“Where did you find it?” I felt resigned to having to pull the story from them a bit at a time.
Kesey ran his tongue over his teeth, then opened his mouth with a popping sound. “The usual place. In a tree.”
“Someone stole his body and left it in a tree?”
“’Course in a tree. Where else?”
I was bewildered. “Why a tree? Did an animal drag him up there?”
“You might say that,” Kesey snickered.
But Ebrooks was incredulous. “You don’t know about the bodies in the trees? I thought sure they would have told you that when you took the job.”
I shook my head. “All I know is that I’m a soldier son, I needed to enlist, and after I helped Scout Hitch, Colonel Haren said he’d have me. And he assigned me to guard the cemetery.” I knew a bit more, but I thought feigning ignorance might encourage them to talk.
Again, they shared a look. “And you said he had to be some kind of brave to take the job.” Ebrooks scoffed at Kesey. “Damn fool didn’t know a thing about what he was getting into!”
Their grins were wide but also uneasy when I said, “So why don’t you tell me, then? What about the fellows who have guarded the cemetery before me? What about the stolen bodies?”
“Well, ain’t all that much to tell,” Kesey said cheerily. “Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. You bury somebody, and poof, the next day the grave’s dug up and the body’s gone. Then you got to go into the forest and look till you find it. And that’s damn hard, you know, cause one day the forest will be full of spooky noises and the next you’ll go in there and under the trees it’s so thick with weariness and discouragement, a man can’t hardly keep his eyes open. But anyway, you find the body, tear it free, and bring it back and bury it again. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it stays buried. Sometimes you got to go get it again the next day. Easier the second time, because it will be in the same tree. But it will be worse for dragging it around, because the bodies go bad so fast, after a tree has been at it, you know.”
They spoke so calmly, and I found myself nodding. A long-ago memory surfaced, of words overheard in the night outside my father’s study. “The Specks do it?” I asked.
“Well, sure. Who else?”
“Why?”
“Because they’re savages, with no proper respect for the dead. They do it to mock us!” Ebrooks was adamant.
“I don’t know about that,” Kesey said. “Some folks think they do it like it’s a sacrifice to their gods.”
“No. It’s to make fun of us, to force us to go into their damned forest. That place is enough to drive a man mad. But we know we’ve got to go in there, to get our own dead back.”
“Why is it so difficult to go into the forest?” I asked. “I live right near the edge of it. It’s not like the end of the road is.”
They looked at one another again, sharing their conviction of my idiocy. I decided if they did it one more time, I might try knocking their heads together. “Don’t you talk to anyone?” Ebrooks demanded. “Don’t you know anything about the Specks?”
I fancied I knew a great deal more about the Specks than they did. Before I could phrase a more tactful thought, Kesey grinned and challenged me, “Why don’t you just try going into the forest, Nevare? Find out for yourself.”
“I probably will, but I’d like to know—” My request was cut short by a sergeant bellowing their names. They both rose hastily and followed him. The sergeant gave me a disdainful glare before he turned and led them away. I knew the man slightly. His name was Hoster, and he was the man who had helped Epiny with her cloak that windy day. He’d formed a bad opinion of me that day and had never troubled to change it. He seemed to find my fat a personal affront. Today his harassment was veiled, limited to sending away my dining companions on some trivial task.
I sat by myself, finishing my cooling stew and savoring the fresh bread. I let myself focus on the bread, how it tore between my fingers, on the difference between the brown crust and the softer interior. I felt my teeth break it down with my chewing, the satisfaction of swallowing. This, I could always rely on. Food never failed me.
I cleared my place at the table. Most of the men were dispersing. As I was leaving, Lieutenant Tiber entered. He let the door bang shut behind him and stepped to one side to unwind a long muffler from around his face and throat before taking off the heavy woolen cloak he wore.
I had not seen him since he’d left the academy to become a scout. I still could not look at him without feeling a measure of guilt. If I had spoken up sooner about what I’d seen the night he was beaten and left for dead, perhaps scandal would not have stained him. Winter aged him as it does some men: he looked bitter, and the lines in his face were deepened by the redness of his cheeks. The mud-spattered edge of his cloak seemed to attest to a journey just completed. He glanced at me, grimaced with distaste at my portliness, and then his eyes slid away, dismissing me as being of no consequence.