Under the Same Sky (5 page)

Blue Shirt’s eyes returned to my face, and he started walking toward me. I was pressed so tightly against the tree, there was nowhere for me to go. I sat, shaking, waiting. His eyes raked over me, taking in my bloodied dress, the finger-shaped bruises that coloured my arms and partially covered breasts, and finally my face. I blinked up at him, too tired, too resigned to bother looking away. He took off his hat again, scratched his head, and put it back on as he turned toward the other men.

“This one’ll do,” he said, then jerked a thumb toward Adelaide. “An’ maybe the other one if you clean her good. But goddammit, boys!”

He spat on the ground by my feet then walked toward his horse, shaking his head. He threw himself into the saddle and turned the horse toward the path.

“Hurry up and git this all together. And Leonard,” he growled, “take ’em to the river. I want ’em clean and ready. You got me?”

Before Leonard could respond, Blue Shirt gave his horse a hard heel. The animal reared back in surprise, then bolted into the woods. The younger man followed without a word.

Low-keyed grumbling and nervous laughter rippled through the group. A man with a jagged pink scar on his neck came toward me, and I squeezed my eyes shut. He grabbed my wrists and I cried out when he tugged me to my feet. He fumbled with my hands and I stared at him, dazed, not sure what he was doing. I felt the rope release and my hands fell to my sides. The blood that had been dammed by the ropes roared back into my limbs, ripping the vessels wide open, stabbing like thousands of needles. It burned and throbbed and from far away I heard myself sob. My knees wobbled and I leaned against the man’s arm for support. He waited for me
to regain my balance, then pushed me ahead of him, toward the tethered horses. I was tossed onto the saddle, and I gasped at the impact on my bruised and torn body.

“Drink,” he grumbled, passing me a tin cup. The water smelled of sap, but I gulped it down.

“More?” I asked. He squinted at me, then stomped off toward the fire. He was back in a few minutes, cup in one hand, a chunk of charred meat in the other.

“Can’t promise any more than this today,” he said. “Enjoy it while you can.” He thrust the food and cup toward me, then turned and walked back to the fire.

Camp was being packed up, the fire sizzling and smoking as the men extinguished it with their dregs of coffee. Adelaide was thrown onto another horse, where she sat as still as her deadened eyes. I slumped over the saddle, feeling nauseous, like something was churning in my gut. But the man had probably told the truth. I might not eat again all day. I watched the men work while I chewed on the tough piece of meat he’d given me.

The pink-scarred man swung his bulk onto the saddle behind me and clicked his tongue at the horse. We started moving slowly through the trees and my nausea got worse with every step, until I bent over and rested my forehead on the pommel.

Something was missing. Gone. One of the horses whinnied, restless. Its voice was high, like a child’s. It made me think of Ruth, shrieking when we played tag, running wild through the goldenrod—

Ruth. My stomach dropped, my nausea frozen into a solid block of ice.

“My sister—” My voice strained through a throat torn by screams.

He grunted. I couldn’t see his face, but one of his thumbs jerked toward Adelaide.

“No,” I whispered, “my other sister.”

“Oh,” he drawled, “the li’l ’un.”

He let out his breath in a low whistle. Then he tore what was left of my world to shreds.

“She’s gone, sweetheart.” He cleared his throat. “But we gave her a proper Christian burial.”

My throat closed, crushed within a terrible fist. Fairy-like sparkles danced in front of my eyes, spinning faster and closer until I lurched toward the ground. I think the man jerked me upright and kept the horse moving, but in truth, I was unaware of anything around me. My mind filled with Ruth: her golden curls and trusting eyes, cherubic face and voice. She was gone, and I hadn’t been able to say good-bye.

Air rushed unbidden into my lungs, and my senses returned in a flood of rage. Grief emptied my soul, and hatred gushed in. My fingers burned with the need to claw at the man behind me, to hurt, to kill. But even if I reached inside his chest and ripped out his still-beating heart, he wouldn’t have died. How can you kill someone who has no soul?

