by Trent Reedy
The sound of footsteps and muffled voices drifted down from upstairs, along with the most amazing, powerful aroma. I relaxed.
“Bacon?” I said. Life was always good with bacon.
I got dressed and headed up the stairs. All my friends except Sweeney were gathered in the kitchen. At the stove, Cal reached around Becca for the spatula in the skillet, but she slapped his hand away. “You don’t have to cook all the time,” Cal said. “You’re guests in my house. I can take care of this.”
“Cal, no,” said Becca. “The last time you tried to make breakfast was a disaster.” She smiled at him. “Seriously, go sit down.”
Cal saw me. “Hey, buddy. Wow, you must have been tired. Got you here yesterday morning. We tried to get you up for supper last night, but you were out.”
I nodded and slipped my gun into the waist of my jeans, looking around the kitchen. It was a nice place. The appliances were all the older stainless steel kind, but in decent shape. JoBell and TJ sat around the table. “Have a seat,” Cal said. “Hungry?”
“Where the hell did you get bacon?” I asked. This was the best food I’d seen in Freedom Lake in a very long time.
Cal leaned back against the kitchen countertop. “Like we said on the drive up here: We starved during the occupation, while people in the US had it easy. Now that the Brotherhood has taken most of Washington, well, let’s just say we’ve evened things out a little.”
“You’ve been staying here too?” I asked TJ.
He sat back in his chair and nodded. “Said goodbye to my folks. We got in a big fight when I wouldn’t go with them, but they finally left a couple weeks ago for my cousin’s farm in upstate New York. They called to say they made it safely, and I even managed to get a message from them after the nukes. They’re okay. The farm isn’t in the radiation zone. I could stay at home, I guess, but it’s crazy lonely, and I thought I could help out here.”
“But what about this house?” Sweeney limped into the kitchen.
“Hey! There he is!” Cal shouted. “The other zombie. At least you had an excuse crashing so long with the painkillers and all.” He punched my shoulder. “Not like this lazy ass.”
Sweeney offered a half smile that didn’t force him to move much of the burned side of his face. “Cal, this place is great. How did you afford it? Even if there were a banking system —” He took a breath and leaned on the table. “Nobody would lend you money.”
Becca pulled out a chair and helped Sweeney sit down. “This house belonged to Sally Hines,” she said. “You know, the former owner of the Bucking Bronc Bar and Grill.”
Sweeney, JoBell, and me exchanged a look. What the hell was going on here? “So you just took the house? Moved in?” I asked.
“This is a war,” Cal said. “Fed traitors forfeit their property. That woman sold you out to the United States. You were tortured because of her. Now she’s died for her crimes. Someone should get her house.” He shrugged. “I moved all her personal stuff, clothes or whatever, out before I moved in. Donated it all to people who might need it.” He held up a finger. “Kept her booze, though. You been downstairs. Seen it? That woman had a hell of a home bar.”
I met JoBell’s eyes and could tell she was uncomfortable too. Of the three people the Brotherhood had hung on Victory Day, Sally was the most guilty. What she’d done had almost gotten me killed, and if she was alive, I guess I’d be pissed at her for the torture she put me through. But I understood why she did what she did. She didn’t deserve to die, and it felt weird being in her house.
When the food was ready, I helped Becca put it on the table for everyone. We prayed and then started eating, but everybody was quiet. JoBell poked around on her comm, its sound shut off. After a while, she held it to her chest and smiled as she let out a long breath. “He’s okay.” She looked at her comm again, as if checking to make sure what she’d read was real. “Dad finally got through. ‘I received your message, and I’m glad you’re all okay. CentCom’s holding up. I’m fine. I miss you. I love you. Stay safe.’”
“That’s great.” Becca smiled.
“Huge relief,” said TJ.
We all agreed and congratulated JoBell. She laughed a little and nearly cried. As I looked around the table, some of my war weariness melted away from the warmth of being back with all my friends. We’d been through hell, but had come out the other side together. It almost felt like old times, like a big Saturday breakfast the morning after a hard-fought football victory.
