Rose Eagle (6 page)

I
was ready for an attack. But nothing came at me. Instead I heard a low growl from somewhere in the vast room where the shapes of big machines loomed up like dead metal giants. Hover trucks, earthcutters, transport platforms. Equipment once used to manipulate and exploit an earth no longer owned by those who thought of themselves as near gods.

My eyes were getting more used to the dim light in the room, light that shone not from any local power source but from the oldest fire of all — the sun itself. Translucent roof panels sifted in that light, and there was daylight coming in over my shoulder from the doorway.

I took another step and the growl got a little deeper.

“Oh,” I said.

“What?” Phil said. He'd come in the door right behind me and was holding his unholstered .45 in both hands.

“You can put away your gun,” I said, flicking on the safety of my sawed-off. “We got nothing to worry about.”

As I said those words, the trilling voice from my shoulder became even more insistent.

I turned my head to look at Jumping Mouse, whose state was somewhere between indignation and terror.

“Point taken,” I said to my little friend. I walked back to the doorway. Before I could begin to bend down, she leaped from my shoulder and scurried into the sagebrush. I doubted that, with the predatory company I always seemed to keep — first the hawk and now this — I'd ever see her again.

“You and me, at least, have nothing to be afraid of here,” I said to my human companion as I turned back into the hangar. “It's a badger.”

I knelt down, pressed my lips together, and made a clicking sound. The growling, which had been getting even louder, stopped. A black nose poked out from behind the front activator of the closest lev-truck, followed by the rest of the white-striped head of an animal the size of a small dog.

“Chirr, chirr?” it said.

“It was warning us off if we were enemies,” I said to Phil. “But now it knows we're friendly.”

I held out both hands and the badger trundled its stocky little body across the floor to me. It sat up and placed its front paws in my hands, snuffling at them eagerly.

“Oh man,” Phil said. “What is it with you and animals? I just love it that they respond to you that way, Rose Eagle!”

“It's not that much, it's just what I do,” I said, not looking back at him.

“Right,” Phil said in an amused voice. “Like everybody can do what you do? Do you even know how amazing you are?”

My cheeks were reddening, but I still kept my attention on my new friend.

“Chirrr?”
the badger asked.

“No, I did not bring you a mouse to eat. But here.”

I reached into my pack and pulled out a strip of jerky. The badger took it gently from my hand, then turned and waddled back to the home it had made for itself under the lev-truck.

I stood up, wiping my hands on my pants.

“Well,” I said. “We know it'll be safe in here for the night. That little guy is the only one living here.” I smiled. “Badgers are amazing. They are so tough. Aunt Mary said that in the old days, even a grizzly would turn aside if a badger stood in the path. And they're strong. They're like little earthmovers. He must have dug his way in here all the way under the foundation.”

Phil's mouth opened.

“What?”

“It's just . . . that's the most I've ever heard you talk.”

“I . . . I like animals.” I heard my voice beginning to sound defensive. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

Phil held up his hands. “Sorry. It's just, well, nice to hear you talk that way. With all that warmth in your voice. I mean . . . never mind.”

I felt embarrassed now. Phil really was trying so hard to be nice to me, and I simply did not know how to react to it. How are girls supposed to act around guys they have a crush on? I turned away and began to look around the building for the best place to spend the night.

Phil, though, was the one who found it.

“Rose,” he called from the far end of the building, “How about this?”

He was standing on the operator's platform of the biggest lev. The platform itself was so big that there was a whole room up there that held not just the control panel but two wide padded chairs. Manual handles on each seat dropped the chair backs and turned them into the equivalent of cots. It meant we'd be sleeping side by side an arm's length from each other. Or, in my case, trying to sleep.

“Good?” Phil asked.

“I guess,” I said. For a moment I thought about finding a separate place for me to sleep. But even inside the assumed safety of this building, sleeping apart would not be the smart thing to do. In this new dangerous world, anything could happen. We had to stay together.

