by Chloe Garner
“All right, then,” Palk muttered, feeling every inch of every muscle from his ribs to his knees. “You like to run. I can work with that.”
And they were off.
*********
The sun set only just shortly after they set out, a blaze of orange and purple across the cloudy sky. All clouds, no rain. Palk felt like he knew something about that, but he couldn’t remember. The sensation was frustrating.
They continued on until it was dark, and then Grindoth got out a lamp and they went on some more. When the first moon set and the second moon, a sickly red one, went behind a cloud, the landscape got to be dark enough that it was pointless to go on - they couldn’t see the fence well enough to tell if it was whole or not - Grindoth stopped.
“We camp here.”
They’d been out maybe three hours.
“Why couldn’t we just stay at the ranch and leave in the morning?” Palk wondered out loud.
“Because Galp is a bastard,” Grindoth answered, tying his kalt roughly to the fence and holding up the lamp so that Palk could see him.
“We can sleep in the dark, but soft skin like yours is bound to make the pinths wake up drooling. I’m going looking for wood.”
Palk refrained from asking why they hadn’t done that before, like when they’d gone past the upturned tree that was disintegrating twenty feet from the fence. Instead, he tied Biscuit and pulled down his bedroll, going to sit on a stone and pulling out the flask of beer.
It was dry here.
Dry enough that just being out a few hours had made him thirsty.
He sipped at the beer, uncertain that that was what he really wanted, then shrugged to himself. It wasn’t bad, and Rosie hadn’t been lying that it was mostly water. He drank as much as he dared, considering that no one had told him how long he was supposed to be out here for sure, then waited, listening as Grindoth grunted and worked at something out of sight.
Anyone else, Palk would have gotten up to go help.
Instead, he fished around in his bag of food and came up with a strip of dried, salted meat. He chewed on that until Grindoth came back, then sat and watched as the other man built a fire.
“Don’t get eaten,” Grindoth said finally as he settled out, turning his back to the fire to sleep.
“Good advice,” Palk said, sitting for just another minute and watching the sparks fly up off of the dry wood, then laying down to sleep, himself.
*********
Riding the fences was just as glamorous as it sounded.
They rode. Alongside the fence.
They didn’t talk about much. Grindoth was no more fun or interesting sober than he was drunk, and the first morning he was downright grouchy, hung over.
The land was repetitive at best, hill after rolling hill of dry grass. A few times they saw herds off in the distance, but the animals kept their distance from the riders.
“How do you get them all in?” Palk asked.
“Not my problem,” Grindoth answered.
They found a few places where the fence was broken. Once, a small tree had fallen on it and broken the strands of metal that strung from post to post, and another time Grindoth said that someone had cut it. Palk got down to look at what Grindoth was seeing.
“Here,” Grindoth said, handing him the end of a wire. “If a wire breaks because it’s old, it’s gritty and nasty and it has a clean break. If it breaks because something fell on it or a stupid bobnot didn’t turn in time, it stretches and usually curls back on itself. This was pinched. Means someone used a tool on it to cut through it.”
“What do we do?” Palk asked.
“Fix it,” Grindoth said. “Then tell Galp. The bastard will have me sitting on night watch out here, trying to catch the thieves, but that’s what we’s paid to do.”
Palk nodded, then stood and watched closely as Grindoth repaired the cut wires.
There wasn’t much to it, just stringing a new length of wire between the existing posts. He didn’t even bother to cut off the loose ends.
A day later, they saw birds pecking at a corpse a hillside over, and Grindoth sighed.
“Best go see what that is,” he said.
“You lose a lot of animals?” Palk asked.
“Don’t know, don’t ask, don’t care,” Grindoth said. They left the fence and rode toward the birds, finding a mostly-white skeleton with bits of hide stuck to it where the birds hadn’t managed to strip them away.
“Stilth,” Grindoth said. “Old one. Broke his leg. Died.”
“How can you tell?” Palk asked. He saw the broken bones in the leg, but he couldn’t tell why those were special and the broken ribs and shattered skull weren’t. He also couldn’t have been sure whether he was looking at a stilth or a taim, given that they were about the same size.
“Birds won’t touch a taim’s hide,” Grindoth said, beginning to ride away. “Chokes ‘em. Can’t get that much hair down. And it’s an old, broke-down stilth because it means I don’t have to deal with it when we get back.”
Ah. Well, at least it made sense and Palk hadn’t missed anything important.
More fence.
A couple more animals.
One of them was recent, and it had clearly been cut down by a predator with claws.
“That’s what a pinth’s work looks like,” Grindoth said. “You’re gonna go down like that, some day, after that stupid beast dumps you in the middle of nowhere.”
Palk didn’t say anything to this. It was true enough that Biscuit had almost lost him a few times in the last couple of days, but he liked to think that he was a tougher target to take down than a bobnot.
“You do anything about them?” Palk asked instead.
“Depends on how bad it gets,” Grindoth said. “We only seen the one, so I’m hoping we don’t go off hunting them again. That’s nasty, long work.”
