A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1 (3 page)

Uncle’s fist unfurled. “Yes,” he said, “I am. Now, if we’re gonna get away early we need to be ready to load at first light.”

“Sure,” Squid said, because for once his Uncle’s demands seemed reasonable. It was a bit of a trip into town so it made sense to get loaded up as soon as they could.

“One paddock of dirt is already barreled up and just needs to be loaded onto the carriage, but this paddock here,” Uncle gestured around, “is still sittin’ on the ground.”

Squid’s heart sank. Uncle looked at him and smiled, his round cheeks pushing his eyes half-closed.

“You better get goin’, maggot.”

There was no moon in the sky that night but the stars were out in all their glory, sprinkles of light clustered around a brilliant white stripe across the sky. Squid looked back over what he could see of the paddock in the colorless light. The field was turned far too lightly. They may as well have spent the whole afternoon kicking the dirt over with their feet. The deeper the turn, the better the dirt, but that meant a slower plow and usually two or three runs. There was no time to fix it now.

The Horse snorted as it looked at Squid, its front right foot scraping the dirt. Squid wished, not for the first time, that he wasn’t afraid. He wanted to be brave enough to stand up to Uncle, to stand up to The Horse, and especially to stand up to that gate so he could escape and go back to school.

“You already hate me so I guess I might as well tell you we’re gonna be out here a while longer,” Squid said to The Horse as he removed the plow from the harness, ready to attach the dirt loader. It was designed to run along the ground, the fertilized dirt moving up an old tin chute and into a wooden barrel. Squid dragged the loader over, thankful for the physical work now as the cold night air pressed in on him. His stomach growled its objection; he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He lifted an empty barrel up onto the platform, tied it down and moved the chute into position. Squid had been through this routine so many times in his life that it was all but automatic. He wondered if he could sleep and still manage to maneuver the equipment around the paddock. Squid stepped forward to grab The Horse’s harness, and the animal took a step away. Squid sighed.

Squid awoke to the familiar spray of morning light through the cracks in the walls. He watched the gentle swarms of red dust dance in the streamers of light for a few moments. His head was heavy with an insistent dull ache. He felt like he hadn’t slept at all. It had only been a few hours from dawn when he’d finished collecting the turned dirt and he could barely remember stumbling into the small outhouse he called his bedroom.

He twisted around, levering himself onto his feet. His mattress, so worn and thin that it was little more than torn material and missing cushion, was doubled over so that it would fit in the cramped space and even Squid, as small as he was, needed to curl up to fit on it. He slipped off his bed clothes, an old fertilizer bag with holes cut for his head and arms, and stretched out his body.

In the corner of the outhouse was a dark wooden box with patterns carved into the lid, thirty-six leaves in symmetrical spirals that met in the middle. Squid ran his fingers over the smooth rises and falls in the polished wood. He opened the box, taking out his good shirt and pants. Squid had two sets of clothes: the rough hessian he wore around the farm and a cotton shirt and pants for wearing in public, or in the event that Aunt and Uncle ever received visitors, something that had happened twice in the fifteen years he’d lived on the farm. At least if he ever got up the courage to run away it wouldn’t take long to pack.

Squid picked up the tin cup that sat in the dirt next to his bed. Inside, on a fraying string coiled like a snake, was his key. He lifted it out, letting it dangle in front of his eyes. It was a small thing, really, and different from most keys he’d ever seen before. It had an oval end, about the size of a person’s thumb, green and worn, and then a metal shaft ending in an intricately cut pattern of squares.

The key had belonged to his mother. Squid had been given it several years ago. He’d begun asking more and more questions about his parents and Uncle had reluctantly agreed to go into the attic and pull down the old basket he’d been delivered in. Squid had seen the key between the folds of the dusty blanket and asked to keep it. Uncle hadn’t cared. As far as he was concerned it was just a piece of junk. But to Squid this key unlocked some tiny proof that his parents had once existed.

