by neetha Napew
"Cemeteries are full of folks who thought there was nothing to worry about," Mildred objected.
Steele turned toward her. "Could be that you've got… No, can't say that. Just that the Children of the Rock always welcome strangers, as long as they measure up and fit in. Best Brother Wolfe tells you more over the noon meal."
"Noon or one?" Krysty asked.
"At one. But it's always been called the noon meal. Kind of tradition."
He turned, ready to leave, when Ryan called him back. "One last question, Brother Steele."
"Yeah, Brother Cawdor?"
Ryan touched the tiny rad counter fixed to the lapel of his coat, seeing that it still showed high orange close toward the top-risk red.
"What's the hot spot?"
Steele's jaw dropped, like he'd been gut shot. "Who's told you? Where did you get that?"
"The rad counter? Been carrying it more years than I can remember. If my memory serves, we found a stack of them near Topeka. That it, J.B.?"
The Armorer was sitting on one of the beds, polishing his glasses on a linen kerchief. "Topeka? Yeah, that's where we got them."
Steele had recovered his balance. "I guess that we're so used to it that it doesn't bother us."
"What is it?"
"Hot spot. Not so bad as those little gizmos show. Doubt it's anywhere near to red."
"Near enough," J.B. said. "How far away from the ville is it?"
"Two, three miles. Brother Wolfe found it when he was picking this place for the home of the Children of the Rock. Lies north and east." He cleared his throat. "It's an old complex, built just before skydark. Earth-shift exposed some part of the central nuke core. Leaks."
Ryan sat on one of the beds, testing the mattress for springiness, looking at the man disbelievingly. "He knew there was a rad spot that close? And he still picked this for the ville. And you've all been here for all that time. I just find that real hard to—"
"There must be some side effects from the radiation," Mildred said. "Skin problems. Fertility…" She stopped as a thought struck her. "Hey, I haven't seen many children around this place. Not for the numbers of men and women. Should be more."
Steele didn't reply, half turning to stare out through the open doorway.
Ryan pressed him. "I've seen about four or five little ones since we arrived. There's no school…nothing like that. Is there, Steele?"
"No. No school. Not for years. Not enough children to make it worthwhile."
Doc cleared his throat, coughed and tried again. "Might I be permitted a small observation, ladies and gentlemen? On the subject of infants."
"Go ahead, Doc."
A half bow of the leonine head. "My thanks, Master Cawdor, for your courtesy. It is just that I have a great affection for children, having so tragically lost my own two dear little doves. They were so tender and so…but let that pass. The milk is spilled and spilled forever. You cannot ever go back, when you are always moving on. They were only cities, but they're—"
"Doc!"
The old man jumped at Mildred's interruption. "I was wandering, was I not?"
"You was. I mean, you were, Doc. You'd been talking about children…"
"Yes. Have any of you noticed that the majority of inhabitants of the settlement are what one might once have called white Anglo-Saxon Protestants?"
"Sure are," Steele said, not hiding his irritation. "Where's this leading to, Doc?"
"The children all looked remarkably to me as though they came originally from Native American stock." He sneezed violently. "Bless me!"
Ryan blinked. "Fireblast! That's right, Doc."
"Mescalero." Jak punched his right fist into his left palm.
"Is that right?" Krysty took half a dozen steps across the cabin to confront Steele. "Gaia! That's it, isn't it? You're all sterile from the rad hot spot. You can't have your own little ones, so you steal them!"
Without a word the sec man stalked quickly out of the cabin, vanishing into the heart of the ville.
BEFORE GOING OUT to share the noon meal with the rest of the Children of the Rock, Ryan and friends had a long discussion about their situation.
The first problem to face up to was Brother Joshua Wolfe. Could he be trusted?
"Mebbe we should just up and get out," J.B. said. "Out of sight's out of range."
Ryan was in favor of staying. "Keep our eyes open. Course. But I reckon that if Wolfe had wanted us chilled, he could have simply raised his hand and that would have been it. I'm kind of interested in the setup here."
