Powers

by James A. Burton

  A boat nosed out from the bend upstream. More a barge than a boat in shape, river cargo rather than open water. Broad and flat black hull and orange deck with big white tarp-covered rectangular blocks stacked high and tight by the boom and mast. A winch at the bow, a red wheelhouse and black stack in the stern. Sooty diesel smoke billowed from the stack. The cargo was, most likely, lumber from the prison camps. He watched as the barge slewed sideways with the current against the engines, a skidding turn that carried it wide around the horseshoe bend but safely inside the buoys.

  A lot of current. River must be pinched here, chewing on the rocky gorge. To have any control in the rudder and engines, the boat had to push faster. Albert knew that much about boats. Maintain steerageway. The pilot or captain must be having fun, adrenaline rush of speed and danger even in that flat-bottomed tub.

  It vanished around the bend downstream a lot faster than he would have thought possible and left Albert staring at its wake foaming green over the rocks on either shore. How the hell were they going to cross that?

  I can’t swim. Mother knows I can’t swim.

  She set this up on purpose. The love-hate meter is swinging pretty strong over to hate.

  At least everyone on board would have been concentrating on the river and rocks, with no time to spare on searching rock ledges for random passing gods. Mel pulled herself up by the twisted spruce, not the kind of bounce he’d expect of her, and listened to her winds again. And nodded.

  He tied on to the rope again, walked down the stone face again, found another ledge much like the first. Pack down, Mel down, repeat, repeat. He landed on the small flat—almost a beach behind an eddy, scrubby shrubs and some stunted trees tangled with driftwood cast up. A couple of empty beer bottles in the river’s discards, with labels he couldn’t read even where they hadn’t been worn away or soaked off. Looked like beer bottles, anyway.

  Pack down. Mel down. She vanished behind a clump of scrub, wilderness toilet, and Albert spent his privacy emptying his own bladder off in the other direction of their tiny rock-bound world. That need had been growing more and more urgent the more he thought about crossing the river.

  The other side of that boat’s speed downstream is, it’d stay in sight forever headed upstream. I hope her winds give us plenty of warning.

  Then he was done and she was done and she was burrowing in the pack again. And wrinkling her nose. He smelled it, too, a sour animal smell on the air, some critter that he didn’t want to meet, judging by their run-in with the armadillo bear. It probably used this landing as a picnic spot while fishing in the river.

  Good excuse to hurry. That, and the spattering of rain that had just started, cold hard drops. Mel pulled out plastic bags. She pulled out a lump of camouflage something, pulled an orange string, and it inflated into an air mattress. No, a float, about three feet by four, heavy airtight fabric with rope loops sewn along the edges and tie-down tabs with metal grommets, some kind of military gadget for exactly this kind of military problem—getting people and heavy gear across streams on a scouting mission.

  She was stripping and he was gaping at her. Dirty torn coveralls, bloodstained yellow bulletproof vest, leotard, all her guns and knives and spare magazines of ammo, stowed in plastic bags until she was tying everything on the float in her underwear. Thin underwear, female bits visible through it.

  She glared up at him. Scribbled. You want to live in wet clothing for a week, your problem.

  Then she stowed her pad and pencil in with the rest. He started stripping, police gun-belt, knife, jacket, and on down to his underwear. All into plastic, sealed. He tied his cane down next to the pack. She kept her shotgun, tied to the float but on a leash, so to speak, she could grab it and aim it and fire, but couldn’t lose it. He didn’t want to think about a firefight while swimming.

  I can’t swim.

  But they both tied on to the float with the parachute cord—he might drown but she could recover his body. Large consolation, that.

  And then, wading into water, cold water, icy water, he gasped at the bite of it. It grabbed them and she kicked up a froth driving them out of the eddy and into the current, aiming upstream and across. He tried to help, kicking and probably wasting half his effort, more, on splashing and spinning them in the current.

  Just keep moving. If I’m moving, I haven’t drowned yet.

  Cold. A wave smacked him and spun them around and he spat water. He couldn’t tell which riverbank was which. She kept them moving. He hoped she knew which way. Cold. His hands cramped on the rope edging of the float. Feet numb. Keep moving. The riverbanks were moving. Fast. Spinning. Around. Around. Seal that way, he felt it. Heard it.

