Of Beginnings and Endings Read online

  "If only Arsen and the Micco and Swift Otter would do what I've been thinking about, we could drive those Spanish so fucking crazy, so damn bananas, that they'd shag ass out of that fort and town and go bother somebody else. But . . . oh, hell, there's no point in trying to argue with him and the Micco anymore. They don't want to hear psychological warfare, all they seem to want is blood."

  The blond woman spoke again. "Oh, John, you know better than that. If all Arsen had in mind was killing Spaniards, he could've . . . we could've wiped out every one of them that he purposely let escape from that island base of theirs, the night we freed the pen of slaves they were holding. For that matter, you know how awesome the power available to a person in a carrier. Don't you think he could've wiped out the whole settlement and fort by now if he wanted to? Or sink that big ship instead of just damaging it and setting it adrift that night? You have a very fine brain, John; think with it, not with your emotions. There's more than enough brainless thinking going on around here, anyway."

  "What the fuck's that s'posed to mean, huh, Lisa?" demanded two of the other bearded men, almost in chorus.

  "Methinks my lady's roving shaft hath fleshed," said another. This speaker was a man of a skin tone lighter than that of any of the others except the blond woman. Though not so big and large-framed as the other lighter-skinned men, he was extremely muscular, his limbs and body bearing not a few scars.

  His brown hair hung in two long, thick braids bound with strips of dyed doeskin, and his flaring moustaches soared up into points resembling the horns of buffalo. His beard, however, had been neatly clipped into a spade shape, while small reddish-gold rings—taken from off the body of a dead Spaniard—depended from the smallish lobes of his flat ears. His few articles of clothing were exactly alike to those of most of the darker-skinned men, and like them he squatted on the calloused heels of his bare feet rather than sitting on the floor.

  One of the two men who had yelped now turned to him of the golden earrings, demanding, "Who the fuck asked you to put your big mouth into it, Simon, huh?"

  He got no immediate answer, for Simon Delahaye was just then sucking a great lungful of smoke from out one of the circulating pipes of strong tobacco. Of them all, only he, Arsen Ademian, and Mike Sikeena seemed to really relish the stuff, the others taking as few shallow puffs as Creek or Shawnee courtesy required.

  "Aw, you leave Simon alone, Greg," said another of the bearded men, Al Ademian, "'cause I warn you, you get into another fucking donnybrook with him, you're on your own this time; I'll just let him clean your fucking clock for good and all."

  "Any time, buddy," said Greg Sinclair in brittle tones. "And I don't need no kinda help, neither, Al, yours or nobody else's . . . long's it's just Simon and me, long's some his fucking redskins, his fucking blood brothers, his bunghole buddies, don't pitch in to help him."

  Before Simon could exhale his smoke, voices were heard from outside the room, then seven more men entered it, still conversing. When all within the chamber once more were seated or squatting, and a very old, white-haired darker man—the Micco of the Creeks—and a younger, lighter-skinned, black-bearded man—Arsen Ademian—positioned on a slightly elevated dais made up of a thick slab of waxed hardwood covered with colorful cloth, Arsen began to speak.

  "Everybody got his helmet on? Look, everybody here that speaks English except Simon, take off your helmet and loan it to one of the ones who doesn't, huh? When we get into discussion, you can have them back. That way, we won't have to waste a whole lot of time while Simon translates into Shawnee and Creek, see."

  The transfers of silver headpieces effected, he began by saying, "Crooked Knife, here, and three other members of the Turtle Clan of the Creeks took French leave of the Spanish fort down by the mouth of the river and Soaring Eagle run on to them on his way back up here from there. The Spanish have brought in a bunch of new Indians, see, what Crooked Knife and the Micco call Worm Hunters and some other things that are flat insulting any way you translate them; some of this lot are half-breeds and most of them speak Spanish, too. Crooked Knife and the other three Creeks didn't think they could get along with them, didn't like them one damn bit, and, besides, had some way heard that the Micco was somewhere up here, so they just deserted one night."