I knew where we were headed, and this knowledge helped me sit taller in the saddle.

Blue Shirt had said, “Take them to the river.”

Wolf had said, “I will be at the river for ye.”

Somewhere beyond the trees, the river waited. The horses plodded through rough deer trails, where there was no breeze, no soothing touch of coolness, only whining bugs who didn’t mind sweat and dirt on their meal. My captor’s chest pressed against my back and I could smell his shirt, drenched with sweat like the withers of our horse.

I wanted to sleep. The continuous steps lulled me, weighting my eyelids, but I forced them to stay open. We would reach the river soon. I wanted to be awake when we arrived.

“Matheson!” someone called from behind us.

My captor reined in and turned in his saddle.

“What?” he yelled.

“Get back here.”

“Aw, come on, Richie. I got my hands full, don’t I?”

“Come here, Matheson. And leave the girl there.”

Matheson let out a resigned breath, glared at me, then grabbed my waist and dropped me to the ground. I landed with a thud on the earth. My hip struck a small rock, but after all I’d been through, I barely felt its edge.

“Don’t move,” he growled. I didn’t argue. Where would I go? I could barely stand on my own. Besides, I could never leave Adelaide alone with these men.

Matheson turned his horse toward the others and stomped into the trees behind us, swearing under his breath. Finally alone, finally motionless, I fell asleep.

In my dreams I heard it first, then saw the hint of silver trickling through the trees, flowing downstream, as clear in my mind as it would be in reality. A wolf stood on the banks, tongue lolling from his muzzle, brown eyes searching for mine. When I looked again, the figure was no longer the animal, but the man. Wolf was almost camouflaged in a dark green wool that draped over his shoulder and around his waist. His eyes spoke of an aching sadness for me, but he offered a reassuring smile. There was hope ahead.

Then he was close enough to touch. He took my face in his hands as tenderly as one might hold a baby bird fallen from the nest, and the depth of that simple contact joined me to him. This was how we were, he and I. We touched, we saw, we understood, but we never shared the same air. I knew his hands held my face, and yet they weren’t there.

His fingers traced the lines of my face, and his calloused thumbs touched the dark patches beneath my eyes, the bruises on my cheeks. Then his eyes shifted and he glanced behind me, concern momentarily hardening their depths. His nostrils flared as if he were a beast
of the forest, scenting the breeze for threat. I felt no fear. Nothing could harm me as long as I felt his nearness. He narrowed his gaze, then his face relaxed. He recognised whatever, or whoever, was approaching. When his eyes returned to mine, they were smiling. Tiny specks of gold floated in their depths, winking in the sunlight.

My captor’s hands jerked me from my dream and hoisted me back into the saddle. Wolf was gone. I glanced behind me as the horses began to walk again, searching for Adelaide. Her limp body was still propped up against one of the men. She must still be alive. They wouldn’t have bothered carrying her body otherwise.

I knew when we were close to the river. I could hear the liquid wall of sound. The forest thrived closer to the riverside, thick with saplings that reached through the decaying remains of their elders. The sticky musk of pine clogged the air. Birds flicked from branch to branch, and I caught the flicker of a red squirrel’s tail as he leaped from one tree to the next, always one step ahead of our group.

We entered a clearing, a rough circle edged by pines and boulders. The cool, clear breeze from the river cut through the heat and I breathed it in, feeling my heart quicken. The river. Wolf would be here.

The men slid from their saddles, groaning as their boots hit the dirt. They tugged the horses’ reins toward the water, but the animals needed no encouragement. They ambled into the shallow river, with Adelaide and me still on their backs, and splashed relief onto their bellies. The spray tickled my feet, and goose bumps lifted the hairs on my body. The men pulled off their boots and stood knee-deep in the current, bathing their feet. They plunged their hands into the water, drank deeply, and splashed their grimy faces.

