IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
II: Tests of Fire and Blood
Chapter 19 Karol's Interrogation
Wednesday, April 29, 2708,
continued I don't know how long I've
wandered in a daze, coughing on smoke that gives me no lift whatsoever,
seemingly asleep on my feet. Dawn begins
its own fire overhead, all the more brilliant for the dirty air. Somewhere along the line I must've stumbled
back onto the main road and now trudge along it, my damp clothes clinging to
me, gathering dirt in the hem. For an
hour or two the night's buzz had finally died down, presaging the coming day;
now the first birds wake, but through it all the dreary slap of my sandals has
stayed the same. When do you ever get a
moment's quiet in the Charadoc, really? To match the sound, I hear
the groaning creak of wooden wheels. I
turn and see an ox-cart lumber onto the main road from a side-path. Fine with me; there’s room enough for both of
us. A second glance shows the
purple piping on the olive uniforms--Charadocian army. I feel too wiped out to care. Stupid uniforms--only in the Charadoc would
anyone mix olive and purple. The cart goes the same way
I do, piled high with supplies, soldiers perched atop of those as the team of
oxen plod sullenly along. Make a note
of that: they have not yet manufactured enough combustion engines to cover all
of the army's needs--at least not enough fit for heavy loads. Those tanks we fought might have been the
only ones they had. "Hey you! Come over here, now." A rough male voice shouts at me, yet with
more good cheer than the words imply. "Aw, leave her alone,
Karol. She's just some peasant broad, on
her way to the day's business."
They haven't had a chance to shave yet; they look quite unpolished and
very young. "I dunno, she might be
a rebel--they do have women fighters, you know.” “So do we, now.” “One. Foreign trained. She don’t count.” I start to walk away while
they debate whether or not a female officer will hurt the army. But Karol notices and points his pistol at
me. “Come on over here, honey; you just
be sweet and I won't hurt you."
Then he holsters it and grins, his arms held wide and open. I turn towards them, dumb
with exhaustion, and before I know it big, coarse hands haul me up into the
cart. "Got to hand it to
you, Karol, she's a pretty one–but oh, the bruises on her! Somebody don’t know how to treat a
lady." The big man called Karol
grins and says, "Well, we sure do!
All the same, though, we've got a duty to interrogate any suspicious
persons in the vicinity, and my oh my she sure looks suspicious to me!" "What we've got a duty
to do is turn her over to the Mantles." "Oh, them!" He spits over the cart's side. “Now they, my lads, haven't got the foggiest notion of how to treat a lady, rebel or
no." He pulls a flask out of his
gear. "You don't have to always
hurt people to get what you want from them." He pulls me over into a crushing hug against
his side, his sweat-smell strong, but I honestly feel so weary that I don't
mind resting my head against his chest.
"She's gonna be real friendly, ain'tcha, honey?" "Uh huh." I have the training to fight my way out if I
need to. I think. In the meantime, the cart carries me along
and my throbbing feet appreciate it. "So why don't you join
us for a little drink?" He hold the
flask out to me. "Karol," his
friend protests, "this early in the morning? Besides, we're on duty." "She's not," he
says. "I meant 'join us'
figuratively. Painless way to loosen
tongues, that's all. I'm a decent man--I
don't do torture." He shoves the
flask against my lips. "Come on,
dearie, you could use a sip, now couldn't you?" Actually, yes. Scotch, it turns out, not that abominably
cloying chaummin you get around here--they pay their army well. Surprisingly good quality, in fact, nice and
smoky, almost like the tobacco that I could surely use even more right now. "There, that wasn't so
bad, was it? Ah, what a smile! Another?
Good girl. There you go." "I don't think she's a
rebel, Karol." "Shaddup. So, dearie, would you like to answer a few
questions for us?" Shyly I say, "Maybe
after one more sip?" He chuckles and says,
"Of course, honey, anything you want." With a wink to the others he says, "She
probably never tasted real whiskey before." To me he says, "We can get all kinds of
nice things for women who like to travel with the soldiers, you know, keep the
men happy. We like to please those who
please us. Have some more...there you
go, dear." "Karol, you said she's
a rebel! Rebels can't travel with the
army." "We don't know that
for sure. That's what I mean to find
out. Now stop interrupting me and let me
get on with the interrogation." His
fingers trace the curls and wrinkles of the soggy skirt on my thigh. "Now how'd you get yourself all wet,
honey?" One of them guffaws at
that, but I take one more swig and say, "Chasing a goat. I fell into a creek." I let my eyes go all wide and frightened-looking. "I, I heard explosions in the
night. The animals all panicked, and
some broke out. I been up all night long
trying to get 'em all together, and, and I saw fire, and heard things, and, and
I never got my goat back!" "Karol'll get your
goat," someone says. "He's
good at that." And the others
laugh. "You pay them no
mind," Karol says as he cuddles me up against him. He feels warm and pleasant, his arm
protective around me. "You just
tell me the truth and we'll get along fine.
