by Starhawk
29
Madrone sat shivering in the far bunk, wrapped in every blanket Isis’ boat provided. Each breath she took hurt her lungs, but it felt good to breathe, good even to hurt, to feel her heart racing in her chest. Shock and hypothermia, some part of her noted. Her body felt completely drained; every last bit of energy had been spent. But she was alive.
“Drink,” the Melissa said, bringing a cup of hot water laced with honey to Madrone’s lips. She sipped, savoring the liquid on her tongue, the sweetness.
“She okay?” Isis said, poking her head down from the deck.
“She will be, with rest,” the Melissa said.
“Hang on.” Isis retreated above, and they heard the sound of the anchor chain being paid out over the bow.
“We’re fixed for the night,” she said, entering the cabin and closing the hatch behind her. “Now, want to tell us what happened?”
Madrone sipped again. It was hard to believe she was really here, on Isis’ boat, not still floating, a cold corpse on a dark night ocean.
“We heard about the raid,” Isis said.
“Littlejohn’s dead,” Madrone said. “And they caught Katy.” “Shit.”
“Drink,” the Melissa said again.
“You escaped?” Isis said.
“The Angels helped me.” Slowly, haltingly, Madrone told the story.
“So they saved their own tails when the heat came, and left you,” Isis said. “Those slime! You can’t trust them. I hate them like poison.”
Madrone closed her eyes. She was too weary to hold the lids open.
“I’m due for a run up to see the Monsters tomorrow. Want to come along? Three days up, two days back.”
Madrone shook her head. “I need to find Katy. Save Katy. That’s too long to wait.”
“The shape you’re in, you gonna find nobody and nothing but your own grave.”
“They think she’s at the Research Center,” Madrone said, her voice still barely audible. “At the university.”
“Might just as well be on the moon.”
Madrone shook her head. “Beth will help.”
“Who’s Beth?”
“A friend. A doctor—used to be. Years ago.” Madrone paused, gathered her strength, and then explained. “I’ll go stay with her, rest, figure out how to rescue Katy.”
She wasn’t sure where she got the conviction that she could rescue Katy, but it was growing in her moment by moment. She had been saved for something. Why, when so many others were dead, if not to save somebody else? I couldn’t help Poppy, I couldn’t save my own mother from the men who killed her. I have to save Katy. She had to do it, therefore she could.
“You are one crazy woman. You feel like a little fifteen-mile hike through the canyons right now?”
Madrone shook her head. “Need a ride.” She paused, still panting. “Sara might do it.”
“Who the hell is Sara?”
“Another friend. Rich white lady, lives in a big house in the canyon. Where I took the swim. She helped before.”
“And how do we get to her?”
Madrone sighed and sank back into the blankets. She was too tired to think any further.
“Katy was a good woman,” the Melissa said, “but she has gone beyond our help now.”
“No,” Madrone said. “I promised her.”
“Promised her what?” Isis asked.
“Promised I’d be there when her baby comes.”
“Circumstances have changed.”
“I have to try. I have to!”
“All right,” Isis said. “Don’t get all in a froth about it. You tell me how to find your friend’s house, and I’ll take a run out there, see what she’s willing to do.”
When Madrone closed her eyes, she dreamed she was back in the water, floating, waiting, lifting out of her body to fly. She wanted to go home. Someone was calling her home. Bird—no, she was the bird, winging north along the sun-baked coast, over the mountains and the last stands of redwood and madrone. And then she was home, but the streams were dry and the gardens withering and Maya sat in the kitchen of Black Dragon House, all alone. “I’m home,” Madrone said, but she was invisible, a ghost. Maya’s eyes were ancient and full of old grief. Her face changed, shifted, and Madrone was looking into Lily’s eyes.
“Everything’s gone wrong,” Madrone whispered. “Everything I tried to do down here has been destroyed.”
“Come home,” Lily said.
“I have to try to salvage something.”
“Come home.”
“Lily, I remembered. I remembered my mother’s death.”
“Come home.”
“But they’ve defeated you. And I can’t bear it.”
“You belong here. Come home.”
She woke, feverish, to sip more honey water and a bit of acorn broth. But when she slept, again she was back in the water, struggling with the last of her strength against an overwhelming tide.
Isis returned an hour after dawn.
“Sorry it took so long,” she said. “Had to wait for her old man to clear out. You ready? She’s gone up a few miles to the beach club, she’ll be back for you in half an hour. Come on, I’ll row you in, if you still want to go. You know your face is plastered on every vidcom from here to the border, along with some pretty bloody pictures of a couple dead bodies. Girl, those Angels screwed you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Must have been a security camera in that house. Course they don’t care about shit like that, they all look just like each other. But you’re unique. And I’m afraid you’re a marked woman now.”
Madrone was too tired to react, too tired to think. She followed Isis into the boat, forcing herself to stare at the water as they made their way to shore.
“Listen,” Isis said as she helped Madrone out of the boat onto the sand. “Your friend has a key to the Yacht Club gate. Six days from now, after dark, I’ll wait for you at the end of Pier C. If you need to get away, I’ll take you where you want to go.”
