Robinson Crusoe 2244

by E. J. Robinson

  She uttered something, which he thought was, “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “But he’s with me.”

  That’s when Robinson noticed a dark patch of skin under the torn fabric of her upper arm. He recognized it immediately.

  “What is this?” he asked, unveiling the inverted V brand. Her hand latched onto his quicker than a snake.

  “Aserra,” she said as if the word contained some great power.

  And then her eyes fluttered as she fell unconscious into his arms.

  She vaulted from her bedroll with uncanny dexterity for someone who had been unconscious for the better part of three days.

  Resi barked and the girl’s eyes snapped from him to Robinson as he boiled river water on the opposite side of the room.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  She stared at him for a full three seconds before lunging for the pipe leading inside to the spigot, her closest weapon. Unfortunately, the moment she put weight on her foot, she went down in a heap.

  “I’m no healer, but your foot doesn’t appear broken, only sprained. I hope you don’t mind the boot. I thought it made a pretty good splint.”

  She stared at the plastic boot on her leg as if it were the most foreign thing in the world. He’d found it in a store after two days of searching. Apparently, the ancients used to wear them when playing games on the snow.

  Resi continued to bark until Robinson called his name and said, “Be still.”

  The bark turned to a growl, but he padded back to his bedding.

  “That’s Resi,” Robinson said. “He won’t hurt you.” But he added under his breath, “Unless you kill me in my sleep and then maybe.”

  Robinson offered her a jar of water and a can of dried pigeon meat. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? It’s not much, but …”

  She looked like a trapped animal, so he set the stuff in front of her.

  “Well, it’s there if you want it.”

  He went back to the food prep area to clean. After a few seconds, she slid over to the water and food and ravenously gulped both down.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of patching you up some.”

  He touched his forehead, gesturing where he had stitched up her largest wound, plus the ones to her shoulder and knee. She felt them and her eyes narrowed again. Then she smelt the wound on her shoulder and scowled.

  “Queye zhi uso?” she asked accusingly.

  “Sorry?”

  “Zhi. Zhi!” She pointed aggressively to her wound. “Queye zhi uso?!” Then she rubbed her fingers together like she was pouring salt on a meal.

  “Oh, you want to know what medicine I used. Hold on.”

  Robinson retrieved his can of herbs, showing her the mixture the Old Man had taught him to use on open wounds. She spat out an angry stream of words.

  “I don’t understand. You’re saying I did something wrong?”

  She rolled her eyes and took a heavy breath before referencing the herbs one at a time. First, she pointed to the yarrow, and mimed the halt of blood from a wound.

  “You’re saying it’s a coagulant,” Robinson said. “To stop blood flow.”

  She pointed to the second, white willow’s bark, and winced.

  “And that one relieves pain. Go on.”

  She pointed to the third, marigold, and then pointed to a scar before “wiping it away.”

  “Does that mean it speeds up healing or prevents scarring?”

  She rolled her eyes, but never clarified. She next pointed to a garlic balm.

  “Garlic. Yeah, I know. Back home we use it as a natural antibiotic too.”

  Her issue was with the next one, a daisy-like plant for which he had no name.

  “It shouldn’t go inside the wound? You’re saying it’s for external use only?”

  She then angrily motioned for him to smell her shoulder. He winced. It smelled rotten. Then she unleashed another slew of curses, pointing to the stitching he’d done.

  “Wait, you don’t like my stitching? All things considered, I thought I did … Oh! You want to know what I used. Hold on.”

  He went to retrieve the needle and thread he’d gotten from the textile shop a few blocks north of the capitol building.

  “It’s thread. Cotton, I think. But I definitely sterilized the needle.”

  She looked at the thread and lit into him again, tossing the entire roll away. She then used the needle to rip the stitches out as if she were pulling a few errant hairs. She didn’t even blanch when the blood ran down her leg. When Robinson winced, she shook her head with contempt. It was a look he was familiar with.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I did the best I could.”

