Donor 23 (20 page)

“Hungry?” he reached toward the fire. Straddling the fire on sticks were carcasses of two small animals. He handed one to her.

She struggled to sit up straighter. “Thirsty,” she managed to utter.

He reached over and handed her a leather water bag. Joan had never seen one before. She popped the wooden
nozzle, put it to her mouth, and greedily squeezed the bag. Water burst all over her face and neck. A small smile crossed the man’s face. He took the bag and demonstrated for Joan the proper method for use. A second later, she was gulping enthusiastically.

When she finally quenched her thirst, the man pointed to the food beside her. “Eat.”

And she did. The meat was hot. The fat dripped off it, down her face and hands, and she licked it up, savoring the rich, oily flavor. In the last month, with the exception of the meal from Hazel, all she had eaten were energy bars and the occasional wild fruit or berries. While watching her, the man returned to the other side of the fire and ate the meat.

“Who are you?” he asked, as he picked meat off a bone.

Three words—the most he had as yet spoken. He had a different tone of voice—a powerful, intense, clipped way of talking.

Joan cleared her throat and said, “My name’s—,” she paused. It was still unfamiliar for her to say it out loud. Even out here in the wilderness, the System still had power over her.

“Joan Lion,” she whispered.

He stared at her. His gaze shifted to her right hand—the tattoo. Joan hurriedly tried to cover it with her left hand.
Did he know who she was? What she was? Would he turn her in for the reward, too?
Unsure how to handle the situation, whether she should she talk or be quiet, Joan choose the former.

She tried to deflect from her tattoo, “What’s your name?”

He spit a small piece of bone out of his mouth, “Arrow Comes Back.”

Joan was mystified.
What kind of name is that
? she wondered.

“Thank you for cutting me loose,” she gestured to her foot. No response. He tossed a bone into the fire.

“Was that your trap?” she queried, trying to make conversation, to stave any attack.

He jerked his head up. There was a flash of aversion in his face. “
Ah
, no. Mountain men. They use traps. I’m a hunter.” He motioned to his bow and arrow nearby.

“Where’re you from?” she felt courageous enough to continue questioning him.

He nodded to the west, “I’m of the Children.”

“The children?” Joan asked, confused.

“Yes, I’m one of the Children.” After seeing her puzzlement, he continued, “The Children of the Fallen Star. Our summer camp is two days west.”

“Where exactly are we?”

Arrow Comes Back stood up, brushed off his hands, and reached for a small object sitting near the fire. He offered it to her. “From the snake.”

Joan stared, not comprehending.

He shook it, and it rattled. “The tail. The rattle. You killed it.”

He meant it as a trophy, as if she should be proud. The thought of the snake disgusted her. The sight of the smashed head was still fresh in her mind. She thought of the ants devouring it and trying to devour her, as if she and the snake were the same. She shook her head, “No. I don’t want it.”

He shrugged and slipped it into the bag at his waist.

“Sleep now.”

Standing beside her, he bent over and lifted up the blanket to crawl under and alongside her.

“No,” Joan exclaimed, pulling the blanket from his grasp and tucking it in close to her.

“Only one blanket,” he said matter-of-factly.

Thoughts of Garth returned to her—what she barely escaped, what he wanted to do to her. She picked up the boot and held it in a threatening manner, ready to strike him. He raised his eyebrows, but he understood. He returned to his side of the fire.

“Sleep, Joan Lion.” When he said her first and last names, it sounded as one word. He lay down with his back to her, near the fire.

In what seemed just seconds, Joan heard his breathing—slow, regular, and steady. He was asleep.

When Joan awoke the next morning, Arrow Comes Back was climbing onto a horse, just outside the small clearing. She had not seen it last night. He had two horses, she noticed. With his bow in his hands and quiver slung over his tan shoulder, he said, “Hunting. I’ll be back soon. Eat. Rest, Joan Lion.”

He was a man of few words, but when he did speak, it was with honesty and directness. As a young boy he had been strong, sturdy, and agile—a popular leader among the kids in his community. Every skill came easily to him: hunting, archery, fishing, and running. His name had been Straight Arrow.

