The River Horses Page 6

  “Oh, god,” she murmured. “Don’t tell me what I think you’re telling me.”

  “I’m not telling you anything. Only let me ask a personal question.” He hesitated. “When was the last time you had your period?”

  From the diary of

  Marie Montero:

  Adnachiel 5, c.y. 06

  I’m pregnant.

  Yeah, I’m sure. Found a test stick in the med kit. Peed on it, watched it turn red. You know the saying: stick turns green, a virgin you’ve been, stick turns red, you’ve been naughty in bed. Ha-ha. Not so funny now.

  Looking back, I think I’ve known for a while, but was trying not to admit it to myself. All the signs were there: morning sickness, cold sweats, craving for fish and sweets, tits getting bigger and more sensitive. And, of course, that period I missed a couple of weeks ago. But it took Manny to make me see what I didn’t want to see.

  Don’t know how I could’ve been so stupid. We brought pills, of course—they were in the med kit, too—but for some reason I forgot to take them. Maybe it was because I wasn’t having sex with Lars. But that night when he forced himself on me…well, that must have done the trick. So now I’m knocked up, and…

  [Passage deleted]

  Don’t know how to feel about this. Angry at Lars for getting me in this position (or any other position, ha-ha—sorry, another bad joke) but also at myself for being so careless. But also scared. Last thing I need right now is worrying about having a baby.

  Manny and I talked it over tonight, aboard the skimmer where we wouldn’t be overheard. He let me have a good cry and once I got it out of my system he gave me a cloth to dry my tears. Then we discussed what I should do.

  He figures that I’m about four or five weeks pregnant. Means I’ll be due in about two and a half months Coyote-time. So I should expect to have the baby by the end of the year, sometime between Hanael 45 and New Year’s Day.

  Abortion is out of the question. Even if I wanted to do that…and I don’t, ’cuz it’s against my principles…there’s no one here to perform the procedure. Not safely, at least, and I refuse to let anyone get near me who doesn’t know what they’re doing. And even tho’ the med kit has pregnancy strips and contraceptive pills, for some dumb reason there’s no whoops-silly-me pills.

  Leaves me with two choices. Stay here in Riverport, and have the baby in a town that’s going to have a rough time getting through winter as is without having one more mouth to feed, or pack up and head back to Liberty where there’s a half-decent clinic and a sister-in-law who’s used to delivering babies.

  Might think the choice is obvious, but it’s not. For one thing, I’m still in exile. If I go back, I’d have to fill out my sentence. That means the baby gets born in jail, with Mama going off to the road crew every morning. Even if the maggies cut me some slack, I’ll still go back to being the bad apple no one wants around, not even my own brother. Just some stupid girl who got preggers and had to crawl home with a baby in her belly, looking for mercy and hoping that someone would take her in. If I’m lucky, someone will take pity on me and give me a job washing dishes or something.

  But here, I’m a respected member of the community. No one cares about what I once was or what I once did ’cuz just about everyone else here has something in their past, too. Sometimes it seems like we’re just getting by, but today we finished putting a roof on another cabin. Even if it leaks, it’s a place someone can live, not just some crappy tent. That means something…and dammit, I like having a life that means something!

  I want my child to grow up the same way.

  Manny says I don’t have to rush into this. The pregnancy is still early, so I’ve got some time to decide what to do. We’re not telling Chris or anyone else what’s going on until I figure things out. Hope she’ll forgive me, but I’m not ready to pop the news just yet.

  I’m scared. Goddamn, but I’m scared. Least I don’t have Lars around, though. Sure, he’s the other half of this problem, but I remember what he did to me and I don’t want him being the father of my child.

  Where is he, anyway?

  Two days later, they heard from Lars again.

  The satphone transmission might have been missed if Manny hadn’t been aboard the skimmer, using its side-looking radar to verify the topographical estimates of the maps he and Marie had made. Considering that it was one of those rare occasions when he switched on the instrument panel for anything besides a quick system check-up, it was pure luck that Lars’ satphone call was intercepted. Yet as soon as Manny heard a familiar voice coming through the transceiver—“Mayday, mayday, is anyone there?”—he reached over to pick up the hand mike.

