*Shadow-Below* by Robert Reed

Robert Reed introduced us to the Lakota Indian boy Raven and his world in "Raven Dream" in our Dec. 2001 issue. Subsequent stories in this series include "Buffalo Wolf" (March 2003), "The Condor's Green-Eyed Child" (Aug. 2004), and "Less Than Nothing" (Jan. 2006). This new tale takes a hard look at the future and the ways of the haves and the have-nots.

"When you need fire," said Shadow-Below, "it won't be a warm April morning. Not like today is. You'll be stuck in the middle of some emptiness, lost and scared, and the weather's going to be miserable. If there isn't rain, there will be snow. And your hands are going to feel like claws. And if there's dry tinder within a hundred miles, you'll feel blessed." Then, after a grim little laugh, he told his new class, "When you look at me, you're seeing years of practice and practical experience. And now I'm going to show you the very best way to create a spark."

With a flourish, he unfastened his shirt pocket and pulled out a fully charged laser-lighter.

Some students laughed, while others, probably expecting some treasured piece of flint, looked mildly disappointed. But these were not stupid people, and with a single nod to modern realities, the teacher had won himself a little more respect.

Shadow-Below was kneeling -- a handsome fellow with an athletic body and thick black hair tied into a short ponytail. "Making your spark is just one conundrum," he pointed out. "You can have ten lasers in your pocket, but without a self-sustaining blaze, your first night in the wild is going to kill you."

That brought thoughtful silence.

A tall, big-shouldered kid was standing in back, conspicuously ignoring the lesson. What mattered to him was a certain girl with pretty features and cascading hair. He turned to her now, winking in a smug, hopeful way.

The girl ignored the flirting, her green eyes focused entirely on their teacher. "But should fire be my first worry?" she asked.

Sitting in the front row was the boy's father -- a big fellow named Porter; a billionaire who had made his fortune building robots. "I know I'd want a good campfire," Porter said.

The billionaire's wife was a pretty woman with red hair and a fondness for tight clothes. She poked Porter in the ribs, in warning. When he turned, he noticed that it was the green-eyed girl who was talking.

He instantly closed his mouth.

Everyone was staring at the youngster, waiting.

She pretended not to notice. "If we could first build a shelter," she offered, "then we'd have someplace safe for our fire."

The adults were people of consequence, with money and responsibilities in the civilized world. But when that particular fifteen-year-old girl spoke about shelter, they wanted to believe her. It showed in their faces, in their postures. Shadow-Below had never seen such a show. Plainly, her opinions could not be ignored.

"But fire would be what?" asked Porter. "Next on the list, right?"

"If you can build one," said Shadow-Below with an agreeable shrug. "But when it comes to life-and-death matters, I'm a pragmatist. If you don't have tinder or dry wood, or if you lack the necessary skills ... well, you're going to need a good shelter. And if there's more than one of you, you'll be sharing body heat, too."

Every student took a moment, picturing the person with whom they would like to cuddle.

Porter's wife stared at Shadow-Below.

Shadow-Below held out the guts of last year's milkweed. For a few minutes, he spoke about the merits of matches and flint and magnifying glasses. Then he listed the tinder that might work in even the wettest weather: paper birch bark and oak leaves, and even the lint from a warm navel. The red-haired wife constantly stared at him. Every class had one student who showed feelings for him. Most were women, and if there was a husband, he was usually somewhere far away. But this admirer was braver than most, sitting close beside her millionaire and giving Shadow-Below an eager, longing grin.

Ginger was her name, wasn't it?

He continued lecturing about fire, and soon only Ginger and the green-eyed girl were paying close attention. The other students didn't quite believe there would come a day when ancient skills like making fire and building huts would matter. These were modern souls who had paid a tidy sum for a weeklong distraction. They could afford to let their bored minds drift. And Shadow-Below could only imagine what these strangers might be thinking about.

Pausing, he looked across the grassy yard. Half a dozen vehicles were parked beside an abandoned one-room schoolhouse. The oldest car -- a simple green Mercedes -- came with a bodyguard who sat on the hood, watching the class and the bright sky and sometimes staring across an open landscape that was quickly returning to prairie.

"Can't you make fire with a bow?" Ginger wondered aloud. "I've seen demonstrations. A person threads some stick through the string and moves his bow back and forth, igniting tinder inside a piece of grooved wood." She winked at him, nothing playful in her expression. "Can you do that kind of magic...?"

"No," Shadow-Below replied. "I can't do that."

The confession brought everyone's eyes back to him.

"And I should warn you," Shadow-Below continued, "I don't like the word 'magic.' It always comes before spells and spirits, and that sort of fuzziness. And those things don't exist in this world."

The declaration came with its own heat.

"Besides," he continued, "those friction techniques are exceptionally hard work. They usually do nothing but waste energy. When you don't have any choice except to rub two sticks together, believe me, you're damned lucky to have fire at the end of the day...."

He let his voice trail away.

Then the green-eyed girl spoke up.

"Is that really true?" she asked with a soft, thoroughly disappointed voice. "You don't believe in spells and spirits?"

* * * *

On a given day, Shadow-Below was never sure what he believed in. He lived in a trailer perched high above the Loup River. Every day, an automated postal clerk delivered mail to somebody named Conrad Shadow-Below. But despite the Visa bills and offers for exotic cruises, and the insurance solicitations and trade publications from survival schools ... despite a relentless paper trail proving that Conrad was real, he wasn't. He was a fiction and a fraud, and worse, he was a fraud built upon another person who had never really existed either.

For most of his life, Shadow-Below lived outside this century -- and beyond the last century too. He grew up among an isolated band of Lakota half-bloods, in a Sand Hills pasture they called the World. Why they lived in that place and what they hoped to accomplish there ... well, those were mysteries. And Shadow-Below had little patience for mysteries. But it took a lot of hard thought and pain before he'd found the courage to walk away from his old life. Alone, he entered this world with the single goal of becoming normal -- a legal citizen of a great civilization. He embraced the name "Conrad" and found work where he could, saving up his subsistence wages until he had enough capital to start a little business where he might make a comfortable living. Teaching wilderness crafts to a succession of wealthy souls: What else could he do in this world and do half as well?

On a cold, soggy day in February -- a day when fires would be difficult to build but very welcome -- Shadow-Below walked to his mailbox and pulled out a thin collection of envelopes. Bills, mostly. And to the girl down the road, he asked, "What are you doing, miss?"

The girl was standing beside a plum thicket.

He looked at her face, sighed, and tucked his mail into his jacket. The rain was cold but windless. He was free to just walk away. If he treated her like an apparition, maybe she would vanish. But that was hoping for too much, which was why he took the trouble of saying, "You don't want to be here, miss."

"You're right, I don't," she said. She was holding one of his brochures -- smart-paper filled with pretty images of the wild prairie and promises of a unique experience. Not for the first time, she asked, "Why won't you let me take a class? That's what I want to know."

"As I told you, miss. I'm not the teacher you want."

"But I need to learn," she said. "I got myself into trouble last year -- "

"You've explained that already."

"You're perfect for me."

"I gave you three names, and I told you who's the best of the lot. And that's what you deserve. Nothing but the best."

He was trying to drive her off with compliments.

But she responded by stepping closer, halving the distance between them. "Those other teachers don't live here," she said. "You do, and this is the country I have to understand." Her bright eyes were staring at him. Farther down the road was the green sedan and a man dressed in black -- a dark Hispanic fellow, judging by his appearance. His stance was protective, alert and serious. He was watching his young charge pursuing what to him must have seemed like an insane adventure.

"Miss -- " Shadow-Below began.

"Mara," she corrected him.

"I keep giving you my answer, Mara. No, I won't take you." He shook his head, adding, "I'm the teacher here, and I'm the one who decides who sits in my classroom."

"I'll pay ten times your usual tuition," she promised. That was twice her last offer.

"Isn't that enough?" she asked.

Shadow-Below didn't answer. Instead, he shook his head, explaining, "I do agree with you. You need to know how to survive in the wild. But that's why you should hire the best and get individual lessons. Fly in that woman from Fairbanks. She's going to help you a lot more than I ever could."

"But I've done research," Mara said. "And you're the expert I want."

"I'm booked up for this year," he countered. "You'd have to join one of my regular classes."

"Fine."

