Mungus: Book 1 (8 page)

             
He shook his head.  “I want some of theirs,” he said pointing at the eggs.

             
Di and Hank laughed and ate. They were too far away to hear what Saul was saying.

             
“I’m sorry, Saul.  If they were my eggs, I would give them to you,” I said.

             
“I know,” he said.  “Walt, are we going to be okay?”  He looked at me in the eyes.  His eyebrows raised and worried on his big forehead.

             
I looked at him for a moment.  “Yes, Saul.  We will be okay.”

             
“Promise?”

             
“Promise.”

             
When dinner was over I was still hungry.  Hank and Di wasted their extra food in the grass, after they had stuffed themselves, and we walked on.  The bit of bread that I had had for dinner seemed to only make me hungrier, and despite the three tins of water that I had, my mouth was still dry.  The sun was replaced with the moon and soon my eyes adjusted. Di’s black horse walked ahead into the night.

             
It felt like midnight whenever I heard the dogs.  We seemed to be walking straight towards the noise.  Chains were rattling, and we heard snarls and angry barks.  In the distance I could see the flickering of lights and as we got closer I could see the outline of a huge fence.

             
“Welcome to the farm, ladies and gentlemen,” Hank said from behind us.  I could hear the wood of the trailer creaking as it rolled along behind Hank’s horse.

             
The dogs continued to bark and as we got closer I began to make out the shape of a giant fence that bordered the farm.  The fence was all chain link and seemed to rise up fifteen feet in the air.  On the top of the metal border ran a swirl of barbed wire.  The gate was also chain link with metal hinges on both sides. In the middle of the gate, the opening was secured shut with a padlock.  On the inside stood a tall, bald Salyer man in blue jeans. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his bare torso seemed red in the light of the fire.  I assumed that he was another guard.  On either side of him stood wooden torches that illuminated the metal gate. 

             
The dogs barked and ran up to the chain link fences; they showed white, sharp teeth, and froth dripped off their chins in thick drops.  Their angry barks hurt my ears.  As I looked around, I saw that the farm was surrounded by a series of parallel fences that served as a kind of moat.  Instead of water, there was grass; instead of alligators, there were the dogs.  There were fences that ran perpendicular with the main fences, dividing the fenced areas into sections.  Each fenced off section had three 160 pound dogs inside.  They barked and snarled and jumped at the fence.

             
We came up to the metal gate and the Salyer guard got out his keys and wordlessly opened the gate for us to walk through.

             
“Thanks, Sid,” Di said.  Sid just nodded and we entered through the gate and into the farm.

             
We followed Di and his horse along a dirt road.  With the swinging light of the lantern that hung from a stand on Di’s horse, I saw that on either side of the road tall, green stalks of plants covered the ground.  We walked on under the moon.  To the right, somewhere off in the distance, I saw dim lights from the windows of a great, stone house.  We didn’t go to that house, as I had guessed, but came to a cross roads after walking half a mile into the farm and turned left.  We followed Di and his horse for another ten minutes until we arrived at our stopping point.

We came to a place in between two rows of 50 small buildings.  Each struct
ure had no windows on the front. A lock was on the outside of each wooden door.  Each building stood roughly seven feet tall and had a slanting roof of corrugated metal. Hank undid our handcuffs and I rubbed my sore wrists.  We walked along the cabins until we came to the first open one.  Above the door was a number that said 81.

             
Di rounded up Marcy, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson, and Verne.  “Four to a cabin.  This is where you will be living from here on out.  In you go.”  Hank tossed their luggage into the cabin.

             
The four of them entered and Di locked the door behind them.  Di then led Saul and me over to cabin number 82.  “This is where you two will live.  Don’t get too cozy with just the two of you.  Whenever more people come to the farm this is going to be filled up.”

             
Saul entered before me, ducking his head as he went, then I came in behind him.  Hank threw our suitcase in and then Di shut the wooden door and locked it.  There was a little barred window in the back that let in some moonlight.  I pushed on the door to make sure that it was locked and found that it wouldn’t budge.

