Donor 23 (21 page)

“We’ll stop here for the day,” he commanded, although it was only afternoon.

As Joan drifted off to sleep in a campsite hastily prepared, she saw Arrow Comes Back sit down with a small piece of wood and unsheathe his knife.

The next morning found Joan refreshed. She slept deeply, without worry that Arrow Comes Back may hurt her, as he lay next to her.

After breakfast, he helped her get on the horse and handed her something. It was a small carving in wood—a mountain lion depicted in mid-leap, its back legs extended, and its forelegs stretched out, as if reaching for something, something unseen and out of its grasp. A thin, leather strap wrapped around it.

The statuette and the gesture moved Joan. “Thank you.”

He was already on his horse, and she slipped the figurine around her neck.

As they trod along that morning, Joan eyed the small game hanging from the straps and asked, “Did you get everything you wanted while hunting?”

He shook his head, indicating no. “Came up here for larger game. Deer. A deer can feed my family for months.”

Family. He had a family.

“You have a wife?”

He nodded.

“Will you tell me about her?” she asked cautiously.

He shrugged, “She’s a woman.”

“Well, I guessed that.”

Joan laughed, and his face cracked a slight smile.

“What’s she like?”

A moment passed before he answered, “Like you in many ways.”

“What do you mea—?”

He brusquely held up his hand to signal silence. He stopped the horses and slid off, with his bow and one arrow. Ever so quietly, he crept forward. Joan dismounted and followed him.
What did he see? Could it be Nox?
If so, a bow and arrow wouldn’t be enough—the soldiers and Nox would have guns. Her heart raced as she followed him. She reached her arm out toward him as they inched along, touching his back lightly with her fingertips, gaining strength from him—knowing he was near. Leaves crunched under her feet. He stopped in annoyance and waved his hand, motioning her to be quiet. She noticed he walked in a curious way. He first touched his toes to the ground, nuzzling them under any leaves, and slid the rest of his foot under the leaves as well. Joan imitated it.

A few yards later he halted, and she stopped beside him. His hand grasping the bow, he pointed ahead. Twenty yards away a large male deer stood, his massive head biting leaves off low branches.

Arrow Comes Back placed an arrow in the bowstring and began to draw back. But he couldn’t. Due to the injury to his hand, he couldn’t get enough draw. He gazed with melancholy at the animal, for what his family would not have.

Joan comprehended his disappointment. He had helped her. She could now help him. She took hold of the bow and arrow. He pulled them back out of her grasp and shook his head. She reached again.

He leaned in close to her, so close she felt the warmth of his breath on her neck—her hairs tingled—and he murmured so softly she almost didn’t hear him, “It’s a great beast. It deserves a clean death.”

She looked into his eyes, reassuring him, asking him with her eyes to trust her. She pulled again at the bow. After gazing into her eyes for what seemed an eternity, he let her take the weapon and watched as the she expertly nocked the arrow on the string and drew back. She stopped and studied the target. The deer was positioned broadside to them. She didn’t know where to aim or what part of it to hit. She shrugged. Arrow Comes Back understood. He pointed on himself, the side
of his body, behind the shoulder, where the heart and lungs reside. She nodded.

She drew back, carefully using an even amount of pressure on each of her three fingers. She slowed her breathing, kept her aim on the area behind the deer’s shoulder, and let go.

The arrow fired true. The great animal lurched, reflexively took a couple of steps, and dropped.

Joan sat under a tree and waited with one of the horses, while Arrow Comes Back took care of hoisting the deer onto the other horse. She was somewhat surprised she hit it exactly where she aimed. She excelled at archery at the Center, but all the same out in the real world, she thought it might be different. Jack was right, practice makes perfect.

Then it hit her, like the arrow that slammed into the deer: a comprehension, an understanding. Duncan had not missed when he shot at her. He hit where he aimed. He was a crack shot, she knew, for the two of them practiced together at the Center’s target range. He missed on purpose, to allow her to escape.

The realization did not stir any emotions in Joan. Her heart remained calm. It brought her instead solace and closure. The time Duncan and Joan shared was not a deception, not a sham. The laughs, the talks, the rose…were sincere and genuine. The delight of remembering, which had been taken from her, returned.

