Petrogypsies

by Rory Harper

  When he realized what I was doing, he jerked his tongue out of my hands and vanished it inside. He shuffled back a couple of yards, his eyeballs vibrating in panic.

  I lost control. I banged on him, but he wouldn’t open up, so I clawed my way to his top. All the sphincters up there were shut tight, too. From his back I could see the continuing madness in the pit. The stairs were still jammed. Doc and Razer and Stevie were standing on one side of a wall of flames, trying to edge closer, with no luck. Star and Sabrina were trying to climb the walls, but there was nothing for them to hold onto. The walls had caught fire, and the flames were coming at them in a pincer movement.

  I slid back down, halfway insane with fear for Star.

  I pounded on him some more. “You asshole, don’t do this! You can’t give up! You can’t be afraid! You gotta keep trying, no matter what! You can’t—”

  Then the last few days flashed through my head and I slid to my knees against him. “You can’t give up,” I whispered. “Like I did.”

  Star and Sabrina screamed. We’d run out of time.

  I got up off my knees. I was crazy by then. I figured it was too late to save them, so I was going to go around the rim to where they were, and I was going to jump in with them. I couldn’t bear for Star and my baby to burn without me there.

  Sprocket’s eyes popped wide open as we watched the fire close around them.

  He moaned. His mouth opened, and his tongue whipped into the bubbling hole. He ran it in for dozens of feet, until it was easily into the buried main. Then it began to pulse at a high rate as he sucked the water up.

  In only seconds, the ragged tip whipped back out again, and he stepped to the edge of the rim. I grabbed his tongue and aimed it like a hose. He opened up on the fire, and we deluged the barricade, knocking it apart, saturating the flaming walls until they didn’t even steam anymore. Behind us, the dactyls sang their approval in thirds harmony.

  Finally, he sprayed empty. I patted his tongue-tip and turned to him. “Thanks, buddy. You got more guts than me. You’re gonna be all right.”

  Star looked up at me from her corner. She was dripping wet, her long, black hair tangled and plastered to her body. She walked across the floor to the stairway. She climbed it and was in my arms a minute later.

  * * *

  Sprocket dimmed his warts as soon as we were in my room.

  “Star, we need to talk about—”

  She put a finger to my lips. “Shush. Not now. We already talked too much for our own good.”

  The lights went out.

  She was still wet, but warm to the touch.

  * * *

  I woke up with sunlight streaming through the hole in the ceiling. Star was nibbling at my eyebrows. My whole body was one mild, but bone-deep ache. I felt more relaxed and at peace than since I was a small child.

  “I been thinking things over,” I said. “On this deal with the baby …”

  “Uh-huh,” she murmured while she licked my nose.

  “Well, I figured. Comes right down to it, I can’t stop you doing whatever you want, anyway. And it is your own personal body, even though you’ve been generous enough to share the use of it on occasion. So … I wish you’d keep the baby and let’s us get married, but—”

  She bit my left earlobe. “I decided last night to go ahead and keep the baby, Henry Lee. Might as well keep you, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well. That’s … that’s real nice.”

  “I was hoping you was still in favor of it. I been somewhat of a bitch lately.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I know. You’re too sweet to. One of the reasons I love you so much.”

  “You never said you loved me.”

  “You, neither.”

  “Well, I do,” I said. “Now about school, we got a problem here—”

  “Later,” she said. “Do that some more. It feels good.”

  * * *

  About an hour further on, we managed to struggle out of bed. While we were dressing, I brought up the problem of school again.

  When I admitted about failing eleventh grade, Star started laughing. “Is that what was worrying you? You just didn’t have the right motivation. Believe me, if I can handle college, you can handle college.”

  I nodded, but she must have saw that I didn’t believe her.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “I know lots of people dumber than both of us together that do fine in college.”

  “I took a peek at Razer’s books,” I said. I recounted the titles and subjects as much as I could remember. Before I finished, she was laughing again. “Those were senior texts, Henry Lee. You’ll have, and need, three solid years of preparation before they throw them at you. If ever. Razer’s hobby is mathematics. He don’t talk about it much because it might ruin his image. Half of those books are completely unnecessary for a degree.”

  I must have still looked doubtful. She put her hand on mine and got serious. “Look, you said you were gonna try.”

  “I am.”

  “Then trust me. I know for a fact, from the way you picked up on oilpatch stuff and musical knowledge, that you can handle college. Try a semester, and you’ll see. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but we’ll get you through. You ain’t alone here, you know. Lots of people will be glad to help you with it. Me included.”

  * * *

  As we passed by Razer’s old room, I thought to check if the dactyls were still hanging out with us. When I tried to pull the flesh curtain aside, Sprocket resisted. Then I heard voices inside and called out, “Hey, who all’s in there? Razer?”

  “Henry Lee! Come on in!” Sprocket opened up the curtain then. First thing I saw was what looked like a burst bale of hay in one corner, with Maureen and Sonny squatted on it.

  Second thing I saw was Stevie and the bouncy blonde he’d been with last night, lying in the tangled sheets of Razer’s bed. The lady was a tad slow pulling the sheet up to her chin. There wasn’t any doubt left that she was a mammal.

