by Mike Ashley
I was scared sick the whole next day, in case the old people got out their guns and came to get us but nobody seemed to notice the old man was dead and missing, if he was dead. The other thing I was scared would happen was that Aunt Kestrel or Aunt Nera would get to talking with the other women and say something like, "Oh, by the way, the kids found a library and salvaged some books, maybe we should all go over and get some books for the other kids too?" because that was exactly the sort of thing they were always doing, and then they'd find the old man's body. But they didn't. Maybe nobody did anything because the rain kept all the aunts and kids and old people in next day. Maybe the old man had been a hermit and lived by himself in the library, so no one would find his body for ages.
I never found out what happened. We left after a couple of days, after Uncle Buck and the others had opened up an office tower and salvaged all the good copper they could carry. I had a knee swollen up and purple where the old man had hit it but it was better in about a week. The books were worth the pain.
They lasted us for years. We read them and we passed them on to the other kids and they read them too, and the stories got into our games and our dreams and the way we thought about the world. What I liked best about my comics was that even when the heroes went off to far places and had adventures, they always came back to their village in the end and everybody was happy and together.
Myko liked the other kind of story, where the hero leaves and has glorious adventures but maybe never comes back. He was bored with the Show by the time he was twenty and went off to some big city up north where he'd heard they had their electrics running again. Lights were finally starting to come back on in the towns we worked, so it seemed likely. He still had that voice that could make anything seem like a good idea, see, and now he had all those fancy words he'd gotten out of Roget's The Saurus too. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that he talked Sunny into going with him.
Sunny came back alone after a year. She wouldn't talk about what happened and I didn't ask. Eliza was born three months later.
Everyone knows she isn't mine. I don't mind.
We read to her on winter nights. She likes stories.
PALLBEARER
Robert Reed
Robert Reed (b. 1956) has been one of the more prolific writers of science fiction since he first appeared in 1986. His work is diverse but he is probably best known for his more extreme concepts, such as that found in Marrow (2000), about a group of aliens and genetically changed humans who travel through the universe in a ship that is so huge that it contains its own planet. Most of his short stories remain to be collected into book-form but some will be found in The Dragons of Springplace (1999) and The Cuckoo's Boys (2005).
* * *
LOLA AGREES WITH me, we've never seen a colder winter. Most nights drop below freezing, sometimes a long ways below, and if the stoves don't get fed, mornings are painful. Better to lie under the heavy covers and fool around, we joke. But eleven years together and two swollen bladders usually put the brakes on too much friskiness. Besides, we've got a dozen dogs howling to be fed. For the last few weeks, our habit has been to leap out of bed and dress in a rush, then sprint outside - she has her outhouse, I've got mine - and then with all of the mutts on our heels, we hurry indoors, throwing logs into the kitchen stove so at least one room is habitable before we attack the new day.
The cold is bad, but there hasn't been any snow either. Not a dusting. Last year's drought hasn't shown any signs of surrender, leaf ess trees and sorry brown grass bending under a slicing north wind. With my big important voice, I announce, "Winter is Death." Lola thinks that's a bit much, but I believe what I say. If you can't migrate or hibernate, there's nothing to eat here but leftovers from last summer and fall. If this cold didn't pass, we would eventually perish. But of course winter is just a season, and not a very big one at that. My wife smiles and promises me another spring followed by a long hot summer. "Because the air is still filled with ... what is that stuff called ... ?"
"Carbon dioxide."
"I don't know why I can't remember that," she says.
Lola's a simple, practical girl. That's why.
"Carbon what?" she asks.
With my important voice, I repeat the words.
"I love you," she says.
"I love you," I say.
Lola stands at the warming stove, wearing two sweaters and stirring our oatmeal. In ways I could never be, she is happy. Smiling for no obvious reason, she asks what I'm planning for my day.
"You remember," I say.
"Tell me again."
"Run the meat into town."
"I forgot," she claims, her stirring picking up speed.
But really, she isn't that simple. What she forgets can be a message, not a mistake. Like here: Butcher Jack wants the meat. But he has three daughters too, all in their teens. Some nights Lola lies awake, scared that I'll leave her for some young gal who gives me babies. If not Butcher Jack's kids, then there's dozens of single ladies living in that hated town - fertile sluts talking about Christ but not meaning it, their spoiled easy lives giving them time to paint their faces and cover their bodies with fancy clothes meant to do nothing but draw a man's eyes. She hates my trips to town. We need them, and she doesn't dare stop me. But even an insensitive husband would pick up on these feelings, and I'm not the insensitive type.
Eating breakfast, I ask what we need. What can I bring her?
Two different questions, those are.
Her wish list is shorter than usual.
She mentions dried apples and bug-free flour and oats and maybe cloth that she can use to make new clothes and wool yarn if I can manage it. Then she pauses, staring at the table between us, saying nothing but in a very important way.
"What's wrong?"
She shakes her head. But instead of lying, she admits that she gets scared when I leave for long.
"Scared of what?"
Lola looks at me.
"I always come home," I remind her. Of course maybe I won't make it tonight, but by tomorrow I'll be sitting here again. And she'll have me until spring, if we get enough supplies for all our smoked meat.
