by Neal Barrett
It took nearly an hour to make the thirty yards to the river. When his feet touched wetness behind him he wanted to drop his burden right there and let the feeling come back to his arms and legs. Instead, he pulled Jacob into the water and across to the other side. Then laid him behind high weeds while he went back for the weapons.
There was a clump of scrub oak masking the shore and a sand wash behind that. He stripped Jacob, leaned him against a tree, and wired him securely to the trunk, pulling his feet straight before him and wiring them as well. Then he stuffed the man’s socks in his mouth and used his shirt to make a tight gag knotted behind his neck.
He worried about the time. It was a lot lighter now than it ought to be. And soldiers got up early—near as early as ranchers, he figured. He glanced impatiently at Jacob and moved his face up close to the man’s nose. He was breathing, all right, but he didn’t show any signs of waking. Suppose he didn’t come to for hours? Then what? Howie shook the thought aside. That wouldn’t do at all. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
He searched through his bundle, found the clay jug, and emptied it over Jacob. He crawled down to the river and filled the jug again. The water was colder. This time Jacob’s mouth twitched irritably and his eyes opened to tiny slits. They looked steadily at Howie; then went wide with understanding. He jerked frantically against his bonds, moaning behind his gag.
Howie ignored him. He straddled Jacob’s legs, drew the bone knife from his belt, and started working on the Colonel’s bare chest. He went slowly and carefully, making the letters neat like his mother had taught him. It was hard to see in the dim light and he had to keep wiping the blood away to tell what he was doing. Jacob’s eyes bulged and sweat beaded his face and Howie could hear the noises he was making but nothing much came through the gag.
When he was through he went to work on the eyes, being careful to do just what needed to be done. He didn’t want Jacob to pass out and miss anything, or lose more blood than he had to. He was still conscious, Howie knew, but near out of his head and that was okay. That was the way it was supposed to be.
When he was finished he looked at Jacob and touched the blade lightly against the man’s thighs. Jacob jerked uncontrollably, nearly pulling his arms out of the sockets. He knew pretty well what was coming. Howie did the best he could, but the fear and the pain were more than Jacob could handle. He quickly dropped into unconsciousness. That was all right too, Howie decided. He’d wake up and have plenty of time to think about what had happened to him.
Across the river and below the camp he found where they’d left the horses. There was no guard; he guessed that was part of what the man he’d killed was supposed to do.
He’d thought about the horses. He no longer feared them much, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle one right. Maybe horses knew whether you could ride or not. Maybe they wouldn’t do anything unless you did what you were supposed to. Anyway, it didn’t make much difference now. He had to try. They’d come after him for certain and he wouldn’t have a chance on foot. He’d either make-it on a horse or not at all. There wasn’t time to think about learning how to ride with the sky getting light enough to read by.
The horses were tied to a long rope stretched between two trees. Howie loosened one of the shorter ropes that went over the creature’s head and led it away from the others. The horse skittered about nervously and the others answered. Howie knew he had minutes. He strapped his bundle to his shoulders and threw himself over the broad back and hung on. He hadn’t even considered trying to use one of the saddles he knew horses wore. There wasn’t time and he wouldn’t have known what to do with one anyway.
He held on, urging the mount toward the river. When he was across he let the animal do what it wanted to do, which was trot through the trees at a bone-jarring pace until it reached the broad meadow beyond. There it stopped and, to Howie’s horror, began methodically chewing grass. He beat at the animal frantically, kicking his legs against its broad sides. He remembered the reins, then, and how he’d seen the soldiers use them to pull and jerk the mounts one way or the other. The reins and the kicking—used together—seemed to work. And when he could see open ground again he closed his eyes and pushed the animal until he could hear wind whistling by over the low, green hills.
By mid-afternoon he was far to the north, in the midst of deep woods ringed by high, rugged cliffs. He had no idea where he might be, only that he was far from the camp by the river. If the soldiers were after him he didn’t know it and, at the moment, didn’t much care.
He tied the horse to a tree and stumbled through low brush until his legs gave way and he went shakily to his knees. There was nothing in his stomach, but he vomited bile until his belly felt full of glass.
The tears came, then. And he remembered Papa and his mother and what they’d looked like at the house. He remembered killing the soldier. He tried to throw up again, but there was nothing there. He wished he could crawl away from his own smell only his body wasn’t working right.
Howie closed his eyes hard, trying to think of nothing. But his mother was still there. And Papa. Looking surprised at dying. He saw Colonel Jacob and what he’d done to him on the river bank. The hollow eyes and the terrible empty place between his legs. And the bone-deep letters on his chest that would last as long as Jacob and wouldn’t ever go away:
He knew he couldn’t stay there; he had to get back on the horse. And he remembered a whole day had gone by and it was April, now, and tomorrow he’d be sixteen.
Chapter Ten
He halted the mount in a stand of cedars and climbed the few yards to the top of the ridge. He’d been in shadow most of the morning, so he waited to let his eyes get used to brightness and far places.
