The World Without Flags

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  Boston slows his horse to ride next to me.

  “I wish we had some horses for you two,” he says. His orange eyes glimmer down at me.

  I shrug. “He doesn’t ride,” I say, jerking my head toward Eric. “He just falls off.”

  Boston looks back at Eric who is plodding ahead as usual.

  “And he doesn’t move faster than that, I take it?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  Boston studies me for a moment. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. I try to figure out what he’s studying me for. There’s a certain look, a way that a man has when his intentions aren’t decent. I’m looking for that. Maybe he sucks a tooth or licks his lips or lets his eyes rake at me, up and down. I don’t think I’m much to look at, but that’s never stopped men before, especially out here. I’m not stupid. I have to watch myself.

  But Boston doesn’t seem like that. He’s curious and suspicious, but not malignant, or he hides it well. The other one, Sidney, I don’t know yet. He’s behind me, so I can’t study him, though I feel his presence.

  “Well, if you ask me, you’re lucky,” Boston says after a second. “Most bandits would’ve just killed you in the road and then taken your stuff. You’re lucky they let you go.”

  I glance over to him. Boston is looking ahead, but I can tell he’s prodding at the weak point in my story, seeing if I get uncomfortable. He’s studying me like I studied him.

  “You can thank Eric for that,” I say quickly. Hesitation here would sound false. “We were all camped one night and he got loose from the rope. By the time I found him and got back to camp, everything was gone.”

  “Eric?” Boston asks. “How’d you know his name?”

  Damn it. “I don’t know his name,” I say as easily as I can. “That’s the name I gave him.”

  “Looks like Eric saved your life,” Boston says, seemingly satisfied. “Lucky.”

  “Lucky,” I agree. Boston seems satisfied and gives me a little twitch of a smile. Then his horse gradually moves ahead and leaves us alone again. It’s hard to get a horse to walk as slow as Eric. I notice that Sidney has to stop his horse every quarter mile or so and let us get ahead. It’s a boring, grindingly slow pace, but I’m glad for it. It gives me time to think of how to get us out of this mess.

  My immediate worry is that Eric will cough up a big blob of black muck, crawling with worms. That would give him away. Or just the fact that he drools some weird black fluid, that could do it too, so I’m constantly wiping at his face. A couple of times, I do notice a worm or two, and, trying to keep my breakfast down, I wipe them away.

  My second worry is myself. I’m tired. Really tired. I’ve already been walking all night and now it’s midday. And I didn’t really sleep much the night before. I’m starting to feel so tired that I begin to think that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I just stopped, fell to the ground, and took a big, beautiful, fat nap. When you get as tired as I am right now, it’s almost impossible to think straight. Life and death don’t seem as important anymore. I really just want to sleep. If death is just a good long sleep, it sounds pretty good to me right now. My eyes feel swollen and scratchy. My legs are like stone. And I keep thinking the same phrase again and again in my head: Think, Birdie, think. I repeat it like some mantra in my head, and I can’t stop doing it. Think, Birdie, think. Think, Birdie, think. It’s driving me batty. To say I’m miserable is not even close.

  Finally, I get some luck.

  “Let’s stop for a rest,” Sidney announces behind me.

  Almost immediately, I stumble to the side of the road and then sink to the ground. I tug at the rope until Eric stops. He just stands there with him mouth hanging open.

  Boston circles around and then walks his horse near to me. He looks down at me.

  “You guys been walking all night?”

  I don’t see the use in lying. I nod.

  “Should have said something,” Sidney chimes in. He has already dismounted. “No wonder you’re moving so slow.”

  Before I know it, the two have started making camp. I can tell by the way they do it that they have a system. They’ve been traveling together for a long time. Without speaking, they know who does what. Sidney tends to the horses while Boston unpacks. Then Sidney finds stones for a campsite while Boston unpacks the cooking material. It’s all I can do to get to my feet and struggle with Eric to get him to sit down and rest his legs.

  “Unh,” he says finally and lets me pull him to the ground. His legs straighten out and he lays there stiffly on his backpack, his legs off the ground.

