Vagabonds

by Darcy Pattison

  “I’ll do this alone,” Galen told Corrie.

  Grateful, she backed up and gave him room.

  Galen gently pushed Victor toward the cliff. Victor moaned, but tried to help. His hind legs weren’t moving. Underneath the shelf, Galen put his shoulder against Victor’s and shoved.

  Corrie winced at Victor’s cry of pain.

  “Finish it,” Victor whispered.

  Corrie came to help, putting her shoulder against Victor and thrusting with her hind legs to move him gently, steadily out of reach of the eagles. His nose brushed he,r and she realized he was shivering with cold. She wanted to cry out in pain at what she was doing. But she and Galen kept pushing.

  Finally, Victor had to move himself. He used his front legs to pull and pull, until he wedged himself so far under the ledge that the large eagles wouldn’t be able to reach him. He rested, and Corrie thought he wouldn’t say anything more. Then his eyes opened.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Corrie was speechless with grief, but Galen’s voice was strong, “They will sing a great ballad about Victor, the leader of our trek.”

  “You would do that for me?” Victor’s dark eyes were deep holes in his shadowed face.

  “Not for you,” Galen said. “For our people. The ballads have always been about our people, have always given them examples to follow.”

  Corrie looked from one to the other, amazed by the exchange. She was grateful Galen could lay aside grievances at a time like this.

  Galen continued, “You’ve risked everything for this quest: your passion is an example for many to follow.”

  “You’re more generous than I ever was,” Victor said. He sighed, then closed his eyes. “Only a few more hours and my trek is done.”

  “You aren’t dying,” Corrie whispered fiercely, wishing she could change what was obvious.

  Victor didn’t turn his head, but his eyes moved to fix on her face. He breathed deeply several times, as if those breaths confirmed he was still alive. “From the time we’re born, we’re dying.”

  “No. We’re living.” Corrie was vehement.

  “Yes,” Victor said, “we live, and our life here is so rich and full. But this life is a journey toward the home we’ll only know when we die.” He spoke with a prophetic voice that haunted her. “Whatever our life here is like, it will be magnified in that home.”

  Corrie thought of her parent’s den and her sisters and the Colony and the life they had carved out together from the frontier. It was a rich and full life. Richer and fuller than any armadillo had a right to live. And life with the Father of Souls would be better? If so, both the journey and the destination were worth it. If so, then it was a joyful thing that El Garro would make his last trek soon, too. And the heaviness, the grief that had haunted her steps suddenly lightened; it wasn’t gone, would never be gone, but it was tinged with joy now. And maybe it would be bearable.

  Corrie smiled crookedly at the Texan. “Thank you. When you see my father, tell him that I finally understand.”

  For a few minutes, there was silence under the ledge. Then, a cricket chirped. And another. The roof of Victor’s tiny chamber was covered with camel crickets, and they all decided to sing.

  He whispered, “Just like my den at home.”

  “Home,” Corrie echoed. She was glad it was too dark under the ledge to see Victor’s face.

  Though she wanted to stay, Victor insisted they go.

  “You still have a trek to finish,” he said. “May your path be straight and your journey easy.”

  Corrie gulped at the blessing, “And yours.”

  Reluctantly, Corrie and Galen scooted back to the ledge and climbed the cliff face. As soon as they left, the eagles descended and landed on the ledge. Corrie watched them try to poke their beaks in to Rafael or Victor. When it was obvious the eagles couldn’t reach them, relief flooded through her: it was okay to leave. While the eagles were distracted, Galen limped across the open toward the nest, and Corrie scampered after him.

  .

  A GOOD LIFE

  El Garro limped away from the Great Clearing. There was no pain: with leprosy there is never pain. His plan was simple. He would climb the White Cliffs where he could overlook the Ozark hills and watch for signs of the trekkers. Maybe he could even find a friendly owl to secretly bring him news. He would find a hidden crevice in the cliff, and when he was too tired to move any longer, he would wedge himself in the crevice, far away from the claws of predators, and take his stories to the Father of Souls. It would be a good death.

  .

