Hunters Run Page 0,89

Ramon saw something in the man's face - something unexpected. Pain. Embarrassment. Regret. Pride. Something.

"There's all kinds of crazy bastards out there," Ramon said, still pretending to be a policeman. "Most of the time, we don't care about people just getting on with their lives. But there's rapists. There's the guys who just want to kill people for no reason. And there's nothing worse than someone who hurts kii ."

"Kii?"

"Children," Ramon said, surprised at himself for the slip. "Kids who are too small to defend themselves. Or even know what's going on. There's nothing fucking lower than that. That's why I'm a cop. And people know it, you know? People know that on one side, there's them, and then on the other side, there's me."

Ramon broke off. He didn't know what he was saying anymore. The words, the thoughts. They were all jumbled in his head. The Enye crushing tiny alien things; the European; Mikel Ibrahim taking his knife; the feeling of being Maneck and watching its people die. Maneck was right. They shouldn't laugh. There was nothing to laugh about. If she just hadn't laughed.

"You okay?" the man asked.

"Yeah," Ramon said. "I'm fine. I just ... I'm fine."

The man nodded and turned back to the carcasses, holding them over the fire. Letting the fat liquefy, the muscle tissues sear. The scent of rain was growing stronger. They both ignored it.

"I could have been a cop," the man said at last. "I'd have been good."

"You would have," Ramon agreed, wrapping his arms around his drawn-up knees. "You'd have been great."

They were silent, the only sounds the hissing of grease as it dripped into the fire and the constant rustling of leaves. The man turned the carcasses, setting the other sides to brown.

"That was a good call, back there. When we were trying to get to shore. I didn't even see that pinche rock. But you, ese. You headed right for it. We'd have gone over for sure if you hadn't."

He was giving Ramon an out; a way to change the subject. Even without knowing what it was that was bothering him, the man knew it was a kindness to steer away from it, and Ramon clutched at the chance.

"It's all about flow," he said. "Knowing how it looks when there's something disrupting it. It just feels different, you know."

"Whatever it was, you did a fucking man's job of it," the man said. "I couldn't have."

Ramon waved the compliment away. If this went on too long, they'd cross the line into patronizing. He didn't want that. Right now, for this moment, he liked the man. He wanted very much to like his twin, and the cabron wasn't often very likable.

"You'd have done the same if you'd been steering," Ramon said.

"Nah, man. I really wouldn't."

And it struck Ramon that that might be true. Being inside Maneck's head might have taught him something about being a river. About flow. Just because he and the other man had started off the same, these last few days had been different for both of them. There was no reason they should be identical now. They'd had different experiences, learned different lessons from the world. He hadn't lost a finger. His twin hadn't had the sahael digging into his throat.

You are not to diverge from the man, Maneck's voice rumbled in the back of his mind. But how could he help it? The world looked different, depending on where you sat.

They ate, digging into the cooked flesh with their fingers. The meat was hot; it burned his fingers a little. But it tasted like the finest meal he'd ever had. Hunger did that. The other man seemed to feel the same. He was grinning as he stripped the still-pink flesh from the bones. They talked about other things, safer ones. When the time came to start again, the man picked up the yoke.

"You go on ahead, clear the path," he said, shrugging the vine into place on his shoulders. "I'll haul this piece of crap the rest of the way."

"You don't have to do that," Ramon said, but his twin waved the objection away. Ramon was secretly relieved. His body felt beaten half to death the way he'd been abusing it. But still, there was a problem. "I can't do it, man. You've still got the knife."

His twin scowled, pulled the blade from his field pack, and held it out, handle-first. Ramon nodded when he took it. They didn't say anything more about it.

Clearing brush turned out