Doc
Chaney was wearing out; too much to do! If we all pull through
this, I have got to get some apprentice medics. The big
house at Beemans' was filling up with hurt people; also with sick
people. Whatever it was Ellen Murchison had was apparently spreading
to some of her young crusaders.
"Tom?" Elsa was
standing by his elbow, with a small basket of dried opium poppy pods
in one hand, a steaming mug in the other.
"Mmh?"
"Okay if we steam some of these? We're out of the real thing,
it being fall, but maybe we can get some good out of them."
"Sure, sure. We're kind of working in the dark here in more
ways than one."
"Oh, about that, Vernie's crew is
off to Jones' again to get more lamps and candles and anything
remotely medicinal, as well as blankets and food. When that place is
cleaned out, we'll strip Ames'."
"Yes. Thanks,
dear. But Vernie's hurt, himself!"
"Not as badly
as most of the others, and it keeps him from freaking over Tomma,
who's getting fevered."
"That might come to
another amputation, but at least it wouldn't be a double. We need to
get more bread mold going ... who's next?"
"You
are. Sit down and take a tea break – here's a hot cup." Tom
complied.
Emilio hobbled in, on Ellen Murchison's crutch.
"Emilio, you should be resting."
"There is
too much coughing; who can sleep? I am as well right now, doctor, as
I can be. I am glad to see you sitting down for once."
"Whatever. I think there's going to be much more work, soon; the
coughing is beginning to sound like pertussis. You and I will
probably both get a dose of it before it runs its course."
Emilio, keeping one leg off the floor, stumped on the crutch into
the pool of light cast by a cluster of small alcohol lamps on the
table next to Tom; he'd obviously hoped to crash on the nearby couch,
but he could now see it was occupied by an unconscious young man
whose torso was wrapped in bandages. His blanket had fallen on the
floor. Dr. Tom got up, covered the sleeper again, and taking his cup,
moved to a three-legged stool which he drew from under the table. He
motioned Emilio to the easy chair which he'd just vacated. Emilio
showed momentary distaste for the consideration, but accepted,
plunking himself down with a sigh.
"Want to put your
foot up here?" Tom patted his knee.
"That will not
be necessary." Emilio arranged himself as comfortably as
possible, holding the crutch upright by the side of the chair.
He gazed at Dr. Chaney for a few moments. "It was you that
introduced me to Juanita. For which, if I have not thanked you one
thousand times and a time, I do so now."
"You had
a close call in the culvert."
"I had given up my
life for lost. As so many others have done, the last three
days. It amazes me that Mr. Vernie did what he did; I would have
thought he could not fit in so small a space."
"You
didn't come through unscathed," smiled Tom. "Have you seen
what's happened to your hair?"
"It is of no
concern. Do we have numbers?"
"Nothing final. We
know of about twenty-two dead of our own, from all the fights, and
from an accident with an ox-cart coming in from Maggie's. At
Chaneys', Hall, and here, we're tending sixteen wounded. That might
be a low count. Some sick, too, or both. There are some missing as
well, including, from Ames', your guest, Karen Rutledge."
Emilio gave Tom an aggrieved look. "She is not a guest,
Dr. Chaney, she is family. From the day she came to Ames' she
has given her all."
"Well, we're out looking.
She's very tough."
"And from the uninvited
guests?"
"We think we got them all; there were, by
Ellen Murchison's count, thirty-one to begin with. We've tallied
twenty-six bodies, including two men that had been left at Lawson's.
We'll be checking Wilsons' in the morning; it's all collapsed into
the basement and too hot to handle. If any got away, we'll start
tracking."
One of Emilio's young grenadiers appeared in
the doorway. "Sir, we gotcha Ames lady; they're bringing her up
the walkway!"
"Alive?" asked Tom. Emilio
began wrestling with the crutch in an effort to get up from the
chair.
She nodded vigorously. "Mm-hmm. One arm messed
up, and they said, umm, hyporetical?"
"Hypothermia.
Who even knows that term anymore?"
"Mr. Wilson
Wilson, Doctor. From Ridge. He found her, along with Mr. Huskey, and
a dead bandit."
"They're not bringing Huskey
here?"
