67
ATTICUS
I felt a cold, tingling sensation move through my thigh, and something small and rough manipulating my muscles, strangely comfortable, yet it irritated the dull, burning ache that had settled in my leg. A mixture of licorice and menthol and something sweet, like vanilla, was as welcoming as it was unpleasant—it smelled nice, but it made me nauseous. The air felt exceedingly warm, but it wasn’t the heat from the sun; it felt different: stifling but not burning, and I couldn’t feel the sun’s rays beating down on my eyelids, forcing me to keep them closed. Instead, I opened them slowly, my vision blurred, and I saw that I was in a room, one made of heavy cloth instead of sturdy walls.
Above me the cloth ceiling sagged between the wooden beams that held the tent up; shadows moved against the cloth walls and settled in the corners where the lanterns that produced them sat perched on tiny wooden tables surrounded by vases and jewelry boxes and shiny metal baskets filled with cotton balls and rolls of gauze and other things I could not make out.
Becoming more aware of being awake, I turned my head to the other side—I realized then that I was lying on something flat and taller than a bed—to see who was with me in the room. When I saw that it wasn’t Thais, I sat bolt upright in a panic.
“Oh, now don’t be doin’ that,” a woman said, as she moved away from my leg and pressed her hand to my chest. “You need to lay there; ain’t nobody hurt that girl.”
“Where is she?” My head dizzied from the abrupt movement, and I had difficulty steadying my breath.
“She’s around,” the woman said, and moved back toward my leg. “I’m bettin’ she’ll be back by here in an hour or so. For now, you just betta lie still.”
“Who are you?”
“They call me Mama,” the woman said, “but since you don’t know me yet, you can call me Edith, if you’d like.” She hardly ever made eye contact with me while she worked on changing the bandage on my leg.
Edith was an older woman, possibly of mixed races; her skin honey-colored with a dash of marigold, and she had long, thin arms, and a skinny, wrinkled face; underneath her rounded, teardrop-shaped eyes the skin sagged like raisins, and at the corners of her mouth, deep lines made her look like a woman who’d spent her whole life laughing and smiling. Although she was not smiling at the moment, she seemed the kind of woman it would take a lot more than the end of the world to make her frown.
“Thais told me your name’s Atticus?” She looked me right in the eyes this time, her bony, wrinkled hand suspended over my thigh.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, because something about her deserved respect.
She nodded, and then went back to work.
“I told that sweet girl you wasn’t gonna die, but she didn’t believe me. Been by your side every night since Ossie brought you back.”
“Every night?”
Edith reached over and took a roll of gauze from a basket and unrolled it.
“Been in and out for nearly three days,” she explained, eyes on her work. “But I knew you wasn’t gonna die; I’ve been seeing death for seventy years, even before that Sickness came through.”
“You were a nurse?” I assumed.
“Um-hmm”—she wrapped the gauze bandage around my thigh—“was a nurse in Japan in my younger years, but after I moved back here in 2005, I’ve spent most of my days working in nursing homes. I’ve been seeing death for a long time, and you were gonna be just fine. That girl will be happy to see you awake.”
“Where did she go?” Where are we, exactly? Who is Thais with? Is she all right? I wanted to know all of these things immediately, but I settled with one question at a time.
“She’s out with Ossie and Ona,” Edith said, and nodded toward the front of the tent. “Ossie’s my husband; Ona’s my granddaughter. They’re out fishing.”
Edith dropped the towel in a wicker basket on the floor.
“Well, you’re looking better,” she told me. “It was a good thing Thais found the penicillin; you might be in worse condition if she hadn’t.” She cleaned the area around me, taking up the old bandages and dropping them in another basket. “The one on your thigh was festering pretty bad; the others”—she pointed at my arm and then my hip with a crooked, arthritic finger—“they were already healing nicely before Ossie brought you in.”
I noted the clean bandage wrapped around my left arm, and the bandage taped to my right hip with gauze tape. I lifted my hand and noticed my broken fingers had been re-splinted with clean, bright white gauze, too. And although I couldn’t see my face, it felt like the swelling had gone down considerably: I could see through both eyes, and my skin didn’t feel like splitting every time I spoke, or made an expression.
