Hunter's Run(33)

"Fine," the man said. "If it makes you feel better, we'll head downstream for a day or two. We can pull in somewhere, add a lean-to and a fire pit. Maybe check the cane, make sure it's still tied tight enough."

That was a dig. The man was still smarting over Ramón insisting that he could tie the floats better with two hands than his twin could with one.

Once Ramón would have risen to the bait, taken offense, maybe pushed it into a fight, but not now. Fine, pendejo, Ramón thought. Dig at me all you want. I know how scared you are too.

"Good plan" was all he said.

Lashing the branches together and binding them to the cane floats was long work, but not difficult. Ramón found himself falling into a rhythm-setting the wood in place, tying it on one side, then the other, then in the center where it crossed another branch. One, two, three, four, then start again. He fell into the work, abandoning himself to the sheer physicality of it. His hands and feet, unprotected by calluses, hurt and blistered. He ignored the pain; it was just part of the package. If the other man could cut away his own stump of a finger bone, Ramón could sure as shit stand scraping up his palms a little.

His twin kept pace as best he could, but the crippled hand slowed him badly. Ramón could feel the frustration rising in the man as he struggled not to be shown up by a pinche banker. As the sun dipped toward the treetops on the opposite shore, Ramón noticed, with some satisfaction, that the other man's bandage showed the bright red tinge of new blood.

At the end, they laid the iceroot leaves over the branches, tacking the broad, leathery fronds together until they were like a carpet. Not wholly waterproof, but enough that they wouldn't be getting their asses wet with river water all the way south. The raft wasn't much to look at. There was no rudder, and only an improvised paddle to steer with at the stern. It wasn't more than two and a half meters square; it was a decent size for a wrestling match, but as a way to travel, it would be pretty damn close quarters. Still, all it had to do was stay on top of the big river long enough for them to float down to Fiddler's Jump. And when they dragged it out into the lagoon, it floated high off the water, and when they both clambered on, it felt solid and secure.

"Not fucking bad, David," his twin said. "You did a man's job of it, eh?"

"We did all right," he agreed. "You want to get out of here?"

And as the words left his mouth, they heard a sound-the distant, gurgling cry of a chupacabra. It sounded as if it were in pain. Ramón's belly went tight, and the other man's face was pale.

"Yeah," his twin said. "We might as well get going."

Ramón paddled them out from behind the sandbar and nearer the center of the river where the current was fastest. The other man squatted at the raft's edge, looking back. Neither the beast nor Maneck emerged from the forest, and the screaming call didn't come again. Ramón, settling back to steer, couldn't help feeling they'd had a near miss. Another night on shore would have ended badly for them. Maybe even another hour. It was a good fucking thing that his twin had tried so hard to keep up. A good thing that Ramón hadn't been able to bring himself to kill the man in the night. One man would never have been able to finish the raft alone in time.

But the sound of the predator-even if it was in pain-also filled him with a strange melancholy. If the chupacabra lived, then Maneck was dead. The athanai of his cohort had been killed attempting to protect his people from the violence that had tracked them across stars and centuries. And the creature who had frustrated Maneck's tatecreude? A jumped-up little monkey from the badlands of Mexico who'd stumbled on the hive while running from the law, and who even now didn't have any idea what the consequences of his discovery would be. At least Maneck had died trying. Died fighting. There was some honor in that, even if it had failed its people. In an odd way that surprised and disquieted him, he found he almost missed Maneck, now that it was over, now that he was free. And in spite of all the pain it had visited upon him, in spite of the hatred he'd felt for the alien at times, Ramón couldn't help but feel a pang of regret and sorrow at the thought of its terrible death.

"Still, better you than me, monster," Ramón said under his breath. "Better you than me!"

