Last wild boy, p.1
Last Wild Boy, page 1
The Last Wild Boy © 2013 by Hugh MacDonald
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acornpresscanada.com
Edited by Caitlin Drake Smith
Cover design by Matt Reid
Cover illustration by Shaun Patterson
eBook design by Joseph Muise
MacDonald, Hugh, 1945-, author
The last wild boy / Hugh MacDonald.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-927502-12-9 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-927502-13-6 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS8575.D6306L38 2013 jC813’.54 C2013-904718-2
C2013-904719-0
The publisher acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts Block Grant Program.
I dedicate this book to my wife Sandra and my children: Adam, Matthew, Melody, Andrew, Allister and David.
Chapter 1
Mabon was hard at work in the dead zone, clearing the scorched remains of a large bald eagle and dozens of smaller birds and bats that had flown obliviously into the lethal force field surrounding Aahimsa’s walls. It was still dark out, and the dampness of the cool morning air seemed to seep right through his skin and settle in his bones.
He’d done the same job, day in and day out, for seven long years. His initial horror at his posting here had softened to monotony and numbness — and loneliness, terrible loneliness. What was the difference if the bodies that fell from the sky were cleaned up, he wondered. Insiders never walked the dead zone anyway. No one would ever come to this place if they weren’t forced to. It was home only to him, and death.
He was strolling along, eyes down, sweeping and scooping, picking and cleaning, whistling a tune he had composed from the songs of living birds and the feel of the sunshine, when he heard a faint whimper, then a scream, then a loud rustling sound overhead. He looked up just in time to see a bundle wrapped in pale fabric before it hit him with a powerful, glancing blow, knocking him down and slamming his neck and head against the side of his steel wheelbarrow. As he fell he heard a sickening thud on the ground just beside him.
Mabon reached up instinctively to touch the throbbing spot on his neck, and his large hand came away bloody. He felt his neck again and realized that the lump that held his control device was missing. He waited a moment for the explosion, resigned to death, but it didn’t come. He wondered how long he had before they would come to investigate.
After the pounding of his heart slowed enough for him to move, he turned over toward the bundle of fabric and found himself looking straight into the eyes of a young insider. He stared at her in a mix of shock and wonder. She had not so much as whimpered since she had landed, but he could see that she was still breathing. Sixty feet straight down through the air onto rock-hard dirt. It must have hurt like hell.
She was definitely badly wounded. Blood oozed from her ears and the corners of her mouth and pooled in the dirt under her cheek.
Suddenly she blinked, and then her eyes focused blearily on Mabon. “Hide me,” she moaned in a soft voice.
“I can’t,” Mabon said. He knew the penalty for touching an insider, knew it was forbidden under any circumstance. “You’re hurt,” he said, pulling away. “You should stay still.”
“Get me…away from…here,” she rasped. “Please.”
“But you need help,” said Mabon.
“Can’t…let them…find me,” she said.
“If I lay a finger on you, they’ll terminate me,” said Mabon. “You must know that.”
“Please,” she said again. Her voice was soft and sweet as music, but filled with desperation. Her eyelids fluttered and then closed.
Mabon looked down at her small face and her limp body. He’d never seen an insider so close up before. Even broken and bleeding, she was beautiful. In the moments when the moonlight cut through the swift-moving patches of cloud, he could see her long, dark eyelashes and her thin, perfect nose. She was so fragile, like the bird carcasses he carried away from the foot of the wall. As he looked down at her shattered body, he felt something deep down in his gut, a feeling he’d never experienced before. And he knew he had to help her, no matter the cost.
He stood up slowly, then bent and scooped her into his strong arms. There, he had done it. He had touched an insider and he was still alive. It was lucky the control device had come off, he thought, feeling the bloody spot on his neck again. He would be safe for the moment. But he knew it wouldn’t be long before they’d come looking for him.
He looked around to see if anyone was watching, but there were only shadows. He took one small step on his powerful legs and then another. He felt the insider’s groans of pain more than heard them.
He remembered holding a new puppy in his hand and feeling its heartbeat in his palm, remembered the scent of its soft fur. He could smell the insider’s scent even here in the dead zone. It was sweet, like fresh lilacs, but there was a musty undertone to it as well, something he couldn’t quite place.
In her close presence he felt dizzy and reckless. He was fascinated by her, almost hypnotized. He did not understand what it was about her that moved him. It was simply a feeling, a sort of tingle that seemed to deny the ache at the nape of his neck, an unfamiliar sense of nobility. He, Mabon the cleaner, was defending the life of this lovely, broken creature from something she feared worse than death. Perhaps it was worth the repercussions.
He ducked his head as he passed through the entryway to his hut, careful not to let the insider’s head or feet bump against the thick walls. He felt his way through the darkness, past the faintly glowing embers in his fire pit to the back corner of the hut, and placed her on the mound of grass he used as a bed. She stirred and opened her eyes, but didn’t speak.
