The declaration came with its own heat.
"Besides,” he continued, “those friction techniques are exceptionally hard work. They usually do nothing but waste energy. When you don't have any choice except to rub two sticks together, believe me, you're damned lucky to have fire at the end of the day...."
He let his voice trail away.
Then the green-eyed girl spoke up.
"Is that really true?” she asked with a soft, thoroughly disappointed voice. “You don't believe in spells and spirits?"
* * * *
On a given day, Shadow-Below was never sure what he believed in. He lived in a trailer perched high above the Loup River. Every day, an automated postal clerk delivered mail to somebody named Conrad Shadow-Below. But despite the Visa bills and offers for exotic cruises, and the insurance solicitations and trade publications from survival schools ... despite a relentless paper trail proving that Conrad was real, he wasn't. He was a fiction and a fraud, and worse, he was a fraud built upon another person who had never really existed either.
For most of his life, Shadow-Below lived outside this century—and beyond the last century too. He grew up among an isolated band of Lakota half-bloods, in a Sand Hills pasture they called the World. Why they lived in that place and what they hoped to accomplish there ... well, those were mysteries. And Shadow-Below had little patience for mysteries. But it took a lot of hard thought and pain before he'd found the courage to walk away from his old life. Alone, he entered this world with the single goal of becoming normal—a legal citizen of a great civilization. He embraced the name “Conrad” and found work where he could, saving up his subsistence wages until he had enough capital to start a little business where he might make a comfortable living. Teaching wilderness crafts to a succession of wealthy souls: What else could he do in this world and do half as well?
On a cold, soggy day in February—a day when fires would be difficult to build but very welcome—Shadow-Below walked to his mailbox and pulled out a thin collection of envelopes. Bills, mostly. And to the girl down the road, he asked, “What are you doing, miss?"
The girl was standing beside a plum thicket.
He looked at her face, sighed, and tucked his mail into his jacket. The rain was cold but windless. He was free to just walk away. If he treated her like an apparition, maybe she would vanish. But that was hoping for too much, which was why he took the trouble of saying, “You don't want to be here, miss."
"You're right, I don't,” she said. She was holding one of his brochures—smart-paper filled with pretty images of the wild prairie and promises of a unique experience. Not for the first time, she asked, “Why won't you let me take a class? That's what I want to know."
"As I told you, miss. I'm not the teacher you want."
"But I need to learn,” she said. “I got myself into trouble last year—"
"You've explained that already."
"You're perfect for me."
"I gave you three names, and I told you who's the best of the lot. And that's what you deserve. Nothing but the best."
He was trying to drive her off with compliments.
But she responded by stepping closer, halving the distance between them. “Those other teachers don't live here,” she said. “You do, and this is the country I have to understand.” Her bright eyes were staring at him. Farther down the road was the green sedan and a man dressed in black—a dark Hispanic fellow, judging by his appearance. His stance was protective, alert and serious. He was watching his young charge pursuing what to him must have seemed like an insane adventure.
"Miss—” Shadow-Below began.
"Mara,” she corrected him.
"I keep giving you my answer, Mara. No, I won't take you.” He shook his head, adding, “I'm the teacher here, and I'm the one who decides who sits in my classroom."
"I'll pay ten times your usual tuition,” she promised. That was twice her last offer.
"Isn't that enough?” she asked.
Shadow-Below didn't answer. Instead, he shook his head, explaining, “I do agree with you. You need to know how to survive in the wild. But that's why you should hire the best and get individual lessons. Fly in that woman from Fairbanks. She's going to help you a lot more than I ever could."
"But I've done research,” Mara said. “And you're the expert I want."
"I'm booked up for this year,” he countered. “You'd have to join one of my regular classes."
"Fine."
"No. Not fine.” Frowning, he said, “A lot of my students think they have money. But I'm sorry to tell you, in terms of wealth, you're in a completely different category."
"My father is,” she blurted. “Not me."
"If you say so."