A raw wind cut steadily across the high crest, the chill going straight to the bone. For a long time, he huddled in the lee of the big stone that capped the far edge of the rim. The thin jacket was nearly useless, but he pulled it tight around him.
It was a good spot, he figured, if you didn’t freeze to death. From here you could see nearly every approach to the ridge and all the valley beyond for several miles. If the soldiers were still following, they were being mighty slow about it, or flat out cagey. He hoped to God it was the first. You didn’t have to know much about horses to see the animal down below was near done in.
He knew better, of course. Jacob’s men hadn’t lost him. They were back there somewhere. Likely not too far down the ridge. You could hope all you wanted and wish something different, but that wouldn’t change much.
What that was was child-thinking, Howie reminded himself. All right for games and daydreaming if you were a kid and could go home for a hot supper when you got tired of playing. Only he wasn’t a kid anymore and the soldiers back there didn’t have much playin’ in mind.
The thought had come to him more than once in the last few days. It was a peculiar kind of feeling. He wasn’t real sure what he was anymore. He’d been ripped out of one life—picked up, shaken hard, and tossed down somewhere else. He wasn’t a grownup, but he sure wasn’t a kid, either. It was something uncomfortably in-between, right where you couldn’t do either one real well.
With cold hands, he felt around inside his bundle, grubbed out the last chunk of dry meat, and washed it down with water. The cramping started near as soon as he swallowed.
That was happening a lot, now. Eating next to nothing just aggravated his belly, reminding it of what ought to be coming down and wasn’t. He had to eat, though. He knew that. Whatever he could scratch up would go down his gullet and his stomach would just have to make do with what it got.
It was different with the soldiers, he figured. Theyd’d been trained to pace their appetites on a hard trail, eating when they could, doing without when they had to. The more Howie rode, the hungrier he got!
There was another thing, too. He had to keep going, no matter what. But the soldiers could send a couple of men out looking for rations without slowing the chase. They’d been
close enough at least once in the last six days for him to hear them doing just that.
Lordee—that had been too close! He’d been sure the horse would give him away then, but it hadn’t. It was trained to travel in silence, a talent that had saved his skin more than once.
He ate what he could, then. Scrambling around at night for nuts left over from the fall before. Stopping on the trail for wild onions, or whatever else grew in his path. He lost near as much as he ate, but enough stayed down to keep him going.
The sun passed swiftly overhead and shadows crawled down the side of the ridge to fill the valley. Howie lay perfectly still, taking in every inch of the land below. His eyes marked a place where stone turned from one color to another; he could see where water lay under the earth by the way trees would swell up thick and heavy-green one place, and light somewhere else. He knew plants followed the patterns of water, and men did the same. It was the way life moved about. You just kind of naturally followed the way a stream flowed, or a river. He watched where the birds swung in easy arcs over the woods and where they darted and scattered, suddenly aware of something below. It might be nothing at all—but it could be a sign that men were about.
The soldiers were some better in the wilderness, and Howie knew it. But he was no stranger there, either. He was still alive, wasn’t he? They hadn’t gotten him yet, and that was something. And every day he stayed ahead of them was a day in which he gained trail sense to help him stay alive a little longer. He was learning he knew more than he’d figured. Papa had taught him things he was using without even thinking. That made him proud.
He spotted them late in the afternoon, the sun behind their ragged column, coming east instead of west. His heart sank a little. He’d moved fast that morning, leaving a clear trail that led down through the valley westward, and across onto hard rock again. They’d followed the false trail, but it hadn’t fooled them much. They were doubling back now, just as he’d done earlier. Howie felt a sudden chill. They were more than a half a mile away still, but he was certain they could see him plain as day, perched up there on the ridge, squeezed under his flat slab of stone.
He pulled himself up tight in his hole, until cold rock was part of his hide. Squinting right into the sun, it was hard to make a good count—not that a count meant anything. They’d tried that once or twice, too. Let him think the whole bunch was in a column, but keeping a few stragglers behind, or maybe Hankers out to the sides.
He was certain that’s what they were up to now. Trail sense told him they were coming on too slow and easy— lined up straight and pretty for him to see. The others would be back of him, then. Over the ridge. Maybe waiting at the edge of the woods where he’d likely try to break away with the mount. That’d be the normal thing to do—run from the men coming straight on—right into the troopers waiting for him.
Howie gauged the sun again. It was nearly down—another four or five minutes. Once it dropped behind the low hills it’d get dark quick enough. And maybe he’d just give ’em what they wanted.
He’d judged the horse right enough. It was nearly gone— the ugly head slack against a tall pine, feet spread wide, sides heaving for air. He felt sorry for it. The beast had saved his life, and he’d fair run it to death. That was something that couldn’t be helped, though, and there was nothing for it now. And he had one more favor to ask of it. A big one.
