Desolated

by Lou Cadle

  “I’ll talk with him. I promise. And if he won’t talk to me, he might talk with Pilar. Or with Joan.”

  “I appreciate it. Take him some water when you go, would you? He never takes breaks for it like he should.”

  A half-hour later, Sierra was done with her task and found Dev in the field, harvesting grain with a scythe. His shirt was wet with sweat. “Hey!” she called to him.

  “Sierra. How’s your preparation for leaving going?”

  “Just slaughtered four more hens,” she said. “They’re in your smokehouse.” She handed him the jug of water.

  “Thanks.” He tilted his head back and drank deeply from it. “Nice when it’s cool,” he said.

  “I sure hope we can find water when we go. I’m more worried about that than people attacking us.”

  “I’m worried about both. And weather, and the horses and how little we know about horses.” He swept his arm around. “I’m going to try one on eating the grain today. If it eats it, we’re going to feed all this excess to the horses in advance of the trip, get them fed in advance the best they can be.”

  “I was wondering. There isn’t enough time left to dry it and flail it,” she said.

  “The day of departure is coming up fast,” he said. “But the horses won’t need it winnowed and cooked like we do. I’ll pile it up for them—for one of them, to start with—and let them have at it. Then we’ll see if the one gets sick from it or not.”

  They stood together, Dev catching his breath and sipping more water, and Sierra looking out over the pink grain heads. “It looks good. A good year. I remember clearing and breaking this ground. All those rocks.”

  “It was a bear, wasn’t it?”

  “Still hurts a bit to think of leaving the work behind. It’s not the house so much. But the hours of work. And all the laughter and tears and yelling and love here.”

  He grunted.

  “You know, you’re becoming more like your father all the time. Arch had a lot of good qualities. But he had some bad ones too.”

  “Don’t have to tell me that. I know that better than anyone.”

  “No matter that he had a hard time saying it, Dev, he loved you, and he was proud of you.”

  “I suppose he did.”

  “No suppose about it. He did. He trusted you to keep the house and family going.” She didn’t say more than that.

  “You getting nostalgic? With leaving just around the corner?”

  “I guess I am,” she said. “And I guess I’ve been thinking of things left unsaid. Because you know, I think this is the right thing to do. But we might not make it.”

  “We definitely won’t make it if we stay.”

  “That’s so.” She took a deep breath. “Your daughter is worried about you, and if she’s worried, so am I.”

  “She is?”

  “She knows something is bothering you. But you won’t tell her. Don’t be like Arch in that way, Dev. Talk to us about what’s on your mind.”

  He looked past her, his eyes unfocused.

  She waited.

  He finally gave a single nod, as if deciding it was all right to talk. “I’m worried about a lot of things. I just now mentioned some of it. Food, safety, troubles along the way. The young folks in Payson, if they’ll end up paying for us defending ourselves. I’m worried about Zoe. I thought she might end up marrying one of those young men. Now I wonder if she’ll ever have a chance to find anyone.”

  “I don’t know that it’s all that important to her,” Sierra said.

  “It will be.”

  Sierra wasn’t so sure about that, based on what Zoe had said to her, but the future would take care of itself on that score.

  “And I feel guilty.”

  “Guilty? Why?”

  “We lost three people. That’s my fault.”

  “Dev, of course it isn’t. It’s the responsibility of the men that shot them. We didn’t ask for them to show up, or extort us, or—or enslave us, because that’s where it was headed. They decided to, not you. We responded the best we could.”

  “But three died. My own father.”

  “It could have been twice that,” she said. “In fact, I’m surprised it wasn’t more. That damned automatic rifle could have killed three in a second. We were lucky, and we were smart. We did the best we could with inferior weapons. And now we have some of those better weapons, and we’ll be able to defend ourselves.”

  “Are you asking me how I’m feeling? Or telling me my feelings are wrong?”

  Sierra winced. “Sorry. Go ahead. I’ll shut up and listen.”

  He studied her. “I feel bad that the young people left us, but I feel relieved too. And guilty for being relieved. I think that’s the worst thing that I feel. We will eat better for it, and we’ll be able to save enough potatoes and grain to plant.”

  “That’s true.”

  “But I care for them, and so I feel like I’m a total shit for being relieved it’s just us, the core group. The original group, minus our losses. Terrible losses.”

  She nodded. Not because she agreed he should feel bad but because she’d promised to listen.

  “And I feel shitty in advance if we end up having to hurt someone else to survive.”

  After a long silence, she said, “Is that all of it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Feel any better for talking about it?”

  He thought for a moment. “A little.”

  “I hope you’ll be able to sleep better.”

  “Oh, so that’s what worried Zoe.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been up calculating things more than worrying. How much grain, how much distance, the likely temperature two thousand feet up and the change to the growing season. Stuff like that.”

  “Okay.”

  “I guess that’s all another worry. I don’t see any way around our having to stop and plant the next growing season. If it cools off a lot, that’ll shift what a season is. Going up the mountains is taking us into a climate we aren’t all that familiar with. I might be timing it wrong.”

