Evangeline by Ben Farmer

Author:Ben Farmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2010-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

Huddled in the rags of their clothing, they didn’t make a fire for more than a week. The forest stretched south behind them, with no change on the horizon save the same steady rise they’d climbed since burying Alain in the hills below them. Soon the men stopped hearing angry squawking from squirrels and chipmunks displaced with their passage, and finally they were alone in the woods, though they saw traces of camps everywhere. As the weather cooled, they reused fire rings most nights, warily, but without incident.

“Why do you think this was abandoned?” Gabriel asked, as they passed over ground which had recently housed a village, fire rings and partial frames of shelters plain among the already canvassed ground.

“The war,” Viktor said. “Anyone who is able is running from these mountains, because the armies are going to meet each other on one side or the other, and maybe both. We’re just on a different border between the empires.” He stopped to look back through the woods. “Losing a home remains, by a narrow margin, better than losing one’s life.” He spat in disgust.

“But why leave?” Alexander asked. “We haven’t seen any soldiers.”

“The woods have grown quiet these last weeks, haven’t they?” Basil asked, and continued without waiting for affirmation. “There’s been fighting near here recently.”

They walked through colder days and freezing nights, which brought an end to the gnats and mosquitoes that had dogged them closer to the coast. Most days the boys took the musket ahead to hunt, and they rarely had meat to complement what they could graze. As the nights grew colder they smeared the deer fat on their faces and hands for protection, and eventually insulated their clothing as well.

“Old men always say that bear grease is the warmest,” Viktor complained as he smeared it on after warming it in the fire.

“You are an old man,” Philippe said, hesitating and watching Gabriel and Alexander.

“Well, that’s why I’m saying it, for your benefit,” Viktor replied. “This deer wouldn’t keep my toes warm if they were in the fire.”

“Be thankful that we’ve got it,” Basil said of Gabriel’s kill. “I haven’t heard much out there lately.”

They continued north as the trees finished dropping their leaves, the mountains shrinking in the distance beyond like men growing older. Finally they came to a pass where the foothills only rose to larger versions of themselves, and they followed deer trails across the high valley away from the looming peaks to the south.

One day, in the cloudless distance to the east, Gabriel saw the smudge of fire. They had been running for months without ever losing sight of English fires, he thought.

The following day a storm blew the smoke against the peaks and they could taste the ash on the breeze, though they could no longer see the army.

“They’re gaining on us,” Philippe said, and rattled Alexander’s sword. “We’re lucky you’ve got this.”

They headed downhill through fallen snow, waking before light and walking until after dark as the days got shorter and colder.

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