- 4 -
I got about a mile from camp and then I came down.
Hard.
I collapsed down onto the ground, and took a long drink from my canteen, barely able to hold it up to my lips; I was trembling so hard with fatigue. I could feel the muscles in my legs cramping up, the pain was tremendous. I hate leg cramps, they're the worst, and my right calf suddenly turned into a solid rock, making me gasp in agony. Even my back was on fire, from the cut that Tse had given me.
"You know drugs are bad for you, right?" I heard Coyote say.
"Being dead is worse," I gasped. "Is there anything you can do for this?"
"Sorry, not my speed," Coyote said, then gave one of those little bark-like laughs of his.
"You need a better writer for your material," I gasped through clenched teeth.
"The best puns are always the bad ones."
"So claim the people who can't come up with any good ones," I grumbled, and reaching down with shaking hands, I started to work on my calf muscle. The sun had already gone down, and it was starting to get dark. Pretty soon it would start to get cold out as well.
"How are the girls doing?" I asked.
"Oh, they're both doing fine; they found a good place to hole up for the night."
"Well that's a relief," I said and then winced a little as I tried to straighten my leg out and grab my toes, to work out the cramp.
"So, aren't you going to ask?"
"Ask what?" I slowly rolled onto my knees and digging the toes of my right foot into the ground, I continued to try and work the muscle loose.
"Where they are of course."
I grunted as the muscle finally started to relax a little.
"Wherever they are, I'm sure it's too far away for me to get to, tonight."
"Still, you should try."
I sighed, "Coyote, I figure I can walk a couple hundred yards at best, and maybe crawl another if I'm careful. I need a place to rest, and I need some food. Neither of which seems to be available."
"Aw come on, you could at least try."
I sighed and shook my head, but I got rather shakily to my feet.
"This way," he said I as started to stumble off back down the road.
I sighed and turned to follow him. He was heading across the open field, at an angle to the road.
"If you get me killed, I'm never speaking to you again," I mumbled and tried not to trip over anything as I shuffled along. All of the pains from running tied to that bastard's horse had come back, only they'd come back far worse than they'd been before. On top of that I was incredibly tired and starving. Speed really takes it out of you, and you always feel like crap when it's done with you. Taking it when you're worn out and in pain not only postpones the inevitable, but it makes it all that worse when it finally does catch up with you.
And it had caught up with me.
I started out okay, if slow.
As it got darker, I could barely see him, but I could see enough of an outline to follow him, the stars seemed particularly bright tonight. I wondered if there would be a moon later?
He didn't get too far in front of me, thankfully, as I was moving a lot slower than a walk. It was more of a shuffle.
And we kept going.
And going.
I started to wonder just where he was leading me; I could barely keep my eyes open now, and was yawning constantly. I lost count of how many times I tripped and fell flat on my face. Picking myself up was getting harder and harder, and Coyote's encouragements were getting harder to pay attention to.
I fell down again, I don't know if I tripped on something or if I just couldn't walk anymore. I figured I'd just lie there and sleep, until Coyote woke me up with a bite to the back of the neck.
"What the hell?" I mumbled.
"Get up," he growled.
"I can't."
"Then crawl!"
I sighed and started to do as he said, going on for I don't know how long, when suddenly there was concrete under my hands. Then my head hit a door, and I fell over.
"Paul!" I heard, I think it was Sarah.
I fell asleep then.
#
"Dude! You stabbed him! You stabbed him! He's dying! You killed him!"
I looked down at my hands, they were covered in blood, there was blood everywhere. The punk from the S street gang was on the ground holding the knife I'd stuck in him and squealing like a pig. Steve was going on and on and wouldn't shut up. All the other kids were either staring at their friend on the ground in an ever-growing pool of blood, or looking at me, in shock.
I spun on Steve and slapped him across the face, hard.
"Shut up!" I yelled at him, and grabbing his jacket I took off running, dragging him along.
Steve stumbled a few times but took off after me.
"You hit me!" He yelled.