  Stevie looked as much at peace with himself and the world as I had felt on waking. Matter of fact, all four of us radiated good will and cheer and lots of energy. Normally, people that are all happy and alert in the morning give me an urge to mumble and snap, but this time it was okay.

  “Hi, guys!” Stevie said enthusiastically. “How’re you feeling this morning?”

  “Just fine, Stevie,” Star said.

  “Us, too,” Stevie said. “Oh—I didn’t mean to be so rude. Henry Lee, Star, this is Doctor Rene Dartmouth.”

  “But you-all can call me the Stone Magnolia,” she said. She extended a hand, barely remembering in time to hold the sheet in place with the other hand. “It is shoahly a pleasuah to make yoah acquaintance.”

  My eyebrows must have shot up into my cowlick.

  Stevie squirmed. “Billy Bob is such a snitch,” he said.

  “Thought you two was mortal enemies,” Star said behind me.

  “Foah a while we were unable to fully appreciate each other’s bettah qualities,” the Magnolia said. “I believe we’ll be working togethah more closely from now on.”

  “Ain’t you mad about Stevie punchin’ Billy Bob’s ticket last night?”

  She beamed at Stevie. “Not a bit. Mah nephew has needed somebody to straighten out his britches foah several yeahs. Billy Bob was a well-mannered boy until he got heah and began to associate with all those full-backs and tight ends and such. He was most apologetic late last night. Ah believe Stevie reminded him that humility is a virtue.”

  Star and I had missed that part, being otherwise engaged.

  Maureen and Sonny nodded together where they perched on the hay, as if they had understood her words.

  I pointed a thumb at them. “This mean the autopsies are cancelled? You g
et to keep your job?”

  They both nodded. “Go take a closer look at Maureen,” Stevie said.

  I stepped closer to her. “Looks fine to me.”

  “Poke her with a finger.”

  “She won’t bite?”

  “Don’t poke too hard.”

  I goosed her tentatively. She hissed and stood up, spreading her wings a few feet, then settled back down. Not before I had seen what her abdomen covered. Two mottled brown eggs the size of cantaloupes.

  “Well, I’ll be! Us humans ain’t the only ones been fooling around!”

  “First two eggs in what we hope is a series,” Stevie said.

  Sonny picked up and waddled toward the ladder bolted into Sprocket’s flesh that led through the hole in the ceiling.

  Stevie leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “This is a huge breakthrough. I suspect they simply won’t breed in captivity. I set them loose, and in the wild they immediately began to reproduce.”

  I looked around Razer’s room. “Yeah, considering who used to live here, this is definitely in the wild.”

  Sonny vanished out the hole onto Sprocket’s back. We listened, and a few seconds later we heard the supersonic whip-crack of another launch.

  * * *

  We climbed out the hole ourselves a few minutes later, joined by Stevie and the Magnolia after they got dressed. Sometime during the night or early morning, Sprocket had trundled us back to the camp. Half a dozen of the crew, looking remarkably chipper, circled a fire and sipped coffee and compared bruises.

  A line of kids had assembled on the edge of the clearing in front of Sprocket and Munchkin. The kid at the head of the line, a red-headed girl about nine years old, marched into the center of the clearing and stretched her arms out from her sides. She looked up into the sky and whistled.

  A dark speck dropped out of the blue, magnifying rapidly until it became Sonny. He swooped on the girl, grabbing her upper arms in his claws. We heard one delighted shriek from her before they skimmed over the camp out of sight. Then they climbed upward, Sonny’s leathery wings beating effortlessly. The line of kids giggled and pointed at them. The kid newly at the head of the line fidgeted and took a few steps forward. He could hardly wait for his turn.

  “Stupid birds!” Stevie said affectionately.

  Afterwards

  It was an outdoors wedding, of course, since gypsies lead outdoors kinds of lives. The bride did not wear white. That would have been pushing things too far.

  The actual wedding was small, less than fifty people, held in the garden behind the chapel at the university, but the reception afterwards was an entirely different matter.

  Me and Stevie stood on Sprocket’s head, carefully nursing glasses of champagne, watching the crowd swirl around the center of the camp. Sprocket danced in place and hummed along with the band. His tongue twisted out of sight through the crowd. The tip was inserted through one of the dozens of valves leading from a full oil tanker parked near the entrance to the camp. It had been provided strictly for the Drillers at the party.

  All the men, including me and Stevie, had got all duded up in tuxes. The women all had on their best cocktail dresses. Stevie wore a flashy new gold-and-diamond earring. Seemed like about three thousand people were in attendance. The sun balanced on the treetops and the reception was in the process of degenerating into the kind of party that you tell your grandkids about.

  “Well, congratulations,” Stevie said.

  “Thanks.” I scanned the crowd, looking for Star. She had been so busy dancing with other fellas that I hadn’t seen her for about an hour.

  “What you going to call the baby?”

  “We haven’t really settled it. I like Lewis Daniel if it’s a boy. Star favors Rachael Victoria for a girl.”

