Starvation Ridge: Abide the Fire -- Chapter Thirteen

    "What have you got?" asked Karen, who was tired and out of breath. Running up and down staircases playing detective did not well suit her new size and shape. 

    Billee shook her head. "Everyone seems to have an alibi; at least to the extent that we could find out without being alarming." She rested her hand on the thick fur of the dog's neck. Krall looked up into her face sympathetically and swept her tail twice.

    Tomma knit his brows, an almost comically unusual expression for him. "Weren't we going to be handing those out to all and sundry, sometime soon? Why would anyone steal one?"

    Karen led the way to the Armory door. Avery sat before it in his chair, looking pensive as he had shifted his weight onto his left hip and rested his chin on his left palm, watching them.

    "No news, I can see," he said. "Wouldn't expect it. This was possibly an opportunistic event, entirely unplanned; but it seems enterprising and goal-oriented. We should – "

    Minnie Min, a long-time Ridge woman, appeared at the stairwell door, and came running toward them. "Beg pardon, sir, call from Ball Butte that they have lit the backfires below and the big fire is on us. I shut off the vents as directed."

    "Well, that was the right thing to do," replied Avery, dropping his hand onto the chair's armrest. "The smoke would be bad for us in here in two ways, one of which is all the radiation it will pick up from the forests. Who was doing this directing, though?"

    "Sergeant Murchison, sir," she grinned.

    "What the hell is she doing up there? Old busy-body. Oh, well. Is anyone at Hall, then?"
 
    "No, sir, it's abandoned in case the backfire jumps the line. We're all either here, on the line, or at the Butte. Oh, but we did get a call from there, from David Molinero, that I didn't quite understand."

    "Spit."

    "'The Johnny-popper's here and cutting dirt up pretty good.'"

    "Oh, that would be the wood-fired tractor from Roundhouse. Thanks, Min; is anyone upstairs now?" 

    "Umm, no, sir."

    "Tell you what; you've had a long shift. Tomma, I see your partner-in-crime is looking round the infirmary door at us; won't you help him down to the Common Room. Min and I'll join you, to sniff things out among the folks there. We'll all take the elevator. Bee and Karen, take over from Min?"

    "Sure, we'll do that," said Billee. "Tomma, can I borrow your friend?" Krall seemed to know this last was about her, and her tail swept the air again, cheerfully.

    "Traitor. Yeah, do that. Got a worn-out spouse to attend to right now, anyway." Tomma winked.

    "Let's get your stuff," said Karen to Billee. Karen, who wore a key on a thong round her neck, unlocked the Armory, flicked on the light, and reached for the rifle; Billee fetched her fanny pack and bow and quiver. Locking up, they trooped, Krall at their heels, toward the lit stairwell.

    On their arrival in the old DARPA control room, they found a disconsolate Selk, poking about in the guts of a junction box.

    "What's the face?" asked Billee.

    He picked up his glasses and peered at them through the thick lenses. "Hi, Bee. Karen. Mary has me trying to push some two-twenty out to the farms, to pump water next summer."

    "Well, that's what needs doing."

    "Yeah, I get it, but my heart's not in it – I want to be figuring out this stuff over here." He waved his screwdriver at the control console.

    Karen leaned the rifle against the wall and eased her awkward shape into the nearest chair. "You know that satellite's only going to want an encrypted signal, Mr. Selk. What are our chances of producing one, without computers?"

    "The system was computer dependent, yes. But this layout looks like a manual backup. That would have had some kind of predetermined handshake built in – in circuits out of reach of solar flares or electromagnetic attack. I think, though I'm not trained enough in this esoteric stuff to know, that everything we need is already in place in the main panel down at the reactor. A lot of wires run from there to the things in the panel here."

    "Whatever." Billee moved to the one of the thick quartzite windows that faced south. "How come it's so quiet in here? I mean, other than you?"

    "Thanks. Min was in here awhile ago talking about shutting off the air. I guess she's gone and done that."

    Karen put her bare foot over the register under the table. "Mmm-hmm, it's off. Lots of smoke incoming, and Mrs. Ellen says all the trees south of here took up radiation; we don't want Ridge to breathe the stuff."

    "Oh. Is that what that's about?"

    Billee half-turned away from the window. "Yah, come and see." 

    Karen and Selk rose and joined her. There was not much visibility. Among the boulders nearby, poison oak bushes, a few feet high, were rattling and twisting in a fierce wind. Beyond them was a wall of brown smog in which dull red sparks rose and vanished, to be replaced by others. One of the bushes caught fire, spectacularly but briefly. And then another. Karen walked round the room. In the west window there was not much to be seen, though the outlines of the north-slope fir woods appeared momentarily. At the north window, however, a drama was unfolding. "Come look."

    Billee and Selk walked round as well. The view from this window had changed in the last few days; Dr. Mary had resurrected an ancient electric chainsaw and instructed Armon in its use. He'd become an ardent "faller" as loggers in these parts were once known, dragging a long string of orange drop-cords around from the Ridge entrance and dropping fir trees down the mountain to left and right. The intent was to keep fuel away from the Door and the sally port, more as a precaution than anything, as the doors were thick and remarkably foolproof. 

    But now events had brought a halt to this new activity. Flames were rushing up through stands farther down the slope, ground fire and crown fire all at once. As each tree was reached, its foliage seemed to explode, a bloom of fire showering petals of flame in all directions, which were then carried up in the wind to new trees above.

    Even through the stone walls and thick windows, the young Creekers began to feel the heat. They took an involuntary step backward. Would they be driven downstairs, away from the phone link to Hall and Butte? At that thought, Karen went to the phone and lifted the heavy handset from its cradle. She listened to the silence a moment.

    "Does this thing have a 'dial tone'?"

    "What's that?" asked Billee.

    "Never mind. How do we know if it's working?"

     Selk shrugged. "See the doorbell buzzer by the base unit? If you push that, and somebody answers, it's working."

    "Is the line up in the trees?"

    "No, buried in the ground. Might not be deep enough for all this though."

    "C'mere, Krall," Billee called to the dog softly. She put her hand on Krall's head. Krall pressed her side against Billee's knees and thumped her tail.

    "Ridge will never be the same after this," said Karen, putting her arm around Billee.

    "Nor the Creek neither. Is it all over?"

    "Not if we can get those pumps going," said Karen looking over her shoulder at Selk.

    Selk turned back to the table. "Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Well, good thing we haven't set up the dish yet, huh?"

:::

Raoul, breathless, came running up to Emilio. "Dad, they said tell you fire's ... jumping the line ... toward Holyroods'."

    "Thank you; stay and watch the backfire here and I will go."

    Emilio ran down the fire line, noting with approval, even as he ran, that most of the backfires had grown together into one wall of flame on the mountain, heading for the Great Fire coming from the other side. To his right, already, there was a blackened wasteland, while to his left, the parched and struggling fields, pastures and hedges remained intact, sloping down to the Creek. Every other fire-setter he rounded up; by the time they reached Holyroods' there were six of them. Here an unmown brown pasture had leaped into flame and was threatening the buildings; rakes, hoes, shovels and wet blankets were flailing. Emilio could hear the sound of the little tractor. "Join the line!" he shouted to the reinforcements. "Fill in between the others so they may spread out farther."

    He made for Bolo. Bolo, seeing him coming, waved a long-handled round-pointed shovel in his large fist as if it were a trowel. "Good to see you, sir."

    "Where's Jorj?"

    "He is cutting road in front of the buildings, by the hedge. The fire moves faster in that direction than along the sides, we think."

    "Anyone watching his back?"

    "Enok, one of our people."

    "Yes, a good man. I worry will that be enough. Is anyone on the other side?"

    "No, we are all here. There is no one to fight fire over there. What will you lose?"

    "What is left of Wilson's. If it crosses the Creek, Old Ames' and Jones', as well."

    "You are sad."

    "Those were the places where I farmed. Ames was my home."

    Bolo clapped a big hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "All things end, friend. We will do what we can to make less ending, for now."

    "Yes. Let us dig."

    They dug. As flames raced toward the firefighters through the tall grass, those with blankets beat at them. When the flames hesitated, seemingly seeking a way round the blackened spots left by the blankets, those with shovels threw dirt at them, while those with adzes and grub hoes continued to create new trail.

    Across the field, the orchards at Wilsons' could be seen flaming. Nearer at hand, the fire was getting around Jorj and the bulldozer. Emilio agonized over this in his heart, yet he knew little, if anything, could be done. The wars and the diseases had taken their toll. There were simply not enough Creekers, even with these additional men from Roundhouse.

    A shout came from those on Emilio's left. Flames had jumped the drought-stricken Creek! Above the steady roar of the burning field, Emilio heard a new sound; the popping and booming sounds a burning building makes. Old Ames for sure; perhaps also Jones. These lands were not currently occupied, but the farms were still in production and the buildings and their contents were irreplaceable.

    Surely, with the prevailing wind toward the Great Fire behind them, the destruction could not go in that direction so quickly? But apparently it could. Would it envelop the entire valley, in spite of all they had done for the last eight days?

    But, wait! There was more to the shouting. A woman had climbed the lookout at Holyroods', and was pointing toward Beemans' Farm; she was shouting something to Jorj and Enok, who were relaying down the line. Bolo, his face smudged black with soot, stopped shoveling and listened intently; his ears were better than those of any Creeker. He turned to Emilio.

    "Roundhouse has come."

    "Jeeah is good. Another group?"

    "The Lord is good. No, it is everyone. My people have dropped whatever they were carrying and are fighting the fire."

    "Everyone?"

    "Yes. We are all one now."

:::

Mullins watched the horseman picking his way through the destruction the giant bulldozer had been making beyond the bridge. He had learned to trust Lacey as much as he trusted almost anyone; something in the big rider's dignified demeanor demanded it. Yet he kept his grip on the riot gun just the same, one hand on the forearm, his trigger finger indexed but close to the trigger guard. He'd learned, through hard experience, to watch everyone for clues – to his future and theirs.

    Before Lacey came closer, with his armed slave riding behind him and to his right, Mullins hefted the weapon slightly. "Afternoon, Mr. Lacey, and what have we got?"

    The tribal leader reined in and appraised him, standing in the shade by the big LAV. They clearly did not care much for his style, but they had patiently worked with him, and the Volunteers, for weeks. Some of the Volunteers had acted out – yet no Eastsider had risen to the bait; Mullins had been forced to discipline his own troops, whose morale had continued to fade, and Mullins had lost face. These people were something else. He was still not sure what.

