The River Horses

by Allen Steele

“No?” Lars slung the pack over his shoulder, tucked the bag under his arm. “Let’s see him keep you warm at night, then.” An ill-humored grin split his face. “Hell, I’d pay good money to see that. Might be as much fun as watching you and James…”

  She stepped forward and slapped him across the face. The blow was harder than she meant it to be; that, or he simply didn’t see it coming. Either way, he staggered back, almost tripping over his own feet as the sleeping bag fell from his arms. His eyes were wide with astonishment, his cheek reddened where she’d struck him, and, although his mouth opened, for a moment he was speechless.

  Behind him, a couple of men from James’s group snickered. Someone muttered something that Marie didn’t catch, but Lars apparently did. The swollen corner of his upper lip curled, and Lars started toward her, dark fury in his eyes.

  “That’s enough,” Missus Smith said. Hearing a low click to her left, Marie looked around. Missus Smith had raised her rifle and was pointing it straight at Lars. “Any closer, and so help me I’ll put an end to you.”

  “Chris…”

  “Hush.” Missus Smith didn’t look away from Lars. “No more words. You’re done here. Pick up your stuff and get on the boat. Now.”

  Lars said nothing. He leaned over to retrieve his sleeping bag, now laying unrolled upon the sand like a dead worm. For a moment, Marie thought he’d mutter a last curse or threat, but Lars surprised her by remaining silent. Instead, he quietly slung the bag over his shoulder, turned away from them and marched down the beach to the keelboat.

  James was waiting for him. The two men spoke for a few seconds, then James swatted him on the shoulder and let Lars climb aboard. Two other men shoved the boat backward into the surf, then were hauled over the side by their companions. The morning tide pulled the craft out into the channel, and the people on shore watched as the seven outcasts hoisted sails and tacked into the wind. Within minutes, they were gone, sailing southwest toward the Great Equatorial River.

  “Good riddance,” Missus Smith said quietly. “With any luck, we’ve seen the last of ’em.”

  Marie raised a hand to wipe away the tears sliding down her face. For the first time since they’d met, she was free of Lars. And yet, despite all reason not to do so, she knew they’d meet again.

  From the journals of

  Wendy Gunther:

  Uriel 54, c.y. 06

  We heard from Marie today—not a mission report, but a real-time call via satphone. I was on duty at the hospital, but Carlos was home when she called. He spoke with her, and told me about it once I got home. By then he’d calmed down a little, but the conversation clearly upset him.

  In short: Marie has left Lars. Or rather, she’s made him leave her. She told Carlos that Lars had become abusive since they left Liberty, to the point that he’d almost allowed her to get killed a few days ago—a run-in with a boid that, for some reason, she hadn’t mentioned in her last report. It seems that matters came to a head two nights ago after they crossed the West Channel, when they met up with a group from New Boston who’d made camp on Great Dakota. Apparently some of these people were rather…well, unpleasant, to put it mildly…but they had plenty of liquor, and Lars went on a binge with them.

  Carlos says that his sister wasn’t very specific about what occurred next, but apparently something happened that gave her reason to become afraid of what might occur if Lars remained with her. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad, because Carlos said Marie broke down while she was talking to him. And that was enough for her, and for the rest of the people in the camp; the next morning, their leader told the troublemakers to get lost, and to take Lars with them.

  So Lars is gone, and Marie and Manny have elected to stay for a while on Great Dakota, helping the rest of the group establish a new settlement. Although Carlos is relieved that Marie hasn’t been hurt and that she’s no longer with Lars—so am I; neither of us ever liked him very much—he’s also angry that she’s broken the conditions of her parole, i.e., that she and Lars were to explore as much of Coyote as they could during the next six months, and to avoid contact with any other colonists. On the other hand, realistically speaking, there’s not much we can do to stop her, short of sending a couple of blueshirts out in a gyro to pick her up and bring her home. And what good would that accomplish?

