Hunter's Run Read Free Page B

The only attraction
that leaving could hold was the chance to be someplace with even fewer people,
which was unlikely. However ill he fit in São Paulo, he could imagine no
situation less odious.
     
    He didn’t recall falling asleep,
but woke when the late morning sun streaming through Elena’s window shone in
his face. He could hear her humming in the next room, going about the business
of her morning. Shut up, you evil bitch, he thought, wincing at the
flash of a lingering hangover. She had no talent for song - every note she made
was flat and grating. Ramon lay silent, willing himself back to sleep, away
from this city, this irritating noise, this woman, this moment in time. Then
the humming was drowned by an angry sizzling sound, and, a moment later, the
scent of garlic and chile sausage and frying onions wafted into the room. Ramon
was suddenly aware of the emptiness in his belly. With a sigh, he raised
himself to his elbow, swung his sleep-sodden legs around, and, stumbling
awkwardly, made his way to the doorway.
     
    ‘You look like shit,’ Elena said,
‘I don’t know why I even let you in my house. Don’t touch that! That’s my breakfast.
You can go earn your own!’
     
    Ramon tossed the sausage from
hand to hand, grinning, until it cooled enough to take a bite.
     
    ‘I work fifty hours a week to
make the credit. And what do you do?’ Elena demanded. ‘Loaf around in
the terreno cimarrón, come into town to drink whatever you earn. You don’t
even have a bed of your own!’
     
    ‘Is there coffee?’ Ramon asked.
Elena gestured with her chin toward the worn plastic-and-chitin thermos on the
kitchen counter. Ramon rinsed a tin cup and filled it with yesterday’s coffee. ‘I’ll
make my big find,’ he said. ‘Uranium or tantalum. I’ll make enough money that I
won’t have to work again for the rest of my life.’
     
    ‘And then you’ll throw me out and
get some young puta from the docks to follow you around. I know what men
are like.’
     
    Ramon filched another sausage
from her plate. She slapped the back of his hand hard enough to sting.
     
    ‘There’s a parade today,’ Elena
said. ‘After the Blessing of the Fleet. The governor’s making a big show to
beam out to the Enye. Make them think we’re all so happy that they came early.
There’s going to be dancing and free rum.’
     
    ‘The Enye think we’re trained
dogs,’ Ramon said around a mouthful of sausage.
     
    Hard lines appeared at the
corners of Elena’s mouth, her eyes went cold.
     
    ‘I think it would be fun,’ she
said, thin venom in her tone. Ramon shrugged. It was her bed he was sleeping
in. He’d always known there was a price for its use.
     
    ‘I’ll get dressed,’ he said and
swilled down the last of the coffee. ‘I’ve got a little money. It can be my
treat.’
     
    * * * *
     
    They skipped the Blessing of the Fleet, Ramon having no interest
in hearing priests droning mumbo-jumbo bullshit while pouring dippers of holy
water on beaten-up fishing boats, but they’d arrived in time for the parade
that followed. The main street that ran past the Palace of the governors was
wide enough for five hauling trucks to drive abreast, if they stopped traffic
coming the other way. Great floats moved slowly, often stopping for minutes at
a time, with secular subjects - a ‘Turu spacecraft’ studded with lights, being
pulled by a team of horses; a plastic chupacabra with red-glowing eyes
and a jaw that opened and closed to show the great teeth made from old pipes -
mixing with oversized displays of Jesus, Bob Marley, and the Virgin of
Despegando Station. Here came a twice-life-sized satirical (recognizable but
very unflattering) caricature of the governor, huge lips pursed as if ready to
kiss the Silver Enyes’ asses, and a ripple of laughter went down the street.
The first wave of colonists, the ones who had named the planet São Paulo, had
been from Brazil, and although few if any of them had ever been to