Текст книги "Fire Country"

Автор книги: David Estes

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bart’s tent’s a mess. Empty fire juice skins lay discarded on the floor. The bitter odor of stale fireweed covers everything like a permanent haze. Durty clothes are strewn ’bout in a way that’d make my mother cringe.

I nearly jump out of my skin when I sense movement to the right. Someone else is here.

Goola. His other Call, a shilty girl who he’s always parading ’round like a trophy. When he’s not in Confinement, that is. She slinks over.

“Ooh, what have you brought home, Bartie? A new play toy?”

Bart shoves me toward the bed and I stumble on the debris under my feet. I barely manage to keep my balance. “Not tonight, Goo,” he says. “Tonight is my time. Get out.”

Goola struts over to him, unloosing the top of her dress as she walks. Just ’fore she reaches him it falls away, dropping to her feet like a fallen cloud. She’s got nothing on underneath.

I gawk at her as she stands there naked, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Whereas I’m all skin and bones, she’s full figured with magnificent hips and breasts so full they’d make even Veeva jealous. She puts a hand to Bart’s cheek, strokes it, rises up on her tiptoes, kisses him full on the lips, twisting and turning her head wildly. I see flashes of her pink tongue as she rolls it along his lips, slides it into his mouth. I might just get lucky. If Bartie and his trophy Call, Goola, get all tangled up, I might just be able to sneak out of here. I take a step toward the door, my eyes never leaving the lip-locked pair.

Bart grabs her hair from the back, pulls her head away from his, snarls, “I said not tonight! Get out!” He pushes her out the tent opening, still naked as the day she was born. She’s shouting obscenities the whole way, both at him and at me. I’m not her favorite person right now.

He leans down, plucks a basket from the corner. To my surprise, it’s got a baby in it. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that Goola woulda had a child with him already. She ain’t exactly the motherly type, and thinking of him as a father is like thinking of a Killer as a pet. “Take Bart Jr. with you, too, Woman,” he says, depositing the basket outside. He pulls the tent flap shut, ties it off.

He turns his attention to me. Reflexively I cover my soaked chest with my arms. “See how easy she makes it look,” he says, grinning. “If you want it, things will go much smoother.”

If he means wanting to kick him in the crotch repeatedly, then yes, I want it. Anything else, not so much. I back away, my mind churning, my eyes roving, trying to come up with any way out of this. Seeing nothing but pain. Go down fighting. Be Strong.

He steps toward me, suffocating me in the tiny space. A baby cries outside. “Get away from me,” I say.

Bart laughs. “Can’t do that,” he says. “You’re mine now. And I do what I want with my things.”

I take another step back, feel my feet sink into the soft bedding on the ground. He takes a big step forward, closing off any avenue of escape. There’s a glow in his eyes, a fire, a red hot desire. For me. To make me another one of his possessions.

I dive back, roll across the bedding, smash into the side of the tent. After the winter winds, a lot of the tents weren’t looking so strong, and I doubt if Bart’s the type to have rebuilt it from scratch. The tent wall blooms out, but holds, retracts, pushes me back into the center of the bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bart grabbing for me, trying to get hold of my feet. I kick out, catch him in the eye and he lets out a howl, grabbing at his face. “You little shilt, I’ll kill you,” he snaps.

With every bit of force I can muster, I bash into the tent wall again, hoping it’ll cave in, give me a chance to escape in the confusion.

It holds, almost feels stronger’n the previous time, as if Bart’s anger is giving strength to his house. His turf. I’m completely knocked.

He grabs my feet and pulls me to him, batting away my flailing arms with ease. Smiling, he’s actually smiling, although his version of the happy expression makes me quiver inside. It’s too much teeth and not enough lips. And no dimples.