She was a pretty girl—no, she was beautiful—and she stepped even closer to him, using a pleading smile and her looks. Probably unconsciously using them, because she didn't seem the type to flirt for favors. “I don't want that woman from Fairbanks, and I don't want the man from New Jersey either. I want you."
"Why?"
She glanced back at her bodyguard.
"Give me a fresh reason,” he said. “A better reason."
"I remember you,” she replied. “From before, when you worked security at the City.... I would see you walking by the river. You'd make your rounds, and from a distance, I could tell that you were seeing everything. Hearing everything. More than the rest of us, you looked as if you actually belonged there."
Shadow-Below hesitated, and then asked, “How old are you?"
"Fourteen,” she said. “In a month, I'm fifteen."
"Do you really want to know why, Mara? Why I won't take you?"
Her shoulders slumped. “Tell me."
"It's your father,” he said.
She dipped her eyes, chewing on a lip.
"He scares me, Mara. I don't want to be responsible for his only daughter, particularly while she's a minor."
She had no quick response.
"Besides,” he added, “I don't think Daddy would be happy to learn that his little girl is outside the house of a one-time security guard, waiting for him to come get his mail."
Her gaze lifted. “Do you even know my father?"
Very carefully, Shadow-Below said nothing.
"How much would you need to let me take your next class? Because if you do, I can make it so you don't have to work again in your life."
The rain kept on falling, and Shadow-Below had a jacket full of bills, and he could see that this young woman wasn't going to stop chasing what she wanted. So finally, with a despairing sigh, he said, “Yes,” and then added, “But you'll pay just the usual tuition. I'll make an eleventh slot for you—"
"My friend has to come along,” she interrupted, gesturing at the bodyguard. “Dad's going to insist on that. But I'll pay for him too."
"Does your friend want to take my class?"
"I can ask him, if you want."
"If you want."
"Not particularly, no,” she replied.
"We have three nights and four days canoeing on the Dismal River."
"I know,” she said. “Actually, I wanted to be in that class. You know, that's the country where I got myself into trouble before."
"So I've heard.” With the decision made, Shadow-Below wanted her to leave. “I'll send you the contract today,” he promised.
"Thank you,” said Mara. “Thanks so much.” Then she ran back to the car, excited enough to skip. In that moment, she could have been any fourteen-year-old kid. He heard her telling “her friend” this exceptionally good news, and then she looked back at Shadow-Below, waving before diving into the back seat. Her companion gave him a hard stare before climbing behind the wheel, ordering the vehicle to turn around and drive out of sight.
Across the road was a field where corn used to be grown, and then for a few years it was a laboratory for a succession of biogenetic crops, and now it was forty acres of mutant weeds and volunteer crops browned by the long winter. Suddenly a
ten-year-old boy stepped out of that tangle. Like Shadow-Below, his hair was long and black, and there was a family resemblance to their faces and builds. But it was obvious the boy was going to become a larger, more imposing man. Despite the harsh weather, he was barefoot, wearing minimal clothes plus a thick coat of camouflaging mud. There was a feral quality about him, like a beast masquerading as a human child, yet not trying hard to be convincing. Shadow-Below had not seen the boy in several days. Since coming to live here, Raven Dream went where he wanted and did who-knew-what by himself. He was silent and surprisingly graceful for his bulk, and despite his young age, smart and skeptical. Big eyes gazed down the empty road, and with a sorry voice, he said, “I told you. Didn't I tell you, Uncle? One way or another, that girl was going to get her way."
Shadow-Below was no great expert at building fires. He had little genuine experience, since there were taboos about setting blazes outside the People's secret home. The bulk of his life had been spent inside a maze of tunnels and rooms dug by earlier generations. Winter and summer didn't reach into the sandy earth. A tidy fire had burned in the same hearth for better than a century, and when the People felt thirsty, the river answered their needs. Those particular necessities of life were never in doubt for Shadow-Below. But there was one task that he did exceptionally well. Up the hill from the abandoned school was a half-wild prairie where young grasses waited for fire and drought to kill the weeds. With weapons ranging from steel knives to homemade spears, Shadow-Below taught his class how to hunt. His expert eye read the scat and tracks, and in ways he could never quite explain, he looked inside the minds of animals, guessing where they would hide and which way they'd break when they ran. And for the next two days, he managed to keep eleven stomachs from complaining.
