Light of Dawn

by Vannetta Chapman

“Go north for 7.2 miles,” Shelby said.

  Patrick turned toward the backseat to study her.

  “I thought you weren’t mentioning the Remnant in your journal.”

  “I’m not.”

  “So how is it that you have a map to their encampment in there?” He nodded toward the journal she was holding.

  “It’s sort of in a code.”

  “Yeah. My woman is a code-breaker.” Max wriggled his eyebrows, but no one laughed. They were all tense and ready to be through this last part of their journey. In the old days, they would be a mere ninety-minute drive from home. He pushed that thought from his mind.

  “I didn’t break the code. I wrote it.”

  “She’s modest too.”

  “I wrote down some details of Kinsley’s ‘family homestead.’” She put virtual quotation marks around the last two words.

  “Nearly there,” Gabe said.

  “You should see a field with an antique tractor parked near the road, a weathered scarecrow in the seat. Turn west.”

  Gabe slowed, pulled onto a dirt road, and stopped the vehicle in front of a gate. The lock was an old-fashioned combination one, where you turned seven digits and then yanked on the bottom. Max had been with Shelby when she interviewed Kinsley. He’d reached over and stopped her pen when she’d nearly written down the code. Instead, he’d suggested they both memorize it. Now he climbed out of the Hummer and walked up to the gate.

  It opened on the first try, and everyone let out a subdued hurrah when Max turned toward them, a grin on his face and the opened lock in his hand. Gabe drove through, Max relocked the gate, and they proceeded up the dirt road.

  Their instructions had been to reach the crest of the road and wait. It was a vulnerable position, and they had no way to know that this portion of the Remnant hadn’t been infiltrated. Still, it was their best bet. Otherwise, they’d be driving straight through enemy territory. There was no way to know how far around they’d have to go in order to find an open route. So they waited, first ten, then twenty minutes. Just when Max thought that no one was home, they were surrounded by men on horseback.

  Bianca was standing to Shelby’s right, Max on her left. They were once again in a semicircle, standing a fair distance from the Hummer and with no packs or weapons on their persons.

  Gabe had also insisted they leave the doors of the Hummer open. “Otherwise, they might worry we have more guys inside, waiting to jump out.”

  “Can we help you folks?” This from a woman wearing a tan Stetson, with long, gray hair held back with a leather strap. She was probably Hispanic, or she might have simply been weathered by too much time riding in the Texas sun.

  “We were looking for a friend.” Gabe had his hands half raised, a show of goodwill and respect.

  “Goes by the name of Micah,” Patrick said.

  “Last time we saw him, he had five friends with him.” Shelby felt ridiculous saying it. But that was the code—had been the code from the very beginning—Micah 5.

  “We could use his help.” Bianca shifted her weight from her right foot to her left. “Queremos llegar a casa a nuestra familia. Is he here? Is Micah with you?”

  Max later would think back on that moment, of the hard-looking men surrounding them and the vulnerable position they’d put themselves in, and he’d think that Bianca’s switching from flawless English to her natural language and back again might have been the one thing they could have done to prove which side they were on. She was, after all, a Hispanic woman trying to find her way home.

  The woman cocked her head, waited the space of three heartbeats, and then said, “My name’s Concetta. Welcome to the Remnant.”

  The home she led them to was made of stone. Max guessed it to be at least a hundred years old, though from the looks of it, someone had updated everything before the flare. Concetta gave them a brief tour. Solar panels adorned the roof. A cellar adjacent to the house had been expanded and updated with additional shelves, a metal door, and a generator, which ran the lighting.

  Beyond the storage room was a room with cots and a small kitchen. “This was Benjamin’s fallback position. Not that he ever planned to live down here, but he wanted to have the option.”

  “Benjamin…he’s the person who owns all of this?” Gabe stood with his hands on his hips, turning in a slow circle, studying the place.

  “Everything you see belongs to the Remnant. Benjamin West is our leader, but he doesn’t own any more or any less than another member.”

  “Where is Benjamin?” Max asked.

  “He’s moving cattle at the moment. You’ll meet him at dinner, assuming you all can stay that long.”

  “We’d hoped to be home tonight,” Max said.

  “Maybe by sunrise.” Concetta led the way back up the cellar stairs and out into the waning sunlight.

  “You’ve helped people through before?” Shelby asked.

  Max understood the urgency behind her words. It seemed they were so close that they could barrel their way through if only these people would point them in the right direction.

  “Yes, and it gets harder every time.”

  “Back roads?” Bianca asked.

  “Pastures. The only way through is via other people’s property, and we know the people who will allow that.”

  “Are they part of the Remnant?”

  “Some are. Some merely want whatever we’re able to pay.”

  “Which is what?” Patrick asked. “What do you have to pay them with?”

  “Seed, at the moment, is what folks need most. The seed we had before the flare is gone. And the crops we had…”

  “Won’t produce seed.” Max scuffed the toe of his boot into the dirt. “We had the same problem at High Fields. Heirloom seeds have become quite valuable.”

  “And will probably remain so for the foreseeable future.”

