by Jane Abbott
What was with all the questions? ‘What d’you think?’ I half opened one eye. I couldn’t see hers, because she had her hood pulled low, but I watched her mouth curve in a smile.
‘I think, yes.’ I heard the hope in her voice. Bitch.
‘Then you’d be wrong,’ I lied. ‘Now shut up and let me rest.’
Silence for a few minutes, and I started to relax, thinking she’d finally got the message. Then she spoke again, more annoying than the flies.
‘Shouldn’t we get moving?’
This time I didn’t waste energy looking at her. ‘If you wanna walk in this, be my guest. I’ll bury you where I find you. Or maybe I won’t bother.’ And I drew my knees up, putting a barrier between us, shutting her out.
I dozed for another couple of hours, and when I woke she was crouched beside me in the shade. Not quite as stupid as I’d thought. The sun was sinking at last, and I figured we had an hour left. Pulling on my shirt, I freed my cloak and rechecked the pot. It was empty and I drank straight from the cylinder, saving some of the water for her.
She shook her head. ‘I’ve already drunk.’ Kind of prim, and nothing like a boy. Already she was getting careless.
I thrust it at her, making her take it. ‘Drink more. You’ll need it. And make sure you eat something. We won’t be stopping.’ The water was hers by right, though she didn’t know I knew that. In her eyes, I was just being helpful; I hoped she’d buy it.
She sipped reluctantly, grimacing at the stale smell and its heat. But she drained the cylinder and I packed it away with the pot.
‘You’re gunna have to take off some of those layers. We start climbing tonight and you won’t get far in all that.’
She glanced up then and I saw her face fully for the first time. On looks alone, not knowing what I did, she could easily have passed for a boy. Her body was basically shapeless with all her wrappings, and her face was strong and lean, without any of the more delicate features many girls had. I wondered then at her age. I’d assumed her to be younger than me, or at least the same, but maybe she wasn’t.
Standing, she slipped off her cloak, and I watched her remove the outer vest and a couple of thin shirts, unwinding the long scarf from around her neck, which was flushed and wet with sweat; wasting water. Slimmer than I’d thought, and suddenly a whole lot less shapeless; then the cloak was back on and she was hidden again.
‘Loosen those leggings a bit too. Around the knees.’
She did as I said, unwinding the leather strips and rewinding them more carefully, before nodding. ‘Better. Thanks.’
I pointed to the pile of discarded clothes. ‘You’ll need to carry those, for later. You got room in that pack of yours?’ I wasn’t offering mine.
But somehow she found room, stuffing everything into it, stretching it out even more. I was glad I didn’t have to carry it. Rummaging in a side pocket, she pulled out some saltfish and ate, while I saw to my own pack, checking it, making sure everything was in place. Shouldering it, and satisfied the straps would no longer be an issue, I nodded at her. ‘When you’re ready.’
Not waiting, I turned and started walking into the lighter wind, head down and covered, and it was a little while before I heard her shorter steps behind me. It took her another few minutes to register, and the steps stopped.
‘This is the wrong way,’ she called out. When I didn’t turn, she bleated again, ‘Hey, Watchman! We’re supposed to be heading east.’
Concern had driven her voice high again and I smiled. After a while, I heard her behind me, but this time she kept her mouth shut.
There’s something real spooky about a dead tree. It’s not the bleached white of the wood, any moisture leached out long ago through widening cracks and split skin. It’s not the spiked jagged tips, where the wind’s torn away the weaker branches and left fuck-you fingers to jeer at the sky. It’s not even the stillness of it, or the leafless muteness, its voice fallen away and scattered. It’s the desolation, the look-what’s-left-of-me condemnation. One dead tree is bad enough. Thousands of them are a whole lot worse.
