Monsters (36 page)

There were only four families in the tiny village, but they were hospitable. They traded regularly with the villages south of Petersburg, below Richmond, and were planning a trip there in the next few days.

James bartered with the kayak to gain their passage to Petersburg along with a small amount of money.

They arrived on the outskirts of Petersburg three days later. Lisa was nervous. Although she wasn’t known personally in the town, her father was honored as a visionary.

“They’ve had word from Gainsborough,” James said, sitting down with her on a low stone wall near the market. “He’s turned the column around and is heading back to Richmond.”

“You think it’s true?” Lisa asked, enjoying the warmth of the sun as they waited for their next ride south to depart later that morning.

“Yes. But I don’t think his target is Richmond. I’d say he’s got wind of our direction.”

“So where to from here?”

“We’ve got to throw them off the scent. If we’re going to fool them into thinking we’ve been killed it has to be convincing. We head south, follow the routes toward Florida, and fake our demise well away from anyone who knows anything about you, me or Gainsborough, then we double back.”

As their southern trader mounted up in the village square, getting ready to depart, James heard of an old trader heading to Amersham and the surrounding villages. He introduced himself.

“So you’re old man Dobson’s boy,” the old trader said.

“Yes. Can you get a message to him?”

“Sure,” the trader replied, lifting his broad-brimmed hat and scratching his head. “Your father and I go back a long way. I knew your mother. I was there on the night he rescued her from a wild dog.”

James said, “I need you to tell him something, a phrase he’ll understand. I need you to say
The Cat in the Hat
.”

“The cat is in the hat?” the old man queried. “That’s nonsense, it makes no sense. You want me to tell him something that’s gibberish?”

“Yes,” James replied smiling. He took the man’s hat from his head and turned it upside down as he gestured with his hand, mimicking how a small creature might jump in and out of the hat as he repeated,
The Cat in the Hat
.”

“And this will mean something to him?”

“Yes, it’s very important. He’ll know what it means. Please, you’ve got to promise me you’ll tell him.”

“Well, I’m not likely to forget that,” the old man grumbled, putting his hat back on his head.

“Thank you,” James replied as the man wandered off.

“What was all that about?” Lisa asked.

“
The Cat in the Hat
is a children’s book,” James replied. “I’ve never read it, but it was the book my Mother used to teach my Father how to read. At first, he hated it. He thought it was silly, but she loved the book, and slowly he grew to love it too. Anyway, it became a bit of a joke among the readers and they nicknamed him,
The Cat in the Hat
, although I don’t know that anyone dared call him that to his face.”

“I don’t get it,” Lisa said. “Why pass that along as a message?”

“Because he’ll understand what I mean to do. He’ll know we’re heading for the library. And if that trader is stopped by scouts, he’s got nothing meaningful to tell them, just gobbledygook.”

“And if the message doesn’t get through?”

“We’re on our own.”

The ride south was slow.

Early floods had swamped the low country, forcing the caravan to the east.

The interstate had been washed away.

Avalanches buried the alternate tracks, and the trader turned back toward Petersburg, hoping to pick up the road to Norfolk.

Rain drizzled throughout the day, increasing to a storm by the evening.

On making camp, James strung his ground sheet between two trees, allowing it to hang down like a tent, secured at the ends. In the driving rain, he and Lisa set up a hammock beneath the canvas sheet, stretching out between the trees. They might not be dry, thought James, but at least they’d stay out of the water. With the two of them and their packs piled into the hammock beneath the ground sheet, a cold, wet, uncomfortable night lay ahead.

“Things could be worse,” Lisa said, sticking her legs up beside James’ shoulder as she bent around the wet pack in the middle of the hammock.

James laughed. “It’s hard to imagine how.”

Lisa leaned to one side over the edge of the hammock, wringing her hair out with her hands, watching as the water dripped into the ankle deep water rushing by beneath them. James rested his hand on her leg.

“Any regrets?” he asked.

“None,” she replied, without any hesitation. “And you?”

