Stone Rider

by David Hofmeyr

  Adam senses palpable fear in her. Something primal. “What’s wrong?”

  She swivels back to him. “Have you seen them?”

  “Seen who?”

  “They followed me. They’re out there. Haven’t you heard them?”

  “Heard who?”

  “Not who. Wolves.”

  Nobody speaks.

  “A person can outride a wolf,” Kane says finally.

  Sadie flashes him a look. “Not these ones.” She turns to Adam. “Thought you ride alone.”

  “Well, I was…but, see, I—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “We have to go. We have to go now!”

  —

  They burst onto the plain with a white sun at its peak in the giant sky. They pass rock piles, clumps of bare trees and looming mesas that cast no shadow. The heat is colossal.

  “THE VALLEY OF A THOUSAND DEAD SONS!” Sadie yells as they ride.

  The wind screams in their ears and their bykes rattle beneath them. Adam is acutely aware of one distinct noise—a terrifying yapping and howling behind them. He swivels in his saddle. And sees them.

  The wolves come in a loping, ragged run. He can see the glint of their eyes and the white flash of teeth. He tries to count them. Eight? Ten? Maybe even a dozen.

  A huge animal leads the pack. It jags across the sand with black lips bared, snout rippled, and muscles taut on its shoulders—a mean thing, of skin and bone…and teeth.

  “RIDE!” Adam yells, seized with terror. “RIDE LIKE HELL!”

  And that’s what they do, the three of them: they ride like hell with the animals coming after.

  Adam feels the burn in his muscles as he powers his Longthorn through the ever more parched terrain. Sadie’s Sandeater is a slick machine. She clicks and purrs as she navigates the cracks and rocks. Kane’s Drifter goes hard and strong, as ever.

  Adam looks over his shoulder and he sees the wolves dropping back. Dropping back, but not giving up—the lead wolf yaps to urge them on. Adam turns and rides for his life.

  They go hard for a long time. He has no idea how long. All he knows is that he reaches a point of exhaustion. He sucks a ragged breath from his air-filter mask and looks behind. No sign of the wolves. But they’re out there, beyond the sand rises; he can hear the yips and howls.

  “We can’t keep this pace up,” he shouts.

  Kane arches his neck to look behind. He pulls his brakes and skids. Adam does the same.

  “They never let up,” Sadie wheezes, when she too comes to a stop. She licks her lips. “Never.”

  “Wolves don’t do that,” Adam says, casting about, looking for a way out. “They don’t track people, do they?”

  “They’re hungry, is all,” Kane says. His expression is neutral.

  Sadie breathes hard. “Still sure about outriding them?”

  Howls rise up. Loud and close.

  Kane doesn’t answer. “Seen a cabin,” he says, pointing to the east. “Bound to be deserted out here. If we can make it there, we can hold ’em off. Long as it takes.”

  Adam follows his gaze and, sure enough, diminished in the distance, a small brown speck. Nothing at first glance. But it isn’t nothing.

  “Might be bandits.”

  “Bandits don’t live in cabins.”

  “You know that for certain?” Sadie asks.

  There’s no time for response. As if conjured up, they come bursting over a rise. All of them together. Eyes lit up, swarming forward. A pack of devils.

  Adam feels a spike of fear. He kicks in his motor and blazes. Seconds later he turns in the saddle. Sees Sadie lagging behind. A wolf close at her heels.

  “HEY!” he bawls, and jags towards them.

  He drives hard at the wolf. Throws the Longthorn into a last-second jackknife turn. The byke screams. A spray of sand and rock. The wolf snarls, arches and leaps back. Adam jerks away. But he’s lost ground. Now he’s the one lagging.

  “Get to the cabin,” he shouts to Kane and Sadie ahead. “I’ll lead ’em away.”

  Sadie turns in her seat and stares at him.

  He doesn’t wait for an answer. He wheels his byke round and goes back the way they came. With a glance behind, he sees Sadie and Kane throwing up dust, hurtling to the hut. Howls rise up and turn his blood to ice. The wolves come after him. Adam swivels forward and flies.

  Stupid. What’ve I done? Leaving Sadie with him.

  He shakes his head to silence the roar.

  Keep it together. You gotta keep it together.

