Elephant Song

EIGHTEEN

The Season the third passed almost without notice; the event being marked only by Cookie Jo being sent back to Miira with a pregnancy that was making her too ill to run the cookhouse. As Thunder of the Fourth year since the crash began, the road had reached the frozen crest where Little Will could stand on the road and look down upon the whiteness of the frozen lakes at the foot of White Top Mountain.

From that same crest she could look east, over the Great Muck Swamp far below, to where the town of Miira was lost in the distant haze. She sadly shook her head at the winding scratch in the planet's surface that the bullhands were calling "Bull Buster Road." Eleven men and women had died from accidents; another nine from illness. Over thirty had died in Miira from illness. Besides Dancer, the White Top Mountain Road had claimed the lives of two more bulls: Prima and Sailor, both from the cold. Nineteen bulls left. She looked west. And there were still the lakes to reach.

She turned and walked back to where the gang was camped in a draw that protected them somewhat from the icy winds. Mounds of blankets were gathered around wind-whipped fires as blanket-covered Packy Dern checked the bulls' blankets and feed. Before she could cross the frozen ground and join Pete's huddled form, Packy crossed over from the bulls and stopped her.

"Little Will. Tomorrow morning hook Reg up to a wagon and head back to Miira."

Her eyes opened wide. "Why? The nags do that." "Not this time. Reg isn't taking the cold good. If you don't get your bull outta these mountains soon, she'll die." Packy cocked his head toward the campfires. "We got some sick to go in, too." He placed a hand upon her shoulder. "Pete looks like he's down with the bug. Four others." Packy turned back to the bulls. "Get some sleep. I can't spare anyone. You'll be pushing your parade by yourself—"

Three days later, the air warm and lazy around her, Little Will half dozed as she sat astride Reg's neck. Reg's harness was hooked to one of the fill wagons, the wagon's bay held five very sick men and women. One of them was Shiner Pete. Reg was lumbering north up the Miira-Kuumic road toward home. At odd moments, sensing Little Will was asleep, Reg would come to a halt and begin pulling up grass from the roadside. Little Will would tap the beast's shoulder with her bullhook, and Reg would move off again. Then, again, Little Will would doze.

In her mind she saw herself a hundred steps in front of the bull, urging it on. She walked the road ahead of the bull, seeing what was around the corners. A curious dream. She stopped in the center of the road, turned back, and waited for Reg. After a while, the elephant-drawn wagon appeared from around a bend in the road. Sitting astride Reg's neck was a sleeping Little Will.

She turned away from the image and looked up at the avenue of sky between the trees. Her arms went up, and she rose above the trees. Higher and higher, until she could look back and see White Top Mountain. Higher still, until the sky above was dark. Then she looked down. The marks on the surface of Momus made by the road gang were invisible. But ahead, near Table Lake, she could see the houses of Miira. There was one afire, and the blackened remains of three others could be seen. A little beyond the houses she could see the huge swath cut through the forest when Number Three plowed to a stop. At the end of that swath there was nothing except the forest trying to heal itself.

She felt a force—five distinct powers—surrounding her. They were forces only to be felt, not seen.

Who are you? she asked.

And you? called the forces. Who are you?

Her mind whirled as she remembered the voices: Hassih, Nhissia—the Ssendissians. But they were killed in the ship long before the crash.

We are the children of Ssendiss.

And they were strong. One would push her, then the next. She felt so weak—

She looked down and tried to find the elephant-drawn wagon. As she searched, the forces swatted her down. She tumbled rapidly and the green of the Great Muck Swamp rushed up at her—

Little Will opened her eyes. Reg was again sneaking a bite at the roadside. She tapped Reg's shoulder with the bullhook and the animal moved off down the road.

Little Will felt Shiner Pete's thoughts, and she let them in. "Is something wrong, Little Will?"

"No. I must have had a bad dream. Go back to sleep." She felt Shiner Pete drifting off, his fever making his mind swim. Little Will looked up at that avenue of blue above the road.

At least I think it was a dream, she thought to herself. She tapped Reg on the shoulder, then settled back into a half-doze.

In another three days, the wagon was in Miira, Reg was in the kraal, and Little Will was in her bed next to Pete, both of them swimming in the killer fever of the disease.

Little Will and Shiner Pete flew above the clouds. "See, Pete? I was right, wasn't I?"

Pete swung in a loop around Little Will. "You were right." He leveled out and looked down. "Look. We're over Tarzak." He looked at the wisp of light that was his wife. "I wonder how fast we can go." He streaked out over the Sea of Baraboo toward the continent of Midway.

"Pete, do you think we should?" He was far ahead and did not answer. Little Will moved until she was beside Pete. Far below the mirror of the sea shined back at them, and they could see four of the fishing boats from Tarzak on the water. "Pete, let's go faster. As fast as we can."

The two wisps arrowed toward the East. For a moment all they could see was sky and water, then ahead on the darkening horizon was the continent of Midway. They slowed. "Look!" called Pete. "It's Mbwebwe! Where Number Two went down."