"No. Not fine." Frowning, he said, "A lot of my students think they have money. But I'm sorry to tell you, in terms of wealth, you're in a completely different category."

"My father is," she blurted. "Not me."

"If you say so."

She was a pretty girl -- no, she was beautiful -- and she stepped even closer to him, using a pleading smile and her looks. Probably unconsciously using them, because she didn't seem the type to flirt for favors. "I don't want that woman from Fairbanks, and I don't want the man from New Jersey either. I want you."

"Why?"

She glanced back at her bodyguard.

"Give me a fresh reason," he said. "A better reason."

"I remember you," she replied. "From before, when you worked security at the City.... I would see you walking by the river. You'd make your rounds, and from a distance, I could tell that you were seeing everything. Hearing everything. More than the rest of us, you looked as if you actually belonged there."

Shadow-Below hesitated, and then asked, "How old are you?"

"Fourteen," she said. "In a month, I'm fifteen."

"Do you really want to know why, Mara? Why I won't take you?"

Her shoulders slumped. "Tell me."

"It's your father," he said.

She dipped her eyes, chewing on a lip.

"He scares me, Mara. I don't want to be responsible for his only daughter, particularly while she's a minor."

She had no quick response.

"Besides," he added, "I don't think Daddy would be happy to learn that his little girl is outside the house of a one-time security guard, waiting for him to come get his mail."

Her gaze lifted. "Do you even know my father?"

Very carefully, Shadow-Below said nothing.

"How much would you need to let me take your next class? Because if you do, I can make it so you don't have to work again in your life."

The rain kept on falling, and Shadow-Below had a jacket full of bills, and he could see that this young woman wasn't going to stop chasing what she wanted. So finally, with a despairing sigh, he said, "Yes," and then added, "But you'll pay just the usual tuition. I'll make an eleventh slot for you -- "

"My friend has to come along," she interrupted, gesturing at the bodyguard. "Dad's going to insist on that. But I'll pay for him too."

"Does your friend want to take my class?"

"I can ask him, if you want."

"If you want."

"Not particularly, no," she replied.

"We have three nights and four days canoeing on the Dismal River."

"I know," she said. "Actually, I wanted to be in that class. You know, that's the country where I got myself into trouble before."

"So I've heard." With the decision made, Shadow-Below wanted her to leave. "I'll send you the contract today," he promised.

"Thank you," said Mara. "Thanks so much." Then she ran back to the car, excited enough to skip. In that moment, she could have been any fourteen-year-old kid. He heard her telling "her friend" this exceptionally good news, and then she looked back at Shadow-Below, waving before diving into the back seat. Her companion gave him a hard stare before climbing behind the wheel, ordering the vehicle to turn around and drive out of sight.

Across the road was a field where corn used to be grown, and then for a few years it was a laboratory for a succession of biogenetic crops, and now it was forty acres of mutant weeds and volunteer crops browned by the long winter. Suddenly a ten-year-old boy stepped out of that tangle. Like Shadow-Below, his hair was long and black, and there was a family resemblance to their faces and builds. But it was obvious the boy was going to become a larger, more imposing man. Despite the harsh weather, he was barefoot, wearing minimal clothes plus a thick coat of camouflaging mud. There was a feral quality about him, like a beast masquerading as a human child, yet not trying hard to be convincing. Shadow-Below had not seen the boy in several days. Since coming to live here, Raven Dream went where he wanted and did who-knew-what by himself. He was silent and surprisingly graceful for his bulk, and despite his young age, smart and skeptical. Big eyes gazed down the empty road, and with a sorry voice, he said, "I told you. Didn't I tell you, Uncle? One way or another, that girl was going to get her way."

Shadow-Below was no great expert at building fires. He had little genuine experience, since there were taboos about setting blazes outside the People's secret home. The bulk of his life had been spent inside a maze of tunnels and rooms dug by earlier generations. Winter and summer didn't reach into the sandy earth. A tidy fire had burned in the same hearth for better than a century, and when the People felt thirsty, the river answered their needs. Those particular necessities of life were never in doubt for Shadow-Below. But there was one task that he did exceptionally well. Up the hill from the abandoned school was a half-wild prairie where young grasses waited for fire and drought to kill the weeds. With weapons ranging from steel knives to homemade spears, Shadow-Below taught his class how to hunt. His expert eye read the scat and tracks, and in ways he could never quite explain, he looked inside the minds of animals, guessing where they would hide and which way they'd break when they ran. And for the next two days, he managed to keep eleven stomachs from complaining.

Among civilized people, hunting wild game was enjoying a genuine resurgence. Efficient factories now grew all of the world's food -- cultured beef and beer, sweet nuts and luscious fruit, plus enough grain to build mountains. Modern meals were as flavorful as anything from the old farms, but better for the body and gentler on the environment. Farmland had become superfluous. That's why corporations and entrepreneurs were buying up the empty country, spending nothing for swaths of land larger than most nations. Old fields were being replanted with native vegetation, often with genetic tweaks to lift productivity, and game animals were either stocked en masse or wandering in from distant wildernesses. A few years ago, the average citizen didn't have the time or desire to kill deer and grouse. But the wild lands were spreading into everyone's front yard, transforming attitudes and behaviors.

Barbaric acts were still the providence of barbarians. That hadn't changed. Hunting still involved blood and death, and food earned by the most savage means. But more people were rediscovering the goodness of barbarians. Being a hunter-gatherer was a noble thing -- a testament to the oldest heritage -- and that's why a handsome and sober Lakota man could earn respectable money, showing the wealthy and curious how to read the mud in a streambed, or how to catch and cook half a dozen fat prairie dogs for lunch.

This kind of hunting had its taboos. Shadow-Below could snag sparrows in grass nets, but nobody wanted to hear their necks broken. He made a habit of pointing out insects and earthworms, but he never asked his students to pop that easy protein into their refined mouths. And since it was spring, the game animals were protected; and well aware of their safety, they grazed amiably in the open while the rich carried blunt spears, happily practicing their stalking techniques.

On the third day of class, his students were finishing a little feast of boiled jackrabbit and raw arrowhead root. Smacking his lips, Porter mentioned that he and his son would return in October, armed with composite bows and titanium-bladed arrows. "Survival class is a just-in-case thing," he said. "This winter, we're eating nothing in our house but buffalo steaks and elk stew."

"I wish you luck," said Shadow-Below. "And I wish the animals luck too."

Ginger laughed loudest. "I don't like that meat," she admitted. "Not enough fat to it."

"It's an acquired taste," their teacher agreed.

She was an insatiable flirt, using both stares and words left unsaid.

Shadow-Below made a point of looking the other way, catching Mara's gaze.

The young girl didn't speak often. But when she had words to offer, everyone else stopped what they were doing and listened.

"Your ancestors used everything on a carcass," Mara said.

Several adults rushed to agree with the young girl. One biotech tycoon pointed out, "Buffalo were a grocery and hardware store in one. Isn't that right? They were made into clothes and homes, and the sinews were turned into rope, and the bones became tools."

The reflexive praise washed over him and subsided.

Shadow-Below gave the silence time to strengthen, and then he pointed out, "That is not quite true."

People were puzzled, but curious.

"In bad times, yes. Of course they used every little corner of the animal." But then he admitted, "In good times, the Lakota were just people. If they drove a herd of bison over some high cliff, they'd find themselves with thousands of bodies to deal with. No refrigeration, and their sharpest tools were stone. So what did they do? Exactly what the Europeans did. They'd cut off the animals' humps and tongues, since those are the easiest parts to reach. In the case of the hump, it has rich stores of fat. And to people raised on wild game, believe me, fat is a delicacy."

Most of his audience looked surprised.

"And consider this," he added. "The Lakota couldn't turn fifty carcasses into belongings, much less thousands of them. These were nomads -- poor people who had to carry their worldly possessions wherever they went. So they could never own much at all." He laughed harshly, adding, "But just like miserable souls anywhere, my ancestors spent a lot of time and imagination making their hard little lives sound good and glorious."

Nobody was sure what to think.

"If you want to praise somebody," he continued, "think of the meat packers from twenty, thirty years ago. They were efficient souls. Throw a dead steer at their feet, and they'd make food out of everything that was remotely edible, for people and for dogs, and everything else was used for fertilizer and soap, and other treasures that weren't only useful, but highly profitable too."

Ginger giggled out loud. Her smile was intrigued, her blue eyes captivated, and she was leaning closer than ever.