Among civilized people, hunting wild game was enjoying a genuine resurgence. Efficient factories now grew all of the world's food—cultured beef and beer, sweet nuts and luscious fruit, plus enough grain to build mountains. Modern meals were as flavorful as anything from the old farms, but better for the body and gentler on the environment. Farmland had become superfluous. That's why corporations and entrepreneurs were buying up the empty country, spending nothing for swaths of land larger than most nations. Old fields were being replanted with native vegetation, often with genetic tweaks to lift productivity, and game animals were either stocked en masse or wandering in from distant wildernesses. A few years ago, the average citizen didn't have the time or desire to kill deer and grouse. But the wild lands were spreading into everyone's front yard, transforming attitudes and behaviors.
Barbaric acts were still the providence of barbarians. That hadn't changed. Hunting still involved blood and death, and food earned by the most savage means. But more people were rediscovering the goodness of barbarians. Being a hunter-gatherer was a noble thing—a testament to the oldest heritage—and that's why a handsome and sober Lakota man could earn respectable money, showing the wealthy and curious how to read the mud in a streambed, or how to catch and cook half a dozen fat prairie dogs for lunch.
This kind of hunting had its taboos. Shadow-Below could snag sparrows in grass nets, but nobody wanted to hear their necks broken. He made a habit of pointing out insects and earthworms, but he never asked his students to pop that easy protein into their refined mouths. And since it was spring, the game animals were protected; and well aware of their safety, they grazed amiably in the open while the rich carried blunt spears, happily practicing their stalking techniques.
On the third day of class, his students were finishing a little feast of boiled jackrabbit and raw arrowhead root. Smacking his lips, Porter mentioned that he and his son would return in October, armed with composite bows and titanium-bladed arrows. “Survival class is a just-in-case thing,” he said. “This winter, we're eating nothing in our house but buffalo steaks and elk stew."
"I wish you luck,” said Shadow-Below. “And I wish the animals luck too."
Ginger laughed loudest. “I don't like that meat,” she admitted. “Not enough fat to it."
"It's an acquired taste,” their teacher agreed.
She was an insatiable flirt, using both stares and words left unsaid.
Shadow-Below made a point of looking the other way, catching Mara's gaze.
The young girl didn't speak often. But when she had words to offer, everyone else stopped what they were doing and listened.
"Your ancestors used everything on a carcass,” Mara said.
Several adults rushed to agree with the young girl. One biotech tycoon pointed out, “Buffalo were a grocery and hardware store in one. Isn't that right? They were made into clothes and homes, and the sinews were turned into rope, and the bones became tools."
The reflexive praise washed over him and subsided.
Shadow-Below gave the silence time to strengthen, and then he pointed out, “That is not quite true."
People were puzzled, but curious.
"In bad times, yes. Of course they used every little corner of the animal.” But then he admitted, “In good times, the Lakota were just people. If they drove a herd of bison over some high cliff, they'd find themselves with thousands of bodies to deal with. No refrigeration, and their sharpest tools were stone. So what did they do? Exactly what the Europeans did. They'd cut off the animals’ humps and tongues, since those are the easiest parts to reach. In the case of the hump, it has rich stores of fat. And to people raised on wild game, believe me, fat is a delicacy."
Most of his audience looked surprised.
"And consider this,” he added. “The Lakota couldn't turn fifty carcasses into belongings, much less thousands of them. These were nomads—poor people who had to carry their worldly possessions wherever they went. So they could never own much at all.” He laughed harshly, adding, “But just like miserable souls anywhere, my ancestors spent a lot of time and imagination making their hard little lives sound good and glorious."
Nobody was sure what to think.