  He bumped against something. Hard. It hurt. He pried one hand loose from the float and tried to fend off. Slippery. He focused. Worn black wet knobby wood. Driftwood. Tree trunk or thick branch, with the bark long gone. In an eddy.

  Water splashed in his face, Mel still kicking, head resting sideways on the float, still driving them, but slower. The cold bothered her, too, mountain goddess not immune to her own weapon. He grabbed at the wood with his numb right hand, hooked a slimy broken limb, and pulled himself up against it. Looked around. Small rough cove. Inside of the bend. Cobble beach. He dragged himself, dragged the float, dragged Mel along the log from handhold to handhold closer to the beach and out of the pull of the eddy and bumped against bottom as he tried to get footing with numb feet.

  Across.

  Mel kept kicking. Her eyes were closed. He grabbed at her, fumbled under her armpit and missed and probably touched anatomy he shouldn’t and hauled her into the shallows. She was going to kill him anyway, didn’t really matter what he touched. Easiest way to haul her out was to flip her over and grab her with an arm under her breasts.

  Doesn’t count as groping her if both of us are too numb to feel a thing.

  He dragged her up the cobbles and they snagged at her panties and pulled them halfway down her thighs. He just pulled them back up again. Even though they didn’t do much to hide anything now, soaked and plastered tight against her body. She struggled against his arm and he let go.

  She rolled over on her hands and knees and vomited. Same smell as at the cove on the other side. Hadn’t been an animal. Wasn’t the effort and the river.

  She looked up at him and shook her head. Tried to crawl away from the tiny blotch that was all she could haul out of her stomach. Collapsed.

  Cold. He remembered—clothing on the float, clothing for both of them. He dragged it up on the stones, tore open plastic bags, hauled dry clothing out and put it on. How the hell could he put a leotard on a woman who wasn’t moving? Didn’t try. Same with the bulletproof vest—bullets weren’t the problem here. He shoved legs and arms and torso into the coverall and zipped it up. Then wondered, brain finally coming back on line, where she was going to get the body heat to warm the coverall from inside.

  Fire. She has to have some matches and fire-starters in the pack, just hasn’t pulled them out because we weren’t making fires. Smoke not a good idea for fugitives.

  To hell with the same problem of smoke here. Burn that bridge when we come to it. Have to live that long, first.

  Besides, this weather will hide smoke. Except the smell.

  But it might be a good idea to get them and the gear out of sight from the river.

  He lugged her and the pack and the float back into the scrubby trees until he couldn’t see water. If he couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see him. Then, the pack. Pockets first. She’d had him dig into most of them, hadn’t noticed matches. Tried the last one. Pulled out more things that weren’t matches, didn’t even remotely resemble matches. Then stared at a plastic package in his hand. Red letters wrapped in orange flame.

  HEAT.

  Chemical heat pack. He stirred up enough brain cells to read the label. Followed the directions. Did the same with a second pack. Read the directions again. They promised the stuff wouldn’t get hot enough to burn you. Unzipped her coveralls,
really rude thing to do to a woman who couldn’t say yes or no, tucked the heat inside on both sides of her body—he could feel it starting to work on his hands—and zipped her back up.

  Rain splatted on his face. If he wanted to stay dry, he’d better move his ass. Whatever the hell was wrong with the Goddess of the Mountain Winds, cold rain wouldn’t help. His jacket was supposed to be waterproof. Water-repellent, really, that was the extent of the claim. He didn’t trust that after the beating he’d been giving it, not even counting the bear-claw rips. He tore armholes and a neck hole in one of the plastic bags and pulled it over his head. Big, it hung down about to his knees. Instant poncho. Another one over Mel.

  Tent. He needed a level place, a place with a minimum of rocks. He scouted. The best site lay on bare sandy gravel about three feet above the stream that flowed into their cove. No way he was going to set up that close to water in a rainstorm.

