Following the Strandline

by Linda L Zern

  CHAPTER 10

  At dawn, after Tess and Gwen’s long night of watching, Kilmer’s face was the color of the Spanish moss that clung to the cypress trees by the Little-Big Econ. Gray. It was the color of fog and moss and death.

  “He hasn’t moved since yesterday, Tess,” Gwen said as she re-wrapped the old man’s head in the soft whiteness of a cloth diaper. Nothing like cloth baby diapers for bandages. Hadn’t they stopped an arterial bleed on the leg of one of the twin’s horses? They’d wrapped the gusher in a diaper and duct tape until Gwen could stitch it up with her big needle.

  But Kilmer’s trouble was inside, not something cloth and tape could fix.

  The whiteness of the bandage made the gray of his face worse.

  “Did he say anything? Try to?” Tess shifted her tomahawk bag to her back.

  “No, I told you.” Gwen cut her off with a headshake.

  They’d slept in shifts watching over Kilmer, careful to talk around what Tess had seen. Light flitted through the slats of the windows.

  “He hasn’t said anything at all,” Tess repeated. It wasn’t a question.

  Tess stood and rested her hand on Kilmer’s bony chest, reassured to feel it rise and fall.

  The bowl of water next to Kilmer’s bunk was the color of soupy tomato sauce. Gwen shook her head.

  Gwen’s eyes of liquid brown fell closed. Her head drooped. “I don’t know if he will ever say anything again. I can’t stitch this up. I’m not a doctor.”

  “What are you saying? You don’t think that he’ll . . .” Under Tess’s fingers, his heart thumped a steady song. She refused to consider that it might stop. “But he hasn’t spoken? Nothing?” He had to have seen who hit him. She wanted to will her friend awake. In situations like this, he’d have been the first one she’d have gone to for advice, after Parrish that is. “Why won’t he wake up?” She hadn’t been able to keep the stress out of her voice.

  Gwen slid a pained look at Tess.

  “It’s not like that.” Tess was quick to reassure her friend. “I’m not blaming you. I’m just trying to understand.”

  Fear came racing into Gwen’s face like a hard wind.

  “Concussion. Bleeding on his brain. Tess, I just don’t know. I’m sorry.” She reached for a clean cloth. “Tell me now. About what you found out there. I’m ready.” She visibly straightened. “You didn’t find Blane? Or Parrish?” It was a whisper. Dropping into the chair next to Kilmer’s cot, Gwen twisted the cloth in her hand into a knot.

  “No, I didn’t find them. It’s like they vanished. I thought I saw some kind of trail along the Last Fence, but it ended at the old road, probably just an animal track.” She shook off a creeping unease that had followed her back home. “But I think I know where to start looking for them. The horses. Parrish. Blane. There’s only one person I can think of that has shot and almost killed a member of this family. And it’s not zebras.”

  Tess started to grab a pair of dry socks. She dragged her pack close, stuffed the socks in a front pocket.

  “Zebras? Are you joking?” Gwen’s shoulders sagged.

  Tess fell to her knees in front of Gwen. She reached out to hug her. “I’m sorry. No. Not a joke. I’m thinking out loud. That’s all.”

  Gwen gave her a quick nod, hugged her back. “I thought you were calling Blane a zebra.” She smiled weakly.

  “No. Not Blane. I’m sorry. That girl, the one from the Marketplace.” Tess jumped to her feet and grabbed up a clean bandana. “I wouldn’t tease you about this. Isn’t there a saying? When you hear hoof beats think horses—not zebras. Right? Well, I only know of one person who’s done any real damage around here lately.”

  “I understand,” Gwen said. “Not zebras.” Then she frowned as she watched Tess zip her vest pocket shut. “Where are you thinking to start?”

  “I’m going to turn left and head toward Oviedo. The Marketplace. Golda is their responsibility, whether they like it or not. And it’s mine. It’s my fault that I kept Parrish from doing something about her sooner. He wanted to go and square off with the Amazons. After Jamie.” Tess shook off a feeling of sick regret. “I told him to wait. But all that doesn’t matter. If Golda’s not there, if she’s not a part of their—” She would have said disappearance, but Gwen had had enough. “If she’s not part of this, then I’m going to get those Amazons to help me look for her, Parrish and Blane too. Britt and El, they are his family too.”

