But what about Adda? The man didn’t know what to do with her. He couldn’t leave her out here alone; that would be the same as a death sentence. He couldn’t understand how she survived by herself this long. And although he liked her very much he didn’t really want to take her along, it would be like having two children to take care of because in her way Adda was very much a child.
Then the man remembered Thompson. Thompson and his group would take Adda in. He wasn’t sure of it but thought they probably would. How do I get her there? He knew Adda would never make it to Thompson’s on her own. Even if he gave her his compass and very precise directions the man recognized she had no chance of arriving there safely. She would end up dead or at the hands of men like those that captured her a few weeks before, maybe the same ones, or maybe some even worse. If she was to get there he would have to take her. He didn’t know the exact location of the compound but was sure he could find their perimeter again. Then they would find him.
The man now knew that it was the only thing he could do, and it was the right thing to do. It would mean he and boy would have to take her all the way back. He figured about six and a half days each way if they made good time. The man could see no other option. He couldn’t live with it if he let anything else happen to this innocent woman.
He resolved to take her back to Thompson’s. They would start early in the morning right after breakfast. The man turned away from the fire and wrapped himself cozily in the blanket, and with the problem solved finally was able to drift off to sleep.
The man awoke with the sun coming up. He was used to it as he had been on the same schedule for years now. The man looked around, wiping the sleep from his eyes. The fire had gone out but was still smoldering and he could see the boy was stirring too. He was also used to getting up this early.
Then he noticed Adda across from the fire and immediately knew something was wrong. Her dirty gray blanket was covered with two large reddish stains at mid length. The man instantly knew what the stains were and could see the shape underneath was completely still.
He jumped up and went to her side. “Adda!” But there was no response from the figure under the cover. He frantically yelled again, “Adda!” Finally he could wait no more and pulled the blanket aside. The boy was up now too and they both stood there not wanting to believe what they saw.
She was dead, her skin ashen. The man knelt down and felt for a pulse but just as he feared she was gone. From the temperature of her skin the man thought she had probably died about two or three hours before. In her hand she held the man’s hunting knife; he used it to dress the rabbit for their dinner and left it by the fire. Adda had taken it and opened up her wrists, slowly bleeding to death as the two of them comfortably slept just a few feet away.
The boy was just standing there still wrapped in his blanket to fight off the cold morning air. He intently stared at Adda’s face and didn’t say a word or even make a sound as the tears silently rolled down his cheeks. The boy had never seen death up close before and certainly not a friend, and he considered Adda his friend even if they had only known each other a few short hours.
There was nothing to say. The man took out a small shovel from his pack and started work on a grave next to a tall cottonwood tree looming over the campsite. While digging, he questioned what he could have done to save her, if anything; and he began crying for this woman he hardly knew.
The man buried her there under that tree wrapped in her blanket. He left her just as he found her. He couldn’t take her food and left it there too. He couldn’t even take his own knife. Knowing that he would never be able to use it again, he left it there in her small hand. With his hatchet he made a roughly formed cross using a sturdy branch taken from that tree. He notched the two pieces and bound them together with a short length of cord. He then took his trusty pocket knife and into the crossbar he carved “HERE LIES ADDA PEDERSEN – NICE PERSON” summing up her entire life with just a few words.
The boy stood there through it all silent and still, the quiet tears in his eyes.
They traveled the rest of that day and the boy spoke not one word, neither would he take anything to eat or drink. Finally they stopped for the day and as the man built their campfire it reminded them both of the one from the night before.
Again the man tried to get the boy to eat but he wouldn’t have it, the child just staring deeply into the fire that was consuming his thoughts. At that moment he understood what the boy was thinking; while digging Adda’s grave he thought the very same thing about himself. The man knew the boy had a poison inside him, and it had to come out, and it had to come out now. “Joshua … about Adda … it’s not your fault.”
At the sound of the man’s words the boy began weeping, the scalding tears burning his eyes and strangling his voice. “I killed her! It is my fault!”
“No, it’s not.”
“I killed her!
“No Joshua, you didn’t kill her … it’s not your fault.”
“I killed her!
“No Joshua, listen to me …
“I killed her, I killed her, I killed her …”
“Joshua!”
“I killed her …”
Despite his compassion for the anguished child, the man found himself furious. It was obvious the boy wasn’t even listening anymore, completely buried under the weight of his guilt-ridden thoughts.
“I killed her … I killed her …”
At last the man had enough and firmly shook the child, intruding on his pain. He then stooped down angrily looking right into the boy’s eyes. “Who are you? GOD?!” He immediately dropped to his knees and brought his hands together right in front of the child in a feigned prayer. “I’m sorry god. I didn’t know you had the power of life or death.”
“Stop it!” The child was becoming angry himself at the man’s mocking.