Though there were some things we did need to do in private. Each of us went outside and did those things before darkness fell. We also gathered wood for a fire. Phil took out his propane lighter, which was just like the one I carried. Leftovers from the past — there had been boxes of those lighters in a storage unit in Big Cave. Fire was one thing unaffected by the Silver Cloud, just as long as starting it did not involve electricity. I'd also learned what was, before the Cloud, the useless skill of starting a fire with a bow drill. But why bother when you can just flick down your thumb and get a flame?

We set up our fire circle just a few feet from the door, which fortunately could also be padlocked from the inside. We sat around the fire for a while, eating the food from our packs, drinking the tea we made with water boiled over the fire. Its light cast strange shadows around the building, but for some reason I was not feeling afraid. Sitting next to Phil, I was feeling as close to content as I'd felt in years. The badger had come out and curled up in my lap and I was petting it absentmindedly.

Then, a faraway look in his eyes, Phil began to sing in a soft musical voice.

“Walked along the dry river bed,

thinking of all the things she said,

how she always took me by surprise.

“Way-a-hey Way-a-hey a-hey

Way-a-hey Way-a-hey a-hey

Way-a-hey Way-a-hey Way-a-hey a-hey

“Her long hair, it moved with the breeze,

made me long for more times like these,

looking into her dark Lakota eyes.”

It was such a nice song. And his voice was good singing it. It sort of hypnotized me, listening to it, taking me to such a peaceful place.

“I never heard that song before,” I said.

I hadn't meant to say anything. The words just came out.

“I made it up,” Phil said. “You like it?”

He made it up. Jeez! Probably for some other girl back at the Ridge, one of those pretty little things who were always smiling at him. One of the girls who'd always made fun of me for being so big.

I stood up, more abruptly than I meant to, spilling my badger friend out of my lap.

“I'm . . . I'm tired,” I said. I went to the lev-truck, climbed up, threw myself onto the reclined chair I'd chosen, and covered myself with the thin thermal blanket from my pack. With the blanket over my head, I pretended to be asleep when Phil joined me on the other chair.

But I wasn't asleep. Too many confusing thoughts were wrestling with each other in my head. I heard a scraping of claws against metal, a weight on my legs, and then the badger burrowed his furry muscular little body under my blanket with me. Apparently I was forgiven for the unceremonious way I had flopped him off my lap. That was when I finally drifted off — with the words of Phil's damn sweet song echoing in my mind.

W
hen I woke up, the badger was gone, and I could smell food cooking. I'd slept the whole night through, but I wasn't feeling completely rested. I'd dreamed of a battle. In that fight, a small warrior in a striped robe was battling with a giant creature. That warrior had tethered himself to the ground like some of our fighters had done in the old days when they faced the enemy. It was a sign that he would never retreat. Just before I woke, that small warrior turned to me, his body bleeding in a dozen places, and spoke.

I will die before I let this enemy past me.

* * *

Phil was waiting for me by the fire. He'd kept it burning through the night. And when he'd gotten up, he had boiled water and made tea. He also had cooked a small pile of honey-sweetened corn cakes. He toasted them on a thin flat stone he'd brought in last night before we'd locked ourselves in.

I looked around for my badger friend. There was no sign of him, but that was not all that surprising. He'd probably gone out to hunt as soon as the sun came up. I just hoped my other, smaller, friend Jumping Mouse had found some place that was badgerproof to hide.

I sat down on the other side of the fire from Phil, who handed me a cup of tea and a corn cake.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he said.

“Unh-hunh,” I replied. Usually I didn't like being called sleepyhead, but I liked the way Phil said it, not as anything like an insult, but in a friendly teasing tone. As I drank the tea and ate, I thought about mentioning my dream to Phil. But I hesitated, and as I did so, that troubling dream began to fade. Even though I tried not to show it, I began to feel as close to relaxed as I'd been since starting out on our journey. But that feeling did not last long.

There were no windows in the building. So it was with considerable care that we opened the door. Just in case something was outside waiting for us to emerge.

“Over there,” Phil whispered. “Is that blood?”

A few feet away to our left, the ground showed the sign of a struggle. Torn earth. Gouts of blood and fur. And the dry grass beyond it was streaked with a trail of blood that led back down into the small pines. I looked over at Phil and shook my head. Whatever else we might do, we were not going to follow that trail, which led away to the southeast.

