One of the ATV trailers had six chickens and one rooster in a group of small boxes, and the other ATV trailer had two piglets in a dog kennel box. They went from making little grunting sounds to squealing in fright as the four-wheeler started moving. The only ones who didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the journey were the dogs. They ran alongside the walking animals, keeping them in line, totally focused on their work - unwavering and never distracted.
I wished I could be so singularly-minded. The entire time we walked along, I was jerking my head left and right, waiting for canners to appear out in the distant trees. I worried about how we’d fend them off out here in the open. I thought about the carrier pigeons and the special code we needed to learn so we could send and understand messages. I thought about my boyfriend and the man in front of me whose warm skin beneath my hand felt so inviting. I suffered under the heavy strain of guilt and fear, wondering how I was going to make it to age eighteen without dying of a gunshot wound, a stabbing, or even just a plain old run-of-the-mill broken heart.
***
About three hours into our trip, the swamp buggy stopped. One of the riders spurred his horse on to ride up to the driver’s side of the vehicle, exchanging words with him. We couldn’t hear anything they said; they were too far away.
“What’s going on?” I asked, leaning to the side so I could see around Paci better. Nothing seemed amiss to me. The path ahead was clear for a long way. There were some dense trees up ahead, but that was it.
“Don’t know.” Paci shifted in the saddle, making the leather creak.
Winky and Bodo turned around and came back to be next to us. “What are they doing?” asked Winky.
“I have no idea,” I said.
I shifted to get down, but Paci put his hand back, catching me on my side and keeping me in my spot behind him.
“Just stay. If we have to get out of here in a hurry, I don’t want you on the ground.”
My blood chilled at the idea of racing off on this horse while all those other kids stayed on the ground. Easy targets. Not to mention how sore my crotch would be from the abuse of this horse’s hard butt muscles.
The kid who had run up to talk to the driver came cantering back to us.
“Trouble ahead, maybe. Caught ‘em in the binocs. Four at least.”
“Where are they?” I asked. I searched the far-off trees, seeing nothing.
“Dead ahead. We have to pass through that grove to use the shortest route to the prison. We can’t risk going anywhere near the highway.”
“Bring me to the buggy, Paci, please.” I wanted to see for myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the people on watch; I just wanted to figure out what kind of threat these strangers might pose. Maybe they wouldn’t be dangerous at all.
The horse surged forward under Paci’s commands, and we trotted to the buggy. My teeth chattered in my head the entire way, and I was glad when it was over. I much preferred a walking horse to one in a hurry.
Rob leaned way out of the driver’s seat. “Yo, what’s up?”
“Can I borrow the glasses?” I asked.
He handed me the binoculars after taking them from his buggy passenger. I couldn’t see inside to know who it was. “Here you go. Check out that bunch of trees right there,” he said, pointing to a section of the landscape that was particularly dense.
I put the lenses up to my eyes, and Paci turned the horse sideways. Once the beast calmed down and stood still I was able to focus on what I was looking at.
At first I saw nothing. Then I noticed a girl standing on the edge of the woods. She was wearing a bright red shirt and hard to miss now that I had better eyesight. I scanned the area around her, and about fifty yards to the left, I noticed something weird in the trees.
“What the hell?” I said under my breath.
“What?” asked Rob. “What is it?”
“Did you see that … treehouse or whatever that is?”
“Treehouse? No. Let me see.” Rob held out his hand for the binoculars. Before he could put them up to his eyes they were yanked away.
Rob looked at me and rolled his eyes. Then Trip’s voice came from inside the passenger area.
“It’s a treehouse. She’s right.”
“So what’s that mean?” asked Paci.
“It means this is someone’s home, so we just need go tell them that we’re passing through and we don’t mean them any harm, that’s all. No big deal.” I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince them or myself of that fact, but either way, my brain wasn’t paying any attention to my calming words. My heart was beating like crazy and my headache got a lot worse all of a sudden.
“Who’s going?” asked Bodo.
It got silent.
“I’ll go,” I said.
“No, I’ll go,” came Trip’s voice. “Anyone got a white shirt?”
I looked around, not sure why he suddenly wanted to be dressed. He seemed to be very attached to walking around half naked.
Everyone had on patterned shirts, and mine hadn’t been white in almost a year. No one responded.
“I just need to wave a peace sign around, I’m not going to wear it. Come on, someone has to have something white.” The passenger door to the buggy opened and slammed closed. Trip came around the front of the vehicle and stood next to the head of Paci’s horse.
“Here, take my sling,” I said, pulling it up over my head. I unwound it from the bottom of my elbow, trying not to jerk my arm around too much.
He reached up and took it from me. “Thanks.” He met my eyes for a second, and I reached out and tapped him on the shoulder with my toe in a gentle kick. “Please be careful. Peter would never forgive me if something happened to you, and he can be a serious pain in the butt when he’s not happy.”
Trip gave me a very charming half smile before going all serious again and turning around. “Okay, I’m going. If they do anything aggressive go into defensive mode. No one come in after me. We have no idea how many people they have hidden in there.” He mumbled under his breath. “Could be a whole damn army.”
