Tom
Chaney, an elder of Starvation Creek, had not much liked the name his
family had given him, back before the Undoing. Other children had
taunted him, saying it was the name of a cowardly killer in a new
movie by the Coen brothers. But he reckoned that, in a way, the name
had done him good.
He'd worked to remake the name's meaning,
by seeking out ways to make himself known both for courage and for
giving, not taking away, life. Seeking credentials for a medical
education, he'd become an Army medic. His timing was poor, for it led
him to take part in a war of which he did not approve, patching the
bodies of younger men, and women, some of whom had crossed the Rio
Grande to carry out a policy of interdiction by incursion; the
others, if they were conscious, spoke Spanish.
The battles
had not been battles so much as killing fields – the last
gratuitous demonstrations of the United States' industrial wizardry.
Dish-equipped MRAPs had flooded Tijuana with amped-up microwaves
as FPV drones roamed overhead.
Chaney's job
was triage, determining who was too damaged to save and whom to send
north on mercy flights. He had become aware that, though he tagged
friend and foe alike, those who hauled away the gurneys sneered when
they were given Mexicans.
Where were they taking them? He'd suddenly wondered. Tom never got a chance to find out. His field
hospital's position had suddenly been taken under sustained small
arms fire, well behind the lines in El Paso, and things had gotten
complex. Somehow or other he'd been handed a Bronze Star, just in
time for such medals to begin losing their meaning, even to those who
might want one.
He hadn't kept the Bronze Star. But he
remembered the childish quest that had led him into that disaster.
Perhaps he had at least cleared his name.
Though he'd never
had time to qualify as more than a Certified Nurse Practitioner, he
was now, by default, the doctor of Starvation Creek. Also counselor,
dentist and veterinarian. Some one hundred and eighty children,
women, men, and a thousand or more animals, among them cattle,
horses, sheep, chickens, and one creek full of migratory fish relied
on him for, if not direct care, cheap advice and a kind word. It kept
him in eggs.
At his age, eggs were a comfort. Bent,
white-haired, and craggy, with the aches and pains of advanced age,
he was all of fifty. He hadn't met many new fifty-year olds
lately.
Speak of the devil! One of those other ancients was
walking into the farmhouse-cum-clinic even as Tom thought this.
"Hello, Tom."
"Carey." Carey
Murchison, another Elder, held responsibilities relating to the
defense of Starvation Creek. He'd be here on business.
Murchison, completely bald, craggier than Chaney and wider of body
than most nowadays, had been a Marine sergeant and served two tours
in Kazakhstan.
Having been exposed to considerable quantities of "depleted"
uranium and clouds of dust bearing isotopes, he was also in the early
stages of bone cancer, and it would be fatal – information yet
known only to the two of them. Tom sometimes did not agree with the
old warrior's views but he admired him, and they maintained a wary
but genuine friendship. The Creekers
called him Captain Murchison. He had scowled the first few times he'd
heard it, but the "rank" stuck.
They stood by the
large window – made from an old sliding glass door – in the wall
between the infirmary and a small room that contained two beds, a
table and a couple of dining room chairs. In one of the beds lay a
sleeping woman, not yet twenty by her looks. In the chair sat Mrs.
Ames, reading a tattered Louis L'Amour novel.
"Still in
quarantine?"
"Yes, all routine. I think it was
mostly hypothermia, hunger and thirst, though she also had quite a
few parasites. Much of her diet appears to have been small game –
eaten raw. Mrs. Ames is her volunteer, and they get along well. Our
tests, such as we've been able to do, indicate she's not a danger. If
anything, we
shouldn't
breathe on her;
she's been that isolated. Well
isolated; no cleft palate, no other deformations, no pox marks. They
should be able to leave quarantine soon."
Murchison's
head tilted back slightly, and the corners of his mouth held a hint
of frown. "As in she doesn't have smallpox, tuberculosis,
bubonic or pneumonic plague, or anthrax, or measles, or polio. Danger
comes in other forms, Doctor."
"I understand you.
It's what anyone has to consider. But I remind you, "he smiled,
"that it has been your policy to recruit from among strangers,
and it is why we have enough labor here to carry out your schemes."
"True. And we've been damned lucky. It's rough out there."
The old Marine moved to the table. "I've been Downstream, so I'm
just catching up here. May I look through these items?" He
awaited, and received, an affirmative reply.