                       
       
           



       Chapter 17

The first night was the worst. The river was placid so far north, so the only dangers were logs and debris floating invisibly in the dark water, aquatic predators like bloody mormons and carracao, and the cold. They were under no power, so unless the rocks or debris were stuck in the bed of the river itself, chances of a damaging collision were slim, and they were too far north to be in the range of most river predators. That left the cold.

Once the sun slipped behind the western trees, the river seemed to suck all the warmth from the air. Ramón was wearing the alien robe; warm enough, but too small to cover his legs and arms both at the same time. The other man, however, had sacrificed his shirt and the lower legs of his trousers to bandages and traps, so they'd agreed that the man should take the one-piece alien garment. He was curled on the iceroot leaves, wrapped tight and still shivering. There was no call to sleep in shifts. The light of a near-full moon was too bright and the chill too uncomfortable to allow for anything like sleep. Ramón considered pulling in to shore for the night, but he didn't suggest it. His twin would only take it as a slight, and the man never made the suggestion himself. Besides, Ramón knew they were both anxious to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the chupacabra. Ramón wondered how far a chupacabra's range was. Fifty kilometers came to mind, but he didn't know where he got the figure from. By morning, it would be safe to pull to the side. But perhaps they could move to the western shore, just to be sure.

"Hey, David," the other man said. Ramón blinked back to full consciousness, only now aware how near he'd come to dozing.

"Yeah?" he said, and coughed. He hoped he wasn't getting a cold. That would be just his luck.

"You ever spend time in Diegotown?" the man asked.

Ramón fought to focus his mind, looking over at the man. His twin was sitting up now, legs hugged to his chest. His frown cut deep lines in his face. He looked both brutish and desperately uncomfortable, but it was clear enough he'd been watching Ramón for a while.

"A little," he said. "Why?"

"I think I've seen you someplace before. What kind of things do you do in Diegotown?"

"Business, mostly," Ramón said. "You might have seen me around the governor's palace. You spend any time there?" He knew damn well he didn't, so the other man's shrug was expected. Ramón felt the urge to echo the movement-it was the natural thing; the motion most familiar to his flesh. It took an effort to shake his head and smile instead. "There was a bar I went to a few times," Ramón said, not knowing why he was choosing the embellishment until he'd already begun. "The El Rey. It was down by the river. You ever go there?"

"No," the other man said harshly. "I've never heard of that one."

"Huh," Ramón said. "Maybe I got the name wrong. It had wood floors. And the guy who ran it was named Michael or Miko or something like that. I got sick in the alley out back. There was one of those shifting LED lights. I remember that."

"Don't know the place. Maybe you're thinking of a bar in some other town."

His tone made it clear that the conversation was over, but in case Ramón hadn't taken the hint, his twin shifted, turning his back. Ramón permitted himself a smile and a shrug. He wasn't surprised the man had lied. If he'd met a stranger in the wild, he'd have been wary of the subject too. It was a good conversation stopper.

And yet there was also regret. His mind kept returning to the time before the fight, like a tongue exploring the hole left by a missing tooth. Killing the European, he had that like he was seeing it on a screen. But how exactly had things gone that far? He remembered a pachinko machine. There had been a woman, her hair straightened to make her look Asian, at the European's side. He knew that the woman hadn't been there because she knew or liked the man; being with him had been some kind of work thing. But he didn't know how he knew that. He remembered her laugh-tight, short, frightened.

How would he have explained to Maneck that laughter could be more than what was funny? The alien wouldn't have understood that the same thing that people did when something was funny could also be a way to express fear. To cry for help.

Ramón grabbed the thought, trying to follow it back to some more solid recollection, but it swam away, just out of his reach. Only his twin knew it, and Ramón had no way to ask.

They didn't speak again until shortly after dawn. Ramón and his twin agreed to move the raft across the river and hug the western shore until they saw a good stand of cane. They could make the pit out of anything thick enough to hold the dirt and sand that kept the fire from burning the raft itself, but using cane would be the easiest way to make a lean-to. And judging from the stars, the cane might start getting scarce if they went much farther south.