Desolated

by Lou Cadle

  “When did I quit being one?” He was teasing.

  “Never. And you’ll keep being a great father even after you’re gone.”

  “Ah, hon. Don’t kill me yet.”

  “Didn’t intend to. I want you to make it to a hundred.”

  “Not sure about that. But I plan on not going anywhere for a while.”

  She was sorry she’d brought up the topic. She hated to think of losing her father, so why had she? “Anyway, you want help with your sauce?”

  “Nope. I’m good.”

  “All right then. I’ll be in the garden.”

  “Mulch the artichokes, would you?” He meant Jerusalem artichokes. They didn’t have the other kind, alas.

  “Will do.” She went out.

  C.J. was watering. At least there was that.

  She mulched the artichokes first thing so she didn’t forget. “I’m going to follow you and weed next,” she said to C.J. “Ground is softer now that it’s wet.”

  He said nothing.

  So they worked in silence for an hour, getting through about a quarter of the garden.

  Three of the boys—hardly boys anymore, but the male orphans—came back from their work on the other grain field. Gustavo said, “We’re going to go up the highway and make some charcoal. Just getting more water before we go.” He held up an old insulated bottle, its plastic exterior so scratched up and stained you could no longer tell what color it had once been.

  “Be careful,” she said, automatically. They’d had one big fire, fourteen years ago. Enough of the forest scrub had grown back since then that a wildfire was a real danger again.

  “We always are,” said Barry, the youngest of the boys. They walked on back to the well.

  It was time to stop weeding and begin watering alongside her son, so it was done before noon. A long limb of a young oak, harvested this year and stripped of bark and side branches, served as a carrying pole. She had lashed a two-gallon bucket to each end. She retrieved it from the barn, and by the time she was back outside, the boys were already gone. She went to the well, pumped water into the buckets and hoisted the pole onto her shoulders, not spilling any water from long practice. She lugged the burden to the gardens, set it down, and began ladling water onto the last of the pepper plants.

  She had just set down her third load of precious water when Joan came over.

  “Hi, C.J. Hi, Sierra.”

  C.J. said hello back, for which Sierra was grateful. Maybe his mood was wearing off. She realized he hadn’t even asked to go off with the boys to make charcoal. Maybe he’d grown tired of her saying “no” to him. “Joan. How are things at your place?”

  “Busy, as always.” She had the biggest family in the smallest house, so none of the orphans had gone to live with her. Joan had two girls of her own body—Emily and Misha—plus Rod, her adopted son, and Nina, an adopted granddaughter. “I’m making hats.”

  “What kind?”

  “Straw hats. Or pine needle hats, actually. Curt found a patch of healthy pines on his last hunting trip and Rod went out and collected the needles from the ground that weren’t too dry yet.”

  “Fussy work.”

  “It goes quickly for me now. Practice.”

  “Your hands never bother you? Before Kelly died, she was saying she had arthritis and that most people got some.”

  “Not me, knock wood.” She knocked on her own head. She was the only one of her generation that didn’t have some sort of physical ailment. “Is your father home?”

  “In the kitchen, getting ready to simmer tomato sauce for supper,” she said.

  “We should have a group party again,” Joan said. “Potluck or whatever you want to call it.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a while.”

  “I’ll organize it, if you’d like.”

  “That’s really nice of you.”

  “Great. I’ll talk to your father about it. Later, guys.” She went to the back door and let herself in.

  Sierra and C.J. finished their work, and he did so without complaint. He said, “Can I go to Dad’s and see if he’s back?”

  “Sure. If he is home and he found game, go on and help him clean it.”

  “Really? Thanks.”

  “If he’s not here, come back and grab something to eat.” Everyone made sure that C.J. and Nina got more than an adult share of food. They were still growing. The same consideration would be allowed for Brandie, if she was pregnant. She’d get an extra meal per day. Sierra had forgotten about that news for a few hours, but she started fretting over it again. Half of her worry was about having a new person to feed who didn’t share in the work, and half was for Brandie herself. Childbirth was always a risk. Sierra had been lucky two times, and she was not planning on getting pregnant again and risking a third. Not at her age.

