She did not miss traffic and pollution and sexual harassment suits. She remembered one guy who had been entirely too keen on pinching her butt. On the other hand, he might try worse now, in this world, with no laws to protect her.
Finally, she turned away from the scene and made her way towards the bar. Such thoughts needed washing away with something appropriate. She missed really good beer.
Chapter Two
Riding was Helen's least favorite occupation. However, horseback was the only way to cover the entire perimeter. She suspected that she dealt with it the way people always had before the invention of the car—she rode the gentlest horse they had. It was a stocky chestnut mare that had to stride out to keep up with the longer-legged grey ridden by her companion, Chuck Wilcox.
"So, you know it was an incursion?"
"The gate was opened. That took something with hands," said Chuck.
The Silents could still do stuff like that. "Could have been rustlers, too."
"No, they left one of the cows in the pasture, half eaten. It was Silents, alright."
She was not sure which was worse. Rustlers were smarter, but harder to hunt down. On the other hand, Silents had to be killed, and Bruceton Mills was running low on ammunition. "We need to send a foraging party."
Maybe Tom Milkins would volunteer. Then she could have the uncharitable hope that he wouldn't come back.
"Yes, we do. What we really need is a way to make gunpowder."
"Or to resort to bows, but..."
Very few people could shoot a bow, even fewer make one. Guns were so much easier. On the other hand, ammunition was getting harder and harder to find. "We should make some. But it's so much easier said than done."
"We have to find a way to do things sustainably."
Helen knew Chuck didn't like her. But right now, he was hiding the fact well. Three of his cows had been killed and eaten by Silents. He was lucky it was only his cows. Silents tended to get meat wherever they could, and the concept of cannibalism had rotted out of their brains along with words and reason.
"I know." The town had a lot that was sustainable. They even still had power - until the solar panels needed to be replaced. Slowly, people were weaning themselves off it. "How is the mill project coming?"
"Well. But it's not going to give us what the panels are."
"Then we live with what it can give us."
"If we can get any electricity at all, then we'll be doing better than ninety percent of the immediate area."
"True. So, do I get a posse?"
"For right now, you get Stephanie and an escort, see if there's any chance of finding them." Stephanie was the best tracker they had, but soon she would get married. Helen frowned inwardly. They could not really afford to lose her to pregnancy. They could also not afford to lose the children she may have.
Too many of the children died. Too many of the women died.
"Okay. But if she finds a trail, I want a posse."
"You'll get one," she promised. There would be no shortage of young men—and the occasional woman—willing to go on a Silent hunt.
That hurt too. She did sometimes wonder if the hunts made people more aggressive, and potentially violent towards sane humans, but what could she do? They could not live and let live, not when the Silent incursions killed livestock and children and wrecked crops. There seemed to be more Silents all the time, not less. No, the hunts had to continue for the sake of everyone in Bruceton Mills. However, Helen did try to keep a leash on them. The hunts would only happen when the Silents actually came within the perimeter. Maybe the Silents, like other wild animals, would eventually learn to fear man.
"Thank you, Mayor," he said gravely.
It was a title, not a name, yet she sometimes answered to it more rapidly than to 'Helen,' let alone 'Ms. Locke.' Sometimes people just called her Locke, but seldom Ms. Sometimes she wondered if they forgot she was a woman. Sometimes she hoped they did.
Maybe she wasn't one, not any more. Maybe everything had been subsumed into the job.
"I'm going back to town."
Town. Now there was an ambitious word if there ever was one.
-#-
She found an ugly scene when she got back to town. Tom Milkins was in a loud-voiced argument with Clarisse Tennant.
This should not have surprised her. Clarisse was known for loud-voiced arguments. She had a very loud voice indeed and was not at all afraid to use it.
"You should go back to your husband!" Tom yelled.
That was a laugh, too. Of all the men Clarisse slept with, her husband's bed was the one she occupied the least. Once, Helen had had to restrain Victoria Edwards from killing Clarisse. Helen had even considered throwing her out as a disruptive influence, except that Clarisse had done nothing to deserve a death sentence, and throwing her out would be one. She was not the survivor type.
The small crowd seemed to agree, laughing at Tom's jibe.
"You should go back to your...oh, wait, no woman will have you. Maybe you should start trying men." Clarisse's tone was dry.
Hush fell. Despite all of Helen's efforts, a distinct air of homophobia had drifted into the community. No, it wasn’t quite homophobia, more an attitude that gays and lesbians needed to get over themselves and get breeding. Nevertheless, it was a suggestion as rude as implying he should play solitaire.
Helen took advantage of the silence: "Clarisse. Go home."
The woman looked fire at her, but turned to depart.
"What was that about?" Helen asked.
"Clarisse started it," said somebody in the crowd. She recognized him as Marshall, another possible troublemaker. "She was hitting on Tom. He started lecturing her about adultery."
She glanced at Tom. "Get to your work. And don't bother talking to Clarisse. She won't listen."
"She won't listen to you."