As Mabon lit a small tallow candle, he caught his pitiful reflection in the small cracked mirror next to his wash stand. His square jaw was smudged with dirt and blood. He ran his long fingers through what was wavy, red-brown hair when it was clean, rubbed the dust from his blue eyes, and splashed some water on his tanned face.
A battered teapot sat on top of the dying coals in the centre of the room. Mabon poured aromatic tea into a dented tin cup and held it out to the insider. “It’s good,” he said. “Picked it myself. It’ll help you feel better.”
“Thanks,” the young woman said. Her right arm hung limply at her side. She tried to take the cup with her left. The effort made her wince. The cup tilted sideways and some of the tea spilled.
“I’ll get you some help,” Mabon said, steadying the cup and holding it up to her lips.
“No,” she said, sinking deeper into the bed. “No one…can…know…” Her eyes shut again and her muscles relaxed.
Mabon sat in silence for a long time, watching her breathing grow shallower until she wasn’t moving at all. He was about to cover her with a blanket when her eyes suddenly opened. Mabon jumped backwards in surprise.
Her eyes searched around the room wildly. “My baby!” she said.
“Your baby?” Mabon said, confused, “What baby? There’s no baby here.”
“Help him,” she pleaded. “Please.” She coughed violently and spit blood. Her breath smelled of death.
Mabon lifted the lid of a wooden trunk next to his bed. He grabbed a clean handkerchief. “Here,” he said, putting the fabric into her small, perfect hand, which was stained with bright red blood and sputum.
She began to cough again. Mabon wiped her forehead with a dampened cloth. Her cough quieted, but the thin line of blood grew wider and flowed thickly from her lips. Her eyes were cloudy in the light of the dancing flame. It wouldn’t be long now.
Mabon had seen death before, during his early training as a forest ranger in the wild and his office training with Dr. Ueland in the manufacturing homeland. Lots of accidents happened. An outsider’s life wasn’t worth a bird carcass back then. That was before Blanchefleur’s time as mayor. He never knew any other mayor’s name, but he knew that when the new mayor took power, life had improved in the homelands.
The insider closed her eyes and sunk deeper into the bed once again. Mabon watched her for a long time, noticing the pool of blood under her pretty face getting wider and wider and her breathing getting weaker and weaker. When the rising and falling of her chest finally stopped, tears tumbled from his weary eyes.
Mabon couldn’t recall ever crying. It was not appropriate for a forest ranger in training, and even after his fall from honour as a ranger, even on all of those desolate evenings alone in his hut, he had refused to give in to his loneliness and grief.
When the tears finally stopped, Mabon wiped his face and stood up over the insider. Her body was stiff and motionless. The flush from her cheeks had already started to drain away, the life in her face seeping away with it. He wrapped her in the rough brown blanket and lifted her carefully into his strong arms.
Streaks of morning light were starting to invade the darkness outside Mabon’s hut. The cleaner carried the insider’s body away from the cit
As he passed into the densely wooded area, smelling the lush riverbank just ahead, he wondered how the unfortunate insider had escaped the worst effects of the force field surrounding the wall. The blast that should have killed her instantly, like the birds and bats whose singed bodies it was his job to recover. He concluded that her fall must have coincided with the brief daily shutdown while systems were checked. But why had she fallen? Was it an accident, was someone chasing her, or had she meant to jump? And what was this about a baby?
Mabon chose a spot under a small red maple on the riverbank and scraped a shallow grave into the dirt with the short-handled shovel he usually used to gather dead birds. He placed the insider’s body into the hole gently, then covered her limp remains with bits of stone and what twigs and leaves he could gather from the fringes of the wild. The soil beneath the trees here was free of grass — dark, moist and loose. Carefully, he lifted shovels full of the rich loam and poured it over the shallow grave. When he was satisfied that he had done all he could to hide the body, he shuffled sadly back to the desolation of his hut.
Mabon stirred up the embers of his fire and added a few fresh sticks, then relit the scrap of tallow candle. Its dancing yellow flame fell across the pile of bloody handkerchiefs. These would have to be destroyed. They were evidence of his crime against the insiders. Yet, in spite of his fears, Mabon felt no guilt.
He recalled how little the insider had weighed when he first encountered her, and what a terrible burden she had become as he had lowered her into her grave. One more fragile bird that had fallen from the wall to lie broken at his feet.
Mabon let out a deep, rumbling laugh. He couldn’t remember when he’d laughed last. Sometime back in the Manuhome, perhaps. But that was long ago. This morning’s laughter was different, though. Filled with remorse. It awaked feelings long buried, long forgotten. If Dr. Ueland heard me now, he thought, he’d have me hauled away. Gradually his laughter gave birth to warm, salty tears that seeped from his tired, young eyes like blood from a wound. The tears, though unfamiliar, felt satisfying. “I will never understand,” Mabon whispered as he clutched the bloodied rags and held them to his face. “I will never understand.”
