by Chad Leito
“What are those guys doing out there?” Saul asked. He pointed out into the field beyond the fences of the farm. In the distance I could see people moving on horseback, but I couldn’t make out any detail. I opened up the satchel, took out the binoculars that I had taken the night before, and magnified the field in front of me. The binoculars allowed me to see remarkably far. Out in the fields, walking with the grass up to their knees, were horses with men in cowboy hats riding on top. They had found out what happened and they were looking for me. I only hoped that Lauren and Julia were okay.
“How did you get those?” Saul asked, admiring the binoculars.
“They were at Glen’s house.”
“How did you get them without him catching you?”
I looked over Saul. His vacant eyes stared at me underneath his dirty tangles of brown hair. I thought about the time that Saul had heard that our father had died and how he flopped around crying and wailing uncontrolled. I wondered if he would react the same way if I told him what I had done. A family member of his hadn’t died, but still, what had happened was awful. He was my partner, though, and there could be an advantage in telling him. He had been so good to me so far and he did well when I told him that I wanted to leave. Maybe he was maturing.
I told Saul the story of what had happened the night before. I talked in a slow fashion, testing him with my words before moving on. He remained quiet while I explained and when I got to the part about killing Glen he shut his eyes. He remained calm and when I was done he asked, “why didn’t you tell me this before we left?”
I felt guilty. He was right. I was giving him all of the responsibilities of an equal but the information of an inferior. “I don’t know,” I said. “I think that I was just scared that you would freak out.”
Saul remained quiet for a while as his slow brain digested the new information. The wind rustled the leaves. “So what’s the plan?”
“The plan is to get to town. If we can get there then we can tell the President what is going on and he can put a stop to the bad parts about the farm. No more beating. No more keeping people more than seven years. No more working all day every day.”
“Do you really think that the president would do that?” Saul asked.
“He seems like a good guy. Remember when he made Di and Hank remove the handcuffs?”
“Yeah.”
“I think that if he knew what was going on here that he would do the same on a bigger scale; make the guards remove the cuffs.”
“Do you think that you will get into trouble?” Saul paused, thinking of a nice way to say it, “for last night?”
“I was defending myself. He was coming after me. So, no.”
“Do you think that Di and Hank and them will be but into the Theatre?”
“I don’t know.”
Saul took the binoculars and looked out over the fields. “How are we going to get passed them, Walt?”
“How tall does the grass look to you? It looks like it’s grown since we’ve been on the farm.”
“Probably about two feet,” said Saul. “Why?”
I took the binoculars from Saul and looked over the plains. The wind blew and the grass rose and fell like the ocean. It was at least two feet tall, maybe even taller. “I say that we wait until night time and try to crawl passed them.”
And that was our plan. Saul and I hung around in the tree all day, eating fruit, taking naps, and telling stories until night fall. The fruit was delicious and each was as good as the last. When the sun went down and the sky grew dark a new shift of Salyer guards went on watch for the escapees outside of the farm. Their horses tramped over the ground and the guards were all carrying lanterns. I counted eight of them. From the tree branch they looked like floating balls of fire in the night. Saul and I gathered up our things, put a few pieces of fruit into the satchel for later, and made our way down the tree. We had been sitting down all day so when we got to the ground we stretched out our bodies.
The night was quiet. In front of us was a sea of grass with what appeared to be flames floating in the night air. Behind us, the trees grew thick and vegetation curled and fought in tangles over the forest floor. It grew darker the deeper it went.
Saul put the satchel around his neck, we walked to where the grass began, and were off. We got onto our hands and knees and began to move forward. Bugs and insects moved in the dirt and over my hands as I crawled. Sweat began to gather on my forehead and dampen the tips of my hair. We crawled onward in the direction that we thought the town was in and whenever a Salyer with a lantern got close we ducked down into the grass and waited. The clouds were thick that night and except for a small radius around the guard’s lanterns there wasn’t much visibility.
The guards were spread out far, some were alone by a mile or more, and so they were easy to dodge. They had miles of ground to watch and they kept on going into the forest to look for us. I was thankful that we hadn’t chosen that as our route. It was so heavily monitored that we would have been caught for sure. We moved through the grass and the hours went by. My shoulders ached and Saul was breathing heavily behind me. The grass was yellow and dry and my hands itched. The glowing balls of fire drifted around in the blackness.
Saul crawled up beside me and I latched onto his arm. “Shh,” I said, and I pointed to the closest lantern. It was still about a hundred yards off, but still, by far, it was too close for me to be comfortable. We laid down flat on the ground and the grass rose up around us, concealing us. I was sure that we couldn’t be spotted from the distance, but the lantern moved in our direction. I thought about what must have happened. They discovered Glen, dead on the floor, and then heard banging from the cellar. Lauren probably told them everything, like I asked her too. I could imagine the guards hearing about that, getting angry. Di swearing to kill me and taking up the gun. Maybe I should have brought it. The lantern was coming closer. 100 yards, 80 yards, 50 yards, 25 yards. I was not even breathing whenever it got that close. I lay flat on my belly and strained my neck up to see the man on the horse, but at that distance and through the grass I could not determine who it was. Saul’s face was plunged into the dirt; he couldn’t watch.