"How about the rad hot spot?" Mildred shook her head, the beaded plaits chinking against one another. "Remember that guy, Owsley, with his skin? Nasty complexion. More spots than a leopard. I would lay money that it's a lupus-linked condition. Got its roots in a rad cancer. I wouldn't want to stay here longer than two or three days."
At that moment there was a hesitant knock on the door. Jak was nearest and opened it, revealing a couple of women holding buckets, brushes and mops.
"Can we come and clean?" asked the older of the pair, a skinny woman with sparse gray hair.
"Sure. We'll move out of your way." Ryan got up from the bed where he'd been resting, leading the way from the cabin. Doc was the only one who didn't move. He had suffered another dreadful coughing fit that had racked his body. Now he slept, uneasily, tossing and turning, muttering to himself, hands opening and closing like claws.
"Can leave him there," said the other woman, a pretty, washed-out blonde, who looked painfully anemic. "Won't bother us none. Need to rest up for testing."
Ryan nodded. "Sure. Not long until the meal. Rouse him for that."
Krysty paused in the doorway. "How long since there was a child born here in the ville?" she asked.
"Child?" The women looked at each other doubtfully. "Born here?"
The older one wiped the back of her hand across her face. "You mean a norm?"
"Sure. Why? You had some mutie births?"
"Don't say anything," the younger one urged. "Brother Wolfe doesn't like blabbing."
"No, won't hurt none. Not a secret, is it? Half the folk of the Sierras know about our problem."
Doc coughed and stirred in his sleep, rolling over onto his right side.
"Go on," Krysty prompted.
The woman hesitated, reluctantly proceeding as though the words had been drawn from her heart. "Last natural-born baby here was a good four years back, and that was a weak sideling. Lived a scant brace of months. Been others." She pulled a grimace of disgust. "Been others."
"Others? Muties?"
"Worse than that." Her eyes had narrowed, and her voice dropped. Her companion looked nervously out the door, as if she feared their being overheard. "Sickly, ailing creatures. Devil's spawn. Head and legs. Body like a girt spider. Another with claws, like a crab, but with a cluster of eyes across its little forehead."
Her friend crossed herself. "Poor wee mites. That one with a tangle of arms from its tiny chest. And the one with kind of feathers all over its misshapen skull."
"The goat child."
"Aye, Jesus save it."
"And the one that bit a finger clean off Goodwife Biddy at its birthing."
"By the saints! That was one of the worst of them all. Took three bullets to dispatch its hideous scaly body all the way to Paradise."
"Hopeville to Paradise."
She addressed Krysty again. "Rightly said, outlander. This is a poor, blighted place for raising children."
"Why not move from the hot spot?" Mildred asked. "You'd have been spared much of this."
"No," they said in chorus. The older one wrung out her mop to indicate that the conversation was almost over. "Brother Wolfe says that it's all a part of our suffering. Suffering like He suffered. Our own cross to bear."
Doc had jerked awake from sleep, lying still, listening to the women talking. "Golgotha!" he said, very loudly. "Not Hopeville. Golgotha, the place of the skull."
"Stay loose, Doc." Ryan had come back from t
he sunshine to stand next to Krysty. "How many of the Mescalero children have been taken?"
"Can't rightly say, Brother Cawdor." The older woman shook her head. "Not our place to say. But I'd figure the answer is close on twenty."
"They still living?" Ryan asked.
"Some. Most of them don't take to our ways and food and all. Some get sick. Sores around the eyes and mouth. Shittin' disease. Piss blood. Only about four or five actually what you might call left living. The Apaches take it hard."
The other woman nodded eagerly. "That's true, Sister Helen. Like bein' at war, it is."
Jak reappeared. "Food near ready," he said.
IT WAS A CASUAL MEAL, no tables, with the food served on an assortment of home-fired dishes and wooden platters. Big bowls of food sat on one trestle, to be taken away and eaten while sitting on the cropped grass around the huts.
Wolfe was in a jovial mood, ladling out venison stew, reassuring them this was better-quality meat than what they'd eaten back at Mom's Place. He told them that sec scouts had gone back along the trail and found the smoldering ruins of the eatery and a charred skeleton in the glowing ashes.
