Coyote

by Allen Steele

  The surface was just within reach when a shadow fell upon me: something from below, coming up fast. I looked down, caught a glimpse of an enormous, rubbery mouth surrounded by tendrils, and two black eyes the size of dinner plates.

  The mouth yawned open beneath my feet, and I saw the pink ribbing within its throat. It could easily swallow me whole…

  A silent scream rose deep within my chest. I kicked back, as hard as I could, and the sole of my left foot connected solidly with the creature’s head.

  Maybe it was startled by prey that actually fought back, or perhaps it decided that I just wasn’t worth the effort. Either way, it gave me a pass. The mouth closed, and the catwhale darted away.

  My lungs burning, my skull feeling as if it was about to burst open, I fought my way to the surface. My head broke water and I gasped for breath.

  I don’t recall whether or not I cried out for help. I think I did, but I can’t be sure. The only distinct memory I have of the next few moments is someone grabbing me under the shoulders, hauling me roughly out of the water and across a gunnel.

  “Easy, easy,” murmured Kuniko. “You’ll be okay…”

  “David!” Chris yelled from somewhere nearby.

  Gagging on salt water, I turned sideways and threw up across someone’s legs. A hand brushed the hair from my eyes; a soft voice told me everything would be okay. Thinking it was Kuniko, I looked up at the person who had rescued me.

  “David! Where the hell is David?”

  Darkness overtook me, and I passed out in Carlos’s arms.

  I awoke to the gentle rocking motion of a boat slowly moving across water, a quiet breeze snapping at an unfurled sail. The light was mellow, subdued; the setting sun gilded a thin skein of clouds above the western horizon. Everything was silent, eerily serene.

  Weak, every muscle aching, I propped myself up on my elbows. I was lying across a wet tarp, a moist blanket pulled up around my body. My head had been resting in someone’s lap; looking around, I saw Carlos sitting cross-legged behind me, his back braced against the mast, his head lolling against his chest as he dozed. A few feet away, Kuniko sat in the stern, her hands gripping the rudder cables. She hadn’t noticed that I was awake; her eyes were fixed upon the horizon, squinting against the sun as she piloted the canoe. The fact that she and I were in the same boat with Carlos was my first clue that something was wrong.

  The Pleiades was missing; a severed nylon rope drifting in the water along the starboard side was the only indication that it had once been tied to the Orion. The waterline was only a couple of inches below the gunnel; the surviving canoe was overloaded, almost on the verge of sinking under its own weight. Peering past Carlos, I saw Chris sitting on the forward deck. His right arm was wrapped in a torn shirt and suspended by a sling around his neck; like Kuniko, he was watching the horizon, as if searching for something. Barry sat in the prow, his back turned to everyone; an oar lay across his lap, but I noticed that a rifle rested only a few inches away.

  “Hey…you all right?” Carlos’s hand was tender as he touched my arm.

  “Yeah. Think so.” As I spoke, Kuniko looked at me. Her eyes were moist and red-rimmed. For a moment I thought she was going to say something, but she remained quiet. “What…? I mean, I don’t…”

  “Don’t you remember? That fish…”

  “Catwhale.” I had only a vague recollection, but most of it was confused; a jumble of disjointed images. “That’s what David called it…” Suddenly, I realized what was wrong. “Where’s David?”

  “He’s gone.” Kuniko’s voice was low, almost a whisper. “He went overboard when you did. You came up again…he didn’t.”

  Flashback: an enormous mouth yawning open beneath me, the panic-stricken kick that chased it away. I looked around at Chris again. He still hadn’t moved; there was no indication whether he’d heard us. Perhaps it was just as well that I couldn’t see his face.

  “Pleiades sank.” Carlos shifted his legs a little, then he carefully laid my head back in his lap. “The thing…catwhale, if you want to call it that…broke it in half. Chris and Kuniko got off in time, and we managed to cut it loose before it dragged down Orion.”

  “The last thing I…” A memory of fighting the undertow, swimming for my life as the air boiled out of my lungs. I had an impulse to tell the others of my narrow escape, but now wasn’t the time. “Chris, what happened to your arm?”