Below them were flickers of light. Pete and Little Will were still in the sky's light; but it was the beginning of one of many long nights in Mbwebwe. The flickers of light became fires, and the fires became wooden houses in flames. Men and women with torches could be seen heading toward a still dark house. Little Will cried and streaked on ahead, into the night. For awhile there was nothing but the stars above and blackness below. Little Will still cried. "Pete."

"What?"

"Pete, I wish we had a moon. I wish we had a moon, Pete." In the darkness they touched, then rushed for the sun.

By the ninth night of Quake, Packy Dern was standing in the door of Mange Ranger's house. Mange and Butterfingers were slumped at Mange's paper-littered table.

"I wish I'd been here, Mange. You sure the boy's all right?"

Mange sat cross-legged on the cushion before his table, his face resting in his hands. He nodded without looking up. "He's all right, Packy. You're the father of a brand-new bouncing baby boy."

Butterfingers looked back at Packy. "The bug doesn't hit the kids. None of them born on Momus."

"What about Cookie Jo? She looks like hell."

Mange shook his head and lowered his hands. "Don't know. I just don't know." The vet rubbed his aching eyes and pointed at the table's mountain of notes. "We've tried everything. Just finished an experiment." Mange stared at the papers. "Nothing. Not a damned thing."

He swept his notes to the plank floor of the shack with a single sweep of his left arm. "Christ, I feel like a goddamned witchdoctor! Torching houses, chanting over boils..." He looked at Butterfingers. "It doesn't matter what in the hell we do. Is it a virus? A bacteria? A voodoo spell? We know it's not transferable from human to human. What is it, then? How many damned insects have we logged?"

Butterfingers shook his head. "Dunno. Must be a couple thousand by now. There must be thousands more."

Mange looked at Packy. "We have collected a billion roots, leaves, barks, berries—hell! Dammit, we don't even have a goddamned optical microscope! Nothing! If we could just do blood tests, we might be able to find out what it is that makes the kids born on the planet immune to the damned bug."

Butterfingers lowered his head down upon his arms. "So, what do we do?" His shoulders gave a tiny heave. "Squinty Mosdov over to Arcadia is trying to figure out how to grind lenses out of that gem quartz they found there, but we're not going to see enough through that kind of equipment. An old electron microscope probably wouldn't be much help, and... we're long way from... anything like that." Butterfingers's form was still except for the shallow motion of his breathing.

Mange stood and moved away from the table. He stood next to Packy and looked through the open doorway, staring at the smoldering coals of a recently torched house. "I half feel like putting on a mask and loin cloth and doing a dance." He stepped through the doorway into the night and walked toward the large plank and shingle structure that housed the stricken whose houses were in ashes.

As they passed it, Mange pointed at the smoking ruin. "I must've told them a thousand times that torching doesn't help. Eliminated that a long time ago." He held out his hands and let them slap against his legs. "Still, every couple of nights, a torch gets tossed into an empty house."

Packy followed the vet into the infirmary. By the light of four candles, he could see the quadruple rows of plank beds extending the length of the large room.

Mange muttered out loud. "Why do a few get the bug then get better while everyone else curls up and dies? Why don't the newly born get the bug at all?" He walked past a few beds until he stood looking down at Shiner Pete and Little Will. Packy joined him.

They were both quiet and resting comfortably. Their color was good and the fever seemed to be past. But they talked about projecting their minds all over the planet, seeing huge green lizards in the swamp, and even finding and talking with Waco Whacko's eggs. "The fever was high; it's always high. We've had a number of cases of brain damage." Mange shook his head. "The limited telepathic ability of some of the show kids is something I discussed with Bone Breaker and that Ssendissian, Nhissia. But even the Ssendissians can't release their thoughts from their bodies, sailing through space and time. The fever is always very high; the skin hot to the touch. Perhaps brain damage."

Packy rubbed his chin and looked at the vet. "Waco's snakes couldn't move things with their thoughts, could they?"

"Telekinesis?" Mange shook his head. "No."

"Little Will can. A bunch of those on the road gang saw her move a helluva huge rock."

Mange raised his eyebrows. "And how many of those had the bug?"

"I don't know, but—"

"Did you see her move the rock?"

Packy shook his head.

Mange shook his head again and walked toward the door. "What I wouldn't give just for a goddamned thermometer."

Although the ice wagons began rolling their sawdust-packed cargos through the town on their way to Tarzak, The Season the fourth saw no one from Miira or the Emerald Valley travel south for the celebration. There were too many new grave markers; too many down with the bug; the recovered too weak to travel. Those who could gathered in Miira's tiny square and observed The Show by watching Packy Dern put Robber through her routine. A week later Packy was in his bed, down with the bug.

It was on the thirteenth of Wind, the fifth year since the crash, that Little Will rose from her bed and hobbled out into the sunshine. As she felt the warmth of the sun reach to her bones, she reached her hand inside her robes and felt the way her ribcage protruded in front of her sunken abdomen. Everyone in Miira looked as though they were starving to death.