  We’ve discussed the situation with the magistrates, and come to agree that, at least for the time being, we just should wait and see what happens. If Marie and Manny have located a prime location for a new colony—and from what she’s told Carlos, Great Dakota could become a major timber resource—then it’s probably best that they explore it with others. After all, they’re the first people to cross the West Channel; the other side is wilderness no one else has seen before. So it makes no sense for them to go at this alone when they’ve found other people who share the same objectives.

  As for Lars…well, that was a tough call. One of the rules we’d set out was that they were to stay together, with Manny as their guide. Marie broke that rule when she allowed the New Boston group to expel him. We’ve talked this over with Clark Thompson. As much as he loves his nephew, he and Molly are aware of Lars’ problems—especially his drinking—and he knows how much trouble he can cause. On the other hand, he’s upset that Marie allowed him to be cut loose. He thinks Manny had something to do with this, even though Carlos told him that this was apparently Marie’s decision, and he seems to believe that Lars should have been allowed to stay. But again, he knows there’s not much he can do about it, so all he can do is hope that Lars will reappear sooner or later, and that by then Marie will have forgiven him for whatever he did.

  Carlos is worried sick about his little sister. Maybe she’s not so little anymore, but nonetheless he remembers when they were kids and he always had to look out for her. He’s felt responsible for her ever since their folks were killed a few days after we arrived on Coyote and the two of them became orphans (I had the same problem, of course, but since I didn’t know my father very well, the situation was different for me). When I got home, I found him gathering his outback gear. He planned to enlist a gyro pilot to fly him out west so he could track down Marie. I talked him out of it, but he’s still pacing the floor.

  So now Marie is on her own, or at least without Lars. Well, maybe that’s the way it was meant to be. But there’s one thing that still puzzles me. In her reports, she seldom mentions Manny. Wonder why that is?

  With the camp’s population reduced by one-fourth, the first days without those seven men were the hardest. Although several weeks remained before the autumn equinox, it was clear that Coyote’s long summer was drawing to a close; the days were beginning to get cooler, the nights a little longer. If the twenty-two remaining men, women, and children—who now included Marie and Manny—wished to settle Great Dakota, they would have to prepare for the hard, cold months that lay ahead. Cabins needed to be built, along with outhouses, storage sheds, and greenhouses; autumn crops had to be planted, firewood cut and stockpiled: those and a dozen other tasks that James and his crew, who’d been among the hardiest of the original group, had ignored in favor of drinking and sport fishing.

  Now that they were gone, though, there was nothing left to distract the others from the serious business of homesteading. Two nights after Lars left, Missus Smith called to order a town meeting, held after dinner around the community fire pit. After it was decided that the settlement would incorporate itself as Riverport, pending approval of the Colonial Council, an election was held for the town mayor. To no one’s surprise, Missus Smith ran unopposed.

  When Chris presented a motion formally inviting Marie and Manny to become town members, Marie was stunned to find the vote was unanimous in their favor. Perhaps she’d been an outcast in Liberty, but in Riverport she was a fellow citizen. Nor did anyone make an issue of the fact that Manuel Castro was a savant, even though almost everyone was aware that he’d once been the lieutenant governor of the New Florida colonies during the Union occupation.
All the same Marie was struck by the irony that Riverport’s mayor shared her first name with Liberty’s Chief Proctor: one had welcomed her with open arms, while the other had thrown her in the county jail.

  “You two aren’t the only ones with a past,” Chris said to her after the meeting was over. “Everyone here’s running from something.” Then she smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “Look, you’ve got a clean slate. Whatever you or Manny did is over and done. So forget about it, okay? Time to start fresh.”

  And so she did. Over the course of the next several weeks, Marie joined the effort to transform Riverport from a squalid collection of tents into something that resembled a frontier settlement. It was hard work, relentless and seldom pleasant. Once the camp was relocated from the beach to higher ground beside the nearby river, an adjacent stand of faux-birch was designated as timber for the construction of permanent structures. Her first task of the day usually involved helping the men cut down trees, strip them of branches, then lash ropes around the trunks and drag them to where cabins would be built. After lunch, she’d help the women and children clear a nearby meadow for the crops that would eventually be planted. And if there was any time left in the day, she collected firewood, washed clothes, cleaned fish, did some of the cooking, and whatever else needed to be done.

