Gone to the Forest: A Novel (16 page)

“Half a day by the back roads. Maybe a little longer.”

“If we leave in the night, can we be back in one day?”

“Possibly.”

Tom nods. He needs to sit down. He is feeling faint. His breath is coming short and sweat is breaking out across his forehead. He sits down on the ground, in the dirt, chest heaving. Jose looks down at him.

“What are you doing?”

He waves him off. He sits cross-legged and wheezes. He keeps his head tipped down into his chest. He waits for his breath to slow.

“Are you well enough to travel?”

Tom swallows and looks up at Jose.

“I am fine. We can leave tomorrow.”

Jose puts his hands into his pockets. He does not offer Tom his hand. He does not help him to his feet. He looks down at him. Tom sits in the dirt and watches Jose, who frowns.

“Okay.”

Slowly, Tom gets to his feet. He reaches out to shake Jose’s hand. Jose hesitates and then takes Tom’s hand. They are both confused by the gesture. Now Tom dreads the journey ahead. What is he doing? Perhaps they are both fools. After all, they are the only ones left. He should have gone long ago. But he did not and instead is still stuck on the land, it is him and the dying man, here on the farm.

T
hey leave at three in the morning. It is black dark outside. Tom does not like the dark—he is the kind of man who sleeps with a sliver of light. He is the kind of man who likes a candle by his bed. He is nervous and rides his horse poorly. Lucky for him the horse is placid and used to his nervousness. The horse plods ahead and stays the course despite the darkness.

Jose rides ahead and is inscrutable. This is the word Tom uses in his head. The word they all use and have used, to describe the natives. It is not accurate, the natives being as readable as any of the white settlers, if the white settlers took the time to do the reading. However, they do not and have not. Nonetheless, as far as Tom can tell he is as interested in completing the journey as Tom and that is a source of some reassurance.

According to Jose, they can take the main road for the first half of the journey. The rebellion has not yet come this far south. Jose knows the movements of the rebellion in uncanny
detail. Having never spoken of it before, the rebellion is now all Jose speaks of. The rebellion is here or it is there. The rebellion is moving toward them. It is moving away. The rebellion is growing in speed and strength.

This new idea of the rebellion is making Tom unhinged. He rides the horse and his entrails thrash inside him. He does not even know what the rebellion means. And yet his vocabulary expands. There are new words and new ideas. The Oath Takers. The men who’ve gone to the forest. The expansion is no good thing for Tom. He lives in a permanent state of contraction and the stretching is like to break him.

He asks questions. In the dark he babbles out of nervousness.

“And what is their oath?”

“The oath is for land and freedom.”

“But we have given them land and they have their freedom.”

“Maybe it is not enough.”

“Who says they are not free? They are free.”

“We should not talk. We must be silent.”

Jose is also tense. All the others have left. The punishment for collusion is worse than death. And yet he stays! When logic dictated his departure long ago. He has been hedging his bets, he tells himself he is only hedging his bets. But his position will not be sustainable for long. Soon he will need to make a decision.

Therefore he remains silent as they ride. The roads are empty and dark. There are small herds of sheep and cattle but no humans to speak of. After two hours the road runs up
the hills and directly through the territory of the new farms. Loops of barbed wire hang from sticks and in some cases there are wire fences. Most farms have nothing more than a single shack. Not large enough for a family, barely large enough for a couple of tools and a plow. The farms are all fence and barbed wire.

None of the land looks like it is being used. It looks like acres of divided dirt fields. They are not large enough to grow anything. A vegetable garden. Some wheat or corn.

The new farms are by and large useless. Tom sees that. He is not surprised that the farms are deserted. Jose says to him that they should go. They should keep away from the new farms and villages. He says they are not deserted, far from it. Tom shakes his head. The new farms are everywhere. They are unavoidable. Look, he says. Look how they are eating up the land.