    Lacey, silhouetted in brilliant sunshine, shaded his eyes and spoke. "There is an abandoned town. Overgrown, like all others. It is as your slave has described it. We have seen the building of which he speaks."

    "Aww, Mr. Lacey, he ain't no slave; for one thing, he's too tough to eat." The expression of the Eastsider remained unchanged.

    Lockerby, inside the LAV, stood up in the driver's seat and regarded Mullins sourly from across the hull. Even in the shade, heat waves radiated from the whitewashed steel surface. Conditions were not ripe for jibes. "Easy, Mullo."

    Mullins tipped his head in acknowledgment. "Yeah, sorry; so, what'd ya see over there?"

    "There is a difficulty. The structure is compromised and it is empty."

    "Empty?" 

    "You may go and see for yourself." Lacey spread his arms, hands open, as if to say: see, if we'd gotten into your precious firearms, would we not now be carrying them?

    Mullins half turned to Lockerby. Almost in a whisper, he asked a time-honored question. "Dubya-tee-eff?"

    "Dunno, sir. Mr. Lacey, are there signs of forced entry?"

    "Yes."

    "And there's nothing inside? How do you know?"

    "It has been cleaned to the walls."

    Mullins took a step forward.

    "You weren't supposed to go inside. I thought we had an agreement."

    Lacey held up his left hand, still open, and pointed to it with his right. "To handle such things is not our way. That, we have told you, and we say as we do." He pointed to his eyes. "But we see with our eyes so that we may say what is so."

    From within the squad compartment of the LAV, behind Lockerby, a muffled thumping erupted, followed by a shout.

    Lockerby searched the shade. "Kinnet!"

    "Lockie!" The man stood up from among his comrades, crossbow in hand.

    "Come over here and take over this thing; I gotta run round to the back."

    "Lockie."

    "That's Lockerby to you. Kinnet."

    Kinnet came running.

Lockerby climbed out, hopped onto the front wheel, the rubber of which, he noted sourly, was now covered with incisions and gouges from the long drive. Will this thing hold up? The MRAPs had all had trouble, breaking down one after the other, and runners had had to go back in a steady stream to Roseburg for parts and even acetylene tanks. 

    He jumped down into the soft dirt, spiked with stones, broken roots and branches, that characterized the route of the big Cat, and picked his way round to the back of the armored vehicle. Cautiously, as ever, he turned the handle of the left-hand door and stepped back as he pulled it open. The hammering stopped. "What, Wolfie?"

    But the chained, naked man, glistening with sweat, was grinning. How does he stay in such good shape? With no more than we feed him?

    "Shithead."

    "Oh, C'mon, Wolfie, I do the best I can. Y'know anythin' ya haven't told us?"

    "Nope. Not a bit of it. Came clean to Magee, came clean to y'all. Sounds like we've been pre-empted. Mebbe you'd let me take a look?"

    "Not sure how we'd manage that, guy."

    "Aw, fer cryin' out loud." Wolf pointed to the steel ring round his neck. "Look, is this a good weld or not? Mullins is good with his hands. Just drive me into town, swing the boat around, and lemme see what's up; I might be able to give ya pointers."


    "How many guns were in there when you left it, Wolf?"

    "Already told ya. I'm as good for my word as yer Eastsiders, Lockie. Anybody took all that stuff, woulda had to bring a lot of transport."

    "The hippies?"

    "I kinda doubt it. Yer cowboys have been all over this country, any sign of 'em?"

    "No, actually."

    "Right. They stick close to their hole in th' hills. Lemme see what ya got over there."

    Mullins, still facing forward, glanced back along the four tires. "What's up?"

    Lockerby caressed his three-weeks growth of beard absent-mindedly. "Wolf wants to study the scene of the crime."

    "Scene of his crime, ya think?"

    Wolf put on a wounded expression, but something in it seemed genuine to Lockerby. "Nah, I kinda don't think so. I say let's get everybody across this little river and see what the hell happened over there."

    Lockerby looked over to Mullins, who shrugged. 

    "'K, that's a plan. We'll camp there tonight." 

    The small caravan fired up its sooty engines and lifted its weary feet and trundled across yet another of the many stout pre-Undoing bridges it had encountered. These had remained mostly intact, though sometimes their approaches had washed away. The weary Volunteers slouched into the nondescript town, the ruins of which mostly fronted on a single street, filled now with trees and brush except where the D-8 had been. Some of the buildings had been made of brick or cinderblock. Though these now had no roofs, let alone window glass, they offered some hint of protection from surprise or night air, and were quickly invested. Lacey, on his Appaloosa, led the LAV to the fresh new clearing which the D-8's operator had made in front of the ancient gunshop. Kinnet, following Mullins' directions, cut the steering wheel sharply to the right, so that the rear doors of the LAV faced the gap in the concrete wall.

    Lockerby, who'd climbed onto the rear of the hull, tapped the surface with a stick. "So, Wolfie, whaddya see?"

    "I see shit, shithead, an' it's gettin' dark."

    Mullins walked around to the back. "Aw, c'mon, Wolf, this right here was your leverage. And now..."

    "...poof. I am well aware of my circumstances, Mullo. I'm lookin.'" Wolf surveyed the scene before him with keen interest. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to lock this place down, less than two years ago. The brush and dirt had been removed in the same place he'd gotten in, and the rubble scattered. Once he'd blown his way in, of course, there had only been so much he could do to secure it, but he'd tried, and tried hard.

    "Dammit. My stuff. Oh, well."

    He gestured toward a night-blooming jasmine in the rubble-heap on the right. "Pull me up that bush over there."

    Mullins' eyebrows shot up. "Huh?"

    "Ya want information or don'tcha?"

    Lacey, who'd dismounted, came over with his man, to whom he gestured. The Bringer of Food grasped the numerous stems of the shrub in a bundle with both hands and leaned back, bending both legs and straightening them so that the roots came away surprisingly easily.

    Wolf peered at the roots, and the stems and leaves as well. "That was on top of the doorway; it's had a year to re-root, meaning there was rain, likely, when it was moved. Any rain got inside?"

    Lacey turned to him, respect in his expression. "We will affirm that it has."
 
    "You cowpokes had a chance to feel out any trails around here, signs of traffic?"

    "Tracking is not certain in such a drought as this. But we think no one has been going east and west here for some time. North and south present difficulties."

    "Yeah, they do. I got in here from the south myself, with one other guy, and it was hard going. Lemme tell ya. Mullo, I don't think th' farmers did this. The breach is older'n the fight I had with 'em and they ain't armed with anythin' that coulda come from here."

    Lacey nodded his agreement, then, gesturing to his servant to follow, walked away toward the horses. 

    Mullins looked over at Lockerby. "We'd better get a runner off to th' boss early in th' morning. What you want to bet first thing he'll have us heading back the way we came and over to th' second objective double-time?"

    "Nah, Mullo," interposed Wolf affably. "Second thing. Prolly kill me first."

    "Why? Don't you think we need you to guide us onto th' weak points?"

    "What weak points? It's been almost a year. They've had all this time ta think about th' things I tried. They'll've beefed up their defenses. You already know everything I know about 'em, courtesy of your effin' doctor, 'an you've gotta do better' I did or you'll lose, same as. So I'm just plain not useful ta have around, now you've looked in this here hole in 'th ground. All that's keepin' me alive right now is how far your runner has ta go to get to Magee an' back again."

    "Well, Wolf, let's say you know that, say we know that, why are you whinin' about it then?"

    "Who's whining? Just don't wanna be on, y'know, pretenses, so ta speak. So, y'all gonna feed me an' lock me up, or what? Gets cold, night by th' river here."

    Lockerby and Mullins, who had been Wolf's friends, were made uncomfortably aware of Wolf's nakedness by this last remark. The lengthening shadows were indeed cool and the steel of the LAV's hull would be sapping heat from his body. Mullins nodded to Lockerby, who stepped forward to within sight of the driver's well. "Kinnet, run back to th' first MRAP and requisition full MREs for yourself and three others."

    Mullins called after him. "Lockie and I'll take ours in here. Kinnet." He pointed to the blown doorway.

    "Mullins, Lockerby." Kinnet climbed down the hull and ran off.

    As they turned to go in, Wolf called to them softly. "Hey guys."

    "Mmh?" Mullins turned back toward him.

    "Y'all ever think about girls?"

    "What?"

    Wolf regarded them with amusement. "C'mon, how deep into your heads has Magee got? Alla your men are gettin' antsy. You too, I'm thinkin'. Look, th' farmers is married. Th' Eastsiders is married. These folks, all around you, some of 'em have kids. Of all th' volunteers, who's married?"

    "Your point?"

    "Magee and his doctor. Married. Kinda. We, all of us, we got a lot of mileage out of his rules; we're, we were an army and we got our kicks from th' Pilgrim women. But we always hadda kill 'em off. His rules. You seen any Pilgrims on this trip?"

    They stood looking at him.

    "Not even in Eugene. Big town, bigger'n Roseburg, nobody home. Nothin' ta play with out here. Guys, I am a dead man talking, but you – you are not going to live forever."

    Lockerby caught the corner of Mullins' eye. "Mullo, let's go in."

    "Wait a minute. Wolfie, what the hell are you talkin' about; there's women right over there about forty klicks; you said so yourself."

    "Yep, and they are th'only ones around. And they are soldiers, just like us. It ain't trained out of 'em."

    "I don't see where you're going with this."

    "Here it is, then. Do what you like with me, then go and do what you like with these farmers. If you can. Without these guns, odds are more even than you're gonna like. But if I might just make a suggestion: talk to 'em. They might make ya a better deal than Magee. In the, y'know, long run."

    Mullins, suddenly and inexplicably afraid somewhere in his depths, lashed out. "I oughta knock yer face in!"

    "Nothin' stoppin ya, is there?"

    Mullins stepped forward, and Lockerby interposed himself. "Careful, Mullo!"

    Mullins looked at Lockerby. "Yeah, y'right. Runner first. By th' book."

    Lockerby gazed at Wolf, over Mullins' shoulder. "Well, that too. C'mon in."

    As they departed, Kinnet arrived and set four MREs on the ground. Two he carried into the shell of the gunshop, then returned. He tore the cover off the third meal, grasped the handle of the right-hand door of the LAV, swung open the door, and, picking up the MRE, dumped its contents on the floor across from the prisoner. He then shut the door, tossed away the empty packet, and, lifting the padlock from the welded-on hasp, prepared to shut the left-hand door and lock Wolf in for the night.