  She slung the bag to her shoulder.

  Who else could have played such a horrible trick on Parrish? Tying that pig to the fence. It was crazy and Golda was the craziest person Tess knew.

  Tess refused to let her imagination spin out of control, refused to think of the other possibilities: the men and mercenaries out there with guns and knives and diseased lives, tearing mothers from their children, and babies out of their mothers’ arms—and Parrish, a man with years of militia experience, a trained fighter, a valuable prize if taken alive.

  She refused to believe that it was someone other than those angry warrior women of the Marketplace. She pushed her dread down, focused on what she knew.

  Those same women had helped Tess once, giving her the antibiotics that were worth more than gold now, the medicines that had saved Parrish’s life. Not completely merciless then—wounded, mistrustful, damaged, all of those—but still connected, still his big sisters, El and Britt. Parrish’s family, or what was left of it. Even if they weren’t responsible for taking him, they were the only ones Tess could think of with the resources to help her look.

  They’d warned her not to come back—ever—but hadn’t that insane girl, Golda, broken that rule with her failed murder attempt on Jamie? What if this time she’d succeeded? Another thought she couldn’t finish. Wouldn’t finish.

  It was time to find her people. She shut down the image of a bloody pig dressed in a little boy’s clothes.

  Tess patted her vest, comforted by her extra pair of dry socks. Like a talisman, just knowing they were there made her feel better. ZeeZee needed a nailbrush and clean fingernails when she was on the trail or hunt. Everyone had something that kept them going in miserable times—a comfort item.

  Shocked, she realized that she didn’t know what Parrish’s talisman might be; when she found him, she’d ask, first thing.

  She grabbed her pistol. On the way out of the longhouse, she was careful to catch the screen door before it could slam shut. Gwen looked up when she hesitated.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Tess called back, but Gwen’s head was bowed as if praying. “At the highway I’m going to turn left and get us some help.”

  CHAPTER 11

  In the cool shadows of the barn, Tess said, “Go on and get some sleep, Ally. Jamie, make her go and get some breakfast and some decent sleep in the longhouse.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell her, Tess. But she’s afraid I’ll do something stupid if she leaves my side,” Jamie said, glancing at Mister Terry, who appeared to have transformed himself into a pile of straw. At the sound of voices, the pile quivered. Terry’s head poked out of the hay, a round-faced baby bird in a tangled nest.

  “You guys go on. I’ll take over. Go and check on Kilmer. Help Gwen; she hasn’t been able to sleep.”

  Jamie nodded, took Ally’s hand, pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Tess will watch.”

  “Okay,” Ally agreed, “but you don’t look too rested yourself, Big Sis. You be careful.”

  It was still surprising when Ally took the time to be sweet. So different from the rebellious teenager that had only thought about what she’d wanted, what she’d needed. If only it hadn’t taken cruelty and death to help her grow up.

  “Aye, aye Captain Ally. Go on. I’ll be fine.”

  When they’d left, Tess walked to the lump of straw. “Okay. They’re gone. What do you know about who hurt Kilmer, the old man?”

  He blinked in surprise, held out his tied hands. “Been here, tied up in your barn. What can I know about anything?”

 
“I have to go to a place they used to call the Marketplace. Not sure if the folks living there now stuck with that name or not. They’re not exactly the sentimental type. Doesn’t matter.” She shook off her memories. “And you’re going with me. The last thing I need to worry about is leaving you here with my family. So, get up.”

  He stood up and shook himself like a dog. He smelled like Gwen’s homemade soap.

  Tess was surprised. “Did they let you wash?”

  He grinned. “They insisted, especially the girl.”

  “Well, good for them.” She pointed to the big, open barn door. “After you.” Tess grabbed her pack, made sure he saw the gun in her waistband, and started walking Roy Terry away from the S-Line and the people she loved.

