Fire Country Read online

  I realize everyone’s standing ’cept me and Lara.

  She’s looking at me with an eyebrow raised and her head cocked to the side. It’s the type of look I tend to get when I been daydreaming. “What’d I miss?” I ask.

  “Circ’s team lost,” she says. “But I think the better question is: What did I miss?”

  I’m afraid to tell her, ’cause I know now that somehow, some way, she’s connected outside of the village. And that scares me more’n anything.

  Chapter Six

  “Please be careful,” I say. We’re in one of our favorite spots, what we call the Mouth, a pair of sand dunes so large that if you look at their profile from a distance they look like a giant pair of lips. They’re far enough away from the village that if we sit with our backs on one of the slopes, no one can see us until they’re practically right on top of us. Even then it’d be difficult, ’cause we always burrow a little hole to get a bit of shade. Our shoulders and knees are touching like they always do.

  “Don’t be such a worrier,” Circ says, dropping an arm around my shoulder. I lean into him, feeling a twinge of I-don’t-know-what hammering in my chest. He’s staring off into nothingness, and I take a moment to study his face. It’s a face I don’t need to study, ’cause I have every aspect of it memorized. From his sun-chapped lips to the slight cleft in his chin that you can only see from certain angles, to the way his nose casts a shadow in the shape of a ghost on his cheeks, I could draw his face while sleepwalking. I even know the exact depth of the two dimples that burrow so symmetrically in each cheek, regardless of whether he’s happy, sad, or something in between. When we were just Totters and first met, I asked him why he had holes in his cheeks. I remember his response as if it were yesterday: “Mama says they’re not holes, they’re star craters, and they’re magic.” Ever since that day I still believe there’s some magic in those dimples of his—perhaps they’re the source of his being so searin’ good at everything.

  “I’ll be watching,” I add, as if that’ll scare him into being more careful. Regardless, I’m glad the final Hunt of the season falls on a non-Learning day, so I’ll get to watch.

  I’ve watched a few Hunts ’fore, and to be honest, the thought of seeing the men shooting pointers and throwing spears into the broad side of a bunch of rampaging beasts curdles my stomach; but the thought of sitting at home worrying about whether Circ’ll make it back okay is even worse, so I’m going.

  “I’ll look for you,” Circ says, grinning. “I’ll kill my first tug of the day for you.”

  “How romantic,” I say, playing with my bracelet. It’s a leather strap, given to me by my parents when I became a Youngling. All Younglings get one. Fastened to it are seven charms, one for me and one for each member of my living family. For me there’s a tree, signifying my duty as a Bearer when I turn sixteen, to grow my family. My father’s represented by bull horns, for strength and providing for his family, although I think it also means he can be a bit bullheaded sometimes. Okay, a lot bullheaded and all the time. My mother’s got the sun goddess’s eye, the sun, to watch over me. My sister, Skye, is a flame, burning brightly as a beacon for me to follow. Kind of hard to follow her when I don’t know where she is or if she’s even alive. My father’s encouraged me to bury her charm now that she’s gone, but I just can’t. Not yet. Maybe never. For my Call-Mother, Sari, there’s a flower for her beauty. My Call-Siblings, Rafi and Fauna, are a footprint and a raindrop, for a road long travelled and new beginnings. I used to have four others, three for my other Call-Family, but when they died, we all buried our charms together, freeing their spirits to the gods. The fourth missing charm is for my other real sister, Jade. She died when she was only seven, taken by a rampaging summer fire. I never saw her body, ’cause the fire was so hot it took every last part of her. ’Cept her soul, which I know is dancing in the land of the gods. When she died, it was the only time I saw my father cry.

  I’m not sure how long I been playing with my charms, but when I look up, Circ’s holding back a laugh. “Did you just make a joke and then space out on me?” he says, smirking.

  “I dunno. Was it funny?” I ask. “The joke, I mean.”

  He laughs, grabs me under the arms, and lifts me to my feet. “I’ve got to get ready,” he says.

  “Me, too,” I say, punching him lightly on the arm.

