Messenger

Page 4

Leader laughed. "Youve seen the little sled," he said.

"In the Museum?"

"Yes. My vehicle of arrival. Theyve made such a thing of it, its almost embarrassing. But it is true that I came on that sled. A desperate boy, half dead. No books! The books were brought to me later. I have never been as surprised in my life as I was the day those books arrived. "

Matty had looked around at the thousands of books. In his own arms—and Matty was strong—he could have carried no more than ten or twelve at a time.

"How did they come to you?"

"A river barge. Suddenly there it was. Huge wooden crates aboard, and each one filled with books. Until that time I had always been afraid. A year had passed. Then two. But I was still afraid; I thought they would still be looking for me, that I would be recaptured, put to death, because no one had ever fled my community successfully before.

"It was only when I saw the books that I knew that things had changed, that I was free, and that back there, where I had come from, they were rebuilding themselves into something better.

"The books were a kind of forgiveness, I think. "

"So you could have gone back," Matty said. "Was it too late? Had Forest given you Warnings?"

"No. But why would I go back? I had found a home here, the way everyone has. Thats why we have the Museum, Matty, to remind us of how we came, and why: to start fresh, and begin a new place from what we had learned and carried from the old. "

***

Today Matty admired the books, as he always did in Leaders homeplace, but he didnt linger to touch or examine them. Nor did he stop to admire the staircase, with its intricate risers of crafted, polished wood that ascended in a circle to the next level. When Leader called, "Up here, Matty," he bounded up the stairs to the second floor, into the spacious room where Leader lived and worked.

Leader was at his desk. He looked up from the papers in front of him and smiled at Matty. "Hows the fishing?"

Matty shrugged and grinned. "Not too bad. Caught four yesterday. "

Leader laid his pen aside and leaned back in his chair. "Tell me something, Matty. You and your friend are out there a lot, fishing. And youve been doing it for a long time—since you came to Village as a little boy. Isnt that so?"

"I dont remember exactly how long. I was only about this high when I came. " Matty gestured with his hand, placing it level with the second button of his own shirt.

"Six years," Leader told him. "You arrived six years ago. So youve been fishing for all that time. "

Matty nodded. But he stiffened. He was wary. It was too soon for his true name to be bestowed, he thought. Surely it was not going to be Fisherman! Was that why Leader had called him here?

Leader looked at him and began to laugh. "Relax, Matty! When you look like that, I can almost read your mind! Dont worry. It was only a question. "

"A question about fishing. Fishings a thing I do just to get food or to fool around. I dont want it to turn into something more. " Matty liked that about Leader, that you could say what you wanted to him, that you could tell him what you felt.

"I understand. You neednt worry about that. I was asking because I need to assess the food supply. Some are saying there are fewer fish than there once were. Look here, what Ive been writing. " He passed a paper over to Matty. There were columns of numbers, lists headed "Salmon" and "Trout. "

Matty read the numbers and frowned. "It might be true," he said. "I remember at first I would pull fish after fish from the river. But you know what, Leader?"

"What?" Leader took the paper back from Matty and laid it with others on his desk.

"I was little then. And maybe you dont remember this, because youre older than I am. . . "

Leader smiled. "Im still a young man, Matty. I remember being a boy. " Matty thought he noticed a brief flicker of sadness in Leaders eyes, despite the warm smile. So many people in Village—including Matty—had sad memories of their childhoods.

"What I meant was, I remember all the fish, the feeling that they would never end. I felt that I could drop my line in again and again and again and there would always be fish. Now there arent. But, Leader. . . "

Leader looked at him and waited.

"Things seem more when youre little. They seem bigger, and distances seem farther. The first time I came here through Forest? The journey seemed forever. "

"It does take days, Matty, from where you started. "

"Yes, I know. It still takes days. But now it doesnt seem as far or as long. Because Im older, and bigger, and Ive gone back and forth again and again, and I know the way, and Im not scared. So it seems shorter. "

Leader chuckled. "And the fish?"

"Well," Matty acknowledged, "there dont seem to be as many. But maybe its just that I was a little boy back then, when the fish seemed endless. "

Leader tapped the tip of his pen on the desk as he thought. "Maybe so," he said after a moment. He stood. From a table in the corner of the room he took a stack of folded papers.

"Messages?" Matty asked.

"Messages. Im calling a meeting. "

"About fish?"

"No. I wish it were just about fish. Fish would be easy. "

Matty took the stack of message papers he would be delivering. Before he turned to the staircase to leave, he felt compelled to say, "Fish arent ever easy. You have to use just the right bait, and know the right place to go, and then you have to pull the line up at just the right moment, because if you dont, the fish can wiggle right off your hook, and not everybody is good at it, and. . . "

He could hear Leader laughing, still, when he left.

