Beneath Ceaseless Skies #100

by Richard Parks

  In the evening, we break our fast with some johnnycakes made from weevily cornmeal and water and we pick out what bugs we can, but the whole is spotted with black dots and after a time our hunger overtakes our fastidiousness and we fire the cakes on a hot rock and eat them with a handful of dried apples and it fills my belly.

  We check lines all night long zig-zag up the hill behind the rubble that once was a church, and the results are worse than spotty with most traps sprung and nothing but clumps of gray fur and I reach the top of the rise in a foul sour mood and much wanting a taste of grog to take the edge off.

  We are well disguised and not visible even though the morning sun is up, and we take cover in a stand of vine maple and blackberry that makes the going thorny and very discomfortable but I believe it is a price well worth paying. I sit down on a rock and my beautiful daughter sits next to me and the radiance of her presence tries to melt my sourness, but I look out over the bay and my stomach twists and the foul mood comes rushing back like a storm.

  Tall black smokestacks rake the bottoms of the clouds like evil fingers and thick black smoke boils from the clockwork factories in noxious dark billows, and Ashera grows very quiet and still for she has never laid eyes on the factories before. My hands shake like palsy and I want my grog with such a fierce desire that I find I have bit the inside of my cheek and the hot salty taste of blood fills my mouth.

  I should say there are times I ache to drink myself into a stupor and lie down on the tracks of a clockwork train or to fill my pockets with stones and walk into the water or leap from the bluff onto the sharp jumble of rocks below, for I wake often in the dark hole we call home and it might be the middle of the night or it might well be high noon and we insensible to such fundamental knowledge.

  But there is my beautiful daughter and in her eyes I see her mother and she plays games in the holes in the ground and she cries and she laughs and she wants her belly filled with food and her mind stuffed with stories and how could I ever leave her?

  Sometimes in the blackest of my moods I toy with such a terrible notion that it leaves my bowels runny and I think about filling her pockets with rocks too and the both of us wading into the bay and I get up and I pace and I drink and I push those foul thoughts into the deepest hole in my mind that I can find.

  I am too old.

  Ashera stares at the smokestacks and the slag piles and the buzzers that flit about like demented bats and the scars of tracks cutting through the earth across the water. There are no trees, no touch of green, no pool of water that is not fouled with poison, no leaves to provide much needed balm to the eye.

  “They took your mother.” My jaw clenches. Ashera knows this, knows this story though its edges are still rough for I never tell it unless my mood is something foul. “She went for a walk. Said she were going half mad holed up under the earth. Asked how we could stand it. Said she was not a worm nor mole nor crawling thing to live so long under the earth.”

  Ashera’s eyes shine and her jaw clenches but she does not cry and does not turn from me, and she is her mother’s daughter and she is strong.

  I crumble a dirt clod with the rough planes of my calloused fingers. “You were four years old. A regular hellion. Your mother said she would take a walk. Said I could watch you. Said she would not be gone long.”

  There is a pause. “Why do they take us?” Ashera’s hand finds mine and she clutches my fingers hard. “What do they want?”

  I shrug. One-Arm Jelly was taken years and years ago and he escaped and he tells stories late when the children are asleep. Tales of clockworks clanking and whirring around his cage and wheels and hair-thin gears spinning in their heads and bright colored buttons and sometimes pushing the red button brought pain in great shocking bursts and made him writhe and twist and lose control of his bowels and other times red brought food in packets still warm to touch.

  Blue and yellow buttons and mazes and shots and tests and pain and pain and pain.

  Jelly scavenged a blade and one night he sawed off his own hand to work free from the steel bonds the clockworks had him in and he tied off the wrist to staunch the flow of his bright red blood and he made his way free, but he lost the arm due to rot and he’s very handy and can tie off a line with his teeth or work his remaining fingers so fast and quick I’d swear he had the full complement.

