The Wild Lands

by Paul Greci

  Some old guy with a gray beard hanging halfway down his chest sits in a chair made from maple poles in the center of the room. I guess he’s in his fifties or sixties, but it’s kind of dark in here.

  “Where’s my sister?” I ask.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” the man says. His voice is a little hoarse, like he’s worn it out by yelling or smoking.

  “You don’t have any right to do what you did,” I say. “I—”

  “You were trespassing,” the man says. “Now, what is your name? Where did you come from? Who are you working with?”

  “Come on,” I say. “Your freaking security guard or border patrol knew my name. Quit playing with me. What about my sister?”

  “I don’t know anything about anyone knowing your name. And I assure you that your sister is fine. She’s with the women right now.”

  A young guy enters the hut. “What?” I shout. I jump up and tackle him.

  I feel him struggling and I drive my elbow into his ribs and hear him grunt. I want to break every bone in his body. I press down harder but one of his arms gets free and nails rake across my cheek. I punch him on the side of his head. His free arm comes at me but I knock it away and then hit him square in the nose, and I’m about to swing again when someone grabs me from behind. I push up with my knees so I’m standing and kick Dylan in the side before he can scoot out of the way. “You,” I say. “Of course you’re here.”

  Now two young guys are holding me back. Dylan stands up. One side of his face is red, blood runs from both his nostrils, and I know his ribs are hurting. But still, he smiles at me. Not a friendly smile. An I got you smile. Then he turns and leaves the hut.

  The two guys drag me back to my chair and push me down. “What is this place?” I ask. “And what is that maniac doing here?”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” the man says. He looks at the two guys holding my arms. “I think this young man will sit here. You can let go of him and leave us. If he moves before I tell him to, he won’t see his sister—ever. And if he attacks anyone else, we’ll eliminate him.”

  The two guys release me and leave the hut. I want to turn and follow them, finish Dylan off, get Jess, and get the hell out of here, but if I try any of that right now, I might never see Jess again.

  “That was a dumb thing to do,” the man says. “Real dumb. Dummies don’t last long around here. Now, I’m hoping you’ll answer my questions like a good boy. Like a smart boy. Like a boy who wants to see his sister.” He pauses. “What are you doing here?”

  “Look,” I say. “My parents are dead. My sister and I are trying to get to the settlements on the coast. Where Valdez used to be. We’re just passing through. But Dylan probably told you all that.”

  “We haven’t had any trespassers in over a year.” He shakes his head once.

  “You don’t own this land,” I say. “No one does. And what about Dylan? He was trespassing, too.”

  “I control this land. And it can only support so many people. So, you say you’re trying to get to the coast?” Then he looks me in the eye. “Now, what’s your real reason for being here?”

  “That’s it. I’m from Fairbanks. We tried to go north but couldn’t.” I tell him about what happened on the Yukon.

  I don’t tell him about Max and Tam or Wendy and Ellen. I don’t mention the cache up in the yellow cliffs because I’m not sure if he knows about it, and I might need it.

  “When can I see my sister?” I ask again. I want to rip that long beard right off his face.

  “Just as soon as we compare her story with yours. Then you’ll get to see her—if your stories match.”

  “And then what?” I ask.

  The old gray beard just smiles at me, but it isn’t a friendly smile.

  They have me wait in an enclosure outside, like I’m an animal. It’s a freaking cage without a lid, a tall fence made from maple poles, a rectangle I can walk across in ten steps. My face burns where Dylan’s nails scratched me, but I know he’s hurting worse than me. I try to count the people. So far I’ve counted eight men and five women, but I probably haven’t seen everyone. I pace back and forth in an attempt to stay warm.

  Part of the valley is under cultivation, with rows of green plants about two feet high. I’m guessing it’ll be frosting here soon and they’ll need to harvest whatever they’re growing.

  In the village proper, if that’s what you call it, there are lots of maple stumps sticking an inch or two above the ground. A couple of guys are hacking away at them, slicing the roots with axes and then working them out of the ground.

