The Iron Dragon’s Mother

by Michael Swanwick

  The hag grinned, revealing irregular rows of teeth that had been filed down to points. “You still have to entertain us. Only we get to choose how.”

  Cat didn’t much like the sound of that. But she nodded acceptance. It wasn’t exactly like she was being given a choice, after all. To change the subject, she asked Loosh, “How’d you end up here?”

  “Exactly how you’d expect,” the haint said. “He was here before any of us arrived. But the lore is that he was a jack roller and a jungle buzzard who got caught with his hands where they don’t belong. The way I hear it, he ain’t never rode a train so much as once.”

  Loosh glared hard at the haint. “Everbody lies about what they don’t know and Hot Box Hannah here ain’t no better than nobody else in that regard. Used to be,” he said, “the jungle was a pert egalitarian place. We all got along, male or female, haint or solid. One for all and all for everone, share and share alike. But that was long ago. There was incidents. Some of the boys took to using the occasional skirt for recreational purposes, if you know what I mean. That’s when the ladies started keeping their own jungles. I learned pert damn quick to steer clear of them. Some of these bitches is tough customers—”

  “Nor don’t you forget it,” Bessie Long Gone said.

  “—who’ll cut you just as soon as look at you. So I kept my distance. Didn’t need female companionship anyway. The trains was my one true love. I discovered that the freight trains go places that passenger trains never do, and that the express trains go yet farther. Then there’s the cannonballs, which don’t have engineers or crews, but run wild and go even distanter than the expresses. Almost nobody is good enough to catch a ride on them, they pass through so fast. But I figured out how and I rode out hard. I seen oceans as red as blood and passed through mountain ranges made of solid diamond. Been to places you ain’t never heard of: Saguenay, Cibola, Takama-ga-hara, Poughkeepsie, La Ciudad Blanca…”

  “Never heard of them and don’t believe in them neither!” the haint scoffed.

  “But one night I was camped out in the Diamond Mountains, next to a stream that tastes just like whiskey only you don’t wake up with a hangover the next day, minding my own business, when a train went by what looked like nothing I never seen before.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that look like, then?” Hot Box Hannah asked.

  Loosh’s voice grew dreamy. “Looked like it was made of moonlight. Or maybe ice. It kinda glowed. And was it moving? It was hypering! More’n twice as fast as any train I ever been on and, like I said, I’ve rode the best. Made the rails ring, I tell you. Made the air quake. It went on beyond astonishing.”

  “Now you’re gonna talk about the whistle,” Bessie Long Gone said, in a way that indicated she’d heard such tales from him before. “It was the most beautiful thing you ever heard, am I right?”

  “Stands to reason. A train like that? Course it was. It was the sweetest, purest thing you ever heard in your life. Sounded like the Goddess fingering herself to orgasm.

  “So I says to myself: This fucker I have got to ride. Only how? That one stumped me for the longest time. But then I realized that locomotives are like anything else—they got to mate if they want to keep the species going. Now, I hadn’t never seen nor heard of anything like that. So it only stands to reason they must do it somewhere out of sight. That’s logic. And where better than the Diamond Mountains? So I stayed there by my lonesome for over a year, watching, waiting, getting the lay of the land. Lucky for me, the fruit there grows year-round. Only thing is, it’s so sweet as to make your gums bleed just looking at it. That’s how I lost all these teeth. I was just about ready to give up when that ghostly locomotive passed through in the middle of the night—it was the fifth time I seen it—and in its wake there come a second one, gaining on her, only it was as black as she was white. I was up in a flash and run to the tracks. And there stood the most ordinary-looking woman you ever saw. Well, I—”

  “I thought you was gonna tell us how you wound up chained to a log,” Hot Box Hannah said.

  “What the fuck does it matter how I wound up here?” Loosh retorted. “What matters is that I was the king of the hobos, the freest man on the face of Faerie, and the first one ever—the woman didn’t count, as you’d know if you let me speak—to catch a ride on the White Locomotive! That’s the man I was. I was the king. And what have you done with your life? Eh? Eh?”

