Chapter Four

 

 

An insistent bladder had prodded Doc awake in the predawn darkness. Stumbling from his tent, he passed J.B. and Zadfrak sitting around the dying campfire, drinking cups of coffee sub. J.B. gave him a one-finger salute as he went into the shadows to urinate.

 

He was more awake by the time he returned to the fire. Knuckling his eyes, he asked, "Have you been up all night, John Barrymore?"

 

"Just since midnight, when I spelled you. Got at least an hour till sunrise. Why don't you go back to bed?"

 

Doc stifled a yawn and sat down next to Zadfrak, reaching for the coffeepot. "I believe I shall tarry here a moment."

 

"We're thinking about trying to catch a mess of trout for breakfast," J.B. said. "Zadfrak says there's some rainbow in the river."

 

The old man nodded eagerly. Fishing was one of his passions. "Sounds very much like a plan. I am certain everyone would rather have fresh fish than beef jerky broth."

 

"Let's go then," Zadfrak said, getting to his feet. He covered his mouth, coughed, hawked, then spit into the embers.

 

Doc fetched a rod and reel and tackle box from the storage compartment of the wag. The black sky was turning gray, so they were able to negotiate the path Zadfrak led them down.

 

The river's current wasn't particularly fast, and the bank gave way to a fifty-odd foot curve of mudflats. Doc affixed a lure to his line and carefully picked his way out across the mud. Neither J.B. nor Zadfrak seemed inclined to join him.

 

The earth squished beneath Doc's feet, but he barely sank into it more than ankle deep. Reaching its edge, he cast the line as far as he could toward the center of the rushing water. He had only begun to reel it back in when the line quivered with a strike. Over his shoulder, he called, "I've made contact, gentlemen!"

 

Zadfrak stumbled and slogged out across the flats to join him. "Play him some, old man. Don't let the bastard run into the deepwater."

 

Doc didn't reply, though he found a backseat fisherman as irritating as J.B. probably found a backseat driver. Zadfrak kept up a steady stream of advice, encouragement and an occasional burst of profanity.

 

The pole bent at a forty-five-degree curve, the line was taut and Doc strained against the pull. His shoulder muscles began to ache, but he kept on playing out slack, reeling it back in and working his way to the left.

 

Finally, after about six or seven minutes of struggle, Doc landed the trout with Zadfrak's help. The fish was, as Doc proclaimed it, a genuine whopper.

 

The rainbow trout was at least three and a half feet long, weighing upwards of forty pounds. Doc and J.B. let out whooping laughs, with Zadfrak clapping his hands in spontaneous applause.

 

"To hell with breakfast," J.B. called from the bank. "'Take us two full days to eat that whale!"

 

Doc shifted his position, finding some solid footing so Zadfrak could remove the feather-bedecked hook from the trout's mouth. Suddenly the mud heaved beneath the old man's feet with a convulsive shudder, and a spray of water and slime flew into the air.

 

Stumbling and slipping on the slick surface, Doc lost his balance and fell with a splat. In the watery sludge in front of him shone two cold, white-encircled black eyes, each the width and breadth of his outstretched hands. Less than a foot from his face, a huge rubbery-lipped maw with a shovel-shaped underjaw opened with a liquidy, slurping gasp.

 

Doc knew exactly what he was facing. For half a heartbeat, terror froze him motionless. Then he screamed, clawing and kicking himself away from the gaping mouth of the mucksucker.

 

The creature lifted itself out of the mud on finned, stiff-membraned lobes, its titanic toothless jaws closing on Doc's left ankle with a crushing force.

 

Propelled by its fins, the mucksucker made a wrenching backward heave, its fluked tail threshing the water into a white froth. It intended to drag Doc into the river with it. Digging his fingers into the mud, the old man kicked out with his right leg, which skidded across the slippery charcoal-gray skin of the mutie's blunt snout.

