A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds)

by Colegrove, Stephen

  Wilson and Badger watched from the shadows. They heard shouts from the direction of building forty-three. The sentries shifted their feet lazily and one pointed toward the noise.

  “I don’t like it,” murmured Wilson.

  “No time to look back,” said Badger.

  She waited until Wilson had circled into position, then curled her arms to her chest and ran toward the guards. They noticed her cries for help and watched her stumble to the ground.

  “Kio okazas,” one yelled. Both men walked toward her.

  Wilson crept into the storage building and uncovered his lantern. A mound of dried grass from last summer filled half the building. Wilson held the candle to the bottom layer and the flames quickly grew a meter high. He covered the lantern and ran out of the building.

  The guards had slung their rifles and were helping Badger to her feet. She pointed frantically as Wilson burst from the building. The men dipped shoulders to unsling their rifles.

  Badger pulled a belt knife from the guard on her right and stabbed him in the neck. Hearing the scream, the other guard punched at her with his free hand. Badger blocked the arm with a slash and slammed a fist into his windpipe. He pitched backwards and sprawled on the ground.

  She wiped blood from her face and pointed to another building. “Will! The next one!”

  Wilson entered the large structure and ignited a high mound of dried grass. He tossed the lantern into the flames and scrambled out. Badger had strapped a belt with pouches over her thin frock. She handed a rifle to Wilson and they ran toward the center of the village.

  The conflagration excited the tribal people more than Badger’s escape. Men ran toward it shouting the alarm and a bell began to clang rapidly from somewhere distant.

  A large group rushed through the streets and forced Wilson and Badger to hide in an outhouse. The smell of burning wood and grass seeped through the stink in the shed. Wilson peered through a crack. He saw an orange-lit pillar of smoke climb into the night sky.

  “That’ll put the fear of God into them,” said Wilson.

  Badger examined the edge of the knife she’d stolen and said nothing.

  They navigated the chaos in the streets to the house where Darius had questioned them. Lantern-light gleamed through cracks in the shutters and no villagers were in sight.

  “Time for that bastard to pay,” said Wilson.

  Badger nodded. “Just like that, huh?”

  “More or less.”

  “Listen, killer. You just crawled out of a grave. A fight is the last thing you need.”

  “Don’t leave me out of this, Kira.”

  “I’m not. I need you, Will. I’m so tired my bones are sleepy, but I’m in better shape than you. Just be there to pick up the pieces.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wilson said. “I wish I could have–”

  Badger touched his cheek. “Don’t wish and don’t be sorry.”

  A door opened and light spilled into the square. A dark shape closed it and ran in the direction of the fire.

  Badger grabbed his hand and they sprinted across the square to the door. Wilson knelt close to the steps with a rifle and Badger crouched at the bottom. The voices of three men filtered to the outside. One belonged to Darius.

  Wilson raised three fingers. Badger copied him and nodded. The wood floor of the building creaked as someone walked around. Wilson pointed at Badger then the door, and she repeated the gesture. With her eyes closed she murmured a poem.

  Wilson counted to five then pounded on the door with his good hand. After a few mumbled words, footsteps came toward the door. The latch clicked and he glanced at Badger. Her eyes were wide open and pupils dilated.

  A sliver of light showed at the door then it exploded inside with a cloud of dirt and splinters. Multiple crashes vibrated the building.

  Wilson shaded his eyes and ran inside. On his left a man in gray clothing lay in the remains of a bookshelf. His body was covered with books and paper and his head was twisted too far to the side. Another man squirmed in front of the fireplace. His hands were around a bloody knife in his chest. On the other side of the room Darius had curled into a ball. He was covered in glass and fragments of a wooden chair.

  Badger stood in the center of the room with her back to Wilson. Blood dripped from her right hand. She fell to one knee and Wilson caught her under the shoulder. She abruptly bent at the waist and sprayed yellow vomit on the floor.

  “Kira?”