The question
was not entirely perfunctory. It was courtesy to ask; Karen's
possessions were her own, in the eyes of all the community. They were
in the doctor's hands only because there had been the precautions of
cleanliness – along with need-to-know.
The first thing
that came to Captain Murchison's hand was one of the arrows.
"Carbon Express dual fixed blade broadhead. Look at the
fletching."
"Kept clean. I'm told for two years."
"In the field, no less. This thing is thirty years old if
it's a day, and it would have cost a fortune then." He laid it
down and took up another. "Now, this is just a common field
point, much cheaper manufacture, might have come with the bow."
He nodded toward the corner where the unstrung bow, an inexpensive
light green fiberglass model, stood. "Eclectic. Assembled during
or after the Undoing?"
"She says her father, a Mr.
Rutledge, equipped her, as opportunity brought things to his hand, a
decade ago."
"Nice work. I wish he'd come with
her."
"He's almost certainly no longer living."
Captain Murchison's glance in reply carried meaning for them both.
Rutledge, assuming her story were true, had had a relatively merciful
and quick ending. Murchison's impending doom seemed cruel by
comparison. Such, they both thought, is life.
He picked up a
small roll of duct tape. "Repair kit and medical kit."
"Yes."
The Captain swept his hand to indicate
the entire table's contents. "All the way across the Cascades,
alone. On peaches in syrup, Spaghetti-O's, Alpo, trout, ground
squirrels, berries and bugs, I'm told. Then holds off our scouts in a
driving rain for three days running, wearing nothing but these – "
he indicated a tiny, neatly folded pile of clean laundry – "a
trash-bag poncho, and a square of Mylar. Could any of us
do it?"
"No. We farmers may be getting soft, do
you think?" Tom laughed.
"And then there's this."
The old sergeant of Marines picked up the pocket holster and slipped
out the strikingly small semi-automatic pistol that lay within. He
pressed the magazine release button, glanced at the empty magazine,
racked the slide, and looked into the empty
chamber. He held up the pistol beneath the skylight for a better
look.
"'Kel-Tec CNC Inc P3AT Cal .380 Auto Cocoa FL
Made in USA,'" he read aloud. "This weapon has been fired
and cleaned. Who unloaded it?"
"Tomma."
"And these were in it?" Seven rounds lay in a small dish
on the table. "Carries with one in the chamber."
"Mm-hmm."
"Damn." Murchison held up one
to the light. "Hornadys. Apparently the primers are still good."
He aimed the tiny pistol toward the wall, away from Tom. "These
nasty little things are bare bones, no sights to speak of, no safety.
Very high recoil, hard to practice with. Yet I have a feeling she
knows it the way she knows her bow. How come nobody got hurt up
there?" He gestured toward Starvation Ridge, which filled the
south window.
"The kids say she never showed it. Kept
to her bow. They stayed well away and under cover, talked to her, but
she couldn't be persuaded to come down. The rain and exposure was
what wore her out, along with simple starvation."
"On
Starvation Ridge, no less." Murchison almost smiled. "Seriously,
though – disciplined. But nobody can fight Momma Nature forever.
And this must be her reserve ammunition." Murchison picked up a
translucent polyethylene thirty-five millimeter film can that showed
a hint of metal within. He popped off the cap, and found cotton
wadding stuffed inside, apparently to keep the cartridges from
rattling. He shook out the four remaining rounds and found a small
packet of silica gel.
He whistled. Then laughed. "Got
us Creekers beat for ideas, and, you know, I thought we were pretty
good." Then, lowering his voice, "So, you think she's told
her whole story? And all on the level?"
"Well, no,
not the whole story. There's a deep reserve, a lot of emotional
blockage, wariness. She's very reticent, even with Mrs. Ames. But she
seems truthful in what she chooses to tell. If she has fired in
anger, it would seem to have occurred at one of her winter holdouts
or on the Eastside. Apparently it's as bad over there as it is
Downstream." Tom trudged over to the window and looked at the
sleeping girl, then turned back. "I don't
think she's paramilitary or a bandit. I can tell you Karen's been
shot twice herself and knifed once. And yet she has no STDs, has
never been pregnant, and Mrs. Ames thinks, though we've not invaded
her privacy to that extent, that she's a virgin."
