Avery
Murchison drummed his fingers on the chart table, staring at the hole
that had been drilled for the Osborne fire finder, which had been put
away. Savage Mary was running late, as usual. Of course, she had long
ago adopted Creek time, only more so, coming and going much as she
pleased. He looked round the room. Coils of wire were stacked in
corners, and all the sheet metal panels had been dismounted from the
control consoles, making wheelchair navigation hazardous. Selk
burning the midnight oil again, of course. Couldn't Mary reign the
guy in and keep him focused on something useful?
Karen, more gangly than ever despite the now quite respectable bulge
in her middle, came in through the doorway, dangling a long gunny
sack in her hand. "Good morning, sir; have you had
breakfast?"
"No, actually. Is there
such a thing any more?"
She hefted the
sack onto the table, then reached into it. Avery saw, with approval,
that she'd found a way to wear her gun belt again; a padded strap
hung over her good shoulder and was clipped, front and back, to a
wide belt that rode high, between her small breasts and large
stomach. The little revolver and knife both rested on her left side,
cross-draw, and, in the absence of a left arm, out of the way. The
rig looked like a cross between a shoulder holster and an ALICE.
Always thinking, this girl.
Karen drew a
burnished steel bottle from the sack. "I can open this
for you, but it takes time, so you can do your own honors." She
drew out an oversized white mug, decorated with Santa Claus faces and
Christmas trees, and set it before him.
Avery
unscrewed the plastic lid and sniffed the contents. He wrinkled his
nose. "Good grief."
"Sorry
about that; it's beaver tail soup. Krall found a colony up the creek
and Mr. Bolo and Mr. Josep brought home the lot of them."
"Oh, it beats nothing all hollow, and thank you. Having to spread the
solids so thin worries me, though. This is more bouillion than soup;
we can't really go through the winter on a liquid diet."
"No, we can't. But there it is; few crops and few animals this
year."
"I have one trick left up my
sleeve, but it will grieve me. Stick around for when your boss gets
here, and you'll hear it. Want to sit down?"
"Oh. Not yet; I have something for you." She reached for
the sack, then paused. "Mr. Wilson still has your Ruger,
right?"
Avery sipped from the hideous
mug. Hmh! This stuff could grow on you, especially if you've
skipped supper. "Sleeps with it, I think. Why?"
"Well – " she rummaged in the sack and produced a leather
bandolier, filled with black and red shotgun shells. "These are
twelve gauge; we've stuffed the black ones with buckshot and the red
ones with turkey loads. So, if you're clearing one of the hallways
down below, you'll want black. There are five of them. For room
defense, go with red. You get seven of those for now." She
handed it over.
Avery spread the bandolier
along the right arm of his chair. It would be perfect, mounted right
there. "Wonderful. And these things are functional? How'd you
solve the primers?"
"Well ... we wasted
time trying to use some of our twenty-two casings, mounted in the
bases, but found they weren't happy with the firing pins. But we've
been remanufacturing the percussion caps for the BP guns, and Deela
hit upon putting those in, instead. You might not not have more than
three misfires in the whole batch."
"I'll be damned. But, uh, what do I shoot them out of?"
Karen's hand was already back in the sack. She withdrew what Avery
realized at once had been the coach gun with which his mother, and
others, had been shot in the New Moon War. The barrels were much
reduced in length, and the stock had been cut off at the pistol grip,
then rounded off and even varnished. Karen thumbed the break, popped
open the gun, checked the chambers, and then snapped her hand upward,
closing the action with a flourish. She tossed it in the air,
reversing it, and proffered it to him stock first.
"Wonderful and and wonderful," said Avery, taking the
sawed-off from her. "All it needs now is a scabbard, and I'll be
able to cross-draw just like you."
"As
it happens," replied Karen, reaching into the sack. But a sound
at the door captured her attention as well as Avery's.
Mary wheeled herself in. "Ugh. That must be the beaver fat I
just heard about."
Avery smiled and took
a sip. "The big man from Roundhouse – New Ames' now, am I
right?" Karen nodded "– along with Bee, went to some risk
to get it for us, so I for one will not knock it. Now that I've had
some," he added, as Karen's eyebrow went up. "But you're
here on a related matter."
