Starvation Ridge: Bright in the Skies -- Chapter Five

 

"Karen, let's get off this level for awhile." Avery scooped the remaining shotgun shells into his lap and wheeled around the table. "Now!"

    Karen stood, stunned at the brilliance of the moving light. What was that?

    Avery was speaking again. "Move it; they're ranging on us with a cannon thing; it can probably hole us here. You take the stairs; I'll take the elevator."

    Karen shuffled, so as not to trip over any of Selk's gear, and exited the command center into the lit hallway. Grasping the strange coolness of the stairwell's tubular handrail, she made her way cautiously down to the landing, turned, and followed the rail down onto the main level of Ridge. The elevator door opened next to her as she reached the corridor; Avery rolled out, loading shells into the sawed-off. 

    There was an unaccountable odor of blood and shit in the air.

    Drawing her revolver, Karen began clearing rooms. As she came to the refectory, she discovered the cause of the odor. Juanita and Guchi, aided by Marleena, were gutting a freshly killed deer.

    Guchi was facing her. His eyes widened a little at the sight of the revolver; she holstered it. "Sorry – didn't know it was a deer."

    "We'll run the fans. Bobbo brought it."

    "Isn't he on the south line?"

    "Yeah, he just couldn't pass up bringing in food. Lotta hungry people downstairs."

    Avery rolled up to the door. "Makes sense. No eat, no fight." To Karen he said, "Stay here and watch the south stairwell. I'll go back and hang out by the north stairs. Anybody from below, send them back down. Anybody from above, shoot."

    "Understood." Karen leaned against the doorpost. She drew again and indexed her trigger finger along the Sentinel's frame, pointing the business end at the floor. From time to time she glanced at her friends, but mostly she watched the far doorway and the empty stairwell beyond.

    Vibrations, no doubt from distant explosions, pulsed in the concrete floor. The food crew paused in their task, looking at one another anxiously, and then, as there was nothing else they could do, fell to work again.

    Juanita, though easily the smallest person present, was the busiest. She drew the intestines and gave them to Guchi in a mixing bowl. He went with it into the kitchen.
 
    Juanita picked up a skinning knife. She made quick work of the hide, as Marleena, also no slouch in the deer-dismantling business, turned the body this way and that for her, holding up the front legs at one point and the back legs at another. She took away the hide to another table and rolled it up.
    Juanita cleaned and stropped the knife, set it aside, and picked up a crosscut handsaw. "We will put everything but the hide into stock pots. Guchi is washing out the colons, and so we will put that in as well. Later, when the hide has been scraped, we will make yet another soup with that."

    "Of course," replied Marleena. 

    At the sound of her voice, a cardboard box set against the wall wobbled. The wail of a hungry baby filled the room. Marleena smiled and crossed the room to the box. She stooped and lifted out Marcee's orphaned Arda, who had grown more than Karen expected. Karen tore her eyes away from the infant and watched the stairwell. When she thought her duty could risk another peek, she found Marleena sitting in a nearby chair, her smock open, with the baby at her breast.

    Karen couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Is that ... do you ..."

    Marleena smiled again. "It happens sometimes. When there is great need."

    Arda let the nipple slip for a moment with a smack of her tiny lips, cooed to it, and went back to work.

    Karen's baby kicked. Hard. And again. The child seemed to be trying to scramble around in a circle. Karen felt a wave of – not so much pain, something more like strength. The wave seized her, beginning at her waist and rolling down. Her knees felt like water, and she briefly experienced tunnel vision. 

    Better holster the gun and get a grip on this door! Oh, for two hands!

    Karen took several deep breaths, as Dr. Marcee had taught her. As her vision cleared, she found Juanita and Marleena both observing her closely. Then they looked at each other. Marleena nodded. Juanita had been sawing away at the doe's backbone. She left the saw where it was, dipped her hands in the water bowl at the end of the table, and, wiping her hands on her apron, hurried over to Karen.

    "Would you like to sit down?"

    "No, I ... I'm on watch."

    "Nonsense. Mr. Yamaguchi!"

    Guchi popped his head in from the kitchen. "Almost done!"

