"Dja' call, doc?"
One of the apprentices was always nearby – something they'd decided
among themselves apparently. Annoying.
"What, did I say
that out loud?"
A bronzed – no, very black face with
a high, thin nose – Deela's, a lad with very good hands at the
forge, looked round the door frame. "Yes, afraid so. Troubles?"
"Troubles! Yeah, troubles. See if y'can take away this
frickin' mirror. Every time I wake up, I look a little bit more like
Jabba the Hutt."
"Who-bah-the who?"
"Never mind. Something my grandmother was crazy about. Showed it
to me when I was about yay high." Dr. Mary extended a hand, palm
down, knee level above the floor.
"If you say so."
Deela, bemused, came in and took down the mirror. He stood with it
for a moment.
"Seriously, away!" Mary shooed him
with both hands. "I hope never to see that scraggly old hag
again."
"'K, will do," he grinned.
At the door, Deela almost collided with Selk, the electrotech, who
seemed in a hurry.
"S'cuse me." Selk backed away,
and after Deela departed, came in again. "Doc Mary?"
"Mmh?"
"Been checking the radio, three
times a day, like you said –"
"Hope you haven't
been converted by any of that crap they play?" She wheeled
around and beamed at him. Selk, a fidgety, hunched and nearsighted
lad, knew more about wires than anyone at the Creek besides herself
and Carey Murchison, partly because he could see wires up close;
certainly he was no good for sheep-tending, the main activity at
Rogers' Common, or archery. Somewhere, he had found prescription
glasses. They helped – barely.
"Uh, no. Well, some
of it I like, but, anyway, got something new."
"On
KKUV?"
"Mm-hmm. Still nothing else out there.
Right at noon, there was two-three minutes of ... dunno, new
material. I got th'recorder, she heard maybe the last two-three
sentences."
"Ro-eena?"
"Yeah,
doc. Call her in?"
"What ya got her skulking out
in th' hall for? Hey, Ro-eena! C'mon in, for cryin' out loud."
Ro-eena, the recorder, entered, a bit tentatively. Despite their
bravado, some of Mary's crew found her a little intimidating; Ro-eena
was one of these.
"Whatcha got?" asked Mary,
elbows out, with her fists on her knees.
Ro-eena closed her
eyes, as if she were listening to the afternoon breezes, then
recited. "'... if any of the following are hearing this, please
consider re-careering with Magee, 26233, and his New Rogue Valley
Volunteers. We have what you're looking for; lots of action, lots of
opportunity. Branson, 34028. Lockerby, 28212. Mullins, 31817. Wolf,
334 ....' and there it ends."
I'm sorry, Doctor,"
Selk put in, "but the station fades in and out every eight
minutes or so."
"Not enough signal, maybe.
Ro-eena, hang out with me a bit; I'll have you repeat that and I'll
wr – no, tell ya what, run down to th' Mess Hall and see if you can
find th' Captain; our compliments, and repeat that to him as you did
to me. Pronto!"
"Yes, Dr. Mary." Ro-eena
turned on her heel and fairly ran though the doorway.
"Selk!"
"Right here, Doc."
"Let's see; you're on a car radio, right?"
"Yes,
it's from a nineteen-fifties Chevy pickup. Pre-modern entirely. We're
running it from an arvee battery; doesn't really hold charge, but the
marine generator, which we have sitting in the rapids across the
road, turns just enough to trickle it up to where it will run the
radio those three times a day."
"And you've been
randomizing. Noon. Hmm." Mary drummed the fingers of both hands
on her knees.
"You have that look," Ma'am."
Selk knew the look; change in the wind.
"Yeah, well.
Carey M.'s got better juice than we do; I know it, though he's cagey
about it. That solar panel is not as well hidden as he thinks.
Furthermore, I think he's using it to talk to the hills; from what I
hear and can see for myself, there's been some rapid response that
bears no other explanation."
"And?"
