The Alliance

by Jolina Petersheim

  “We believe it’s an EMP,” I explain. “An electromagnetic pulse that’s wiped technology out. Someone might be able to fix it—but probably not.” I pause and scan her, watching as she hugs her arms to her chest. “Are you cold? Do you have food . . . water?”

  She shakes her head. “Ran out of food this morning. Not a crumb left in the place. I have a baby. How can I nurse him if I’m not eating?”

  I see no baby, unless he is tucked inside her parka. But she knows—and I know—that I cannot turn a mother and baby away, even a baby who might not exist. “Come stay with us,” I say, knowing what dissension this will bring to the Englischers. I also know what dissension this will bring to the group in the wagon. Jabil will agree that it is Christlike to take this woman in, but I am not sure how Moses and Henri will react. I glance behind me. It’s impossible to see Henri due to his position in the wagon bed, but Moses’s censure is clear.

  I tell the woman, “You and your baby can come stay with us,” and then add, “if you’d like,” to make sure she’s aware she has a choice.

  She looks at me and then looks at the wagon. “Maybe the government will figure it out before I have to do anything. Maybe things will get better.”

  “And maybe they won’t.” I reach out and squeeze her hand. “Come if you need help.”

  The woman nods. I climb back into the wagon, being careful not to brush Moses’s legs as I move past him to sit in the middle. Jabil clicks his tongue at the horse without acknowledging me. The mare moves forward. I peer over my shoulder, watching the dark-haired mother standing in the apex of such devastation, the light from the fire flickering across her face.

  Outbuildings, salvaged from various historic landmarks around town, surround the Liberty Museum like the ring of a wagon train: a schoolhouse, a pioneer cabin, a replica of a mining shaft. A lean-to, divided with roughly hewn logs, is where the old equipment and tractors are parked. I motion Jabil in that direction; he snaps the reins lightly on the mare’s back. Regardless of the town’s destruction, no one’s thought to dismantle the museum. Even the grainy windows of the schoolhouse are unbroken, which appears abnormal, compared to how drastically everything was demolished just a mile from here.

  There is an old fire truck that still gleams red despite the darkness; it actually looks better at night than it does during the day—the rusted chrome pieces spangled with silver, made new. Two tractors squat like metal skeletons under the shed and resemble pieces from a junkyard rather than the vehicles Moses believes will get us around. But he is overjoyed to see them. If not for his ankle, I could picture him leaping off the wagon like a child eager to examine a new toy.

  “What d’ya think?” Moses asks.

  Henri leans forward and squints. “Can’t think much at this point,” he says. “Other than the fact that they’re old.”

  Jabil gets down out of the wagon and ties the horse to the lean-to beam. I watch him stroke the mare’s neck, which is damp with sweat. Field to Table enables our community to be more self-sufficient than most, so our horses are unaccustomed to walking to town.

  “Do you think she needs water?” I ask.

  “Probably,” he says, looking worried. “I should’ve brought some.”

  Moses calls from inside the lean-to, “You won’t be needing that kind of horsepower for long if we can get these beauts running.”

  The muscles tighten in Jabil’s jaw. He is very fond of his horses and has never been around vehicles, other than the two-ton truck Sean used before the EMP to taxi the logging crew to and from jobs. Jabil must feel peculiar to be out of his element—the same man who oversees many aspects of our community with ease.

  “C’mon,” he says to me. “Let’s look in the museum. They’re going to be here awhile.”

  “I don’t think we can get inside.”

  “Sure we can.” He continues walking. I follow, curious, and when we’re standing in front of the wooden door, he simply withdraws a key from his pocket. “They gave me this when we remodeled part of the museum last year,” he explains. “Forgot to return it.”

  “How convenient for you.”

  “Convenient for us now.”

  Side by side, we enter the museum, which is an octagonal log structure with no windows and only one door. Jabil stops briefly to prop it open with a rock. The floor plan is open, except for a few small booths that house artifacts from the days when mining was Liberty’s main source of revenue. Then the mines closed, turning the bustling town into an impoverished eyesore that limps along on tourists stopping by for gas and burgers before venturing farther west.

