By CJ Erick
The decision to go solar was still a good one, wasn’t it? Quiet. No smelly exhaust for the coyotes to pick up. And of course, no need to recon gas stations, all emptied now anyway, just traps for the foolish. Choosing Dad’s electric-conversion flatbed looked so smart now, but she’d almost opted for the diesel.
Sure, the panels were less than fifty percent efficient by then. No way to measure that. Should have grabbed extra electrical meters and batteries before she left Abilene, but that would have meant less room for food, water, ammo – “bullets and beans,” Papa had always called them. Not that he’d ever been to war, just regurgitating his mother’s old military blah-blah.
“Colonel Grandma,” she and her two cousins had called the woman. No regrets, the two didn’t come with Sidney when she left Dallas. Not her fault. Why would they trust her, the youngest of them all, in her late twenties? No use thinking about that. She’d barely stayed ahead of the blast front as the city met its violent end. Sidney could still feel the heat from it. How to start a nuclear war – wipe out ninety percent of the human males with an engineered virus, then sit back and watch the fun.
She missed beans. Would she trade that last clip of nine bullets for a case of good ones? Kidneys. Pintos. Navies, anything.
A gray and pink pigeon named Miranda landed near her feet, strutting and cooing. She whispered a hawk’s scree, and it dropped to the dirt, silent, nervous eye darting left and right.
Stupid bird. Good thing you’re scrawny or you might star in tonight’s dinner.
It twisted its thread-like neck as if hearing her thoughts.
Hear this, Miranda. If one of that woman’s pets spots you, you might be someone else’s dinner.
That woman – a cat lady with a wooden wagon drawn by two goats and a donkey, had pulled up at an old bar ditch, where the remnants of the night’s rain lay like a mirror in the red dirt. Scattered fence posts marked where the old two-lane cut through the spare scrub-brush country. West Texas oil country. Wouldn’t have been her first choice, if she’d had one. But if most of East Texas had burned to the dirt like she’d heard, maybe this was the best choice as well.
How different than three years earlier. 2027 then? — She was losing touch. Add a speeding oil-field service truck and a few unmoving cows and repair the downed fences. Papa had told her even then a body could drive for a hundred miles and never see another soul. Forget cell phone signals. And God help you if you had a breakdown. You might find yourself walking twenty miles or more.
Off in the field, the flock had laid down at her signal– her hawk’s scree and arms held flat at her sides. You could train these birds, the smart ones anyway, and all the stupid ones ended up dead after a time. Except Miranda there – she was no Neil Tyson. Maybe closer to the mental power of a Tyson chicken.
But the bird always lay next to Sidney at night. A comfort, when there were so few.
Just over the hill, the cat lady – in her fifties maybe with pale skin and dark hair, hard to tell from that distance – started waving her arms. Her voice strobed in the wind, like a passing siren. She jumped from the old wagon and started herding – literally herding cats. Funny, except Sidney saw why – a pack of coyotes moving toward her like pale gray phantoms slaloming through the mesquite hillocks.
At least eight of the bastard devils, thin as razors. Noses sharp as daggers.
The woman better have a rifle.
There were a few straggler cats milling about the wagon when the woman climbed up and slapped the tow-beasts to action. Ten coyotes – this far out? One was bad enough, but a pack — really bad luck for the cat lady. Not Sidney’s problem, though, and actually might work in her favor. She needed to get her feathered friends to the puddle before it dried up. The water bottles and canteens were low, and she was at least three more days’ drive to where the springs had been, and hopefully still were. At least the trader had said as much, selling her a gallon of sweet, clear water for her last two cans of pears. Shoulda held out for two more gallons, but the ass wouldn’t budge. Said he was an oil trader before, with a big office in Midland, and flew to Dallas twice a month.
Too bad all these winged shits didn’t fly off to Dallas long ago. What was there now? The trader claimed it still glowed in green fire, and hungry half-human savages hunted there at night. Sounded like a bad zombie movie – but maybe the writers of those things got it right all along.
And if the birds flew, she’d be alone. Probably half-human in a week.
Cat lady wasn’t going to make it. She’d stopped the wagon and unhitched the donkey, who was holding its own against two of the dogs. The long, black stick of a rifle appeared in the woman’s arms, followed by one staccato crack – but no more. One out ten dogs down. Out of shells?
How long would a couple dozen cats and a couple gaunt goats keep the dogs occupied? Long enough for Sid to find an old oil field service road to get around them?
No more rifle cracks. The woman was waving the gun around, trying to unhitch the goats, her loose shirt and scarf – gray and pink – billowing about her like a dying pigeon.
How long would an adult woman’s body keep the coyotes occupied?
