by Sharon Sala
His fishing trip was over.
***
Little Mouse was halfway up the mountain looking for fever root when the loud boom sounded. Startled by the noise, her first thought was that this was it. The mountain was going to die and she was on it. But then the top did not come off and there was no fire shooting into the air. Before she had time to rejoice, the ground began to shake, and she dropped to her belly and grabbed hold of the earth, begging and screaming at it to be still.
But the earth did not heed her cry and kept shaking and toppling trees, rolling rocks, sending all the birds in flight and every animal in the jungle into a race to get away. When the tree beside her cracked at the roots and began to fall, she knew she should have been running. But by the time the thought went through her head, the tree was down and she had been knocked unconscious by one of the limbs.
It was the smell of smoke that woke her, which made her panic. She didn’t know where she was or what had happened, but she didn’t want to burn up. She pushed and shoved at the out-flung limbs until she made her way out from under the tree, then dragged herself up to a standing position.
Her head was bleeding, her right knee and left arm were throbbing, and the smoke was so thick it made her gag. She stumbled and staggered on her way downhill. All she wanted to do was get back to Naaki Chava. Someone would help her there.
But after only a few minutes of walking she emerged into a clearing and looked down into the valley, expecting to see the city below, but it was gone. All of it! Gone! Reduced to piles of burning rubble!
“No,” she said and started walking. “Noo!” she shouted as she lengthened her stride. “No, no, no!” she screamed as she began to run.
But it changed nothing. No matter how fast she ran, it was all too late. Her city was in ashes. The people were gone, and there wasn’t a living soul in sight. She forgot about her injuries. She was immune to all the pain. She just ran and ran and ran until she reached the first pile of smoking embers, then stopped, heart pounding and choking on smoke.
“Hello? I am Little Mouse! I am here! I am here.”
Smoke drifted between her line of vision and the city, and when it cleared, she looked up, straight toward the palace. She could still see the shape of it and her heart thumped once in thanksgiving.
That was where they’d gone! Everyone must be up at the palace! Yes! That was it! The city caught fire, so they ran, and they are safe with Cayetano and Singing Bird.
It didn’t register that scenario would have been impossible. The city has been too large for all the people to fit into the palace, even if it had been built for the chief of Naaki Chava. She needed that fantasy to get her through the city, and when the wind blew burning embers into her hair and on her clothes, she put them out with her hands and kept moving.
She didn’t know until she reached the palace that one of her sandals was missing and the other nearly burned through on her foot. She reached down and pulled it off, then tossed it aside without care. They would find her another pair. They would put medicine on her burns.
Blind to all the debris lying in the doorway, she walked around it and stepped into the first hall.
“Hello. I am Little Mouse. I have been hurt. Will someone help?”
A bird suddenly flew out of a doorway down the hall and came toward her, aiming for the light. She dropped to her knees as it sailed over her. She was shaking now so hard she could not stand. Shock was setting in.
“This is me! I am Little Mouse! Someone come help me! Help me!”
The words echoed. A wind whistled a warning as it moved through the palace.
She rocked back on her heels and began pulling at her hair.
“This is Little Mouse! I am here! I am here!”
A monkey dropped down from an opening in the ceiling and stared at her for a moment before scampering away.
She looked up, saw the clear blue sky where it shouldn’t have been, and then saw the palace for what it was. Fresh blood was running down her face now; but not from the cut on her head. It was from the places where she’d pulled out her hair, and in that moment, her reality shifted.
“Little Mouse helped you,” she mumbled as she staggered to her feet. “Little Mouse always came when you called, but you did not wait for her.”
She looked around, trying to orient herself within the palace, then stumbled down the hall toward the place where they made the food. She was hungry and she was thirsty. And this would be home.
Chapter Fifteen
While Cayetano and Singing Bird led their people South, Tyhen and Yuma were looking for a safe path to continue their journey north.
They had been on the move for almost two hours, and as expected, the farther downriver they went, the less water there was in the riverbed. When they finally came to a place where the water was gone, they stopped to survey the sight. There was nothing left to see but dead fish, a few water snakes still writhing in the mud and a couple of stranded turtles. It was the absence of crocodiles that made it even more appealing.
Tyhen had dropped back a couple of paces earlier to talk with Nona, who was now sporting two black eyes from the blow across her nose, so Yuma began checking out the site on his own. He saw what appeared to be a good place to cross and went closer to check it out. The drop-off wasn’t steep, but there was no way to tell how deep the mud was but to walk through it.
Both of the Nantay brothers, along with some of the elders, came running when they saw him start down the slope.
“What do you think?” Montford asked.
Yuma pointed. “I don’t see any crocs anywhere. Can’t tell if there are any sinkholes until we walk it.”
All of a sudden Tyhen was behind him, then grabbing his arm. “You can’t cross here. Get back.”
Yuma turned around. “Why not?”