  All the while Loosh was talking, the little girl had kept playing. Now she came to the end of her tune, put down her flute, and said, “Slumgullion looks about done.” She picked up a pot and hammered on it with a serving spoon. Hobos came shambling from their tents and huts, carrying cups and plates.

  * * *

  Slumgullion turned out to be a watery stew made from canned veggies and welfare meat. She’d had worse. But while Cat ate, because she was so obviously new to their life, a number of the tramps gathered around her. Bessie Long Gone was a talker and so it wasn’t long before everyone knew everything there was to know about Cat. Not that there was much to be known. But they all wanted to wise her up.

  “You stay in this profession long enough,” a haint said, holding up a hand that was missing two digits, “you’re going to lose a few fingers. That’s just a given. I count myself lucky I ain’t lost a foot.”

  “I lost two fingers and a fella I was fond of.”

  “My fella cheated on me. Coulda put up with that, maybe, but he threw me out as well and I kinda lost it. I maybe killed him, I dunno. I was doing a lot of moondust back then. Either way, I lost him.”

  “Then there’s jail. Sooner or later, you’re going to end up in the jug, am I right?” the haint said. “You know I am. Maybe you go into town, entertain a slumming Teg in the back room of a bar, coldcock him with a beer bottle, and get caught by the gendarmerie rifling through his wallet. It happens.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Evoe, sister.”

  “Could be you come upon a drunk fey, slit his gullet, sell an organ or two while they’s still fresh, and put what remains in a jar to be shown in the freak tent of a forty-miler. You got a problem with that? Then maybe the problem is you.”

  “You don’t understand nothing,” an owl-woman said. “You think you can live the life, keep your fingers, and never get thrown in the jug? Good luck with that. It’s like head lice. You can go to the Daughters of Lilith mission and they’ll chop your hair short, give you the shampoo, and run that fine-toothed comb through what you’ve got left, but then you’re going to come back to the jungle and you’ll be talking to somebody and they’ll just leap from her head to yours. No way you can get rid of them for long. You just gotta learn to live with ’em, comprende?”

  “Fuckin’ A,” said one of the haints.

  Cat focused on not scratching her head.

  * * *

  When the stew had been eaten, Loosh broke up Cat’s energy bars and passed them around for dessert. A bottle appeared and was handed about, followed by several joints, and somebody brought out a crack pipe. Cat pretended to swig from the bottle, stoppering it with her tongue, and passed along the drugs without partaking. Nobody seemed to take offense.

  Then, at last, it was time for entertainment.

  Bessie Long Gone served as emcee. “First up,” she said, “we got us a pair of songbirds.”

  These were two snow-mays, albino white and so frail they looked like a sudden breeze might blow them away. “I … we…” one said, staring at the ground. The other blushed red. Each took a deep breath in and let it out. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the two clasped hands as if about to sing something spiritual and sweet. Then they broke into a bumptious, knee-slapping dancehall number, full of whoops and shrieks, sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Baghdad”:

  “Beeeecause I could not stop for him

  Kernunnos stopped for meeeee…”

  The song went on longer than Cat might have liked, and ended to laughter and applause. When Bessie nodded in sage approval, the snow-mays looked
relieved.

  “You’re up, Cat,” the hag said. A nagini appeared at her elbow and with a quick jerk of the chin gestured: Go.

  Cat stood nervously. Bright eyes focused on her, some hostile, others merely waiting for her to fail. Haints flickered closer. Bessie sprawled back on an elbow, looking skeptical.

  “I’ve got your back,” Helen murmured. “Just say what I say. And sell it! Make them believe it’s all true. It’s as easy as that.”

  So Cat clapped her hands three times sharply, the way a professional storyteller would, to call for silence. She touched her head, her lips, her heart, and her sex, signifying that her every word would be, in some sense, true. Then she let Helen’s words flow through her.

  “This,” she said, “is the story of Eve and Snake.”

