Starvation Ridge: Abide the Fire -- Chapter One

 Starvation Ridge

Book II: Abide the Fire

Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make to go through the fire, and it shall be clean. Num. 31:23

KAREN, SEATED to his right, looked Allyn over. His pale appearance, accentuated by his dark beard, filled her with concern. "Are you in good enough shape to be here? I ask," she added hastily, "because I'm pretty sure I'm not." She twisted her shoulder for emphasis, the pinned-up sleeve of her tunic serving as mute eloquence of her loss. "I'm still barely here – what's left of me."

    "Oh, did I have the mulligugs?"

    "If that means a 'long face', yes."

    "Well, I suppose I should count my blessings. I have a few days' head start on you as to healing, plus I've still got part of each arm." Allyn waved his stumps in the air for emphasis. "Doc tells me these are going to be in good enough shape to fit up with praws soon."

    "'Praws?'"

    "Pross ... pross ..."

    "Prosthetics?"

    "Uh huh, prosthetic claws. A pair of hooks on each one. Not like tongs, but better than nothing, I suppose." The false cheer dropped suddenly from his voice. "What I'll miss most, I think," he said quietly, "is grafting at least for the next while."

    "But meanwhile you can teach that. I'm no good for archery or pitching hay now – but there are things I can teach, too. I think." She shrugged, but her voice had dropped as well. There was no pretending what had happened could be taken lightly. Each realized that others would likely see them as diminished.

     "Here" was Mess Hall at near capacity. The winter solstice had come and gone, and a light dusting of snow covered the fir and cedar branches beyond the windows, which fogged over in the breath of so many. There had been no General Meeting since the New Moon War, three months ago; who'd had time to attend one? Everything had to be done at once, day after day.

    The war had killed, at final count, thirty-six Creekers, many from wounds that could not be adequately treated. There would have been more losses to "sour meat" had it been summer. And then the "whooping cough"—or whatever it was – had made off with sixteen more people, most of them children. So the population was down to one hundred thirty. 

Also, a Mr. Angle had died under suspicious circumstances; so, one twenty-nine.

So far. 

There were two or three wounded who might be "irrecoverable." Two had head injuries severe enough that Dr. Chaney might be directed, by vote of the GM, to offer them "mercy."

    There were not going to be enough people to run the farms, Mess Hall, Ridge, and the patrols all at once – as if two hundred had been enough. This had always been so: never enough people to raise the food: never enough food to feed the people.

    Excepting Karen and the Perkins family, no one but armed bandits had entered into the valley in years; recruitment might be a thing of the past.

    "Karen; Allyn." Tomma sat down beside Karen; Mrs. Ames eased herself into the chair next his. Tomma smiled. "You two are u-u-u-u-g-ly."

    "Thanks, Tomma; keep that up and we'll put some poison oak in your cast." Allyn made "stuffing" gestures, waving his sleeves.

     Tomma raised his good arm and his plastered arm in mock alarm. "'Oh, the horror. The horror!'"

    Mrs. Ames leaned forward to catch their eye. "He means he's very glad y'all two are able to be here."

    "Yes, I meant that; that's what I meant, yes," Tomma grinned.

    "Clown." Karen goosed him. "We're glad you've got both hands; you can fetch wood for us."

    This conversation was carried on against a stream of voices; almost a hundred people, including cooks and servers, were assembled, leaving skeleton crews at Ridge, Common Farm Number One, and Ball Butte, as well as seeing to the needs of stock at farms along the Road.

    But sound diminished suddenly, as a stretcher was brought in and carried up onto the platform. A bar of wood had been fixed across the stage; the handles at one end of the stretcher were jammed against this and the other handles raised and propped against a frame so that Carey Murchison, practically a ghost of his former self, could face the Meeting. He offered a wan smile, which brought tears to many; he was now in the final stages of leukemia.

    Seated in chairs on the platform, also facing the room, were Doc Chaney, Elsa Chaney, Mrs. Lazar, Maggie, and Savage Mary.

    Ellen Murchison, whose hair had gone much grayer, got up from one of the front-and-center tables and made her way painfully and slowly to the platform as well, wearing a house robe and leaning heavily on a cane. She took the chair they'd placed for her by her husband's strange perch, and reached into the stretcher to pat his hand.

    Tom Chaney waited till Ellen had settled herself. "Are we all here that can be here?"

    "All but Wilson Wilson, who's been out to Eagle's Nest," offered Vernie, who had come in late and taken a seat between Mrs. Ames and Errol. "He should be here before the morning's over."

