by J. D. Palmer
“What do they want? What do they want?”
Terry is peeking from behind the seat, crouched low as if to hide from the bullet he fears will come at any second.
The truck rams us again, shaking everyone, and no one is looking at me on the floor.
“Shoot at ‘em, Rita! Shoot ‘em!”
The woman is wide-eyed and frozen in place. The gun and the choke chain still tightly gripped and just as frozen as she is.
“The other one is coming up, we gotta—”
A roar of an engine and then the scream of tires as it swings into our back bumper. A whoomp and Rita is knocked over, the gun going off to blow a hole in the window above me. Drops of glass shower down on us as we spin, somehow slow and fast at the same time. The world outside moves in a gradual panorama as the car and its occupants scream, and reel, and become rag dolls. The vehicle leaves the road and whirls backwards through gravel and brush. A cacophony of sounds as the low undercarriage is battered by rocks and detritus, and then my head smacks the car door as we encounter an all too sudden stop.
Time is measured in the space between heartbeats. My eyes are open, but it’s as if I’ve just woken up. A brusque voice is telling everyone to get out. A bark from the back seat. Voices. A gun shot. Yips and high-pitched yells. Coyotes? I open my eyes again. Open them for real this time. The driver’s door is ajar. The sky a diaphanous blue seen through the dust thrown up by our car. I hear Terry talking to himself in the front seat. He laughs little laughs and then takes a shuddering breath, as if on the brink of crying. Rita is still breathing heavy, but she is slumped over the seat, her face down by mine. Her eyes are closed.
The knife is still in my hand. I raise it. The high-pitch whinny of a horse. Footsteps outside. Terry’s door is opened and he says “no,” but so softly as to almost be unheard. A shadow above me. The door is wrenched open and I almost topple out. I spin and stab instinctively with my knife, plunging it into a man’s leg just above the knee. A scream of pain. I pull on it but it’s stuck fast. So I crawl. I crawl out of the car and around towards the trunk. More yelling and I turn around, my back to the car, just in time to see the butt of a rifle.
HARLAN | 7
A HARVEST MOON makes its ponderous way across a sky too bright. Far too bright.
“Har.”
It’s not that different from the moon in which Jessica told me that we were going to have a child. A “sap moon” Jessica called it. But it’s the same. The same moon, the same sky. Only I am different. Far too different.
“Har.”
I knew, looking back, that we had made a child. There are those moments in your life, indelible, in which you feel the strands of fate weave and knot and take a decision out of your hands. Or finish the decision that was long ago made. There was that tickling, that swell somewhere deep within your hidden mind… The feeling of your soul setting foot onto a path it knows it was meant to take. You feel it at the moment, but you only sure of it later. Only afterwards. You are never clever enough to know when you are a part of that thing called fate.
“Har!”
I know I’m part of it now. This is one of those times. I feel it. Hell, I wonder if it wasn’t trying to let me know all day. I wonder how long I’ve ignored it.
The Prius is still running. Even dented, and the right front completely crumpled. And a flat tire. It still hums that low hum. Glass crunches underneath our feet.
And the blood. Blood in the car, and by the car, and blood in heavy drops down the road.
“Har?”
Theo is leaning in front of me, a heavy paw on my shoulder. It’s not cold out. Or is it? His teeth are chattering.
“What do we do?”
What… What do we do?
Beryl is gone. Gone without a word or a yell. Taken. I do not have enough air in my lungs. Not enough air to propel the blood through veins that would rather have fury. Adrenaline.
I cough.
Doubt. Despair. They are robbing me of reason.
I guess I can understand why Theo’s teeth chatter. We need action in times like this. We cannot stand still. We must look past the blood. The wreckage. The absence of all else. Everything gone but uncertainty. We must…
Where are you?
“Har?”
I kneel down into the dirt by the broken vehicle. Slowly scoop a hand beneath a cold clump of sandy blood until I hold it in my fist.
