Karen
opened her eyes. As usual she was disoriented, plus her eyelashes
seemed gunky. Shadows had moved a bit, and were much fainter: more
clouds moving in. Midday already?
She found she was wrapped
in her blanket, which was damp beneath her but a help. Someone was
back-to-back with her in another blanket. Sitting up, she found that
it was Errol, out cold.
Crawling out of the blanket, stiff
and chilled, Karen found the roll-bag had been placed by her head.
She sipped some water from her bottle, an old gray Nalgene, and
gnawed some equally tasteless bean cake. No one else around? No,
there were bodies stretched out near the trail, in two rows beneath
the autumn-bright red foliage of some viney maples. Something about
those on the left suggested they were alive.
Standing up,
Karen scanned the surrounding woods. What had wakened her was a
muffled chopping sound; a work crew was uphill, cutting up wild hazel
poles and fashioning stretchers with blankets that had belonged to
the dead. She moved to the row of wounded and found Tomma and Allyn
among them.
"Hiya," said Tomma. He didn't raise
his head.
"How are you?"
"Starting
to feel like shit."
"Think they muck on their
bolts or something?"
"Wouldn't put it past them;
but this was a bullet. Errol poured in some alky, both holes; I'll
live. I'm considered walking wounded, Emilio says." He smiled
wanly.
"Want some water?"
"Sure
do."
She handed him her bottle for a long swig.
From
Tomma, she moved to Allyn. His presence had faded, she realized with
a shock. Just from arm wounds! And, she reminded herself, from being
carried round on a mountain with bones shredding muscle. At home she
had studied physiology, advanced first aid, and diagnostic triage.
But Father had directed her studies toward self-care, and it had been
mostly theoretical. Faced with so much destruction, she felt ignorant
and helpless. The others seemed even more at sea than she.
She looked at his long face, with the trim black beard. This gentle
man, whose hands held valuable knowledge of grafting and pruning,
should not have been mangled so – if he lived, he might well be a
double amputee, not something she'd seen a lot of. He might not want
to live. She was not sure she would, in like case.
She pulled his blanket up to his chin. He'd 'liked' her, in that way
that was supposed to mean eventual marriage among these people. She'd
not known how to respond to him. Now, she would very likely not know
where this particular story would have gone.
Allyn's eyes
opened. He turned his head slowly, and, recognizing her, cracked a
crooked smile.
"Ah, the wild Amazon."
"Shh. Rest."
"Pooh. They get me out of here,
I'll end up even unhappier than I am now. Really, though, I'm for the
heaps at Hall Common, yes?"
He was sweating profusely
in the chill air. She found a bit of cloth among his few bedroll
things and patted down his forehead. "I think you should think
about apples, plums, pears, apricots, cherries, and filberts, and
walnuts – and, umm, quinces. They'll need you."
"Hmm.
You're politic, and I thank you for that. Water?"
"Right here." She tipped his head up a little and dribbled
in a mouthful.
Wilson Wilson stopped by. "'K, we got
enough poles for all the stretcher cases, and a party is making up to
gather up your friends here and and go hedge-hopping. You're Karen,
Ames, right?"
She nodded.
"Emilio says
you should stick with my group and keep an eye on Wilson Farm. I grew
up there; so you and I know the place better than anyone that's on
their feet here. S'good?"
"Yes. Oh – there's
this freshened cow at Ames' –"
"Yes, everybody
hears her. Emilio says if they don't run into bandits there,
he'll see she's helped or put out of her misery. S'maybe gone on too
long to do anything for, by now."
And so the
disaster spreads. We're our own little Freeway Corridor here. Is it
like this everywhere? She looked down at Allyn. His eyes had gone
out of focus again, but he'd been listening.
"Go back
t'work, girl," he whispered. "Sic'm."
:::
"Wolf,
that cow has quit hollerin' all of a sudden. Think somebody's maybe
up there?" the scout asked.
"Oh, I don't doubt it.
No, don't investigate. We mostly oughta stick together for awhile.
Just go back 'n keep an eye on th' road."
"Wolf."
"Gilroy."
Wolf sat in the easy chair and leaned
back. He closed his eyes, briefly – then began listening to, and
scanning, his surroundings again, with his AK on his knees. He'd
assumed someone would have made contact by now: this place was
valuable. The snivelly female they'd captured wasn't much help,
though. His hope that they'd try to ransom or rescue her, or for that
matter this apple farm, was fading. A person of relatively little
importance, a dishwasher sort from a farm called 'Lazar.' Hmm. Jews
alive? Not that he cared one way or the other, himself; but some, if
they were still alive, would give a lot for the information.
And he'd learned this place was 'Wilson.' Not much information in
that! Kind of hierarchical households, but a decentralized community.
Apt to do things piecemeal, which explained why they'd met such a
small force on the hill, ditto the reinforcements. Also, she didn't
seem to know a thing about the 'Dept. of Defense' business, up on the
hilltop. Could never have faked that blank look. Such leadership as
existed here was proving both cagey and shadowy. Maybe they were
ex-military? But so much
"left-hand-not-knowing-what-the-right-hand-does" seemed
amateur in the extreme.