  Not that she had anyone with whom to get pregnant. Dev had become more like a brother to her over the years. And Curt and she had just stopped after four or five years. No big emotional breakup, no anger, no tears. Just a waning of interest, more on his side than on her own. But she hadn’t tried to convince him otherwise. Her own sex drive was not what it had been in her twenties.

  She had a pile of green stuff from weeding the garden, tiny weeds, stems that had broken off, bug-eaten outside leaves. She carried those to the hens, who ran up to greet her. She flung the greens in three different directions, and the hens ran for them, spatting a little with each other over who got what. One of the hens, a big red, grew aggressive with another. The current rooster was laid back in comparison. Or henpecked, literally.

  Sierra checked the nests for eggs and gathered them, then hunted around in the coop’s dark corners for others. She went all around the henhouse, making sure none of them were lying outdoors. Eggs wouldn’t last long in the sun.

  The big red was still bullying other chickens. Generally, it was best to let hens work it out amongst themselves, but enough was enough. Sierra picked her up, avoiding the beak through long practice, upended her, and carried her upside down into the henhouse. She set her down in a dark corner. Sometimes she settled down in the dark.

  Not today. She got to her feet and made a run at Sierra, squawking.

  “Chicken stew,” Sierra threatened, as she fended her off with her foot. “Chicken with amaranth. Chicken cacciatore. Chicken salad.”

  The hen feinted at her, and then ran past her, back into the hen yard. Sierra followed. At least some of the other hens had gotten to the greens now. When the chicken ran at one group, the rooster finally got off his lazy behind and intervened, herding her away.

  Sierra went to pump them fresh water, and when she returned, she caught the very end of the rooster covering the dominant hen. Sex for chickens was as complicated in its way as sex for people. Sierra filled both the water dispensers and left the fenced hen yard. She needed to get the boys—hardly boys now, but young men—to move it again. These days she asked them to do a lot of the heavy labor that required several hands working together.

  Chapter 3

  A bit over a week later, everyone was at the potluck at the Quinn house except Curt, who skipped most large gatherings.

  Dev looked out over the yard. The old picnic table, barely hanging on through the years of sun and drought, was laden with bowls and plates. Salads of a dozen kinds and cherry tomatoes in bowls made a colorful spread. A big covered stew pot rested on a towel that he knew had winter squash with garlic and sage in it, for he’d made that himself.

  His daughter was playing hostess, as his mother once did, making sure everyone was happy and had a glass of water or herb tea. She fussed over her grandfather, which Arch loved seeing, and then she moved on to the next conversational group. He was damned proud of her.

  Of all of them, really. The orphan girls had become almost like daughters as well, the three who lived with them. They all slept, along with Zoe, in the master bedroom, all three beds of the household shoved in there, wall-to-wall. Arch had Dev’s old room with the sofa. Dev slept outside
most nights, on a hammock on the porch, and if it was too cold, which it seldom was anymore, there was a recliner chair in the living room that suited him just fine.

  Now, they were all sitting, glasses in hand, talking with whomever they were with. The orphans tended to hang out with each other, but they weren’t exclusive or rude in the least. Nina and Zoe were included in their group, and C.J. when he was willing.

  Emily came up to him and raised a hand in greeting. “How are you?” he asked.

  She waggled her hand back and forth.

  “Anything wrong?”

  A headshake. She could talk, and she sometimes did. But for years she had not. Nina’s arrival as a newborn had convinced her to speak again, but she often chose not to. Especially around adult men, she relied on gestures and smiles.

  She sat next to him and they just sat like that in companionable silence. Joan emerged from his house carrying one last tray—two chickens she’d baked that morning, cut into small enough pieces that everyone could have one or two bits. “Okay, let’s all grab this while it’s hot,” she said.

