Day 17
I stirred in the growing light and was instantly awake. We're crossing the mountains today, I thought, with a mixture of excitement and dread. By nightfall we could be past the biggest barrier keeping us from the Academy. Or we could make a big mistake within sight of a farmer and be caught and enslaved for life.
I didn't want to move for a moment. It felt too comfortable. It had taken some time, last night to find a position that would sooth Puppy so he'd stay there quietly. At last Runner and Puppy had settled in, facing each other on their sides, with Puppy's head on Runner's chest, so he could hear Runner's heartbeat. I was curled up against Runner's back, my right thigh comfortably squeezed between Runner's, both of us with an arm draped over Puppy's shoulder.
At last Runner moved and stretched. I kissed the back of his neck and sat up, stretching as well. Puppy made a quiet yipping sound, raised his head, gave Runner's nipple a lick and rolled up to his feet. Then he leaned across Runner to lick my face. I laughed and stroked him. That's the only way of displaying affection he's shown so far. Maybe the only one he has. Runner, at first, had used mainly his tongue, but also used caresses, not just with his arms and hands but with his legs and feet as well, something I was doing now as well. Each of us had taught the other some things. I wondered if we could teach Puppy some new responses. His physical shape would limit those, but still....
After breakfast and elimination of wastes — Puppy peed against the base of a tree with one leg upraised— it was time to get ready. There was Puppy's dog-like behavior again. I doubted Puppy was "marking" the tree in the canine sense, but that was the way he had learned to pee. Confusing.
Runner dressed in his usual clothes. "The paddle, remember," I reminded him.
Runner said, "Oh, right!" and retrieved the paddle from his bag, strapping it to his arm like the teenager we had seen a few days ago. "What else?"
I bit my lip, thinking. "We need to lift the cart up over the step here before we get me tied to it." I had seen that there was a ramp cut into the step across from the start of the trail, so that wagons could roll up from the forest to the mountain road. But the ramp was located in the middle of the farm co-op across from the trail, and I was leery of passing through farms, close to so many people.
We watched the road for several minutes, but didn't see anybody on the road in either direction, nor anybody on the trail. The road was never crowded at any time, and it was a little early in the morning to expect much activity. Grunting with the effort, we lifted up the cart. When we were done, I realized it would have been easier to empty it of peaches first and then refill it. A little late to do us much good.
I lifted Puppy up next. He walked around afterwards, looking puzzled but staying nearby. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. For the first time, I was exposing myself to easy observation should anyone happen to be looking. I climbed up, with Runner beside me. Runner draped the strap of the bag over my shoulder, then tied me to the cart.
There were short chains attached to the handles of the cart. I didn't want to mess with padlocks — the keys might get lost. So we used vines running through the links of the chains to tie my hands to the handles. It looked as though the chains themselves were attached to my wrist cuffs, unless somebody looked very closely.
Runner gave me a questioning look. I took another deep breath and nodded. Runner started walking, angling his path toward the road. I followed him, as Puppy, full of early-morning energy, pranced around us. I hoped it looked like something a dogboy would be doing, and reminded myself that Puppy was certainly qualified in any situation that might call for him to act like a dogboy.
Minutes later we were on the trail, starting up its not-quite-gentle slope. As we began climbing to higher positions, I became more aware of my nudity. Anybody on the road below could see me. Any number of farmers in the farm co-op directly below could be giving me at least a passing glance right now. As far as I knew, this would be the first time in more than two weeks on the island that any settler had seen me. I couldn't stop myself from hunching my shoulders in a fruitless attempt to hide myself somehow. I wasn't wearing my anti-trap vine tied around my waist; it was neither needed nor advisable here. It, and the more elaborate vine Runner and I used for hanging practice, were coiled at the bottom of the bag I was carrying.
Within minutes, my leg and arm muscles were starting to complain about the amount of work I was doing, hauling the cart up the trail. My hobble chain was also dragging, for the first time in weeks. The trail was impressively smooth, with only slight ruts passing wagons, but my chain was occasionally held back by minor projections. I had to lift my feet as I walked, making the climb even harder. I suspected I was much better off pulling a relatively small cart, even full of peaches, than pushing one of those heavy wagons. Still, I was going to be very tired by the time we reached the top.
Puppy had settled into following behind me. Perfect. That's the way we've been seeing it. There was another chain in the bag that could be used as a leash if necessary. I had no idea how Puppy would take to being led by a leash, or how unusual it might appear if we had to use one. I hoped it wouldn't come to that.
It started to rain when we were about a quarter of the way up. I noted it only as a normal feature of the environment. A few weeks ago I probably would have thought, "Oh, maybe we should wait for a nicer day for this." There were no nicer days, and I was used to being rained on. It was a relief, actually: it cooled me off much better than just sweating. I was actually glad of my extreme haircut, under the circumstances. Two weeks of constantly wet hair, frequently whipped around in front of my eyes by the wind, hadn't been pleasant.
