Alpha by James Sie


burning

The wind brings in the morning even sooner than the birds. It’s covered in smoke. One sniff—

clean-moist-grass    dirt-tumbled-down-from-the-night-before

peeling-eucalyptus    the-promise-of-heat

—All the smells are smudged with ash. Fire. Not here, but close enough. There’s no direction it’s not. Enough reason for me to get back home, but I stand on the stone steps, motionless, as the darkness yields to shreds of new sky. 

I wait, telling myself I’m not waiting. 

The nests above on either side of the steps are quiet, and no signs of movement in those clustered below. That’s another reason I know it’s still safe here—if a fire was anywhere nearby, I’d see swarms pouring out of those nests, rolling their way out of the canyon. 

decaying-citrus    old-blood    mouse-scat    garbage   

 saliva-young-male    Sharp Eyes

No, not Sharp Eyes, I remind myself. Rot.

I thought he’d be down by the wideroad but he approaches from uphill, behind and to my left. If the wind had been blowing the other direction, I wouldn’t have known he was there. 

But he knew that. 

Don’t come any closer, I tell him without turning around. Or I’ll rip your throat out.

Good morning to you, he says, his voice curling the way it does. There’s no fear in it at all, just anticipation and amusement, but I notice he’s keeping his distance.

kin

Rot’s smell is my childhood. I want to rub my nose in it. Safety and comfort, except for the sweet sick notes. His sickness contaminates his smell the same way the fire contaminates the air. It’s like the burning in the hills has burrowed under his skin, charring him from the inside. 

You’re not dead yet, I say, fixing my stare ahead. 

Not yet. Why are you still up.

Bad night, I say, which is true. Not much jumping.

It’s the fire, he says. It gets any closer, you’ll have more than enough. They’ll be popping out everywhere.

Yeah, but it won’t come here. Not with the water always springing up from the ground. 

Maybe you’re right. 

Rot starts scratching. He must have come out of that twist of scabby lemon trees higher on the hill, next to the looming man nest propped up by metal poles. Too close to the nests, like usual, practically rubbing his muzzle on them. 

Black heat erupting from his body. 

Were you looking for me, he asks.

I’m not even supposed to talk to you, I tell him.

True. She’d kill you if She knew.

It’s not me She’d be killing, I say, but I raise my head up and sniff the air just the same. It’s only him clouding my nose. If only the wind would shift uphill. If it shifted uphill and I kept my eyes focused on the steps, it might be like any other morning, the two of us together, finishing up the day. 

Except for the scratching.

Rot says, Oh, I don’t think She’d get within six paces of me. Wouldn’t risk it. She’d send Dim to do the deed. Or you. 

He still has the teasing, but underneath is something ragged, and tired, and slow. 

Leave it, I say. She wouldn’t do that. 

He chuffs. You’ve got no teeth on that one, he says. What do we know of what She would do, or what She would not do. 

She left you alive, didn’t She.

Is that what you call it.

The scratching starts again. He makes a sound deep in his throat, like a mouse bone coming up. 

Look, he says, there’s a meal waiting, down those steps and along the wideroad. I pulled it from a bin. Not far. I could take you there.

That was just like him, always dragging something he’d found back to the rest of us, risking the wideroad for a bite we’d never had before and offering it up, ragged and meaty. 

No, I say. Not after you’ve been at it. Wouldn’t be safe. I don’t eat that garbage anyway. 

It’s all I can manage, now, he says, a voice so soft I can see its belly. 

She made the right call, I tell him. For the rest of us. There’s nothing else She could’ve done.

Maybe. But did She have to be so happy doing it, he says, scraping, scraping. Her tail’s never so high as when She’s driving one of us away. Remember Squat.

That wasn’t the same, I say. They never got along. But you and Her—there wasn’t any pleasure in what She had to do. You brought it on yourself—stop it, will you stop it. 

I can’t help growling at him. It’s the sound, him tearing at himself, like his body were an intruder, meant to be savaged. The sound that made Mama’s head whip around, made the copper smell come out, and then Mama’s teeth showed, the ones in Her jaws and the ones in Her eyes, and She lunged, hurled his new name after him as he and his contagion scurried through the oleander, tail hung low. 

