Day 19
I crawled on my stomach to a bush large enough to shield all three of us. Ahead of me was a large clearing that looked like the town square of Tradition.
We had followed the path leading to the town of Tradition. I followed Runner and pulled the peach cart. Puppy usually followed me; he seemed to enjoy traveling but occasionally whined for either food or attention. By now, I could easily tell which. Even though the path was public and other people occasionally passed us, Runner and I had agreed that it was safer staying on it. On the path, a farmboy, his slave, and his dog looked normal, at least to the two farmers we had met. Runner and I had waited on the edge of the trail to give the wagons room to pass, and our presence had merited barely a glance and a nod from the farmers. The farms on this side of the island were much closer together, and I felt that sneaking through the woods was likely to be noticed and might generate suspicion.
Late on the second morning after our mountain crossing, Runner spotted the town ahead and stopped suddenly. I was glad we hadn't walked out into plain view of the inhabitants. I didn't feel ready for that yet. Runner and I had retreated into the safety of the trees, and looked over the layout of the town.
The town was a rough oval, about a hundred yards long, forty wide. There were three lines of wooden buildings, and an open area in front of them. I was facing the middle of the open area.
The town square was not entirely empty. In the middle of it, barely thirty feet from me, there was a stage that reminded me of the ones used for hanging Academy graduates. But here it was used for punishment.
In the center of the stage, a single, forlorn vicuna was semi-suspended, not by his neck but by his wrist cuffs. The chains were attached to an overhead beam and held his arms widely separated above his head, with his toes just touching the floor of the stage — he couldn't put his heels down. The vicuna's back, left side, and the backs of his thighs were striped with fresh paddle marks. Even the left side of his chest showed an angry welt. He was alone now, but probably not for long. As I watched, the vicuna groaned. He raised himself high on his toes to take the tension out of his arms, the muscles in his legs standing out and quivering. Within seconds his legs were quaking — I suspected he had made this move many times before, and his legs were at the end of their strength. They gave out quickly and left his arms and wrists to bear most of his weight again. The vicuna was whimpering, barely audible from where I hid. I had no way to know how long he had been there, but I suspected it had been a long time.
It was impossible to guess what the vicuna had done. Escape attempts were relatively rare, and I thought it unlikely I would stumble on the punishment for one the moment I hit town. More likely he had refused to work. Inevitably a few of the younger ones were rebellious. At first.
There were people walking to and fro on the boardwalk in front of the buildings, usually farmers. Each was accompanied by a single slave, sometimes with a dogboy. The slaveboys averted their gaze from the suffering vicuna on the stage. I was pretty sure I knew why. They had all seen more than they wanted already.
I buried my face against my arms on the ground. In my world, slaves were rarely disciplined publicly — control of slaves was generally considered a private matter. But that wasn't the source of my discomfort. It was the knowledge that I would get the same treatment if I was caught. I had known it as an intellectual fact. Seeing it made it much more real. I could feel every muscle in my arms and legs aching in sympathy. And dread.
Runner whispered, "He did something bad, didn't he?"
Not looking up, I nodded.
"Would they do that to us?"
"If they catch us."
"Well, then they won't catch us. They haven't yet."
Puppy had been whining softly earlier, but had been silent once we had begun whispering. He usually caught on quickly to the need for quiet.
I reached for Runner's hand and gave it a squeeze. I looked up at last, looking over the rest of the town. "We need to watch for awhile. See what people do there. Maybe I can figure out what some of the buildings are for. If there are any boltcutters here, they might be in one of those buildings. A store — that's where people get things they need. You can't just take what you want. You'd have to trade... like, the male in the store might want you to give him some of the peaches and then he'd let you have the boltcutters."
Runner nodded. I suspected he might know about exchanging favors from his years growing up in the pen. Runner looked back at me. "Shouldn't we be trying to find boats?"
I thought about it. With our goal so near, I had been putting more thought into finding transportation to the mainland. The best strategy I'd come up with was to disguise myself the same way Runner was, in clothes and without the slave gear. That way I could walk freely almost anywhere. I was hoping to find a way to cut the locks off, before anything else. But it couldn't hurt to check out the docks and see what the situation was.
The ocean couldn't be far. I heard a whisper of breakers on the beach, almost covered by the insect sounds of the forest.
A wagon emerged from the woods into the square, pushed by the usual six-slave team, all of them clearly tired as they arrived at the end of their trip. The farmer driving the wagon, ordered the slaves to stop, then turn toward the stage. A settler, who had been lounging in a wicker chair on the boardwalk, stood up and began walking toward the stage, carrying a paddle. An involuntary whimper escaped my throat. I didn't want to watch what I knew was coming next.