But Sweeney was in a lot of pain. I could tell by the way he grimaced occasionally as he ate. Becca had gone all commando and looked exhausted — exhausted or pissed. And we were having this meal at this table where Sally Hines might have sat, thinking about turning me and Sparrow in to the Fed so that she could collect some reward money. Even the best times still had a sharp sliver of pain these days.
“Don’t you like it?” Becca pointed at my plate with her fork.
“What? No, I … I mean, yes. It’s great.” I dug into the scrambled eggs. “Just distracted, I guess. We had a rough trip up here.”
JoBell finally put her comm down and pushed it away. “The network is too spotty to get much of anything, but I did finally get some articles. Boise pushed the US back, but they lost a lot of people. I’m so glad my dad was down in the bunker.”
“I’m glad we got out of town,” said Sweeney.
“JoBell told us about what you two have been up to over the last month, but I wasn’t around to hear about your trip home. Sounds like some rough shit went down,” TJ said to me. “What happened?”
I explained about the US attack on Boise, the fight with the Apache gunship, and the sickos at the motel on the edge of Lewiston. A look from JoBell told me she didn’t want me talking about what those freaks had almost done to us, so I kept quiet about that.
Becca reached over and squeezed JoBell’s hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Any other news?” TJ asked JoBell.
“Updated casualty estimates.” JoBell shook her head. “We’ll probably never know for sure how many died in New York and DC. It’s all such a mess. The whole world is falling apart.”
Cal slapped his black armband. Did he sleep in that thing? “Yeah, well, the Brotherhood is getting things back together around here. Cleaning house.”
“Maybe,” JoBell said. “But it’s not a permanent solution.”
Becca sat up straight and fixed her gaze on JoBell. I thought I saw her just barely shake her head.
Cal frowned. “What do you mean?” he said to JoBell.
“Well, obviously we need to get back to a regular military and police force.” JoBell motioned at the food on the table and then at the whole room. “And we’ll need to start keeping better track of resources. We can’t continue with a winner-takes-all system.”
Becca’s chair scraped the floor as she stood up. “Jo, you still hungry? There’s a little more bacon, and I could get you some toast.”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“You sure?” Becca asked.
“Really, Jo? I didn’t see you bitching about the Brotherhood when they got Danny out of that Fed prison cell.” Cal’s voice was icy. “You’d probably be dead right now if we hadn’t saved your asses in Lewiston.”
I was glad that JoBell didn’t say anything back. She looked too shocked.
“Cal, you don’t have to get mad,” TJ said.
“I’m sorry.” Cal took a deep breath. “It’s just there ain’t no state troopers no more. No courts or jails yet. We’re keeping this town safe and running patrols all over Idaho and Washington, and we ain’t getting paid ’cept with shit like this that, like I said, used to belong to Fed traitors.”
Becca put her arms around the big guy. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re your friends, and we’re grateful for your help.”
Cal patted Becca’s hand. “You all don’t have to thank me for nothing. You guys and my old man are all I got. All I care about. I’m sorry for getting mad. It’s just, all my
life, you know, teachers would kind of half-ass try to encourage me, but I could always tell none of them thought I’d amount to shit. I used to dream ’bout getting me a newer double-wide trailer. One that didn’t leak when it rained.” He rubbed his armband, and I got the feeling that he really did wear it to bed. “Now … You know, Mrs. Stewart’s minivan was stolen a few weeks ago. While the Brotherhood looked around town, I hopped in the truck and hauled ass up Highway 41. Found the thieves out of gas about five miles out of town.”
“What did you do to them?” JoBell asked.
Cal twisted up his face. “Do to them? It was a single mom, her two kids, and her grandmother, trying to get to Canada. Everything they owned had been blasted by a US drone. I locked up Mrs. Stewart’s van and drove them off-road into Canada. Then I had the Brotherhood send up a tow truck so we could get the van.” He took a bite of eggs and then drank some water. “My point is, for the first time ever, Mrs. Stewart said she was proud of me, and she really meant it.” He checked JoBell’s comm. “Shit. I gotta get on the wall. I’m gonna be late for guard duty. You guys make yourselves at home.” He looked at us carefully. “I mean that. You’re all moving in with me. I have plenty of room and it’s safer here. Becca and TJ can show you where everything’s at.”