  They spent the next hour viewing modifications that had been made to the barn, the fields, water retrieval systems, and even the chicken coops.

  “Didn’t know you could improve on a chicken coop,” Bianca said.

  “You’d be surprised what we’ve been able to improve on. When you take the wisdom of our grandparents and combine it with the advances in technology—those that are still available to us—what you have is a very workable situation.”

  Which all sounded a bit too optimistic to Max. But if he’d thought this group of folks who constituted the Remnant had been sheltered since the flare, if he’d worried that they were naive, he was convinced otherwise at the evening meal.

  That was when they met Benjamin and learned exactly what the Remnant had sacrificed to remain in existence. He had an artificial leg strapped to his right stump. “Found it in a medical supply store. Fits pretty well, considering.”

  Less than thirty years old, Caucasian, with a small gold ring in his right ear, Benjamin filled a lot of stereotypes for the millennial generation. And though he’d obviously suffered much, he retained an unfailing optimism about the future.

  “You sustained your injury after the flare?” Gabe asked.

  “During, actually. I was in a small commuter plane traveling from Dallas to Wichita Falls when the flare hit. We went down in a field.” They’d finished eating, and now everyone pushed away their plates, sat back, and were transported back to that fateful day.

  Max thought of Gorman Falls, Shelby stumbling into him as they descended the trail leading back to the parking area, looking up to see the lights of the aurora borealis, and the sight of planes falling from the sky. The terror and uncertainty of those first few days was still palpable. He wasn’t sure it was something he or any of them would ever forget. He wasn’t sure it was something they should forget.

  “So how did you end up with the Remnant?” Max asked. “Did they rescue you from the plane?”

  “They rescued me from far more than that.”

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Shelby generally didn’t put much stock in dramatic conversions. Hers was a faith that had g
rown from her childhood. Certainly, there’d been times during her life when she’d had to fall upon her belief, when she’d grown closer in her walk, but what Benjamin was describing was an entirely different thing.

  “My grandfather was the pastor of a small local church,” Benjamin said. “My family was in the pew every Sunday morning and most Sunday nights. By the time I was sixteen, I’d stopped attending. I was too busy playing football and studying for my SATs.”

  “Kinda scrawny for football,” Patrick noted, causing everyone to laugh and easing some of the tension in the room. Seated around the table were the five from their group, plus another seven from the Remnant, with Benjamin sitting in the middle.

  A baker’s dozen. Shelby tried to think of it as a good thing, and pushed the superstition of unlucky thirteen from her mind.

  “Running back for the Joshua Owls.”

  Max choked on the water he’d been about to swallow. “You’re making that up.”

  “Nope. We all teased our teachers about it being a terrible name for a mascot, but we wore our jerseys proudly. Joshua is a small town, so, you know, everyone got to play. I was good, though. I was fast.” He reached down and rapped his knuckles against the plastic prosthesis. “Never imagined this. No, I was arrogant. I was certain that the world was mine to grab by the horns.”

  “You went to college,” Bianca said.

  “I did. Southern Methodist University School of Business, graduated with a master’s and a top-notch job. I was on my way to big things when our plane dropped into a farmer’s field not too far east of here.”

  He nodded to an older man. Shelby remembered his name was George but little else.

  George said, “My wife and I, God bless her soul, were standing outside looking at the aurora when Benjamin’s plane crashed into our field. We didn’t have a lot of neighbors, but the ones we had showed up and helped pull folks from the wreckage. Eighteen people in all, including the pilot and crew. Fourteen of them died on impact. They’re still buried there on our place. Evelynne, a young lady who was dressed in military uniform, died a week later.”

  “Which left me, Nick, and Christian.” Benjamin nodded at two other men who were seated around the table. They nodded in acknowledgment but didn’t add anything to the story.

  “It’s amazing that you survived such an injury,” Gabe said.

  “One of the men who rushed to help was a veterinarian. He knew immediately that amputating my leg was the only way to save my life. He never hesitated, and that was a miraculous thing in and of itself.” Benjamin let his gaze travel around the table as he added, “It seems we can be divided into two types of people now…those who have adjusted to this new life and those who haven’t.”

  “Of the ones who haven’t, some try to hide, hoping they will have enough to survive.” Concetta raised a hand in testament to those poor lost souls. “Others try to take what they need, what rightfully belongs to others.”

  “It was after the amputation that saved my life that I had the vision.” There was no apology in Benjamin’s voice. He related what had happened as if he were describing a meal he had helped to prepare the day before. No emotion. No doubt. Simply sharing the facts.

  “I can’t say if it was Jesus or the Father or one of the prophets of old. I’m not a theologian. But I do know that a presence appeared beside my bed and told me to care for the sheep. No explanation, no details, but I knew what I was supposed to do. I also knew then that I would survive the loss of a leg, that in this world there would be much loss. Losing my right leg was not the worst thing that could have happened to me. George lost his wife. Nearly everyone here has lost someone. I eventually traveled home, only to learn that my parents had perished within the first month—one from violence, the other from health complications.”

  “We have all lost someone,” Shelby agreed. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

  She glanced over at Bianca, who was watching Benjamin closely.

