at once
Tears glistened in the girl’s eyes and Jayme had stepped forward with concern obscuring the fear on his face. “Shhh. You did what you had to., It’s okay. Come on, girl. Mona here will help you out of these clothes, wash you up, and get you some…”
“
Tanner had seen it more times than a man should be allowed. Following a tragedy, survivors sometimes retreated into themselves, shunning even the most well intentioned acts of compassion. It was almost as if they secretly believed contact with the living would irrefutably sever their ties with the dead. The girl just needed time to adjust, to process the barrage of atrocities she’d been witnessed and try to come to terms with the fact that self preservation had overridden the desire to help her family and friends.
“Let her do it herself. Give her the clothes and show her where the water is.” His anger at the situation caused him to say it more gruffly than he’d intended, which led several settlers to pierce him with stares of condemnation “She’s no good to us now. She needs to calm down before we can learn anything useful.”
The time alone, it seemed, had done the young girl good. Though her face was still ashen and blank, she’d calmed down to the point that she could speak without breaking into tears. Being of the same age, Jayme’s daughter, Mona, had given her a fresh tunic and skirt. With the clean clothes and the grime and blood washed off, Rosemarie looked like an entirely different person. In fact, she looked so familiar that Tanner was certain he’d seen her before, most likely at one of the swap meets his home community sporadically sponsored. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but neither was she so plain as to blend into the background. Sharp and angular, hers was the type of face which momentarily captured attention by its character and definition alone. But, by the same token, the notice was only fleeting; within five minutes, she would be forgotten.
The Spewers had attacked just before dawn, she’d said, responding to Tanner’s questioning. From the east with the rising sun at their backs. A seemingly never ending stream of savages that quickly overran the entire settlement. But no, there hadn’t been any drums – the assault had come as a complete surprise.
To Tanner these details were important. It showed cunning on the part of the Spewer tribe. They knew the glare of dawn would blind the opposition while protecting their own warriors’ eyes; they also knew the only match to the superior weaponry of the community was an overwhelming show of force. With the column of smoke alerting others to what had transpired, they’d obviously been forced to change tactics. The drumming, no doubt, was a type of psychological warfare, meant to set the enemy’s nerves on edge.
All of this, however, was simply craftiness. Savages had no true intelligence, only a murderous instinct for death. And that would be their undoing. Certain that they would attack under cover of darkness this time, Tanner had instructed the rest of the community to ring the edges of their protective hill with distilled oil. Knoll had nearly a dozen barrels clustered near the tent which served as a kitchen and it had taken the help of everyone to roll several of the heavy drums up the embankment, with even Rosemarie offering to assist.
“You’ve seen enough warfare for one day.” Tanner had told her. “I can’t ask anything more of you, child.”
The girl had wrung her hands together as her eyes pleaded with him. “ But I’ve got to do
“What did you do before?” he interrupted. “In your old community. What was your primary duty?”
“I… I cooked.”
“Okay then,” Tanner nodded, “it’s settled. You cook while we prepare for battle. Deal?”
He’d smiled broadly at the young girl, hoping to melt away some of the sorrow etched into her face, but she’d only been able to manage a lopsided grin whose warmth never touched her eyes.
By the time night had fallen, the ring of earth surrounding Knoll was a blazing wall of fire and the buildings flickered in the orange glow. Certain that the savages couldn’t breach the defenses without reducing themselves to cinders, the community had filed to the kitchen area to fill their bellies. Rosemarie proved herself to be a capable cook and she’d shyly stroked the sleeves of her tunic while the others heaped praise upon her skills.
But that had been hours ago. With dawn fast approaching, Tanner knew a new stratagem would have to present itself. The barrels of oil wouldn’t hold out indefinitely and the discord that led to his self-imposed seclusion would only grow worse as tensions continued to build. By the girl’s telling, there were hundreds of Spewers lurking in the forest, which meant a direct attack against them was out of the question. There had to be some solution, something he was overlooking.
“Shayla, baby,” he whispered to the darkness, “Daddy’s coming home. I
A shuffling sound from the corner caught his attention and Tanner looked up in time to glimpse something moving in the shadows. Even though it disappeared like the remnants of a dream, he would have sworn on his oath as a Sweeper that what he’d seen was the flash of brass buttons on a red, velvet jacket….
XV.
In the morning sunlight, the black smoke curling from the mound of earth surrounding Knoll looked like the arms of a malevolent demon pulling the community into its embrace. The smell of burnt oil was so thick that the air itself felt greasy and the mouths of everyone within the compound were coated in saliva that had absorbed the scent. Only the toddler had found respite in sleep throughout the long night; everyone else had dark bags drooping beneath bloodshot eyes and faces that somehow seemed leaner than when they’d first welcomed Tanner into their fold. They shuffled about with sagging shoulders, mumbling only the most minimal of comments to their neighbors between stifled yawns.
Rosemarie already had the cooking fire blazing by the time Tanner checked in on her. She still had that sallow, lost look to her, like someone who’d awoken from a dream only to find reality was so much worse than anything her subconscious could conjure. She stirred the iron pot and stared blankly into the distance. The oil lamp that had provided light for her preparations prior to sunrise still burned uselessly on the table next to her and Tanner placed the revolver he’d been carrying next to it. Perhaps it was because he had a daughter of his own, but he felt a special kinship to this waif and wanted to do everything he possibly could to help ease the pain in her heart.
“We need to save oil, honey.” He said softly as he turned the knob and extinguished the lamp. “How are you doing? I know… it’s a stupid question. But sometimes it helps to talk, you know?”
The girl said nothing, choosing instead to crumble something that looked like dried leaves into the steaming pot.
“Okay,” Tanner continued, “fair enough. I just want you to know that I’m here. If you ever need me. We’re both strangers here, after all, so I figure we got to stick together. And I
Rosemarie looked up from her cooking and studied him silently for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that it was almost lost beneath the crackling flames. “I think I’ll just keep cooking. Can’t let it get too hot or it’ll ruin my secret ingredient. Everyone seemed to really like it last night and I’d hate… I’d hate to disappoint anyone.”
“You don’t have to prove yourself.” Tanner reached for her arm, but the girl jerked away so quickly that he put up his hands to show he meant no harm. “I understand. I really do. When someone’s been through something like you have, it takes time. Time to trust again. To allow yourself to be happy. It may seem like that day will never come… but it will.”
He waited to see if the girl would say anything further and, when she didn’t, turned to leave. He still wasn’t