“Something is going to happen. We can’t cross this. There isn’t time.”
Yuma frowned. “But we have to cross sometime or we’ll wind up back where we started.”
She held firm. “We can’t cross here.”
Johnston nodded. “Then we won’t,” he said. “I’ll tell the others to keep walking.”
“And stay away from the edge. Tell them not to get too close to the edge,” she added.
Yuma’s frown deepened. “What did you see?”
“A wall of water.”
He shuddered. “You mean—”
Before he could finish what he’d started to say, the ground began to shake. It wasn’t the first time they’d felt tremors since the big quake had ended, but it was the biggest one by far.
A few people began to weep and threw up their hands, beseeching the Old Ones to spare them once more.
“Get away from the riverbank!” Tyhen yelled, and people responded without question.
The ground shook more, and the people dropped to their knees and threw themselves on the ground. There was nowhere to go but down, and they were too weary to run.
The aftershock continued to rumble like an angry old woman who’d been disturbed from her sleep. By the time the tremor stopped, nerves were frazzled and tempers were short.
“We want to leave this place!” a woman cried. “Why can’t we cross?”
Once the complaint had been made, another followed.
“I’m not afraid!” a young man cried.
Tyhen turned around and saw it was Nona’s husband who was speaking.
“You can’t cross here!” she shouted. “Stop yelling and listen! It’s already coming!”
The New Ones listened. At first they heard nothing, and then when they did, they didn’t recognize the sound.
“What is that?” Yuma asked as the whistling sound grew louder and louder until it had turned into a rush like the sound of an oncoming wind.
“I think the second quake sealed up the hole in the riverbed above us. I th
ink the whirlpool is gone,” she said.
They were all looking upstream when a wall of water appeared; rolling so fast it was out of its banks. People began screaming and running back into the jungle to keep from being swept into the flood.
Yuma grabbed Tyhen’s hand, but he didn’t need to urge her. She was already moving.
After the first wave passed, the water quickly found its level. It was still moving at breakneck speed, but now contained back where it belonged. The people stared in disbelief, well aware she had just saved their lives again.
Nona was one of the first to come looking for Tyhen, and she was dragging her husband with her. As soon as they saw her, Nona headed for her with intent, her husband still in tow.
“My husband has something he wishes to say.”
When the young man ducked his head and looked away, Nona gave his arm a sharp tug. “You had plenty to say a few minutes ago. Say it now or you will be the one cooking our meals on this trip.”
The young man sighed. “I am sorry I questioned you, Tyhen. I am sorry I doubted you. I am a fool.”
Tyhen bit her lip to keep from smiling. “I doubt you are a fool and you are forgiven. This is a frightening time for all of us.”
He nodded quickly and then grabbed his wife and walked away.
Tyhen sighed, and then in a rare moment, put her arms around Yuma’s neck and hid her face against his shoulder.
Yuma could feel the tension in her body. Her muscles were trembling almost as much as the ground on which they stood. He cupped the back of her head with one hand and stroked the place between her shoulder blades with the other. They were all dirty and sweating. His belly was growling with hunger, so he imagined hers was, too, and yet she never complained. Once she’d asked him to help make her tough, but he didn’t think she could be any tougher. She was barely into her sixteenth year, but she was handling this burden like a warrior.
“I, too, need to apologize for questioning your advice. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?” he whispered.
“There is no need. I do not want an apology from you. You are my mate, my equal. We think and say what we feel to each other without care that it might offend.”
He sighed, then wrapped her up in his arms and gave her a gentle squeeze.
“I hear.”
She leaned back in his arms to look at his face.
“We need to find a place for early camp. Everyone is tired and hurt and hungry. Tomorrow we will find a place to cross. Today needs to come to an end.”
“Agreed,” he said, then dropped his pack, dug out a slightly bruised papaya and a very bruised banana. “You choose. I will eat the other.”
She took the papaya, then slipped the knife from her belt and quickly peeled away the skin before cutting it in half. The juice was sweet and sticky, running down her arms and mixing with the dried mud and blood.
“Half for you,” she said and then took a big bite of her own.
He peeled the banana and broke it in half, then traded fruit.
“And half for you.”
She took it with a smile.
“Together we are one,” she said.
“Together,” Yuma said and ate his half of the small banana in two bites. “So when we find a place to camp, I want to wash from my head to my toes.”
“We can’t bathe in the river,” she said. “Crocodiles.”
“We can’t go to the water, but we can bring the water to us,” he said and patted his pack to remind her of the small bucket he carried in his pack.
“I will wash you if you will wash me,” she offered.
His eyes widened. “In front of everybody?”
She frowned. “Being naked is nothing here. I said wash. That is all.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” he said and then grinned.
When she realized he’d been teasing, she actually laughed, then sighed. After all that had happened, she’d been thinking she would never laugh again.
“Are you okay to leave?” he asked.
“Yes. We should go.”