  "Arsen," snapped Greg Sinclair, "how you know them redskins ain't pulling the fucking wool over your eyes, huh? They could just as easy been sent up here by the spies to spy on us, too."

  "Don't worry, Greg," replied Arsen, "I already thought of that angle. I checked with the carrier control and found out how to go deep enough into their heads to find out whether what-all they were saying, were telling me and the Micco and Swift Otter, was the truth. It was, buddy, every fucking word of it."

  "But back to what I was going to say, now. Any the rest of you got questions, wait till I'm done, hear? Like I've told you and the rest of the guys and gals who've been downriver in the carriers have told you, the Spanish are gearing up down there. They've towed that big ship from off the mud-bank back up to the basin near the fort and re-rigged it and took some of the biggest guns off it so it doesn't draw as much water and that can't mean anything else but the fuckers mean to come upriver in it."

  "But it was another thing I noticed but didn't bother talking about because I didn't understand about it, but after talking to Crooked Knife, I do. The Spanish have cut down enough big old trees to make them a couple of humongous rafts that right now are both pulled up on the riverbank just upstream of the town or village or whatever you call it. I seen them, but I thought when I did that the fuckers just were leaving them there until they had got around to cutting them up for timber or firewood or something, but Crooked Knife says different. He says that the Spanish mean to partially deck them, mount big guns on them, tow them up here, and use those guns against this place, that they call a fortaleza. All they're waiting for right now is a supply ship with more gunpowder—seems their powder keeps disappearing, ever so often, out from their magazine, barrels of it at a time." He grinned, and not a few around the circle chuckled, snorted mirth, or laughed merrily.

  "Also, they're expecting shipsful of more soldiers from some other forts down south of here, maybe Cuba or Florida, I don't know, and some more of these Hunter Indians, too. The ships are supposed to be to the fort anytime now, and we can fucking bet our ass the Spanish will be up here after our blood very soon after that. And that's why I called ever'body together, now: We need to talk this whole thing out and figure what's going to be the best for us to do—cut and run up to that valley up or stand and fight the fuckers off here, then go up to the valley."

  "Before I say what I feel about it, I'll tell you what the Micco told me. He knows I want to draw other tribes into a real sizable confederation that can cut the Spanish and any other fucking Europeans over here down to size and make the fuckers give up slaving and killing the Indians just to be killing something, the way they've been doing. He says the only way I can attract the kind of Indians I want in the numbers that'll be needed is to beat the piss out of the Spanish a couple of times and then just pass the word around. And he thinks this here is a damn good time and place to start out. The old man's prob'ly right, he usually is, you all know that."

  "But what do you think we should do, Arsen?" demanded Lisa.

  He shrugged his hirsute shoulders. "Hell, honey, I don't know. I never did get a kick out of shooting fish in a barrel, and you can't call us going after guys armed with single-shot muzzle-loaders and cannons and swords and crossbows when we're in flying carriers and APCs that their weapons can't even scratch anything else besides shooting fish in a fucking barrel. Think of the cleared space between here and the river. Got it in your mind's eye, honey? Now, think of it with dead and dying Spanish soldiers and Indians every place you look. That's just what it's going to be like after we've sunk enough of their ships and boats that they decide to launch a frontal attack and get to see the business end of a couple of medium machine guns face to face, not to mention all ou
r cannons and swivel guns and the flintlock rifles and pistols that are better, more accurate, and faster to load and fire than anything they've got. We sure Lord don't have enough medical supplies to go in after any battle like that, so do you think you've got what it takes just to wait and listen to the poor, wounded fuckers scream, and whine and moan and whimper and gasp until they finally die? Or could you go out there and shoot them in the head, put them down, out of their misery, honey? You think you could—"

  "Stop it, Arsen!" she ordered from between clenched teeth, her slender body shuddering strongly as if in some spasm.

