“They finished the tally, finally? Are those the results?”
“Yep, late last night, they told me. I went to check on them this morning and got the news. The actual numbers are: Horace, eight percent; Mary Ann, ninety percent; and two percent were people who voted for themselves or Donald Duck…”
“How cool is that?” Mary Ann asked.
Carl figured it was probably a rhetorical question, but so what? “Very cool,” he answered. Then he took a deep breath. “I have the results, plus three General Orders sheets for you to sign.”
“Should I read them first?” Mary Ann picked up a pen.
Was she kidding? Carl wasn’t certain. Either way, it was up to her. As her assistant, he’d never take advantage of the trust she had put in him since they met. “If you want, sure. The first is an official statement to place Horace and Pamela under arrest for trial on charges of Treason, plus other lesser charges. They’re already detained, but this makes it official.”
“No problem there,” she said. Carl handed her the first sheet, and she scribbled her name at the bottom. “Second?”
“The second is to arrange for a gala celebration for your victory. Rub elbows with people, let them know you are still one of them, not moving into an ivory tower. Two days from now is good timing, according to your calendar.”
Mary Ann took the sheet, frowned, and signed without reading it. “I thought you used some weird notebook thing to keep everything straight, not a calendar.”
Carl nodded, taking the signed sheets back from her. “Yes, it’s called a bullet journal. Best thing since sliced bread for keeping notes, schedules, and so on. Simple, and clear, too. I use it as a calendar so if I say it’s a calendar, that’s what it is, dammit,” he huffed in mock indignation.
“I see,” she replied with wide eyes and an innocent look, all in for Carl’s little game, “and all this time I was sure it was a duck.” More sincerely, she added, “I’m glad you take care of that part. I wouldn’t know what time to eat breakfast if I didn’t have someone telling me. What’s the third General Order?”
Carl’s smile faded, then morphed into a frown. He saw Mary Ann tense up when she saw it. He said, “Liz Town officially renounces ties to the Midwest Republic and reaffirms our commitment to the Confederation. It ends with a statement that any incursion by Republic troops into territory the Confederation claims will result in an immediate declaration of war.”
Mary Ann nodded slowly, and looked to her feet. She was silent for a moment, then looked back up to Carl and said, “You know the Empire just sent a battalion of troops to attack Clanholme, right?”
Carl let out a long, deep breath and looked at the ceiling for a moment. Mary Ann had caught the implications immediately, of course. “Yes,” he replied, and met her gaze again. “I sent two of my people to follow them, and I got word late last night that the Confederation met them head on, and pretty much handed them their ass. If your point is that the order would put us at war as soon as it’s signed, then you’re right—it will. You’re not shrinking from a fight, are you?” Carl grinned to show that his words were meant in jest. “Not very Liz Town-ish if you ask me,” he added, shaking his head sorrowfully.
Mary Ann threw her pen at Carl, but he ducked and the pen clattered into the kitchen cabinets behind him. “Shut up,” she said, drawing each word out, her voice rising high on the first word and plummeting on the second. She continued, “I’m the Speaker. Whatever I do is Liz Town-ish, by definition.”
“Good point,” Carl said. “The order also officially announces Sunshine’s new Band, by way of naming them in the list of Bands bound by the order. That way we avoid any need to discuss it with anyone. Like a president’s executive order, in a way.”
“No problem there. What were they called, again?”
“The Sewer Rats Band is what people have been calling them.”
“That little ambush they put on, helping the Clan demolish the Empire unit right outside our front door, really turned the tide for us in getting the other Bands to support Kodiak’s agenda.”
“Yes. Sunshine’s a natural leader. She and the ‘Rats’ are going to be an asset.”
“And now here you are, Alpha of the Timber Wolves and my right-hand man. That’s a position that you turned down under the last Speaker, if I remember right. Pamela’s job…”
“Yeah. Don’t remind me. I learned my lesson about trying to avoid responsibility. When decent folks try to avoid the hassle and drama of leadership, it only leaves a void that people who want the position for the power will scramble to fill.”
