Tainted Trail

by Wen Spencer

  In a place such as this, where his surroundings competed with the crowds for attention, he was lost in the flood. Everything was new, even the faintly salt-tainted air, pressing in to be noticed, overwhelming him until he lost track of himself. Max kept a hand on his elbow, guiding him through the jostling confusion.

  Once past the gates and into the public concourse, Max veered into a sitting area across from a Hudson News stand. Fifty or sixty seats made a pocket of quiet beside a children’s play area in the shape of a jumbo jet. Max moored Ukiah in the far back corner, away from the foot traffic. There, Max put his hands to Ukiah’s face and made him focus his gaze on his own.

  “Kraynak and I are going to grab our luggage, guns, and equipment and check them with the commuter airline.” Max took out both their phones and turned them on. “Baggage claim is downstairs, and it’s going to be a madhouse. I’m leaving you here. Stay put. I’ll be back.” He paused, waiting for the phones to indicate they had a signal. “If you need me, call instead of trying to find me.” Max pocketed his own phone and tucked Ukiah’s into his partner’s shirt pocket. “Okay?”

  Max waited until Ukiah nodded, then left. The flood rushed in again. Ukiah floundered, sorting through the stimuli. Slowly, enough became known qualities he could then ignore that he felt solid and grounded. As if welcoming him back to himself, his phone chirped. He dug it out of his pocket. A female security officer at Pittsburgh’s airport had handled his phone when he passed through the metal detectors, leaving behind a ghost presence of White Linen perfume, Coast soap, and her own unique genetic profile.

  “Oregon.”

  “It’s me, love.” Indigo’s voice competed with a gate-change announcement booming over the airport’s speakers. Ukiah plugged the other ear with his finger, but still felt the words ripple across his skin. “How was the flight?”

  “It was a bit rough,” Ukiah answered after the announcement ended. “We kept hitting storms. How’s Kitt?”

  Max had vetoed Ukiah’s first choice of babysitters: the Dog Warriors. The twenty Pack members would have devoted themselves to Kittanning and guarded him armed to the teeth. Max, however, had never forgiven the Dog Warriors for kidnapping Ukiah at gunpoint and wasn’t about to trust the alien outlaws with his godson. While Indigo cheerfully took Kittanning, she would still need to find daylight babysitters among her family or take vacation time from her work.

  “He’s being an angel so far,” Indigo told him. “We’ve had dinner and he went right to sleep. I’m reviewing forensic evidence files.” A quiet rustle over the phone indicated she had gotten up and moved across the room. “Rennie Shaw and Bear Shadow have this watch.”

  He heard the slight tension in her voice. “I’m sorry.”

  He had contacted the Dog Warriors to feed Mom Jo’s half-breed wolves while he was in Oregon. He should have realized that Dog Warriors would track down Kittanning to watch over, regardless of Max’s wishes.

  “It’s not like I haven’t been through this before,” Indigo said. The Dog Warriors had guarded Indigo while Ukiah had been dead. “They’re being very discreet. I needed my night scope to spot them. I suppose I better get used to it if we’re getting married. It’s kind of a package deal—marry the Pack’s child, get the Pack keeping watch.”

  Ukiah winced at the “if.” Usually she said “when.” He hoped it was a merely a slip of tongue. If he could hear the tension in her voice, then her legendary calm must be taking a beating. “Is something wrong?”

  “Other than lack of sleep and being stalked by your extended family? No.” She took a deep breath, released it slowly, and when she spoke again, the tension was gone. “Everything is fine. I called to ask you, though: Didn’t Mom Lara say something about Kittanning having a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday?”

  Ukiah closed his eyes to summon up his moms’ kitchen calendar. Printed in tomorrow’s allotted square was Mom Lara’s hieroglyphics of K. Dr. 8:00 AM 2 m. check & shots. He told Indigo the time. “I’m not sure why he has to go. I don’t think he can get sick.”

  “You think your immune system can handle anything, Wolf Boy?”

