Fire Country

by David Estes

  “Tell me again what you heard Greynote Luger say to Keep,” Circ says.

  “Nothing that made sense at the time,” I say. “Just asked about how the work was going. Keep said the Icies were happy, but that he needed more lifers to do the work ’cause they were dying on him.”

  “And what did Luger say?”

  “He said he’ll see what he can do.” I play with a loose strand of hair. Circ kicks at the sand, digging a hole with his foot. We’re both thinking real hard.

  “So you think the work that Luger was talking about is what the prisoners were doing when they went off in the middle of the night?” Circ asks, jamming his heel into his hole like a pickaxe.

  “It’d hafta be, right? What other work would prisoners be doing? And Raja went with them. He was a lifer, Circ. Stuck in Confinement for the rest of his life, all ’cause someone framed him for murder. Or so he says.”

  “Do you believe him?” Circ looks up from his digging, his eyes big with interest. Beautiful, too, if I’m being honest. So deep and brown and mine to look at all day if I want to. Or at least until he leaves on his mission. “Sie?” I’m staring at him and I look away.

  “Uh, yeah. I believe him.”

  I can tell Circ’s eyes are studying my face and I feel my face go warm. A blush. “Siena?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say, making eye contact and feeling my face go even redder. There’s a look on Circ’s face I never seen before. It’s hard to describe but it’s like fire country after the spring rains. Vibrant, pure, alive. He wants to say something, but his lips are closed. They’re so close to me. I guess they always are when we sit here, but I never really noticed ’fore. Now it feels like they’re right on top of me, like if I just leaned in a couple of inches, turned my head slightly, I could—

  “I’m lucky to have you,” Circ says. “You know, as a friend.”

  I feel a jab to my stomach but no one’s hit me. It’s his words. I’ll take the first part but skip the second if you don’t mind. “I’m the lucky one,” I whisper.

  He leans in, turns his head, his lips closer and closer and closer still, and then brushing past me as he embraces me in a classic Circ hug. Warm and tight. I’m hurting a little inside, but I hug back, ’cause I need it now more’n ever. ’Fore he leaves on his mission. Toward the borders of Killer country.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three days can be a long time. Longer’n a year if you’re missing someone. Longer’n a lifetime if that person is Circ.

  First day, I go to Learning, try to ignore the empty spot next to me, daydream the class away without getting caught. I’m lucky. Coulda been shoveling blaze all alone. When I get home I mope around the hut, pretending like I’m helping my mother, but not really doing anything. She lets me.

  Neither of us says anything about her visit to Confinement. With my father always lurking, we can’t talk openly, even in our own hut. Perhaps that’s why she came to see me when I was locked up.

  When I go to bed that night, I pray to the sun goddess for Circ. I’m hoping to get a warm feeling in my gut, something to tell me he’s okay, but all I get’s a big knot. I fall asleep grabbing at that knot with my hands, trying to squeeze it out.

  The second day the knot’s bigger. Learning again. I try to listen, but my mind refuses to be forced. It dredges up memory after memory of Circ. How every year when the spring rains came we’d sneak out and run, run, run through the wastelands, getting soaked beyond belief. We’re made of water, we’d say. And then we’d laugh and run some more. It never went over very well with our parents, but we took whatever punishment they’d hand out like champs. It was worth it. There are other memories, too, painful ones, like when Skye was taken on the day of her Call, how I cried. It was the first time Circ’d held me. Really held me. Like I was the only one in the world and we could go on like that forever.

  But after all those memories, we’re still just friends.

  ’Cause I’m Scrawny and he…well, he’s Circ. Always Circ.

  After Learning I don’t bother to pretend to help my mother and she don’t try to make me. Without saying a word I know she understands. She lets me mope. She lets me shank the day away.

  Today’s the third day and Circ’s s’posed to come home, although he couldn’t say whether it’d be morning, afternoon, or night. I hope it’s morning so I’m up early even though there’s no Learning today. Everyone else’s already out and about, doing who-knows-what.