    "Never mind that; clean your hands and come in here; we need you to spell Karen in the hallway."

    "Understood. Right away!"

    Guchi shortly came into the refectory, doffed his apron, and gathered up his bow and sword. Juanita guided Karen toward a chair.

    "Nita," asked Karen, "Mind if I don't sit? I want to be on my knees and sort of rest my head on the chair seat, I think."

    "Sensible girl," said Marleena, who now had Arda over her shoulder and was thumping her gently on the back.

    Juanita helped Karen kneel. "But of course. Our Karen is a sensible girl."

    "I think there's going to be another one. And I feel like I'm going to throw up." Even as she said this, Karen could feel the distant explosions, less frequently now, rumbling in the bones of the mountain beneath her hand and knees.

    "Let's get you out of all this war gear. You will not need it for a while, I think. Here is a bowl. And a wet towel. And now you just rest, Karen. You are in the best hands on Starvation Creek, yes?"

:::

Lockerby climbed out of the driver's hatch and hopped down to the ground. There was a gray illumination provided by the faint beginnings of dawn. Men of the Volunteers were gathered around Mullins, and a row of bodies, by the look of things, lay on the ground. Stretching to ease the stiffness of a night shift in the LAV from his bones, Lockerby ambled over. "What we got?"

    "Not so much." Mullins, scratching at his beard, shook his head. "Jahn, catch Locky up."

    Jahn, a rangy long-jawed fellow with an accent Lockerby couldn't place, stepped over.

    "These folks have workin' rimfire ammy-nition; they's shooting us up wi' twenty-twos f'm cover."

    "I hoped maybe they'd break and run from the barrage."

    "Naw, they've fought afore."

    "A legacy from Wolf. So, how bad was it?"

    "We had four killed and eight are wounded, n' that's includin' me." Jahn held up his arm, which had been tied with a bloody rag. "We got one man, ain't dead yet but will be, had this stuck through 'im." With his other hand, he held up a small sword.

    "Damn. Well, we can't have that, twelve out of fifty-six. Did we do them any damage?"

    "Hard to tell in th' dark; they hauled away dead 'n wounded as they went along; we didn't find but two."

    "Let's see them."

    Jahn indicated the right end of the line of bodies. Lockerby hunkered down to examine them in the gathering light. One was a large man, the other a woman, both with shaven heads and strange clothing – homespun-looking stuff, with rain capes of some kind of woven fiber, like basketry. Much like the Eastsiders, but not so given to adornment. The man had been shot with a small caliber weapon; friendly fire? He also had been slashed and cut about the face, arms, and hands. The woman had been hit a glancing blow in the right temple with a bolt or arrow, but had bled profusely from the mouth. Lockerby pulled down the jaw and looked in. "Shot in the roof of the mouth?"

    "Well, she'd been out cold. Came to as we come up on her and – bam. took 'erself out 'fore we could stop 'er."

    "Refusing to be a captive. Hard core. A waste, she was good looking. They'll come in handy, though. Keep the clothes, maybe we can do a ruse or something with 'em. Got any guns?"

   "Yes, suh. One. Done give it to Mr. Mullins here, suh."

    "Check it out, Lockie." Mullins had leaned it against a tree.

    The rifle was a bolt-action twenty-two el-ar of the tube-fed magazine type; a plinking gun from the previous century, wooden stock and all. Lockerby picked it up, pulled the magazine follower and poured five shiny copper cartridges into his hand. Each one had been sealed around the rim with something lacquer-like. One looked slightly crooked. "Remanufactured?"

    Mullins nodded. "Someone up there knows how to make primer – and powder. Black, from the smell."

    "We got problems."

    "That's not all. While you were in the LAV playin' wi' th' chain gun, we about run out 'a water from th' trucks. I sent th' reserves down to th' river to get some more, and one of 'em drank some and got sick. Real sick. Don't know if we can use it."

    "Oh, it's that blue slime. Not flushed out yet."

    "Yeah, it's still pretty low."

    "It was a hot summer, Mullo. Think we can find any wells?"

