by David Towsey
And his own brother, Samuel.
Samuel. They had brought his brother to hunt him down. What twisted sense of justice drove Elder Richards to that? The others he had expected. They were obvious choices, necessary to what they felt had to be done. What part could Samuel possibly play? He was a sweet, simple-minded young man, too shy to be married yet. And he was here to kill his brother and his niece. It was clearly the Pastor’s doing. Samuel was a strong believer.
The men were resting in their blankets – a luxury he hadn’t been able to give Mary – except for Gravekeeper Courie. He was squatting next to the fire. His head rested on his chin. His eyes were closed. Thomas had done his share of sentry duty in the Protectorate. Staying awake was the hardest part.
He had the power to kill these men from his past. By the time they knew what was happening he’d have crushed two skulls. Their rifles would be useless, their fire not nearly big enough. Thinking of his little girl, sleeping on hard rock, he could almost bring himself to do it. But he knew Bellis, Nathaniel, Luke, and Samuel. Two were married. He grew up with the other two. It wouldn’t be right to kill them. But he had to protect Mary.
Something snorted in the shadows. The shaggies. He couldn’t see them – they must be some way from the fire.
Thomas inched around the ledge. He watched Nathaniel, ready for when the Gravekeeper should come to. Thomas’s foot brushed against a pebble. It tumbled, each bounce like a horn blast from an Easter parade. Nathaniel didn’t move. They were clearly exhausted. Six days in the saddle had taken their toll.
He could see the shaggies. They had wandered into one of the narrow corridors, likely searching for food. He gazed down at the animals. His family had used shaggies for almost everything – ploughing, seeding, ranging with the woollies, even driving to church. Now all he seemed to do was scare them. He had to, but he was sorry for it. They would have packets of food and drink in their bulging saddlebags. Food Mary badly needed. If only he could get close enough to take some.
The nearest shaggie lifted its head. It went rigid. The muscles on its rump twinged. Thomas was almost on top of them now. He jumped down. As one, the shaggies bolted. He chased them down the winding gorge. The shaggies jostled each other in their panic. As they came to a fork in the path, they split up. Thomas followed the biggest group. He would spread them across these hills. From behind, he could hear faint voices: the men were awake. He ran as fast as his legs would take him. He wanted to pick up speed, but his body didn’t work that way. Another branch and the shaggies continued to go in different directions. They saw no safety in numbers and they were right in a way. Thomas was now following a single shaggie, and slowly falling behind. If they’d been on open ground, he would have lost the animal a long time ago. But the shaggie struggled with the sharp corners. Finally, Thomas stopped. The shaggie would keep going, the memory of the terror remaining fresh in its mind. Thomas found a spot to climb and tried to keep to the higher ground.
The men would spend the night looking for their mounts. He hoped their interrupted sleep would make them slow. They might get lost themselves.
Now all Thomas had to do was get back to Mary. He tried to orientate himself, but the peaks and crags all looked the same. From his vantage point he spotted a shaggie. It had stopped a hundred paces from him and was looking back down a gorge, ready to run again if it had to. Thomas wanted to chase it farther, but he needed to find Mary. He checked every stone wall for a cross. The sun was rising before he found one.
*
Mary was still asleep when Thomas returned. It had taken him an hour or so to find her. He was glad she’d had this opportunity to rest. He had pushed her hard, with no real food, over the last few days – not hard enough considering they had almost been caught. If it wasn’t for the hills, Bellis and his men would have overtaken them. Sarah had said they would burn him and Mary together. He couldn’t believe Bellis or Samuel or even ’Keeper Courie would do that. But that’s what they’d done to Jared and his boy.
He checked on the food and water. It was all still there. He couldn’t see any sign of animals or anything that might be interested in their supplies. To make sure, he undid the cap of the water-skin. He peered inside, trying to see the water or its reflection. He could smell its dampness. He carefully unwrapped the food. There was nothing there. He didn’t know of any animal that could wrap.
‘Mary,’ he sighed. How long had she lied to him? How long had she been starving herself?