As if he’s practiced it his entire life, he swallows my ankles with a massive hand, clamps them together, and then uses his other paw to wrench my arms over my head. Roughly, he throws his weight on top of me and I can feel all of him bearing down on my body. The foul stench of his fire-juice-soaked breath comes in waves, rocking my senses and threatening to knock me out. I’m tempted to give in to the nausea, to hurl or faint or both—that’d put a quick end to all of this—but I won’t. Not today. Today I fight.

I throw a knee up hard, trying to catch him in the midsection, but he’s in control now and easily holds it down with his powerful legs. He’s breathing heavy, almost as if all my fighting and kicking and scratching is exactly what he wants, exactly what he hoped for. I shudder when I realize I’m only acting as a stimulant to every perverse fantasy this demon of a man has.

I cry out when he rips at my dress—my purity dress—his fingers like claws, tearing and shredding.

Oh sun goddess, no! Please, no, Circ—where are you?—come back to me.

Please.

Please.

My dress rips away and it’s just me underneath, frail and bony and Scrawny, barely covered by the thin fabric of my undergarments. It’s like my dress holds whatever strength I have left and when it falls away I’m left with nothing, only fear and exhaustion and weakness.

I feel him, his arousal, on top of me. He’s panting now, excited to take me, to take all of me, to take everything I have left. To chew me up and swallow me, making me a part of him forever and ever and ever.

I’m screaming now, crying and yelling things I’ll never remember, straining to get him off me, but he won’t budge, won’t move an inch. I’m his.

The tent door flaps open and a light breeze wafts through, tingling my sweat– and rain-soaked skin. Is it Goola? Come to reclaim her man? I try to look past Bart’s thick shoulder, but I can’t see anything but his flesh, hot and rough.

“Woman, I told you to leave us!” Bart yells without looking back. His lip is curled in anger and for a moment I think he might take it out on me, hit me in the face.

But then something strange happens. His mouth gasps open and his eyes go wide, like he’s been struck by lightning. With a shudder, he collapses on top of me, smothering me like water on the dying embers of a cook fire.

I can’t breathe, can’t move, and something warm is dribbling onto my skin.

“You’re okay now,” I hear the voice say, soft and gentle, almost cooing. A voice of comfort, one I’ve heard a million and a half times growing up, when I was sick or skinned my knee or sad about the things the kids said at Learning.

My mother.

Bart’s body is rolled off me and she’s there, her face weary and anxious and smiling, her eyes bright despite looking so sunken. “I’m so sorry, Siena, I came as fast as I could, but the Fire, it…”

And then she’s crying and I’m crying and we’re holding each other, me ’cause she’s dying and out of strength and ’cause, despite all that, she came—she came!—and ’cause I’m still pure and she saved me and Bart’s…

“Is he dead?” I blubber over her shoulder. My eyes flick to Bart’s body, which has the handle of a knife sticking from his back, the blade lost in his flesh and inner parts. The handle of the knife is etched with swirls and with the sun goddess’s eye, the sun—her symbol, the same one that’s on the charm dangling from my bracelet. My mother did it. Not weak like I’ve always thought. Strong.

She pulls me back, her face a red mess, says, “It matters not. We must hurry.”

The perfect crown of hair she created earlier is in shambles, collapsing in broken, wet strands onto my face. I push them away. “Mother, I don’t understand. Hurry where? We hafta tell the Greynotes what happened, that you saved me, that Bart’s an animal. They’ll believe us, they will!”

Mother’s eyebrows drop, her soft wrinkles full of compassion. She never had wrinkles until the Fire came. “This was not the life for your sister,” she says and I startle.

“Skye?” I say. “Skye was taken.”

“No,” she says. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell you, couldn’t tell anyone. I sent Skye away from here. To a safe place. She went to live with the Wild Ones.”

Her words don’t make sense. The Wilds? But they’re feral, they’re not civilized, they’re… “Kidnappers,” I say. “They took her.”

“Siena, I know this is a lot to take in, but you have to trust me. You have to go now. Your father, he’s a monster.”