  “In a way we are familiar with it,” she said. “We’re likely to move into the climate we had as kids. Maybe a little drier, but something like that.”

  “So we might not have a long enough season for certain crops until it freezes. Or they might grow slowly. To keep up the seed potato source, which is going to be a lot of our calories, we need a good four months in one place. Four months out of every—what? That’s one of the questions I haven’t answered yet. Six months? Twelve?”

  “Amaranth takes four months as well.”

  “No way we can haul enough food for eight months’ survival in four months.”

  “We’re taking plenty of seed.”

  “I guess what I’m saying is, it might take us years to find a place to settle permanently. Perhaps all we’ll be able to manage is five months traveling each year.”

  “Then it takes years. As long as we’re together, as long as we have food for the road and seeds to get us started again, we’ll be okay.”

  “I hope.”

  “That’s all we have, hope. Well, not all. We have smarts and experience and tools and hens and cockerel chicks. We have love and loyalty and all kinds of things like that. So never mind. We have plenty more than hope.”

  He laughed. “You talked yourself out of that pretty quick.”

  She grinned. “I meant, hope is good. And you should hope, and you should believe in us. You really should. And don’t bear all this worry yourself. Talk to us. Talk to someone else if you don’t want to talk with me or Zoe. Could be someone else will have a good idea to allay your worries.”

  “Why would I not want to talk to you?”

  “Well, we have a history together. Could be you’re uncomfortable with me.”

  “Not at all. That was all a long time ago.”

  “While we’re being honest here,” she said. “There’s something I’d like to say to you.”

  His
eyebrows went up. “Go on.”

  “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be what you wanted me to be back then. I know you’d have liked for you and me and Zoe to be a family—a family like your own. And it wasn’t for any lack in you, Dev. I wish I could have loved you like you wanted. You’re such a good man. A great father. A great organizer and natural leader. I would have if I could have.”

  “That’s okay. It turned out fine, didn’t it? You gave me Zoe, and that’s been the biggest joy of my life. I’m grateful, not resentful.”

  “That’s because you’re a good guy,” she said. “More proof.”

  “And if we’d have stayed together, you never would have had C.J. So things turned out as they were supposed to, I think. Don’t you?”

  Not really. She didn’t believe in destiny. She thought her life had been muddling along, from the day that food shelves emptied in Payson through the war in Payson and right up until today. But muddling was okay. “I’m happy,” she said.

  “Good. For a long time there, you weren’t.”

  She thought about that. “You know, this is going to sound a bit crazy, but I’m excited about the future. Trying something new. Seeing new sights.”

  “I could have stayed here forever if they had let us.”

  “I’m sorry, then. Sorry it turned out this way for you.”

  “We do the best we can with what is given us,” he said.

  “Now that sounds more like your mother.”

  “I still miss her. Is that crazy?”

  “Nope. She was one hell of a woman. Of course you would.” She smiled. “You have the best of both of them in you. And you’re the best father a woman could ever want for her daughter.”

  “Thank you,” he said. They both just sat with that thought for a moment. Then he said, “I need to go back to harvesting grain. Unless there’s something else on your mind.”

  “Nope. I have work to do too. My hens are on the left side of the smokehouse as you open the door to the smoke chamber. I’ll bring four more later today, but there’s room for more than mine,” she said.

  “See you,” he said.

  “Probably before the day’s out,” she said.

  Chapter 28

  C.J. and Curt went out before they all left, riding the healthy horses out to scout ahead for two days in advance. While they were gone, everyone else in the neighborhood made the final preparations.

  There were dried vegetables to gather and bag, hens to put in their newly made traveling cages, cages that opened into temporary fencing for them. There were clothes to wash and set out to dry. They would make do with two changes of clothes each, their best clothes. And they were bringing blankets and animal skins because it might get cold where they were going. All the food, and all the seeds, garden tools, and some pots, plates, and so on. All the goods of a household, but just enough to get by. Items that had two uses were chosen over items that had only one, so a pot with a handle and tight lid was better than one with no lid, because that could be used to haul water as well as to cook stew. Plates that were lightweight and had a curve could hold soup. They chose each item with care.

  They packed as much as they could for the wagon, and then they packed their own gear. Sierra thought for a moment about an old, faded photo she had of her mother, and then decided against taking it. She’d ask Zoe if she might want it, but she couldn’t imagine she would. Zoe had never met the woman, and Sierra had no stories to tell her of her grandmother. Still, who knew? Sierra put it with a pile of other items she was going to ask others if they wanted.

  She sifted through her books one last time, the ones she’d hand-written that were full of information she believed one day would be useful in the future. Most of what was useful was firmly established in their heads. She’d done a good job the first time through in selecting, and there was nothing left that was worth the weight of her carrying it.

  They went quickly through their library of printed books. Pilar had briefly considered taking a cookbook, but had decided there were few enough ingredients from it available to make it worthwhile, even as a trade item. “If something calls for olives or cinnamon, no one is going to have that,” he said to her.

