Steel People Chapter 3: Where River Meets Sky
You can find the previous chapters of Steel People Here:
Around noon on the ninth day of paddling, Maybelle looked down into the water and her mouth fell open. She’d been seated at the front of our salvaged boat, steering us with deft strokes and converting my confused splashing into speed with grace. She stared into the water and stopped paddling. I stopped too and reached for my spear.
A leviathan form was stretched across the riverbed, one arm stretched towards shore and the other vanishing into the river depths. We’d paddled right up its body to its shoulders before she’d noticed. Now we drifted, as she clutched her paddle to her chest.
I saw black spots running down its back. Then, I searched up one arm and saw a bulbous object I’d only seen in old movies. A jet engine.
“It’s an airplane,” I said
“That’s how the steel people travelled, right? They flew,” she said.
“Yeah. Except this is an old one.” I started explaining how solar power had replaced fuel burning jet engines like this one, but it had all been too late to save the atmosphere. “It’s one of the ones that destroyed the earth.”
She nodded, then stopped our drift with a few quick paddles. “What are the spots?”
“Windows for the passengers. So you can look down on the world from thirty thousand feet,” I said. “From up there we could see the entire river in the forest, like a little blue thread in the green. And the forest would be a strip of green surrounded by desert.”
She gaped up at the sky, and her paddle fell still. She was a stringy statue, colored pale brown with damp mud against the pale blue river and light green trees.
Then she looked back at me. “I’d like to fly once,” she said. She looked back down at the river. I did too, and studied the plane. It was one of the two-engine smaller ones. Cramped surely, but still an air conditioned, comfortable travel that would cross the distance we’d walked in five weeks in about thirty minutes
A faint splash announced we were moving on. I paddled away best as I could, but as we passed, I turned back to look into the nose of the plane. The cockpit was crumpled in the front and the windows out. I could see right into the ruined machinery and pilot seats. Something was strapped into one seat, two arms waving at us in the current.
“Hey,” Maybelle said. “Earth isn’t destroyed yet. It’s still surviving, like us.”
I looked around at the first true, healthy forest we’d seen after months of walking along the poisoned coast, then trekking up the desert. “Not yet,” I said.
“Not ever,” she declared.
We paddled till nightfall, then found a ‘beach’ of a sandbar to paddle right up to and ground the boat. We hauled it to the treeline, then went back with our little supply of soap and washed mud and sweat off each other’s backs like a married river couple would.
I set out the fishing net traps, and she set up the still. Then we gathered twigs and got the fire started together.
The nights were beginning to get cool and we huddled together under our blankets as we ate leftover fish.
Until Maybelle leapt up and left the blankets fluttering around me. “Hang on, I’ve got something for you,” she said. Her sandals crunched away on the ground.
She crunched back seconds later. Except she sat behind me and clamped a hand over my eyes. “Tilt your head back, and open your mouth,” she said.
I did so. She dropped a couple rough, damp things in. I chewed, and sugary sweetness exploded into my mouth. “What is that?” I gasped.
“Strawberries!” she said, and kissed my cheek. I heard chewing. Then she popped another one into my mouth.
“Okay can I see now?” I said, as I laid back. I only stopped when I was leaning on her shoulder.
Her legs straddled me as she practically pulled me into her lap. “Nope,” she said and laughed. “Here. Another one.”
I chewed it. “Good boy,” she said and patted my cheek. “I can’t wait until we’re bonded.”
“What happens when we are?” I said and slumped against her. I enjoyed her breath rushing in my ear, making my black hair tickle my own neck.
“It means we will share our feelings, and our lives forever. When we die, we’ll reunite in the great lands.”
I nodded against her collarbone. I got another strawberry between my lips in reply. I realized my heart was hammering my chest and I’d gotten short of breath. “I feel like I’m going to explode. I think I’m excited.”
“Are you?” she said sharply, in concern.
