CHAPTER NINETEEN:

Thatcher Scythe

They came in the early morning before the sun rose; they swarmed around me, their faces contorted in the mold of laughter. Laughter! Who could bring himself to laugh at times like these? Still, the three women that danced around me were laughing, and it wasn't at me. One was an older woman with dark hair in two braids, her face etched with lines and her eyes deep with knowledge. Her laugh was slow and breathy, as if she needed to think about laughing before she did it. When she looked at me, it wasn't at me, it was inside of me, down to the deep part of me. When she looked at me, I felt naked, completely bare and vulnerable. The middle woman was barely a woman; she looked young, maybe older than Miss Atoka but not by too many years. She had light brown hair that twisted into two loose braids and fell to her bodice. She bore a slight resemblance to the older woman, as if she might be a younger version of her or perhaps a younger sister, but her face looked smooth and her gaze didn't plow into the depths of my being but effortlessly saw my soul through my eyes and while she seemed to share my secrets with me, she also gave to me a sense of warmth. The third figure was a girl with an easy smile, a very young face and a single braid of dark brown hair falling down her back. Her eyes were a mix of grey and blue, and when they turned on me they gave more than they took. She gave me strength and security, courage and clarity. She did not look like the other two women, but I figured this was because she was so much younger than them. They all wore garments flowing at the sleeves and tied at the waist with belts of different shades of blue: the girl wore a light blue belt, the young woman wore a royal blue belt and the wizened woman wore a midnight blue belt. As they turned, they danced, and as they danced, their garments rippled as if lifted by some invisible breeze; and when their garments lifted, they changed colors: the wizened woman seemed to wear a garment cut from the fabric of the night sky, studded with shimmering stars and with a sash of milky white cutting across her figure. But when she turned, the garment seemed to soften and become lighter, like the sky as dawn approaches. The young woman wore a garment that seemed to have been cut from the fabric of a sunset sky: its colors were a brilliant and beautiful play on light and illumination amidst a growing dark. But when she turned, the garment seemed to burst with a concentration of light, like the sky as the sun peaks over the horizon. The girl wore a garment that seemed to have been cut from the fabric of the midday sky, brilliant in its illumination and yet also dull in its consistency, in its impenetrable blue. But when she turned, the garment seemed to become grey and its brilliant illumination dampened, like the sky as storm clouds rush in and blot out the sun. When the wizened woman turned, her belt seemed to shimmer as if it had collected the stars from the sky and used them as embellishments. When the young woman turned, all the colors of the world seemed to collect upon her belt. When the girl turned, her belt seemed to change into droplets of rain falling into puddles. They danced and laughed and bore into my soul, into the deep, taking and giving as each was enabled.

I woke writhing in pain. My life had seemed to dance between nightmares, and that isn't to say that these mystical women were nightmares, but it is to say that I was confounded by them and felt it nightmarish that I should have no hint as to who they were while they knew everything about me. I tried to open my eyes but only one was willing; I'm sure, now, that the other is swollen beyond the point of repair. I'd forgotten that I was being tortured until it stopped and Mr. Burliss leaned down to tell me, "I'm going to kill you and no one's going to care because you don't exist anyway." If he's planning to keep his promises, he's taking his damn time in doing the deed.

I close my eye and try to conjure the three dancing women but there's nothing for it. They've gone. Instead, I try to find some sense of relaxation, but that's just as futile a try as the first. I know my wrists and ankles are chained to the floor, but it feels like they're being pulled apart from my body and from each other. Pain is a constant reality for me, and it has been such since Deane ran away. When I woke up and realized he was gone, I scolded myself for not stopping him the night before when he asked me to run away with him. I should have taken that proposition as a warning, but I thought Deane was more rational than that. Now, everything just sucks.

I might have said yes: I wanted to say yes. I said no because I was afraid. What if we ran and got caught? Would they shoot us on the spot? Would they bring us back and torture us? Would Mr. Burliss leave us to the "mercy" of the Peacekeepers? What would have happened if I ran away with him? I guess we'll never know now because I didn't. What has happened, clearly, is that I've been caught, interrogated and tortured anyway. If Mr. Burliss is to be believed, I'm just waiting to die. I guess, in the long run, the worst scenario is the one I'm living through.

Someone groans near me, pulling me from my self-initiated pity party. I hope it's Deane… but I've tried to see who it is and I've only failed at it so far… but I can't see him and I don't have the fight in me to try what I've failed to do over and over again. All I can do now is hope. I hope it is Deane. Whatever comes next will be easier to endure in the knowledge that Deane is with me, to know that my big brother is here. It seems selfish to hope that because if he is here then he's being tortured like I am, and I don't wish more harm on him, especially not the sort of harm I'm experiencing. But then again, as Mr. Burliss reminded me, I don't actually exist. No one cares if I die. I care. Death seems so boring to me. It's as ugly as a big old period at the end of a sentence, rather than the more attractive, slender arching and graceful comma. With a period, there is more to come after it, but whatever that might be it isn't related to what came before it. With a comma, whatever comes after it seems to be a completion of what came before it. The things that came before this comma I'm living through right now, all of them included me and Deane: we've stuck together through our parents' deaths, boiling hot summers and burning feet, through starvation and the shock of being captured and sold into servitude, through Mr. Farnsworth's style of discipline and through Mr. Burliss's sadism. We've done it all together from the night our parents died to the night Deane ran away. Whatever comes after the comma I'm living through, I want it to be related by the binding of our brotherhood. I want to come through this passage with Deane. I love him. That admission is too crude… doesn't say enough… never did. I love him, anyway.