  Tess walked Mister Terry off the S-Line the long way, down to the river and then across, near the old train trestle, out through the hardwood hammock that dipped into cypress bogs and sugar sand wallows. For good measure, she marched him around in a couple of loopy circles. Shadows started to paint the trunks and leaves of the live oaks that reigned in this part of the former state forest. The underbrush thinned, unable to compete with the thick, interlaced canopy formed by ancient oak trees.

  She let him rest at the base of the King of the Forest, one of the landmark trees they used when she and Parrish hunted this section of the woods. The trunk of the tree was twenty feet around: a gnarled, crosshatched column fit for an ancient place of worship—a forest temple. The tree limbs curved out and down over the ground like the legs of a gigantic octopus; moss trimmed the branches like fur on a green otter.

  “Wow. Some postcard.” Mister Terry stood with his arms tied behind him, staring up into the tree towering over him. “Thanks. This was worth seeing.”

  His odd lightheartedness with the situation started to wear on her.

  “A postcard?” She poked him in the back with a stick.

  He shot her an annoyed look. “You know, a postcard: a small card with stunning pictures of marvelous sights.”

  “I know what that is.” Annoyed, she caught herself. “Was. Forget the stunning sights and tell me who you are.”

  He turned and faced her, tried to roll his shoulders, failed and winced. He settled for a shrug.

  Tess stepped back, pulling her tomahawk bag forward, from back to front. She reached to grab her tomahawk. The handle of the tomahawk felt smooth and right and honest in her hand.

  “What? No bullet for me?”

  “Guns! They’re loud, and I’d rather not advertise that this meeting went badly between us.”

  He looked back up at the tree. Sunlight dappled his face. He sighed.

  “Okay, fair enough, let’s not have this meeting go badly then. I never met Bruce Dunn. A woman, someone I’m acquainted with—,” He stopped while a bead of sweat tracked down the bridge of his nose. “A woman I know knew of him. Had heard rumors.”

  “That’s what we are to you? Rumors?”

  “You, your family, Gwen, the S-Line. The people around here.”

  “What woman?”

  “Now that’s a question. A woman and others who wouldn’t thank me for giving away their secrets for nothing.”

  “What does that make you?” The muscles in her cheeked jumped. “Because I think it makes you a spy. What woman?”

  “Forget her.” He shook off Tess’s frustration. “Consider me an information service of sorts, times being what they are. A jack-of-all-tales, but mostly of news. Invaluable, precious information. He stopped again and looked wistful. “And a speaker of words that brought a certain comfort, but that was a long time ago.”

  “And some woman told you about us?” Tess gritted her teeth. “How could she have known? No one knew.”

  “Couldn’t Bruce Dunn have told others? My informant gave me names at least, described the lovely Gwen. Pretty good for rumors.” He smirked. His voice turned dreamy. “There was another woman who was part of the NASA Colony, used to be NASA anyway. Used to be a colony—”

  “NASA? Like the shuttle? The Cape?”

  “Sure, and we’ll call that woman Miss NASA. But don’t think to get more information from her. She’s dead. Pirates, you know.” He shrugged and scratched at the end of his nose. “Yeah, Miss NASA told me she was an astronaut among other things, but I’m not sure I bought it. She sure liked to talk about the moon,” he said, pausing. “I remember when the answer to every problem we faced in this country was answered by someone boasting, ‘We’re the country that put a man on the moon.’ And I used to think, ‘but we haven’t put anyone on the moon in a very long time.’ And now we’re never going to the moon again, are we? Well, maybe in stories, we’ll go there. Right? In stories. I remember the way the sky lit up during night launches when the rockets went up, and my cousin and I would raise our glasses to the night sky and toast the endless possibility of everything.”

  He fell silent, drifting away from her in his mind. She saw it. The way he stared at nothing, at least nothing she could see. She was used to it: grownups with regrets, memories they dredged up, discussion of things that could never be changed. Her grandfather would have called it wallowing. Her father was famous for it.

  Tess shook her head, rejecting his daydreams. “Stop it. Stop stalling. I want to know why.”

  “Why what?”

  Tess half raised the tomahawk. “Why are you here? What are you trying to accomplish? I won’t let you torture my family.” Some of what he’d babbled registered. “Wait a minute, go back. What you said before and what you meant by ‘used to be a colony’? Pirates off the coast?”

