“Where are you?” he said. There was no answer.
He hurried around Lester and found her on the other side of Sam. She was stroking him and pressing her cheek against his flank.
“There you are. Why didn’t you answer me?” he said, as if she was a regular chatterbox. “We’re not safe. We need to get out of here. Get in the cab.”
Mary stood there like she didn’t understand, or else showing some kind of defiance. Whichever it was, Joe didn’t care. He didn’t have time for explanations. He grabbed her by her thin shoulders and spun her around. He shoved her to the cab and pushed her in.
On the other side of the wagon, he grabbed the rifle and quickly glanced into the murky forest. After that, he hauled the spare tire out of the wagon bed and dropped it on the ground. He could feel something about to happen, a presence, a portent, a static in the air.
Suddenly, wild whoops and cries shattered the air. Joe twisted around to see what it was. A stampede of men flew out of the dark forest like shrieking bats swooping out of a cave. The men beat on shields and wielded clubs and machetes and spears. The terrifying racket scared Lester and Sam. They bolted down the road again, dragging the limping wagon behind them. He heard Mary scream. One of the wild men dropped to a knee, raised a bow, and slung an arrow at the horses. A hard plastic mask was pushed up on top of his head. He pulled another arrow from a quiver on his back and shot that one too. Then he slipped the mask over his face before he darted off toward the runaway wagon. A tail of hair swung behind him. His bare legs flashed.
For a moment, Joe stood stunned by the ferocity of the men’s attack, almost in disbelief. They were akin to wild animals, covered in skins and furs and helmets. When Joe finally kicked into action, he flipped the Calvin rifle up to his shoulder. He steadied the sights on the man chasing the wagon. He zeroed in and fired. The man stumbled. He skidded to his knees, then crashed and rolled to a stop. That made the stampeding herd slow up, long enough for Joe to cock the Calvin again and shoot. The shot didn’t go awry. The bullet ripped into one of the men’s shoulders. It jerked him to one side as if gaffed, before he fell to the ground.
Joe swung the rifle back and forth across the dumbfounded herd of men to let them know that anyone of them could be the next to take a bullet. That’s when Joe realized it wasn’t really a whole herd of men at all, but only a ragtag assortment of about ten. Joe was expecting one of them to fire at him, but they all stood there staring at him as if they were waiting for someone to tell them what they should do next. They looked genuinely perplexed. Joe took the opportunity to take a sidelong glance down the road. He was relieved to see the wagon sitting there in the distance. Mary must have gotten control of it and they must be all right.
The man Joe hit in the shoulder writhed and groaned in pain. It was the only sound. When no one fired a gun, Joe assumed they didn’t have any or maybe they did but they didn’t have any bullets. Old guns were easy to find. Ammunition wasn’t. Then a man in a red helmet lunged forward, wailing and swinging his machete, but no one took up the charge with him. The rest stayed still. When he realized he was all alone, the man stopped and looked behind him at the other men stuck in their places. He must’ve had a change of heart because he turned around and ran back to the group, wailing and thrashing his arms like there was something better in the other direction. At that point the whole pack of them turned and fled back into the forest. They left their wounded behind.
Joe sprinted along the road toward the wagon. As he passed the first man he shot lying in the ditch, he stopped. The man was sprawled out on his stomach, his head twisted toward Joe. His mask-covered face stared up in a way that made Joe feel uneasy. The white mask that circled his whole face made the man seem inhuman. There was a little bump where his nose must’ve been and black and red stripes painted across the flat cheeks, but there was no mouth. The most disturbing part was the way the man’s eyes stared out of the round holes. His eyes didn’t move or blink. Joe stepped off the road and stood above the man. Blood bubbled from his neck. Joe still couldn’t see the man as real, as a real human being. He seemed more like an otherworldly creature, especially with his white mask. Shooting him had felt more like shooting a beast.
