“Grasslands!” I said. “I have to go back to the grasslands!”
“Then you can damned well walk!” the angel snarled. “Get that grapnel ready.”
I have often wondered what thoughts went through Shisisannis’s head when he discovered the smoldering ashes of Misi’s train, which had also been her funeral pyre.
He must have known that he was seeing the work of avenging angels, for only they would have burned valuable trade goods. He must have guessed that he would now not be able to carry out his orders. Perhaps he feared that Ayasseshas in her fury would send him to the pens, for he did not take the news back to her right away. Instead, he left his canoes and led his whole troop off overland. Possibly he was clinging to the faint hope that the woman he had been sent to abduct was still alive and with the other traders, although he must have known how extremely slight that chance was. More likely he thought he was pursuing the angels. He had not seen them on the river, so he may have believed that he could run them down ashore before they found the spinster’s lair.
He probably caught up with the caravan. He may have had a battle. I bear the snakeman no grudge. I hope that eventually he found happiness again, but I do not know what happened to him.
What happened to me was that I arrived with a bone-weary Red-yellow-green and his other wetlander captive at a scrubby sand spit where the spinster’s canoes had been stowed. They were well camouflaged, and it was Quetti who saw them. There were no guards to challenge us as the angel grounded his chariot in the shallows. I tossed a grapnel into the shrubbery; he lowered sail. Then we all paused to stretch aching muscles and rub sore eyes.
Red scratched his chin and looked thoughtfully at his passengers—companions but not friends. He had won his gamble. He had evaded Shisisannis and could now destroy the enemy’s canoes, saving his own men from pursuit. But he was not such a fool as to trust Quetti or me any further than necessary. Shisisannis and his men were obviously absent, so we were not needed as evidence of the spinster’s death. Now what could Red do with us? He would have to sleep sometime. He had placed himself in a very dangerous situation. Black had foreseen this and warned him. And us.
Were he unscrupulous enough, Red-yellow might choose to dispose of us before either of us was tempted to dispose of him. He could shoot us or just abandon us in the forest, but he would be breaking his angel vows.
Of course, I did not see all this then. “Now what happens?” I asked bitterly. “Will you go after Shisisannis?”
The angel shook his head and bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “I never planned to. You stay here, cripple. You jump, boy!”
Quetti had hardly spoken since we began our voyage, his thoughts unreadable under his sullen pallor. He stared hard at the angel before rising and clambering from the chariot into knee-deep water.
I watched as he waded ashore and Red followed, carrying his gun and an ax. I watched, also, as Quetti was set to work smashing holes in upturned canoes. The angel went ahead of him, pulling away the shrubs that had been piled over them, but also staying on guard, keeping his gun at the ready and a watchful eye on both Quetti and the forest. No one emerged screaming from the trees to halt the vandalism.
To disable a fragile structure like a canoe is not difficult, and in short order the damage was done. It could be repaired, of course, but not soon enough for Shisisannis to lead his men in pursuit of the angels. Red had reached his objective, and now he came splashing back to the chariot with the ax. Quetti had been sent to retrieve the grapnel.
“Mission accomplished!” Red remarked with satisfaction. He tossed the ax into the boat—at the stern, out of my reach—and began to climb in after it.
Quetti yelled from the edge of the trees and waved. He was a long way from the grapnel.
Red scowled. “Now what?” But he splashed back to the bank and went to see what Quetti had discovered. He took his gun with him, so he may have been suspicious, or perhaps he just did not want to leave it near me.
When the angel reached him, Quetti pointed at something on the ground. Red bent over to peer at it. Quetti, displaying more strength than I would have expected, lifted a bulky sack and raised it high.
I took a deep breath—I have never been able to decide whether or not there was time for me to use it. Maybe there was. Maybe not. Had I called, then I might have distracted Red and given Quetti a better chance. Or I might have warned Red in time to avoid a very clumsy attack, one that should never have succeeded. I didn’t call. So was that another of my killings? I do not know. Does one more or less matter? A man is either a killer or he isn’t. I am.
Quetti tipped the bag over the angel’s head as he straightened up. Constrictors fall on their prey, and apparently they react the same way when dropped. Red made no sound. Either a coil went around his neck at once, or else Silent Lover squeezed all the breath from him before he could speak. The man in the bag fell down in the undergrowth. Quetti stood there and watched until the bushes stopped thrashing.
Then he came trailing wearily back down to the water’s edge. He waded out to the chariot and stopped. He stared up at me and I looked down at him, and for a long moment neither of us spoke.
The expression on his sallow face reminded me of my childhood. Many times I had seen one or another of my numerous brothers act naughtier than he had intended and then try not to show how scared he felt. Quetti’s young face looked just like that—defiant and unrepentant, but wary of what might be said next.
I reached down a hand to shake his.
“Well done,” I said.
Quetti took my hand, pale lashes blinking in surprise.
“I’m heading back to the grasslands,” I said. “Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”
He stared at me in bewilderment for a dozen heartbeats. Then he began to weep, tears pouring down his hideously grazed cheeks, sobs wracking his bony frame. That was what he needed. I hauled him into the chariot and then I held him for a while, until he regained some control and pushed me away in shame.
I could leave him then, leave him to work out his grief and guilt, while I went to get the grapnel.
Silent Lover had already departed in search of more prey. I could not bury Red-yellow, but I dragged his body to the water and sent it on its way. But first I retrieved his gun.
I was humming as I lurched back to the chariot.
Whatever you do, never expect gratitude.
—11—
THE ANGELS
“LET’S BE SURE I’VE GOT THIS RIGHT,” said Black-white-red. “He opened a sack and stuck his head in it, and there was a python in there. It wanted to loop around his neck…so he let it?” He drummed long black fingers on the table.
“More or less,” I said.
“How much more? How much less?” His head was against the bloody glow of the window, his eyes almost invisible, and only the silhouette of his woolly hair was distinctive. He was coldly furious—with some justification, I suppose.
I sighed. “No more, no less. Yes, it sounds crazy when you put it in those words. But he was exhausted, remember. Neither of us was watching…maybe he tripped and fell on top of it. Accidents happen.”
“Accidents can be made to happen!”
I faked a little anger. “You’re accusing us of murder! What possible motive could either of us have had to harm him?”
“You’d both been imprinted, and he had killed your women.”
“If we had slain him, why would we have come here, to Heaven?”
Black-white growled low in his long throat and drummed his fingers faster. At my side, Quetti sat in silence, his right shin balanced on his left knee, impassively studying a thumbnail. Of course we had murdered Red-yellow, but if neither of us confessed, there was nothing the angels could do about it, certainly not after so long a time…or was there?