A sense of deja vu. Of something like this. My sister and I, young, bundled into winter gear so that we are two round blobs of coats and snow pants and hats. Standing by our Dad’s truck. The cracked fender. The blood. Blood in the snow and on the road. My dad, rooting around in his tool box, and then walking past us. To the deer lying in the ditch, softly lowing in pain.
“Come here guys,” my dad said. And we each took five steps and would go no further.
He knelt by the suffering creature and I think he petted its head, whispered to it. I can’t remember because, to my shame, I looked away. I stared at a patch of snow with two spots of blood on it and wouldn’t raise my gaze.
A smack, almost as if someone had stepped on ice too brittle to support them. Then my dad is ushering us back into the truck. He makes a phone call, gives a location. Then silence.
“That’s not something I wanted to do. But we have a responsibility to ease the suffering of those we have injured, especially if they are beyond help. Remember that.”
And he drove us to school and dropped us off. And I told my friends about it, about the blood and what my dad did. An attempt to sound cool. But I still felt sad. Depressed. Someone asked why he didn’t have a gun. I didn’t know.
“There are hoof prints. Out there.” Josey is at my elbow. I did not hear him approach. “They go out, then they follow the road. There’s blood.”
His voice goes deeper, softer, especially when he’s worried about how I’ll react. I hadn’t noticed that before. I feel his gaze. Theo’s gaze. I feel the look they give each other as I continue to stare at the moon.
“She’s alive. I know she is.” My voice is flat, disembodied. “We follow the tracks. We follow the road. We find her. No matter what.”
I take a few steps, gradually loosening my hold on the bloody dust until it trails behind me. Almost as if I could ask the wind for a favor. Unite this with its home. Lead me to its source and please, please let Beryl be okay.
Theo and Josey and Sheila fall in behind me. Follow me as I head along the road in what is probably the wrong direction. I walk, and they follow, and I am thankful for their presence.
Mostly.
If I was alone I could scream.
BERYL | 8
I OPEN MY eyes to find myself draped over the rear of a horse. I wake because my arms throb with pain. Tingle, really. The ache of no blood flow. They are tied behind me. An arm holds my waist to keep me from sliding.
The horse smells. Dirt and grass and the ripe odor of sweat. It’s tail swishes, as if impatient, or perhaps disgruntled with my thoughts on it. Or just me in general.
“Horses never lie, just so you know.” A voice. The man who steers our wayward animal. “Horses never lie. They’ll be little shits. They’ll be ornery. But they’ll always tell the truth. Tim here told me you were awake.”
The man laughs and I don’t know what to say. My head hurts. My arms hurt. A sick feeling in my gut, partly from the angle and sway of the horse, partly from the blow to the head. But mostly because I have no idea where I am. How far we’ve gone. How far from Harlan.
The horse snorts and I see Pike trotting behind us. He is smiling, lowering his head to scamper by us before slowing again.
You turd.
“I’m sure you aren’t very comfortable. But, you went and stabbed Julian, who is pretty damn pissed at you right now. So Tim gets some more exercise today.”
I lift my head. At least I try to. My back twinges and I start to slide and the stranger’s hand clamps down on me. I catch a glimpse of a young face. Tan. Or naturally darker. Heav
y black eyebrows over perplexed eyes. Or laughing. I can’t tell.
“My name is Dancing Ghost.” A moment in which I feel his hand tighten, and then a low chuckle is belted out into the desert. “I can’t dance worth a shit, in case you’re wondering.”
I run my tongue over cracked lips, tasting dirt and salt and blood. If I crane my head I can see five other riders behind us. One has the draped form of Terry over his saddle. Matt and Rita ride together, their horse led by a young man wearing a plaid shirt unbuttoned to billow behind him in the wind.
“Tim says you need some water. Would you like some?”
Yes.
I don’t say a word but apparently I don’t need to. We come to a stop and I feel Dancing Ghost dismount, his leg brushing my hair as it swings past me. Two steps and then a hand suddenly sweeps my legs out and over the back of the horse. I roll into the air and land roughly on my feet, another hand grabbing the back of my shirt to steady me.
