Skip to content

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

  • by

Early morning is Grace’s favorite time of day. The rising sun paints the swamp mist with such beautiful colors. Everything still smells fresh and clean after the cool of the night, before the sun has a chance to cook the bayou into a fetid stench. She and Hal have taken to riding in the morning, before it gets too hot — she has to poke him awake, most days, and he grumbles, but it doesn’t take him too long to roll out of bed.

They get some exercise, time alone without interruptions. They’re learning to move in sync outside of the bedroom. It’s also another way for Grace to show Hal that she accepts him as he is, all of him, not just the human part. She thinks that’s important, though Hal never mentions it.

Her riding instructor in Philadelphia taught her a series of balancing and suppling exercises, which she’s taught Hal. They’d been riding bareback until Grace’s tailbone began to ache fiercely every morning, until they discovered that a good Wintec synthetic saddle cost less than $100 used. Besides, even a zoomorph horse is still a horse, and Hal is prone to shying at stray plastic bags and flapping birds, and… Well, really anything could look strange and threatening to a prey animal. And then his body goes in one direction, hers goes in another, and her spine gets another jarring that it just doesn’t need.

She’s turned him back toward home because it’s just starting to steam up, and Hal is beginning to lather along his neck. He’s settled into a nice steady canter, Grace’s center of gravity pushed into the saddle like she’s been taught. The smell of horse rises up from his neck and shoulders – she loves that smell. The roll of his body presses tender places – she’s still bruised a bit from last night. Hal had tickled her until she screamed breathlessly, thrown her on the bed, and ridden her hard. She had clenched her hands around the round bunching shapes of his shoulders, his buttocks, inhaled the lovely scent of his sweat, his skin, the herbal shampoo he used. And now their positions are reversed, but the feeling is the same…

The stallion falters for a moment, snorts and resumes a steady rhythm. He can tell what she’s thinking – he’s told her more than once about his sense of smell, in graphic detail, quirking an amused lip. If he can’t read her mind, he can at least read her body.

Then Hal spooks suddenly, sidestepping with a little buck, nearly throwing her from the saddle. Something has come out of the trees. Dance?

The brown figure isn’t wearing anything but ragged cutoffs and flip-flops. Not the way Dance goes into the bayou. The Ra-hood is pulled up around his head like a vampire cape. His tail comes up, waves some signal that Hal recognizes, even in horse form. Hal snorts and comes back down on his front feet, dancing a bit. And then Emma steps out of the boat on the levee below, holding up a heavy gun. The kind they only use for bugs.

Dance projects, in that spooky Ra-hood amplification he can do, “Church is under attack.”

“Gotcha,” Grace calls back, and wheels Hal back around on his haunches. She can hear the splash of water as the boat slides back into the water under Dance’s weight.

Hal gathers himself and shoots down the road, making the morning fog part and swirl. Grace can only press herself tightly forward on his withers, hugging his neck, keeping her weight balanced for him on the turns, and trust that he can keep his footing. His hooves never even stumble. All of the suppling exercises have paid off.

Wait a minute, she thinks, isn’t there a meeting of the Rainette Quilter’s Society at the church annex this morning? Her mouth goes a little sour. And didn’t Aunt Frog promise to take Lucas with her to help sandwich and pin Penelope’s newest quilt together? Penelope was so proud of that new quilt top she’d finished! Hal can surely smell her rising panic; his back tenses and arches under the saddle.

She can hear the roar of truck engines and the rattle of sub-machine guns before they even reach the dirt road to the church lot. Thank God! Michel’s gang of rowdies has gotten there, too. They might have a prayer of holding off however many bugs showed up this time.

Hal throws up his nose, trumpets like a train whistle. Seems everybody knows that stallion scream of his. The guns stop firing.

Hal bunches himself, projects his forequarters high in the air, squeaking over the parking lot’s four foot fence, rattles it with his right hind hoof–Have I told you to pick up that lazy foot or not? Grace thinks crazily. And then he’s coming down on — things.

Rearing up in the next lunge, he slashes out with his forehooves, bucketing upward and kicking sidewise. They must look like crazed devotees of the White Stallions of Lippiza. Grace wishes that Hal could learn more dressage, but it would take years and years. God knows they’ve certainly studied the videos available on them, trying to analyze how the stallions did such amazing things. They’ve begun to practice crude versions, but Grace is no dressage pro, and how can she teach Hal something she doesn’t fully understand herself?

These bugs are taller than the straw bag dummies they’ve practiced with. Grace doesn’t stop to think why. They’re high enough to loom over her, even on Hal’s back. She punches one away with a thump of her riding crop before it can reach Hal’s neck. Balance, dammit!