    "Sounds good; shall we call it a quorum, then?" Tom looked over the room.

    Heads nodded; no voice spoke in opposition.

    "All right, then. Cal, will you record in writing?"

    "I will," affirmed Mr. Perkins. He sat with Mrs. Perkins, who was fully recovered from her wounds, down front. Their children, veteran fighters now in their own right, sat proudly on either side of them.

    "And Ro-eena, to call speakers in turn?"

    "I am," she said. She rose and stood by the stage, turning so as to face both platform and room.

    "All good," said Tom. "Cal, please note we are met in GM at Mess Hall, early Sunday morning, January 29, 2051. Do we have an agenda?"

    Mary turned toward Tom. "Yes; and I believe Avery's passed on it as well."

    "And we'll be on the phone to him from time to time for his votes, especially if there are any close ones. Okay, agenda, please."

    Cal rose in place, faced the room, and read.

    "One. Interim decisions by Committee up for GM review. Two, request from Bledsoes' to reopen inquiry into the death of Huskey, Bledsoe."

    This gave rise to impatient gestures from several of the veterans. The Bledsoes, it was felt, should give it a rest.

    "Three, health report, disposition of dead, irrecoverable cases report and request, and a request from Tom Chaney for apprentices, with a view to ... giving up his practice."

    A murmur of mild shock ran round the room. This was not unexpected, but a community almost always looks more than half backward, and so bumps into its future.

    "Four, Membership offer to Karen, Ames; Emilio, Ames, Sponsor." 

    Emilio, sitting with Juanita Molinero and their sons, smiled and nodded across to Karen.

    "Five, reports from patrols. Six, State of the Farm reports, with stock, field, food, water and fuel inventories and a request for guidance on the disposition of Wilson Farm and Beeman Farm, and possibly others, due to war damage and depopulation. Seven, report from Ellen Murchison on defense and state of the armory. Eight, request from Carey Murchison to step down from Committee of Elders."

    Heads nodded; no surprise there.

    "Nine. Request from Committee of Elders for new members, and a change of conditions for membership in said Committee. Ten, transportation report and animal welfare. Eleven, construction and water transport report, with a request for undershot wheels for the Creek. Twelve, results of inquiry into the death of Wilbur Angle at Hiseys', with collation to the reports from patrols."

    Uh-oh. Many heads turned, many eyes met. The rumor that Mr. Angle, the blind and demented former nuclear engineer, had died at the hands of the mysterious escapee named Wolf, appeared confirmed. What might be the ramifications?

    "Thirteen, request from Avery Murchison and Mary Savage for reorganization to take advantage of notable developments at Ridge, especially in light of the results of the inquiry per item twelve."

    This created a stir. Best for last, indeed. Or worst. Everyone at the Creek had known that change might come, but this sounded like major change. How many might have to give up their present homes and affiliations?

    "Well. Thank you, Cal." Tom leaned back in his chair. "I think we can safely say this will be a three-day GM. Everybody's had breakfast?"

    There was general assent, but already some began looking at their empty cups and bowls with regret.

    "Kitchen is prepared to keep us topped up as needed; just get Guchi's attention over by the door there – right, Mr. Guchi? – something will come round. And for calls of nature, we have a five-holer here, so just come and go; or rather, go and go."

    This weak gibe released a surprising amount of tension; when the laughs subsided, Tom went on.

    "But do come back. These agenda items don't have to be taken in order as they were added, necessarily. Item Two, for example, can await the arrival of Wilson, Ridge. So, any additions to the agenda at this time? – noting that we can add items any time between now and wrap-up."

    He waited a bit, then said over the sound of a few dishes and utensils in use, "Okay, shall we begin with Item One?"

    Emilio raised his hand and pointed to Ro-eena. She pointed back at Emilio and called on him. Several other hands appeared as well, and she pointed to each of them in recognition, to be called on in turn; if their business was pertinent to the item in question, they might speak. If something prior to their turn made their contribution irrelevant, they might say, "pass," yielding to Ro-eena's next speaker. Karen was familiar with this process, which she'd heard had been concocted by Elsa and Ellen, at the Farm level. But this was her first GM; she'd be interested to see how it worked with over a hundred participants.

    Emilio stood and gestured over to Karen. "Respectfully, Committee and Meeting. I move that we give first consideration to Item Four, as we have a non-voting attender who by rights should become a voting member. Karen Rutledge has been called Karen, Ames almost since day one, and as we all know has given much in peace and much, almost her all, in war."