“Perfect dismount! Tim is very, very impressed.”
Dancing Ghost is smiling, a gold tooth winking in the bright sunlight. A broad forehead framed by long, straight black hair that hangs down to his black jacket, two long brown feathers braided next to his right ear. No facial hair but for a modest soul patch. His smile slowly fades and, though he couldn’t be older than thirty, the crinkles by his eyes are thick and deep.
“Sorry, but, Tim demands ten seconds of time to stare deeply into your soul before he’ll snort and pretend you disgust him.” Tim appears to be doing just that. “Don’t worry, he does it to everyone.”
I look around. The other men are smiling at Dancing Ghost, leaning on their horses as they drink water. Everyone is lean, the hard planes of their faces reflected in the sun. Long hair on most of them, braided or flowing free in the wind. Some wear hats. Others use leather thongs to corral their hair, matching necklaces and wrist bands sewn with stones and beads.
“So this is the face of someone who just realizes that they got captured by a group of Injuns.” He gives me another devilish grin before looking to the sky and letting loose a series of high-pitched yips. The men around him follow suit, their voices creating a pack of demonic hounds above us.
Dancing Ghost looks at me, his smile fading, as if disappointed that I hadn’t joined in with them. He steps close to me, gently cupping my chin as he raises a water bottle to my lips. “Come on now, we aren’t going to hurt you.”
“Fucker pissed on my horse!” I turn to see one of the men ripping Terry off the back of his mare, yellow droplets still making a trail over the horse’s croup and pattering onto the ground. The man delivers a couple vicious kicks to Terry’s ribs as half of Ghost’s group cackle. The other half silent in an uneasy way.
“Okay, well, we aren’t going to hurt you unless you deserve it.” Another grin with that golden tooth.
“My arms.” I meant to phrase it like a question. It comes out cold. A command.
He laughs, brings the water bottle up to my lips again. “Well, as much as I want to ride into camp with a knife sticking out of me, I think you’ll have to wait.” A pause as I slurp. And then, “Ah fuck it, I’ll take my chances.”
He produces a blade from inside his jacket, casually twirling me as if we were dance partners, before sawing through the cords. A hundred million tiny pricks of pain as blood flows back into my hands.
“It comes at a price.”
I tense, waiting for the demand. Waiting to see what he’ll do to impress his men.
“You have to tell me your name.”
He looks at me, eyebrow arched as he waits.
“If you don’t I’ll be forced to name you something myself. Something horribly Injun. Like Stabby Knee.”
I don’t know how he did it, but this makes me smile. A slow grin that brings a crow of victory from him. He spins a slow circle, hands raised to the sky.
“My name is… Beryl.” I say it how Harlan says it.
He nods his head. “And…?”
I look around, confused, and he gestures to my right. Pike has been sitting next to me, his tail immediately creating a small dust storm when I notice him.
“That’s Pike.”
“Very good. We are pleased to meet you.” Tim snorts, and Dancing Ghost smiles. Pike wags his tail. And I’m the only one who doesn’t know what to do.
I’m allowed to travel without my hands bound for the rest of the trip. An accommodation not given to the other three captives. Terry, especially, is deprived of any comfort. Instead, he is made to walk behind the horse on which he urinated, hands bound to a rope attached to the man’s saddle. Occasionally he’s suddenly forced into a sprint, racing behind the trotting horse as the man riding does a large circle, the natives hooting and howling and taking turns chasing after them and roping Terry’s feet out from beneath him.
I smile for the second time that day.
We go at a slow enough pace that I don’t have to wrap my arms around Dancing Ghost to stay in the saddle. His proximity is stressful. But not abhorrent. I don’t experience the mindless terror that has always gripped me before.
I’ve never been on a horse. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. Having seen them from a distance I always marveled at their grace. The way they seemed ready to turn, or leap, or run in an instant. Cows seemed to wallow in their pastures, as if placed there and waiting to be moved. But horses seemed so… free.
