CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

Thatcher Scythe

I dreamed of the three dancing women again, but as they danced, there was no joy or laughter in them. They all wore long faces. When she looked at me, the older woman seemed to wear a veil behind which I couldn't see her face. The younger woman didn't smile when she looked at me, and her eyes seemed to pierce the depths of me. The girl didn't make an effort to look at me, and her dance was wobbly and uncertain as if she was caught in the midst of indecision. The entire experience unnerved me: they weren't supposed to be melancholy, especially since they were figments of my imagination. I wanted them to change, but I didn't know how to force that change. I was violently shaken out of my restless sleep as their dance began to pick up. They were turning faster and faster, and from the middle of their circle, I thought I could see a deep blackness forming: I could feel it sucking in the things around it, including me, and when I was yanked upside down by my ankles and dropped on my head, I had thought that I was being pulled into this menacing blackness. It was not yet dawn, so the world was still gloomy. The cowboys kicked me a bit while Mr. Burliss stood and watched with his arms folded across his chest. Finally, he held his hand up and the cowboys stopped. I let out my breath and waited for the next round of violence. It didn't come.

Mr. Burliss motioned for the cowboys to leave and closed the door of the bunkhouse. A few ranch hands were awake during this visit, but they didn't show much interest in what was going on. Out of the corner of my eye, I made out one figure sitting up in his bunk and paying close attention. Mr. Burliss caught me trying to figure out who this person was, and he strode toward me, his boots hitting the cement of the floor distinctly. I saw the spur seconds before it bit into my cheek, and as I tried to lift my hand up to the wound, the heel of his boot broke my nose and the toe swiftly answered, colliding with my throat and rendering me unconscious.

A leather whip bit into my bare back and brought me into consciousness. My arms were tied to leather straps and held me up a few inches off the floor. As such, the whip, when it bit me again, set my body swinging slightly. I looked down, gritting my teeth, and counted the bones in my ribcage.

"Where's your brother?" Mr. Burliss hissed into my ear. I couldn't see him because he'd approached me from behind, but I could smell the extra strong scent of tobacco mixed with some saccharine sweet perfume. Both were overpowering, and together I felt nauseous. "Tell me!" he demanded. I clenched my jaw and refused to say anything. I didn't know where Deane was, so saying nothing was the same as repeating that I didn't know. He stepped back and let the whip tear into my back a few more times. When he stopped, I felt blood trickle down.

"Where's your brother, Scythe?" he hissed again. I offered nothing more than a shrug. The beating that followed caused a few more parts of my back to open up and give forth blood. He came back to me and asked again, "Where's your brother, Scythe?" and again I offered nothing but a shrug, and so the beating continued. This third time it was more vigorous, and I was certain that there was no part of my back that wasn't shredded beneath his whip. I could feel a steady flow of blood leaving my body, and I felt light-headed. "Where's your brother, boy?" Mr. Burliss spit on me when he hissed this time. I was clinging to consciousness, so he mattered very little to me. My limbs were going numb from the wrists down. He stepped back again and resumed beating me, directing the blows to my spine and making my eyes water as the whip lashed at my bone. I squeezed my eyes shut and shuddered as the faces of the three women danced before me. The whipping grew more intense: I could hear it ripping through my flesh, and I could hear the blood soaking the whip and spraying it across the floor as Mr. Burliss drew the weapon back before setting it upon me. The faces dancing before me were an eerie distraction. Altogether the women were refusing to look at me, and their dance continued to pick up speed. I couldn't see their legs or feet anymore; they were a swirl of black and grey, merging into each other, spinning at the pace of a tornado. Suddenly, the girl's face came into sharp focus: she looked at me with the same eyes as the girl who had massaged my palm and wrists. I gasped, felt an awful sting in the middle of my back, opened my eyes and saw her face in my waking vision. Run! She screamed at me, her entire face expanding and darkening, until it was only the light in the whites of her eyes that remained. I lose consciousness.