He looked down at his sleeping daughter. She was beautiful. For once she seemed calm in her sleep; her usual frown was gone. He tried to rub away some of the dirt and grime that framed her face. He went to lick his finger and got nothing but a leather-dry tongue. Mary had rolled a few feet in the night. She was further from the ledge’s edge than he remembered, which was a relief.
Gathering up their things, he waited for as long as he possibly could before waking her. It would take some time for the men to find their shaggies, but it was time Thomas and Mary badly needed. He shook Mary’s shoulder. She didn’t wake up.
He shook harder.
‘Mary.’
She rolled onto her back. A white speck of foamy dribble was at the corner of her lips. He dropped the supplies.
4 : 3
‘Mary!’ He was shaking her with both his hands. Her neck lolled limply. He searched for a pulse, pressing his fingers hard against her wrist. It was weak. He spotted two black marks on her ankle. A husht bite. The surrounding skin was red raw. There was a hole in the ground. Her leg had been covering it. She’d rolled over the husht’s lair and it had bitten her.
He knelt down by her ankle, placing his foot firmly over the hole. He sucked drily at the bite. Warm blood sprang into his mouth. There was something else too, slick and wasting, like lamp oil spilt on water. He didn’t bother to spit. Blood ran down his throat. It lined his stomach and then began seeping out of his wounds, as if he were bleeding. He was back on the battlefield, the bayonet draining him. He began to shiver, but he ignored it. He kept sucking at the bite until he couldn’t feel anything dark mixed with the blood. There was no way to tell how long the venom had been in her body. He thought back to all the time he had wasted: losing his footing; chasing the shaggies; creeping around the men’s camp. He should have been here. In trying to keep Mary safe, he had let this happen.
He didn’t wipe the blood from his mouth. He saw movement and looked up. Something was over by the rocky fringe of the ledge; he couldn’t see into the shadows. He glanced down at the hole his foot was covering – the husht wanted to go home. Scrambling forward, he reached out. He felt the sudden urge to pluck out its fangs. His hand brushed against a cold and supple skin. He tried to close his fist around it, but his broken fingers could only make a claw. The husht slipped through and was gone. He picked up rocks and tossed them aside, hunting. But the more he moved the deeper he knew the husht went. His hope of revenge was well buried.
He picked Mary up. She still seemed so calm. Was she lighter in his arms? He carefully carried her down to the floor of the gorge. He turned to the rising sun. East. Always east.
*
Thomas emerged from the hills by mid-afternoon, Mary still asleep in his arms. Her breath was light against his chest. She had to wake up soon.
He had got lost in the hills many times. He tried to keep to the same direction, but the stony corridors twisted and turned. Twice he came to a dead end and had to retrace his steps. There was no space between the rocks. He hadn’t felt it before but now they pressed in on him. At times the way became so narrow he had to turn sideways, and Mary’s shoulder still brushed against the stone. At least some of the passageways would be impossible for shaggies.
The Redlands gradually faded behind him. The scrub turned to plains of knee-high bone-grass. The tops of the grass clung to his trousers, dry but somehow sticky. Mary’s dipped toes ran a line through the plains, as if it were the Col River. Memories of family picnics at its banks came to him. Sarah laughed more
– or maybe he just remembered it that way. She had told him to keep Mary safe. She couldn’t do that herself any more, not since he went back to Barkley. He had failed. Mary might be dying in his arms and he could do nothing about it. His daughter might start the Walk at thirteen years of age. Even though he was an exile from Barkley, he couldn’t leave behind the teachings he grew up with. It was how he naturally looked at things – his instincts – and a little girl Walkin’ was a great wrong. It didn’t matter what had happened to him. It wasn’t what he wanted for her. The significance of the husht was not lost on him. The Pastor used to call the Walkin’ ‘Satan’s seed’, and ‘the devil’s taint’. Long sermons every Sunday that said the same things in different words. The devil was speeding Mary’s way into his fiery embrace.
