“Sir, I—”
“Fine.” Poppa flipped through the pages. “You’re in charge, then, go on, take the convoy, I trust you. We got some nice goods in Lafayette and Ezra’s six cotton wagons are valuable, but reserve at least two for Athena. I’m going to salvage what I can because I’m just damn fucking dumb enough to believe there is value here, value beyond the paper and the ink, value even beyond the old metal parts and the cotton and the timber and the crops and the chickens and whatever the God else we carry for short-term gain.”
He waved the book. “This is most definitely pre-Reckoning and I don’t have a fucking clue what it’s about but that doesn’t matter because somebody else will come along and understand it and what it means to us and our future. Odd things are going on in our world right now, Yates, a rise of fear and dark things we once thought we’d put behind us. The Before people valued this book, all of these books, because they realized knowledge was a way of fighting the dark and the terror. All damned worthless now, right, because where are the Before people now? All gone, the Reckoning having swept them all away along with their useless knowledge. Still, the Before people did amazing things whether you believe it or not, and one day perhaps we can do those things again. But even if we don’t, we need to know what they once did, what they once thought, how they dealt with darkness and fear, what they once dreamed, because we need to dream, too.
“There’s poetry here, Yates, tales of hope and beauty, and knowledge, information to guide and inspire us. The Before people built huge palaces to store these things in and keep them safe. We’re trying to do that again at the library at Athena. So I’m going to stay here and save as many of these as I can because by God I think they’re important and I will get them to the library if it takes me the rest of this goddamned fucking year!”
He wiped his brow with his sleeve, carefully set the book on one of the stacks. “Be on your way then, Yates.”
Nobody moved as Poppa and Yates stared at each other. Finally Yates straightened, ran a hand over his face and muttered something Petra was sure was a bad word.
“Armandriz, get wagon fourteen, please.” He dismounted, stepped over and grabbed a handful of books. After a moment, the other convoy masters followed.
“Raphael, Manuel, Arlen, let’s see if we can right the unbroken wagon.”
Once the work started, more hands arrived and soon all the wagons were ready. Book wagon two was crammed to capacity, wagon fourteen’s merchandise was buried under books with a few stuffed into empty vessels. The oxen from the broken wagon were turned over to a couple of Ezra’s wranglers.
“Ezra will have the wagon repaired for us,” Poppa said.
After Yates mounted his horse, Poppa called to him.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Sir.” Yates touched the brim of his hat, rode off.
Before giving the go-ahead, Poppa turned to Petra. “Any, uh, funny words you might’ve heard today are not to be repeated to your mother. Got that?”
She put on her innocent face. “Which words, Poppa?”
He wagged a finger at her. “You little devil.”
She shrugged. “Where’s Liam?”
“Riding with your mother.”
“Oh. He gets to ride with the big folk.”
“Because he is one now, petite fleur.”
“Yeah.” She shook the memory of the incident that made him one from her mind, then checked to make sure Grandpa’s gift was secure under the seat.
“Ready to roll?” said Pettibone as he climbed aboard.
At Petra’s nod, Poppa yelled, “Move out!” and the convoy resumed its journey down Old 90.
McIlhenny had to wait only half a day. New Iberia station was a huge yard crammed with ox-pulled merchandise wagons, salt wagons behind their six-horse teams and even a couple of fancy beer wagons pulled by teams of large, beautiful horses. Poppa was a happy man as they left the chaos behind.
“Six salt wagons, three barrels of pickled peppers and nine barrels of beer. With the stuff from Lafayette and Ezra combined with what we brought from Oakton station, this is going to be a very profitable trip.”
“And the books,” Petra said.
“The icing on the cake,” he said. “But, before that, a little bonus.” He opened a small box stuffed with wood shavings, pulled out a small bottle filled with red fluid. “This’ll spice up your breakfast tomorrow.”