  HOME

  Galen wasn’t sure where he was leading Corrie, but the ballad said the eagle’s nest was above the Faralone Falls. The nest grew larger and the mingled smell of eaglets and fresh meat grew stronger. The eaglets chirped hungrily, but they were too small to bother the armadillos. And their parents had landed on the ledge near Victor, looking for an easy meal for their chicks.

  Just when Galen thought they’d have to climb the nest, he saw a path. “Hurry,” he mumbled. “Before the eagles get tired of trying to catch Victor and chase us instead.” He licked his swollen lips, trying to ease the ache.

  The trail began, literally, right under the eagle’s nest. Over the years, the nest had grown until it hung out over the trail. Unlike the jumbled trail Galen had taken down to Victor, this was a real path, a narrow ledge which ran continuously downward.

  “We would never have found it, or been able to take this trail, if Victor hadn’t kept the eagles occupied.” Corrie’s voice caught.

  Galen ground his teeth at the irony of it, but it was dangerous to linger so near the nest. Corrie led, and they trotted down the path.

  The trail went laterally a long way, following the valley straight west. Galen was thinking about Victor wedged under the ledge, so that he ran into Corrie when she stopped abruptly.

  “Look,” she whispered.

  They had come far enough to see the end of the valley.

  And there it was—a waterfall. Was it the Faralone Falls?

  They were the first armadillos to reach this far north, and Rafael had led them with his visions. But still, it could be just a normal waterfall.

  The cliff was notched: a rough V, cut by eons of water wearing away the rock, dropping 100 feet from the top of the V to the stream bed; here a stream of water rushed over and cascaded another couple hundred feet to the valley floor. With the flash flood from the night before, it was running full.

  Galen stared at the water twisting and falling away. Maybe somewhere in this valley was the answer to why his people had been vagabonds for so many, long years. Cursed. Made to trek. Generation after generation. To this place? He allowed no doubts to enter his thoughts: this had to be the right place.

  Corrie whispered. “We’ll soon have answers.” Her tail twitched uncontrollably.

  Though Galen and Corrie leapt down the path, it took another hour to reach the valley’s floor, and by then, the first pinks of dawn were streaking the sky.

  “Rest. We’ll search tomorrow.” Galen said.

  Corrie marched to a shrub and plopped under it. “You’re right. I’m exhausted.”

  Galen huddled next to her, and they slept, their bodies weary from travel and fighting, their hearts weary with grief.

  The next evening, Galen found a trail to the river that came from the waterfall, and he hobbled back to wake Corrie. She yawned and yawned, then let Galen lead her to the water. They drank, then tried to forage. Galen’s swollen mouth was too tender to chew, and his leg was already aching. Corrie, though, was ravenous. She found a termite nest and ripped the wood to shreds.

  “Look!” she cried. “Touchwood.”

  The rotten trunk had a termite nest on one end, but the other was filled with spicy-smelling touchwood. As the darkness deepened, the glow enveloped Corrie. Silhouetted against the touchwood, her figure was a dark pantomime. Still, she ate, oblivious to the picture she created for Galen.

  Finally fu
ll, she asked, “What now?”

  Galen shook himself out of the trance induced by the touchwood’s unearthly glow.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “I can do this alone. You don’t have to come with me,” Galen said.

  “No, you need help. Without Rafael, how will you see in the cave?”

  “Touchwood.” Galen tried to pick up a piece. His hurt leg was too weak, his mouth too swollen.

  “You need help.”

  “No—” Galen started to answer. But that was what Victor had said. Galen had asked Victor to take Corrie into the cave and Victor refused. He had been foolish not to ask for help, until it was too late. Galen thought back to the awful days after his parents’ death when he had cared for his Four Sisters by himself. El Garro, Felix, Nalda—they had all been willing to help. He lived in a community who responded to needs with a willing heart and a strong shoulder. And he had denied all that, refused any help. He had tried to be a loner, a trekker and had failed miserably. He needed his Four Sisters, all of the Diego family, all of his people. He needed help, and Corrie was freely offering it.

  The words were hard to say: “Would you carry some touchwood for us, so we can see in the cave?”

