“Really?” he gasped. He had heard stories of his aunt and uncle’s years in San Francisco, but had never seen the place for himself. “That would be awesome! Is there gonna’ be a parade and everything? Will they have fireworks? Can I stay up until midnight?”
“Hey, slow down,” Bill laughed. “Yeah, parade, fireworks, midnight, everything. You’ll love it. And Carol’s sister already said we could stay with her. You remember your Aunt Nina? Her apartment is right downtown. We’ll be right in the middle of everything.”
“Awesome,” Caleb breathed.
“Definitely,” Bill replied. The cold evening wind whipped in their faces as the pair stepped outside. “A whole new year in a new city. That’ll be something, huh?”
THE GREAT CAMPFIRE LEAPED AND CRACKLED in the center of the circle of caravan wagons. Chuck lay contentedly on the grass near a large group of dinosaur-people, with Caleb leaning back against her thickly muscled flank. An empty wooden bowl and cup were all that remained of Caleb’s dinner. Sitting on a worn leather mat beside Caleb and Chuck was the imposing tyrannosaurus-man. He had introduced himself much earlier as Garner, though most of the others in the camp simply referred to him as “Gar.” Caleb glanced over at the large man, intrigued by the bright and intelligent eyes that gleamed from within that scaly countenance. The two had spoken little during the meal, but their silence was peaceful. Garner’s gruff and defensive demeanor had quickly given way to quiet contemplation as the musicians strummed lost songs and dancers swayed around the fire.
As the latest song faded into silence, Caleb opened his mouth to ask a question, but stopped as Garner sat up attentively. The musicians were huddled together, talking in whispers as the rest of the camp looked on expectantly. The quiet laughter and conversation that had drifted through the night air slowly tapered off, and several more dino-people settled down near the fire. With a nod to the drummer, the plateosaurus-guitarist began plucking the notes of another song from the old days. Caleb watched attentively as the other musicians slowly joined in, bringing the tune into full swing. A lambeosaurus-woman began singing with a soft, flute-like voice. The lyrics were half-familiar to Caleb, something about a carnival and a city. All around, the dinosaur-people hummed and swayed to the music, completely enraptured by the old song. Garner and several others turned to look at one of the wagons as several young dinosaur-people climbed out, walking briskly out onto the grass and dirt around the fire. Without hesitation, they broke into a lively dance. Caleb looked on in fascination as their strange forms spun and leapt in sharp silhouette against the tall flames.
There were six in all, each one fleet and graceful in different ways, according to his or her particular anatomy. A shockingly tall and thin ornithomimus-man sprung from one long-toed foot to the other, covering several yards with each stride. He was followed by a small and powerfully muscled stegoceras-man, his dome-topped head gleaming in the firelight as he danced with a frantic, hectic energy. A pair of brightly spotted hypsilophodon-women pranced and circled on either side of the other two. Caleb was surprised to see that their bodies, faces, and specific spot patterns were exactly the same—identical twins. Two other dancers moved on the other side of the fire. One circled into view as the others circled around. His sinuous, spotted body and brightly patterned crest marked him as a dilophosaurus-man. Caleb craned his neck, waiting for the last dancer to circle around the flames. Her form was hardly visible on the other side of the fire, revealing only a feminine frame with long limbs and a slender tail.
Suddenly, with a high-pitched whistle, the dancer leapt over the seven-foot flames, soaring in a graceful arc to land safely on the other side. The woman was small and lean, but powerful looking. Her body was covered with a mix of smooth scales and bright red feathers, and her hands and feet ended in long, nimble digits with wickedly hooked claws. The dancer’s rigid tail was adorned with a fan of gold-tipped feathers, and her eyes glittered an even brighter gold, like little candle flames in the firelight. She danced and swirled to the music with a predator’s grace. Caleb could clearly see the sickle-shaped, upraised claws on her feet, and he remembered the distinctive tracks he had found by the river.
