Red Moon Rising (3 page)

5

I CANNOT HEAR ONE GUM
word they're saying. The wind whips around us, directionless, blowing grit and dust into my face. I pull on my gogs and tap the right side once to zoom. It looks like they're . . . talking. But I know that isn't possible because the Cheese and the homesteaders do not speak the same words. The Cheese's hands stay on his head as Papa seems to talk to him. The dactyl's head clicks from side to side in a way that seems to say,
You are looking mighty tasty, homesteaders.

Papa turns his face against the wind and shields his eyes against the suns. His other hand—the one with the handbow—flies up to press down on his hat as a gust tries to take it from him. The suns glint off the sheriff's star that is always pinned to the right side of his vest.

When the gust dies down, Papa points to us and says something to the Cheese. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out . . . what? It's too small for me to see. The Cheese doesn't move his eyes from Papa, but his lips move and the dactyl suddenly lunges forward.

I hear the creature shriek. Temple looks at me, her eyes huge. We haven't had many lessons on dactyls, but there was one I will never forget. A dactyl lunges with certain speed when it begins eating. And often, a dactyl will begin eating its prey before the prey has been fully killed. Dactyls shriek in pain . . . and in joy.

The dactyl is about to eat Papa.

“Stay with Boone!” I order, dropping Temple to the scrub. I charge Heetle into the valley. I hold my fist out, the holoscope of my handbow bouncing around, trying to compensate for my rapid, lurching movement. My gogs show the dactyl lunging at Papa again, I hear more shrieks, and then a burst of dust blows in front of me. The gum gogs try to focus on the dust and I lose sight of what's happening. I'm blind to the scene now, my gogs having gone staticky; I rip them down around my neck and as Heetle hurtles toward the obscured triangle of the Cheese and Papa and the dactyl, I take aim at the pink, scaly shimmers that break through the dust cloud.

Zip-pew!

Zip-pew!

I let fly with two light arrows.

Papa swings around and waves his arms wildly, and I fear he must be already in his death throes.

Heetle is so fast, I'm through the dust cloud and can hear nothing but my slamming heartbeat and her hooves pounding the scrub. As the wind takes another direction, I hear one more scream from the dactyl. The Cheese's hands are off his head now and he's gesturing at me and at Papa. Probably instructing the dactyl to finish off Papa quickly so it can carry the rest of us off for supper.

Papa goes down on one knee and the dactyl lunges its pointy head at him as it screams again.

Zip-pew!

Zip-pew!

Papa's arm flies up. The dust is everywhere. His mouth is moving, but I can't hear him.

I shoot two more light arrows and this time the dactyl's shriek is different. I've struck my target. I can only hope it was in time to save Papa. The dactyl is now horizontal and the Cheese is down next to it. Papa is hunched over. I'm close enough now that I slow Heetle and jump off, running toward the scene.

“You leave my papa be, you gum rockhead!” I shout. Then, repeating the words Papa says every night when we pray to the gods before we sleep, I yell, “We will not be threatened by the Cheese! We live on the wings of angels! Oh, gods, deliver us from harm!”

I've reached them now, and having also reached the capacity of my lungs, I bend over, elbows on my knees,
taking great gasps of dust and hot air from the one-man chugging off to the side. I lift my eyes to the scene. The Cheese's eyes are round with surprise, his arm bleeding and burned. The dactyl is dead, a black hole where its left eye should be. Papa stands and walks to me. Relief floods my body. I was on time. I aimed well. Papa is safe.

I push myself up off my elbows, taking more-measured breaths now. I smile at Papa as he rushes to me. Then my smile shatters as he smacks my face with the strength of ten men.

“What have you done, girl?” he says, spit flying into my face. His eyes look like Heetle's when an electrical storm is coming. “What in the name of the gods have you done?”

There are no words. They've been slapped from my head, sent flying into the scrub along with a mouthful of spit and maybe some blood. I sputter, my face burning not just from the slap, but from confusion, shame. I can't grasp how I have messed this up. I saved Papa from the dactyl. I protected the family from the Cheese. I did not back down. I showed the backbone of a homesteader.

The Cheese stands, his hands dripping with blood. It takes me a minute to realize he is not terribly injured, but has harvested the heart of the dactyl. I remember learning of this custom after the Cheese took Rory but left behind a dactyl corpse, lost in the fight. They had taken its heart but left the rest of the dead creature. We ate stringy dactyl for days.