Joe nudged the man with the tip of his rifle to see if he was still alive. His body was limp. Joe knelt down and pulled the arrows out of the quiver and peeled the fingers away from the bow he still grasped in his hand. Then Joe noticed a canteen on the other side of the man’s hip. It was clipped onto the belt. Joe removed it and shook it. He heard water slosh and he slid the clip onto the waistband of his pants.
After he gathered up the arrows and the bow, he ran along the road again until he reached the wagon, where he found Mary standing beside Lester’s rump. An arrow had pierced him and a trail of dark blood ran down his skin from the wound. Joe inspected it and saw that only the tip was embedded and no further. Fortunately, it was in a thick slab of muscle and hadn’t hit Lester in a more vulnerable spot. Joe grabbed the base of the arrow right next to the wound and slowly twisted it. At the same time he gently pulled on it. Lester didn’t like it. He stamped his hooves and shook his head. To calm him, Mary nuzzled his big head and caressed his cheeks. The arrow tip gradually emerged, forcing more blood to leak out of the wound, until the tip slid free. Joe wiped it on his pants and tossed the arrow into the bed of the wagon.
“He’ll be alright,” he said to Mary.
After they got in the wagon, he turned the horses around and they rode back to get the tire. The tilted wagon tottered along. When they got to where the skirmish happened, the man in the mask was gone from the ditch and the tire wasn’t sitting in the road anymore. The groans of the injured man had vanished along with his body.
Joe was at a loss now. That tire was the only spare. The hobbling wagon would only put more strain on Lester and Sam, who were both showing signs of fatigue and weakness. Their tongues hung out and their heads drooped. Even so, there was no time to rest. They needed to get moving. Those wild men were still nearby.
Chapter 17
They traveled on through the forest, which seemed to grow dimmer and dimmer by the minute. It was like they were sinking further into a hole they would never be able to get back out of. What Joe hated the most was that he couldn’t see the sky. The cover of dark trees was relentless. At least back home the trees along the bluff were spaced far enough apart that light always got through. Plus the woods weren’t that big anyway, not like here in the endless forest. Never seeing the sky was more disturbing than he realized. He was used to it hanging above him at all times, night and day, like a constant companion, a comforting friend.
Before nightfall, Joe spotted a narrow trail. He steered the wagon up into the trees for about a quarter of a mile and then weaved around the trunks until he was off the trail a ways and stopped. At first he sat there without moving. The tops of the trees hovered around them. The dark trunks staggered off someplace where it was all shadows. He watched the darkness spread like black oil. It seemed to crawl over his skin as if alive. He got out of the cab. The wind suddenly stirred. He listened to the scrape of leaves and the crackle of twigs until the wind vanished.
As they got the blankets out and spread them on the damp ground, Joe noticed how labored Mary’s movements were. When she bent over or knelt down and then stood up straight again, she pressed her hands into her lower back, arching it, so her belly bulged out even more. He couldn’t remember her acting that way before, or maybe he simply hadn’t noticed. Maybe she had been moving around like that for a while, so it didn’t seem unusual. In any case, he was very aware of it now. He wondered if she was in some kind of pain from lugging around a baby inside her all the time. Or maybe she got hurt when she was tossed around in the wagon cab when Lester and Sam ran away from the ambush.
“You sit down and rest a while,” Joe said. “Curl up in the blankets and I’ll take care of the rest, okay?”
Mary stood still and didn’t say a word. Joe stared at her small figure, s
hadowed in the thickening darkness. He thought maybe she was too scared to answer him, or perhaps she was only being her usual non-responsive self.
“Okay. Stay standing if that’s what you want, but let me do the rest.”
He realized he was whispering. He wondered if Mary had picked up on that and now she was reluctant to make another sound.
