Fish Tails (97 page)

“I can convey a message.”

“Sun-­wings, even for such a purpose, I,
we
are unwilling to risk your life. The ­people in Saltgosh are very nervous. They've added some heavy weaponry which could hurt you badly. My idea was, if you'd take Willum—­”

“The boy?” She laughed. “I dangled him when I took him from place to place in the mountains. He was . . .” She sought for the new word Needly had taught her. “Indignant.”

“Couldn't you let him sit on your shoulders, in front of your wings. See, they have a watchtower over there. If you fly into the valley low, past the watchtower, land down in the center of it, not threatening at all, and Willum gets off and runs toward the watchtower, they'll know you're not dangerous. He can deliver the message, and then you can bring him back.”

“The message being?”

“That they need to chop down one huge tree to block the road that runs west.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. “You need to force the wagon to take the north road into the long valley where the giants are.”

“You know about them?”

“They're very visible. Whenever I flew over that valley, I screamed a few times, just to bring them out. They keep on growing, you know.”

“You mean, they're still getting bigger?”

“They were. The strange visitor, I am told, has sprayed them with something to shrink them, but it will take a long time. Perhaps it will only stop them growing. We were wondering when they would stop growing. I was told once, long ago, by someone, that there is a limit to what bone will support. I was also told that in prehistoric times there were huge creatures, as large as the giants. Perhaps they had bone like ours, not the same as other creatures, but not . . . unnatural. Do you expect the giants to stop this . . . Gold King?”

“We think they will, yes. If we make enough noise to attract them. When I came through there, Willum's hollering was all it took. The stuff we need is in two metal canisters. About as big around as my head. Very strong canisters. The giants attack because they're hungry. Probably the canisters will survive any attack the giants make. Probably they will leave them alone.”

“Then, probably, my sisters and I can fly in later and pick them up?”

“I had thought someone could pick them up. We actually need only one of them. Or they're small enough that you could carry a bit of netting, roll them into it, and carry both of them. Both of them together may not be as heavy as some prey animals I know you've carried. Needly has told us about her stay with you, of course. She's very fond of you and Dawn-­song.”

“Fond,” murmured Sun-­wings. “This is like what? Loving?

“Like that, yes.”

“And Willum?”

Abasio laughed. “He'd still rather ride you than a horse, and it isn't that you are more intelligent or better spoken, because Blue, the horse, is an extremely intelligent and well-­spoken creature. I think Willum is in love with the idea of flight.”

“I can take the boy,” she said. This was the boy who had given his life for her child. Oh, yes, she could take this boy.

“You'll be landing in the pasture below the town. It would be nice if you could avoid eating any of their livestock while you wait for Willum to deliver the message.”

“When is this to be done?”

“It's too late to go today. Dawn, in the morning.”

“Then, if I'm not to eat one of their goats or sheep, you'd better ask someone to bring me some early breakfast.”

Wakened before dawn, Willum was in a state of disbelief. He kept saying, “Oh, wow.”

“Willum. You! Are! Not! Listening!”

“Oh, wow. C'n I go all the way to Gravysuck and show Mom?”

“I've changed my mind, you can't go.”

“ 'Basio, no, no.”

“Then shut up and listen.”

Willum clamped his hand over his mouth and appeared to give Abasio his full attention.

“This will not do unless you can follow directions. You'll fly over Saltgosh, down into the meadow, about halfway, so the Saltgoshians will see that Sun-­wings is not attacking. She'll land down in the meadow. You get off. You'll carry a flag, and you'll wave the flag like crazy at the watchtower while you walk up the meadow toward the town. They've moved down to Snow Town, so the ­people who'll see you are in the watchtower. You tell them the Griffin is waiting to take you back. You tell them I sent you. You find somebody, anybody, and ask them to find Melkin. You give Melkin the letter I'll be writing while you are getting dressed to go flying. Once Melkin has read the letter, ask him for an answer.

“Now, repeat back to me what I just said.”

“Y'mean now?”

“I mean now.”

“I . . . I . . . guess I didn't . . . hear what you just said.”

