Gunwitch

by David Michael

  Gagging, from the fingers in her throat and the tastes on her tongue and the thought that she had almost bitten a finger off, Margaret let go. The women held her as she coughed and gagged. Then, at a word from Mr. Thomas, they pulled her to the front of the tent.

  Still trying not to gag, Margaret squeezed her eyes closed as she was dragged out of the tent. The images on the backs of her eyelids were suddenly less threatening than whatever waited for her now. The smells of death and burned flesh hit her again, as if they had just found her, and threatened to make her vomit again. She swallowed bile and worse and concentrated on keeping her eyes shut and ignoring the smells and sounds of the camp as she was dragged through it. And on not thinking how she was naked in front of the hordes of men she refused to see.

  After a minute, Margaret risked a peek through slitted eyelids and saw that the women had taken her out of the camp. They now dragged her under the trees, and the veil over the stars had gone, replaced by the golden-gray wash of dawn.

  Then the trees and the sky disappeared behind black canvas as she was dragged into another tent, and dropped. As she scrambled to her feet, the women retreated out of the tent, and the flaps dropped.

  Margaret pulled the gag out of her mouth and screamed and charged out of the tent.

  Cold hands caught her before she had taken three steps. Cold fingers reinserted the gag, then the cold hands threw her back into the tent.

  She landed in a heap, and laid there, crying. She spit out the gag, trying to think of a way that none of this could be happening. That Miss Rose had not left her alone. That Private Tishman still lived. That she had never met Mr. Thomas.

  She wished Da were here.

  No. She wished that she and Da and Mum and Janett were back in England, in their parlor, Mum knitting with Janett while she and Da played chess, all of them laughing, all of them together, and that they had none of them ever heard of the New World.

  She did not know how long she cried before she realized that she had fallen on a pile of clothes. There was no light in the tent, and the clothes were torn and damp, but she decided that she would rather not see them. She pulled on two shirts, then found a pair of baggy trousers that she pulled on, as well. There were no shoes.

  Clothed and warming, she risked a peek out the tent flaps. Dawn provided more light now. The two women, even more grotesque when seen more clearly, stood outside the tent. They did not move. They stood even more still than the trees, which rustled in a light morning breeze.

  She pulled back into the tent, yawning. She was so tired. She crawled back to the pile of clothes and curled up. She did not close her eyes, though. She stared at the black canvas of the tent wall and wished her own mind was as blank.

  * * *

  Margaret did not know how long she lay like that, not sleeping–not letting herself sleep–when she heard the sounds of decamping. Feet marching, hammers ringing, ropes. Very few voices, though. And none that she recognized.

  “Get her.” She knew that voice.

  The tent flaps burst open, letting in the sunlight of early morning. The sudden brightness forced her to close her eyes. She saw the image from the first attack, the soldier nearly cut in two by a black axe. And the face of Private Tishman being peeled off his skull. She forced her eyes back open as cold hands grabbed her and pulled her out of the tent. The women held her as tight as ever, and stood her on her feet.

  Mr. Thomas waited for her, smiling, holding the hand of the dead-faced little girl. The girl’s eyes still stared, the mouth still hung open, and one cheek was still flattened, but the girl’s hair had been brushed and combed so it shown. And her clothes–Margaret’s clothes–had been cleaned. Margaret gaped. It was almost like looking at herself in a mirror. Almost. Her hair seldom looked that good more than a few minutes after Janett or Mum finished with it.

  “Good morning, Miss Laxton,” Mr. Thomas said, pulling her attention back to him. “I do hope you managed to sleep. We have a long walk ahead of us today.”

  The five of them, Mr. Thomas and the girl dressed as Margaret, Margaret and the two women, stood alone in a small space between weeping willows and other trees she did not recognize. But now the woods around them moved with more than just the wind. Figures moved past them, featureless through the screen of branches and leaves, heading west, away from the sunrise.

