Guns & Smoke

by Lauren Sevier

  “They’re not there,” I said, the words clawing out of my throat.

  “How do you know? How do you know they didn’t run into the woods to wait until those guys left?” Harry asked, a hint of hope in his small voice. He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. I couldn’t answer him.

  “I wanna go back,” he said.

  Without a word, I walked past him and back the way we came. My brother was stubborn, more stubborn than even I could be.

  I’d be lying if part of me didn’t want confirmation either.

  The silence threatened to choke me. It would take hours to walk the ten miles to get back home. With each step, dread consumed me. The lead weight in my stomach grew heavier. We barely spoke. Harry asked me the same questions over and over: Why? Who? What do they want? I didn’t have the answers.

  By the time we reached our land, the sun was fully up, highlighting the tragedies of the night before. The fields smoldered. The animals were slaughtered and left in the pasture. The house was a shell of its former glory. The only thing left untouched was the barn. That was the last place I’d seen Mom as she’d watched us escape into the woods.

  Not two minutes later, I’d heard her screams.

  Then, a gunshot. Mom went silent.

  “Harry, I want you to stay here,” I said, my voice more certain than I felt. I crouched behind a thicket of bushes, watching for movement near the house.

  “But—”

  “You don’t know if anyone else is there. I can check faster if you just stay here,” I said gruffly. The words came out quiet, but firm enough that my brother shut his mouth and nodded. I’d sounded just like Pop.

  My stomach churned as I approached the house. The life my parents had built for us was gone. This was the one place I’d ever called home, and now it was little more than ash and soot.

  The red brick chimney stood as though little had happened to it. The stone steps and concrete foundation were intact. Cautiously, I stepped onto the front porch, where two rocking chairs were set up to watch over the crop fields. The chairs rocked on a gentle breeze. The exterior was made of thick logs. While scorched, they remained mostly intact. The front door hung off of its hinges, smoke drifting out. The walls inside were crumbling. No longer was there a separation of the small foyer, living room, or kitchen. Soot and ash rained around me from the sky above, which flashed a brilliant blue, beautiful and clean, as though tragedy had not struck. I stepped forward, scanning over the charred ruins of our life. There was no sign of them. Until the wind kicked up and sent a stench unlike any other my way.

  My heart dropped as I saw Pop’s charred boot—still attached to his leg. I stifled a scream. He wasn’t alone. He was holding onto something. No. Someone. Mom. My knees hit the concrete. I gripped my stomach, unsure if I wanted to cry or vomit. I’d hoped I wouldn’t find them. I’d hoped I could leave here thinking they escaped.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t be that ignorant. I knew they were dead. I knew. Still, I came back.

  Anger and devastation coursed through me. Why would anyone want to hurt my family? They couldn’t just be... gone.

  I turned away from them, clutching my stomach as the contents spilled across the charred concrete. I heaved until I couldn’t anymore. When the sickness abated, I gathered myself. I had to do something for them. I couldn’t leave them like this.

  It took a long time, but I found a shovel and dug a shallow grave. By the time I finished, I found Harry whimpering against a tree.

  “Hey. Hey, I’m here.” I put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “I th-thought you left me—”

  “No, I’m here. I’m sorry.” I crushed him into a hug against my chest, grateful that he’d listened to me for once.

  “You stink,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Were they there?” he asked. Frowning, I shook my head, silent. If I opened my mouth, no doubt I would hurl the truth out.

  After a long moment, I said, “C’mon, let’s get going.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that our father died holding our mother.

  “Where’d you get Pop’s ring?” Harry asked, pointing to my left hand.

  “Oh. He gave it to me at the market,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue. It was an easy lie. Too easy. In a matter of hours, my life had been completely upended. My father died because he refused to abandon my mother. It would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  That was the first time I smelled burning bodies. I knew that now.

  “Jesse?” Harry’s voice tugged me back to the present nightmare.