“We aren’t going to just leave you,” said Rob, sounding pissed. “We’ll come back at night and get you out if they take you. Count on that, man. Count on it.”
“Do what you think is best. I won’t blame you if you choose not to.” Trip walked away, holding the sling up high above him and waving it around.
We all watched as he got farther and farther away, his form shrinking in the distance. We traded the binoculars around, each of us on horseback taking turns watching the reaction of the treehouse kids. Only the girl with the red shirt showed herself, and she did nothing but stand there. The other three Trip had seen were staying undercover.
The animals in our convoy stomped their feet every once in a while making their harnesses jingle, and the sheep let out a few bleats now and again, but those were the only sounds we heard. I kept waiting for a gunshot to take our friend down, my heart nearly exploding with the stress of it. Please keep him safe, please keep him safe!
Aside from the obvious grief I’d feel if Trip got hurt, I didn’t even want to consider how poor Peter would suffer. Thoughts of my sensitive friend who’d already been through too much pain made me want to wrap Trip up in a giant bulletproof body cocoon and roll him all the way to Haven on a damn dolly. This was a stupid idea. Why did I let him go?!
When Trip finally made it to within ten feet of the girl and nothing happened to him, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Maybe the Miccosukee and Creek would be able to keep this chief. Maybe this chief wouldn’t be killed in cold blood like Kowi had been.
We waited for what seemed like forever for Trip to negotiate our passage through the treehouse kids’ land.
***
I was looking through the binoculars when Trip turned around and started waving my sling around in a circle. I couldn’t tell what he was trying to do. “What the hell?”
“What’s he doing?” asked Paci. He twisted around to look at my face.
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“Here. Take a look.” I handed him the binoculars.
Paci watched for a few seconds and then kicked our horse as he lowered the glasses away from his face. He handed them to Rob as we rode by. “Come on, everyone! He’s telling us to advance!”
The convoy started up again, and I wasn’t sure if I was happy we were moving or not. My butt had gotten somewhat of a rest, and now the damn saddle blanket was grinding into my nether regions again. I was going to have a rash where girls should never ever have rashes. I gritted my teeth through the discomfort, knowing that this pain meant I was alive and that I was better off than a lot of kids this week. I had zero right to complain.
Paci’s horse took the lead and Winky’s came just behind and next to us.
“Should we get our weapons out?” asked Winky.
“They should be easy to get to but not out. We don’t want to be threatening,” said Paci.
“I agree. And I also think everyone on foot and with the animals should stay back,” I added.
“I will take care of dem,” said Bodo, sliding off the horse’s back in a not very elegant maneuver. He disappeared behind us.
Winky snorted. “Can’t handle the horse.”
I turned around to watch Bodo go, and he was limping and reaching down to rub his crotch. A small part of me was glad I wasn’t the only one suffering.
Bodo gave directions to the people behind us to drop back.
Paci urged the horse more and we put more distance between the rest of our friends and the treehouse kids. Winky stayed even with us, and the swamp buggy was right behind. We were a pretty effective wall if anyone decided to start shooting, but I was hoping it wouldn’t to come to that.
As we got closer, several other kids came out of the trees to stand by the girl in red. I recognized one of them. “Who’s that girl? The one with the raggedy clothes?” I asked. All of them looked pretty well-dressed, all things considered, but not her. She looked like a homeless beggar.
“That’s that Gail girl. Remember? She came to Haven with me. She was with those two guys I picked up on the road as I came down.” Paci’s tone said he was about as thrilled to see her as I was.
My uneasiness increased. “She was bad news.”
“Maybe. She had an attitude, that’s for sure.” Paci’s voice lowered as we got close enough that they might hear us.
When we were just a few feet behind Trip we stopped. I leaned into Paci so I could swing my leg over behind the horse.
My plan to make a super cool getting-off-the-horse move ended in total failure. And happily for me, Trip turned around just in time to enjoy it along with all the treehouse kids and probably all the kids behind me, too.
I fell into the dust at the horse’s feet when my legs refused to cooperate. I’d lost circulation or something, everything numb except my butt, which was currently feeling the pain of having fallen from about five feet up.
Trip walked over slowly and lifted me up by my armpits, making me look like a toddler to these strangers. Several of them laughed out loud. Others were kind enough to cover their smirks with their hands or turn around.
“Thanks,” I said quietly. “Guess I lost my legs for a minute there.” I banged first one foot then the other on the ground trying to get the tingles to go away.
“Way to make a first impression,” he said. There was no smile on his face, but I got the distinct impression he was laughing at me.
“Never call me ordinary or boring,” I said, before stepping around him. I fell a little and grabbed onto his arm for support. He just stood there and waited for me to stop being an idiot.
I pretended to look behind me and spoke out of the corner of my mouth at him. “That girl in the rags came to Haven and refused to enter with some bullshit. Watch out for her.”
I looked up as I turned back to face our welcoming party, and caught Trip nodding so slightly I questioned whether I’d even seen it. He was ever so much cooler than me.
We both stepped forward to talk to the girl in red.
