Through Darkest America-Extended Version (10 page)

What that was
was
child
-thinking, Howie reminded himself. All right for games and daydreaming if you were a kid and could go home for a hot supper when you got tired of playing. Only he wasn't a kid anymore and the soldiers back there didn't have much
playin
' in mind.

The thought had come to him more than once in the last few days. It was a peculiar kind of feeling. He wasn't real sure what he was anymore. He'd been ripped out of one life—picked up, shaken hard, and tossed down somewhere else. He wasn't a grownup, but he sure wasn't a kid, either. It was something uncomfortably in-between, right where you couldn't do either one real well.

With cold hands, he felt around inside his bundle, grubbed out the last chunk of dry meat, and washed it down with water. The cramping started near as soon as he swallowed.

 
That was happening a lot, now. Eating next to nothing just aggravated his belly, reminding it of what ought to be coming down and wasn't. He had to eat, though. He knew that. Whatever he could scratch up would go down his gullet and his stomach would just have to make do with what it got.

It was different with the soldiers, he figured.
Theyd'd
been trained to pace their appetites on a hard trail, eating when they could, doing without when they had to. The more Howie rode, the hungrier he got!

There was another thing, too. He had to keep going, no matter what. But the soldiers could send a couple of men out looking for rations without slowing the chase. They'd been close enough at least once in the last six days for him to hear them doing just that.

Lordee
—that had been
too
close! He'd been sure the horse would give him away then, but it hadn't. It was trained to travel in silence, a talent that had saved his skin more than once.

He ate what he could, then. Scrambling around at night for nuts left over from the fall before. Stopping on the trail for wild onions, or whatever else grew in his path. He lost near as much as he ate, but enough stayed down to keep him going.

The sun passed swiftly overhead and shadows crawled down the side of the ridge to fill the valley. Howie lay perfectly still, taking in every inch of the land below. His eyes marked a place where stone turned from one color to another; he could see where water lay under the earth by the way trees would swell up thick and heavy-green one place, and light somewhere else. He knew plants followed the patterns of water, and men did the same. It was the way life moved about. You just kind of naturally followed the way a stream flowed, or a river. He watched where the birds swung in easy arcs over the woods and where they darted and scattered, suddenly aware of something below. It might be nothing at all—but it could be a sign that men were about.

The soldiers were some better in the wilderness, and Howie knew it. But he was no stranger there, either. He was still alive, wasn't he? They hadn't gotten him yet, and that was something. And every day he stayed ahead of them was a day in which he gained trail sense to help him stay alive a little longer. He was learning he knew more than he'd figured. Papa had taught him things he was using without even thinking. That made him proud.

He spotted them late in the afternoon, the sun behind their ragged column, coming east instead of west. His heart sank a little. He'd moved fast that morning, leaving a clear trail that led down through the valley westward, and across onto hard rock again. They'd followed the false trail, but it hadn't fooled them much. They were doubling back now, just as he'd done earlier. Howie felt a sudden chill. They were more than a half a mile away still, but he was certain they could see him plain as day, perched up there on the ridge, squeezed under his flat slab of stone.

He pulled himself up tight in his hole, until cold rock was part of his hide. Squinting right into the sun, it was hard to make a good count—not that a count meant anything. They'd tried that once or twice, too. Let him think the whole bunch was in a column, but keeping a few stragglers behind, or maybe Hankers out to the sides.

He was certain that's what they were up to now. Trail sense told him they were coming on too slow and easy— lined up straight and pretty for him to see. The others would be back of him, then. Over the ridge. Maybe waiting at the edge of the woods where he'd likely try to break away with the mount. That'd be the normal thing to do—run from the men coming straight on—right into the troopers waiting for him.

Howie gauged the sun again. It was nearly down—another four or five minutes. Once it dropped behind the low hills it'd get dark quick enough. And maybe he'd just give '
em
what they wanted.

He’d judged the horse right enough. It was nearly gone— the ugly head slack against a tall pine, feet spread wide, sides heaving for air. He felt sorry for it. The beast had saved his life, and he'd fair run it to death. That was something that couldn't be helped, though, and there was nothing for it now. And he had one more favor to ask of it. A big one.

It was dark when he led the beast back down the slope. His skin crawled at the idea of getting caught on foot this close to where the pines stopped their march downhill and gave way to the clearing. If the soldiers were anywhere around, they'd be waiting close by. But he had to chance it. If the thing was going to work at all, the soldiers had to know about it. It wasn't any good unless there was somebody there to appreciate what he was doing.

He stood back and let the arrow go without much force behind it, placing it just behind the animal's rib cage. He figured it ought to cause plenty of pain there, without bringing the creature down too soon. The horse screamed and bolted—tearing brush aside and snapping low branches. Howie took off up the hill without looking back.
Lordee
, if they didn't hear that—!

And by the time they figured what had happened, that he wasn't on the horse, he'd have a fair start. They couldn't trail him until daylight and they'd have a fine time guessing which way he'd gone.

If it was just dark enough, he reminded himself. And if the troopers didn't look too close . . .

He woke stiff and cold, hunger growing like something live inside him. For a quick minute he thought he'd died and gone wherever it was people went. The whole world below his branch was draped in a wet blanket of gray. Like the forest had grown a mile high in the night and poked its head right through the clouds.

He thought a while about what he ought to do. The fog would hide him while he climbed down from his perch. But if anyone was close enough to hear . . .

