Mungus: Book 1 (21 page)

             
Saul hugged me and said goodbye to me at the house.  He didn’t want to leave Burl alone for too long and I had to get moving.

             
The old gray horse in the pasture’s name was Rusty, or at least that’s the name that was carved into his saddle.  His name seemed to be derived from his slow movements.  The animal had a calm nature and let me get onto his saddle with ease.

             
I walked him out of the pin, locked the other animals in, and then, without any instruction, he began to walk me into the woods in the direction that I hoped town was.  The horse trotted along through the forest, in between trees, making decisive turns onto trails in the woods.  I rode for over an hour in dense vegitation.  I began to get scared that the horse was old and didn’t remember where it was supposed to go or that Burl had just been delirious and thought that the horse could get me to town when it couldn’t.  If that was the case, and the horse had taken me so far out into the woods, I would probably never see Burl’s or my brother again.

             
Then, the horse stepped out of the forest and onto a wide trail that I recognized from my trip with the chain gang and my walk to town with Saul.  I didn’t know where I was exactly, but I knew that I was close.  My heart began to pound and a whole new concern came to me.  At that time it became a reality to me that I was actually going to enter the town.  I concentrated on my breathing and that made me feel better.

             
Up around a bend I heard laughter and then I saw three Salyer men come into view.  All of them were on horses and trotting along.  They formed a triangle as they walked and in between all of them was a group of Grecos.  They probably just came from the ship.  I grew nervous that I would be found out, but the Salyer guards just nodded hello at me and I nodded back at them.

             
I looked over the Grecos walking in the group.  They weren’t chained up, but the Salyer’s all had whips and one of them had a gun.  Their slaves weren’t going anywhere.  I recognized about half the faces and saw that among the crowd was Miss Mary.  She looked up from the crowd and into my eyes.  I detected no recognition in her glance and moved on.

             
Soon, the town came up around me.  Rusty continued to trot and all of the moisture left my mouth dry and went straight to my palms.  I wiped my hands off on my pants as I went deeper into town and continued to act as natural as possible.  Rusty stopped walking on his own and I had to lead him.  I didn’t know where the pharmacy was, so we walked blindly through the streets.

             
Bald women were outside digging on their gardens.  I saw a child painting a picket fence white.  Men sat outside playing cards and smoking on the lawns.  The town was lively with people all too busy to recognize that a wanted person with a bounty on his head was trotting on a horse before them.

             
I passed by the Theatre, seeing that the Wanted!!! posters for Saul and I were scattered among the side of the great structure.  The pharmacy wasn’t far passed that.  It was a wooden building with a big painted sign above indicating that medicines were sold there.  I tied Rusty to a railing outside and went in.

             
The building was full of all different scents mixed together to smell like a hospital.  An old man was sitting behind the counter with his feet up reading a newspaper.  I walked all the way up to the counter and he just continued to read and didn’t acknowledge me.  “Hello,” I said.

             
The man didn’t remove the newspaper from his face, but began to rant.  “Have you heard about this?  Can you believe this?”  he slammed the newspaper down on the counter making me jump.  He was an old man and his crinkled Salyer head was festered with brown sun spots.  “The rest of the Grecos have sent down a letter saying that they don’t want anything to do with Ramus!  Can you believe that?  The nerve!  You know, we built this whole country for them and if they don’t want to be a part of it, then they can go die out in the woods!”

             
I nodded.

             
His face was mean and mad.  He looked me over and then smiled.  “How can I help you?” he asked.

             
“My dad’s sick.  He says that it’s Mungus fever and that I should come here and talk to you.”

             
The man put up a long slender finger to me and then disappeared into the back room.  ‘What if he alerts the authorities?’ I thought.  I ran a hand over my head.  For the most part it was entirely smooth, but a few places had prickly patches.

             
When the man came back he had a corked vile of pink liquid.  He held it out before me and said, “Have you pap drink half of this vile tonight, half in the morning.  He’ll feel better then.”

             
I reached for the vile and the man pulled it out of my reach.  “It’s going to cost you, though.  This stuff is expensive.  Did your pap give you the money for it?”

             
The money!  My mind reeled.  I had none.  I didn’t even know what Ramus currency looked like.  Burl must have forgotten about that in his sick state.  The man saw the look on my face and said, “You can always come back tomorrow and buy it.  Although, grown people with Mungus fever don’t usually last long.”

             
“I can’t take the medicine today and return with the money tomorrow?”

             
The man shook his head.  A thin smile spread across his lips.  “Although,” he rubbed his hands together.  “If you had something of equal value I could be persuaded.  You have a necklace tucked into your shirt.  Let me see it.”

             
I took out my necklace so that my turtle was dangling before my chest.

             
The man bent nearly all the way over the counter examining it.  “What a work of art!  What a piece of craftsmanship!  You know, I could take that for the medicine, my nephew would love it.”

             
“I can’t,” I said.  “My dad made this and it isn’t for sale.”

             
“I guess the question is,” the man said, “whether you would rather have something that your father made or your father himself.”

             
Saul’s baseball was gone and my turtle was the last thing that we owned that my parents had made.  I remembered those times when my mother used to pull me close to her at night and give me ‘turtle bites’ on my nose.  Tears came to my eyes and I wiped them away.  Burl wasn’t going to die because I was emotional.  I took the thing off of my neck and handed it over.  The man snatched it up like a pack rat and looked it over.