What had existed between them? A friendship?
Certainly.
Was it love?
No. Not possible. Duncan knew her as Joan, the athlete and citizen, not as donor number 23. He could never have loved donor number 23.

She wondered where Duncan was. Strong feelings did not reawaken inside her. Instead Joan felt comforted, in the same way a gardener, as he snips a dead, brown flower off a bush, is comforted by the fact that once the flower bloomed brilliantly.

21

J
oan and Arrow Comes Back rode the rest of the way on the same horse, while the second horse carried the buck. Joan sat in front of him. He held the reins, with his arms wrapped around her. Sitting like that Joan felt completely safe and protected for the first time since her escape. She rested back on his muscular limbs, relishing the warmth of the sun and dozing in and out.

It was natural enough that initially, after her firsthand experiences with evil, she feared him. But in her short time with him, she became aware of his goodness. Despite his dissimilar look, his generous and benevolent spirit touched her heart.

At one point, he nudged her awake. She opened her eyes and saw on the plain below them a vast camp: the summer camp of the Children of the Fallen Star. It consisted of hundreds of tents and dozens of cabins and buildings. Arrow Comes Back told her that some of the Children, usually the older ones, lived
in the camp permanently. Then he added with a smile, “But I want to die on the hunting trail, with a bow in my hands.”

Nomad tribes controlled this part of the continent, consisting of plains and deserts. A large mountain range bordered the camp on the north. The Children lived in peace with most of the others. An easy peace existed between them and the cities, settlers—even the Alliance.

The camp was huge. It spread over five miles in a half circle, with a river as its border. The tents nearest the river belonged to the highest-ranking members of the tribe and worked its way out according to significance. At the camp’s outside, sat tents belonging to visitors, such as other Nomads not of the Children, traders, and settlers.

In essence, the camp was a small city. A busy trading place, it was a central meeting area for travelers. On the outskirts, traders had permanent storefronts and small hotels. A gravel road bordered the far west of the camp, turning to dirt as it winded away, heading two directions: northwest and southwest. A few people on horses, a few cars, and two large trucks traversed in the distance. The city-camp had an international essence and was referred to as Pax City.

“See the tent there?” Arrow Comes Back pointed. “The one with the bright orange blanket hanging on the side?”

Joan nodded.

“That’s mine.”

His tent stood in the second circle out from the river.

It took them awhile as they slowly descended the plateau and made their way into the camp. Joan was alert. She didn’t know what to expect. She kept an eye out for black uniforms, for Nox. They rode leisurely, staying nearer the river and winding through the camp.

Children played everywhere, darting here and there, and people cooked over fires. The odors of the fires and food wafted through the air like perfume to Joan. The sounds of
voices and laughter sounded like music. Everyone resembled Arrow Comes Back, with dark, ruddy skin and straight black hair.

Three children ran up, grabbing at the deer, at Arrow Comes Back’s feet, and at the reins. They called to him excitedly, “
Noshi, Noshi!
” Daddy! Daddy!

He laughed, slid off the horse, and swooped the two younger ones into his arms. The older one hung on to him, arms around him. His children.

The older one yelled, “
Shima, Noshi’s
back.”

A woman, bending over a fire and stirring a pot, stood up and turned. Dropping the spoon, she ran toward him. He set down the children just as she leaped into his arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him. He held her, and they hugged, turning in circles. Without either of them saying a word, he carried her into the tent and closed the flap behind them. Joan now understood what Arrow Comes Back must have meant when he said his wife was similar to Joan. She had light skin.

Joan remained on the horse. The children stared at her. The older one, a boy, held the reins. She didn’t know what to do. An old man sitting near the fire picked up the spoon the woman dropped and motioned to Joan to sit. She got off the horse and joined him. The boy took the horses away, and the two little girls sat right next to Joan, watching her with wide eyes.

After a while the old man motioned to the tent, “I’m Old Owl. I’m the father of One Who Sees.”

He must mean the wife of Arrow Comes Back, but he couldn’t be her father,
Joan thought. He looked at Joan expectantly, waiting for her to say her name.

