Coyote

by Allen Steele

  “Wendy…”

  “Yeah, okay, I know, it’s long…but I’m telling you, we can do it.”

  Even as I spoke, I realized how absurd the notion was. Two women, on their own, trekking across hundreds of miles of uncharted wilderness with nothing more than a couple of rifles and the clothes on their backs, a vague understanding of New Florida’s river system as their only sense of direction.

  “Wendy…” Kuniko’s voice was soft, as patient as if she was speaking to a child.

  “Yeah, all right, that’s stupid.” Another thought occurred to me. “So we cut loose from the others. Grab one of the canoes, take as much stuff as we need, then paddle up the Lee River. It took us just a week to get here, right? That means we can be back home in…”

  “Wendy…we can’t go upstream through rapids.”

  “We can try, can’t we?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, screw you!”

  I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I have only a fleeting recollection of trying to hit her; perhaps she managed to stop me, or perhaps she didn’t. Yet when I came to my senses once more, I was curled up in her arms, sobbing and shaking as she gently stroked my hair and told me that everything would be okay, everything would be all right, we’d get through this somehow.

  It took a while, but eventually I calmed down. Kuniko wiped away the tears and kissed me on the cheek, then she helped me to my feet. One last look behind us, and we began making our way back down the path.

  We had to hurry. Daylight was fading fast, and night was closing in.

  It was just as well that we took some time off, for two days later we entered the Great Equatorial River. The southernmost edge of New Florida ended in a short peninsula where the Eastern Divide gradually sloped down into the warm waters south of the equator. We sailed past the point with our fists raised in victory, yelling at the top of our lungs as the wind carried us out of the East Channel. Carlos pulled out the map and marked it with pen, unofficially naming the confluence the Montero Delta. He’d later claim that he christened it in honor of his parents, but those of us who were with him at the time knew better.

  The Great Equatorial is a river in name only. In fact, it’s an elongated ocean that completely circles Coyote, fed by the dozens of channels, streams, and creeks that empty into it from either side of the equator. At its broadest point, the Equi is nearly eleven hundred miles across. Between New Florida and the southern hemisphere, the distance is relatively narrow: 410 miles.

  Just as Carlos predicted, the wind patterns changed once we were past the equator. Now they came from the east, taking us west along the long, shallow bay marking the southern shore of New Florida. In order to keep those easterlies at our backs, we’d have to remain below the equator as long as possible, and that meant traveling farther away from land; if we tried to hug the shore, we’d eventually be forced to drop our sails and paddle the entire distance, fighting both wind and current. Since the mouth of the West Channel lay over four hundred miles away, no one wanted to do that, so it was with no little reluctance that we set forth to sail the Equatorial.

  We maneuvered the canoes next to each other and lashed them together to form a twin-hulled catamaran; as one craft, we were now heavier, but we also had twice as much square-footage of sail. We took inventory of our supplies; provided that we didn’t brush our teeth and ate sparingly, we figured we’d have enough food and potable water to get us through the nine days we figured it would take us to reach the West Channel. We could always fish, though, and if necessary we could make landfall and locate a source of fresh water. Otherwise, we’d stay in the river, sleeping in shifts during the night so that there would always be someone awake to mind the rudder. It wouldn’t be easy, but we’d get by somehow.

  At least, that was the theory. But Carlos and Chris had made their plans in the comfort of the boathouse, where a hot meal and a comfortable bed were only a few steps away; I don’t think either of them realized just what it takes to travel by canoe for four hundred miles without setting foot on dry land.

  As we sailed away from New Florida, I sat with my back to the mast and watched the shoreline as it gradually disappeared below the horizon. A flock of swoops followed us out in the water, taunting us with their raucous cries as they circled the canoes, but eventually they turned and soared back toward land. At that moment, I would gladly have traded my soul to be able to go with them.

