Rebel Nation

by Shaunta Grimes

  The accusation hung between them. Bridget did, too. And a lifetime of friendship.

  “No, but we talked about it before she went. They would have questioned her. She wouldn’t have held up. You know she wouldn’t have.” Isaiah looked at West with a kind of pleading in his eyes. “I thought I could manage it. I told her to go to her father, to tell some, so that they’d think that she’d told everything.”

  “That didn’t work real well.”

  “No.”

  West’s breath came in clouds he could just see in the moonlight, and whatever warmth he’d earned by walking fast along the wall was leaking out again. “Let’s go.”

  They walked in silence, Isaiah first and West behind him. The six feet between them might as well have been six miles. For most of ninety minutes they didn’t say another word to each other.

  It occurred to West as they neared the gate that the guard Isaiah had thumped might have raised an alarm by now. What were the chances that he was still out, two hours later? When they got close enough to see the gate through the trees, and there was nothing unusual going on there, West stopped.

  “Did you kill that guard?”

  Isaiah shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “No.” Then again, “I don’t think so.”

  “Christ.” It suddenly felt like every tree might be hiding a guard. As though they might all jump out, like a horrible surprise party. Every hair on West’s body stood on end.

  Isaiah lowered his voice and asked, “Where’s the car?”

  He pointed to his left, toward where the van was parked a mile or so away. This could all be a trick. Isaiah was the one person he might trust enough to lead him to the place where the others waited for him to return.

  They must be so worried. But Christopher had probably already stepped up, West thought. He’d keep everyone working toward making Virginia City safe. How could West lead the enemy right into their camp?

  “What have you done, Isaiah?”

  Isaiah was scanning the trees, watching, looking. “What do you mean?”

  West grabbed his arm. “I mean, what have you done? What are you doing here?”

  Isaiah didn’t yank his arm back, although West felt his bicep bunch up. “The only thing I’ve done is save your ass.”

  West had such a clear picture in his head. Isaiah in his guard uniform, talking to Bennett, agreeing to wait by the river just in case. Agreeing to follow the rope of friendship that bound them and send back information. Let the Company follow the same path to those kids who had never been safe. Never once in their whole lives. “How could you do this?”

  Isaiah pushed West away from him. “I’m not doing this with you. I was by the river because I thought some more kids might try to sneak through. I didn’t want them to get caught up. You were the last, and I mean the very last, person I expected to see.”

  West hadn’t known he was coming back into the city until minutes before he did it. Isaiah was telling the truth about one thing. It was ludicrous that any of this was happening, because it was ridiculous that West had just walked through the gate from the outside.

  “You were out past curfew,” he pointed out. “That wasn’t very smart.”

  “I’ve given up everything,” Isaiah said. “If you really think that I’m some kind of mole, then tell me now. I don’t think Vincent saw me. I can get back into the city.”

  Let him go. The impulse was strong. Just let him go back. West mostly believed that Isaiah wouldn’t work with Bennett. Not like this. But something, some deep voice, whispered that maybe—just maybe—it might be better to keep him close.

  Isaiah nodded once and walked toward where West had pointed to the van. West followed, and they were able to get into it, start the engine, and drive away without anyone jumping out from behind any trees.

  West second-guessed himself at least a hundred times during the forty-five-minute drive back to Virginia City.

  One minute he was genuinely glad that they would have Isaiah with them. He knew so much more than any of them about the inner workings of the city. He was strong. He would fight with them if it came to that. At least, West hoped he would.

  The next he was certain that he was driving the wolf right into his chicken coop. He thought about Christopher and Marta, Phire and Emmy, all of those kids that had come through the river on promises of safety. What was he doing?

  The one thing that made him feel better was that Isaiah would have no way of communicating with Bennett from Virginia City, if that really was what was going on. If he’d brought some sort of device with him, it had been soaked during their escape.

  “Do you remember when we used to float down the river when we were kids?” Isaiah asked.

  West remembered. They’d take the cushions from his grandmother’s patio chairs. The covers were ancient, but they were plastic and they floated. Mrs. Finch would be so mad when she found them waterlogged, but never enough to keep them from doing it the next time. “I remember.”

  “I always felt like we were Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on those days. On an adventure, headed off somewhere even though we never even got close to the wall.”

  They were ten years old, exploring within the safe confines of their city. They always climbed back out, miles from home, and carried those cushions over their backs to their neighborhood in time for their suppressant and whatever Isaiah’s grandmother made them for dinner.

  “I wouldn’t do what you’re worried about,” Isaiah said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

  —HARRY S. TRUMAN,

  SPEECH TO A JOINT SESSION OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS, MARCH 12, 1947

  Jude expected Denver to be a mountain city, like Reno. The train wound through the Rockies, but before it stopped the landscape suddenly changed to grassy flat lands. The wall around Salt Lake City had been concrete, like Reno’s, although its sides were straight and not as high. Denver’s wall was brick and topped with mismatched iron spikes that looked like they might have once been fencing.

  “They tore down houses to get the bricks,” Clover said, watching outside the window as they sped along the red wall. “Can you imagine the work that went into it?”