“Since you are the Windwalker’s daughter and have a very loud voice, I leave it to you to let everyone know.”
She punched him on the arm.
He grinned.
She wasted no time as she turned to face them and raised her voice to be heard.
“Today has been hard. We are sad, we are hurt, and we are tired, but we need to go so we can make camp before dark.”
They stood as one without question, eyeing the tall young woman with the mud-streaked clothing and blood dried on her face and then began to gather their things.
She bent down to pick up her pack when someone shouted out her name. Then another followed, and then another, and another, until they were chanting her name in unison.
When she turned to face them, they were shouting her name and pumping their fists in the air.
Yuma’s hand slid up her back and he gave her neck a soft squeeze. Her eyes filled with tears, but instead of crying, she thrust a fist into the air and shouted.
“For peace!”
“For peace!” they echoed.
“For the people!”
“For the people!” they echoed.
She slung her pack over her shoulder.
Yuma threaded his fingers through her hand.
She tightened her grip as they walked away.
***
After six hours on the trail away from Naaki Chava, Cayetano and Singing Bird made camp where they stopped, urging the people to stay as close together as possible. The need to protect themselves from the deadly pythons and jungle cats was always there, so he set his warriors as guards around the perimeter of the camp with orders to change shifts every four hours. It would give all of them some rest time and should keep the people relatively safe.
After a brief meal of fruit and a small piece each of the baked flatbread she had packed, Cayetano unrolled their sleeping mats. The twins unrolled theirs as well. When they all lay down, Cayetano was on one side of Singing Bird and the twins were on the other side, making sure that whatever might land in their midst would have to go through all of them to get to her.
But she didn’t just matter to her family. She was beloved by the people. She’d worked beside them in the fields, laughed with them, cried with them, and for the last sixteen years had given a part of every day to teaching them what they needed to know to change their lives. She was the heartbeat of what was left of Naaki Chava.
And so they slept body to body, dreaming again of the earth shaking and the city burning, and the people they’d known who had never come out.
***
The sun was already beginning to set when Tyhen and the New Ones finally found a place to set up camp. The first thing they did was refill their water jugs, and then they began gathering water to get clean. They had never been as dirty or as miserable in their life as they were right now. And as hungry and thirsty as they were, they wanted to be clean worse.
One after another people began to shed their clothes where they stood and then wash away the grime on their bodies and hope their weariness went with it.
Now that they had stopped for the night, they had time to think about the deaths. As the water ran down their faces, tears ran with it. The stories of their survival began to emerge as they described seeing people swept away right beside them, of the blood on their own clothes and bodies not belonging to them, and of the look of horror on the victims’ faces as they realized what was happening.
Story after story emerged as the dirt came off and the skin came clean. They weren’t just cleansing their bodies. They were cleansing their souls of the horror they’d seen.
Tyhen listened for a while as she waited for Yuma to return with their water, but then she shut it out. When Yuma suddenly appeared out of the darkness with a bucket of water and t
heir water jugs both refilled, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
She stood up and let her shift fall down around her ankles. It was so dirty she didn’t want to think about ever putting it on again, but she no longer had the luxury. Once they were through bathing, she would wash their clothing and lay it out to dry on top of their tent as they slept.
As weary as Yuma was, when he caught sight of her willowy body, the naked skin shining like a gilded statue in the firelight, it made his chest hurt. She was so beautiful—so brave—and she was his to love.
As she reached down to dip a rag into the water, Yuma took it from her.
“Here, my little warrior, let me,” he said softly.
She didn’t argue. She was almost too weary to stand. She had already tied her long hair away from her face and neck, so when the water first touched her skin, the sensation was so welcome she went limp, like she’d been holding her breath all day long.
Yuma saw the tension roll away with the dirt. When he began washing her belly, then down her long, slender legs, she had to brace her hands on his shoulders to keep from falling.
“I feel weak,” she whispered.
“You aren’t sick. You are exhausted,” he said. “Just relax, I’m almost through.”
He dipped the rag into the water one last time.
“Lift your foot, little dove,” he said softly, and when she did, he washed it thoroughly, even between the toes, then washed her other foot and sat her down on the sleeping mat to dry off.
“I’m going to get clean water for my bath,” he said and hurried off.
Her eyes were heavy, and as she waited for his return, her body began to sway, falling almost asleep and then jerking when she felt her chin dip toward her chest. She looked beyond the tent tops into the dark, watching for Yuma’s return. The last thing she remembered seeing was a piece of yellow moon hanging just above the mountain’s peak, and then she was out.
By the time Yuma came back Tyhen was on her side, her legs curled up toward her chest and sound asleep.
He washed quickly, and with the help of a nearby friend, got his back washed, then rinsed out their clothing as best he could, before tossing out the water. They hadn’t eaten any food, but exhaustion was stronger than an empty belly and there was always tomorrow to fill it up.
