Fire Country

by David Estes

  His shadow kneels over me, then the real him. I blink furiously, afraid this might be the last chance I have to glimpse he who saved me from the Cotees. He’s blurry at first, but then his image sharpens like a spear point. When it does, I jerk back, try to push to my feet, to run, to escape, to get as far away from him as I can. But my body won’t cooperate and all I do is spasm on the ground, feeling hot lashes of pain on my arms, legs, belly, ankle. Fierce, red pain everywhere. But the pain is nothing compared to the fear.

  ‘Fore me stands one of them. The Marked. And all I can think ’bout is what my mother told me ’bout Brev: He started the Marked and I never saw him again.

  ~~~

  Apparently I passed out again. My body is in turmoil, fighting against the blood loss and the shock of all the bites and claw scrapes from the Cotees.

  When I awake this time I’m ready. “Let me go,” I say, not opening my eyes, not wanting to see him again.

  “You’re not a captive,” his voice comes back, clear and warm.

  “Then why’d you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Save me.”

  “Because you were in my trap.”

  What? The steel-teethed trap is his? “So you owed me?”

  “I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “None of this woulda ever happened if not for your searin’ trap!” I say, raising my voice to the loudest it’s been. Still barely more’n a whisper.

  “Not my fault you were stupid enough to step in it,” he says, keeping his voice irritatingly calm.

  “Stupid? How dare you! I almost died ’cause of your burnin’ trap!” My eyes flash open and I wince when I see him standing over me. But this time I don’t try to run, just stare at him, trying to hide my disbelief at his appearance.

  He’s practically naked, only a small brown loincloth covering his midsection. Like Circ was, he’s muscled from head to toe, but longer and leaner, like one of the trees I saw in ice country on a night that now seems like a million lifetimes ago. His skin is hairless, either shaved or plucked or perhaps never there at all. But that’s not what startled me the first time I laid eyes on him. It was the markings. They cover him from head to toe, strange and black and rough, like the textured bark on the trees. Everything ’bout him is so much like the trees I almost expect him to sprout green leaves that’ll drop from his arms in the fall.

  He sees me staring and smiles. “You like what you see?” he says, rolling each word off his lips.

  I crinkle my nose in disgust. “’Bout as much as I like a dead tug carcass,” I say, “and I can’t help but stare at that just the same, too.”

  He smirks. “It wasn’t my trap that almost killed you. You shouldn’t have been wandering the desert alone in the dark. What were you doing out here by yourself?”

  “That’s my business.” I realize I’m still staring at his body, trying to make sense of the markings. I also realize I’ve barely even looked at his face.

  When he replies, my gaze snaps up. “Suit yourself,” he says, walking out of my field of vision. But his image remains, burned in my mind, where I can review it as long as I want. Even his head was free of hair, as bald as the day he was born, shaped like a dome. A nice-shaped head, for what it’s worth. It’s worth nothing. Nobody cares about a nice-shaped head. Even his head had the markings, thick bands and arrowheads, and strange shapes I don’t recognize. Only his face is free of them. Which is a good thing ’cause he had a handsome face. Not exactly smoky, like Circ, but pleasing to the eye. Not repulsive, like the rest of him.

  Brev. The name pops in my head and although I don’t want to talk to the Marked one anymore, I know I hafta. I hafta ask him.

  I try to sit up, but a flash of pain bursts in my skull and I’m gone again.

  ~~~

  When I regain consciousness it’s night again. The stars are out, but I can’t find Circ. He’s probably looking for me in the land of the gods, where I’d be if not for the Marked man.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  I can’t see him, which makes me uncomfortable, so I try to sit up again, taking it slower this time. One elbow up, then the other. Ease higher until I’m sitting. He’s sitting across the warm glow of a cook fire. A rusty ol’ pot’s a-steaming away, filling my nostrils with an aroma that’s both tangy and bitter at the same time.

  “My name’s my bus—”

  “Your business, I know,” he says, cutting me off. “Well, I’m Feve, in case you’d like to know. My name’s not business, far as I know. It’s just a name.”

