by P. Mattern
* * *
So, I waited. The date between Oz and Pagan took place without incident. Pagan told me that he was a perfect gentleman and only vaguely suggested that she might want to accompany him hunting in the future, but she assured me that he didn’t make it sound like a date or anything.
That should have put my mind at ease, but it didn’t. I still had a nagging instinct that Roger Vermillion was after my girl, who was becoming more and more beautiful with each passing day. If I concentrated, I could almost feel her slipping out of my league.
Life went on, though. Rollo and I made a tight group of new friends that we could hang out with and learn from, since they had lived on the surface longer than we had. We became competent at tracking and hunting, gathering the berries and medicinal plants that the tribe utilized, and grew into physically stronger young men. Rollo got his first girlfriend, a half Cherokee native girl with long silky black hair named Ama, which means ‘water’ in English. She was a good match for him, and I was happy he had found someone too.
Bree also had a little guy friend named Ashkil—I guess it means ‘boy’ in Cherokee, but everyone just called him Ash. It was great to see Bree so happy and satisfying to think that in spite of what we’d been told, a better life existed beyond the walls of Citizens Cove.
The most impressive guy I met was Kingston. He seemed to know more about survival on the surface than anyone. He was someone even Oz himself called in to consult with whenever things changed or a new dilemma presented itself. He had been the one that originally came up with the inoculations against rattlesnake bites, and, knowing how harsh and unforgiving our environment was, all of us were willingly inoculated.
The whole thing came to a head sooner than I had expected. I was taking a nap in my room after a long day of hunting for the tribe with my buddies. I had been asleep only a short while when I felt someone shaking my shoulder and hissing for me to wake up.
“Billy,” Pagan repeated in a stage whisper, “Billy please wake up!”
The urgency in her voice makes my heart start pounding even before my eyes open.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.
I can see she’s been crying.
“I asked after you and Rollo said you were taking a nap,” she says. “I was coming back from the public baths. The last few times I was there with Ama, I saw Roger Vermillion there.
Not to bathe or anything, just fully dressed and staring at me from the sidelines.
At first, I thought it must just be a coincidence, Billy. But after the first few times, I noticed it wasn’t an accident.”
By now, I am fully awake.
“Pagan—why didn’t you tell me that this was going on?” I ask in an urgent tone, “I would have confronted him. I don’t give a crap if he is our so-called leader. He is a freaking STALKER!”
“Shh!” she pleads with me to stay quiet. “Quiet, Billy. I haven’t even gotten to the upsetting part.”
“Okay,” I say, steeling myself with difficulty. “Get to it then, Pagan.”
What I don’t add is that I already want to punch this guy out already for staring at my girlfriend’s nude body.
“Well, he disappeared before I got out of the pools, so I got dressed and walked Ama back to her room. I was on my way to my own quarters when I heard him call my name from behind me. It was like he had waited until he could catch me alone.
“When he caught up to me, well, he kissed me, Billy. Not a brotherly kiss, or a greeting, it was a full-on French kiss. I didn’t think he was gonna stop, so I pushed him back away from me.”
By this time my fists are clenched into balls, and my fingernails are digging into the palms of my hands.
“Go on,” I told her, tersely.
“Well he pulled me back against him, Billy. He kind of ran his hands all over my body and told me I was most beautiful girl here, and that meant he had to be with me, or he would lose his right to rule. He said he’d give some time to break up with you, but tonight I have to meet him in his quarters, and after that, I’m his. I won’t be going anywhere without permission; it’ll be just like Citizen’s Cove.”
At that point I am on my feet, ready to whale on Roger Vermillion with everything I had.
“Billy, stop!” she tells me, pushing against me as I surge forward. “It gets worse!”
“Worse?” I echo incredulously, “How could it possibly get any worse?”
Desperation was in her eyes.
“He told me I could say ‘no,’ but…” her eyes begin to well with tears as she chokes out the last part, “if I do, he’s going to cast out all the people from Citizen’s Cove, not just me, you, and Rollo, Billy, all of us!”
‘Enraged’ doesn’t even begin to touch the anger that is boiling inside of me.
“Fine,” I hear myself say, “Fine! Let’s get Rollo and Ama and Bree and Ash and the rest. We’re gonna be paying a visit to Roger Vermillion this evening, because I need to give him a piece of my mind!”