  She didn’t have to ask twice. Everyone lined up, taking their share of chicken. Everyone over forty—and that meant him too—held back while the younger people filled their plates. They went to sit on logs and stumps that were strewn around the yard as extra seating. The girls had dragged them over closer to the table this morning.

  Emily touched him on the hand, pointed to Arch and then to herself and the table. “I’ll get Arch’s plate for him,” she meant.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He thanked Joan too, when he was working his way around the table opposite her. “The chicken looks great.”

  “Fun to eat midday for a change,” she said.

  “Sure is nice to be out of the sun during the worst of it.”

  They all ate slowly, savoring the unusual variety of dishes.

  He went back for another slice of squash. Before he returned to his own chair, he went to his father’s. “Need anything else, Pop?”

  “I’m good.” He raised his fork in salute.

  “Just give me a wave if you do.”

  Dev returned to his chair and dug in. It was good. There were so many things he missed—salad dressings, for instance, and salt most of all—but herbs and hunger made every meal taste good every day. And freshness. The tomatoes had been picked that morning, everyone bringing their excess, and they were warm and fat and sweet.

  Just as Dev was slowing done, Brandie put down her plate and stood. “I have an announcement to make.”

  Everyone looked at her. Troy stood and moved closer to her. He put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m pregnant. We figure maybe ten weeks.”

  Dev was surprised, but when he looked around at the faces, he saw that not everyone was. Made sense, that her friends would know, and Misha, before him, but still, he felt a little twinge of hurt she hadn’t felt like coming to him. They weren’t his children, but they felt a little like it, the girls in his house: Yasmin, Brandie, and Wanda.

  “I didn’t mean to be, but I am, and I decided not to try and get rid of it,” Brandie said. “You know, with herbs.” She cleared her throat. “If I need to apologize, I apologize.”

  Troy said, “You don’t need to apologize. Maybe me, but not you.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back at him. They were of a height. Dev felt better when he saw that smile.

  Dev stood. If he felt like her father—or at least the only remaining uncle she had—he should act like it, despite that this new information made him far more worried than happy. Another mouth to feed. They were so close to the edge as it was. But that’s not what he said. He said, “I think it’s wonderful. Cheers. Let’s all toast the new neighbor.” He raised his water glass.

  Emily stood next to him and raised hers. Soon everyone was on their feet, except Arch, who may have been grumpy about the news or may have not felt steady enough to stand quickly. They all drank and then the young people gathered around the couple.

  Dev turned to Emily. “I guess it was only a matter of time before that happened, eh?”

  She smiled and shrugged.

  “You’ll have to give them parenting advice. You did such a great job with Nina.” He looked around and saw Nina was sitting with Joan and Pilar. Joan saw him looking their way and raised a thumb. She approved of his little gesture of the toast.

  People finished up with the flatbread and jam, a rare dessert treat.

  Everyone was making lazy comments about getting back to work, but no one was making much effort to do that, when everything about their settled lives started to change.

  “What’s that noise?” Yasmin said. She had good hearing, for gunfire had never reached her ears—nor car engines nor rock concerts nor televisions turned up too loudly.

  It took Dev a minute to hear it. And a second longer to identify it. Horses?

  He put down his plate, stood, and ran for the barn. They had no bullets—no working ammunition any longer—but they still had guns, oiled and kept clean for just such a moment. He grabbed all three rifles and ran them over to his father, handing him his own firearm.

  His daughter joined them and took his mother’s.

  The horses’ hooves thumped on their road, moved past the house, and continued on into the neighborhood.

  C.J. said, “I’m going to get the crossbow if it’s there,” and he took off running across the backyards. Sierra made a sound of protest, but he was gone. She looked around, helpless.

  “I’ll go after him,” Gustavo said.

  “Keep him out of sight of them, whoever they are,” she said, and Gustavo took off running.

