James Axler – Deathlands

The native’s smile vanished like ice off a river at the spring greening.

“Those are words with the color of blood,” he said. “We must think on them.”

“Sure.”

The meal was virtually over, several of the natives lying in the dirt, hopelessly drunk. Doc was sitting across from Ryan, and the old man’s speech was more than a little slurred. He had embarked on a long and bizarre anecdote about a young friend of his from the long-ago past, someone who had survived quite extraordinary adventures. The last part that Ryan heard was about how the friend had begun to run a paper down at the end of the Florida Keys. But nobody appeared to be listening to the endless story.

Some of the younger warriors had begun to play a strange game in the open square of the village.

They had a sort of ball made from a tightly knotted length of leather cord, and the object of the game was to keep this ball aloft without the use of hands at all, just feet, legs, heads, hips and shoulders.

Ryan watched, fascinated by the skill and cunning displayed by the young men as they threw themselves around the dusty patch of flat ground.

Jak had also been watching.

“I’d like try that, Chief,” he said.

Itzcoatl gaped at the idea of a visiting god wishing to demean himself in a childish game. But because Jak was clearly the visiting god of salvation of their legends, he could do nothing but give a nod of permission.

Ryan felt exhausted after the labor of the previous night, when nobody had any sleep. He watched as Jak walked, as light as air, to join the young men of the tribe.

Then he had to have dozed off as he jerked awake to find Krysty nudging him.

“Look, lover.”

The whole village seemed to be standing around the square, silently watching Jak.

The teenager had the finest coordination of anyone Ryan had ever seen, making him a lethal opponent at any form of hand-to-hand combat. Now, relaxing after the tension of the night and the dawning, he was dazzlingly unstoppable.

“He’s kept that ball going for at least five minutes,” Krysty said.

Jak stood on one foot, perfectly balanced, keeping the leather ball in the air with his other foot. Occasionally, for variety, he flicked it onto his left shoulder, then the right, up to his head where he kept it balanced, almost hidden among the sweeping flood of white hair.

As Ryan watched, the teenager kicked the little ball high in the air, diving into a double forward roll and catching it perfectly at the nape of his neck, snapping his head back to send it soaring again, while he did a standing back somersault and caught the ball on his chin, balancing it there.

Everyone gave a great roar of approval, applauding his brilliance, the cheers led by Itzcoatl and the adoring figure of Rain Flower.

Mildred leaned across the table to whisper to the others. “Now nothing’s going to convince them that our Jak’s not a true-born god.”

Krysty smiled at yet another acrobatic leap from the young albino. “Least them worshiping him doesn’t seem to have any downside.”

“So far,” Doc grunted.

AFTER THE MEAL, almost the entire population of the village crashed out, trying to make up for some of the lost sleep. Itzcoatl posted sentries on a rotating basis. Other than them, the settlement was quiet.

Ryan hardly needed to suggest to his companions that they should follow suit. Dean was visibly out on his feet, and Doc had to be helped to his bed.

Two hours later Ryan woke up, feeling pressure on his bladder. He rolled out of the sack and went to piss against the fence behind the hut, returning past his sleeping son to find that Krysty was also awake.

“Wrong time of day for shut-eye, lover,” she said. “I can’t work out whether it’s too early or too late. Definitely one or the other.”

“Agreed. Want to come for a walk?”

“Why not?”

It took only a few moments for her to pull on the Western boots. Afternoon sunlight chinked through the beaded curtain, bouncing off the chiseled silver toes.