"I'm not the only one who's tried. Go."
"No," he said. "I don't have to take orders from a woman."
The hush returned. He was openly defying her, and there was little she could do.
"Dude," said Marshall. "She's the mayor, at least for now. Don't rock the boat."
At least for now? So, somebody planned on opposing her?
Tom glanced at the man. "You're right. For now." He turned and left.
Was it Tom that planned to oppose her? Was it Marshall? From what she knew of Marshall, he dominated his wife.
Helen felt an undercurrent of tension in the crowd. She was not sure of all that caused it, but the situation warranted it. Gracefully, she withdrew, walking up the street.
This was Main Street, such as it was. The shops were more like stalls, and there were only four of them. Plus Sandy's of course. It was about lunch time, and Helen hesitated, glancing towards the tavern. Now, that was definitely a 'should she'? She had food at home, but she would have to cook it. If she stopped at Sandy's, she could skip that step.
The price of food would be being open to conversation. After a moment, she shook her head—conversation was too high of a price to pay at this moment—and walked onwards.
What passed for the town hall stood off the same street as Sandy's. It had been some kind of local museum before; some of the artifacts had been stolen during the looting when things had broken down, but most had been left there. The front room still displayed them in worn old glass cases, the labels faded. The labels meant nothing in this new world order.
Helen had set up an office where once the curators had kept records. Quite a few of those records were still there. She could not bear to move them, even if she could have used the space. Here, they were safe.
Here, civilization still had a faint hold. She had electric light, though it wasn’t enough. The computer had not survived; a mechanical typewriter took its place, so old it looked like she had borrowed it from one of the displays. Even that she used sparingly, being close to out of ribbons.
They weren't quite reduced to goose quills. Yet. It was a losing battle; they simply did not hav
e the infrastructure to produce modern pens.
Maybe if they could expand outwards, but the problem was that the coolemees to the south were also expanding. She was not sure where the name came from, but they had a near-religious rule of life. It seemed to appeal to some. Or perhaps might really did make right in this new world, and the use of force was the only way to hold civilization together.
Perhaps the society she remembered had been an anomaly, bound to fade away.
For now, she still had a box of cheap ball points, carefully preserved. She still had paper, enough of it to last for a little while anyway.
So, she carefully wrote her notes for the next council meeting. Writing relaxed her and helped her stop feeling as if she was losing control.
Milkins was undermining her. He was going after the young men, the ones like the Long boy. He wanted to bring coolemee ways here. To do that, he had to depose her.
He could do so legally. They had a sort of informal election every two years. So far, nobody had even put himself or herself forward to replace Helen. Nobody wanted the job. The next election was in six months.
Milkins might also try to take over by force. The violence was more his kind’s style, but if he won an election would give him legitimacy.
So? She needed to rally her supporters. She set aside the last sheet and rubbed her temples. In the beginning, Helen had ended up Mayor by default after gathering people here and instilling a sense of order and of pride. They had followed her since. Had her rival been the kind of man who could actually lead a stable community, she would have gladly stepped down.
For a sexist prig? Not a chance. She would be betraying every woman in Bruceton Mills if she did not fight. The worst part was that some of them might support Milkins, either because they did not understand or because some women still thought a woman's place was the kitchen and the nursery.
Her mother had been like that. She had never forgiven Helen for pursuing college and a career. She had forgiven her even less for never marrying. Had Helen’s mother known that Helen had herself sterilized?
Well, all of that was in the past. The truth was that one man at a time had never been her style. Mind, recently it had been no men. She could not afford to be taking casual lovers. Maybe she did need to get laid.
That was the other thing about Milkins. Some women might support him because he was undeniably attractive. If you liked the type, that is. He knew it too, growing out his stubble to precisely the length that best highlighted the shape of his chin. She thought of Clarisse's wisecrack and laughed inwardly.
Clarisse. There had to be something Helen could do about her. Maybe if she did, it would take some support out from under Milkins. Or maybe doing so would strengthen his world view. She was not sure what to do, but she did wish the woman would shut up some days.
She had no illusions about what he would do to Clarisse if he gained power–it involved a belt. For that matter? What would Milkins do to Helen? The though shot cold dread through her.
Helen shook her head. These thoughts needed to be controlled. She needed to do something about Clarisse, but in a way that would not give Milkins any ground.
There came a knock. "Come in."
She welcomed the interruption. She welcomed it even more when she realized it was John Mark. "John!"
"I heard about the little incident with Tom and Clarisse."
"We need to do something about her. She's just giving him ammunition."
"She's going to end up face down in the mill run," John predicted. "She's been eying Rick Edwards again."
Helen sighed. "So, what the heck do we do?"
"I'm thinking a very old fashioned punishment."
Her eyebrow arched. "What did you have in mind?"
"Shunning. For a period of time, nobody talks to her, nobody acknowledges her. It takes cooperation, but it'll put the fear of God into her."
Helen did not believe in God. She did, however, respect the fact that John Mark very definitely did. As well as the judge, he had become the de facto pastor of Bruceton Mills.
