Terry Bisson - Bears Discover Fire

“Weren’t nothing. You get the claws?”

“Just the one he had me with. It’s under the seat. That’s that smell.” Landlobsters smell like piss on coals until they’re decompressed, and then it’s gone.

The claw wasn’t worth anything because it was tire-marked, but I didn’t mention that.

All that talking wore me out, and the kid too, I guess. I looked over and saw he was asleep. I was in high third.

On either side of the highway, nothing but miles and miles of stone. It’s amazing to me that so many people could live for so long in those little mountains and leave so little sign. Twenty miles further and the road got steeper, going down. I had to gear down to low fifth. I popped in Hank Senior and the kid whimpered a little from a dream. At that minute I might have been driving past his great-grandaddy’s grave. I could tell from the way he talked it was up here somewhere—somewhere between eastern Kentucky and western North Carolina, northern Virginia, and east Alabama. Somewhere in those endless wrinkled little hills that got unwrinkled and raised up, and rolled their children out into the world, rubbing their eyes and wondering when they get to go home.

Maybe someday. I read in Popular Science that Flat Mountain is sinking again, at about a foot and a half a year.

At that rate it’ll only be one hundred thousand years.

From the edge of the western slope you see a snow-white roof of clouds, but from the eastern slope you see what looks like the edge of a giant blue-green ball. You first see it just as the switchbacks start, at about ninety thousand, when there is just enough air to leave a little vapor trail back over the road. Far ahead the sky is not black anymore but dark blue. Then you see it’s really the sea. And not just a few miles of it: you are looking halfway to Bermuda from eighteen miles high. From here you can see that the water and the air are two versions of the same stuff.

The roads down the eastern slope are better, probably because the highways were newer, mostly four lanes. The switchbacks are long—forty, fifty miles a swoop. Morgantown, Hendersonville, Bat Cave, just names given to turns anymore, since the towns are long since gone. At Bat Cave (no bats, no cave) the kid woke up, and this time he didn’t try not to look impressed. We were far enough east and far enough down Flat Mountain to see the Atlantic Coast all the way from Morehead City to Savannah. The Carolina Desert is the color of October woods, red and orange and yellow and brown. It’s a fast trip down, with no cogway needed. Here on the eastern slope, the yoyos are muscle trucks, and the robot train roundabout is set in a cold, dry cloudless perch called Shelby, which looks down fifty miles onto Charlotte. There’s a good diner there but I just rolled on past and hit the hard switchbacks below 21,500 with my KJ barking like a hundred-dollar hound.

It gets dark early in Charlotte, but it felt good to be down in the air. I unsealed the locks and let the dry night wind run through the cab. There used to be magnolia trees in Charlotte but that was before the Uplift. Now they were just street names, like the towns on Flat Mountain. We found Magnolia on my map, but first I took the kid and bought him supper.

The reason I bought his supper was, I kept remembering the Mexican who bought my meals all the way across Missouri and Oklahoma when I was just a kid. He said he used to hitch, and he even tried to give me a five when he dropped me off, but I shook my head and wouldn’t take it. The thing is, when he looked under his car seat later on, his pearl-handled revolver was gone. I sold it in Fort Worth for twenty dollars. I have always felt ashamed of that ever since.

The kid had two black eyes from the decompression but his throat was better, good enough for him to eat. He didn’t complain when I paid for his supper. Then I stopped at High Top Meat. I told the kid to wait in the truck. The night broker shook his head when I unwrapped the claw and he saw the tire marks. “Too bad, CD,” he said. “I can’t buy road kill unless it don’t look like road kill.”

“How about for dog food?” I said, and he gave me a five.

The kid looked nervous and asked how I’d done, and I lied. “Good,” I said. I gave him a twenty and told him it was half the money. He folded it and put it in his watch pocket with the ten.

Magnolia was one of those dirt streets with no sidewalks and little modular houses, all alike. Any one of them could have been his grandma’s house, or any one not. “Don’t turn in, I’ll get out here,” he said at the end of the street, gathering up his stuff in a hurry.

“Vaya con Dios,” I said.

“What’s that mean?”

“Means good luck finding your pa.” I never did find mine.

I slept eleven hours while my rig was serviced and loaded.

I was halfway up Flat Mountain the next day before it occurred to me to look in the glove compartment for my 9mm. Of course it was gone. I popped in Crystal Gayle and had to laugh.

WELCOME TO CASH-IN-A-FLASH

1324 LOCATIONS

TO SERVE YOU CITYWIDE

PLEASE INSERT YOUR CASH-IN-A-FLASH CARD

THANK YOU

NOW ENTER YOUR CASH-IN-A-FLASH NUMBER

THANK YOU

PLEASE SELECT DESIRED SERVICE—

• DEPOSIT

• WITHDRAWAL

• BALANCE

• WEATHER

“Weather?”

“What’s the problem, Em?”

“Since when do these things give the weather?”

“Maybe it’s some new thing. Just get the cash, it’s 6:22 and we’re going to be late.”

>WITHDRAWAL

THANK YOU

WITHDRAWAL FROM—

• SAVINGS

• CHECKING

• CREDIT LINE

• OTHER

>CHECKING

THANK YOU

PLEASE ENTER DESIRED AMOUNT—

• $20

• $60

• $100

• $200

>$60

FOR A MOVIE?

“Bruce, come over here and look at this.”

“Emily, it’s 6:26. The movie starts at 6:41.”

“How does the cash machine know we’re going to the movie?’

“What are you talking about? Are you mad because you have to get the money, Em? Can I help it if a machine ate my card?”

“Never mind. I’ll try it again.”

>60

$60 FOR A MOVIE?

“It just did it again.”

“Did what?”

“Bruce, come over here and look at this.”

“Sixty dollars for a movie?”

“I’m getting money for dinner, too. It is my birthday after all, even if I have to plan the entire party. Not to mention get the money to pay for it.”

“I can’t believe this. You’re mad at me because a machine ate my card.”

“Forget it. The point is, how does the cash machine know we’re going to a movie?”

“Emily, it’s 6:29. Just press Enter and let’s go.”

“Okay, okay.”

WHO IS THE GUY WITH THE WATCH?

• BOYFRIEND

• HUSBAND

• RELATIVE

• OTHER

“Bruce!”

“Emily, it’s 6:30. Just get the money and let’s go.”

“Now it’s asking me about you.”

“It’s 6:31!”

“Okay!”

>OTHER

“Excuse me, do you two mind if I—”

“Look, pal, there’s a problem with this machine. There’s another cash machine right down the street if you’re in such a goddamn hurry.”

“Bruce! Why be rude?”