Your Brother's Blood: The Walkin': Book 1 (The Walkin' Trilogy)

by David Towsey

  Veronica Klimp, the Elder’s secretary, came out onto the board-walk. She was a thin girl, too thin really. And she wasn’t married. She kept her blonde braids tightly pulled back. So much so it raised her eyebrows slightly and gave her the constant appearance of mild surprise.

  ‘They’re all inside, waiting for you,’ she said.

  ‘Who is?’

  She led him inside. ‘The Elder, Pastor Gray, Law-Man Bellis, and the men from out of town.’

  ‘That explains those skinny things out there.’

  Veronica made no comment. Maybe she felt an affinity with all things underweight. They went in silence through the corridors of Richards’s office. A soft green carpet ran from wall to wall. Dust and dirt marked the passage of boots. Nathaniel wondered how many times a day Veronica had to brush these halls. She stopped at a large set of doors. She knocked once and then entered.

  ‘Gravekeeper Courie,’ she announced. He shuffled into the room. Such an introduction made him feel a little awkward. Luckily, no one in the room seemed overly interested in his arrival. Instead, everyone was looking at a map. It covered the substantial table, where the other representatives of Barkley were sitting. Three young men in red jackets and trousers stood to one side, trying hard to hide their boredom.

  ‘Ah, Nathaniel, come in, come in,’ the Elder said. He waved Nathaniel into a seat. ‘Carry on, Lieutenant.’

  A man roughly the same age as Nathaniel stroked his sizeable moustache. His chin was bare as a baby’s backside. It was hard not to stare. ‘Well, there’s little more to say. We’re still pushing on the eastern front. Making good ground, too. General Turner won the battle at Bridgewood, so we’re moving west at speed.’

  ‘Fascinating. All these happenings, so far from our little town,’ the Elder said.

  ‘It’s not as far as you think,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘Pierre County is becoming more and more important.’

  ‘It’s already important to us,’ Bellis said.

  ‘I’m sorry, I realise I was late, but just what is this all about?’ Nathaniel asked.

  The Elder turned to him. ‘These officers are from the Southern Protectorate Army. They’re recruiting.’

  Nathaniel laughed. He quickly stopped when no one joined him. ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Most definitely,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘Every town and village in this land is affected by the war.’

  ‘There’s a war?’

  The Lieutenant narrowed his eyes. He seemed to be deciding if Nathaniel was joking. ‘I was under the impression that Barkley, out of all the communities in Pierre County, was most aligned to the Protectorate’s goals.’

  ‘And what are those?’ the Pastor said. Nathaniel had never known the man to be silent for so long.

  ‘In summary: the total eradication of the Walkin’ menace.’

  The Pastor nodded in approval.

  ‘But as you can see,’ the Elder said, ‘we don’t have any Walkin’ in Barkley. We’re very careful about that.’

  ‘That’s beside the point.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You have a duty to your country.’ The Lieutenant was struggling to keep his voice level. ‘To your race. The Protectorate is asking for ten men able to bear arms. That’s all.’

  ‘Doesn’t this seem backwards?’ Nathaniel said. ‘Sending men off to kill each other so we can get rid of men that have already died?’

  ‘I’m not here to debate. We can take the men by force if necessary. I’d rather not.’

  The table was quiet. Many of the Barkley men were staring at their laps, as if an answer might be waiting there. The three young soldiers shifted uneasily, each had a hand resting on a pistol butt. ‘By force if necessary’. Nathaniel pictured scores of red jackets flooding into Barkley on their skinny shaggies, rifles and pistols making their case to wives and mothers and children.

  ‘Ten men,’ the Elder said eventually.

  3 : 7

  Thomas saw a group of blightbirds circling. They were one, maybe two miles away. He couldn’t tell how many birds there were. They stayed high in the cloudless sky, but he knew they were watching the ground. Waiting for a meal. He glanced at Mary. It wouldn’t be long before she felt that kind of hunger – strong enough to travel miles just to pick over bones. For now, she was coping. Her blisters had burst and the loose skin worn away. Her feet had aged over these few days – they had lost their soft innocence. A lot of Mary had changed.

