Forager (9781771275606) (26 page)

We’d gone a couple of miles, cutting our way through two more
fences, and we were in the middle of an overgrown field that gently
went uphill. Prairie grasses and weeds rose up all around us. We
were almost to the top of the hill when Josh said, “Do you smell
that?”

I sniffed. A faint odor of wood smoke wafted on the air. “We
must be getting close,” I whispered

“
Let’s leave the horses here and go on foot.”

“
I don’t know if that’s such a great idea. If we’re discovered,
it’ll be a lot easier to get away if the horses are under
us.”

“
Yeah, but we’ll be a lot easier to see if we’re
mounted.”

He dismounted. I stayed on Fred.

“
C’mon, Orphan Boy. I want to see what’s on the other side of
this hill.”

With a frown of dismay, I dismounted and followed. The tall
grass provided us with some cover, but it was hard to walk through.
After a few minutes of trudging beside Josh, I let him break the
trail and followed in his footsteps. It only made sense. He
was
bigger.

We were almost to the crest of the field when Josh suddenly
sank to his knees. “Get down,” he whispered harshly.

Falling to the ground, I crawled forward.

The hill sloped away from us in a gentle decline. Where the
land flattened out, a line of evergreens grew. It was obvious that
someone planted them as a windbreak. The trees formed an L-shape
around a large farm.

I could see the roofs of four large steel buildings, set in a
square, and six grain silos, in two rows of three. On the far side
of the silos, I could just make out the beige metal roof of another
building.

I whispered, “Do you see anybody moving around down
there?”

“
I see the same thing you do, idiot,” he snapped. “Those
evergreens are too tall and thick to see what’s happening on the
ground.”

I mustered my courage. “Stay here. I’ll go in for a closer
look.”

Before he could argue, I crawled on my hands and knees through
the thick weeds. Thorns pricked through my clothes. By the time I
arrived at the tree line my face, hands, and arms were covered in
shallow cuts and scratches that burned and itched like
crazy.

Up close, the mass of pine needles and twisted branches formed
a barrier only a rabbit could slip through. I tried anyway. Still
on my hands and knees, I grabbed the closest needle filled branch
and pulled. It left an opening big enough to squeeze into. I
crawled forward a foot or so, and repeated. I pushed and squirmed.
All the while moving branches out of my way with whichever of my
limbs was most convenient.

At least the ground under me was soft from all the brown
fallen needles. I inched forward, twisting my body every which way
to get through the tight inter-connecting branches.

The branches rustled with every movement. By the time I peeked
out the other side, I was covered in pine needles and expecting
someone to be waiting for me. Pulling my legs free of the last of
the branches, I stood up. I was beside one of the large steel
buildings. I pressed my back to it and looked around.

To my right, down the side of the ribbed steel wall, I saw the
corner of the next building. To my left, the evergreens turned the
corner, forming their L.

I sniffed. The trace of wood smoke was gone. Instead, my
nose filled with the heavy scent of pine. Heading left toward the
back of the building,
Pushing down the
temptation to run, I softly put one foot in front of the
other.

When I reached the back side of the building, I peeked around
the corner. The trees were only a few feet away, forming a dark,
narrow corridor barely wide enough to walk through. Even in broad
daylight shadows shrouded it in darkness.

I walked the corridor until I came to the far corner of the
building. The soft and spongy cushion of dried needles deadened my
footsteps. In front of me was an open space about thirty feet long.
Beyond that was the next building. Farther down, another expanse of
grass led to the two front buildings. The faint rasp of saws and a
low murmur of voices came to my ears.

Dashing across the opening, I came to the next building, the
trees still forming a dark corridor. Reaching the corner, I poked
my head out and saw the back of the house, a large two-story
cottage.

White, grey, and tan stones were mortared together to make
walls, accented with black shutters and window moldings. The back
of the house had six windows on the second story. Below, on the
ground level, three bigger windows were set behind a large wooden
deck. The roof angled down so steeply that a tall man could reach
up and touch the eaves.

“
See anything interesting?”

I jerked around so fast I almost sprained my neck. A man in a
faded white T-shirt and overalls had snuck down the corridor behind
me. He reminded me of Charlie Meyer, except when Charlie smiled, he
did it without a shotgun.

The man nudged the barrel of the shotgun toward the house and
then back at me. “Turn around and start walking.”

I gasped for breath. My mind couldn’t form a coherent thought
with the shotgun pointed at my back. Finally, after ten or fifteen
steps, I remembered Josh.

I wanted to yell out to him. Warn him to get far away. I drew
a deep breath, ready to shout, when I realized how stupid an idea
that was. Why not set off an alarm alerting the man I had an
accomplice? As it was, Josh might still have a chance to complete
our mission. He might even be able to get both me and Chane free,
if I didn’t get shot first.

With every step past the sheds, the scene opened up in front
of me. People were working everywhere. Four ladies washed clothes
in a watering tank. A dozen men chopped and split wood. Six more
hauled the pieces away and stacked them. Next to an apple tree, a
lone girl with long blond hair was sorting apples. Further on, a
half-dozen people butchered a deer on an old picnic table near a
fire pit.

The dead animal was a reminder of my forthcoming
punishment. I shook that worry aside
. Um, hello, there’s a shotgun pointed at
your back
!

I smelled the fear in my own sweat. It overpowered even the
scent of wood smoke. My hearing sharpened, and the soft murmur of
voices and the rustle of leaves in the trees thudded in my ears.
Most disturbing was the sound of the axes biting into the blocks of
wood. It sent chills down my back and I worried they might decide
to save a bullet.