“I want to go home,” Madrone said, without thinking.
“Might be time,” Isis said. “Be a lot tougher down here with your stats on vid.”
“Why the Yacht Club? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Safest mooring on this stretch of beach. Last place they look for a pirate. Now, can you make it up that path?”
“If I have to.”
The path wound up the shoulder of the hill, and Madrone made it, barely, by willing her exhausted body to go on. She waited, hidden by a clump of wild mustard, until a sleek black car pulled up and stopped. Sara opened the door, leaned on the rooftop for a moment as if admiring the view. Using the car to screen her from the roadway, Madrone ran, crouching, and slid into the back seat.
“Head down,” Sara said, sliding behind the wheel and starting the engine. They were off.
They drove in silence, down the coast and then inland on the winding boulevard that ran by the feet of the canyons.
“Thanks for coming to get me,” Madrone said after a long while.
“My pleasure,” Sara said. “I’ve often thought about that day we spent together.”
“Yes, me too,” Madrone said.
“You never came back.”
“It was too dangerous. I was afraid for you.”
“You went to Beth’s.”
“Once. That was dangerous too. Twice would be much worse.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to lie or make excuses. I’m aware that you’re not in love with me.”
Santa Madre de todos los dioses, Madrone thought, what now?
“If you were,” Sara said, “you would have risked anything to come back. As I would, for you,” she added softly.
I am too tired for this, Madrone thought. I can barely think, much less answer her. But I have to say something. She was still crouched down in the back seat of the car, and she couldn’t see Sara’s face.
“I didn’t know you felt like that.”
“Wasn
’t it obvious?”
“It was … beautiful. Wonderful. But I didn’t know you took it so seriously.”
“You don’t know me well.”
“I don’t,” Madrone admitted. And you don’t know me at all, she wanted to add, but she stopped herself. You are in love with your own fantasy. Why did sex get so complicated down here, when it had always been so simple before? How did she end up using people, hurting people? Because she was using Sara now, and she would use her more, if she needed to, to rescue Katy. Maybe that was wrong, but she was gaining a sharp, ruthless edge from using herself too hard. They were rounding a curve and she was suddenly nauseated, her bee senses outraged by the fumes and the speed.
“Did you really murder that little girl, like the vidnews said?” Sara asked abruptly.
“What little girl?”
“The little Angel girl. They showed pictures, in full detail. And the man. The vidnews love that sort of thing.”
“No,” Madrone said. “She was caught in the raid—they destroyed one of our bases. We went to the house to try to take her back, but we were too late. The man had killed her, and the Angels killed him. I couldn’t stop them.”
“I didn’t think you would kill a little girl. The man I could understand. I could do that myself if only I could work up the nerve.”
“Sara, I’ve never killed anybody. I hope I never have to. I was raised to believe in nonviolence.”
“But you help the Web. And they kill people.”
Madrone could not answer her. It’s true, she thought, and I question it every day, every raid. But can I honestly imagine nonviolence transforming the Stebners of the world? Or the Angels practicing it? And yet we are not winning here with violence either. The car swerved again, and Madrone let out a soft moan.
“Are you okay?” Sara asked.
“Just motion sickness,” Madrone said.
“We’re almost there.”
Sara pulled the car up the drive and into the open garage at Beth’s boarding-house.
“Wait here,” she said to Madrone. “I’ll find Beth.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Madrone said. It was a relief to lie still, curled up on the back seat, with no movement to disturb her throbbing head. After a moment, Sara returned.
“Quick,” she said.
Madrone slid out the car door and followed Sara. At the back of the garage, a door opened into the back hall, and from there a stairway led down to the basement room she remembered.
Madrone sank gratefully into one of the comfortable shabby couches scattered about the room. She began to cough.
“I’ve had Gloria put some tea on,” Beth said, entering. The lines seemed scrolled a bit more deeply around her eyes, and her forehead furrowed as she felt Madrone’s brow with the back of her hand. “You need some nursing and some feeding up. Sara tells me you almost drowned.”
Madrone nodded. She was trying not to cough, but it was impossible to soothe her outraged lungs.
“That can have serious aftereffects, you know. Are you developing pneumonia?”
Madrone finally succeeded in taking a long, clear breath. “I don’t think so.”
“I’ll get my stethoscope. You could have fluid in your lungs. The salt draws it in.”
Madrone submitted to Beth’s ministrations. Sara brought down tea and sandwiches, and they ate. It was nice, Madrone thought, to be fussed over and pampered a bit—by two white women, no less. Diosa, she had changed, to think of them that way. Yes, the Southlands had changed her.
She was tired. Too much had happened in the last few days, or maybe it was the fatigue of months settling on her at last. How good it would be to stay here, rest, not think about anything for a while. If it weren’t for Katy.…
“I need help with something,” Madrone said. “That’s really what I came here for.”
“What?”