  I notice that both Boston and Sidney are watching this strange position. I shrug at them and they go back to what they’re doing. I crawl up to wipe Eric’s mouth, trying to ignore the foul odor coming from his mouth. I lay next to him and close my eyes.

  Then I must have gone to sleep because the next thing I know, there’s a campfire going and I smell something cooking. Oats, I think.

  Which reminds me. I look over to Eric, and it’s just as I thought: he’s looking thin. I can see his cheekbones stick out more than ever before. His head looks like a skull. I have to figure out how to get him to eat.

  But my head hurts. Real bad. I need to shut my eyes for a second.

  50

  When I wake up, it’s late afternoon. The sun is low and weak. There’s no sign of Boston and Sidney, but their horses are tied up nearby, so they haven’t left us. I look next to me. Eric has moved to a sitting position. His head is up, but I have no idea if he is sleeping or not. Or even if he sleeps. I notice unhappily that I didn’t tie him up, which is the kind of mistake that could get me killed. I will have to be more careful. My headache is gone, but I’m still weak and tired. There’s a bowl of oatmeal next to me, and the minute I see it, I feel ravenous.

  There’s nothing but oatmeal, no dried fruit or maple syrup or even a dash of salt. It’s cold and so thick, it’s almost solid. It’s like eating half-dried concrete. I don’t care. It tastes like heaven to me. I finish it all off quickly and then notice there’s another bowl, presumably for Eric.

  I sit up and take the bowl in my hand. I take out a spoonful and hold it under Eric’s nose. I figure if he smells it, he might eat it. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’m scared he’ll bite me.

  But he doesn’t do anything. No response at all.

  “Come on, Eric,” I say. “You have to eat.”

  He doesn’t even move.

  Looking at his wide-open, disgusting mouth, dark and smelling like week old urine, I steel up my nerves. “Okay,” I say. “Here goes.” I put the spoonful of oatmeal in his mouth. But Eric doesn’t move or do anything. I dump the oatmeal on his tongue and then, grimacing with disgust, I shut his jaw. Eric tenses and then coughs violently with his whole body, spraying out a vile mixture of black bile and oatmeal all over me. For a moment, I’m frozen in horror.

  “Oh God!” I yell and leap to my feet. I dance around in disgust, shaking my hands. “Oh man!” I cry out. I scramble for the towel I use to wipe his mouth and then the thought of using that to wipe my own face repulses me, so I go to my bag. I pull out a shirt and start wiping myself down. “Eric!” I tell him. “Gross!”

  “Unh,” he answers.

  Then I have to clean him up too. There’s black oatmeal everywhere. It’s so disgusting that I feel my stomach rumble, but I resist the urge to vomit. I need the food. So doesn’t Eric. Or he’ll waste away to nothing. I can’t let that happen to him.

  “So you’re not going to eat, huh?” I ask him.

  “Unh.”

  “Great,” I say, throwing down the shirt I used to wipe myself at Eric’s feet. “Another thing to worry about.”

  That’s when I notice my gun is gone.

  51

  Around sunset, Boston and Sidney return with a fat buck. I must have been sleeping so deeply that I didn’t even hear the gunshot. That worries me. I watch the two men toss a loop of rope around the deer’s neck and then, throwing the rope aroun
d a tree branch, they hoist it up off the ground. Boston makes quick work with his knife and then Sidney skins it. The deer carcass is bright red. Then they come back to the campfire and sit down, all without saying much to me. I join them.

  The two of them are sitting wordlessly by the fire, which Boston is poking at with a stick. They nod at me as I join them.

  “Are we staying here for the night?” I ask.

  “Think we better stay for a day or so,” Sidney says. His voice is low and smooth. It might be comforting if he wasn’t a stranger who stole my gun. He looks up from the fire. “You two are too tired to keep going. How long you been going like this?”

  I shrug. “I lost track,” I say. Then, after a second, I take a deep breath. “So who’s got my gun?” I ask. If I don’t make this a subject real soon, they’ll be suspicious. Anyone who pretends not to be concerned about their missing gun is hiding something.