“It’s the raptor-girl,” he whispered. The other dancers went completely unnoticed as Caleb watched the red-feathered woman. Her fluid movements were a hypnotizing blend of human elegance and animal grace. At times, her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground, as if she were gliding on the rhythms of the song. Other times, her clawed feet pounded the ground viciously, her body coiled and ready to spring into the air with ferocious energy.
Finally, the music began to fade, then fell silent. As the dancers settled around the fire, Caleb sat in silence for several minutes, his heart rattling in his chest. The others seemed equally moved, but for reasons that Caleb wasn’t entirely sure of. He looked over at Garner, who sat back with a wistful expression on his fearsome face.
“That song has some kind of special meaning for you, doesn’t it?” Caleb asked.
Garner remained silent for a moment, his brow furrowed. “It’s about Carnival,” he said.
“Well, yeah,” Caleb said, “I heard that in the lyrics. But what is Carnival, exactly?”
Garner was silent again, then he spoke in a quiet, hopeful voice. “It’s where we’re going. We don’t fit in in most places. Even when we do, we’ll always be different... feared. It’s not the life we want, always trying to ‘blend in’ and not make anyone too nervous. Always worrying about when someone is gonna’ make us their scapegoat. Nobody should have to live like that.
“A few years ago, a couple of us started hearing stories about Carnival. It’s a place where us old-bloods can go and just be people. Not freaks.”
“Old-bloods?” Caleb asked. “Is that what you call yourselves?”
“Yeah,” Garner mumbled, a dark look passing across his face. “Though you might be more familiar with the term ‘dino-freak.’ That seems to be the most popular. That’s why the city’s called Carnival, you know. The name’s sort of a bad joke. Carnival is the only place where us ‘freaks’ can all be together and feel like we belong.”
“So it’s a whole city?” Caleb asked. The idea was strangely appealing.
“Yeah, so they say. There’s supposed to be hundreds there already, and more coming all the time. You’ve never heard of it before because we worry about all the normals getting scared and messing things up.” Garner looked sternly at Caleb. “I shouldn’t have told you as much as I did, but I think that as a loner and a wanderer you can understand the dangers of a settlement full of scared people. Especially with a friend like that.” Garner gestured at Chuck.
“Besides,” he continued, “if Carnival has grown as big as we think it has, it’s not going to be very vulnerable anymore.” He paused and cast a critical eye at Caleb, perhaps expecting him to look nervous or suspicious. Instead he saw a glimmer of wonder in Caleb’s eye as he imagined the secret city of dinosaurs.
Caleb glanced back at Garner and seemed to wake from a daydream. “You’ve been heading west, right?” he asked.
Garner scowled. “For quite a while. How long have you been following us?”
“Oh, no,” Caleb said, “I haven’t been following you, I just crossed your trail a few days back. There was a clearing by a small river where you must have stopped for a while. Lots of tracks in the mud. Anyway, I’ve been wandering in that general direction. I was just thinking that if you wanted some travel tips, I’ve been through these parts before. I even have a map.”
Garner’s expression lightened at the mention of a map. “We have a few too, but they’re a little tattered. Maybe you could show me...”
Caleb sprung to his feet and began rummaging through Chuck’s saddle packs. After a few minutes of muttering, he carefully removed the faded map from its case. He settled down beside Garner and began unrolling the paper on a clean blanket.
“Ok, we’re right about here,” Caleb said, pointing to a spot somewhere between Salt Flat City a
nd the Evanston settlement. Garner eyed the small dot of Evanston and gritted his jagged teeth.
“I hope you guys didn’t cross too close to that place,” Caleb said.
“Close enough.” Garner growled. “Bunch of finger-pointing, gun-waving, Awaru stranglers.”
“Was anyone hurt?” Caleb asked quietly.
“Naw, we just scared ‘em off our tails.”
Caleb paused. “I meant you guys,” he said.
“Oh. No, not really,” Garner said. He gestured over to the armor-plated ankylosaur-drummer. “They shot Hank a couple of times, but he had his back turned, so most of the bullets bounced. One of ‘em ricocheted and hit a gunman in the leg. After that, they got really pissed, so we gave ‘em a little scare and got the hell out of there.”
