The Secret City (14 page)

“I’ll keep him in line.”

“You have a lot to keep in line.”

“I’ll manage.”

He reloads the pistol and tucks it in his belt. Actually, even though Youpas is one of my own kind, I feel better that Corwin has it handy.

Corwin tells me he’ll pay us double for these last days because Jack is doing a good job, but when we get back, he wants us all out of there. Pronto.

“Will do.”

If we don’t get out of there fast, for sure Corwin will go to the police.

I see Emily taking it all in. I wouldn’t be surprised if she started getting right answers. She’s young enough not to have a lot of preconceived ideas of what’s logical. She won’t think it’s crazy to believe in aliens. I know, from my growing up on the outskirts of the native’s lives, that country kids know just as much as any city kid.

Meanwhile Jack and Youpas are talking home-talk and I’ve no idea what they’re saying. The language has always sounded odd even to me and especially so now when I think of Emily and Corwin listening. But lots of native languages sound just as odd … some full of clicks and glottal stops and grunts. Sniffs and snorts shouldn’t seem any stranger. But I should have been having Jack teach me our language instead of trying to teach him the language of the natives. I wonder whose side Jack will be on now.

I say… I shout it, “Allush has gone home.”

I’m telling Youpas that to shut them up. I know that’ll stop him and it does. He deflates. He’s standing by the truck. Now he collapses—squats down and leans against a back tire. Doesn’t look like a threat anymore. His, “Ay yaaaa,” is a wail. (Seems Ayyaa can stand for most anything.) He really does care about Allush.

At first he can’t speak. He stares at the ground in front of him as if it takes a while for him to understand. Finally he says, “How?”

“You know she wanted to go.”

“But all our beacons are back there.”

We’re talking softly, but not so softly that Emily couldn’t hear if she wanted to.

“She stole mine. Narlpas doesn’t have one. I don’t think. You can ask him, I can’t. He’d be snatched back by now if he had one.”

But he’s too upset to talk. I bring him a tin cup of water and squat down beside him. His hands are tied in front, but he can manage the cup though it’s awkward.

“Wouldn’t it be better for you to go up to the Secret City? Wouldn’t that be where she’d come back to? If she can come back? She might come back.”

But he won’t be cheered.

“I think she’ll find out she liked it here more than she thought she did.”

I don’t say I’m hoping she’ll come back because of me. Maybe she’s waiting for me up at the city right now, wondering why I haven’t come. But could I find my way back there by myself anyway? Could Youpas even? Much easier to come
out
from the mountains as we did and end up somewhere on the big main road than to go
into
the mountains and end up at a small hidden city.

Corwin cooks bacon and then heats the beans in the bacon fat. Emily watches, squatting by the fire in exactly the same position her father is in. A cowboy position. Jack squats, too, as if he’s trying to learn how to be a native.

Youpas won’t eat anything, only drinks. Corwin says he’d have brought juice cartons if he’d known Emily was coming. He says, “Maybe Hugo would have liked juice.”

Corwin can see Youpas isn’t the same man he was a half hour ago. He puts his pistol back under his shirt.

This time Corwin and Emily sleep in the bed of the truck. The rest of us (us “brothers”) are around the dying fire, Youpas’ lead rope tied around my wrist. I don’t like this much. I won’t sleep very well. If he blames me for everything that’s happened, he’d be right. If I was him I’d kill me first and then go back to the Secret City to wait for my love.

It’s at night that I miss Allush the most. Like right now. She and I would lie, holding hands and watching falling stars. We’d whisper until Mollish would shush us. Tell us we should rest. Why didn’t I kiss her when I had the chance? I was being so careful not to scare her off. Did she wonder that I didn’t? I should have told her I thought we ought to get to know each other better—that I wanted us to start out properly, slowly. That was the only reason I didn’t. What if she thinks I didn’t want to? What if that’s the reason … or one of the reasons she went home?