  I guess firewood isn’t a problem around here. But food? You can only grow so much. I wonder if there are animals besides the songbirds living in the maple jungle. And why have these people chosen to set up right here? Why didn’t they go all the way to the coast, where you have the ocean to live off, and maybe some contact with other people coming and going in boats? And what the hell is Dylan doing here? And how can he be an insider? I mean, he came down from the north just like us.

  I could hop the wooden fence and run, but I can’t leave Jess here. I caught a glimpse of her entering the main hut to talk with the head honcho gray beard a few minutes ago.

  I wonder about Max and Tam. Have they been caught, too? I study the yellow cliffs in the distance. Somewhere up there is a cave that might still have some supplies. But how can these people not know about it? Is Jess telling them about it now?

  * * *

  “Truthfully, with your attitude, and that savage attack on one of our young men, I’m not sure you have much to offer,” Stan says to me. He’s the head honcho with the big gray beard. “Except muscle, that is, if you’re not lazy. But I wouldn’t separate you from your sister unless you gave me a good reason to. My initial warning still stands.”

  “You can’t split us up,” I say. “And besides, neither one of us wants to stay.”

  Jess doesn’t say anything. I have no idea what she’s thinking because we haven’t had any time alone to talk.

  “You can’t leave unless I say so. And you can’t stay unless I say so.” Stan rubs his chin and runs his hand down his beard. “Like I said, your sister is staying. We’ll keep you, too, but you’ll have to work just as hard as the rest of us.”

  “You can’t take us prisoner,” I say. “Just because you stopped in the middle of this maple jungle and decided to set up shop doesn’t mean we need to stay here with you.”

  Stan points at Jess and says, “She’s staying. We’ll take good care of her. She’ll be well respected. And when she’s of age, she’ll be married to a fine man of the Council’s choosing. We strive—”

  “Married? You can’t decide who my sister marries and when.” I turn to Jess, who looks like she is about to start crying. “I’ll never let them do that to you,” I tell her. “I won’t—”

  “Listen to me,” Stan cuts in. “Marriage for her”—he points to Jess—“won’t happen for a while.” Then Stan looks me in the eye and says, “Don’t give me an ultimatum, young man. Like I said, I don’t want to split you up, but son, if you don’t work out, you’ll have to leave. Or if we think you’re an ongoing threat, we’ll eliminate you.”

  I take a breath. I know if I keep hammering him on this now, it’ll just make things worse, so instead I change the subject. “And you still haven’t told me why Dylan is here,” I say.

  Stan stares me down before he speaks again. “His father and I used to be friends.”

  CHAPTER

  60

  WE BASICALLY LIVE OFF OF potatoes, carrots, barley, and greens. Every day, three meals a day, we have this stew. If you don’t work, you don’t eat, unless you’re sick. Some people work in the fields, some preparing food, and some keeping watch at the edges of their territory. And Dylan—was he planning on coming here the whole time we were together?

  Jess and I are digging potatoes. As I pull baseball-sized spuds from the dirt, my mind churns away at the problem at hand—how to get the hell away fr
om here and not be recaptured.

  “There’s a girl,” Jess whispers. “She’s young. Like Max and Tam’s age. Maybe even younger.”

  “Who is she?” I ask.

  “Her name is Marcy. She’s in the yurt I’m in, only she’s pregnant and on bed rest.”

  Pregnant? An image of Jess—pregnant—pops into my head. I wipe a tear from my eye with a dirty hand and my eye starts burning. “What has she told you?”

  “Her husband, the man the Council chose for her, died in a logging accident. She lived in one of those little cabins with him, but moved back into the yurt after he died.” Jess rubs her eye. “But get this: Stan, the head honcho, is her dad.”

  I think about this as we dig. Stan married off his own daughter and he thinks he’s going to marry Jess off when she’s, what did he say, of age? And then I realize that Stan’s idea about of age might be different than mine. We need to get out of here soon, and in a way that there’s no chance of getting recaptured.