Palk nodded. That, he could imagine. Riding fences was tedious, and they stayed still. As far as he could tell, they had been moving generally in a consistent direction; they hadn’t yet reached the end of the property to turn, and they’d been riding for two and a half days.
“How far does the fence go?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at the red meat drying in the sun.
“Far as the day goes,” Grindoth said. “We only ride the whole thing a couple of times a year. Takes a pair of boys going in each direction a month to meet in the middle at the back corner, and another two weeks to come back.”
“That’s big,” Palk observed. Grindoth grunted.
They rode on.
*********
Four days in, they turned back. Grindoth picked up the pace. There was even less talking.
*********
Six days after the evening that they left, the ranch came back into view. Grindoth dropped off his kalt without comment and left. Palk stopped to talk to the stable boy for a few minutes, then went looking for Starn.
He found her in the main house with Rosie, sitting on couches and talking.
“Told you,” Rosie said cheerfully. “Can I fix you something hot?”
“Anything,” Palk said. “Thank you.”
She waved at him as she disappeared, and he threw himself onto the couch across from Starn.
“Hi,” he said. She smiled at him.
“Hi. Good trip?”
“Fences,” he said. “They just keep going, around here.”
She nodded.
“That’s what they say.”
“I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye,” he said.
“Just your job,” she said. “I figured it out pretty quickly.”
“What have you been up to?”
She grinned.
“Little of this, little of that.”
“Starn,” someone called from behind Palk. Palk turned to watch Elli come into the main room. “Oh, he made it back on time. I assume you didn’t find anything interesting, then?”
“One broken fence, one cut fence, a couple of dead animals. Grindoth
said a plinth got one of them.”
Elli nodded.
“Loss rate has been a bit higher this year. The drought hasn’t helped anything, but we’re getting more scavengers through trying to find a way to make some quick money. Animals are harder to sell than you’d think, really, but they see the price tag on them and their eyes just light up.”
“Galp won’t like that,” Palk said and Elli shook his head.
“No, he’s not supposed to.”
Starn laughed and stood.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said.
“Take your time,” Elli said. “You deserve breaks just like anyone.”
Palk turned around, hoping the other man hadn’t seen the confused look on his face before he’d masked it. Starn grinned at him.
“Just a couple of minutes,” she said, sitting down on the couch next to him.
Rosie came back with a plate of stew of some kind, steaming and salty-smelling, and left again. Palk devoured it, hitting the bottom of the bowl with some surprise, then set it down on the table.
“So. Getting into trouble, then?” he asked Starn.
“There really isn’t a lot else to do around here,” she said. “You’re going to be out a lot more than either of us really anticipated, I think, so I needed something to do and…” she wrinkled her nose, “most of the women quilt.”
“Productive,” Palk said diplomatically.
“So I ended up in Elli’s office and made a few observations, you know, just offhandedly and…” she shrugged. “Now I’m helping him keep the books. I can’t wait to get my hands on their breeding charts. There are so many things I want to try that I don’t think they’ve thought of, yet.”
“Yeah, that sounds like you,” Palk said, putting his arm across her shoulders.
“Sorry,” he said, sitting back up again. “I’m disgusting right now.”
“You get used to it,” she answered. “Once we get a few days in a row off, we’ll ride back to Transit and do some shopping. There’s a lot of stuff you need that we wouldn’t have thought of.”
“I need to find Galp,” Palk said. “Make sure that he heard everything he needs to know.”
She nodded.
“And I should get back to work. Meet you back here for dinner?” she asked. “Sunset?”
He nodded and kissed her temple.
“See you then.”
It was strange, watching her walk away. She was still the only person he knew, but for a moment his brain could believe this was simply normal, that they had lives with schedules and important things they both needed to do, and they would just go off and to them. He wasn’t sure if he liked it, but it was easier than it had been, not knowing anything about themselves at all.
He went in search of Galp.
*********
“A poacher and a pinth,” Galp said. Palk nodded.
“Grindoth was supposed to come tell you,” he said.
“The layabout was here, and he said some things and he left, but you never can get the whole story out of him. Tell me where you found everything.”
Palk went through the location of each of the breaks and each of the bodies, as best as he could by hour of the day when they’d found them. Galp took notes, pressing down too hard on the paper.
“We’re going to have to put up patrols,” Galp said. “If you don’t show people we mean business, they won’t leave us alone.”
“Isn’t it just another ranch on the other side of that fence?” Palk asked.
“Dandys,” Galp said without looking up.
“So someone is coming all the way through the Dandy ranch to steal our animals?” he asked.
“Worth more,” Galp muttered. “You should unstop your ears.”
“It’s a lot of extra risk,” Palk said. “And they have to get them out. Not just off to market somewhere, but actually through the Dandy ranch land without anyone spotting them.”
“So?” Galp asked.
“Where do they actually go out?” Palk asked.
Galp looked up at him with a heavy sigh and went to a map on the wall.
