“I told Mom Jo that I’ll go shopping for you tomorrow if you give me a list of what you need.”
Even his moms didn’t realize how well he saw in the dark once his eyes adjusted. She winced at his offer, but said brightly, “That will be a great help, honey. I’ll work up a list and give it to you tomorrow morning. Good night, honey.”
He climbed the stairs wondering. His perfect memory told him that nothing had changed between his mothers and him, except his own point of view—or more correctly—the addition of Magic Boy to his point of view. What had been comforting now seemed restrictive.
A memory fragment from Magic Boy rose in Ukiah’s mind.
He stood on the cliff edge, overlooking the Umatilla River, the wind coming off the prairie roaring in his ears, stinging his eyes nearly as much as the burning tears. He raised his arms up, wondering, What if all I need is faith? Maybe if I leapt now, would I turn into something more than just a little boy?
He leaned against the wind, closing his eyes, trying to summon the courage to believe.
“Magic Boy,” his mother, Kicking Deer, said behind him. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t turn to face her, see how old she had grown while he stayed the same. All his younger half brothers were men now, with wives and children of their own. Only he stayed the same. “I’m thinking about flying.”
“You have no wings, Magic Boy.”
“Perhaps while my feet are firmly on the ground, I need no wings. Maybe I need to be in the air to have wings.”
“Don’t be foolish. You’re too old for it.”
“Tell that to the old men of the tribe! Tell them I am too old to still be considered a child. Tell them that the baby at your breast when I went out the last time for my manhood rite had a son of his own today.”
“My son,” Kicking Deer said softly. “Every full moon I take a string out and measure you as you sleep. Years I have measured you from the top of your head to the back of your heels, and always you are the same. There is no gray in your hair and no lines on your face. Like the stone Coyote gave me to swallow, you are unchanging.”
“So I am unchanging! They made Five Crows a man yesterday. He has only seen eleven summers to my thirty, and tomorrow he might die if a bear struck him or a snake bit him. Am I, who is unchanging, any less a man than Five Crows, who might die without changing? He is shorter, and slower, and weaker than I, but they made him a man.”
Years of injustices fueled his anger, and he raged on bitterly. “And you know why? If I were a man, I would overshadow them even as I am. I am faster and stronger than all of them. So they keep me a child and order me about whenever they can.”
“Aiieee. My son. It is the spirits that keep you a child.”
“I am sick of being a child. I am sick of babies swaggering about the dance grounds, thinking they can tell me what to do because . . .”
“Because the spirits chose a different path for you. A longer path. Five Crows’s journey is already half over, and yours has barely begun. Do not be angry because you do not see the same things along the path that he does; you are bound for different places.”
He sighed, turning away from the cliff. “Why is it that you are always so much wiser than me? You are not really that much older than I am.”
She tweaked his nose. “Because I’m always running to stay ahead of you.”
Magic Boy hadn’t flung himself from that cliff face that day. Ironically, if he had, he would have aged. But his mother had been right, he had taken a long, twisting path before seeing his totem animal and becoming a man. A small niggling part of Ukiah pointed out that he still lived as a child in his mothers’ house, but he had, for the most part, all that Magic Boy desired: a position in society as an adult, a woman, and a child.
Kittanning lay in his crib bed, a mobile of Mickey Mouse dancing over his head, dreaming of the day’s anxiety.
Although Kittanning started as a stolen blood mouse, and had been all of three days old when Ukiah finally won him back, Ukiah hadn’t been able to take Kittanning back. Not in the physical sense—no, Ukiah probably could have forced the merger. But Kittanning was now a human infant. Whereas Ukiah’s mice felt like lost pieces of the greater whole, always joyful at the prospect of returning, Kittanning had a sense of self, wholly separate of Ukiah. Perhaps Kittanning’s individuality came from resisting Hex’s will, perhaps it came automatic with the conscious mind of the human form, or maybe it was something more metaphysical, being gifted with a soul at the moment of his human transformation. Whatever it was, Ukiah had held the baby and known that Kittanning was no longer his as in the manner of fingers and toes, but his as in the manner of a son.