  She noticed the birds. ‘One of them might be your blind friend,’ she said. He had forgotten about One Eye Blind, the blightbird that haunted him on those first days of the Walk. He wasn’t eager to see his ‘friend’.

  ‘Whatever is over there, we should avoid it.’

  ‘There’s smoke,’ she said. ‘We might be able to help.’ The smoke was faint in the heat haze, a lazy plume of dark grey that barely registered on the backdrop of the Redlands.

  Mary was right: someone could be hurt but alive. The blight-birds were still in the air. A traveller in need of their aid –what little they could give. They had no food or water to share. But it could be dangerous. He would not risk Mary, not for anyone.

  ‘We go halfway. Then I find out what’s happened. Alone.’

  She nodded.

  At what he judged was close enough, he told her to stop. She inched farther forward and then readied herself to sit down.

  ‘No, you have to stay standing; so I can see you,’ he said.

  Every ten or so paces he looked back. His daughter became gradually smaller, her face became a blur, until finally she was just a black line little bigger than a grain of rice. He was not happy with how far away she was. He almost turned back. The smoke was thicker now.

  As he drew closer a familiar smell assaulted him. He reeled, putting his hand to his nose. The sweetness of burnt skin. It was a pyre pit. Smaller than the one he had climbed out of. He stood on the edge and counted five bodies. They had clearly been tumbled in; their arms and legs had fallen haphazardly, like dancers stopped in motion. The flames were taking their time devouring the remains. Thomas knelt, trying to avoid the plume of smoke. He saw the faces. Three women and two men. Walkin’.

  He wasn’t sure how, but he knew. There was a decay in the pit that seemed older. And now he realised, the smell was slightly different. Drier. It was closer to wood burning than a piece of meat. He noticed then the wounds on each corpse’s head. They had been shot before being thrown into the pit. Someone was being very careful – more careful than they had been with Thomas.

  Around the pyre pit he saw the marks of hooves. As many as twenty, twenty-five animals had been here. It was impossible to single out any individual set of tracks. Would so many men leave Barkley to follow him and Mary? It didn’t seem likely. Besides, a pyre pit wasn’t J. S. Barkley’s way. Above ground, stacks of wood, and one person per pyre. But they would be in a hurry.

  He checked on Mary again. She had not moved, as far as he could tell. Then he gazed in every direction. If this was the work of the men following them, they could be ahead of Thomas. They might have lost the trail, looped in front. Thomas had been so busy watching behind them, he hadn’t considered pursuit from any other direction. He cursed himself for a fool.

  Next to the pyre were the remains of what looked like a small cart. It had been tipped on its side and a wheel ripped off. The contents were scattered on the ground. Brushes, pots of paint – some open and bleeding, others sealed – books, and bolts of cloth. The cloth was all the same colour, a green-tinted white. If there had been a shaggie pulling the cart, it was gone. The wheel and side of the cart were now burning at the bottom of the pit. There were bottles of liquid. Thomas rushed over and opened one. He sniffed hard, hoping for water. A bottle or two that might keep his daughter going for a few more days. It was acrid and bitter. He threw the bottle away; the sound of it breaking was small consolation.

  He fetched Mary. He could have insisted they circle at a distance, but piquing Mary’s curiosity had its own d
angers. She could be very stubborn. And she needed to see the pit. This was the world he had brought her into. She had to know how it worked; she wasn’t a child any more, at least not a child he could protect.

  *

  She stood at the edge of the pit in silence, her arms crossed. The heads and seeds of bone-grass clung to her. She tried to make sense of the shapes in the pit – the arms and legs and heads. She didn’t know why, but their tangle made the whole scene worse. It wasn’t long ago she had seen Karl Williams hanging on a tree and that had made her curious more than anything else. But this was different.

  ‘Why did they die?’ she said. She was squinting against the smoke.

  ‘Because of what they were.’