    Tom, both pleased and amused, spoke. "Motion on the floor to offer membership to Karen Rutledge. Discussion, keep it to the motion. May I say, Emilio, you've done most of your discussion already in the guise of so moving."

    A number of people laughed good-naturedly. Emilio sat, mildly embarrassed. Ro-eena pointed to Maggie, a thin woman with a long nose, on the platform. She wore buckskin, with a shot pouch and powder horn on crossed leather belts.

    "Oh," said Maggie. "I had something else. But I support the motion. Otherwise, pass."

    Many hands were waving. Ro-eena looked as if she might pop a sweat keeping everyone straight in her head. She pointed to two more, who passed, then to Marcee.

    Marcee, who had been eventually rescued from the Wilson outhouse by the young grenadiers, had been through a couple of months of nightmares and flashbacks, but had begun to pull herself together. She was now with child, a natural consequence of her ordeal, and the hormonal changes had settled her somewhat. Also, the fact that she was growing four new fingernails was lost on no one. Her opinions, as a veteran and incipient mother, had begun to carry weight. She rose, a bit slowly in her long, loose robe, to her feet. Her appearance in the Mess Hall was striking; she and Ro-eena were the only two redheads.

    "Well, I wanted to speak about even bothering to do Item Two, as I'm a witness in the case. But what I have to say about that is pertinent to the motion."

    Marcee turned to face Karen. "I could see through the cracks in the wall where they'd put me, when you and Huskey opened up on those bastards. I saw what happened, and I – I'm just grateful. I think I'm alive today because of what you did, and I think everyone here is alive today because of what you did. I'd give you my left arm if there was a way to do it. So, uh, Chair, I support the motion."

    Marcee sat down suddenly, still looking over at Karen. Karen did not know how to receive or return so much emotion. She settled for offering Marcee a brief smile, then turned her attention to Ro-eena, who was both calling on another speaker, and gamely fielding many more speakers-in-waiting.

     The young shepherd from Beemans' that Ellen remembered shooting at coyotes stood up in the back. There were so few left at Beemans' that he was probably the current senior resident.

    "Uh, y'know, I, uh, argue in favor, so that makes three not countin' Mr. Emilio, an' I call th' question."

    "All right," said Tom. "I'm not sure that's procedurally done, but – discussion against the motion?"

    There was none.

    "All pass?"

    Heads nodded. Ro-eena was relieved; she could let go the long list of names in her head, and begin anew with the next item.

    "Cal, what's the motion as recorded?"

    "That we offer citizenship – I mean, membership – to the young lady."

    Tom winced. "Close enough. 'Young lady' is recorded as 'Karen Rutledge, guest, formerly of Davis, California'?"

    "Uhh, yeah."

    "Favor?"

    A thundering "Aye" shook the room.

    "Nays?"

    Silence.

    "Abstentions?"

    "Abstain." This was one of the Bledsoe crew. Some of his neighbors glared at him; he crossed his arms and ignored them.

    Tom stood up. "Karen Rutledge, rise, please."

    She did so, a bit awkwardly, as she was still finding her balance with her newly lopsided body.

    "We haven't even managed to cover this with you properly; but there's not much to it. You'll have attended meetings of your host Farm, right?"

    "Yes, sir."

    "And the outcomes of votes, after discussion, are binding on members of each farm. It's the same at Creek level. Basically a guest may attain privileges and attend Meetings but not vote; a member of the Creek may attain rights and the vote, but shares equally with all other members in responsibility for and to the Creek as to decisions made by the GM or interim decisions made by the Committee of Elders, subject to ratification by the GM."

    He peered at her. "Did you get all that?"

    "I think so, sir. 'As above, so below.'"

    "An interesting construction. Yes, the short version of all that," grinned Tom, "is, you agree to abide by the outcomes of all votes in quorum. Our ass is your ass and vice versa."

    "Tom!" Elsa remonstrated. Carey Murchison, who'd had nothing at all to say up till this point, snorted amiably.

    "Well, I don't really know a better way to put it." Turning back to Karen, he put the question to her. "This offer as it now stands, if I'm reading Emilio right, is of both Creek and Ames membership, by the way. How say you?"

    "I accept. Both. Thank you all." She sat down, her face for once reddening, and dropped her hand in her lap.

    Mrs. Ames fairly leaped across Tomma to embrace her – carefully. The room erupted in cheers around them.

    "Now, don't let's get too carried away, folks. Nice beginning to a long, long day." Tom turned to Cal. "Record as member of Creek and member of Ames, Karen, Ames." He sat down. "Speakers now keep to the ordering of the agenda, please. Ro-eena, next hand."

    "Yes, sir."

