When we were children, Rona would tuck us into our sleeping bags and paint the history of our people in pretty words. “Where the sky’s a little bluer,” she’d say, “the trees a little greener, that’s where we’ll live until our toes begin to tingle, our feet ache to travel, and we’re sick for the urge to wander again.”
Sometimes, if we were good, which was almost never, in her storytelling voice she’d reveal secrets from her youth, the scams she and Mom ran when they were best friends growing up in the camp together. Every night, Rona would promise Mom would come back soon. She doesn’t promise that anymore.
I can’t think about the past too long or how Rona’s sitting beside me full of unsaid words, because Wen appears from behind a tent, barefoot and wearing his old, blood-stained jeans and no shirt.
The deadly games are about to begin.
Bare-knuckle fighting is entertainment as much as it’s a thriving business inside camp. There aren’t many rules, just knuckles against skin and cartilage and sometimes bone.
Everyone’s got bits of money tucked away that they don’t mind betting on an opponent. Lando takes a small cut of each bet, regardless of the outcome, so while everyone else sometimes loses, Lando is always a winner. Most everyone throws money into the game—out of sport or greed or fear of Lando. No matter the reason, their bets keep Wen’s knuckles raw and the camp bank full of cash.
It’s a family event, too. When we were kids, we’d sit between Mom and Rona for every fight. Wen would bury his face inside his shirt, even after the last punches were thrown. But me, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the blood and carnage.
We’re not too different from the markies. They host fights for the world to watch on great big TVs. We hold our fights in secret.
Lando rolls Boss’s wheelchair down his RV ramp. We all look to Boss now.
His legs haven’t worked since before I was alive, but it was only a few years back when a stroke stole his ability to speak. Now his voice is nothing more than a little blackboard and a package of chalk. Lando’s the one to execute whatever demands Boss scratches out, trying to be something to Boss that he’ll never quite manage. Trying to become Boss.
The screech of chalk digging into his slate makes my flesh crawl, even before I see the glaring white letters: Wen fights Horatio.
At the opposite end of our circle, Horatio emerges from the shadows of Boss’s RV. He’s got the body of a pit bull packed into a seventeen-year-old boy. Wen’s never had to fight anyone as large as him.
Crawling to my knees, I’ll do close to anything to put an end to this. “You can’t make Wen fight him!”
Rona grabs my arm, anchoring me to the ground.
Between our old winter blankets, in the high cabinets of the trailer, Wen and I have a Cool Whip tub stowed away. It’s full of bills we’ve skimmed off Boss’s take. No matter how low things get, we abide by one rule: Money goes in and doesn’t ever come out. I wouldn’t say it’s for a rainy day—more for a hurricane. Tonight might be that perfect storm.
Against my ear, Rona says, “It’s not worth you making a fuss. There’s not a thing you can do to stop it. Besides, Wen agreed. Because of the money y’all didn’t bring in from the hustle.”
Lando leaves Boss with a bell and the chalkboard in his lap, and cups his hands around his mouth. “Listen up!” Everyone falls silent. “Three-minute rounds with ten-second breaks. No hitting below the belt. No biting.”
Though the night is cool and the fire is small, sweat drips down Wen’s back. He’d never admit it to anyone in the camp, not even me, but I know he’s shaking inside.
Slowly, we all turn to Boss. He lifts his feeble hand and rings the bell. It’s a small sound, a jingle more than a true ring, but enough to signal the fight has begun.
Horatio swings, and Wen ducks the punch before bouncing straight up and outside Horatio’s reach.
Wen’s not that large, and he’s not particularly strong, but he’s light on his feet. He never wins, but he can delay the punches for longer than most. These fights are another kind of con: my brother keeping the game rolling long enough to make everyone believe, if only for a few minutes, that the game is equally matched. He’s a trick, too. The illusion of a fighter.
Horatio rears back and aims for Wen’s rib cage. The sensation hits—I can feel my own ribs splintering—but Wen turns his body to the side, narrowing Horatio’s target and dodging the fist.
“Time!” calls Lando.