  “Are you,” Margaret asked, her voice hoarse. She coughed and spit out the something awful that came from her throat. “Are you taking me to my Da? My father?” She coughed again.

  “Of course. I gave you my word, didn’t I?”

  “Why …? Why are you doing this?” She looked at the girl again.

  “For your safety, Margaret.” He noticed her looking at the girl, and smiled. “She cleans up quite pretty, doesn’t she? Not as … shall we say ‘expressive’? … as you, of course. But a remarkable likeness, don’t you think?” His smile became hard. “There are people who would try to take you away from me–”

  “Miss Rose!” She tried not to hope.

  “Among others, yes, but she is the chief concern at the moment.”

  “I hope she makes you burn,” Margaret said, remembering the lightning.

  “Tut tut tut, Miss Laxton. Gag her,” he added.

  “My father–” The gag was stuffed into her mouth. She gagged and coughed and spit it out on the ground. “My father will see you flogged and–and–hanged.”

  Mr. Thomas let go of the girl’s hand. The girl stood there as he stepped forward, her hand still lifted where he left it. He bent down and picked up the gag, then stood again, leaning over Margaret.

  She flinched, then steeled herself to meet his eye.

  “Your father has seen me under the lash quite a few times before now,” he said. “But the next time he sees me, he’ll see me with his beloved Little Puncher.”

  “How–?” She could almost hate the name now that he had spoken it.

  “Don’t you think he’ll pay anything to get you back, Miss Laxton?” He leaned even closer so she felt his breath on her face as he continued. “Don’t you think any loving father would give me everything he has, just to get you back? And still more if I have Janett, as well–and I will, have no doubt about that. Everything, just to get you back, unharmed. He will give me that, and more. And I’ll take it all. And then some.”

  “You’re going … holding me for ransom?”

  He leaned back then and laughed. “For much more than that, Margaret. Much, much more than that.”

  He still held the balled up gag in his left hand. Now he pulled a knife with his right hand and touched the flat side of the point to her cheek. The metal was cold against her cheek, and the breath from her nose clouded it, but it was no colder than the hands that held her.

  “You have no idea how valuable you are.” He pulled the knife away from her face. The was a tug on her top shirt, and a ripping sound as he cut off a long strip. He put the knife back in its sheath, and handed the gag to the woman on her right. “Put this in her mouth,” he said. “And hold it there while I tie the gag.”

  Margaret kicked at him, but missed. She bit hard enough that she almost lost a tooth against a knucklebone, but the women never faltered. They did as they were told and held her while Mr. Thomas stood behind her and tied the gag into place.

  “Walk with the izidumbus,” he said, taking the little girl’s still-outstretched hand.

  The women started forward, Margaret held between them, her feet off the ground.

  “Come along, Miss Laxton,” Mr. Thomas said to the little girl. “Wonderful morning for a bit of a walk, don’t you think?” The little girl’s expression did not change. They were walking along, hand in hand, the last Margaret saw of them.

  * * *

  Being carried seemed, at first, an improvement over walking. But the women made no effort to remain in step with each other as they shambled and shuffled forward, and after a while Margaret’s shoulders began to ache from carrying her weight and from being jostled and pu
shed together in unexpected ways. She struggled against the hands, throwing her weight back and forth. The women said nothing, only continued to carry her, resisting her efforts in the same way an ancient oak resisted being pushed over by a kitten. Still, she was able to work her way down just enough that her feet touched the ground and she could take some of the pressure off her shoulders and back.

  They walked in the midst of other women and men, most of them taller than her so she could see only bodies swaying around her and the branches of trees above her. The two women who held her were white, their hands and faces showing signs of the sun and work out of doors, but the bodies around them were of no single race. There were jet black men and women, and brown, the red of the Amerigon natives and even a few more whites. Those that wore clothes showed just as much variety, native buckskins and stained cotton shirts and trousers and petticoats and once she glimpsed the remnants of an English soldier’s red overcoat.

