Strikers

by Ann Christy

  I grab the full canteen and jog out to meet him. The way he smiles when he sees me lights a little fire inside me. Though I do my best to restrain it, I know there’s more warmth in my return smile than I might wish. When I extend the canteen, he almost empties it in one long drink.

  “Well, anything?” I ask, rather too abruptly. The look he gives me is one I earned. “Sorry. You’ve been gone so long. I got worried.”

  Instead of apologizing, he gives me a wolfish grin and says, “You were worried? Hmm.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake. Did you find anything worth telling?” I ask, and snatch the canteen back, motioning for him to come back to the shelter with me.

  His grin doesn’t falter as he falls into step beside me and I’d swear on a giant T-bone steak that he’s actually swaggering a little. How do we go from him all but ignoring my existence for two years to this? I give him a sour look and clamber up the platform to our camp.

  Maddix is awake and sitting up near the fire, his back braced against the wall. The swelling in his face has gone down considerably and his eye is open, though very bruised. Jovan set his broken nose with a sharp tug the first morning once we knew he was out of the woods with his leg. It’s huge but less painful, he claims, and he sounds hilarious when he talks. Still, it’s an improvement and the ointment takes away much of his pain.

  He and the others are playing some weird game they made up using tiny bits of broken pavement, a circle drawn using charcoal from our fire and an assortment of debris we’ve found while prowling around the huge building. I can’t understand it and the rules get more complicated every time I turn around.

  “Ha! That’s a chicken scratch, a pie and two mice. My longhorn and two windmills beat that!” Cassi crows after looking at the assorted scattered mess on the floor.

  Maddix scowls and grabs up the pieces, but stops when we blot out the lowering light at the door. “Howdy, stranger. What’s up out there?” he asks Jovan.

  I’ve saved a little of our meager supper for Jovan. I hand him the cup with his few spoonfuls of grains, fruit and jerky cooked up into a mush. He digs in with a finger and scoops clumps of it into his mouth, making satisfied noises with each bite. It pains me to see him so eager for food since I know he’s used more energy than any of us today. Plus he’s bigger than we are, even Maddix. But our stores are running low and we’ll be out of food completely in another day, two at most.

  It’s while he’s wiping out the last remaining bits that I see the smears of blood on his arm and I jerk it up to see where it came from. There’s a matching smear on the bottom of his shirt. “You’re hurt!” I say, plucking at his shirt.

  He looks for some injury, confused, then his face clears. He flashes me another of those grins and says, “Nope. That doesn’t belong to me. I’ve got a surprise.” He shrugs out of my pack, the only real pack we have now, and takes out one of the burlap bags. There’s something lumpy and, if the red spots soaking through the fabric are any indicator, bloody inside.

  When he pulls out what’s inside, my first thought is that he’s caught rats. But they aren’t exactly rats. More like their much cuter cousins with enormous bushy tails.

  “What on earth are those?” I ask.

  Jovan shrugs and rolls one of them over in his hands. “I think it might be a squirrel. I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard of them.” His fingers brush the tail and he adds, “The tail is just like what I’ve heard described. I’ve heard other soldiers say they are really common down south, where there are trees. They’re supposed to be good eating.”

  This last has my attention. I’m all in favor of anything that could be even remotely classified as tolerable eating, so good eating sounds very fine indeed. I note the blood has come from each of their small heads. “You used my slingshot?”

  He nods and produces it, handing it off to me along with my small bag of steel balls. Jovan was always the best at using the slingshot when we were kids, so I shouldn’t be surprised he was able to bring back food using it once he was alone and could control his noise.

  Aside from the slingshot, all I have is an old sling. With a sling, I’m hopeless, but Cassi is amazing. She has an eye for it. But slings need space to use and one of the downsides of finally getting to a place with trees is that there’s hardly any place to swing one.

  “I even found all the balls,” he adds when he sees me fingering the bag to count how many remain inside.

  Connor and I take up the animals and one of the belt knives and go outside to skin and gut them. Animal parts aren’t something I want to leave near where we sleep, so we use a flashlight and go far enough away from our camp to do our bloody business. By the time we get back with the small—yet wonderfully meaty—carcasses, the fire has been built up and three sticks have been scraped clean and soaked in water.

  “They look like skinny rabbits,” Cassi says, then cocks her head and adds, “Or rats.”

  Connor and I sneak a quick look at each other but no one seems to notice. Cassi doesn’t know, and I don’t necessarily want the others to know, that Connor and I are very familiar with the way a rat looks without his fur suit on. It’s not that I’m embarrassed, because that not’s completely true. What I really don’t want is pity and, at least in this case, I don’t think pity would be necessary.

  When we turned thirteen and could legally find work, we joined up to work the compost operation as Turners. Compost is incredibly important in the dry lands. No one would be able to grow enough to eat without that nutrient-rich, black soil. I have my own little pile, fed by my garden prunings, the parts of vegetables I trim away and bundles of dried grass I stockpile to let brown and turn crispy each year. But that wouldn’t be enough, so I, like everyone else, buy it from the composter.

