Page 19 of Everything Under the Sun

“Sit still and be quiet,” said the same gruff voice.

I looked up to see a man, tall as a tree, standing over us; he was middle-aged with graying dark hair, almost black. Deep lines were etched around his mouth, and crow’s feet split the corners of his dark eyes. His skin was deeply tanned, like a strip of beef jerky. I found him ugly and cruel and evil and wanted to look away, but the barrel of the gun pointed at my face kept my eyes fixed on him and the metal.

“Gonna ask you one question,” the man said. “Your answer will depend on whether you live or die.” He crouched in front of us—and was still quite tall—propped his muscled arms on his thighs and let his hands and the gun dangle between his legs. He wore camouflaged pants tucked into a pair of military boots; a black T-shirt covered his broad shoulders; a wicked smile pulled one corner of his mouth.

My eyes darted back and forth from him and the other men standing around him also wearing camouflaged pants and military boots. And the men carried guns. I had a few useless pocketknives, and not one of them was in reach.

This is the moment, I told myself, this is the moment you warned me about. They’re going to rape and kill us, Momma, and I can do nothing to stop it. I wished they’d just kill us and get it over with.

The leader cocked his head to one side, the slim smile always present on his face. “Are ya hungry?” he asked, and motioned somewhere behind him. “We have some meat we took off a man about a mile back.”

One of his men stepped up and handed him a bloodstained bag filled with something moist.

The leader set his gun on the ground behind him, and he worked apart the drawstring with his fingers. When he pulled his hand from the little bag, a thick piece of raw meat came out with it.

“You two look like you could use a good meal.” He pushed the bloody meat into my view. “It’s all yours if you want it. Do you want it?”

Sosie burst into tears. I held her tighter, but I could no longer be the strong one; tears shot from my eyes, too, the second I looked at the meat, the moment I imagined what it could be. I shook my head repeatedly.

“You don’t want it?” the leader said, cocked his head to the other side. “No strings attached; I just want to help. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

His words sounded sincere, but I didn’t trust him. And I hadn’t forgotten his earlier threat: “Your answer will depend on whether you live or die.”

“Come on, take it,” he urged.

I looked at him, then down at the meat, back up at him again; my eyes skirted the men standing behind him; they were whispering amongst themselves.

“What is it?” I finally said, my voice low, cautious.

“It’s meat,” the leader insisted. “Do you want it or not?”

I shook my head in a rapid motion.

“We don’t want it.”

“Why not?” The leader turned, and glanced up at the men from his crouched position as if to say: “So far, so good”.

“We can find our own food,” I insisted.

“Like what?” he quizzed, as though he didn’t believe me. “How do you hunt?” He looked behind us, took stock of my nearly empty backpack that probably told him we had little, if nothing, with which to survive on, much less hunt with.

“W-We can eat earthworms and lizards,” I tried to explain, but I knew he wasn’t buying it. “A-And I-I can fish—I know how to set lines and make hooks.”

The leader pursed his rough lips and nodded.

“Well, that’s a good start,” he said, “but for how long? I just don’t see two young women living out here in the wild all alone like this. No weapons. No shelter.” He pointed at my backpack. “That all you got?”

I didn’t answer.

“Last chance,” the leader said, still holding the meat in his palm. “Do you want it, or not?”

“No,” I said. “Not unless I know what it is.”

“I told you what it is.” He laughed under his breath, and so did his men.

“What kind of meat is it?” I was starving, and had been for days; I was so hungry that I thought maybe, just maybe they did only want to help—starvation could make a person think crazy things.

“Does it really matter?” he taunted me.

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