by David Towsey
Mary shifted. She was biting her lip. Perhaps he should wake her, but dawn was a few hours away and she needed the rest. She had blisters, she must have blisters, but she didn’t say so. A red-wink howled in the distance. It was a lonely sound for a lonely place. He could see for miles around and whilst it weighed on him, he was glad for that loneliness. He dreaded the sight of a tiny orange dot of a campfire. Sometimes he blinked and saw it. He would close his eyes and count to five. Then six. At seven he opened his eyes and saw nothing but rolling red earth and the shadows of clouds.
He wasn’t afraid of red-winks. Every other animal he’d encountered ran from him. He doubted they would be any different. He remembered the shaggies he’d chased out of the stables. And the shaggie that was shot. He wished he had been hit instead. The wet thump the shaggie made when it hit the ground was still with him.
He blinked. A light. He counted. It was still there. The clouds had moved, covering the edge of the horizon in shadow. It was definitely a pinprick of orange light. Why hadn’t he spotted it before? Did the moonlight drown it? Was the same light hiding Thomas and Mary’s fire? He scrambled over to the embers and stamped on them. He kicked dirt and dust onto the fire.
Mary woke up.
‘We have to go,’ he said. She helped him bury the fire. He picked up their supplies, refusing to let her carry anything.
‘Are they close?’ she said, gazing across the empty crags and gullies.
‘Getting closer. Can you walk?’
She stifled a yawn and nodded. They left another camp; leaving as little to track as possible, he hoped. But how could he know? He was just a farmer turned soldier turned Walkin’. He knew how to handle bluetongue in a woollie, how to twist a bayonet so a man died quickly or slowly, but cover a trail? He tried as best he could.
‘Your shoes,’ he said. She was carrying them.
‘I want to walk barefoot for a while.’
‘They hurt, don’t they?’
‘A little.’
‘Go careful.’
It wasn’t long before she was falling asleep standing up. She stumbled and he caught her. Without asking he picked her up, lifting behind the knees. She smiled weakly at him and closed her eyes. Her breathing became slower. He could feel her heartbeat. It thumped all through his body. He suddenly and desperately wanted to have a heartbeat again.
Carrying her slowed him down. He had to be careful not to trip, but it was more than that. It was as if his frame and dormant muscles knew their limit. He could manage his own weight until the end of days, but any further burden tipped the balance. As a Walkin’, the scales were set to isolation. How Black Mountain figured in that, he would find out eventually.
Every night he would carry Mary as she slept. He didn’t want to see any more fires on the horizon.
3 : 5
Mary stirred in his arms. The sun was tearing itself free from the horizon. In the soft light her sleepy features were angelic. He must have been one of millions of fathers who had looked on their daughter and thought the same. The divine impression faded as Mary chewed and smacked her lips like a grazing woollie. Her mouth was that special kind of dry that followed sleep. He understood dry – he was as parched as the cracked Redlands – but this was different; Mary’s body had an expectation of tasting water again. It would go on expecting it until she died. Then she might be truly dry, like him.
She opened her eyes. He smiled as she blinked and tried to focus on something in the near-dark. That her first reaction wasn’t terror or repulsion meant a lot to Thomas. He could have forgiven her a momentary widening of the eyes, a turn of the head, a tightening of the cheeks. It would be natural and unstoppable. But she yawned and smiled back at him.
‘I had a dream I was flying, like a blightbird,’ she said.
‘If only I could carry you that high. You want to walk?’
‘Not yet.’
She rested against his chest; her eyes closed but not asleep.
‘I need to pee,’ she said. He let her down. She rubbed her legs, encouraging blood down to her toes. Her first few steps were tottering and small. He remembered her very first steps. They were in the shop; she used the shelves to steady herself. Sarah was out back fetching something for someone. By the time she had returned, Mary had fallen back on her bottom. It seemed one of them always had to miss the important moments.
