CHAPTER FOUR: Bess Tyler
Everybody's always lookin' down in this world. Well I wanna be lookin' up! I wanna see the sun set across the prairie every evening. I wanna wander out with Lenox an' Striker an' see if we can catch us grouse or even prairie chickens. I wanna teach 'em how to chew grass when they get hungry and we ain't been catchin' much, and I wanna take 'em over onto the Gaming Reserve and make faces at the livestock… maybe even find some wild mint again. I jus' wanna show them they can have a good time of it. I guess I want too much sometimes.
I seen Daddy look down a lot. I can count on my one hand how many times I seen him smile. That's bad. Life ain't bad, even here in District 10. It's just hard. That's what! I don't think he remembers but I do: one time I saw Daddy cry. Daddy's a strong man, taller than some and Miss Vetta likes to call him handsome sometimes. I like it when he smiles – which ain't much, like I said – but I jus' hated it when I saw him cry. Where were we…? Oh yeah, we went out into the prairie. Over by the canyon and away from it a little walk is the place where we laid Momma down. I don't remember much of when Momma died except that we named Lenox that night and it rained something awful. The rain – folks say – is poisonous because of all the chemicals in the air from the time before the coasts flooded. Moxie says some of the turf in our roof will sap up the bad stuff so it won't sting when the water leaks through – if it leaks through – but don't stand out in the rain when it rains 'cause it could kill you. So Moxie says. I remember it was raining fierce the night we had to let Momma go. There was lightning and thunder too. Miss Vetta was there and she dragged us out to the mule shed to keep outta the rain. I remember the next day, Daddy dressed up and went into the Town on the mule – the she-mule was a baby still. When he come back, there was other folks with him and they covered up Momma in a sheet and borrowed shovels, and then they took her outta the hut. "Come say goodbye to your Momma," I remember Daddy sayin'. I suppose we did. Elka and Sissy were young, and I was young too… about Lenox and Striker's age now, so 5 years old… but Moxie was old, and she made us all hold hands and say our goodbyes to Momma. Then Daddy and the other folk went on out into the prairie and took Momma with them. When they came back around sunset, they were sweatin' and pantin' too. Dad was sweatin' all over his face, and it was all slick-looking. That was probably the first time I seen him cry, and I hated it then even. This time I'm rememberin' now was not so long ago. I was 9 I guess, and Striker an' Lenox were both 3. They were walkin' good so I took 'em out into the prairie to see what we could catch for Miss Vetta's soup. She sent us lark meat and hawk meat to make into a nice stew, but we needed somethin' else to take the edge off those tastes, so that was up to the boys an' me. We were out there lookin' and gatherin' when I seen Daddy goin' off toward the canyon. I was curious to know where he was goin' so I gathered the boys up and made them try to be quiet – which wasn't successful – so we hung back several yards and tracked Daddy into the prairie.
When the prairie starts to go dark, it gets all magical. First, the grass – which looks so dry an' thirsty in the sunlight – starts to go a diff'rent color than dull green. It gets into some color softer than that. The mounds where the prairie dogs pop outta cast long shadows across the ground, and when the sun hits it the outer wall of the canyon – the one we can see – shimmers in a dancing pattern of black, green, grey, burnt orange and red. This night I'm tellin' about, a cloud'd been hanging around the sky all day, but as the sun was goin' down, it moved the cloud and all a sudden, the canyon was jus' this brilliant, beautiful artwork from a time, I guess, before time. I loved it! See, if I was lookin' down, I'd never've seen that!
Lots of Prairie Dogs – that's what us folks in the Compound are called by the Townies – aren't too fond of the canyon. In one of the Games, there was a canyon with lots of deadly animals in it, and we had to watch mountain cats or snakes or preying birds pick off Tributes at the same time as Tributes were pickin' off Tributes. Of course the land around that canyon was a desert so it was diff'rent than our canyon, but the job was done and no one – neither Prairie Dogs nor Townies – like to go near our canyon.
