by Andy Giesler
“Well,” he said, rubbing his scraggle-bearded jaw, “I do always try to be kind.” He thought on it, seeming to give it real consideration. “Oh, I guess I could sleep a bit. But only if you truly wanted me to.”
“I so very truly do,” I said.
He chewed the last of his supper, then he said, “Well then,” and he walked into the bushes to empty hisself. A short while later he was snoring quite thunderous, with one blanket rolled under his head and another spread over him.
“You can sleep, too, Woodsmith Abram,” I said soft, as not to wake Zeekl.
After a moment, Abram said, “Maybe I slept too good, too.”
I chuckled, then I settled in, looking at the fire. As I sat there, it gnawed at me. The thing that gnawed at me continual of late. So I puzzled at it, and worried on it, and finally I said, real quiet, “Woodsmith Abram?”
He turned his head to me, not saying nothing, but somehow saying “Yah” just the same.
“Woodsmith Abram, I’m scared.”
Abram didn’t say nothing, which I took as an invitation to keep on. “With all…with all I’ve done, and all that’s happened in the last few years, Surecreek’s turned cold to me. Almost angry.”
Again he prodded me along by not saying nothing.
“I’ve always felt apart, one reason or another. But now I feel farther apart than I’d thought I could be yet still be in the same village. When I make a mistake? Or, well, when I go and do something on purpose that I know I ought not? Folks have so much less patience than before. And their patience was miserly to start.”
I chewed on my worry another moment, then said, “Guess I’m just grateful you’re not like that. You never have been. Leeleh wasn’t neither. Nor Honeydipper Sadie, I suppose. Zeekl’s patient, too, though mostly because he don’t understand. Everybody else? Grandmother. I wish they’d tolerate me more like you all do.”
Abram puffed a little breath through his lips, then he sat still. So I did, too. We sat a while listening to Zeekl’s sleep.
After a bit, Abram said, “I’m patient with you where others aren’t because others weren’t patient with me.”
I’d known Abram for most of my life, and in a familiar way for near a decade, and I guess that was the longest sentence I’d ever heard him put together. And it got me wondering, what I’d wondered about him practically since I’d known him. “You mean in Altland?”
Again he said “Yah” by not saying a thing.
“What were they impatient about?”
Then we had one of those silences we sometimes had, where I wondered whether he hadn’t heard me, or whether he’d heard me and decided to pretend he hadn’t. But he had heard me, and finally he said, “I lay with a man.”
Well.
That about twisted my head right off its shoulders.
“You…wait. You can do that?” I asked.
“Yah.”
“But…how?”
“In secret. And not in Altland.”
I took a moment playing it out in my head. I didn’t know much about the Needful Act beyond what I’d learned from Honeynock. So I tried to imagine how that would work if instead of me and Miller Daivit, it was Miller Daivit and Miller Daivit. And I just couldn’t figure it. So I asked, “But…how? I mean, what goes where? And does it make a babe? And…oh my goodness, what kind of babe?”
He grunted that deep down chuckle nobody else could hear. But he didn’t answer.
I didn’t really expect him to. I’d just sort of hoped.
“So they made you leave?” I asked.
After a moment he said, “No. They wished me stay. In the Pit.”
I imagined a younger Abram, maybe even with hair on his head still, being lowered into the Pit and burned. I felt tears squeeze up, so grateful that he wasn’t just smoke and ashes now. “They send you to the Pit for lying with a man?”
“In Altland. Up here, for the Shakes. In Altland, for not seeing. Up here, for madness.” He shook his head. “No sense to it.” As he shifted in the dirt, I could almost feel him deciding whether to say more. And above all wonders, he did. “I fled.”
“But what about your…” and I realized I didn’t know the right word. So I just said, “What about your friend?”
“Isaac,” he said. He said it like maybe Isaac was right nearby. Like maybe he was on the ground, there in campfire’s circle, like Abram was calling his name to wake him from a gentle sleep.
“Yes, Isaac. What about Isaac?” I asked.