  “If only they stayed there. Yeah, used to be a lot of things on the coast.” His face turned a blotchy red. “Myra of the Main and her men came and killed a lot of people. Killed the NASA colony. Probably where the rumors came from, when people tried to trade knowledge for their lives. It never worked.” He stepped to the tree and studied it. “Shame to see this burned to the ground.” He turned to Tess, ignoring the tomahawk in her hand. “She sent me because she’s planning an invasion and wanted to know whether to swallow you up or sweep you off. That’s what I do. I carry messages. I find out stuff. I bring information. I discover news.”

  “For who?”

  “Myra, of course. She likes to think of herself as a new world raider. She sails a ship called The Black Watch. And she’s coming.” He didn’t mention the others with her, the men who’d gravitated to the madness and blood and power. They were men who saw in Myra’s need to destroy an echo of their own broken pain.

  Roy Terry watched the girl, Tess, wipe sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, push a dripping curl under the bandana she wore, and then check the sky with serious gray eyes. There was a killer in her eyes, but not a murderer. Then again, who wasn’t a killer in this day and age?

  She wanted answers. That was clear. Her fingers on the tomahawk were bloodless. It was time to throw himself on her mercy.

  “Cut me out of these ropes, and I’ll tell you everything.” He turned and held out his hands to her, giving her a chance to cut the rope. “Come on.” The murky, wet air closed in around them. He felt more sweat trail down the sides of his face. She needed to hurry this up if she wanted to know about what was coming, what was probably already on the way. Myra was predictable if nothing else, not like Colon, his cousin.

  The girl slammed him face first against the bulk of the solid oak tree in front of him; he felt tree bark scrape his cheek. “Ouch, what the hell?”

  The solid thunk of the tomahawk when it hit the knob of root next to his foot vibrated up into his leg. “What is wrong with you? I’ve got information. I know things.”

  He looked down and watched the fat body of the water moccasin convulse. Tess jerked the tomahawk free. Blood oozed from the snake’s severed head. It uncurled from the twist of root at the base of the massive oak: the snake was the color of mud or a harmless tree root, a brilliant length of camouflaged death.

  She jerked him backward, spinning him around to face her.<
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  “Mister Terry, I’m going to cut you free and then you’re going to tell me exactly why you’re here and what you know about Richmond Parrish and Blane Dunn disappearing from the S-Line.”

  Holding the tomahawk at her side, she wiped the snake’s gore off on her pants. She cut him free and watched as he rubbed his wrists.

  Cat and Mouse was over.

  Looking in her face, the snake still twitching at their feet, he said, “Murderers. They’re coming. I would keep calling them pirates, but that reminds me too much of that ride at Disney. Do you remember Disney? You would have been old enough.”

  She looked startled by his question. She tipped her head to one side and watched the muscles in his jaw twitch.

  “Okay, okay. I don’t know what happened to your people, they weren’t part of my job, but if they stumbled into Mrya’s men, they’re gone. Gone. Better to have a memorial and move on. I’m not going back. I was hoping there were a few more men with guns surrounding the mythic Ms. Dunn, not quite so many children. It looks like Mister Dunn and whomever he told about his wife sold them out, saying that she’d disappeared when the lights went out—to a safe place—a secret place. Rumors. Urban myths.”

  Tess slipped the tomahawk back into the pouch, and then pulled the pistol from her waistband.

  “You’re not going back—so you’re running. Let me help you. You’re going to head where I tell you, and this,” she wiggled the barrel at him, “is going to let me keep my distance from you if I pull the trigger. Tomahawks really can be messy work. One shot. One kill. And I really don’t care who hears this end badly.”

  So, she was a killer prepared to become a murderer. It was always best to take adversaries at their word.

  She pointed deeper into the woods with the barrel of the gun.

  At least his hands were free. When he tripped now, he wasn’t going to break his nose, and he was going to trip. The jungle in front of them looked like an interlocking puzzle of jagged branches, limbs, and scrub oak. He sighed, thinking about the walk ahead.

  “Where are we going?”