“Please be merciful god … please spare me from your wrath.”
“I SAID STOP IT!” The boy stopped crying as his anger with the man devoured the sorrow.
Finally he could see the boy was thinking, that he could be reasoned with again. He got on his feet and then sat down next to the boy, looking right into his still red and swollen eyes. “It’s not your fault Joshua. Adda was sick … in her mind I mean. You could see it too, couldn’t you?”
The boy just stared up at the man trying to understand.
“We didn’t know her very long but in the short time we did know her she said she wanted to die, at least twice. You remember her saying that, don’t you?”
The boy’s tortured face had to reluctantly agree.
“People that really want to die usually find a way Joshua. People that really want to kill themselves do.”
“But I hurt her feelings …” the child protested, still needing to find blame in himself.
“You did hurt her feelings but you didn’t make her do it. No more than me leaving my knife there made her do it. She killed herself because she wanted to. Sooner or later she would have done it with or without my knife, and with or without you hurting her feelings.”
The boy wiped his running nose with his hand. “She was my friend and I hurt her.”
“She was your friend, and she was a nice person too, wasn’t she?”
“Yes …” The hurting child was trying his best to understand all that the man was telling him.
“She was your friend and I know she would forgive you for what you said. She knew you didn’t mean to hurt her … that you wouldn’t hurt her on purpose, not for anything. I didn’t know Adda long but I knew her long enough to know she would forgive you … and that what you said didn’t make her do it.”
The boy climbed into the man’s lap, pressing tightly against his chest, desperately clinging to him, wrapping his tiny arms around that chest as if holding on for his life. “Why would she do it then?” the tears returning to the child’s tormented eyes.
The man sat there silent with his arms around the boy. He didn’t have an answer for th
e grieving child, not an answer with any real meaning, and knew he would never have one. If they sat there forever they would never have an answer for that one question.
“Why?”
The man held him most of the night, the child fitfully crying out the poison that he carried inside. Very late into the night the child stopped crying when the poison was all gone. When he finally realized the question he needed an answer for had no answer at all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The soldier stood there talking to a man, he had with him a small boy. The man held the boy close to him. He held him closely by his arm with one hand and with his other stood there covering the child’s eyes. The boy who only moments before watched with his mouth open, staring dumbfounded at the shocking sight. Now the boy stood there intentionally blinded by the man, like he couldn’t see it burned there in the back of his mind.
As they talked the soldier thought it odd, this was how the world was now and the boy seemed old enough to know it, but he wasn’t about to tell the man how to raise his own child. He stood there having a friendly conversation with the strange man holding his deliberately sightless child.
He told the man they already knew who he was, that a compatriot by the name of Thompson had informed them of his coming. Thompson had radioed ahead and asked his fellow Americans watch out for the man and boy and help them if they could. So that’s what he did, he asked the man if they needed any help, food or water, a place to sleep that night. The man said he didn’t need a thing and as the two talked didn’t look at the soldier at all, but instead continued to watch the men that casually swung there in front of his eyes.
They were all hanging from the tree except one. The tree was an ancient oak and it was twisted, gray and gnarled, it must have been over a hundred years old easily. Its branches were too numerous to count and stretched towards the sky in every direction. One branch in particular was strong and stout and nearly parallel to the ground. It was about twelve feet high off the grassy plain beneath it, perfect for its current use.
Presently it held four men. The fifth man, the last one, stood there waiting his turn. He was huge, six foot two easy and nearing three hundred pounds. He was filthy just like all of his friends hanging there waiting for him to join them. The man thought none of them had bathed since the end of the world, they certainly smelled like they hadn’t. The big man was bound with his hands behind his back and his feet too. He had a rope around his neck that limply hung over the branch. The rope was just begging to be used. He stood there softly whimpering and the sound reminded the man of a frightened little girl.
The soldier in charge suddenly stopped talking to the man and addressed the soon to be executed criminal. “Come on tough guy, you’re really starting to let me down here. Don’t you have anything to say? Not even go to hell or something equally as clever?”
The soldier in charge went on to explain that the five men had been terrorizing the locals for over a month now. Their most recent atrocity was the rape and murder of a woman and her fourteen-year-old daughter that had a small homestead about ten miles northwest. Finally he and his men were tasked with hunting them down. They had been caught by the patrol and had several of their victim’s possessions on them. That was more than enough for a conviction. The trial was quick and easy, in this case also convenient. The patrol that caught them were their judges, the patrol that caught them were their jurors, the patrol that caught them were their executioners. Not in living memory had the American legal system been so swift and efficient.
The man asked the soldier not to hang the last criminal until he and the boy had gone. The soldier agreed although he gave a puzzled look as the man asked, “You don’t want to watch this?” It seemed a genuine disbelief.
The man simply said “No” and thanked the soldier for his time.
