purple berries

I found the two of them not far out on the moor, apart from the others, right when lieutenant ordered the grove set on fire. Made me sick — these poor souls had done nothing, they knew nothing, they put up no resistance when we fell on them, and none of them understood an [expletive] word any of us said to them, so interrogating them was useless. I believe that's what pushed lieutenant over the edge, made him say just get rid of them all; it made some sense, I guess, because what were we going to do, drag and drive all twenty of them two days and more back through all that quag and broken land to their scrawny little hometown, just so some translator could tell us they had no idea what we were demanding of them? Or where the 'terrorist' that was supposed to be with them had gone? Only he wasn't with them — we knew what he looked like, which was nothing like any of them. Bastard probably lit out from a whole nother side of town and was halfway to the moon by now.

But there those two were, hiding in a gully no more than fifty paces out on the moor, an old woman and a girl nine or ten; the little one had diarrhea, and the old one was trying to help her, however she thought that was supposed to work. At least the girl wasn't vomiting, or the noise would've brought somebody else, one of the nasty proper [expletives] who like chopping people up, not an ordinary human fool like me. Didn't know why in that moment, but instead of ratting them out I made a big show of scanning the horizon and checking every bush, at the same time signaling the old one to stay put and make no sound. By the time I got back to the grove, the rest of her group had been butchered and the whole [expletive] place was going up, and I had to make a long run around it to catch up with the platoon, which was moving out double-time — no doubt the idea was to get as far from here as we could before nightfall. Something slipped out of my pack as I jogged over the clumps, but I couldn't see what it was, and after a quick look I just kept going.

But as I ran, a voice inside kept telling me to [expletive] the platoon, [expletive] the lieutenant, let them all go, let them get away from me, let me get away from them — I hated lieutenant, I hated both sergeants, but most I hated the rest of the stupid jerks who just did whatever they were told, no matter how gruesome or perverted. No; no: the very worst of all I hated myself for going along with the rest of them, the sick sadistic [expletives].

I kept falling further back, until somebody must have noticed I wasn't with them, and they stopped. So I stopped too, breathing heavy and holding my side like I had a stitch. I waved at them to go on, but [expletive] lieutenant sent some poor juvenile [expletive] back towards me. By that time I had my pack off and was rummaging in it, and found out my mess kit was what fell out. But I also snuck my weapon off and hid it under the pack before the kid was close enough to see me do it, and I yelled at him to go ahead without me, I'd catch up. He just stood there like the dumb [expletive] he was, like he couldn't comprehend what I was saying, so I told him I'd lost my weapon and had to go back and look for it. I was raised in woods like this, I told him, I'll be able to track you, tell sergeant I'll be fine and see you all tomorrow if it gets too dark today.

He jogs back to the sergeant, who blows up in his face, and then starts towards me himself, still yelling, but I pretend I don't understand him and keep motioning they should go on without me. In a moment, lieutenant calls the sergeant back, and they jaw for a bit, while I keep looking around on the ground as if searching real hard. Then the poor grunt's headed back towards me again and the platoon's moving out the other way, so I run up to the poor sod, curse him good, make him understand I'm not gonna have a silly punk [expletive] like him trying to 'help me' and getting us both killed or at least hurt, and in the end I just threatened to pound the [expletive] out of him if he didn't get the [expletive] away from me and let me go find my weapon before it was the middle of the night. He looked like he might argue, but I could see he was scared of losing the group, so I told him not to worry, blame it on me, he didn't have to get [expletived] just because I couldn't keep track of my [expletive] weapon. He said he'd murder me if he got in trouble for this, but he was already turning away and I said as kindly as I could that that sounded good to me. As soon as all of them were out of sight I put my pack back on, grabbed up my weapon from where I'd hid it, and headed back to the fire.

It was really getting dark, but I'd be [expletived] if I wasn't going to find that old woman and the little girl. I stopped for a good long time to hear if anyone was following, but it looked like I was going to get away with this, so I hiked around the fire again and went back to the gully, and there they still were, the little girl all twisted up in agony. She'd die from it if I didn't help, and then the other one would catch it and she'd die too. But I had some medicine in my pack, even if I'd lost my rations.