    Many hands were already eagerly vying for her attention.

:::

The light snow was followed by heavy rain. Karen stood, with her hand resting on the back of her neck, watching the muddy drops rebound from snowmelt beyond the grimy windows of Hall. She was never happy to see snow anyway – there had been entirely too much of it in her life, those two winters in the Lassen Peak area. That thought led to another: of all these people here, how many would have even heard of Lassen Peak? Or would care, if they were told? Was there even an atlas here, or – too much to hope – a globe? She'd offered to teach Raul and David to read, but they had simply given her that wall-eyed look, and Juanita had not really been encouraging. And what, in the house, had there been to teach from? It was all well and good to say, with the Five Rings, that one must live without prejudices; she'd seen how to apply this in war, but in peace she sometimes found herself spinning her wheels.

    "Now who's got the mulligugs?" asked Allyn, who'd come up beside her.

    "Oh! Well, I was thinking, on the whole, I prefer the rain to the snow."

    "Ah. We do usually have rain in winter here, and not much snow, though two years ago there was a whomper."

    "I know. I was out in it."

    "Bite my head off."

    She checked; he was smiling.

    Well, that's unfair, she said to herself. So quit your whining. She turned to face him, her hand on her hip. "Okay, the mulligugs. You caught me. You know, I'm kind of a neither here nor there thing. I grew up with books from a world that's not there any more. And I guess I – I miss something I never had."

    "You keep a lot bottled up, don't you?"

    "Do you know the phrase, 'rhetorical question?'"

    He grinned. "Caught me. But I can glimpse some of what's bothering you in the context of the GM."

    "The GM?"

    "Mm-hm. The old guard is wearing out. We won't have the Murchisons and the Chaneys for much longer, and Savage Mary is no spring chicken. And the five of them are that world you were raised for, slipping away even as you get here. Not even Mary's apprentices fully appreciate her. That hotshot on wheels up on the Ridge is like a cracked mirror – he reflects only some of what his parents were about, not all. And the rest is gone forever, maybe. Y'know –" he raised his stumps in a shrug, embarrassed. "– I, umm, ah, I'm kinda nuts about you, in my way, and I know everybody at Ames' is, in their way, but, uhhhh, right now you just maybe oughta ask yourself, 'do I really wanta go back to Ames Farm?'"

    "What?" Karen was taken aback.

    "Oh, c'mon, that's not like you. You're all about non-attachment. Think it through. You're loyal to Ames', you've just signed on to Ames', and with good reason. But will you serve them best by hanging around that barn meditating on how to milk that cow one-handed?"

    "Damn." She covered her eyes and hunched her shoulders. "Damn!"

    "This 'man' bothering you?"

    They turned. The big guy with the eyebrows from Bledsoe's that had pressed the matter about Huskey was standing a little too close. His arms hung by his sides, and he opened and closed his fists.

    Karen took her hand from her eyes, which were glistening. "No! In fact, he's being very kind, so go give us a little air. Please?"

    "Huh. Suit y'selves." He moved away, glancing back at them over his shoulder.

    Allyn watched him away, then returned his attention to her. "Nicely handled. But I think there's going to be a lot of that. 'Man' said that way means I'm less of one now. S'pose I could try to kick him but he kicks harder, I think. Umm, so, I hurt ya?"

    "No, truth hurts. So, what are you saying? Go look for Mary and get an apprenticeship?"

    "Only if it's what you want. And now, of course, you'd have to have Ames vote it." He grinned.

    A thin, catlike girl of about thirteen walked up to them. Sandy-haired, with braids, yet with eyes like Guchi's, she was wearing her duty tunic and jerkin and had one of the little swords tucked in her belt. On her left arm she wore an archer's armguard. She looked like someone "on duty."

    "Hi, can I interrupt? It's from the Captain."

    "Well, I'd guess you'd better, Billee," said Allyn, amused. He took a half-step back.
    The girl focused on Karen. "I've been hopin' to meet ya. All kinds of stories! All true, I bet! So, the message is, can ya join some folks at their table? It's downstairs."

    "Oh. Umm, sure." she looked back to Allyn. He made little jerks with his head, meaning "go, go" – with a knowing smile.

     As they walked across the crowded room together, Billee eyed Karen's shoulder. "Whacked ya good, huh? I got chased but I got out of it, lucky me, they woulda double-whacked me, ya-yah."

    Karen was not sure where "double-whacked" came from, but she found this young person refreshing. "Well, I was 'double whacked', here –" She pointed at the empty air where here upper arm would have been – "and here. And it went sour, both places. Could happen to anybody. You're Billee, from ... ?"

