Forager (9781771275606) (18 page)

I longed to return home. The fun was gone from Foraging. I
wanted the comfort of my bed, and my boring post watching for
Scavengers. I wanted to sit down to one of Millie’s dinners and
watch the laugh lines by her eyes grow deeper at the sight of me,
and
sneak covert glimpses of Chane who’d be
sitting a few tables away.
All of it was better than leading Fred down this
lonely gravel road. I wanted things to go back the way they were,
before the Scavenger attack, before I’d shot the deer, before I’d
met Sawyer.

I stopped, and Fred patiently waited by my side. It wasn’t
true. I was glad I’d met Sawyer. He’d given me the opportunity to
be out here, a chance to be something more. That settled it. Then
and there, I decided to prove Sawyer right. To show him, and
everyone else, that I wasn’t just some kid. And most of all, I
needed to do it for myself.

Mounting Fred, I urged her down the road. The next two
buildings didn’t have combines so I kept going. The road rose and
fell in front of me in gentle waves. On either side, nature was
reclaiming the deserted acres. The once-tidy fields teemed with
prairie grasses, thistles, and weeds of every kind.

After another mile, I saw a white building with a large green
panel door and a green metal roof. It was unusual, because it sat
all by itself about thirty feet off the road. There was no house,
no barn, not even any trees nearby.

I rode Fred up the small incline of the turn off. Old gravel
crunched under her hooves.

Dismounting, I found the door padlocked. Making my way around
the building, I looked for a side door. Instead, on the back side
of the building, a foot or so below eye level, a nail pounded into
the shed. The nail held a key ring with a single key.

The ring disintegrated in my hand when I took if off the nail.
All that remained were small reddish orange flakes. The key felt
sturdier. I gently banged it against the building a couple of times
to knock off the worst of the rust. It held together.

The key fit the lock, but the lock didn’t open. I wondered
for a moment if the key was for something else—except
it had to be for
this door. There was nothing else out here to lock up. Pulling the
key out of the lock, I thumped the lock against the door a couple
of times hoping that would loosen whatever was binding
it.

I tried again. The lock was stubborn. Putting a little more
pressure on the key, I tugged on the lock. The key twisted off with
a sharp snap of metal. My heart sank, until I realized the key’s
last task was complete. The lock was open.

Pulling the heavy panel door
open as far as I could, my breath came hard and fast.
Inside was a green
combine. I quickly moved around to the big panels on the side.
Through the dust the yellow numbers read one-two-seven-four. My
pulse raced. It was the right number, but was it the right
year?

Racing up the harvester’s steps, I threw open the door and
knelt down to look at the identification panel. The last two digits
were zero nine.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I jumped down from the cab
with a fist pump. A huge smile lit my face. I held my back straight
and my shoulders wide.

I’d done it. I’d found the combine.

I was afraid to look under the engine cover. My previous
failures left me thinking that all I would find was a huge empty
hole where the engine should have been.

I quit being stupid and popped the hatch. A big smile
stretched across my face. Resisting the urge to jump up and down
like a five-year-old, I did let out a loud, “Oh, yeah!”

Sitting right where it was supposed to be was the alternator
I’d spent the last two days looking for. Now, I needed to remove it
from the engine and haul it back to town without damaging
it.

Running to Fred, I rifled through the saddlebags. I grabbed
what I thought was the right size wrench and hurried back to the
combine. Naturally,
It was a size too
small
. Back
to Fred, this time grabbing a bigger wrench. This one fit. I
strained with all the muscles in my arm to loosen the first bolt.
No luck. I moved to the second and then the third all without
budging any of them.

Sweat dripped down my face from the effort. Wiping it away
with the back of my hand, I went back to the first bolt. The wrench
must not have been on the bolt securely. It slipped and my knuckles
crashed into the side of the engine block. The tool fell out of my
hand. It clanked a couple of times on various engine parts before a
soft
thud
let me know it found the dirt floor of the shed.

Mom wouldn’t have been proud of the words that escaped my
mouth. I put my injured knuckles to my lips and tasted
blood.

The light coming in from the open door wasn’t great, and
what with the wrench
being under the combine, my body blocked most of it.
I spent far too long
scrabbling around
with my hand in the dirt, trying to find that
stupid wrench.

This time, when I put the wrench on the bolt, I tried turning
it to the left. The bolt broke free and busted up my knuckles
again. Naturally, the wrench clanged and banged its way to floor. I
clenched my jaw in a completely unsuccessful attempt to keep more
swear words from pouring out.

Wiping the blood on my jeans, I played fetch with the wrench.
The next two bolts (once I turned them the right direction) didn’t
give me any problems. With the bolts free, I removed the belt and
tossed it out the door toward Fred.

I gripped the alternator with both hands knowing by my failure
in the repair shop how heavy it would be. It came free of its
mount, but wouldn’t come completely out.

The wiring harness. I’d have thunked myself on the forehead if
I’d had a free hand. The alternator was too heavy to let hang, so I
placed it back in its mount, and went back to the saddlebags for
something small and flat enough to lift the tab that held the
wiring harness together. I stumbled across a flat-blade
screwdriver, grabbed it, and rushed back to the combine. Pushing
the screwdriver into my forefinger wasn’t part of my plan, but I
did my best to ignore the new pain as I wiped more blood on my
jeans. It took a few minutes, but in the end, the tab released its
hold.

Finally free from the harvester, I lugged the alternator
back to Fred. The darned thing weighed around fifteen pounds and
was ten or eleven inches around. It wouldn’t fit in the saddlebags,
and
it couldn’t just dangle from the saddle
and bang on Fred all the way back.

