The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.
Robert E. Howard
Iron Horse, California
2156 hours, April 24
Rather than sleep in the open desert with no bedding or fire, they decided to head back to Sierra, despite the darkness. Highway 70 went northeast and then east before joining Highway 395 and branching north, so they picked a route that took them cross-country. Later they would get back on Highway 70 for a while and then cut straight northeast toward Sierra. They led their horses over the rough terrain instead of riding, because despite the brightness of the quarter moon, the danger of stepping in a hole was too great.
Green Ghost wanted to lead but had left his NVGs back at Sierra, so Jane firmly insisted he follow her. He argued but eventually gave in. She wondered if he’d comment on the view, half hoping that he would but also knowing that he needed to keep his eyes roaming for trouble, but he said nothing. Within two hundred yards, she had steered them around a Western rattlesnake that didn’t rattle a warning, and giggled when Green Ghost jumped sideways away from a second snake.
“Watch it!” he said.
She pitched her voice low so it didn’t carry. “That’s a gopher snake, silly. Harmless.”
“But its head…”
“They can flatten it to look like a rattlesnake. Now do you see why I’m leading?”
“If I get bit by a Gila monster, I’m blaming you.”
Jane stopped and looked back over her shoulder. She didn’t know Green Ghost all that well, but in the time they’d had together, he’d never done more than scowl and ask questions or bark orders. Despite that, or maybe because she was lonely and hadn’t realized it, she found something about him intensely attractive. “If you step on a Gila monster, you’ll be the first person ever in these parts to do it.”
“Why’s that?”
“They don’t live this far north.”
“Oh.”
“They also live mostly underground. I’ve only seen one in my whole life, and it was dead.”
“Okay, I get it. No Gila monsters.”
She hoped he could see her smile. “Don’t be scared, big boy. Junker Jane is here to protect you.”
#
Green Ghost had to remind himself not to stare at Jane’s backside as she led her horse along a trail he couldn’t see, a distraction he’d never had to deal with in the field before, not with Glide, or Frosty, or Esther, or any of the other female Zombies. Somehow his brain recognized that while the Zombie women were all beautiful, or at least athletic, he was forbidden to see them in the usual way a man sees a woman, or vice versa. They were part of the team, and not someone you had romantic feelings for. Jane, on the other hand, wasn’t a Zombie, so…
He’d just pulled his eyes away from her yet again when without warning Jane crouched and unslung the Kimber Mountain Ascent thirty-ought-six from her shoulder. Green Ghost immediately dropped to one knee and flipped on the IR scope for his M-4. He knew better than to speak. Scanning the desert, he spotted numerous small heat signatures, but nothing that appeared threatening. Then, faint but distinct, he heard screaming. Was it a woman? If so, she was being hacked to death with a butcher knife.
“Bobcat,” Jane whispered a few seconds later. “Full-grown, probably a male.”
“Do they attack humans?”
She spoke so quietly he had to strain to hear her. “Not unless you threaten them. They also don’t scream without a reason… it’s mating season, but that’s not a mating call. That’s a warning.”
“What hunts a bobcat?”
“A starving cougar could, but there’s too much game around here.”
“Anything else?”
“Humans.”
That was when a gunshot cracked over the desert in sharp echoes.
#
Seventy yards from the gulley, a campfire flickered in the center of a triangle of three wagons. Green Ghost had circled from a distance until he’d found the best angle of fire. Lying in the ditch, he propped elbows on the lip and aimed his M-4 at the laager. The fire washed out his IR scope, so he turned if off to conserve the battery.
“I count at least four adults,” he said quietly to Jane, who lay beside him. “Might be some kids, too. No weapons in sight.”
“That wasn’t thunder we heard earlier.”
“No, it wasn’t. But I don’t see any sentries.” He looked away from the scope. “I think it’s a family or families.”
“What are they doing way out here?”
Instead of answering, he simply stared at her, in that way most people found so annoying. It was his way of saying why are you asking me? But Jane kept silent long after most people would have said something further, waiting him out, and after a long minute Green Ghost’s mouth twitched. “How the hell should I know?”
“I thought you were some kind of super soldier.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“That’s what some of the men back at Sierra called you. Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“A super soldier?”
“Is this really the time to be talking about that?”
“Can you suggest a better time?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but the words wouldn’t come out. Finally he said, “If you don’t think those people are families, then who do you think they are?”
“Oh, I think you’re right, I think they’re families and they’re running away from something.”
His voice rose to a loud whisper in his exasperation. “Then what was all that super soldier bullshit about?”
Although she lay in the dark shadows of the ditch, he clearly saw her teeth when she smiled. “Just playing with you.” Then the tone of her voice abruptly changed. “I’m going to go talk to those folks.”
“What? No, you’re not! What if they shoot first and ask questions later?”