Another sip?" "Okay." "So. Are you a rebel?" "Nope." "Are you married to a
rebel?" "No." "Have a sip. Are you married to anybody at all?" "Uh uh." "Engaged? Got a lover?
Got your sights set on anybody?" "No, no, and no. This stuff tastes delicious." "Have all you want,
honey. You ain't a lesbian, are
you?" As innocently as I can
feign, I ask, "What's a lesbian?" He blushes
gratifyingly. "Um, a woman who does
it with women the way a wife does it with her man." I look up at him tipsily,
playing up the wide-eyed bit for all it’s worth. "Is that possible?" He chuckles richly and hugs
me. "Men, I officially declare that
this woman ain't no rebel! There's not a
vice known to humankind that rebels don't engage in." "Sounds like proof to
me," his friend agrees. "So how come nobody's
snapped you up, honey?" I pout and say, "Mama
watches me like a hawk. Smacks me
around, too. She never lets me have any
fun." He gives me the most
sympathetic look, very gently stroking my cheek, careful of the bruise. "Well, you won’t have to worry about
her, ever again--here, drink up, you can have all the fun you want, now. If she tries to interfere, she'll have to
reckon with the Charadocian Army." They all look so
rough. Big and rough and friendly like
barnyard animals. I start to giggle
uncontrollably. Then I think about men
like them in that tank I hit and I burst into tears. They stare at me,
perplexed. "What's up, honey?" I giggle all over
again. "Don't play with fire,"
I say as I lunge back for the flask.
"I'm the kind of gal that can burn a man alive." After another pull I say, "That's what
Mama always says," and I try to bat my eyes as innocently as before, but
before I know it I find myself weeping again. "Uh, listen, Karol, I
need to tell you something." A
soldier leans over to whisper in his ear, unaware that I can hear everything he
says with my ear pressed to Karol's chest, sipping like I pay no
attention. "Listen. You ever hear of maniac depression?" "Maybe. Some kind of craziness, ain't it?" "Well, I've seen it in
action--everything done to extremes, way over the top, man. "Why're you telling me
about this?" "'Cause she's acting
just like my cousin Tika did before going bonkers. Same thing of laughing and crying for no
reason, back and forth real fast like that.
Girls like that, they go on to delusions--you smile at 'em and they
think you're gonna marry 'em. Frown and
they think you're gonna kill 'em--and maybe they'll kill you first. Or maybe they’ll just scream and wake the
neighbors up, and next thing you know you're trying to explain to the cops that
you never hit her or nothin'. You can't
do anything right around 'em, once the disease gets going. And folks around here, you know, can’t afford
the medicine to set ‘em straight." Karol stares down on
me. Dizzily, it dawns on me that it's in
my best interest to play along, so I giggle again and give him my craziest,
tear-stained grin. "You don't
say," he says. "Sure. I bet her mother has good reason to watch her
close, maybe even bruise her up a bit to wrestle her away from something
worse. Her idea of fun'd prob'ly damn
near kill you." Nervously he sits up
straighter, gently pushing me away.
"Uh, listen, honey, now that we've ascertained that you're no
rebel, you're, um, free to go." "Aren't you gonna
protect me from Mama?" I just can’t
resist. "Your mama loves you
and she probably misses you." He pries
the flask from my fingers and corks it firmly. "But..." "It's been real fun,
honey, but we got duties, and, ah, I just remembered several regulations
against keeping you on board after interrogation's over. Sorry about that." Beefy arms lift me out of the cart. "Karol!" "Go on home,
honey. Your mama's looking for
you." So here I stand, much
further on my way without a step taken, and feeling so much better! I wave as the cart slowly grumbles away. Nice guys, when it comes right down to
it. The tears flow again as I turn
away. Or jerks. Nice jerks.