At age ten, a fire in his family’s tent burned out of control with flames leaping onto the young, sleeping boy. The blaze burned the left side of his body. Like lightning, it had streaked up his arm, across the front of his shoulder, and to his neck. The conflagration enveloped his legs, burning down to the soles of his feet. It had taken only a few seconds for the fire to do its damage.

It took months to heal—painful, tortuous months. Then the healed skin had tightened up. He could barely move. Slowly and meticulously, he worked his legs and arm by stretching them. While his friends were running, hunting, and playing, he learned how to walk again. His friends stopped coming around. They called him Broken Arrow. In his spare time, when he wasn’t exercising, he taught himself how to carve. In carving he found something he could control—unlike fire. Out of a lifeless hunk of wood, he made beauty. It calmed him. He spent hours chipping, cutting, and hewing away with his knife at any piece of wood he found. It amazed him that through an act of violence and ferocity—that of the knife attacking the
wood—something of splendor, beauty, and strength could be the end result.

He kept exercising and working his damaged skin and muscles. He spent days in the forest alone, replenishing himself: replenishing his physical strength, his emotional strength, and his spiritual strength. Over the next few years, he developed back to what he had been—a strong, energetic, skillful young man. His name changed again.

Joan watched him ride off with his quiver full of arrows, bouncing leisurely across his bare, muscular back. Beside her lay a knife. He recognized her nervousness. Next to the knife sat apples—wild apples that were small, rough, and uneven, not at all like the large, round, and red ones back home. Near the apples were what appeared to be cookies and a strip of dried meat. She gobbled down the apples, their tartness causing her face to crinkle. A month ago, the flavor of a simple apple could never have been so enjoyable. Next she tasted the meat. It was tough, and she had to pull hard with her teeth to rip a bite off. She found it quite flavorful, but she couldn’t identify the herbs in it. Picking up a cookie, she smelled it. It gave off an aroma of sugar and nuts. She took a bite, and an earthy flavor of nuts and syrupiness floated through her mouth. She devoured both of them.

She stood up to test her foot. It ached. She could stand, but it gave out from under her when she tried to walk. She couldn’t leave.

It was early afternoon when Joan heard horses approaching. She sat up, clutching the knife. Arrow Comes Back appeared through the trees. She breathed a sigh of relief. He tethered the horses and came into the clearing. Blood oozed from his hand.

“Joan Lion, my knife?”

She handed it to him.

“What happened?” she asked.

He ignored her, went over to a bush, and sliced off a large branch. A liquid began leaking out of it—the same that was on her ankle. With his one good hand, he tried to squeeze it out on his injury.

“Here, let me do it,” Joan offered.

He went over and knelt beside her. She took the branch and applied the salve to his wound. It looked like deep bite marks. Then she tore off long leaves and placed them around the wound, wrapping it up, like she had seen the physical therapists do hundreds of times at the Center. He watched her intensely.

When she was finished, she said, “There you go.”

He circled around the fire and sat down across from her. Regarding her with his head cocked to one side, he said, “Thank you.” Usually those two words are uttered without meaning, in a perfunctory manner—a throwaway phrase. When Arrow Comes Back said them to Joan, they came straight from his heart, his very being, as if they were a part of him.

“What happened?”

He shrugged, “
Ah
, I found another trap. It caught a fox. I thought it was unconscious, so I tried to free it. But it wasn’t.”

“Why’d you do that?”

He gazed at her with surprise. Joan didn’t comprehend the predicament she had been in just the day before.

“I don’t like traps. The animals suffer. When I come across any, I either free them or put them out of their misery.”

Suddenly, a flock of birds took flight from a nearby tree, startling Joan. Her recent time in the wilderness taught her birds were a good indication of danger, a warning signal. She paid attention to them. Now was no different. Worry etched her face. Arrow Comes Back watched her, as he began skinning two small animal carcasses.

Maneuvering the knife with his good hand, in an almost causal manner, he recounted, “Last summer, a lone wolf killed
two children in our camp. We hunted it. It took four days. We could see by the way it moved it knew it was being hunted.”