Squid put the key around his neck and pulled on his clothes. He took a moment to inspect himself, then spat on the palm of his hand and rubbed at a mysterious stain on the front of his shirt, making it worse. Hopefully Aunt wouldn’t notice. He kicked the door of the outhouse, not out of anger, just because sometimes it tended to stick, and when he’d got it open he walked toward the farmhouse. He was surprised to see Uncle already by the storage shed loading barrels of dirt onto the wagon. Squid could smell the familiar waft of freshly fertilized soil. In some ways it disgusted him but in other ways it was like a stinky old friend.

“I thought I told you to get up early,” Uncle said, lifting a barrel onto the wagon.

“It is early,” Squid replied accurately.

Uncle looked at him, scratched his nose and turned away. Not even a snap. Not so much as a “shut your mouth” or a “keep talkin’ back and you’ll get a hidin’.” Uncle wrapped his arms around another barrel and groaned with exaggerated effort as he lifted it onto the wagon, dropping it with a thud. The wagon bounced on its twin axles.

“Go inside and get some breakfast,” Uncle said, “then get back out here and help me load these barrels.”

Squid looked at Uncle. His face was straining. His cramped features seemed to twist around the word that squeezed its way out through his mouth.

“Please.”

Squid felt like a horse had kicked him, a horse wearing giant feather slippers. The only time Uncle ever said please was at the market. If a farmer approached them asking for some barrels of dirt Uncle would turn to Squid and say: “Fetch the good man his dirt.” Then Uncle would smile, and with a little glint in his eye he would add, “Only the finest for him please.”

Squid knew those pleases weren’t for him, but this please, this one just now, could only have been meant for him. Squid turned quickly, just to be certain there was no one else around. Uncle’s face was taut, as if the word had tasted bitter on his tongue. 

“Hurry up then.”

Perplexed, Squid walked into the farmhouse. The faint clicking of dancing knitting needles was coming from the corner. Aunt looked up at him. Her hair was a tangle of black streaked with more than a little distinguished gray. Her features were fine, she may even have been attractive once, but now her skin looked as though she had spent too long in the bath.

Not for the first time, Squid wondered why she always knitted. The days rarely got cold enough for Uncle to wear the patterned woolen jumpers she made.

“Your breakfast is on the counter,” she said.

Aunt never had breakfast ready for him but, nonetheless, there on the thick wooden counter was a chipped dinner plate. He pushed it experimentally with his finger; it seemed real. There were two boiled potatoes on the side of the plate and lying teasingly next to them was a slice of what Squid was certain was Uncle’s honeyed ham. He looked back at Aunt.

She smiled at him, her cheeks nearly splitting open with the unnatural movement. Squid had never seen Aunt smile before, not even to Uncle. It was so oddly unfamiliar that it was more terrifying than reassuring. Normally she wouldn’t even bother speaking to him, she would just glare at him across the room and ask Uncle to pass on whatever message she had for him. “Tell your nephew to clear up the plates,” she would say, or “Tell your nephew to fetch my needles.” At least when Uncle ordered him around he did it directly.

“Go on,” she said, “your uncle will be waiting.”

Squid picked up one of the potatoes and took a hesitant bite. As his teeth dug through the springy cold skin he felt the fluffy interior of cold roast potato burst into his mouth. It was good. He was so hungry he would have happily eaten a bowl of oat gruel, his usual morning meal, but this was delicious. He demolished the rest of the potato and grabbed the next one. When he was done with that he came to the generous slice of ham. He lifted it and inhaled. He knew this smell, a tantalizingly sweet aroma, but he had never before been allowed to eat any. He bit into it. The sweetness of the honey and the saltiness of the meat met on his taste buds. He scoffed it down and wished, once it was gone, that he’d taken more time to savor it.

“Thank you,” Squid said.

He saw his aunt’s eye float to the stain on his shirt. Her lips tightened but she didn’t say anything.

Back at the wagon Squid began loading the barrels. He was surprised when Uncle continued to help. Usually Uncle’s idea of helping was sitting back and telling Squid exactly how badly he was doing. Today, though, with Uncle’s assistance they loaded the forty-six barrels in half the time it usually took.

Uncle turned to him.

“Time for the horses.”

Squid felt the all too familiar pang of dread in his stomach.

“I’ll get that one,” Uncle said. Squid watched him walk away but somehow didn’t feel better. He had a lingering sense that something wasn’t quite right. 

