by Michael Lane
It was dusk when a single horseman trotted up to the cabin as Sowter was starting to serve supper. Josie had been on the porch and stuck her head in with a quizzical look.
“Grey, there’s a strange looking guy headed this way. Are you expecting someone?”
“Maybe. I’ll come out.” Grey pulled his boots on and excused himself.
The rider had come to a halt about thirty yards from the cabin, but dismounted and walked his horse forward when Grey emerged. The newcomer was wrapped in a serape made of an old tan blanket. His exposed arms were covered with the cracked gray leather of an ancient motorcycle jacket, and he wore greasy black jeans tucked into a pair of scuffed engineer’s boots. His face was hidden by snarl of wool scarves. Josie saw the wink of steel under the serape when he dismounted.
“This where the party is?” he asked, pulling at the scarves and exposing a narrow, whiskered face lined with years and weather. His eyes were a pale green, like a cat’s, Josie saw. Grey stepped past her, held out a hand and the man shook it.
“Mal. Malcolm Barnes. I expect you got my message,” Grey said.
“I did. It said you were offering one a week and loot?” His voice was mellow and slow, with a hint of an accent, but his eyes moved rapidly, taking in the cabin, the windows facing him and the faces therein.
“Yep,” Grey agreed. “We’ll be eight against a lot more if things go poorly. That a problem?”
Mal shook his head, mouth set in a line.
“The pasture gate’s around back. You can put your horse in there with the others and come in, meet everyone. Get some food.”
“All right.” Mal said, catching his horse’s reins and heading around the corner of the cabin.
Grey turned and went back inside, Josie following.
The cabin had three rooms, side-by-side, each about twenty feet square. The center room had a woodstove made of an old steel drum and a plank table. The chairs were a mix of rickety wooden ones and equally shaky aluminum lawn chairs. Most of the windows still had glass in them. Those that didn’t had oiled hide that passed a tired yellow light. It smelled of mice. Over a dinner of chili and bannock, Grey invited questions.
“Who’s he?” Clay asked, eyeing Mal.
“He’s an old partner. He does this kind of work and he was available,” Grey said. “You can trust him, Clay.”
“Are you a gunfighter?” Ronald asked. Grey thought he’d tried for nonchalant but the boy just sounded nervous. Mal chuckled and muttered through a mouthful of chili.
“No such thing. I fight for pay, yes. That doesn’t make me a gunfighter. They are for stories.”
Sowter cut in.
“Pardon my asking, but why bother yourself? Who’s paying?”
Mal gestured at Grey with a fork and took a bite of bannock.
“Why are you paying for a gun?” Josie asked.
“Because it’s Mal’s job,” Grey said.
“Grey’s a funny guy,” Mal said, swallowing. “He’d have thought it was rude if he didn’t hire me, and just asked an old friend to ride off and get shot at.”
“Pretty much,” Grey said. For a while there was only the clink of utensils.
Doc was watching the window. Wind-driven rain was pattering against the glass and zigzagging down in silver trails.
“When do we leave?” he asked.
“Tomorrow. We can talk all we want on the road, and I’m tired of talking,” Grey said. Harmon grunted and twitched a smile. Ronald looked surprised but stayed quiet.
Maggie came by just before dawn, looking older. She’d been sick with a dry cough nearly all winter, but refused to let Doc have a look at her. Clay told Grey he figured she would either get better or die on her own. She spoke privately to Clay and Sowter, gave Ronald a stern bit of advice, and eyed the quarterhorse Georgia had supplied Grey.
“You should shoe it,” she said. “If it comes up lame you’re going to be walking back.”
“He’s got feet like iron, Maggie. He’ll be fine.”
Maggie examined his face. Grey saw the whites of her eyes had taken on a yellow cast that he didn’t like.
“Are you going to be okay, Maggie?”
She laughed. “You should spend your worry on yourself.” She glanced away, eyes settling on Ronald as he finished tacking up his horse. His breath steamed in the cold air and he cursed as his horse circled, eager to be off and tired of waiting.
