by Matt Ritter
“Terrible,” Jose said, returning his hand to Will’s shoulder.
As his old friend looked away, Will closed his eyes. Tears squeezed out of their corners, spilled down across his tan cheeks, and sat on the stubble of his beard. The telling of the previous day’s events was surprisingly difficult.
A ball rolled in their direction, and Jose picked it up and threw it back at the children. “What’s your plan now?” he asked.
“I have to get back to Gonzales. Back to Helen.”
“And the kid?” Jose asked, nodding toward Zach.
“He’ll go with me, I guess.”
“We could use him.”
Will considered what Jose was asking. “We can ask if he wants to stay, leave it up to him.”
“Okay,” Jose said.
“I should be asking you what your plan is,” Will said, wiping his face. “What are you doing out here?”
“We’re surviving. Trying to rebuild some semblance of community.”
“Do you think it can last?”
“We’re well defended,” Jose said, gesturing to the guard towers. “If they wanted to take us, they probably could. For now, Soledad seems to be written off by the Valley Management.”
They sat in silence watching Zach and the children. The courtyard was warm, and Will felt like lying back on the grass and falling asleep.
“There are agents of the resistance in all parts of the Valley,” Jose finally said. “It’s a dangerous time. Everything is changing, and we have big plans. A way to get our Valley back.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Management has become desperate. Valley residents don’t have the loyalty they always did. The border zone is being attacked more and more successfully, the wall is being breached from the outside. Eventually, the Valley will be overrun.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“If the resistance leadership is correctly allied, I think we can get peace back to the Valley.”
“Seems like a long shot.”
“It’s all we have. We can go on living this way. The collections, separating families, people dying in the upvalley labor camps, disappearances. How long could we go on letting our lives be overrun? We had none of the everyday pleasures we once enjoyed. At least here in the prison, we control our own destiny.”
“You're fighting against a well-outfitted army.” Will looked around the prison yard. “You keep fighting and some or most of these people will die.”
“What choice do we have? There’s nothing to go back to. They’ll die even if they don’t fight,” Jose said. “We do what we have to.”
“What about the rain?”
“What about it? There’s nothing that can be done. We live with it. We all do.”
“How many people are here at the prison?”
“We have nearly fifty, and we’re smuggling new people from the midvalley towns and Salinas City areas all the time.”
Will and Jose watched Zach hobble around on one leg, laughing. He had a small child on his shoulders.
Will tugged carefully on a blade of grass until, with an inaudible click, the tube slid forth from its sheath, white and tender. He chewed on the soft part.
“Do you ever think about what happened?” Will asked.
“What do you mean?”
Will looked at Jose as if he couldn’t believe he had to explain. “You know what I mean. When we were over the border.”
“Every day.” Jose caught Will’s eyes. “We were kids. We should never have been there or been required to do what we did. Are you surprised they want to attack the Valley? It’s not just our fertile ground they want. They want revenge for what we did.”
“I thought you were dead. I would’ve looked for you.”
“I know. You wouldn’t have found anything, though,” Jose said.
Will looked back down at the grass, and they sat in silence for another minute, then finally he asked, “And what about Millie?”
“What about him? I know nothing about him.”
“I heard he survived. I met a man in the San Ardo camp who said he knew him.”
“I don’t believe it. Of all of us who deserved to die out there.” Jose shook his head. “The things he did.”
Will said, “I tried to stop him.”
“Well, I hope the rumors are wrong. I hope he’s gone.”
“Me, too.”
Will looked around. He was no longer tired. He felt like a caged animal in the courtyard. The buildings and fencing all seemed closer than before. “We need to get going. We have several hours before the rain. We have to keep moving downvalley.”
“Okay, you talk to the kid, see if he wants to go on with you or stay, and I’ll get some food loaded up for you.”
“We’ll need our guns back as well.”
“Sure,” Jose said as he got up and headed back toward the mess hall.
Will rose and watched Zach. He seemed so young, barely older than the children he played with.
“Zach,” Will called to him.
Zach came over, out of breath and sweating, his golden hair in wild clumps. When he smiled, Will realized that it may have been the first time he’d seen him do so.
“We’re leaving?” he asked.
“Right away.”
“Okay, let me grab my stuff and say goodbye to the kids.”
As Zach turned back to the yard, Will said, “Hey, let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“Do you want to stay here with Jose and these people? They could use your help.”
Zach hesitated, thinking about the question. He glanced down at his leg.
“They need all the able-bodied people they can get,” Will continued.
“But don’t you need my help?” Zach asked, disappointed.
Will hadn’t anticipated the question or the look of abandonment on Zach’s face. “I want what’s best for you. I told Jose I’d ask.”
“You saved my life and probably my grandma’s life, too. I’m staying with you until you get your daughter. I can always come back here after that.”
They nodded at each other, and Zach walked away to the handball court to retrieve his pack.
When he returned, Jose was approaching with two paper bags.
“You decide to stay, my friend?” he asked Zach.
“I’m going with Will.”
“I figured. Here’s some food. Should last you a day or two if you stretch it.” He handed a bag to each of them. It was heavier than Will expected.