He sat a bit, breathing a little quicker than he usually did. Then he said, “I was older, so they faulted me. They put Isaac in first.” Then he said, real soft, “I watched.”
Except for the time Woodsmith Abram showed me he was bald years before, I don’t believe I’d ever touched him. But right then I put my hand on his sturdy arm. We sat for a good long while, listening to Zeekl snore loud over the popping fire. I looked up again at the sky stories. Not sure how long it was.
A real long while.
Then he went on, without me even asking. “They said I must do my part to atone. I must throw in a stick. I picked up a stick and walked to the edge.” He went quiet again.
That was all right. I didn’t mind waiting. And after a spell he said the rest. “A big stick. I struck a man with it. Perhaps, I killed him. I fled.”
So Abram was an Outcast.
Outcasts were wicked. Everybody knew that. They’d run from the Pit, or they’d been exiled for some dreadful wrongness. Yet I could think of nobody less wicked than this gentle old Alter. I wanted to comfort him. To say it was all right. To thank him for telling me. To say what he meant to me. But I couldn’t. Because right at that moment I realized something was awful, awful wrong.
Something was at the edge of our camp. Something near three times as big as Woodsmith Abram. I could just make it out behind the brush. My ears, more sharp than they should be, could hear it rumbling. It was moving toward our camp circle.
“Oh, say there, Runner Zeekl?” I said soft and gentle, like I was having a calm and friendly conversation with him, trying to wake him without warning the thing outside our fire’s circle.
Zeekl sat up sharp. “Yeh?!”
When it started snapping its teeth at us, clock clock clock clock clock, just outside the camp light, I knew we were in for some trouble.
“Runner Zeekl,” I said, still sounding pleasant as breeze, “we got a real bad problem, dear. Ready your sling and toss me your club, real quick, if you please.” I’d have taken that club myself, but Zeekl was on the other side of the campfire, and as runners often do, he slept with it in his arms.
“What problem?” he asked real hazy.
The thing in the dark started moving in.
I stopped sounding so pleasant. “Grandmother bless it, Zeekl, give me your club!”
“I won’t do no such…”
Then, with a crash and a roar, it charged us.
5
My Wondrous Mistakes
Oh. Got ahead of myself.
This’ll make more sense if you understand what I said to Abram. Why Surecreek had gotten so wary of me lately. As if gaining sight weren’t enough to make them distrustful. That story with Josiah and the snowball? That was only my first wondrous mistake.
Let’s see.
There was that time at Common, when Builder Lijah hoped I might pass him Planter Kedra’s corn muffins, which were on a platter in front of me. Everybody loved those muffins. Planter Kedra made them with the littlest bit of cayenne, and with whole corn kernels in the batter. Why, even all these years later? I can taste them now.
Anyhow, Builder Lijah hoped I might pass those muffins to him, so he stepped behind me and touched me real light on the arm to get my attention. Speaking for myself, that didn’t turn out near so bad as it might have. After all, he did heal up after a few weeks. And also, that arm-sling Taylor Neddie made him? Dyed green with the black strap? That looked real fine. Folks said so.
Builder Lijah graciously ac
cepted my tearful apology. But even though it was an accident for clear? After that, nobody asked me to pass things at Common.
Then there was the time when I fetched a file from Woodsmith Abram’s metal tool wall. I must have bumped something harder than I expected, because next thing I knew a sharp, heavy chisel fell from its peg and gashed my arm real good. The cut must have been a fingertip deep. Right across a blue vein at the inside of my elbow, too. It bled like a sow that’s been let, though funny enough, it didn’t hurt a bit after the first sting.
By the time Woodsmith Abram saw what happened, I’d wrapped it in a rag, and he went with me quick to Mender Syrah’s. She twisted a rope tight above the gash so it wouldn’t bleed no more, then she readied her needle and thread, and she dropped the rag on the floor. It made a sickening plop, heavy with my blood.
