As I Was Going to Strawberry Fair

Chapter 27

Cai

"I get it," said Marshal. "We're going to throw firecrackers at them. The savages will be dismayed by our thunder magic. We pass down the road while they press their faces into the dirt before us. I like this plan."

I shook my head, taking him seriously so I would not laugh. "They have radios, flashlights, knives. Guns, possibly. Why would they care about fireworks?"

Marshal stared out beyond a farm fence, where animal shapes huddled in pre-dawn chill. Mist rose up from grass and ditch and field, to hover as cold smoke. "Then let's steal two horses, and ride the bad guys down," he suggested. "Reins in our teeth, firing roman candles from both hands. Bang! Bang! They'd scatter like a rattle of rabid rabbits."

"Like a what?"

"I mean, a rabble of rattled rabbits."

He wanted to make me laugh. I wanted to be serious. No; I needed to be serious. There was no issue of want. "We'd blow our hands off or the horse's heads away." I glanced about, certain the path ahead was not as peaceful as it seemed. The moon sank to our right, turning mist to silver again. Just as it had done my first hour on the road. So little time.

"Can you ride a horse?" asked Marshal.

The question surprised me. "Of course I can. Can't everyone?"

"I used to ride at summer camp," he said. "Where did you learn?"

"Seriously?" I asked. "Your people learn to ride a horse?" I turned to look back. The light of my fireworks stand had clicked to dark. I watched the headlights of the former owner's car turn south, the red tail-lights disappearing towards Theory. I wished them luck; then reminded myself I had traded them my luck, for the lighter and four rockets tucked under my arm. I must make my own luck now; do my best to make the trade count.

I turned back to face the road to Hell. We made better time following it than crossing woods and cattle pastures. Only, speed brought us more quickly to the end. I took a breath. "Marshal," I said.

"Here," he replied.

"Your mission is to get to the fair. Mine is to get you through the night."

"I don't like the sound of this," he declared. He reached out a hand to mine but I jerked it away. Why had I let him hold my hand before? I asked myself in fury. And kissing? I should have been a cold messenger upon his path. A marble angel giving stern words and a stone face. Had I been so wise, he would listen now. Instead he regarded me as his girl, not his guardian. Something to protect. I did my best to speak harsh and cold, to remind us both of the danger of the dark road.

"When the enemy appears, I shall light the fireworks. These will shoot balls of fire into the sky. That will distract them, and draw them to me. Then is when you slip past. Run to the town of Hell, the nice little farm-town of Hell, and continue on in the sun's light. The fair is just a few miles past. Missions accomplished, yours and mine."

He stayed silent. Was he going to be reasonable, or sulk? At last he said, "I thought we were going to the fair together." So it was going to be sulk. Idiot.

I pushed my hair back, desperate for some unclear way to say the truth. "I was bound to your journey to the Fair. There was never a promise how far along we would travel together. None but the dawn."

"Fine then," he said, and walked on down the road, taking me off guard. I hurried to catch up, studied his face. He looked unconcerned. He yawned. Then he stuck his tongue out, to say he knew I observed his face in the dark. I rolled my eyes. Not that he could see me doing so. Perhaps he could guess. We walked on and no dangers leaped out. An armadillo scuttled across the road. The creatures are so near-sighted; I doubted he knew we passed. I nodded in any case. I was tired. It surprised me somehow. How long had I been tired? Perhaps I aged with the passing of the night, and dawn would show me an old gray woman. Marshal would gasp in horror and pity.

No. I pushed my hair back, and my fears. I was new-born this night, given the strength to continue young and strong to the road's end. The dawn-born could not say the same. That was something.

"How old are you?" I asked my companion, then bit my tongue for forgetting to be a cold messenger. How hard it is to be stone. I should have asked wisdom of that guarding angel in the little cemetery. Our missions were so similar; yet he was set to stand and guard, and I was set to journey. He watched seasons pass, the slow turn of time and the turn of the earth in the grave digger's shovel. I was given a single night. Yes, we should have talked.

"Dunno." said Marshal, answering the question I repented. "I feel like I've been on this road for ages. If I were to look in a mirror I'd see an old man peek out. Grey and wrinkled, trying to recall what the fuss was so many years back."

I almost laughed, it was so similar to my thoughts. But did not. I considered saying "I feel I've walked it all my life." But did not. I wearied of jesting truths. We trudged an empty road through the cold fields of night, no court of any lordly queen of star and moon. This dark was just a sheet pulled over the face of the world, fit to put rest to the dead. Why had I been so sure dawn was near? It was no more near than the end of the road; and this road had no end.

We walked down into a valley of mist that swirled to welcome us with forms and faces I could not name. I wanted to reach for Marshal's hand but did not; and he did not reach for mine. We walked side by side, wrapped in our separate cloaks. I thought of questions to ask him. Tell me of the sun, I had but to say, and he would laugh and describe colors and sounds and gold warmth. I might ask him of those he loved, or those he hoped to love. There was so much I should have asked. The night was never-ending; and yet it gave so little time. The road went on forever; and yet it would end soon, soon.

The night bore down, an oceanic pressure that compressed us into our separate worlds. The mist thickened, chill and clammy. Marshal stumbled beside me, and almost I reached out to help him. But remembered it was better I did not. I would be a cold silent presence, nothing more. Only I allowed my feet to crunch gravel so he could follow my steps.

But my determination to be silent did not forbid him speaking. "I slept in a motel last night, in Angelica. I biked there."

I said nothing.

"I'm supposed to get to the fair by foot," he admitted. "I don't have a car anyway. But I decided peddling a bike counted as 'by foot'. Mistake. Never try to game the game-rules. But in the patio of the motel there was a fountain."

I said nothing.

"The fountain was dried up," he informed me. "A basin full of old leaves and trash. In the middle was a stone lion, biting at the air. The water was meant to pour out his mouth. It can't have done so for years. And someone stuck a soda can in his jaws. I took it out. Seemed wrong to mock something so dry and broken."

Almost I reached out for his hand. I did not. I said nothing.

"Funny," he said. "I woke in the night to hear splashing. I lay in that tiny cigarrete-stenched motel bed and listened to water crashing and splattering. All night long I pictured the lion twisting and biting, snapping at the water, splashing and roaring, finally able to drink."

He's going to tell me how in the morning he found the bathroom pipes burst, I thought. And wait for me to laugh. But I will not.

"In the morning I found it'd rained like crazy. I went out to the patio and there the lion was all wet and happy. Birds splashed in the basin. They were happy too. The way the sun glinted on the water you'd have thought even it was happy."

I said nothing.

"There's no moral to that," he sighed. "Just something that made me smile on the way. Granted, then I found my bike lock was snapped, my bike stolen. The motel people said sorry, not their problem. Jerks"

A car's headlights shone in the mist ahead.