so as to keep a watchful eye
on Finn, her head laying on her massive paws.
“ Cat can have whatever she
wants,” I say. I sure ain’t gonna argue with the she
devil.
After stuffing ourselves on boiled
rabbit, we talk long into the evening. I tell Finn all about
Rivercross. About gra’da and Ben and everybody. Feels real good to
talk about ‘em…like somehow they’re still with me. I talk and talk
and talk…I cain’t stop. I talk about me and Ben as young’uns and
growing up together and all the things we done. I tell him about
gra’da finding and rearing me and how he was so good to me. I talk
about Thomas’s spook stories and Miz Emmas berry bread. I don’t
know why but the words just pour out of me. I talk about everything
and anything. Finn just listens and laughs at times but he don’t
interrupt. It’s as if he’s just happy to be listening to another
soul’s voice. Finally I tell him about the monster men coming and
how they took Ben and Jane and young Thomas and how I got to go
find ‘em. He ain’t heard of Littlepass neither. I reckoned as much
him being a young’un and all.
When I’m all talked out it’s Finn’s
turn. He tells me all about his kin that he lost…his ma and pa, his
pa’s brother and wife and his gra’da. They all lived here together.
Unlike my village the monster men didn’t take nobody ‘cause Finn
had been the only young’un here, but they had still killed the
rest. He asks me why they done it.
“ I dunno why,” I say. “Some
men are just born with darkness in their hearts I
guess.”
It’s the only reason I can give him but
he seems to accept it. He goes on to tell me about how he remembers
once living in a bigger village with lots of other young folk to
play with but for some reason his kin up and left that place and
settled out here in the sand lands. He don’t know why, he was never
told the reason. He said he remembers being real lonely ‘til one
day his pa was out hunting and found a dead devil cat. It was tore
up real bad, his pa couldn’t say what had done it but he hears some
gods awful bawling coming from under it. Sure enough the she cat
has a cub, all curled up underneath her and trying to feed from its
dead mama. Finn said his pa had too kind a heart to kill it or
leave it to die so he brought it home. His gra’da had taken one
look at it and wanted to kill it but Finn had a fit he says, and of
course he got his way. The cub was his and….well he reared it ever
since.
“ Me and Cat’s family now,
ain’t we Cat,” he says.
The beast looks up at its name but just
yawns, showing its wicked looking teeth. It still makes me shiver.
But Finn assures me I ain’t got nuthin’ to fret about. He says Cat
is the best protection, better than any crossbow or iron shooter.
For him maybe. For me, well I ain’t so sure. I still didn’t want to
be alone with it. I wasn’t in no hurry to find out how good of a
meal I would make.
The boy yawns too and I’m surprised to
see how low the fire is. It ain’t nuthin but glowing embers….must
be real late. I feel kind of bad but I take Finn up on his offer of
the bed while he takes to sleeping in front of the hearth. He don’t
mind he says, Cat makes for a real soft pillow.
After weeks of sleeping on the hard
ground the bed feels like laying on a cloud. It don’t take long for
my mind to shut down and I drift off. I don’t rightly know if it
were the soft bed, the boys company, or the protection offered from
the devil cat, but for the first time since leaving Rivercross the
night terrors don’t come….and I sleep.
****************************************************************************
“ Finn you ain’t coming with
me and that’s that!”
We’ve been arguing since the sun come
up. For some reason the boy has decided he is to go with me to
Littlepass and I cain’t get him to change his mind. When he made up
his mind about this I ain’t sure, but he’s like a hound with a
bone,
on Finn, her head laying on her massive paws.
“ Cat can have whatever she
wants,” I say. I sure ain’t gonna argue with the she
devil.
After stuffing ourselves on boiled
rabbit, we talk long into the evening. I tell Finn all about
Rivercross. About gra’da and Ben and everybody. Feels real good to
talk about ‘em…like somehow they’re still with me. I talk and talk
and talk…I cain’t stop. I talk about me and Ben as young’uns and
growing up together and all the things we done. I tell him about
gra’da finding and rearing me and how he was so good to me. I talk
about Thomas’s spook stories and Miz Emmas berry bread. I don’t
know why but the words just pour out of me. I talk about everything
and anything. Finn just listens and laughs at times but he don’t
interrupt. It’s as if he’s just happy to be listening to another
soul’s voice. Finally I tell him about the monster men coming and
how they took Ben and Jane and young Thomas and how I got to go
find ‘em. He ain’t heard of Littlepass neither. I reckoned as much
him being a young’un and all.
When I’m all talked out it’s Finn’s
turn. He tells me all about his kin that he lost…his ma and pa, his
pa’s brother and wife and his gra’da. They all lived here together.
Unlike my village the monster men didn’t take nobody ‘cause Finn
had been the only young’un here, but they had still killed the
rest. He asks me why they done it.
“ I dunno why,” I say. “Some
men are just born with darkness in their hearts I
guess.”
It’s the only reason I can give him but
he seems to accept it. He goes on to tell me about how he remembers
once living in a bigger village with lots of other young folk to
play with but for some reason his kin up and left that place and
settled out here in the sand lands. He don’t know why, he was never
told the reason. He said he remembers being real lonely ‘til one
day his pa was out hunting and found a dead devil cat. It was tore
up real bad, his pa couldn’t say what had done it but he hears some
gods awful bawling coming from under it. Sure enough the she cat
has a cub, all curled up underneath her and trying to feed from its
dead mama. Finn said his pa had too kind a heart to kill it or
leave it to die so he brought it home. His gra’da had taken one
look at it and wanted to kill it but Finn had a fit he says, and of
course he got his way. The cub was his and….well he reared it ever
since.
“ Me and Cat’s family now,
ain’t we Cat,” he says.
The beast looks up at its name but just
yawns, showing its wicked looking teeth. It still makes me shiver.
But Finn assures me I ain’t got nuthin’ to fret about. He says Cat
is the best protection, better than any crossbow or iron shooter.
For him maybe. For me, well I ain’t so sure. I still didn’t want to
be alone with it. I wasn’t in no hurry to find out how good of a
meal I would make.
The boy yawns too and I’m surprised to
see how low the fire is. It ain’t nuthin but glowing embers….must
be real late. I feel kind of bad but I take Finn up on his offer of
the bed while he takes to sleeping in front of the hearth. He don’t
mind he says, Cat makes for a real soft pillow.
After weeks of sleeping on the hard
ground the bed feels like laying on a cloud. It don’t take long for
my mind to shut down and I drift off. I don’t rightly know if it
were the soft bed, the boys company, or the protection offered from
the devil cat, but for the first time since leaving Rivercross the
night terrors don’t come….and I sleep.
****************************************************************************
“ Finn you ain’t coming with
me and that’s that!”
We’ve been arguing since the sun come
up. For some reason the boy has decided he is to go with me to
Littlepass and I cain’t get him to change his mind. When he made up
his mind about this I ain’t sure, but he’s like a hound with a
bone,
Similar Books
