American War(36)

Even then, at such a young age, she understood that smile for what it was: a mask atop fear, a balm for the crippling insecurity of childhoods deeply damaged. They were fragile boys who wore it, and their fragility demanded menace. Sarat knew the boys better than they knew themselves. And she knew there was no winning this dare. That was the point—for there to be no winning, only different magnitudes of losing.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” she said.

Michael pulled a wrinkled Redback from his pocket. He held it up to Sarat. She inspected the gray pastoral of McCoy Auditorium—the place where Julia Templestowe spit in the Northerners’ eyes all those years ago—drawn on its back.

“She’s not really gonna do it, is she?” said one of the boys in the crowd. Another boy elbowed him and told him to shut up.

Sarat turned away from Michael and took a step down the embankment, easing down with her backside braced against the slope. She descended slowly, the dirt gradually becoming cooler against her feet as she neared the fetid pool. In all her years at Camp Patience, the smell of Emerald Creek had never bothered her, but as she came closer now there was a thickness to the stench she’d never known before; it overwhelmed the borders between the senses and soon she could almost taste the acrid sweetness on her tongue.

Her throat tightened and she felt the urge to gag, but fought it. Everywhere in the camp the bustle of daily life continued unhindered but here the children stood watching, silent and entranced.

Where the embankment met the creek, Sarat’s foot disappeared into the brown sludge. She felt the liquid stick to the short hairs of her shin, syrupy and warm. A sharp sigh broke out among the children behind her as her feet went through the surface. She heard a young girl say, Gross.

She realized then that she hadn’t agreed beforehand with Michael what stepping into the creek really meant. However deep she went, he’d argue she should have gone deeper.

Her feet found solid footing on a polished rock when she was knee-deep in the waste. It was shallower than she’d expected. Gently she eased her backside off the bank and stood upright. She turned to face the boy who’d dared her. Michael stood at the edge of the creek. He had the same smug smile plastered on his face but behind it she could see a tightly reined astonishment, a disbelief that she’d actually gone and done it.

Satisfied she’d met the terms of the wager, Sarat eased herself back against the embankment, this time facing forward, her hands braced against the dirt. As she pushed herself up, she heard a muted crack beneath the surface. The rock on which she stood came loose. Suddenly she was sinking.

In an instant the brown water swallowed her. Instinctively she closed her eyes and in the darkness felt the warmth of it in her hair and on her face. For a moment she believed she was drowning. A panic reflex unlike anything she’d ever felt before took hold of her muscles.

Before her eyes were open she was clawing at the bank, her nails scraping against the rocks and dirt. Like a cornered animal she thrashed wildly, the fear alive inside her.

She climbed back out of the creek, her arms and legs slick with brown muck. It was on her now, the stink. She could smell nothing else. She saw the children laughing at her, the boys most of all. Michael made a big show of it, keeling over, pretending he couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard. It was his way of showing he’d won; the smart-ass girl who’d shown all of them up with her little fishing line was now covered in shit.

Sarat climbed up on hands and knees until she was back on the flat ground.

“I did it,” she said. “Give me my money.”

Michael backed away as she approached. He tossed the bill in her direction. It landed in the dirt at Sarat’s feet.

“Jesus Christ,” Michael said, still laughing. “You stink.”

Sarat picked up the money. She walked past the children, who parted to let her through. A few of them hovered in her periphery as she walked back to her tent. Others, like forward scouts, ran ahead of her to tell their parents and siblings what had happened.

The filth stuck to her legs, drops of it trailing behind her in the dirt. She felt something in her hair, moving like tiny insects.

When she reached her tent she found that the news beat her there. Her mother stood outside, waiting.

“What did you do to yourself?” Martina said.

“Nothing,” Sarat replied. It was an instinctual reply—the word came out of her mouth before she knew she’d said it. And as soon as she’d said it her mother stepped forward and slapped her across the face.

“You think we don’t have enough problems?” she said. “You think it’s not enough that we’re stuck here in this hell, killers all around us? You think I don’t have enough to deal with, you gotta go make an embarrassment of your family, make them all laugh at us too?”

Sarat shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes. Most of the children who’d followed her home had left, and now the remaining few were also leaving. Whatever novelty there was to be had in the spectacle of her had suddenly dried up.

“You’re not coming in here covered in shit,” Martina said. “You did this to yourself, you go get yourself cleaned up. Nobody fixing your messes from here on in but you.”

“Fine,” Sarat said. “I didn’t ask you to fix anything.”

She turned and walked away. She walked east. Dusk settled over the camp. Some of the men who’d slept through the hot middle of the day were now emerging from their tents to sit on their box-crates and drink and play cards. Sarat walked past them and although the breeze carried her smell ahead of her, the men did not notice or seem to care.