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Copyright © 2004, S. Y. Affolee 10 Others' Pet She slowed Star Chaser down a little so that now she was riding side by side with Dash. His expression was hidden by the brim of his fedora. She wondered if he was silently laughing at her. “Looks like it’s going to rain,” she remarked. Dash looked up and blinked as if he were trying to clear his head from a daydream. “Hmm?” She pointed upward to the swirling sky. “Looks like it’s going to rain,” she repeated. “Hmm.” Then he sighed. “About time, I’d say.” “Well, I don’t fancy sleeping in water tonight.” “I guess we could rig up a tent or something.” “You bought a tent back in Copper Run?” “Why not?” he asked defensively. “I’m not the one questioning your spending habits. Besides, I thought you liked being wet.” He muttered something. She raised an eyebrow. “What was that?” Dash cleared his throat and looked at her challengingly, “Not half as much as you’d like me to be.” “Why you…” He easily caught her flying fist which had been aimed at his nose. “Pick on someone your own size.” “You’re the closest to my size around here as it is.” The sky grumbled as if it was laughing at their exchange. Prudence muttered, “Idiot.” Dash only turned his head slightly so that she couldn’t see him smile. “Hey, we should stop by those trees over there,” Altner finally spoke up. “There’s probably going to be a storm in a while. It’ll probably last the night. We should start setting up as soon as possible.” Ficket immediately agreed with the wilderness guide’s suggestion while the two trouvers followed more sedately behind. With the four of them, they pitched up a sizable tent, perhaps not tall enough to stand in—at least at Altner’s height—but it was roomy enough for four people and a puma to sleep in. The horses were tethered under the sparse trees that were growing in a cluster around a small pool of fresh water and were covered with water-proof tarp. They ate a quick, cold meal and didn’t talk much. Sleeping through the thunderstorm was probably the wisest decision and they all settled down for the night, with Prudence staking out a corner. Scamp laid down beside her, acting as a barrier between her mistress and the rest of her male companions. Ficket took the other corner, trying to sleep as far away from the feline predator as possible. Altner also unconsciously avoided the puma so Dash was the one who ended up on the other side of Scamp. As he sat down into his blankets, the puma yawned in his face, showing all her teeth. “I’ll hold you responsible if your beast tears my throat out while I’m sleeping, Pru.” She had already settled down for the night, her back to him. “Scamp’s harmless. You know that.” The golden-eyed feline and the trouver stared at each other before the puma spoiled it by laying her head back down, straight in his lap. “Hey!” Ficket was already asleep, but Altner chuckled briefly at Dash’s predicament before he too closed his eyes. Prudence turned her head. She grinned. Dash felt his face turning a dull red. “You know I’m not going to do anything.” “Maybe,” said Prudence. “Or maybe she’s just protecting you.” She then turned back, apparently forgetting about him. Dash let out a breath and flopped down into his bedding. Her big cat wasn’t protecting him. Scamp was just making sure he wasn’t going to try any funny business. After all, he had been thinking about it the entire day, hadn’t he? The puma slowly blinked her inscrutable eyes at the man and started purring. A thunder strike pulled Prudence out of unconsciousness. She groaned and covered her ears belatedly. Turning to her other side, she saw Scamp sitting up, bright eyes glowing in the darkness. Lightning flashed and she could see the puma’s ears swiveling, intent. Prudence strained her own ears but could only hear the rain and perhaps the nickering of the horses outside. Thunder struck again and she felt something prickling along her spine. Trouvers don’t ignore their gut feelings, she told herself. She looked over at Dash who appeared to be asleep, his eyes closed, one arm resting on his stomach, the other along his side. His hat was beside his head and his hair was rumpled, locks scattered across his forehead. She frowned, pushing away a warm thought that was trying to wriggle itself into her brain and checked her pistol at her hip. She took out the other pistol which she had placed underneath the roll of her coat which she had used as a pillow. Her weapons ready in case of trouble, she shrugged on her coat and hat and picked her way past the sleeping bodies of her companions to peer outside the tent. Scamp