by Ellen Datlow
“Calico Girl is free,” Charley said.
Uncle JoJim gave him a fierce glare. “Why have you stopped? Do as I said!”
Charley began to shake his head. He didn’t want to be disrespectful, but he had no intention of leaving until Uncle JoJim was on Calico Girl and could leave with him.
But Uncle JoJim slapped Bird King’s neck and shouted, “Yicí!”
Bird King leaped away and charged up the hill to the north. Charley tugged on his mane to stop him, but the horse paid no attention. Uncle JoJim had told Bird King to go home. And Bird King had learned to obey Uncle JoJim in Kanza before Charley had ever spoken a word to him in English.
All Charley could do was look back as Bird King ran across the hilltop and down the other side, watching for Uncle JoJim and Calico Girl to appear behind them. A deep red glow burned at the western horizon as the sun began to vanish, but the sky above Charley had turned purple. Black thunderheads filled the sky to the south and were swallowing the purple as they advanced. Streaks of lightning shot through the thunderheads, and a few jagged spikes zigzagged down to strike the earth. Thunder rumbled and growled, and the wind became a constant hiss through the grass.
Then, as Bird King started up the next slope, the silhouette of a horse and rider appeared at the hilltop behind them. Charley’s heart leaped.
But then the rider extended a long arm toward Charley and Bird King, and fire shot from its end.
Charley heard the bullet buzz past his ear like an enraged bee. He ducked and urged Bird King to run faster. But Bird King was already running as fast as he could, his hooves pounding even louder than the thunder behind them. And they were heading uphill now. So they were a good target.
Another bullet buzzed past, and Charley was sure that it flew through his hair. So he slid down to Bird King’s right side, clamping his legs as tightly as he could against the stallion’s body and clinging to his mane. Bird King snorted but didn’t slow. He charged on, upward through the hissing grass.
Charley had the sudden thought that he was riding like a Comanche now.
Then Bird King squealed, lurched, and twisted to the right. Charley was flung into the air, and he flew a long way before hitting the ground and tumbling across the slope.
He lay on his back then, trying to breathe. The air had been knocked from his lungs. He couldn’t tell whether he had broken an arm or leg, because he couldn’t feel anything. Dark blades of grass waved in the wind over his face, framing a patch of purple sky with the black edge of a cloud pushing through. The cloud ate a tiny point of light that might have been a star.
Then the sound of the wind was joined by the sound of a horse’s hooves, walking.
Charley was able to suck in a breath. “Bird King?” he said, and sat up.
But Bird King was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Black-beard sat above Charley on his sorrel gelding, pointing down with his Spencer carbine. There was just enough red light from the west for Charley to see his face. It was set in a deep scowl.
“Your elders evaporated like spirits,” Black-beard said. “So I reckon you’ll have to answer for their insults yourself.”
That meant Uncle JoJim and Calico Girl had managed to get away. Charley was glad. But he was worried about Bird King.
“Did you kill my horse?” he asked.
Black-beard gave a shrug. “My shot struck him, but I cannot say whether the wound was mortal. However, he was well enough to run over the hill. Perhaps he fell on the far side and died. Or perhaps I’ll retrieve him for myself. Either way, it’s no concern of yours.”
Another horse stepped up beside Black-beard’s gelding then. It was the roan mare, and Joshua was riding it. He had lost his straw hat, and his blond hair danced in the wind. The other gelding walked beside him, riderless, tied to the roan’s saddle horn.
“My pa is dead,” Joshua said. “I tried to pull out the lance, but I couldn’t. It was stuck in the ground. And I begged Pa to move, but he wouldn’t. So he’s dead. He’s dead because of you and yours.” Joshua’s thin voice quavered, and his face shifted between anger and agony.
Black-beard flipped the Spencer’s strap from his shoulders, and he held the butt of the rifle toward Joshua.
“You’ve lost family,” Black-beard said. “So you may do this. It’s already cocked. Hold it tight against your shoulder. And don’t worry about the horses. They’re used to the sound.”
Joshua took the Spencer, placed the stock against his shoulder, and pointed the muzzle at Charley.