Caleb thought about what it would be like to be shot at on a regular basis, just for looking odd. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.
Garner looked at him strangely, then grinned. “What the hell for? You may not be old-blooded, but that doesn’t mean you’re responsible for every trigger-happy normal we meet. Now, how would you suggest we get past these mountains here?” Garner pointed to an irregular range just north of the Great Salt Flat.
Caleb smiled and began pointing out a number of passes he had found, some of which would be large enough for the larger wagons and dinosaurs.
The morning was cool and dry. Caleb crouched in the dust in the shadows of one of the larger wagons. Beside him, Chuck grunted softly as he fastened her pack saddle.
The camp was filled with the quiet sounds of the wind and small animals hunting in the pre-dawn twilight. Overhead, thin clouds reflected the first rays of sunlight, bathing the thin woods and dry grass in dim, pinkish light. Caleb could hear the faint rustles and snores of sleeping dino-people over the mumbling of the wind.
He looked around at the rugged wooden wagons and slumbering dinosaurs with their harnesses and bright saddle blankets. He had never felt more at home. The dinner of lambeosaur steak from the night before still rested comfortably in Caleb’s belly. He carefully gathered and folded the leather sleeping mats and woven blankets that the dino-people had loaned him and hung them on the side of one of the wagons. A look over his shoulder showed that the old-blooded travelers were still deep in sleep.
Caleb took hold of Chuck’s saddle straps and led her out of the wagon circle, then quietly hopped up onto her back. Chuck walked slowly; seeming reluctant to leave the attention and food she had received in the camp. Caleb looked back at the wagons once, then set his jaw and turned to the path ahead.
“I can’t stay with them,” he whispered. “They’re going to Carnival, and I won’t fit in there. I just hope they make it there. They deserve a place where they can belong.”
An image of the raptor-woman flashed through Caleb’s thoughts, leaping over the fire like some kind of wild forest spirit. He wondered if she would be as fierce and beautiful within the walls of a city as she was by the firelight in the wilderness.
Back in the camp, Garner stirred in his sleep, tossing one of his thick, short arms out from under his blanket. His blunt-clawed hand fell on a small leather pouch that was placed carefully on the mat beside him. Inside was a simple necklace of plastic cord, tied tightly around a small stone fossil of a trilobite, worn and smoothed by many years of handling, but still clearly recognizable. On the outside of the pouch, someone had written two words with a piece of charcoal.
.
“Who let that thing in?” the trader asked. He was a short, thin man, dressed in a boggling array of finely crafted dino-leather and scavenged bits of old clothes. Faded orange polyester and striped nylon hung in strips around his sweaty face, dangling from a sort of piecemeal turban.
“Chuck is my partner,” Caleb answered. Behind him, Chuck grunted softly and stared at the small man, making him shift uneasily from foot to foot. “She makes sure nobody tries to swindle me.”
“Sir, sir!” the man pleaded, a patronizing smile on his sunbaked face. “I can assure you, I have no such intentions! My goods are of the finest quality—straight out of the ruins, no previous owners. My prices are as low as I can afford for such precious relics. These are the best deals in Salt Flat City, guaranteed!”
Caleb scanned the selection of objects laid out on the dirty mat at the trader’s feet. There were several knives, some polished and gleaming sharp, others rather rusty. In one small wooden bowl were a number of mismatched pieces of silverware, including a fork with every tine broken off. Various shards and sections of old window glass rested in another bowl. A necklace made out of the buttons from an old computer keyboard hung on a small rack, along with several polished doorknobs. To one side was an armor vest, pieced together out of hubcaps, chain-link fence and the door from an old wood stove. Further back was the woodstove itself, the hinges ripped off in some long-ago accident.
“I need some water containers,” Caleb said. “Big ones.”
“Why sir,” the trader beamed, “how fortunate! I just happen to have one of the finest selections of bottles, jars and water skins in the region!” The trader gestured dramatically at a collection of intact and partially broken glass and plastic bottles lining a shelf in the stall behind him. A wooden rack behind it held a number of canteens and water skins.