followed at her heels like a silent shadow. It was pouring outside and pitch dark. When the next flash of lightning came, she noticed that the four horses were still tethered to the trees. They shifted about, restless. Perhaps like Scamp and herself, they were uneasy. They sensed something even though they knew not what it was. She turned to gaze at the opposite direction. Nothing. She felt her hands shaking as she grasped one of the pistols from her holster and armed it with an audible click. She felt herself wholly unprepared for the unknown. She was familiar with the monsters of her kind—the bandits and the outlaws and the murderous criminals—but the darkness, she didn’t know how to fight that. Would a bullet be able to stop it? A faint scratching along the ground immediately made her hands tighten on her gun. There was lightning and suddenly she saw, beside the scrubby bush and the pool was a darkness, black and jagged with legs or appendages—she wasn’t sure which—coming out at odd and strange angles. Silver eyes glinted. When the thunder crashed, the thing roared, a strange horrible roar that shook the earth and her bones. The horses squealed. She fired. The hot pistol sizzled with smoke as the rain hit it. The noise startled the men from their sleep and there was a brief melee as they struggled to find their coats and their weapons. Prudence stepped out into the rain, edging away from the tent. She flicked her fingers and at that command, Scamp glided silently towards the horses who seemed to calm down when they sensed a familiar animal. The silver eyes tracked her in the rain. She could hardly breath. That thing by the pool was something that she had only heard about. Oh no, this was too big and solitary to be a brush spider and the eyes were the wrong color for a dust deer. And it was definitely not a ghost. The thing growled and shook the earth again. Her former mentor had told her of these things before although they were always rumored to be under tight control back east. But her mind wasn’t thinking about why it was here, only that it was here and it was here to kill something. It suddenly leaped into a blur of flying darkness. Prudence shot twice. She heard two other shots—it must be Dash and Ficket she dimly thought—and the thing began to drop, nearly on top of her. Prudence scrambled backward as it hit the ground, its silver eyes wide open in surprise. Lightning flashed. She saw its face, maw open and closing, snapping at her. The legs were twitching, trying to move in her direction. She fired another shot, directly between its eyes. Those eyes dulled and she struggled backward again. “Pru!” It was Dash in his fedora and he was heading towards her, smoking gun in one hand. She held up a hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Get back in the tent, it’s too wet out here.” Ficket had disappeared back into the tent but Dash and Altner didn’t listen to her. Were those two dense? When she neared Dash, he suddenly grabbed her arm, whipping her in front of him until they were only inches apart. He was angry, she realized. “That was a stupid thing to do.” She flung her arm. He released her. “Stupid, how? I did what I had to do.” She stalked back into the tent, Dash not far behind her. Altner murmured something about being on watch for the next couple of hours. Scamp had abandoned the horses in favor of the tent, but kept close to the tent flap, looking out into the wet night. “You should have alerted us before you burst out into those heroics,” said Dash. “You could have been killed.” She shed her coat and hat, laying them on the ground. They would still be damp the next morning but that would have to do. She closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself not to turn around and scream her lungs out at her rival trouver. Instead, her whole body began shaking. “Pru…” A hand came to rest on her shoulder when she kneeled down in her blankets. “Axel said the Others only kept them as pets,” she said slowly. “Even pets can be dangerous, you of all people should know that.” Prudence nodded. “But why would one be all the way out here, in the Dustlands?” Dash opened his mouth to answer, but Altner interrupted. “You three best get some sleep. Especially you, Prudence. I’ll call Ficket or Dash to watch after a couple of hours.” Dash reluctantly took his hand off her shoulder and began taking off his own wet coat. Prudence sighed and closed her eyes again and tried to block out all noise, even the rain. How could she sleep? She wondered. She was never going to sleep again, especially with the carcass of that thing literally stinking up their doorstep.  |