Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (27 page)

The following day, the old woman acted as if nothing had happened, and would not let him mention it, either.

Two days later, she broke his fingers.

He was carrying wood for the fireplace and she appeared from nowhere. She laid a broom handle across his right fingers, so fast he hardly saw it, only heard the resounding crack and felt the pain. The wood nearly fell, but he got his left arm around it, holding his right hand out to one side. He didn’t cry out or grimace with pain; he was already too disciplined for that. But he looked a question at her.

“
You’re right-handed,” she said. “Get over it. Make your left as strong and smart as your right.”

He stared at her. “But....” he said, “you did not block my strike.”

“
Expectations are weapons, like surprise,” was all she said.

There was no further pretense. The next stage of his training had begun.

23. WOLF

My Pa didn’t like the Railwalkers, or the supernatural stuff they often dealt with. “I don’t mess with that sort of thing,” he’d say, holding his palm out like a guardsman’s “stop” signal. But kids notice everything, particularly the things you don’t want them to notice, so naturally I realized early on that he never actually said he didn’t believe, even though he sometimes seemed to imply that. To my child’s mind, it seemed my father chose to avoid this aspect of life as a matter of practical good sense, the way you’d avoid taunting a dangerous animal, or drawing to an inside straight.

He had his own superstitions, his lucky cigarette lighter (he’d never gamble without it), and his lifetime membership in the Order of St. Bernardine (the patron saint of gamblers, naturally), but he avoided the Railwalkers, never went to the High Holiday celebrations. He would acknowledge some of the holidays, giving presents at Winterpeak or taking me to see the fireworks on Forge Lie Day. Generally, though, Pa kept himself, and me, out of the way of any sort of religious or spiritual activities. Which is why I managed to live twenty years before having more than a brief glimpse of a Railwalker, or even an Allworld priest, come to that.

First time I saw an actual Railwalker, I was working a construction site outside the city of Two Suns. The building was to be both warehouse and offices for a transit company. We’d had lots of problems putting the thing up. So much so that the bossman on the job was starting to look worn and harried. Slim Harnett wasn’t really all that slim, but he was one of the tallest men I’d ever seen, and his extreme height made him seem thinner than he actually was. A saturnine fellow with short salt-and-pepper hair and a goatee, Slim wasn’t one for talking much. He usually spoke just enough to convey whatever instructions he needed to give the hands. Unless you caught him off-hours and got him started on hunting. Slim was an avid hunter, and this was the one subject he would sometimes open up about. During work hours, however, he was silent and taciturn. Not rude or curt; he was always polite. In fact, the second time the northeast end of the framing fell down on this job was also the first time I’d ever heard Slim swear.

“
Fucking butthole-sucking architects.”

I stared at him. I was just some guy pouring plascrete for Slim’s outfit, who happened to be standing there. It was none of my business what Slim muttered to himself, but I stared anyway, as this was such an uncharacteristic outburst, even uttered quietly the way it was. He noticed me staring. Then he spoke to the air again. “They didn’t have a Railwalker check the site first.”

It was hard to tell whether this was for my benefit, or he was still talking to himself. Slim had this odd quirk of never looking at you when he talked. He’d be talking to the air over your shoulder. I wasn’t sure I should venture a question, but it popped out anyway.

“
Are they required by law to do that?” I asked. I was still learning the business. Construction laws varied greatly from city to city, zone to zone. In some places the laws were convoluted and labyrinthine. Having a Railwalker or a Feng Shui practitioner check over a potential construction site was not uncommon; it was possible some city ordinances required it.

“
Nah,” said Slim. “It ain’t required, but it’s customary. And smart.”

Slim set a crew to cleaning out the mess. Turned out the plascrete of the foundation in that section was bad; it had crumbled like there had been too much water in the mix, though I had been there when Red Avery was making up the mix, and it looked to me like it was fine; if anything, a little dry. Once it was cleaned out, Slim set us to working on the other end of the building for the rest of the day, ignoring the northeast corner.

We were shutting down for the night when Red Avery noticed an animal lurking around the edges of the desert chaparral.

“
Shit!” he cried. “That’s the biggest goddamn coyote I ever seen.”

“
That’s no coyote,” said Armando. Unlike Red, he pronounced the word “Coy-oh-tay.” He shook his head. “Es un lobo—a wolf.”

I looked over Red’s shoulder. I had never seen a wolf, though I had seen plenty of coyotes over the years. This animal was certainly bigger than any coyote I’d ever seen, heavier for his size, with a fuller ruff around his shoulders. He seemed to be looking directly at me.

“
Bullshit,” said Red. “Ain’t been no wolves in this area since before the Crash.”

“
Armando’s right,” said Slim, who had come up as we stood gawping at our watcher. “That’s a wolf. I seen ’em plenty of times when I was hunting up north.” He grunted. “Strange alright, seein’ one of ’em around here. Especially by himself.”

“
What,” said Red, “you never heard of a lone wolf?” He laughed.

Slim’s glare silenced him. “Lone wolves are a myth,” he said. “Wolf is a social animal. They travel in packs. Wolf by himself, without a pack, usually don’t live long.”

I could see Red was skeptical about this, but no one was going to challenge the bossman on his wildlife knowledge. Red kept his mouth shut. The wolf, or big coyote, or whatever it was, vanished into the chaparral.

The following morning the wolf was back, watching us from the undergrowth. By noon it was gone again. Then, just after lunch break, the Railwalker came walking out of the desert.

