An Oath of Dogs

by Wendy N. Wagner

  PETER WAVED at the security guard — not Lou, but a muscular chuckle-head who was probably a crony of Brett Takas — and pulled into the parking lot. Just a day ago, he’d checked the UTV out of the motor pool, and in that time his world had turned upside down. Standish had been right. As little as he wanted to admit it, she’d nailed it when she said he’d been waiting for Duncan to show up. He’d known Dunc fifteen years, fifteen years, and there had never been a scrape the man hadn’t been able to get out of. Laying fiberoptic cable on Mars, he’d gone off the map for a week and come back with a story of building his own air filters out of tape and spare parts. Hiking in the Alaskan protected wilderness, he’d fallen in a crevasse and broken two legs and an arm and been rescued by pair of climbers visiting from Peru. As long as Peter had known Duncan, he’d moved in and out of the elliptic of Peter’s life like an erratic comet with stories in its tail, its unpredictability its only constant.

  So it hadn’t been so crazy, imagining that in a year or two Duncan might call and explain that he was on Jupiter or terraforming Ganymede or building the first wilderness preserve in outer space. Duncan came and went. He was a force of nature, not a mere man. And Peter had loved him for it.

  Shit. Standish was right. He wasn’t over Duncan.

  A rapping on the window beside him made Peter jump.

  The man outside chuckled. Peter restarted the UTV and rolled down the window. “Good morning, Joe.”

  Joe Holder leaned in through the window. Up close, Peter could see just how thin his blond hair had gotten on top. “You OK, Bajowski? You’ve been sitting in there for five minutes. I thought I’d better check in on you.”

  “I’m fine, Joe. Just got some bad news yesterday, that’s all. Got a lot on my mind.”

  “I heard about Dunc. That’s too bad.” He made a tut-tutting sound with his tongue. “It’s hard to believe a guy like Duncan would think suicide was an option.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Joe took a step back. “That’s the talk down at Heinrich’s. Sheriff Vargas is investigating it as a possible suicide.”

  “He was shot in the chest with an air bolt. It’s not the most believable way to kill yourself. Plus, you know as well as I do that Duncan didn’t carry a bolt gun. He was opposed to hurting the local animals.”

  “Guess you didn’t hear. Brett Takas filed a report two days before Duncan went missing — an air bolt gun was stolen out of the security team’s ordnance locker.”

  Peter stared at him. Joe was a big man, probably a good ten centimeters taller than Peter, his broad face the same American potato-shape that had filled state legislatures across the Rust and Bible belts. It read as truthful, but Peter had somehow never liked him much. “Did they ever get it back?”

  Joe shook his head. “Hell of a thing.”

  Under Joe’s benevolent gaze, Peter rolled up the window and shut off the engine. Peter had to open the door carefully so as not to push it into Joe’s pot belly.

  “You going to be all right, son?”

  “Sure,” Peter said, and felt his teeth squeezing together. He forced his jaw to relax. “See you tomorrow, Joe.”

  “All right, Pete. And if you need anything, you let me know. Any friend of Duncan’s is a friend of mine.”

  Peter couldn’t bring himself to respond. Sheriff Vargas couldn’t really believe Duncan killed himself; the idea was insane. It seemed like somebody didn’t want there to be a murder investigation, and he had a bad feeling it was somebody at Songheuser.

  He walked toward the security gate and hopped over it. It was a violation of company safety and security policy, and it felt good.

  STANDISH PULLED into the Whitleys’ driveway. It was the last house on the road leading into Sector 12. If anyone had noticed construction vehicles and unusual traffic headed into the woods, it would be Olive Whitley.

  Not her parents. With both of them working, they weren’t home enough to notice anything unusual. But Olive was uncannily observant, and school hours didn’t mean much to her.

  Standish turned off the engine and studied Olive’s house. No utility vehicle sat under the makeshift carport, but a trickle of smoke rose from the chimney. Standish stepped out into the sifting drizzle and climbed the stairs to the porch. The hinges on the screen door protested as she pulled it open.

