American Hippo

by Sarah Gailey

  “ʼE is a good kid,” Archie said ruefully, settling onto a log beside Hero.

  “He’s too green to be out here,” Hero responded. They pulled out a pocketknife and began scraping the bark off a fat stick.

  “Ah, ʼe’ll be fine. I couldn’t leave ʼim behind,” Archie said. “Rosa, she likes ʼim too much for me to tell ʼim no, when ʼe asked to come. Just like Houndstooth. I could never say no to ʼim, either.”

  The sounds of Houndstooth and Cal arguing over where to start the fire drifted to them through the warm night air.

  “You really care about Houndstooth, eh?” Hero asked.

  “I could ask you the same question, couldn’t I?” Archie responded with a grin. Hero looked up, not returning Archie’s smile.

  “You know, when I first met Houndstooth, ʼe had just had ʼis ʼeart broken. ʼIs dream—it was in ashes. I watched ʼim meet someone, a woman. I watched ʼim fall in love with ʼer.”

  Hero’s brow furrowed, but they did not interrupt.

  Archie waved her hand vaguely. “She ran off with a postman. They were going to go north, to the cities. Tried to take Ruby with them, but of course Ruby, she would not go. She is devoted.”

  Hero considered Archie. “So … what happened after that?”

  “Ah,” Archie said. “Houndstooth started to sow ʼis wild oats. As for the girl? Well, I will not say. Houndstooth … ʼe does not need to know what I did to the girl when I found ʼer trying to steal Ruby. But I will tell you this”—Archie looked at Hero, her face serious—“what I did to ʼer will look like a kindness, compared to what I will do to anyone who breaks ʼis ʼeart like that again.”

  Hero stared into Archie’s eyes, unblinking. “I understand.”

  Archie clapped them on the shoulder, hard, smiling warmly. “I know you do. I can tell. I just ʼad to say it—you know ’ow it is. Ah, don’t be too scared. I think you are good for ʼim! You should see ʼow ʼe smiles at you when ʼe thinks you are not looking. Plus, you keep ʼim from thinking ʼe is the smartest in the room.”

  Hero smiled, ducking their head; then, they looked up, the smile suddenly gone. “Did you hear that?”

  “What,” Archie said, “are they finally just comparing their cocks and ʼaving done with it?”

  But Hero was already on their feet, running to the water’s edge.

  They were too late.

  By the time Hero had reached the riverbank, Neville was half-submerged in the water. There came a fierce splash, and the boy surged into the air before landing, caught, in the gaping mouth of the feral bull.

  He hung in the mouth of the beast, stunned. His left leg hung between the bull’s front tusks, the angle wrong. It bled freely, and his blood spilled over the hippo’s whiskers. Archie covered her mouth with both hands when she caught up with Hero as though to catch the boy’s name even as she shouted it. Cal and Houndstooth looked up and came running. The bull was still for a long, thick moment. Then, with a lightning-quick twist of its thick neck, it snapped its jaws closed.

  The boy was dead. There could be no question, even before the feral bull shook him below the water. Archie turned away; Hero put an arm around her, shielding her as much as possible from the bloodied swamp water that sprayed the shore. Cal and Houndstooth stood frozen a few yards from the water’s edge, empty-handed. Cal’s toothpick dangled from his slack lower lip.

  They did not see Adelia coming.

  Neither did the hippo.

  It wasn’t until the beast was bleeding that Houndstooth registered her standing next to him, her arm outstretched toward the hippo as though she was offering it a handshake. Houndstooth looked from her to the bull, which twitched and writhed spasmodically in the frothy pink water.

  He put a hand to his pocket, as though he’d find anything there; but of course, it was empty. The long, slender, ivory-handled knife he’d taken from the marshjack back in Georgia was gone. A mere inch of the handle still protruded from the bull’s eye socket. The rest of the knife was buried in the beast’s brain. A trickle of blood spilled over the hippo’s cheek like tears as it gave a final thrash, and then sank below the surface of the water.

  As the ripples stilled, Adelia lowered her throwing arm.

  “That,” Cal said quietly, “is why you shouldn’t be in the water after sundown.”

