“Where do they go?” the driver called.
Hugh pointed past the garage where he’d built a corral out of scrap metal posts, pipes, and I-beams.
The man waved to him, rolled the window up, and turned the truck around in the yard, expertly backing the livestock trailer up to the make-shift fence. The truck shuddered and went quiet, and the man and boy got out.
“Good morning, Mr. Sanchez,” the man called, putting on his hat. “Pleasure to see you again.”
“And you, Mr. Williams,” Hugh said, limping down the wooden steps. The men met in the middle of the yard and nodded to one another instead of shaking hands.
“This is my son, Roger,” Mr. Williams said.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sanchez.” The boy held out his hand and then shyly grinned as he looked at Hugh’s sling.
“And you, Roger.” Hugh grinned back at him.
“You’re looking good,” Mr. Williams said. “Healin’ up nicely.”
“Slower than I’d like but getting there.”
“And how’d that dino first-aid kit work for you?”
“That worked perfectly. The sedative took longer to work than I would have liked, but it other than that, the patch-up paste was perfect. I should get another one from you, just in case there are any future incidents.”
“Another one?” Mr. Williams laughed. “That should have been enough for a dozen dinos!”
“Well…” Hugh kicked at the dirt. “Maybe I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“We’re all learnin’ out here. It’s a different world.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Well. C’mon, son,” Mr. Williams put his hand on Roger’s shoulder. “Let’s unload Mr. Sanchez’s ’ceratopses.”
Hugh followed and watched as they herded four waddling, three-foot tall protoceratopses out of the trailer. The animals looked like miniature triceratopses, without the horns, and they grunted and hooted as they entered the corral.
“You really want four of these every week?” the boy asked.
“Well, we’ll see how it goes,” Hugh answered, “but yeah.”
“Must be some barbeque you’re gonna have!” Roger’s eyes were impossibly wide, and he nodded enthusiastically.
Hugh couldn’t help but enjoy the boy’s passion. “I’m hoping it works out. If it does, maybe I’ll be able to invite you guys someday.”
“That would be great!”
Hugh turned back to watch the protoceratopses exploring their new pen, hoping it would work out that he could have the boy come watch someday. He wondered how wide the boy’s eyes would get when he saw a rex coming out of the prairie to get its own private barbequed ’ceratops.
Probably not as wide as Hugh’s had gotten when, after he’d tracked the sedated rex back into the trees, waiting for it to fall asleep so he could patch its wounds, he’d found the nest and three eggs.
Something about the eggs, open and vulnerable in that giant nest, had finally settled Hugh’s soul. This land wasn’t abandoned. It was just going through a change in demographics.
And some of the new neighbors were a lot more worthwhile than others, willing to lend a hand when needed. It hadn’t taken Hugh long to decide to stick around and return the favor.
Sam Knight is the owner/publisher of Knight Writing Press and author of six children’s books, five short story collections, four novels, and over 75 stories, including three co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson. Though he has written in many cool worlds, such as Planet of the Apes, Wayward Pines, and Jeff Sturgeon’s Last Cities of Earth, among his family and friends he is, and probably always will be, best known for writing Chunky Monkey Pupu.
Once upon a time, Sam was known to quote books the way some people quote movies, but now he claims having a family has made him forgetful—as a survival adaptation.
To learn more, you can find him at samknight.com.
Nine
By Seanan McGuire
CATS HAVE NINE LIVES, THEY SAY. Cats come back nine times, and our lives follow a strict pattern. Three to stray, three to play, and three to stay. And then, they say, it’s over. No eternity for Cats, oh, no, but nine lives should be eternity enough for something small, and soft, and swift. Nine lives should satisfy our souls.
The people who say that don’t account for the ones we love, the ones who walk more slowly, the ones whose hands are soft but whose skin is as rough as a paw-pad, the ones who tower over the world. We are their hearts gone running wild through the places they cannot see, and to say that we don’t deserve anything more than nine is to say that our Humans must go to their own eternities without their hearts.
I would never have known how little Humans loved themselves if not for the way they spoke of Cats.
But nine is a well-accepted number, among the people who like to say such things. Somehow, those are never the ones who sit down and do the math of how long a Human life is, and how short a Cat’s life can be, when our Humans are unable to care for us as the ancient compact demands. They fail to do the accounting which shows that as Humans have grown better at tending to their own needs and extending their own lives, they have done the same for us.
Nine is the number of times a Cat comes back, and nine is the number of times we will find our Human waiting for us when we return. Nine is the distance between a kitten and a child together, running through the grass with no understanding of the perilous and persistent future, and an elder of each kind, withered and weighted with the ghosts of those long-lost summers, sitting together in a final sunbeam, ready to embark on one last trip into the dreaming dark. Nine will get us from here to there, in almost all circumstances. Sometimes, when the world is not kind, it is far more than nine. Sometimes, when the world is either very kind or very cruel, it is fewer. But nine is the average.
Three times to stray, through the wild and fickle hours of youth. Three times to play, when spirits have settled but fire yet remains. And three times to stay, mellow as a moment, curled beside the people we adore, choosing the hands we have known before.
There is no great office which assigns the hearts of Cats to their Humans, and some Cats, seeking a Human heart to tether to, find themselves greeted by fallow ground, cruel words and disinterest. When this happens, they go looking elsewhere, for the lives of straying are still in flux: they can change allegiance. There is yet no investment in the Human, no reason to stay loyal. We are not dogs, to give ourselves so easily. Dogs need but a single life to become totally devoted.
So, this is the first lie they tell themselves: There is no true limit to the number of times a Cat may stray, in the search of the home where they belong. We try on Humans like Humans try on shoes, checking their fit and then discarding them, until we find the right one. This is not always due to cruelty. At times, a Human and a Cat simply do not suit each other, and both can be best served by moving on. So, we quest, and we consider, and we ponder. If a Cat is so fortunate as to find their home quickly, they may cut the lives of straying short, may choose to move straight along to playing. This is most common when the Human is older, already grown enough to live in harmony with themselves, already secure enough to provide a harbor.
A Human is a harbor, if nurtured right, if trained by the proper deeds and whispers and nudges. A Human can be a place of safety and unending affection, where there is no need to fear cold, or hunger, or the tearing teeth of predators larger than ourselves. A Human can also be a source of endless sorrow. For we measure our time in the number of lives it should take for us to match their time in flesh, but Humans are as temporary as we are, if on a somewhat longer scale. At times, the count is wrong. At times, they reach the end of their time while we still have miles to go on our own, and they must go first into the clearing that awaits us all, when our count of nine is finished.