She even went to services sometimes, mostly out of curiosity. What would Christianity become now the apocalypse had actually happened? One woman in town firmly believed the plague was the Rapture and only the most wicked had survived. John did not buy into that.
"It's worth a try. Tom is going to be going around about how her husband should put a leash on her."
"We should exile Tom Milkins."
"We can't. If we do, he'll come back, and he's likely to get enough support for there to be fighting. Then people will die, people we can't afford to lose."
"Then we need to pull his teeth. Maybe we can avoid taking in any more of the type."
"They don't always make themselves obvious." She sighed. "And there's no compromising with him, either. Except… maybe he'll listen to you."
"I already tried. He called me a lapdog and implied we're having an affair."
"I'd consider one, but your wife..." Helen mock-shuddered.
"Hey. Corinne's awesome."
"And an awesome shot. No thanks."
"Good thing. She keeps Clarisse off me." He tipped his hat to her and left.
She chuckled at his retreating form. Clarisse. Well, they could try his idea. It would cost nothing.
Chapter Three
That night, she made her way to Sandy's. She found herself sitting at a corner table, sipping hard cider and watching the crowds, such as they were. It was a relatively quiet night.
The assorted motley of musicians they called the Bruceton Mills Band was not making an appearance, and the only people here were here for alcohol and conversation.
She sipped her cider again and made a face. Not one of the best batches ever made. Ah well, it was better than the alternative–no booze at all. She missed beer.
She missed a lot of things. At least Tom Milkins and his cronies were...
...very visibly not in evidence. None of the men and boys she suspected of listening to his nonsense were present. That worried her for a moment. She told herself that it might be nothing but a coincidence.
Might be? She did not believe that for more than a moment. They were up to something. However, it was not something she could stop, whatever it was. Not without more information. With an effort, she managed to put it out of her mind.
For now, nobody was bothering her. She appreciated that rare peace and quiet. She appreciated her drink. It was on such small things that life was built. Milkins would...
She was not sure what Milkins would do, given power. He would try to turn Bruceton into a cooleemee, of that she was sure. Whether he would succeed? She doubted it. No, what he would do was worse.
He would divide them. He would split household against household, and that would end with the Silents taking all of them. She knew that as clearly as she knew her own name. Fighting him would make it worse, but not fighting him would not prevent it. So, why not exile him? Because he hadn't done anything yet. Because she could not be entirely sure some of it was not the way he looked at her sometimes.
What she needed to do was persuade him and his little group to leave, to go somewhere else. Somewhere where they fit in. They would still lose people but not as many, and they would lose a lot less morale.
Unfortunately, Milkins would not leave voluntarily. Exile him? She'd need grounds, and very solid ones, to prevent his exile from causing the same divide.
"Mayor Locke!"
Helen turned towards the doorway and the young man in it.
"What's happened?" She recognized him - Garrett, one of the scouts. A very sensible individual.
"It's...it's...Stephanie."
The momentum of her concern had carried her halfway to the doorway before she managed to speak again. "What?"
"Just come. Please."
Garrett realized he was causing a certain amount of alarm in the population. She joined him as he stepped outside into the cool night air.
"I think it's murder."
&n
bsp; Oh God. Not Stephanie. "Where?"
"We found her behind the stables. Skull bashed in."
Stephanie. The best tracker they had. And none of Milkins' people were in the bar.
The best tracker they had. Who happened to be a woman. No. Helen could not make assumptions yet. She just followed Garrett, something in her mind making her memories of him fuzzy, her thoughts uncertain. It might have been shock. Numb, she followed to see the sight he had warned her of.
"We turned her over, I'm afraid."
"Find John Mark." They didn't have police. They had posses, they had their own law, but no formal police.
Did they have anyone who could investigate a murder? Could they find anyone? Did they have... There had never been a murder. There was crime, but not murder. People were too valuable to kill.
Stephanie had been more valuable than most.
-#-
"I don't know. Murder..."
"Is one step up from rape, and we have had a couple of those," Helen reminded John. "It's going to happen. People have the same base nature they've always had, and it's neither bad nor good. It just is, and people can go either way."
"And somebody went pretty damn bad." John indicted the body. "Not just any murder, but of somebody we needed to catch those Silents."
"There are other trackers. She was the best, but not the only." Such a bright, active woman. So gifted, in so many ways. Such a loss...and Helen had to think of her as an asset, a resource. She had to, to cope with this. That hurt, but then, she had not...really...got on with the girl. She had been an asset, but nothing more to Helen.
Maybe...no. She was entitled to not like people, entitled to friends and enemies as long as she treated people right as long as she didn't let it affect the way she ran the settlement.
"True, but..."
"I doubt she was killed because of her tracking skills. I don't know. Maybe she saw something somebody didn't want getting out."
"Do you think Milkins...?"
"I'd almost like to think it was him, but I'm biased. He's a disruptive influence and I want him gone."
The Silent Years [The Complete Collection] Page 10