  Chris didn’t reply. “Broke it when the mast came down on him,” Carlos said quietly. Chris muttered something I didn’t catch yet Carlos apparently did; he turned his head away.

  “We thought we’d lost you,” Kuniko said. “We couldn’t find you for a couple of minutes. Then you came out of the water, and…” She let out her breath, and now there were tears in her eyes. “Thank God.”

  Perhaps I should have thanked God, too. Just then, though, I was more grateful to my late father, who’d taught me how to swim when I was still a toddler. He might have been a lousy dad, but on that one point he’d done pretty well by his daughter. “Yeah, okay…so where are we?”

  “Halfway to shore. At least that’s what we think…we’ve lost the compass, along with everything else that was on the Pleiades. Maybe another ten, fifteen miles to go.”

  “We’ve lost…?”

  “Shh. Take it easy.” Kuniko returned her attention to the rudder. “Don’t worry. We’ll be home soon enough.”

  She was only half-right. We made it to shore about a couple of hours after sundown…but we were a long way from home.

  Although we still had the map, without a compass to give us an accurate bearing we had no real idea where we were. Somewhere west of the Alabama River, many miles from the mouth of the West Channel, or at least that was our best guess. The shallow coastline lay ghostly white beneath the light of Bear as Kuniko and Barry paddled the last few hundred yards to shore; when they heard the soft crunch of sand beneath the keel, Carlos and Barry stepped off into the cold surf breaking against the beach and hauled the canoe ashore.

  It felt strange to set up camp again, and not only because it was the first time we’d walked on dry land in eight days. Half of our supplies had been aboard the Pleiades, including one of the tents and most of what little food we had left; we pitched the remaining tent, then tied one of the tarps from the low bough of a short, palmetto-like tree as a sort of lean-to shelter. It took a while for anyone to remember to gather wood for a fire; that had always been David’s job, and somehow I think we were all expecting him to emerge from the darkness, his arms laden with kindling, complaining about always having to do that particular chore himself.

  Once a fire was started, though, no one wanted to gather around it. It wasn’t just the fact that we were exhausted or that we had precious little to eat; we just couldn’t bear to look at each other anymore. Barry was filthy and unshaven, and for the first time he’d become irritable, unable to communicate except in short, terse monosyllables. Chris’s eyes were unfocused, and he refused to speak to anyone. Kuniko’s hair was matted, her shoulders slumped as if she’d been carrying our collective weight for thousands of miles. Carlos’s face was haunted.

  Lost, hungry, and sick to the bottoms of our souls, we went to bed almost as soon as the fire was going and the tent was erected. There was no room for all five of us, and so I offered my place in the tent to Chris, telling him that I’d sleep under the tarp that night with Barry. He stared at Carlos, and for a moment I thought he’d refuse, but then Carlos dully announced that he’d take first watch; without high bluffs to protect us from any boids who might happen to spot our fire, someone had to stay awake. Barry volunteered for second watch, and so Chris crawled into the tent with Kuniko while Barry and I spread out my bedroll under the tarp and huddled together beneath its blanket. The last thing I saw was Carlos silhouetted against the fire, squatting on a crooked piece of driftwood with the remaining rifle at his side.

  I didn’t sleep well, if at all. Whenever I shut my eyes, I saw the catwhale rising a
bove us in that moment before it crashed down upon the Pleiades. I’d wake up to stare at the canvas tarp rippling in the wind. At one point I found myself crying, trying to hold back my sobs lest I awaken Barry. Then I’d close my eyes again, try to force myself to sleep.

  Sometime very early in the morning, I awoke to an unfamiliar sound. For a moment I thought I heard static. An indistinct voice, as if coming from far away. A quiet murmur, much closer. Then silence, save for the soft hiss of morning tide against sand.

  I raised my head from beneath the blanket. The sun wasn’t up, but neither was the night as dark as it had been. Although the stars were still out, a cool blue tint outlined the eastern horizon. Barry lay cuddled next to me, snoring quietly with his fists wadded together against his face; apparently Carlos hadn’t awakened him to take over the night watch.

