Run, Boy, Run(10)

"Where?"

"In the sky," Srulik said.

"Who told you?"

"Yoyneh the shoemaker."

Yosele thought about that. "I'm glad my mother's dead," he said at last.





4. Baked Birds


The next day Avrum and Itsik went to hunt birds with a slingshot. They returned at noon with a slew of birds, tied by the feet and slung over their shoulders. The biggest of them was the size of a chicken. Avrum said it was called a woodcock. Srulik was disappointed to be told that he would have to wait until evening for the birds to be cooked and eaten.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because the smoke from the fire could be seen."

When it grew dark, they built a low wall of branches around the site of the fire to keep the flames from being seen. Shleymi and Avrum cleaned the birds, cutting off their heads, with Yosele's pocketknife and a piece of jagged glass. Mud was brought from the stream bank and each bird was coated with it. When the fire had burned down to hot coals, the mud-coated birds were put in it to bake while they all waited.

"Give me my knife," Yosele said to Shleymi.

Shleymi stuck it in his pocket. "It's mine now," he said.

"Let him have it," Srulik said.

Shleymi gave Srulik a push. The boys all jumped to their feet. Avrum took command, and Shleymi returned the knife grudgingly.

They took the smaller mud-birds from the fire first. The bigger ones had to bake a while longer. The mud had hardened and turned to clay. They rolled it on the ground to cool it and then cracked it with stones and peeled it off. The feathers came with it, leaving the birds ready to eat.

When they went to sleep that night, Srulik and Yosele lay down side by side as usual. Srulik was still mad at being pushed by Shleymi.

"Shleymi was king around here until Avrum came along," Yosele told him.

"Is Avrum stronger?"

"I don't know. But he never gets lost in the forest."

"Boy, that was good," Srulik said, licking his lips. "When will they hunt some more?"

"Not for a while."

"Why not?"

"Avrum's afraid the fire will give us away."

Srulik sighed with disappointment. "Too bad," he said.

"You know," Yosele told him, "in the beginning, when I was all by myself, I was so hungry that I ate everything. I even ate snails. They're disgusting, but I didn't bite into them. I just swallowed them as fast as I could."

"I could never do that," Srulik said disgustedly.

"When you're hungry enough, you can do anything. Once I found a rabbit in a trap. I didn't have this knife, so I cut it up with a piece of glass. And I didn't have any matches, so I ate it raw."

"You didn't die from it?"

"You can see I didn't."

In the morning Srulik awoke with a start. What he had heard wasn't a dream. It was real. There were shots, coming from nearby and echoing all around him. Then there were shouts and orders being given in German.

He jumped up and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction. After a while, when there was no longer anything around him but silence, he stopped.

He didn't know where he was. He tried remembering what he had been told about moss growing only on one side of trees, but he had no idea how this might help him to find the other boys. All he could think of doing was to shout.

"Yosele! Avrum!"

His own voice echoing through the forest scared him. Someone was coming. Srulik hid. It was Shleymi. He jumped from his hiding place, happy to see him.

"Shout like that again and we'll be caught for sure," Shleymi said. "I knew you couldn't be trusted."

"Where is everyone?" Srulik asked worriedly.

"Instead of hiding, they all ran off like dopes."

"You also ran off like a dope," Srulik said.

"You'd better watch it," Shleymi threatened. "There's no one here but the two of us."

Srulik said nothing. After a while he asked, "Where do we go now?"

"I want to find the stream," Shleymi said.

"Can you?"

"That's enough out of you."

Suddenly, Shleymi stopped in his tracks. Someone was lying between two trees. It was a grown man. They tensed, ready to turn and run. But the man didn't move.

His head lay in a puddle of congealed blood.

"He's dead," Srulik whispered.

The dead man's arm extended forward. Something lay by its hand. Shleymi bent to look at it. It was a pair of glasses. He knelt by the man's side.

"Let's go," Srulik said.

"You go," said Shleymi.

Srulik walked away. Feeling sick, he sat on the ground and watched as Shleymi went through the dead man's pants pockets and pulled papers and objects out of them. Then he turned the man on his back and stuck his hand in the man's jacket pocket. Finished, he straightened up. "Srulik?" he called softly.