Another arrow whistled in. The creature struck it aside in midair with one sweep of its wing and turned back again to try to pull free.
I could see that it would manage to get loose. Deep as those arrows had gone into the cottonwood, it would break them off in time. While Phil shot, though, I’d rolled over and picked up the shotgun, which seemed to be unhurt. Racking another shell into the chamber, I looked for a place to aim.
The first three shells had been buckshot. The last three were heavy slugs. And when I saw what I thought might be a vulnerable place, I prayed that a slug would do the trick.
Phil was just off to my right, also trying to take aim at a weak point. An arrow flew, but it missed the monster’s eye, glancing off its bony forehead. Batwing turned its head in Phil’s direction and screamed in anger.
“KKKAAAA-AWWWRRRRR!”
Taking a deep breath, I seized that brief moment of distraction to leap in so close that if I was wrong, I was dead. I jammed the short barrel of my shotgun into Batwing’s ear and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
We made good time for the rest of that day. The seven crows temporarily adopted us, scouting ahead and flying back from time to time to reassure us that our way was clear. That didn’t surprise me. The creature that had just passed away from a bullet-induced brain aneurism had probably controlled so much of this territory that other dangerous critters had been discouraged from making it their home.
Neither Phil nor I seemed to have been hurt — aside from a few bruises and some scrapes that I dabbed with the salve from Aunt Mary’s emergency kit. Phil had even been able to recover all of the arrows he’d shot, though it took some doing to lever and cut them out of the leathery wing and the tree trunk.
But he’d only done so after running over to me as I knelt next to the slumped body of a winged nightmare. There was a look of deep concern on his face.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said, accepting his hand as he pulled me to my feet. “Good shooting . . . partner,” I said.
We stood there for a minute, my right hand in his, my left hand on his shoulder, both of us smiling. Then I gently took my hand back.
“We’d better get going, right?” I’d said then, even though I would have liked to have just stayed there like that for a long time.
“Right,” Phil agreed.
We passed an ancient sign, fallen over by the roadside. The only word still legible on it was WALL, which was strange, there being no walls anywhere in sight on the nearby land.
Out of the corner of my eye, it looked as if Phil was limping. But as soon as I looked his way, the limp disappeared — though I noticed he was biting his lower lip as he walked.
I held my hand up to the west, where the sun was only three fingers above the horizon. It would be dark pretty soon, and even though nothing had menaced us since the demise of the demon bat, I had no doubt that the nighttime would bring out more dangers than we wanted to encounter in the open.
I stopped walking to pull out Uncle Lenard’s map and study it. Yup. There, just as I remembered, was a mark indicating that a safe place to shelter was close by. Likely just beyond the next rise in the road.
Phil raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. He did that every time he had a question, and it was so endearing that it made me smile.
“Are we close to the next place to spend the night?” he asked.
I folded the map, put it away, and began walking again, Phil staying half a step behind me to the right.
It was not over the rise ahead of us, or the next one, but we had to walk no more than two miles before I saw the glint of a metal roof.
“There,” I said.
We followed a narrow track, our feet crunching dried brush that had drifted over the trail. All around us the land was brown and dry, as it sometimes got in late summer. It was the kind of dryness that could easily turn into walls of flame rushing across the prairie. We’d have to take care with any fire we made that night.
Rain, I thought, we need rain.
But there was not a single cloud in the shimmering sky.
Long ago, back when the world was ruled by different nations and not an international corporation made up of modified humans who had planned to live forever, there had been the threat of wars. We’d all been taught about that time, a time that no one needed to worry about anymore. Such wars were past threats, as our Overlords had constantly reminded us. Their rule had saved us lucky proles from ever experiencing that sort of danger during our brief, overworked lives.
The structure ahead was a remnant from that time of one country threatening another with atomic bombs. It was part of what was called a missile silo site, rockets hidden under the ground in concrete tubes from which they could be launched. Those missiles were long gone, of course. But the abandoned structures remained here and there.
The building where we hoped to spend our night was nowhere near as big as the huge one from the night before. It had to be no more than thirty feet wide and sixty feet long. But it looked solid. Its roof was thick and metallic, its sides made of concrete except for the windows in its walls that were thick, translucent material — blocks of glass, perhaps. The single door did not have a lock or a doorknob. Instead, there was a sort of wheel that could be turned. So anyone — or anything — that could grasp such a wheel could spin it to the left and open that reinforced door.
But Uncle Lenard had thought ahead. I looked down at the base of the door, and what I saw reassured me. Three small sticks were leaned against that door, sticks that would have been unnoticed by most and knocked down when the door was opened. There were also three more sticks laid flat on the ground right in front of them. I carefully lifted those sticks up. The letters LCD, scratched into the dry dust beneath those sticks, had not been disturbed.
Phil was shaking his head.
“Man,” he said, “Your Uncle Lenard is something.”
