2 cobra 5 I think now to be known as 'Extreme Cobra'

 

Chapter 5

 

I dozed through the midday heat, sheltered in the arroyo we came down, under sage brush. I came awake at the sound of movement.

I opened my eyes enough to see, and noted that there was a rabbit in the brush not far away.

I might as well test my idea for if there was a cold weather test.

I eased out my bootlaces, using one to make a complex knot as a kind of cradle in the middle of the other. There were plenty of smooth river stones here, from when the arroyo was a raging stream. I slipped one which felt pleasing into the cradle of my makeshift sling.

Bunny twitched his ears nervously. I would not have long.

The sling made a whop-whop-whop noise circling my head and bunny considered moving, peeking out of the brush.

I let fly, and the stone impacted.

Elizabeth sat up with a cry.

“What are you thinking?” she hissed.

“I’m thinking of food,” I said. “But the last thing that went through that rabbit’s mind was a piece of sandstone.”

“You’re gross!” she said, in horror.

And there was I thinking that she was sensible.

Willow cooks all the rabbits I’ve brought down with a more conventional sling. She makes me skin and draw them though; she does the same with fish. A man pays for his fun, she says, and as what she does with the result is sublime, I don’t complain.

I shrugged.

“I won’t give any to you, then, if you don’t want it,” I said.

“I don’t want any,” she shuddered.

I wonder if she thought I was going to eat it raw?

There was plenty of driftwood, and I soon built a hearth and got a fire going. I gutted the rabbit and put the guts in the river for any fish.  If I was spending any time here, I could then spear those that turned up, to dry, but I don’t need them. I used a trick one of my friends amongst The Forgotten had told me, and wrapped the bunny in river mud to roast in the fire, covering it with glowing wood. I drank my fill, washed, and refilled my canteens. Yes, upstream of the guts. I had thrown them well downstream of the trail.

Meanwhile another contestant stumbled through the arroyo, and almost threw himself in the river, drinking as he floundered.

Someone didn’t carry enough canteens, and was fool enough to travel through the heat of the day when he did not have to. Elizabeth had copied me in washing and filling her canteens, and hovered. I put back my bootlaces, and adjusted my boots. I had not taken them off; I could not afford for my feet to swell.

“I... I’ll be going on then,” she said.

“Suit yourself,” I said.

I broke open some of the cooked mud and a heavenly scent arose. Elizabeth hesitated, but firmly turned her nose in the air, and her back to me. I didn’t care.

My meal appeared to be cooked.

Let me make one thing clear.

Roast bunny is nothing like as pleasant as stewed bunny. These desert jackrabbits are wiry, skinny, tough critters, and the meat is... chewy. It was edible, though, and tasty.  Another time I should have to smuggle some salt in my medicine kit.  I could have spent time searching for herbs to stuff it with, but this was a race, after all.

So, I ate enough to fill my belly, drank deeply at the riverside, and splashed through its shallow course to the other side, where the laconic fellow who lapped like a dog had already gone.

Refreshed, I overtook him within ten minutes, and carried on running. I could go all night, now, chewing on bits of bunny as I went.

I overtook Elizabeth inside half an hour.

“How do you look so damnably fresh?” she demanded.

“Plenty of sleep, good food, plenty to drink and a clean conscience,” I said.

She spluttered, unable to think of a good comeback.

 

This, in a way, was the toughest part of the race; it was the sort of stony desert they call ‘sabkha’ though I don’t know if it was salt flats, which is the purest definition of the term. It’s hard on the feet, and has no features to speak of, unlike the broken terrain of the inselberg, pediment, and plain scenery we had traversed since the first, mountainous scramble. They believed in giving us good geology lessons, anyway.  But anyone trying to cross this during the daytime was going to suffer the inexorable hammering of the pitiless sun on their heads, the flat plain reflecting its light and heat back in their faces as a cruel counterpoint of the percussive effect to their heads.  I picked up the pace. There was supposed to be a place where water had been provided.  I understood the game organisers had brought in water bowser, as there was no convenient waterhole; depending what time I reached it would determine whether I just pushed on.

My body was beginning to complain as the moon set; an hour or so later than the previous night, as is the way with the moon. When it rises and sets is dependent on the phase, a thought which took me in a roundabout way, as thoughts on a lone run tend to do, to the late Werewolf, and of fiction about werewolves, most of which is such sad tripe because of writers who will have a full moon in daylight. Well, in high summer, in high latitudes, it can still be daylight, but the full moon rises in the early evening and sets in the early morning, having its zenith around midnight.  And if anyone tries to tell you different, they don’t know what they are talking about.

But of course, too many writers of fantasy or science fiction for that matter don’t know what they are talking about, because the genres are the easy options – they think – not requiring reference to real events or people.  The good fantasy and science fiction writers put time and effort into world building, and it’s easy to see if their world holds up to scrutiny or falls apart if you step off the plotline. The trick is to see if you can imagine the life of some unimportant chummer the main character meets along the way. Is he credible? Can you see him making a living? Is there room in the world for his aspirations? Or is it merely a case of asking the girl if she would offer her throat to the wolf with the red roses?

I think too much in music references when running.

I stopped to relieve myself, take a drink from my canteen, rest a moment, just shaking my legs to keep the muscles warm, and set off again.

There was something on the horizon, and unless they started making square trees, it was the bowser.

 

It was the bowser. They’d flown it in with a copter, which was hunkered down behind it. It was the sort they use for dumping on forest fires, so there was plenty of water to be had.

