All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry Read Free Book Online

fills the cart with dark powder cases and guns. There’s more powder inside. I remember it. But he brings plenty.
How quick his movements, almost clumsy with excitement. My whole body is dissolving, pouring into my stomach.
He climbs a stump to mount his horse, then turns to me. “You coming?”
    LXXVIII.
    Guns report across the miles.
He can save you, if he will. If you haven’t died already. This will be my burning, my sacred sacrifice. I never heardany angel voice but yours.
    LXXIX.
    I ride behind him, his unwashed body leaning into mine. I swallow down an urge to retch.
    He guides the mare away from the only entrance to the valley that I know. He leads us through thick brush and trees toward a shale wall to the north. I hold my breath. I can see no way out. Perhaps a young man climbing could exit, but no beast. But the horse steps from shelf to shelf, pulling her rattling little cart on a barely visible path, until I close my eyes in terror. She’s as nimble as a goat.
    We’re trotting. I open my eyes. We’re out. Marvelous animal!
We are only half a mile from the river, but each moment may mean we’re too late. Still the sounds ring out, sounds I dreaded but now they give me hope. The ambush isn’t over yet. Perhaps more riders came. With each shot I picture the battle, and now it’s Darrel’s face I see, and Mother’s, bending low to tend the wounded. Not you, please God, whatever god there be.
    LXXX.
    Take me away from this wretched saddle and bargain.
    Anyone, anything, take me away. The horse’s gait, or my wayward mind, deliver me.
No. I’m glad to go to the battlefront. I have nothing to fear there except returning.
    LXXXI.
    I had another young friend, a playmate. Abigail Pawling, the tanner’s daughter. A quiet girl, like me. We used to play at dollies. I sewed a dress and bonnet for her dolly once.
    After I’d been back a spell I wished to see her. I thought she would forgive my wretched sounds and try to understand me, for friendship’s sake.
    I found her in her father’s pasture, watching their sheep. We gawked at each other and at how two years had stretched and changed us both. She’d grown womanly and plump; her eyes wanted not to recognize me.
    I spoke her name, as best I could. She shrank back in horror.
It’s me, I tried to say. I’ve just been hurt, is all.
She ran, leaving her sheep to their own defenses.
I went home and waited for Mother’s wrath. But Abigail must not have dared to tell her parents that the cursed girl tried to talk.
Fever took her the next winter.
    LXXXII.
    “Here,” he says. “This is good.”
    He reins in the mare, and elbows me. I slide off, and he follows. Sounds of battle blend with the roar of the river through the gorge.
    “Tie her up,” he says. “Fetch my sacks.”
    It rankles me to take his orders again, but now is not a time for protest. I act quickly. He grabs boxes and bags from the cart, squats, and sets to work, mixing stuffs in a wooden bowl, rubbing them together.
    I wait to see if he needs me, but he seems to forget I’m there. His fingers unwrap parcels, pry open vials and capsules. Too slow, too slow, and still the battle sounds roar.
    It must bode well. Somehow we still stand. Do you? I edge away slowly, moving toward the sounds. Here the river sits in the gorge below, flanked on either
    side by high rock faces. I am only a few yards from the ledge, and from the noise, it seems the fighters aren’t far distant. It was well planned to meet the ships here, before the landing, here where Roswell men have the advantage of height and cover, where it’s hard for homelanders to leave their ships and reach our men.
    Trees are thin, bushes sparse. I crouch and creep forward, until at last I’m crawling on my hands and knees. I can hear men’s voices, murmuring low to one another through the brush, but I haven’t reached the lip of the ledge yet. I’m not sure if I dare to.
    Through a veil of autumn grass I see a man sitting on his haunches,