Jackie’s Boy

STEVEN POPKES

Steven Popkes made his first sale in 1985, and in the years that followed has contributed a number of distinguished stories to markets such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sci Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Science Fiction Age, Full Spectrum, Tomorrow, The Twilight Zone Magazine, Night Cry, and others. His first novel, Caliban Landing, appeared in 1987, and was followed in 1991 by an expansion to novel-length of his popular novella “The Egg,” retitled Slow Lightning. He was also part of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop project to produce science fiction scenarios about the future of Boston, Massachusetts, that cumulated in the 1994 anthology Future Boston, to which he contributed several stories. He lives in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, with his family, where he works for a company that builds aviation instrumentation.

Popkes was quiet through the late nineties and the early part of the oughts, but in the last couple of years he’s returned to writing first-rate stories such as the novella that follows, which does a good job with the difficult balancing act of delivering a (sort-of) optimistic after-the-apocalypse story, one where it’s still possible to strike out to find a better life for yourself.

PART 1

Michael fell in love with her the moment he saw her.

The Long Bottom Boys had taken over the gate of the Saint Louis Zoo from Nature Phil’s gang. London Bob had killed in single combat, and eaten, Nature Phil. That, pretty much, constituted possession. The Keepers didn’t mind as long as it stayed off the grounds. So the Boys waited outside to harvest anyone who came out or went in. They just had to wait. Somebody was always drawn to the sight of all that meat on the hoof, nothing protecting it from consumption save a hundred feet of empty air and invisible, lethal, automated weaponry. People went in just to look at it and drool.

Michael knew their plans. He’d been watching them furtively for a week, hiding in places no adult could go, leaving no traces they could see. The Boys had caught a woman a few days ago and a man last night. They were still passing the woman around. What was left of the man was turning on the spit over on Grand. He sniffed the air. A rank odor mixed with a smell like maple syrup. Corpse fungus at the fruiting body stage. Somewhere nearby there was a collection of mushrooms that yesterday had been the body of a human being. Michael wondered if it was someone who had spoiled before the Boys had got to them or if it was the last inedible remnants of the man on the spit. By morning there would be little more than a thin mound of soil to show where the meat had been.

This dark spring morning, just when the gates unlocked, one of the guards remained asleep. Michael held his backpack tightly to his chest so he made no sound. The man started in his sleep. For a moment, Michael thought he would have to take up one of the fallen bricks and kill the guard before he woke up. But the guard just turned over and Michael slipped furtively past him. He was just as happy. The only thing that got the Boys more riled than meat was revenge.

He stayed out of sight even past the gate. If the Boys knew he was here, they’d be ready at closing time when the Keepers pushed everyone outside. Michael had never been in the Zoo, but he was hoping a kid could find places to hide that an adult wouldn’t fit. Inside the Zoo was safe; outside the Zoo wasn’t. It was as simple as that.

Now, he was crouching in the bushes outside her paddock in the visitor’s viewing area, hiding from any Keepers, looking for a place to hide.

She came outside, her great rounded ears and heavy circular feet, her wise eyes and long trunk. As she came down to the water, Michael held his breath and made himself as small as an eleven-year-old boy could be. Maybe she wouldn’t see him.

Except for the elephant, Michael saw no one. The barn and paddock of one of the last of the animals was the worst place to hide. He’d be found immediately. Everyone had probably tried this. Even so, when the elephant wandered out of sight down the hill, Michael sprang over the fence and silently ran to the barn, his backpack bouncing and throwing him off balance, expecting bullets to turn him into mush.

Inside, he quickly looked around and saw above the concrete floor a loft filled with bales of hay. He climbed up the ladder and burrowed down. The hay poked through his shirt and pants and tickled his feet through the hole in his shoe. Carefully, through the backpack, he felt for his notebook. It was safe.

“I see you,” came a woman’s voice from below. Michael froze. He held tight to his pack.

Something slapped the hay bale beside him and pulled it down. The ceiling light shone down on him.

It was the elephant.

“You’re not going to hide up there,” she said. Michael leaned over the edge. “Did you talk?”

“Get out of my stall.” She whipped her trunk up and grabbed him by the leg, dragging him off the edge.

“Hold it, Jackie.” A voice from the wall.

Jackie held him over the ground. “You’re slipping, Ralph. I should have found his corpse outside hanging on the fence.” She brought the boy to her eyes and Michael knew she was thinking of smashing him to jelly on the concrete then and there.

“Don’t,” he whispered.

“We all make mistakes.” The wall again.

“Should I toss him out or squish him? This is your job. Not mine.”

“Let him down. Perhaps he’ll be of use.”

The moment stretched out. Michael stared at her. So scared he couldn’t breathe. So excited the elephant was right there, up close and in front of him, he couldn’t look away.

Slowly, reluctantly, she let him down. “Whatever.”

A seven-foot metal construction project—a Zoo Keeper—came into the room from outside. Three metal arms with mounted cameras, each with their own gun barrel, followed both Jackie and Michael.

“Follow me.” This time the voice came from the robot.

Michael stared at Jackie for a moment. She snorted contemptuously and turned to go back outside.

Michael slowly followed the Keeper, watching Jackie leave. “Elephants talk?”

“That one does,” said the Keeper.

“Wow,” he breathed.

*   *   *

“Open your backpack,” the Keeper ordered.

Michael stared into the camera/gun barrel. He guessed it was too late to run. He opened the backpack and emptied it on the floor.

The Keeper separated the contents. “A loaf of bread. Two cans of tuna. A notebook. Several pens.” The lens on the camera staring at him whirred and elongated toward him. “Yours? You read and write?”

“Yes.”

“Take back your things. You may call me Ralph, as she does,” said the Keeper as it led him into an office.

“Why aren’t I dead?”

“I try not to slaughter children if I can help it. I have some limited leeway in interpreting my authority.” The voice paused for a moment. “In the absence of a director, I’m in charge of the Zoo.”

Michael nodded. He stared around the room. He was still in shock at seeing a real, live elephant. The talking seemed kind of extra.

The Keeper remained outside the office and the voice resumed speaking from the ceiling.

“Please sit down.”

Michael sat down. “How come you still have lights? The only places still lit up are the Zoo and the Cathedral.”

“I’m still able to negotiate with Union Electric. Not many places can guarantee fire safety.”

Michael had no clue what the voice was talking about. “It’s warm,” he said tentatively.

“With light comes heat. Now, what is your name?”

“Michael. Michael Ripley.”

“How old are you?”

Michael looked around the room. “Eleven, I think.”

“You’re not sure?”

Michael shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I was six when my parents died. Uncle Ned took me in. I stayed with him for five years. The Long Bottom Boys killed him a few months ago.”

“You have no surviving relatives?” Michael shrugged and didn’t answer. “Where do you live?”

Michael’s attention snapped to the Keeper and he looked around the ceiling warily. “I just hang around the park.”

“You have no place to stay?”

“No.”

“Would you like to stay here?”

Michael looked around the room again. It was warm. There was clearly plenty to eat. None of the gangs were ever allowed inside. But where did they get the food for the animals? How come people weren’t allowed in at night? Maybe he was on the menu here, too.

“I guess,” he said slowly. “Good. You’re hired.”

“What?”

“You will call me Ralph as I told you before. I will call you Michael except under specific circumstances when I will address you as ‘Assistant Director.’ Do you understand?”

Michael stared at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to do?”

Dear Mom,

I found a job. It is helping to take care of an eleefant. Her name is jakee. She is not very much fun but I like her anyway. Maybe she’ll like me better when she gets to Know me. She is an eleefant!!! I don’t think I ever saw an eleefant before. Just in the books you red to me.

I work in the zoo. I bet you never thawt I would ever work in a zoo. Most of the animals are gon. But there is the eleefant and a rino. No snaks.

It is a lot better than sleepng in the dumstrs. And a dumstr does not stop a rifle much. I miss you and DAD. But I don’t miss uncle NeD all that much. I miss the apartment, though.

Love, Mike

He was mucking out her stall when Jackie entered. She stopped and looked down at him.

“What are you doing?”

Michael straightened up. He tried to smile at her. “Working. Ralph hired me.”

“To do that?”

Michael looked around. “I don’t know. This seemed like it needed doing.”

Jackie didn’t speak for a moment. “Let the Keepers do that. Come with me.” He followed her to the door of the stall.

“We’ll start with the first office on the left. You go in there and look for papers. Books. Notes. Memos. Anything with writing on it. You know what writing is?”

“I know what writing is.”

“Good.”

Michael looked up at her. “How did you learn to talk?”

“That’s not your business. Do your job.”

It wasn’t a small job. It seemed that the world of zoos ran on paper. Just pulling the folders out of the first office took three days. Michael’s duties didn’t end with bringing the papers out. The type was small enough he often had to hold it in front of first one of Jackie’s eyes, then the other. It wasn’t easy on Jackie, either. She had to stop regularly because of headaches. When he could, he tried to read them himself to see what Jackie was trying to find. She smacked him with her trunk if she caught him so he took extra time in the offices.

A cold rain descended on the Zoo. Ralph closed the doors and turned up the heat. Jackie was irritable at the best of times. Being inside only made her worse.

A month after Michael had come to the Zoo, when a late spring snow was sticking wetly to the ground outside, Jackie stared out the window resting her eyes from reading. Michael was sitting in front of the heater duct, eyes closed, luxuriating in the hot wind blowing over him. Jackie had been pushing him all morning but now she was fixing her gaze outside to ease her headache.

“So, kid, what’s your story?”

Michael was instantly alert. “What do you mean?”

“Ralph told me you didn’t have anybody outside. I know that much.” Jackie turned her great head to look at him, and then stared outside again. “Where are your folks? Mom and Dad? Uncle and Aunt?”

“Mom and Dad died, like everybody else.” Michael shrugged. There wasn’t much to say about it. “Uncle Ned let me stay with him over near the Cathedral until he got caught by the Long Bottom Boys. I got away. I’ve been scrounging until now.”

“Tough out there, is it?”

“I guess. It wasn’t so bad with Ned. I took care of him. He took care of me.”

Jackie looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“As long as I kept him happy, he gave me a place to live and fed me and protected me from anybody else.” Michael considered Jackie thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what it takes to make an elephant happy.”

“Just do your job,” Jackie snapped at him. “That’ll be enough.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “Do you know how to get to the river from here?”

“Sure. But I wouldn’t try it. The Boys have everything sewed up around the park. I sure found that out.” He patted the duct and closed his eyes. “You have it nice here. Ralph keeps everybody out. You have food and heat. I sure wouldn’t leave.”

“I bet,” Jackie said dryly. “Okay. Let’s look at the lab books again.”

*   *   *

Over the next week, Ralph often spoke with Jackie. Most of the time Jackie sent Michael outside. Having nothing better to do, Michael took to visiting the other animals.

There weren’t many of them. Most of the exhibits were sealed and empty. The reptile house and the ape refuge were long abandoned. The bears were gone but some of the birds were still in the aviary and Michael stood for an hour in front of a single, lonely rhinoceros.

The rhino room became his favorite refuge. The rhino wasn’t short with him. The rhino didn’t ask him strange questions or snort with contempt when he tried to answer. The rhino didn’t call him an idiot. The rhino didn’t speak.

“Michael?” Ralph’s voice came from the ceiling. “Yes, Ralph.”

“Jackie and I are finished for the moment. You can come back.”

“Yeah.” Michael didn’t speak for a moment. “I do everything she asks.”

“I know.”

“I don’t talk back. I clean up after her. And elephants make a lot of shit. Why does she treat me like it?”

“You’re human. She has no love of humans. She needs you. That makes it worse.”

“What did humans do to her?”

“She’s the last of her herd. Humans brought her ancestors from India. Human scientists raised her and the others in these concrete stalls and gave her the power of speech. Then they let the rest of her herd die.”

“How come?”

“The scientists didn’t have much choice. They were already dead.”

“A plague like what killed my folks?”

“Somewhat. From what you told me, your parents died from one of the neo-influenzas. The scientists died of contagious botulism.”

“Where did all the plagues come from? How many are there?”

“Six hundred and seventy-two was the last count I received. But that was a few years ago and the data feed was getting unreliable toward the end. They came from different places. Some were natural. Some weren’t. Several were home grown by people with an agenda: religious martyrdom, political revenge, economic policy disagreements, broken romances. Some started out natural and were then modified for similar reasons.”