  She tried not to see it, but the nakedness of the women that carried her was not uncommon. Men and women both had been stripped, or mostly stripped, their exposed flesh, from head to foot, showing horrible slashes and punctures and lacerations and mutilations. But no bleeding. All the blood from the wounds had clotted and blackened. And the flesh itself showed a hint of blue, as if they were chilled, and they moved stiffly.

  Everything moved stiffly, or not at all. The folds of fat, the pendulous breasts, the dangling members of the men, all hung like dried or drying clay, pushed into a shape and then abandoned.

  She could not close her eyes. And she could not look anywhere that did not provide more images of horror. She kept her eyes unfocused and wished they would become numb like her nose. She no longer smelled the rotting flesh and the stinks of death. At least the gag in her mouth prevented her from tasting them.

  She did not have to watch where she was going, though, even after she started walking for herself. Unlike Chal and Miss Rose, the women holding her walked in a straight line, moving aside only for tree trunks or other immovable obstacles. They walked into the water between the small islands without turning or any signs of hesitation or squeamishness, even when the water reached up to their waists. Then they walked out the other side.

  Once, to her left, she heard sounds of splashing in the water, then the crunching of bone. No one besides her seemed to notice it. All those around her continued trudging forward, one foot after the other.

  Another time, she thought she heard gunshots, far away. A few minutes later, a pair of grunzers stomped back from the front of the column, ran past her position and continued to the rear. She did not get a clear view of them. She could only see the rounded tops of their boilers.

  Other than that, the silence was almost complete. The only sounds Margaret heard were those of feet stepping on earth or trodden-down vegetation. And her own breathing. Neither the women carrying her nor the rest of those around her exhibited any signs of exertion. If they breathed at all, she could not see it or hear it.

  The sun marched overhead, following them, rising higher, perhaps to get a better view through the trees, then sinking again.

  The stones, the broken branches, the smashed vegetation, all of it tore at Margaret’s feet as she walked. Sometimes the people behind her trod on her heels. But the worst was walking into the water where she could not see what she was stepping on. The mud oozed between her toes and rubbed painfully against the cuts. Sharp sticks she could not see stabbed her soles or scraped along her calves, creating more cuts. Worst of all, she never knew how deep the water would be. A wide channel, fifty feet across or more, might not get higher than her knees, while a narrow channel could plunge them into water that came to her stomach. Either way, the women dragged her forward at the same, plodding speed.

  Her trousers, made heavy and wet, dragged on her legs and pulled their way down to her hips. With her arms held too wide apart most of the time, and chaffing now and beginning to blister where her skin rubbed against the clenched fingers of the women, she could not reach down to pull her trousers up. So she walked with the additional fear that she would lose even the old and dirty clothes she had now. At least the cuffs under her feet provided some protection as she walked.

  The sun poked at her from between tree trunks, trying to make her close her eyes, then it was there in full as the trees moved behind her and she could see an expanse of water spread in front of her, a small lake lying across their path.

  They walked straight into the lake. The heads of the people–and worse–in front of her disappeared under the surface of the water as they continued their straight path.

  She tried to shout, but the gag muffled her. She pulled against the women’s hands, hard enough to break the skin of the blisters, but the women held her as tightly as ever.

  The water splashed around their feet, and especially her feet, as she tried to dig in and keep them from going further. For an instant they paused, and she thought she had stopped them, then the people behind pushed against their backs and her back and the water rose to her ankles, then her knees, and on up to her thighs. She thrashed and fought and pulled but the strength of the women and the weight of bodies behind her pushed her forward.

  The water reached her stomach. Then her chest. Her neck.

  She tried to take a deep breath, and almost swallowed the gag.

  Then the water splashed against her face and she panicked.

  Her thrashing seemed in slow motion under the water. Her hair streamed about her face as she swung her head back and forth and pulled against the hands that still held her, still pulled her deeper into the lake. She kicked and she found herself horizontal. Her feet tried to find purchase against the naked cold bodies of the women, but she only slipped and twisted and struck against the other bodies near her.