  * * *

  Mother Eve was going up and down in the earth. This is what she used to do. She did not walk because at that time all women had serpent-bodies from the waist down. But she got around well enough. In her travels, she met Snake, who had beautiful long legs, and said to him, “Lend me your legs for a time. I promise I’ll give them back.”

  “Why should I do anything for you?” Snake asked. There was bad blood between them because after Eve ate the apple and got thrown out of the Garden, she tried to blame everything on him. “You told terrible lies about me.”

  “Oh! I did not think those things counted as lies, because I wanted them to be true,” Eve said. “Never mind that. Just give me your legs.”

  Snake did not want to do this thing, but once Eve began talking, up became down and day became night and somehow he gave in. “But only for a few days,” he said.

  “Only for a few days,” Eve agreed.

  A few days went by, and then a week. A month passed, and still Snake was crawling around on his belly. So he went to find Eve.

  But by then Eve had grown very fond of her new body. “These are such nice legs, I think they must have been given to you by mistake,” she said. “I’m sure they were supposed to be mine all along.” Then she threw a rock at Snake, and he slithered away.

  This is why women have such beautiful legs to this very day. It’s been millions of years since Eve stole them and, except for Snake, nobody has complained yet.

  * * *

  When the story ended, there was a moment of astonished silence. Then Cat’s listeners applauded, hooting and laughing and slamming the flats of their hands against logs or their feet against the earth. The haints waved their arms in the air. She flushed with pleasure.

  “That was an evil story,” she said, however, not aloud.

  “Did the job, though.”

  “I didn’t like how it ended.”

  “Everybody’s a critic,” Helen replied. “Story of my life.”

  Last up were two unhappy-looking newcomers, a hulder and a rusalka, who, after failing at music and confessing to having no other skills, were forced to strip naked and fight to exhaustion. They started out stiff and self-conscious, even a little formal. But as the pseudo-fight went on it became less and less a fiction. Their faces flushed red. Their mouths twisted with anger. Grunting and huffing, they began to fight for real.

  To her intense surprise, Cat found herself thoroughly enjoying the spectacle—though she looked away at the end when, to the noisy approval of the camp, the loser was ritually humiliated.

  Stomach full, reasonably entertained, pleased with how she’d comported herself, Cat made a tent out of two blankets and a length of rope and fell asleep almost immediately.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night, Cat was awakened by a finger pressed against her lips and the touch of cold metal to her throat. She blinked up in bewilderment at the child who had hammered the pot when the stew was done.

  “Don’t say anything.” The girl removed her flute from Cat’s neck. “We’ve got to leave now. Grab your bag but leave the blankets. There’s no time.”

  Cat had slept with her clothes on, so all she had to do was don her socks and work boots. When she crawled out of the tent, the girl was waiting with a small Hello Kitty knapsack on her back. Quietly, all but tiptoeing, they slipped through the sleeping jungle.

  As they passed the cookfire, now just dying embers, Cat whispered, “Wait.”

  Loosh was sleeping out in the open, atop a blanket, curled up like a dog. Quickly, Cat ran her fingers over his collar to discover how it was attached to the chain. (The girl gestured frantically, but Cat ignored her.) Then she tugged at the leather and undid the strap. The collar came off surprisingly easily.

  She shook Loosh’s shoulder.

  The bullbeggar snorted, as if he’d just swallowed a moth, and shot up into a sitting position. When he saw Cat, he gasped and scuttled backward, away from her. Then he realized that the chain had not gone with him. His hands went to his neck.

  “You’re free,” Cat whispered. “Flee.”

  For an instant, Loosh’s chin rose and he stared toward the railroad track. Then he scrabbled for the collar, closed it about his neck, and buckled it tight. Angry tears streaked down his face. “Don’t do this to me,” he moaned. “It’ll spoil everything. If they don’t see the collar, they won’t pass me by.”

  The girl punched Cat hard in the shoulder. “They’re almost here!” she cried.

  Then they were running, from what Cat did not know. But the child’s urgency was infectious. Halfway to the edge of the encampment, she heard a soft, low rumbling like distant thunder rising up the ground underfoot. She wanted to ask, but the terror on the girl’s face stopped her.