"I
am?"
"Mmm-hmm." Avery
retrieved from the table a key on a ring. "I know Mrs. Molinero
and Mr. Guchi are getting frantic, and just looking at Karen here,
who is supposed to be eating for two, should give us cause for alarm.
I've kept this on a hook in my quarters for years."
"Is that what I think it is?"
"Yes;
the seed vault, bottom level."
Mary
threw her hands in the air. "Damn it, kid. Damn it.
word gets out, there goes th' Creek."
"There goes the Creek anyway, Dr. M. We have no means of
surviving into next year unless we break into that store; it's
wall-to-wall empty barrels on level three, and everyone already knows
that; no one's talking about it, but they know. If we're to have the
strength to get through this visit from the Rogue Valley Volunteers,
we must eat." He pushed the key across to Mary. "Room
484, about 100 feet from the reactor."
"Uh, huh," said Mary, picking up the keyring and looking at
it absently. "And how come this is being handed to me;
shouldn't it just go straight to Juanita?"
"No one better than you to explain to her the problem inherent
here. This seed cache is viable but it has had some exposure to
isotopes. It could be construed to be radioactive food. We don't want
to pretend otherwise, even though most of us here would have no idea
what that means. So there's an educational component to breaking this
stuff out."
"Sure. I tell her,
'look, here's your wheat. If y'all eat it, you might start
glowing in ten years' time; but for sure you will starve to
death next year, so it won't matter.'"
"Something like that, yes. At any rate, you know the details
much better than I."
"Right."
Mary folded the keyring into her palm and dropped it in her bosom. As
she turned to wheel away, she noticed the shotgun and bandolier on
the table. "Good Lord, is that a twelve?"
"Yes'm," Karen nodded.
"You've
really shrunk it down. Won't it have too much recoil?"
"It's black powder, reduced charge, ma'am. It's not too bad. Has
to be cleaned up after, though." Karen pulled the scabbard from
the sack and placed it before Avery, who broke the action, snapped
the barrels back in place, and sighted down the room.
"I think I'm a mite jealous," remarked Mary.
"And here's yours. With two rounds of twenty-two." Karen
fished out the final item in the sack, the ill-fated Derringer from
Bledsoes with the ivory grips.
Mary accepted
it, with a wry expression. "Hmh. Still jealous."
Avery put away the shotgun in its scabbard and held it up to Karen.
"Do the honors?"
"Uhh, sure."
Karen walked round behind his chair and, holding the scabbard in
place with her knee, laced it onto the top bar and tucked it behind
the little backpack that hung there. As she worked, a shy smile crept
across her face. Mary noticed, and gave Avery a sidelong glance.
He was smiling too.
Hmh. "Well,
I'm outta here, catch you two later." Mary wheeled away toward
the corridor.
Karen stepped back. "How
is it?"
Avery
reached over his left shoulder and drew and aimed. "I'm in
business."
"Good." Karen felt
the room darken perceptibly. She drifted over to the window, her hand
on her tummy. "Oh."
"What?"
"It's raining."
:::
Neel's
nose was running, and he'd begun to shiver. The cave-like stone
lookout was all right in summer, but as the days became shorter, he
could feel the heat being drawn from his body. More, and better
clothing would help. More, and better, food would help. Fire would
help; but Mrs. Murchison had nixed fire. He gripped the rifle between
his knees and tucked his hands in his armpits.
Across the room in the near-darkness, he could glimpse Elberd, in
much the same condition as himself. Mrs. M had said for one of them
to get some sleep while the other watched, but neither felt like
sleeping and what was there to watch? The clouds had settled on the
hill, and the moon would not rise until well past midnight. One might
as well cake mud on one's eyes and watch that.
Wait! Sound. Someone approaching the entrance. Stiffly, Neel unwound
himself and found the stock, grip, and trigger of his weapon. He
sensed Elberd doing the same.
"Word?"
croaked Elberd, nearest the door.
