The Raven's Gift (34 page)

Red grinned and patted her on the back, and then tapped John’s shoulder. “Go on,” he said, “you don’t have all day. Cut across that way
toward the bluffs, then drop down on the river. Watch out for open spots and overflow on the river ice. Good luck, you two.”

John grabbed the rifle leaning against the cowling. He slid the weapon beneath his thighs, crossways, and gave a two-fingered salute. Red winked at him, and John squeezed the throttle and the machine and sled lurched forward.

He aimed the machine northeast, following the edge of town, in the direction Red had pointed out. He travelled at half speed, just fast enough to make them a difficult target to hit, but not so fast as to waste their fuel.

They cruised past the dump, where the ravens circled by the hundreds, riding the breeze that whipped up against the ridges of dirt and trash. The birds dove and swooped, and tucked their broad black wings, plummeting toward the ground and then opening their wings at the last moment to sail up into the grey sky again. He watched the ravens as he passed, and not once did one of them roll over and dump luck in his direction. Had Red not stocked them with everything they would need, he would have considered stopping and picking around the black-speckled expanse of snow, garbage, bones, and ravens.

Just before the looming river bluff east of town he stopped the machine and killed the motor. He sat for a moment, and then turned back to look at the city behind them.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Just stopping for a second, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to do it,” she said. “Nobody should have to do something like that.”

He wanted to know how she knew, but there was no point. She knew, just as she knew most everything he thought or said. He wondered if she knew about Red’s tears, and then he wondered if those tears were because Red knew John didn’t have it in him.

“I think we owe it to him,” he said.

The girl thought for a while and nodded.

“He would do it for us,” John whispered.

A bent figure emerged from the brush near the base of the bluffs. John lifted his rifle, but then realized the person was small, old, hunched, and carrying his ice pick the way the old woman carried her shotgun, in one hand like a cane.

“I’ll be damned. There she is,” John said.

“I knew she would wait for us,” the girl said.

They both still sat on the machine, the girl’s arms still wrapped around his waist, her body pressed against his back. John took off a glove and held his fingers against his cheek, where the icy wind burned at his skin. “You start walking. That way,” John said, turning and touching her cheek with his fingers. She turned her head in the direction of the old woman.

“It’s okay if you don’t go back, John. Red would understand.”

John slid his rifle back under his legs and squeezed the handlebars as tight as he could. He leaned forward and rested his head between the bars and with his face turned sideways, relaxed his eyes until the ocean of pallid flat earth to the north of them blurred. He felt Rayna lean forward as well and rest her head against his back, her arms still around him.

They sat that way for a while, and then the girl let go and slid off the seat. The cold air rushed to fill the space against his back where she had been. She pulled off her glove and put her hand on his back, followed his spine to his neck, and then knelt down and held her warm palm to his face. Her icy irises seemed to search for his eyes and then stopped, as if they had found something important. The bright sunlight against the snow turned her pupils into two black pinholes, smaller than any he had ever seen, but at the same time he felt as if he could crawl into one of them and hide himself from the world.

“I made a promise to her,” he said, not sure if his voice was audible over the wind. “And I made a deal with Red.”

He felt his voice wither and he blinked hard and felt his tears beginning to freeze against his cheeks. She wiped away a tear with her thumb and then leaned in and touched her lips to the freezing tear, and then kissed the new pools forming at the edge of his eyes.

“My grandmother used to tell me to never ask for a promise if I knew it wasn’t fair. Maybe Anna made you promise something, but Red didn’t. He doesn’t expect you to return.”

She kissed his cheek again, and then stood. He sat up and gave the starter handle a quick tug. The machine fired, and he pumped the throttle lightly and let it idle.

“I’ll be back. I need to at least tell him I can’t do it …”

She lifted her eyebrows slightly and turned in the direction of the old woman, who had covered half the distance to the bluff.

John gunned the machine, turned in a wide half arc, and eased the sled back toward the ravens circling Bethel.

ANNA HADN’T SLEPT SOUNDLY in days, and when she finally did, she moaned and cried and muttered in her sleep. When she finally fell silent, he took out his pistol and rifle from the closet and set them within reach of the bed.

The fever was only getting worse. Day and night she would sweat until her clothes were damp all the way through. He had worked tirelessly to keep her clothes changed, her water glass ice free, and as best he could, her nerves calm.

