A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds) (22 page)

Mina and Kaya came to Wilson and hugged him. Mast shook Wilson’s hand.

“I’ll come with you, just say the words, friend.”

“Your new boss won’t like that,” said Wilson. “Who’d watch out for her?”

Mast put a heavy pouch in Wilson’s hands. “For your pistol.”

“Where did you get these?”

“The shell casings you gave me back at Station, remember? I had a blacksmith reload them. These are dirty rounds so they’ll be loud and make smoke. And make sure to clean your barrel after firing them. Or die.”

Kaya gave him a tiny purple knot of string.

“It’s for luck, if you didn’t know,” she said.

“Thank you Kaya.”

Reed stood in front of Wilson, fiddling with something in his hands.

“Sometimes I feel like an old rattlesnake with too much spit left,” he said, and put a small object in Wilson’s hand. “Forget what I said before. Just be careful.”

Wilson opened his hand to see a necklace with a silver cross, and put it over his head.

The travelers slowly separated. Wilson, his father, Badger, and five hunters from David walked east while Reed and the others turned west, toward Station.

The group bound for Springs followed the old road along bare, rolling hills. Half an hour later Wilson stopped at the crest of a rise and looked back. The nearby lake was white with mist and trails of smoke floated over the walled village. The towers at the north and south reminded Wilson of wolf’s teeth jutting into the sky. Tiny villagers walked in the green corn and a pair of tiny oxen plowed earth through a blackened field.

Wilson noticed a pair of men running up the hills toward him. The travelers waited, and as the men closed the distance he recognized Carter and Martinez.

“Forget something?” he said.

“We’re coming with you,” said Martinez, between breaths. “Father Reed said his idiot apprentice needed some help.”

“Idiot apprentice?”

“Sorry, sir. His words. Not mine, sir.”

“Reed’s in a tough spot,” said Teacher. “When you’re a leader there are no easy choices.”

Wilson shaded his eyes and spotted a cluster of dots creeping along the road to the west. Badger took his hand and squeezed it.

“Never look back,” she said.

TEN

T
he road led them east. Badger and Carter scouted in front and out of sight. Wilson and his father led the main group of three hunters plus Martinez. Another pair of village hunters trailed at the rear. They would stop in cover and watch for a few minutes, then run forward and wait again.

A trail of scattered rocks covered with patches of tall grass, the road dipped gently through the hills and passed overgrown heaps from the old days. Wilson wondered at the purpose of the rotting structures. Workshops? Ancient tribal homes?

“Aren’t we too exposed on this road?” asked Martinez.

“It’s fast so we’ll follow it for a few hours,” said Teacher. “The road curves north then south, and a tribal village called Woodland is at the apex,” said his father. “It will be best to cut overland through the hills.”

Martinez nodded and stopped to wait for the trailing scouts.

“Have you thought about coming back to Station?” asked Wilson.

“First we have to find this ‘sequencer’ east of Springs. It’s going to be a hard journey. I wish I could snap my fingers and just make it appear.”

“The founders used to do that, right?”

“The rumor is they controlled machines like that, by talking and finger-snaps. I don’t believe it, but honestly, anything’s possible. It was a strange and fantastic time.”

“Maybe,” said Wilson. “I’m not convinced they were all that fantastic. They’re all dead. Their wonderful houses and machines are dust.”

“Death and decay are inescapable facts of life, son. No matter what we do, no matter what we build, it will crumble in the end. But we still have to try. Take the founders of Station. Their goal was the survival of humanity and that was the point of the rules. They were normal men and women with extraordinary talent, but in the end, just as human as the rest of us. They lived and died working to create a better life for their children.”

“What child did you create a better life for?”

His father sighed and they walked together in silence.

“Why did you grow a beard and create this fake ‘Teacher’ persona?” asked Wilson. “Why not be yourself?”

His father smiled. “Names and the roles they play ...”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let me ask you a question. Why do you put one foot in front of the other?”

“To walk, obviously.”

“But why do you walk? Apart from reasons of survival, why does a person do anything? What makes you risk your life?”

