Those voices were raised, the villagers with the sacks appearing to lecture those without. Or maybe the other way around. One man clung to a sack-laden woman by her arm until she shrugged him off and walked away, climbing the hill toward the train station. About half the villagers followed her.
The Leonids scrambled to the back of the roof, sliding on their rear ends to the edge so their feet dangled. They pushed off the roof, launching their bodies to berm. The older Leonid landed on his feet, stumbled forward, and fell to one knee. His brother landed directly into a somersault, springing to his feet at the end of one revolution. They sprinted straight through the trees and down the steep hill. At the village proper, they darted behind the row of cottages and followed the dry creek bed to the road on the other side.
With the brush shriveled to almost nothing, it was hard to stay hidden as the Leonids followed the villagers. The ruts in the dirt road, once carved as if into stone, had crumbled in on themselves. The villagers’ shoes stirred up plumes of dust, each footfall emitting a low, gray shock wave. None of them spoke. On days the train would come, the banter would not stop even as the villagers loaded carts and hauled them back to the village. But the train had not visited in so long that Leonid barely remembered its sound, the rumble it sent through the mountain and the greeting hoot of its horn. He wondered if maybe one silence caused the other.
Near the train station, the Leonids hid behind a tall kalyna, the only shrub in the valley still showing green. The white flowers had just recently given way to red berries. The boys ate two or three from time to time, a tart flavor that puckered the whole mouth, but any more than that made one sick. Kasha had once eaten a whole branch-full and spent two days vomiting and shitting herself. The berries were a food that would leave one hungrier in the end than before they were eaten.
The villagers went to the other side of the small building beside the tracks, what everyone in the village called a station, though it was no more than a closet where a few unidentifiable items were kept for use by the train’s engineer. The building, neglected by the village even before the train stopped coming, now teetered to the left, the bottom of the right wall pulled up and away from the platform. Rusty, bent nails filled the gap like fangs.
The Leonids left the shade of the kalyna and ran to the building and sneaked around its side. The villagers were not there. There was no sign of them within the deep forest opposite the station. The door to the building was still locked shut. The younger Leonid stepped all the way onto the platform, looked right, then left, and then jumped back.
“They’re moving up the tracks,” he said, pointing in the direction of the pass.
The older Leonid peeked around the building. The villagers were already a few dozen meters away, walking in a line. They moved strangely, measuring their strides to the crossties. He had done the same many times, but the gaps fit the legs of a boy better than they did an adult. The villagers’ steps seemed too short, as if they did not actually want to get to where they were going.
The Leonids emerged from behind the building, crossed the platform and then the tracks, and jumped down on the other side, where the ground was several feet lower. If the villagers had looked back, they would have seen the twin domes of the Leonids’ heads hovering just above the level of the tracks, but no one turned.
Even at their plodding pace, the villagers pulled farther and farther away from the Leonids, who with every step had to contend with dry brush and loose soil, twigs clawing at their arms and stones grinding at their palms as they braced themselves against the embankment. The younger Leonid pushed a long branch out of his way, and when he released it, it snapped back, the tip gashing the older Leonid across the arm. The older Leonid let out a yelp before he could clamp his mouth shut. Hot tears welled up in his eyes in response to the sting. Blood dripped from the wound, marking three long streaks down his forearm.
The younger Leonid stood on his toes to raise his eyes above the level of the embankment.
“I don’t think they heard you,” he said.
“How about I hear you apologize?”
“You know I’m sorry.” He pulled himself up the embankment and onto the tracks. “They’re far enough away not to notice us.”
He reached down and offered a hand to his brother. The older Leonid went to raise his injured arm, but winced, and raised the other instead. He dug his toes into shallow pits in the pebbly soil of the embankment and hoisted himself over the edge. Ahead, the villagers were barely dashes rising above the convergence of the rails.
“We’ll lose them if we don’t hurry,” said the older Leonid.
“All we have to do is follow the same path that they’re following.” The younger Leonid walked on the rail, arms spread for balance.
“Where do you think they’re going?”
“The tracks only go one place. Outside the valley. Maybe they’re leaving.”
“If they’re leaving, then they plan to return. Their sacks are empty.”
“Maybe they’re going to bring back food?”
The older Leonid did not answer, quickening his pace, taking the crossties two at a time. His brother struggled to keep up while still balancing on the rail. For all they had explored the forest of the valley, they had never followed the tracks this far. The angle grew steeper as the tracks approached the pass, a dimple in the even rim of the valley’s trees.
The pass was the only way into the valley that did not require difficult, dangerous climbing. In all other directions, the forest gave out to sheer rock. The Leonids often wondered to each other who had discovered the valley in the first place, and once discovered, why they chose to stay. Were they hiding from the rest of the world? If so, why had they allowed the railroad to be built? Did they just stay for the good soil, so fertile it always produced many times more than the villagers needed for themselves? Not anymore, though. The soldiers came and took away the last decent crops. Now the only things to come from the ground were a few pathetic root vegetables that reminded Leonid of scrawny muscles.
The angle of the tracks had become steep enough that the Leonids were using the ties like a staircase. They were gaining on the villagers, who could have looked back and seen them at any time. The villagers’ shoulders hunched forward, their steps barely rising high enough to reach the next foothold, as if the empty sacks were actually filled to the top with buckwheat.
Ahead of them, the gap in the trees grew, revealing the crest of the pass. The villagers quickened their pace, as if hurrying to the top would somehow make the descent easier. For a moment, each of them stood on the apex before disappearing by inches on the other side, as if they were sinking into the ground. When the last villager was out of sight, the Leonids hurried to the crest.
Shouts stabbed through the quiet. It was the first noise they had heard beyond the breeze and their own whispers. The older Leonid realized that not even birdsong had accompanied their climb. Where were the birds? And how long had they been absent? The shouts were clear, but Leonid could not understand them. There were softer voices, too, and from these he could make out a few words, but then the shouting came louder and faster and from several mouths all at once. None of it made any sense, just random phrases, familiar syllables that should have connected with others but wound up misarranged instead.
“It’s Russian,” said the younger Leonid.
The older Leonid listened and managed to pick out a few words he knew. The Russians were shouting for the villagers to turn back, but now the villagers were shouting in response. Their families were starving, they said, there was no food. If they did not find food, everyone in the valley would die. The villagers shouted in Ukrainian, and the Russians in Russian. Leonid knew that neither side understood the other.