Third World (13 page)

Hank did the floors with a bucket of
hot water and oil-soap, a local product but not made from bracken.
There were flowers that grew in nooks and crannies, tall shoots
with blue heads on them.

The roots were all oily. There was a
word, but Hank couldn’t recall it. It had something to do with
breaking surface tension or something like that. His education
wasn’t bad, he’d finished high school aboard ship. He went to the
ship’s one small college and studied mechanics, although he didn’t
actually finish and graduate. The point was that the soap was cheap
and it cut the dirt.

Hank cleaned the windows with one of
the few store-bought cleaning products he used. While he had wide
overhangs on the roof, they still got grimy, especially on the
inside from the fireplace and cooking. Wrapping the glass in old
towels and sheets, he’d been fortunate to get it here without
breaking any.

What with all the activity, plus a
short half-hour session with the net-making project, Hank curled up
with a good book after having a nice stew for dinner. He made it
through another day.

He loved the old western genre books.
They were among the few that could bring a tear to his eye, for the
better ones carried a lot of romantic and emotional overtones,
especially for a lonely man a long ways from home, all on his own,
way out on the lonesome prairie.

***

Thursday brought relief early, when a
brilliant sun dawned and promised to stick around for a while, and
a couple of hours later Red showed up all flushed with success and
dying to talk about it.

“
I did just what you said,
Hank.”

“
Hmn.” Hank had no idea what
Red was talking about.

“
I did. I went up there,
right up by Blindman’s Bluff.”

“
Oh, yeah?” That was fifteen
or twenty kilometres due north of Oak River.

No tracks really led that way, although
Hank believed it was pretty open, all savanna grasslands and clumps
of what passed for trees in these here parts.

“
Did you see where the herd
went by?” Hank told him about him and Polly.

“
Yeah, I crossed it! Very
impressive. I’ve never seen one before.” Red’s eyes lit up. “How
many animals did you see?”

“
Lord. Thousands. Tens of
thousands.”

Red nodded, and then went on with his
story.

“
It took two days of hard
walking. But it’s virgin country up there, Hank, and I shot a bunch
of meat.”

“
Ah. Good. Wonderful.”
Hank’s face was wreathed in smiles at two things, the sheer relief
of having someone to talk to, and of course his friend was always
boom or bust—and lately his old friend had been having the wrong
end of it. “Congratulations.”

“
Thank you.” Red swallowed
and took a deep breath.

Hank pointed to a stool, a rotating one
with a back on it, by the end of his kitchen table. If he was
shelling beans or chopping something, Hank would very often sit
there.

“
Let me get you a cup of
tea.”

“
Why sure, Hank.”

“
So, what’s up?”

“
Ah, well.”

Hank busied himself. The water was
still hot although his little cast iron stove was pretty much dead,
just some small embers glowed inside. He stuck a few bits of light
kindling in there to put life in it.

“
This will just be a minute.
But we can talk while we wait.” Hank opened the
cupboards.

There had to be some biscuit,
hard-breads or whatever in there. It didn’t taste much like bread
but it filled your belly and passed the time.

“
So, ah, anyways, Hank. I
was wondering if you’d take some meat.”

“
What? Sure! I’d like that.
How much you got?”

While they were friends, Red was shrewd
enough to try and take a look at it through Hank’s eyes. And, he
was really hoping for cash money—in coin or even a bill, which was
obviously the best form of money if you could find someone to break
it for you.

For that reason, coin might be
better.

“
I could let you have twenty
smokers. Varmints. You know, the yaller burrowers.”

Hank thought about it. Any kind of meat
was good of course, but he couldn’t quite recall what it tasted
like, as he hadn’t had it in at least six or eight
months.

“
How much?”

“
Ten dollars.”

No wonder Red was here—that was a lot
of money. Fifty cents each.

“
How big are they?” Red was
at least honest.

He wouldn’t lie, and sure enough when
he brought them around he’d have to look you in the eye.

But Red was a friend as well, and a
friend in some need. Would Hank have loaned him the money? An
interesting question that was, too, and Hank wished he had time to
think on it.

“
The small ones are maybe a
half-kilo, I got a few that are two and even three kilos.” Red took
a deep breath. “I’ve got a bunch all hanging around an even kilo or
so.”

The implication was that was the ones
Hank would be getting, and he understood that.

“
What? That big? That really
is virgin territory up there.”

The burrowers were still around of
course, and Hank saw one here and there from time to time. But they
had become cagey around men and their mounts. They knew what a
rifle was by now.

He thought about it. Red at least knew
the proper way to preserve them, lots of salt and a lot of smoking
time.

“
Sure, why not. I’ll take
them.”

Red beamed at him with watery blue eyes
and the suspicious wash of initial tears and Hank got up so he
could turn his back and go looking for the money, which he kept in
an old and genuine Earth-made coffee tin. This was under a
carefully-fitted but otherwise loose floorboard and involved
sticking his head under the bed.

What in the heck he would do with all
of that meat was another question, but Red had a bill at Pelthams
and no doubt other places besides. All of that riding, and most
likely walking, and all that hauling out of the meat. Red must have
worked his sorry old ass off. No wonder he was wrung out. He smiled
to think on it. It would take Red a few days to dry his gear, the
way the weather had been lately. The thought of old Red going all
that way, all on his lonesome, spoke somewhat of desperation, but
then they all got desperate from time to time.