Pete was still in bed; still weak.

She moved slowly down the street until she came to Packy's house. Cookie Jo was sitting on the stone bench in front of the house nursing her child, Mort.

"Cookie, how's Packy?"

Cookie Jo nodded toward one end of the bench. "Sit down, Little Will. You look like a strong wind'd blow you away."

Little Will shook her head. "The sun does me good. Besides, if I sit down, I don't know how long it would be before I could get up again." She nodded toward the door. "How's Packy?"

A look came into Cookie Jo's eyes. "I don't know. Mange says the fever's past. But Packy just stays in bed like he was waiting to die. He won't eat anything."

Little Will held her hand to her forehead as dizzyness whirled the ground. "Maybe I will sit down for a bit." She took the three steps necessary and dropped down upon the bench.

"Are you better now?"

"Better. I'm still a little wobbly on my pins."

Cookie Jo rearranged her baby, then looked at Little Will. "Honey, are you sure you should be up? If you had a mirror right now, you'd scare yourself half to death."

"If I was a bikini queen, I'd be in the ballet."

"How's Pete?"

Little Will shook her head. "Weak. I think he's on the mend, though." She looked into the dark doorway of Packy's house, then back at Cookie Jo. "Is it okay if I go in and see him?"

"He won't talk to anyone. Not even me."

Little Will placed her hand against the wall of the house and pushed herself to her feet. Still holding onto the wall, she entered the room and stopped inside the door. "Packy?"

Hearing no answer, she walked to the window to her right and pulled aside the piece of blanket that covered it. Sunlight flooded the room. "Pull back that curtain."

Little Will looked in the direction of the weak voice and saw Packy's emaciated form in bed. "What are you, Packy, a bat?"

"Pull back the curtain and get out of here."

Little Will hobbled to the next window and opened it to the light. "Packy, you have to have light to put your clothes on."

"Clothes?" The boss elephant man stared at her with sunken eyes. "I'm not putting on any clothes, and if you got any sense, you'd get yourself back to bed."

Little Will folded her arms and looked down at Packy. "I can't go to bed. There's bull to be pushed."

Packy turned his face to the wall. "Just go away, Little Will. Please."

"Just going to curl up and die, huh? You know what Bullhook Willy would've said."

Packy turned on his side, facing the wall. "He's dead. Everybody's dead. Every goddamned body's dead."

Little Will felt the tears spring to her eyes. "He'd say, 'Bullhand, get your narrow ass out of that hay and push some bull!' " She fumed at Packy's back for a moment, then lifted her right leg and kicked the boss elephant man in the soft end.

"Ow!"

Packy rolled over and sat up as Little Will staggered to regain her balance, "dammit, Little Will, I don't care if you are married! I'm gonna whip your butt till it glows in the goddamned dark!"

She turned toward the door. "First you have to catch me." Little Will stepped outside and leaned against the doorframe. The street seemed to tip and swim in front of her face. "Cookie? Cookie?"

Little Will felt strong hands grip her upper arms. "Are you all right?"

"Get me back to my bed. I can't walk..."

She seemed to fall through a hole in the planet's crust. And the planet was hollow, dark, and cold.

Bullhook Willy was drunk. She remembered that she was nine years old. It was only later that she figured out that her father had been carrying a few snorts under his belt.

They had been in the main sleeping bay of the Baraboo. Since he wasn't hitched to anything or anyone, Bullhook Willy slept with the rest of the bullhands. He had taken a long pull from a bottle, then pointed the neck of the bottle at her.

"There's not a goddamned bullhand on this ship who's worth a crap without his bull." He tapped the bottleneck against his chest. "Me too. Especially me." He took another pull, lowered the bottle to his lap, then smiled at her. "Lookit me, kid. Lookit me hard. I'm nothing without those bulls. Not a damned thing."

He rubbed his eyes, then looked above her at something only he could see. "A bullhand, his name was Goober Jones, worked the Snow Show out of Seattle when Poison Jim and I were together. Damn Goober. He turned his bull into an outlaw... killed Poison Jim." He shook his head and looked back up at that nothingness. "You ever find a bullhand who thinks he's something without his rubber mule, you kill that sonofabitch or throw 'im out on the lot. Got no business swinging a bullhook."

Then, with his hand, he waved images from his mind and laughed. He told her a story. It was the one about Kraut Stuka. Kraut was filing his bull's toenails when the show's new vet asked Kraut why the bull was making that "pok-a-ta-pok-a-ta" sound with her trunk.

" 'Oh,' says Kraut going back to his bull's pedicure, 'this bull's an outboard.' "

She didn't know what an outboard was. But she laughed, because Bullhook Willy laughed. And Bullhook Willy was boss elephant man for O'Hara's Greater Shows. She laughed because the laughter of giants is infectious. And Bullhook Willy was a giant. He was the man in charge of the care, feeding, performance, training, and procurement of over a hundred of the largest land mammals known anywhere in the universe.

Her father.