I felt around for her hand. When I got a wrist, I placed it over my chest and let her feel me. Her breath came out in a sharp rush. Then she hugged me close. I grinned back, blindly, and laced my fingers into her hand.
We fell asleep like that, with my head held to her breast and her hand against mine. When I opened my eyes, the sky was a gray, sickly morass of clouds lit orange in the dawn. She snoozed above me, so I lay there snug under our blanket, eyes open and watching the clouds froth and darken, even as the daylight grew.
She stirred, and her fingernails dug into the back of my hand. “Hey,” she said.
“Good morning, love,” I said.
“How long were you up.” She sat up and transferred my head to her lap.
“A while. I was just enjoying how beautiful the earth is, and how much better it is when someone is with me,” I said.
That got her to bend over, and I saw her whole mousy beauty stark in the pale light. Her shoulder blades and collar bones were prominent and the way the rest of her body curved up from her waist to meet them was quite beautiful from this angle. She kissed me, then rolled me out of her lap as she stood.
We agreed to stop if rain came. I retrieved two fat, silver trout from the traps. Then we broke camp and gave the boat a running push off the beach.
I’d grown quicker with my paddling, and had a better understanding of how the canoe would turn when I paddled one way versus the other. We made quicker pace up the river, driven on by our excitement to find the people waiting at the end.
A light flared overhead. I looked up and squinted at it. It glowed pale white for a few seconds, the contrast blinding me to the clouds around it.
“That’s lightning, let’s take shelter,” she said.
“Wait,” I said. The splashing stopped as she looked at me. The light didn’t vanish like lightning would. It moved slowly across the sky towards us. I was reminded of airplanes. Not the fuel burning jets, but the dreamliners with solar cells that I’d seen growing up, with decreasing frequency as the economy died and it became too expensive to keep them in the air.
Except, I realized the stormclouds were low overhead, which meant this possible plane was way too low to be a commercial dreamliner.
“Yeah, take shelter,” I said.
“It’s not lightning though,” she said.
“No, its steel people,” I said.
She paddled harder and faster than I’d ever seen. I joined in. I couldn’t keep up with her rhythm so I just paddled left and right to generate some steady push while she did the fancy steering. We swung from the center of the river to the dark forest on the side. She aimed us for a patch of sand under a thick grove of trees. I twisted to look back up.
The light was growing brighter as the airship got lower. I wondered briefly if it would crash and we could refill our supply bags with the good stuff. It stopped descending ahead and shined over the trees. I squinted at the dark shape behind the light. Then the boat shuddered as we hit the shore.
“Come on silly,” she said as she leapt out. I clambered over the side and splashed into ankle deep water. We hauled the boat ashore. As we did a low thrumming filled the air. It started low like an insect, then grew louder as we hauled it in. The woods felt like it was shaking. The very air itself shivered around us.
I crouched behind one of the thicker trees and peered out. She slipped in behind me and breathed hard onto my shoulder as she peered around me.
A black shape hove through the trees slowly. It was a petite skimmer with a little engine at the tip of either wing. I saw mirrored windshields, but there was a hatch open in the side. A tall figure in a faceless helmet leaned out the back, a tether holding them in place. Maybelle gasped and huddled against me.
The hovering faded briefly. She sighed in relief.
Then it grew again as the skimmer came back. I dug my fingers into the tree. “They had to have seen us.”
“What do they want?” she demanded of me, the steel person.
“I don’t know.”
She ran back out and picked the boat up by its prow. “Come on, we need to move.”
“We need to leave the boat,” I said.
“No.”
“Well, we can’t hide it and we’re not carrying it into that.” I pointed into the trees, which grew progressively thicker with branches and large root systems bridging the gaps between them.
“A river person lost it,” she snapped.
“And they can come back and recover it later.” The spotlight shined into the trees around us, throwing up long, faint shadows. I spun around and took her shoulders. “Don’t be as inflexible as a steel person. Please, the boat is an anchor that will weigh us down right now.”