“I’m …” she paused, hesitating. She still couldn’t say it easily. The children continued to stare at her. People walked by, completely uninterested in her. Old Owl looked expectantly at her.

Tentatively, she whispered, “Joan Lion.”

They sat for a bit, as he stirred the pot over the fire. Old Owl stared at the lion figurine hanging around her neck and motioned to it. Slipping it off her neck, she handed the necklace to him. He pulled a pair of glasses out of the black vest he wore over his bare chest. Joan stifled a laugh. The glasses were bright pink, with large, thick lenses. The glass increased the size of his eyes, making them glaringly huge, as if he looked through a magnifying glass.
He does look like an owl,
Joan laughed to herself. He examined the carving, gave it back, and then turned his gaze to her again. His silence unnerved her.

“Arrow Comes Back helped me, saved me. I was lost in the forest.”

She waved her hand to the east. He kept gazing intently at her—at the heart-shaped bloodstain on her shirt—making her uncomfortable.

He took off his glasses, “There’s talk among the traders of a girl from the East, being hunted by the Walled Nation.”

Walled Nation? Did he mean the Alliance?
Walls surrounded part of it. As she learned in school, the walls were to protect everyone from the dangers of the Outside. Speechless, Joan just shook her head slightly.

“That is you.”

Joan shook her head forcefully, “No—”

“You are the Lionheart,” he stated without equivocation.

Fear, anxiety, dread—they returned.

The tent flap opened, and Arrow Comes Back and his wife emerged.

The little girls jumped on their father as he sat down, “
Noshi, Noshi
.”

“What’d you bring us?” they asked in unison.

“Bring you?” he feigned. Then he smiled and reached into a bag at his waist. “Here, special rocks I found up there. See the gold streaks in them?”

With big smiles the girls gleefully took the stones, examining them by the fire.

Arrow Comes Back pointed out to them, “See how they glisten in the firelight?” He spied the spoon in Old Owl’s hands and said to him, “
Ah,
please, no. After two weeks on the trail, I hope you’re not the one cooking tonight.”

Old Owl rolled his eyes and handed the spoon to the woman, “
Ah,
it’s I who taught her how to cook.”

One Who Sees took the spoon. “Don’t worry; it’s my cooking. You brought a friend?”

“Yes. Joan Lion,” he said, as he tickled his laughing daughters.

“Welcome. I’m One Who Sees.”

She had one brown eye and one blue.

“You’ll be safe here,” she reassured Joan.

As One Who Sees stirred the pot, Joan saw she had a tattoo on her wrist. She was a donor.

P
ART
III

Joan

22

T
hey ate together, sitting cross-legged on the ground outside the tent. Joan relished the meal One Who Sees cooked, not just for the wonderful, aromatic food, but also for the simple act of eating with a family.

The repast was a soup, consisting of chopped potatoes, carrots, and a fair amount of fish. Joan identified a light flavor of clover and citrus zest. Before serving it, One Who Sees sprinkled crushed sunflower seeds on top. Joan tried not to stare, but she kept glancing at One Who Sees’s tattoo.
How did she come to be here?
Joan wondered.

Warm bread accompanied the soup. One Who Sees handed a piece of bread to Joan hot off the fire. “Fry bread.”

Joan savored it, holding it to her nose, feeling the heat on her face, and enjoying the aroma. The bread resembled a
plate—thin, lumpy, and puffy with pockets of air in places. The crispy outside had a buttery flavor and melted in her mouth.

“Crackling Fire caught the fish for the soup,” One Who Sees informed them, pointing at the boy.

Arrow Comes Back tousled the boy’s hair.

“Next time, you come with me on the hunting trail,” Arrow Comes Back promised him. The boy smiled and sat up straighter.

“
Ah,
at least he’s good for something,” Old Owl growled, but with kindness in his voice.

During the meal, Old Owl recounted for Arrow Comes Back the stories about Joan that were circulating among the traders and the Children. Joan denied everything and did her best to convince them the stories weren’t about her. News of her arrival spread quickly through the camp. Crowds gathered around the tent, wanting to see the Lionheart. By the end of the meal, everyone—Arrow Comes Back, One Who Sees, even the children—were calling her Lionheart.