Starvation Ridge: Abide the Fire -- Chapter Fifteen

 

Elsa Chaney felt the weight of all her years. She reached the cloth into the bowl, wrung it out, folded it, and placed it on Marcee's forehead.

    Karen appeared in the doorway in a long white shift, with a hazel staff in her hand. She glanced, with a wry expression, at the long-unused isolation room with its huge glass window. "May I come in?"

    "Of course. Pull up a chair."

    Karen leaned her staff against the wall, and hung her coolie hat on a convenient peg. She eased herself into the spare straight-backed chair.

    "So is it over? You're not a prisoner or anything?" asked Elsa.

    "Yes. No. There were many witnesses, and their testimonies largely agreed, so the ad-hoc council did not have to deliberate long. I'm cleared."

    "You seem not very happy about that."

    "There are so many ways all this should not have happened. I did not think clearly after the festival."

    "None of us did, and Arda was, we think, unwell. But it's not like you to dwell on might-have-beens."

    "This place has changed me, Mrs. Chaney. I think – there's an old expression in my readings which you may remember: 'bought into'."

    "I do remember that; it seems quaint, but it fits." She reached to the still woman in the bed and turned over the cool compress.

    "Yes, I've bought into the Creek's notions of what is civilized. And it has reduced my effectiveness."

    Elsa grimaced. "Excuse me, but you always struck me as a good match for us."

    "You say that with a hint of bitterness."

    "We're, we're barely civilized. Organized, maybe; but everyone goes armed all the time and trains all the time, whenever we're not planting or harvesting something. I always had a beef with perpetual war, I think. And that's what this is. Perpetual war."

    "Consider what the world went through. There was bound to be attrition once the spent fuel pools boiled over and the food distribution broke down. You saw it yourself; much more than those of us who came after."

    "I sometimes wish I'd died, too, so as not to've seen it all. But now there are so few of us, you'd think we'd leave one another in some peace."

    The baby woke up. Swaddled like a papoose, she could only crinkle up and cry, blinking up at the blank ceiling.

    Karen stood and strode over to the bassinet. She gripped the opposite rim and pulled it away from her to prop it against the wall, tipping the squalling bundle toward herself, then scooped the child up. She carried her awkwardly back to her seat, jostling the bundle into a better position on her hip. As she sat down, she began jiggling the baby, who quieted a bit and seemed to try to focus on her. There were still flecks – milia – on her tiny nose. As they locked eyes, Karen felt her own child shifting in the womb. She inched her hand around and offered her pinky finger to the child, who sucked at it instinctively, setting off an odd sensation in Karen's breasts. There was a particularly hard kick, which she'd learned to expect at emotional moments. "How's Marcee?"

    "Good," said Elsa. Something in her voice made Karen look up. Elsa shook her head silently and bit her lip; her eyes were wet. This had been said in case Marcee could hear. "Tell you what; Tom is resting; he's all wrung out. Bee and Wilson came back here briefly after the inquiry and have gone up to Ridge ahead of you. Juanita's here to spell me and is in the kitchen or out back. Why not look her up and she'll fill you in."

    Karen nodded, looked over at the bassinet, then looked down at the bundle tucked in her arm, and got up, baby and all, to head for the hallway. When they emerged from the shadows, she found not Juanita but Marleena, peeling green skin from withered potatoes.

    "Hi," Karen said.

    "The Lord be with you," replied Marleena, cutting up one of the potatoes into a bowl. She looked up, and saw that Karen was looking at the peelings curiously. "The green bits are, you know, they have poisons in them."

    Karen nodded. "Solanine, it used to be called – it's, the potato's trying to be a leaf, that's the green. But it means there's solanine all through the spud."

    "I thought maybe it was like that, but there aren't any left that don't have the green, so ...." She reached for another potato and knocked off the long sprouts.

    "It doesn't hurt much to eat them, I think. Anything to stretch them out?"

    "For safety, or to cover the bitterness?"

    "Both, sure."

