Fish Tails (63 page)

Bear hruffed for their attention. “Coyote n' me can go up the hill a ways and hang around for a few days to see if something comes lookin' for that one.”

Coyote murmured, “You'll be going back to Artemisia, though, so it'd be a good idea for a person to come get us so we don't have to walk to Artemisia.”

Abasio asked, “In case something does come looking for this one, can you scratch some dirt over the blood, maybe a few branches. Here and down there where the Griffin was?”

“Can't do anything t'hide that smell,” said Bear. “It'll still stink!”

Precious Wind spoke decisively: “Let's do this: Bear and Coyote will stay here as they've offered to do. I'll jump the group and the body back to the camp, but I'll return here immediately with some stuff that will hide the smell. Then if you, Bear, and you, Coyote, are willing to keep watch while we get everyone moved back to Artemisia, I'll come back around sundown—­how long do you want to keep watch? How about I come at sundown three days from now, and every night after that if you two are investigating or following someone?”

“Y'gonna take that stinker to the plaza?” asked Bear.

“I don't know what we'll end up doing with the body, but I'll definitely be back very shortly to kill the smell, and I'll be back again in three days to get you.”

“Countin' today?” asked Bear.

“Today is one, tomorrow is two, day after that is three.”

Bear nodded. “Well then, do it, before something else comes outta the trees at us. You might bring some food when you come back. There's water here already.”

It was done in one dizzying journey, the intermediate stops blurring past their eyes as they went.

Precious Wind went to her own wagon; her own stock of potions and scents; even peeked in on her own dear friend in the nearby wagon—­Xulai lying on the bed with the babies asleep beside her, face still streaked with tears.

Precious Wind shook her gently. “I think Abasio went to clean up a bit. I left the body outside the camp if you want to see it. I have an errand, but I'll be back very shortly.”

She was gone. Xulai barely opened her eyes; she'd been grieving over Willum. Still half asleep, she went outside to have a look at the body of the hunter. Swallowing her disgust, she knelt beside it, half rolled, half pushed one filthy sleeve up away from the wrist, gagging at the smell as she did so. Under the cloth, the skin of the creature was greenish, whitish, grayish with writhing, branching veins beneath, almost like tendrils of moss. She leaned close. The veins of color moved! She picked up a twig from the ground and thrust it at the skin. It penetrated. The white layer tore, rolled, showing what might be a more “human” skin under it.

The shirtsleeve she had rolled away was coated on the inside, beginning about the elbow, with a layer of something black that looked much like . . . tar? Some kind of waterproof coating that was dry? Why was it there? To keep the white layer from seeping through the clothes? And how thick was the white stuff? She pushed the stick in, measured it against her index finger. From the tip of the finger to the top of the first joint. An inch. The stuff seemed to end at the bottom of the neck, and on the arms halfway to the elbow. She thrust her stick at the bottom of the trouser legs. On the legs it ended a bit above the ankle. She touched it. It felt like . . . clay. Wet clay. No! More like tallow. She pushed a fingertip into it, then watched as the indentation slowly returned to its original shape. Able to hold its shape but soft. Flexible. Permeable?

She stood up, putting her arms around herself, gritting her teeth, demanding the trembling, frightened inner part of her to stop shaking. She moved to the head of the creature and used the twig to separate locks of hair. The scalp was the same, a thinner layer there, only the thickness of a piece of sheepskin lying against the creature's scalp, the texture of a soft soap, all of it emitting the same oily, rotten, dead-­body smell.

Carefully she put it into words. Visually, except for the veins of darker color, it most resembled a greenish-­grayish tallow. She cut slits in the clothing to determine that the coating covered the entire body except where it was exposed to the sun and air: the lower arms and hand; the face and neck. It probably did not extend to the soles of the feet. Someone else would have to remove one of those huge boots. She had no intention of trying. And Precious Wind could very well examine the creature's sexual organs for herself!

Arakny approached. Xulai thrust her twig at wrists and ankles, muttering a cursory description of what she had seen and thought. She suggested that the body be covered with something so it couldn't be seen from the air—­who knew what other creatures may have been devised to keep watch upon these! Then she returned to her bed and did not open her eyes again until Precious Wind wakened her several hours later.