Cal slung Schmidty’s AR15 over his shoulder as casually as a businessman might grab his briefcase, and he ran out the door, heading toward his post on foot.
Becca sighed and slumped back in her chair. “Jo, you can’t say that kind of stuff, at least not around him.”
“Or any other member of the Brotherhood,” TJ said.
“What did I say?”
“Something bad about the Brotherhood,” Becca said. “Listen. This is serious. You remember Kenny Palmer, used to work for the city?”
“Black guy with the big hair?” I said. “He used to come to some of our football games. Man, that guy could yell.”
“That’s him,” Becca said. “Well, he was mad about a lot of the things the Brotherhood has been doing. He was down on Main Street with a sign protesting about it.”
“That’s his right,” JoBell said.
TJ leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Which is what Nathan Crow said to everybody. Very loudly.”
Becca sat up straight. “But a few days later, Kenny was arrested as a United States collaborator. The Brotherhood guys searched his house and said they found all this evidence. They said he’d been giving away resistance positions to the US Army during the occupation. He was taken to a” — she made air quotes with her fingers — “ ‘secure facility,’ but nobody knows where that is or has talked about it since. Nobody’s seen the guy either.”
I wasn’t sure I totally trusted the Brotherhood, but a lot of what Cal had said earlier made sense, and they had saved me and JoBell. “Well, it’s like Cal said. There are no courts yet. No jails. And they probably wanted to prevent like a mob or something from coming to get that guy. They’re probably keeping him safe.”
“Like they kept those Fed POWs safe on Victory Day?” Becca asked. She met my eyes and then JoBell’s. “Just — for me, okay? Do me a favor and don’t say anything bad about the Brotherhood.”
“Even if what you’re saying about the Brotherhood is true,” I said, “it’s not like Cal would rat us out to them.”
TJ stood up from the table, finished with his breakfast. “No, but you saw how pissed he gets. He might not go tell on us, but if he’s on guard duty all upset, and those guys ask him what’s wrong, he could talk to the wrong person about it, thinking he’s just blowing off steam to a friend. If we piss off the wrong people, we could be in trouble.”
“You really think they’d come after us?” I asked. I’d always hated my status as a living symbol for the resistance and the rebellion, but what the hell. Why not be honest? “I’m Danny Wright. I’m supposed to be the hero of Idaho. You think they’d mess with me or my friends?”
“Just because we criticized the Brotherhood a little?” JoBell added.
TJ and Becca exchanged a look. Becca shook her head. TJ held up his hands a little like he was pleading with her. “Come on, Becca. We have to.”
“Have to what?” JoBell asked.
“It’s better if we don’t,” Becca said to TJ.
“What?” I asked.
“We can’t keep them in the dark. They deserve to know,” TJ said.
Sweeney kept his hand pressed over his eyes, as though he had a headache. “Would one of you please tell us what the hell you’re talking about?”
Becca sighed. “It’s important that you don’t draw suspicion from the Brotherhood because TJ and I have been doing more than criticizing them.”
A cold shadow sunk inside me. What had they done? Had they hit the Brotherhood?
“Cal talked about evening out the supply distribution,” TJ said. “But the Brotherhood’s methods aren’t exactly even.”
“Or equal,” said Becca.
TJ nodded. “Some people — a lot of people, actually — are getting food and other stuff just like Cal said.”
“And every member of the Brotherhood gets more than enough.” Becca motioned to our plates and then around the house. “But others are getting much less, or nothing at all.”
“So we’ve been taking some of the food and extra blankets and stuff that Cal gets and sneaking it to people around town who don’t have enough,” said TJ.