So I followed Daddy, Lenox and Striker being towed with me, until he got to the place where he stopped. I couldn't see it from where I was with the boys but there was something in the ground that Daddy stopped at. It almost looked like a little mound, like the one's a prairie dog might come outta, but there was something standing up on top of it. After he was gone, I looked closer and saw it was two strips of deadwood bark, one standing up vertical and one tacked in the middle of it and lying sideways so that the whole thing looked like a faceless, legless and headless person standing tall and stretching out its arms wide as they can go. Across the arms of the "person" was carved "VST" and some numbers. I put it together later that those were Momma's initials: Violet Scythe Tyler. He must've been reading the carving when I spotted it and wondered what it was because then he slumped his shoulders and drooped his head all sad-like. I didn't see the tears, but I didn't have to because the rest of his body was crying. It's that feelin' that you get when you see somethin' you ain't supposed to se – that's how I felt in that moment right there. It took me a few nights to pluck up the courage to say something to him, and when I did, I wished I hadn't seen anything at all. But I'll get on to that later.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if Miss Vetta is lookin' down or lookin' up. She's got good business in the Town an' lots of springtimes she's out here helping with the childbirthing, but as hard as she appears outside, I like seeing her when she's being soft. The way she makes us soups and smuggles goods to Moxie makes me think she's got her own way of lookin' up. The way she tells us she's goinna keep an eye out for us in coming back from the Reaping Day, an' how she always puts together something real nice for my birthday – makin' me feel all special – well, I like to think that's her way of lookin' up. Then there's other times when I seen her actin' diff'rently: she's not mean exactly, but she's not too nice. Hard, I think, is how folks put it: Miss Vetta Cordwip is a hard woman. I don't blame her. She's more of a Prairie Dog than a Townie. There's a difference too. Prairie Dogs keep as far outta Town as possible, and it takes somethin' real bad to happen – like a Reaping – to put us back into Town. Townies are exactly the same: they want nothin' to do with the prairie, and some are even scared of it. If they can't go to the shops and get them some food or whatever else it is they want or need, I bet they'd be completely lost. But we Prairie Dogs, we mostly pick our food off the land. Lark meat is chewy and there ain't a lot of it 'cause larks are small birds, but any meat is good meat if you know how to prepare it (and Miss Vetta does, so we're in good shape). Hawk meat can be a treat. Grouse will keep your lanterns lit from its grease and fat and it'll feed two mouths at a time. Prairie chickens are feisty but a real good meat when you can get them. Sometimes we have to make do with somethin' plain like sorghum wheat mashed with goat's milk: our neighbors keep a goat for its milk and cheese production and sometimes we trade the she-mule in exchange for some goat milk and cheese – and though it's illegal to poach, we might get a Prairie Dog to go poach an elk from the Gaming Reserve, and if it's a big one, then there's a small feast for at least two families. But our staple out here is cereal – anything with grains, anything done to grains that can be eaten, we do it. Miss Vetta helps smuggle us the stuff brought to Town from the Ranches an' we usually keep quiet when she does. It always gets us lookin' up, I think.