Water is splashed on my face and body – which is how I come to consciousness again. It is ice-cold water: literally, it has chunks of ice in it. I look up as another cowboy tosses a bucketful of ice water on me. I wince as the chunks of ice hit me. A third bucketful is tossed; I shiver and brace myself for the fourth. It doesn't come. Mr. Burliss lifts my head up by the chin, very roughly, and he shows me the baton he has in his hand. He grips my chin hard. "Tell me where your brother is, you son of a bitch. He talked to you; he told you where he was going." He gets really close. "Now you're going to tell me or you're going to die for it." I'm not sure how I manage to hock up enough phlegm for it but I smile at Mr. Burliss and let loose a massive bloody ball of spit that hits him between the eyes and forces him backward. He brushes his face clean and curses me using as many words as he knows. Then, the beating begins. His baton is wooden and his first few strikes hurt beyond reckoning. I think he might have broken some bones in my body, but I'm not sure of it; I am sure I would rather die now, slip into sleep and never wake up, but when I make this silent confession to myself and close my eyes, willing it to happen, I see the face of a different girl before me. She's pretty, has darkening hair with golden roots, and she's carrying a pair of dead hens in each hand. She's surprised to see me, but the look in her eyes spells out joy. She winces as I feel another bone break beneath the cruelty of Mr. Burliss' baton. At least I think it's a bone breaking. I try to focus on this pretty girl, but she seems to beckon to me, sleep. I lose consciousness again, except that I can feel the baton as it strikes me. Each blow seems fainter and fainter, but I can still feel them.

More ice water jolts me away; more of Mr. Burliss in my face. He's sweating. "You plotted with him. He told you where he went. Tell me now and your life might be spared." I have no strength left to hock up phlegm or to do much of anything except look at him. He takes this as offensive and brandishes a pair of metal clips connected to electric wires. He clips them to my fingers, which I can't really feel anymore, and then clips the pair on the end of each wire to a lanky electric machine with a rotating knob in the middle. He smiles back at me and then turns the knob, sending violent jolts of electricity through me. I can feel my fingers now. After a minute, he stops. I hang my head, defeated. "Where did you brother go, Thatcher?" he asks again. I say nothing. He turns the knob a little farther and more electricity courses through me. "Where is he?" I give him nothing. He turns the knob farther still: a lot more electricity courses through me. At this point I feel like my insides are being fried. I want to die; I'm not afraid of dying now. I simply want to die. When I lose consciousness this time, it is with the goal of never waking up again. I have no visitors when I black out: I am alone.

"Don't," I hear Biter say but I don't see him until I open my eyes. He's holding my head down, so I can't see him well, but he looks scared and after he releases my head, he tiptoes around me. I try to watch him, but when I move my head, he forces it down again. "Don't," he hisses at me. I'm confused but I don't say anything because when I try to open my mouth, I can't and I taste blood. I try to follow him but I get caught on the floor below my feet: literally, it is a pool of blood. Drops of blood join it from behind me, but unlike drops of water, when the blood falls to the floor, it merges without fussing the pool it has joined. Biter is on his knees now, trying to mop it up. He's making little or no progress. I can't do anything except hang from my wrists and try to watch him work through his futile task. I would prefer passing out than living through this agony, because now my senses are coming back to me and the pain is unbearable. The ghostly voice of the dancing girl whispers through my brain, Run-run-run-run. Finally, Biter seems to be finished with his task. There is no pool of blood below my feet but there is a large wine-red stain on the cement floor. Biter moves out of my line of vision and picks up a white bucket. He brings it back and throws its contents on the floor. The chemicals burn as they waft up into my eyes and nostrils. He pushes the liquid-chemical around so that it spreads all over the stain, and some of it begins to fade a bit, or my eyes are playing tricks on me. Whatever is happening, I begin to cry on account of the powerful sting emanating from below. I close my eyes: run-run-run; I open my eyes: tears and stinging. Biter appears in front of me, sees me crying and takes a dirty cloth, rubbing the tears away. It helps but doesn't stop me crying. He sighs. "Let's get you down." He unties my leather bindings and catches my body as it slumps on first impact with the floor. He lifts me over his shoulder and carries me away, finally resting me on a bench. "Don't try to lean back. You can't," he instructs me. He takes a seat beside me, which is a little comforting. I look over at him and notice, for the first time, he has a large purple lump on the side of his face. I frown and try to talk again, only to have more blood fill my mouth. I reach out, my bones screaming in pain, and touch his wound. He winces and takes my hand away. "They took me too." My eyes go wide. He nods. I shake my head, frowning. He sighs. "They thought that I knew something about Deane's runaway act. But I kept telling them, like you, that I had nothing to do with it: I didn't know where he was or where he was going. But they believed me about as much as they believed you." I force myself to endure the pain and the taste of blood in order to ask him the question lingering on my mind, following this revelation. It comes out slowly and painfully.