  He didn’t have time to think. That’s all. It was instinctual. He knows he has to trust his gut, and his gut tells him Kane will keep Sadie safe.

  Or will he? Trust no one, Frank said.

  He turns in his saddle. Feels a fresh wave of panic.

  Where the hell are they?

  He can’t see the wolves.

  He needs a plan, but nothing comes to him. Only fear. A twisting knot in his stomach. He rides hard, freewheels, stands up off his seat. Then he sees them.

  They come spearheaded by the big one—the leader. It sees Adam, glares at him with furious eyes. It throws a wild look behind and yips to urge on the others. There are seven of them. Not twelve.

  Even in his terror, he is struck by their beauty. The sleekness and the silence of their run, their bony limbs moving with such symmetry. Each wolf a thing of no wasted flesh. Every fiber bent to the task, ruled by the moon and assembled by a common desire. Blood.

  The lead wolf snaps its jaws and a thin stream of saliva spins from its white teeth. It gives him a look of unconcealed ferocity. There is no pity in this beast.

  Adam jacks hard right and flies up a slope. He ramps a rise, sails into the air and lands with a jolt. His back wheel spins out, but he manages to pull the Longthorn in and steadies himself.

  He knows if they get hold of him there’ll be nothing left. They’ll strip his flesh to the bone in minutes. They took out an entire coop of Frank’s hens one night. Left nothing but blood-matted feathers stuck to the wires. They took one of Old Man Dagg’s last remaining pigs. All he found were their tracks, pools of congealed blood and a single hoof—half chewed and discarded.

  Gotta focus. Can’t fall.

  He blasts out onto the plain, sending dust spiraling into the air, carving a new path through the sand. He tears through a ditch and flies up the other side. He scrambles round a cairn of rock and heads for a grove of acacia rising out of swaying plain grass, zigzagging as he goes.

  Thorns! Acacia have thorns long as fingers, sharp as daggers.

  Adam turns, looks back, sees them coming. Still coming. He cuts a path through the sudden swath of long grass, burnt brown by the sun, rising to his waist. He can’t see the shape of the ground beneath him and he rides blind.

  Seven invisible shapes burrow swift through the grass behind him in a violent rustle. Snaking out and swooping in like giant burrowing worms.

  He leaps up onto a ridge, skirts the trees and flies down onto a flat, sandy stretch. There is nothing in front of him—nothing but sand and sun and waves of heat. The air is thick and humid now and the sky dark with billowing storm clouds. A weird light makes the sand ocher against the bruised and brooding sky.

  Adam rides in a weaving pattern, feeling himself slow, feeling the byke lose speed.

  A flash of coruscating light.

  A booming clap of thunder.

  It begins to rain. Fat drops, slamming into the sand. The skies unleash a torrent. The rainwater reinvigorates him and he goes with fresh legs. But not for long.

  The sand churns into mud so thick it flies up and hits him in the chest. Mud that clogs and sticks and sucks at his byke. His front wheel fixes dead with a suddenness that shocks him and he jerks forward, over the handlebars, flailing through the rain-soaked air.

  All in seconds.

  He’s on his hands and knees, staring down at the mud, the rain streaming from his drenched and sodden clothes. He looks up and he sees the Longthorn, upside down,
with a spinning wheel showering sparks of rainwater. It’s twenty yards away. Then he hears a low growl. He freezes, heart hammering in his chest, and turns. He is surrounded.

  The wolves pad back and forth. The rain pours and runs slick over their patchy fur. They encroach on him as a violent storm would a battered island. In waves. First one, then another. They snipe forward, snapping and spitting, frothing at the mouth. Time loses meaning. Seconds are minutes. Minutes hours.

  Adam wheels to face each assault, adrenaline pumping through his body. He stays on his hands and knees. Like a dog.

  “GET AWAY!” he shouts. “GET BACK!”

  He crawls and he snarls and he throws handfuls of mud that fall short.

  “YOU BASTARDS! YOU DAMN BASTARDS!”

  Then he barks at them. A crazed dog bark.

  “RHRAFF! RHRAFF RHRAFF RHRAFF!”

  The sound bursts from him without warning. It springs from somewhere inside, some deep well of pain, and it explodes out in a strange high pitch.