But Jose is uneasy. He says to him that they must go. Now. They leave the main road and go up the hills. They are nowhere close to Herbertville, they are nowhere near half done with their journey, and already they have taken to the back roads. These roads are curving and winding and indirect. Tom does not like the logic of the back roads. After an hour of riding in what feels like circles, Tom tells Jose they should return to the main road. He says to him that they are losing time. It is past dawn. It is nearly morning.

We are not so far, Jose says. We are making good time—

He is cut off by the sound of gunfire. Both men jump. A long silence and then a long round of shots. The sound of
voices shouting. They dismount and pull their horses into shadow. Jose motions to Tom, he puts a finger to his lips. Tom nods, teeth chattering. He whispers to himself, he says, perhaps it is a hunt, yes, maybe that is what it is. That would explain it. They are hunting impala. They are hunting wild boar. Jose glares at him and motions again for him to be silent. He peers through the bushes.

The next round of gunfire is all around them. It is in every direction. Tom covers his ears. He buries his head and closes his eyes. The reins slip through his fingers—in an instant, the horse has bolted and is gone. He hears men shouting and he cowers down closer to the ground. He wishes to disappear, for the ground to swallow him whole—he should never have left the farm.

The voices come closer—they are on this road, this dirt road, they are right there, they should have stuck to the main road, another mistake—and then there is a long silence and he is forced from terror to open his eyes. Jose is nowhere in sight. Both horses have disappeared. It is only him, what they call Lizard Boy, crouching in the dirt and dust. He stands. The sun is high in the sky. He squints and raises an arm to block the sun.

“Don’t move.”

He freezes in the middle of the road.

“Turn. Slowly.”

He shuffles his feet in the dirt. A young man dressed in full army uniform stands behind him carrying an AK-47. Tom is cautious but relieved. This makes sense. The Government will
have sent soldiers to the valley, having heard of the rebellion’s course. They will have sent troops to protect the citizens of the country.

“Raise your hands.”

Cautiously, he raises his hands. He wishes the young man would not point the machine gun at his chest—it is hardly necessary, look, he is white, clearly he is not an Oath Taker! But the young man does not lower the rifle. Instead he steps closer until the barrel of the gun is pressing into Tom’s sternum and then he stops. He is not even a man. He is just a boy. Tom’s heart thumps against the gun’s metal barrel.

The boy soldier calls out.

“Over here!”

He is joined by an older soldier. This solder has a shotgun strapped to his leg and his uniform is not as clean as the boy’s—there are rips and tear and stains and the sleeves appear to have fallen off altogether. Perhaps he has been fighting the rebellion for some time now, since it started up north. He wears a colonel’s stripes and medals. His green trousers are tucked into his boots and the boots are covered in dirt and grime. He comes to Tom and the boy.

“Who is this?”

“I found him here, crouching by the side of the road.”

“Where?”

“Here. Here.”

The boy soldier jerks the rifle to the ground. His eyes remain on Tom.

“Is he armed?”

“No.”

The older soldier looks at Tom.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to get medicine for my father.”

“What is wrong with him?”

“He is dying.”

“You are all dying.”

Tom nods. He is becoming afraid again. He would like to go. These people are frightening to him. Their faces are crossed with scars and he sees now that they are splattered with new blood. The boy soldier has a machete slung into his trousers. Tom does not know if this is right or wrong. There are things, definitely there are things about these men that are not right. They seem very close to deranged. They have spent too long in the forest and lost their minds.

“Soon you will be gone. This country is no longer safe for white men.”

“Yes. We will be leaving.”

“And going where?”

“Home.”

The older soldier laughs.

“Yes. That is the right answer. I see that you are learning.”

He smiles and scratches his chin. He looks up at the sun lazily.

“Tell me. Have you heard of the birds called Rheas?”

Tom shakes his head, mute with fear. The soldier smiles.

“No? They are big birds—too big to fly. They gather on the ground with nothing to do. Imagine. So many birds, gathered
on the ground and none of them able to fly away. There is not enough land for so many birds.”