  Marie was helping raise a cabin’s roof beam when one of the kids raced into town from the beach, breathlessly telling her that Mr. Castro needed to see her right away. She might have waited until the beam was safely hoisted into place if the child hadn’t added that Manny had just heard from Lars, and that it was an emergency. Someone quickly stepped in to take her place at the pulley-rope, and she jogged across Riverport to the beach, following the little boy whom Manny had sent to find her.

  Lars was still on the line when she climbed down the skimmer’s top hatch. Manny was sitting in the pilot’s seat; as she entered the cockpit, she observed that he’d patched himself directly into the com panel via a cable that he’d extended from his chest. “Here she is,” Manny said, then he picked up the mike and extended it to her. “Lars. Says he’s in trouble.”

  Marie hesitated, then took the mike from him. “Hello, Lars,” she said, realizing even as she spoke how aloof she sounded. “How are you?”

  “Marie…oh, man, it’s good to hear you.” Although the satellite downlink should have been perfect, the signal was scratchy, fuzzed with static. “I’ve got trouble. You gotta help me out.”

  Her lip curled. What’s the matter? she was tempted to say. Run out of bearshine and getting the shakes? Yet when she glanced at Manny, he slowly nodded, confirming the gravity of the situation. “I’m listening…go on. Where are you?”

  “On the big river,” he said, meaning the Great Equatorial River. “About eighty miles southwest of you. An island a few miles west of the channel, just off the coast.” His words came as a rush, and she was surprised to hear an undertone of panic in his voice. “I’m not kidding. You gotta get down here…we need you, real bad.”

  “You’ve got a boat.” Despite herself, she was still skeptical.

  “Sank. Shoals punched a hole in the hull while we were trying to make it to shore. We’re lucky to get here before…”

  A sudden rush of sound, as if something was moving past the satphone. In the background, a voice, unintelligible but nonetheless frightened. She caught only a few words—“…back, get back, they might…”—then Lars came back again.

  “We’ve lost almost everyone.” Now his voice was low, as if he was whispering into the satphone’s mouthpiece. “Just me, James, and Coop…and Coop’s in bad shape. We’ve got only one gun, and that’s not going to help much. Marie, swear to God, you gotta get us out of this.”

  “Out of what?” Puzzled, she leaned closer to the com panel. “You’re not making any sense. What’s…”

  Once again, in the background she hear a flurry of noise, as if the satphone was held in the hand of someone who was running. A couple of swift, violent pop-pop-pop sounds that she immediately recognized as the semi-auto gunfire. Then Lars’ voice returned “Please, Marie…for the luvva God, come get us! I’m sorry about everything! Just come and…”

  A sudden snap, like a dry twig breaking. Then silence.

  “I have a fix on the location.” Manny disconnected the cable from the com panel and let it spool back into a panel within his chest. “Latitude three-point-one degrees north, twenty-three minutes, longitude seventy-seven-point-nine degrees west, nine minutes.” He pointed to the comp screen above the yoke. “Here.”

  Marie peered at the screen. Displayed upon it was an orbital map of Coyote. As Manny indi
cated, the signal from Lars’ satphone originated from the eastern tip of a large island off the southern coast of Great Dakota, just a few miles west of where the West Channel emptied into the Great Equatorial River.

  She sighed. Less than a hundred miles away. Apparently Lars and his buddies hadn’t wandered so far as she and the others had hoped. Maybe they thought they’d just go away for a while, get in some drinking time and do a little fishing, then come home and sweet-talk their way back into good graces with everyone they’d left behind. She could almost imagine him now. Oh, babe, I was just foolin’ with you. You know how much I love you. C’mon, now, sweetie, just let me in…

  But that was in the past. She’d heard not only the gunshots, but also the terror in his voice. Somewhere just north of the equator, Lars had run into something that he couldn’t handle. Marie tossed the mike on the dashboard, let out her breath.

  “Better warm up the engines,” she murmured. “I think we’re going on a rescue mission.”

