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

his feet pulled in tight to his legs. He is folded like a cricket. Long white fingers twitch like antennae over the barrel of his gun. It is the schoolmaster. He pushes his hair out of his eyes and ducks low to avoid the battle. He revolts me—to lurk like this, while you and Darrel stand in harm’s way.
    I crawl around behind him. Rupert Gillis never notices. He only has ears for battle sounds.
I proceed more cautiously now.
Footsteps. I flatten myself to the ground and try not to breathe.
They stop directly before me, and a gun barrel waves before my nose.
I look up to see you train your aim on me.
    LXXXIII.
    You’re alive.
    Your face is pale. Your eyes are terrified. You lower your gun.
“Judith?”
You use my name. Not “Miss Finch.” I rise to my feet.
“What are you doing here?” Your eyes race back and forth, over me and back to the gorge. Are you more angry, or afraid?
“Please go home,” you say. “This is no place for you. You’ll be hurt, and I won’t be able to  .  .  .” Your attention snaps elsewhere, like a hunting dog sniffing the wind.
You look like someone trapped in a nightmare. I should pity you, but I’m so happy to see you alive.
“Please go home,” you say again. “Please.”
Do you suppose I’m here just to follow you? I wonder. I could almost laugh.
I shake my head. I won’t go home. Yes, I should laugh— I’m a wife now, independent.
Every gunshot makes you turn toward the battle, toward the men who venture forward, shoot, then scurry back again.
“Lucas,” comes a whispered shout. “We’re nearly out of shot.”
You turn toward the voice, but I prevent you. I seize your hand and tug you toward your father. You resist, but not too much. Surprise, I think, works for me. You come. We both duck low through the grasses. I don’t relinquish your hand. Hard-calloused and hot, damp with sweat, furred with hair on the back. I’m giddy in this moment, which is wicked, with puffs of dark smoke rising into the blue sky, and balls shrieking through the air, but I hold your hand in mine.
You stagger back and yank my prize away. “What am I doing?” you say. “Judith, I can’t come with you! ”
It wounds me to grunt my bestial noises at you.
“Come!” I say, clearly enough.
You stop in your tracks and stare at me. Which of us is more amazed? If you think mine is a voice from the past, wait only a moment longer.
I seize your hand once more, and you let yourself be led.
And there. I part the grass and show you your father, squatting, feverishly fashioning death.

LXXXIV.
    You don’t recognize him at first. How could you? Then he sees you. Sees me touching you. Sees how tall and full you’ve grown.
    “Lucas.”
    You stare at him, and then at me. Your eyes bore through me, first through my mouth, then my dress, my dark memories, and you begin to understand—or think you do. Horror curls back your lips. I stand naked before you both. I want to sink into these weeds and crawl away.
    I hadn’t thought this far.
I’ve killed you. Killed your pity for me. Killed your father again before you. I have no tongue to swallow the gall I taste so well. For here you stand, and there he crouches, and all around us cannon fire rains down, and the cries of the wounded climb like geese into the bright October blue.
    LXXXV.
    One cry I know. Darrel. He’s hurt.
    Mother and Father and I were so accustomed to Darrel’s baby cries we almost stopped responding. Papa’s little brat, Mother’s darling, a chatterbox in ringlets. Such a shame the pretty face was given to the son. All this I consider as I tear away from your father and his pretty son, for once glad to be rid of the sight of you.
    I follow Darrel’s cry. Too lusty to be dying. Bless his fool mouth, he’ll have a whole ship’s crew on him in a moment if he doesn’t stop that yowling.
    I approach from behind and find him in a matted hollow of tamped-down weeds, Pa’s pistol sprawled beside him. Much too close to the edge of the