Comically, he lifts an eyebrow.

“They must find a way to occupy themselves. They must find a way to keep themselves busy. A game.”

He pauses. He wags a finger at Tom and lowers his voice confidentially.

“This is a game the male birds play. They clear a large space and then two male birds lock necks. They spin in a circle with their necks locked. They spin faster and faster until one of the birds becomes dizzy and lets go. The dizzy bird is the loser. The one that lets go first. That is how they make the time pass.”

He looks at Tom.

“Have you heard this story before?”

This time Tom nods.

“It is a good story, no? These birds are as big as men. As big as human beings.”

He sighs. He looks up at the sun again.

“Time to go.”

He signals to the boy and then turns and heads down the path. The boy soldier looks after him.

“What do I do with him?”

“Leave him. He is harmless.”

The older soldier disappears down the road. The boy soldier turns to Tom. His gun still leveled at his chest. He keeps the gun trained on him and then abruptly lowers it. He grimaces.

“You are a lucky guy.”

He turns and jogs down the road after the older soldier. They disappear into the bush.

For a long time Tom stands frozen in the middle of the road. Eventually he lowers his hands. They have been up, held up in the air all this time. Now he lowers them and they are sore with the effort. He hears—birds, trees, stupid and anonymous sounds. He is alone. He is safe and still alive. He knows he has been lucky, he does not need the boy soldier to tell him this. The blood—his life, now saved, of which he is newly aware—pounds through his head.

In the distance he hears a round of gunfire. Followed by shouts. Quickly, he crouches down in the middle of the road, he hides behind a bush. The shouts gather into a song. He strains to hear the words.

The men who go to the forest

The men who drink the oath

We will fight

Until we take back the land

Down to the last man

Down to the last shout

Better to die standing

Than on your knees

Better to die free

Than a slave

He covers his ears with his hands in horror and waits for the voices to fade as the men pull into the distance. When he
can no longer hear the voices he stands. He is trembling all over. He ducks into the bush and runs as fast as he can. He is getting lost—he is already lost. He does not know where he is going apart from away.

Tom runs as fast as Tom can run. He runs but it turns out there is nowhere to go. He runs and finds himself down on the main road. The moment he sees the expanse of paved surface he panics and ducks back into the bush. He crouches in the dirt and listens for the all clear of silence. There are smells in the air—smoke and blood, he can smell both smoke and blood.

His thoughts are disordered. He needs to get a horse. He must find Jose. He must find a way to get home, he must warn his father of the soldiers. I am looking for help. He says this to himself. I am looking for help. He stands up and steps into the road. Up ahead he sees a house in flames. It burns close to the ground and is half in ember.

He starts walking in the direction of the burning house, not knowing where else to go. He has lost his shoes—how? He cannot tell how long his feet have been bare—and the soil is hot from sun and flame. His feet and legs have been cut from thorns and bramble. He stumbles as he walks and then he is grabbed, seized, by both arms and pulled to the ground. He chokes as the air is pushed out of his lungs and coughs as the dust flies up into his face.

Jose clamps his hand over his mouth and motions for him to be silent. Tom pries his hand off.

“Where have you been?”

“Quiet.”

Tom lowers his voice to a whisper.

“Where have you been?”

“Are you okay?”

“Those soldiers—there was something wrong with them.”

“Those were no soldiers. You should be dead.”

“Who were they?”

“Oath Takers.”

“They were in uniform.”

“They steal uniforms off the dead. They have seized this entire area.”

“But—how?”

Jose motions for them to get off the road. They crouch—like animals, like less than animals—in the dirt and bush. From this position, close to the ground, they see a group of men on the road. A handful carry AK-47s and there are machetes as well. They do not appear to be in any hurry, they move at a leisurely pace. They fire their guns—sometimes into the air, sometimes at a target up ahead on the road, not visible to either Tom or Jose.

“They are on the move. The men who questioned you—which way did they go?”