The Dream Widow (6 page)

Father Reed had just entered the treatment room. The lighted wall panels popped alive as Wilson and the others laid the boy on a black slab in the middle of the room.

“What happened?”

“Stab wound to the abdomen,” said Wilson. “Going into shock.”

“Wash up. Prepare two sterilizers,” said Reed.

He wrapped diagnostic bands around Delmar’s arm and forehead then inserted a large-bore catheter into the boy’s left arm. Fluid pumped into the needle from a clear tube connected to the slab.

Kaya still pushed on the bloody cloth over Delmar’s midsection. Her face was streaked with tears.

“Out of the way,” said Reed.

He held a cabled spatula over the injury and watched a black and white display.

“Some internal laceration, hard to tell without an implant. Sedate him now and prepare for surgery.”

Wilson pressed a few lines on the display, adding a sedative to the fluid in the tube, and Delmar’s head rolled to the side. He handed silver tools to Reed as the priest opened the wound and patched the damaged tissue with transparent thread. He had almost finished when the entrance door squealed.

“Keep whoever that is out of here for a few minutes,” said Reed.

Wilson stepped into the corridor and sealed the door after him. An older woman stepped out of the entrance: tall, grey-haired, and wearing a red tribal jacket and skirt. She sneered at Wilson like a cat backed into a corner.

“He’s doing fine, Flora. You don’t have to worry,” said Wilson in the tribal dialect.

Flora waved at the door of the treatment room. “Don’t tell me when to worry! You’re trying to kill him. You and everyone else!”

“Why would I do that?”

Flora squatted against the concrete wall of the corridor.

“Ever since we came here, it’s been like this. Hate. Venom in the words. But now–”

“Who hates you? Not anyone I know.”

Flora shook her head. “The lost children of David. Not all of them. Not all, but enough.”

“I don’t see why. You and your sons have more in common with them than with us.”

“The hateful ones blame me for the loss of their home. My tribe was part of the Circle and ordered to attack David. But you know the story, Wilson-from-the-West. I refused and paid for that good deed, paid with everything but two sons. And now ...”

“Reed is doing his best.”

“You say that but the priest doesn’t trust us. His eyes betray his mind.”

“Flora, I know that Reed’s made horrible decisions before, but trust me––he’s a good doctor and knows what to do.”

The outer airlock door rumbled and Wilson helped the old woman stand up. Hausen and a group of tribal men entered. The tribals pulled a young man forward, his hands tied in front with a belt. He wore the clothes of a David refugee and his face was purple with bruises.

“Who’s this?” asked Wilson.

Hausen pointed at the boy. “The one that stabbed Delmar.”

The prisoner was locked in an empty room with a guard outside. Wilson and Hausen stood among the book-lined shelves of Reed’s office. The priest was at his desk, hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling. He mumbled a few phrases to himself. At last Reed leaned forward and turned the next page of an open engineering manual.

“With the Circle approaching and Jack’s situation I have a thousand demands upon my time,” he said. “The two of you handle it.”

BADGER POKED HIM in the arm. “Well? What did you do?”

The walls of their room were covered with tiny paintings of deer, rabbits, and flowers. The decorations were a present from the girls who had survived the journey from David, along with a pair of striped, woven blankets.

Wilson shrugged. “Tribal justice. That was okay with Hausen, too.”

“Another knife fight?”

“Don’t be silly. Delmar’s laid out and needs three months to recover. No, the boy who stabbed him has to serve as Flora’s son during that time. He’ll live in their quarters, gather medicine, and help with the weaving.”

“But who’s this attacker and how did Hausen find him?”

“He’s called Tran, and a refugee from David. A pair of boys saw it happen. Kaya was talking with Delmar when Tran jumped out of the dark and stabbed him.”

“Just like that?”

“No, there’s more to the story and Kaya’s in the middle of it. We asked Yishai, since he knows all three of them. He said that Kaya and Tran were promised to be married, but the Circle turned the village to ashes. Now both their families are dead.”          

“I get it,” said Badger. “She’s moved on, but the boy hasn’t.”

Wilson sat on the edge of their narrow bed. “We might have to sleep head-to-toe tonight.”

“But your feet are like the breath of Satan.”

“You’ve smelled worse.”

Badger pinched his arm. “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

Wilson smiled, then turned away with a distant sadness in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“There was something else. Tran didn’t say much, but after I left the room I heard him and Hausen screaming curses at each other. I don’t think there’s any love lost between those two.”

“Welcome to the club. Hausen’s got a temper.”

“Still ... Hausen smacked the boy around more than I expected. I don’t think he understands anything about tribal people.”

“Or people in general.”

“Right.”

“Take off that sad face, Will. I hope my next husband is happier on his wedding night.”

“Oh really?”

He wrestled her onto the bed and kissed her.

“If this were a tribal wedding night I’d have to tie you hand-and-foot and carry you into my tent.”

Badger laughed. “That’s not true and you know it.”

“What did you think of the wedding?”

Badger giggled. “You looked at me like I’d turned into a wolf.”

“Sure, I was scared. But as long as you have a nice and shiny coat, I’ll be happy.”

She slapped him on the arm.

“Have you ever seen a tribal wedding?” Wilson asked.

Badger leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment.

“When I was small there was one. My cousin married a son of the chief. I think her name was Lani. I don’t remember his. We prepared for weeks, sewing clothes and making garlands. It was the beginning of fall and the air was cool. Many of the friendly tribes came to offer gifts. My sisters and I played around the legs of the crowd and stuffed ourselves with food. My cousin wore a blood-red dress and scarlet ribbon in her braids. She was changed––strikingly beautiful and fierce. When I saw her it shocked me like a plunge in a winter lake. She and the chief’s son were happy and so full of life, like gods down from the high peaks. Perfect, black-haired gods.”

