by Lou Cadle
“You don’t seem sentimental about things.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m pretty attached to my tools,” Curt said.
“You’ll be taking those along.”
“Whatever we can make room for, and now that there are two horses, we can take more.”
“We organized our lists that way. Misha is keeping the records still. You should drop by there and ask her to show them to you.”
“If you and the others don’t mind, I’d like to do one more hunt for the third horse in about a week.”
“Why?”
“I still think we need to send a scout ahead. I’ll volunteer for that job, and I can do it on foot if I can’t find the third horse. But it’d be faster and safer on horseback. On a horse, I can scout five miles ahead on the highway and be back in two hours. Even with the horses pulling a wagon, the rest of us will be on foot, so the bulk of us will be going at a walking pace. Maybe two miles an hour. Maybe less than a mile per hour, loaded down, and walking uphill into thinning air.”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Been so long since I’ve changed elevations. But I remember going up to Flag and getting short of breath more easily.”
“Compounded by hauling a fifty-pound pack or worse.” Curt said, “Have you started building the wagon yet?”
“No, that’s all up to you. I mean, use anyone you want for the labor, but it’ll be your design.”
“I collected some of the metal on the highway, and some of it had to have come from the front of their wagon. I’m going to bang it back into shape if I can. Otherwise, I’m going to need to make pieces from wood, which will be more likely to break and need replacing.”
“Will it matter if it’s one or two horses pulling the wagon? I mean, your designs?”
“Thought of that too. We can build it to change out one piece to switch over. That way, if one of the horses dies, or starts limping, we can shift over to a single horse pulling. We might need to slow down even more in that case. If we load for two horses—and we’re going to have to experiment with them on it to see what they’ll carry—I’m sure a single horse would need a lot more rest, and to stop sooner.”
“A lot to be discovered still,” Dev agreed.
“And I really want to spend another day hunting for that third horse. Are the kids still here? I mean, Troy and all them?”
“They wouldn’t leave without your coming back,” Dev said. “They’ll probably take off tomorrow.”
“Hard on you?” Curt said.
“It is. Those girls have been living in my house for six years, right alongside Zoe. They feel almost as much family to me as Zoe is.”
“Longest slumber party in history.”
Dev managed a smile, though he missed Yasmin, and it was going to hurt to say goodbye to the rest of them.
“I better get going, and make sure C.J. hasn’t gotten himself in trouble.”
“He’s growing up fast, I think. Sierra said he’s been doing all the work at your place without a word of complaint.”
“I put up with less complaining from him than she does.”
Funny, Dev thought, as Curt rode away. Between himself and Sierra, she had been more the disciplinarian. Though he had his parents to take a lot of that role. The loss of his dad hit him again, hard, and he had to work to get himself under control. Arch could be a pain in the rear sometimes, but he had taught him the skills he needed to survive. And he had led him to this point, where he could take over as leader for the group.
And he had. It had surprised him a little that no one had said a word of complaint. He listened to everybody, he let everybody have their say, but at least in this, the exodus from their home, they were deferring to him to make the final decisions.
The next morning, they all had breakfast together. Zoe reminded him of his mother, the way she scurried around to make sure everyone was fed and happy. He helped her the best he could, but she kept making him sit down, so finally he gave in and sat and watched.
“I can’t talk you out of even the empty rifle?” Troy asked him. It wasn’t the first time he’d brought up the topic. They had four rifles that still functioned from Vargas’s men. One was a caliber there was no ammunition to match. Dev planned to take it anyway, hoping that it might barter their way out of trouble at some point in the future.
“I know you think you need some kind of offering to them beyond the food and seeds in order to get them to accept you,” Dev said. “But they’re going to accept you. And you are the true offering, all your knowledge and experience up here. We haven’t done any work with them on exchanging farming advice since my mom was alive, and I’m sure there are things you can teach them.”
“We have the seed potatoes,” Brandie said. “And more seeds you didn’t give them samples of before. That’s a lot.”
“It is,” Joan said. “I’m going to miss all of you.”
“We’re going to miss you,” Brandie said, and then she began to cry. “I’m sorry, I cry so easily right now.”
“You have plenty to cry about,” Pilar said. “Yasmin dying, Arch, Rod, and your whole life turned upside down.”
Sierra said, “It’s the baby too. Pregnant women can be more emotional.”
Brandie said, sniffling, “And I won’t have you to help me through the pregnancy.”
Joan said, “There must be dozens of women down there who have done it. In fact, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t selected someone as midwife. Could be someone my age was a real nurse back in her youth. You and the baby will be fine in Payson.”
Unless the military came back with a vengeance. Dev did not say it aloud. The youngsters were well aware of that risk. But they had the plan—tell the truth about who did it, and send the military in the wrong direction after them. In fact, they’d decided to pretend even to Paysonites that in fact Dev’s group had snuck around their north side and up toward Strawberry. The fewer people who knew the truth, the less likely one would blurt it out to the military force, once they came looking for their missing soldiers. It would be their secret, they said, for as long as it needed to be.
“Hey, C.J.,” Luke said, “you looked pretty good up on that horse yesterday.”