  The air is musty, the cement floors clean. We cannot see very far, but weak illumination filters in through the gap where the front door is propped open. This light reveals the taxidermy versions of a cinnamon bear, a wolf, and a mountain lion collecting dust in the museum’s loft.

  The creatures’ elevated position and sightless marble eyes make me feel like they’re leering down at us, waiting to pounce. A wooden donation box with a tiny lock sits atop the entrance table. I cannot believe no one’s thought to break in and steal from it.

  As if in sync with my thoughts, Jabil says, “Probably shouldn’t let Moses see that,” and gives me a rare grin.

  “He said money’s no good anyway,” I murmur. “Food, medicine, and ammunition are the only things worth taking.”

  Jabil crosses the gap between us, obstructing the moonbeam directed toward the entrance. “What about heirloom seeds to last us until the next planting season? What about farming implements to work the ground? Don’t let him persuade you, Leora. We don’t just need ammunition. There are other ways to go about this apocalypse than the use of violence.”

  “He’s not advocating the use of violence. He’s advocating the use of common sense.” Angry, I turn from Jabil to face the display of buttons from different time periods, many of which are pieces of art in themselves, intricately carved from wood or bone.

  He grabs my arm and turns me around. “Are you changing your beliefs?”

  “No. But you need to compromise, rather than carrying on as if nothing is different.”

  “Don’t you think I know that everything’s different?” Jabil says, his tone equally sharp. “Don’t you think I wish none of this had happened? That I—I still had time to court you properly, the way you deserve? But I can’t. Soon we’re going to be busy just trying to stay alive.”

  Stunned by his declaration, I try to set my anger aside and view him not as someone I should love, but as someone who holds the power to keep my family safe. He lets go of me and steps back, leaning over the booth’s protective divider, which cannot impede someone of his height. He runs his fingers through the beads and buttons, letting each one slip through his fingers and clink to the base like hail. I tell him, “Everything else might be different, but my family’s problems aren’t going to change. Anna needs me. Seth needs me. Grossmammi Eunice even needs me, though she acts like she’d prefer to be alone.”

  Jabil pulls a jar out of the display and sets it on the floor. “Seth does need you, but he also needs a man in his life, someone to help guide him during these critical years. I could be that for him, Leora. You all could move into our house, and we could start our own family there.” He touches the side of my face with the back of his hand. He leans his head down closer to mine. My spirit feels so numb, I flinch.

  Straightening, he removes his hand. “It’s because of him. Isn’t it?”

  “Because of whom?” But I know who he’s going to say.

  “Moses. Ever since he crashed here, you’ve been distant from me.”

  “That’s not true. We’ve just never been close.”

  He sidesteps my words, knocking over the Mason jar.

  “I’m sorry, Jabil. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “You haven’t. Really.” He smiles again, the second time in one night, when I don’t remember him smiling more than a handful of times in all these years. “The buttons.” He gestures to them
, strewn across the floor. “Thought you could put them on your clothes if we run out of pins.”

  “I’m sorry, Jabil.”

  “Stop apologizing. You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

  Then he strides across the cement flooring and leaves me standing there, alone, marooned in a lake of variegated buttons—a few of which the heels of Jabil’s boots have inadvertently ground to powder.

  Moses

  Old Man Henri slams the hood. “Engine’s cracked,” he says.

  “And this one’s no better?”

  He eyes the other tractor, mustached lips twitching. “Least not without the tools to fix it.”

  I sigh. “Guess that’s it, then.” I turn to look for Jabil and Leora but see they’re coming out of the museum, which irritates me since Jabil never said he had a key. Leora moves across the grounds, holding something to her chest. “We’re ready,” I say. “Both tractors were a bust.”

  Neither of them acknowledge me. They just climb up into the wagon, keeping a space between them large enough for a linebacker to sit in. I’m no genius at body language, but even I can tell that something’s happened. The kind of something that means you could cut the carnal strain with a knife. Ignoring a pang of jealousy, I climb up and sit between Jabil and Leora. Jabil keeps hold of the reins as he steers us out of the museum’s lot.