It won’t be hard to stay awake. All I have to do is look up at the moon and wish she was next to me. Back then I was too happy to sleep—too excited being so close to her. Those days were a fog of joy—of anticipation.

In the morning, here I am, still alive. We start back, Youpas’ hands tied though I don’t think they need to be. He looks as if he doesn’t care about anything anymore. But that’s a dangerous state, too. Maybe even more dangerous than rage.

I lead his horse. I’m not going to be much good for pushing cows while I’m looking after him. Corwin puts us at the back. Emily drives the truck and trailer to the next campsite. (We’ll have one more day on the trail.) Then she rides her pony back to help us, but, for the first half, most of the work is up to Corwin and Jack. Sore legs, sprained ankle, wounded face … even so, Jack is really helping.

Nobody is having any fun anymore. It’s turned into work. Everybody looks grim. All the horses are tired and balky even though we’re heading home. They’re wondering why they don’t have their usual rest time. Instead they have to carry three big guys and never get a chance to trade off with a fresh horse.

W
E’RE LATE WHEN WE GET TO THE TRUCK
. W
E’RE ALL
too tired to eat. Corwin brought energy bars for just that problem. I notice Jack is too hungry to be picky. He doesn’t even take a bar apart to check on the nuts and raisins. And he doesn’t look soft and pale anymore. Tired as he is, the way he holds himself, the way he notices everything, nobody would take him for retarded.

I can see what Emily sees in him. When he took off his shirt and washed in the stream, I saw her staring. Among the natives, only body builders have chests and arms like ours. I still think it odd, though, she’d have to search hard to find a man whose looks were more the opposite from her own. She’s being completely unreasonable, but then I am, too. I’m more and more certain that Allush is up at the Secret City waiting for me though I keep telling myself that can’t be. Besides, even if she wanted to come back she’d want to see something of her homeworld wouldn’t she? If I’d gone back, I’d stay long enough to know what I was rejecting.

Except maybe my people won’t let anybody come back anymore. Maybe they want everybody safely home. Maybe they only let the rescuers come. But Allush could put herself on a rescuing team and keep snatching people back until she found me. Then, if she says come home with her, I would because she’d have seen both worlds by then.

That’s my daydream—my wishful thinking.

Youpas won’t talk to me in the native language nor to Jack in our language though Jack tries to get him to. That’s a relief. I don’t want them plotting things behind my back.

When Emily rides back to meet us, I see her sizing us up. She’s been thinking. She talks to Corwin. Whatever she’s trying to convince him of, I can see she fails. He’s a down-to-earth kind of person. He won’t believe anything as unreasonable as what she might be thinking about us.

Now everybody’s angry or upset except Jack. He’s as if a child, smiling out at everybody, hoping to change our mood. He’s enjoying himself in spite of us and in spite of his sore legs.

A coyote sits in the grass and calmly watches the whole herd of us go by. It’s a real beauty—one of those with markings on his face sort of like some malamutes. Jack looks back at me. I nod and make the OK sign and he makes it back at me. My mood does lift as I look at everything as though through his eyes.

We get back to Corwin’s late the next day. We three sleep in the barn again. We’ll move the cows to the far pasture in the morning and then get paid and leave. Youpas is in such a state I can’t tell what he’ll do. I don’t think he knows himself. He’s still not eating though Corwin coaxed him into drinking some coffee. Corwin is like Mollish, good to everybody even though he still thinks Youpas should be arrested.

I don’t keep Youpas tied up except at night. I tell him we’ll go back. We’ll find her. I tell him we’ll follow our own tracks back. I say I’m not sure I’ll be good at that but he must be, he’s the mountain man. I tell him the beacons at the Secret City are the only hope for Jack to go home and for Allush to come back.

Emily goes off to school next morning. She hugs me and Jack. Tells us to come back. “Please, please,
please
!” Jack understands, more or less, that this is good-bye. She says, “Say, I will, Jack. Say, I’ll come back.” And he says it. Then she tips her cowboy hat low and at an angle, yells, “Ay
Yaa
!” and off she goes. Strides off in her best boots. Too bad, because she was the one made Jack learn fast. But maybe he’s still motivated. Maybe he thinks we’ll soon be back.

