by Liz Fichera
I had an idea.
Carefully, I raised my hands. I feared that I might touch Diego so I pulled my elbows back until my shoulder blades almost touched. We barely sat a thumb’s length apart and it seemed an eternity before my fingers found the thin cord that threaded through the shells and blue stone of my necklace. I raised my hands over my neck so that I could untie the knot in the back of my neck. At first, my fingers fumbled between strands of my hair but finally I was able to loosen the knot. Mercifully, the necklace slid slowly down my chest until my fingers could touch the shells.
Barely breathing, I released three shells from the string. When I was certain that Diego wasn’t looking, I let the shells fall from my fingers. So light, they floated to the ground like dried palo verde leaves.
I watched until the shells landed safely on the ground, white and unbroken. They lay in bright contrast against the dark brown dirt. Someone would have to be blind not to see them. Gaho’s white necklace shells were one way for someone to find me and I was certain that someone would.
They had to.
I refused to believe otherwise.
Swallowing, I drew in the tiniest of inhales before I tied the necklace back around my neck. Only seven shells remained. I would have to be careful where I dropped them, and I’d already decided that I would save the shiny blue stone for last. I pressed it against my chest and rolled it between my fingers as I prayed to Hunab Ku for strength.
The blue stone would need to bring me luck. I needed it.
Besides, I hoped that I wouldn’t need the blue stone. It was all that I had left of home.
***
We rode until my legs turned numb.
I dropped two more shells from my necklace as I sat behind Diego when I was certain he wasn’t looking. I had only five left.
The World Beyond stretched forever. Reaching an edge, a precipice like I once imagined, now seemed impossible. Instead, one world seamlessly joined with another. Then another.
Before us, mountains of every shape loomed higher and darker, much bigger than the jagged ones that surrounded my village. They were covered with odd-shaped trees that looked like arrowheads; in some places the branches were so thick that we couldn’t ride below them.
As we began an even steeper climb, I had to grip Diego’s belt with both hands. If he minded, he didn’t say.
A ridge of green arrowhead-shaped trees swept so long and wide in front of us that it looked like it was painted into the sky. I wondered if we’d ever climb to the top and reach the other side. And the deeper we rode into the trees, the more I feared I’d never see my family again. It felt as if the mountain was swallowing us whole.
When Diego helped me climb off the horse, I dropped numbly into his arms from fatigue and hunger. My legs tingled all the way down to the tips of my toes; I could barely walk. Thankfully, Diego untied my hands and then left me to help the others unload the deerskin sacks.
I rubbed the muscles in my feet and calves, waiting for some instruction. Lobo stayed by my side. It was good to have him close, especially with the strange way the men looked at me.
Lobo licked my hands with his warm pink tongue until I finally stroked the soft spot between his ears.
“I missed you, too,” I whispered close to his ear and his tail wagged so fast I wondered if it would fly off.
Then the man with the scar dumped one of the sacks at my feet, startling me. It landed with a loud thump, and I jumped out of the way just before it landed on my toes.
“Cook,” he said as he towered over me. “You cook. We’re hungry.” It was not a request.
Cook? But, cook what?
Lobo began to inspect the sack but the man kicked him in the rump with his pointy black shoe causing him to yelp before he darted wildly into the darkening sky.
“Cook!” he said again and I immediately began to fumble with the sack fearing the back of his hand.
Diego frowned at the man with the scar as he stood next to the horses. “Don’t mind Alfonso,” he called out to me. “He just gets grumpy when he’s hungry.” There was a smile in his voice and I gathered that Alfonso’s behavior was not unusual.
I nodded at Diego but did not return his smile.
Alfonso, I thought to myself. So that’s what they call the man with the scar across his mouth. Thin and white, the scar crossed over his lower lip like a lightning streak.
I opened the sack, not knowing what to look for, not knowing what I’d find. Fortunately, I found more dried meat, two pouches filled with water, dried black beans, and a pot with a thin handle made of a hard material I did not recognize. It was as tough as a river rock and made a hollow noise when I rapped it with my knuckles. I lifted the heavy thing from the sack, inspecting it. Gaho only cooked with red clay pots that we molded from river sand; clay pots were all anyone needed in my village.
