Donor 23 (37 page)

He didn’t waste time. “Lionheart, we need to talk. I—”

Two men abruptly approached, and one leaned in to Lucas’s ear, whispering. Joan recognized him as one of the colonels. Lucas held up his hand to Joan and turned to face the men, instead.

Standing with them was a man who looked like he had been through bad times. His clothes appeared dirty and torn. He had dirt caked on his hands and cheeks. A scraggily beard, evidence he had not shaven in quite a while, covered his face. His skin, though tanned, seemed sickly and pale.

Joan stared at him. She recognized his look. His sunken and hollow cheeks reflected a horror he must have been through. He was exhausted and certainly had not drunk much water or eaten a hot meal in a while. She knew what that was like. She must have looked like him when Arrow Comes Back had found her—worn out and beaten.
Not totally beaten,
Joan thought. She had come through.
But with help—she had help
. She wondered where he was from and how far he had traveled.

Lucas addressed the man, “I understand you’re looking for me—”

“Yeah, I’m 51—” the man paused. He took a breath. “Name’s…” another pause. Finally, “Owen.”

Not used to being interrupted, Lucas glared and stuck his chin high in the air. Owen’s voice sounded rough, with raspy cracks. The vulnerable man tried to say more, but his mouth was so parched he couldn’t.

Lucas set his lips tight and ordered, “Bring 51—this man—water. Here, sit…” He forced himself to add, “Owen.”

After he had drunk his fill, the man coughed, “Escaped from the Alliance. Seven of us donors. Only five left. We came to fight with the Lionheart. Where is the Lionheart? Is she here?”

Lucas turned to face Joan and raised his eyebrows. Joan clutched Bash’s hand, as she scrutinized Owen. She knew what she would do. She would return to the Alliance.

38

S
piller and a couple of other men approached Joan, where she sat on the ground cleaning the rifle. One of the men held a camera, and one held equipment.

“Lionheart,” Spiller said, “the General—”

“Wants to see me. I know. I know,” she interrupted, with a smile. “I’ll go.”

Spiller grinned, too. “No. He’d like to get a picture of you and get it out there now. Let everyone know you’re still alive. Give everyone hope. We’re going to have a man ride back today to Seaton with the film.”

“It’ll be quick. Just wear what you have on. You look good,” he commanded, and he motioned for Joan to stand up and to the photographer to get ready. The man set up his camera. Sighing, Joan obliged.

The photographer remarked, “Yeah, the gun, too. Hold that up.”

Spiller agreed, “And that hat you have. It’s good. Unique. It will give you a little cachet, a mark of distinction.”

Twenty minutes later Joan was still posing for the camera. She stood in front of a batch of trees. The leaves were beginning to change colors, from green to gold and dark crimson. She stood straight, holding the rifle, her tattoo showing, her lion figurine dangling over her heart, with her hat jauntily cocked on her head.

“OK, enough already!” she exclaimed, slipping the rifle over her shoulder and walking away. Spiller raised his eyebrows as she stomped off.

Since she made the decision to join the Resistance, her strength of will had returned. She spent much of her time exercising. But she often ventured into the forest to contemplate—surrounded by the trees. The System had forced her on a road. Now, after hunger, fear and constant anxiety, she was a different girl. She had set her feet upon a new road.

That morning she hiked alone to Glimmerglass. The still waters had glistened like a crystal—sparkling in the morning mist. It looked untouched—as if waiting for her. In silence and solitude, she sat at its edge. She didn’t know how long she stayed there, gazing at the calm water. After a while, she wasn’t even sure if she was there. She dove in. The swim invigorated her.

Let Lucas and Spiller call her Lionheart—she didn’t care.

“I’m so full,” Old Owl uttered, leaning back during dinner.

“Glad you liked it,” One Who Sees gloated.

“
Ah
, I didn’t say I liked it,” he grumbled.

Quiet Snowfall, snuggled in her father’s lap, playfully mimicked her grandfather, “
Ah
, I didn’t say I liked it. I hated it. I’m a grumpy old man…” She stopped when her father tickled her.

“I’ll miss your dinners,” Joan sighed to One Who Sees. Joan and the Resistance intended to leave for Seaton the next day.

As she ate, she didn’t say much. She listened to Old Owl’s complaints, One Who Sees’s gossip, the children’s laughter, and Arrow Comes Back’s respectful reticence.

Later that night, the thought of leaving the next day kept her awake. She crept out of the tent to get some fresh air and think. Old Owl bumped into her.

“Thought you were inside,” Joan uttered, surprised.

“
Ah
, old age,” the man replied, shaking his head. “I have to get up a lot in the night.”

Joan didn’t respond.

“Lionheart, something troubles you. Troubles your soul?”

She sighed, “I was just…I don’t know. Just thinking about tomorrow. About joining the Resistance.”

“You think of possible death?”

She shook her head and told him forthrightly, “No, not that. I understand there are worse things than dying.” She thought of how she had almost died back in the Alliance, without ever really living.

“Yes,” he nodded in his understanding way.

“I guess what worries me…well, what good can I do in this fight?”

“The Walled Nation still hunts you. So they must fear you.”

“You don’t know the Allia—the Walled Nation. It’s strong. So
very
strong.” She shook her head in disbelief, “I’m scared the donors expect too much from me. Lucas expects too much from me. I’m not sure it’s in me.”

They sat quietly for a moment. A slight breeze in the warm night air caused Joan to shiver. An owl in the distance let out a delicate, melodic hoot.

