Blood Red Road (5 page)

We ain’t gone more’n half a league before we come across hoofprints in the dried mud. Five horses. The riders come this way with Lugh.

I kneel down an trace around the edges of a print. I feel dizzy from relief. I feared they might of headed straight across open country from Silverlake.

If they had of, I’d of lost a lotta time takin Emmi to Crosscreek an then comin back to Silverlake to try an pick up the trail.

The hoofprints lead straight ahead. Northeast. Same direction we’re headed. Our first bit of luck.

C’mon, I says to Em. We gotta hurry.

I don’t give her no quarter. I walk quick, my footsteps jerky. No time to lose.

She trots to keep up with me, her barksack thumpin aginst her back. Nero flies on ahead.

Lugh was here. He passed this way.

Lugh goes first, always first, an I follow on behind. I’ll catch him up. I always do. Always have.

I’ll find you. Wherever they take you, I swear I’ll find you
.

I walk faster.

Mid-afternoon. Second day on the road.

I hafta stop myself from screamin. From walkin fast. Runnin on ahead.

Emmi.

We couldn’t be goin much slower an it’s all her fault.

I wanna leave her by the side of the track an ferget she ever got born. I wish she’d disappear offa the face of th’earth. But I cain’t wish that. I mustn’t wish that. It’s too wicked. She’s my own flesh an blood, the same as Lugh.

Not the same as Lugh.

Nobody’s the same as Lugh.

Never the same as Lugh.

We leave a thin stand of near-dead pine trees.

The hoofprints leave the trackway here. They head off due north.

Wait here, I says to Emmi.

I follow the prints till the hard baked ground turns to scrubby grass. The prints disappear. I shade my eyes. Stare out. There’s a narrow belt of scrub grassland but after that I cain’t see nuthin but wideness. Flatness. Desert. I ain’t never bin here but I know what it is.

Sandsea.

A mean, death-dry place of winds an shiftin sand dunes. A hard land. A land of secrets.

Before Emmi, when Ma was still alive an everythin was happy, Pa used to tell Lugh an me stories about Wrecker times. Some of ’em was about Sandsea. He told us about whole settlements of people buried by wanderin dunes. Then, one day, the winds ’ud shift an the dune ’ud move on an all that ’ud be left was the shanties. No people. All gone. Not a trace of ’em left behind, not even bones. Only their dead souls, turned into sand spirits that wail in the night an cry fer their lost lives. Pa used to say he’d take us there an leave us if we warn’t good.

I pile up some rocks. A cairn to mark the spot so’s I can find it agin.

I walk back to the trackway.

Em sits in the dust, her head bowed. She’s took her boots off.

We gotta keep movin, I says.

I look down. At her short, fine brown hair that grows in tufts. With her thin little neck an wisps of hair, Emmi looks more like a babby bird than a girl.

It’s a wonder I didn’t break her neck when I slapped her. Jest
thinkin about it makes me feel sick, so I try not to. I know fer a fact that Em ain’t never in her life bin slapped before I raised my hand to her. Lugh would never of done it, no matter what. Never. He’d be madder’n hell if he knew what I done.

I crouch down beside her. What’s the matter? I says.

Then I see her heels. They’re cut to a bloody pulp. She ain’t used to walkin so far. They must hurt like nobody’s business, but she ain’t made a peep.

Why didn’t you tell me? I says.

I didn’t want you to yell at me, she says.

I look at her, her face so small an thin. I hear Lugh’s voice in my head.

She’s only nine, Saba. You might try bein nice to her fer a change
.

You should of said somethin, I says. I wash her cuts an wrap her feet in clean strips of cloth. All right, I says, put yer arms around my neck.

I pick her up. I carry her as much as I can fer the rest of the day, but even a scrawny nine year old gits heavy. I’m carryin our packs too so I hafta put her down from time to time. She ends up havin to walk a fair bit.

She weeps quietly in the night.

My heart pinches at the sound. I reach out an touch her arm but she flings my hand off an turns away.

I hate you! she cries. I wish they’d killed you instead of Pa!

After that, I pull my cloak over my head so’s I cain’t hear her cryin.

We gotta keep on.

I gotta find Lugh.

Third day. Dawn.

I clean Emmi’s feet agin an we set off. She takes two tiny steps an falls to the ground. She won’t be doin no walkin today. I guess I ain’t surprised. I pick her up an lay her down on a grassy patch in some shade.

I run my hands through my hair. Glare at the sky. I wanna scream or run around or … anythin to git rid of all the tightness inside of me. I kick the ground so hard I stub my toe. I curse mightily.

I’m sorry, Saba, Emmi whispers.

