by Bre Faucheux
She knew that he spoke with her in ear shot intentionally.
Have I not aided in the preparation of every meal that you have consumed here, sir?
“That is not the point. We are not safe out in the open as we are here,” Lyndon said harshly, growing tired of everyone expecting Madison to begin carrying twice her own weight simply because she was there.
“Do you think us safer somewhere else?” Jayden spat through his teeth. “We would have no proper way of seeing others headed in on our camp.”
“They would have done so already. They obviously have little to no interest in us,” said Lyndon. He had also grown quite frustrated with Jayden’s sparing of words. “We need to be closer to the stream, at least for the time being.”
“We cannot move more of our sick with only our three horses who have taken ill as well,” said Jayden.
“They could make it farther if we helped them.”
Jayden didn’t even feel the need to respond. The way this man before him made decisions based on what he thought people capable of while answers appear directly in front of him was as frustrating to Jayden as the situation itself.
“Then you move them. Or let them rest in peace for the remainder of their lives, which should not be long. The choice is yours,” said Jayden. His voice was harsh without even raising it. The way he spoke made it sound as if the right choice was the obvious one.
The shelter they built wasn’t for the sick. Jayden built another shelter near the stream as Lyndon had ordered, but saw no use for it so long as the sick couldn’t be moved. Lyndon saw it as a means for those who lived long enough to make the mile long journey to it. It took Madison several trips with Jamison to remember the route to the stream correctly. Her nerves were fully aware of all around her as she walked it by herself. Jamison trusted her enough to make the journey by herself, which gave her confidence; even though the only sound within those woods was that of her own movements.
Twigs and leaves moved and crackled beneath her feet as she made the trek back to where the sick lay. Jamison was there doing everything he could to comfort them. Birds no longer sang for her and the smaller animals did not run from her as she walked as they normally would. It was almost as though they had all cleared since the disaster struck their new home. Each time she hiked through the damp woods, she felt the skin on her feet begin to peel and possibly bleed from lack of protection from her shredded shoes. Yet within moments of resting and kneeling on the ground to give water to the wounded, she felt her feet recover almost instantly. As if being off of them for even a moment was the only reprieve she could offer them. When she took off her clothed shoes for the first time since that morning, they weren’t blistered or even peeling. They were in the same condition they had been in that fateful day.
Her stomach hadn’t growled for some time. She expected it to be in torment soon. But the water appeared to give her all the satisfaction her body needed. The others who had not fallen ill found it quite sustainable as well. The sick however, begged for any scrapple of food that they could possibly find. Jamison suggested that there may be fish in the stream, but they hadn’t found any or seen a shadow suggesting their presence lurking within the water.
Jamison took Madison by the arm and gently led her away from the sick and the others sitting by the fire ring they had built, although no food burned upon it. Men simply stared into it, knowing their eventual fate was as disheartening as those who lay behind them.
“I think we will lose more by sun rise. The woman’s breathing is shallow and quick. The others are just as bad and their hearts are racing,” he said in a low and hushed voice.
“I brought them the water. Perhaps we can make it last for the night to sustain their comfort.”
“I’m not sure they could drink it. The woman is so ill she nearly fell asleep in my arms. I don’t think she has long.”
Madison hung her head. She tried to stop tears from breaking the composure she had managed to keep contained for so long. But the tears never came. They could do nothing for their dead but place them in the woods far off and cover them with dirt and long thin branches. Their efforts couldn’t even give them a proper Christian burial without tools. She lifted one hand to her face in a vain attempt to stop tears if they were to come. Jamison took her to his chest and held her there, grasping the back of her head and stroking her hair.
“Did you see any animals while you were away?” he asked her, continuing to stroke her head.
“No, there was nothing. How much longer can we go without food?”
“I am shocked we have managed as long as we have. There is no sense to it. We should be famished by now. It has been days.”
She moved away now, almost embarrassed by her moment of weakness.
“It must be the shock from it all,” he continued. “I’ve known myself not to eat as much when discouraged.”
They were interrupted by Lyndon and Jayden’s return and Madison quickly went towards the fire expecting tears to soon come. And yet she already felt herself beginning to calm.
She sat in front of the fire they built and gazed upon the other seven who sat around it. She passed the remaining water around and watched as they took a couple sips each and passed it down the circle.
These men had barely a drop of water in hours. Jayden and Lyndon told them to quit working hours ago.
Their work had started early in the day. Perhaps their fill had been taken during the day’s work. But their lack of food… the men did not appear the faintest bit tired from the work Jayden had them do for gathering wood and anything usable for shelter near the stream. And their hands… perhaps they had also cleaned them in the stream. Yet they appeared as they had not touched a single day’s work since having been there. Madison had attempted to help their aching joints, hands, and feet in the past by providing buckets of warmed water for them for soaking during their first months after arrival. She decided to dismiss it as she heard the labored breathing of the men and the woman only a few feet behind her. They had no cloth to wrap them in to protect from the cold. Though they did not appear to need it as they were sweating to the point of soaking the only clothes they wore.