I nodded to Runner. "Let's see where the boats are." I crawled backward, away from the edge of town, with Runner and Puppy following.
As I stood and began walking, Runner whispered, "What about the cart?"
I blinked. I had forgotten about it, I was too eager to get away from the sight of that slave on the stage. "We're going to cut through the forest to get to the docks. It'll be easier without the cart. We can come back for it if we decide to go into town later."
"Do you know where the boats are?"
"I can hear the ocean. Listen."
After a moment of quiet, Runner nodded, and smiled. "I didn't know we were that close."
Are we really that close to getting away from the island? I wondered. The tiny seed of hope inside me began to sprout.
I led my friends back away from the town, so people in the town would be less likely to see us moving. Then we started to circle the town's outskirts.
I wished I could close my ears. There was a whiffing sound, then the whap! of paddle against flesh, followed by a sudden cry from the slave on the stage. The whap! and the cry were repeated five more times at intervals of about a half-minute. Unlike the paddles I'd seen carried before, this one had holes in it so it would have less air resistance.
I didn't need to be there to know what was happening. I had read all about it. The six slaveboys from the wagon had been led up onto the stage, had been told what the vicuna had done, and each of them in turn would be required to stand a few feet away from the punished slave to watch him receive a stroke from the paddle. While the vicuna was on stage, every slave in town, and every slave just passing through, would see, close up, what would happen to him if he violated any of the many behavioral requirements slaves were expected to meet. Very few of them would ever need to be punished themselves. Seeing it was enough.
The slaves I'd seen on the boardwalk earlier had already had their turns watching. But each new slave arriving in town would see the punishment before continuing on their way.
I kept my hand over my stomach for a time, trying to keep my lunch down. After the six strokes, the worst of the vicuna's suffering was over. For the time being.
I walked as quickly as I could, putting more distance between the punishment stage and me. I can't help him, I told myself over and over. I can't make them stop.
Runner looked back frequently, seeming distressed. He didn't know as much as I did about what was happening back there, but he could make a good guess.
As we approached a peach tree, I felt sudden alarm bells going off in my head. Something didn't feel right. Something left undone.
Runner suddenly said urgently, "Wynn, you forgot..."
I flinched violently at the familiar snapping sound from underfoot, the vague alarms belatedly resolving into a mental voice shouting Trap! Trap!
I dropped to my knees, desperately scraping away the undergrowth from around my feet. One of the heavy spring-loaded bars of the trap had shot home across the edge of the trap, catching my hobble chain underneath it against the trap's surface. As it was designed to do.
I muttered "Shit! Shit! Shit!" over and over. Then I wrapped my fingers around the bar and strained to pull it free, loosen it, bend it, do something with it, but it was far beyond my strength. I was shaking with fear and fury with myself. Since crossing the mountains, we had mostly followed established trails. The anti-trap vine wasn't needed and would have looked suspicious. So I had been removing it for travel, restoring it when we left the trail for rest or refreshment. I had stepped on two traps, and Runner one, since the crossing, but neither of us had been in danger of being caught before.
Now I'd been thinking about the slave in the town square, and I'd forgotten the vine. My own mind, and Runner, had both tried to tell me. Too late.
I pulled the trap free of its semi-burial near the tree, revealing the chain securing it to the tree. Runner and I both tried to find a way to get me free of it, discussing it in low voices, as Puppy padded around us, yipping softly, uncertainly.
Still frowning at the trap, Runner asked, "When will they come and get you?"
I shrugged. "They might check the traps every day, or it could be a few days." I looked around, then pointed. "Could you get me that stick, over there?"
Runner went quickly to retrieve the stick and brought it to me. I looked it over. It was more or less straight, about three feet long, a bit over an inch thick. Kneeling beside the trap, I inserted the stick between the metal bar trapping my chain and the plate underneath it, stood on the plate to anchor it and pulled the stick upward, straining, trying to bend the bar.
With a loud snap, the stick broke, the piece in my hand flying away, almost hitting Runner. I gritted my teeth, pounding the ground with my fist. Any stronger stick would be too thick to fit in the space under the bar.
Runner took my arm, biting his lip fretfully. "Wynn, they're going to hurt you, like that slave. We have to get you out of here."
"I know, I know. I'll try to think of something."
Runner looked at the trap for a time. "Wynn, what's 'shit'?"
I blinked. "What?"
"You were talking about it, right after you stepped on the trap. Is it something that would help?"
