Coyote Rising (8 page)

“Of course. Can’t blame her.”

That caused him to raise an eyebrow. “Then you know what he did.”

She shrugged. “Like I said, not very much. She hasn’t told me everything.”

“Probably not.” He looked down at the ground as they walked along. “He used to be my best friend, back when we were kids. But then he killed my brother and . . . anyway, there’s things you just don’t forgive.”

Apparently not. And now she had a better idea whom he was talking about. “If he shows up, I’ll let you know.”

“I’d appreciate it.” By then they were on the outskirts of town; her shack was only a few hundred feet away. “You know, she’s really come to like you,” he said. “That’s a major accomplishment . . . for her, I mean. She used to live in Liberty, in the cabin my dad built for us. I still live there, but she moved all the way out here because she didn’t want to see anyone anymore . . . not even me. But you’ve managed to get through to her somehow.”

“We’ve got much in common,” Allegra said. And that, at least, wasn’t a lie.

Allegra took a nap, then changed into a long skirt and a sweater.
Through her window, she could see Uma setting to the west, Bear rising to the east. She usually began making dinner about that time, but this night she’d get a break from that chore if Chris kept his word about sending over food from the community hall. So she picked up her flute, along with the one she’d finished the previous evening, and went out to sit on the porch and watch the sun go down.

As twilight set in, Shuttlefield went quiet. No doubt everyone had gone into Liberty for the fiesta. She waited until she heard the chickens clucking in her neighbor’s backyard, then she picked up her flute and began to play. Not one of her own pieces this time, but a traditional English hymn she’d learned while studying music at Berklee. For some reason, it seemed appropriate for the moment.

After a while, she heard the door of Sissy’s shack creak open. Allegra didn’t look up but continued playing, and a minute later there was the faint rustle of an apron next to her. “That’s very nice,” Sissy said quietly. “What’s it called?”

“ ‘Jerusalem.’ ” Allegra smiled. “It’s really easy to play. Would you like to try?”

Sissy quickly shook her head. “Oh, no . . . I can’t. . . .”

“No, really. It’s simple. Here . . .” She picked up the new flute. “I made this for you. Try it out.”

Sissy stared at it. “I . . . but I have to start dinner. . . .”

“No, you don’t. It’s being brought to us tonight. Roast pork, potatoes, fresh greens, pie . . . the works.” She grinned. “Believe me, it’s good. Helped make it myself.”

Sissy stared at her, and Allegra realized that it was probably the first time in many years that she had been offered a meal. For a few seconds she was afraid that her neighbor would flee back to her windowless hovel, slam the door shut, and not emerge again for several days. Yet a
look of wary acceptance came upon her face. Taking the flute, Sissy sat down on the porch.

“Show me how you do this,” she said.

It didn’t take long for her to learn how to work the finger holes; teaching her how to master the first notes, though, took a little more effort. Yet Sissy didn’t give up; she seemed determined to learn how to play, and she gave Allegra her undivided attention as the younger woman patiently demonstrated the basic fingering techniques.

They took a break when someone arrived with two covered baskets. Allegra carried them inside; Sissy was reluctant to follow her until Allegra pointed out that it would be much less messy if they ate indoors. The older woman stood quietly, her hands folded in front of her, and watched as she lit the oil lamp and set the table for two. Allegra only had one chair; she was about to sit on the bed when Sissy abruptly disappeared, returning a few moments later with a rickety chair of her own. She placed it at the table, then sat down and watched as Allegra served her a plate.

They ate in silence; through the open door, they could hear the distant sounds of the First Landing festivities. The night was becoming cool, so Allegra shut the door, then put some wood in the stove and started a fire. Sissy never looked up from her meal; she ate with total concentration, never speaking while she cleaned her plate and beckoned for seconds. Allegra wondered how long it had been since she had eaten anything except chicken and eggs. She made a note to herself to start bringing home leftovers from the kitchen; malnutrition might have something to do with Sissy’s mental condition. . . .

“Why are you here?” Sissy asked.

The question was abrupt, without preamble . . . and, Allegra realized, it was the very same one she’d posed the night they first met. But they were no longer strangers, rather two friends enjoying a quiet dinner together. How much had changed since then.

“You mean, why did I come here?” Allegra shrugged. “Like I told you . . . I couldn’t find anywhere else in town, so I pitched my . . .”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Allegra didn’t say anything for a moment. She put her knife and fork
together on her plate, folded her hands, to and turned her gaze toward the window. Far away across the fields, she could see the house lights of Liberty; in that instant, they resembled the lights of cities she had left behind, the places she had visited. Atlanta, Dallas, Brasilia, Mexico City . . .

“A long time ago,” she began, “I was . . . well, I wasn’t rich, nor was I famous, but I had a lot of money and I was quite well known. For what I do, I mean.”

“For making music.”

“For making music, yes.” She absently played with her fork, stirring some gravy left on her plate. “I traveled a great deal and was constantly in demand as a composer. All the people I knew were artists who were also rich and famous.” As rich as social collectivism would allow, at least; she’d learned how to stash her overseas royalties quietly in trust funds maintained by European banks, as many people did to avoid the domestic salary caps imposed by the Union. But it was complicated, and there was no reason why Sissy should have to know that. “And for a while I was satisfied with my life, but then . . . I don’t know. At some point, I stopped enjoying life. It seemed as if everyone I knew was a stranger, that the only things they wanted were more fame, more money, and all I wanted was to practice my art. And then one day, I found that I couldn’t even do that anymore. . . .”

“You couldn’t make music?”

Allegra didn’t look up. “No. Oh, I could still play”—she picked up her flute from where she had placed it on the table—“but nothing new came to me, just variations of things I’d done before. And when it became obvious to everyone that I was blocked, all the people I thought were my friends went away, and I was alone.”