"Why… … did… … … they l… …et yo… … ..u… off?" Biter's expression changes: I've seen this face before. He wore it when he told Deane he was caught while looking for one of the Hunger Games arenas. He wore it while he told Deane he had heard about one being nearby. He wore it when he played poker, the other night, and managed to fool even the mighty poker champ, Gordy (who tried to beat him up afterward). I've seen this face before: he's lying to me. His look of surprise must mirror my own. He holds his hands up as if to protect himself from me, even though I'm not going to do anything to him.

"Look, Thatcher. I thought that it would all end better for us all if," he stammers. "If someone came forward and said they'd seen him talking to you. I thought they might treat you differently than they did." I ball my fists now, considering it more torture to hear this lame explanation for selling me out. "I didn't know what to expect, Thatch!" He pleads. He's pathetic! I might have wanted to be dead a few hours ago, but now that I have him here in my power, thinking he's going to get something out of me that is in some way sympathetic toward him… now that he's confessed to what he's done to me… or at least what he's allowed them to do to me… I want to live so I can see him suffer like I suffered. He's lucky I can't speak. If I could… no, I wouldn't have to speak! I'd jump on him and beat him bloody. Then I'd find a few buckets of ice cold water and splash those on him. Then I'd beat him bloody again. Then I'd electrocute him a few times. Then I would beat him senseless with a wooden baton. Then I'd… then I'd… then I'd…. I hit my thighs really hard, clenching my jaw in rage. Finally, despite Biter's attempts to calm me down, I open my mouth as wide as I can and give a really horrible, animalistic sound. It's the sort of sound I hear when a horse has broken its leg and can't get up: when the horse is in so much pain that putting it down would be merciful, that's the type of sound I hear myself make.

As if in answer to my cry, the older woman – Miss Vetta – and her assistant appear from the shadows. Miss Vetta holds out a cloth and pushes Biter aside; he curls into a ball. Miss Vetta has a worried expression on her face, and she is shushing me as she places the cloth over my mouth, trying to mute my voice. I inhale something pungent and try to scream louder but within seconds, I'm unconscious again.

Light spills into the room, hitting an old tea kettle, a few boxes of meal on a Formica-topped counter mimicking tile-work. There is a heavily bolted door within my line of vision. There is the older dancing woman slumped in a wicker chair beside me. I try to move but I can't because I'm bound in some sort of wrapping from my toes to my upper chest. The dancing girl appears with a glass of something white. She jumps when she sees me awake, but the smile I remember so well from my dreams crosses her face. "You're awake!" she announces with a fair amount of cheer. The woman stirs, straightens and rubs the sleep from her eyes. There's blood on her clothing. The girl steps between us and stuffs something soft beneath my head, propping it up at a steep but not wholly uncomfortable angle. She tilts the glass of white liquid at my mouth and says, "Open, please." I open my mouth very slowly and she tilts the glass, emptying most of the liquid down my throat. It's surprisingly warm and tastes bitter and sweet at the same time. I swallow and keep my mouth closed until she tilts the glass at my lips again. I work my mouth open and let her pour the rest of the liquid into it. I swallow again and follow her with my eyes. I don't trust that I can speak at all, but as the girl moves from between me and the older woman, the latter speaks.

"I'm Miss Vetta Cordwip, boy. I've patched you up a dozen times now, most in the last forty-eight hours. I introduced myself to you before, but I don't expect you to remember me. You want to know what happened to you. You concussed when I came for you and I had nowhere else I could clean you up on account of being in the right place at the wrong time. It turns out I was there at the right time, since you seemed intent on screaming out your vocal chords. The drink Elka is giving you should repair the damage you've done to that nice voice of yours. The rest of the healing is going to take time, and we've got time." She stands and leans over me. "The bad news is manageable: you might have permanent damage to your spinal cord but it doesn't look like you'll be paralyzed, so that's a bit of looking up in the midst of looking down. And the good news is very good." She smiles at me, a smile that seems to radiate wisdom and cleverness but also wiliness and a small fraction of joy. "You're not going back to the Ranches, child. You're staying here with me. I've bought your freedom… however long it might last… and I'm never letting you go back there again."