Wen and Horatio both retreat to the sidelines.
Rona eases back on her blanket. Six or seven seasons ago, when Wen had his first match, Rona tried acting like fighting was another rite of passage, but I hadn’t sat too far from her. With every punch thrown, her fists clenched and her teeth ground together. After she caught me watching, she guarded her gestures more carefully.
Emil gives Wen some water and a towel and claps him on the shoulder a couple of times. But Emil’s reassuring grin is a lie.
The game starts back up, and Horatio slams his fist toward Wen. Again, Wen ducks. Horatio stumbles forward, losing his footing. Wen thinks he has him now—I can see it in his smirk. He advances on Horatio, gaining on him with each step. He swings and clocks Horatio’s chin.
I’m midcheer as a sly smile creeps across Horatio’s face. Wen’s leaning forward, all the weight of him off balance, a horrible position to dodge a punch. Horatio’s fist crashes into Wen’s cheek. The campfire hisses as a shower of blood hits the flames.
Wen falls to the ground and lies perfectly still for a second too long. Then his back heaves, so I know he’s still breathing. I’m able to breathe again myself.
The rules forbid striking a downed opponent, and for one hopeful second, I think Wen’s about to forfeit.
Don’t get up. Don’t get up. Rona glances at me—I was whispering it out loud.
Wen’s ribs twist under his sweaty skin as he pushes up on his forearms. He plants one foot solidly into the ground as Horatio swings.
His fist explodes against Wen’s skull, leaving my brother a heap of limbs on the ground, inhaling the dry summer dirt.
Boss rings the bell. It’s done.
A group of boys descends on Wen’s unmoving body, slapping at his back and splashing water on his face.
“Tal!” yells Emil across the circle. He loops Wen’s arm around his shoulder, lifting my brother to a standing position. “We’re taking him back to your trailer.”
Rona’s hand lingers on my arm as I rise.
I freeze. “Not now.”
“Tal, please. Let’s talk,” she says. “I stand by what I did. No good would have come from me telling you.”
In that moment, those last bits of affection I have for Rona slip away. I hate her for starting this now—when Wen needs me—after there’s been nothing but silence between us for months.
She sighs. “Someday, we’re gonna have to talk.”
I pretend I didn’t hear her and head into the shadows between the RVs.
On the lit-up porch of Lando’s trailer glows a half-empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s. My feet should keep moving. My hands should stay buried in my pockets. But my body’s never been any good at doing what it’s supposed to do.
I take a quick look around and slip the bottle beneath the waistband of my jeans.
CHAPTER 5
The boys of camp all crowd around the door of my tent trailer, laughing and blowing smoke rings into the night air. They’ve dumped Wen inside, and now they’re happy to revel in the carnage for a few minutes longer.
“Don’t you guys have anything better to do?”
They take one look at me, tapping my foot in the dirt, and the cigarettes hanging from their lips go still. One by one, they part down the middle. They head up the dirt road, slinking around bumpers or slipping between trees, leaving a cloud of smoke in their wake.
I find Wen sitting up in his bed.
The trailer is perfect for only us. We each have our own nooks, the places where mesh netting extends past the
base of the trailer, tucking two twin beds onto the ledges at opposite ends. The mesh sides keep a steady stream of air flowing over us as we sleep. There’s no plumbing to the kitchen, so bottled water’s as good as gold, and there’s no bathroom, so we make use of the RVs around us or, occasionally, the forest. The trailer sleeps six people, floor space included, but only if the dining table is collapsed and converted into a bed.
A halo from Wen’s book light circles him. We were fresh out of batteries. He must have robbed a couple from one of the flashlights.
I sink the side of my hip into the Formica tabletop. “What are you reading?”
“D.” He flashes me the spine of his encyclopedia as he holds a wad of paper towels against his bleeding cheek.
We have a little more than a half set of encyclopedias, A through N. Mom and Rona hot-wired some markie’s car when we were kids; the encyclopedias were in the trunk. Rona wanted us to toss them, said they weighed us down and wasted too much gas, but Wen wouldn’t have it.