“What about your family?”

She felt wetness at the corners of her eyes. “No family. I never made time for that. Too busy. There was once someone I loved, but . . .” She took a deep breath that rattled in her throat. “Well, it wasn’t long before he was gone, too.”

Allegra picked up the napkin from her lap, daubed her eyes. “So I decided to leave everything behind, go as far away as I could. The Union Astronautica had started the public lottery for people who wanted to
come here. The selection was supposed to be totally random, but I met someone who knew how to rig the system. I gave him everything I owned so that I’d get a winning number, then took only what I could carry in my bag. And . . . well, anyway, here I am.”

“So why are you here?”

Allegra gazed across the table at Sissy. Hadn’t she heard anything she had just said? Just as on Earth, everything she did was pointless—another exercise in self-indulgence. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to scold her neighbor. It wasn’t Sissy’s fault that she was disturbed. Someone had hurt her a long time ago, and now . . .

“Excuse me. I think I need to visit the privy.” Allegra pushed back her chair, stood up. “If you’d gather the dishes and put ’em over there, I’ll wash them tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Sissy continued to stare at her. “If there’s any food left, can I give it to my chickens?”

“Sure. Why not?” She tried not to laugh. Her best friend was a lunatic who cared more about her damn birds than anything else. “I’ll be back,” she said, then opened the door and stepped outside.

The night was darker than she’d expected; a thick blanket of clouds had moved across the sky, obscuring the wan light cast by Bear. She regretted not having carried a lamp with her, yet the privy was located only a couple of dozen feet behind her house, and she knew the way even in the dark.

She was halfway across the backyard, though, when she heard the soft crackle of a foot stepping upon dry grass, somewhere close behind her.

Allegra stopped, slowly turned . . . and a rod was thrust against her chest. “Hold it,” a voice said, very quietly. “Don’t move.”

Against the darkness, she detected a vague form. The rod was a rifle barrel; of that she was certain, although she couldn’t see anything else. “Sure, all right,” she whispered, even as she realized that the voice had spoken in English. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“We won’t, if you cooperate.”
We
won’t? That meant there were others nearby. “Where’s Cecelia?”

“I don’t . . .” It took Allegra a moment to realize that he meant Sissy. “She’s gone. I don’t know where she is . . . maybe at the fiesta.”

By then her eyes had become dark-adapted, and she could make out the figure a little better: a bearded young man, probably in his early twenties, wearing a catskin serape, his eyes shaded by a broad hat. She carefully kept her hands in sight, and although he didn’t turn it away from her, at least he stepped back a little when he saw that she wasn’t armed.

“I rather doubt that,” he murmured. “She doesn’t go into town much.”

“How would you know?”

A pause. “Then you know who I am.”

“I’ve got a good idea. . . .”

“Get this over, man,” a voice whispered from behind her. “We’re running out of—”

“Calm down.” The intruder hesitated, his head briefly turning toward her cabin. “Is she in there?” She didn’t answer. “Call her out.”

“No. Sorry, but I won’t.”

He let out his breath. “Look, I’m not going to hurt her, or you either. I just want to talk to—”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you.” Allegra remembered the com Chris had given her. It was on her bedside table, where she had put it before she had taken her afternoon nap. Even if she could get to it, she wasn’t sure how much difference it would make. The Proctors were a long way off, and these men sounded as if they were anxious to leave. “If you want to speak to her, you’re going to have to go in there yourself.”

He took a step toward the cabin. “Carlos, damn it!” the one behind her snapped. “We don’t have time for this! Let’s go!”

Carlos. Now she knew who he was, even if she had only suspected it before: Carlos Montero, one of the original settlers. The teenager who had sailed alone down the Great Equatorial River, charting the southern coast of Midland the year after the
Alabama
arrived. Like the other colonists, he’d vanished into the wilderness when the
Glorious Destiny
showed up. Now he was back.

“So you’re Rigil Kent,” she whispered. “Glad to make your acquaintance.”

“Guess they found my note.” He chuckled softly. “I imagine Chris doesn’t have much good to say about me.”

“Neither does his mother. Please, just leave her alone.”

“Look, I don’t want to push this.” He lowered his gun. “Would you just deliver a message . . . ?”

“Damn it!” Now the second figure came in sight; Allegra wasn’t surprised to see that he wasn’t much older than Carlos, also wearing a poncho and carrying a rifle. He grasped his friend’s arm, pulling him away. “Time’s up, man! Move or lose it!”

“Cut it out, Barry.” Carlos shook off his hand, looked at Allegra again. “Tell her Susan’s all right, that she’s doing well, and so’s Wendy. Tell her that we miss her, and if she ever changes her mind, all she has to do is . . .”

A brilliant flash from the direction of the landing field. For a moment Allegra thought someone was shooting off fireworks, then the hollow thud of an explosion rippled across the Shuttlefield as a ball of fire rose above the settlement. She suddenly knew what it was: one of the
Long Journey
shuttles blowing up.

“That’s it! We’re out of here!” Barry turned to run, sprinting away into the dark marshland behind the shacks. “Go!”

Yet Carlos lingered for another moment. Now Allegra could see him clearly; there was a ruthless grin on his face as he looked at her one last time. “And one more thing,” he said, no longer bothering to keep his voice low, “and you can pass this along to Chris or whoever else . . . Coyote belongs to us!” He jabbed a finger toward the explosion. “Rigil Kent was here!”

And then he was gone, loping off into the swamp. In another moment he had vanished, leaving behind the shouts of angry and frightened men, the rank odor of burning fuel.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Allegra walked back to the cabin. As she turned the corner, she was surprised to find Sissy standing outside the door. She watched the distant conflagration, her face without emotion. Allegra saw that she clutched her flute.

“He returned.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “I knew he would.”