Captain Murchison might, at this point, have said something
incredulous, but as he looked at Tom, he saw that the thin,
dark-eyed, freckle-faced girl, in a "hospital gown" sewn
from an old sheet, was standing at the window, right behind the
doctor, looking intently into Murchison's face, then at the little
pistol still in his hand, then into his face again.
Carey
knew that every moment mattered in reaching out to such a creature.
Mistakes could be costly to all concerned.
He pointed to the
pistol and smiled, picked up the magazine and inserted it gently, not
with a palm-smack that might shear off its thin plastic magazine
catch. He racked it once to show her there was nothing in the
chamber, then pointed to the ammunition and restored the pistol to
its holster. Then he pointed to her and again to her possessions and
gave her a thumbs-up salute.
She did not smile, but she understood
the pantomime. He respected her gear, therefore he respected her. He
felt quite sure that if he had failed to communicate this
successfully, she might have calmly gone for one of the chairs and
put it through the window. He would not venture to predict what would
have happened next.
Mrs. Ames had put down her book. and was
watching. Karen spoke to her without turning from the window, and she
replied. After a few more words with Dr. Tom, Carey Murchison waved
to her and walked casually to the house's front door.
Karen's eyes did not leave his broad back until he had left the
infirmary.
"Who
is that man?" Karen asked Mrs. Ames.
"He's the
Captain, dear; keeps some of th' young people busy with making sure
trouble don't come up here from th' Valley." Be candid,
the doctor had instructed her. But stay away from details,
especially about Carey's kind of stuff, for now.
"What's
'the Valley?' The Willamette?" Karen watched him out the door,
then relaxed her body and returned to sit on her bed, facing the
gray-haired, round-shouldered Mrs. Ames, who had set aside her book
and now picked up her knitting.
Needles, aluminum with
remnants of purple paint, clicked. A woolen child-sized sweater, in
two shades of yarn in a cable pattern, was in progress, something new
to Karen, who knew toddlers only from pictures.
"Yes,
there were cities down there – like yours." Neither spoke of
it, but the unbidden image rose, in both their minds, of the
thousands upon thousands of flat-tired cars and trucks, some burned,
others not, on the brushy and tree-choked Interstate.
"So
... trouble?"
"Mmh." Clickety-click. "Well,
we're farmers here. We're doin' pasture, oats, wheat – so
we're kind of – tempting, y'might say."
"I
haven't seen a lot of farming. Or maybe, any farming."
"No, I should think you wouldn't've. With nothin' goin'
anywhere, them as had both seed and sense 'ud be far between, hm?"
Karen thought of the riders – the hunters of people she'd
encountered. In the absence of refrigeration, trade and
transportation, Father had said, once all the canned goods and game
in an area were depleted, there could be cannibalism, slavery, or
both. "You're ... " she searched for her father's terms.
"You're a protected high-density resource."
"See,
there you go. Sound like y'went t' college but y'use it to talk
street smart."
Karen did not know what to say to that.
Streets had seemed to her to be something "smart" to stay
out of. She drew up her feet from the floor onto the bed, and rested
her chin on her knees.
"So, tell me about farming."
"Well – I'll tell you about me." She smiled broadly.
"That's my best subject."
Karen made no comment,
waited.
Such a somber young woman. "I'm th'
old cowgirl," Mrs. Ames went on, needles clacking. "Dexters
and Devons. We're breedin' for milk, meat and labor, and as much as
possible on pasture and hay." She let go the knitting needle
with her right hand and pointed to the wall, east. "The cows
have about one hundred twenty acres, fenced and cross fenced ...umm,
like this –" making a circle divided into four sections in the
air with her finger "– and gates. So, in a year, they go from
one to th' next, to fresh, clean grass, and th' chickens take over
th' one they've just left and clean up after th' cows. Then th' young
folks make hay on th' third one, and th' fourth one 'rests.'"
Karen clearly could not visualize much of that, but she remained
polite and focused, though Mrs. Ames could see she was peripherally
aware of Dr. Tom, consulting with a patient, through the isolation
window. I should just give up on this no-details thing. She's
hungry to know, for herself. Anyone could tell you that. Pasture
rotation, it's called. Doctor Tom read about it somewhere, so we're
tryin' it. Doesn't require tractors or fertilizer, y'see."
"You get help with 'haying.' Is that about gathering grass
for the cows to eat in winter?"