  Chapter 8

  Dragging the hippo’s carcass out of the lake wasn’t easy, but it had to be done: Rosa, Ruby, Betsy, and Abigail wouldn’t approach the shore with the bull’s blood pinking the muddy water. Zahra and Stasia were nowhere to be found, but Adelia seemed certain that they’d return at dawn so long as the bull’s carcass was gone.

  Fortunately, none of the hoppers was a stranger to dead hippos. Archie insisted that she be the one to wade out into the swamp—insisted that it was her fault the boy had been in the water in the first place. She secured a length of rope around her middle and made her way to the hippo while Cal and Houndstooth watched the water, ready to haul her back in if so much as a bubble surfaced nearby. She girded the beast with five separate ropes before splashing back to the shore. They all hauled him onto the sand together, dragging him far enough inland that their hippos wouldn’t be disturbed by the smell of their mad, dead cousin. Had they been on a ranch, they’d have butchered the carcass and sold the hide to a tannery; as it was, nobody could bring themselves to take a knife to the creature that had so efficiently slaughtered young Neville.

  The exhausted hoppers dried themselves around the fire, not acknowledging the fact that none of them would volunteer to wade back into the river to find Neville’s body. Cal was the first to break the silence.

  “I think it’s time you told us the plan, Winslow. You do have a plan?”

  Archie looked at him, hollow-eyed. “Yes, ʼoundstooth, what is the plan?”

  Hero was the one who answered. They reached into their bedroll and pulled out a map of the Harriet, spreading it on the ground a safe distance from the fire and weighing down the corners with empty, whiskey-sticky mugs. The map showed the lake, enclosed parenthetically by the dam to the north and the Gate to the south. The feral’s usual territory, near the center of the lake, was marked with a large red circle; the safe travel routes, by blue arrows. The rest of the marks on the map were incomprehensible at first glance.

  “Dynamite,” Hero said, pointing to a concentric series of red X marks on the map. “Here, here, and here—all around the northern perimeter, just far enough from the dam to be safe. A series of controlled explosions that will drive the ferals toward the Gate.” They pointed to the next row of X marks below that. “Then another series, here, and another here, just south of that one. The idea is to keep the detonations behind the ferals, driving them closer to the Gate, not giving them a chance to double back.”

  “Like a funnel. A hippo funnel,” Houndstooth added.

  Archie examined the map, nodding. “And we will have the Gate open, right? So they just scoot out into the swamp and then head down to the Gulf?”

  “Exactly,” Hero said. “We close the Gate behind ʼem, spend a few weeks rounding up any stragglers—and then sit back and enjoy the Harriet for the rest of the year.”

  “And how does the Coast Guard feel about this?” Archie asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Houndstooth said peevishly. “The Coast Guard isn’t where the money’s coming from, so they’re not our problem.”

  “You don’t think we should be concerned about the Coast Guard?” Archie said, incredulity lifting her brows. “Not even a little concerned?”

  “What, are you Alexander Hamilton’s great-great-grandniece twice removed or something?” Houndstooth snapped. “It doesn’t matter, Archie.”

  Cal sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “More important question: who’s gonna light the fuses?”

  Hero pulled two small black boxes out of their saddlebag, holding them aloft when Cal tried to grab one. “These,” Hero said, “are remote detonation devices. I just push this button, and … boom.”
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  Cal looked extremely dubious. “Hop shit,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a remote detonator.”

  “That’s because I invented them,” Hero responded icily.

  “I’ve seen them work,” Houndstooth confirmed. He stared at Hero with an admiring smile. “They’re amazing.”

  “Why two?” Archie asked. Hero smiled, enigmatic.

  “Always have a backup plan, Archie.”

  Adelia stared at the map, her lips moving silently for a few moments. Then she frowned, her hands pressing against her belly. “This is a good plan. It will work, so long as you don’t get eaten.”

  Houndstooth cleared his throat. “Hero will be riding Ruby while they set the charges.” He said it with a hard look at Hero that spoke to many arguments over this decision. “Ruby can dodge the ferals’ notice, and Travers’, too.”

