As a young man Rufus had disappointed some of his white army friends who had wanted him to be a whole lot more authentic, according to their version of what that was. But this had been back in the days before Rufus had developed his theory—the theory he’d explained on the train to Saskia—that Comancheness was a viral thing that could hop from brain to brain, regardless of skin color, and that—using the early Texas Rangers as a vector of infection—it had completely taken over America a long time ago. Old-school Christian values and straight-out racism had held it at bay through the world wars and the fifties, but then the barriers had fallen one by one and before you knew it there was a white guy in red-white-and-blue war paint sacking the U.S. Capitol in what the media described as some kind of Viking getup but Rufus knew perfectly well was a Plains Indian–style bison headdress. And just like Comanches with their raids, those people didn’t stick around and try to plant their yellow rattlesnake flags on the Capitol dome. They just wandered off, having counted coup on democracy and taken a few cop scalps, and melted back into their nomadic trailer park encampments. Point being, Rufus hadn’t worked all that out in his head back when he’d been a buck private; he had not had the mental equipment to explain to his white brothers in arms that the Comanches had won the long war. The war between men’s ears.
Which went some way toward explaining why at this moment they, the Americans, were getting their asses handed to them by a meticulously planned invasion originating on the other side of the world. Because that seemed to be the timeless doom of fierce independent-minded tribespeople. The world just didn’t fucking like them. And if you were too disorderly for too long, and it started to cause problems for people, then order was going to be imposed. White people had done it to Indians by slaughtering all the bison. Indians from India were doing it to Americans now by wiping out their electronic devices.
All this passed through his head as he was riding up the valley trying to make sense of what was going on with the eagles. Back
in the day, his Indian ancestors hadn’t had walkie-talkies or GPS or drones. They’d been forced to figure things out by watching the world around them, which was mostly a natural world. They’d had to make surmises about what was going on. Like the guys up in the crow’s nests on the Pequod, interpreting far-off whale spouts, sensing the direction of the wind and the waves.
He was a far cry from any of those dudes but some things were clear even to a guy like him: the falconers up on the ridge had released Skippy. Maybe they’d seen Piet through the binoculars or maybe it was just a lucky hunch. Then they’d let Nimrod out too. Skippy had taken to the air and recognized Piet. Which seemed damned near impossible at such a distance. But if Rufus had picked up one thing about eagles it was that “eagle eye” actually meant something, their powers of vision were simply unreal. So of course Skippy had picked out the lone human figure walking toward the Bunkhouse, which Rufus had needed a telescope to see. And if she didn’t recognize Piet instantly, she did so pretty damn soon. She flew toward Piet. She saw drones flying around Piet. And apparently fucked them up though it was difficult for Rufus to make out details. Nimrod came along a minute later and went after some other targets—extra drones, maybe, that were trying to reinforce the first batch?
Piet then changed course and began moving in the direction from which he knew Rufus and the others would be approaching. When the drones had been escorting him, he had been moving as slowly as he could get away with. But now he came on fast. He’d found a dirt road along the valley floor, a terrible road by any standard, but for him a racetrack compared to what he’d been picking his way across for the last few hours. Rufus could track his progress by watching Skippy, who was running combat air patrol above him. Nimrod was headed back toward her girl Carmelita, somewhere up above the road.
“I talked to him!” Piet shouted when he guessed he was in range.
“Big Fish?”
Piet nodded. He talked in bursts, hands on knees, breathing fast but controlled. “Unless there is more than one turban-wearing Hercules in these mountains.”
“Headed for . . . ?”
“The gun.”
“Sure.”
“Red. Listen.”
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“I have to tell you something.”
“Shoot.”
“He’s carrying something on his back. Strapped to a frame. Quite heavy.”
“How do you know?”