Vonda McIntyre - Dreamsnake

When the horses were rubbed down, Melissa knelt by the packs and started getting out food and the paraffin stove. This was the first time since they started out that they had made a proper camp. Snake sat on her heels by her daughter to help with dinner.

“I’ll do it,” Melissa said. “Why don't you rest?”

“That doesn’t seem quite fair,” Snake said.

“I don’t mind.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“I like to do things for you,” Melissa said.

Snake put her hands on Melissa’s shoulders, not forcing or even urging her to turn. “I know you do. But I like to do things for you, too.”

Melissa’s fingers fumbled with buckles and straps. “That isn’t right,” she said finally. “You’re a healer, and I — I work in a stable. It’s right for me to do things for you.”

“Where does it say that a healer has more rights than someone who used to work in a stable? You’re my daughter, and we’re a partnership.”

Melissa flung herself around and hugged Snake tightly, hiding her face against her shirt. Snake embraced her and held her, rocking back and forth on the hard ground, comforting Melissa as if she were the much younger child she had never had the chance to be.

After a few minutes Melissa’s arms loosened and she pulled back, self-contained again, glancing away in embarrassment.

“I don’t like not doing anything.”

“When did you ever have the chance to try?”

Melissa shrugged.

“We can take turns,” Snake said, “or split the chores every day. Which would you rather do?”

Melissa met her gaze with a quick, relieved smile. “Split the chores every day.” She glanced around as if seeing the camp for the first time. “Maybe there’s dead wood farther on,” she said. “And we need some water.” She reached for the woodstrap and the waterskin.

Snake took the waterskin from her. “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes. If you don’t find anything don’t spend a lot of time looking. Whatever falls during the winter probably gets used up by the first traveler every spring. If there is a first traveler every spring.” The place not only looked as though no one had been here for many years, it had an undefinable aura of abandonment.

The spring flowed swiftly past the camp and there was no sign now of mud where Swift and Squirrel had drunk, but Snake walked a short distance upstream anyway. Near the source of the spring she put the waterskin down and climbed to the top of a tremendous boulder that provided a view of most of the surrounding area. No one else was in sight, no horses, no camps, no smoke. Snake was finally almost willing to let herself believe the crazy was gone, or never really there at all, a coincidence of her meeting one real crazy and a misguided and incompetent thief. Even if they were the same person, she had seen no sign of him since the street fight. That was not as long ago as it seemed, but perhaps it was long enough.

Snake climbed back down to the spring and held the waterskin just beneath the silvery surface. Water gurgled and bubbled into the opening and slipped over her hands and through her fingers, cold and quick. Water was a different being in the mountains. The leather bag bulged up full. Snake looped a couple of half hitches around its neck and slung the strap over her shoulder.

Melissa had not yet returned to camp. Snake puttered around for a few minutes, getting together a meal of dried provisions that looked the same even after they had been soaked. They tasted the same, too, but they were a little bit easier to eat. She unrolled the blankets. She opened the serpent case but Mist remained inside. The cobra often stayed in her dark compartment after a long trip, and grew bad-tempered if disturbed. Snake felt uneasy with Melissa out of sight. She could not dispel her discomfort by reminding herself that Melissa was tough and independent. Instead of opening Sand’s compartment so the rattler could come out, or even checking on the sand viper, a task she did not much enjoy, she refastened the case and stood up to call her daughter. Suddenly Swift and Squirrel shied violently, snorting in fear, Melissa cried “Snake! Look out!” in a voice of warning and terror, and rocks and dirt clattered down the side of the hill.

Snake ran toward the sound of scuffling, the knife on her belt half-drawn. She rounded a boulder and slid to a stop.

Melissa struggled violently in the grasp of a tall, cadaverous figure in desert robes. He had one hand over her mouth and the other around her, pinning her arms. She fought and kicked, but the man did not react in either pain or anger.

“Tell her to stop,” he said. “I won’t hurt her.” His words were thick and slurred, as if he were intoxicated. His robes were torn and soiled and his hair stood out wildly. The irises of his eyes seemed paler than the bloodshot whites, giving him a blank, inhuman look. Snake knew immediately that this was the crazy, even before she saw the ring that had cut her forehead when he attacked her on the streets of Mountainside.

“Let her go.”

“I’ll trade you,” he said. “Even trade.”

“We don’t have much, but it’s yours. What do you want?”

“The dreamsnake,” he said. “No more than that.” Melissa struggled again and the man moved, gripping her more tightly and more cruelly.

“All right,” Snake said. “I haven’t any choice, have I? He’s in my case.”

He followed her back to camp. The old mystery was solved, a new one created.

Snake pointed to the case. “The top compartment,” she said.

The crazy sidled toward it, pulling Melissa awkwardly along. He reached toward the clasp, then jerked back his hand. He was trembling.

“You do it,” he said to Melissa. “For you it’s safe.”

Without looking at Snake, Melissa reached for the clasp. She was very pale.

“Stop it,” Snake said. “There’s nothing in there.”

Melissa let her hand fall to her side, looking; at Snake with mixed relief and fear.

“Let her go,” Snake said again. “If the dreamsnake is what you want, I can’t help you. He was killed before you even found my camp.”

Narrowing his eyes, he stared at her, then turned and reached for the serpent case. He flicked the catch open and kicked the whole thing over.

The grotesque sand viper lurched out in a tangle, writhing and hissing. It raised its head for an instant as if to strike in retaliation for its captivity, but both the crazy and Melissa stood frozen. The viper slithered around and slid toward the rocks. Snake sprang forward and pulled Melissa away from the crazy, but he did not even notice.

“Trick me!” Suddenly he laughed hysterically and raised his hands to the sky. “That would give me what I need!” Laughing and crying, with tears streaming down his face, he sank to the ground.

Snake moved quickly toward the rocks, but the sand viper had disappeared. Scowling, gripping the handle of her knife, she stood over the crazy. The vipers were rare enough on the desert: they were nonexistent in the foothills. Now she could not make the vaccine for Arevin’s people, and she had nothing at all to take back to her teachers.

“Get up,” she said. Her voice was harsh. She glanced at Melissa. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Melissa said. “But he let that viper go.”

The crazy remained in his crumpled heap, crying quietly.

“What’s wrong with him?” Melissa stood at Snake’s elbow, peering down at the sobbing man.

“I don’t know.” Snake toed him in the side. “You. Stop it. Get up.”

The man moved weakly at their feet. His wrists protruded from ragged sleeves; his arms and hands were like bare branches.

“I should have been able to get away from him,” Melissa said in disgust.