“They do that, you know,” Ramón went on. “They have sensors. Eyes. Last time they came through, the governor asked them to help find a kid that got lost out on the tierra hueso. And they did it. Took them a couple hours, and they told us exactly where the little pendejo was. How do you know they’re not watching me right now? Tracking me because of that man I killed? You go out there where they can see you and kill him, they’ll see the energy blast. And you think they’ll mistake that for a tree falling or something? They’ll know.”
It was the purest line of bullshit Ramón had ever spun. Maneck wouldn’t need to fire an energy blast to kill the other man, not with a fucking attack chupacabra on a leash, ready to do whatever it was told. For that matter, Maneck was strong enough to wring the man’s neck like a chicken’s with its bare hands without any other help at all. But he didn’t have the leash in his neck to tell Maneck what his intentions were anymore, or help it judge when he was lying. If the alien didn’t believe him, the worst it could do was kill him. He waited, chest thrust out like he was spoiling for a fight. Maneck shifted its body from side to side. The chupacabra whined.
“What better course do you recommend?” Maneck asked.
“You let me go back to him,” Ramón said. “You stay right here. You get it? Right here. I’ll think of a reason for him to come back with me here. Under the trees where they won’t see you, get it? Then you can correct whatever fucking illusion you want.”
Because, he didn’t say, we’ll be on that raft again and out of here while you’re still standing around like the ugly girl at a dance. Maneck was quiet and still as stone for the length of three slow breaths.
“Why would you do this?” the alien asked at last.
“It’s my tatecreude, monster. I’m supposed to help you track him down, right? Well here I am. Helping.”
“No,” Maneck said, and its voice seemed almost relieved. “Your function was to behave as the man would. You are attempting deceit.”
“So what do you think the man would do then?” Ramón demanded, the despair blooming in his chest, expressing itself in rage. “I’m trying to save my own skin. You think he wouldn’t give up fucking anyone to help himself out?”
“No,” the alien said. “He would not. You have performed your function, I must now—”
The shriek was high and squeaked at the end, like a little girl’s cry of alarm or delight. All eyes—Ramón’s, Maneck’s, the chupacabra’s—shifted. The man stood in the path behind Ramón. His face was pale and bloodless as marble.
“This is in accordance,” Maneck said. “The flow brings him down the specific path. You are sometimes excellent creatures. I suspect it is your ignorance that…the man? Where is he going? You will restrain him! You will do so immediately!”
“Stay there! Stay there! Stay there!” Ramón shouted over his shoulder as he bolted off after the other man. The alien likely wouldn’t remain where it was, but even if it only paused for a moment, it was a moment more than they’d had. As soon as he thought Maneck could no longer hear him, he turned all his energy and attention to just running. If they could get to the raft, get out onto the river, they could still outpace the bastard. They could still get away. If only Ramón hadn’t built a lean-to. If the pinche river could have kept its waterfalls to itself. If anything that had made them pause in the journey hadn’t happened, Ramón wouldn’t have been crashing through the forest, lifting his legs high to clear brush and roots and stones, the alien and its new pet chupacabra close behind. He found himself calling out to the man, his twin, who was already so far ahead that Ramón couldn’t see him.
“Go!” he shouted. “Run! Go, you bastard!”
If he could just reach the river…
Ramón reached the river. The water was fierce and the roar of the cataract louder than he remembered it. The other man was nowhere Ramón could see, and where the raft had been, deep muddy furrows angled down the bank. It took a moment for him to believe it. Powered by mortal fear, desperation, and panic, the other man had somehow managed to launch the raft by himself, something Ramón wouldn’t have believed possible. He ran out, his feet sinking into the mud, cold water soaking his knees and thighs. There, five meters out from the bank and ten or more from where he stood, the raft bobbed on the rushing water, his twin crouched at the helm. Ramón could see his wide, fear-rounded eyes.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Get back here! Stop!”
