{Part Two}

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Bess Tyler

"I'm Deane," he said. "Deane Scythe." I stared at him, my eyes gradually becoming adjusted to the dark. I could almost make out his face. None of the details about him were etched into my memory, but I could remember his companion, Thatch, very well. "Where's your partner?" I asked, hoping Thatch might appear out of the darkness just as Deane had done, but I could see well enough to interpret Deane's head shake.

"He's not coming," Deane said gruffly. "I had to leave him behind." He sighed heavily. "It's his fault." Elka crept up behind me and brushed my hand as she came to a stop at Deane's feet. She sighed and then took his hand in her's, an act that surprised us all. I could tell Deane was softening against his will: there was a change in the air between us. As if to confirm this sudden change, Elka said, softly, "No. This is how it's supposed to be." I was puzzled, but Deane put words to both our thoughts.

"What do you know about it, little girl?" Elka might have smiled: I imagined she did. However, Moxie piped up to break the moment and rid it of all its delicacy.

"Elka, come away from him."

"Wait!" Deane held up a hand. "What do you know about what's supposed to be, girl?" There was a forcefulness in Deane's voice that made me feel like he was yelling at me. I was prepared to say something in Elka's defense, but again Moxie beat me to it. I felt her brushing past me to reclaim our youngest sister. Once she had Elka's free hand in her own, she squared up in Deane's face.

"Hey! That's my sister you're picking on! Why don't you go back to the Ranches?" I felt very uncomfortable with how this situation was unraveling right before me, literally. Deep inside, in the deepest parts of me where I locked away the sort of things that I wanted to keep private from everyone else, secrets, I recognized that even if Deane wasn't Thatch, he was one step closer to Thatch than I was, and to lose him in this moment would also mean losing another chance to see the young ranch hand again. I wasn't expecting to see him again, of course, but I did hope I would. If Moxie pushed Deane away right now, I'd lose my fragile link to Thatch, and that mixed up stuff down in the deep part of me, it didn't want to lose that link. Uncharacteristic of me, I got up real close to Moxie and snapped back at her.

"Moxie! Deane here is our guest. Don't you talk to him like that." I could tell Moxie had something more to say to me and to Deane, but before she could say any of it, I said, "Why don't you and Elka go back to bed? I'll take care of our guest." At that moment, I had no idea how to take care of Deane any more than I would any boy who wandered up to our Compound. The only boys I knew to care for were Dad (who's a man), Lenox and Striker. I had hope that the instinct would be there when I needed it. I could see Moxie still standing there, and maybe she was trying to decide if it was a good idea to listen to me. Finally, Elka let go of Deane's hand and pulled Moxie back toward the hovel. I thought I could hear her saying, "It's okay, Mox. This is how it's supposed to happen."

"That was a pretty dumb thing you just did," Deane said to break the silence that had scabbed over Moxie's departure.

"How do you figure that?" I asked, challenging him.

"I figure she's your sister and didn't you just go and make an enemy of her?" Deane said, his tone caught between a statement and a question. I shrugged, even though he couldn't see it, I think.

"If I know Moxie at all, I know that's not how it works for her. She respects folks who can be strong." Deane didn't say anything, so I added, "Come on. We have a shed for our mules. You can tie the horse up there and we'll see about finding you someplace to sleep."

"She doesn't like me, does she?" Deane asked. I heard his gruffness masking something else. It was knowledge that I thought I could draw directly to my own deep place where lay my secrets. Did he also have a secret place in the deep?

"Moxie is just hard on folk who aren't family," I said. "I bet she doesn't forget your threats either." I imagined he blushed at that, but perhaps it was a self-gratifying imagination. "Come on." I headed back toward the hovel and trusted he would follow.

"What about you?" He asked from very close behind me.

"What about me?"

"Do you remember my threats?"

"Your buddy made it all better," I said, smiling under cover of darkness. He was so quiet I wondered if he'd stopped following me, but when we got to the mule shed, he was right there. The she-mule began to get upset by the horse's appearance into her life and habitat, and she began to make the kind of commotion that raises alarm for folks who don't know animals very well. I knew it was just her way of saying that she didn't want to share her space with a strange animal, let alone one so high and mighty as a purebred horse from the Ranches. I was inclined to agree, except that I was finding it hard not to like Deane. I figured that our old she-mule was about as much Prairie Dog as me and Moxie, then, but as far as calming her down went, I wasn't sure I could get in the shed to do it. Deane was closer. He slipped in beside the she-mule and I saw him reach out and let her sniff his hand, and then he spread his fingers and let her have another sniff before he turned his hand palm-side up and let her have a final sniff. She calmed down pretty quickly after that, enough to let him pat her and whisper softly into her ear. Finally, he gave her one last pat and led the horse away outside.

"Maybe she doesn't want me here either," he said, sounding sad. He also sounded like he was preparing to leave.

"I don't think so," I said quickly, stalling him. "I think you just handled her very well. I've never seen anyone make her that fussy before, or calm her down so easily." He shrugged.

"Do you forget what I am?" I grinned.

"No. Do you?" I heard him sigh heavily. "Anyway, I want you here." He shuffled his feet and again I felt the air between us change. If it was hostile at first meeting, that had faded and now I felt like there was a sense of amicability developing. Was it enough to keep him here, though?

"Why?" He asked, softly. I thought it would be too dangerous to voice the real reason, and at any rate it was a secret. Instead, I shuffled my feet and said plainly, "Because, where else would you go but here?"

"I can go anywhere I want to," Deane retaliated.

"Yeah, that's true. But you came here."

"Wasn't on purpose, if that's what you mean." He shot back, but his retorts were weak and he knew I knew it.