  I’m determined to pass the time as quickly as possible, for every second that ticks away is a second closer to Circ returning, safe and where he belongs. I go for a walk, nowhere in particular, just through the village, walking amongst the Greynote huts in my part of the village. The wind is swirling and swirling, working itself up to what’ll probably be yet another winter windstorm. A pair of britches whips past—someone didn’t tie them tight enough to the line. I’m wearing a white dress, the same one I plan to wear for my Call, a symbol of purity. Its skirts are snapping in the gale, making a cracking noise louder’n when Father punishes me. Seems awful silly women and girls still hafta wear long dresses in weather like this. But it’s the Law.

  Most folks have no reason to wander this area of the village, unless you live here or have business with one of the Greynotes, so the pathways are empty. A brambleweed buzzes past, overhead. It’s a heavy one, too, with thick roots. It takes a heavy wind to uproot a weed like that—and keep it in the air for that long. I sniff the air, trying to pick up any trace of a sandstorm. Nothing. Just wind as far as I can tell. But surely the first sandstorm of the season ain’t far off. Tomorrow or the day after, perhaps.

  As I ponder the weather, a familiar voice carries through the thin walls of the Greynote hut I’m passing. “We won’t be able to survive another attack by the newcomers,” the voice says. It’s Luger, his whiny voice unmistakable, even through a wooden wall. Who are they talking about? The Killers? They’re hardly new.

  “We need to find out what our Glassy friends to the south are trying to achieve,” a voice replies, sharp and commanding, like both a crack of thunder and a streak of lightning. My father. By newcomers Luger meant the Glassies.

  Luger responds. “The first team of investigators was certain an attack was imminent, but gave no indication as to the motives.” Another attack by the Glassies? I need to go tell—

  My heart sinks when I remember Circ’s not back yet. When he talked about his mission, he never mentioned there was another team of investigators. Maybe he didn’t know. If they’re back already, surely he’ll be back soon.

  “In the absence of information, we have to assume they have only one goal: to wipe us out and steal our land.” My father’s words hang over my head like a dark cloud, pregnant with rain, unmoving despite the buffeting it’s taking at the hands of the wind. Circ, where are you?

  ~~~

  The first Glassy attack was the scariest day of my life, although I didn’t really see anything. The women, the children, including all Youngling, and those afflicted with the Fire, were told to stay inside the Greynote huts. I remember how angry my father was with Head Greynote Shiva for making the decision to keep male Younglings away from the fighting. He thought all males aged twelve and older should be out there, defending our village. Shiva wanted them behind, as a last line of defense in case it came to that. Circ got to stay behind.

  We huddled together, tighter’n a thousand ants in an anthill. The pre-Totters were crying and carrying on while their mothers shushed and sang to them. Some of the Younglings were bragging about how many Glassies their fathers would kill, like it was a competition or something. I stayed by Circ, always close enough that one part of us or another was touching. Comforting.

  The sounds of battle got really close at one point. Men were yelling and metal was shrieking. The crackle and roar and bitter odor of heavy flames and smoke filled the air. I thought they were burning down our village, that they’d broken through, would soon set fire to our hut.

  Th
ey didn’t, although when one of the Hunters came to tell us it was safe to come out, we emerged to find a quarter of the tents burned to no more’n ash and kindling. Evidently the Glassies never set foot in the village, but did shoot a whole heap of fireballs past the Hunters, lighting quite a few tents on fire.

  But the Hunters held them off.

  And the Glassies haven’t come back since.

  Until now, if Luger is right.

  ~~~

  I’m the first one to know that the Hunters are back from their investigation. Unable to thwart my anticipation any longer, I take to sitting on the outskirts of the village, watching the desert. Just sitting, waiting, hunger growing in my stomach, thirst growing in my throat, ignoring it all. Sitting and waiting.

  They start as dots on the horizon. Could be anything. Killers. Glassies. But I know they’re not. They’re Hunters. There’s a bubble in my gut telling me so. Circ’s back.