I lifted the pot closer to my face, tilting it from side to side. It was scratched and mostly black from fire. It was heavier than a clay pot but not as deep. There was only one thing left to do with it.
I rose from my spot and began searching for dried branches and leaves. If I was to cook, we needed a fire, if nothing else, for warmth. It grew frighteningly colder with every moment the sun dipped behind the mountains. I rubbed my shoulders through my deerskin and tried desperately not think about my bare feet. My toes had become red and chapped. I moved faster to keep warm.
While I gathered small branches and handfuls of leaves, I squinted into the growing darkness and whistled softly for Lobo. He didn’t come when I called and my throat tightened. He’ll come back, I told myself. He won’t abandon me.
Next to the deerskin sacks, I dug a hole with a thick branch and my fingers. I dug until my fingernails turned black. The ground was harder and less fine than desert dirt. It did not open easily but after a while, I finally had my hole. Then I sharpened the tip of a thinner stick with the edge of rock that fit between my fingers. It wasn’t perfect but it worked. I balanced my sharpened stick on top of another thicker stick, an even greyer one, and began to rub it between my hands. Finally, the stick began to glow. The glow spread to the dried grass near the base of my stick and then quickly to my dried leaves and twigs. I sat back, pleased, as fire filled the hole. I set the sharpened stick away from the hole for next time. Gaho would be proud, I thought oddly. Usually I wasn’t so lucky, even with the fire-starting sticks that Onawa carved.
But then my smile faded. Gaho. My throat tightened again. I pictured her face in my mind. I missed my mother. I missed her voice and gentle hands that would comb my hair. I missed everything about her.
As soon as the fire filled the width of the hole, I poured water into the heavy pot and waited for it to bubble. I tested it with the tip of my finger. It didn’t take long before I poured a handful of the dried beans into the pot, stirring it with the end of a thin branch. Once the beans turned soft, I stirred in some bits of dried meat, tucking away a piece inside my belt for Lobo when no one was looking.
As the meat cooked with the beans, my stomach growled at the tiny mixture. I wondered if there was enough for two people to eat, much less four. Surely they wouldn’t have me starve. What kind of a people didn’t share their food?
Diego and Alfonso smelled the stew and approached the fire. The third man followed behind and I heard Diego call him Jorge. It would be another difficult name to pronounce but I practiced the strange sounds inside my head. Jorge. Jorge. I’d never heard anything like it before. Even their names were strange, like everything else about them.
Alfonso reached the fire first and grabbed the pot’s handle with his beefy hand like it wasn’t even hot. He poured part of the bean stew into a cup that was scratched and dark black like the pot. Then he thrust the pot to Diego who did the same. Jorge was next and I was last. By the time it reached me, there was barely enough left to coat the center of my palm. And there was no cup.
I didn’t complain. I didn’t dare, especially seated so close to Alfonso who never lost the tightness
around his lips.
I was glad for anything. I scooped every last bit inside the pot with my fingers even though my stomach still growled when I swallowed the last drop.
“Tomorrow we will snare a rabbit,” Diego said to the men as he slurped his stew. His tone was oddly jovial and so different from his companions. “Tomorrow we will eat like kings.”
Kings? I thought. What are kings?
Jorge nodded and Alfonso grunted as if to say there wouldn’t be time. I stayed next to the fire, kneeling, listening to them talk. I only understood bits and pieces of their conversation, something about furs and beads and a people called the Apache. I wanted to ask Diego about the Apache. Who were they? What were they? And where was their village? I barely breathed, waiting for more detail. But they didn’t talk nearly as long as I’d hoped.
Then Diego pulled something square-shaped from one of the sacks. At first I thought it was a small piece of tan deerskin but he proceeded to unfold it so that it stretched on the ground between the men. It crinkled like a dry leaf with each piece he unfolded. Its edges were frayed. I leaned forward, closer to the firelight, mesmerized.