  “I have half a mind to take this,” she said, holding up one of Zoe’s favorite childhood books. “But you know, we’ll make up our own stories for any babies that come along.”

  “Could be Brandie and them will come up and find it.”

  “True. I’ll leave it on my bedside table so it’s easy to see. With a note for her.”

  “That’s smart, leaving a note for them. I’ll write one too before I go to bed. Nothing in it that will tip the military, if they find it. No names. But something.”

  “You feeling all right now about leaving?”

  “As good as I can. I’m happy I’ll be with you, and Joan, and Zoe and C.J. With everybody. You’re all a thousand times more important to me than any of this stuff. You know, I was thinking something odd.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re doing a sort of reverse version of the Westward Expansion of the country. The old country, the country that is no more. People came out in covered wagons to the western states, for better land and a chance to thrive. Stole a lot of Indian land, but found some that was fair for them to take. Now we’ve got a wagon and we’re headed back the other way, doing much the same thing. Funny.”

  “It is. I hope we don’t have to go all the way to Ohio or someplace like that to find decent weather.”

  “All we can do is move along and see.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay with it,” she said.

  “Yeah. I am. Nervous, of course. Worried.”

  “Everybody is,” Sierra said, though strangely enough, she wasn’t. What would happen would happen, and they’d cope with it the best they could. If they died, well—everyone dies one day. And it was better than staying here and being killed by the military. It was better than never having fought them in the first place. What was the use of life, if you were in thrall to men who had no respect for you?

  Sierra believed that it was far better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. She didn’t regret this. She mourned their losses, she hoped as hard as it was possible to hope that her children would survive, but she still believed fighting had been the right—the only—thing to do. And this was the natural consequence of that.

  It could be argued, she supposed, that they should have done this from the beginning, from the moment that one guy—not Vargas, the other one—had shot the hen. They could have packed up then and saved three lives.

  But they wouldn’t have. They’d hoped for the best from those men, and when it was clear the worst was coming, they’d made their stand. If she lived to know her grandchildren, that’s the story she’d tell them—one of bravery, and intelligence, and a final choice that had let those very grandchildren come to exist.

  THE FINAL MORNING DAWNED bright and hot. The scalding season was hard upon them, when nothing could grow, and they usually all spent as much time working in the shade as they could. Sierra hoped that wherever they landed, they never felt this kind of heat again, enervating, terrible heat that sucked all the moisture right out of plants and soil.

  Curt and C.J. had come back just after supper the night before from scouting, reporting that the highway was clear well beyond the break. They’d gone ten miles and ranged out to either side. “Not a soul to be found,” Curt had said.

  Dev had asked, “Anything like abandoned houses? Bodies?”

  “No. No sign anyone has been living around there in decades. Some burned areas from ten years back, dry scrub growing there. But no sign of people.”

  The horses had all night to rest, and this morning, Curt had connected the wagon to the pair of the horses pulling, showing everyone how it was done. They’d all need to know how to do it, and eventually, everyone would learn how to ride, but not just yet. First, get away, and get to a safer place. They probably had at least two weeks’ head start,
or more, with the ruse the young people were planning down in Payson. They could be two or three hundred miles along if all went well. By the time the military came to each crossroad, they wouldn’t know for sure where their quarry had gone.

  They all loaded the wagon, which they had practiced before, so they already knew how everything fit. Three loaded rifles went in easily accessed sites. The one without ammunition that they might use for trade eventually was at the bottom of the wagon. For the road, Curt carried his crossbow and Dev and Zoe their bows.

  The wagon went off, Curt on the stallion ahead of it. The horse had healed up in time for the trip. Pilar drove the wagon, and C.J. walked alongside. Joan and her family followed.

  Dev, Sierra, and Zoe were the last to leave. They stood alone at the last place on the highway that their neighborhood was visible.

  Sierra said, “I can still see it as it was. The houses bright with paint, the wind turbines turning, Kelly in the yard, her hair still dark.”

  Zoe said, “All I need to do is shut my eyes, and she’s there.”

  Dev said, “She’s there inside you, all the time. Always will be.”

  “You all are. And you will always be.”

  Sierra said, “Before Vargas and his men came? It had to be a couple months ago, Zoe, maybe three or four. We were talking, just down there, and you said something about letting go. I don’t even remember what we were discussing, probably C.J., but you said I needed to learn to let go. And you were right about that, and about this too. I’m ready.”

  Dev said, “It’s a lot to let go of. The memories. The fields. The graves.”

  “They’d want us to live. Rod, Yasmin, the Morrows. Arch and Kelly, most of all. They’d want us to survive.”

  Dev nodded. “You’re right.”

  Zoe said, “Dad, you’ve always been too sentimental for your own good.”

  “Am I?” He smiled at her. “Maybe so.”

  “I like you that way.” Zoe said to Sierra, “And I like you the way you are. Tough, practical, stubborn.”

  Sierra laughed. “Thanks, I think.”