We may not survive this to the morning either if we do not find a way to keep warm. If thirst does not take us, the night’s cold will.
This night’s air was crisp, that much she was aware of. The fire kept her warm as she sat amongst the men.
The curiosity of the natives watching us shall be short lived.
Her thoughts were the only sound she heard other than the fire before her.
Death shall take us all soon.
6
Their bodies went from one extreme to the other; one side searing hot from the heat of the fire and the other cold from the brisk chill of the air behind them. Madison felt as though the cold were death surrounding the souls of those lying just behind her as she tried to rest on the hard ground. The sounds of their labored breathing had gone quiet from sleep and she found herself wishing that a noise would stir them. The silence was a confirmation that the others were likely dead.
She sat up while there was still a light blue haze over the sky from the grey clouds above. The sun was rising, not that she could see it. The bodies of the horses and the companions behind her she had once called her neighbors didn’t move. Their lungs didn’t reach for the more air, and she didn’t feel the immediate need to check them. She would wait for Jamison to wake. Better he rest now rather than try to comfort her grief.
Her limbs quickly began to recover from the stiffness of sleeping on hard grass. She would have thought her back side would be burned from the fire’s warmth as she slept near it, but her skin felt fine as she stood. Not even the cold bothered her as it once had in the cool brisk mornings.
Her eyes skimmed the line of trees far beyond the bodies that lay before her, as if she were searching for the being who took their souls. She saw no spiritual presence, only three strange men on horses just outside the tree line.
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br /> They stood just before the forest, staring at her… staring at all of them. Their horses were covered in decorative red paint, made to look fearsome. There was some kind of fur draped upon their backs. A headdress of feathers was mounted upon each of their heads. Their faces were dark and hadn’t the slightest semblance of sympathy for what they saw before them.
Madison couldn’t imagine what kind of people they were; or what she had done to offend them. The few they had left lay dying or dead and these people had not aided them whatsoever. They watched as she helped pile away their dead and after their small gathering was swept away.
What kinds of people watch such a thing and do nothing to help?
Madison stood suddenly, unafraid of the men who stared upon them from a distance. She cared not if they saw her. She knew death awaited her in one capacity or another. The manner in which it came was the only question at hand.
It was then that she felt a harsh wind abruptly strike her petite form. It sent a sharp shiver through her arms and back. For a moment, she thought she understood what was right before her. These men were the true bringers of death, come to confirm their own progress. Nothing happening was natural. Not the wind, the fires, or the coming of the sea upon their village. Someone had provoked it, or summoned it.
She heard Jamison stir behind her, but she didn’t look away from the men who stood a short distance away. Her hair floated behind her along with the tatters of her dress, nearly destroyed from using fabric for slings. She didn’t move, and neither did they. She knew something was being communicated between herself and them, and she hoped that her resilience would show in her stance. All she had ever known had been lost to her twice over. And now she would have to see it all die a third time. She wanted to face death and these men with as much conviction as she could cope.
Almost in unison, they turned and galloped away into the dark woods. She wanted to know where they made their own homes. She wanted to know how they lived, what they fed on, how they took their prey, how they survived on this god forsaken land. It was of the utmost cruelty to hide this from people so desperately in need of guidance.
Without thinking twice, she ran for the edge of the woods. She didn’t even feel her legs beneath her as she ran. They carried her body with such speed and urgency that she reached the woods in what seemed like mere seconds. Her mind raced along with her legs, knowing that instant that there was no conceivable way that she should have reached the trees that quickly. She stopped at the line of forest and looked behind herself. Camp was a few hundred feet behind her. Everyone still lay sleeping although Jamison looked as though he was about to wake.
How am I seeing that far? I could see those men as well? I could see the clothes they wore… the paint on their horses.
The thought quickly left her as she heard the men who had taken off on horseback. They galloped away with great haste. Did they know she was coming after them? She didn’t care. She ran towards them, leaping over the forest debris beneath her and following the sound of their horses heaving. She knew they were close, closer than they had been at the tree line staring upon her. She ran again, not daring to look at the ground beneath her. It was moving so quickly that if she were to look down, fear may have swallowed her. There was no room in her mind to even think of how or why her body had moved like that. She could only see the men in front of her. They were not far now.
Without hesitation she was beside their horses, running beside them, and keeping with their pace. She reached up for one of men who looked down upon her. She couldn’t see his face under the fur that covered his back and arched over his face. His animal skins looked like heavy armor, and it only made her want to hurt him more. The men who destroyed the only home she knew wore armor of metal casting. The sight of the fur upon his body maddened her. She reached for the fur and ripped his body backwards as she leapt forward, landing on her feet. She let the others go behind her as she watched him cascade off his horse. It was as if he were moving in slow motion. His shoulder touched the back of the horse and he rolled off with his feet flying over his head. He crashed against the weight of his stomach and his horse left him there to fend for himself, just as the others had. She stood there staring down at him; ready to leap forward in her own defense should he come for her. He rolled onto to his back and lay there unable to move. She walked towards him and peered down at his face. The head of whatever animal he had displayed upon his head was now off his black hair and lying to the side. And she saw his eyes. They expressed nothing but pure terror.