C.J. smiled shyly. “The horse seems to know what he’s doing.”
“You hang on tight,” Sierra said.
“The saddle has a horn,” C.J. said.
“And don’t ride when you’re tired,” she said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, I’ll quit nagging. But it is a long way up. Makes me dizzy to look up at you on that horse.”
Pilar said, “Now you know how I felt when you used to climb the turbines.”
“Touché,” she said.
Zoe finally sat, and they ate their last meal together, keeping the tone light, trying to make a good memory for everyone. Dev said little, just listened and observed the people he was going to be leaving with. Quiet Emily, and her daughter, nearly as quiet as her mother. Misha, still broken-hearted from the loss of her brother, but a strong woman under that. Optimistic too, a good quality to have in a new undertaking. Joan, the matriarch—the matriarch of the whole group, in fact. And their spiritual leader. Kind, but underneath tough as nails.
Pilar, the remaining patriarch. If Dev was Moses in this tale, Pilar was akin to Jethro. Dev had been reading the Bible, Exodus especially, trying to glean any advice he could, or finding words that might strengthen their spirit as they wandered across the land in exile. Also, he knew they could not afford the weight of the Bible, that it would be left behind. All he was going to take of it were the few pages of genealogy from the back. He wondered if two or three hundred years in the future, when Bibles had crumbled, if new religions would spring up, religions that made oil a myth, and the end of it God’s wrath—or Goddess, as Pilar and Sierra would prefer for a new religion.
Sierra was taking part of her library, all the gardening notes, and Misha her notes on herbs and medicine. He’d asked Joan if she was taking
her Bible, and she said she’d take her book of prayer for weddings and funerals, and what she carried in her head.
“Where are you all headed, do you think?” Georgia asked.
“We don’t know exactly,” Dev said.
“I was thinking we might make for Taos,” Pilar said. “It’s high, it’s cool.”
“How far is that?”
“Oh, several hundred miles,” Pilar said.
“I was thinking Colorado eventually,” Dev said, “but it may take us years.”
“And if it’s a good place to live, it might be densely settled,” Curt said. “We might have to move on. We will definitely need to stay flexible.”
“Or the weather could be awful,” Sierra said. “We don’t know what has happened other places. Water is really what will decide us.”
“I wish we had a paper map,” Pilar said, not for the first time in Dev’s life.
Dev said, “We might find one on the road. Trade for it. Or maybe we’ll stumble across an old atlas. Doesn’t matter how old it is—fifty years old, and it’d still serve.”
“Part of me envies you,” Wanda said. “It sounds like an adventure.”
“I’m worried for you,” Brandie said. “You’ll all be careful, won’t you?”
“As careful as we can be,” Sierra said. “And the same goes for you guys.”
“And if it doesn’t work out down there in Payson,” Dev reminded them, though he’d said it before, “we’ll be here another week. You walk right back up here, and you come with us, okay?”
“Thank you,” Troy said.
It had set Brandie to crying again. “You’ve been so nice to us,” she managed to get out, and then she dissolved into sobs. She rose from the table and ran inside. Zoe followed her.
Luke cleared his throat. “That’s the truth. You didn’t need to take us in, and you treated us like family. We’ll never forget you. We’ll always speak well of you.”
“And make sure you let the Paysonites know that if they want, they can come up here once the military has come through, and take whatever is left. That’s all yours,” Pilar said.
“What if you need to turn around and come back?” Georgia said. “I mean, that could happen. Maybe it’ll snow wherever you are, and you’ll want to return.
“A little snow won’t kill us,” said Pilar. “Thirty or forty guys with guns will.”
“We’ll build shelters,” Curt said. “If we have an ax and a hatchet, we can always build.”
“I’d like to see snow one day,” said Wanda with a sigh.
“As would I,” Sierra said. “For a practical reason. Snow means water means running creeks means easier farming, as long as the soil is good.”
Zoe came out alone and took her seat again. “She’s fine,” she said to Troy. “Just sad about leaving.”
“We all are,” Dev said. “This is the end of an era. But it’s not the end of our friendship. That will last as long as we do. Right?”
“Hear, hear!” Pilar said. He stood. “To friendships that last a lifetime.” He clinked his cup with the air. One by one, everyone else stood, with their chipped glasses and mugs, with their leather water pouches and gourds, all the varied vessels they used.
Joan repeated the toast. “To friendship,” she said. They all drank.
A half-hour later, Dev stood with most of the core neighborhood on the highway, waving as the young people walked off. The end of an era indeed. Zoe was sniffling, and he pulled her in for a hug. “They’ll be okay. Better off than us, at least in the short-term.”
“I know. But I’ll miss them anyway.”
Sierra said, “We all will. Those boys could be so funny. I can’t tell you how many times they changed my mood for the better in six years.”
Finally, they hit the curve in the highway that took them out of sight. Brandie turned and gave one last big wave. Then they were gone.
Chapter 27
Curt found the last horse. He brought it over to show to Sierra and Pilar. It was limping slightly, but he said he thought it would heal up if they didn’t put any stress on it for the first month of travel.
“What are they going to eat, these horses?” Pilar said.
