Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series (10 page)

I try to peek around him to see the girl, but she hides well.

Shack says, “Southshaw horses, I guess. I don’t recognize them.”

“Of course,” replies Garrett. “You think Tawtrukk horses would let themselves be harnessed to a contraption like that one?”

The two grin at each other. It’s good to see them joking around, but I can hear in their voices that it’s not the same as it used to be. Their voices sound a little… I don’t know. Stretched. Like cloth pulled so tight it’s about to tear.

Garret gets serious for a moment. He looks from Shack to me. “Micktuk?”

“He’s good,” says Shack. “We’ll tell you on the way back to his place. He’s staying behind for something. Don’t know what.”

“Okay.”

“She should ride,” says Shack.

Garrett nods, and I’m about to protest that I’d rather walk when Garrett quickly steps aside. The girl, startled again, jumps back and squeaks.

I recognize her. Smart and quiet. She’s—

“Ginger,” says Garrett. “Her mom and dad have that little place up the road, right on the river.”

“I know.” She’s thirteen but looks my age, maybe older. Frizzed out black hair, pale blue eyes and bronze skin. Her parents are quiet but friendly. When I was little, my mom made me play with her because my parents liked to spend time with her parents. But we weren’t alike.

“Hi, Lupay,” she whispers.

She had dolls. Lots of dolls. Her mother made them for all the children. Best dolls in all Tawtrukk, even better than that seamstress in Upper. Ginger played with dolls every minute we spent together. I was six and she was three, and I wanted to go run and climb trees. She wanted to sing to her dolls. So she took her dolls outside and sang to them under the branches. But I always thought she might be singing to me in her beautiful, little voice. I liked to think so.

“Hi.”

I want to ask her about her parents. But she’s trembling in that thin dress, all stained and torn at the shoulder. It looks like Garrett tied part of the hem back together. The twins did a good job. Shack would have scared her more, probably. They thought it through.

“Let’s go, okay?” I put out my hand to her. “You know how to ride?”

She shrugs and nods a little, then comes to me and takes my hand. It’s soft and warm in mine, small and slender and fragile. She asks in her small voice, “Is it okay if we just walk for a bit?”

“Yeah,” I say, and I hand the horse’s lead to Garrett. “It’s a long way, though. So if you get tired, just say so. Okay?”

She nods, and we set off across the meadow toward the trees, Shack in front with one horse followed by Garrett with the other, then the two of us. I squeeze her hand as we walk, and her warmth fills me up.

Three kids against an army? Maybe it’s stupid even to think of it. But I know what those two Southshaw devils had planned for Ginger. She didn’t understand, but I do. And I can’t let that happen  anymore.

We reach the trees, walk in silence along the edge of the woods, start climbing into the hills above Lower. Shack smartly leads us away from where we can see the square and the houses that Darius has turned into prisons.

When we’re well up into the hills, Ginger says, “Lupay?”

“Are you tired? Do you want to ride now?” I get ready to call out to Garrett.

“No. I like walking with you.”

“Oh. I like walking with you, too.” I surprise myself. Because it’s true.

CHAPTER 10

In the afternoon sun three days after our assault on Pep and his wagon, Shack’s body almost glows as he stands at the top of our secret waterfall.

“Tell me again,” he calls from the top of the cliff, “when your friend Dang’s going to get here?”

Without waiting for an answer, he leaps out with a whoop, away from the granite waterfall, plummeting thirty feet to splash into the sapphire pool below. I didn’t need to answer him anyway. He just likes calling Dane the wrong name.

A moment later, Shack erupts through the surface with a sputter and flails his way through the water to the river’s edge like he’s trying to kick up a rainstorm. The shower of cold drops feels good on my skin. I’ve been basking like a lizard here on the rock in the sun long enough to fry. The water sizzles and evaporates almost as fast as it hits me.

Shack runs his hands through his ragged, brown hair, smoothing it back. Water runs down his arms and chest, and his shorts cling to his thighs. He saunters to my side and stands above me, positioning his shadow across my body so the blinding sun is directly above his head. He leans over me and squeezes the water from his hair on my bare stomach. It’s cold. It’s delicious. But I won’t give him the satisfaction. I say nothing. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep.

“Lupay. Looo-paaay.” He sings it at me, taunts me with my own name. I won’t give in.

He squeezes a few more drops from his hair, but I stay silent.

From a little behind me, Garrett’s voice emerges from the woods. “Shack, will you give it a rest.”

“But really. When is he coming? And how big is his… um, army?”

Oh, Shack, you are such a… I don’t even know.

I sit up slowly, open my eyes with care so I’m looking at some place other than where Shack is. “Dane. His name is Dane. And I don’t know how big his army is.”
Or even if he has an army.
From what I saw, he had mostly old men and silly women there. But Freda seemed convinced they could get something together.

Shack snorts. “Well, it better be big.”