I near felt sorry for her as she turned my arm this way and that, looking it over and over, hoping for something to sew. In the end, she settled for wiping off the blood. She didn’t say much as she did it, though, despite her being a talker of some renown.
Hm. Must be more.
Oh. That cider press. Since it was so heavy, Woodsmith Abram expected me to fix it right there in Orchard Herchel’s backyard. I didn’t know that. He cocked his head real strange when I set it down on the workshop floor. He didn’t say nothing about it. The rest of Surecreek seemed peculiar silent on the subject, too, as I walked through the village with it. How was I to know? It was real awkward, and for the briefest moment it hurt awful bad to carry it. But that cleared up quick, and I found a good balance for it. Wasn’t hardly any trouble at all.
I don’t know. Plenty more like that, I guess.
Nothing outright wicked, or there’d have been trouble sooner. And I suppose when Ma told folks my sight was a gift from Grandmother Root, maybe they decided I’d gotten some other gifts right along with it. But it worried folks. Clear as water in rain.
And through all this, I was hungry. So hungry. I put away as much food as a man twice my size. I often ran hot, too, like a fever, though I felt well. Ma and Mender Syrah could find no other sign of sickness in me. Some folks are warmer than others they said, so maybe I was just a little more than that.
Anyhow.
That’s why I counted it such a blessing that Woodsmith Abram still tolerated me, and in truth he seemed to treat me no different than before.
I also counted it a blessing that Zeekl would speak with me pretty normal, where others mostly avoided me. Since he was one of the few who would, I’d chat with him now and again when he was in Surecreek between runs. Most folks said he had no more sense than a cooper’s whiskers, and so they didn’t care to be with him. That wasn’t right nor fair. Zeekl wasn’t foolish, just slow. I guess he was pretty lonesome, too. So if he cared to speak with me? That worked out all right for both of us. Though I did wonder whether that—whether him speaking with me a little too often—is part of why the Elders sent him along on our lonesome little trading trip.
And though he got on well with me, it didn’t surprise me much that he refused to give me his club when I asked. These decisions took him time, and I oughtn’t have expected otherwise. I doubt many in Surecreek would hand me a weapon without thinking it over real careful. Zeekl was slow, but not so slow as to miss how uncomfortable I made folks. He was just a little hazy on why.
So when that mountain of razorback charged into our camp circle, I had nothing more threatening to defend us than my stubborn disposition and a funny look on my face.
6
The Thing in the Dark
Let me share some advice about riding a razorback.
Don’t.
Now, folks are scared of boars, and they don’t need to be. Or mostly not, anyhow. I learned that early in my wanderings with Ma and the other weavers. Oh, we came across them now and again, little families or big sounders. So long as we cut a wide path around them, nobody got real worked up about it.
Sure, bull boars go after each other, and it’s frightful to behold. And any boar will go after small livestock outside a wall if folks don’t keep a close enough eye. Also, sometimes boars get just plain testy, though not usually testy enough to charge at three fools setting about a campfire.
But I’ll tell you this: When you’re picking a campsite, it’s best not to pick one right up next to a sow boar and her brand-new litter. Which, by not scouting as careful as a sharper runner would, Zeekl had managed to do.
And even then, we might have been all right. Except that Zeekl was not just one to snore, but one to snore in a quite prodigious way. To a sow boar with a young litter, maybe worried about a big old boar trampling them, or eating them? Oh, Grandmother—I can’t begin to guess what unkind things Zeekl was accidentally saying in boar’s speech. And he was saying them improper loud.
So. By the time that vast mama razorback crashed into our circle, there was no skirting around her or turning her back. She was no longer an animal to be scared off or reasoned with. She was an Act of Nature. An Act of Nature that was pointed straight at poor Runner Zeekl.
Mama boars don’t have long tusks like bulls, but they’ll kill you just the same. Trample you. Roll on you. Chew you to death.
You know what? The more I talk about it, the more I think you ought to be scared of boars after all. Forget what I said before. Be scared.