  Afterward, she scrubbed the wounds in water and mixed her own salve. Robinson watched closely until she signaled for a bandage and he tracked down some clean fabric, which she only used after determining it was clean.

  When she was done, she rubbed her eyes wearily. To give himself something to do, Robinson fetched more pigeon.

  “Eryi?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “That’s all I have.”

  She sighed and looked at him and then around the room. She did not seem impressed.

  “Lao hua er furioso?” she asked quietly, but he didn’t understand. “Furioso,” she enunciated slowly before making small X’s across her chest and miming the action of a ship.

  “The savages? They left yesterday. Uh … gone. Do you want to see?”

  She followed him outside. Even through the barricade, she could see the arcade and basin were empty. She tested her leg to see how much weight she could put on it.

  “We’re safe here,” Robinson said. “You can stay, if you want.”

  She scoffed, but there was no anger in it. She had come from a world far more severe than his and had survived, perhaps even flourished. He knew what she saw when she looked at him. To her, he was soft, something less than a man. He was far more likely to hinder her than keep her alive.

  And yet he had done just that.

  “Aserra,” he said. She looked up sharply as he pointed to the brand on her arm. “Is that your people?”

  She nodded curtly. “Observar qian?” she asked, signaling outside.

  Robinson raised a finger. “Once.”

  Her head tilted toward the obelisk. “Nali?”

  He shook his head and pointed toward the city. “Out there.”

  She looked out over the city. “Hezai ja?”

  He shook his head again. He didn’t understand.

  “Gawn?” she asked.

  “Yes. He’s gone. I don’t know where.”

  She nodded one last time and then turned and limped from the room. Only when he was alone did it occur to him that he had never asked her name.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Broken Parts

  If he expected her to take it easy—to rest and recover from her injuries—he was sorely mistaken. The first thing the girl did was head inside and grab an old flagpole that she snapped in half to use as a crutch. She then conveyed that Robinson would take her with him as he gathered food. As it was already midday, he tried to convince her that it wasn’t a good idea. Not in her condition anyway. That elicited a smile.

  In his sixteen years of life, no smile had ever made him feel so small.

  They set out to the northwest with Resi in tow, backtracking along the river and the amended food route that had condensed to a twenty-block radius. At each stop, he showed her where he’d set the traps and how he killed and bagged the animals inside.

  She stayed silent as he retrieved various forms of bait—worms, snails, and nuts—to make his paste. She never interrupted when he showed her how to rig a snare or flush a bird from a bush. Her eyes took everything in. Only when he collected the final carcasses of two dead rats and put them in his bag did she signal for him to stop.

  “Are you tired? Do you need to rest?” he asked.

  She indicated that he should hand her the bag. He did.
She opened it up, looked inside, and then pitched it over a fence. Without warning, she swung the stick at him as furiously as she could. Robinson swore in pain and tried to avoid the strikes, but they seemed to target every place the Old Man used to hit. All the while, the girl cursed him in her own language, punctuating the various blows with a finger to her head as if he were crazy.

  When she finally grew tired of hitting him, she grabbed his ear and dragged him to an open yard where she pulled several squat, maroon roots up by their umbels.

  “Are those carrots?” Robinson asked.

  She dragged him to a bush, collecting a handful of berries that she thrust under his nose.

  “I didn’t think those were edible—”

  Her tirade continued as she pointed to other plants and his traps, and to the blunt punch in his belt and even to the shard of glass he’d used to strip the animals. Just when he thought he was in real danger, she went silent, shook her head, turned, and walked away.

  “W-where are you going?” he yelled.

  She never bothered to reply. Robinson stood there, feeling like a fool with the carrots in his hand, wondering what other types of food had been around him all this time.

  Then Resi groaned.

  “Don’t even.”

  Robinson grabbed any other carrots that were in the vicinity before heading home.