“I've jumped the Griffins to the building in Artemisia. Wide Mountain Mother was getting the Griffins set and arranging for food and water. There's a plot just outside they can use for sanitary purposes. Sun-­wings seems to be comfortable, and the little one is fine. Really, a very appealing little creature! I've jumped the body of the hunter into Wide Mountain Plaza temporarily. I just came back here to be sure everyone was moved. Those who don't want to be jumped are on their way back there by road. So, if you're agreeable, I'll finish up by moving you and Abasio and the babies: wagon, horses, and all.”

“Is everyone ready, Blue and Rags, Kim?”

“Just waiting for you to say ‘go.' They're all outside, touching the wagon, including Blue and Rags.”

Xulai nodded and Precious Wind moved them, hop, and hop, and hop, and then a pause while she entered a new destination. “I'm putting us into a space they've cleared, near the stables at Wide Mountain Plaza.” She went outside and stood next to Abasio, her hand on his arm.

They hopped once again. There was the sound of voices, the sharp crack of an ax splitting firewood, the smell of smoke. While the others moved away Abasio slowly turned, staring around him at the Wide Mountain Plaza. He had been here before, with Olly. Looking out through the gateway to the low hill across the river, he saw the long men's houses, their tiled walls still riotous with color, all of them facing onto the dance ground with its long benches for the elders and the open-­sided but well-­roofed Drum House where the drummers and drumheads could make their thunders while they were protected from the rain. That's near where the gangers had grabbed him, that other time, in that other world.

On either side of Wide Mountain Plaza were other houses and plazas, and others beyond them, all the female heads of families of Artemisia: Wide Mountain Mother had been elected for life: Mother-­Most, head of the clans. Others were here: High Cliff Mother; Black River Mother, Stone Valley Mother—­some dozen of them, formally considering themselves of different matrilineal families, but all of them with a shared history, tribal language, and dedication to stewardship of the earth. He and Olly had come here, to this house, carrying the clan neckerchiefs Olly had designed and dyed, the sign of the thistle. Prickly. Rather like Wide Mountain Mother herself. He turned. The wagon was gone.

Coming up beside him, Precious Wind laid her hand on his arm.

“Where are we supposed to be?” he asked.

“Your wagon's around behind that house with the red door, Abasio. There's a little grove and a well and outhouse there. It's near a stables and pasture. I brought us all in a bunch and then put our mixed animal–people group where they'd be . . . suitable. There's a shed there with bedding straw for Coyote and Bear, when they arrive. I checked with Wide Mountain Mother first. Are you all right?”

“Kinda drowning in memories,” he said. “That time was all . . . well, it seems a lot longer ago than it really was. The Place of Power, up on the mesa, it was . . . something out of a nightmare. In one sense. And something straight from heaven in another.” He simply stood, staring into the distance, finally saying, “I'll go over to the wagon in a bit.”

Precious Wind left him to struggle with the past and went to see if she could do anything for Xulai and the children. Sometimes children did not react well to being hopped. They, like animals, seemed to have an inner sense of place. So far, however, the twins had taken it in stride. Stroke, that is. No, they didn't swim like that. They wriggled, like fish. They had taken the move in sinuously.

Xulai met her in the doorway. Kim, followed by Blue and Rags, passed her on his way to the stables. Xulai asked, “Where's the rest of the herd?”

“Jumped them into a pasture outside the town just before I came here. Offered any of them to Wide Mountain Mother that she'd care to keep.”

“Abasio?”

Kim shook his head as if in sympathy. “He's out there remembering the last time he was here. I think that's when he met Coyote and Bear and a bunch of survivor gangers tried to haul him back to Fantis.”

Precious Wind remarked, “At the moment I think he's a bit lost in memories.”

Xulai nodded. “He would be, yes. Did your de-­stinker work? Up on the mountain?”

“Dear love, once I have poured some of that stuff about, no one can smell anything else for days. It isn't unpleasant, just very strong. The mountain clearing where our animal friends are does smell very strongly, but it does not smell of the creature.”

“May I suggest—­”

“I've already poured my de-­stinker on the places the body had been . . .”

