Shiner Pete asked his wife if now the future of the bullhands looked so bleak. Little Will did not respond. The baby boy appeared to have mental powers that dwindled hers. She could not imagine what Johnjay would become.
The baby girl, May, was crippled! She would never have the use of her legs. Mange was sorry. Pete accepted it. Little Will stopped probing the future. The answer had come to her long before. For the bullhands there would be no future. The elephant song would die. What, if anything, would replace it, she could not imagine.
But she knew one thing: while the bulls lived, the bullhands lived. She took her gold-tipped bullhook and held it within arm's reach of her baby, Johnjay. He touched its coldness, withdrew his hands, and cried.
Deep in the Great Muck Swamp, Waco Whacko knelt before the mound beneath which were buried the five Ssendissian eggs. As he tested the moisture of the soil, he spoke.
"Hanah will have our baby in a couple of months."
"It is what we have all waited for."
"She should go back to where Number Three went down. There are people there that can help her. And I want to be with her."
"No."
Waco stood and looked down at the mound. "What do you mean, no?"
"The meaning is clear."
"You would not let me go with her?"
"Neither of you will leave us. Hanah shall have the child here."
Waco looked down the hill toward the shack. "This is foolish! What if the child dies?"
"Then you and Hanah will produce another. We cannot risk you leaving us."
He looked back at the mound. "What if they both die? It happens often with human births if the proper help is not available."
The eggs were silent for a moment. "Waco, if they both die, you will find another female. With her, then, you will produce another child."
"And if another female doesn't come along?"
"Hanah will stay, Waco. Both of you will stay." The eggs appeared to talk among themselves for a moment. Then they spoke again. "It is time you were told, Waco."
"Told what?"
"You will never leave here. Hanah will never leave here. We shall keep your child, and your child's descendants, until we are free of our shells. Don't try to fight this, Waco. We are strong enough now to prevent you from harming us. We can kill Hanah."
Waco walked down the hill toward the shack. When he was midway between the shack and the mound, he turned back. "We have loved you and cared for you night and day for years. Why don't you trust us?"
"We are only babies, Waco." The thought-hiss of Ssendissian laughter came from all sides. "We do not know any better."
At the feeling of more laughter, Waco's hands turned into fists. He began storming up the hill. "It's time you were taught better!"
A huge hand of nothingness swatted Waco to the ground. He pushed himself up from the ground, touched his hand to his mouth, then withdrew it and looked with astonishment at the blood upon it. "Damn you!" He looked up at the mound.
"If you do this, it will cost you our love. Don't you understand that?"
"We do not need love, Waco. What we need are keepers. You taught us that."
The huge hand of nothingness swatted Waco's face, bowling him backwards toward the shack. Again and again the force struck until Waco was unconscious.
The eggs called to the shack. "Hanah Sanagi. Come and collect your mate."
Dull-eyed and listless, Hanah emerged from the shack. She stumbled at the eggs' direction until she stood over Waco's bleeding form. She looked down at him and half-smiled, half-cried. "I told you. I told you."
The eggs spoke to her. "You will have the child here, Hanah."
"I know." She squatted and began cleaning the grass and dirt from Waco's cuts. "I know."
"The child will be a female. Her name is Ssura."
Hanah looked toward the mound, confused. "Her name?"
"Her name is Ssura. It means guardian. And she is ours. We are already in her mind."
Hanah placed her hands upon her swollen abdomen, bowed her head, and was sadly amused to think that the biggest favor she could do for her child would be to kill it.
"We are in your mind, too, Hanah Sanagi."
She sighed and returned to cleaning Waco's cuts. "I know. You never let me forget."
On The Season the eleventh, Little Will brought Johnjay and May to Tarzak. Eleven bulls made parade. By The Season the fifteenth, there were only eight bulls. On The season the twenty-first, there were two bulls in the parade. Seven others were in the Miira kraal too old, too weak, to travel to Tarzak. On The Season the twenty-eighth, the only bull to make parade in Tarzak was Reg.
Little Will walked alongside the animal, and they were followed by Johnjay carrying May, and by the remaining bull-hands of Miira.
On The Season the twenty-ninth, the bulls and the bullhands of Miira were absent from the parade.
TWENTY
By The Season the thirty-first, the only remaining bulls upon Momus were the six retired pachyderms in the Miira kraal. Few went out of their way to attend Tarzak's celebration. However, more than a few traveled to Miira to see the six old bulls that still lived. For most Momans, it was a trip of privation and hardship. The children and the young adults complained. But the old ones—those who had come down when the Baraboo was exed—would listen to no complaints. They went to Miira to see the bulls; that, and to remember a time that had long passed into memory along with many of their friends and loved ones.
The young ones had never seen the show. The sparkle, the joy, the need of the big top, was something foreign to them. The bulls were curiosities—freaks from a storyteller's past.
Those who came would find a young girl seated in the grass of the kraal making drawings while a handsome young boy sat upon one of the bulls, or stood by its side. When the girl would leave, the young boy would carry her to the house of Little Will, Master of the Miira Bullhands. Then he would head for The Tusk, Miira's tavern. There at the tavern, the one called Johnjay would amuse his friends, and whoever happened to be within earshot, with loud, drunken lies about telepathic eggs, pachyderms, and a ghost called Bullhook Willy.
If urged, and if plied with sufficient movills and sapwine, the boy would demonstrate his abilities at cards and dice. And he would lament that no one would gamble with him because people believed wrongly that he had inherited his parent's mental gifts. Then a card in the center of the table would flip over by itself. The boy would place his hand upon the card and look as though he were embarrassed. And then he would laugh.
"Bah! But my head is boiled!" Mortify weaved, looked at the closed door of The Tusk, then looked down at his companion sitting in the dust of the Miira Square. He dropped down next to him and looked up at the stars. "When, oh, when shall our rescue from this mudball come?" Mortify laughed. "Look at them. Look at the stars, Johnjay! My mother, Cookie Jo, says we used to live there. Imagine that."
Johnjay looked up, his head swimming. He giggled. "There seems to be an uncommon number of stars out tonight."