Fire Country (12 page)

“That’s awful,” I murmur. “I’m sorry, Raja.”

“Thanks for listenin’,” he says. “It helps to get it out. When I can’t speak it, my past is like a horde of burrow mouses inside my stomach, nibblin’ away at me.”

“There hasta
be something you can do. Someone we can tell. It ain’t right, Raja. When I get out I’ll tell my father.”

“No! Don’t do that,”
Raja says, his voice sharper’n a spear barb. “If you start makin’ dunes, they’ll lock you up too. There’s somethin’ dangerous going on here. A dangerous game by dangerous people.”

“Whaddya mean? Like a ’spiracy
?” I say, shifting to my knees.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, but I won’t say no more. Too dangerous f
or you if you know the rest. They’ll kill me and they’ll kill you.”

“C’mon, Raja. You can’t do that. Tell me. No one’ll know.”

“My lips are sealed with tug-gut glue.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m going to sleep.” As sad as Raja’s story was, if he d
on’t want to say no more, then I’m done with it. ’Spiracy—bah! The sun’s probably gone into his brain.

A
lthough I got a whole swarm of flies buzzing in my head now, I fall right asleep. A day of doing nothing but talking and waiting can make you awful tired. Plus, the sooner I sleep, the sooner I’ll awake to a one way trip back to the village.

When I do awake I feel like I haven’t slept at all. It’s still pitch dark, so dark that waving my hand across my face results in nothing but a waft of air on my cheeks. It feels good. The night is hot, as if the ground sucked up all the sunlight and is slowly releasing it, baking me like a
’zard in a firepan.

I’m instinctively aware that I didn’t wake up naturally. Something woke me. Some sound, some force, some
one
. “Raja,” I say, sticking my ear between the bars to listen for a response. Nothing. I can’t even hear breathing, but that don’t mean nothing. He might just be a soft night-breather.

“Raja!” I hiss a little louder. No response.

Then I hear it. A clink. Not from Raja’s cage, but from further down the row. The clink is followed by a voice, low, but discernible. “Move out, you dogs!” Keep’s voice, gruffer’n a Killer’s bark.

As my night vision clears, there’s more clinking off yonder. Thi
s time I can see much better’n earlier. The black cloud army has marched on to another place, and the moon goddess and her star servants are casting a dim glow on everything. A night light.

I see bodies moving about, a thin line of men. They’re carrying something. Tools of some kind. Sharp and heavy. Axes. Saws. The type of stuff the hut builders use to construct the Greynote homes. Like ours. I remember watching in awe as what was just a big ol’ tree trunk and a patch of dusty land slowly transformed into our house.