  The plastic magnified the sound of her knuckles like a town gossip spreading bad news. There was no window in the front door, not like her own, and she noticed the screen door was a late addition, pieced together out of strips of horsetail. The woodwork itself looked neat and trim.

  The door opened. “Miss Kate!”

  “Hi, Olive. Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions?”

  “I was just going out. You can give me a drive into town.” Olive hoisted a heavy pack over her bony shoulder and smiled. Then, without waiting for a response, she headed down to the UTV and squeezed into the passenger seat with Hattie.

  Standish shook her head. She liked the little waif, but she had a feeling Olive didn’t hear the word “no” very often.

  She started the engine. “So where am I going?”

  “Back toward town. We’ll pass Mr Matthias’s farm, then make a right on Dreger Road, and a left on Chameli’s driveway. It’s a long one, and you’ll feel like you’re getting lost. New people always do. But she’s got a good view of the town, and on a clear day, you can see the lake.”

  Standish tried to make sense of the directions. Without Olive’s warning, she would have missed Dreger Road entirely. “Road” was not a word she would have used to describe the two narrow ruts cutting through someone’s field. Olive pointed out the graveled drive headed up the flanks of the hill, and Standish found herself jolting along another rough track. The trees looked skinnier than those out in Sector 12 or 13, their fronds a younger, brighter green. This section of woods must have been logged and then allowed to grow again, the forest reclaiming the land for itself.

  Standish turned the conversation back to the task at hand. “Olive, do you know all the roads around here?”

  “Sure. It’s my job to know the lay of the land.”

  “What do you know about a gravel drive in the woods at the edge of Sectors 12 and 13? It starts a little ways away from the place where I first met you.”

  Olive pointed out the window. “Did you see that? Biggest purple tree scooter I ever saw.”

  “No, I missed it.” She glanced across the seat at the girl. Olive stared intently out the window. “Olive, please tell me about that road. I know you know about it.”

  “It’s just a road,” Olive said. “Ain’t nothing to tell. And that’s Chameli’s house, right there. Watch out for her UTV.”

  Standish stopped the rig behind a battered and ancient UTV with pink ribbons tied onto its antennas. “Olive, you do know something.”

  Olive shook her head, hard. “I’m not telling you nothing about that road.”

  “Why not?”

  The girl bent over to pick up her backpack. “Because Duncan told me not to, that’s why.”

  Then she threw open the door and jumped out of the rig. “Chameli! Chameli! You’ve got to meet my new friend!” Hattie jumped down and looked back at Standish for permission to follow the girl.

  Standish sighed and turned off the engine. Duncan Chambers had once again stumped her. She followed Olive and Hattie across the uneven yard.

  The house Olive headed toward had seen better days. Its printed plastic was losing a war with the elements. Yellow strands of lichen had rooted in the ridges and gaps of the plastic blocks, and now instead of looking like a corporate bunker, the house resembled a retreat for some kind of nature spirit. A porch built of green-skinned horsetail wood only contributed to the image, especially with concrete planters of colorful rock-eater lichens like flowerpots framing the door.

  Olive pounded on the front door, giving Standish time to look around. The house sat in a little clearing, the slender trees on the west side
carefully managed to minimize shade on the small patch of garden. A gap between the trees let her look down at the town below, most of the buildings hidden by the tree cover. The waters of the lake glinted gray, a ribbon of tarnished silver between the black flanks of the hills and the broad green plain of the town.

  “Chameli!” Olive hollered again. Standish turned around at the sound of a set of hinges creaking.

  “Is that my Olive girl? Come in, sweetie.” The swarthy woman at the door stepped forward to clasp the girl in her arms. She drew herself up when she saw Standish. “And who is this?”

  “This is my friend, Miss Kate.”

  Standish put out a hand. “Kate Standish.”

  Chameli shook. Her grip was strong, her palm large, warm, and soft. She was a tall woman, taller than Standish, and a sturdy plumpness softened out the blunt bones beneath her skin. If she had been thin, it would have been hard to imagine a child, even a child as unusual as Olive, wanting to hug her.