“Some people got it bad, you guys,” said Becca. “Like when we took some canned soup and vegetables to Jaclyn Martinez’s house last week, they were down to two packs of ramen noodles and three cans of beans. Mrs. Martinez cried when she saw what we’d brought.”
“Jackie’s dad, though … You know the guy wasn’t fat, but he always had a bit of a belly, right?” TJ shook his head. “Not anymore. That guy’s a skeleton. I think he’s been saving what little food they have for his family.”
Becca rubbed her butterfly hair clip. “He needs to shut up. He’s been complaining too much. Too publicly. If he pisses the Brotherhood off enough …”
“So.” TJ finally broke the spooked silence. “That’s why we gotta be cool. The smuggling we’re doing is important.”
“Cal hasn’t figured it out?” JoBell asked.
“That’s one of the reasons I do all the cooking,” said Becca. She almost smiled. “And, yeah, except for meat on the grill, he sort of destroys any meal he tries to make.”
“Maybe it’s a simple accounting error,” JoBell offered. “You know, with the war, it could be hard to keep track of who’s getting what.”
“Again, that’s the line Crow uses,” TJ said. “When people complain about not getting their ration cards, he says there was some mistake, but the mistakes keep happening to the same families. The same ones who have questioned the Brotherhood.”
“Or who aren’t white,” Becca said.
Sweeney looked up at us. “Shit. I knew it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Crow has always been super nice to all of you, but he’s usually a dick to me,” Sweeney said. “You probably don’t remember this, but after we got Danny out of that Fed prison cell, I was in the radio room charging my comm, the same as a lot of people. He yelled at me and kicked me out. And he’s always way less patient with me than with any of you. We’ve backed a bunch of racist assholes.”
“We don’t know that,” JoBell said, but doubt and fear shadowed her voice.
Becca stood up with her empty plate. “We don’t know for sure. Crow and the Brotherhood are smart, sneaky like that. But for now, we have to be very careful.”
* * *
Later that day, Becca announced she was borrowing Cal’s truck to drive Sweeney to High School Hospital. She wanted someone else to go along to provide cover while she drove.
“Rule number three,” she said. “Always post a guard.”
“In town?” I asked. “Even now?”
“Especially now.”
“I’ll go,” I said.
I rode in the backseat with Becca driving and Sweeney riding shotgun. He stared down at the black cane leaning against one leg. “I’m like an old man. Probably be stuck with this for the rest of my life.”
“Maybe not.” Becca reached over and squeezed his good shoulder. “Doc Strauss says the pain will back off in time, and you might not need the cane after a while.”
Sweeney smiled at her. “I’m feeling better all the time.” He reached over to give Becca a little punch. “Thanks to you.”
Good. Some of that old Sweeney flirty charm was coming back. Maybe he really was getting better.
I followed the two of them into High School Hospital, the place we used to call the Freedom Lake High School gym. Back on Victory Day, the entire floor had been covered with the wounded, dead, and dying. Now the place was cleaned up and a lot more under control. The regular graduation stage was set up in front of the basketball hoop at one end of the gym, but instead of the normal Freedom Lake High School cloth backdrop, two giant Brotherhood banners displayed their white eagle emblem. Between the banners was a flag with that damned bleeding fist symbol and the words WE WILL GIVE THEM A WAR.
“What happened to all the state championship pennants?” Sweeney asked.
The little flags dedicated to past sports glory had been removed from high up on the side walls. They’d been replaced by smaller Brotherhood flags.
“This is why Crow was so excited about getting us to go to graduation?” I said.
“I doubt he was excited about me going,” Sweeney said.
“He must be planning to turn it all into some kind of rally,” said Becca.
At a table on the half-court line, Freedom Lake’s veterinarian turned emergency surgeon, Dr. Nicole, was sewing up a heavily tattooed Brotherhood man with a nasty cut on his forearm. A guy with a shaved scalp and a tattoo of an eyeball on the back of his head stepped up and handed his hurt friend a couple pills. “Here you go. For the pain.”
“No,” said Dr. Nicole. “We have to save the pain meds for operations and really serious injuries. Where did you even get that?”