Banished To Earth Book Two, Souls Adrift (15)

  51

 

   “They sleep inside tonight,” Tucker said.

  

   “That they do.”

 

   After settling the horses down for the night, Trudy reached out and took Tucker’s hand. “Thank you.”

 

  “For what?”

 

    “My babies for one thing, still cain’t believe I just forgot about’em. And…”

 

    He drew her up close. “No, thank you. Been lugging that boulder way too long. I cried. Oh man….”

 

    “You loved your sister.”

 

    “And she loved me, “he paused, “too much.”

 

    “When people are scared, they do scary stuff.”

 

     “She was scared for me. Yeah. I owe the Transit Authority. That’s one debt I mean to pay.”

 

       “Don’t birds roost at night?” Trudy asked out of the blue, looking past his right shoulder.

 

       “Yeah.” He turned to see what she was looking at.

 

      “Huh, a bluejay.” He mumbled, “Just sitting on the gate looking in. And it ain’t movin’. Birds are twitchy. This one shore ain’t.”

 

    “It's looking at us, not the oak.”

 

   “Yeah, it's like it's studying us.” With that, he left her and headed toward the gate.

 

     “Be careful.”

 

       “Of a little bird?”

       

  “Ain’t natural, oh sorry, didn’t mean ta…”

 

   “No, Trudy, I got upset, angry.” He turned back to the bird, hiding his face from her, “and scared.”

 

    “And guilty?”

 

    He stopped. “Yeah, that, that too.” He said, just as he reached the bird, which was still frozen on the white wooden gate. She eased up behind him as his hand opened toward the tiny creature. His fingertips had just touched its right wing when it pecked him and flew away.

 

    They both jumped back. “You woke it.” She said.

 

   “No, its eyes were open. It was waiting. It was no monster. But that was not just a bird.”

 

   “What are you saying?”

 

   “Don’t know, don’t like not knowing. Well, your gates closed. Your horses are bedded down. And the birds gone, and I ain’t chasin’ it”

 

    “You shouldn’t feel guilty, Tucker. You did nothing wrong.”

 

   “I didn’t hurt the bird.”

 

   She gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. “No, silly, your sister. You did nothin’ wrong.”

 

   “Coulda’ kept my mouth shut. That’s all I had to do. But I didn’t. She drowned herself in the same water my folks thought would wash my sins away.”  

 

   “Your sins?”

52

 

   “They believed evil goes where it's welcome. My Dreams had nothing to do with Jesus. To them, aliens and demons were the same. The Transit Authority is proving them right. I didn’t need to say nothin’.”

 

     “You didn’t kill your sister.”

 

  “Well, she’s dead, my folks are dead. Guess me and Chase, oh, shucks, I mean, Davin are the same.”

 

    “Tucker, there is only one murderer here. It ain’t you and it ain’t Davin. Its me”