The Cheese drips slowly up to me, close enough to get
blood on my boots. I see the burn mark on his arm where my light arrow grazed him. The metallic paint on his face shimmers in the light of the suns like nothing I've ever seen. Prettier than a shine tree. But under the pretty paint is a lined and frowning face covered in scales. His upper lip is bony and pointed, almost like a beak. And with his hair piled on top of his scalp, I see the fleshy ovals on the sides of his head, the skin tight as drums. Cheese ears are like lizard ears, Papa has told us during lessons, even though we are not sure what lizards are. This is the first time I have seen a Cheese this close up. He is much less human than I thought.

While he is not human, and I might not speak the Cheese language, his pinched and shaking face very clearly tells me he is angry. He shouts something I can't understand and points a dripping, bloody hand at me. I take two steps back. The Cheese keeps shouting and jabbing his finger at me until Papa steps in front of me and holds out his hands. He says something to the Cheese.

Papa speaks Cheese?

The Cheese grabs me by my hair and forces me to my knees. I cry out, my heart banging in my chest. Why is Papa doing nothing to help me? How can he be so calm? Do his eyes no longer function? Can he not see what the Cheese is doing to me?

Still holding my hair, the Cheese thrusts the dactyl heart so close to my face I can feel its warmth. It smells terrible. I try to turn away, but his grip is tight. He shouts
something at me and jerks my hair so that I have to face his bloody hand holding the heart. He leans in so close I can see the details in the creases of the scales on his face. I can see the paint cracking from his angry expression. I want to cry out, but I dare not open my mouth. My heart ricochets through my rib cage, a sandmoth caught in a trap.

The Cheese leans forward, never taking his eyes from mine, and takes a bite of the heart. A fine spray of blood hits my face as the organ bursts between his beaky lips. Blood and viscera drip from the heart, from his hand, onto my skirts. I choke back bile.

“It is Cheese custom.” Papa's voice is low and steady. “Each rider shares a special bond with his dactyl, and must eat of its heart when it dies.”

I am crying now, my tears and snot mixing with the blood spatter on my face, pink ribbons trickling from my chin. As the Cheese chews slowly I can see so many emotions on his strange face. Or maybe I am just feeling them because he is still so close to me. He's angry and ferocious, but there is such a sadness, too. The sadness seeps into my own heart.

He releases his grip on my hair. I stand and Papa quickly puts his arm around my waist, pulling me away from the Cheese. He holds on to me tightly and I lean into him, pressing my face into his hard chest, ruining his shirt.

The Cheese shakes his head and throws the rest of the bloody heart at Papa's boots.

Papa keeps one eye on the Cheese as he turns his head
slightly. “Get on Heetle and go home as fast as you can. Send Boone to his homestead. No more fields today. When I get home, you and Temple better be in the pit, or so help me.” His voice is so low that it shakes. It rumbles. It growls like a stormy wind. He puts a hand on my arm, and I feel that it, too, shakes. I turn and run as fast as I ever have. I heave myself onto Heetle and yank Temple into the saddle, roughly, by one arm. She screams at the bloody sight of me, starts to ask questions, but I give her Papa's pinched-finger move.

“Papa says to go home, Boone. No more fields today. Don't leave the homestead.”

And then I kick Heetle gently and she's off like the wind.

6

TEMPLE AND I HAVE BEEN
in the hiding pit for hours. So much for studying poultices and tinctures. Aunt Billie and Papa fight in fierce whispers. I don't understand one gum thing that's happened today.

Not.

One.

Gum.

Thing.

My face is still a bloody mess. It still burns from Papa's slap.

Temple's hand is on my arm, patting out a beat to a song. I know she's trying to calm me and keep me from panicking in the dark. Keep my breathing steady. My gogs are on and set to night sight, but I know I'll have to turn
them off soon. The solar batteries haven't held their charge properly in over a moon, so that now they'll work for barely a few minutes if they aren't in direct sunlight. I've been clicking them on every time I feel the dark crawling up my neck. Then I turn them off again. Then on.
Click, click, click, click
. One, two, three, four. Fight, fight, fight, fight. Every now and then Temple's stomach will growl to add its own beat to our maddening new song.

The metal creaks as Aunt Billie peeks into the hiding pit. “Get on out of there,” she says, throwing the metal sheet wide open and holding her hand first to Temple and then to me. We climb out, filthy from the red dirt, the blood, and from the hard riding this afternoon. Papa glowers, his handbows scattered on the table. A glass of spirits sits in front of him.

“The Red Crescent hangs low tonight,” he says, his voice sounding like crunching scrub. “Aunt Billie feels it is too dark for an ambush.”

I swallow. My throat is dusty and dry. “Papa—” I start, but he holds up his hand.

I pull my thumb to my mouth and chew the nail. It's the same color and shape as the Red Crescent outside.