Then the three of us start up into the mountains, me with our useless (and generous) three hundred dollars. Meanwhile my shoes are falling apart, the soles worn through. I’ve already put cardboard in. I’m jealous of Jack’s new boots. My feet will be sopping, not only every time we cross a stream, but even in slightly marshy spots. And it’s getting colder. I’ll be in real trouble pretty soon.

This first part of the trail is easy. We hike back beyond the wealthy houses, then the road … (I’d stop and steal boots, but I don’t want to do that yet again and I keep thinking Allush will make me moccasins like hers. I know that’s crazy but it pleases me to think it. It even pleases me to be uncomfortable until she makes them for me.) … then the dirt road. It’s afterwards, from the cliff on—from where I punched Jack—that I’ll lose the way. I was watching Allush so intently I didn’t pay much attention to anything.

I lead through this first part. Jack limps but he’s pretty much OK. Corwin did a good job of binding him up. I found myself a stout stick for a new cane. Youpas lags behind. He doesn’t care where we go. He stops to rest any time he feels like it. We keep having to go back for him. He’s so depressed I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t deliberately try to get us all lost. Or lose me and Jack and then go on and get lost by himself. I guess he doesn’t think Allush has come back. He’s heard her say too often how she wanted to go home.

But now even Jack looks depressed. I never thought he would. But I don’t blame him. Not only has he had to say good-bye to Emily, but here he is hiking back into the mountains, sleeping on the ground again. I try to tell him about the Secret City. I’d ask Youpas to do it, but I don’t like them talking to each other when I can’t tell what they’re saying. Not that Youpas would perk up enough to do it anyway.

Jack is still asking the names of things and practicing the words he knows. Some actual phrases. “That up in there is blue. This down in here is all green and there is green, too. What is that color over there? Rainbow. Rainbow. Wow! Where water is it? Outta sight. We have it. Betasha.”

We camp that first night just beyond the houses in the same spot Jack and I did, hidden in the trees a few yards from the stream. I tie up Youpas’ hands. He doesn’t care.

I wake up smelling coffee and bacon. We hadn’t brought any bacon and no real coffee, only instant. There’s a whinny and the thumping of a hobbled horse. At first I think I’m back with Corwin, bringing down the cows. Then I wake up enough to know that can’t be. I struggle out of my sleeping bag. Trying to hurry makes it all the slower.

And here, yet again and more of a surprise than ever, is Emily.

I force myself to slow down, put on my pants and shoes. I walk over and squat down beside her. I accept a cup. I sit and sip. I feel just as resigned and silent as her father was. How get out of this mess? What to say? Thanks for the bacon? Thanks for breakfast?

I say, “Does your father know you’re here?”

“Of course not. Well, maybe by now. At least he knows I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be.”

She caught up with us easily because she has her pony. She actually went through a whole day of school before following us. She’s still in her school clothes, that flowery blouse and jeans. Jack already made a fuss about that blouse. She actually has her homework with her. It’s on the ground beside her. She must have been working on it before she made breakfast.

Jack can’t stop smiling. Youpas is horrified. I’m worried. I told Corwin I could keep things in line, but now I’m not so sure I can.

Youpas leans close to me and says, “We have to get rid of her. We can’t go anywhere near the Secret City with one of
them
.”

He’s right of course, but I decide I’ll just sit down and enjoy this next half hour, bacon and decent coffee. There’s nothing else to do.

ALLUSH

I
CAN’T BELIEVE HERE
I
AM, NOT ONLY LOOKING FOR
two lost … I mean now just one lost man and Lorpas … but also looking for Youpas. He’s a wealthy man. Definitely one of the “right kind.” I can’t imagine our Secret City butcher owning one of those towers. If he’s the right kind I’m not eager to be it.