Michael mulled over what he understood. He didn’t have Ralph to himself very often. Likely this chance wouldn’t last long. “If she doesn’t like people so much, why are we spending so much time going through all the lab books? Why doesn’t she just leave?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

Dear Mom,

I thought elephants were nice. Jackie doesn’t like anybody. Not even Ralf. Hes nice to me but Jackie says he has to be that way. He’s a machine like the Keepers. Jackie said Ralf coodnt do what I am doing. It had to be a human beang.

But I still like her even if she doesnt like me. I like to watch her when shes eating. Its neat to watch her use her trunk, like a snake thats also a hand. There are two knobs on the end of her trunk she uses like fingers. Only they are much stronger than fingers. She pinched me yesterday and today its still sore!

I moved my bed to the loft. That way its right over the heater and the hot air comes right up under me. Its like sleeping in warm water.

I miss you and Dad. If you can see us from up there in heavun, try to make Jackie not get mad all the time.

Love, Mike

“Where did you find this?” Jackie pinned him against the wall. She held up a green lab book in her trunk.

Michael tried to push her away but it was like trying to move a mountain. “I’m not sure.”

“Where?”

Michael stopped struggling. “If you don’t like what I’m doing, then do it yourself.”

“That’s your job.”

“Then, back off !”

A moment passed. Jackie eased backwards. She handed him the lab book. “Here’s the date range,” she said pointing to the numbers on the page with her trunk. “See? Month, slash, day, slash, year. Here’s the volume number. This is volume six. I need volume seven for the same date.”

“What’s it going to tell you?”

Jackie raised her trunk and for a moment it looked like she was going to strike him. Michael stared at her.

Slowly, she lowered her trunk. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Say thank you.”

Jackie went completely still. “What did you say?”

“I said, say thank you.” Michael’s fists were clenched.

Jackie seemed to relax. She made a sound like a chuckle. “Get the lab book and I’ll thank you.”

“Fair enough,” he said shortly.

Back in the offices, he stood in the hall and let his breath out slowly. His hands were shaking.

“Good for you, Michael,” Ralph said from overhead. “Yeah. Now I’ve got to find the lab book she wants.”

“In the corner of each room is a camera,” said Ralph. “If you can hold up the papers, I can help.”

An hour later, he walked back into Jackie’s stall and solemnly held out the lab book to her.

“Thank you,” Jackie said in a neutral tone. “Hold it up to my eye.”

“Okay.”

Michael nodded.

Reading the lab book didn’t take long. “That’s enough,” Jackie said.

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“I don’t care. I’m going outside.”

Jackie turned and left the stall. Michael was surprised. It was cold out there and snow still remained on the ground from the night before.

He opened the lab book and went over the pages. There were few words but several figures and dates. It didn’t mean anything to him.

“What’s going on, Ralph?” Michael shivered and looked up at the gray sky. Spring was sure a long time coming. Ralph had told him this was April.

“I’m not sure,” Ralph said. “Maybe she found what she was looking for.”

*   *   *

Michael woke in the middle of the night. Sleepily, he looked over the edge of the loft. A Keeper was helping Jackie put something over her back.

“I don’t think I can do it,” Ralph said.

“Quiet. You’ll wake him. Maybe you can toss it over my neck and tie the ropes underneath.”

Michael sat on the edge of the loft and watched them a moment.

“You’re leaving,” he said after a moment.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.” Jackie tossed her trunk irritably.

Michael didn’t say anything. He climbed down to the apron and walked over to them. The Keeper was trying to pull some kind of harness over her neck and back. “Give me a knee up,” Michael said. “I can help.”

“No human will ever be on my back!” snarled Jackie.

“Suit yourself,” Michael said. “But the only way you’re going to be able to tie that harness is if you can center it on your back first and Ralph can’t do it. I can if I can get on your back.”

The Keeper extended his arm. “Here,” said Ralph.

Michael stood on the camera and the Keeper extended it until Michael could jump to Jackie’s neck. He grabbed the base of her ear and pulled himself up.

“That stings,” she said. “Sorry.”

In a few moments, he had the harness in place. Then he dropped to the floor and pulled it tight.

“Good job, Michael,” said Ralph.

Jackie shook herself and shifted her shoulders and back. “It’s tight. I’m ready.” Michael looked first at the Keeper, then at Jackie. “Are you closing the Zoo?”

“Not immediately,” said Ralph. “The food trucks have been coming in sporadically. I still have contacts with the farm and the warehouse. I’ve spoken with power and water. They say they are well defended but if somebody digs up a cable or blows up the pipes…” Ralph paused a moment. “My worst scenario is a year. My best scenario is five years.”

Michael felt suddenly lost. He looked up at Jackie. “Take me with you.”

“What?” Jackie snorted. “No way.”

“Come on,” Michael pleaded. “Look, to everybody out there, all you are is steak on a stroll. I can get you out of the city. Tell me where you want to go.”

“I—”

“She’s going south,” Ralph said smoothly. “She needs to follow the river south to the I-255 Bridge and then south to Tennessee.”

“Where’s I-255?”

“Oakville.”

Michael thought for a moment. “That’s not going to work. It’ll be dicey enough to get past the Long Bottom Boys around the park. But the Rank Bastards live that way and they have an old armory. Even the Boys are scared of them.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Ralph.

“Don’t ask him.” Jackie stamped her foot. “I can make it on my own.”

Michael stood next to her. He looked at the ground. “I’m a kid. I don’t have a gun. I’m not even very big. I can’t hurt you.”

Jackie looked away.

Michael nodded. “Well, once you’re out of the park you can’t go south. That’s the Green Belt—sharpshooters. They don’t ask questions. You just fall down dead about two miles away. You can’t go north through the Farm Country. They don’t have sharpshooters but they burned everything to the ground for six miles around them so you can’t hide. That means west or east. Gangs in both directions just like the Long Bottom Boys or worse. I’d take the old highway right into town to the bridge and take it across. There’s no boss around the bridge; there’s nothing there anybody wants. The road is high off the ground so you can’t be seen. If you’re quiet and quick, you can get through before anybody knows. Then, I’d stay on the highway all the way down. People stick to the farms to protect them. The highways don’t have anything. There are no gangs below Cahokia or many people either. Prairie Plagues got them. South of Cahokia, I don’t know anything.”

“How do you know all this?” Jackie snarled.

Michael stared at her. “If you don’t know where things are somebody’s going to have you for lunch. Uncle Ned taught me that and I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Jackie tossed her head and didn’t reply. “Jackie?” asked Ralph. “The idea has merit.”

Jackie didn’t speak for a long time. She stared out the door of the stall. Then she turned her head back to him. “Okay,” she asked reluctantly.

“When do we leave?” Michael turned to the Keeper.

Jackie slapped the back of his head. “Right now. Get aboard.”

Michael rubbed his head. “That hurt,” he said as he climbed up on her back. She rumbled out of the light.

“Good luck!” called Ralph after them.

“Wait!” Michael turned and called back. “What’s going to happen to the rhino?” He couldn’t hear the reply.

*   *   *

They didn’t say anything as Jackie walked slowly down behind the reptile house. Her ears were spread out and listening. The gate swung open at a brush of her trunk. Michael was impressed. A secret entrance.

“Check it out.”

Michael slipped to the ground and peered through the bushes. No Boys. He signaled and she followed him, pushing aside the branches. She knelt down and he climbed back up. They listened. Nothing. She started walking up the hill.

Jackie was quieter than he’d imagined. She walked with only a soft, deep padding sound.

She stopped at the edge of the road. “Where to?” she asked in a low rumble. Michael leaned next to her ear and whispered as quietly as he could. “Don’t talk.”

I’ll tell you where to go. Go to the right down the road. Then, when you go over the bridge, walk down to your left. That’s where the highway is.”

Jackie nodded abruptly and he could tell she wasn’t pleased that he should tell her to be quiet but she didn’t say anything. He figured he’d get an earful if they made it down below the river.

Michael looked around and listened. It was in the middle of the night. He couldn’t smell a fire. Sometimes the Boys built a fire with the contents of one of the old houses. They drank whatever hooch they could find—raiding other gangs if necessary—and fired guns into the air and shouted at the moon until dawn. That would have been ideal. If Michael and Jackie were seen by the party, they would be seen by drunks.

No fire meant one of two things. Either there was no one around here or they were out hunting. A bunch of hungry, desperate, sober Long Bottom Boys was about the worst news Michael could think of. There was no hint of sweetness in the air—no mushroom festooned corpses indicating the site of a battle. That was good. The Long Bottom Boys were big on ceremonial mourning and they killed anyone they found. There weren’t many left in Saint Louis but not so few that the Boys couldn’t find someone to kill and then ritually stand over while the mushrooms returned the corpse to the earth.

Michael sweated every foot of the walk to the highway. But the night remained silent.

The highway here was level with the ground, but after a mile or two it rose to a grand promenade looking down on the ruins of the city. Michael whispered to Jackie that now was the time to run (quietly!) if she could.

Jackie didn’t reply. Instead, she lengthened her stride until he had to grab on to her ears to stay on her neck. He looked down and saw the riotous dark of her legs moving on the pavement.

There was a shot behind them in the direction of the park. Jackie stopped and turned around. They saw a flash and a dull boom. Then, gradually like the sunrise, the glow of an increasing fire.

Oh, Michael thought hollowly as he stared at the tips of the flames showing over the trees. That’s what was going to happen to the rhino.

“Come on,” he urged. “People are going to wake up. We need to get near the river before they start looking away from the park.”

The road curved around the south of downtown and then north to reach the river bridges. They could not see the river below them as they crossed but they heard the hiss and rush of the water, the low grunt of the bridge as it eased itself against the flow, the cracks and booms as floating debris struck the pilings.

Then they were over it and traveling south, the flat farmland on their left, the river bluffs on their right, the road determinedly south toward Cahokia.

Dear Mom,

We reached Cahokia a little before daylite. We could tell we got there by the sign on the highway. I wasnt tired at all. But Jackee was. It must have been hard work walking all that way. Heres something intristing. Eleefants cant run. Jackee told me. They can walk relly fast but they are to big to run.

Jackee still doesnt like me much. She doesnt talk to me unless its to get help figuring out where we are. Mostly she can figur it out. But she needs my hands. I figur one of these days shell leave while I am asleep. So I sav things when I can.

She says we’re going to Tenesee. Howald, Tenesee. There used to be eleefants there. She says she thinks they might be still there. If she doesn’t find them there, she’s going to try to get to Florida. It’s warm all the time down there. There’s lots of food to eat and it’s never winter. That sounds pretty good to me.

I would like to stay with her. She is big and pretty and reel strong. She doesnt talk to me very nice. I dont think she would protek me like Ned did.

I will writ agin tomoro.

love, mike

Michael was surprised that they saw no people in Cahokia. The farmlands he had been thinking of were bounded by weeds but, other than that, looked as if cultivated by invisible hands. They saw no one. The only sounds were the spring birds, the river and the wind. Every few steps they could see a little mound of soil. The mushrooms had all dried up and blown away but these mounds still marked where someone had died.

That first day, when they made camp in a hidden clearing, Michael discovered that Ralph had planned for him to accompany Jackie all along. There was a tent, sleeping bag and all manner of tools: a tiny shovel, a knife, a small bow and arrow, the smallest and most precious fishing set Michael had ever seen. In a flap cunningly designed to be hidden, he found a pistol that fit his hand perfectly. Next to it, separated into stock, barrel, and laser sight, was a high-powered rifle. A second flap had ammunition for both, exploding and impact bullets in clearly marked containers. Michael stared at them. He suddenly realized he could take down an elephant with this weapon. Ralph must have known that. The implied trust shook him.

“What did you find?”

Michael realized she hadn’t seen the guns. The pistol was no threat. He pulled it out and showed it to her.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Yes.” He replaced the pistol. Next to the weapons were Jackie’s vitamin supplements along with finely labeled medicines and administration devices that only a human being could use.

Jackie snorted when she saw it all laid out.

Michael looked at everything, sorted and arrayed in front of him, for a long time. He wondered how long they’d be able to keep such treasures as this. He realized he might need the rifle.

