by Allen Steele
Now that Castro had extinguished the oil lamps inside the cabin, the only sign of their presence was the amber glow of the Savant’s right eye, and even that was shrouded by the cowl of his robe. He’d wanted to use his rifle’s scope, but Manny had cautioned him against it; he suspected that the creatures’ eyes were infrared-sensitive, and the rifle’s IR beam would frighten them away. The Savant had even taken the precaution of leaving Oscar inside the house; the dog had scratched and whined at the door for a while, before curling up on the floor in disgust.
They waited in silence for a long time, watching Bear as it ascended above the trees, its luminescence bathing the field with a pale blue light. Parson was starting to nod off when Castro tapped him on the shoulder; without a word, he pointed off to the right.
Sitting up a little straighter, Parson stared at rows of corn. For another minute or so, he saw nothing. Then there was a dry rustle among the stalks, and a moment later a small man-shaped form emerged from the cropland, less than thirty feet from the cabin.
Parson watched as the tiny figure hesitated at the edge of the corn. In the wan bearlight, it appeared to search the area, its small head turning first one way then another; it looked straight at them, and for an instant, he had a fleeting impression of a pair of oversized eyes meeting his own.
He thought the intruder would retreat, yet it didn’t. Instead, it made a small sound—keecha quireep cheeka!—and then it darted forward, keeping low to the ground, its hands almost touching the soil. Once in the clear, it stopped and looked back. Cheeka! Hoo-reep keecha! And now two more figures came out of the corn behind it, the larger of the pair dragging something on the ground behind it.
The trio moved toward the wheelbarrow half-filled with green tomatoes that Castro had left out in front of the house. They gathered around it, picking and sniffing at the vegetables, making small chirps, hoots, and whistles. At first, Parson thought they might steal the barrow, but instead the first one overturned it, then played curiously with its wheel, while the other two gathered as many tomatoes as they could carry in their small arms.
The one who’d scouted the terrain watched them go, then it reluctantly abandoned its examination of the wheelbarrow, grabbed an armload of tomatoes, and hastened after them. A few more excited cries—cheeka! kaka-sheek! woo-weet cheeka!—and they’d vanished as quickly as they’d come, leaving behind only the wheelbarrow and the object they’d brought with them.
Once more, the field was silent.
“All right, they’re gone.” For the first time in nearly two hours, Castro moved. “Now let’s see if they’ve reciprocated our generosity.”
Parson followed the Savant down the porch steps and across the field to where the wheelbarrow lay upon its side. “Too big for them to steal,” Castro said in reply to Parson’s unasked question. “The big one continues to be intrigued by it, so I expect he may eventually try to take it away. But maybe not, if they don’t have any immediate use for it.”
“And you say you’ve been doing this…how long?”
“The last two summers. Intentionally, at least.” Castro bent down to pick up the barrow and set it upright. “Before then, they just stole whatever they could get their hands on. After I figured out their system, I let them know I’d rather trade than sic Oscar on them. Since then it’s worked out pretty well. Here, look…”
Bending down again, he picked up the object the creatures had brought with them. Parson saw that it was his tarp: torn in a couple of places, its cords missing, yet it had been returned, just as the Savant had predicted.
“They didn’t want the tarp itself,” Castro said. “Anything made of plastic doesn’t interest them very much. But something they can use, like elastic cords…”
“And you knew they’d do this?”
“Not really. Just a guess based on a hypothesis. They’re called the chirreep…or perhaps a mountain tribe called reep-chirreep, although I’m not certain of that yet. They’ve been spotted here and there all over Coyote. Carlos Montero found them first on Barren Isle northwest of the Meridian Sea. Later, another tribe was located on Midland, just south of Mt. Bonestell. They’ve been given a lot of different names. Sandthieves, treecrawlers…”
“So I’ve heard. And you’ve been studying them?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Castro waved a hand toward his crops. “In fact, that’s the main reason why I took up farming. If you want to study a primitive species in the wild, start by offering them food. Once they learn to trust you, perhaps you can establish some sort of communication. Barter is usually the next step.”
