Strikers (33 page)

That might explain some of Jovan’s displeasure and why he sat so close to me on the bench attached to the side of the boat when we first came aboard. Or maybe it’s the fallout from that stupid kiss.

Whatever is going on between us, I feel like it’s starting to come out into the open. Like one of us is going to say or do something that will make it hard to pretend it’s not happening.

He’ll just have to get over his protective feelings, or else Marcus and Cassi will get over their mutual admiration. Either way will work, but somehow, I don’t think they will be the ones who do the adjusting.

Marcus’s boat is big and it makes me feel secure. Below decks are two cabins with a larger one between them. The big room is sort of like a kitchen and living room, but much more compact. Underneath the rear part of the boat, which Marcus informs me is the fantail but is also just called the deck in general, is a hold where he puts fish. It smells of years of fish, but it looks perfectly clean and I’ve seen how careful Marcus is with his boat.

For over a day we’ve been sailing, allowing the current of the big river, which is slowly and steadily growing wider, to add to our speed. It’s liberating to be away from land, to glide past it and see it fall away behind us. I can’t help but feel a small sense of victory when we sail effortlessly past areas we would have struggled to cross on foot, if it had even been possible to cross at all.

The banks of the river are changing, becoming flatter and wetter. Marcus tell us those are marshes and that soon enough, there will be more marsh than dry land and towns will be connected to the river by long piers or platforms on tall pylons. On the other side of the river, the wall has been a constant and comforting companion, the gates coming more frequently just as Gary told us they would.

But the wall is retreating further from the banks under the pressure of these watery areas and I feel a pang every time I see it curve away. There are piers, places where we could tie up and dash toward a gate in a run if we needed to, but it’s not the same as knowing the gate is close enough to see.

So far, there’s no sight of Creedy, but we wouldn’t know where he is anyway now that we’re on a boat unless he came very close. In my thoughts, he’s never far behind. And I know I’m not alone in that because Jovan looks behind us, examining every sail, almost as much as I do. I have this nagging feeling that he’s still chasing us.

The boat itself is a marvel and I can’t help but enjoy it, thoughts of Creedy aside. I felt sick when I laid down to sleep for a little while yesterday, but by the time I woke, the feeling was gone and I was hungrier than I’d been in a long time. That evening, Marcus fed us freshly grilled fish and cold porridge.

I was wary of it after our fish jerky experience, but it was a surprisingly delightful combination. It turns out Maddix was right about the taste of fresh fish versus fish jerky. I wish I could tell him that and I keep my gloomy thoughts away by convincing myself we’ll find each other.

It turns out that Marcus is more than just a fisherman working a boat. This is his boat, or rather, his family’s. And they have more of them. This one is meant for some fishing, but also for bringing trade goods, including fish from the Gulf, up the river where they fetch a higher price.

When he said that they traded inside the Gulf, out on the actual ocean, I didn’t really believe him. Everyone knows Texas can’t access the sea because of the mines and that sea is the Gulf. Marcus pulled out a map and showed me my world in a way I’ve not seen before. A thin red line is drawn at a distance from the Texas coast and inside that line is where Marcus says the mines are. Beyond it is a vast ocean perfectly safe for travel. It hardly seems fair, but I’m not feeling particularly generous toward Texas at this moment.

Aside from a nagging feeling that Creedy is going to show up behind our boat at any second, this trip worries me for another reason. We are making too good a time, traveling too far. Maddix and Connor are far behind us and the distance grows each passing minute. Marcus only laughed when I asked about it, telling us with utter conviction that distances aren’t the same inside the wall. We can travel by many means once inside and finding people who want to be found is as simple as placing a call.

I’m not entirely convinced of his assertions, but he shrugged it off, shaking his head at the backwardness of Texans. I’ll confess that rankled a bit, being thought of as somehow more primitive. Yet, I have to admit that just what I’ve seen at the gate—Gary’s cart of magical equipment—tells me he’s right about us. We were living without a lot in Texas and I can’t wrap my head around any possible reason for it.

