Sissy turns to him. “We can make it, Jacob. We stay together, we’ll survive.”
He kicks a small rock into the stream. “So we just follow the river.”
“Until we get to the Land of Milk and Honey.”
“And how long is the journey? A few days? Weeks? Months? A year?”
“I don’t know, Jacob.”
His face wobbles with emotion.
“What is it, Jacob?” Epap asks.
“Why don’t we head west?” He looks at all of us. “Where the Civilization is. We follow the train tracks. At least we know there’s a destination. Even if it takes us weeks, at least we know there’s light at the end of the tunnel. A place where we know has cows and chicken and food and supplies. And people. Civilization.”
“But it’s not where we should go,” I say. “It’s not the Land of Milk and Honey, Fruit and Sunshine.”
“Says who?” Jacob says. “That weird girl? Maybe she’s wrong. Maybe she’s lying. Why believe her?”
“And you want to instead believe the elders? Excuse me, but aren’t these the very elders who just tried to kill Sissy and me? Who just tied you up and were going to force you onto the train?”
Jacob’s cheeks burn red, but with embarrassment and not anger. I feel a stab of remorse for yelling at him. “I just want to make it to the Promised Land,” he says, staring down glumly at his feet. “Where the Scientist promised he’d lead us. That’s all.”
I speak, softer now. “And it lies east, Jacob. I’ll get you there. I promise.”
He looks up at me with wet eyes. He nods, a quick motion; but in that movement I sense he is handing something valuable and fragile over to me, entrusting me with it.
“Okay,” Sissy says. “Let’s keep moving. I want to make it to the log cabin before nightfall.” And then we’re running through the woods again, toward the rising sun, east.
* * *
It’s hard going. Within minutes, we slow our pace to a brisk walk, mindful of Ben’s short stride and tender age. He’s trying his best, his hair sweaty beneath his winter hat, his cheeks rosy with exertion. Gradually, the floor of the woods, cushioned with pine needles, gives way to barren land, until the last of the trees are behind us and our boots are smacking on the hard compact surface of mountain rock. The sun reflects off the unbroken miles of gently undulating granite, its glare as blinding as it is intense.
We take another break perched on the edge of a steep drop. The same cabled ladder we’d used to ascend days ago hangs down the face. It’s a heart-stopping, strength-debilitating descent, and Sissy wants to make sure we’re fully rested before climbing down. We sit on the hard surface, our legs splayed in front of us, leaning back on our bags. A brutal wind gusts across the domes, whistling between ravines.
Sissy digs into her backpack, takes out a pair of binoculars. From where we are, we have a near-panoramic view. She surveys the land sprawled beneath us, rumpled like a blanket. On our left, the thin silver thread of the Nede River glistens under the bright sun. Sissy points the binoculars east. If she’s hoping to see something on the horizon, anything that might hint of the Promised Land, she’s not saying.
“Can I get a look?” Epap asks.
Sissy ignores him, scans to her left.
“How much farther?” Ben asks.
Epap answers. “I’d say we’re halfway. So another four hours or so to reach the cabin. Hey Sissy, give me a go on those binoculars will you?”
But it’s as if she doesn’t hear him. She’s completely engrossed: her index finger maneuvers the focus wheel, rotating it back and forth in smaller and smaller gradations. Arched over the binoculars, frown lines deepen across her forehead. Her back suddenly stiffens.
“Is everything okay?” I say.
Her mouth falls open, wide as the two circular binocular lenses. She pulls the binoculars away, gazes out with naked eyes. There’s alarm, bewilderment in them.
She stands up. We all stand with her. I think perhaps she’s seen a group of elders coming down the mountain. But the binoculars were pointing away from the mountain, at the land far below us.
“No way,” she utters. The wind whips away her voice, shredding it into a frightened whisper.
Epap takes the binoculars from her hands. He doesn’t see anything at first. But then his eyebrows fling up his forehead like kites gusted into the sky. He jolts backward, almost dropping the binoculars.
“What is it?” David says. He’s gazing out in the same direction.
Epap shakes his head as if to clear it. “I don’t know … it can’t be.”
“What is it?”
“It’s just my mind playing tricks, it’s—”
“Boats,” Sissy says. “Floating down the river.”
I snatch the binoculars out of Epap’s hands. It takes a few seconds to locate the river, and even then all I see is the glisten of water. The river is a thin curling strip filled with bright, sun-reflected orbs, very disorienting, and I begin to think that perhaps Epap and Sissy are imagining things not there.
But then I see it.
A circular ship, in the shape of a dome, light gleaming dully off the metal chrome plates encasing it. It is spinning and bobbing in the fierce current, at the river’s mercy. Thin lines of rope dangle from around its circumference, like the legs of an insect. At the end of each line is a little balled shape. I zoom in.
These balled shapes are submerged horses, lifeless and flaccid, dragging in the river on ropes like hung criminals. Early on, these horses must have steered the boat during the daytime while the duskers sheltered inside the dome. Three horses on each bank, each tied to the boat, guiding it down the length of the river. When the river current picked up, the horses must have been forced to break into a canter, then a gallop; and finally, no longer able to keep apace, they collapsed and were dragged into the river.
“What is it?” I hear Ben’s voice, sounding a million miles away.
I move the binoculars up the river. There are more boats. All domed, all dragging drowned horses at the end of rope lines.
“Do you see a dusker?” Ben asks, his voice rising hysterically.
I maneuver the focus with a trembling finger. Yet more boats come into focus, a whole fleet of them stretching down the length of the river. The current is pushing them toward the mountain cave. Toward us. I lower the binoculars.
Ben is staring at me. “It is, isn’t it? It’s a party of hunters,” he says, his voice whittling the air.
I shake my head. “Not just a party. There’s a whole army of them.”
Sissy bends over, hands on knees, as if punched in the gut. “Remember when we were attacked on the river? With the grappling hooks? I said they were getting shrewder and stronger.” She shakes her head. “I had no idea.”
“How is this even possible?” Epap asks. “How did they build these boats so quickly?” He turns to me as if I should know.
“Maybe they … I don’t know,” I say.
“A fleet of so many boats … you don’t build them in a few days,” Epap says. “It takes months, years. You’re the one who lived with them. Didn’t you hear anything about the construction of a fleet of boats?”
“No, nothing.”
“Let’s focus on what we do know,” Sissy says. Her voice grapples for steadiness. “We know the duskers are a couple of hours from entering the cave. The waterfall will kill a fair number of them, I should think, but many will survive. And it’s dark in the cave; those that survive will hunker down in it until nightfall.”
“And then what?” Ben asks.
“And then they come for us,” David says. He looks so small, his thin arms trembling against his sides.
“No,” I say. “They won’t.”
They all turn to look at me.
“Look at this wind. It’s gusting west-east.”
“Meaning?” Ben asks.
“Meaning they’ll smell the Mission first. So long as we keep heading east, staying downwind. The Mission population numbers in the hundreds. We’re only six. The Mission is a volcanic eruption of odors while we’re barely a wisp. So long as we put quick distance between us and the Mission, so long as we stay downwind, we’ll be fine. We keep running. We keep surviving. To the Promised Land.”
“They’ll follow us.”
I shake my head. “They’ll be so gorged on human flesh at the Mission, so inundated with human odors swirling around them, they won’t smell the faint riff of us dozens of miles away.” I look at the river. Even without the binoculars I can now see the black specks that are the boats. “But we have to move. This is the make-or-break time when we have to make speed.”