When we reached the level passing area at the halfway point, Runner stopped and reached into the bag. He pulled out a few pre-sliced peaches. Puppy had been whining for several minutes, and was most likely thirsty, if not hungry. Runner knelt and fed him several peaches, which he ate happily. He fed me another handful of peaches, and ate a few himself.
Down at the base of the trail, a full wagonload pushed by a six-slave team was just beginning the ascent. It shouldn't matter. They're not going to catch up with us.
I winced as Puppy began whining in a different way. I whispered to Runner, "He wants sex. We can't do that here. We've got people watching." I gestured with my head to the wagon down below.
Runner gave me a worried look. "What should I do?"
I looked at Puppy, and whispered back, "Giver him a few hugs and talk to him. Tell him we'll do it later. I don't know if he'll understand, but I think he'll get a feeling we understand him."
Runner knelt beside Puppy and gave him a squeeze, stroking his headfur, rubbing his cheek against Puppy's, saying softly, "You'll just have to wait awhile, Puppy. Follow us now and we'll be really, really nice to you later." He gave Puppy one last kiss on the cheek, stroked his headfur again and stood up. Immediately he resumed climbing the trail, and I followed behind him. Looking back, I saw Puppy watch us briefly, his lower lip pushed out in a childish pout, before he sighed and followed.
The view was breathtaking.
At its summit, the trail flattened out to form at plateau about thirty feet wide. Ahead, I looked down on a rolling sea of green tree-tops, with occasional islands of cleared ground — farmland — a few buildings scattered around the farmland. There were more clearings ahead than behind us. Beyond that was the deep gray of the ocean, whitecaps of waves near the shore gradually thinning to monochrome sea in the distance. For the first time, I could actually see that I was on a small, isolated island surrounded by unbroken water. Even from this height, I couldn't see any land beyond the sea. I looked east. My home lay two hundred miles in that direction. But I couldn't see it, and that brought home how very far I was from the world I knew. I felt a flash of anger at Andrew, for leaving me here helpless, endangered, and alone. Then came something akin to despair at the problems yet to be overcome before I could be safe at home in the Academy.
I'm not alone anymore, though. I have friends. Andrew never imagined that.
Barely audibly, in an awestruck voice, Runner said, "It's like you said, Wynn. The other side of the mountains looks just like where we came from." He pointed. "Is that the water? It looks so different from up here. I couldn't see so much of it before. It's so... so big!" He looked at me, gesturing out to sea. "If you go far enough, there's trees and ground again? Where the Academy is?"
I nodded. "We'll go there. In a boat."
Runner squinted. "What does a boat look like? Is there one out there?"
I squinted as well. "Not right now. Not close enough to see, anyway."
Puppy was whining more insistently now. I bit my lip. I wasn't sure Puppy would keep following us if he wasn't getting what he needed.
I could see the team of slaveboys following us, trudging up the slope. Runner and I had easily outdistanced them, and the wagon hadn't reached the halfway point yet. Ahead, the trail down the other side was clear. "Runner, untie my hands. We need to take care of Puppy."
There was a jumble of rocks on our right, that would hide us from view. As soon as I was free, I started backing toward it, facing Puppy. "Do you want sex, Puppy?"
Puppy barked, suddenly excited. Another new word he now understood.
All this vocabulary he's picking up, and it would just never occur to him to try to shape the same words with his own throat. He doesn't even know about nodding or shaking his head. He barks in place of nodding. He barks in place of any number of things. I wondered we might, over time, at least teach Puppy some normal body language, even if he never learned to talk. Or is it too late for that too?
Runner joined me, crouched down among the rocks, giving Puppy some much needed attention.
Minutes after starting down the trail, I spotted a wagon on the road below, and sucked in my breath. I swore to myself, wishing we could retreat to the effective cover of the rocks at the crest of the trail. But at this point the driver below would see us turning, and there was also the wagon coming up behind us. The driver would wonder what had become of us. I whispered, "There's..."
"I see them. What do we do?" Runner was slowing.
"We have to keep going. Are you ready, on those things I told you?"
Runner gulped. "I think so."
By the time we reached the broad level passing area halfway down the mountain, the wagon below had turned onto the trail and started up. I said, more softly than before, "We need to stop here and wait."
"I know." Runner was already on the flattened area, walking toward the side to give the wagon room to pass.
I stopped several feet ahead of him, and waited as Runner carefully adjusted his position. It was raining slightly harder.
I tried to still my trembling legs. Did I make this too complex?. Maybe nothing will happen, I thought hopefully. The driver might just nod and pass on.