When I wake from my post-breakfast nap, I see the splayed form of Cassi on the deck, a smile on her face and her skin exposed to the sun. She’s wearing nothing but a pair of shorts that she borrowed from Marcus and an undershirt. She’s even hiked the legs of the shorts up so that they show her entire thighs. It makes me nervous, her showing that much skin with a near-stranger in plain view.

“You’re going to burn,” I say. She’s too fair and too freckled for sunbathing and she knows it.

“Maybe,” she says, a dreamy tone in her voice. Her words comes slow and lazy when she says, “But this feels too good not to enjoy. Can’t you feel that breeze? It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

She sighs with pleasure and turns over, her cheek to the deck and her hair lifting all around her. I do feel it. It reminds me a little of the way it felt when I dangled my feet over the edge of the swimming platform at the lake. Moist but somehow light and difficult to explain or put into words. It’s glorious.

Marcus is at the wheel, his eyes quick as he keeps everything moving together under the power of the wind and the current. He gives me a smile and I return it. His expressions are infectious and it would take a sterner person than I not to respond. His dark curls are tossing in the wind, but at least he’s got a shirt on.

“Where’s Jovan?” I ask, looking from Cassi to Marcus. Cassi shrugs but doesn’t open her eyes. Marcus jerks his head behind him, so I carefully make my way along the short rail attached to the side of the boat—I’m still not that confident so close to the moving water—until I get to the open deck space behind the wheel.

Jovan is sitting on the deck, his arms wrapped loosely around his knees, gazing out at the wake behind us and into the river beyond. He’s relaxed but still focused, like the worry we share over Creedy isn’t enough to entirely overcome the lulling effects of sailing.

His hair has grown out a bit from its former cadet-worthy shortness, and that strange combination of gold shining out from the darker brown is on full display in the breeze and sunny day. It turns my throat dry and a flush crawls uncomfortably up my neck. Uncomfortable, but nice.

He turns to look my way, apparently sensing my presence, and gives me one of his amazing smiles. That’s my cue to come forward, an invitation, but I feel hesitant. Since coming aboard, we’ve been dancing around each other, looking away when we pass each other in the tight confines of the cabins or on the deck, talking freely only when others are also talking.

There’s something hanging over us and it wants to come out and be recognized. Maybe it’s that impulsive kiss I pressed on him while we were in the water. Maybe it’s just that the weeks of being together, relying so entirely on each other for safety and comfort, have brought back what we had before his father put an end to it.

Whatever it is, I can feel it coming and I think he does to.

The smile fades a little when I don’t join him and he sighs, looking back at the water once more for a moment, checking for sails. He pats the deck next to him and says, “Help me keep watch so I don’t fall asleep. This rocking wants to knock me out.”

The way he says it, very casual and without any double meanings, smooths over the momentary weirdness. I’m grateful for it and sink to the deck next to him. I can’t sit like him and keep any sense of modesty. Instead, I stretch my legs out in front of me so the sun will keep me warm.

I’m wearing a huge shirt, one meant for a very big man, and it comes halfway to my knees. My freshly washed jeans, along with everyone else’s, are flapping on a line strung below the sails. Marcus has a veritable shop full of spare clothes below decks, but none of it is meant for girls so I had to make do with what I could find. It’s not any shorter than a pair of shorts, but it feels like it is, especially with the wind licking at the hem.

I think it’s worse because I’m not wearing my boots. Why having bare feet should make me feel naked is beyond me, but it does. Marcus says the boots are bad for his decks so they’re off limits unless we see danger.

For a moment we don’t say anything, just watch the water behind us. It is rather hypnotic, I have to admit. That initial awkwardness that settled between us like a physical thing fades under the calming spell of it. We both sort of relax, his arms going loose on his knees and mine moving behind my back to brace against the deck.

“One more day,” I say. It’s a safe topic for us to start on and I hope it leads to us being comfortable with each other again. Safe topics and no kissing is my current strategy.

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye very quickly, then looks back at the water. He seems worried, or perhaps just thoughtful about something, but I don’t push. That would take me well off my safe topic agenda. Finally, he asks, “What will I do over there?”

