We both look at Rich and he blanches. He seems barely able to walk. I slip my arm around him.
“We need to get out of here,” I say in a low voice. “There’s a woman a chain down the beach staring at us. Our cover isn’t as good as you think. And I’m almost certain that Michelle and Lincoln know it was us. She didn’t believe my line about the gang who set off the bomb. So we really don’t want to be caught here. Rich, are you okay to walk out of here? I can help you. We’ll find the others and I’ll get that metal out of you.”
Rich groans and looks like he’s going to throw up. The metal pieces protrude sickeningly from his face and arm. I realize that the hand on his injured arm is discolored. I look more closely and smell a foul smelling discharge from the wound.
“Just a few minutes more, I promise, brother. You’ve done so well.” I use my free arm to scrub at the tears in my eyes.
Millie and I support him as he hobbles up the sand. As we walk past the tent with the red cross, I give it a sideways glance and then stare at the ground. We pass the tents and step into the dense forest. I feel a sense of relief as the cool, deep shade embraces us.
“We’ll keep walking through the forest, the others will find us,” I say.
But then a familiar voice says, “Stop. I’ve got a gun pointed at your back. Turn around slowly with your hands in the air.”
Millie curses loudly.
When we turn around, there is Michelle against the backdrop of the river and the smoking remains of Washington. She looks dirty and exhausted. Her dark eyes bore into me and her hand gripping the gun shakes.
“Don’t shoot me,” I say to her. “I need to help Rich first. Then you can have me if you’ll let the others go.”
When I mention Rich, her eyes flick to his face and she falters. “Rich… oh my god…” her voice trails off. “You need help. We need to take him to the medic tent.”
“No,” I reply forcefully. “I’m going to take care of him.”
“With no pain relief?” she asks. She lowers her weapon and moves closer to Rich, her hand outstretched towards him. She gently touches his cheek.
“He’s in shock,” she says. “He needs urgent medical help.”
“Chris,” whispers Millie. “I think Michelle is right.” Profound sadness has subdued her spirit.
I’m torn between wanting to meet my brother’s immediate medical needs and wanting to ensure his safety. “Millie, they won’t let us go,” I reply in a low voice.
“They’ve already got us,” she says, looking pointedly at Michelle and her gun.
Rich begins to wobble, as though his legs are going to give out. I catch his weight with my arm around his waist. The piece of metal stares back at me where Rich’s left eye once was.
I don’t hesitate for long. “Take us to the medics please, Michelle.”
“Follow me,” she says.
We walk back towards the tents—elbowing our way through dazed looking people who mostly just stand and stare back at Washington—until we reach the dark green tent with a red cross on the door. A breeze blows up from the river, carrying with it the smell of burning plastic and slapping the tent flaps.
We enter and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. A woman with a kind face is gesturing to a narrow bed. I see others on beds spaced evenly around the tent. I help Rich to the bed and then help him lie down. He groans as he shifts his weight on the bed and my stomach lurches. Michelle speaks quietly to the woman and she nods, looking at Millie and me from the corner of her eye.
The woman turns on a bright light and angles it at Rich’s face. It’s instantly clear that no one will be able to save his eye. The metal shard is deep in his left eyeball, gelatinous muck oozing out of the hole where his intelligent brown eye once blinked at the world.
The woman pulls out a plastic tube with a tiny sharp needle. She inserts the needle into a canister and draws up the fluid inside. She speaks to Rich in a soothing voice, “This will just hurt for a moment, then it will take the pain away.” She injects the vial into his face, near his eye. Then she takes the fluid from a second canister and injects it into his arm.
I watch, mesmerized by the transformation in Rich. He relaxes completely and seems free of pain. I can all too easily imagine how different his experience would have been if we had not been pressed by Michelle to come here.
If we could find any, we would have given him strong spirits or cider to drink. Then Patrick and Millie would have held him down while I pulled the shards from his face and arm. I would have sewed him back together with nothing but a prayer to the Gods to speed his healing and ward off infection.