  “Hey, watch it! I bruise easily,” he says, a twinkle in his eye.

  I narrow my eyes. “No you don’t.”

  “Oh, right. That’s you I was thinking of.” I reach out to punch him again, but he dances away, and my fist wags awkwardly in the air.

  “Oh no you don’t!” I scream, giving chase.

  It’s a full two miles to the village and I’m determined to catch him by then. The one thing I’m good at is running, unless of course something gets in the way of my two left feet, in which case I’ll probably end up with a mouth full of sand.

  He’s already at the top of the dune, his head slipping out of sight. I charge after him, stumbling once when I step in a hole, probably left by a burrow mouse, or some other digging critter, but regain my balance and make it to the top.

  He’s standing just over the crest, watching me. “Good luck,” he says, whooping once and racing off toward the village.

  I’m after him a split-second later, my legs full of the energy of a day off from Learning, a morning spent with Circ when I was meant to be replenishing our trough from the watering hole, and the anticipation of the afternoon Hunt. Circ’s fast—really, really fast—’specially over short distances, but things are much closer the farther we go. Plus, he loves taunting me, letting me get close and then cutting away, almost like he’s avoiding a defender on the feetball field. All the time he’s laughing, egging me on, trying to get under my skin. But his cries of “Come on, Sie, my grandmother could run faster than you and she’s been dead for fourteen years!” or “I think a sand slug just passed you, Sie, how embarrassing!” fall on deaf ears, as I grit my teeth and stay focused. Left foot, left foot. Left foot, left foot. Laughing at my own thoughts, I lose concentration for a moment and miss a rock that’s suddenly under my foot, breaking away beneath my tread, rolling my ankle to the outside.

  I cry out and go down, wishing the layer of sand were as thick as back at the dunes. Instead, it’s like falling on bare rock. My outstretched hands do little to break my fall and probably just make things worse, ’cause they crumple beneath me, roaring with pain. I skid a few feet, my exposed skin scraping against the desert with the force of a winter wind.

  I hear a yell from the side, from Circ, but I don’t respond, just lay there panting, internally cursing my silly sense of humor, my lack of coordination, and that burnin’ rock—who put that there anyway?—that all conspired together to trip me up. My shoulder’s coursing with heat and I see the hot red outline of blood seeping through my brown dress. The ankle I turned is throbbing and squeezing against my moccasins. And my wrists, well, they’re the worst—at least one of them is. My left hand is bent unnaturally, my wrist pulsating with a dizzying level of pain; it almost feels like the king of the tugs is stepping on it over and over again.

  “Sie!” Circ yells, right next to me now. “Are you…Oh blaze!”

  “I think it’s broken,” I say, trying to move my wrist. “Holy sun goddess, searin’, good for nothin’, piece of…” As agony wracks my arm, I let out one of the longest string of obscenities of my life.

  “Don’t move it,” Circ says, positioning his body behind mine so I can lean on him. “What hurts besides your wrist?”

  “Everything,” I moan, gasping as a wave of nausea-inducing pain shivers through my body.

  “We’re less than a mile from the village,” he says. “I’ll go get help.”

  He starts to get up, but I yell, “No! Don’t leave me here. Please.” I’m being a baby, I know, but the thought of lying in the middle of the desert—okay, not the middle, middle, but searin’ far out—alone, with vultures buzzing around me, wait
ing for me to die…

  Anyway, Circ gets this look of determination on his face where his eyes are like glass, reflecting the rays of the sun in splinters and shards, his jaw sticks out and gets all tight, and his lips push together. I’ve seen this look many times. It means: I’ll win, I cannot be defeated, I am stronger’n faster and more capable’n any other human on the face of the earth. It’s always kind of scared me and excited me at the same time.

  With a tenderness that surprises me, he scoops me up in his arms and takes off toward the village. I close my eyes ’cause the bump, bump, bump of each of Circ’s galloping strides sends eruptions through my wrist and arm. By tucking it against my side like a broken wing, I’m able to reduce the shockwaves rolling through it. I concentrate on my breathing, slow and deep, and that keeps my mind off of the pain for a while. The wind’s whipping through my hair, so I know Circ’s going fast, which, regardless of how little I weigh, is really amazing given he’s carrying me in his arms.