 

A small, rational part of Doc's mind told him the mucksucker wasn't really a monster, but only a mutated form of catfish, a lungfish that dredged its meals from shallow bottoms and mudflats. Straining its sustenance through a fibrous screen at the back of its throat, a mucksucker was mostly considered a nuisance, not a threat.

 

The larger part of Doc's mind, the irrational part in charge, told him he was in the grip of a twenty-foot-long, half-ton hellspawn that intended to eat him.

 

He cursed himself for leaving his swordstick behind. Bracing himself with one hand, Doc managed to draw his Le Mat from its holster, but another backward lurch of the mucksucker jerked the blaster out of his sludge-slick hand. The weapon fell into an algae-scummed puddle.

 

As he groped frantically for it, he heard J.B.'s shouting, splashing charge and he glimpsed Zadfrak lash the mucksucker across its broad skull with the fishing rod. It twitched in pain, but refused to release its grip.

 

Zadfrak planted one foot on its head, preparing to drive the rod into one of its eyes like a spear. Then, like a sail unfurling, a serrated dorsal fin unfolded vertically from the mucksucker's back. The sharp spines of the fin stabbed Zadfrak's right arm and slashed furrows along his side. He staggered backward, crying out, dropping the rod to hug himself. He fell onto his back full length with a splatter of mud and grunt of forcefully expelled air.

 

Blood sprang from half a dozen punctures on his arm, from shoulder to elbow. Doc saw crimson glistening along his rib cage as Zadfrak thrashed over, gaining a kneeling position. Shooting out his left arm, his surprisingly strong fingers closed around Doc's right wrist.

 

"Grab me with your other hand," Zadfrak gritted from between clenched teeth.

 

Doc followed his instructions, grasping the man's wrist with both hands. The next backward lunge of the mucksucker dragged them only a foot.

 

There was a sudden fusillade of shots. Doc recognized the sharp snapping stutter of J.B.'s Uzi and the suppressed crack of Ryan Cawdor's SIG-Sauer. One of the mucksucker's huge white-rimmed eyes broke apart in a spray of gelatinous fluid, and several holes were stitched across the blunt skull.

 

The creature's long tail flailed and slapped spasmodically. Mud flew in great sheets, covering Doc, stuffing his nose and blinding his eyes.

 

The crushing pressure on his foot relaxed, and Zadfrak yanked him forward and to his feet. He heard a muffled, mushy explosion, then a stinking wave of warm air washed over him.

 

Pawing the mud out of his eyes, Doc watched the death convulsions of the monster fish. Part of its long thick-barreled body looked oddly deflated, and he realized that a bullet had punctured one of its internal air sacs.

 

He was still snorting sludge from his nostrils when Ryan grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him.

 

"Are you all right, Doc?" he asked, bending over to probe his legs with searching fingers.

 

"Just bewildered, thanks to our newfound friend."

 

J.B. was attending to Zadfrak, who held his right arm at a stiff, unnatural angle. The skin around the puckered punctures was swollen and turning a livid purple.

 

"Damn thing finned me," he said with a grimace. "Got a dose of the poison."

 

"You're having the luck of a shithouse rat since you met up with us," J.B. said sympathetically. "Hope you did better on your own."

 

The rest of the group, roused by the gunfire, came running to the riverbank. Though in various states of dress, all brandished blasters, fingers on triggers, barrels swinging back and forth seeking targets.

 

"It's okay," Ryan called. "A run-in with a mucksucker. Taken care of."

 

Turning to Zadfrak, Ryan squeezed the man's left shoulder. "We thank you for that."

 

"Had to watch my son die," Zadfrak said faintly. "Rad cancer got him. Ain't fair to be chilled when you mean no harm."

 

Supported by Ryan, Zadfrak managed to walk rubber-legged to the bank. Mildred examined the wounds in his arm. "We'll have to try to draw out the poison."

 

"We have some fixings for a poultice in the wag," Krysty said.

 

Held up by Krysty, Zadfrak followed Mildred back to the campsite. J.B. studied the mucksucker's carcass.

 

"We spend a day salting it down, we'll have a month's supply of meat."