Abasio just looked at him. Willum began to turn red. Abasio shook his head. “Then you can't go. I'll find some local child who wants to do the job and can listen to instructions. Perhaps Needly would go. She's lighter. It would be easier on Sun-­wings. I'm sorry to have bothered you with it. I guess you're just . . . too . . . stupid . . . to learn.”

Willum turned a color very close to purple. “ 'Basio, say it again. Please. Just say it one time again.”

Abasio said it again slowly. When he had finished, Willum repeated it back to him, getting it mostly right. They did it again, and this time Willum got all of it right.

“This is your one and only last chance, Willum. You foul this up by yelling or yodeling or any other kind of nonsense, and you are going home to Gravysuck. Up in the air, you keep your mouth shut. I do not want anyone looking up to see what's up there, getting the idea Sun-­wings has captured a child, then trying to shoot her, do you understand me? What did I just say?”

Willum repeated what he had just said. Abasio could hardly believe it. He went on:

“You are to be silent. You are to find Melkin and give him the message which will ask him to give you an answer. If the answer is yes, you may stay there long enough to see what happens. If you can get the stuff from the wagon, that would be marvelous. The cans are melon-­shaped, pumpkin-­shaped, round, like your head . . . and there's two of them. If the answer is no, you have to get back here fast and let me know. And if Sun-­wings tells me you've made a single sound out of line, you're going home with the next wagon headed west. I'm telling her the same thing, so if you forget, be sure, she'll remember. If you do anything to endanger her life, she has our permission to drop you and leave you wherever you fall.”

“When do we go?” asked Willum.

Abasio snarled, “What do you do if the answer is no?”

Willum turned a deeper red, his face contorted in concentration. “Come back and tell you as fast as I can. We can, that is.”

“You're going to go now,” said Abasio, who had noticed that the large washtub in which Sun-­wings's meals were served was being retrieved from her building. “As soon as you eat something, put on a double sweater and your jacket.”

He stood in the sun, head down, trying to not-­think. So many things could go wrong.

Someone tugged on his arm. One of Grandma's children. “Abasio, Mr. Fixit said give this to you.” He held out a small packet. “He said it took some getting. He said time travel. Can anybody really do that?”

Abasio shook his head. “Thank you, Jules. This is a miracle. The one thing needed to guarantee success, and here it is! I don't know about time travel, but if anyone could, it'd probably be Fixit.”

Sun-­wings came out of the building and extended her wings, repeatedly, first one, then the other, then both, stretching them to their limits, moving them high, meeting over her back, then down, so far as the earth would allow.

When Abasio approached, she said, “I think a rope loop, in front of the wings, just behind my front leg shoulders and held down, tight, by one of my front feet. In that way, the boy can put his upper legs under the rope, his lower legs back, and his feet tucked under it. Then I can tighten it gently—­is that right word?—­with my foot, but it does not choke me. He will hang on to the rope with hands, too.”

They tried a ­couple of lengths before finding one that was comfortable for her. Abasio said, “Don't fret over Dawn-­song, you know we'll take care of her until you get back.” Willum came out of the wagon warmly dressed and muttering about blankets on fish—­Xulai had obviously seen to dressing him. Abasio unbuttoned the boy's jacket, lifted the sweaters, and placed the message beneath the shirt, next to Willum's skin. “There may be some other stuff in that wagon, Willum. I don't know what it looks like. It's called yribium. If it's in ingots, it'll be short, thick, very heavy sticks. If you see anything like that, grab some of it.”

He took hold of the boy's chin, looked beyond him to speak to both him and Sun-­wings. “Now, this is important. The woodsman over there in Saltgosh is not going to want to cut that tree! You give this to Melkin. It's pollen from a male tree like the one you have to cut. It's something their woodsman has wanted for years. He'll cut the tree if you give him this. You've got an inside pocket in your jacket. I'm putting it in that pocket, and I'm buttoning it so you can't lose it.”
And pray to heaven that it contains what Fixit said it does.
He turned to meet Sun-­wings's eyes. She seemed to be smiling.

