Under the Same Sky (3 page)

All the silent communication from our childhood had brought us to this point. I would never leave him. I would be wherever,
whatever he needed me to be, if only in his thoughts. I would give him courage and strength and love. And he would give me the same whenever my mind called to him.

Close enough that our minds were like one, far enough that we never felt each other’s touch. We were what we had always been.

For nearly two years I spent my days looking forward to falling asleep. For me, the darkness was full of life.

The dreams that comforted me the most were the ones featuring him, the boy from my childhood, now grown into a man about the same age as I. He was tall with a solid build and ruddy complexion. Dark hair fell in loose waves to just past his shoulders, and sometimes a short beard framed lips that curled slightly at the edges. When we saw each other in dreams, his smile felt so warm I thought I might burst into flame. But it was his fathomless brown eyes that spoke to me the most.

He usually visited when I slept, but if I could find a quiet place and relax, I might see him under the light of the sun. He appeared in my thoughts as if to watch me, as intrigued by me as I was by him. Sometimes I sensed his presence, but couldn’t see him. Occasionally the spectre of a wolf loped through my thoughts, but somehow I knew the spirit of a man lived within its coarse dark coat. The
eyes were the same: unflinching, deep wells of intelligence. So, without any other name to give him, I took to calling him Wolf.

I had dreams where I walked without him, seeing images I didn’t try to understand: colours that swirled and left me breathless, streams of voices shining silver as they passed, featureless faces shadowed by unfamiliar trees.

Then something changed. The dreams went dark.

Nightmares invaded my sleep the summer after I turned seventeen. It was the hottest summer anyone could remember. Weeks passed with no rain, and the air grew fragile with need. Dead grass lay flat on the cracked earth with no hope of resurrection. Cicadas screeched from the faraway forest, a constant trill from dawn until dusk. And at night apparitions stole my sleep—bulky shadows creeping closer or retreating at their whim, like creatures hunting.

Everyone has nightmares, but mine were different. They showed me my future. Except they were unclear. All I knew was something horrible was coming. Something I couldn’t see, but knew. I could do nothing but wait.

I found it hard to fall asleep in the heat, but I didn’t mind. When sleep finally claimed me, I wished it hadn’t come. My nightmares became darker every night, oppressive with growing urgency. Their menace accompanied me constantly, even creeping into my waking hours.

When the need for waiting came to an end, I knew. On the morning of that day, sunshine flooded the walls of the bedroom I shared with my sisters, but I saw only blackness. Fighting dizziness and nausea, I rose from our bed, needing to escape the grasp of the dreams. My legs were weak, and I clung to the yellowed wall. I stared at my sleeping sisters for so long they awoke and returned my stare.

“What is it?” Adelaide whispered.

My mouth opened and closed, but words were trapped in my throat.

“Get Mama,” Adelaide said to Ruth, keeping her eyes on me.

Ruth ran to our mother’s room, next to ours. Mother came and stood with me, letting me cling to her as if I were a small child. Slightly steadied by her presence, I dressed in the same dress I wore every day. I only had one other, and I kept it folded in our wardrobe, saving it until this one was too dirty to wear. On the table by our bedroom door sat a large tin bowl and a small ewer half full of precious well water. I dipped in a cloth and used it to scrub my teeth, then wet down my hair with my fingers and tied a neat blue ribbon around my braid. My mother had given me the ribbon a week before, in celebration of Adelaide’s fifteenth birthday. Blue for me, pink for Adelaide, and yellow for Ruth. To distract myself from the pounding fear in my head, I kept busy, mending torn clothing and cleaning the house. I wove a thin bracelet for Adelaide out of the dry grass that brushed our house’s walls, and pieced together a little dress for the black-eyed rag doll Ruth carried everywhere.

The day seethed with heat, trembling in distorted waves over the baked grass. There wasn’t even a hint of breeze. The late afternoon sun bubbled low on the horizon, and its glare painted black silhouettes of our small barn and listing fence posts.