  Adelia glanced at him sharply. “We don’t want this Travers to know what we are doing, is that right?”

  Houndstooth nodded. “We’ll be sticking to the islets, camping without a fire, laying low as we can. Until the job is done. We don’t want to get on his bad side, Adelia. Travers is not a man whose eyes you want on you, if you’re disrupting his business.”

  Adelia nodded as she rose from her crouch, rubbing her lower back. “He sounds dangerous. We should be vigilant.” She grabbed her bedroll. “We should also be rested. Goodnight.” Without another word, she stalked away from the fire. Archie caught Hero’s eye, her brows raised. Hero shrugged in reply.

  “She’s right,” Houndstooth said, rolling up the map. “We should sleep. We ride at dawn—we want to get through the Gate without drawing too much attention to ourselves.”

  Cal grabbed his bedroll, walking in the opposite direction from the one Adelia had chosen. “Five hoppers on six hippos,” he said, loud enough to be heard by all the hoppers. “Shouldn’t draw too much attention at all. Real subtle-like, this crew.”

  * * *

  Adelia took the hippo’s tusks during the night, presenting the cleaned and polished ivory to Archie before dawn.

  “I couldn’t sleep anyway,” she said, bracing the small of her back, her eyes on the water. “The niña kicks me awake.”

  Archie watched the water, too, rather than watching Adelia’s face. Her eyes shone. “I suppose he’s still at the bottom.”

  Adelia shrugged. “There are alligators here, I think. They would not bother us while we are riding, but who can say? I’m sure they get hungry, too.”

  Archie turned white and went back to polishing Rosa’s saddle. Adelia stayed watching the water, chewing her lower lip, until Houndstooth’s sharp whistle cut through the morning mist. They left the islet behind before the sun had finished rising. Not a one of them looked back.

  * * *

  The Gate was a thirteen-mile-long grate dividing the Harriet from the southern tip of the Mississippi River. It stood as a testament to Man’s Victory over Nature—a brand seared into the landscape, marking it as the property of the federal government. It crossed the narrowest part of Louisiana’s Mississippi River and extended inland by six and a half miles, just outside the overland range of all but the most determined ferals.

  The openings in the grate were alligator-wide and fish-tall, designed by the finest engineers the government could subsidize to allow everything but boats, hippos, and law-abiding men to pass.

  By the time the hoppers arrived at the Gate, the sun was high and hot overhead, and all five of them were dewy with sweat. The Gate bowed toward them in places, the metal warped in the shape of rampaging feral bulls that had seen something worth having on the other side of the grate, but it was intact, and still looked strong. Debris floated in the water around the grate—sticks and leaves that hadn’t been cleared by the crew of old soldiers who manned the outpost. Rosa picked through the water around the sticks, lifting her nose high in the air. Archie nudged her forward, peering at the grate. Ruby nosed at the sticks freely, searching for anything that appeared edible and ignoring Houndstooth entirely. Betsy, meanwhile, bowled through the flotsam, kicking up waves of water that soaked Cal to the waist and sent leaves flying at the other hoppers.

  As they neared the outpost, they were greeted by the warning report of a rifle. A ranger peered down at them from one of the four high towers that dotted the thirteen-mile-long Gate, his face shaded by a broad-brimmed, sweat-stained hat with a Bureau of Land Management badge affixed to the brim.

  “Alrigh’ down there,” he shouted. “Let’s see your badges, just hold ʼem high, now. No trouble.”

  Houndstooth produced a waxed wallet instead. He removed a large sheaf of paper and waved it in the air with one hand, cupping the other around his mouth.

  “We don’t have badges, but we have a contract with the federal government. We’ve got free passage.”

  The ranger peered down at them, mopping his creased brow with a well-worn kerchief. Then, understanding bloomed across his face. “Are you the same Houndstooth what Alberto let through t’other day? Thought he told me you was a British fella.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s me,” Houndstooth called back up with a barely perceptible sigh. “Winslow Houndstooth, at your service, my good man. Would you terribly mind letting us through?”

  The ranger spat brownly over the side of the Gate, well away from the five riders. “Sure enough, sure enough. Where’ll you be staying?”