My throat was dry as dust. I thought perhaps my nose had been broken back at our house. I was having a lot of trouble breathing through it. Sweat tickled between my breasts and down my back.

Leonard and another man finally pulled Adelaide and me from the saddles and carried us to the shore. They stood Adelaide up, but her legs collapsed and she dropped like a stone without uttering a sound. I don’t think Adelaide was aware she had fallen. Her eyes stared at nothing, as if her mind had been abandoned along with our little sister.

Leonard caught my eye and gestured toward the stream. “Go wash up,” was all he said.

I hobbled back to the river, braced myself, then dropped into the freezing water. The level was high enough to cool the undersides of my breasts, barely hidden within my torn dress. I splashed water over my face and body, rinsing mud and tears from my face and filth from beneath the remains of my skirt.

Adelaide lay motionless at the edge of the water. Her face was horribly swollen, and her body was painted with thick strokes of blood and dirt. I forced myself to stand and shuffled through the river toward her, careful on the slippery pebbles beneath my feet. I lay beside her on the rocky shore and rolled onto my side to face her. She didn’t even blink. I pulled her head against my chest, holding her there when her body jerked instinctively away. She shrieked and flailed in blind panic, but I hugged her close so my mouth was at her ear.

“It’s me, Addy. Shh. It’s Maggie.”

I repeated myself over and over, rocking her against me until her sobs lessened into hiccups. Then I laid her back on the rocky shore and sat up.

“I need to clean you, Addy. I’ll go slow. I promise.”

I tore a strip from my wet skirt and gently dabbed at her purpled face, wanting to see the blue of her eyes. We were close enough to the water I could dip the rag in to rinse it. I squeezed out the dirt and the water bloomed with rusty clouds. I rinsed the cloth again
and again until I finally saw the pale pink of her cheek. The length of her neck was blotched with bruises. One of her eyes was swelled shut.

The other eye watched me closely. A single tear rose to its surface and rolled down her cheek, disappearing into the pillow of stones under her head. I put my hand behind her neck and raised her just enough that she could swallow the water I cupped in my hand. It trickled through her lips, and her tongue slipped forward to greet it. After a while, she began to make small whimpering noises, but no words.

“Shhh, Addy,” I whispered. “It’s almost over. They’re taking us somewhere, and we’ll be done with them.”

Her eye blinked.

“It’s true,” I said, trying to convince us both. “They said we need to clean up before they take us to wherever we’re going. Someone will help us there.”

She sighed and closed her eye.

“Sleep, Addy,” I whispered. “I’m going to clean you while you sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

I didn’t think she could sleep, but at least she relaxed under my hand. The rag stroked her neck, her shoulders, the soft skin of breasts and belly. I lifted her skirt discreetly and moved the cloth over her bruised thighs and the place where they met.

Exhausted as I was, I couldn’t stop cleaning her. I forced myself to move slowly and keep my hands gentle, fought the urge to scrub her entire body, to clean away everything they had done to her. But she would never be truly clean. There was nothing anyone could do to purge her deeper scars.

I wondered if she knew about Ruth. How could I tell her? Not now. Not until she was more aware of herself and everything else that had happened. The thought of our baby sister made me dizzy,
and I breathed in deeply, trying to clear my thoughts. I needed to be strong, to take care of us both. I couldn’t allow emotion to distract me.

I could grieve later.

The men led the horses from the water and tied them to the nearby trees, then lit a fire on the other side of the clearing. I smelled smoke and tried to remember what comfort a fire was supposed to bring.

A while later, Blue Shirt rode into the clearing. He dismounted, grunted at the others, then walked toward Adelaide and me. He stopped a stone’s throw away and stooped to examine the hoof of a gray mare who stood dozing a few feet from us. The horse didn’t move when he picked at it and removed a stone. Apparently satisfied, he dropped the hoof and slapped her neck affectionately. He glanced our way, then turned back toward the other men.