  Leora must be so tired that she could sleep anywhere. I take my eyes off the road to glance over at her. Scared she’s going to topple right off the bench onto the asphalt, I shake her shoulder. “Leora, hey . . . you could really hurt yourself if you fall from here.”

  She recrosses her legs and steadies the jar in her lap. “I’m resting my eyes.”

  “Then maybe try resting one at a time.”

  She smiles, both eyes still closed. I’m not smiling at all. The sky’s lightening to gunmetal, but I can feel us being watched from deep within the shadowed alleyways between the brick buildings. I tell myself, We’re in a wagon being driven down Main Street by a man in a straw hat. Of course we’re being watched. But there’s more to it than that. I can perceive danger ahead like I can see the smoke drifting up from the oil drums on the corners. Whatever they’re burning—plastic or tires—the black smolder and acrid smell make my pulse race, taking me back to the explosion in the desert. To say I’m lucky to be alive is an understatement; I’m lucky to be alive twice. If not for Leora—and yes, Jabil and his loggers, who rescued me from my grandpa’s demolished crop duster—a bum ankle would be the least of my problems.

  Leora puts a hand on my forearm, and the unexpectedness of it makes me jump. I follow the direction where she’s pointing, but I can’t tell where the brick building stops and the hard pack of people’s bodies begins. I unsnap the top of my holster. My fingers crave the reassuring heft of the weapon in my hands, yet I also don’t want to alert Leora to the fact that I think we’re being hunted. I should’ve known it was too quiet on our way through town. For all we know, they could’ve been waiting for us since we passed in the wagon, thinking we might return with something they’d want to confiscate.

  I look at Jabil, trying to communicate the danger we’re in. He nods, shifts his attention to the building, and then looks at me, holding my gaze before returning his eyes to the road and snapping the reins on the horse’s back. Then he leans forward until his tailbone is hardly on the seat. It takes a second for me to comprehend that he’s trying to shield Leora. And for the first time since we met, I have a sense of respect for the man. Though I unsnapped my gun holster for protection, I never thought about using my body to protect her.

  Leora’s back straightens, her skin a corona of nervous energy that warms my own. “What do they want?” she whispers, nodding toward the building.

  “Probably the horse and wagon.”

  In addition to whatever is being carried by the horse and wagon. Maybe they also want her. The sweat on my neck goes cold. It was stupid of me to allow Leora to come along for this. What was I thinking? The truth is, I wasn’t thinking about keeping her safe. I was thinking more about one-upping stuffy Jabil by granting Leora her independence. My muscles tense, retired coils ready to spring into action. The men file from the shadows. They aren’t carrying anything that I can see. It’s too dark to make out their individual features, and many are wearing baseball hats or ski masks with the brims pulled low.

  These men could very well be fathers, husbands, brothers, sons . . . lawyers, doctors, politicians. Not much more than a week ago, this gang could’ve been upstanding citizens who prided themselves on keeping the neighborhood watch. But now—now—they’re beginning to panic, to turn rogue out of desperation and fright. Now they realize food might soon become scarce, and their families could starve before their eyes. Therefore they’re seeing this mode of transportation as the golden ticket to domination of the food supply, and survival, which means they will do everything they can to steal it from us. Even kill or maim, when before they would’ve never thought themselves capable of such iniquity.

  “Sit close, Leora,” I murmur, my eyes fixed on the approaching line of men.

  The length of her thigh presses against mine. I take the revolver from the holster and set it on my lap. The tense clack of the horse’s shoes sparking over the asphalt can’t cover me pulling back on the hammer—that sound of a gun preparing to fire as distinct as a dying breath. The men might be armed themselves, but the sight of my weapon still gives them pause. I squint into the blackness, trying to see the direction of their eyes and anticipate what they’re preparing to do. Jabil doesn’t say anything, but Henri leans over the wagon to also peer out at the men, as threatening and shriveled as a turkey buzzard.

