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The night was soft, perfect for riding. The whispered
sobs of a young, tormented woman filled Benny's head. A restless energy drove
him on. Wild geese, always moving, never still. Going north, heading home.
So wrapped up in the mysterious sounds that filled his
soul, Benny didn't hear the soft crunch of the oyster shell gravel behind him.
He squatted beside the Red Sun and worked on the saddlebags' straps.
On instinct he looked up. It was Boone.
"You leaving?" Boone was angry, his words
hoarse and brittle.
Eye on the straps, Benny nodded.
"We never did finish it, Grey."
"Yeah." Benny glanced up. "You want
to?" he asked. The eagerness to work off some of this cutting need to feel
the road hum under his wheels curled through him.
Boone shuffled his feet into a wide-legged stance.
Benny launched himself at the man and they met in a
slap of bone, the crunch of fists and rage. They fell apart. Each circled,
measured the other with a new respect, looking for an opening, a weakness.
Boone snatched at Benny and Benny danced away, teeth
bared in a grim smile. He darted in and landed one good crack on Boone's jaws.
Boone's hands moved, lightening fast. Boone crushed Benny to him in a harsh,
ever tightening bear hug. Benny struck at Boone with the side of his fist.
Again. Blows rained down on Boone's head, black spots wormed through Benny's
eyes. He was coming dangerously close to losing consciousness.
Ribs on fire, the air crushed from his lungs, his
spine popping and bending in a way it was never meant to, Benny reached up and
slapped cupped hands over Boone's ears.
With a muffled oath in the night air, Boone dropped
Benny and staggered back. Shaking his head, he opened his mouth, staring at
Benny through a haze of pain. Boone fell to his knees.
Hugging bent ribs, Benny went to the ground.
Benny propped himself up on one elbow. Boone looked at
him.
Breath coming in gasping clouds, they grinned and
crawled up.
He stuck out his hand and Benny grasped it. Boone
clapped a hand on Benny's back that staggered the smaller man, and Benny
clenched his jaws at the flare of pain in his bruised ribs.
With great reluctance, Boone released Benny's hand and
said mournfully, "Terry Marie is pregnant."
Benny tightened the straps on the saddlebags. "I
know."
"And you're just going to run away?" Boone's
eyes glowered. He stepped up to Benny. Benny gave him a wary glance. He looked
away to stare sightless at the saddle bag. He took a deep breath against the
pain in his heart.
"It . . . ain't safe, man." He rose.
"Those Schertzer's didn't tie me up because they just wanted a little fun
with a bad boy rider. The same folks that hired them would . . . did," he
said, the words came out like flint knives, "kill to get me. You think one
tiny baby is important to them? Sweet-Bott-" He flushed and shook his head.
"Terry Marie means less to people like them, than a . . . a roll in the hay
means to you. She'd be a way to get me, that's all."
"But she's knocked up. She loves you, dammit."
"So do a lot of women." Benny choked.
Hysterical laughter threatened to overwhelm him. A hiccup belted out and in fury
he suppressed any more. "I mean, like, . . . ."
He shrugged, hands working at nothing. "I mean it
was all her idea. I wouldn't a touched her. Not if I knew she had taken out the
birth control." He gazed at the dim stars overhead.
"All I am to women, even Terry Marie, is some
kind a stud. They take what they can get from me, use me," he said in shame
to the stars. "The people who had me, the Project, they trained me like I
was a prize stallion to please women, so I'd be a sire, a stud. They operated on
me, man, did something weird to my body, so that even if I escaped them I'd
still be their prize stallion. They want my kids, Bull. They think I got this
weird powers up here." His fingers touched his head and fell away, helpless
to say or do more to convince the man, ashamed at having showen so much pain.
Benny gagged. "I . . . I'm an escaped
slave."
Boone scowled. He shook his head and snapped, "A
what? Get real, man. This is America. The Twenty-First century."
Silence lay over the land, thick and cloying,
smothering everything.
Benny licked his lips. He groaned and hunched his
shoulders. Squatting on the saddle he said, "I was a whore. A gigolo at a
place up in Pennsylvania called the Manse. Ask your brother-in-law. He knows.
Probably was one of the people investigating the place at the time of the raid.
They made a bundle off a me while I was there. Millions, I guess." Benny's
teeth showed in an arrogant pride. "I am the best. I cost them bims a
couple a thousand a night. All those rich politicians' wives. Man. Dozens of
them. Every time I did it, I had to use protection. Common sense, ist?"
Boone's head tipped in a reluctant nod. Benny's words hissed on, "Each sack
of baby syrup was frozen in a cryro-freezer. For AI, Artificial insemination.
Like a farmer does, y'know? All because the psychos think I got psychic
abilities, and they hope it'll pass on to my kids. Assholes."
"The Janissary Project, Bull." John stepped
down from the porch, his pipe forgotten in his mouth.
"Why?" Used only to the newscasts shouting
America stood tall and proud and free, Boone pleaded to understand.
John came up to stand alongside him. He held his
breath while Benny shuddered and grew sick with shame.
In answer to Boone's question, John said with a weary
shrug, "Money. They did it for power and a Nobel prize."
"Their god is money. Or power over it. Not love.
Sure as hell not peace and joy, like they say it is." Benny stared down the
lane to the road. A grim, sad smile crossed his face. He swung his leg over the
gas tank.
"I want to stay and be Sweet-Bottom's man. Dude,
I'd love to stay for a thousand years and make love to her all day every day.
Watch our kids grow and become women and men. I can't." His voice went
flat, dead. "Use 'em, abuse 'em, and lose 'em. If Cindy catches me, I'm as
good as dead the minute she's done with me. I'm a dog to her, a slave. That's
what we all are to the politobosses, the career politicians," he said with
a bitter laugh at Boone's confusion. "I don't dare to stay because a that
vain rip."
The Uohali rumbled and purred under him. She
rolled down the gravel. In sleepy, querulous voices ravens called to him.
"Watch the galonV-didanwa:ki, the ravens," Benny shouted to the
men. "They're here to protect my kid. I got to go, to run away from my own
child in order to save him." His fist slapped the gas tank. "As much
as it hurts, as much as it eats at my manhood, I got no choice. There is no
other way, bro.
"Children and women have to come first in a man's
life, the Book of the Eagle-Woman says so."
The damp night air rushed passed his face, and almost
. . . almost he could hear the laughing dark waters of the Lehigh River listen
as it tumbled down the Gorge, smell the clean, cold air. Within his mind's eye
Benny saw the deer slip through the night, down to the quiet places along the
river's banks and taste the liquid ice of snow-melt waters. Soon there would be
trembling at the does' sides early fawns on pipe-stem legs, their eyes wide in
awe of this ancient world, all so new to them.
Spring is coming. In the north it is a sacred time. A
time of the Renewal.
In the North, it is an explosion of Joy,
Tsi:Yu. Mother-of-All. Beloved Woman.
Eagle-Woman. Old Woman. Pipe-Smoke-Woman. Sun-Eagle-Woman. Holy-Spirit. Mother
of Wolves. And simply, Joy.
The names were a litany in his mind. Over and over the
names of the Tsi:Yu, raced through him, each bringing a fierce elation to
Benny until he could hear Her calling to him.
A jubilant Benny stood on the pegs and screamed for
the sheer exhilaration of hearing Her voice.
I am your di:Dan:wa:ki, your Road-Warrior.
Eagle-Woman, Mother of Eternal Spring, take my soul.
The night was cool and damp, smelling of spring and of
life.
Benny slowed, pulled onto the main road away from
town, away from Sweet-Bottom and leading to certain capture and a living death.
He headed north, away from Terry Marie.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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