“Thank you for your help,” I told Edith as she placed a jar on a shelf.
“Um-hmm, you’re welcome.” She took another jar down from the shelf and came over to me. “I’ve been hearing all about Lexington City long before Thais told us that’s where you came from, and I’ve got to say, I’m surprised you two made it this far”—she twisted the lid off the jar and dipped her finger in it—“especially with them chasing you.”
“She told you about Lexington?” What else did she tell them?
“Uh-huh”—she reached out and smoothed the salve on my face—“God’s been looking out for you two, that’s for sure. But I’m gonna tell you, son, if you think you’re gonna make it to Shreveport, just you two by yourselves, you might just be taking advantage of God’s generosity.” She dabbed salve underneath my left eye.
I couldn’t decide whether to be angry or confused by Thais’ decision to tell these people about Shreveport. After all we had been through; after recently we’d argued about which of us had recklessly told the family on the farm of our destination. I wanted to clench my fists, but I could only clench one because of the broken fingers. And so that’s what I did—I clenched one damn fist.
I stared off at a shelf until Edith was finished doctoring my face. And then I asked calmly, “What do you know about Shreveport?” pretending to know nothing about our plans to go there. Just in case.
Edith twisted the lid on the jar and went to place it back on the shelf.
“Heard it’s a strong city,” she began. “A safe haven, where everybody’s welcome. I met a lot of folks heading to Shreveport, but never met anybody trying to leave it.”
“That could be a bad thing,” I offered. “Maybe people who go to Shreveport never leave it for a more sinister reason.”
Edith shrugged her bony shoulders.
“Maybe,” she said. “But God tells me it’s a good place.”
Oh great, she thinks she talks to God.
I looked away from her, holding back the urge to comment on her mental status, and asked instead, “So, is Shreveport where you’re heading?”
Edith shook her head, walked over to a chair in a corner and retrieved two crutches leaning against a shelf.
“Not permanently. We’re just travelers”—she brought the crutches over to me—“gypsies some say. Never going anywhere in particular.”
I sat upright on the table.
“We’ve been all over,” she went on, “from Illinois to Yellowstone and back over toward Iowa, then down through Missouri and Oklahoma and Arkansas. Was planning on going west soon. California. Only place I hear in my travels safer than Shreveport. There aren’t many safe places left. If we settle anywhere, it’ll probably be California.”
Bewildered by the information, I just stared at her for a moment, my eyebrows crumpled in my forehead.
“No offense, but how have you been able to travel that much and that far without…well, sounds like you’ve been taking advantage of God’s generosity.”
There it is! Edith’s smile!
She helped me down from the table, and positioned the crutches underneath my armpits.
“Two people traveling alone,” she said, helping me toward the exit, “isn’t safe.” She slid her hand between the two pieces of fabric that made up the door. “But we’re a lot more than two people.”
As I stepped outside the tent, my eyes widened with amazement, and I could feel the breeze hit my teeth when my lips parted. Blinking back the stun, I pushed myself forward on my crutches with Edith at my side, as the size of the camp filled my vision. Probably a hundred tents were sprawled out over the landscape under the sky of an approaching evening; the sun was still out, but it would be gone in less than an hour. There were flat-top tents like the one I had slept in, constructed of wood and heavy material, and there were teepees with their roofs pointing skyward, and vinyl tents in a variety of colors straight out of the boxes from some long-ago abandoned sporting goods store.
Horses. I could not remember the last time I had seen so many horses. Horses pulled carriages—real and makeshift—and horses grazed here and there, many untethered as if even they knew the people here were good and would never hurt them and would always take care of them; men and women on horses trotted past; some galloped in the field in the distance.
I stepped out farther from the entrance of the tent, letting my eyes take in the abundance of people and stock and livestock—chickens and pigs and goats ran around freely—and many styles of transportation, even a few working trucks, engines grumbling, exhaust pipes spitting black smoke.
Guns. Every man and woman seemed armed: shotguns and rifles slung over shoulders, barrels pointing skyward; handguns holstered on hips, and poked from the backs of blue jeans and jutted from the sides of boots. I thought the only other place I’d ever seen so many guns were on the soldiers in Lexington City. But here, everybody carried them.