“This is the district,” he said. “We have this corner of it, with the Dandys to our east and the Plangows to our south.”
“What’s outside of the district?” Palk asked.
“Bunch of nomad hooligans steal anything they can get their furry paws on,” Galp said. Palk gave the man a look and Galp made exasperated eyes.
“Ruffians. Outlaws. Bandits. What word do you want? Men we shoot if we see them.”
“So you could go out through that side…”
“No good,” Galp said. “Unless you’re planning on eating that bobnot you just stole, there’s nothing to do with him. There’s no train that way, no cities. Just badlands. The bandits hardly make a living for themselves out there. No water, not much food. You can do it with a good kalt, a good gun, and the stomach for taking other people’s stuff, but that’s about it.”
“Okay, so they’re going out through…” Palk traced his finger along the map. “This section of fence on our side, or this section on the Dandy side.”
Galp scratched his chin.
“Unless they’ve got a hellova hole they’ve dug somewhere, yeah.”
“So watch that,” Palk said. “This fence is way too long to patrol. They know that and so do you.”
“You shoot one of ‘em, a lot more of them get pretty damned discouraged,” Galp said.
“Nothing changes, except that you’re looking at fifty miles of fence here, instead of four hundred.”
The number was mind-boggling. The ranch stretched on beyond where Palk and Grindoth had stopped by such a long way. Almost four hundred miles on a side. He and Grindoth had covered maybe a hundred and fifty.
Maybe.
“It’s not bad,” Galp said.
“You play nice with the Dandys?” Palk asked.
“Prefer ‘em to the Plangows,” Galp told him.
“Your animals distinguishable from the Dandy animals?”
“They’re all tagged,” Galp said. “Haven’t you been paying any attention at all?”
Palk hadn’t noticed. He made a mental note to check the next time he saw a loose herd.
“So if you asked the Dandys to keep an eye out on their section of the fence here, you think they’d bring our animals back?”
“More likely to than a poacher,” Galp said. Palk tried not to look shocked that the other man said something reasonable.
“So, we set up an agreement to monitor this fenceline, and they do the same, and if we find anyone with animals, we straighten it out, then.”
“All we really have to find is the cut line,” Galp said. “Tells you which side they left on.”
“That’s a lot of work for a couple of taims,” Palk said. “What happens after they take them?”
“They cut the tags, then try to find a buyer,” Galp said. “Not that hard. A good taim is easy enough to sell if you’re willing to take a big enough discount on it.”
“All black market, or are they the same buyers you sell to?” Palk asked.
“All the same guys,” Galp said. “All the same dirty bastards looking to make a buck.”
Palk smiled at this.
“You know the market well enough to make some vague threats?” he asked. Galp rubbed his nose and went back to his desk.
“Maybe.”
“If you and the other big four ranchers said that you wouldn’t sell to anyone with a reputation for buying un-tagged livestock, you’d kill his business, right?”
Galp played his fingers across his paperwork.
“I see where you’re going with that. But they fake the tags, or just leave them on.”
“You know who should have your animals. Things get bad with poachers, all you have to do is watch Transit. Someone you don’t know has animals with your tag…”
“We shut that down,” Galp said. “Yeah.”
Palk shrugged.
“It just shou
ldn’t be so complicated as running along that many miles of fence, trying to spot the one guy with wirecutters, who sneaks across at night, anyway.”
“I’ll think about it,” Galp said. “You make some okay observations for a greenhorn. Makes me think you’re faking being a wanderer.”
“Thanks,” Palk said, keeping his face flat.
“You’ve got a wife at home, don’t you?” Galp asked. “Go. Get out of here. I’ll send someone when I need you.”
Palk allowed himself a small smile and a nod as he turned to leave.
He had a knife in his pocket, and Galp was going to give him a gun. That was just a matter of time. He was getting a handle on the job. They’d pay him what he was worth, Starn would extort massive amounts of money out of them through talent and other dark arts, and then…
Then they’d see.
They’d figure out what they wanted to do.
Who they wanted to be.
It was going to work.
He still wished someone would teach him something to whistle.
*********
He bathed.
There was a common bath at the end of the bunkhouse that he found with some poking around, and while the water was a funny color to begin with - making him appreciate his beer - and it was groundwater cold, it felt good to scrub the dust and grime and grease out of his skin. There was a bar of lard soap that helped some, but mostly it was just an act of brute force, getting rid of all of it. He ran his fingers through his hair, then washed his face at the sink.
He felt like a new man.
It was his first bath. He couldn’t remember any other. He hoped that the cold wasn’t normal, but he suspected it was. Who in their right mind would heat that much water?
After that, he wandered the ranch some, getting the layout of the buildings into his head, watching the animals in their fenced pastures.
Stilth were slight animals, maybe chest-high to Palk, creatures that moved in nervous herds and tended to flee at strange noises and their own farts. They had long necks, which was how he should have recognized the skeleton he’d found with Grindoth, and sleek coats that looked like they’d winter hard. He wondered if they grew a winter coat for cold. If it ever got cold, here.