    "That's th' kicker," Jahn put in. "They's a place a'tween here an' th' mountain, out in th' open, that was burnt down not too long ago. We found th' well. It's in th' line of fire but we hoped t' go use it at night? ...well, somebody's th'owed in a buncha old antifreeze."

    Mullins scowled. "Lockie, y' suppose we oughta pull back and fort up a bit? I'm running plumb out of ideas here."

    "Well, sir, we've got to go to water. That river over there where the farmers are is almost dry, bad as here, I expect; they must be on wells in there."

    "Th' big river, then. Send somebody to let th' tribals know, an' we'll backtrack to there."

    "That steel bridge over by the entrance to the valley, we could fortify that. Room for all of us."

    "Well, didn't you say it was bad water there too?"

    "Another week of rain, probably not. We could truck in some water till then."

    "Yeah, but I don't like havin' em upstream from us."

    "True; if I was them I'd dam up and then let go a flood. Well, the map shows a bigger river than either of these, out past the big knob. That's closer than the main stem."

    "'K, let's truck in some water real quick, then go north. Send Jahn here to tell the Eastsiders to hold till we get there, maybe four days behind 'em. We'll shoot up th' whole valley till they effin' cry uncle."

     Lockerby turned to Jahn. "Jahn."

    "Lockerby."

    "Got all that?"

    "Yes suh."

   Lockerby reloaded the little rifle. "Take this; it'll maybe hold off anybody you meet on the way there. Don't lose it, though. Right now we've got three guns and a cannon. Who knows what these farmers have got?"

:::

Even though Elsa Chaney had consciously chosen to create a scratch religion of Gaia, whom the Creekers had gradually renamed Jeeah, she more than half believed in it herself. As she washed a stock pot, she mused: does one pray to Jeeah? Does she answer? She had taught otherwise: honor Jeeah by keeping the earth clean, not by pietistic religiosity. Marleena, she knew, prayed to an Our Father, but that was a remnant of the religion so popular with the very people who had built those power plants which were now melting down all over the sad and neglected earth. The same people had made the terrible last great war. God, or Jehovah, or Allah, whatever they called him, she'd had it with him. She'd seen his effects in the religious after-war of the Klux, They, while massacring the remaining population of  Eugene, had invoked him
.
    How would one pray to Jeeah? And why? Elsa knew enough of nature to understand: one seed grows, another doesn't. This is determined by circumstance, not fiat. Hence she did not truly believe in miracles. 

    But it would be lovely to have one now. 

    That ragtag army ranging around out there seemed likely to finish off the little world of the Creek, if famine did not do so first.

    She looked over at Tom, asleep on a cot against the wall. He had become very frail. His mind was wandering; no doubt hers was too. But he had a specific excuse; he'd self-diagnosed himself with cancer. 

    "Likely it began in my bones," he'd told her. "Strontium, of course. And I think has lodged in the brain, and elsewhere. As we both know, and so do Mary and Ellen, the principal value of this place is that it had a low click rate on the Geiger counter, for whatever reason. A trick of the winds in days gone by. But our generation, and many of the young, are from elsewhere. We have in us enough cesium, strontium, uranium, and even plutonium to explain many kinds of cancer and leukemia, as well as the mutations and deformities we have seen."

    She had wept. He had held her. Smiling, he'd added: "I have lived about as long as one does, now, and it's been, on the whole, a good life. And I have lived it with you." 

    Billee came in, with Krall at her heels, breathless and flushed. "Where is Doctor Tom?"

    Elsa resisted the impulse to shush her. He'd resent the protection, she knew. She gestured toward the cot, where he stirred at the sound of his name.

    Billee bit her lip, but Elsa could see that great need had brought her. "Come over and we'll ask him." Elsa set the pot on the counter and accompanied Billee and Krall to the far wall. Tom, moving very slowly, had raised himself up and was feeling for the floor with his feet. Elsa knelt and helped him into his slippers.

    "Doctor Chaney?" Billee began, but, seeing his condition, stood in momentary confusion, wringing a blood-soaked cloth in her sooty hands.

    Tom lifted his eyes to her face, then dropped them to note the red rag. "So, our next little war has begun."

    Billee nodded. 

