Grace (29 page)

We had not eaten since breakfast, and I had no appetite, but forced myself to eat an energy bar we found in our packs.

After that she fashioned a sling for my deadened arm, to elevate the wound, and make carrying the weight of it easier. There was nothing else for us there with the truck but danger. We refilled our canteens from the last of the water in the jug, found a bit of food, flashlights, a compass, and money from our packs, and started down toward the trees.

It was five treacherous miles to the lake by my reckoning. The hard night around us was infinite and deep, as we tried to keep watch for the predators and soldiers and whatever else might be out there in the jungle. I still had rounds in the gun, but not enough.

“From the lake we should be able to cross the border out of the country by water.”

“Do you think we will be able to find a doctor?”

“No. There are none in places like this, and if there was one he would either have fled, or else have some connection. But if we reach the lake, we can get one of the villagers to row us across.”

“I'm afraid.”

“We still have the pistol,” I said, calculating the chances of running into one of the rebels, or a predator that did not fear humans.

We were out of sight of the lorry by then, on the last stretch of fore mountain. Down below the tree line had come into view, and just after that a break, and a stretch of plain, where there were some structures visible.

“Look, there is a village over there,” she pointed.

“I think it is better if we avoid it,” I cautioned.

“They may be able to help us.”

“Or harm us,” I argued.

I did not want to take the risk, but we were not certain of our exact location or the lake's, and I knew she was right. We oriented ourselves toward the village, and kept focused on it as we came down the last stretch of incline onto flat ground, where the village disappeared in the darkness.

When we were finally off the mountain, we began quickly as we could manage across the open plain, toward the cover of the forest. We had no sense of shelter as long as we were out in the open, and no advantage over anything else out there, except for the few shots left in the gun.

We thought being back inside the forest would offer a greater sense of protection, but when we entered the trees again the shadows quickly brought home how many more places there were for danger to lurk, as we began to worry about what might be above us as well. There was no choice, and we picked our way carefully through the strange forest, trying to control our fear as the trees swallowed us in the denseness. The vegetation was equally impenetrable, and we fought through with our hands, using the compass to navigate a straight-enough line.

There were no stars visible anymore, only the occasional break in the clouds and gilded light of the moon, which shone sharp into the forest, playing intermittent tricks with the shadows. I felt every sense grow acute, and the fear at least deadened the pain. We made our way through the darkness by feel, a few feet at a time.

My shoulder was in terrible shape after a while, and there were no more painkillers, so I tried to focus on my steps to take my mind off the shoulder. After an hour the forest seemed to thin out, and we could get a glimpse ahead, where the outline of the village came clear again, but was soon swallowed by darkness when the clouds passed across the face of the moon and fog began rolling in over us, swelling the night with a perfect darkness and perfect fear.

We continued on until we startled, hearing activity in the leaves ahead. We froze where we were, listening to a rustling of the ground moving steadily toward us, with the confidence of feet familiar with the forest. Whether human or animal was impossible to tell. We crouched against the trees, and tried our best to remain calm. The sound grew steadily nearer with slow intent. I kept my hand on the gun, hoping for the advantage of surprise over whatever it was I was going to shoot.

A moment later we heard the meaningful patter of human voices crystallize, but the words did not separate out one from the other. We knew what we faced, at least, and hoped it was a villager out looking for wood for the morning fire, and not something more nefarious out there at night.

The steps grew closer until we were certain it was more than two people. We did not wait, but quickened our pace in the other direction, to run before they could reach us.

Their movements were confident in the strange landscape, and when we heard them stop, we stopped as well. A voice called out to us, but we did not know the language nor trust the voice we heard, and did not leave the spot where we hid against the trees, until the nearby branches stirred with a movement too near. I stepped out with the gun drawn, and saw in the break of the moon three children passing in near silence.

They startled when they saw the gun, and paused, looking at us, and at the gun. We did not say anything at all, and they broke out running in the direction of the plain.

When they were gone we kept in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. There was something about them that did not seem like children. Perhaps I was only being fearful, but it was not a time to second-guess the instinct telling me I did not want to find out what they might have known that gave their faces such hardness and courage in that jungle.

We circled back toward the village, checking nervously every time anything stirred in the underbrush to make certain no one was following us from behind and nothing was tracking us from the trees. The forest felt empty, yet they had come from somewhere, so I was hesitant of going to the village after that, but Sylvie still thought it the best option to get help, so we kept going undeterred through a darkness and silence so deep the only thing we could hear was the age of the earth.

We eventually reached a clearing on the open plain again, out of immediate danger. The fog had dissolved and the clouds had cleared and we could see a fair way in all directions, but search as we might, we had lost sight of the village.

Sylvie was more at ease having cleared the forest, but I was still tense with edginess, trying to ignore the fear, as the insects in the high savannah grass called from the distance, and the forest sounded from behind us, and my own pulse still beat hard in my blood.

“Do you smell something?” Sylvie asked, stopping midway across the clearing.

“No.”

“It is fire.”

I still did not smell it, but a few feet further on the wind caught it and carried it toward us, acrid and distinct, but impossible to tell where it came from.

“If there has been a ground fire it will be good,” she reasoned. “The animals will have been frightened from the area.”

“What makes you say it is a ground fire? Isn't it more likely from the village?”

We debated again whether to go to the village, but we were lost and had no choice. She wove her fingers through mine, and I laced my hand in hers briefly, before putting it back on the pistol. The stars burned away overhead and the partway moon gave some partway light, but not enough.

