Coyote Destiny

by Allen Steele

  “Damn!” Jorge stopped in the middle of the weed-grown avenue. “Damn it to hell!”

  “Not your fault.” Inez came up from behind him. “I think he was planning this all along.”

  Jorge glared at her. “Then why didn’t you…?”

  “Because I didn’t know what he was going to do until—” She stopped herself, shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t predict the future, you know. There’s a limit to what I can tell from people’s emotions.”

  “Okay, all right.” Jorge let out his breath. No, it wasn’t her fault; indeed, he was angry at himself for having been misled. “Sorry I snapped at you like that.”

  “So what do we do now?” Greg caught up with them. “Our native guide is gone.” He looked at Vargas. “Unless you have any idea where we are…”

  “No.” Vargas shook his head. “I’ve never been in this part of town.”

  “You’re not telling us something.” Inez turned to look him straight in the eye. “I’m not saying that you’re lying, Sergio…but there’s also something you’ve been keeping from us.”

  Vargas didn’t respond. He turned away from her, refusing to meet her gaze. “Never mind,” Jorge said. “Right now, the first priority is figuring out where we are and what to do next.”

  Kneeling in the street, he pulled the map out of his pocket and unfolded it. Borrowing Inez’s compass, it took him only a minute to get a fix on their location. As Inez had deduced, Sam had been leading them away from Irving Street, which lay three blocks farther down Cambridge, east of Grove. It also turned out that they were only a couple of blocks west of the Longfellow Bridge. For some reason, Sam had taken them the long way from the Charles River, yet it also appeared that they could return to the dock within minutes, if they chose to do so.

  “Perhaps we should go back.” Squatting beside him, Greg peered over Jorge’s shoulder at the map. “If that guy was giving us the runaround…”

  “He may have been taking us somewhere other than where he said he was.” Inez crouched between them, studying the map as well. “But I didn’t sense that he was lying when he said that there was someone on Irving Street who might be able to help us.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Greg stared at her. “I mean, how do you know whether he was lying or not?”

  Inez didn’t answer this, and Jorge remembered that Greg hadn’t been informed that she possessed empathic abilities. “She’s…got a certain knack for this sort of thing,” Jorge said, then he folded the map and stood up. “I’m going to check in with the ship,” he went on, prodding his headset. “See what Hugh has to say about this.”

  Again, the reception was poor, the tall buildings between them and Port Logan interfering with his signal. Nonetheless, he was able to get through to the pilot. “Sounds like you’ve got a situation,” McAlister said, once Jorge let him know about all that had happened. “Maybe you ought to come back. We can try again, in some other part of the city.”

  “No.” Inez had been quietly listening in, and she emphatically shook her head. “This is our best chance…maybe our only chance…to find my father. If there’s even the slightest possibility that there’s someone around here who knows where he is, then we have to make the effort to find him.”

  “That’s too much of a risk,” McAlister said.

  “Then we’re just going to have to take it.” Jorge glanced at Inez, and she nodded. “Look, we always knew this might be dangerous, but it’s something we’re just going to have to accept.”

  A long pause from McAlister. “All right, then,” he said at last. “I’ll stand by and wait for your word. If you run into trouble, let me know. I’ll pick you up in the park.”

  Jorge knew that he meant the Boston Common. Although it was on the other side of Beacon Hill, he’d seen from the map that it was only about ten blocks south of their present location. A long trek, given their problems coping with gravity, but still their best point of retrieval if it came to that.

  “Wilco,” he replied, then something else occurred to him. “Has there been any more activity from those fishing boats? Have they spotted you yet?”

  “Negative. I’ve been keeping an eye on them, but they’re still out in the harbor. Looks like they’ve dropped anchor, and they’re just floating there.”

  “Affirmative.” Jorge felt a twinge of relief. At least that part of their mission was still according to plan. “We’ll be in touch. Over and out.” Clicking off the headset, he turned to the others…and suddenly realized that there was one less person in their group than there had been only a couple of minutes ago.