She knows what I know. “Mother, I know, I know, I found out about the agreement with the Icers, how they give us wood and meat and we stay out of ice country, how the prisoners didn’t do anything wrong, how they’re forced to work, ’bout everything. We can tell the people. We can tell them!”

“You don’t know everything,” she says. “Your father, he’ll never get the Fire.”

She’s speaking in riddles. “I don’t understand, Mother. He’s not invincible. The plague’ll take him just like everyone else, just like you.”

“The Icers give him medicine,” she says. “Some kind of herbal drink. It fights the Fire. It’s part of the agreement with them. The most secret part. But I watch him, I see what he does—he can’t hide his treachery from me. We have to go.” She grabs me and pulls me to my feet, hands me a freshly sewn set of Hunter trousers and a shirt. For the first time in my life, I put on something that’s not a dress.

~~~

The night is empty. The rain has stopped as suddenly as it started. Although the distant sounds of frolic and laughter hum from the center of the village, the Call party is like another world, something completely foreign to where we are.

Bart lies inside the tent surrounded by his own blood.

We run.

At least it’s our best attempt at running. My legs are cramped and tight and sorta tingly, both from Bart crushing them beneath him and ’cause of my mother’s words. My father gets a cure for the Fire from the Icers? I have so many questions, like Why don’t the rest of us get the cure? but I know there’s no time. When they find out about Bart, the Greynotes’ll come for us and there’s only one punishment for murder. Life in Confinement. A knife in the back’ll leave no question as to guilt. My mother by actions. Me by association.

My mother’s struggling to run, too, ’cause killing Bart and the Fire have sapped the last of her energy. We cling to each other, hold each other up, four legs and four arms and two hearts, all stuck together in one person. I don’t know where we’re going or what we’ll do when we get there, but I’m happy I’m going there with her.

Like me, she knows the best spot for sneaking out of the village—the point furthest from any guard towers. So that’s it, we’re leaving. Even as I realize it, I know it’s for the best. With Circ gone and her soon to be, I have no reason to stay. The village only carries pain for me now.

“Siena,” my mother says, stopping, breathing hard, leaning on me. “You have to run like you’ve never run before. Southwest, where the river lies dead like a snake and the rocks hold hands like lovers. You have to hurry. Your father, the Hunters…they will come after you.”

“After me?” I say. My heart skips a beat and tears well up when I realize what’s happening. “You’re not coming.”

“I’m dying, Siena. This is my last act of defiance against your father, my last act of love for you. Tomorrow there is only death.”

Rivulets trickle down my cheeks. “No,” I sob, “we can get the cure. If he has it, we’ll find it. We’ll demand he give it to us. I can do it. I can save you.” My body shivers with emotion and my mother pulls me close.

“I’ve tried to find where he keeps it, but it’s too well hidden.” Her words are strong, almost fierce, a far cry from my own shattered utterances. “It only works to prevent the Fire, but it’s useless when you’ve already got it. Siena—”

“No!” I hiss, louder’n I should. “No, you can come with me. We’ll figure out a way.”

“I’m too weak…”

“You’re the strongest person I know.”

“You have to go…”

“I can’t leave you.” My words are a lie, ’cause I know I can and will leave her. ’Cause if I don’t leave, if I don’t go and try to make something of my crumbling life, then her sacrifice’ll have been for nothing. And I can’t live with that.

“Siena, I love you,” she says, pushing me away with all her might, falling to her knees.

“I love you,” I cry, tear-streaked and stumbling, running toward an unknown world of Wilds who don’t kidnap and my sister is one of them.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The night paints pictures with the strange strokes of a devilish artist.

Everything’s different in the dark. The dunes are rolling humps and heads and tails of gargantuan monsters, asleep and heavy. The pricklers stand firm and tall, like soldiers on guard, ready to fight the dune-monsters the moment they awake. The wind is on the verge of visibility, a silent hand that holds the brush, sweeping it in wide arcs that leave the landscape changed with each stroke.

It dries my tears, too. As I circle ’round the northwestern edge of the village, far enough away that to the guardsmen I’ll be little more’n a brambleweed bouncing along the desert, I find my legs. Although I’m scared and sad and bone-weary, I’m not broken. My mother saved me and I won’t waste it.

Southwest, where the river lies dead like a snake and the rocks hold hands like lovers.

Vague directions, but enough to get me started. What’ll happen when I get there, wherever there is? I don’t know. All I know is that my sister left by choice, not against her will like I always thought, like they always told me—and my mother helped her do it. The revelation is huge for me. All of Lara’s talk about girl’s being strong and living the way they want to live was fun and made her who she was, but I never took it that seriously. But knowing my mother and sister were of a similar mind and took real action makes all the difference. It gives me hope.

When I reach the western edge of the village, I stop, look back. Twinkling lights of a raging fire sparkle and dance. I wonder if my mother got caught out or if she made it back to her bed. I wonder if Goola’s discovered Bart yet, swimming in his own dark blood. My sixteen years of existence lie in the village. I look up and Circ winks at me between overlapping shrouds of gray cloud cover.

I turn my back on the village, scuffing my moccasins in the durt just enough to scrape off the dust of my old life.

