Wild Thing (2 page)

The mother glared back.  'We will go with our daughter and
prevent
her killings.'

'But if you leave, and they find you – what then?  When you sought refuge here, did you not say his vengeance would be terrible, on both you and all who had harbored you?  Did you not both give your word to do nothing to draw that vengeance down on any here?'

The woman said nothing.  Simply stood, with fists clenched.

The Chief turned to the tired shaman.  'White-Eyes Woman, will you seek their future, should they leave with their daughter?'

The shaman nodded, slowly.  Nothing could be worse than the future she'd already seen tonight.  She and the Chief looked back at the fire-pit – once warm and welcoming, now cold and somehow hostile, the new flame still struggling.

The Chief beckoned.  'Come, we will use my tepee.'

In ones and twos, then, the council disbanded. Shining Hair stalked behind the Chief, hardly aware of Crazy Bee's larger hand gripping hers as they followed the chieftain to his hide-lined, geodesic “tepee.”

The wise-woman, crouching before the fire pit and remembering the hungering cold, struggled still to understand.  A chilling awfulness lay beneath the impossible quenching of the bonfire. 
What
had killed the blaze?

Finally, heavily, age aching in every joint, she rose to follow the girl's parents.

-

The semi-permanent structure used traditionally-tanned hide, bonded to interlocking Bucky-struts earned from the community's expertise in sustainable orbital technologies.  Inside, the four sat while the Chief kindled a small ritual flame.

The shaman was surprised by how easily the new vision flowed; and as the monstrous scene smashed through her,
ended
it just as quickly, amidst horrified cries.

All four reeled from the image now scorching their retinas: the community's holding, a wasteland scoured black.  Nothing but drifting ash, mile after mile.  Recognizably the same trees and buildings, but reduced to charcoal spars and triangular charred skeletons. 
In the same positions they were today.

'Fuel-air bomb.'  Crazy Bee's analysis was reflex; his tone, hushed disbelief.  'Maybe a tac nuke.'

Still the woman denied.  'No.  Once we leave… even if they found us, we would never tell them of your aid.  This can't be-'

The shaman interrupted.  'These people who seek you: what would you
not
do, should they threaten your daughter?'

The man and the woman flinched.

The wise-woman did not relent, though she took no pleasure from her words; her voice sinking to a whisper.  'Or, might they not even seek to force the truth from your four-year-old child herself?'

The parents froze in horror, knowing the answer.  Imagining what he would
enjoy
doing to their daughter.

'Which future do you choose, Shining Hair?' the Chief asked.  'Which future for your daughter, and for us all?'

The two stood motionless for a long time, the man's arms close around his wife's shoulders.  At last his head bowed forward.

Shining Hair stared across the small fire into the milky eyes of the wise-woman.  'No.  It's not true.'  The woman's long black hair whipped in angry denial.  'You can't see the future.  No one can.  I reject this prophecy.  Either you let my daughter stay, or we take her and leave.'

The Chief shook his head.  'We cannot let your daughter stay.  If we are not true to ourselves, our community poisons itself.  She must leave.  And if you leave with her….'  His head moved left, right, refusing that fate.  'We have just
seen
the doom which that choice would bring to all who remain here.'

She made a cutting gesture with her hand, chopping off the Chief's words.  'No.  Aunt White-Eyes is mistaken.  Or deceived.  Come on, Crazy Bee, we're going.'

'Shining Hair-
’Lita
- wait, let's think this through.  Maybe…'

Crazy Bee faltered to a stop at the look his wife turned on him.  She stared at him as if he had just transformed into a complete stranger.  Somehow, that expression unlocked his voice, and he spoke from the heart.  'I love you, ’Lita.  I love our daughter.  But I know we've seen the truth tonight, in these visions.  I don't understand – not the how, not the why – but I
believe.
  You do too, I know you do.'

Her lips thinned into familiar stubborn lines, and he found his fists clenching helplessly.  Still he tried.  '’Lita, we gave our words when we came here; when the Sky Corn took us in despite the danger we brought to them all.  Remember that night: every member agreed. 
Every member
.  And in return we made them a vow.  You can't break that vow.'

