Chris Bohjalian - Skeletons at the Feast

And still Theo ran hysterically for the horses.

High above them now the fighters were starting to circle back, preparing for a second pass over the remnants of the column before rejoining their massive, glistening flock. Uri and the prisoner caught up to Theo just as the boy was reaching the two horses that were still attached to the wagon. The animals' eyes were wild and their nostrils were flaring, and they were craning their powerful necks in all directions. But at least they weren't rearing up on their hind legs and attempting to break free. As for the other two? They were nowhere in sight, and Uri hoped for this boy's sake that they had simply run off, and hadn't been blown high into the sky in small pieces like so much else that had been standing on or beside this road just a moment earlier.

With the POW he tried to unhitch one of the animals, while the boy worked on his own to free the other. This was complete madness in Uri's mind, utter lunacy. Had he really lived through so much over the last two years only to get himself killed helping some Nazi boy save his damn horse? He and this prisoner weren't nearly as proficient with the clasps and the buckles as the child, but together they were able to remove the harness and grab the leather reins, and join the boy as he scurried with his horse from the road into the fields.

Behind them they heard more cries and more blasts, and they felt the ground shaking beneath them as they ran, but Uri had the horse now, and the last thing he wanted to do was waste even a second looking back.

FOR A LONG MOMENT after the planes were gone the five of them leaned against an outside wall of the barn. Uri and the POW stood with their hands on their knees, swallowing great gulps of cold air. The boy? He and his sister were each calming one of the horses, stroking them softly along their long, graceful noses. Their mother was standing under the eave, clearly a little numbed. She was, however, the first one to speak. In a tone that surprised Uri with its firmness and control, she said, “That was unwise, Theo. You know that, don't you?”

The child nodded, but said, “I've already lost Bogdana. I shouldn't have to lose Waldau, too.” His voice had just a touch of defiance to it.

“Bogdana was his pony,” the boy's older sister said, as if that explained everything. Then: “Thank you for helping us. That was completely unnecessary. But very brave.”

He looked up. He saw the little boy had cut his cheek at some point, just below his eye, and the blood was trickling like raindrops on glass past his ear and along the side of his jaw. Uri motioned toward it with his finger, and the child's sister reached somewhere inside her cape and found the sort of dainty handkerchief his grandmother used to use-he saw blue flowers, edelweiss perhaps, embroidered into one of the corners-and pressed it gently against the wound. “You hurt yourself, sweetie,” she murmured. The boy barely shrugged.

On the road before them the lucky refugees were already starting to restack their bags and their boxes and their suitcases onto their carts and resume their trek west. Others were sobbing over dead children, dead mothers, dead fathers. Some of the dead looked as peaceful as any Uri had seen, while others had died with their arms raised in either anger or despair at the sky. Some were lying perfectly still as their clothing continued to smolder.

Uri turned to this family around him. “What are your names? I know you're Theo. But I don't know the rest of you.”

“I'm Anna. And this is our mother.”

“And you?” This time Uri spoke directly to the POW.

“He's… Otto,” said Anna, answering before the man could even begin to open his mouth.

“Like hell he is,” said Uri.

“He's-”

Uri waved her off. “He's Otto. I understand.” He extended his hand to the POW. “I'm Manfred.” The fellow took his hand and smiled at him, his eyes as grateful as a spared fawn's.

“Thank you, Manfred,” the mother was saying to him. “Thank you for helping us save the horses.”

“We should find the others,” Anna said, meaning, Uri assumed, their other animals. She was still pressing her handkerchief against her little brother's cheek. “We have so much loaded on each of the wagons.”

“You're supposing your wagons are still in one piece. And your other horses are alive,” he said.

“That is hoping for a lot, isn't it?”

“It is,” he said. “But let's go see.”

URI STOOD WITH this POW over the carcass of what had once been a magisterial stallion. It looked like it had probably run fifty or sixty meters after the Spitfire's cannons had punched great holes in its side and caused the animal's steaming entrails to fall from its abdomen like the contents of a piñata.

“This was Labiau,” the POW said, kneeling. He took off his glove and ran his bare fingers along the horse's powerfully muscled shoulders. The fellow's German sounded vaguely Scottish to Uri. “I think they named most of their horses after castles.”

“You think,” said Uri. “They're not your horses, too?”

The POW realized his mistake and stood. “Yes, I think. I'm not a part of their family. So: Are you going to shoot me?”

The two men hadn't planned on separating from Anna and Theo and their mother, and Uri had the sense that wherever Anna was at the moment, she wasn't happy about the fact that the family's POW was alone with him.

“No,” he told the prisoner. “No more than you're going to shoot me.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged. “I'm going on to Czersk to rejoin my unit.” In the distance, beside an overturned wicker basket that had been blown far from someone's wagon or cart, they saw a horse browsing its contents. “Is that one of theirs, too?”

The POW nodded. “It is. Ragnit.”

“And your real name?”

The POW reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out some cigarettes. He handed one to Uri and kept one for himself. “Callum,” he said.

“English?”

“Scottish.”

“Where were you captured?”

“France. I'm a paratrooper.”

“And you wound up this far east… how?” Uri asked, lighting the cigarette and savoring the warmth of the smoke in his mouth and his lungs. He realized that he hadn't had a cigarette in at least three or four days.

“I was sent from the stalag to their farm to help with the harvest.”

“Alone?”

“No. Originally there were seven of us.”

“What happened to the others?”

“They were returned to the stalag.”

“But not you.”

“No. Their father knew someone. Pulled some strings. He realized he was going to be recruited into the army, and he wanted a man to help manage the estate when he was gone. Do the heavy lifting.”

“You know how much trouble you're in now, don't you?”

“How so?”

“Well, I'm not going to kill you. But many other soldiers would. And if the Russians catch you, well, that wouldn't be pretty, either. In their eyes, you'd be either a collaborator or a spy.”

“The plan-” Abruptly the POW stopped talking, alarmed that he was saying too much. But it was apparent now to Uri that there was a plan, or at least a vague hope, and it became clear in an instant to Uri what it was: This family, like so many others in this endless and tawdry procession, was going to cross the whole bloody Reich, if necessary, to reach the British or the American lines. And, when they made it, this Scottish paratrooper was going to be their goodwill ambassador. Their currency. Their proof that they weren't your run-of-the-mill Nazis. There was little doubt in Uri's mind that this Callum and Anna were lovers, and the reason the girl's parents were tolerating their relationship was because this paratrooper was going to be their daughter and son's ticket into whatever post-Hitler world awaited them. For all he knew, the girl's mother was actually hoping the two would marry someday, and they'd all live happily ever after on some Scottish moor. Or, perhaps, she was living under some delusion that in a few weeks' time this man's army would be joining hers to beat back the barbarians from the east. He'd heard people saying such things for a while now. Believing such things. It was, along with their pathetic faith in some wonder weapon that Nazi scientists were supposedly cooking up in underground tunnels somewhere, what kept them going.