The Hills had once been filled with trees. Live ones. My grandmother had described them as a palette of green and gold, swaying and shifting in the breeze, the noise as restless as the Sea. She’d often talked of colours: the blues of sky and Sea, the white yellow of the sun, the lime of spring grass, the red of autumn leaves and the bright rainbows of flowers. But it was hard to imagine those colours when all we had were brown dust, grey water, black soot and white salt; the rest were just words – most of them irrelevant now – and soon even the memory of them would die. And looking up at that first spiky hill, it was just as hard to imagine the birds and other animals she’d talked about too, high up and low down, busying themselves beneath a living canopy. It was as though someone had taken the pale, picked bones of giant fish and stuck them headfirst into the ground, every planting a grave marker.
But the dead could kill too and, with shrivelled roots barely clinging to the dry, sloping soil, the trees were always tilting, toppling to thump the earth with a last desperate bellow. And if you happened to be in the way, well, that was just too bad. It was safer further east, and over to the west of the plain, where the great fires had ripped through, taking out the giants and leaving vast blackened tracts, all rounded coal stumps and cindered earth. Safer, but not a whole lot better.
By the time we reached the foot of the range the wind had died off, which was a good thing because I was going to have to rely on my ears as much as my eyes while we climbed.
‘Stay behind me and walk where I walk,’ I told Alex, as we started up.
But it was easier said than done, even at the beginning where the first hill teased with the laziest of slopes. My legs were longer and stronger than hers, and clambering over the fallen debris was more difficult for her. Plus, I had the staff and she hadn’t had the sense to bring one for herself. When I could, I kept away from the bigger fallen trunks; there was no way of knowing how settled they were and whether even the slightest movement might dislodge them and send them rolling downhill. By the time we crested that hill, she was grunting and panting, but I didn’t let up because we had to make up the time we were losing by not taking the road, and I reckoned that was her fault.
So while she grunted, I kept listening for the telltale creak of a tree on its last legs; that whimper before the crack and rush of its fall. On the slopes, it always seemed to happen more at night. In the heat and the wind they stayed defiant, parrying every blow, but the quiet and the cold became that final thrust, cutting to the heart of them and felling them mercilessly.
So it went, hour after hour, slope after slope. We’d climb up and clamber down, and a couple of times we’d pause as a tree moaned and splintered and crashed, toppling others, sweeping them in an avalanche of timber and earth while we just waited and held our breath.
Around midnight, I had to call a halt. It was safer at the top of a hill, where most of the trees were already gone, the wind too strong for them. If I’d been on my own I’d have kept walking, but Alex was exhausted, and a liability. One wrong step, one slip, and she’d start an avalanche of her own, taking me right along with her. I hadn’t factored that in, and it irritated me that once again she was messing up my plans. In fact, it was becoming a serious problem. Briefly, I thought of killing her, getting it over with. No one would find her up there, and I wouldn’t bother retrieving her tag. But Cade’s voice stopped me. You know what to do.
‘You’ve got an hour,’ I told her. ‘And rub your legs, keep ’em warm, the blood moving.’
Almost meekly, she did as she was told, pausing only to drink and eat, while I cast around for a decent stick, nothing too weighty. I stripped it back with a knife and handed it to her, and though I could see she was grateful she didn’t thank me.
I left her alone then, and stood on the edge of the ridge, getting my bearings. Ahead, I could just make out the dark outline of the mountains. We wouldn’t cross them. No one ventured
that far except the salvage crews, and they didn’t always return. The mountains were the great divide and none of us – not even desperate Dissidents – were eager to try their luck on the other side. Used to be, raiders would spill over once in a while, making for the settlements and the port, and we’d beat them back again before counting the cost and rebuilding. But that’d been years ago, and now we just beat on each other instead. Coz men always had to be fighting something.
All Alex and I had to do was get to the foot of those mountains before turning east to follow the long line of the hills to the settlement.
‘How much further?’ she asked, beside me.
I looked at her. ‘I had planned to reach the mountains by morning, but you’re not up to it. So maybe another three or four hours tonight. Reckon you can make it that far, boy?’
I kept the last word soft, sneering my contempt like I should have, and she squared her shoulders in response, just as she was meant to, both of us following the script I’d already written in my head.