The scratching makes me want to drive him off, myself. 

It’s not like I can help it, he says. But the scratching stops. Puffs of newly furrowed flesh waft between us— 

blood    skin    burn    yesterday’s-shat    poison

He has the voice of a sick pup. 

Things get real clear waiting for the crows and ants, he says. We should have left a long time ago. 

Might still happen. 

Look at me. Look.

And I turn, and I do look at him, because I’m strong, because I’m not afraid. 

Hello, sister, Rot says. 

 

The sickness is much worse than the last time I saw him, in less than the growth of a moon. It’s like Mama’s new name for him has rooted and spread—in the new gray light he looks like a ghost creature, worn down to almost no color at all. Fur the shade of pale smoke hangs off him in tatters, ringing his neck like floss silk fluff, and his pale, mottled skin, streaked with inside coming out, makes him look newborn. A whelp that wasn’t going to last. 

It makes my smallpaw ache.

His voice comes out panting. He says, It’s not bad all of the time, just most of the time.

How are you still walking.

Well—he snaps at the air and twists his neck sharply, pressing it hard against his shoulder, willing himself not to scratch—my skin’s crawling. Might as well crawl along with it. 

He lowers his head. I want to leap forward, lick his wounds, but I remember the copper smell of Mama’s fear and that fixes me to the steps.

Look, look, I say, nudging at the dead rat I’ve brought with me, stiff at my feet. I’m surprised he hadn’t noticed it before, but then I figure there’s no room in his nose for anything but his own dying. 

Eat something good, I say. Maybe it’ll fix you.

I thought you said it was a bad night. Rot looks up at me and grins. That’s a big one, he says.

I always manage, don’t I. 

You do. Fastest one of us, even considering.

Take it, I tell him. I push the rat off the stone steps onto the grass, but Rot’s busy pressing his shoulder hard to the ground, like he’s trying to pin down whatever’s got a hold of him.

We should have set off a long time ago, he says, panting.

You already said that. Why didn’t you cross the wideroad yourself, when you had the chance.

I guess, he says, grinding into the grass, I guess I was waiting for you.

Too late now.

You could still go, he says. You’re ready. Why not, unless you’re fixing on becoming another Dim. Is that what you want. 

I shake that thought off my fur. There’s suddenly so much to say, a whole pack of news, but the sun is starting to make the edges of the trees glow and the crows are already warning: too late, too late, too late.

I wanted to tell you.

One slow scratch. Another. 

What, he says. 

The little ones. They’re okay. They didn’t catch it. 

Jump for the Moon, he says. His tail flicks up, once. 

You gotta get out of here before She catches you in the wind. Move on.

You too, sister of mine, he says, grunting as his back leg twitches in the air.

Don’t worry about me, Rot.

Don’t call me that. Please. Not you.

It’s your name.

Call me the other one, he says, straining against his own body. From before.

He wants me to give back something only Mama can give. I remember Squat, driven off just for asking for another. 

A name’s only a name, I say. It can’t bite. 

There’s no only about it, Rot says, shaking. The name is all. And remember.

What.

She named you too, Short Foot. 

What’s that got to do with anything.

But suddenly he’s yelping on the ground, flat, as if my words have pushed him there. White eyes. His legs tense and shove, pawing up dust. He scrapes his side against the brambled soil, again and again, writhing in agony, and relief. 

 I lower my head to get through the railings, to get to him, but his eyes roll in my direction and he pushes himself backward across the hill, away from me. Are you Moon-drunk, he says. Don’t come closer. Get out. Go.

A sudden jangle of metal on the stone steps below, the heavy stomp of man feet. My ears twitch. I hear before I smell, smell before I see:

smoke    hair    sweat    powdery-flowers    metals    warm-fur

A droop-ear with a man attached, down past the curve. I can hear it pissing, streaks of violent amber scent shooting up like an alarm, but the droop-ear is too far away, or too dull, to discover me.

I’ll draw them off, I tell Rot. But when I turn back to him, the tall, yellowed grass has already swallowed him up.

The rat is gone, too.

