He shook his head. They had walked out of sight of the cabins. David began to turn around, expecting them to simply walk in circles while they talked, but Mitch leapt into the woods and threw himself up a tree and onto a boulder that towered over them. David followed, clumsily, having to swing himself over the lip of the rock. When he reached the summit, Mitch was standing with his back to him, still as the stone he stood on, except for his hair blowing in the chilly autumn breeze.
Advancing to stand beside Mitch, David caught his breath as the forest melted away and a perfect view of the Base opened up before him. It was framed by thick trunks on either side, short, waving grass below, the gray sky above. There were mountains in the distance, rising up to tower over the farmhouse and outbuildings. Smoke curled up from chimneys and a few tiny people could be seen scurrying to and fro. It was a beautiful sight.
“Now it’s us versus them, David.”
“There has to be a way to work together—”
“Ha!” Mitch barked. “I guess you are new here, but you’ll get it. We’ve tried, man. They wouldn’t let us in; when we asked them for seeds they said they couldn’t spare any. They told us to go away, to try and make it on our own somewhere else. When we made it clear we were here to stay, they told us they didn’t want us to die, that they could take in more people as soon as they had the food supply to sustain them. They can’t risk the lives of their own people for us, can they now?”
David wondered how this could be true. They can’t have tried everything.
“Mitch, while I was in the Base, I overheard a few things…” David hesitated, not knowing what to reveal, what might seem too good to be true for him to have ‘overheard.’
“Yeah?” Mitch was still facing the view of the Base while he spoke.
“Mitch, the people of the Base, they’re good people. There are those who argue for you constantly. They want to let you in, but I really don’t think they have enough. More than anything, though, they’re afraid. They are afraid that the Outliers—”
“The Outliers.” Mitch snorted. “Doesn’t that sum up the way they look at us?”
David momentarily questioned Mitch’s bipolar feelings toward the Base, but continued. “They’re afraid that you will go to war, to forcibly take a place among them.”
Mitch was silent.
“Is that your plan, Mitch? Underneath all the niceties, under the mask. You’re planning one final battle, aren’t you?”
“David,” Mitch finally turned away from the view to look into David’s eyes. The light of passion burned so brilliantly there David nearly had to squint to gaze back into them, “I don’t want that. I need you to understand that war with the Base would be a mistake. People would die, and even a few dead are too many when there are only a couple hundred of us left, if that? We need every man, and they can’t see that or they would tear down their walls. Those are the last things the world needs now.
“But I can’t guarantee there won’t be bloodshed. We are survivors. We will do what we must to live another day. They’re growing restless, David. More and more they are realizing that we are doomed without the sustainable resources of the Base. I can’t convince them all to stop their raids, and the Base has already cut us off because of that. They used to bring us what extra food they could spare, though it was mostly scraps to be honest. They didn’t let us in but they shared what they could. But that was when they thought this would be temporary, and before we on the outside got a real sense of what they had.
“I can’t hold the Outliers back forever. When the food runs out, they will attack. They may be weak and they may have to crawl through the mud and snow to reach the gate, but they will not die out here in the dirt. I feared the Base would come out to exterminate us, but that is not their plan. Not if they are afraid of us. They can wait us out, starve us. Then they can always say they did what they could, but it was inevitable. They will let us in, or before the winter is through there will be war.”
This was more what David was expecting of Mitch. Maybe he suspected that David was a double agent. Maybe this itself was an act.
“Mitch, we will solve this. Together. You and I.”
“As always, David. As always.”
Mitch clasped David’s hand and held it in a vice-like grip, his face bright with the victory he saw ahead. David returned the confidence, but it took all his strength to mean it. Mitch was not easy to read. There was a plan in there somewhere, but David could see it would not come out easily.
He had just two weeks.
CHAPTER 29
The fire crackled, casting a bright, sharp light across the faces of the Outliers. This was as complete a gathering as they could assemble; a few were on watch, patrolling the forest, but that left almost forty faces surrounding the tall bonfire. They were the faces of suffering. Every one of them was too thin, with skeletal legs and sunken eyes. Even Mitch, the obvious leader, had skin stretched tightly over his bones.
“I want all of you to accept David. He is one of us now, and he will walk with us through the gate into the Base. Treat him with respect. Or answer to me.”
Mort growled at this, and David glanced in his direction. Mort was on the right side of Mitch, David on his left, standing while all others were seated. Mort was not directing this primal threat at him, but at those gathered around the fire. Or so David hoped. Mitch placed a hand on his shoulder, and he was silent once more.
David did not know if he should say something. He had planned to use Mitch as his mouthpiece to communicate his plan to the Outliers, but was thinking now, with all eyes on him, that this would be a good time to set himself apart and make himself known to all of them as a leader himself, one with things to say.
“I know you have all been waiting here to enter the Base for a long time,” he began. “I know that you have survived this long, and you are not ones who give up. Those who were are all dead. You, we,” he corrected himself, “are the ones who will keep the wheel of the world turning, who will not rest until we have what we need.”
