Post by Evangeline on Feb 13, 2007 3:28:59 GMT -5
WOLFRIDER
Dawn Hurley squeezed her eyes shut and flopped over in her simple, hand-built rope bed as the first rays of dawn peeked throught the burlap "drapery" to strike her face. Jammer's morning "song session" was echoing out from his pen and across the mesa, providing the wake-up call Dawn heard every morning, rain or shine, but most often shine. The smell of mesquite-pod "coffee" wafted in from the front room of the simple adobe dwelling that had been her home for the past five years; as usual, her common-law husband Emmanuel had preceded her in waking. With a grunt and a shove, Dawn propelled herself out of bed and pulled down her drapery-cotton nightshirt before stretching and padding over to the kitchen/living/whatever room where Emmanuel was warming the tin pot on a cast-iron stove. The scent of burning deadwood was pervasive, mingling with the smell of humble food and drink. Emmanuel brought the pot over to the table, a cast-off piece of furniture never made for the human frame, and set it down on a hand-forged trivet. It was not the life Dawn had known as a girl, but compared to the first year after the Sweep, it was luxury.
"G'morning." Dawn yawned. She stared through sunlight dust motes as Emmanuel returned to the stove to retrieve the griddle cakes, which also had their basis in mesquite pods, dried and ground into flour in the village's hand-turned mill. With wild honey poured over them, they were a plain, if filling, breakfast. Afterwards, Dawn and Emmanuel lingered on their cable-spool chairs and made their plans for the day. In the distance, a horse whinnied. Dawn didn't have to look to know that it was Etranger, calling out to the Mongolian mares (and the one Shagya Arabian) that made up his harem. No one would have dreamed of putting a high-bred Akhal-Teke stallion to runty steppe-born ponies, but the only horses on this planet couldn't afford to be fussy. It was a consolation that their offspring were growing taller and straighter on the richer graze of this world's Arizona, in addition to the goats, bison, wild pigs, whitetails, quail and guinea fowl that had also found themselves "Swept" here. God may have dumped four hundred-odd humans into a world they never made and was never made for them, but at least He sent some animals with them.
"So when are they coming?" Emmanuel asked. He was not a loquacious sort, and not the sort that Dawn would have immediately crushed on back home, but they had latched on to one another in that any-port-in-a-storm way and had come to recognize each other's virtues. He was twenty-five, brown of skin, black of hair and eyes, barely five-feet six and rail-thin. She was nineteen, with shoulder-length hair on the cusp of dark blonde and light ash-brown, slightly freckled, with minty green eyes, six inches taller and full of curve, but healthy.
"They should be here around ten." Dawn shrugged as she rose, bundling the dishes off to the washtub and the pump. "Jammer's already climbing the walls."
"He knows." Emmanuel stepped outside, waving to his neighbors as they passed on foot, horse or wolfbikes. "He probably heard you packing last night."
That last was obvious, but the words had the familiarity of a well-worn path, and oft-repeated things were clung to in this village, where the whole world changed beyond the fringes of the mesa.
Dawn scrubbed away at the dishes while listening to Jammer whine. "I'm coming!" she answered to his keening. A sharp, protesting bark was his reply. With the last kiln-fired dish wiped and placed in its slot on the rack, Dawn strode out into air already dry and hot, turning towards the sturdy, shaded kennel where Jammer paced restlessly, eyes, fairing and rims flashing. This wolfbike, now painted red and black, lowered his ear-like projections and his head in ingratiating submission as Dawn slipped through the gate with his bowl of bike-kibble and his Hi-Grade. She had tamed him as a puppy, then raised and trained him to carry a rider, giving to humans the speed of this world's people and a place on their roads. Jammer eagerly devoured his food and fuel, and thrust his head beneath Dawn's arm for a scratch behind the ears. That's all he asked for his service.
"Good boy." Dawn scratched and rubbed the wolfbike's head. "You know what's coming, don't you?"
Yes! the wolfbike seemed to proclaim. A run. A big run! His whole body - all seven feet and 480 pounds of monocoque with a four-stroke inline four - wriggled with anticipation. To keep Jammer from bowling her over, Dawn braced her arm out against his back, a move that the creature had been conditioned from infancy to understand as "Keep still", which he did. It was essential to start training wolfbikes while they were still small pups, so that they would always accept their riders' dominance.
