Free Tree Girl by Ben Mikaelsen

could help Antonio now.
    All we could do was sleep. I unwrapped my corte from my waist and laid it over the three of us like a small blanket. I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting away. I don’t know how long I slept before I awoke in the black darkness. Alicia whimpered beside me, hugging her knees and shaking as if the warm night air were cold. Antonio moaned fitfully and finally rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his knees with a loud grunt.
    “How do you feel?” I asked.
    “I hurt so bad,” he moaned. “It’s like my stomach’s on fire.”
    I could not show my little brother how helpless I felt. Carefully I peeled the trementina from his wound and washed away as much blood as I could. The groundunder the wound was matted and soaked with blood. Then I wiped cool water on Antonio’s forehead, trying to make up for his weakness with my deliberate movements.
    I hadn’t wanted to talk of the massacre in front of Alicia, but because she slept now, I asked Antonio, “Can you tell me what happened?”
    Antonio gripped his stomach with both hands. “We were working near the cantón when the soldiers came from every direction. Only a few of us escaped. I ran to the trees but heard Alicia screaming behind me. She had been bathing in the stream.” Antonio grimaced. “I shouted to her, and that’s when I was shot. At first I thought a bee had stung me, but then I saw all the blood. I ran back and carried her to the place where you found us.”
    I took Antonio’s hand and looked at him in the darkness with a great love. This was my brother who had been such a follower. And yet here he lay wounded in the dark from having saved his sister’s life. Today he was no follower. “I’m so proud of you,” I said. “Mamí and Papí would have been proud, too.”
    My words seemed to ease Antonio’s pain.
    Our talking woke Alicia, and she sat up fearfully. I pulled her to my side and hugged her. We had faced hell, but we were still a family.
    I tried to stay awake in case Antonio needed comforting. A foul smell came now from his body as he fell in and out of consciousness. He drew in shallow breaths. Sweat dripped from his forehead and pain twisted his face.
    I lay awake, listening to the sounds of the forest and to Antonio’s moans. Several times I dozed off, waking to the sounds of frogs, crickets, and the breeze. Antonio’s labored breath interrupted the harmony of the forest. With each effort he pulled air into his weak body as if through a narrow straw.
    Sometime before dawn I dozed off once again. When I awoke next, I heard only the sound of the crickets and nothing more.
    Antonio’s struggle had ended.
    I knelt beside his lifeless body, tears wetting my cheeks. Even in the dark, I saw that the pain had left his face and a calm peacefulness creased his lips. Iremained beside Antonio until Alicia awoke, then I held her close.
    “Antonio has gone,” I said. “Do you understand?”
    Alicia stared at Antonio without answering, but her big eyes blinked hard. Finally I stood and removed Antonio’s shirt, ripping away the cloth stained by blood at the bottom. I rolled up the sleeves and pulled the ragged shirt over Alicia’s small, naked body. The shirt fit her like a dress.
    Then I grabbed a stick and dug another shallow hole with hands already blistered from digging other graves. I stabbed angrily at the ground. This wasn’t the sacred ground where my brother ought to have been buried. Why was this happening? Everybody was dying, and I was left alive to endure it. Was God mad? Was there something else I could have done to save Antonio’s life? That thought haunted me as I rolled my brother into his final resting place.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    M orning sun glinted through the trees as Alicia and I walked away from Antonio’s grave. I refused to look back as we walked north toward the Mexican border more than two hundred kilometers away. Such a journey frightened me, but what other choice did we have? I no