A Broken Time

by Anna Oney

  A vision of a whip stealing flesh as it was driven into Fawn’s back flashed across his mind. The crack of the scourge and the primal scream that escaped her lungs seemed so real to him. The dripping sound from the strips of leather as they became slicked with her blood had him struggling to catch his breath.

  “I think that shove to her chest did the trick,” Brody continued and cackled.

  Hunter eased himself into a sitting position, careful not to lean his ravaged back against the wall. Disoriented, he peered through the darkness in the direction of where he believed the door to be.

  “Fa-Fawny,” he softly whimpered. “She was here?”

  “Yeah, four weeks ago,” Brody scoffed. “The day Sergeant Finch started shredding your back.”

  Hunter crawled toward the door, sliding his hands across the floor, cautious not to knock over the bucket he used to relieve himself. He wondered what he’d done to deserve such a cruel end to his life. Left alone in the dark — beaten and stripped of his dignity.

  “F-four weeks? Why’re you just now telling me this?”

  “I guess it just slipped my mind. That was the last time anybody saw her.”

  Hunter knew the purpose of telling him this news was to further dampen his spirits, but what Brody didn’t know was that Hunter was grateful to hear that Fawn hadn’t returned. He didn’t want her risking her life to save him. He imagined her riding off into the sunset with Juniper, never looking back. He relished the thought of her safety, but deep within the fiber of his being, he knew Fawn would never abandon him.

  “Wh-what about my father?”

  “Eh,” Brody replied, snorting back mucus in his nose, and then clearing his throat. “I imagine Aiden’s hanging on the best he can. We stopped giving him the pain meds the day you were dumb enough to tell Dwight to go to hell.”

  An aching in Hunter’s heart had him clinging to his chest.

  “Please—” he began, tears forming in his eyes.

  “Sergeant Finch has requested your presence,” Brody said, releasing the latch outside the door. “Time to move.”

  ***

  The day was young and, regrettably, for Hunter, the sun was at its brightest. He kept his squinted eyes focused on their shadows on the ground as they approached Sgt. Finch’s quarters. Passing through the flaps of her tent, Hunter was relieved to find her hands empty of the scourge. Dwight was stationed at Finch’s right with his hands folded before his waist.

  Behind her desk, Finch sat drumming her fingers beside a device Hunter had noticed the soldiers carrying above their right shoulders. Something they had referred to as “walkie-talkies.”

  “Mr. Bogan,” she chirped, motioning toward the chair before her desk. “Have a seat.”

  Shakily, he looked to the stiff backrest of the chair. He sat carefully on its edge, leaning forward.

  “Back still bothering you, I see,” she said and grinned.

  Wonder why? he inwardly countered, meeting her big-eyed gaze. Keep grinning you evil . . . He bit his bottom lip. I’ll pluck one of them eyes from their socket.

  It took everything he had to swallow the words he wanted to say to her.

  “Yes,” he replied, sending hot bile to the back of his throat.

  “I asked you here today to see if you could shed some light on Fawn’s whereabouts.” She rolled back her shoulders, sitting up straight. “We couldn’t find her at your cabin by the creek.”

  “How would you know where our place is?” he countered, forcing Sgt. Finch’s head to jerk back.

  “Took us about two hours,” she replied, intertwining her fingers upon the desk. “But we retraced your signal back to where you last met up with her.”

  He glanced at his inner elbow where the NWA had inserted the syringe’s needle to administer their so-called “vaccines.”

  We have to find out what they’re injecting everyone with, he recalled Fawn saying. He gulped at the realization that what they’d pumped into his veins had enabled them to keep tabs on his every move.

  Tracker monitor, he thought with rage building inside him.

  “I sent a couple of my best men to comb the area,” she continued, resting her elbows on the desk. “They couldn’t find a single trace of her at the cabin, but they mentioned the place looked turned upside down. You have any idea where she’d run away to?”

  Hope rekindled his spirit. Fawn had escaped the NWA’s clutches just as he’d envisioned it. A small smile formed at the corner of his mouth.

  Go Fawny, he thought. Go and don’t look back. Just keep riding.