  They didn’t go alone. When Marie went back into town to gather the things they’d need, she took a minute to find Chris and tell her what was going on. As it turned out, Missus Smith already knew something was up; the boy who’d fetched Marie had gone on to tell her as well, so when Marie located her in her cabin, she was putting her pack together.

  “If there’s trouble, you’re going to need someone to ride shotgun.” Chris didn’t smile as she took down her rifle from the hooks above the door. Marie started to object, but she held up a hand. “James is a worthless drunk, and Cooper’s a lowlife, but they’re still my people. And you and Manny can’t do this by yourselves.”

  Marie didn’t argue. If the situation was as dire as Lars had led her to believe, she knew they’d need all the help they could get. So the two of them grabbed a medkit and some food from the mess tent, then they hurried back to the beach. News traveled fast in Riverport; a small crowd had already gathered near the skimmer, wanting to know what was going on. Chris told them what little she and Marie knew, then gave the town’s remaining satphone to another woman and told her to monitor the emergency frequency. If anything were to happen to them, Missus Smith said, she was to call to Liberty and request—no, demand—assistance from the Colonial Militia.

  She and Marie climbed aboard the skimmer. Manny revved the engines, then put the fans in reverse and slowly backed out into the water. As the skimmer pulled away from shore, Missus Smith went below to join Manny in the cockpit; Marie lingered on the aft deck, though, and watched while Riverport receded from view. Once again, she was leaving home…and she found herself surprised to realize how much she’d come to regard this small, underpopulated settlement as home. Only last month, she’d thought it was a mistake to stop here. Now she was afraid she’d never see it again.

  It took the rest of the day for them to travel down the coast. They’d left shortly before noon, and although the current was with them, the distance from Riverport to the delta where the West Channel emptied into the Great Equatorial River was considerable. Manny stayed close to shore as they cruised past the lowland marshes south of Riverport, vast tracts of sourgrass and spider-bush, the southeast range of the Black Mountains rising beyond them. The humid air lay still, sullen in the warmth of the afternoon sun; skeeters purred around the aft deck, and from the shore they could hear the cries of nesting birds.

  This was a part of the world none of them had ever seen before. It wasn’t long, though, before the view became monotonous. Shortly after lunch, while Missus Smith took a siesta, Marie relieved Manny at the controls. Lars had been reluctant to let her drive the skimmer, so it was a pleasure to take the yoke, feel the smooth vibration of the fans beneath her hands. Despite the urgency of the mission, she throttled down a quarter-bar, just to savor the sensation of water passing swiftly beneath the bottom of the hull.

  “Not in a rush, are you?” Manny said after a few minutes. “You can go faster, you know.”

  Marie glanced at him. “Just enjoying the ride, that’s all.”

  “No apologies necessary.” Manny turned his head to glance back at Missus Smith. She lay upon an unrolled sleeping bag in the aft compartment, eyes closed and hands folded together on her chest. “Day’s getting short, and it looks rather tight for two people back there. Unless you want to sleep up top…”

  Marie didn’t reply, but instead throttled up the engines once more, returning the skimmer to cruise speed. Through the canopy, she could make out a low ridge gradually falling toward the southeastern tip of Great Dakota. Just past that point lay the Great Equatorial River; somewhere beyond that, the island where Lars and his companions were shipwrecked.

  “I don’t get it,” she murmured, keeping her voice low so Chris could sleep. “Lars has been gone…what, five, six weeks? And he gets stranded so close to us?” She shook her head. “What’s he been doing all this time?”

  “No idea.” Manny hesitated. “What I’m more concerned about is what you’re going to tell him when you see him again.”

  Marie didn’t say anything. She hadn’t given the subject much thought, believing that Lars was out of her life for good, or at least until after the baby was born. Indeed, no one in Riverport knew that she was pregnant, save for Manny. She hoped that, by the time her condition became obvious, the town would be self-sufficient enough that she could take maternity leave and return to Liberty long enough for Wendy to deliver the baby in the colonial hospital. Then she’d be able to go back to Great Dakota with her newborn child and a clear conscience that she’d done the right thing.

