My eyes scan everything in sight once we pass the sign for Lame Deer. I’m looking for anything that can give me an indication of whether the troupe has already arrived here. We turn a sharp corner, arriving at the forgotten college.
One disheveled bike lays tipped on its side. The bike with the sidecar blocks the main entrance to the hospital. The third bike is missing. A flash of Cy’s fearlessly light and goofy face as he pined to drive the bike with the sidecar passes through my mind. In the end, Crewe and Alix were put on that bike. My father and Cy drove the other two.
My father is the one who called, so I know he is here and well, unless he was baring injury to be the brave leader he needed to be on the cell phone. Cy was the driver of the bike that is unaccounted for.
With the sidecar, it is still possible that four of the five seeksmen who partook in this mission have made it to Lame Deer, along with the captain. We may have only lost one in the battle zone. At the same time, perhaps some of the four, if there are even that many, will perish before returning home to Sheridan.
Galv shifts the gear into park and turns off the engine. These motions are unnecessary in the voice-activated technology of the little cars in Miles.
We sit not far from where the bikes lay abandoned. Although Galv and Della know every moment to be pressing in their profession, neither of them can bring themselves to move. Neither can I. All three of us are frozen, fearful.
We might have never found the courage to move if it weren’t for my father, who was probably avidly watching for us to arrive. He runs out to meet the van. He’s completely unscathed, and certainly doesn’t resemble my idea of someone who has just been attacked by county BOTs. Hopefully, the others have faired better than we believed too.
Galv and I don’t ask what happened. This time, Della is smart enough not to ask either. Time is too precious. It’s all in the past now anyway. The matter at hand is saving the lives of whichever young, courageous freedom fighters await us inside.
My father lugs the door open and swiftly removes the bags from the vehicle. He finds the time to offer a sturdy arm to Della, who needs a little help coming down from the high ledge. Her legs are trembling.
My father carries the bags through the doorway into the college and we follow quickly behind him. He’s saying something about a gunshot wound and about Alix’s arm. Alix. Alix is alive. It sounds awful, but I’m not happy to discover this. It decreases the odds that the Davids brothers and the stoic Decklin are alive.
The college is not large by any means, and running down it, I am able to think one clear thought. I didn’t say goodbye to Crewe. I was too prideful to thank him for everything good that’s come to me through him. I was too pigheaded to give him the soldier’s farewell that he deserved.
My nostrils flare with a foul stench as we near to the doorway outside the room to where my father leads us. It’s like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. Even city stench does not compare. The captain is saying something about a burn. I think what I am smelling is Alix’s singed flesh.
Why is it so quiet? Why aren’t there moans and wails coming from the seeksmen?
“Sydney,” a soldier weakly calls my name. Decklin lies on his left side, facing me as I linger in the doorway, afraid to cross into the room. My father, Galvesten, and Della crowd around his back, where a bullet evidently invaded him. Della frantically spills surgical tools onto the floor while Galv puts pressure on the wound and calls for devices. They’re beginning with him, so his condition must be the least stable and mostly likely to turn fatal. He doesn’t look well at all. I’m afraid we’re too late for him.
I go to him and take the outstretched hand meant for me. “I want you to read something for me.” Della moves about the room in the background and my father whispers a trail of information into Galvesten’s ear. Galv’s face goes pale, and then he curses.
“Sydney,” Decklin pleads for my attention. I refocus on his glossy eyes. How can he be so present in his current state? “Under my bed back in Sheridan, I keep my Bible. I want you to have it. Read Isaiah forty-nine. I’m sorry we didn’t get her this time, but have faith, Sydney. Have faith.”
Della fastens an oxygen mask over Decklin and he is quieted. Decklin has spoken his peace to the world, to me, a relative stranger. I can see how badly Decklin looks, but he can feel it. He has told me that his Bible is now mine. He knows that his time draws near. His hand relaxes in mine as Della administers the oxygen and anesthetics.
Only now that the immediacy of Decklin’s condition has expired, do I realize that only two seeksmen are here with my father. Decklin, who has been shot, and Alix, who grits her teeth in the corner.
No. It can’t be. I understood that no more than five could have returned when I saw the bikes, but couldn’t there have been at least those five? Only three have returned, and two of the three missing are the ones who have become dearest to me. Why do I have to be tortured this way?