"I know you'll be back," she claims. Then a moment later, she mentions, "The butcher shouldn't take long."
"I have old friends to see," I remind her.
She nods.
"Rituals," I add.
One ritual makes her smile.
"Come with me," I tell her.
But that will never happen. Even the suggestion brings up old feelings, and as her face stiffens, she says, "I wouldn't be welcome."
"It's been years."
"And what's changed?"
"Well," I say. "It's not like people will talk ugly to your face."
Heat flows into those gorgeous eyes. The sources of pain aren't worth repeating. We know the history, and just by bringing it up, I make certain that she'll stay behind. With a nod, Lola admits that we need supplies, but at least I won't be doing this chore again next month. "Get everything you can today," she implores. "Whatever we need, and maybe a present for me. All right? Then come home as fast as possible."
Maybe my wife doesn't know the ingredients of the air. But better than me, she remembers why we even bother to breathe.
There's no telling how many vehicles went into making my freight truck. I lost count of the places where I found the little valves and bolts and brackets and gaskets. But the body belonged to a military Hummer and the engine to a second Hummer - a big eight-cylinder reconfigured to burn even our lousy homemade alcohol. No two tires have the same lineage. I can make most repairs using the tools on hand and the junkyard behind our last outbuilding. But one of these days, this truck is going to stop running. It'll probably happen at the bottom of a gully and miles from home, and the part I need won't be in my inventory, or more likely I'll hike all the way home and find ten replacements, every last one of them rusted and useless.
Water and time are two demons steadily erasing wha
t remains from before. But that very bad day still sits somewhere in the future. Today we have a fleet of Jeeps and little trucks and tractors and powered carts, plus the one big Hummer. With Lola's help, I load the truck and both trailers, tying down the choicest parts of elk and whitetail and wild pigs, plus that one idiot black bear that decided to visit us last October, mauling our dogs when he wasn't making a mess of our smokehouse. Balancing the load is critical, and it takes a lot of pushing and dragging until everything is just right. Suddenly it's mid-morning. Lola thinks it's too late to go and wants me to delay, although she won't say it. I give her a kiss and she does nothing. I step away and she pulls me close and kisses me, lifting her face and whole body against me. I have to laugh. Then she slaps my face and storms away. I climb into the cab and take the usual deep breath, for luck. The engine catches on the first try, and I wave and she waves and smiles, and I roll across our yard and down onto the narrow, grass-choked road to town.
The dogs follow but not too far.
In good shoes and motivated, a fit person could run to Salvation in ninety minutes. Every road between home and the highway is my responsibility. Nobody else lives out here. Spring and summer, I use our biggest tractor to pull the mower, keeping the weeds and volunteer trees off the once-graveled roadbeds. I also blade over the ruts and any gullies made by cloudbursts and eventually I'm going to have to brace the bridge at the seven-mile mark.
The bridge creaks and moans but it holds as always. My roads end at the highway and sitting beside the intersection, happy in the sun, is a tiger - a great yellow and white and black beast staring at this noisy contraption and the stubborn, half-deaf man clinging to its steering wheel.
The local tigers are beauties. Their ancestors lived in a city zoo or maybe somebody's private collection and instead of being mercy-killed the big cats were set free. Siberian blood runs in this fellow. He is enormous and warm inside that rich winter coat. A fur like that would command a huge price in town. Or even better, it would be the perfect surprise for a woman whose biggest hope is for a sack of bug-free flour.
But this tiger proves to be a wise soul. Reading my mind, he vanishes into the grass before I can get hold of my favorite rifle, much less put the scope to my eye or push a big bullet into the chamber.
Oh, well.
Salvation stands along this highway and the adjacent ribbon of clear, drought-starved water. Turning left, I head downstream. Rectangular foundations show where homes once stood, pipe and wire scavenged long ago, the wood and gypsum burnt off by the spring fires. Side roads and driveways are nearly invisible under the pale dead weeds. A factory was only half-built when work stopped and, while the roof caved in years ago, the concrete walls and paved parking lot are putting on worthy battles against roots and the surge of the frosts. After that ruin comes the first tended fields. Families have claimed different patches of bottomland. People who might be four generations removed from farming have figured out how to plow and irrigate, how to fight off the weeds and pests, saving seed and canning their produce and trading for new seeds that will do better or do worse this coming year.
It has been weeks since I saw any new human face. Today's first face belongs to a boy. Standing in the trees between the cold water and me, he looks wild and very happy. Curious about this man and his enormous truck, he lifts his arms, yelling something important. I can't hear a word over the screaming of the engine. Rolling past him, I wave like any friendly neighbor.
He runs after me. And because he is a boy, he picks up a piece of the broken pavement, flinging it into the last trailer.
New houses mark the outskirts of Salvation. Standing back from the river, they are built from packed earth and straw bales, roughly hewn wood and salvaged sheets of random metal. Beauty and elegance don't matter. Being tight in the winter and cool in the summer is what counts. The town grows every year, and this is the look of the ... what's that word? Oh, yeah. The suburbs.
