I hear his words. I can see his lips moving but what he’s saying ain’t making sense.
“I’m sorry, I thought we woulda had more time…”
He looks over my shoulder and I see the despair in his face. But he keeps talking.
“When they’ve gone you follow the riverbed east to a place called Littlepass. You find a healer there by the name of Lily. You find her and tell her who you are. You tell her… tell her she was right. Tell her I’m sorry and I should have sent word long ago but… I was being a selfish old man. You minding me girl!”
He shakes me again and finally his words sink in.
“No!” I scream it at him. “I ain’t hiding! I ain’t leaving y’all out here! We have to fight gra’da! Whatever those…things are we gotta fight ‘em! We gotta protect everybody!”
He shakes his head at my words and his hands leave my shoulders, fall at his side.
“No girlie, we cain’t stop ‘em.”
The rumbling is so loud now it’s hurting my ears. I stare into gra’das face. His eyes look empty. Dead. And I know he’s already accepted what’s about to happen.
“No!” I scream it again. It bursts out of me, I cain’t hold it in. There’s a peculiar burning flowing through me, like my blood is being set aflame.
“We will fight! We have to!”
I tear the crossbow from my shoulder, thread my arrow and turn to face the oncoming threat. I know in my soul that I have to protect gra’da, Ben, everyone! I have to at least try!
“I’m sorry child but you must stay alive.”
Gra’da’s voice is strangely calm in the face of all this chaos and his words truly disturb me. I turn to him...just in time to see the cooking pot from our fire pit aiming straight for my head, then…..
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Blackness…all around me. I think my eyes are open but I cain’t see! I’m lying on my stomach. I know that ‘cause I can feel the cold ground pressing into my face. I roll over. Where am I? I try to stand but a shooting pain in my temple sends me back down to my knees. I think I’m gonna retch up Miz Emma’s berry bread!
I stay on my knees for a bit, take a few deep breaths and the bread thankfully stays in my stomach. My head is throbbing something fierce. I reach up, feel above my left eye where the pain is worse. There’s a lump about the size of a crow egg and real tender to the touch. I’m bleeding too, I can feel the stickiness of it all down the side of my face. How did this happen? I cain’t think straight….then I remember. I remember gra’da hitting me with the cooking pot, the metal monsters, everything! It all comes flooding back into my head and panic starts clawing at my throat.
I have to get out of here! I have to find gra’da and Ben! Blindly I reach out, start feeling around. My muddled brain tells me I must be in the storm cellar ‘cause I can smell the familiar scent of damp earth mixed with dried herbs. I move real slow, my hands out in front of me in the dark. I need to find the steps to the hatch. I keep moving, scuffing my feet in the dirt and finally my boot hits something solid. The steps. I crawl up them on my hands and knees ‘til my head brings up into the hatch creating a whole new wave of pain. I ignore it and start pushing on the wood cover blocking my way. It don’t open. I push again, harder this time.
Nuthin. There must be something lying on top of it, weighing it down. I try to keep my panic under control but the blackness is pressing in on me making it hard to breathe. I push on it again with all my might then start ramming it with my shoulder, putting all my weight behind it. Each jolt is causing me so much pain I think I just may black out again. But finally I hear something shift and the hatch flies open. I’m instantly blinded by light and my arms go up to cover my eyes.
Smoke! I can smell smoke. Blinking away tears I try to see what’s happening around me. Everything’s all hazy but I reckon it has to be ‘cause of the smoke. I crawl out of the cellar and push the overturned water barrel out of my way. That must have been what was covering the hatch, keeping it down. I stand upright, sway a little, try to get my bearings. The smoke is all around me, burning my eyes, my throat. I realize then that it’s coming out of the shanties. Some of them are even starting to fall in on themselves. Oh gods! I start coughing and pull my wrapper over my nose and mouth.
I peer through the haze. I don’t see nobody…where are they?
“Gra’da! Ben! Hey!” My voice is loud in the dead quiet. “Shelly! Molly! Anybody?”
There ain’t no answer. I take a couple of steps through the ghostly wisps of smoke but I cain’t see a soul.