Damn.

Sitting within earshot, Mara's driver was finishing a modern, cultured lunch pulled from a portable refrigerator no larger than a mailbox. The man had the build and color of a Guatemalan, with perhaps a little Creole thrown into the blood. During these last three days, he hadn't spoken a public word or shown the barest interest in what was being taught. But suddenly he was listening, thoughtfully paying attention to the teacher and his most serious student.

"My ancestors weren't saints," said Shadow-Below.

Concentration showed in Mara's face and squared shoulders. Did she believe him? Or was she preparing a rebuttal? Or maybe she was becoming disillusioned, and wondering if she should drop out of the class.

"For millions of years," Shadow-Below continued, "this country was home to mammoths and mastodons, wild horses and camels tall enough to browse on the high trees. The glaciers attacked and fell back, again and again, but the megafauna endured. And then my ancestors' ancestors arrived here on foot, with no weapons but sharp stone and fire. Yet within a few centuries, every species larger than the bison was gone. Extinct." He shrugged, accepting this dark vision without complaint. "Some say otherwise. Even with the physical evidence piled high, some people prefer to believe that the changing climate did the damage. That my ancestors were noble shepherds keeping two continents healthy and whole, up until that awful day you bastard Europeans arrived. But that opinion is worse than misguided. Much, much worse."

"But why?" the girl asked. She didn't sound offended or defensive, only deeply curious. "Thinking the best of you ... how could that be wrong?"

"Because no matter how well intended, that Paradise dream makes my people out to be something they never were. Something they could never become. First and forever, we are human. And if you want to hurt people, and I mean if you want to leave them crippled and lost ... this is exactly what you should do. Give them a map they can't possibly follow. That's the surest way to ruin."

* * * *

His canoes were woven from buckytube fibers impregnated with solar cells and null-zone batteries that supplied power to billions of microscopic bailing pumps, as well as wireless communications and GPS and the other essentials in modern gear. Shadow-Below didn't believe in those cheats, which was why he outlawed phones from his classes and deactivated every electronic wonder. But what remained was a fleet of six smoky-orange canoes better built than any birchbark crap. These long boats were designed for stability and cargo capacity, all while providing an easy ride over slow shallow waters. But the trailer that carried the canoes was an ungainly, strictly homemade affair, built from steel and shredded rubber and other materials from the previous century. Shadow-Below bought the trailer at auction for a single Reagan note. For the first time since last October, he rolled it out of his garage, inflating the two elderly tires and greasing the axle, and after hitching the trailer to his secondhand Tundra, he was finally ready to begin loading.

The canoes weighed too little to be real, but their size left them cumbersome. When Shadow-Below reached for the first canoe, it jumped up into his open hands, and he grabbed the gunwales and spun it overhead, saying to the boy behind him, "Thank you."

Raven had acquired a habit of appearing without warning, sometimes when needed and often when he wasn't. He could have been watching from the trailer house or the shelterbelt trees, and as usual, he was pleased to have sneaked up on his distracted uncle.

Working together, they set the canoe on a high rack, tying it down with smart ropes. With thirteen bodies, all six canoes were going to be required. But since each student was responsible for his own food and camping gear, packing was relatively simple. The paddles and life jackets were stowed in the truck bed, his personal belongings in the cab. Then Shadow-Below pulled out a map, unfolding it on the hood. The sun had set, but the map had its own soft glow. Fingers followed road lines, and he showed Raven where he would drive and park before putting into the river. Except for a single patch of ground marked private, the Dismal lived inside the vast new wilderness. Last April, Shadow-Below made the same voyage -- his first official class in a career that still felt new and a little unreal.

"If you want -- " began Shadow-Below.

The boy looked at him, and then focused on the map again.

"Ride with me," the older man suggested. "I'm leaving before dawn. We'll get there first, and you can slip off. Then you can trail us downriver. You know this country. It wouldn't take much for you to keep pace with the current. You could sleep in sight of our camp. And nobody's going to notice you, this time."

Raven's face tightened.

"You might even have some fun," his uncle said.

"I wouldn't," the boy swore.

"Or you wouldn't. But you don't particularly like living here, so you're not going to feel homesick. Would you?"

The young eyes lifted.

"What did you do today?"

"Played."

The boy was mastering several tutorial programs on his uncle's old computer, and as he grew more comfortable with the machinery, he was beginning to sneak his way about the Web.

"If you ride with me," Shadow-Below suggested, "you can drop in on your mother. Show her how you've grown."

Raven looked up, staring into a row of shabby Chinese elms. Something in that darkness was making him nervous.

"You might even find the body you buried out there," his uncle said. "Dig it up and make peace with the spirit, maybe."

"Why did you say that?" the boy whispered. "You don't believe in ghosts."

Smirking as he nodded, Shadow-Below agreed, "I'm not much of a believer. Not in ghosts or anything else. But then again, which one of us are we talking about here?"

* * * *

Late last summer, Shadow-Below had returned from two weeks of backpacking to discover messages from his past life. Exhausted but scared, he was forced to drive back into the Sandhills, following increasingly poor roads until he found himself standing on the last private ground in the Dismal drainage. An ugly little fire had damaged a familiar house. The rancher and his wife stepped out from behind the burnt lumber, and with the unity of emotion common among long-married people, they smiled. They looked relieved to see Shadow-Below, yet at the same time they felt guilty and defensive about what had happened. The rancher was known as Blue Clad, and he had been a decent friend to the People. Blue Clad took hold of his guest's hand and squeezed hard. Then the little blond woman said, "Thank you," before Shadow-Below had done anything. She was called Stone Face, although at that moment nothing about her expression was impassive or inert. "I know this is a huge imposition," she allowed.

"It is," he agreed. Then his nephew stepped into the glow of the yard light.

Raven Dream had to be a strong boy. A rattlesnake had done its worst, biting him near the face. Yet against long odds, Raven had survived, some residual puffiness in the neck being the worst of the obvious damage. Otherwise he was fit -- a big burly kid who wasn't yet ten years old, but thriving on a diet of grasshoppers and prairie dogs, with the occasional fire-charred venison and beef thrown in. Raven stood on the mowed ground with a duffle bag riding his shoulder, the bag stuffed with second-hand clothes -- a wardrobe donated by the decent people who had cared for him a little longer than they should have.

Shadow-Below stared at Raven's swollen face.

"Your hair's growing long again," the boy observed.

"That is a fascinating topic," his uncle agreed. Then he pointed at the mangled house, saying, "My hair's probably more interesting than anything that could have happened here."

The boy dropped his gaze.

"You tell me," said his uncle. With a firm, slow voice, he said, "With your words. What happened tonight, and what happened before."

Raven told a sad story.

Alone, the nine-year-old had left his underground home and slipped into the Demon lands, eager to prove his worthiness as a young man and would-be shaman. The journey had gone well. With spells and practiced stealth, Raven fed himself while remaining out of sight. But then he found a crashed aircraft with two Demon children onboard, one of them severely injured. Raven managed to help the hurt boy while hiding from the older sister. But there were unexpected troubles: One of the People had followed Raven into the Demon lands, and that man didn't approve of the boy's generosity or his sacrifice.

"Wait," said Shadow-Below. He lifted a hand, quietly offering the name: "One-Less-Than-Nothing."

Raven turned to the rancher. "You told him?"

"I sure as hell didn't," the old man growled.

"Nobody had to," said Shadow-Below.

Raven studied both men, his eyes settling on his uncle. After a moment's consideration, he said, "You guessed."

"A small guess," Shadow-Below confessed. After all, there were few People left in what they called the World, and excluding children and women and the old people, only four candidates remained.

Raven's face changed. His eyes grew big and empty, and he stared off into a stand of cottonwoods.

"What happened between you and One-Less?" his uncle asked.

Shame and silence were the only replies.

Again, Shadow-Below made a guess. "He dragged you away from that hurt boy. Is that it?"

Raven was staring at the trees, watching for something.

The day was late -- a cool evening rising from inside the earth -- and Shadow-Below tried to imagine what was hiding in that nameless grove.

Stone Face ended the contemplation. "The man didn't pull anybody anywhere," she reported. "He used a knife, and what he tried to do ... he tried to kill both of them."

"The Demon children?"

She said, "Yes."

Her husband put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. And that's when tears began running down all of their faces.

"You stopped One-Less?" his uncle asked.