  When he gets close enough where I know without a doubt it’s him, I want nothing more’n to rush to him, to throw my arms ’round him, to hold on tight and never let go, but I hold it back, ’cause he looks awful serious with his Hunter friends. Like they’ve got a story to tell and someone they gotta go tell it to. So I just sit there, watching them march past, thinking how strange it is that everyone always hasta act a certain way, for appearances’ sake. Why can’t we just be ourselves?

  But then, at the last second, Circ glances in my direction and winks, flashes a two-dimpled smile that raises my lips and expands in my chest. He’s back, really back.

  I follow them through the village, keeping my distance so as to not make it too obvious. When they get to the same hut I heard my father talking to Luger in earlier, they knock and go in. I’m too scared and nervous and excited to eavesdrop, so I just sit a ways off, picking at the sand and waiting for him to come out. He’ll tell me everything anyway.

  They’re not in there long enough for the sun goddess to move an inch in the sky, but it’s searin’ close to that. I’ve built two big ol’ piles of sand and I’m about to connect the two with a bridge of sorts, when they emerge from the hut. Circ’s out first, and he marches right on over to me and grabs my hand, pulls me up, and starts tugging me away. I look back and see my father standing in the doorway, his arms crossed, just watching. I’ll most certainly catch it from him later, but my Circ’s back, and nothing can stop me from spending some time with him, so I swivel around like I never even saw him giving us the evil eye.

  ~~~

  We both have stories to tell but I let him go first, ’cause he’s practically itching to tell it. He still hasn’t let go of my hand after walking all the way to the Mouth holding it. I don’t mind at all.

  “Sie, we went into Killer territory,” he says, squeezing my hand outta excitement.

  I frown. “I thought you were just going to the border,” I say. My wooloo mind starts conjuring up all sorts of visions of Circ and the Hunters, surrounded by Killers, fighting them off barehanded, bleeding and missing arms and legs. Stop! I shout to myself. You saw as well as I did that none of them looked hurt. Sorry, my mind says. Sometimes I can’t help myself.

  “Me, too,” Circ says. “And that’s what we did at first. Surveyed the border, looked for tracks and evidence that anyone might’ve crossed over from our land to the Killers’.”

  “Did you find anything?” I ask, prying his fingers offa mine. I don’t want to, but his grip is so tight my brittler’n-scrubgrass fingers are starting to ache.

  “Sort of,” he says. “There were human footprints all right, coming right in from Killer territory to Heater land, as if one of our people had gone over there to cause trouble and then come back. But the strange thing was that there were no prints going in the other direction.”

  A dull throb starts in my slinged arm. “It’s been windy. The tracks mighta just been smoothed over,” I say.

  “Maybe,” he says. “And we thought that too, but some of the tracks coming in were deep. They were made with someone wearing something on their feet that none of us had ever seen before. Not moccasins, that’s for sure.”

  “Not Heaters,” I murmur, holding my bad arm gingerly.

  He shakes his head. “Someone else. We didn’t want to waste the mission, come back empty handed, so we went over the border, not to cause trouble with the Killers, but to see if we could find anything to point us to the cause of their invasion. There were all kinds of tracks over there made by someone else, not Heaters. We found a whole pile of tug bones, too, nice and neat and organized. Someone was hunting.”

  “Circ, I gotta tell you something too.” I tell him what I overheard my father and Luger talking about.

  “It makes sense,” he says. “If it was the Glassies riling the Killers up, tricking them into thinking we’d come onto their land, then they’d follow it up with an attack of their own. You know, now that we’re weakened.”

  “What about the Icers?” I ask.

  “I don’t know anything about any of that. We’ll probably never know.” That might be good enough for Circ, but it’s not for me. Call it curiosity or just plain silliness, but if we’re ’bout to be invaded by foreigners, I wanna know the whole picture.

  “I’m going back to Confinement,” I say.

  “What? Why would you do that?” Circ turns to face me.

  “I gotta know what’s going on,” I say.

  “If you sneak up there and try to follow the prisoners to wherever they’re working every night, your father will notice you’re gone. There’s no way you’ll get away with it.” Circ’s right. I can sneak away for one thumb of sun movement, maybe two, but to carry out a plan like this it’ll take more’n five. The snapper’ll be waiting when I come back. If I’m lucky that’s all that’ll be waiting.

  “I’m not sneaking there,” I say, a plan coming together in my mind. “I’m going back in my cage.”