 

Doc pursed his lips, as if tasting something sour. "If the axiom 'you are what you eat' is indeed true, are you sure you want to consume the flesh of a creature that feeds on offal and excrement?"

 

"Eaten worse," Jak commented, unsheathing a long knife and striding out toward the mucksucker.

 

Doc retrieved his Le Mat and the rod and reel. J.B. glanced toward the river and said, "Your rainbow got away. Flopped back into the water. It was a genuine whopper."

 

Running his fingers through his mud-caked hair, Doc replied, "They all are, my dear fellow. They all are. And they always get away."

 

Under the watchful eye and blasters of Ryan and J.B., Doc waded waist deep into the river and washed the mud and slime from his body and clothes. Jak continued his single-minded task of cleaning the mucksucker. It wasn't particularly hard work, though it was bloody. Ryan reckoned the job almost too difficult for one man, but Jak was from the Louisiana bayous and obviously had experience.

 

By the time the sun had topped the horizon, the white-haired youth had flayed the rubbery skin and excised the body from dorsal to ventral.

 

J.B. and Ryan returned to the camp, since Doc had volunteered to stay behind and watch the teenager's back. A fire had been built, and a noxious odor wafted from a bubbling pot hanging from a spit over it. Mildred was tending to the pot, stirring it with a long wooden spoon.

 

J.B. wrinkled his nose. "I hope that's not breakfast."

 

"It's Krysty's poultice," Mildred said. "I don't usually have a lot of faith in folk remedies, but it's the best we've got."

 

Ryan bent over Zadfrak, who was lying in his sleeping bag. Eyes closed, his face filmed with perspiration, he was shivering as if from a chill. His lips had a slight bluish tinge. Pressing a hand to the man's forehead, Ryan felt a terrible heat. "He's burning up."

 

"I know," Mildred replied. "He's having an extreme reaction to the toxin. A healthy man might be sick for a day, but our guest is anything but healthy."

 

Guided by Krysty's instructions, Mildred stirred the heated mixture of herbs and plants. She poured the pulpy paste onto a square of porous cloth, then tied the four corners together to make a leaky bag. Moving over to Zadfrak, she stretched out his swollen right arm and applied the cloth over several of the punctures.

 

"That's supposed to draw the poison out?" J.B. asked.

 

"Supposedly. Even so, the shock to his system may be too severe for him to rally." Standing, she wiped her hands clean against her pants. "All we can do is wait."

 

They waited. The prospect of remaining in the area another full day and night didn't disturb Ryan. He owed Zadfrak the chance to pull through. Besides, they had a supply of fresh water and, Doc's objections to mucksucker meat notwithstanding, plenty of food. Also, they were well hidden, or so he hoped.

 

Along toward late afternoon, while a mucksucker stew cooked over the fire, there came the stealthy sound of feet treading on leaves and dry twigs.

 

Everyone within earshot of the sound reacted immediately, rolling to their feet, blaster barrels snapping up, bodies assuming combat stances. A black-and-white pinto pony stepped lightly from the underbrush at the western perimeter of the campsite.

 

Astride the horse's back was a slightly built but lithe-looking Sioux warrior. He wore a fringed buckskin hunting shirt and leggings. His black hair flowed freely down his back, and red hawk feathers were pinned to the back of his head. His face, though unpainted, was a mask of restrained ferocity.

 

The warrior could have stepped from the nineteenth century or an old Western vid, except for the M-16 automatic assault rifle cradled in his arms. His sharp, dark eyes closely examined the faces of the people spread out in a semicircle around him, finally resting on Zadfrak.

 

Ryan and J.B. had picked up a smattering of the Lakota language in their travels, so Ryan said, " Hou le mita cola ."

 

The warrior's grim slash of a mouth twitched ever so slightly at the flawed pronunciation of "Hello, my friend."

 

"Good afternoon," he said in perfect, unaccented English. "I am Touch-the-Sky'. The wasicun call me Joe."