  Working there is a great way to balance the cost with earnings. Turners are almost always kids. We’re lighter and more nimble, yet still strong enough to wield a pitchfork. Each of the huge piles has to be turned regularly so that the heat distributes and “cooks” the entire pile.

  For Connor and me, as well as a few others, there was the additional income from the rat bounties. After work, we’d station ourselves someplace where we might watch for rats that came to inspect the new piles of compost material. One shot with a steel ball from a slingshot and a rat would inspect no more.

  Rats are a problem at the compost station. The amount of fresh material draws them like, well, like rats. And they spread disease as well as breed rapidly. So we earned a small bounty for each one we brought to the supervisor’s shack for inspection. It seemed a shame to let them go to waste. There were many nights that Connor and I improved our protein intake and there’s no shame in that for people who can’t afford to buy the cattle our territory is known for raising.

  The smell that comes off the roasting meat draws us all closer to the fire and we pluck the still-sizzling flesh from the bones the moment it’s done, snatching back fingers from the hot meat but not slowing down. There’s almost no fat on them, but that’s fine by me and for the first time since we ran, I go to sleep content and with a full belly.

  The morning means checking bandages, my most un-favorite duty of each day. Maddix’s leg is healing and no longer angry-looking, but there is no question he has a substantial hole in it and could use a couple of weeks of peace and rest. After we use up the last of our boiled water to clean up his leg, change bandages and wash the used ones, Jovan heads off to the stream for the daily water run.

  It’s a beautiful morning, bright and clear, with skies so blue they’re heartbreaking. The hundreds of birds who’ve made nests on the ragged and uneven roof above us seem to have gotten used to our noise and movements, because they pause for only the briefest moment in their activity when we come out. A line of them, eyes dark and avid, give me the once-over when I step out to enjoy the mild weather and stretch my legs. I give them a little salute and they go back to their business. Something in their posture makes me laugh. It’s as if they’re dismissing me with lo
ts of attitude.

  Jovan comes through the undergrowth just like yesterday, but I can tell something is wrong right away. Like the birds, it’s in his posture and the hurried way he shrugs off the greenery.

  When he looks up and sees me, his pace increases and I feel like our time here has just come to an end. The idea panics me a little, like I’m losing my home or something, which is stupid because this has been nothing more than a place to rest. A place to let Maddix heal and figure out our next move. But that doesn’t change the way I feel.

  “Pack up,” I call up to the others before taking off to meet Jovan.

  He hands me one of the containers as soon as I get to him. His face is tense so there’s no question the news is bad.

  “Is it the same guys?” I ask. For me, and especially for Cassi, that would be the worst-case scenario.

  With a shake of his head, Jovan catches his breath. He’s sweaty and his dark hair is plastered to his forehead, the golden glints buried by the wetness. Wide streaks of sweat mark the front and back of his t-shirt, and he’s got new scratches from brush and vines covering his arms. It’s clear he ran the whole way back.

  “Worse,” he gasps, then hands me the other heavy container and leans over, bracing his hands on his knees. After a few loud swallows and rasping breaths, he looks up at me. “It’s my Dad’s foreman, Creedy. He’s got one guy with him I don’t know but he’s rough-looking, like those guys at the settlement.”

  I’m not entirely sure what to make of that other than the obvious, that those men may have been tracking us for this Creedy person. But Jovan’s face when he said that name displayed more than just recognition. It was fear and loathing, maybe even hatred. It’s the way I might feel about some of the soldiers, the ones who don’t think much of those like me and are a little too eager to show it with their nightsticks.

  “So, your father sent someone to get you back. The sign we saw didn’t leave any doubt he wanted you back,” I say, hefting the heavy containers and walking toward the building.

  Jovan catches up with me and takes one of the containers back, trying to meet my eyes. When I don’t bite, he places a restraining hand on my arm to stop me. He glances quickly at the partially open bay door and says, “Wait.”

  He wants only me to hear this, which means it’s for sure going to be bad. I nod for him to talk.

  “Creedy is not a good guy.” The way he says it communicates many things. The way his eyes move over me tells me what kind of bad he means.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Yeah, exactly. There’s a reason my father sent Creedy and not one of the others. He can take care of business my father needs taken care of and doesn’t mind how dirty that business is. I’m sure you and Cassi would be a part of that deal, especially if Jordan was right and they are planning on killing everyone except me to keep my secret.”

  “Oh,” I breathe, understanding now what he means and why his face is so pale underneath the red of exertion.

  “I heard metal banging so I just went a little way down the stream. They’re north of the old road but still close to it. Creedy was mad because one of the horses had gone lame from a stone in its shoe or maybe thrown a shoe. I know his voice, so I went closer to be sure. There’s no mistake who it is. The other guy was hammering on a shoe over a rock and I got a look at him. Scruffy, like those others. I listened for a few minutes and it looks like they’re going to make camp there and do their searching on foot so the horse can recover.”

  “How many horses do they have?” I ask.

  “Four, but one of them looks like it got burned here,” he says and waves a hand down the back of his head, like he’s describing the mane of a horse.

  “So, definitely the same guys,” I say.