Pain flickered across her eyes. “Don’t compare me to them.”
“To my people. We refused to drop our awful fuel burning technology until it got us all killed,” I said. “Please think about this. They are hunting us now.”
She stared me in the eyes. Then nodded. “They’re not your people anymore.” With that, she grabbed my bags and threw them to me. Then added the salvaged backpack and one of the blankets. I didn’t have time to strap them properly. I just threw on my poncho for padding and strapped everything else on around it.
The skimmer came in to land right on the beach we’d left. Maybelle dove right behind the boat and folded herself up tight. I hid behind the tree. The engine quieted to a faint hum.
I peeked around and watched a water cushion inflate beneath to catch it on the waterfront. Two figures leapt out. They wore verdant green clothes, and faceless white helmets. One had an entire computer strapped on its arm and held it out, probably with some scanner gathering our trail up.
The other of them had a machete. They walked straight towards the boat, carving through branches in their way. Each made a little crack as the tree cried out in pain. I realized the helmets might have xray or thermal sensors. Maybe they’d already seen her cowering in a bundle behind the boat.
I wasn’t going to wait. I snuck out behind my tree and crept around, back towards the river. I heard the engines still humming on idle, sucking in air. Then leaves crunched as the pair around the canoe. They’d definitely seen her with their helmets. I made a decision.
“Hey, I bet you left the keys in the cockpit!”
They stopped short and spun around. I felt both helmets aim at me.
Maybelle leapt out and raced into the trees. One spun around and sprinted after her, but they were crunching through the underbrush while she slid through effortlessly.
I retreated, waved my spear over my head, then ran through the woods towards the skimmer. Heavy boots crunched after me.
Good, I thought as the skimmer rose up before me. It was a sleek, flimsy design far thinner than any I’d seen. Its wings were metal struts with aerodynamic rounding. Its hull was sagging like it only needed one swift blow to split it in half.
I turned past it and sprinted along the shoreline.
“Hey you! You speak English, stop!” one of them yelled. I looked back again. Both were after me. The further away one, the one who’d been chasing Maybelle, had something long and metal in their hands.
Oh fuck. I ducked behind a tree, but a shot never came.
“You’re not a naked savage, are you!” one yelled. “We’re trying to rescue you.”
I peeked out. They’d stopped on the shore, about twenty paces back. The first of them was there. Then the second burst from the trees, having given up on Maybelle.
“I don’t need rescuing,” I said. Anything to buy them time.
“You’re sitting here naked eating barely cooked fish. We’ve got modern technology.”
I don’t want this conversation. I made my choice.
“I’ve had enough of your modern medicine. Boston, ever heard of it?” I said.
Silence. I peeked out again. The longer I kept them talking, the more time Maybelle had to loop around and join me. Once we were together again, we could do anything together. Run, fight, vanish into the trees. We just had to find each other.
“You’re from Boston?” one said.
I didn’t answer I squeezed into the trees and slipped away. They shouted something behind me. I ignored them and kept running. The ground rose this way, and heavy rocks protruded from the topsoil. I scrabbled over them and kept climbing.
A buzzing rose up. It wasn’t the same sound as the helicopter. It was higher, and smaller. I hefted my spear.
I didn’t see the drone. I saw the branches wave in its passing, and leaves blow free from their fragile stems.
I aimed ahead of the destruction and drew my arm back until my tendons strained like a branch bent on the verge of snapping.
I launched. For a second the spear whipped away and I was left frozen at the point of release.
Motors screeched and something triangular and black fell from the sky and crashed at my feet. I tackled it before it could recover and stomped on the three propellers until they broke. Then I snatched my spear up and fled. Cursing rose up behind me. I didn’t care. I wasn’t stealthy, I just ran. Every few trees, I stopped and changed directions.
I kept going until I was out of breath. My lungs ached but I know steel people had access to physical training and exercise so I kept running. My vision blurred as I wheezed against the vices clamping my lungs, but I kept going. Even after I’d lost the sound and smell of the river I kept going.
