by Moira Young
Didn’t your pa ever teach you manners? she says.
Them words. The very same. An I’m thinkin, me an Emmi in a sweetgrass valley. A cabin by a stream, bowls of stew an tough kindness. No. No. It cain’t be her.
Nero drops from the sky. He’s a screamin fury. Full attack, with beak, wings an claws. He slashes, beats an screeches. The woman staggers back an I’m free. I scramble around. Jump to my feet. An it is, it’s her. It’s Mercy. Ma’s friend Mercy. We thought she was dead. What’s she doin here?
She’s on the ground, scrabblin to git away from Nero. Arms huggin her head, pertectin herself. Her hair’s bin shaved to snow-white stubble. Around her neck there’s a iron collar. A slave collar.
Nero’s at her. In a flurry of feathers. I can see he’s drawn blood. He means to do worse. Nero, no! I yell. Stop! Go on! I shoo him away an he takes to a tree to glare at me an grumble. Mercy’s lyin on her side, folded in on herself. I crouch at her side.
Mercy, I says. It’s okay, Mercy. It’s me. It’s Saba. Allis’s girl. Willem an Allis. I touch her hand. Lightly. Jest barely. In case she’s a shade, a shadow. But she’s warm. She’s real.
We came to you at Crosscreek, I says. Half a year back an more now. Me an Emmi, remember? When Pa got killed. When the Tonton took Lugh. I found him, Mercy. I got him back.
Slowly, slowly, her arms come down.
Here, I says. Look! I pull the heartstone from my pocket.
She stares. Dazed. Disbelievin. Ma gave the heartstone to her, long years back. Well before I was born. Then Mercy gave it to me. From friend to friend, from friend to daughter.
Saba, she says. Can it really be you? I help her to sit. She stares at me. She lays a work-rough hand on my face. It ain’t possible, she says.
I feel tears prick my eyes. I smile ’em away as I hang the heartstone around my neck. I say what Jack always says. Nuthin’s impossible, I says. Unlikely, but not impossible. That’s one thing I learned since last we met.
An much more besides, I’d say. Her shrewd brown eyes is readin me. Seein further, deeper than I’d like. A raw girl came to me at Crosscreek, she says. I don’t see that girl no more.
Lemme help you, I says. I hand her to her feet an we stand there. We take a long look at each other.
Tall an lean an weathered an tough. An so strongly alive an wise. Mercy was like some magnificent tree. Livin free an alone in her little green paradise, hidden away deep in the woods. A handsome woman with high cheekbones, cropped white hair an dark brows. Now her flesh clings to her bones. Her mean hemp slave shift hangs ragged to her knees.
In body, she might be less. But in spirit, she’s somehow more. She wears her slave collar like the finest Wrecker gold.
We thought you was dead, I says.
I nearly was, she says. Some bugger blew up a bridge just as we was about to cross it. But I thank ’em just the same. Gave me the chance to slip my chains. It’s easier to steal the key from a dead guard. Not to mention his gun. Speakin of which—
As she goes to collect the shortbolt from the ground where it fell, I says, Yer welcome. My pleasure.
She turns, startled. It was you? she says.
Me an some others, I says. I gotta rendezvous with ’em at a place called Painted Rock. Four leagues north. Yer comin with me. I gather my stuff as I’m talkin. The scattered weapons an sack.
I’ll do my best to keep up, she says. If I slow you down, you leave me.
I wince at the sight of her arms, bloody where Nero attacked her. Sorry about Nero, I says. Are y’okay?
I’ll survive, she says. I’ve had worse. Thin white lines, the scars of a whip, criss-cross her sun-tough skin.
How’d they git hold of you? I says.
Later, she says. Let’s move. They might still be about.
She readies her shortbolt fer action an I do the same with my shooter. She grabs my barksack an shoulders it. Kills my protest with one fierce look. I ain’t dead yet. Lead on, she says.
I whistle at Nero. We set off at speed, alert to any sound, any movement. An me an Mercy head fer the rendezvous.
He was caught soon after they’d all split up. Hijacked by the mist, tricked by the terrain, he ambushed himself at a dizzy steep ravine. As he reeled back from the edge, there they were. Three Tonton, their firesticks aimed at his heart.