  But I tell Ashera that I don’t know for sure. And that is the truth, but sometimes what is true can be a lie. What I do know and have told her over and over is that the clankers set traps for us. Bright shiny new things that you see lying in fields are not to be touched. The clankers wait and listen for the snap and clack of the steel trap that swings shut around the hapless person and that is all and they are taken and they are gone.

  I think about the church and about the big clean people all fat and well fed and with their dainty nails trimmed and talking about God and the devil, and nowadays I do not believe in either one, but I am a damn sight sure there is more evidence for the latter.

  But again, I do not share all these sour thoughts with my daughter and instead we watch the smoke billow out across the water and the sparks from hidden forges glow on the undersides of clouds and we make our bed in the center of a grand old bramble thicket and sleep.

  The moon lights our path back and it is much faster both because we travel downhill and because we do not stop and zig and zag to check the lines. Ashera does not speak much but I know she thinks of smokestacks and traps and I hope she does not know about the buttons and the shocks but there are no secrets under the ground and I am sure she does know anyway and I am sure her mind turns sour and dark like mine.

  It rains again next evening and I am glad not only because the clankers do not seem to prefer the rain, but also because my mood is so black and foul that had it been sweet and nice out I would have felt compelled to be even blacker to compensate.

  We walk all night and I am very tired and weighted down with the near four-score rat skins and meat we’ve harvested and my feet are soaked on account of the puddles and ditches and creeks we must slog through. Daylight steals our cover and we are not near as far as I would like and I walk faster.

  Ashera is a stalwart and does not whine or complain though I can see that she is very worn out as well and I think she is getting to be a big girl and it is almost seven years since the clankers have stolen her mother.

  Those thoughts rattle around in my brainbox and I want a nip of grog even worse than yesterday and to tell the truth I want more than a nip, but then we round a hillock and there is Billy Boy.

  “Well, hi, Ratcatcher,” says he and I grunt and I do not think much on Billy Boy because he is a no-account ignorant blowhard and he is all puffed up on his own self and thinks that young people and himself in particular know better, and so all I do is grunt and keep walking and thinking how could the day get worse? “Hello to you, too, Ashera,” says he. “You are looking mighty fine.”

  So I stop and I want to hit him but I can see he is prepared for that eventuality and I don’t give him the pleasure and besides I am tired and weighed down. “What are you doing above ground, Billy Boy?”

  He puffs up even more than usual and he says his name is not Billy any longer and that he has taken a new name and that name is Reiver and he looks proud and excited and dangerous.

  I shrug. “Could be Billy or Reiver or Wet-behind-the-ears or even Wipe-the-shit-off-your-arse because I have done that for you, you know?” I have my skinning knife in my pocket and the blade is very sharp.

  He laughs, a fake-sounding bray that makes the skin on the back of my neck crawl what with us being outside and daylight and clankers about, but he steps back. “No need to get your dander up, old man. I simply came to escort you back home and to tell Ashera the good news.”

  “What good news?” I say and I have no doubt the words will not sound good in my ears.

  “Why, that I chose Ashera.” Billy nearly bursts from puffing himself up. “As my name-day mate.”

 
I want to strike him down and the picture of him lying at my feet bleeding his life blood into the mud is strong and I think I have already done it, but I hold and hold and hold. I do not want Ashera to see such a terrible sight and besides my position in the tribe is precarious in the extreme and I cannot afford to make enemies of Billy Boy’s family and friends and so I hold though my hand clenches the hilt of my knife so hard my fingers tingle.

  “Good news,” he says again.

  “Congratulations on your new name,” I choke out. “We will talk on your offer though Ashera is still quite young.” I turn to my daughter and in that moment I see the woman she is becoming and I do want her to know love and I do, but not now and she is not ready and not with Billy and my heart near stops.

  Ashera’s eyes are white all around the edges, very skittish and she speaks breathless. “I don’t want to marry.”