“Everything is fine.” He raised the level of his voice a bit, but then it felt as though he were shouting. Anything above a whisper sounded extremely loud. “We’ll be safe. You’ll see. We got a little water. Here—”
He grabbed the canteen he took from the dead man and unscrewed the cap. Before he gave it to her, he tested it first. He dribbled a little liquid into his palm before he dipped the tip of his tongue against his wet hand. It sure tasted like water.
“Only two swallows,” Joe said. “The rest we got to give to Lester and Sam.”
She reached out and slid her hand around the dented canteen and gulped two big swallows. Then he poured the rest of the water into a pot, along with what was left in the jug from Nahum, and gave it to Lester and Sam. They were so thirsty they nearly tore the pot out of his hands. He hoped they would come across a creek soon because they couldn’t go much longer without water. He checked Lester’s wound again. The small bottle of corn alcohol would’ve come in handy now to help disinfect it, but the alcohol was lost in the duster. The wound was as big around as the tip of his thumb, but it was clean and crusting over, so it looked like it would be okay. Mary stood close to Lester and stroked his broad neck. She went so far as to rest her head against his skin.
They didn’t build a fire or eat that night. Joe was afraid to venture too far away, afraid to even scrounge something up like wild mushrooms. Staying close to the wagon at least felt safe. He changed out of his torn pants and into his spare pair. Then he wrapped himself in a blanket beside Mary. He felt her shivering, so he opened a wing of his blanket and gathered her next to him. She nestled under his arm with her head on his shoulder.
Once again he heard the leaves scraping together as another gust of wind cut through the treetops. It sounded like a whole other world out there that they couldn’t get close to. He felt trapped in the forest, trapped under its black dome. But it felt good to have Mary beside him. He liked how snug she fit under his arm and how the sharp bones in her shoulder seemed to soften against his body. She curled in tighter. Her hard round stomach squeezed onto his lap. All he could think about was making sure she felt secure.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she murmured.
“You sure? You’re not feeling any pain anywhere? You’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
They were quiet for a moment. The warmth of their bodies swaddled in the blanket created a comforting womb against the cold darkness. An owl hooted above them and Joe flinched. After a while the forlorn sound became more reassuring, like the owl was looking out for them in the otherwise eerie stillness.
He recalled the barn owl that made a nest in the hayloft back home. He checked the three baby chicks in the nest every day after the mother flew away to get food. One day he found one of the chicks had fallen from the nest and lay dead on the ground. Its mouth was wide open as if it died in mid-cry. Distraught over the death, Joe went to his brother Frank, who’d said, “It’s only an owl.”
“How’s the baby?” Joe asked.
“It’s asleep.”
“Asleep? How do you know that?”
“It’s not moving.”
Joe paused. “What does it feel like, when it does move?”
“It feels funny.”
“Funny in that your stomach feels funny, like you’re sick?”
“No. Funny in that it’s alive inside me.”
“Alive inside you,” he repeated, half-amazed and half-confirming it to himself.
“Sing,” Mary said.
He felt her shiver. So he sang softly.
“Sleep my child and stars attend thee,
All through the night.
I my loved ones’ vigil keeping…”
He sang until her body relaxed and her head drooped under his chin. The darkness pressed in on them. He wished he could see the stars, just one, just one star shining brightly in the black sky. He knew it was childish to think, but he hoped somehow the dark leaves would open a space above them and he could catch a glimpse, a glimmer of one star. It would’ve been a comforting sight and made it easier to sleep.
Finally, Joe did close his eyes, after he said a little prayer to Virid to ensure that the morning would come without a disturbance and that Mary and the baby would never come to harm.
Chapter 18
The next morning Joe awoke at first light when the forest was still dusky but beginning to brighten. He noticed some specks of light sneaking through the thick canopy of leaves. Maybe that was a sign. He tried to follow one of the tiny beams up through the dense leaves to see if he could catch sight of the sky, but it was still impossible.