Prior to Ukiah’s trip to Oregon, though, he had wondered at the truth of this, worried that he was mistaken. He had been ignorant of his mice nearly up to the day of Kittanning’s “birth.” What if the personality he felt in Kittanning was merely a projection of his own?
Now, knowing he wasn’t the child born to his mother, but a blood animal transformed himself, Ukiah recognized that Kittanning was also a true individual. The knowledge, as he gazed down at the sleeping baby, banished all of Ukiah’s worries and left him with only love for his son.
Lifting Kittanning out of his crib, Ukiah cuddled his son to him, waking him.
Daddy! Joy shimmered through Kittanning, and the tiny fists clutched tight at Ukiah. Between them, there was no need for words of love, it poured out unreserved. Tempered into the flow, though, was a sense of terrible sorrow as the weeks had passed with glacial slowness for the infant, and a faint terror that Kittanning would grow to forget his father.
“I’m home to stay,” Ukiah promised and kissed the soft black hair.
Evans City, Pennsylvania
Monday, September 13, 2004
“It’s just I feel funny not telling anyone,” Mom Lara complained during the normal morning confusion, complicated by the addition of baby Kittanning to their family, and the recent start of school for Ukiah’s sister, Cally. Lunch bags stood half-filled on the counter, morning coffee scented the kitchen, and a baby bottle shimmered on the cooktop. “I have a doctorate in astronomy. I’ve written papers on all of my tiny, almost insignificant discoveries. Now, I know everything about the most important discovery of mankind since—since the invention of written language, and I can’t say anything!”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” Ukiah rocked back and forth, patting Kittanning on the back. He still found it disorienting to cradle the infant to him. They were so identical that his senses could barely determine where his body stopped and his son’s started. Ukiah could feel Kittanning’s hunger as if it was his own.
“I’m hungry,” Kittanning whimpered into his mind.
“I know, pumpkin.” Ukiah yawned. Kittanning’s hunger had woken them up in the middle of the night. With typical baby self-centeredness, Kittanning had shown very little patience with Ukiah’s late-night fumbling and needed a great deal of rocking to settle back to bed. In all, an hour had been stolen out of the heart of Ukiah’s sleep. Normally this wouldn’t leave Ukiah yawning; that it did was proof he hadn’t recovered fully from the battering he took in Oregon. “Your bottle is almost ready.”
“Actually, it’s not the scientific community that bothers me. Who would believe that ugly thing sat up there for two hundreds years or more, while a war between alien factions took place here on Earth, right under our noses? Only thirty-two percent of scientists polled believed that the ship posed a possible threat. Fourteen percent actually went so far as to say that interstellar conquest is an impossibility. No one is going to believe me if I try to claim that the alien ship was going to wipe out all life as we know it. I have no hard evidence.”
“You have me and Kittanning,” Ukiah murmured.
“Ukiah!” Mom Lara’s hard look forbade him to even joke about the subject.
“Is his bottle ready?” Ukiah changed the subject.
“It should be.” Mom Lara lifted the bottle out of the w
ater, and tested it on her wrist. Satisfied with the temperature, she handed it to Ukiah. “What bothers me are the kids at Cally’s school.” Mom Lara did volunteer work at his five-year-old sister’s elementary school, teaching astronomy and running science fairs. “They’re scared silly that an alien fleet will be invading tomorrow. I could reassure them that there’s no danger, that there was only that one damaged ship, and that the Pack forced it to self-destruct. But I can’t. I can’t even tell Cally, at least until she’s older. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to keep a secret of that importance.”
A clatter of little feet on the stairs announced the arrival of Cally, and they fell quiet. While born to Mom Lara, Cally had Mom Jo’s dark curls and stormy nature, a result of in vitro fertilization. She paused at the doorway, frowning slightly at the feeding Kittanning. “Is he still here?”
“Honey.” Mom Lara sighed, tugging on Cally’s dark curls. “We’ve told you, Indigo only took him for a little while.”
