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IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter
17
Friday, November 6, 2708, continued (Even
with the thinning leaves, this band of woods seems to make a
good place to hide for awhile, on our way to at least one node
of Vanikke’s
troubles: the cookie factory that poisoned our child.
Dense brambles cup the area on two
sides. Ah, feral berries from the
long-lost Earth: an irascible friend in temperate zones
wherever humankind has
gone. It brings back fond
memories of
berry-washing my hair in Duerlongh, so that a lavender tinge
would counteract
the blonde and make my hair look moonlit white—such a useful
annoyance of an
invasive species. I climb up in a tree to
keep watch, while Ozwald and Guaril peel potatoes below me;
I’d have eaten them
skins-on and relished every mouthful, but all the many kinds
of Vanikketans
agree on how uncivilized that would be; let them get hungrier
before I push it. Cybil heats
water for supper while Lula chops
smoked sausages. Pauline does
wound
checks. Kimba plays with her
leash,
humming to herself and smiling weirdly, while her brother
watches her
anxiously. “Do
you remember,” Ozwald asks, “All the potatoes you and Tsura
bought when we first hit the road?” Guaril
laughs. “Do I!
We crammed the car to the roof with supplies,
spending all the money I had on hand before I could liquidate
my assets. But I’m surprised you
remember—you were in
pretty bad shape, then, before we found Pauline.” “All
the different kinds and colors of potatoes—how could I
forget? I remember lingering over
them
with my good eye, appreciating them like jewels.
‘Cause, you know, losing an eye makes a guy
wonder about losing the other one—things you never
think before, because you just sort of assumed, you know, that
your eyes would
always just be there. So
I look at things differently now, and I really
did right then.” He pauses a
moment, saying, “Thank you for
chucking everything to go feral with me, Guaril.” The
man ruffles the blonde hair with a dark hand.
“Hey, you and Skirnir taught me the joys of
skateboarding! Right when I
needed a
break from the pressures of work most of all.”
Then he smiles lopsidedly, saying, “Not that my career
had as much of a
future as I thought. I didn’t
give up
anything, Ozwald; you had the good luck to get hurt right when
I lost my job.” Tshura
smiles where she breaks up firewood. “Their
loss—they got rid of the best salesman
on the floor.” Guaril’s
brows knit. “We
all knew who really stole from the till: the boss’s daughter. She had expensive tastes, and
resented
Daddy. But you know how it
goes—when the
truth would embarrass you, blame the Gypsy.
And that’s all it took, the mere rumor of a false
accusation, to rile up
the neighborhood.” “Harsh,
man,” says Ozwald, as Magda shudders. “That’s
just so unfair.” Magda spits and
makes a banishing-horns sign. Guaril
grins anew. “But
that’s when my cousins and I appreciated our heritage the
most, Ozwald! I had a good idea
how to manage on the run,
from old family tales. Leaving
behind a
stable home didn’t faze me as much as somebody like Shon or
Cybil, who see
living in a settled home as the proper way to do things.” Shon laughs with gallows humor. I feel gratified to see how well he
can relax
around Romany these days; I thought he wouldn’t sleep a wink
the first night we
shared quarters with them. Tshura
comes over, sits snuggled into Guaril’s side, and reaches
for a potato. Paring it with her
pocket-knife,
she says, “And I thanked God that you and I didn’t have kids. Stable looks a whole lot better when
you have
a family to worry about.” “Awr,
our ancestors managed all right.” He
gives her a squeeze and she moves the
knife away just in time. “Well,
maybe if we had one of those cute little carts to live
in.” Her giggle sounds
refreshing, out
here in the middle of nowhere, among people who’ve lost
everything. Ozwald,
says, “Seriously man, without you Skirnir and I would be,
like, dead!” “Not
for long.” “And
how long would I have stayed sane on the road without my
skateboarding buddies to lighten things up?” I
smile up in my tree.
People like this make all the effort worthwhile. I
stop smiling when I see the deputies with bloodhounds on the
forest’s edge—probably not after us specifically, just
“vagabonds”. More and more people
at loose ends, during an
insanity epidemic, in an increasingly suspicious culture, can
make for some messy
confrontations...and bizarre penalties. “Pack
the potatoes,” I say quietly but audibly to all, “and bury
the fire—now.” I don’t think we
have
time to hide our campsite properly...yet we might not have to. “Throw some sausages into the
bushes, and let’s
get out of here, quick!” They
do as I say, without a grumble. I
smile as I drop out of my tree to
help. Once those hounds get a
good whiff
of meat, they won’t care where we went.
I do wish I could grumble, though—I so
looked forward to eating those myself! I
lead my buddies out of there as quietly as we can go, upslope
from the
river. Once the dogs prove
unhelpful,
the lawmen will expect us to drown our scent down in the
water, only to leave
tracks in the mud. We won’t even
have to
go too far, just find a good place of concealment and let them
pass. The more they search in the
wrong direction,
the more the poor dears will fear that we’re faster than they
thought. Cybil
murmurs to me, “I saw that rat again, when I tossed the
sausage. Same patchy fur.”) Saturday,
November 7, 2708 How
many times have I
crouched in a tree waiting for soldiers to pass?
(How
many times have I stood at attention, arm raised in answering
salute, while way
too many men marched past?) With
the
dim light of a waning moon glinting mysteriously off the edge of
leaf and bough, I feel like
something gone feral,
barely able to remember any other life. (But never before with this number—nor with
so much pain, the wound in my side tugged by my raised
arm—don’t let them
know!) Soldiers!