“You’re saying you motivated people?”

“Exactly. Life is more than just survival. People are the same, whether in Station or out in the tribes. They want to be part of something greater than themselves, something that has come before and continues when they are gone. It’s ironic that I had this epiphany when I was shivering and starving in a cave. When I came to David I gave the people inspiration. I remembered some of Reed’s teachings, and the rest I made up.”

“You don’t regret that?”

“My words inspired them like a lantern in the wilderness. Why would I regret any of it? I never used the teachings to benefit myself. That’s probably why they’ve always trusted me.”

“Father Reed could take lessons from you.”

“I doubt it. What’s the real problem between you two?”

“He wanted me to follow the old rules and find a tribal partner, instead of Kira.”

“Kira?”

“Airman Chen. Kira is her birth name.”

His father took out a skin and drank a few mouthfuls as they walked.

“Do you know the story of Reed and his partner?”

Wilson shook his head. “All I know is that she was from the tribes.”

“I heard it when I was a boy,” said his father. “Reed and his friends were given permission to go scouting. They disguised themselves as tribals and visited villages farther off-map than anyone would have allowed. Finally they came to a vast settlement. In a market packed with people, Reed saw a beautiful golden-haired girl. He stared open-mouthed and stumbled right into one of her bodyguards. Punches were thrown. When the shouting was over and the crying had started, he was standing and all the guards were flat. It couldn’t have been simple to convince the young girl’s father, but Reed did it. Probably the bags of gold he’d saved from trading helped. Six weeks later he and his friends arrived home with the golden-haired girl.”

“Doesn’t sound all that special to me,” said Wilson.

“I never claimed it was. But try to be more circumspect. Whether you reconcile with Father Reed or not, try to understand that he was once a rebellious teenager like you.”

AFTER THE MID-DAY MEAL they left the main road and traveled east over smaller trails to avoid Woodland, a tribal village part of the Circle. These paths led across the forested hills for a few kilometers then descended to a valley and old Route 24. Badger and Carter found trail signs, but no actual people. The smell of woodsmoke disappeared as they hiked southeast.

In late afternoon a brief thunderstorm forced them to shelter in a collapsed building. Wilson rested with his head on his pack and listened to the drowsy conversations.

“That dog is still out there,” said Martinez. “Look under that tree.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Badger. She reached for her crossbow.

Wilson sat up. “What? Leave it alone. It’s followed me since Station.”

Martinez pointed into the rain. “That thing? No wonder it looks half-dead.”

“It’s bad luck to be followed,” said Carter. “And bad luck to let animals suffer.”

“Leave the dog alone,” said Wilson.

“But–”

Badger spat on the ground. “If Wilson says leave it, I don’t care if it’s a mountain cat with your first-born child in her mouth. You leave it.”

The men kept their opinions to themselves. After the rain stopped, the expedition began traveling again. Wilson left a hunk of bread in the open.

As the sun dipped in the west the road curved lower and lower in elevation and passed vertical walls of red and brown sandstone. The road had been cut through the rock instead of around or over it. Wilson was amazed by the great power used so casually. The road curved down through many of these exposed red and brown layers. Beyond the last sandstone wall the horizon opened up to Springs.

The ruined city lay below the hills like a gray mold. A few curls of smoke trailed up from it and faded into the sky. The yellow plains stretched beyond. To the south rose the massive granite of Pike’s Peak. The northern hills were red with sandstone and scattered with pine trees.

Badger waited for them beside a thicket of chokecherries.

“Should we camp now?” she asked.

Wilson’s father leaned on his walking stick and looked over the open country to the north.

“Yes, that’s the plan,” he said at last.

Badger immediately slid down the dusty bank. At the bottom an old road headed straight into the hills.

“Look at that!” said Martinez. A huge six-point buck stood only twenty meters away. Martinez aimed his rifle and fired before anyone could stop him. The hills echoed with the shot.

Teacher pushed the rifle down. “What’s wrong with you? I said no firearms around here!”

Martinez looked at the other hunters. “I don’t remember that!”