Then he looks at me and I see that he is more than worried. If I had to guess, I would say that he’s frightened, or at least intimidated. But I understand that. His life was laid out before him and it would have been a comfortable one.

A short career in the Army, then sharing in the responsibilities of his family’s ranch, learning the ropes before eventually taking over. Marriage to a nice girl with a good pedigree, more than likely a daughter of one of the few other wealthy families. Possibly a marriage to someone from down south, a younger daughter from a city family with contacts that would increase the wealth of both families. Children would follow and the cycle would begin again.

That is what
was
waiting for him. Now, unless he lets himself be found by Creedy, he has nothing. No prospects. No money. Nothing to distinguish him from any other relatively bright and eager young man looking to make his mark.

“Do you want to go back with Creedy?” I ask.

He sighs and plucks at the edge of the thin drawstring pants he’s wearing where the hems are frayed. A string unravels at his touch and he sighs again but stops worrying at it. “No, Karas. That’s the hard part.”

With one quick swivel, he turns to face me and crosses his legs, his hands tucking his feet tightly to him so that we can sit closer together. He leans forward a little, his eyes so earnest I feel my heart go out to him a little more. He says, “I know I should. There’s nothing for me out here. I don’t know how to fish or boat or farm or anything. Look at all this green!”

He waves a hand at the thick trees that border the river and the marshes where the trees pull back. I understand what he means, though. This is a world very different from our own, where knowing how to pluck water from the air with a few simple tools and salvaged parts is a skill worth knowing and cattle are the currency we trade in. I have no idea what I’ll do here either. Maybe he needs to know that, to know he’s not alone with that worry.

“None of us do,” I say, but he cuts me off by holding up a hand.

“I’ll figure out something—maybe I can use the little I learned in the military. No, I’m worried that it will never end. If I don’t go back, will my family just keep sending people? Will they bribe their way past the wall and just ask till they find me? I wasn’t worried until Marcus started talking about how easy it would be to find Connor and Maddix. Will I someday get tired of being the poor guy with no real skills, give in and come back?”

I hadn’t actually considered that possibility. The idea of never knowing when some agent of the Foleys might come across us or show up at one of our doors is a disturbing one. And I also think he could be right. How long before there is a bounty too large to ignore for the return of Jovan to his family, before someone just takes him? Or, given his easy upbringing, how long until he lets himself be found just to end the struggle?

“Oh,” I say, because there isn’t much more to say.

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly.”

“We’ve got one more day,” I say, trying to sound upbeat and confident. “We’ll think of something.”

“We’d better think of something good. Otherwise, I don’t know how I’m going to make it. Not with you guys close, anyway. I couldn’t stand it if you got hurt in the process,” he says and lays his hand on top of mine where it rests on the deck.

He must feel me tense at his touch, because he pulls away and that wall of awkward starts rebuilding itself between us. I wish I had the guts to just spill my feelings for him, tell him all that I want. But I don’t. Instead I just say, “We will.”

We while away our afternoon and evening learning about the world from Marcus. I’m surprised, even disbelieving, of a lot of it. I’m skeptical even though I’m aware that it’s likely true. Or at least, I’m aware that what he says is probably true-ish.

I know about trains and trucks and vehicles. We have oil in Texas, but everyone knows that our inability to pull enough of it from the ground and then refine it limits what we can use. Still, there are plenty of gas-powered trucks where such are needed. Not in Bailar, but the kind that travel come there often enough.

The small truck where people sell their hair shows up twice a year. Likewise the bigger Commutation Day truck comes each year to remove strikes from the necks of those who have earned off their crimes through years of good citizenship. A dozen others make their rounds of Texas and they all use petroleum of one sort or another. Trains for cattle come during selling season and the tracks are kept in excellent repair by the soldiers.

But Marcus is telling us another story. Trains supposedly run on lines all over the Southeast and East lands, carrying passengers and all sorts of goods. Trucks and buses are as common as anything, he claims. And no one is disconnected from everything unless they choose it.