A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds)

by Colegrove, Stephen

  Colleen touched his arm. “Dad, why can’t I ride with you?”

  “We’re going downtown to check on your grandparents. It’s safer in the HUGO.”

  They left the base and drove toward the setting sun. Jack headed straight for the first checkpoint on the eastern border. It was a roadblock of three HUGOs and a tank.

  Jack glanced back at his passengers. “They’ll let us through. Might have to wait a bit. Anyone got a smoke?”

  One of the men opened the crimson cellophane on a pack of Chunghwa and handed one forward.

  “Something’s wrong,” said Dan.

  The soldiers had abruptly piled into their trucks and the battletank was turning in place.

  “I wonder why–”

  Jack rolled down his window and heard the low, mournful howl of air raid sirens.

  “There’s your answer. Hold your purses, boys!”

  He crossed into the opposing lane and blew past the tank with Padre right behind. The old six-cylinder roared and wind rattled the side windows. They crossed the city and made it to the foothills below the mountains when the first one hit. A white-hot bulb from God’s camera in the north, probably the Academy. The second flash was closer and the shockwave ripped the wheel out of Jack’s hands. The minivan spun down an embankment and rolled in a shower of glass and metal. It stopped at last, surrounded by a cloud of orange dust. Jack felt pinpoints of shattered windshield in his face and grit in his mouth. He tried to move his arms and legs but couldn’t feel them.

  A man’s voice whispered from somewhere in the minivan.

  “Bury me not … on the lone prairie …”

  Jack tried to turn his head but pain jabbed through his neck. A hand covered in blood lay on his lap and Jack and wondered if it was his. A hot pressure spread through his chest.

  “You’ve failed, old man,” said the hoarse voice. His voice.

  Jack’s eyes were wet. He couldn’t pretend it was because of the dust and he couldn’t wipe the tears away.

  SPLASHDOWN

  SIXTEEN

  Sounds came hollow and distant to Wilson and reminded him of bathtime, of leaning his head back and letting the water fill his ears. Air roared through his lungs with a sleepy comfort. A perfect solitude.

  But it became less. His father’s voice spoke on the surface of the water, loud but gentle.

  DON’T GIVE UP

  Wilson lifted his head and water poured from his ears. Memories floated through his hot, delirious mind like snowflakes around a lantern. His father. His mother. Kira.

  He kept his eyes shut and concentrated––the falling snow spun into a ball of ice. The cold helped to control his breathing and the pain, but his lungs burned for air.

  Something stretched his arms and scraped his legs across rough ground.

  Time passed or stopped. Never existed.

  He grew tired of the cold and wanted to sink into the bath of sleep. Wilson saw his father lean over him as the water began to steam.

  It pulled Wilson lower. It began to pour into his mouth.

  STOP

  It covered his head.

  ICE

  The water cooled abruptly and Wilson broke the surface with a gasp.

  ICE WILSON

  Bits of ice grew around him and Wilson spun in circles. He cried out in fear. His father shook his head and slapped him, hard.

  Wilson opened his eyes to a sky full of stars. He was cold and felt like a soggy scrap of bread. The air smelled of rotting meat and his mouth was full of grit. He slid his right hand over a stickiness on his belly and groaned in pain.

  “Boss, this one’s still alive,” rasped a man’s voice.

  “Not for long,” said another.

  Soft earth landed on his legs. Wilson felt the scar along the inside of his left forearm and pressed four long and one short. Nothing happened and more earth showered over him. He frantically pressed the code again. His legs and arms abruptly jerked out of control and he lost consciousness.

  i guess I’m dead

  NO

  who’s that

  ME

  i don’t believe this

  BELIEVE IT

  i thought death would be peaceful

  WHY

  that’s what everyone says

  EVERYONE IS DEAD

  how about me

  WHAT ABOUT YOU

  am I dead or not

  ONE OF THOSE

  i hope my mind is playing tricks on me

  NOT A TRICK

  god you are annoying

  NOT GOD

  am I dead or alive

  YES

  i’ll stop talking to you I swear

  FUNNY

  not in the least

  KNOW ANY JOKES

  what

  JOKES

  i don’t believe this

  I LIKE JOKES

  write that on a piece of paper stick it to your head and shoot a hole through it

  I KNOW A JOKE

  here’s a thought I don’t want to hear it

  WHAT DOES A DOG BECOME AFTER IT IS SIX YEARS OLD

  i don’t know

  SEVEN YEARS OLD

  that’s not funny

  WHAT DID THE DOG SAY TO THE CANDLE

  don’t care

  ARE YOU GOING OUT TONIGHT

  *

  SNOW COVERED THE FOREST and whipped through the air. Wilson stood in the middle of a frozen lake and covered his eyes from the stinging particles. Ice boomed under his feet and he fell into the freezing water. His fingers scraped long trails of blood across the ice as he tried to hold on. A huge metal hook speared his right hand and he cried out. A rope tied to the hook pulled him out of the water and across the ice.