Thomas wasn’t the strongest believer in Barkley – especially now – but even he could not deny the signs. He was facing the Good Lord’s wrath. Every step he took towards Black Mountain was a defiance. He would be held to account on the day of his judgement. But the Good Lord was punishing him through Mary. His daughter was all he had left. He had caused so much trouble. Not for the first time, he wished he had burnt properly in the pyre pit.
Mountains grew on the horizon. At first, he did not recognise them for what they were. He had come so many miles that he had started to doubt Black Mountain existed. He had trusted the word of two Walkin’. Ghouls who stood beside a pit of dead men waiting for any sign of movement. They promised sanctuary. He had gambled on that promise.
*
The peaks of the Black Hills frayed like torn cloth. Thomas had no idea where the Walkin’ community was. He stood at the edge of the forest and peered in. But even in daylight, the trees that covered the Black Hills justified the name and it was impossible to see much more than ten paces. Towering, the tree trunks were bare for the first twenty feet or so. Then, a circle of spiny branches, a gap, and then another circle, a gap, a circle, carrying on and on. The needles were the colour of his shadow. The forest was quiet, but that was likely his fault. He was surprised by how much that hurt, how lonely it made him feel. He had always loved the family’s animals. It was a love he’d taken for granted.
There was no air amongst the trees. Humid and suffocating: a wonderfully uncomfortable feeling. It was a relief to feel anything after the arid Redlands. The pyre pit had made holes in his body and now the surrounding flesh was swelling up. The exposed muscles on his arms and legs bulged. Water was trying to find a place in his body. Old haunts, the corridors and passages where it used to be essential, had changed. Water was no longer needed.
Mary was having a worse time of it. She was sweating and shaking in his arms. Her lips were moving soundlessly. He stopped and laid her on the ground. He mopped her brow and watched her fight the fever. He didn’t know how much time he had bought by scaring the shaggies.
There was something else. Each minute or so he glanced up and expected to see someone between the trees. He couldn’t stop himself; he looked in every direction. There was no one there that he could see. But he could feel them. Watching him. It weighed on him, stooping his shoulders as he sat next to Mary. So much so, he wanted to lie down beside her and hope the feeling washed right over him. Instead, he stood up and challenged the watching eyes.
Row after row of trees stretched out in every direction. Thin trunks and needle-coated ground. The Redlands and now the Black Hills – he was getting used to seemingly endless horizons. He could lose Bellis and his men in the forest. Or he could simply become lost. He had no idea where to start looking. A whole community was bound to make its mark: a clearing of trees; roads or paths; and houses. A normal community.
Mary was looking worse. She was pale and slick with sweat. She was weak when the husht bit her – not enough food or water for days. She might die before they even reached Black Mountain. If that were the case, he could only hope his blood was as tainted as the men from Barkley believed. Was it all his fault? Had he been treating her as if she were a Walkin’ already? Forgetting food. Ignoring water. He should have known the meat wouldn’t last as long as Mary pretended. Did he really wish his daughter was like him?
4 : 4
It took them all day to round up the shaggies. They had to search together, in case they lost each other in the hills. The morning was cold and it didn’t get any warmer as the day went on. The rocks seemed to steal the sun’s heat. More than at any other time on the trail Nathaniel wished he was home. The men said only what was absolutely necessary. Nathaniel could tell the others shared his feeling. It was in the way they walked: shoulders rounded, eyes focused on the ground. He heard their sighs like the stirrings of a breeze.
The shaggies seemed neither pleased nor upset to see them. They found the animals, each alone but unharmed – grazing on the tough roots that sprouted between the rocks. Buster nuzzled his palm, looking for oats.
‘What scared you off then?’ Nathaniel said. He stroked the shaggie’s mane. ‘You’d tell me if you could.’
Buster was the first shaggie they recovered. The others had spread out across the hills. When the last shaggie was spotted the sun was setting. It was Samuel’s. He and Nathaniel had left Bellis with the other animals at a fork in the path. Luke looked as if he might follow, but was too tired. It was a rare moment for Nathaniel to be alone with the farmer’s son.