  I sat up, rubbed sleep from my eyes. Thin brown smoke wafted up from the low-burning fire, but Carlos wasn’t to be seen.

  It was warm beneath the tarp. So tempting just to fall back asleep, wait until the sun came up or someone else stirred. Yet the sound I’d heard puzzled me, and Carlos’s absence was disturbing, so I carefully pushed aside the blanket and crawled out from under the tarp.

  Carlos was down by the Orion; he had pulled out the rest of the gear we’d left in the canoe, and it now lay across the dry sand, arranged in some sort of order. When I came upon him he was kneeling next to the boat, closely inspecting its inner frame by the glow of a flashlight resting on the bow deck.

  “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  Startled, he turned to look up at me. “Nothing,” he said, almost a whisper. “Everything’s all right. Go on back to bed.”

  The rifle lay against Carlos’s pack, along with a bedroll, a food container, and two water flasks. Glancing into the open pack, I noticed a medkit tucked inside. All those things had been scattered around the campsite when we had gone to sleep; now they were gathered together, as if Carlos was preparing to load them aboard the canoe.

  But that wasn’t all. On the bow seat was an item of equipment I hadn’t seen before: a satphone, its antenna unfolded. Identical to the one he’d thrown into Sand Creek two weeks before.

  I bent down to pick it up. “Carlos, where did you…?”

  Carlos snatched away the satphone before I could touch it. Then, realizing that trying to hide it was pointless, he reluctantly put it back. “It was in my pack,” he murmured. “I found a spare unit in the armory when I stole the guns, so I took it as well. Just in case we ran into something we couldn’t handle.” A grim smile. “Guess that’s now.”

  “Why didn’t you…?” Confused, I shook my head. “I mean, I can’t believe you didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Really?” Carlos wiped the sand off his hands as he stood up. “You yourself told me I was a self-centered jerk. This just proves it.” He took the satphone from the seat, folded the antenna. “I didn’t let anyone know I was carrying this because I didn’t want them crying for help at the first sign of trouble. That’s why I got rid of Kuniko’s. I knew things would get tough, but I had to see if I could handle it…if we could handle it…on our own.”

  Looking down, he slowly let out his breath. “I never expected this. If I’d known you were pregnant, if I’d thought anyone would be harmed…I would have made the call earlier. Or maybe I’d have just gone out by myself, left the rest of you…”

  “You’ve called home?”

  He nodded. “Waited up until I saw the Alabama pass over. That was about ten minutes ago.” He glanced up; the ship would have been a bright star, traveling east across the night sky, easily seen from the ground. “Woke up Mike Geissal and told him where we are, or at least my best guess. And I told him where we’d hid the shuttle hardware. A couple of motherboards from the guidance systems…they’re in the false bottom of a paint can in the boathouse. Once they find ’em and put them back in place, no one should have any trouble flying out here. Two or three hours, tops, and you guys can expect a rescue.”

  I closed my eyes, felt myself go weak. In a few hours, either the Mayflower or the Plymouth would descend from the sky. Before the day was over, we’d be back in Liberty. Fresh food and water, clean clothes and a bath, a bed surrounded by four walls and a roof…I’d never realized how much I missed such simple luxuries.

  Hearing him move away, I looked back at him again. Carlos had picked up the food container and was hauling it over to the Orion. He placed it in the canoe, then turned to reach for his pack. “What are you…?”

  “What I should have done before.” He stashed the satphone next to the medkit within the pack, then closed its flap and cinched it tight. “Like I said, it was stupid of me to risk your life or anyone else’s. Should have known better. So I’m finishing this by myself…”

  “Carlos…!”

  “Shh.” He gently placed a finger against my lips. “Don’t wake the others.” I nodded reluctantly, and he took his hand from my mouth. “I’ve got to do this, Wendy. If I don’t, then everything we’ve been through…even David’s getting killed…will have been pointless.”

  “It’s not pointless!” I snapped, louder than I intended. “David’s death was an accident! You can’t let yourself feel guilty for…!”