* * *
The meeting with Roger Vermillion, aka ‘Oz,’ goes about as well as I expected.
I start off, politely, telling him how we appreciate him making time in his busy girlfriend stealing, stalking, and extortion schedule to meet with us. He tells me that I am nothing but a piss ant refugee from Citizen’s Cove that he took in out of pity, I was a waste of flesh that knew nothing before he took me in and taught me survival skills and I should be embarrassed to think Pagan deserves someone as pathetic me. He tells me that if I interfere, he will evict all of us from the cavern and we can start our own tribe, and make our own rules. We all agreed to honor the customs of Angeli Terrae when we joined, and if we’re willing to go against our word, then we’re worthless.
The only part of what he tells me that makes sense is the part about Pagan being safer with him. He’s got me dead to rights there, because I have zero idea on where we can go next if we both leave.
“Tell you what,” he says finally, “If you and your friend Rollo choose to leave, then I will provide you, not only a couple mammoths, but also enough supplies to tide you over. And if anyone is unhappy, they can go with you.”
When he leans across his desk, putting his face so close to mine that I could easily punch him… only I don’t, because he has two goons standing on either side of his desk waiting to drag me away.
“Pagan, though… Pagan is worth more than the lot of you! She has true beauty. But it has nearly been spoiled by her devotion to you!”
His reference to the trauma Pagan suffered is too much. I throw out a fist that just catches the edge of his jaw as he pulls back, and his goons are all over me at once.
“Hmph. Billy, I didn’t know you had it in you,” he tells me, ruefully rubbing his jaw, “Well, I guess I can count on your leaving then…”
“If you’re not gone by morning, I’ll have you eliminated in the most painful way I can imagine. Now go pack your stuff! If I ever see your face again, it will be screaming in agony.”
* * *
It’s almost dawn. No one has gotten any sleep, and all of us are high on adrenalin.
There are about 30 of us. We call ourselves ‘The Renegades’, and we are ready to roll out of the Cavern Clave. We are taking one of the wooly mammoths with us, Trixie, because she is already devoted to Bree, and enough supplies to last us a day. We’ll have to forage from then on.
All my true friends are on board for the journey. I am especially grateful for Kingston, who says that he has heard of a cave system about 20 kilometers from where we are. He says that it is rumored to contain hot springs and might make a decent settlement.
Pagan finds me and we kiss. She looks happy with her decision to leave with us. I feel a combination of both fear and exhilaration as we start off. And I have learned something.
Being in any society, whether it is honest or dishonest, requires tradeoffs in exchange for security that a person might not be willing to make. There are no utopias, but I am determined t
hat our group, OUR tribe, won’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
And so, we’re headed further West.
…Personally, I like our chances.
Epilogue
“They’re gone,” the Personal Guard to Tribal Leader Roger Vermillion informed him.
“ALL of them?” Oz asked the guard, with one of his eyebrows raised.
“Yes. Including the young woman Pagan—the one you’ve had your eye on. She probably would have been more trouble to you than she’s worth—if she had remained behind, I mean, Oz.”
“Oh, I know her kind,” Oz answered smoothly, picking up a geode from his desk and turning it over in his hands so that the crystals in it sparkled in the light of the room and threw scattered prismatic rainbows against the rock walls. “It will take a little cold, a little hunger, maybe a tiger attack, maybe some frostbite, but she will come crawling back to me. The instinct for survival always wins out. It can make a hypocrite of anyone.
“So, I’m willing to bide my time. That Billy kid doesn’t understand survival, or the miserable hard scrabble existence of life in the cold. I do. And I remember all the terrible things I did to survive. And when their backs are against a wall and the wretched hunger and cold of winter set in, they’ll remember what it was like here. And then they’ll all be back. The ones who are left that is…
“I have trackers following them so that I can keep up with their whereabouts. Perhaps, due to his inexperience, Billy Zhine will meet with an unfortunate accident, in which case I will send messengers to inform her that she is more than welcome to return.”
The Guard frowned.
“What if the idiot survives? What if he makes a go of it? He has Kingston with him, remember.”
“True,” Oz replied, setting the geode back down and frowning.
Then he smiled at the guard with delight, “I remember, because I ordered Kingston to follow them.”