  "I'm sorry, honey . . . Lisa," he said softly, gently. "I . . . I guess I just got carried away, said it all stronger than I needed to is what. What I mean is, I don't want to have to fight them here, not because I'm afraid of fighting them, just the contrary, because I know they can bring more men up that river in ships than they could march through the woods or crowd into rowboats and canoes to get farther up the river where it's too shallow for ships to sail. The more they bring up, the more we'll have to kill or wound and let die, see. So what I want to do is start the people toward the valley, either cross-country or up the river in the boats we captured or the dozen or so Shawnee canoes."

  "I'll keep just enough warriors here to hold the fort if we have to and to get everything ready for transporting when the time is right for it and the rods are in place up north there to guide the loads in right and all. Us who stay here can take turns flying a carrier up there to choose places for everything to go and setting the rods, even before the people get there. I mean to take the whole damn fort, hill and all; we've put too damn much sweat and time and effort into this place to just go off and leave it for the fucking Spanish is how I feel, Lisa."

  John the Greek chuckled evilly. "I like your plan, Arsen. I'd just like to be a fucking bird in a tree when the fucking Spanish come sailing up the river, loaded for bear, and find nobody to fight, no fucking fort, no nothing."

  Arsen shook his head. "Give the fuckers credit for more know-how than that, John. They are pros, no two ways about it. They're not going to just come sailing up here blind—no, they'll send a patrol or two through the woods and prob'ly another one in small boats up the river, too, to feel out the defenses, see just what we do have to throw at them. If I was them, I'd set up an advance base and CP on that island where what we left of their little fort is, keep the ships and most the men down there till the patrols come back in and are debriefed. Then—"

  "So what we oughta do," interrupted Greg Sinclair, "is to fucking rig that whole damn island, Arsen. That is, if you don't wanta just take all three of the carriers down there one night soon and stop the fuckers afore they can get started. Go back to your papa in our old world and get him to give you some land mines and grenades and booby-trap kits, and maybe some plastique, too. And we could show the fucking Shawnees and Creeks how to make up and set a whole bunch of punjee sticks, soak the fuckers in the latrine for a few weeks first, and you know."

  "God, but you're bloodthirsty!" burst out Lisa, in horror and disgust. "Bullets and metal shards are bad enough. But have you ever seen, ever had to try to correct, the damages of barbaric devices like you're thinking about? Well, have you?"

  He nodded, grimly. "Two and half tours in the Nam, Lisa? You fucking-A right I seen what-all Charlie's shit and ours, too, can do, a whole fucking lot of it to friends of mine, too. But goddammit, honey, it fucking works; it does the job without exposing none of us to return fire, without us even having to fucking be around, see. And come to that, you done worked on enough Shawnees to know mosta the damn fucking common things them fucking spies done to them they took for slaves and the worser things they done to the ones as was too old or too young or sick or crippled up, too. You think they got anything better'n what-all I'm thinking about comin' to 'em?"

  Coldly, she snapped, "Greg, two wrongs do not make a right; never have, never will, and . . ."

  The silver headpieces Arsen had made up according to directions of what he had come to think of as his carrier's "brain" were admirably efficient at their intended function—that of allowing the wearer to understand the speech of others no matter what language they spoke, while projecting the wearer's own intended thoughts directly into the minds of those to whom he spoke in such a way as to convince them that he was speaking their tongue—but these crude copies contained only a small fraction of the functions of the "operator headpiece" which was a part of the full equipment of one of the enigmatic carriers and which were currently being worn by Arsen, John the Greek, and Mike Sikeena, the last ones to have used one of the three carriers the group owned.

  Arsen waved a hand impatiently. "Look Lisa, you want to hold a philosophy class with Greg or somethin', do it when we're not so pressed for time, huh? Besides of which, the Indians can't any of them figger out just what the hell's got your bowels in a fucking uproar anyway, and are wondering if you've fucking flipped your lid or somethin', honey. Honest, you don't b'lieve it, swap hats with John there, and see if I'm not telling you the gospel truth, honey."

