“It’s good not to trust strangers," the boy says softly.
“Guess you’ll have to trust me," the old man responds. "If you want to heal.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Why is your question to answer,” the man says. “But we could have left you to die two days ago and gone on our way.”
The boy stares at the bowl. His stomach growls and wants food.
Grandfather’s words were to trust no one. Yet he also said to listen to his heart.
The soup smells delicious. He reaches for the bowl and drinks. Lukewarm, and the meat is stringy, but it's delicious. The herbs add an earthy taste that pushes back his hunger.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The boy finishes the soup and puts down the bowl. His eyes fall on the man’s footwear.
“I like your shoes.”
The man looks curiously at the boy, who looks up at the man.
“I do, too,” he nods in agreement.
“They look quiet,” the boy muses. “Not like my shoes.”
“Good observation.”
Another silence.
The boy looks around the small cave. A tiny curl of smoke rises from the sage, resting at the edge of the fire ring. A very small fire, the boy notes. Two small packs made of soft hide lean against the wall to his left.
"I saw two of you in the dark.”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the other one?”
“She’s out.”
The old man reaches for a small bundle and hands it to the boy. There's something hard inside the loose leather wrapping, book shaped. Grandfather’s journal. The boy inhales sharply and reflexively pulls it close. He'd forgotten about it.
The man's expression doesn't change.
“We didn’t open it. Your business.”
“Where did you find it?”
The boy clutches the book to his stomach as if he might lose it.
“She found it," he says. "Next to you. After you fell. It was dark.”
The boy studies the book. It's life for him.
“I see, now, it was a fortunate find.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank her.”
Chapter 44 - Nourishment
Moments later, a girl in her teens darkens the cave entrance for a moment. Her movements are easy, soundless. Her shoes have leather bottoms like the old man's. But the upper portion is made of green canvas—high-top sneakers. Pants and shirt are also like the old man’s. To blend with the landscape, the boy guesses. Her hair is jet black, straight, long, and pulled back with a soft-colored light green head wrap that falls down her back. Shades of light green paint slashed across her face and neck make it hard to see her facial features. Her dark eyes study the boy. She gives him a slight nod, then speaks swiftly, quietly to the old man. He nods.
“Take it to the boy.”
The girl returns to the cave opening, reaches out the entrance and pulls in a small bag. The boy knows what it is but says nothing. Two rabbit skins still hang from it. The girl sets the bag at the boy's feet and sits down. When she speaks, her voice is soft but strong.
“It was at your camp," she says. "No animal disturbed it, except a mouse nibbled the corner of a pocket.” She points to the pocket.
“How did you know to look for it?”
“You talked in your sickness. This morning I tracked back from where you said goodbye to your horse.”
The boy looks down and focuses on the pack. The pain of those last moments with Ghost flood back. He feels tears sting his eyes. He's embarrassed in front of these two strangers.
“The horse didn’t belong to me.”
Both the man and girl look confused.
“But we saw your final time with him,” the girl says.
Silence.
“We traveled together," the boy says. "The horse saved my life.”
The girl feeds some sticks into the fire.
“Is it still there?” asks the boy.
“No. The shooters took it for meat. It kept them from taking you.”
“He was a good friend," the boy says in a low voice. "I called him Ghost.”
The man and girl smile.
“Good name,” says the man. “You honored him in death.”
The boy looks up at the man, then at the girl.
“Ghost asked me to do it," he says. The boy feels the need to justify the act. "That’s what it felt like, anyway.”
Suddenly dizzy, the boy falls back and settles down on his brush bed, eyes closed. The wound aches.
“Thank you for saving my things,” he says, and falls asleep.
Chapter 45 - Primal
When the boy wakes a third time, it's dark in the cave and dark outside, much like his first waking. But this time, his head is clear. He sits up. The pain in his side is less. The man and girl squat at the entrance, looking out, the same as when he first woke. At the noise of his movement, they pause their whispered conversation and turn.
The man moves to the boy, smooth and easy, while the girl stays put. The boy watches, studies the old man. He reminds him of Grandfather—close to the same age maybe.
He sits near the boy. The girl stays at the entrance. The man picks up the half gourd, warming at the edge of the small fire, and hands it to him.
“How do you feel?”
“Better.”
The boy takes the bowl and drinks the soup. Same strong brew as before. The man watches the boy for a moment, then looks toward the girl.
“You’ll be able to travel tomorrow. Be on your way.”
He says this still looking at the girl.
A loneliness wells up in the boy, catching him off guard, at the mention of traveling again without Ghost, his companion. The man looks back at the boy.
“Which way do you go?” the man asks.
“North,” the boy answers.
Silence.
“We, too, go north tomorrow.”
His steady gaze transfixes they boy.
“For a couple hours. Then we go west.”
The old man pauses, as if considering.
“We could travel together for a time.” The boy thinks he detects a sparkle in the old man’s eyes. Reflection from the fire, most likely. “If you don’t think we’ll slow you down.”
