“Steve, I didn’t ask you,” Samson said, not taking his eyes off Jason.
“Just wanted to save time.” Sounded more like tamm, Arnie thought. Now that was weird. He’d have thought he had as little prejudice as any coastal American could, but something about Steve’s flat, hard-edged delivery was like a sanding wheel skipping over a brick wall. Probably meant to be. He wants to fight—
“I guess I could’ve moved to the side,” Jason said.
“You guessed right,” Samson said.
“Let us show you,” Ecco said. “Doctor Yang, you and me are the demo team here.” Arnie stood, and Ecco said, “All right, touch is as good as a strike, take it easy, this is a demo, not a match. Now come after me, Doctor Yang—”
“In here I better be Arnie.”
“Arnie, then. First time I’ll just go back or forward, one straight track, you come at me any way you like.”
Ecco was fast and proficient, but since Arnie could just keep alternating flanks, he quickly drove him out of bounds.
“Now,” Ecco said, “This time I move off the line. See what you can do.”
Arnie had barely kicked once before he was surrounded by a blur of Ecco’s hands, feet, elbows, and everything else; he was able to stay in the space, and use his hands and forearms to block most of the fast-but-gently-controlled jabs, crosses, spear-hands, and thrust-kicks, but that was all, and in a real fight he’d have been knocked flat.
“Ya-me!” Ecco said, the call to end action. They bowed. “Y’all see, everyone? Arnie’s good, but I’m real good. But if I stay on that line, he can beat my ass into the ground.”
Hah. Now I get it. Steve Ecco needs to establish a pecking order, when a new guy comes in with skills. Well, no prob. He’s definitely a bigger pecker than I am.
After practice, Samson and Ecco stopped him. “Going to come back?” Ecco asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it. That was fun. And I have to get good enough to not look so lame out there.”
“Good answer,” Ecco said. “I don’t suppose that besides being a pretty good fighter and a damned good sport, the Perfessor happens to drink beer?”
“I do. I also listen to country music, and if I had the nerve, I’d chase waitresses.”
“Well, then, let’s stop by Dell’s Brew, pour you some courage, and work on some technique.”
“You talked me into it.” Arnie had planned to walk home the long way by himself, in hopes that Aaron would reappear, so that he could try out his carefully written, memorized questions. But the international association of lonely sad guys is obviously holding a chapter meeting, and I wouldn’t miss that. He felt happier and less lonely than he had in a long time.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. NEAR PINEHURST, IDAHO, ON US ROUTE 95. 8 PM PST. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2025.
The sun had already set and the twilight was dimming rapidly; Helen Chelseasdaughter asked, “Will they have light enough to unload all the cargo and still take off again? I don’t want children to see technology.”
“Their last radio message was that they were delayed but plan to complete on schedule. I’m guessing—there.” He’d heard the sputtering, farting roar of the DC-3’s motors, running rough due to crappy biofuel and lye-spray getting through the air cleaners. “Here they come. If you don’t want the kids to see—”
“Children out of here, now!” Helen Chelseasdaughter shouted. Two young women urged a dozen children to come with them over the hill. One stubborn girl and two boys threw tantrums, insisting on seeing the airplane, and were dragged off.
Bambi said, “It’s close to dark. I’d like to take off as soon as the other plane is off the road. Would it be all right for me to taxi over there”—she pointed north of the gate—“out of his way but ready to go as soon as he lands and you see the ransom?”
The gray-haired tribal nodded. “Yes, I want all the machines gone as soon as possible.”
Bambi reached out and clasped Larry’s hand in a centurion handshake, babbling something meaningless about her gratitude. She squeeze-coded d still w m in cabin.
Larry thought, I would like to know what that son of a bitch is doing—actually no; I’d rather just assume, and deal with it accordingly.
The engine thunder loudened and deepened. A brilliant, moving star rose above the hill to the south, then dipped below the horizon again; the Gooney was coming around for its approach.
Micah came back from spinning the prop on the Stearman. The biplane made a slow turn across the gravel before it taxied out the gate, Bambi waving from the cockpit. The plane headed north, down the hill, to turn around and be ready for takeoff as soon as the DC-3 was out of its way.
Michael Amandasson had still not emerged from his hut. “Typical,” a younger woman behind Larry muttered. “He won’t be done with the slave till it’s time to claim his share.”
Susan Marthasdaughter sent a runner for Michael. The tribals were all staring at the southern sky, at the eerie, blazing glow of an arc spotlight, the first electric light they had seen since November, reaching up into the sky from beyond the crest of the hill as the DC-3 touched down and coasted up.
Micah caught Larry’s eye and jerked a thumb toward the path where the runner had gone; Larry nodded. Micah vanished into the dark.
Ryan moved behind Susan Marthasdaughter; Larry stepped quietly to his left, closing distance with Helen Chelseasdaughter.
As the DC-3 crested the hill, the brilliant beam swooped from the purple sky and down US 95 onto Bambi’s bright yellow Stearman. She revved up and began her run up the road as the ninety-year-old airliner, painted in Quattro’s black and yellow personal colors, wheeled about through the gate.
Bambi roared up the road into her takeoff; the DC-3 in the parking lot thundered and rumbled. No one could hear anything else.
Inside his shirt, Mensche drew the razor-sharp commando knife. His left hand gently drew Helen Chelseasdaughter’s elbow down and backwards; as she turned to see what he was doing, his left hand grasped her hair and yanked her head back. His right hand lashed out with the knife in a rising forehand, opening her larynx, and then back through a carotid, cutting to the bone over the collarbone and down the sternum, slipping back upward through her diaphragm into her heart. She tumbled dead at his feet.
Mensche glimpsed people recoiling from where Ryan stood over Susan Marthasdaughter’s body. Mensche spun, slashed the young woman behind him across her shocked expression, and swept her feet. He drove an elbow into the face of the man beside her; under the space that opened, he jammed his blade deep into the man’s guts, ripping it free as he shoved the tribal backward into the people behind him.
The girl on the ground had her mouth open, screaming, and Mensche stamped on her neck as he turned to slash again, cutting at reaching hands, pivoting, kicking, and slashing to get working room.
Against the plane’s lights, Mensche’s targets were silhouettes. He struck again and again, flowing from attack to attack in all directions, trying to start and spread panic, whirling to strike blindly, knowing everyone within his reach was an enemy. The fingers of his empty hand formed a tiger claw; wherever it caught, he struck next to it with the knife, kicking and stamping as he turned to clear a big space around himself. His stiff fingers at eye and throat level, and his blade at gut and groin level, swung around with his torso, hurting whoever they found into screams.
A flare burst. Larry dove prone. The slow heavy thudding of a black-powder Gatling gun drowned out even the engines. Some rounds whizzed over his head; others hit the crowd with wet smacks and thuds.