When I first noticed him, I looked up from the plasteel framing I was bolting together and saw a pale, dust-colored figure off in the distance. I continued to bolt plasteel, glancing up at the approaching figure now and then. As it got closer I could make out the long duster, the headscarf, with the long tail pulled over his lower face like a bandanna. All one color, the shade of the reddish brown desert dust. A pair of crows soared in the air above, circling.

By the time the figure had reached the construction site we were all watching him. He stopped a few feet from us. “Who’s the bossman here?” he asked.

Slim stepped up. “That would be me,” he said.

The stranger unwrapped the scarf from around his face, and you could make out part of the eye tattoo under the dust.

“
Hear tell you could use a Railwalker.”

“
I ’spect we could,” said Slim.

“
Slate am I, Walker of the Rails between Worlds, charged by Corvinus, fifth of his line from Brick, the Red Crow. Twenty-three Blessings of Soul-Are on you and yours, brother. Say your need.”

We were all sent back to work as Slim brought out coffee and tobacco, and the two of them sat down to talk.

While I worked I watched them covertly. The stranger was almost as tall as Slim, and much leaner, practically skeletal, but tough and wiry looking, skin browned by the sun ’til it looked like leather. His lined and hollow cheeks were covered by stubble, though it wasn’t clear whether this was a short beard or a long five o’clock shadow, but from the rest of his appearance, I was guessing the latter. He shared coffee and tobacco with Slim, and then they walked over to the northeast corner where the framing had collapsed and the ’crete gone bad. They looked it over together, then the man from the desert nodded. He walked a few yards out from the site, then began a slow circuit of the place, pacing a large circle around the whole site. When he reached his starting point again he spoke a few words to Slim, then walked off to sit in the shade of a nearby palo verde tree. Slim returned to work.

Come quitting time I hung back as the others left. I walked over to where the stranger was still sitting under the palo verde. “’Scuse me,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”

“
Sure, you can ask.” He looked up at me. His eyes were so pale blue they were almost colorless. “Don’t guarantee a good answer.”

“
Fair enough.” I hunkered down next to him. “So,” I asked, “you know why that foundation gave way?”

“
Pretty sure.” He wasn’t giving anything away for free, this guy.

“
So... Why did it?”

He looked at me, then looked around at the landscape as if checking to see who was listening, though there was no one around, and nowhere for anyone to hide nearby. He looked back at me again, a long, considering look. Made me feel like my Pa’s look did sometimes when I’d done something wrong.

“
See that depression with the brush growing around it?” He pointed to a spot a stone’s throw from the northeast corner. “There was a waterhole there once. Still water there, deep down below. They’re planning to sink a well. Part of the reason they chose this spot, I reckon.”

He stopped speaking as if that had explained everything. I waited a bit. When it became clear he wasn’t going to say any more without urging, I asked, “So, what does that mean? You saying the ground’s not stable?”

“
Stability got nothing to do with it. Waterholes got spirits. This one may be dried up, but the water’s still there deep underneath, and the spirit’s still there with it. This is her land, that water spirit. Not respectful to go building on it without her permission.”

I thought that over. “The plascrete acted like it had too much water in it,” I said. “That was her doing?”

“
Reckon so.”

“
And you’re going to.... What, talk her into letting us build here?”

“
If I can,” he said.

“
And that’ll solve the problem, just like that?”

“
Mebbe. If she agrees. ’Course, likely she’s more than a little pissed off right now, so your Boss Slim will have to make some offerings. Probably good to make ’em pretty regular until the work is done. Even better the owners come down and do that.”

“
Somehow,” I said, “I don’t think that’s like to happen.” I’d seen the owners once when they toured the site. Suits from downtown Two Suns. They didn’t look like the type to come out here and burn tobacco, or whatever it was the spirit needed, on any kind of regular basis.

“
Well,” he said, “what happens once the building’s done is their problem, then, isn’t it?”

I laughed. “I reckon so,” I said, unconsciously imitating him.

He peered at me again, those pale eyes boring right into me. “You don’t really care, do you? That’s not what you really wanted to ask me about.”

My stomach turned over. He was right. I’d been silent about my strange experiences for so long, it was like I didn’t have the first idea how to open up on that subject. He took out a small, ropy cigar, lit it with a tarnished silver lighter. Watched me struggle, not helping, just sitting there, waiting, puffing his cigar.

“
I...” I started, and faltered. Gathered my courage and plunged ahead. “Sometimes... I see things.”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Things that ain’t there. Or at least, nobody else sees ’em. Things that haven’t happened yet, sometimes.”

He nodded. Then it all spilled out. I found myself telling him about the visions, the dreams, the visits from the spirit of my mother. All the weird stuff I’d been silent about for so many years. Once I’d got started, it wasn’t hard at all; it just all kind of burst out of me. When I’d finished, he said nothing for a while, staring off into the distance.

“
You got someplace to be tonight?” he asked finally.

“
No place particular.”

“
Better if you fast, but if you gotta eat, eat light. Then come back here after sunset.”

I arrived back at the site exactly at sunset. The Railwalker was standing to the west of the site, his arms up, saying something. I didn’t know the Salutation in those days, but I knew instinctively this wasn’t something I should interrupt. I stood back in silence until he finished. Then he turned to walk to the northeast corner. I could see he’d prepared a small fire about halfway between the site and the depression in the ground he claimed was once a waterhole. He crouched down to apply a light to the piled branches and twigs. I thought he hadn’t seen me, but once the fire had caught, he stood, and without turning called out, “You gonna stand there all night?”

I hurried over to the Railwalker and his fire. As I got closer, I could see other things on the ground nearby. A couple of blankets, the Railwalker’s backpack, a bowl of water, a smaller, shallower bowl that held loose tobacco, and a tin cup with some rock salt in it.