  Although Manny wasn’t strong enough to offer much assistance in the more grueling chores—despite appearances, his mechanical body wasn’t meant for hard labor—he proved to be an able architect and civil engineer, designing not only cabins, but also viaducts and sewage systems. He performed water-table measurements that accurately predicted the locations for artesian wells, and once he learned less physically demanding crafts such as carpentry and fishing, he turned out to be adept at them as well. Logs shaved and trimmed beneath his tireless hands had precise fittings; the trotlines he rigged every morning produced enough channelmouth, redfish, and brownhead to feed everyone by day’s end.

  For the first couple of weeks, Marie and Manny saw little of each other. She shared a tent with another woman whose former companion had been among those who’d been expelled, while Manny stayed aboard the skimmer. Although it had been beached, he made sure that its engines remained in proper operating condition. Their work schedules seldom coincided; when she was with the timber crew, he was helping build cabins, and when she was planting seed for corn, wheat, and radishes, he cut bait for the trotlines. Yet as time went on and they became accustomed to their duties, the two found opportunities to talk.

  As before, when they’d been on the river, Marie found herself amazed by his insights. Even with only one functional eye, little escaped Manny’s notice. He was intrigued by the seasonal migration of sea-swoops toward their breeding grounds in the distant Meridian Archipelago; day by day, he counted their numbers, taking note of how many birds were in each flock that passed overhead, and how that indicated the coming of autumn. He also followed gradual changes in the night sky, the way bright stars like Arcturus and Canopus seemed to rise a little earlier every evening. One afternoon they witnessed a solar eclipse, when Bear passed between Coyote and 47 Ursae Majoris; it happened often enough that Marie had long-since become accustomed to such events, but Manny pointed something out to her that she’d never really noticed before, the way the winds rose from the east at the beginning of the eclipse, abruptly died off during totality, then rose again from the west during the end. Just one more thing she’d taken for granted, yet which fascinated him.

  Indeed, Manny was everything that Lars hadn’t been. He was always gentle, never raising his voice to her, and although he was gifted with vastly superior intelligence, not once did he ever condescend to her. She found solace in his presence, and found herself longing for his company when he wasn’t around. In time she forgot almost entirely about Lars, except to occasionally wonder what he’d do once his pals ran out of booze, and whether that meant he’d reappear to make her life miserable again.

  Lars’s departure had one unforeseen side-effect. Although Missus Smith used the skimmer’s satphone to transmit a formal petition to the Colonial Council for ratification of Riverport as a colony, the motion failed in the executive committee by a vote of 4-3. When Marie asked why this happened, Carlos told her that the dissenting vote had come from Clark Thompson. Lars’s uncle was still angry about his nephew’s expulsion. In his capacity as an influential committee member, he didn’t want to do anything that might result in vital materials being shipped to the fledgling settlement. So until Lars reappeared, if ever, Riverport was nothing more than a squatter camp unrecognized by the Coyote Federation. Petty politics, really, but the only alternative was to make contact with James’s group and beg them to return. Chris was firmly opposed to that idea, and so was Marie.

  Yet even that was little more than a nuisance. Once the crops were planted, Marie found more opportunities to spend time with Manny. By then he was beginning to survey the nearby forests. In her desire to find reasons for the Council to recognize Riverport, Missus Smith wanted to make a case for Riverport becoming a major source of timber for all the colonies, and she’d put Manny in charge of scouting out the nearby woodlands. So Marie and Manny would follow the river upstream into the foothills, then hike upward through dense forests of rough bark and swoop’s nest briar until they reached a granite bluff upon a steep ridge overlooking town. This lonely spot on Thunder Ridge became a favorite place for them to rest—although Manny didn’t really need to do so, he never forgot that she wasn’t a savant—and compare notes on what they’d found.

