Mungus: Book 1 (15 page)

             
Saul crawled up beside me and I latched onto his arm.  “Shh,” I said, and I pointed to the closest lantern.  It was still about a hundred yards off, but still, by far, it was too close for me to be comfortable.  We laid down flat on the ground and the grass rose up around us, concealing us.  I was sure that we couldn’t be spotted from the distance, but the lantern moved in our direction.  I thought about what must have happened.  They discovered Glen, dead on the floor, and then heard banging from the cellar.  Lauren probably told them everything, like I asked her too.  I could imagine the guards hearing about that, getting angry.  Di swearing to kill me and taking up the gun.  Maybe I should have brought it.  The lantern was coming closer.  100 yards, 80 yards, 50 yards, 25 yards.  I was not even breathing whenever it got that close.  I lay flat on my belly and strained my neck up to see the man on the horse, but at that distance and through the grass I could not determine who it was.  Saul’s face was plunged into the dirt; he couldn’t watch.

             
The horse continued to walk until it was ten yards away.  I thought about what I would do if they spotted us.  I couldn’t run, surely they would catch us on horseback.  And we couldn’t fight.  They had greater numbers, were stronger than us, and I was certain that they would be carrying weapons.

             
The horse came closer and the light of the lantern changed the shadows around us.  My heart was thumping against the earth.  I could see through the grass where the horse’s hair met hooves and then I looked up, and to my horror, I caught eyes with a Salyer guard.  It was Hank.  We stared at each other for what felt like minutes, and then he looked above me, then to the left of me.  He turned his horse around and went the other way.

             
Was he going to get others?  Had he not seen me?  Had he seen me but didn’t want to catch me?  I didn’t know.  When he was far away I shook Saul’s shoulder.  He looked up and in the dark I could see that his face was covered in dirt with clean lines running down from his eyes where he had been crying.  “Is he gone?” Saul whispered.

             
I nodded and we continued to crawl.  We didn’t have another encounter that night and by the time we stopped the sun was about to come up.  We had put miles of tall grass between us and the farm.  The guards were behind us then, but we still didn’t want to risk being out when the sunlight came, illuminating every corner and sharp edge of the earth with bright light.  We climbed up a tall tree, ate the fruits that I had packed, shared the second canteen of water and went to sleep.

             
It was hot the next morning as well, and I periodically stirred on the tree branch that I slept on.  I was sweating through my shirt and it was well over 100 degrees by midday.  As time went on, though, fatigue won out over discomfort and I was able to sleep through most of the day.

             
Saul and I got up around evening time when the sun was just about to go down.  Saul’s face was red and he scowled and said that his head hurt.  We shared the final canteen together, Saul drinking most of it, and we split a can of corn that I had taken from Glen’s.  After we ate and hydrated ourselves, Saul began to feel better and smile more.  I was worried though.  That was our last canteen and we would have to make it all the way to town that night if we wanted anymore water.

             
I glassed the plains in the falling light with my binoculars and found no Salyers in visible distance in front of us or behind us.  “Can you see anybody out there, Saul?” 

I handed him the binoculars and after scanning the plains he told me that he didn’t.

“I guess that we can just walk, then,” I said.

Saul felt uneasy about the idea.  “Just out in the open?”

“Well, if there’s no one out there then I don’t see why not.  And if they are carrying lanterns like they did last night then we’ll see them before they see us.  If they’re coming we’ll just duck into the tall grass.”

“I guess that’s true.  Can we at least wait until it’s dark?”

That seemed fair.  I consented and we waited.  We sat on a tree branch, high above the ground on Mungus, and watched as the planet rotated and until closest star was no longer visible from where we sat.  Saul talked about how far Babe Ruth could hit a baseball, pointing to distant trees and guessing that that was the distance from home plate to the bleachers behind the 408 sign in center field of Yankee Stadium.  I nodded and seemed as interested as possible but I was distracted by the sunset.  The yellows and greens and purples fought hard to color the sky, but eventually the darkness won over and it was black.  It was beautiful and something that I had never noticed before.  When the last light had vanished below the horizon and the night animals began to make noises behind us we moved.