  A shiver ran down my back as I looked toward Bonnie. She pushed ahead while I was lost to memory. I glanced down at Pop’s ring, the one thing I had left of him. For a brief moment, I considered telling Harry the truth, but the words died on my tongue. I couldn’t kill the hope in his eyes every time he spoke of reuniting with them. He’d already been through too much. I’d carry this secret to my grave if I had the choice.

  Instead, I tugged my shirt up to cover my nose and dug my heels into my horse’s sides. I couldn’t bear the thought of putting the truth on my brother. That night possessed my dreams. Our travels were hard enough; he didn’t need anything else to keep him up at night. We followed after Bonnie.

  The closer we got to the top of the hill, the larger the column of smoke was. It nearly blotted out the sun. The pungent air grew even heavier. Bonnie swore. When I turned in her direction, my heart dropped into my stomach.

  Just beyond the bottom of the hill was a giant pit in the ground on the edge of what looked like a town. At the sight of the fire, Harry’s shoulders tensed. People milled about, carrying long shapes draped in fabric, then tossing them onto the fire. Bonnie’s eyes searched me, the unasked questions heavy between us.

  When I finally looked at her, I thought I saw something in her eyes. Sympathy? Recognition? What horrors had she seen to know what they were burning?

  I averted my gaze, afraid to speak. Guilt rose in my throat like bile, the truth threatening to spill out.

  We rode closer. The mass pyre wasn’t just a pit in the ground. It looked like a dried-up lakebed. Houses lined a street nearby, which led further into the town.

  “Might want to stay here,” I warned Harry as I climbed down from the horse. When he opened his mouth to protest, I gave him a stern look. His shoulders sagged, but he stayed put. I pulled my shirt up even more, balling the fabric around my nose and mouth. A man barked orders ahead.

  I called out to him in a brief greeting to get his attention. The man turned, his features showing exhaustion and maybe even sickness. There were gaunt lines on his face; his skin appeared yellow in the hazy light.

  “What?” he yelled.

  The fire roared ahead, crackling every second. I didn’t want to get any closer. I couldn’t.

  “What’s going on here?” I yelled back.

  The man still couldn’t understand me. I pulled down my shirt, sputtering as the full stench of the pit assaulted my senses.

  “Why are you burning bodies?” I asked, quickly covering my mouth. The air grew heavier the closer we got to the fire.

  “Plague,” the man said.

  Suddenly, Bonnie was at my side, pulling me back from the man by several feet. Her eyes conveyed a warning, which I knew better than to ask about.

  “Where from?” Bonnie asked. I glanced over, silently grateful for her presence. Our eyes met, but I turned away, remembering how easily she’d sized me up in Vegas. I was afraid of what she’d see in my face, what secrets I might reveal.

  What happened to my parents was my burden to bear. I couldn’t share it with anyone else. Least of all Bonnie. She would only judge me for my cowardly actions.

  “Water supply is infected. Everyone in town’s either stricken or run off afraid of being stricken.” Suddenly it dawned on me. The people here were infected. My already rankled nerves hit an all-time high. I shifted, bumping into Bonnie. As I tried to pull back,
her fingertips brushed against my arm. The contact grounded me, like a cool rain after a hot afternoon of work.

  “Anyone know the cause?” I asked him.

  “Plagues don’t need explanation. But I don’t suppose the two of you would be able to understand that. We learned about them before the Culling, in school,” the man said.

  Mom once told me that kids used to go to places for learning, instead of being taught at home like Harry and me. I longed for the chance to go, to make friends, to have a life outside of the farm. Because we lived in such an isolated area, of course we wouldn’t know about illnesses in other places. Our remote location back home leant a sense of safety as well as health.

  “Where were you when it happened?” Bonnie asked the man suddenly. I looked over at her. “The Culling.”

  What did it matter? The Culling happened over twenty years ago. You couldn’t change the past.

  “Seattle,” he said, the hard lines around his eyes and mouth softening. The flames kicked up, ash raining down around us. I needed to leave.

  “Not far from the coast; it always rained there. Never thought I’d miss the rain,” the man said. I frowned.

  Neither did I.