  There came a thrashing from the woods to the far side of the jungle. Then bellowing and cries of rage as at least a dozen centaurs exploded out of the darkness, hooves pounding on the earth. They were muscular brutes wearing identical caps and jackets. Uniforms, obviously. “What—?” Cat gasped.

  “Railroad goons. Keep running!”

  The centaurs swept over the camp. Clubs rose and fell. Their tips were studded with iron, so even the haints couldn’t evade them.

  Light flared as tents and hovels were set ablaze. Women screamed. Bodies slammed to the ground. All this Cat saw in a series of glances back over her shoulder. She heard clubs striking flesh and sensed more than saw shadows fleeing through the trees. Two centaurs heaped piles of clothing onto the cookfire, and threw after them a bucket of something liquid. The sudden whoomp! of light revealed Bessie Long Gone swinging a tent pole at one of the goons and the fist of another connecting with her head. Blood flew.

  A centaur ran through the camp, hooting and bellowing, straight at Cat and the girl. He reared up above them like a storm cloud, and came down like a thunderclap. His club descended toward the little girl’s head.

  Moving as quickly as ever she had before, Cat straight-armed the child out of the way. Then, when the club smashed into the ground, she grabbed the centaur’s arm and pulled, using his momentum to make his legs buckle. As they did, she brought up her knee, breaking the bastard’s nose.

  Before the goon could regain his feet, Cat drew the blade of her rope knife across his forehead, making a long, shallow cut. Blood washed over his eyes, blinding him. It covered his face, darkened his beard, and flew in droplets as he wildly shook his head, trying to clear his vision.

  “Why are you just standing there?” Cat gave the girl a shove. “Run!” Then she was racing between the trees, bag bouncing against her back, toward the train tracks. Behind them, the centaur was cursing. New fires blossomed as his fellows set tents and shanties ablaze.

  Cinders crunched underfoot. Cat stumbled to a stop alongside the track. A train was approaching from behind, making their shadows leap and cavort before them. Cat crouched in the weeds, pulling the child down with her.

  “When the locomotive goes by, stand and pick me up,” the girl said. “Then run as hard and fast as you can, in the same direction it’s going. Look for an empty boxcar with open doors. Tramps pick the locks or smash them in the yards, so there’s always at least one or two. This is a lo
ng upgrade, so the train won’t be going too fast. Match speed with the car, then throw me up and in. I know how to land. But don’t you jump! If you miss, you’ll go under the wheels and lose your legs. There’s a ladder up the side of the car. Keep running and grab hold of the rungs. When your grip is good, give a little jump, tucking your legs up behind you. Pull yourself up with your arms, then make sure you’ve got good footing before swinging yourself inside. Okay?”

  “How do you know all this?” Cat asked.

  “I know things. That’s all.”

  The locomotive was upon them, baying and howling. It pulled ahead, and Cat was up and running with the girl in her arms. Several boxcars rattled past them. Then came an empty one with open doors. As Cat matched speed with it, she felt a prickling sensation, as if someone were behind her. But “Don’t look back!” the little girl cried. “Throw me in! Now!”

  It was madness. Cat flung the girl anyway. She went flying into the boxcar.

  “Grab the ladder!”

  Cat was running as fast as she could, but the train had crested the top of the hill and the car was beginning to pull away. Somehow, she managed to snag one rung of the ladder up the side of the boxcar. It almost wrenched her arm out of its socket, but she slapped her other hand beside it and yanked herself up.

  Whang! Something slammed into the side of the boxcar, inches from Cat, and bounced off.

  Looking over her shoulder, Cat saw a centaur, his face all bloody, slowing to a trot. He reared up on his hind legs in a rage and, raising a hand, gave her the finger. Then, turning away, he bent to recover the club he had thrown at her.

  Cat swung herself inside and sat down, panting, alongside the girl. Beyond the open door, a full moon bounced and bumped in the sky. Behind them, the hobo jungle, along with its denizens and attackers, dwindled into the past and disappeared forever in the trees.

  Silvery forest glided by.