  “As little as possible,” she said after a moment. Then she gave him a sidelong frown. “And neither will you.”

  “My lips are sealed.” A pause. “Literally.”

  Marie grinned at the self-effacing joke. “You’d make a great father, you know that?” A new thought occurred to her. “Think you’d like the job?”

  Now it was Manny’s turn to become silent. He didn’t respond for a minute or two; when Marie looked at him again, he was staring straight ahead, as if studying the channel. Once again, she found herself wishing that his face was capable of displaying emotion, so that she’d have an idea of what thoughts were passing through his mind.

  “Stay close to shore,” he said at last. “Get out into deep water, and you might have trouble with the current.”

  A couple of hours later, they left the West Channel and entered the Great Equatorial River.

  It was almost twilight, the sun’s reddish-orange light illuminating the enormous granite escarpment that marked the southeastern tip of Great Dakota. Like the prow of some mammoth, petrified vessel, the sharp-edged cliffs towered nearly three hundred feet above the jagged shoals below. Manny had taken the yoke back by then; carefully steering clear of the surf that crashed against the shoals, he slowed down so that they could take in the majesty of the giant rock. Missus Smith had awoken from her nap, and she and Marie stood on the aft deck, watching as the skimmer slowly cruised beneath its shadow.

  Just past the delta was the Great Equatorial River, so broad that its far side lay beyond the horizon. To the east, on the opposite shore, they could make out the thin, dark line that marked the west coast of New Florida. It wasn’t until Manny turned the skimmer to the west and they began traveling up the south coast of Great Dakota that they spotted the smoke. Back-lit by the setting sun, it curled upward as a slender tendril from a dark form that seemed to float upon the water.

  The island…and someone there had lit a signal fire.

  Wary of the fading light, Manny pushed the engines up to full throttle and switched on the spotlights. Salt spray drenched the aft deck, chasing the two women below; from the cockpit, they watched the island gradually grow larger. Now they could see that it was a narrow stretch of land, about five miles long but less than a mile across, and heavily forested. The smoke rose from the closer end of the island, yet they still couldn’t see the fire. The island was a couple of miles away when the satphone crackled, and once again they heard Lar
s’ voice.

  “Hey, Marie! Is that you, babe?”

  Marie picked up the handset. “Roger that. We see your smoke, and we’re coming in.”

  Through the speaker, the ragged cheers of men shouting with relief. “Oh, babe, I love you! Can’t believe you got here so soon! Really made that sucker fly, didn’cha?”

  Marie glanced at Manny. “Don’t let him know,” he said quietly. “It’ll just upset him.”

  Missus Smith snickered. Marie shook her head, then keyed the mike again. “Yeah, sure…look, the sun’s going down, so you’re going to have to help us find you. If you’ve got a light, turn it on and shine it out toward the water so that we can see where you are.”

  A long pause, then Lars’ voice returned, more calm this time. “Can’t do that. River horses might see it, follow it back to us. We’re taking a chance as is, just keeping a fire going.”

  “River horses?” Marie stared at the satphone in puzzlement. “What are you…?”

  “Just take my word for it, okay? Kill your lights…we can see you now…and put someone on deck to look for the fire. That’s where we are.”

  Marie shook her head, glanced at Manny. “What the hell is he…?”

  “Never mind. I’ll go.” Rising from her seat, Chris picked up her carbine. “Just get us in close, and I’ll yell as soon as I spot the beach.”

  “Chris, wait…”

  “Don’t worry about it. I got my best friend to protect me.” Missus Smith patted the stock of her rifle, then ducked her head and left the cockpit.

  Early evening had settled upon the river, with the first stars beginning to appear in the darkening sky, when they caught sight of a flickering glow upon the island’s eastern tip, close to the waterline. Chris called down from the aft deck and Manny throttled back the engines, then swung around so that the skimmer approached the point from an oblique angle. Through the bubble, they could see the leading edge of Bear’s rings appearing above the eastern horizon, casting a silver luminescence upon the black water.