Why, some of these people might
not even know we're here! Might have to force the issue.
"Hey! Coug!"
"Wolf?" Cougar's annoyingly
appealing face popped round the door jamb.
"Way too
quiet 'round here."
"It is that, Wolf."
"Seen anythin' outside we could set fire to?"
"Well, Wolf, we need all the little huts on the perimeter –"
"I'm the one said that; what don't we need?"
"Well, there's a little building, no walls, full of hay at
one end. Couple of big animals were in there; we're having them for
supper."
"Oh, yeah. Well, have 'em light that off.
'N then take th' girl up inta th' lookout 'n make her scream a little
bit. No harm tryin'. I jus' wanna ring somebody up to talk to, s'all.
That don't work, we'll recon in force 'n set fire to th' places we
c'n see from here."
"Wolf." Ring somebody up? What's that?
"Coug."
:::
"Ma'am,
brought you some tea."
Ellen awoke, woozy, her head
pounding. "Unh, wouldn't mind so much if this was a hangover.
Help me up, dear. I'm stiff as a board."
Ro-eena
complied, then offered a mug.
Ellen sniffed. Her eyes
widened. "Oh. ... Oh! Real tea?"
"Mmm-hmm,
the Beemans found a bush here; a Russian variety of sinensis.
Grows this far north, ma'am. And Mr. Allyn, I think I've heard, has
begun propagating it at Wilsons'."
Ellen sipped. "With
honey. Also hard to come by these days. And ... ?" She
wrinkled her nose.
"We ground up some ginger root."
"Well ... well, I guess I need it. So, anything new and
exciting going on?" She looked around her; nothing seemed out of
place. A country farm hedge and gate; two young people with bows
watching the road. Leaves falling peaceably, by ones and twos, from
fruit trees.
"The lookout says there's another party
approaching from the west; that they're definitely ours; that
somebody has quieted the cow that was screaming, up at Ames. And he
thinks there's someone at Wilson's but doesn't know who."
"I'm guessing those are our guests. Might be them at Ames',
too. Well, let's get me up and see if I can belt on this gosh-awfully
heavy revolver. Where's Deela with that whistle?"
"Shouldn't you eat first, ma'am?"
"That I can
do standing up. What have you got?"
"Oatmeal with
some herb oil and dried veggie leaves, ma'am."
Ellen's
eyebrows shot up. "No one laid a fire, did they?"
"No'm, it was sunny for awhile and we did some up in a solar
oven that works; somebody made one up with a ... umm ... Fresno? lens from an old TV. Also we've ground up quite a lot of grains and are soaking
them. With apples and pears, sliced. The oats are not very appealing,
ma'am, but we are a crowd here."
"Good job.
And now I think I hear horses."
Through the remaining
leaves of the apple and plum trees along the road, they could see
another small army approaching with bows, cross-bows, bush-hooks, and
even a pitchfork. At its head rode Dr. and Mrs. Chaney. Deela
appeared at Ellen's elbow, hung the whistle cord around Ellen's neck,
and offered her a steaming bowl and a spoon. She set down her tea on
the porch table and ate, as the small cavalcade approached the
driveway. One of the sentries looked up the walk to her, worried.
"Do we have a password, ma'am?"
"Not
likely," called out Tom Chaney. "We're here on our own
recognizance. May we advance and be recognized?" he
grinned.
"Comedian. Come on in and let's sort ourselves
out," replied Ellen, with her mouth full. "Who all you
got?"
"Some Maggies, Delsmans, Tomlinsons, and
Hall. Ten, besides ourselves."
Ellen did the math. "I
make that thirty-two in all. We should make a
roster; if there were a melee right now, we wouldn't be able to know
who's gone missing."
"I'll start on that, if you
like." Carl Perkins, from Tomlinson's, stepped forward with his
bow.
"Do you read and write?" asked Tom.
"Mm-hmm, wouldn't if I'd grown up here, now would I?"
"Touché." They smiled at each other; Tom fished out an
old Tatum clipboard from his medical saddlebag and handed it to
Carl.
Elsa dismounted, gave her reins to Ro-eena, who'd run
down to take them, and came up the steps. She looked down at
Ellen."You ... you runaway, you." But she seemed to mean it
half as a compliment.
Good thing, too. There have been
times I have not liked this do-gooder, thought Ellen.
"Want some tea?"
"Got something besides
peppermint?"
Ellen picked up the mug from the table and
waved it under Elsa's nose. Mrs. Chaney's eyes widened. "Tea!
Oh, of course. Beemans' tea!"
"Coming right up,"
said Deela, as he went by.
Tom joined them. "Ellen,
we're straight here from Carey, who's in reasonably good shape, and
says Avery's doing well, too. He wants us to look you over and change
that wound dressing."