  The hook changed to a black dog. With yellow teeth it held Wilson’s hand and pulled him slowly across the hard ground. He watched tiny clouds creep across the night sky. The leaves of blackberry bushes blocked out the sky and he barely felt the thorns. Something began to kick dirt and leaves over him. He closed his eyes and the dirt became a shower of ice.

  HE LAY IN A DEEP bank of snow. The cold dulled the pinpoints of pain moving over his body. A shadow crossed the blue sky and his father stood above him.

  Wilson opened his cracked lips.

  “Why?”

  “Man is born unto trouble as surely as sparks fly upward,” said his father.

  “Did I … am I dead?”

  “To live means to die.”

  “But why? Why this way?”

  “The way it is, is the way it must be. But you will lay a path for the future, if you see the path that has gone before.”

  “I can’t … I need help …”

  His father spread his hands. “I can fight for you, but will you fight for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen,” said his father, over and over.

  Wilson felt his body freeze solid from the inside out.

  A FEATHER TOUCHED HIS lips and he blew it away. Needles jabbed into his ribs with each breath. More pain and strange sounds gradually appeared. An angry man shouted in the distance. A killdeer trilled as it flew nearby.

  Wilson squinted at the light that filtered through the green blackberry stems. He tested his arms and legs and disturbed a blanket of dirt and dead leaves. Next to him, the black dog startled from a nap and moved away a few steps. The ugly, yellow-eyed creature scratched the patchy fur at its neck with a back leg.

  Wilson wondered what was happening inside the lumpy head. He guessed the dog or someone else had dragged him into the thicket. Was it to finish him off later? Or had a long-dead tribal taught him this trick? Wilson thought it was probably an over-eager hunting dog abandoned because of the mange. Founder knows why it had picked Wilson for a new master.

  Wilson’s hands brushed through the leaves and grit on his body. He was completely naked. In the center of his belly he touched a new, round scab.

  Parched and hungry, he looked around the thicket.
A trail of broken stems marked where the black dog had dragged him from the field. Near the dog a faint path led deeper into the thorns. Wilson turned on his belly and crawled.

  The thorns slashed his naked skin and his muscles twitched with tiny cramps, none lasting more than a second. Wilson stopped and meditated with the calming trick. It helped with the pain and he crawled further into the brambles.

  Soon he heard a bubbling sound and the thorns opened to a stream lined with trees. He watched for a few minutes then drank the cold water. He washed the scab on his belly and exit wound on his lower back. The dog had bit through his right hand where it dragged him and Wilson cleaned it carefully. He ate fistfuls of blackberries until his trembling fingers were stained purple.

  The distant sound of hammers meant he wasn’t far from mankind. Wilson followed the water upstream and the ugly dog trotted behind. The undergrowth thinned and he crawled through grass and sparse bushes. Under the thick cover of a privet bush he chewed mint leaves like tobacco and watched the village.

  It was the old airport and vast collection of huts he’d seen before. In fields dotted with wreckage, men and women bent over leafy crops while guards wandered lazily with rifles. Nearby was a wooden hut and a line of dirt mounds. The breeze changed and he smelled rotting flesh and urine.

  The sun dropped below the mountains. When twilight came two men left the hut and walked toward the village. Wilson used the cover of trees and shrubs to sneak to the back of the hut. He listened at the wall then tapped softly on a window slat. No response. There were openings near the roof eaves and Wilson used the window frame and gaps in the wood to climb through. He hung from the rafter beams and dropped to the floor.

  Leather material and tools lined the walls and leather scrap littered the workbenches. Wilson found a yellow buckskin jacket and a pair of trousers that fit. He saw no boots or moccasins anywhere, so he bound layers of leather scrap around his feet with thongs. A soft section of tanned leather made a warm hood. Wilson pierced holes to tighten it around his head. He rubbed dirt from the floor into the leather to make it look worn. A belt with a sharp leather cutter went around his waist.

  Outside, he used irrigation ditches and trash piles to crawl closer to the village. Like Station it relied on a wall of sentries instead of a wall of wood. Wilson squatted in a ditch and crumbled dirt between his fingers. A pair of guards laughed and separated. When they gave him enough space Wilson crawled to the village.

  He crouched in the narrow space under a building and waited for a shout of alarm. When none came he began to scout from the shadows.

  The wooden structures were all numbered in white paint. Most of the noise came from crude living quarters and eating areas. Several were guarded by men in green uniforms. Around the sprawling village were corn storage and processing buildings, animal pens, and workshops.

  Wilson followed a strange smell to the southern quadrant and found a collection of tall cylinders. A building nearby was painted in crystal white, different from the black and faded gray of the others. Wilson squinted through a gap in the wallboards and saw a collection of wheeled machines. Many were huge and flat like the ones he’d seen in Springs and Schriever. Others were tiny and could seat only one or two people.

  He kept to the shadows and crept closer to the center of the village. Crudely painted symbols on the buildings seemed to indicate zones and function. Wilson followed a series of cruciform shapes to an open, stone-paved square. It was lined with rough-hewn houses raised half a meter above the ground. Light gleamed from the shutters of one wooden building and voices from inside filtered across the square. Wilson moved across the paved stone of the square and crawled underneath the house to listen.