I suddenly remembered the mental trick I'd used for my Academy interview, it felt like two lifetimes ago. I said in a low voice "Runner, tell yourself this. Imagine it's my voice in your head telling you. I'll be saying this has already happened. All you're doing is remembering it happening. Waiting here, meeting the farmer, talking to him... imagine it's all over, it happened yesterday, and all you're doing now is remembering it. It went very well. Nothing bad happened. Do you understand what I'm saying?" The spattering of the rain would cover up the sound of my voice. The drivers of the other two wagons wouldn't hear us.
Runner gulped and nodded briefly. "I get it." He seemed to grow more calm. He reached into the bag, his fingers under control. Runner ate one sliced peach, fed one to me, and knelt to feed Puppy, stroking Puppy and receiving face licks in return.
Runner must have realized that Puppy should be kept occupied; he had no idea what was going on. Runner picked up a small, rounded pebble, rubbed some dirt off it with his vest, and knelt again, holding it up in front of Puppy. As soon as he had Puppy's full attention, Runner tossed the rock a short distance, and said, "Go get it, Puppy!"
Puppy, with an excited yelp, scrambled to follow the rock, and returned with it in his mouth. He started toward me with it, and Runner quickly said, "No, over here." As Puppy dropped it into Runner's hand, Runner tossed it again.
I'm sure this is okay, I thought. We didn't teach him this game. He came already knowing it, so it must be familiar behavior in dogboys. It's going to look perfectly normal to that farmer.
I looked straight ahead as the wagon approached, which meant I couldn't watch Runner. I repeated over and over to myself, keep it together, Runner.
Two nights ago, after we'd made our plans to capture a dogboy, we had thought about what to do if we met a farmer on the trail. Now we would see whether those plans would work.
As I had feared, the farmer slowed his slaves to a halt as he came abreast of the "farmboy and his slave" waiting for them to pass. He hopped down from the wagon's driver's seat, stretching his leg muscles as if he'd been sitting too long. At least he's smiling. Rain was dripping from the brim of his hat. Obviously he thought nothing of it.
One issue that had worried me was the possibility of meeting Puppy's owner. The likelihood was small, and I had no idea what to do if it happened. But it looked like there was no problem on that score — this farmer showed no sign of recognizing Puppy.
The settler barely gave me a passing glance. I felt both relieved and affronted. I do look just like a slave, I reminded myself, glad again of my industrial-strength haircut. And this guy is surrounded by naked slaves every day. I was proud of the body I'd worked so hard to sculpt. But all the slaves work hard here.
The six slaveboys pushing the wagon stood at attention. I tried to make my expression match their blank ones.
The farmer nodded to Runner, standing behind me. "Awt hair boy yosalf, sawnny?"
I suddenly realized we had dodged a potential disaster we hadn't thought about, and nearly fainted. It wasn't anything about the way Runner and I looked. My body looked just as strong as any Purity Island slave's. Runner's most striking feature was his islander facial features, but as long as there were any original island genes floating around at all, there had to be some farmers who looked like him.
But with all the planning for what a farmer would see when he looked at us, I just hadn't thought about accents! I'd grown accustomed to Runner's speech patterns; he was the only person I had to converse with, day after day, and I no longer noticed the accent. I hadn't thought about whether the farmers would sound like that. If they spoke differently, then Runner's accent would mark him as a product of the breeding pens, somehow running free. But now I heard a farmer speak for the first time, and his speech had that same vowel shift. Maybe that's how everybody spoke over a century ago, when the Purists left the mainland. In any case, there's no reason this settler will think Runner isn't the farmboy he appears. But this could have gone so horribly wrong.
I had no trouble translating the male's friendly "Out here by yourself, sonny?"
All of this passed through my mind in an instant, and I remembered to give Runner the signal, though the question here was easy enough that Runner probably didn't need it. Indeed, Runner was already saying, "Yes, sir," before I started the small movement of my index finger that would signal "Yes".
My hope had been that polite conversation between an older settler and a teenager he'd never met would consist mainly of yes-no questions and friendly observations. In case Runner didn't know how to respond, I would give him hand signals. Runner would be able to see them out of the corner of his eye while looking at the farmer rather than directly at me.
The settler smiled. "Your daddy taught you old-fashioned. I like that." I guessed he was reacting to Runner's "sir," perhaps a rarely-used honorific on the island today. Another bullet dodged. Runner was just within the bounds of normal speech.
Before Runner could reply — he may have been waiting for another sign from me — the settler went on, "You headed for one of the towns?"
I quickly gave the finger curl again, and heard Runner say again, "Yes, sir."
"Which one?"
I held my hand with all fingers splayed apart. Runner said, "I don't know, sir."
The settler smiled again. "Ain't been to any before?"
I waved my index finger from side to side. Runner responded, "No, sir."
The settler nodded. "You try to get yourself to Purity Town, then. Biggest one. Lots for a boy to see on his first big adventure."
