Kennedy Hoss of Musket

Chapter 14: Ana

Song: Low is a Height by Great Northern

I run as fast as I can towards Crow's, praying Cecil and what's-his-name weren't looking for me. Or worse, calling for backup. I was also praying that Crow wasn't near the fence.

When I locate him, he's in the barn, brushing a white mare.

"Where'd you go?" He asks.

I drop my hands on my knees, breathing hard.

"I went to... Allderman's..." I say, panting hard. I don't have time to finish my tale before he stops brushing the horse and turns away from it.

"Are you serious? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

I frown.

"I was there for Hannibal, Crow."

He brushes the horse's coat with calm, even strokes. She turns her head towards me and sniffs.

"Were there guards around?" he asks.

I take a deep breath and sit down on an overturned bucket.

"Yeah."

"So what did they do when you tried to go in?"

"Well I didn't try to go in at first. There were these little kids playing near the fence and then one of the guards grabbed one of them. He was yanking the poor girl I'm surprised she didn't get whiplash."

Crow's brow furrows. I bite my lip, and I remember biting into Cecil's arm.

"But I went up and I... made him stop."

Crow turns from the mare to look at me.

"Kennedy do you really think you can boss around a guard after what you did last night? Do you really want them breaking down your door and dragging your butt to hell?"

What I did? I wasn't the only one apart of the riot, and he had been the one who had taken me away from it last night.

"You're an ass, Crow," I say before getting up and stomping out of the barn.

I break out into a run, kicking up dirt and getting it in my shoes. I run to my house and slap on my charging bracelet before grabbing a pack of ham and a water bottle from the fridge and a fresh change of clothes and stuffing them into a canvas bag. I needed some time to cool off. I was headed to the heel.

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Musket ends at a rocky cliff-like slope on the western side. It's not a very big one, since it's only a three foot drop at most.

At this end the fence still runs along the edge, dipping down the slope and across the shore to the river. The fence actually goes into the river, so deep that I can't see it. On the other side of the river is the "heel" of Musket, an island shaped like a circle chopped in half. The entire island (well, what I can see of it anyway) is covered in a thick forest of green trees. Aside from those, the only other healthy trees are on the other side of the fence, after a mile of nothing but dirt, a dense tree line hides us from the world.

I slide down the slope to the shore, where I take a deep breath of the river air. The water laps at the shore in such a way that reminds me of a thirsty dog. It's absolutely beautiful. Breath taking, even.

I could remember times when I came down here with my father, with ham sandwiches. Though I usually just ate the ham off of mine and used the rest as bait when we fished. Around the time I was learning to count, he used to sing a little song to me as we waited for a bite. I settle down on a large rock at the base of the cliff and take a slice of ham from the package and eat is slowly, singing the little rhyme quietly to myself.

"One, two, three four five,

Once I caught a fish a-live.

Six, seven, eight nine ten,

Then I let it go again.

Why did you let it go?

Because it but my finger so!

Which finger did it bite?"

Before I can finish my little tune a twig snaps nearby and I jerk my head to the left. I listen intensely to the sound of my own heart hammering against my ribs, and to the sound of the river rushing by.

Cautiously, I lift myself down from my rock and across another, creeping closer to the thick cluster of bush lined with fox sedge, waving slowly though the air seems still.

Taking a piece of ham, I carefully toss it just by the edge of the plants. A few moments later, a small hand reaches out swiftly and grabs the juicy slice, before retracting back into the dry knot of plants.

I pick up a long branch resting behind the rocks that's about 6 feet long and extend it towards the brush. Just as about six inches of it has entered, it's suddenly yanked forward, and then pushed backwards hard into my stomach. I cry out in pain and drop the long branch. Like a cat who just fell in a bathtub, I scramble away, moving awkwardly across the rocks. My foot hits the abandoned package of ham, and it goes flying a few rocks forward.

I pick up my canvas bag and watch silently as a small girl slinks out of the brush and picks up the package of ham. This time, she does not go back into the bushes, and I relax.

As she picks out the slices of ham and consumes them, her eyes do not leave mine. They are a warm brown color with flecks of gold that compliment her shoulder-length brown hair framing her face. She wears a loose white shirt and a pair of jean shorts that come up to just above her knees. The girl wears ankle-high brown boots with leather straps with heels that remind me of cowboy boots.

When I finally breathe again, she stops eating and briskly brushes her hands together making small clapping sounds.

"Thanks," she says, rolling the rest of the ham back up.

"Uh... yeah..." I say slowly. She crawls over to my bag and replaces the ham.

Suddenly, the girl goes rigid. She opens a pouch tied to her hip and pulls something out. She walks calmly towards me and hands it to me.

It is a long leathery blackback skin.

"Here," she insists, holding it out to me. I take it in my hands and turn it back and forth. It's eerie and I don't like the feeling of it as it rolls across my fingers.

"Where are you from?" I ask. I didn't recognize the girl from Musket, and she appeared to be some sort of poacher. Or maybe the daughter of one.

She turns around and points across the river to where the island is.

"I live there, in Ana's lot."

"Who's Ana?"

"I am," she says matter-of-factly.

"Why do you live there?" I ask.

The girl turns away to look at the cliff. I bite my lip, feeling a little intrusive.

"Me and my parents ran away there a while ago," she says quietly, "they disappeared."

I hug my knees to my chest. The girl climbs the rocks and sits on one next to mine. She gazes out at the island, appearing to be in deep thought.

"My parents died," I say after a while, "they got the syndrome."

My words hang heavy in the air. Too loud, too bold. It feels like the first time I have ever told anyone this. When my parents died, everyone had known. I didn't need to tell anyone.

Ana looked over at me and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

I pull the extra clothes from my bag out and hand them to her.

"You need these more than I do."

© 2013, Diana Bail. Except as provided by the Copyright Act [August 22, 2013] no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.