Every time we kill them, two more spring up
into their place (Damien would have some tale to tell about it,
I’m sure.) That last attack has
really riled up the
ant’s nest—even as we planned. (Show
no weakness for the men to attribute
to my femininity. I can barely
control
the troops as is, with them so stirred up by the
escalation—even as we
planned.) But I didn’t plan
on
having to track a wounded comrade, destroying her blood-trail as
I go, ten
steps ahead of the enemy. (Yet
somehow I had not expected to sustain a
wound so soon.) Stupid,
Deirdre! You’re an officer and
people depend on
you. You should prepare for every
contingency. (Stupid
Layne! You know
enlistment means a career of getting shot
at.) I
watch, tense fingers
digging into the bark, as they walk right on past the gap that I
recently
covered, caused by a horse crashing through the brush.
The glows of their flashlights arc back and
forth, blinding me to all else, but they swing haphazardly; they
can’t cover
everything. Still, they do have
flashlights, and I do not. I see
light
glance over one tiny drop of blood that I missed (my held breath
hurting in my
chest) but they step on past it, scratching distractedly at the
cashew-vine
rash that bubbles all over their hands and faces.
Oh ghosts, my dear ghosts, keep them
preoccupied! As soon as they’ve
moved on
far enough I slip down the trunk and duck into the foliage,
myself, rearranging
the branches behind me. Rapidly
I continue the
trail-disguising work. I kick dirt
and
plant-litter over the hoofmarks and the spatterings of blood, I
snap
half-broken twigs and pull horse-hairs down from branches, and
God help us but
there’s a lot of blood to cover up! How
much
do I miss, how much will betray us all when the sun rises? Yet
the delay burns like
cashew-vine sap—my brain itches with it.
I’ve already lost so much time!
Is Betany even alive? Do I
waste
my energy, keeping the soldiers from tracking a corpse?
But if she found refuge, even if she died, we
don’t want anyone who helps us to pay for their kindness with
wounds of their
own. (And
on to the rendezvous.
I climb into my jeep, grateful for once that my rank
puts me above
marching, and that with Ed driving I needn’t even raise my arm
to turn the
wheel. Up and down we ride, back
and
forth among the marching men. Official
policy,
supposedly good for morale, to show their general watching
over them,
and to keep them on their best behavior.
The men shoot dagger side-glances every time I pass,
though. I’m not what they had in
mind. I
tried to argue against concentrating so many of our soldiers
in
one place, but all the other generals insist that the rebels
need a show of
force to daunt them. Madness! We don’t daunt them, we anger them
into
greater and greater efforts against us.
We need to lull them, seduce them, gentle them…and then
quietly slit
their throats when we get close enough.
Less bother that way. But
no, the gorillas must thump their chests, inspiring the other
gorillas to thump their chests back, and hoot at each other
and throw rocks in
broad daylight. They will not
listen to
me. Open
road. We can pick up
speed. I can feel the wind
tangling my
hair, and today I don’t care, I like the savagery of it,
freedom from the
carefully piled-up curls and braids, the hours before the
mirror while a maid
tugs at my locks. I like the gun,
the
useless but pretty sabre, and the uniform that confronts men
with the rough
shape of my limbs. I like
breaking all
the rules! And I like knowing
that secretly
the men like it, too. Which
absolutely guarantees that they will not take me seriously. Foolish Layne!
What makes you any better than a female ape,
flaunting a fluorescent pink butt in heat?
We all have our illogic.) Whatever
possessed me to
fall asleep along the way? I dust
leaves
off of me, embarrassed at myself—again.
If Betany dies, I know it’ll be because I just had to
take these little
naps. But every time I get near
those
soldiers my head starts to spin with weariness or something. Testers once told me that I have a
dyslectic
trace of telepathy—is that all it's good for, then, to pick up
contact highs at
the worst possible moment? Thanks a
lot,
God, for all your “Gifts”! I
didn’t meant that,
God. I’m grateful for everything,
honest—don’t
smite me, please! Not now, not when
Betany depends on me. My heart
races
with the knowledge of just how easily God could smite me down
right this minute
for all of the bad things that I’ve done.
I laugh silently at myself—and here I worried about a
moment’s
ingratitude! Soldiers
ahead—a different
search party. Wait, tiptoe, dart
ahead,
circle around, silennnnt...oh Lord, they’ve paused over
something! Three flashlight beams
shine on the same spot
as one hunkers down for a closer look.
Can I kill all three and make no noise?
Ohhhh Lord, what do I do? I’m
still
boy-clad; I pull off my belt and hold it in both hands.
Maybe I won’t need to...Oh filth! That’s
a whistle he’s raising to his lips! I
lunge out of the brush, whip the belt around his neck with a
jerk and drag him
back into the foliage before they have time to make my face out
in the night. Christ! Now they shout and shoot and come
thrashing
around looking for me—pray God they destroy the trail while
they’re at it and
please God don’t let ‘em destroy me, too!
Good—somebody just tripped over the guy whose neck I
snapped. I make noise of my own as
I flee, feet
pounding like fear in the dark, to lead them far from Betany’s
track. Flashlights
veer crazily
through the woods, making weird patterns through the leaves as I
run and they
run fast behind me, skittering around trunks, leaping over
vines. When the lights go briefly
one way and I
dodge another, I take to the first bough that’ll bear me and
move quietly now among
the branches...please not up...don’t let them turn the lights
upward,
Lord...and why should God answer any prayer of mine after all my
sins? Why not their prayers,
instead? I don’t know, I’ve just
got to pray anyway,
trusting in mercy—maybe it all comes down to who remembers to
ask for help. Hushed,
I watch the lights
move further in the direction where I feinted.
Sooner or later they’ve got to figure out this
monkey-trick of
mine. When they do, though, that’ll
just
mean that they’ll have to spread their attention out still more
thinly and
they’ll miss even more. In
uttermost stealth,
cloaked in shades that a weak and cloudy moon cannot defeat, I
double back and
finish off the trail the best I can in the blindness of the
night. |
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