    Wolf extended his foot, which just reached the edge of the outer hull, preventing the door closing.

    Kinnet frowned. "Chop that off for you if you like."

    "C'mere." Wolf wore a confiding expression Kinnet had not seen from him before, and crooked his finger.

    "Not a chance. They said you'd say that. We're closing up for th' night."

    "Good boy. But, you know you drive like shit?"

    "What?"

    Wolf put his hands up as if guiding a steering wheel. Kinnet's eyes followed the motion, and then that of Wolf's left hand reaching for an imagined shifter. Wolf grinned. He had picked up the long and heavy chain as if it were the shifter. Kinnet vaguely realized the end of the slithering chain was somehow not attached to the wall, but before he could either back away or shout, the heavy links had, like a whip, snaked out into the dim light of evening and wrapped round his throat.

    "Yeah," said Wolf, matter-of-factly. He stepped silently out onto the cooling earth and held the already dying youth by the chain and the back of his belt, tipping him up so that the thrashing feet could not kick the ground, and walked quietly toward the darkening woods. "You drive like shit, kid; and I truly do not appreciate being bounced around thataways."

Starvation Ridge: Abide the Fire -- Chapter Twelve

Billee opened her eyes. Some movement had wakened her. She looked up the staircase, blinking. The hindquarters and short tail of the bobcat were just disappearing. It had stayed the night, then. She was pleased.

    She looked up at the open sky, or what she could see of it, between two blackened floor joists that stretched across the spacious cellar. Clouds of smoke still drifted by, but they did not have the hellish pink glow she'd seen when she awakened in the night. Also, there was no sound. In the night the dried grasses of the fields around Lawson's had burned, crackling like thousands of dried seed pots being trampled under the feet of a multitude.

    She wanted to stretch, but realized Wilson was still asleep. She discovered that her head was on his shoulder, and his arm was draped across her. Stiff as she was, she thought she might as well savor the moment. She listened to his heart's slow and steady beat. As she did so, she let her gaze fall on Vernie, to find that he, and also Errol, were smiling at her. She smiled shyly in return. 

    We would have died anywhere but here, she thought. If you're going to show you have feelings, the day after a night like that will do. Betcha.

:::

Karen felt guilty leaving all the pipette work to Deela, but Dr. Mary had been clear on the potential exposures for the baby, and Karen knew she was right. She contented herself with supervising the armory, work she had inherited from Wilson. Ceel Perkins had shown an interest in Ridge matters and Karen had roped her into inventorying, cleaning and lubricating firearms as well as maintaining the "surplus" bows, arrows, crossbows, bolts and, now, spears.

    "What will we do with the spears, ma'am?" asked Ceel. "They don't seem much use against things like these." She waved her hand at the twenty-two rifles stacked along the opposite wall.

    Karen was still unused to the title of "ma'am" and her expression said so, but Ceel missed it. "The thought is that 'idle hands undo Jeeah's work,'" Karen replied, hefting one. "We haves lathes, and grinders, and metal, and people will be cooped up together underground next winter. So we've made these prototypes against that time, though most everyone's busy outside right now. We'll make more of them then, and if we ever run out of ammunition and face a foe that has done the same, we'll have these ready to hand." Karen leaned the spear, a sturdy leaf-bladed design of Errol's with a slender ash shaft, against the wall. She moved on to the twenty-twos. "So we've scoured the whole valley, and what do we have now?"

    "There are eighteen of these, mostly bolt action or sem-something – "
    "Semi-auto."

    " – uh-huh, that. Either with the tubes – "

    "Tubular magazine."

    " – mm-hmm, or the box things."

    "Box ... "

    "Umm, magazine?"

    "Very good. Single-shots will be the most reliable at first."

    "Seven of them, ma'am."

    "It's a start. And over here?"

    "We found twenty-four 'shotguns.' They are single-shot, pump, also one bolt action and one lever action."

    "Lever actions for this ammunition were rare. A twelve?"

    "Yes, ma'am, and most are, though one of them has this on it?" Ceel handed Karen a scrap of paper with a childish drawing of the number '28.'

    Karen recognized the rising inflection at the end of Ceel's sentence as a sound she'd heard only at the Creek. She and Marcee had discussed it, as she'd noticed Marcee doing it when talking with Dr. Tom. They had decided it was a status marker; a girl apparently must question her own perceptions or information so that it might be validated by the person spoken to: any woman in authority or pretty much any man. Karen knew that some men found her lacking in some way without seeming to know exactly what was bothering them; and she knew that the cause was they were subconsciously listening for, and not hearing, deference. She would have to train Ceel out of it, and any other girl she could get hold of; else the Creek could become an all-male club like that of the old world. But, maybe, one thing at a time. First try to make sure there'd be a Creek

down the line. "Twenty-eight gauge, yes. We'll put that one aside for the duration, I think. We could at least use the stock, or maybe convert it to a percussion muzzle-loader. Do you read and write?"

    "Dad would like to teach us; but we're all busy all the time," Ceel said shyly. 

    "We'll try to pick up the pace on that this winter. So, how many sixteens?" 

    "One."

    "Good, set it aside for now, too. Are there shells for it?"

    "Yes, but only one box."

    "They'll be worth it at some point. Twenties?"

    "Eight. And about ten boxes of shells for them, different kinds. Lots of kroz-shun."

    "Corrosion, yes. I'm not too worried. You'd like a twenty; plenty of punch but doesn't bruise your shoulder. So, fourteen twelves. I hoped there would be more twelves."

    "I heard there were some packed away at Wilson's. All the fourteens were there, too. Somebody was going to try to do something with them."

    "Fourteens? Oh, four-tens. Are there shells in that size?"

    "Nine boxes."

    "Drat. Well, anyway, we will have to learn to load for these things. I think we'll have to use fulminate of mercury for the primers; it's going to be tricky. But we need it for the black powder weapons already in use; we're almost out of percussion caps. If we can make enough for the four-tens as well, perhaps they'll be useful as mines or trip-wire traps or something. Or find something to use as slugs."

    "I'm not sure I followed all that, ma'am."

    "Love that honesty; you'll 'go far'. I was talking about two things at once." Karen mused for a moment. "Farmers, being a conservative lot, would not all have traded in all their old thermometers for the newer kinds; go down to the Savage Mary's stores and see if you can find any. And ask Deela or Mary if there are any other sources."

    "Yes, ma'am." Ceel turned on her heel, skipped away three steps and then swung around.
    "What do thurmters look like?"

    "Oh, They'll know."

    "'K." Ceel nearly collided with Billee in the doorway. "Woops."

    "Woops y'self," returned Billee amiably.

    "Billee!" Karen whooped.

    "What's up?" Billee leaned her rifle and bow against the wall and shucked her quiver and fanny pack.
    "You're alive; that's what. And the others?" Karen knew the news must be good; Billee would be drooping in every feather if it were not.

    "We holed up at Lawson's. Wilson thought of that. It burned around us late at night and we all got owies from sparks but that was all. Oh, and Vernie is pretty beat, but Krall found us and she had Tomma with her and we brought Vernie in on the horse. Oh, and a bobcat spent the whole night with us!"

    "A bobcat?"

    "It slept at the top of the cellar steps. Oh, and I think I'm gonna get married."

    "Hah. I told you he's just slow."

    "They're all slow."

    "It seems like that to us around here, but, you know, people used to not get married till they were in their twenties or even their thirties."

    "Whoa, old. Who would marry in their thirties? With their whole life behind them. Wilson's kinda an old maid himself as it is. Oh, and do ya want your monocular back?"

    Karen turned and dropped the scrap of paper on the Armory desk, smiling to herself. "No, you should keep it. You get out a lot more than I do."

    "Sorry 'bout that. The last coupla days, though, I think some of us got out a little more than was good for us."

    Karen looked back. "You know, if we had lost you guys, I dunno, the Creek might have just folded its tents and slunk away."

    "Funny talk, but I think I know whatcha mean. Anything need doin'?"

    "Sure; the 'chamberpots' in here are overflowing and have to get to the garderobe pronto. Things stink more with the air filters clogging up so much. Won't you take two buckets, and I'll take one."

    The pots, gallon-sized galvanized pails with lids, stood in the darkened barracks between the Armory and the Infirmary. They could hear Marcee on the job next door: "Stay off this for a few days and you'll be ... " 

    Returning to the bright lights in the small Armory, they blinked and started forward with their buckets.

    Karen set hers down suddenly in the middle of the floor. "Billee, your butt-pack's been moved?" It was at least six inches nearer the door than she remembered seeing it set down.

    "It has!" 

    Billee set down her buckets and both women ran for the door. Billee sprinted to the right and Karen to the left. There were doors at each end of the hallway, with stairwells behind them. In a few moments, Karen, who had found an empty stairwell, re-entered the hallway, to find Billee doing the same. Karen gestured, palm up. Billee shook her head. Karen pointed to the doors nearest her, and Billee nodded her comprehension. They worked towards each other, looking into each compartment as they went. Karen came to the first on her right, which was open. Avery Murchison looked up from his desk, where he was poring over inventories, brows furrowed.

    "Did anyone run by here?" she asked.

    "Only you, just now." His expressive brows shifted to interrogative.

    "I'll be back." She moved to the Infirmary. Marcee stood beside the examination table, on which sat Vernie. Tomma occupied a chair near the wall, holding a pair of crutches. At his feet sat Krall. They all looked blankly at Karen, except Krall, who stood up and barked once. What was that, some kind of greeting?

    "Hello, Vernie, welcome home. Did anyone come through here?" Karen directed her question to Marcee.

    "No-o-o, don't think so."

    "Great. Vernie, can we borrow Tomma?"

    Vernie nodded, a bit morosely.

    "Sure thing, Karen," said Tomma, setting aside the crutches and standing up.

    The two of them stepped into the hall, with the big dog at Tomma's heels.

    "What do you have in mind?" asked Tomma.

    "Don't know yet. Here comes Billee."

    "Nothing?" asked Karen. 

    "Nobody." Billee was holding her fanny pack in one hand, and something clenched in the other. "They were fast."

    "Who?" asked Tomma.

    "That's what we'd like to know," replied Karen. "We had our backs turned for like five seconds and Billee's bag moved toward the door."

    "In the Armory?"

    "Anything missing?"

    "I'm not sure," said Billee, tears in her eyes. She held out her hand; it gleamed with copper and brass. "I checked out twenty rounds; now I have nineteen. But I ran and fell down and ran for, like two days and a night. I could have lost one."