  The wall was close enough, for several minutes, that they could have reached out and touched it. And then it curved and they continued on straight. For the first time in his life, Jude looked out on a horizon with no mountains. It was like floating in a sea of dry, yellow grass.

  “We’re stopping.” Clover leaned forward, her nose almost on the glass.

  Jude inhaled, sharply, and the drowning feeling passed. The train slowed, the noises it made grinding down until finally they were at a full stop. It took several more minutes before Frank opened the door to the passenger car.

  “Here we go,” he said. “Welcome to Colorado.”

  Mango bounded off the train first. It had been hours since their last stop and Jude was sure that the dog was as desperate to get off as he was.

  Colorado was as arid as Utah. It looked different—grass instead of brush, flat plains instead of mountains—but it felt familiar. They were still in the west. The sky was still vast and cloudless blue, like his grandmother’s mixing bowl turned upside down overhead.

  Clover stepped off the train ahead of him and stopped dead so that he nearly ran into her. She tensed when he put a hand on her back to stop himself. In front of her, maybe half a dozen yards away, were two people on horseback, each leading another horse that was saddled but had no rider.

  “Clover, Jude.” Frank extended one of his arms toward a guy West’s age, sitting astride a dark red horse with a black mane. “This is my son Xavier.”

  Xavier barely looked at his father. He lifted his chin and when he smiled, Jud
e saw the resemblance to Melissa. He was tall and lean with hair much darker than his sister’s, but still red. Chestnut, Jude thought. Just like his horse. “Do you ride?”

  Clover was staring at the two extra horses with a look of utter horror. He could almost feel her pulse racing, her brain whirring as it tried to put them into some kind of context. He held his hand out, palm up, close to hers but not touching, and waited until she slid hers into it.

  “What about Mango?” She rocked. Toe, heel, toe, heel, until the dog in question pressed the bulk of his body against her legs. Her free hand flapped against her thigh. “I’m not leaving Mango.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Xavier said. “We’re only going about two miles. He can walk.”

  Clover turned her head and her fingers tightened around Jude’s. “I’ll walk with him. There might be bears or coyotes; he might just wander off. He might—”

  “Can we ride together?” Jude asked Xavier. Clover inhaled, swallowing back whatever was next on her list of potential disasters.

  Xavier seemed ready to argue, but the woman with him said, “Of course you can.”

  No one had introduced them to the woman yet. She could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty. Her skin had a dry, bronzed quality that gave her the appearance of having been baked, like pottery. Her hair hung in a jet-black braid to the middle of her back.

  One of the spare horses took a step toward them, and Clover jumped. “I’d rather walk.”

  “Two miles?” Jude asked Xavier. “We can walk that.”

  “It’ll be dark before we get there if you walk. Everyone is waiting on us.”

  The woman came down off her horse. “My name is Maggie,” she said. “We were hoping we’d get back to the Compound before dark, so you’d have a chance to look around. But if you really can’t ride, we’ll all walk.”

  Maggie shot Xavier a look and he held his ground for another hard breath before sliding out of his saddle. He was well over six feet tall and more solidly built on the ground than he’d looked on the horse.

  Clover let go of Jude’s hand. “Will it really be dark before we get there if we walk?”

  Xavier looked toward the sunset. “Two miles over rough terrain? I’m afraid so.”

  Jude watched Clover weigh her choices. Insist on walking and miss seeing this Compound. Or try the horse, which added to her curiosity even as it scared her, and she wouldn’t have to wait all night to see what she was missing.

  “I’ll try to ride with Jude,” she finally said. “I’m not saying it will work. I’m just saying I’ll try.”

  Xavier sighed. “Look, if we’re going to walk—”

  Maggie shut Xavier down with a look. “Butter is the best choice.”

  Butter was a cream-colored mare that sat lower to the ground than her companion. She sniffed the grass at her feet and didn’t seem at all upset by the activity going on around her.

  Jude had never been on a horse before, and for a second, when he had his foot in the stirrup and Xavier was boosting him up and telling him to swing his leg around, he thought Clover had the right idea. This wasn’t going to work. But then he was in the saddle, his legs around Butter’s wide body, and his heart settled back into his chest. Butter didn’t move, didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Okay, your turn.” Xavier tried to bodily lift Clover into the saddle before Jude could stop him. She screamed like he’d tried to lift her into a wood chipper and slid to the ground. Xavier backed away, both arms in the air.

  “It’s okay,” Frank said, bending to kneel near Clover. “Breathe, Clover, you’re okay.”

  Jude’s first instinct was to slide off the animal and go to her. Her panic, quickly turning to embarrassment, radiated up to him and he desperately wanted to make it stop. But as soon as he gathered his own thoughts that much, she was on her feet again.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She looked straight ahead, not at him, and not at any of the others. In fact, he was pretty sure that at that moment the others didn’t even exist in her world.

  “It’s okay. Put your foot in the stirrup,” he said, sliding his own foot out. “No, the other one. That’s it.”