I gave him a wan smile. "Uhhh, no. It's... just something to say when you're really mad. What it is... well, it's the stuff that comes out behind you." I brushed my hand past my backside.
"Oh." Runner giggled briefly. "We call it poop."
I smiled again. "Yeah, we call it that too sometimes." I picked up the remains of the stick. "We need something like this, only metal. Something they call a crowbar. I don't know if they have those."
Runner stood and surveyed the area. "I don't see one."
"I didn't mean just laying around. There could be something like it in a farmer's cabin. Or in one of those buildings, in town." I gestured in the direction of the town. "Try a farm first."
Runner gave me a serious look. "Wynn, I'm not leaving you."
"Runner, I need..."
"You need me to be here with you! If a settler finds you here, I need to be with you so he can see you're my slave."
I blinked. I wanted to argue, but Runner was right. Even caught in a trap, I wasn't a runaway if my owner was with me.
It seemed we would just have to wait. I thought for a moment we might hurry the process along — Runner could go into town and tell someone in authority that his slave had been trapped. But it was too dangerous to send Runner off by himself to deal with strange settlers. He didn't know what to say and what not to. And as long as there was time to consider other ways out, I wanted to use it.
I sighed, picked up the stick, managed a smile at Puppy, and threw the stick. Runner and I played Fetch with Puppy for a time, then played the rocks-and-circles game, with Puppy going back and forth between us soliciting affection.
At last, as the sun set and it was clearly too late in the day for anyone to come checking on traps, Runner finally shed his clothing. The three of us snuggled together for the night. The warmth and closeness of Runner and Puppy helped me forget the new mess I'd stumbled into, at least long enough to sleep.
Day 20
Runner and I made love in the morning with a feeling of desperation. I wanted to record the soft, warm feel of Runner's skin, the look of his face with his eyes closed and mouth open, the taste of his lips, the sounds of passion rising in us. I knew this could be the last time. Puppy stayed quiet; he'd learned that he would have a turn right afterward.
I wished I could feel the peace of hanging one more time. Runner and I had been starting each morning with a practice session. I could see a log to stand on some fifty feet away, but I had no way to get there. Runner saw me looking in that direction. "It's okay, Wynn. We can hang after you get out of the trap." He kissed me again.
We ate breakfast and repaid Puppy for his patience. I sat back with a sigh as Runner dressed. "Runner... we can't just stay here all day waiting for somebody to come. It could be days. And it could even be never. Whoever set this trap might even not remember he did it."
Runner frowned deeply. "I can't just leave you here. A settler could come any time." He bit his lip. "We could just call for help now. Make the settler come faster."
I shivered. I had thought of that yesterday, but I just couldn't stand the idea of putting myself in the hands of the locals. Once we did that, any number of things could happen, nearly all of them bad. But... "If he sees you here, you can say I'm your slave. But he might not believe you. He could think you just found me here, and wanted him to come set me loose so you could have a new slave. You can't show him anything that tells him you came here with me."
Runner started to speak, and stopped. He looked helplessly into my eyes.
I stroked Runner's shoulder. "You don't need to be away very long. Just find us a long piece of metal, that looks like that stick we used. Don't take anything else. I don't want a lot of settlers to start noticing things are missing."
Runner looked at me a minute longer, and at last nodded.
I kissed him. Puppy, who had been looking back and forth between us as we spoke, took the kiss as a sign to lick my face. That made me laugh. I said, "Take Puppy with you. I know it will make it harder, but if he starts barking and making noises, it's okay if he's with you, you'll just be a teenager and his dogboy out walking. And if somebody does follow you, you can get away. If he's with me, and somebody comes to check out what the barking is about, they'll find me. Okay? Can you do it with him along?"
Runner stroked Puppy, who had turned to lick his face. Then he nodded. "We'll be okay. I'll be right back as soon as I can, okay?"
It was a rare rainless day, with breaks in the cloud cover that let me judge time from the sun. I couldn't believe time could possibly move so slowly. Every crackling sound in the branches around me made my heart skip and pound — it could be Runner returning, or it could be disaster unfolding. It always turned out neither.
At last, after about three hours, Runner did return. Puppy came sprinting toward me as soon as he saw me, knocking me over with exuberance, and happily licked my face. I laughed as always when Puppy did that, then I looked up at Runner. I could tell the answer from Runner's face, but asked anyway. "Find anything?"
Runner sighed. "Not what I was looking for. I know you said not to take anything else, but this looked really good." He pulled a thick cooked steak from his bag.