“You don’t like the power?” Mary Ann asked, raising one eyebrow. It looked intentionally dramatic.
Carl said, “No, I don’t. I like being able to protect my people and help others where we can, but I don’t enjoy the position. I’d hand it over if I wasn’t gun-shy after Pamela’s power-grab. We’d all be slaves or dead as soon as she opened our gates to the Empire, and people are realizing it.”
“Fine, I’ll sign the order. And, Carl? Make sure we find out how many Confed people died fighting the Empire yesterday. We need to send tokens of our appreciation for their families. The Clan has some medal they came up with—maybe we could do the same. Start a real tradition. Call it a Medal of Valor or something.”
“Yes, ma’am. I suppose you intend to let the Clan know about everything that’s gone on here lately, and the outcome?”
“Ouch. I hate sharing Lizzie business with outsiders, but you’re right—they need an explanation. There will be a lot of people angry at us for not joining in the battle, and rightfully so.”
Carl nodded. Mary Ann was a damn good leader. He had always thought so, and this confirmed it. In the old world, authority never apologized for its actions, but these days people seemed to care more about integrity and justice than they did when it was all about zero-sum political games, brinkmanship, money, and revenge. Or maybe it was just that the cowards and scumbags were dying off faster than others. Most of the survivors did seem like ones other people trusted. People needed to rely on one another. Self-serving liars like Pamela were still getting tossed off the island, most places.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “If you want, I can tell Cassy and the Clan as well—they know me and that might be important right now.” She nodded and he went on. “Now we have to plan the trial and go over the re-distribution plan for the food and other stockpiles that Pamela and her stooge Wattleberger illegally hoarded only for themselves. They won’t need it after this trial, I bet.”
“Let’s get that trial going right away,” Mary Ann said thoughtfully. “Start this evening, if you can arrange it that quickly. It’s important. We need to close this out.”
“You got it.”
Now he had a little fun coming for a change—he got to go find Sunshine and tell her the good news about her Sewer Rats…
* * *
Driving off the Empire had been expensive and exhausting—but they had won. Now people were licking their wounds and mourning their dead. So what now, Cassy wondered as she and the rest of the Clan, together with representatives of most of their allies, made the somber journey to the northern food forest. They all had too much to do and never enough hours in the day, but Cassy had made sure everything in Clanholme came to a full stop this morning. The coming rites were too important not to.
Cassy led the procession. As they walked, she rolled her right shoulder, feeling the stabbing pain of her injury. She had dislocated her shoulder and pulled some ligaments, courtesy of yesterday’s battle. As always, she had been in the forefront of the fighting. She refused to wear a sling until after she finished this unpleasant but crucial duty.
Behind her, Michael carried Mary’s sapling for Frank. It was a Nanking Cherry that had rooted into dirt and compost over the winter. Normally, Frank would have carried it himself, but as a courtesy to his rank and in recognition of his injury, Michael had volunteered to help him with that part. Behind Michael, Frank ho
bbled on crutches with his son, Hunter, by his side.
The rest of the Clan came after. The dozen families of the Clan’s fallen led them, carrying sacked saplings of their own, followed by all the rest and then the allied guests. Last up were thirteen new people, admitted from nearby isolated homesteads who now wished to join the Clan. They attended to see and learn the value of the Clan spots they had been given, and hopefully be inspired to earn those spots through hard work.
First the procession passed through the Jungle, with the column of Clanners weaving back and forth dodging boobytraps. The visitors and new members had been warned not to deviate from the path set by the Clan. Then came the open area between Jungle and forest. When they reached the very edge of the north food forest, Cassy stopped, trying to hide her relief and gratitude at having reached the walk’s end. As usual, both Frank and Michael seemed to notice her physical distress—both had been watching her intently—but they didn’t remark on it. She was grateful for that, too. The truth was, every step had jolted her injury painfully.