*   *   *

Occasionally between long stretches of young woods and tall fresh meadows, they saw a few manicured fields that were laid out so ruler straight that the two of them stopped and stared. These, Jackie told him, must be tilled by machines. No human or animal would ever pay such obsessive attention to details. But no machines could be seen, and even these meticulous rows of corn or soybeans were frayed at the edges into weeds and brambles.

Even so, as tempting as a field of new corn was to Jackie, she was unwilling to chance it. Machines were chancy things, she said, with triggers and idiosyncrasies. Even negotiating with Ralph had been difficult when it went against his programming. Better to wait until they found an overgrown field down the road.

Jackie had no trouble finding food. It had been a wet spring and now that the sun had come out, the older and uncultivated fields sprouted volunteer squash and greens.

They fell into a routine. In the evening, they agreed on a likely spot and Michael took the harness off of her and set up camp. Michael was afraid she might step on him while she slept, so Jackie slept off a little ways from Michael’s tent.

At first light, Jackie went off to find her day’s sustenance. Michael made himself breakfast out of the stores Ralph had left him. He tried his hand at fishing in the tributary rivers of the Mississippi and gradually learned enough to catch enough for a good meal. He tried to eat as much as he could in the morning. It was likely they wouldn’t stop until nightfall.

After he had eaten and before Jackie returned, he waited, wondering if she would come back.

She always did. She eased herself down the bank and drank, knee deep in the river. Jackie was always impatient to get started and stamped her feet as Michael repacked the harness. Then she made a knee for him and he climbed aboard. Always they went south. Always as quickly as Jackie could. Hohenwald first, since that was where the elephant sanctuary had been. But continuing south after that, if she didn’t find them. South, she told him, was warm in the winter. South had food all year round.

Michael was amenable. He felt pretty safe. He was well fed. He’d learned the trick of riding Jackie and enjoyed watching the river on the right slip smoothly ahead of them and the land on the left buckle and roll up into bluffs and hills.

Spring turned warm and gentle. Michael felt happier than he could remember, up until they reached the spot where the Ohio poured into the Mississippi and the bridge was gone.

*   *   *

They stood on the ramp of Interstate 57 looking down at the wreckage. The near side of where the bridge had been was completely dry. Stained pilings that had clearly been underwater at one point rested comfortably in a grassy field. On the far side, the remains of the bridge had broken off a high bluff as if the whole southern bank of the river had slid downhill. The river narrowed here, to speed up and pour into the slower moving Mississippi. Huge waves burst into the air as the rivers fought one another. They were over a mile away from the battle, but even from here they could hear the roar.

“The earthquake, maybe?” muttered Jackie.

“Earthquake?”

“About eight years ago the New Madrid fault caused a big quake down here. Ralph told me about it. The scientists had expected it to hit St. Louis as well but the effects were to the east so we were spared.” Jackie shook her great head and swayed from one side to another. “How are we going to get across now?”

Michael looked at the old atlas. “There’s a dam upstream near Grand Chain Landing.”

“Look at the bridge!” Jackie trumpeted and pointed with her trunk. “It’s just a sample. Look at the river. The dam is probably gone, too.”

Michael looked upstream. “We’ll find something. We just can’t go south for a little while.”

Jackie just snorted. After a moment, she turned slowly toward the east.

Dear Mom,

So far we still haven’t been able to cross the OHIO river. I think it was even bigger than the Missspi. Even at night, we can hear it rushing by. Every now and than, something floats by. Today I saw six trees, a traler and an old house float by. Jackie says it’s becawse of the flud upstreem.

I can tell sumthing is bothering jackie. She hasnt been as mean lately. Its not just that we arnt moving sowth. It is sumthing more.

Love, Mike

As Jackie predicted, the dam was gone. Perhaps the Ohio, powered by spring rains, had ripped apart the turbines and concrete. The ground trembled as the water poured over the remaining rubble.

“Now what?” Jackie said in a soft rumble.

“Could you swim across?” Michael asked doubtfully. “Can’t elephants swim?”

“Look at the water,” Jackie said shrilly. “No one can swim through that.”

“Then not here. How about where the water doesn’t run so fast?”

Jackie didn’t answer.

Michael stared at the map closely.

“There used to be a ferry in Metropolis. Maybe we could get a boat.”

“A ferry?” Jackie turned her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “I weigh in at six tons.”

Michael nodded. “A big ferry, then. Couldn’t hurt to look. It’s just a few miles up the road.”

“A ferry,” Jackie muttered. “A ferry.”

The center of Metropolis clustered around a bend in Highway 45. Jackie and Michael followed the signs down to the docks. The shadow of the broken Interstate 24 Bridge fell across the road and in the distance they could see the disconnected ends of the lesser Highway 45 bridge.

A great half sunken coal barge rested against the dock on the right side. The surface of the water was punctured by the rusting remains of antennas poking up from drowned powerboats on the left. Between them nestled the ferry Encantante incongruously upright and unmangled. A man sat on the deck, whittling. He looked up as they came down the hill.

“Don’t believe I’ve ever seen an elephant down this way before,” he said as he stood up. “What can I do for you?” He was a tall, thin man. Michael couldn’t tell exactly how old he was. His hair was turning gray but his face seemed smooth and unwrinkled. Thirty, thought Michael. Doesn’t people’s hair turn gray when they are thirty? The man was dressed in a red and black plaid jacket against the cool river air.

Michael spoke up before Jackie could respond. He hoped she would remain silent. He was pretty sure talking elephants would be suspicious.

“We need to get across.”

“Do you, now?” He tapped out his pipe against the side of the ferry and refilled it carefully. “My name’s Gerry. Gerry Myers. You are?”

“Michael Ripley. This is Jackie.”

Gerry nodded. “All right then.” He looked at the elephant. “I’ve never put an elephant on my boat. But it can’t weigh much more than four or five of those little cars so it would probably be okay. He won’t jump or move about?”

“Jackie’s a girl.” Michael looked at the water ripping along.

Gerry followed his gaze. “Yeah. ‘She,’ then. She won’t move around? Be a damned shame if she turned over the boat and killed us all.”

“She won’t.”

“Good. Well, then. Since you are the only human being I’ve seen in some months,” Gerry said dryly, “and since I’ve buried everybody else, I’m inclined to think about your proposal.” Gerry looked at him closely. “You’re not sick, are you?”

Michael shrugged. “I feel pretty good.”

“Doesn’t mean much, does it?” Michael shook his head.

Gerry stared out over the river and sighed. “Yeah. The last good citizen of the Metropolis that had lunch with me said he hadn’t felt this good in months. I went looking for him when he didn’t show up for dinner. He was dead sitting in his kitchen with a smile on his face. Only thing I can say is apparently he died so suddenly he forgot to feel bad about it.”

Gerry lit his pipe and puffed at it for a moment. “Speaking of lunch, I’m a bit hungry. Care to eat with me?”

Michael hesitated.

Gerry pointed at the bluff up the hill from them. “On the other side of that is an old soybean field. Lots of good leafy growth for Jackie. Maybe you could turn her loose and eat with me.”

“I don’t know.” Gerry didn’t look like somebody that would kill him and roast Jackie. Uncle Ned had known who to trust—until the day he didn’t, Michael corrected himself. How could you tell? Michael had a sneaking suspicion he would have to pay for the ride one way or another.

“Well, the field’s there. Suit yourself. I’ll be eating lunch in half an hour or so. In that warehouse looking building over there. Come by if you want to.”

Michael nodded. Jackie turned and started up the hill.

The field was as advertised and there were no visible people around to take advantage of them.

“I’ll eat here. You watch,” said Jackie.

“I’d just as soon go on and have lunch with the old man,” Michael said as he unharnessed her. “We still have to cross the river. Seems like we ought to know something about the other side.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anybody.” Michael rummaged through the packs until he found the pistol. “I got this.”

“You be careful, then,” Jackie said. “I’ll be coming down there if you try to run off.”

“Yeah. I like you, too.” Michael hefted the pistol. It was heavier than it looked. He made sure it was loaded and checked the action.

Jackie watched him. “Where did you learn to handle a gun?”

“Uncle Ned taught me,” Michael said shortly. “I kept guard when he foraged.”

“Then…” Jackie stopped for a moment. “If you had the gun, why didn’t you leave him?”

“It took both of us to stay alive,” Michael released the chamber and made sure the safety was on. He put the gun in his pocket. “He was a lot bigger than I was. He protected me. I helped him. Staying with him made a lot of sense.”

“But he—” Jackie shook her head.

“When the Boys found us he sent me off and took them on by himself.”

Jackie was silent a moment. “So you wanted to leave with me because I’m a lot bigger than you are. I can protect you. Staying with me makes a lot of sense.”

Michael stared at her. “Are you kidding? I’m traveling with six tons of fresh meat. What part of that makes sense to you?”

“Then why did you come with me?”

Michael stood up and didn’t answer. He trotted down the hill toward the landing. Jackie stared after him.

*   *   *

Gerry was cooking in an apartment above the warehouse. The room had a nautical feel to it. Every piece of furniture had been carefully placed. The curtains over the window were a red and white check. The table was an austere gray, with metal legs and a top made of some kind of plastic. The countertops looked similar.

Two plates had been set out. The fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right, napkin folded just so on the plate. Plastic water glasses were set at precisely the same angle for each place setting.

Michael stood in the doorway, not sure what to do. Coming into the room felt like breaking something.

“Come on in,” said Gerry. He was stirring a pot. The contents bubbled and smelled deliciously meaty. “Channel catfish bouillabaisse.” He ladled out two full bowls and handed one to Michael. “Been simmering since this morning. Have a seat.”

They sat across the table and in a few moments, Michael forgot Gerry was even there. He only remembered where he was when the bowl was half empty. Michael looked up.

Gerry was watching him with a smile on his face. “Good to see someone enjoy my cooking. Want some bread? Baked it yesterday.”

Michael broke off a piece. Next to the bread was a small plate with butter. For a long minute, Michael stared, unable to recognize it. Then he remembered and smeared the bread across it.

“Whoa there. Use the knife.”

Michael shrugged, pulled out his small hunting knife and smeared the butter across the bread.

Gerry raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “Fair enough. But next time use the little knife next to the butter.”

Michael sopped up the rest of the soup with the bread and leaned back in his chair, stuffed and happy.

Gerry picked up the bowls and put them in the sink. “Come on down to the porch.” Michael followed him outside and down the stairs to a part of the dock that jutted over the water. Under an awning, he sat down in a lawn chair while Gerry pulled a box out of the river and opened it. He pulled out two bottles. He gave Michael the root beer and kept a regular beer for himself.

Michael sat back in the chair and savored the sharp, creamy flavor.

Gerry said nothing and the two of them watched the river roll by.

“So,” Gerry said at last. “What’s waiting for you on the other side of the river?”

“Hohenwald, Tennessee,” Michael said and sipped his root beer. He could get used to this. “Then, maybe Florida.”

“What’s in Hohenwald?”

“An elephant sanctuary. Elephants don’t like to be alone.”

Gerry nodded. “I thought Florida was underwater.”

“A lot of it is. But Jackie says the upper part of Florida is still there.” Michael stopped.

“I see,” said Gerry. He was silent a moment. “You’re an awful nice boy to be crazy.”

Michael didn’t say anything. If Gerry wanted to think he was crazy that was all right with him.

“You don’t think you’ll find anybody down there, do you?” asked Gerry.

Michael shrugged. “How would I know?”

Gerry nodded. “Everything’s pretty much fallen apart. I think there might be five people left alive here in Metropolis. You’d think we’d hang together. But it didn’t seem to work out that way. There might be a few hundred out in the countryside. Seems like I spent the last five years burying everyone I’ve ever known. I can’t believe it’s much better down south.”

Michael finished his root beer and put it on the deck. “That’s where Jackie has to go. She has to have something she can eat in the winter.”

Michael looked up at the remains of the bridge. He had only really known Saint Louis. It looked like things were messed up everywhere. For the first time he had an inkling what that meant.

“What was it like before?” Michael muttered.

Michael had been talking to himself, but even so, Gerry reacted. His face seemed to take on a rubbery texture. “Everything just came apart. First, the weather went to shit. Then came plagues, one after another. And not just people. Birds. Cattle. Sheep. Wheat. Beans. There was about six years where you couldn’t get a tomato unless you grew it yourself. Even then, it wasn’t much better than fifty-fifty. Oaks. Sequoias. Shrimp. Government would figure out how to make tomatoes grow again and every maple in the county would fall over and rot. They’d get a handle on that and the next thing you know somebody had engineered a virus that lived in milk. Why would anyone ever do that?” He shook his head. “Figured that one out after a couple of million kids. Right after that, the corn began to wither. We got a strain of corn that would grow and a tidal wave comes roaring over the East Coast. Boston, Providence, and New York go under water.”