Parson examined the tarp in his hands. It could still be repaired, if he cared to use it again. “An interesting line of research. Think you could use an assistant?”
“Perhaps.” The Savant started pushing the wheelbarrow away. “This world has enough settlers and soldiers and developers. What it needs is a few more students.”
Parson watched him go, then turned to gaze at the woods around him. Perhaps life had a higher calling than mere survival. He’d found freedom; now he had something to do with it.
“Sounds like a bargain,” he murmured, then he followed the Savant back to the cabin.
Part 3
THE BLACK MOUNTAINS
The supply wagon that carried her into the Black Mountains was drawn by an aging shag that looked as if it was going to drop dead any moment. Grunting within its harness, it hauled the wagon the last few hundred feet up the steep dirt road, while the drover shook its reins and muttered obscenities under his breath. Feeling pity for the poor creature, Susan stepped off the moving wagon almost as soon as they were in sight of Mill Creek Camp; if the shag noticed the slight lessening of its burden, though, it gave no indication, save perhaps to emit one more of the farts that had threatened to make her ill during the long journey from Clarksburg.
Noticing that she’d jumped off, the drover reached back into the wagon bed and pulled out her duffel bag. “Here y’go,” he said. “Ain’t much further, but if you insist on getting your exercise…”
“No, wait, I didn’t mean for you to—” Susan began, but before she could stop him he carelessly flung the bag in her direction. She couldn’t catch it, though, before it fell into the road. Susan heard the drover laugh as she rushed over to retrieve it. She had no idea what she might have said or done to deserve this sort of treatment; the old codger was being mean only for its own sake.
Sighing, she picked up the bag by its strap and slung it over her shoulder, then followed the wagon up the road, swatting at the skeeters that purred around her face. Nearby was a log flume, elevated upon stilts a few feet above the ground. The camp was only a couple of hundred yards away; it was late afternoon, the early autumn sun beginning to set behind Mt. Shapiro. Still time enough for her to locate her uncle and find out where she was supposed to stay.
From somewhere through the trees, the sound of something like rolling thunder. Susan looked around in time to see a massive rough bark log, seven or eight feet long and twice as thick as her own body, making its descent down the flume. Carried along by a rush of water, the log bumped against the sides of the trough as it hurtled to the bottom of the mountain, where the flume spilled into Mill Creek. There it would be lashed together with other logs, then floated down the creek to Clarksburg and the mills, where it would be cured, cut, and sawn into lumber.
Interesting, but not her concern. She was here on business of a more scientific nature. Or at least that was how she perceived it; she had no idea whether her uncle would see things the same way.
The logging camp had been established on a saddleback on the southwestern slopes of Mt. Shapiro, a couple of thousand feet below the summit. A dozen canvas tents erected on wood platforms; ten were large enough to sleep a half-dozen people, while the other two had been joined together to form a mess tent. Clothes hung from lines strung between the tents. A couple of privies at the edge of the woods, and a small shack that, judging from the adjacent water tank, served a
s communal bathhouse. Nearby was a corral where a couple of shags grazed on hay bales; the wagon she’d ridden up the mountain was parked next to it, but the drover was nowhere in sight. Indeed, the camp appeared to be deserted, yet wood smoke drifted upward from a tin flue poking through the roof of the mess tent, and that was a good sign that someone was inside.
The screen door creaked on rusty hinges as she pulled it open, slammed shut behind her as she stepped inside. The tent was dim, the fish-oil lamps hanging from the rafter beams as yet unlit. A long blackwood table ran down the center of the room, with benches on either side; a potbellied stove stood off to one side, a pile of tree knots beside it, and the air was warm with the aroma of baked bread. From behind a closed flap at the far side of the room, she heard faint voices.
“Hello?” Susan left her bag next to the door, cautiously ventured closer. “Anyone here?”
The voices went silent, then she heard a chair moving back. The flap moved aside and a heavyset woman, starch-fed and with snarled blond hair, peered out at her. She said nothing for a moment, examining Susan with eyes narrow and suspicious, then she glanced behind her. “Yep, it’s her,” she said to someone else, then she looked back at Susan. “Well, don’t just stand there. He’s waiting for you.”