‘Why’d we take this route, anyway?’ she asked. ‘We were supposed to follow the east road. It would’ve been easier.’
I shrugged and stared out across the Hills. ‘Had my reasons.’
She fidgeted a little before asking, ‘How long have you been in the Watch?’
I hesitated before answering. If I was to continue with this charade I needed to gain her trust, but wariness was innate. We didn’t talk about our work, or ourselves. It was how we stayed safe.
‘Dunno. Seven, eight years,’ I confessed.
‘Why? You could’ve left by now.’ She stilled suddenly, as though realising her mistake, but I didn’t let on. Being a Guard, she might’ve known that eight years was plenty of time for a Watchman to earn his freedom; more likely, she’d counted my marks after all. At this stage, anything I learned about her was useful.
‘Because I’m good at it,’ I said. ‘And because I’ve got nothing better to do.’
By the way she sighed and shuffled her feet, I could tell she was itching to tell me any number of things that were preferable to being a Watchman, but she held her tongue. Good girl. She was learning.
‘Why’d you join the Guard?’ I asked her; it was the obvious thing to say.
She didn’t reply for a while, and the silence was almost companionable. ‘It’s my chance to make a difference.’
I stared at her. My laugh sounded hollow, but Alex scowled.
‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing,’ I said, sobering as I shouldered my pack. ‘It’s just you reminded me of someone I used to know.’
The next afternoon brought another surprise, not as pleasant as the last. We pushed off a few hours before dusk, repeating the previous day’s pattern, me in front, her behind. Having a staff definitely improved her pace, and I was growing more confident of keeping to the new schedule, maybe even advancing on it. She didn’t whinge when I picked the steepest paths rather than criss-cross the slopes, and she didn’t argue when I suggested that we aim to reach the last ridge before resting. Despite myself, I was beginning to admire her tenacity; plenty of men would’ve put up a fuss. But confidence can always be undermined, even the loosest schedule thrown out. Only this time it wasn’t her doing.
Pulling myself up and over a crown of rocks, I waited for her to follow, listening to her scrabbling for footholds, getting a grip before slipping again. Impatient, I leaned down and gripped her wrist to haul her up, not an easy job with that pack of hers. Then, not bothering to wait for any kind of thanks, I set off again. We walked the few miles of the crown before it began to slope downhill again and I took more care to feel for firmer ground. She slid a couple of times and so did I, the earth quick to give way beneath our weight. And then I stopped dead and sank low; too busy watching her feet, she piled into me, crying out and almost tumbling us both down the hill.
‘Fuck!’ I grabbed her and pulled her down. ‘Shut up and stay still.’
In the gloom of the valley below, to our left and coming from the west, a line of men snaked between the trees, walking where they shouldn’t. It was already too dark for details so I could only estimate their number – fifty or so – but I recognised the dark cloaks and the noise that carried up the slope. Guards.
‘What are they doing here?’ Alex whispered, but I didn’t reply.
It wasn’t unusual for Guards to patrol the hills, though it was rare to see them this far north, and away from the roads. And never in such numbers. Guards were habitual, keeping to their little gangs, bullying and harassing or, when that wasn’t enough to scare, reporting back to their officers. Their task was to keep an eye on everyone, and out here there was no one.
‘What should we do?’ asked Alex.
‘Wait,’ I said, settling back on my haunches and watching. Had it been the usual group of six, I wouldn’t have worried; as a Watchman I had superiority, and crossing paths with Guards wasn’t normally a concern. But having one of their own with me might prompt a few questions I couldn’t answer, and their easterly direction could be a problem too; the last thing I needed was company.
‘We should’ve taken the east road, like we were supposed to,’ Alex muttered.
‘Shut up.’
She did, fidgeting in sullen silence. The Guards passed below us, and I watched carefully until they reached a fork in the valley, slithered south behind the rise, and disappeared, taking their noise with them.
‘Now what?’ Alex asked.
‘We’ll stay here until dark,’ I replied. ‘I suggest you eat now. We won’t stop again.’