  ‘What you are. What I might be.’

  She inspected the cart. With her toe, she rolled a bottle. The liquid inside was slow to move, it was so thick. Oil or honey maybe. Seeing it, her mouth flooded. She didn’t know how that was possible – she was so thirsty and now her body was wasting water. She picked up a book. The cover was battered. She read the title three times and it still didn’t make sense.

  ‘We can’t take any books,’ Thomas said.

  She hadn’t asked to. Once, they would have held an undeniable allure for her. Books used to be the most important thing in her life – the one and only book and the frustration that it caused. Those kinds of things were small now. Even smaller beside the pit. Taking the books would be like grave-robbing.

  A blightbird landed on the cart. Both Thomas and Mary jumped. It came down in a mess of feathers. Its claws gripped the broken wood. Blightbirds looked graceful in the air. Face to face they were like long-limbed young men at a festival dance. This one’s head bobbed on its long neck, shoulders hunched. It turned to regard her with its rain-cloud eye and cawed.

  Mary ran at it. She waved her arms and screamed. The blightbird took flight in an ungainly shuffle of wings. She started walking away from the pit. She didn’t look back for him. She was almost running she went so quickly – she found some energy somewhere. They needed to be away from the pit. It was like a heathen crystal ball, showing them a gruesome possibility.

  That morning passed without a word from either of them. At midday they stopped. It was difficult to find shade when the sun was at its peak, but the ground was becoming craggy again. They found a hollow and Mary sat with her back leant against the cool rock. She reached for the wrapped meat. She pulled apart the waxy paper deliberately. It was her ritual. Every time she opened the package she prayed there would be more meat rather than less. So far the Good Lord hadn’t heard her. This time there was one mouthful left. Was it His way of punishing her? She chewed the meat and ignored her growling stomach. When she was finished, she wrapped up the paper again. She didn’t want her father to worry.

  ‘There were a lot of shaggies,’ she said. He nodded. ‘Were they looking for us?’

  ‘I don’t know. I doubt it.’

  ‘Was it the army?’ She made it sound like a curse word.

  ‘They want every Walkin’ gone. Somewhere, there are people who disagree,’ he said.

  ‘You were in the army.’

  He stood up. ‘Have some water. We need to go soon.’

  They didn’t speak again that day. That night Thomas didn’t make a fire. She soon closed her eyes, exhausted. Falling asleep she was vaguely aware she was being carried. She sniffed hard, trying to dislodge the memory of the burning Walkin’.

  3 : 8

  Sarah was stacking bolts of cloth when Caleb knocked on the door. It was open, but she had forgotten to flip the sign. She sighed, thinking of all the people who might have been in. Today was the first day she was supposed to be open since Mary was taken.

  She opened the door and the bell chimed.

  ‘Sorry to be a bother, Sarah. But the boat’s here.’

  Of course, it had been a month – maybe more. She hadn’t prepared for the trading.

  ‘If you like, I could go alone. With yours,’ he said. He was a big man and he sweated a lot – even in spring.

  ‘Thank you, Caleb. That would be very kind.’

  Sarah went to the back of the shop. He followed her. She felt overly conscious of him; aware of his large shape blocking an aisle. He smelt sharp and musky; how a man should smell. She left him in the shop and went through the house to the garden. There was washing on the line. Washing she put out yesterday. It was slick with dew and cold to the touch. She picked up an empty crate and took it back inside. She filled it with candles. Tallow, none of the wax – they would be wasted on the traders. Caleb made a show of browsing the shelves.

  ‘There’s a crate of shaggie shoes outside, if you wouldn’t mind?’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’ He blustered behind the counter. When he came back he made huffing and puffing noises. Sarah tried to smile. She heard him talk to his shaggie: ‘Now, Sampson. I hope you’re feelin’ strong.’

  Caleb put the crate down on the cart bed. Sarah followed with the candles. There were stacks of hay and a couple of cases already in there. Last year must have been a good harvest if he still had hay to trade. This late he’d get a good price.