He stayed where he was, holding himself patiently against the cold. Doing one thing wrong was one too many. It was something he had to keep remembering. Wait. Until everything felt right. Wait until the wind feels easy at first dawn. Until the birds settle at noon. And right now, wait until the fog burns away and there's a chance you'll see whoever's about, 'fore they see you first.

There was a stream in the draw below the trees. Young wild onions were plentiful and he ate as many as he could, knowing they'd tie his stomach in knots again. Further downstream he found button mushrooms—tiny bulbs pale as death clustered under heavy oaks. He didn't worry about whether they were mushrooms or something else. He was proud of himself for that. A town boy from Cotter or
Bluevale
might not know the difference, but he did. They tasted good and he picked as many as he could find, filling his stomach and his pockets at the same time.

It was a good place and he wanted to stay longer, but he knew better than that. Filling his clay jug with fresh water, he left the green shadows and climbed back up the rise. Where the trees began to thin, he came out suddenly into the full light of morning. And when he looked down through the last tails of fog burning away in the sun he could see the bone-white carcass of the city, stretching clear across the valley as far as the shining river.

Chapter Eleven

W
ho could imagine such a sight? Why, you could've set a hundred
Bluevales
down there and lost '
em
easy! He'd never seen anything like it before, but he knew right off what it was. A City was something you didn't
have
to more than hear about.

After a good half minute he realized he was standing big as you please in bright sunlight—an easy target for any fool who cared to look. Scolding himself soundly for such carelessness, he went to ground quickly.

It was an eerie thing, for certain. Enough to set a chill up the back of your neck. As far as the eye could see, ragged spires of gray stone dotted the dark woods. Like stacks of old bones, thought Howie. The wilderness had come back to claim the valley long ago, but you could still make out where streets had been and how it might have looked before.

A broad river snaked through the far side of the valley, brown and lazy. And that was right enough, he figured— Papa had talked about how towns needed rivers for trade, if they expected to grow and amount to anything. Old Cities were probably no different.

Howie didn't know much about Cities, or what they were supposed to look like. It wasn't something folks talked about. Mostly people just said they'd been bigger than anything ought to be. That there'd been plenty of open country to live in, but that everyone wanted to be close up together. It was a hard thing to understand.
Bluevale
and Cotter were fun to go to, but Howie couldn't imagine staying there, with that many people about. And those were just towns—not anything like what a City must have been.

Something bad had happened to Cities in the War. Something terrible. Only nobody could say just what. Even the Scriptures didn't go into much detail about that. God had found Men eating the flesh of unclean animals and He had washed the Earth of corruption. Only that didn't tell you a lot. Looking down on the ruins of the City you knew there was more than that. Not something you could see, exactly. More like what you could
feel
, inside.

By noon he was down the side of the mountain and near the edge of the City's beginnings. He hadn't thought much about not going, or what dangers he might find there. All the old stories about ghosts and devils and other awful things didn't seem too scary anymore. There couldn't be anything lurking in the City much worse than what was after him already. Still, he kept his mind on the trail ahead and didn't peer too close at the blunt knobs of dead stone all about him. And he was glad enough he hadn't come upon this place in the dark.

The idea had started forming in his head while he was still on the mountain. And the longer he thought about it, the better he liked it. It was one of those ideas you knew was right from the beginning.

He'd been lucky so far, but luck didn't last forever. It had started running out when he'd lost the horse. A man on foot didn't stand a chance, and he knew it. They'd get him sooner or later. Today, maybe. Or next week. But they'd get him. As long as a man left a trail, there was another who could follow it. But the river, now,
that
was something else! As soon as he'd seen it shining in the distance, he'd known that was the way. Get to the river—find something that'd float. Anything. Drift down the current at night, hole up during the day. It didn't matter much where the river took him. It flowed west, away from home where people knew him. Right now, that was all Howie needed to know.

He took a careful, twisting path through the City, watching his tracks and staying to the cracked stone roadways when he could. He watched the sun and knew he was edging toward the river. In midafternoon he holed up in the shell of a building and finished his mushrooms. There was nothing else around to eat. But he could do without, for now. And it was good just stopping a minute and not running. Maybe the City had been a good idea, he decided. Most people stayed away from the old places. It wouldn't stop the soldiers, if they figured he was in there. But he'd gained some time and they weren't around now. The birds told him that. He could rest awhile. Then get to the river, and wait for night to set in. They'd never take him then
nobody'd
ever
hear
about him after that.

Jacob's soldiers had kept him on the run, giving him precious little time to more than catch his breath. Still, any chance he'd had Howie studied the guns he'd taken from the trooper. He figured he knew how cartridges fit in the smaller weapon, the one you held in your fist, and what you did to make it go off. That was clear enough from the way it fit your hand. He wasn't too sure yet of the longer one. If he had to, he decided, he could point the handgun in the right direction and fire it.

It was about the last thing in the world he
wanted
to do— and likely would be, if it came to that. That was the thing about guns; you could hit a man further away than a
bow'd
ever think of reaching. But everyone for miles around sure knew what you were up to.

He didn't mind admitting he was scared to death of the things. How did a man use one without going deaf? Did you ever get
used
to that? Still, he'd never figured on riding a horse, either. And he'd done that, hadn't he? Though his
tailbone'd
near torn in two the first couple of days. Horses and guns were fearsome things—but they were precious goods to have. Howie had learned that well enough. They made a man faster and stronger than other men. A man with one had terrible power—a man with both could do pretty well what he pleased. Papa and his mother and a lot of other people were dead because they hadn't had either. Well, it wouldn't happen to him. Not ever. He'd get away from Jacob's troopers, and he would never let another man get the best of him.