Still, she reached out to him, unable to stop herself.
He didn’t see the gesture but growled as he moved away from her. “It isn’t your fault. I haven’t felt right since they gave me that—that drug in Fantis. I feel like a eunuch! And whatever they do to me at the gate will probably just make it worse.” Though how it could be worse, he could scarcely imagine.
She regarded him for a long moment. How could she help him now? “Whatever they do at the gate, it’s something these people do all the time,” she offered tentatively. “They probably know a lot about it. If they say it would make the matter worse, I’ll go on alone. You can find someplace safe to wait until I get back.”
This did not remove his anxiety, but it distracted him momentarily. “You’d do that? Go alone?”
“Possibly. Depending on how far the city with the library is Depending on whether they say it’s safe or not.”
“They who? More like Black Owl and his crotch music?” he snarled. “Him and his p’nash.”
She shook her head at him chidingly. “Don’t be that way, Sonny. Black Owl is no rapist.”
“You know so damned much!” he shouted, irritated beyond control. “Too damned much for a virgin!”
She flushed angrily. “It’s true, I know a lot. Oracle told me all about sex and rape and men and diseases and everything, over and over again! And there was Bastard, a perfect object lesson. Lately, I’ve wondered if Oracle prevented my having any joy of discovery about it, telling me as much as she did. But she was trying to keep me alive, Abasio. She didn’t want me to die of an IDDI. Or get slaughtered by some sex-mad, drugged-up bunch.”
Abasio glowered and stirred the fire. He knew what she was talking about; he had seen tally groups in Fantis who started out drinking and yelling war cries, working themselves up into a howling mob that ended up pursuing some hapless songhouse woman with such mindless violence, she ended up dead, or as good as. Which had nothing to do with him!
Olly tried to ignore him. She had gone to the wagon to rummage among the foodstuffs. “What will you have for supper?” she called. “We have grain left, and dried meat, and six eggs. We have potatoes and a head of cabbage from the last farm we passed.…”
Abasio stepped away from the fire, without answering. He had quit listening. He’d wanted to shake her, but if he did, she’d think he was one of the men Oracle had warned her against! He wanted to kiss her, but if he did that, she’d think something else, equally unpleasant. Most of all, he wanted to love her.
He could do nothing about it. Instead he breathed deeply as he brushed the dust from his clothing and from the inch-long ringlets that covered his head and jaw. He had never had a beard before. The new Abasio he saw reflected in the water barrel might confuse those who knew the old Abasio. Perhaps it would confuse those who were hunting him.
His bemusement was broken by a soprano yipping that came from the darkness before him. Even Big Blue stopped his nose-down shuffle, raised his head, and whickered softly.
“Coyote,” Abasio said half-aloud as he turned his head, trying to locate the sound. Ever since the episode with ogres, he had paid close attention to coyotes.
“Close,” she agreed, assembling foodstuffs from the wagon.
The yipping continued, first here, then there, intermittent, gradually growing in volume until it sounded as though it came from a hollow behind a nearby clump of thorny choya where a pool of darkness dwindled and welled as the fire leaped and fell.
Abasio took a stick from the fire and walked toward the clump. As he approached it, a coyote came out of the darkness, trotting toward them confidently, laughing sidewise at Abasio as he trotted past.
Olly stood very still.
“Mangy, rangy, yipper, yeller!” cried the guardian-angel from its perch on the wagon. “See, here comes a tricksy feller.”
“Good evening,” said the Coyote. “I see you’ve decided to stay the night.”
Abasio stayed frozen in midstep. Someone was playing a trick, perhaps a dangerous trick. His immediate reaction was to kill the animal, but he couldn’t reach his weapon.
Olly seemed to be better able to deal with the situation. She cleared her throat, gesturing aimlessly with the stewpot she held. “What are …?”
The Coyote trotted over to the fire and sat down facing her, wrapping its bushy tail around its feet. “Hardly flattering to be called a what. Why not a who?”