Her face fell. "He, he didn't make it, sir;
so he's been brought just to the road for now."
Emilio
found his footing and hopped over to her.
"Thank you
for so much good news as you could bring; are you still on duty?"
"Oh, no, just thought you'd like to know. 'M'off to bed now,
and hope you're feeling better soon." She turned and vanished
from the doorway.
Tom got up from the stool. "It's back
to work for me."
"Yes, sir. Do you work on this
table?"
"Hm? No, it's too small, except for
patients that can sit up. I've been working on the floor here."
"Ah. Well, I shall retire to the kitchen."
Elsa
came in with Wilson, who was wearing a pre-Undoing green rain
slicker, very wet, and carrying a large canvas sack.
Elsa's
eyes found Tom.
"Yes," Dr. Chaney said. "More
new work. Coming in here?"
"They're bringing the
stretcher up the steps." She looked at Wilson and Emilio.
"It is our signal to take ourselves away for now, Mr. Wilson,"
said Emilio. "Come into the kitchen with me, and if there is
enough room for us, we can get you warmed, dried, and fed, yes?"
"That'd be lovely, Mr. Molinero. Lead the way."
They found the kitchen not too crowded, but up and running, with two
young women tending fire and serving up a thin but welcome soup of
reconstituted greens, onion, and tomatoes, with a trace of rabbit.
Hot applesauce was also on offer. The "real" tea had long
ago run out, but as Wilson set down the apparently heavy bag and
shucked his raincoat, a mug of rose hip and elderberry tea was put
into his hand, and a seat, on a long high-backed bench along the wall
by the open hearth, was vacated for the two men.
Emilio set
aside the crutch, warmed his hands at the fire, and waited for Wilson
to have a chance at the tea before questioning him.
Wilson
took a long pull at the tea, then made a face. He looked around,
found an alcohol lamp going on a wall sconce, took it down, blew it
out, drew a scrap of cloth from his pocket, unscrewed the hot burner
from the collar, poured some of the alcohol into the tea, reassembled
the lamp, and replaced it. One of the cooks shook her head, but said
nothing.
"I'm good, now," said Wilson. "I can
see you're being very patient with me."
"Ah ....
so, if I may ask, where were they?"
"We took one
last look at the area around the compost heaps, because there'd been
four enemy dead right by it and signs they'd been in a fire fight.
Huskey was on the inside, with Mr. Avery's Ruger in his hand and a
blown up levergun by his side." He waved a spoon at the canvas
bag. "They're in there. The girl was in the next bin, half
buried in a pile of cowshit, with one of the bandits, dead, on top of
her. The guy'd been shot any number of times."
"Very
hard to kill."
"But met his match, I'd guess."
"What is her injury?"
"Well, we don't
know; it was really dark out there. But left arm is bad, I'm pretty
sure. Laid out in the rain for hours; that couldn't have helped
any."
"I am thinking. These two must be the
fighters we heard in the midafternoon, yes? No one else was with
them?"
Wilson looked at Emilio sheepishly. "Ah,
well. S'my fault; I let 'em talk me into it; something about stirring
things up in the rear. We kinda thought we were on our own. Pin them
down until Hall sent some kind of army."
"Sergeant
Ellen had hoped to co-ordinate."
"Yeah, your
runner got to us right after they left. Y'know, it made sense to
us at the time. I'm not
coming out of
this looking very good, in fact; and Huskey's people will have it in
for me after this."
Emilio shook his head. "We
will all discuss the best ways to do things. But there will be much
to do and little time for blame. It may be this attack was the right
thing. There were, you say, five dead bandits there. I am
thinking these two did the Creek much good; the attack on the house
was relatively easy in the end."
"You're generous,
Mr. Molinero. I'm not sure I'd be so easygoing if the shoe were on
the other foot."
Emilio looked down ruefully at his
bandaged and braced leg, with a swollen, stockinged foot at the end.
"It may be it will be some time before there is a shoe on the
other foot, my friend."
They looked at each other for
several anxious moments. Then, mutual permission granted, they
laughed.
Elsa appeared at the door. "Hey, boys, girl's
asking for you. Says it's urgent."
