Hope of Earth

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Hope of Earth Page 11

by Piers Anthony


  But something more was needed. Even when fully healthy, he could not hope to hold off a crocodile for long. This was by no means a large one; it was not much longer than Bry himself. It must have been attracted to the fish remnants they had left in the water. But it was big enough to do them real damage, once its teeth closed on flesh. He had to balk it decisively, so as to make it go away. He knew it would be impossible to kill it. Those enormously long, mighty jaws—

  Then he had a notion. “A rope!” he cried. “Fetch a rope!” He did not look to see if the children were doing it, because he dared not take his eyes from the crocodile. In the instant he looked away from it, it could loom up and get him, like a storm cloud.

  In a moment Chip was back with the cord woven from fibers. “A loop!” Bry said. “Make a big loop!”

  Fumblingly, the boy worked the cord into a loop, the kind used to hold on to an outcropping when a person was using the rope to climb. The harder the pull on the rope, the tighter the loop became.

  “Now we must get it over that snout!” Bry gasped.

  Chip, showing increasing courage, approached with the loop. But Bry realized that it was simply too dangerous for the small boy to get that close to the monster. “Give me the rope!” he cried.

  Chip held it out, and Bry grabbed it. He tossed aside the spear, then made a leap in the direction the crocodile did not expect: toward its mouth. Nevertheless, its reaction was swift. The snout came up to meet him, the jaws parting—and he put the loop over and jerked it tight. He knew he had been lucky to do it just right on the first try; he might never have gotten a second chance.

  The crocodile whipped its head back and forth, aware of the impediment. Bry hung on, feeling his ribs being wrenched, but knowing that this was his only avenue to any kind of victory. He kept jerking on the rope, and with each jerk the loop pulled more tightly around the snout.

  The crocodile lunged at him, the tip of its snout touching his leg. But now it was closed; the teeth could not bite. Still, the animal seemed to think that because its jaws were closed, it must have something pinned between them; it rolled quickly over, trying to drown its catch. But of course this didn’t work. Bry kept stepping back, hauling on the rope.

  Finally the crocodile had had enough. It righted itself and scrambled back toward the water. “But you’ve got our rope!” Bry cried, following.

  He heard a giggle. It was Mina. Then he realized how foolish he was being: chasing after a crocodile! What was he going to do—go into the water to remove the rope? He let go of it and watched the creature splash away. But it was sad to lose the valuable rope.

  It took them some time to relax, after that. Mina led the way, her apprehension gone. “I knew there was something” she said. “No more.”

  But Bry was not at all sure of that. Now, with his relaxation, his ribs were hurting worse; he had done some added wrenching in the heat of the battle. Suppose the crocodile had clamped its teeth on one of Chip’s legs? They had overcome the creature as much by luck and blunder as by effort. Suppose another crocodile came—a larger one? They had had so much trouble with the small one, even when fighting it on land, which was the human terrain, that they didn’t dare face a larger one.

  He came to a decision: he had to make sure that there would never be a larger one. But how could he do that? At the moment he couldn’t think of any way. So he asked the children.

  They were intrigued by the notion. “Maybe rub on more stink leaf, to make it not bite,” Chip suggested.

  Bry smiled. That was clever, in its way. If the taste of the bitter leaf on the skin stopped the mosquitos, would it stop bigger bites? But it was a foolish notion. “It would have to bite once, to find out about the taste,” he said. “And one bite is too much.”

  “Make a wall,” Mina suggested. “Keep it out.” She liked to make walls in the sand, keeping the water back for a while.

  Bry and Chip laughed. “A BIG wall!” Chip said, lifting a hand to show how high.

  Mina frowned. “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Because—” Chip started, then looked thoughtful. He looked at Bry for support.

  “It might work,” Bry said, reconsidering. “But sand wouldn’t do it. The crocodile would knock it down with its tail.”

  “Stone,” Mina said.