  “Kate Standish,” she repeated. “I see.” The large woman stepped backward, holding the door open with her broad shoulder. “Rain’s going to pick up any minute.”

  Just to lend credence to her pronouncement, thunder crashed in the distance. Standish hurried inside.

  Inside the tiny mud room, Olive pointedly removed her shoes and set them beside the inner door. Standish hesitated. “Should I leave my dog out here?”

  Chameli eyed the creature. “Depends. She a good dog or a bad one?”

  “Hattie is the best dog,” Olive said. “She’ll behave.”

  The girl disappeared into the house proper, calling behind her for the dog. Standish shook her head and began tugging off her boots.

  Inside, Chameli’s home had the same layout as Standish’s own house. Smells assaulted Standish’s nose: toasted cinnamon and spices overlay a strange sharp smell, like singed horsetail. Her nose crinkled. There was one more scent she knew, and it took her straight back to her mother’s art studio.

  “Turpentine?”

  Chameli smiled. The marionette lines that framed her mouth were astonishingly deep. “Expensive, but I’m old-fashioned. I prefer oil paints to acrylic.”

  “You’re an artist?”

  “Mostly a craftsperson,” Chameli corrected. “Once in while, when I have an idea worth splurging on, I make art. The rest of the time I work on bits and bobs for craft fairs.” She nodded at a desk covered in wire and bright snippets of plastic.

  Standish picked up what appeared to be an earring in progress, a brilliant yellow sun grinning too broadly at the world. Her mother had been a sucker for such things, the cheap trinkets vendors seemed to sell in every tourist town they’d ever visited. “Kitschy.”

  Chameli took it from her. “Kitsch sells.”

  “Chameli, did you bake any cookies? I’m sure Miss Kate missed lunch. Me, too.”

  “I’ll get them.” Chameli strode across the room to the corner kitchenette. A cooling rack sat on top of the half-sized refrigerator, and Chameli swept half a dozen cookies off the rack onto a plate. She did not look like the kind of woman who baked cookies or called children sweetheart. She didn’t look like she made trashy earrings with folksy motifs, either. Standish had worked with women like Chameli, women with sharp eyes and strong muscles, women who worked hard until their bodies couldn’t take hard any more. Standish had left the Earth to become a woman like Chameli, the kind of woman who was so different from her own fragile mother that nothing of her mother’s world could ever affect her: not society, not money, not even art.

  And yet. The smell of turpentine.

  Standish looked around the shabby house, ignoring Olive’s exclamations about cookies and the domestic sounds of mugs striking the plastic tabletop. Chameli’s painting studio was tucked into the space between the sagging couch and the coat rack, half-hidden by rain gear. The craft table was the focal point of the house, the obvious, clamorous call to attention. Anyone, even Chameli, could overlook this small shelf built out of unpeeled horsetail, a palette and a jar of brushes sitting on one end, a canvas tacked up at the other. Standish crossed to it.

  A horsetail tree leaned out of one corner of the canvas, a sharp diagonal that smothered the rest of the scene. The piece was unfinished, but had been sketched in with a sure hand. Chameli made no attempt to differentiate between one penciled dog and the next, but in their headlong thrust across the fabric, their sense of purpose rang true. One dog pulled ahead of the others, its front paws stretching beyond the frame of the image. The leader of the pack.

  Chameli stepped in front of the picture. “It’s not finished.”

  “I know. It’s still amazing.”

  Chameli’s lips tightened. “We’ll see.” She turned away. “How are those cookies?”

  Olive took a cookie from the plate and obligingly bit into it. Standish went to the sunken couch and took a seat next to her, waiting for the girl’s verdict. She chewed slowly, with a steady thoughtfulness.

  “They’re good,” Olive declared. “Did you add vanilla? They don’t taste like your usual.”

  “Observant little thing, aren’t you? Yes, I got vanilla from a new shop in the city.” Chameli poured something hot and dark into her mug from the kettle. She filled Standish’s without asking. “I’m guessing this isn’t just a social call, Olive.”