“What happened here?” Phil said, holding his .45 out in front of him as he stood sideways in the doorway.

I didn't answer at first. I just stood there studying the signs. Some of that fur, a piece as large as my palm that must have been torn away with the skin beneath it in the fight that had taken place, was red.

Red.

That gave me part of the answer. A firewolf, perhaps just a single one that had caught our scent and followed us here, had been waiting to attack us when we left the building. But what had attacked it? Then I heard a low panting sound from the side of the building. Half growl, half whine.

“Rose,” Phil said, “what —”

I held up my hand for silence before he could repeat his question. I moved to the corner of the building, bent low and looked around it.

“Noo!” I holstered my sawed-off and ran to kneel by the badger. It lay on its side, next to the entrance to its burrow that led under the wall, its hind legs twitching. Its small body was covered with wounds, and its breathing was labored. But it still held — with grim determination — another piece of red-furred flesh in its teeth.

My dream made sense now. Perhaps, even through the thick walls and tightly sealed door, I'd heard some of the fight going on in the early hours before I fully woke.

As I reached to slide my hand under the badger's head, Phil was holding something over my shoulder. A water canteen.

One of the badger's eyes rolled up at me, and I saw recognition there. It opened its mouth, releasing the piece it had torn from the firewolf in its battle.

“Chirrr?” it growled, so weakly that it was almost inaudible.

I cupped my other hand and held it up for Phil to pour water into it. Then I lowered the water to the badger's mouth. It weakly lapped some of the water up.

Phil knelt by me. He put one hand on my shoulder as he reached out his other hand and stroked the wounded badger's head with one finger.

“Can we do anything for him?”

I shook my head. “Not much. But get my pack.”

When Phil returned with it, I took out one of the med-packs that held antibiotic powder and shook some out onto the tears in its skin, most of which were on its broad shoulders and its right side. The badger didn't resist or react as I did so, even though I knew the powder was likely burning as it fell into those wounds. Phil poured water into his own palm, and the badger drank it, too.

I carefully picked our little warrior up, carried him into the shed, and placed him next to the place where he had been taking shelter. I filled a cup with water and placed it next to him along with a small pile of jerky.

“What now?” Phil asked. “Can we treat his wounds any more?” His eyes were glistening as he looked up at me.

Seeing Phil's tears made me want to hug him.

“No,” I said.

There was nothing more we could do. I'd felt no broken bones when I'd picked the badger up. If there were no major organs damaged inside, then it might survive. Badgers are tough. Whatever the case might be, this was the home it had chosen, the place where it had wanted to live. This was the place, if its injuries turned out to be mortal, where it would want to die. All we could do now was go.

So, after closing the door and locking it again, we went.

W
e moved faster than the day before. The firewolf scout that our little striped warrior had driven away had me spooked. Had it been tracking us? Once again, it was outside the range where firewolves had always been before. We should have been a good twenty miles away from their staked-out territory — which was mostly south and west of Big Cave. Did it mean that they were extending their range? Could we trust Uncle Lenard's map to be accurate about the location of other dangerous creatures?

As for this firewolf, maybe it had been wounded so badly that it wouldn't be following us.

Or maybe not.

The farther and faster we could get away from last night's shelter, the better.

As we trotted along, Phil had no trouble keeping up with me. That was good. And he kept quiet. Which was better. True, there were times when he seemed about to say something. More than once, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him open his mouth, then shake his head and close it. Probably thinking better about starting to sing some song he'd made up about one of those Ridge girls.

We quickly put ten miles behind us. By midmorning, we had reached Highway 90 and turned west. But we didn't travel on the wide former interstate road. Too exposed, visible from miles away to anything with a little elevation — from a hilltop or maybe flying. Friendly birds were not the only things with wings hereabouts, if the rumors were to be believed. They were all second- or thirdhand, heard from the few folks who, every now and then over the past few months, had managed to reach the safety of Big Cave after trekking down from the north. They told stories about things with leathery wings twenty feet wide. The tales were of predators scarily similar to the flying dinosaurs of millions of years ago. From what Uncle Lenard told me, the creatures were said to be a blend, if you could believe it, of condor, crocodile, and bat, with — due to the peculiar tastes of the Dakota District's Overlords — human genes added for some insane flavoring.

