And also there was no little mouse on his shoulder like there was on mine, half hidden by my thick black hair and squeaking encouraging sounds in my ear.
As he waved to the crowd, a smile on his face, Phil spoke to me out of the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t know about you, Rose Eagle, but I am scared as hell.”
All I said back was “Me, too.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We followed what used to be one of the main highways leading into the Ridge, old Route 2. Its cracked pavement had never been removed, even after the advent of the new modes of transport that didn’t need conventional roads but could hover and then whiz across the countryside over any surface, whether rough or smooth.
The sun was still rising above the plain, its light no longer the deep gold of past centuries. It was still bright, but with a strange sheen to it as it shone through the Silver Cloud that now cloaked our planet. Fortunately, that Cloud seemed to let through enough of our star’s energy for photosynthesis to take place. In fact, plants now seemed to be growing better and faster than they had before. Another reason why our gardens outside Big Cave were so abundant with produce.
If not for the monsters set loose on the land, that Cloud might even have been seen as a blessing in some ways. It had ended the rule of people who had become less human with every passing year, more indifferent to those they ruled, more capricious in their behavior. We never knew back then what strange edict they’d pass from one cycle to the next. Not just the Freedom From Religion Laws, but rules about what we could wear on certain days, new games they would invent that proles could play for the amusement of the Overlords, changes in the vid-feeds so that one week all we could watch were viddys about animals and the next it would be a steady diet of ancient movies from the twentieth century. Apparently only two things never changed — that we ordinaries were a source of amusement for them, and that we had no hope of anything but lives of work without real meaning. For us who labored in the Deeps, that meant endless work that was likely to eventually kill us.
The morning sun was in our faces as we trudged along. Our destination was to the northwest, but we were going in the opposite direction for now. That was because of the monsters. If we’d headed west to start with, we’d have been traveling straight into the realm of Old Three Paws and his pack of firewolves.
I paused and looked back over my shoulder. Phil’s legs were almost as long as mine and the two of us had already covered several miles. Big Cave was no longer in sight, hidden by the folds of the land. But I could see the Black Hills in the distance to the west — our old sacred lands where an evil man named George Armstrong Custer found gold. If he’d lived in the time just before the Cloud came, Custer would surely have been one of the Overlords. There had once been a South Dakota town in our Black Hills, and even a county, named after him.
True, he met his fate when he foolishly attacked one Lakota village too many and died with all his soldiers, defeated by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
But that was our last great victory. We’d lost the Black Hills and most of our lands and then our livelihoods when the buffalo herds were wiped out. All we had for a time were our reservations. We’d tried to do our best with the bleak lands left to us. In fact, according to Aunt Mary, we’d started to rise again through education and the kind of caring for each other that began to solve problems like alcohol and drugs and joblessness. But that was before the long round of wars and the rise of men with money who were stronger than any governments and had no allegiance to anything other than their own power.
“Rose?” Phil said. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said. Then, even though I knew he was offering me an opportunity to talk to him, I turned and started to walk.
I heard a twitter from my shoulder as I strode forward, felt Jumping Mouse tugging at my hair as she continued to trill in my right ear. It sounded as if she was scolding me for my rude behavior. And I knew she was right, but I kept on walking.
Phil continued to match my stride. He never came too close to my side, as if understanding I wanted him to keep his distance. But he also never strayed too far away. It was almost like the way a good hunting dog would walk by a person’s side. Quiet, attentive, never interrupting. Ready to help or defend. It made me like Phil Tall Bear even more — and feel even more tongue-tied around him.
I looked up. The dark speck in the sky above us turned into a sparrow hawk as it circled down and then dived toward us. Toward me.
“YEEK!”
With a high squeak, Jumping Mouse leaped off my shoulder to dive down into the front of my tight top, right between my breasts. Just a second later, the sparrow hawk landed on my shoulder where the little mouse had been perched.
The sparrow hawk cocked its head to look with one eye down my front. Then it chirped a few high notes and ruffled its neck feathers.
Foolish creature, it seemed to be saying to Jumping Mouse. If I was after you, you wouldn’t be getting away that easy!
The small hawk rotated its head to look up into my eyes, whistled three times and clacked its beak.
I understood, not exactly as if it had been said to me in words, but in a different kind of way, a knowing that went beyond language.
Then, just like that, the hawk spread its wings and sailed off my shoulder. It flapped once, twice, rose higher and higher, and was gone.
I turned my head toward Phil, whose eyes were fastened on my chest where Jumping Mouse’s small head was now peering timidly up out of the cleft. Her squirming tickled, but I paid no attention to her. I just knit my brow as I looked at Phil. Color came to his cheeks and he quickly lifted his gaze to my face.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he said.
“What?”
“Birds talk to you. I’d heard that, but wasn’t sure if I believed it. I think it’s amazing.”