Raven offered the tiniest nod.

"Stopped him for always?"

Blue Clad spoke in passable Lakota, saying the word, "Ghost."

Shadow-Below could not quite picture One-Less trying to commit murder. But if he had, then perhaps Raven had obeyed some instinctive principle of human nature, defending the helpless and small. Then his nephew would have returned home with the dead man following after him. Which meant that either One-Less was the shadow of a soul trailing his killer, or the boy was burdened by guilt and shame as well as every possible regret.

Blue Clad mentioned Raven's grandfather.

"Did the old fellow banish you?" asked Shadow-Below.

Again, Raven offered a small nod.

"Well, that might have been best," Shadow-Below conceded. Then he gestured at the house, asking, "So how does this fire fit into the story?"

"One-Less set it," the boy said.

Doubtful. But Shadow-Below admitted, "That does sound like the man." He studied the cottonwoods, nothing inside him able to believe in vengeful spirits that walked the land. But what he truly believed were small things in a giant world. He reminded himself of that, and almost as an afterthought, he realized that he was startled and saddened to hear about the death of a childhood friend.

Four living people stood in the rising darkness, wrestling with monsters.

"He was a hard creature to like," said Shadow-Below. "But I can't imagine him trying to kill children."

"With a knife," Stone Face repeated.

"Or a bomb. Or by accident, even." Shadow-Below shrugged and emptied his head, and then a question came to him. "Who were these children?"

Blue Clad grinned. Here was something unlikely and impressive, which was why he smiled before admitting, "It was the Bounty kids."

A fire-toting ghost wasn't half as surprising as that revelation.

"Bounty?" Shadow-Below said incredulously.

"Mara Bounty," said the boy.

"And the other one is Greg," Shadow-Below reported. "Except the sister usually calls him Greggie."

"You've met them?" Blue Clad guessed.

He nodded. "When I worked security at New-Year City. Sometimes their father brought them along on his visits."

The old people nodded, and Stone Face asked, "You met the father too?"

Shadow-Below wasn't certain how to respond, but he had to offer some answer. So he quietly said, "Yes." Then he paused for a moment, studying the cottonwoods. "Once or twice, I talked to the man. Yes."

* * * *

During the night, the weather turned. The sultry greenhouse spring retreated before a Canadian front, moisture from two oceans falling as a light sprinkle forecasted to turn into a several-day soaking. One student called to cancel before Shadow-Below left home, saying that yes, he was enjoying the class, but the idea of canoeing under these conditions left him morbidly depressed.

For an instant, Shadow-Below let himself dream that every student would have the same failure of will. Wouldn't that solve some nagging problems? But of course that would be too easy, and he had to push those thoughts aside.

An old, nearly abandoned highway led to the drop-off site -- a concrete bridge that crossed the river's headwaters. Shadow-Below pulled up in the predawn darkness, an hour early, and three minutes later a pair of headlights sprang into view in the south. He was standing alone when the green Mercedes pulled over and parked. The girl leaped out of the front passenger seat, her body obscured by a chameleon poncho but the pretty face full of light and energy. "Are we first?" she asked. Then before he could answer, she confessed, "It's still early, huh?"

Her driver wasn't wearing raingear, only wool trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. But he didn't seem to notice the elements. He climbed out and gave the teacher a bland look, and then without a hint of expression, he turned and told the trunk to open and removed two well-stuffed backpacks.

"Do you need help?" the girl asked. "With the canoes, or anything?"

"Help wouldn't kill me," her teacher admitted.

Mara and her bodyguard unloaded the boats, and Shadow-Below shoved them down the bank, setting them upside-down on the sandy shore. Then he returned and got his own gear from his truck, and after a final look at his messages -- nothing of consequence here -- he stowed his phone and wallet inside the glove box and told the autodriver to lock up and drive downstream to the pickup site.

Like an obedient dog, the Mercedes trailed after the truck.

The darkness was thick and relentless, and sweet. Three people stood close to one another, and yet everyone felt as if he or she were standing alone. The rain fell and the river pushed over sandbars, filling ears with a blanket of water sounds. Even the most night-adapted eye couldn't see more than the rolling outlines of the open land. This was a perfect solitude. Here was a delicious little taste of Death. Then another vehicle broke over the hillside to the south -- Porter and his family, as it happened -- and the light caught two faces staring at Shadow-Below. It was as if they had always been watching him. To him, it felt as if he must be producing a light, some telltale glow that he couldn't perceive for himself, but left him transparent to the world, without any secrets at all.

* * * *

"Do you know what she told us?" asked Porter. "On the first day, when we were standing by that little schoolhouse waiting ... and you were in your truck, checking messages..."

"What did she tell you?"

"She's here to learn, like all of us are. She told us she loves the prairie and being outdoors, and she was hoping to enjoy herself. Then she said that she'd talk about her father and his business, if we wanted. If we insisted. But she didn't know anything special, and despite what everyone says, the Bounty family wasn't half as interesting as the world made them seem to be."

Shadow-Below eased his paddle into the river, angling his stroke to keep them pointed downstream.

"She's an interesting kid," Porter said.

Mara was at least one river bend behind them.

"That girl is smart," Porter insisted. He was sitting in the bow, a heated poncho over his body and life jacket. With ten students, plus Mara's companion and the teacher, it had seemed sensible for one person to ride with Shadow-Below. Porter had volunteered. And he wasn't a bad canoeist. Proud men with money and the time for training are usually fit, and he used his strong arms to give his paddle the occasional shove. "Mara's smart in ways you don't see in teenagers today. And I'm speaking from personal experience here."

No one else was in earshot. The cool rain was falling harder, smothering every other sound.

Porter said, "I haven't asked her about Daddy."

"She's probably glad."

"But you're not off-limits," the man warned. Then he turned forward again, stroking hard and fast.

Using his paddle as a rudder, Shadow-Below maintained their elegant line.

"You know about New-Year City," Porter said, looking back over his shoulder. The morphing hood was pulled snug around his head, the man's bony face wearing a focused, intense expression. "You worked there, didn't you?"

"You know the answer, so why ask?"

"Keeping away snoops. That was your job."

A nod seemed like ample response.

"Well, I don't know the answer to this, so I'll ask: Conrad, did you get to spend much time inside the City itself?"

"As much time as I wanted."

Porter had a quick smile, but there was a sense of disgust to the mouth. He looked impatient. He looked smart and focused -- a man accustomed to being in charge. With no patience for wordplay, he asked, "How much time was that?"

"None."

"You never stepped inside?"

"No."

"Not curious?"

Shadow-Below had lost his focus. The canoe was drifting close to the junipers overhanging the south shore. He lifted his paddle, setting it against a likely branch, and gave the tree and his canoe a determined shove.

"Funny," said Porter. "You strike me as somebody who could be very curious."

"Apparently not," said Shadow-Below.

Whatever the man was thinking, he kept it to himself. They worked their way around a long tight bend, and then the little river straightened and picked up speed. The sounds of peaceful rain began to fade. Rocks huddled in the fast water, with deep pools between, and after the next bend, where a band of stubborn stone had resisted erosion, one small waterfall waited for careless souls.

Shadow-Below pulled them onto a sandbar above the falls.

"We could have jumped this thing," Porter decided.

"You try. Let me get my gear out first."

They unloaded everything, and the others caught up to them, beaching and unloading. Some people carried their packs and bags of food and the portable refrigerators, while the rest tied long ropes to the bows and walked downstream, playing out the ropes until they were ready. Then one at a time, they gave a dramatic tug, and the empty canoes slid over the brink, always reaching a point that fooled the eye, looking as if they might hold flat and stable until they were hanging in the air, ready to settle slowly onto the river beneath. But nobody seemed able to control the boats. The chaos embedded inside the current sent the canoes one way or another, and four of them flipped, forcing people into the chilled water to roll them over again and drain them.

Porter's son was built like his father. Righting his canoe was easy work, but he insisted on warning his teacher, "Your bailers are broken. Have you noticed?"

"I'll check them at home," Shadow-Below promised.

Ginger laughed longer than anyone else.

Her son offered his expertise to Mara. "Give me that rope. I'll drop yours nice and neat."

The girl couldn't have been more pleasant, saying, "No, thank you." Then she let the rope fall limp. With nothing but gravity and momentum at play, her empty canoe came over the edge and maintained its trim, falling with a drum-like splash and drifting straight to where she was waiting.