Back behind her – hadn’t she passed an old cattle guard, maybe a mile back? A service road entrance. Those old roads would cross and recross the soft sand field like city streets in a grid pattern. By nightfall, she and her birds could be miles away before bedding down.
But damn, they needed to get to that water. Three more nights until she reached Big Spring, where the Permian aquifer dumped out from under the West Texas cap rock. A voice from a high school geology teacher echoed in her head. An oasis of sweet water in the desert. In fact, the town of Sweetwater was right down Highway 20. The world’s biggest rattlesnake round-up town. Food for her two hawks and road kill for the four buzzards, who had all taken to the air despite her whistles. At least the coyotes were too involved with fresh kills to be following buzzards to old ones.
The land of big oil. Open prairie. Sid and the other college intern Freddy at the drill site with that cute intern Alexa from Argentina – both of them trying to seduce her. You lost, Freddy, the virus that latched onto your X chromosomes and killed you. He was a nice guy really, she missed him even. When he’d started hemorrhaging from the crotch and anus, the two women had waited for it to happen to them.
Alexa had left her in Abilene, spread her wings on one of the last flights for Buenos Aires. Hope she made it. Killer smile. Diplomatic in her rejections.
Animal screams pulled her back to the moment. One of the goats was down and a couple cats who hadn’t reached the temporary shelter of the wagon. Still no rifle cracks, just the woman’s distant yelps, a few snarls. The donkey’s enraged screams. The howling would come later that night. She didn’t need to be there to hear it.
The truck’s power supply had inched up to forty-five percent – praise be for solid-state batteries and panels still drawing juice longer than they should have. Divine intervention? The bird buggy was going to make it to Big Spring, dammit, like it was written in some prophet’s book.
The woman’s cries were shriller, war whoops among the donkey screams and cat squawls.
God…dammit. Cats and birds didn’t mix. Billions of wild birds killed every dam year by the feline killers, and this woman was saving them?
Sid gave the all-rise whistle, jumped in the seat, and pointed the truck toward the road. Turn left to the cattle guard entrance. Three days to the springs. Months of travel behind her. Maybe a little hut and garden ahead for her?
She yanked the wheel to the right. Her throat growled. The flock was around her like a fluttering cloud, the pigeons thumping wings, the blue-green parrots weaving like a school of barking fish, scattered starlings and finches, some red, some yellow, darting among them, clucking like tiny chickens. The buzzards and hawks wheeled high, wings hardly moving in the thermals, catching a dust devil like a sandy circular elevator. The four crows gripped the top frame of the windshield, noses into the rising wind of truck speed, tails banking like rudders.
The crows called to each other in three sharp barks.
“Yeah, I see them.”
One of the coyotes lifted its shark-head from a goat carcass. It barked three times in response.
The woman called out “Yah-yah-yah!” then spotted the truck and its cloud of flyers. She’s spotted the hawks and buzzard now, probably thinking — a fucking bird lady.
The truck jounced over the sunbaked road. Up to forty mph then. She hadn’t pushed it that hard in months. Good idea, Sid, break the thing trying to save someone else’s ass. Would the brakes even work?
A hundred yards from the wagon, Sidney cut the power and coasted. She drove with one hand and pulled the H&K handgun from the holster at the side of her seat. Warm to the touch, rubber grip tacky from age and use – weeks since she’d needed it, on the two hooligan e-bike dirt riders. How many coyotes had they fed?
The cat woman, younger than she’d looked from a distance. Mid-thirties, a little older than Sid maybe, or just apocalypse-aged? She swung the rifle butt down on a coyote’s head and drove it away. Eight left circling the wagon. Two on the ground. The donkey was still on its feet but bleeding from its hind flanks. Two dogs dragged a goat away, and three others fought over the other one.
The truck was still rolling when Sid raised up, steering with her knees. Two-hand level sight. Target a coyote standing on two feet, lurching into the wagon, a cat in its mouth and others slashing at it. No head shot. Too dangerous with the woman there. Chest – get both lungs.
The H&K jumped and the crack stopped time for a pulse as every creature around the wagon including the woman realized she was there and what she was about.
Snarls. Two coyotes sniffed the one squirming on the ground, red soaking its breast, snapping at air. The cat leaped from its grip.
Run, you fuckers.
Two did, the ones playing tug-o-war with a dead goat. Three were down. But five remained, hearing the calls of the birds, sounds they couldn’t resist.
There was still a little weight to the gun. Nine cartridges were now eight.
“Come on, ya pricks!” The words ground like glass in her dry throat.
“The donkey!” shouted the woman. “Save the donkey!”
It was in trouble, bleeding worse now, struggling to raise its hind leg to kick. It spun about, warding off three of the pack.
