Shadows of Glass (19 page)

Perhaps I should worry about the rovers, but the sight of Levi’s weapons, the crossbow
and the quiver of arrows, the gun and knife strapped on his hip, gives me a sense
of security that I’ve never felt before. He sees me squinting when we walk through
a sunny spot and he gives me his glasses with the tinted lenses. They fit differently
than my goggles, and the thin curved wire feels strange on my ears. Levi grins at
me as he straightens them on my face.

“Got to protect those beautiful eyes,” he says, and I feel a red come over my cheeks
that has nothing to do with the sun.

We step back into dense growth and Levi uses his crossbow to part the foliage, keeping
it before him in case we come upon something. I hear the sound of water running in
the distance, and its bittersweet sound reminds me of the river by the cave where
Pace and I lived for a few short days. I have no idea what we are hunting until he
holds up a hand to stop me and then points ahead into another clearing.

A wondrous creature stands before me. Tall, sleek, majestic, with a large array of
horns upon its head, so heavy that I wonder how he can hold it upright as he dips
his head to graze upon the tender shoots of grass in the small clearing we came upon.
I grab Jonah and pull him close before he can dash out from where we hide and give
us away. A movement catches my eye and I see three more, but these do not have horns.
At the edge of the clearing is another creature with a smaller set of horns. Beyond
the group is a wide stream that tumbles over huge rocks. Water sprays up from it and
the sunlight streaming through the trees create a wide band of color. I slip off Levi’s
glasses to see it better and clearly see blue, purple, and red, and then the paler
hues of orange and yellow. It is another miraculous sight of things I never thought
to behold in my lifetime.

“What are they?” I mouth to Levi.

“A stag and his does,” he mouths back. “Deer.” I want to ask him about the other thing
I see over the water, but I don’t as I see he is intent on the deer. Slowly he lowers
to one knee and props the crossbow on his arm. The stag stops his grazing and stares
with his deep brown eyes directly where we hide. Suddenly, he takes off with a great
leap and the does go with him. Before I can draw a breath, Levi lets the arrow fly.
I hear the soft twang of the bowstring and see the arrow strike the smaller stag midflight
before he falls to the ground.

I choke back a sob. Jonah wiggles free and dashes to where the stag lies while I stare
up at Levi in shock and the survivors crash off into the forest.

“It’s a matter of survival, Wren,” he says. “A difference between eating today and
tomorrow or not eating at all. It’s a hide to cover your feet and keep you warm. It’s
tools and weapons. It’s something you are going to have to learn if you want to stay
alive.”

“But he was so beautiful,” I cry. “They all are.”

“Then respect his beauty and appreciate his purpose.” I nod and once more wipe the
tears from my cheek. I’ve seen so much death lately and not enough beauty. I hate
to think of anything that amazing being removed from this world, but I also appreciate
the significance of it. Without Levi and his family we would be starving. I cannot
condemn him for helping us stay alive.

He kneels by the stag, places his hand on its neck, and bows his head in prayer for
a brief moment while Jonah sniffs at the place where the arrow went in. I do not know
anything about hunting, but I know enough about life to realize that this was a clean
kill and the animal died instantly, and for that I am grateful. I do not think I could
stand it if it were thrashing around in agony.

“The older one would not have let this one stay around much longer,” he says. “He
would have fought him for the herd.” Levi pulls the arrow from the stag and checks
the tip. He wipes the blood off on the thick grass.

It is all a matter of survival I realize. The strong taking from the weak to survive.
If we want to survive, we have to be the strong ones. We have to learn how or we might
as well have died in the floods.

“Will you carry this?” Levi says and hands me the crossbow and quiver of arrows. And
then, to my amazement, he leverages himself under the deer and picks it up with it
slung over his shoulders.

“Isn’t that heavy?” I ask.

“A bit,” he says and his voice sounds strained. “Lead on then,” he says after adjusting
the weight.

“Come on, Jonah,” I say and go back through the dense underbrush that we’d passed
through, leading with the cross bow as I’d seen Levi do.

“Where did you learn to hunt like that?” I ask. I keep my eyes on the trail as Jonah
scampers ahead.