  “ … said they lost a dozen men, but it was more,” said a man’s voice in the dialect.

  “Three times that?” asked Darius.

  “I think so. It makes them a target, that’s why they lied to you.”

  “Send someone to watch Red Rock. Not an idiot, someone that can do figures. I want to know the exact number of fighting men they have.”

  The floorboards creaked above Wilson’s head.

  “Oh, yes. Before you do that, check on the girl in the treatment shack. See if she’s better.”

  “Sorry, sir––what building is that?”

  “Forty-three,” said Darius.

  ACROSS THE STREET FROM forty-three Wilson stopped, covered in sweat. He controlled his breathing and fought back nausea. While he waited for a second wind he watched the door of forty-three. Soon a man with a lantern in his hand walked along the dirt lane and entered the building. After a minute he left and walked in the opposite direction.

  Wilson jogged across the street. He listened at a window but heard nothing. At the door of forty-three he took out his leather cutter.

  The inside of the shack was more like a morgue than a medical room. A dozen bodies lay on beds, all covered with blankets. An old woman sat at a table grinding away with a wooden mortar and pestle. Roots were piled on her desk and the shelves behind were loaded with containers.

  The old woman saw his knife. “Kio estas?”

  “Don’t speak,” Wilson said in the dialect. He wished he could keep his arm from shaking. “Where’s the wild girl?”

  The old woman pointed to the back of the room.

  “Keep quiet and I won’t hurt you,” said Wilson.

  He walked to the last bed and pulled back his hood. Badger’s face was still and pale in the candlelight. A yellow tube dangled from a jar and snaked to bandages on the inside of her arm. Wilson brushed hair away from her eyes and touched her forehead. He pressed the reset code on her arm. When he bent close to her mouth, he felt soft breath on his cheek.

  “Wake up, baby,” he whispered, and rubbed her cold hand.

  The old lady ground roots in her bowl and watched him. The patients in the other beds were either sleeping or too infirm to notice anything.

  “I told you I’d be back,” he whispered. “I said I’d never give up and I didn’t. Now it’s your turn. I know there’s still someone called Kira bouncing around between your ears. Wake up and show me those beautiful eyes.”

  He counted the rise and fall of her chest.

  “I’ll tell you a story. A long time ago a boy and girl ran to the mountains. Nobody had any idea where they’d gone. While picking flowers they fell into a dark pit and couldn’t climb out. The girl started to cry but the boy held her and said everything would be okay. The pit was cold and deep but they kept each other warm and sang a song about not giving up.”

  Badger’s hand twitched and her feet moved under the blanket.

  “Are you awake now?”

  “Yesss …”

  “Talk to me.”

  “What happened … boy and girl …”

  “Oh that,” said Wilson. “Wolves ate them.”

  Badger coughed and wheezed. “Awful,” she said, and opened her eyes. “Will!”

  “Shhhh.”

  “He shot you,” she whispered. “I saw the blood!”

  Wilson shrugged. “I got better.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “I don’t feel it.” Wilson opened his jacket and showed her the round scab. Badger touched it with the tips of her fingers then pulled his head close and kissed him.

  “This is a dream,” she said. “You’re not real.”

  “Real or not, let’s go.”

  Badger sat up slowly and sniffed. “What a pair of darlings. You look like death and I smell like it.”

  Wilson pulled the tube from her arm and held a scrap of cloth on the trickle of blood. Badger wore only a ragged frock under the blanket. She found her balance with Wilson’s help and they walked to the old lady grinding medicines at the entrance.

  “How long has she been here?” Wilson asked her.

  The old lady rasped something then spat on the floor. “To village? Five days. Sickness start two days past.”

  Wilson felt numb. He half-fell, half-stumbled out the d
oor with Badger. She pushed him into the shadows as a pair of villagers walked by.

  “Will! What’s wrong with you?”

  “Five days. I was shot five days ago.”

  They stayed away from lanterns and jogged through the dark streets. After a few minutes Wilson leaned against a wall and gasped for air.

  “Can’t … gotta stop …”

  Badger helped him crawl under a wooden hut. She held his right hand carefully. It was punctured and torn with bite marks. After a few minutes she pinched herself and touched Wilson’s forehead with her index finger.

  “How did you survive that bullet?” she whispered.

  Wilson shook his head. “I don’t know. I pressed a code in my arm when they buried me. Founder knows if that actually did anything.”

  “Buried you?”

  “I think that’s what happened. Who knows, I imagined all kinds of things. People before the war and my father. Even if none of that was real, I crawled away or something pulled me out of the ground. It could have been the dog. When I woke up it was next to me.”

  Badger rubbed her legs from the cold. Wilson noticed tiny red shapes on her thighs and calves.

  “What are those?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  The red marks covered her legs. Some were small and circular and others were straight and thin. Badger flinched when he touched them.

  “Darius did this,” said Wilson. “I’ll kill him.”

  “Me too,” said Badger. “But first we need a distraction.”

  IN THE NORTHERN QUADRANT of the village were storage buildings for dried grass and animal fodder. A pair of sentries chatted in the street nearby. The cold turned their breath to steam.