Mitch looked at him curiously. Mitch had always been the speaker, the people person, and David knew this must be a surprise for him; as much as it was for David himself.
“I was in the Base, and I learned a little about their current situation. Mitch and I,” here he put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder, and the curious smile faded, “we will work together to secure our place in the Base, in history, in the future. We will live on, and we will do it together. Every one of us.”
Out of things to say, David sat back down, his face red and his skin crawling. There was no applause, no recognizable response to his words, just more blank stares. From before him, and to his right.
“Well said, David,” Mitch said in a raised voice so that all could hear him. “We fought side by side for years, and I trust him with my life. I expect you will all find yourselves willing to do the same.”
“You’re gonna help us out, huh?” came a voice from across the fire. A man with spider-thin legs crossed in front of him held a cynical, amused expression. He was holding a tin mug in one hand, the other stroking his thin moustache
underneath a hulking nose. “What makes you think there’s still any hope? Look at us.”
“David is a smart man, Ralph,” Mitch shot back. “I would not be so quick to disregard a potential lifeline, my friend.”
“Yeah, took him this long to make it out here. Must have been on tour, solving everyone else’s problems. This magnificent problem solver.” His words were harsh, punctuated by his taking quaffs of whatever liquid his mug contained.
“Take it easy,” Mitch responded with a genial smile. “Let’s just see what he’s capable of before making judgments, eh?”
Ralph nodded his head and remained silent, placated for now. David realized he might just have had a good deal of luck, finding Mitch here.
Mitch went on to conduct what must be the regular business of the Outliers. They all acknowledged Mitch as their leader. He was their emiss
ary to the Base, and seemed to inspire loyalty in all the men and women before him.
There was a reckoning of the food supply, done quickly, and objectives for the next few days. A few disagreements were settled between members of the camp, with all uninvolved parties acting as a large jury. Most accused a handful of men sitting together at the edge of the firelight. They all had blond hair and sharp jawlines; David assumed they were related. They were accused of brawling, though nothing had been broken or anyone seriously injured so no punishments were doled out. The more serious issue of theft was raised, though no one could be sure who was responsible. David learned that anyone caught stealing would be whipped. By Mort. Naturally, no one spoke up.
Mitch opened up the gathering to the rest of the Outliers to voice their concerns. There was a man with a large, bald head who insisted they needed to all join together in one camp, build cabins enough to hold everyone as some were currently scattered elsewhere in the woods, to appear unified before the delegate that was sure to come from the Base.
“There is no one coming, you fool,” said one of the blond men with a black bandana covering his scalp. He wore only a thin shirt, a layer of sweat spreading across his bony chest even in the chilly twilight.
“Speak up, Dmitri,” Mitch shouted. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“I said there is no one coming!” he cried. “All this sitting around and waiting for them to come see how nice we are and how nice our camp is so they will tell us our wait is over and we can enter their precious Base is useless. They know who we are, what we are like. Words have not worked. It is time to act.”
Mitch’s face hardened and David knew that rage was boiling just under the surface. “You know we can’t do that,” Mitch responded. “We number too few, and they would shoot us like deer on our way to their walls—”
“Deer,” a man seated on crossed legs next to David trilled with dreamy eyes, licking his lips. He looked like a demon, sickly and slightly hunched with clouded eyes. David shifted away slightly.
“Then we will die here,” Dmitri allowed. “We will sit in the snow and we will starve. We know there is not enough food, Mitch.” He spat the name is if it were a hair on his tongue. “We can go in with what guns we have left and take our rightful place among them, or turn them out, see how they like it.”
“You are dreaming,” Mitch responded, a strained smile turning up one side of his mouth. “If we attacked them outright, we would die. We have to come to a peaceful agreement or nothing.”
“Your peace has not worked, oh fearless leader.” David glanced at Mitch, wondering how long he would allow this to go on. That smile was no longer strained; it had transformed into a knowing, cruel twist of the lips.
“Give it time, comrade. If we are going to find a place among them, we want to come in as friends, not as conquerors. That would not last. We would have to watch our backs constantly—”
“Bah!” Dmitri stood up and stalked into the night, followed by the other bandanas.
Mitch watched them go, saying nothing as their forms became dark shapes and then disappeared. He swept his gaze around the circle of dirty faces when they were gone. “Dmitri wants to attack. I know you all are tired of this waiting game, but know this. There is a plan in place, a plan between myself and the Mayor of the Base. We will have our day. I will not let you die out here, I promise you that. Do you trust me?”
There was a murmur in the small crowd then a wave of nods swept through them. Mitch was losing them; it was not hard to see. His face spoke of disappointment at their reaction. “You will see. I think that is enough for tonight. Stay strong, friends.”
Mitch stood up and sighed. David caught his eye and Mitch motioned for him to rise as well. He helped David off the ground and led him to his cabin.