He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to have a weapon close by, but the night before he was sure he’d heard shots. He’d started locking both doors, the door to the entry and the inside door. If someone came thinking they could do anything other than help Anna, they would be staring at the business end of his guns.

Suddenly Anna sat straight up and pointed toward the bedroom door. John squinted in the dark, trying to see what she was looking at. “He’s here,” she whispered. “He’s here, for me.”

John reached for his pistol and light. He flipped the light on, the beam cutting through their breath which hung above them in the freezing room. Anna slumped back on the bed, mumbling. He sat there waiting, almost wishing there was something or someone to unleash on. Trembling, John took a deep breath and leaned back, holding the pistol in one hand and turning off the headlamp with the other.

He didn’t know how much longer she could hold out, but it couldn’t be too much longer before help came. It just couldn’t.

   37   

H
e could see Red’s body at the bottom of the steps. Fifty yards from the tank he turned the machine perpendicular to the building and killed the motor. He dove off the machine and pulled the rifle across the seat and hunched low, watching for movement.

The gate to the storage area beneath the tank was open and Red’s snow machine gone. He could see that the tracks from the other machine were headed toward the middle of town. One of Red’s legs kicked, and John dashed toward the tank, rifle in hand.

Red’s body was still, but his eyes were moving, and they tracked John’s approach. John knelt down and cradled his head in his lap. He could see two quarter-sized bloody holes in Red’s chest.

“I bought you a little time,” Red gasped. “He’s got my machine. But he’s only got a half tank of gas.” Red convulsed and spit up a mouthful of blood. “You don’t have much time. Go. Save the girl. He knows about the gym. The kids. I told him the surviving kids are here in town, but he’ll be coming for you when he doesn’t find them. Sit me up, John. I want to be ready if he comes back.”

“Who is he?” John asked. “What does he want?”

“Blood,” Red said, lifting his hand to a dark, wet crimson smear on his neck. “He’s here for the blood of the survivors.”

“YOU CAN’T GIVE UP ON ME,” he said. “Don’t quit fighting. You can beat this,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as her.

Anna’s green eyes had already lost most of their life, the shine gone, replaced with a dull, listless stare, as if her spirit oozed from her body with each sniffle, each cough, and each glob of bright green phlegm spotted with droplets of blood.

“Just hold on until help gets here. It’s on the way,” he said, knowing no one would make it in time. It was already too late. He hadn’t done enough.

He cuddled beside her and spoke to her while running his fingers through her hair, not sure if she could even hear him or if she was asleep or in some feverish coma-like state. There was lifelessness about her. Even her hair felt wrong, thin and dying.

“If anything happens to you, I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you,” he whispered. “I’ll just stay right here until I’m gone too. I won’t live without you, Anna. Don’t give up. Please. You get a little better and I’ll get us out of here. I promise. I’ll take you home. Back to the warm and sunshine. I’ll find a way to make everything all right. Just stay with me. Stay with me. Fight it. Come on. I’m right here, girl. I’ll always be here.”

He said it, and he meant it. Life as he knew it wouldn’t be the same. It didn’t make sense to even consider going on without her. She alone had kept the world from crushing him.

He slowly and quietly lifted the covers and slipped out of the bed. He pulled on his parka and boots, tucked the pistol into his waistband, and grabbed the rifle. He had to go check out the clinic to make sure there wasn’t something there that could help her.

He was too late. Every possible medical supply had been taken. When he returned to her, empty-handed, she saw the look on his face and instead of crying, as he was so sure she would, she transformed. Right there on the bed, in front of him, she changed.

   38   

T
he old woman rode in the sled with the food and gear, the blue tarp wrapped around her. She wasn’t coughing, but he could tell she wasn’t doing well from the nights in the cold. The light coat of snow on the river ice made for fast, smooth travelling. The machine beneath him and the frigid wind in his face felt good. He felt strong on the machine. He knew the hunter would be coming, but the speed and the ground they were covering so quickly mattered.

As he put distance between themselves and Bethel, the thin willows and sporadic patches of black spruce along the wide, meandering river’s edge gave way to thicker stands of spruce and birch. The mountains seemed to grow up out of the tundra with each mile.

Broken-down snow machines and stripped four-wheelers abandoned along the riverbank made ominous trail markers. Each bend in the river revealed something more of the panicked flight from Bethel. Between the broken vehicles he spotted the occasional piece of clothing. A single red boot. A black glove. A pair of blue jeans flapping in the willows.