    "Mangled bodies and what not. I might not be able to do much, myself, but if you can get me to wherever everyone is, maybe I can kibitz a bit. You're not hurt yourself?"

    Billee, still biting her lip, shook her head.

    "I am glad; such a blithe spirit should not be blotted out. Help me up, and I'll shuffle along on your arm. Coming with us, my dear?"

    "I am, love. I'll get your other elbow."

    They proceeded slowly toward the corridor. People ran past the doorway. Tom turned his head toward Billee. "Are the enemies within the gates?"

    "No, sir. We've been pushed off Ball Butte for now, I think, but the attack on Ridge seems to have – 'petered' out, as Captain Wilson would say."

    "'Captain,' now. Good title for him."

    Billee blushed. "Yes, sir." 

    Elsa noticed the blush. Even in times like these! Youth is irrepressible. 

    They came to the elevator, which appeared to be in use. They waited their turn. Krall, still at Billee's side, sat on her haunches.

    "What time is it, about?" asked the Doctor. 

    "About a hand past sunrise, sir," replied the girl.

    "Mmh. How is Karen, do we know?"

    "Juanita and Marleena decided to go ahead and break her waters, because the contractions haven't stopped."

    "Is she still strong?"

    "So far so good, sir, and she's about three fingers open now, sir."

    "I had hoped it was not labor. Too soon. We don't have much to offer a preemie."

    "No, sir."

    The door opened. Emilio stood in the elevator with two pale youths – Elberd and the Perkins boy. Elsa remembered vividly Karen's sewing up of Elberd's right cheek in the New Moon War; and here he was with a taped-up wound in his left cheek. It would need attending to; she could see that. "May we join you?" she asked.

    Emilio made room. "Yes, please. We are all going to the same place."

    As Emilio pushed the button for the third level, Elsa turned to Elberd. "I bet you were in the thick of it this time."

    "Yes, ma'am. Or, yes, we have been, but I got this one stupidly too."

    "War is stupid, young man."

    "Yes, ma'am, but, I mean – I was on guard and somebody got behind me in the dark to cut my throat – and I never heard 'em – and I was licking my rifle barrel and the knife slipped on it – and that's how I got cut up here." This outpouring ended in a small sob.

    "The fact that you got out of that alive speaks for itself."

    "Um, yes'm."

    Something in the young man's expression made the back of Elsa's neck grow cold. "Where's Ellen?" she asked, her throat closing behind the words.

    Both of the young men burst into tears.

:::

Karen felt she knew what it must be to be at the bottom of a well. Voices, when they came, seemed far above her, and echoed. What was that again?

    "Too much effort in your face. Your face cannot push, you know." That would be Juanita. A hand patted her ribs, below her breasts. "Push here. Push like you are on the potty bucket, but hard."

    Dry mouth. "Trying."

    "Trying is nothing. A child is the whole world. Rest a bit. Breathe. Breathe again. Breathe again. See, they're coming closer together. One more breath. Let a bit out. Now, squeeze. Relax the face, relax the arm. Do it with everything below!

    "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmh!"

    "You are a funny girl. Rest a bit."

    "Not ... funny."

    "Okay, not funny. But strong, strong! So here you are again. Muscle, you are one big muscle. Move the world. Relax the arms. Pu-u-u-u-ush!"

     "Mmmmmmmmmmh!" Gasping for breath. "Gonna tear?"

     "What is that? No big thing, we sew you up. You will just push. Once more, I think; rest. Breathe. Breathe again. Breathe again. Strong!"

     Why did she keep saying, "strong?" Surely a weaker person never lived. These storms, she was completely in their power. No way out. No way out. "I think I bit my tongue."
 
    "See, too much face," Juanita chided. "You wrinkle it up and turn red, like a dried tomato. Here is a damp cloth. Sip a little, then bite down. Here you go. Marleena has your hand. I am seeing a lovely head. Breathe. Let out a little bit. You will push now with everything, from the ribs down. You are an upside down bottle. Pour yourself out to the earth."

    "To Jeeah ... out ... to Jeeah."

    "Yes... " said Marleena. "... give yourself."

    Karen pushed until the stars came out behind her eyes.

(To be continued)