Page 240 of Rage

The Traveling

By: Skylark Melody

The Traveling

You didn’t know him as a man, you knew him as a boy, before he got broken and crushed. You were both children then, his voice not yet taken by the baritone of adolescence, and your form not yet molded into curves. Neither of you had the crossness of maturity, not even in the times that came to be, when your young days of chasing butterflies by the creek and savoring sweet mulberries before they were picked off by the birds became hard and long.

Tired as the two of you were, him working in fields that were more dust than crops, and you caring for more mouths than could be fed, in starlight you’d meet by the creek that was no longer, reminiscing of the butterflies that had moved on. You held hands in youthful hope and gave each other smiles which creased the dirt hard labor had embedded on your faces.

Life was easier when there was a soul who made you forget the misery but never the butterflies.

Theyarrived one particularly hot and dry day. The winds had so thoroughly cracked the Plains that torrential rains would need to fall for months on end to heal the calloused earth. And rain had been in short supply.

There was never any warning, though there were stories. But the stories had unknown origins, and they were stories not warnings, changed and retold for the benefit of the teller. Perhaps they brought more coin that way, or a bite of sup— both hard to come by in these times.

There had been no crops to pick that day, no fields to tend to, and so he’d taken a small reprieve at the place where the butterflies used to be. He imagined the grass was still as high as your shoulders, and you’d run as fast as your little legs could manage until you’d reach the creek. He always caught you, hauled you up and back into the grass. But one day you decided to be a little more clever. You out ran him and were already at the water’s edge when he saw you. You squealed and in an act of childlike boldness, jumped on a rock visible in the shallow clear depths. You didn’t know how slippery moss could be, or how much it would hurt to slice your hand on the edge of stone.

He’d waded in with no hesitation, soaking his only pair of britches, been there to wash the pain away and kick the rock for being the cause of your tears.

Your ma had not been happy.

“I ain’t got no time for injuries!” She’d screamed, bandaging you up in old rags, telling you to stop daydreaming with the boy next door and warning you not to come home if he gave you a growing belly.

In another life, she could’ve been a gentle woman, your ma, but in this life, at least the rags were clean.

The sun was hurting his eyes but he was too preoccupied laughing at the memory, wishing the grass grew tall so he could find you again and again, when the earth gave a shudder. They had said there was no warning but years later after piecing together the fragments of his memory, he would know that moment heralded it..

On instinct he jumped to his feet. After all, the Plains didn’t give much time to think things over if a storm was coming through. But there was nothing. Nothing but the stories. And the instinct that had been bred into him saw to it that his legs made haste back to the farm.

He’d screamed into the sky, the thick air muffling the sound, keeping it away from its intended targets. He arrived breathless, sweat dripping from under his cap that had somehow survived the sprint.

You came out wiping flour, a commodity as rare as gold, on your apron. You’d planned on sneaking him a slice of sugar pie later on. After months, your ma’s voucher had finally been good for it and some eggs and milk. It was just cause to celebrate.

Someone had spared him a drink, and between gulps and pants and a growing audience, his eyes met yours.

“Go,” he told them, but he was speaking only to you.

The two of you often talked under the stars about what you’d do if the stories turned out to be true. You’d said it might be an excuse to get out of dodge. He’d said it didn’t matter what happened as long as you were beside him. Maybe then was the first time your girlish lips felt his still-boyish ones, you weren’t sure, because the world faded away and there were only the stars and him, and maybe even a few butterflies.

Some believed him and scattered immediately to collect their paltry provisions. Most were on foot, letting their toddlers ride in carts dragged by the men while the women shouldered the ones too small to walk. Others lucky enough to have kept a horse or two alive hitched up their wagons to ride West with the rest. There were stories about the West too, but they were more like fairytales written by those two foreign brothers, not mysterious nightmares.

Yet these nightmares came from somewhere. Someone must have dreamt them.

It was hard to breathe with the frenzy of panic kicking up more dust that swirled and carried the dry heat.

Your shaky hands worked frantically. Together with your ma, you secured the cargo and corralled and soothed your frightened siblings. All the while you kept one eye out for him. To your dismay, on your last trip back to the house for supplies, you saw him with your pa, helping him tack Old Rosie, instead of gathering for himself what little he possessed.

He had no family, for years he’d been a wanderer. Always considered tall for his age, he sported a good pair of hands, and a strong back. He slept where he could and took whatever job he could get.

That’s what caught your pa’s eye. He saw an able body with a sharp mind and an eagerness to earn his keep, but soon enough what caught you was his heart.

Your pa was a good man, but the years had aged him far quicker than was fair. He was bent by the stress of heavy labor and even heavier thoughts.

When the Earth shuddered again, they all felt it. Those who had made good time packing and leaving and were already on their way picked up their pace. But others showed that good people facing a crisis find the desperate evil within.

His hands found the shotgun your pa had packed. An old Remington with exactly three rounds to her name. Your heart beat wildly, thinking of what may come. You were lifted at the waist one handed and just as easily as he’d plucked the shotgun from her place, he tucked you in it.

Pa already held the reins and was having a time of it coaxing Old Rosie to move. Glass breaking jolted you and your siblings to duck down. In the corner of your eye you saw the shattered window of your old homestead and the man tumbling out of its frame while another climbed through, having no care for the shards that tore his hands.

---