Hal’s trusting her to stay up on his damn shoulders and not throw off his balance in the middle of kicking the heads off a mass of bugs. Hal is striking at the tall bugs from behind, where they didn’t seem to hear him coming. They’re not reacting much to anything, just marching forward in a pretty solid mass, with claws scissoring.

Grace has a sudden horror of a claw shearing shut on those sturdy cannon bones and snapping them like dry twigs. It doesn’t occur to her that her legs are even more fragile. She would die if anything happened to Hal. She’s wearing steel-toed riding boots. Both of them have built up new muscles from their practices. She can grip and balance with her thighs, snap out that crop, and still kick out too. Drilling with Hal — and occasionally falling off — has made her a much better rider.

Crunch.

She hates the noises, the crackle of breaking crab shell, and the shrill bug wails and screeches of agony.

Hal gives a bellow of pain, lurches, and recoils with a mighty thump of both hind feet, with a meaty horrid noise. He charges clear of the bug mass, wheels around in front of the church wall, where gun muzzles have sprouted from doors and windows. Grace flings herself off his back, yanks his bridle forward and off as he spits the bit out of his mouth, flings it aside. He’s shrinking down, fur turning into horny hard hide, and she reaches around him to flip the quick release latch that sends his girth and saddle tumbling to the ground. He humps up before she’s even got him entirely free, pats her back lightly with a clawed goblin hand, and then he’s clashing his tusks and roaring as he charges.

God, the goblin form is damn fast. He joins Dance on the blind side of the building, where nobody human can hunker down with a gun, and the two of them roar in mutual satisfaction, letting everyone know they’re on the job.

Grace drops the saddle, crawls on her knees and elbows as fast as she can to the door, and feels hands grab her clothes and arms and yank her inside the doorway, behind the greater safety of brick walls. Something sizzles and hits the wall outside and bricks hiss, spit, and shatter outside under the impact. She hugs her head, gasping, and hits herself on the nose with the riding crop that she’s still, unbelievably, clutching hard. She grins up at Father Ollie a little stupidly. No security blankets or teddy bears for her, she hangs onto a riding crop.

Nobody can be heard over the continuous banging of the heavier guns. Emma is kneeling among a pile of smoking guns, checking for cooling barrels and handing reloaded weapons to various younger relatives of Michel, who run them forward to the gunners. Emma rocks forward oddly, groping a little, as if she’s just a little bit stoned. Grace’s gaze drops to some small bandaids on her forearm. Ahhh, Dance must have bit her recently–but she’s out here helping anyway.

Emma nods toward the scattered boxes of ammo, points silently from one kind of ammo to which gun will take it, as that gun cools. In a lull, Emma asks, “How many?”

Grace gulps. “The lot was full of them. Spaced about six, ten feet apart each way.”

Emma squints one eye. She talks more slowly than usual, too. “So at least eighty of them, maybe a hundred fifty, if there’s more up the other way. That’s a helluva uncorking, sending them out of the lab all at once. Why would they go after kids and old ladies?”

Grace is silenced by the renewed gunfire. She just shakes her head. Emma points at more ammo, nods once, gives an approving okay sign with her fingers as Grace’s hands move steadily among the weapons. They’re both going to pay for it later, of course. That’s how both of them are.

Twenty minutes, they’re running low on ammo. Michel’s family is still picking up reloaded guns and steadily and carefully emptying them, making every burst count. Twenty minutes is a long time for a pitched full-on firefight in any kind of modern combat. Grace’s shoulders ache as she scrabbles for more boxes, hunts among the empties. She’s panting, hard. Emma reaches out, grips Grace’s arm to get her attention. Grace jerks, blinks up, gasps. The guns are shooting raggedly, and then they stop. Emma taps her own ear, looking at Grace as if she doesn’t believe it. Grace can’t either. She strains to hear.

There are calls in Cajun French, responses, people crying and groaning in the building behind them. The shrill screams of bugs outside are wailing away, slowly falling silent one by one, as the last of the injured ones collapse like leaking balloons; the remaining healthy ones will have legged it somewhere to get picked up in anonymous trucks. Michel’s oldest sons whoop and race for the door, for their pickups. They hate those bug troop trucks with an unholy passion. His boys will trail such a convoy until hell freezes over. They’d been known to wait patiently for days to pick a up a trace on where those damn things came from. Drin says he suspects the boys bring out rocket launchers for those kinds of bug hunts.

Oh mercy, there’s Hal’s voice, hoarse, reporting back to people in muffled French. The goblin is walking in, his arms and legs covered in ragged cuts. Michel nods, talking to Hal, and Drin takes off his own shirt and wraps it around Hal, grips Hal’s shoulder, speaks urgently to him, pointing towards the two women, still kneeling amongst the detritus of the battlefield.

