Guchi
showed Karen and Allyn the kitchen arrangements. Three wood cook
stoves of varying manufacture were arrayed against one wall, with
steel pipes that had been let into a wide brick chimney. Pots and
pans of all sizes and differing in style and quality hung from hooks
or nails driven into a plank that ran the width of the ceiling.
A variety of sinks stood along the opposite wall, with buckets
underneath to catch gray water for use on the farm. A large hand pump
adapted from an old windmill pump stood in a cement basin on the
floor, but was, apparently, seldom used, there being water pressure
to the sinks from impounded springs at the base of Starvation Ridge.
Steps led down beside the sinks through a hole in the floor, with
railings around it; Karen supposed, knowing by now how Creekers did
things, that this led to a pantry and buttery.
The stoves
were all going, and on their flat iron surfaces steamed pots of stew.
Guchi waved at these. "Carrots, cabbage, kale, walking onions,
elephant garlic, sunchokes, cilantro. My own recipe, hah ha. But we
have no salt. We are using blood from chickens. It would be better
with salt. We do have some dried and ground chile peppers, though. I
will be stirring these and keeping the fires."
He
gestured to the long butcher block table down the middle of the room.
It had a magnetic strip loaded with old, lovingly sharpened and
stropped knives, anywhere from three to twelve inches long, along
with a couple of cleavers. There were real oil lamps going; a
luxury.
"Sorry there is not better light. Choose your
weapons! – there are pack bags of potatoes and bulb onions here; we
don't have enough fat on hand to fry anything, so, what to do, cut
them up about so small –" he held up a two-centimeter cube of
yellow-fleshed potato -- "fill these thirty-liter pots to here
– cover with water – chop these chives, with some rosemary and
marjoram, fine, and add them, and we will boil this down into a nice
potato soup, add cream at the last moment, and the wet and hungry
will love you for it," he smiled.
A head appeared in
the doorway. "May I help?" Vernie! Welcome anywhere, Vernie
was everyone's favorite "scullery maid," capable of
putting in long hours at farm, house or kitchen work without boredom
or complaint.
"So, did you see Tomma?" asked
Allyn, reaching for a long knife and a red potato.
"See
him – hah! He saw me. And challenged me! I did not yet have
the password; had to lie down until someone got a lamp. My own main
man – he might have shot me. I am depressed."
This
was delivered as Vernie's deadpan version of humor, and lightened the
tension in the air, briefly. But as they worked, they could hear
urgent comings and goings in the Mess Hall. There had been, already, a real fight, somewhere in the rain and darkness beyond.
:::
Wolf
stood in the rain in a black-trash-bag poncho, water dripping from
his nose and eyebrows, listening. Two booms, close together, then, a
bit later, a glimmer of red in the clouds, then a series of smaller
bangs, spaced apart. Not good.
He turned to the men not out
on picket, who were huddled around several small campfires within
what might have been a house foundation. They were playing their
favorite game, which was dice, by rattling the 'bones' in a tumbler
and shooting them onto the cement wall.
"'K, here's
what I think went down. I, Wolf the Lucky, have not had a lucky day."
Someone hooted. "Well, y'know, even a lucky gambler throws snake
eyes now and then." More hoots, but good-natured, considering
the circumstances. "Willets took longer to get up that hill than
I thought; he was supposed to hit a lookout in daylight. From the
sound of it, he's bit into a fort and they bit back. Somebody is
double-tappin' up there and I'm thinkin' they ain't ours."
The dice-can stopped rattling. Handfuls of roast meat were
suspended in mid-air. Everyone considered the implications. They were
not used to things not going their way.
"So we didn't
get a look-see and we're out some guys and a damn good shotgun."
Wolf took off the bandolier underneath his poncho, wrapped it
carefully in polyethylene sheeting, and handed it to the nearest man.
"Put that away till we can get it better stashed; shotguns are a
dime a dozen but ammo is effin' hard to come by."