    "Yes, some barley cakes were left to go moldy for your Dr. Marcee and they gave her the moldy bits and I will crumble up what is left into this. There is some dried kale to go in, as well. And your Mr. Tomma brought us a ground squirrel, which I will use tonight. I have put its guts in a bag and we will cook them in this, to get a little extra something."

    "You know, that actually sounds – yummy."

    "'Yummee', is that a word?"

    "I think so. Listen, is there anything here for a newborn? I, I don't know much about them."

    "For little Arda, yes; I thought you would never ask." She picked up an ancient terrycloth dishcloth and dried her fingers. "In the springhouse is the last of the milk the poor girl expressed for her."

    "Well, she's asleep again, no rush." Karen started. "Arda?"

    "Yes, that is what she has named her." Marleena's expression softened. "I think I approve. It says something about you Creekers as a people, I think."

    "I understand you. All right, Arda it is." 

    Arda opened her eyes. She took a last inquisitive pull at Karen's finger and let go. Squeezing her tiny eyes shut, she held her breath, reddening.

    "Explosion coming, I think," said Karen.

    "Right. Milk coming right up." Marleena ran out the back door.

    Arda howled, and Karen vainly jogged her up and down. What are we going to do with you when this milk is gone?

    Marleena came in, Juanita at her heels. They busied themselves at the sink, and Juanita turned to Karen with a large square plastic bottle. It had a long torpedo-shaped nipple affixed to it. "This was for calves and maybe bummer lambs," said Juanita, as she positioned the bottle for the baby, balancing it on Karen's shoulder. "It's all we've got."

    "I'm glad to see it, even so," said Karen, as Arda settled in for a long pull. "This is the last, though, isn't it? I'm guessing she's not ready for broth."

    "Her chances would be better with the milk, yes. I have some very ancient condensed milk hidden away at Ridge. I am hoping Ro-eena has reached there by now and will send us Mr. Guchi with the cans."

    Marleena stood apart, arms akimbo. It occurred to Karen that Marleena was not entirely comfortable with Juanita. Could this be that thing, of which she had long heard and read, but never yet seen – racism? Or it could be something personal? Whatever it was, Marleena seemed resigned to fitting in. That would have to do. So many things would have to do.
    Marleena's eyes met Karen's. "I – could I hold her? I lost mine, you know."

    Karen uncurled her arm a bit, then noticed her own envy as Marleena scooped up child with one hand, bottle with the other. She felt her face about to give her away, and turned to Juanita. "Elsa tells me you can tell me about Marcee?"

    "It is not good. Doctor Tom thinks sepsis."

    "Childbed fever."

    Juanita glanced at the Marleena and the child, now rocking in the kitchen corner. "As you know, breech presentation, a first child, and that long day of weak contractions. We're just not good for Caesarians any more. Too much pain, not enough opium. And then afterward ... peritonitis probably, said Dr. Tom. And the bread mold does not work on the bugs, the strep, as it once did."

    "I could see that Doctor Tom was thinking these things."

    "Yes. And it was so."

    "We're going to lose her."

    "Already she does not respond to us."

    Each became lost in her own thoughts. It occurred to Karen that at some point, someone would wonder aloud who would be the next apprentice doctor. And that someone else would point out the obvious. "Things have gotten beyond that point," someone would say. "Not enough people, too much work." Yes. We will all have to know a little bit about it. And we will let the rest go.

    The baby began to fuss again. Marleena addressed herself to Karen. "This nipple is too stiff. Is there nothing else?"

    "There are a few old latex gloves somewhere. Doctor Chaney wore a pair," Juanita replied. "We could cut a finger from one and puncture the tip."

    "I know where they are," offered Karen. She walked back down the hall toward the front rooms. Supplies, such as they were, would be on the right. She looked in on the left as she passed the infirmary. Elsa, looking even grayer and more frail than ever, sat by the bed with her face buried in her hands.