“I figured you wouldn’t mind staying with me,” Mitch said as he opened the door. Firelight poured in the open window and David saw a second pine mattress in the corner opposite the original.
David had a thousand questions buzzing around his brain. Mitch had some plan with the Mayor? Why hadn’t he told him? Was Mitch’s confidence warranted? He wanted to ask Mitch these things and more, but when he turned from his bed Mitch was already settling into his, looking exhausted. David decided his interrogation could wait for the morning. He flopped down on the springy bows and spread his blankets over himself, wishing he had brought along his pillow, dirty and smelly as it was, as he drifted into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 30
“David?”
The sound of his name woke David from the light sleep of the survivor. He lay still, silent. Adrenaline pulsed through his body as he tried to take stock of where he was and who would be calling to him in the middle of the night. It was little more than a whisper. It took David a few moments of consciousness to remember that he was lying in Mitch’s cabin. He cracked open his eyes and saw nothing but darkness broken by scattered tendrils of light drifting in through the gaps in the crude shutters and illuminating the cracks and flaws in the wooden ceiling.
The whispered call was followed by a rustling near David’s head. His hand tightened around the smooth hilt of the knife he had stashed underneath his pillow. He was lying on his back, and slowly turned his head toward the disturbance behind him. A figure was standing there, visible only as a silhouette, a dark soul with a faint blue outline. David froze when he caught sight of the tall figure preparing his muscles to spring into action. There was a movement David saw through squinted eyes. It looked like a hand was moving, lifting. To grab something? To fire a bullet into David’s brain? Should he leap up and strike with surprise? What if the shock caused them to pull the trigger and silence him while he crouched on the floor?
The hand reached upward and disappeared. There was a relieved sigh and the hand reappeared, a host of dust now visible above what must be the intruder’s hair. As David focused his attention on the figure, he saw a scraggly protrusion and deduced that he had been preparing to strike his friend Mitch, and allowed the tension to fade from his stony muscles. Mitch turned and abruptly swept from the room, leaving David alone. As David allowed his muscles to relax, they dragged his consciousness with them. He wondered fuzzily why Mitch would be leaving so suddenly in the middle of the night. He had found Mitch lurking in the woods under a full moon in the first place, so perhaps it was just another shift of the watch. Whatever it was could wait until tomorrow. The world grew distant as the warmth of his familiar blankets pushed everything else to the back of his mind and then clean out of it.
CHAPTER 31
“So we’re looking for fiddle-sticks?”
“Fiddleheads,” Mitch corrected.
“Okay. What do they look like again?”
“Well, it’s a fern. You know what a fern is, David?”
“Why, no. Please enlighten me.”
“Fuck you. We’re looking for the ones with the curly fronds. They’re called fiddleheads. And you can eat them. And we can dig up the rootstock and use it to make flour.”
“Sounds like a wonderful plant.”
Mitch shot him a look that acknowledged David’s proximity to the edge of his patience. David responded with a toothy grin. “How have you survived so long, David, if you haven’t heard of any of these plants?”
“Hey now, I know of plenty. I showed you a few you could eat, back in the day.”
“Oh yeah, those Oregon grapes were exquisite,” Mitch drawled.
“They kept you alive, didn’t they?”
“Barely.”
The day was more gray than usual and there was a drizzling of chilly rain, just enough to keep their coats damp and a thin trickle of cold water running down their necks. David was walking behind Mitch, keeping his eyes low as he scanned for the aforementioned edibles. Everything in this part of the forest, the deep part that extended in the opposite direction from the Base, looked thin and pretty well picked over, but David made no mention of that. He knew the Outliers had been foraging since they arrived here
at the Base, and it was sure to be a long journey before they found any morsel that had been overlooked on one of the previous outings. Still, Mitch scoured the shrubbery as intently as if the object of their intent had to be around him, perhaps just under his feet. David was impressed by the stalwart nature of the Outliers. They had forged themselves into one people, and they seemed determined to live or die as one.
That was a level of organization and zeal David had not been expecting.
Mitch was wearing a black raincoat that hung from his thin shoulders down to his knees, and water beaded itself on every inch of the material. David’s own wool jacket was sodden and droopy. Water dripped down his head and ran down the length of his beard to fall drop-after-drop onto his chest. He reached a hand up and wrung out the saturated facial hair, knowing that would only buy him time.
“So Mitch,” David called ahead, “you’re pretty sure of your plan to get into the Base?”
“Yes, sir, I am,” Mitch called back in brash confidence.
“What is that plan, exactly?”
Mitch stopped in his tracks and whirled around so quickly that David nearly crashed into his intent face.
“All right, David. There’s no one else around. It’s just you and me. Why were you in the Base for so long?” Mitch spoke in a hushed tone despite his assurance that they were alone. He leaned forward toward David with a hungry look in his eyes. Again, he acted as if David had not spoken.
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