It wasn’t until much later, as I readied myself for sleep, that I thought to wonder why the sight of those Guards had appeared to bother her as much as it had me.
There were no more unexpected encounters, the following day passing uneventfully, and the one after that too. Walking at night on the higher rocky ridges and in the deeper shadow of the mountains posed a risk to anyone, but especially to a body not used to the terrain; though the wind was still a hazard, the air was cooler, so I made better use of the daylight hours. We’d set out a few hours before dawn, and break just after dusk. Alex kept up a reasonable pace but there was no point driving her too hard. I’d watch her layer up at night, and I too would add another shirt and a woollen cap. She didn’t sleep well, not used to the bitter cold, but neither did I because all her noise kept waking me, leaving me irritable and tired. After two nights of it, I was ready to strangle her.
Meanwhile, I spent my time trying to catch her out, more for amusement than anything else. It was in the little things. Like the way she ate, slow with small bites and neat swallows instead of tearing at her food and chomping open-mouthed. The way she’d sip carefully when she drank, patting her lips dry instead of wiping them roughly on her sleeve. Her voice, too changeable, rising with irritation at something I said, falling again later when she asked me a question. And, of course, her nightly use of the pot. She must’ve had a bladder the size of a camel’s hump and I don’t know how she held on to it for so long, because I never gave her any other opportunity to relieve herself.
But I was no closer to finding out what she knew or what she was supposed to do once we reached the settlement. And the nearer we got, the more it bothered me. There were only a couple more nights until we arrived and I’d be going in blind unless she coughed up what I needed. The only thing I knew for sure was that she hadn’t lied about her name. Most girls – boys too – were named for dead things: Leaf, Flower, Berry, Horse, Bull, Ox; the list was endless, as though keeping the names might make everything come to life again. Alex wasn’t that kind of name. As far as I knew, it wasn’t even a girl’s name. But she answered too readily, without any hesitation, for it to be anything else.
On the fourth evening, we stopped earlier than usual. Near the top of the ridge it was achingly cold, and though it would’ve been better to keep moving even I was exhausted from lack of sleep. So when we came across a small hollow, shielded on one side
by a fallen trunk, I called it quits. The low moon, waxed to an odd-shaped ball, was already casting long shadows.
‘Can we light a fire?’ she pleaded, before she’d even shed her pack.
‘No,’ I said. It was the third night she’d asked. Though the Guards had long gone and we’d seen no others, it wouldn’t pay to be careless. But my reply was automatic because at some stage we would need a fire. Just not when she demanded it. And not at night when it might be seen.
She scowled and crouched shivering on the ground. I settled myself in the hollow and ate slowly, watching her blow on her hands, trying to warm them. If I’d cared even a little, I might’ve felt sorry for her. But seeing to her comfort wasn’t my problem.
‘How are you going to track down the Dissidents?’ she asked, breaking the silence.
‘Won’t know until I get there. Takes time.’ If I did have a plan, she’d be the last to know, but I was interested in her questions. Coz sometimes, if you listen carefully enough, a question can reveal as much as an answer.
‘You must have some idea. What do you usually do?’
‘Why the interest?’ I asked, prodding her. ‘It won’t affect you, or your precious Guards.’
She tried hard not to look annoyed, and failed. ‘Just trying to make conversation. Take my mind off the cold.’
I gave a shrug. ‘I’ll find work, take shelter where I can get it, start nosing around. You’d be surprised how easy it is to catch ’em out.’
‘They can’t be that stupid. Otherwise the Guard would’ve seen to them already,’ she said.
I laughed. ‘Yeah, right. Coz that’s why we have to rescue those two idiots.’ Giving her a long stare, I added, ‘Everyone gets careless at some point, Alex.’
She pursed her lips and frowned a little. ‘Yes, I guess they do.’
‘How long’ve you been in the Guard?’ I asked her.
‘A year,’ she said.
‘Then you should already know enough about us, the way we work. Why all the questions?’