  “See what you can find out,” I whisper to Jess. “We need to know what the rules are. Like how old girls are when Stan marries them off. And what happens to them? Act like you want to know for yourself. I’ll make an escape plan.”

  Jess nods but I can see the fear in her eyes. I scoot a little closer to her but keep my hands in the dirt to pretend I’m still digging. “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” I pause, then whisper, “You and me, we’ll leave this place in the dust. But we need all the information we can get. I’m going to be asking questions too, but they’re already suspicious of me. Questions from you to Marcy and some of the older women would look more natural. Understand?”

  Jess nods.

  “Let’s keep digging potatoes so we don’t draw attention to ourselves.” As I dig, my mind pounds away at the problem. If Stan has any morals at all, Jess will have five or six years before she’s of age. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to stay one moment past when we can escape, but I don’t want to rush an escape with a poor plan and get caught. I basically have one chance, because I’m pretty sure Stan will follow through on his threat to eliminate me if I get caught.

  A whistle blows and everyone stands up. Four figures are approaching the fields from the south. Another whistle blows twice in quick succession. I have no clue what the second whistle means, but the men around me start smiling.

  “Okay,” one of the men says. “Back to work now. We can celebrate later.”

  Jess and I get back on our knees and keep working the row of potatoes. The people around here are whacked. But we are way outnumbered.

  I glance back a few times, watching as the four people get closer and closer to the fields. The two in front are wearing green army fatigues.

  My teeth grind together and I feel acid burning my stomach.

  Tam and Max.

  And I’m guessing they’re of age.

  CHAPTER

  61

  I DON’T LET ON THAT I recognize Max and Tam as they’re brought into the village or compound or commune or whatever the hell this place is. I whisper to Jess to pretend like she doesn’t know them either. That way we’ll have a better chance of helping them bust out of here with us. Unless Dylan tells Stan that we all know each other, which he probably will.

  We stand with everyone else as they walk through the fields. I keep my arms to my side and my face averted, but I study Max and Tam out of the corner of my eye. When I think they see me, I raise my fingers slightly on one hand.

  Their arms hang free. And the guys escorting them—the same ones who caught me and Jess—aren’t even keeping them at gunpoint. Tam and Max even smile a little bit at everyone. They didn’t survive this long in this crazy world because they’re stupid. I’m sure they are picking up the major creep-vibe that this place puts off and are sizing things up and trying to not alarm anyone. I wish I had done that when Jess and I first met with Stan.

  With just Jess I had some time to craft an escape since it’d be a while until, as Stan put it, she’d be of age. He made it clear that no one would touch her before then.

  But having Max and Tam here means I have to act as soon as possible. How long will it be until the Council marries them off?

  I wonder what the older women think of this system. The men and the older women sleep separately—all of them. I mean, if they came here with their husbands, how did it affect their marriages? And if the Council assigned a young woman to be married to someone’s husband, how would that work? Can a man have more than one wife here?

  The system of having someone choose your husband must not be about love as much as it is about sustaining a population. Could you be forced to live your whole life with someone you don’t love? Someone you might actually hate?

  I glance around at the green fields and the nicely constructed yurts and the smaller cabins. It took some energy and know-how to carve this place out of the maple jungle, some real determination. And this place wouldn’t be half-bad if it operated by rules that made sense. On beliefs that aren’t based on control. And if Jess and I weren’t trapped here against our will, and mostly kept separated.

  This is the first settlement we’ve run into and it’s whacked. The only things it has going for it are stable food and shelter. On one hand, food and shelter are two of the main things I want for Jess. What if we escape here and the settlements on the coast are even more whacked? But still, to stay here, to not try to break away, would be like saying, Okay, I’ll trade our freedom—Jess’s freedom—for food and shelter. And I’d never do that.

