Old Hunters on the New Wild Page 15

  Chapter 10 – The Strangest Creature…

  The effort’s pain humbled Wyatt, but the old hunter rose early the next morning to see his son depart with the palanquins in search of another attempt to take whatever trophy the grasses chose to offer. Though he leaned upon a pair of crutches fashioned from a pair of mudder fire torches, Wyatt again questioned if he did what was best by remaining in the camp while the others marched to the hunt. The mudders offered to carry Wyatt across the savanna, and those clones promised that Wyatt would never need to put any support upon his legs. The mudders suggested that they might hoist a rail-rifle to Wyatt’s palanquin, so that Wyatt could shoot at genolope and float buffalo while the mudders elevated him above their shoulders.

  The mudders’ proposal tempted Wyatt. His legs throbbed, but the pain was not so severe – he’d felt the burn of much worse injuries during the water wars. He didn’t suffer from any fever, for the mudders took excellent care to keep his stitching clean and free from infection. As always, he felt the savanna calling him. His mind continued to dream of the creatures he might see, of the possibility of being among the first men to look upon the latest species the geneticists introduced to the field. He too felt the pain and guilt each time he pulled the trigger. He too mourned for the first creation’s loss. Yet Wyatt recognized how it was his purpose to kill, and he always found the conviction to claim his trophy so that the mudders welcomed him on any expedition.

  But he decided it best to remain in the camp. He didn’t doubt that the mudders would do everything to protect him, but Wyatt knew the new wild was a dangerous place for the hurt, even more so for an old man with the Spiderstrand nibbling at his marrow. Besides, he hoped that Cayden might more easily find the will to squeeze the trigger if spared from his father’s company. A father often put unintended pressure upon a son. A father might push too hard, might act too impatient, when an unproven hunter like Cayden only needed another breath to still his heart before taking his first shot. So Wyatt resisted that itch to imagine whatever dangers his son might face in the veld and kept the faith that his boy would do well enough on his own.

  Wyatt turned his attention upon the nomadic tent city that constituted the mudders’ camp. He had always been focused upon the hunt, and so he never studied the sounds and smells of a camp during the long day when the hunters travelled for their prey. He would make the best of his fortune by taking the opportunity to learn more of the savanna clone’s nomadic lifestyle. He thought there must’ve been tents dedicated to the laundering of hunter clothing and palanquin pillows. He wondered where he might watch the mudders salt and smoke the game returned from the savanna. Perhaps one of the clones would show him the trick to weaving mudder clothing before one of the looms, or perhaps some mudder might teach him how to carve some simplified shape of a savanna animal from wood by employing one of the mudder’s sharp, antler knives. Where did the mudders dye their clothing? Was there a large tent somewhere that treated the sick and wounded clones out of the sight of the human hunters?

  Wyatt smiled and wondered why he had never before been curious about such things. His day wouldn’t go wasted. He was hurt, but he would cultivate a deeper knowledge of the mudders. A frenzied swarm of razor boar wouldn’t prevent him learning something new upon the expedition.

  Wyatt hobbled a few steps towards the edge of the hunters’ tents when a short and thick mudder guide stepped in front of him.

  “Good morning, Mother-son,” the mudder smiled. “Your legs must ache. Let me offer you refreshment, and let me bring you some medicine to help with your pain.”

  Wyatt patiently returned the clone’s smile. The mudders were so carefully crafted to please woman and man. “Oh, the pain’s not so bad. I’ve been hurt worse when a young man.”

  The mudder thought a moment. “Of course. You were a young men doing the wars.”

  “Younger than my son is now.”

  “You must know many stories,” and the mudder gently pulled Wyatt back in the direction of his tent. “Forgive me if I’m bold to ask, but would you tell me such a story? You are our favorite hunter, and it would be an honor to hear you describe what came before me in the original world.”

  Wyatt let the clone shepherd him back into the cool interior of his hunter’s tent. He welcomed the clone’s supporting shoulder, and he took increasing pleasure in telling stories as he aged. Wyatt didn’t notice the mudder gesture to any of his kind, but several clones arrived at his tent to replace his reserve of ice water and cot cushions. A mudder waited to reexamine his leg and redress his injuries. And all of them lingered in Wyatt’s tent to hear another of Mr. Holmes’ stories.