The man on the raft waved; a wide, frantic gesture that carried no meaning. Ramón spat out a stream of invective, wading uncertainly out into the water. When he looked over his shoulder, Maneck and the chupacabra were just coming into sight, slowed only slightly by the cumbersome leash and Maneck’s wounds. Ramón lifted a hand to the alien, his palm out; a gesture that was intended to mean “It’s okay, I’ve got it.” And then, before waiting for the alien’s response, he took a deep breath and dove. His robe soaked through in an instant, but he didn’t stop to shed it. Under the water’s surface, the river seemed misty—tiny bubbles from the cataract and floating silt conspired to hide anything at more than a meter’s distance. Arms and legs flailing, Ramón struck out for where he thought the raft would be.
The man, like him, was at the mercy of the water, Ramón told himself. They’d be pulled along at the same rate. All he had to do was make up the distance. The turbulence was hard, though, and Ramón felt the water buffeting him as he fought to rise up for air.
“Motherfucker!” he shouted as his head broke the surface, and his mouth filled with water before he could say more. The raft was closer, but not as near as Ramón had hoped. A blast of energy lit the air; Maneck firing from the shore. The man yelped and started working the oar as Ramón took another breath and dove again. Maybe Maneck would hit the sonofabitch and solve Ramón’s problems for him.
The cold here was unpleasant, but not the vicious, deadly chill it had been farther upriver. Maybe they were farther south than Ramón had thought. Or maybe there was warmer water from rain swelling the flow, as he’d expected. The water above him glowed twice more as Maneck fired. So at least the raft was still that close. A swirl in the gloom warned him a moment before he struck a wave of powerful turbulence, the water hitting him in the gut with the power of a fist. He lost his air, the bubbles rising awkwardly as he clawed his way after them.
The river was definitely faster. Already, Maneck seemed like a tiny figure on the distant shore. Inexplicably, the chupacabra was loping down the bank, free of the sahael and running like all the demons of hell were after it. Ramón spat and bobbed, trying to find his twin and the raft. The other man had drawn farther out into the river and was yelling something, his face flushed almost purple and his mouth gaping wide. Ramón couldn’t tell if the asshole was yelling at him or at Maneck or at God. Maneck seemed to have given up the shooting match, so Ramón didn’t dive again. He broke into a crawl, kicking at the waves, lifted by them. Tossed. Slowly, the raft drew near, and then the river drove them apart and brought them near again. The other man was on his knees now, the oar extended out into the water. He was still shouting. Ramón couldn’t yet make out words, but the man’s expression was more nearly one of encouragement now.
Too little, too late, cabrón, he thought, but reached for the oar all the same. His fingers grazed it, the coarse grain of the wood feeling improbably solid after struggling in the water. He pushed again, surging forward, catching it in both hands and pulling it close to his body. He felt the tug as the man pulled him in toward the raft, but Ramón let himself hang limp, his arms and legs tingling with exhaustion. Let the little coward sonofabitch do some of the work.
It was less than a minute before the man’s hand touched Ramón’s shoulder. The raft was right before him. Ramón raised his arm, throwing it onto the laced branches. He pulled, and the other man helped, dragging him up. Ramón lay on the raft’s leafy deck, his sodden robe heavy as lead, his lungs working like bellows.
“Fuck!” the other man said. “I thought you weren’t go
ing to make it there, ese.”
Thanks, Ramón thought but didn’t spend the energy to say.
“Bastard sonofabitch tracked us,” the man said, returning to the oar and the river. “I thought you said the chupacabra killed him.”
“I thought it did,” Ramón said, sitting up. He belched. It tasted of silt. “Maneck used the sahael on the poor fucker. He enslaved it. Never thought I’d feel sorry for a chupacabra. Did we get any firewood at all before—”
He looked up at the man, his twin, and saw horror on the familiar face. Ramón blinked, looking back over his shoulder. He expected anything: Maneck walking on the water like some alien Christ, another wall of cataract mist, even the European back from Hell with the Devil at his side. There was nothing. Gray river, stormy sky. Waves with tiny touches of white. He looked back at the man. The oar was forgotten in his hand; his face a mask of fear.