"It won't be long now." Dawn stroked Jammer's seat. She retrieved the "handlebars" from their wall hook and carefully fastened them; they functioned like levers to apply guiding pressure in concert with the weight and legs. Riding one of these "animals" always felt like handling something halfway between a horse and a pure machine, except that no horse could approach 150mph at top speed. She then attached a pair of panniers behind the seat, making sure that they were secure before loading her personal gear into them. The odd pat on the head kept the wolfbike mollified through this operation.
Now, with Jammer all set, it was time for Dawn to get ready. She washed herself out of a basin, combed her hair and tied it back, and pulled a shirt, shorts and handcrafted biking leathers. With boots pulled on, she almost towered over Emmanuel. Jammer bounced on his shocks and keened outside, painfully eager to go. Finally, she grabbed a helmet from a hook on the wall - black, full-face, custom-fitted - and went back outside.
Guinea fowl keets scattered as Dawn stepped off the porch, and she saw the horses in the pasture swivel their ears and, with all the alertness of flight animals, look intently towards a dust cloud on the horizon. The mature guinea fowl raised an alarm at the same time, being natural sentries. As the cloud drew closer, its source revealed itself - a procession consisting of a pickup truck of F-550 type, followed by a large semi. They took the graded incline up the side of the cliff, towards the top of the mesa, slowing drastically in deference to the children and livestock milling about the "streets" of the settlement. They pulled up between Dawn's house and the prefab building that served as the village's branch sherriff's office; their eyes scanned the environs from beneath windshields, sideviews flicked, and tires stamped in the dirt as the vehicles - people, really - snuffed the dust out of their grilles.
Two other humans and their mounts emerged out of the woodwork and joined Dawn, with loaded bags and boxes full of gear ready to go into the semi trailer's baggage compartments. The eager keening of the wolfbikes rose over the chugging of the diesel engines as the pickup truck made a quick head count and finally gave a nod. At one point the main occupant of the trailer, a well-known stock car, put down the ramp and stuck his nose outside, taking in the novel sights and smells of what was, for all intents and purposes, an alien race. This trailer had two sections - the larger one that opened out the back for the stocker, and a smaller forward compartment with facilities for the humans. In this world, that would have required some customization! Finally, the ramp rose again and the riders mounted up.
As the pickup and semi went back the way they came, the "wolfriders" followed.
Dawn Hurley squeezed her eyes shut and flopped over in her simple, hand-built rope bed as the first rays of dawn peeked throught the burlap "drapery" to strike her face. Jammer's morning "song session" was echoing out from his pen and across the mesa, providing the wake-up call Dawn heard every morning, rain or shine, but most often shine. The smell of mesquite-pod "coffee" wafted in from the front room of the simple adobe dwelling that had been her home for the past five years; as usual, her common-law husband Emmanuel had preceded her in waking. With a grunt and a shove, Dawn propelled herself out of bed and pulled down her drapery-cotton nightshirt before stretching and padding over to the kitchen/living/whatever room where Emmanuel was warming the tin pot on a cast-iron stove. The scent of burning deadwood was pervasive, mingling with the smell of humble food and drink. Emmanuel brought the pot over to the table, a cast-off piece of furniture never made for the human frame, and set it down on a hand-forged trivet. It was not the life Dawn had known as a girl, but compared to the first year after the Sweep, it was luxury.
"G'morning." Dawn yawned. She stared through sunlight dust motes as Emmanuel returned to the stove to retrieve the griddle cakes, which also had their basis in mesquite pods, dried and ground into flour in the village's hand-turned mill. With wild honey poured over them, they were a plain, if filling, breakfast. Afterwards, Dawn and Emmanuel lingered on their cable-spool chairs and made their plans for the day. In the distance, a horse whinnied. Dawn didn't have to look to know that it was Etranger, calling out to the Mongolian mares (and the one Shagya Arabian) that made up his harem. No one would have dreamed of putting a high-bred Akhal-Teke stallion to runty steppe-born ponies, but the only horses on this planet couldn't afford to be fussy. It was a consolation that their offspring were growing taller and straighter on the richer graze of this world's Arizona, in addition to the goats, bison, wild pigs, whitetails, quail and guinea fowl that had also found themselves "Swept" here. God may have dumped four hundred-odd humans into a world they never made and was never made for them, but at least He sent some animals with them.