  “What story should I tell?” Wyatt leaned into a pillow. “Maybe I should tell of the day when our drone armada darkened our enemy’s sky.”

  So Wyatt Holmes described the clouds of miniscule, robot machines that buzzed so thickly through the air that their numbers choked the rival capitol like some plague unleashed on the unbelievers of millenniums gone. He told how he watched that swarm devour any aircraft or missile launched to defend against the buzzing dark. He told how those machines dismantled his enemies’ glass towers, of how those robots dissembled it all with such precision so that Wyatt’s people could repurpose the pieces the swarm claimed to make new towers of their own style and design. The mudders didn’t move as Wyatt told them how that enemy city refused to surrender, so that Wyatt’s army instructed those drones to devour the inhabitants just as those machines devoured so much concrete. Wyatt told how he had been among the soldiers who scouted into that city after the swarm finished its work. He described how clean the landscape seemed, of how there had been so little rubble. He told how completely the drones ate of the blood and the bone, so that nothing remained of the enemy dead to toss into a grave. Wyatt told the clones how on that day he learned that humankind had cruelly evolved to kill its own kind without leaving behind fire or carnage, how he had learned that man had become god-like in his destruction. One day, an enemy city rose with glass towers that sparkled in the sunlight. A hungry mass of buzzing, robot saws descended with the night. And on the following day, a new swarm built a better city on the emptiness where the prior one had stood. The cycle of creation and destruction took little more time than a week.

  One of the clones grinned when Wyatt finished his tale. “Truly incredible, Mother-son.”

  Wyatt sighed. He realized that the clones were children, and so they often failed to recognize when his words were terrible.

  Another clone cleared her throat. “Would you tell us another story?”

  Wyatt wanted to speak of something other than war, but he felt ashamed when he discovered he possessed no other stories to tell. “I’m no longer in the mood for stories.”

  “Of course,” another mudder nodded. “Perhaps you would like to challenge us in some games?”

  “Games? I didn’t know that mudders played games.”

  A second female laughed. “Oh, but we love them, Mother-son.”

  He failed to remember the last time he played checkers or chess, or any kind of game at all. Had he last played dominoes during some rainy day as a young boy, before he was ever conscripted to serve in the water wars, before he ever marched onto the savanna. He suddenly recalled his mother setting pictures cards upon the floor for games of memory. How young had he been? He remembered little else of his mother as she perished when he remained so young. Several hours passed easily as the clones introduced Wyatt to their variations of card games and dominoes. He enjoyed the recreation. Though they were only clones with blue tattoos circling their eyes, he enjoyed the mudders’ company. He didn’t worry about his son, didn’t wonder if Cayden failed or succeeded on that day’s hunt. The games pleased him, and the day’s lunch of mudder stew seemed less bitter and tiresome than customary. He smiled with his company. The mudders made his morning pleasant.

  “Perhaps we could try another game, Mother-son.”

  Wyatt shook his head at the mudder female who demolishe
d him in every game of checkers. “I’d like to get some rest. The breeze feels wonderful in this tent, and a little sleep will help heal my injuries.”

  “Do you need anything to help you sleep?”

  “Not unless you can mix me a martini like the ones I used to taste before my world vanished.”

  The mudders left Wyatt to his cushions, and the old hunter set his head upon a pillow and looked forward to enjoying some silence. Yet the noises of the tent camp surprised his ears. Those noises had always been there. They didn’t shout and ring simply because an aging man with the Spiderstrand in his breath and bones wished to dream during the day. Telling stories and playing games distracted him from the noise. So Wyatt closed his eyes and did his best to sleep, but he couldn’t convince his consciousness to let go of the world outside his tent. He guessed that a mudder softening a genolope hide might’ve made a series of pounding sounds. He thought he heard the mudder butcher severing sinew with his cleaver. He smiled at a short melody drifting into his tent made by the mudder men and women who sang before their looms.