My father soothes Alix, who is still motionless in the corner. I recognize that she’s in shock. She’s either numb from fear, from grieving, or from the magnitude of pain coming from her arm that her brain can’t process.
I hadn’t realized my feet were moving as I was examining her. I’m a step away from where my father is avidly comforting her when I realize the overpowering stench in the room does not owe itself to Alix’s arm.
I turn my head slowly to have my intuition realized. No one sees me notice a fourth seeksman—a tall soldier whose durable boots stick out from where he lays covered on the floor. His feet are left exposed, but the inadequate wrapping covers his head. This can only indicate one thing. This soldier is not sleeping. This soldier is dead.
Please God, let it be Jerus. I have no remorse for this thought. There are three people that went on the mission who aren’t in this room: Crewe, Cy, and Jerus.
Now I am noticed as I veer toward the man’s body. “Sydney,” my father takes the gentlest hold of my shoulders from behind me. The tone of his voice causes tears to erupt from within me. It’s not Jerus.
“Why? Why!” I scream. I take fistfuls of my father’s shirt, but it doesn’t stop my heart from being ripped out. My father eases me to the ground as I begin to slip that direction and turns away to conceal his pain.
“Which one?” I weakly ask my father. One of the Davids brothers lies dead on the floor behind me. I don’t think either answer will pain me less. Crewe Davids is a match to my soul. He is the only person I’ve ever met that really understands me. We shared that kiss, and then I yelled at him and told him that I hated him for trying to protect me.
And then there is Cy. Loyal, charming Cy. It might not seem right to say so with how brief a time we have known each other, but it is the truth that next to Evvie, Cy Davids is the best friend I’ve ever had.
“It’s Cy,” my father tells me. I’m frozen, cold, and empty. The tears cease but my breath still fails me. The beautiful smile and light humor of Cy Davids is lost forever. I think the entire world would mourn this moment if they had only the chance to meet him.
“Can I see him?” I ask. I want to see his face one more time. I want to say goodbye, understanding that it’s truly the last time that I will.
My father’s response is prevented by a sound that echoes from where Galvesten and Della jumble tools and their hands in a panicked desperation.
“The defibrillator!” Galvesten commands. The fingers of Della’s blue latex gloves are painted a dark, liquid red. They fumble to seize a small, boxy machine and its components from among all the other tools that won’t save Decklin. His body rises with each jolt, but the flat line persists. All of our hearts sink further into despair. Decklin’s battle is lost. Decklin is dead.
Galvesten removes his gloves and discards them onto the floor. He wipes the sweat from his brow. “Let’s pray,” he suggests. “We owe that to him.” Galvesten is right. We owe it to the battalion’s unofficial chaplain to say a prayer for his young soul, which undeniably makes its way
straight to heaven sooner than our words.
Della removes her gloves as well, and mournfully sets them on top of Galvesten’s. Her face is streaked with rudimentary eye makeup. My father and I stand up and fold our hands in reverence. Alix peers down at her mismatching hands. She closes her eyes and keeps her head bowed instead.
Eventually, Galvesten decides it’s him that should pray, since he brought up the invitation to do so. “Dear Lord, we ask that you bring your faithful sons home. Help us, God. Help their friends and family to understand that they’ve met the truest freedom with you. We ask that you watch over Crewe and Evvie. Keep them from harm, and bring them back to us, their families. Amen.”
Each of us is too choked up to follow Galv’s amen with our own. Della is the only one who tries, but it hardly escapes her trembling lips. Galvesten grabs a fresh set of latex gloves from the medical supplies that have been dumped before him. He hands them to Della. She dabs at her face with the sleeve of her shirt, and pulls them on. Galveseten grabs himself a pair as well.
“Alix, do you think you can walk next door?” he asks her.
“I’m afraid to move it,” she admits. For some reason she looks over to me. “But yeah, I can do it,” she decides. She winces in pain as she scoots herself to the edge of the table and slides off. She lets her arm hang at her side, careful that it doesn’t touch her torso. I notice some kind of clear puss drip from her fingertips as she leaves the room with Della.
“We’re going to have to do skin graphs on her,” Galvesten tells us before exiting. “It’s going to be a while,” he tells my father.
“We’re right here if you need anything,” my dad says.
When I hear Galvesten talking to the women in the room bordering this one, I make eye contact with my father. “What happened?” I ask him. “Where is Crewe?”