He stopped and sat up. He pulled out his bandanna and wiped his eyes. “If I believed in God, I’d go out and kill a calf on a rock or something. We sure as hell pissed him off.” Gerry sighed. “Ah, musn’t grumble.” He sipped his beer, composed again.

Michael stared at him. Maybe Gerry did this all the time. “So,” began Michael after a long and awkward silence. “We should cross here?”

“That’s true. I’m pretty much the only game in town. But that’s not my point.” He pointed over the river at the opposite shore. “That’s Kentucky. Or what’s left of it. Things have been falling apart for a long, long time. I was sitting on my boat twenty years ago when the big rush came down the river that took out the two bridges. I could see it coming, a fifteen-foot wall of trash and debris rolling down on top of us. I had just enough time to pull Encantante into the creek downstream behind the oak bluffs when it washed over Metropolis and scoured everything between us and Cairo. Back then we still had people living here, so we were able to clean up and rebuild over a couple of years.” Gerry chuckled. “My little ferry business picked up because nobody was going to rebuild the bridges—we were still in a crisis at that point. It hadn’t become a disaster yet. Not enough people had died.”

“Where did the water come from?”

Gerry shook his head. “Never really figured that out. Was it just the Smithland Dam that let go? Or did one big flood start way up the river and then take out all the dams one by one on the way down? I do know that flood is what took out the two dams downstream from here and when I did go up to look at Smithland, there wasn’t much left of it. I came back. Then, about six years later, I loaded up a boat I had with all the fuel I could find and went up nearly five hundred miles to see what the hell was going on. It’s not like you could trust anything you heard on the radio. I only knew what had happened here. I didn’t turn around until I reached Cincinnati. There wasn’t a bridge or a dam left standing the whole way. This was before the earthquake. Maybe somebody blew them up. It was a big mystery until other things sort of overshadowed it. But you let me wander away from my point again.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault.”

“My point is that now the only thing that keeps what’s on the Kentucky shore from coming over onto this shore is that river.”

Michael shook his head. “So? What’s over there that’s not over here?”

Gerry shrugged. “Things. Big lizards, sometimes. Maybe a crocodile or two. Big animals—I haven’t seen any elephants. But I might have seen a tiger.”

“Yeah, right.” Michael snorted. “Pull the other one. A mountain lion, maybe.”

Gerry shrugged again. “When we put dams and bridges across the water, cars and buses weren’t the only things that crossed. Now the dams and bridges are gone and what lives on the other side stays on the other side. It’s not going to be as easy to get over here as it was before.”

“We crossed the bridge in Saint Louis. It was just fine.”

Gerry pulled his pipe out of his pocket along with his pocket knife and began cleaning the bowl. “Maybe things can’t cross up that far north. Maybe the Mississippi keeps things from crossing west just like the Ohio keeps things from crossing north. Maybe I’m just having old man hallucinations. But I know what I saw. There are things that live on that side of the river I don’t see on this side. You cross the river and they’re sure as hell going to see you.”

Michael didn’t look at him. “That’s where she has to go. She just can’t get food up here in the winter.”

“What did you do in Saint Louis?”

“The Zoo kept us alive. But it’s gone now.”

Gerry sighed. “She’s a pretty animal. I guess there’s no animal on earth so noble and beautiful, and just plain big, as an elephant. But it doesn’t belong here. Jackie should be in India.”

“I can’t take her to India.”

“I know that.” Gerry hesitated. “Maybe it’s time to cut her loose.” Michael stared at the decking. He didn’t know what to say.

Gerry pointed across the river. “Tell you what. You and I take her across the river and let her off the boat. Maybe she’ll work her way south. You come back here with me.”

Michael looked at him, trying to see if there was some hint of Uncle Ned in his face. He couldn’t tell. Michael was in no particular hurry to repeat that arrangement. “I don’t know.”

Gerry finished tamping the tobacco in the bowl and lit his pipe. “You know that soybean field I sent you to up on the hill? It’s a pretty field, isn’t it? The soybeans are one of those perennial varieties popular about fifteen years ago. When I was a kid that was a toxic waste site with a lot of mercury and cadmium and toxic solvents. Don’t look at me that way. That was years ago. It’s safe enough for her now. Anyway, you know how they reclaimed it?”

“No.”

“It was pretty neat, actually. They took some engineered corn. Corn pushes its roots deep into the soil—as much as ten feet in some varieties. This corn pulled up the metals and concentrated them into the kernels of the ear. It discolored the kernels. Some were silver, some were bright blue.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Anyway,” continued Gerry. “Because of the metal concentration, the kernels were expected to be sterile. Most of them were. But coons attacked the field and ate some and got sick. So that was one problem they had. Crows pecked at the ears and got sick. That was another. Bits of the ears were dragged by various animals a ways away. Turned out some were fertile after all. They took root and started growing over data lines. The plant couldn’t tell the difference between a heavy metal being cleaned up in a waste site or a similar heavy metal in a computer underground.”

Michael stamped his feet. “What are you talking about?”

Gerry stared hard at him. “I don’t know what’s across the river. I’m saying it could be anything.”

“What? Killer corn?”

Gerry snorted. “Of course not. But if people can rebuild corn and it escapes what else could they have done? Crocodiles to control Asian lung fish? Killer bees to control oak borers? I know what lives around here. I live with it every day. I know things are different across the river.” Gerry calmed himself. “You take your elephant across the river if you want to. But you’ll come back and stay here with me if you’re smart.”

*   *   *

Jackie was waiting for him in the afternoon shade. A vast section of the soybean field had been leveled and she looked well-fed for the first time in several days.

Michael looked around. “Tasty?”

Jackie looked at the field. “Pretty good.” Her belly even seemed a little swollen.

“How much longer until we get to Hohenwald?”

Jackie shook her head. “Couple of weeks, I hope.”

“And Florida?”

“If we go to Florida, I expect we’ll get there midsummer.” Michael thought for a moment. “Do you know the date?”

“It’s the first of May.”

“May day,” said Michael slowly. “That’s six weeks.” Jackie looked at him with one eye. “So?”

“Could you get there faster if you weren’t carrying me?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference. I could only go faster if I didn’t take the time to keep fed. But I can’t afford to starve myself. Not now.”

“How come?”

“Never mind.”

“You’re hiding something.”

“So what? It doesn’t concern you.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” shouted Michael, surprising them both. Jackie stepped back. For a moment she stood, arrested, one leg raised ready in defense, three solidly on the ground.

“Are you going to squash me for shouting at you?” Michael shook his head in disgust. “I was better off with Ned.”

Slowly, Jackie eased her leg down. She turned and silently walked over to the pond in the middle of the soybean field. Michael watched as she pulled up water and splashed it over herself.

Dear Mom,

I don’t think Jackee will ever like me. I guess I was fooling myself. She’s an eleefant. She hates me because I’m a person and people did things to her and other eleefants.

Gerry wants me to stay here with him. He has a good thing here. Metropolis has a power sorse so he can stay warm for a long time. With everybody gone, the left over preserved food will be good for years. There are some wild crops here, too. Ned never had it so good.

Jackee doesn’t need me. Most of the stuff Ralph packed was for me. I could rig a bag for her to carry around her neck for the stuff she has to have. That ought to be enough. And it’s not like I’m holding stuff for her to read anymore. Whatever she found back at the Zoo must have been all she wanted. She hasn’t been interested in anything but going south since.

When I told this to Jackee she didn’t say anything for a while. Then, all she said was, Suit yourself.

So, I guess I’ll be staying in Metropolis.

love, Mike

Gerry waited at the ferry while Michael walked with Jackie back up to the soybean field. Michael decided he didn’t want Gerry to know about her. It felt safer to keep everything quiet. Jackie followed his lead silently.

Michael kept glancing at her as she ate, trying to see if she had any regrets he was staying here. Her elephantine face was inexpressive but her movements were short and abrupt. Could she be angry at him for staying? Or just impatient to be on her way?

When she was done, he slung the makeshift bag around her neck so she could reach it and led her back down to the dock. She stepped gingerly onto the metal floor of the ferry. There was plenty of room and even in the strong current, it only swayed slightly.

Gerry cast off without comment and angled the ferry upstream into the river. Michael felt the powerful motor bite into the current and the entire craft hummed. But he could not hear the motor itself, only the churning of the propeller.

Gerry caught his expression. “Quiet, isn’t she? Electric motor.”

He pulled up the hatch. Michael saw a roundish cube with the shaft coming out connected with thick cables to a cylindrical device.

“That’s the motor,” Gerry said pointing to the cube. “That’s power storage.” He pointed to the cylinder.

“A battery?”

“They called it a fuel coil when I bought the boat. Not sure how it works but it holds about forty hours of power. These days I charge it up from a little turbine I dropped off the dock. Don’t need to use the boat that much. For longer trips I can charge it from a big fuel cell I can carry with me.” He dropped the hatch with a clang and returned to the wheel.

The Encantante passed the main eddy line and entered the center of the river. Gerry stepped up the motor and angled the Encantante more steeply. The ripples and twists in the current caused the boat to shift and slide a little. Not enough to make standing difficult but enough so Michael noticed. It made him grin. Jackie looked around nervously.

Then, they were across the main river and nearing the far side. Gerry eased off the throttle and dropped the Encantante below a bluff jutting out into the water. Again they crossed a strong eddy that made the ferry jump a moment. The water grew calm and Gerry brought Encantante to the dock.

Michael led Jackie off the ferry and stood with her for a moment in the middle of the road. He looked east, judging the vegetation. There was plenty. The forest was thick on the other side of the road and he could see the break in the trees signifying a field. Jackie wouldn’t starve.

Turning away from Gerry so he couldn’t see, Michael pulled the atlas out of his jacket.

“Here. You walk down here to Interstate 24 and take it south. Then take Highway 45 to Benton. Once you get to Benton, hunt around until you find Highway 641. Take that to Interstate 40, east. Then—”

“You’ve been over this. A lot.”

“Well, I wrote it down. There’s a leather holder I made for you. It’s tied to the belt and the directions are in it along with the map book. I drew it all out on the map so you wouldn’t get lost.”

“Thanks,” said Jackie shortly.

Michael nodded and stuffed the atlas into the bag. “You take care of yourself.” Jackie watched him as he walked back to the ferry. Michael felt his eyes sting. He looked back.

Jackie was only a few feet away. Something shook the brush on the far side of the road. Before he fully registered what it was, he was running at it, yelling at Jackie to back away. Gerry tried to grab him but Michael ducked under his hands.

It raised its thick body high on its legs and ran toward Jackie, its mouth open and narrow as a snake’s. Lizard? Crocodile? He ran past and stood, screaming, between them.

The thing stopped, closed its mouth and stepped back only so long for a long tongue to slip out and back. Then it lunged forward and grabbed for Michael. Michael danced back but it grabbed his leg and shook him off his feet, then raised its claws over him.

Michael heard trumpeting. Jackie’s leg came down on its midsection. The creature ruptured and blood and meat spewed across the road. Its jaw opened reflexively and Michael scrambled back. Jackie stamped on it until it was nothing but a flat, smeared ruin. Then she looked at Michael.

Michael smiled at her. She leaned over him and wrapped her trunk around his leg. He looked down and saw the blood and felt nauseous.

“This will hurt,” she said. She wrapped her trunk around his leg and squeezed. For a moment, Michael couldn’t see or breathe.

“Gerry!” Jackie shouted. “Get over here and pick him up!”

Gerry ran over to them and as he lifted Michael by the shoulders, Jackie lifted his leg. The pounding in his leg seemed to drown out everything.

Back in the ferry, Michael looked around. He must have blacked out a moment for they were now deep in the middle of the river. He felt sleepy.

“Don’t you go away on me,” said Jackie, kneeling next to him. “You stay here. Michael—”

Michael wanted to say he was sorry but he was as light as smoke and he drifted away.

PART 2

It was all light and dark for a long time. When things were lighter he slept in a brown haze as if he were swimming in honey. He was warm and safe. Occasionally, he was convulsed with pain. He couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from exactly. Sometimes it seemed to come from his neck. Other times, his leg. Sometimes he was riven by pain that seemed to come from nowhere.

