CHAPTER 3
I leave the livery stable with a strange feeling of disquiet. I rightly attribute it to the fact that rather than merely renting the saddled donkey I’m currently riding, I allowed myself to be pressured into buying it.
After all, the livery man assured me, donkeys are useful animals, and well prized. I will be able to sell this creature to any future livery stable or trade up for a proper horse.
Which I believe I’ll do just as soon as I arrive at the next town.
“No offense,” I tell the animal conversationally, “but you don’t have the elegance of a horse. You’re simply far too shaggy to compare with a horse’s beauty. And strangely, you’re dusty,” I muse, peering at his dry, brushy coat that, whenever I touch it, feels as if it’s coated in sand.
Perhaps it’s my words. Perhaps Paco takes them as an insult.
Perhaps it’s that we’re out of sight of the livery stable and Paco no longer feels as if he must mind his rider.
But very suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, the strange little animal begins bucking, his rotund but powerful body hopping and jarring me badly every time his hooves slam back to the ground, bringing my head snapping back, making me taste copper as my skull and spine experience cervical hyperextension—followed immediately by blinding hyperflexion.
I lose my hat.
Then I lose my seat .
I crash to the ground, my long prosthetic legs not smarting as they make crunching sounds at impact—but the rest of me feels the shock of the earth meeting me with force.
Dust swirls up in a cloud around me, racing into my nose, my throat, my eyes, my ears.
Owwwwwwwwwwwww…
I lie there for several microts, staring up at the expansive sky, stunned.
Until, wheezing, I push myself upright.
With a worried-sounding snort, the donkey scrambles out of what he seems to think is my maximum attack radius.
Blinking in shock, experiencing pains in areas that have never hurt before, I pick myself up off the ground and stare in disbelief at the animal that stands some measures from me, ears cocked forward, neck extended, all four furry legs braced to run. His reins are dragging on the ground, reminding me of the whiskery-like sensory organs, called barbels, on some wily fishes.
I stagger toward him.
With a panicked squeal, he tears away, not stopping until he’s galloped in a wide enough circle so as to allow him to face me again—from an even greater distance.
Steadier on my cybernetic limbs, I stride for him.
His sides heaving with his panted breaths, his long shaggy ears slowly rising and rotating as I make progress toward him, he stares at me—and then he gapes his mouth and splits the air with the most horrible, harsh, deafening screech.
“REEEEEEE—!”
Followed by a painfully loud, abrasive honk.
“HAAAAAAAWWWWW!”
I clap my hands over my ears.
“REEE- HAAAAAWWW! REE- HAWWW!”
“What is wrong with you?!” I shout over the terrible din.
He continues emitting the screeching honks until he’s out of breath.
Slowly lowering my hands, I puzzle over this bizarre series of actions. I take a step toward him.
He wheels around and gallops away again, evidently ready to repeat the chase cycle sequence.
I, however, am done. Turning from him, I orient myself until I’m pointed in the direction I was at first heading, mentally preparing myself to travel on foot.
“Curses, this place is hot,” I mutter. “And insufferably dry.” I can feel the moisture in my body being pulled out, the killing air sucking it from my skin with impressively frightening evaporation. This is why some reports claim that humans are volatile. No living thing can be subjected to these conditions without going mad.
“This endless heat,” I pant. “With no relief from the scorching, merciless sun? This is immensely unpleasant,” I inform the parched landscape all around me. “But,” I say, nodding slowly to myself, “I figure it’s tolerable. At least this place isn’t experiencing a haboob.”
From my research, a haboob is a violent dust storm with blasting sand that can obliterate visibility and cause difficulty breathing.
I no more than finish speaking when an arid breeze lifts sand grains into the air and pelts my skin and eyes and mouth. I grimace, and grit scrapes my teeth. Since I can still see—albeit by way of painful blinking—I assume this isn’t a haboob… yet. Perhaps it’s simply the start of one.
“Go ‘up where they walk,’ they said. ‘Up where they run.’ They should have added ‘up where they burn alive in the sun .’ Welcome to planet Traxia,” I mutter, practicing sarcasm.
With the sleeve of my arm, I swipe at my forehead—and the fact that my arm doesn’t bang into my hat reminds me to retrieve my hat before I begin my journey on foot .
Eventually I will reach a town. For now, off in the distance, I see what appears to be a homestead, a speck of a shanty with outbuildings fixed a mite below the horizon.
Jaw set, I set off for it.
My head cants in disbelief when I hear the sound of hoofbeats falling in behind me.
I turn around, and Paco is right at my back. His messily furred ears are pitched so far forward that one touches my sleeve. His eyes are large and keen.
“Paco?” I tell him. “You’re a smartass.”
Unbothered by this observation, he reaches for the handkerchief tucked through one of my belt loops and snatches it whip-fast with his prehensile upper lip and lower set of teeth, yanking it straight off me.
I force myself to swallow calmly, giving my throat something to do besides shout, which is oddly how I feel inclined to react.