  “Man’s best friend,” he scoffed. “Is that what you call watching my back?”

  Resi barked twice.

  “It’s a little late for apologies. I’m not saying you had to maul her or anything, but maybe just draw a little fire next time?”

  He barked again.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re going to be walking normally tomorrow.”

  When they got back to the memorial, it was empty. Robinson wasn’t concerned. There were still a couple turns of daylight left and really, how far could the girl get on one leg? He stowed his gear, cleaned up, and made another piddling meal for himself and Resi. He laid on his bedroll and pretended to read as the threads of light rose higher on the wall. Only when he was forced to light the candle by his bedside did he consider that she might not be coming back.

  And then he heard the basket chain unfurl outside. He leaped up but stopped halfway across the floor. He didn’t want to appear relieved by her return, so he busied himself with repairs. Resi barked once when she opened the door, but Robinson didn’t even glance in her direction until she dropped a thirty-pound dead sow on the table in front of him. He looked at it, stunned, and then at her. In one hand, she held a rusty old axe and the limb of what looked to be a hickory tree. In the other was a canvas bag full of old clothes and a pair of leather boots.

  Before he could ask her how she’d managed to accomplish so much in under three turns, she pulled out a narrow, black-handled knife and slammed it into the table.

  “Tufu porco,” she ordered before walking off to stow her gear.

  Robinson had never butchered a pig before, but he wasn’t about to argue. He decided to approach it like he had any other kind of meat. He inserted the knife just below the ribcage and pushed deep, but before he could yank it downward, he heard the familiar whistle of her crutch before it struck him across the shoulder blades.

  “Ow!” he cried. “What was that for?”

  “Ow! Ow!” She seemed to take pleasure in mocking him. Then she grabbed the knife, pushed him aside, and carefully cut the pig’s abdomen before pulling out its entrails. When Robinson moved to throw them away, she spun the knife and hit him hard across the knuckles. He nearly screamed but held his tongue.

  “Ow?” she mocked again.

  She fingered the entrails and pointed to her bandages. “Categute.” She followed up by miming the action of drawing a bow and arrow. “Categute.”

  “Seriously? That’s revolting.”

  She stripped the fat away before cleaning out the fecal matter. Then she filled a pan with cold water and set it aside. She pointed to the carcass.

  “Once,” she said.

  Then the knife flew. She cut off the head in two quick strokes, sliced along the backbone, separating the shoulders from the ribs and the ribs from the loins. She wasted no energy while she worked. The meat was cut cleanly. When she was done, she pointed for most to go into the smoker but signaled that Robinson should cook the belly.

  While he prepared dinner, she washed and redressed her wounds. Then she withdrew a natural whetstone to clean and sharpen the blade of her axe. Robinson had no idea where she’d gotten it, but even her circular strokes seemed effortless. After a few minutes, she stopped and glared at him. He quickly went back to work.

  Supper that night was among the finest he’d ever had. Even Resi agreed, since he spent a turn afterward at the girl’s feet. Later, he came back with a raw shank bone to gnaw on until a light rain fell and his eyes grew heavy.

  Robinson laid down on his bedroll and read from a book. Though he didn’t know why, he read aloud. The girl had moved on to sharpening her knife, but her strokes were slow and steady. Even from afar he could tell she was listening, though she didn’t understand the words. He had expected her to call out and silence him, but she didn’t. These were new lands to her, as were his customs, and she greeted them not with a blunt hammer, but with the silence of one searching for a deeper understanding.

  After a quick breakfast of leftover pork and leeks, the girl bid Robinson gather his things and they headed out along the river to the north and west, away from the capitol and deeper inland where the buildings grew smaller and tracts of land blossomed. The morning was cold—winter was just around the corner—but there was still a bounty of vegetation for her to identify and him to collect.