“Only that we didn’t steal a horse of our own. But it would have been too easy for the scouts to track.”

“I didn’t mean about our escape,” Lisa replied, nudging him.

“Oh.” James wasn’t sure quite what to say next. “I thought you weren’t the romantic type.”

“You call this romance?”

“Life won’t always be like this,” he said. “We won’t have to run forever. We’ll find somewhere to settle down and I’ll care for you.”

“Oh, you will, will you? You’ll care for me? How sweet. What if it’s you that needs the care? Then I’ll care for you. How does that make you feel?”

“Are you always going to be this ornery?”

“Yes,” Lisa replied with a grin.

“Good.”

There was silence for a few seconds as neither of them seemed to know what to say next.

“Teach me to read.”

“What? Now?” James asked, surprised by how Lisa could go from one subject to the next so swiftly.

“No, not now, silly. But promise me you’ll teach me to read.”

“Sure.”

“I want to hear about different cultures. I want to learn about the stars. I want to read the greatest stories ever written, the love stories and tragedies, the stories of heroics and heartache.”

“Sure,” James said, a little taken aback with Lisa’s sudden interest in reading. “Just not all at once, OK?”

“OK,” Lisa replied, laughing.

They chatted idly for a while before Lisa fell asleep.

James found himself lying there listening to the sound of the rain pounding on the canvas. He had no idea what the future held, but he was quietly confident. Moving forward into the future with Lisa brought a smile to his face. Life had been rough, but with her, it was getting better. He drifted off to sleep cold, wet, and tired, but somehow content.

Birds were singing when he woke. The early morning sun lit up the canvas tarpaulin. There was no sound of rain or running water. It was going to be a beautiful day.

James was about to get out of the hammock when a hand clamped over his mouth. The cold steel of a knife blade pushed up against his neck.

“Don’t try anything funny,” came a whisper from behind him.

In a flash, James seized on the arm holding the knife, locking it in place with both hands. He twisted, falling forward out of the hammock, dragging his assailant with him.

Lisa woke startled and screamed.

James flexed with his abdomen and shoulders, propelling his attacker over and onto his back. He wrenched the knife from his hands and was about to plunge it into the man’s throat when he saw it was Anders, the soldier he’d saved from the jaguar.

Another soldier grabbed Lisa. She fought him, lashing out with her hands.

Further back, James could see two other soldiers with crossbows covering the attack. His instinct was to plunge the knife into Anders’ neck and turn on the soldier grabbing Lisa. The soldiers on the perimeter wouldn’t risk firing on her. If he could reach his long bow they stood a better than even chance, but this was Anders.

The big man had landed on a flat rock, knocking him breathless. In that split second, James remembered joking around with Anders while painting the farm trailer. He remembered working together with him on the honey wagon, their march on Washington, and their battle with the jaguar. He couldn’t do it.

Anders must have sensed what James was thinking. He had his hands out in a gesture of surrender. He wasn’t trying to fight back. Whatever happened, James couldn’t live with himself if he killed his friend.

He dropped the knife.

A split second later, the sharp blow of a club struck him on the back of his head. He’d known it was coming, something had to be coming, and yet the ferocity of the blow stunned him, causing him to black out.

James came to rocking on the back of a horse.

He kept his eyes shut, wanting to learn as much as he could about his predicament before anyone realized he’d regained consciousness.

His head throbbed. His wrists were bound with iron shackles, straps around his waist held him in place, but his legs were free.

James was lying across the horse, with his face against the smooth hair of the animal, blood rushing around inside his head.

Salt stung his face from the sweat of the animal beneath him.

The sun was high above, beating down on his back. He’d been out cold for at least four hours. In four hours, they’d have been most of the way back to Petersburg.

There was little in the way of conversation, but James got the impression Lisa was sitting behind him. He turned his head to look at her, hoping that motion wouldn’t be noticed.

“He’s awake,” came a voice from the ground.

James recognized the voice, it was Simon, another of the soldiers with whom he’d fought against the jaguar.

