Awaken (19 page)

“
Faster,” Po says and I nod
in agreement.

“
Po’s right. Finn, you and
Tater on Winnie, you two ain’t so heavy....she should be able to
carry you both easily. Jax, you me and Po on the other beast if we
can.”

As I speak I head for the two animals
and quickly untie them from the trees. We help Finn and Tater onto
Winnie’s back then I mount Bushers beast and take his reins,
thankfully he don’t resist. Jax nimbly climbs behind me but the
mutie don’t move.

“
Po, come on!” I say
urgently. The shouting is getting louder now and I know they have
found the campsite and the other raiders. The creature shakes his
head.

“
Go,” he says and I ignore
Jax’s muttered “You don’t have to tell me twice...go”

“
No, he helped us, we ain’t
leaving him!” I hiss at Jax.

But the creature shakes his head
firmly. “Go! Po will hide....they look for girl...they no find
Po.”

“
You heard him...they no
find Po,” Jax hisses back but the creature is done debating. He
smacks the horse’s rump and we bolt off without warning. I struggle
with the reins but finally I get the horse under control and I
glance back over my shoulder. Finn and Tater are riding directly
alongside us but Po is as good as his word...he ain’t nowhere to be
seen. What I do see however is much more frightening. Emerging from
the grove of trees we just cleared is a line of riders, all on big
black powerful looking beasts.

The Prezedants Army! My heart starts
pounding in my chest and I grab the reins tighter for fear they
will slip out of my sweat soaked hands.

“
Don’t look back, just
ride!” Jax shouts in my ear and I know he is right but deep down in
my gut I fear we are doomed. We may be able to out ride them on
Bushers horse but Winnie don’t stand a chance against those beasts.
And there ain’t no way in hell I’m leaving Finn behind! Oh gods why
didn’t I make Finn ride with me, I think as I look over at him
hanging on for dear life to Tater, his eyes closed in
fear.

And that’s all it took was that one
moment of inattention.

I hear Jax’s shout of “Look out!” an
instant before the horse stumbles and I find myself flying
weightlessly through the air. I hit the ground hard, the breath
knocked out of me in a loud ‘whoosh’. The loose rocks on the
mountain trail bite painfully into my face and hands as I slide
across them a bit before I come to a stop. The beast we were riding
gallops past me, rider less, missing my head by a hair. Dazed,
breathless, I hear Finn’s cry of “Tara!” and I know right away what
he and Tater are about to do.

“
Don’t you dare stop!” I try
to scream at him. “Keep moving!” but it comes out as a whimper...I
have no voice. I push myself to my knees and watch in horror as
Finn jumps from Winnie’s back and heads straight for me, unaware of
the brown robed rider closing in on him. I watch, as the rider
leans low in his saddle...arm outstretched...ready to scoop Finn
off the ground and take him away. Take him to the
madman.

“
Finn!” I try to warn him
but he cain’t hear me over the pounding hooves. The rider is on top
of him now, the arm encircling his waist and I see Finn’s eyes go
big with fear.

“
Nooooooooo!” The scream is
forced from my lungs as I try to push to my feet. I have to do
something! The slug whistles over my head and I duck instinctively.
They’re shooting at us! I think at first but then I see the rider
about to grab Finn fall from his saddle. His foot still entangled
in the stirrup, he is dragged by his horse away from Finn and
bashed mercilessly about by the rocky terrain. Finn, finally
realizing the danger, takes cover behind a large boulder, his
frantic eyes watching my face...checking to see if I am okay. I
whirl around to find Jax standing above me, shooter aimed and
ready. The shot had come from Jax! He had fired on the
rider!

“
We gotta move!” he yells,
the noise of the approaching riders almost drowning out his words.
I just stare at him dumbfounded. He grabs my shoulder and shakes me
none too gently.

“
Run you idiot!”

I hear him yelling...I do. I can see
the men bearing down on us too, but I don’t move. It’s happening.
The blood starts pounding through my veins, the buzzing starts in
my ears and I’m taken over by a dead calm. There’s anger and hatred
like before but those feelings lay simmering beneath the overlying
calm. I pull the shooter I had taken from hat head from my back and
focus on my first target.