Uncle hitched up The Horse without even asking Squid to try. Squid led the reddish-brown horse, the one Uncle called Bluey, toward the wagon. Where The Horse was a big animal, stocky and strong, snorting and scraping as he waited impatiently, Bluey was skinny. The lines of his ribs could be seen in his chest like depressing stripes. This was not to say that Bluey was sickly or starved; under his droopy eyelids he looked out at the world with a kind of stupid happiness.

With the two animals harnessed to the tongue of the wagon, Uncle pushed the wheel chocks aside with his foot.

“All right, let’s go,” Uncle said, climbing into the driver’s seat. Squid clambered up onto the wagon next to him and looked at Uncle. He couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Why are you being so nice to me today?” he asked.

Uncle looked at him for a moment before whipping the reins down. 

“It’s your birthday, you ungrateful snot,” he said.

Lynnette Hermannsburg was bored. School bored her. Mathematics and Language Studies were bad enough but Arts and Crafts, the subject she was currently being forced to participate in, was almost as tedious as the afternoons they spent listening to the Sisters drone on about the glory of God and his righteous punishment of mankind. Not that she would ever admit her ill-feelings toward the Sisters; even she knew better than to do that. Arts and Crafts, on the other hand, she could openly despise that. Why would she ever need Arts and Crafts? She wasn’t going to spend her days painting or knitting or making collages of pink ribbon and dead grass. She was going to be a Digger.

Lynn pushed the needle through her cross-stitch fabric. It slipped through the cotton easily, too easily. She felt a vicious sting as a quarter-inch of needle pierced her finger. Crying out, she threw her cross-stitch puppy dog across the room.

“Ow! Ancestors’ sin!”

“Lynnette Hermannsburg!” Lynn’s teacher Ms Apple stared at her. She was wide eyed and open mouthed. “Where did you learn such filthy language? I have a mind to tell your father of this.”

“He’s the one I learned it from,” Lynn answered quickly, failing as she so often did to use the filter between her brain and mouth.

Ms Apple breathed in through her nose, short and sharp.

“That may very well be,” she said, “but it is no way for a young lady to speak.”

Lynn heard a sniggering behind her and instantly knew who it would be. She turned in her chair and shot Bren Millner a cutting look. The boy nonchalantly tucked a lock of his thick black hair behind his ear and smiled a superior grin, which infuriated Lynn even more.

“What?” she snapped. “Have you got something to say, Bren?”

“Lynnette,” Ms Apple said. “That’s quite enough.”

“He’s laughing at me.”

“
Lynnette
,” Ms Apple said with implied finality.

Of course Ms Apple would side with him
, Lynnette thought. Bren was the youngest in the class, having only just turned thirteen, but that wasn’t the reason he was treated with such favoritism. Bren was the only son of the Administrator. Everyone else in the school, the teachers, the staff, even the other children, all of them from wealthy or powerful families in their own right, tiptoed around him, petrified they might insult him and send him crying to his daddy. Despite the fact that he would one day inherit his father’s title and all the power that came with being the head of the Central Territory government, as far as Lynn was concerned Bren was just an annoying boy.

Lynn opened her mouth to speak but was silenced when Ms Apple lifted her hand, all knuckles and calluses, and raised a single finger.

“None of your cheek today, child. Your mother would never have behaved in such an inappropriate way.”

“I’m not my mother,” Lynn said.

“That much is certain, child.”

Lynn stared at her. She could tell Ms Apple wished there was a string attached to those words, something she could use to pull them back.

“My mother is dead,” Lynn said, hoping to compound the old lady’s discomfort with a sting of her own. “It will be four years next month.”

Ms Apple smoothed her dress with her hands, her expression shuttered. Lynn knew the old woman had taught the children of powerful Alice families since before Lynn’s mother was born, and she would not concede to her.

“That she is, child,” she said.

Lynn was quiet.

“I do not wish,” Ms Apple continued, “for the dignity of her family to be dead with her. You will behave, and you will learn.”

“I hate all this,” Lynn said. “I want to practice the sword and go shooting and ride the steamcycle. I’m going to be a Digger.”

Muffled laughter from her classmates greeted this statement, more than just Bren Millner this time.