“Who are you, then?” she asked, coughing to clear her throat of the hard lump that had come from nowhere.
“Coyote,” he replied. “One of many.”
“Do coyotes still … talk, then?”
“Still?”
“Changing Woman taught you to talk. In one of Oracle’s stories.”
“I’ve heard that story,” he said. “I think that kind of tale is called a fable. It is true that coyotes talk, but not all of us talk human.”
Abasio turned and came back to the fire, dropping the firebrand into it as inconspicuously as possible. “But you do, obviously. How did—I mean—”
“You mean, why is it I can talk? Well, as to that, it has been suggested to me that certain of my ancestors may have been part of an experiment humans made before they went to the stars. Perhaps something to do with changing the sequences of DNA that control the shape of the skull, the development of the vocal cords and tongue, as well as certain centers in the brain. No doubt you understand all that better than I.”
“I’m afraid we don’t understand at all,” said Olly. “I’ve never heard of such things. Have you—Sonny?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
Coyote shrugged, an almost human shrug. “It was only suggested; it may not be the case. Perhaps I’m a mutation. Perhaps I’m a throwback to that fabulous time you speak of. In any case, the talent does not breed true. Only about half my pups can do human talk, and not many of my colleagues. Sometimes I get hungry for conversation.”
“How do you learn it? Talk, I mean,” Abasio asked.
The coyote scratched behind one ear with a hind foot “I was found on the desert by a hermit, a man of considerable intelligence and vocabulary. I was only a pup at the time, but I was making noises that interested him. It was he who speculated as to the origins of my forecoyotes.” He laughed silently, his tongue dripping. “I would have said forebears, but that’s obviously the wrong genus. At any rate, my human taught me language. He was old when he found me. Eventually, he died. My kindred and I howled him away while the buzzards ate him.”
“Poor thing,” said Olly feelingly, not specifying whether it was the Coyote or the hermit she pitied. “We’re—we’re happy to talk with you. As a matter of fact, you can join us for supper. I was just putting on some stew.”
“Thank you, but I had a rabbit along about sundown. Generally, I prefer raw meat. Biologically, it suits me. I am not at all civilized, only talkative. At least, so my mentor assured me.” He smiled, again lolloping his dripping tongue at them while showing long, slightly yellow teeth.
“You don’t mind if we go on with our cooking?” asked Abasio, seating himself once more.
“Not at all As a matter of fact, if you’d like a fresh rabbit, I’ll catch one for you. They’re quite fat. We had a good bit of rain sometime back, and the grass is unusually plentiful for this season.”
“Why would you do that for us?” asked Olly, curiously.
“Tit for tat.” The Coyote grinned. “I want to go into Artemisia. The people there are experimenting. They say they are trying to structure a society that includes nature rather than destroys it, a society that controls technology instead of being controlled by it. I want to see what they’re doing. Perhaps they’re succeeding, but it may be only talk!”
He shook himself. “Now, supposing it’s only talk, I’d be unwise to go there without some form of protection. Whether they’re attempting to live with nature or not, the men of Artemisia hunt with bows and arrows, with lances, with snares and traps. They deck themselves in feathers
and fur, including the skins of my brethren. They like our tails for their dance bustles. They say they’re preservationists, that they’re careful not to kill too many of us, but what a pity if one they killed was me!”
“But surely, if you talk to them—”
“Hah!” Coyote barked. “According to my hermit, though intelligence is a continuum that does not begin and end with man, most men have traditionally believed themselves to be the only intelligent living things. When our supporters have suggested otherwise, they have been accused of anthropomorphizing animals.” He sighed, a very human-sounding sigh. “Of course, it’s worked both ways. Man has been reluctant to animalize humans, too, even though he’ll never get society to work until he does!” He scratched his ear once more, two wrinkles in his furry forehead. “Man expects far too much from his kind and does too little to help himself achieve it. Artemisians know this. Or so they say. I need to see if they speak the truth.”