             
I took the vile of medicine and went out to get onto my horse.  I was on the verge of tears, but I wouldn’t let them lose until I was out of town.  I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than there needed to be.  I tucked the vile away in my pocket and rode.  I was lost in thought, thinking about memories with my parents as I passed through the streets.  I was thinking so hard that I didn’t notice him until he was only a few feet away from me, staring into my face.

             
Hank stood outside the Theatre.  He was wearing a new uniform now and holding a gun in his hands.  He looked up at me and smiled, almost laughed.  I half expected him to turn the gun on me and shoot me off of the horse.  The bounty on my head was a sizable amount, from what I had been told, and I didn’t think that he was above it.  But he just nodded and I trotted on.  My heart was pounding and I felt sick.  Rusty walked me back to Burl’s and I couldn’t stop wondering if Hank hadn’t known it was me or if he had spared his life.  Whatever the case, I felt lucky.

             
By the time that Rusty trotted back onto Burl’s land the sun had gone down.  I locked the horse away in the pin and then jogged over to Burl’s house.  I had been gone for hours and all sorts of scenarios ran through my mind.  What if Burl had stopped breathing?  What if in a fit of rage he had killed Saul?  What if Saul caught Mungus fever too?

             
I turned the doorknob and entered the front of the house.  The kitchen and living room area were vacant so I went into Burl’s bedroom.  Burl was naked and lying with his head where his feet normally do on his bed.  He was on his stomach and his back was hairy in the light of a burning candle on his nightstand.

             
“Walt!” Saul said.  He got up and hugged me.

             
“Way-ult-t-t-t!” said Burl.  He looked drunk, belligerent.

             
“How has he been?” I asked

             
“Not good,” said Saul.  “He’s acting so strange.”

             
“Get me some beer,” said Burl.  He was pointing fingers and cursing.

             
There was a cup half full of water on the night stand.  I went over, chugged it dry and poured half of the vile of medicine into the glass.  “We’re supposed to give him half of this tonight and half of it in the morning.”

             
“And you think that he will get better?” Saul asked.

             
“He’s supposed to.”

             
“Give me some beer,” Burl cried.  He threw his fist into the wall shaking the entire room.

             
“Here’s some beer,” I said, handing him the glass.  “Drink this.”

             
I was scared that he would throw it up against the wall or onto the floor.  Then we would really be in trouble.  He didn’t though, he just smelled inside and then chugged the cup.  He screamed for more and in a few minutes he was asleep.

             
Saul and I were sitting in wooden chairs watching Burl rest.  He was sweating in his sleep and often twitching and mumbling or whispering unconnected words.  We were quiet for a while.

             
“Hey, Walt?”

             
“Yeah?”

             
“I’m going to go back to try to get some of the people at the farm.”
              “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to sneak up to Glen’s and bust a few people out.”

“Why?  They’ll kill you!”

             
“Please, listen.  I’m going to sneak in at night and go in the same way we came out.  All of the guards are usually sleeping at night and not keeping guard, you said yourself.  So if I can get over the fence then I can let some people out of their cabins and help them escape.”

             
“Where would you take them?”

             
“Burl and I talked about this when you were gone.  For a long time his fever broke and he wasn’t acting so drunk.”  Burl snored and twisted.  “He said that I could bring them here.”

             
I shook my head.  “Why would you want to risk everything like that?”

             
“Why not?  I’d be risking my life to save a lot of others.  You can come if you want, Walt.  But I’m going.”

             
I didn’t want to go.  I wanted to stay on Burl’s land and grow old there, away from danger, away from the Theatre.  Saul’s words were so unlike him.  They were so calm and intelligent.  I was being the dumb one this time.  He was right, we should go back, and he had thought of the idea first.  He was going to go with or without me and I had made a promise to keep him alive.

             
“I’ll go,” I said.  “When are you leaving?”

             
“After we give Burl his medicine tomorrow.”

             
We didn’t talk much after that.  We were tired but we didn’t want to go to bed for fear that Burl would have an episode while we were gone.  As time went on our heads drooped down, and the candle went out in a pool of wax.  We got down off of our chairs and slept on the hardwood floor that night.  I began to think of the journey ahead.  Just when I got back from the town, where I was a wanted man sentenced to the death penalty, I was going to leave again to break people out of the farm that Saul and I had been runaway slaves.  It had been a busy month for both Saul and I.

15

The Underground Railroad

              Saul yawned and sat up looking around Burl’s bedroom.  Morning light fell through the window.  He had been sleeping with his cheek pressed against the wooden floor all night and red swirls and ovals were imprinted onto his face.

             
I sat up from where I slept and stretched my back out.  My joints were stiff from sleeping on the hard floor all night.  “Where’s Burl?” Saul said.

             
I got to my knees and looked over his bed.  A mess of sheets, blankets, and pillows were scattered above the mattress but there was no one there.  “Burl?” I called out.  I got to my feet grabbing the vile of purple medicine from the nightstand and I entered the kitchen.

             
“Good morning,” Burl said.  He stood in the kitchen completely naked except for his underwear.  Bacon was sizzling on a frying pan, eggs were cooking in a skillet, and Burl was packing our satchel full of loafs of bread and canned fruits from his garden.