"Yes, sir. How do I get there?"
I blinked. No prearrangement had suggested the latter sentence. Runner had done it on his own.
"No trouble. You just follow the signs when the trail branches."
I signaled, and Runner said "Yes, sir" once more.
I tensed as one of the wagon's two dogboys jumped down from the open tailgate and approached. This one was a redhead, significantly older than Puppy, perhaps thirty, probably a much-traveled veteran. And Puppy, who had been directly behind me, now approached the oncoming dogboy.
I watched them out of the side of my eye, trying not to react. Puppy and the other dogboy met and licked each other's faces briefly. Puppy made a soft whimpering sound that I took to be a sign of submissiveness. The farmer's second dogboy remained in the wagon, looking on. That one was younger, probably early twenties. I guessed that the older one was taking advantage of seniority.
The redhead nudged Puppy to face away from him, and started sniffing Puppy's rear end. He barked once. The purpose was obvious. Puppy quickly lowered his front and raised his rear end for the redhead.
The farmer looked irritated. "No, no, we ain't got time for that." He bent and gave his redheaded dogboy a light swat on the butt. "Get back in the wagon, Prince. We're headed off."
The dogboy looked disappointed, but trotted obediently back to the wagon and hopped up onto the tailgate. The second dogboy licked the redhead's face, whining softly. He probably realized that his elder was going to be irritable for a time.
The settler looked at Runner and put the side of his index finger against his forehead in what I thought was a friendly salute of departure, like waving goodbye. I couldn't see whether Runner returned it, but the settler seemed satisfied. Resuming his seat on the wagon, he picked up his paddle and swatted the backside of the front right slaveboy. "Let's go." The slave had no visible reaction other than to begin pushing the wagon forward, the other slaves helping.
I turned to watch their departure. Runner was standing with his eyes closed, one finger hooked under Puppy's collar to keep him from following. He was breathing deeply, his mouth open, looking as if he were trying not to faint.
I said softly, "Runner? Runner? Let's go."
Runner opened his eyes. They were bright, and his mouth curled in a huge grin. He mouthed to me, "We did it, Wynn!!" He dropped down to give Puppy a hug, laughing when Puppy licked his face as usual. Then, beaming at me, and brushing his hand on my hip as he passed, he walked on ahead down the trail.
The trail leveled off at the foot of the mountain, and we saw the signpost to which the farmer had referred — a wooden two-by-four standing vertically, embedded in the ground, with boards at its top facing in several directions naming the towns they were pointing to. There was a road along the foot of the mountains, just like on the west side. According to the sign, following the road north would take one to the towns of Purity and Freedom. Going south one would arrive at Liberty or Fairhold. Going east, a path directly into the forest would take one to Tradition.
There was no way to stop and confer with Runner while we could still easily be seen. So I left it to Runner to lead the way. Runner looked at the signpost in passing, then he took the eastbound road into the forest.
After a hundred yards, with no oncoming wagons or other travelers visible, Runner beckoned to me and ducked into the forest, until we were invisible from the road. I followed, pulling the cart with difficulty over the rough ground and around trees.
Runner turned to me with that same big grin as before, and wrapped his arms tightly around me, jumping up and down in excitement. "We made it Wynn, we're here, we're here!" He broke off the hug and untied my hands from the cart handles.
My arms automatically folded around Runner, and my lips met Runner's for a long kiss.
Puppy, catching the mood, barked several times, bouncing from side to side on his forearms. Runner and I dropped down beside Puppy, laughing, and gave some well-earned attention to his sensual needs. Once Puppy was exhausted, Runner slipped off his clothes, and we turned back to each other for some serious lovemaking.
I loved the feeling of my fur sliding against Runner's.
We lay in each other's arms after sex, our energies spent. "What made you decide to go to Tradition?" I asked. The farmer had recommended Purity, though for reasons that didn't really apply to us.
Runner gave me a stumped look. "What?"
"To the town named Tradition. We're headed there."
"How do you know that?"
"That's what the sign said. I saw you look at it."
Runner's brows wrinkled. "Was that that thing stuck in the ground?"
I nodded. "It said this road led to Tradition."
Runner's puzzled expression deepened. "It did? I didn't hear it say anything."
I choked back a laugh, covering it with a cough. I didn't want to seem to be laughing at Runner, especially because it was really my fault. Until now, I had never stopped to think about whether Runner could read. Of course he can't! Where would he have learned? And it went well beyond that. Runner did not even imagine the concept of reading, had no idea that people could communicate information silently by drawing lines and curves that didn't look like any physical object.
But he loved learning things. I had seen that from the start.
I kissed him again. "When we get back to the Academy, there's going to be a lot of new stuff you can learn. Besides hanging."
Runner's eyes lit up. "We're closer, aren't we? Where do we go now?"