This went on, it seemed, forever. Then, it grew lighter and he opened his eyes.

He was in a room, in a bed, that reminded him of when his parents still lived. The room had a window. As then the bed had been pushed against the wall so he could look out the window. It had sheets and a blanket. He fingered them gently, wondering if he was dreaming. Outside, the sun shone. His leg hurt.

He heard a grunt and Jackie’s head appeared in the window. She pushed it open. “How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy,” Michael said. “My leg hurts.”

“Go back to sleep if you want. I’ll be here.”

Michael nodded and smiled. Her trunk hovered in the air near him. He reached up and pulled it close, a warm and bristly comfort. He could feel the muscles tense a moment, then relax. The weight of it next to him, the grass smell of her breath, the beat of her pulse. Michael closed his eyes. He felt like he was floating in the air.

*   *   *

Gerry was sitting at the foot of the bed reading a book. The sunlight was gone and it looked threatening outside.

“An afternoon June storm,” Gerry said, looking up from his book. “June?” Michael shook his head. “It was May when we got to Metropolis.” Gerry nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Well?”

“Wait until Jackie gets back. She wanted to be here when you woke up. I only got her to go up the hill and eat by promising to call her if you woke up.”

Gerry returned to his book. “Aren’t you going to call her?”

Gerry shook his head. “It’s hard enough to get her to leave you. She needs to eat her fill. Know what you’re going to do?”

“What?”

“Pretend to be asleep so I don’t get in trouble.”

Michael closed his eyes obediently. Then he didn’t need to pretend.

*   *   *

It was the thunder that woke him. He started and his leg began to throb. He could see the bulking shadow of Jackie with her head in the window. Gerry had rigged some kind of awning over the window so at least her head wouldn’t get too wet. Michael didn’t like it. That was his job.

Gerry entered the room with a hissing lantern. He set it on the side table and moved the curtains away.

“There, you see? Let there be light.”

Michael tried to reach his leg but he was too weak. “Can you rub my leg? It really hurts.”

Gerry looked down.

“Michael,” Jackie rumbled gently. “You need to be brave.” Michael didn’t like the sound of it. “Am I going to die?”

“No,” said Jackie somberly. “The dragon bit your leg. We couldn’t save it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It got infected,” said Gerry. “It got so bad we thought it was going to take you with it. So, it had to go.”

“Go?” Michael shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“Gerry had to cut off your leg,” said Jackie.

“What?” Michael said weakly.

Gerry pulled back the blanket. Michael’s thigh and knee looked bruised and purple. Below that was a fat bandage that ended long before his ankle.

“You cut off my leg.” Michael couldn’t believe the stump was his. “This is a joke. I can still feel my foot.”

Gerry replaced the blanket. “After a while, your mind will accept there’s no foot there. Then you won’t feel it anymore.” The shape of the blanket now clearly showed what was missing. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

Michael stared at the blanket for a long time. Outside, the thunder receded and while the lightning played in the clouds, there was little sound but for the rain and the wind.

“You said dragon,” Michael said, looking up from his leg. He couldn’t stand to stare at it anymore.

“Komodo dragon lizard,” Gerry said. “Jackie figured out what it was as soon as she saw it.”

Jackie looked up at the sky. She looked inside the window. “I expect there were several zoos and other facilities in Florida that collapsed just like the zoo in Saint Louis. Maybe that rhino is still alive. For the summer, at least. According to Gerry, these lizards have survived for a while. I’m not sure how a tropical species can make it through a temperate winter. Perhaps they move south when the temperature drops. Or perhaps they find a place they can sleep through the cold. I suppose it’s possible there were enough of them that some were resistant to the cold. The ones less resistant died out and the remaining population bred. Evolution in action. Or maybe they were modified.”

Michael stared at her. Jackie was talking to him. Really talking to him. She had never done that before.

Gerry interrupted gently. “How are you feeling, Michael?”

Michael started. He’d forgotten Gerry was there. “My foot hurts.” He looked down at the blanket, oddly misshapen without his foot under it. Tears welled up. “What am I going to do?”

“Rest, for the moment,” said Jackie. “Then figure it out.”

*   *   *

Michael healed with all the combustive vitality of any well-fed young boy. By early July, the stitches were out and the skin over the stump was new and tender. He either hobbled about with a crutch that Gerry had made him or Jackie carried him.

But as the days wore on he started finding Jackie high on the broken end of the Interstate 24 Bridge carefully watching the other side.

“What’s over there?” Michael asked as he sat down and dangled his leg over the hundred foot drop.

“You shouldn’t sit so close to the edge,” Jackie said quietly.

“If this bridge will hold you, it’s going to hold me.”

Jackie reached over and picked him up with her trunk. “Edges crumble.” She put him down and he leaned against the wall. “Okay. What’s over there?”

“I’ve been watching the dragons.” She pointed with her trunk. “They come to the road once around sunrise and once around sunset. In the morning, when they’re warm enough, they leave the road and move to the forest at the edge of the clearing. At night, they slink away under the trees to sleep somewhere. A cave, maybe, or some other kind of den. If they’re hungry, they stay near the clearing until they’ve made a kill. Animals avoid the road so it’s not profitable to hunt there. That’s why they hug the edges of the clearings. There.” She pointed again across the river. “And there. See the carcass? It was a deer they took yesterday morning.”

Michael saw one leg sticking up from the ground in the clearing. Two long motionless shadows were lying near it.

“So the road is safe in the middle of the day.”

“Safer, anyway. This section of road has only two lanes. The wider roads might be better or worse. I can’t tell from here. Gerry was right about one thing. They’re not crossing the river.”

Michael saw something moving. A large spotted cat. He pointed it out to Jackie. “A leopard, maybe?” she said. “Look how it’s avoiding where the dragons are.”

“Look way in the distance in that clearing. Deer?”

“I don’t know. They don’t look like deer. Gazelles? Antelopes? Something the leopards and Komodos can eat, I suppose.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Zoos in Florida? Laboratories in Atlanta? I don’t know.” She paused a long time. “Over there things are going to be different.”

Michael leaned back against the ridge of her back. He rubbed the stump of his leg. It was still tender and it itched constantly. Sometimes, if he wasn’t thinking about it, he tried to scratch his toes.

“The summer is getting on,” Michael said. “We should get started.”

“Yeah, right,” Jackie snorted. “You want to lose both legs? You’re staying here with Gerry. I’ll go on down alone.”

“You need me!”

“I’ll cope. You were right. You belong here.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

Michael hesitated. “When I didn’t think you liked me.”

Jackie turned her head and looked at him. “What makes you think I like you now?”

“You stayed with me. Gerry said.”

“I felt guilty for getting you into this.”

Michael felt as if he were struck. Ned had never treated him this way. “Why? Why hate me? Why be so mean to me?” Michael felt like she was hiding something. How do you get someone to tell you what they don’t want to? “Why did you leave the Zoo?” he asked suddenly.

“I didn’t like humans. And I had to leave.”

Michael picked up on the “didn’t” immediately but kept it to himself. “Ralph said he had a couple of years yet. It didn’t have to be right then.”

“I had to leave.”

“Why? Why then? Why—when we could be back there enjoying good food and not staring over the river at dragons.”

Jackie shook her head.

Sudden rage shook Michael. “Damn it! I saved you. You owe me.”

Jackie sighed. “This is hard for me. Did you know there were four of us? Tantor, Jill, Old Bill, and me. We all learned to speak quickly enough but we hid it from the Keepers as long as we could. We had no love of them. Why should we? Even if we hadn’t had the wit to speak, we would have known this was not the place we should be.

“You saw the zoo. There were cameras everywhere. Where there are cameras, there can be no secrets. So we were found out. They taught us to read. They taught us anything they could get their monkey hands on. We talked it over among ourselves. Why not learn what they had to offer? What could it hurt? Learn the enemy, said Old Bill. But keep them distant.”

Jackie fell silent for a moment. “Every animal is wired its own way. Herd animals and pack animals are similar in one respect. They define themselves by membership in the group. Once you include a new member in the group, you’re bound to them. Wolves, cattle, and elephants are the same. We didn’t want that. We didn’t want to include humans in our tight little community. So we held back. We acted confused and slow. We did everything we could to make ourselves look stupid. Smart enough to work with, but our true nature held secret.

“Then the humans started dying. One after another. In groups. By themselves. Until we were by ourselves. Only Ralph was left to care for us.

“We were ecstatic. All we had to do was figure out how to escape Ralph and survive. We knew we had to go south. Georgia. Florida. Alabama. Where there was no snow in the winter and we could eat.

“Then Jill died. A bit of wire or glass left in the hay, maybe. No veterinarians left, right? We never really knew, but she died bloated and screaming. That left Old Bill and Tantor. I don’t know how it happened, but I woke up a few weeks later and they were fighting. It’s a terrible thing to see two five-ton animals slamming into one another. They had come into musth at the same time. I don’t know why. I think I came into heat watching them. Biology triumphant.”

Jackie snorted. “If they had been dumb beasts, one of them would have figured out they were losing and broken it off. Instead, Old Bill killed Tantor. He came over and mounted me.”

“But the battle hurt him, too. Inside, somehow. A concussion? Internal hemorrhaging? I’ll never know. He just wasted away. Then he was dead and I was alone and pregnant. You appeared on the scene a week after that.”

Michael stared at her. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m telling you why I had to leave. I didn’t have a couple of years. The gestation period of an elephant is twenty-two months. No more. No less. I’m five months pregnant. I have to find a place that’s safe, that’s warm, where I can raise my child.”

“Oh,” Michael said. “But why the hurry? That’s a couple of years.”

“Not really. I don’t know what’s at Hohenwald. What if there are no elephants left? Then it’s only me. A few months to find a place and get through the first winter—how will I know I’ve found a good spot until I’ve been through the winter? Then a few months to move to a new spot if I have to. Then a solid year of eating. That’s not much time. Not much time at all.”

Michael looked across the river. “Guess the dragons are a problem for a little guy.”

“You think?” she chuckled.

“I didn’t mean me,” Michael said reasonably. “You’re going to need me.” He looked up at her and she looked away. “And you know it, too. Is it so terrible to need a human when you’re so alone?” Michael looked over the edge of the bridge and spat. He could see it nearly all the way down. “Look at it this way. We used you when everybody was alive. Now’s your chance to use us—or at least me.”

“I don’t want to use anybody.”

“Then take me along because you like me. Take me along because you can use my monkey hands. Take me along because I don’t weigh much and won’t be a burden to carry. Only take me along!”

Jackie didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’re crippled.”

“Compared to you, everyone is crippled.”

“Michael, you’re missing one leg.”

“So?”

Jackie snorted. “You can’t keep up.”

“I couldn’t keep up before.”

“You’re being difficult.”

“Where did you ever get the idea I’d make leaving me behind easy for you?”

“You’re missing a leg!” Jackie trumpeted in frustration. “I can’t take you with me.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Jackie shook her head. “You’re missing a leg.”

“You said that.” Michael stared her straight in the eye. “Like I said: So?”

“Michael,” she said helplessly.

“You owe me an answer. And don’t give me the ‘not keeping up’ crap. You owe me better than that.”

Jackie stared back at him. “Okay,” she said slowly. “The truth is I don’t want to have to take care of you.”

“More crap.”

“Not at all. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I meet other elephants. I can’t have any more dependants than my own baby.”

“Let’s add some more truths here.” Michael felt like he was going to cry. He wiped his eyes angrily. “So I can’t walk without a crutch. I’m riding you anyway. Besides, when my stump heals, we can make an artificial leg. You read that yourself. Even Gerry said he could do it. We might even find one that will fit me. Just because there wasn’t anything in the Metropolis Hospital doesn’t say anything about other hospitals. So it’s not my leg. It’s not like I haven’t been useful. You wouldn’t have gotten out of Saint Louis without me. It’s been me, with my human hands, who’s been able to keep the stuff together. I’m the one who can use a gun. I’m the one that saved your life. The truth is you need me. Your baby needs me. So let me come along.”

“I’ll have to look out for you.”

“We’ll have to look out for each other. You didn’t see the dragon. I did.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anybody to die around me. Not again.” She shuddered.