“Try to bring them back, Grey.”
“I will.”
“You’ll bring them back?”
“I’ll try.”
She turned and studied Mal for a long time, and shivered in the cold. She coughed; three hard wheezing hacks into a closed fist. She wiped her hand and pat Grey on the back. Maggie mounted her little Arab, who tossed his head fractiously as she turned him and set off east into the rising sun.
Grey watched her go, then went inside to say goodbye to Josie. The others waited. She came out with Grey after a minute, her eyes red, and watched them leave from the cabin’s porch. They headed south, their shadows stretching over the matted brown grass on their right, elongate and writhing as they flowed across the uneven ground.
Grey chose the path, and he stayed high on the western rim of the hills flanking the lake. They avoided settlements and traveled the old highway route at first. Far below, on their left in midmorning they passed the long line of the bridge, stretching across the waist of the lake to the Port. Boats were already at work, fishermen moving in slow formation along the water. They kept on.
The country was hilly, rocky and rough, equally split between tussocks of bunchgrass and basalt outcrops and stands of big, red-barked ponderosa pine on the south-facing slopes. Those that faced north were brushy with saskatoon berries, thorny alders and the early green of thimbleberries. The trees here tended to be fir or spruce, with cedars and aspens in the moist clefts of the valleys.
They were forced higher and off the highway as they headed south, where the mountains flanking the lake pressed in and the slopes fell away in rust-brown cliffs for hundreds of feet. Tan mountain sheep ran and hopped across the faces of the cliffs like goats at play in a pasture. From time to time they could glimpse the line of the old road at the base of the cliff, or the plumes of smoke from cabins in the rare clumps of trees near the shore.
They stopped and watered the horses at a creek in the afternoon. Early grasses and weeds cloaked its banks, and they let the horses graze for an hour. The riders ate smoked fish and a handful of parched corn, and set off again. There was little talk.
They camped that night on the high bench west of the crater that marked the south end of the lake. The crater was perfectly round and nearly a hundred yards across, the bottom filled with bright green water dotted with geese. A devastated jumble of masonry and steel surrounded it, all that remained of the little city of Penticton. Cottonwoods had spent decades reclaiming the area, and their green-budding branches, still a week or two from unfurling leaves, lent the wreckage a tinge of spring.
Ronald spent a long time looking at it through Clay’s binoculars.
Sowter turned out to have a knack for stories, and that evening he told one about a cowboy and a bobcat that helped relax the group. Even Mal cracked a smile while disassembling and cleaning the collection of pistols he carried. Georgia watched him with a crease between her brows.
Grey assigned watches.
“I doubt there’s any chance of us being bothered until we get farther south, but let’s not take that for granted,” he said as a few groans issued at the news. Doc insisted he needed his beauty sleep, and that he couldn’t shoot anything anyway. Clay pointed out he could see just fine, and Doc wound up on first watch.
It took Grey a while to get to sleep. He wasn’t the most natural rider, and he was out of practice and feeling his age in stray twinges. When he did sleep, it was dreamless.
Chapter 9: Politics
The Castle’s ground floor featured a huge cafeteria. The facility had been intact and undamag
ed when Creedy had taken possession and with a few adjustments it still fulfilled the same role it had for its builders.
The gas ovens in the kitchens had been pulled out. Their never-rusting remains sat in a heap in the weeds outside. Charcoal and wood grills and ovens - some scavenged, most made from sheet metal - had replaced them. The rear door, opening onto a concrete stair that lead up to daylight, remained open when the kitchen was in use to exchange air and let smoke escape. The ceiling and walls were stained yellow from years of greasy smoke, but there was no built-up soot. Creedy insisted the kitchen staff keep the room as clean as possible and punished the staff as a whole for the mistakes of any one. This evening a spitted calf occupied the largest barbeque, built in the concrete foundation of the old grill. It was turned by hand, and had been since that morning. A half-dozen cooks scurried, making platters of meat, baskets of buns, fried potatoes cooked in lard. There was no fresh fruit. It was too early in the year, even for the traders who packed in from the coast, where a few ships called year-round from southern ports. Jars of canned peaches from Castle stores stood ready for dessert, though.
