Kyle saw him sitting atop his horse at the edge of the square, looking with a broad smile at the scene before him. Kyle felt a click in his brain, a flow of violence and anger unbidden rushed and pounded at his temples. He struck Gemma with his left hand this time, a little less forcefully, leaving his bloody right hand limp at his side. He heard a gasp from the crowd that had been silent before this. As he looked for the source of the sound, Kyle’s eyes fell upon Zacharias. He had his arm around the shoulders of an old woman standing next to him. He’d never known Zacharias to have a wife. He squinted his eyes to look harder at the pair while everything around him seemed to stop. There was no sound. No color over the earth. He alone stood with the old woman in a sea of gray. She seemed to float nearer to him, and as she did, he saw the years being peeled away from her. Her hair went from white to gray to auburn, the color returned to her cheeks. She stopped midair before him, and he saw bars separating them. Walls closing in. Her strange accented voice was in his ears as he opened the barred door. “Thank you,” she whispered.
This old woman staring in horror at him from across the square was the same woman he had saved from prison so many years ago. This woman had thanked him and made him feel like he was still a human being. This woman, the reason he’d gladly spent a month in solitary confinement, had come back to haunt him and remind him again of the boy he once was.
He looked down in horror at himself and what he had done to his wife on the ground before him. He started to reach for her to help her up, but she winced and moved back as she saw his hand come nearer.
Simeon was at his elbow now, holding the whip just within his line of sight. “What are you doing, boy? Think about the consequences of your actions. Finish it!” His voice was a jagged rock cutting Kyle’s ears.
Sophie moved easily through the still and silent crowd before her. As she came through the circle, she saw Gemma on the ground and went to her without thinking. She took a cloth from her pocket, gently wiping dirt and blood from Gemma’s swollen face.
“No, don’t try to move,” Sophie whispered.
But Gemma stared at her with a pleading in her eyes that Sophie recognized.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sophie entreated.
“Yes, I do,” Gemma coughed out.
“Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
“Then I’ll stand with you.” Sophie gently lifted Gemma to her feet. The two of them stood before an astonished Kyle and Simeon, both men shocked, motionless and silent.
Gemma struggled to reach her hand up to touch Kyle’s face. Her words were barely discernible, and he wasn’t even sure he had heard them. “I know there is good in you. I know you are more the man I’ve lived with all these years than you are like him.” She coughed, struggling for breath. “I know you.”
Kyle’s eyes held his unshed tears and began to reflect the man he’d always wanted to be. The man she had needed him to be.
“Finish it!” Simeon hissed again.
Kyle turned to face him, hands helpless at his sides. “Father . . .” he pleaded.
“I’ve always suspected you were just a coward. And now, to be cowed by a woman.” He almost spit the words in his face. He pushed Kyle easily out of the way as he turned his attention toward Gemma. Simeon struck a precise blow to Gemma’s right temple, nothing haphazard about him, every move calculated. As Gemma was struck, she crumpled in a heap, bringing Sophie to the ground with her.
Movement in the crowd. Mark pushed his way through, still coughing smoke from his lungs. He saw Simeon beating Kyle with the full force of his whip. Gemma and Sophie still lay on the ground before them. Mark was shocked again at the lack of response of the citizens when they saw this kind of violence. His face was streaked with sweat and ash. The crowd moved away from him like leaves before a wind as he came through.
“Simeon!” he shouted, raising his pistol.
“I always knew what the two of you were,” Simeon hissed. “Always knew I’d have this moment of retribution. Now here it is.”
Kyle heard Mark’s voice, and in a second of clarity, he could see what was going to happen. He saw Simeon’s hand moving toward his gun, saw Mark looking at him on the ground. Kyle jumped up more quickly than he should have been able, placing himself directly before Simeon. He saw the pure hatred on his face as a shot pierced the still air. The barrel of the fired weapon burned on his stomach as he fell forward into Simeon.
Looking up into Simeon’s face, the truth fell upon him like dew. “You were never my father,” he gasped out. In the distance from somewhere far away, he heard Mark’s screams.
Just as the gun had fired, the crowd finally broke into a fury of chaos and reckoning. They turned on Simeon, sending him scrambling for his horse. They descended on the Government Office with sticks and anything else they could find. Furniture began flying out of windows, supplies looted. All in a frenzy.
Mark was at Kyle’s side, falling down next to him, trying to lift him to take him to the nearby doctors. But they both knew it was too late.
“Stop. Mark, listen.”
“Why did you do it? Why?”
“You know why,” Kyle coughed out.
“I need to hear you say it.”
“You’ll never believe me.” Kyle was gasping for breath.
“I will.”
“I love you.”
Mark buried his face in Kyle’s chest, screaming into him.
“Take off my coat,” Kyle whispered. “I won’t die a Corsair.”
As gently as he could, Mark removed the blue coat, rolling it into a pillow under Kyle’s head. His white shirt now soaked with blood.
“Go now. Danger.”
“I won’t leave you.”