His wife stared at him, her shoulders hunched.  'So… what: you'll
stay
here, ’B?  What about your
marriage
vows?'

Her jaw set grimly.  'Right-'

'No, ’Lita.  No.  I will stay here, and so will you.  Only Happy Mouth will leave.'

She looked at him as if he'd gone mad.  Or she had.  She shook her head, words briefly failing her.  Took one step back.  'No,'  she whispered, before her voice strengthened.  'No, ’B, I'm leaving, and I'm taking Happy Mouth with me.  With or without you.'

'No, ’Lita.  You're not.'

She stiffened at those words.  Then, strangely,
relaxed
.  Her posture subtly shifted.  Loosened.  An air of danger suddenly draped her once again, like a dark shroud hovering at her shoulders.  'You won't stop me.'

The man's face looked carved from the earth itself.  'But I'm the only one here who can.  So I must.  Please, ’Lita, I'm begging, don't do this!  Don't risk the safety of our unborn child. 
I love you
.  You think I
want
to abandon her?  That's crazy!  But our other choices are
wrong!
  And I'll be betraying you, and me – all we have and all we hope for – if I let you do this!'  His eyes locked on hers,
willing
her to see what he could.  'As deep as my soul, I know if you ignore this vision, you doom us and everyone here.'

Her slim hands moved across her belly, instinctively protective, and for those seconds, as her gaze turned inward, he dared to hope his words had reached her.

Then her hands fell away, her expression darkened, and she turned sideways to him, rolling her shoulders as she took a defensive stance.  'Never.'

From behind, he heard the shaman mutter – he recognized the beginnings of a spell – and he spoke without looking around.  'Aunt, even if you
do
succeed in putting her to sleep, you will lose her trust forever.  It must be me who stops her.  Who makes her see.'

His wife was abruptly in motion, flashing forwards, lit by the warm light of the fire in the enclosed space.  He rocked his head to one side to avoid her palm strike, right hand rising to deflect her left, anticipating the simultaneous knee strike, sliding his thigh forward and into it, diverting the force a moment before it could blossom.  Her left leg flashed up… to those watching, it seemed the two danced: a strangely-accelerated series of moves and powerful countermoves choreographed in fury and love.

The Chief's heart ached in his chest as he watched Shining Hair, for the first time in over four years, forsake her vow of non-violence; the mother in her literally fighting against the impossible choice suddenly confronting her.

Husband and wife contested their daughter's fate with frightening intensity, feet weaving intimately in and around each other, body jolting body, limbs blurring and meeting, the impact of flesh on flesh jarring the man time after time, rocking him.

As they fought, the Chieftain felt a chill run through him.  He was no expert in combat; was very far from a martial artist; and the two
had
been frank about their past.  But perhaps in their brevity, he had underestimated the depths of their capabilities.  The fight stopped making sense to him as the pace increased, the two bodies locking together in a series of blows, grips, twisting moves and blindingly-fast strikes from hands, fists, knees, elbows, which he simply could not follow.  Dirt flew from the floor as the two spun and wove together.  He felt he watched two tigers fighting, inches from him.  Skin prickling, he had to stiffen his spine.

Time and again, Crazy Bee jerked or flinched, often only the ugly sound of a hammer blow on meat, signaling a successful stroke.  One of ’Bee's eyes was swelling, his cheek already darkening with a livid bruise.  A
crack
of bone and a sharp gasp from the male warrior, and Shining Hair spun away, rebounding from the powerful impact of her elbow into his ribs.  For a moment, Crazy Bee paused, stunned, while Shining Hair completed her spin.  This time the Chief saw her right leg flash out against her husband's left knee, an audible snap as ligaments broke.  The man buckled.

Instead of moving away, though, the woman flowed instantly forward again, sobbing as if she were the one who'd been injured.  The man
had to
collapse; but instead, somehow he turned, sliding behind her as if he'd expected the maneuver.  Or as if she had deliberately left herself open.  One massive forearm suddenly clamped across her throat while his other curved lower, above her waist, pulling her against him to trap her there, and for just a moment, she sagged into him as if relieved.  He murmured soft words even as his forearm tightened against her throat.