We hadn't had any meat since crossing the mountains, and my mouth started watering instantly. I smiled. "Yeah, okay."
Runner cut it into three pieces, saying, "There are lots of farms and cabins around here. I tried three different ones. Puppy was really good in between and waited for me. I can try some more places later."
I nodded. I didn't want to go through another long wait like the one he'd just been through, but didn't see any other choice. "Okay."
Heavier clouds were rolling in. I had lost sight of the sun a few minutes ago, just past noon — about an hour into Runner's second foray in search of a metal bar. I tried to keep hoping, but was wondering if farmers even kept such an implement in their homes. What would they need it for?
A moving shape in the trees caught my attention. Runner shouldn't be returning so soon. Unless this meant he'd found something!
My hand flew to my mouth. The movement was in the wrong direction. Runner hadn't gone that way...
A marten emerged from the trees, a dogboy trotting beside him. He was tall and muscular, about thirty years old. His eyes went wide when he saw me. He said to himself, "Got one!"
I was shaking so bad, it felt like an earthquake. My bladder let go. I was now thoroughly accustomed to being naked, even out in the open on the mountain trail, but I put my hands over my crotch anyway. I stared at the marten, willing him to be an illusion, to disappear. This isn't happening, this isn't happening, please don't let it be happening, I repeated to myself again and again. After all this time, it can't happen now!
The dogboy ran ahead of the marten, toward me, his sharp teeth bared, a growl in the back of his throat. I scrambled away as far as the trap would let me. The dogboy followed me, barking between growls.
The marten came up even with the dogboy, and stroked his back. "Easy, Pepper. He ain't goin' nowhere."
The words tumbled out of me, unbidden. "Please, I'm not from here, I'm not from the island, I'm from the mainland. My brother..."
"Hush!" he said sharply, and the dogboy crowded in closer, near enough to bite. The marten looked exasperated. "Those dang sci-en-tists. I knew they'd start givin' boys ideas. You listen to 'em good, boy? Yoor even tryin' to talk like ' em."
I pounded at my brain, desperately seeking some way I could convince him. Anything I could tell him about the mainland that a slaveboy wouldn't know, he likely wouldn't know it either. Even if he did know it, he would think I overheard a sociology team talking about it. He wouldn't even have any idea what a Hanging Boy was. I felt more helpless than I had ever imagined possible.
The marten squatted in front of me, a nasty grin on his face. " Yoor a runaway. You know what happens to runaways, don't yah?"
My throat tightened. I couldn't push any words out of it. I nodded helplessly.
"Yah, you musta seen it sometime. Seen the strokes. You gonna be gettin' strokes all today and half tomorrah, till enough slaves seen you."
No, oh no, oh no... In my mind, I could already feel the lashes against my skin. And to be standing on the stage, in pain and misery, all through a dark night, waiting for it to start again in the morning...
I cringed as the marten came still closer, but it was only to unlock the trap, with a key fished out of his vest pocket. With a twist of the key and a click, I was... free wasn't the word for it. Able to move away from the tree under which I had been caught yesterday, but definitely not free. Not free to run, any more than I'd been for three weeks. Never again free.
Runner, when he came back, would be able to figure out where I was. But there was nothing he could do about it. He would only be able to watch my suffering on the stage. Please, Runner, just get away from here. Don't take any chance on them catching you too.
The marten gestured. "Stand up."
I couldn't manage to get up farther than my knees. My legs were trembling too badly.
He grinned, probably having seen that before. "Or don't. Up to you. You'll get help standin' soon enough."
Yes, I thought. The chains holding my wrists over my head. Standing in pain for twenty-four hours. Wishing desperately for time to pass more quickly, even as it brought the next round of strokes closer.
"Hold your hands behind you." The marten knelt and connected the rings of my right and left wrist cuffs with a padlock. Coming around in front of me, he removed a leather leash, curled up, from his pocket and clipped it to the front of my collar.
He looked me full in the face for a moment, his grin broadening. I looked down, avoiding his eyes.
"Yoor a pretty one. I think it's time to have some fun."
Noooo, I screamed in my head. Please, no!
"Pepper." He made a twirling hand gesture to the dogboy, who barked excitedly. To my astonishment and still-mounting horror, the dogboy dropped onto his side and rolled onto his back in front of me. His cock was already starting to swell.
The marten spoke to me, more harshly than ever. "Now, don't you make me tell the magistrate you wasn't co-woperative. You do what I tell you, and I'll say you came along peaceful. If I tell 'em you fought me, they'll give you two strokes for every slaves who sees you, 'stead of one. Understand?" I could hardly breathe. He waited for me to give him a tiny nod. "Now why don't you do Pepper here while I do you. Go ahead, bend down there. And stick your butt up in the air. You start suckin' while I start stickin'." He chuckled at his own witticism.