    Tomma put his hand on her shoulder. "Do you really believe that?" he smiled.

    "No."

    Avery rolled up to them in his chair. Karen opened her mouth, but he raised his hand. "I got the gist. Who do we actually know of that was last in the hall?"

    Karen was aghast. "Ceel," she said reluctantly.

    "Then we'll find her immediately. No, Karen, don't be so miserable; I don't suspect her either. But we must eliminate her as a possibility if we can, as well as get her report of anything she might have seen. I'll stay here and lock the Armory from both ends. We've had a failure of operational security." He looked again at Karen. "Not your fault. It's seldom been locked. Along with any other room down here, except the power room, of course. My bad; after that odd business at the festival I should have known better. Now, hop!"

    Karen went left. Billee, Tomma and the dog went right, to descend the stairwells to the Common Room. As they reached the doors, Karen could hear Billee's voice, which carried the length of the corridor: "So, how come you get the dog?"

:::

On the fire line, a weary cheer went up as the strange little machine crossed a slimy stretch of the Creek and chugged up to them. Bolo, though he had not slept in two days, jumped down from the seat and unhooked the trailer. A man from Roundhouse gave him the tribal salute, right hands grasping right forearms, then led Deerie, with a bleary-eyed Jorj at the controls, toward the head of the line. A small, powerfully built man leaped over the rolling tracks onto the vacant side of the Cat seat and settled beside him. "It is amazing and gratifying that you are here."

    "Thank you, sir," Jorj croaked. "Water?"

    The man, who seemed to be the one in charge, crooked his finger at a younger man who looked very much like him – his son? – and made the universal drinking sign, thumb to his lips and small finger extended. The youth unshipped a damp-looking skin bag from his shoulder and handed it into the cage. 

    "Drink well, there is much. My name is Emilio. What we are doing is to make a fire lane around the fields on both sides of the valley. Then, if there had been time, to make one around Ridge. But there is already fire on the mountain." 

    They both looked toward Starvation Ridge, which loomed above them. Smoke boiled up from the unseen slopes of the south side and disappeared into the brown pall that covered the sky.
    "Not much steam in that d- ... that smoke," observed Jorj.

    "It is mostly poison oak and other scrub that is burning there," agreed Emilio. "It will reach the crest in a hand or less." Emilio extended his hand, fingers together at a right angle to his arm, toward the presumed location of the sun.

    "And throw sparks into the tall stuff on this side. Pretty dry up there?"

    "Yes, five percent moisture even in the shade."

    "Okay, there's no saving it. Y'gonna backfire?"

    "As soon as possible."

    "Okay. Deerie here is old and cranky but game, I think, and she's hungry. Can we have firewood – lots of firewood – chunked small, if we can get it?" Jorj released the levers for a moment and gestured with his hands held about six inches apart.

    "We will do that."

    "Great. Pleased to meet ya." 

    But Emilio had already leaped away to confer with the younger man. The Roundhouseman climbed aboard. "The Lord greet you, Jorj."

    "The Lord greet you. Where to?"

    "The line is up to the next farm on the right. We have four farms to go on this side of the valley. You can see they each have a cluster of buildings. We have cut through all the fences for you, and it is a matter of having clean dirt, six feet wide."

    "We're here. I'll make a shallow Cat road; ask folks to clean burnables out of the berms and roadbed as best they can. Crank down the hoist for me and we'll start pushing."

    "Yes, Jorj."

    Men, and several women, with axes, were widening a gap in a hedge for the lane. They scrambled aside as Deerie's blade bit the earth, tearing away blackberries and hawthorns with startling ease. Another cheer went up. Two lines of firefighters formed up behind the tractor, and as Deerie forged ahead along the fields on the other side, the people chopped and scooped away duff and brush with axes, adzes, picks, shovels, rakes, and hayforks. Whenever Deerie moved up a few feet, the people did likewise, leaving whatever they'd been doing for the next person to finish.

    Those who had exhausted themselves earlier in the day sat in shade, drinking water, talking quietly among themselves. 

    Emilio dispatched Raoul for the fuel wood, and then walked over to the resting group. "It is better in the shade, even with these evil clouds, yes?"

    Heads nodded. Among them was David, Raoul's brother. "Sir, it would be too hot to work at all in full sun."

    "Yes; the fire is terrible and the smoke, if it ran low, could not well be breathed. And yet it offers us some respite. So it is with everything. Even a great terror may have something to offer." Emilio looked up at the big hill. "When the fire comes across, it will draw up this lovely air toward itself. Then we will make fire here. We have piled brush at each farm. Let us have torchbearers go to each station." He pointed to each of them in turn. You will go to Bridge. You, Hall. Bledsoe, Russell, Wendler. Schnieder, Gulick, Hisey. I will fire the pile here at Peacher's. The signal will be three shots from Ball Butte."

    "Mr. Emilio?" It was a young shepherd from Beeman's. "What about Reymer's? And Ellin's and Holyrood's  – and Wilson's?"

    Emilio shook his head. "Ah, there it is. The fire is very big, and we are few."

:::

    Young Neel, almost reluctantly, handed the binoculars back to Ellen. "Those are so nice."

    "They'd be even better with straight prisms." She brought the eyepieces up and scanned Ridge. No flames yet; just the eternal smoke, rising, rising. "These things will become harder and harder to find as time goes by. There were many houses – whole towns – that will have vanished in this fire, and in others like it. Places we at the Creek never had the time to explore and utilize. Any binoculars that remained in those closets and cabinets are gone forever, and who knows when we will make such things again?" She lowered the little device, examined it ruefully, and smiled at Neel. "This is a 'cheap' model, too, a brand I would never have considered owning, once upon a time. Now they're priceless. Never drop them. Come to think of it, never drop anything. It all represents a fading past, but possibly also, a future. Such things, if we can hand them on in some way, could serve as models to guide a people to make new ones. Someday."
 
    Ellen raised the glasses again and swept Ridge. There! A tongue of flame in the Saddle. Oh-h, not good. She could see that the fire crews were only two-thirds of the way there. If the fire advanced at the east end first, it could race down to the forests beyond Old Ames and flank everyone. There! More! Tall fir trees near the crest of Ridge began weaving back and forth in the winds the flames were creating. One tree burst into a dull orange fireball, showering burning twigs into the dark growth on the near slope. 

    She turned and looked around the room. Elberd, undoubtedly very tired, had taken the opportunity to stretch himself out on the stone shelf that had sometimes served as a bunk bed, and, nodding off to the droning of Ellen's climate lecture, had fallen fast asleep. She stepped across and gently shook his shoulder. He sat up, almost bumping his head on the basalt ceiling, and blinked at her sheepishly.
    Ellen drew her Navy revolver – when did it get so heavy? – and held it up, handle forward, by the long barrel. "Young man, would you like to go out and fire this thing three times for me? They're blanks, it's fine."
    "Me, ma'am?" He looked at the big revolver. "Umm, what are blanks?"
    "You. They have powder but no bullet. If you get a misfire try again. I'm going to be on the horn to Ridge to shut down their ventilation, if they haven't already. It's getting nasty over there."

:::

    Along two miles of valley floor, at the angle of repose between farms and Ridge, men and women waited; when the three shots rang out, they bent to their tasks. Emilio knelt, shielding his work out of habit, though there was little wind as yet. He would prefer to use his hand lens, but thick, gritty brown clouds hung between him and the sun; he extracted a match from a grease-coated packet in his sweaty tunic and struck it on a handy river-rounded stone. It hissed and produced a faint uric-acid whiff. He reached the tiny flame through a gap in the dry, sharp-spined pile of splintered blackberry canes, to hold it beneath an abandoned junco's nest that had been found and placed for tinder, with a ball of dry grass. The tinder barely steamed, but began to produce a hot blue smoke, and the searing heat of an almost invisible flame forced him to retract his hand precipitately, catching himself among the blackberries. The pile seemed to cling to him as it caught alight, and by the time he stood clear, watching the flames shoot up to his own height, he had thoroughly scratched both his arms in his efforts to escape. That was not pretty, he thought. But it is sufficient.

    As his own station was in the angle of the line, he had a commanding view. Emilio stepped back across the fresh track of the fire road, sipped water, and looked to his left and right, to see smokes rising all along the edge of the woods. Some had had trouble getting theirs started, and he could see the torchbearer racing to their assistance. Before long, all were able to cross the fire trail, take up their tools, and wait.

    The fires licked at the forest edge, tentatively crept about among the dry ferns and nettles, and discovered the drought-wasted blackberry and vinca patches. Here and there a hazel flared like a Roman candle, its browned leaves blackening and detaching themselves from the slender, already-burning suckers to drift, by ones, two, and fives, into the lower branches of the firs. As the firs and maples caught fire, everyone was forced to step back into the fields. The hot wind began, tentatively at first, then increased.

    The young man from Beeman's –what was his name? – came over from Emilio's left. "What now?"
 
    "It is as Doctor Mary told us. We will each watch for sparks or flaming twigs to cross the line and make trouble. The we beat them out or bury them with our shovels and hoes. If this monster comes between us and the Creek, we may lose everything."

 

Starvation Ridge: Abide the Fire -- Chapter Eleven

 

Vernie fell again, his legs turned to jelly from heat and exhaustion. Errol and Wilson stripped off his tools, weapons and pack, and lifted him to his feet. Billee, who had forged ahead, turned back to face them, illuminated by the flaring of gases in the cloud behind them. Trees all around were bending as the fire fed itself air.

    Wilson pondered for a moment whether to try for the saddle of Ridge or follow the river toward Bridge. As he thought, the wind seemed to intensify; a branch fell heavily somewhere. The roar of the burn deepened. As one, the men turned to see what Billee, now open-mouthed, was watching.     

    A tower of flame rose from the mountain they had just descended. The fire was not only torching trees and everything else on the heights, but lifting much of the fuel into itself to burn in the upper air. From the looming mushroom-shaped cap of the steam-and-flame-laced column, blackened sticks and even small rocks showered down, glittering with sparks, creating spot fires all along the broad slope behind them. A snake-like shape fell from above, smoking, close by, and set a cedar tree alight.

    "Blow-up," said Wilson, matter-of-factly. "Never mind Ridge. We'll make for Lawson's."

    Billee broke her reverie. "There's nothing there!"

    "That's the idea! The whole place already burned once, and there's still the cellar."

    Billee scooped up Vernie's things and led out. Half-walking, half-carrying Vernie, the men followed her down to the almost-dry river, crossed the water ankle-deep, scrambled up the other side, and emerged from the cottonwoods into such daylight as the offered. In less than half an hour, they came to the burned-over farmyard and shell of the house with its hollowed-out stone walls, and raced up the steps.