He
crossed his arms; the trash bag rustled. "Now. As you can see,
we're not to th' bridge yet by half a hike ourselves; things are
farther apart out here than they look. Anybody can tell me th' last
time we saw a house or a barn, or anything besides that cell tower?"
The Luckies looked puzzled, and searched one another's faces and
their memories. Briggs, a bowman at the middle fire, spoke up. "Well,
after we got into them pilgrims, we holed up wi' th' females at that
long building at th' end of a road." He grinned.
"Yep,
what they used ta call a 'school building.' Kids went there ta learn
stuff, back in th' day. So. Nothin' since. Two days' hike, no
buildings, only foundations, like this'n."
They could
make nothing of that, so they awaited Wolf's conclusion.
He
waved in the general direction of Ball Butte and the Creek. "Them
farmers has been here awhile, and they're organized. I'm
thinkin' they've ransacked this whole section out here –" his
arm swept in an arc in the firelight "--every board, nail, and
tile, not just to use, but so's nobody can use any of it ta get near
'em. No shelter, no food, no gear. None of that, so's no Pilgrims to
live off of.
"I'm thinkin' th' lookouts have got word
to th' home folks and th' home folks is waitin' by th' bridge ta have
a go at us. With who knows what all – mines, maybe. Th' front door
is shut. So, boys –" he paused for effect "--we're goin'
round to th' back door."
"Yeah, Wolf!"
assorted voices cried. "Back door! Back door! Them farmers is
meat."
"K, so party on, then get some
sleep. If nobody's back down here by daylight, we're off."
:::
"Huskey,
what have we got here?" Ellen had sent the young man to get a
situation report. She'd covered the dugout with the shotgun, which
she'd prudently not used – when might she see working shells again?
– and, as Huskey's flare briefly lit the scene, was able to
dispatch two bandits using her Colt Navy. Three more were already
dying nearby, and she'd gone to finish them with her remaining three
rounds. All of them had worked, despite the weather. People had stood
around, winded and stupid from their brief, intense encounters, and
she'd sent them back into line.
"Ma'am, we have six
intruders, all confirmed dead. No others appear to be in the line or
in front of it. If any got through and kept going, we don't know
about it."
"How about our people?"
"Oh, ma'am –" he had to stop for a moment, to keep his
voice from breaking "– we've lost seven – four with throats
cut, one shot with a firearm, and two with arrows. And five are hurt;
one with an arrow, four stabbed, one run into a rock in the dark and
we're thinking broken arm. And two missing."
"That's
six wounded, Huskey; the gunner got me too." She heard his sharp
intake of breath. "But not badly; I'm sure I'm walking wounded."
Eff! "So ... fifteen casualties out of fifteen
people?"
"Ahh, no, nineteen. Tomlinsons came to
our whistle. One of the hurt is theirs, but she's game to stay in
line. They're on our left."
"Call it thirteen,
then; eleven if our missing turn up. As against six men that we knew
were coming and thought we were ready for. We're in trouble,
Huskey, but we've been in trouble before." She looked around in
the rain, but there was zilch to see. Moaning came from away to the
right.
"K', pull all of the dead, ours and theirs, off
the summit a ways – say twenty feet – and we'll see about getting
them down from here in the morning. Send me anybody that needs real
medical attention and can walk, and we'll go down to Chaney's
together and send you some stretcher bearers for the rest. Put 'em in
the dugout, make 'em as comfy as you can. Are you the whistle for
Bledsoes?"
"I am now." She could hear the
mourning in his voice.
"Take this." She handed him
the Stoeger. "It'll give you two shots. Hopefully. Unload it,
dry-snap it, load it, get a feel for it. Don't think the
pellets will spray all over. It has to be aimed, just like your bow,
'K? I'm going to leave you the 'scope, too. Now ... could you find me a
little machete, sword thingy; it's in the dugout. I didn't know that young man by
name –"
"Will Stafford, ma'am. A Russell. I'll
get it for you." He departed and returned, double time, and
handed it to her in silence.