  The shortest of the group appears to be the ringleader, and I wonder if he held this position before the EMP, or if the decimation of the law has placed his shady qualities in a whole new light. He swaggers toward us—potbelly thrust forward, thick shoulders squared—and the men automatically fall back into a V. “How you boys tonight?” he asks in a genteel voice. If he wore a hat, he’d tip it. His hair is cropped close to his head and dyed black to cover up the gray, so that his receding hairline looks smeared against his anemic skin. He has on a biker T-shirt with coppery flames, dress pants, and cowboy boots. Snakeskin boots, I surmise, simply because he looks like the type to wear them.

  “Wait—you sure no boy I ever seen.” He grins with a mouthful of teeth too white and uniform to be real. The ringleader moves closer. The moon pokes out from behind a cloud and reveals the direction of the man’s gaze, as it lingers over the taut angles of Leora’s face balanced with curves, which somehow reveal the attractiveness her glasses and shapeless cape dress cannot hide. “Where you come from?” He raises one bushy silver eyebrow. “A time capsule?”

  Two of the men laugh and inch closer to the ringleader . . . closer to us.

  Beside me, Leora keeps her chin raised. But I can feel how she shakes.

  “You all need to keep moving,” I say.

  The ringleader steps forward. “You’re the ones who came into our town. So don’t think you got the right to tell us which way to head.”

  “Last I checked,” I say, “the town wasn’t owned by a group of thugs.”

  “Well, boy—” his eyes shrink to a glint—“time to check again.” He pauses, turns to his group. “What you think they should pay us for passing through? How ’bout they give us this here contraption? I ain’t seen too many wagons rolling around tonight.”

  “It’s not worth much,” Jabil says, the first he’s spoken.

  “That right?” the ringleader asks. “Actually, I think it is. And you know what else I think? I think you’re trying to pull one over on us.” The ringleader moves closer. A henchman follows like an overfed shadow, his eyebrows so bushy and glowering, they almost distract me from the hair missing from his oval-shaped head. One lousy revolver isn’t going to be enough to protect us, and I feel sick to my gut, knowing I’ve exposed Leora to these lowlifes.

  I’m trying to figur
e out how to take the henchman, and then the ringleader, considering I’m not up to par because of my hurt foot. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Henri turn in the wagon and reach under the feed sacks. He pulls out a twelve-gauge shotgun as smooth as an assassin and growls, real low, “You got five seconds flat to hightail it from here.” He clicks the safety off with one gnarled old thumb, but his face says that he’s very capable of pulling the trigger. Twenty pairs of eyes are locked on two barrels. Nobody blinks. “Git,” Henri says, waving the shotgun like he could care less if it accidentally goes off. The men nod and begin reversing into the alleyway with their palms raised.

  “Hey—you,” Henri calls. The ringleader looks over his shoulder. “Yeah, you.” He taps the barrel of the shotgun, then smiles. “What’s in that there shirt pocket of yours? Cigarettes?” The ringleader rolls his eyes, then fishes in his shirt pocket. He tosses a pack through the air and they land in the back of the wagon, cushioned by the sacks. “Much obliged,” Henri says.

  The ringleader murmurs, “You’ll pay for that,” before he slips, like a rat, into the alley between the walls.

  Leora

  I TAKE A SIP OF COFFEE and watch the peach-colored sun melt the fog that softens the edges of the community like a low-hanging cloud. But I haven’t been awake long enough, or slept long enough since our return from town, to appreciate this beauty. The door opens behind me. I turn, expecting to see Grossmammi, who’s always been an early riser. But Melinda is the one who stumbles like a sleepwalker across the porch and leans against the railing. Her hair is disheveled, her eyes livid red slits peering out of a wan face. As far as my knowledge, this is the first time she’s been outside since she moved in.

  “Would you like some coffee?” I hesitantly ask. “We have some sugar left.”

  Melinda’s laughter is so laced with bitterness that it’s hard to hear. “I need something a little stronger than coffee.”