:::

Ellen Murchison stood up, painfully. Her back was "killing" her, as the old expression went. In the cooling weather, the stone hut was beginning to sap the warmth from her bones. She should go down the mountain, as her son and her friends kept urging her; yet something held her here. If she could just keep watch a little longer – until the crops were established? – no, beets and collards did not need her to watch over them from here. Until the rains came and the Creek flowed from bank to bank again, instead of trickling from foul pool to stinking slough? No, nothing she could do with her binoculars to bring those teasing mare's tails on the horizon closer.

    Well, then?

    Time for another three-sixty. She swept the western horizon first, as always. Trees, trees – mostly leafless, too, though it was late summer. She could still see flashes of color from long-dead trucks and automobiles on what the young people had aptly named the Highway of Death. Pilgrims had kept open a trail along there, trudging mostly along the safety lane along the median, as the forest grew up around the vehicles. On the right flank of this vista stood the remains of the Eagles' Nest; the cell tower, with its truncated and blackened top, permanently marked the spot where Mo-reen had died at the beginning of that ugly little war. Not in vain – she'd provided the information she was there to provide. The Creek community had then pulled through by the skin of their teeth. That was why Ellen was here: anyone could watch for an approaching enemy, but only she could do it to honor her granddaughter.

    To the north, trees; many of them burned. The Great Fire had angled to the north and west, eventually burning itself out among the cottonwoods near the North-Running River. When the rains returned – as they must, she thought fiercely – perhaps all those lands would skim over in a thin swath of green.

That, she remembered from somewhere, is what life does. After a flood, a fire, a volcano. The grass and the flowers pick up where they have left off.

    To the east, devastation. Here the Great Fire had roared into the valley, essentially swatting aside the Creek's firefighters like flies. No, that was unfair. They had held at Lazar's Creek. She could see Maggie's and Delsman's, and there were people in a field, in a line, bending, working. And there was activity again around the broken little tractor as well. Beyond, the black fingers of perhaps a million trees pointed accusation at the unforgiving skies. Not everywhere – pockets of green remained, even in the upper Creek valley. But things would not be the same, not her lifetime certainly, nor that of the young farmers in that field. I must mention the increased danger from floods. Or maybe Mary would handle it. One can't do everything.

    She swept the glasses over Ridge. It, too, was blasted. The tall fir forest on the north slope, facing her, had torched off practically all at once, throwing up a cloud that, from here, had reminded her of pictures from the test at Bikini Atoll, back in the last century. Smoke, steam, cinders, whole branches torn from living trees, had been thrown into the upper air. At night it had looked like an old-time Fourth of July; perversely pretty. She had been amazed that none of it had come down on Ball Butte. At her feet, in the near distance, the firs and cedars had been tormented by their summer of great thirst.

But they had not burned.

    There was movement on the Ridge road. People, not just those farming, but the very old and very young, few as they now were, trickled back down into the Valley. Living conditions inside the mountain had become – untidy. By Avery's account, everyone was beginning to look like a full-time brig rat. Past time to get them back out into the air! But many of the remaining houses were behind in maintenance and lacked fuel for the coming winter.

It would be touch and go.

    Nearer at hand, she could see activity at New Ames. Knurling the focus knob unconsciously, she made out a small group of figures – the slight man leading them appeared to be wearing glasses – that would be Selk – carrying something like a giant colander. Of course, an old satellite dish. They would be using it for their hobby up at Ridge. Nothing else seemed to be happening along the Road – no, there was a horse, with one of the dogs from Roundhouse. A young man with golden hair ... of course, Mr. Josep. He and Wilson and Karen were working together to re-arm and train the Creek – without interfering with the farming. Well, summer days were long, and young people's energy apparently boundless. Someone said Josep's wife had taken on poor Marcee's baby. Good people had simply walked into the life of the Creek, most of them without benefit of quarantine. No one, apart from Marcee, had been especially ill of late, and her death could not be attributed to the breath of the newbies. Some things work out. Some don't.