We could not tell whether it was more dangerous for us in the village or whether there was more danger there in the dark. That is what fear is and it is what we felt and the only thing moving us forward was desire to escape the fear.

The village came into view again not long after Sylvie first smelled fire. We could see everything that had been there was burned down to embers and ash.

As we navigated the charred earth we saw bits of what had been there before, stones from cooking fires, and posts from buildings. It was after that we started to see pieces of bone scattered on the ground, and at first they looked like the bones of cattle, because that was what we wished, but my foot kicked something and it was not.

“What is that?” Sylvie asked.

“Do not look,” I said. “It is not something to see.”

We hurried to get out of that place of death. It was only a small village, and most likely a temporary settlement for the herders moving their cattle over the plains to summer pasture, but the ground showed clearly where the houses had been, and they were not there. The people were not there, and, as we crossed out of that place, we could smell nothing except fire. They had purified that place, and when they were done making it pure only the atoms remained.

The forest soon grew up severely all around us again. The herders had probably chosen that place thinking it safer than the wide-open plains, but it was not for them and it was not for us.

We picked up a trail at the edge of where the village had been, and hoped it would take us on to the lake. Without that we had no chance in all of hell.

We were relieved to be out of the village, and the forest felt safe to us, or just less unsafe, as we pressed through, not knowing where, but believing that it could become no worse.

A hundred feet into the forest again we saw a shape ahead of us, crouched low to the ground. We stopped in terror, then began backing away slowly.

The creature in the road did not move toward us, but nor did it run, so I pointed the Sig at it, and Sylvie stood behind my shoulder, and we searched for another way but the trees were dense and there was no other way forward.

I yelled out, and still what was there did not move. We inched forward again, my finger tight around the trigger, until I saw a pair of eyes staring at me, and squeezed off a shot that exploded in the dirt.

The thing did not stir, and I yelled again, inching close behind the gun, until my stomach heaved at what a monster of a thing it was: a human baby dead and burned up and wrapped in cloth and left there in the jungle for the animals.

“Don't look.”

She had seen it already, and clung tight to my arm, then buried her face, as tears coursed from her eyes. I went up to it and knelt to close the dead child's eyes, but the eyelids were burned away and it kept staring at us.

“What an awful thing.” She was crying hard, and I could not comfort her.

“It was meant to be humane. Whoever did it was trying to spare the child. To sacrifice it to whatever they were and believed in, and not whatever enemy wanted to cut them from it.”

We walked in silence, but our breathing was loud over our emotion, and the pain in my shoulder seemed to breathe again too as the pills wore thin.

“How is your shoulder?” Sylvie asked, from concern, as well as desire to dispel the silence.

“It is fine. It does not hurt as much,” I answered flatly, to mask my worry about the bullet still being inside of me.

“Oh, you are suffering.”

“I will be fine.”

“You don't have to be brave for me.”

“I know. But I do if I want to keep going.”

There was nothing else to say about it, as the forest called around us, and the earth sounded beneath us, and our fear rose a little but soon so did our hope when we realized it was nearly morning. The darkness was not yet burned to the blue light, but the crepuscular window between night and morning was starting to open.

Nothing was different but a feeling in our cells, and then there was the sound of the river, not yet seen, but the clear swell of water rushing somewhere down below, which we knew would lead us to the lake.

As we pressed on we heard a single bird call and beat its wings from high in the trees, but we did not know if it was of the night or of the morning, but soon after that the buzzing of bees, as a colony of them moved somewhere in the still darkness.

“It is morning,” I said.

“It is still dark,” she answered. “There are at least another two hours before day.”

“It is morning,” I said with relief.

“How can you be sure?”

“The bees are matutinal. They are up with the day.”

“Like monks,” she said.

“Yes,” I nodded.

I felt her heart lighten a little, and she tried to buoy mine as well. “Do you think they can marry us?”

“Monks cannot administer rites.”

“Their abbot can,” she said. “Just promise you won't make me a widow. It would not be right, after you made me love you like you did.”

I rested the gun in my waistband and took her hand for comfort. But she stopped dead all of a sudden, screaming with fright as something larger than us moved out of the jungle directly ahead.

Before I had time to get the gun it was rushing right in front of us without fear and, at the sound of her scream, only answered it with a long, low cry, and was right on top of us before we saw it was nothing but one of the cows from the village.

Our chests collapsed with relief, but we were put on guard again, seeing how easy it was for anything out there to come upon us.

“We should hurry. This is still their territory. As soon as it is light they will come for us.”

“They will not bother with us now.”

“I'm afraid they will,” I said. “We know where they are.”

We kept along the river's edge through the last of the cloud forest, the trees growing shorter and shorter, turning first to shrubs, then to grass. The red earth of the plains began to show, and the sky grew slowly lighter, as the morning flowers began to open and spread their perfume, masking the rotting jungle.

We were in an area with only a sparse copse of trees here and there, and could make our way through easily. The air sweetened and I had the sensation we were nearing the lake, though in truth, I had had that sensation many times already, from wishing it so.

The sound of the sluicing river off in the distance was soothing in our ears, even as the trees thickened around it. The ground was flat, at least, and it was light enough that we could see plainly. We hugged the sound of the river, and hoped just to whistle down the darkness until daybreak.

Our phones did not have reception, making it impossible to map our location or call for help, but we felt sure the lake was getting closer, and even the throbbing pain of my shoulder had turned to a white noise against the blue darkness. It was sufferable as long as I did not think about it but stayed focused on walking and fighting off the weariness and creeping hunger, until I ceased to care anymore about what would happen.