He braced himself for the shot. The flare of the muzzles. The impact. The oblivion, swift and sure. He was calm. Blue calm. He felt a beat of wonder at that.
But no shot came. Death, his choice. To turn and leap and cry out for life as he pedalled the air to the rocks below. No blue calm there. He surrendered. Hands bound behind him, hooded and gagged, they led him stumbling through the woods. Half a league or so, he reckoned. They stopped in what he took to be a clearing. He was made to sit on the ground.
They waited. The four of them waited. He could feel when the mist began to lift. The day warmed itself on his skin. Time passed. They waited.
Suddenly, they were scrambling, hauling him to his feet. His hood was taken off, his gag untied.
The two ghosthounds came first. They slipped through the trees into the clearing and sat right away, panting. A few moments later, he appeared. The man they were all waiting for. He’d been more than half expecting it—who else would the Tonton wait on with such disciplined patience? Still, his heart lurched and quickened.
Up close. Full power. The night dark gaze tethered him. Circled him. Considered him. Then. In the black water deep of the Pathfinder’s eyes, there was a ripple.
He smiled. The smile of a man who’d found what he’d been seeking.
We have much to talk about, he said.
I’d fergot about Mercy’s crippled ankle. The one she broke an had to set herself. Did a bugger of a job—her own words—an got left with a limp. Her spirit’s bin forged by hardship. Her body’s tough from a lifetime of toil. She don’t ask fer no favours. She don’t let herself fall behind. But she’s taxed by the pace, I can tell.
By mid-mornin, she’s slowed down considerable. We’ve only gone two leagues, jest halfways there. Weak to begin with, her flight up the hill an through the woods must of tapped her out. It’s only sheer grit keeps her goin. I hate to, but we’ll hafta stop an rest soon. I bite down my frustration. If I was on my own, I’d be runnin flat out.
Deadbone country’s given way to a scrubby grassland. The day’s bloomed to a muggy fug. Hot an sticky an close. We skirt a leery path around a lonesome farm, keepin to a narrow ribbon of jack pine. Some cack-handed fool’s bin hackin it hard fer firewood.
Can you believe it? Mercy shakes her head in disgust.
A few steps on, we see the fools. In a field in front of a tyreshack, a Steward couple quarrel furiously over a broken plough. A pair of kids, fifteen or so, bein kicked in the pants by nature. They’re managin to keep around the shack clear an the track to the road too, but that’s it. Billows of bramble an chokeweed romp the fields. Tethered to a spindlebush next to the shack stands a neat red pony.
Wait here, I tell Mercy.
Keepin low, I dash through the chokeweed, slip the pony’s tether an lead him quietly back to her.
He’ll make yer goin easier, I says. Lemme help you on. She steps in my cupped hands, I boost her onto his back an we hurry away without notice.
Once we’re well gone I says, They’ll find life a bit harder without no pony.
From the look of ’em, says Mercy, I’d say it might well be the last straw. Them two got no skills, no knowledge. You can see there ain’t no trust between ’em. They probly hardly know each other. It won’t take much to make their house crumble. It don’t stand on strong foundations.
Let’s hope, I says.
That was a half-decent place, not so long ago, she says. Resettlement, the Tonton call it. I call it what it is. Stealin. Whoever had that bit of land stole from ’em, they was earth-wise. Not like them hopeless kids. No, they would of watched an listened an worked through the seasons. They would of learned from their patch of
earth. What it needs. What it don’t need. How they could live together. That takes years.
I know she’s thinkin about her green valley at Crosscreek. The cradle of her toil an care an hope. Wonderin if it’s in good hands or gone to ruin. Her small wooden shack shaded by pines. The red bench by the door. The murmur of shallow water over stones.
If Lugh saw that mess, he’d spit fire, I says. It’s his dearest wish to have some good land. To work the earth. Fer us to be settled.
An you? she says. Is that what you want? A life workin the land?
I ain’t thought about it much, I says. That’s fer later. Right now, I got bigger things on my mind.
The blood moon. That’s what’s on my mind. Seven nights away.
I told Mercy a lie. I have thought about it. A life workin the land.
Lugh’s always wanted the same thing. To be planted in one place. To live by the heartbeat of the earth. Its rise an fall an rise an fall. Where nuthin changes, but everythin changes. When we was little, he’d kneel in wonder to the first grass of spring. I’d trample it as I tried to do the same.