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.” He sighed, then turned away to grab his bedroll. “I do know that I’ve lost my best friend over this.” He glanced toward the tent where Chris lay asleep, then back at me again. “And I’ve lost you, too.”

  I opened my mouth, intending to deny this…and then realized that anything I’d say would be a lie, and thus would hurt him even more. Perhaps I’d been in love with him when I decided to run away from Liberty, but that was over; I’d seen the darker half of his soul, and it would take a long while for me to forgive him for all the things he’d said and done.

  “I’ll be gone a while, but I’m keeping the satphone.” He smiled again. “Won’t throw it away this time, I promise. When the baby comes, I want you to call me…”

  “You’ll be back by then.”

  The smile faded. Carlos glanced away, toward the east. “I might. But I’ve got a lot of things to work out first. And there’s a big planet out there…someone’s got to scout the terrain. It’s either this or stay home and feed the chickens.”

  “Where are you going? Up West Channel?”

  “Uh-uh.” He shook his head as he tossed the bedroll into the boat. “I’d just wind up back in Liberty if I went that way. I think…”

  He shrugged, then picked up the rifle and placed it next to the rest of his gear. Perhaps he didn’t want to tell me, or perhaps he didn’t really know himself. With the exception of the tent, he had taken everything he needed to survive.

  “I better get out of here before the others wake up.” He reached down, picked up an oar, idly weighed it his hands. “Listen…take care of Marie, will you? I haven’t been much a big brother lately, and she’s going to need someone to look after her.”

  Dawn was beginning to break; the wind was starting to rise. Feeling a chill, I wrapped my arms around my shoulders. “Sure, okay. Carlos…”

  I hesitated, not knowing what to say. He waited, then nodded. “That’s all right. I know.” He stepped close, put an arm around me, and bent to give me a long kiss that tasted of salt water and wilderness.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  I nodded, but couldn’t say what he wanted me to say. “Good luck,” I said, very softly. “I’ll…we’ll be waiting for you.”

  There was nothing else that needed to be said. Carlos turned away, placed the oar in the back of the canoe, then pushed it out into the surf. He climbed into the boat, settled into the stern, dug his paddle into the water. A few long strokes and he was away, the ebbing tide quickly carrying him away from the shore.

  I sat on the beach, letting the river lick at my bare feet, as I watched him raise sail. The wind was coming from the west that morning; it caught the canvas sheet and pushed it outward, and soon the Orion was a s
mall triangular spot on the horizon.

  I couldn’t tell whether he ever looked back, but I waved anyway. Once he was gone, I stood up and went to wake the others.

  That was many years ago.

  So many years, in fact, that it’s often hard for me to recognize the girl I once was. I know she’s hiding somewhere within the woman I’ve become, for every now and then I’ve let her out, yet each time I do, she seems to have receded a little farther into the past. Perhaps that is why I’ve put all this to paper; I’m not proud of some of the things I did, and all too often I’ve deliberately mistold the story so that I don’t have to confront those terrible memories. But now it’s almost done, and when I’m through I hope I can get on with the rest of my life.

  Shortly before noon, the Plymouth arrived to pick us up. As it turned out, we’d traveled a little farther than we believed; the beach upon which we were shipwrecked was only thirty miles from the confluence of the West Channel. If we hadn’t lost the Pleiades, in another day or so we would have been able to start making our way up the channel; another week, and perhaps we might have returned home on our own. Or perhaps not. In hindsight, I think we were lucky to have gone as far as we did.

  On the way back to Liberty, we spotted the Orion. Carlos was sailing down the Equatorial, heading west along the southern shore of New Florida. Jud Tinsley was piloting the shuttle, and he brought it down low, at one point hovering barely a hundred feet above the canoe. Yet he couldn’t make a water landing, and when Jud attempted to contact Carlos by radio, he refused to respond; he simply stared straight ahead, ignoring the shuttle even as he battled the downdraft caused by its vertical thrusters. Jud finally got the message; he lifted away from the river, leaving Carlos alone.

  That was the last I saw of Carlos Montero for a long time. When we finally met again, we’d both changed. But that’s a different story, and one which doesn’t need to be told now.