The woman and man in charge of issuing water were asleep on bunk beds in a tent. Both at once, and the keys in the copter.  The rules did not specify not stealing any vehicles left lying around, and for a moment, I was tempted, just out of a sheer perverse sense of mischief.

I was also tempted to haul the butt of one or other of them out of that tempting looking camp bed and hit the sack for the next three days. Instead, I signed myself off on the list that they had, checking my watch for the time, filled my gut and canteens with water, wondered where the first page of contestants who were before me had disappeared to, and thought I had better press on. There were ten slots to a page, to fill in name and contestant number, and two names ahead of mine. That meant I must be number thirteen, and that would not be good.

No, of course I’m not superstitious.

The top twelve have no more seeding heats to do, the next forty-eight have another competition to find the top eight out of them, to add twenty newcomers to the twenty seeded.

Perhaps I would overtake one or more.

There had, after all, been a good fifty or so who went ahead of me. And though I had noticed some had dropped back or dropped out, the rest must have just kept right on, beating out the Yakuza to the first water hole.

I came upon one poor sod.

He had passed out beside the trail. I should perhaps have said before that the trail was marked with little stakes which had a dab of luminescent paint on them to show up at night. They didn’t want people wandering off and getting lost.

I gave him some water. He groaned.

Not likely to peg out, then.

I found his squealer and activated it, left him a canteen, and ran on.

Yes, I’m probably getting soft in my old age.

 

A copter went over me as false dawn was giving way to the real thing, silhouetted like some crazy dragonfly against the mist on the ground that shimmered in the early morning light like a lake of fire. Presumably going for the chummer I had found. The desert sunrise was just as spectacular as the day before, the sun came up like thunder...what song was that from?  I didn’t care that much. I was tired, pushing through pain, my ears were ringing, and the sky was covered in those puffy little clouds that form in the shape of a filleted fish in colours no self-respecting filleted fish comes in unless it’s three days too old. We were in for a storm of wind, possibly with other weather phenomena too.

Oh joy.

At least the gathering thunderheads soon blocked out that pretty sunshine, and the temperature dropped away so that I was glad to keep running.

And the heavens opened.

Not just rain. Rain would have been relatively pleasant. Hailstones, and hailstones the size of quail eggs at that.

I cursed a lot and tried to run fast enough to dodge them.

I acquired a few bruises. I used the strap of one canteen to tie it to my head, to protect my skull at least. If it was pierced, I’d be down to two, and I almost regretted leaving one with my fellow contestant.

Well, it could not be far now. 

The helicopter went back over. They landed just in front of me.

“Are you A-okay?” asked the medic with them.

“Sure, but if you picked up the guy whose squealer I set off, can I have my other canteen back, please?” I asked.

He went and got it.

“And you are?”

“Jay Silverheels.” I remembered my fictitious name.

What a good job I had stuck to walnut juice to colour my skin. It doesn’t wash off. I’d have been streaky if I’d used conventional makeups.

He made a note, jumped back in the copter and they headed off.

I recalled, belatedly, that there were credits given for acts of kindness during the tests; not that I had done it for that.

As he must know, because I had no way of knowing if I’d ever see that canteen again.

I pushed on doggedly.

I almost missed seeing the finishing line as I jogged wearily over it; whereupon I was wrapped in a warm towelling bath robe, and born tenderly off to a film caravan, offered a choice of drinks, alcoholic and othewise.

I picked tea with a generous measure of whisky in the bottom.

“Where did I come in?” I asked the gopher in charge of me. He kept trying to help me get out of my wet clothes, and I resented help when I could do it for myself. I stripped firmly, and put on the fresh bath robe.

“You’re the first back,” he said, patting my collar into place.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he said. “My name’s Sebastian. You can call me Seb.”

“My name’s Jay Silverheels; you can call me Mr. Silverheels,” I said. “But I only overtook one lad, and he was picked up by the copter, when I set off his squealer.  There was another name on the sheet I saw at the bowser, who had got there ahead of me, and I assumed there was another page.”

“No, you’re the first, J... Mr. Silverheels,” he said. “Two signed in before you? I’ll send the copter out to look. Maybe they took shelter from the storm.”

“What in?” I said. “It’s flat as a sodding lake. And it wasn’t stormy when I left the bowser.”

 

Seb bustled off, and I heard the copter take off again.

I noticed a bunk in the caravan, and it looked as if it ought to have my name on it. Actually, there were several bunks, but the nearest one whispered seductively.

I kicked off my boots, fell into it, and kept falling.

 

oOoOo

 

When I came to, there were several other people in the other bunks. One of them was the lad to whom I had given water. He was sitting up.

“Hello, Mr. Silverheels; I owe you my life,” he said.

“Anyone would have done the same,” I said.

Actually, that’s a moronic thing to say; a lot of people would have seen him lying there and kept on going.

“I doubt it,” he said, dryly. “I’m in with a shout, depending on how many people finish, as I have the credit for being first to the bowser. But whatever, it’s a privilege to know you. I’m Sam Farman.”

“Sam. I’m Jay,” I said, shaking hands.

“That poncy little front man said you were touchy,” he said.

“I’m only touchy when another bloke is feely,” I told him.

He nodded. He got it.

“What about the guy who was after you and ahead of me?” I asked.

He looked sober.

“I heard a whisper that he died,” he said. “Apparently, he took his boots off at the bowser, had trouble getting them back on, and somehow wandered off the path and had an embolism or something.”

I winced.

“Poor blighter,” I said. “So near and yet so far.”

“They offered to let him stay at the bowser, but he would go on,” said Sam. “There are supposed to be bacon sandwiches in the canteen.”

“I could murder several,” I said.

We did.