The Burn (19 page)

“You’re nomads?” Smitty asks, shifting his weight,
looking at our tents. “No home camp?”

Dave nods his head. “Yup, we’re nomads. We mostly
roam south of here, decided to try up this way for some more
game.”

A gleam comes in Smitty’s eyes. But Sam must read it
as curiosity. His hand falls from his gun.

“Lots of game up here?” Smitty asks.

Dave nods. “Lots of deer, a few bears.” He’s still
stiff. He inclines his head slightly toward Sam. He doesn’t like
that Sam let down his guard. I am far enough away that Smitty won’t
see me slowly take my gun out of my belt and turn off the safety.
The click is deafening in my ears, but Jack doesn’t even
flinch.

“Sorry to take any more of yer time. What I really
need is a doctor. My wife tripped a few miles from here. Fell and
twisted her ankle good. I don’t know if it’s broken. We were by a
city, but I didn’t want to take her to the clinic.”

Everyone nods their heads. No, no one wants to go to
a clinic. Sympathy eases the tension slightly.

“Told her I’d be gone for a few hours to see if
anyone was about.”

Jack blanches. Why is he so nervous? I lean to him.
He looks up at me, fear scraped into his eyes.

Dave relaxes a bit. “Sorry to hear about that,
Smitty.” He ushers the man into the fire circle. He hands him a
plate of food.

“We have someone who knows a bit about medicine. He
and a few others could go with you to check on your wife.”

Smitty looks up hungrily at all of us, his eyes
roving. He tries to pick out the doctor among us and says
distractedly, “Not too many. I want to get back to her quick.”

Jack quivers next to me and tries to hide in my
shadow. What’s wrong with him? He looks up at me, pleading. He
doesn’t dare say anything. And then I remember what he said.
Willing to kill for a good doctor.

My head snaps up so sharply it hurts. Are there more
eyes watching us from the trees? Or are they several miles off to
avoid a gunfight that will inevitably bring agents? Smitty still
hasn’t noticed the two of us back here. How can I tell Dave not to
say anything more? Not to let Jack go with only a few men? That
there is a bigger gang lying in wait for them? I feel the certainty
of it in my gut. If Jack and the others go, we will never see any
of them again.

Dave’s eyes narrow. He knows something’s up, but he
can’t focus on it yet. “I’ll send enough,” he says. “Jack, up here
please.”

Jack lets out a soft moan only I can hear. He drags
himself to standing. I clench his hand but he refuses to drag me
along with him. He will walk to his doom alone.

I stand behind him, hoping Smitty won’t notice me or
my gun as Jack approaches him. Smitty smiles, his white lips
curling into a chiseled grin.

“Thank you kindly, friend,” Smitty says to Dave, not
even looking at him. He can’t take his eyes off Jack. “Come with
me, Jack is it? My wife is in the woods this way.”

He gestures to the trees. Dave raises a hand.

“Wait a minute, stranger,” Dave says, finally
starting to come close to what must be nagging him. “I said a few
would go with.”

But Jack is already there, already next to Smitty. He
clamps down on Jack’s arm with a white-knuckled hand and with the
other pulls a long, vicious knife and jabs it against the delicate
skin at Jack’s throat. He twitches the knife once and a small
thread of blood slides down Jack’s neck. Jack closes his eyes.

I see the girl crying in the alley, Red all alone
across the interstate, Black Hair with a rifle aimed at Sam’s
back.

Then one thought alone explodes in my brain so
strongly that the rest of those scenes fade except for Smitty’s
vicious face. He could take this life away from me.

He turns to point the knife at Dave. Smitty opens his
mouth to speak, but no words come out. Instead his eyes widen in
surprise because with a clap of thunder, I blow a hole in his
chest.

I slump to the ground as Smitty slumps, the gun
falling with a scuttle of pine needles. I tremble all over and
can’t stop the shakes, even when I wrap my arms around my legs and
hold them so tightly I ache all over.

Then Dave is there, talking to me, but I can’t
understand what he says, because I can’t hear him. I moan and
babble in my tongueless language, and tears course down my cheeks.
He strokes my hair back from my face and picks me up in his warm
arms and carries me away from the dead body fifteen feet from where
I lay. He shushes in my ear and cradles me like a child.

