Keep Moving

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A little farther downstream, they found another beach. They stopped, made camp, lit a fire and prepared food, preparing for the night. The wolf disappeared, off to find his own food. Manueline and Wals sat either side of the fire. A couple of times, she tried to talk to him but he was, if anything, even less responsive than he had been. They sat in silence each alone with the events of the day. The wolf returned in the night and Manueline woke to see him sitting on the beach, looking up stream, his ears forward, watching in the darkness.

Although they heard nothing of the people that night, Manueline was not surprised, when they started out on the river the next day, to find first one then another of the boats following them. Some of the boats were missing. She had not counted them the previous day and she did not count them now but she was sure there were fewer boats.

She wondered what had happened to the others. Were they still on the island, sitting apathetically on the beach? Had they gone back to where they came from, gone back to whatever was left of the community they used to live in? Or where they dead? Had there been other frenzies in the night? She found herself drifting into a waking nightmare, imagining the scene on the beach in the middle of the night.

They traveled all that day passing a couple of other villages as they went. At each village one or two of the boats stopped. Manueline was sure she heard something from one of them, distant shouts and cries of alarm. They stopped that night and the whole crowd of boats stopped with them, keeping a distance between them but close enough to be seen and heard. There were boats both upstream and downstream from them and Manueline heard people passing up and down the bank keeping well away from her and Wals.

The old woman reappeared and asked them if they needed anything. Manueline looked at her for a long time before answering, wondering what she wanted and why she was following them. The old woman just stood and waited. Manueline's face became hard and she asked, "Why are you here? Why are you following us?"

The old woman was silent shifting her feet, evidently considering what she should say, "For some time the young men have been extracting a toll from those coming up and down the river; often taking more than people are willing or able to give. I warned them that in the end, it would lead to their destruction; that death would come among them and they would have no choice but to follow it. When they returned with the dead, crying out that death had found them, the people remembered my words and some of them cursed me for bringing this upon them. Others said they had brought it on themselves. They decided they would follow you and find out what this death might mean. They insisted I should come. I think they would have killed me if I had not." She fell silent again.

Manueline asked, "Why not return now?"

The old woman laughed, "They will not let me go. How would I get back? Anyway there is nothing to return to, the community I lived in no longer exists."

Manueline considered her for a while, probably she was a healer of some sort, a woman living on her own in the community, surviving by what she could provide for herself and through the connections and influence she had with others. She guessed that the old woman was doing the same among the people in the boats that followed them now and probably sought contact with her and Wals as a way of enhancing her own influence.

Manueline stood a while looking at the woman, thinking about herself and Wals and what would become of them. She wondered about the journey they had undertaken and where it would lead, even what it would consist of. She realized that the woman and the people were a part of the journey. They would be unable to escape from them any more than they could escape from themselves. She would have to accept the woman and the other people and live with what they brought with them; draw them in, control them and use them, either that or be destroyed by them. "You will come and sleep there, up the beach from us where I can call you if I need to. I want tents, one for him and one for myself and food for both of us. Can you do this?"

The woman nodded her head and disappeared. A little later, there was some shouting and noise further up the beach; later still a group of men and women appeared, fearfully keeping away from Manueline and Wals. They set up two tents. They lit a fire and put a pot over the fire placing bowls and spoons on a cloth in front of it. The tents each had a sleeping pallet made up with blankets and the floor covered with straw.

The old woman reappeared, gesturing towards the tent and the fire asking if Manueline was satisfied. Manueline merely nodded her head and the woman disappeared into the darkness.

The following morning, Manueline simply got Wals and the wolf into the boat and left. There was a flurry of activity on the beach behind them and the whole crowd of boats and people took to the water after them. Manueline was sure there were even more boats than there had been the previous day. It was almost as though some boats had come in the night. She tried to count them but it was hard to tell if she could see all the boats. She thought there were at least twenty-five of them, some carrying a significant number of people.

They passed several small villages. Each time, some of the boats left the main group and went to shore. Again, Manueline thought she heard shouts and cries as they passed. By the end of the day, there were only about ten boats left.

Manueline picked a beach towards the end of the afternoon and stopped; the other boats stopped upstream and downstream of them. The two tents reappeared along with food, the pot, some fruit and some kind of beverage Manueline had never tasted before. The old woman reappeared and asked they needed anything else. Manueline thought of just dismissing her but then asked for chairs for herself and for Wals, though she did not actually name him. The chairs duly appeared. They were nothing more than campstools and the woman apologized, saying there was nothing else to be had but she would see that something better was provided the next night.