Papa starts to speak and then stops. He takes a sip of the spirits and grimaces. Then he lifts his eyes to look at me. His hair, matted from sweat and grit, falls across his forehead in a black slash. When his eyes finally meet mine, they're tired and round, not angry slants like this afternoon.

“The Cheese you saw today is named Strength of the
Suns—A'alanatka of the Kihuut. I call him Fist. His dactyl is—was—named Hoot. I was feeding Hoot some biscuit crumbs when you shot him through the eye. After, I should add, I tried to stop you.”

“Stop me?” The buzzing bewilderment in my head just keeps growing. “You were being eaten!”

Papa flails his arms out to the side, crosses them over his head, and flails them out again. His movements are sloppy with spirits.

“This means ‘stop,' child. It means ‘whoa.' It means ‘wait.' It does not mean ‘shoot at me freely until you can shoot no longer.'” Papa's eyes flash, his hands ball into fists.

“I was . . . ,” I say, swallowing hard, “I was protecting you. Protecting the family. Being a leader, making quick decisions.” I nearly whisper the last part. My face burns as I look at the floor.

“A
leader
?” Papa barks out a laugh that cuts inches off my stature. “In your childish wish to thrum your nose at what girls
ought
to be doing . . . in your fool-headedness, you grazed Fist and gave me that.” He sloppily points to his hat hanging on the tackboard by the door. There's a hole burned clear through the front and out the back.

“Fist goes to great lengths to work with me in trying to create a peace between the homesteaders and the Cheese. As I am the Sheriff Reverend of Origin Township, so is he a keeper of peace among his own people. It was difficult for us to forge this union; difficult to build the trust necessary to work together. We have kept the alliance a secret, but
with his people becoming more restless and my knowing that at any time something could happen to change this tentative agreement . . . I felt it time to introduce you. Rae, if the Cheese ever come after you or Temple, you are only to shout Fist's name and you will be left alone. At least that was our original bargain. Now, I do not know.” He takes another sip of spirits and mutters, “Gods help us all.”

My mouth is dry as scrub. Does he not see I was trying to protect him? I didn't know. I didn't—

“Fist has—had—become something of a . . . friend.” Papa rubs his hand over his face and sighs. “While our gods do not allow us to walk over the threshold of Old Settlement structures, Fist's people believe in no such gods. He is not just helping me keep the peace, he is helping me discern whether Old Settlement has any usefulness to the township.”

At this, Aunt Billie gasps. Papa cannot meet her eyes. I, too, am shocked to hear that not only has Papa made
friends
with a Cheese, he has allowed that Cheese to go against the gods and trespass on sacred ground.

Boone's father used to argue endlessly that Old Settlement was not sacred ground; that we knew of no actual deaths that had occurred there, and that it was abandoned and not eternal sleeping grounds. But Papa said until he had proof that the people left the settlement of their own accord and did not somehow perish there, he would not forsake the gods by stepping foot on their sacred ground, nor would he allow anyone else to do so, either. Boone's
father thought this was ridiculous, but he was only a scholar and Papa is the Sheriff Reverend.

Papa holds my gaze, though he cannot hold Aunt Billie's. “I was intent to introduce you to Fist, and show you three that not all the Cheese are to be feared. I was intent to show you that a leader must sometimes make difficult decisions for the good of the township, for the protection of its people. But now—”

“Why teach us this today?” I whisper as I swipe away the chewed thumbnail that has found its way to my lip. Is Papa ill? Will Temple and I be orphaned, only to live with Aunt Billie, who would not smile even if she was dipped in a cold bath? Not that Papa ever smiles, either, but . . . I feel dizzy and sick at the thought.

Papa shakes his head. “Fist was gravely offended today,” he says almost to himself. “The Cheese will seek retribution.”

“Why today?” I ask again. Aunt Billie hands me a biscuit and a drink.

Papa slams his hand on the table. “You gum child!” he shouts. “Don't you see? Fist is a leader of his people. He makes the rules. Fist has aligned with me so that we can work toward mending fences. But now . . .”

I want to yell, to interrupt, to say, “You're
mending fences
with the people who killed Mama? Who stole Benny? Who took Rory? The Cheese who gave chase the other evening was just playing? Only scaring me for the fun of it? How lovely.” But I say nothing. My hand goes to my pocket, squeezes the
little statue. I contemplate throwing it against the wall.