The woman checks Rich over, touching implements to his fingers, which are unresponsive. I can see now that his hand is pale, the finger tips purple.
“I won’t be able to save his eye, or his arm,” she says to us. “We don’t have the facilities to reconstruct his arm after the blast and there’s too much nerve damage. His time in the river has caused an infection.”
“His arm? What are you going to do?”
“I’ll amputate it just above the shard. It’s the best we can do right now.”
“Please,” I say, my desperation rising. “There must be something.”
“I’m sorry. We have no facilities to do anything further.”
She turns back to Rich and starts pulling out implements. My fists are clenched tightly as I watch her.
“Chris, l think we need to get out of here,” says Michelle.
“I’m not leaving!” I shout. The woman helping Rich freezes and turns to stare at me.
“Chris, don’t do anything you’ll later regret,” says Michelle. She hovers her hand over her holster.
“Go, Chris. I’ll stay with Rich,” says Millie.
I look at her gratefully. We both realize I don’t have any other choice but to go. I take Rich’s uninjured hand in my own. “I’ll be back soon brother. I love you.” Rich smiles at me, the metal shard still protruding grotesquely from his face.
I follow Michelle out into the shimmering haze of morning heat. The river mocks me, the wreckage of Washington starting to wash up on the narrow riverbank. We walk towards the edge of the camp and take a seat on a fallen log. Michelle looks at the debris, and the burning, smoking mound that was her home, and then back at me.
I’m exhausted. All I want is to be back with my brother. I hold her gaze for a moment and then look away.
“Why did you do it?” Michelle finally says. “The fuel, our home… why?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do,” I say to her.
“You could have killed everyone.”
“We warned you. We never wanted to kill anyone,” I reply. “We wanted to stop a war. When the people from the station said they were going to take the fuel by force if necessary, we knew you wouldn’t share it. We knew you would defend it until the end of time, when we were all gone, anyway. This seemed like the best way.”
Michelle’s eyes glaze over. They are hollow and ringed in dark circles. “So why did you come after us?” she asks me.
“The way we did it was a mistake. Many people could have been hurt,” I reply. “But it seems fair to even the playing field. The station and the forest people are starting from the ground up. Everyone deserves a chance without Washington in control.”
Michelle seems to be thinking deeply and doesn’t respond. We both stare at the Potomac. The sun is rising higher in the sky. A new day dawning over a new, uncertain future.
From across the crowded riverbank there comes a shout. “Christopher Kennedy! Where is he?” I shrink into myself. It’s Yanx. I can see her gigantic figure pushing its way through the Washingtonians.
She strides straight for me.
I raise my arms defensively.
She stands in front of me for a moment. When she speaks, her voice is uncharacteristically mellow. “Chris, you wonderful man,” she says.
I blink in surprise.
“You saved her…
You saved my Katherine. Lincoln told me. He told me everything, about Rich, about the hours they spent holding the orange buoy. Rich saved Lincoln back on Washington. He wouldn’t leave without him, even though Lincoln told him to go ahead.”
Yanx wipes a tear from her kohl-rimmed eye.
“I’m sorry about Rich. What did they say?”
“He’ll lose his arm and eye,” I reply warily.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Yanx is softer than I’ve ever seen her. She comes close to me and crouches down in front of me. She takes my hands. “Thank you for saving my daughter. I am always in your debt. You’ll have my protection so long as you need it.”
Michelle is watching us carefully. “I think we should check on Rich. I’m going to get you all some food. Then, you better be off as soon as Rich is out of recovery.”
I look up wide-eyed. I can hardly believe the words I’m hearing. “Really?”
Michelle doesn’t answer and stands and walks into one of the tents. Yanx takes a seat next to me on the log and examines her long painted nails. Michelle returns after several long moments with a plate of bread and fruit and a bottle of fresh water.
“Drink, eat. We’ll go and check on Rich soon.”