  They both look at me. The fire light flickers on their faces. I wish I could read minds.

  “I do,” Boston says. He makes that twitch of a smile again. “I forgot all about it. It fell out while you were sleeping.” He reaches into his jacket and comes out with the gun. My hand clenches, I want it so bad. Boston hands it toward me and I snatch it quick as I can. I snap open the cylinder. “You can relax,” Boston says. “It’s still loaded.”

  He’s right. The gun is loaded. I swing the cylinder shut with a twist of my wrist and holster it in the small of my back. “Thanks,” I say to them.

  There’s a long silence then.

  I’m thinking to myself what it means that they let me have a loaded gun.

  The fire crackles and snaps.

  Above us, the clouds are red and yellow and orange as the sun sets.

  I try to give Sidney a smile, but I know that behind him, to the south and west, is the Homestead, where they’re taking me. I can’t run because they have horses and Eric, well, Eric doesn’t run. If I try to leave, they’ll begin to suspect something, and if they study Eric a little too closely, if they start disbelieving my whole story, they’ll find out he has the Worm and they’ll shoot him dead right here. I’m sure of it. Something bad has to happen. I have to do it. I haven’t had to do anything really bad since I was a little kid and I shot that man by the lake. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to shoot anyone.

  “Unh,” says Eric behind us. “Unh.”

  I get up and go to him. His mouth is hanging open. He doesn’t even turn his head as I approach.

  “Unh,” he says again.

  I crouch down next to him and pick up the shirt that I’m using to wipe his mouth. I guess it’s a rag now. I’m never wearing it again, I guarantee that. I wipe his mouth, but I have no idea what he wants.

  “Unh,” he repeats. One of his leg kicks out and then bends strangely. “Unh.”

  “Looks like he’s got a cramp,” Boston says. I look up to see the redhead standing right over us.

  “I know that,” I say, but I didn’t know that. Boston crouches down next to me and moves toward Eric, but I shove him away. “I can do it,” I say. “I know what I’m doing.” The thought of someone else touching Eric makes me panic.

  Boston doesn’t seem to be hurt by the push, although now I regret it. It wasn’t smart, but I didn’t think at all. I just reacted. That’s not good either. But I can’t let him get too close to Eric, he’ll find out. I watch Boston for signs of irritation or anger or something even darker, but he just nods at me and moves back to the fire.

  I do my best to massage the tight muscle in Eric’s leg while ignoring the horrible, and I mean horrible, stench of him. He stinks like a dead horse that’s drowned in a cesspool on a hot day. I really should clean him up, but that is way down on my list of worries right now. Right now I just need to keep him alive. I work on his leg until the muscle stops being so stiff. I don’t know if that was it, but Eric doesn’t make any more sounds.

  Working on his leg makes me thirsty so I go to the campfire and ask for water.

  “Right there,” Sydney says. He points to a tin bucket filled with water from a nearby stream. That’s when I realize I have another dilemma. I don’t dare to drink water that hasn’t been boiled to kill the Worm. These guys don’t know the Worm has returned. If I insist on boiling water before I drink it, that will be weird. Once you start lying, it’s real difficult to keep at it. I have to lie about everything, it seems. It’s almost as exhausting as walking for a day and half non-stop. Almost.

  I go back to Eric and open the backpack that’s strapped to him. I reach in and fish out the aluminum kettle and then search around until I find what I’m looking for.

  I fill the kettle with water and set it on the fire.

  “Want some?” I ask Sidney, holding up a bag of herbs.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “Mint,” I say.

  “Sure,” Sidney responds with a shrug of his shoulders. “Why not?”

  When the kettle boils, I pour out four mugs of piping hot tea and then drop some of the dried mint into each one. “Just enough to give it some zing,” I say as I do it. There, I think to myself, another disaster averted. I just like mint tea, that’s all. Nothing odd about that.

  I feel pretty smart as I sit down next to Boston.

  “So who is Eric really?” Sidney asks.