After New Iberia, the land changed again from fields to swamps and bayous with their strange sounds and odors. Each town seemed pretty much like the last, the days were hot and oppressive and the nights were barely less so as they slept under the stars and a waxing moon. Liam was allowed to break the boredom by riding with the Rangers, aiming a smirk at Petra each time until she was ready to smack him with the Sears book.
Just outside of Berwick, a line of horsemen passed in formation. The riders rode with backs straight and faces stern. The metal in their armor gleamed in the sunlight, and round shields were slung on their backs. Red plumes curved down behind their helmets; their white tunics were short, leaving their legs bare. Spear shafts protruded from sheaths attached to their black and silver saddles. Their white flag was emblazoned with a golden shield crossed by a red lightning bolt above two green branches.
“The Athena Legion in fancy dress,” Pettibone said. “Show-offs.”
The convoy stopped in the center of Berwick while, as Pettibone said, “they figure out what it’ll cost us to cross Miss Atchafalaya.” He and Petra bought roasted chicken pieces stuck on a stick from a nearby stand. Just as they finished, the word came to move out.
Once again the teamsters yelled their peculiar calls and once again the convoy creaked forward. The road went straight through the town, then began a slow, angled climb up a huge embankment. Petra climbed onto the driver’s bench.
“Long climb up the giant levee,” Pettibone said. “These towns’ll wash away without ’em. When Ol’ Man River came, he took no prisoners. In the Before time, it was different. The Before people, see, they wanted the Ol’ Man to keep going on down to the Old City where they and their machines lived. The Before people did that a lot, making Ol’ Man River go here but not there, not where he wanted to go, but to go where they wanted him to go, to make him toe the line until he got to the Big Water. Miss Atchafalaya, now, she knew the Ol’ Man be gettin’ tired of the old ways. Oh, she worked her wiles on him, sayin’ sweet things, flatterin’ the old coot, telling him she knew a shorter way to get to the Big Water. But the Before people didn’t like this, not at all. So they built levees and dams and ditches to keep them apart. Miss Atcha, though, she was patient. She knew the truth about the Ol’ Man, and all she had to do was wait.”
Petra had learned about the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi in her schooling, but Pettibone’s singsong version was a lot more interesting.
“Then the Reckoning came. The Before people had other things to worry about ’cause they were becoming the After people and that wasn’t an easy thing. So Miss Atchafalaya pushed, she dug, she scoured, trying to get to the Ol’ Man. Then she got unexpected help: the Big Devil Wind came roaring up from the south after drownin’ the Old City. And finally Miss Atcha could speak to the Ol’ Man, and she asked, just as politely as could be, if he’d like to go with her to the Big Water, and he said ‘Ma’am, I’d be obliged. It’s been a long time I’ve been runnin’ the long road, and I’d be happy to join you on the Short Road.’ So, Ol’ Man River and Miss Atcha carved a new route, drowning towns and sweeping away many of the After people. The Old City in the Delta died and the new city on the banks of the new river rose. ’Course, these big levees had to be built first to contain the power of the new Miss Atchafalaya.”
Pettibone timed his tale to end just as the wagon topped the levee. Stretching before them was a high, wide bridge with a stone road four lanes wide. But it was the river that made Petra gasp. The la
ndscape itself was moving, sliding under the bridge in a massive and constant flow. The shores were reduced to irrelevance the farther out on the bridge they rolled. Petra saw a path where people were walking right along the edge of the bridge, so she leaped down, stopped, looked both ways for horses, then ran to the path. She raced along the sidewalk, dodging the other strollers, until she came to an overlook. She could see just enough of the bridge’s shadow in the water directly below to make out the shapes of the tops of the arches. A log rolled and bumped between the massive piers.
She raced down to the next lookout next to a tower. The river was the only thing in her view now. She began to feel like she was moving, not the river, she and the bridge receding backward toward an unknown destination.
The illusion was dispelled when horses rode up behind her.
“She acts like she’s never seen a river before,” Liam said.
“Cut her some slack, son,” Poppa said. “She’s never seen this one before.”