"Because you were crying like a little bitch," I yelled back at him. "You want to go to jail?"
I was sure I could hear police sirens. They'd be there soon enough.
"Why'd you kill him, man? Why?"
"I didn't kill him, I stabbed him. And if you don't shut your face about this, right now, I'm gonna stab you next, understand?" I growled and kept on running. I'd never seen Steve lose it so bad before. We'd been cruising downtown, looking for trouble, with a few of our friends. We'd tangled with the S street kids before, we'd get a few hits in, they'd get some in as well. Then, when someone called the cops, we'd all run off and brag about it tomorrow in school.
But tonight some asshole had pulled a knife. Jeff, Ty, Ken, and Cy split almost immediately. But the guy with the knife was between me and the way out. The rules of the game had changed, and the guy with the knife waved it a few times and tried to stick me with it.
I panicked and grabbed it from him and stuck him instead.
He went down immediately and started screaming. It was like a bad dream. And the blood. I couldn't believe all the blood.
"Dude, that was bad assed!" Steve said, as we continued to run. I could definitely hear sirens now. Someone had called the police.
"No one's ever gonna mess with you now! Not after the way you shanked that guy!"
I saved my curses for later. I had to get this blood off of me, before the police caught us. Or I'd be in jail for sure.
"Mister Young! Are you with us, Mister Young?"
I shook myself alert, "Yes, Sir! Sorry, Sir!"
"Right, down and give me twenty!"
"Yes, Sir!" I said and dropped to do it.
No one snickered; no one even looked my way. The councilors here were pretty rough; they'd taken one guy out back just last week and given him a beating that no one else wanted to experience after wising off to one of them.
It was supposed to be a wilderness program for troubled teens, and the judge sent me here because they couldn't prove I'd been the one who'd stabbed that kid. No one would talk; snitches are bitches and all that kind of thing. Especially after two of his friends came to get revenge and I stuck them with their own knives too.
So while all of my friends were enjoying their summer at home, I was packed off to juvie boot camp.
Oddly enough, I kind of liked it. We hiked out into the wilderness everyday, we learned about survival, we learned about camping, and when they brought us back to the barracks every night and locked us in, we learned about not getting caught.
It's not that we were bad kids; we were just cocksure idiots who liked to fight and thought the world owed us whatever we wanted.
I sat outside my tent and looked at the stars up above. It was the last week of boot camp. Our graduation exercise was that they dropped us off separately in the middle of nowhere for a week, and we had to survive all on our own. They gave us a map and a place to hike to. Once we got there, we were done.
After a while, I noticed that there was something sitting in the darkness, about a dozen feet away, watching me. I slowly moved my hand to grab the spear I'd made with the small knife they'd let each of us have.
It didn't move, and once I had my hand on my spear, I didn't move either.
So I just sat there staring at it. It was definitely an animal, dog or wolf or something.
I sat there staring at it for hours, until eventually the sun rose, and I could see it clearly staring back at me.
It got up then, turned around, pissed on a log, and then walked away.
As it did so, another one stood up, a little farther away, and followed it.
Then another.
And another.
I counted over a dozen of them. If I'd attacked the one watching me, the others would have all set on me, and I would have been torn to pieces.
My eyes widened then as it hit me and I had an epiphany: If I continued to act like an ass and just go around beating up people because I could, society would rise up and destroy me. The fistfights had gone to knife fights; eventually they'd go to gunfights. There was only one of me, but there were many of them.
There were safer places to fight than in the streets. And more to life than ending up in jail.
#
I opened my eyes, my head hurt and I was sore all over. There was a concrete ceiling above my head, and I was laying on something padded.
"Paul's awake!" Heather said.
I turned my head to look at her, and then winced as my back lit up with pain.
"Easy there, Hon. Let me help you up, you need to drink some water."
I gave a small nod and she bent over and put an arm behind my back and helped me up. I sucked my breath in, in pain, as she helped me sit. My back was definitely on fire.
