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Cannot.
He jerks his arm. It is held firm. He thrashes. He is held. The iron slides farther along its length. It is
nearly a yard long.
Why does it have to be so long to burn a five-inch-wide hole?
Jarrod screams now, and pain stabs through his jaw. His mouth is so swollen, he cannot open it to
scream.
"Yek quiedruhik, guddammit," says the man who is pushing the iron through his wrist. Is it a man who is
doing this? No, it is a red and skinned rabbit, its muscles exposed, its pulpy flesh moist. Rabbit with
shining black eyes.
Jarrod thrashes again, and another kicks him in the side, cuffs his face. He never knew he could bear so
much pain and stay awake. Going back to sleep. Getting dark, sun in my wrist. No sleep, though. Hurt.
The last of the iron passes through, and its end is a needle eye through which is threaded a leather thong.
Metal through, and now the three-stranded leather scraping against outraged inner flesh. Fingers clench,
uncontrollable. I can still feel my fingers, Jarrod thinks between waves of ache. The sewer takes one end
of the doubled thong, and pulls it through. Instead of tying the two ends together, the man untwists each
end five turns back along the leather. He splices the two ends together.
Jarrod has a thong two feet long dangling from the hole in his wrist. The man roughly pulls on the loop.
"Hek holdruhuh, Burt."
Have to scream, can't scream. Who is Burt? The other slaps his face. Blood now, on his chin, the side of
his neck. He can feel it. He can feel it all.
He feels the sewer, the man with the iron, reach down and grab his testicles through his wool pants. He
feels the hand grow tight, squeezing.
Go ahead. I'm a ranger. They're expendable.
He puts the tip of the hot iron down near them. Jarrod feels the heat, the shriveling heat. He prepares
himself, although he knows there is no preparing.
"Yek keepdruhik, Burt," the man says gruffly, and uses the hot iron to burn Jarrod's inner thighs. Two
quick strokes. Odor of burnt wool, then burnt flesh. Two new red welts, there forever. Or however
many hours I have left to live. Dark brown dark brown dark.
Who the hell is Burt?
He wakes at twilight how many days, he can't say. He is too thirsty to sleep. There is a bowl of
water a scum on it nearby. He turns over, tries to open his mouth. Too swollen. But he must drink
water. Can't move his left arm. Why? Worry later about it. Lifts his right hand up, puts his fingers on his
lips, forces them into his mouth.
Jarrod yanks his jaw down.
Brown. The world goes brown but he's too thirsty to let the dark come back. After a long time, he
rolls over and laps at the water, each movement of his tongue a new pain. When he has painstakingly
finished the water, he is still thirstier than he's ever been in his life. No one brings him any more.
He is in a clearing. It is filled with greenwood smoke, the fire crackle of dying trees. Bastards. Cougars.
Huts of pine straw, mud daub, rotted swaths of cloth. They are punishing themselves with the way they
live. Gone tribal.
He lies in a clearing. A long line of rope is tied in a square knotted coil through the thong of his wrist. The
ends of the rope are tied out of reach. No way except to chew through the rope or the leather, and he
cannot chew anyway. He won't be able to chew for a long time.
The wound in his side is bound up with a filthy poultice. What hurts worst at the moment are his seared
thighs, but the ragged hole in his wrist flares horribly if he moves that arm. Best to lie still.
I cannot live, Jarrod thinks. My gut must be exposed. Peritonitis. And gangrene. Broken teeth the
worst place for bacteria. Swallowing toxin.
I cannot live.
A dirty, shuffling thing comes out of a hut, moves toward him. Only when it draws near can Jarrod see
that it is a woman. He stares blankly at her. She holds a clay bowl, lopsided, not turned on a wheel when
it was made, not fired in a kiln. Without hesitation, she reaches down and straddles his shoulders, pulls
him up. He almost leaves his consciousness again. She puts her dirty fingers in his hair and pulls his head
back.
"Kay, Burt. Opendruhik," she says.
He does not understand what she is saying.
"Opendruhik." She runs her hand over his face. Smells of dung. Grabs his chin, and forces open his
mouth. Jarrod weakly thrashes. Her thighs hold him tight. She pours some of the contents of the bowl
into his mouth, forces his mouth shut. He gags, but can't spew it out, can't do anything. Has to swallow.
The gruel it is something thick and vile goes down in a big lump. The woman sees him swallow,
opens his mouth again. This time he is ready, and is able to get most of the gruel down in quick gulping
motions.
When she has finished feeding him, the woman lets go his hair abruptly and takes a step. She kicks at his
water dish, looks down, notices it is empty.
"Lutur," she mutters to herself, and walks away.
Jarrod lies in the dirt exactly as she has dropped him. He is too exhausted to make even the smallest
move. Evening, and a moon. It is not long since the train. Maybe two days.
He is tied in the clearing for many days. He's fed, and not spoken to otherwise. This is just as well, for
although Jarrod believes these people speak a kind of English, their words are nearly incomprehensible to
him.
Women go about chores during the day. There are few children, and all of them are sallow-eyed and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]