Sid leveled the handgun again, fired – crack! The desert dog jerked, leaned, and fell, kicking the dirt nicely.
Her next shot missed. Six left and four coyotes. The woman – fool – jumped from the wagon and swung the rifle at one of the donkey’s attackers. Thumped it – a gratifying yelp. But it turned on her.
Sid aimed, deep breath, pulled. The gun jumped, and the coyote fell.
She fired three more times, hitting two more dogs. The last two grabbed the second goat and ran, carrying it like a hairy shirt between them, so thin it was hardly a meal.
The woman toppled against the wagon, panting. No sign of blood though. Good thing – no rabies shots in the desert. Sid watched her clutching the worthless rifle, watching the coyotes disappear over the wasteland. Her dark hair was tied in a ponytail with a red ribbon, wisps flicking about her face. One of the cats – tabby? – came to her, circled her legs three times, meaning “Notice me.”
When she caught her breath, she looked at Sid, the truck, the crows on the windshield, eyes widening when she saw the two hawks landing on the roll bar, and the others landing on their usual perches on the roof carrier rack, starlings pushing each other for space, sparrows nervous about the milling cats, but lighting to peck at the ground anyway. The pigeons found the water puddle, heads rising every few seconds to eye the cats hiding under the wagon.
“Thank you,” said the woman.
“I’m sure I’ll regret it.” She ejected the magazine from the H&K. Two cartridges left. Great. Three days and at least a hundred miles to go. She climbed out of the truck, not sure whether to leave, nod her head, or shake the woman’s hand. She chose the last two. The woman’s hand was warm and calloused.
“I’m Sidney. The bird lady.”
“Claudia. Cats.”
“Yeah.” Several feline carcasses lay around the wagon, but at least a dozen hissed at her from the wagon’s bay, or from under it. The donkey stood shaking and sweating. “I’m sorry about the goats. I might have some salve for the donkey, but you’ll have to put it on.”
Claudia leaned the rifle against the wagon, and stooped to lift one of the dead cats. She cradled it and cried softly.
Sid retrieved the meager first aid kit from the truck’s side storage locker and brought it to Claudia, who was collecting the dead cats, five of them, and laying them in the back of the wagon.
“I’d bury them here,” she said, “but the coyotes would dig them up.”
“Up to you. You know, birds and cats don’t mix.”
“I’m not leaving them here.”
“They’re not going with me.”
Claudia was silent.
“It’s leave the cats or stay with them. No cats going in my truck.”
“Good, I don’t trust your hawks and crows.”
“Neither do I.”
They treated the donkey’s wounds without talking much. She was out of the habit, except with the birds. It settled into the dirt in the shade, and refused to move. The woman – Claudia – leaned on the wagon, looking down on the beast with eyes sadder than his. Funny the virus had only affected the males of some species – mostly primates. Her father wasn’t among the lucky ten percent to survive.
Sid said, “I can leave you two flares in case the dogs come back. I don’t have any food to spare, though.”
Claudia shrugged. “We’ll manage.”
How? Sharing the stringy donkey with the cats? Bon appetit.
Sid laid the two flares in the woman’s wagon, whistled the birds to the truck, and pulled away. In the rearview mirror, the woman didn’t watch her drive away up the tortured road. Except when she’d reached about a quarter mile away, and her pale face drew up, her hand wiping hair from her forehead. It was a strong face; one Sid would remember. Damn, why had the woman been so fucking hard-headed? Why were the damn cats to damn important to her?
“I knew I was going to regret this.”
The brakes worked. She turned the truck around, and eased back to the cat wagon, where the woman feeding bits of canned meat to the cats and handfuls of grain to the donkey. The truck was so quiet, the woman startled when Sid pulled up along the wagon.
Sid said, “The donkey can ride in the back of the truck, but the cats stay in the wagon.”
Claudia stood, brushed her hair away again and it was driving Sid crazy. “You sure you can keep the hawks off my cats?”
“No. But I’ll do my best.”
They busted out the side of the wooden wagon and used it for a ramp to load the beast into the back of the truck, where it promptly laid down and fell into snoring. They rigged a bridle to create a draw strap for the wagon’s bar. Sid backed the truck to it under Claudia’ direction, and they tied it to the truck’s hitch.
They sat for a few minutes before pulling away, letting the birds settle to their normal roosts, and the cats in the wagon, now the cat wagon. Pulling it, the three days to Big Spring had become at least ten, maybe more.
Sid didn’t need cats at Big Spring. What did Big Spring need? Birds? People?
She said, “Let’s go. We need to get as far as possible before nightfall.”
“Will we make it?”
Sid shook her head. Claudia’s eyes were big and dark and somehow getting to Big Spring didn’t seem to matter as much.
“If not, we have two bullets left.”
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