“That’s what you’re here for. Assuming you know how to shoot that thing.” But when she saw the confusion on his face, she stopped on the lip of the ditch. “Listen, a scraper has to know what’s going on in their territory. I’ve spent most of my life alone in this vast country, digging through the ruins of old America, and to tell you the truth, it’s been a pretty interesting life. But the only way to survive is to talk with people, find out what the latest news is and where the dangers might be. I’ve never seen travelers in this part of the high desert before and need to find out what they’re doing here.”
“I still don’t like it, but I guess I can’t stop you.”
“No, you can’t, and I’m glad you didn’t try.”
#
“Hello in the camp!” she called from behind a young pine tree growing in the scrublands, no more than twenty yards away from the nearest wagon. People often called the area south of the old Plumas National Forest a desert, but it wasn’t. Instead it lay between the far northern tip of the Sierra Nevada Range to the south, and the Cascade Mountain Range on the north — flat lands cut by deep ditches and covered in tufts of grass and scrub pines.
She heard scrambling coming from behind the wagon nearest her and saw shadows pass in front of the campfire. Alarmed voices spoke in low tones she couldn’t make out, but didn’t need to; clearly she’d panicked them. The metallic click of a gun’s hammer being pulled back was plain to hear.
“I mean no harm!”
“Go away and leave us alone!” cried a man’s voice. “I’ll shoot you if you don’t.”
“My name is Junker Jane.” She waited, hoping they might have heard of her.
“Don’t care about that, don’t know you, don’t wanna know you!”
What could she say to that? As Jane tried to think of something to say, she heard more talking coming from the camp. She decided to wait and see if the man said anything more, and didn’t have long to wait.
“How do we know it’s you?”
“Have you run into a lot of people pretending to be me?”
That brought a laugh followed by a curse. �
��Don’t mean you’re you.”
“I’m standing up. Please don’t shoot me.”
“Are you armed?”
“Of course I am. What kind of idiot doesn’t carry a gun?”
“Leave it behind.”
“Like hell I will! It’s over my shoulder, but I don’t go anywhere without my rifle, so if you’re gonna shoot, then make sure you don’t miss.”
With her right thumb looped under the rifle’s strap at her shoulder, Jane rose from concealment and walked straight toward the little encampment. Flickering firelight lit the way, illuminating the side of a lanky man pointing a very long gun at her. As she drew closer and could make out more details, it became obvious that it was a single-shot musket, probably made post-Collapse. Passing between two wagons, she entered the triangular campsite.
Two older women and an older man stood in front of seven children, all of whom appeared to be teenaged or younger. The man pointing the gun at her had the lean, leather-skinned look of someone who’d spent a life outdoors. A cooking pot sat beside the fire and it was obvious the wagons were loaded with their possessions, but there was one thing Jane immediately noticed was missing: animals. Each wagon had a horse to pull it, but no cows, chickens, goats, or even a dog.
One of the women crept around the fire and came toward her. Jane noticed the muzzle of the musket shaking and a sideways glance showed the man’s finger on the trigger, also quivering, as if he expected her to try and jump him.
“I’m going to raise my hands,” she said. “Just don’t pull that trigger.”
“Don’t you move!” His voice cracked.
“I’m not moving! But take your finger off that damned trigger!”
“If I shoot you, it ain’t gonna be no accident.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. I’ve got a friend out there with a scoped rifle centered on the side of your head, and I’m afraid if you don’t move away from that trigger, he’s gonna put a bullet in your brain.”
“It’s a lie. Keep that gun on her, Lem,” cried the second woman, across the ring of stones enclosing the fire. Two small children hugged her, one to each leg.
“Ghost!” Jane yelled. It startled the man named Lem, the man with the gun, who jumped and almost fired.
Then a reply from the darkness caused Lem’s head to turn. “I’m here.” Jane could tell Green Ghost had gotten closer since she’d left her position.
“We’re all friends here,” she said.
“How do we know you ain’t another commissar come to take us back?”
“Hang on, Lem.” It was the woman who’d sidled closer to Jane. The deep lines cut into her cracked skin made her appear older than she probably was. “You look like Lyssa described you to be.”
“Lyssa? The young woman who ran with Bam Bam Bear and the Enclave?”
The woman squinted with her left eye. “What’d she look like?”
“If it’s the same girl, about yay high—” She held her hand about five feet above the ground. “Small frame, blonde hair, really pretty eyes, the color of the flowers on black sage.”
After a brief pause, the woman turned to Lem and nodded. “I believe her. Put your gun away, Lem.”
With obvious reluctance, Lem lowered his musket.
Jane smiled at the woman nearest her, unslung her own rifle, and propped it against the wagon at her back. “Thank you…”
“I’m G-momma Ellie,” the woman said, spreading her arms to hug Jane. Once all the introductions were made, G-momma Ellie asked if the man in the desert might want to join them. They didn’t have much, but would share whatever they did have.
“He’s not very sociable,” Jane said. “And thank you, but we’ve got everything we need.”
“You could use some tea, couldn’t you? Everybody needs tea.”
“Thank you, I’d love some.”