Until a series of impossibly straight lines rose up out of the forest. I skittered to a halt in fear, then doubled over. I wheezed and pain burst through my chest. Tears burst out and ran hot down my face. I gasped and it whistled out for anyone to hear.
Even as I gasped, I strained to listen. No footsteps crashed through the undergrowth over the din of my own exhaustion. A few insects chirped, but otherwise the woods were silent. It was just me, wearing nothing but a coating of mud and a few bags. Alone for the first time in years.
I sat down at the straight post and laid my back against it. I waited. Running away would just lead them to catch me tired by now.
I sat there. As my heart slowed down, the sweat dried and got sticky.
I turned and looked down the row of posts. It was a fence. The wires between the posts were gone, but they remained as a final reminder of steel people civilization.
A metal sign hung on the next post. I squinted to read the faded paint through the rust staining.
Oakdale Ranch, no trespassing.
I slumped back and watched.
I ate dinner as the sun went down. And then, only in the darkness I turned back around, using the fenceposts as a direction aide, and walked straight back. The gently sloping ground guided me vaguely spear in hand and held before me to feel through the moonless night. I saw outlines ahead of me. Not clearly defined trees, just mixed lines and hints of organic shapes flowing in and out of darkness in the forest as I dug my heels into the ground to stop the feeling of vertigo. The spear hit trees about the same time I saw them.
It went for hours until exhaustion crushed my mind. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t sleep alone out here. I wasn’t a river person yet. I didn’t belong out here and if I fell asleep I’d surely be lost in the trees forever.
My feet splashed into the river as I made that thought, and I skidded to a halt. Relief drove my spirits up. At least I’d found it. Now I could retrace my steps and find Maybelle and the canoe. I sat down and hugged myself against the cold creeping in.
Sunrise found me staring out over the riverbank. I didn’t recognize the shore all around That meant I must have ended up further down the river somehow. I turned downstream and started walking.
There! It was the tall rock from before, except I was behind it. I relaxed a little at the familiar ground.
I got level with it, then turned inwards and walked through the trees, studying every step. After a few minutes and no boat, I turned around and hurried back.
I looked up and down the river. There were little ‘beaches’ every few meters. I stood and squinted up and down, comparing my memories to the river before me.
Except I’d been thinking about the skimmer closing in and putting the boat down. I didn’t remember exactly what ‘our’ beach looked like. I squeezed my eyes shut and hurriedly flipped through my memories. They didn’t get clearer. I began sweating cold as every second dragged the memories further and further away.
So, I did the only thing I could. I walked to the next beach. I carefully aimed myself into the woods, then began the search. When that didn’t yield a boat after several hundred paces, I returned and moved on to the next beach.
By sunset I was hungry, and alone and didn’t know where we’d landed. I set up the fish trap and refilled my empty water from the river. If there was cholera in it I was going to die slowly anyways.
At sunrise I resumed my search. I got out of sight of the rock, then turned around and went back. By day’s end, there was nothing. So I slept by the river bank. I tried to sleep. Every few minutes I swear, I jerked away and looked around in case she stumbled on me in the dark.
Sunrise, there was no sign of her. I’d trapped a single trout and I cooked and ate it while I thought. She’d definitely gotten away, since they’d both followed me. Right? Had she doubled back, only to run into the steel people? What if she’d fallen and broken a bone on the ground? They could have gone back for her. Maybe that’s why they’d left instead of chasing after me.
I got my knife and carved a quick M on the nearest tree. Then I went a few trees down, and carved another. So on, down the shore. If she was still here, she’d see that. I wasn’t leaving without her.
I set up my fish traps and resumed wandering up and down the shore. I carved the M whenever I could.
The sun went down and by now I was past fear. I was emptiness. I sat back down on the shore and set up my fish traps again.