I wanted what he wanted, though. Of course I did. We belonged together. We was made together. Two halfs of one whole. Boy an girl. Fair an dark. We took it as a given that we’d be together all our lives. It would never of occurred to us that we wouldn’t. But that was before. Before the Tonton came to Silverlake an killed Pa an took Lugh an everythin got changed ferever.
This time we’re in is after.
After is like this man Pa told us about. He got gangrene in his arm an had to have it chopped off, jest below the shoulder. He’d bin without it fer years when Pa met him, but he swore blue he could feel that arm still. The weight of it. The urge to reach out with his long-gone hand. I could never imagine that. Not at all. Then Lugh got took from me. The first cut was made. An before we knew it, before eether of us could stop it, he got cut from me an me from him. By fate an chance an destiny. By death an betrayal. By wounds to the soul too big to be spoke of. By secrets an half-truths an lies.
When I lived in before, I never thought there’d be after. Now I know how that man must of felt.
I still got stones in my boots from the bridge an Mercy’s badly in need of water an food. A half league on from the farm, I call a rest stop at the ruins of a small Wrecker temple. The few pine trees growin within its crumbly stone walls grant us some welcome shade.
As the stolen pony gits to work on a patch of late nettles, I tip a stream of tiny pebbles from my boots. As Mercy loosens the cords on hers, a shadow of pain tightens her lips.
You okay? I says.
She nods. I hand her the waterskin an she takes a long, parched pull. That’s good, she says.
I drink an pour some in the cap fer Nero. Once he’s dibbled his fill, I trickle the rest over his head to cool him. He shutters his eyes in pleasure. I rummage in my sack for eatables. A cake of dried bitter-root wrapped in a leaf. That’s it. Sorry, I says. It’s slim pickins.
Not to me, she says.
I give her it all. I ain’t hungry. I gather a lapful of fallen pine cones an crack ’em open fer the nuts. I give most to Mercy. A few to Nero fer a treat.
She chews slowly. Makin each bite last. Pine nuts an bitter-root, the taste of freedom, she says. Who’d have thought? An who’d have thought it ’ud be you come to my rescue? The ways of chance are strange indeed.
Some chance, I says. Meant to be, I’d say.
She smiles. There speaks the daughter of a star reader, she says. Who knows? You may be right.
We’re silent as she eats. The weight of our unasked questions grows ever heavier. Hers to me. Mine to her. An I feel somethin else growin too. Inside of me. The need to say somethin. To tell. To confess.
A lot happened after I left you, I says. When we got to Hopetown—you did warn me it was a bad place. It was worse than bad. I done some … things. So many things along the way. I killed some people. Not becuz I wanted to, I had to. It was kill or be killed. Is that wrong?
I didn’t mean to say all that. I really hadn’t. Hell.
That’s a big question, says Mercy. Is it ever right to kill another person?
I’m jest openin my mouth, jest about to ask how she got slaved when she says,
The Tonton came to Crosscreek one day. To run me off or … burn me out or kill me an take my land. That’s the first time I felt the lash of a whip. But when they found out I heal, they decided I’d be useful. I was set to work in one of their babyhouses. I’ll help any woman give birth. I will not be party to leavin a newborn outside overnight, to be took by a beast or killed by the cold. That’s what they do with the weak ones.
So I’m told, I says.
Exposure, they call it, she says. The baby’s left out, naked. If they make it through the night, they’re judged tough enough. They git another chance. But I ain’t never seen one brought back. I used to sneak out to try an save ’em. Oh, I had all kinds of schemes, but I never managed it. Always got caught. They whipped me plenty, but I kept on tryin. They got fed up with me in the end. Decided to wring the last little bit of life outta me labourin on their roads. We was headed to start work on a new one when you blew the bridge.
What’s all that about? I says. A new road in the Raze an settlers. The Raze is a deadland.
No idea, says Mercy. I’ll tell you this, though. Them big hounds that was runnin the woods—
Yeah, I lost ’em in some water, I says.
—they came with this Tonton, she says. He showed up with the dogs when we was well on our way. He just started ridin at the back. None of ’em said a word, but they knew who he was all right. They rode a lot taller from then on. If they send somebody important like him, I figger it means the job’s important.