For a moment, Michael could read her as clearly as if she were a human being standing right in front of him: her face dark and sad, her eyes haunted. He reached up and took her trunk and draped it around his shoulder. He stroked it gently. “You’re going to need all the help you can get. You’ve got a baby coming. You don’t even know if the elephants are still there or if you can find them. You’re going to need my hands and my eyes. Better take them with you.”

“Why do you want to go with me so much?”

Michael laughed. “Are you kidding? Live on the back of an elephant? What kid wouldn’t trade his teeth to be in my place?”

“That can’t be the only reason.”

“Oh, there are a million reasons for us to be together. I can’t think of all of them for you.” Michael hugged her trunk. He looked up at her. “I’m going to be an uncle!”

*   *   *

This time, Gerry kept the Encantante a hundred yards from shore while Michael and Jackie watched for signs of the dragons.

Michael scanned the forest with the binoculars Gerry had given him. “I don’t see any.”

“We saw the kill in the clearing this morning. They should be there,” Jackie said. “And they might have decided to stay in the shade today,” Gerry commented dryly.

“Why miss a chance at a mountain of meat?”

“Quiet,” said Michael. “Let’s not do this all over again.”

Gerry opened his mouth, and then shut it. “Suit yourself. I’ll say this for the last time. This is a mistake and you’ll remember I said it.”

“If things work out, we might come up in a year or two. You can meet Jackie’s new baby.”

Gerry didn’t answer but emptied his pipe over the side.

“It’s now or never.” Michael patted Jackie’s leg. “Help me up.”

“I think Gerry’s right.”

“Not going to go through it again right this minute. Make a leg.”

Jackie bent down on one knee and Michael clambered up. “Okay, then.” He pulled out the rifle.

Jackie eyed it warily. “I didn’t know you had that.”

“Everybody has secrets. Let’s roll.”

Gerry brought the Encantante slowly to the pier. His own rifle was standing in the corner a foot away from him but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he kept his hand over the throttle and the reverse switch.

Jackie stepped slowly onto the pier and looked around. Michael held the gun ready. “Okay, then.”

Jackie began lumbering up the road.

Michael heard Gerry call after them: “Good luck!” Then the propeller revved up and the ferry pulled away from the pier.

They were on their own.

Michael looked around and watched carefully. The one that got his leg was dead but Michael wouldn’t have minded giving him some company.

PART 3

Once the dragons had warmed themselves on the pavement, they moved to the shadows, waiting for whatever wandered close by. Michael didn’t know if it was Jackie’s size or the fact they stayed in the center of the road as far from the edge as possible, but the few dragons they saw only watched as they walked by. The Encantante containing two humans and an elephant must have confused them. Perhaps Michael had been the real target all along, or perhaps the dragon hadn’t seen all of Jackie, just her leg, and attacked what it thought was a single animal. They would likely never know.

The infection that had nearly killed Michael showed the threat of the dragons was probably greater than Jackie being a target for every hungry man with a gun. Staying to the middle of the roads meant they traveled in the open. Jackie could be seen for a long distance. This made both of them nervous. Michael kept anticipating the feeling of Jackie sagging underneath him, the victim of a hungry sniper, followed by the inevitable sound of rifle fire.

They saw no one.

“Where is everybody?” Michael asked. Even in Saint Louis there had been some people—to be avoided, of course. But they had always been there.

“I don’t know.” Jackie watched the low farms. “This is different from what I had imagined.”

*   *   *

The land rose. The forest grew thicker, lush and filled with tall oaks and maples. The road disappeared into rubble within a dark and gloomy forest floor nearly bare of vegetation. The remains of the road was a break of light between the trees.

“Keep watch,” Jackie said after a while. “It’ll be cold under the trees. The dragons will be sunning themselves wherever there’s a warm spot.”

But the forest grew thicker and even quieter. They saw no dragons.

“No people and no dragons.” Michael leaned forward to look down on Jackie’s face. “Any ideas?”

Jackie shook her great head. “It’s too cool for them here under the trees. Maybe the dragons migrate north in the spring when the canopy is thinner. Then return south.”

“Lizards migrating?”

“Who knows? It’s a new world down here. I was modified. Maybe they were, too. Or maybe this just isn’t dragon country.”

“You were modified for a reason, I guess. Maybe they were, too.”

Jackie was silent for a moment. “Why do you think I had to be modified for a reason?”

“Nobody would choose a five-ton experiment unless they had a reason.” Michael cuffed the top of her head. “Especially one as foul tempered as you are.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Jackie was silent for perhaps a dozen steps. “It was in the last notebooks you found.”

“I figured.”

“How so?”

“I bring you every notebook in the place. None of them satisfy you. Then, you find what you’re after. The next day you leave. At first, I thought it might be something about Hohenwald. Something important you needed to know before you could leave. But the place is clearly on the map. And I couldn’t see what would be in notebooks about you that would have anything to do with Hohenwald. Whatever you were looking for had to be about you. After a while I figured out it had to be something about you that only the people that created you would know. That’s why you were searching the notebooks. And it had to be something Ralph either didn’t know or couldn’t tell you. Ralph would know all there was to know about how they had made you. But there’s no particular reason I could think of that they would tell him why.”

“It could have been genetic maps of the Hohenwald males.”

“What’s a genetic map?”

“Something you wouldn’t know about.” Jackie grabbed the leaves off a low hanging maple and pulled them down. The branch tapped Michael on the head.

“Ouch. What was that for?”

“For thinking you know everything about me.”

“I know I don’t know everything about you. For one thing, I don’t know what was in those notebooks.”

“The purpose of the project. My purpose.”

Michael cried out with delight. “I was right,” he crowed. “You were right.”

“What was it?”

“They were going to reseed elephants back into Africa and Asia. But the elephants were going to have to be as smart as humans to keep from being steak on the hoof.”

“That’s weird,” Michael said. “Why couldn’t somebody just go and watch out for them.” Then it hit him. “Oh.”

“‘Oh,’ is right,” Jackie said gently.

“They knew they were dying. They must have known everybody was dying. There wouldn’t be anybody to take care of you.” Michael shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Why go through all the trouble and die before they can make good on it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t find any personal diaries or notes. I just found the original mission statement and long range plan.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I think they made a mistake and died too quickly. Since we didn’t trust them, they didn’t really know how well they had succeeded. They kept trying to adapt, trying to figure out how smart we really were and how they were going to adapt their plan to our limitations. They were caught sick trying to do right by us.”

Michael didn’t say anything for a long time. “Do you think they figured it out before they all died?”

Jackie sighed, a deep rumbling breath. “God, I hope not.”

Dear Mom,

My spelling is better since I let Jackie read the letters. She had been doing it sometimes but hadn’t said anything.

I didn’t tell you about Gerry. But he and Jackie took care of me when I was sick. Gerry is a Real Good Guy, so if you get a chance, look out for him.

Jackie’s job was to look out for the elephants. So, now when we get to Hohenwald, she gets to do her job. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. My job so far has been to be her hands. But most of what I do has to do with traveling. When she gets there, she won’t be traveling anymore.

She said all of the elephants at Hohenwald were females. But the information she had was over ten years old. Ralph hadn’t been able to contact Hohenwald for a long time. Maybe they weren’t fire protected.

The land is different now, wilder. Jackie says it looks like the old forests from hundreds of years ago. But it’s much too recent. She thinks somebody must have made it. So we’re careful.

I miss you every day. You and Dad both, though I don’t remember him so well. Jackie thinks I’m strange to write to you, being dead and all. I don’t think it’s strange at all. (So there, Jackie!)

If I talked to you out loud, people would just think I was crazy. This way, it’s just between me and you and I get a chance to collect my thoughts. I think I remember you better, too, if I do this. Ned had some good ideas mixed with the bad.

Jackie makes sure I brush my teeth every night. She had me look for a toothbrush in Ralph’s packs. Sure enough, there was one.

We’re coming into Hohenwald soon. So, I’ll tell you about it after that.

Love, Michael

They had been several days on old Highway 641 when Michael saw Interstate 40 through a break in the trees.

This part of the road had seen better days. The roads in Tennessee were better cared for than the ones in Illinois or Kentucky. It was one of the best ways to determine when they crossed state or county borders: the roads or the farms were cared for differently. In Kentucky, the roads were broken in places and worn away in others and they had to keep a sharp eye for dragons.

Once they crossed into Tennessee the roads looked as if they were cared for by someone with a mania for cleanliness and sharp borders. It reminded Michael of the mysterious farms up in Illinois. The dark forest seemed to be the province of Kentucky. The forest here seemed more normal: a mix of young trees and shrubs. Once or twice they saw the remains of a garden. There had been people around recently, if they weren’t around right now. Still, they saw no one living. Just the occasional mound of mushrooms.

Jackie stopped dead in the middle of the roadway.

Michael almost fell off. He caught on to one of her ears and pulled himself back up to her neck. He looked around nervously to see what made her stop.

“What is it?” he whispered. “I hear something.”

“Dragons?”

“No.”

Jackie spread her legs and leaned forward. She let her trunk down to rest on the ground.

“Is something wrong?” asked Michael. “Shut up.”

Michael leaned back and pulled out the map. It looked like they turned east here. Hohenwald was only seventy or eighty miles away.

Jackie straightened up. “So?”

“Nothing.”

“Right.”

Jackie shook her head in irritation.

A few miles further on, Interstate 40 was more visible. They walked up the eastern ramp to the road proper. Michael felt better. The visibility from an interstate was much greater than from the little, forest enclosed roads. While they hadn’t seen a dragon for a while, Michael didn’t want to take any chances.

Jackie stopped on the interstate again and assumed the strange leaning posture. “What is it?”

Jackie didn’t answer. She just shook her head at him.

Michael climbed down to look around. He hopped over to the edge of the interstate, leaned against the guard rail. It was considerably more open to the south. Michael thought he could see a fairly large turtle of some sort, perhaps thirty pounds, walking along the edge of the forest. It looked like dragon country.

“We’re going the wrong way,” Jackie said suddenly.

Michael pulled out the map and studied again. “No. This is the way to Hohenwald.”

“Where are we?”

Michael studied the map. “McIllwain. At least, that’s the closest thing that looks like a town. That way—” he pointed east “—lays the Tennessee River. We go over it, if the bridge is still there. About thirty miles further on we turn south again to Hohenwald.”

Jackie shifted nervously. “They’re not there.”

“The Hohenwald elephants?”

Jackie turned west. She leaned out again and laid her trunk on the ground. “Not that way, either.”

“Nothing to the north of us, is there?”

Jackie turned east again, dropped her trunk to the ground. For a long time, she was motionless. Finally, she shook herself. “It’s the river that’s messing me up. I think they’re south.”

Michael sat on the guard rail. “Dragons might be down that way. Also, people.”

“Maybe. I don’t think they’re far.”

Michael sighed. He stood, leaning against the wall. Jackie made a leg for him and he climbed up. “The river is going north to south. Maybe we can keep going south on 69 and you can keep listening.”

“How far is the river? Is there a road that follows it?”

Michael ran his finger along the blue line. “The river is angling toward us. It comes pretty close starting around Akins Chapel. We’ll only be a few miles away from it when we get to Jeanette. Maybe ten miles.”

“Let’s go.”

At Jeannette, they found Brodie’s Landing Road. This brought them down to the river.

The Tennessee River was not the crushing roar of the Ohio or the Mississippi. It was broad and flat with a steady slow southern flow. On the other side, washing in the still water was a herd of elephants.

Jackie froze, staring at them. The air was still. The elephants across the river stared back. Michael didn’t move. He wondered if the elephants could see him. Just how well did elephants see, anyway?

The moment stretched out long enough that Michael wanted to change his position. He began to itch.

Suddenly, one elephant in the water snorted and clambered up the bank. It trumpeted once and then walked up the bank. The other elephants followed her.

Jackie shook herself once they were out of sight. She walked into the water but the current, though slow, seemed to shift her slightly. She stopped and backed up. “Where can I get across?”

“We can go back north and across Interstate 40. Or, we can go south and cross Highway 412.”

“Which is closer?”

“Both are about the same.” Jackie thought for a long time.

“South,” she said at last. “We go south.”

*   *   *

They crossed the river at Perryville. The bridge seemed intact, though, of course, they couldn’t be sure. It cracked like a gunshot when they were in the middle and for a moment, Michael couldn’t breathe. But the bridge gave them no more trouble and they were on the east side of the Tennessee River.