             
I found cots stacked up against the wall.  They had metal, rusted frames with tough fabric in the middle.  I unfolded the cots and Saul and I laid down on them.

             
“I’m thirsty, Walt,” he said.

             
“I am too.”

             
“Is there anything to drink?”

             
“No, I’m sorry.”

             
Saul let out a sigh.  “What do you think we’ll be doing tomorrow Walt?”

             
“I don’t know.  I have no idea.”

             
I rested in silence looking at the moon through the little window.  After some time, Saul asked, “Walt, are we going to die here?”

             
“No, Saul.  Of course not.”

             
“Promise?” he asked.

             
Then, for the second time that day, I made a promise to my brother that I wasn’t able to keep.

6

The Farm

              I awoke to the distant sound of pots banging and voices yelling.  Saul was still snoring beside me and a soft light leaked in from the window in the back of our cabin.  It was early morning and my body begged me not to get up.  I wished that they would let us have a day off after our journey, or just the morning, and let us sleep so that our bodies could rest.

             
Of course, my wish didn’t come true.  Our cabin door was flung open and a short, Salyer guard with a high pitched voice and little hands came into our cabin, banging pots and pans together.  “Get up!  Get up!  Get up!”  He banged on the pots near our ears until we stood up and were out of bed.  Then he left.

             
Saul stood up tall, cracking his back and yawning.  His eyes were red and his tired head looked like it was thinking even less than usual. 

“How did you sleep?” I asked.

              “I had a dream that I played for the Yankees.”

             
“So, good?”

             
Saul smiled and nodded.  We walked out of our cabin and saw that outside of all the other occupied cabins, including the Nelson’s, the workers were seated on the dirt in front of the door.  They seemed to be waiting for something and since we didn’t know what was going on, we followed their lead and sat down on the ground in front of our new residence.  The sun was beginning to peak out over the horizon.  The two rows of cabins stretched across the dirt road and at the end, surrounding the cabins, stood stalk after stalk of green, leafy plant.  In front of each cabin sat four workers.  Men, women, and small children with sleepy eyes talked slowly in the cool morning.  I only counted 10 Grecos as I looked over the cabins.  The rest of the workers were all Beardsleys with short bodies and limbs, thick shoulders, wiry black hair, ruddy faces, and fat noses.  A Salyer guard that I was unfamiliar with was pushing a wheelbarrow down in between the rows of cabins.  Attached to the wheelbarrow, underneath the handles, was a metal structure that held hundreds of stacked bowls; inside of the wheelbarrow was a gray, goopy liquid.  The guard walked down in between the cabins, dipped the bowls down into the wheelbarrow gunk, and handed them to the waiting servants.

             
As I waited, I noticed that in front of the cabin beside Saul and I sat two Beardsley men.  They each had thick shoulders and I saw that one of them was young with all black hair and the other one had gone completely gray and white.  Also in front of their cabin were two faces that I recognized from the Greco ship-Nathan and Heather Harmon.  Nathan was Miss Mary’s son.  He and his wife, Heather, would often come down and eat lunch with Miss Mary and the children at the orphanage.  They had had a baby just before they left the Greco ship and it was all Miss Mary talked about for weeks.  I didn’t see the baby anywhere and I guessed that it was still sleeping inside of the cabin.

             
The breakfast wheelbarrow made its way down to us on squeaky, rubber wheels.  When it got to us, the Salyer pushing it said, “enjoy,” and sloshed two ladles of the gray food into bowls for us.

             
“What is it?” I asked.

             
“Grits,” the Salyer smiled with yellow teeth.

             
Saul and I sat back down in front of our cabin and examined our breakfast.  Flies buzzed around my food and I swatted them away.  The stuff didn’t look edible, but it smelled good enough.  We didn’t have utensils so we looked around at the other people and saw that they were drinking their breakfast right from the bowl.  After seeing that we didn’t have another option, Saul and I tipped up our bowls and began to eat our grits.  They didn’t taste as bad as they looked.  They were bland, but I was hungry and ate every last drop.

