Packy grinned and shook his head. "Sounds like you found your life's work."
Little Will placed a hand on Waxy's shoulder. "Look upon it as a challenge."
Waxy shrugged off her hand. "This is too early in the day for cracks from the back of the blues." He looked at Packy. "I don't have to do this stuff. It's not like I was bein' paid."
Little Will pointed a finger at Waxy. "You are too being paid. Stew Travers gave you a whole sack of cobit roots for marrying him to Diamonds Mary." She turned to Packy. "What are you going to pay to have Waxy marry you to Cookie Jo?"
Packy snorted. "I already got me an elephant, short stuff. What do I need a wife for?"
Little Will frowned and grinned at the same time. "You don't know?"
Waxy waved his arm about. "Enough, you two! I got serious problems." He lowered his voice and moved more closely to Packy. "That's the thing." He pointed his thumb at this chest. "Me marryin' people. My Great Boolabong, Packy! Poge Loder came to me after I married Stew and Diamonds and told me I'd burn in hellfire, brimstone, and such for doin' that."
"You worryin' about that, Waxy?"
"No. Not that." Waxy sighed. "It's just that some others want to get married, too. That'll have Poge screamin' damnation in the square twenty-three hours a day." He looked at Little Will, then up at Packy. "And what if he's right? Who am I to be marryin' people?"
Little Will smiled, a glint of mischief in her eyes. "Waxy, who better than the boss harness man to tie the knot?"
Waxy's glowering face studied Little Will for a moment. He then spoke: "If you know what's good for you, sprout, don't risk readin' my mind right about now." He looked at Packy. "Look, the reason I'm here is to find out if you can find something for Dot the Pot to do on the road gang."
"There's nothin' for her to do now that Queenie's dead. Why do you want her out of town?"
"Why?" Waxy's voice lowered. "She's after my bones, that's why!"
Packy held out his hands. "There's nothin' I can do, 'cept give the bride away."
Waxy turned abruptly and marched back to his house. "Goddamn bullhands been shovelin' plop so long their heads're packed solid with it!"
A call came from the column, and Packy answered it by waving his bullhook above his head. He lowered the bullhook and faced Little Will. "Get on back to your rubber mule, bullhand. We got a mess of trees to push over and clear before making camp." She began walking toward Reg when Packy called out. "Hey!" She turned and looked back at the boss elephant man. "And you put that nonsense about Cookie Jo out on the lot. Don't want to be givin' her any dumb ideas."
Packy clucked at Robber and the column began to move, lifting the dust into the still morning air as it followed the boss elephant man across the Fake Foot River Bridge.
Deep in the Great Muck Swamp, Waco Whacko awakened from a troubled dream. He lifted himself up on one elbow and studied the interior of his hut. Nothing seemed unusual except for the many improvements that Fireball had made. He looked at the woven curtain he had made to separate their sleeping quarters.
"Fireball?" he whispered. Getting no reply, Waco lowered himself back down upon his sleeping mat and closed his eyes. He tried to drift into sleep, but strange, threatening thoughts interfered. He and Fireball lived almost as brother and sister. Her company, once thought by Waco to be an intrusion on his isolation, turned out to be not only pleasant and entertaining, but had become a vital part of his existence.
In his head he conjured up a vision of the shuttle pilot. Hanah Sanagi. Long black hair against the creaminess of her skin; her face always something of joy, sensualness, or serenity—
Waco suddenly sat up. "Yes, Waco, you stupid bastard," he said quietly to himself. "You've done it again." Love. Goddamned love.
Although it seemed like yesterday, it must have been months ago that Hanah Sanagi and he sat outside, facing each other across the night's cooking fire. And Hanah was talking. Waco had noticed that he wasn't listening to her words; he was watching the movement of her lips, the black flash of her long-lashed eyes, the subtle motion of the muscles beneath the skin of her long neck. And he had stopped—had frozen everything that he could or ever would feel. He had left the fire and had walked the darkness until he stood next to the mound of eggs.
"Are you leaving us, Waco? Will you leave with the female?"
He looked up at the stars. "No. I won't leave you."
"We can feel your feelings, Waco. There is a war within you. Who will care for us when you leave?"
Waco lowered his glance, rubbed his eyes, and shook his head. "I won't leave you. I promised your parents."
"You think you do not feel, Waco. But we can see past the walls you have built in your mind. You feel, Waco. You love the female."
"Silence!" Waco breathed hard for a moment, then closed his eyes. "It doesn't matter. It will never matter. I made my promise."
He turned and looked down the hill toward the wash of yellow light made by the cooking fire. Beyond that place of light was the absolute blackness of the jungle and the cloud-covered night sky. Almost in the center of that light, Hanah knelt as she made tea from the strange-tasting leaves she had discovered. That light, that woman; the center of Waco's universe. He lowered a shield of icy indifference over his realization. There would be—could be—no love.
To love is to risk too much.
He returned to the fire, had his cobit bread and tea, and listened with detachment as Hanah talked about trying to capture and train one of the swamp monsters. He had joined the conversation, his internal war placed far behind him.
He had thought it was far behind him. As he sat upon his sleeping pallet cursing himself, his feelings, and Hanah Sanagi, he knew that he had once again opened himself up to the sickness. He pulled on his clothes and spoke in the direction of the grass curtain. "Hanah? Hanah? We have to talk."
He stood, pulled on his shirt, and looked around the edge of the curtain. "Hanah?" She was not upon her sleeping mat. He turned, walked through the hut's entrance, and stood in the early morning light searching the treeline. He heard a low moan, and when he faced the direction of the sound, he saw Hanah's half-dressed body collapsed upon the mound of eggs.
"Hanah!" The scream came from his gut. He ran up the hill, pulled her body from the mound, and cradled her head as he knelt upon the grass. "Dammit, Hanah. I told you to stay away from them. I told you!"
Her eyes fluttered open and her mouth worked at soundless words. Waco faced the mound. "Stop it! Stop whatever you're doing! Stop it, or I'll smash every damned one of you!"
Hanah seemed almost to turn to liquid in his arms as a timid whimper fought itself from her mouth. "I didn't... Waco, I didn't. In my sleep. They came to me... in my sleep." Her whimper evolved into racking sobs as she lifted her arms and wrapped them around Waco's waist, her face buried in his chest.
He placed his cheek against the top of her head. "Why? Dammit, why?"
And the eggs spoke to him. "A precaution, Waco."
"Against what?"
"You love her. We need you, but you love her. She is dangerous to us."
"She is no threat to you! I promised your parents!"
"Promises can be broken, Waco. She must die."
"Die?" Waco placed his right arm beneath Hanah's knees and stood lifting her. "I'm moving her out of your range. She does not die!"