  Her lungs burned from the exertion and the need to breathe.

  The gag and the tie blocked the water from her mouth, but not her nose. Water came in her nostrils and hit her throat and she choked. She tried to scream, and choked again.

  Shh.

  Like a whisper in her ear, the sound penetrated the water into her brain and sent a warm thrill into her chest that eased the pressure there.

  The water against her face became warm, and bright, and flowed against her face, brushing her hair back gently.

  We are coming, Margaret Laxton.

  Another whisper, like the sound of a forest stream, then a tingling sensation on her forehead, as if soft lips had kissed her there, and the warmth of the water was like arms around her, holding her safe.

  Water splashed and the sun hit her in the face as she came out of the water.

  The women dragged her up the shore of the lake and into the forest beyond.

  She cried, lake water running down her face mixed with tears, because it was not Chal holding her anymore. And it never had been.

  * * *

  The women held her, sagging and still shaking with the occasional sob, while two men, one white and one black, both of them wearing worn trousers that had been cut off at the knees and no shirts or shoes, put up a black tent like the one she had slept in the night before. These men did not move with the jerky motions she had seen all day, nor had they been grievously wounded. Their backs showed the stripes of a lash, but their muscles moved the way muscles were supposed to, smooth and strong beneath the skin, and their hands showed dexterity as they spread the canvas and tied off the ropes. They finished and backed away, never once looking up or meeting Margaret’s eyes.

  She expected the women to throw her into the tent, but nothing happened. The men disappeared into the trees in the direction of the larger camp that she had been carried through. She could still hear the sounds of tent stakes being driven into the ground, the infrequent shouts of orders, and the stomps and hisses of grunzers. But her captors only stood there, holding her upright between them. She sagged in their grips and looked at the tent with a longing that surprised her.

  Her legs were tired and her feet hurt and her trousers
and her layered shirts remained damp and clung to her. Her hair fell in thick strands across her face that she was unable to push back. The gag in her mouth felt slimy and tasted like mud, and the strip of cloth holding the gag in place had shrunk as it dried, pulling painfully against the corners of her mouth. Her arms felt on fire from the grip of the two women, and her fingers tingled from reduced bloodflow.

  She wanted nothing more than to lay down in that tent and sleep. She did not want to eat, despite the hunger that gnawed in her stomach. After everything she had seen the past two days, her appetite no longer existed. Only the gag had prevented her from vomiting, forcing her to keep down the food Mr. Thomas had fed her the night before.

  But the women only stood there and forced her to stand there with them.

  * * *

  “That’s thinking like a soldier on the march, Margaret.” Mr. Thomas’ voice startled her and she jerked awake. Her sudden motion caused one of the women still holding her to take a step forward. “Sleep whenever you get the chance.”

  Margaret tried to orient herself, and squeezed her eyes open and shut. She could see Mr. Thomas’ face only as a white smudge in the darkness. Night had fallen. How long had she been standing there? She would have rubbed her eyes had she been able to. Standing again, she noticed that both of her arms had gone numb. She tried to wiggle her fingers but they barely moved. She thought she smelled cooked meat. Her stomach convulsed and the gag stopped her from vomiting yet again.

  “Put her in the tent,” Mr. Thomas said.

  The women shifted their grips and pulled her toward the tent. The pins and needles of renewed bloodflow started at her fingertips and extended to the grips on her forearms. A thousand pinpricks crawled across her skin and she whimpered.

  She stumbled as she was pushed through the tent flaps. Her arms could not move fast enough and she fell face first into the tarp that made the floor of the tent, hitting her nose and forehead and sending sparks of pain across the backs of her eyes. She tried to bring her hands to her face, to rub her nose, to remove the gag, but her fingers slapped cold against her skin, still alive with the pinpricks, still not responding.