Usually Mouche’s approach to the cave was quiet, if not silent, but today when he came within hearing distance, he heard the small furry thing screaming. He had heard it scream before, when it was surprised, or hurt, so he gave up any pretense at secrecy and ran for the cave at full tilt, drawing up at the entrance to see two boys, arms outstretched, attempting to catch the furry thing, whom they had already wounded with a thrown rock. Mouche saw the rock, the wound in the furry thing’s side, the boys intent and lustful faces, and without even thinking about it, he launched himself at the larger boy while Duster, following suit, took on the smaller.
Mouche and Duster had the advantage of surprise and at least one longer set of teeth. Though Mouche was somewhat battered in the fray, he and Duster prevailed. The two interlopers fled, though the larger paused at the top of the slope to shout, “You and your dog better watch it, farm-boy. I’ll get you. You count on that.”
Mouche paid little attention for he was busy attending to the furry thing that lay in his lap and sobbed like a baby.
“Borra tim ti’twa, Mouchidi. Borra tim ti’twa.”
The wound was not deep, and after a time, the thing sat up and sighed for a time, holding tight to Mouche the while and allowing Duster to lick the blood away, while the small creature took a tuft of its own fur and bent forward to clean up the abrasions Mouche himself had incurred, wiping the blood and loose skin away and then secreting the soiled tuft somewhere upon its body. It put its lips to the wound giving Mouche another love bite, only this one stung a little, and Mouche drew away with a little gasp. The creature murmured at him, patting his face.
It was only then, when things had quieted down a bit, that Mouche noticed the odor, a rancid, moldy, feculent stench with more than a hint of burnt feathers to it. A little breeze came up and blew the smell away. Though the small furry thing might have emitted some smell in its fear, Mouche thought it more likely the smell had come with the intruders. Perhaps, he thought, they had been cleaning out a cow byre and forgot to wash. Though the smell was, come to think of it, worse than even several cows could manage.
Mouche was feverish for the next few days, as though he might have picked up a bug, so his father said, roaming around when he should be working. It didn’t amount to anything, and he was well again in no time, well enough to have another look at the cave.
When he and Duster got there, the small furry thing was gone, but the smell was all over the place. There were no displaced rocks or signs of struggle, and Mouche assumed the furry one had very intelligently gone elsewhere. He decided he would look in some of his other caves to see if his friend had taken up residence, and left it at that until a few days later when Duster set up a terrible howl, then thrashed and panted and tried to vomit and eventually, after a terrible afternoon of agony, died in Mouche’s arms. All those hours, while Mouche tried to hold him, to comfort him, that same smell was on him, and Mouche knew that Duster had died of poison, that the intruder boys had kept their word.
“What boys?” his Papa had asked.
Mouche had described them.
“The Dutter boys,” Papa remarked, with distaste.
The Dutter boys. Well. So, that was what had made him remember. It was unlikely there would be more than two with that name, and Madame didn’t like the Dutter boys either.
6—On Old Earth: The Dancing Child
“Come chickies, chickies,” cried Mama One. “come lapsit, storytime.”
Ellin heard the call, although she told herself she didn’t. She couldn’t hear it, she was too far in the woods, dancing, dancing. Her feet had taken her too far away, and she couldn’t hear Mama One or Benjamin or Tutsy or any of them. She whirled and whirled, high on her toes, hearing only the music, the drums, the strings, the harp …