  “We couldn’t move any stones heavy enough to stop the crocodile,” Bry said.

  “Wood,” Chip said, getting into it.

  Bry considered. “Maybe if we hammered stakes into the ground.”

  They liked that. So their project commenced. They ranged the beach and the near paths, always together, searching out pieces of wood and carrying or dragging them back. There turned out to be a considerable number, because there weren’t any other families near to search the beach for firewood. Some of it wasn’t sound, but enough was; they would be able to make their fence.

  It turned out to be no easy project. Some of the wood would have been difficult to manage when Bry was in the best of health, and it was almost impossible in his present state. But the children helped, and Bry gritted his teeth and bore as much pain as he could, and they got it moved by slow stages. Then they had to find rocks to use to pound in the stakes, and if the wood pounded in readily, it didn’t hold, and if the stakes did hold, it was awful getting them in. Again Bry had to fight the pain as he used his arms for such work. Mina saw that, and came to touch his ribs, and surprisingly the pain did diminish, enabling him to work more freely. There was just something about that little girl! They had to sharpen points on the stakes, as if they were spears, and some had to be braced by lesser sticks that couldn’t make, fence stakes on their own. These were tedious tasks, and progress was slow. Bry thought the children would soon tire of the effort, but they didn’t; the scene with the crocodile must have scared them more than they admitted, and they wanted to be safe. Also, they were good children, remarkably responsible for their ages. That spoke well for their parents.

  Their parents. Bry remembered the beautiful music Hugh had made, and the phenomenal dancing Anne had done. That sound and that image would remain forever in his memory.

  It became a system. Mina sharpened points by rubbing small rough stones across the narrow ends of the stakes. Chip held each stake steady, upright, while Bry pounded it in. He found that it helped to drag a good-sized rock across to the stake, so that he could stand on the stone and hammer from a greater height. When the stake was down as far as it would go, Chip used a smaller rock to pound in bracing pieces, getting the main stake firm. They had to place half-buried stones around it to brace it, because the sand was never completely firm, but the end result was pretty good. The work was wearing, and they had to rest between stakes, and they got only a few done the first day, but they were highly satisfied with their accomplishment. À line of several crooked but firm stakes extended from the shelter toward the river. Of course it wasn’t enough, because the crocodile could simply go around it, but it was the start of their wall.

  Next day they did more, extending the line along the side of the path. Bry began to wonder, perversely, whether there was really a point to this hard labor; suppose no crocodile ever came again?

  Then, late in the day, the crocodile returned. They had been nervously alert for it throughout. It had gotten the noose off its nose, and seemed as aggressive as ever.

  Chip and Mina screamed and ran in different directions. Bry picked up the stake he had been about to start pounding and carried it toward the reptile. The creature was chasing Mina, who darted a desperate look at Bry and ran to the end of the line of posts, then dodged around them and ran on to the house.

  The crocodile came to the posts and went up the other side, trying to move directly toward the girl. There was space between the posts, so it could track Mina, but not enough to let it pass through.

  This gave Bry a notion. “Chip! Here to the fence!”

  Chip, by this time far afield, came in. The two of them stood just opposite the crocodile, who couldn’t get at t
hem. It lacked the wit to go around, so kept poking its nose into the spaces between stakes, and as quickly being balked. The tip of its snout was narrow enough to pass, but not its full head or body.

  “Go away!” Chip cried, and picked up a handful of sand and flung it at the creature. The sand did no harm, but was very satisfying to throw.

  Mina came out, realizing that they had found safety of a sort. She picked up a small stone and threw it through the fence. It bounced off the crocodile’s nose.

  That set them all off. They heaved double handfuls of sand through, so much that it started piling up around the creature, at one time half burying its snout. But the crocodile couldn’t do anything about it, except go away—which, reluctantly, it did. It didn’t seem to occur to the creature that it could have come around the fence; once it headed for the water, it kept going. They had won their second engagement more handily and safely than their first—thanks to the partial fence.