It was only then that the soreness on the back of his neck returned. He rubbed it with his strong hand and felt the congealed blood in the place where the control device lump had sat under the skin on his neck. He could not recall a single moment when he hadn’t been under the complete power of his controllers. Not even his thoughts had been private. His entire life had been fraught with the knowledge that they could terminate him at any moment. And now, for the first time ever, he was not under their power. He was free at last.
Regardless, he knew he was marked for termination. They wouldn’t let him live now, though he’d been free of his control device for only a few hours, especially not when they found out that he’d broken the law of the insiders. And it would be his former colleagues, the forest rangers, who would be coming to do to him what the controllers weren’t able to now.
They would be here soon. He knew what he had to do.
Chapter 2
“I hate picking berries,” Alice complained. She groaned and flung her graceful frame onto the manicured lawn.
“You wanted blackberry pie.” Nora barely managed a smile. “And you promised to help.”
Nora brushed her hands off on her jeans and continued plucking fistfuls of the juicy deep-purple berries from the bushes along the pathway by the pond. A few minutes later, she glanced back at Alice, who was still lounging in the soft grass. Even with the sour look on her face, she was still beautiful.
Alice’s beauty began at her perfect toes, elegant as small fingers, each nail a rosy petal surrounded by powdered alabaster skin. Her feet were slim and sleek, like a pair of well-crafted shoes. From ankles to waist she was built like a runner; every muscle drew eyes in her direction when she passed by. She carried only enough fat on her torso to give a healthy lift to her unblemished skin. But it was Alice’s flawless face, with its shining blue eyes, upturned nose, and full lips, and her blonde head of hair, which bleached almost ivory every summer, that Nora believed granted Alice much of her capacity to dominate her world.
It was the confidence that came from this power that had attracted Nora to Alice in the first place. Nora still couldn’t believe that Alice, who could have had her pick of all the insider girls in Aahimsa, had returned her affection. As the mayor’s daughter, she would have been expected to choose a partner closer to her social standing, not some orphan who had been employed in her home as the housekeeping assistant. Nora still didn’t understand why she hadn’t.
Nora was shorter than Alice by several inches. She wore her hair cropped, and by now the summer sun had bleached it from auburn to a coppery red. Her green eyes sparkled with specks of gold when she laughed, which was seldom, but even more so when she was angry, which was often, although she seldom let it show in any other way. Her body was generous, she thought, a bit too much of everything, but fortunately, only a bit too much.
“Are you done yet?” Alice called, her voice overly sweet. “I’m bored.”
“It’s fine with me if you want to turn back,” Nora said with a shrug. They had walked almost to the edge of the western section of the wall that surrounded Aahimsa. The sun was hot today and there was little breeze near the wall. Nora would be happy to get back to the summer house and cool down.
“You’re mad at me,” Alice said, grinning, “aren’t you?” She smiled and cocked her head.
Nora said nothing. She just continued picking the berries and tossing them into her basket, though perhaps with a bit more vehemence than before.
“And, no, I don’t want to go back,” continued Alice. “I want the pie.” She fluttered her long eyelashes playfully. “I simply adore your sweet blackberry pie,” she said in her most impish voice.
Nora set her feet and clenched her teeth. “Then help me pick.”
Alice turned her head suddenly toward the grove of evergreens beside the great pond that separated them from the summer house and the city centre. She could see the tall communications tower looming in the distance, its powerful electronic eyes and ears constantly scanning all parts of the city and far into dark and distant wilds. “Shh!… Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Listen!… Shh!”
This time Nora did hear something — someone’s old cat on the loose, perhaps. Yet it didn’t sound quite like a cat. It didn’t sound much like anything she’d ever heard inside the walls of Aahimsa.
“Let’s go see what it is!” said Alice. She sprung to her feet and brushed away the wisps of grass and dirt that clung to the light cotton dress that she had borrowed from her mother’s closet in the summer house.
“You go,” said Nora with a sigh. “I’ll finish picking.”
“Leave the stupid berries. Come on!”
Nora shrugged, rolled her eyes, then set down the basket and followed. She scrambled across the well-maintained lawn into a grove thick with willow and evergreen, having a hard time keeping up with Alice. It seemed odd to see Alice in a hurry to get anywhere.
Nora finally caught up, and found Alice staring down at the long grasses in the shade of a weeping willow, a look of wild excitement in her blue eyes.
“Holy mother!” said Alice. “A baby.”
Nora moved closer and looked down into the red face of a baby. The child was wrapped in a coarse gray blanket, the sort used at the civic hospital for the poor. Nora recalled from childhood how these rough blankets felt against the skin, and how much she’d missed her mother when she’d lain beneath one alone in the charity hospital as a child. She stared at the baby and waited to see what Alice would say.
“What do we do?” Alice finally asked.
“Call the caretakers, I guess,” Nora said. This was the first baby Nora had ever seen, but she knew about the Palace of the Caretakers, where babies were raised before they were returned to their mothers. Her mother had been a caretaker for a few years, and had told her all about it before she’d died.