  Instead, I hugged my knees between my arms and tried not to look at Carlos as he pulled at the rudder cables. His shirt half-unbuttoned, the breeze casting his hair back from his sun-browned shoulders, he projected a heroic image; I could tell that he knew it, too. A couple of weeks ago, I might have melted at the sight, but at that moment I could only feel contempt for this boy pretending to be a man.

  Although the canoes were made more stable by being lashed together, they rocked constantly upon surf; everyone was seasick at least once. The days were hot, the nights brutally cold after the sun went down. We had no shelter save the elusive shade cast by the sails or our blankets. There was enough room to stretch out and sleep, but very little privacy; it was as if six people were sharing a narrow room with no dividing walls. I’d rather not describe how we relieved ourselves, save that it was messy, uncomfortable, and embarrassing.

  David and Chris fished almost constantly, but nothing took their bait…save for once, on the third day out, when Chris caught something, only to have his twenty-pound line snapped as easily as if it were floss. A few moments later, a great shadow passed beneath the boats; an enormous large fin briefly broke the surface about a hundred yards from the boats, then disappeared. Once more, we were reminded that we were visitors in an unknown world; there were things out there that had never known the human presence, and some of them were potentially lethal.

  On the morning of the fourth day, we awoke to see a dense wall of clouds forming on the western horizon. We covered the cargo with tarps and lashed them down, then furled the sails and took down the masts. The storm broke a few hours later, and we soon found ourselves battling ten-foot breakers that threatened to swamp our craft at any moment. It was like fighting the rapids in Shapiro Pass all over again, only much worse, for we didn’t have the option of quickly making for shore. The storm didn’t end until long after dark; we slept little that night, and the following day we were cold, wet, and sore, with three inches of water in the bottom of the boats we had to bail out with drinking cups.

  Noticing that the winds were now coming from the west, Chris accused Carlos of misreading the compass and taking us off course, yet Carlos refused to show him the map and his handwritten readings until Kuniko intervened. As it turned out, Chris was right, although it wasn’t Carlos’s fault; the storm had blown us ten miles over the equatorial line. Nonetheless, it meant that we had to fold the sails once more and paddle back in the opposite direction, a chore which cost us a day in travel time. Chris and Carlos glowered at each other from the sterns of their canoes as they rowed and spoke little to one another.

  Morale had been fragile even before the storm; afterward it sank to a new low. Kuniko snapped at Barry when he pulled out his guitar when she thought he should be standing watch. David lapsed into a funk; he sat for hours in the middeck of the Pleiades, his head lowered and his arms folded across his stomach, saying nothing as he stared at the water. Unable to agree on even the most minor details, Chris and Carlos bickered constantly, and it was left to Kuniko to settle their arguments. As the oldest person aboard, she had become more than the arbiter of disputes; now she was a surrogate mother to everyone, scolding us when we were bad, forever trying to keep us in line. I was used to her taking that role, but it grated on the boys.

  Our worst problem was the diminishing supply of food and water. By the seventh day out, we were forced to dig into the emergency rations, and even then only carefully: a few crackers and some dried fruit for breakfast, then nothing else until the end of the day. We took water in small sips, never able to fill our c
ups at any time.

  I was always ravenous. Kuniko, mindful of the fact that I was carrying, slipped me food when the guys weren’t looking, and let me have a drink when I needed it. Yet the cramps and the bouts of morning sickness had returned. Before we left New Florida, I had been able to sneak away from camp when I needed to throw up. Once that became impossible, I tried to pass it off as seasickness.

  I was also beginning to show. Not very much, yet it was clear that my midriff was a little larger than it had been before we left Liberty. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

  Since our luck had been bad already, it only figured it had to be Carlos.

  “Is it just me, or are you getting fat?”

  He said this on the morning of our eighth day on the river, as I was changing my shirt. I’d long since given up any efforts at modesty, yet even David had stopped staring at me and Kuniko when we undressed. In fact, it had been several days since he’d shown interest in anything at all.

  “Just a little.” I forced a smile. None of our clothes were clean; some were just a little less filthy than others. “Must be our rich diet.”