When I came up on them, the old one had a good-looking stick ready for me, and I'm not sure I would have prevailed if she came at me with it. But I put down my weapon and took off my pack and held both hands up, and then I tried some sign language to tell her I had medicine, which she seemed to understand, so I got it out of my pack and and gave her a bit, some for the girl and some for her, and signaled she should take it with water from my flask. She signed back I should take some first, which I realized was a good idea, so I did, and then she gave the same amount to the girl and took the rest herself. The girl was an awful mess, so I pulled my other undershirt out of my pack and between us we got her mostly cleaned up with it. Then I took it back to the fire and threw the filthy [expletive] in.

While the medicine took effect, the old one sort of hunkered there petting the girl, and I stayed at the top of the bank to make sure no one was coming back after me. The fire was getting really hot now, and some of the heath was starting to catch, so we'd have to move out right smart or get cooked in the gully. But then I noticed tracks leading out onto the moor and went over to see where they went. I couldn't really tell how old they were, but they didn't look quite fresh, though they could have been today's, and they were headed towards the mountains, which were too dark to see now but I remembered looking at them across the moor when we first got to the grove.

I was in truth brought up near woods and waste like this, and I do know how to stay alive out here, but I never let lieutenant nor anyone else know that, because then I'd've gotten to be useful to them, and that just makes trouble for a person. Besides, what the [expletive] did I care what any one of those [expletive] [expletives] thought of me?

In a moment the old one came up out of the gully with the girl in her arms, staggering a little, so I strapped on my weapon and took the girl fom her, while the old one went and got my pack and came back with it on her shoulders, and we started off. I tried to follow the tracks, but once we got away from the fire it was just too dark, so I set a course best I could by dead reckoning, hoping the tracks didn't change direction too much once they got out on the moor.

After about an hour I could tell the old one was fit to drop, so I halted us and scouted around in the heath until I found a fair spot with an overhang under a crag that was sheltered from the wind, and also invisible from the direction of the fire. I got the two of them settled, then climbed up the side of the crag so I could see what was what back the way we came.

It was a breezy night with no moon, but the clear sky was magnificent. The River of Stars, as a kind of sick joke, came right up out of the fire on the horizon, which by now was blazing high. I watched it for a long time, for I was sure that if anyone came in our direction, I'd be able to see their silhouette against the flames. After a good long look, I went back down and found them both asleep, the old one sitting with her back against the crag, the little one curled against her with her arms folded up, the old one's arms around her. I unrolled my blanket and spread it over them; the old one opened her eyes and I signed that I would be up above. She nodded, but almost as soon as her eyes went shut her mouth fell open and she started to snore.

On top of the crag again, I finally took a deep breath and began to face up to what I'd just done. I don't need to go into what they'd do to me if, unlikely as it seemed at the moment, lieutenant changed his mind and sent a detail back to find out what happened to me. He was a creep and mean, sure enough, but he wasn't a smart soldier, so I judged he wouldn't really get worried about me till morning and I hadn't showed up, and then he'd likely figure I wasn't worth the trouble, which would be true. But even if he thought it all the way through, and realized it would be better all around if he made sure I wouldn't make any trouble for him, we still were probably safe for a day or so, and by that time I hoped to have things fixed so nobody'd find us, ever.

I'd been with that debased [expletive] long enough to observe how he did things: what was most important to him was looking good, or at least not be reckoned responsible if something went wrong, and this whole mission was tailor-made to [expletive] his career in a maximum kind of way. If he went to the captain and reported what had actually happened, and on top of that we didn't capture the [expletive] 'terrorist' the captain had sent us after, not only would lieutenant be busted down to no rank at all, he'd be sweating out the rest of his tour in a cell with two cots and three amorous giants.