    "Ridge. That guy who was tryin' to loom all over yez, try an' keep him outta your line of sight; Huskey was married to his sister, and she's egging him on to get'n trou-u-u-u-ble, yah? yah-yah." They came to a dim stairwell, leading down. "Right down here, at the bottom, second right."

    "Um. Thank you."

    Karen found the room without difficulty; the door was open and the yellow light of a single taper streamed into the dingy hallway. She put her head around the corner and saw Savage Mary, Tom Chaney and Ellen Murchison sitting at a small table.

    "Come on in!" Mary, a heavyset woman in black braids shot with gray, fairly boomed. She sat in a gunmetal gray folding chair, as did the others; the wheelchair in which Karen had previously seen her sulked in its corner. In the other corner, Karen could see a small cot; in it lay Sgt. Carey Murchison, USMC, attended by Elsa Chaney.

   Mary offered her a seat with a gesture. "Well, girl, you've led me a merry chase. Been here since last summer, almost, and finally we meet." 

    Karen sat down, her hand resting on her right thigh. Was this an "interview?" – she wondered. Should she, perhaps, have washed her face and brushed her hair? Not that it could make any kind of difference; everyone was getting remarkably grungy. But she felt "on" – scrutinized.

    "Sad about that arm, huh?" Mary observed.

    "Mnh? What's here now is what's here now. Ma'am."

    Carey chuckled from deep within his pillow. "Told you, didn't I?"

    Mary's eyebrows went up, and her face split into a surprisingly engaging grin.

    "Great answer; confirms just about everything. Tell me, if you would, a little about your upbringing. The 'basement' story, absent any of the stuff that came later. Daily routine, 'specially."

    Karen talked, haltingly at first, and then as memories arose that had become hazy to her, added details. These details interested Mary: the small library of several hundred books and several hundred National Geographics, with some other magazines; her father's geography lectures using a world globe, a candle, and an old baseball; the fitness routines incorporating evasion, judo, knife, bow, and pistol with snap caps, sometimes blindfolded.

"What was that bit again about the handful of pencils?"

    "He'd found a box of pencils and sharpened them all, then talked about light. There was an old calendar with a lot of blank paper on the back of the sheets, and he took one of these and held all the pencils straight up and down, and made dots." Karen imitated the move with her hand above the table. "Then he said, 'measure the distance between two of the dots.' So I did, and then he held the pencils at an angle, like this –" Karen swept a slanting chop at the tabletop – "and made dots, and I measured those and they were farther apart. And he said this was why it's hot in summer and cold in winter."

    "And you got it?"

    "Well, yes, ma'am, because of the baseball and the globe. The earth is like a gyroscope, spinning on a tilt, and when the northern hemisphere is toward the sun, on this side of the orbit –" she circled the tabletop with her finger – "The dots, that is, the photons, hit closer together, and transfer higher heat because there are more of them. You get summer in the southern hemisphere and winter in the northern hemisphere, because the photons in the northern hemisphere are landing farther apart; less heat. That's also why crops mature faster on south slopes in the northern hemisphere and north slopes in the southern."

    "Can you relate that to anything practical around here, other than that the fields on the north side of the Creek are the ones that get the long-season crops?"

    "Umm – well, you have those little wind machines in the low ground for raising water on the farms. That works because south slopes in the mountains heat up and the air rises, drawing wind up the Creek on a predictable schedule. Then in the evening the cooling air sinks and goes back down the Creek, so you get enough traction in the wind machines to pump water all day. But only because they can swing on their vanes and face both ways."

    Mary waved her hand magisterially. "And this is reliable in the drought season when we need it most, and is the main reason we've been able to farm here with so few people. Goodness knows we needed something in our corner; the soil up in here being no better than it is."

    She tapped the table in the spot where Karen had pantomimed the calendar page. "I admire your father, Miss, all the more as you say he had little formal training. Autodidacts sometimes see more clearly than the rest of us. What impresses me most is that he bothered to explain to you about the provisional nature of straight lines and spheres, and the provisional nature of naming and classification. Even scientists in my day tended to be brought up short by that stuff."

    "I'm not sure I get it even now," put in Tom.

    "Well, it's not very pertinent to matters in hand at the moment. The take-home message is that this slip of a madwoman warrior is the second most educated person on the Creek – and not a bit stuck up about it." She returned her attention to Karen.

    "Now we get to some potentially painful nitty-gritty. I would imagine, based on hearsay, observation, and discussion, that the good folk at Ames' are highly attached to you and vice versa."