  He dropped his rifle and stretched her on the floor. Using her arm as support for her neck, Wilson rolled her on her side. Her pulse seemed fine so he closed what was left of the wooden door.

  Bookshelf Man was pale with no heartbeat and Fireplace Man was now motionless in a pool of blood. Darius was the only one breathing. Wilson took a long rope from the wall and quickly tied Darius at the hands and feet. He searched through shelves on the walls and two wooden chests in the room. The manual from Schriever lay on a table and went inside his jacket. Wilson found his hunting knife and revolver but nothing else. He pulled off the clothes Bookshelf Man was wearing and helped Badger wear them over her frock.

  She tried to sit up. “We can’t stay here.”

  Darius coughed from the floor and groaned. He tried to move his arms and legs.

  “This bastard is still alive,” said Badger.

  “Whoever you are you’ll be dead before dawn,” rasped Darius.

  Wilson stood over him and pulled back the hood covering his face.

  “I’ll just come back,” he said.

  Darius turned as pale as the dead men. “I shot you!”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “But it’s not possible! I saw them bury you.”

  Wilson pulled up his jacket and showed the scab on his belly.

  “Tell me something, Darius.” The point of his knife wavered dangerously close. “Where do you get your weapons and vehicles?”

  “Down south. There’s a machine center in Albo.”

  “Albo? How many villages do you have?”

  Darius flicked his tongue over his lips. “Hundreds.”

  “I mean around here.”

  “A settlement two days to the east and two more farther south.”

  “Why do you keep bothering the tribes?”

  Darius closed his eyes. “We have to. We’ve had outbreaks and we need workers. I didn’t come to this uncivilized hell-hole just for fun, you know.”

  “You’re very cooperative,” said Wilson.

  “I’ve always treated the dead with respect.” Darius pointed his chin at the blood-covered body near the fireplace. “Here’s another grave to dig yourself out of. That man’s the leader of Woodland. They’re a murderous lot even for savages. The pair of you will be at the top of their social calendar.”

  Badger had regained more of her strength and steadied herself against the calendar-covered wall.

  “You have no idea what the Circle really is,” said Darius. “I’m just a senator, the speaker for this area. Threaten me, kill me––the Circle doesn’t care. They won’t spit out their tea at the news of my death.” He nodded. “But those storage buildings … wait and see what happens when you destroy Circle property. They won’t even use their weapons and vehicles. The word will go out and tribes will cover you like flies on a stinking corpse.”

  Wilson’s face burned. He sliced the edge of the knife across Darius’s bicep. Darius screamed.

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m some drooling savage,” spat Wilson. “If you threaten us, we’ll fight. If you kill us, we’ll come back.”

  Badger pulled him away and stepped in front of Darius. “Remember me, you pig? Look up!”

  She pushed one hand into his trousers and grabbed. In her other hand was a knife. Darius screamed and tried to slide across the floor. Badger held on and jabbed the knife inside his trousers. When she pulled it free the blade was streaked with blood. Darius wailed like a father at the funeral of all his children.

  Badger stepped over Dariu
s and grabbed his bound wrists. He jerked his body and kept wailing as Badger sawed off a thumb. Wilson felt his stomach knot and walked to the window.

  Badger dropped a pair of bloody thumbs on the floor and leaned close to Darius. “Don’t come looking for us,” she whispered.

  Wilson grabbed her arm. “We have to move!”

  They scrambled out the door as a crowd with lanterns entered the square. The pair dashed behind the building and through an alley. From a storage shed they could still hear moans from Darius. Another man’s voice shouted orders.

  “They’ll come after us,” said Wilson. “You should have slit his throat.”

  Badger looked through a crack in the door. “Don’t worry. He’ll bleed to death.”

  Wilson wondered at what Darius had said a week ago, about the two of them being homocidal maniacs.

  “Yeah,” said Wilson slowly. “Maybe he will.”