I figger you might be right, I says.
I’ll tell you this too, she says. That road in the Raze would have bin my last. There ain’t much left of me.
We’ll git you strong agin, I says.
She pops another nut in her mouth. With a frown, she eases the iron slave collar.
Is it heavy? I says.
The worst thing is how fast you get used to it, she says. She tips her head back an closes her eyes. Where Nero pecked an scratched her, the blood’s dried. On her arms an shoulders an a couple places on her neck. I dig my medicine bag from my pack. I wet the end of my sheema from the waterskin, kneel at her side an commence to dab her clean. At the first touch, a little smile curves her lips.
Don’t git yer hopes up, I says. I ain’t no good at doctorin, not like you. Remember you fixed my hand that got shot? I show her my right hand. You did a neat job, I says. I tell you, I collected a good few scars since then. I got goatweed unction. You want some?
Thanks, she says. As I smear it on her wounds with a careful pinky, she looks at the heartstone. Our eyes meet. My face starts to warm. I drop my gaze to my task.
Feels like a lifetime ago I gave you that, she says.
What is it? It’s pretty, says Emmi.
The pale rosy stone feels smooth an cool. Shaped like a bird’s egg. A thumb’s length in size. The light gleams through it, milky an dull.
A heartstone, said Mercy. It leads you to your heart’s desire. The closer you get, the hotter it burns.
It burns fer Jack. It burns fer DeMalo. Desire, yes. An danger. An betrayal. That’s what the heartstone’s led me to.
I remember that mornin well, says Mercy. Crosscreek looked like paradise. After a moment, she says, We slept in these wooden sheds. Us slaves, I mean. Crammed together, chained together, men an women. My first night, I was lyin there an it was silent but … there was such a clamour from all them souls. So, after a while I said, My name is Mercy. My home is Crosscreek. A sweet green valley that sleeps in the sun. They was all quiet. Then one of the men said, The name’s Cade. I ain’t got no home but the road. Don’t need no roof but the sky. One by one, we all spoke. Our name an where we come from. After that, we did the same every night. Just before we went to sleep. Every night wit
hout fail. To remind ourselfs. So’s we didn’t forget.
Jest like me at Hopetown, I think. That’s what I did. Night after night, in that cellblock. In the dark, on my own, with little left to anchor me to this earth. Knowin that the day would see me brought to the Cage, to fight fer my life, agin an agin. I came so close to losin myself. So very very close.
Right, I says. I’m done here. We better make tracks. I pack my barksack an she cords her boots. I reach down a hand an help her up. Slim’s got a junkjimmy friend’ll git that collar offa you, I says. He can be trusted not to talk.
She grips my hand tight. So can I, she says. An I’m a good listener too.
Thanks, I says. I’m okay.
She touches my cheek. You look so like Willem, she says softly. He was the finest man I ever laid eyes on.
It’s the way she says his name. As if, long ago, it flamed in her like a sunburst. An suddenly I know. She loved Pa. Mercy loved my father.
Amazed questions rise in me. How? When? Did he love her? Did she keep on lovin him, even though she couldn’t have him? He was so crazy about Ma, it must of hurt her to see them together. An yet, she was Ma’s true friend. She birthed me an Lugh. She kept Emmi alive.
I don’t git the chance to ask. She’s read my face. Realized her slip. Slammed the door on her secret. Her face is a careful blank as she goes over to the pony. I think I’ll call him Tam, she says. She climbs aboard without my help. How much further? she says.
I squint at the sky. We should be there by middle day, I says.
As I set a fast pace an Mercy follows behind on the pony, I ponder. On the dark seam that runs through my life. From before I was born to this moment an beyond. Chance. Fate. Destiny.
That I should meet with Mercy agin. At this time, in this place. It’s fer some reason I’ve yet to know. But time will tell. These days, if somethin seems like chance, my muzzle lifts to the wind an my ears prick.
Oft-times I hear Pa. His voice still echoes in my head, in my blood. Our lives was fixed in the stars the moment the world began. You cain’t change what’s written. Fate. That’s what he believed. So I did too. Till I started to think fer myself. Pa’s very last words to me was a warnin from the stars. Maybe the only truth they ever gave him.
