but essentially unhurt, Mac looked around at a large underground room. There was a yellow-orange glow throughout so that he could easily see the walls in the distance, but he could not see where the light was coming from. It looked as though it was bleeding through the walls themselves.