Hunter's Run Read online

  “Maybe we should take a day,” Ramón said, dropping the dead creatures and holding his hand out for the field knife. “Rest up, you know. Get our strength back.”

  “Fuck that,” the twin said. He shifted his gaze to Ramón’s outstretched hand.

  “I can’t gut these things with my fucking fingernails,” Ramón said. His twin shrugged, tossed the knife in the air, catching it by the blade, and held it out grip-first for Ramón to take. He was fucked up, no question, but Ramón’s twin still had reflexes.

  The eel-things had a simple enough gut. Ramón cleaned out everything that didn’t look like muscle, on the theory that any weird digestive enzymes or venom sacs weren’t likely to be in that tissue. He roasted them on a spit, and, while cooking, they smelled like roast beef and hot mud. The sug beetles, he boiled in the tin drinking cup from the field kit. The other man sat at the riverside, looking out over the bright water, his gaze empty. Ramón decided he’d try the eel-things first after all. He carved off a sliver, placed it on his tongue, gagged, and threw the eel-things still on their spit out into the river.

  “Sug beetles,” he said. “We’re having sug beetles.”

  The other man looked up at him, shading his eyes with his wrapped hand.

  “They’re here,” his twin said.

  “Who?” Ramón asked, but the man didn’t answer. When Ramón followed his gaze, it was clear enough. Like hawks riding the thermals in the high air. The great black galley ships.

  The Silver Enye had returned to São Paulo.

  Chapter 18

  After they ate, the man curled in a ball and fell into a profound sleep. There were still a couple hours of daylight left, so Ramón took the knife and harvested cane. The stalks were green as grass before he cut them, and turned red within a minute or two of being severed. It wasn’t hard work, and by the time the sunset filled the western sky—distant clouds glowing gold and orange and gaudy pink—he’d almost doubled the pile that his twin had made. He washed his hands and the blade in the river, then rooted through the field pack until he found the rough, gray sharpening stone. His twin hadn’t been doing much of a job keeping the knife sharp. But, then, the poor fucker only had one working hand. It was a pretty good excuse.

  He sat at the water’s edge, listening to the sharp, dangerous hiss of steel against stone, and looking up. Even after the trees and the river had fallen into a deep gray twilight, the Enye ships in their high orbit glowed with the light of the sun. Brighter than stars. He watched as they fell into São Paulo’s shadow, dimming like someone had flipped a switch until they were only visible by the violet and orange running lights—less obvious, but present just the same. It was like God had come and hung a skull in the sky to stare down and remind Ramón of the slaughter that he’d seen in Maneck’s mind. And the slaughter that was likely to come once he and his twin returned to the city.

  As the prisoner of Maneck and the aliens, he had spent relatively little time concerning himself with his return from the wild. It had, he supposed, been so unlikely a prospect that more immediate problems had kept his attention. But now that he was free and traveling toward home with his twin, the question loomed large. He brushed his hand over his arm, where there was now a thin white line, jagged and half-formed. The machete scar slowly welling up. What had Maneck said? That he’d “continue to approximate the source form.” He touched the thin line of knotting flesh with his fingertips. His beard was also thickening, his hands becoming rougher. He was becoming more and more like the other man. He closed his eyes, torn between relief at seeing his own flesh coming back again and anxiety about what would come—no one would mistake them for different men. No one would even think they were twins—they were too close for that. By the time they reached another human being, they would have the same scars, the same calluses, the same faces and bodies and hair.

  He couldn’t very well march in and announce himself to be Ramón Espejo, with the other man at his side. Even if there was no way to tell them apart—and who could say what traces Maneck’s technology would leave?—the governor would hardly ignore it. And Ramón knew himself well enough to know what his twin would think of him.

  It would be better to go quickly, and arrive at Fiddler’s Jump while they still looked similar but not yet identical. Ramón could engineer some excuse to slip away. Then south, maybe even to Amadora. He’d need to find someone who could give him fake papers. Not that he had the money to pay for forged documents, but again, there couldn’t be two Ramón Espejos….