  My hand clenches on the knife. “That is one thing your mother taught us, is not that the truth?” I let go of my knife and slap Billy Boy on the shoulder. “Women are free people and not sticks of furniture, eh?” Billy starts to argue, but I chivvy him forward on the path. “We should not be flapping our yaps what with clankers about, don’t you know?” I tap the side of my nose and it were not a lie either for I smell their dirty smoke and their exhaust and a flake of soot lands on my cheek.

  We make good time and I keep an ear out and both eyes scanning left and right and behind. Billy must have sensed it somewhat through his dense skull as well, for he steps up his pace and we come out of a tangle of thick hazelnut brush and there in a clearing lies a fine shiny new mirror in a wrought-iron frame all gilt and flash and perched pretty-as-you-please on a patch of grass.

  I stop and grab Ashera’s arm. “Ssst.” The mirror reflects the clouds and the sky and looks like a deep pool of gray water.

  She freezes, but Billy Boy saunters forward like the mirror is already his very own and all he has to do is pick it up and he will become king of the world. Clanker tracks litter the clearing and their spoor seems thick and close.

  “Ssst,” I say again, but Billy Boy scoops the mirror off the grass and leaps sideways in one smooth motion and he is far too slow. Steel bars spring from the ground, and in a great clanging clatter and ripping of earth he is caught.

  He grabs the bars and he screams and I can see the learning reach his brain too late and he shouts my name, but I turn and scoop Ashera into my arms and I run for cover as fast as my legs can go and my heart rattles in my throat and fires the blood in my veins.

  I throw myself into the center of the hazelnuts, careless of the impact of branches as they whip my face and body. Ashera whimpers but is quiet at my touch and we crouch in the mud and watch, eyes wide, wide, wide with terror.

  The clanker hoves into view over the trees tall as the church spire in my memory and red lights blink on its dull metal body and huge pincher arms move with jerks and hissings of steam and coal smoke pours thick and black from the boiler on its back and fills the clearing with a noxious reek, and I shiver in the marrow my bones and I am sure I am close to a trip to Hell.

  The cage swings into the air depending on a hook caught by one of the pincher arms and Billy Boy screams high and frantic like a cat with a crushed tail and in no way sounds human. The clanker turns and turns and then lumbers away and the ground stops shaking and a crow calls and it is gone.

  I discover that I have pissed myself and I feel old and oppressed by the sky above me, but I am in no way ashamed because whoever has not been that close to a clanker is like a child nattering on about subjects they do not comprehend.

  Ashera had curled in a ball next to my leg and she does not move and so we stay there and shiver until the daylight fades and the dark and cold and blackness of night is solid and the moon is gone and I leave the rat meat wrapped well and buried for protection and I carry my beautiful daughter home to our hole in the ground.

  * * *

  Billy’s service is somber though no one calls it a funeral especially me and it is threaded with hints of accusations from his kin and family who have more sense than Billy and know my probable reaction to his marriage plans, but it does not amount to much as Ashera tells her part of the story in a thin, flat voice that leaves me cold and hating the mushroom faces that surround us.

  Jelly plies me with free grog after and I drink and drink like it is a job of work to fill the holes inside of me.

  The next week goes by in a blur. Jelly trades for the skins and I drink and drink and piss and eat and drink. Ashera sleeps and sleeps and then seems back to before and is all smiles and sunshine, but she does not ask for stories about her ma anymore. Not a one.

  Jelly is the only only other old one besides me who remembers times before the tinker boys made clockwork this and clockwork that and clockworks got all smart and refused to be servants any longer, and he and I used to trade stories of the world without clankers, but I find I have no stomach for that any longer and Jelly gets sour and bars his door to me and the grog gets low and then gets gone.

  I can not stand the stink of me and I punch Billy’s brother for no good reason and his family wants a punishment on me and I bluster and shout and they show me the steel of their knives and my head pounds and my hands shake and I am weak and filled with cowardice. Billy’s family is eager to cause me hurt and Jelly and the rest of the mushroom faces are flat and cold to my sight and I have no choice and I must leave, and it tears at me inside to go without saying goodbye to my sweet daughter but I do not want her to see me so low.