Another mile, and I'm in the original town. The houses here are taller and far prettier than the dirt mounds, and they're 5,000 years fancier. Corkscrew windmills turn on the peaked roofs while solar panels face the cold bright sun, the day's wealth turned into heat and LEDs and electricity stored in banks of refurbished batteries. I can't say what people want with so much juice. How many lamps do you need to read an old book at midnight? But power is power, prestige never changes, and if I can't remember who lives in which house, at least I can be certain that only the best citizens are living behind those insulated front doors.
Salvation has always been Salvation. But the people who built it were different from today's good citizens. Worried about their future, they purchased hundreds of acres of farmland. They created a town square and a host of little businesses and streets filled with efficient, luxurious homes. Being fonvard-looking souls, they powered their world with wind and sunlight. They devised a community and a life style that demanded little from the overpopulated, overheated world. But wealthy people are smugly confident. They will always do what looks smart, and being smart was what killed them. That's why Salvation became a ghost town. But these beautiful homes weren't empty for long, because up in heaven a benevolent God sent His chosen people to a place with that perfect name, and among the blessed were my mother and my father, and me.
In a town that often chews up its own, Butcher Jack is considered a fair trader, a gentleman unencumbered by enemies or old grudges. And he's glad to see me but only because we're friends and because we think the world of each other. After the usual greetings and handshakes, he turns quiet, throwing a sour look at the truck and trailers loaded high with sweet wild meat.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing you've done."
I can't guess what he means.
"It's the Martin brothers," he begins.
Identical twins, the Martins are a few years older than me, prone to drinking homemade whiskey and starting fights with whoever is closest. They were barely men when they were shunned, and when their behaviors didn't change the mayor took the unusual step of forcing them out of town. The brothers live on the National Guard base several days' west, sharing at least four wives and a platoon of kids who call both of them "Dad". Why that clan means anything to me is a mystery, right up until Jack admits, "They just brought in a load of cured buffalo and wild cattle."
"Since when do they share?"
"Since this winter. Too many bored kids underfoot, too much energy causing mischief. They figured it was time to put the crew to work, maybe barter for toys and the like."
"But how's their meat?"
He answers my question with a hard stare.
"Do they match my stuff?" I ask.
"No, and that's why you'll always have customers, Noah. Least as far as I'm concerned."
Why doesn't this feel like good news?
"Drunks or not, the Martins did a respectable job. Not the flavor you manage, and the meat demands chewing. But people are pretty satisfied."
"How much did they bring?"
Jack considers my load before saying, "Twice yours."
"Damn."
"There's the problem's heart," he says. "Our local market is just about saturated."
I used to worry about my neighbors turning into hunters, particularly as the elk and buffalo grew common. But killing is easy work. Gutting the beasts is hard, and smoking that lean flesh is an art form. If I hadn't come to town today, I'd still feel like a wealthy man. But now I'm destitute, wrestling with my terrors, wondering if weeks of labor are going to count for nothing. And worst of all, my best friend in Salvation is delivering the deathblow.
"You've still got your loyal customers," Jack repeats.
I nod.
"And remember, we've got more mouths in town. Twenty more than last year, nearly."
I wait.
He offers a sum. It's half what I expected, but I know it's more than he has to pay me. This is charity, and I have to smile. Then he calls out his four sons to help unload the meat, and I catch myself wa
tching for his notorious daughters. I don't see them anywhere. Once his boys are working, he turns back to me, saying, "Things won't get any better, Noah."
"You mean with the Martins?"
"No, it's the darn Mennonites," he says, waving toward the southeast. "Those hill families are clearing pastures, putting up fences and breeding with some quality bulls."
"Tigers like beef," I point out.
And Jack nods, wanting to believe that too. "But they may have solved the predator problem," he warns. "Big dogs trained to watch the herds, and when there's trouble, the dogs bark. Cougars, wolves, even tigers ... they're all going to think twice when those bearded men start firing their big rifles."
I laugh sadly.
Jack shrugs. "Next year, in a small scale, they'll be putting domesticated beef on our tables."
And I curse.
Which he expects. And with his own sense of impending loss, he adds, "Mennonites are smart businessmen. Always have been. They'll eventually build their own cooler and slaughterhouse. And at that point, both of us will be scrambling for work."
So everybody's in a tough place. Except that I don't care about Jack's troubles. We're friends, even partners. But when your life is tumbling down, it's amazing how little you feel for the rest of the hapless debris.
Visits to town usually include the only official bar, The Quilt Shop. Christians don't like public drinking, which is why the town policy is one beer every day -served in a very tall glass, of course. But the barter papers from Jack won't cover the food and cloth that we need. In an ugly, sober mood, I walk past the bar, aiming to visit my mother instead. Marching across the town square, I pause here and there to chat with the faces I know. Nobody mentions Lola; nothing of substance is discussed. They want to know how I am. They tell me that I look fit and fed. What's the news from the wilderness? Did I bring in my usual venison? Is the weather cold enough? This winter must be like the old winters, young voices claim. But Old Ferris knows better. "I've seen bigger chills and a lot more snow," he says.