  She took a large piece in her mouth and another chunk in her right fore-claw. She nodded that she was ready.

  He nodded back, too full of gratitude to answer. Then, he turned and limped toward the waterfall.

  It was strange, Galen thought, that they carried their own light. They were so used to the light of stars and moon, but this felt right.

  When they reached the pool below the waterfall, Galen stopped. “We’ll start searching the valley wall right here.”

  They moved slowly, searching along the jumble of rock boulders near the valley’s wall. They moved as quickly as Galen’s hurt leg allowed and searched carefully. Behind a large, twelve foot cube of limestone, he saw a dark splotch. “Here,” he called.

  Because she held torchwood, Corrie scrambled after him on three legs. Galen entered the cave with Corrie at his heels, just as Rafael had often followed. Corrie’s touchwood stayed beside him as they turned a corner. Even with their own light, Galen realized they would soon be lost in the cave’s depths. Rafael was supposed to be with them, supposed to lead them through the cave. But his brother’s last words were to remember that he, Galen, was a trekker, too. Somewhere deep in the cave, water was running. Galen had to try to find the answers his family and his people needed. It was all any trekker could do.

  “Leave some touchwood here as a marker,” Galen said.

  Corrie broke off a sliver and left it pointing toward outside. They limped—Galen from his hurt and Corrie from carrying touchwood—deeper into the cave. Galen breathed deeply, hope thrumming in his heart, making it hard to be calm.

  Galen lashed his tail from side to side and noted the corridors they passed; but none was as large as this main passage, and they agreed to follow this one first. Corrie continued to leave bits of touchwood at intervals. Each created a tiny pool of light. They marched until they could barely see the last one, then left another piece of touchwood to mark the dark corridor. Galen thought their whole journey—from the Great Clearing, through the vast Ozarks—had been a march from one flickering pool of hope to the next.

  After a time, she used the last of the touchwood she held in her claw. All they had left was the smaller piece in her mouth. Galen wondered how much farther they would go into the darkness. He didn’t voice the question and neither did Corrie.

  The cave’s chill began to creep into Galen’s bones. Would they find answers in this cave? Would they finally know why their people were vagabonds?

  They turned a sharp corner—Corrie broke off a tiny sliver of touchwood to leave there—and surprisingly, the corridor ahead was slightly visible, as if light was coming from somewhere. The light grew brighter and brighter as they walked.

  At last, the path opened into a chamber wide and open. A soft whisper of air moved against Galen’s cheek, reaching under his very armor and making him shiver with anticipation. It was a chamber deep within the mountain, yet there must be an opening to the surface, for a shaft of starlight illuminated a distant wall. They had come a long distance under the mountain, but not so deep as Galen had expected.

  “The Turi’s home?” Galen’s voice rang louder than he expected.

  “Turi. Home,” the echo came back, weaker and weaker until it failed, and the room was silent and grave.

  Galen and Corrie moved as one toward a sparkling wall. Nearing it, Galen saw the wall was encrusted with crystals: large, small, yellowish, clear, oblong, perfect, broken. Though the starlight was dim, the crystals magnified the light, filling the room with sparkles and spangles.

  “Look,” whispered Corrie. “It is the great Turi.”

  Galen’s eyes adjusted to the glittering light; dark streaks of rock crisscrossed the crystals. Corrie was staring at the dark lines. Galen backed up a bit and realized the black lines formed an immense armadillo, one who marched sedately across a wall of sparkling crystals.

  Unsure what to do, Galen called. “I am Galen, of the Diego clan, trekker of the nine-banded armadillos.” For a time, Galen waited, silent and cold, trembling beside Corrie.

  Then a voice spoke from the crystals in measured tones, as if the words were heavy, as if the words came from a long distance away: “At last a trekker has come. Vagabonds. Travelers. Sojourners. Strangers in a strange land, you have come home.”

  With growing amazement, Galen nodded his agreement. Home.