As they were leaving the man heard the soldier tell the condemned, “Cheer up fat man this is your lucky day! You’re going to get to live an extra couple minutes!”
He and the boy walked away resuming their westward course and the man picked up his pace just in case the soldier could wait no longer. The man quickly led the sightless boy away, still shielding his innocent eyes. But when they were far enough from the ugly scene, the man let go of the boy, but still had to tell him, “Joshua no! Don’t look.” The boy was disappointed but did as he was told.
As they were leaving the man turned himself and took one last look at the five of them hanging there. He watched them swinging freely in the breeze from that imposing old oak and was at once reminded of Adda Pedersen and the description she gave of those men that had tortured and tormented her. He could only hope these were those men, and that she had found some peace in the next world if she couldn’t find any in this one.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As the man was cleaning up from their morning meal he heard an excited shout from up ahead. He glanced up to see the boy come running back, enthusiastically yelling. The child stopped right in front of the man, eager to inform him of the exciting discovery, still trying to catch his breath, “I saw some people!” The boy continued, now wildly bouncing up and down and motioning in the direction from where he just come. “There’s some people over there!” His tiny finger pointing in the same direction they were traveling.
“How many? How far?” The man needed to know right then.
“Four, I think … and they’re real far off.” The boy’s excitement had melted away as he considered the question. “They’ve got horses.”
“What?”
“Horses, like in my book. ‘H is for horse.’”
The man could see the child had seen something but he was also halfway guessing. He didn’t know how much was real and how much was the boy’s imagination. The man went to his pack, retrieved his binoculars and rifle scope and put them aside. With that done he checked the rifle making sure that the chamber was loaded, grabbed up his items and quickly headed in the direction the boy had just came. The child closely followed.
With a hurried stride, he walked through the field with the boy right behind continuing with his lesson, desperate to show the man he still remembered. “A is for aardvark. B is for bear. C is for cow. D is for …”
“That’s good Joshua.” The man briefly acknowledged the child but his mind was on more immediately important things.
The boy persisted, starving for the man’s recognition. “D is for dog. E is for eagle. F is for fox …”
“That’s good!” Without warning the man increased his stride, instantly leaving the boy behind.
He reached the crest of the gentle hill from where the boy had come running. He began searching but couldn’t see a thing. The boy arrived several seconds behind him. “Where?” the man thought maybe Joshua was mistaken, or possibly he was the victim of a seven-year-old’s imagination.
For a few moments the boy scanned the countryside and just as the man was sure there was nothing to see, he at last answered. “There!” the boy pointing off in the distance again, his youthful exuberance returning. “Over there! SEE THEM!”
Looking in the direction that the excited finger pointed the man could see something. Far off, at the edge of his vision he could see some tiny dark spots moving against the brownish green canvas on the horizon. He brought the binoculars to his eyes and with some searching found the spots again and then brought them into focus.
Even with eight power binoculars the spots were still far off but he could definitely see four people just as the boy thought, four people riding four horses. Behind each was another horse tethered to the first. He handed the field glasses to the boy, “Here,” and picked up the rifle scope. The scope had a maximum magnification of ten. He dialed the scope up all the way and once again searched for the spots. After a moment he found them again and the extra magnification answered several questions in the man’s mind.
The “spots” were four people all right, a man and three women. From this far distance he still couldn’t really see too much. He could say the
women looked average in size and the man a little taller than the normal. All four of them had rifles across their backs. Each had a second horse tied behind with two of them laden with what appeared to be gear and other supplies.
The man told the boy, “Watch them!” as he ran back towards his abandoned belongings. He put everything back on as quick as he could and raced back.
When he returned, he found the boy standing there closely watching his discovery through one of the lenses of the binoculars, like he was a scientist studying some strange new form of life. The man returned the scope to his pack then the rifle to his shoulder, and with that promptly marched off towards the spots, the boy tagging behind.
Throughout the morning the man and the boy secretly watched while slowly shortening the distance between them, taking extra caution to remain unseen. The group stopped several times which allowed them to keep up and by two that afternoon he had seen enough. Through his hours of observation he didn’t notice anything threatening about them. In fact he now had a good feeling and was ready to take a chance. But still he waited for just the right place and time.
With another forty minutes of patiently waiting he found his opportunity. The four were crossing a low field, the man at the crest of a hill high above them. He could now reveal himself to the group and if needed was still in a good position to defend from attack.
The man put his gear on the ground and checked his rifle. “Joshua, get down, here,” the man gesturing to a safe spot in the grass just short of the top.
The boy got down but not where he was told, peeking over the crest of the hill onto the four below.
The man removed an old white sock from his pack and tied it around the barrel of the rifle before chastising the child. “Joshua, get back … here,” again motioning to where he wanted the boy.
Joshua (Book 1) Page 27
