Blood Red Road

Page 7

Or maybe this is the dream. A long an terrible dream about a storm an some men in black who kil ed Pa an took Lugh away. Maybe I’l wake up soon. I’l tel everybody about it an we’l shake our heads about how strange dreams can be.

I feel a dul throb in my right hand. I look at it. There’s a cloth wrapped around it, al lthy an torn. I prod it. A sharp pain shoots along my arm. Feels real enough.

Somebody’s sayin somethin.

Saba? Emmi’s voice. Saba?

Huh?

What about Procter John?

I look down. His body lies sprawled on the ground, his face twisted with pain. Guess he didn’t die right of .

I told you he’s the right one. I should know. I bin keepin an eye on him al this time like you told me to.

Leave him fer the vultures, I says.

The smel of burnin tires on the wind. My scalp prickles. Smel s real enough.

I heave my barksack over my shoulder. I start walkin. I don’t look back. I ain’t ever comin back to this place agin.

Dead lake. Dead land. Dead life.

THE TRACKWAY

THERE’S ONLY ONE NARROW TRACK. IT GOES INTO AN OUTTA Silverlake. Otherwise, it’s al open country around here. Low scrub, boulders an the ruins of one or two Wrecker buildins.

The trackway runs northeast. It also happens that Crosscreek, where I’m gonna leave Emmi with Mercy, lies three days due northeast of here. Mind you, that’s three days by Pa’s reckonin. It won’t be three days fer Em’s short legs. An she’s a fearful slow walker.

C’mon, Emmi, I says. Let’s see you step lively.

I stride out. After ten steps or so, I check over my shoulder to make sure she’s keepin up. She’s stopped. She’s standin in the middle of the trackway. She’s got her arms folded over her skinny bird chest. Her barksack’s dumped in the mud beside her.

C’mon! I yel . She shakes her head. I curse an turn back. I git to her an says, What?

We shouldn’t go, she says. She lifts her stubborn lit le pointed chin. I know that look. She’s set to cause ructions.

Why not? I says.

We need to stay here, she says. If Lugh comes back an we ain’t here, he’l be worried.

He ain’t comin back, I says.

He’l git away from the men, she says, I know he wil . An he’l come back an we won’t be here an he won’t know where to start to lookin fer us or anythin.

Listen, I says, you didn’t see ’em. I did. Four men took him. Tied him hand an foot an put him on the back of a horse. He ain’t gonna git away on his own. That’s why I’m goin after him. By myself. I promised him I’d find him an that’s what I’m gonna do.

After you find him, she says, we’l come back here. Right?

I can see by her face that she knows we ain’t ever comin back, but she’s gonna make me say it.

This place ain’t fit to live in, I says. You know that. We’l find us a new place to live. A bet er one. Me an Lugh an … you.

Her eyes fil with tears. But this is where we live, she says. It’s our home.

I shake my head. Not no more, it ain’t. It cain’t be.

After a moment, she says, Saba?

What? I says.

I got a bad feelin. I don’t think we should go. I … I’m afeared.

I open my mouth to tel her not to be so stupid, but stop myself before the words come out. I’m in charge of her now an I don’t want her diggin her heels in every time I ask her to do somethin. I try to think what Lugh ’ud do if he was here. He’d probly tease her, coax her.

Whaddya mean, afeared? I put on a face like I’m surprised. How can you be afeared with me in charge?

She gives a lit le smile. Ain’t you afeared?

She says it almost like she’s shy of me.

Me? I says. Naw. I ain’t afeared of nuthin. I ain’t afeared of nobody.

Real y? she says.

Real y, I says. I hesitate. Then I stick out my hand. She puts hers in it. C’mon, I says. Let’s go.

We ain’t gone more’n half a league before we come across hoofprints in the dried mud. Five horses. The riders come this way with Lugh.

I kneel down an trace around the edges of a print. I feel dizzy from relief. I feared they might of headed straight across open country from Silverlake.

If they had of, I’d of lost a lot a time takin Emmi to Crosscreek an then comin back to Silverlake to try an pick up the trail.

The hoofprints lead straight ahead. Northeast. Same direction we’re headed. Our first bit of luck.

C’mon, I says to Em. We got a hurry.

I don’t give her no quarter. I walk quick, my footsteps jerky. No time to lose.

She trots to keep up with me, her barksack thumpin aginst her back. Nero flies on ahead.

Lugh was here. He passed this way.

Lugh goes first, always first, an I fol ow on behind. I’l catch him up. I always do. Always have.

I’l find you. Wherever they take you, I swear I’l find you.

I walk faster.

Mid-afternoon. Second day on the road.

I hafta stop myself from screamin. From walkin fast. Runnin on ahead.

Emmi.

We couldn’t be goin much slower an it’s al her fault.

I wanna leave her by the side of the track an ferget she ever got born. I wish she’d disappear o a the face of th’earth. But I cain’t wish that.

I mustn’t wish that. It’s too wicked. She’s my own flesh an blood, the same as Lugh.

Not the same as Lugh.

Nobody’s the same as Lugh.

Never the same as Lugh.

We leave a thin stand of near-dead pine trees.

The hoofprints leave the trackway here. They head of due north.

Wait here, I says to Emmi.

I fol ow the prints til the hard baked ground turns to scrubby grass. The prints disappear. I shade my eyes. Stare out. There’s a narrow belt of scrub grassland but after that I cain’t see nuthin but wideness. Flatness. Desert. I ain’t never bin here but I know what it is.

Sandsea.

A mean, death-dry place of winds an shiftin sand dunes. A hard land. A land of secrets.

Before Emmi, when Ma was stil alive an everythin was happy, Pa used to tel Lugh an me stories about Wrecker times. Some of ’em was about Sandsea. He told us about whole set lements of people buried by wanderin dunes. Then, one day, the winds ’ud shift an the dune ’ud move on an al that ’ud be left was the shanties. No people. Al gone. Not a trace of ’em left behind, not even bones. Only their dead souls, turned into sand spirits that wail in the night an cry fer their lost lives. Pa used to say he’d take us there an leave us if we warn’t good.

I pile up some rocks. A cairn to mark the spot so’s I can find it agin.

I walk back to the trackway.

Em sits in the dust, her head bowed. She’s took her boots of .

We got a keep movin, I says.

I look down. At her short, ne brown hair that grows in tufts. With her thin lit le neck an wisps of hair, Emmi looks more like a babby bird than a girl.

It’s a wonder I didn’t break her neck when I slapped her. Jest thinkin about it makes me feel sick, so I try not to. I know fer a fact that Em ain’t never in her life bin slapped before I raised my hand to her. Lugh would never of done it, no mat er what. Never. He’d be madder’n hel if he knew what I done.