    "They've been very good to me."

    "And you to them, and to us all, though Ellen here would say that only sets a standard any and all of us should meet every day. You know that Mr. Errol, that nice, quiet, introverted and, though he does not seem to realize it, brilliant fellow, was at 'Savage Mary's' before he was at Ames' – woodworking was his thing, and we farmed him out where he was needed, which was the east end of the valley, so there'd be quality woodworking on the woodsiest farms – yours, Allyn's and so on. Same with Allyn, he trained in plant biology – as much of it as we still knew how to teach."

    Ellen shifted in her seat, visibly tired, but game. "It's a scheme to get Mary's little stock of civilized knowledge spread around. Safer."

    "A security measure. Pour it into their hard heads while they're young," agreed Mary. "Now, here's the thing. I don't wanna scare ya, but in five year's time, if the Kluxers south of here leave us alone – fat chance – and "Jeeah" does her usual thing in the usual time, everybody in this room, except you, GWATCDR, will be dead."

    "GWATCDR?"

    "God Willin' And Th' Crick Don't Rise. We will have created some specialists, but there will be no more generalists."

    "Ma'am, I do think you are 'scaring' me."

    "That's my girl, if it didn't, some, this would be an unproductive conversation. Now, here's the deal. Up on that big ugly hill there –" Mary waved at the wall behind Carey – "there's an observation deck and dormitory, beneath which are four one-room floors, each the size of a small Wal-Mart – you know what those were?"

    "Yes; I've seen a couple of them; what was left of them, that is."

    "Underneath the lowest level, there is a functioning 'nuclear battery'. Some such thing. It's got enough oomph to give us fifty or so kilowatts of free power, day and night, for maybe two decades. We talked about this in the GM, as you may remember; and recommended to move my operation up there and do a crash manufacturing program in agricultural tools and 'other handy stuff.'" She looked over at Ellen, who nodded slowly. "We might need most of that capacity, in the early going, for the armory. On the other hand, things could go hunky-dory, and then we find other people like us, and then there's trade. Trade would be a wonderful thing; imagine having enough salt."

    Tom looked across at Mary. "Or other varieties of food crops. Pigs. Dogs. Access to more horses. Cotton goods. Most of all, medicines."

    "Or most of all, olive oil. I'm looking at Miss Karen as we say these things, Tom; she's not all that enthused yet," Mary noted. 

    "It does sound like there's going to be a lot to do ..." Karen offered, tentatively.

    "Well, here's the thing. What I'm leading up to is, that little treasure up there puts us on the horns of a dilemma. We want what it can do, but it's going to be addictive. A generalist, which I, a ductility specialist, have tried to be all these years, is what's wanted."

    A small white moth – where could it have come from, in January? – flitted across the space between them and guttered its little life out in the candle flame. Karen kept her attention on Mary.

    Mary, suddenly all seriousness, put both fat hands on the table, age spots showing in the candlelight. "We want to know if you would be willing to pick up, with us, where your dad left off. Do some time grokking how to survive the temptations that gizmo up there will lead us into."

    "Well ... do you mean – studying – about how to extend the technology or how to switch back to artisan culture?"

    Carey stirred in the cot again. "Told you!" Elsa patted his arm.

    Mary leaned back, grimacing a little as her spine complained, in the uncomfortable chair. "Yah, Murch, you sure did. Ah, love that question. It's the grittin' nitty. 'K, we figure, both. You trained on bows and guns. Visualize, if you will, a small army, or, better, a garrison, that's pretty good at bows. Now suddenly they're all about guns. This lasts half a lifetime, then – kaplooie! No more guns, gotta go back to bows and be good at them from day one, and good at making them, with hand tools. With flies in their faces. Squatting around a fire."

    "It would be hard for them."

    "Yes, young ma'am, it will be hard for them." Mary cupped her hand round the taper, and pantomimed blowing it out.

    "The light of civilization will go out, and there we'll all be, as ignorant of how to do things without it as we are now of how to do things with it. Got a book for you here, a real oldie, over a hundred years old, I think – ever read Earth Abides?"

    "I think I saw mention of it somewhere."

    "Diplomatic. Here it is; tell me what you think of it in a week or so. Now ... as those of us in the room see it – correct me if I'm wrong, gang – there'll be two phases. We have to outlive our Kluxers and your Eastside Eaters – gods forbid they should get together – whose notions of civilization depend on testosterone and skin whiteness. They're Avery's job; he's a specialist, he'll be th' war chief, with help from Mr. Wilson and Mr. Molinero, among others. We'll need some decent high tech for that scenario. There's a lot of good stuff stockpiled yet. Metallurgy, gunsmithing, pyro, maybe optics, communications, organization, training; these are still possible.