"Why wouldn't Avery be doing
well?" asked Ellen, absent-mindedly raising her jerkin to reveal
a sour-looking bandage, right above the holstered Navy, with a red
spot near one edge. Elsa went to work, shaking her head.
"His crew have gone to help the young people that went up to
the saddle yesterday," said Tom, "and he's also directing
an assault on the bandits' lines of communication. See that smoke
beyond the saddle?"
"Oh. Lawsons'."
The lookout said something to the young man at the foot of the crow's
nest, who called up to the house.
"Ma'am, there's a
fire over at Wilsons'." All eyes looked lower. More smoke –
much more smoke – dark gray shot through with black, somber and
sullen, began belling into the sky. It was in the same direction as
the saddle, but much closer. The elders remembered that cloud shape.
"What building is it? Can you tell?" Ellen called out.
"No. It's not the house, though."
She turned to
Tom, with Elsa following her around in a half-circle, muttering. "A
provocation. It's their way of saying hello."
"Maybe
we could parley? Find out what they want?" Elsa asked,
who stood back with her arms round herself.
Ellen's eyes
flashed. "What they want, I think they made very clear
out at the Eagle's Nest. And they haven't changed their note since."
"I'm sorry, Ellen. But –"
"Elsa?"
Tom put his arm round her. "Maybe someday, we'll have some
sanity around us again. Meanwhile, those men down there have eaten
the Lawsons."
"Do we know that?"
"Yes, dear ... we do."
The lookout talked to
the caller, who cupped his hands around his mouth. "There's
another horse coming."
"That would be the runner
from Murch," noted Ellen. "Unless there's some other horse
we don't know about."
The caller was listening to the
lookout. He turned and cupped his hands again. "And there's
someone coming over from Jones Farm."
"How many?"
asked Tom.
The caller relayed and waited, then passed on the
response. "One. Has hair, wearing a jerkin."
"One
of ours," remarked Tom to Elsa and Ellen. "Looks like
everything is happening at once."
:::
Karen got up to watch the stamping shed go up in flames. Steam from the
loosely-piled haystack began to whiten the smoke, which ran along the
ground to the east, masking the east orchard, the Creek, Ames Farm,
and the blue hills beyond. From across the fields, she could hear,
faintly, a woman's screams, repeated at intervals.
Without
taking her eyes away from the ground ahead, she spoke to Wilson,
hidden among the maples to her right. "We could use that smoke,
get right in among them unseen."
"And attempt a
rescue? That's what they want. No, Karen, Marcee's as good as
dead to us now. No sense joining her."
"I
understood that, I think. But if we went part way, in the dead
ground, then we could be in a useful position to exploit
opportunities."
"Mmh. That's good thinking; but
we're in small numbers here. If pressed from the west, they may come
out of that smoke this way, and from here is our best shot at them –
concentrated fire from concealment."
"Sir, it's a
war of attrition, They can afford casualties less than we can. I
would like to go see if I can cause some confusion. They wouldn't
expect just one."
Wilson moved closer, and peered at
Karen from among the ferns and brambles.
"I appreciate
your enthusiasm, but –what's in it for you? ... if I may ask."
She glanced over, then straight ahead, . "This valley is the
– it's everyone's chance, around here, to start over. But not if it
gets pushed over the edge. You're losing people, hay, grain, animals,
structures, and capabilities, with a winter coming in. Whatever Allyn
knows, whatever Mo-reen knew, all of the dead or dying – it's
vanishing."
"True, but, again, we'll need
firepower right here."
"You saw what happened at
the saddle, and on the trail behind us. I think the same happened at
Ball Butte. You are all soldiers, but these bandits aren't bandits –
they're some kind of commando. They will hit one place in the
line, together, and most of them will escape."
"So,
we fight them, we get most of them, but if any get through, they may
bring others back in larger numbers?"
"Yes.
In order for the Creek to survive you must kill them to the last man.
If, say fourteen of them hit you here instead of twenty, you have a
better chance of doing this."
"Again. What's in it
for you? You know you won't live."
Karen resumed
watching the smoke and the fields, but also watched Wilson
peripherally.
"I grew up underground – you know the
story?" He nodded. "My father's room was the only approach
to mine. Anyone who might try to take me had to go through him. It
cost him his life – but it worked. I was worth that.
The Creek is worth that."
"She's right."
They turned. Huskey, from Bledsoe Farm, was standing up the hill from
them. He'd approached almost soundlessly through the undergrowth, and
overheard the tail end of their exchange. "Sorry we don't have a
current password; only one I've got is 'smart' with the reply
'aleck.'"
Wilson was overjoyed. "Huskey! How many
of you are there?"
"Oh, we're four; been beating
up country in your direction and that posse out there –" he
pointed at Wilson Farm with a lever-action carbine – "is down
by two."
"That's more than a little encouraging."
Wilson returned his attention to Karen. "Let's talk about your
idea. Details?"
(To be continued)