      Around to the right from Hall, where nothing much appeared to be going on, Ellen completed her sweep by looking toward Bridge. There she caught sight of a group of people clustered around a large laden hand cart. That would be some of the Bledsoes.

A sad business, but the death of that poor madwoman, Armon's sister, seemed to be the last straw for that star-crossed family. They had elected, after the most recent Inquiry, to go Pilgrim. No one could sway them to stay. Ellen, among others, had argued they should be forced to stay. The risk to the Creek from having one of its crews out roaming around appalled her. But she had been overruled; the Chaneys in particular seemed inclined to accept the risk. Maggie and her crew had almost convinced themselves to join the exodus, but had relented at the last minute.

    It was a near thing. Even with the Roundhousers moving in, two families' departure might spell doom for the Creek. Even one, she thought, wincing. Avery was more despondent than ever over his endless lists of lacks.

    It looked as though the Bledsoes were still deciding where to go. The tallest, which would be Armon, was gesturing toward the Highway; likely they would go north. That made sense.

One more thing goes wrong around here, we'll be following them.

    A crunch of sand indicated someone was coming toward the post. Ellen lowered the glasses with one hand, patted the Navy revolver in its holster with the other, and turned. It was the young man from Joseph Farm that had made himself her aide-de-camp; she knew his characteristic step, but one must never make assumptions.

    He gave the two-fingered salute that had become common among the younger Creekers. "Ma'am, Hall's regards and the soup of the day." He unshipped a pack basket carefully from his left shoulder and stowed it by the doorway next to the wall. "Not hot, but there's some raccoon liver in it. Might have some staying power."

    "We're so eclectic these days. Thank you, Elberd. And what are those?"

   He unslung two small rifles from his right shoulder. "These are the latest thing from Mrs. Allyn and Mr. Deela at the Armory. 'Twenty-twos.' This one is an old 'bolt' thing, with a – 'four-ex'? – 'scope'?, for you, with their compliments, and this one is a tubular –'meg'? – 'semiotto?' – I'm not sure of the words they used, but I've had a little practice, anyway – and I'm good! The bullets don't always work, but they passed this one because the bolt does a pretty good job. Throws away the bad one and puts the next one in. If it sticks, they said dig it out with my knife – Oh! And they said you'd know best about the telescope one."

    "I see. Yes, I've been hearing the practice sessions. Did anything come with them? Ammunition, for example?"

    "I've got a greased-paper packet for each of us. Fifty in each one. They said these real long ones are for you, and the rest for me, and not to mix them up 'cuz they are two different kinds."

    "Mm-hmm, it says here 'twenty-two magnum.' I don't think I even knew she was working on those." Ellen picked up the rifle and read the inscription on its barrel. "Stevens. Never heard of them. Quite the antique." She opened the bolt, looked in the chamber, closed it, put the stock her shoulder and sighted, through the scope, on a tree on Maggie's Hill. Not much of a scope; might even have come from an old BB gun. Better than nothing. She would devote five rounds – that looked like all the diminutive magazine would carry – to sighting in, with an emphasis on downhill work. Much better than nothing! "Is there anything else?"

    Elberd grinned. "Karen thought you would ask. She says not to worry about practice, as they're remanufacturing some more of these for you and somebody else –should have them in a week – but that they are hard to clean up after. So here – " he reached into the back of his collar and unhooked from it a long, stiff wire – "is your 'cleaning rod' and I've brought an old cotton rag we can cut up for – for –"

    "Patches. Yes. And we can clean the bores with boiling water and then patch them out with a touch of bear grease. Very thoughtful." Ellen held up the wire "rod" and regarded it, amused. Mary had hoarded all sorts of metal products, and Deela must have known where to find this one. A steel "coat" hanger! Yes, it would do for cleaning. Just.

    She set the rifle against the wall. "All right, I'll stand down for lunch and you have a sweep with these." She handed him the binoculars and sat down on the end of her camp bed, next to the basket. Inside she found, wrapped for protection in a swath of sheepskin, a half-gallon Mason jar, with rusty cap and ring, full of brown liquid. Oh, well. In her long career in various "MarDets," hungry had made up for nice as a rule, and she was sure it would do so now.