     "Then, th' fancy resource base falls out from under us. The Creek gets through alive, then we have to give most of it up gracefully. We dumb down our electrical applications so that the things we continue to do along that line can be done without mass production – go to artisanal, just as you say. But we foresee a rough transition. Someone who lacks most of the usual prejudices about entitlement will need to goose us along. That's the peace chief.

    "Just so it doesn't go to your head, honey, we're not talking about promoting you all the way to the head of the class this morning. But we think you're as good trainee material for that job as anybody we have in this mudhole. Like to look into it?"

    "Umm. Well, there's Ames', you see."

    "Sure. Damn good start. We were just talking with Mrs. Ames; she, along with Elsa, Murch and Tom, nominated you. So, there will be a meeting, and a vote, and hugs and tears and all that, and you'll come home once a week and sleep in your old bed and they'll all fuss over you."

    "Oh."

    "'Oh', she says. You know we talked in the GM a bit about shrinking the acreage, right?"

    "Yes, ma'am."

    "We gotta find an alternative to this ma'am thing. Well, Mrs. Ames is upstairs breaking it to the other Ames kids, and what's left of the Wilsons and Beemans, that they need to pack up and migrate closer in toward Hall."

    "You're breaking up Ames?"

    "I'll overlook that 'you're', we're trying not to be authoritarian around here. This will all go to a vote later today, when we're back in plenary. Unless there are any surprises, Ames' will stick together and take over 'Savage Mary's'. That's your likely new 'home place,' and, if you so say, Ridge will be your choice of 'university.'"

    Mary looked into Karen's hesitant young-old face, with the freckles round her nose. So tentative with friends, so decisive with foes. Scary kid! But probably my one shot at having a child of my own. "So, are ya in?"

    "I could ... try it? I mean, I've never even seen Ridge."

    "We'll take that as a provisional 'yes.'" Mary grinned. "Like straight lines, spheres, morals, meaning, and the preferences of cats."

:::

Josep walked point.

    Marleena, who'd been tracking the new wolf pack, had smelled a burn. So early in the year, it could not be a forest fire. A tendril of spring breeze, with just a hint of someone's breakfast smoke, had curled itself round a hill, then wreathed across the unoccupied valley to the south, and lapped at the boundary ridge. So it had to be investigated.

Josep took four men with him, all that their tribe could spare, each laden with enough pemmican to get through several days. If it turned out to be nothing, they could look for venison on the way back. Fall venison was much preferred, but no one at Roundhouse would turn down venison at any time. Life had been hard.

    Josep, slim and golden-haired with a suggestion of golden beard, still had a bounce in his step and cockiness in his eye after the winter, which came partly from his youth and his upbringing, and partly from his habit of finding and eating green things even in the dark of the year. If he felt "scurved" and nothing else was available, he would ask Marleena to make up some fir-needle tea for him – which she would do, scolding and fussing, saying that no good could come of drinking from a tree anyone could smell was poisonous.

As the sun reached down through the gray murk, with another moon of winter to go, the people of Roundhouse had begun to shake loose the cold and to speak with a little more cheer – another winter survived, the Lord be praised. And as they padded along the animal trails across the hills, the men limbered up in spite of themselves. With so much new foliage curling from the buds, and robins and other spring birds already at hand, lilting in the sprouting branches, whose was the heart so sodden with rain that he would not respond?

    But no one whistled. Danger always lurked around the bends in this world.

    The chief danger was Man; all at the Roundhouse knew that. Had they not come together from disparate remnants of pilgrim bands that had been preyed upon and harried the length of the Highway of Death? And each group that had come in had given up tales of horrors – corroborated by several attacks that had reduced their numbers. The few firearms had gone silent, one by one, and the new tribe had perforce leaned to make and use bows and other tools of distant memory. But it had been almost twenty years now; a way of life had coalesced and there had been no new attack for almost a decade. Yet memory of loss and suffering is long. The few children were still told tales of an evil people that had gnawed their way upriver from Port Land and destroyed the outlying farms.

    A huge barn, built of cement on a circular pattern, with a metal roof, had been the tribe's salvation. The Port Landers were ill provisioned and had spent themselves and their ammunition against the thick round wall. This blessed fort, with the hole knocked in the center of the roof for the smoke from the Fire, had become home, as there was room in it for all the valley's survivors of that war. Some there were, now, who hunted, fished, farmed, and patrolled, and had never known a home besides the Roundhouse. One of those, even now, the youngest of their party, trailed in Josep's wake.