Holding my shotgun — which had long ago been reloaded — I just gestured for him to open the door. He did as I asked, spinning the wheel and stepping back as he pulled it toward him.
The large single room that it disclosed seemed empty of anything living. I scanned the space carefully, though. I saw two wide sleeping benches recessed into the far wall. On the longer wall to my right was a wide console area with two chairs pulled up in front of dead viddy screens and other electronic stuff.
I looked back at the door we’d come through. There was a way to lock the wheel and thus secure it from the inside.
Right in the middle of the room was a campfire area ringed with rocks brought from outside. The metal roof vents just above it had been screened with heavy wire. Smoke could get out, but nothing larger than a fly could get in. The pile of firewood stacked next to it was plenty big enough to last us through the night and beyond.
Not only that, there were supplies stacked on shelves along the wall to my left, well back from the fire area. We didn’t need anything right now, but it was good to know it was here in case we needed supplies on the way back. I put down my packs and walked over to see what was there. Dried rations, plastic jugs of water. Uncle Lenard had just about stocked up for a siege.
It made the place feel cozy. And I found myself smiling.
“Shall I shut the door?” Phil asked from behind me.
“Yes,” I said. “Go ahead.”
* * *
Darkness came quickly outside. The light filtering in through the roof vent and the cloudy windows vanished. A horned owl hooted, the sort of sound an owl makes when it is feeling secure, ready to hunt. It wasn’t the call my old people always recognized as a warning that something dangerous was prowling the night. I wondered if it was the owl we’d seen back in that cottonwood stand — but that was miles behind us. Probably not. Only the seven crows had come this far with us, as far as I knew. I hoped they’d found a safe roost for
themselves.
We pulled the chairs up next to the fire pit. Phil made a fire, heated up food, made tea for us. I leaned back in my chair and was soon half asleep, listening to the crackling of the fire.
“Want to hear a story?” Phil’s voice was so soft that it blended with the sound of the fire.
“I’d like that,” I said.
“It’s how crows got to be black,” Phil said. “Long ago they were all white. That’s what my grama said who told me the story, at least. And there was this man, he was a hunter. One day when he was out, he found a crow. Its wing had been hurt, and a bobcat was about to jump on it. But the hunter drove that bobcat away. He picked up that little crow and took it home. He nursed it back to health.
“That crow was so grateful that it stayed with the hunter. It flew everywhere with him. It would fly ahead and scout for game, finding deer and buffalo herds. It would warn him if there were enemies ahead. Before long, that man became famous because he was such a good hunter and always knew where the enemies were. It was all because of that crow.
“But there was a medicine man who got jealous of that hunter. He made bad medicine and then sent word to the hunter of what he had done. He told the hunter that before long he was going to be struck by lightning and killed.
“When the hunter heard that, he spoke to the little white crow.
“ ‘My friend,’ the hunter said, ‘I am going to be struck by lightning. I know it will kill me. You must go far away from me so you will not be harmed.’
“But that little crow did not go away. He was grateful that the hunter had saved his life. He was too loyal to fly away and save himself.
“Sure enough, just as the mad medicine man said, that night lightning struck the hunter’s tipi. It killed the man and set his lodge on fire. The loyal little crow was not killed, but its feathers were all burned black. All crows have been black ever since then.”
I stayed silent for a while after Phil finished his story. I picked up a stick and stuck it in the fire.
“I don’t think I like that story,” I said. “The hunter got killed.”
On the other side of the fire from me, I saw Phil nod. “That’s true,” he said. “The hunter did get killed. And I said the same thing you just said when Grama told me that story. But then she reminded me that the story wasn’t just about the hunter. It was about the crow. No matter what, that crow stayed loyal.”
“Just like you,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but I did.
Phil looked at me. “That is about the nicest thing I’ve ever had anyone say about me.”
“It’s true,” I said. “I’m glad you’re with me. You’ve saved my life, and you’ve been right by my side — even when I’ve been rude to you.”
Phil shook his head. “You’re not rude,” he said. “You’re just shy. I know what that’s like. I’m shy too.”
“You?” I said. “How could you be shy? You’re so . . . perfect.”
“Wow,” Phil said. “First you don’t say much, and then everything you say is a bigger compliment than I deserve.”
For a minute I found myself getting tongue-tied again. It was the way he was looking at me. “I . . . I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet.”
“Rose,” Phil said, leaning closer, “that’s one of the things I like about you. You don’t say anything unless you mean it. But, then again, there’s not much that I don’t like about you.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really.”
We just sat there like that, looking at each other, so close I could feel his breath on my face. What next? I was thinking. I didn’t want to do or say the wrong thing and mess it all up now. But perhaps Phil could see how confused I was because he leaned back.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess we better get some rest before tomorrow, right?”
He stretched his arms over his head and groaned. “I don’t know about you, but I am hurting all over right now after getting battered by that damn bird or bat or whatever it was.”
He stood up and smiled at me. “But we can talk more tomorrow, right? To be continued?”