His brown and tanned skin was gashed and broken from his harsh impact with the ground. She swore she could hear ribs breaking when he struck the hard surface. The force of his horse dragged his body at least a few feet before he had stopped moving. Tears and rips on his skin appeared bloody and deep red around his face, neck, and bare chest, with nothing on it other than black and white paint. His arms were painted in black curved yet sharpened designs all along them as though they were sleeves to his torn skin. The blood began to trickle down his intricately painting body seeping new lines upon the mixture of colors. The black and white stripes painted down his face were marked as if claws had slashed the skin. Once having appeared so gallant yet cold upon his horse, was now only a man below her, a man as mortal as she, and just as capable of dying as she and her own people. She wondered how he felt, knowing he would likely die, and knowing that his other riders didn’t stay to help him. Perhaps he knew the anger she felt for having been ignored by him and the people he was riding back to. She resolved in the seconds she spent staring down at him that some men may warrant death. Others warranted the freedom to live merely by surviving it.
Her stomach suddenly began to cramp. Burning penetrated her abdomen blistering her chest like a knife had penetrated her heated flesh. She nearly fell upon all fours from the pain. The back of her throat went dry as if she had inhaled ash and she began to grasp for breath at the sensation. At once she was on the ground, her hands and knees holding her up. She crunched down as if she were an animal. Never once had Madison allowed herself to feel rage for those who had harmed her. She was a woman, and women were to keep their voices silent, and their bodies innocent of any temptation or fervor. And yet, for the first time in days, she felt it come to claim her with a fury. Her vision went black just as she recognized her body’s needs.
She was starving.
***
Madison could feel the solid ground beneath her, and knew immediately that she had blacked out. Her eyes were heavy against their own weight inside her skull. Her entire body weight felt as though she were pinned down to the earth. Although she was conscious of where she was and the fact that her senses were awake, she couldn’t summon the energy to lift her eyes open. She allowed the heaviness to drift her away and only after giving into the pressure was she able to open her eyes. She saw nothing but the sky lit in a pale shade of red. She blinked trying to rid her eyes of the colors she was seeing, but that only led to the soft trickle of more redness seeping into her eyes. Blood was dripping down her face and she knew the sky was not truly this unnatural color. She was seeing things through a dim veil protruding her vision.
Twigs began to crack nearby. She tried to move upward to see what was making the noise just in front her.
Did someone see what happened?
The only men nearby were the natives, those who abandoned their horseman, proving to Madison that everything she thought of these native people was true. Leaving one of their men to a fate unknown was an action she couldn’t bring herself to understand. It seemed the vilest of betrayals.
She looked around as best she could, only able to move her eyes. After she blinked away enough of the liquid seeping into her eyes, she saw Jamison. He was draped within the same pale red color that stained the sky.
Is he bleeding? Please, I can’t have hurt him. I couldn’t have.
His entire face was covered in red, but it appeared blotchy and unclear.
He knelt beside her, and bro
ught his fist to his face, holding it at his chin. An expression she had only seen him use when severely distressed. He looked her up and down several times and then looked her in the eyes.
I must be dying. That is the only explanation.
Her thoughts were louder than the dry sobs she could hear him letting out.
He reached for her and then drew his hand back, almost scared to touch her.
Don’t let me die here on the ground. Please hold me. Don’t let go of me.
She could still hear the unsteady breath coming from his mouth as he rocked back and forth, gazing upon her, unsure of what to do. With a sudden movement, he reached for her small frame and surrounded her with his arms. Her body left the cold ground beneath her and floated upward as if she had already died. She wondered if this was what it was meant to feel like. But she still felt the strength of Jamison’s arms beneath her, so she could not have died yet.
He carried her some distance back toward the small camp they had made. She expected she would be placed amongst their dead, along the line of bodies that now lay in a perfectly even increment along the ground.
Jamison didn’t carry her all the way. He laid her in front of a thick tree along the forest’s edge. He placed her right side up and allowed her to sit there with her back to its trunk. Placing her hands over her legs and having them lay atop one another, he handled her gently. She could move her eyes more at this point and the vertical position allowed for much of the blood to drain from them. Finally she could see clearly.
Jamison’s entire face and tunic were drenched in blood from carrying her. Madison could only imagine that it was her own blood or the blood of the native man. Perhaps Jamison had tried to help him. Perhaps he had tried to help her once he first found them, before she had awoken. She refused to believe that the blood was Jamison’s.
Did the man on the horse hurt him? No, no, he was barely moving before everything went black. But did he wake up?