I stagger off the road into the rainforest, the pistols that I stole
while Karol cuddled me hanging heavy in my pockets, making my steps lurch even
more than they have to. Thanks, Don, for
the thievery lessons. Wow! I have probably consumed more alcohol these
past few months than in my entire life before.
I shove through branches that shove back, slipping on leaves made slick
with a new spate of rain. I giggle again
and then hold onto a trunk to laugh my heart out. The rain clears the smoke and then the sun
comes out, glittering on every rain-jeweled leaf. I totter onwards towards a clearing that I
see, as new steam rises to make everything look soft. A lovely place, the Charadoc. Lovely wuvely muvelly…whoa! Pull myself back off the ground and keep on
moving. Gradually a thought works
its way through the fog, about how easily that whole scenario could've turned
uglier than anything I'd ever known.
Jerks, definitely, and worse! And
I went right along with them before any liquor crossed my lips? Insane!
But Karol's friend had the wrong diagnosis--shell shock, not bipolar
disorder. Thank God for the ghosts who
watch over weary rebels on the road! The trees begin to thin as
the ground grows stony and upwardsly inclined, the soil shallow here. Soon I don’t have any trunks to hold onto,
though I see thin little copses here and there.
I have always had a phenomenal sense of direction, from all those years
of hiking in tangled Til Territories; I know that Petro's Canyon lies close at
hand. So, having been recently captured,
prudence dictates that I veer off that path.
I climb further up the hill, out of my way but in sight of it in this
space so open that I can see clearly all around me. And yes, I recognize the place. So here I sit at the base of a lone tree,
gazing down into the tumbled lands as I try to sober up under the spreading
sun. I doze a bit now and then, propped
up against the trunk, with snatches of dreams about feasting in a rich man's
house, every kind of food till my belly hurts with it, but then I wake and
realize that it's just the whiskey disagreeing with my all-too-empty
stomach. I open my eyes and watch Kief
and Fatima climb up towards me. I wave. "There you are,
Deirdre! What're you doing here?” I let them do all the approaching, holding
fast to my precarious perch upon the planet.
“The cave's that way." I smile up at Kief standing
over me. "I know. I got captured and released. They say I'm not a rebel." As Kief lifts me to my feet
his nose wrinkles at my breath.
"You're drunk," he says. "Oh, not very." Yet even as I say it I can feel the last of
the whiskey hit my bloodstream. We go
down together towards the canyon.
"Smart enough not to go direc’ly to Petro's, in case they changed
their minds an’ followed me." That
copse, right over there--I killed a man, there. "She's right about
that, Kief," Fatima puts in for me, her hand on his arm, her other arm
around my waist. "Go easy on
her--it’s not like you’re always Mr. Temperance, yourself, you know. Besides, lots of people get drunk after their
first time with Molotovs. Remember
Chulan?" He grins despite himself
and shakes his head. "Oh Lord,
yes! She refused to sober up for three
days--I thought for sure she was gonna die!" We enter the canyon and
follow the creek once more. Fatima says,
"But she came through, though, didn't she?
And you will, too, Deirdre."
I feel her arm give me a squeeze, and then just stay there around me,
steadying my steps. I can especially use
her help when we come to walking on the mossy stones of the creek. Everybody's so nice in the Charadoc, even
jerks are nice, everybody's so affectionate.
I slip and lurch against her, but she keeps us both from a dunking. "What's in your
pockets, Deirdre?" "Oh, yeah. I forgot." I hand over three revolvers and an army
knife. "Presents from the
Charadocian Army." They laugh till they
screech with hilarity, eyes bright on the weapons. Then they both hug me, colliding into me all
at once, and we all topple into the creek but manage to hold the guns out of
the water all the same, and we keep on laughing as we get up and sort ourselves
out--and just when my clothes had finally started to dry out, too! * * * By the time I enter Petro's
lamplit home the headache has kicked in.
I barely hear Lucinda explaining that we’ll have to hole up here for
awhile, till the heat dies down. I force
myself to eat the overcooked soup that Petro gives me because I know I need it,
not because I want any. He looks gently
down on me and says, "So--I guess you passed the test of blood, huh?" "And of fire." I glance over at Chulan, peeking out from under his blanket, and she gazes back with sympathy.
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