From out of the silence came the sounds of horses’ hooves, heavy on the dried earth, coming toward our house.

My mother had never been a hunter, but I had seen her use our father’s rifle against coyotes that pestered our hens. She had never hit one while I’d been watching, but the crack of a shot scattered the predators and urged them to seek easier meals. At the sounds of the horses, she grabbed the rifle from where it hung on the wall. My mother, my sisters, and I crowded through the doorway and stood on either side of its crooked frame, squinting into the light and
watching the black profiles of men on horseback as they rode toward us. She held the rifle across her body like a shield, resting the end of its barrel on our faded wooden doorstep.

Before their faces came into view, I knew who they were. I started to shake. Adelaide took my hand and clung to it.

The strangers had ridden here from town. I half remembered their slouching figures from the last time we had been there to trade. They had tracked us like wolves might follow a flock of lambs, and we were just as helpless. We had no neighbours to come to our aid; no man had come to champion the tattered household of women.

I counted twelve men. They were scruffy and unshaven, tobacco juice staining their beards. Their apparent leader looked perhaps in his forties and wore a blue shirt, the only colour that stood out among the group’s worn gray clothing. He looked us over, then touched the brim of his hat in greeting.

My mother shepherded us behind her and straightened her shoulders, standing a little taller. An unexpected breath of hot, dry air moved through us, lifting her apron in a halfhearted wave and tickling strands of golden hair that hung around her ears.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud to my ears.

Blue Shirt’s lips widened into a smile, but he said nothing. My mother tried again.

“My husband will be here shortly. Is there something I can help you with?”

Blue Shirt grinned through his remaining teeth and spat beside his horse’s front hooves. The animal shifted its weight and the saddle creaked.

“Well, now, missus, we all know that ain’t true, don’t we?” he drawled. He smiled wryly at his men for confirmation.

“Ain’t no husband, ’less you’s married to a ghost,” called one, and amusement rippled through the circle of men.

Blue Shirt slid from his horse, reached up to his saddle, and grabbed a coil of rope. Four other men did the same.

“Hold it right there,” Mother said. She lifted the butt of the gun to her shoulder and aimed it at the men. I saw a tremor pass through her, and I heard the rustling of her skirt against the door. “Get right back on those horses, please. I’ve no wish to shoot any of you.”

Blue Shirt drew his mouth into a tight line, his eyes cold. When he took a step toward us, my mother cocked the trigger, and shut one eye, focusing.

“Chandler?” Blue Shirt said, glancing over his shoulder toward a young man still on horseback.

“Yes, sir,” said Chandler. He drew a pistol from his belt, aimed it at my mother, and shot her through her head.

She died in that instant, but the echo of the gunshot went on and on. My sisters and I stood frozen to the spot, not breathing, watching my mother’s body slide down the wall. The back of her skull smeared an uneven path of red down the gray wood.

“Aw, Chandler,” Blue Shirt said. He made a clucking sound in his mouth and shook his head. “I wasn’t going for the kill. What a waste.”

“Sorry, boss,” Chandler said, sliding his pistol back into his holster.

We stared at the men, speechless. It wasn’t until they began stepping toward us again, ropes twisting between their fingers, that we jerked out of our daze.

Everything moved very quickly. I shoved Ruth through the door and grabbed for Adelaide, but someone yanked her away. Her screams were terrifying, but I couldn’t stop to help her. I had to get Ruth away. My baby sister ran into the house ahead of me, blond
curls bouncing against her back. The cellar, I thought desperately, shoving Ruth through the narrow hall as I ran, needing to get to the back door. If we could get there, if we could fling open the heavy doors in the earth, if we could pull the bolt down in time—

One of them cinched a thick arm around my waist, forcing my breath out in a grunt.

“Run, Ruth!” I screamed. “The cellar!”