"And so, I think we should send you right behind Ro-eena
with that radio and a good long loop-wire antenna. See if he'll agree
to let you take it up to Avery's little hideaway. Be a hell of a
better signal acquisition there. Shoulda done this long ago."
"Woo, sounds like fun." He turned to go.
"Wait,
wait, wait, wait, wait. About th' randomizing. Y'all get that thing
going up there, see if they'll put a listener on all the time. And
especially noon ... midnight ... ahhh, six in th' morning, six in th'
evening. 'N then straight back here. Got an idea for that little
generator."
"Yes, ma'am."
"None
of that ma'am crap. I ain't one 'a them committee-fied
"elders." Get crackin'."
"Yes,
ma'am."
He departed, grinning.
Oog,
thought Mary to herself. What was that old song? Oh, Lord, won't
ya buy me, a nice lower back ...
:::
Mrs. Ames was getting
tired; no, dog tired. Not that she'd seen a dog in more years than
she cared to think about. Milking eight cows was work, and now she
and Juanita and the two boys were treading water, so to speak, to
keep the place going. One of the boys was on watch at all times, four
hours on, four off, so, really, it was just the young woman and the
old woman, moving the cows, milking, feeding. Thank goodness there
was a pump in the barn, for the stock watering and the washing up,
but it was hard on the back, even so.
It's only been a
day, and we're way behind already.
If the other farms
missed their "soldiers" like this one, there would be a lot
of crops not got in before the rains. How long could this go on?
As much as ever she missed Charles and her own children. They'd
had the bad luck to be an interracial couple when the last banks
closed and the trucks stopped running. Charles was originally from
"the projects" in Chicago, and the kids both looked like
him. That bastard Magee, with his Kluxers, had got them. She was the
only one Charles had managed to hide in time; if only those
sonsabitches could have found and killed her, and not them! Then she
would not be facing emptiness, day in and day out, with a shadow on
her heart.
These young folks, now; it was a help to have
them to look after, but, really, it was getting to be the other way
round. She napped every day between the morning and evening milkings.
And it seemed like it was harder to get up each time. The elders had
decreed, backed by the GM, that most of the cows, as well as the
bullocks, should be spread around the valley soon – a good thing, too;
her efforts as the cattle breeder had paid off. There should be four
new yoke of oxen trained by next year. She looked forward to having
only Florence, with the occasional calf, to look after.
Raoul appeared from around the corner of the barn, looking for her.
The twins helped where they could, between times in the crow's nest;
a nice family.
Her family now.
"Mrs. Ames,
there are a whole lot of people coming up the road."
"Well, why aren't you beatin' th' bell and fortin' up?" she
asked, alarmed. She put her hand over her heart; it was beating
double quick, both from the terror and from standing up too quickly.
"Oh, ma'am, they're ours! I saw Dad and Miss Karen, and Mr.
Allyn from Wilson's, out front, and Mom is out to the road to greet
them."
"What, back so soon? Well, see if there's
water on th' fire, hon, and I'll come down soon's I get the critters
settled."
Mrs. Ames stumped round past the house and
found the youngsters already clustered by the gate. Juanita was
chatting excitedly with Emilio; Raoul and David hung from his arms on
either side. Karen was talking with Allyn; it was obvious to Mrs.
Ames, and everyone, except for Karen, what was going on there. Nice
boy, but cruising for a fall, if she was any judge of hearts. Vernie
came up the flagstone walk.
"Ma'am."
"Hi,
Vernie, what's news?"
"Well, as you may have
heard, Mo-reen Murchison was killed yesterday, direct assault. No
parley, just went straight for her. And then we lost six or seven
people in a fight on Ball Butte last night. 'N some hurt, 'bout the
same number. Might lose one more; Doc said peritonitis is the main
trouble with these knife fights. Medicines being not what they used
to be."
"Jeeah's help, Vernie; at that rate we'll
all be dead in a week!"
"Well, there's only thirty
of them – no, twenty-five or so. They didn't take the Butte. Most
of us here are heading up to the saddle to see if they're coming
round to here. Got food?"