I wasn’t expecting powerful. If Tim minds the extra passenger he doesn’t seem to show it, at least not to my untrained eyes. Small muscles ripple on his shoulders and neck with each swaying step, and it’s not hard for me to imagine how easy it would be for him to throw me. Each step forward is made with fluid ease, and I get the sense that he would rather be running.
You and me both.
The sky is covered with grey clouds, but so vast that swathes of blue are still visible. The air whips around us, gusting and darting like an invisible spirit hell bent on stealing at least one article of clothing from the troupe. It’s chilly, but no one seems to mind. Cold, but nothing compared to the cold I’ve experienced before.
Dancing Ghost chats the entire way as we seem to pick an aimless path through sagebrush towards a destination that could be near, or far, or not out there at all.
“The Elders are calling it the Great Awakening. Natives from everywhere are gathering, here, banded together for the first time since Sitting Bull. And this time it feels different, I guess.” He turns to grin at me. “This time we are awake.”
He gestures at the men around him. “Three of us are Paiutes. That one’s a cattail eater. He’s Navajo, apparently. That girl’s a Ute, showed up a couple weeks ago. And back at camp we just welcomed some Sioux. But we’re one tribe now. One heart, one mind.”
He says the last words as if they’re a mantra, and I see the men around him nodding.
“What are you doing… with us?”
He doesn’t turn around when I ask this. And I don’t see, but almost sense his face take a serious turn.
“We’re taking you to see Sleeping Bear. The elder. The one who united us.”
He doesn’t say anything after that. Tim plods along and Pike trots alongside, one cock-eyed ear flapping as he zigzags around bushes.
I want to ask Ghost for a favor. If I’m going to die, can I write a letter to Harlan…? But that might just encourage them to go track my family down, too.
These men don’t scream danger to me. But they aren’t in charge. Any group is defined by the actions of their leader, as I know all too well of late.
I sneak a look back the way we came. Such a barren land. Brush and cacti and all seeming to blend together in a smudge of brown and pale, dead, green. I assume we have traveled in the same direction. But there is no landmark for me to hold onto. If I end up making a run for it, it’s going to be by guesswork.
The land changes. Tim’s hooves sink a little deeper into dirt that has known moisture. Dunes shift and ripple ahead of us, and as we surge over one
I catch a glimpse of water.
All of a sudden we are on a road. No, that would be too generous. A track. Worn smooth by tires and horses and boots. Thin and pocked with deep holes.
One of the men whistles, and the two in the lead peel off and curl around so that Ghost and I ride at the forefront. Two riders are approaching. An old man with a thick mustache who looks more white than Native American. He wears a buttoned up shirt, and a cowboy hat, and looks too clean to be out in the middle of nowhere. The other rider is a woman, long dark hair done in pigtails that somehow seem to carry weight, somehow ominous instead of girlish. As if she’s braided them back in order to do work, dark work, and can’t risk having hair in her face.
And she’s beautiful. A dark, angled face with almond eyes above lips that I don’t think smile often. But she does. A slight upward twinge as she meets Ghost’s eyes.
“Replaced me already?”
Ghost gives a shrug. “Replaced? No. Never. But sometimes you aren’t available…”
She chirrs at that, a warbling call that could be a laugh or could be the call of some desert creature. “Says the man who is always gone. If that is what you want, then who am I to disagree?”
Ghost flashes his grin and she slowly cocks her head to look back at me. “Besides, if what Julian says is true, then maybe she won’t be alive much longer. I do not worry.”
Ghost shakes his head, his back tensing in front of me. She narrows her eyes at him. “It was a joke.” She looks at me again. “Julian is a house cat who suddenly thinks he has claws. I’m glad you gave him a bite.”
She leans in to whisper to him. Fast phrases that involve her pulling his hair and jacket as much as they involve speech. Then she and the older man canter off, threading their way along the path that bisects an odd shaped lake. Or mix of lakes. A desert oddity that can’t contain enough water to ever know what it truly is. A lake one day, a slough the next. More desert the year after.
