TRANSHUMANCE (9)
By:
March 11, 2026
We are thrilled to serialize Transhumance, a post-apocalyptic novella by HILOBROW friend and contributor Charlie Mitchell.
TRANSHUMANCE: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10.
Pellet droppings stud the snow not far from the creek stones.
“Dalton, can I ask you a question?”
It’s a careful calculation. No doubt — he wanted to know as much about Forewhen as he could. Old Kindred swatted off such proddings as if they nursed tender wounds. So far, Dalton was just quiet and misty-eyed. Even his sparing answers had plenty of meat on their bones. All in preparation for the real nexus of curiosity, for what could never be understood from nights of eavesdropping.
He sighs. “I could nearly hear the wheels turning in yer head. Shoot.”
“Why did you come find us?”
The man stops, disappointed that he had not prepared an answer despite anticipation, one hand still in the creekwater filling the palomino’s dromedary. At last — here is the question not quite tied to the old world.
“And how? We aren’t on a river.”
Dalton rises, rubs the stiffness out from his knees, hawks phlegm. He gestures to the pellet droppings. “Pick em up.”
“Huh?”
“Shit questions — shit prizes,” Dalton growls.
Little Dog swallows, wishing his stupid dry tongue would wriggle down into his stomach. Then Dalton’s face breaks, keeled wheezing laughter.
He wipes his eyes. “Sumbitch. Your face, kid. But really, pick one up — it’s not a trick, safe to touch. Look,” he bends to pick one up with his bare hand. Little Dog stays a little askance, one brow arched.
“Behold — turd. You might learn a thing er two today,” Dalton puts his open palm forward, breaking apart the dark smears of clod and cud. Still glistening from snow or freshness.
“Can you tell me why this is safe to handle?”
“Mm, because she doesn’t eat meat?”
“Good. How old? Give er a sniff,” Dalton extends his palm a bit further. Little Dog begins bending towards the shit in hand before he realizes the angle.
“Ha okay, good reflexes. You weren’t born yesterday after all. But it’s still pretty darn pungent right, and still dark as the anus it came outta.”
“So recently — this morning?”
“Very good. One last lesson from our great prize. The pellet isn’t too mushy; it’s grainy, plenty of shell when I put my thumb to it, and fresh this morning to boot,” he points at some of the matter in his palm. “That’s sapling twig, and you can almost see leaf veins — we call that browse. So riddle me this — where are we most likely gonna find this beaut?”
“The forest?”
“Three outta three, great work,” he wipes his palm on his jeans. “But there is extra credit — can you track em?” He puts a corn husk in his lip, readying a thumb and forefinger of tobacco; Baba forbids its cultivation and casual use. Little Dog has picked it wild, and has only smelled it during vassa rites.
Ungulate prints and more scat, same diet and freshness, weave through the riparian brush towards the nearest bosom of woodland hills.
“You haven’t told me why you sought us,” Little Dog presses. He’s panting, trying to place one cumbersome snowshoe after another over obdurate brush, careful to not smother any tracks. He stumbles, unsettled at being kept in the dark by yet another idol.
“True enough — you’n your pals ever collect sheds after the melt? This valley’s a goddamn whitetail quinceañera,” he exhales the last drag of the cigarette and pockets the roach.
“Dalton. They, Baba loves you but they’re afraid, don’t know—”
Little Dog’s verbalization is half-formed but something is making him bellysick. He loves the windburned squint of Dalton’s face, dimples and wrinkles with every joke, a sad light underneath the contours of crow’s feet like a low winter sun. Smoked lungs, cussing and coarse charm in his tongue and teeth. The musty salitter of someone cut out from the bole of a cottonwood. And Little Dog is not confident that Dalton is safe among the Kindred anymore.
“Of course they are. Good reason to boot. Gallant yet terrifying.”
“I’m not making jokes. I think Khyber is going to cycle you,” his voice breaks. He feels his cheeks flaring again and his thoughts are stormed by exhausted patience with adults. Ignored even while he tries to save this man, a once-stranger; it dawns on Little Dog that he loves him. Dread inches in towards his wrung lungs and heart — that there is no quarter of this world where he will not feel wasted and secondary.
Complete story to be published at HILOBROW later in 2026.
MORE ORIGINAL FICTION & POETRY AT HILOBROW: James Parker’s COCKY THE FOX | Karinne Keithley Syers’ LINDA, LINDA, LINDA | Matthew Battles’ THE SOVEREIGNTIES OF INVENTION stories | James Parker’s KALEVALA bastardizations | Annalee Newitz’s “THE GREAT OXYGEN RACE” | Charlie Mitchell’s “SENTINELS” | Josh Glenn’s “VALIDATION SESSION” | & more.