  For a brief moment, the wolves stand and stare. Their ears prick up and they eyeball him, as though seeing some new prey here. Then they shake off the doubt and tread the mud channels, growling. The lead wolf comes forward, shoulder bones spiked up, back slunk low. It reaches out with splayed front paws, testing the ground.

  Adam fishes in his back pocket; he hauls out a stone in his dripping, muddy hand and collects his sling from his belt, every inch of him shaking with fear. He rises slowly off his hands and sits back on his boot heels, keeping his eyes on the wolf. With fumbling fingers, he places the stone in the slingshot cradle and wraps the knotted end of cord round the forefinger of his right hand. In his left he conceals the stone in the sling cradle.

  The wolf advances, snarling and baring its teeth.

  Adam begins to swing and the animal stops—not ten yards from him—one short leap away. Adam thinks of Kane and how he smashed the pop bottle. He concentrates all his attention on the small rectangle of space between the wolf’s eyes. The wolf prances and yips.

  Adam swings, and swings, and swings…and CRACK!

  He releases.

  The stone wobbles into the maelstrom, curving away. It hits nothing. The wolf springs back and forth, agitated, yipping and barking. Adam loads another stone.

  Two more. Two more stones…And then? What then?

  The sky lights up and all the wolves are caught in sharp focus, bright and drenched and full of teeth. Adam glances at his byke—out of reach. Then gloom again. A clap of thunder rips through the sky and echoes all around.

  He loads the second stone. Aims, swings and fires.

  CRACK!

  Once again, the stone loops wide and out of sight.

  The wolves pace and spring with pricked-up ears. Another white flash, another thunderclap, and the rain hammers down.

  One stone. One left. Gotta make it count.

  His shaking hand brings the last stone to the cradle. He fumbles and the stone falls into the mud. He falls forward, searching for it, frantic, scrambling. The wolves edge closer. Here comes the lead wolf. A creature of the plain. A terrible beast. Beautiful. Savage. Wild.

  Adam finds the stone, on his stomach in the mud. He flips onto his back and kicks backwards, slipping and scrabbling, watching the wolf coming at him. A few yards now. One clean strike.

  But there are seven…and I’ve got only one stone.

  He is guided by a single thought. If he kills the leader, the rest will scatter.

  He swings the sling like a propeller above his head. Three, four, five times. The wolf stops, looks at him, sniffs the air with flared nostrils. It quivers with anticipation. Black lips pulled back, teeth gleaming white. Eyes blazing.

  Adam fixes his attention on the stone, willing it to find the target, projecting the flight path in his mind. All the way from the sling to the wolf. Covering a distance of three, maybe four yards in under a tenth of a second. Nothing but air molecules to stand in its path.

  The world flashes white with lightning and Adam releases.

  CRACK!

  Thunder booms and the ground shudders. In the fierce light, he sees the stone go wide. Adam shuts his eyes and waits. A strange calm has settled on him. Then another burst of light, behind his eyelids. He opens his eyes and here is the wolf, all teeth and bone and wildness.

  He pushes himself back and his hand closes round a jagged rock. The wolf growls and Adam squeezes the rock in his fist…

  And the Blackness comes.

  It comes fast. It runs through him. Dots of light appear. The curl of pain in the back of his skull. The blur at the edges of his vision. He can’t stop it. He can’t shove it back.

  No! Please, no!

  He is powerless to stem the tide. A wave of darkness rolls over him. He feels it cut him down at the knees. He feels the crushing weight on his shoulders. Then nothing. The wolf warps and recedes into black.

  —

  A bad feeling pulls him from the dark. A spurt of fear. Adam flicks open his eyes in a panic. It’s teeth he expects. But what he sees instead is the shape of the lead wolf, laid out on the ground.

  Dead.

  The rest of the wolves are gone.

  Adam uncoils, drags himself up from the mud. He stands bowed in the deluge, shivering.

  There’s something trapped in the wolf’s teeth and blood leaks from it. The side of the wolf’s head is bashed to a red pulp. Bits of stone are stuck in the ragged skin. Adam sways in the rain and sees the bloodied rock lying in the mud.

