Hunters Run Page 0,76

tree line and the surface of the water, ready to attack or flee as if the Devil himself had risen up with a whip in one hand and a flaying knife in the other. The image of the Enye - huge, bouldershaped body; wet, oysterlike, inscrutable eyes; squirming fringes of cilia; incongruously tiny and delicate hands, like doll's hands, sprouting from its middle; barely visible pucker where its beak was hidden within its flesh - faded slowly from his mind and the electric fear abated. Ramon forced himself to laugh, but it came out thin and tinny. He sounded like a coward. He stopped and spat instead, anger filling his breast.

Maneck and that pale alien fuck in the hive had made a weakling of him. Just remembering the eaters-of-the-young was enough to make him squeak like a little girl!

"Fuck that," he said. There was a low growl in his voice that pleased him. "I'm not afraid of a goddamn thing!"

He was still in a foul mood when he got back to the campsite, which meant, he knew, that he'd have to be even more careful to avoid getting into a fight with his even more short-tempered and irritable twin. The fire was down to the embers, the other man still asleep on the ground nearby. With a flash of anger, Ramon realized that he'd have to take the first watch again. He threw a handful of leaves and tinder on the coals and slowly rebuilt a small fire. The flames hissed green and popped, but they cast light and warmth. Ramon knew that the fire was as likely to draw danger as to drive it away. He knew that the brighter it got, the harder it was to see beyond it, but he didn't care. He wanted some pinche light.

One of the moons rose, sailing slowly past the stationary Enye ships - that was Big Girl, to be followed before dawn by the smaller, closer-orbiting Little Girl. Ramon waited, brooding over how little cane had been cut and how many hours of work lay ahead, until the great pale disk was directly above them before he tried to wake the other man. Calling his name didn't work, and the effect of calling his twin "Ramon" was unsettling enough to keep him from trying it again. He went over and shook the man's shoulder. His twin groaned and pulled away.

"Hey," Ramon said. "I've been up half the fucking night. It's your watch."

The other man rolled onto his back, frowning like a judge.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he demanded, his voice thick and sleep-drunk.

"Keeping watch," Ramon said. "I did the first watch. Now you get up and I'll sleep."

The other man lifted his ruined right hand as if to rub his eyes, snarled, and used his left instead. Ramon took a step back, waiting with growing impatience as the man failed to rise. When his twin spoke, his voice was clearer but thick with disdain.

"You're telling me you haven't gone to sleep? Are you fucking stupid? You think the fucking chupacabra is swimming across the river to get us? That's a candy-ass banker talking, all right. What a pussy! You want to watch, go ahead and watch. I'm sleeping."

And the man rolled back over, tucking his arm under his head like a pillow, his back to the fire. Rage hummed in Ramon's ears like wasps swarming. The impulse to roll the little shit back over and poke the knife into his neck until he saw reason warred with the desire to kick his kidney until he was pissing blood all the way back to Fiddler's Jump.

But if he did either one, he'd then have to follow up with handing the knife over and going to sleep vulnerable and defenseless a few feet from a pissed-off cabron. Ramon growled low in the back of his throat, wrapped his robe closer around him, and went to find a place to sleep where any predators that happened on them would be likely to eat the other man first.

Morning came. Ramon groaned and rolled onto his back, his arm thrown over his eyes to keep the sunlight out for another minute more. His back ached. His mind was foggy and reluctant. The smell of the cook fire roused him. The other man had scrounged a handful of white-fleshed nuts and caught a fish, which he'd wrapped in monk ivy leaves and set in among the coals. It was an old trick for cooking when