             
Heather Harmon sat just a few feet away from me, staring blankly into the sun.  She looked even skinnier than before she had gotten pregnant and wrinkles and cracks in her skin made it seem as though she had aged 5 years since the last time I saw her.

             
“That’s bad for your eyes, you know?” I said to her.

             
“I know.”  She didn’t move her gaze and continued to bask her corneas in the light of the sun.

             
“So what do we do now?  What’s after breakfast?”  I smiled and tried to sound as friendly as possible.

             
She remained monotone as she stared into the sun with her arms wrapped around her knees.  “We pick cotton.”

             
“For how long?” I asked.

             
She looked at me and let out a little laugh. “Forever.”

             
She continued to stare at me.  Her eyes looked dull.  I imagined that after gazing into the sun that long that my face had to be covered by black dots in her field of vision.  Her look was unnerving, so to cheer her up I asked, “How’s the baby?”

             
She looked back into the sunlight and as I waited for an answer I saw that tears began to run down her cheek.  ‘What could have happened,’ I thought.  It must have been something terrible.  I felt awful, like I wanted to shrink to a size so small that I wouldn’t be noticed and walk away.

One of the Salyer guards began ringing a big bell that made a sharp pitch over the land.  Every servant got up from where they were sitting with their bowls in their hands and went over and dropped them back into the wheelbarrow
and then they separated into groups.  Di was standing over by the first cabin, loading some dip into his mouth.  “Where do we go?” I asked him.

             
“Little Salyer, go find Hank.  Big guy, you’re with me.”

             
Di led Saul over to a group of gathered Beardsley workers.  Saul turned and waved at me; I waved back, then I scurried off to find Hank.  Hank was standing in front of a big group of workers as well.  There were a little over twenty in the group, including Verne and the black haired Beardsley in the cabin beside me.  All of the workers were holding long, empty sacks.  I saw that a whip was curled near Hank’s waist.  “What do you want, Little Salyer?” Hank asked me.

             
“Di told me to come over here.  He said that I was in your group.”

             
“Fair enough.  Let’s get moving.”

             
Hank shoved a sack into my hands and walked off along a dirt road.  I followed along with the other workers.  Twenty groups of workers split up onto the farm to go to different places to work.  Our group walked over a mile under the blue sky.  Stalks of cotton rose up above my head as far as my eyes could see.

             
As we walked, the young Beardsley who was in the cabin beside me came up and introduced himself.  “My name is Bradley,” he put out a thick hand and I shook it.

             
“Nice to meet you Bradley; my name is Walt.”

             
Bradley smiled and showed his scattered teeth.  His arms were covered with wiry curls of hair that ran down to his hands.  Thick, black curly hair came off from his head and face and onto his shirt.  His long beard twisted and turned below his mouth and his bundle of hair on his head was tied back in a ponytail.  His shoulders were thicker than Saul’s, even though he was only a little taller than me.

             
“You kind of messed up back there,” he said.

             
“What do you mean?”

             
“Asking Heather about her baby, that was a bad idea.  As a rule of thumb, you need to understand that babies don’t live long out here.  Neither do old people.”

             
I couldn’t help but slip a glance over to Verne.  He looked timelessly old and his skin hung like a coat on his emaciated frame as he followed Hank along the dirt road.

             
“Her baby died?” I asked.

             
“Yes.”

             
“I’m so sorry.  I didn’t know.”

             
Bradley shook his head.  “Don’t worry about it. Just next time, try to understand that.”

             
Black birds circled high overhead and the temperature was already starting to rise.  “What is this sack for?” I asked, holding up the one that Hank had given me.

             
“It’s to pick cotton with.”

             
“I don’t really know how to pick cotton.”

             
“There’s not much to know, but I’ll show you.”

             
Whenever we finally stopped walking we were so far away from any other group that we couldn’t hear anyone else’s voice.  Our group split up as if they had assigned rows and began to bend over and finger out little white bolls that they then dropped into their sacks.  I followed Bradley and he demonstrated on a tall leafy cotton plant.  “It’s simple,” he said.  “You just pick the cotton.”  Bradley picked off a little ball and dropped it into his sack.  “And drop it in.”