"Thank you, Huskey; you're
a winner. I'll sit here and wait for your other walkers."
"Ma'am." Huskey turned on his heel and disappeared into
the rain.
Ellen, one of the oldest residents of the Creek,
suddenly realized how exhausted she was. She was soaked in fog and
blood and worse, with a dour odor of burnt gunpowder clinging to her
wet hair; her side was starting to bother her more than she liked.
She'd also heard a bit of croup creeping into her voice as she'd
talked.
It would be hours, the getting down from here with
hurt people – darkness, slick spots in the trail – but some hurts
must be attended quickly for best results, and she and they would
just be in the way up here. She'd have to have a talk with that young
woman from Tomlinson's; brave is not always wise.
A little
light was filtering through the clouds now – quarter moon rise?
Ellen realized she could see a body lying nearby. Melvin, one of her
own farmers. A cheerful, hard-working lad, if not the brightest,
specializing in grains. Undoubtedly one of the cut throats. He'd died
without making a sound.
And her own granddaughter, gone; no
doubt already bones, scattered over that lonesome valley in the
night. She and her sick husband and her legless son had listened to
the girl's last words less than twelve hours ago.
Everything
she'd tried to accomplish was turning into ashes. Ellen M., get a
grip! Best not dwell on the children now.
She examined
the sword. A project of Savage Mary's, these things. Carey seemed to
like the idea, though no one had really trained on them yet. Yes;
these guys are night fighters and knife fighters,
she thought. Bows, not so good in the dark. We're going to need a
little bit of reach on them. Wonder why she didn't go with spears.
Made
from a chainsaw bar, this one looked about fifty centimeters overall;
it was better balanced than she'd expected, and some effort had been
made to give it a sense of style. Double edged, full tang, with a
straight integral crossguard, leather-wrapped hilt, and a heavy round
pommel – pewter, maybe. She tapped her boulder with it; and it
sang; not a sweet note like a farm bell, but "good enough for
government work." Something like a Roman gladius, but
more leaf-shaped. Greek-ish.
She could see what Carey was
thinking. If you're going to have to go medieval, best bring a little
esprit to it. Semper fi.
:::
Karen
spent the entire shift on potatoes and onions, listening to Allyn and
Vernie and Guchi carry on a good-natured male banter among themselves
as they carried heavy pots – sometimes two men to a vessel – back
and forth.
People had drifted into the Hall wet, and stood
by the fireplace at the north end, steaming, then moved to the tables
to eat stew or soup, or both, dipping oat cakes. Some could barely
move, they were so stiff from the unaccustomed cold, or beat from
climbing up and down the Butte in the dark, or sitting quietly in the
damp near the Creek with rain down their necks. They could not stay
long. These were the first shift of watchers in the night; their team
members had spelled them, but they must return, bringing back food
and water. Then they could make themselves as comfortable as possible
and wait for the sound they hoped would not come: the shrill blast of
the whistles.
War, it seemed, even on day one, was barely
humanly possible. Thank goodness for the Hall!
Karen had
grown up in a basement, with one other human being as her entire
culture. Father had done what he could, explicating from the strange
photographs in his magazines, to prepare her for a wider world should
she ever encounter one. Here is a scene at a coffee shop. This is
the waitress, these are her customers; they are thanking her. But
now she had found a wider world; and it was not much like the
magazines, at least until this moment.
Guchi was right; she
was greatly appreciated whenever she put in an appearance, bringing a
tureen of hot cream-of-potato to one of the tables. Weary smiles
greeted her; mumbled thanks warmed her ears. Even the ones who were
nodding at their bowls seemed grateful. A bit more of the ice around
her heart fell away.
At length Tomma could be seen, picking
his way toward them across the crowded, firelit room, with Emilio.
