Donor 23 (22 page)

After supper, the children begged for dessert. One Who Sees gave in and cooked part of the leftover fry bread dough. She gave the kids sugar to sprinkle on the bread as it cooked over the fire, keeping the sugar firmly in her grasp because Crackling Fire tried to grab more in an effort to coat his piece heavily with it. The dessert cooked rapidly, popping up in places from filling with hot air. After pulling it off the fire, she drizzled honey over it. Everyone gobbled it promptly. It was one of the best desserts Joan had ever tasted.

Later that evening, One Who Sees prepared a sleeping area for Joan in the tent. The whole family lived there. It was roomy yet cozy inside. The middle of the home towered up to a point. A small fire pit burned coals in the center. Colorful blankets sprawled across the entire floor. It exuded warmth.

The three children were fast asleep when Joan crawled into the bedding. One Who Sees helped her get settled, while the two men remained sitting outside.

Joan couldn’t help herself. “You’re a donor,” she whispered questioningly.

One Who Sees sighed and lay next to Joan. Propping herself on her elbow, she looked kindly at Joan. One Who Sees
was
a donor. She was thirty years old and had been living with the Children for sixteen years. At first her eyes were both blue. But at the age of ten, her benefactor, who had brown eyes, took one of her blue eyes, giving her a brown one—an exchange of sorts.

“It was the fashion at that time for citizens to have different-colored eyes,” One Who Sees explained to Joan.

When One Who Sees was twelve, her benefactor had cut her loose, and she became a solus. Joan listened in horror as she finally learned about what calamities a solus faced. The Alliance sent One Who Sees, along with other young girls and boys, to army outposts, to be “entertainment” for the soldiers. After a terrible year at one outpost, One Who Sees escaped into the wilderness. Like Joan, she was found and rescued by the Children. Old Owl, who had no wife or children of his own, adopted her.

As the days passed, Joan’s apprehension eased. She felt secure at the camp and was getting acquainted with the Children and the others who visited the camp—traders, settlers, and ruffian types, whom the Children referred to as “ruffs.” Many visitors stayed long-term.

Most of her time, Joan spent with One Who Sees. The two became very close. Joan played with and helped care for the couple’s children. Crackling Fire, the ten-year-old boy, had dark skin and hair like his father, but his face was the image of One Who Sees. Joan understood how he got his name. He never rested, never stopped moving. He was full of ceaseless energy, always running. Red Lilly, the six-year-old girl, was very shy and sported One Who Sees’s reddish-brown hair. Quiet Snowfall, the youngest, was four years old. She had paler skin
than her siblings and blue eyes like her mother. Her eyes, however, shone a darker blue, more akin to the blue of a deep lake. And like her father’s brown eyes, Quiet Snowfalls’s eyes were soothing.

Joan felt most at ease with Old Owl. As an old man, he spent his time poking around the tent. His personality was the combination of Joan’s mother’s wisdom and her father’s quiet understanding. Old Owl was also crotchety and prone to complaining, which Joan found amusing. Joan loved hearing his stories. The hum of his voice and the feel of his rough, wrinkled skin when he touched her made her happy.

It was Old Owl who, in his grizzled voice, related to Joan the story of how Arrow Comes Back earned his name. He told his stories in an almost-musical mixture of poetry and prose.

“The crisp air bit at our throats that morning, the winter’s sun low on the horizon. An early frost blanketed the ground. The young men thought to practice with their bows, with their arrows. On mornings such as those, arrows travel far and straight.

“High above them, a hawk rested on a tall branch, surveying its kingdom—possibly enjoying the cold, possibly protecting itself from the cold. Maybe it spotted some prey—a small animal, who knows? But it took flight. One of the young men, a boy with past injuries—injuries that perhaps were not so far in the past and not so forgotten—took aim. He followed the great bird with his arrow and fired. The arrow found its spot; it struck the winged creature. Struck it in the wing. The powerful animal kept flying, struggling against the arrow, even as the arrow struggled to stay.