  “Where’s Vargas?” he demanded.

  Greg’s mouth fell open. He quickly turned about, looking first one way, then another. “Oh, hell! How did he…?”

  “He must have slipped away while we were checking the map.” Jorge glanced in both directions down Cambridge, then toward North Grove. Vargas was nowhere to be seen. “Inez, you didn’t…?”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to him either.” She let out her breath, shook her head in embarrassment. “I sensed panic when I confronted him, but I didn’t think it was enough to make him run off.”

  Jorge ignored her but instead scowled at Greg. “My fault, I know,” the sergeant muttered. “It was my job to keep an eye on him, and I screwed up.” He gritted his teeth as he hefted his rifle. “So help me, when I catch up with him…”

  He started to walk away, obviously intent on pursuit, but Jorge hastily grabbed his arm. “No. Whatever we do, we can’t let ourselves get separated. Besides, if he’s hiding from us, he’ll make sure that we can’t find him.”

  Greg sighed, reluctantly nodded. There was no need for him to apologize further; the self-recrimination was plain to be seen. “So what do we do now?” he asked.

  Jorge looked back at Inez. She remained quiet, having already let her opinion be known. “Same thing we were about to do,” he said. “We keep going, and hope for the best.”

  They saw no one on Cambridge Avenue except for a feral dog who growled at them from the doorway of an abandoned pharmacy, but just before they reached Irving Street, they were surprised to see a young woman on a bicycle pedal through the intersection ahead. She barely glanced in their direction, though, but kept on moving, her knapsack bumping against her back. Besides the two men and the boy they’d met at the dock, she was the first person they’d seen since entering Boston.

  When they reached Irving and began to walk up the narrow, sloping street, they saw more signs of current habitation. The first two buildings on the block were boarded up, yet there were a couple of bicycles chained to a signpost in front of an apartment house, along with a small electric cart parked in an alley between the next two buildings. Greg noticed that the cart appeared to be in good shape and that it had been rigged with a small photovoltaic array. Although most storefronts were still shuttered, a secondhand clothing shop appeared to have been reopened for business, as was a hardware store across the street. Looking up, Jorge observed that the second-story bay windows had glass in their frames, and he could see light from within. Smoke rose from the rooftop chimney of the next building on the block, and more bicycles were chained to a rack next to its front steps. The sidewalks were clear of garbage and debris, and there were no abandoned vehicles at the curbs.

  Clearly, there were people living on Irving Street, and although it was still a little too early in the morning for most of its residents to be up and about, it wasn’t long before they began to spot various individuals. A middle-aged man sweeping the front steps of an apartment house. A couple of teenagers smoking cigarettes in an alley. An old lady feeding her cat on the third-floor landing of a fire escape. None of them were dressed in rags or seemed to be on the verge of starvation; they regarded the newcomers with aloof interest, and while no one called out to them, neither did they run for cover or reach for guns.

  But it wasn’t until Jorge, Inez, and Greg reached the end of the second block of Irving that they found t
he heart of the neighborhood. At the intersection of Revere Street, they came upon an open-air market. On both sides of the street were rows of tents and kiosks; wooden tables and bins had been set up within them, with local merchants and craftspeople setting out their wares. A couple of kids helped an adult unload crates of fresh vegetables from a cart; nearby, a thickset man with a long beard draped homespun shirts and sweaters upon a rope suspended above his table. From somewhere close by could be heard the clucking of chickens; a woman in a calf-length skirt carried a small wicker basket filled with eggs away from a stall. A pig was being slowly turned upon a spit above a barbecue grill, with a young man carefully basting it with sauce from a tin can.

  “Could be home,” Inez said quietly as she leaned against the side of a building at the street corner. Like Jorge and Greg, she needed to catch her breath again; although the street they’d just walked up wasn’t particularly steep, none of them were yet accustomed to Earth gravity. At least Revere seemed level; above the rooftops, Jorge was able to make out the dome of the state capitol building. “If I didn’t know better,” she added, “I’d say we were in Bridgeton, or maybe Defiance.”