  Olive sat the rest of the cookie down on the edge of the plate. “I brought you something special, Missus Chameli.”

  “Just Chameli, and you know it. Must be something special if you’re breaking out the honorifics. You find a mother lode of rock-eater out there?”

  “I’ve got rock-eater, sure, but that’s not special.” Olive picked her backpack up off the floor and zipped open the front pocket. “No, this I found out in Shade’s Hollow. Never saw anything like it before in my life.”

  She took out a plastic box, the kind dry goods from Earth came in. She used two hands, as if whatever lay inside was precious and fragile.

  Chameli took it. The lid opened with a snap. “Oh, my.”

  “It was a butterfly graveyard,” Olive explained. “They’d been there a while, so they were all hollowed out inside, empty as eggshells. But the wings were unspoiled. Can you imagine that?” Her eyes shone. “There in the hollow, a whole sheet of blue, like a rainbow lost its stripe and the poor thing curled up to wait for the other colors to come back and find it.”

  Chameli lifted a slice of cool blue out of the box. To Standish, it was like watching her pick up a splinter of sky — not Huginn’s endlessly gray sky, but Earth’s, the kind of blue that showed above wild places and rough rivers on the clearest, warmest days. She reached reflexively for Hattie’s collar.

  Chameli put the sky back inside the dry goods box. “I can pay your usual fee today, but I’m going to have to owe you the balance. I can’t afford this on my pension.”

  “It’s OK. I know you’re good for it.” Olive picked up the cookie and slipped it into her pack. “The wings are just the same color as Saint Hepzibah’s robe.”

  “Saint Hepzibah?” Standish took a sip of spicy chai.

  Olive pushed the cookie plate closer to Standish. “She’s not a real saint, you know.”

  “I don’t know,” Chameli said. “Maybe no church has ever recognized her, but people around here believe she’s the real thing. She’s the woman you see on all the graves,” Chameli explained. She made her way into the kitchenette and added back at Standish: “She was one of the first colonists, I guess. Helped the Believers protect their animals from the dogs.”

  “When I die, I want a Hepzibah on my grave. I don’t want to get dug up and eaten.”

  “Oh, hush, child.” Chameli returned with a stack of credit chits. “Here’s a third of what I owe you.”

  “Thanks.” Olive turned to Standish. “Could you drop me off in town? I need to pick up some powdered milk for dinner.”

  “I’m going that way.”

  The girl was already headed for the mud room. Standish couldn’t decide if her
confidence was endearing or annoying, but she supposed it was a good survival trait.

  “She’s not like anyone, is she?” Chameli shook her head. “She lives in her own world.”

  “She lives in Huginn. More than anyone else, I think. She belongs here.” Standish got up from the couch and gave the room one last looking over. All the colors and simple forms reminded her powerfully of home — not her one-bedroom plastic house here by the lake, but the big house in Sacramento that her mother had filled with antiques and tchotchkes.

  “Can I buy those earrings?”

  “They’re not done. And you don’t even have your ears pierced.”

  “They’re for a friend.” She wasn’t even sure it was a lie. Maybe she’d take them home and decide she’d better give them to Dewey.

  “They’re not done,” Chameli repeated. “But here.” She lifted down a small box and riffled through it for a second. “This seems better for you.”

  She held out a necklace, very simple, just a hammered square of tin strung on a leather cord. The figure painted on the tin had golden hair and a blue mantle, her face soft and round and smiling. A few butterflies hovered above her head like a halo. “Your own Saint Hepzibah.”

  Standish took it and held it in her palm to study for a few long seconds. Saint Hepzibah looked back at her, her eyes warm and understanding. Her robe reminded Standish of the sky, and yet she felt no urge to reach for Hattie. It seemed a good sign. “Can’t hurt,” she said.

  Colonialism demands maximum resource extraction at any cost, human, environmental, or societal. Where there is an other to project the consequences upon, then the colonialist can reap benefit unscathed by extraction and production. Finding a planet outside the terrestrial solar system was the greatest boon to the colonial mindset since Columbus’s discovery of Hispaniola.