I try to smile, make it look like I don’t care, but I cain’t manage it. I turn my head away from her.

It ain’t yer fault, I says. I’ll sort somethin out.

I spend the rest of the mornin makin a dragger. I cut two of the springiest, strongest tree branches I can find. I lay ’em out on the ground an brace ’em crosswise with smaller branches to make it good an sturdy fer Em to lie on. I lash it all together with nettlecord rope. Then I make a yoke to go over my shoulders an pad it with our spare tunics.

It’s ready by the middle of th’afternoon. I tie Emmi an our packs onto it. I swaddle my hands in cloth. The right one’s still sore from bein shot, so I wrap it in a clean bandage first. I don’t want it gittin worse.

Then I start pullin. The dragger bumps an thumps over the ground, but Emmi don’t complain or whimper or cry. She don’t make a sound.

The sun beats down. It’s merciless. Cruel. It makes me think cruel thoughts. Like:

Why couldn’t they of killed Emmi, instead of Pa?

Why couldn’t they of took Emmi, instead of Lugh?

Emmi ain’t no use to nobody. Never was. Never will be.

She’s slowin me down. Makin me lose time.

My brain whispers. My heart whispers. My bones whisper.

Leave her
 … 
leave her
 … 
walk away an leave her. What
 … 
to die? Don’t even think about it
 … 
she don’t matter
 … 
what matters is Lugh
 … 
go back to the cairn
 … 
head out across Sandsea
 … 
that’s the way they went
 … 
you could be there in a couple of hours if you walked fast
 …

I give myself a shake. Shut my ears to the whisperin. I cain’t leave Emmi. I gotta take her to Crosscreek to stay with Mercy.

Lugh said I had to keep her safe. When I find him, I gotta be able to tell him that she’s okay. That I looked after her as good as him.

As I pull the dragger behind me, I wonder where he is. If he’s afeared. If he misses me like I miss him.

My missin him makes my whole body ache. It’s like … emptiness. Emptiness that’s beside me, inside me an around me, all the places where Lugh used to be. I ain’t never bin without him. Not fer a single moment from the day we was born. From before we was born.

If they touch him, if they hurt him, I’ll kill ’em. Even if they don’t, I might kill ’em anyways, as punishment fer takin him.

My shoulders ache. My hurt hand throbs. The sun beats down. I grit my teeth an make myself go faster.

Why don’t Emmi cry? Why don’t she whine?

I wish she would. Then I could yell at her.

Then I could hate her.

I push the mean thoughts away, deep inside to the darkest places of me, where nobody can see.

An Emmi don’t cry. Not even once.

Fifth day. Midnight.

We lie on the ground, in a hollow beside the trackway. We’re wrapped in our dogskin cloaks. Emmi’s tucked herself into one side of me. Nero’s huddled on th’other side, fast to sleep, his head tucked unner his wing.

It’s a warm spring night. A soft breeze lifts the hair on my forehead. In the distance, a wolfdog howls an another answers. They’re a long ways off. Naught to worry about.

I stare up at the sky. At the thousands an millions of stars that crowd the night. I look fer the Great Bear. The Little Bear. The Dragon. The North Star.

I think about Pa. About what he told us. That our destiny, the story of our lives is written in the stars. An that he knew how to read ’em.

An then I think about what Lugh said.

Ain’t you figgered it out yet? It’s all in his head. There ain’t nuthin written in the stars. There ain’t no great plan. The world goes on. Our lives jest go on
 … 
in this gawdfersaken place. An that’s it. Till the day we die
.

I think of Pa layin out his stick circles an doin his spells an his chants, tryin to make the rain come. How he kept sayin he read it in the stars, that the stars said the rain was comin an how the rain never did come.

Well, not till after Pa was dead. Not till it was too late. That means eether Pa was readin the stars wrong or the stars was tellin him lies.

Or maybe the truth is this. That Pa couldn’t read the stars because there ain’t nuthin there to read. An all his spells an chants was jest him bein so desperate fer rain that he’d try any old thing, no matter how crazy.

I used to like lookin at the night sky. Liked to think how
one day Pa might teach me to read what the stars had to say. Now they jest look cold an far away.

I shiver.

I reckon Lugh’s right. He always is.

There ain’t nuthin written in the stars.

They’re jest lights in the sky. To show you the way in the dark.

But.

But.

Pa knew about the men. Knew they’d come fer Lugh. Before I told him.

Are they here? Have they come?

They cain’t be stopped, Saba. It’s begun
.

An he knew he was gonna die. Knew his story was about to end.

My time’s nearly up. I dunno what happens after this
.

If Pa couldn’t read the stars, if the stars ain’t got nuthin to say, how did he know all that?