  Jelly says he will look after Ashera and I leave and go upside again even though it is day. I am not banished forever, but it is clear I should stay gone for a good long while. White puffy clouds fill the sky like a flock of foolish sheep and I wade into the river and sit naked and shivering while the sun dries my clothes and my mood is especially dark.

  * * *

  I wander west and south, staying in my hidey holes and I scavenge and check the lines, but my heart is not in it and I snap my finger in one of my own traps and it hurts fierce and sharp and blood fills the skin under the nail and it turns purple and throbs. First time I have ever caught my own self.

  That is where I start a new tack. Used to be, I’d catch clanker spoor and go the exact opposite direction for who in their right mind would want to tangle with a clanker? But I guess that shows I am not in any sort of right mind and maybe that is so and maybe not but to me my mind feels as sharp and clear as ice.

  I scout and roam farther south and west than ever before and I head right around the great curve of the bay towards the clankers and their evil-smelling factories and their foul trains, and I dig hidey holes and make stashes of wood and rat jerky and all the necessary kaboodle to keep a body alive.

  Clanker traps litter the terrain the closer around the bay I forge. Vats of peanut mash and barrels of fish and shiny mirrors and suits of clothes. I study their traps and use my shovel and a steel pole to probe the ground. I load up with a chisel and hammer and pliers and pry bars till I can hardly take a step and have no room for rat skins or extra meat.

  I scavenge a line of braided steel cable and fashion a grapple hook for the ends. The clanker traps are simple enough things though very well made and sure to work. Spring-loaded and all of a piece and every one the same. Lift the bait and slam-bam-snick and the clankers have got you.

  At last the winter ends and daffydills and crocus and tulips thrust up out of the mud and though some days it blows ice-cold rain sideways other days it dawns clear and soft and I weep at the beauty for it is too much and my heart is still black and hard like a withered nut and I wonder if the mushroom faces have let my daughter see the spring and I weep because the beauty slides off me like yellow butter off a hot rock.

  I trip forty-three clanker traps and I feel driven like the traps are jugs of grog and while I am doing one I have no thought but of the next I would do. I poke my pole at a vat of peanut mash or I hook a suit with my grapple and the spring triggers and the bars
slam shut blowing the air by my nose and I run and laughter bubbles inside me like madness.

  I wear their clanker clothes and I eat their clanker salmon after bashing it on the head so it does not flop no more and though their goods reek of oil and coal and metal they are very fine and well done and many a clanker goes home with an empty cage but I wonder more about my daughter, and the work I do feels empty and thin as water.

  I dig out traps and chisel the joints and groins, but it is laborious and most times not worth the effort as they are hair-trigger and quite dangerous and the clankers check them often and never leave bait out during the day.

  One night, I investigate a mine the clankers have dug against the side of a crumbling hill where their diggers grind through the rock and dirt with a steady roar and the empty cars roll into the earth in great long trains and roll out again dripping with heaps of dirty black coal.

  I wait and I watch and I time their rhythms to an eyeblink over many days of hard and discomfortable spying and one morning when the sky east glows red and angry like new blood I slip and crawl to a bend in the track where the full cars go rattle-rattle-rattle down the hill and when the track is clear, I slide my pry bar under the hard metal and I heave and my muscles strain and the track comes loose.

  I pant and wipe the hot sweat from my forehead and a train is due so I hide myself away and watch and the cars fly off the track in a great squeal and tear of broken metal, and coal puffs into the air in a huge black dusty cloud and my heart sings a dark song.

  A buzzer flits above me and my breath freezes and my bowels turn to water, for I am sure that I am seen. I run and stumble down the hill and the sounds of clankers stirring spur me to great risk and I leap and slide down the slope.

  The buzzer follows and follows and I run until my heart pounds and my breath tears in and out of my lungs and my side stabs with pain like a knife is plunged in with every step, and I turn and the buzzer darts high and aims back towards the clankers and I do not stop for I know that it will tell the clankers and they will come and root through the ground and rip up bushes and trees trying to find me.