"Tree,"
replied Mrs. M's voice, the one they wanted most in all the world to
hear. Neel, in obedience to his training, removed his finger from the
trigger and indexed it along the stock.
"Word?" asked Mrs.
M, near the entrance in the rain.
"Branch.
Oh, Sergeant, we're ... "
"Shhhh!"
She came in, her rain gear rustling, and made for the telephone
table. "Elberd, go outside and if anything moves, challenge and
be prepared to shoot. Neel, go over by the entrance and back him up.
Quietly, quietly! Thank you both."
They
moved quickly and as silently as possible, as she had trained them.
Neel settled, just out of the rain, within the stone doorway, and
watched the blackness, which gave him no more clues than before. He
could hear Mrs. M. working the doorbell buzzer and the handset.
"Avery? Wilson? Oh, Karen. Is there an Avery nearby? Over. Yes,
expedite! Thank you. Over. Who's this? Over. Hello, Guchi. Is Wilson
in? Never mind, then, yes, bring Minnie downstairs, please, she'll
do. Over. Oh, Avery. Yes, there's something going on here. Where are
the people you sent? Over. Well, they're a good three hours overdue,
so I think that makes our position here untenable, to say the least.
Over ... Well, I'm thinking they've cut us off about halfway up the
hill – what? No, we've heard no shots, that's the hell of it. With
all the toys we've seen them waving around, and then seeing them
march off ostentatiously around to your left, I'm thinking they've
divided their forces and the long-haired ones have doubled back.
Over. Yes, it could be a diversion, but that doesn't mean they don't
want this hill. They could see your every move from here. Over."
Her rain gear rustled. "Neel, are you paying attention to
Elberd?"
He hadn't been. "Yes'm."
"Step outside; he's wet, you might as well be."
"Yes'm." Neel took one long step forward; his straw hat
began sagging right away, but it provided him some protection. Any
other time, he might try to locate the other young man by calling out
to him, but it seemed a good idea, this time, not to. Instead, he
strained at the soft whisper of the night with all the might of both
ears, till he located him by a shifting of weight on a wet boulder.
Except that the sound did not seem quite right.
Neel eased the rifle forward and lightly touched the trigger with his
finger. Barely above a whisper, he called out. "Word?"
Something popped against his thigh, like a wet towel being snapped.
Neel could hear someone running toward him, then falling down in the
mud right at his feet. In what little light was available, the blade
of a knife flashed out toward his legs. He leaped to avoid the knife,
and aimed and squeezed the trigger of his twenty-two. But nothing
came of that. He fell back against the stone wall of the lookout,
frantically working at the bolt. Who was there? Another one?
With a much louder blast, the sergeant's revolver exploded right by
his ear, and he felt himself jerked into the shelter. Neel sprawled
on the floor, and saw, upside down, the flash of another blast from
her gun. He heard his rifle, which he had somehow dropped, drag
itself across the floor and land on his chest. The revolver tore
another hole in the night, with an accompanying muzzle flash and
lazily tumbling sparks. Were there shouts?
A
twenty-two popped once, twice. Neel felt faint; his ears rang. He
forced himself to work the bolt of his weapon, until the dud round
fell out and another replaced it. He sat up, trying to see, trying to
be of use. His right leg suddenly pained him. The thought of standing
up struck him as unlikely.
Now all was quiet.
Was he alone? No, there was ragged breathing.
The sergeant's voice rang out from quite nearby. "Elberd!"
"Ma'am!" Alive!
"Get in here!"
"Yes'm, where's here?"
"Eff. Neel, are you with us?"
"Yes'm."
"Is that thing
working yet?"
"I think so,
ma'am."
"Give me."
Neel held the rifle up and felt it snatched away. It banged once, up
into the rain, and footsteps came running. Too many footsteps! The
revolver lit up the night once more, and suddenly Elberd flung
himself down beside Neel, wheezing.
A fierce
whisper came from the darkness above. "Crawl around to the
right, both of you! Hand me my rifle!" Neel complied; Mrs. M
grasped it, worked the bolt action, and moved toward the doorway.
"Cover the entrance. Ask for the word from anyone coming in; if
it's not me, shoot."