  “Do you know where the nearest clean water is?” I asked. The man eyed me suspiciously, glancing quickly to his covered wagon. That was all I needed to know. The nearest safe water wasn’t close, and he would shoot me before he spared any of his own.

  “I suggest you move on, unless you wanna meet the business end of my gun,” he said, resting a hand on the weapon at his hip.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I was grateful that Harry stayed with the horses when I returned. I ruffled his hair before climbing up. He was quiet, which was a refreshing change for once. I hauled him up as Bonnie rejoined us and climbed onto her mount. She’d recognized the smell of burning bodies just as I had. Not for the first time, I wondered what horrors she’d known.

  The sooner we got away from here, the better. A cold sweat broke out across my forehead and down my spine. My vision wobbled, and all I could do was grip the reins to ground myself.

  Silence settled around us as I tried to shake the remnants of the burning bodies from my mind. My head ached. Unsure if it was due to the past dredging itself up or my concern about our water supply, I shoved all of the thoughts away. I needed to remain sharp if we were going to push ahead at the grueling pace I expected from Bonnie.

  We rode together past the remains of houses. A cobblestone street marked what I assumed was once a town square. The few people milling about eyed us suspiciously, as though they were afraid of catching something from us. We cantered past a fountain taller than me on the horse. Useless coins littered the bottom of it. Before my brother had a chance to ask the question I was certain was on his lips, I motioned down the lane. The edge of town wasn’t far.

  By the time we reached the desert once more, the silence unnerved me. I took a long pull from my canteen, noticing how much lighter it was. Harry took it from me, nearly draining the rest of the water. Though Bonnie had put something on the back of my neck to help with the sunburn, I could feel the skin heating up again. I appreciated the instant relief it gave me then, but I didn’t think it would help us now. It was going to be another long, hot day.

  What I wouldn’t give for a shower.

  We set a demanding pace once more. Every now and then, Bonnie would pull out the map and adjust our direction, but I never asked how far we were from the next stop. I wasn’t even sure if she knew.

  The afternoon sun came, burning down on us from above and flashing up at us from the asphalt highway. Sweat barely had time to form on my skin before it disappeared, evaporating in the heat. Harry was unusually quiet as I steered around a cluster of broken down cars. I wondered if we should stop but thought against it. Shade was nowhere to be found. Only once in a while would a cloud float over the sun and give us a momentary reprieve from its harsh rays. If we stopped, we might not start again.

  I looked at Bonnie, seeing the same exhaustion on her face that I felt in every inch of my body. I was glad she’d eaten, but I could tell it wasn’t nearly enough. Matched with what little water we had and how far we had to go, I knew that she was just as worried as I was. We needed to stay focused.

  “Why don’t you tell Bonnie about that time you broke your arm?” I asked Harry, ending the silence. He liked to listen to stories but rarely ever told them. Maybe he thought he didn’t have any good ones to tell.

  “Nah, I’d rather hear Bonnie tell a story. She’s good at it,” he said. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the reins of her horse.

  “I’m all outta stories, Kid,” Bonnie said, her tone as dry as the desert.

  “I can tell you about that time Pop and I killed a bear,” I said. It was probably the only good story I knew. Even though Harry insulted my storytelling, I needed to stay sharp. Focusing on anything other than the heat and our dwindling water supply would do no good.

  “Pop killed it. Dumb bear ran you up a tree,” Harry said, voice dull. My cheeks flushed as I glanced at Bonnie. She hid a secret smile as my embarrassment was laid out for her.

  “Fine. Bonnie’s out of stories. I’m no good at telling ‘em, and you don’t want to tell one. Seems to me there’s only one thing we can do now,” I said, forcing a playful edge into my voice. “I spy with my little eye something...” I looked around, finding only the vast expanse of desert before and behind us. Shit. “Something—” There was something blue glinting from inside of Bonnie’s open saddlebag. “—blue.”

  Harry looked around, confused.

  “The sky?” he asked. I turned my eyes upward. Because of the heat, the sky looked more white than blue.