“I'm going to climb the stone place they call ‘Two Old Men Pretending to Be Buffalo,' ” Sun-­wings announced, turning toward the aspen grove at the foot of a tall formation of stones that did indeed resemble two hunched old men humped over like buffalo. When they arrived at the formation, she said, “Willum, climb onto my back by holding on to little bunches of feathers, not just one, it may pull out.”

He did so, his face tight with concentration. Abasio handed him the flag they had prepared, bright red, like the Saltgosh singers' caps. Sun-­wings climbed the rock, talons and claws gripping and shifting, Willum lying flat against her back. Once he was on top, she told him to get his legs under the rope; then she put a front foot into the rope loop, tightened it over Willum's legs and her shoulders, and told him to bend his knees and tuck his toes under the rope and hold on tight. The next thing Abasio knew, she had launched herself downward, wings opening just before she hit the ground, then lifting, lifting. He saw her circle to gain height, then turn toward the west.

On her back, Willum was caught halfway between ecstasy and terror. They were circling higher and higher, and he was suddenly glad of the extra sweaters. It was cold up here. Maybe Xulai had been right about that. She sometimes was right about things. Most times. They were headed west, over the road. There was a hill on the horizon, and they were headed for that, reached it, went over it, and began climbing again. The mountains ahead of them were higher, much higher.

She circled up and up on the rising air from the sun-­warmed slope below, moving farther west with each turn until at last she tilted to one side and Willum saw the top of the pass beneath them, the pale scribble of road descending on both sides. The sun had risen far enough that there was good light to see by, though none shone directly on this western face of the mountain. The Gold King's wagon was already one-­third of the way down the side, cars and trucks strung out behind it, weapons protruding from every window. Since the Gold King had an eight-­horse hitch and seemingly a light load, the wagon was moving very fast. Willum had never seen a wagon move that fast; one horse of the lead team carried a rider, and the accompanying riders were also at full gallop. He had extra horses, too, following along behind.

Sun-­wings slipped over the first range of peaks, tilted, and sailed down the valley on the far side, past the Listener, turning from valley into valley, not flapping, just gliding through the rising air, slowly descending as they went. There ahead of them was the watchtower.

Willum sat up straight, held on with one hand, and waved the flag with the other. As they went by, he looked to his right and saw two incredulous faces staring at him through the watcher's gap in the stone. Sun-­wings dropped as they went down the meadow, then began to circle, losing altitude and frightening a herd of cows into a frantic stampede. Lower and lower yet.

He leaned forward and called, “That pasture right underneath us. That's for ­people to camp and there's no stock in it. That'd be a good place.” It was also out of sight of the wagon coming down from the pass place.

Sun-­wings swerved, looked down, then her wings came high behind him and they were down. He loosened his hold on the rope and slid from the Griffin's shoulder.

“I'm going to walk up toward them,” he told her. “I'll be back.”

“Take your time,” she said. “I need a drink of water.”

She walked toward the river, starting yet another stampede two pastures away, this one of horses.

Willum went straight across toward the salt works, still waving his flag.

Several men emerged from the salt works and came toward him. One of them was Melkin. Willum remembered having to . . . well, to apologize to him. He felt his face turning red.

“Willum,” Melkin said, his voice a little tight. “You seem to have acquired quite a mount there.”

“Don't think I 'quired her,” said Willum. “Think I was just the lightest one they had to send.” He struggled with his buttons. “Sir, gotta letter in here from Abasio. He said important. Real important.”

Seeing Willum's struggle with several layers of sweater and jacket, Melkin helped with the buttons. He read the letter, muttering to the men at his sides. “Weapons,” he said. “Do you know what weapons they have, Willum?”

Willum concentrated very hard on what Abasio had said to the others just before they took off. “I heard him talking while I was gettin' dressed. They got long guns and lots of 'em. 'Basio says you've got bigger weapons'n that, but 'Basio thought it'd be better if you just weren't 'vailable or visible when they came by, just sorta not there so no matter what they got, if there's nobody there, then nobody starts shootin' anything. Since ever'body knows you're all moved down to Snow Town, those gangers, they won't think anything ‘bout your not bein' there. But they gotta take that road where the giants is.”