The boy was standing close to her. "Hey," he exclaimed. "Good job."

She could have responded with her own patronizing remark. Or she might have given him a mocking look and left things there. But what impressed Shadow-Below was that she did nothing but smile, making sure the boy saw her face, and then she said, "Thanks," without even a taste of sarcasm.

* * * *

Through that first day, the river grew wider and deeper. Active springs were visible on the banks. Most of the prairie was still a despairing winter brown, but the ground water was warm enough to help patches of grass burst into a rich early green. There were animal signs in abundance -- tracks and piles of crap and signs of concentrated feasts -- but except for a few dark splotches on the far dunes, no creature showed itself. Trying to stave off disappointment, Shadow-Below reminded his class that the herds were determined wanderers, and they might have to go another day or two before seeing a spectacle.

Jokes were made about refunds.

Their teacher decided to put on a smile and hope for the best.

When they were in the lead again, Porter turned in his seat in order to look at him, using that same intense, strange gaze.

_He's going to mention his wife_, Shadow-Below thought. _He thinks it's time to deliver a warning._

But he was wrong.

"Give or take," Porter announced, "I'm worth about two billion dollars."

Shadow-Below blinked. "Congratulations."

"You think I'm boasting? Because I'm not." The man shook his head for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip. "My company manufactures an assortment of automated machines. Our robots are as smart as mice, in most cases. Or stupid monkeys, if you want the top of the line."

Shadow-Below touched the water with his paddle, and nodded.

"We've had a good run these last ten years. From a little startup company, I've built a corporation that's known around the world. In any normal world, Porter Industries would be in position to dominate. Like Ford did. Like Microsoft or Google. With my market share and my talent pool, I'd be able to set the tone for the next thirty years, or more. Machines wearing my name would rebuild our planet, and then they'd take the first steps toward remaking the Moon and Mars.

"But this isn't a normal world. Not anymore. Technologies change every month. Every week, in some cases. The patterns of change are hard to measure, impossible to predict. These are events without historical parallels. But even if you're not a very curious soul, Conrad ... even the most stodgy, dim-witted piece of humanity has to notice all these revolutions emerging -- "

"What do you want to say?" asked Shadow-Below.

"Last winter, one of my brightest and best from Research came home from a conference. She'd met a fellow who works for a subsidiary of Bounty's company. I'm not sure, but I think they slept together." He shook his head, as if wounded by her minor treachery. "Anyway, the young fellow let her see the schematics for a new system of robots. And what he showed her -- for whatever reason he showed them to her -- what she saw were plans for entirely new kinds of chassis and revolutionary minds, plus power systems unlike any species of engine I've ever seen."

There was no one in the world but Shadow-Below and this angry, scared man. The river might have been a thousand miles wide and long enough to reach Mars, for all the notice either of them gave to the shoreline.

"Somebody wanted me to know. To understand." Porter took a huge breath. "When I feel charitable, I tell myself that somebody was giving me a friendly warning. In a few weeks or months ... soon, for sure ... all of my hard work and smart decisions, and with that, my entire legacy ... these glorious accomplishments were going to suddenly mean nothing."

Quietly, Shadow-Below said, "Huh."

"'Huh'? That's the best you can do?" Porter faced forward, and out of simple frustration, he slashed at the river with his paddle, kicking up their speed until they were flying past the junipers and buffalo crap. Then he turned again, facing Shadow-Below, months of nervous rage emerging. "When you were working down at Bounty's City ... did you ever see what kind of place it was...?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did they make apartments for people? Did you see toilets being shipped in, or front doors? Anything that normal souls demand?"

"What's inside," said Shadow-Below, "was built there. Raw materials were rolled in and transformed inside the walls, and that's all I can tell you."

"You know, Conrad. I picked your class for a reason." Porter told him, "I did my own research. And I wanted to talk to you."

"But I don't know anything."

"And I don't believe you, Conrad."

He said nothing.

"I'm not an idiot. Or at least, I wasn't an idiot until recently."

A sandbar rose up to collide with them, the grinding noise in the hull ending with a musical squeak.

"Everybody hears stories about that Bounty's house." Porter shook his head, an angry smile flashing in the faint glow of the day. "Officially, it's a dream community maintained for his employees and their families. But there aren't that many employees. At least not in any official roster, there aren't. And there's the stubborn old rumors about some giant AI brain that Bounty has built. People tell you that the brain has figured out the universe. It knows everything, or it knows everything worth knowing. Either way, that machine is doing nothing day and night but inventing wonders that are going to make its master even richer."

Softly, Shadow-Below admitted, "I've heard those stories."

"And everybody's mistaken. I think." Porter suddenly noticed the sandbar, looking about as if puzzled by this wrong turn. Then he saw his wife and son rounding the last bend, catching up to them. "My family doesn't know," he blurted. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't told either of them ... not about what my Research woman said, or anything else...."

Shadow-Below gave a small nod.

"A great machine mind -- anyway, that's a lousy solution for the problem. If you ask me." Porter leaned close, speaking softly but with emphasis. "If you want brilliance, the best solution is to get a lot of bright minds that are busy and inquisitive, and that want to compete with one another. And then you let them go wild, doing whatever they want to do!"

A solitary mule deer was standing in the trees, watching the two men sitting in that smoky-orange canoe.

"I heard a different story about Mara's house," said Porter. "Do you know where ten billion of the smartest, most curious citizens of our planet are living right now? Do you?" He shoved his paddle in the air, saying, "Downriver from us. In the middle of this damned grassland. Thriving in a space too small for ten thousand clumsy, old-fashioned apes like you and me!"

* * * *

Raven had always been an amiable, eager-to-please child. When Shadow-Below thought of the People that he left behind -- when he was in the mood to imagine their futures and fates -- he never pictured his nephew facing banishment. The boy had always been ridiculously good. And more important, Raven's grandfather adored him. Speaking with the conviction of a man who had little time left in this world, he once told Shadow-Below, "I think there is a chance that he is the One."

"The One? Are you serious, old man?"

"Do not bark at me, son. I know what I am speaking of."

Shadow-Below shook his head, taking a moment to compose himself. But his mood didn't grow calm. With a fierce voice, he reminded the shaman, "You said the same great things about me. I was going to be the One. Do you remember those days and nights?"

"You have not forgotten them, I see."

This was several years ago. Raven was only in his sixth year, and Shadow-Below still lived with the People.

"He is the One? You mean this?" asked Shadow-Below.

"I do."

"You are telling me that that child will someday save our world?"

"Somebody must. And I think he might be suited."

"I was suited once. You promised me, Father."

"Good. Now we both understand that I can be mistaken."

Shadow-Below pulled one hand across his face, thinking hard. Then he carefully said, "This is bullshit."

The old man said nothing.

"Your time is short, Father. You are scared and desperate."

"Perhaps."

"And I am finished with this nonsense," Shadow-Below announced. "I won't pretend anymore. Living underground, in secret ... this is madness. Even a dirty little prairie dog gets to climb out of its burrow during the day."

"If your heart for our life has left you," said the shaman, "perhaps you should find the courage to walk away from us."

"Perhaps I will." Then with a forced grin, he added, "But once I'm gone, I won't have anything more to do with the People."

Shadow-Below meant to injure. He wanted anger and rage, and maybe a weak swing from his father's good arm. But the response was quiet laughter wrapped around the words: "You will never abandon us."

"And how do you know this?"

"Because you are a good man. Walk as hard as you wish, but every path leads you back to this hole in the ground."

* * * *

Their first campfire proved easy work. After a few moments of sizzle and smoke, last year's grass began to burn, his students feeding in sticks and then the big limbs that they'd dragged from the rain shadow of an old ash tree. Soon the blaze was tall and hot, and people backed away. The mood was mostly pleasant, like a party where everyone felt obliged to behave. Mara shared one log with her companion. For several minutes at a time, she would talk quietly. Quickly. Shadow-Below heard phrases and single words, but none of it felt important. Mara was jabbering like any happy teenager might. Then she paused, and her companion instantly offered a quick word or two of advice. By contrast, Porter and his wife were having an intense discussion. They were standing farther from the fire than anyone else -- two people full of tense little words and silent moments, hands stabbing the air when emphasis was needed. Every so often, Ginger would look at their teacher. Porter studied Mara and chewed on his lip. Then suddenly, Ginger reached up and held her husband's face with both hands, making certain he heard what she had to say before she turned and walked off to their tent.