  BADGER LED HIM THROUGH the shadows to a smokehouse. She stuffed a blanket with dried meat and apples while Wilson leaned against the wall.

  “How are you feeling?” Badger asked.

  Wilson coughed. “Rotten, like a dead goat.”

  “We need to rest somewhere.”

  “But the whole place is looking for us. We can’t stop.”

  Badger shook her head. “Says the dead goat.”

  Using darkness and the humps of grass-covered wreckage as cover, they snuck through the eastern side of the village and circled to the north. After a kilometer the ground rose to a forest-covered bluff. Wilson rested beside a tree and looked back.

  Orange flame boiled from a dozen buildings and prickled the hair on his face, even from this distance. Black smoke covered the rest of the village. A line of tiny figures passed buckets to the flames and a four-wheeled vehicle sped across the fields.

  “I wish they hadn’t made us do it,” he said.

  Badger sniffed. “Life is full of choices.”

  “Yes, I know. But it’s such a waste. They could have let us go.”

  “Could have, should have,” said Badger. “Sometimes we’re the cat and sometimes the butterfly.”

  They walked with the north star on the right and the dead zone of Springs on the left. Before dawn turned the sky gray they had made it halfway to the western foothills. Badger found a shed behind a collapsed concrete wall. There was no door and only part of a roof, but the shelter was hidden from the main road.

  Wilson slept fitfully. When he woke he noticed an empty swallow’s nest under a corner of the roof. The setting sun colored the mud and the inside of the roof orange.

  “Sleep well?” asked Badger.

  Wilson yawned. “Not really.”

  He ate another apple and a few chunks of dried meat. Badger had found a metal can full of rainwater and he drank half of it.

  “Drink it all, there’s more,” said Badger.

  “Did you sleep?”

  “A few hours. Someone has to keep the dogs from dragging you away.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

  The sky deepened to purple and nightjars flew overhead. The brown birds chirped to each other as they searched for moths.

  “I wonder about the old times,” Badger said softly. “They built so many things but how could they be real people? I can’t picture what their lives were like. What did they dream about?”

  “They were probably too busy for dreams,” said Wilson.

  Badger nodded. She turned to Wilson and watched him for a long moment. “Tell me what death feels like.”

  Wilson kept his eyes on the nightjars. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t really die.”

  “Don’t tell me what’s rid … whatever you said. I saw it happen.”

  Wilson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You know when you’re underwater and need to breathe? Like a burn, a pressure you try to fight but can’t? It was the same feeling. I was freezing like a block of ice. I remember my father giving me a bath and trying not to drown. He said things to me. Other voices, too.”

  “That was just your mind talking to itself.”

  “It wasn’t the same. There were jokes.”

  Badger tilted her head. “Like what?”

  “Just silly kid’s jokes.”

  “Sounds like you.” She paused. “I thought you were dead, Will.”

  “I don’t feel alive right now, let me tell you.”

  “No, I’m serious.” Badger rubbed her eyes. “I really thought you were dead. I saw you shot and bleeding. Right in front of me.” She looked away. “I thought … after two days I gave up.”

  “What do you mean, gave up?”

  “After two days I was a shell. A nothing. Darius and the others wouldn’t stop and I didn’t want to feel anything ever again. Remember telling me you used to make yourself feel sick and bring on the strange feelings? That’s what I did. I forgot everything in the room, everything I knew, and imagined myself floating to the ceiling. Then the seizures took over.”

  Wilson held her warm hands. “You’re the one who taught me to hold on, Kira. I didn’t have the willpower to come back without you. If you give up how can I keep going?”

  “I know, Will. But now that everything is quiet I can’t get it out of my head. Your body dragged across the floor, the smeared blood. The misery of wanting to die. Even though I made Darius pay, even though you’re right here with me … I want to smash my head against a rock.”

  “I’m here for you and I’m not leaving,” said Wilson. “I won’t let it happen again.”

  Badger wiped her eyes. “Just hold me.”