  Through the crackling fire he almost looks normal. I can’t see his markings, just his face. He could be a guy from the village. A potential Call.

  “I’m Siena,” I say, wondering why I said it.

  He smiles, undimpled but warm. Like everything ’bout him. Warm as a spring afternoon. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

  “You ain’t charming nothing else outta me,” I say.

  “So it was my charm that did it?” he says, his eyes flashing with firelight.

  “No, that’s not what I meant! I meant…you just twisted my words.”

  “Twisted?” he says, the amused smile still playing on his lips. “You said it, not me.”

  I sit back, leaning on my elbows. If that’s the way he’s gonna play things, I won’t say another word, even though I know I hafta.

  Brev. A name I’d never heard a few days back—now a name I can’t forget.

  He rises, bringing his markings back into view. A snake coils around his stony abdomen, disappearing behind him. Three spears cross in such a way that they almost look like the skeleton of a tent. There are many more markings, but my brain goes dizzy from trying to make sense of them all.

  “Here, drink this,” he says, dipping a skin into the steaming pot. He hands it to me.

  “What is it?” I ask, turning up my nose when I taste bitterness in the steam.

  “Marked secret,” he says, winking. “It’ll help with the pain and the healing.”

  I sit up, accept it, cup the skin in both hands. “What are you, some kind of MedMa?”

  “MedMa?” he says, cocking his head at an angle.

  “Medicine Man,” I elaborate. “We’ve got one in our village. He heals the sick, treats the wounded.”

  He laughs, sits down next to me. Too close. I edge away.

  “All of my people learn how to heal,” he says.

  His answer surprises me. All of them? Seems like a lot of wasted time when one person could do the job just fine. As if reading my mind, he says, “You’d be dead if I didn’t know the right herbs to use, how to wrap your wounds.”

  My wounds? The biting, the clawing, the trap. Wounds! Of course I’d have them in plenty. But I’ve barely been conscious long enough to think ’bout anything, much less my wounds. I chew on his words and then spit them out when I realize what he’s done. “What’d you do to me?” I shriek, pulling away from him, clawing at my britches as if I’m one of the Cotees that tried to kill me. When I lift my bloody, torn trousers up high enough, I see the truth. Shreds of cloth are wrapped tightly ’round my ankle, my legs below my knees, my legs above my knees—waaaay above my knees.

  My hands scrabble at my shirt and lift it too. Heavy cloth covers the skin, spotted with blood. “You touched me?” I accuse.

  “You were dying,” he says calmly. “I treated you.”

  The thought of me lying there unconscious while this Marked man did whatever it is he did to me—touched or bandaged or treated me—makes me feel sick and I throw down the skin, letting the bitter, tangy liquid bubble out. “How dare you?” I say.

  “You’d rather be dead?” he asks evenly.

  “No…I mean, yes…I mean, maybe,” I say, sputtering. Protectively, I cover my chest with my arms, not dissimiliar to when Bart was looking me up and down.

  His voice is devoid of all humor. “What happened to you, Siena?”

  When he says my name it fills my heart with warmth, as if
it’s someone I care ’bout speaking it. But he’s no one, a stranger, one of the Marked. “Nothing.”

  “What do the charms on your bracelet mean?” he asks.

  “Nothing.

  “What about the one with the pointer? What does that mean?”

  I say nothing.

  “Who does it belong to?” he asks, and my eyes jerk to his. Does he know? Are his questions all part of an act when really he knows the truth ’bout everything? ’Bout what happened to me, to Circ—what’s happening even now to the village?

  “What do you know ’bout it?” I say, breaking my silence.

  Feve looks at me with an intensity that’s almost scary. Almost. “Tell me,” I demand.

  “I don’t know anything, but I’m a good guesser,” he says.

  “Well so am I,” I say. “Does the name Brev mean anything to you?”

  His eyes snap to mine and there’s a flare of anger, which ain’t what I expected. “What did you say?” he says, all warmth stripped from his voice.

  I pause, wondering why Feve suddenly seems so hot and bothered. “You heard me,” I say.

