A Course of Action

The horses raised their heads and nickered as the pinto approached but Sin didn’t move. For a terrifying moment, the boy couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

Sliding off the horse’s back, he ran to the Felidan. “Sin? Sin!”

There was a quick rise-fall of the flannel-covered chest followed by a sigh. The tufted ears twitched. Sin turned his head and opened his eyes, smiling.

“Cash? Is it noon already?”

“Yes.” The boy caught the hand Sin held out to him and braced himself as the Felidan pulled himself to his feet. “I see you got the grapes picked.”

“Nearly did me in, too.” He gestured at the baskets. “God, I didn’t know picking grapes could be so exhausting. I barely got through it.”

He yawned and stretched, baring those gleaming eyeteeth to the sunlight and, as usual, coughed. Cash looked away.

The spasm passed and Sin straightened, saying quietly, “You don’t need to mention anything to your mother, Cash. About my getting so tired, I mean.”

“Sure, Sin.”

Another thing for him to keep hidden. Cash allowed himself a flash of guilty anger. He was privy to more secrets about Sin than someone his age had a right to be. The anger was replaced by sadness as he thought of what he knew.

When the pain became bad, Sin would take refuge on the front porch with a jug of homemade wine and one of the cigarettes George supplied him. Cash would sit with him. His mother got very busy during those times and never came out onto the porch or spoke to either of them. Cash never asked why. He understood she couldn’t bear to see the man she loved in so much pain because it meant his time with them was getting shorter.

During those times, Sin would talk, looking up at the stars, pointing out one shining bit of light or another and telling Cash of some incident taking place while he was actually standing on its surface. Some of the things were funny, some exciting, and all had to be kept secret because they happened to Sin in another life, when he was smuggling and if word of any of it got out, it might cause his arrest.

Sin would talk and Cash would listen and promise silence. After the cigarette was gone and the contents of the jug diminished, he’d help the Felidan climb the stairs and make it unscathed to his room.

“Why don’t you tie your horse to the wagon and ride back with me?” Sin’s question brought Cash out of his thoughts.

“Okay.” He caught Chief’s reins and twisted a knot around the latch on one end of the wagon skirt.

Sin re-bridled the two Belgians, gathered up the reins and climbed onto the driver’s seat. Scrambling up the other side, Cash pulled a bunch of grapes out of one of the baskets as Sin called to the horses and the wagon started forward. The grapes were white seedless Himrods, worth twenty-five credits a bunch. As he pulled off a handful and stuck them into his mouth, enjoying the sweet taste, Cash reflected he had probably just eaten about five Real Dollars’ worth of fruit.

“Hey,” he said around the grapes. “You’ve getting pretty good at handling a team.”

“Nothing to it,” Sin replied. “After piloting the Mariner, handling horses is a snap.”

For a short while they rode in silence, the only sound the plodding of the Belgians’ unshod hooves on the soft, grassy soil.

“Sin?” Cash tossed the empty stem into the grass and looked at the Felidan. “What’s it like? Dying, I mean?”

He half-expected to be chastised for asking such a question, perhaps be called rude or tactless, but the Felidan simply laughed, a sound ending abruptly in a quick cough.

“It’s a lot like living, Cash, except it’s much more permanent.”

The boy shook his head. “How can you joke about it?”

“That’s all I can do.” Green eyes regarded him solemnly. “If I start thinking about it, I get angry…angry because I’m leaving your mother when she needs me, because I won’t be here to see you and Allan grow up.”

He looked away and the wild hair immediately fell into his face and was brushed away impatiently.

“I’m angry because this is one time I can’t win.” Sin turned his attention to the team, tightening his grip on the reins. “When I was smuggling, I got myself into some tight situations but I always managed to get out…not always with a whole skin, maybe, but I always got out. But this time?”

He fell silent, shaking his head.

“Damn it.” Cash struck the wagon seat with his fist. “Life’s so unfair.”

“So’s death.” Sin’s quiet reply came with a soft rebuke, “You know your mother doesn’t like it when you swear.”

“Sorry,” Cash mumbled.

One of the first things Sin did after arriving at the farm was lay down a few rules for Cash. No smoking, no drinking, no swearing, and definitely no driving the Rover, Andi’s ancient automobile. The boy, missing the discipline his father had supplied, eagerly obeyed…most of the time.

Once again, they fell into a companionable silence.

It wasn’t until the outbuildings of the farm came into sight that Sin said, “Cash, there’s something you can do for me.”

“What, Sin?” The boy looked up from his contemplation of the near Belgian’s broad rump.