The next morning there was a lot of activity on the beach as the sun rose. People were moving about some shouting and talking loudly. Manueline ignored it, staying in the tent, occasionally hearing the wolf moving about outside. Eventually she got up well after the sunrise and went to wake Wals who seemed to be still asleep. Again, she simply led the way down to their boat, got Wals and the wolf into the boat and left. The whole crowd on the beach rushed to their boats and left with them, though Manueline noticed the rush was less disorganized than it had been the previous day. People were evidently expecting a pattern and adapting to it.

Again, there were more boats than there had been the day before. Manueline tried to count them, there seemed to be about forty but she was not sure of the number.

Early in the day, they passed a large village and more than half the boats left to go ashore. There was no wind and very little current so this time Manueline could actually see what was happening. The people from the boats started shouting as they approached the shore and attracted the attention of the people in the village, many of whom came down to the shore to meet them. The crowds mingled with more shouting, some of it evidently angry or afraid. The shouting and the crowds became a distant murmur as a breeze came up and swept them on down stream, opening up the distance between them and the events on shore. Manueline thought she saw some fighting and violence. At first, she was not sure but then when smoke started coming from the village she knew what was happening and turned her back on it.

It was not so much that there was nothing she could do. She could have done something but she simply lacked the will to do anything. Too much of what infected Wals had crept into her and now it was all she could do to keep the two of them moving. It was all she could do to stop them from sinking into the deathtrap that awaited them, that constantly seemed one-step behind them. She turned her back and moved on, leaving the village to its fate.

During the day, they passed several other villages and by the end of the day, there were only five boats left, though several other boats joined them as they stopped for the night, stopping early in the afternoon. Tents, food and two chairs appeared. Manueline sat in one of them and called the old woman over to her. She told the old woman to sit on the ground. She asked about the villages they had passed; what were their names, what happened to them when the boat people went to them. The old woman shrugged her shoulders saying the names didn't matter. The people went to them and told them that death had come among them, that they could stay in their villages and wait for it to come again or they could get up and follow it now. Death was calling to them. The personification of death had come into the world and they would be fools to think the world could ever be the same again.

She shrugged her shoulders again, "Some people ignore the call, some people choose to come. In that first large village that we passed today, some of the local people became angry and tried to drive the boat people away. Many of the village people said they would come, there was fighting. They burnt the village. See, almost all of them are coming. She pointed upstream towards a huge straggling crowd of boats that was coming down in the gathering dusk towards them. The boats stopped upstream and downstream from where they were. Manueline sat eating the evening meal, disturbed by the noise of the people on the beach.

She called the old woman over telling her, "Come, walk with me." They walked together up the beach through the rough camps made by the boat people. Manueline walked with the old woman on one side, the wolf on the other. They came upon a man beating a woman as a group of people stood by and watched. Manueline cried out that they should stop. At first, the people didn't know who she was but then they realized and they pulled the man off, separating him from the woman. The man was angry and fearful at the same time, claiming the woman was his and she was unfaithful to him. Manueline spoke with anger in her voice and her expression, "No one belongs to anyone else. Anyone making such a claim deserves death."

She turned her back on them hearing a brief anguished cry from the man followed by silence. Manueline walked on with the old woman; the rumor of her coming spread up the beach ahead of her. Several people came to her, prostrating themselves on the ground asking her to intercede in something or pass judgment. Some, mostly men, she ignored. To others, she listened briefly and spoke for or against them, making it clear she would tolerate no violence or intimidation between the people on the beach. In truth, she cared very little for them but she recognized she would have to impose some sort of order or they would just become a mob.

Twice she heard people speak against her or against Wals. Both times they died, killed by the people around them. The second time she interfered, too late to save the man involved but she told them, if people didn't want to be there, they should be sent away, there was no need to kill them. They would die in the end anyway. Manueline walked both up and down the beach returning eventually to sit with Wals before she sent him off to bed and went to bed herself. The wolf left, hunting in the night. She heard him howling at the moon and dreamt of the forest, dark and warm on a summer night.

To follow this thread in the story go to: Cries Over Water

The next section to read is: One Distant Cry

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