“What's it for? Why do you have any such thing?”

Precious Wind shook her head. “It's used to track animals in doing area studies. You put some on the feet of an animal and turn it loose, then you can learn how far it goes and how it familiarizes itself with a new area. It's actually diluted before it's used, and followed by a little smell-­meter. After talking to Wide Mountain Mother, I also had a look at the body and took various samples. I thought the thing ought to be buried, and she agreed, so I hopped it and a few men out into the desert.
Ul xaolat
is good at digging holes, and we dug a very deep one. It took all the men to roll the body into it. We filled the hole and the men stamped it down, then we poured de-­stink on the soil and piled sagebrush over it. I think something might come looking for it, and it's remotely possible something might detect the stench of it even through my de-­stinker. Buried deep, it's less likely to be found.”

Xulai turned from the door, yawning. “You might want to go
dig it up,
Presh. As I was about to remind you: you know those devices the laboratory in Tingawa came up with, the ones they were using on the shape-­changed animals so they were sure not to lose them?”

“Locator buttons?”

“It might be a good idea to look at the body to be sure it doesn't have something similar inside it. If it does, and somebody comes looking for it . . . they'll come straight here. The fact it's buried won't matter.”

Precious Wind stared, glared, and disappeared. It was several hours before she returned, wet hair streaming down her back, deeply layered in towels and carrying an armload of dry clothing. “It did indeed have a locator,” she snarled. “I cannot forgive myself for not thinking of that! Stupid not to have realized something would want to keep track of the things! The device wasn't exactly like ours, but it obviously fills the same function. It was quite an exercise in . . . arm's-­length dissection.”

“Where had they put it in his body?”

“You don't want to know.”

“You've had a bath,” Xulai commented, unnecessarily.

“By the Great Litany, yes I've had a bath! Maybe a dozen baths! The bath woman put me through so many changes of water in the bathhouse I thought I was going to dissolve. Have you seen the bathhouse? They have a hot spring feeding it! I couldn't take the additional samples without touching the thing and I stank to high heaven. She wouldn't let me out until she couldn't detect the smell. She said she values her position with the tribes and would not want anyone to complain of an indecent smell.”

“But you got samples?”

“There are several full sealed cans of the stuff in that storage compartment under my wagon. They can stay there until I can get them to Tingawa. The body is now reburied, and I took the locator button way, way, way out in the desert and dropped it into a very deep crack in a rock formation alongside a chasm. I left invisibly small devices to record anyone who came looking. If someone or something can trace it and comes looking for it, I should be able to see who or what it is.”

“Did you look at the button, see what it does?”

”Well, it locates, obviously. It broadcasts its location continuously, so it can be tracked. They will know where it's been. I'm hoping they'll think it was a malfunction or that it was picked up by some animal or bird: all that flying across the countryside. The device seemed to accumulate some information about the body itself. Measurements of something. There were registers for various categories, but I don't know what they referred to. I had
ul xaolat
record the device in detail, so we'll figure it out later.”

“I didn't know it could do that.”

“The complete list of what
ul xaolat
can do would make a sizable book. It takes a very long time to master the use of the devices, that is, if one wishes to take advantage of every possible usage. I can't imagine why any one person would, but then it wasn't created to be used by just one person.” She picked up the
ul xaolat
that was lying near Xulai and began to poke at it.

“Are Bear and Coyote staying on the mountain?”

“Yes. By the time I got back there, they'd found a comfortable overlook where they can see the clearing without being seen. Behind the clearing where the Griffins and the children were, there's a rock wall topped with a ledge. Behind the ledge is . . . not what I'd call a deep cave, but it's certainly a sheltering hollow, small entrance, sizable hollow, far enough out of the weather that Bear and Coyote can stay warm and dry. Something nonsmelly has used it for the purpose. Needly and Willum had carried blankets down there, and Bear had gathered them up, so he and Coyote have something to sleep on. I gathered up the children's other supplies and provisions and brought them back with me. They had to leave most of them behind, in the cave where Sun-­wings had kept them before they set out to rescue her. Needly says she can find it from the place we found them, if we want to recover the supplies. I thought she and I might go up there and do that in a day or so.