  It was meant to be a joke, but it didn’t come off that way. Chris was lying across the stern of the Pleiades, a sunburned arm cast across his face to block out the sun; hearing what I’d just said, he looked up. “Rich diet of what? You been holding out on us?”

  “I’m kidding.” I tried to hide my face by ducking my head a little to tie the halter behind my neck. “It’s just a girl thing.”

  Carlos looked away, but Chris wasn’t letting it go. “No, I’m serious,” he said as he propped himself up on his elbows. “I thought we made some rules about hoarding.”

  “I’m not…”

  “Then how come you’re gaining so much weight?” Chris raised a hand to shade his eyes. “You must be eating more than we are, because you puke it all up every morning.”

  “Drop it.” Kuniko was stretched out along the Pleiades, her head propped against the mast. She turned to glare at Chris. “If she’s eating more, it’s because I’ve been giving her some of my share. And if she’s seasick, then that’s her business, not yours.”

  That should have settled the issue. The boys had learned to pay attention to Kuniko when she put her foot down. But while Chris fell quiet, I could feel Carlos’s gaze even after I had turned my back to him. “There’s no way you could be getting fat,” he said after a moment. “We haven’t eaten enough for anyone to gain weight.”

  “I told you, it’s a girl thing.”

  That sounded lame even as I said it. “Wendy,” he said quietly, “is there something we should know about?”

  Chris looked up again, and Barry glanced up from his guitar; only David didn’t seem to be paying any attention. Kuniko slowly let out her breath.

  “Go ahead, tell him,” she said. “There’s no point in keeping it a secret any longer.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was reveal the truth of my condition, yet there was no way around it. But when I turned to Carlos, I saw that his jaw had gone slack. I stared into his eyes and said nothing; no words were necessary.

  “Oh, my God,” he whispered, and I nodded. “Jesus, when…I mean, how long have you known…?”

  “Before we left. I wanted to tell you, but…” Suddenly ashamed, I dropped my eyes. “I was afraid you’d…”

  “Oh, man. Oh, hell…” He stared at me, shaking his head. “If I’d known…if you’d told us…”

  “You would have done what?” I asked. “Left me behind? Maybe taken off a little sooner?”

  He didn’t seem to hear. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered, as much to himself as to me. “I mean, we shouldn’t have brought you along. You should have stayed behind…”

  “He’s right, Wendy.” Chris’s voice was low. “If you’re going to have a baby, you should have told us before we agreed to take you along. This is no place for…”

  “And what if I didn’t want to have a baby?” I looked up at him again; my face grew warm as my temper began to rise. “Maybe I just wanted to get away, think things over a while. That’s my right, isn’t it?”

  “Your right?” Now there was anger in his eyes. “Hey, wait a minute! It’s my child, too, y’know! Don’t I have a say in…?”

  “You self-centered jerk! What makes you think it’s yours?”

  To this day, I don’t know what made me say that. Perhaps it was the way he had treated me ever since we left Liberty. And now, after all this, he wanted to claim the privilege of telling me what I should do with my life.

  He gaped at me as if I had just slugged him. “How…? You couldn’t have…”

  “Wendy, please.” Kuniko said, very softly. “Don’t do this…”

  “I couldn’t?” I wasn’t paying attention to her; Carlos was my sole focus. “Tell me something…do you really think you bagged a virgin that night?”

  Confusion…then dawning comprehension. Carlos stared past me, his eyes moving across the two boats. Barry sat quietly in the bow, stolidly returning his gaze. No, there had never been anything between him and me save friendship of the most platonic kind. David was much too young, and he and I had never really gotten along very well anyway. But Chris…

  “Sorry, man.” His shoulders slumped forward, Chris was barely able to look at his lifelong friend. “I never meant for you to find out.”

  Carlos’s eyes narrowed. His right hand fell to his side; I could see that he was reaching for his paddle. “You son of…”

  “Hey, guys…I think you should see something.”

