“Uh-huh”—she reached out and smoothed the salve on my face—“God’s been looking out for you two, that’s for sure. But I’m gonna tell you, son, if you think you’re gonna make it to Shreveport, just you two by yourselves, you might just be taking advantage of God’s generosity.” She dabbed salve underneath my left eye.
I couldn’t decide whether to be angry or confused by Thais’ decision to tell these people about Shreveport. After all we had been through; after recently we’d argued about which of us had recklessly told the family on the farm of our destination. I wanted to clench my fists, but I could only clench one because of the broken fingers. And so that’s what I did—I clenched one damn fist.
I stared off at a shelf until Edith was finished doctoring my face. And then I asked calmly, “What do you know about Shreveport?” pretending to know nothing about our plans to go there. Just in case.
Edith twisted the lid on the jar and went to place it back on the shelf.
“Heard it’s a strong city,” she began. “A safe haven, where everybody’s welcome. I met a lot of folks heading to Shreveport, but never met anybody trying to leave it.”
“That could be a bad thing,” I offered. “Maybe people who go to Shreveport never leave it for a more sinister reason.”
Edith shrugged her bony shoulders.
“Maybe,” she said. “But God tells me it’s a good place.”
Oh great, she thinks she talks to God.
I looked away from her, holding back the urge to comment on her mental status, and asked instead, “So, is Shreveport where you’re heading?”
Edith shook her head, walked over to a chair in a corner and retrieved two crutches leaning against a shelf.
“Not permanently. We’re just travelers”—she brought the crutches over to me—“gypsies some say. Never going anywhere in particular.”
I sat upright on the table.
“We’ve been all over,” she went on, “from Illinois to Yellowstone and back over toward Iowa, then down through Missouri and Oklahoma and Arkansas. Was planning on going west soon. California. Only place I hear in my travels safer than Shreveport. There aren’t many safe places left. If we settle anywhere, it’ll probably be California.”
Bewildered by the information, I just stared at her for a moment, my eyebrows crumpled in my forehead.
“No offense, but how have you been able to travel that much and that far without…well, sounds like you’ve been taking advantage of God’s generosity.”
There it is! Edith’s smile!
She helped me down from the table, and positioned the crutches underneath my armpits.
“Two people traveling alone,” she said, helping me toward the exit, “isn’t safe.” She slid her hand between the two pieces of fabric that made up the door. “But we’re a lot more than two people.”
As I stepped outside the tent, my eyes widened with amazement, and I could feel the breeze hit my teeth when my lips parted. Blinking back the stun, I pushed myself forward on my crutches with Edith at my side, as the size of the camp filled my vision. Probably a hundred tents were sprawled out over the landscape under the sky of an approaching evening; the sun was still out, but it would be gone in less than an hour. There were flat-top tents like the one I had slept in, constructed of wood and heavy material, and there were teepees with their roofs pointing skyward, and vinyl tents in a variety of colors straight out of the boxes from some long-ago abandoned sporting goods store.
Horses. I could not remember the last time I had seen so many horses. Horses pulled carriages—real and makeshift—and horses grazed here and there, many untethered as if even they knew the people here were good and would never hurt them and would always take care of them; men and women on horses trotted past; some galloped in the field in the distance.
I stepped out farther from the entrance of the tent, letting my eyes take in the abundance of people and stock and livestock—chickens and pigs and goats ran around freely—and many styles of transportation, even a few working trucks, engines grumbling, exhaust pipes spitting black smoke.
Guns. Every man and woman seemed armed: shotguns and rifles slung over shoulders, barrels pointing skyward; handguns holstered on hips, and poked from the backs of blue jeans and jutted from the sides of boots. I thought the only other place I’d ever seen so many guns were on the soldiers in Lexington City. But here, everybody carried them.
I glanced at Edith on my side, and sure enough she, too, carried a gun, holstered from a belt and hidden behind her at the waist of her baby-blue skirt that extended to her ankles.
I looked back out at the camp.
Children. In the time I took to understand what I was seeing, six children in a group ran past me, laughing and shrieking as they chased one another. And I saw children to my left and to my right, walking alongside their mothers, standing outside their tents helping their fathers, playing in the grass with their brothers and sisters. Children were not rare—Lexington City had more than its fair share of them—but out there on The Road, in the open like this, not hidden and protected by tall, formidable buildings and walls, it was unheard of.
“God protects us,” Edith said. “And when it’s time for us to fight and die for Him, it won’t be because we’re taking advantage of His generosity, but because it’s our duty.” It seemed as though Edith knew, just by the awed and confused look on my face, every question in my head.
I looked over.
“You’ve never been attacked?”
“Sure we have,” she said. “Lost a few good people, but it’s never been something we couldn’t handle. God will never give us anything we can’t handle. Or anything we weren’t meant to face.” She positioned her hand at my back. “Come on and I’ll take you to see Thais.”
THAIS
When I saw Atticus walking up on his crutches with Edith at his side, my face broke into a smile and I dropped my fishing pole and sprinted across the grass with a small audience watching.
“Atticus!”
I ran into his arms, forgetting his injuries, and he dropped the crutches and wrapped his arms around me.
“Oh, I was so worried!”—I kissed his face everywhere, my hands cupped his cheeks—“Edith told me to have faith and just be patient—it was so hard to do! I thought you were going to die!” I kissed his face again, all over.
Atticus held me, pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Thought you said I was too stubborn to die?” He held my face in his big hands, gazed down into my eyes, my fingers were curled about his wrists.
“Apparently you are!” I laughed; my heart was bursting.
Then I took his hand. “Come and meet everybody,” I insisted.
Edith bent to pick up one crutch, and when Atticus noticed, he bent to pick up the other, positioned them both back underneath his arms. I looped one arm around his then, and I walked with him to the lake that sprawled out in front of us like glass, reflecting the sky and the trees that bordered it. Across the calm surface, on the other side of the lake, little campfires blazed in the darkness cast by the trees; people fished from the bank, and from a few small boats.
“Atticus, this is Ossie,” I introduced the tall, lanky Black man wearing the straw hat. “He’s who found us near the mass grave.”
Ossie nodded and reached out a hand.
ATTICUS