It was dark when he led the beast back down the slope. His skin crawled at the idea of getting caught on foot this close to where the pines stopped their march downhill and gave way to the clearing. If the soldiers were anywhere around, they’d be waiting close by. But he had to chance it. If the thing was going to work at all, the soldiers had to know about it. It wasn’t any good unless there was somebody there to appreciate what he was doing.
He stood back and let the arrow go without much force behind it, placing it just behind the animal’s rib cage. He figured it ought to cause plenty of pain there, without bringing the creature down too soon. The horse screamed and bolted—tearing brush aside and snapping low branches. Howie took off up the hill without looking back. Lordee, if they didn’t hear that—!
And by the time they figured what had happened, that he wasn’t on the horse, he’d have a fair start. They couldn’t trail him until daylight and they’d have a fine time guessing which way he’d gone.
If it was just dark enough, he reminded himself. And if the troopers didn’t look too close…
He woke stiff and cold, hunger growing like something live inside him. For a quick minute he thought he’d died and gone wherever it was people went. The whole world below his branch was draped in a wet blanket of gray. Like the forest had grown a mile high in the night and poked its head right through the clouds.
He thought a while about what he ought to do. The fog would hide him while he climbed down from his perch. But if anyone was close enough to hear…
He stayed where he was, holding himself patiently against the cold. Doing one thing wrong was one too many. It was something he had to keep remembering. Wait. Until everything felt right. Wait until the wind feels easy at first dawn. Until the birds settle at noon. And right now, wait until the fog burns away and there’s a chance you’ll see whoever’s about, ’fore they see you first.
There was a stream in the draw below the trees. Young wild onions were plentiful and he ate as many as he could, knowing they’d tie his stomach in knots again. Further downstream he found button mushrooms—tiny bulbs pale as death clustered under heavy oaks. He didn’t worry about whether they were mushrooms or something else. He was proud of himself for that. A town boy from Cotter or Bluevale might not know the difference, but he did. They tasted good and he picked as many as he could find, filling his stomach and his pockets at the same time.
It was a good place and he wanted to stay longer, but he knew better than that. Filling his clay jug with fresh water, he left the green shadows and climbed back up the rise. Where the trees began to thin, he came out suddenly into the full light of morning. And when he looked down through the last tails of fog burning away in the sun he could see the bone-white carcass of the city, stretching clear across the valley as far as the shining river.
Chapter Eleven
Who could imagine such a sight? Why, you could’ve set a hundred Bluevales down there and lost ’em easy! He’d never seen anything like it before, but he knew right off what it was. A City was something you didn’t have to more than hear about.
After a good half minute he realized he was standing big as you please in bright sunlight—an easy target for any fool who cared to look. Scolding himself soundly for such carelessness, he went to ground quickly.
It was an eerie thing, for certain. Enough to set a chill up the back of your neck. As far as the eye could see, ragged spires of gray stone dotted the dark woods. Like stacks of old bones, thought Howie. The wilderness had come back to claim the valley long ago, but you could still make out where streets had been and how it might have looked before.
A broad river snaked through the far side of the valley, brown and lazy. And that was right enough, he figured— Papa had talked about how towns needed rivers for trade, if they expected to grow and amount to anything. Old Cities were probably no different.
Howie didn’t know much about Cities, or what they were supposed to look like. It wasn’t something folks talked about. Mostly people just said they’d been bigger than anything ought to be. That there’d been plenty of open country to live in, but that everyone wanted to be close up together. It was a hard thing to understand. Bluevale and Cotter were fun to go to, but Howie couldn’t imagine staying there, with that many people about. And those were just towns—not anything like what a City must have been.
Something bad had happened to Cities in the War. Something terrible. Only nobody could say just what. Even the Scriptures didn’t go into much detail about that. God had found Men eating the flesh of unclean animals and He had washed the Earth of corruption. Only that didn’t tell you a lot. L
ooking down on the ruins of the City you knew there was more than that. Not something you could see, exactly. More like what you could feel, inside.
By noon he was down the side of the mountain and near the edge of the City’s beginnings. He hadn’t thought much about not going, or what dangers he might find there. All the old stories about ghosts and devils and other awful things didn’t seem too scary anymore. There couldn’t be anything lurking in the City much worse than what was after him already. Still, he kept his mind on the trail ahead and didn’t peer too close at the blunt knobs of dead stone all about him. And he was glad enough he hadn’t come upon this place in the dark.
The idea had started forming in his head while he was still on the mountain. And the longer he thought about it, the better he liked it. It was one of those ideas you knew was right from the beginning.
He’d been lucky so far, but luck didn’t last forever. It had started running out when he’d lost the horse. A man on foot didn’t stand a chance, and he knew it. They’d get him sooner or later. Today, maybe. Or next week. But they’d get him. As long as a man left a trail, there was another who could follow it. But the river, now, that was something else! As soon as he’d seen it shining in the distance, he’d known that was the way. Get to the river—find something that’d float. Anything. Drift down the current at night, hole up during the day. It didn’t matter much where the river took him. It flowed west, away from home where people knew him. Right now, that was all Howie needed to know.