Another explosion rocked the ranch, preceding a spurt of dirt and gravel raining down on them as the hot breath of the explosion rolled past.
“Long story.”
Tally got up to her knees to look over the edge of the building, at the place where she had almost followed Greene down to the patio.
There was still smoke streaming around the building; it took a few seconds to clear, but as it did, where she’d expected to see Greene’s broken body splashed all over the concrete, there was nothing.
Not a thing.
The explosions had ceased and the last clatter of machine gun fire had diminished to the odd potshot. Maxine hadn’t seen anyone moving through the gap beneath the boards for three minutes, other than to see a few of Creggan’s men getting up from behind the dead cattle and running with their hands held high, heading off towards the ridge of spruce on the edge of the climb up to the mountain.
But she had seen a few of the black-clad militia who had run Creggan’s men off her father’s ranch with a bunch of grenades, smoke bombs, and accurate gunfire. She’d recognized the uniforms at once, of course, and her heart had swelled in her chest.
“Clitheroe’s Defenders,” she’d said aloud. And while Poppet had worked on sewing up the damage to Larry’s hand, she’d explained what had happened to her in Cumberland when she’d gone to the hospital there to extract Larry.
The city of Cumberland had been under the boot heel of General Carron and his men, operating out of one of the city hospitals and sucking up all the resources they could, keeping the population scared and at bay while they grew fat on looted food and possessions. Larry had been kidnapped by Carron’s men from his cabin up in the woods. Carron had been shot in the leg and an infection had necessitated it be amputated. Larry had been taken to do the job, his wife Elizabeth getting killed in the raid. Carron’s men had then come under sustained attack by Clitheroe’s Third Maryland Militia, a group of private citizens and preppers who had been in training for the day the SHTF—and the Barnard’s Star supernova had covered the Cumberland fan in it on every blade, six inches thick. The militia had attacked the hospital and beaten Carron and his force with their tenacity and tactical skill, Maxine coming along for the ride.
Clitheroe had given Maxine his blessing for her to take Larry to the M-Bar to treat Storm’s appendicitis, but the appearance of the Defenders let her know that he hadn’t trusted her fully and must have sent some of his men out to extract Larry. They’d ended up in a battle to keep Larry alive and had saved the ranch as a byproduct of their efforts.
Well, at least they’d saved it for now.
Poppet was helping Larry into a sitting position now that his hand looked like a spider convention. Red swollen skin around a million black stitches. One finger rested at a crazy angle since Poppet had closed a hole that had been torn in the gap between the second and third fingers in the top of his palm.
“How does the hand feel?” Poppet asked him as she dropped the needle and thread, then took off her gloves.
“Terrible,” Larry said. But then he held up his right hand and waggled the fingers. “But luckily, this is the hand I do my doctoring with.”
Larry sketched a weak smile across his lips, and his eyes met Maxine’s. “You and the Godmother here did a fine job on Storm. Well done. Sorry I flaked out.”
“Not a problem,” Maxine said. “Might have been another story if it hadn’t been for Clitheroe’s people.”
Larry nodded. “He’s been saving my sorry backside a lot recently. It’s becoming a habit.”
Maxine put down the shotgun and came away from the window. Storm was drifting off to sleep on the strong painkillers he’d been fed, and Poppet handed a couple to Larry.
Larry shook his head. “We don’t know where the next lot will be coming from. I’ll make do until I can’t stand it any longer. But I will take the antibiotics.”
Poppet searched some out for him and he swallowed them dry.
And then the door opened and Tally came in, followed by Josh, Henry, Donald, and Karel.
Maxine exploded across the room and threw her arms around the fighter from Poland, via Cumberland. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you. You saved us. You saved us all.”
Karel grinned. “And didn’t lose a man. I can’t say the same for the aggressors, however. But while they lost some, a fair amount of them will make it back to their base, and that will bring you more problems.”
“You can’t stay?” Donald asked. “You’re pretty handy to have around in a fight.”