They followed Jose back out of the inner courtyard to the edge of the guard tower. They stood where the arch of clipped wire led to the ditch and the dark quilt of Valley fields beyond. Jose whistled, and two men emerged from behind the wall of a distant guard tower carrying Zach’s rifle. One man handed it to Jose and the other retrieved Will’s handgun from his belt, placing it in Jose’s outstretched hand. They nodded and retreated without a word. Jose handed the gun to Zach, who tucked it behind the strap of his pack, then he turned to Will.
“Willie Taft. I can’t believe it. I hope I see you back here soon,” Jose said, handing him the gun. Will stuffed it into the back of his belt and hugged Jose. “I want to meet that daughter of yours.”
“You will.”
“Be careful out there. Stay hidden. Move by the river when possible and stay away from the towns. You get caught out here in the midvalley, they’ll shoot you on sight.”
Jose walked away, then without turning back said, “Oh, and enjoy the apple pies.”
Will and Zach each opened their food bag and there, carefully placed on top of the other items, was a Hostess apple pie, still in its wrapper.
In the distance, Millard Fillmore laid at the base of a tall bluegum tree, patiently watching through the scope of his rifle. The sun was high in the sky behind him, and he steadied the crosshairs on Will as he and Zach emerged from the ditch along the edge of the old prison.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After an hour
of walking, Will and Zach stood above the riverbank and could no longer see the prison behind them. Will scanned the horizon, yet still couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. He was relieved to be heading into the cover of the willows along the Salinas. Between where they stood and their destination of Gonzales, the river ran chocolate and silent in a deep channel, with well-worn paths skirting its edges on both sides.
“How far are we from the school?” Zach asked, savoring his last sip of prison cactus juice.
Will looked at the sky, then down the river and back at Zach. “A short distance now. In good weather, we’d be there tomorrow morning. I’ve been along these paths before.”
They hustled along a footpath through low muddy areas, stepping over the twisted willow trunks. Each old stem was covered with dead lichen, ancient remnants from a time before the rains.
Farther along the footpath, they climbed back to the top of the bank where Will crouched and peered into the darkening downvalley haze. The leaves fluttered around him, and a cold and stinking breeze washed over them. Will felt a tingling in the pit of his stomach, an inkling of panic as he scanned the fields for an old rain hut.
“We’ll need shelter soon,” he said to Zach, nodding downvalley and rubbing his wounded cheek.
Zach nodded.
“We’re close. Look there.”
He pointed into the thick haze where the fields were interrupted by what looked like a wide clump of trees barely raised above the plane. A spherical water tower was visible, and the clouds above the town were black.
“Gonzales?”
Will nodded. “Already starting to rain there.”
Fields fell off and stretched out from the raised bank of the river on both sides. A short distance ahead a dirt road led away from the river, back toward the longvalley highway.
Will said, “We need to follow that to some kind of shelter.”
“There, maybe?” Zach asked, pointing to a distant structure surrounded by fields on all sides.
“We’ll see.”
They jogged down the bank and into a field of sugar beets, leaping over each row on their way to the dirt road. Like fat, sunburnt, Caucasian necks with purple and green hair, the beets emerged from the dark soil, gorging on the sun, rolled and disfigured by their unnatural daily sugar accumulation.
“These are past due for harvest,” Zach said as they reached the road. “We used to grow beets.”
“Those are, too,” Will said, pointing to the field on the far side of the road. Artichokes were as high as their chests, candelabras of prickly gray-green crowns projecting skyward from each plant. Some were so far gone that their thistly spirals had opened to expose iridescent blue furry flowers.
“Jose was right,” Zach called out. “The Valley’s filled with unharvested crops.”
They left the river behind them, jogging eastward along the edge of the artichoke field. Although it wasn’t much, Will was happy for the cover of the unharvested plants. A dilapidated convoy of transport trucks glided silently along the raised longvalley freeway ahead.
They came to a ruined shed at the edge of the field. It looked like a weary ship marooned in a sea of soil, twisted and lopsided, its tin and plywood slumped and barely standing. Breathing hard, Will pushed the door open and the hinges clicked and creaked with rust. Inside, everything was dark and without definition. Will’s pupils dilated enough to accept the low light from the small double hung window in the far wall.
The single room was mostly empty, a packing shed that at one time was partly converted to house farm workers. A table and two knocked over chairs sat at one end of the room. Two broken down bunk beds, missing mattresses, and slats of wood falling off them sat beyond the table. The room smelled of mold, and Will instinctively drew short breaths.
“This will work to keep us dry,” Zach said, still holding the rifle he'd drawn when they entered.
“Maybe. Look at that.” Will pointed to an area where the wood floorboards were darkened, water-stained, and rotted away. Open dirt, wet and dark, sat below the wide hole in the floor. “Water leaks in through the roof.”
“Should we look for something different?”
“We might not have time.”
Will stepped back outside and looked up at the sky, condensed and growing dark. The smell of sulfur was in the air and the tin roof rattled in the wind. He scanned the horizon, the fields, the longvalley highway, then back toward the river.