:::
Wolf
had passed through, or over, at least six gates. Some were locked,
some not. In several fields, sheep had watched him pass by; in one,
two red cows. There were small plots that had been plowed and seeded;
others had been harvested, or interrupted in the process of being
harvested.
If you could have asked Wolf, later, what he had
seen, he might have answered, "mostly a whole lot of either dirt
or green stuff." He had little idea of what he was seeing; he'd
grown up urban in a shattered former nation that, back when it had
been functional, had devolved its knowledge of farming upon little
more than two percent of the population.
Plots were, small,
separated by dense growths of hedge. The pattern, which had seemed
clear enough to Wolf from the crow's nest at Wilson's, was
bewildering at ground level. But the terrain also provided him
abundant concealment, so he was not overly concerned at slow
progress. He'd passed the night in a loosely-piled haystack.
As he walked along the hedgerows, Wolf took inventory. The rain was
tapering off, but he was wet through, even beneath the body armor,
and his clothes stayed saturated as he moved through the wet, unmown
vegetation. His boots squeaked, which meant there would soon be
blisters unless he could get his boots and socks dry. He'd let
himself get separated from the Glock, and his bug-out gear, and was
not carrying food or water. His wet and baggy cargo pants were rich
in pockets, and in these there were baggies (precious items in
themselves) containing an assortment of decades-old treasures: Bic
lighters, a Mylar emergency blanket, duct tape, compass,
flint-and-steel, aspirin (which he had doled out to his crew as
needed), and, in a fragile sandwich bag, a handful of 9mm rounds,
with no weapon to match them.
He knew the polyethylene would
breathe too easily. The primers would begin to corrode, with all this
exposure to sweat and weather. Should he ditch them? This was hard
for him to do; they had been the source of so much of his power.
There were many, many more where those came from, however; if he
could ever get back to his stash.
On his belt was a leather
sheath with a serrated Kershaw folding knife nestled within; and in
his hands the Chinese-made AK, with ten or fifteen (he had better
count them, first chance) rounds in the current magazine, and one in
the chamber. The other magazine, taped to the inserted one upside
down, was now empty. And he'd lost his scope getting down from the
little tower.
His escape both elated and troubled him; for
himself, once again Wolf the Lucky; but he'd put a lot of
investment in the gang of freebooters he'd built up. It was clear to
Wolf that there had been no alternative in the end; but the memory of
Cougar's plaintive cry for help galled him. All for one, one for all,
indeed.
Ah, well, he said to himself. Only the
living deserve ta live. What's next?
He'd passed the
physical plants of four of the farms – each seemed like a small
independent village; each, at the moment, was apparently deserted.
What sort of command structure was there here? How had all these
people co-ordinated to stand their ground rather than stampeding?
He had half a mind to burn the farmsteads as he went, for spite;
he was angry with himself for not seeing that this was the route he
should have gone with his entire crew, a day ago. But stealth is a
good tool for as long as you have it, and not a moment longer. Best
keep the option. Even as he thought this, Wolf could hear, on the
road across the Creek well out of sight, a horse trotting westward.
He fought down the impulse to try to catch the rider; that route must
be well guarded.
Food, water and socks were becoming the
highest priorities.
He chose one of the farmsteads to
approach, and crawled toward it through an unkempt thicket of
sunchokes, some of which had grown over eight feet tall. There was a
smell, among the roots of these, of some kind of edible root, but he
was unfamiliar with it. He watched the house for half a hand, and
guessed that it, too, had been abandoned for now. People would surely
be returning soon. Best get on with it.
The farmhouse was
smaller than some of the others he'd seen; one story high, with no
crow's nest or blockhouses. Maybe they hadn't got round to it yet?
The place could be approached obliquely without being seen easily
from windows. He'd have a go. With his weapon at the ready, muzzle
down, Wolf ran across the tiny scythed yard, pushed through an
unlocked gate in a trimmed hedge, rounded a corner, and bounded up
the front steps. With his left hand, he tried the glass doorknob. It
turned readily, and the door swung inwards without creaking.
Keeping himself as mentally sharp as any young-old man might – a
day after losing most of several night's sleep, several meals, a war,
and all his companions – Wolf cleared the rooms, right to left,
found no stairwells up or down, and finished his tour in the kitchen.