Wilson kissed her neck. “It sounds like a happy time.”

“Two weeks later the chief’s son was killed in a raid. My cousin jumped from a cliff. She did not survive.”

“I’m sorry.”

Badger shook her head. “Every time I see a bare nose of granite high in the mountains, I think about her.”

“Still–”

She turned and hugged Wilson hard, then kissed him.

“You’re like an old granny, talking about this on my wedding night. Take those clothes off and get in the shower.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

THE TIP OF THE ROD glowed orange on the inside of her upper thigh. First came heat then scorching pain. She knew he liked it when she screamed. She clenched the muscles in her jaw. She screamed anyway.

The metal left a crimson, burning dot. He said it was important to pull away quickly. He didn’t want to burn the nerves in her skin––what would be the point of that?

He talked up a storm, this one. The others were quiet. They grunted with effort as they tightened her wrists behind her head or the rope around her ankles. If she struggled the strap squeezed her neck and made it hard to breath.

She wasn’t ashamed to be naked, to be spat upon, slapped, or burned. She was ashamed at the furious, red-hot pimple of anger inside her. Ashamed that she couldn’t control it. Ashamed of what would happen when it burst.

The metal rod burned between her ribs. She screamed again––a hoarse, dehydrated yell.

I’d be disappointed if you told me, said Darius. I wouldn’t have any reason to keep doing this. Maybe I could even let you go.

The floorboards creaked as he paced in front of the drooping girl.

Dear, sweet Kira, said Darius.

Badger spat on the wood stained with sweat and blood. I never told you my name, she said.

The rope that snaked around her arms and legs dissolved to smoke. She punched a hole in Darius and pulled out his shivering, crimson heart.

Badger opened her eyes in the darkness and gasped. Wilson murmured next to her, warm and sleepy. He’d rolled to the edge of the bed with the furs and blankets.

Badger lay cold and naked. She kept her hands at her sides and tried not to touch the tiny circles on her skin.

FATHER REED WRAPPED himself in a wool cloak and left the rectory. His boots crunched rust-brown leaves on the steps to the surface.

A cool afternoon breeze carried a steady thrum of activity throughout the valley. Between the southern pass and the village a throng of men hammered wood beams into a series of shallow trenches, reinforcing the walls. Villagers took wicker baskets of dirt from sweating shovelmen and tamped them into zig-zag earthworks leading from the trenches to the village proper. The pine forest on the western side of the valley echoed with axes and the groan of falling trees. In a wide field of stumps men sawed the pale wood into sections. Others dragged these with a sledge to the trenches and strong points around the village. Each concrete bunker entrance around the circular plaza was protected by a waist-high rampart of logs with earth tamped in-between.

Father Reed crossed the circular, central plaza and headed toward the corral at the north end of the valley. Near the entrance to the Tombs he passed a two-story blockhouse under construction. At the top Yishai yelled curses in his tribal dialect while directing the placement of roof beams. He waved his big hands at Father Reed.

After a ten-minute walk through fields covered in the stubble of harvested corn and hemp, Reed came to an empty corral and barn. At this time of day the herd would be at one of the mountain pastures along with a village boy and Blackie, the collie.

He passed the tiny shepherd’s hut and continued to a grassy field at the foot of White Peak. A group of three dozen young men and women sat in a half-circle facing Wilson and Badger. Wilson paced slowly in front of the line of sitting villagers.

“––above all know your limits. You won’t be any use to anyone if you’re puking your guts on the ground. I’ve seen every single one of you do that in the past month. You know where that line is. You should know how to control it.”

Wilson turned and saw Father Reed approaching.

“Squadrons! Attention!”

The students scrambled to their feet and formed three lines of twelve. They stood young and confident, but no different from any other citizens of Station in homespun jackets and trousers of brown and gray hemp. The line in front wore bright red strips of cloth twisted around the left bicep. The middle group wore blue bands, and the third group white.

“That’s not necessary,” said Reed. “I’m just an old priest.”

“It’s for morale, sir,” said Wilson.

“As you wish. You mentioned some kind of test?”

Wilson nodded. “A test and demonstration. Please follow me.”

He walked to thick log that had been cut into twelve sections. Each stood on end, a meter-high cylinder of wood.

“By your estimate, Father, how much do these weigh?”

Reed pushed against one of the sections, but it failed to budge. He rubbed his fingers over  the exposed wood and studied the yellow color.

“Two hundred kilos,” he said.

“Perfect,” said Wilson. He turned to the front line of students. “Smashers! Line up!”

The teenagers with red armbands walked forward. Each took his or her place next in front of a wood cylinder.

“Prepare for Bahubala. On my mark.”

The students shook their arms loosely at their sides and bowed heads.

“Mark,” said Wilson.

He kept his eyes open, but chanted the same four lines as the group.

            Arm made of stone

            Arm made of steel

            Arm made of earth

            Push my hand

“Go,” said Wilson, after half a dozen stanzas.

Mast was the first student, on the far right of the line. He stopped chanting and squatted at the base of the log cylinder. Mast pushed his fingers under the edge of the log and stood with a yell. In a spray of earth and bark the cylinder flipped end-over-end for ten meters then thudded to the ground. Mast grinned and rubbed his dirty hands on his trousers.