 

Noticing that the blaster bores pointing at him hadn't wavered, he added, "I mean no harm. I assure you I'm alone."

 

Ryan slowly lowered his blaster, and everyone followed suit, though J.B. did so reluctantly and slowly.

 

"I see you caught a mucksucker," Joe said.

 

"Would you like some?" Krysty asked. "There's plenty."

 

Joe made a face, but stopped short of sticking out his tongue. "No, thank you. I never acquired a taste for it. And, frankly, neither has anyone else I know."

 

Doc whispered into J.B.'s ear, "See, I told you."

 

Shifting position on his saddle blanket, Joe added, "Besides, this isn't a social call. Why are you giving aid to the marked man?"

 

"The what?" Ryan asked.

 

Joe traced an X on his forehead. "The man who bears the mark of the Family. It means he has crossed himself out of the flow of life."

 

"I don't follow you."

 

"You don't know he's from Helskel?"

 

"You mean there is such a place?" Mildred asked.

 

"There is, and if you value your lives, your spirits, you'll give it a very wide berth." He gestured toward Zadfrak. "Leave that carrion and go."

 

"We owe a life to that man," Ryan said. "Whatever he is, wherever he's from, he's sick and we owe him."

 

"I understand you must discharge such debts. Even in the darkest of hearts there is light somewhere, and that man's heart is very dark. But I don't intend to threaten youonly to warn."

 

"You're being very cryptic," Doc said. "Inscrutable, even."

 

Joe smiled. "In which case I'm living up to my stereotype. Very well. I'll speak with a blunt tongue."

 

Saluting the area around them, he said, "This land once belonged to the Cheyenne, the Lakota, the Crow, the Pawnee. When skydark came, we believed it was a time of deliverance for our people and divine retribution against the white man. Their religion, their outrages, their politics, all was swept away. The tribes of my people returned to the old ways. We hoped the predark evil was destroyed forever. Unfortunately, evil has a way of returning or, in the case of Helskel's masters, never going away."

 

"You said you were going to speak with a blunt tongue," Ryan reminded him.

 

"A few survivors of predark politics and predark science banded together. They seek nothing less than to regain dominion of the world, to rebuild the ugly, soul-destroying societies and bureaucracies. They wish to revive the horrors of predark."

 

Pointing at Zadfrak, he continued, "That man and his so-called family are their servitors. If you return him to Helskel, then you'll learn the truth of my words. By then, it may be too late for all of you."

 

Reacting to the pressure of Joe's knees, the pony turned and trotted back into the brush.

 

A hoarse cough from Zadfrak drew their attention. He was conscious, but his eyes were glassy. They sought out Ryan.

 

"You going to do what that red man said? Leave me behind?"

 

Ryan kneeled beside him, feeling his forehead. His fever was down. "Is that what you would do in our place?"

 

Zadfrak tried to grin. "Probably."

 

"What do you want us to do?"

 

"Take me home. Let me die with the Family."

 

"We'll do it."

 

He nodded and closed his eyes. His breathing was shallow. Mildred lifted the poultice, noted the condition of the arm, listened to his heartbeat, timed his pulse and examined his pupils.

 

When she arose, her expression was grave. "His temperature's down, but not enough. His lungs are filling. He's got a day and a half, maybe three at the outside."

 

Eyeing Zadfrak sadly, Doc said, "Then we should to do what he wants. Get him back to his family."

 

"Have you noticed," Krysty interjected, "that he refers to 'the' family and not 'my' family?"

 

"An idiosyncrasy of speech," Doc said, "using the definite article. Maybe it's just local idiom."

 

"Don't forget those DNA suckers back in Louisiana who referred to themselves the same way," Mildred commented.

 

Krysty hugged herself. "I doubt we'll ever forget them, though I wish to Gaia I could."

 

Ryan studied the position of the sun. "Too late in the day to start now. Think he can last until tomorrow, Mildred?"

 

"I'll do what I can," she replied. "But at this point, it may be damn little."