He reached out with his front paws, stretched himself hugely, rear end in the air, then sat back down again. “Also, Artemisia has its mercantile side. If they didn’t kill me, they might sell me! There are men in this world who would pay much for a talking animal.
“No, if I am to see Artemisia, I must belong to someone. Someone like you: an unremarkable couple, just traveling through, no threat to anyone. You put a collar on me, attach it to a leash—whatso, I’m a pet dog.”
“You don’t look quite like a dog,” objected Abasio.
“I’ll grovel. I’ll slink.” He turned to Olly, his eyes glittering. “I’ll let you beat me. I’ll lick your feet.”
“I wouldn’t want you to do that,” Olly said.
He laughed at them again. “Our relationship wouldn’t be one-sided. There are things I can do for you. I can warn you of danger, as I think you already know. I can help you avoid danger, as I have already done.”
“You were—”
“I led the group who teased the ogres away from you and into harm’s way, yes. I can tell you, woman, that some who are looking for you have moved much faster than you have. They are there”—he nodded to the east—“moving among the truckers. They will go through the gate in the morning.”
“I had hoped they were the ones who—who got killed,” she cried. “What do they want with me?”
“They have not said,” Coyote admitted. “I can understand speech, but I cannot read minds. I can smell fear and excitement and lust, but the walkers stink of nothing I’ve ever smelled before. Nonetheless, they are looking for you here and there, by twos—inquiring for an orphan female of some twenty years.”
He turned toward Abasio. “You’re being hunted, too, but your hunters are behind you. I lay outside the light of their fire one night while they talked about you, congratulating themselves on how clever they had been to learn where you were born. They had been to your home, they had questioned your ancestor. He had told them yes, you had come there some time ago, but you had gone away. They have not yet picked up your trail. They do not know you are traveling with someone else.”
“Did they hurt him?” Abasio asked. “Grandpa? Did they?”
“I think not. From what they said, he whined and groveled and said he had driven you off, so you’d not endanger him or his neighbors.”
“If they’ve sent gangers after me, they won’t go into Artemisia,” Abasio asserted. “No ganger would accept being neutered.”
“Oh, a professional hunter won’t be balked of his prey or his pay by a little thing like a chastity belt! You may be right in saying most gangers would not, but these men do not need to make children to boost their self-respect!” Coyote nodded to himself.
“How do you know all this?” cried Olly.
“I run. I slink. I listen. I think. Though my talent is still quite rare, I am far from the only coyote who speaks human. I ask others to help me, and we lie beyond the light of campfires, outside open windows, hearing what men and women say to one another. Information has value, and I offer it to you as value, so you will return my gift with one of your own.”
“Just so you can look around?”
“So I can study Artemisia, yes. Will you do it?”
“What exactly is our bargain?” asked Abasio. “That you travel with us, warn us of danger, keep us out of trouble, and we pretend you are our pet? For how long?”
“Until we tire of the arrangement.”
Man and woman looked at one another in surmise.
“I see no harm in it,” said Abasio, half to Olly, half to the animal, “unless you are playing some game with us.”
“I have heard that Coyote is a trickster,” Olly said softly. Oracle had often spoken of him as a clever creature who had outwitted other animals and man over the centuries they had lived in the same world.
The Coyote nodded. “It’s true. I am a trickster. We all are, we coyotes. Those animals who have survived mankind tend to be, one way or another.”
“I’m willing to make the bargain,” said Abasio. “But don’t play false with us if you value your hide.”
“My word is my word,” Coyote said, rising. “Better than most contracts. I’ll be here in the morning by the time you’re awake.”
And he strolled behind the thorny bush from which he had emerged, leaving them both staring after him.
Abasio stood silent for so long that Olly asked, “What are you thinking?”
He was surprised into an answer. “Just that the color on my hands is wearing off.” He hadn’t been conscious of the thought until he spoke it.