Saul carried the satchel around him as we climbed down.  We talked for the first few hours about different things-the farm, baseball,
our parents-but as we continued to move and sweat we grew quiet.  We had no water and walking is laborious work when you’re thirsty.  Still, we kept a good pace, pushed onward by fear of being out in the open and we moved much faster than we had while following Di.

The plains that we had lived on during the last few weeks went behind us and the land became more wooded, more forest like.  We followed the paths by moonlight.  Despite Saul’s poor overall mental capacities, he was incredible with directions.  At first I argued with him when he pointed a direction and told me where to go, but after I was correct a few times, I listened to him.

Soon, the forest opened up and we were looking at the town.  Clay buildings stood up out of the ground and city lanterns burned low atop posts.  I couldn’t believe the time that we had made.  I was expecting to arrive at the city when the sun was high the next day.  Saul didn’t look as surprised as I was when we got there.  With his keen directional skills, he was probably anticipating us arriving at the town just when we did.

“Do we go and find the president now?” Saul said.

I looked up and saw the moon which was cut out by the earth’s shadow to make a bold C sitting high in the sky.  “He’s probably not awake.”  Saul’s face looked numb and tired.  “Why don’t we try to find some water first?”

Saul  lit
up at this idea and agreed.  We walked through the town finding that most shutters were closed and curtains were drawn for the night.  The more I hoped that we could find water the stronger my thirst became.  Finally, we came upon an old wooden bar sitting on the Southern side of town.

Lanterns flickered outside the building, illuminating a sign that simply read, “BAR,” on the top.  We turned the doorknob and entered.  It was a small wooden room.  Tables with profanities carved into the tops were scattered around.  On the back wall were shelves of liquor bottles and in front of that was a Beardsley woman wiping down the wooden serving counter with a white towel.  She squeezed the trigger on her spray bottle and then wiped up the cleaner.  She was not pretty.  Her forehead protruded much too far above her eyes, making them dark.  Where her shirt was rolled up I could see thick curls of black hair spilling off of her forearms.  She looked up at us once and kept scrubbing.  Then she took a second glance and froze as if we were about to rob the bar.

I held up my palms to her as if to say ‘I mean no harm,’ and smiled at her.

She smiled back, and to my surprise, her teeth were pure white and utterly straight.  “Hi!  What can I get for you guys?”

“Water,” Saul croaked.

She went over to the faucet and filled two glasses with murky water.  Saul reached into the satchel and brought out the canteens.  “Can you fill these up too?” he said.

She took them and began to pump water into them while we sipped on our glasses.  “Been traveling?” she asked.

I took one more gulp of my water and then looked at her.  Something in me didn’t like the way that she had asked the question.  Saul didn’t seem to register what I had and he laughed, “Oh, yeah!  A long ways too, lady!”

Saul’s way of talking made the woman and I both laugh, but I was still uneasy.  She pumped at the metal faucet and said with her back to us, “as soon as I’m finished with this, you two should leave town.”

“Oh, no,” said Saul.  “We can’t do that.  We’ve come to see the president.”

The woman finished pumping out our waters, and set them down on the counter before us.  She studied our faces.  “You should leave soon.  Maybe if you do, I won’t remember you were here.”  She bent down and pulled out a drawer below and slapped a piece of paper onto the counter.  “You two haven’t happened to see these guys have you?”  It was a wanted poster, and to my horror, they were looking for us.  Two very accurate sketches of us rested in between the word WANTED!!! and the amount of reward.  It read, “TWO BOYS WANTED FOR THE MURDER OF THEIR MASTER.  TO BE BROUGHT TO THE THEATRE.”

