My head’s tight. It throbs an pounds where the bump is. My eyes burn with uncried tears.
If tears could wash away the bleakness in my brother’s eyes, the white fear flatness of his voice, I’d weep till the end of time. But they cain’t. An I fear there won’t ever be enough tears. Not fer him. Not fer none of us.
All the while I was lookin fer him, all them months, I kept tellin myself the same thing. Over an over. Once I find him, once me an Lugh’s back together agin, we’re gonna be the same as we was before. The way we’ve always bin.
Now I know that was jest the story I told myself. To keep goin. To spur me on to find him. To keep me fightin. To keep me alive.
It’s a good story. I wish it was true. But it ain’t. Because this is the truth.
What happens to you changes you. Fer good or ill, yer changed ferever. There ain’t no goin back. No matter how many tears you cry. It sounds simple, but it ain’t.
It’s a truth that Hopetown nailed through my heart. The first time they put me in the Cage to fight.
My whole life, Lugh’s bin my better self. The light to my dark. We shared a heartbeat in the womb. The blood an breath of our mother. We’re two halfs of one whole.
Now he cain’t help me. I cain’t help him. An we sure as hell cain’t help ourselfs. No, fer the first time ever, Lugh ain’t the one I need.
I need Jack.
Jack.
My longin fer him aches in my bones. His silver eyes, his crooked smile, the smell of his warm skin, sage an sun. But mostly I long fer, mostly I ache fer, his stillness. The stillness at the heart of him. Like calm water.
Lugh’s wrong about him. Couldn’t be more wrong. If Jack says he’ll meet me at the Big Water, he will. He keeps his promises. All I need is to see him agin. To be with him, to talk with him. We’ll talk about it, we’ll talk about everythin, an he’ll listen an he’ll help me figger out how to fix things, how to make it all better. How to make me an Lugh better.
He’ll banish the shadows. He’ll silence the whispers. An the wounds of my soul will heal.
I jest need Jack.
He’ll make everythin all right.
We’re nearly back at camp. Suddenly, somethin catches Lugh’s eye. He squints east, into the distance. I do too. There’s a trail of dust slowly snakin this way.
Throw me the looker, he says. The first words since we left the ridge. He lifts it to his eyes. Another wagon train, he says. How many’s that since we bin stopped here?
Four – no, five, I says.
A lotta people on the move these days, even in this hellhole. He watches fer a bit. Same as always, he says. Sick lookin. Old. Useless.
Let’s talk to these ones, Lugh, I says. Maybe they could help us. We could travel with ’em.
I bin takin care of this family since I was eight, he says. I think I know what’s best. You sayin I don’t?
No, I says, no, I didn’t mean to—
We don’t need nobody’s help, he says. Well, they better not come lookin fer water. We ain’t got none to spare.
I’ll watch till they pass, I says.
He nods. Tosses me the looker. Sing out if they head this way, he says.
Hey, Lugh?
Yeah?
You an me, we’re . . . okay, ain’t we?
His smile don’t reach his eyes. Of course we are, he says. He clicks at Rip an they disappear around the hill.
Our camp’s set up in the lee of the best windbreak fer leagues around – a great carhill, made back in Wrecker times. We had one near us at Silverlake. Pa figgered that carhills must of bin some kinda tech worship thing the Wreckers did. The land took hold of this one a long time ago. Covered it with earth an grass all over, hid it away from view. But on the windward side, you can see bits of crushed, rusted car. A nose here, a tail end there. Around th’other side, there’s a grove of spindly scrub pine an a waterhole an that’s where we are. So close to the carhill, you’d esspeck the water to be rustwater, but this one ain’t. Still, it’s only a puddle, jest enough fer us an the horses.
I git down from Hermes an scramble up the hill. I fix the looker on the dust trail. It ain’t long before the travellers come into plain view. There’s three wagons in this train. First comes a old woman on boarback, wild haired an bent. Next, a man an woman in a mule cart. She fans flies away from the limp child in her lap. Bringin up the rear, a girl about my age pedals a three-tyre trolley.
I wait. They pass, too far away to see me an I’m well hid besides. Still, the driver of the mule cart lifts his head. Turns it this way. Maybe the sun caught on the glass of my looker. A brief glance, then he sets his face forwards once agin.
He’s bitter-faced, sick yellow skin. With the look of a man who’s left any hope by the side of the road a long way back. A sorry crew, altogether. They look like they’re carryin sickness. Maybe the blood lung, maybe worse. Fer definite we don’t want ’em stoppin to ask fer no water.
Old folk. Weak men an women. Sickly young. Jest like th’other wagon trains we seen crossin the Waste. Not one person lookin fit enough to travel good roads, let alone this one. Lugh’s right. People’s on the move west.
I wonder why.
Not jest wagons, lone travellers too. We found the leftover bits of one fella. Well, Nero did. Dead eaters had bin at him, jackals an vultures, so you couldn’t tell much. Jest his hair colour an boot size. The boots was good an they fit Tommo. You never feel right, takin from the dead. But he wouldn’t be doin no more walkin an Tommo would. We piled rocks over what was left of him an Lugh said a few respeckful words.
I watch till it’s clear this train ain’t gonna stop. Then I head around the hill to camp.
There’s one good thing in all this. It turns out that Tommo’s a genius cook. Ike learned him in the kitchen of The One-Eyed Man, where they had to feed travellers day after day.
He roasts an bastes. He stirs an tastes. He mashes an crushes an boils. Then he’ll sprinkle a pinch from his herb bag an whatever limped into the pot comes high-steppin into our mouths. We bin stuck with crickets an small lizard fer some time, which don’t even start to kill our hunger. Tommo does champion with the wolfdog an, fer once, our tight bellies ease.
Strange to say, but I ain’t much bothered by bein hungry. I know I am, my stummick tells me so, I jest don’t seem to care. I give half my portion to Tommo.
The day slouches towards night. The pines around us settle in. Their parched needles sigh in the warm breeze. Their tired sweetness gentles the air. After Tommo’s finished cookin, we keep the small bitterbrush fire goin, not fer warmth so much as comfort.
I sit unner a tree, apart from everybody. It took three pans of precious water to boil wash the wolfdog blood from my clothes. I huddle in my skivvies, wrapped in a blanket while they drip dry on a branch.
My bones ache with weariness. I long fer sleep. But it won’t come. I won’t let it. I don’t dare.
I can feel the shadows gatherin.
Earlier, Lugh an Tommo made a rack from deadwood an hung thin slices of wolfie meat to air dry. Now they lift an twist in the breeze - rustlin, whisperin wind chimes.
Once we’ve scoured our eatin tins clean with pine needles, we settle down to eventide tasks. Everybody but me, that is. Tommo starts to fashion two new cleft poles fer his sleep skellie. His old ones snapped in the middle of last night an the whole shebang collapsed on top of him. Lugh’s mendin his boot sole with a chunk of goodyear.