"So when are they coming?" Emmanuel asked. He was not a loquacious sort, and not the sort that Dawn would have immediately crushed on back home, but they had latched on to one another in that any-port-in-a-storm way and had come to recognize each other's virtues. He was twenty-five, brown of skin, black of hair and eyes, barely five-feet six and rail-thin. She was nineteen, with shoulder-length hair on the cusp of dark blonde and light ash-brown, slightly freckled, with minty green eyes, six inches taller and full of curve, but healthy.
"They should be here around ten." Dawn shrugged as she rose, bundling the dishes off to the washtub and the pump. "Jammer's already climbing the walls."
"He knows." Emmanuel stepped outside, waving to his neighbors as they passed on foot, horse or wolfbikes. "He probably heard you packing last night."
That last was obvious, but the words had the familiarity of a well-worn path, and oft-repeated things were clung to in this village, where the whole world changed beyond the fringes of the mesa.
Dawn scrubbed away at the dishes while listening to Jammer whine. "I'm coming!" she answered to his keening. A sharp, protesting bark was his reply. With the last kiln-fired dish wiped and placed in its slot on the rack, Dawn strode out into air already dry and hot, turning towards the sturdy, shaded kennel where Jammer paced restlessly, eyes, fairing and rims flashing. This wolfbike, now painted red and black, lowered his ear-like projections and his head in ingratiating submission as Dawn slipped through the gate with his bowl of bike-kibble and his Hi-Grade. She had tamed him as a puppy, then raised and trained him to carry a rider, giving to humans the speed of this world's people and a place on their roads. Jammer eagerly devoured his food and fuel, and thrust his head beneath Dawn's arm for a scratch behind the ears. That's all he asked for his service.
"Good boy." Dawn scratched and rubbed the wolfbike's head. "You know what's coming, don't you?"
Yes! the wolfbike seemed to proclaim. A run. A big run! His whole body - all seven feet and 480 pounds of monocoque with a four-stroke inline four - wriggled with anticipation. To keep Jammer from bowling her over, Dawn braced her arm out against his back, a move that the creature had been conditioned from infancy to understand as "Keep still", which he did. It was essential to start training wolfbikes while they were still small pups, so that they would always accept their riders' dominance.
"It won't be long now." Dawn stroked Jammer's seat. She retrieved the "handlebars" from their wall hook and carefully fastened them; they functioned like levers to apply guiding pressure in concert with the weight and legs. Riding one of these "animals" always felt like handling something halfway between a horse and a pure machine, except that no horse could approach 150mph at top speed. She then attached a pair of panniers behind the seat, making sure that they were secure before loading her personal gear into them. The odd pat on the head kept the wolfbike mollified through this operation.
Now, with Jammer all set, it was time for Dawn to get ready. She washed herself out of a basin, combed her hair and tied it back, and pulled a shirt, shorts and handcrafted biking leathers. With boots pulled on, she almost towered over Emmanuel. Jammer bounced on his shocks and keened outside, painfully eager to go. Finally, she grabbed a helmet from a hook on the wall - black, full-face, custom-fitted - and went back outside.
Guinea fowl keets scattered as Dawn stepped off the porch, and she saw the horses in the pasture swivel their ears and, with all the alertness of flight animals, look intently towards a dust cloud on the horizon. The mature guinea fowl raised an alarm at the same time, being natural sentries. As the cloud drew closer, its source revealed itself - a procession consisting of a pickup truck of F-550 type, followed by a large semi. They took the graded incline up the side of the cliff, towards the top of the mesa, slowing drastically in deference to the children and livestock milling about the "streets" of the settlement. They pulled up between Dawn's house and the prefab building that served as the village's branch sherriff's office; their eyes scanned the environs from beneath windshields, sideviews flicked, and tires stamped in the dirt as the vehicles - people, really - snuffed the dust out of their grilles.
Two other humans and their mounts emerged out of the woodwork and joined Dawn, with loaded bags and boxes full of gear ready to go into the semi trailer's baggage compartments. The eager keening of the wolfbikes rose over the chugging of the diesel engines as the pickup truck made a quick head count and finally gave a nod. At one point the main occupant of the trailer, a well-known stock car, put down the ramp and stuck his nose outside, taking in the novel sights and smells of what was, for all intents and purposes, an alien race. This trailer had two sections - the larger one that opened out the back for the stocker, and a smaller forward compartment with facilities for the humans. In this world, that would have required some customization! Finally, the ramp rose again and the riders mounted up.
As the pickup and semi went back the way they came, the "wolfriders" followed.
