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"I'll spell you - two on, two off. Wish I was twenty years younger," says Zeb. "Not that those Painball guys are in great shape, you'd think. God knows what they've been eating."
"The Pigoons are fit enough," says Toby.
"They can't pull triggers," says Zeb. He pauses. "If we both come out of this tomorrow, maybe we should do the bonfire thing. With the green branches."
Toby laughs. "I thought you said it was a meaningless empty symbol."
"Even a meaningless empty symbol can mean something sometimes," says Zeb. "You rejecting me?"
"No," says Toby. "How could you even think it?"
"I fear the worst," says Zeb.
"Would that be the worst? Me rejecting you?"
"Don't push a guy when he's feeling skinless."
"I just have trouble believing you're serious," says Toby.
Zeb sighs. "Get some sleep, babe. We'll work it out later. Tomorrow's on the way."
Eggshell
Muster
Peach-coloured haze in the east. Day is breaking, so cool and delicate at first, the sun not yet a hot spotlight. The crows are abroad, signalling to one another. Caw! Cawcaw! Caw! What are they saying? Look out! Look out! Or maybe: Party time soon! Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot.
Dump the morbid soliloquies, Toby tells herself. What's needed is a positive outlook. That was what trumpet fanfares were for, and drums, and march music. We are invincible, that music told the soldiers. They had to believe in them, those lying melodies, because who can walk intrepidly towards death without? The bear-shirted berserkers were said to have doped themselves up before battle with northern hallucinogenic fungus: Amanita muscaria, perhaps, or so said Pilar, at the Gardeners. Historical Mushroom Practices, for senior students only.
Maybe I should spike the water bottles, she thinks. Poison your brain, then stride forth and kill people. Or be killed.
She stands, unwinds herself from the pink bedspread, shivers. There's been a dew: dampness beads her hair, her eyebrows. Her foot's asleep. Her rifle is where she left it, within reach; and the binoculars as well.
Zeb's already up, leaning on the railing. "I dozed off last night," she says to him. "Not much of a watchperson. Sorry."
"So did I," he says. "It's okay, the Pigoons would've sounded the alarm."
"Sounded?" she says, laughing a little.
"You're such a stickler. Okay, grunted the alarm. Our porky pals have been busy."
Toby looks where he's looking: over and down. The Pigoons have levelled the meadow, all the way around the spa building, wherever there were tall weeds or shrubs. Five of the larger ones are still at work, trampling and rolling on anything higher than an ankle.
"Nobody's going to be sneaking up on them, that's for sure," says Zeb. "Clever buggers, they know about cover." They've left one tuft of foliage in the middle distance, Toby notes. She peers at it with the binoculars. It must mark the remains of that boar she'd killed, back when there was a turf war between her and the Pigoons over the subject of the AnooYoo garden. Oddly enough they hadn't devoured the carcass, though they'd seemed willing enough to eat their dead piglet. Was there a hierarchy in such matters, among them? Sows eat their farrow, but nobody eats the boars? What next, commemorative statues?
"Too bad about the lumiroses," she says.
"Yeah, planted them myself. But they'll grow back. Darn things are as hard to kill as kudzu, once they get going."
"What will the Crakers have for breakfast, though?" says Toby. "Now that the foliage is gone. We can't have them wandering over there, close to the forest."
"The Pigoons thought of that too," says Zeb. "Look beside the swimming pool."
Sure enough, there's a heap of fresh fodder. The Pigoons must have gathered it, since there's no one else around.
"That's considerate," says Toby.
"Crap, they're smart," says Zeb. "Speaking of which." He points.