             
“That seems easy enough,” I said.

             
Bradley laughed.  “Easy things done all day tend to get hard.”

             
Bradley and I picked different sides of the same row.  He seemed warm and nice and I liked him.  The first boll I grabbed too aggressively and pricked my fingers.  “Ouch!”

             
“Be careful.”

             
Going down the rest of the stalk, I carefully tried to only grab the edge of the cotton and pull it off.  This seemed to work and my fingers didn’t get pricked again, but Bradley was already moving faster than me.  I moved to the second stalk when a sharp pain snapped down upon my back and radiated throughout my body making me collapse.  I cried out and it wasn’t until seconds later that I realized that Hank had whipped me.

             
“What was that for?” Bradley asked.  He opened his thick arms wide in question.

             
“He’s not going fast enough,” Hank said.  He was smiling.  “Pick it up, little guy, or you’re going to get it again.”

             
I gritted my teeth, stood up, and began to pick faster.  My fingers hurt and began to trickle out drops of blood after some time, but I kept going.  A dull ache sat in my back and my neck was burning under the hot sun.  My mind seemed to go numb as I picked.  I kept a steady breathing pace, bent down, and pulled the cotton balls as fast as I could.  Sweat ran down my face and despite my effort, I was going much slower than Bradley.  It was going to be a long seven years if they kept the contract.  If they didn’t, it was going to be a long, hard life.  I imagined myself old and cracked with fingers calloused over like leather.  I imagined Saul in his later years still picking cotton.  I didn’t want that for either of us.

My mouth was dry and I was delirious when Hank called us in for lunch.  We gathered as a group around Hank and he counted the sweaty red faces before we could go in.  “Twenty-two,” he said to himself.  “Who are we missing?”

The workers were panting in the hot sun.  I looked around at them and knew almost immediately.  “You’re missing Verne.”

“Who?”

“The old man.”

Hank found Verne laying face down in between two rows of cotton.  He told us that he could take care of him and our group left Hank and Verne and returned to the cabins for
lunchtime.  When Bradley and I made it back to the cabins we waited behind a long line of servants to be dished out jugs of water and sandwiches by the same yellow-toothed Salyer who had served breakfast.

“Do you think that he’s going to be okay?” I asked Bradley.

“As I have said, the very old and the very young don’t last long out here.”

I reflected on what Bradley said and waited for the line to shorten enough for us to be handed our food.  I was given a sandwich and an old glass jar that was full of murky water.  Bradley and I walked over to our cabins and we saw that Saul was already seated.  I was glum, my hands hurt, and the skin on the back of my neck was pealing.  Saul, on the contrary, looked ecstatic.  A big smile spread over his face as he said through a mouthful of sandwich, “
Hiya, Walt!”

“Hey, Saul.  How’s picking?”

Saul swallowed.  “Wonderful.  Just wonderful.  It sure is hot out here, but I liked the work.  I’m good at picking cotton, Walt.  How was your day?”

I laughed.  “I don’t think that it was as good as yours.”

Saul saw something at one of the cabins and stood up with his sandwich.  He pointed and said, “I’m going to go eat over there,” and he stomped off along the dirt road, taking bites and swigs of water as he walked.

“That was odd.  What do you…
” I began, but then Bradley pointed at Saul and interrupted me.

“That’s why he’s so happy,” Bradley said with a smile.  Saul sat down at a cabin across from ours
, about ten spaces down next to a Beardsley girl.  She looked up at Saul and he sat down beside her and said something to make her laugh.  She had a pretty smile and thick eyebrows.  “He’s found himself a girlfriend.”

“Good for Saul.”