I read it over then looked up at the woman, “but there hasn’t even been a trial.  How can they do that?”

“They don’t need a trial, hon.  Now go.”

Saul and I both said thank you with pale faces and then we were out the front door.  Once we were out on the streets we noticed something that we hadn’t before; wanted posters for us littered the walls of stores, government buildings, even homes.  We walked quickly, keeping our ears peeled and looking around for any early risers.  We encountered no one on our way out and went deep into the woods.

We walked far between the trees, not daring to say a word.  It was dark in the mix of forest, and my ears heard things that weren’t there.  A snap of a twig echoed out behind me and I gasped.  I heard the leaves rustle to my left and I jumped.  Something moving ahead of us made me freeze.  It wasn’t until we were deep into the forest and up a tree that I thought for the first time that I didn’t even know the name of the woman who had saved my life.

We were high up in a tree, safe from the wanted posters and Salyer guards.  Saul broke the silence.  “What do we do now, Walt?” he asked.

I sat for a long time before I answered.  I considered everything that I could think of and then I considered it all again.  I had to be the strong one.  I was the smart one.  The dying eyes of my mother came into my mind, begging me to protect Saul.  I searched my brain for an answer and none came.  After some time, Saul asked again, “what do we do now, Walt?” as if I hadn’t heard him.

In response to his question, I was honest.  “I don’t know,” I said.  The words came out of my mouth and startled me.  They sounded like the words of a scared little boy, not a leader.  That’s what I was-a scared little boy.  I was a scared runaway without a way to protect
himself and with no one to protect him.  And I had Saul to look after.

We opened up another can of corn and ate it cold that night.  We didn’t talk much.  We were both in low spirits.  The wind picked up until it was screaming through the trees and we each sipped on a canteen of water.  The temperature dropped and I heard a pit patter on the top canopy of the trees.  Then, the rain began to pick up and the water fell through.  It fell in sheets
; uncontrollable, unchecked.  Lightning flashed and thunder roared.  Sitting on that tree, listening to the weather, I felt small.  I didn’t get to sleep until late in the morning.

11

Trapped

             
I couldn’t believe how quickly our supplies were gone.  We tried to eat and drink sparingly, but hadn’t done a good enough job.  The raw chicken went bad in the satchel and we had to throw it away.  Over the course of four hungry and thirsty days we ate our two cans of food, one of green beans one of peaches, and we also drank our canisters dry of water.  Even though we were thirsty, nature showed no mercy.  The cicadas buzzed and the sun beat down hazy waves of heat over the earth.  Saul and I didn’t drift far from town on those first few days.  We were leashed towards civilization by a fear of walking deep into the woods and never seeing another person again.  We found, however, that our concern took a backseat whenever our dehydrated bodies begged us for water and our canisters were empty and the cloudless sky showed no promise of rain.

             
We wandered through the forest without aim, the blood beating hard in our aching heads.  We went between tree trunks and over dry riverbeds, never finding water and being drained of our sweat by the heat, and being drained of our blood by the mosquitoes.  We were delirious and often bickered.

             
“You said to go left, Saul!  I did and look where we are; right back where we started!”

             
“I didn’t want to even leave the farm.  I was doing fine there!  I liked it!  You’re an idiot, Walt!”

             
But in the end, after we threw our temper tantrums, we always apologized and the other person always accepted.  It’s hard to hold a grudge when it’s that hot.

             
The first night without water was awful.  We slept on the ground and I woke up all throughout the night.  I would dream of cool waters or being back up on the ship, only to open my eyes and remember that my mouth was as dry as a salt bed and that my brother and I were wanted men. 

The next day, Saul and I woke up and began to walk without any sense of direction or plans, but with a wish in our hearts to find water.  Saul carried the satchel around his shoulders and his white shirt was stained yellow from sweat.  He was acting funny, giggling sometimes and nearly on the verge of crying others.  He made me stop often so that he could check the canteens.