Page 224 of Everything Under the Sun

“I hope you’re right,” he told me. “Though growing old has its downsides. Are you gonna feed me when I’m too old to lift a spoon? Clean me up when I’m too old control my bowels?”

“Of course,” I said without hesitation. “I’ll be with you until the very end. Don’t ever forget that.”

(I smiled slimly, with an ache in my heart. “I’ll never forget it,” I said.)

I took an hour to get a fire started. And we cooked the opossum on a tree-branch skewer and filled our stomachs with the most amazing meat we’d ever tasted—starvation made anything taste amazing.

Trick got his treat, and he took off in the darkness afterward. Atticus and I were disappointed the dog didn’t stay around to keep us company, and to help us find food, but it was what it was.

Close to nightfall, Atticus wasn’t talking much anymore, and he hadn’t moved from his spot on the ground in hours, and I had a dreadful feeling deep in the pit of my stomach but I tried not to show it, for Atticus’ sake.

Until I couldn’t help it anymore.

“Atticus, you need to stay awake.” I shook his shoulder gently, and his eyelids broke apart.

“I’m awake,” he insisted, but I wasn’t convinced.

Moments later, I had to shake his shoulder again.

“Don’t go to sleep; stay with me, Atticus.”

I heard the grumbling engine of a truck again, and seconds later I saw the white glow of headlights moving over the landscape.

I looked down at Atticus. Back at the truck. Down at Atticus again, my heart and my mind racing. Back at the truck again as it was getting farther away.

What do I do? God, tell me what to do…

The people, whoever they were, could be dangerous; they could be the same people who snuffed out the lives of those we grimly shared a meal around just hours earlier. They could even be someone from Lexington City looking for us. Or from Paducah. Or—

What do I do?!

Or, they could be Atticus’ only chance of survival.

I jumped to my feet and sprinted across the field toward the truck, out of breath within seconds; my legs felt like fifty-pound weights; my lungs and my heart might burst if I went any farther, but I refused to stop.

“WAIT!” I held up my arm high above my head. “PLEASE, WAIT!”

The sun was setting, but there was just enough light left to show me waving frantically in the distance.

“STOP!” My voice rippled sharply over the field.

The truck stopped, the brake lights glowing brighter for a moment.

I fell to my knees, and then fell on my chest; dried grass prickled my face as I lay pressed against it. “Please…wait…” I couldn’t yell anymore. “You…have to…help us.”

Moments later I heard the shuffling of boots moving over the grass. And men’s voices. But I couldn’t make out the words.

A man stood over me, with dark skin and dark eyes; he wore a tattered straw hat, and a curious smile.

“All right, I got you,” the man said, and I felt his gentle hands fit under my arms. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you. Ain’t nobody gonna hurt you, girl.”

67

ATTICUS

I felt a cold, tingling sensation move through my thigh, and something small and rough manipulating my muscles, strangely comfortable, yet it irritated the dull, burning ache that had settled in my leg. A mixture of licorice and menthol and something sweet, like vanilla, was as welcoming as it was unpleasant—it smelled nice, but it made me nauseous. The air felt exceedingly warm, but it wasn’t the heat from the sun; it felt different: stifling but not burning, and I couldn’t feel the sun’s rays beating down on my eyelids, forcing me to keep them closed. Instead, I opened them slowly, my vision blurred, and I saw that I was in a room, one made of heavy cloth instead of sturdy walls.

Above me the cloth ceiling sagged between the wooden beams that held the tent up; shadows moved against the cloth walls and settled in the corners where the lanterns that produced them sat perched on tiny wooden tables surrounded by vases and jewelry boxes and shiny metal baskets filled with cotton balls and rolls of gauze and other things I could not make out.

---