Somehow, I hadn't cried until now. But now I couldn't stop the streaming tears, the choking sobs.
I realized that the pounding sound that I thought was my own heart, was coming from my left. I looked that way, and gasped. Puppy burst out from behind the trees at full gallop, barking furiously, more angry than I had ever seen him. Puppy stopped in front of the marten, alternating growls and barks.
The marten gave ground involuntarily, then stood, his hands held out in front of him. "Whoa, boy, you hush. I got everything under control here. You... stop! Dang it!" Puppy had lunged closer, making him back off again.
Pepper rolled and scrambled to his feet, and looked on in perplexity. I'd assumed he would defend the marten, but doing so against another dogboy was outside the range of his training. Why a strange dogboy would be threatening a master to begin with just seemed to mystify him.
Still growling, Puppy lunged again, his sharp teeth aimed toward the marten's shin. He jumped back away again. "What in the hell...?"
I turned my head to watch his retreat. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Runner standing behind the marten, swinging a thick fallen tree branch like a club. There was a loud thump as it connected with the back of his head. The marten dropped instantly to his knees, then toppled slowly forward, landing on his face with a thud.
I watched, wide-eyed, as Runner bent over him, his free hand clenched in a tight fist, and screamed, "You shit!!!!"
Puppy turned toward Pepper, his teeth still bared. Pepper saw that Runner was looking at him as well, raising the branch again, Runner's own growl was nearly like a dogboy's. "You get out of here!"
Squealing in fright, Pepper turned and galloped away through the trees, back toward town.
The marten lay unmoving. Runner dropped the branch, and lifted me to my feet with a hand under my shoulder. "Wynn, let's go!"
I shook myself, my brain beginning to function. "Wait! A key! He'd have a key!" I twisted awkwardly to show Runner the cuffs locked together behind me.
"Where?" He knelt beside the inert form sprawled on the ground.
I used my foot to turn the marten partly over, touching his pocket with my toes. "In there!"
Runner reached into the pocket and found two keys. I recognized the one used for the trap, and indicated the second. "That smaller one. Remember how I used that other one, before?"
Runner nodded, saying, "But that didn't work!"
"It'll work on this lock." I twisted my arm around to brush my fingers against the new padlock. "His lock. His key."
Runner knelt behind me. "Just put it in that hole?"
"Yes. Hurry. He could wake up. I don't want him to see you."
After some fumbling, I heard a click. I shook the lock free as soon as it came open. The first thing I did was to throw my arms around Runner. I wanted to hold him and never let go.
Runner kissed me, then said, "We need to go!"
I nodded, broke off the hug, unclipped the leash from my collar and threw it down. I started away, then stopped. "Wait just a second." I knelt beside the marten, my hand on his neck. His pulse seemed strong. Good. I don't want to kill anybody. Not even him. "Okay." With Runner and Puppy, I shuffled as quickly as I could toward the trees.
We waited, crouched down in the trees, about fifty feet from the hunter's prone body, talking in whispers. Runner had wanted to go farther, but I sensed that the hunter would wake up soon. I didn't want to make noises he could follow.
I had one arm across Runner's shoulders and the other over Puppy's, nuzzling my face against Puppy's as Puppy licked me. As usual, Puppy understood the need for quiet in our whispers, and suppressed the happy whimpering he would usually be doing. I looked at Runner. "How did you get Puppy to do that?"
Runner whispered back, "I told him 'Go help Wynn.' He seemed like he understood that. I think it helped that you were crying, so he knew you were in trouble. I just wanted him to make that farmer watch Puppy so I could come up behind him."
"You weren't gone very long. Why did you come back so soon?"
Runner looked uncertain. "I don't know. I felt like you needed me."
I shook my head in wonder. "I did. I really did." I kissed Runner's shoulder. "I want to make love to both of you all night."
Runner grinned and, said, "Oh, okay," as if I had worn down his resistance. It was a perfect imitation of my answer to him a few days back. I choked back a giggle and kissed him.
Runner pointed suddenly. In the distance, the marten was stirring. He sat up slowly, his hand rubbing the back of his head. He called, "Pepper?" rather weakly. He seemed to listen for a time. At last he stood, and, seeming dizzy, stumbled off through the trees toward town.
After a few minutes, I took Runner's hand. "Okay, let's get far away from here."