Yanx takes a piece of sliced apple with a look of distaste on her face. She holds the browning slice between her fingers and examines it. The sight of Yanx, who often proclaimed herself queen of the territory between Washington and Canada, now perched on a rotting log amongst the debris of her source of power—holding a meager slice of hours-old apple—it’s too much, and I break into a grin in spite of myself.
Yanx and Michelle catch sight of me and for a moment we all laugh. It’s a deep, chest-full, cathartic laugh and I find myself wiping tears from my eyes.
Michelle stands and I know it’s time. I’m energized by the food and water and buoyed by the thought of seeing Rich.
We enter the medical tent and I find Rich lying on the same bed. He has a thick bandage over one eye and a stump above his elbow, where his left arm used to be.
He grins at me, his good humor unfaltering.
“They did great, brother,” he says. “Look at my new arm.” He waves his stump in the air. I have tears that fall freely now. I embrace him and turn to the healer who treated him.
“Thank you for what you did. He wouldn’t have looked like this, or felt like this, if we had to treat him without all of… this,” I say, sweeping my hand around the tent.
“Take these,” says the woman with a sad smile. She hands me a plastic container of pills. “He needs to have these antibiotics twice a day until the container is empty. This is pain medication.” She hands me another container of small white pills. “He can take these whenever he is in pain, but no more than four per day. Please be sure after the second week to taper him off the pain medication. They can be addictive. Even if he asks for more, it’s important that you slowly reduce the dose.”
I nod, tucking the pills deep inside my vest to keep them safe.
“Keep an eye out for infection. Change his bandages. Do you have bandages?”
I shake my head, my cheeks flushing. She passes me a small bag of neatly rolled crepe bandages, and soft cotton pads.
“Thank you,” I say to her.
“He really should stay here for a week or more. But I understand that you need to leave urgently.” A look passes between Michelle and the woman. Michelle nods softly.
We help Rich up and he stumbles off the bed. He’s a bit woozy and Millie and I support him with our arms. His stump brushes me and the guilt is almost too much to bear, but we need to find the others before Michelle changes her mind.
We pause outside the tent. Michelle and Yanx stand side by side. They stare at us and on impulse I give them Ada’s openhanded salute. Michelle looks surprised, but then returns the salute. Yanx grins at me and raises her hand as well.
The wreckage of Washington is all around us. But for a short moment, we are at peace.
“Thank you for looking after my brother as though he were one of you,” I say, before turning and walking away.
I wonder if I will ever see them again.
We walk into the forest towards the tanker. We only walk for about fifteen chains before I hear the double whistle. I whistle back and the others rush towards us, wrapping their arms around us in a tangle of bodies. I’m laughing and crying and overcome with gratitude and deep guilt in equal proportions.
Delphine and Abigail are both crying, too. Abigail grabs hold of Rich and doesn’t let go of him, tears falling freely down her cheeks as she sees the extent of his injuries. “I’ll be okay, Abigail,” says Rich. “I’ll be okay.”
Birch slides against me, in to that place that feels as though she belongs, and hugs me tightly.
“We watched the place explode,” says Abigail. “We thought you were all dead until Patrick saw them bring you back to the riverbank on the small boat.”
“We weren’t sure if you’d been detained. We were going to give it another day and then come and rescue you,” says Birch. She slips her hand into mind. I put my arm around her and rest my head on the top of hers.
“I’m glad you are all okay,” adds Carl. He sounds like he really means it. “Although you look like you’ve seen better days, Rich.”
“Let’s find the tanker. Let’s go home.” I say to them.
Chapter Eighteen
Rich sits next to me in the cabin of the tanker so I can keep a close eye on him as we drive away from Washington. The vibrations of the vehicle soon lull him to sleep and I nudge him awake.
“Are you feeling okay, brother?” I ask him. I have an irrational fear that he will fall asleep and not wake up.
“It’s so strange, Chris,” he mumbles. “When I close my eye, I can feel my arm as though it’s still there.”
“Are you in pain? Do you need water?”
“No, just drive. I need to rest for a while.”
