Page 66 of Everything Under the Sun

He peered inside the windows, and then after tethering the horse to the front porch he went inside alone. When he came back, his gun holstered, I followed him into the living room. He slid the backpack from his arms and dropped it on the floor.

“You should get some sleep,” he said, nodding toward the sofa littered with leaves that had blown in through the broken windows.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

He went over to the sofa and swept the leaves away.

“You need to try. I’ll keep watch.”

I moved across the small room toward him and sat down.

“But what about you?” I asked; my eyes skirted the bruises and swelling on his face, and then down at his hands covered in dirt and blood. His knuckles were swollen; cuts ran along them and the top of his fingers. But it was the way he walked that worried me the most, with one arm sometimes braced across his midsection; the way he limped; the way his face contorted with every step—I knew he held back the true measure of his pain, just like my father always used to do.

“I’ll sleep later,” he said, and then, with difficulty, he sat down on the hardwood floor next to the backpacks.

I sat down next to him, my legs crisscrossed, my hands in my lap. “I can rest sitting here,” I pointed out kindly. “When I’m tired, I’ll go to sleep.”

He glanced at me with disappointment, and then reached for the large backpack, loosening the clasps to open it.

“You should clean those wounds,” I added, looking down at the cuts on his hands. “They’ll get infected.” I had the instinctive urge to clean them myself, but I refrained. He helped me escape, and was still helping me now, but he was still the man who tore my sister away from me.

Ignoring me, Atticus looked through the bag at what all I’d packed, pulling items out one by one and placing them on the floor.

“Infection kills more men than men do,” I added. “History has proven that time and time again.”

He said nothing.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked a moment later. “You had a life back there; you were a free man; you had authority. Why waste it to help one girl?” I knew I had begged him to help me, but I wanted to know the deeper reasons he chose to do so.

He looked at me briefly, not long enough for me to decipher his cryptic expression, and then back down into the contents of the bag.

“To stay there and live like that any longer,” he said, “is what would’ve been a waste.”

I smiled lightly and then reached for the smaller bag. “I hope I packed well.” I watched his face for signs of approval or disapproval of the items.

“Actually, you did,” he admitted. “I think you made out with a better stockpile than I did—I’m impressed.”

I blushed, looking down into the contents of his bag to hide it.

A minute later he said, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

I knew he was talking about the brute.

“You did what you had to do,” I said. “I…well I’ve seen a lot of death.” A flash of my mother’s suicide invaded my thoughts; my father’s burnt corpse; Fernando and his mother shot to death on the path; Sosie hanging from the window by her neck; the mothers I saw bleed to death during childbirth—well, none of that even scratched the surface of the death I’d bore witness to.

I looked at Atticus and tried hard to smile. “Thank you for saving my life.”

ATTICUS

Feeling guilty about accepting her thanks, I pushed myself into a stand again, an arm shooting up to cross my midsection, my face knotted in pain, and I couldn’t look at her anymore. Maybe I saved her life, but the last thing I deserved was her gratitude.

I limped toward the large window nearby.

“Do you think that man was telling the truth?” Thais asked. “About Shreveport?” She paused. “I don’t know, but I think maybe he was.”

I stood at the window with my back to her, peering out at the desolate field. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t trust anyone—least of all men like him.” I turned to face her. “But I don’t see any other option.”

“So, then we’re going to Shreveport?”

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