Oil lamps and candles lit the dining hall, an L-shaped expanse with a raised speaker’s dais in the corner where the two arms met. Red and white bunting had been hung in loops on the walls backing the platform. There were seven long steel tables with attached benches in each arm of the room. The tables were filled with Creedy’s officers and representatives from his townships, along with their entourages. Tonight, each table carried four tall candles, adding to the illumination. Tablecloths of pale blue linen made from Oregon flax and woven on handlooms at Salem covered every table.
The crowd was mixed. Some wore thirty-year-old suits and ties, and escorted ladies ranging from the prim and elderly to the barely pubescent, attired in dresses hand-made or scavenged. Others wore reeking furs stained with smoke and blood and grease and were unaccompanied but for their sidearms. Most looked like farmers at a grange meeting, with white shirts, broad hats and dungarees.
Creedy sat at the head table, dressed in his usual khakis, his hair neatly combed, with Sam at his side in a slinky red dress. He watched his people with interest as they interacted with the headmen, mayors or town elders of his little kingdom.
The dynamics appeared simple at first, but he enjoyed the subtlety of the real dance beneath the obvious one. Bear Jackson, garrison commander near Walla Walla, bulked hugely over a smaller man, speaking down into his face, frowning thunderously. Creedy imagined the smaller man was a townie in Bear’s zone. Smaller men were always at a disadvantage in discussion, Creedy mused. It could be overcome, of course. Several of his commanders were women - often the best of his troops - but they always had to overcome the disadvantage of size and strength. Simple men postured and threatened and struck if balked. They made decent sergeants; women, and complex men, found ways to apply pressure with a word. He valued that far more. A case in point was Stephanie Hollis, diminutive in her formal black slacks and short suit-jacket, pale hair in a tight braid. Hollis was currently sitting one table over, flanked by her husband William and her aide, whose name escaped Creedy. She ran the important wheat and oat territories south of Spokane, and the representatives from her towns sat quietly at her table, attentive and polite. Simple men like Bear would never reach that level of control over their charges, which was why he would never advance.
Of course, if he thought he was about to, he’d be better suited for what Creedy had in mind for him and his ilk.
Samantha glanced at Creedy as he rose, and then turned her attention back to her dinner. Bruising shadowed her right cheek despite her makeup.
Creedy climbed the three steps and took a central position on the platform, clasping his hand behind his back, head slightly lowered. He waited until conversation stopped. It didn’t take long. He raised his head and smiled broadly.
“Good evening, friends,” he said. There were a few good-natured responses. The crowd had been well-fed and left to its own devices, and was in a good mood.
“This is our eleventh annual meeting. I’m glad to see you all here, and I trust your journeys were safe. I’ve always prided myself on supplying a safe environment for travel and trade.”
There was an approving murmur. Anyone who had argued that point with Creedy over the years wasn’t present to say otherwise.
“While we’ve made a civilization where wilderness held sway, most of you are aware that there are changes coming; great changes. New players are arriving and we may find our lives altered.”
That had their attention. Even the whisperers stopped to listen.
“We may not speak of it, but I think we all know in our hearts that we are Americans. We’ve continued the tradition of a great nation shattered by disaster, and survived and prospered as best we could.” He glanced around the room, smiled inclusively, and began pacing thoughtfully along the front edge of the raised platform.
“You’ve all heard the rumors - the news, I should say - that the United States is once more striving to make the united in its name a reality. That its reborn military arm, the Continental Defense Force, is making its way west, bringing with it the prospect of a brighter future. A future without the fear of outlaws and cartel thugs raiding our towns, murdering our families and stealing the very food we need to survive.”
He stopped, facing the diners, and raised his hands, palms upward.