James looked up at Lisa. She was sitting behind him on the horse, but she wasn’t bound. He felt someone undoing the strapping holding him on the saddle. A large hand picked him up, turning him away from Lisa and toward the front of the horse, helping him to sit properly on the animal.

“How are you feeling?” Anders asked as James sat to one side in the broad saddle.

“Sore,” James replied.

The big man laughed, “Good.”

“So why aren’t I dead?”

“Because I wouldn’t let them kill you.”

James nodded, not that Anders could see him as he sat there with his back to him, holding the reins of the horse.

James felt Lisa’s hand on his shoulder. He reached up with both hands in shackles and touched her fingers.

“How did you find us?” James asked.

From the ground, Simon called out, as impetuous as ever.

“We caught a glimpse of you on the river, but you were miles ahead of us.”

Anders was more relaxed in his response.

“After seeing you on the Potomac, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out where you’d go. You wouldn’t hang around the coast. You’d try to get as far south as quickly as possible so we sent riders ahead, asking who was on the trade routes, and started working our way through the caravans.”

James nodded, thinking it was the same approach he’d have used. Stupid, really, he should have gone for something more unpredictable, not so cautious.

“And now what?”

“Now, we will return you to General Gainsborough. You will go on trial for desertion. It will be a fair trial, I guarantee you that.”

“Great,” James replied, trying not to sound too sarcastic.

Lisa had moved closer in behind him. She whispered in his ear.

“My father’s taken the main force to Amersham. He means to make an example of a southern village.”

James felt his anger rising within him, but there was nothing he could do.

Looking down at his hands, he was glad they hadn’t been cuffed behind his back. That gave him some options. He wondered who had the key. He thought about how impractical it would be to fight in chains. If he could get hold of a sword he could adopt a two-handed attack, but it was cumbersome, and no good for defense. He had to get out of the shackles. It seemed the best he could hope for would be for some monster to attack, a mountain lion or a bear, and to take advantage of the confusion to escape, but it was wishful thinking and he knew it. If a troop of soldiers couldn’t fight off a monster, what chance would he have on the run in chains?

The troop stopped and made camp well before nightfall, picking a defensible position beneath a rocky outcrop. James figured they were heading due west, looking to link up with Gainsborough somewhere near Amersham. That night, Anders and Simon came over and sat briefly with James and Lisa.

“You should not have run,” Anders said. “But Simon and I will testify on your behalf. There’s much in your favor. You fought valiantly against that jaguar and saved our lives. That will count for something.”

“That will count for nothing,” James replied coldly. “This isn’t about desertion, it’s about Lisa leaving her father, and there’s only one way it can end.”

James watched as Anders swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Why did you run?” Simon asked. “What did you think you’d accomplish?”

“I thought we’d be free.”

“Free?” Simon replied, a hint of surprise in his voice at the answer.

“You’re too close to all this,” James said, gesturing around them, looking across at the other soldiers setting rusting old bear traps on the approaches to the camp. “You don’t see the general for who he really is, an old man living out his dreams through your lives. He has no power over you other than the power you grant him, no authority other than your willful submission.

“You show him respect, and he feeds on that, but the truth is, he has nothing. The army, this campaign, it’s an illusion, a construct to make you believe in something that’s as fleeting as the early morning mist.”

Simon looked crushed.

Anders was quiet.

“There has to be more to life,” Lisa said, picking up on James’ comments. “We ran because we wanted to be free to live our own lives, not his.”

Simon had his lips pursed tight together and James couldn’t read the emotion in his face. Was he angry, annoyed, bitter? Or was it that he could see their perspective and was deeply considering their words?

Anders couldn’t make eye contact. He seemed uncomfortable with what was being said.

“There must be another way,” James added. “Taking back the cities is not the goal we should be pursuing. The cities are nothing but mausoleums for the dead. It’s not the cities that are important, it’s what they represent, the triumph of mankind over the wild. I say, leave the cities to the monsters. They can have them. We don’t want to restore the cities, we want to restore our lives. We want to restore the dignity and quality of life mankind once enjoyed.”