“Ben! Gra’da….can anybody hear me?”
I’m screaming now but I cain’t help it. I’m scared. Why ain’t anybody answering me? I stumble to our shanty. The roof is all fallen in and there’s smoke bellowing out the open door. No, gra’da ain’t in there, I tell myself. He cain’t be. He and the others, they must have gone somewhere safe, I think. I just have to find them. I run to the next shanty, and the next….still calling out their names.
The smoke is over powering, it’s hard to see, to breathe, but I don’t stop, I’m desperate to find somebody.
I make my way to Lou’s shanty at the edge of the riverbed. His copper still is knocked down, all broken and twisted.
“Lou’s gonna be pissed,” I think dully.
There’s still flames burning inside the shanty but I run right up to it anyways calling out his name, hoping for an answer.
That’s when I see them.
They’re spread along the edge of the riverbed like everyone of ‘em lay down to take a rest all at the same time. All in a line so neat that maybe, I’m thinking, maybe they are sleeping, even though the pain blossoming in my chest is saying else wise. I don’t want to go any closer but my feet start moving on their own as if they belong to someone else.
“No, no, no, no!”
A miserable wailing reaches my ears and it takes me a moment to figure out the sound is coming out of me!
Lou is the first I see. His arm is lying across his chest and his sightless eyes are staring up at the sky like he was just cloud watching. There’s a dark red stain spread out underneath his arm. My chest tightens and I start gasping for air, but I keep looking.
I see Shelly lying where she fell, all bloody and still. Thomas is crumpled over her, like he was trying to protect her. Then Ben’s ma and pa. They’re holding hands but their eyes are open. Lifeless. Dead. At the sight of them my legs go out from under me and I fall to my knees.
I cain’t look no more! I want to scratch my eyes out so as not to look at them anymore! But my eyes don’t listen to my brain and they keep searching ‘til they find the familiar face.
Gra’da!
I crawl to him on my hands and knees, the sharp rocks biting into my palms but I don’t even feel it. I realize I’m sobbing his name as if expecting an answer. I grab his hands, they’re still warm! Maybe he’s okay, I think, even though he’s got the same bloody hole in his chest like the others. I cover the wound with my hand, willing him to be okay…just like when he was real sick. I willed him better then, I can do it again. Come on gra’da…wake up, wake up…..wake up damn it!
He don’t wake up.
Feels like there’s a knife twisting in my chest….ripping me open! I ain’t ever felt such pain! Surely my heart will burst from the pain!
“No gra’da…” I whisper. I rub his face, his whiskers are rough against my hand. His blue eyes are open….staring. I close them gently, kiss his forehead. I ain’t even realized I was crying ‘til I see my tears splash onto his cheek.
The pain overtakes me. It hurts so bad! I wrap my arms around him and lay beside him, hoping….wishing for the pain to take me too. I close my eyes. I don’t want to look no more. I don’t want to see any more dead faces of the people I love. I don’t want to see Ben’s brown eyes with the light all snuffed out.
Some time passes…. I don’t know how long I laid there. I cain’t rightly say I would have ever got back up but through th
e mist of pain I hear my name! It’s all low and choky like somebody was trying to talk through a mouth full of root wad, but I hear it!
“Tara…”
I sit up, listening. I start to think my mind is playing tricks on me when I hear it again. Then a slight movement on my right…. somebody is moving! It’s Molly! I crawl to her, reaching for her like she’s a lifeline. I grab her hand, bawling again….so overcome that somebody is still alive!
“Molly!”
She has the same chest wound as gra’da, as the others. I know it’s an iron shooter that’s caused it, and I know chances ain’t good she’ll make it…but for now she’s alive.
“They didn’t get….you girl….good...” she says.
“Shhhh,” I say to her. “Don’t try to talk…save your strength.”
She pats the hand holding hers as if she is trying to comfort me!
“Don’t fret…’bout me child…my time…is passed…” She’s gasping for air and her chest is making this awful gurgling sound. I shake my head and try to shush her again but she ain’t done.