“The arrow lost the battle. It dropped, fell from the bird’s wing, and landed right at the feet of the boy. The arrow came back to the boy. The bird, in its wisdom, arranged it so the arrow was returned to the boy—a gift. But it wasn’t only the arrow that had come back to the injured boy that day.”

One day Old Owl caught her gazing at the photo of her parents.

“May I?” he held out his hands for the picture. She handed it to him. He slipped on his glasses, saying, “Hate these. They make me look like an owl.”

His eyes magnified in size as he looked at her.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Joan fibbed.

“But I like the color,” he continued, referring to the bright pink. “One Who Sees traded ten of her hand-woven baskets for them,” he explained.

Then he turned his attention to the photograph of her parents.

“Good eyes,” he said after studying it. “You look like your
shima,
your mother. Same blue eyes. So light. The color of the sky. Here, let’s put it up there.”

He fastened the picture inside the tent between strings, above Joan’s sleeping area.

“Are you like your parents? Your grandparents?” he inquired.

Joan shrugged, thinking,
No, her parents were strong
. “Don’t know much about my grandparents or really any of my family.”

She didn’t know much of her family history at all. Ironically, she knew more about the Governor and his family than her own. She recalled the forced memorizations of her school days. Sadly, as she sat here today, she could not say definitively what her mother’s favorite color was. She knew the Governor’s favorite color, his favorite food, his favorite book, and his favorite movie. She knew the meal he ate at his last birthday party.

“Then it seems to me you’re free to make your own future,” he gazed at Joan, as he removed his glasses.

He looked back to the photograph, “What happened to them?”

“They died,” she replied, her sadness and emptiness evident.
And it was her fault.

“Do you visit them?”

“Visit them? They’re dead,” she didn’t understand his meaning.

“
Ah
, you people from the Walled Nation,” he uttered, with disappointment and regret, not irritation. He gently placed his gnarled hand on her arm.

“Those who die are still with us, Lionheart. We must visit them, or they will come to us.” After a moment of silence and contemplation, he asked, “How did they die?”

With a shake of her head, her body posture indicated she would say no more. Joan didn’t want to talk about her father or mother. That would inevitably lead to how they died. It would lead to discussion of Joan’s betrayal of her mother, to her lies, to her attack on Duncan, to of the death of Garth…She kept all of that hidden and secreted away, in a clandestine place, with a fence around it—a wall. Like a dam holding back a deluge, if she allowed a crack to open, to talk about her parents, then it might all come pouring out. Perhaps she wanted to keep them hidden from herself as well. If she lost that, if she lost her secrets, then…

Old Owl understood, and he patted her knee.

23

I
n the top bunk in an army fort, Duncan read a book by a light in a small, sparse room. He shared the room with Nox. Space was short at the outpost, and the army resented having TEO officers staying with them. So he and Nox made do with what they could get.

It didn’t help matters much that the soldiers and the fort commander did not like Nox. They arrived at this fort a few weeks ago. Nox’s reputation preceded him, as he traveled along the line of forts going west, ending up at this fort, the farthest west in the chain. Nox was a disciplinarian and hard liner—a stickler for the rules in a place where there were no rules. The fort commander, Major Henworth, found a report on his desk almost daily from Nox, informing him of infringements of the rules by the soldiers. Yesterday it had been an objection to the soldiers’ poker games. “Gambling is illegal in the Alliance and
should not be tolerated,” the memo concluded. Henworth had tried to reason with Nox. “Look, these guys are out here for a long time. Let ‘em have a little gambling and drink, don’t you think?” Nox had replied, “I don’t think. I follow the law.”

Duncan rubbed his eyes, sore from reading in the dim light.

Nox burst in, saying, “She’s here! They’ve found her.”

Duncan dropped his book and jumped out of the bunk. “What? Where? She’s here? At the fort?”

Nox shook his head. “No, not here—
here.
Some traders came by the fort today. They saw her at a Nomad village—Pax City—a week or so ago. It’s maybe fifty miles northwest from here. I’m going to check with the Major to see when we can get an army escort, and we’ll head out to get her. Hopefully soon.”