  Jorge nodded but said nothing as he studied their whereabouts. As before, their arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed. Several residents were glancing in their direction. He already knew that their clothes would get attention; he now became aware of the fact that no one on the street was armed.

  “We’ll probably have some questions before long,” he said. “Maybe we ought to start asking a few of our own.” He looked at Greg, who was still carrying his rifle in his hands. “It’d probably make things easier if you put that away. I don’t think we’re going to have any trouble here.”

  Greg reluctantly slung the rifle by its shoulder strap, although he kept its stock under his arm, with its trigger within easy reach. Jorge made sure that his own rifle was less obvious; as an afterthought, he pulled off his headset and tucked it in his jacket pocket. “We’ve made that mistake once already,” he said, gesturing for the others to do the same. “No sense in doing it again.”

  “You want to go on pretending that we’re from Long Island?” Greg gave him an incredulous glance. “That didn’t work before.”

  “Better than telling the truth, don’t you think?” Jorge shook his head. “I’d rather not do that until it becomes necessary. Right now, I’d just like to see if we can learn anything useful.”

  They began to make their way down Revere, strolling through the marketplace as if this were something they did every day. By then, the street had become a little busier, as neighborhood residents began to show up to do their morning errands. Jorge and the others were unable to buy anything, even if they’d wanted to, but they went through the motions of looking over the various items on display. As they did so, Jorge noticed something else; trade wasn’t being done entirely by barter, as Vargas had claimed. Now and then, he saw money exchange hands, paper bills that, at first glance, appeared to have been recently printed. Apparently a system of currency had recently been reintroduced to Boston society, such as it was.

  They went from stall to stall, making small talk with the various sellers and craftsmen, finally asking the questions that were foremost on their minds. Do you know where we can find the chaaz’maha? Do you know anyone who would know how to find him? The queries themselves seemed to raise little attention—at least no one asked whom they meant, or objected to being asked—but neither did they gain any useful information. Yes, the chaaz’maha had been seen in Boston, and more than once. In fact, he’d visited this very neighborhood, although that had been quite some time ago. But, no, he wasn’t there now, nor did anyone seem to know where he was.

  It wasn’t until they reached the corner of Garden and Revere that they got their first solid lead. An elderly gentleman maintained a book stall on the street corner; his tables and shelves were lined with printed books, all old and often read, a few missing their covers. He was putting an ancient cookbook out for display when Inez asked if he’d seen the chaaz’maha lately. His eyes became sharp behind the scratched lenses of his glasses, and he peered at her with sudden interest.

  “Yes…yes, I’ve seen the chaaz’maha,” he replied, his voice low. “In fact, I spoke to him myself, not long ago.” A grey eyebrow cocked upward ever so slightly. “And who may you be, if I might ask?”

  Noticing that the bookseller seemed cautious in the way he spoke, Jorge moved closer. “We’re from out of town,” he said quietly. “We’d like to find the chaaz’maha very much. He…”

  “There’s no reason to be alarmed,” Inez said, interrupting Jorge but keeping her voice low as well. “But it’s very important that we find him. A matter of some urgency.”

  “Oh, indeed?” The old man shifted from one foot to another as he scratched at the potbelly beneath his frayed sweater. “If it’s enlightenment you seek, I can help you there. No need to talk to him personally.”

  Bending beneath the table, he opened a box that was just out of sight. When he stood up again, in his hand was a small black book, clothbound and not much larger than his palm. There was no title or author’s name on the cover. “Everything you need to know is here,” the old man murmured, placing the book on top of the others on the table. “Read it, and it will speak to you.”

  Jorge didn’t have to pick up the book to know what it was. Inez took the book from the table, opened its cover. “You realize, of course, that a Sa’Tong-tas is never to be sold, but only given away.”

  The bookseller gave her a sharp look. “Then you’re already familiar with it?”