Charley looked up at him. “I had thought you might feel friendly toward me,” he said.
Joshua’s hands began to quiver in time with his voice, and the Spencer quivered with them. “You can shut up and be still.”
“Steady, boy,” Black-beard said.
Joshua hands still quivered. But it seemed to Charley that the Spencer’s muzzle was not wavering so much that the shot would miss.
Charley shifted his gaze back to Black-beard.
“Somehow,” he said, “you will suffer for hurting Bird King.”
Black-beard laughed. It was a snarl terminating in a bark.
“That’ll be a good trick,” he said.
As he spoke, lightning flashed in the south, and thunder roared. A heavy rush of wind raised the hissing of the grass to a howl.
Both Black-beard and Joshua looked back over their shoulders. And Charley looked, too.
Glowing with red light from the west and flashing with white lightning from above and behind, Captain Thomas’s enormous wagon rose over the southern hilltop with a deafening rumble. Huge sheets of canvas billowed from its posts and crossbeams, and it seemed to Charley that they sliced through the storm clouds churning overhead.
With tremendous speed, the wagon plunged down the hillside and then up the next. It drove straight toward Charley, Joshua, and Black-beard, its twelve-foot wheels spinning so fast that the spokes were a blur.
The narwhal-tusk harpoon had been affixed to a bracket at the front of the wagon, and Red-beard dangled from it upside-down and backward. He hung from the point where the tusk had pierced him through his groin and ass, and he swung back and forth. He had slid down to the harpoon’s wooden base, and the tail of the scorched water moccasin was visible between his legs. A thick, dark stain spread down his shirt and soaked his hair. His legs flopped at the knees, and his arms waved crazily. His fingertips brushed the tallgrass. And as the wagon surged forward, his face was pounded to a pulp against the ochre boards.
“Pa!” Joshua cried.
Black-beard, staring at the massive wind-wagon speeding toward him, reached toward Joshua. “Give me the rifle!” he cried.
But Joshua turned back toward Charley. His cheeks were wet with tears. He pressed his cheek against the Spencer’s stock as he aimed.
“I hate you, Injun Charley,” he said.
Then the rumble and roar of the approaching wagon was shot through with a piercing shriek, and the sound startled the gelding tied to Joshua’s saddle. It whinnied, stamped, jerked its reins from the saddle horn, and ran. The Spencer’s stock slammed into Joshua’s eye, and its muzzle swung wide as his mare reared.
Charley dove between the mare’s front legs as he heard the sharp crack of the shot. He grabbed the thick cotton strands of the saddle cinch just as the horse came down and bolted. He hung on with both hands, swinging his legs up so they wouldn’t be trampled by the rear hooves. He clung there for a few seconds until the horse screamed at a flash of lightning, stopped running, and reared again. Then he let go of the cinch and rolled away, hoping he would make it far enough.
As he came up to his knees, he saw Black-beard a dozen yards away. The man was rising to his knees as well, clutching his left shoulder with his right hand. His fine, flat-crowned hat was gone.
“God damn you, boy!” Black-beard roared. “You shot me with my own gun!”
Then Black-beard got to his feet and turned to face south. He completed the turn just in time for Red-beard’s dangling head
to collide with his, and it knocked him flat onto the hillside.
The wind-wagon’s iron-clad right front wheel rolled over Black-beard’s skull, spewing brains and bone through the tallgrass. Then the rear wheel cut across Black-beard’s belly and severed his spine, sending his torso rolling and entrails spilling. His legs flew up and thumped against the bottom of the wagon before falling back into the grass.
Charley heard the piercing shriek cut through the rumble again. He looked up and saw Captain Thomas, his coat still smoking, standing atop the wagon at its rear. He was pulling against a heavy beam with his left arm while yanking a bundle of ropes with his right. The ropes rose to the huge sheets of canvas, and the canvas began to twist. The wagon groaned and turned, spinning up chunks of dirt and grass as the gigantic wheels shifted and slid.
“Do you see now?” Captain Thomas shrieked. “Do you see how sweetly she sails?” His long gray hair whipped in the wind like snakes, and his sharpened teeth gleamed with each flash of lightning. His eyes caught the red fire of the sinking sun.