    Within the walls, the floor had collapsed, and burned joists and the like lay in a tangle, with a few weeds sprouted among them. Wilson and his crew from Ridge, during the New Moon War, had attacked Wolf's rear guard here, sequestered such things as could easily be carried away, and set the place on fire to deny the bandits a provisioned retreat.

With care, realizing that much of the wreckage was capable of giving way beneath them, the crew picked their way across the charred heap of timbers to the staircase, only partly burned, that led to the cellar. Wilson and Errol helped Vernie, who had recovered somewhat; Billee turned back once more to see what she might and report it to the others. 

    The great fire had slowed upon reaching the river. Cottonwoods and willows had scorched but were steaming more than burning. Horsetails and nettles had merely wilted; but sparks from the timber to the south had showered onto the open field with its dry grasses; and what amounted to a prairie fire was advancing upon the homestead. She ran down the stone steps.

    Space among shattered Mason jars and splintered crates had been made for Vernie. Wilson and Errol, breathing heavily, sat at his head and feet, their backs to the pantry shelves. Billee told them what she had seen.

    "All to the good," replied Wilson.

    "How so?" wheezed Errol, as he dug out a bottle of the slimy but now much-appreciated creek water for Vernie. 

    "The grass won't be enough fuel to cook us, down here; th' wind will carry th' smoke away from us for a couple of hands yet; and as far as th' Creek's chances go, this valley will hold up things for a day or two. We might make it and th' Creek might make it."

    "What if the wind changes and we get smoked out?"

    "We might have to bury our faces in some of that dirt over there and breathe through it till th' smoke lifts. Might not even need to, though."

    "When can we leave?" asked Billee.

    "No way to know. If th' fire goes down to th' big valley, we might be able to follow it round to Bridge and get home tomorrow. If it goes th' other way, same plan." 

    "And if it goes both ways?"

    "Still same plan. Th' main thing is, we got down out of the woods. No way we were gonna survive up there."

Vernie passed the bottle to Wilson, who took a few swallows and gingerly wiped at his swollen lips. "Bee, ya done good up above Blue Creek. Real good."

    If Billee's face had not been as sooty as her hands, he might have noticed her blush. 

    A slight noise above drew their attention. On the top step stood a singed bobcat. It looked as if it were considered whether to join them in their hideaway.

:::

Lockerby snapped the latch open and swung out the rear door of the LAV. Wolf, with a steel ring round his neck that was chained to the wall, sat up, blinking. He was naked, and sweat gleamed on every part of his body.

    Lockerby saluted, sardonically. "Hey, fella; change out yer chamberpot?"

    Wolf, who saw no advantage in his first impulse, which would be to throw the bucket's contents over Lockerby, complied. "Where are we?" he croaked.

    "Yer parked in th' shade till th' heat lets up some. Everybody's doin' siesta; even th' Riders."

    "I c'n hear that. I mean location."

    "High ground and gnarly; slow goin'. Found an old signpost for ya." Lockerby took the night soil bucket and set it down, then picked up the sign and showed it to Wolf, whom he knew could read.

    "'Drain,'" said Wolf dully.

    "Drain what?"

    "It was a town. We're close to th' North-Runnin' River now."

    "Cool. So how close are we to Eugene?"

    "Not so far. Two more ghost towns first. Th' good news is, it opens up more ahead and flattens out th' rest of th' way. Th' bad news is, there'll be more trees 'n such in th' pavement."

    "So, long as we don't have any more breakdowns with th' Cat for awhile, what? One day? Two?"

    "Two days out."

    "Uh huh; and where's that old gun shop you're takin' us to?"

    "'Bout three, four days past Eugene."

     "Anything we should know 'bout Eugene, bud?"

    "Naw, it's like Roseburg, grown over, only worse. They was some kind 'o rad-bomb used on it by th' Chinese. Stay to th' right of th' river 'n don't eat th' plants."

    Though he was on his guard, Lockerby looked on his old friend with kindness. "You've been a good man, Wolf, an' yer still a good man. I hope we c'n all get past this situation, come a day."

    "That'd sure suit me, Locky. Only thing'd beat these chains for comfy'd be no chains, 'n that is a fact."

    ''K, well, gonna leave this door open, give ya air; we'll get rollin' about – " Lockerby held out his hand, fingers together, at arm's length toward the Western horizon, beneath the red and glowering sun. 
" – two hands."

    "Lockie, a question."

    "Hmm?"

    "Who 'n hell has been drivin' this thing?"

    "New kid."

    "Uh huh. Could ya teach him a little more about smooth clutching? I don't have much tail bone left."
    Lockerby grinned. "I think Mullins will be drivin' this afternoon. You'll be able to catch some shut-eye." He picked up the bucket and walked away in the dim red light.

    "Huh." Wolf sipped at the bowl of water Lockerby had also brought. If the evening cooled enough he would try to do some calisthenics; if nothing else, hold a length of chain between his outstretched hands and pull, counting to a hundred. Got to stay in shape. I ever get the chance, I just might kill ever' one of these sonsabitches with my bare hands.

:::

Jorj thought that, if he were the swearing kind, he'd swear now. Deerie was not really up to this kind of thing.

    "What is the matter, Mr. Jorj?" asked Bolo.

    Jorj looked at him. Bolo, the biggest fellow in the tribe, had tremendous strength but was only moderately useful. One had to tell him "Go left" to have him turn right, and use exactly backward hand motions to get him to tie ropes or such. A gentle giant with his brains in backwards.

    "We have to pull this tree to get through here, and I'm tired, Deerie's tired, and you don't look so hot yourself." He'd attacked the fir with the dozer blade, skinning the bark away, but it was uphill, and Deerie, a mere three-roller, was not up to it. A foul stench arose from the tractor's ancient joints. Can't run iron machinery in bear grease, anyhow. The poor thing's dying. He looked again at the tree, which was already weeping resin from the wound.

    "Mr. Jorj, I could use the axe."

    Jorj glanced at the trailer, parked a ways back, piled high with smashed two-by-sixes. "Thank you, Mr. Bolo, but that's an all-day proposition. And we've scouted right and left. If we can get through here, we'll be down into that valley of super-heroes of yours before the day gets too hot to drive. Let's go get some more wood first. Then we'll take this choker and set it around the base of the tree."

    The choker was a steel cable, with a loop at one end, a knob at the other, and a sliding hollowed-out iron block on it, known as a "choker bell." After the cable was thrown around a log, tree, or stump, or even a boulder, the knob could be snapped into the bell, and the noose thus formed could be drawn tight by pulling on the loop. Bolo knew enough about the choker to set it properly, but he would have to be talked through the rest of the procedure.

    "Now take this and put it on the loop." Bolo grabbed the iron-shanked single-block pulley and climbed up to the tree. "No, no, Mr. Bolo, not the wheel. The top part there – okay, let's call it the bottom part. There's a pin in it. Pull the pin out and and it opens up – like a padlock – and wrap that thing around the end of the loop."

    Bolo tried, but Jorj could see that he thought he should try to stuff the entire bight of the loop into the shackle. "Wait, I'm coming up." Jorj climbed down from the torn leatherette seat of the Deere.
    "I'm sorry, Mr. Jorj." 

    "Don't be. You've worked d... – awfully – hard the last couple of days, and all night too." Jorj snapped the shackle onto the choker. "Where's th' pin?"

    "The pin?" Bolo looked chagrined.

    They sought for it among the sword ferns and duff for what seemed an eternity, but the pin was no longer a part of their world.

    "Never mind. See that hemlock over there, good ways off? Get the other choker, set it there, and come back for th' wire rope." 

    "Yes, sir."

    "No, wait."

    Bolo stopped in mid-stride, choker in hand.

    "Lessee," said Jorj, speaking mostly to himself. "Tree wants to go straight down hill. So Deerie's gotta go off over here and pull that-away. A little steep. But doable. So, wire rope from drawbar to hemlock, up to th' fir, down to another anchor tree. Deerie heads downhill over here, pulls tree thataway." He focused on Bolo. "K, we're gonna single-block in two places and let's hope th' wire rope will reach that maple over there." 

    "Yes, sir."
    It seemed to Jorj to take forever to lay out the wire rope and the blocks. And the day was already shaping up hot. From time to time he glanced at the chimney pipe and listened to the little engine chuffing away on high idle. Deerie was not efficient in hot weather.

    "What about the pin, sir?"

    "Bolo, I'm proud of you for remembering that. Good boy." Jorj watched Bolo's face break into a rare, shy smile at the slight praise. "Here's what we do. You got muscle, I got tools." Jorj tipped Deerie's seat forward and extracted a box wrench.  "Pull that bolt over there; I think it might just be the right thread to fit that shackle."

    Bolo took the wrench and stared at the bolt head.

    "Here; snap it on here like this and then pull the handle towards ya."

    "Oh." Bolo pushed.

    "No, pull."

    "Oh." Bolo pulled. The long-rusted bolt complained loudly, then the bolt head sheared; it and the wrench came away together.

    "D... – doggone it, Bolo."

    "I'm sorry, Mr. Jorj."

    "Not your fault. Next one."

    The bolt extracted, they completed their layout. At Jorj's direction, Bolo slid the choker as high on the fir tree as he could reach, then scrambled down the slope and climbed aboard Deerie.

Bolo raised the blade a bit by cranking on the come-along that was hooked to the right front post of the cage, and Jorj tapped the throttle bar several times, trod on the clutch, pushed the gear shift into the lowest gear, and shoved both levers forward. With a lurch that felt frighteningly tippy, Deerie snuffled off along the mountain's slope, gouging away a thin rind of dirt and brush with the lower right corner of the blade. The wire rope lifted itself from the forest floor, carrying fern fronds and dirt. It pulled taut, singing. 

    All three trees shivered. Deerie's tracks chewed up duff, then hit mineral soil and dug in. The little tractor began to slip downhill. Five more feet to the left, and they would be entangled with the wood trailer.

    Bolo leaned out as far to the right as he could, as if to try to keep Deerie upright with his own center of gravity. 

    Jorj reached over and tugged him back onto the seat. "That wire rope is bad frayed, Bolo; if you are out there when it parts, it can whip you to pieces."

    Deerie lurched forward again, and Jorj, looking over his shoulder through the diamond mesh of the steel cage, could see that the wire rope had sagged again among the ferns.

    "We got 'er, we got 'er!" he sang out. 