I don’t want him to see me, to see the person who
could do such a thing. I smash my hands against my face, and all I
can smell is the gun shot on my fingers. The cry chokes in my
throat, and I throw myself away from him and into the trees.

“Terra! Come back!”

And vaguely I hear someone else say, “Get her right
quick. No telling how close the others are.”

A quiet part of my brain knows what this means, knows
it is a warning, but the rest of my brain tells me to run. This man
I love could never love someone like me. A liar. A tongueless
freak. A murderer.

As I run, I realize that my feet ache and I can’t go
any farther without screaming at every footfall. I slow down then,
enough that two huge arms grapple me and tackle me to the ground. I
struggle, but I’m too exhausted to fight long. I lay limp.

“Terra. Are you okay?”

Why does he ask me so slowly, enunciating every
word?

The tears start again. I roll from him and hug my
legs and wonder if in a second I will run again. He would chase me.
I wonder if we will repeat this for the rest of our lives.

Then he says something so unexpected it knocks all
thoughts of running right out of me.

“The first time is always the hardest.”

I can look at him, then, if those words mean what I
think they do. He nods.

“When I was twelve. Some scout for a gang found my
mom in the strawberry fields alone. Thought he was far enough from
the school for anyone to see him. He didn’t realize I was coming
out with some dinner for her. I shot him as soon as I saw him. And
when he fell dead, I shot him three more times.”

He is close enough in the darkness that I can see his
face, and it looks haunted.

“I think about it every day. The scary part is that
I’m not sorry.”

He eases away from me then, giving me space to let my
sobs ease. His face is ghostly in the dimness, but I know he is
real, and that reassures me. He stands and offers a hand. I take
it. He wraps an arm around me.

“I can’t say it’ll get better. It doesn’t. But you
come to terms with it.”

I’ll have to believe him. He weaves us back through
the trees. I step carefully next to him, not sure whether I can
trust my aching feet. When my boot hits a rock, my foot explodes
with pain, and I slump to the ground again.

“You okay?” Dave asks, suddenly there. I nod. I can’t
tell him about my feet. It will give me away in a heartbeat.

When we make it back to the fire circle, all that
remains of Smitty is a faint depression in the ground where his
body fell. Thinking his name makes me nauseated. My gun is nowhere
to be seen. Jack stands at the edge of firelight, waiting for
us.

Dave doesn’t take his arm from me, but Jack hugs me
and holds me tight. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you for
listening.”

He doesn’t want to let go, so Dave eases me out of
his grasp. We walk away toward my tent, and Jack watches us, unable
to move.

Dave unzips my tent and helps me sit. “I’ll sleep
right out here tonight, Terra. I won’t be far. I’ll just go get my
bedroll, okay?”

I nod numbly, not sure if I want anyone around me
right now. From the sound of it, we are all murderers. How can we
ever live with each other? How do they live with each other every
day? The empty pit in my stomach spreads to my chest. Then it will
spread to my head. If it reaches that far, what will be left of
me?

I left the colony to find a place I belong. Instead I
find I am capable of unspeakable violence. Would Jessa even
recognize me now?

I shudder and crawl into my bedroll, pulling it up
above my head and curling into a ball. If I curl myself up tight
enough, maybe I can contain the nothing that seeps into my
blood.

Leaves muffle the sound of Dave settling down in his
bedroll just outside my tent door. I watch his shadow on the far
side of my tent, as he props himself up on one elbow to gaze at the
fire. His shadow glances back every few minutes. Is he hoping I’ll
call to him, or reassure him I’m alright? I can do neither.

I feel like one of the dangler fish bumping into the
colony windows. Shining a beautiful light that leads to nothing but
ugliness and teeth, and I am completely blind. What am I doing
here?

I’m an outsider. A liar. I’ve begged for their food
and shelter and friendship. What have I given them? The only thing
one of them said
thank you
to me for, was for killing a
man.

I cry again, sobs wrenching out of my chest. I gasp
under the weight.

My tent door opens and Dave stands there, uncertain
what to do.

“Can I come in?”