  He let the knife falter, the whetting stone heavy in his hand.

  No. He needed money to start again. He knew all of his banking codes, could pass any authentication tests the banks required. The thing was to go back to Diegotown while his twin was still recuperating, clean out the accounts, maybe borrow some on credit, and then make his way south. It would leave the other man saddled with debts, but at least people would know him. He could start over. They both could. And it wasn’t even stealing, really. He was Ramón Espejo, and that was his own money he was taking.

  And if the police were looking for the man who’d killed the European, well, then perhaps his twin wouldn’t mind the missing cash so much after all. Ramón chuckled. It wasn’t as if they could hang him twice for the same crime. He imagined himself setting up in Amadora, maybe a simple beach house on the south coast. Once he had papers, he could rent a new van. At least until he found enough work to buy his own. He imagined waking to the sound of the surf, the cool light of morning. He imagined waking alone, on a cot too small for two bodies to share. Elena, after all, would have the other man. And he would have her. Ramón could start again. Like a snake shedding its skin, he could leave his old, gray life behind. Maybe he’d stop drinking so much. Stop going to bars and picking fights. Killing men or having them try to kill him. He could be someone new. How many men had dreamed of that, and how few had the chance?

  It all depended on getting south quickly, before the recapitulation had thickened his scars and coarsened his hair. Before the wrinkles in his face matched the other man’s, before the moles they shared became dark enough to be obvious on casual inspection. Ramón didn’t know how long that would be, but he couldn’t imagine it would take long. Not so many days ago, he’d just been a severed finger, and now he was nearly back to normal.

  Far above, one of the Enye ships blinked out of existence and then back as the jump drives cooled. Ramón’s gut tightened, remembering how it felt to be aboard those ships when they stuttered like that. The first time had been with old Palenki and his work gang. The ship had launched from its orbit, rising like a transport van and never leveling out. Ramón remembered the press of acceleration when the rockets fired. It had been like letting the water out of the tub after a hot bath, or like the torpor after sex. The muscles themselves had felt heavy on his bones. He’d smiled and looked over at Fat Enrique—he hadn’t thought about Fat Enrique for years—and grinned. The boy had grinned back. They were leaving everything behind, and by the time their journey ended, everyone they’d known or spoken to or been bullied by or fucked or fucked over or been fucked over by would have died from old age. There were stories about the conquistadors burning their boats when they’d reached the new world. Ramón and Palenki and Fat Enrique and all the rest were doing the same. Earth was dead for them. Only the future mattered.

  Ramón shook his head, but his mind refused to leave its track. This was another memory growing back. This time, though, he could think as well—observe the river, the Enye ships, the stars, the full moon hardly risen in the east. It was less like experiencing the thing again, and more like a powerful and autonomous daydream.

  When they’d stepped onto the Enye ship, his first thought had been of how odd the place smelled—acid and salt and something reminiscent of patchouli. Palenki had bitched that it was giving him a headache, though that had probably been the cancer. They’d unloaded and stowed the equipment, found their way to their quarters by following the painted lines on the
walls, eaten a small meal in the pleasant weight of the rocket acceleration, and taken to their couches when the klaxon sounded and the jump drives were set to warm up.

  It had been the way Ramón had always imagined a stroke would feel. The world narrowed to a point, peripheral vision dimming, sounds growing distant, and then the discontinuity. He’d never been able to say what changed during a jump; everything could be in precisely the same place, a wrench he’d just dropped still partway to the floor, and still he knew—knew—that time had gone by. Quite a lot of time. That something had happened while he was unaware. He’d hated the feeling.

