by Anna Carey
Page 24
I knew, perhaps with more certainty than I knew anything else, that this was a good man.
“Good night, Eve,” he said. He lowered his eyes, almost bashfully, and then disappeared into the dark.
Chapter Seventeen
“I BET AARON SWIMS THE FASTEST,” BENNY SAID, SQUEEZING my hand. “He’s like a fish. ”
We stood together on a landing just north of the dugout, our eyes scanning the lake for any signs of the new Hunters. Arden’s fever had broken and the color in her cheeks had returned. Her legs were still weak but she’d insisted on joining and I was glad to have her there, by my side.
Arden squirmed free of Silas’s tiny hand. “Your skin is sweaty,” she told him, wiping her palm on her frayed denim shorts. “It’s like holding a slug. ” She wiped it again and again, her pale nose scrunched in disgust. “What?” she asked me. “What’s so funny?”
“You really are feeling better. ” I laughed. She had been out of bed for less than an hour and her patience was already ground down to nothing. I took that as a good sign.
All day, while I was inside teaching the remaining boys, Caleb and Leif had searched the woods for troops. When the area was declared safe they rode the new Hunters to the other side of the lake, where they began their arduous trek. The new Hunters were to run ten miles around the rocky shore, plummeting finally into the cool depths of the water. Now, at any moment, they would swim around the tree line and run up the beach to where four spears waited for them, their stone blades bone-white in the last of the day’s sun.
I watched that spot onshore where the trees leaned over the water, the spot where Caleb had taught me to swim. Last night, I dreamed that we were in the lake again, the water holding us, his hands in mine. All day, as I walked Arden around the dugout or corrected the words Benny spelled in the mud, he filled my thoughts. His smile, his fingers touching the small of my back, the smell of his skin on my sweatshirt . . .
Kyler, a tall boy with orange curls, ran toward the cliff’s edge. “There they are! I see them!” he cried. He was holding cracked binoculars, and Benny and Silas jumped up, trying to grab them, desperate to look. There, where the water kissed the sky, was a moving speck.
Soon after, the boys came into sight beyond the trees, their bodies heaving in and out of the water like great leaping fish. Michael was out front, his Afro visible even from the rocky landing.
“They’re superfast!” Silas said. His face paint had smeared, leaving golden streaks on his hands. “Look at Aaron go!”
“Go, go, go!” Benny cheered. The crowd behind us sprinted to the cliff, bathed in the pink glow of the setting sun. A few of the twelve-year-old boys banged sticks together in unison, making a whack! whack! whack! sound that grew louder and louder.
As the boys neared the shore, a beaten-up canoe rounded the trees behind them, with Leif and Caleb each paddling on one side. The oldest boys of the camp followed in four more boats. Their faces were painted black, with lines across their cheeks and down the bridge of their noses. Seeing Caleb, his arms straining against the current, my body swelled with a passing joy.
Of all the things Teacher Agnes had misinterpreted, I only recognized one thing as being wrong at the time. Happiness is the anticipation of future happiness, she’d explained, as she held a copy of Great Expectations in her hands. I remembered then the day Ruby had found a kitten in the bushes, how we took turns rubbing the soft fur of its belly or letting it curl up in our laps. I remembered how we’d stacked our mattresses after Headmistress had gone to sleep, the tower high above Pip’s bed. I knew that feeling of jumping, the give of the springs under my feet, the way my body tumbled off, loose with laughter. No, I thought then, and now, watching as Caleb glanced up at me and smiled that kind, brilliant smile. Happiness is a moment.
Aaron hit the shallows of the lake, running with the water splashing around his knees. Michael followed, then Charlie, and finally Kevin. Kevin squinted into the sun, his steps tentative without his glasses. They darted over some bleached tree limbs to where four spears were standing, their ends plunged into the sand.
“Look at them go!” Silas cried, gripping his tutu.
Michael reached his spear first, launching it into the air. One by one the spears all flew and the new Hunters doubled over from exhaustion. Silas and Benny ran from our sides and followed the younger boys down through the trail ledge, where they greeted Aaron, Kevin, Michael, and Charlie.
Leif and Caleb’s canoe landed onshore, its bottom scraping against the rocks. They made their way through the crowd, past the excited boys, to where the new Hunters were. Caleb caught my eye, offering me the slightest smile. Hi, I mouthed.
“Your ears are turning red. ” Arden nudged me in the side. “Get it together, Eve. ” I reached for my hair, pulling the dark brown strands around the sides of my face.
Leif summoned the four new Hunters forward to stand in front of him in a line. His shoulders were the color of bricks from being outside, on the water, rowing for so long.
“Today you’ve proved yourselves as men, and tomorrow you’ll be ready to go out on your own to hunt. Much is expected from you. These boys”—Leif gestured to younger ones around us, to Benny, whose nose was now running—“need protection, leaders to ensure they are safe here, away from the labor camps. These woods are your home now, these boys are your family. We are brothers. ” At these words, the boys rested their fingers against the circular crests tattooed on their shoulders.
Caleb pulled a piece of coal from his shorts pocket. “It is time for you to swear allegiance to the Trail. Do you promise to use your skills for the good of the orphans, both free and enslaved?”
The boys all nodded. “I do,” they said in unison.
Caleb stepped forward, running his thumb across Michael’s forehead and down the bridge of his nose. Caleb kept moving down the row, adding the marks to Charlie’s face, then Aaron’s, then Kevin’s.
“You are Hunters now. You are men!” Leif boomed. He raised his arms in the air, fists balled, the muscles straining against the skin. He looked like those statues I’d seen in my art books, the ones by Michelangelo, chiseled from stone.
Silas was the first to break from the pack. He ran for Kevin and grabbed his side, nearly tackling him in a hug. The other boys darted forward, hooting and cheering, clapping the new Hunters on the back. Michael lifted Benny onto his shoulders as Aaron thanked Leif and Caleb again, his hand squeezing theirs tight.
When the excited yelps subsided, the new Hunters congregated around a few tree stumps, where heaping plates of boar meat, jugs of water, and bowls of colorful berries sat. The boys waited, their voices quieting, until Caleb spoke.
“Before we eat, we must give thanks. First that the new Hunters made it through their trials and continue to be strong protectors of the other boys. Understanding that every meal is a collaboration of souls, we thank the earth that gave us these berries; Michael, who picked them by hand; the roasted boar who surrendered his life so we may be nourished by its meat. We thank those who prepared this dinner for us with care. ” Caleb raised a jug in the air, his eyes meeting mine. “And we must thank our two friends who have joined us, in particular your new teacher, who has shown great thought and nurturing in each new lesson. ”