A horrible idea occurred as I looked at my little warmth fire.
I found a tree on its own, and piled broken branches around it. I’d need dry tinder to get the living, wet wood burning. I worked in a frenzy until my hands were chipped full of splinters. Then I struck a match.
Fire caught immediately. It spread in a ring around the dry wood, then began an inexorable crawl up the tree’s trunk. It popped as moisture flash boiled, and the tree groaned as I slowly, agonizingly killed it.
I’m sorry, I thought as I backed away. I’m so sorry. I sat down on the beach before the lone tree, and waited as warmth cooked me.
Skimmer engines hummed overhead, and the spotlight shined down on me.
I didn’t move. Maybe they’d answer my questions. The wind kicked up ashes from the tree and I pulled my blanket close.
It came to land behind me. The engines hummed down to standby. Beneath them I heard two sets of footsteps crunching on the ground.
“Did you take her?” I said.
“No. Clearly she got away from you too if you’re lighting that signal fire,” a woman said.
There went my hope. I unfolded myself and stood. There were the same two of them. One had a rifle pointed at me. “She’s gone because of you steel people.”
“I thought you were one of us,” one said.
“I’m leaving your kind. I’m done with our version of civilization and how its destroyed the planet,” I said.
They looked at each other. “Buddy. You’ll die if you drink bad water out here.”
“We boil water. She had the still,” I said. “Where are you from, New York? Chicago? LA?” I said.
“Detroit,” the other said. “You said Boston. Did you leave before the sea wall collapse?”
“No, I witnessed it. I was in school on the top floor. We were told to wait in the building. Me and some others jumped out into the flood waters. The building collapsed behind us and the debris smashed us apart. I just swam and swam, and I guess I was lucky enough. How’s Detroit?” I said.
“We stabilized Lake Michigan. City is thriving on the shores and with the Canadians on the other side supporting us.”
“They still the best at surviving Earth’s vengeance?”
They looked at each other. “Yes.”
Then they looked back. “What are you doing out here?”
“I just wandered down the coast after Boston. Until I met her where Florida used to be. We’ve been wandering together ever since,” I said. “I’m staying at this spot until I find her, or I die.”
“You’re what, twenty-five?” one said. “You’ve got a lot to live for.”
“You do,” I said.
They looked between each other. Then one reached up to their helmet, and pulled it off. She was a young woman with dark, intelligent eyes. Maybe she was my age. “Listen, what’s your name?”
“I gave up my name. When we find a rivertalker I’ll get a new one.”
The look on her face was pure pity. “We’re going to take you with us.”
“No,” I said. I snapped the spear up into my hands. The one with the helmet on raised their rifle.
“We’re trying to help you,” she said.
“Help me by using your skimmer to find her. You can do that in a moment, right?” I said.
She shook her head. “Civilization’s already fallen far enough. We don’t need to lose any more.”
“Well, you already lost one,” I said and pointed into the trees. “Actually, I watched you lose an entire city. I don’t care about civilization as you call it.”
“We’re trying to rebuild it gently, more in balance with nature,” she said.
I shook my head. “Coming here and attacking us doesn’t sound like it.
“That wasn’t an attack. In fact, the only violence was you destroying one of our Pigeons,” she said.
“You know. You saw her hiding behind the boat. X-rays or something in that helmet, right?” I said. “Why didn’t you announce yourselves or say hello or anything. Why the hell did you approach her? Why would you unless you wanted to take her?”
They looked at each other. Then retreated to their helicopter. I kept the spear hefted back and ready to throw until it lifted off and the blast from the heli blades blew me back a step. It lifted into the air, and vanished. I knew I’d be the subject of a report somewhere far away. I suddenly felt naked. I’d been walking bare for years now, but suddenly their comments had wrapped around my body and made me realize I was absolutely naked. I wrapped the blanket around myself despite the heat from the fire.
I would wait…three days. Then I was going to either walk into the river, or coax myself into continuing up stream alone, on foot.