Neel propped
himself up against the table and worked to catch his breath. He tried
to ease the rifle down across his lap, but his right thigh bothered
him too much. He set the butt down on the floor, with his hand on the
grip, shifted his weight, and, reaching across with his left hand,
explored his leg. There was an arrow shaft there!
It had almost missed him, but not quite. He tugged at the shaft
experimentally, and quickly gave up that idea. Perhaps it could be
pulled through from the other side. We'll
wait on that a bit.
The crack of Mrs. M's more powerful rifle lit the night
briefly. Immediately following, they could hear the bolt action
opening and closing. She must not be far away.
Then the sky suddenly lit, to Neel's dark-accustomed eyes,
horizon-to-horizon. The sky-light seemed to move, and the outline of the stone
hut's doorway crawled across the floor. Neel glanced at Elberd, and
saw that Elberd's right cheek lay open, an almost perfect match to
the long scar on his left cheek. Elberd's eyes were wide open with
fright and wonder.
The excruciating
brightness crossed the doorway and windows from right to left, and
then, if anything, flared, silhouetting the forests of Maggie's Hill.
And, as suddenly as the illumination had come, it ended, though a
phosphorescence hung in the clouds.
A sound
not unlike the summer's thunder came through the packed-earth floor
into their cold bones.
"Dubya-tee-eff?"
asked Elberd, whispering hoarsely.
"I'm
not sure I even want to know," replied Neel, gripping his weapon
and re-focusing on the doorway. "I'll watch here; you get some
salve on your face and pull it together with some duct tape;
then you turn around and watch the windows."
:::
The
rocks piled in front of Minnie-Min, which she had been touching from
time to time to reassure herself they were still there, were slowly
becoming visible. Moonrise; if the bad people were coming this way,
there would be a chance of seeing them coming.
She'd
been afraid she'd have to depend on her hearing, which she knew was
not the best. And in rain, there was little one could discern against
the white noise of the raindrops. This worked even against animals;
earlier, a doe had walked across right in front of their position,
and Bobbo had somehow put a bolt through it and tossed it, still
struggling, over his shoulder to deliver to Ridge for the desperate
cooks.
There was no keeping the unaccustomed
cold out, even in her rain cloak. She shifted her weight time and
again, feeling acutely the stobs of burnt brush and the small stones
beneath her. The stones, she had to remind herself, were her friends;
without them this would all be a slickery slope of ash-fouled mud,
perfect for breaking an arm or a leg in a fall. Such injuries had
always been a serious matter at Starvation Creek; it would be doubly
true now.
There was a clatter off to the
left; tremulously she gripped her twenty-two and called out.
"Word?"
"Stock." It was
Bobbo, returning. "Word?"
"Soup."
Errol, also to the left,
spoke up. "Bobbo, you're coming down way left of your hole; let
Minnie guide you over."
"Thanks; I
got it. Min, just grunt a couple times, I'll go right by."
Suddenly the sky lit up, as if by lightning. Bobbo flattened himself,
rolling a few more stones down onto Minnie, who crouched lower,
wondering at the brightness. A weapon, a big one by the sound of it,
cracked in the valley below – perhaps on the opposite side of the
river – and the bright light arced across their position and
disappeared over Ridge. "What ... ?"
"Shhh!" Bobbo began scrambling as soon as the darkness
came. "Watch and listen! And stay down!"
Another light came streaking toward the mountain. This time there was
a burst of flame, accompanied by a shower of big sparks, just over
the swell of the ridge to the left. The ground trembled; this was
followed by an explosion, not like anything Minnie had ever
heard.
Here it came again! This one, she
could see, would come closer. Instinctively she nestled into her
rockpile, knocking her rain hat askew. The bright flying object
shrieked as it came near, then clanged into the hillside, near Errol,
she thought. Sparks rose into the rain, guttering out as they arced
away from the point of impact, and one larger spark bounded into the
air, illuminating the whole hillside as it hummed off over Ridge.
What were these things?