  He found another, not even near level, not quite as wide as the tiny backpacking tent, tucked in between a tree-trunk and a rock face. Maybe eight feet above stream level at the moment. He tried to guess how much water a rock high overhead would dump on them.

  The cliff looked like it would split runoff, not concentrate it. Any port in a storm. He set up the tent with one side pinched in a foot by the tree, damn good thing he’d had practice when his brain was working. Hauled Mel, hauled the float and used it to pad the worst of the lumps and bumps inside. Hauled the pack and the scattering of gear he’d pulled out of it.

  Mel was mumbling something, he couldn’t hear what and didn’t think she was up to writing. Wasn’t sure it would make sense, anyway.

  What the hell was wrong with her?

  Was this what he looked like, when he collapsed after a siege at the forge? He’d never had anyone with him, to tell the tale after. Not even Mother. Too personal, too vulnerable. Who could you trust with your life like that?

  Wind shook the tree overhead, splattering him and the tent with icy rain blown loose. Heavy mist flowed down the side creek. Had she called this on them, to hide them from any eyes on the river? She was the Goddess of the Mountain Winds. Had that effort pushed her over the edge?

  He sorted through the backpack. To hell with privacy, if she had anything in there like the heat packs that could save her life. If she could die.

  Inventory.

  Plastic sheet—good. Could be used as an improvised tarp to add dry space to the tent, or ground sheet under it. Another uniform coverall, pristine, probably keeping that clean in case she needed to impress the peasants. Spool of monofilament fishing line, thick and strong enough to land a sailfish. Or to serve as garrotes. Fishhooks and basic spinner lures. He set those to one side.

  Aluminum pot, with lid. Second one nested inside of it, the lids would serve as plates or fry pans. Yes, clamp handle that fitted the lids, fitted the lips of the pots. Inside further, small camp stove a little larger than a can of beans. And matches. Finally he found her matches. In waterproof match safes.

  All that padded with clean underwear. So he hadn’t heard it rattling. No space wasted.

  Like I said, searching through her underwear drawer.

  The camp stove made sense out of the aluminum flask of white gasoline. He’d pulled that out before, digging for toilet paper. At the time, it had seemed like a damned dangerous way to start a campfire . . .

  He packed everything up again before it got soaked. Tucked it inside the tent with Mel. Who had curled up into a ball and felt hot now, deadly feverish hot and running sweat, instead of clammy cold. She’d pulled out the heat packs and tossed them across the tent and left her coveralls unzipped after. Too hot to care.

  If she was a human, he’d say she was sick. Damned sick. She didn’t, he didn’t, get sick.

  He grabbed the heat packs and jammed them into his pockets. If she didn’t want them, he did. He’d started shivering from the cold and wet.

  And he was going to be sitting out in that, in the rain, in the damp wind by the river, fishing. Yeah, she might die without his help. She might die with it, just as easily. He wasn’t a doctor.

  Besides, she wants to kill me.

  XIX

  Albert woke with a jerk to pitch-black night and rain—the fishing line jerked out of his hands. At least he’d had the sense to tie it off on a springy cedar close to the water’s edge, the closest thing he could find to a fishing rod.

  He needed a minute to sort out where and when he was. He pulled his left arm free of the sheltering plastic bag and stared at the faint glow of his watch until his bleary eyes consented to focus. His even-more-bleary mind processed the numbers. He blinked. The numbers stayed the same. He’d slept for twelve hours. Which was just the least bit scary . . .

  And nothing had eaten him. Or shot him, stabbed him, fanged him with poison, or arrested him. The river hadn’t risen enough to drown him, either. He ran through a whole arm’s-length list of calamities that hadn’t happened.

  Unusual. Suspicious behavior on the part of the universe.

  He’d really, really needed that sleep. Even if he felt like his spine had molded itself to the tree trunk behind him in a permanent lumpy curve of aches and cramps.

  He didn’t hear anything sneaking up on him to change that uneaten status. He could hear the water rushing and gurgling against the rocks, the rain dripping on leaves and rattling off the plastic-bag poncho. He could hear . . .