  The voice that answered from beyond the Gate was smoother than a newborn hop’s underbelly. “Not to worry, Harold. They’ll be staying with me.”

  The ranger startled so violently that his hat fell off, dropping thirty feet from the tower. Hero caught it neatly, spinning it in their hands.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Travers, sir,” the ranger said, a quaver in his voice.

  “Real subtle-like,” Cal muttered to Houndstooth, his hand rising to touch the bandage over his left ear. Then he raised his voice, inclining his head toward the small, sleek man on the other side of the Gate. “Mr. Travers. What a fine surprise this is.”

  Chapter 9

  Travers rested comfortably in the center of his raft. He was surrounded on four sides by hulking men who trained rifles on the water, watching for ripples. “Calhoun. Mr. Houndstooth. Ladies.” Hero made a disgruntled sound, and Mr. Travers tipped his hat to them in particular with a cough. “Et alia. I look forward to hosting you on the Sturgess Queen—my finest boat. Only the best accommodations.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t possibly—” Hero began, but Mr. Travers interrupted.

  “It’s the least I can do in exchange for the immense services you’ll be providing to the government of this great nation,” he said with a thin smile. “I quite insist.”

  Houndstooth was still for a moment, his eyes on the goons’ rifles. The Gate let out a ferocious squeal as the ranger pulled the lever to open it. It slid sideways, nesting neatly under the ranger’s post. The wake lapped at the hippos’ flanks, darkening the waxed leather of their harnesses.

  “Well,” Houndstooth said to the rest of the hoppers. “I suppose it doesn’t change too much if we’re aboard the Sturgess Queen. Fewer fleas than the Inn, I’m sure.” His face was open, and spoke to a pleasantly surprising change in plans. His expression betrayed none of the risk he was being forced to swallow. None of the rage.

  It took a full minute for the Gate to open. The five of them walked through abreast, Zahra trailing behind Stasia. As they passed below the ranger’s post, Hero flung the man’s hat high in the air. It spun like a discus, and the ranger leaned out to catch it. The moment Zahra’s tail had passed the threshold, the squeal began again, and the Gate closed behind them.

  Behind Travers, the narrow passage of the Gate opened up into the waters of the Harriet. The humid haze of the day didn’t quite obscure the massive dam that dominated the horizon behind him, dwarfing the riverboats and pleasure barges that dotted the water. Here and there, a canoe-sized islet bumped up out of the surface of the Harriet. Houndstooth would have expected them to be covered with birds—but
then, he supposed the ferals made this a dangerous place to be a bird.

  Mr. Travers clasped his hands in front of his chest, staring at the crew with wine-black eyes. His slim, slick moustache twitched over his icy smile. “Welcome to the Harriet.”

  * * *

  Hero dropped their bag onto the floor of the presidential suite and took the room in. It was small as far as presidential suites went, but it was, according to Mr. Travers, the largest on the Sturgess Queen.

  “Well,” said Houndstooth. “Seems cozy enough, this. If you like red velvet.” He ran a hand over the seat of the plush divan that sat under the window. Hero closed their eyes and breathed deeply. Their lips parted just a little, and Houndstooth nearly died with the effort of not noticing it.

  “I do.”

  Houndstooth jumped. “What? You, hm, you what?”

  Hero opened their eyes and considered Houndstooth, who was perched on the edge of the divan, stiff-backed, holding his hat in his lap. They cocked their head and smiled.

  “I do like red velvet.”

  Houndstooth moved to the window and twitched the curtain aside. “What do you make of Travers, then? I don’t like that he made us check our guns. ‘Standard security procedures,’ indeed. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. And did you see the munitions he had stored down there? What, is he expecting a war to break out?” He cleared his throat, smoothed the front of his jacket.

  “I think,” Hero drawled, crossing the room to join him, “that he’s the least of our problems.”

  Hero stared out the window. Houndstooth stared at Hero. “What’s the worst of our problems?”

  Hero smiled, watching the water below them. “Well, Winslow. There’s only one bed in here.” They turned their head, still smiling, and took in Houndstooth’s rich pink blush. “And last I counted, there’s two of us.”