    Bolo began to climb down from the seat for a better view.

    "No, no, stay here! Stay in th' cage!" 

    Bolo complied. 

    The fir tree moaned as it leaned downhill, following the insistent tug of the cables. The massive fan of roots on the tree's uphill side rose into the air, carrying a portion of the forest floor, ferns and all, with them. The roots moved slowly and majestically, but the treetop swung quickly through the canopy of the forest, snapping off its own and other trees' branches as it went, flinging them far and wide. One of these landed on Deerie's roof and skittered across it, to land on the engine cover. The ground shook beneath the tractor as the tree struck the earth, covering Deerie's tracks where she had come up the trail earlier in the day.

    Jorj grinned at Bolo. "Good one, huh?"

    "Mr. Jorj, I have never seen such."

    "Well, we never had to do it before. Lord be praised, it worked out. Let's get that mess off th' hood and stoke the fuel pot. Then we'll pick up all our d... – our toys and be on our way." He pulled back on the levers, grinning.

:::

Ellen Murchison leaned on her walking stick and raised the binoculars to her eyes with her free hand. As she scanned the gathering smoke cloud behind Ridge, she thought of the strange, sad battle in the night, in this very spot, that had broken her health.

She'd had a relatively small wound. Back in the day, it would not have gotten her much of a triage ticket. Young Huskey had saved her, hammering that stranger's skull in with a hatchet, but the damage was done. No, not really. It was the cold rain, afterward; stumbling down a mountain in the dark for hours is not really suitable for women –or men, she thought wryly – in their sixties. It's not for anybody. Not to take anything away from poor Marcee, she thought. But we really don't have medicine any more. We barely even have soap. She wrinkled her nose as she became aware, once again, of her own body odor. At least, with the new no-hair hairdo, she didn't have to smell her own unwashed head.

    "I want to thank you again for bringing me up here," she said to the young man standing beside her, without taking her eyes from the glasses. "It's been a while."

    "Thank you, ma'am, it was not a problem."

    Neel Perkins would not have been counted a man in her generation, she realized. He would be – what? A 'seventh grader', with four or five years of childhood remaining to him. Yet here he was, standing with his hand resting easily on the pommel of his sword. He and Elberd, the youth whose face Elsa and Karen had sewn up the day after that battle, had brought her to Ball Butte, sometimes drawing her in a garden cart, sometimes offering a steadying hand as she staggered forward along the steepening trail. It had been a long journey, begun by the thin light of a faint moon, – and ending in what would surely have been a blistering sunrise but for the everlasting smoke. It was exhausting, and not a little dangerous, to climb the Butte under these conditions; a shift in the smoke could smother their position and make much too much work for her fragile lungs. But no other position in the region offered such a commanding view of the surroundings, and, besides, the lookout had a working telephone.
    The youth broke into her reverie. "Stinks, doesn't it?"

    She smiled. "Me, you, or both?"

    Oh, not us, ma'am; the fires. It's like burning a pile of leaves, but something else, too."

    "You're right. Leaves have a kind of clean smell. Or so we tend to think. This is leaves and such, but also duff, moss, lichens – bugs, animals, feathers, creek beds – dirt. It's the earth burning; that's what you smell. Other things, too. There was a lot of plastic left lying about, Before."

    "Why is there so much fire, ma'am?" 

    "Well, the world's a hotter place than it once was. Not all the time; you might be old enough to remember the Big Winter – "

    "Yes, ma'am. Kinda."

    "– but, anyway, now we get more record highs, as they used to say, than record lows. When a big high – unusual hot weather – comes in summer, or even spring or fall, it dries out everything. Dry stuff, you know, burns better than wet stuff. Trees are wet inside; they are a kind of standing water tank, really. But they can dry out, too, if things go like this long enough. And about half the forests around here are dead wood, too, from bark beetles, which have taken over because of the – usually – warmer winters. Dead trees make really good fuel." 

    "What made the world warmer?"

    She lowered the binoculars and looked at him. This is a smart kid. He asks good leading questions. "Well, you've farmed at Tomlinson's. Did you work with the cold frames?"

    "The window boxes along the south slope? Yes, ma'am."

    "How do they work?"

    "Dad says the sunlight comes in through the glass but not all of it comes back out, so it heats up the air and stuff inside."

    Ellen smiled grimly. "Mm-hmm, same thing. Air is like glass, in its way. Visible light goes in through the glass, but infrared, which is a part of light you can't see – without help – can't all come back out with the rest. So it gets converted into heat, locally. They found out, many years ago, that some gases in the air act more like glass than others. There's more of these gases in the air than there used to be, so the sun heats us up more than it used to."

    "If you say so, ma'am. But why would there be more 'gases' now than then?"

    "Ever heard of coal, oil? Methane?"

    "Oil, yes ma'am. If you mean like 'gasoleen'?"

    "Very good! Out there on that highway, and all around the Creek, you've seen machinery that's not going anywhere. Cars, trucks, buses, tractors, lawnmowers. To use them, we burned oil – which we got from underground, where it didn't off-gas much. Burn oil, or coal, or methane, and you add heat-trapping gases to the air we breathe. The air everything depends on."

    "Doesn't the forest fire do that?"

    "Well! Keep it up and Dr. Savage will grab you and make a scientist of you."

    "She's already interested in my sister. I'd rather be a soldier."

    "Hmh. Well, yes, fire puts the stuff – most of it used to be called carbon dioxide – in the air, but it's nowadays mostly from wood, which took it out of the air. So that was a kind of a circle of stuff. When you get it from underground you add in more than can be circulated."

    "But, ma'am, isn't the world a big place? How could we do all this ourselves?"

    "There used to be a lot more of us than there are now, young man. I'd be surprised if there are more than ten thousand people in the whole of Oregon, as this area used to be called, and I remember when there were close to five million. Those machines out there, on the freeway?"

    "Yes, ma'am?"

    "In my world, my world that died, there were more than a billion of those. Each one doing more to the air than the kitchen chimney at Tomlinson's. Along with locomotives, airplanes, ships, buildings, you name it, we had it. And the breathable air over the whole planet, really, is only about four thousand meters deep."

    Neel was not sure of the meaning of half her words, but he'd learned to let most of that slide. "Why'd we do it, then?"

    "Everyone wanted to live comfortably, Mr. Neel. Everyone wanted to live comfortably. Do you see the old yellow bus at Mary's?"

    "At 'New Ames?' Yes, ma'am, I can see it from here."

    "That thing had a two-hundred-and-eighty horsepower engine. That means it could do the work of, I think, a little over two thousand humans. Ever heard of slavery?" His deep brown eyes met hers. A man's gaze.

"Yes, ma'am. My mom tells me most of my ancestors were slaves."

    "Well, there you go. Getting thirty kids to school five days a week was the equivalent of eighty thousand slave-hours of work. And that was only one of a billion such machines. And that's why the world is on fire today."

    She handed Neel the binoculars. The distant Cascades could not be seen at all, but Ridge, Maggie's Hill, the Great Valley, and the Creek were all visible from here, though smudged. Because Ridge and the Butte both swung in toward the Creek near Bridge, they could see all the way to Old Ames up Starvation Creek. "Tell me what your young eyes see."

    "Nothing much doing at Ridge. It looks different to me than a few days ago, though."

    "They have been cutting trees to get fuel away from the Door."

    "Oh." He swung round to his left. "There's someone heading for Bridge. On a horse!"

    "Which way?"

"Oh, sorry! Going out."

"Whew. Alone?"

    "Mm-hmm, I mean, yes, ma'am – no, wait. There's an animal walking beside the horse."

    "That would be Krall, a dog from Roundhouse. So that's Tomma, who's been turned loose to look for the Wilson crew."

    "Yes, ma'am, it's him. I think. Things are kinda doubled up in this thing."

    "It got whacked once. Cross your eyes a little. How does the Valley look?"

    "Same as ever. There's not so much smoke that way, and I can see the big mountain pretty good."

    "Mary's Peak. Can you see the freeway?"

    "The Highway of Death? No, ma'am, the trees have dropped a lot of leaves, but it's pretty thick woods down there."

    "Nothing burning?"

    "Not yet, anyway."

    "How are we to the east?" 

    He crossed the room. "I can see some men and women swinging tools down there; like they are building a road."

    "Fire trail. At Schneider's?"

    "No, not across from our old place. Gulick's, already."

    "Already, you say; but that is terribly slow. With tractors, it would be very different. We could really use that horrible old diesel right now."

    He lowered the binoculars and raised his eyebrows. 

    She couldn't help but laugh. "See, that's how it always was. The stuff was killing us, but we couldn't do without. Still don't really have any good alternatives; that's why we're all hungry."

    "Yes, ma'am." He renewed is watch. "There are two cows at Peacher's. And ... and some wolves or 'yotes are standing there looking at them."

    "Damn. Not much we can do for them at this point."

    The boy glassed up Maggie's Hill. "Funny."

    "What's that?"

    "A big tree in the north saddle just fell over all by itself."

    "What? Where? Let me see that." She almost snatched the binoculars from Neel's hands.

    "Right in the low spot."

    Ellen peered through the lenses for a long moment. A thin blue vapor rose from the saddle – no, a pulsing smoke that did not look like wildfire. She'd swear it was from a machine! It would have to be the wood-gas tractor she'd heard about. About time we had some good news around here.

Starvation Ridge: Abide the Fire -- Chapter Ten

Ro-eena stood up, stretched again, and walked over to the field glasses. She almost tripped over Selk, who had been up much of the night. Applying her still-sleepy eyes to the eyepieces, she swung the field of view toward the South Fire. "Oh-oh," she said to the empty Control Room.

    Savage Mary, looking even more frightful with her recently shaved head, rolled in. "I hate that."

   Ro-eena turned to greet her. "Ma'am?"

    "Any time anybody says, 'Oh-oh.' Doc Chaney was working on my old knees once, with me tied down and a bone in my teeth, and he went 'oh-oh' and I spit the bone out and about ripped myself loose. 'What, what?' says I. 'Nothin', says he. 'Whaddya mean, nothin?' says I. 'I know what "oh-oh" means.' Sunnabitch laughed. Oh, well. I'm a prime argument for entropy; I'll never be out of this chair, a bed, or the compost again. So what's up, kid?"

    "The fire is over Folsom Mountain."

    "Well, we knew that would be right about now. Th' sling psychrometer showed nineteen percent humidity yesterday, and th' duff hygrometer says seven percent at an "inch" underground, and that's on the north side of Ridge. We are at about th' best conditions for a blow-up I've ever heard of."