Deliberately I zone in, as if the iron
shooter is just an extension...a part of me. With no hesitation I
fire, and he falls from his horse immediately. I do it again...and
again, each shot finding its target true. I feel no guilt, no
remorse...just this calm. I don’t know when they start returning
fire but it galvanizes Tater and Jax out of their shocked stupor
and into action. The sound of shooter fire is all around me but
it’s no more bothersome to me then a maskeeto buzzing...my focus is
intense....concentrated. Indifferently, I watch a brown robed rider
approach Jax from behind, watch him lift his shooter and aim. I see
all this but it’s like I ain’t seeing it with my own eyes...it’s
like I’m watching from off to the side. Steadily, I aim my own
barrel and fire a hole into the middle of the rider’s forehead. I
witness the bloody debris bloom out but I feel no repulsion….no
disgust at my actions. It’s like I am encased in some deep,
freezing cold that not even this horror can penetrate. The rider
falls from his horse, but not before his shooter explodes.
Instinctively I push Jax out of harm’s way as the slug sucker
punches me in the gut.

The force of the slugs impact is enough
to send me stumbling back a couple of steps... but funny enough...I
don’t feel no pain. My hand explores the wound at my stomach before
I lift it in front of my face. I can see that it’s covered in
blood. My blood. I cover the wound again as if doing so will stop
the bleeding. I raise my head then and look around....there’s so
many of them, I think. So many riders of death. Surrounding us,
boxing us in. We’re going to die. I know that. Right here, right
now. Me, Finn, Tater, Jax....all dead and there’s nuthin I can do.
We’re all going to die, just like gra’da and Molly and everybody
else at the hands of these same madmen.

My calm finally evaporates and the
anger begins to take over. I feel it come bubbling to the surface
like a tapped well and explode into every fiber of my being. It’s
so big I cain’t contain it... it overwhelms me, like my whole body
is filled with fire! I lift my eyes to the darkening sky, open my
mouth and scream just to release it before it consumes me. A wall
of dust and earth starts to rise up before my eyes, forming between
me and the Army, blinding me to them. A sand storm! I think
frantically. Really? As if the Army wasn’t threat enough now we are
going to have the very breath stripped from our bodies by the
suffocating sands of a dirt devil? I search for the others, to warn
them. ...to tell them to run, but I cain’t see them no more. I
cain’t see nobody, I’m all alone now. Dying and alone, I think, as
I fall to my knees, the wall of sand closing in on me. The last
thought in my muddled brain as my life’s blood seeps through my
fingers...least I didn’t get hit in the head again.

The tall green stalks ripple and sway
in the cool morning breeze. There is so much corn....as far as the
eye can see. I ain’t ever seen the fields so full! It’s like the
stories of the old folk have come to be....right in front of me! I
stand for a bit just admiring the waves of corn, wishing Ben were
here to see it. He never would have thought it possible. Deep down
I think he truly believed the old folks had lied to us with their
settlers stories. That their stories about fields of crops had been
shite. But here they were...spread out before me, plain as
day.

I notice a shadowy figure, standing in
the middle of the field. I ain’t noticed him before. I squint a bit
into the sun but his back is to me...I cain’t quite tell who it is.
I start moving closer. I don’t know why but I feel this great sense
of urgency to find out who it is. I don’t get far however, when
that familiar whistling reaches my ears and I stop in my tracks,
frozen in disbelief. Gra’da?

He is standing in the middle of the
waist high crops, whistling as he picks the golden harvest, his
battered old hat pushed back on his gray head. How is this even
possible? I think. Is this even real? The sunshine warming the top
of my head and the breeze blowing on my face feels real, sure
enough. He turns then and sees me and that familiar smile lights up
his face.

“
Tara girl!”

“
Gra’da!” I run to him not
giving a care for how it was possible. It just was. I run through
the corn, ignoring the stalks slapping at my face, straight into
his strong arms and he lifts me up high just like when I was a
little girl. I hug him real tight....bury my face in his worn
tunic. He smells of earth and root wad and....home. I was
home.