So things quickly turned to the second concern to the family: Cally was not taking well being suddenly supplanted as the baby. She pressed tight against Ukiah, frowning slightly at the feeding Kittanning.
“Why can’t she keep him?”
“She might,” Ukiah said carefully, getting a surprised look from Mom Lara. “If Indigo and I get married, Kittanning and I will go live with her.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“He’s not,” Mom Lara said, setting out a cereal bowl for Cally. “He’s too young to get married.”
“You know that I’m not,” Ukiah said.
Mom Lara pressed her mouth tight to keep from frowning. “You two barely know each other. Your Mom Jo and I dated all through college before deciding that we wanted to be together the rest of our lives.”
“That’s different,” Ukiah protested. His mothers had been young when they first met, and by their own account, not even sure if they were homosexual or just horny. In the end, they decided that they were simply in love, and nothing else mattered.
“Not by much,” Mom Lara said. “We had to decide whether to marry someone that our families might like, but would never fully approve of. We had to decide that we could take the pressure to find a ‘more acceptable mate,’ one that conformed to society’s mores of what is proper. We had to come to terms with the possibility of being ostracized by friends, family, and neighbors. It takes courage to fly into the face of normal. You’re asking a lot of Indigo. You’re not the same race, age, or religion.” With Cally listening intently, Mom Lara probably intentionally left out “species.” “Give her time. There’s no reason to rush.”
“I’m afraid that if I give her time to think about all that, she’ll say no.”
Mom Lara came to wrap her arms around him, as if to shield him from harm. “If it’s right, all the time in the world won’t make her say no. But if it’s wrong, it’s better to figure it out before you get too deep and get hurt.”
The problem was, Ukiah suspected that he was already too deep.
The wheeled garbage can sat empty at the curb when Ukiah pulled up to the office. He walked down the driveway and pushed it back to the garage. It took both hands and his teeth to carry Kittanning and his assorted baby accessories into the kitchen. Max stood washing dishes, by the smell, mostly containers of various refrigerated leftovers that had gone bad while they were gone. Max wore only his sweatpants, his lean muscled frame damp from his morning workout.
“Morning, kid,” Max called without looking up. “I heard you bring up the can. Thanks. I was in the middle of my last set when I realized if I didn’t get this stuff out this morning, it would sit here all week, driving you nuts with the stench.”
“Thanks,” Ukiah said, setting Kittanning’s car seat on the table. “But I doubt if I could smell even that over someone’s full diaper.”
Max glanced up, saw Kittanning, and grinned. “Hey! How’s my boy!”
“Stinky,” Ukiah said.
Kittanning squealed with delight. “Max!”
“He’s happy to see you,” Ukiah translated, wincing slightly as the noise seemed to approach the supersonic range.
Which made Max smile wider. Max set the last dish into the drying rack, let the soapy water out with a quiet sloshing noise, and dried his hands while Ukiah gathered supplies for a diaper-changing mission. Changing pad. Diaper wipes. Powder. Empty bread bag.
“Come here, big boy.” Max lifted Kittanning out of the seat, and grimaced as the smell attacked him. “Oh, yeah, that’s one stinky diaper! What’re your moms feeding this baby? Curry and skunk weed?”
“It comes out deep green, whatever it is,” Ukiah said, frowning as the search for a diaper was coming up empty.
“With your nose, how can you stand changing him?”
“I try not to breathe,” Ukiah said, checking the next bag. He knew that by the end of the day, everything in the bags would prove invaluable, but it still mystified him as to how someone so small needed so much stuff. “I think I’m out of diapers. Oops, no, here’s some.” He pulled three diapers out of the bottom, and then searched a little more to verify that they were the only diapers left. “Looks like I’m going to have to run to the store in a few hours.”
“While you’re there, could you pick me up some stuff?” Max asked, and yawned deeply. Kittanning took the opportunity to stick a hand into Max’s mouth.
The yawn served to remind Ukiah about Max’s late-night search. “Did you find anything out about Hutchinson?”