I can also see that Raja’s cage is empty. A pile of durt sits next to the hole he crawled out of.

~~~

I gotta get out of this cage.

Something’s going on and I need to know
what. If Raja won’t tell me, then I hafta find out on my own.

I could try digging out the hole, pushing the big rock outta my way, but if big guys like Bart can’t get out like that, it seems unlikely a scrawny runt like me’ll be ab
le to do it. I walk around the cage, tapping on the wooden bars with a rock, checking for weaknesses. Seems pretty solid, but…

It’s not made for someone like me. The bars are relatively close together, but not so close that you can’t stick your arms and legs through. Like I did earlier with Circ, hugging and touch
ing hands. In fact, some of the gaps are so wide, I might just be able to squeeze through.

They’re not made for someone with a child’s body, someone so thin and so skeleton-boned that she almost disappears when she turns sideways, as some of the other Younglings like to joke. It’s no joke now.

I try a random gap between the bars, try to force myself between the wood, careful to keep my broken arm tucked safely behind me. But this wood is sturdy and has no give. The wood won’t budge in either direction and the gap is too small. My hips get stuck ’fore I ever really get started.

Moving on, I try
to find a gap that’s bigger’n the last one. Most of them are uniform, well measured, but then I find one that seems wider’n t’others. Perhaps it’s just an optical illusion, the moon shadows playing tricks on me, or…

I jam myself into the gap with a running start.

Ahhh! The wood stings me, scrapes me, tears my flesh when it rubs, but I’m pushing forward, making progress, nearly through!

And then I’m stuck. Not stuck like I just can’t go forward any more, but stuck like I can’t go forward or backward or anythingward. Just plain ol’ stuck. Like a tug in the mud.

I’m wedged in so tight it’s hard to breathe. I suck in quick breaths as I try to think, but none of them fully satisfy my hungry lungs. If I got in, I gotta be able to get out, right? Wrong. I had a lot of momentum coming in, but I got nothing going out. Starting from a stuck position, I can’t get enough force going to unstick myself. No matter how much I strain—backwards or forwards—I ain’t budging. New tactic required.

Get skinnier.

For me that’s difficult since I’m so skinny to begin with. I mean, I could not eat anything for a few days, maybe shed half a pound, slide right on out. But obviously that won’t work ’cause then the Keep’ll see me stucker’n a ’zard on a skewer. He’ll know I tried to escape. He’ll tell my father. I’ll be sentenced to more time in Confinement. Nope, I gotta get skinnier quicker. Like now.

I count to three. Suck in my breath all the way so all you can see are my ribs. Let out the breath in a groan of effort, straining to
squeeze through, my eyes squeezed tight and hard, every pitifully small muscle in my body working together to accomplish the same thing. Inch by torturous inch. And then…

Escape!

It’s not like what you’d expect the thrill of escape to be like, all happy and elated and airy. Well, it’s airy all right, ’cause a rush of air surrounds me as I go a-flying off into the desert. I was pushing so hard and not going anywhere, but then as soon as I breached the bars, all that energy had no place to go but off into the yonder. I crash land in the durt, practically right on my slinged arm, feel searin’, burnin’ ripples of pain tear through every nerve on that side of my body. I tumble, not once, not twice, not even thrice, but four times, rolling and bouncing and kneeing myself in the face, which hurts like scorch ’cause my knee is so bony it’s sharp like a spearhead. I moan and yell out things that would have my mother blushing, and then settle in a heap at the base of a prickler, which proceeds to jab and poke me in the gut with its barbs, adding injury to injury.

I just lay there. For a long time. I got no idea how long. My wrist’s throbbing something awful
, and with each
thump, thump, thump
, I feel like I’m going to vomit up my unsatisfying meal and the tug jerky Circ gave me. The pain is so sharp I think I drift in and out of consciousness a little, too, like I’m in a strange fireweed smoker’s haze. First I see the stars, shining all perky and happy down on me, and then I’m seeing nothing, just black, as if every natural light in the night sky has been sucked into a void, where only the moon goddess can enjoy them.

When the black turns back to night, and I can see the stars again, I realize I gotta get up or I might never. Then where’ll I be
? I can just imagine Keep looking in my cage the next day, seeing me sprawled out in the desert, dust on my lips, my arm hanging from my shoulder, limper’n a tug tail.

I’m smart, so I use the prickler to help me to my feet, getting jabbed half a dozen times on the way up. “Thanks, Perry,” I whisper to the prickler. He deserves a name for all his trouble. After all, like so many people in my life, he’s helped me and hurt me.
Either that, or I just like talking to plants.

My sling’
s a wreck, ripped in at least three places, two holes jabbed in it by Perry, who can’t be blamed, ’cause he hasn’t moved the entire time. Although I guess it could be argued that if he was really on my side he woulda moved.
Perry, you baggard
, I think,
you shoulda moved!

MedMa would be appalled at the state of my sling, so I do my best to rewrap it, which hurts worse
’n a snap from Father’s snapper. But I get it done, let out a breathless sigh, exhausted from the strain of the last…how long’s it been anyway? I got no clue. I coulda blacked out for three thumbs of sun movement for all I know. Or just a few moments. More’n likely the real amount is somewhere in between. But which side’s it closer to? And what do I do now?

I got a real problem. If I chase after Raja and the other prisoners with the tools, they might already be coming back, done with whatever it is they’re doing. But the thought of trying to squeeze back into my cage right now…I shudder.

I’m out now so I might as well take advantage.

You’re gonna end up back in Confinement,
says Perry.

“Shut up,” I whisper over my shoulder as I walk away.

~~~

I ain’t got further’
n a rock’s throw away from the edge of the Confinement cages when I see them. The glint of the bright moonlight offa the edges of tools tells me they’re coming back already. Either they’re real fast workers or I was in a pain-induced stupor for longer’n I thought. Too long.