“There’s a woman, a friend of mine. She got caught in the raid. She’s just about nine months pregnant, and we think she might be at the Research Center.”
“Poor thing,” Sara said.
“I want to get her out. Will you help me?”
“You don’t ask for much, do you?” Beth said.
“It’s important.”
“It’s impossible,” Beth said. “The place is heavily guarded.”
“I’ll think of something.”
“You’d better think about resting, recovering some strength.”
“I can’t rest, thinking about Katy in that place.”
“You may have to.”
Madrone bit down on her lower lip. I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to tell these women about my mother or Poppy and have them soothe me with their white hands. Goddess, what is wrong with me?
“Don’t some of your girls have assignments there?” Sara asked. “Couldn’t you at least find out if this girl is there?”
“We could do that,” Beth admitted. “Marcia would do that for us. But how do you figure on getting in there and getting her out?”
“I’ll think of something,” Madrone repeated. “Maybe Marcia can tell me the routine, how they do their procedures. If I could get a uniform, I could go in as a nurse.”
“You could never be a nurse. They don’t let colored into the training programs.”
“Fuck that!”
Beth stared at her in surprise. I’m losing it, Madrone thought. I’m very close to the edge of losing it.
“I’m sorry. I’m just not used to this racial bullshit. But they must let us darkies do something. Who the hell empties the bedpans?”
“Blacks do that,” Beth said. “You could be an aide, maybe.”
“That’s what I’ll be,” Madrone said, smiling up at Beth. “I’ll work something out. I have six days.”
“Six days!”
“Before my pirate friend comes back. That’s the only way I can figure to get out of here, after.”
“You better rest quickly, then,” Beth said. “Six days!”
“Ill help you,” Sara said, pouring out a cup of tea and setting it on the low table in front of the couch where Madrone lay.
“Thanks, we’ll need a driver.”
“You’ll need a hearse,” Beth said.
“You’re so encouraging,” Sara said.
“Sara, are you out of your mind? You’re no revolutionary. What if you get caught? What if your husband finds out?”
“He’s already found out—about Angela. He thinks she’s Mary Ellen’s child, and he’s given me a month to get rid of them both.”
“Oh, no! How’d he find her?”
“He went down to the basement to look for his old golf clubs, Jesus knows why. It’s not the sort of thing he does; usually he just bellows at me or the servants to find whatever it is. He was furious, not just that she was there but that I was lying to him.”
“What are you going to do?” Beth asked.
“I want to come with you,” Sara said to Madrone. “Mary Ellen and the baby too. When you go, we’ll all go with you.”
“Sara, this isn’t a widescreen,” Beth protested. “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
“But I know what I’m getting out of. What else can I do? Can I throw my sister’s child out into the street, and Mary Ellen, who’s taken care of me all my life? And there’s no life for Angela here, even if Lance hadn’t found her. She may be black, but she’s my flesh and blood too. I want to take her somewhere she can have a chance. I want to take her to the North.”
“There’s a war on in the North,” Madrone said, closing her eyes.
“There’s a war on here,” Sara countered.
If she ever got back home, Madrone vowed that she would never again complain about the blandness of General Hospital’s architecture. She made her way down corridors so white and blank they could have been constructed for a sensory deprivation experiment. The overhead lighting cast no shadows. Nothing was differentiated; only the changing nameplates on doorways assured her that she was not merely on a
treadmill, walking endlessly in the same place.
She was afraid. Dressed in white, clutching a handful of printouts on a clipboard, she tried to convince herself that she looked as if she belonged in these empty halls. Her white aide’s cap covered the bee spot on her forehead, but her face, she thought, weathered and sun-dried and exposed on every vidscreen in the county, was too recognizable, too clearly out of place. Her very fear must have an odor that reeked of the streets and the hills. She walked on.
Third level down, Marcia had said. Fourth hallway over, second corridor to the left, five doors down, through the unmarked doorway that required a security access. Well, she would deal with that when she came to it, if she came to it.
Walk on, girl. Yes, Papa, I tried to get somebody to cover my back, but the best I could do was Sara’s promise to be our driver. And Marcia’s purloining of these whites and this ID card—Goddess grant that no one checks it. Papa, in spite of your blood in my veins, this is not what I was born for.
The stairway, now count, one flight—or, no, each turn and landing must be halfway there, yes, so here’s the first doorway, down and down again, and the second level, on down and down—what was that noise? A door opening above. Do I stop? No, continue, that’s right, steady, no break in the rhythm of footsteps and gracias a diosa those steps are going up, not down, getting fainter. And here is the doorway. Open into the corridor and walk left, step by step. So easy to get confused among these blank white walls. Don’t they believe in signs? Or must anyone who ventures down here already know the way?
Down the hall a door opened. Steady, Madrone thought, just keep walking. She thought she heard a moan, but then the sound was cut off and a white-garbed figure hurried her way. She kept her eyes fixed on her destination and passed, not even noting whether the figure was female or male. Her heart was pounding, almost audible, and she slowed it, slowed her breathing, keeping the rhythm of her walk steady.