The saddle horn was my only choice.
Gathering what was left of the rope
I’d used to tie Fred that first
night, it took me several tries before I found a way to secure the
alternator so it wouldn’t jostle too much as I rode.

After packing up the belt, I mounted. The air hung humid and
heavy. Riding under the brutal sun, I wiped the sweat off my
forehead with one hand and swatted away the swarms of gnats with
the other.

If I continued west on this road, I’d eventually hit the
blacktop. After that it was a simple matter of turning north and
following the highway back to town.

I hadn’t been riding long when a white two-story farmhouse
caught my attention. It wasn’t so much the house as the wheel
tracks in the yard that surprised me. I wasn’t a tracker. I didn’t
know how long grass and weeds stayed bent over after something
heavy, like a wagon, rolled over it, but I guessed it couldn’t have
been long. I assumed the wagon, or whatever it was that left the
tracks, belonged to Scavengers. It was the first sign of activity,
besides my own, that I’d seen since I’d left town.

Sawyer’s voice echoed in my head. “Don’t get distracted.” I
knew I should ride on and get the alternator back to town, but I
had to know. Besides, the place looked deserted. After riding
around the house to make sure, I dismounted and left Fred in the
front yard to graze.

Opening the door, I found myself in a large foyer with a
staircase to my left and two closed panel doors to my right. I slid
the left door into its pocket, and stepped into the strangest room
I’d ever seen. There were two couches and six chairs spread
throughout. By itself, that wouldn’t have seemed strange, but every
seat cushion was missing.

Throughout the rest of the first floor, the scene continued to
confuse me. Empty bedframes and cushion-less chairs were
everywhere. Nothing else seemed out of place.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor. A long hallway
divided four bedrooms. The first three were like the rest of house,
nothing unusual, except for the missing mattresses and cushions.
Then I approached the fourth bedroom.

Pushing open the door, I strode inside. The wallpaper, the
carpet, and even the bedcovers were all covered in a busy,
repeating pattern. It took me a moment to recognize that it
consisted of a mess of tiny roses. I’d never seen a room so sickly
girlish. There were so many roses I didn’t at first realize the
room hadn’t been touched.

The bed’s mattress and bedcovers were still there, which made
me realize that the bedcovers from the other rooms were also
missing. I stepped closer and saw small lumps under the covers.
Totally baffled, I strode to the edge of the bed, my mind filling
with questions. Why was this room left alone? What was behind the
Scavengers’ strange behavior? And what were those strange
lumps?

Grabbing the comforter, I pulled. My heart stopped. I know it
did, because I couldn’t get enough air to scream. Lying under the
covers was a perfectly arrayed skeleton. My heart went from a dead
stop to triple time. I gulped air and finally shrieked. It probably
sounded as girlish as the room looked, but luckily no one was
around to hear it.

It took a bit for me to get my breathing, and my heart rate,
back to normal. Enough blood finally pumped into my head for my
brain to begin working. It was pretty obvious why this mattress was
still here.

Once more, I took hold of the comforter. I tried not to see
each separate finger bone or the holes in the jaw where teeth had
fallen out. I didn’t want to look at any of it, but as I covered
the remains, I saw it all.

I rushed out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front
door. It was definitely time to get back to town.

Fred and I were a fast mile down the road before I remembered
the missing cushions. Why would Scavengers take only the
mattresses, pillows, and such, but leave the beds and chairs? Did
the Scavengers want the comfort of something soft without the extra
weight of the actual furniture? I was stretching an answer to fit
the situation and I knew it. The real answer was probably much
simpler.

The temperature continued to climb. Sweat rolled down my face,
and the swarms of gnats multiplied. Trying to push them, the
skeleton, and the strange behavior of the Scavengers out of my
head, I instead imagined the reception I’d get when I got back to
town.

I was positive Sawyer would be happy with me. Frank Miller
probably would be too. Millie’s blue eyes would light up in pride,
and Charlie Meyer would give me a huge pat on the back. But what
would the mayor do?

“
What do you think Fred? Is the mayor going to banish
me?”

Fred didn’t make a sound.

A voice from beside the road did. “Stop right there,
Forager!”

I’d gotten so caught up in my thoughts, I’d forgotten about
the dangers of the road. I cursed. The wheel tracks in the grass by
the farmhouse should have made me more alert. Not that it would
have done me any good, the man was well hidden. I liked that he
called me a Forager but that pride deflated at having been
discovered.

The voice came from the left, behind a sprawling thicket of
bushes fringing the road. I couldn’t make out much for details, but
I didn’t really need to. The man’s tone was clear
enough.

Assuming he was armed, I slowly reached down by my right leg
and put my hand on the stock of Sawyer’s rifle. In most of my
riding, the rifle, the bow, and the quiver full of arrows were a
nuisance. They were just something else to bang my leg on and make
me more awkward in the saddle. Now, I was glad to have them
close.

I continued to walk Fred at the same pace as
before.

“
Stop that horse and get down, now!” the voice from the bushes
said.

I was positive that if I did as he said no one would ever see
me or Fred again.

I rode on, teeth clenched, and my lips sealed as tight as one
of Millie’s canning jars. My knees shook with fear and my breath
quickened. I was glad Fred was the one doing the walking. As
unnoticeably as I could, I pulled the rifle from the
scabbard.

I’d never actually fired a rifle. I knew how. Everyone in
school was taught the basics, but bullets were too hard to come by
for actual practice.

“
I said stop! Last chance, Forager!”

I flipped the safety off the rifle and bumped Fred hard as I
could with my heels.

She took off like a lightning bolt.