  My mind starts concocting a couple ideas to bring this place into a chaotic panic, and fast. They’re pretty far out, but they need to be for me to have any chance of pulling this off.

  CHAPTER

  62

  “THE EARTH HAS PROVIDED TWO more creators for our community,” Stan says. He’s gathered everyone on the back side of the main yurt the following morning. There are benches in a circle around a huge firepit. Stan’s standing on top of a little hill where dirt has been pushed up into a mound to make a speaking platform.

  Max and Tam are sitting in chairs constructed of maple poles to the right of Stan. The rest of us are seated on the benches. I count nine men with big grayish beards like Stan’s, along with Dylan and two guys that are a little older than me—the ones who discovered us and captured Max and Tam.

  There are five older women plus Marcy.

  When I add up the numbers of how many people we might be up against, it doesn’t look good.

  “As everyone here knows,” Stan says, “except maybe for our newcomers, the Council chooses husbands for women of child-bearing age. Those choices will be shared with me and I’ll either okay them or ask the Council to keep working. With my daughter”—he gestures toward Marcy with an open hand—“the Council’s first recommendation was what I followed.”

  My stomach makes a fist and I taste this morning’s stew in the back of my throat. I wish like hell that Dylan weren’t here. Him and his freaking gift, being able to sense things. Right then he turns his head and smiles at me like he’s just read my mind. No way would any of us be here if it weren’t for him.

  “Maxine and Tamara,” Stan says, turning toward them. “On behalf of everyone, I’d like to welcome you to your new home.” He smiles at Max. Then he focuses on Tam and his smile widens and lingers. Then Stan turns back toward the rest of us and says, “Will the Council now stand?”

  My brain does a backflip as all five of the older women stand.

  This is the Council?

  We all sit in silence as the Council members approach Max and Tam one by one, bow to them, and then return to their seats on the benches.

  They didn’t do this for Jess. Maybe because she isn’t of age yet.

  If this was some kind of game, it’d be a fascinating society to learn about, but I just need to know enough to take them down. Or at least make them scramble so much that there’s no way they’ll catch us.

  One thing I realiz
e is that they’ll try to hunt Max and Tam and Jess if they escape. Right now, they’re three quarters of the potential female breeding population. They probably won’t come after me unless I do something bad. So I’ve got to make sure what I do will draw them toward me. And if Dylan comes after us, I’ll need a way to take him down—even if he has a gun.

  Basic. What a bunch of bullshit.

  I wonder what Max and Tam are thinking. Since all the young women stay in the same yurt, I told Jess to try to somehow let them know that I’m working on a plan to get us out of here and to just be cooperative, so what we do will take these arranged-marriage idiots by surprise.

  As soon as the last council member performs her bows and sits down, a squat man with a bushy beard stands up and eyes Stan. “Instead of having the Council decide, why don’t we, the men, get to decide? We could have a contest of strength. Or the new arrivals”—he turns to Max and Tam and smiles at them—“could choose for themselves.”

  The man sitting next to me laughs to himself and says quietly, “If it were up to me, I’d take ’em both for myself.” I suck a slow breath through my nose, and it’s all I can do to keep from punching him in the face.

  Stan focuses his attention on the man who asked the question. “Jim, the Council will take care of the pairings, like we all agreed.” He nods toward the older women, who are seated together again. “They’ll report their recommendations to me, just like they did for Marcy.”

  The man next to me stands up. “Jim’s idea isn’t half bad.” He remains standing.

  I want to scream at these people—at how nuts they are. When I think of one of these old men being paired with Max and Tam, my Tam, I taste bile and have to swallow it down. And Marcy’s own father married her off to someone just as old. And my sister? No way. Sweat builds under my arms and my ears get hot.

  I squeeze my hands into fists and just keep watching. Another gray beard stands up. Then another and another. Until all of them are standing, except for Terry and Melvin—the two I share a yurt with. All their eyes are on Stan. I want to castrate every one of these old goats. Stan included. Especially Stan.