"And a stench of kerosene," he said, grinning broadly, the smile puckering his scars. "Looks like she disagreed with someone who ate there."
Ryan figured that the leader of the Children of the Rock strongly suspected their involvement in the slaying and arson, but didn't seem to be particularly worried by that, letting it pass, unchallenged.
Which was fine with him.
But it was another good reason to keep checking over his shoulder.
The rich stew came with an assortment of fresh vegetables, well cooked and flavored with a mix of local herbs and spices. Josiah Steele had brought them straight to the head of the self-service line, where Wolfe was already waiting for them, holding a rough-cut goblet of reconstituted glass filled to the brim with spring water.
He had greeted them cheerily and joined them when they had all loaded their plates and sat down to eat.
Doc was the only one whose platter didn't groan under the weight of food. He had selected a few tender pieces of venison for himself and a small spoonful of the buttered, whipped potatoes, picking at his food between noisy snuffles and outbreaks of phlegmy coughing.
Ryan noticed that the old man looked pallid and was sweating profusely, though the temperature under the shadowing mammoth trees couldn't have been much above seventy.
"Tell us about this testing," J.B. said to Brother Joshua.
"Nothing for anyone to be concerned about," the leader of the ville replied.
"Who gets tested and how?"
"All of you, Brother Cawdor," he replied. "All of you, by all of us."
There was a snicker of laughter from somewhere along to their left, a sound that seemed to come from the general direction of Jim Owsley.
Joshua Wolfe ignored it and carried on speaking. "Nothing for anyone to worry about. If they are pure of heart and fine of spirit, then the Blessed Jesus Christ, Our Savior, will stand at their shoulder and guide them through the gins and snares laid down by the Evil One."
"Blessed is the light of the world," called a shrill woman's voice.
"Amen," in a scattered chorus from all around the center of the ville.
"Verily, amen to that." Wolfe put his head to one side, like a quizzical crow. "Enjoy your repast, and give thanks to the Almighty for its preparation."
"When testing start?" Jak asked, helping himself to another two sourdough rolls.
"This very afternoon, if we can arrange it. I can see that you and the boy will have skills to offer to us. Young men, Brother Lauren and Brother Cawdor, agile and lithe. And I have no doubt that having walked the walk with Brother Ryan Cawdor and Brother Dix will have set you both up for their sort of living."
Ryan had finished his meal and given the empty plate to one of the women. He felt comfortably full and relaxed, though a little concerned about the state of Doc's health, which seemed to be still deteriorating.
At least they were in what seemed a snug and secure ville, with warm fires and food and stout walls. If Doc was going to be ill, then there were lots of worse places.
Weren't there?
Chapter Twenty-One
"Brothers and sisters!"
Joshua Wolfe clapped his right hand against his thigh, drawing everyone's attention. "After that wonderful meal, provided by the kindness of the Almighty, prepared by the sisterhood, it is time for a short service to welcome the newcomers into our midst."
Ryan glanced at the others to see if anyone had any obvious objections to the idea of participating in a religious service. Personally he had no sort of belief in any kind of orthodox faith. Trust yourself a lot and your friends a little, and nobody else at all— It was the creed according to the Trader, and Ryan went along with that.
The heavy shutters that had been covering the windows of the squat church of Hopeville had all been thrown back, revealing some surprisingly beautiful stained glass, its bright, rich colors glistening in the early-afternoon sunshine.
Gradually, like fall leaves carried on a light wind, most of the inhabitants of the settlement made their way toward the heavy building, the shadow of its tower stretching across the trodden turf to welcome them.
The overwhelming color was the maroon of the men's jackets, matched by the blouses and skirts of the women.
Ryan noticed that all of the men carried their blasters with them wherever they went. It was something that he approved of, if it was true that they were in a state of permanent armed conflict with the local Mescalero.
If you met up with hostile Apaches, then you best be carrying all the weapons you could manage. There was no such thing as too many blasters.