“What?” Ramón said, then looked down. His robe had fallen open. His belly was in the light, the thick, ropy scar livid against the brown of his skin. “Oh. That.”
“Jesus Christ,” the other whispered. “You’re me!” He was staring at him in frozen horror.
“Calm down,” Ramón said. “I can explain—”
“What are you?” the man shouted. “What the fuck are you?”
The man had drawn the knife. Lightning lit the world, flashing from the naked blade. A crackling detonation of thunder. Ramón rose to his feet, unsteady on the tilting raft.
“What the fuck are you?” There was hysteria in the man’s voice now. He’d dropped the oar. It was floating away, a prisoner of the river.
“Listen to me! Would you stop being such a little pissant and fucking listen to me?” Ramón said. Then, looking at the man’s eyes—eyes he’d seen in the mirror his whole life—he sighed. “Fuck it. Never mind.”
There was no point. This wasn’t a talking fight anymore.
Chapter 23
Two and a half meters by two and a half meters, the space complicated by the fire pit, the lean-to. This was the kind of fight that didn’t last long. Ramón pulled off the sodden robe and wound it around one arm, scuttling to get the lean-to between them. Going into a knife fight naked didn’t make him happy, but with the full robe wrapped around his forearm, he had something he could block with. And his twin had to hold the blade in his left hand, where Ramón could use his right. They weren’t evenly matched. Not close. Ramón was going to lose.
The other man went into a low crouch, the knife at the ready. There was nothing. If there had been some firewood, he might have been able to grab a branch and use it as a club. If the oar hadn’t floated off into the darkening gray, he might have used it like a staff.
“You led them here!” the other man shouted.
“I didn’t!”
“Lying sack of shit!” the man yelled. “You’re one of them. You’re a monster!”
“Yes. Yes, I am. And I’m still a better man than you.”
“Monster!”
Ramón didn’t bother to answer. The man had made up his mind. Just the way Ramón would have in his place. The one thing he understood was that there was no reason, no explanation, no perspective he could bring to this that would make the ending any different from what it was going to be.
“You’re a fucking coward, you know that?” Ramón said, hoping to enrage his twin into making a mistake. “You’re a pussy. Elena’s a waste of air, and you know it.”
“Don’t fucking talk about her!”
“You were in love with that cook, Lianna. The one you stole from Martín Casaus. And you don’t even have the fucking balls to say so! You hang on to Elena because you’re scared not to. Because, without her, you know you aren’t part of anything or anyone. You’re just some pendejo with a third-class van and some prospecting tools.”
Rage flushed the other man’s face. Ramón bent his knees, center of gravity low, ready to dodge in whatever direction he needed to. Except back. There was no raft left behind him.
“You don’t know shit!”
“I know everything. Come on, bitch,” Ramón said. “You want to dance? Fine. Come on. I’ll fuck you up and shit you out.”
The man swung wild, the raft rocking with his shifting weight. Ramón sidestepped and turned, throwing a kick that connected with empty air. The man swung around in a lower stance now. They’d done little more than trade places. The knife was held sideways before him in a defensive block. The anger had drained out of the other man; his eyes were slitted and cold. That wasn’t good. If he’d been possessed by fear and blind rage, Ramón would have had a chance. If the bastard was thinking, then Ramón had just become the European.
The man feinted left and then right, his eyes locked on Ramón’s. Testing him. Ramón danced back, his feet finding the rough edge of the raft. The man swung, and Ramón dove into the attack, getting under and past the knife before it could score him. The raft creaked and bucked, making them both stumble, but the man was the first to regain his feet. Another stroke of lightning flashed. Thunder came almost before the glow had faded. Ramón grinned. His twin did as well. Whatever else, however bad this was, there was still a certain joy in it.
Under what circumstances do you kill?
When the motherfucker needs to die.