  About that time, Star broke through the wall of people and walked toward us. She stepped on Sprocket’s tongue and maintained her balance by holding a hand against his side. He hunched the tongue upward until she could easily step onto his back. It was a new trick he had picked up from another Driller in the camp a couple of days before. She kissed Stevie on the cheek.

  “You certainly look splendorous today,” she said.

  He blushed. “Aww, well …”

  “How you and your sweetie doing lately?”

  “Better and better.” He nodded toward the Stone Magnolia, who was dancing with Wiley the Wildman Throckmorton over by the barbecue pits. He shook his head. “I still have trouble believing she likes me.”

  “Takes all kinds,” I said.

  “Eye of the beholder,” Star said, patting my rump.

  “I guess so.” He sipped the last of the champagne in his glass. “Enough about me. What about you two? When are you going to get married?”

  Star and me exchanged glances. “Don’t get us started on that,” I said.

  “Just ‘cause Doc and Sabrina tied the knot today don’t mean everybody in town has to,” Star said.

  “The baby’s going to need a daddy,” Stevie said.

  “The baby’s got one,” I said. “And a momma who thinks she’s still sixteen years old.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she hugged me around the waist in return. “What the hell. Who knows, maybe by the time we’re both forty or so, with about five kids, we’ll decide to settle down and be a boring old married couple.”

  The song ended, and the Magnolia beckoned toward Stevie to join her for the next dance. We started in that direction with him.

  “In the meantime,” Star said, “let’s party!

  The End

  (of the beginning)

  An excerpt from ...

  Sprocket Goes International

  by Rory Harper

  Lady Jane almost died before we got to Venezuela.

  The entire trip on the oil tanker Pertwee took only six days, and the sea was smooth as glass all the way, but when we were forty-eight hours from Caracas, she started showing symptoms of the casing crud. The human equivalent is terminal constipation. That may sound humorous, but it ain’t.

  Sometimes a casing critter will form an obstruction in one of their pipe tubes, backing up all the raw material that they’re converting into casing. Usually, the critter can pass it out of her system, but not always. If the obstruction isn’t removed or dissolved, their internal organs can rupture. Sometimes medicines work, sometimes violent massage will move the lump to where you can get a cable around it and yank it out. Sometimes not.

  We spent the last twelve hours at sea with her tied down to the deck with braided steel cables to minimize her thrashing about. She was trying to be good, but she hurt too much. The problem was, the obstruction had formed quickly, and farther than usual into her excretory tract, between her secondary stomachs and the pipe tubes. Nothing we tried knocked it loose. We even flushed her guts with 19 Baume-A hydrochloric acid, which was the strongest we had on hand and the strongest we could safely put in her system. It didn’t reduce the obstruction noticeably. She needed major surgery, which we weren’t equipped to do.

  The obstruction swelled and elongated as her tract filled with all the material that she digested. We pumped her stomachs empty, of course, to keep from feeding it more. Me and Star together climbed into her mouth and forced the hose down her throat, but there was already too much in the pipeline, as it were. The obstruction kept growing.

  The sky was steady overcast for most of the trip, which prevented shooting the sun or stars to get the Pertwee’s precise location. Sunspots had interfered with radio triangulation, too, so the best the captain could tell us was that we’d get there ‘real soon now’.

  Star and Sabrina had about decided to cut into Lady Jane as the best of a bad set of choices, when the coast floated up on the horizon. We had originally been scheduled to land at Puerto La Cruz and head straight south from there to Anaco, but with Lady Jane sick
, the captain had convinced us we would get better help sooner if we put in at La Guaira, a port town about a dozen miles north of Caracas.

  When the Pertwee got close enough for line of sight broadcasting and reception, Sparks radioed ahead that we had a sick critter on board and needed a vet and an escort to the nearest hospital that could handle her, via the shortest route. Whoever was on the other end got back with us after a few minutes and let us know that they would have an army detachment quayside to take care of us when we arrived.

  Two hours later, the tanker moored at the industrial district’s docks, on the southern edge of the refinery complex. The captain had arranged to pick up his oil shipment there instead of at Puerto La Cruz. The oil was all owned by the Sisters anyway, so there wasn’t much problem there for him.

  I had expected some sort of mickey-mouse outfit down here near the equator, but the refinery system looked as large as the one at Pasadena, and just as modern. I figured maybe things weren’t so backwards as we had been led to expect. Then our army escort thundered up alongside the ship.

  Eleven guys on horses.

  Good-looking horses, mind you. Somehow, though, I hadn’t expected that Lady Jane would literally have the cavalry riding to her rescue.

  By the time a couple of the mooring lines were attached, two of the men, one in military uniform and one in blue jeans and work shirt, had dismounted, climbed into a work basket, and were in the process of being swung by crane from the dock to the deck of the Pertwee.

  Doc had stayed inside Lady Jane with Sabrina and Star, so I greeted them.

  “You fellas speak English?” They nodded. “Great. I’m Henry Lee MacFarland, pleased to meetcha, c’mon thisaway, hurry your asses, por favor.” I shook their hands quickly while I was talking. So much for the social amenities. Both of the men had heavy saddlebags slung over their shoulders.