I glanced at Edith on my side, and sure enough she, too, carried a gun, holstered from a belt and hidden behind her at the waist of her baby-blue skirt that extended to her ankles.
I looked back out at the camp.
Children. In the time I took to understand what I was seeing, six children in a group ran past me, laughing and shrieking as they chased one another. And I saw children to my left and to my right, walking alongside their mothers, standing outside their tents helping their fathers, playing in the grass with their brothers and sisters. Children were not rare—Lexington City had more than its fair share of them—but out there on The Road, in the open like this, not hidden and protected by tall, formidable buildings and walls, it was unheard of.
“God protects us,” Edith said. “And when it’s time for us to fight and die for Him, it won’t be because we’re taking advantage of His generosity, but because it’s our duty.” It seemed as though Edith knew, just by the awed and confused look on my face, every question in my head.
I looked over.
“You’ve never been attacked?”
“Sure we have,” she said. “Lost a few good people, but it’s never been something we couldn’t handle. God will never give us anything we can’t handle. Or anything we weren’t meant to face.” She positioned her hand at my back. “Come on and I’ll take you to see Thais.”
THAIS
When I saw Atticus walking up on his crutches with Edith at his side, my face broke into a smile and I dropped my fishing pole and sprinted across the grass with a small audience watching.
“Atticus!”
I ran into his arms, forgetting his injuries, and he dropped the crutches and wrapped his arms around me.
“Oh, I was so worried!”—I kissed his face everywhere, my hands cupped his cheeks—“Edith told me to have faith and just be patient—it was so hard to do! I thought you were going to die!” I kissed his face again, all over.
Atticus held me, pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Thought you said I was too stubborn to die?” He held my face in his big hands, gazed down into my eyes, my fingers were curled about his wrists.
“Apparently you are!” I laughed; my heart was bursting.
Then I took his hand. “Come and meet everybody,” I insisted.
Edith bent to pick up one crutch, and when Atticus noticed, he bent to pick up the other, positioned them both back underneath his arms. I looped one arm around his then, and I walked with him to the lake that sprawled out in front of us like glass, reflecting the sky and the trees that bordered it. Across the calm surface, on the other side of the lake, little campfires blazed in the darkness cast by the trees; people fished from the bank, and from a few small boats.
“Atticus, this is Ossie,” I introduced the tall, lanky Black man wearing the straw hat. “He’s who found us near the mass grave.”
Ossie nodded and reached out a hand.
ATTICUS
I shook it. “Good to meet you”—I glanced at Thais, saw how clean and healthy and unharmed and happy she was, and I squeezed Ossie’s hand tighter, shook it more firmly—“Thank you, sir. I owe you a debt I doubt I’ll ever be able to repay, but I’ll do whatever I can. Thank you.”
“Oh, you owe no debt to me, sir,” Ossie said, and the handshake broke. “Only debt you should repay is to the Lord. I just do what He tells me to do.”
“Well, just the same,” I said, avoiding talk of ‘the Lord’, “I’m still willing to help out with anything—just ask.”
Thais beamed up at me, and her arm tightened around my elbow.
“And this is Ona.” Thais went over to stand next to a young woman about her age, with honey-marigold skin like her grandmother and black hair like her grandfather; her eyes were the color of chestnuts, flecked with amber and gold. She smiled bashfully at me.
“Hi Ona.” I reached out a hand.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Ona said in a powdery voice, and she smiled over at Thais. “Thais hasn’t stopped talking about you since you two came here.”
I noticed Thais’ and Ona’s hands locked together between them.
“Nothing too embarrassing, I hope.”
“Oh, not at all,” Ona said, beaming.
“Thais has been telling us stories about your travels,” Edith spoke up. “And how you’ve been keeping her alive; you’re a good man”—she patted me on the shoulder—“how you risked your life to save her, and get her out of Sodom, and then Gomorrah.”
I assumed she was comparing Lexington and Paducah to the ancient biblical cities.