The wind-wagon roared past Charley, its furious wheels spattering him with dark droplets. He tasted copper and salt.
Now the wagon drove to the northeast, aiming for a horse that was spinning, rearing, and bucking. The horse’s small rider was clinging to the reins with one hand and a Spencer carbine with the other.
Charley got to his feet. He wanted to call out to Joshua. But he knew the boy wouldn’t hear him over the wind, the thunder, and the roar of the wagon.
There was nothing to be said to him now, anyway.
As the wind-wagon bore down, the horse bucked hard and jumped away. Joshua flew into the air, tumbling as the Spencer shot fire, and then the narwhal tusk caught him in the back. The Spencer fell away, and the tusk spiked out through Joshua’s chest.
Captain Thomas shrieked again, and the wind-wagon came about, rising onto two wheels. Then it plunged back down the hill, roaring past Charley once more.
Joshua slid back on the tusk and fetched up against his father. He looked down at Charley as they flew by.
Charley could not read Joshua’s expression. But he saw that the boy’s freckled cheeks were still wet.
The wind-wagon dove down the slope and back up the hill to the south. As it reached the top, it was illuminated by yet another flash of lightning. The sails billowed and warped, and Charley heard Captain Thomas shriek one more time.
Then the rain came in a torrent, and Charley’s eyes filled with water as the wind-wagon disappeared.
The rain lasted long enough to wash the dark droplets from Charley’s skin and to soak his clothes. Then the thunderclouds began to break and slip away even more quickly than they had come. The moon, almost full, rose in the east as the last vestige of the sun slipped away in the west. Its cool light let Charley see where he walked as he began to trudge north.
He whistled for Bird King. But instead, Joshua’s roan mare and Black-beard’s sorrel gelding came up to him, whickering.
“I don’t want to ride either of you,” Charley said. “But you may walk with me, if you like.”
They had almost reached the top of the hill when Charley heard another whistle. He looked back down the slope and saw Uncle JoJim approaching on Calico Girl. They were leading the other gelding on a rope, moving at a walk. The shotgun was back in its scabbard. And Uncle JoJim was wearing his hat again.
Charley waited until Uncle JoJim drew near. Then he said, “You might have come sooner.”
Uncle JoJim stopped Calico Girl beside Charley. “As I have said, I don’t want to make Calico Girl run anymore.”
“But I needed you,” Charley said.
Uncle JoJim gave him a stern look. “No, you didn’t. Besides, if you had done as I instructed, you would have been far away.”
Charley knew it was true. “I apologize, Uncle JoJim. I should not have disobeyed.”
Uncle JoJim shrugged. “You’ll know better next time. Now, take the bags from those horses and leave them. We don’t want what’s inside. Then tie one of the horses to the one behind Calico Girl. You may ride the other.”
Charley frowned. “I will only ride Bird King.”
“Disobeying yet again.” Uncle JoJim sighed. “All right, tie them both. You may walk.”
Charley did as he was told, and then they all started over the hill. As they topped the rise, Charley saw Bird King a little way down the slope, grazing.
“Bird King!” Charley called. “Why didn’t you come when I whistled?”
Uncle JoJim chuckled. “He’s angry. I can see the wound near his tail. You didn’t go home when I said to go home, so Bird King was shot.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle JoJim,” Charley said.
“Don’t tell me. Tell him.”
Charley whistled once more, and this time Bird King came. Uncle JoJim dismounted, examined the wound, and said it wasn’t deep. And the bullet had not remained in the flesh.
“But it still hurts him,” Uncle JoJim said, swinging up onto Calico Girl again. “We’ll put a poultice on it when we reach the reservation. For now, it’s up to him whether he lets you ride. If he does, I wouldn’t ask him to run.”
Charley put his hand on Bird King’s soft nose. Bird King tossed his head, but then let Charley grasp his mane and pull himself up. Charley untied the rope that was still around Bird King’s neck, and he let it fall.
As they started northward again, Uncle JoJim said, “I suppose you may be saddened because of the boy.”
Charley brushed water from Bird King’s mane. “He was just a boy. Like me. It’s hard to know what I should think.”