    "But we have a smoke team over there, ma'am."

    "Yes, we do. And likely to lose 'em. I can't help 'em, nor you can't help 'em. So we do what we do. Karen and Deela, for example, are loading twenty-twos to beat th' band. Most everybody else is cuttin' fire line. You're watching for more fires."

    "Yes, ma-am."

    "Aw, I shouldn't be hard on ya. Heat's got me crabby. I'm drenched in this naw-ga-hide seat. Show me your South Fire."

    Ro-eena cranked down the tripod a few inches and stepped back. Selk stirred in his blanket and pulled a corner of it over his head. Mary rolled past him and leaned forward in her chair to reach the eyepieces.

    "Mmm ... hmmm ... " Mary panned left and right for a few seconds and wheeled round to face her young friend. A broad, wry smile creased her craggy features. "Yep. Ugly. You might as well look everywhere else but there, honey. It's apt to go to one-oh-five this afternoon, and if it does, that one will be over th' Calapooya and in our laps by sundown. Tell ya what. I'll spell ya here, won't ya run down to th' pee-ex and get me some homebrew. Times like this, about all ya can do is have beer for breakfast."

:::

    Marleena sat by the circle of red light on the floor of Roundhouse, rubbing deerhide with her scraper. That light had been red for days; daylight passed through thick clouds of smoke far above the valley, and by the time it reached the smokehole at the peak of the roof, had dimmed considerably. Near the pool of light from the smokehole was the only place she could see to work well, unless she went outside; but outside was too hot these days.

    The area near the firepit and the well was the commons; here meetings were held, and those who felt like eating together did so; toward the walls were the sleeping pallets. The Roundhouse had room in it for a hundred to sleep, though their numbers were down to around fifty. More like forty at the moment she thought sourly, with parties of men gadding off to Oz, as she thought of it in her mind: something from a story of her mother's. 

    Starvation Creek, the Emerald City. Ha! "They have this, they have that! You should see it!" Only one thing she wished to know; if Roundhouse were attacked, would these wonderful wizards come to their aid? "Would they die for us?"

    "They might."

    "Josep! Home at last. Did I say that out loud?" She covered her mouth with her hand. "Have you eaten?"

    "I have Bolo with me; he's looking for Jorj. We have not, and would appreciate food, wife." Josep smiled, shyly.

    Marleena stood up, a bit stiffly, and stepped over to the well, where a bucket stood on a sideboard half full. With an old mug, she dipped up a cupful of water for her man, and gave it to him, then fetched a bag of pemmican strips, handing him one.

    "The Lord be praised for you that you are my wife," Josep said as he took the pemmican.

    "The Lord be praised for you that you are my husband," she replied. She looked round the room. A few of the older people were abed near the walls; someone turned over and lay still. Flies buzzed. "Did not everyone return with you? Where is Miss Krall?"

    "They are helping with fire lines. Krall has taken up with a fine young man named Tomma. She is enjoying herself and is good for morale. Some of these people have never seen a dog." Josep, chewing, looked round, then spoke with his mouth full. "Roundhouse so empty!"

    "We are in hunting camps. The fires have confused the animals and so the men are killing them and the women are dressing meat and hides. I am keeping an eye on the old people, but they have brought me some work to do, even so."

    "This is always the way with us. We cannot defend ourselves if we hunt enough; and if we are prepared to defend ourselves we cannot hunt enough. And this year there will be no crops and little fish." He looked at the cup with distaste.

    "I am sorry about the water, my husband; the water in the well is very low."

    "And, yes, there is the well. I know you do not like the idea of joining with the people to the south; but they are more than a hundred; they have food; they have weapons, they have electricity and most of them have good hearts."

    "Electricity?"

    "Yes, there is a generator of some kind in a hill."

    "We have electricity. In a way."

    "Yes, when Deerie is running. But she needs most of it for herself; and as Jorj says, when you run a machine it is spending a part of its life."

    "Bolo is looking for Jorj ... "

    "To ask for Deerie, yes. She is needed for the fire lines around the fields at the Creek."

    "I knew it!" Marleena fairly spat the words. "You will lead us there, and give everything we have to these people whom we do not know, and Roundhouse will be no more."

    "It is always wisest, wife, to seek to do the wisest thing. I must find the hunters and hold talk; everyone's mind should be spoken on this thing." Only now did Josep shed a strange backpack that he was carrying; he set it down at her feet. 

    "What is this thing?" she asked.

    "It is a kind of packsack that was made in the old days. In it are pieces of dried apples, pears and "apercots" for the people. Enough for more than half a pound for each of us."

    As Josep expected, this did put another view of the inhabitants of the Creek in Marleena's mind; though he knew she would have to think long and hard.

    "Do you know where I might find Jorj? I must send him back with Bolo if I can."
    Marleena, with eager, shaking hands, tugged at the paracord with which the pack had been cross-tied. "I think, he took one more turn around the fields with Deerie yesterday; so today he would be cleaning out the ashes in the burner and doing what he does with oils and fats."

    Josep reached into the pemmican sack again. "I will go to the Shed, then. It seems the likeliest place. And then I will look for the hunters – are they all upstream?"

    "Yes." Marleena reached into the top of the packsack and filled her hands with dried apples.

:::

Jorj, a late middle-age, balding man with a round nose, was not happy. When he was not happy he sometimes picked at his nose; and already the tip of it was blackened with soot. "Bolo, I like you; and I admire the young chief; but there is such a thing as madness."

    "Yes, Jorj. But Josep says the fields there would feed them and us in good years."

    "That's just it; does this look like a good year to you? Besides, Deerie would never survive the trip. As it is I pray every time I light the tinder in the burn box."

    They stood beside a crawler tractor that was no taller than they were themselves. The tiny 'cat' had seen better days. Once it had been painted green, with yellow accents. Now it was more brown than green, with a six-foot blade, a steel cage, a black seat within the cage, with most of the stuffing long gone. The blade had long ago lost its hydraulics and had been raised and lowered for some time with a prized come-along.

Above the drawbar a shelf, really a platform, had been added, on which stood a contraption consisting of two tallish cylinders, with an exhaust pipe protruding from the one on the left. Pipes had been led past the driver's seat on either side to the engine. The parts for this adaptation had all been handmade, and though Jorj understood mechanics, he was painfully aware of the unlikelihood of ever replacing them.

    Josep joined the men in the shade of the Shed. "The Lord greet you, Jorj."

    "And the good Lord greet you, Young Josep. But are you not here to grieve my heart?"
    "Ah, would it were not so. With your years should come a time of rest. And here I am asking of you the hardest thing yet."

    Jorj noticed his sooty hands and wiped them on a cloth hanging from one of the fir poles of the open shed. "How far away is this Starvation Creek, then? And I must admit I don't much care for the name."

    "You have only two ridgelines to cross. But some of it is trail-breaking."

    "Sounds like you're not coming along, then."

    "I'm going to call a meeting. It may be the time of Migration."

    At that dread word, silence fell over them. They turned as one to look, in the dimming light, at Jorj's beloved fields.

:::

    Ro-eena came into the PX and almost bumped into Juanita Molinero, who was carrying a very large and heavy stock-pot with Guchi.

    "Oh, hi, Ro-eena," said Juanita. "You are may be just in time to take this side of this thing from me and help Guchi get it to the tables, yes?"

    "Well, I'm still on upstairs and Doc Mary asked me to go get her a beer."

    "I am not may be as happy as I could wish with this use of the refrigeration units, but Doctor Mary does outrank me; go around us and we will 'carry on.'" Juanita smiled.

    Ro-eena continued on her mission, and Juanita and Guchi, almost staggering, brought the pot to the dining area. Karen sat at the nearest table with her first Creek friend, Mrs. Ames, and elderess Ava Lazar. Karen jumped up to make way for the pot.

    "What's in it, dears?" asked Mrs. Lazar.

    "It is mostly a broth from beef jerky and suet, I am afraid," replied Juanita, looking at Mrs. Ames sympathetically. "With some grabbled potatoes and garden leaves thrown in."

    "Maybe a little oats, too. Not much," added Guchi. They both smiled apologetically.

    "It will be what we will give thanks for, my dears." Mrs. Lazar patted Juanita's hand. "Thank you both, and we will share it with the other tables." Juanita and Guchi nodded appreciatively, and left for the kitchen.

    "Mn-nh-rnh!" said Mrs. Ames, wagging her head at a crooked angle.

    "Yes, that's right," nodded Mrs. Lazar. "You feel for the cows and the oxen; but, you know, we had really run out of ways to feed them, and we must put away everything we can, to see another year."

    Karen set out bowls, then, finding a ladle hung from the lip of the stock pot, dipped for each of them and also for others who came to them with their bowls.

    The entire Creek, carrying what they could, had migrated to the depths of Ridge. For several days, parties of three or five had made their way up the winding ox-cart road, bringing weapons, clothing, tools, medications, grains, crocks of fermented vegetables and sacks of dried fruits. A significant portion of the food had once been their prized cattle and sheep. Most of these had now been slaughtered; the rest, along with all the chickens, had been left with gates open in all directions, to seek such sustenance and to escape such fire as they might encounter. 

    The horses had been deemed of civil and military necessity and would be brought in at the last moment. Their hay was already in storage at Ridge. Currently they were all away with "runners," taking water and sustenance to those on the firelines, or seeking for the missing smoke teams. As there could not be enough hay for all the animals that might need it, there would be much beef and mutton on the menu for some time to come.

    Karen sat down to Mrs. Ames' bowl, pulling it to her and then taking up the spoon. She dipped it in the soup, which steamed enticingly, and blew on it a couple of times, then sampled a few drops to gauge temperature before offering it to Mrs. Ames.

    Mrs. Lazar shook her head. "Ah, when I was a girl, how different was my world. Do you know, I have not seen electric lighting, and food cooked so – it would be over twenty years, I am sure. And ventilation – do you hear the fans?" She reached up with a paper napkin to dab at Mrs. Ames' chin.

    "Yes, replied Karen. "To me they are entirely new, or anyway since before coming to Ridge. I'm not sure I have seen paper used in this way, either." She offered Mrs. Ames another spoonful.

    "Oh, yes, you were the Underground Girl. Well," sighed Mrs. Lazar, "I was my family's treasure – the best schools, and Temple school as well. I had fine clothes, and we all went to Temple for Shabbos, and we observed festivals and did everything as it was commanded. A strict but not entirely unhappy upbringing. I meant to go to Israel, to work on a kibbutz. But then everything changed. No Israel, for starters."