"Plenty for now, anyway.
Oh! You mean for you. You all come on up and get whatever you need!"
Karen stepped up, taking in the surroundings as always. She looked
a sight with her bow, quiver, knife and steady, all-seeing eyes.
Where had she been, that all this seemed so – normal – to her?
"Hello, Mrs. Ames."
"Hi, honey, and what
do you think of Allyn?"
"The apple guy? Likes to
talk, I think."
"'The apple guy,' she says. Are
you fixing to break a heart?"
"Ma'am?"
"Oh, never mind. Come in and let's see if there's baked
potatoes left over. And some apples."
:::
Billee put down the heavy binoculars and stretched. They were an old model, built a century ago. Intended for use with a tripod, they'd lost that long ago, and she used now a forked stick for support. Still, it was wearing. Her pulse affected the thing's usefulness, and she'd learned to deep breathe, then let out her breath slowly, watching through the eyepieces only a few seconds or so at a time.
To the left, men were lugging something to the smokehouse. It looked like – oh, never mind that. These people were dis-gus-ting. Killers and worse. People, that was one thing, but she would not watch them drag that poor dog around. Directly in front, there was activity on the porch. To the right, a couple of cooking fires. It really looked like they might stay the night.
She held her right hand out, crooked her fingers, and counted from the sun to the horizon. Three hands, or as the old people inexplicable put it, "ours." Must stay till dark this time, so as not to be seen. Meanwhile she depended on this rockpile covered with poison oak, dressed in its lovely fall colors. Not likely to be seen here, in the thick stuff.
Habitually, she looked around for late-season rattlesnakes. It was cool now, with one more moon before winter, and last night's rain had put a damper on things reptilian, but better safe than sorry. The little diamondbacks, more numerous every year, were a pretty tame lot, but it would be rude to step on one, and they had little tolerance for rudeness.
Billee found the bald-faced hornets much more of a concern, but the nearest nest that she knew of was forty meters west. They too were calming a bit with the change in the weather. Not much to worry about out here, except for the creeps down below. She sat up slowly, lifted her scope and stick, eased the scope into position and swept the Lawson place again. Four – no, five men going down to the
river. Wait. What's that sound?
She listened again.
Nothing.
Still, best be ready. She capped the binocs, both
ends of each tube, and stuffed them in their case. Propped in their
crack in the basalt, they might stay dry. She scattered the handful
of leaves over the crack that she kept handy for the purpose. Moving
slowly, slowly, she strung her bow and picked up her ready arrow.
Listened.
Could be anything. Let it be a deer. Let it
be a deer.
A smattering of small raindrops pattered the
rocks. A pebble rolled, somewhere off to the left. Then silence.
Turning her head imperceptibly that way, Billee watched that area,
maybe sixty meters off, with her peripheral vision, attuned to
movement.
Nothing.
Maybe she imagined it?
No! There it was! A man, focused on her hiding place. Stone-still,
one of the creeps. Shit, shit, shit, made!
Could he
see her? She didn't think so – he was stalking her position. She'd
been seen, somehow, from the Lawson's. They were being smug, and had
sent a collector.
Billee could wait until he approached, and
shoot – or do a rabbit-run, and hope not to be shot with a weapon,
if he had one on him. Waiting presented the problem that there might
be more than one of them. Running presented the same problem, but if
there was only one, this would be the option to take.
Have
to chance it.
Taking another deep breath, this time in an
effort to get the numbing panic out of her legs and arms, she put
down the bow, dropped her fanny pack, picked up the water bottle from
it, took a short drink, rinsed her mouth and spat. Then she grabbed a
baseball-sized stone and bolted.
She reached the hornet's
nest, hanging from a poison oak bush in a cleft in the rocks. After
she'd passed it, she turned and pelted the nest from seven meters
away. There was a satisfying thump and the nest swayed. Turning on
her heel, she darted up the mountain just as the man reached the
cleft.
His yelling was music to her young ears. Hah!
Creeps.