I didn't know how he'd do it, but I did know that by the time he got back to base in the town, lieutenant would have a terrific story: not only would he take credit for catching the bugger everybody was looking for, but he also would have faked up some kind of evidence that the bugger was dead and in a way he richly deserved and nobody'd have to worry about him ever again. The two sergeants would of course back up this tall tale, because they were just as evil and lazy as he was, only not so smart. And they'd all get promotions, maybe medals, plus the thanks of a grateful nation.

I just wished there was something more I could do to help make sure that that was exactly how it worked out, because then we'd all be safe, bugger included, and by this time all I wanted in this life was to get out of range of people like lieutenant and his goons and the so-called people they answered to. If I could bring a couple souls away with me, so much the better.

And that's why I just about had a stroke when I saw a silhouette come between me and that fire. I watched for the longest time, not even breathing, until I realized the silhouette was getting shorter, not taller, as it would have done if whoever it was was coming our way. And there was only one of them, which wasn't like lieutenant at all — he'd have sent at least four. Of course, they could be spread out, and only one of them between the fire and me. But there was no mistaking it: there was a man, walking back and forth in front of that burning stand of trees, but generally moving in its direction, not towards us.

Then I realized who it had to be: the bugger everybody was looking for.

So I decided we should wait, see what that shadow did. My native lack of optimism told me not to trust this hopeful interpretation — that it was the bugger and not one of lieutenant's enforcers out there — it just felt too much like good luck, and everybody knows how stupid it is to believe anything good'll come out of anything, until after it already has and you got two witnesses to certify it. And even then they could be wrong or lying.

After a while, the shadow got too small to pick out from the flicker— for all I could tell, the crazy bugger had walked right into the [expletive] fire. I decided to stop wondering what he was doing, since I wasn't ever going back to that place to find out, but I'd keep as close a watch as I could, and if he returned this way, on the morrow maybe, we'd keep well hid until he was past, then follow him, in case he knew some place to go.

My daddy and my uncle were soldiers too, and they told me that when you're on a watch like I was, and you know it could go on a good while, it's best not to start thinking about things, because you get absorbed in that, and next thing you know you've gone to sleep or the thing you started out watching for is right on top of you and you're just about to be dead or wishing you were. So they taught me that what you do is you make up a little song, as you're watching, about what you're looking at, every moment — don't work at it, only tell it: what you see, what you hear, what you smell and touch and feel — and only that. Not what any of it means, nor what you hope will happen, nor what you're afraid will happen, just what IS happening, moment by moment, only what's THERE. You don't need to sing it out loud, but you do need to move your mouth around the words, and it needs to be a song, not a saying, because it's the song part that keeps you from drifting off into some [expletive] dream about how things might be or ought to be or could be if only but aren't just yet.

So I worked on my little ongoing ditty and the wind died down and seven kinds of bugs came out to sing backup for me and the fire leveled out on top and then the moon rose out of it, smoky gold at first and huge but then whitening until it cleared the flames and sailed up the sky, the top left side of its face sort of flattened a little as if from a blow. And now the black moor resolved into shapes where the ground rose and fell, like the bottom of a lake when the water's drained out, and the wind came up again as the moon climbed higher, and stirred the lakebed of light as if stroking its fur, and the River of Stars retired for the night now its relief had showed up, and the bugs' song changed in response to a more silvery key.

And my heart began to stir and I knew I'd done the right thing; but it was them that saved me, those two girls clinging to each other down below, and I could never leave them now.

Just then a nightbird shrieked off to my left as if to poke me back awake, and I pulled it into my song, and thanked it for keeping me on my mission, which was to make sure that neither that crazy bugger out there nor no one else brought any more harm to my new friends. Nor to me, of course.

It started to rain just before dawn, and once it was light the old one climbed up, bringing my blanket, for which I was grateful, then she went back down. Somehow from the gibberish she spoke to me I understood that the girl was better and they were safe from the wet, and she seemed to understand from the gibberish I said back to her that I needed to stay here a bit longer but wasn't going to run off and leave them alone in the wilderness. She also brought me a handful of purple berries that she said were real tasty and filled you up and they were and they did.