  Inez smiled as she closed the book and handed it back to him. “‘The truth is always self-evident so long as…’”

  “‘…You have the courage to search for it.’” The bookseller returned the smile as he completed the quote. “You’re a follower, yes?” She nodded, and his expression became quizzical. “Then I take it you’re with the TC”—he shook his head—“but if you are, then why would you be searching for the chaaz’maha since you’d already know where he is?”

  Jorge glanced at Inez. She said nothing, but only nodded. “We’re not with the TC,” Jorge said. “In fact, we don’t even know what that is. We’re…well…”

  The bookseller suddenly looked away from them. “Trouble coming,” he whispered, then he clamped a hand over the Sa’Tong-tas and made it disappear beneath the table. “I’d make yourself scarce, if I were you.”

  From the corner of his eye, Jorge saw four men moving through the crowded marketplace. They were headed in their direction, each of them with his right hand in his coat pocket. As they came closer, he realized that one of them was Sam.

  “That way,” the old man said softly, cocking his head in the direction of the street behind them. “Second alley to the right. Go down it till you reach the courtyard. Plenty of ways out from there. Now scram.”

  Jorge didn’t need any more prompting. Taking Inez by the hand, he quickly walked behind the bookseller’s stall, with Greg hard on their heels. For a moment, they had the bookshelves between them and Revere Street; Jorge dropped Inez’s hand as they darted for Garden Street, dodging a couple of pedestrians as they put the marketplace behind them.

  They hadn’t fooled Sam and his companions, though. Looking over his shoulder, Jorge saw the four men turn the corner and come after them; they were only a couple of dozen yards away. “Don’t run until I tell you,” he whispered to the others as he sought to keep a steady, unhurried pace. “Just keep walking, and don’t use your guns unless…”

  “Take ’em!” Sam yelled.

  Running footsteps from behind them, and Jorge looked back to see the four men charging toward them. Their hands had appeared from their coat pockets, and he could see the pistols they carried.

  “Move!” he shouted, then he and Inez broke into a run. But they hadn’t gone ten feet before he realized Greg was no longer with them. Glancing back, he saw that the sergeant had turned, stopped, and dropped to one knee.


  “Dillon…no!” he snapped, but Greg was already bringing up his rifle barrel. Yet he was a second too slow; two loud cracks of gunshots that reverberated off the brick walls of the buildings around them, and Greg sagged forward, his rifle still clutched in his hands.

  “Greg!” Inez screamed. She skidded to a halt, and Jorge realized that she meant to go back for him. But one glimpse of the blood on the sidewalk beneath the sergeant’s body told him that doing so would be pointless. Grabbing Inez by the arm, Jorge pulled her away while at the same moment unlimbering his own rifle. The men were still running toward them when he squeezed the trigger, not bothering to aim but instead firing from the hip.

  His shot didn’t hit anyone, but it was enough to make his pursuers drop to the sidewalk or press themselves against the walls. “Go, go!” he yelled, turning to shove Inez ahead of him. “Keep running! Don’t stop.”

  Another gunshot rang out behind them as they dashed down the sidewalk. Jorge was tempted to stop and return fire, but then he saw that they weren’t alone. Across the street, two teenage girls huddled together in a doorway; a little farther away, a man and a small boy were crouched behind a bicycle rack. Any one of them could be caught in the cross fire or hit by a ricochet; he couldn’t risk a firefight, even though Sam and his pals didn’t share the same reluctance. Their only remaining choice was to keep running.

  An alley appeared before them, and Jorge and Inez dove into it. Within seconds, though, he realized that they’d made a mistake. The old man had told them to take the second alley to the right; this one ended in the rear wall of a building, with no courtyard or escape route ahead.

  Doors led into the buildings on either side of them. Jorge jiggled the knob of the one to the right, found that it was locked. He was about to try the one to the left when he heard footsteps at the mouth of the alley. Whipping around, he started to raise his rifle, but before he could, he heard a hollow whump! from behind him.