Goodbye, Sharp Eyes, I say, glad to have finally spoken the words, even if he’s not there to hear. The droop-ear, sniffing barely five steps below me, finally jerks up and catches my scent. It releases an explosion of sound and slaver, none of it understandable, and then I’m off, too, disappearing into the warring cry of birds fighting for the morning. 

 

Cactus Home. Three tall plants, bristled like caterpillars, rise on the slope with their heads and tails high. Beneath, twisting up from the ivy, the paddle kind, parched and splayed, concealing the path with their round, whitening bodies. A slide under the low branch of an arching oak, past the peeling eucalyptus, and there it is, the hidden clearing.  

Last season, I was one of the little ones tumbling out of the earth and roots there, staring up at a sky heading to darkness and those cactus heads and tails turning into the shadows of giant kyotes above us. Me before I got my name from Mama and the others before they got theirs. All of us rolling on the ground, yelping with hunger, then older sister Dim came over and shushed us. 

Back then, we little ones didn’t know we were surrounded by man nests, every direction, that we were hidden from the closest by the morning glory twined around the metal fence. The clearing seemed big as a world, then. We didn’t know the cactus kept us safe, and hidden, and so did the metal fence, covered and alive with leaves.

Now, the clearing’s only a small square of dirt, barely a leap across. There’s a whole new litter, but room enough. Scout, she slipped away as soon as she could, first to hunt, first to leave. Then Squat got run off, and now Rot. I’m the only one of my season who still calls it home, just like Dim’s the last of hers. 

I slip under the oak into a shimmer of gnats hanging in the air. The morning sun’s already prickling, but not here, in the shadow of the oak and the giant cactus tails, where the only light are slivers cut through the leaves. I duck under spines and follow the trail of ants marching towards the clearing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

oak    cactus    eucalyptus     shat    bones    Father-Mother

piss-on-ivy    Dim    little-ones

Cactus Home was my first home, but to these three little ones squealing, leaping up to get at me, it’s their second home turned first, because of Rot. Possum Hole they barely knew before me and Dim were grabbing ahold of their necks and dragging them away from that crumbling dark earth under the oleander, fast as we could. Possum can take back this home, Mama had said. It’s got sickness all over it. She saw the signs on Rot first. She said we were never going back there, never. And when She said a thing, She meant it. Until She unsaid it. 

The little ones come up on all sides of me, front paws on my body like I was a deer they were trying to bring down. Licking at my jaw, though I’ve got nothing in my belly to give those sharp little teeth. 

Dim rises slowly and shakes herself. Shush, shush, she says, and they bound back. She peers at me, squinting with her good eye. Her other eye stays as round and milky as the Moon. I thought you were Mama and Papa, Dim says. Where you been, Short Foot. 

By the stone steps near the wideroad. Droop-ear almost got me, I tell her, hoping she won’t smell the lie. 

It’d serve you right, going down so far, Dim says. That’s none of our business down there. Haven’t I taught you. Dim’s already fretting. She turns her Moon-eye to little sister with the dark face, says, Shush, why can’t you shush. 

I lower my head so the little ones can get closer, smell where I’ve been. They’re the first batch out of Mama since I was born. I notice how their puff fur is settling into something sleeker, how their legs are losing their softness, growing lean. Little brother creeps forward, low. Dark-faced little sister, all nose, pushes into my side. And like usual, little sister with the bushy tail leaps twice herself, aiming for the throat. It’s a wonder. Each of them so clear in their differences already. Without knowing it, they’re begging to be seen, to be named. 

As I tussle with them, I remember my own naming, vivid as scent: Mama’s sharp teeth grabbing onto my paw, tugging my small body across the dirt. She said, Maybe if I just pull on that short foot it’ll stretch out even, and then Papa laughed, and Dim laughed hardest of all, and my shortpaw ached.

I hope these little ones get good names. Every one of them. 

I ask Dim, Did you eat yet. 

How could I, Dim says, licking her jaw. Watching these little ones. How could I. I been waiting for you. 

I can look after them now. Go on.

Can’t now, she says, her voice pinching. It’s too late, Moon’s already gone. Mama and Papa should be back by now. It’s too late. 

Her body wants to move but there’s no room for it. Her tail whips back and forth, stiff. 

Dim, I say, Dim, but the copper fear is rising off of her and the little ones catch ahold of the scent, and that starts them skittering. 

