Amitola: The Making of a Tribe

by A. Grant Richard

  With one hand he worked his fingers through her hair and rubbed her neck. With his other hand, he used only his fingertips then barely allowed them to skim the surface of her exposed skin. He dug his hand under her tank top and continued to work as far down as he could reach. She couldn’t believe he knew right where to go to ignite her.

  His fingers continued to work that one spot below her neck and between her shoulder blades. She could no longer fight. She squeezed his arm and let out a soft moan. Once he heard it, he couldn’t take much more. He reached down with one arm and pulled her up so that their lips were only a breath away.

  His hand covered the side of her face. His hungry eyes reflected everything she sensed at that moment, and she knew that if her lips pressed against his, there was no way they could put the fire out once it began raging.

  “We can’t,” she said as she hid her face in his chest.

  He sat up and urged her to look at him. “It’s okay. Look at me.” She pulled her knees up to her face and cried into them. “If you’re not ready, that’s okay. We can wait—“

  She said, “That’s not it.” She fought back the tears. Her eyes found him, and she took a series of deep breaths and attempted to calm herself. She grabbed his hands, wanting, no, needing him to understand her; to really get her. She tried to say something but the words caught in her throat.

  He searched her face wanting so much for her to let him in. He begged her to talk to him. “You don’t have to carry this by yourself. Talk to me. I’ll do whatever you need me to do; whatever it takes to help you.”

  She wanted to forget everything and get lost in his arms but she couldn’t, and though she didn’t want to go through the process of dealing with it, she knew it was inevitable. If she invited him into her life as a partner and a lover, then he had to know.

  She stretched out her legs on the mattress. Tears threatened to fall once again. “Can I just tell you the basics? Can you not ask questions?”

  He gently moved his fingers down a lock of her hair. He didn’t want to agree to not having the option to ask questions, but it was better than not having the conversation at all. “You can say it any way you want. Just talk to me, please.”

  She opened her mouth to speak several times but failed to follow through. She threw her hands up in agony. She didn’t even know where to begin. If she had only taken the time to sort through some of this and categorize everything according to what was relevant and what wasn’t, then this might be easier. However, she never thought she’d be sharing this with anyone much less someone she cared for so much.

  He noticed she was struggling. He searched his brain then he recalled something he’d learned in a workshop. He sat up straight with his back against the wall and asked her to come closer to him. She crawled over, facing him. “Turn around,” he said. She sat on the mattress between his legs and leaned her back against him. He grabbed her hands and put them on his legs. “I know it’s not jeans, but it’s cotton. Rub ’til your little heart’s content.” He laughed in her ear, just a little, then kissed her on the cheek and gave her a squeeze. He put his arms around her, resting one on her stomach and the other just below her neck. “You’re safe now. You don’t need to filter what you say or guess what I do or don’t want to hear. Just talk, and I’ll listen. I’m here whenever you’re ready.”

  She looked at the wall on the other side of the room. Now that she couldn’t see his face but could still feel his presence it made it easier to begin. “I need you to know I’m not in denial or anything. At least I don’t think so. I mean, I know what happened to me. I lived through it, and I relive it almost every day, but I can handle that.”

  She positioned the fabric of his jogging pants between her fingers and started to rub. “I just—I don’t want you to feel sorry for me or treat me different. That’s what I couldn’t handle. It’s other people trying to tell me how I’m supposed to feel that makes me feel ashamed or like I did something wrong. Like earlier, Tony pulled me to the side and said I shouldn’t be talking about aggressive sex considering…” She paused for a moment then said, “Anyway, he had no right.”

  “The two have nothing to do with each other. He shouldn’t have said that to you,” Tye said.

  “I mean, you and Lance must’ve mentioned sex to each other right?”

  The last thing he wanted to do was think about her with anyone else, even Lance. He didn’t want to tell her, but he and Lance had talked about it on occasion. That’s why he understood the reason she was asking. “Not like you might think. Sometimes we talked vaguely, like when we were drinking or whatever.”

  “Did he ever mention anything to you about our differing preferences?”

  “He may have said he liked things different from you. Heh, it’s funny because I never really pegged him as the romantic type.”

  “Huh, yeah. I know, right? And there was nothing wrong with it, believe me. We compromised and found a happy middle. It may seem crazy to you that I’m mentioning this at all but it’s important to me and look, we almost just went there, and I’d rather have an honest discussion about it and make sure there’s complete trust and understanding there before anything happens. I just want to make sure you know these preferences I have existed long before,” she gasped, “…long before all this and what I said isn’t the subconscious result of anything that happened to me.” She tilted her head back onto his shoulder. “And I know I sound like a broken record, but I need to know that no matter what I tell you, you won’t see me any differently than you do now.”

  He took a deep breath. “Thank you for sharing this with me. I get why you want me to know, and I don’t think you’re crazy, okay? I love that it’s important to you. And the good news here is that I wasn’t the vanilla one in my marriage.” He grinned and kissed her cheek again. He nudged her up and turned her shoulders slightly to face him. “But here’s the part where I’m completely honest with you. I know exactly who you are and when I look at you, that’s the woman I see. That won’t change. As far as me not responding to things you tell me, I can’t promise you that. I don’t know what you’re going to say and I have no idea how I’ll react.”

