What the hell?

Cautiously Jack rose to his feet, his hip screaming, and braced for a dark shape to hurtle from the brush and finish him off.

Nothing moved. The rakosh was gone. Why? Nothing here to frighten it off, and it sure as hell wasn’t turning vegetarian, because Hank’s arm, the one Scar-lip had thrown at Jack, was missing.

Jack turned in a slow circle. Why didn’t it kill me?

Because he’d stopped Bondy and Hank from torturing it? Not possible. A rakosh was a killing machine. What would it know about fair play, about debts or gratitude? Those were human emotions and—

Then Jack remembered that Scar-lip was part human. Kusum Bahkti had been its father. It carried some of Kusum in it and, despite some major leaks in his skylights, Kusum had been a stand-up guy.

Was that it? If so, the Otherness probably wanted to disown Scar-lip. But its daddy might be proud.

Jack’s instincts were howling for him to go—now. But he held back. He’d come here to finish this, and he’d failed. Utterly. The rakosh was back to full strength and roaming free in the trackless barrens.

But maybe it was finished—at least between Scar-lip and himself. Maybe the last rakosh was somebody else’s problem now. Not that he could do anything about Scar-lip now anyway. As much as he hated to leave a rakosh alive and free here in the wild, he didn’t see that he had much choice. He’d been beaten. Worse than beaten: he’d been hammered flat and kicked aside like an old tin can. He had no useful weapons left, and Scar-lip had made it clear that Jack was no match one-on-one.

Time to call it quits. At least for today. But he couldn’t let it go, not without one last shot.

“Listen,” he shouted, wondering if the creature could hear him and how much it would understand. “I guess we’re even. We’ll leave it this way. For now. But if you ever threaten me or mine again, I’ll be back. And I won’t be carrying Snapple bottles.”

Jack began to edge toward the trail but kept his face to the clearing, still unable to quite believe this, afraid if he turned his back the creature would rise out of the sand and strike.

As soon as Jack reached the trail, he turned and started moving as fast as his hip allowed. A last look over his shoulder before the pines and brush obscured the clearing showed what looked like a dark, massive figure standing alone on the sand, surveying its new domain. But when Jack stopped for a better look it was gone.

5

Jack became lost on the way out. His defeat and release had left him bewildered and a little dazed, neither of which had helped his concentration. A low lid of overcast added to the problem. The trail forked here and there and he knew he wanted to keep heading east, but he couldn’t be sure where that was without the sun to fix on.