“What should we do? How shall we greet the return of the union? Some ask that in fear, some in curiosity, and it is a good question; a question that needs to be asked.” That part, he smiled inwardly, was certainly true, unlike what was to follow.
“I have taken the liberty of making some initial contact with representatives of the CDF.” There were murmurs at that, but it sounded like surprise rather than disbelief, and Creedy smiled again.
“Their aims are to bring law and order, to allow for the peaceful rebuilding of our once-great nation, and all they require of us is to do what we have done; keep the peace, make the world safer for our children, and labor for our betterment.”
Some of the less astute, Bear for one, looked confused. They’d spent the past decade killing and looting in the guise of protection. Creedy depended on their trust in him, and their hungry egos, to carry them past the questions.
“I think we can all agree to these aims. So. What shall we do? I have a plan I hope you will consider.” He paused for effect.
“I believe we should join with the CDF, uniting our existing garrisons with their own system, allowing for a smooth transition of control with no loss of safety or possessions to any of us here.”
There was some scattered applause at that, even though half the audience had understood only half of what was said. The townies looked dazed and hopeful. Bear and others like him had a sort of thick animal cunning on their faces as they tried to work out how to stay in charge of their little kingdoms. Hollis and three or four of the really important leaders were carefully deadpan, but Creedy could sense their amusement.
“That being the case, as this year goes forward, you, the civilian leaders of our communities, will work closely with your Castle garrison commanders to make ready to greet the return of the nation. This is a time you will remember and share with your children and grandchildren. This is the time that the United States will again stretch from sea to shining sea.”
The townies were still applauding as Creedy reminded them that a dance was to follow dinner. He bowed once and returned to his seat.
Sam stared at him. He grinned.
“What? Do you have a question?”
She shook her head. Then nodded.
“I did, but not about that. Did you want wine this evening?” Sam had learned quickly that Creedy’s dark, sullen periods earned her bruises like the one fading from her face. His brighter moments turned his mind to sex and drink.
“I think that sounds wonderful.” Creedy turned his attention to his meal.
“I’ll get a bottle, and some dessert if you l
ike. I think they have peaches,” Sam said, rising. Creedy waved a hand dismissively as he chewed, his eyes studying the reactions playing out around the room.
If he’d watched Sam, he might have seen something interesting stir in her gaze as she turned and went to the kitchens, but he didn’t.
The kitchen staffers were also eating, the fires banked and the desserts spooned into bowls. Marcia, the older of the two who had joined the Castle staff when Sam had, was nearest the door and put her plate down as Sam entered.
“Yes, Miss Sam, what can I do for you?”
“Marcia, how are you? I haven’t seen you in months I think.” She briefly clasped the older woman’s hands and smiled. “I need a bottle of good red wine and two desserts.”
“Certainly, ma’am,” Marcia said. She released Sam’s hands, and transferred the tightly folded note she had been palmed to her apron pocket. “I’ll have the desserts brought out and the wine delivered to Mr. Creedy’s quarters.”
“Thank you,” Sam said.
Creedy left Sam waiting for him in his quarters as the wine chilled. He took Gregor aside and retreated to a small, windowless interior room. It might have been intended as a storage room, but it also made a secure meeting area safe from other ears. It held a round wooden table and five mismatched chairs and a pair of kerosene lanterns.
Hollis arrived first, followed by northern commander Dean Shafton and Leslie Straud, who watched over the Snoqualmie Pass tolls and Columbia River traffic, respectively. Once they were seated, Gregor closed the door and waited outside.
“That was interesting,” Hollis said. She crossed her arms and leaned back. “You could smell the hope, the greed and the fear in there.”
“Good,” Creedy said. “Let them all focus on their little local piece of the pie. The CDF is going to come in and hang them all before taking it away. I just want them busy while we get ready to go. I don’t want the idiots following us.”
Straud was immensely fat and sweating as he always did. “I’ve converted a lot of the takings to silver and gold, so we’ll be able to move whenever we need to. The plan still what it was?”