Five Gifts for Speculative Fiction Writers

Along Vera’s neck, on either side, are three round bits of grillwork, and when she comes in hard and fast, they scream, a whine that grates along all your nerves, even when you’ve heard it before.

They screamed now, and even muffled by the tents, they still forced Roto’s ears to flatten back, his whiskers tensed in an involuntary sneer and made me clamp my forearms over the sides of my head, muffling it. Shots barked out, then a rat-a-tat of semi-automatic followed by another like an echo. Vera’s own guns boomed.

There were screams.

I unfolded myself and started to rise. Roto yanked me back down just as a round of flying metal buried itself in the canvas bundle. If I’d stood, it would have decapitated me. We both stared at it. My ribs pulsed with ache and I realized I’d been holding my breath, I didn’t know how long.

There’s only so many ways for a group to attack you on particular terrain, and everyone had done exactly as they were supposed. The Bird Woman had a wing clipped, high and gouging the bone and all her children were fussing about her while Sieg bandaged it, the littlest with their heads buried in her skirts.

Bodies were slumped on the ground, five or six of them, but none of them were ours, so they didn’t matter. No one seemed worried about the post where the flashes of light had come from, so Vera must have taken care of those before coming down to us, as she was supposed to.

June was there with Vera, checking her over, fanning the long metal pinions out and examining them for wear and tear. The guns athwart her prow swiveled in two directions as though still alert, worried that something might happen. Pal was riffling that packs and pockets, but with little luck, judging by his expression, other than the pile of weapons slowly accumulating underneath the sign that read, “Trucks this way”.

Wren and two roustabouts who’d come on three towns ago were off to one side. On the road they didn’t smoke anything but jitter weed, and drank thermoses of strong black coffee, the good stuff, horded for when we were on the road.

Vera stirred as I went past, headed to bum a smoke from Wren. June turned, chuffing out a chuckle under her breath as she saw me.

“Miss Meg,” she said. “It’s just Miss Meg.” She patted Vera’s flank where she leaned up against it, and the war machine went quiet, though I could still feel its eyes on me.

“Good job, Vera,” I said, feeling daring. Most people didn’t talk to Vera. It was as though they forgot she could talk back. “Thank you for saving all our asses.”

June’s eyes widened, a tell so small I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been watching her.

Vera chirped. “You’re welcome,” she said, after waiting a few seconds to make sure the chirp was not returned.

Neesh had most of the livestock out for a graze and mostly a poop. He knew the more of it they did on the cracked asphalt of the plaza, the less he’d have to clean out of the trailers. I checked the mini-elephants over out of habit, from the summer I spent tending them, but they were all unharmed, and engaged in eating all the nasturtiums out of the circular flowerbed in front of the runs that had once been a rest stop building. Out of habit I looked to see if it was loot able, but places like that have all been scavenged away, decades ago.

I got to Wren, Roto in my wake, and at my outstretched hand and upturned eyebrows, she shook a smoke loose for me and tossed it over.

“How long’s the break?” I asked.

Wren shrugged. “Never too short, out here in this heat. Once we get further down, we’ll be out of the heat.”

“We push on then?” I pursued. Wren shrugged again. She was affecting herself a bit in front of the new hires. She was circus born and bred, they were newbies, but she was still unused to the sway she held as their temporary boss.

Her nonchalance made me a little hot under the collar. She acted so cool. But she’d surely been hunkered down under cover like all the rest of us.

She narrowed her eyes at me as though reading my mind. “Problem, Meg?”

I shrugged and would have left it at that, but she just wasn’t content to let it go. Angry heat spiked through me as she stepped forward, towering over me.

I stuck my hands out to repel her.

She reeled back as my skin burst into flame.

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Here the poets go again, riding down the trail of words into that long and lonesome valley, carrying ballpoint pens and notebooks in order to describe the shadows that lie across their lives. Lingering ashes are evidence of those who went before, who scared the lizards lurking on warm sandstone, whose mounts’ hoofbeats have already echoed along the rocks.

There they go. Their horses are nervous, and out of shape. The Muses packed the riders’ saddlebags, and the poets won’t know the contents until they need them, until they reach for a memory or trophe, find it nestling comfortably in their palm, and look at it to say oh yes, that’s it, that’s what I meant to say.

It’s late morning when they leave the safety of the bunkhouse and nod decisively to Old Cookie, stirring his cauldron of coffee black as a heart of obsidian, cackling as they saddle up.

“You’ll be sorry!” he shouts after them. “Stay here! I’ll put up curtains in the bunkhouse and subscribe to National Geographic! No need to go ! There’s only sand and the taste of lime out there! The sun will drive you crazy as badgers!”

It’s true — the sun is hot. But in the saddlebags are memories of rain storms, winters, driving down roads slick with ice and the reflection of Christmas tree lights, down roads laden with pine shadows and the blood of unwary animals. Similes redolent of cinnamon and sweet amber, puns as prickly as hedgehogs, intricate words with Indo-European roots to be set, chiming, into sestinas.

Will they make camp this evening or press on into the darkness? The valley is always dark, always full of falling rocks and moaning winds. The horses shy at every sand dune, until at last the poets dismount and walk forward, carrying their saddles across their shoulders. It is their hope that, if they go far enough, they’ll find the place where fallen stars lie glimmering along the rocks, where the coyote’s call drips honey, where sand builds itself into castles, where light re-enters the valley and casts all their shadowed fears into bas-relief. There they’ll make their camp, pitch the tents made of long canvas stretches and ropes of human hair. There they’ll boil their coffee, sweeten it with handfuls of cactus needles, and sip with cautious lips.

The horses, freed, will run far away along mountain tops and reclaim their voices. Their hoof prints will glow red and gold along the chill rocks. The wind will braid their manes with clouds.

(Originally appeared in Sybil’s Garage)