  Kittanning was Ukiah’s clone, created out of his blood. They were identical except for their age. Despite being born to a human woman, Ukiah’s cells were vastly more complex, able to function both jointly and independently, to the point they were able to transform into small animals if separated from Ukiah. Earth viruses had no hope of breaching his alien-born defenses. Ukiah could remember being sick only once; when Pack leader, Rennie Shaw, gave Ukiah his memories in the form of a mouse. The ensuing cellular war—lasting until the Pack memories were added to Ukiah’s own genetic memory—made Ukiah thankful that he didn’t get sick.

  “Aye, our immune system kicks butt.” He slipped into Rennie’s slight brogue. “It spits on all puny earth viruses. Pooey. Pooey.”

  “It may, but he still needs to go.”

  “Why?” It defied logic.

  “Ukiah, no preschool, kindergarten, first grade, or even college would let him in without proof of immunization.”

  “Oh.” It amazed him sometimes what he didn’t know about the world.

  “Is he still going to the same place?” she asked. “Or did your moms move him to a place closer to them?”

  He, his moms, Max, Indigo, and at times their lawyer, Leo Stepanian, held several war sessions trying to deal with Kittanning’s sudden appearance. They walked a legal tightrope to get Kittanning a birth certificate, hampered by the fact that he hadn’t been born so much as made. The system required certain information such as mother’s name and time of birth.

  They set time of birth to be when Hex shot Ukiah. Shortly after that moment, the blood flowing from Ukiah’s wounds formed into the mouse that would eventually be infant Kittanning. His moms refused to be named Kittanning’s mother, pointing out that it would appear dangerously close to incest with their adopted son. Leo reminded them that if Ukiah wasn’t listed as Kittanning’s father, Ukiah would have no legal right to his son. In the end, Indigo volunteered to stand as Kittanning’s mother.

  Of course there was the slight problem that Indigo had never been pregnant. One reason they chose a busy multi-doctor medical association in the North Hills was the anonymity it gave them. While much of the information on Kittanning’s birth certificate was accurate, they couldn’t prove any of it.

  “No, it’s the same doctors. If it would be easier, you can just call and reschedule. You don’t have to take him.”

  “Yes, I do. He’s my son, Ukiah. He was born because you came to rescue me. I made a commitment to him when we put my name down as mother on his birth certificate. I have responsibilities for him, even if we’re not married.”

  There was that word again. If.

  It seemed they had fallen off an edge the day Kittanning was created. Ukiah had been killed protecting Indigo, and Indigo went on to rain cold vengeance down on those who killed him. Wedding vows seemed trivial after I will die for you and I will make sure your sacrifice was not in vain were made deed. Yet without those spoken wedding vows, how could I love you now become I will love you forever?

  Max touched his shoulder, making Ukiah aware of him. Kraynak stood beside Max, fumbling with a bottle of Dramamine. Max tapped his watch.

  “I need to go,” Ukiah told Indigo. “Do you want me to call you later?”

  She mulled the question over with a long, drawn-out “um.” “No. I don’t relish trying to get Kitt back asleep if the phone wakes him. Call me tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay.” He mouthed “Indigo” to Max, who had queried him with one raised eyebrow and a glance at the phone. “We’re three hours behind you, so I’ll call before I start to track, see how the appointment went.”

  “Be careful,” Indigo warned, and then added, as if in consideration of the dangers he might be soon facing, an earnest “I love you.”

  “What appointment?” Max asked after Ukiah hung up.

  Ukiah recounted the conversation as t
hey threaded through the crowds. Max guided him to a distant wing of the airport catering to Horizon Airlines. Four abbreviated gates shared one large sitting area.

  “You’ve got to marry that girl.” Max showed their boarding passes.

  The woman at the counter said, “Gate eleven” and waved them through.

  “We talk about getting married all the time.” Ukiah followed Max out to an open walkway. Every ten feet, the walkway had a large doorless exit to the tarmac. A turboprop airplane sat at each such “gate.” Behind Ukiah, Kraynak groaned at the sight of the small airplanes. Gate eleven was the last opening before the walkway ended. The door of the plane had been folded down to make a five-step ramp up into the aircraft.

  “We’re eight A, B, and C,” Max said. “We’re the next to last row, two right, one left. And?”