The Felidan didn’t look at him, keeping his gaze on the road ahead.

“I’ve already told your mother this and I know it’s going to be difficult so she may not do it…so I’ll ask you, too.” He paused to take a deep breath that trembled and rattled in his chest.

Cash frowned. “What is it?”

“When it happens, let me die…now, calm down and let me finish.” As Cash started to protest, he transferred the reins to his other hand and put his right hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t try to keep me alive. Please.”

There was an earnestness in his eyes that frightened Cash more than Sin’s words. His fingers tightened. “Promise.”

Cash nodded, gulping loudly. “I-I promise, Sin.”

By now, they were in the barnyard. Sin guided the Belgians to the feedlot, where he stopped the wagon and leaped agilely to the ground. With Cash’s help, he unharnessed the animals and put them in the corral.

Several men, among them Andi’s hired hands, were washing up at basins set on a table against the side of the barn, pouring water from ironstone pitchers. As Cash and Sin started to the house, one turned, a towel in his hands. He stepped directly into Sin’s path.

Sin stopped so suddenly Cash nearly ran into him.

For an instant, the two stared at each other. The other man was tall, but still shorter than the Felidan and like the others, had removed his shirt while he worked. His broad copper-colored chest, damp with sweat and water, was covered with black, curly hair.

“Nighthorse.” Sin nodded.

The man acknowledged his name, saying just as curtly, “Sh’en Singh.”

As warily as one dog meeting another, they circled each other so neither appeared to be giving way. Then Sin walked away, Cash following.

Raising the towel to wipe his face, Eli Nighthorse looked after them.

When the kitchen door opened and Andi appeared, hugging Sin and pulling him inside, the hand holding the towel clenched tightly around the soft terrycloth.

Once again, Eli’s heart was filled with an overwhelming anger as he thought how this Outsider, this criminal, was making the woman he loved into little better than a whore. God, he hated the smuggler, the ugly, half-cat alien, with his wild red hair and those green feline eyes seeming able to see through a man’s soul. Eli marveled that Andi was able to hold up her head after sleeping with that cat-man at night.

He also wondered why Vicente and his four sons hadn’t done something about the situation.

Eli couldn’t know that shortly after Allan’s birth, Sin and Vicente had a long and detailed discussion about his relationship to Andi, ending with her foster father telling the Felidan, “If you’ve the patience to accept the way my daughter’s acting, more power to you, son. All I can say is: Good Luck and God give you strength.”

Forcing himself to be fair about it, he admitted the Felidan did his share, or tried to. He seemed to tire easily, however, and sometimes it took him longer than the others to complete his chores.

Farming isn’t as easy as flying a blockade runner, Eli thought with snide superiority. Nevertheless, often he felt something wasn’t right…the way the Outsider looked, for instance, as if he were sick.

“Hey, Eli.” Someone speaking behind him brought him back to the present.

He turned around.

“You gonna hog that towel all day?”

Eli relinquished the towel and picked up his shirt, putting it on and taking a seat at one of the tables. In a few minutes, Andi appeared, setting a large bowl on the table next to Goldie’s platter of fried chicken.

“Here you are, Eli. My famous potato salad. Dig in.”

“Thanks, Andi.” He began to spoon some onto his plate. As she turned to go, however, he dropped the spoon, and caught her hand. “Wait, Andi.”

Questioningly, she looked back.

“Stay and talk to me for a minute.”

“I’d love to, Eli,” she smiled, “but Cash and Sin are waiting, and…”

“Of course.” Defeated, he picked up his fork. “Thanks for the salad. You make the best.”

She smiled again and started back to the house. Eli watched her, savoring the way the blonde braid bounced against her back and her skirt swayed gently with the movement of her hips.

Viciously, he bit into the forkful of food.

***

Inside, Cash and Sin had started without her and Allan was awake and demanding his own lunch. Cash was on his second helping of everything, biting into a biscuit liberally slathered with butter. Sin ate his way through a bowl of carrot sticks, potato chunks, and apple slices.

As she lifted the baby from the playpen and settled herself at the table, he stopped eating, commenting in an oafish voice, “Gosh-golly-gee, Miz Andi…you make the bestest carrot sticks I ever did taste.” Selecting one, he bit it in half with a loud snap. “Mmm.”

“You were eavesdropping,” she accused, angered by his mocking imitation of Eli’s compliment.

“Just looking out for my woman.” He didn’t deny it, however, simply continued chomping loudly and enjoyably until the contents of the bowl was gone.

By now, Cash had finished, leaning back with a satisfied burp and an apologetic look at Andi. He rubbed the stomach threatening to bulge over his belt.

