by John Dalmas
Leaving his father staring after him, Curtis went to the horse shed on one end of the barn, saddled Blaze and rode away, keeping the barn between himself and the house. When he came to the lane along the fence line, he rode north through the beginning of dusk to the Maple Hill Road. He wasn't totally sure this was necessary. Perhaps he could just go in and talk to the clone, tell her he wasn't interested. But the two men with her? They'd kidnaped Varia that day in Macon County; they might kidnap him. And if the men were tigers, burn the house to cover the kidnaping. The bones in it would be his parents' and Ferris's.
He wished, though, that he could have gone in and gotten his own money, and the heavy sheath knife Arbel had given him, that had saved his life in the Kullvordi Hills.
Well, he reminded himself, he at least had his memories and all the things he'd learned. He patted the wallet in his jacket pocket: It held six dollars, and the picture of Varia his mother had given him when he'd mentioned not having one.
And he had a destination, too. He and Varia had talked about maybe going there someday. And the clone—Liiset or whoever she was—had probably never even heard of Oregon.
2
The Jungle Outside Miles City, Montana
It was night. Curtis Macurdy stood amidst sparse brush, watching stew simmer in a gallon lard pail. Sitting or squatting around him were seven men as hungry as he. Other fires, more or less scattered, flickered in the darkness; it seemed to him that more men rode freight trains these days than rode passenger coaches. President Roosevelt talked about economic recovery, and people were halfway hopeful, but times were hard. Perhaps hardest on those men, some no longer young, who'd left families behind, dependent on kinfolk, while they rode freight trains to California's orange groves, Idaho's potato farms, Arizona's irrigated cotton fields, where rumor said jobs could be found.
In the hobo jungle, most were unemployed working men; around this fire, only the grizzled oldtimer who called himself Dutch was not; Dutch and possibly one other. Dutch had lived on the bum a dozen years—since his house had burned with his wife in it.
The other was a seemingly crazy man, whom the rest of them avoided. His eyes were strange, and his lips moved in swift and silent monolog. Usually silent; at times he muttered a monotone of obscenities, the words almost too rapid to recognize. The man's aura was small and murky, its colors indistinct, brownish, with tinges of what might have been indigo. On one side, close to the head, it was black. Focusing more sharply, Macurdy got a sense of apathy, self-destruction, dying.
Dutch put a stick under the pail's wire bail and lifted the stew carefully from the coals. Most of the others got to their feet, anticipating. "Okay," Dutch said, "don't crowd. You'll get yours." Only Macurdy and a burly Indian held back; they and the crazy man. The pail belonged to Dutch, but most of them had contributed to the contents—a tin of beef, one of beans, another of stewed tomatoes, a carrot, a couple of potatoes.... Macurdy's contribution had been a sausage, which Dutch had cut up small. Some of the men had only tin cans to eat from—soup or bean cans, mostly—their rough-cut openings hammered carefully smooth with rocks so a man could drink from them. Dutch, like Macurdy, had an army canteen cup.
"Go ahead," Macurdy said when their turn had come. The Indian looked at him a moment, then held his can out, and Dutch ladled it full with a spoon. Macurdy felt a twinge of guilt at taking any. He'd learned to draw energy from the Web of the World when he needed to, though Vulkan had told him he'd need to eat fairly regularly for other needs. But his stomach grumbled and complained when unfed. Besides, refusing food would make him seem too peculiar.
Macurdy too had a spoon. The stew wasn't bad, he decided, the serving small but thick. Dutch's bindle held salt and pepper. Dutch was looking at the crazy man now. "You better have some," he said at last. "When this is gone, there won't be no more till we rustle up the makings."
The crazy man's lips had stopped. Slowly he got to his feet, staring intently not at the pail but at Dutch, then limped over and stood empty handed, left shoulder hunched.
"Ain't you got no can?" Dutch asked.
The shaggy head shook a negative.
"Anybody got a can for this guy?"
No one answered.