  “You’re right. It’s not easy, but we must focus on the call rather than the loss. In the months immediately following the flare, we crossed paths with the Remnant three times, and eventually we joined them in their quest to help God’s people. This place belonged to Concetta—”

  “It belongs to us all now,” she said.

  It occurred to Shelby that she hadn’t mentioned the place was hers. When she’d first shown them around, she’d simply said, “It belongs to the Remnant.” Shelby wasn’t a Bible scholar, but it reminded her of the early Christians who gave all to the church. Was that how they were supposed to live? It seemed to go against the grain of what it meant to be American, and yet these people were defending their country and standing up for Americans, but doing so in a fundamentally Christian way.

  “We made some modifications to the house and barn early on, and those things helped us through the winter.”

  “You spoke about a quest to help God’s people.” Gabe folded his arms on the table and studied their host. “Who is that, exactly? Who do you consider to be God’s people?”

  “Everyone. And you’re wondering if that includes the hoodlums of this world. Yes, it does.”

  “Maybe you haven’t seen what we’ve seen,” Patrick said.

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ve seen worse. But who has sinned so much as to remove himself from the reach of God?” When no one answered, he continued. “If possible, we help all who seek God’s path for their life. We do not judge a person by their past but by their works, by the state of their heart at this moment.”

  “All good and fine until someone pulls a gun on you.”

  “Yes, we must be discerning.” Benjamin allowed his gaze to travel over each member of their group. “It is important to distinguish good from evil because we are also called to protect God’s sheep. If that means slaying the wolves, then so be it.”

  SEVENTY-NINE

  Max wasn’t completely comfortable with Benjamin’s story. Seeing visions? Hearing voices? Perhaps it had been the extreme pain of the amputation or whatever drugs the veterinarian had found to give him. There was no doubt that Benjamin believed he’d seen and heard something, that he believed he’d been called and set apart by God. Regardless of the circumstances for his conversion, Max did believe that the man’s heart and commitment were in the right place.

  They’d agreed before coming to dinner that they would share everything they’d learned at New Town, everything except the exact location. No one thought it would cause a mass exodus to the Flint Hills of Kansas, but they’d given their word to the general that they would leave out that one specific detail when talking to others. As for the rest of the information, it could provide the hope folks needed to survive the next three to five years.

  Benjamin’s group had a few questions, but basically each person took the news of the continued existence of the federal government with a shrug and a shake of their head. “No one we know has been sitting around waiting on the cavalry.”

  They did express interest in the types of power New Town was using.

  “We haven’t had time to focus on that here,” Christian admitted.

  “You’d think it would be a priority,” Benjamin added. “But it’s taken all of our attention to stay safe, have enough to eat, and fulfill our mission to the Remnant.”

  Gabe, Bianca, and Max took turns explaining about the different types of technology. Shelby had pulled out her notebook and was taking notes, though she assured Benjamin that she wouldn’t reveal where they were situated or the code on the gate’s lock.

  “I’ll focus on your conversion and how it resulted in your helping others.”

  At last the conversation turned to how they would reach Abney.

  “You’re right to assume that the area around Chalk Mountain is dangerous.” Concetta placed her hands in front of her on the table and entwined her fingers together. “The elevation doubles in a relatively short distance—from six hundred and twenty feet to a tad over twelve hundred.”

  “H
ardly a mountain,” Gabe noted.

  “True enough, but in Texas, any rise in elevation is an opportunity.”

  No one asked her to explain what she meant. They knew. Max knew. If someone were higher than you were, they could see you coming, see you going, intercept you at any point they chose, and shoot you at any time.

  “Gangs?” Patrick asked.

  Benjamin shrugged. “Labels aren’t so important. Is the place guarded? Yes. Could you travel safely through on the highway? No.”

  Shelby stopped writing, her pen raised a half inch above the page. “Can you get us through?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Benjamin said.

  Concetta added, “Even with that Hummer of yours, provided we can fit you through some cattle gates.”

  “And if we can’t get through the gates?” Bianca asked.

  “Then we’ll pull the fence down, put you through, and replace it. God willing, you’ll be on the other side of Chalk Mountain before sunrise.”

  Concetta offered them a place to sleep in the barn. “At least you’ll be out of the wind.”

  And indeed it had picked up again from the north. They pulled the Hummer into the barn in case they were being watched. The plan was for them to leave at three in the morning, which meant that it would be a good idea to get some rest. Gabe had stayed behind and examined Benjamin’s amputation site. He returned to the barn and collapsed beside them on the far side of the Hummer.

  “How is he?” Max asked.

  “Basically, the man is in remarkable shape.”

  “And mentally? Is he…” Max made a circular motion beside his head.

  “Ah, Max. I think your lawyer brain wants evidence when a situation can only be interpreted by faith.”

  “So you believe his vision?”

  Gabe shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if I believe him or not. The point is that he’s willing to help us. But as a matter of fact, I do. My grandparents often spoke of such things. On several occasions, they warned me that the greatest challenge of our generation would be the inability to believe that which can’t be proved.”