“Not as much as I hoped.” Max pretended to munch on Kittanning’s fingers, making the baby laugh. “The government frowns on people investigating their agents. I ran the standard nonintrusive background check. Credit reports. Newspaper articles. Courtroom caseloads. I printed everything out so you can scan over it.”
“What’s the condensed version?” Ukiah laid out the changing pad.
“Born and raised in New England, he attended Boston University and moved to Washington, D.C., to join the NSA. He appears to be a serious bulldog; whatever he latches on to, he drags down and nails cold. He’s paying on a Saturn, has two credit cards with modest balances, and rents an inexpensive town house in Maryland. I ran across an old engagement announcement, but no signs of a marriage. In 2002, after Homeland Security formed, he ended up under their umbrella. I’m clueless, though, what he might want with us. The Pack, as a biker gang, falls into FBI jurisdiction.”
“Ari said he had photographs of us.” Ukiah positioned the rest of the diaper-changing accessories clockwise around the pad. “Professional quality. I’m ready for Kitt now.”
“Every case you’ve been on usually has had at least one newspaper photographer covering it.” Max handed Kittanning back to Ukiah, and then tugged on Ukiah’s braid. “What’s this?”
Ukiah grabbed hold of his braid and inspected the band holding the end. “A hair tie.”
“It’s purple.”
“It’s one of Cally’s.” Ukiah tossed his braid over his shoulder. “The other choice was pink.”
“Time for you to get your hair cut.”
“Indigo likes it long.” Ukiah steeled himself and peeled the diaper tapes back. Amazingly, the smell could get worse. “Besides, Magic Boy always wore his hair long. It’s the way of my people.”
Max shook his head as the phone rang. He crossed the kitchen to pick up the phone. “Bennett Detective Agency.” Ukiah couldn’t hear the voice on the other side, but judging by the sudden full smile, it was Sam. “You’re up and about early.”
“I’m not up yet.” Sam’s voice was audible as Max glanced at the kitchen clock, visibly doing the math. In Wyoming, Sam was two hours behind them, meaning it was only six-thirty for her. “I’m just lolling around in bed, thinking about you.”
“You are?” Max all but purred as he turned his back to Ukiah.
Ukiah couldn’t hear Sam’s response, but it made Max laugh. Ukiah concentrated on the messy diaper and not on the small prick of jealousy. After his wife w
as killed in 1998, Max fell into a near-suicidal depression; Sam was the first woman Max showed any interest in since then. For Max’s sake, Ukiah was glad. Still, after three years of being partners, it was hard being on the outside.
Ukiah got a fresh diaper onto Kittanning, strapped him back into his car seat, and dropped the diaper into the bread bag, which he tied shut, effectively enclosing most of the foul odor.
“No, no, no,” Max said to Sam. “You don’t want to go that way. That puts you into Chicago. You should drop down to Route 70 at some point. Here, let me get a map.”
The second line rang. Carrying Kittanning to his office, Ukiah picked up the phone. “Bennett Detective Agency.”
“Is this Max Bennett?” a man’s voice asked.
“No. He’s not available at the moment. Can I help you?”
“Who am I talking to?”
“Ukiah Oregon.” He identified himself reluctantly. “Who is this?”
“You’re the boy raised by wolves?”
Ukiah looked at the caller ID display. It was Agent Hutchinson’s cell phone number. “Yes. I was a feral child, Agent Hutchinson. Is there something the Homeland Security needs help with? A tracking case?”
“How do you know who I am?”
“We had a missing persons case last night. Officer Ari Johnson was there. You gave him a business card. You’re calling from your cell phone.”
“I see.” A stylus tapped out notes on a PDA close to Hutchinson’s receiver. “And Bennett lets you answer the phone?”
“Yes,” Ukiah said simply—Max held that the less you gave out, the more you kept the upper hand. “Can you tell me why you’re calling us?”
“I want to talk to you both.” Hutchinson appeared to hold the same belief. “Face-to-face. Today.”
“Max won’t be available until later today.”
“I’ll be at your offices at four this afternoon. I’d advise both of you to be there.”
CHAPTER THREE
Shadyside, Pennsylvania
Monday, September 13, 2004