Sometimes, I wonder if he thinks he can find the answers to all his questions inside those encyclopedias. The answers to all the magic our people build our existence around. Answers to my supposed gift. I hope there are things that live and breathe outside his books, things people can’t explain. I hope.
He lodges his finger between the pages to hold his spot. “So, when you get these feelings about where we’re supposed to go next, what’s it like?”
Every time we make camp in a new town, it’s become our ritual for me to tell him again. A sad kind of fairy tale. I give my rehearsed answer as I search for antiseptic and bandages. “Like an aching in my arms and legs. It tugs at me, pulling me in the right direction.”
“Dowsing’s real, you know?” he says. “I read it.”
“It’s nothing like dowsing. I find places I think will be lucky.”
“Well, it’s close.” He thumbs through D and starts reading. “Dowsing is a form of divination in which one locates water, oil, underground metals, gems—”
“It’s a good thing I’m not telepathic. We don’t have T.”
The paper towels on his face are now blooming with blood.
“Okay,” I say. “Put the book down and come here, will you?”
There was a time when I loved that he read, knowing he wasn’t becoming like the other buffoons in camp. The encyclopedias were a distraction then, and not an obsession. Now those books give Wen funny ideas about markie life, ideas I worry will end with him planted in one place, leaving me to wander the world alone.
Rona doesn’t like him reading them, either, though she’s never said a word about Sonia’s paperback romance habit. I guess Wen knowing about the real world scares Rona more than Sonia’s made-up ones.
He jerks as I dab an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball against his cheek. Taking his face between my palms, I blow on the cut to take the sting away the way our mother used to. Blood still oozes down his cheek, but the cut’s shallow. He won’t need stitches.
“Hold this on it. Hard.” I press his hand over the fresh paper towel. “Lots of pressure until the bleeding stops.”
“Where were you after dinner?” he asks.
“Talking to Rona.”
“I was going to tell you the fight was against Horatio.”
“Doubtful. You’d have told me it was Horatio, and I would’ve cleaned out every bit”—I drop to a whisper—“of our savings to get you out of it. Now that, that, is the reason you didn’t find me.”
“You should have taken our money back from that markie. Then I wouldn’t have had to fight. You’re too prideful, Tal.”
He’s right. About a lot of things. I’d put my pride ahead of him when I pushed the money into Spencer Sway’s hand. That’s why Wen got beaten. It’s the kind of thing my mother would have done.
“Said the pot to the kettle. You hit the damn ground out there. But you had to get back up, didn’t you?”
“That’s honor. Honor’s different.” Wen moves the paper towel off his eyes and looks at me. “Did you talk to Rona, or did Rona talk to you?”
I don’t have the patience for speaking in code. “We’re not doing this again.”
“I don’t know what happened between you, but you gotta let it go. When it comes time to marry Felix, you’ll want her on your side. We need her—”
“We don’t need her,” I say.
Felix, his parents, and his brothers and sisters—six kids in all—live with a northeast-bound caravan, and have since I was a kid. He’s a faceless, bodiless myth of a boy who Boss has fixed me to.
Ensuring we end up married to our own kind keeps our existence afloat, Boss used to say. Marriages unite us with other caravans that have power and money and connections. Boss’ll find other good families, people we’ll be compatible with, who we can build lives beside. Passion fades, but family connections can grow into love. Or something deeper that’s less fleeting.
Arranged marriages are the lifeblood of the Wanderer community. But living in a society that buys and sells girls doesn’t feel right to me and Wen.
He’s wearing his saddest of frowns.
“Hey,” I say, “I’ve got fifteen months until I’m eighteen. More than a year to figure things out.” Fifteen months to get a scheme into place that gives my future back to the person it should belong to—me.
Wen shakes his head. “When Boss fixes you with someone, there’s no breaking free.”
The night breeze drifting through the screens makes goose bumps rise on my bare arms. I grab one of Wen’s old flannels—one he thinks he’s too good to wear now that he’s stolen a few nicer shirts—and slip it over my arms. “You know how my mind works, Wen. Give me enough time, and I’ll con my way out of this marriage.”