Joan’s mouth hung open. He had not spoken so many words. She understood the story. He knew she was being hunted, but she was not going to say anything. She would not tell him about herself, about the escape, or about the fact that she was a donor.
What if he hands her over to Nox
? she thought.
What if he’s like Garth
?

He continued skinning the animals and watching her. Then he approached her, dropping the dead animals in front of her, along with the knife.

“Cook them. I’ll return soon,” and he grabbed his bow and arrows, slinking off on foot into the woods.

When he came back, the sun had set, and the meat cooked on sticks over the fire, burnt. He sat down and drank heartily from one of the water bags.

He stated with authority, “No one’s out there, Joan Lion.”

Joan said nothing. Then he took a hunk of meat off the fire and tasted it. He scowled, but he continued to eat it—all of it.

“I guess I’m not a very good cook,” Joan said, trying to relieve some tension she felt.

Joan ate the blackened meat, too. It was true—she wasn’t a good cook.

Later he lay down on the other side of the fire, across from her just as before, with his back to her. Joan tucked the one blanket around her and eyed him, feeling guilty for all he had done for her and the kindness he had shown her.

Without thinking, she said, “Here, we can share the blanket.”

The second the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
What if he tries to hurt her? Could she trust him?
But it was too late. He was already up, walking over to her and crawling under the one blanket, all without saying a word. Joan held her breath. But within a few minutes, he was fast asleep, snoring.

Joan, however, tossed and turned. She was unable to relax. Her hand accidentally brushed up against his chest. She froze. His breathing remained steady and regular. He had not awoken. She was about to pull her hand away, then stopped. Never had she touched a man’s chest. She waited a moment. His breathing was still constant, still regular. He was still asleep. Flattening her palm against his chest, she felt the tautness of his muscles. She moved her hand, slowly, tremulously, down his chest and across his stomach, feeling the firmness of his skin and his strong physique. He seized her hand, pushed it away, and turned his back to her.

Joan was mortified, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t—”

“Sleep,” he said.

She turned her back to him. She wanted to crawl away. She could die of embarrassment.

20

A
t breakfast, Arrow Comes Back acted as if nothing happened the night before. Embarrassment plagued Joan. She had not meant anything by it, had not wanted to…do anything. She had simply been curious.

She thought of Duncan and the times she had wanted to touch him—of the one time she did touch his forehead in the stairwell. But it wasn’t curiosity that made her want to touch him. She felt something for Duncan. She didn’t understand it. The concept of love was regulated by the System, with its marriage-rating scheme, its bonuses, and its myriad of rules and prohibitions. Under the System, Joan wasn’t expected to have the same feelings citizens had, even though she was approaching maturity and sexuality. She had always held back that part of herself.

After they ate breakfast, Arrow Comes Back fastened straps to the horses and tied the small game he had caught onto it.

“We’ll leave now and return to camp, to the Children,” he stated.

He motioned her over to the horse. Joan froze. She didn’t want to go to his people. There could be others like Garth there, wanting to hurt her, wanting to turn her over to Nox.

She didn’t know what to say to him, “I, uh, I…” she stammered.

As previously, he sensed her trepidation.

“Joan Lion, as long as I’m with you, no harm will come to you.”

The intensity and sincerity of his voice persuaded her. Besides, how could she survive out here alone, with nothing but a photo of her parents? She stopped before the horse, the immensity of the animal gave her pause.

“Have you ridden before?”

She shook her head.

He helped her onto the horse. “Just hold on to the mane. Here. I’ll hold the rope.”

With that he swung on his horse, and they rode off.

Joan had barely slept the night before, and as the sun beat down, the horse’s monotonous steps acted like a rocking chair. She began falling asleep. Each time she nodded off, she awoke and caught herself before she slipped off the horse.

“You’re drifting,” Arrow Comes Back warned her.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry. Keep going,” she assured him.

She smiled to herself, as she thought of her father falling asleep on the couch and telling Joan and her mother, “I’m not sleeping, just resting my eyelids.” One time she didn’t catch herself, and she fell to the ground. Arrow Comes Back stopped his horse and turned, considering her.