William Dietz - The Seeds of Man

Then they were hooked to the main chain once again, and all were led to a stream, where they waded out to stand side by side in the current. Lora felt the cold water seep into her boots but knew that was nothing compared to what some of the others were experiencing. She drank her fill and was busy washing her face when they were ordered back onto the bank.

That was when they were allowed to sit down and eat lunch. It consisted of beef jerky, slices of dried apple, and chunks of smelly cheese. Much to Lora’s surprise, the servings were fairly generous. But when she said as much to Cassie, the other woman made a face. “They’re taking us to a slave market, so they want us to look healthy and well fed. They’ll get a better price that way.”

The comment was cynical but made sense. Lora looked around. “What about people’s feet? Why don’t they do something about that?“

“I predict they will,” Cassie said. “Both to maintain our value and so that the column can move more quickly.”

And that prediction was borne out fifteen minutes later as the women were ordered to troop past a wagon. There was a pile of used boots and shoes on the tailgate. People like Lora were ordered to move on. Others, Cassie included, were given footwear. The measuring process consisted of holding a boot or shoe up next to the prisoner’s foot. If they were roughly the same size, a guard said, “Next,” and the line jerked forward. In the absence of a match, the Crusader would try another set, and if necessary another, until he could say “Next.”

Predictably enough, many, if not most, of the shoes and boots fit poorly. So the next day or so was spent trading footwear back and forth, breaking shoes in, and padding them with whatever the slaves could lay their hands on, none of which was ideal. But the results were, in the words of one woman, “better than nothing.”

The land was flat and eternally monotonous. Lora longed for the sight of a distant silo, a hill, or anything that would provide her with an objective, a goal that could be set, arrived at, and momentarily celebrated. But such waypoints were few and far between. Entire days passed while the prisoners marched between overgrown fields, past tumbledown barns, and over nameless bridges.

Occasionally they passed through small hamlets, all marked with the sign of the upside-down cross, an indication that they were still inside what the Crusaders referred to as “the holy land.” Even if Lora couldn’t see anything holy about it—or them, for that matter. Surely people who were “holy” wouldn’t enslave other people. But it seemed that heretics, which was to say nonbelievers, weren’t considered people. And if they weren’t people, there was no need to treat them as such.

In any case, whenever the column passed through such towns, Lora noticed that all of them were fortified. Who were they afraid of? Who would dare invade the holy land? The Blackfoot Indians? The Blood Kin?

Lora couldn’t tell. One thing was clear, however. Based on their expressions, none of the townsfolk were surprised to see a column of prisoners marching south. So such sights were common.

Lora assumed that male prisoners were sent to the slave markets as well, but Cassie wasn’t so sure. She had heard the guards talking about the construction of what they called “the citadel.” A city, really, which, from the sound of it, would require a great deal of labor to build. Maybe the men had been sent there. But regardless, her future lay to the south. And that raised an important question. “Who’s going to buy us?” Lora wondered out loud as the column took a lunch break.

“That,” Cassie said grimly, “is a very good question. You need a makeover.”

“I need a what?”

“You’re young and pretty. Remember, there are worse things than milking cows or working in a field.”

Lora had only recently begun to think that men could be attracted to her and didn’t understand what Cassie was saying at first. Then she remembered Larry Pruett and knew what he would do to her if he could, and she shuddered. “I never thought of that.”

“The key is to find a way to make you look like a farmhand rather than a ‘play pretty,’” Cassie said.

“How can we do that?”

“I don’t know yet,” Cassie replied. “If we had scissors we could give you a terrible haircut, if we had a razor we could shave your eyebrows, and if we had makeup we could put it on the wrong way.”

“But we don’t.”

“Nope. So I’ll think about it.”

The night was spent wrapped in a wool blanket lying side by side, still hooked to the chain. It was cold, but they were inside a barn, and that cut the wind. Lora couldn’t fall asleep at first as visions of her father’s death played over and over again in her mind. Her father had made her angry sometimes, and had frequently been thoughtless, but had been looking for her when he died. That brought tears to her eyes, which she tried to suppress. She knew others were suffering too, because she could hear them crying.

Eventually exhaustion pulled her down and Lora found herself in a maze of shadowy rooms. Something was after her, she was looking for a way out, and every hallway led to a dead end. And there, in the background, her father’s voice could be heard. “I’m sorry, Lora… so very, very sorry.”

The next day was much like the one before, as was the next, and the one after that. Lora didn’t have a map, but she could tell they were headed south by watching the sun. Some of the hamlets they passed through were little more than ghost towns. Others still had names, like Taber, Wrentham, Dayton, Warner, Milk River, and Sunburst. And it was near Sunburst when things changed.

They were inside the United States of America at that point—or what had been the United States. And that meant they were no longer in Canada and, more important, the so-called holy land, a fact made obvious when four additional guards joined the column, the Crusaders became even more vigilant, and the women were forced to walk farther each day.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the slavers were worried that someone, or a group of someones, might attack the column and steal the slaves. For one brief moment Lora would have welcomed that. But then she realized that it wouldn’t help her. A slave was a slave.

Under close guard, the prisoners marched down what an ancient sign said was Interstate 15. They camped in the lee of a low-lying hill south of Shelby and passed through Conrad the next day. That was when the women passed another column of slaves. It was clear that the people in charge didn’t like the Crusaders, because they shouted all manner of insults at them. Competitors, then? Or was something more at work?

They were getting close by that time, that’s what the guards said, and the mood was glum. The long march had been a trial, but all of them knew that what lay ahead would be worse, and they barely spoke to each other as a result. As Lora, Cassie, and two other women were released to “take care of business,” as one guard put it, the teenager’s thoughts were on the ordeal ahead.

Lora had finished and pulled her pants up, when Cassie pushed her way through the bushes. There was a strange expression on her face. “This is for your own good,” the older woman said. “Try not to make any noise.” Then she punched Lora in the face.

It hurt, and Lora stumbled. She was about to fall when two women grabbed her arms. “I’m going to change the way you look,” Cassie explained, and hit Lora again.

Lora uttered a cry of pain as a bony fist hit her in the eye. “Sorry,” Cassie said, “but it will heal.”

The beating lasted for another minute or so, and by the time it was over, Lora could barely see out of her left eye. Her lips were swollen, her right cheek was sore, and blood trickled down onto her chin. Cassie withdrew, the women let go, and Lora stumbled out into the open. She felt dizzy, paused, and nearly fell.