“Lynnette,” Ms Apple said, her tone unchanged, “it is not my place to question why your father let you learn to wield a sword or shoot or ride with him on that infernal contraption, but you know as well as I that you will never be in the army.”

“And why not?” Lynn asked pigheadedly, though of course she knew the answer.

“Because you’re a girl, stupid!” Bren called from behind her.

The class giggled a little louder.

“Shut your face, Bren!” Lynn said without turning to look at him.

“Now, Bren,” Ms Apple said. “That wasn’t necessary, was it?”

Bren didn’t say anything but Lynn could almost feel his sulky sneer penetrating the back of her head.

“Lynnette,” Ms Apple said, returning her attention to Lynn, “the fact remains that Bren is correct. You know women aren’t permitted to join the army. We’ve discussed this before. If you wish to serve the Territory, you’ll have to become a Sister and serve the Holy Church.”

“I don’t want to be a Sister,” Lynn said. “I hate them!”

The room went quiet, and suddenly cold; nobody laughed now. Even Ms Apple’s calm exterior was cracked by just the thinnest sliver of concern. She looked toward the door as if expecting to see it swing open to reveal the red-cloaked clergymen of the Holy Order. No one wanted a visit from the Holy Order, the instrument through which the Sisters acted when persuasion was necessary. The room was silent for a moment, but that ominous knock on the door never came.

“I think we should step outside, Lynnette,” Ms Apple said before addressing the class as a whole. “Excuse me a moment, children.”

Lynn followed Ms Apple out of the room and into the corridor. The teacher closed the door behind them and looked up and down the hallway, but there was no movement and the doors of the other classrooms were closed. Ms Apple made her horrible “tsk” noise, the sound she made by pulling her tongue back from her teeth. Then, to ensure the point was made, she followed it with a gentle sigh. Lynn, her eyes on the floor, prepared herself for the lecture she was about to receive, but it didn’t come as expected.

“You are more like your mother than you know,” Ms Apple said. Lynn looked up. Her features had softened, giving Lynn some hope that she might escape without her father learning of yet another argument between the pair.

“She had the same fiery attitude. Perhaps it comes from the songstress blood in you.”

Lynn could not remember her grandmother—she had died when Lynnette was three or four years old—but she had been the renowned singer Gabriella, a woman as famous throughout the city of Alice for her extraordinary tantrums as she was for her angelic voice. Ms Apple had once told her the story of how her grandmother had demanded apple stew after a performance. The stew was to be made only from the left side of apples from a certain tree in the Western Regions. When this ludicrous demand could not be met Gabriella had gone back on stage and attempted to undo her performance by singing the entire performance backward.

Although she would never admit it to Ms Apple, Lynn was pretty sure she had inherited this predisposition for stubbornness. But that wasn’t all she had inherited. Lynn’s hair fell down her back in oversized blonde curls just as her mother’s and her grandmother’s had before her. Lynn brushed her hair nightly, sometimes for an hour, even though no matter how many times she pulled the coarse brush through it, the locks would instantly spring back into large spirals. Her mother had brushed her hair the same way, every night without fail. Now her hair was all that Lynn had left of her mother. The few trinkets her mother had bequeathed her were cold and soulless, but her mother’s hair was with her. It bounced when Lynn laughed; it was alive.

Her hair may have been immaculately kept but Lynn’s body betrayed her love of more unladylike activities. Her light frame was strung together with muscles built from riding, climbing and swinging a sword, and her clothes were often soiled with red dirt or grass stains. But at fifteen years of age one thing Lynn did not appear to be inheriting from her mother was her bosom. Her chest was flatter than a dirt farm.

Lynn looked back down at the floor.

“But,” Ms Apple was saying, “your mother knew when to hold her tongue, and Lynn,” Ms Apple reached out and lifted Lynn’s chin so that their eyes met, “I do hope you learn to do the same, because I do not want to see you in trouble, especially with the Sisters.”

Lynn felt her eyes growing hot and her lip quivering.

“I believe you should be sent home for the day,” Ms Apple said. “Besides, your father asked for you to be home early for your brother’s oath-taking.”

“He’s not my brother,” Lynn said.