“We were ambushed,” he answers. “We met outside as planned and drove through together. It was a stupid plan,” he regrets. “We should have been separated.”
I know all the right things I could say to help console my father. I should tell them that it’s okay, that he didn’t know, that there’s no way that he could have. But I don’t offer him anything. He’s right. They never should have gone in together. It’s standard protocol that someone should have been made to go in first to make sure that all was clear for the others to follow.
It was done that way at the barn. Merick gave the order for Crewe to go in first and for me to provide him with cover. The rest followed sporadically. If the badger had actually been some kind of threat, only Crewe and I would have been in immediate danger. The others would have been given a warning to get their weapons ready or the chance to fall back or flee.
My father should have gone through first. I’m sure this was the plan for entering wherever it is that he believes Evvie is being held. Even if he thought that they had traveled toward Miles undetected, he should have exercised the same precautions with this leg of the trip as the point that was believed to be more treacherous.
“All of us made it into the barrier just fine. Loads of them came out from every direction. The riders had their weapons pulled as we drove in, but I don’t think any one of us had the presence to get a shot off. We tried to retreat, but it was already too late.”
Galvesten mentioned something about Crewe in his prayer that led me to believe he must be alive, or like Evvie, that he hasn’t been confirmed dead. That must have been the contents of the whispers between Galv and my dad while Decklin spoke his last words to me. He hadn’t mentioned Jerus though, who is also not here. “Jerus and Crewe?” I ask my father.
“Crewe is fine,” he answers. “He drove his brother back here, but…” my father trails off. “But he was already gone when we arrived. I knew it, and Crewe did too, but I still helped him carry his brother in before Decklin. I don’t know what difference it could have made. We knew they were both lost. Jerus was left behind at the barrier. He’s in the hands of the BOTs now.”
“Was Cy burned?” I summon the courage to ask. My father answers by pulling back part of the covering from Cy’s face. He does it very strategically as to keep the portions of his face that are burned covered. He places one hand atop the cover on the opposite cheek and the other over Cy’s heart. “You were a good man, and I’m so proud of you,” he says. “I can never thank you enough for bringing Sydney to me, and for fighting for Evvie the way you did. I only wish I could have done more for you. You were a son to me, Cy. I love you, and I hope you can forgive me.” With that, my father stands and exits the room.
I can’t stop myself from stroking his cheek. “Hey Cy.” Not so long ago this side of his face was yellowed and swollen from being kicked in the face by me. His cheek doesn’t even feel cold with the heat still radiating from the nearby burns. This part of his skin feels smooth and looks pristine. If it weren’t for the smell and the cover that sticks to the fluids escaping his body, I might not be able to accept his death. He might look only to be asleep.
“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you. You were my best friend, Cy. I want you to know that. I want to say thank you too, for bringing me to Sheridan, and to my father, but mostly for advocating for my sister.”
“I also want to apologize for bringing all of this on you, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t accept my apology if you could be here to hear it. You’d tell me that it was your decision and not my fault. I even think you may have tried to hold on until we made it here, just so you could tell me that this wasn’t my fault. You probably would have been apologizing to me for not getting Evvie back. See, that’s just who you were, Cy. You were the kindest, most genuine person I’ve ever known, and I’m so sorry you were hurt like this. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m so selfish to do this, but I have to ask one last thing of you, Cy. I would do it myself if I could, but I can’t. Who knows, maybe I’ll finally be able to help you in some small way too. I want you to look over Evvie, Cy. Please be with her every time she’s scared. Lastly, use your God-given charm back on Him. Help me get Evvie home. I promise to do all I can for Crewe. I promise to try to channel the lightheartedness that you helped me remember into him. I’ll try to help him see the good that there still is in the world, because I know that you wouldn’t have wanted him to miss it for your sake.”
“I’m really going to miss you, Cy Davids. I’ll always cherish the image I have of you shooting out the car window, pumping your fist and triumphantly yelling two fifty-one to the town. I’ll always remember you were the one who brought my spirit back.” This is it. I say the word before my heart burns any deeper. “Goodbye.” I lean down, kiss Cy’s cheek, and re-cover him. I linger for a moment longer, stroking the cover like I had used it to tuck in the one I love. I force myself to stand and to walk away from him, from my best friend.