In the morning, beside the smoldering fire, Shadow-Below learned that a new passenger was going to ride in his canoe. Porter had invested an entire day talking about Bounty and his New-Year City, but now the billionaire wanted a break. Or maybe he'd finally realized that Shadow-Below would never discuss these matters. Or perhaps this was Ginger's idea, convincing her husband to let her continue the polite interrogation, but with tricks that Porter could never have tried.

Shadow-Below didn't know what to think; these people were strangers to him, and that was all they would ever be.

"A million dollars for your thoughts," said the red-haired woman.

He pretended not to hear her.

The woman looked back at him, sporting an oversized smile. "Are you disappointed? Do you want somebody bigger and stronger to paddle?"

"We're doing fine," he replied. Then he added, "This isn't a race, is it?"

She said, "Conrad," with relish. Then she said that name again, softer this time. "To you, I bet we look a herd of fools."

"Never," he replied.

"Another two days, and we'll be out of your hair." Her husband and son were up ahead -- strong men paddling with sloppy determination. When she was sure they were out of earshot, she admitted, "I'll miss that beautiful hair of yours."

He said nothing.

His silence amused her. "Tell me," she said, laughing too loudly. "Are we better or worse than your average class?"

"You're the best ever."

"Well," she said, "that is the nicest little lie!"

The day began with more rain. But by midday, the sky had dried to where blue gaps showed in the thinning clouds. Ginger removed her poncho and life jacket. She seemed extra small and pale today, and very pretty. There was no way to ignore her body. When she pretended to paddle, Shadow-Below discovered his eyes watching that fit little rump. And when she turned around again and crossed her legs, like now, he couldn't help but notice her bright green shirt and those three buttons that simply refused to remain fastened.

Porter and his son were rounding the next bend, but they had quit paddling, each lifting his paddle up to point at something up ahead.

Something new.

"Buffalo?" Ginger asked. "Do you think it's a herd, maybe?"

The landmarks told him where they were. "No, they're seeing the big fence. That's all."

The fence was tall and anchored deep in the ground. But Shadow-Below had the combination to the gate in midriver. Even city eyes could see that the land beyond was different: The grass near the water had been chewed to nothing by lazy cattle. The pastures were well maintained, but generations of hooves had cut lines into the distant dunes, leaving white scars of sand. The country even had its own stink, heavier and more intense than before. Ginger mentioned the odor, and Shadow-Below explained that livestock preferred to gather near the water. Flat brown turds littered the eroded banks, smothering everything beneath them. "There aren't any predators here," he lied. "And the river gives the cattle easy shade."

All the canoes were bunched close. When he finished talking, Mara said, "There's another reason for the smell."

"What is it?" asked Ginger.

"The bison and elk," the girl began. Then she hesitated, measuring her words while glancing back at her companion. "Their genetics have been changed," she mentioned. "Just a little bit, just to help their digestive systems."

Porter and his son were back in the lead. But when Mara spoke, they stopped paddling and listened.

"And the bacteria in their guts," she explained. "Those are tailored bugs that don't make as much pollution as before."

"Elk don't fart?" Porter's son blurted. Then he laughed at his own joke.

"Oh, they do that," the girl responded calmly. "But there's not as much methane. Which is good, since that's an awful greenhouse gas."

Removed from the wilderness, everybody felt like talking. Tame country did that to people. Ginger set down her paddle again, asking questions as soon as she thought of them.

"How many buffalo are there?"

Shadow-Below had old numbers, but Mara could recite figures accurate to the nearest ten thousand head.

"And how big are the Commons?"

He didn't answer. Mara's figures were up-to-date, and she easily divided up the lands owned by the Commons Corporation, the ground leased from absent ranchers, and the various federal and state lands that created a realm large enough to swallow most nations.

"So why does this one ranch hold out?"

Mara looked at Shadow-Below, and when she realized what she was doing, she quickly glanced back at her friend.

The silent man offered her a vague little smile.

Ginger noticed Mara's expression and then stared at her new friend. "What makes this land different, Conrad?"

"The owner's very stubborn," he said.

"Do you know him?"

"I've spoken to him once or twice," Shadow-Below allowed. Then he repeated what he had mentioned at breakfast. "This river is public territory, but we don't have permission to use the land. Leave the river, and you're guilty of trespassing, and subject to a lot of old, dangerous legal problems."

These were people with property, and they respect property. Just as he had hoped, his words made them tentative. The canoes began to drift apart, and a few strong strokes put him into the lead. The water here was peaceful and clear, with dark deep holes beyond the biggest snags. Even without Ginger's help, he pulled farther ahead at each bend. The sun was breaking free as they came to a long, straight reach of water, and in the distance was a lone bright wire suspended above the sparkling Dismal.

"The wire's hot," he mentioned. "Keep down."

Except for a thousand landmarks, the next pasture was indistinguishable from the last. Shadow-Below began to paddle again. Rounding the next bend, he forced the canoe to hug tight against the steep outer bank, the massive old hill standing directly on their right.

"Are we in a race?" Ginger asked hopefully.

"I need a bathroom," he said. "That's why I want distance."

She looked back at him, grinning for too long. But she didn't say what was on her mind. And then with a mother's warning tone, she reminded him, "This is private land."

"And I could be shot for this," he added. "So stay in the boat, on the water, why don't you please?"

* * * *

The hill was enormous -- an ancient sand dune gnawed at by the river but surviving just the same, held together by inertia and the roots of a few cottonwoods and maybe a thousand junipers. Facing north, the hill held the day's deepest shadows, and the air beneath the trees was cool, and every breath contained familiar scents, while each little patch of ground needed to be examined for a long moment, Shadow-Below hunting for signs that refused to be found.

Twice, he paused to look back at the river, making certain the woman was following instructions. Then he stepped into a dark tangle of old growth, kneeling and opening his toilet kit.

A small shovel and a wad of one-ply paper were set aside.

The kit had a second pocket hidden under the first, opening only with the touch of his right thumb. In the gloom, with hands as much as eyes, Shadow-Below removed and sorted the contents of that second pocket. There were little packets of pills -- new-generation antibiotics wrapped inside simple instructions -- and cloth sacks stuffed with fishhooks and thin, nearly indestructible lengths of fishing line. There were also three blades without handles -- black diamond blades, sharpened and bolstered with nanofibers. Add handles of bone or wood, and they would make wonderful knives that would never grow dull or break. And there was also a charm created from owl feathers wrapped inside the wing of a small wise bat.

Shadow-Below left the gifts beneath a limb that looked like an old man's hand. Then he gathered up his paper and shovel and the kit, and he turned back toward the river. "I don't want the boy," he said quietly. "I can't teach Raven anything useful, and I won't be able to protect him much longer. I don't believe in his ghost, or anything else. Either you take him back, or I'll leave him with somebody who can help him more than I can."

He paused, listening hard.

But the forest was silent, dark and indifferent to his little problems.

Retreating to the river, he found Ginger sitting in the canoe, her shirt opened halfway to her navel. The others were noisily approaching, Porter and his son flailing their way back into the lead. Shadow-Below paused for a final moment. He found himself watching the woman's little neck, studying the pale red hairs dancing in the breeze. Then a dead branch shattered. The clear sharp crack was behind him, loud and purposeful, and it was all that he could do not to look over his shoulder -- even when he knew there was nothing here but familiar woods filled with the potent, bitter scents of home.

* * * *

They drifted out of the ranch by early afternoon, making camp with the first hint of dusk. The women built a small, intimate fire while the men dragged in logs, forming a rough hexagon where everyone could sit shoulder-to-shoulder. Wilderness again stretched to the horizon. The brown grass rattled. A wolf sang from some high dune. The sun was down, a starless night holding sway, and across the river, a great-horned owl woke to proclaim, "Hoo-hoo-hoo." On silent wings, the owl followed his voice across the water, settling in a treetop above the campsite, and with the same booming voice, he repeated his warning to the world.

People were startled, flinching and then laughing at themselves. Was that the same bird? Really? Shadow-Below had known enough owls to guess what was coming. But what surprised him was Mara's companion: Unperturbed, even amused, the man showed a thin smile as he stared up into the rising smoke. Then he suddenly turned, staring hard at Shadow-Below, and the smile brightened as he offered a quick, mysterious wink.