  “No,” he replied, raising his chin to meet her glaring gaze. “I sure don’t.”

  Sgt. Finch sat back in her chair, massaging her temples. She looked to Brody who stood at Hunter’s right.

  “I think it’s that time,” she said, tapping the speaker of the walkie-talkie. “Commander Asher is growing impatient. He’s got his best man searching for her now.”

  She rose from her chair and walked around the corner of her desk. Folding her arms across her flat chest, she continued.

  “We must get that savage woman’s attention somehow. Strap him to the post outside.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Fawn stowed most of the arrows she constructed in the hollowed-out spot of a weathered cypress tree about two miles down the creek from the cabin. She loaded both of her quivers full of the arrows she’d set aside and crisscrossed the quivers’ straps over her chest.

  Before heading to Stagecoach to find Davlyn, Fawn decided to check if the Bogan Farm had become more accessible. Abandoning Hunter when there was a possibility he was in danger wasn’t an option to her. As she and Juniper closed the distance between themselves and the farm, she decided that if breaking Hunter free couldn’t be done on their own, she’d return with greater numbers.

  Ahead of them, a cardinal was perched on the third branch of a sweetgum tree. The majestic creature stared her down. A being so small made Fawn doubt her place in the world.

  “Go on,” Fawn said as they inched their way closer to the tree where the reproachful bird seemed to judge her. “Shoo!”

  The cardinal gave a light chirp and continued to stare. Fawn reached up and shook the branch of the tree the bird was perched on. Every bird that Fawn had ever come across would make a swift departure at the slightest movement close to them. This one, however, was an exception.

  An echoing crack had Fawn clinging to her ears. Chills ran up and down her spine. Juniper reared back. Arrows were cast from their quivers as Fawn was thrown to the ground onto her side. Their tips soared through the air before tipping and driving themselves into the earth around her. She raised her head toward the sky and squinted from the sunlight. There weren’t any clouds. No sign of approaching storm. Whatever had conjured the sound, it wasn’t thunder or lightning.

  Fawn came to her knees, trying to rub the searing pain from her shoulder when another crack boomed around her. Juniper bolted in the opposite direction, kicking up dust in her wake.

  “Juniper, come back!” she yelled through the ringing in her ears.

  A four-wheeled, roofed contraption caught her attention as Juniper’s form became smaller in the distance. It had been parked behind a fallen tree, and a tangled, four-foot wall of shrubbery and briar vines.

  “No—” she began as a large harry arm as thick as a tree branch encircled her neck and hindered her breathing.

  The arm’s owner pressed his thin lips to her ear, rubbing his nose against her temple. Using his other hand, he removed the pistol from her ankle and tore her hatchet from the loop at her side, slinging them far to the left. Their bodies were pressed so close together, he couldn’t get a good grip on the bowstring secured across her chest.

  “I’m guessing you’ve never heard a gunshot before?”

  There was no mistaking the man’s voice. Mentally cursing herself, Fawn clenched her jaw, and tried wriggling away from his hold.

  “You thought you were going to get away with it, didn’t you
?” Big Sneed said, pulling her up by her throat.

  Coming to her feet, Fawn sank her teeth into his forearm, drawing blood. She slammed the back of her head against his mouth. She hit him so hard, his teeth cut into her scalp. Several obscenities exploded from his mouth as he slung his arm from her throat, yanking Fawn around to face him in the process.

  Hurriedly, she guided her bow over her chest, swiping the tip of her nose with the bowstring. She fumbled her fingers through the five remaining arrows in their quivers, pulling one loose. Before she could nock the arrow, Big Sneed fired his pistol again, snapping her bow in two.

  Big Sneed smiled, revealing a busted lip and bloodied teeth.

  “You know,” he said, clutching at the pistol that hung by his side, “when I killed Amos, it was like drowning a baby. The retard didn’t have much fight in him at all.”

  Anger boiled over inside her and spilled from her eyes.

  “They won’t find that mangy dog of his either,” he continued, walking to the sweetgum tree where the cardinal had been perched. “I burned him alive and dumped his remains in the creek.”