  That gave Bry an idea. “We don’t need to line the path both sides,” he said. “Just one side—and be on the other side.”

  But they realized that this would not necessarily be easy to arrange. By chance the crocodile had come up on the side opposite to the one Mina had taken, but next time it might take the same side. How could they guarantee it would be on the wrong side?

  They discussed it, and Chip came up with the answer: climb over the fence. But how could they do that quickly enough? The stakes were high enough so that getting over the fence was awkward. They thought of putting a pile of stones against it, that they could use to get high enough to step over it—but suppose the crocodile did the same?

  But that idea turned out to be better than it had at first seemed. Suppose they put stones against one side—and not on the other? People could jump down from that height with no problem—but what about a crocodile? Accustomed to the level water, would it care to tumble off a high fence, to land snout-first? That seemed unlikely. But if it did, it would still surely take some time—time they could use to get clear. Or to cross back to the other side of the fence.

  So they set up several piles of rocks, on both sides of the fence, but never right across from each other. Each was like a path leading nowhere, from one side or the other. Would it work? They would simply have to find out.

  They resumed work on the fence, pounding stakes between sessions of foraging for food. They did not yet have the courage to try spear fishing again; they went to the water only to drink, and did that as a group, quickly, with two watching the sides while the third drank. But once they completed the fence, and knew that it worked—then maybe they would try for the fish again.

  Several days later they had their chance. The fence was now much of the way toward the water, because they were getting better at it as they went. They went for a drink, because the labor made them thirsty, and Mina spied the crocodile. She screamed warning.

  “Go on each side of the fence,” Bry said, and the two of them ran toward it. Then, just to make sure the crocodile gave chase, Bry threw sand at it.

  The creature lunged out of the water, snapping at him. Bry backed away, retreating no farther than was expedient. He had his spear, but merely gestured with it; he had no intention of fighting the reptile if he didn’t have to.

  It came after him, uncomfortably fast. Bry realized that it probably could outrun him, when it tried. He needed to get farther away from it. He turned and ran for one side of the fence, then paused. Both children made faces and rude noises at the crocodile, daring it to advance. And in a moment it did, going after Mina, the smallest and probably tastiest morsel. Chip, on the other side, made rude noises at it, but it ignored him for the moment.

  Mina waited as long as she dared, then ran up the stone stile and paused. The crocodile was still coming. She jumped off to the other side, crying, “Wheee!” She landed in the sand, lost her balance, and fell, but was in no danger: the crocodile hadn’t even mounted the ramp.

  They stood opposite it, teasing it, as before, but the creature seemed to be unable to figure out what the stiles were for. It tried to get at them through the fence, without any hope of success. When they moved up the fence, beyond the ramp Mina had used, the reptile scrambled over the base of the ramp to get around it, and came back to the fence.

  “Crocodiles are stupid,” Chip said contemptuously.

  “Yes,” Bry agreed. “But don’t go near it.” The boy nodded. Stupid did not mean safe.

  The crocodile returned to the water, again not even trying to circle the fence. It seemed that they had found a good defense against it.

  They kept working the following days, completing the fence, which stopped just short of the water’s edge. They made ramps at frequent intervals, so that they would never be far from one. And, as an afterthought, they made an extension across the path near the house, so that the crocodile could not ever get inside. They made ramps to cross it, but offset them so that it was still necessary to jump down, whichever way a person crossed. Just in case the reptile one day figured out how to use a ramp.

  They remained alert, and that was just as well, because the crocodile did come again. They readily foiled it. “But remember,” Bry warned the others, fearing overconfidence. “If it ever gets hold of you, you’re done. The fence won’t help then.” They nodded, appreciating the point.

  Now, with the menace of the crocodile somewhat abated, Bry was able to watch for his family’s boats again. He had fretted, privately, when he couldn’t do that, for fear they would row by and never know he was here.