  ~~~

  Circ tries to talk me outta it, but I can be as stubborn as a Totter who won’t eat his evening stew. For some reason I get my head set on doing this thing, and I can’t think about anything else until I do it.

  Before we part ways, he tells me not to do anything stupid until we talk again. I tell him I’ll think about it.

  When I burst through the door I know I’m in for it. I ain’t late for dinner, or shy of my chores, or late on my Learning projects, but something’s astir. My mother won’t look at me, just stares at the pot of stew she’s stirring like it might hold the meaning of life on its bubbling surface.

  My Call-Mother and Call-Siblings turn away from me, huddle together and take turns tying knots in a ball of string.

  Father glares. “Where’ve you been?” he demands, ’fore I have a chance to gather my thoughts or figure out what’s going on.

  “Out,” I say. It’s not a lie, but it’s not what he’s looking for either.

  “Don’t toy with me, Youngling!” he snarls. “I saw you go off with that boy.”

  “His name’s Circ,” I say. “You’ve known him since we was kids.” I’m being bolder and feeling bolder’n ever before. Between me and my mother, we’re probably really getting on his nerves.

  “I know who he is. Playing with him as a Totter and Midder was fine,” he says. What’s he playing at?

  “But now?” I say.

  He strides forward, breathing so heavy I can feel it waft off my face. His breath smells like spicy tug jerky. My stomach rumbles. Shut up! I tell it. This is not the time.

  “Listen to me carefully because I’ll only say this once more. I will not have my Pre-Bearer daughter running around with some Youngling boy like a little shilt.”

  My blood’s boiling, all bubbly and hot, not too different’n my mother’s stew. I’m sweating all over and I know my face is glistening with moisture and heat. No hiding my anger this time. “It’s not like that!” I scream, turning to run back outside, away from this place, from this man, from the creature who refuses to call me by the name he gave me when I was born.

>   He grabs my arm, hard enough to bruise, whips me ’round. My eyes are glued to his white-knuckled grip, seeing as much as feeling the strength in him. He might be older’n durt, but he ain’t caught the Fire yet, ain’t weak in the least. I can’t fight him with my runty body.

  My only chance is to use my mind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My father’s message was as dark and mottled as the purple-black-blue five-fingered bruise he left in the flesh of my arm: I see Circ again and it’s another trip to Confinement for me.

  My plan is on track.

  I lie in bed thinking. If I can get back to Confinement I’ll be able to find out what the scorch is going on. Then maybe me and Circ can come up with a way to stop it. Whatever it is, my father’s got his fist clamped on things tighter’n a butcher about to castrate a dead tug. Circ may not approve of my plan, but he’ll have no choice but to go along with it once it’s in motion.

  When my father’s breathing from behind his curtain grows heavy and deep, I throw back my tugskin covering and tiptoe for the door, sparing only a second or two to slip on my moccasins. I ease the door open a crack, praying for silence, and then slide through. Escape! I think. There’s something satisfying and exciting about sneaking out at night. Maybe it’s ’cause no one’s telling me what to do, or where to go, or what my duty is. Or maybe it’s just ’cause I like being a bit rebellious every now and again.

  Everything’s blacker’n the inside of a tug’s stomach, ’cept for the sky, which is aglow with hovering fireflies—the stars. To scare me when I was a Totter, Skye used to tell me that night came when a gigantic monster stood in front of the sun, blocking its light and casting a mammoth shadow over everything. She made me scared of the dark for years, until I was a Midder. Now I’m glad for the big ol’ monster’s shadow. It hides my movements.