I can’t see him from under my bedroll, and he
probably doesn’t know what to do with an unhinged murderous
girl.

I can’t do anything but let the searing cries work
their way out of me. Dave scoops me up, bedroll and all, and holds
me.

“Shh,” is the only thing he says as he rocks back
and forth. He strokes the bedroll where my head is and shushes me
until I hiccup with the fading sobs and fall asleep.

I wake up with my eyes crusted shut, and my cheeks
ache with dried tears. The gray light of early morning shines
through my tent walls. I thought the world had shattered last
night, but here it resumes. Faint murmurs surround me, the sound of
the other men waking and starting a fire, warming food for
breakfast, making the sparse, whispery conversation of early
risers. The world is sharp, and I notice everything.

A weight hangs over my shoulders. Dave lies next to
me, his arm draped over me and his fingers loose with deep sleep.
His brows furrow slightly, and his mouth twitches. A sigh of air
escapes his lips. Even in his sleep he shushes me.

I am still here; the nothing didn’t swallow me whole
last night. And I realize I’m wrong about something. Jack told me
thank you for saving his life, but he also thanked me for
listening. I listened to him. Has no one else ever done so? I
remember the way he begged me with his eyes, how I was the only one
he looked at. Has he told no one else of the gangs who murdered for
medical treatment? That doesn’t seem right. I’ve been here only a
matter of days. Why would he tell me?

I roll my stump around in my mouth. Why did Nell tell
me the things she did? And Dave? And Mary of all people? Because I
can’t speak and they can’t hear any judgment from my lips? I tried
so desperately to be a friend to them that they surely don’t see
any judgment in my eyes. Maybe I
am
good for something to
these people.

I shrug Dave’s arm off and sit up. I pull my knees
up. This is new to me. In the colonies, your worth was determined
by how well you could perform a task. I had failed five vocations.
I felt pretty worthless. But I never realized I have this kind of
talent with people. A talent for friendship and trust. That’s
surely worth something. Especially to people who are hunted, who
fled dangers they would rather not speak of.

Dave stirs and stretches his long limbs. His eyes
focus and he looks over at me. What he sees must surprise him,
because he blinks several times before a smile turns his mouth
up.

I smile shyly back at him. With this new clarity
about myself, I realize just how much I need him. The thought
shocks me. It burns me from my toes to the ends of my hair, and I
almost break out trembling with it.

Dave’s lips part, but he doesn’t speak. I nod to him
encouragingly.

“You’re okay?”

I nod again.

“You’re sure? You were pretty unhinged last
night.”

I rest a hand on his to reassure him.

“I’ve seen that happen before—the first time someone
has to do that.”

I appreciate the way he says it—that it isn’t
something someone would
want
to do.

“But most people aren’t quite as shaken up by it. By
the drop, too. Like you’ve never seen anyone killed before. That’s
pretty uncommon, you know.”

And I want to live here, in this world where it is
common to see people killed. I may be a good listener, but I may
also be crazy.

“I wish you would tell me all about life in Arizona.
It sounds a million times better than up here. It sounds like it
could be pleasant.”

I shake my head. True where I come from there isn’t
murder. But it is a prison.

I grab his hand. With the world too clear and
focused, I want him to know me. Even the colony. But I drop his
hand abruptly. This is what I promised, this is the price: no one
will ever really know me. He doesn’t see the chill come over me. He
brushes a loose strand of hair behind my ears.

“How did you know about Smitty? How were you the only
one who saw it coming?”

It takes a few minutes to spell out the story that
Jack told me.

“I never knew it was that bad. Poor Jack.”

Dave wraps an arm around me and leans his head
against mine.

“Well, thank you. For listening to him and watching.
And doing what needed to be done. It’s not something you ever want
to think about again. But thank you.”

My heart flutters at the intimate touch, but I don’t
reach any closer to him. I can’t trust myself or my longing.

Dave stands up and unzips the tent.

“Smells like breakfast’s almost ready. You want
some?”

I expect the hollow place in my stomach to lurch with
all this thinking about what happened last night, but it remains
quiet. I am ravenous. Dave offers a hand and helps me up. I wince
as the pain stabs through my feet.