"Where's that bean can we had? That'll work."
His canteen cup in one hand, Macurdy went to where the can lay, and brought it to the crazy man. Its inner rim was jagged with teeth of tinned steel, formed by opening it with a jack knife.
The man held it out to Dutch.
"No hurry," Dutch said. "Hammer down the edges first, or you'll cut yourself."
The can remained unmovingly extended, and shrugging, Dutch filled it; the others had paused in their eating to watch. The silent man drank off most of the liquid, then unflinchingly reached into the can, plucked out pieces and put them into his mouth, licking and sucking stew and blood from his fingers, heedless of ragged steel edges and staring men. When he was done, he retreated out of the firelight and squatted again, sucking his cuts. None of the watchers said a word; after a moment they continued eating.
When they were done, the men withdrew a little distance to sleep, Macurdy and the Indian lying down a few feet from each other. They'd been together since a jungle outside St. Cloud, Minnesota, where a confused and exasperated Macurdy had asked how to find Oregon. "From here," the Indian had answered, "take the Northern Pacific. Don't take the Union Pacific! Oregon's where I'm going, too. I live there. If you want, we can travel together." They hadn't talked a lot in the twenty-odd hours since then; Macurdy didn't even know the man's name. When he'd said his own, the Indian had answered "White people call me Chief," saying it without irony. They felt a mutual affinity, but the Indian seemed reticent by nature, and Macurdy left it at that.
Macurdy's only bedding was a horse blanket he'd gotten from Max, to make a bindle and for appearances. He could keep as warm as he liked by drawing on the Web of the World, with or without a blanket. Just now he wasn't sleepy—not a bit—but it seemed better to lie there and rest than wander around.
Briefly he thought of offering his blanket to the crazy man, who had nothing but the ragged filthy clothes he wore, then decided against it. God knew what bugs the man might harbor.
Somewhere not far off he heard angry voices, and wondered if there'd be a fight. His hand felt for the heavy skinning knife he'd bought in Dickinson, North Dakota earlier that day, sheathed now inside his pant leg against his left calf. In Indiana there'd been no need to go armed, but on the bum like this it seemed a good idea.
The noise was coming nearer, two men arguing drunkenly till they stood by Dutch's fire. Macurdy had raised himself on an elbow to watch. Some of the others had gotten up, wary of potential violence. Suddenly one of the two—seemingly the drunkest—drew a knife and slashed at the other, who staggered backward screaming. The first, off balance, fell on the fire. Then both were screaming, and Macurdy was there, jerking the one from the bed of coals, throwing him down, slapping the flames out with his bare hands. That done, he crouched over the other, who had dropped to his knees, holding his belly and keening.
"Shut up and lay down!" Macurdy ordered, and slapped him sharply. The man obeyed, and Macurdy examined the wound with eyes and hands. The belly had been slashed, the blade slicing fat and muscle, leaving a ten-inch gash that welled blood but had not cut through the abdominal wall. "Lay still!" he ordered calmly. "You're not going to die. I'm going to stop the blood now." The words, though not loud, were an imperative, beyond argument. Macurdy's fingers explored lines of energy, weaving some of them into a web of occlusion to halt the bleeding, and as an energy template for healing, the latter procedure learned not from Arbel, but from Omara, a healing Sister. Within half a minute Macurdy stood up. "Lay still now," he repeated. "You'll be all right if you lay still."
Then he turned to the burned man, who writhed and whimpered on the ground. After stilling him with a command, Macurdy turned him onto his belly and pulled up the charred sweater, the scorched shirt. The burn was l
ess severe than he'd expected, the skin red but not charred, blisters rising. He'd never had great confidence with burns, but now, without Arbel to lean on, it seemed he'd learned his lessons better than he'd realized.
When he'd finished, he looked around. "Who'll help me with these guys?" he asked. The others stared, awed and a little fearful of him.
"I will," said the Indian. "What do we do?"