  The fifth day of Adnachiel was surprisingly warm, at least for the first week of autumn. Behind them rose the rocky summits of the Black Mountains, forbidding in their stark majesty. A few miles to the east lay the broad expanse of the West Channel, bright sunlight sparkling upon its cool blue waters. Manny sat cross-legged upon the bluff, sketching the view upon his pad. Marie lay on her side, quietly observing the delicate way his forefinger traced the river upon the pad’s opaque plate.

  A notion occurred to her, and she reached forward to tap his arm. “Hey, do you ever draw people?”

  His head swiveled toward her. He’d pulled back his robe’s cowl, so she saw his face clearly. Although it remained expressionless, there was something in the way that he tilted his head that caused her to imagine a wry grin. “On occasion,” he replied. “No one has ever posed for me, though, so I have to do it when they’re not looking.”

  “I’ll pose.” She smiled. “I’d love to have a picture of me.”

  The metallic buzz from his mouth grill that she’d come to recognize as laughter. “Certainly. It’d be my honor.” He shifted around so that he faced her, propping his pad on one raised knee. “How would you like to…?”

  “I’ll show you.” Grasping the bottom of her shirt, she pulled it over her head in one swift motion. She reached behind her back and unsnapped her bra. Tossing it aside, she shook out her hair, then stretched out upon the granite, feeling its cool, gritty texture against her skin.

  “Like this,” she said, her voice soft and low.

  Manny stared at her, his right hand poised above the pad. He said nothing for a few moments, then he lowered his head. “Please put your shirt back on.”

  “It’s all right.” Marie gave him a shy smile. “No one can see me but you.” She paused. “I don’t want anyone but you to see me.”

  Manny put the pad aside, and said nothing for a few seconds. “Whatever it is you want from me,” he said at last, “I can’t give it to you.”

  “You already have. You’re my friend…”

  “Then be my friend, and…” He stopped, slowly raising his head. “Marie, have you ever wondered why I became a savant? Why I chose to have my mind scanned, downloaded into this?”

  Raising his right claw, he tapped it against his chest, where his quantum comp lay. A dull, metallic clank, like a fork rattling against an empty skillet. “Because I was ill. In fact, I was ill all my life. The only part of me that was healthy was my brain
. The rest…I spent my life in a wheelchair, with a respirator tube running up my nose and a nurse pushing me around.”

  “Manny…”

  “Just listen, please.” The afternoon sun reflected off the ruby orb of his left eye, turning it into a jewel. “I never walked on my own. I never ran, or played games with other children, or did anything that I couldn’t do with my hands. Or at least my right hand…the left never worked very well.” He paused. “And, no, I’ve never been with a woman, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Suddenly, the day felt cold, as if summer had abruptly come to an end. “I’m sorry,” she said, sitting and reaching for her shirt. “I didn’t mean to…”

  “No, of course you didn’t.” He shook his head. “I know all about cruelty, and that wasn’t your intent.” Again, the short buzz. “Misplaced flirtation, perhaps, but not cruelty. But seeing you this way…well, the gesture is appreciated, but it’s also one of those things I’ve tried not to think about.”

  Marie slowly nodded. Neglecting her bra, she hastily pulled the shirt over her head. “Please forgive me. I just…” She sighed, looked away. “Hell, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I know. Just an impulse.” Then he hesitated, a little longer this time. “One thing, though…something I noticed when you were…shall we say, disrobed?”

  She laughed at the diplomatic way he chose his words. “You mean when I was half-naked and trying to play sex kitten?”

  “If you wish.” Another pause. “It wasn’t until you took off your shirt that I was certain of something I’ve observed before. Your breasts have become larger.”

  Marie stared at him. As busy as she’d been over the past several weeks, she hadn’t been paying close attention to herself. Now that he mentioned it, though, she realized that her brassieres had become a bit uncomfortable lately. And although she’d eaten as well as anyone in camp could, given the fact that they were living on a diet of fish, waterfruit, rice, and beans, there were mornings when she’d been unable to keep anything in her stomach.