  He nods and we stand there for a moment, both of us thinking hard. Cassi interrupts us by coming to the bay door. She eyes us, purses her lips in understanding and asks, “How long do we have?”

  I shake my head and she lets her hands fall to slap the side of her legs, as if she were already tired. “I’ll get everyone ready. I can try to cover up our signs, but the smell is going to give us away.”

  She’s right and I could kick myself for letting us get so comfortable. The smell of a fire is unmistakable, even after several days. Scattering the evidence won’t help us much, but it might at least confuse them as to how long we stayed.

  “Gather up all the ash and such and scatter it in the brush,” I say, then think twice. “Better yet, scatter a little bit in a lot of places.”

  She disappears back inside and I turn back to Jovan. His color has returned but he looks like he’s ready to bolt. Like he just wants us to take off running as fast as we can. That scares me more than what he said.

  “We need to go,” he urges.

  “We need to make sure we don’t give them information if they find this place after we’re gone. Like the fact that Maddix is wounded and will need rest and might slow us down. That kind of information.”

  He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, calming himself. Then he gives me a pained smile, “You’re right. But let’s do it fast.”

  There will be no boiling this water now, but we might be able to later. And I’m not about to risk being unable to find some nearby when the time comes when we can safely stop. We need at least one container’s worth plus the canteens we’ve already filled with safe water. I have an idea about how to use what we can’t bring.

  Inside the building, everyone is busy, even Maddix. He packs what pitiful belongings we still have, even shaking out the burlap bags stuffed with dead grass we’ve been using for pillows. Connor has a bundle of brush I tied together and used as a broom to keep dirt away from Maddix’s leg. Now he’s using it to methodically sweep away our footprints from deeper inside the building, where we’d explored for anything useful. Cassi is nowhere to be seen and there are only a few dark chunks to show where our fire has burned.

  I dribble out the water over the areas where the fire was and where we’ve been sleeping and use the broom to smooth it so that it looks like just another place where the rain came in. It’s not entirely convincing, but sprinkling the dried grass from our erstwhile pillows helps.

  It’s the best we can do and when we jump down, carefully helping Maddix so that his wound doesn’t re-open, we all stand in front of the opening for a long moment. Even though I’m looking to see if there is anything to give evidence of our few days in residence, I’m also saying goodbye. When will I sleep so comfortably and safely again? When will I wake up to the sweet and somehow joyous sound of birdsong above my head again?

  Jovan is fidgeting, leaning from one leg to the other and looming behind me like a big nervous ball of energy. Even Maddix, our least capable member at the moment, seems antsy. He keeps testing his leg and I can see from the corner of my eye how he sets his face against the discomfort, his blackened eyes making him look a bit like a raccoon.

  “Which way, Jovan?” I ask.

  He looks like he’s going to uncoil like a spring. He points northeast and says, “We’ve got to get well north of them and then go straight east. As fast as we can.”

  I’m sure that no one meant to make Maddix feel uncomfortable, but I notice that all of us send a glance his way. He sees it and says, “I’m good. I’ll keep up. I just need to warm up the muscles.”

  We start out, but we’re not making good time. It’s a rougher start than it should be. It isn’t Maddix slowing us down, it’s us slowing down to make sure Maddix doesn’t have a problem. Between Connor, Cassi and I pulling brush to the side, pointing out roots that might trip him up and asking if he’s okay, we barely get a mile away in that first hour.

  Jovan runs out of patience about the same time one of us asks Maddix if his leg is bleeding for the dozenth time. He stops so abruptly that Cassi smacks into his back and yelps. “He won’t be fine if Creedy catches up with us. He’s fine now, though, so let’s keep moving.”

  His tone is harsh and makes the hairs on the
back of my neck stand up. He’s really afraid. Our eyes meet and his are pleading, asking for me to help him out. It won’t help any of the others to know what sort of person this Creedy is. Too much fear can paralyze.

  “Come on, let’s go. The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll get where we’re going,” I say, and move into the green world around us.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It’s so late it’s early again and we’ve found no place to hole up. We’ve walked at a hard pace through the whole day and into the night, trying to get some distance between us and the place where we were. Maddix is dragging, his breath coming in hard wheezes, and his nose started trickling blood an hour ago. Jovan took off a few times during the day, snaking his way south to check our progress while we rested, but so far he’s got nothing specific to report.

  We took a short rest of just a couple of hours in the afternoon, but pressed on even though Maddix really needed more time. The forest here is thick and hard to get through and our pace has slowed over the past hours. We’re all tripping over the roots and branches that litter the ground and I finally have to force the issue.

  “We have to stop! Maddix can’t keep on. And there’s no reason to keep trying to go through the night in this forest. There’s not enough light!” My whisper is harsh and probably a little too loud, but the trees dampen sound and I have to get through to Jovan.

  In this land of endless forests, there’s no longer any need to travel at night. You’d have to be relatively close to someone to see them. In a way, that makes me feel better, but on the other side of that coin, it means that I won’t see anyone coming after me until they’re close either.

  Jovan’s jaw clenches in the little bit of moonlight that leaks through the trees, but he acquiesces when I make it clear I’m not going another step by helping Maddix to the ground and settling him against a tree.