“Oh Shack,” I sing back at him. “Why? Do you need help? I didn’t know you need help. I thought you could take care of everything. All by yourself.”

“Ha, ha. Yeah, normally I could. But I don’t want to. That would be too easy.”

“Oh give me a break,” his brother says as he emerges from the shadows. I don’t understand why Garrett never swims. He just hangs back under the trees and watches, or whittles little figures. Today he’s reading one of Micktuk’s books.

“But seriously, Lupay,” Garrett continues, “are you sure he’s going to get here before Darius attacks Upper?”

No
, I think. But I have to believe.

I say, “Look, that letter Darius sent to Southshaw—”

“The one Garrett found in the dead guy’s pocket,” Shack says.

“Yes, that letter. It said very clearly—”

“That Darius planned on settling in a month before going on to Upper. We know.”

“If you already know everything, why are you asking?” These boys drive me crazy.

“Laying in supplies,” Garrett says.

“Planning the best attack,” Shack continues.

“Which gives us time to wait for Dang’s army,” Garrett says.

“Dane,” Shack corrects.

“Dane,” confirms Garrett.

“Need to get that right,” Shack says. “I hear he’s got a very big… army.”

“Huge.”

“Enormous.”

“It will be very satisfactory.”

“Get the job done.”

I can’t stand it. “Will you both shut up!” I stand up, feeling the cool rush of air on my baking skin. I don’t need to look at them to know they’re grinning like they have no brains. “You’re both like little children.”

“Oh, come on, Loop,” says Shack as he flops down onto the warm granite and lies on his back to look up at the empty, blue sky. “We’re just trying to have a little fun. I mean, there’s a lot of terrible stuff going on right now. But it’s a beautiful day, and we can’t do anything about it right now, so let’s just relax, okay?”

It’s the first sensible thing he’s said all day. But I can’t relax. Not really. Even though we have time. Even though Micktuk has found Sikwaa families to take in the Lodgeholm refugees. Even though we have this beautiful, summer day and a perfect swimming hole.

“Lupay! Lupay!” The voice of a girl echoes around our little haven. A moment later, Ginger runs through the trees and out onto the stone. She stops and stares at Shack, stunned for a moment to see him in just his shorts.

She’s breathless, and her normally pale face almost glows red. She pants and gasps, but between breaths she manages to squeak out the words. “Wagon… coming… up from… Lower… looks… filled… with…”

The last word gets lost in a whoop by Shack, who leaps to his feet and scrambles around trying to remember that he left his clothes at the top of the cliff. “Yes! Loop, this is it. Let’s go!”

Garrett puts his hand on Ginger’s shoulder. “Have you told Micktuk yet?”

She shakes her head, still gasping for air. “Came straight here. Trey said to run and get Lupay. You want me to run and get Micktuk?”

Garrett turns and looks at me. His grimace says he thinks we should get Micktuk, maybe do nothing about this at all. But it’s been four days since Darius took over Lower. And all we’ve done is watch while his army has built and supplied an outpost halfway up the road to Upper. In Dunn’s Meadow, right on the river before it crosses under the road and runs along down here to our swimming hole. In two days they had a barracks. In another they had a barn.

Watch and wait, wait and watch.

Ginger stands between us, watching us and waiting for an answer.

I’ve been over this a thousand times in my head since I finished reading about Robin Hood to the twins and the Lodgeholm children. Shack wants to be Little John. He can’t wait to go fight someone. But Micktuk isn’t Robin Hood, and I kind of like being hidden and secret. If we attack, Darius will know we’re out here, somewhere. And he will come looking.

And if he comes looking, he’ll find us. And Micktuk. and the few Sikwaa families, and the Lodgeholm refugees. And then who’ll be left to fight him?

I look at Ginger. Her frizzy, black hair is wild and flecked with leaves, and her freckled cheeks look plump with little-girl chubbiness. Her bright blue eyes are wide and unblinking. I can’t tell whether she’s scared or excited.

I just don’t know.

“Loop,” Garrett says. “Maybe we should go get him. Just to see what he thinks.”

Ginger looks at Garrett while he talks, but then she snaps her attention back to me. “You want me to?”

Poor thing looks like she’ll collapse if she has to run another fifty feet. If anyone goes, it should be me. Or Shack, to keep him out of trouble.

While I’ve been thinking, he’s rushed to the top of the cliff, dressed, and is already running back down to us. If I don’t say something soon, he’ll be off to do his own thing anyway.

“Loop, think about it. We’re not ready for something like that.” Garrett speaks softly. “You know what Micktuk would say.”

“No,” I respond, “I don’t know what Micktuk would say. I didn’t know he would have a thousand books in his house. I didn’t know he could come and go like a ghost. I didn’t know he would lead us to attack Darius that first night. No,” I conclude, “I don’t know what Micktuk would say.”

“Then we need to go ask him. Don’t we?”