Tea had long since ceased meaning water poured over the leaves of an evergreen bush native to East Asia. Now it was any concoction made from roots and leaves native to North America that could be collected to provide flavor to hot water. Each region had its own variety. Even Jane had one of her own, created by the elderly Indian named Tenuhci, who looked after her compound when she was gone. It didn’t have a name, it was just tea.
G-momma Ellie handed her a dented metal cup filled with a steaming liquid she ladled from a pot sitting in the ashes of the fire. Steam rising from the cup smelled strongly of pine needles, with a floral undertone. Sipping the tea, Jane found it bitter, but smiled and swallowed anyway. Unexpectedly, it felt like her sinuses opened up and she could breathe deeper.
“Thank you,” she said, surprised that she meant it.
“You like it?”
“I do. It’s a little bitter but… I don’t know, there’s something about it.”
“I’ll teach you how to make it,” G-momma Ellie said with a grin. She still had all her teeth.
“Let’s see if there’s time first. Maybe you could tell me why you’re out here in the middle of the desert?”
“We knew it was comin’. We told Lyssa all about it. You seen her lately?”
Jane waited to speak until the words had formed in her brain. “Lyssa’s why we’re out here, G-momma… her and Bear and a man named Artu and a brave girl named Suzanne... we… me and the guy out there in the dark, we buried them this afternoon. The Chinese killed them more than a week ago. I saw it with my own eyes, G-momma… Bear sacrificed himself to save me.”
“Oh, Lord,” G-momma prayed. Several of the children started crying. “Not that sweet little thing. Tell me it ain’t true.”
“I wish I could.”
“Damn Chinese,” Lem said. He looked over his shoulder, to the west, and scowled.
“I don’t know why God lets such people walk his Earth,” G-momma said. “They killt all them good folks and they ran us off our land. That’s why we’s out here — they took our farm. We figured it was comin’ but not this quick.”
#
When the U.S. armed forces were the mightiest in the world, the requirements for joining any special operations branch included superior physical skills as a minimum, but the best of the recruits also had top-flight mental abilities. That did not mean simply calculating a tactical situation in a dynamic environment, or thinking up clever ruses, or the ability to speak multiple languages, although each of those was also a highly desirable trait for those involved in special ops. The most critical mental discipline was patience, not just when operating as a sniper but patience to allow situations to develop and give your team member a chance to complete their mission before breaking cover and going in after them.
Green Ghost was about at that stage and had put one knee on the lip of the ditch when Jane finally emerged from the campsite headed his way.
Once there, she knelt down and extended her hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’ve got a long way to go before dawn. We need to get started.”
“It’s pretty late now and we don’t have to get back to Sierra tonight. We can wait until morning.”
“We’re not going to Sierra and we can’t wait for sunup. The Chinese might spot us.”
“What the hell are you talking about, lady?”
“We’re headed southwest, twenty miles or so.”
“I’ve gotta get back to Sierra. I have responsibilities. Never mind why you wanna go twenty miles to the southwest. I just can’t do it.”
“I guess I’ll have to do it alone, then.”
“Do what?”
“Save some prisoners of the PRC.”
#
“Knock it off with the jokes.”
Under the starlight, Green Ghost could read her confusion. “What jokes?”
“Calling it the PRC. It’s a play on People’s Republic of China, because the state of California loved oppressive government.”
“Now what are you talking about?”
“You called it the PRC. I assumed
you meant the People’s Republic of California.”
“I did.”
“And that was always just a joke.”
“It’s not a joke. That’s it’s name.”
“Seriously? Since when?”
“Since those people heard it straight from the mouth of some Chinese tough guy named Adder when he took their farm yesterday.”
Green Ghost recoiled as if he’d been struck. “What did you say his name was?” he whispered.
“Adder.”
“And he’s twenty miles from here?”
“He was, but I don’t know about now.”
“Let’s go.” He scrambled out of the ditch and took off walking southwest at a brisk pace. “We’re wasting time.”
#
Chapter 17
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H.P. Lovecraft
North Central California
0031 hours, April 25
Jane had lived her entire life stalking the deserts, plains, and mountains of northwest North America. Sometimes her lifestyle had necessitated moving very fast for short sprints, but she’d never met anyone who could maintain such a relentless pace as Green Ghost. He always walked with long strides and a gait that made it seem like he was headed for some emergency. Even on horseback, he seemed to move as part of the horse, a horse he had only just met, in the way that long-time horses and their riders often coordinated their movements so perfectly they appeared to be one animal, and while they only moved at a slow trot, their speed never varied.
The only comment he made in the first hour was to ask for exact directions. After that, she tried several times to engage him in conversation, but avoided the subject of whoever Adder might be, since he’d had such a strong reaction to the name. The only response she got was a grunt when a breeze carried a familiar scent to her nostrils, the musky smell of a snake.
At length she couldn’t take it any more. “Did you grow up riding horses?” she said sometime past midnight.
“No.”
“You do it so good.” He said nothing, so she changed her approach. “Who taught you to ride?”
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