Susan hesitated, then walked across the dining room, ducking her head a little as she passed through the flap impatiently held open by the woman. The kitchen was cramped: crates and barrels stacked against the walls, a wooden cupboard, a bunk bed, a small table upon which someone had been cutting vegetables. Skillets and pots hung from hooks along the rafter, and a large kettle simmered atop a brick oven.
Two men sat in wicker rocking chairs next to the oven. One was the wagon driver; he favored her with a wily told-you-so smirk as he took a drink from the earthware jug in his lap. Susan didn’t recognize the other man until he turned around, and even then it took her a moment to realize that he was her uncle.
“Would’a gotten here a lot quicker if you’da let James bring you the rest’a the way.” Lars Thompson’s tongue was thick with alcohol; she could smell the bearshine on his breath from ten feet away. “Hope you enjoyed your constitutional.”
“Just thought I’d stretch my legs.” James cackled at this, and she decided not to mention the rest. “Good to see you again, Uncle Lars.”
“Well, hell…” Lars rose from his chair, stomped across the kitchen to wrap his arms around her. “Good t’see you too, Susie,” he said, using a childhood nickname she’d long since outgrown. “Been a long time…a long time.”
Drunk or not, at least he got that part right. It had been many years since the last time she’d seen Aunt Marie’s husband. There was no blood-relation between them; her father’s younger sister had met Lars when they’d served together in the Rigil Kent brigade during the Revolution. That was back when they’d all lived in Defiance, and although Susan had only been a child then, she remembered how much Carlos had disapproved of his sister taking up with Lars; indeed, only a few months after Liberation Day, after he’d become mayor of Liberty, her father had exiled both of them from New Florida, after they’d come close to killing someone in a brawl.
As a condition of their punishment, he and Aunt Marie, along with the savant Manuel Castro, had been sent out to explore the frontier. Their mission had succeeded, in spades; after several months of exploring the southern coast of Great Dakota, the trio established a camp on its southeastern shore, just across the West Channel from New Florida. Great Dakota offered vast forests that didn’t exist on New Florida and were more accessible than the ones on Midland, and so it wasn’t long before Lars and Marie were joined by his Uncle Clark and Aunt Molly. Together with Lars’s younger brother Garth, they founded Clarksburg, thus setting up a family-owned timber company that would soon become the colony’s main industry.
All lamb on Coyote bore white wool, yet nonetheless Susan knew the expression “black sheep of the family,” and how that applied to Lars Thompson. Clark Thompson had been the colony’s original major, but after he was killed in an accident, his elder nephew had assumed the role. Lars was a drunk, though, and his incompetence nearly led the colony to ruin before his own family had deposed him. Aunt Molly assumed the task of leading the new colony, but only for a short while; by then, Marie had straightened out her act, and it wouldn’t be long before even Garth, once as wild as his older brother, was responsible enough to take over the job of mayor.
To keep Lars satisfied, Molly Thompson gave Lars the job of running the family’s logging operations in the Black Mountains. On the whole, it was a wise decision. Lars was never a good politician, but he was a pretty good boss, and considering that the Thompson clan derived its power and fortune from the timber business, the position of camp foreman carried considerable responsibility. Yet it was no secret that his family would have little to do with him otherwise; he seldom spoke to either his aunt or younger brother, and his wife remained married to him in name only.
So here he was, her wicked Uncle Lars: tough and lean as a faux-birch sapling, hair cropped short by a careless pair of scissors, beard long and coarse and tinged with grey. No more than forty by Gregorian reckoning, nonetheless he looked much older; he might have been pleasant to look upon, were it not for a couple of missing teeth and the hollow look of someone who’d spent far too many nights with a jug in his lap.
“Good to see you, too.” Susan gently prized herself from his arms. “Sorry it took awhile to get here.”
“Well, y’know…” Lars stifled a burp behind his hand. “’S’cuse me…I understand you’re a teacher now. Spendin’ your time lecturin’ and writin’ and all that, don’t s’pose you get much a chance to see your kin.” He turned to the others. “James, Tillie, this here’s my niece. Susan Montero. Come all the way out here to help with our l’il pest control problem.”