“The stars are bright tonight,” he commented.

He cleared his throat. “When the Great Star fell, it gravely injured the Earth, the Children and all the people. But in hurting the Earth, it destroyed itself. The Fallen Star fell in fire and was smashed to pieces. Its shards were carried by the wind across the lands. The Children believe the only way to make the Earth whole again—to heal it and to rebuild it—is to collect those pieces. There are people who collect them—people who heal the Earth.”

He paused, “Lionheart, you are one of those people. Don’t be afraid. Your parents, and Hunyewat…they will be with you.”

He put his hand lightly on her arm. The power of human touch cannot be underestimated. Joan could never have explained it, but a flash of energy—a vigor—rushed into her, from his crusty, wrinkled, aged fingers to her strapping, youthful arm. A strength. A quiet strength.

One of the most difficult things Joan ever did was say goodbye to the Children. She never had a chance to say good-bye to her mother, her father, Jack, or Kaleb, and now she was unsure how to go about it.

One Who Sees wept, and they held on to each other.

“It’s not forever, Lionheart. We’ll be back here next year,” One Who Sees cried between sobs.

The children’s faces hung in sadness. They were losing their big sister, Lionheart. Quiet Snowfall held tightly to Joan’s pant leg. Red Lilly, usually so shy, cried, as she handed Joan a bracelet she had woven.

“Here, I made this,” Red Lilly said.

It was thin, brown twine with colorful beads and stones interlaced.

“I helped her,” Quiet Snowfall chimed in. “Held the beads for her.”

Crackling Fire, trying his best to remain as stoic as his father, pronounced, “I drilled the holes in the stones. The blue ones, see?”

Joan gazed at them. “Beautiful. Here, tie it on me.”

Red Lilly stopped sobbing and carefully wrapped it around Joan’s wrist, near her tattoo.

“I’ll treasure it. I’ll think of you three every time I look at it.”

Old Owl pretended he wasn’t upset, but he obviously held back tears.

Joan pleaded with the old man, “Please, don’t you cry, too. I can’t handle that.”

She held out to him the photo of her parents. “Here, for safekeeping for me.”

The old man took it. “It will remind me.”

Arrow Comes Back austerely stood before her.

Joan grappled for what to say to him, “Thank you, from my heart. I don’t know what would have happened to me, if not for you. You didn’t just save my life. You…all of you,” she turned toward the group. “You helped me in so many ways. You helped me to live.”

“You’ll do the same for others,” Arrow Comes Back said—as a statement, not a question.

He held out something to her. It was the rattle—the tail of the rattlesnake she had killed.

“To remind you. Of your strength. I hope to see you next year, my sister,” Arrow Comes Back said.

She wanted to hug him but didn’t.

39

T
he autumn sun shone at a sharper angle to the Earth, casting a longer shadow, as the large group rode in a straggly line through the desert. They traveled cautiously, on the lookout for the Alliance army. Lucas had scouts ride ahead. Usually, the army posed no risk, but they were out in force looking for Duncan. The army had found Duncan’s durable, with the dead ruff beside it. They assumed Duncan had been the victim of foul play. Duncan’s family was important, so the army wasn’t holding back in its search.

The group planned to travel by horseback for a week or two. When they reached the main highway, Lucas had durables and trucks waiting to transport them to Seaton.

They got along cordially. Lucas, his officers, and aides pitched their tents near each other and spent their evenings huddled in meetings.

Reck stayed in a tent with Resistance soldiers. He officially joined up with them and cherished his Resistance issue rifle. Since Kaleb’s death the previous month and the revelation of her betrayal of her mother, Reck avoided Joan. He spent his time with Lucas’s group. Twice she confronted him, and twice he rebuffed her.

Isabel and Bash were clearly a couple, and they camped apart from everyone else. Joan pitched her tent close to theirs, with Duncan sleeping nearby. The awkwardness between Duncan and Joan had passed, replaced with an easy co-existence between the two. But Duncan never said her name.

Joan shifted her weight in the saddle, as she glanced at Duncan clumsily riding ahead of her. He held on tightly, concentrating on maintaining his balance on the trotting animal. He had recently learned how to ride and still had not mastered it. Joan chuckled. Duncan, not self-conscious, had practiced with the horse, right in the middle of the Children’s camp. A large crowd of kids had gathered, laughing at his inabilities. He had laughed and joked along with them.

Isabel and Bash rode behind Joan, and when she turned around, she spied them kissing. Joan received a vicarious thrill watching them—the love they shared.
Would she ever have a love so powerful?

Joan became acquainted with Lucas’s personal servant, 12. After a slight hesitation, he told her his name was Conrad. Joan recognized his concern—knew why he paused. She would have thought him free from the fear and the old rules, since he’d been so long away from the Alliance.
It can take a long time,
she pondered ruefully. Emotional chains and mental chains can be stronger than iron chains. The Lucas family had employed him as a servant since his youth. He escaped with them. Conrad had noticed Joan’s surprise when Lucas referred to him by his number. It was just easier for Lucas to call him by his number, Conrad explained. He was used to it. Contrary to Joan’s initial
guess, Conrad was not a member of the donor contingent. He was Lucas’s personal servant.

As they journeyed, Joan wore the same clothes and brown hat Bash purchased for her. She pulled the hat near her eyes. Because of the tacked-up brim, the left side of her face glistened a slightly deeper shade of tan, mixed with a little sunburn. She had tied the tail of the snake to her belt, and the lion figurine remained around her neck.

Reck urged his horse next to hers.