"Deane," I try to call out. Instead of my voice, I hear a gargled moan. "Deeeane?" I try again, but the result is the same.

"Thatch?" I think I hear my companion say. I know that voice, but it's not Deane's, I think. As I strain against my restraints, the doors burst open and Mr. Burliss appears with his lackeys. They release me violently and I curl up into a ball, massaging my wrists.

"Hold him open," Mr. Burliss barks and I'm forced onto my back as the cowboys pin my wrists and ankles to the ground again. Mr. Burliss kneels down on the side where my eye opens so I can see him. "It's your lucky day," he hisses, the heavy scent of tobacco assaulting my nostrils. "Sorry," he continues. "I've got to keep you alive." He chuckles. "Well…" he draws out the "l". "I don't have to, but I can't spare the cowboys tonight, and you won't shut your trap at night, and we're entertaining upstairs tonight, so that's bad for business." He disappears from my sight, but he doesn't leave. When he speaks again, it is to my companion. "Your lucky day too, newbie. Boys, set him loose too. And get that damn traitor Scythe to the infirmary." The cowboys let me go and I contract again, closing my good eye. I hear my companion being released, and then, everyone's gone except for my mysterious companion and me.

"Thatcher?" My companion is by my side. "Thatcher, I'm going to lift you up." I try to nod but everything is sore, so I give up halfway. He lifts me up and my whole body cries out in agony, but I'm not able to make any noise but gargling groans. "Shhh," my companion says. "It's over now." It is indeed. I pass out.

"This will hurt, boy." It is a woman's voice, familiar but forgotten or from a time recently forgotten. "Hold his hand girlie." I feel a small hand in mine. The small hand rubs my palm gently, and then it moves to my wrists, where the small hand massages with a sense of care. It's the first good feeling I've endured. A warm cloth, wet and aromatic, covers my swollen eye and immediately it stings in the biting kind of way. The girl continues to massage my wrists, cooing softly.

"It's okay. You're okay," she says. Her voice is soft too, and I believe whatever it says. I concentrate on her voice and her massaging touches until the sting is gone. The cloth feels cold by the time it is removed. "You're so brave," she says. "You're doing so well."

"Try your eye, boy," the familiar woman's voice says. I try it, expecting for nothing to happen, and slowly the world comes into focus through not one but two eyes. The first face I see is the little girl's. She has rich brown hair in a single braid down her back. Her eyes are a mix of grey and blue. Her skin is weathered but smooth, and she wears a dawning smile. I know this face… from a dream.

"It worked!" she beams over at the older woman. The older woman, gold-skinned with straight black hair in two braids falling to her shoulders and lines etched into her forehead, gives a quick smile before looking down at me.

"It worked," she says. "How do you feel?" she asks me.

"Like Hell," I say, expecting to hear groans and gargles, but instead I hear my own voice, weak but clear.

"Good," the woman says. "Your throat will be sore for a little more than a week, so no shouting or straining your vocal chords, and try and talk as little as you can." I nod. "What's your name?" she frowns down at me.

"Thatcher…" I take a breath. "Scythe."

She nods. "I fixed you up before, Thatcher," she says, still frowning. "My name is Velvetta Cordwip. You call me Miss Vetta. Why did they beat you up like this?"

"My brother," I begin, taking a breath. "He ran away." I need another breath. "And they think I," and another. "I know where he… he is."

"But you don't know, so they beat you until you almost died." Miss Vetta says. "And here we are," she sighs and finishes with, "here we are bringing you poor boys back from the dead." She shakes her head. "Elka, is this the boy you saw?" Miss Vetta asks. The girl nods slowly.

"Yes, but not here." Miss Vetta picks up a bottle of something aromatic and uncorks it, dipping it quickly onto a clean cloth. She leans forward and rubs a generous amount of the sweet-smelling ointment on my upper lip. I breathe in and feel very drowsy.

"That's right, Thatcher. Breathe in and it will put you back to sleep. You will dream, and the dreams will be pleasant and foul. When you wake up, you must call for me and tell me what you've dreamt. Is that clear? Nod if it is." I nod. "Good." I'm beginning to feel sleep coming upon me but I struggle for a moment to keep it at bay. I need to know who my companion is, and she'll know if anybody does.

"Miss Vetta… who was it that… brought me up… here? Who… was… he?" I fight to get the question out. Miss Vetta frowns and shakes her head.

"Thatcher, love, no one brought you up here."

"I know you… you treated… treated… him. He … was being… tort… tortured … with… me." I'm falling into sleep. Miss Vetta takes my hand in her own rough hand and she clasps it gently.

"Thatcher, sweetheart, you are the only ranch hand I've treated. If there was someone else tortured with you, I'm afraid to say but he's not with us anymore." I close my eyes because they are too heavy to keep open. My head spins as I spiral down into sleep again, but it spins as well because I know Miss Vetta is wrong. The arms were real, the groans were real, the presence of another person in that horrible room… it was all real! And if she's right… if there is no one else in the infirmary… then…

"He's … … dead?" I manage to say through the haziness of sleep.

"Sleep," is the only reply I get, and in no time at all, that is exactly what I am doing.