"'K, gang, shift's over, changing of the guard." Tomma
draped his long arm over Vernie's round shoulders. Each gave the
other the companionable look of the long and comfortably married.
"Yes," added Emilio. "I will find your crew, Allyn,
who have been resting, and they will make soup and stew with me,
yes?" Guchi nodded, wearily, and reached back to untie his
stained apron.
Karen sourly noted, by the lamplight, stains
on her jerkin, and vowed to find an apron on her next Hall shift. She
drifted in Allyn's wake to a corner by the big fireplace, where
someone had picked up a guitar and strummed a chord. Everyone
apparently knew the tune; those nearby that were not sleeping softly
sang with the musician:
As
we pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
Let
us all taste the hungers of the poor.
There's a song that
will linger forever in our ears:
Hard times, come again
no more.
It's
a song and a sigh of the weary.
Hard times, hard times, come
again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin
door.
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
Carey
Murchison, who had been out, stepped in. "Beemans and Jones,
fall in; stretcher bearers. Anyone with bad knees, find a sub
now. Move it!"
Bodies stirred, at
first several, then more: about eight in all headed for the door.
Murchison looked round the room. "Who around here can sew and
doesn't faint at the sight of blood?"
That was
practically everyone, but Karen found herself among the first three
or four to stand up. Murchison beckoned. "That'll do; follow
me."
:::
The
rains had settled down to a gentle mist in the night. The entrance to
Chaney's farm was almost across the bridge from Hall, but a little
bit upstream. They arrived at the clinic in very short order. The
Captain saw the volunteers to the door and turned away; like Caesar,
whose camp was attacked at night by the Gauls, he seemed to feel
keenly the need to be everywhere at once.
Karen, who had
lived in the clinic for over two weeks, felt sure she might know her
way around, but the place was disarranged. Someone had brought in an
old vanity with a very large mirror, and in front of the mirror,
which was tilted slightly forward, stood a very large cluster of
alcohol lamps. The light from these was effectively doubled by the
mirror.
The large oak table had been pushed over into the
pool of light, and here Dr. Chaney, the veteran Army medic, stood
with Mrs. Chaney in attendance, quietly pouring liquid into, or at
least on, a hole in a young man's leg. The patient watched with
interest. The air near the table smelled of vodka, laced with a
potpourri of comfrey and plantain. Elsa Chaney looked up and saw the
new arrivals.
"Oh, good," she said.
"Mmh?"
"The kids are here from Hall; now we
can take on the tough case and the easy ones."
"Oh, yes; that's good. Now you, young man; that was a lucky
shot. It missed your femoral artery, and the arrowhead came out at
the back nicely. And your friends have kept your leg away from dirt;
I'm sure that will help. You will have to stay off this leg, though.
Have someone keep you fed and watching you for redness, swelling, soreness,
and fever. With any luck you can stay out of the line for a couple of
weeks."
Though pale, the boy nodded, apparently put at
his ease. "I – I helped put down the man that got me." He
grinned.
"I'm sure you did; and you've joined an
exclusive club today." Chaney clapped him on the shoulder. "Hop
over there with Elsa's help." He looked round at the newcomers.
"Ah, a very likely bunch. Elsa, I've seen this one" – he
pointed to Karen –"she's handy with needle and thread."
"So I remember."
"So please take her on
for the stitching of any of our walking wounded that need it; but
first, let's all move our more serious stretcher case onto the
table."
They all piled their weapons and bedrolls by
the door, and arranged themselves, following the Chaneys' example,
round a young man lying on a bloodstained pallet near the wall. Many
hands scooped and lifted, many hands gently carried. The barely
conscious patient, sandy-haired and rangy, was longer than the
massive table, and as they extended his limbs, his hands and feet
dangled over the ends.
