Read Online It Came From Del Rio: Part One of the Bunnyhead Chronicles by Stephen Graham Jones - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Graham Jones
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all, they were still a good thirty feet out. If I looked beside where one was, I could just make out its outline. To them, I was giant rabbit. The biggest mole they’d ever lucked onto.
They had to drink, too, though.
For maybe thirty minutes, I studied on this, then nodded, double-checked my thinking. It was good, I was pretty sure. And I was so thirsty.
Using the weather-rounded end of my hobo stick, I dug out a hole in the rut. A bowl, about cereal size. The dirt was packed enough that I was able to smooth the sides down. It would hold water for a few minutes, anyway. Not just drink it straight down like the loose stuff out in the pasture.
“All righty,” I called out to the coyotes, then tipped a little water from one of the jugs into the hole and eased down to the next fencepost.
It took one of the coyotes about four minutes to gather enough balls to stick his nose into the hole. I didn’t say anything, just watched. He started drinking. As soon as he had a mouthful or two of it up, another coyote eased in, nudged him out of the way to lap up the rest, its eyes watching me the whole time.
I twisted the lid off the container I’d let them drink from, and held a mouthful of water for a long time. It was perfect. Better than that, because these were coyotes who had to have been sick with strychnine before, so knew how it smelled, it was clean, too.
The second bottle I left on one of the thicker fenceposts, wiped down and shiny. With the sun behind it, it would draw border cops from miles away. Maybe even Refugio.
“Drink up,” I said to the idea of him, and moved on, only limping a little.
Up north, I’d guess, all the Canadian-American smugglers probably get all these nice little moments where they can kick back and watch the aurora borealis, painting the snow.
Down here, what you get is the sky so black and heavy it feels like felt. Used to, I thought all the fast stars I saw streaking around were aliens, but then somebody told me they were satellites. I still like to see them.
With Refugio’s water in me, and one of the sticks in my mouth — I’d cleaned it with a handful of sand — I made a few more miles that night, then found an overhang of rock I’d used before, spent the heat of the morning there.
The buzzards settled down about a hundred yards out, holding their wings up for probably ten seconds after they landed, as if the ground were hot or something, and they weren’t committed to it yet. Really it was probably just their chest muscles contracting, after having been stretched open so long.
If I’d have had a .22, I’d have plunked each of them in the head, then eaten them raw, carp that they were, and wore their feathers for a cape.
I’d be a legend then, yeah.
But I didn’t have a .22. And legends, they’re always already dead or are heading for a big gunfight of some kind. So I was content, I suppose. As I could be, anyway, with no money, no food, no more water. One boot. Maybe half the world’s supply of lunar material piled between my feet. A daughter two hundred miles away, in another country.
It was probably a good thing I didn’t have a gun.
I woke some time later, unaware I’d even been asleep. It was like I’d just blinked, and the slideshow the pasture was had advanced to the next frame. But then I saw what had opened my eyes, crawling like a bug across the brown: a rancher’s truck. It was cruising along the fence, dragging a plume of dirt. Moving from gate to gate, I guessed. Because he was going too fast to be looking for a lost heifer or scoping the buzzards.
I didn’t flick an eyebrow, just let him slip past.
In a perfect world he’d have been pulling a flat trailer of hay, and I’d have been able to hide under the tarp for as long as he was going my way. Maybe longer, to wherever he parked the rest of the trucks. As it was, I just waited for his dust to settle, fell in behind him.
An hour shy of dark, I came to that gate he’d been headed for, and,
They had to drink, too, though.
For maybe thirty minutes, I studied on this, then nodded, double-checked my thinking. It was good, I was pretty sure. And I was so thirsty.
Using the weather-rounded end of my hobo stick, I dug out a hole in the rut. A bowl, about cereal size. The dirt was packed enough that I was able to smooth the sides down. It would hold water for a few minutes, anyway. Not just drink it straight down like the loose stuff out in the pasture.
“All righty,” I called out to the coyotes, then tipped a little water from one of the jugs into the hole and eased down to the next fencepost.
It took one of the coyotes about four minutes to gather enough balls to stick his nose into the hole. I didn’t say anything, just watched. He started drinking. As soon as he had a mouthful or two of it up, another coyote eased in, nudged him out of the way to lap up the rest, its eyes watching me the whole time.
I twisted the lid off the container I’d let them drink from, and held a mouthful of water for a long time. It was perfect. Better than that, because these were coyotes who had to have been sick with strychnine before, so knew how it smelled, it was clean, too.
The second bottle I left on one of the thicker fenceposts, wiped down and shiny. With the sun behind it, it would draw border cops from miles away. Maybe even Refugio.
“Drink up,” I said to the idea of him, and moved on, only limping a little.
Up north, I’d guess, all the Canadian-American smugglers probably get all these nice little moments where they can kick back and watch the aurora borealis, painting the snow.
Down here, what you get is the sky so black and heavy it feels like felt. Used to, I thought all the fast stars I saw streaking around were aliens, but then somebody told me they were satellites. I still like to see them.
With Refugio’s water in me, and one of the sticks in my mouth — I’d cleaned it with a handful of sand — I made a few more miles that night, then found an overhang of rock I’d used before, spent the heat of the morning there.
The buzzards settled down about a hundred yards out, holding their wings up for probably ten seconds after they landed, as if the ground were hot or something, and they weren’t committed to it yet. Really it was probably just their chest muscles contracting, after having been stretched open so long.
If I’d have had a .22, I’d have plunked each of them in the head, then eaten them raw, carp that they were, and wore their feathers for a cape.
I’d be a legend then, yeah.
But I didn’t have a .22. And legends, they’re always already dead or are heading for a big gunfight of some kind. So I was content, I suppose. As I could be, anyway, with no money, no food, no more water. One boot. Maybe half the world’s supply of lunar material piled between my feet. A daughter two hundred miles away, in another country.
It was probably a good thing I didn’t have a gun.
I woke some time later, unaware I’d even been asleep. It was like I’d just blinked, and the slideshow the pasture was had advanced to the next frame. But then I saw what had opened my eyes, crawling like a bug across the brown: a rancher’s truck. It was cruising along the fence, dragging a plume of dirt. Moving from gate to gate, I guessed. Because he was going too fast to be looking for a lost heifer or scoping the buzzards.
I didn’t flick an eyebrow, just let him slip past.
In a perfect world he’d have been pulling a flat trailer of hay, and I’d have been able to hide under the tarp for as long as he was going my way. Maybe longer, to wherever he parked the rest of the trucks. As it was, I just waited for his dust to settle, fell in behind him.
An hour shy of dark, I came to that gate he’d been headed for, and,
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