Chapter 57
Being on a boat for the first time would’ve been an adventure Adam could really sink his teeth into, if he’d been able to pull his eyes away from Rain. She was out now, unconscious from either the pain or the exertion of being moved to the unfamiliar vehicle while she was wounded, he wasn’t sure, but either way, he was concerned.
“Let’s lay her down,” the woman who owned the boat said quietly. “It’s better if she rests now.”
“Is she okay?” Mist asked from next to Rain’s knee. Adam didn’t pull his eyes off of the beautiful redhead to read the concern in her face, but he could hear it in the quiver in Mist’s voice.
“She will be,” the woman assured them. “I’ve seen many a wound worse than this. With less medicine to fix it.” She moved Rain so that her head was resting on her backpack. “I’m Esther Green, by the way. Those are my sons. The younger one is called Peter, and the oldest is Seth.”
“I’m Mist. This is Walt,” she said, pointing to where Walt was kneeling beside her, “and this is Adam.”
Esther nodded at each of them. “And the girl?” she asked, looking at Rain.
“Her name is Rain,” Adam said, his eyes focused on her face again. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but her face looked even more pale than usual, and she was so still. He had to concentrate to see the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she sucked in air.
“Well, we weren’t expecting visitors,” Esther said, pulling herself up as she wiped her hand on her long skirt that fell over a pair of denim pants. Her boots were similar to theirs in that they were military grade, though hers were old and worn. “But we’ll make do.”
“We appreciate your help,” Adam said, able to pull himself away from Rain long enough to address the woman. “We will do whatever we can to repay you.”
She was on her way back to the steering mechanism. Seth seemed reluctant to move aside, but he did so. If she made a response to Adam’s promise, he didn’t hear it.
Seth came over to where they were all gathered around Rain, bending down to join them. Behind him, Peter moved over toward his mother, ready in case she called on him to do anything. Adam guessed he was probably around fifteen from his size, but it was hard for him to tell since the only males he’d ever been around were drugged and given growth hormones from the day they were placed in their glastic cages, as he had been. If he had to guess, Seth was probably closer to his age, maybe a little older. He was muscular, but not bulky, and Adam had a feeling his muscle had been honed through hard work on a farm or by some other natural means, not through the artificial weight lifting that had caused him and his friends to bulk up.
“How much further is it?” Mist asked Seth quietly, her eyes peering out over the edge of the boat.
“A few more miles until we get off of the river, but then we’ll have to go through the mountains quite a ways. I would say we’ll be at our place in about twenty more minutes.”
“We’ll have to move her again?” Adam asked, thinking that transferring Rain again wouldn’t be in her best interest.
“No, this is a duck boat,” Seth explained. “It goes from land to sea and back again. It’s actually faster on land.”
Adam had never heard of such a thing but it was interesting to him. This was the first vehicle he’d ever been in, so the fact that it could go on land and sea caught his attention almost enough to cause him to forget about Rain’s injury for a moment.
“You live on a mountain?” Walt asked. He had a sense of wonder to his voice. Adam could relate. He’d never seen real mountains before, only the hills they’d traversed through on their way to the river. Under normal circumstances, Adam would be excited to see them, too, but at the moment, Rain was his only concern.
“No, not on the mountains,” Seth said. “In them.”
“What’s that now?” Mist asked, resituating herself as the boat hit another rough patch in the water.
“You’ll see,” Seth replied. “Just know we’ll be safe from the Mothers once we get away from the Red River.”
“What did you call it?” Adam asked, not sure if he’d heard wrong or Seth had said something unexpected.
“The Red River,” Seth repeated. “Why? What do you call it?”
“We call it the River Red,” Mist said. “That’s what we’ve always called it.” She shrugged. “Same difference, I guess.”
“I guess,” Seth said, scratching his chin. “But I think it’s just another way the Mothers manipulate everyone. Everything has to be different, even the name of the damn river.”
Adam had to agree with that. If Seth was expecting to get a disagreement out of Mist, to test her allegiance, she passed the test. “True,” she said with a sharp nod. “They’d say the sky was green if they needed us to believe it.”
Seth’s expression shifted slightly, as if he had decided then and there he was right to trust his own instincts and help them. “I think we’re safe now,” he said, glancing back in the direction that they’d come. “But Mama won’t let up until we’re home.”
The word Mama hung in Adam’s ears. This woman--Esther--was Seth’s mama, his mother, not with a capital M but the sort of mother that none of the rebels had ever had. The sort that carries their child in their womb, gives birth, takes care of the child as an infant, and continues to care for them even as they age, like this young man before him now. What it must be like to have one of those, Adam couldn’t fathom. He was certain it must be unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
He glanced quickly at Mist and Walt. Both of them seemed to have missed the subtle mention of Seth’s “Mama.” Or if they had held similar thoughts to the ones in Adam’s mind now, they didn’t show it in their expressions. Mist seemed to be impatiently looking ahead, trying to figure out how much longer until they got to where they were going. She was clearly worried about Rain. Adam was, too, but he trusted Esther for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. If the woman said Rain would be okay, he had to believe her.
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