She came to him and took one of his hands in her own. The purple tattoos were faintly visible through the fading dye.
“I’ll mix up some indigo,” she said, then whispered, “and just in case someone is watching, we’ll get out the table and do a few neckerchiefs as an excuse. Maybe we can bribe the gate guards with them.”
She went to bustle around the fire, and Abasio, heaving a great sigh, began the evening chores. By the time he was finished, the stew was done, the dye table was down, and a few squares of blank cloth were laid out in the light of the lantern.
She offered him the dye pot. He sat down with it between his feet and dipped his hands and wrists, letting them soak while he considered what had happened, what would happen in the morning. If what Coyote had said was true, the two humans should not be too quick to move in the morning. Give the Orphan-hunters time to get through the gate before Olly and Abasio came there. And proceed through the gate with the least possible fuss and no tantrum of outraged masculinity.
He returned the dye pot to Olly and went on to the barrel for water to rinse his hands and arms. Behind him, he heard the even thwack, thwack, thwack of the dye block slapped down on the cloth squares. When he returned, she was adding another fluid to the bucket, one she’d been steeping so she could amplify her pattern with another hue. She was working with a troubled, distracted air. Abasio watched her, head cocked, worried by her silence.
The firelight jumped, gleaming from bright runnels on her cheeks.
“You’re crying!” he exclaimed, suddenly guilty over his recent anger and irritation. The silent tears dripped from her jaw, and she licked them from the corners of her mouth. “Olly, sweet.…”
She leaned into his arms, crying, “Abasio, why are they hunting me? I haven’t done anything to anybody.” She shook her head, the tears flying. “I was just beginning to think I knew something about me. I try to forget there are people—things hunting me, but then something reminds me, and it makes me so—scared.”
It was the voice of a child, lonely and forlorn. It was Elrick-Ann’s voice, the voice of his ma when she had looked in the mirror at the tattooed emblems on her breast and wept for her youth. It was the cry of the lost lambs he had been sent after in his boyhood, to find them and return them to the fold. It was his own voice, a few times he remembered, when all had seemed past understanding or acceptance.
Abasio held her more tightly, rocking slowly back and forth by the coals of the fire w
here the stewpot steamed and bubbled and the little fire made cracking noises in the night. It was Coyote’s talk of the hunters that had set her off, but he had laid the groundwork for her misery. He silently cursed himself and things in general. For the moment it didn’t matter that he couldn’t lust after her. He cared for her in her trouble and pain, and for this firelit time, that was enough.
The walkers were among the first through the gate the following morning. They had passes that, they said, allowed them to cross any border. The type of pass was so unfamiliar, however, that the person in charge at the gate had to summon her captain before opening the barrier and letting them through.
“Enjoy your travels through Artemisia,” the captain said, nodding politely but distantly, wondering at the difficulty she was having in keeping her voice at its natural pitch and intensity. She wanted to gasp, to squeak. She wanted to run and hide.
“One moment,” said the taller walker, refusing to be dismissed.
The captain summoned all her discipline to quell a shudder and put on an attentive face.
“We’re seeking a female person of about twenty years. We are told she has dark hair and eyes. It is likely she is traveling alone. Have you seen such a one?”
The captain shook her head. “What has she done?”
“I did not say she had done anything,” the taller walker said, raising his brows. “Why we seek her is our business only. Not your business.”
The captain swallowed the bile that seeped bitterly at the back of her tongue and said carefully, “I merely thought more information might help me assist you better.”
“You need no more information. Answer the question.”
The captain turned to the gatekeeper, who shook her head wordlessly.
“No,” whispered the gatekeeper. “Only men, traders, truckers, a few older couples, but no woman traveling alone.”
The questioners turned without further word and left, stalking out through the gate and into the countryside along the road that led to the town.
“What kind of a pass did they have?” the gatekeeper asked her captain in a trembling whisper. “Who are they?”
A Plague of Angels Page 31