The boy laughs. The man smiles. The girl turns at the sound, then goes back to watching.
“Okay,” the boy says.
Relief. For a little while, at least, he will have companions. There's something about these two. Maybe it's how the old man reminds the boy of Grandfather. These two do not fit Grandfather's warnings.
Who are they? Where did they come from? Where are they going?
“Why did you help me?” he asks instead.
The glow of the fire reflects off their faces. The old man speaks.
“We were nearby and heard the gunshots. We went to look and saw you with the horse, your Ghost." The man adds some twigs to the fire. "We watched you run, hunted by those men.” A pop from the small fire. “Nothing happens by chance.” The old man’s voice is soft, but it carries through the darkness to the boy. “Our hearts spoke. You were in need after being shot. We searched for you once the shooters left with the horse.”
The boy is stunned by the old man’s words. Their hearts spoke? He lets this settle in him with a strange warmth in his own heart.
“My grandfather spoke of the heart," the boy says. "To trust it. But he died.”
“How?”
“Of the sickness.”
"The airborne virus?" the old man asks. He sounds surprised.
"Yes."
The night silence presses in all around them. Only the soft crackles from the little fire help push back the stillness in the darkened cave.
“I left the city the night he died. People were crazy. Sick. Hunting. And the drones hunted also.”
The boy
shudders at the memory.
"How did you leave?"
"Walked."
“You walked here from the city?” the old man asks, clearly shocked this time.
“Yes.”
The boy looks toward the girl. The old man follows his gaze.
“We take turns through the night,” the man says. “We always watch.”
The flames of the fire drop to glowing coals. Another pop.
“Why did the world change?” the boy asks.
The man picks up a small stick and begins poking and shifting the fire embers. He seems lost in thought and does not rush his response.
“Lots of reasons," he finally says. "So-called experts argue it was this. It was that. They were arguing long before the sky changed and sickness without cure spread. Those that can still argue are doing so. Somewhere.”
The boy studies the man in the fire glow. He thinks again how his talk is like Grandfather’s.
“Humans became careless. Arrogant.”
The man continues to move embers around with the stick. Small flames shoot up and push back the darkness.
“We forgot our obligation," the old man continues. "To the earth. Forgot we are caretakers. The world we have now is the product of that arrogance. The people who released this sickness lost control of it. This is why we stay out here in the wilderness.”
"You know about those people?" the boy asks.
The old man stops stirring the fire and looks at the boy.
"Yes."
“What made the sky change?” the boy asks.
“Some say it was a bomb. Set off in the sky as an act of war. Others say it came from repeated volcanic eruptions. Still others talk of the Northern Lights turning red and spreading over the globe. It doesn’t matter. It changed everything.”
“I liked when the sky was blue.”
A soft glow of coals now. Dark outlines of their bodies caress the cave wall as the boy senses the watchfulness in the night, among the shadows.
“In the morning, I’ll check your wound, change the dressing, make sure you’re ready to travel.”
“Okay.”
Chapter 46 - Name
The boy's awake at first light. He still finds it surprising how he wakes so early. Never happened in the old life. Early rise only happened for school. Otherwise, he slept as late as his mother would let him.
The boy looks around the small cave. The man and girl are gone, but their gear is against the wall, ready to go. The boy stands and stretches as best he can in the restricted space of the cave. His body needs movement. He finds the wound is nearly pain free.
He goes to the same spot the man and the girl occupied on watch, sits, and looks out for the first time. The cave is well chosen, located on a rocky slope, roughly fifty feet above the canyon floor. He guesses it's the same canyon he and Ghost followed. Juniper and ponderosa pines pepper the slopes, thicker at the top, with willows, Gambel oaks, and cottonwoods along the creek bottom.
On a boulder, down slope and to his right, sits the girl. The growing light gives him a chance to study her. Her eyes are open, and she faces the rising sun. The palms of her hands are up, relaxed, and resting on her thighs. Is she meditating?
After a few moments, the girl turns and looks up at the boy, like she's expecting to see him. She waves a greeting, rises from the rock, and scrambles back towards him.
Her movements are quick and sure, comfortable and confident in this wildness. The boy finds himself wishing he moved with that same ease and strength, that gracefulness.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” returns the boy shyly.
The girl sits down next to him. Both look out at the canyon. The red hue of the sky is lighter today.
“Nice morning," she says, nodding to the sky. “How’s your side?”
Her closeness is unsettling, and he's not sure why. A weird thrill goes through his body and makes him lose his train of thought. Being this close to a girl her age is new.
“Better,” he says. He touches the bandage, not knowing what else to do as he sits next to this mysterious creature that looks nothing like any girl he's known from school. He pokes gently at the bandage to test its soreness.
“You fixed my wound quickly.”
“Not me," she says. "He's the healer. I’m still learning and not too good." She laughs.
“Where is the man?”
“He's out checking our route to make sure the hunters aren’t around.”
The girl shifts to get up.
“Wait!" the boy says and flushes with embarrassment at reacting so quickly.