“It is an awesome sight,” Momma said as she stepped up to the railing on Petra’s right, Liam and Poppa on the left.
“It’s smarter than us, too,” Petra said. “In school they say we aren’t sure what’s in the places north of us, the interior, as teacher calls it. But this river has flowed past all those places, so it knows what’s there and we don’t.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” Poppa said slowly. “Nice to have the bridge in any case. Up until last March you had to cross on a ferry. Took forever to get a convoy across. Yep, the Consolidated St. Mary–St. Martin Parish people say their shiny bridge matches anything the Before People built. Might be true, ’cause all the B.R. metal bridges that used to be here were swept away.”
Poppa attached their horse’s reins to the wagon when it reached them and everyone climbed aboard, Petra and Liam on the bench, Momma and Poppa sitting behind.
“What’s that down there?” Liam said, pointing to a latticed tower downriver.
“That’s Mr. Charlie,” Pettibone said. “Used to be right next to the shore, but the new river left it stranded. One of them things the Before People used to dig out that magic black stuff.”
“Petroleum,” Poppa said.
“My old grenma use to say people could travel from Oakton to Old Morgan City in less than a day using that magical stuff in their machines. I never believe her ’cause they’d have to be almost flyin’.”
“That sounds silly,” Liam said. “People don’t fly.”
“A lot of B.R. things sound silly,” Momma said. “Hard to know which is myth and which is truth.”
“Aye that,” Pettibone said.
“Where’s Morgan City?” Petra asked.
“Athena was carved out of Morgan City. The idea was to repeat Alexandria, in ancient Egypt, the library, the harbor, and the lighthouse that you can see way down the river.”
Petra had to stand up in order to see the tall, white tower.
“At night, you can see the bonfire at the top. Ships that anchor here are asked to send any books they have to the library so they can be copied. Just like they did at the library at old Alexandria. The founders here were planning to call this place Alexandria, too, but there’s already an Alexandria in the Louisiana Federation. So they named it for the Greek goddess Athena.”
“It’s better they named it after a woman, anyway,” Petra said.
“Well put, my daughter,” Momma said as Liam made gagging sounds.
Once across the river, Poppa cut the book wagons from the main convoy and sent it to the central market with Yates in charge. As usual, Momma would go to the library, but for the first time, Liam was given a choice: the library or the Ranger barracks. Liam dithered less than a second and rode off with Annie, leading Momma’s horse.
The library was a large structure, rising skyward in white stone. An even larger building was rising behind it, still incomplete inside its cocoon of scaffolding. Pettibone guided the wagon to a sheltered area and pulled up next to a low dock. Poppa went inside as Pettibone, Momma and Raphael, the teamster from the other wagon, lowered the railings. Poppa returned with a short, curly-haired woman, a taller dark-haired woman and three men pushing wheeled carts.
“My daughter, Petra,” Momma said after they all greeted one another. “Petra, this is Kathy and that’s Elaine. The guys are Don, Dennis and Mark.”
The wagon teamsters began handing out the books as Poppa handed a notebook to Kathy, the short woman.
“OK, complete set of Foxfire books,” she said. “Can’t have too many of those. The Complete Book of Tanning Skins and Furs, good. The SAS Survival Handbook. When Technology Fails. Seed to Seed. Tom Brown’s Field Guide. Books on Chinese and herbal medicine. My goodness, sounds like your bibliophiles were preparing for the Reckoning.”
“Except they didn’t know it was coming,” Poppa said. “They must’ve thought some kind of catastrophe was, though.”
“Are these black books?” said Don as he and Mark lifted a large trunk wrapped in chains.
“Yes,” Poppa said. “The Satanic Bible, along with books of spells and curses and other black arts.”
“Don, Mike, that goes straight to the vault,” Kathy said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Don said.
“We think at least one raider in Lafayette was after them,” Poppa said. “He threatened Petra, but Liam took care of him. Later, we took a look at him. He had the CUT sun-sign on a metal disk, but he had a lot of icons attached to his armor. We didn’t think he was one.”