"If you want to praise somebody,” he continued, “think of the meat packers from twenty, thirty years ago. They were efficient souls. Throw a dead steer at their feet, and they'd make food out of everything that was remotely edible, for people and for dogs, and everything else was used for fertilizer and soap, and other treasures that weren't only useful, but highly profitable too."
Ginger giggled out loud. Her smile was intrigued, her blue eyes captivated, and she was leaning closer than ever.
Damn.
Sitting within earshot, Mara's driver was finishing a modern, cultured lunch pulled from a portable refrigerator no larger than a mailbox. The man had the build and color of a Guatemalan, with perhaps a little Creole thrown into the blood. During these last three days, he hadn't spoken a public word or shown the barest interest in what was being taught. But suddenly he was listening, thoughtfully paying attention to the teacher and his most serious student.
"My ancestors weren't saints,” said Shadow-Below.
Concentration showed in Mara's face and squared shoulders. Did she believe him? Or was she preparing a rebuttal? Or maybe she was becoming disillusioned, and wondering if she should drop out of the class.
"For millions of years,” Shadow-Below continued, “this country was home to mammoths and mastodons, wild horses and camels tall enough to browse on the high trees. The glaciers attacked and fell back, again and again, but the megafauna endured. And then my ancestors’ ancestors arrived here on foot, with no weapons but sharp stone and fire. Yet within a few centuries, every species larger than the bison was gone. Extinct.” He shrugged, accepting this dark vision without complaint. “Some say otherwise. Even with the physical evidence piled high, some people prefer to believe that the changing climate did the damage. That my ancestors were noble shepherds keeping two continents healthy and whole, up until that awful day you bastard Europeans arrived. But that opinion is worse than misguided. Much, much worse."
"But why?” the girl asked. She didn't sound offended or defensive, only deeply curious.
“Thinking the best of you ... how could that be wrong?"
"Because no matter how well intended, that Paradise dream makes my people out to be something they never were. Something they could never become. First and forever, we are human. And if you want to hurt people, and I mean if you want to leave them crippled and lost ... this is exactly what you should do. Give them a map they can't possibly follow. That's the surest way to ruin."
* * * *
His canoes were woven from buckytube fibers impregnated with solar cells and null-zone batteries that supplied power to billions of microscopic bailing pumps, as well as wireless communications and GPS and the other essentials in modern gear. Shadow-Below didn't believe in those cheats, which was why he outlawed phones from his classes and deactivated every electronic wonder. But what remained was a fleet of six smoky-orange canoes better built than any birchbark crap. These long boats were designed for stability and cargo capacity, all while providing an easy ride over slow shallow waters. But the trailer that carried the canoes was an ungainly, strictly homemade affair, built from steel and shredded rubber and other materials from the previous century. Shadow-Below bought the trailer at auction for a single Reagan note. For the first time since last October, he rolled it out of his garage, inflating the two elderly tires and greasing the axle, and after hitching the trailer to his secondhand Tundra, he was finally ready to begin loading.
The canoes weighed too little to be real, but their size left them cumbersome. When Shadow-Below reached for the first canoe, it jumped up into his open hands, and he grabbed the gunwales and spun it overhead, saying to the boy behind him, “Thank you."
Raven had acquired a habit of appearing without warning, sometimes when needed and often when he wasn't. He could have been watching from the trailer house or the shelterbelt trees, and as usual, he was pleased to have sneaked up on his distracted uncle.
Working together, they set the canoe on a high rack, tying it down with smart ropes. With thirteen bodies, all six canoes were going to be required. But since each student was responsible for his own food and camping gear, packing was relatively simple. The paddles and life jackets were stowed in the truck bed, his personal belongings in the cab. Then Shadow-Below pulled out a map, unfolding it on the hood. The sun had set, but the map had its own soft glow. Fingers followed road lines, and he showed Raven where he would drive and park before putting into the river. Except for a single patch of ground marked private, the Dismal lived inside the vast new wilderness. Last April, Shadow-Below made the same voyage—his first official class in a career that still felt new and a little unreal.
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