  To Sinclair, he said, "Thanks for suggestions, buddy. I'll keep them in mind. But I figger we got more than enough going for us here as it is. All I want to do now is to get the noncombatants away from here before the Spanish get up here, see, and that means starting them north by the end of next week, anyway—all of the Shawnees, excepting Swift Otter and three or four of his bucks, and at least two-thirds of the Creeks—all I want around here when the fireworks start up are some of us and the warriors, no kids, no squaws, no old people except the Micco here, 'cause I don't think we could get him out of here until after the fight, 'less he was tied tight to a fucking ICBM."

  None of the whites could be certain just how the allusion was translated by the far-future technology into the Creek and the Shawnee languages, but there were clear indications of general mirth among the Indians.

  Another of the women spoke then. "Arsen, there's a problem with your time schedule. It's the crops. The Shawnee garden patches mostly aren't ready for harvest yet, won't be for weeks, and those foods will be needed to see them through the winter, since they'll be getting up into that valley far too late to sow another crop. Game and wild foods can only go so far, you know, and since you can't get much more from home . . ."

  Arsen Ademian sighed. "Look, Rose, push comes to shove, I'll go back with a fucking Class Seven projector and flat fucking clean out a supermarket or grocery warehouse or meat packer before I'll let these folks starve. You oughta know me well enough by now to know that, honey. I do have a little bit of the gold left, anyway, but I'm saving it for really important things, like medicines and like that, 'stead of wasting it on canned beer like some y'all'd like me to. But I'm not going to need it for this. See, I'd thought about that angle when I first started thinking about moving all the folks north this summer 'stead of next spring like we'd thought we'd do, at first."

  "We've been stealing gunpowder and cannonballs and cannons and pig-lead and what-all from the Spanish fort right along, no pain, no strain—and you can bet your ass that's slowed the fuckers down, not to mention driving them half crazy wondering just who the fuck was taking ever'thing and how they was getting it out of locked rooms under the fucking noses of the damn sentries and all. I don't read spic and not even one the carrier hats can help you do that, so I ended up with a barrel of their wine, on one run, remember, thinking it was gunpowder. But the fucking stuff smells like vinegar and tastes like cat puke and the onliest one really liked it was Simon, so I never lifted any more of it."

  "On the contrary, Friend Arsen Silverhat," remarked the aged, white-haired, wrinkled Micco. "I, too, relish the Spanish liquid. Of old, in the south whence I led my people here, I found it most tasty and found too that it owned the effect of easing the pains that cold or damp weather brings to old bones and joints almost as much as do the little pieces of white, powdery rock that Friend Lisa has me swallow with water now. So take all of it that you can find and bring it to me. I
promise to share equally with my friend the mighty warrior and leader of warriors Captain Simon."

  Arsen chuckled. "One barrel of wine coming up, Der Micco . . . among other things. See, Rose, you know damn well if the Spanish are going to be bringing in more troops, they're damn well going to have to have laid up rations to feed them while they're on hand. So I mean to just flit into there from time to time and project back enough of their grub to feed our folks through the winter and the early spring, up north, in the valley; I'll project it up here and then once we get the crypt in place up there, so there'll be a varmint-proof place to keep it, I'll project it all up there. It, some of it, might be things the Indians aren't too familiar with, but if the Spanish live on it, so can we. You know, rice, rye, oats, dried onions and garlic and chili peppers, loaf sugar, cured meat, pickled vegetables, lard, stuff like that—least, those are things I've seen stored down there. Plus more barrels of hard crackers—and when I say hard, I mean fucking hard, too, hard as pieces of fucking slate hard—than you could shake a fucking stick at."

  "But I won't take enough of anything to do more than just slow the fuckers down, see. Just like we won't try to wipe them out when they get up here, just hurt them bad enough to send them back downriver to lick their wounds and get ready to hit us here again. Only by the time they get back up to pay us another social call, not only will we all be gone but the fort will be, too, and that ought to be a real kick in the balls to them. But they're tough fuckers, professionals, and sooner or later, they'll get over it and still be madder than hops at us, so they'll cast around till they find the trail and they'll send the best force they can after us, or maybe just a sizable patrol, first off, to locate us and then a bigger unit."