Karel shook her head. “No. That is not our mission.”
“That would be me, I take it,” Larry said, holding up his hand. “I may, however, have become damaged in transit.”
Karel’s face fell. “This is not good.”
“Don’t blame these people,” Larry insisted. “They didn’t shoot me. It was the guys you shot who did that. And in the end, it was worth it. The boy’s going to be okay.”
Maxine smile at Larry, mouthed “Thank you” to him, and looked at the group who had crowded into the little room. “Where’s Greene? Is Mom okay?”
“We don’t know about Greene…” Tally said.
Maxine looked at Donald. Donald looked at Josh.
Josh’s face was a complicated mess of pain and sorrow, but Maxine knew the face well. It was the face he wore before he had to tell someone bad news.
The worst news imaginable.
Before Josh could say anything, Maxine had already barged between him and Karel, heading for the stairs.
4
Maria was buried in the grave they’d dug in order to convince Dale Creggan she was already dead.
The irony wasn’t lost on anyone, but no one gave voice to it. No one seemed to have the energy for just getting through the day, let alone trying to see beyond the immediate.
Dale Creggan, the ex-bloodstock agent who had risen to become the leader of the nearest West Virginia town, Pickford, believed and had convinced the people under his command that the changes occurring in so many citizens hadn’t been a result of the Barnard’s Star explosion, but was a disease… a communicable disease like rabies or Ebola.
Creggan and his people had killed everyone in Pickford who’d shown signs of it, this imagined disease. And their desire to purify the countryside around the town had brought them to the M-Bar, and into a series of skirmishes that had turned into all-out war. The evidence of that battle lay all around the ranch as Josh and Donald shoveled the earth onto Maria’s canvas-wrapped body and the others walked back to the house. Maxine alone stood watching for a few moments more as Josh worked.
He ached to speak to her, but in the hours since the battle, he hadn’t been able to get her alone. He needed the reassurance that Maria’s last words had been the residual mutterings of a dying woman still in the grip of the supernova-induced madness—but conversely, he didn’t want to telegraph his own selfish stuff onto Maxine in the time of her most acute grief.
Maxine wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and, hugging herself, went back to the bullet-ravaged ranch house, to where Tally waited for her on the porch. They went inside arm in arm.
Donald and Josh continued to shovel in silence.
The land was scarred from explosions. Karel’s men were taking the bodies of the men they’d killed and putting them in a shallow trench that had been dug a hundred yards from the paddock where Josh and Donald worked. Creggan’s men were going to be cremated in a gasoline fire and then covered over. Karel had said to the others, “We don’t have time for Christian burials. But we’re not leaving them out to rot, and I want us gone by first light tomorrow.”
Karel had made it clear that, even with only one good hand, Doctor Banks would be an asset in Cumberland, and she and the rest of the Defenders would be heading back there in the morning. “You’re more than welcome to come with us. But we’re not staying here to cover you when Creggan comes back for revenge. Which he will. He has to.”
Donal
d had wanted to argue—his face had been set for it, and his mouth about to quiver open—but Maxine had taken him to one side and told him about the setup in Cumberland. About Clitheroe and the scourge of General Carron which had been neutralized. Cumberland would be better for all of them. Especially Storm, recovering from his surgery.
Larry had nodded when Josh had asked if it was safe to transport Storm in the buggy. “Sure,” he’d said. “Safer than staying here to get shot in the head by Creggan’s men, at least.”
And that had settled it. They would spend one more night at the ranch, figuring Creggan would lick his wounds for a day or so before persuading his men to come back and try again.
After Josh and Donald had reopened the grave and then washed and wrapped Maria’s body, the funeral had been a simple affair. Just Josh, Maxine, their children, and Donald had attended it at the graveside. Henry and Poppet had hung back, beginning to ration out provisions and ammunition for the journey.