And so I let him sleep, his head resting on my shoulder and the stump of his arm, wrapped neatly in crepe bandages, tormenting me.
The tanker begins to splutters an hour or so past New York City. It begins to shudder and lose momentum until finally it stops, completely unresponsive to our attempts to start it once more. Millie thinks it’s out of fuel. Obviously there’s nothing we can do about that now.
“Is there anything useful in the vehicle?” I ask the others.
We comb the vehicle carefully and Abigail finds a bright, powerful lamp, which we switch on, and then quickly off. “Someone is going to see that,” hisses Millie. But when she takes the lamp, she turns it over in her hands in wonder. We contemplate taking the small ladder on the side of the tanker but Millie promises to come back and salvage it tomorrow.
We abandon the huge vehicle in the middle of the forest. Huge oaks tower above it and a small patch of bamboo grows close by. I wonder briefly how long it will take for the forest to reclaim the giant machine.
“We are close to home, now,” says Millie. “Rich, are you okay?”
He nods, of course, but I say, “He really can’t walk far. We’ll have to find a way to carry him.”
We fashion a stretcher out of branches that Patrick strips with his knife, and cloth that we cut from the seats of the vehicle. Rich objects, but eventually agrees to lie down on the stretcher and we begin our trek to the vineyard.
We walk slowly, taking turns to pair up and carry Rich. It’s quiet and cool in the forest. We don’t see anyone as Millie leads us through the back trails on the way to her place.
The winery palisade has been rebuilt and the dogs rush out as we approach, barking hysterically. There’s a surge of energy in our small group. We can all feel it. We are almost home.
The dogs continue to bark and a small group emerges from the half rebuilt home behind the palisade. They see us from several chains away, and wave enthusiastically. We pick up our pace as we walk through waist-high heather that surrounds the vineyard. The sun is shining, a warm remi
nder of summer fast approaching. For the first time in a long time, I am feeling good.
Morris has opened the gate and he greets us all with a welcoming embrace or a gentle pat on the back. He pauses when he sees Rich. He takes in Rich’s arm and bandaged eye.
Before we can say anything, Morris wraps both arms around Rich. “You’ll be right, son,” he says. “Let’s get you all in here to rest and eat some dinner.
Mother stands away from the others. Millie and I carry Rich to her and place him gently on the ground. She looks at Rich, taking in his injuries, and then drops to the ground next to him and pulls him close. She doesn’t react to the severity of his injuries. But her eyes betray her. She looks at me with a mix of anger and sadness. I feel as though I’ve let them both down with my impulsivity.
“I’m sorry Mother. I’m so sor—” I start to say.
But Mother puts her hand up and closes the gap between us. We hug and she takes my hand and then reaches for Rich’s remaining hand. “I’m so glad you are both alive. I got your note, Chris. I’m sorry you felt that you couldn’t confide in me about your plans.”
“I never meant for this to happen to Rich,” I choke out. I’m barely able to maintain my composure. Rich is my other half, my brother. I would do anything to protect him.
My mother starts to speak, but she’s overcome and buries her face in her hands. When she can finally speak, she looks at us intensely. “I love you both. You are my entire world. Nothing is more important to me than you.”
There is more the three of us need to say, but for now, we embrace and mother and I pick up the ends of Rich’s stretcher. We slowly follow the others as Morris urges us inside.
We set Rich up in a comfortable chair and Prue and Morris prepare a wonderful meal. We eat and drink and the new house feels cozy and wonderfully comforting. The finest cheeses and wines are laid on the table, as well as preserved fruits and vegetables, and wild greens foraged from the forest.
I look around at the table of friends and family. Some I’ve known all my life and others mere weeks. But a strong sense of kinship bonds us all.
We laugh and cry as we tell and retell our adventures since first leaving Martha’s Vineyard. I show my scar where the bear attacked me. Mother talks about Commander Rothman, and the incredible things she’s learned from the people on the station. Delphine promises to show everyone the Collection tomorrow, after we rest.
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