“Whatever they can,” Curt said. “It could be a problem if we get above the tree line.”
“I guess we need to let the hens forage as well.” Sierra laughed. “I know we need to set a guard on them so no varmint steals one, but it keeps striking me as funny. Like shepherds from the fairytales, moving from field to field, but with hens.” Then she frowned. “How do you keep horses from wandering away?”
“Long-term, fencing,” said Curt. “But short-term, you have to keep them on a long lead, I guess. Tie them to a tree or boulder. The other two seem to like to hang out together, so I guess if you keep two with you, the third won’t wander far.”
“This one is a male, I see,” Pilar said. “Intact. So we might be able to make more horses. I mean not we. They.” He shook his head. “I’ll have no part in it.”
“Damn good to know, Pilar,” Curt said, smiling, a rare foray into humor for him. Sierra had made him chuckle in bed a few times, when his defenses were down, but not often. “Once he’s healed up, I’ll be able to use him to scout ahead. This way, we use the two-horse wagon all the time—until one of them pulls up lame—and take a lot more with us.”
“We’ll eat some of that weight down,” Sierra said. They’d calculated for that as well. “We’re going to eat what’s heavy first, and then the horses will go faster every day.”
“And what spoils,” Pilar said. “A lot of things aren’t going to last a week on the road. Summer squash, that sort of thing.”
“We’re drying plenty,” Sierra said, pointing to the screens they had out, with row upon row of red tomatoes drying in the hot sun. Some had been canned whole a month ago, and they had opened the cans and were dehydrating those, after drinking the juice with all its nutrients.
“As long as we find water to re-hydrate them,” Pilar said. “I’m worried about that more than anything.”
“Lack of water is the biggest danger,” Curt said. “I know of one spring up there a few days away, but it’s not what you’d call great-tasting water.”
“I doubt we’ll care. Three days’ travel away, you said?”
“About that, right.” The horse danced away from him, coming to the end of the lead, and stood there, looking confused to Sierra. But what did she know of horses? Maybe that was his constipated look, not confused.
Sierra had already sat with Misha and Joan and calculated and debated and re-calculated how much water they’d need. She’d consulted C.J. about what the horses drank, for they would need water as well. It was a lot of weight, but the people would all carry their own, fifteen pounds per person. It might last three days, if they were careful with it.
“I gotta get back to the wagon, now that I know what I’m doing.”
Pilar said, “Need any help?”
“I will, but not until tomorrow. I’ll come get you two when I do.” He rode away.
“I’m going to take more hens over to Dev’s,” Sierra said. They were slaughtering all their oldest hens and smoking the meat. Only the youngest laying hens and the new chicks were staying alive for the trip. Of the cockerel chicks, one or two would live to be the rooster that fertilized the next generation of eggs, and the others would be eaten.
“Okay. Better you than me. It feels like suicide, killing so many hens at once.”
“It won’t be,” she reassured him, hoping she was telling the truth. “They’ll make more chicks in the future. And we’ll eat really well this week, and for the first weeks of travel. Won’t have to stop to hunt. That’ll get us out of the military’s sphere of control faster.”
“I know all that,” Pilar said.
“You’re not regretting this?”
“I’ve been regretting this. But I’m not regretting it any more today than any other day. I get it. We have to go. So we’re going. Bu
t don’t expect me to love that.”
“I don’t,” she said, knowing it was harder for him than for her. “See you later.”
She walked to the henhouse and caught four hens, broke their necks one by one, and then took them out to a plank she’d set up to pluck and gut them—messy, smelly work, and as she worked, a few flies gathered. She swatted at them, not wanting them to lay eggs in the meat. Finally the messy work was done and she carried the chickens, hearts, and livers in a tub over to Dev’s place.
“Hot one,” she said, as she walked up to Zoe. She was with her own hens, feeding them and gathering eggs, not slaughtering any of her hens today. They took turns because the Quinn smokehouse was the only one they had.
“Dad has more wood piled up by the smokehouse,” she said. “How are you today? And Pilar?”
“We’re both good. Pilar is feeling the move more than I am. But that makes sense. He has been here nearly all his adult life.”
“I’ve been here every second of my life,” Zoe said.
It was true. She hadn’t ever gone to school in Payson or shopping. “I know. Are you holding up okay?”
“Yeah.” But she looked sad when she said it. “It’s Gramps I miss. And the girls. I haven’t slept alone for years and years.”
Sierra was enjoying her solitude in her bed. “You want to come over and share my bed, I’ll be happy to have you.”
“Thanks. That’s nice.” Zoe managed a smile. “But I want to be around Dad. I think he’s taking it harder than he shows. You know?”
“Why do you say that?”
“He doesn’t sleep well. I hear him wandering around at night.”
“He has a lot on his mind, that’s for sure. I’ll talk with him in a minute, if you think it’ll help.”
“Thanks. It might. I don’t know. He won’t tell me what’s bothering him. Or what he says, I don’t entirely believe.”
“I’ll hunt him down once I set up this meat to smoke. Where is he?”
“The field across the highway.” She meant the second one, the one the military had never laid eyes on, as far as they knew.