Two of Karel’s men went up to the ridge where the buggy and Tally-Two—the spirited horse, named by Storm for his sister—had been left before the battle. They’d also been charged by Karel, once she’d heard Tally’s story, with seeing if they could find any traces of Greene. But he’d disappeared almost as if he’d never existed. There were no tracks they could discern—the battle-ravaged land and buildings of the farm had seen to that. But they had found Donald’s Collie, Bobby. The dog hadn’t been seen for two days, but they’d found him up near the tree line, wary but obviously happy that all of the fighting had stopped. The dog had followed the buggy back down to the M-Bar and run straight inside the house to find Storm.
Karel’s team hadn’t caught sight of any of Creggan’s men—not even anyone just observing the farm. The recent injection of the professionally trained militia had sent them all scurrying back to Pickford, it would seem.
Donald put down his shovel and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. Since it had been decided they would leave the M-Bar behind and head to Cumberland, he hadn’t said much. Josh put this down to the man having to bury his wife as much as anything else. The hit of losing Maria and the M-Bar in the same day would have knocked any lesser man completely off their perch. But Donald’s stoic mask hadn’t shifted. Not even now that the body of his wife was covered and his work here was done.
Donald’s eyes narrowed in the evening sun. The plain was lit golden, and the trees on the ridge were etched like black ink drawings on blue paper. He was scanning his land. Out from the paddock, past the barn and across the fences, looking even beyond the bodies of the cattle and those that still grazed in the lower pasture. Josh could almost hear the cogs whirring in Donald’s brain. The years flicking back and forth like a deck of old cards, the calculations of all he had spent totaling up in his mind’s ledger alongside the lakes of sweat and the piles of pain he had seeded the land with. Josh didn’t know if saying anything right now would matter more than a damn, and thought maybe silence was the best compliment he could give to the man.
Donald nodded, put his handkerchief back into his pocket, picked up his shovel and, putting it over his shoulder, turned to Josh. “I think we should eat now, don’t you? If it’s going to be my last meal here, then I want to make it a good one.”
Then he walked back to the house without another word.
Josh took a few more moments to look about the land. It had never been a place where he had felt at home, and he had visited it seldomly over the course of his marriage. Maxine had only come back here when it had been necessary, after all—she had never felt, she’d said, forgiven by Donald for leaving in the first place—but now, having witnessed Donald’s scan of his property, Josh felt that he’d gotten a sense of what that home meant to him. And that was instructive. Without a word spoken about what they’d done or who they were to each other, Josh had felt closer to Donald than at any time in his married life.
Maria’s words, casting doubt on who Storm’s father was, had sent a similar rush of memories and calculations through Josh’s mind, too. The review of his own life, his marriage, the good times of the past, and the not-so-good times of the recent past as he and Maxine had drifted apart.
On his journey from Savanah, Josh had been harboring the notion that he’d be able to patch things up with Maxine in this so changed world. He’d apologize, and they’d work things out like adults rather than the back-biting fools they had become. But Maria’s words had been like a kick in his emotional guts.
The memories of Gabe Angel and the way he had treated Maxine during their college days had already risen up bitter and hot in his thoughts as the battle for the ranch had heated up, but Josh had pushed them back down so he could focus on the fighting and keeping his family safe. Now that Maria was in the ground, and he was on his own standing over her, he looked down onto the disturbed dirt. He willed it to give up the truth from the body lying cold beneath it. Willed it to give him some sign that the conversation he was going to have to have with Maxine wasn’t the one which presented itself.
He thought then about letting it drop. ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ and all that.
Did it really, in this post-tech world, matter whether Storm was his son or not? Could he sufficiently grasp the nettle of being the New Man, of moving beyond petty jealousies?
He had given Storm his unconditional love. And had been happy to.
Was a son only a son by dint of biology?
Josh had friends who’d adopted kids when they’d found they couldn’t have them themselves. He’d worked with a number of foster families as both a cop and a probation officer. Were the connections between those parents or surrogates any less strong than the bonds made within and between bloodlines?