Bradley moved his lunch over in front of my cabin and we sat together and ate lunch.  I was pleased to hear that lunch lasted a full hour.  Bradley stretched out his short legs before him.  Even though he stood taller than me, my skinny legs stretched further than his did.  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

Bradley took a drink of water.  “My whole life. 
Or at least my whole life that I can remember.  I came here when I was three and I guess…” he looked up as he did the math in his head, “this is my twentieth year here.”

“Wow,” I said.

“So what’s your life been like?  Did you just got off of a ship?”

I told him about some of my history.  I told him about my parents, how they died, and about the orphanage.  He seemed so interested in how my days went and asked a lot of questions about what school was like.  He looked off into the distance, into the sky over the rows of cotton.  “I would love a life like that.  I would love that kind of freedom.”  He shook his head and took another bite of turkey sandwich.

“I don’t understand,” I said.  “I thought that the Beardsleys signed a seven year contract to work, just like we did.”

“That’s right,” Bradley said.

“Then why are you still here?”  I motioned over the rows and rows of Beardsley servants, “why are all of these people still working for no pay.”

Bradley laughed.  “It’s not like that, Walt.  The contracts don’t matter.  The plantation owners don’t obey them.  And even if some good-hearted plantation owner obeys their contract and lets a worker go after they have served their time, the Salyers are so
corrupt that it doesn’t matter.  It’s like they have a little pact.  No one will hire you if you’re not a Salyer.  They don’t want you to work and they don’t need you.  So you can’t get a job, you can’t get any money, and you wind up crawling back to the Salyers and begging for food.  They put a 200-year contract in front of your face and a piece of pie.  When you’re that hungry, you’ll sign anything.”

“What about living out in the woods?  Why don’t people do that?”

“They could, I guess.  But that’s if you’re ever free.”

In the distance I could see the tall fences that surrounded the farm.  “Does anyone ever just leave?  Does anyone ever escape and go live out in the woods?”

Bradley gulped down the last of his water.  “I don’t know.  Not from here at least.  I haven’t seen too many people try to escape.”

“Why not?”

“For one, I don’t know how anyone would escape from here; with the fences, the dogs, the barbed wire and the guards, it’s nearly impossible.  Secondly, if you get caught trying to escape, you run a pretty big chance of getting put in either the Theatre or the Cell.”

“What’s the Cell?” I asked.

“Being put in the Cell is something that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.  There is an eight by eight by eight-foot metal cage out in the middle of the farm.  People who get into trouble by Glen for stuff—stealing, fighting, whatever—get put in it.  It’s pretty simple.  You just get locked in there and you don’t get to come out until your heart’s not beating anymore.  No food.  No water.  You just shrivel up under the hot sun.  That’s why a lot of people aren’t too interested in trying to escape.”

“Why doesn’t the president step in and stop this?” I asked.

“President Flagg is a bad guy.  He wouldn’t stop anything.  He likes the Theatre and he likes the inequality.”

“That’s not the president,” I said.  “I saw the president.  He strikes me as a good guy.  His name is Dickerson or something.”

Burl looked out among the cabins.  “Then maybe there’s hope.  Maybe the new guy just doesn’t know what’s going on.”

We didn’t talk for a moment.  I just chewed on my sandwich and watched Saul talking to the Beardsley girl.  He laughed and opened his mouth wide to show a large bite of sandwich in his mouth.  I smiled.  Bradley went back into his cabin for a nap and I sat outside and watched Saul.  When he was done eating he stood up and walked over to me.

“Do you want to play catch?  I can go get my baseball!”

I was tired, but his eyes looked excited.

“I’ve never played outside before,” he added.  “It will be like they really used to do in the big leagues, like we used to watch on Wednesdays.”

“Sure,” I said.

He got out his lumpy baseball and we went out into the road and began to throw it back and forth.  Soon, other servants took notice and began to join us.  Time went by and we had a big circle of a little over twenty people in the road, throwing around the lumpy baseball that our mother had made Saul.  Saul never looked happier.  He giggled and flung the ball over to me or Mr. Nelson, or a Beardsley.  He was clumsy and couldn’t catch or throw well, but each time he touched the ball you could see that he felt like Jeter making a play at shortstop.