She stood there with her hands fisted at her sides. She didn’t look like a trained fighter, but she sure looked determined to be tough. She had dark skin and her hair looked like it had been hacked off with a dull knife. Her big boobs were the only thing keeping her from looking very boyish. She wore camouflage pants and had a canteen on a belt at her waist. Her other hip had a knife in a holder on it.
“Hi,” I said, stopping about five feet in front of her.
“Hi,” she said. Her eyes darted nervously from me to Trip and then over our shoulders to the group behind us. They had stopped about fifty yards away.
“My name’s Bryn, and this is Trip. We’re just trying to pass through. We don’t mean you any harm, and we’re not here to take anything.”
“This is our land. Our spot,” she said. “Nobody passes for free.”
“What are you, a troll?” asked Trip in a snotty voice. “We gotta pay your toll to get over your bridge? Please. This is Miccosukee land. Always has been, always will be.”
She looked at him calmly, only her flexing fists belying her nervousness. “Wrong on both counts.” Then she looked at me. “His history’s as flawed as his reasoning. Either you pay, or you go away. It’s simple.”
“We have stuff to trade,” I said. “What do you need?”
“We aren’t giving her any of our stuff!” Trip was indignant.
“Trip, can it, would ya?” I tried to give him my stern look but his was much more effective than mine. I just rolled my eyes and looked back at the girl.
“What’s your name?”
“Robson.”
I thought I’d heard wrong. “Say that again?”
“You heard me. Robson.”
“That’s a guy’s name,” said Trip.
“At least I’m not named after an accident someone has when they can’t walk right.”
I had to laugh at that. A snort escaped before I could stop it. I held out my arm to keep Trip back. “Relax, Trip. She’s right. Let’s get down to business, okay?” I pleaded with him using my eyes. I was going for the sad puppydog look.
“Stop staring at me like that,” he said, backing down and not pushing against my arm anymore. “You look like a canner lunatic.”
I wiped my expression clean, going back to the girl. “Okay, Robson, what do you want to trade?”
She gestured over to Gail. “We’ll trade that chick over there for a gun and safe passage.”
“Uhhh, we don’t trade people,” I said.
“But we do, especially when they’re a pain in the ass like she is.”
“Hey!” Gail shouted. “I’m not the pain in the ass, you are!”
The few kids standing around her laughed a little, none of them looking at her. It was pretty clear they were behind Robson one hundred percent.
“How about we take her off your hands as a service and you just thank us for it?” asked Trip.
“You won’t have to feed her or put up with her anymore,” I added. “That’s got to be worth something. We can’t give you a gun. We don’t have enough.” That last part of my statement wasn’t even close to true with the armory we had at the prison, but the last thing I wanted to do was arm potential or future enemies.
“You’re in no position to bargain. Take the PITA, give us the gun, and we’ll let you through. Don’t and you turn around or suffer the consequences.”
“Troll,” said Trip in a soft voice.
“And one more word out of pretty boy there and the deal’s off too,” said Robson, not even looking at Trip.
“Fine,” I said. “Deal. But no bullets.”
“We have plenty,” she said.
I turned Trip around and pushed against his lower back. “Be right back,” I said over my shoulder.
I could hear Gail ranting behind me the whole way back. Apparently she didn’t want to go with us anymore than we wanted her to. Robson seemed pretty tough. Maybe Gail felt safe with her. Gail’s attachment to the treeho
use couldn’t be for Robson’s sparkling personality, that was for sure.
“Why’d you tell her we’d take that idiot with us?” he asked. “And offer her one of our guns? We don’t have enough.”
I stopped pushing on him and walked at his side, keeping my voice as low as possible. “We have a ton of guns at Haven. Hundreds. And enough bullets to kill every canner a hundred times over. And that Gail girl hates me, so she isn’t going to agree to walk into Haven. We’ll get her out of the Glades and send her on her way if that’s what she wants. No harm, no foul.”
Trip stopped and faced me for a second. “Most of the time I look at you and I see a complete goofball. But then you go and do something like that and I see something else.”
I put my hand on my hip. “Oh yeah, like what? A brilliant mastermind?”
He smiled. “No. Someone not as goofy, but still a little goofy.” He walked over to the buggy, leaving me standing there.
I couldn’t think of a sharp retort, so I just shut up, waiting for Trip to find the crappiest gun in his cache of weapons.
Bodo came over as I waited.
“What happened over dare? Are we going to cross?”
“Yes. We had to do a trade, though. We take that Gail girl off their hands and give them a gun and we can go.”
“Dat sounds like dey get all da good stuff.”
I shrugged. “At least we get to go through. And like I told Trip, Gail won’t want to stay with us. She rejected us once already.”
“Yes, but now she iss getting rejected again. Maybe she hass no place to go now.”
“Maybe. But unless she wants to cooperate, that’s not my problem.”
“Maybe she can grow tomatoes,” said Bodo, getting a far off look. “Maybe she will be especially smart with eggplants.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Eggplants? Can’t we just outlaw those from Haven altogether?”
He smiled back at me, the first time in what felt like a long time. “I make a fairy, fairy goodt ratatouille. You will like it.”
“You keep your rat soup away from me, boy,” I said, walking away to join Winky at her horse.
“It’s not of rats. It’s of vegetables.”