Gray (Book 2) (16 page)

“Has to be provoked pretty bad. For a donkey, he’s easy-going.”

“Good,” Coral said. In the corner of the animal yard, there was a small two-wheeled wagon. In the small enclosure where the animals could get out of the wind, she saw there was a bunch of leather harnesses hung there that no doubt attached the donkey to the wagon, plus a soft saddle.

She glanced at the donkey again, realizing that this could be their way out. She had been worrying about escaping, about how to outdistance a hunting party of ten angry men with rifles. If they couldn’t get a rifle themselves, they couldn’t fight back. But if they could move faster, they’d outdistance their pursuit.

How long could a donkey run, pulling two people in a wagon, without rest? How many miles per day? Could it do two sessions a day with a rest in between? Would it? And how long could it live, without grain or grass to eat? If she stole the donkey, a bag of its feed would be as important as food for her and Benjamin.

The fence had a single gate. She watched more carefully as Polly unlatched it. Simple enough closure, and no lock, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

As they left, the donkey brayed at them. The poor thing was lonely, she thought. She’d volunteer to care for the animals and make a point of making friends with the donkey. They had carrots—horses liked carrots, right? She assumed a donkey would, too. She’d pocket a few next time she had to chop some and bring them to the donkey, hand-feed him, hoping to make him her friend.

As they approached to the central clearing, she asked, “What does the donkey do, exactly?”

Brynn said, “He hauls supplies to and fro. And we have a plow for him in the cave, for when winter ends.”

“You still think you’ll be around when winter ends?” Coral asked. “Or will the final Reaping come before then?”

“Whichever way, we’re prepared for it,” said Brynn. “Now you can help Ellie haul water.”

Coral walked slowly to the big cabin, thinking hard. She might well be able to sneak out at night while Brynn was asleep. With only two people sharing the cabin with her, that should be simple enough. She had her pocket knife. She’d have to grab it the night before the escape, so as not to risk waking Polly by jostling her cot. She needed to know where the cheese was stored. That and a chunk of the meat, which she guessed was stored in the cave, would serve as food for the road.

On the right night, then, she’d get Benjamin, collect the supplies, perhaps hook up the donkey to the cart, and go. She’d need a candle or two so that they’d be able to see how to hook up the harness and wagon. Lucky thing that the donkey wasn’t too near the cabins. If she could make friends with it, would it do her bidding?

If only she could get a weapon. What had they done with her bows and arrows? Benjamin might have seen. They probably wouldn’t be guarding them the same way they would a rifle. It wasn’t much, but any long-distance weapon was better than none. And what of her fishing gear? Where was that?

She had to find a way, an excuse, a job assignment, some way, any way to get her to the cave, so she could see what they had stored there. It seemed the most likely place to find her own confiscated gear.

She wanted out of this crazy place before the next meeting, when she feared she’d be declared an eligible breeder and handed over to Alva. She had six days at most to make an escape plan, set up for it, and find a way to communicate her plans with Benjamin. Now that she thought about it, she should pick a day before then. If they got caught, they might get a second chance. Maybe three or four nights from now.

She was glad she was being fed, but she wished she was getting more calories. Benjamin was, at least, for the men were allowed to eat until they were full. If she could fill up these next few days, then they could run hard for a week, not need to stop to hunt or fish, and survive off whatever she was able to steal from the supplies here.

No one else was in the dining room. She squatted and looked at the front door lock. There was no key in there, but maybe Brynn—it’d most likely be Brynn—carried one and probably locked it at night. If so, she couldn’t just swing by and steal food. Hopefully the cave had no door or lock.

She stood and walked into the kitchen and pantry area. No one was there, either. “Ellie?” she said.

“Down here.”

Coral followed the voice and found Ellie in the small back room, wedged beneath the desk that held the radio. “You stuck?”

“I’m scrubbing. Be done in a second.”

Coral looked at the radio while Ellie worked. Off-on switch, easy enough. She supposed there was something to press on the microphone to send, or a switch on the console there.
I wonder if I called for help, is there anyone close enough to come rescue us?

Would anyone out there care? Maybe they would, but they likely had troubles of their own. She had never really thought before about how police, and courts, and jails in the old world kept people in control. She’d been lucky enough to never have the need to interact with them, except for the sheriff’s deputy who’d brought them the news that her parents were dead. But she sure missed them all now, missed the option of calling someone to make the bad people stop.

Ellie crawled out with a damp rag, pushed her hair back from her forehead and smiled at Coral.

It was hard to think of her as a bad guy. But she was.

“Meat tonight,” she said.

“Terrific. Brynn said I was supposed to help you.”

“We’ll braise it tonight, then slice it up. Second and third nights, stew or soup.”

“I’ll be a nice change from beans. What do you want me to do?”

“Hang on while I get rid of this cleaning stuff.” She stooped, picked up a bucket, and walked through the kitchen and toward the front door. For a moment, Coral was alone.

Coral took the opportunity to open the drawers of the desk. She was looking for anything of use—keys, a potential weapon, a map of Idaho, instructions for the radio.

What she found was paper: one lonely pencil and a pad of paper, with the name of a feed store printed on the top of each page. She glanced behind herself—Ellie was still dumping the wash water outside—and tore off two pages. If she took the pencil, they might notice. She snapped the tip off it, leaving herself with a half-inch long piece of lead. That could be an accident, a broken tip.

She folded the paper around the precious bit of pencil, folded it again, and tucked it in her front pocket. Glancing one last time at the radio setup, knowing she wouldn’t have the chance to be alone with it long enough to try to make it work, she backed into the kitchen and gathered up the empty water pitchers.

She had a way to communicate with Benjamin now. It was step one in her escape plan.

