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The first person I see for sure is Mr Prentiss Jr, in the lead, firing his rifle into the air when he don’t have nothing else to shoot at. Then there’s Mr Morgan and Mr Collins chasing some Farbranch men into the storage barns, firing their rifles after them. Mr O’Hare’s there, too, and more of the Mayor’s usual suspects on horseback, Mr Edwin, Mr Henratty, Mr Sullivan. And there’s Mr Hammar, the smile on his face showing up green and evil even from this distance as he fires his rifle into the backs of fleeing women hustling away small children and I have to look away or throw up the nothing I had for di
The men on foot march their way into town. The first one I reckernize is, of all people, Mr Phelps the storekeeper. Which is weird cuz he never seemed army-like at all. And there’s Dr Baldwin. And Mr Fox. And Mr Cardiff who was our best milker. And Mr Tate who had the most books to burn when the Mayor outlawed them. And Mr Kearney who milled the town’s wheat and who always spoke softly and who made wooden toys for each Prentisstown boy’s birthday.
What are these men doing in an army?
“Todd,” Viola says, pulling at my arm.
The men marching don’t look none too happy, I spose. Grim and cold and scary in a different way from Mr Hammar, like they’re lacking all feeling.
But they’re still marching. They’re still shooting. They’re still kicking down doors.
“That’s Mr Gillooly,” I say, binos pressed to my eyes. “He can’t even butcher his own meat.”
“Todd,” Viola says and I feel her backing away from the bushes. “Let’s go.”
What’s going on? Sure, Prentisstown was as awful a place as you could ever not wa
And then of course I see the answer.
Mayor Prentiss, not even holding a gun, just one hand on his horse’s reins, the other at his side, riding into town like he’s out for an evening canter. He’s watching the rout of Farbranch as if it was a vid and not a very interesting one at that, letting everyone else do the work but so obviously in charge no one would even think of asking him to break a sweat.
How can he make so many men do what he wants?
And is he bulletproof that he can ride so fearlessly?
“Todd,” Viola says behind me. “I swear, I’ll leave without you.”
“No, you won’t,” I say. “One more second.”
Cuz I’m looking from face to face now, ain’t I? I’m going from Prentisstown man to Prentisstown man cuz even if they’re marching into town and are go
I gotta know.
Face to face to face as they march and shoot and burn. Mr Wallace, Mr Asbjornsen, Mr St James, Mr Belgraves, Mr Smith the Older, Mr Smith the Younger, Mr Smith With Nine Fingers, even Mr Marjoribanks, wobbling and teetering but marching marching marching. Prentisstown man after Prentisstown man after Prentisstown man, my heart clenching and burning at each one I can identify.
“They ain’t there,” I say, almost to myself.
“Who isn’t?” Viola says.
“Ain’t!” Manchee barks, licking at his tail.
They ain’t there.
Ben and Cillian ain’t there.
Which, of course, is grand, ain’t it? Of course they ain’t part of an army of killers. Of course they ain’t, even when every other Prentisstown man is. They wouldn’t be. Not never, not no how, no matter what.
Good men, great men, both, even Cillian.
But if that’s true, then that means the other is true, too, don’t it?
If they ain’t there, then that means once and for all.
And there’s yer lesson.
There ain’t nothing good that don’t got real bad waiting to follow it.
I hope they put up the best fight ever.
I take the binos from my face and I look down and I wipe my eyes with my sleeve and I turn and I hand Viola back the binos and I say, “Let’s go.”
She takes them from me, squirming a little like she’s itching to leave, but then she says, “I’m sorry,” so she musta seen it in my Noise.
“Nothing that ain’t already happened,” I say, talking to the ground and readjusting the rucksack. “C’mon, before I put us in danger any worse.”
I take off up the path towards the top of the hill, keeping my head down, motoring fast, Viola after me, Manchee trying to keep himself from biting at his tail as we run.
Viola matches my speed before we get far at all. “Did you see . . . him?” she says, between breaths.
“Aaron?”
She nods.
“No,” I say. “Come to think of it, no, I didn’t. And you’d think he’d be out in front.”
We’re quiet for a minute as we hurry on our way and wonder what that means.
The road on this side of the valley is wider and we’re doing our best to keep to the darker side of it as it twists and turns up the hill. Our only lights are the moons but they’re bright enough to cast our shadows ru
Then at the top of the hill, the road forks.
Which just figures.
“You gotta be kidding,” I say.
One part of the road goes left, the other goes right.
(Well, it’s a fork, ain’t it?)
“The creek in Farbranch was flowing to the right,” Viola says, “and the main river was always to our right once we crossed the bridge, so it’s got to be the right fork if we want to get back there.”
“But the left looks more travelled,” I say. And it does. The left fork looks smoother, flatter, like the kinda thing you should be rolling carts over. The right fork is narrower with higher bushes on each side and even tho it’s night you can just tell it’s dusty. “Did Francia say anything about a fork?” I look back over my shoulder at the valley still erupting behind us.
“No,” Viola says, also looking back. “She just said Haven was the first settlement and new settlements sprang up down the river as people moved west. Prentisstown was the farthest out. Farbranch was second farthest.”
“That one probably goes to the river,” I say, pointing right, then left, “that one probably goes to Haven in a straight line.”
“Which one will they think we took?”
“We need to decide,” I say. “Quickly now.”
“To the right,” she says, then turns it into an asking. “To the right?”
We hear a BOOM that makes us jump. A mushroom of smoke is rising in the air over Farbranch. The barn where I worked all day is on fire.
Maybe our story will turn out differently if we take the left fork, maybe the bad things that are waiting to happen to us won’t happen, maybe there’s happiness at the end of the left fork and warm places with the people who love us and no Noise but no silence neither and there’s plenty of food and no one dies and no one dies and no one never never dies.
Maybe.
But I doubt it.
I ain’t what you call a lucky person.
“Right,” I decide. “Might as well be right.”
We run down the right fork, Manchee at our heels, the night and a dusty road stretching out in front of us, an army and a disaster behind us, me and Viola, ru
We run till we can’t run and then we walk fast till we can run again. The sounds of Farbranch disappear behind us right quick and all we can hear are our footsteps beating on the path and my Noise and Manchee’s barking. If there are night creachers out there, we’re scaring ’em away.
Which is probably good.