~~~

I’m barely a half mile southwest of the village when the alarm sounds. They’ve found Bart.

They’ll organize quickly, start the Hunt. This time not for tug—for me. With cries and wind behind me, I lengthen my strides, pick up my pace. Run as fast as I’m truly capable of. The britches my mother made me feel weird and restricting against my skin. But at the same time, they make running so much easier. There’s nothing to swirl ’round my feet, to trip me. Wearing britches makes me feel alive, somehow.

Something feels heavy in my shirt, glancing against my ribs every few steps. When I rove with my hand I find a wide pocket. And in it: a sheathed knife. I pull it out, feel the swirls of the carved handle against my palm. From touch alone, I know what’s carved on the hilt. The sun goddess’s eye. The matching knife to the one my mother killed Bart with. Fresh tears swim in my eyes but I blink them away, tuck the knife back into my pocket.

I run for miles and miles, never slowing. For once in my life, my feet manage to keep out of each other’s way. At first I navigate by instinct alone, but eventually the night’s cloak is tossed aside and the stars show me the way. Southwest.

Sometimes the rhythms of the desert whisper songs in my ear. They’re ’bout lives long past, ’bout heroes of old whose incredible feats of bravery are destined to be repeated by new heroes.

But not tonight. Tonight I hear different sounds. The sounds of the Hunt. Heavy feet, shouts. They’re muffled and perhaps miles back, but they sound like they’re on top of me, like Bart was not that long ago. I find myself glancing back more’n more frequently.

When I start running with my head turned perpetually behind me, I run smack into a prickler. No doubt one of Perry’s friends. The shock of the barbs piercing my skin, and my head ratcheting off the thick plant focuses me. I’m clumsy. I’m imperfect. But I’m not done yet. I won’t be caught tonight. Tomorrow maybe, but not tonight.

I drag myself to my feet and start again, plucking out prickler barbs as I go.

This time, I stop looking back, for I know what’s back there. A torn world, a shredded life, those who’d harm me, blame me for the death of a horrible person like Bart. My father, the worst one of all, secure in his knowledge that he’ll never hafta suffer the pain of the Fire, ’cause of his agreement with the Icers, etched with the blood and lives of the poor souls of the village, men like Raja.

In a world where there’re so many things that can kill us—sandstorms, wildfires, wild beasts, the Fire—where the Law rules all else, I woulda been forced to reproduce steadily from age sixteen till my family was full. My mom didn’t want that for me. That knowledge keeps me going.