Half the town lived that way, and Hank
was lucky to be able to help a friend out, when he thought about
it. Red probably had the meat smoking now, or would start the
minute he got back home, which come to think of it was an
assumption. But he’d have the meat within ten days or two weeks. He
could live with that, it gave him something to look forward
to.

The box was reassuringly heavy when he
pulled it out and of course Red would need to spend some right
away.

Hank took Red a heavy handful of coins
and the talk turned to other things.

“
This may seem like a stupid
question, Hank, but, ah…”

“
Go on, spit it
out.”

“
What are them crazy nets
for? There’s no fish around here, just the ones you got, or I’d
know about ‘em. I’d be going for ‘em too. You know we go way back…”
There was no hint of pleading in the tone, it was more one of
mildly-exasperated accusation.

Yeah, that was the hell of it. Sooner
or later he had to explain his idea to somebody, and after all he
would need help.

Hank laboriously explained his idea of
driving marsh runners along their habitual runs, using maybe a half
a dozen guys, a few more if he had the nets would be good. They
could capture a bunch of hens, which weren’t exactly poultry or
even birds really. They just acted like semi-flightless birds and
resembled them in body type. Red’s eyebrows rose a bit but he
seemed interested and didn’t think the idea was too far-fetched. Of
course Red didn’t really know what a bird was, either. Hank
patiently went over it again.

Chapter Eleven

Back to a State of
Despair

Friday, Hank was back to a state of
despair. It was like he was going to be hanged or something but
still thought he should try and enjoy his last day. Theoretically,
he should be able to get through it.

That didn’t make much sense.

He found it extremely difficult to even
eat, and his guts were queasy and nervous.

There were rows and rows of
clouds in the sky but it had been dry for a full day so far and
things were looking pretty cheerful when he went outside in mild
desperation. He could either work on his net or see if there was
something he could do to kill time in the small barn. Normally the
horses wandered in and out as they saw fit, minimally restrained by
rail fences barely a metre high. The critters were almost
more
loyal in some
ways.

Essentially, there was nowhere for them
to go and so they stayed.

It always felt good. The animals lazily
strolled over and bunched up around his open hand for a lick of
salt. One old codger followed right at his shoulder, always, even
nudging rivals away on occasion.

Hank fed them, put out salt licks, and
gave them fresh straw.

The barn was warmer and drier than
living in the bush. They were all friends and he treated them well
enough.

He soon opted for working on his net.
Hank had been at it for an hour or two, and was just feeling the
rumblings of hunger when a curious note on the air caught his
attention.

Voices!

Spinning, he stared at the line of
brush to his immediate northwest, in appearance an unbroken line of
vegetation, uneven in size but cresting four or five metres high in
places. He saw no one and the noise was gone.

He didn’t think he had imagined it. He
tried to work but was more and more convinced, rather than doubting
his senses. He’d been out here a long time, and he had survived on
his wits pretty much since day one.

Finally he heard a distinct clink, the
sound of metal or glass on stone, and then the low murmur of people
talking.

They were a couple of hundred metres
off yet, but they were definitely coming his way.

***

He knew they were right there of
course, what with their thrashing and crashing around in the bush,
and then they came out into the open, tripping over the last of the
creeping vines and blinking in the sunlight before they caught
sight of the house, and the barn, and finally, him.

“
Halloo! The
camp!”

Hank raised an arm and
waved.

“
May we come in?”

“
Surely.” Hank bit back
further talk. “You are welcome.”

He knew all about this sort of thing,
he’d heard all about it and had even done it a time or
two.

No one had ever turned him away, and he
remembered that with some gratitude.

There were three of them, a male about
his age, clearly the leader, black of hair and with oddly deep blue
eyes, and then a lad, the spitting image of his dad, and the girl,
this one with lighter blue-grey eyes and long, straight, silky
blonde hair parted in the middle and hanging halfway down her hide
skirt at the back.

“
Are we okay to bring our
women-folks?’ The man grinned, it was an old joke, but his listener
just seemed a bit slow.

Hank, guts sort of quivering in the
novelty of the situation, plus all he’d heard about drifters,
thought bringing the girl along was a hopeful sign, although she
was armed with a rifle. It was slung over her shoulder on a narrow
strap like the others. They all had small rucksacks.

“
Ah.”

They approached the edge of the longer
grass and stepped out onto his yard, beaten down by traffic and
work and just plain walking around. The folks stood and looked
around in a kind of wonder. It might have been a long time on the
trail for them, Hank thought.

“
Them’s some mighty fine
horses.” The man eyed up the mounts, equines and critters in the
corral.

“
Thank you.”

“
We was just noticin’ smoke
on the horizon and maybe even a light at night.” The expression on
the man’s grizzled face seemed apologetic and the boy downright
timid.

Only the girl seemed to have any
confidence.

“
Ah.” Hank hadn’t thought of
that.

The land up there was pretty high, but
he wouldn’t have thought the difference was that great.

These had to be the drifters from up
yonder. Or at least some of them.

***

It turned out there were only the three
of them in the whole party.

Hank invited them up to the house,
finding it close and warm inside with the four of them. The boy
kept silent, and the older man was indeed the father. As for the
girl, she remained quiet, not sullen or fearful, but sending bold
looks about the place. They had a strong smell of wood-smoke and
other things.