Two Trains Running

I didn’t have a strategy in mind when I charged the beardsley; I simply reacted to the scream and lunged forward, swinging the ax handle. I took a whack at the head, but the sail got in the way, folding about the ax handle and nearly ripping it from my grasp. I started to take another swing, but the sail gloved me and yanked me toward the creature’s head with such force that my feet were lifted off the floor. The thing smelled like a century of rotten socks. Talons ripped my shoulders, my buttocks, and I saw the end of reason in those strange light-stung black eyes…and then I saw something else, a recognition that jolted me. But almost instantly it was gone, and I was back fighting for life. I had no way to swing at the beardsley, being almost immobilized by the grip of the sail; but I poked the end of the ax handle at it as it hauled me hard forward again, and by chance, the handle jammed into its mouth. My fear changed to fury, and I pushed the handle deeper until I felt a crunching, the giving way of some internal structure. I rammed the handle in and out, as if rooting out a post hole, trying to punch through to the other side, and suddenly the head sagged, the sail relaxed, and I fell to the floor.

I was fully conscious, but focused in an odd way. I heard Annie’s voice distantly, and saw the roof of the car bulging inward, but I was mostly recalling the beardsley’s eyes, like caves full of black moonlit water, and the fleeting sense I’d had as I’d been snatched close that it was somehow a man, or maybe that it once had been a man. And if that were so, if I could trust the feeling, how did it fit into all the theories of this place, this world. What determined that some men were punished in this way and others sent over Yonder? Maybe if you died in Yonder you became a beardsley, or maybe that’s what happened if you died out on the plain. My suppositions grew wilder and wilder, and somewhere in the midst of it all, I did lose consciousness. But even then I had the idea that I was looking into those eyes, that I was falling into them, joining another flock under some mental sky and becoming a flapping, dirty animal without grace or virtue, sheltering from the sun in the cool shadows of the reeds, and by night rousing myself to take the wind and go hunting for golden blood.

I came to with a start and found Annie sitting beside me. I tried to speak and made a cawing sound—my mouth was dry as dust, and I felt a throbbing pain in my lower back and shoulders. She stared at me with, I thought, a degree of fondness, but the first thing she said was, “’Pears I was right about the door.”

I tried to sit up, and the throbbing intensified.

“I got the bleeding stopped,” she said. “But you’re pretty tore up. I cleaned you best I could. Used up all my Bactine. But that was a damn dirty thing what sliced you. Could be the wounds are goin’ to get infected.”

I raised my head—the beardsley was gone, and the door shut tight. “Where are we?” I asked.

“Same as before,” she said. “’Cept the mountains look bigger. The beardsleys flew off somewhere. Guess they drank their fill.”

“Help me get up, will ya?”

“You oughta lie down.”

“I don’t wanna stiffen up,” I said. “Gimme a hand.”

As I hobbled around the car, I remembered the clutch of the beardsley’s sail and thought how lucky I’d been. Annie kept by my side, supporting me. I told her about how I’d felt a human vibe off the beardsley in the moments before I killed it, and what I thought that meant.

“It probably didn’t mean nothin’,” she said. “You were scared to death. You liable to think almost anything, a time like that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But this was real strong.”

“So what?” she said. “So it was human, so what? Who cares what it means? You ain’t never gon’ figure it out. Ain’t no point in tryin’. Hell, that’s one reason I come with you. I couldn’t listen to people’s harebrained theories no more. I wanted to go where there’s somethin’ more constructive to do than sit around and contemplate my goddamn navel.”

“You didn’t see what I saw,” I told her. “You had, you’d be curious, too.”

“Fine,” she said. “It’s a stunnin’ development. The beardsleys are human. What’s it all fuckin’ mean? I won’t rest till I get to the bottom of it.”

“Jesus, Annie,” I said. “I was just speculatin’.”

“Well, save it! If we survive this ride, maybe I’ll be interested. But right now I got more and better to think about.”

I said, “All right.”

She peeked at my shoulders and said, “Oh, God! You’re bleedin’ again. Come on. Sit back down, lemme see what I can do.”