Waco nodded. "I have been wrong. From now on I shall love you as if I was parent to you all. And so will this woman, if she chooses. But you must let her choose."
There was silence from the mound, but Waco felt Hanah's hand squeeze his arm. He looked down, and Hanah Sanagi was smiling.
The grade down the foothills from the Upland Mountain Pass was gentle, the work consisting chiefly of moving boulders and clearing the thorned desert scrub. It was hot work, and dusty. At night the special cold of the desert had the bullhands near their fires.
It was Payday, the eleventh of Quake, and the talk around the fires began with excited anticipations about seeing old friends who had gone down with boss property man Grabbit Kuumic in Number Seven. Eventually the talk turned to how the town of Miira would represent itself in the parade come The Season in Tarzak two months hence.
Little Will heard none of the talk, and when the desert chill finally drove her companions beneath their angelhair blankets, she remained sitting up alone, staring into the fire. Eleven days ago, Shiner Pete had taken the supply wagon into Miira to ask his father about marrying her. Each night at the fire since, her doubts about Waxy's approval grew.
Her body shuddered with a chill, and she added more wood to the fire. The supply wagon had returned that morning, and Pete hadn't been with it. The hostler who drove the wagon, Bye Jim, would only say that things seemed "durned tense" in Miira town. When asked to elaborate, Bye Jim scowled, thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Jes' tense. Durned tense!" He then began searching for help in loading the wagon.
Little Will looked around at the camp and saw the dark shapes that were her sleeping comrades. Many of them had paired up, sleeping together. Because there were no bushes or trees behind which to seek privacy, the desert form of love consisted mainly of hot breathing and furtive gropes beneath blankets. She turned and looked over her left shoulder.
Next to one of the blanket-covered mounds, Packy's bull-hook was planted in the sand. Hanging from the handle was Cookie Jo's plaid cap. Little Will turned back to the fire, wishing that her thoughts could carry all of the way back to Miira and Shiner Pete.
At that moment she heard the Perches tied up along the nag line getting restless. She stood and walked around the sleeping forms, wondering if some strange animal was bothering the horses. While they were working their way through the Great Muck, several members of the road gang caught glimpses of some the planet's animated wierdness—huge dragons, laughing lizards. The sizes involved increased with each telling around the fire.
She approached the string of huge horses and saw Shiner Pete walking toward her, his hands thrust into his pockets, his blanket roll hanging limply in the crook of his left arm.
"Pete!"
He jumped as her call slammed his consciousness. "Uh... hi, Little Will."
She hugged him, kissed him, and upon getting less than enthusiastic response, she looked up into his troubled face.
"Pete, what's wrong? Aren't you glad to see me?"
He lifted a hand and touched her cheek. "Sure. Sure I am." He kissed her again. "It's just that things didn't work out so good." He shivered against the cold, bent over, and picked up his blanket roll. "Let's get under some covers. I just realized that I'm freezing."
Later, as they snuggled together beneath their blankets, Little Will buried herself in the crook of Pete's shoulder. "Now, Pete. What is it? What did Waxy say?"
"I never asked him." He was quiet as Little Will's body stiffened. "I meant to, but you don't know how things are in Miira. It seems like everybody's mad at Waxy and Waxy's mad at everybody. Page Loder and some others've got the whole town upset about Waxy marrying Stew and Diamonds. It got so bad that Stew and Diamonds moved out of town and went north to live in Dirak."
This, it seems, was only the beginning. Waxy had been so angry about Stew and Diamonds being driven out of town that he had "officially" annulled Poge Loder's marriage to Baggage Horse Betty, effectively making bastards out of Poge's three children. In retaliation, Poge publicly accused Dot the Pot of adulterating with Waxy. When Dot learned of this, she broke Poge's nose. When Waxy learned of this, he "officially" annulled the wedding of Poge Loder's parents, making Poge a bastard in name as well as in disposition.
Now, Poge never recognized any of Waxy's "official dissolutions," but his wife, Baggage Horse Betty, did, for reasons of her own, no doubt. And now that she was free and clear of Poge & Sons, she moved out and was beginning to let wheelwright Sunburst Sid call upon her. In Sunburst's house.
To make a complicated story less so, Waxy performed two weddings in absentia: Baggage Horse Betty to Sunburst Sid (purely an act of altruism to keep them from sin), and Poge Loder to his own mother (ending Poge's bastardism, but rendering his status something more colorful). Poge then set up his own marriage concession, arguing that if Waxy could, so could anyone. He then proceeded to marry, in absentia, Dot the Pot to Daisy, a retired Percheron; and then he married Waxy to Waxy, telling Waxy in public and in person the full meaning of this enigmatic relationship.
All in all, the time was not ripe for a fifteen-year-old son to ask his father if he could marry a fourteen-year-old girl. Shiner Pete decided at that point to take a horse and head back to the road gang before things started getting ridiculous.
Little Will, now possessing a better understanding of the phrase "durned tense," squeezed Pete's hand and asked: "What are we going to do?"
Pete looked up at the stars and was silent for a long time. "Little Will?"
"Yes, Pete?"
"Can you place a thought in someone else's mind?"
She frowned as she thought back to The Season the first. She had placed the name "Arnheim's Fault" into Cholly Jacoby's mind. She moistened her lips and looked up into Pete's face. "I think so. I've done it before."
"I've played with it some, and I think I can, too." Pete closed his eyes and nodded. "I have a plan. If it works, we'll wind up married."
"What if it doesn't work?"
Pete sighed. "The way things are going in Miira right now, I'll probably wind up married to Packy and you'll be the proud mother of the whole blamed herd of bulls."
Waco pushed himself off from the bottom of the lake. As his head broke the surface, he inhaled deeply of the rain-washed air.
"Waco!"
He paddled around to see Hanah Sanagi standing on the shore. "What?"
"Just a minute." She removed her clothing, dived into the water, and swam toward him with clean, swift strokes. She came to a stop next to him. "I checked out the racket."
Waco paddled in place, slightly uncomfortable. "What was it?"
"There's a road through the jungle a little north of us. The gang that built it is heading back toward Number Three."
"How close is the road?"
"Along the top of that crest, out of the swamp. Four or five miles."
"That's still pretty close." Waco looked down at the ripples in the water. "Maybe I'd better move the eggs deeper into the jungle. They're dangerous." He began swimming toward the shore."
"Wait, Waco."
He turned and faced her. "What is it?"
"You don't have to move them right this minute, do you?"
"It's not that. I'm... just not... you know."
She swam next to him and touched his cheek. "No, don't pull away. Waco?"
"What?"
"Waco, just close your eyes."
"What for?"
"Don't ask so many damned questions. Close your eyes."
He closed his eyes. "Now what?"
Hanah smiled. "Now, take a deep breath." As Waco complied, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and kissed him as the water closed over their heads.
FOURTEEN
When the road gang returned to Miira after completing the road to Kuumic, it was hard to ignore the signs. Upon Waxy's house was a sign that read: "The Pope." Farther up the street, hanging from the edge of Poge Loder's roof, was a sign that read: "The real Pope. ½ price!" Farther up the street, painted in Waxy's unmistakable style, a sign leaned against Sunburst Sid's house, which read: "In here sleeps the cheap pope's ex-wife." Against the kraal fence was a sign that read: "Waxy's harem. Anything on all fours apply within."