When he got up, his knee felt stiff, although not painful like when he had stood on it the other day. He shook it out, bending it and snapping it straight, until he felt it was in good shape. Maybe that was a sign too. He felt only good things ahead after yesterday. They still had a little bit of food left, but not enough to fill them up for one meal, so it was important that he hunt something down.
He grabbed the Calvin rifle and then stopped. If Frank was there, Joe knew he would say to use the bow and arrow to hunt with and save the bullets for protection, but Joe didn’t want to risk missing a possible meal with the less reliable bow and arrow. Besides, he was a good shot. It would only take one bullet for a sure kill. So off he went with the rifle, traipsing into the trees for something to eat. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t take long and he’d be back before Mary woke up.
After a while of seeing nothing but trees and fallen branches, he stopped and sat down to rest a minute. He was afraid he’d gotten his hopes up. If he didn’t find something soon he would have to head back to the wagon. He’d already left Mary alone too long. If she awoke and he wasn’t there, he was sure she would panic.
To his left he heard something rustle. He turned his head. The noise was less of a rustle now and more of a rutting sound. Then he saw it, a barrelback pig. He tried not to make the slightest sound as he rolled over gently on his side and then flat on his belly. He dug his elbows into the ground and leveled the rifle. The barrelback scuffed at the dirt with his snout and grunted like he was frustrated with whatever he was trying to dig up. But then it shuffled forward so its head was now in back of a tree, which only left his backside as a target. Joe thought about waiting for the pig to move again so he could get a head shot, but on second thought the pig might decide to wander off and he’d get no shot at all. He took a chance. He aimed for the leg. He hoped to crack it good and prevent the barrelback from running too fast too far. That way Joe could catch up with it and kill it with a shot in the brain. Right when he was about to shoot, he felt something touch his leg. He twisted his head enough to catch a glimpse of Mary kneeling behind him. He couldn’t believe it.
When he turned again to the barrelback pig, it must’ve sensed something was amiss because it wasn’t making a sound. It was ready to bolt, Joe thought. In his haste to get a shot off, he squeezed the trigger without lining up the sights properly. The pig squealed and ran. Joe jumped to his feet, cocked the Calvin, and went bounding over fallen branches and darting in between trees until he saw the pig again. It tore around the upturned roots of a fallen tree. Joe slowed down, raised the Calvin and fired, but the blast only bit a chunk of bark out of a tree. He stopped for a moment, panting, his nerves jittery, and then ran in the direction he’d last seen the pig. However, after hopping over a cluster of rocks, it was obvious the barrelback had gotten away. Joe was so frustrated he could’ve screamed.
He trudged back to Mary who was still sitting in the same place where she had startled him. She’d gathered a pile of mushrooms in t
he skirt of her dress.
“What’s wrong with you!” he shouted. “I had a perfect shot on that pig before you scared it away. Now we got nothing, thanks to you. A bunch of stupid mushrooms aren’t going to fill us up. But a whole pig would’ve.”
Mary shook the mushrooms out on the ground and stood up. Then she did something that made Joe feel awful. She grabbed a branch and handed it to him, after which she turned her back and crouched low on the ground. She presented her curved back to him, expecting him to beat her with the branch for what she’d done wrong. Joe looked at the branch in his hand and then at Mary hunched over. He suddenly realized what cruelty she must have endured. No wonder she hardly spoke. No wonder she hid her face all the time. She didn’t think she was worth anything to anyone. Joe flung the branch away in disgust. When it cracked against a tree, Mary flinched. Joe wiped his face with a quick swipe of his sleeve and sniffed.
“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
He set the rifle against a tree and knelt down beside her. He laid his hand on her back. Her body twitched at his touch.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. He slid his hand along the hard bumps in her spine. “I would never hurt you. Never in a million years. You understand? We’re in this together. You and me. I would never let anything bad happen to you. It’s okay. I know people must’ve treated you bad before but I wouldn’t do that. Never.”
Mary finally stirred. She lifted her head and then straightened her back and slowly sat up.
Never Too Far Page 7