Sam had heard the gunshot and pushed his way through the crowd of crazed citizens, now venting all of their repressed anger and revenge on the few remaining Corsairs. He saw Mark and Kyle in the middle of the square. Neither seemed to be moving. Only feet away, Zacharias and Jesse were standing over two women also on the ground. Sam ran to them. He couldn’t quite piece together the scene that lay before him or what had happened. Sophie was sitting, holding Gemma’s bruised and beaten body in her arms.
Gemma seemed to be struggling in and out of consciousness. She would turn and reach out for something or someone who wasn’t there. “The river and the rocks. I have to find him. Sam. Where’s Sam?”
“I’m here.” Sam appeared next to her.
“I couldn’t save them. Couldn’t move. The little boy. Daisy. Sam. Couldn’t save them.” She was beginning to thrash with what little energy was left her and tried to get up.
“Gemma,” Sophie whispered.
Gemma looked at her friend, coming back to the present. She knew then that they both truly knew each other and took her hand and held it tight.
Sophie whispered, “Remember what you said in the letter you wrote me? One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. You did it, Gemma. You saved us, and you didn’t yield.”
A peaceful smile passed over Gemma’s face. Sophie pressed her lips to Gemma’s forehead. And she was gone. Sophie now saw her without the mask of code names for everything she had been in her life. Not only had Gemma saved her life, but she had given Sophie her reason for living by giving Sam to her. Everything she had now and loved in her life was because of Gemma. She held her tighter, the blood on Gemma’s face washing off in Sophie’s tears.
Sam still struggled to piece everything together in the chaos around him. He looked at Sophie, not knowing if she were real or an angel until she touched his hand, his wife who was dead, brought back to life. And though he mourned the loss of his childhood friend and sweetheart, he knew he couldn’t have borne the reverse.
He raised Sophie up, taking her in his arms. “I knew you’d still be alive. Some deeper instinct beyond the fear, beyond what my mind told me was true—that deeper instinct led me and told me to tru
st.”
“We lost her, Sam. We lost Gemma.”
“I know.”
“There will be time later for mourning.” Mark had walked up to the saddened group, wiping the tears from his own cheeks. “Right now, we have to move quickly. Simeon will be heading for his bunker to alert more Corsairs. We have to get to him before the fire spreads.”
“Where is it now?”
“They’ve lit up the entire Forbidden Grounds from the fence to the wall. He’ll take the one path left on the other side of the stream, but he will have ordered his men to light it up behind him. We’ve got to go now. There are horses in the barn behind the Government Office. Let’s organize these people and move out.”
Zacharias stepped forward. “I’ll stay behind to try to help fight the fire. People will be trying to escape the Forbidden Grounds. Someone has to cut the fence.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Jesse added.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Sam asked.
“Of course we do. This is your fight now, son. I know you can do it. Live free or die.”
“We love you both.”
Sophie and Sam embraced the elderly couple before following Mark to gather the horses. “Live free or die!” they called over their shoulders.
In one clear patch of sky, the smoke parted, freeing a shaft of sunlight amid the blue.
25
ASHES AND LIGHT
I n what should have been the long, cool twilight, heat rose up all around the diminished remainder of rebels, no more than twenty. In the glow of fire, their shadows pressed together in one long jagged blackness on the ground behind. Horses jostled old and young bones unaccustomed to riding. Mark, Sam, and Sophie were leading the charge. Mr. and Mrs. O’Dell, other friends and neighbors, and Mark’s few remaining soldiers all made their way through the Forbidden Grounds at a breakneck pace.
“We’ve got to get to the tunnel. He’ll be in his bunker. Dead certain,” Mark called out in the roar of the fire.
“We’ll make it,” Sam replied. He tried to sound confident, but he wasn’t at all sure. He was beginning to lose his bearings with the fire closing in around them. He wasn’t even sure they were going the right direction anymore. He had to trust that Mark knew the way better than he did.
There were no more trees or broken cities around them in the Forbidden Grounds, only kindling for the fire. Every living thing had taken flight in the opposite direction of the mob of rebels, and they were left to battle the fire and the ride alone. Branches descended in a rain of sparks. The horses reared and froze in their tracks.
“We can’t stay here, and we can’t go back!” yelled Sophie.
“We have to keep heading for the wall.” Sam’s voice was almost lost in the inferno.
Mark took charge. “Cover the horses’ eyes with anything you’ve got. We keep going. The stream’s just ahead. We’ll ride in it ’til we reach the tunnel. Let’s move!”
* * * * *
The regiment of Corsairs known as the Fire Brigade spread themselves out along the Border fence. “Our orders from General Drape are clear, gentleman,” the colonel shouted above the roar of the approaching flames. “Burn them all and shoot the survivors. Anyone nearing this fence will be shot on sight. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” his men robotically responded.
“Stay the course!”
“Stay the course!” came the automatic reply.
* * * * *
The cabin was the nearest dwelling to the Border fence. Zacharias and Jesse took horses to get there quickly for Ethan and the twins. Ethan had Petal and Hughie packed with what food and few belongings they could carry, with canteens of water for whatever journey lay ahead. He had trusted that someone would come for them, and they had.
Jesse and Zacharias went through the cabin, gathering their own supplies and meager tools to cut the fence.