  I look up from my tea in surprise.

  “Come on,” Boston says. “Out with it. We’ve watched you worry over him all day long. Nobody is that protective of a stranger they just found on the road.”

  My heart pounds. My paper house of lies is trembling, threatening to crumble. What I need is some truth. “He’s my Dad,” I say. I say it without thinking too much. It feels good to say.

  “Your father?” Boston looks over my shoulder at Eric and then back at me. “But you’re black,” he says.

  “I am?” I laugh a little. I take a sip from my tea. The two are watching me. “He took me in when I was a kid.”

  “What happened to him?” Sidney asks.

  “I didn’t tell you the exact truth this morning,” I admit.

  “We noticed,” Sidney says drily.

  “Eric wasn’t the one who wandered off when the bandits came,” I explain. “I was.” I look down at my tea like I was emotionally disturbed by the memory, but really I’m thinking and inventing like crazy. “He always told me never to wander off, but I did anyway, maybe just because he told me not to. When I got back to camp, the bandits had done this to him.” I jerk my head toward Eric. “They beat him so bad, I thought he would die.” I choke on some emotion. It’s not entirely untrue. I feel bad about how Eric is right now. I can use that. I let a few tears slip. “He didn’t die,” I continue. “But he’s never been right in the head afterward.”

  Boston makes a sound like ohhhh, looking over at Eric.

  “Why didn’t you tell us that before?” Sydney asks. It’s a good question.

  “I didn’t know you guys at all,” I say. “Some people don’t like the thought of blacks and whites mixing like that.”

  “She’s right about that,” Boston says with a huffing sound. Sidney nods. “You’re right,” Boston continues. “I’ve known some men, let me tell you.”

  “I’m sorry about lying to you two, but you know how it goes out here.”

  They both nod at that and sip at their tea. I feel my heartbeat slow a little. I think it’s going better. I think they buy everything. It doesn’t get us free of them, but it does save us from being taken as prisoners outright. Or worse.

  Boston and Sidney turn their attention to the buck then. They take out long hunting knives and begin carving away the flesh in long strips. They hang the strips on a branch to dry.

  I take the chance to go to Eric. I bring the cup of mint tea. It’s just barely warm now and safe for him to drink. I get my rag ready and crouch down in front of Eric. When I lift the cup, he immediately sticks out his tongue. I tip the mint tea into his mouth. Eric’s tongue laps at it like a dog.

  “U
nh, unh, unh,” he says as he laps.

  “Careful you don’t get any in your mouth,” I tell him. “You might actually drink some.”

  “Unh, unh, unh,” Eric keeps saying. Finally the cup is done, and I wipe his mouth, trying to keep my oatmeal down. Eric turns his head one way and then the other as if searching for more water, but then his jaw hangs open.

  “Unh,” he says, and then seems to relax all over.

  I look over my shoulder, but neither Boston nor Sidney seems to be paying attention to us. I’m glad. I don’t want anyone to see Eric like this.

  My fatigue hits me then. Like a boulder dropped on me. I just want to lay down again and sleep. I thought maybe my little siesta would make me feel better, but instead it has only emphasized how badly I need sleep. I haven’t had a decent night’s rest since the Worm broke out. I’ve only been sleeping a few hours a night, and then not well. It’s catching up to me.

  But as exhausted as I am, I can’t go to sleep without taking care of Eric. I have to get him to a tree, so I can tie him to it. I can’t risk him wandering off, or worse. I get up and pick up Eric’s rope. I tug at it, and Eric responds immediately. He kind of flails there. The backpack is too heavy for him. I grit my teeth and reach down and shove him over. He lays there on his stomach and doesn’t move.

  “Unh,” he says.

  “Good job, Eric,” I tell him. “Now you can get up.” I tug at the rope, and Eric uses his arms and legs to rise to his feet. He just stands there, jaw open. I wipe off a long, thin, black line of drool. Taking the rope, I lead him into the forest a few dozen yards to a big pine tree. I tie him to it, and then struggle to get him to sit down underneath it.