The horse continued to walk until it was ten yards away. I thought about what I would do if they spotted us. I couldn’t run, surely they would catch us on horseback. And we couldn’t fight. They had greater numbers, were stronger than us, and I was certain that they would be carrying weapons.
The horse came closer and the light of the lantern changed the shadows around us. My heart was thumping against the earth. I could see through the grass where the horse’s hair met hooves and then I looked up, and to my horror, I caught eyes with a Salyer guard. It was Hank. We stared at each other for what felt like minutes, and then he looked above me, then to the left of me. He turned his horse around and went the other way.
Was he going to get others? Had he not seen me? Had he seen me but didn’t want to catch me? I didn’t know. When he was far away I shook Saul’s shoulder. He looked up and in the dark I could see that his face was covered in dirt with clean lines running down from his eyes where he had been crying. “Is he gone?” Saul whispered.
I nodded and we continued to crawl. We didn’t have another encounter that night and by the time we stopped the sun was about to come up. We had put miles of tall grass between us and the farm. The guards were behind us then, but we still didn’t want to risk being out when the sunlight came, illuminating every corner and sharp edge of the earth with bright light. We climbed up a tall tree, ate the fruits that I had packed, shared the second canteen of water and went to sleep.
It was hot the next morning as well, and I periodically stirred on the tree branch that I slept on. I was sweating through my shirt and it was well over 100 degrees by midday. As time went on, though, fatigue won out over discomfort and I was able to sleep through most of the day.
Saul and I got up around evening time when the sun was just about to go down. Saul’s face was red and he
scowled and said that his head hurt. We shared the final canteen together, Saul drinking most of it, and we split a can of corn that I had taken from Glen’s. After we ate and hydrated ourselves, Saul began to feel better and smile more. I was worried though. That was our last canteen and we would have to make it all the way to town that night if we wanted anymore water.
I glassed the plains in the falling light with my binoculars and found no Salyers in visible distance in front of us or behind us. “Can you see anybody out there, Saul?”
I handed him the binoculars and after scanning the plains he told me that he didn’t.
“I guess that we can just walk, then,” I said.
Saul felt uneasy about the idea. “Just out in the open?”
“Well, if there’s no one out there then I don’t see why not. And if they are carrying lanterns like they did last night then we’ll see them before they see us. If they’re coming we’ll just duck into the tall grass.”
“I guess that’s true. Can we at least wait until it’s dark?”
That seemed fair. I consented and we waited. We sat on a tree branch, high above the ground on Mungus, and watched as the planet rotated and until closest star was no longer visible from where we sat. Saul talked about how far Babe Ruth could hit a baseball, pointing to distant trees and guessing that that was the distance from home plate to the bleachers behind the 408 sign in center field of Yankee Stadium. I nodded and seemed as interested as possible but I was distracted by the sunset. The yellows and greens and purples fought hard to color the sky, but eventually the darkness won over and it was black. It was beautiful and something that I had never noticed before. When the last light had vanished below the horizon and the night animals began to make noises behind us we moved.
Saul carried the satchel around him as we climbed down. We talked for the first few hours about different things-the farm, baseball, our parents-but as we continued to move and sweat we grew quiet. We had no water and walking is laborious work when you’re thirsty. Still, we kept a good pace, pushed onward by fear of being out in the open and we moved much faster than we had while following Di.
The plains that we had lived on during the last few weeks went behind us and the land became more wooded, more forest like. We followed the paths by moonlight. Despite Saul’s poor overall mental capacities, he was incredible with directions. At first I argued with him when he pointed a direction and told me where to go, but after I was correct a few times, I listened to him.
Soon, the forest opened up and we were looking at the town. Clay buildings stood up out of the ground and city lanterns burned low atop posts. I couldn’t believe the time that we had made. I was expecting to arrive at the city when the sun was high the next day. Saul didn’t look as surprised as I was when we got there. With his keen directional skills, he was probably anticipating us arriving at the town just when we did.
“Do we go and find the president now?” Saul said.
I looked up and saw the moon which was cut out by the earth’s shadow to make a bold C sitting high in the sky. “He’s probably not awake.” Saul’s face looked numb and tired. “Why don’t we try to find some water first?”
Saul lit up at this idea and agreed. We walked through the town finding that most shutters were closed and curtains were drawn for the night. The more I hoped that we could find water the stronger my thirst became. Finally, we came upon an old wooden bar sitting on the Southern side of town.
Lanterns flickered outside the building, illuminating a sign that simply read, “BAR,” on the top. We turned the doorknob and entered. It was a small wooden room. Tables with profanities carved into the tops were scattered around. On the back wall were shelves of liquor bottles and in front of that was a Beardsley woman wiping down the wooden serving counter with a white towel. She squeezed the trigger on her spray bottle and then wiped up the cleaner. She was not pretty. Her forehead protruded much too far above her eyes, making them dark. Where her shirt was rolled up I could see thick curls of black hair spilling off of her forearms. She looked up at us once and kept scrubbing. Then she took a second glance and froze as if we were about to rob the bar.