  Clover was barely five feet tall. She was going to need help getting into the saddle if she was going to ride with Jude. She bounced on the ball of the foot still anchored on the ground.

  “Frank’s going to boost you up.” Jude nodded to Frank, who came behind Clover and put his hands firmly around her waist.

  “And, there we go,” Frank said, lifting as Clover jumped and holding on until she was settled behind Jude. “Good girl.”

  “Thank you, Frank,” she said. The man moved his hand to Jude’s shoulder and patted it. “Really. Thank you.”

  “Be careful,” he said. “Take care of each other, okay?”

  Jude nodded. Clover’s hips slid forward in the saddle until her legs were tight against Jude’s and her arms went around his waist in a death grip. “Mango,” she said against his back.

  “He’ll be okay. We’ll go slow enough.” It wasn’t like they were entering the Kentucky Derby. “Maybe you’ll like it.”

  “I hate it,” she said. And he knew she did. He could practically hear her already calculating how off balance she’d feel with the big animal stepping one foot at a time, throwing her from side to side and requiring her to respond so that she’d stay upright.

  He didn’t hate it as much. The horse smelled good to him. Like the gardens at the ranch. Fresh somehow, even though at least part of what he was smelling was manure. And Clover had her cheek against his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his chest. He liked that, too.

  Maggie tied a rope to Mango’s collar. “I’ll go slow,” she said. “Your dog will be fine. I promise to get him to the Compound safe.” Jude was inclined to believe that she didn’t break promises easily.

  After a few minutes of instruction about getting the horse to move and directing it with the reins, and a reassurance that Butter would take them home to the Compound no matter what Jude did right or wrong, Xavier took the lead. Maggie waved them on after him.

  Jude pressed his heels lightly against the horse’s belly, and Butter took a step. Clover made a small noise and her hold on him inched toward painful. She relaxed a little when they weren’t thrown off.

  At home the sun set behind the mountains. It would dip down, bits of it still showing between the peaks. Here the sun set behind nothing. It seemed to Jude like the horizon ate it.

  —

  The Compound surprised Clover. All of her mental pictures of the word were of Gypsy encampments and the military bases she’d seen in movies about war. When it came into view, the Compound was just a collection of small buildings with gardens interspersed. People, dogs, chickens, and goats milled around them.

  Xavier led them through the little settlement. Clover tightened her hold around Jude’s waist when the people started turning their attention toward them. She was determined not to be taken by surprise again if someone grabbed her in an effort to help her down.

  Jude put one arm over hers and turned his head enough to look at her. “You okay?”

  She didn’t answer. No one could call how she felt okay, but the panic she’d felt at the train had dissolved as they rode and she didn’t fall or get thrown.

  Xavier had stopped to speak to a man who rubbed one hand over the horse’s nose. Clover wasn’t close enough to hear and was tempted to kick her heels into Butter’s sides to get her to move closer, but didn’t.

  “God, what are they looking at?” she whispered, her cheek against Jude’s back. He made her front warm and the cool almost-night air chilled her back, like she had a meridian line that started at the top of her head and ended in the soles of her feet.

  The people, maybe two dozen of them ranging from Mrs. Finch’s age to the infant one woman held on her hip, stared and none of th
em spoke. It was the silence that got to Clover as much as their intense attention.

  “Us,” Jude said. “We’re new, that’s all. They don’t know us.”

  No one tried to take Clover off the horse, and she squirmed a little. It might be better if they did. Jude slid his hand up her arm to her elbow and back down again, a firm, soothing touch. “We’re going to be okay,” he said, soft enough that only she heard. Clover looked over her shoulder and felt some of the tension go out of her when Maggie and Mango came into view.

  Xavier started moving again and Butter followed, as far as Clover could tell without Jude doing or saying anything. They plodded along, much slower than they’d moved on the way here, toward another cluster of buildings on the edge of a small, fallow field. Five minutes later the horses rode into a stable.

  Jude disentangled himself from her and she gripped the edge of the saddle behind her, instead of him. Even if she fell, she wouldn’t really hurt herself. Butter wasn’t that big a horse. She was fine. She was fine. She was—

  “Come on, Clover,” Jude said. She leaned into him, her arms around his neck. He slid his arms around her again, and finally her feet were on the ground. A girl, maybe ten years old, took Butter’s reins.

  “We just brought in the corn,” Xavier said when they met him outside the stables. “Next week we’ll put in peas and onions.”

  “How many people are here?” Jude asked.

  “Nearly fifty.”

  Clover had a million questions. She started with the one that seemed the most important. “When do we catch the next train?”

  “Not for three days.” Xavier finally turned away from the field. “It’ll give you a chance to see the Compound, to get to know people here.”

  “Why do we need—”

  Jude squeezed her hand and said, “You live here?”

  “Since I was a baby.”

  “But Frank lives in Denver. And Melissa,” Clover said. “Does your mother live here?”

  “My mother died during the virus,” Xavier said. “Like yours, right?”

  The bluntness of his question made Clover realize the bluntness of her own. “I’m sorry.”