The rain put the fire out way over there and then nothing happened for a long time, and I judge I must have fallen asleep for a while, but then I saw someone moving around that smoking campsite and again my heart started thundering because this would be just about the time lieutenant's thugs might show up if they really were coming back for me. But I only saw the one person, moving here and there around the perimeter of what had burned, disappearing into what was left of the woods now and then, but coming out again a little distance away, like he was inspecting a battlefield, though you could hardly call what happened there a battle — those poor folks put up no fight at all, it was just a massacre.

The old one came up again, and I knew it was time for a pow-wow. I was pretty sure that person out there wouldn't try to travel in the rain, and I'd got to thinking I could stand to dry out a little myself, so I went back down with her and found the girl awake but looking real washed out, and since we weren't going anywhere either just at the moment, I built a fire in our little shelter — I was sure the smoke wouldn't show in all this rain — and we all sat around it and got our fronts at least warm. The old one and I went back and forth speaking our customary nonsense, and the girl clung to her and stared at me but after a while she fell back asleep and pretty soon I was dozing myself.

Not much happened after that. The rain stopped and I went back up to my 'watchtower', but nothing was moving in any direction, so I came back down and told the old one and the girl I was going to try to find us a bit to eat. The old one pointed towards something on the heath — as best I could tell there was a particular bush out there she wanted me to look at. When I got to it, I saw what she meant: it was a butcherbird's larder, with a field mouse and a little toad stuck on thorns about chest high. I plucked them off, exciting their owner, who screamed at me something awful, and took them back under the crag, where the old one stabbed them onto the end of a forked stick and held them over the fire. Then she shooed me out to go find some more, just like she was my mother, which I kind of liked, and it made me smile, and her too.

I picked more of those purple berries and then a grasshopper jumped right into my hand, which made the old one laugh out loud when I showed her how I caught it. My reward was that I got to eat it for breakfast, while she fed the bird to the girl and took the toad herself, peeling off the skin with my knife first, of course. Not much of a feast, but it was meat, and the berries made a very fine second course. Then the girl wanted me to do the grasshopper story again, so I did, and then we all had a good laugh. I haven't laughed like that since they took me in the army, and that was years ago.

Well, I'm not in the army any more, whatever else happens.

I got to thinking again about that person back at the campsite, and went up the crag to have another look. I watched for a long time and thought I saw something move there once or twice, but couldn't be sure.

Question now was what to do, stay or go? I had a feeling, if that really was the man the captain wanted us to find, he might prove an ally, and we'd all have a better chance of surviving, with him and me together able to hunt. Then again, he just might be the terrorist everybody thought he was and would kill us all in our sleep, girls too, girls especially.

Speaking of the girls, did he know them? Was he running with them, like the captain was sure he was? If so, where the [expletive] was he when we came screaming out of the woods and started slaughtering his friends left and right? Out on the moor relieving himself? or running away, until he saw the fire? What was this guy's story?

Then I saw him for sure, bending over and straightening up out away from the burning, looked like he was retching onto the ground. Well, if it was the [expletive] I'm thinking he was, and he had been running with those people, I could see why he was spewing his insides out now. Not much of a terrorist, though, if so.

Of course I knew none of the stuff I was coming up with now. Only way to find out the case was to get the old one up here for a look, if the [expletive] would still be out there by the time I fetched her back. If she could see that far. But I had to try, because if she recognized him, her reaction would tell me what to do next. We did have to get out of here; question was, with him or without him?

No resolution: I brought her back up, then couldn't get her to understand what I wanted her to see, and the guy had disappeared again, so after a time we just gave up.

Can't wait around here any longer. I just can't believe my luck, not getting caught so far. I know that isn't how luck works — the way luck works is any [expletive] way it feels like, and maybe we could just sit here the rest of our lives eating bugs and toads and no one would bother us ever again. But I've been thinking that even if the story lieutenant trumped up was convincing enough to make the Ancients weep, captain won't settle for No Corpse. So sooner or later Someone will be Back. And we need to be Not Here when That Happens.

If that [expletive] terrorist has any sense he'll figure that out for himself. Good: maybe we'll run into him out there...