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A narrow opening in the bank. Half hidden by roots and dead leaves. Just wide enough.
He slipped inside.
The space was barely big enough to sit in. The air was thick with the smell of earth and decay. Something moved against his leg—a snake or a rat—but he didn’t flinch. He wasn’t breathing.
The dogs reached the stream a few minutes later. They were sniffing, barking, disoriented. The water had washed away their scent.
« Damn it! » swore one of the men. « He fell into the water. »
They’ve moved on.
Zacharie remained hidden for six hours after the noises had subsided. When he finally emerged, the sun was setting.
He was alive.
And he was free.
The years of solitude
The desert taught Zechariah nothing but mercy.
He learned by brushing with death.
He learned which plants were nutritious and which irritated the throat. He learned to track animals to water. He learned to trap rabbits with twisted wire salvaged from abandoned camps. He learned to make fire with flint and steel stolen from a forgotten encampment.
He learned silence.
He learned to decipher tracks like other boys read a book. He learned to recognize danger, to feel the weight of their gazes upon him. The earth did not hate him. It did not possess him. It did not mistreat him.
It simply demanded respect.
At fifteen, he had survived a rattlesnake sting by removing the venom from his leg himself. He had braved a freezing north wind that had caused the temperature to plummet by forty degrees in an hour. He had chased away a puma with a sharpened stick.
He had also killed.
The first man found him asleep in a cave. White. In rags. A knife in his hand. A rope coiled around his belt. A smile that said he was used to it.
Zacharie used a stone.
When it was over, the man was dead and Zacharie was holding the knife.
He felt nothing.
The second murder was easier. The third even easier.