“From the Sioux,” he replies with a puff.

“Sioux?”

“An Indian tribe indigenous to the northern part of the Midwest.” He takes a breath.
“America.”

“Would you rather wait until you can answer for me to ask you anymore questions?”
I ask.

“I can answer now,” he says. “I’m fine.” I turn around to look at him, and his face
is flushed beneath his tan. I do not believe him, but I know about young men and their
pride so I continue on.

“What are the Sioux Indians like?” I ask.

“They live as one with the land. It’s how they managed to survive what they call ‘The
Great Winter.’ They have legends that even predicted the coming of the comet. Because
they knew how to live off the land, they were able to survive while those who lived
in the big cities died off because there just wasn’t enough food.” Levi’s speech comes
in small bursts as he carries the deer. “They have a legend about a spider who spun
a web with a hole in the middle. It talks about the cycles of life: you are born and
need care, then childhood, then you become an adult, and then once more you become
old and need care.”

“Shiners don’t live that long,” I say.

“What?”

“We do not live that long. Most die before they are forty from black lung. It comes
from breathing in the coal dust our entire lives. My grandfather was forty-six when
he died. That is old for a shiner.”

“That is so sad,” Levi says.

“It is the way things are,” I reply. The way things always were. We were taught not
to expect more. “Tell me more about the spider.”

“The web he spun was called a dream catcher. Its purpose is to catch the good dreams
and let the bad fall through the holes. The spider said…”

“The spider talked?”

“It’s a legend,” Levi says. “The spider was talking to a wise man.”

“Go on,” I say.

“The spider said there are bad forces and good forces at work throughout our lives.
If you listen to the good forces you will go in the right direction, if you listen
to the bad you won’t.”

“Did he mention how to tell the good forces from the bad?” I ask teasingly. I know
he’s telling me about the legend in an attempt to make me feel better about everything
that has happened to me in the past few days. The fact that he does this makes me
happy and strangely carefree.

“No. I guess you’re just supposed to follow your heart.” Levi adds, “And make sure
you have a dream catcher close by. Don’t you have any legends?”

I think for a moment. Do we? We don’t and for some reason that suddenly makes me sad.
My emotions are all over the place and I don’t know why. “All we had was stories from
the Bible. It was the only book any of us possessed.”

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Levi says. “It is good to have something to believe
in.” The underbrush has cleared out and the going is easier now so we can walk side
by side. Jonah still stalks ahead of us. The sun is lower in the sky now and shines
in our faces when it can find a path through the trees.

“I always believed in the things the Bible says. I also believed there was a world
out here,” I say.

“And you acted on it.”

“That still doesn’t mean it was a good thing.” I stop in my tracks. Jonah, ahead of
us, is crouched close to the ground with his ears laid back. He lets out a low rumbling
growl.

“Someone is coming,” Levi says.

“What should we do?” I ask. Jonah hisses and growls again. His tail twitches angrily.

“Hide,” Levi whispers. He moves in a crouching run to a dead tree and drops the stag
on the ground. I follow him and together we shove the dead weight of the stag beneath
the tree. Branches crack loudly and I fear we have given ourselves away. Jonah takes
off and dashes up a tree while Levi and I crawl beneath the dead tree away from the
dead stag. It is a close fit between the thick branches and we have to wedge our way
in until we lie hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder. There is an abundance of brush
before us, enough to hide us, I hope.

We hear the crack of a branch to our right and Levi eases the crossbow in front of
him, pulls the arrow back into the slot, and aims it in the direction of the sound.
There is a space between the ground and the brush, and another above that gives us
a view of the path. We are so close that I can feel the clench of his thigh against
mine, and his elbow, where it supports the crossbow, is pressed against my breast.
I smell the earth, the blood on the stag, and the scent of my fear. I also smell the
freshness of Levi’s skin and the scent of his soap.

We hear them before we see them. “I’m ah-tellin-ya, I smell blood.”

“It’s because ya haven’t washed off what’s on ya,” another voice says. “Ya smell to
the heavens anyway. Don’t know how ya can smell blood over your filth.”