“They took…the young’uns…but not you...” she says. She gets a coughing fit then and blood sprays from her mouth all down the front of my tunic. I wipe the blood from her mouth with my sleeve.
“Molly…just stay with me….please!” I beg desperately.
She grips my hand so tight it hurts me. I cain’t understand how she has such strength…there’s so much blood! Her eyes burn into mine something fierce.
“I seen it….aye I did… I knew you…was special, child….they’re gonna need you…to show ‘em the way...”
That was all. She don’t talk no more. She sighs gently and I watch as the light in her eyes just…fades away. Her hand, so strong earlier, goes limp and I shake it fiercely.
“Molly!” I cry. “Molly!”
It don’t do no good. She’s gone.
I kiss her calloused palm and lay her hand gently by her side. A sob escapes me. I hurt, all over. I’m so full of pain…fear. I wanna scream. Scream ‘til my throat bursts just to get out some of the anger and hurt I’m feeling inside! I run my hands through my hair, look around….alone... lost. I don’t know what I should do now. I don’t know….
Then slowly Molly’s words break through my paralyzing grief and I recall what she said.
“They took the young’uns.” They took them!
I force myself to stand, to make my way through the line of death. I look at every loved face lying there. Everybody I’d ever known my whole life is lying there ….but not young Thomas! Not Jane! Not Ben!
My legs go numb again but this time from relief. They’re still alive! A strangled laugh escapes me at the thought but right away I cover my mouth with my hand, stifling the sound. I instantly feel ashamed for feeling any kind of happiness. How can I feel happiness when everybody else is gone? Dead. I stagger away from the death around me, stare at the horizon, at the sinking sun….anything but the carnage. It’s going to be dark soon, I think. The day is almost done. My born day…I had forgot. I look down at my tunic, at my gift from Ben, hoping that somehow to see its beauty would erase some of the horror burned into my brain. Instead all I see is blood. Gra’das…Mollys…I’m covered in it.
I bend over, grab my knees to keep from falling, and retch on the ground. I retch ‘til there ain’t nuthin left and the dry heaves take over. Finally, I spit and wipe a shaky hand cross my mouth. Suddenly all I want to do is go! Get away from the bloodshed, the death. But I know I cain’t. I cain’t leave them like that, I think dully. It ain’t right to leave ‘em all out in the open so as the crows and vultures can shite on them and pick out their eyes…and worse. The thought of it makes my stomach heave again. But I know there ain’t no way I’m going to be able to dig graves for them all and bury them…not by myself.
I mull it over in my head. I look to the shanties. They’re still smoking some but the flames have all died out. Were only the things inside that could burn anyways and none of them had much. Then I realize that one of ‘em don’t seem to be smoking at all. In all the haze and confusion earlier I ain’t noticed before. It don’t seem to have been set aflame like the others…why?
The door of the shanty is all but torn off and I can see the torch that had been tossed in lying on the wooden table. It had scorched the table some but it never caught before the torch snuffed out. Nuthin but luck that this one didn’t burn like the rest.
It’s Shelly and Thomas’ shanty. I step slowly inside and right away my eyes are pulled to the cold hearth. I swear I can all but see us young’uns sitting there, listening all wide eyed while Thomas tells us spook stories, making us squeal in fright. He sure could tell a good story, I think. Then, almost angrily, I shake my head to clear the images away. I ain’t got time for that, not now. I stride purposefully to the hearth where I know a candle and flint are kept and I take them both. I need to go down into the storm cellar and I’m going to need these to light my way.
My slingbag is lying on the cellar floor like I was hoping, as was my crossbow and even my hat….everything I had on me when gra’da put me down here. I check to make sure my waterskin and knife are still in the bag, they are. I start packing the bag with the little supplies left in the cellar. Enough jerky and dried taters to last me a couple of weeks maybe if I ration it, a few medicinal herbs, there wasn’t much. I haul it all out of the cellar then go back for the last two jugs of ‘medicinal’ whiskey Lou kept here for emergencies, brewed from a good corn harvest a few years back. I take them, one in each hand. I was going to need ‘em for what I was planning.