“He was a boy,” Uncle JoJim said. “But not like you. And you’ll live through many times when it will be hard to know what to think.”
They rode in silence for a quarter mile. Then Charley asked, “Is Captain Thomas one of the ghosts Grandmother spoke of?”
“No. Ghosts are easier to understand.”
“But the black-bearded man shot him with your shotgun, and he didn’t die. Not even after falling onto the fire.”
“It was only birdshot,” Uncle JoJim said. “And he wore a thick coat. Also, he didn’t lie on the fire for very long.”
“So he’s just a man?”
Uncle JoJim adjusted the brim of his hat. “That would be easier to understand, too. But I’m sure of one thing: He came to pay his debt for my arm. I can’t guess how he knew this would be the right time. But it’s done. So now he’s gone again.”
That all made a small bit of sense to Charley. “I’m glad,” he said.
Uncle JoJim looked behind them at the tied horses. “Yes. And along with our chickens, we have three ponies to replace those the Cheyenne stole last month. Allegawaho will be pleased. Everyone will be.”
Charley pondered. “So now they might consider us to be Kaw?”
Uncle JoJim shook his head. “No. We are what we are.” He looked toward the moon. “What we are is good enough.”
That made a bit of sense to Charley, too.
“At least we aren’t crazy,” he said.
Uncle JoJim shrugged yet again, and his empty sleeve flapped. “Not yet.”
Bird King began to trot then, of his own will. He and Charley led the way home through the sea of grass.
WHAT MY MOTHER LEFT ME
ALYSSA WONG
The sky above Nag’s Head is stained an uneasy shade of gray by the time we pull up to my parents’ North Carolina beach house. Beyond the dunes and waving field of sea grass, the water is sharp and choppy, the color of slate.
“Shit,” says Gina, climbing out of the Range Rover. She shades her eyes, her long, lavender-dyed hair flapping across her face. The wind slaps us both with the salty, thick smell of the ocean. “You brought the keys, right?”
Her eyeliner is perfect, as usual. I can’t believe she drew it on in the passenger seat while I was doing ninety on the I-40, eager to put as much distance between us and Duke University as possible.
“Way ahead of you,�
� I say, fishing the house keys out of my pocket. The key fob is a piece of driftwood, carved with the words HOME SWEET HOME and a pair of flip-flops. It’s about as tacky as the rest of the house’s decor. We trudge up the wooden stairs, wiping our feet on the faded welcome mat printed with migrating birds. There’s a thin film of salt on the lock.
I sort through the keys, looking for the right one. I don’t realize my hands are shaking until Gina drapes herself over me.
“Emma? Are you okay?”
“Too much coffee,” I say. The look on her face tells me she doesn’t believe me, but loves me too much to call me on my bullshit. “Just antsy. I gotta pee real bad.”
“Then open the damn door.” She leans close and blows in my ear. I can hear the sympathy in her voice. “Let’s get inside. Whatever’s in there … we can handle it.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You don’t have to be.” She squeezes my hand. It’s only been three weeks, she doesn’t say, but I hear anyway. Your mom is dead. You shouldn’t be okay.
“If I don’t get inside I’m gonna pee on your foot,” I say instead.
Gina bites my ear gently and I push open the door. The air inside the house smells musty, and the ugly, pseudo-rattan wallpaper is warping along the edge of the ceiling. Sure enough, the décor is still stuck in the seventies. The carpet is a matted riot of overbright geometric shapes. There are carved wooden birds sitting on every surface, decoys in the shape of sandpipers, ducks, and other local waterfowl. For a moment, a memory overlaps what I’m looking at, and I can almost see my family arranged in the living room. My dad reading a paperback thriller on the couch, my mom gazing out the window and turning a shell over and over in her hand. I blink, and their phantom bodies evaporate.
A thick layer of dust coats everything, and the first thing I do is flip on all the fans. Gina flips them off immediately.
“Dude, do you want all this stuff in your lungs? We should wipe everything down first.” She wrinkles her nose, shouldering her backpack. “Why are there so many dead horseflies? It’s like someone held a party and left behind the worst confetti.”