Another sharp crack in the valley told her another of the lights was
coming; she closed her eyes, then opened them – one must be ready
for anything; and was she not a lifelong soldier of Ridge? This time
there was a terrifying crash to her right, and bright blobs sputtered
off overhead. Something pinged, like an arrow, on the boulder to her
left and clattered into her hole. She might have reached for it,
curious, but a strange smell, like and yet unlike the black powder
with which she was familiar, wafted to her nostrils. Oh! it would be
hot. Of course; these exploding things had metal casings. If she were
out in the open when one burst, she could be cut down, as if with a
bullet.
Two more of the things flung
themselves at the hill, off to her right. And now – was that
someone slipping in the mud, somewhere in front of her rockpile?
"Word?" That was Errol, to her left.
The unmistakable sound of a crossbow replied, quickly followed by the
sound of a bolt caroming off rock.
Minnie could not see, over the rim of the boulder, who had fired, but
she presumed there would be more than one intruder; if she stood up
to shoot she might take flanking fire. Better to leave Errol's
adversary to Errol for the moment. Sure enough, through the night
came the unimposing "thwack" of his own twenty-two being
fired. Someone, in front of her and downslope, grunted and swore.
Minnie took this moment to shift onto her haunches and peer ahead,
trying to see in three directions at once.
The big gun cracked again, and as the yellowish light traced across
the valley, she could see three men silhouetted against the light.
They were sheltering from Errol, but had, apparently, not yet found
her. She could feel her pulse racing in her neck as she aimed at the
nearest and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
Nothing, Jeeah!
Oh, the safety! She tried
to remember what Bee had taught her. Push along receiver with right
thumb – yes! She aimed again. This time the hammer fell with a
click that came to her through her hands, but nothing else
happened. Eject! They were noticing her now, and
crabbing around on the slope to avoid her shot and perhaps get off a
few arrows. Minnie worked the bolt and shouldered her weapon again.
The ground rumbled beneath her as a shell from the big gun struck
well away to the right somewhere. At the same time she fired. Someone
else did so, as well – Bobbo?
"Get up!
Get up there. Get 'em!" shouted someone. One of the
opponents?
"I'm shot!"
"Can you move?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if you ain't dead yet, go effin' get 'em!"
Though she did not care to be discussed as someone to "get,"
these people did not sound any better organized than Creekers to
Minnie. She worked the bolt again.
Errol,
Bobbo and Minnie fired almost as one. The twenty-twos were beginning
to have an effect. Instead of rushing, the invaders were scrabbling
away down the slope. It was this easy?
An arrow or bolt clattered off the rock right in front of her; Minnie
ducked, shifted to her right, and slowly peeked over the rim again.
She'd wait for the next cannon blast to work the bolt action; no
point advertising her exact position.
But the
big gun seemed to think it had done enough for now. She strained at
the deep gray night with her eyes and ears. Something was going on
well to the left, where several of the Roundhousers were; more small
rifles were popping, someone was shouting, and there were clubbing
noises. She ached to go help, but realized she might well do more
harm than good anywhere but here. At least in this spot she
had some chance of distinguishing friend from
foe.
Now something was happening on her
right; a wrestling match on the mountainside. A body or bodies rolled
away below her, grunting. A man screamed. Someone was running or
climbing toward her. Minnie worked the bolt. A shadow rose up in
front of her. She fired.
"Unh!"
said the shadow as it fell away.
Was that
Bobbo's voice?
She'd better risk
checking.
"Word?" she croaked.
"Uhh ... uhh, soup? Stock, stock!"
"Oh Jeeah, Bobbo, did I effing shoot you?"
"Unh. Nemmind. They're right here. Keep shootin'!"
Numb, yet obedient, Minnie loaded the chamber and stood up. Vaguely,
before her, lay two bodies, both twisting in agony. One was clearly
Bobbo. The other had something protruding from his abdomen.
Approaching from below were two men she felt sure were armed with
bows. The cannon spoke again, and she knew for the first time the
terrible nakedness of the illuminated target.
Aim,
fire. Load. Aim, fire.
Something
caromed off Minnie's temple and her eyes filled, briefly, with red
and blue sparks. Was she falling? Yes, she supposed she was.
(To be continued)