As the razorback charged into our camp, it impressed me how quick Woodsmith Abram moved. For such a hearty side of meat? Goodness, that man could go fast at need. By the time that razorback’s snout glimmered in the camp light, Abram was already on his feet and jumping right between me and her.
That was awful sweet of him, it was for true. Trying to protect me like that? He was a brave man, and a kind one. But out of the three of us, one of us was in terrible danger, and it wasn’t neither me nor Woodsmith Abram.
Runner Zeekl was so very many things. Strong. Loyal. Kind. But there’s one thing he wasn’t, and that was quick. In body, he was a bit slow, sure. But the real problem was in his head. Truly told, he would’ve been dead for some time before it even occurred to him to get out of that razorback’s way.
So I got him out of the way.
Under Abram’s arm, outstretched to protect me, his coarse woolen sleeve whipping my face fast enough to burn my forehead. Across the camp clearing and through the fire, showering sparks and burning tinder all every which way. Then right into big Zeekl.
He didn’t say “Thanks” nor nothing like it. What he said was more like “WHUG!”, then he flew out of the camp circle and into an uncomfortable-looking bush, which was right about the time I felt the razorback’s hooves hit the ground behind me.
I don’t know if your body’s ever done something so fast you couldn’t understand it. Mine has, though. Too often. And I think that was the first time it happened. One moment, I recall reaching back and feeling those bristles pressing into my fingertips awful hard. Next moment, I was up on top, my legs wrapped about her neck quite indecent I’m sure, whooping like a wolf.
Goodness, that was fun.
But still, it’s nothing you should do. Especially you young ones. Because it was only fun for about five heartbeats. Right up ’til she figured out something had gone wrong, and that she wasn’t stomping on a squishy body like she’d planned. Instead, she was roaring out past the other side of the camp circle, out into the brush, with something wrapped real uncomfortable about her neck.
I don’t know ‘bout you, but me? I wouldn’t care for that one whittle. No reasonable boar would neither. And this sow was uncommon reasonable.
So about then she started kicking and bucking to shake me loose, like a little nubbin might do after walking through a spider web. Except this spider wasn’t shaking loose. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be up there, but whatever she did, I stayed on. Couldn’t help myself.
So, as any reasonable boar would, she rolled.
Say now. Who’s the biggest fellow here in Humblewash? Prob’ly a builder, or a mason, or…Ah. Lumberman Mark, a
in’t it? Gracious. You are a bull hog, no mistake. Alright, you can sit down now. Just…real gentle, please. Don’t crush nobody.
Guess your Lumberman Mark is round about the same size as Woodsmith Abram was. So now. Imagine Lumberman Mark here, but maybe three times as big, and mad as wet hornets. Now imagine him falling on you with a mighty and unkind purpose.
Don’t appeal to you, does it? It didn’t appeal to me, though I didn’t guess there was a whole lot I could do about it. But lucky for me, it didn’t appeal to my body, neither, and somehow my body knew what to do. My body let loose of that boar’s neck with my legs, then it grabbed a handful of bristly fur over on the other side of her neck, then it swung me up and around. So when that razorback righted herself a heartbeat later, there I was again, straddling her neck, wrapped tight as tight.
So she did that again.
Then she did it again.
And one more time.
By then she wasn’t so much angry no more as she was panicked, as you would be in her place. I was more than a little panicked myself. And I was in an awful fix.
On the one hand, I had nothing particular against this sow. I mean, except that she was trying to kill us, but that was just common-everyday sense for her, I guess. I didn’t know yet that she had a litter nearby, but a sow boar charging folks at their campfire surely seemed unusual, so it wasn’t a far guess to make. She was just looking after her own, is all. Same as I might do.
On the other hand, we weren’t real far from camp. It was easy to imagine her stumbling back there in her panic and trampling my two companions into bloody muck. Not just companions. I’ll say it, even though Woodsmith Abram was my mentor, and Runner Zeekl my elder: she was real likely to kill my two closest and only friends.
So me? I wanted to look after my own. Same as she did.