Fledgling(15)

“Be real,” she said. “Please be real.”

“I’m real,” I told her. “Sleep now. I’m real, and I’ll come to you again. Sleep.”

She went to sleep, happily fitted against me, one arm over and around me. I lay with her a few moments, then slipped free and went home to Wright’s cabin.

On Friday evening after dark, Wright drove me back along the road where he had found me. The road was almost as empty on Friday as it had been when I walked it, barefoot and soaking wet. One or two cars every now and then. At least it wasn’t raining tonight.

“I picked you up near here,” Wright said.

I looked around and couldn’t make out much beyond his headlights. “Pull off the road when you can and turn your lights off,” I said.

“You can see in the dark like a cat, can’t you?” he asked.

“I can see in the dark,” I said. “I don’t know anything about cats so I can’t compare myself to them.”

He found a spot where there was room to pull completely off the road and park. There, he stopped and turned off his headlights. Across the road from us there was a hillside and, on our side of the road, a steep slope downward toward a little creek. This was a heavily wooded area, although there was a clear-cut area not far behind us.

“We’re not far from the national forest,” he said. “We’re running parallel to it. Does anything look familiar?”

“Nothing yet,” I said. I got out of the car and looked down into the trees, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

I had walked this road. I began to walk it now, backtracking. After a while, Wright began to follow me in the car. He didn’t turn his lights on but seemed to have no trouble seeing me. I began to jog, always looking around, knowing that at some point it would be time for me to turn off onto a side road and go down into the woods.

I jogged for several minutes, then, on impulse, began to run. Wright followed until finally I spotted the side road that led to the ruin. I turned but he didn’t.

When he didn’t follow, I stopped and waited for him to realize he’d lost me. It seemed to take a surprisingly long time. Finally, the car came back, lights on now, driving slowly. Then he spotted me, and I beckoned to him to turn. Once he had turned, I went to the car and got in.

“I didn’t even see this road,” he said. “I had no idea where you’d gone. Do you know you were running about fifteen miles an hour?”

“I don’t know what that means,” I said.

“I suspect it means you should try out for the Olympic Games. Are you tired?”

“I’m not. It was a good run, though. What are the Olympic Games?”

“Never mind. Probably too public for you. For someone your size, though, that was a fantastic run.”

“It was easier than running down a deer.”

“Where are we going? Don’t let me pass the place.”

“I won’t.” I not only watched, I opened my window and smelled the air. “Here,” I said. “This little road coming up.”

“Private road,” Wright said. “Open the gate for me, would you?”

I did, but the gate made me think for a moment. I had not opened a gate going out. I had climbed over it. It wasn’t a real barrier. Anyone could climb it or walk around it or open it and drive through.

Wright drove through, and I closed the gate and got back into the car. Just a few moments later, we were as close to the ruin as it was safe to drive. There were places where rubble from the houses lay in the road, and Wright said he wanted to be careful with his tires.

“This was a whole community,” he said. “Plus a lot of land.”

I led him around, showing him the place, choosing the easiest paths I could find, but I discovered that he couldn’t see very well. The moon wasn’t up yet, and it was too dark for him. He kept stumbling over the rubble, over stones, over the unevenness of the ground. He would have fallen several times had I not steadied him. He wasn’t happy with my doing that.

“You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you have any right to be,” he said.

“I couldn’t carry you,” I said. “You’re too big. So I need to keep you from getting hurt.”

He looked down at me and smiled. “Somehow, I suspect you would find a way to carry me if you had to.”

I laughed in spite of myself.

“You’re pretty sure this was your home, then?”

I looked around. “I’m not sure, but I think it was. I don’t remember. It’s just a feeling.” Then I stopped. I’d caught a scent that I hadn’t noticed before, one that I didn’t understand.

“Someone’s been here,” I said. “Someone …” I took a deep breath, then several small, sampling breaths. Then I looked up at Wright. “I don’t know for sure, but I think it may have been someone like me.”

“How can you tell?”

“I smell him. It’s a different scent—more like me than like you even though he’s male.”

“You know he’s male? You can tell that from a smell?”

“Yes. Males smell male. It isn’t something I could miss. You smell male.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Is that good or bad?”