The procession leaders now waited for the rest of the procession to gather around Cassy. As they gathered, they formed a semicircle facing Cassy and the forest.
While they waited, Cassy put her good hand on Frank’s arm and wished she could do something, anything, to take some of the pain for him. Except for a few hushed whispers to Hunter, Frank hadn’t spoken a word since the battle ended an hour or so after Mary had been killed dodging in front to take the bullet intended for him. It had taken that full hour to mop up knots of survivors. And when she put her hand on him now, Frank didn’t react at all. He was, simply, crushed. She figured he had withdrawn into his own inner hell, and she hoped he came back to them soon. Her heart ached for this good man.
Behind her, she heard Michael ask Ethan, “Why not put them in the south food forest?” Ethan quietly answered, “Because we walk through that more, and because everything flows downhill. Until they become fully part of nature again, we can’t have them right above our water supply.”
A chill ran down Cassy’s spine. It was cold, logical, and true. She wanted to scream, but what good would that do? And anyway, what had they said that was actually wrong? She knew both men too well to think either of them was remotely cold. She pretended not to hear so she wouldn’t have to say anything about it.
As the procession finished assembling, Cassy stared into the forest. They were near a recently cleared segment—they had broken the small forest up into chunks, each at its own level of maturity ranging from the freshly cleared, like this one, to almost fully mature forest. That patchwork quilt design gave the forest its maximum possible “edge effect”—and the edges had the most productive growth, whether of forest, mixed ground cover, or any other growing zone.
Within the cleared section where they were gathered, volunteers had dug thirteen graves, leaving the removed soil piled nearby. They would put the bodies of their fallen to rest there, planting trees over each both in commemoration and as a way for them to continue to give to the Clan. The trees would serve as gravestones for the families they had left behind. Mary’s grave was front and center, with the others arrayed in a rough semi-circle facing south to catch plenty of sunlight. This would help the trees capture more heat, and improve the soil as much as the nutrients in the bodies would.
As always, Cassy and the more agricultural Clanners worked anything done at Clanholme into the warp and woof of the farm’s complex, fascinating and thriving web of life. Most Clanners found it somehow comforting that the bodies of loved ones would stay a part of that web even after death.
When all had gathered and the crowd had quieted themselves—which didn’t take long on this somber occasion—Cassy spoke to them all from the heart. She talked about the sacrifice they had made to save the Clan, their way of life, their freedom. She spoke of the Empire that had done this to them, and for what? More land? The Empire had enough land. They wanted more only because they were power-mad, pawns of a traitor general who was trying to take over America. The Clanners and allies had responded to that attempt as she hoped Americans always would, defeating it with determination, courage, and willing sacrifice.
She paused to look around the solemn group, then presented the Clan’s Medal of Generator, first created by two of the Clan’s children in honor of an act of extreme courage, posthumously to the five who had died trying to save Frank, a Clan leader and member of the Council. Their sacrifice had indeed saved him and, by that act, had saved his son from growing up with both his parents dead.
Next, Cassy honored the rest—living and dead—for their bravery and sacrifice. Only a free people like the Clan and their allies could stop the Empire from winning, she told them, and it would always take the kind of bravery the survivors and the fallen both had shown yesterday.
As she spoke, each of the fallen’s families, except Frank, walked to their loved one’s grave, said their goodbyes, and then began backfilling their loved one’s grave with shovels. At the end, each placed their commemorative sapling atop the grave. The trees would live on and, in a very ancient way, so would their loved ones as parts of their trees, enriching the web of life at Clanholme.
By the time she was done, only Mary remained unburied. Frank had stayed by Cassy’s side during her speech, still and silent. Past Frank, she saw Hunter, an expressionless look cast upon the boy’s face as he stared past the crowd and into the forest. Then Cassy turned to face Frank. She wanted to reach out and take his hands in hers, to send him and his boy comfort somehow, but she didn’t know how he’d react. He was behaving so differently, so bruised, that she was afraid anything was possible.