"Oh you're a good
student!" Clackety-click. "That's exactly right; it has to
dry so it won't mold or get hot in th' piles and burn. Th' grass them
cows eat in winter, in th' rain, doesn't feed 'em much, so we give
'em th' summer grass off th' hayfield in winter. That's me all
winter, forking hay out of th' barn loft down to th' ladies, 'n
miking morning 'n night, 'n keepin' th' hens 'n gatherin' eggs."
Mrs. Ames sighed. "It's funny, ain't it? Back when, I had
Charles 'n th' kids, an' I fed 'em and sent 'em off ev'ry day, 'n
then went across town to Denny's and waitressed my butt off – I had
my figure then, I was hot stuff. An' now I work harder'n I did
even then, and here I am round as a pumpkin."
Karen did
not ask the whereabouts of "Charles 'n th' kids." "No,
I think you look nice just the way you are."
"Thank
you, honey. Well, nobody's – obese – any more, but I'm
old; I'm all of forty-eight an' couldn't expect to be pretty
forever." Unexpectedly, tears welled up in her eyes and spilled
over. The knitting needles stopped.
Karen, who could never
remember having done such a thing, crossed over to the weeping Mrs.
Ames and put her arm round her.
:::
"Dr."
Tom Chaney, an Elder of Starvation Creek, sat across his "desk,"
a large oak dining table, from one of the most intense presences he'd
ever encountered. He hoped he could will the nonchalance he affected
into something like truth; she'd not have much tolerance for
insincerity. If any. That hopelessly wild black hair, short because
she'd kept it so with that sharp skinning knife, framed a calm face,
but seemed to express a wildness coiled within, like a cat's. The
morning sun poured golden through the glass between tied-back
chenille curtains and onto the floor in a corner.
"I
want to thank you for your co-operation in the last week. It was hard
for us all; but you seemed to understand about quarantine, which
certainly helped a lot."
Karen, dressed in the (washed)
clothes in which she'd first come among the Creekers, took in the
room without taking her eyes off Tom. Mrs. Ames' kindly face and
person, which sat relaxed in a chair beside Karen's, was a help.
Karen was not yet prepared to sit alone in a room with any man, even
one whose to whom professionalism apparently came first.
"It's all right; my father had told me expect as much most
anywhere. Or ... worse. Generally I have seen worse."
"Have you given thought to where you wish to go next? We can
escort you to our 'borders', if it is what you wish."
"I was trespassing, I know. But ... you see how it was."
Tom nodded to the window, beyond which lay the mountain, where
maples amid the dark firs had begun to shade, in the soft light, into
their first touches of autumn color.
"Well, consider
your circumstances at the time. After such a journey, with so few
provisions, any one of us would have done the same." He
watched as she considered the question that had been asked.
"I know that ... that as one who travels, that I shouldn't ..."
Here she looked as if she might stammer, which he did not expect from
one so self-possessed. What must it be like, to have grown up
underground? And then to have to apply rote learning to such
different surroundings? To attempt to speak courteously to courteous
strangers, with no background in the ways? Tom could wait for her to
find her words.
She began anew. "I am mine, and all of
you are yours. So I want to ask, to ... to ask. It
doesn't ..." She looked to Mrs. Ames, who seemed anxious to
encourage.
"Honey," Mrs. Ames patted the arm of
Karen's chair. "do you wanta get to know us enough to find out
if you'd like to stay awhile?"
Karen's body visibly
relaxed a little. "Well, that's close enough. I mean, to begin
with, you've all fed and cared for me for days; shouldn't I do some
work or something to make a return? And then I might know more about
what I could do next."
Tom leaned back in his
chair and laughed. "You'd like some chores, maybe study us a
bit. I think something could be arranged. We can share enough, about
us, that it would help inform your decisions, and yet not share so
much as to make you a danger to us should you choose to move on.
Something like that?"
Karen thought this over, then
nodded.
"Very good," said the doctor. "You
should know that, of course, there's been a council over your
presence among us, and that what you're requesting is much the same
as what we decided was our hope as well. Is that about right?"
he looked to Mrs. Ames.
"You got it," she said.
"Karen, if you'd like to put up with me for awhile, I'm bettin'
we'd find plenty for you to do, 'n some young people to meet, too."
"Put up with?" Idiomatic speech was still a difficulty
for Karen.
"Girl, it's like you were raised in a bottle!
Why don't we grab your stuff and we'll go over to my place 'n have
some eggs and broccoli?"
(To be continued)