  She sighed and slouched her shoulders. He said, “I need you to hear me out too.” She considered that for a moment then nodded reluctantly. “I care about you so much that I’m afraid of what I’ll do, but I know we both have to go through this. If I say something wrong or make you uncomfortable, talk to me about it. Let’s work through it. But at the same time, I need you to know that I take personally everything that was done to you and I blame myself for not doing more.”

  She shook her head aggressively. “What? No, no. If it wasn't for you I’d probably be dead. It was you; you taught me to survive. It was your voice I kept hearing telling me to remember the reason I fight, to choose to live and not give up, and pushing me to keep going. You couldn’t have done anything more than you did.”

  He touched her face. “I know that in my mind, but my heart hates that you had to go through any of this and that I wasn’t there to protect you from it. That’s why I’m saying we have to talk. We have to hold each other accountable. We walk through this together, for the rest of our lives if necessary. I don't expect you to just get over this or get past it but please don’t ask me to either.”

  Dang. How did he do that? He wriggled his way in again. He completely altered her mindset again. She didn’t even know she needed to hear that. She thought she wanted him to go on like he was unaware and nothing changed, but he was right. What she needed was to know that he cared enough to go through this with her; to stand up and fight for her. She was stunned. He needed to know what she’d been through so they could both work it out. She repeated to herself over and over to push through and get it over with.

  “Okay. Are you sure you’re ready to hear this?”

  He wasn’t, and he knew it, but then again he knew he never could be. They had to do this. He said, “I’m ready whenever you are,” then he braced himself. />
  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Aside from a few detours due to damaged roads or flood waters, the rest of the trip was uneventful. There seemed to be far fewer people in this area. That or they were better at hiding. Getting to Highland Road was a bigger challenge than they’d initially thought. Barricades stood in various locations all along the road. The bodies of dead men scattered near them.

  Jay positioned himself to get a better look out of the window. “It looks like a war zone. These people were shot. And what happened to their damn heads?”

  “I don’t know, but this is the work of the dog hunters. They came here first,” Clarence said. “These people aren’t playing around. This is why we have to beat them.”

  Jay's face shriveled in disgust. "Sick."

  Caleb got up and walked to the front by Rodney. He pointed to a mansion that had been burned to the ground. “Right there,” he said.

  Rodney pulled into the long driveway. Concern overtook him. “You’re kidding me. We came all this way for nothing? Ain't no way anything in that house survived.”

  Caleb opened the doors of the bus and jumped off. “It’s not in the house. Come on!”

  He jogged past the outdoor kitchen with its massive grill, and pizza oven then followed the stone path to the outdoor fireplace. It was at least eight foot tall and twelve foot wide. Though it had long been burned out, the remains of tree limbs and outdoor furniture spilled out of the inner hearth. Caleb grabbed the shovel, stooped down and began clearing out the mess.

  “What are you doing?” Luke asked.

  “This is how you get in.”

  Hearing that, Clarence and Jay eyeballed each other then walked around the structure. They pushed the vines aside and walked the length of the back. It was several feet long. “Unbelievable,” Clarence said.

  Caleb grabbed his flashlight and turned it on. He shined it in the cubby that protected the lock. He inserted the key and twisted it. It clicked, then in front of him, a panel opened up. He ducked down and said, “I need someone to boost me.”

  Luke linked his hands together and stooped down to give him a boost. “Tell me again how you know about this place,” he said.

  Once he’d helped him up, Caleb could see the hinge holding the back wall in place. He reached down and unlatched it. A slight push and it swung right open.

  Caleb got down, turned to them and smiled. “Tada…” He lit the oil lamp and moved to the center of the room.

  The men gawked at the display. A variety of rifles, shotguns, handguns, pistols and several large plastic containers full of ammunition lined the walls. Stacked in the back of the room, dozens of containers and five-gallon buckets full of food were neatly displayed.

  Caleb addressed Luke. “We stayed with my dad’s friend after everything happened. We came here with some security guards a few days later thinking we could wait it out here but the house had already been torched. He showed me this while we were here and said if anything happened to him we should use it. When he died, I took the key.”

  “This is the one you believe knew about the asteroids?” Clarence asked.

  “Yeah, this was what he called his backup plan.”

  “Hmm,” Jay muttered. “Don’t think it worked out the way he thought.”

  Rodney backed up the bus as close to the room as he could. They opened the back doors and loaded the cargo. Caleb double-checked to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. On the wall behind the shelf where the food was stored, he noticed a brown clasp envelope taped to the wall. He ripped it off and tucked it into his jacket.

  “That it?” Jay asked.

  “That’s it,” Caleb replied as he climbed into the bus.

  The men nodded in gratitude as he walked past them to get to his seat. He sat down then Clarence turned to him and said, "Thanks, son." Caleb nodded and smiled.