Grace stands up, wobbles on aching legs, and begins to topple. Suddenly she’s so very tired, doesn’t think she can keep her feet. She’s caught in strong hands. “Easy there,” Emma says roughly, and then there’s a cable wrapped around Grace’s shoulders and along her waist, stabilizing her on her unsteady feet. She meets Dance’s eyes. They are pale as gold platters.

She reaches out, blindly, and feels their arms come around her. Feels Hal’s arms wrap around her, and his voice is halfway to the growl of the goblin when he murmurs at her. It isn’t even words, but she understands perfectly well. “Fine, I’m fine,” Grace whispers, half-deafened. Her joints burn with pain. Her skin is on fire. She can’t move. “Go check on people. Find Lucas and Aunt Frog.”

Hal growls, “Ahhh, no.” with tusks still sticking out of his mouth. He knows what’s happening. He sees it at least once a week.

“She’s having a fibromyalgia flareup,” she hears Emma says crisply to someone. Grace wonders distantly who asked. “Not surprising. Let’s lay her down and let her breathe a bit while we help out on triage. Then we’ll take her home.”

Hal grunts urgently.

“Yes, I understand you want to take her home yourself, but should you stay here to keep people calmed down?” Emma says, as if he’s spoken.

Dance’s tail slides up Grace’s back, a little knot of it cups the back of Grace’s skull, and then he’s simply laying her down on the floor, looking into her face.

“Are you going to bite me?” Grace whispers.

“If it helps,” Dance says, and kisses her cheek. “Rest. I come back.”

Grace fumbles her hand up. “Help the hurt people first. I know this thing. It won’t kill me.” God her back is one solid sheet of pain now, the muscle spasms working up and down her spine like cascades of burning oil.

Dance snorts, and Emma folds her arms, looking down at Grace. “Yeah, it’ll just feel like it. Okay, let’s get a look at who needs work.” And then they’re gone, with Hal treading along heavily with them, almost halfway into goblin-form, and nobody is afraid of him at all. People reach out and touch him, he grunts and snuffles at little kids and makes them lose that look of fear, he’s soon got one of Michel’s great-grandsons riding around on his shoulders, importantly pointing where they should go next, playing guide for Hal’s poor eyesight in that form. “Turn right!” he yells. “Now left! Door!”

Grace gives a tearful smile. Did she ever think she’d see that? Little kids bouncing around the goblin, tugging him to come, look, smell things?

Emma and Drin are, similarly, steering Dance around. Grace lays on the hard floor, spine jerking in agony, and she watches them help Dance stagger to a trashcan and puke. He hangs on, spits, shakes his head, heaves up repeatedly. Drin shoves a chair under him, and he sags there into their support. “Bug toxins,” Dance whispers, eyes closed.

“Bad ones this time,” Emma says. “Tissue, Dance. There’s more. Here.”

He nods, wipes his face, and again. “Different. None quite all same.”

Emma stands up, folding her arms, glaring around. “That’s why they sent so damn many. Variations in their damn field test.”

“See which ones we can’t fight,” Dance says. “Which kills no matter what.”

“It’s fucking meaningless!” Emma growls. Somehow it’s more threatening than when she shouts. “Attacking sick old ladies with diabetes and heart trouble? That doesn’t prove a damn thing about toxins. It just proves you can knock over old people really easy. What the fuck were they after, it’s stupid–”

“Em,” Drin says mildly. “Maybe that’s the point. Skew the results positive when it isn’t deserved.”

Emma draws back her lips and snarls. In that moment she looks more like a bagheera than a regular human being, and Grace feels a surge of pride and admiration for her friend.

“Yeah,” Drin says, hands moving on Dance’s shoulders, “Dance’s sedation on you must be wearing down. C’mon, easy now. You really were going nuts, Em, you know how you just charge a solid bug line, you didn’t even check for backup. Get y’self killed that way.”

Emma glares at Dance, who holds up a hand wearily. “No, I did not ask first, I just grab and bite. Bad, me.”

“Damn right,” Emma says, and hauls off and smacks his back, hard. “Prolly saved my damn fool life. The goddamn smell of those fuckers–”

Dance looks up and smiles. His tail comes up and strokes her knee. “Stop next time?”

“Well, hell, I’ll try.” Emma nods stiffly. She pats the tail, grips it tight, strokes it furiously. “Skewing the stats–yeah, Drin, that’s it, right, of course you’re right,” and then she’s striding away from them and kneeling by Grace. “You hanging in there so far? You want some water?”

“Please,” Grace whispers.

“You got it.” Then Emma smiles, touches her forearm lightly. “Princess.”

<< A Moment’s PeacePrevious | Next

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.