  It was the first thing David had said in several days; perhaps that’s why we all turned to look at him. As before, his gaze was fixed upon the river, but he had raised his hand to point at something off the starboard side of the Pleiades.

  For an instant, I thought—indeed hoped—he might have spotted land. Perhaps the coast of New Florida, even though that was an impossibility; we were at least fifty miles from shore. Yet there was nothing on the horizon.

  “I don’t…” Barry shaded his eyes. “No, wait a sec…”

  About a hundred yards away, a dark shape moved just beneath the sun-dappled water. A long fin briefly appeared, vanished a second later, leaving a long trough in its wake.

  The argument was suddenly forgotten. “Maybe we should…” Kuniko began, and in that instant the leviathan hurtled upward from the depths.

  Like a dark grey missile breaching the surface, it pitched itself high into the air, water streaming off its dark grey flesh. At least sixty feet long, it had a sleek, bullet-shaped head and a crenellated dorsal fin running down its back. I caught a brief glimpse of whiskerlike tendrils on either side of a gaping mouth, then it crashed back into the river and disappeared.

  “That…that’s a catfish.” Stunned, Chris could barely speak.

  “No catfish is that big.” Barry’s voice was soft. “That was a whale…”

  “Catwhale.” David was grinning. “Big ass catwhale.”

  Whatever it was, it had changed direction. An elongated shadow turned toward us, and for an instant its fin sliced above the water.

  “I think it’s seen us,” I said. “Maybe we’d better…”

  “Yee-haah!” David howled. “Let’s go fishing!”

  Hearing the loud poppa-poppa-poppa of a rifle on full auto, I looked around, saw him standing up in the Pleiades, a gun cradled in his hands. He hadn’t raised it to his shoulder, so his aim was off; spent cartridges clattered across the middeck as bullets pocked the water just above the shadow.

  “Dinnertime!” he yelled. “Come and get it…!”

  “David, no! Stop!” Kuniko was closest to him, she lunged forward, trying to get the rifle away from him.

  David twisted away from her, but tripped on a rucksack and fell across the canoe. His finger was still within the trigger guard; the gun went off again. The next shots went wild, missing Kuni by only a few inches; she ducked, instinctively throwing her arms over her head. Dav
id ignored her; fumbling with the rifle, he rolled over on his side, aimed at the water again…

  “Stop!” Chris was on his feet, trying to get to his brother, but the mast was in the way. “Put it down…!”

  Thinking Kuniko had been hit, I scrambled on hands and knees across the Orion. I was on the sailboard when she glanced in my direction. No blood on her face or hands…

  “Look out!” Carlos yelled.

  I looked around just in time to see the monster come up again…this time, less than a dozen feet away.

  A wall of mottled grey flesh rose up next to the boats, bigger than anything I’d ever seen. For a split second the catwhale seemed to stand on its tail, as if challenging gravity itself. To this day, I have the vivid recollection of seeing it posed against the sky…

  Then it came down upon us, smashing straight into the Pleiades.

  I remember very little of what happened next.

  One moment, I was kneeling on Orion’s sailboard, watching the catwhale as it hurtled into the other boat. A fleeting impression of being airborne, then of something hitting me in the back, shocking me out of my senses.

  The next thing I knew, I was underwater, helplessly thrashing against the undertow that threatened to drag me farther down. Bubbles rose from my nose and mouth: my life escaping from my lungs, traveling upward to a rippling silver-blue ceiling somewhere far above my head.

  Salt stung my eyes; my vision began to form a tunnel. It would be so easy to give up. All I had to do was just let go, allow myself to sink into cool, dark oblivion.

  Yet I wasn’t ready to die. Somehow, I knew that I had to survive, even if only for a few more seconds. I closed my mouth, holding what little air was left in my lungs, and began flailing my arms and legs, propelling myself upward. Stroke, kick, stroke, kick, just the way I’d been taught…