  “That name means nothing,” he says. “’Cause he’s dead.”

  ~~~

  He won’t say another word after that, no matter how hard I try to make him. Finally I drink a fresh skin of the healing liquid and it helps with the pain. Warm and confused, I drift off to sleep.

  When I awake, Feve is gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  He left me a skin of herbal tea, enough Cotee meat to last a quarter full moon, and a head so muddled I’m afraid it’s full of durt and sand and rocks and maybe a bit of ’zard blaze.

  I dunno where he went, and I’m not sure whether to care. I mean, he saved my life but if it wasn’t for his searin’ trap…the Cotees woulda caught me anyway. The realization sets in hard and fast. I probably shoulda been nicer to him. But still, the thought of him lifting my trousers up, up, up, too far up, reminds me of Bart ripping off my dress—even though I know in my heart they ain’t the same thing at all. Bart was taking from me, Feve was giving to me.

  I can’t believe I met one of the Marked Ones! I almost want to scream it out loud. No one back in the village would ever believe me. They’re the people of myths and legends. Not myth. Not legend. Real. Just like my mother said.

  The fire’s dying so I stir it up, cast a few prickler skins on it, cook up a swatch of meat. I eat slowly, afraid my stomach’ll reject the heavy food after going without for so long. It stays down and I cover the fire and smoke with sand ’fore I leave.

  Everything hurts, but a few sips of Feve’s tea takes away most of the pain—or at least enough of it that I can walk again. Instinctively, I shove a hand in my pocket and feel for my knife. It’s there. I pull it out, remove it from its sheath, examine it. Clean and shiny—not one speck of Cotee blood on it. Another gift from Feve. If I ignore the fact that he had to stick his hand in my pocket to put the knife back, I almost feel warm from the gesture.

  Everything I’ve seen from Feve certainly changes my perspective on the Marked Ones, ’specially now that I know my mother’s true love was the one who started the tribe in the first place. Maybe they’re not so scary and violent and cannibalistic as everyone seems to think. Or maybe I just got lucky ’cause there was plenty of Cotee meat to satisfy his hunger. I shudder at the thought of how different things mighta gone if he’d found just me caught in his trap.

  I look ’round, get my bearings, and continue southwest like my mother told me to. The day is hot at first, but then, like most spring days, gives way to a burst of rain that stifles much of the heat. Three days pass with periods of both rain and sun, stutter-stepping at the whims of Mother Nature. I eat Cotee meat every night, drink Feve’s tea, get stronger with each passing day.

  The fourth day since Feve’s departure—which I s’pose is the fifth or perhaps sixth day since I left the village—I spot it, a change in the endless monotony of the desert. From far away it looks like just a small crack in the earth, perhaps a hidey-hole for a ’zard or snake, but as I approach, it grows bigger’n bigger, until it’s a gaping crevice, wide and deep and winding off into the distance.

  Southwest, where the river lies dead like a snake…

  There’s no water in the ol’ riverbed, save for a few durty puddles from the spring rains. If it ever was a river, it’s long dead. And as for the snake part, the way it twists and turns proves I’m in the right place. Although it’s winding, there’s no doubt it’s meandering in the same direction as I wanna go. Southwest.

  On and on I follow the Dead Snake River, camping along the edge, hoping that each new day’ll bring me to the next landmark—what was it my mother said? …and the rocks hold hands like lovers.

  I picture two rocks that look exactly like Circ and me, rock arms outstretched, rock hands entwined. Were Circ and I lovers? Does a single kiss make lovers? As I plod along I’m blinded by the tears in my eyes, as blurry as a knock to the head. Whatever Circ and I were, it went beyond the simple labels of humans. Lovers, friends, family…

  …soul mates.

  That’s the only one that feels right when I think it. But Circ’s soul’s gone far away, where I can’t reach it, where maybe I can never reach it. I dry my eyes on my sleeve and keep moving.

  ~~~

  I’m down to the last of my Cotee meat. The herbal tea ran out a coupla days ago but it did its job. Although I’ll have scars from the bites, they’re all healed over with no infection. ’Cause of Feve and his bandages and Medicine Man training. I’d have died twice over if not for him.