I've seen humans shout in vids of course. But Yonderin bachelors are famously imperturbable. Detached, even. I should feel nothing that this animal ejected me from my seat and stole my kerchief.
As I force my eyes on the seemingly endless horizon ahead, out of my periphery, I watch the kerchief disappear into the animal’s mouth, slowly being pulled in by his odd prehensile lips, which swish back and forth as they suck up this article of my clothing.
Long cheekbones appearing puffed, he dares to turn his face in my direction… and he bumps his muzzle against my arm, knocking me in the elbow.
I ignore him. I keep walking.
Easily keeping pace, he bumps me a second time.
I continue to ignore him.
He bumps me a third.
I explode, “YOU LITTLE CUSS!” I lunge for him with a snarl.
“HEEEEEE!” the furry animal squawks, sounding choked. Which is interesting because I haven't wrapped my hands around his throat yet, but that is precisely my intention. He dodges sideways, freezes for a moment—then bolts, his brush-ended tail swishing madly, almost wagging.
Eyes narrowed, I force myself not to chase him.
After a moment, he must realize I’m not following him. He turns his head, showcasing his right eye and his incredibly wide, heavy-boned jaw. His ears are forward and high with curiosity. Then he swishes my red handkerchief at me. Taunting me.
This animal is deliberately courting danger from me.
Lips pressed together, I exhale the unnatural remnants of agitation, turn, and proceed to walk away.
Yet again daring hoofbeats fall in behind me. And then… bump.
Bump.
Bump.
He’s touching me with his mouth. Pushing my wadded-up kerchief into my back and the back of my legs.
Bump-bump-bump. This animal doesn’t know the predator he’s dealing with. Otherwise he’d never bait me as he’s unwisely doing, brazenly poking me with his muzzle.
I halt.
He runs.
With a huff, I resume my trek.
Creeping forward, keeping an easy pace behind me, he returns.
His nostrils press to the back of my arm, applying rough enough pressure to shove my limb forward.
I grit my teeth and refuse to react.
Testingly, following so close his hooves graze the heels of my boots, he presses his muzzle more firmly on my arm, then firmer still until he’s supporting the weight of my arm, his hot breaths scalding my skin when he exhales.
I reach back for his mouth, attempting to catch him so that I may pry his jaws apart and wrest my kerchief from him.
He pulls away from me easily and stays away for several steps.
Then he’s back. Touching me. Bolder than before. Bump.
Calmly I stop. I look under my arm, at his nose. Slowly I pivot to face off with him.
He whips his head to the side, his ears yanking straight up as he watches me out of his left eye. His tail is no longer whipping at his haunches. My eyes scan him, noting that besides the ear closest to me, he’s gone dead still. His nearest bushy ear has carefully swiveled to face me, poised to receive signals like a satellite dish.
“Do you want to give me back my handkerchief?” I ask him, feeling foolish for speaking to an animal.
But to my great shock, the dumb animal bobs his chin so deeply he almost taps his neck.
Nonplussed, I stand stock still as the incomprehensible beast steps toward me, raising his muzzle, peeling up his upper lip…
And showing me a set of ghastly orange-stained teeth.
“Oh, for all the fathoms of the sea,” I mutter in disgust. “That’s wretched.”
The bulge of his cheek tells me he hasn’t swallowed my handkerchief, he’s only tucked it into his maw, and I feel both uncharitable irritation that he hasn’t choked on it—which is odd, as it’s an extremely negative emotion, something I’m unfamiliar with—and also I’m relieved, because it would be a senseless, needless death.
His own fault, for certain, but needless.
The animal makes a chewing motion and he opens his mouth again, separating his jaws this time, by all appearances to yawn—and there, on his tongue, is my kerchief. Darker in color from his saliva. Flecked with frothy green, in fact.
Tentatively I reach out. And when the animal doesn't close his jaws, I pluck a corner of my kerchief and yank it out of his maw .
I startle when the creature’s ears slap back and he makes a creaking set of noises that sound suspiciously—now keep in mind that my ear is untrained to these things—but they sound suspiciously like laughter.
I stare down at my fist, where I’m clutching my soggy stolen item. And I don’t know if this animal is diseased or if this is normal for donkeys, but the froth he’s transferred to my item is reminiscent of a surfactant.
I look down at my fist clutching the handkerchief in disgust. There is no way I’m returning this item to my belt loops, let alone letting it touch my neck now that he’s soiled it.
My throat vibrates—and I realize I’m growling.
The donkey’s ears have swiveled to capture the sound, and he’s gone dead still again.
Without another word, I give him my back and start walking.
Within moments, his velvety-soft muzzle is pressed to the small of my back, which I don’t acknowledge, and strangely, he seems to take this as assent to keep his nose there.
If I didn’t think he were such a pain in the ass, I’d almost label the constant touch companionable.
When his lips travel lower though, and I feel them open around my back pocket, where I’ve stowed a pocket knife—
I spin on him.
He jerks back and bolts away.
My breathing changes to something that makes my throat rattle when I reach back and find my knife gone.