I gotta tell Circ. The words slip into my mind so casually, like they have for ten years. He’s always been the first person I tell anything to. Now that he’s gone, I wish I never had anything to tell. The yearning to be near him grows stronger with each crunch of my feet on the brittle desert landscape. To feel his knees against mine, to see his dimpled smile, to talk with him, laugh with him. Oh, Circ.

Circ, Circ, Circ.

Where are you?

Ages later, when the sun casts a reddish smear on the edge of the horizon, I stop. My heart beats firm and fast, but not wildly. My britches and shirt are soaked through with sweat. I’m breathing heavy and tired, but not out of breath. There’s fight left in me yet.

With the added light, I finally turn to survey the desert to my back. There are black dots in the distance, but they appear to be miles away. Maybe Hunters, maybe something else, like a pack of Cotees, fresh on the blood trail left by my prickler wounds. I can’t stop yet.

Life goes on all ’round me as the desert wakes up. Tiny-nosed burrow mice peek from their holes, snuffling at the wind, darting back inside when I tramp past. Lazy-winged vultures cast shaky shadows across the sand as the sun edges over them. Piles of busy fire ants stream from their anthills, forcing me to zigzag to avoid trampling them under my feet.

I don’t run anymore, but walk in long strides. The sun beats on me, but I don’t mind, as it’s spring, and there are worse things’n sun in spring. After the early spring rains, clumps of scrubgrass and pepperweed poke from the sand, the beginning of the regrowth. Already the pricklers are looking less brown and tired, more green and awake. I wonder how Perry looks now, whether he’s changed. Probably not—in my memory he’ll always be the brittle-brown wisecracker I knew.

I eat lunch while I walk. When poking around in my shirt and trouser pockets, I found my mother left more’n just a knife with me. Thick strips of tug jerky and crunchy shards of fresh-cut prickler bits were packed in leather skins. The jerky gives me strength, the pricklers give me fluids. They won’t last long—maybe a day or two—but at least I can focus on getting as far away from the village as possible, rather’n finding food and water.

Water, as it turns out, ain’t a problem. The rains come in the afternoon, and I drink to my fill. With no one ’round, I strip off my shirt and let it catch the rain, and then wring it out into my mouth. Although the prickler moistened my dry tongue and throat, it can’t compare to the downpour. I’m drenched and half-naked and excited and more alive’n I been in a long searin’ time.

The rain’ll cover my tracks, too. The Cotees might be able to stick with me, if that’s what was following me back there, but if it was the Hunters, well, they’ll hafta turn back, no matter how much my father screams and rants and rages.

I’m free. The thought pops into my head and I wonder what it means. Free of what? Of my father, yeah, I s’pose so. Of my duty under the Call to Bear children to a random guy. Yeah, that too. But am I free really? I guess time’ll tell, like it always does.

As I continue on, the rains slow and then stop altogether, but the sky keeps wearing its gray blanket, blotting out any sign of the sun. The break from the heat is much needed.

Darkness falls early, as if the sun goddess has given up the fight against the clouds. As everyone who lives in fire country knows, Mother Nature is a powerful foe. I know I hafta stop sometime, to rest, to gather my wits, to sleep, but the time don’t feel right so I don’t. Into the night I trudge, stopping only when I hear the hair-raising sound of Cotees howling to the south.

I’m dead on my feet, and I wish I’d stopped two thumbs of sun movement ago, when maybe the Cotees were too far to gather my scent. But now I can’t stop, ’cause stopping means they’ll catch me. I veer further west, off course, knowing I can get back on track once danger has passed.

For two awful miles I hear nothing ’cept the sound of my own ragged breathing. Then there’s another howl. Closer. Much closer. Too searin’ close for burnin’ comfort.

I break into a sprint, my muscles aching against me, screaming for mercy, getting ignored by my heart and brain which know full well that this is life or death. Out here all alone against a pack o’ Cotees, I ain’t got a chance.