“Let me see one of those,” Caleb asked, pointing to a trio of large, gallon-sized plastic bottles. The trader quickly grabbed one of the yellowed containers and passed it carefully to Caleb as if he were handing him a precious Ming vase. The bottle was scratched, dinged and dented, not to mention badly discolored, but it smelled clean and didn’t seem to have any cracks or holes. It would do quite nicely. Caleb handed the bottle back, trying to seem indifferent.
“Do you have any water?” Caleb asked.
“Why, yes, but...” the trader stammered.
“Fill it,” Caleb said brusquely.
“Sir, do you doubt the quality of my wares?” the trader asked, sounding deeply hurt.
“I value my water supply.” Caleb answered. “My partner gets thirsty very quickly. Maybe, after we stumble back from the salt flats with a bunch of empty, leaky water bottles, she could quench her thirst with salesman’s blood?”
The trader stared at Chuck, his jaw quivering slightly. He quickly brought the bottle into the back of his stall, returning with a gallon of clear water. He seemed to have already recovered his composure.
“Here you are, sir. Not a drip! See for yourself.”
Caleb took the bottle and examined all sides, looking closely and feeling with his fingers. It was cool but dry.
“That’s nice,” he said. The trader’s face beamed. “Fill the others, too, please,” he said. The trader scowled, then grabbed the other two bottles.
Soon the other bottles had been tested and emptied. Caleb traded a few old plastic bags, a hypsilophodon skin, and a bent Wyoming license plate that said “EZRIDR.”
With the bottles fastened securely to Chuck’s saddle, the pair left the trader’s stall and strolled lazily down the wide street.
“I hate dealing with those guys,” Caleb muttered. Chuck snorted in agreement.
The sun beat down on the two companions and the smell of sand, sweat, and salt drifted on the dry wind. Passers-by kept a cautious distance from the stranger and his carnivorous partner.
The dusty street was lined on either side with low, patchwork buildings. Some of the structures were almost completely original construction, while others were totally rebuilt upon ruins of toppled brick and steel. Almost nothing stood more than three stories tall. Higher buildings had fallen during the earthquakes that had come after The Lights Went Out, and the new wooden structures were barely stable at three stories.
All along the street, small shops and merchant’s stalls crowded onto the dirt and fragmented pavement. Small, thin trees poked up through the edges of the road and between the buildings, their fern-like leaves giving the city a tropical or Middle Eastern look.
The people of the city were an
eclectic mix, including a small number of old-bloods (the name dino-freak no longer popped into his head) and even a few Awaru trading their forest herbs and animal skins. Most of the travelers who passed through the city were here for the salt. The mineral was harvested from the flats by local workers and sold to travelers, who used it more as a means of food preservation than as a seasoning. Caleb had already purchased a few small bags, which he carried in his pack and hung from Chuck’s saddle.
Caleb paused at a small gathering in the middle of the street. In the middle of the circle of people, a flutist was piping a simple tune while a young girl sang along. Caleb listened for a moment, but the music was plain and uninteresting compared to the melodies of the dino-caravan.
Turning to leave, Caleb was surprised to see a small, sleek form standing quietly beside him. He looked down at the brightly colored poncho of a wiry Awaru. The creature glanced up at him with squinty, sparkling eyes and chirped amusedly. The Awaru was lean, about three and a half feet tall, and looked rather elderly with faded scales and feathers. His beak and bony crest were scratched and weathered, and the fleshy wattle at his neck dangled halfway to the ground. He was now staring at Caleb deliberately, clicking his beak and clucking quietly. Caleb couldn’t imagine how he had captured the creature’s attention so thoroughly.
“Can I help you?” Caleb muttered, not really expecting an answer. Although Awaru were perfectly capable of mastering human languages, they just as often did not. To his surprise, the Awaru chuckled wildly in response.
“Help me?” it clucked. “Kuu-Kuu! I am not the needer of helping! Wi’im-duzi! ‘Help me’, asks the boy!”
Caleb stared at the small dinosaur in confusion. The crowd was already moving away, made nervous by the strange conversation and the presence of Chuck.
Carnival of Time Page 6
