go?"
"Only about half a mile or so. Let me check something, all right? Hold tough, this might hurt," Joel said. He put his hands on Trevin's leg, above the boot. The leg bent. "Oh, oh," he said. "It's not just your foot. If it's your foot at all." He dug in his pack, pulling out a roll of foam and a tube of chemicals. He wrapped the foam around the leg. Squeezing the tube, he painted patterns into it, to harden it with strips and swirls. It wasn't a new tube of chemicals, and it didn't have quite enough left to do a good job. Joel took his shirt off and tore it into strips, which he used to fashion a splint with some scraps of wood, over the incomplete Paisley cast.
"Thank you, God, for darker skin," Trevin said.
"Huh?" Joel said.
"I mean that if it was me who'd stripped a shirt off, we'd be visible for twenty miles. You, maybe only five or ten," Trevin joked.
"Don't get ahead of me," Joel said. He dug a canister of dark body paint out of his pack, and drew patterns on himself, where he could reach. He started to ask Trevin to help him on his back, but decided against it. He started to put the canister away.
"I'm sure Renzo could do it," Trevin said.
Joel looked at Renzo, who'd been sitting still, watching the proceedings with open curiosity. "Would you mind smearing some of this on my back? So I'd be harder to see from the air?" he asked.
"I have not been trained in such things," Renzo said, uncertainly.
"All I want is a few bands or streaks or spots, so I don't look so much like a human from a distance. Think, uhm… oh, you tell me. Whatever's good at not showing up out here."
"Think bitterns," Trevin said. "Or something else with mottled feathers. Resting nighthawks, minus the white patches. Immature herons. Immature hawks. Stripes, swirls, whatever. Have fun with it. As long as he's not one big blank blotch of medium complected skin, it'll be fine."
Joel handed the body paint across. He unobtrusively shifted to where Trevin could watch Renzo work, and just as naturally put his right hand where it was between Renzo and his gun. Trevin obliged him by moving a hand nearer his own sidearm. Trust was one thing. Having a foundling who was known to be handy with firearms within grabbing distance of a holstered gun was another.
Renzo didn't notice. He was too transfixed with the awful prospect of doing something for which he had no background. About the time Trevin was going to reassure him again, he resolutely managed to get paint on a finger and gingerly daub some on Joel's back. He thought to look around at what had already been done. He unfortunately moved to look on the side Joel had his gun, which caused both his guards to shift their hands to their gun handles. He didn't notice. Having got his look, he went back to working on Joel's back. In short order, he'd done a fair job of matching what Joel had done, with a few bittern-like stripes thrown in, on the assumption it would please Trevin if he did that. He furrowed his brow, wondering how a man knew when he was done with this sort of job.
"Let me see," Trevin said.
Renzo backed up. Joel turned his back to Trevin.
"That's great," Trevin said.
Joel thanked Renzo and collected the paint canister, screwed the top back on, and dropped it into his pack. He nearly laughed out loud when he saw Renzo eyeing his messy fingers, wondering what to do with them. "OK, Renzo, there are lots of ways to take paint off, but this is how I usually do it," he said. He led his pupil to a patch of bare ground, got a handful of dirt, and rubbed his hands together, 'washing' most of the paint off with the gritty, alkali soil. The rest he wiped off on his pants. Renzo followed suit. Joel led him back into the shadows, next to Trevin. He checked the time, and did some calculations in his head. "Let's go ahead and eat before we head out," he said.
"You're the boss," Trevin said. He dragged his pack closer, and dug around in it himself, before Joel could offer to get his food for him.
"I forget. Are you the guy who's allergic to aspirin?" Joel asked.
"Yep. Sorry."
"You have anything in your pack that would work?"
"Only the stuff that would make me loopy. I'm not that bad yet. You have anything?"
"No. Sorry," Joel said. He laughed, with a bit of bitterness in it.
"Do I want to know what that snort was about, boss?" Trevin asked.
"Now I'm the one playing If Only. If Only us 'free men' were free enough to have dependable supply chains, and access to silly things like a moderate assortment of basic painkillers to carry around with us. Is that too much to ask?"
"Under present conditions, I guess so," Trevin said, philosophically. "How are you doing over there, Renzo? You finding enough to eat?"
Renzo nodded.