Thais smiled at me, released Ona’s hand and traded it for mine. “He did,” she said. “I would’ve been dead a long time ago if it wasn’t for him.”
“To be fair,” I put in, “I can say the same.” I raised her hand to my lips and kissed it. I was uncomfortable with all the praise, especially when it had always been Thais doing most of the saving.
The same group of children that had run past me before, seemed to appear out of nowhere, smiling and laughing; sweat beaded on their foreheads and dirt-streaked faces; two tugged on the hem of Thais’ blouse.
“They’re startin’ the fire, Miss Thais! Hurry!” a young Black boy said.
“Are you comin’?” asked an even younger White girl.
Thais placed her hand atop the young boy’s head.
“I’ll be late tonight,” she told them. “But I’ll be there; I promise to meet you all by the fire.”
“And you’ll tell us a story?” asked a young Brown girl with pigtails on both sides of her head.
“Absolutely!” Thais replied with excitement.
Another Black girl, the youngest of the bunch, touched Thais’ wrist; she had big doe eyes with long, thick eyelashes that made her look like a doll.
“I want you to sing,” the girl said.
Thais knelt in front of her, took her tiny hands into hers, and with a thoughtful smile she asked, “And what would you like me to sing?”
The girl’s cherub face lit up.
“Alli-Loo-Yah,” she said in her childlike voice.
Thais nodded solidly. “Then Hallelujah it is!”
The children cheered, gathered around her, and hugged her from every angle. Then they took off running again, the boys chasing the girls, their laughter filled the air and then was gone. I thought she would make a wonderful mother someday…I shook that thought out of my head quickly.
Edith curled her hand around Ossie’s elbow. “Come help me get the food ready,” she insisted, tugging on his arm. “I’m sure Thais would like a moment with the young man.”
“All right, all right,” Ossie said; he winked at Thais, and then followed Edith away from the lake.
“I’ll see you later,” Ona told Thais then.
They embraced, and Ona left Thais and me alone.
She wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed me.
“So, what happened while I was out?” I asked.
“Oh, Atticus,” she said with dramatic exasperation. “These people are absolutely wonderful.” She took me by the elbow and walked with me to a dock sitting on the lake. Everybody watched us as we went past, smiled at Thais, nodded at Thais, waved at Thais. And she acknowledged each one of them in kind.
We sat down on the dock; I laid the crutches beside me.
“They seem to like you,” I noted.
“Well, it’s not just me,” she explained, “or anything I’ve done—they love just about everybody.” She paused and looked out at the water thoughtfully, and then turned back. “They’re wonderful, Atticus. The second I saw Ossie standing over me in that field, I knew he was good. I trusted him like I trusted my father, before he even spoke to me. I trusted him with my life, and yours.” She waved a hand out in front of her, signifying everyone else in the camp. “These people are proof that there really is good still left in the world, to believe in, and to fight for. We’re not alone.” She smiled.
I reached for her hand.
“You look beautiful,” I told her, noting her freshly-washed hair, cascading in chocolate waves against her back; not a trace of dirt or blood she had acquired on our long journey was left anywhere on her young, tender skin; she wore a short-sleeve blouse with a flowered knit pattern and with eight tiny pearl-like buttons down the center, and a pair of navy cotton pants that fit snugly to her ankles, and a pair of flat-soled navy dress shoes. She smelled of coconut and honey.
“Well, now that you’re awake,” she said, “you can get cleaned up, too.”
“I will,” I said with a nod. “But that can wait.”
I took her into my arms again, her back pressed to my chest, and I held her there like that, looking out at the sunlight slowly fading atop the glittering water.
After a moment, Thais said, “They’re going to escort us the rest of the way to Shreveport.” She turned around to face me. “Strength in numbers. We can’t go any farther alone. No matter how strong either of us are, we can’t make it there by ourselves.”
I nodded. “No. We can’t.” I hated it that I alone wasn’t enough, that I needed help from anyone to save Thais. But I wasn’t too proud to admit it, either. “And I trust them,” I said at last. “I don’t know them, I’ve spent less than thirty minutes awake with them, but I trust them.” I sighed, glanced at our hands locked between us. “And it’s such a long way. I guess I have no choice but to trust them.”