The girl stops. Looks at the boy. Her penetrating gaze holds his.
“What were you doing on the rock down there?” the boy asks, pointing. She follows his finger.
“Greeting the day," she says and smiles. "I look east, to the rising sun, and thank him for warming us—the earth, the plants, the animals.”
“My grandfather did that sometimes,” the boy says. “In the evenings, too.”
“Your grandfather sounds like he was a wise man.”
The boy thinks about her statement.
“Yes. I guess so.”
“Are you ready to travel?”
“Think so.” Both stand. “Need to check my bag,” he mumbles, looking to distract his confusion at being so close to this girl.
The girl collects the boy's bedding and makes several trips with it out the entrance. The scent of the crushed, sweet-smelling rabbitbrush fills the small cave as she carries it past him. Curious, the boy watches where she takes the material and what she does with it.
“Have to scatter it,” the girl explains when she returns. “Don't want to leave any sign we were here.”
The boy understands this and remembers how forgetting to counter-track their prints brought the hunters. He rummages through his pack to distract the memory of Ghost. All his gear is inside the pack, just as it was when he left it by the creek.
The girl continues to erase all sign of their being in the cave, returning it to its natural state. He wishes he were outfitted like the man and the girl. They look a part of this environment.
“Our travel route is clear.” The old man's voice startles the boy. He made no sound coming into the cave.
“How do you feel?” the old man asks.
“Better,” the boy answers.
The man goes to his pack against the wall and pulls out a small leather pouch.
“I’ll change your dressing one more time. Haven’t had a good look at it since yesterday.”
From the pouch, he gently draws out plant leaves and sets them on a rock next to the pouch.
“Mind removing your shirt?" he asks the boy. "I need to snug a wrap around your waist. For travel.”
The boy feels a twinge of embarrassment with the girl close by, which seems mixed up with the weird thrill he felt earlier when close to her. But she's busy and not paying attention to them.
The man also digs out a tan-colored athletic wrap, the type his mother once used on him when he sprained his ankle.
The boy takes off his over-shirt, then undershirt. The man gingerly removes the small bandage made of blood-stained leaves. Some are still stuck to the wound. He carefully peels away the leaves that are stuck to the wound and looks at the wound, as does the boy.
The wound runs about four inches from his backside to the front. The bullet tore the skin open an inch wide, just above the hipbone. The boy notices a light pink coloring around the tear.
“You're fortunate the bullet was superficial, didn't hit vital organs. It was a hollow point, meant to rip apart its target. Your danger was bleeding to death.”
The man gently presses around the edges of the tear.
“This hurt?”
“A little.”
“You’ll live.”
The man smiles and picks up the leaves. They're fresh.
“This is broadleaf plantain. I
mix in sagebrush. The plantain stops bleeding and swelling. Sage keeps infection out.”
“I’ve eaten plantain!” the boy blurts.
“Yes. Good to eat," he says, mixing the leaves in his palm. "A special plant. Most people know nothing of its medicinal powers.”
The man passes his free hand over the leaves and whispers to them, then places them on the wound and covers it with a clean white square of leather. He holds the bandage in place and applies the strip of leather wrap.
“The plant people treated you well,” he says.
He carefully snugs the wrap in the front, then moves behind the boy to secure it. The boy feels a distinct pause in the man's work. Then he continues wrapping. He secures the cloth at the front and stares into the boy's eyes, a penetrating look that unsettles the boy. It seems he is searching. The boy quickly puts his shirt back on, feeling vulnerable under the scrutiny. What has he done?
The man makes a clicking noise with his tongue. The girl turns. With a slight head movement, he motions her over.
The exchange between the man and the girl happens so fast, it scares the boy. The girl comes over and stands next to the old man. Her puzzled look matches the boy's confusion and helps to keep his panic down.
“Between your shoulder blades," the old man finally says. "A small tattoo.”
The tattoo! Grandfather put it on him after they moved out west. He had showed the boy the same tattoo between his shoulders. Why would that matter to this man?
“Who put it on you?” the old man asks with an edge to his voice. The boy recoils at his tone.
“My grandfather.”
The man stays silent. The girl looks puzzled. The boy feels self-conscious and afraid.
“It hurt when he did it." The boy hesitates, unsure if he should say more. But what can he do? And this man's voice, eyes demand more explanation. "He said it was my family’s mark.”
“What did he tell you about your family?”
“Not much. Once he mentioned I had other family. But I don't know," the boy says thinking back. "He probably said it to make me feel better."
“Your grandfather’s name?”
The boy falters. The question is so sudden and too close. Grandfather told him to trust no one. That meant not giving away personal information, especially a name. He said it was giving away your power. And there is the Agency. Would they be in the wilderness looking for Grandfather?
Trapped by this man's questions, in this cave, what can he do? Run away? They're stronger than him, faster. His fear rises, surges through his body. Panic begins to set in, and the boy feels flushed sweat coating his forehead. The old man says nothing. And just like that, the boy's heart overrules his head.