The River at Night(50)

I knew that if I moved or made another sound I was done. I would die in that place, my friends as witness. He had made a promise and he meant to keep it. Our death meant that the only life he knew would go on.

I visualized myself brilliantly alive, sprinting through the forest to safety.

Prayed.

He jerked his upper body a fraction to the left and let the arrow go. The movement was so small it could have been a hiccup or twitch that saved me. A flash of crimson, the arrow sliced the air over my head and shot past me. I heard a thwump and turned to look. It had plunged—just inches from my neck—into the soft old mortar between the stones, fully halfway up its shaft, as if it would have preferred to go all the way through.

I exhaled.

Rachel threw off the pine boughs that covered her and sat up, grimacing, a rock clenched in one hand. Sandra lay frozen in place, eyes locked on the arrow that still shuddered between the stones.

“Don’t, Rachel,” I whispered to her.

Dean turned his fierce gaze to Rachel, dark eyes burning. There was nothing he couldn’t do to us. She dropped the stone in the dirt.

“Jesus, talk to him, Wini,” Pia said.

“You found us,” I said and signed, for those moments unable to think of anything else.

But he had dropped his eyes. Wouldn’t look at me, at anyone. Shoulders slumped, he seemed defeated somehow, almost embarrassed. A complete change in affect, though we tensed when he laid down the bow and reached across his shoulders to lift the tube of arrows off his back. He dropped it on the damp ground near where we lay, then dug inside a slender leather bag tied around his waist.

He held out something brown and withered. Nobody moved. He squatted and placed it on the stones.

Finally meeting my eye, he signed to me, “Are you hungry?”

I got to my feet, watching him every second. “What is it?”

He signed, “Squirrel.” Then: “Dry.”

I gestured at all of us. “Is there enough for my friends?”

He nodded and withdrew more meat from the whip-sewn sack. I picked up a small piece and ate it, my mouth almost too dry to chew, hunger the farthest thing from my mind. It tasted like some gamy old meat that had been left out in the sun, or the horribly overcooked pork chops my father used to force down our throats every Sunday.

“Thank you,” I signed and said. “Delicious.”

Pia got to her feet and approached Dean. He shrank back a bit, maybe because of her size—she had a good five inches on him. She chose a piece of meat and, watching me, tore off a few shreds and ate it. “Thank you,” she said. “This is very good. We haven’t eaten since the last time you gave us food.”

Dean nodded. The tension in his face seemed to ease. He held out some meat to Rachel, who shook her head, then Sandra, who accepted his offering. She took a tentative bite, nodded, and thanked him.

He seemed fascinated with Sandra. He couldn’t stop staring at her. Like a man looks at a woman but more with wonder than lust. With feral grace, he jumped down into our warren of hoary stones and approached her. She leaned backward as he reached down and touched her hair. We all froze. Sandra struggled to swallow the meat.

“Pretty,” he signed.

I translated. We all breathed.

He made the sign for “eyes,” then “leaf.”

“Leaf eyes?” I signed.

“Eyes shape like leaf,” he signed. “Pretty girl.”

I translated the best I could.

“Sick fuck better stay away from her,” Rachel said.

Dean recoiled, took a step back. His face darkened, and he looked to me, questioning. I noticed the glint of a knife under his belt.

“Good one,” I said under my breath.

“But he’s—” Rachel started.

“He’s getting to know us,” Pia said, injecting her voice with syrupy calm.

I said, “Apologize to him, Rache.”

“I didn’t—”

“Do it.”

She cleared her throat, sniffed, adjusted her pitiful glasses on her face. “Sorry, Dean.”

He ignored her and glared at me. “Why don’t they sign?” His hands flew. “What is wrong with them?”

“They never learned,” I signed and said. “I know how because my brother signed.”

“Where is your brother?”

“He’s dead.”

“Who killed him?” Dean gestured at the women.

“No one. It was an accident.”

“What is ‘accident’?” he signed, making the sign for the word several times—a turning of the hand near the face, pinkie and thumb out—seemingly anxious to learn it.

I felt my wound opening. Sick at heart. “It’s like a mistake,” I said. “When a really bad thing happens, but it’s nobody’s fault.”

Dean looked down at the earth, then back at each of us. Our filthy, scratched, and bloodied faces. “All of you,” he signed. “Come with me.”





34


We had slept longer than I realized. It felt hours past noon. The worst of the day’s heat had come and gone, and the earth beneath us seemed to exhale, cooling our sweating bodies. For a good half mile we followed Dean, tramping through a pathless forest that possessed a logic known only to him. I began to panic that he was leading us back to Simone, but in my gut I didn’t quite buy my own theory. Pia and the others trudged along in silence, too frightened to say a word. Finally, we found ourselves in a small clearing.