The conversations were quiet, banal. Shadow-Below sat between the biotech tycoon and a neurosurgeon, ignoring their opinions about tax shelters and real estate markets. Then Porter motioned to Ginger, and just like last night, they stepped away. Another one of their heart-to-heart talks began. But this time Porter did most of the talking and all of the emphatic pointing. His wife laughed him off, trying to defuse what had him upset. But the man insisted on being angry, and whatever he wanted, he finally won out.

Returning to the fire, he leaned over Shadow-Below's shoulder. "My boy's riding with you tomorrow," he whispered.

"Fine."

Ginger spoke into her son's ear, and then she and her husband vanished again. For a few moments, the boy studied Shadow-Below, and then he rose and walked around the fire to Mara, making some little joke before settling on the log beside her.

But what happened to her companion? Wasn't he sitting there just two moments ago?

Mara smiled politely at her suitor, answering a few questions before distracting him with her own queries. Ten minutes passed, then another ten. And still, the man who never left her sight was absent.

What was he doing in the dark?

Shadow-Below rose and slipped away. A cold drizzle was falling, pushed along by an ominous north wind. Slowly, he circled the fire, building a mental map of the campsite. Porter and Ginger were inside their tent, a single grunt explaining their absence. So this was what the woman did. She flirted with other men until her husband was crazy-sick, and they quarreled and spat, and then they made up. And that's how they kept themselves happy? These people had to be Demons: True humans would never act in such a ridiculous, self-absorbed way.

With a finger-sized flashlight, Shadow-Below found the companion's trail. The soles of the shoes and the man's strong gait led him out to where there wasn't enough water for trees. The darkness opened up around him; he was walking on the open prairie. The man's stride grew noticeably longer. The grass was still parted, the route easy to follow. Shadow-Below began to jog, and he very nearly missed the solitary figure that was doing nothing -- a body standing a few feet to his right, in the rain, nothing but the wool clothes to keep him warm. And with a deep voice that had barely been heard all week, the man said, "Conrad, hello."

"Hello," Shadow-Below muttered.

"I was on my way back," the man reported. His voice had the hint of an accent, but it refused to be placed. "You shouldn't have worried about me."

"What if you got lost out here?"

"Many things are possible," was the answer. "But not that."

There was no one else present. Shadow-Below reached out with his senses, and when he felt sure they were alone, he said, "I don't think I've ever heard a name for you."

"Jacob," the man replied.

"Jacob," Shadow-Below repeated. Then with a quiet, self-conscious voice, he asked, "Are you a human being, Jacob? Or some new species of machine?"

"Are those my only choices?"

Shadow-Below shuddered. Breathed. "You left her alone with that boy," he said. "He's down there right now, hoping to get his chance."

"He has no chance."

"But aren't you supposed to be protecting Mara?"

"She is fine. And that boy is nothing."

"So what are you, Jacob? What?"

Silence.

"I've watched you," Shadow-Below said. "You're strong, but I can't tell how strong. I have seen you eat and drink, or at least pretend to. And you walk off in the morning with a shovel and paper. But maybe last night's meal is only chewed, not digested, and you're leaving it for the ravens."

"Or maybe I am a machine with an efficient chemical metabolism. Have you considered that possibility?"

"Not really."

"Let's change topics," said Jacob. "Really, I think you're a much more interesting subject."

"Why?"

The dark face might have smiled, but the voice had little joy. "The signals are strong, they tell me. Good data is arriving. All of the probes are performing as expected."

Shadow-Below felt sick, but not nearly as sick as he imagined he would be.

"The shaman himself accepted your gifts. None of the People suspect. Right now, they are sitting at the fire, talking about a strange new fish they speared in the river the other day."

"I don't understand," said Shadow-Below.

"What don't you understand?"

"Why do you need me? To sneak a few microscopic eyes and ears into their house ... when you'd already found the place for yourself...?"

Jacob laughed quietly. Then he said, "Maybe," with the hard, warning tone. "Maybe what we want is not for this or for that to be done, Conrad. Maybe our purpose here is to have _you_ do these little favors for us...."

* * * *

Another Canadian front arrived in the night, bringing plunging temperatures and hard rain. By morning, the campfire was a stack of cold, half-burnt limbs, and the endless prairie had shriveled to a patch of bottomland and a few feet of river. The rest of the world was gray -- dark gray skies and a curtain of gray rain and a distant landscape reduced to its simplest hills and valleys. Everybody dressed in his warmest, driest clothes. Even Jacob sported rain gear -- a slick black poncho that shed the water like a lotus leaf. Inside the tents, sleeping bags and extra clothes were stowed into packs, and the wet tents were dismantled and shaken once or twice before being forced into their stuff sacks. Breakfasts were quick and simple. Water was fed into foil sacks that heated and cooked their fancy contents. Shadow-Below smelled cultured oatmeal and honey, exotic coffees and fresh warm bread. He ate a green apple instead, and two cold pancakes from yesterday. Then he walked down to the shore and righted every canoe, and the next person set her pack into the canoe that he was using.

Mara grinned, and before he could speak, she said, "It's all right. Last night, I made a deal with him."

"With Jacob?"

That was a very funny question. She giggled, asking, "Now why would I need to do that?"

The deal had been made with Porter's son.

Other people arrived, and with a patience growing thin, they listened to Shadow-Below explain the day's dangers. This river was cold, he reminded them, and the air was even colder. If anyone spilled, they had only a few minutes to get to shore and find warmth. That's why keeping together was important, because if there was an accident, he wanted everybody's help.

Yet within minutes, every canoe was alone on the water. The rain came in cold dense waves, cutting visibility to a few yards, and the northwest wind began to find its punch. The only blessing was the solitude: Even Mara seemed remote, sitting in the distant bow with her back to him, arms and shoulders paddling with a steadfastness that he hadn't seen from his other partners.

A second canoe emerged up ahead. The boy stared at Mara as she passed by, his face full of misspent longings and a pissed-at-the-rain suffering. By contrast, Jacob seemed infinitely happy, offering both of them a nod and grin, and with his paddle, graciously waving them into the lead.

Sometimes they would drift, letting the current take them, and Mara would look back at Shadow-Below. Her expressions were intense and determined; he could almost see those important questions that she wanted to ask. But she never let herself. Instead, she would ask how to find directions on a day like this, without GPS or even a compass. Or she'd want to know about the edible plants hiding around them. She would pick his brain about hunting deer, and how smart he thought grizzly bears really were, and if he believed that bringing back the mammoths might help make amends for old crimes.

Without question, Shadow-Below enjoyed talking to this girl.

Around midday, Porter and his wife caught up with them, and with the voice of a CEO, Porter said, "Can we make it off this river today?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

Shadow-Below shrugged. "That's why I said, 'No.'"

Porter shook his head, then to his tiny wife, he said, "Will you at least try and help us here?"

They vanished downstream. And again, the world was reduced to a circle of cold gray air, two people sitting at opposite ends of this tiny realm. Shadow-Below let them drift again. Mara felt his paddle lift, and she responded in kind. Then she turned -- like twenty times before, she looked back at him and smiled, trying produce a smart fresh question -- but he spoke first. "You're awfully lucky, I think."

Mara blinked, probably trying to guess which luck applied.

"That crash last year," he told her. "In the summer, like it was. In relatively good weather."

Her eyes grew huge.

"A different day, and you and your brother both would have died of exposure."

She flinched, sucking in a breath and holding it.

"But that's not why I was lucky," she said.

"Yes," he said. "I know that story."

The girl suddenly had an injured, even angry expression, and a matching voice snapped, "I didn't tell my father, or anybody else. I promised not to, and I didn't, and I'm not the one you should be blaming!"

"I'm not blaming."

Mara shut her mouth and looked across the colorless water. Then with an almost inaudible voice, she asked, "How is he?"

Raven, she meant.

"Is that boy all right?"

Sliding his paddle back into the water, Shadow-Below said, "Really, I wouldn't know how to answer that question."

* * * *

By day's end, they made it most of the way to the pickup site, with just a few miles and maybe a dozen river bends to conquer in the morning. They pulled off beneath a stand of ponderosa pine -- stately elderly trees that once shaded a ranch house, abandoned now and rotting to dust. Several dozen elk were already bedded down in the woods, and they rose together and trotted off -- cows and calves leaving behind an animal stink, as well as an appropriate outrage.