‘Don’t go too far,’ he said. She could have gone in front of him, but he understood she wanted some privacy. It seemed unlikely there would be outhouses at Black Mountain. And privacy would be strange in a place where you could see past people’s skin to their insides. What could you hide? He kept an eye on Mary. She was heading up a slope, which came to an abrupt lip. From the looks of her, she was searching for a suitable bit of scrub to squat behind.
By his feet were a number of little black holes. Without realising, he’d stumbled into a patch of under-mutton burrows. He knelt down beside one, making sure he could still see Mary. If only he had wire for a trap; there was no way an under-mutton would come out with him there. No matter how still he kept. Animals knew. The under-mutton were most likely huddled as far from him as their burrows would take them. But there was no harm in hoping. Karl’s dried meat wouldn’t last for ever.
‘The ass doesn’t wonder what it’s like to sit on a cart, rather than pull it,’ his father had once said. They were heading into Barkley on a cart loaded with corn. Pa flicked the reins to emphasise the point. Thomas was seven or eight years old, younger than Mary at any rate. He could tell his father was annoyed, but he couldn’t stop the questions. How much would they get for the corn? What would they buy? Who brought the other goods to Barkley and how? In the face of every question, Pa flicked the leather again. But it wasn’t an ass pulling the cart, it was a shaggie.
At the same age, Mary had pestered him with questions. He had tried to be patient, answering everything he could, but when he had no answer she kept asking. He even used the same line as his father, passing the great ‘ass’ down to another generation of McDermotts. It was only when he became a father that Thomas began to understand his own.
He caught himself tonguing the inside of his mouth alongside the memory. It was a dry feeling: his teeth rough and wooden, his tongue like a thick, callused finger.
For some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about his father. Evenings spent on the porch, sitting at the foot of the rocking chair and watching the sun drop. Working the fields, yards apart but moving together. Hunting; quiet hours spent in the tall grass. The good times were quiet. No words between them – no words were kind. No words were kind words; Thomas rolled the sentence around in his head. It made sense whichever way he put it.
He remembered Pa standing beside the back door one autumn evening. He was smirking. Thomas didn’t know what that meant, but he was scared. His father was usually stony or yelling, there was no smirk. Thomas flinched when Pa raised an arm, feeling silly and relieved when the old man opened the back door.
‘Patience, son, and a little luck.’
The door peeled open, as if Pa were drawing back a curtain rather than pushing solid wood. A whole row of animals hung limp on the porch, dried blood staining the whitewash. Under-mutton, red-wink cubs, braces of gambirs. The porch burnt in the setting sun. The rich stink of old world iron. The buzz of the hungry specks.
‘Patience, son, and a little luck.’
But he needed more than that to feed his daughter now.
Mary still hadn’t found the right spot. She was standing near the edge of the slope, looking down to whatever was beyond. She turned back.
‘Dad,’ she called. ‘You need to see this.’
Thomas looked around as he hurried over. It was the same scrub he’d been walking through for days. Had the men caught up with them? Were they just behind this little horizon? Mary didn’t sound scared and she knew the men from Barkley were something to be scared of. He’d made sure of that.
He stood next to her and looked into a wide valley.
For a moment he was stunned – not sure what he was seeing.
‘Down!’ he said.
He pulled her to the ground. She didn’t resist. They lay on their bellies.
‘Did they see you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
Thomas inched closer to the edge. Below, a column of men were marching through the valley. As best as he could guess it was a whole regiment. Thousands of red jackets. Thousands of men who would kill him without waiting for an order. And what they would do to Mary – that would be much worse. They were like a wound on the landscape. A long cut exposing bright red flesh. He had the same along his calf. He desperately wanted that cut to stay straight – not to branch off in their direction. He had no breath to hold, but his whole body was tense.
‘Be ready to run as fast as you can,’ he said.
‘I still have to pee.’
‘Do it now. I’m not looking.’
Mary slithered back a little. He heard the sound of her water hitting the dusty ground. He had forgotten what that sound was like – what it meant. It was part of being alive.
He waited for as long as he could. If a soldier had spotted them there would have been movement by now. Men on lean and sleek shaggies picking their way up the valley. Ready to ride Thomas and Mary down. They had been lucky.