  With no street lights and the moon and stars obscured, the only illumination they had was from the bus's headlights. The drive home was eery. They didn’t see a single person or animal for that matter. Even the crash site from the roadblock they’d encountered earlier had been abandoned.

  Caleb flipped through the pages of Maia’s notebook. He read line by line and attempted to comprehend what she’d recorded on the blood-stained pages. Awe turned to anger then sadness and back again. Some of what he read caused him to feel guilty that they’d had it so easy in the beginning. All the while Maia and her people were barely surviving.

  He looked at Rodney through the mirror. He had a newfound respect for the young man. He’d stepped up when he was needed. Her accolades about all of the kids were scribbled on every page. A handful of entries caused him to stumble. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t decipher a few of the codes she used. He dog-eared those pages and purposed to ask her about them.

  He gazed out the window as the bus rolled up to the front of the psych hospital. About two dozen men stood under the awning, bags packed and battle ready. Some women and young girls were also standing there with them. When Rodney noticed them, he started cussing.

  “How many times do we have to tell them to stay inside?” he griped as he hopped off the bus. “Baby, why are you out here? It’s not safe.” He looked around then grabbed her and held her tight.

  Brea was a tiny little thing except for her baby bump. Her long blonde locks caught in her mouth and her eyes sparkled at the sight of Rodney. The two met and fell in love in high school. He instantly knew that there was no other woman for him. However, it took him nearly two months to convince her he was the only man for her. At twenty years old, they discovered they were going to be parents. It was the happiest day of their lives.

  She looked at him with those big gray eyes and tears enveloped her. “I didn’t know where you were. I was scared. When Truck said you were coming back, I had to see you.”

  “I’m okay, but I can’t stay. We have to go back out,”

  The young girl beside her grabbed Rodney’s arm, “Did you find Maia?”

  Yes, She’s fine,” His gaze returned to his bride. “I need you to go inside and keep it locked up. Some of the guys are staying behind with Nunez to protect y’all. You know what to do.” He hugged her tight and kissed her one more time. He rubbed her belly and told his little one that daddy would be home soon.

  Her tears fell hard as he walked away. Her younger sister and another woman held her tight. The older woman was also pregnant. “Clarence,” she yelled. “Tell Danny we love him, and he has to come home. Please…”

  “Will do, Shelly. I’ll make sure he gets the message. Take care now,” he replied.

  Clarence introduced Caleb to all the guys then he, Jay and Luke distributed the last of the weapons and packaged up the rest of the food and supplies for easy transport. They discussed the fastest and most discreet route back to the old plantation then prepared to move out. They left the remaining contents of the bus for the men who stayed behind to stand guard in Amitola.

  “Is that enough for them? They have everything they need here?” Caleb asked Clarence as they walked away.

  “Yeah. Heck, they’re better off than we are.”

  Caleb looked back at them one more time before they marched off. "Good," he replied, then he fell in line with the rest of the men.

  They made their way through town and back to the boats then across the dark and creepy swamp. Danny, JT, and Wade were waiting on the other side.

  Danny helped grab containers and supplies out of their boat. “We got your boys. They’re holed up with Dumais and that other jackwad. They’ve been questioning ‘em.”

  "You mean, Jason?" Caleb asked.

  "No," Danny replied. "I meant jackwad."

  JT interrupted, “We found a clear way back, but we need to get moving. They make rounds in less than forty-five minutes.”

  She felt him caressing her shoulder and squeezing her a bit tighter. She chose a spot on the wall and focused on it. “I’ve used everything you taught me, and it works. I fought off a bunch of men. Wh
en it’s only one or two, it’s easier. It’s only a problem when there’s a group of them or when they find other ways to make you do what they want.”

  She took a deep breath. “One time, a guy held a gun on my kids. He kept trying to put his—“ She drifted off. “He would’ve shot my kids if I tried anything. Carst…” A sob broke through before she could even finish saying his name. “He kept telling them they were going to have to shoot him.”

  She pulled herself together and continued. “All the boys were crying and yelling. I wasn’t about to put them through that. Finally, I just said fuck it and bit him as hard as I could. I really thought he’d kill us all. Then, that guy that Jason killed, when he saw what was happening, he hit the guy over the head and told us to run. He let us get away.

  She touched the mark on the back of her shoulder, “The time when I got this beautiful souvenir they didn’t get a chance to do anything to me. Ethan intended to have me first, but I didn’t give him a chance.”

  Then, the last time…” she swallowed hard and blinked her eyes several times. “The last time, my hands were tied to something above my head. I hung there for I don’t know for how long. I kept passing out. I think they drugged me. I don’t know what they did to me or why they finally let me go. All I know is I woke up to the boys shaking me. I was in the middle of a field, and there was blood everywhere. That was a couple months ago.”

  He had his forehead pressed firmly against the back of her head, his eyes closed. He was listening but forcing himself not to react to what he was hearing. There was no longer any doubt. She confirmed much of what he’d feared.