‘I sure miss my bed,’ he said. Samuel nodded. ‘You still live with your ma and pa?’
‘Yes.’
‘But there’s a girl?’
Samuel’s cheeks turned red. ‘Anna Jackson.’
Nathaniel tried to picture Anna – the Jacksons’ youngest daughter. There was a skinny daughter, a larger one, and the last was taller than Samuel by almost a foot. He hoped Anna was the skinny one, for Samuel’s sake. They had plenty of years together before she’d need to put on weight around the hips.
‘It must be nice for your ma and pa having some of you living at home,’ he said.
‘There’s me and Hannah.’
‘Are you and your sister close?’
‘All of us are. Were,’ Samuel said. He motioned to the shaggie. ‘When I was little, I opened the gate to the lower field. I thought the shaggies would bolt; make a run to be free. They didn’t move. I left the gate open all night and they were still there in the morning.’ He patted the side of the placid animal. ‘When Pa found out, I couldn’t admit I did it. He beat all of us with his belt. I can remember Thomas’s face as the belt came down – he grinned right at me. He knew, but didn’t say anything. That’s how it was with us.’
‘You might see that face again,’ Nathaniel said.
Samuel picked up the reins of his shaggie. ‘I don’t think so.’
Nathaniel was more tired that night than any before. They didn’t go back to the space they’d camped in the previous night. He doubted they could find it even if they’d wanted to. Instead, they stumbled into a dead end the shape of a bulb. They put the shaggies at the far end. If something – or someone – spooked the animals again the men would know about it. Trampled by a scared shaggie; it would be a suitable end to the journey.
More pyre wood was put to flame. Nathaniel was sick to the pit of his stomach at the smell of roses. But he appreciated the warmth. They ate the last of the red-wink meat. Luke still refused to eat the animal he had killed. The acolyte survived on a shaggie’s diet. The image of Luke’s face buried between rocks, snuffling for roots, made Nathaniel smile to himself.
‘We should set watch,’ Bellis said.
‘What for? Much good it did last night,’ Luke said. Subtlety was clearly not required as a holy man. Perhaps it would detract from a man’s ability to preach.
‘I’m sorry I fell asleep.’ And he was. It meant more days in this wilderness. He wanted his bed and the warm body of his wife.
‘Sorry isn’t enough. Another mark against you; the Pastor will hear them all.’
‘If you’re itching to say something, say it.’
‘You’ve done everything
you could to make this journey end in failure,’ Luke said.
‘I think you shook a few things loose when you bumped your head.’
‘First when the urn broke, then at the den of the red-wink, and then falling asleep on watch. You’ve wanted to turn back the whole time. Always trying to delay us.’
‘For some of us this is more than a jolly ride to the tune of the Good Book.’
‘You are a faithless man, Nathaniel!’
‘You’re just an ignorant boy.’
‘Quiet,’ Bellis ordered.
They said no more that night. Luke read the Good Book in silence. The others watched the fire, listening to it crack and spit. Nathaniel made sure Luke was fast asleep before bedding down.
*
Thomas watched Mary sleep until the heat of the day was well past. She thrashed out often, arms and legs jerking. He clutched at them, making sure she didn’t hurt herself, and whispered soft sounds. The rest of the time she shivered. He took off his shirt and laid it over her. She shivered and sweated at the same time. He was no medicine man; what was he supposed to do? All he could do was wait and make sure nothing else happened to her. It was a kind of torture.
In the moments she was quiet, he went to the edge of the trees and looked back at the Redlands. Samuel, Gravekeeper Courie, Law-Man Bellis and the acolyte. Four men who would look so small. But they were worse than an entire regiment of the Protectorate.
It was early evening when she came to. Her eyelids fluttered. He was next to her with the water-skin in hand. She lifted her head enough to drink and then fell asleep again. It became their rhythm – brief moments when he gave her water followed by an hour or so of sleep. They passed the night this way. He didn’t move an inch the whole time. The feeling they weren’t alone didn’t go away. At dawn she managed to sit up.
‘Hello, my darlin’,’ he said. She smiled weakly.