***

It took Matty most of the day to deliver all of the messages. It wasnt a hard task. He liked the harder ones better, actually, when he was outfitted with food and a carrying pack and sent on long journeys through Forest. Although he hadnt been sent to it in almost two years, Matty especially liked trips that took him back to his former home, where he could greet his boyhood pals with a somewhat superior smile, and snub those who had been cruel to him in the past. His mother was dead, he had been told. His brother was still there, and looked at Matty with more respect than he ever had in the past, but they were strangers to each other now. The community where he had lived was greatly changed and seemed foreign, though less harsh than he remembered.

Today he simply made his way around Village, delivering notice of the meeting that would be held the following week. Reading the message himself, he could understand Leaders questioning about the supply of fish, and the concern and worry that Matty had felt from him.

There had been a petition—signed by a substantial number of people—to close Village to outsiders. There would have to be a debate, and a vote.

It had happened before, such a petition.

"We voted it down just a year ago," the blind man reminded Matty when the message had been read to him. "There must be a stronger movement now. "

"There are still plenty of fish," Matty pointed out, "and the fields are full of crops. "

The blind man crumpled the message and dropped it into the fire. "Its not the fish or crops," he said. "Theyll use that, of course. They argued dwindling food supply last time. Its. . . "

"Not enough housing?"

"More than that. I cant think of the word for it. Selfishness, I guess. Its creeping in. "

Matty was startled. Village had been created out of the opposite: selflessness. He knew that from his studies and from hearing the history. Everyone did.

"But in the message—I could have read it to you again if you hadnt burned it—it says that the group who wants to close the border is headed by Mentor! The schoolteacher!"

The blind man sighed. "Give the soup a stir, would you, Matty?"

Obediently Matty moved the wooden ladle around in the pot and watched beans and chopped tomatoes churn in the thick mixture as it simmered. Thinking still of his teacher, he added, "Hes not selfish!"

"I know he isnt. Thats why its puzzling. "

"He welcomes everyone to the school, even new ones who have no learning, who cant even speak properly. "

"Like you, when you came," the blind man said with a smile. "It couldnt have been easy, but he taught you. "

"He had to tame me first," Matty acknowledged, grinning. "I was wild, wasnt I?"

Seer nodded. "Wild. But Mentor loves teaching those who need it. "

"Why would he want to close the border?"

"Matty?"

"What?"

"Has Mentor traded, do you know?"

Matty thought about it. "Its school vacation now, so I dont see him as often. But I stop by his homeplace now and then. . . " He didnt mention Jean, the widowed schoolteachers daughter. "I havent noticed anything different in his household.

"No Gaming Machine," he added, laughing a little.

But the blind man didnt chuckle in reply. He sat thinking for a moment. Then he said, in a worried voice, "Its much more than just a Gaming Machine. "

5

"The schoolteachers daughter told me that her dog has three puppies. I can have one when its big enough, if I like. "

"Isnt she the one who promised you a kiss? Now a dog as well? Id settle for the kiss if I were you, Matty. " The blind man smiled, loosened a beet from the earth, and placed it in the basket of vegetables. They were in the garden together.

"I miss my dog. He wasnt any trouble. " Matty glanced over to the corner of their homeplaces plot of land, beyond the garden, to the small grave where they had buried Branch two years before.

"Youre right, Matty. Your little dog was a good companion for many years. It would be fun to have a puppy around. " The blind mans voice was gentle.

"I could train a dog to lead you. "

"I dont need leading. Could you train a dog to cook?"

"Anything but beets," Matty said, making a face as he threw another into the basket.

***

But when he went in the afternoon to the schoolteachers homeplace, Matty found Jean distraught. "Two died last night," she said. "They took sick. Now theres only one puppy left, and its sick, and the mother as well. "

"How have you tended them?"

Jean shook her head in despair. "Same as I would for my father or myself. Infusion of white willow bark. But the puppys too little to drink, and the mothers too sick. She lapped a bit and then just put her head down. "

"Will you take me to see them?"

Jean led him into the small house, and though he was concerned for the dogs, Matty found himself looking around as they walked through, remembering what the blind man had asked. He noticed the sturdy furniture, neatly arranged, and the bookcases filled with Mentors books. In the kitchen, Jeans baking pans, and the bowls in which she mixed dough, were set out, ready for her wonderful breads to be made.

He saw nothing that hinted of a trade. Nothing silly like a Gaming Machine, nothing frivolous like the soft upholstered furniture decorated with fringe that a foolish young couple down the road had traded for.