I concentrate on making myself unseen. Pressing my body into the dirt and hoping I
blend with the grass and the brush that surrounds me. Levi keeps the crossbow aimed
at the trees. We know there are two of them. How many more are with the two?

“If there’s goats and such there’s got to be people too,” another voice says.

“Well yeah, since one of them ah-clubbed me.”

My eyes widen in surprise. It has to be the rover that I hit. It has to be. I keep
my eyes on the spot where I think they will appear and sure enough, he comes striding
from between the trees, his face still grubby and covered with hair and a rag wrapped
around his skull.

“I didn’t kill him,” I whisper with relief.

“Let’s hope I don’t have to either,” Levi quietly replies, and there is no doubt in
my mind that he would not hesitate to do so.

There are five of them. All dressed in old patched clothing and hides. All carrying
the long guns, although now that I’ve seen Levi’s and the ones Lyon’s men carry I
see a difference. Lyon’s guns are sleeker, shorter, and much shinier. I also don’t
see the rounds of ammunition like Lyon carried unless they are in the small hide bags
the rovers carry crossed over their chests and resting on their hips. Everything around
me seems dark and desperate and I realize it is because of the tinted glasses that
I wear. I do not dare move enough to slide them up.

“They don’t have weapons,” the one I thought I’d killed says. “Not if they’re from
inside the dome.”

“Do ya think they were cast out?” They stop right in front of us. I am overcome by
the smell of unwashed bodies. Levi doesn’t move a bit. He keeps his eyes and the crossbow
on them.

“Does it ah-matter?” one asks.

“If they were cast out, then there’s no one to ah-protect them. But if they’re coming
out, after what happened in there, then there’s the lot of us competin’ for the game
and food. There’s a lot of more of them than there is us. As long as we got the weapons
then we got the upper hand. But if they keep coming we can’t ah-fight them all.”

“I say pick them off as they come out and that way they’ll stop ah-comin’. Or if they
keep on ah-comin’ we can kill them all and move inside and have all their riches.”

“I surely would like stayin’ ah-warm this winter,” one agrees.

“Then we’ll ah-start with this bunch and see what happens.”

I cannot believe they talk so callously about killing us. Without even knowing that
we are mostly children. The same righteous anger than filled me when I struck the
rover for stealing the goat comes over me again. If I held the crossbow in my hand
I would willingly shoot them all. But I don’t. Levi does and his head is wiser than
mine. There are two of us against five of them, and they are all armed.

“We have to do something,” I say in a whisper as they continue on their way. Luckily
it is away from our shelter and away from the dome. I watch them go and then turn
to Levi. We are so close beneath the dead tree that our noses nearly touch.

“Did you not see the guards at your camp?” Levi questions me in a voice as quiet as
my own.

“Yes.”

“I do not think they are so stupid as to walk in and start shooting. I believe they
will take the time to look around and they will be dissuaded when they see that our
people are better armed than they are.”

“You sound so sure,” I say.

“I hope I’m wrong,” he replies. “I hope they are
so
stupid, then we can be rid of the lot of them before the night is over. Their weapons
are primitive and can’t compete with ours.”

“You mean by killing them?” I stare into his warm brown eyes and see the untold stories
hidden within. Levi might be the same age as me but he’s seen things and done things
that I have never imagined. He knows of what he speaks. I am not certain if that scares
me, or thrills me, especially when he answers.

“I mean by surviving.” He stares back at me and his eyes suddenly soften and he looks
at me. At my face, at my eyes, at my lips, which suddenly feel very dry. As Levi looks
at me, Pace enters my mind and I am overcome with guilt. I have been gone for hours
without a word to anyone about my whereabouts. Surely he will be worried.

Levi senses the change in me because he suddenly turns away. “We should go warn my
uncle,” he says. “I’ll come back for the deer.”

I nod in agreement and we back out from beneath the tree as quietly as we can. Levi
slings the crossbow and quiver over his shoulder and takes my hand. “We best hurry,”
he says. “They might decide to come back this way.” We take off at a run with Jonah
sprinting at our heels.