  Max prompted Ukiah back to the conversation. It was interesting, Ukiah thought, that Max felt so comfortable discussing other people’s lives. If this were a discussion on Max’s love life, it would already be over. Usually Max had to be drunk before he was willing to talk about his dead wife or the idea of dating again.

  “Well,” Ukiah reluctantly admitted, “we actually kind of dance around the idea of marriage. I think we’re both still scared about the idea.”

  “What’s to be scared of?” Max stowed his briefcase and took the left aisle seat.

  Kraynak ducked through the door and paused in the front of the plane to talk earnestly with the flight attendant, dwarfing her with his bulk. Ukiah glanced back at Kraynak, and then whispered to Max. “Start with I’m not human and work your way down.”

  Max gave him a hard, disapproving stare. “You are human,” he said in a quiet, uncompromising tone. “Go on.”

  Ukiah sighed, stowing his carry-on. “My moms hate the idea of me marrying Indigo. They don’t want us to rush into anything. They’ve never been really happy that Indigo and I had sex before we even had a first date.”

  “Well, it was kind of sudden.” Max allowed.

  “Mom Lara has this cascade theory, that Indigo seduced me because she overreacted to me saving her life and the Pack kidnapping me, and then she dated me because she felt guilty about seducing someone so young, and now she’s pushing for marriage because I ended up with Kittanning by trying to rescue her.”

  “It’s so like a woman to overanalyze things.”

  Ukiah dropped into the window seat. “And that’s just my family.”

  “I meant to ask you how the picnic went on Sunday.”

  “Well, her brothers and sisters seemed to like me. Her older brother Zane said that if Indigo could run around shooting people, she certainly could date anyone that she pleased.”

  Max laughed at this.

  “Her parents, though . . . to them I’m a long-haired, teenage, Native American, Unitarian, Wolf Boy raised by lesbians, with an infant son obviously from a previous failed relationship.”

  “Are you quoting?”

  “Indigo’s mother doesn’t realize how well I hear.”

  “Ouch.” Max winced for him. “Don’t worry, kid, they’ll come around.”

  Ukiah nodded, but heard again Indigo’s quiet “if.” “Mom Jo is worried that we haven’t given enough thought of ‘how’ we could stay married. I don’t know the first thing about living on my own, and Mom Jo says that would throw Indigo into the role of caretaker. She says it could put a lot of stress on Indigo that she’s not expecting.”

  “Your Mom Jo is a good woman,” Max said. “But she’s always underrated your ability to learn. If you want to make this marriage work, you can.”

  Again—if. Some part of him certainly craved being married to Indigo, despite it being a vast unknown. Unsuspected, he had a deep want for his wife and his son living in his house—all the fine trappings of being an adult.

  The realization bothered him. Could wanting to be married have nothing to do with loving Indigo?

  Pendleton Municipal Airport, Pendleton, Oregon

  Tuesday, August 24, 2004

  When Ukiah remembered Oregon, he recalled only steep mountains and towering pines. He was startled when the turboprop airplane dropped down through the clouds to reveal a land nearly flat and utterly treeless. More startling, the land was marked with a multitude of huge circles.

  “What are those?” he asked Kraynak.

  Kraynak leaned over to peer out the window. “Those are from the long, rolling irrigation . . . thingies. They anchor one end and it rolls in a circle about the endpoint.”

  They landed without Pendleton coming into view. The airport was laughably small after the Houston airport: four modest-sized public rooms linked together. Over the sole door leading to a single X-ray device was a sign proclaiming ALL GATES. It was the first airport of the day in which Ukiah wasn’t immediately overwhelmed.

  Four children with black hair, dark eyes, and dusky skin played in the largest room. Ukiah watched the children while Max rented two Chevy Blazers from a Hertz kiosk-styled office, doing the typical corporate paperwork dance to allow Ukiah to drive under the age of twenty-five. Were the kids Native Americans, Chinese, or Mexican? None of them came close enough for him to tell.

  Max threw him the keys to the first Chevy. “You sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “If I take a few minutes to get settled in, yeah. There’s no crowd to deal with.”