  “Nope,” I said. Harry grunted. He never liked the game when I was the one spying things. Maybe I made it too hard for him, but at least I had fun.

  “Those mountains?” He pointed north at a ridge of peaks in the distance. Because they were so far away, the snow caps looked blue.

  “Wrong,” I said, punctuating the word with a grin. Was that twinge of satisfaction a bad thing?

  “My eyes?” Bonnie asked, her voice teasing. I turned toward her. She batted her lashes, blue eyes never leaving mine. The intense stare she challenged me with made my heart race faster. It reminded me of the glaze in her eyes that night by the fire. Desire burned low in my belly, almost as if it had never fully gone out and was just waiting for the first chance to consume me. I swallowed hard, forcing my eyes forward.

  “You’re as bad at this game as you are at telling stories,” Harry said, aggravated. He crossed his arms over his chest. The game was all but over. I opened my mouth to tell him what I’d seen, but then he leaned forward in the saddle.

  “That water!” He pointed ahead of us. In the distance, there was a large expanse of water, maybe a mile ahead. The sun gleamed off of its surface, creating a rippling effect.

  “Holy—” I dug my heels into my horse.

  “Stop!” Bonnie shouted. I ignored her. We were so low on water that my fear of running out was enough to get me chasing after anything. We raced ahead, my horse reaching its fastest speeds yet. But the water never seemed to get closer. If anything, it moved farther away. I tugged at the reins, slowing my horse to a stop.

  The sound of Bonnie catching up to us stole my attention.

  “Idiot. It’s a mirage,” she said. “A mirage is the way the light and heat hit the sand. It makes it look like a damn pool of water.”

  Bonnie was right. I was an idiot. My cheeks burned. I clenched my jaw and stared ahead, refusing to acknowledge the insult.

  Silence overtook us as I increased our pace. Not quite breakneck speed, but enough to where talking wasn’t easy. The sun began to descend in the sky behind us, though there was little relief from the high temperatures. I purposefully avoided talking to her. I’d like to see her in the woods in Montana, see if she could handle the terrain. My headache returned with a vengeance.

  By the time
the heat broke, the scenery began to change around us. The expanse of dry ground gave way to greenery. It was refreshing to see actual colors. The obscure mountains from earlier were getting closer the farther east we went. We didn’t speak as we veered south. Bonnie and I had unconsciously developed a system of hand gestures to indicate direction.

  The heat gave way as we reached a line of lush trees. The shade wasn’t cool by any means, but it wasn’t nearly as hot as the rolling desert. Partnering the long trek with my exhaustion, I had to be imagining things. My mind was messing with me. The trees eventually gave way to a luscious green field: tall stalks of corn in neat rows almost as far as I could see. It reminded me of home.

  Beyond the field were buildings made of wood and brick. People milled about on the streets. It was too good to be true. Maybe I’d died.

  “Is that—?” Harry asked, weariness in his voice. He was seeing it, too. I glanced at Bonnie, her wide eyes confirming that I wasn’t imagining things this time.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. If I wasn’t dehydrated, I was sure just the thought of a place to stay, a hot meal, and maybe even a shower would have sent me salivating.

  “Flagstaff,” I read from a giant, dilapidated billboard lining the road. It was as good a place to stop and stock up as any. We couldn’t go farther even if we wanted to. The horses were pushed to the brink of exhaustion from our hard traveling.

  The evening temperatures were much cooler than the desert; the air was more saturated than dry. When we reached the edge of town, the sun was descending closer toward the horizon. I hopped down from my horse, leading it by the reins. People bustled down the streets, lighting lamps and carrying large bundles.

  This place was happy. Music echoed down the lane just beyond the houses and shops. People took in our haggard appearances but didn’t seem to be bothered by our presence. I saw a three-story building ahead with a sign that said “inn.” We tied the horses near a large watering trough just outside of it.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, climbing the steps and pushing open the door to the place. It could have been a beautiful room once. Instead, paint chipped from the discolored walls, the floors were littered with dirt and debris, and the innkeeper appeared bored out of his mind.