Joel put a warning hand up, and a finger to his lips. He cocked his head, listening. The whir-pocketa of an Era 667 Series helicopter was faintly filling the air, growing stronger by the second.
"Take cover, gents," Joel ordered.
Renzo wasn't sure what that meant, so he hesitated, waiting to see what the others did.
"He means hide like your life depends on it, because it does," Trevin clarified. "Shadows count as cover, if they're deep enough," he added, as he pulled himself tight to the wall and laid down, face down, his hands over his head for (admittedly paltry) protection.
Renzo looked to Joel for help. Joel dragged him and his pack to an area against the wall that had a tumble of rubble underneath, with remains of beams leaning on the wall above. He positioned him under a beam. "Get small, stay close to the wall, and whatever you do, don't move. Movement draws attention like nothing else," Joel ordered.
Renzo would have nodded, if it hadn't involved moving. He knew about movement drawing attention. Nine-tenths or more of the birds he'd recorded on bird counts, or shot during population control assignments, had been seen only because they'd moved.
"Don't panic," Joel said. "The trees provide good cover, and the wall isn't bad. We'll probably be all right." Having said that, he got small and hugged the wall, while keeping one eye on Renzo.
The helicopter swept close, but on the far side of the wall. Shots fired. Yelps followed. The helicopter moved on, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, circling, jagging, shots firing. Finally it was gone.
"It sounded like coyotes, but it's hard to be sure. Hang on while I check," Joel said. He eased around to where he could see what got shot. He came back in short order. "Yep. Coyotes."
"They must have exceeded their optimal population," Renzo explained.
"More likely the bastards were getting their jollies maiming something, seeing that most of them are shot at the base of the tail, or have part of one hind leg shot off," Joel said.
"A good marksman out to reliably reduce a population would have corrected his aim, don't you think, Renzo?" Trevin added.
"I do not believe you," Renzo said to Joel. He froze, shocked that he'd said such a thing to a superior.
Joel smiled at him. "I appreciate honesty, if you haven't figured that out by now. I do need you to follow orders when I give them, but questioning anything else is perfectly fine, within reason, if the circumstances allow it. Let's go look, shall we?"
Renzo begged to be forgiven for questioning a superior.
"No. I won't. Not until you see with your own eyes what I was trying to describe to you. Come on. Grab your binoculars, so you can check out the ones limping off," Joel said.
The two of them went around the wall, and surveyed the scene. A couple of coyotes were dead, but scattered over the landscape were coyotes struggling with wounds that would make it hard for them to hunt, or to keep up with the pack, assuming the animal didn't die a slow death from the wound, or from the infection that was almost sure to accompany it.
"Renzo, this is the sort of cruelty we went underground to avoid," Joel said. "Speaking of the underground, let's finish eating and get our buddy somewhere he's not in extra danger just because he can't run."
The three of them ate in deep shadows, listening for helicopters or other patrols. Hearing and seeing no new threats, they stashed their packs in rubble
, and set off, Joel and Renzo on either side of Trevin, bearing his full weight on every other hop-step. They were weary and sore by the time they reached a Nyssatun porthole, but cheerful, and grateful to have made the trek without further harassment. Joel tapped and scraped on the porthole, in a code that told the hidden sentries it was Subterran law enforcement there on business.
The porthole had a narrow, steep staircase with a low ceiling. Trevin had to bump down on his rear end until he got to where the tunnel provided room enough for helpers. He was deposited at the town's main health facility, after which Joel, with Renzo in tow, went to check in with the local lieutenant. The lieutenant wasn't pleased to see them, and he wasn't happy about Joel being shirtless. Joel suggested that he was only shirtless as long as no one issued him a new one. However well this approach might have worked with most lieutenants, it didn't sit well with this man. He grudgingly got Joel a new shirt, and sent him on his way, without offering help finding his suspect.
"I'm sorry, Renzo, most communities are friendlier than this. Either that, or we caught them on a bad day. In any case, please don't form your opinions of Subterra until you see a few more examples. Oh, wait. There's our man. Stay off to one side where I can see you, and let me handle this," Joel said. He took a few moments to check out the setting and the mood of people in the vicinity. It was a public square – busy, a good mix of men and women, but no kids in sight. Perfect. He rushed toward the