“We’re here.” Diego pointed to a corner with his finger. “We must be here by tomorrow.” His finger traced confusing symbols, black square lines that crossed each other in strange ways, before his finger stopped in the middle. The symbols looked nothing like the intricate pictures that Onawa and Eyota carved on the sides of pit houses and boulders to mark the passage of the seasons.
I badly wanted a better look at Diego’s tan deerskin. Could the World Beyond fit so easily on one small square?
Alfonso grunted and then he glanced up and caught me leaning closer. “What are you looking at?” he snarled.
Diego rolled his eyes. “Go easy on the girl, Alfonso.” He chuckled. “That one is going to bring us luck.” His thick black eyebrows wiggled in a way that knotted my stomach.
That one. It rolled too casually off his tongue.
Still shiny from the stew, Alfonso’s lips fluttered. “Luck?” His neck pulled back as he studied Diego. “She’s already cost us two extra days in this god-forsaken place. Two days that we hadn’t planned on. We didn’t need her. Taking her was a mistake.”
From his tone, I half-expected him to suggest that they abandon me on the side of their strange mountain. My breathing quickened with the new possibility. It wouldn’t be easy to return to my village but I was sure I could do it. I’d gladly take my chances. And I’d even dropped shells to guide my way back…
But my hopes were quickly crushed. “I disagree, old friend.” He paused, looked sideways at Alfonso and then said, “You know how generous Manaba can be when we bring him a special trinket. We were lucky when she ran off.” He smiled at me before turning to Alfonso. “And what would you have us do when we saw they had so little to trade? What would we do with a few pumpkins and dry stalks of corn? We certainly couldn’t meet up with the Apache empty-handed.”
Alfonso’s eyebrow arched, considering this. Then a crooked grin spread across his face that made my teeth clench. “Savage,” he spat. “I’m glad we burned their rotting fields.”
My skin turned hot as Diego laughed and even quiet Jorge smiled, a first.
“It did make our departure that much easier,” Diego said. “By the time they realize she’s missing, they’ll never know where to look.” Then he reached for a lock of my hair, and I flinched. But he grabbed the strand anyway and rubbed it between his fingers. “Pity we didn’t take more.” With a sigh, his hand dropped to his side.
More? Take more of them? My people?
I glared back at the men, rage building inside my chest, as my breathing quickened. Alfonso’s tongue dragged across his lips, relishing the anguish my expression so clearly revealed. Diego’s eyes continued to dance with delight as Jorge’s gaze met mine but then quickly lowered, as if he knew something more but wished he didn’t.
I finally blinked when Alfonso tossed his cup at my feet. “Enough talk,” he said, signaling that the meal—and all discussion—were over. “Sleep, now.”
Diego proceeded to carefully fold the tan deerskin before he tucked it back inside one of his sacks. I made note of which one. It was the smallest one that hung on the side of his horse, the one he always kept close.
Still numb, I collected the other cups and tried to clean the pot with some dry leaves but Alfonso grew impatient and ripped it from my hands before tossing it into one of the deerskin sacks. Not knowing what else to do, I added more branches and leaves to the fire, mostly for warmth. My teeth began to chatter and I had to bite down on my lower lip to stop it.
Across from me, the men laid back against their elbows with their feet stretched out near the fire while Jorge pulled a wooden flute from his pocket. In the firelight, I could see that the flute was as long as his hand and thin as my finger. The wood was a soft yellow, like unripe corn. Shiny, it also looked as delicate as one of the many flutes that Onawa’s slender fingers had carved.
Jorge’s fingertips began to float across the small holes, barely touching them. He played a song so sad that my chest ached. I turned when my eyes clouded and fiddled with the branches next to the fire until the song stopped. Then Jorge returned his flute back to his pocket, laid his head back, and began snoring almost immediately.
Diego was the last one to fall asleep. He emptied one of the deerskin sacks and offered it to me. I took it. My teeth chattered and trembled at the same time as the sky grew windless and pitch-black. The fire crackled and coyotes howled in the distance.