  It was a week after that that he saw his first Enye. Ramón remembered Palenki’s smile; knowing and smug and pleased with himself, as he’d gathered the work gang and instructed them on the etiquette their hosts expected. And then the thing had lumbered through the hatchway…

  Ramón screamed. Then the memory was gone, nothing there but the river and the forest. His heart was tripping over fast, his grip on the field knife so hard that his knuckles ached. He scanned the tree line and the surface of the water, ready to attack or flee as if the Devil himself had risen up with a whip in one hand and a flaying knife in the other. The image of the Enye—huge, boulder-shaped body; wet, oysterlike, inscrutable eyes; squirming fringes of cilia; incongruously tiny and delicate hands, like doll’s hands, sprouting from its middle; barely visible pucker where its beak was hidden within its flesh—faded slowly from his mind and the electric fear abated. Ramón forced himself to laugh, but it came out thin and tinny. He sounded like a coward. He stopped and spat instead, anger filling his breast.

  Maneck and that pale alien fuck in the hive had made a weakling of him. Just remembering the eaters-of-the-young was enough to make him squeak like a little girl!

  “Fuck that,” he said. There was a low growl in his voice that pleased him. “I’m not afraid of a goddamn thing!”

  He was still in a foul mood when he got back to the campsite, which meant, he knew, that he’d have to be even more careful to avoid getting into a fight with his even more short-tempered and irritable twin. The fire was down to the embers, the other man still asleep on the ground nearby. With a flash of anger, Ramón realized that he’d have to take the first watch again. He threw a handful of leaves and tinder on the coals and slowly rebuilt a small fire. The flames hissed green and popped, but they cast light and warmth. Ramón knew that the fire was as likely to draw danger as to drive it away. He knew that the brighter it got, the harder it was to see beyond it, but he didn’t care. He wanted some pinche light.

  One of the moons rose, sailing slowly past the stationary Enye ships—that was Big Girl, to be followed before dawn by the smaller, closer-orbiting Little Girl. Ramón waited, brooding over how little cane had been cut and how many hours of work lay ahead, until the great pale disk was directly above them before he tried to wake the other man. Calling his name didn’t work, and the effect of calling his twin “Ramón” was unsettling enough to keep him from trying it again. He went over and shook the man’s shoulder. His twin groaned and pulled away.

  “Hey,” Ramón said. “I’ve been up half the fucking night. It’s your watch.”

  The other man rolled onto his back, frowning like a judge.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he demanded, his voice thick and sleep-drunk.

  “Keeping watch,” Ramón said. “I did the first watch. Now you get up and I’ll sleep.”

  The other man lifted his ruined right hand as if to rub his eyes, snarled, and used his left instead. Ramón took a step back, waiting with growing impatience as the man failed to rise. When his twin spoke, his voice was clearer but thick with disdain.

  “You’re telling me you haven’t gone to sleep? Are you fucking stupid? You think the fucking chupacabra is swimming across the river to get us? That’s a candy-ass banker talking, all right. What a pussy! You want to watch, go ahead and watch. I’m sleeping.”

  And the man rolled back over, tucking his arm under his head like a pillow, his back to the fire. Rage hummed in Ramón’s ears like wasps swarming. The impulse to roll the little shit back over and poke the knife into his neck until he saw reason warred with the desire to kick his kidney until he was pissing blood all the way back to Fiddler’s Jump.

  But if he did either one, he’d then have to follow up with handing the knife over and going to sleep vulnerable and defenseless a few feet from a pissed-off cabrón. Ramón growled low in the back of his throat, wrapped his robe closer around him, and went to find a place to sleep where any predators that happened on them would be likely to eat the other man first.

  Morning came. Ramón groaned and rolled onto his back, his arm thrown over his eyes to keep the sunlight out for another minute more. His back ached. His mind was foggy and reluctant. The smell of the cook fire roused him. The other man had scrounged a handful of white-fleshed nuts and caught a fish, which he’d wrapped in monk ivy leaves and set in among the coals. It was an old trick for cooking when there was nothing to cook with. He’d forgotten it, or else not yet remembered.

  “Smells good,” he said. The other man shrugged and flipped the packet of ivy leaves onto its other side. Ramón could see his twin start to say something and then stop. It occurred to him that the meal hadn’t been meant for two, but the other man was too embarrassed now to refuse to share. Ramón rubbed his hands together, squatted close to the fire, and grinned.

  “Lot of work to do,” the other man said. “Looks like we got enough cane, though.”

