Chapter Twenty-Six

Turner lay quietly in the earthy hole carved carelessly out of the high riverbank, trying not to scratch at the bandages wrapped around his aching head. Two other rats squabbled over a stale crust of bread in the corner, but both were careful to avoid Turner. In his current mood, he might take more than an ear.

This is maddening. I’m not afraid of getting an infection, but I should be. Common sense is the only thing keeping me from raking my claws through the stitches. Ever since the operation, Turner had been forced to think about things more—he was a thoughtful rat by nature, especially when set against the rabble he suffered himself to live with. Now that his natural fear response was gone, he realized just how much of an effort it had been to keep fear deep-down and hidden.

Every day he had woken up dreading that someone had discovered the help he’d given to the rat-pack’s victims and enemies, and he still doubted that feeling would ever fade, as long as he had to keep making those costly gifts. If word of his leaving the medical supplies for Gadget—or the plan-of-attack notes for Teresa and Martin Brisby—had ever reached the ears of his Commander (or any of the others, for that matter), they would have torn him into unidentifiable pieces. He had seen it done to the few others who had ever shown an ounce of compassion to anyone, anywhere—to the few rats in the group who had been decent enough to call friends. Their deaths had shaken Turner badly, and more than ever he felt terribly alone among these twisted souls. It was like being the only point of light in a sky of black holes.

A head much in need of washing popped up at the entrance to the makeshift shelter. "Mister Turner, sir!" the rat boomed.

Turner put his paws to his head and snarled, not having to pretend too hard that he was very, very touchy. "Speak quietly," he forced himself to take his own advice, "or you’ll never speak again."

"Yessir," the other rat gulped. "I just wanted to let you know that the rats in Thorn V—"

"—speak that name in my presence and I’ll teach you what your own heart tastes like," Turner said, and made it sound like a promise.

"I’m s-sorry, sir. What should I call them? ‘Group A’, like back at NIMH?"

Turner smiled toothily, despite feeling as if someone were trying to unzip his scalp. "Group A? That’s good. We’ll show them soon enough that grades aren’t everything. Spit it out, what have our more fortunate cousins been up to?"

"They’ve found the doctor, the one what did the job on your head, Mister Turner."

"The one who ran?" Turner clicked his claws on muddy stone, narrowing his eyes suspiciously, though he knew exactly where the Thorn Valley crew must have dredged up their surprise.

"Yes, sir. All weighed down with rocks in his pockets, all green and grimy and full of water."

Turner snorted, not having to work too hard at sounding disgusted. "I wanted him to fix these damn stitches," he put on a tone of selfish anger. "They aren’t healing right. He had to get himself killed, and me just halfway healed from his fumbling."

Perhaps it was an underhanded sort of hope that made the rat ask—Turner was, stitches or no stitches, the strongest and second-most dangerous of the bunch, but this was as vulnerable as the other rat had seen him. This other was not smart by any standards, but like his equally detestable comrades, he was sly. So he asked. "Say, Mister Turner… I see you have a new ear on your belt."

Artwork by Keith Elder

"What of it?!" snapped Turner. If this kept up, he’d have to hurt this messenger badly just to prove to the others that he didn’t want to be bothered. "Do you want to add one of your own?" He shifted his bulk forward menacingly.

The rat backed away, covering his ears with his paws, but cocking his head thoughtfully. "No, sir! Just wondering—that’s not the doctor’s ear, is it?"

Oh, hell, Turner stopped, dead-still. He’s right, and you didn’t even think about it when you took the ear! Now would be a good time to be afraid, but you can’t, so just come up with something! "What do you take me for?" Turner spat at the mangy messenger. "He was a part of our Plan, our revenge! Do you think I’d throw all that away?" As he spoke, he slid around toward the entrance, cutting off the other’s escape route.

The scheming sparkle in that other’s eye winked out, replaced by pure dread. He had all but accused Turner of being a traitor, and he had seen rats maimed for less. Turner rarely killed; he left his enemies broken and close at hand. All this flashed through the villain’s mind as he braced himself hopelessly against the wall a moment before Turner launched himself through the air.

With a howl of rage, Turner slammed his hammer-heavy paws against the messenger’s sides, knocking all the air out of him. Before the rat could make a move against him, Turner flung massive arms around his middle and squeezed. Turner heard a wheeze that would have been a scream, with any air behind it, and felt ribs pop like bubble-wrap under the pressure. He bent his head and snapped a quick tooth-hold on the unfortunate fellow’s ear, then flung his head back, ripping most of the ear away. He opened his arms and let the rat fall in a quivering heap.

Turner staggered back, not in pain, but with a red, berserk mist clouding his vision. In his mind’s eye, he saw the smirking doctor in his white uniform, so clean and official-looking as he smuggled Turner back out across the lake on the Plateau. How the doctor had chuckled and grinned, so pleased with the evil he’d worked on Turner, ripping out a piece of his brain. How the creep had begun to brag about hurting Gadget and helping to turn her home into a place of unspeakable horrors—

Yes, Turner decided, be angry for her. You can’t be afraid for her in quite the way you used to be, but you can hate what they did to her, and use that anger against these filth, any chance you get.

His vision clearing, Turner looked down at the rat bleeding and scraping uselessly against the earth. He turned to the two rats who had been fighting over the stale bread. They had forgotten their hunger completely. "I think this piece of trash wants to get away," Turner sneered. "You two push him out of the hole and make sure he keeps breathing. I want him to see his ear on my belt. Move!"

In a flash, the two had bundled off the latest fool to get on Turner’s wrong side. When he was sure they were gone, Turner dropped the fresh-torn ear, put his head in his paws and began to weep. Please, Dear God, he pleaded, don’t ever let me have to kill anyone ever again. There’s a war coming if I can’t stop it, and I know I would have to do terrible things. Please let me be strong.

It came to Turner suddenly that fear was perhaps a bigger thing than could be cut out of the brain. Fright—the shallow sort of fear that comes and goes in an instant—that was the only thing the doctor had been able to blot out. A deeper shade of afraid comes with realizing just what you’re capable of in your worst moments.

Button images by Keith Elder