    As she began untwisting the ring, Elberd, who had stepped, as post tradition required, to the west wall first, returned, wide-eyed. "Ma'am? Mrs. Murchison, ma'am?"

    "What is it, Mr. Elberd? You really look like you're going to swallow your tongue."

    "Could you, could you come have a look at something, please?"

    "Will do." She set down the jar and stepped with him to the opening, taking from him the binoculars as they went, and followed his pointing hand with the lenses.

    It took a moment for her eyes to cross enough to clear the view through the damaged prisms, but she could see immediately that there had been a change since her last sweep, only minutes ago.

    "Do you see it?" Elberd asked in a shaken whisper.

    "Indeed I do. Excellent work, young man. Ring up Ridge for me and hand me the phone."

    Elberd stepped to the table, hit the doorbell buzzer and reached the heavy handset across to her. 

    Still watching through the glasses with one hand, Ellen put the earpiece to her ear with the other and pressed the call button with her middle finger. "Avery! Over." She released the button. Click.

    Click. "This is Minnie-Min, Ma'am. He's down in th' canteen. Get him? Uh, over!" Click.

    Click. "Yes, now, please. Hop! Over." Click.

    Long, precious, terrifying minutes, as it seemed to Ellen, slid by like the scum on the pools of Starvation Creek.

    Click. "Avery Murchison. Over." Click.

    Click. "Son, we have a full-blown emergency out beyond Bridge. Over." Click.

    Click. "Describe. Over." Click.

    Click. "We're seeing at about ... two-forty degrees, twenty-five klicks, activity, very large Cat clearing road. Out by the Highway. Over." Click.

    Click. "Copy, two-forty degrees, twenty-five klicks, Cat, copy. As in crawler tractor? Over." Click.

    Click. "Yes, dammit. Like a D-8 or D-9. Functioning. And it's a hell of a long ways off, I need my telescope back but it looks armored. Over." Click.

    Click. "Copy, armored, roger, telescope, I'll send you Minnie right now – Minnie? Good, hop. So, I'm looking at the sheets, this thing is already over the River? Over." Click.

    Click. "Affirmative, they look like they're aiming for the 228 bridge, Halsey, our direction. Over." Click.

    Click. "Query, send crew, intercept? Over." Click.

    Click. "Negative for now, there's more going on that we can't quite see yet, over." Click.

    Click. "What – " Click.

Click. "Avery! Clear the wire, please – truck – Oh, shit!" Click.

    Click. "Clarify, please? Over."

    Click. "Son, send a crew, but to reel in the Bledsoes, silent running, stat, they're about to run into trouble out there, 'K.? Over." Click.

    Click. "Copy, roger, don't know if they'll comply. What do you see? Over." Click.

    Click. "Avery, there's a six-by-six out there and it's towing armored. A LAV or an old Bradley or something. Chain gun in the turret, I'm sure of it. And there's more stuff in the trees. Over." Click.

    Click. "They're back, then." 

    A long silence. Pick up your finger, kid.

    Click.

    Click. "Thank you. Yes, in spades. I think trucks and escorting infantry. Preliminary guess, fifty. And this could be an advance echelon. Will watch and report as we learn more. Over." Click.

    Click. "Copy; will send crew after Bledsoes, could get ugly. Will mobilize Creek. Wild-ass-guess on rate of travel of column? Over." Click.

    Click. "I'd say they'll be at Bridge within three days. If that gun is functional, you'll be within its range inside a week. Over." Click.

    Click. "Thank you, ma'am, Butte's done good. Anything else? Over." Click.

    Ellen took a deep breath. There were things her independent progeny did not care much to say or hear. But now would be a very good time to step over that line.

    Click. "When you mobe, send us a few good hands here too. I love you, son. Over and out." Click.



(To be continued Book Three, Bright in the Skies)