Moxie's a tricky one too. She looks down a lot, but I think it's her way of lookin' up too. I've known Moxie my whole life and we've been good sister. I'd call her my friend too except that I know she doesn't think there's much to friendship. I do, but we're allowed to be diff'rent. Moxie used to pay me lots of attention which feels good. We're only 14 months apart in birth. Her day is 2 months before the Reaping Day. So we've always been close. Moxie used to tell me stories when we'd be out with Daddy lookin' for food. A couple times we were so innocent lookin' Daddy would convince us to go onto the Gaming Reserve and poach animals there. I'd get scared of it so Moxie would tell me some silly story to keep me calm. We'd play a game of it. I remember her tellin' me the story, and it went like this: the Gaming Reserve was not some bad evil place, but it used to be some great kingdom where the folks in it were like us, but then one day an evil queen decided to change all the folks into animals and make them dumb. Moxie'd say that there was no way outta the Gaming Reserve for the folks who was trapped in there as animals, and that we had to fight against the ranch-hands – the folks from the Ranches who would come out into the Gaming Reserve and kill the animals to sell their meat in Town – who were agents of the evil queen. What the ranch-hands were doin' was murdering the folks from the old kingdom and it was our duty to steal them off the Reserve land, because once they were off the curse would be broken and they would be free. The only problem was that they'd been trapped as animals for so long that they'd forgotten how to be humans, so when we took them off the Reserve land, their human-selves would fly up outta the animal body and spread itself out all over the new kingdom – our kingdom – and just be equal with every natural thing there. So when we killed the animals we poached, we weren't killing the trapped souls inside them but letting them free by sacrificing the animals. Of course, once you've killed an animal with lots of meat on it, you gotta cut it up and eat it. The story at least got me into the Reserve without more fussing.
Most times we were successful. I caught a hare once and later found out it was two hares. That made me feel bad about it a little, but Moxie told me we had to eat and the hares was there on the Reserve to get killed anyway, so better us than them ranch-hands an' cowboys. All the folks from the Ranches would do was kill 'em for sport and then sell 'em for too much money – 'least more money than most hungry folks could pay for 'em. So we was getting an expensive meal literally for free. Sometimes Moxie can be lookin' up then.
And then, I remember the day when we got caught. So poaching on the Gaming Reserve, like I said, is illegal because the Gaming Reserve is meant for the Ranches. They don't have enough grazing land for their livestock and cows, so the Reserve is for them and the other animals that are going to be meat for the Townies. The way Miss Vetta tells is, the Ranches are really big houses meant for keepin' the Capitol folk in the dark about how life here really is: when Capitol folk come around on Reaping Day and later for the Victory Tour, they film at the Ranches because they look nice and they make the Capitol folk think we've got an easy and good life. They do bull-fighting at the Ranches and have the Victory Banquet there, according to Miss Vetta who has to attend because she is a merchant in Town, Peacekeepers' orders. According to Daddy, what the Capitol folk don't see at the Ranches is the District 10 folk who run them. There's three types at the Ranches: 1) The Cow-men, 2) the Cowboys, and 3) the Ranch-hands. The Cow-men are the folks who run the business at the Ranches and in selling products in the Town. Most Cow-men are rich and fat and smoke a lot and wear big round hats that hide their faces. Most of them aren't tall like Daddy, but are what Miss Vetta calls "squat". In other words, they look like suntanned, clothed bouncy balls. The cowboys ain't all boys; it's just what they're called. They work on the Ranches with the cattle and livestock, herding usually, and breaking in any horses on the grounds. They also make saddle-straps and saddles, leather jackets and trousers, and whips and straps, or so Daddy thinks. But the most important thing for the cowboys to do is be trained to entertain the Capitol folks when they come. They perform fancy rope dances and have large gatherings where they ride bulls. Miss Vetta says she seen them try to do contra-dancing and a few square dances, but then she laughed and said that they ain't got the right steps or music. They train to play music too, but the music ain't their own or ours: the Capitol has to approve of it before it can be learnt, so Miss Vetta says. They also train to stage old-timey sword fighting duels and to be that kind of person who waves a red flag around a circle, I guess, to get an angry bull even madder. Sometimes, Daddy says, they take out their old pistols and perform pistol duels. The least experienced cowboys usually get hurt or die from these performances, and it's all for the sake of entertaining the Capitol folk. No one seems to know how a person becomes a cowboy, or if they do, they ain't saying. But I once asked Miss Vetta if what Daddy said about them was true, and all she did was nod her head and looked pretty grave.