"Sorry," she apologized.
I just grunted and raised my hand to the canteen and took a long drink as she helped me.
"What happened?" I gasped when she finally took the drink away.
"You were poisoned," Sarah said.
I blinked, "What? Poisoned? How?" and I thought about the drugs Atsida had given me.
"The knife cut on your back, it came from a poisoned blade. I am surprised you are not dead. How did you get it?"
I looked at Sarah, who looked rather tired, and then at Heather, who also looked pretty beat.
"Do you have any food?" I realized I was starving as I asked it.
They both nodded.
"Riggs wanted to let me go. He knows what's up at the butte, and is more than welcome to let me deal with it. But the chief's son was being an ass about it. I think Riggs may have found someone he dislikes more than me," I laughed weakly at that, then took the bowl of soup Sarah handed me.
"Well, it ended up with him challenging me. After making me run about twenty miles while tied to his horse. I should have figured the little bastard would do something like that. Apparently he's a real Lucrezia."
"What's a lucreza?" Heather asked.
"Lucrezia Borgia was a woman who got famous for poisoning her enemies," I said and started in on the soup with the spoon Sarah handed me.
"I'm surprised you were able to fight after he dragged you that far."
I shrugged, "Apparently I have some friends among the tribe now. One of them gave me something to snort, tsurupe leaves or something."
Sarah's eyes got wide, "You snorted the leaves of a tsurupe plant?"
"It was more of a powder actually," I said and shrugged.
"I'm surprised that didn't kill you!" Sarah said, shocking me with her very uncharacteristic and much heavier accented speech.
"Uh-oh, when the accent comes back, you're in trouble," Heather whispered with a grin.
I paused in my spooning and looked at Sarah, "Why's that?"
"Epinephrine. It is like adrenaline! It can give you a heart attack. I know that the Indians use it. However they mix it with water, to dilute it!"
I chuckled and nodded, "Yeah, they seemed pretty shocked when I snorted it," I took another spoon full. "Honestly though, it didn't really seem any different than some of the crap I took when I was a stupid teenager.
"What was I poisoned with?"
"Some sort of neurotoxin."
"Where the hell do the Indians get neurotoxins?" I asked surprised.
Sarah shrugged, "Snake venom, spider venom. Some plants. You would be surprised. You are lucky he didn't cut you any deeper, or you might have died." She paused a moment in thought. "In fact, the tsurupe you snorted may be the only reason you survived, it counters the effect of many toxins. Another reason the Indians carry it."
"How did you find us, anyway?" Heather asked as I went back to spooning in the soup.
"Coyote led me here."
"Well, he saved your life. You've been out for two whole days."
"Where is here?"
"About a mile north of where the road comes out of the hills. We decided to follow the army from a bit further back to make it easier to find you, when you got free of them."
I nodded and looked around a little as I finished my soup.
"Any idea what this place is?"
"Just a small concrete building," Sarah said and took the empty bowl. "Now, lie back down and sleep. The poison has run its course; you should start feeling better tomorrow."
I nodded and turned myself to lie down on my stomach. I didn't feel like aggravating the wound on my back.
"I'll change the dressing," Heather offered. "You should get some sleep too, Sarah."
Sarah nodded and walking around to the other side of me, she laid down on the bedroll besides me and was out like a light almost instantly.
"What happened that she's so tired?" I asked Heather softly, trying not to wince as she peeled off the dressing.
"Healing magic isn't easy for her, as it's not her discipline. So casting healing spells takes a lot out of her.
"I needed that much healing?" I asked, surprised.
"Your hands and your knees were torn up pretty bad from crawling," Heather said. "Also your arms and legs were pretty cut up, and you'd been bit by a lot of insects."
I nodded.
"Did you kill the chief's son?"
I shook my head, "No, I did something worse to him."
"What's worse than that?"
"I made a fool out of him in front of the other warriors."
Heather laughed, "You sure know how to endear yourself to people, Hon."
"What can I say? It's a gift."