“Did his eyes go black?” Kathy asked.
“Liam says no, but the guy was wearing a mask. That mask also precludes him from being a Cutter because they’ve never been known to wear any.”
“A wanna-be, likely,” Kathy said.
“Here’s a 1956 Sears catalog,” Petra said. “Is it any good?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Elaine said, leafing through it. “We can’t buy these things anymore, but we might get ideas on how to make items we can use.”
“Like those frilly dresses? And those petcoats—”
Elaine leaned down and whispered. “Petticoats, right? And girdles? God, I wouldn’t be caught wearing that stuff in a pigsty.”
Petra giggled.
“This goes on the wagon with the encyclopedias,” Elaine said. “What’s in these boxes?”
“Mystery novels an old lady in Lafayette insisted we take,” Poppa said.
“OK, they go on that other wagon.”
“What’s the difference?” Petra said.
“Fiction and nonfiction. What’s real and what’s made up.” She shrugged. “Most of the time.”
Petra didn’t understand that last remark, but she felt a pang of regret as the last of the books came off her father’s wagons. She felt sad she would never see them again.
“That’s it, then, Pettibone, Raphael,” Poppa said. “You guys rejoin the convoy.” He unhitched his horse from the wagon, hitched it to a nearby post. “I’ll probably catch up before you reach Center.”
“Right, sir,” Pettibone said as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Wait!” Petra shouted.
“Yes, yes, missy, here it is.” Pettibone pulled the bundle from under the seat, handed it down.
“Thank you for everything, Mr. Pettibone,” she said, clutching it to her chest.
“You’re quite welcome, missy. We’ll see you soon.” He touched his brow with his fingers as the wagon pulled away.
The library people wheeled the carts inside and pushed them against a wall. Poppa followed Kathy into an office and Momma led Petra through a double door into a huge room with long tables arranged in straight lines. Books were stacked on carts and the floor. People sitting on stools at the tables were bent over, until one would place a book on a cart behind, then take another from a stack.
“Are our books coming
in here?” Petra said.
“Yes,” Elaine said as she joined them. “These folks are classifying the books, nonfiction by topic and fiction by type, for instance. Some we’ll copy using the printing presses next door, duplicates we’ll send out for trade in other cities. The ones we keep will be available for anyone to come and borrow.”
“Any new contact outside the Gulf Coast Coalition?” Momma said.
“Yes, we’ve heard solid reports of a stable government up in Oregon. It’ll be tricky getting there, but it’ll be worth it. We’ve also heard some strange tales about some sort of magic sword.”
She shrugged. “I hope it’s more myth than reality, but you can’t tell these days.”
“All done,” Poppa called from the door. “We got good prices and credit this time,” he said as they walked back to the dock. “As I expected, this will be a profitable trip.”
“Good,” Momma said. “I’d hate to go through all this for nothing.”
They embraced, kissed, then Poppa got on his horse. “Say hello to Grandpa for me, petite fleur, but don’t give him that present until I get there.”
“All right, Poppa.” She waved as he left, turned to Momma. “What are we going to do now?”
“We are going to Grandma and Grandpa’s in style, that’s what.”
Momma hired a fancy one-horse, four-wheeled black carriage with red interior and brass fittings. Once settled on the thick velour seat, Petra took the book out of the bag and found to her dismay that the wrapping had wrinkled and torn.
“It’s been through a lot,” Momma said as she untied the white string and smoothed and readjusted the paper. She rewound the string, tied it with a bow. “Small wonder it’s a little ragged and worn. Just like the rest of us.”
After a while, the carriage turned into a curved street. Momma pointed out the window. “Look, that’s the house we’re going to live in.”
They passed a structure with only one floor and no roof. “See, it connects to Grandma and Grandpa’s house right next door. You’ll have your own room and there’s a lake in back so you can still go swimming and a small woods to go exploring in.”
Tales of Downfall and Rebirth Page 30