Josh knew in his head that, of course, those bonds could be just as strong, and knew that what mattered was what you made of a life, not where it started from.
And yet… there was still a rusty nail working its way through his heart.
There was only going to be one way to take that nail out or drive it in for good, and to do that, Josh was going to have to speak to Maxine about what her mother had said.
The question of whether Maxine might have lied to him all these years about Storm, and of whether or not she might have had an affair with Gabe was, Josh thought with some surprise, secondary to how he might be related to his son by blood. Maybe he and Maxine had moved apart so much that any adultery was less of a concern. Perhaps he’d already accepted the relationship was so much on its last legs that that kind of revelation wouldn’t make too much difference.
But Storm. His son? Or not?
That really mattered.
The sun was falling behind the hills now, and there was only the little brightness left in the sky giving any illumination to the land. A black pall of smoke from the cremation pit was rising into the air, and Karel’s militia were walking back towards the farm, their faces solemn.
The dirt over Maria’s grave wasn’t giving up any secrets, and so, with a sigh, Josh turned from the bronzing sky and walked the few yards to the porch.
He waited until Karel’s men had trooped through the door before he followed them in.
Maxine watched as Henry worked at the barbecue range out back of the ranch. Two of Karel’s troop had butchered one of the cattle killed by Creggan’s men and brought plates full of steaks back for the last meal at the M-Bar.
Storm had been carried out from his bed to a recliner on the small patio, and although he looked pale and worn, he was glad to be out of his room. Larry and Poppet made him comfortable, and Tally brought him fruit juice and steak in relays.
Donald stood silently, the glow from the barbecue coals flickering across his face and hooding his eyes. Maxine wished that he would just start to cry, or let her throw her arms around him and squeeze him until the thousand-yard stare in his eyes left him, but she could still feel the force field around him warding her off. In many ways, she supposed, he’d been grieving for the loss of Maria for the past few mont
hs, and her death was just the capstone on that particular well of sorrow. Perhaps he was already all cried out.
For Maxine, Maria’s passing left a complicated knot of emotions to unravel. Certainly, since Maxine had made it back to the ranch with Storm, Maria had not been the person she’d remembered or expected. At turns psychotically violent and insanely incoherent; at others, submissively empty and distressingly childlike. She’d not been the strong, wise, and capable woman who had been the antidote to her father’s remoteness or bursts of anger.
Maria had been the demonstrable one. The one who laughed and cried alongside her daughter. Who had supported her when the chips were down. Tempered Donald’s ire when he would snap at Maxine during her early teenage years’ attempts at mild rebellion. The colored hair, the makeup, the provocative—to Donald, at least—band T-Shirts. Maxine had never imagined R.E.M. to be the height of teenage rebellion, but Donald was suspicious of anything that smacked of politics. “Turn that long-hair nonsense off!” he’d yelled at her over and over again.
Perhaps she had played “Losing My Religion” one too many times within his earshot, and maybe she’d enjoyed baiting him a little. But when she’d played any music louder than Donald deemed acceptable, he’d just stalked into her room, ripped the CD player’s plug from the wall socket, and stalked out again without a word.
On those occasions, it had been Maria who would talk to him on Maxine’s behalf. Calm him down and eventually get him to go see to something out on the farm to “cool his socks off.” While Maxine had been allowed to plug the player back in and get on with being a kid.
The one time Maria had failed to get Donald to calm down had been when Maxine had gotten herself a nonpermanent henna tattoo on the wrist of her left arm. Aaleyah Rahman, a petite and stunningly beautiful Muslim girl at her school, had learned that summer how to do exquisite henna tattoos and been looking for people to practice on. Maxine had allowed her wrist to be encircled in a lacey brown bracelet no more than an inch wide. The cuff of her blouse had failed to keep it covered up at the dinner table one night as she’d reached across Donald to get the bowl of mashed potatoes.
Supernova EMP Series (Book 3): Bitter End Page 4