He was almost saying he liked me — or at least what I could do. How could I reply to that — or should I just say nothing as usual? But then I sensed something else. I turned and looked in the direction of the thick stand of big cottonwoods rising on the left side of the road a mile ahead of us.
“There’s something there in those trees. We need to take a detour.”
“Lead on,” Phil said, the smile coming back to his face. “You the boss!”
For some reason, that made me smile, too, even though I blushed when he said it.
“Let’s go then.”
Despite my detour, which led us around a rise of land that kept us well hidden from that sinister stand of trees, we kept making good time. I didn’t look at the map as we walked. Usually I can remember almost anything once I’ve studied it for a little while. We stopped only once near midday to eat some of the pemmican that Aunt Mary had made in the old way, pounding strips of venison, mixing in fat and wild cherries and then drying it all in the sun. It was a high-energy food that weighed little and would keep just about forever. We had also brought Y-rations, but were saving them for later. All we needed was water, which we got from a spring Phil located. Since water was no longer being drawn out of the earth for ore processing, little springs like that had started to reappear in places long dry, as if the land was coming back to life. Even the rivers were flowing with more water — though that river water was still deeply polluted and not wise to drink.
We crossed the White River by way of an old bridge and came to a crossroads. It was the place where we would turn left to head into the Badlands.
Uncle Lenard had suggested we spend the night at this point on the map, even though it was well before dark. We could have continued on for several more hours, but that would have been pushing our luck. A whole day away from Big Cave without anything trying to kill and eat us? That was nothing short of amazing. It was time, as Aunt Mary used to say — though I have no idea what it meant — to cash in our chips for the day and count our winnings.
“That’s it?” Phil said, eyeing the large white concrete building in the midst of a series of burned-out ruins. It was a storage building of some sort. It had two huge doors in front, big enough to allow some very large machinery to move in and out. The massive iron doors, which had surely been operated by electricity, were tightly shut and — like the building itself with its rounded edges — looked to be bombproof, unlike the rest of the buildings in this little town, which had been destroyed by something, burned down. That suggested firewolves to me, even though it was well north of what we’d thought was their territory. That was a little worrisome, but this was our best choice for tonight’s shelter.
So I nodded to Phil. This was it.
“How do we get in?” Phil said.
I just turned and walked around the side of the building. There was another door there, a human-sized one that was also solid metal with heavy hinges. But what kept it shut was not electricity. It was a simple, very large old-fashioned padlock.
“Do we have to break that?” Phil asked.
I shook my head. This was the kind of lock that could not be pried open with a bar. Even blasting it with a gun like the .45 on Phil’s belt would not break it.
I lifted it with my left hand, hefted it.
“Master,” I said, reading the word on its side.
Then I took out the key that Uncle Lenard Crazy Dog — who’d put that lock there in the first place — had given me.
“Oh,” Phil said as I twisted the key and the lock sprung open. I pulled it from the hasp, swung open the door. And as soon as I did so, two things happened at once.
Jumping Mouse started chattering in my ear — “Danger-danger-danger!” And a musky scent reached my nostrils.
I stepped back, dropping the lock and reaching for the sawed-off shotgun on my belt.
“Something’s in there,” I said, my voice choked with fear.
And like the good dog that he was, Phil tried to go in ahead of me.
“No!” I said, thumping my left fist against his chest and knocking him backward. I couldn’t let my fear defeat me that easily. Plus, I was the one with the shotgun, which was the best weapon to use in close quarters. And, to be honest, I also didn’t want Phil to get hurt. “I go first.”
And, shotgun in hand, I went through the door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I was ready for an attack. But nothing came at me. Instead I heard a low growl from somewhere in the vast room where the shapes of big machines loomed up like dead metal giants. Hover trucks, earthcutters, transport platforms. Equipment once used to manipulate and exploit an earth no longer owned by those who thought of themselves as near gods.
My eyes were getting more used to the dim light in the room, light that shone not from any local power source but from the oldest fire of all — the sun itself. Translucent roof panels sifted in that light, and there was daylight coming in over my shoulder from the doorway.
I took another step and the growl got a little deeper.
“Oh,” I said.
“What?” Phil said. He’d come in the door right behind me and was holding his unholstered .45 in both hands.
“You can put away your gun,” I said, flicking on the safety of my sawed-off. “We got nothing to worry about.”
As I said those words, the trilling voice from my shoulder became even more insistent.
I turned my head to look at Jumping Mouse, whose state was somewhere between indignation and terror.
“Point taken,” I said to my little friend. I walked back to the doorway. Before I could begin to bend down, she leaped from my shoulder and scurried into the sagebrush. I doubted that, with the predatory company I always seemed to keep — first the hawk and now this — I’d ever see her again.