I smiled back up at him. “For sure,” I said. “To be continued.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I was more tired than I thought. I was sure I wouldn’t sleep, but as soon as I closed my eyes, I fell into a deep slumber.
A dream came to me, or perhaps it was a memory. I was four years old again. My father was lifting me up to the back of Star, his gentlest mare. I dug my fingers into her mane and pressed my cheek into the back of her neck. She smelled and felt so good, her muscles rippling under me as I rode bareback. After a while my father tried to lift me down, but I held so tight that he laughed and gave up. Then he did what only an Indian father would do. He walked away and left me with the horse, my horse. I stayed on her back for so long as she wandered around the Ridge, that I slipped in and out of slumber. I would close my eyes and when I opened them, as if by magic, everything around us had changed. First we were near my home, then we were out in the deep prairie grass, then we were next to a stream where cottonwoods arced over the water. Sometimes when I opened my eyes, I saw people, grown-ups who would just smile at me and nod. A little Indian child sleeping on the bare back of a horse was not that unusual a thing before all our horses died. Our horses and we were one. With them we were complete. Without them . . .
And that was when I woke up, the feeling of loss as deep in me as a well.
* * *
What woke me, I suppose, had been the smell of food being cooked.
I sat up and swung my legs onto the floor. I’d just felt tired the night before, but now I ached all over. The bruises and strains from the fight with the big leather-winged creature were making themselves felt on me. I stood up, my ligaments creaking as I did so. It felt as if I were a hundred years old.
I slowly stretched my arms over my head, hearing more popping and creaking. But after stretching my back and my legs with some simple exercises Aunt Mary taught me years ago, I began to feel more like someone with the bruised but healable body of a teenager and not an elderly candidate for crutches and a wheelchair.
Phil pretended not to notice my stretching, keeping his attention on the skillet. He’d mixed cornmeal with water and one of the dry packs to make a sort of hash that smelled a lot better than it should have smelled. Probably because I was so hungry.
I walked over to the fire, a little gingerly because my legs were still stiff, and squatted down across from Phil, who was sprinkling some sort of powder onto the hash.
“My secret ingredient,” he said. “Special spices I brought with me. Seasoned salt, pepper, curry, and a few other things that I have taken a sacred oath never to divulge.”
“It smells wonderful,” I said as he scooped me some out of the skillet onto one of the two tin plates he’d packed. I took a bite. “And it tastes even better.”
That earned me a big smile from Phil, and I would have smiled back if my mouth hadn’t been so full. Maybe it was because I was so hungry, but it really did seem like the best hash I’d ever tasted. Or maybe it was because things had changed between the two of us — though I still wasn’t sure exactly how much.
“Glad you like my cooking,” he said. “My ma always said I was going to make someone a great wife one day.”
And I had to smile at that, even with my mouth full of hash.
After eating and using the bathroom at the back of the building — which was still operating because it used water from a cistern on top of the roof — we opened the door — taking our usual precautions against some dangerous beast lying in wait. But the only living creatures outside were those seven crows, sitting on the branch of a skinny pine.
The way they cawed and nodded at me reassured Phil and me that it was safe to come out.
It was another hot, dry day. So dry and hot that my throat felt choke
d after we’d gone only a few miles west, the sun at our backs. The plan was to reach the area of the little town of Box Elder this side of Rapid City — avoiding the spot where Uncle Lenard had made an ominous X on the map with the letters L and O. There was an ancient air force base in Box Elder, and one of its dug-in bunkers would be our refuge for the night. Then the next day, with the Black Hills rising above us to the west, we’d head north, and the day after that reach my destination of Mato Paha, Bear Butte.
As we walked, I kept sipping water. I remembered my dream of the night before and thought about how easy this journey would be if we had horses to ride. How much safer we’d feel if we were on horseback and able to outrun whatever danger threatened us. But there were no horses and never would be again.
I shook my head at that thought. The tightness I was feeling in my chest was from something more than just the arid air. My old companion fear had settled back into my mind, and my heart was in my throat as we trotted along. We were trying to cover as many miles as possible before it got so hot that we had to find shelter from the sun and take a midday break in the shade.
All around us, on either side of the road, the land was so brown and dry that it seemed to crackle in the heat. Little mirages that looked like pools of water shimmered in the distance ahead of us. The sun was almost directly overhead now. Phil had tied a white kerchief around his head and then handed me a similar kerchief from his pack so that I could do the same, to deflect a bit of the sun from our faces.
“Thanks, partner,” I said as I wrapped it around my head.
Despite the heat and drought, we were making good time. The small wind blowing from behind us dried the sweat and made little white crystals of salt appear on my brown skin. It was not a cool wind, but it was not as warm as the heat rippling up from the land all around us, so the presence of that breeze was welcome.
Still, I was feeling worried and afraid without knowing why. Something was wrong or about to go wrong. I could feel it.
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