    Ranging ahead of Josep, loping along on long legs and circling back from time to time to report her satisfaction with the journey's offerings, a glorious creature served as the party's "point man." In former times she might have been identified as half Irish Wolfhound and half Golden Retriever. With her nose for business she increased the party's efficiency a thousandfold. Named Krall, for the way she had ingratiated herself, dragging along on her belly from child to child in the Roundhouse, tail thumping, she was everyone's favorite scout.

    A brief reconnaissance of the South Valley, which was known ground, showed that no one had taken up residence in the ruined and collapsed houses and barns, or the many fields which had grown up into tangled woods of fir, ash, and maple. Someone had gone through all the buildings long ago, and systematically emptied them out. Leery of ever meeting these people, who must surely have been numerous, the Roundhouse tribe had kept their visits to the place minimal. The vague hope faded that perhaps a lone traveler or small band had made the reported smoke. A decision must be made.

    Josep called a parley and the men gathered together to speak quietly among themselves in a deep thicket of hawthorns, shrouded in old-man-vine. All around them, swallowtail butterflies flitted – it was too early for swallowtails, but that was the way with everything – each year, insects, plants, and all kinds of birds and animals did something sooner than anyone remembered seeing it done. It was as if the great flat world were tilting itself more and more toward the sun, and summer would someday last all year.

    Krall curled in and out among them, fretting – she had crossed the spoor of the wolves. These were not counted a danger. Josep strung his bow, nonetheless, and pulled his fingerless deerskin glove onto his right hand. The others, silently observant, did the same.

    "I am for going to the top of the next hill, for once," asserted their young leader. "All these years we have not looked there. Our ignorance of the place springs from a just caution, but it is as dangerous as knowledge, and over time, becomes the more dangerous of the two."

    "It is so," said the next man, Bolo. A bigger, older, and not unwise handyman, dark brown, with a long brown beard streaked with red and a bush of dark brown hair on his head, with gray at the temples, Bolo might in earlier times have been labeled autistic and left to subsist in some den on food stamps and old movies. But at Roundhouse he had a life, and knew, from things his parents had said to each other, his good fortune. Always he agreed with the younger Josep, but, as Josep was a far-seeing youth, this seldom led Bolo into error.

    The others were less enthused, but no game had crossed their path to distract them from the present mission, and among the men, more so than among the women of the tribe, there remained something of a thirst to see the world. They agreed to push on.

    Late in the day, crossing amuddy opening among the fir trees that was populated with small, gnarly willows, the party came upon the crest of the ridge, among rhododendrons and bear grass. The hill was wooded on the south as well as the north and offered little in the way of a view. But, as here the best human nose among them did detect the hint of smoke that had alerted Marleena, Josep elected to climb an open-grown fir – it had retained its lower branches and could serve as a ladder. Propping his bow against it, he vanished into the tree's canopy, while Krall whined her annoyance at Josep's disappearance until shushed by Bolo.

    The sun had made its way within two hands of the horizon when Josep, sweating, scratched, and spattered with resin and flakes of bark, descended among them.

    What had he seen, they all wished to know.

    Wondrous things.

    The whole second valley to the south of them appeared inhabited. There were farms! Perhaps four times as many as the Roundhouse people had once had; maybe more. The fields were small, as at Roundhouse, but surrounded by cultivated hedges; they radiated from a cart track that followed a small river. Furthermore, in most of the fields there were small windmills! – he had watched, amazed, their white sails flitting in the evening breeze. Far to the left there was a long, low building, with activity around it, and traffic of some sort – could it be oxen?! – between there and an obscure place, already in evening shadow, on the mountain to the south. The mountain was much bigger than the one on which they stood, and was bare at its summit. Smoke trailed east from at least ten valley chimneys into the high hills; some spring eddy must have taken it out of its normal way, betraying, for once, the complacent anonymity of the place.

    "With so much farming, it may be these are a friendly people," Josep observed. "Perhaps we should sleep here, and try to speak to someone in the morning."

    But to such an abrupt and momentous decision none of the others, save Bolo, could assent. This matter must be brought to the Fire at Roundhouse. Then, if it was the will of the tribe, a return journey might be made, with an offer of parley. Josep could see the wisdom of this view, and easily assented. But in some corner of his heart, his patience was thin. So much might be learned! Trade might even now be initiated; and the high tide of poverty at Roundhouse might begin to recede at last.

(To be continued)

As one, they melted away into the shadows.