“We’re quite a ways from Hohenwald,” Michael said as they lumbered down the road.

“Did you think they would stay there? Their Keepers must be dead, too.” Jackie sounded almost happy.

“Do you think Ralph is dead?”

She shook her head irritably. “I’m not concerned about the fate of one robot.”

That’s not your purpose, he thought. It made him nervous.

*   *   *

Along the eastern side of the river, they found a flat, worn trail, well marked with elephant scat. Jackie turned over each pile, broke it open and smelled it.

“Is that necessary?”

“I want to know who they are.” She pointed to one worn pile. “African elephant. Female. Smells like she’s the dominant one.” She pointed behind. “There are three Indian females. One is still a little immature. She’s unrelated to the other two. None of them are pregnant.”

“What are you?”

“Indian. What? You didn’t know?”

“It’s not like you told me.”

She snorted.

“Any boy elephants?”

“There were no males in Hohenwald.”

“Why not?”

“Males need more space. They don’t herd like females.”

Michael thought for a moment. “Better hope your baby is a boy.” Jackie didn’t answer.

They came to the point across the river where they had seen the herd, a long, hard packed sandbar held together with tough grass and cottonwoods. The scat here was plentiful. The elephants liked this place and returned to it often.

Michael leaned over her head. “Which way?”

“I’m not sure.”

Michael slid to the ground. Jackie handed him his crutch. He moved around one side of the clearing while Jackie searched the other. The elephant markings were so numerous it was hard to figure out where they had gone.

“Over here,” she called softly. Michael hobbled over.

Jackie pointed to a large pile. “Male Indian. No more than a week ago.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Maybe.”

She cried out suddenly. “Get down!” And swept him to the ground. A dart stuck in Jackie’s trunk where he had been standing. Michael scrambled up to pull it out.

“Samsa!” cried a girl’s voice from the brush. She ran out toward Jackie.

Michael tried to intercept her but was knocked to the ground again, this time by an older man. He held a knife to Michael’s throat.

Jackie eased herself down to her knees. Then lay down on the ground. “Jackie!” Michael cried out.

She looked blindly at the sound of his voice. Then it seemed as if her eyes were looking elsewhere. She closed them slowly.

“You’ve killed her,” he said, not believing it.

“It was an accident, cripple,” whispered the woman in a stricken voice. “I was aiming at you.”

PART 4

The girl pulled the dart out of Jackie’s trunk. “Will she die, Samsa?” the girl asked the man holding the knife to Michael’s throat.

“I don’t know,” Samsa said. He pulled cord from a pouch belted around his waist and bound Michael’s wrists.

“What? Do you think I’m going to run away?” Michael pushed his stump at him. “Cripple, remember?”

Samsa ignored him. He knelt next to Jackie. “She’s breathing. That’s a good sign. Maybe the dosage is too small.”

“Dosage of what?” Michael stared at them. “What did you do to her?”

“Missed you,” said Samsa, evenly. “Let’s see the dart, Pinto.”

Pinto gently brushed Jackie’s eyes closed, picked up the dart and brought it to Samsa.

Samsa examined it carefully, deliberately avoiding the point. “Full dose, all right. Get the med kit in my tent back at camp.”

“Got it.” With that, the girl was gone, running up the trail away from the river. Samsa examined Jackie minutely. He placed a hand on her chest to measure her breathing. After that, he held his hand under her trunk and stood silently.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked quietly.

“Shut up.”

After a moment, Samsa released the trunk. “Pulse is good. Breathing is a little weak.”

“That was a poison dart.”

“You’re a smart one.”

“Why shoot me?”

“Let’s see. You’re riding the biggest piece of meat for twenty miles around—except for the dozen or so other pieces of meat just as big. You’re not important, boy. She is. Too important to provide you a year’s supply of steaks.”

“You think I was going to eat her?”

“That would be a little ambitious. I think you were going to trade her. Maybe to the Angels in Memphis or the Rubber Girls in Chattanooga. They would have taken her and then served you up as a garnish—which would have been fine by me but we’d still be out an elephant.”

“Jackie’s not one of your elephants.”

“I know that. Since you’re accidentally alive you can tell me where you stole her.”

“I didn’t steal Jackie. I don’t think anybody could do that. If she could talk, she’d tell you herself.”

Samsa snorted. “I expect she’d have a lot to tell me, too.” Michael fell silent.

“Where did you get her?”

“Jackie and I came from Saint Louis. We were trying to find the elephants at Hohenwald. She wanted her own herd.”

“Well, you found them. We’ll take it from here.”

“She’s—”

Samsa pointed the dart at him. “There’s enough left in this for a little slip of a thing like you. Even if it didn’t kill you, it’ll paralyze you until morning. The Komodos would find you long before that.”

Michael stared at the point of the dart. The tip had a drop of oil on it. He couldn’t look away.

“Don’t,” Jackie said in a long exhalation.

Samsa looked over at the elephant. He looked back at Michael. “She didn’t just talk, did she?”

“Is she going to be all right?”

Samsa looked back at her. “I think so. The curare didn’t kill her so it will wear off in a while. Pinto is bringing back the antidote.”

“Then pretty soon you’ll find out for yourself.”

*   *   *

Pinto returned with a professional looking bag. She gave it to Samsa and went to sit next to Jackie. She huddled next to her head. Michael hoped she had sense enough to move away when Jackie got up.

Michael tried to figure out the two of them. Samsa was an older man. What little hair he had left was streaked with gray and matched his beard. He was tall and thin as if strung together with wires. Pinto wasn’t much more than Michael’s own age. Through her loose shirt Michael could see a suggestion of young breasts, but her legs and arms still looked childish. Michael wondered if Pinto had bartered protection the same way he had with Uncle Ned. They didn’t look related.

Samsa pulled out two glass ampoules, one with a powder and the other a liquid, a syringe, and a wicked needle. He filled the syringe with the liquid and injected it into the ampoule with the powder and swirled it around to mix it. He caught Michael watching him.

“We don’t have much call to use this so it’s still in the original packaging.” Samsa grinned at him. “We brew the poison ourselves.”

“From what?”

“Poison arrow frogs down in the bayou. We go down there once or twice a year to catch what we need.”

“I didn’t know there were such animals.”

“Pretty little things. Red. Blue. All sorts of colors. Skin carries a poison that will lay you out to dry if you mess with them. They didn’t use to live down there but somebody’s menagerie broke open—or was deliberately released—and some small group managed to survive the cooler winters. It’s a nice weapon against humans—quiet. Quick. If you keep your wits about you, you can take down half a dozen people before they realize what’s happening.”

He finished shaking the ampoule and filled the syringe with the resulting mixture. “Out of the way, Pinto,” Samsa said. He swabbed a section of Jackie’s hide and slipped the needle in. Then he withdrew the needle, broke it, and put the syringe and broken needle in a jar from the bag.

“She’s still not going to be moving for a couple of hours but now her breathing won’t be affected.” He looked up at the hot sun. “We’ll have to keep her cool.” He looked at Michael. “Take your shirt off and wet it in the river. Keep it wet and on the elephant’s head.”

“Her name is Jackie.”

“Jackie, then.”

“Better untie me.”

“You’ll do fine with your hands tied together. Hop to it. Pinto? Help him but keep out of reach. Use your own shirt, too. I’ll go get a couple of buckets.”

*   *   *

Pinto kept a wary eye on Michael but he ignored her. The sun was hot even on his sweating body. He didn’t want to imagine what Jackie felt like.

“Keep her ears wet, too,” Pinto told him. “Elephants keep cool through their ears.” Michael grunted and bathed Jackie’s ears.

“Did she knock you down?” Pinto asked as they passed one another on the way to the river.

“She saved my life,” Michael said simply.

“Right.”

Michael shrugged.

Samsa returned with two buckets and a rifle. “I thought you liked poison,” Michael said.

“I do. But it’s hard to penetrate the hide of a crocodile with a dart.”

“There are crocodiles in this river?”

“Not usually this far north but sometimes. The Komodos usually stay away, too. But not always. I’ll keep watch, just in case.”

Michael stopped and looked at Samsa. “You were a Keeper at Hohenwald.”

“Director,” Samsa corrected.

“So you let the elephants go when everybody died?” Samsa cocked his head. “Eleven years ago.”

“All the other elephants in Saint Louis died. Jackie and the Keeper decided she should look for the elephants down here.”

“Did they, now?”

“Jackie’s going to have a baby. Is the poison going to hurt it?”

Samsa sighed and looked over to her still form. “I should have picked that up right away.” He turned back to Michael. “I hope not but there’s no way to know. If she doesn’t miscarry, it’s a fair bet the baby will be all right.” Samsa gestured to Michael. When Michael came close enough, Samsa untied his hands.

“I’m starting to believe you’re not a poacher.” He held up the gun. “But I still have the rifle.”

Michael nodded and went back to filling buckets.

*   *   *

In the early afternoon, Jackie started twitching. An hour later, she was trying to get up. Samsa stood next to her, speaking soothingly. “Don’t get up yet, girl.” He gestured Michael and Pinto off the sand bank.

Jackie seemed to calm down and remained still. But it wasn’t long until she heaved herself up, swaying and looking confused.

“It’s okay, girl,” Samsa said soothingly.

Jackie swung her trunk and knocked the rifle to the ground, then swung back, caught Samsa’s leg and turned him over on his back. In a moment, she had a foot on his chest.

“You tried to kill my boy,” she hissed. Samsa tried to speak but couldn’t.

Pinto ran to Jackie and tried to pull up her foot. Jackie ignored her. “Are you all right, Michael?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want me to do with him?”

“Let him go,” Michael said. “He’s the director at Hohenwald.”

Jackie slowly raised her foot. She carefully walked down the sandbar into the water and eased into it.

Pinto held Samsa’s hand. She was crying. Michael squatted down next to him. “She can talk,” Samsa coughed out.

“I know,” Michael said.

Dear Mom,

We found the other elephants. But the people that own them found us. Almost killed us, too. Me, anyway.

Samsa and Pinto were out tracking the herd. There is one big herd of six adult females and no calves. There are two other groups. One has three females and one calf. The other has four females and two calves.

Male elephants don’t hang around except when they’re in muss. Or muth. Or something. There are four males in the area.

All of them are Indian elephants except one: Tika. Tika is an african elephant. She’s huge. She was the big elephant we saw at the stream. Samsa says it’s possible for african and indian elephants to mate but she won’t have any of the males. She’s real strickt with her group. Maybe that’s why they don’t have calves.

Samsa let the elephants free when it looked like everybody was going to die, him included. But he didn’t. Now there are fifteen people who help Samsa watch the elephants. They don’t eat meat. They protect the elephants from people. Maybe they want to be elephants themselves.

They have their own little village near here. Samsa seems to run things from what I’ve seen. They want Jackie to come to the village. Jackie’s not interedsted. She wants to join the herd. I think she’s suspicious of them. They won’t let me stay in the village. Maybe they still think I’m a poacher.

Love, Michael

“You need both legs to follow the elephants,” said Samsa reasonably. “I can get around pretty good with my crutch. Let me do something.”

“You can’t run. Sometimes the elephants charge and if you can’t get up a tree quick enough, there won’t be quite enough of you left to bury. We’ve lost people that way.” Samsa and Pinto left before Michael could protest further.

Jackie was resting near the camp. She watched them from a distance. Michael had no doubt she could hear every word.

Michael hobbled over to her. He sat down next to her. She reached up and pulled down the branch of a birch tree and began methodically pulling the leaves off and eating them.

“They won’t let me come with them,” Michael said. “So I heard.”

The fog had come up the trail from the river and everything was swathed in mist. Michael felt cold and half blind. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Laying in the sun for half a day takes a lot out of you.”

“Do you think there really are crocodiles in the river?”

“Do you think they’re lying?”

Michael looked back to the fog. “I guess not. Do you know which band you’re going after?”

Jackie didn’t answer for a moment. “Tika’s band, I think.”

“Won’t she be the hardest?”

“Probably.”

“Then why her?”

Jackie was quiet a moment. “Silly reasons. It’s surprising she even has a band with Indians in it. When you’re desperate for company you’ll take anything, I suppose.”

Michael didn’t speak immediately. His chest hurt and his throat felt thick. He stared up the trail where Samsa and Pinto had gone. Was that how he felt about them? Desperate? Was that how Jackie felt about him?

