Chapter 3: High Water, Pt. 2

She was little. Safe. She sat in her mother’s lap, rocking gently like waves against a shore neither of them had ever seen. Johanna’s dark skin glowed, her eyes were unclouded, her hair was gathered in thick twists. No sickness yet. Just the slow rocking, just…

She heard wheels. Smelled horses.

Lily’s eyes flew open. Light stabbed into her skull like a needle.

If she was dead, then this was a spacious coffin. Pale light filtered through cracks in the wood-slat walls and canvas ceiling. Sloshing plastic water jugs and bundles of drying herbs hung overhead, swaying in time with the rocking wagon. She lay on a pallet under a rough blanket, and she was not alone.

Lily jolted upright, slumping against the wall with a groan and clutching her chest. Her ribs…

“Slowly,” the woman cautioned. She was small and plump, middle-aged, wearing layers of tattered clothing.

Lily tried to stay upright. “Where am I.”

“This is a trade caravan from New Columbia.” The woman smiled, displaying the whitest teeth Lily had ever seen. “We found you by the river.”

Had they? Lily remembered swirling water and shouting. A weight on her chest. Disjointed pictures.

She pulled out her shirt collar and glanced down at the impressive patchwork of bruises creeping out from beneath a cloth bandage. She didn’t remember getting medical attention, or changing her clothes, or getting into a wagon.

“My name is Malinda. Michael told me you were Lily?” She had an odd accent, broad and rolling. Lily wondered how she was going to pay for all of this, and worse, how a stranger knew her name.

She winced as the wagon lurched over a divot in the road. The chorus of pain swelled. “Sure. When can I leave?”

“We’ll stop soon. Go then if you want, but at least eat first.”

They’d tended her injuries, given her a lift, offered to feed her…all without mention of payment. That wasn’t normal, but she couldn’t risk raising suspicion. Not while she was unarmed and hurt.

“All right,” she said.

Malinda displayed her gleaming smile again and Lily curled her lips back from her own teeth in response. “I’ll send Michael to you now. He’s been worried.”

When she opened the door Lily caught a glimpse of two massive horses plodding in the traces of a second wagon before the door swung shut again. How had she gotten here? How could she have forgotten?

The grenade went off. Brown water swallowed her. The current tore 74 out of her hands—

No. She forced her fists to release. She breathed air, not water. It wasn’t closing over her head, rushing into her lungs—

No.

River bank. She’d woken up coughing, 74 leaning over her with blood on his face, breathing hard. Pain, in her chest and head…Lily’s eyes slid shut but still she saw the river, roaring straight through her.

Enough. This Michael was coming, and he knew her, and she didn’t have the strength to fight her way out.

The wagon shook. Someone rapped on the door, jerking it open without waiting for a response.

A small weight lifted from Lily’s shoulders as 74 ducked inside. He wore unfamiliar clothes that reeked of tobacco smoke and horse, and there was a jagged cut on his temple in the center of a round purple bruise.

“What happened,” she demanded.

“Your ribs are broken.” 74 avoided her eyes as he sat down on a crate across from her. “The current dragged you into a rock.”

Lily remembered shouting, pain, light. Nothing more. “Wait. Are you supposed to be Michael?”

74 nodded.

“I’m not calling you that,” she said. He couldn’t have a name, he was a Coalition thing. “What happened to not engaging unless they saw us?”

Had she imagined a small spasm of guilt? “Plans change.”

“Whatever. I don’t like anything about this.”

74 stared past her shoulder. “They’re taking us to Freeport. In exchange for the pistol.”

“You gave it to them?” Lily tried to get up, an idea that seemed wonderful until its execution. She folded over with a moan and 74 moved much too fast, reaching—

“Don’t!” He sat back down and she breathed again, cautiously. “Just go, leave me alone. Don't touch me.”

After a few heartbeats of silence, 74 got up. He walked to the door, but paused with his hand flat against it and turned back to her.

His face was smooth and calm. Nothing at all behind his eyes. How would anger shape that face, Lily wondered, trying to remember what he’d looked like by the river.

“It wasn’t your fight,” he said. “You could have gone.”

Being responsible for one more death through inaction, even if it was just his, might undo her entirely.

“We had a deal,” she said instead, clutching her ribcage. “To the river. Not that river.”

74’s mouth moved, tightening at the corners. Was it supposed to be a smile? He touched the cut on his forehead. “Warn me, next time.”

Another spike of pain lanced through Lily’s ribs. “There won’t be a next time.”

A brief flash of impatience or irritation crossed 74’s face. He opened the door without another word, stepping down off the moving wagon and vanishing from sight.

Lily was alone again.

—

By the time they stopped for the night Lily was ready to explode; the novelty of traveling without doing any of the work had already lost its charm.

She hauled her aching body off the pallet, watching from the open door as the caravan formed a slow circle. Each of the massive, shaggy horses drawing the wagons had the correct number of eyes and limbs. New Columbia had ten-generation clean stock, everyone said so.

Descending the stairs jutting from the back of the wagon without screaming took all of Lily’s willpower. 74 appeared right as her feet hit the ground, but he was just bringing her coat, and he didn’t stand too close as she put it on.

Shrugging into the coat was an agony. For a moment Lily thought 74 was going to help her, but he put his hands in his pockets instead.

The members of the caravan performed their tasks with the synchronicity of long practice, unhitching horses, gathering firewood, locking wagon wheels. All men. No children and no women, except Malinda. They all wore sidearms, except Malinda.

A bald, stocky man with a wiry black beard dropped his armful of firewood and strode toward them. Lily noticed 74 grip his knife, and took note.

The man saw it too. He grinned, exposing a vast expanse of tobacco-stained teeth. His tanned face was on a level with Lily’s and he looked her in the eyes as he spoke.

“You’re up,” he boomed, grasping her hand in both of his large rough paws. “I’m Jean, caravan leader. There’s anything you need, you come find me.”

His accent was broad and slow, the way she remembered from the troops on Omaha. He wore a pistol in his belt.

Lily pulled her hand out of his. “Thanks. We won’t be staying long.”

Jean’s smile stayed in full force.“Help yourself to food and fire tonight, at least. We’re all friends here.”

He marched off, shouting to the others in an unfamiliar language.

“So,” Lily murmured, trying not to move her lips as she fixed a smile to her face. “Was he that friendly before you gave him the gun?”

74 shrugged minutely.

They made a slow circuit of the camp, and he stuck close to her side. Too close. Like a sheepdog. She stopped by a pair of horses with quilted blankets thrown over their broad backs, laying her palm against a thick, shaggy neck.

“Why did they even want it,” Lily whispered.

74 looked around like everyone in the camp owed him money. “Firearms are valuable.”

“Yeah, but half the weapons on the continent come from New Columbia.” Lily gave the horse’s neck a final stroke. “Everyone here is armed. Except us.”

74 didn’t answer. Hopefully he was embarassed.

The wagons stood open as cargo was removed or shifted; all but one, chained shut and secured with a padlock the size of Lily’s fist. Curiosity stirred, an itch that couldn’t be scratched.

A grizzled man rose from the steps of that wagon as they passed, and rested one arm on a club hanging from his belt.

The itch became unbearable.