A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds) (33 page)

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 door 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.

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.