American War(34)

Marcus clambered down the embankment to where Sarat stood. “We should go,” he said.

“Relax. Have some fruit.” Sarat picked two black peppervine pebbles and offered one to Marcus, who declined. She shrugged and popped both into her mouth. The skin was mushy and broke open with little resistance.

The children marched back inland. For a while they followed the broken, sand-covered remains of Highway 25. Not a mile to the north lay the severed bridge to the Blue country.

They walked west, toward the now abandoned tents that marked the northern end of the camp. From experience they knew which tents to avoid—the ones that, though unoccupied, contained the rebels’ illicit cargo ferried nightly across Sandy Creek.

Officially, these tents near the fence were assigned to refugees long since dead or relocated. And newly arrived refugees, when given assignments here, were quickly warned by more senior residents; inevitably they found some way to relocate further south, closer to the camp’s interior.

The children arrived at a tent near the border between the Mississippi and Alabama slices. It was indistinguishable from all others in the area but for a rectangular gash on the east-facing canvas, cut there by Sarat so as to let more sunlight in.

Using the Phillips head on his knife, Marcus had learned to turn the door’s metal bolt from the outside, and in this way the children believed they could keep the tent’s contents secret from prying eyes. He wrestled with the bolt’s screw head for a moment, and the bolt unlocked. The children stepped inside.

In the center of the tent, four cots were stationed on their sides in the shape of a rectangle, forming a makeshift pen. The inside of the pen was lined with charity blankets.

A yellow-and-black-shelled turtle shuffled glumly in one corner of the pen. It was a small, rotund animal, about six inches in length. The yellow markings on its back were split with black lines in patterns that resembled the fractal aesthetics of butterfly wings. It moved on ancient, leathery feet, at the ends of which grew sharp pointed claws that tore softly into the blanket.

The animal watched the children approach with a muted consternation. Gently it retreated into its shell.

“Is he ever going to like us?” Marcus asked.

“She’s a girl,” Sarat said.

“How do you know she’s a girl?”

“I found her, so she’s a girl.”

“Is she ever going to like us, then?”

“She’s gonna like us when she sees all the food we got her,” Sarat replied.

“Maybe we should just take her back to the creek,” Marcus said, but Sarat brushed him off. She reached into her sack and began laying out the leaves and berries in small mounds on the far end of the pen from where the turtle had backed itself into a corner. Reluctantly, Marcus followed, setting the mushroom heads on the blanket.

“Not like that,” Sarat said. “They’re bigger than she is. Break them first.”

The children lay the food in the pen and then backed away a few feet. Eventually the turtle reemerged from its shell. It observed the spread on the other side of the pen, but did not move.

“Maybe she’s lonely,” Marcus said.

“Can’t do anything about that,” Sarat replied. “When’s the last time you saw another turtle anywhere around here? Or a lizard, or crickets even.”

“Well she must have come from somewhere. She was born, so she must have had parents, maybe brothers and sisters too.”

“Just because she had them doesn’t mean they’re still there.”

The children waited a while longer but the turtle refused to move. Soon Sarat could no longer stand the sight of nothing happening.

She marched to the far side of the pen. As she approached, the turtle once more ducked into its shell. Sarat picked the animal up and carried it to the other end of the pen and set it next to the food. Then she stepped back.

The turtle reemerged. It observed the children again with its orange-backed eyes, and then turned and shuffled away.

“Dammit,” Sarat said.

“Maybe we should try my idea,” Marcus offered.

“I’m telling you, it won’t work,” Sarat replied. “That rat is almost as big as she is. She’s just gonna get more scared.”

“What have we got to lose by trying?”

Sarat acquiesced, and quickly Marcus left and sprinted to his own tent further south. In a few minutes he returned with a galvanized steel bucket. He held the bucket over the pen and tilted it. A small brown field mouse skittered down the side.

All four of the tent’s occupants stood frozen, eying one another. Then the mouse scurried to the pen’s bountiful corner and began eating the berries.

“Well, least she won’t be lonely anymore,” Sarat said.

The children left the tent. They parted in southern Alabama; Marcus returned home. Sarat said she’d come by later in the evening so they could check again on the welfare of their pets.

“You know we’re not supposed to go up near the fence at night,” Marcus said.

“We’re not supposed to go up near the fence in the day, either,” Sarat replied. “You scared?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no problem.”

Sarat said goodbye and left. She walked south through the western part of Alabama and then into Mississippi. Before she reached home, a couple of boys cut across her path, high with excitement.