The third type on the Ranches are the ranch-hands. These boys – and they usually are boys – are District 10 boys picked up from the far reaches of 10 for reasons no one knows for sure. They bring 'em back to the Ranches and put 'em to work doing everything that keeps 'em functioning. Miss Vetta has stories from folks who trade with her about ranch-hands. They get fed and boarded in the Ranches, but that's all. Miss Vetta calls 'em slaves, but she never talks about them when Daddy's around. It was ranch-hands that were involved the day Moxie and I got caught poaching. It was a pair of them. I remember it well because they said they were gonna tell on Moxie and get her name put into the bowls more times. Moxie didn't tell 'em her name, but the one who was about her age, he said he'd drag her out in front of the crowds and tell on her. The other ranch-hand looked like he was my age maybe – a little older maybe. Moxie told the older one what she thought about that and then what she thought about him too, and it wasn't any of it nice, but he didn't seem to hear her. There was an awful long pause, and then the younger ranch-hand gave me back my catch – a farm-raised hen! – and he went over and talked a bit with the older one, and when they was done, he'd convinced the older to let us off. They'd say a coyote had gotten in or one of the dogs got loose and killed and ate the kill we'd been poaching. I could see Moxie and the older ranch-hand didn't like this idea, but the younger one and I did. We got away and I was definitely lookin' up that day.
I can still picture the younger boy's face. He was very tan and weathered-looking, but his hair on his head and his eyebrows was like wet straw in color. He didn't look up at me much, except for when he was giving back the hen and his eyes were dark but blue. He had a sharp chin but soft cheeks with high cheek bones, and I thought he had the perfect nose, not too high up from his mouth an' not too low either. When he looked at me, I had to smile at him since I couldn't say anything in that moment. He tried to smile back as we was leaving' and he almost got it off had not the older boy clamped a hand down on his shoulder and said, "Not a word, Thatch, not a bloody word." He was really angry sounding. I kept that name – if it was a name – with me and sometimes just sayin' it – Thatch – keeps me lookin' up and thinking about a ranch-hand who, once upon a time in a kingdom of enchanted folks who was trapped as animals, he decided to give me an' Moxie a chance to live.
Sissy and Elka are always lookin' up too. They're pretty young though and Moxie and Miss Vetta and Dad and – well I guess – and I try to keep 'em lookin' up. Elka gets some bad dreams at night, usually about once a week. She lies next to me in bed and I wake up with her. When she gets scared, I take her outside to count the shining stars or to go look for the fires that the folks outside the fence light and dance around. Or sometimes it helps her to pet the she-mule. She don't mind it. I think the she-mule likes it even. Daddy says he called Elka after an elk he saw pass by once. He liked how graceful and powerful that creature was. He wanted Elka to be like that. Seems instead that Elka's got the shyness of an elk, and some of its sleekness too. But gracefulness? We'll see. Sissy's named for an especially rare plant Dad found once long ago. It's called mentha arvensis, but we call it wild mint. Dad found one once long ago and he liked its taste and its color – the flowers go purple and are big and sometimes bushy-lookin'. On that description, I remember one time I found one too! It was a day when I was out messin' around in the prairie and I seen it after I thought I heard a snake coming nearby. I picked that one wild mint and brought it back to Sissy. Purple is her favorite color so it made her laugh and smile all over, and that made me laugh and smile too. We was lookin' up that day. I never found it again. Miss Vetta says they need water, just like we do. I wonder if there is any over in the canyon where we know there's water. Someday, I reckon, I'm gonna go out to the canyon with Sissy and we're gonna find another one just for her. That thought and the good stories I can think of by Moxie's tellin', and Miss Vetta's kindness and Daddy's smiles, and the deep dark blue eyes and saving grace of that boy possibly called Thatch, they all keep me lookin' up, especially when the happiest day of my year ought to be my birthday, and yet it is not the scariest day of my life, put on repeat every year. I gotta hold onto the things that are making me smile because I have this terrible feelin' that someday soon they'll be all I have.