  The Hertz agent laughed. “Wait two weeks, and there will be. The annual roundup starts then. It’s a rodeo with an Indian powwow. Pendleton goes from a population of twenty thousand to sixty thousand.”

  “Ouch,” Max said. “Well, hopefully we’ll be gone by Thursday.”

  “People will be drifting in starting this weekend,” the Hertz agent said.

  “Explains why getting hotel rooms was so fun,” Max muttered, resetting his watch to local time. “It’s five-thirty now. See you at the hotel in two hours or so? We’ll probably both be out of regular cell-phone range, so take one of the satellite phones with you. Call me if you run into trouble.”

  Ukiah snagged one of the equipment bags with a phone and GPS system in it and went out to the parking lot. The Blazer was unlocked and stifling hot. He started up the SUV and let the air conditioning run while he stood outside, acclimatizing to the world around him.

  The airport sat on the edge of a river valley. The flat land broke suddenly to drop down in ragged hills. The stubble of wheat on the nearby fields shined gold, and heat wavered liquid in the late-afternoon sun. He could pick out the constant hum of distant highway traffic and the faint gurgle of river water. Once the interior of the Blazer was bearable, he slid in, closed the door, and started out to find Jesse Kicking Deer.

  Pendleton was at once familiar and strange, like a house that been remodeled. The streets lay in a straight grid, as much as the river valley allowed. None of the street names seemed right, and only a handful of buildings struck a resonance in him. He drove up out of the river bottom, and pulled off just short of the I-84 on ramp. Getting out of the Blazer, he looked back at the island of civilization, surrounded by vast, empty prairie.

  Mom Jo had slipped him out of Oregon without visiting Pendleton, so he wasn’t recalling a recent memory. Was he finally remembering something from his childhood?

  He focused on the memory, and found it wasn’t his. It belonged to Rennie Shaw.

  When Ukiah had realized that he, the Pack, and the Ontongard weren’t human, he had gone to Rennie Shaw and begged for answers. What was he? How was he related to the Pack? Who were the Ontongard? Where had they all come from? Why did the Ontongard want to kill him? Instead of answers, Rennie bled into a coffee can and gave it to Ukiah, telling him to use it. The blood transformed into a mouse—as Pack blood was wont to do once separated from the main body—and contained Rennie’s genetically coded memory. After much bafflement as to how he was supposed to use the mouse, Ukiah absorbed it, and Rennie’s memories had been added to his own.

  Oddly, while the memories were sharp and clear as his own, they wer
e harder to access. A stray thought or image would trigger Ukiah’s memories to the surface. Rennie’s memories lurked like silvery minnows under the shimmer of his own thoughts and memories, there to catch and examine, but never really offering themselves up freely.

  Ukiah fished out Rennie’s memory and examined it. Rennie had been in eastern Oregon twice. The first time had come a decade after Rennie’s last day of being human: May 5, 1864.

  The Ontongard reproduced by invading a host, much the same as a virus would, using the host’s own biology to reproduce and then replace all the cells in their body. The hosts became identical to those that begot them on a cellular level—with an important difference. These “Gets,” as the Ontongard called the hosts once they had been wholly taken over, retained all innate abilities and skills needed to not only survive but excel in the host’s native ecology. Thus, as the Ontongard spread across the galaxy, not only did they receive bodies adapted to the new worlds, but they also gained intelligence, education, and memories, all wrapped in a camouflage shell of a being known to the uninfected natives.

  Once little more than lowly pond scum, the race had stolen all they needed to leap across the stars.

  To fight the Ontongard, Prime had no choice but to make Gets of his own.

  A West Point trained Union officer, Rennie had been wounded, trapped under his dead horse in the tangled undergrowth west of Wilderness Church. Prime’s first Get, Coyote, came to Rennie in moonlight, a wolf changed into a man by alien blood, named for a native god, offering the cursed gift of life as a Get. Only twenty-three, with a wife and child to live for, Rennie accepted, thoughtless of the cost. Coyote’s blood burned its way through his body, the viral genetics changing him cell by cell into a copy of Coyote that wore Rennie’s face.