"We'll help them to the yard and ask the bulls to call an ambulance. These burns can get infected, and that cut's deep enough, it might tear through. If it does, he'll likely die."
They helped both men to their feet, and through the jungle to the railyard. One of the bulls had heard the screaming and called the sheriff's office; a sheriff's car had arrived before Macurdy and the Indian. The car had a shortwave radio, something new in police equipment. The deputy used it to call for an ambulance, then questioned Macurdy and the others while they waited.
When he'd finished, he stared hard at Macurdy. "I should book you for vagrancy, but I won't. Just get out of here and don't let us see you again."
Macurdy nodded—Chief was being as inconspicuous as anyone can who stands six feet and weighs 230—and the two of them headed back to the jungle. "How are your hands?" Chief asked.
"My hands?"
"You used them to beat out the flames in that guy's clothes."
Macurdy peered at them. It was too dark to see whether they were burned or not. "Okay, I guess. They don't hurt." He contemplated the question as they walked. Maybe healing the others had healed his hands, or maybe somehow they'd never been burned. He was pretty sure he'd felt no pain.
Dutch had watched their goods while they were gone, and after asking a few questions, retired to his bedroll. Chief laid dry sticks on the coals and blew them into flame, then the two large men sat without talking, Macurdy examining his hands by the firelight. It was Chief who broke the silence. "I'm going to tell you my name," he murmured. "I don't tell it to a white man very often. Only when I have to, like to get a job. It's Roy. Roy Klaplanahoo."
Macurdy repeated it quietly. "Roy Klaplanahoo. Mine is Curtis Macurdy. You already knew the Curtis part."
Roy nodded. "I saw how you lit the fire. The others thought you used a match, but you didn't. Then when you stopped that guy's bleeding, I knew what you are: You're a shaman. I never heard of a white shaman before."
"Yeah. I apprenticed to a white shaman named Arbel. That was in another country. But then I got away from it."
"What are you going to do in Oregon?"
"I thought maybe I could get a job logging there."
"My brother and me log sometimes for the Severtson brothers. Swedes. They like us because we turn out lots of logs. They're pretty good to work for; don't cheat anyone, not even Indians. And they feed good. Maybe they'll hire you."
"Thanks. It should be easier where I know someone."
That was the end of their conversation for a while. They watched the fire die down again, then went back to where they'd bedded before. "You want to use my blanket?" Macurdy murmured.
"Your blanket? What will you use?"
"That's something else I learned from Arbel: how to keep myself warm."
Roy considered that remarkable statement for a minute, then nodded. "Thanks. I could use another blanket." He got up and laid the blankets on top of each other, then rolled up loosely in them. "When we get where I live," he said, "you can stay with my family as long as you want."
No more was said, and after a while, Roy's aura told Macurdy the Indian was asleep. In no hurry to sleep himself, Macurdy lay awake with his thoughts. At first they were of his ex-wives, Varia and Melody, but after a bit shifted to a giant wild boar named Vulkan, a four-legged sorcerer large enough that Macurdy could ride on its bristly shoulders.
Strange thoughts that soon blurred into stranger dreams.
3
Discovering Oregon
Near dawn, Roy shook Macurdy awake. "It's time to go," he said quietly, "before it starts to get daylight."
For a moment Macurdy lay there, his dream receding like a wave from a beach, leaving a brief wash of images and impressions. The principal image was of Vulkan, who in the dream had called himself a bodhi sattva. Macurdy had no idea what a bodhi sattva was.
Silently he rolled to hands and knees, got to his feet and looked around. A half moon had risen about midnight and begun its trip across the sky. Roy was rolling his bindle, and Macurdy rolled his. Then, bindles slung on shoulders, they entered the railyard, keeping to the shadows of freight cars. They could hear the chuffing of a yard engine, the clash of couplings in long chain reactions as a train was assembled. In the night it sounded spooky. The yard seemed a maze of tracks, and to move through it inconspicuously required crossing some of them. Often this meant climbing between cars, and a string of them could jerk into deadly motion without warning.