  SEVENTEEN

  As evening approached Wilson made an inventory:

  One bolt-action rifle with one shell

  One belt pouch with firearm cleaning kit

  Wilson’s pistol, five rounds in the cylinder, one in pocket

  One hunting knife

  One leather-cutting knife

  The implant manual

  One blanket

  Six pieces of dried meat

  Three apples

  A can

  “If we go back the way we came it’s forty kilometers to David,” said Wilson. “That’s just a guess.”

  Badger wiped her rifle with a rag. “Those Circle pigs aren’t guessing. You slept through a herd of transports roaring west.”

  “How long ago?”

  “A few hours.”

  “What if there are more? That’s a narrow road through the mountains.”

  Badger shook her head. “We don’t have enough food, weapons, or time to find another trail. Don’t worry––those things fly by so fast they barely know what’s in front of them.”

  “Yishai and the people at David. Do you think there’s any way to warn them?”

  Badger snapped the bolt of her rifle forward and down, closing the firing chamber.

  “I take that as a no,” said Wilson.

  They prepared to leave. Badger carried the rifle and Wilson his pistol. The implant manual went into a pocket of his jacket.

  He tightened the thongs that held the leather scraps on his feet.

  “That won’t last forty klicks,” said Badger.

  “I guess you’ll have to carry me the rest of the way, then.”

  “Ha!”

  Wilson left the tiny shelter still smiling and plowed straight into a man in stinking yellow buckskin. The tribal’s long firearm went flying and both he and Wilson sprawled on the damp grass.

  Badger pointed her rifle at the scout and helped Wilson up with her free hand.

  “Come on!”

  The tribal screamed for help as Badger and Wilson scrambled through the green bushes behind the shed. They stumbled over rocks hidden in the grass and covered their eyes from whipping branches. Badger crossed the fractured surface of an old road and slid into a pit in the ground with Wilson right behind. She crawled through the shadows and into a narrow tunnel.

  Wilson’s shoulders rubbed the curving, slime-covered walls. The air was full of a thi
ck animal stench and he had to stop. He spit and covered his mouth with his jacket.

  “Keep going,” whispered Badger.

  Wilson coughed. “No … the smell …”

  They listened to the voices searching for them in the streets above. Wilson used the calming trick to meditate and control his nausea. The tribal voices came from farther and farther away and became whispers in the night air, but were still somewhere close.

  A scrabbling broke the quiet darkness like seeds rattling in a cup. Badger’s knife flashed but she missed and the range lizard bit her right arm. Wilson punched the monster in the head until it let go and scraped back into the dark.

  Badger slumped against the curved wall and took ragged breaths.

  “Cat’s … teeth … I hate those things.”

  Wilson touched her arm. This lizard had been smaller than the ones that had attacked them back at Station and the bite wasn’t as wide.

  “Don’t move. It makes the pain worse,” he said.

  “It’s going numb,” she whispered.

  By the time the tribals had gone Badger’s arm had regained feeling. Wilson climbed from the stinking tunnel and sat at street level. He watched and waited for any sneaky tribals then helped Badger out of the pit.

  A light mist chilled the night air as they traveled west over uneven, grassy fields. When they met the foothills and the sandstone knives near the Garden, they turned south to find old 24. The cracked road climbed into the mountains through layers of colored rock. The starlight changed the strata into charcoal and shades of gunmetal.

  Frequent stops helped them conserve energy and listen for pursuit. Wilson taught Badger his calming trick and the following breaks were spent in meditation. The routine helped to numb some of the pain from Wilson’s legs and feet.

  “Your friend is back,” said Badger, as they halted again.

  At the gray edge of his night vision Wilson saw a four-legged shape on the road.

  “Probably a fox,” he said. “Or another dog that likes people.”

  “No. That’s the same disgusting animal,” said Badger. “I can smell it.”

  “Don’t be jealous dear. There’s enough of me to go around.”