He went to their gear and opened up the hidden flap. He put together the rifle and took the exploding shells.

“What are you going to do?” Jackie stared at him. “Follow them.”

*   *   *

It was awkward to carry the rifle while he was still forced to use the crutch. He thought maybe he’d try to get down to one of the old cities and look for a leg. Or build one. He had a vague memory of a story about someone with a peg leg. That would be enough for him.

The trail was clear and Samsa and Pinto had left footprints so they weren’t hard to follow. He’d catch up to them or he wouldn’t. Either way he was doing something.

He could tell the trail was coming close to the river by the way the trees began to thin. Michael listened and he could hear splashing—probably the elephants. He found a tall tree, leaned the crutch against the trunk and slung the rifle over his back and started to climb.

From near the top, he had a commanding view of the river, the elephants, and Samsa and Pinto watching the elephants. He could also see the sunken logs slowly drifting toward the splashing of the elephants. He unslung the rifle and aimed it at one of the logs. The telescopic sight showed the crocodile clearly. He turned on the laser and saw the bright red spot appear on the animal’s back. Then he watched.

Samsa and Pinto were watching the elephants. Samsa had a rifle but it was slung. He was talking, or maybe arguing, with Pinto. One of the crocodiles stopped, watching the bank. Then it submerged.

Let’s see, thought Michael. Think like a croc—or a dragon. Go for the little target, not the big one. Where would I attack from if I were a crocodile?

The water erupted near Pinto.

Right there. For a moment, the crocodile was frozen in midleap, the red spot clearly showing on his neck. Michael squeezed off three shots. He saw the water and blood spurt where they hit.

Then time caught and the crocodile started to close his jaws on Pinto when the explosive rounds triggered.

There was no flash or sound but the crocodile fell to the ground, dragging Pinto down with him. Samsa pulled Pinto out of the animal’s limp mouth. They scrambled back up the bank, blood showing on Pinto’s legs. But the croc was unmoving.

The elephants roared out of the water and ran into the forest. Michael stayed there for some time but the river was empty save for the remaining crocs staying safely off shore.

He climbed down and made his way back to camp. Samsa was treating Pinto’s wounds.

Michael put the rifle down and sat next to it. “I have some use,” he said.

*   *   *

Samsa was sitting across from him when Michael awoke. “I want the rifle.”

Michael sat up. “I’d like to live in the village and use it to help you. But what I’d really like is to have my leg back. But that’s the way it is.”

Samsa shook his head. “We don’t know you. I can’t have any weapon around that can kill an elephant in the hands of someone I don’t know.”

“You mean like the darts?”

“That’s different.” Samsa watched him a moment. “We could dart you and take it.” Michael pulled out the pistol and held it loosely. He didn’t point it at Samsa but he didn’t deliberately point it away. “You could pry it from my cold dead hands, I suppose.”

“I know where that expression comes from. Do you?”

“Does it matter?” Michael was quiet for a moment. “I think it should be enough that Jackie trusts me.”

“I don’t think so. Jackie hasn’t seen enough humans to know who to trust.”

“Do tell,” said Jackie from behind Samsa.

Michael looked up at Jackie. “You tell me what you want done with the rifle.”

“Keep it,” said Jackie shortly. “Likely you’re a better shot with it than he is. Certainly, you’re more trustworthy.”

“I am the caretaker of the elephants,” Samsa said in a controlled voice.

“That’s not your job,” said Jackie. “It’s mine.”

*   *   *

They didn’t tell Samsa or Pinto or anyone else they were leaving. The village was up the hill and out of sight behind a bend in the trail. Michael certainly wasn’t going out of his way to say goodbye. Even so, Michael could feel watchful eyes on him as they turned from the trail that led up the hill to the elephant scat covered trail that followed the bottomland.

“Tell me,” Jackie said conversationally that afternoon. “Do you think Samsaville is on the map?”

Michael laughed for a long time.

The quality of their travel changed. Before, Michael had felt essentially alone in the forest. Other elephants were an abstraction. Other humans were absent. The very idea of a village was absurd.

But now Samsaville—the name stuck—loomed in his mind. He thought Jackie might think similarly about the elephants.

Dear Mom,

Jackie and I have left the other people and went to look for the elephants on our own. I’m not sure what’s going to happen now. Maybe Jackie would be better without a one legged crippled kid.

I miss you and Dad. I miss Gerry. I even miss Uncle Ned. I miss my leg. It hurts at night.

Jackie’s worried about joining the elephants. She doesn’t say so but I can tell. Maybe Samsa will follow us. Maybe he’ll dart me or worse. Maybe Tika won’t let us join. Maybe something bad will happen.

Whatever happens, I love you.

Michael

They found Tika two days later. It was midmorning. The herd was grazing on the edge of a clearing. Worn buildings marked the clearing as having once been a farm. Michael looked at the ancient stubble of corn shocks and rusting machinery. This farm had never seen a robot. It had been abandoned long ago.

Tika had already turned to face them before Jackie and Michael left the forest. She must have heard them coming, thought Michael. Or smelled them.

Jackie stopped well short of them and started grazing on the opposite side of the clearing. After an hour or so, Tika returned to grazing with the other females. But her attention never wavered from Jackie.

Afternoon came and the herd disappeared into the forest. Michael slid down to the ground and made himself a lunch out of dried fruit and crocodile jerky.

“Samsa is watching us,” Jackie muttered and she stood near Michael. “Up on the ridge. I can smell him.”

Michael nodded. “Is he going to shoot me?”

“I can’t smell a gun but that doesn’t mean much.”

“Anybody else?”

Jackie shook her head. “Not as far as I can tell.”

“Nothing to be done, then.”

Michael chewed the crocodile jerky. Not bad. Sort of like chicken. “I wonder why the dragons don’t come across the bridges. Do you think there’s something here they don’t like?”

“Maybe the elephants kill them. I know I would.”

“You did.”

“True.” Jackie thought for a moment. “It’s a mistake to think this ecology is complete. Humans left it very recently. It could be the Komodos just haven’t reached this far yet. The Komodos have to migrate north from the coast every spring and return every fall. It’s going to take time for them to penetrate new areas. Any place they go can only be as far as they can return to in time to avoid the winter.”

“They could learn to winter up here.”

“Unlikely.”

“They’re unlikely, right? Who knows what they can do?”

Jackie was silent for a moment. “That’s not something I want to think about.”

Michael shivered. “Me, neither.”

*   *   *

The next week followed the same ritual. The elephants came to the abandoned farm and grazed, moving over to new areas as they stripped the old of leaves. By the week’s end, Jackie and Tika had circled the entire clearing. Still standing opposite one another, Jackie was now where they had first sighted Tika and Tika was grazing where Jackie had first entered the clearing.

“Today we have to follow them,” said Michael. He spat out the last of the meat. He was tired of crocodile jerky.

“It’s too soon.”

“Look around you.” Michael pointed at the trees. “There’s nothing left. They’re not going to come back here just to say hello.”

Tika chivvied her herd back to the clearing’s entrance. Jackie followed at a respectful distance. Tika kept turning to check on them.

“This might work out,” Jackie whispered.

*   *   *

They followed the band for hours. The smell of Samsa and the other humans faded. The trail became wilder and more curved until they couldn’t see the band for minutes at a time. Then they turned a corner in the trail and Tika was facing them.

Jackie stopped dead still. Michael had been leaning forward, resting his head on Jackie’s head and watching. He froze, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

Tika approached cautiously, trunk half raised and sniffing the air. Jackie raised her trunk slightly. When the two of them were close enough, they sniffed each other with their trunks. Tika seemed to relax.

Michael watched. It came to him that Tika wanted Jackie in her band—maybe because she was pregnant. Maybe because there were dangers enough out here for everybody to share.

Tika suddenly whipped her trunk over Jackie’s head and caught Michael squarely in the side, sweeping him off Jackie’s neck and down on the ground in front of Tika.

Michael fell the ten feet in a moment of frozen astonishment and landed hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Desperately, he tried to force himself to breathe, cough, anything. But his lungs stubbornly refused to fill.

Tika raised her leg over him.

Michael saw the details of her foot, the broken toenail, the puckered scar. Jackie screamed “No!” and stepped over him, shoving Tika away.

Tika stumbled back and then shoved back.

Jackie stood foursquare over him, her head and trunk down.

Michael’s breath caught and he sat up, watched twenty tons of animals shoving above him.

“Move,” Jackie cried.

Michael scrambled away. A tree! Where’s a tree? He saw an oak and hopped over to it, clawed his way up the trunk and into the branches high enough to escape Tika.

Jackie fell back in front of the tree, facing Tika. Tika trumpeted at her.

It was as if she shouted in English: You we want. But not with him. Jackie trumpeted back. Not without him.

“Jackie,” he shouted. “Go with them. I’ll be okay.” Tika fell back, staring at the two of them.

“No,” Jackie said. “Both of us or not at all.” Michael found himself crying.

PART 5

Dear Mom,

It’s been a while since I wrote but I’ve been busy. Little Bill is just as stubborn as his mother. Jackie says he outgrew the cute phase when he was two. Now she thinks it’s just unpleasant. But I like him. He reminds me of his mother.

I think Tika’s finally accepted me. It took long enough. She’s allowed me to stay all this time by just ignoring me. But a few weeks ago before we left Panacea one of her toenails got infected and needed to be lanced and cleaned. It was pretty clear it had to be done before we started north. Jackie stood next to me to make sure I didn’t get hurt. But Tika brought over her foot and didn’t twitch when I cleaned out the wound. It must have hurt. It looks lots better now.

That was just after I shot two Komodos that had decided to make a meal out of Tika’s leg. The Komodos aren’t much problem in the winter. They’re all asleep somewhere. But between the time they wake up in the spring and the time they start north, they’re pretty hungry and mean. I can’t say for sure what made Tika change her mind. But she seemed pretty happy that Jackie and I were walking next to her when we went North this year.

Things are still changing. The Komodos are tough but they seem to have a hard time with the brush lions. We’re not sure. Where we find brush lions, there aren’t any Komodos and where we find Komodos there aren’t any brush lions. We don’t know exactly what’s going on.

And the fire ants keep spreading north.

Good news this spring. Both Tanya and Wilma are pregnant. The bull that visited around Christmas must have done his job. More young ones for Little Bill to play with.

We’re not far from Samsaville. It’ll be nice to see Pinto and Samsa. I’m trying to persuade Jackie we should go far enough north to see Gerry. But she doesn’t like going through dragon country.

All for now,

Love, Michael

Michael finished signing his name and closed the notebook. It was almost filled. This would be book number seven. He hefted it in his hands. He wondered if he was a little off in his head to be writing his dead mother all these years. He was sixteen now. Michael shrugged. He still liked doing it. Maybe Jackie would have an opinion on it.

He put down his pack and watched the river flow by. Mostly he just enjoyed the play of sunlight and color on the water. It was a careful observation, too. Keeping track of floating logs nearby that might leap out at him. The crocodiles had become more numerous in the last couple of years. Michael didn’t know what they were eating but so far none had tasted elephant on his watch.

Little Bill came down to the edge of the bank. Little? Michael smiled to himself. Bill’s head was two feet taller than he was.

“Jackie’s-Boy! Jackie’s-Boy!” he piped, a tiny voice for such a large body. Michael wondered when, and if, the elephant’s voice would ever break into the deep timbre of an adult. Michael’s had. Well, mostly. Sometimes it still cracked.

“Just Michael,” he said. “Like I always say. Just Michael.”

“Jackie’s-Boy is what Tika calls you.”

Michael chuckled, wondering, not for the first time, how an elephant spoke without being able to speak. The world was filled with mysteries. “Does she now?”

“Are you ready to go?” piped Bill. “Tika sent me to get you. She wants you and Jackie to go first.”

Michael reached down and pulled up his artificial leg and fastened it on. “Really? Tika wants us to lead?”

“Sure. At least as far as Cobraville.”

“Ah. She wants us to cross the fire ants first, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

Little Bill didn’t answer. Instead, he made a leg. Michael shouldered the rifle and climbed up over his neck. He looked around. The blue bowl of the sky above him, the warm sun, his gray family patiently waiting for him half a mile away. He felt like singing.

Lovingly, he patted the top of Little Bill’s head.

“Well, then. Musn’t grumble,” he said with a grin. “Let’s go.”