Others from the jungle had preceded the two, and at the far end, Roy and Macurdy waited with three of them in the shadow of a hopper car, watching the main line. Finally a tandem of line engines rolled slowly past, followed by freight cars gradually picking up speed. The men moved out of the shadows, trotting alongside. An empty boxcar pulled even with Roy, and grasping the edge of the open door, the burly Indian pulled himself in, then rolled to hands and knees and helped Macurdy. A moment later they stood in shadowed darkness, their legs braced against the swaying. Macurdy sniffed a familiar aroma. Alfalfa. This car had hauled baled hay recently.
Dawn also traveled west, and soon overtook them. Roy had blocked the door open with a length of dunnage stashed in the car, and part of the time they stood watching the countryside roll by. And feeling their stomachs grumble, for they had eaten only twice in two days. From time to time they drank, barely, from their canteens, swallowing a short mouthful only after swishing it around for a few seconds.
Occasionally, at some high plains village, the train paused. Cars would be shunted onto a siding—empties to be filled or laden cars to be emptied. The men kept out of sight then, grateful when the train began moving once more without their car having been cut from it.
By midmorning, Macurdy had seen his first big mountains, bigger and more abrupt than any he'd seen in Yuulith. By noon they were hemmed in by them, and several large locomotives—"Mallies" Roy called them—had been added to drag the train over the continental divide. Macurdy got a look at the massive black engines, spouting gritty black smoke as they passed their own freight cars on a hairpin curve.
That evening their car was part of a string cut out in the yard at Missoula. By then they were glad to get out; they were out of water, and their stomachs complained constantly. Other 'boes were disembarking too, and Roy quickened his pace.
"We got to be first," he told Macurdy. "Find a restaurant or grocery store and see what they got in their garbage. You can always find something, but after other guys have picked through it, it's kind of bad." They were in the lead when they saw a cafe ahead. It was closed. "Let's find one open," Macurdy said. "I've got a little cash. We can eat a real meal."
They walked several blocks before they found one. Gilt letters on the window spelled "Sig's Cafe." A middle-aged couple sat at a table, and two working men sat side by side at the counter. The two hoboes went in, filthy with coal soot from locomotive smokestacks. The cafe's owner, a tall, rawboned, blond man, got instantly to his feet, scowling: Two steps took him to the revolver he kept on a shelf beneath the cash register. Macurdy read his aura. "Are you Sig?" he asked. The man nodded. "I've got money," Macurdy told him. "You got a place we can sit?"
He could almost see the man's mind considering. Business was poor, but two bums? They were so dirty he'd have to clean the chairs they sat on. "Let's see the money," he said in accented English.
From a shirt pocket, Macurdy removed a grubby one-dollar bill. The man pointed to a small round table in a back corner, two chairs beside it, and when they'd seated themselves, he brought a menu. Macurdy looked it over. "I'll take a pork chop with mashed potatoes,"
he said. "And buttermilk."
"The same for me," Roy added.
"The buttermilk's extra."
"We'll have it anyway," Macurdy answered. "We only ate twice in two days, and then not much." The man's aura still reflected distrust, so Macurdy handed him the dollar bill. "Take it out of this. Maybe we'll have something else when we're done."
The meal came with bread, butter, and rice pudding with canned milk, but before they were done, they'd each had another serving of potatoes. It used up the whole dollar. In Sig's eyes they were customers now, not bums, and pulling another chair over, he talked with them briefly. There was no work to be found in Missoula. The sawmills that were running at all were down to one shift a day, running on inventory; almost no logging camps were manned. "I heard it ain't no better in Spokane," Sig added. "Maybe on the coast."
Macurdy and Roy went back to the railyard with stomachs and canteens filled. They were not heartened by what they'd heard. Roy said if they needed to, they could stay with his family till something broke for them. But he didn't sound terribly confident; his family would be hard up at best, trawling salmon for a cannery that probably wasn't paying much at all.