* * *

By mid-afternoon, Ellie and she had a good fire going in the barbecue pit, and water was set on the iron grates above it to heat. Pitchers of water had been distributed around the compound, and to the kitchen, for the cleaning of vegetables. Pratt—who still hadn’t apologized to her—brought the leg of lamb to the kitchen.

Coral excused herself to go to the outhouse.

Ellie gave her an apologetic look. “I have to go with you, I’m afraid. One minute.”

“That’s okay,” Coral said. She wondered when she’d be trusted enough to be alone, even for such a short time. If there was always someone with her every second, it would be damned hard to prepare to escape. A cooperative attitude was important, for she needed to make them believe she could be trusted—at least for long enough to let her steal supplies or reconnoiter.

On the walk to the outhouse, Coral said, “Tell me about who you lost.”

Ellie shook her head.

“Did they get sick, or was it the fire?” They were at the outhouse.

“I’ll wait for you out here.”

At least she had that much privacy. Coral closed the door and dug the paper and pencil lead from her pocket. She took off her gloves and put them down on the ledge next to the closed toilet seat. Carefully, she opened the folds of the paper and plucked the pencil point out.

She thought about what she needed to write. In the tiniest print she could manage, she wrote:

Escape in 4 nites ~midnight, meet @ outhouse. I’ll have knife, candle, food. U—weapon, slpng bag, ??

She didn’t sign it. If it were found, there’d be little doubt of who wrote it. She didn’t tell Benjamin to destroy it—he was smart enough to figure that out on his own. There weren’t clocks on the walls here, either, but it didn’t matter so much if they were each off by a half-hour. If she were first to the outhouse, fine. If he were first, he’d wait for her. If the first one of them to reach it were caught, they could swear they needed to pee, and maybe get away without punishment.

Taking the pencil lead between her front teeth, she tore off the thin strip of the message and formed it into a tiny roll, no bigger than half a toothpick. She secured the pencil lead back inside the remaining paper, and tucked it all back into her pocket.

Now she needed to find a way to slip the message to him. For a second, she thought about hiding it in his cot, but there was no guarantee that she’d be in the men’s cabin tomorrow, and he could easily miss it. She needed to put it right into his hot little hand.

How to get next to him? This damned segregation by sex was a real problem for her.

She used the outhouse for its intended purpose and came out, smiling at Ellie. “Okay, what next?”

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with food prep. One of the men—Lorne, this time—brought sacks of vegetables from the cave. She’d like to see it. Had they let Benjamin in there? What she’d give for just five minutes alone with him, to exchange information.

The vegetables needed to be sorted. Any with a rotten spot, but still mostly good, were piled on the counter for tonight’s meal. The ones without any blemish were piled into crates, stacked in the corner, for use the rest of the week.

There were turnips and parsnips, but not nearly as many as there were potatoes and carrots. Carrots could be eaten raw, but they weren’t many calories for the weight. “Can you eat these raw?” she asked Ellie, holding up a parsnip that had grown in a sort of corkscrew.

“Sure. The smallest ones taste best.”

“Can I try one?”

Ellie glanced behind her. “I won’t tell.”

Coral scrubbed it off and broke it in half, offering the thicker end to Ellie, who shook her head. Coral bit into it. It was crunchy, more green-tasting somehow than a carrot even though it was nearly white. She swallowed.

“How was it?”

“Fine. Though I think a diet of nothing but would make me belch a lot.”

“They’re sweeter roasted. Sometimes we roast them and potatoes in the coals of the morning fire. The men take them to work.”

“Do you ever have potatoes for breakfast?”

“No.”

“I’d be happy to get up early and make them one morning. It might make a nice change for everyone from oatmeal.”

“Does this mean you’re staying?”

Coral nodded, hating the lie, but knowing she needed to play this role. “I like it here. People are nice. There’s plenty of food. The work isn’t hard.”

“I’m glad,” said Ellie.

“The sex segregation is odd, though.”

“I suppose it might seem so. I don’t think about it much, since I go home to the couple cabin every night. I get plenty of male conversation in the evenings.”

“The couples talk with each other at night?”

“Some. Even if we didn’t, you can hear every word said.”

“Must be hard to fight.”

“We try not to,” Ellie said.

“Any good gossip from listening in?”

“We try not to do that, either.”

“Hmm.” Coral finished sorting the bag of parsnips and Ellie helped her pile the good ones back in the storage crate. “What’s next?”

“Help me with the potatoes. We eat more of them.”

“Sure. So, any nice gossip you’ve heard?”

“Mostly about you. I hear Alva has offered for you.”

Coral schooled her expression. “He seems nice, but of course I can’t get to know him to know that for sure, not if we aren’t allowed to talk to the men.”

“We are allowed after meeting. And Alva
is
nice. Shy. He stutters sometimes when he’s very nervous.”

“He didn’t when he talked to me. That was on the way here, I mean, after Calex and him found us.”

“Are you sweet on that Benjamin?”

“He’s a friend,” said Coral. “We survived together. We’re partners. We have each other’s back. It means more now than it used to, having a friend like that. It means more to me than any boyfriend has ever meant.” That was nothing but true. Benjamin was family now.

“Will he be upset about Alva?”

“I don’t think so,” Coral said. Not in the way Ellie meant. She hoped he was upset about the idea of her being raped. “He seemed to accept it fine when Tithing told us.” She understood why he hadn’t protested, but a part of her felt irrationally betrayed by that.

“That’s good. Jealousy is a weakness. And sometimes our test.”

Coral didn’t want to talk about her impending “marriage” or about what would happen to her if she couldn’t get away from here. “Tell me about your childhood. You were raised in the—the Seed?” She’d almost said “cult.” That’d go over well.