I should have come across tracks if I’m following the path the guards led the men, but I also realize it’s impossible to define an exact path through the woods when one hasn’t been cut. A zig-zag direction is my only option, demanding time and energy I don’t have.
With a shivering hand, I struggle to push my coat sleeve up far enough to check the time on Papa’s watch. Not even noon and I need to rest. My knees won’t lock. My ankles keep threatening to bow.
Straining to look ahead for a place to stop, a dark shape to the left between a cluster of trees looks like another uprooted stump. The slight incline weighs on my chest, stealing almost every breath in my body by the time I reach—what isn’t an uprooted tree. Maybe just a dark boulder…
Mere footsteps away now, the outline of the dark object draws clearer. A dark wool blanket drapes over a mound of snow. I’d be a fool not to collect a lost blanket. It’s something more than what I have on me.
I tug the corner, finding it partially frozen to the ground. With a harder pull, the blanket comes loose, and I stumble back a step or two. A man’s body lies before me. His face blue, eyes open wide, framed with ice crystals. With an unsteady step forward, I notice a dried bloodstain beneath a dark hole along his temple. I crouch by his head and sweep the hair off his brow. His striped uniform is wet and covered in grime.He’s too young.Too young to be lying here like this alone with no one by his side.
“Your life was not in vain. You’re a part of history,” I choke out in a hush.
My stomach clenches and bile burns up my throat.
I can’t swallow. My tongue is numb, and a shiver strikes my spine with fury, aching every one of my muscles. I close my eyes, and trudge forward, knowing I can’t stop here—I can’t look at that poor man again. He reminds me too much of Stefan. How easily it could be him.
My legs carry me forward, as I try to stare ahead rather than down. I’ve been searching for footprints. Now I don’t want to see them if they exist.
Another body lies ahead. Not covered. No dignity. Strewn over a rock, his head dangling just above the ground where a frozen circle of blood has sunk into the snow.
My heart pounds, heavier and harder, stealing the weak breaths I need to keep moving. But the farther I go, the more bodies I find.
Every trail of blood…
Each body…
I grit my teeth, hold in a breath, ignore the drumming pulse between my ears, and check his face.
For every man I pass, I’m convinced it’s Stefan?—
I trip over and over, catching myself before falling to my knees, wondering how long ago the other men were here, and how many are still walking.
Weyman’s words echo in my head: “Go. Find his remains, half buried in the snow somewhere between here and Gliwice.”
A heaviness in my head leaves me unsteady. I reach for a nearby tree to keep me upright.
“Stefan,” I cry out in a whisper. “Where are you?”
My breaths are dense and loud as I try to hold back a sob, but then the sound of groaning wagon wheels and stomping horse hoofs put me in a choke hold. I move out of the assumed pathI’ve been walking and press myself closer to the tree, peeking around the side until a horse’s wet snout emerges around a slight bend.
The dark horse’s trot is slow, its black mane dusty with snow, pulling along a rickety old wagon. An elderly woman, hunched forward with watery blue eyes, and head draped with a black scarf, holds the horse’s reins firmly within her clenched fists.
I debate stepping out from the tree to ask the woman if she’s seen a group of men pass through, but I’m still on German occupied soil and know not to trust anyone. Still, I’m not going to make it much longer in this cold, and without food.
The woman appears too old and frail to be taking charge of a horse built to pull much more than her and a small wagon with no more than a half cord of logs. I step to the side and hold up my hand, waving it a bit to catch her attention as she approaches. All I accomplish is startling her horse though. It tosses its head with warning, and the woman snaps the reins back, halting the horse before turning her focus toward me. She presses her gloved hand to her cheek as her eyes bulge.
“You gave us both quite a fright,” she utters in Polish. Her native tongue eases my nerves. “Why is a young woman like yourself this deep into the woods, alone?”
I should ask her the same. She must be eighty and alone, hauling firewood.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I—I’m looking for someone. A man. He’s among a group of men dressed in striped uniforms. Have you seen anything?”
The woman clenches her eyes closed and presses her lips into a thin line. “The German soldiers would rather we act as though they’re invisible as they march through our woods. I know better than to make my presence known so I stayed a way back and out of sight, but I did catch a glimpse of them late yesterdayafternoon. They appeared to be heading east. Those poor men. I don’t know where they all came from.”
Yesterday? How could they have moved so fast? I’m too far behind.
“Thank you,” I offer.
“For what, dear?” She straightens her shoulders and takes in a deep breath. “You can’t follow them.” She glances over her shoulder toward the tree line I’ve stayed close to. “Have you seen all the bodies? No one knows what those mad men are doing, but there are bodies everywhere. I wouldn’t dare approach them.”