Nox looked suspiciously at the book in Duncan’s hands. “What’re you reading?”

“
Last Of The Mohicans.
”

“Never heard of it.”

“By Fenimore Cooper. It’s from before the Impact,” Duncan said, and seeing the suspicion in Nox’ eyes, added, “Don’t worry, sir. It’s been OK’d. My father got permission for it. He collects old books.”

Nox nodded.

“I brought quite a few, sir, if you’d like to borrow—”

“No,” Nox replied tersely.

He did not intend to read any prohibited books.

Joan walked up to the family’s tent, carrying two canvas bags. One Who Sees sat there, preparing food.

“Got it. Here,” Joan said to her, as she gently plopped the bags nearby, “The sugar and flour you wanted.”

“Have any trouble finding the right trader?”

Joan shook her dead, “Nope. The girls helped me. He gave them a few pieces of candy. They found some friends and wanted to play. I said OK. Hope that’s alright?”

One Who Sees nodded, as she opened a bag.

Joan stretched out on the soft ground and, with her finger, drew in the dirt in a thoughtful manner. “I was talking to that trader. He told me about the big cities in the Far West, near the water. Said they have people like us. In fact, he said there’re people from the Alliance. Escapees, he called them. I thought he meant donors, but he said many of them didn’t have tattoos.” She sat up. “I don’t get it. Why would a citizen escape?”

One Who Sees shrugged. “Don’t know.” After thinking a moment, she continued, “Old Owl told me once that when you enslave something, you also enslave yourself in a way, on the inside. Maybe some citizens feel enslaved, too.”

Joan scoffed at that, shook her head, and uttered sarcastically, “Yeah, right.”

Then more seriously, “Do you, I mean,
did
you, ever think of going to those cities?”

She looked at Joan as if Joan asked about going to the moon. “Of course not, I’m a woman of the Children.”

Just then a commotion drew their attention. Arrow Comes Back walked from the river to the two women at the tent.

“Some soldiers are here. It’s
Talks Alot
.” Talks Alot was the Children’s name for Major Henworth, commander of the nearby fort. “Two of those with him wear black uniforms.”

Black uniforms?
Joan felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. Nox. He was relentless, and he found her.

“I have to leave. Have to—”

For the few weeks she’d been at the camp, she allowed herself to feel safe—feel protected. The fear returned, coming toward her like a wave in the distance soon to pound a beach.

Joan began to beg, “No. Will you hide me? Please, don’t let them take me. Ple—”

“Take you?” Arrow Comes Back shook his head. “I told you; as long as you’re with me, no harm will come to you.”

That was all he said. It was all he had to say.

Then he turned to his wife, “I’m going to the meeting.”

Seeing Joan’s anxiety, One Who Sees told her, “The Walled Nation has no power here, Lionheart. Come on, let’s go listen.”

Near the river towered a giant oak tree, which the Children called Talking Tree. Under its great boughs, the Children conducted all manners of meetings and ceremonies. Now, beneath Talking Tree, sat the three main chiefs of the Children, a few minor chiefs, three army officers and two TEO officers. Arrow Comes Back took a seat in the circle.

Joan stood next to One Who Sees outside the circle with other spectators—a large group watching the event. Dressed as one of them, she blended in with the Children.

Chief Crooked Arm spoke to the visitors, “Yes, the one you seek is here. The Lionheart.”

Joan winced. Deception was not a familiar trait of the Children, unlike the Alliance, which elevated it to an art form. One Who Sees wrapped her arm around Joan’s shoulders in reassurance.

Joan turned her gaze to the two snatchers. Their backs were to her. She immediately identified one as Nox. Even from behind, his skinny body was unmistakable. Joan looked at the second snatcher and caught her breath. She easily recognized him, too—the outline of his physique, the way he sat high, straight and tall, and the blond curls jutting out under his cap. A bandaged, left hand rested on his thigh.
Duncan
. Her breath quickened. She looked away from him and continued listening to the discussion.