“He was probably in the rear when we talked about it,” said Carter.

The deer thrashed in the brush across the road and Badger ran to finish it off.

Wilson’s father took his hand off the rifle. “It’s my fault, then. But everyone listen––if anything’s important, you need to pass it along. How many ears heard that shot?”

Two men went to help Badger clean the deer. The others took position across the road, near a red sandstone sign. The face was carved with deep lettering.

“Garden of the Gods,” read Wilson’s father. “I remember this place.”

Wilson touched the rough sandstone. “You’ve been here before?”

“Years ago.”

With the deer cleaned and carried on a spit of branches, they continued north. The road was covered with red, broken rock and lined with oak and pine trees. After a short hike that steadily sloped higher, they turned a curve to a strange sight. On the left side of the road a huge, ten-meter-high boulder was supported by less than a half-meter of sandstone. Across the road from the balanced rock and almost as tall was a massive wedge of stone. The sandstone in both formations alternated in layers of red and brown, and all layers angled to the sky. A wide carpet of yellow and purple flowers grew in the soil at the base.

Badger touched the yellow petals of a tall, strange flower.

“That’s a sunflower,” said Wilson. “After it blooms, it only faces east.”

The hunters found vantage points high on the sandstone and rested. One prepared a small cooking fire beneath the wedge rock. He used green sticks to roast the venison and a few vegetables, then brought it to the rest of the expedition.

Near the fire, Teacher whirled a spoon in a small pot of spruce tea. Wilson sat next to him.

“Why is this place called Garden of the Gods?” he asked.

“Good question.”

“If they believed in the one true God, why not just call it ‘The Garden of God’?”

“I would say it’s from an older time,” said his father. “There were many different beliefs in the old days, just like now. This could have been a holy place from even older days. Or, it was just an exaggeration.”

“A few rocks is nothing to be excited about.”

“Says the boy who always begged me for a hike up Old Man. In any case, it’s not only the physical form of the stone, but how it makes you feel. The formations to the north are magnificent.”

“Still ...”

“I’m not going to argue with you, son. Remember, nothing is objective. The life we experience is filtered through our eyes, thoughts, and emotions. As we think, we see. As we speak, we feel. If you name it beautiful, you will see beauty. If you think you’re surrounded by enemies, you will have no friends.”

“I’ll remember that, the next time a wolf bites me.”

Teacher lifted the lid of the teapot. “I was talking about perception, but your glib remark is closer to the truth than you realize. The reason you’re here and not breakfast for a wolf cub boils down to attitude.”

“So I wasted all my time with knife practice?”

“The body needs training the same way a knife needs sharpening. But like the knife your body is only a tool. It’s the mind that will be the critical point of success or failure. If you focus on the negative you’ll never achieve your goals. Whether that’s immediate survival or a general life goal is irrelevant.”

Wilson rotated a stick of meat over the fire. “This positive thinking didn’t keep you from running away, did it?”

Teacher stared at the steaming pot of tea. “People make mistakes. I’m not running away now, am I?”

Wilson shook his head and watched the small fire.

“Does attitude have something to do with the founder’s tricks?”

“Any action is helped by visualization. How much has Reed taught you?”

“Only a few things.”

Teacher lifted his head and looked left and right.

“Father?”

“Sorry, I thought I heard a wolf.”

“Are there any founder’s tricks you could teach me?”

“A few. I learned two when I was an apprentice to Reed, and another from a friend.”

“Can you teach me?”

“I don’t know if you’re ready. If Reed hasn’t pounded it into your head already, I’ll tell you the reason. The tricks have a cost. They can drain the body and kill you if used recklessly. My grandmother––your great-grandmother––told stories of this happening. It’s why tricks have been kept secret for generations. Most people only know one, if that.”

“But how can they kill you?”

Teacher poured tea into a wooden cup. “The tricks draw energy from the body, some more than others. What this means in terms of body chemistry, I haven’t discovered. I do know that being young and healthy doesn’t matter. Without experience and training you can debilitate yourself in the snap of a finger.”