“You have a lot to learn, boy,” Hero drawled. “Never stare at someone you’re scared of.”
Archie smiled over at Neville. “Are you scared of Hero?”
Houndstooth chuckled. “I’d imagine he’s scared of all of us.”
Hero fanned themself with their hat. “Oh, son. You shouldn’t be scared of us. Us, you’ll see comin’. No, what you want to be scared of,” they said, looking at the boy with a wicked gleam in their eye, “is the ferals.”
Neville clung to Zahra’s back. “I ain’t scared of hippos.” His voice shook a little.
“Well, young man, there’s hippos and there’s hippos,” Cal said. “Now, Zahra there, she’s a sweet thing. Raised by people from when she was just a little hop. Slept next to her hopper’s raft every night, ate from her hopper’s hand every day. Loyal. Loving. But a feral?” He laughed mirthlessly.
“Let’s not scare the boy,” Houndstooth said. “He won’t be seeing any ferals anyway. They’re all between the Gate and the dam, and he won’t be going in there with us.”
“You never know,” Cal intoned.
“Is . . . is that why we have to find a place to camp before nightfall? Because of ferals?” Neville asked.
“That, and Cal is scared of the dark,” Archie said loudly. “So let’s ’urry it up, oui?” She snapped her fingers twice and Rosa surged ahead, nudging her white nose against Ruby’s coal-black flank.
They found an island just as the sun dipped below the horizon. The hum of insects intensified as the last light of the day died, and the hoppers guided their steeds toward the little hump of land that rose out of the water. Archie whistled to Neville. “Would you care to give Rosa’s teeth a brush before we turn ’er loose for the night?”
Neville grinned, his sweat-damp blond hair falling into his eyes, and he held up a leather pouch. “I’ve already got her toothbrush, Miss Archie!” He splashed down the riverbank, cooing to Rosa. The white hippo had already begun to wander away from the sandy bank of the islet. She had been riding all day, and was reluctant to come back to the shore before she’d eaten. The sound of Neville’s coaxing entreaties for her to come back for a brushing drifted through the stillness of the dusk, blending with the buzz of cicadas.
“’E is a good kid,” Archie said ruefully, settling onto a log beside Hero.
“He’s too green to be out here,” Hero responded. They pulled out a pocketknife and began scraping the bark off a fat stick.
“Ah, ’e’ll be fine. I couldn’t leave ’im behind,” Archie said. “Rosa, she likes ’im too much for me to tell ’im no, when ’e asked to come. Just like Houndstooth. I could never say no to ’im, either.”
The sounds of Houndstooth and Cal arguing over where to start the fire drifted to them through the warm night air.
“You really care about Houndstooth, eh?” Hero asked.
“I could ask you the same question, couldn’t I?” Archie responded with a grin. Hero looked up, not returning Archie’s smile.
“You know, when I first met Houndstooth, ’e had just had ’is ’eart broken. ’Is dream—it was in ashes. I watched ’im meet someone, a woman. I watched ’im fall in love with ’er.”
Hero’s brow furrowed, but they did not interrupt.
Archie waved her hand vaguely. “She ran off with a postman. They were going to go north, to the cities. Tried to take Ruby with them, but of course Ruby, she would not go. She is devoted.”
Hero considered Archie. “So . . . what happened after that?”
“Ah,” Archie said. “Houndstooth started to sow ’is wild oats. As for the girl? Well, I will not say. Houndstooth . . . ’e does not need to know what I did to the girl when I found ’er trying to steal Ruby. But I will tell you this”—Archie looked at Hero, her face serious—“what I did to ’er will look like a kindness, compared to what I will do to anyone who breaks ’is ’eart like that again.”
Hero stared into Archie’s eyes, unblinking. “I understand.”
Archie clapped them on the shoulder, hard, smiling warmly. “I know you do. I can tell. I just ’ad to say it—you know ’ow it is. Ah, don’t be too scared. I think you are good for ’im! You should see ’ow ’e smiles at you when ’e thinks you are not looking. Plus, you keep ’im from thinking ’e is the smartest in the room.”
Hero smiled, ducking their head; then, they looked up, the smile suddenly gone. “Did you hear that?”
“What,” Archie said, “are they finally just comparing their cocks and ’aving done with it?”
But Hero was already on their feet, running to the water’s edge.
They were too late.
By the time Hero had reached the riverbank, Neville was half-submerged in the water. There came a fierce splash, and the boy surged into the air before landing, caught, in the gaping mouth of the feral bull.
He hung in the mouth of the beast, stunned. His left leg hung between the bull’s front tusks, the angle wrong. It bled freely, and his blood spilled over the hippo’s whiskers. Archie covered her mouth with both hands when she caught up with Hero as though to catch the boy’s name even as she shouted it. Cal and Houndstooth looked up and came running. The bull was still for a long, thick moment. Then, with a lightning-quick twist of its thick neck, it snapped its jaws closed.
The boy was dead. There could be no question, even before the feral bull shook him below the water. Archie turned away; Hero put an arm around her, shielding her as much as possible from the bloodied swamp water that sprayed the shore. Cal and Houndstooth stood frozen a few yards from the water’s edge, empty-handed. Cal’s toothpick dangled from his slack lower lip.
They did not see Adelia coming.
Neither did the hippo.
It wasn’t until the beast was bleeding that Houndstooth registered her standing next to him, her arm outstretched toward the hippo as though she was offering it a handshake. Houndstooth looked from her to the bull, which twitched and writhed spasmodically in the frothy pink water.
He put a hand to his pocket, as though he’d find anything there; but of course, it was empty. The long, slender, ivory-handled knife he’d taken from the marshjack back in Georgia was gone. A mere inch of the handle still protruded from the bull’s eye socket. The rest of the knife was buried in the beast’s brain. A trickle of blood spilled over the hippo’s cheek like tears as it gave a final thrash, and then sank below the surface of the water.
As the ripples stilled, Adelia lowered her throwing arm.
“That,” Cal said quietly, “is why you shouldn’t be in the water after sundown.”
Chapter 8