Thais smiled, and I caught something mysterious in it. I looked at her curiously.
“That’s what I was going to tell you next,” she said. “Shreveport’s not a long way at all. I mean, if we were driving we’d probably make it in less than an hour.”
I blinked, surprised.
“How do you know?”
“Ona and Ossie told me,” she began. “We’re already in Louisiana, Atticus. We’re only a few hours away from Shreveport, on foot.”
I could hear my heartbeat thrumming in my ears. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then we should go now,” I said. “What are we waiting for?”
Thais reached out and touched my cheek. “Tomorrow we’ll be heading that way,” she said. “Their plan was to stay until morning and then they’ll be packing up.”
Frustration washed over me. It felt like we had been on The Road for more than a year, despite the reality of it being only a couple of months. Here we were, just hours from our destination, and having to wait even another minute felt unbearable.
I sighed.
“Okay,” I agreed. “We need them. So, we’ll stay here until the morning.”
“Thank you.” She kissed my cheek.
THAIS
Silence, awkward and noticeable, fell between us. I sensed something was off, but I just stared at the camp behind Atticus, thinking little of it. He had been out of it for a few days, and before that he had been ravaged by thirst and hunger and exhaustion and injury—I imagined it would take a few days more before he could feel like himself again.
“Thais—.” He reached out to touch my hair, but stopped just shy, and his hand dropped back into his lap.
“What’s wrong?” I slid my fingers through his ever-growing beard, troubled by his reluctance.
He looked downward.
“Remember when we first met,” he began, his voice fringed with stifled emotion, “and I vowed to get you somewhere safe? I told you I would do whatever I had to do to get you to Shreveport, and then…”
My hand fell away from his face in an instant; I felt something crushing my heart, and I stood up, as if I needed to be more prepared to handle the pain of his coming words. So I could run away? So I could kick him? So I could look stronger than I would be?
Atticus stood after me. And he just looked at me. And I hated the way he looked at me—I wanted to lay my hand across the side of his face.
“Just say it, Atticus…just say it,” I barked, my face I felt shadowed by resentment.
Atticus’ gaze veered off, and I reached out and grabbed his chin in my hand, forcing him to face me. How dare you! Don’t you look away from me! Don’t be a coward! I did not have to say the words aloud for him to know them.
He sighed.
“I told you I’d help you,” he finally said. “And then I’d leave you to live your life.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Tears seeped from my eyes, burning, blurring my vision, but I could not wipe them away because my fists were balled, and my arms were stiff at my sides and I could not move them. “Say it!”
Hadn’t he already said it? Yes, he told me he would leave me to my life. But why did it feel so incomplete? What more could he possibly say?
Finally, I wiped the tears from my face, and then turned my back to him, because if I looked at him any longer I would…I would hate him. No. I could never hate him—I would hate myself for ever loving him.
“But I’m selfish, Thais Fenwick,” he told me in a soft voice. “I’m selfish and I want to be with you, and I’ll never leave you, even if you tell me you hate everything about me, I’ll never leave you.”
I turned to face him again, my heart in my throat, and before I could respond, or even understand how to respond, he said:
“I want you to marry me.”
He stepped up closer—I forgot how to breathe.
“Before we leave this camp,” he said, “I want you to be my wife. Because tomorrow is never guaranteed, now more than ever. And if I’m going to die, I want to die knowing you were mine, in every way.”
Overwhelmed by a tumult of incompatible emotions, I didn’t know what to do with myself; I was frozen inside my skin.
But then I fell into his arms. “I will be your wife.”
He smiled, and kissed the top of my head.
“Are you sure?”
I pulled away and looked up at him.
“Well”—I chewed on the inside of my mouth—“I mean, there’s not many men to choose from anymore—”
I cackled when his fingertips dig into my ribs.
“Yes, Atticus! I’m sure! I love you!”
He stopped tickling me. And he looked into my eyes. And I looked into his. And we loved one another and belonged to one another and I knew nothing would ever change that.
“Yes…more than anything in this world, Atticus Hunt, I want to be your wife.”