More howls, different now, not just sounds of interest, but sounds of delight, as they close in on their prey. I can’t outrun them—I’ll hafta fight. My fingers close over the knife handle in my pocket. When to turn? When to fight? I run a little further, delaying the inevitable.

Something jumps out from the sand, grabs me, bites me on the ankle. I fall, my teeth chattering as my chin slams onto the wet ground. It’s got me by the ankle, chomped down so hard I feel like it might tear my foot right off my leg. But what is it? Not a Cotee, that’s for sure. It came from the front, almost out of the sand, like a snake from a hole. But the bite on this thing ain’t no snake.

I twist my body ’round to get a look at my attacker, crying out as the slight motion sends quivers of pain up my leg. I was right, not a Cotee. Not a snake neither. A searin’ trap, set by some baggard Hunter who’s too much of a shanker to go out and work for his food. And now he’s got me in it, clamped between the metal teeth of a well-anchored mouth.

The pain is nothing compared to the fear. The Cotees are so close I can hear the snuffle of their wet breathing and the trod of their padded paws in the durt. By the time the Hunter finds me I’ll be in ten different pieces. Like with Bart, I got no chance. But in honor of my mother, I’ll fight anyway.

The first of the Cotees slinks into sight, not running hard, knowing by some sixth sense that I’m just setting here waiting for him. His lithe movements remind me of how Goola, in all her nakedness, approached Bart confidently, so sure she’d win his affection. Behind him, six other brown four-legged forms approach. A small pack, but far more’n I can handle on my own.

As they circle me my heart hammers in my chest. I’m scareder’n I ever been ’fore.

I could just let them take me, so I can be with Circ. Find my place in the stars. I can’t. I can’t ’cause it’s not what Circ would want.

My hand aches and I realize with a start that I still got the knife, my fingers biting into it so hard they’re hurting. I ease my grip slightly, gritting my teeth at the pain from the trap’s teeth in my leg. I ain’t a fighter. I’m not built for it.

The first Cotee closes in, snaps at me. I swing hard, put everything I got into it, slashing the knife forward like a spear. The Cotee jumps back, which I realize was always the plan, and I miss, my momentum throwing me facefirst into the durt.

In more pain’n I can swallow down, I know my only chance is to get outta the trap. Stuck like this, I’m ’zard stew. I pull as hard as I can, straining against the metal jaws. “Arrr!” I roar when a red hot burst travels through my nervous system. But I manage to stagger to my feet with the clamp still grabbing my ankle. I’m up, but hobbled, and still unable to move outside of the range of the tether that holds me.

I notice the Cotees are shying away a little, perhaps ’cause of my pain-filled yell a few moments ago. They mighta mistook it for a cry of anger, of violence. Maybe that’s what it was. I yell again and they move further away. Once more I release a bellow into the night, but this time they just stare at me. They ain’t fooled anymore and my dry throat is growing hoarse.

They close in, blood in their eyes, licking their lips.

“C’mon!” I yell and it doesn’t faze them. They just keep moving, padding along, vicious and graceful.

One gets too close. I jab the bugger in the neck with my knife, surprised at how easily the sharp weapon slides through his fur and skin and inside him. Warm liquid flows over my hand and when I pull the blade away it’s coated with red. First blood has been spilt.

The Cotee almost looks surprised, it’s jaw wagging open, it’s eyes bugging out, like it’s wondering how the scorch an outnumbered runt of a girl managed to get the best of him. He staggers like he’s had too much fire juice, goes down on one knee, and then collapses, tongue hanging from his mouth and eyes rolled back into his head. Dead. ’Cause of me, who ain’t the fighter.

The others waste no time. They pounce from all sides, biting and clawing. I hack with my knife, but it’s fruitless. There’re too many and I’m too weak. I fall to the ground, part of a moving pile of hair and squirming bodies and stars, oh how many stars, peeking in from between cracks in the mass of animal bodies surrounding me. Circ watching. Watching. Watching.

I’m coming, Circ.

The world goes black.