    "I know a little about the wars. But tell me about 'kibbutz'."

    "To tell, now, maybe it's not so much. It is a commune, may be an agricultural commune. Much like our Creek. But the children were raised all together and the parents, they maybe worked in the orange groves." She gave Mrs. Lazar a pat with the napkin at the sagging corner of her mouth.

    "But you didn't get to go."

    "No, everything just blew up, as you might say. And then we were on the run."

    "Your family?"

    "My family? All my people, everyone from the Temple, we were hunted. The Klux army looked for us in holes in the earth, and came to kill us as if we were rats that had been at the grain."

    "Why?"

    "'Why'? We were Jewish, that has always been for some enough 'why'."
 
    "You had – you had a husband?"

    "Ah, listen to the girl. She too is a widow – it is in her voice. Yes, I had a good man, and children, and I lost everyone, except a granddaughter. I raised Aleesha here."

    "Oh." Karen set down the spoon.

    "'Oh', she says, and her eyes fill with tears for me, and for my family, a little. You are a toughie but you have a heart, and I thank God for you." Mrs. Lazar smiled sadly, and picked up the spoon for Mrs. Ames.

    "Mnahh!" said Mrs. Ames emphatically.

    "Are we done?" asked Karen.

Mrs. Ames shook her head. "No, I think she wants you to know she lost her family in much the same way. Her man was dark like young Mr. Perkins. He and her children were hunted too – by that monster, Magee."

    "Why did he do these things?"

    "Doctor Tom seems to know something about him, from the Murchisons. He tells me Magee joined the Klux to survive, and rose through the ranks. He hunted us because it is what the Klux did. Himself, he cared little either way. A life, to him, it is something to put out, like a candle. What they used to call a professional soldier."

    "Weren't the Murchisons professional?"

    "Oh, my dear!"

    "It's a reasonable question," said a man's voice. Karen recognized it as that of Avery Murchison, who must have rolled quietly up behind her. She felt her face go hot.

    Avery rolled round behind Mrs. Ames, and looked over at Karen. "It's all in whatever cause you sign onto. Or, if that cause falters, you may sign onto no more than your own survival, or perhaps even sign onto a cause you think you can believe in. My parents believed in the United States of America. Then, left to their own devices, they dreamed up this community and gave their loyalty to that. Mr. Magee never fully believed in the Klux – he believes in himself. But while they lasted, he was their most feared captain, and whomever they sought to destroy, he destroyed. It was what used to be called a 'job.' It paid in food."

    Karen remembered again the young man with blue eyes that had died on top of her. "We were looking for food." So had she been. Was that what the Creek was to her – a job?

    "I know," said Avery, watching her. "Maybe these things don't bear too much looking into."

    "These troubles may be good for us in the long run," offered Mrs. Lazar.

    "How so?" Avery reached for a bowl.

    "'Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean.'"

    "'Leviticus' again?"

    "Numbers." Mrs. Lazar turned to Karen. "Youth cannot carry all of wisdom, though I think more highly of this young man than he believes."

    Bobbo came to the table, carrying his new twenty-two single-shot rifle and the sword that had been Karen's. "Sirs."

    "Report?" asked Avery.

    "Two smoke parties are in; third one not heard from yet."

    Karen asked, "Which party is still out?"

    "Wilsons. They were the farthest away, and the fire on the ridges has already passed their last known position. We're still hoping; there is some open ground."

    Karen could think of nothing more to say than "thank you;" but her heart ached for her friends.

    Avery thanked Bobbo as well, and sent him for some dinner. He reached for his chair wheels.

    Karen touched his armrest. "Mr. Avery?" 

    "Yes, Karen."

    "'Sirs'?"

    "Consider yourself promoted. There's a meeting in about an hour; we'll put a bell on the pee-ay – two rings. Be there; meeting room off the Control Room."

    "Yes, sir."

  :::

   
Jorj loaded the last of the wood blocks and fastened on the lid of the burner with a hoop and clamp. "This has to 'brew up' awhile, to get enough gases to burn right. In about ten more minutes we'll be off."

    Josep looked dubiously at the trailer, filled with chunked firewood, shackled to the drawbar. "How far will this get you?"

    "Over the first hill, maybe. Good dry wood is not an issue under these conditions, though. Bolo can bust up some old lumber for me in the next valley. The real danger is, I'll start my own forest fire and then we'd lose Deerie for good. Not to mention me and Mr. Bolo."

    "Then we must be very careful, Mr. Jorj," replied Bolo solemnly.

    "It will be an epic journey," smiled Josep. " I wish I could be with you two. The Lord watch between me and thee..."

    "...when we are absent from one another." Jorj clasped hands with Josep, and then Bolo did the same.

:::

The child had been doing calisthenics and now seemed to be resting, with a knee or foot thrust against Karen's navel. She looked out the long, low windows of the Control Room, as she passed through to the meeting room. Not much of a world I'm bringing you into, kid. Sorry about that. The foot pressed a little harder.

   Tomma and Armon arrived, not looking especially comfortable with each other. Behind them came Emilio. All were disheveled, sweaty, and dirty, and with their close-cropped heads, had the appearance of lightly toasted demons – they looked like bandits, in fact. As she had done before many times, whenever she noticed this, Karen reached up and rubbed her own crew cut. When would she get used to it?

   Marcee, who was nearing term, drifted heavily in and sank into a chair. She had found a large sheet of stiff paper somewhere; it looked as though it had been a page from a ledger of some kind. By folding and re-folding, she had made it into a fan, which she spread and began fanning herself.

    Avery rolled in, in his red chair, looked over the room, and rolled up to the empty space at the table next to Marcee. "When are you due?" 

    "Towards the end of the next moon, sir."

    He looked past her to Karen. "And, since we're on the subject, you?"

    "Probably before the moon after harvest, sir."

    "Harvest. Hmmhm." He furrowed his brow.

    Emilio looked round the table. "I am unused to seeing such a table without Doctor Tom, or Elsa, Ellen and the other Elders present."

    "Age has crept up on some of us more quickly than in former times," replied Avery. "Dr. Tom, only in the last moon, has begun talking in circles. Mrs. Ames may not last the summer. My mom's active but tires easily; she keeps asking those round her to get her back to her old post on Ball Butte but I'm not sure they even have a way, now, to do that. And so on. How did Mrs. Lazar seem to you?" he turned again to Karen.

    "She's very helpful to Mrs. Ames and still useful to Dr. Marcee – yes? –" Marcee nodded, and handed the fan to Karen. "– but seems terribly uninterested in the future, if you know what I mean."

    Avery nodded. "Same with old Maggie, though she hasn't noticed it herself. And Dr. Savage is dealing with the advanced stages of – "

    "Rheumatoid arthritis. And probably lupus," offered Marcee.

    " – right. So, you see, the Council has moved on, at least for the moment."

    Emilio pursed his lips, then leaned forward with his next query. "Ro-eena? Cal?"

    "Well, there it is. Record-keeping was big with Mom and Dad, but we're down to a hundred and twenty, with more to do than we can do. To stay alive, we're going on short rations with all that civilization stuff."

    "Ah."

    Avery twisted his wheels a bit so as to directly face Armon of Bledsoe's. "So here you are, Mr. Armon, you're in – not at, but in – a Council meeting, more or less duly constituted. Feel the power?"

    All eyes fell upon Armon, who fidgeted a bit in his chair, then placed his massive arms upon the tables, fingers laced together. "I – uh, I get it, so maybe you could get on with the meetin'?"

    "Depends. Anything more you can tell us about that wire across the stairs at Hall?"

    Karen, still fanning herself gratefully, saw Armon tense up, and from the corner of her eye she also noticed Avery's right hand was not resting on his wheelchair's armrest or wheel but on the pommel of his throwing knife. I would be fanning myself at such a moment, she thought. But probably there were enough good hands in the room that the situation, if it were one, was covered. She kept fanning.

    Armon looked down at the table. "I'll tell you all I know, and it isn't much. Some of us were doing a lot of grousing about Ridge – "

    Avery watched him. "Bledsoes and Maggies?"

    "And a few – a very few Russells and Wendlers. And as we weren't talking much to anybody else, with so much work in hand, we went round and round and made out Ridge and Hall and Ames was, like settin' 'emselves up for th' big britches, like."

    "Sure. So someone wanted to, shall we say, 'restore democracy.'"

    "I can tell you two things. One, wasn't me. If I'd wanted to do that, it woulda been way too soon, nothin' was organized enough by then."

    Avery smiled. "I like the sound of that; it's an honesty I can appreciate."

    Emilio and Tomma nodded assent.

    "Two, don't know who did. Still don't. If I did, I'd take it outa their hide."

    "I really think you might. So what was that at the bottom of the stairs?" Avery jerked his chin toward Karen, who by this time had returned the fan to Marcee.

    "I, uh, I tried to take advantage of the moment. Break up the power structure, y'could say."

    "Was that well thought out, do you think?"

    Armon tilted his head sideways, and his face took on a surprisingly childlike expression.

    "Nope."

    Avery's smile broadened. "Mr. Armon, I think you're coming along nicely. With the assent of the others present, I'll speak for us all and say that we won't ask you to bring anyone to Council if you find they had a hand in it – for now. Please do, in such an event, explain Creek policy once: which is all for all. And then tell them if you see further activity proposed or undertaken along these lines, that you will bring them to the Council of which you are a full member. That work for you?"

    Armon looked as if a great weight had been lifted from his broad shoulders. "Uhh, yeah. Does."

    "Great. All in favor here?"

    Karen added her voice to the others, reluctantly.

   Avery noticed. "Seeing as we need everyone if we can possibly manage it. Now, before we proceed with the agenda, anything to say to our one-armed hellion here?" Avery gestured with his chin again.

    Armon, clear-eyed, for once, turned to Karen. "I apologize. For my attitude below and lyin' about it above."

    Karen looked up at him. "Accepted." Right up to the moment you backslide. And not a second after.

    Avery reached into the slim saddlebag of his chair, fished out a spiral-bound blue notepad with yellow daisies on the cover, and slapped it on the table.

    "Agenda."

    Karen looked over at Tomma, who had slumped in his seat. "Distracted?"

    "Yes."

    "Wilson's got a great crew; they'll think of something." She turned. "Mr. Avery, shall we get Tomma's report first, so he can go connect with any rescue attempt that might be going forward?"

    "A very kind thought, Mrs. Allyn. Tomma, your progress?"