I held up my palms to her as if to say ‘I mean no harm,’ and smiled at her.
She smiled back, and to my surprise, her teeth were pure white and utterly straight. “Hi! What can I get for you guys?”
“Water,” Saul croaked.
She went over to the faucet and filled two glasses with murky water. Saul reached into the satchel and brought out the canteens. “Can you fill these up too?” he said.
She took them and began to pump water into them while we sipped on our glasses. “Been traveling?” she asked.
I took one more gulp of my water and then looked at her. Something in me didn’t like the way that she had asked the question. Saul didn’t seem to register what I had and he laughed, “Oh, yeah! A long ways too, lady!”
Saul’s way of talking made the woman and I both laugh, but I was still uneasy. She pumped at the metal faucet and said with her back to us, “as soon as I’m finished with this, you two should leave town.”
“Oh, no,” said Saul. “We can’t do that. We’ve come to see the president.”
The woman finished pumping out our waters, and set them down on the counter before us. She studied our faces. “You should leave soon. Maybe if you do, I won’t remember you were here.” She bent down and pulled out a drawer below and slapped a piece of paper onto the counter. “You two haven’t happened to see these guys have you?” It was a wanted poster, and to my horror, they were looking for us. Two very accurate sketches of us rested in between the word WANTED!!! and the amount of reward. It read, “TWO BOYS WANTED FOR THE MURDER OF THEIR MASTER. TO BE BROUGHT TO THE THEATRE.”
I read it over then looked up at the woman, “but there hasn’t even been a trial. How can they do that?”
“They don’t need a trial, hon. Now go.”
Saul and I both said thank you with pale faces and then we were out the front door. Once we were out on the streets we noticed something that we hadn’t before; wanted posters for us littered the walls of stores, government buildings, even homes. We walked quickly, keeping our ears peeled and looking around for any early risers. We encountered no one on our way out and went deep into the woods.
We walked far between the trees, not daring to say a word. It was dark in the mix of forest, and my ears heard things that weren’t there. A snap of a twig echoed out behind me and I gasped. I heard the leaves rustle to my left and I jumped. Something moving ahead of us made me freeze. It wasn’t until we were deep into the forest and up a tree that I thought for the first time that I didn’t even know the name of the woman who had saved my life.
We were high up in a tree, safe from the wanted posters and Salyer guards. Saul broke the silence. “What do we do now, Walt?” he asked.
I sat for a long time before I answered. I considered everything that I could think of and then I considered it all again. I had to be the strong one. I was the smart one. The dying eyes of my mother came into my mind, begging me to protect Saul. I searched my brain for an answer and none came. After some time, Saul asked again, “what do we do now, Walt?” as if I hadn’t heard him.
In response to his question, I was honest. “I don’t know,” I said. The words came out of my mouth and startled me. They sounded like the words of a scared little boy, not a leader. That’s what I was-a scared little boy. I was a scared runaway without a way to protect himself and with no one to protect him. And I had Saul to look after.
We opened up another can of corn and ate it cold that night. We didn’t talk much. We were both in low spirits. The wind picked up until it was screaming through the trees and we each sipped on a canteen of water. The temperature dropped and I heard a pit patter on the top canopy of the trees. Then, the rain began to pick up and the water fell through. It fell in sheets; uncontrollable, unchecked. Lightning flashed and thunder roared. Sitting on that tree, listening to the weather, I
felt small. I didn’t get to sleep until late in the morning.
11
Trapped
I couldn’t believe how quickly our supplies were gone. We tried to eat and drink sparingly, but hadn’t done a good enough job. The raw chicken went bad in the satchel and we had to throw it away. Over the course of four hungry and thirsty days we ate our two cans of food, one of green beans one of peaches, and we also drank our canisters dry of water. Even though we were thirsty, nature showed no mercy. The cicadas buzzed and the sun beat down hazy waves of heat over the earth. Saul and I didn’t drift far from town on those first few days. We were leashed towards civilization by a fear of walking deep into the woods and never seeing another person again. We found, however, that our concern took a backseat whenever our dehydrated bodies begged us for water and our canisters were empty and the cloudless sky showed no promise of rain.
We wandered through the forest without aim, the blood beating hard in our aching heads. We went between tree trunks and over dry riverbeds, never finding water and being drained of our sweat by the heat, and being drained of our blood by the mosquitoes. We were delirious and often bickered.
“You said to go left, Saul! I did and look where we are; right back where we started!”
“I didn’t want to even leave the farm. I was doing fine there! I liked it! You’re an idiot, Walt!”
But in the end, after we threw our temper tantrums, we always apologized and the other person always accepted. It’s hard to hold a grudge when it’s that hot.
The first night without water was awful. We slept on the ground and I woke up all throughout the night. I would dream of cool waters or being back up on the ship, only to open my eyes and remember that my mouth was as dry as a salt bed and that my brother and I were wanted men.