Thomas pushed himself backwards. He and Mary were a good twenty paces from the edge before either of them stood up.
‘I think we’re safe,’ he said.
3 : 6
Luke’s back ached. He rubbed at the base of his spine, trying to shift the dull pain that sat there. He wasn’t much of a rider. He had little need in Barkley: from his living quarters with Mr and Mrs Gregory, to church, to the Pastor’s house, to any house calls he made, his life was within walking distance. It wasn’t the speed of the animals – at times he could have got off and covered the ground at a more impressive pace on foot – it was the constant movement. Still, this journey, he conceded, would have been beyond him without the shaggie. He wasn’t an idle man, but since taking up his role as acolyte he had not toiled at any single task for longer than an hour or two. Sweeping the church after a service was the most intensive labour of his week. The dirt and grime people brought with them to worship never ceased to amaze him.
His thighs were also suffering. He rarely had to guide the shaggie; it seemed happy enough to follow the rest of the group at a discreet distance that suited Luke. But again it was the long days spent in an unaccustomed manner that caused him pain.
None of this affected his conviction.
He scanned the horizon from dawn to dusk. At times he imagined that he saw them. Two black marks – but they quickly faded. Should those marks ever stay solid, then he would kick his shaggie into a gallop; demanding speed from the animal whose primitive spirit would be overwhelmed by his righteous cause. Animal and man would become mirror images – nostrils flared, breathing frantically, mouth open wide enough to devour the Redlands. He would bear down on the demon creature and its offspring and smite them as the Good Lord smote Egypt. Or the Midianites. Or the Philistines. In the name of the Good Lord he would cut the little girl’s throat and burn her at the feet of her twisted father. Of this, he was certain. He waited desperately for the moment to come. At the top of every rise he prayed. When he entered a dip in the land he prayed.
At one such rise, the other men stopped. Luke had fallen behind; seeing them halt he urged his shaggie forward and kicked his heels into the animal’s flanks. His efforts managed to produce a trot. Any more seemed beyond his steed and Luke started to worry for his zealous charge. He drew alongside Samuel and joined him in staring down into a valley.
The ground sloped gradually. It was rocky and covered in treacherous scree. Half a mile or so away it levelled out into an enormous flat plain. At first, he assumed he was watching a river meandering from east to west. The sudden reminder of water filled his mouth with saliva. He had to swallow twice. He had had a drink at dawn. The thirst of his body was insignificant.
The river was red. Luke glanced at the sky, wondering how the sun could turn water so red.
‘What devilry makes this river red?’ he said. The others looked at him.
‘The colour of their uniforms,’ Bellis said. As if to illustrate his point, a tiny bubble of the river split off and started towards them. There had to be thousands of soldiers in the valley. Hundreds of thousands. Luke wiped his glasses. He still could not make out anything but colour. Those men had individual faces, hands, rifles, that he couldn’t see.
‘Impossible. There’s not enough men in the world …’
‘Will be less when that lot are through,’ Bellis said, spitting. It was an ugly habit of the Law-Man’s; he used it to punctuate what he must have thought were profound statements. It did not impress Luke. Just as he was not impressed by the man’s badge or his guns or his years. Respect for one’s elders was based on a respect for how they had spent their lives.
‘Are we really going to wait for them?’ Nathaniel said. He was itching to be anywhere else. Luke didn’t understand why the Gravekeeper had such an aversion to the soldiers. They were fighting the good fight – trying to rid this world of Satan’s seed. If Luke hadn’t joined the ranks of priesthood he would undoubtedly be wearing a red uniform himself. Wearing it with the same pride he wore the cassock. Wielding a rifle with the same force he brandished the crucifix.
‘We’ve got no reason to run,’ Bellis said.
‘I’m not about to become a conscript in this mad crusade.’
‘Blasph—’
‘Neither am I,’ Bellis said, cutting Luke short.
‘We should aid them if we can,’ Luke said.
‘What could we possibly give that they don’t already have?’
‘Faith.’
Nathaniel laughed. ‘Ride down and give a sermon?’
‘If that is what they wish.’