An unremarkable place. Everywhere were some kind of gasburners on
wall sconces, pieces of handmade furniture, a few ancient art prints,
and quilts on display on some of the walls. Bedrooms had two sets of
bunk beds in each, and a worktable; leather tools and sewing supplies
abounded. Twelve people, apparently, lived here. This looked like
commies more and more all the time. Wolf was amused; he knew Magee
would not be.
The kitchen was much smaller than the one at
"Wilson Farm" had been, and featured what looked like a gas
stove connected to an oversized tank outside, next to a large pile of
manure. Wolf had not seen a methane digester before; but he vaguely
guessed what it was. Why, with so much animal manure around, had
there not been more explosives used? These people had a very
hit-or-miss technology. Perhaps there was nothing of real interest on
the mountain after all?
Exploring cabinets, Wolf was able to
come up with a half-gallon plastic jug for water, after rejecting
several that had apparently contained either soap or vinegar. He had
trouble understanding why the pitcher pump on the drainboard by the
sink didn't seem to want to work, as it smelled of water, but there
were emergency supplies in stacked crates of glass bottles marked
Smirnoff, and he tapped into this. It was a start. Pouring himself a
tumbler, he opened another door, and found an assortment of spoiling
dinner leftovers on shelves made of hardware cloth. The floor and
ceiling of the former closet were also screened, and Wolf could feel
a cool breeze moving up through the shelves.
Clever.
But what's in here? He opened a crock jar and sniffed. Milk, with
cream risen to the top! Fresh milk was a novelty to Wolf, but his
body knew what it was, and trembled to have it. Bringing the crock to
the kitchen table, he poured the water from his tumbler onto the
floor and filled it with cream, then sat down, leaning the rifle
against the table.
Just as Wolf raised the glass to his
bearded lips, he heard movement somewhere overhead. A shuffling of
feet.
An attic?
With someone in it!
Setting down the glass reluctantly, Wolf took up the rifle. Then he
reconsidered, grasped the tumbler in his left hand, drank it off, set
it down, and then moved to the kitchen door at the back of the
house.
There was a staircase on the outside of the building,
going up to a small door on a landing above the back porch. Inwardly
cursing his carelessness in clearing, Wolf stepped outside, ascended
the staircase, and tried the door – another glass knob – finding
it unlocked as before. Pointing his weapon before him, he cleared a
small skylit attic room. It held mostly a rug and a chair and shelves
of old books; he stepped through a low door frame into a darkened
room with a heavy curtain over a dormer window. A thin magenta light
trickled through the curtain into the shadowy interior.
Against the far wall sat a large bed frame, with its legs sawn away
to fit the ceiling height. The bed was heaped with blankets and
pillows, and among these lay an old man – easily the oldest Wolf
remembered ever seeing – looking at him with the unseeing eyes of
the blind.
"Hey, young fella! S'whatcha sound like, but
you're not one a' the Hiseys by the sound of it. Y'little war over
yet?"
"Uhh, no, sir." Wolf stepped over to
the bed.
"Wouldn't think so! What a ruckus! They said I
had to go to the Mess Hall with 'em, an' I said screw that, just go
without me. I manage pretty good up here, s'not winter yet, n'got
plenty to eat. Hafta dump my effin' chamber pot out the window,
though ... where ya from?"
"Umm, Wilson Farm."
"Ah, so you're one 'a those apple maggots. Well, I guess
there's a place for cider in this grand scheme. But I betcha we had a
thousand pounds of coffee in the PX. Betcha Murch is still sittin' on
all of it, too. Crazy bastard. You can tell him I said so; I don't
care. All that hush-hush stuff is long gone, and he's been out of
honest work for – must be fifteen years. Twenty for all I know."
"Pee-ecks, sir?"
"Oh, you know, a little
cafeteria 'n store. For all the engineers and the guards."
"Oh, that's right. You worked in the mountain, didn't you?"
Wolf guessed.
"Funny way to put it. Sure, I wasn't
always blind and useless – put in nine years on the power plant, I
did. Civil Engineering Corps. You know all that, dontcha?"
Wolf sat down by the old man's feet and patted his knee through the comforter. "Tell me again; I always liked hearin' about it."
(To be continued)