  The lives of Amos and Gooner, and the countless days she’d spent constructing that bow had her fantasizing of ways to kill him.

  Big Sneed reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold tube.

  “Found this little beauty right outside the barrier.”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought, remembering the wonder she’d experienced when the tube had ejected from the slightly curved rectangle. I left it there.

  “I figure my little brother wanted to have his way with you,” he continued, tossing the tube in the air and catching it. “Is that why you killed him?”

  “Isn’t there a rumor going around that Tye went for a shit and the hogs ate him,” she deadpanned, disguising the anxiety bubbling inside her. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Wow,” he replied, laughing as he shook his head. “Commander Asher was right. Your courage is something to be admired, but it’s nothing compared to my Oleander’s.”

  Fawn tipped her head to the side. The last time she’d heard that name, Asher had referred to this woman as, “my Oleander,” as well.

  “I tell you what,” he said, laying his pistol and automatic rifle beside the tree. “I’ll give you your best shot.”

  Given Fawn’s last encounter with him, she was surprised by his calm demeanor. She figured he’d been given permission to finish her off however he liked. When the time before, he’d been held back by three men and Asher’s commands.

  Fawn envisioned a brawl in which Big Sneed would go after her hard and fast, thinking he’d defeat her within seconds. She sized him up, taking in his heavy, steel-toed boots and hindering, thick-material uniform. He’d overexert himself within the first few minutes.

  Make your attacker’s mistakes your gains, Fawn recited to herself, remembering her training with her father. Never let down your guard.

  Big Sneed charged after her, prompting her to go for a kick at his groin. He grabbed hold of her foot and twisted it. She winced and whipped her body in the direction he turned, and landed face down on the ground. As he stepped forward, she flipped onto her back, thrusting her hips upward, and drove her feet into his jewels.

  Scrunching up his face, Big Sneed clutched at his man parts, sinking to his knees. Taking advantage of the turn of events, Fawn scrambled to her feet in search of her hatchet. Out of her peripheral vision, she caught sight of him rising shakily from the ground. She strode toward the nearest weapon she knew how to use — an arrow protruding from the ground. He grabbed her by the arm just as her fingers grazed the red feathers of the fletching and pulled her back. As he did, she clenched her fist, stealing the energy he’d used to winch her backward to punch him in the throat.

  Staggering away from her, he brought his hands to his neck, gasping for air. Running after him, she raised her palm toward his nose, jabbing upward. She felt the grind and heard the crunch of his nasal bone under her flesh, bringing a small smile to her face.

  Turning her back on him, she grasped the fletching of one of the arrows surrounding her. Gearing up to plunge it into his neck, she wheeled about as he pulled the hammer back on his pistol. She peered downward. A holster was hidden beneath his britches the same way Tye’s had been.

  Raising the pistol in Fawn’s direction, Big Sneed mustered a weak smile. Blood seeped from his broken nose. Using his other hand, he swiped the back of his wrist across his lips to keep the blood from entering his mouth. His breathing was labored, and his neck was tilted to the side from the jab Fawn had delivered. The pain in his groin tattooed a grimace across his face and kept his legs spread slightly apart.

  She tightened her grip on the arrow.

  This is it.

  The sound of flapping wings and tweet of birds had Fawn and Big Sneed frozen in their angered stances. Fawn turned her head and took in the image of at least a hundred cardinals perched on every branch of the pine tree behind her.

  A single thought crossed her mind: Did the lonely cardinal make some friends?

  Big Sneed lowered his pistol and in an astonished, hushed voice, he said, “There’s no way that this is happening.”

  With his statement the birds dove from the tree. Every one of them swerved around Fawn’s stilled form — the tips of their wings brushing softly against her arms, as they headed straight for the threat in front of her. Curious to see why Big Sneed had erupted into distressed shrieks, Fawn whipped her head back around. The birds scratched and pecked at every inch of his body, but particularly, his face.

  A couple of seconds was all it took for Fawn to realize the birds were giving her a chance to escape. Trying anything to distract the birds, Big Sneed began firing his weapon. It was then that Fawn’s legs began to move. Every pull of the trigger was a slap to her eardrums.