“Sleep,” Diego said to me. “Sleep now. Tomorrow will be a long day, longer than today, I’m afraid.”
I spread the deerskin sack so that it lay flat on the ground. The ground was hard and cold. The sack helped but not much. I curled into a ball and brought one half of the sack over my shoulder as far as it would stretch. It smelled sharp, like the dried meat still tucked inside my belt. I only stared at the fire for a moment longer before my eyelids grew heavy with exhaustion and for that I was thankful. Tomorrow was another day to plan my escape. The sooner I fell asleep, the sooner I could run. I had to return to my village. I just had to.
Sometime during the night, Lobo returned from the forest and curled his body against my back. I’d never felt air so thin or cold, not even during the Season of Shorter Days. If not for Lobo, I would have certainly frozen to death in my sleep.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, my eyes popped open like I’d been kicked in the stomach.
A thin layer of white covered the deerskin sack that barely stretched across my body. At first I thought a wind had blown in tiny white flower petals, but from where? The plants and trees that surrounded us were only shades of green. The white felt wet and prickly cold and coated my hair and eyelids. I brushed it off quickly, unsure what it was. Was it sand? Another trick?
But no sooner did I brush it off before it covered me again. I looked to the sky for answers. The sky was grey and the white cold sand fell from the sky like rain. I’d never seen anything like it.
“Snow,” Diego said, stretching forward into a sitting position. He watched me, amused, yawning as he spoke. “Have you never seen snow before?” His voice was incredulous.
I shook my head. “Snow,” I repeated as I opened my palm and watched the fine sand land on my hand and turn into clear water droplets.
Diego’s fingers scratched his cheeks. The dark stubble around his mouth had grown thicker. “Well, then. I guess you haven’t. It won’t hurt you. It’s like rain that’s turned to ice. Surely, you’ve seen rain?” His fingers fluttered in front of him.
I nodded. Rain I’d seen plenty of times, although not as much during the last two Seasons of Longer Days. I turned my face upwards again, mesmerized, and watched the snow swirl down all around us. Oddly, I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue. Snow was tasteless. Like water.
But the snow was gloriously wet and I was thirsty. Like Diego, Lobo also watched me curiously. His
coat was covered with snow but he didn’t shiver. His fur was so thick that the snow couldn’t possibly penetrate his skin. I envied him. What I would have given for one of Gaho’s fur blankets.
Alfonso stirred from underneath his hat. He lifted it and then cursed at the sky before stumbling to a standing position. He shuffled off behind a tree, grumbling, and fiddled with the front of his dusty pants. I turned away, ignoring him. The less we acknowledged the other’s existence, the better.
“Why don’t you start a fire,” he made a rubbing motion with his forefingers, “and I’ll check the snares to see if we’ll be eating rabbit.”
My stomach growled even before I could nod.
Rabbit, I understood. And any kind of food sounded glorious. More than that, it was urgent that I eat more than just a few morsels of dried meat. My stomach had growled all night. And it only grew louder as my insides turned hollow. I would need to eat more to regain my strength so that I could leave the World Beyond and journey home. It would mean walking for at least one moon cycle, maybe two. I tried not to dwell on the dangers, especially as they surrounded me. Alfonso had empty eyes like Miakoda. It would only be a matter of a few more passing suns before his fists found me, just like his foot found Lobo.
Lobo.
My hands reached behind me and found Lobo.
He whimpered.
As soon as Diego left to check his snare, my fingers felt for the strip of dried meat still hidden behind my belt. Carefully, I broke it into two pieces and shared half with Lobo. He licked my hand after he swallowed his piece in one easy gulp, and I couldn’t help but scratch the sides of his face as I savored the other small piece between my teeth. Lobo moaned between my hands.
But then Diego whistled for him and Lobo trotted off, leaving me alone to start another fire. It was harder this time. The leaves were wet; the wood, not as grey. And my feet were cold and bare. If I was to escape, I needed something to protect my feet.
All three of the men were missing. Diego was checking on his snare, Alfonso was somewhere behind a bush or a tree, and Jorge was tending to the horses.