He opens his mouth and pauses. I think my reasoning has chipped away at his fears. Until he blurts, “It’s one of the old ways. They don’t screw with the old ways, and you know it. Besides, it might not be Boss’s decision anymore. . . .”
My fingers go still for only a second. I secure the last few buttons, pretending a future with Lando in control doesn’t scare me.
Through the screen windows, the blur of a white sundress moves through the dark.
Across the dirt road already beaten down by Wanderer feet, Sonia’s smoky eyes watch me from between the trailers. Her hand lifts in a small wave, but I drop my eyes to the floor.
Emil and Sonia are the perfect endorsement for the practice of arranging marriages. When they were born, Boss proclaimed—when he could proclaim instead of scratch out—that Emil and Sonia were betrothed. So they grew up feeling like one of them was the sun and the other the moon.
She’s living proof these arranged marriages mean losing a part of yourself. I plan on keeping all of me.
Wen leans forward and stares out the screen door. Sonia’s already long gone.
“I’ve got something that’ll make all this up to you.” From under the waistband of my jeans, I retrieve the fifth of whiskey.
“And from whom did you procure that?”
“From Lando.”
“He gave it to you? You don’t mind owing him a favor?”
The bottle of whiskey hums as I use my tank top to wipe invisible germs off the lip. I pass him the bottle.
His fingers pause inches away, and he stares at me. “You didn’t.”
“Don’t worry about Lando.”
“He’s going to murder us in our sleep!”
“If he finds out,” I say, “I’ll make sure I’m the only one to blame.”
Wen sips and shudders, shaking fat tears down his cheeks. “That’s what I worry about.”
I tip the bottle back and gulp. Heat spreads from my tongue, over my throat, and deep in my stomach. It’s enough of a distraction, for him and for me.
“Take it easy, Tal.”
I come up for air with the lantern lights swirling and my body already unwinding from the booze.
As I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth, Wen says, “Sometimes
you scare me.”
The last couple of swallows slosh inside the bottle as I tilt it to Wen. He holds up his hands, so I knock it back and finish off every drop.
He groans and kills the light.
I climb into my bed, and Wen’s voice cuts through the dark.
“Good night, Tal. Good night, you thief, you vagabond.”
Rona would come by our trailer when we were kids, kiss us both on the foreheads, and say those very words to us, the words she and Mom exchanged every night in the dark. She doesn’t say them to anyone anymore. Maybe it’s silly, but it’s Wen who whispers those words to me every night, unable to let the trappings of childhood die.
The thrill of the drink takes me far away. Even though my body is lightly swaying in my bed, my mind is racing across oceans.
CHAPTER 6
“How much farther is it to the lake, Tal?”
“Very close. I think.”
Behind me, Wen trips over brush and weeds. “I’m not speaking to you all week if we don’t find it soon.”
I smile. “Promise?”
We’re supposed to make ourselves scarce for the afternoon while Rona and some guys from camp set a scam in motion. With me, the compass, and Wen, a bare-knuckle fighter, if there are no cons to run, our days mostly belong to our whims.
We lay off the big cons, Wen and I, at least for now. Too many of our people doing business in town at once is a bottled hurricane waiting to break loose.
“It’s like we’re walking downhill,” he mutters.
“Think of it this way. There’s only so far down we can go.”
“That’s, like, a metaphor for everything you’ve ever convinced me to do.”
Right then, a speck of dark blue glitters in the brush. A few more steps and the trees give way to a lake that’s smooth as glass, water pooling at the bottom of a deep valley like punch in a bowl.
It’s early September, and this will probably be our last swim of the summer.
My tank top and cut-offs are a heap on the dock before Wen even drops his sunglasses on the bank. I break the surface, skin stinging as the icy water laps against my calves, my thighs, my waist, before I dive and sink under its weight. The cold knocks the air out of me, so I shoot straight up toward the sunlight.
Wandering Wild Page 3