Ramón took a careful swing with his unarmored hand, then dodged quickly when the knife flickered up to block him. The other man thrust low, leaving a shallow cut on Ramón’s leg, just above the knee. It was nothing. He forgot about it. They circled awkwardly, Ramón bouncing gently on the balls of his feet. A light rain began, making the iceroot leaves beneath them slick. The other man gathered himself for a rush, the subtle bunching of his shoulders giving his intentions away. Ramón jumped, making the raft shift crazily. The man slipped to one knee, and then rose again immediately.
“You killed him because you thought it would make them like you!” Ramón shouted.
“What?”
“You killed the pinche European because you thought all those people in the El Rey would think you were a fucking hero! You’re pathetic!”
“Fuck you, monster!” the other man said, and swung. It was what had to happen. Ramón didn’t give himself time to think; he jumped forward, letting the blade skate across his ribs, pinning the man’s arm against his side. Pain shrieked as the knife touched bone, but the man couldn’t pull back to stab again. Ramón used his free hand to grab the man’s injured hand and squeeze. His twin grunted with pain and tried to pull back. They wrestled together in a drunken embrace. This close, he could smell the other man, a rank, musky, unwashed reek that he found amazingly unpleasant. His breath huffed into Ramón’s face like a blast of foul air, stinking of dead meat. Ramón kept the blade arm pinned against his side, but the other man lost his footing, and they slid to the deck together. Rain and river water splashed over them. Something struck the raft, and it spun crazily; there was no oar to stabilize them and no oarsman.
“You shouldn’t be alive, you fucking abomination,” the man hissed. “You shouldn’t be alive!”
“The thing is, you don’t understand flow,” Ramón said, in a strangely conversational tone, as if they were having a beer together in a bar somewhere. “You don’t understand what it is to be part of something bigger. And, Ramón, you poor bastard, you aren’t ever going to know, either.” Then he butted his head into the bridge of his twin’s nose. He could feel the bone give way, and the man yelped and pulled back. Ramón stuck with him, and they rolled. The little lean-to dug into Ramón’s back and then gave way with a snap. They turned once, both trying to regain their feet; the man refusing to release the knife, Ramón refusing to release his twin. Together, they fell in the water.
Ramón gasped despite himself and earned a throatful of river water. The other thrashed and twisted, and then they were apart, floating. Floating in a bright, flowing river. Ramón noticed the red bloom that came from his side, his blood mixing with the water, becoming a part of it. He was becoming the river.
; It would have been easy to let it happen. The living sea called to him, and part of him wanted very much to join it, to become the river completely. But the part of him that was alien remembered the threatened sorrow of gaesu and the human part of him refused to be beaten, and together the two parts of himself forced him on. He shifted, and kicked against the flow with all his strength, the heat and blood pouring out of him.
In the raging flow of the river, the one who lived would be the one who found the raft first. He kicked, spiraling in the flow. The water around him was like a veil of pink. His blood. The thought flickered through his mind—How bad did he get me?—and was gone. There wasn’t time.
He found the raft, a darkness on the water, and swam toward it. In the corner of his eye, he saw the other man flailing. A thick length of vine had come loose from the raft and was snaking its way across the surface. Ramón gritted his teeth and pushed. Now. He could make it there now.
He shot up from the water, his arms slamming down on the top of the raft. The other man was to his left, also crawling up, his breath a plume of water and spit. A branch caught on something; Ramón thought it was his robe until he remembered that the cloth was all wrapped around his arm. The wood had caught a flap of his own torn skin. The other man was almost on the raft. Ramón pulled his leg up, his ankle on the top, and pulled, desperately hauling himself up. The loose vine slid past his back, bumping him like a water snake. The rain felt like a thousand tiny blows. And he was up. He was on the raft again. He rolled over, and the man dropped a foot heavily onto Ramón’s chest, pinning him.
His twin was breathing like he’d just run a four-minute mile; his hair clung to his scalp like lichen on a stone, and his mouth was a pale grin surrounded by blood from his broken nose. Teeth like yellowed bone. Ramón tried to catch his breath, but the pressure from the man’s foot prevented him. He felt the grin on his own face.
“You got something to say before you die, monster?” his twin demanded.
Hunter's Run Page 22