Dim, look, look, It’s still there, see the white shadow of It hanging in the sky. It’s waiting for you. See. 

Dim stops her pacing and turns her milky eye to the sky, one Moon looking at another. 

It’s still there, she says. Her tail stops whipping the dirt. Praise praise, she whispers. The Moon is good. Bless the Moon.

Go on. I’ll watch the little ones till they come home. 

But that’s the wrong thing to say, because she remembers again about Mama and Papa. 

Where are They, she whines. Why aren’t They back yet. It’s late.

Not too late, I say. They’ll be here soon. Probably just marking the end of the night. 

No no no, it’s late, she says, her milky eye bulging out. Something happened. I seen it with my Moon-eye while I was sleeping. I seen it. Them running into flames. Black bodies flaking into the air. 

That’s just the smoke, I tell her, but Dim starts her whining again, louder. What are we gonna do without Mama and Papa, she cries. What are we gonna do. The little ones tangle in her legs. Shush, Dim tells them. Why do you have to make all that noise. But they only yip louder, the copper heat rising from all of them, making them cry, and then a sound starts tearing in Dim’s throat.

No, Dim, no, I say, but it’s too late. The sound pries open Dim’s jaw and shakes itself out, and the little ones join in. Copper everywhere. The day is brightening, time to stay put and stay quiet, I can hear the growl of metal shells rolling on the wideroad below us. I know all this but I can’t stop the jagged cry leaping from my own throat, pulled out by Dim’s fear. Soon we’re all wailing, an orphaned pack, wailing for our poor burned Papa and poor burned Mama, alone in the world, wailing like there were no metal fences and no men and no droop-ears only a jump away, wailing to the fading Moon until the oak tree shook and two bodies came crashing in.

                                           

Mama and Papa. Yellow and Gray. Back before any of us were whelped, He was driven down from the mountains, His land parched and charred from another fire. Her folk came from the flatlands but She wandered up, looking for a place to hunt. They met in the middle and made Their home here in this green valley, bounded by the seven stone steps, the wideroad below, and the high ridge above. There were dangers, with all the humans swarming up and down the slopes, their winding paths and burrows built up like monstrous wasp nests, but still plenty of wild between those nests. For Papa, it was more green than the mountains, with good hunting. Mama liked the hiding places and the water that sprung up everywhere, underground rivers released by burrowing man. 

They settled in. There isn’t a kyote in the area now that doesn’t call them Papa and Mama. This valley is Theirs. They’ve lasted so long, had so many children, there’s no one to tell Them it’s not. Mama raised five litters, and She kept more than She lost. A miracle in these times.

Papa is broad across the shoulders, almost twice Her size, and what He pisses on He keeps, but anyone who came out of Mama’s body and survived knows who the dangerous one is. 

                                      

Papa goes for Dim, but one growl and she’s already on the ground, whimpering, legs pawing the air like a beetle flipped over. That’s how it is with Dim, all give and no push, nothing to sink teeth into.

Praise praise you’re home, says Dim, but she coughs it up quietly.

Mama comes at me slowly, fur bristling high. One thing I ask you to do, She says, Her anger a sharp smell, like rust. One thing. 

I look away like I’m thinking hard about that one thing, putting on my smooth face, but Mama doesn’t stop when She reaches me. I’m bigger than Mama now, but Mama, She doesn’t think about that. She steps on my back and when I try to twist away there’s nowhere to twist to, the cactus paddle reaching out behind me and Mama’s weight in front, pushing down. Nowhere to go but the dirt.

You want all those humans coming after us, Mama says. 

No. No. I couldn’t help it.

Couldn’t help what, Mama growls. Not having the sense of a pup, that what you mean.

I know She’s waiting for me to be flat and low, but something in my body keeps pushing up, straining against Her, against the earth below. 

It was, we didn’t know where you were, and Dim started crying and—

Short Foot. You short in the head, too, like your older sister. Mama asks this loudly, getting in two swipes with one paw. Do I gotta bless your eye like I blessed hers.

I look over at Dim and she’s licking Papa’s muzzle, tail wagging, like it has dinner on it. Hunger, or obedience, looks the same. 