Uncle Lenard had never seen any of the new age pterodactyls, nor had he mentioned them being in this area when he was drawing his map. He'd shown them way off to the northeast. But somehow, I didn't find that reassuring. After all, flying things can travel a looong way. Thinking of that made this tight feeling, like a little clenched fist, in the pit of my stomach.

So, we stayed off the road, keeping it to our left. We paused for shelter under whatever trees we could find, then ran through tall grasses and up and down ravines. I kept looking, hoping for the sight of something friendly floating down to me. A hawk, an eagle, even a turkey buzzard. Any bird that could tell me what lay up ahead. But the skies were empty of everything except the silver haze and the glow of the sun. That was not good.

I stopped walking.

“What is it?” Phil asked.

I pointed with my lips toward a line of cottonwoods in a dip in the land off to our right.

“Something's not right. We need to take a break. Down there.”

That was all I said. No explanation. But Phil didn't question me. We made our way down into the shelter of the trees that were being fed by the small seep of water that had created a shallow pool. It was green down there in the shelter of those trees and much cooler, not brown and dry as it had been next to the road. Phil slipped off his packs and sat on a flat stone that was marked with the swirling shapes of fossil shells, proof that the plains had been an ocean long ago.

I took off my pack too. But I didn't sit. Still holding the pack, I walked around the trees, looking up into them until I saw what I thought might be there.

Not one bird, but a number of them. They were huddling close together on a lower limb a few feet above my head and far below the upper branches that hid them from the sky. And not just one kind of bird. Seven crows, a horned owl, a flock of songbirds of all sorts and even a small heron that I would normally have expected to see down in the reeds by the pool. And I could think of only one reason why birds of such different feathers — some of which would normally be totally avoiding, if not eating each other — would flock together like that.

Fear.

The owl rotated its head and then peered down over its beak at me. It hooted softly, and I understood.

“Phil,” I called in a low voice, as I dropped my pack down by the wide base of the tree, which was the biggest cottonwood in that stand. I slid my shotgun from its holster and put my back against the trunk. “Get over here. Bring everything.”

He heard the urgency in my voice and did what I said without asking, taking out his .45 and unslinging Uncle Lenard's bow from his back. Then we stood there, side by side. The warmth of his muscular shoulder against mine was reassuring, but not enough to keep my knees from shaking.

Both of us were looking up through the curtain of leaves. We could see glimpses of the sky through gaps in the canopy, but my hope was that anything we saw would not see us.

“Quiet,” I whispered. “Stay still.”

Phil answered by placing his hand over mine and squeezing it for a moment. It made my heart flutter, and I bit my lip, not sure if I wanted to say
Don't do that
or
Don't let go
. But I kept quiet, and he let go.

Phil was the first to catch sight of it.

“Up there,” he breathed in his soft, deep voice. “At two o'clock.”

I moved my eyes, keeping my head still. And there it was, a wide-winged shape. Still high overhead, but gliding down toward the sheltered grove where we watched, holding our breaths.

Closer, closer. I squeezed the stock of my shotgun so hard that my hand trembled. Then, as that black, gliding shape circled farther down, till it was less than a hundred yards away, I realized what I was seeing, and I relaxed, breathing out a sigh of relief.

“It's okay,” I whispered. “Just a turkey buzzard.”

I was right, but only halfway.

WHAM!

A much bigger, darker shape came diving in toward the turkey buzzard at an incredible rate. It happened so fast that I could hardly believe what I saw. Leathery wings wrapped around the big bird, which now looked tiny in comparison. We got a glimpse of wide jaws lined with sharp teeth that gaped wide and then thudded shut with a bone-crushing
whomp!
And then the bat-winged horror had swept past, leaving the sky empty of everything except a few dark feathers floating down.