Children of Morrow by H M Hoover

Author:H M Hoover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 1973-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

They heard the men leave in the early morning, heard their excited shouts as they found the footprints. Now came the hardest part, waiting to see if the ruse worked or the hunters would come back. For hours they huddled there, cramped and chilled in the little cave, listening for any sound other than insects and the rain. None came. Finally Rabbit could bear the silence no longer.

“C-c-can we talk?” he whispered. “I’m g-getting kind of lonely j-just th-thinking to you.”

“O.K.—but just whispers.”

“Wh-when do you th-think the rain will stop?”

Tia shrugged.

“D-do you think we c-can go soon?”

“We’d better wait until dark.”

“B-but we don’t s-see anything that way. I li-li-like to explore!”

“Me too. But Ashira told us to walk at night so they can’t see us.”

“Maybe sh-she’s explored a whole lot more th-than we have. She’s p-pretty grown-up, you know.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think she even thought of exploring. I don’t think she thinks anything around here is worth exploring. The first time I dreamed of their place I saw her tell Varas I was coming in from deadlands.”

“W-we’re not dead,” puzzled Rabbit, and then, his mind flitting to another thought, “Do you miss your treasures?”

“I forgot about them,” Tia said truthfully, and now that she remembered, they seemed important a long time ago, when she was a child. In fact, everything seemed a long time ago. “What I miss is my bed at night.”

“M-me, too—I liked to hear the straw rustle under the covers. Wh-when I was little, I used to pre-pretend I was a cow—and curl up with my legs under me because it rustled more that w-way. Cows always l-look so c-comfortable! Father N-neal hit me when he saw me sleeping that way.”

“Why?”

“He d-d-didn’t say—he n-never says why he hits you mostly. He j-j-just hits. So I don’t sleep that way anymore.”

“I always used to go to sleep imagining I had a friend, somebody who thought like I did, someone to curl up against . . . but that was when I was very little . . . .” She stopped and blushed, embarrassed by her self-betrayal.

“D-don’t feel b-bad about that, Tia, because I s-s-still feel th-that way—th-that’s why I like having you for a fr-friend. We m-might be in trouble—but at l-least we’re not lonely.”

He crawled up to the cave mouth and looked out cautiously for a long time, then turned around. “Let’s go, Tia—please? I th-think they’ve g-gone on ahead on the Path. Otherwise they’d be b-back by n-now.”

The logic of it appealed to her almost as much as the wish to get out of the dark cave. “O.K.” she said, “but we must be very careful.” She picked up the empty food sack and thriftily tied its drawcords around her waist, then crawled out of the cave after him.

The rain had lessened and the sky was lighter.

“Wh-which way are w-we going to go?”

“Along the riverbank, I suppose. That’s west and there are trees to hide behind if we have to.”

“O.K.”

They started off again, cautious at first but soon relaxing when it appeared no one else was nearby.

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