Wolfe shepherded them along. "Come, my dear outlanders. You shall face the testing with the love of Jesus Christ as your shield and buckler."
"Sword," Doc said, his booming voice sounding unexpectedly loud.
"How's that, old-timer?" Wolfe asked, his benevolent smile still pasted firmly in place, though Ryan noticed that it didn't seem to quite reach the slightly thyroid eyes.
Doc coughed, covering his mouth with his hand. "My apologies, friends." He half bowed to the leader of the Children of the Rock. "I simply thought it fit to correct your error, Master Wolfe. That was all."
"Error? I think you should know that I am not in the habit of making any errors."
There was a cold edge to the man's voice, like a hacksaw buried in ice.
"Forgive me, dear sir, but indeed you did. You spoke of shield and buckler, did you not?"
Wolfe hesitated for a moment. The men and women of the ville were all pressed around him, hanging on the exchange. It was all too obvious that it was unusual for anyone to contradict something said by Brother Joshua Wolfe.
"Let it lie, Doc," Ryan said quietly, so quietly that the old man didn't hear him above the murmurs of the crowd outside the church.
"I said shield and buckler, Brother Tanner. That was what I said."
Doc laughed croakily. "My point, my point, sir. That is a plain tautology."
"What the fuck you blatherin' about, you triple stupe?" Owsley snapped.
Doc didn't hear, or ignored, the hostility in the sec man's voice. "A shield is a buckler. And a buckler is a shield. They are one and the same thing. I believe that what you meant to say was sword and buckler." A long pause. "Or, mayhap, you might have said sword and shield. One and the same thing, Brother Wolfe. They are one and the same."
"That is so interesting. By the cherubim and seraphim, Brother Tanner, but I am so pleased that you saw fit to correct my foolish error."
The sarcasm was tainted with a red-mist anger, barely under control.
Mildred sensed it, stepping between Wolfe and Doc. "That's enough of errors, Doc," she said, taking the old man by the arm. "Let's go and have us some churching."
"But of course, madam. I shall mark your footsteps, goodly page, and follow in them closely. And the wolf and th
e moth shall not corrupt us. While the rabid wolf shall lay down with the lion. I could wolf down some good communion wafers and wine. Wolf them, Brother Wolfe."
Owsley moved in on Mildred, his eyes tight with rage, the tip of his tongue flicking at his suppurating lips like a rattler tasting the air. His hand was on the butt of the Hawes Montana Marshal. "You just shut—" he began.
Ryan's fingers closed on the SIG-Sauer, and he expected the whole afternoon to erupt into gunfire and bloodshed.
But Joshua Wolfe controlled the moment.
"No!" he snapped, gesturing with the stump of his missing hand. "No, Brother Owsley. It doesn't signify at all. I'm interested to learn about my mistake."
The hair-trigger instant came and went. There was a whisper of conversation, overlaid with a touch of disappointment, and they all went inside the church.
THE INSIDE DECORATION of the building wasn't like anything that Ryan had ever seen before.
Most churches he'd encountered had religious pictures on the walls. Saints at their labors, or resting, in all styles and patterns. One near Zuni had Christian imagery pictured through Native American art, the apostles as kachina figures.
This was different.
"Dad, this is something else," Dean breathed as he slid along into one of the front oak pews, on the right side of the narrow, maroon-carpeted aisle.
Josiah Steele sat next to Ryan at the end of the row. "Not many churches look like this, do they, Brother Cawdor? You could walk the length and breadth of all Deathlands and never see its like in any ville."
Ryan nodded. "Can't argue with that."
Joshua Wolfe had gone to the front of the building, standing with arms folded, hooded eyes watching as his congregation settled into their places.
"Welcome to the first Church of the Children of the Rock in the holy sanctuary of Hopeville." His voice was deep and solemn, the words sounding as though they had been dragged out of some cold underground catacomb. "Amen."
"The Church of Jesus Christ the paramilitary fundamentalist welcomes all."
That was the motif repeated endlessly around the walls and windows of the building. The same theme even decorated the arched ceiling.