Flatbed hay trailers and grain wagons were parked next to the
tree line. Next to them, a rough corral held around twenty horses.
Two men hauled buckets back and forth from the water pump to the
tank in the corral.

In all, I estimated there were seventy people working in the
large yard, and other than numbers, there was no real difference in
their tasks than in what we did back in town.

It wasn’t the savage dancing and drinking around a huge fire I
expected. I didn’t see a pile of scavenged loot lying about. There
were no guns being fired wildly into the air. In fact, other than
the shotgun at my back, I hadn’t seen any weapons at all.
Threadbare clothes aside, no one looked like a desperate savage.
This place was so organized, Frank Miller might have assigned the
tasks.

Most of the people noticed me. Those that didn’t were prodded
by their neighbors. Fingers pointed in my direction, but aside from
the man at my back, no one showed any threat of violence. My fear
abated a touch. The man nudged me onto the deck with the barrel of
his shotgun.

I noticed again the blond girl sorting apples. She was about
thirty feet away, with her back to me, kneeling next to several
wooden crates. The way her long hair flowed down the back of her
shirt reminded me of Chane.

I stopped at the door to the house. Nothing good could happen
in there.

The man nudged me again, harder. “What, you waiting for an
invitation? Get on in there.”

My hand trembled as I reached for the handle. My fast-beating
heart doubled its pace. Sweat slickened my hands, and my knees were
giant globs of jelly. I wanted one more glimpse of the blond girl.
I didn’t know if I was walking a death march or not, but if I was,
I wanted one look at her face.

As I pulled the door open, she picked up one of the wooden
crates and turned toward the house. I caught a glimpse of her high
cheekbones and upturned nose. Chane! For a moment my fear left me.
Why wasn’t she tied up? Why wasn’t a guard watching her? Why didn’t
she try and escape?

“
Yeah, there she is. Now quit staring and get a move on. I
swear, you boys are all the same. A pretty face makes you forget
what’s important.” To make his point, he shoved the barrel of the
shotgun hard into my back.

I’d swear the barrel of that gun put a hole in my spine.
Clenching my teeth, I bit back a cry of pain.

Had she seen me? Despite everything, I wondered how this was
different from any other day—me staring at Chane and wondering if
she’d noticed me.

I entered a kitchen. Injured people lay all over the room on
mattresses, chair cushions, and pallets of anything soft, which
explained the missing mattresses and cushions from the strange
farmhouse I’d searched. The bloody bandages and torn clothing of
the injured were gruesome, but the noise was worse. I’d never
imagined the sound of pain being hurtful, but it pierced my skull
and made my head ache.

These were the victims from the failed attack a few days
ago.

The man with the gun pressed me forward. As we walked, I tried
to keep my eyes on the fading brown paint of the wall in front of
me. I didn’t want to see the pain on the faces and in the eyes of
these people. I didn’t want to see their bloody wounds. But my eyes
betrayed me. I couldn’t stop staring, like some morbid part of me
wanted to look. It was hard enough to gaze at all these injured
people, but the overpowering stench of decaying flesh, congealing
blood, and leaking pus coming off of them made it ten times
worse.

Here and there people moved around the injured. Some carried
water and others strips of cloth for bandages, but the ones holding
fly swatters turned my stomach.

It was wrong, sick, disgusting. I couldn’t even think of word
for how revolted those flyswatters made me. A man in blue overalls
and a faded cowboy hat nudged a fly off of a seeping bandage. I
tried not to watch as the fly buzzed around the wound looking for a
safe place to land.

I tried to think only of the flyswatters and how I would love
to have one to use back at home. I imagined trading something I
owned for one. What would it be?

Splat.

The sound brought it all back.

What was left of my fear was replaced with disgust. I was
almost grateful for the man prodding the shotgun into my back to
keep me moving.

I’d seen wounded people before. Mom had been a doctor. But
this was rougher medicine than anything I’d ever known. In town we
had the infirmary. Each patient had their own hospital bed. It
might not have been exactly sterile, but it was far better than
this—this was a breeding ground for infection.

The man directed me to a flight of stairs that were the golden
brown of fresh honey. I know, because I forced my eyes to stay
there. I’d seen enough. At the top, I found myself in the middle of
long hallway that ran the length of the house. There were doors on
both sides of the stairway and more further down the hall. There
was no way to know which door I would be led to, but the steady
pressure of the gun barrel let me know I wasn’t there
yet.

When we reached the last door on the right, the man grabbed
the back of my neck with one hand and rapped the barrel of the
shotgun against the door.

“
Come,” a woman’s voice said from the other side.

I opened the door.

Rasp, the beautiful, dark-haired leader of this gang, sat
behind a desk. She held a pencil poised over a piece of clean,
white paper.
Where had she gotten that?
Paper—clean, white, unused paper—was a
luxury I’d only ever seen the mayor have.

Rasp looked up. “What’s this?”

“
I caught him sneaking around behind the sheds,” the man with
gun said.

“
Very well.” Rasp laid her pencil down. With both elbows on the
desk, she clasped her hands together and rested her chin on her
folded fingers.

“
Sit down.” She pointed to the two chairs in front of the desk.
I chose the one on the left.

She stared at me for what felt like forever. I met her gaze
for a few heartbeats, but I couldn’t hold it. Her dark green eyes
reminded me of grass right after a spring storm. Instead, I let my
gaze wander around the room.

It was a small corner room with two windows. Other than the
desk and chairs, the only other item was a computer sitting in a
tangle of wires in one corner. Strips of olive green wallpaper hung
loose in several places, revealing the cream colored plaster
beneath.