  Arch said, “Maybe some of you should get out of sight as well, go back in the woods. Nina?”

  “I’m staying with Grandma,” she said.

  But Emily got up and marched toward her daughter, and Dev thought that might not happen.

  “Okay then,” Arch said. He had dropped his plate on the ground and now struggled to get off the chair. “We should meet them, Dev. On the road. Or the driveway, at least.”

  “What if they have weapons?” Zoe asked.

  “So do we,” he said.

  “But ours—” she began

  “Don’t think about that. Pretend it’s loaded. Be serious about it. Maybe they’ll be convinced, but only if we’re convincing.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. She didn’t often address him like that, but he had the ability to command that sort of reaction in his family, still, despite his growing weakness.

  Arch said, quietly, to Dev, “Let me hang on to you for now.”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  “Let’s go down to the road.”

  By the time they got there, a group of six men on horseback was headed back up the road.

  They all had guns.

  Chapter 4

  “Remember,” said Arch, “their ammunition is no more likely than ours to still be working.”

  If he wasn’t so scared, Dev would have been amused by the thought, that a bunch of people might be standing up to each other, posturing with empty weapons.

  But his throat was dry and his hands were sweating against the rifle stock, and he was scared out of his mind for his daughter.

  She stood beside him, tall like her mother, beautiful, and apparently unafraid.

  As they drew closer, he could see they all had a uniform of sorts. Khaki shirts, dark green pants. Not 100% alike, but close enough. And so well-fed-looking, it was obvious that getting food was not a challenge for them.

  One man called out a word and the other five halted. He walked his horse forward. “You the householders here?”

  Arch said, “We are.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Freddie Burnett,” he said. “We’re the Desert Government. Or its representatives.”

  “Government?” said Arch. “I see some guys with guns. I don’t see much sign of a government.”

  “We’re working as fast as we can,” he said. “Putting everyth
ing back to rights. We have plans to repair the highways, to start trading centers, to maybe get a power plant back running. We’re here to tell you our plans and to ask for your cooperation.”

  “Why the guns, then?” Arch said.

  “You have guns,” he said, not incorrectly.

  “I’m defending my home. You, on the other hand, are trespassing on my property.”

  The man patted the air. “There’s no need to be adversaries. We’re just here to talk. And yes, we carry guns. You never know what you’ll run into out here.” He dismounted from his horse. “I only want to talk.”

  “Then leave your gun behind.” Arch said. “And your men.”

  “I tell you what,” the man said. “I’ll leave four men out by the highway. And I’ll only bring my second-in-command, and he’ll leave his gun behind. That’s the best I can do.” He gestured to one man, who dismounted and handed his reins to a third man. He shoved his rifle into a leather loop on the saddle.

  Dev watched all of them carefully, but none seemed ready to raise his rifle and fire. They looked, in fact, bored, as if they’d done this more than once and seldom faced real resistance.

  “We can talk right here,” Arch said. “Say your piece—I can tell you have one—and move along.”

  “Looks like there are three houses on the road, so I’m guessing there are another two or three people, at least. We prefer to talk with everyone at once.”

  Zoe said, “Aren’t you worried, coming into a group of six people, as you say, with only one gun when we have at least three?”

  “People have guns. But almost no one has working ammunition. We do,” he said. He smiled at Zoe, and Dev felt a cold hand walk up his spine. Do not look at my daughter.

  Arch said, “Why would you have working ammunition? Unless you’re from Flagstaff or somewhere else cooler?”

  The heat had been what had destroyed the last of their ammunition. Arch had moved it out of the barn, thank God, and buried it out beyond the old rabbit hutches in an attempt to keep it cool. One hot afternoon, after two months of a heatwave, the ammunition had exploded, scaring everyone in the neighborhood half to death before they discovered what the noise had been. And then it hadn’t been fear they’d felt, but a gnawing worry—a worry that this day would come and they would no longer have the means to defend themselves.