  The voice continued, “What began as a banishment has ended with a return to your true home. We are the Turis, giant armadillos who once roamed these lands, until the cold came and we went South in search of new lands. When Grandmother Ema Esperanza cursed Isidoro’s family, you were sent back to us. Hoefon, the son of the Father of Souls, turned Grandmother Ema Esperanza’s curse into a blessing.”

  Galen’s mother had always believed their trek was a blessing. Was it true? “How is it a blessing?” Galen asked with a hoarse voice.

  “Hoefon banished you from the jungle lands, yes. But he knew that your people would inhabit all the lands between the South and here. All the wide, bright lands. Isidoro’s children now number more than the stars in the heaven, while Bernardo’s children still cling to a small patch of jungle.”

  Galen thought about the trek of his people from the jungles in the far, far south, through the plains of the south, over mountains, through more jungles, across the arid lands of northern Mexico and Texas, to these green valleys of the Ozarks. In all those places were the dens of his people. The trek had made of them a great nation. It was a blessing! He shook his head, trying to take it all in. But the Turi was still speaking.

  “And now, the curse is lifted.” The Turi’s voice was joyful. “No longer will your people be compelled to trek, no longer will they be vagabonds. You are home. Live in the land with your children and be content.”

  Somewhere inside Galen, it felt like a great armored shell had cracked open, had fallen off his body, had released him from its tight, tight grip. For a moment, the cave, the shaft of starlight, the black lines of the Great Turi spun around and around; he almost fell from dizziness. Then, he felt weightless, like a great burden had been lifted off his back.

  “Oh!” he cried. “Do you feel it?”

  “Yes. The curse. It’s gone,” Corrie whispered. Her dark eyes were wide with amazement. She wiggled in her armor, as if she, too, felt the weight lifted.

  Tears filled Galen’s eyes as he realized what this meant. No longer would children be forced to roam far from their parents, from their homes. Armadillos once again had a choice of where to live. All the decades of their forced migration, they were journeying toward home and prosperity.

  “Look,” whispered Corrie. “See the Turi’s home.” Moonlight shot through the unseen hole above, flashed on the wall and shimmered off crystals. “He lives among the stars. Look,” she cried.
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  There, on the wall of crystals, he saw three armadillos, one giant, two small. Had the smaller ones been there before? The light danced across the crystals, sending sparkling rays into Galen’s eyes.

  Galen closed his eyes, and the soft movement of air against his cheek brought a comforting voice, “Don’t weep, brother. I’m with the Turis. I’m home.”

  Rafael was home.

  And sadness mingled with joy in Galen’s weightless chest. He was filled with sadness and longing, but it no longer crushed him. It resembled sorrow only as starlight resembled the moonlight. The moon would wax and wane, and life would fill again, and yet again, with both joy and sorrow. One day, Galen would take a last trek in search of his final home and find his brother waiting for him there, telling stories to the Father of Souls.

  Rafael whispered. “Corrie. El Garro is here and is telling his stories. When I tell my stories, he will hear. He’ll know we made it, that we’re home. Home.”

  Corrie squinted at the wall. The crystals dimmed as the moonlight from overhead shifted. She turned to Galen for reassurance. “Is my father really home?”

  Galen said, “We’ve all come home.”

  And he led Corrie back to the corridors, followed the pools of light from the touchwood slivers, and came out eventually in the open forest. They must find Blaze, or other owls, and tell them to speed over the forest with a message for the Diego family, for Felix, for the Four Sisters, for all their people. They might know that the curse was gone, but they needed to know this also: they were no longer vagabonds, no longer strangers in a strange land. This land, here in the Ozarks, this land—with its low hills, but deep, deep valleys—this was home.

  .

  ONE YEAR LATER

  Deep in the den under the large bodark, Galen gently stretched and yawned, careful not to disturb the Four Daughters or Corrie. He tiptoed around them, pausing to tuck a bit of moss around Number Three’s—no, Marta’s toes. Corrie hated it when he called their daughters by numbers. He still didn’t see what difference it made, but he humored her. He managed to reach the tunnel entrance without waking anyone. He emerged to see the western sky ablaze with red, coral, and dark purple, while the eastern sky was just dark enough for stars to begin twinkling.