“
I thought I had lost you
gra’da, for good.”

I’m bawling like a baby... my tears
soaking his shirt but I cain’t help it.

He chuckles quietly and I can feel it
rumbling in his chest.

“
Don’t be foolish
girlie...I’m with you always,” he says and I look up into his
wrinkled face.

“
But you were dead
gra’da....those men they killed you. All of you were gone. Molly,
Shelly, Miz Emma, all dead.”

“
Aye....that we are. But
that don’t mean we ain’t with you girl. Look around.”

I do as he says and I realize beyond
the field lays Rivercross....but it ain’t the Rivercross I
remember. The shanties were all gone, replaced by new and sturdy
looking wood cabins. The ground wasn’t no dusty hard packed soil
neither, but green grass sprouting everywhere. And flowers...so
many flowers, every color you could imagine. And there were
people...everywhere. Molly, Shelly, Thomas...everybody. They were
all there. I stare, unbelieving, as Lou looks up from his still and
waves at me.

“
Am I dreaming?” I say in
disbelief and gra’da chuckles again.

“
Maybe you is, maybe you
ain’t,” he says, his eyes twinkling like they always did when he
was teasing me.

“
It’s so beautiful. What
happened here?” I say, in wonder.

“
Nuthin...and everything,”
Gra’da answers, confusing me even more so. “This is your home Tara
...it’s how your heart sees it...beautiful, whole, perfect. It’s as
it was meant to be.”

Suddenly I know he is right. This is
how the world was meant to be, how it had been...alive, green,
plentiful. It wasn’t supposed to be the dusty dried out barren land
that we knew it as. The beauty of the land, the fields, of seeing
everybody, it’s so overwhelming I just wanna cry again. But then
that nagging, bitter thought surfaces and my smile slowly fades
away.

“
Gra’da...did you all die
‘cause of me? Was I the reason the evil came to Rivercross?” I say,
needing to know yet fearing the answer.

He chuckles quietly again and squeezes
my shoulders.

“
Is that what you think
child?” He shakes his head at me. “Evil came to Rivercross ‘cause,
well...that’s what evil does. It spreads like a dark plague and
don’t give a care for nuthin or nobody that stands in its way. It
would have found Rivercross sooner or later. You couldn’t have
stopped what happened no more than I could have stopped you from
growing up…and trust me I tried.”

I cain’t help the intense rush of
relief that flows over me. It wasn’t my fault. Gra’da said it
wasn’t my fault...and he would never lie to me about this...would
he?

“
But things have
been...happening to me gra’da,” I say, still not quite believing my
innocence. “People are calling me names...saying I’m supposed to be
this thing called a new blood. New bloods...they draw evil...that’s
what Jax believes. If it’s true and I am this thing...”

“
What will be, will be
Tara,” he says cutting off my words. “Everything has a
destiny...whether it be a wild hog, or a sand biter...or you. And
your destiny my girl...it’s a wondrous one indeed. New blood or not
you are meant to do great things.”

I ain’t ever known gra’da to speak in
riddles before. What exactly is he trying to say? Is he saying I
ain’t a new blood after all? I close my eyes, just for an instant,
trying to make sense of his words. The cool morning breeze that
felt so good on my face earlier changes, just like that, to a hot
scorching heat and I open my eyes again, wishing I hadn’t done so.
Everything I had just witnessed was gone! Everything, burnt away,
nuthin left but charred remains. No corn field, no flowers, no
gra’da, only black smoldering ruins.

“
Gra’da!” I scream,
frantically searching the blackened landscape. I just got him
back...I cain’t lose him again. There’s so much more I need to say
to him! To ask him! It ain’t fair!

“
Tara...” the voice that
answers me ain’t gra’da but it’s just as familiar. He is standing
at the other end of the burnt field almost glowing against the
blackness of the scorched background.

“
Ben!” I feel such relief,
such intense happiness at seeing him my heart almost explodes at
the sheer joy.