  Bullets whizzed by Fawn’s head as she escaped. When she was about thirty feet away, her stride was shortened by a twinge in her leg and a debilitating pain in her hip. Stumbling a few more feet, she hid behind the nearest pine tree and took in the flesh wound on her thigh. The bullet had nicked her leg, stealing flesh. Another bullet had passed through her hip, about two inches above the bone.

  Blood seeped through her fingers as she tried covering both wounds. Peeking around the tree, she saw that Big Sneed was more occupied with freeing himself from the cardinals’ wrath than he was with her.

  Keep moving, she told herself. Don’t stop.

  Fawn decided to head back the way she’d come — the Boom Hole. It was the closest place she knew had bandages and stitching supplies. She struggled to keep herself balanced as she kept a firm hand on her leg and hip. From the waist down, her entire right and left sides were covered in blood, leaving a crimson trail to her moccasins.

  She arrived under the shade of an oak tree where she collapsed.

  Please Lord, she silently prayed, peering upward through the swaying branches of the tree. I need a ride. Please . . . send my Juniper this way.

  Fawn closed her eyes, letting her chin fall to her chest. Through her labored breaths, the sound of hooves pounding against the ground had her eyes wide open and head elevated. Juniper, with a now twenty-something Joy mounted upon her, trotted toward the tree where Fawn had fallen. Joy’s blonde hair was swept behind her shoulders, floating above her back. Stella ran loyally beside them, her tongue flapping out the side of her mouth. The sight of her friends coming to her aid lifted Fawn’s spirits, slapping a trembling, weak smile on her face.

  Just as Juniper stopped before Fawn, Joy and Stella disappeared. Juniper neighed, nodding vigorously, reminding Fawn they weren’t completely out of danger. Juniper bowed without Fawn having to whistle and awaited the feel of her mistress’s weight on her back.

  Keeping her back to the tree, Fawn eased herself from the ground. She winced, as every move she made was excruciating.

  “Smart girl,” Fawn said and smiled, leaning against Juniper’s side.

  Fawn laid her chest upon
Juniper’s back. She held her breath as she maneuvered her wounded leg over Juniper’s other side. Pressing her forehead to Juniper’s neck, she took hold of her mane, and rose to a wobbly sitting position.

  “All right,” Fawn said, patting Juniper’s side. “I’m on.”

  ***

  About an hour later, they passed the halfway mark to the Boom Hole. Slumped over Juniper’s neck, Fawn’s head and arms hung by the horse’s side. The throbbing, burning pain in her hip became dull, and soon, she couldn’t feel anything on her right side at all. The trees surrounding her became a swirl of greens and browns, and then, without her consent, she found herself tipping over Juniper’s back.

  Landing on her right side, Fawn looked up from the ground, seeing Juniper’s hazy, swiveling snout nudge her shoulder. Fawn’s head fell to the pine needles and twigs littering the ground. Lowering her head, Juniper shook her mane, as if to say, “Grab on!” Fawn struggled to her knees, hugging Juniper’s neck as the intelligent animal pried her from the forest floor.

  Upon their arrival at the Boom Hole, a little over an hour later, Fawn eased her leg over Juniper’s side. She grimaced as she lowered her feet to the ground. The slightest pressure on her leg caused an unendurable amount of pain. A simple pull of a trigger had released something small that had drove into her leg and hip, extracting flesh in its wake. She steadied herself by grabbing hold of Juniper’s mane and tried wrapping her mind around such power. Her efforts were futile as the blood loss kept her from focusing on anything clearly.

  Bandages, she thought, as a rush of lightheadedness washed over her. Just get to the cabin.

  Only three steps stood between her and the cabin door. On the way, she turned her head, watching Juniper disappear down the slope toward the creek. I’m pretty thirsty myself, she thought, smacking her lips as she hobbled toward the entrance. Clutching at her leg, she took an exasperated breath as she arrived on the porch. She reached for the latch, but one latch turned into three and twirled in a circle. Shaking her head, each latch met in the middle to form one.