I dug my nails into the man’s arms and kicked against his shins with my bare heels. He flung me to the floor and my forehead banged it hard. He flipped me onto my back so I saw the gleam of sweat leaking from his sunburnt pores. He sneered and slapped my face so my cheek burned and my vision went momentarily white. I thought I heard something crack in my nose. Tears flooded my eyes, but I fought as hard as I could. He pinned me beneath his body, grabbed both my wrists in one big, calloused hand, then tied them together with a rough rope. He tightened the knot, yanked me to my feet, and dragged me toward the door.

I looked behind me and saw Ruth, slung over a man’s shoulder like a madly wriggling sack of corn. She was sobbing and calling my name.

“I’m here, Ruth!” I cried. I needed to give her something to hold on to, if only my voice.

Sunshine flooded through our open door, blinding me as my captor shoved me outside. My mother’s body slumped against the outer doorframe, her head tilted to one side. Her eyes were open, staring, faded blue crystals going dark beneath the black hole in her forehead. The wind tickled the loose strands of her hair, blowing them back and forth across her face. A few got stuck on the thin line of blood that snaked down her neck and into the top of her gown.

Adelaide sat on a horse, her face twisted in terror, her hands tied
to the pommel of the saddle. She saw me and tried to scream, but a rag was stuffed in her mouth and tied tight over her cheeks, muffling her voice. A man sat behind her, keeping her from sliding off. My captor carried me toward a different horse and handed me, kicking and screaming, to another man on horseback. My back met the solid wall of his chest and I pulled away, but he stopped my struggles by anchoring me against him, shoving his hands between my thighs and gripping hard enough to bruise. When he released my legs, I started to look around at him, but he shoved a cloth in my mouth and tied it tightly. My lips stretched until I thought they would split, but I managed to work my teeth over the gag so at least I could breathe through my mouth.

Blue Shirt strode through the group of men, pausing to look at each of us, ignoring our sobs. He studied me through squinted eyes, then reached up and ripped out the blue ribbon I had tied in my hair that morning. I yelped and tried to lift my hands to my head in reflex, but the man behind me shoved them down again. Blue Shirt stepped toward Adelaide, who sobbed through the gag. He grabbed her wrists and twisted off the bracelet I had made for her that morning. Finally, he turned toward little Ruth, also bound but not gagged.

“Leave her!” I tried to yell, but my words were swallowed up by the putrid fibres of the cloth in my mouth. I couldn’t bear the thought of his hands on her, of any kind of pain inflicted on my baby sister. I tried again, even though no one would understand what I said. “She’s just a little girl!”

He paid no attention to me. From ten feet away I could see Ruth’s body shake. Her eyes were focused on our mother, lying still in the doorway. Ruth’s tiny doll was tucked into her apron, and it moved with her, quivering like a hummingbird’s wings. Blue Shirt yanked it free, walked to his horse, and shoved the three items into his
saddlebag. His horse took a half step forward as he swung onto the saddle, then Blue Shirt turned to the men.

“I’ll head in to make the ’rrangements with the cap’n,” he said. “I’ll join y’all at the meetin’ spot.”

The men nodded and Blue Shirt’s gaze focused on each of the remaining riders. There were twelve of them in all, most about the same age as their leader, but a couple were younger, their long, tangled hair untouched by gray. Words of warning rumbled through Blue Shirt’s tight lips, and I saw how they all listened with wary respect. Like a pack of dogs.

“Y’all need to remember the profit we stand to gain on these three. We already lost the mother. Mind there’s no marks on the rest of the merchandise, fellas.”

He adjusted his hat and, signaling with his chin for one of the men to follow him, rode off toward the east, away from the sun.

The rest of the men whooped and kicked their horses into a gallop. They ran across the dry brown land, the three of us helpless on the saddles. The wind obliterated the sound of our weeping and smeared our tears back into our hair. We raced through clouds of dust and headed toward the shadowed forest, where the world offered a hint of cool green. The horses thundered over a grassy knoll, travelling farther than my sisters and I had ever gone, their hooves pounding like thunder.