  Just when my focus on breathing wanes, and the agony of my shattered wrist comes back like a Killer drawn to the fresh scent of blood, Circ begins to slow.

  “What’s going on?” I hear a voice say. It’s his brother, Stix, three years younger’n us, a fresh Youngling.

  “Get the Medicine Man!” Circ manages to yell between ragged breaths.

  “But the Hunt…”

  “Just do it!”

  My stomach drops and a fresh wave of nausea rolls through me as he lowers me onto something soft. A bed. When I open my eyes I see Circ’s concerned face, his eyes wrinkled at the corners the same way they looked when I burned my hand in the fire when we were only six. Funny how his face has changed so much over the years, losing his baby fat and tiny teeth, but is still the same Circ I’ve always known.

  “Circ,” I say, just a whisper.

  “Don’t speak,” he says. “Help will be here soon.”

  “But the Hunt…” I say, echoing Stix’s words.

  “I don’t care about—”

  “They need you, Circ,” I say, clenching my jaw as needles stab me in the wrist. Taking a deep breath, I start over. “They need you for the Hunt. Thank you for everything. You’ve done all you can do for me—the Medicine Man’ll take care of the rest. Get ready for the Hunt and make me proud.”

  In a rare display of uncertainty, Circ stands up, sits back down, stands again, starts to walk away, and then turns back. “Are you sure?” he asks.

  “Sure as a searin’ Cotee is of tracking a six-day-old scent through a sandstorm,” I say, trying to prove to Circ that I’m okay.

  He looks at me like I’ve gone all wooloo on him, but ends up smiling in the end. “I’ll see you as soon as it’s over. Take care of yourself.”

  “Be safe,” I say.