Instead, she bowed formally to him. It felt right to honor the man and his sacrifice that way, in solemn ritual. Of all the fallen, he was the only family member who had witnessed a loved one’s death in battle, and what an awful, spectacularly messed-up death this one had been.
“Lastly,” Cassy said for the crowd, though still facing away toward Frank, “we honor the sacrifice of Mary Conzet. She was a Clan Original, a founding member, wife to our leader Frank Conzet, mother to their son Hunter, and in many ways a mother for us all. When we try to console her son and her husband for the loss they feel—as do the families of all our fallen—we can only sympathize but not fully understand their grief.”
She realized she had tears on her cheeks, and her breath caught unexpectedly in what she was sure onlookers would take as a sob, something she had not been able to experience since that awful, final fight with the insane Peter and his invading group last winter. She could say no more, her throat too tight for words.
Frank stepped forward then, Michael at his side, and spoke for the first time since the battle. He spoke loud and clear, and Cassy thought his voice must have easily carried to the back row of the crowd. “Yesterday,” he said, then paused before continuing. “Yesterday, I lost my wife, and our son, Hunter, lost his mother. We are not the only family to have lost someone. Their sacrifice made it possible to fight off the Empire this time, but that fight isn’t over. We’ll need more courage, more sacrifice, and to suffer more grief before it’s all over. But the Clan stands and will stand. The Clan remains. As a Clan we are all family, it really is true, and in that way we all have lost people here. I’ve been stunned, lost in my own grief, and in this, I’m sure I am not alone.”
Frank paused and looked into the air for a long moment, as though steeling himself to continue. Finally, he continued, “I am a leader in the Clan. My wife was a leader as well, but she and I are not more important than any of you. My loss is not greater than yours.” He looked around again, then continued, “But because we aren’t any more important, my rush into battle was foolish. My ego and my pride made me risk myself so that I could fight alongside all of you. The difference between us is in our responsibilities. I’m responsible—as is Cassy—for making sure the Clan runs smoothly, that all of us can meet our needs, and that we can secure our future here against the Empire, against raiders, again
st hunger, and against the unexpected.”
Again he paused, and he seemed to shake himself before saying, “I should not have risked myself so rashly, out of my own foolish pride. I knew how easily a life may be snuffed out in battle but I pushed that knowledge back. I ignored that reality. Yet it’s true no matter how important a person may be to the Clan as a whole. If I hadn’t gone, those Clan fighters could have likely fled, and lived. I won’t make that mistake again, and I have not the words for the sorrow I feel. All I can do is apologize to all of you for my irresponsible recklessness. I won’t make that mistake again, I can at least make that promise to all of you. I only pray that Cassy, our true leader, learns the same lesson, because her loss could spell the doom of the Clan. Those of us who, in some sense, hold the future of Clanholme in our hands must learn that our responsibilities are more important than our pride. Thank you. All of you.”
Cassy had remained silent, first out of respect, and then out of speechlessness. She stood with jaw dropped, staring at him as he limped to Mary’s grave and, with Michael’s help, began to backfill her grave while Grandma Mandy escorted Hunter toward the other children.
* * *
Taggart stood on the roof and grinned while Eagan raised the American flag over the large fortress they had taken.
The complex had obviously been General Ree’s headquarters while he had been cut off from the City, but it was almost vacant when Taggart had launched his surprise offensive at the northern boundary of Ree’s badly shrunken, remaining territory. All morning long, riders had been coming in to give the same reports—few or no enemy troops encountered anywhere. Slaves left bound but unguarded. Supplies gone or burned.
Why had Ree not killed the slaves before Taggart’s arrival, as he had so often done in the past? Was it possible he and Ree had launched offensives at about the same time and had managed to miss one another? Did that kind of thing even happen? Taggart had been mulling that over since his own troops had entered the first nearly empty compound. The puzzle deepened as each successive rider from other attack prongs reported finding no one but slaves and a couple of guards left behind.
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 32