“You and me, at least, have nothing to be afraid of here,” I said to my human companion as I turned back into the hangar. “It’s a badger.”
I knelt down, pressed my lips together, and made a clicking sound. The growling, which had been getting even louder, stopped. A black nose poked out from behind the front activator of the closest lev-truck, followed by the rest of the white-striped head of an animal the size of a small dog.
“Chirr, chirr?” it said.
“It was warning us off if we were enemies,” I said to Phil. “But now it knows we’re friendly.”
I held out both hands and the badger trundled its stocky little body across the floor to me. It sat up and placed its front paws in my hands, snuffling at them eagerly.
“Oh man,” Phil said. “What is it with you and animals? I just love it that they respond to you that way, Rose Eagle!”
“It’s not that much, it’s just what I do,” I said, not looking back at him.
“Right,” Phil said in an amused voice. “Like everybody can do what you do? Do you even know how amazing you are?”
My cheeks were reddening, but I still kept my attention on my new friend.
“Chirrr?” the badger asked.
“No, I did not bring you a mouse to eat. But here.”
I reached into my pack and pulled out a strip of jerky. The badger took it gently from my hand, then turned and waddled back to the home it had made for itself under the lev-truck.
I stood up, wiping my hands on my pants.
“Well,” I said. “We know it’ll be safe in here for the night. That little guy is the only one living here.” I smiled. “Badgers are amazing. They are so tough. Aunt Mary said that in the old days, even a grizzly would turn aside if a badger stood in the path. And they’re strong. They’re like little earthmovers. He must have dug his way in here all the way under the foundation.”
Phil’s mouth opened.
“What?”
“It’s just . . . that’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”
“I . . . I like animals.” I heard my voice beginning to sound defensive. “Is there anything wrong with that?”
Phil held up his hands. “Sorry. It’s just, well, nice to hear you talk that way. With all that warmth in your voice. I mean . . . never mind.”
I felt embarrassed now. Phil really was trying so hard to be nice to me, and I simply did not know how to react to it. How are girls supposed to act around guys they have a crush on? I turned away and began to look around the building for the best place to spend the night.
Phil, though, was the one who found it.
“Rose,” he called from the far end of the building, “How about this?”
He was standing on the operator’s platform of the biggest lev. The platform itself was so big that there was a whole room up there that held not just the control panel but two wide padded chairs. Manual handles on each seat dropped the chair backs and turned them into the equivalent of cots. It meant we’d be sleeping side by side an arm’s length from each other. Or, in my case, trying to sleep.
“Good?” Phil asked.
“I guess,” I said. For a moment I thought about finding a separate place for me to sleep. But even inside the assumed safety of this building, sleeping apart would not be the smart thing to do. In this new dangerous world, anything could happen. We had to stay together.
Though there were some things we did need to do in private. Each of us went outside and did those things before darkness fell. We also gathered wood for a fire. Phil took out his propane lighter, which was just like the one I carried. Leftovers from the past — there had been boxes of those lighters in a storage unit in Big Cave. Fire was one thing unaffected by the Silver Cloud, just as long as starting it did not involve electricity. I’d also learned what was, before the Cloud, the useless skill of starting a fire with a bow drill. But why bother when you can just flick down your thumb and get a flame?
We set up our fire circle just a few feet from the door, which fortunately could also be padlocked from the inside. We sat around the fire for a while, eating the food from our p
acks, drinking the tea we made with water boiled over the fire. Its light cast strange shadows around the building, but for some reason I was not feeling afraid. Sitting next to Phil, I was feeling as close to content as I’d felt in years. The badger had come out and curled up in my lap and I was petting it absentmindedly.
Then, a faraway look in his eyes, Phil began to sing in a soft musical voice.
“Walked along the dry river bed,
thinking of all the things she said,
how she always took me by surprise.
“Way-a-hey Way-a-hey a-hey
Way-a-hey Way-a-hey a-hey
Way-a-hey Way-a-hey Way-a-hey a-hey
“Her long hair, it moved with the breeze,
made me long for more times like these,
looking into her dark Lakota eyes.”
It was such a nice song. And his voice was good singing it. It sort of hypnotized me, listening to it, taking me to such a peaceful place.
“I never heard that song before,” I said.
I hadn’t meant to say anything. The words just came out.
“I made it up,” Phil said. “You like it?”
He made it up. Jeez! Probably for some other girl back at the Ridge, one of those pretty little things who were always smiling at him. One of the girls who’d always made fun of me for being so big.
I stood up, more abruptly than I meant to, spilling my badger friend out of my lap.
“I’m . . . I’m tired,” I said. I went to the lev-truck, climbed up, threw myself onto the reclined chair I’d chosen, and covered myself with the thin thermal blanket from my pack. With the blanket over my head, I pretended to be asleep when Phil joined me on the other chair.
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