  As they moved farther west, paved roads fell to dirt ones, and then none at all. This was where she flourished. She pointed out the tracks of animals, striking Robinson’s legs with the stick when he didn’t recognize ones she had already named. She showed him the pattern of Resi’s gait and compared it to a group of similar prints, which he inferred was from a pack of wild dogs that were to be given a wide berth.

  In the countryside, the girl singled out hidden rabbit warrens and a giant, shelled creature that floated in the water. It was too far away to catch, but she seemed to suggest it would make a tasty meal. Fallen trees and lodges also boasted beavers and muskrats, though she seemed less eager to hunt for them. And she refused to hunt anything they did not eat.

  Occasionally, they stumbled upon the tracks of renders, but most looked several days old and rarely gave the girl pause.

  As the territory grew more bucolic, the girl’s step seemed less hobbled, as if the land somehow imbued a power that revitalized not only her body but also her spirit. Again and again, Robinson found himself watching her as she moved fluidly across the terrain with an understanding of its dangers and an appreciation of its beauty. Implicit in this was its ability to sustain them so long as they never took it for granted.

  Blood continued to soak the wound at her brow, though her shoulder and knee appeared to be on the mend. Even the boot seemed less cumbersome, yet it frustrated her greatly. The biggest surprise was her face. As the swelling receded, Robinson saw she wasn’t as unattractive as he’d previously believed. In fact, her face was quite comely in its own way. Even her strong nose, which had clearly been broken at some point, gave her appearance a character that belied a deeper femininity. And yet it was the eyes he couldn’t turn away from. They were a vivid green, deep as a forest and yet flecked with chips the color of the sun. Every time a hawk called or a cloud rumbled, she would look into the sky, and he would look into her. But these moments were always met with the inevitable whistle of wood and the familiarity of pain.

  Even then, Robinson thought of Tessa. When the girl’s black tresses blew in the chilled wind, he felt his hands running through his betrayer’s flaxen curls. When in some unintentional moment he brushed against her bronze skin so laden with sweat and scars, he felt only the cool smoothness of perfumed flesh both pale and lumi
nous. One smelled of earth, the other of sky. One broke his body, the other had broken his heart. Both wounds were transformative, leaving something stouter in their place.

  On far away ridges, they saw deer grazing. Once, the girl picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it at a small herd. Even before it hit the ground, they were galloping away. She mimed the use of a bow and arrow when she saw fowl in the sky. Then she would point to the north, inferring they would be gone before the first snow fell.

  When they crested a small hill, the girl immediately ducked down and waved him over. There, on the opposite side, was a score of bovine—large and hardy—chewing grass and cud without care. She spoke excitedly—this was what she had been searching for. Her head spun around and then she pointed to a small farmhouse on a ridge to the south. They backed away and set out for it.

  Robinson wasn’t sure what she had planned at the farmhouse, but it was already past midday. Unless they were going to spend the night there, they had maybe a turn before they had to start back for the city. He also didn’t want to risk losing Resi, who was digging at a rabbit hole on the other side of the field.

  As they crossed the vacant yard, Robinson suddenly felt an ill foreboding. The dilapidated structure looked sturdy enough, but something about its remoteness bothered him. He couldn’t say why. And then a curtain in the upstairs window moved.

  “Did you see that?” he said, halting in his tracks.

  She went still, her eyes scanning every part of the house. But then a gust of wind blew and the curtain swayed again. Her shoulders slackened and she smirked.

  When they reached the porch, the girl tested the boards carefully with the heel of her boot. The wood groaned, but it was in no danger of collapse. Still, she pulled the axe from her bag and used its toe to push the door open.

  The house smelled of must, but not of renders. Most of the windows were unbroken. If they had to stay there, they’d be safe for the night. The girl knew it too. She was already entering the second room when the front door slammed. They turned and saw the man. He was dressed in dirty rags from head to toe and held a rusty, curved blade in his hand. When he opened his mouth, revealing a handful of blackened teeth, it was not to smile but to whistle.