  And then Wyatt heard the strangest sound he ever experienced upon the savanna – a noise more unexpected than any growl, bellow or hiss heard in the new wild.

  Wyatt Holmes heard something cry.

  The pain in his legs flared as he pushed himself up from his cushions and hobbled onto his crutches. He thought his imagination might’ve been to blame for what he heard, or that perhaps the mudders had slipped some kind of pain medicine into his lunch of stew. He leaned on his crutches and took another moment to strain his ears. His time in the grass had honed his senses so well, and Wyatt could separate reality from dream if he only took another pause to listen.

  No mudder stood outside his tent to ask him for another story, or to proffer him another refreshment before guiding the old hunter back to bed. Wyatt progressed slowly along the colorful tents, often peeking through the entrances to glimpse mudders working through their chores. He was unsure of what he might find, or in what direction he travelled to find the source of a noise in a mudder camp as strange as crying. But Wyatt suspected he neared something peculiar when he heard a mudder’s whistle echo at his back. He scanned the tents and thought he spied several faces withdraw into the interior shadow. Wyatt paused. There was a subtle tingling along his forearms and at the back of his neck, a sensation the old hunter took for a warning of danger. Why did he feel such unease? Were there splicer-lynx lurking on the camp’s outskirts, though such felines rarely dared attracting the mudders’ attention during daylight? Wyatt frowned. He didn’t like what his instincts were telling him. He didn’t like that he couldn’t name or see the jeopardy. He felt the animal at his heels, and he hurried forward as quickly as he could while the pain burned in his legs and the cough scratched at his throat.

  Another whistle shrilled, and then Wyatt once again heard that crying. Neither imagination nor pain medication had tricked his senses.

  Movement blurred in the periphery of Wyatt’s vision. He turned in time to see a wisp of a female clone hurry into a tent’s concealment. He hurried to follow her, cursing the crutches and legs that slowed him. He locked his teeth together so that he didn’t moan in pain, and he again heard that peculiar crying. More whistles screeched, and he suddenly felt the clones running towards him.

  “Stop, Mother-son! Stop before it’s too late!”

  Wyatt heard another muffled cry, and he rushed into the tent at his side. His mind staggered to believe what he saw. The savanna held so many extravagant creatures, and Wyatt loved the surprise that accompanied each moment he looked upon a new species. But that hunter never expected to discover the animal he found after he ducked into that tent. A half dozen mudder females stared at Wyatt with wide and frightened eyes. Each mother clutched a newborn baby to her chest, and a pair of those children cried as their mothers pressed their faces more tightly to their breasts. Wyatt’s breath left him. His legs trembled. He knew that, somehow, those females had given birth to those babies. Somehow, motherhood had come to the savanna. Wyatt wondered if that meant that fatherhood arrived as well. He didn’t step forward, for every sense in his body warned against him coming too close to those mothers and their children. He looked upon the faces of each child, and on none did he see that pair of blue bands that branded the clone. Were those babies human, though they were born to a mudder mother? If not human, then what new term might be adopted to label the savanna’s newest species, and what place might those babies come to occupy in the hierarchies of animal, mudder and man?

  “We hoped we could keep it a secret from you, Mother-son.”

  Wyatt sighed at the tall, male clone who ducked into the tent. “Well, I’ve seen it now. No matter what I think of it, I’ve seen it.”

  Wyatt grimaced and retreated back into his own hunter’s tent. He discovered more than he hoped on what was likely his last expedition into the veld. He could not ignore the presence of those children. He feared his old world just exhaled another death rasp, and Wyatt suspected he could do nothing to revisit the world that had existed but a few months before.

  Returning to his cot’s soft pillows, Wyatt Holmes realized it was more important than ever that Cayden learn how to pull his weapon’s trigger. The clones depended on the trophies Cayden might carry back from the grass. Now, their children depended upon it as well. Wyatt sensed that humanity itself depended on whether or not his boy, or any of the hunters the clones that morning carried in their palanquins, accepted the last duty remaining to woman and man and find the courage to fulfill their duty.

  The first creation died. The second creation was born. And what place would be left for the masters of the original world who no longer owned the conviction to kill?

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