A branch crackled, and I spun around. “Maybelle!” I howled into the darkness. My voice echoed back at me, mocking me.
Another branch crackled, in the same general area.
I judged it, grabbed a burning branch from the inferno, and took off towards it with hurried shuffling steps. The trees unfurled to envelop me. Branches brushed me all over, making my skin crawl. I pushed on.
“Maybelle!” I said again. This time the forest swallowed my voice with its thick branches.
Something cracked much closer. To my left. I headed off that way, swinging my branch before me
Until the ground dropped away, and I tumbled down a slope. I let go of the branch and let it fall away. I hit something soft and flipped over, into a mess of bushy hair.
“Maybelle!” I grabbed her and rolled her over. Her face was pallid. Her lips were dried to chalk and cracked. I fumbled for a water battle on my blanket and pressed it to her lips.
Her eyes fluttered open and she drank deeply. She emptied it, then sucked the bottle, running her tongue around the lip.
She opened her mouth. “My leg.”
I looked down. Her right leg was swollen wider than mine, and mottled purple in the dying light from the branch, wherever it had done. Her knee had vanished amidst the swelling.
“When did this happen?”
“They sent some flying thing after me and I fled into the woods. I kept running until the sun went down. Then I turned around and started running back. I thought they took you and I had to rescue you. Except I fell and broke my leg. I crawled around and that made me lost. Until I saw a plume of smoke rising over the trees and knew that had to be you. So I crawled towards it. Then I heard you shouting. I couldn’t shout anymore, so I threw rocks to try and get attention.
That was about four days on the ground. All her water bottles were empty. The still lay by her side, still wrapped around her bag and useless. I stretched the blanket over her and fished out the medkit.
“I’m going to patch you up, then carry you down to the river,” I said.
“The boat.”
“I can’t find the boat. Maybe they took it, I don’t know,” I said. I pulled out my last bit of fish. “Here.”
She ate quickly. I tended to her leg. The medkit from that crashed skimmer had come with a guide, that I had studied. I found a straight stick and splinted her leg, then checked around. She had a few bruises, but nothing else.
“Twice you’ve saved my life,” she whispered. “Yet I’m the river person.”
I answered by cradling her head to my chest. “You save my life every day. Now, I’m sorry but this will hurt.”
I got my arms around her tights and shoudlers, and with a great heave hauled us up. I tottered step by step towards the river with her clinging to my shoulders. I slipped and caught myself.
“Ughhh,” the sickly gasp escaped her lips.
“Sorry,” I said and kept walking. I simply followed the distant glow until I emerged to the lone burning tree and the river.
I laid her down and collapsed beside her in the dirt. “I love you,” I said and found her hand to squeeze.
We lay there side by side until my arms stopped burning. Then I pulled myself up and slowly set everything up myself. We weren’t moving for a while. I’d go searching for the boat tomorrow but I couldn’t row us both by myself. I managed to set up a little pyramid of sticks to tie the blankets around as a tent. Then an extension to make it long enough for her to lay down inside.
Only then I lay down beside her, and buried my face into the pillow of my bag.
“Did the steel people see the tree burning?” she said.
“They did and came back. They offered to take me away back to steel people civilization,” I said.
“Why?”
“They said they were saving me,” I said, and rolled onto my side to face her. “I didn’t need saving by them.”
“No,” she said. “But we can’t move for a while.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll make us a shitty hut or something. I don’t think it’ll get too cold in the winter but we’ll need more than mud to insulate us against the cold.”
“We need grease to keep the heat in and a constant running fire. And blankets. I’ve been through winters too,” she said.
“Real winters?”
“With snow,” she said.
“Same. Okay. So we can survive.”
“Yeah.” She hugged me with one arm. “You’re not getting a name then. I’m going to have to call you Love all winter, my love.”
That was okay, I thought.
I'm hooked now. Anxiously waiting to read the next chapter.