“Cash?” Sin got to his feet. “Why don’t you unload the wagon and then harness the horses? I need a Light, and I want to talk to your mother a minute. Then I’ll be out.”

“Okay.” Obediently, Cash opened the door and went out, letting the screen slam.

“Andi…”

“Go back to work, Sin.” She began gathering the rest of the dishes, placing them in the sink. “I’m still angry with you for that bit of snappy repartée this morning.”

“What?” He managed to look surprised. “Or should I say which? I say so many scandalous things, I’ve lost count.”

He gave her a wicked smile sending those familiar little tingles down her spine. As she tried vainly to ignore them, he opened the little jar on the table.

“Hey, has George been here?” He took out one of the cigarettes and sniffed at it, recognizing the smell of a tobacco/toxicant plant mixture. “Mmm…Puff.”

Andi chose to ignore that, also, trying to retain her train of thought as well as her anger.

“Just think about it. You’re a bad influence, you know. The way you talk about certain things…”

“…that aren’t to be spoken of in mixed company,” Sin finished for her. “Yeah, yeah…” Taking one of the lightsticks from the holder on the side of the jar, he held it to the cigarette, puffing quickly, then blew the smoke toward the window. “Isn’t that Rule Number Thirty-two? No, wait a minute…”

He frowned as if concentrating, and stuck the cigarette into his mouth, talking around it and filling the air with smoke.

“…Thirty-two is Thou shall not smoke the vile and illegal weed. Rule Thirty-three is thou shall not speak of sex in any way, shape, or form. You know…” He removed the cigarette, abruptly serious. “In some ways, you Naturals are pretty un-Natural. If sex is so bad, why are there so many of your people around?”

“Please don’t ridicule our teachings.” She lifted the kettle off the stove and poured the hot water into the sink. As the soap bubbled, she set it down again, working the pump handle and filling the suds with enough cold water that she could put her hands into it without scalding them.

Sin didn’t answer. Instead, he dropped the cigarette into the stove and stood watching her as she began to wash the dishes. Before she realized it, he was behind her, brushing her hair back from her right ear and kissing behind it. Andi moved her head, trying to stay angry.

“You know I’d never try to sway Cash from what he’s been taught, but this business about suppressing sex is wrong.” He kissed her again, on the nape of her neck, holding the long braid out of the way.

Andi shivered.

“They did that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and you know what a mess those times were, according to the history books?”

“What do you know about history books?”

“I’ve read a few.” He wasn’t about to be sidetracked. “You know as well as I do it’s wrong, whether you admit it or not. A lot of things your people believe is wrong. Women had to fight to be treated as real people and the Naturals have set their status back three centuries.”

Andi didn’t answer. She simply waited, hands wrist-deep in soapy water.

“Cash is right, too.” Sin’s voice got quieter, dropping into the husky growl always sending shivers through her. “This little masquerade of ours is foolish.”

“Ours?” She looked over her shoulder at him.

“All right, mine. I was wrong, I admit it. Hey, not bad. That’s only the second time that’s happened.” He hugged her, looking at their reflections in the half-opened window behind the sink, cheek-to-cheek, Andi’s pale braid hanging over one shoulder, several tangles of Sin’s wild copper mane resting beside it. “Look at us. Beauty and the Beast.”

He nuzzled her cheek.

“Doesn’t matter if you are a little Terran beastie…I love you, anyway.”

“Oh, you….” She spun, wiping her sudsy hands across his face.

Laughing, he caught her and kissed her again. “Marry me, Andi. Grant a dying man’s last request.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Sin…”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “Let’s go upstairs, then.”

“What?” That startled her. “Now? But…”

“We’ve time.” His deep voice became a low whisper. “The others haven’t finished eating yet.”

“But someone might come in.”

“Lock the door.”

“That’s all you think about. You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? You’re doing to die making love to me.” She was startled she could say that so lightly.

“Oh, God, I hope so.” came the raspy reply. “What a way to go. I only hope I ’max first. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to be a corpse with a hard-on?”

“Sin. That’s positively indecent.” Nevertheless, she had to laugh. She couldn’t help it.

“You said it.” Catching her hands, he pulled her toward the stairs, breaking into the street slang of the boy-whores of Bel-Ammon. “Want flash, pretty lady? Give you good ’max. Only two Real Dollar…get best, you see.”

“Sin, you’re terrible.” Partly embarrassed but mostly out of sheer pleasure, Andi continued laughing.

“I certainly am,” he agreed, “and don’t you like it?”