  He grabs my hand—the good one—squeezes for a nice, warm moment, and then spins and is gone, disappearing behind the tent flap.

  ~~~

  As usual, there’s steam coming out of my father’s ears. I’d try to run away, but it’s kind of hard when the Medicine Man is wrapping your broken arm in something brown and tight. Sear my brittle-thin bones! There’s no way a simple fall like that woulda broken a normal person’s wrist.

  “Of all the mousebrained things to do…”

  “I’m sorry, Father. We were just knockin’ around,” I try to explain, cringing when MedMa jerks my arm.

  That gets Father’s attention and he stops stomping around, his face turning redder’n the noonday sky. Even the Medicine Man stops working on me and looks up. “Watch your mouth, Youngling. I don’t care what kind of slang the children use these days, but I will not have my daughter speak to me like that.”

  “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “I DON’T CARE!” my father screams, his face suddenly right next to mine. I flinch back, and MedMa does too, accidentally pulling my injured arm awkwardly again.

  “Ouch!” I yelp.

  His face is an inch from mine. His breath smells acrid and raunch, like it does when he’s been smoking the Pipe of Wisdom with the other Greynotes. He lowers his voice, deepens it too, and says, “Youngling, you are approaching your Call, the most important day of your life. You simply cannot be getting hurt, running around with some guy—”

  “It’s Circ, Father, not some random guy.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a three-headed Cotee with wings,” he says, “you will NOT spend time with him anymore.”

  My heart stops. Well, not really, but it feels like it does. In reality, I can feel it throbbing and pumping away, not only in my chest, but in my wrist and head, too. “You can’t do that,” I say, my voice just a whisper.

  “Yes. I can.” All I want to do is jump up, scream at him, flail my arms like a wooloo person, scratch with my nails, do anything—anything—to get my anger out.

  But I don’t do any of that for two reasons. First, my arm’s halfway in a sling so flailing’s out of the question. And secondly, I know all too well from experience that doing any of that won’t help. It’ll just grizz my father off even more and then there won’t be any chance of me seeing Circ again. Like he’d probably pull me out of Learning, or throw my bony behind in Confinement like he threatened before.

  So I just stare at him, seething inside, thinking, I hate you I hate you I hate you, over and over and over again.

  “I don’t want to keep you apart, Siena, but you leave me no choice,” he says, stopping my anger-filled thoughts. I gape at him. Siena? When’s the last time he called me by my name and not “Youngling” or some variation? It’s been years, I reckon. His eyes almost look like they used to, ’fore they became someone else’s, a tyrant’s. There’s a flicker of light in them for just a moment, and then it’s gone, maybe forever.

  “After the Call you won’t be able to be friends with him anyway. It’s just not proper.” His words sting, but not ’cause he’s saying them, but ’cause I know he’s right. The Bearers aren’t friends with the men, ’cept for their Call. But I can’t imagine not being friends with Circ, passing by him with a subtle nod, like we hardly know each other.

  “Is that clear, Youngling?” he says.

  “Clear as…”—Mud? Sandy water? Tug blood?—“…rain,” I say.

  Chapter Seven

  The good news: my wrist is fixed up in time for me to watch the Hunt. The bad news: it’s broken in two places and’ll take at least a full moon and a half to heal.

  There are at least a dozen Hunts taking place today, all around fire country, at the usual and rare spots, where the wildgrass and scrubgrass still flourish, growing in ankle-high clumps. The tug got no choice but to eat right where we expect them to. But that don’t mean taking them down’ll be easy.

  Although Heaters go out on a daily basis to scrounge up ’zard and pricklers and other small animals and plants good for eating, the Hunt is the most important event for our survival. It’s where the Hunters will—assuming everything goes well—bring home thousands of pounds of tug meat for the village, which’ll get us through the next few full moons.

  I’m walking out to one of the Hunts—the one Circ’ll be participating in—with a group of other Younglings. Well, not walking with them exactly, more like off to the side, but we’re all headed in the same direction. My arm’s wrapped up as tight as a pink new-faced baby, and strapped to my shoulder, too, using a tugskin sling. As usual, it’s hot, exceptionally so for this time of year, and I can feel beads of sweat rolling down my back already.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Hawk break off from a group of his friends and saunter toward me, but I keep my eyes forward, pretending not to notice. When he gets close, he says, “What happened to you, Scrawny? Did the wind blow a little too hard and snap your arm in half?”

  My heart starts beating faster, but I’m not in the mood to back down, so I ask him a question of my own. “How come you’re not in the Hunt today? Still haven’t managed to pass the skills test?” I muster as much confidence in my voice as I can, but it still sounds high-
pitched and weak to my ears.

  To my surprise, Hawk laughs. “Haven’t you heard? I just passed yesterday.”

  My eyes flash to his. He could be lying, but if he is, it doesn’t show on his face. “But then why…?”

  “Why ain’t I with the other Hunters? Don’t you know nothing? First Hunt I get to come in all special-like. They’ve got me set up on the bluffs with the rest of the spectators.”

  He’s right. Memories of Circ’s first Hunt flash through my mind: the other Hunters set up en masse in one area, Circ away from the main body; Circ running up, so much smaller’n them, like a mini-Hunter, the sharp end of his spear showering sparks of reflected light around him; his first kill, a decent-sized tug with long black horns. Typically Younglings don’t kill a tug their first time out. But Circ did.

  “Took you long enough,” I say. Then, staring straight ahead, I think to add, “Don’t get yourself killed.”

  “I’m not the one you should be worried about,” Hawk says, but ’fore I have a chance to reply, he veers away, back to his friends, who laugh and pound their fists into his.

  What’s that s’posed to mean? I’m left wondering. I worry ’bout any of the Hunters getting hurt, but the only one I’m ever really focused on is…

  Circ.

  “Hey, Sie,” Lara says, coming up behind me.

  “Sorry, Lara, I’m really not in the mood to talk ’bout—”

  “I heard about your wrist. I’m really sorry it happened.”

  “Uh, thanks. It hurts like a Killer’s jaws are sunk in it, but I’ll survive. I’m feeling alright after MedMa’s herbs.”

  “It’ll get well before the Call though, right?” she asks.