  “I cut some last night,” Ramón said. “Some iceroot leaves for bedding and to make the roof. Then a few good branches for the fire pit. I figure we can get the sand from down on the river. Find a sandbar. That’ll be better than just mud from the bank. And firewood.”

  “Yeah,” the other man said. He plucked the ivy leaves out of the coals with his left hand, tossing the bundle up and down a little to keep his fingers from burning until it cooled. A few moments later, he cut it in half with the field knife—Ramón realized that the man had taken it from him while he slept—and sliced the packet in two. He handed Ramón the one with the fish’s head.

  The nuts were oily and soft. The fish’s skin had hardened and cracked, thin as paper and salty. Its flesh was dark and flaky. Ramón sighed. It was good to eat something he hadn’t had to prepare himself. He was glad the other man had been too chickenshit to refuse to share.

  “How do you want to split this up?” the other man asked, gesturing at the pile of reddened cane with the knife. “You want to make the lean-to, and I’ll go find the leaves? Maybe some good branches?”

  “Sure,” Ramón said, wondering as he did whether there was an angle he was overlooking. Gathering leaves and sticks was easier than construction, but he was the one with both hands to work with. And his twin had gotten up early to make the food. It almost made up for not taking the second watch. Without discussion, they both went to the river and washed their hands. The other man’s hand looked worse than Ramón remembered it, but his twin didn’t complain.

  “I want you to know something,” the other man said as he rewrapped his palm and the remaining fingers.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know we’re in this together, you and me. And the work you do—getting the sug beetles, building the raft, all that shit? It’s better with the two of us than just one, you know? But if you go through my pack one more time without asking, I’ll kill you in your fucking sleep. Okay, partner?”

  His twin locked eyes with him—irises so dark Ramón couldn’t make out the pupils, the whites bloodshot and yellow as old soap. He didn’t think for a second that the man was joking. Now that he thought about it, he knew what he’d think of some half-assed banker pawing through his stuff. He wondered if this was what it was going to be like, going back. Maybe he’d resent his twin having all his things. His knife, his pack. Even Elena, maybe.

  “Okay,” Ramón said. “I just didn’t want to leave the knife dull, you know. It won’
t happen twice.”

  The other man nodded.

  “I do need it, though,” Ramón said. “The knife. I’ve got to strip bark to tie the cane with. And if I need to cut more…”

  He shrugged. The other man growled without making a sound, and Ramón braced himself for violence. But the other man only spat into the water and handed the blade over, handle-first.

  “Thanks,” Ramón said, and tried for a placating smile. The other man didn’t answer. Ramón went back to their little camp, the other man tramping off into the forest, presumably to gather the leaves and wood. Ramón waited until he was sure he was out of earshot before he muttered, “And fuck you too, ese.”

  Ramón began working after the other man left. He got enough ivy and stripped bark to complete the design he thought would work best for the lean-to, then hauled the cane to the raft and the river. He saw at once that his first thoughts on how best to connect the shelter to the body of the raft had been optimistic. He had to spend an hour redesigning the thing. Giving his mind over to the task, losing himself in the physicality of his work, was like taking a drink of good whiskey. He hadn’t realized that the knot had formed in his gut again until it released a little. Being with his twin was totally unlike being alone. Even being with Maneck and having that fucking sahael stuck in his neck hadn’t wound his guts up this way. It was being around another human—any other human. And in particular this prickly sonofabitch!

  At the same time, he understood that he was also setting his twin’s teeth on edge. How could he not? Better to worry about which knots best bound the cane to the branches of the raft. He was already quite aware of his own failings as a man. No reason to stew in them.

  By afternoon, Ramón was satisfied with his new design, and it still took him hours to lash the cane onto the raft, build the framework, and then lace the remaining lengths together as a support structure. He set aside four long poles to tie down over the layer of leaves that would actually serve to slough off the rain. Providing, of course, that the other man ever got his lazy ass back. Ramón had been working all day. How long did it take to pull down some leaves and find a few pinche branches? They were in a forest; wood shouldn’t be that hard to find.