  He could hear. The sounds came deadened like he still had some cotton in his ears, but he could hear. And he didn’t hear any boats chugging along out on the river, either. Even so, he checked for running lights or the stabbing glare of searchlights or even reflected glow off the clouds and fog. Nothing. Then he took a chance and flicked on the flashlight.

  First check, the river hadn’t risen. Second check, the creek had, by about six inches. Nothing drastic there. Quick look around, and no eyes of potential Albert-eaters gleamed back at him from the shadows amid the meteor-streaks of raindrops across the flashlight beam. Fog soaked up the light before it reached the other side of the river, even on his tightest beam. The fishing line gleamed its reflection across that dark fog . . .

  The fishing line. He shook his own fog off and pinned the light on the cedar branch. It bent over, jerking with enough force on the monofilament that Albert had visions of a sturgeon or gar or a river catfish big enough to swallow a dog. Or a small blacksmith. Then he remembered the current. Enough weight of moving water, even a sunfish could put a respectable bend in a two-inch tree branch.

  Still, a sunfish would be more food than he’d had all day. He stumbled across the rocks and roots and slippery wet moss and laid his hand on the line. No, that wasn’t a sunfish. Wasn’t a sturgeon, either, but he felt muscle and size on the other end. One tug, and the thin line started to bite into his fingers. He knew he wanted gloves.

  He set the flashlight where its beam would cover the water downstream, and pulled them on. Hand over hand, jerking, line dashing out into the current and back toward the shore, he pulled and pulled. Then the pull eased, he’d dragged the fish out of the main stream and into the eddy, foot by foot with the line curling at his feet and threatening to tangle in roots and twigs. Fishing reels were a good thing, stow that line as you pulled it in. She hadn’t packed one.

  Is she still alive? I’ve seen too many humans that looked like that, chills and fevers and sweats and thrashing and mumbling incoherent nonsense, even if I knew what language they were mumbling. Most of them died.

  Hand over hand, line jerking. He hadn’t snagged an old boot or tree limb as it swept downstream. Whatever fought him was definitely alive here, no matter what had happened back at the camp.

  She hadn’t packed any medicines, either. Bandages and elastic wraps and other “first aid” supplies yes, but no antibiotics or anything beyond a small plastic bottle of aspirin. After all, gods don’t get sick.

  Besides, if she was sick, since gods don’t get sick, he didn’t have a clue whether it was bacteria, a virus, or so
me kind of parasite like malaria. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew that the treatment for one could kill you if you had the other.

  He didn’t know whether he could catch whatever she had. If she was sick, and not just crashing from pushing her powers too far. Two of them down and dying wouldn’t help Legion even a little bit.

  The fish jumped, a bright splash against the dark water, and dove again. It looked heavy-bodied, at least two feet long. Not an eel, he’d been hoping against an eel. Good to eat, most of them, but not as much meat as a fish and he disliked slime. Get someone else to clean it, he’d be glad to do the eating.

  Steady, hand over hand, more line tangling at his feet, and he could see a dark shadow under the river surface. It could see him, probably, against his light. It jerked sideways and fought harder, thrashing the surface into froth. Strong. Heavy. Frantic. Then Albert saw another shadow in the water, larger, much larger, and he jerked the line and fish—My fish, my meal, you can’t have it!—clear of the water to flop on the moss and rocks at the river’s edge. The other fish vanished in a swirl.

  Did we swim over that thing’s head? Six feet long if it was an inch, and a hunter. Long and lean like a barracuda.

  His fish flapped wildly, snapping at the air with impressive teeth. Everything in this world had teeth. Albert drew his own, the knife, and tried to figure out a way to use it. He finally planted a boot on the silver flashing tail, tightened up the line until he had slowed the head into a target, and just slashed. He barely felt the jerk as his blade took the head clean off as easy as lopping a dandelion. It was a good blade.

  The body kept flipping, the teeth kept snapping, but they couldn’t work together. They finally slowed and stopped. He pried his hook from the jaws, multiple rows of vicious backward-pointing needle teeth, and threw the head out into the darkness. He heard a double splash out there, smaller and larger, the head and whatever ate it.

  Stay out of the water at night.

  Hell. Stay out of the water, period.