  He tries to swallow and tastes iron in his thick saliva. He feels dizzy and his head throbs. Painful cramps twist in his stomach. Every part of him aches. He wipes the water from his face with his hand and blood drips into his eye. He staggers through the mud to his byke, feeling stunned.

  He reaches for the byke handlebars and that’s when he sees. His left hand is a mess of blood and gore. And worse. Something is missing. Something that ought to be there. That has always been there.

  His thumb.

  He wakes with a start. Sits upright, blinking, trying to get his bearings. He’s on a hard bed. It smells of mold. He coughs and glances round a gloomy room. Curtainless windows, smeared with dirt, give a dim light. A candle, guttering on the table, illuminates plank flooring and stone walls. Exposed wooden beams crisscross the roof. The room stinks of wax and dead things.

  “You were having a nightmare,” someone says behind his shoulder. Adam spins round.

  Sadie. Holding a tin mug in her hand. “You were crying and shaking.”

  He blinks and stares, as though he’s come up from Blackwater Lake and seen a herd of antelope taking water.

  “Relax. It’s me.”

  “What happened?” he croaks. “Where…where am I?”

  “In the cabin,” Sadie says. “The one we saw.” She sits on a rough wooden stool next to his bed. One leg crossed at the ankle over her knee, the way a man sits. She looks cool and unflustered. In control again—the way she was before the wolves.

  “How’d I get here?”

  She shakes her head and extends the mug. “It’s water.”

  He takes it in his trembling right hand. “Some nightmare.” He brings the mug to his lips with both hands. “I dreamt I lost…”

  He stops short. The bandage covers his entire left hand. It’s clipped tight with a pin and it feels numb. Adam freezes, turns the bandaged hand. Sees a brown stain in the cotton wrap.

  “I used my med kit,” Sadie says. “Treated the tissue with a cauterizing iron and disinfectant spray. But you’ll need sutures.” There’s no shock in her voice.

  Adam feels a twist of panic in his gut. He says nothing. Just stares at the bandage and takes a careful sip.

  Sadie watches him. “You okay? You’re right-handed, aren’t you?”

  He looks at her over the rim of the mug. “It doesn’t hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt?”

  “It won’t. Not for a while. Gave you a morphine jab. It’ll hurt like hell later.”

  “Go
t needle and thread for the sutures?”

  She shakes her head.

  He looks at his bandaged hand. The brown stain marks the place where his thumb should be. Where his thumb won’t ever be again. He takes another long sip. The water is cool and sweet and feels like honey running down his throat.

  “Take it easy. You’ll get sick. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  He drains the mug anyway and places it on the floor. “Who lives here?”

  Sadie plucks off her red bandanna. Slides it from her head. “I don’t know. No one, I guess.”

  He stares at her. She’s drop-dead beautiful. Hair or no hair. Some people are lucky that way. Their heads are beautifully shaped. Others have lumps and dents. Hers is perfect.

  He looks away to keep from staring too hard. “I can’t remember what happened. I think…I think I must’ve blacked out and—”

  “You rode here. Your byke’s outside. I woke up in the other room and found you on the floor, and your hand…I can’t exactly remember getting here myself. It’s all a blur.”

  He rolls the stiffness from his neck and pictures the wolf: the yellow eyes, the snarls, the teeth. He sees it slinking through the rain. Then the flash of lightning and sheets of rain. Thunder pounding like cannon shot. The rock in his fist and the wolf dead at his feet.

  A vague memory of climbing, bone-tired, onto his byke. Drifting through the dunes. Riding one-handed, clutching his left hand to his chest, reeling with shock and pain. Finding the cabin, lit up in a flute of sunlight from a gap in the clouds. A Jacob’s ladder to the sky.

  Falling at the door.

  Sadie looks at him. “What you did out there…leading the wolves away like that. It was stupid. But it was brave.”

  Her expression is difficult to read. Somewhere between respect and reproach. It’s not the sort of expression someone can easily fake if they’re just trying to be sincere. It feels real. But there’s an edge of wariness in her look too. She’s keeping her distance.

  Adam shrugs, as if her acknowledgment doesn’t mean much to him, but inside he swells with pride. Sadie Blood thinks he’s brave.

  “Where’s Kane?” he says, changing the subject, immediately annoyed with himself for bringing him back into the conversation.