“Ethan, there’s a horse for you, son. Put your things in the saddlebags. The twins will ride behind Zack and me. Hop, now,” Jesse kindly commanded.
Ethan quickly did as he was told, not stopping to ask where Sam and Sophie were. He had learned through hardships how to trust his new parents. They would come for him when they could.
“One last look around, then we can go,” Zacharias said, walking toward the kitchen.
Jesse held his hand for a moment, bringing peace into the tumultuous situation. She gently placed her fingers in the lines on his forehead. “Pain wrote those across your face.”
“You have a story of pain on yours as well. You should go with the children before the fire spreads. Head for the Southern Border where the fire isn’t as strong. It won’t be safe. I’ll come to you when I’ve gotten everyone through.”
“I’m not leaving you ever again.” The tears ran in the rivulets of time on her face. “This time, we’re walking out of this cabin together.”
Jesse took her husband in her arms and began to sing quietly in his ear. “Keep smiling through the day, keep smiling through the night. The shadows fly away when they can see your light.”
Zack had missed this about his Jesse, and he wished he had time to continue to be reminded of their love day by day.
She went right on singing her tune of comfort. “If I can keep you with me in day and nighttime too, I know the dark won’t find me because my light is you.”
With the end of the song, she kissed his cheek and said, “Come on, love. We can do this. Let’s go.” Jesse took his hand as they walked through the door of the cabin together.
* * * * *
The small band of children and old rode along the fence cutting holes in the Border, helping people through as they could. Many had already suffered at the hands of the Corsairs and the fire, caught in the barbed wire, hanging like scarecrows. And still the group rode on, pushing horrific images behind them. As they rode farther south, Jesse and Zacharias watched in horror as the fire jumped the fence and began to consume the encroaching trees ahead and around them.
Zacharias stood at the fence, cutting barbed wire as fast as his old hands would allow him, stragglers from the Forbidden Grounds wriggling through like wild animals escaping the fire.
From her place next to Zacharias, Jesse looked up into the frightened face of the boy on the horse. “Ethan, you know the way to the beach, son?”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly.
“Take Petal and Hughie and head for one of the caves. We’ll find you there.”
“But Jesse . . .”
“Go on now, son. I haven’t broken a promise to you yet, have I?”
“No.”
“Alright, then. Remember what I told you. Your mother was proud of you, and so am I. I’ll see you soon, my boy.” She could see the fire shining in the tears in his eyes.
Zacharias called to her from the fence, “Jesse, take the children and ride for the coast. You’ll be safe on the beach. Go now!”
She stood next to him, placing her hands on each side of his dirtied face. “I told you, I’m not leaving.” The tears ran in streaks with the sweat on their faces. As they watched the children ride away, the trailing smoke and flames leapt behind them.
“There’s a road out there that will lead us all back,” Jesse said through the smoke.
* * * * *
“We’ll have to leave the horses here,” Mark called from the edge of the tunnel. He was amazed they had made it this far.
Cut into a concrete wall more than fifty feet high, a dark hole emerged, blocked with iron gates. The gray of the wall blended with the smoke, so the group hadn’t seen it until they almost ran into it. There were no other openings, ladders, or any means of penetrating the wall as far as the eyes could see in either direction.
“How do we get through?” Sam asked.
“I have a passkey, if they haven’t deactivated it. Now listen, I’ve sent a distress signal through their communication system on the other side of the wall.”
“How?” Sophie asked.
“It would take too l
ong to explain. It’s called the Internet, and the message is going out to every citizen’s personal device via an emergency system. Maybe someone will come help, but we can’t be sure. We may be on our own. You two take the citizens with you to get to Simeon’s bunker. Follow the tunnel until it comes to a T. Turn right down that tunnel and go about fifty yards. There will be a bunker on your left. Take my passkey. Simeon will most likely be there if he’s anywhere.”
Sam didn’t like the idea of walking into the lion’s den alone. “Where will you be?”
“I’m going to stop more Corsairs from getting through. I’ll take my men with me. We’ll meet you in the bunker.”
Sam fought the urge to think of this as a trap, reminding himself of all that Mark had done for them up to this point at his own peril.
“Alright, we’ll meet you there.”
Mark held a small rectangular card up to a black box on the side of the tunnel. They heard a beep, then a cranking of gears, pulling the gates up. The group of citizens tried not to stand too long in amazement at what they’d just seen. Something told them there were many wonders awaiting them on the other side of this wall.
Entering the darkened tunnel, the shadows of the closing gate cut diamonds into the light on the wall. Mark handed Sam a short circular gray tube.
“What’s this?”
“A flashlight. It’ll be dark down there. Here, hit this button to turn it on.” As Mark touched the button, a bright beam shone from the tube, surprising Sam again.
Mark took his men in first. As they came to the T in tunnel, their group went left while Sam’s group went right.
As they made their way carefully through the darkened tunnel, Sophie winced and stopped walking.
“You alright?” Sam grabbed her arm, and Mrs. O’Dell came to her other side.
“What is it, dearie?”
“Nothing, I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”
“Sophie, is it the baby?” Sam’s concerned furrowed his brow.
“You know?”
A Light From the Ashes Page 47