Water Rites by Mary Rosenblum Page B

meant rain somewhere higher on the slopes, and the runoff had come, quick and violent, down this bed.
    She hadn’t thought he would follow her. Nita shrugged her small pack higher on her shoulder and scrambled upward, toward the rim of the creekbed and drier ground where her tracks wouldn’t show. On the other side of these hills lay the sea. The Bee Man had said so. The full water jug that she had taken banged her shoulder painfully. He called to her again, his voice hoarse, as if he had been shouting for a long time.
    “Nita? Come back! You can’t just run away like this. You’ll die out here.”
    Not true. Nita ducked down into the hollow left by a wind-felled tree. The tilted mass of roots and sunbaked dirt roofed the torn earth, and she crouched in the cool shadow, catching her breath. She would live with the bees. The Bee Man had showed her how. The bees would find water for her. They would sing to her with the sound of the Bee Man’s peace. Nita swallowed, her throat tight, peeking down into the creekbed.
    He wasn’t down in the creekbed. He had climbed the bank, too, appearing only a dozen yards away, circling around a rocky outcrop. Nita squeezed deeper into her hiding place, holding her breath.
    “Nita?” He cupped his hands around his mouth, looking up the creekbed as he shouted. “Damn it, Nita. Don’t do this!”
    Anger.
    It wasn’t his anger that she was hearing. Nita’s arms prickled with the memory of burning stings. Killers. Afraid to move, she peeked between the twisted roots of the old tree. There they were — a little farther along the side of the streambed. Nita’s heart beat faster at the sight of the bees darting in and out of a broken treetrunk. If she had gone on a little more, she would have walked right into them.
    “Nita?”
    She flinched, her heart leaping. He was right beside her, on the other side of the roots. Nita squeezed her eyes closed, trying to make herself small, trying to become invisible, like she’d done in the unit, trying to hide.
    The Bee Man wasn’t mad anymore, but he was still scared. Nita opened her eyes a crack. Papa had been scared like this, the day the men had come. Run, Mama had screamed, but he hadn’t run. He had looked at Nita, afraid, had scooped her up, tossed her behind the old pickup, where the men with the guns couldn’t see her.
    The Bee Man hadn’t seen her. He had walked past her hiding place, was starting to climb down the side of the creekbed. Nita sucked in her breath, fear squeezing her. Rocks and pebbles, loosened by his feet, bounced down the slope. A few of them hit the killer bees’ treetrunk. Their song rose a notch and a small cloud of bees swirled into the air. The Bee Man saw them.
    He looked, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t hear their song. He didn’t know that they were killers. She scrambled to her feet, her head full of their harsh warning. In a moment, he would be too close.
    You can die from too many stings , he had told her. “Stop,” she whispered, but he didn’t hear her. More bees swirled into the air, humming anger, humming death. “Stop!” she screamed.
    He heard her, twisted around, his surprise flaring bright as lightning. A rock slid out from beneath his foot, and he staggered, struggling to stay on his feet. More rocks slid and he gave a cry, falling backward, rolling down the slope in a shower of dirt to slam into the killers’ tree trunk.
    The killers boiled out of their nest. Nita cringed at their harsh song. All you could do was run , he had said.
    “Run!” she screamed.
    Hands covering his face, the Bee Man tried to get to his feet. He fell again and stared crawling away from the nest, too slow, too slow, yelling something as the bees swarmed over him.
    The stings hurt him. It had hurt Papa to die.
    Nita dropped her pack and scrambled down the slope. A killer stung her face. Their harsh song hammered at her and they settled on her, stinging, stinging, stinging. Nita stumbled, clawing at bees on