“We don’t have other options. Those clouds are coming on fast,” Will said.
“What about under the highway?”
“Too dangerous. If the wind blows the rain sideways, I’ll be done.”
“What’s that?” Zach asked, pointing to the highway.
Beyond the fields, a vehicle was parked on the top of a produce loading ramp on the highway.
“A transport truck pulled over maybe.”
Zach squinted. “Looks smaller than that. Some kind of jeep.”
Will looked at the sky, then back at the wrecked shed. “I don’t think I have any options. If water comes in through the roof, hopefully, there’s a dry spot inside,” Will said.
Fear and sickness were creeping into him with each burning breath.
Will said, “If I start to get sick or pass out, get me to the driest area you can.” He felt a knot in his stomach, and his mouth grew dry.
They could see the rain coming only a short distance away.
“Of course.”
“And if I don’t make it through the night, get to the school in Gonzales. Just leave and go straight there. Don’t stop, rain or shine, until you get there. Helen’s teacher’s name is Mary McElroy. Tell her I sent you for Helen.”
“You’ll be fine,” Zach said, trying to be reassuring.
“Repeat the name.”
“Mary McElroy.”
Will looked at Zach and nodded. “You keep her safe. Understand?”
“Of course.”
“She can’t stay at that school. She’s not safe there.”
“Get her back to Jose at the prison. You two can stay there.”
“It’ll be dry enough in there.”
“We’re about to find out.”
Will stared up at the stinking darkness, then took one last look at Gonzales. He stepped inside as the first drops pinged off the tin roof. He thought of Helen, a short distance away on the other side of the clouds. She was so close. He breathed in the sickening incense and felt nauseous as his eyes began to sting. They’d be together again soon, he told himself, if only he could survive the night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Captain Wilson darkened the double doors of the Gonzales school gym where Mary McElroy stood with her back to him, helping students at one of several wide round tables.
“Miss McElroy,” Captain Wilson said loudly.
All the children fell silent.
“Yes?” Mary’s voice was hollow as she slowly rotated to face him.
“I need to speak with you.”
Mary was leaned over a low table helping a young boy with his writing. She stood straight and turned to face Captain Wilson. He scared her, but she tried to conceal it. His disingenuous tone of mock civility bothered her, and she could sense that his intentions were far from good. Since seeing the captain in the rain, the previous night, she had an unshakable feeling of dread. She could feel her heart beating in her throat as she faced him.
Realizing that the children were listening, Mary left the gym through the double doors into the covered walkway, and Captain Wilson followed.
“I’d like you to let the children out in the yard this afternoon. We can watch over them.”
Mary considered what he was asking. Her eyes squinted. “You’ll watch over them? What are you talking about? Where will I be?”
“You’ll be here as well. Same as always.” The Captain mustered a fake smile. “It’s a nice afternoon. Let the children out to play. You’ve apparently been avoiding that while we worked.”
“They’ve never needed to be watched over before. What has changed?”
The captain didn’t answer, and his face grew stiff and cold.
“Those are your orders, Ms. McElroy. Don’t test my patience. Let the children out when you’re done with the lesson, or we’ll do it for you.” He stared straight at her with a cold and vacant look. His pale blue bloodshot eyes were piercing, and a shot of panic went through her. Mary looked at the other soldiers lingering a short distance away. None of them met her gaze.
Back inside the gym, Mary said loudly, “You all can finish up what you’re working on and go outside for the rest of the day. Don’t wander too far from the yard, and make sure you can hear my voice when I call you back in.”
Papers rustled, chairs squeaked, and children went pouring out into the afternoon sun. Mary trailed them into the yard where the afternoon was still and pale. The morning breeze had abated, and Mary could feel the reflected heat off the blacktop as she took a seat at her play yard bench.
From that very bench, through the seasons, Mary had learned the Valley weather and its nuanced transitions throughout the year. Despite the year-round evening rains, she knew the differences in seasons as well as any Valley inhabitant. Wispy hints of backlit fog dissipating over the dark edges of the Santa Lucias signified the end of summer. The Valley seemed to hunker down under a blanket of thick, brown, morning haze as fall ended. She knew that the cold blue winter sunshine after the new year would come without a breath of wind. By then the plowshares had ripped linear gashes in the fallow fields and the morning frost sat on the black corrugations like crystalline dust.
The longer days of early spring followed. It was a season of the steady upvalley wind and the great greening of the brown Gabilan hills. When the flowers on the hills beyond Gonzales were in full riot, the weather always changed again, to its unpredictable early summer party when subtle floral scents mixed with the sting of heated eucalyptus floating in on the evening breeze with the sickening sulfuric garlic.
That afternoon was in the time when the seasons were the hardest for Mary to predict, after the chill of early spring but before the Gabilan’s wildflowers had begun to bloom. When do I start calling the children in? She wanted to leave a safe amount of time before the evening rain yet maximize their time outside. Some late spring days were warm and dry, and Mary knew the rain wouldn’t come until long after dark, but on others, like that afternoon, the sunshine was strangely paler, precarious, as if it were fighting through high clouds that no human could perceive.