  They got up courage to try spear fishing again. Mina was on watch while the other two focused on the fish. Chip, his arm perhaps stronger after all the practice pounding support stakes, managed to spear a fish through the tail and pull it out of the water.

  Then Mina cried out, making them both jump away from the water. But it wasn’t the crocodile. “Boat! Boat!” she exclaimed.

  It couldn’t be Hugh and Anne returning, for only half a moon had passed. Bry had made marks on a wall of the shelter, one little line for each day, and a connecting line for each seven days. Four such larger units would signal the time for return. There were only two.

  So it had to be the other. “My family!” he said. “You said they would come now.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, remembering. “I must meet your sister.”

  Who almost might be her natural mother. Because Mina had been saved from a dead place as a baby, about the time Flo had left her baby. Except that the places had been far separated. So it couldn’t be. Yet he couldn’t be certain in his doubt.

  They waved, and the boat spied them and stroked in to shore. It was Dirk rowing, and Flo steering, and Lin searching from the prow. Trust his sister to spy him first!

  The boat heaved part way up on the beach. Lin leaped out and ran lightly to embrace Bry. “I knew you were safe!” she said though her tears. “I just knew it!” Then she oriented on the children. “Well, hello,” she said over his shoulder.

  “You must have become a man quite rapidly,” Dirk remarked, smiling.

  Bry released Lin and turned. “These aren’t my children,” he said, embarrassed though he knew it was humor. “They are Chip and Mina, of Hugh and Anne’s family.” He turned back. “And this is my closest sister, Lin.”

  Mina approached shyly. “You have the hand,” she said.

  Lin’s left hand was closed into a fist, the way she normally kept it to conceal her deformity. She glanced at Bry.

  “I never said,” Bry said hastily. “Mina—she just knows things. The spirits tell her.”

  Lin extended her arm and opened her hand. Mina looked at the fingers, and nodded. “It’s a good hand,” she said.

  Dirk and Flo came up behind Lin. Flo had Baby Flint, now one year old, in the harness on her back. Bry started to introduce them, but Mina launched herself into Flo’s embrace before he got the words out. “Why did you leave me?”

  Flo’s mouth fell open. “Can it be?”

  Mina wriggled
free. “Look at my toes.” She stood on one foot, lifting her other foot with her hands.

  Flo bent to look, and saw the birthmark between the toes. Astonished, she sat down in the sand. “My baby,” she breathed. “How—?”

  “They found her in a dead place,” Bry said. “But it was near here. They have not been far south.”

  “Then it can’t be,” Ho said. “Yet—”

  “The hair, the eyes,” Dirk said. “They match yours. The cheekbones, the chin. She’s yours.”

  Flo began to sob. Mina put her little arms around her, comfortingly. “Why did you leave me?” she repeated.

  “I had no man,” Flo said. “I could not support you. Now I could, but then there was no way. So I left you. Then I changed my mind, and returned, but you were gone, and it was best. Since then I have thought of you every day, wondering, hoping—”

  Bry was amazed. It was impossible, yet this did seem to be his sister’s child.

  “Now you have one of your own,” Mina said.

  “Yes.” Still sitting, Flo lifted him out of the pack and brought him around to the front. ‘This is Flint.”

  “Hello, Flint,” Mina said solemnly.

  Meanwhile Dirk was getting along with the other child, as he usually did. “What is that you have made, my good little man?”

  “A fence,” Chip explained. “To keep out the crocodile.”

  “There is a crocodile after you?”

  “Yes. It comes almost every day. But we hide behind our fence.”

  Dirk looked perplexed. “But suppose it comes on your side?”

  “I’ll show you,” Chip said gleefully. “You be the crocodile.”

  Dirk quickly got into the game. He put his hands down on the sand and lunged at the boy. Chip ran around the end of the fence. Dirk did a beautiful job of almost crashing headfirst into it. Then he paused, pondered a moment, and made his way around it to get on the boy’s side.

 

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