Ginger stares at me like one of the dolls her mother used to make, with unblinking, impossibly blue eyes.

“No,” I say. And I feel like I’ve just woken up from an afternoon nap. Things are slowly becoming clear. “We don’t. Why would we?”

“Loop, he—look, he knows what’s right.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I say. “No one knows what’s right. There is nothing right. Everything’s wrong!”

“Lupay—”

“No. Listen, we’ve sat here long enough. We need to do something. I need to do something.”

Garrett argues, “They haven’t killed anyone since they took over. You were wrong about that.”

We’ve been watching Darius. Ginger is very clever at sneaking around and finding out things.

I argue right back. “They haven’t killed anyone, that’s right. But everyone’s a prisoner. They’re making them work like slaves, Garrett. My mother is cooking for that army, making clothes for them. My father is fixing their tools, making nails for them, hammering arrowheads, for god’s sake. You think those are for hunting?”

My blood has started getting hot like my skin. I look at Ginger, and she looks a little scared.

“Loop—”

“Maybe they haven’t killed anyone in a few days. But maybe today’s the day they start. Or tomorrow.”

“That’s not what the letter said—”

I march across the naked granite to get my pants and pull them on over my shorts, slip my feet into my boots. I unroll my shirt, which I’d tucked up into itself, and I pick up my backpack. Garrett opens his mouth to say something else but stops and frowns.

Ginger asks, “So I shouldn’t go get Micktuk?”

“No,” I reply. “You’re coming with us.”

“But Loop,” Garrett pleads, and I can hear in his voice he knows he’s already lost, “what’s the plan?”

“The plan?” I stand up in front of him and look up into his face. I know he’ll do what I ask him to. He always has, whether he agrees with it or not. “The plan is to go look. Okay? The plan is to go look.”

“And then report back to Micktuk?”

“Forget Micktuk. We’ll do what we need to once we see what’s there, okay?” I sling the backpack over my shoulder and start up the path into the trees, up and away from the river.

“Ginger, come on!”

She runs to catch up to me. I walk fast, and she has to jog every now and then to keep my pace.

“Tell me where. Tell me about the wagon.”

Shack and Garrett are suddenly right behind us.

“Well, Trey and I were on the ridge in the woods right above that first corner in the road out of Lower,” Ginger says. “He saw the wagon come around the corner. I never did see it, but he said it was big, with a lot of stuff in the back.”

“What about people? How many men were riding in it?”

“Just the driver, I think,” she says.

Garrett says, “That doesn’t sound right. Wagon full of supplies, no one guarding it?”

“Oh,” Ginger says, “there were lots guarding it. But they were walking. A couple on horses, I think, or that’s what it sounded like Trey said. I don’t really know.”

“By lots,” Shack says, and I can hear an eager edge to his words, “what do you mean? Exactly?”

“I dunno. Lots.”

“More than ten?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“More than six?”

“I don’t know.”

We ask her a dozen more questions, all with the same answer, as we charge through the forest. We’ve got time to get to a good spot, if they’re walking.

“Loop,” says Garrett, “if you really want to do this, you’ll have to do it before they get to the Sikwaa turnoff.”

“What? Why?”

“Think about it. See, this is why I think we should get Micktuk. It all feels just too… un-thought-out.”

“Like that ambush of the wagon that Ginger was in was so well planned,” I say. “But why not after the Sikwaa turnoff? There’s a way better ambush spot a half mile farther up.”

“I know the place,” Shack offers. “It’s the best ambush spot anywhere on the road.”

Garrett says, “Yeah, but if we wait until then, two things happen. First, they’ll be closer to their destination, which means we have less time before they don’t show up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, probably someone at that ugly fort in Dunn’s Meadow is expecting them, right? So if we ambush them early, it could be hours before they’re missed. The longer we wait, the sooner they’ll be missed.”

“Okay,” I say. “Good point. But if we’re quick we can be in and out in no time. We’ll be long gone by the time anyone comes looking.”

“Unless they send someone out to meet the wagon.”

Oh. Right.

“Plus, let’s say we pull it off. The first thing they’ll do is try to figure out how. They’ll figure we were watching the road, right? So they’ll come looking for our lookout points. Lupay, they’re bound to find the Sikwaa turnoff.”

Shack says, “That’s pretty well hidden. Even if you know where it is, it’s hard to find sometimes.”

“But why give them any excuse to go looking where it is? Make them go looking where it isn’t.”

Garrett says this just as we reach the split in the path. Without pausing, I turn right and head to the earlier point on the road. Garrett is right. If we’re going to do this, it has to be early on.

I pick up the pace and break into a trot. The others follow. Poor Ginger. But it’s only for a few minutes. After a half mile, we reach the gully that will take us down to the road and the spot where I want to hit them. I veer off the ridge trail into the dry streambed, leaping from rock to rock as I descend through the trees.