No one moved.

But then she snarled, in denial:
still
refusing the truth.  One tautly-muscled leg flashed vertically upward to smash against Crazy Bee's face with the impact of a club, rocking his head backward as blood gushed from his now-broken nose.

But his hold did not falter, his grip did not shift.  Tipping himself backwards, he fell heavily to the floor, absorbing the impact as best he could.

Shining Hair smashed her head back into her husband's chest, each impact sounding like a mallet blow, screaming her defiance and desperation.  He withstood each strike, murmuring still in her ear, tears running from his craggy face as he carefully tightened his grip across her neck, silencing her cries even as those cries changed to panicked attempts to draw breath.  She struggled harder, the fury of her smaller body arching his own much larger form forward into a bow.

But still his grip did not ease, and slowly her movements weakened even as the desperation in her cries grew, and his tears flowed harder, as if his soul broke.

Long seconds passed as her struggles slowly faltered; and, finally, ceased.  She fell still.  For a few seconds more he held his grip, eyes closed, panting but alert even now for a trick: he knew his wife.  But at last he released his arm from her neck and awkwardly slid her gently to the ground, eyes now imploring the shaman.  'Please.  Aunt White-Eyes.  Check my wife.  Check our unborn child.'

The blind woman moved forward, the strangely beautiful dance of terror and love that she had sensed, now settled into an awful pool of peace – and of terrible fear.  The blood dripping from his nose to the floor shone in her Sight like flares of molten fire.

Tears flowed freely down her own face as she moved forward to sink beside the man, her hands moving surely over the woman, dreading what she would find – but soon amazed at how little injury Shining Hair had suffered in the furious melee.  She sensed the small life within, shaken and frightened, and sent it soothing waves of reassurance, of calm.

'She is well. 
Both
are well.  She will wake, soon.  But what then, Crazy Bee?'

'Then: I
hope
.'

-

She swam up into consciousness with a strange reluctance, as if not wanting-

Remembering, ashamed, she gasped, leaping to full awareness, lurching upward, her eyes darting.

She lay in their own tepee-dome, while her husband sat calmly across from her, sketch-pad in his lap, head down as he drew.  One leg stretched out awkwardly before him as if his kneecap ached, and one of his eyes was swollen shut.  His whole face was bruised and purpled.  Her eyes widened in shock. 
I did all that!
she suddenly remembered.

One hand flashed to her belly, and the relief that flooded through her almost made her groan.  But her – other? – daughter?

They've taken Happy Mouth!

She lunged forward, grabbing the pad from her husband's lap; furious with herself, furious that
he
could be sketching-

Oh.

A long dark line now scored his drawing, but the scene struck her with the same force, the same sickening blow to the belly as when the shaman had shared it earlier.

His pencil sketch showed the once-green lands of the Sky Corn community as the burned and charred wasteland of the second vision: charcoal spears that had once been pines, now sharp black bones extruded from the earth; blackened triangular spars, the skeletons of scorched geodesic tepees.  He'd been partway through drawing a carbonized skeleton.  A very small carbonized skeleton.  Her breath caught in her throat, and she flung the sketch pad away and rose, stalking to the entry-way.

She paused.  'Where is-?'

'When I asked you to marry me,' his quiet words from behind her somehow stopped her own.  He continued in that same gentle voice.  The same love in the tone as when he had fought her, when he'd been forced to risk their unborn child's safety by rendering her unconscious.  'I promised to respect your wishes.  Today, for the first time in our lives together I could not do that.  If you wish me to leave, to find a different tent, then… then I will.'  He pulled angrily at his hair, like he wanted to tear it out.  'Just
think. 
That's all I ask.

'
Think
.  I swear, ’Lita, in my bones: I know if we do as your heart begs you to do – as mine begs me! – within two weeks the Sky Corn will be a sea of ash blowing in the wind, and Fate alone knows what sick vengeance he'll visit on us.  And on Happy Mouth, to hurt us best. 
He won't kill us
, ’Lita.  He has people surgically altered for his amusement!  Remember his own
daughter
?'