  ‘Shaggie shoes, eh?’ Caleb said, wiping his brow.

  ‘Yes. Smithy said he’ll have plenty more for the summer.’

  ‘Good, good. Sampson here does like his new shoes. He’s ever so fashionable.’ Caleb was trying. In the kindest way he knew how. ‘What should I be aiming for?’ he said.

  ‘Sugar and salt. And oranges.’ There was something else she was supposed to remember. If only she could write these things down. Sarah stood with Sampson, patting the grey shaggie. She felt his heart thumping beneath his big flanks. She had to stop stroking him. ‘And a cooking pot. For Mrs Freeman. Not too large. She’s only cooking for one.’

  Caleb tipped his hat and flicked the reins. With the back loaded it must have been a heavy burden, but the shaggie didn’t seem to notice. He went at the same pace he always did. Sarah had never seen him run. She doubted he could.

  Sarah went back inside and locked the shop door. Word would have got around that she was closed. She wasn’t sure she could manage to talk about little things. To pretend to care about other people’s troubles, or the price of vegetables. Instead, she cleaned.

  She wrapped her hair in a cloth. She swept the shop, the kitchen, and the hallways. She even did the stairs, though she hated it. Every step was a battle. The broom barely touched the corners. She looked up from the bottom and felt dizzy; the stairs looming above her. Two empty bedrooms. She didn’t sweep upstairs. In the kitchen, she wiped down every surface twice. The fireplace still smelt of burnt woollie fat. She had barely eaten these last few days. She wasn’t hungry. She opened the kitchen door to let some air in.

  By the afternoon, the sun had passed behind the buildings. The garden was in shadow. She stood in the back doorway. The frame had a large kink in it, just above her shoulder. It was smooth. She ran a finger along the wood. Bellis had fired his gun here, the shot crashing into the frame and splintering the wood. The next day, he had apologised several times. Apologised for hitting the frame and not the man. She was grateful Bellis missed, but couldn’t tell him.

  She felt the washing, which was dry. She had forgotten to bring out a basket. A trading crate would do. She folded each piece of clothing carefully. The pegs fell to the ground. She left them there.

  On the landing, she put down the crate. Two closed doors in front of her. She went into the master bedroom. She sat down on the bed, trying to ignore the layer of dust that covered the room. But she started sneezing. It wouldn’t stop until her eyes and nose were running. She was sitting in exactly the same spot that Thomas had been. There was no sense of him. She couldn’t smell him in the way she could still smell Caleb in the shop. Couldn’t feel him there. And where was he now? Trying to run away with their daughter. She had seen the men leave Barkley on shaggies. How long before they caught up? And what would Mary do? She would be so scared. Sarah blew her nose.
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br />   She took her clothes out of the crate. She used the top two drawers in the cabinet. Their handles were the only ones not covered in dust. Then she hurried out of the room and closed the door.

  In Mary’s room she piled the clothes on the bed. She stared at them for a long time. She picked up a little blouse. She tried and tried, but all she could smell was soap. The washing basket had been full – and full things became empty. She cursed herself for not thinking; for doing things as if it were just another day. She threw the blouse on the floor and left the room.

  *

  The knock woke her. She was slumped over the kitchen table. Her hand had gone numb. On her way to the door she flexed her fingers, willing them to life.

  It was Caleb. He was standing with his hat in his hands.

  ‘Back so soon?’ she said. He looked confused. She squinted out at the night sky, wondering when it had got so dark.

  ‘I hope I traded well.’ He motioned to the crates at his feet.

  ‘I’m sure you did. Thank you again, Caleb.’

  He helped her with the goods. The cooking pot was solid and small. She opened the sugar and the salt. There was plenty of each.

  ‘You must have bargained hard,’ she said.

  ‘Always good to go for a bit of theatre.’

  Sarah nodded. She didn’t open the orange crate. He hurried out the shop and climbed up to the seat of his cart.

  ‘Did you do well?’ she said. There was a tall box in the back. It was a strange shape. Perhaps a scythe or some long farm tool.