  I ain’t no Hunter.

  The women of the village don’t Hunt. They gather and Bear and look after the Totters and wash bloody, filthy clothes. Not Hunt.

  But I gotta get food and more’n just prickler skins which leave me feeling unsatisfied. So I take my knife and my speed and both my left feet into the desert to catch me whatever I can catch—a burrow mouse or ’zard or something. I don’t venture too far from the dried out river though for fear of getting lost.

  I ain’t no Hunter.

  I know I already said that but after three thumbs of sun movement in the desert I prove it. The ’zards are cleverer’n I ever knew. Here I been thinking they scuttle and scamper ’round aimlessly all day, just waiting for us humans to catch them and skin them. The first one I see is back in its hole the moment I give a funny look in its direction. A moment later it pops outta a different hole on t’other side of me. When I take a step in its direction it jumps back down and outta sight.

  The burrow mice are no easier. I find a whole nest of them, but no matter how deep I dig, all I find are more’n more tunnels with no mice. At some point I realize I ain’t gonna be killing anything, but it ain’t only ’cause I can’t seem to get close enough to stick one of them; it’s ’cause I don’t wanna stick one of them. The thought of taking the life of something so small makes me feel sick to my stomach. To save my life from a pack of Cotees, yeah, I’ll slash and fight like a wooloo person, but I can’t just stab an innocent creature.

  I trudge back to the river emptyhanded.

  That evening I eat what’s left of the Cotee with a side of prickler. Wash it down with a shirt squeeze of rainwater when it starts pouring. Sleep, wet and exhausted next to a fire that’s all smoke and wet prickler skins.

  ~~~

  The sun goddess drives Mother Nature and her armies of dark clouds back. By afternoon my clothes are dry, as if they were never soaked through in the first place.

  When I get hungry I munch on the tug jerky my mother put in my pockets. Soon I’ll have nothing left but the pricklers growing across my path.

  Midafternoon, when the sun is long past its apex and starting to sink on down, the Dead Snake River ends. Just ends, like someone filled in the rest of it with durt and sand, made it look like it was never there at all. The tail of the snake—or is it the head?—seems to point off across a wide expanse of flat land. A sure sign as any, so I follow i
t.

  Just as the world is darkening, I spot them. Statuesque soldiers, set out in perfect little rows, directly in my path. Hundreds of them, weather-beaten and proud and probably relatives of Perry. Pricklers. It’s a field of pricklers. I ain’t never seen anything like it. Most pricklers are loners, wearing their solitude like a badge of honor. Occasionally you’ll find a small group of them huddled together—prickler families we call them—but never more’n four in a patch.

  As I enter their ranks, they seem to close in ’round me, watch me, like they’re guarding something. But that’s wooloo talk. They ain’t no more alive’n Perry was. Yeah, that’s right, Perry, you heard me!

  Night falls while I’m still amongst the pricklers, and I hafta squint to avoid banging into them—there are that many. Something big’n dark rises up ’fore me, but I can’t see what. It’s not alive, that much is obvious. It’s just something big…and dark. A rocky bluff or black sand dune or something.

  I can’t see, so I make camp right there within the merry band of pricklers. I’d like to say I don’t conversate with them, but a few of the prickly buggers knew Perry from way back when, so I can’t help but to do a little reminiscing, tell a few stories and jokes at Perry’s expense.

  Sleep takes me.

  ~~~

  I awake to lovers holding hands.

  It ain’t like I pictured it, with two well-cut statues that resemble humans walking hand in hand, but the landmark is clear nonetheless. The big, dark form that I could feel looming in front of me last night is really a rock formation. On either side, pillars of rock rise up, one with a broad, pluming base that narrows at the woman’s “waist” ’fore curving back out to give her a nice shape. Her lover’s body is bulky and sharp, all angles and edges—no doubt a man. They’re connected by a rock bridge that extends from either of them—their “arms”—which meet in a tender embrace in the middle.