‘They’d have you in a uniform and carrying a rifle before you finished your first verse,’
Nathaniel said.
‘Would you like that? To see me drowned in those soldiers?’
Nathaniel shrugged.
They waited in silence as the soldiers picked their way carefully up the slope. They grew bigger with every step, starting as a drop of colour that split into individual crumbers, then red woollies, then men riding shaggies, then men riding hairless and muscular creatures. There were twenty soldiers. One of them held a banner aloft. It was a pure field of the same colour as their uniforms. It suggested a world without taint, a way for men to live without fear, and the strength to see it happen. Luke swelled with admiration for these men.
The soldiers stopped at fifty paces and readied their rifles.
Nathaniel edged his shaggie back. Luke also found the sight of that many guns trained on him unnerving.
A single soldier came forward. He looked older than the others. White stripes adorned his chest and shoulders. He wore a full beard that was similarly slashed with white. Luke didn’t have to strain to see this man’s blue eyes. Considering where the man had come from and what he wore, Luke was strangely surprised by that; as if red were a more appropriate colour for the soldier’s eyes. The man took off his gloves before speaking, looking each of them over in turn.
‘You fellas are a long way from church.’
‘We carry the Good Lord,’ Luke snapped, holding up his Good Book. The soldier smirked.
‘Maybe you’re looking for a good cause? There’s room for four more on our march.’
‘What we’re looking for is a stolen little girl,’ Bellis said. ‘I’m a Law-Man of Pierre County and have a right to roam these plains.’
‘A “right” you say? I’ve got some boys behind me; each of them holding their own “right”.’
‘There’s no need for threats. We’re all singing in the same choir,’ Luke said.
‘Ready!’ the soldier said. Behind him, twenty rifles clanked in response. ‘That’s my choir. You’re either part o
f the Protectorate or you’re an enemy. Which is it to be?’
‘Our town gave you men!’ Nathaniel said.
‘Have you seen any Walkin’?’ Luke tried to ignore the guns aimed at him – focusing on the soldier’s blue eyes.
‘We destroy Walkin’ on sight.’ The man spat.
‘So do we,’ Luke said.
‘They infest the mountains in this backwards county.’ The soldier sneered as he spoke. ‘It’ll take the Protectorate to clean them out.’
‘What about a little girl?’
‘Does it look like I’ve seen any “little girls”?’
‘We’ll stick to the trail,’ Bellis said.
The soldier thought for a long time. Perhaps he would give the order to shoot them. Take their shaggies and add them to the moving masses down in the valley. For a moment, Luke felt doubt. He silently prayed for the Good Lord’s favour. The man pulled on his gloves.
‘Good hunting then.’ The soldier turned his mount. He and his men carefully descended into the valley. The river of bodies continued to flow. Luke and the others didn’t wait to see the soldiers swallowed back into the main current.
‘They took ten men from Barkley,’ Nathaniel said. ‘It seemed like a lot then. Seeing that … How many men does it take to fight a war?’
None of them had an answer.
*
It had been late afternoon when ’Keeper Courie made it into town. The board-walks were busy with people. There was a strong wind. It picked up dust and hats. Ladies grimaced as they clung to their dresses and battled onward. Barber Barringsley was standing at his doorway. He nodded at Courie. Barringsley had no doubt heard about the meeting. Not much escaped his ears.
Nathaniel hitched his shaggie outside the Elder’s office. The post was busy today. There were five strange-looking creatures hitched in a row; like shaggies but not the same. They didn’t have hair on their necks or feet; their flanks were slick in the sunlight; and their legs were thin and spindly. Nathaniel took a full turn around one of them, a gelded male, which paid him no attention. He patted the haunch of the creature. It was all muscle. But there was no way this creature could pull a plough. Nathaniel took its muzzle in his hand. The teeth were the same – big square pegs. The nostrils flared a little and Nathaniel let go of the beast. He stared into its round eyes for a while. Finally, he decided it wasn’t so different. Buster, his own faithful shaggie, had other ideas. He had inched as far away as possible from his shiny, hairless cousins.