I yield my body to Mama’s, finally, letting it go soft into the ground. I’m sorry, I say. I’m sorry.

I think that’s the end of it. I feel Her lift off me, but then Her paws come back down, quick, pushing hard against my ribs.

What do I smell. Huh. 

The air in the clearing is thick with the sharp rust of Mama’s anger, and soon the copper is pouring out of me. Mama can always make the copper come out. 

You’ve been with Rot, have you.

My heart beating hard, my body stiff again. I tell Her, No, no, of course not. 

Isn’t he dead already, Papa asks, pissing on the eucalyptus. 

Smell her, Mama says, his smell’s all over her. 

I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t ever, I say. 

Papa comes over, sniffing. I get nothing, He says.

You’re noseblind. She reeks of him, old fool, says Mama. Her front feet dig into my ribs and Her back feet dig into the dirt, pushing my body into the cactus behind me. You can’t hide anything from me, She says. I know you.

I feel the needles go in. Even with my yelping, Mama’s body will not lose its weight. 

You doing just what I told you not to, She says, quiet. Mama looms over me, so close I can see Her whiskers and the white spreading through the tawny of Her muzzle.

I went down near the wideroad, I say. I never saw him. I never did. Don’t. Please.

There’s just enough give for the needles to go in and out and in and out. I say, I looked, but I never saw him. I never saw him. 

Mama bucks, pushes me hard into the cactus. You go looking for him again, She says, stay there. 

Never thought he was any good, says Dim, lifting her head. Just a trash eater. 

And who’s talking to you, Mama growls, baring a tooth her way. She raises one paw in the air, and as She turns I squirm out from underneath and get to my feet, fur bristling, jaws wide. Space opens between us, and in the space, I can see my body rising up, my jaw closing down, teeth full of yellow fur. I can hear the snarl and the squeal. I can smell the wideroad, and green beyond.

Mama’s head swings back. She puts on Her smooth face, stares at me. Waits for a move.

Huh. Where you off to, Short Foot. 

Her face is smooth. Her fur is smooth. Nothing’s coming off of Her, like I’m not worth the rust.

Settle your fur, She says.

And then Mama darts forward and lunges, not at my throat but at my smallpaw, a playful nip, just like She does to the little ones, to tease, to remind. I pull back, jerking my body over the paddle of spines, and skid hard into a tangle of dry, dead brush. My shortpaw waves in the air, useless.

Mama turns away. I’m a little rock lizard She can’t be bothered with. She lifts Her head and looks at the whitening sky, flecked with ash. 

Who is here for me, Mama asks the sky. 

Dim’s already by Her side, licking under Mama’s jaw. We love you. We love you.

Who is here for me, She asks again, and now the little ones cluster around Her, scraping the ground by Her feet, whining. Even Papa offers a shoulder. We’re here for you, he says, because She is Mama and She kept more than She lost.  

The slicing where the needles went in burns just where I can’t reach. I think of Rot, writhing on the ground. Only he could tear at himself for relief. I can’t give in to even one scratch because that’s what She’d be looking for, the scratching. My nose is filled with what’s left of Mama’s moods and the world burning around us: 

copper    rust    smoke    copper    rust    Home

The little ones don’t seem to mind it. Maybe they don’t notice. Maybe it’s all the air they’ve ever breathed.

Mama’s eyes follow me as I hobble over to join the pack.

We love you we love you we love you.

Mama lowers Her head. Children. Children, She says. The little ones swarm around Her muzzle, hoping for a scrape of warm tongue. Children.

 


 

James Sie (he/him) is the author of the YA novel All Kinds of Other, which was listed by Kirkus as one of “Eight YA books that Could Change Your Mind.” His debut novel, Still Life Las Vegas, was a Lambda Literary Award nominee for Best Gay Fiction. An award-winning playwright, he has had productions performed in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and across the country. He has contributed essays to Pen America, The Rumpus, Esquire, and The Advocate. In addition to writing, James is also a voiceover artist for many cartoons and games, including Stillwater, Jackie Chan Adventures, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, where his excessive love of cabbages has earned him immortal fame. James lives in Los Angeles with his husband and son. Visit his website at www.sieworld.com.