Dr. Chaney unlaced his jerkin and
scissored away part of the soiled tunic beneath. A loop of small
intestine, along with the cecum, protruded from a long slice that had
been made across the belly, opening his diaphragm. The glistening
entrails quivered lightly as the young man breathed. His arms and
legs stirred in a spasm of pain.
"Hold those, please.
Not you two; you'll have other business."
As they
stepped away, Karen and Mrs. Chaney could hear the patient interview
begin behind them: "Can you hear me? Yes, well, I'm sorry but
you may be awake for this; you have my permission to faint. We're
going to put something in your mouth, and you may bite down on it;
'k?"
Mrs. Chaney opened the door to the observation room,
Karen's old quarantine residence. A candle gave the only light that
did not come though the heavy plate glass window from the "operating
theater."
Three people were sitting here in chairs. One
of them, a surprisingly elderly woman with an aura of command, sat
naked to the waist with a bandage round her middle, into which seeped
blood from her side. She was trying to pull on a blue woolen poncho
over her head with her good arm. Mrs. Chaney went to her assistance.
"Thank you, Elsa," the patient croaked, then coughed.
"I'm not much for putting up with night air any more, I'm
afraid."
"Hah. More than the rest of us put
together, I bet. Karen, this is Ellen Murchison, our
second-in-command."
Karen wondered how one salutes such
a person on the Creek. She remembered a curtsey depicted in an old
Geographic; such an incongruity! So she simply stood still with her
arms by her sides.
"Ma'am."
"Thank
you, dear; heard all about you. You'll help see to my friends here, I
trust." She nodded to the two, a young white man and a black
woman, and prepared herself to lie down with Elsa's help.
Karen stepped over to them. "Hello, Mrs. Perkins."
Mrs. Perkins smiled. "Hello, y'self, sweetie. This here is
Elberd, he's a Joseph." The young man nodded gravely. Mrs.
Perkins held a bloody cloth to her arm with her good hand. "This
just needs washing and binding, and it can wait. I'd like to have
kept the arrow, but it got away. We'll see to this young man first,
hmm?"
The youth spoke. "She tried to stay and see
if there'd be more fighting. But Mrs. M. found me and made me go get
her before we walked out."
Mrs. Perkins put in, "And
I was not in as good shape as I thought, but he helped me all the way
down in the dark and never said he was hurt."
"I
was embarrassed. Nobody shot me! In fact I never saw them. Things
started happening and I ran toward the whistle and I think I fell
down the mountain."
Karen wasn't sure where to begin.
"Hi, I'm Karen. Ames. How is this arm?"
He
was holding it cradled in the other, protectively. They were both
startled by a muffled scream coming from the outer room. "I
dunno. Busted, maybe. There's a clicking when I move it and it's
getting bigger all the time."
Elsa, who had made Ellen
comfortable, overheard this and came over. "This should have
been splinted." She looked in his eyes. Shock. He's worse off
than he thinks.
"Okay, well, I think you will need to spend
some time with the doctor, but he's busy, and in the meantime we're
going to get you horizontal and warm, and we'll work on your face."
"Face?"
"Your cheek, dear; it needs
putting back in place."
"Oh." He looked as if
he might cry.
"Now, look. You were brave to be
where you were, and practically carried Lorena down that trail in the
dark -- with a broken arm no less, so no need to apologize.
Battlefields are dangerous in all kinds of ways; your face is going
to have a brilliant scar and I think it will be quite attractive
with it. 'K? Want some vodka before we start?"
"Ma'am. No ma'am, I think I can handle it."
"Right, I know you can; so, let's get you down and bring over
some more light. Karen, here's a needle and thread; they've been
soaked in alky. I'll hold the lamp for you. Let's wash that out as
best we can and we'll see some running stitches; should take about
thirty from here round to here, y'think?"
"Yes'm."
Karen reached for the kit. She had not slept more than a catnap since
dawn the previous day, and it must be getting on toward morning; yet
she would give it her best. The lad had earned it.