I take everything I had gathered back to the shanty and apologize in my head to Thomas and Shelly for what I am about to do. I strip the beds in the shanty, roll up the two heaviest of the blankets and tie them to my slingbag. Next I go rooting through the clothes chest. I find a couple of Shelly’s worn dresses and some of Jane and young Thomas’ things, those I put aside with the other blankets. I find a clean tunic of Thomas’ and exchange it for the one I’m wearing….I cain’t stand having their blood on me anymore. I take his wolfling skin cloak too but this I pack in my slingbag.
Done with the chest I move on to the hearth. I find four root biscuits just sitting there as if Shelly was planning on warming ‘em for their evening meal. The sight of them makes me want to bawl again but instead I grab ‘em and throw ‘em in my slingbag before I change my mind. Another waterskin and Thomas’ hunting knife are lying there too. It’s a big knife, bigger than mine, nice and sharp. Thomas took real good care of it. I use the big knife to cut all the clothes and blankets I had gathered into strips. I hack at the cloth with a simmering anger, but it don’t help to lessen my hurt none. All it does is make me feel more guilty about what I was doing to Shelly and Thomas’ things…but then I remember they ain’t gonna need ‘em. Not anymore. Not ever. Annoyed at the tears that are threatening to fall again I push on my eyelids with enough force to make me see black spots. It seems to work. I don’t cry.
I take some of the strips and tie the knife sheath to my thigh, nice and tight. I feel I should keep this knife handy. The rest I start soaking in the whiskey brew. Now for the hard part.
The moon is sitting high in the night sky by the time I’m done my gruesome task. I had moved all my kin …I didn’t want to think of ‘em as bodies. I had moved them all as close together the best I could manage and stuffed the spaces between ‘em with twigs and kindlin’ from the wood pile and the strips of soaked cloth. Some of the bigger strips I had used to cover all their eyes. I couldn’t stand to have to look at their eyes while I was doing what I was doing. I take the left over whiskey and pour it all over their clothes, glad for the darkness hiding the worst of their wounds from me. Finally I am done.
I stand back, wipe the sweat out of my eyes, just stare at the moon for a bit. I know what I got to do now, I just cain’t bring myself to do it. The moon is in its shrinking stage.... a waning moon. I smile a bit ‘cause I can hear gra’das voice in my head.
> “Now when the moon is waning Tara it’s the best time for planting the taters and when it’s a waxing moon then it’s time for the corn. You gotta remember that if you want a good harvest.”
“I’ll remember gra’da,” I whisper at the moon.
“Good girl,” it says back in gra’das raspy voice. “Now finish what you started.”
“Aye, I will,” I say.
I stand alone in the dark. It’s quiet. So quiet I can hear my own heart thumping. These past few hours I been occupied, so busy with what I was doing I ain’t had time to think. But now, with the quiet all around me, things are just jumping into my head.
Why gra’da? I think. Why did you just save me? Why didn’t you at least try and save the others or yourself? Why did you hide me and nobody else? Gra’das last words to me echo in my head.
“You must stay alive.”
Why? So as to feel all this pain and grief? I can feel the ache in my chest welling up again and I take a few deep breaths to stop it. The time for crying is over Tara, I scold myself. Do what you got to do.
I strike my flint and light the torch I’d made earlier from Shelly’s wood table leg and some of the whiskey soaked cloth strips. I ain’t even considered using the other torch for fear some evil would come from it. But I hesitate before I light the kindlin’.
There’s something I should be saying, I think. But nuthin comes to mind. If Ben were here he would know what to say. But Ben ain’t here, it’s just me. Why I should be standing here while everybody else is gone…it ain’t right!
“I’m sorry,” I say finally. My voice is scratchy and raw from my crying. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t help save y’all. I’m sorry those things came from the sand lands and killed y’all and I don’t even know what for. You were good people...proper people. Gra’da… you were a fine gra’da…the best a girl coulda ever wanted. And I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a proper burial. I’m gonna miss you….real bad!”
I stop talking ‘cause my throat hurts again. I start setting aflame the pockets of kindlin’.
Awaken Page 3