"No. I bet not. Your companion was the nicer of the two of you," I said, feeling brave. Once these words were out there, though, I felt stupid too. I heard him shuffle his feet again.

"Well, Thatch isn't here. And if it's him you want, then you're out of luck because he's never leaving the Ranches." He sounded both angry and sad. "I've already tried to free him." The anger seemed understandable to me: Deane was used to having Thatch around and now he was out here on his own after offering to his companion the option to run and having to face that refusal. Yet, the sadness I detected forced me to reach back for its familiarity in my life: I found it, finally, in my memories of the Reaping Day, when Moxie was acting up and not being herself; when all I wanted was my sister back. That was how it came to me, the sadness… and the answer.

"Thatch," I began, treading softly as my insides burned with the discovery. "He's not just your companion, is he?" I thought I saw Deane turn to me, but the darkness concealed his expression, so I could only guess how he looked when he responded.

"Yeah," his voice failed. He tried hard to get it back, to get his words out, so when they came, he was pushing so hard that they came out all at once and very loudly. "Yeah, he's my brother." His echo died before I was able to say, "Oh."

"Bess, who's that?" Dad's voice broke our silence roughly. His lantern swung from the pole he carried it on, and he dangled it right in Deane's face. We hadn't seen him coming, so it revealed the startled expression on Deane's face that I thought I might have on mine too.

"Uh," I stuttered, trying to regain my composure. "Dad, this is Deane." I might've said more except that I saw the expression on Deane's face as he looked at me squarely for the first time since we'd last met. I had the feeling that, at that moment, Deane was feeling exactly as I had felt years ago when he caught me in the Reserve.

"Who are you?" he'd growled at me, then. "A poaching Prairie Dog?" He'd seized me by the shoulders, lifted me up and shaken me roughly. "Do you know what the Cow-men do to poaching Prairie Dogs?" He'd shaken me a few more times and I'd wanted to cry pretty badly. Moxie had come to me then and she'd stomped her foot and gotten all up in Deane's face.

"Well, what're you going to do, boy? Are you going to tell on us? How's that going to make you look to your Cow-men?"

"A Hell of a lot better than you!" He'd said back. "Hens?! You think you can come here and take out hens?!" He'd swatted the hens away from me, and I'd been really scared he might hit me too. Moxie must've known because she'd grabbed the hens right back and stomped really hard on Deane's foot.
"Now you listen to me, you good-for-nothing cheat! You're going to let us go with those hens and not a word to the Cow-man. And you're going to do it because you know we need them more than your selfish lot. And you're not going to tell on me or Bess and get our names in the Reaping more times. And boy, I swear if you don't, when I come back from winning the Hunger Games, I'm going to kill you."

"No. What's going to happen is I'm going to tell the Cow-man on you, then I'm going to get your name into the Reaping a hundred times more, and there's no way in Hell you're going to come back, so I'll be good."

"You think so? How are you going to do that if you don't even know my name?" Moxie had challenged him.

"Maybe I don't know yours, but I know your sister's and she'll do. Then I'll drag you both out in front of everyone in the Capitol and get you both in deep trouble." Deane had been so angry, his face was all red and his eyes were so menacing.

His face wasn't much different now, except in his eyes I saw fear.

"Deane who?" Dad demanded. I made up my mind to repay Thatch in kind by way of his brother.

"Just Deane, Daddy. He's a friend. Well, his brother is a friend, but only on Reaping Day when we get scared." I lied. "His brother's my age, anyway." Dad looked Deane up and down.

"A long way from Town, boy. And with a fine horse." Deane was without words when he looked at me. I was the one who'd started the lie so it was only fair for me to keep it going.

"Well, see, he's a poacher, Daddy. Just came from stealing a fine horse from those lazy good-for-nothing ranch hands. Isn't that right, Deane?" I shot him a look that said he needed to follow through if he wanted to get away with this. He must've understood because he swallowed and nodded.

"Yes, sir." Dad gave him another scrutinizing look over before backing up some.

"It's too late to go back to Town unnoticed, boy. You can't sleep inside. We've got no room. You stay out here." Then, Dad was gone. Both Deane and I exhaled.

"You're welcome," I said as he patted the horse and unfastened her saddle, removing a pack rolled and tied to the back. He took her reins and made a sturdy-looking knot to tie her to a plank on the roof of the mule shed.

"Why'd you do that?" Deane asked, his tone softer.

"A while back, someone we both know vouched for me and my sister, and now that I know he's related to you, I had to return the favor. But, you have to understand this: we're even now. I don't owe you anything and you don't owe me anything. We're clean." He unrolled the pack revealing a blanket and a pillow. I had to frown. "Is that all you've got?" Deane nodded, lying down on the blanket. I crossed my arms, my frown deepening. He studied me a moment.

"What?"

"I just thought – "

"That we ranch hands were rich?" He snorted. "Nope. You've got more stuff than I do." I sat down beside him, which surprised us both a little, though the deep within me thrilled at it.

"Oh. I didn't know." He sighed.

"Yeah, well most folks don't." He was looking up at the sky and all the stars way up above. I followed his gaze and found a familiar collection of stars. We called the picture they made The Ladle because that's what it looked like. At the end of its handle was a star somewhat brighter than the others, though it wasn't the brightest. I pointed to it now.

"See that star up there? It's the bright one." He looked and finally nodded when he'd found it. "We call that the Wanderer's Guide." He nodded again.

"I've heard the cowboys call it something else… the North Star. That's because it never moves from where it is." He said, describing it's properties, as I knew them, perfectly.

"Yeah, same for us." We fell quiet for some time.

"What is life like as a Prairie Dog?" Deane asked.

"Life is good, Mr. Scythe." I smiled, thinking about all the memories I had with my sisters. "Life is good."