“Hope so. ’Bout ready to make me lose my mind.” Tillie had settled down on a stool next to the table, where she resumed dicing potatoes and carrots. “Have to keep a light on all night, just so they won’t swipe anything. Can’t hardly sleep a wink.”
“Yeah, well, least you get some.” James took another swig from the jug. “Gotten to the point where I have’ta post night watch on the corral. Spook the shags one more time, they’re liable to break down the fence.”
“They harass the shags?” Susan became curious. “Never heard of chirreep doing that.”
“That your name for ’em?” Lars took the jug from James. “Treecrawlers is what we call ’em. ’Course you’d know better, considering how you’ve studied ’em.”
“You study these things?” James gave Susan a bleary-eyed stare. “Thought Lars just said you were a teacher.” He looked at Lars. “Shee’it, thas’ what she tol’ me. If’n I’d known better…”
“I’m a naturalist. I teach biology at the university, when I’m not doing fieldwork.” She tried to make it as plain as possible, yet no one seemed to understand what she was saying. “I study chirreep…treecrawlers, I mean…in their natural habitat.”
“Been doing this all her life.” Lars draped an arm around her shoulders. “In fact, when she was a little girl, she—”
“I’m sorry, but I’m really tired.” Susan knew what her uncle was about to say, and it wasn’t something she liked to discuss, least of all with strangers. Not only that, but there was something in the way he touched her that made her uneasy. “It’s been a long day,” she said, quickly stepping out from beneath his arm. “I could use a nap. If you could show me where I’m going to stay…”
“Sure, ’course.” Stroking his beard, Lars made a pretense of pondering the question. “Now that I think of it, there’s a spare cot in my tent. Private quarters, too, so you wouldn’t have to—”
“My upper bunk is empty.” Tillie didn’t look up from her work. “Joe, my husband, he’s gone into town for a few days, so I’m sure he won’t mind. Gets a little busy at mealtime, but if you’d like to lend a hand…”
“Love to. Whateve
r I can do to help.” Susan hoped that she hadn’t spoken too quickly; from the corner of her eye, she could see Lars glaring at the cook. “It’ll give me a chance to meet everyone here. Might help me assess the situation a little better.”
Tillie laughed out loud. “You’re going to be assessing biscuits and ham at five in the morning, but that’s all right with me. Get that bag of yours, then you can grab a little shut-eye.” Rising from the table, she gathered a double handful of diced potatoes and dropped them into the kettle. “You men need to take your cocktail hour somewhere else. I’ve got dinner to make, and our guest would like a little time to herself. Now shoo.”
It seemed for a moment that Lars was going to argue with her, but when Tillie looked back at him, there was something in her face that made him reconsider. “Well, awright then,” he murmured, then he headed for the back door, motioning for James to follow him. “See you later, Susie. We’ll talk some more at dinner…and I got someone I want you to meet.”
“Looking forward to it.” Susan watched as the two men wandered out of the kitchen. The screen door slammed shut, and she sighed and sat down on a barrel. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “I appreciate the save.”
“Think nothing of it.” Tillie dropped some carrots into the kettle. “Half the women in camp have had to be saved from him.”
Susan had been looking for an excuse to get rid of Uncle Lars, but once she climbed up on the bunk bed, she realized how tired she really was. So she dozed for an hour or so, listening to Tillie humming to herself as she moved around the kitchen, and as the daylight seeping in through the cracks in the tent began to wane, she got up and asked if there was anything she could do.
Tillie put her to work in the dining room, setting the table for dinner. Plates, mugs, and flatware were stacked in the kitchen cupboard; once they were laid out, the cook showed Susan how to stoke a fire in the potbellied stove. Once it was hot, Tillie brought out a pan of fresh-baked corn bread and placed it on top to keep warm; she placed jugs of sourgrass ale on the table, then stepped outside to ring the dinner bell. By the time she brought out the stew, the loggers were coming through the front door.