Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [9]
I had no idea what he was talking about, nor did I care. As long as he left me alone, as long as he kept his fists on the brandy and not on me. When he again raised the bottle, I slipped down into my blanket and prepared to sleep.
But then I glimpsed Aunt Jo’s face, her eyes wide and horrified, her withered lips parted in a silent scream.
The next day I could smell the sea on the wind, although I couldn’t yet see it. We left the main road and climbed a muddy track upward into hills even wilder, cut with deep ravines and falls of rock. The horse, old to begin with, faltered and strained. I thought the poor beast might drop dead in her traces, but still Hartah urged her on. The wagon wheels groaned, even though the load now consisted only of its driver. Aunt Jo and I walked behind. All of our provisions were gone except a half loaf of hard bread, and Hartah had dumped the ragged faire tent into a ravine. When I dared to ask him why, he laughed and said, “Rich men don’t need such sorry lodgings!”
We reached the top of the track with the horse still alive, pulling the wagon into a thick wood of old oak and wind-bent pine. Here the tang of salt air was strong. In a clearing beside a swift hillside stream sat a crude wooden cabin, its log roof sealed with pitch.
“Hallooooo!” Hartah called. Two men came out of the cabin, one young and one about Hartah’s age. The older leaned on a wooden staff, one of his legs bent and useless. He hobbled toward us.
“So you’ve come.”
“We have,” Hartah said.
“Is this your boy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, see that he does his share of the work.”
“He will.”
The younger man stared at me, scowling. He looked about seventeen or eighteen, wide-shouldered and handsome, with yellow hair falling over bright blue eyes. I found myself wondering if Cat Starling would have liked him, would have kissed him.
“Then come,” the older man said.
“Are the others—”
“Soon.”
Hartah said to Aunt Jo, “Make camp. There, under the trees by the creek. Don’t come near the cabin, or you’ll wish you hadn’t. You too, boy.” He and the yellow-haired youth strode into the cabin, the lamed man limping after them.
My aunt and I drew the wagon under the trees, tethered and watered the horse, made a fire. There was nothing to cook. As I gnawed on my share of the bread, hard and moldy, three more men arrived in the clearing. None had families with them. They disappeared into the cabin.
My aunt handed me her piece of bread. She had not touched it. When I looked at her in surprise, I gasped. Never had I seen a face like that. Whiter than frost and her eyes just as frozen, wide open and fixed in terror.
“Aunt . . . what . . .”
Abruptly she turned her head and vomited into the weeds. Thin strings of brownish green bile retched from her mouth. In truth, I was surprised anything came up at all, we had eaten so little. Even more surprising, vomiting seemed to hearten her, or at least to return her voice.
“Go, Roger. Go now. What they plan . . . you must not . . . run!”
I stared at her across the dying fire. Never once had she told me to escape Hartah, or tried to protect me from him. I said, “What are they planning? What’s going to happen?”
“Go. Go. Go.” She was moaning now, like an animal in a trap, as she rocked back and forth by the fire on her skinny haunches. How could I go, leaving her like this? She was my aunt, my mother’s sister, and I could not leave her here alone with whatever she feared so much. . . .
No. That was not true. The truth was harsher, more shaming: I was afraid to run. To go off into that wild country, without weapons or money or food . . . and Hartah had threatened to . . . if he came after me and caught me. . . .
I felt shamed by my own cowardice, and shame turned me angry. “You’ve lost your wits! I can’t go! Be quiet or I’ll—” I stopped, appalled. I sounded like Hartah.
Aunt Jo stopped, too. No more moaning, no more rocking. She sank onto her blanket, her face turned away from me, and lay quietly. But one more sentence came from her side of the fire,