Nobody could find dry fuel. As a body, the students looked at Shadow-Below -- at their teacher and protector -- and he knew what they wanted. But he refused them. He told them to put up the rain fly for his tent, creating a lean-to over a likely piece of ground, and then he walked past the empty house, ignoring its dry interior with the varnished floorboards and forgotten furniture and the flammable trash left behind by previous campers. He found a burr oak instead and gathered up handfuls of last year's leaves, and then with a focus rare in his present life, Shadow-Below knelt on the wet sand and carefully, slowly fashioned a neat pile of shredded leaves, igniting the pile with his laser-lighter and feeding the smoke and tiny embers with his own measured breath, working hard until the blaze dried out pine cones and sticks, sparking them in turn.

Most of an hour went into building a healthy fire. The rain fly -- a huge green sheet of modern fabric -- grew hot enough to glow but never showed any desire to burn. People sat in front of the lean-to, close together in the endless drizzle but dry beneath their ponchos, heat playing across faces while minds remembered better weather.

Eventually talk turned to the displaced elk.

"They're the big surprise for me," Porter confessed. "Buffalo and wolves, sure. But when I think 'elk,' I always picture Colorado and Montana. Not the flat old plains."

But elk -- the wapiti -- were native to this ground. Shadow-Below gave a little lecture about how the elk weren't quite as abundant as the buffalo, but millions of them had lived on the grasslands. Relatively few ever wandered into the mountains, except in the heat of summer. That was why Lewis and Clark nearly starved during their winter in the mountains. The native game preferred warm valleys and watered plains over snow and ice. "Elk aren't idiots," he told the would-be hunters. "But when they were shot at year-round, and their ground was being plowed up and planted ... they had no choice but to find ways to live in the high country, and in every season too."

He was thinking about adaptation. Animals of all kinds could make homes for themselves, and that despite the most astonishing hardships. And in the coming years, like it or not, it would be the same for human beings.

Shadow-Below was sitting on the ground. Mara and Jacob were behind him, close together on a rancher's old bench. Porter asked Mara about elk. He wanted numbers. He liked to hear that the giant deer were moving east, and within a few years, substantial herds would be established in the Appalachians and south into the old Choctaw territories.

Ginger asked, "When did the old elk vanish from this country?"

She was sitting beside Shadow-Below, close enough that their elbows touched. But that felt like a coincidence. And even if it wasn't, he felt insulated by his rain gear, and hers, listening to the rain drumming on his head whenever the conversation came to a pause.

Mara took a deep breath and said, "During the Outbreak."

Shadow-Below looked back at her, showing his smile. "That's a good story," he allowed.

"What's the Outbreak?" Ginger asked.

"It's the Northern Cheyenne," he began. Then he looked forward, watching the hot red embers. "In the late 1870s, that tribe was living on a miserable little reservation in Oklahoma. They had a few guns, a few horses. But they wanted to go home to Montana, which is why they slipped away and headed out across Kansas. Of course your ancestors went crazy. Every bluecoat for a thousand miles was put on their trail. And since Kansas was settled ground, they had nowhere to hide. There were some fights, and killing. But most of the Cheyenne made it to the Platte River, and there they broke into two groups. One band went on to Fort Robinson, throwing themselves at the mercy of the soldiers and Washington. But the others moved just a little ways into the Sandhills, picking a valley and hiding there, letting the bluecoats ride through once or twice to convince themselves that the ground had been well searched. Then they prepared for the winter.

"Except food was scarce," he said. "There were no buffalo left, and the ranchers would miss their cattle. Famine seemed inevitable. But one day, a herd of elk suddenly came over the horizon. There were a hundred of them or so, all running straight for the Cheyenne, and the natives slaughtered that herd and survived the winter because of it. Eventually they earned themselves a crappy little piece of land back up in Montana, and against long odds, they convinced themselves they were happy."

"I didn't know about the Cheyenne," Ginger admitted. "Or the elk either."

The mood was relaxed and thoughtful.

The little woman laughed. "Wouldn't it be incredible?"

Her husband wondered, "What would be incredible?"

"If somewhere in this country, there were Natives still living like they used to. Wouldn't that be fantastic?"

Shadow-Below felt his heart kick and belly tighten.

"They couldn't hide all these years," her husband said. Pragmatic and sober, he said, "One winter isn't the same as a hundred and sixty years."

"Unless they had help," said the biotech tycoon.

Shadow-Below started to turn around, and stopped himself.

"Help?" asked Porter. "What do you mean?"

"Some of the local people," Ginger offered. Then she grabbed Shadow-Below by the poncho, tugging on it while saying, "If somebody felt sorry for them, or maybe there's some other reason ... I don't know...."

Now he looked over his shoulder. Mara's face was half-shrouded by her hood, but the green eyes were staring at him, a palpable panic building. And Jacob only seemed calm and measured -- the tense jaw and bright blind eyes signaling his own genuine alarm.

Everybody else was caught up in the speculations. These were smart people with a subject everyone was interested in, and suddenly they were talking about the qualities they would want if they were living in this wilderness. Water was mentioned, and someplace to hide. They talked about digging underground homes and living like prairie dogs, and then somebody was describing how they could get secret help coming from relatives still living on the reservation --

Shadow-Below turned around, and with a tug of his hand, he pulled back Ginger's hood. The thick red hair glowed in the firelight, and her freckled face looked up at him with a mixture of wary pleasure and delighted surprise. Then Shadow-Below dipped his head and opened his mouth, kissing her little wet mouth, pushing with his tongue until that precise moment when everybody had stopped thinking about lost tribes living under their feet.

* * * *

The trailer looked empty, and if he were anyone else, it would be empty when he stepped inside. Two trap doors led out into the back. The boy always kept watch through the slits in the blinds. But it was only Shadow-Below back from his travels, and Raven remained seated in the living room, barefoot and unwashed, the LCD screen split in two, a live soccer game from Germany competing against one of the old John Wayne Westerns.

Raven looked up when Shadow-Below came into the room, probably expecting to look down again right away.

His gaze froze.

"Your face -- " he began.

"Yeah?"

"What happened to your eye?"

Shadow-Below shrugged, as if the bruise was a mystery to him too. He set down his pack and looked at the dirty plates stacked on the floor and on a chair that neither of them liked to use. He could smell the boy from across the room. Something was cooking on the stove. He lifted the lid and saw a thick-bodied fish surrounded by boiling water. In ways that he couldn't quite name, the fish was wrong. The proportions were odd, and despite the heat, the eyes were not growing pale. Then he realized that the fins were moving on their own, and the gills were pumping, trying to wring oxygen out of the bubbles and hot water.

He dropped the lid.

"I caught it yesterday," Raven mentioned. "I started cooking it last night."

Shadow-Below turned and stared at the screen. Robert Mitchum was staggering around the jailhouse, suffering after a lot of hard drinking. A goalie was grabbing the soccer ball out of the air, saving his team for the moment. And his nephew continued to stare at the horribly blackened eye, finally asking, "Which one of them hit you?"

"The billionaire's son," he admitted.

"Why?"

"For a lot of good reasons, probably."

The boy returned to the programs.

Shadow-Below asked, "So what did you do while I was gone?"

No answer.

"Did you study with the computer?"

Silence.

Outside, a robot was pulling away from the mailbox.

Shadow-Below stepped outside again, walking with slow deliberation. If somebody asked what he was thinking, he wouldn't have been able to answer. He felt empty and past deliberations -- a piece of flotsam carried along by vast, unknowable currents -- and when he opened the box and found the envelope with his name and barcode address, but no sender record, he felt nothing. He opened the envelope and peered inside long enough to be certain that the cash-card was inside, its memory recognizing his touch and scent and instantly disgorging its present balance.

Not a fortune, no. But quite a lot of money all the same.

Still numb and cold, he walked back inside the trailer and past the boy without looking at him, killing the LCD with his empty hand. Then into the silence, he said, "You need a shower."

"Okay."

Shadow-Below turned and said, "Now."

The boy stared at him with a hard, level expression. Were they going to come to blows over this?

"The world is on fire," his uncle said.

Raven sat up a little straighter.

Shadow-Below paused to breathe, and then with a tone of helpless resignation, he said, "You and me, together ... and I don't know how ... but we're going to have to try to put out this fire...."