There's a
BANG-BANG-BANG
on the front door, the metal vibrating with each strike. We all jump. Papa grabs one of his handbows and lurches at the door, flipping the peephole open. He flips it shut just as quick and swings the door open. The stink of a one-man wafts in, and the stink of something else does, too. Old Man Dan and his rangy son, Pete. Pete is so skinny and slithery he shares the single seat of the one-man as if he were his father's shadow. And he is his father's shadow in so many ways.

Pete wrinkles his nose at my filthy appearance, and winks at Temple. She spits across the room and it lands at his feet.

“Temple!” Aunt Billie shouts. “Oh, gods, what have you done to my nieces today?” She grabs us both by an earlobe and drags us to the bedroom. We can still hear Old Man Dan yelling, though.

“Word in town is that you've wed and bled a Flatface.” I can hear the taunt in his voice. “Ain't nobody keen on your bringin' trouble down on us, Zeke.”

Aunt Billie winces. We may all be terrified of the Cheese after what happened with Mama and Aunt Billie and then Boone's family, but we're strictly forbidden from calling them Flatfaces. Ever.

“I have an ally, Brother Livingston,” Papa says, his voice low. “And you're good to call me Sheriff Reverend Darling, not Zeke.” Papa pauses. “You were not at studies today, Pete.”

I can only imagine the look of discontent Pete must be flashing.

“Pete was helping me in the fields, Sheriff Reverend Darling,” Old Man Dan says, his voice thick and syrupy with contempt. “We
work
at the Livingston homestead during planting season. We don't fancy-foot around, wearing dresses and playing games with the Cheese.”

I want to go poke Old Man Dan in the eye. I never fancy-foot around in my dress! I work. Hard. Every day. I only wear the gum skirt because no one will let me wear any pants!

“My ally is willing to span the divide, Brother Livingston,” Papa says through gritted teeth. “He is my concern, and mine only. I'm not wed to him. He is not my brother or my kin. He is a . . . great asset for all residents of Origin Township.”

“Nice speech,” Old Man Dan says. “But everyone in Origin Township knows the Cheese are not to be trusted. You ought not to have meddled with them in the first place. And now—if the rumors are true—”

“And where did you come by these rumors?” Papa interrupts. “To whom may I offer my thanks for opening their wide and industrious mouth?”

The spirits have loosened Papa's tongue.

“Never you mind that, Zeke,” Old Man Dan says. “I mean, Sheriff Reverend Darling. I just came by to find out what's true. If we need to warn folks to add extra protection to their homesteads, and you, as Sheriff Reverend, say nothing—”

“Good night, Brother Livingston. I have had a tiring day and do not wish to stand here jawing with you. Unless, of course, you and Pete would care to partake in our nightly worship.”

And here, I imagine Old Man Dan sneering just like Pete, but with dirtier teeth.

Papa shuts the door before Old Man Dan can say anything else.

“For the sake of the gods, wash your faces, and then to bed. Both of you,” Aunt Billie says. “This house will be silent after prayers.”

I hear a belch from Old Man Dan's one-man powering up. Then I hear Pete say loudly, “Don't worry, Pa, Rae will toss her skirts around and protect us all. From our
hats
.” Their laughter trails on the wind as they drive off.

My jaw tightens as I look through the bedroom doorway and see, once again, the hole I shot in Papa's hat. I could wallop Pete with one arm behind my back and both eyes sewn shut.

Temple and I scrub ourselves at the basin, the water turning pink and nasty. We put on our sleeping clothes and climb into our cots. Aunt Billie puts a hand on each cot as she kneels between us. Papa comes and kneels beside her. He leads us in our nightly prayers to the gods, asking for our health and safety, thanking the gods for everything bestowed upon the family and the township, and offering sacrifice in the form of daily devotion to the gods' will. He ends as he always does, intoning, “All we
need is borne on the wings of angels and for this we are grateful.”

I think of these angels, visiting in the night with buckets of water on their wings and scavenged metal slung across their backs. It strikes me suddenly as a ridiculous notion, even though this is what I've been told all my life. How
does
the water appear in the troughs? Why do the angels not strap
us
on their backs and deliver us to the Red Crescent, where we were meant to live? Why do the angels bring us water and supplies only to ultimately leave us on this moon to bake and suffer?

Papa leaves the room as soon as he's done murmuring the prayers. Aunt Billie stands and smooths the apron over her skirt.

“Will we go to the field tomorrow?” Temple asks.

“I don't know,” Aunt Billie answers. “We shall see how the night goes.” She walks out of the room, leaving us bathed in the deep-red twilight of the Red Crescent. I look out the cloudy plastic window, thinking of how this day could have turned out differently.

“Good night, Rae,” Temple whispers, and reaches across her cot to hold my hand. “I like your hair.”