I grit my teeth and hustle back the way I came, around the edges of the cages, past the sleeping non-lifers. Then I’m back at my cage and I’m staring a torturous reentry right in the face. The gap I escaped from looks even smaller, like the cage
has a brain and, upon realizing its flaw, recreated itself. There’s gotta be another way.

Back at the front of the cage I stare at the mound where the big rock is covered. The clink of metal tools is carried to my ears on a gust of wind. Hard to tell how far away. Could be a mile. Could be a stone’s throw. If they’re a mile away, I could maybe dig up the rock, move it, slip through the hole, and pull the rock back into the gap. But the rock would be bare,
instead of covered like it’s s’posed to be. The Keep would know something knocky was going on.

Voices bounce across the desert like brambleweeds.

They’re not a mile away. They’re back!

I’m ready to rush
’round to the back, jam myself through the first gap that looks big enough, deal with whatever physical consequences I’ve got coming, but for some reason I stop to take one more look at my cage. I gaze from side to side, from bottom to top. I freeze.

The top.

It’s still got plenty of bars, and up there they’re crisscrossed, but each bar appears to be set further away from the one before’n the bars along the sides. Perhaps it’s just enough for a skinny lil runt like me to slip through without further shattering my already damaged arm.

Clink!

The sound is so close I could swear it was right next to my ear. I start climbing.

It ain’t easy climbing with only one good ar
m, but I don’t weigh no more’n a bundle of vulture feathers. I jam my feet between two of the bars, trying to use the roughness of my moccasin bottoms against the roughness of the wood as a sort of fall stopper. My one good arm does most of the work while my broken one takes the rest of the night off. Well deserved.

Perry’s just staring at me, like the shanker that he is.
Thanks for the help, buddy.

I grab as high as I can, pull with all my might, move my feather-light butt up a few feet, and sort of hop with my feet, almost like a horny toad—don’t laugh, that’s what they’re called—and then rewedge my moccasins to keep from falling.
It’s slow going.

Grab, pull, move butt, horny toad hop, wedge. Repeat.

The voices get louder. Someone laughs. A gruff voice reprimands. Keep, trying to get control of his prisoners.

I don’t stop for the voices, for the clinks, for
Perry’s catcalls. Slow and steady, I keep moving until I reach the cross bar that means I’ve made it to the top. The lid on my cage.

One leg over, then t’other. Take a breath.

The voices stop in front of Raja’s cage. “You’re up next, dog! Get in!” Keep barks, sounding more like a dog himself. I freeze, look down, see Keep with maybe eight other prisoners. Raja drops to the durt, everyone watching him. I’m exposed under the soft glow of the moon goddess. If they look up, I’m knocked! Where are the searin’ clouds when I need them?

Raja squirms like a worm underneath the bars. “Lock him in!” Keep growls, handing one of t’other prisoners a shovel. I’m dead-quiet, and to my surprise, Perry is too. Silent schemers. Placid plotters.

When the big rock for Raja’s cage is in place and covered, Keep and the rest of them move on. I hold my breath. They walk straight on past my cage, not even giving it a casual look. I’m just a runty girl, couldn’t hurt a fly.
’Cept myself
, I think, feeling my arm start to throb again.

When they’re past Keep’s hut and a few more cages, I breathe again. My heart’s beating like the party drums after a successful tug hunt. But I ain’t out of the desert yet. Perry agrees, doing his version of a nod, which is basically staying perfectly still and upright.
Stay out of this, Perry!
I think.

Perched on the roof of my cage, I feel precarious.
It’s not that high, but with holes in the floor, it feels higher’n it really is. There’s a certain thrill to it, too, like all my innards are floating inside me, bobbing and bouncing. How to get down?

The smart thing to do, as Perry suggests, would be to slip through one of the square holes and shimmy on down the bars all the way to the ground. Challeng
ing with one arm, but easier’n climbing up here in the first place. Sounds like a plan.

I start to carefully lower myself between the crisscross, keeping one of the bars under my armpit. As I scrabble at the thin air with my feet, Keep shouts, “Cage check!”

Cage check?
What’n the scorch? I lose my concentration and my arm slips off the bar. I’m falling! At the last second, I grab and squeeze as hard as I can with my hand, making a fist around the bar. My feet swing underneath me as I hang on for dear life, rocking back and forth in the wind, which has been picking up steadily ever since I started climbing. A morning windstorm. Not unusual for this time of year.