The Silent Years [The Complete Collection]

by Jennifer R. Povey

  The man sighed. "Yeah. So, what's going on up there?"

  "Something you shouldn't go into. Not everyone wants to be civilized or integrated and your people have crossed the line," Winston said. "They've made threats, shot people, stolen horses, generally behaved like bandits."

  The dark eyes widened. "I really don't understand why that would be necessary. Don't these people get it?"

  "They get that somebody is trying to force them to change their ways. Look, people have learned a new way of living. It's you guys who need to integrate, not those of us who've been holding the fort for you."

  "How many men have you killed?"

  He meant Silents, Betty realized.

  Winston set his jaw. "You were not there. You don't understand."

  "I understand that I'm lucky not to have been shot down like an animal. People who would do that do need to learn better ways."

  Oh for the love of... Betty could hold back no longer. She nudged the spotted mare out into the road. "Thirty-five. Every one of them in defense of myself or somebody else. You didn't live it. You really think that there is anyone, anyone who is proud of what had to be done to preserve what we have?" She was mad, but she forced herself to talk carefully. Like Grace...

  "Killing people."

  "Killing beasts. Do you really think that we wouldn't have looked for another way if we'd thought you'd recover?" Betty did carry that guilt. She always would, they all would. To have it rubbed in her face by a man who did not and could not understand, though? That angered her. Humanity was divided, perhaps eternally, into three parts: survivor, Recovered, Wildling. Would they come back together or would they drift further apart, becoming the new races of man?

  Perhaps, perhaps not. They were all still human, but there was something alien about this man who spoke of morality as if no one could really grasp it any more. Not to mention the fact that he hadn't been there, hadn't lived it. Even the old-timers knew that they had done only what they must.

  "You could have..."

  She cut him off. "Could have nothing. We did what we had to, nothing more and nothing less. The disease made the victims violent. You've killed too. It's time to the hell move on from that and forget it."

  "Forget it?"

  "Forget it. Stop trying to turn the clock back. Sure, we have a society to rebuild, but you can't just turn the lights back on. We need each other, and we can't afford all of this fighting and crap."

  "I'm going to talk to my people." He signaled the driver, who began the process of turning the mule and carriage around.

  Betty pulled the mare out of the way. As she watched him go, Winston murmured. "We need to move before that naive so and so tells everyone where we are."

  They pulled back into the trees. "He doesn't have a clue, does he?"

  "He thinks there's a difference between killing somebody 'cause you were diseased and killing somebody because otherwise they would have killed you. He needs a real scare to make him get it."

  "Nah. He needs to stop trying to take over and give himself time to get it," Betty murmured back. She looked back to realize that wildings had been ready to protect them. The wildlings were fully holding up their side of the bargain.

  They needed their place. Their chance to be what they were, and again, she almost saw the shape of how things should be.

  Chapter Eleven

  They camped well away from the road that night, choosing a direction they hoped their pursuers would not think of. It took them closer to the city than Betty had been in years. The needle-like skyscrapers stood empty eyed, regarding them from what seemed to be far, far too close.

  The skyscrapers were too far away to be physically dangerous—falling glass or hunks of concrete could not harm them in their camp—but they presented an abstract danger too. They were reminiscent of a world that was dead, and perhaps should stay dead.

  The main structures might stand long enough for her children's children to repair them, reoccupy them, and truly retake the city. Or they might be abandoned for centuries, out of some superstitious fear that the skyscrapers were a part of the darkness and the past. Perhaps that was part of what was being decided now.

  She suddenly wanted to go into the city, walk its dead streets to the shore of the lake. Feel that wind in her hair. A memory, dim but certain: she had stood on that shore, holding her mother's hand and smelled the scent of the lake.

  "I don't remember it," whispered Grace. She wore a rather ragged dress, just enough to keep her decent.

  "I do, sort of. There were things that roared in the streets and the air smelled of their breath. And light, so much light that night became day. I don't think we want to go back to that, Grace."

  "I'm not going back to it. If they try that, I will vanish." That was a promise.

  If all else failed, the wildlings would preserve something of this time. Something different, an experiment in human living. Yet, Betty knew in her heart there was no going back. "We can't. We've lost too much; it's going to take generations to get it all back. And maybe we can do it differently."

  "Assuming these assholes don't wreck everything trying to force it." Grace no longer spoke broken English...and in fact was speaking like somebody quite a bit older.

  "They will. Maybe you should disappear now, not later. All of the wildlings just disappear."

  "It's winter," Grace pointed out.

  She did not sound like a kid her age, but as if she was already an adult. A wildling of her free choice. The Recovered didn't want children making choices.

  "There's no one right way to live. There never was, even before." Another dim memory, the television, dark skinned people in some other country hunting antelope with spears. The wildlings had always been with them; they were part of the pattern. Because if one way of life failed, another had to survive. "I think I may have it."

  "Have what?" Grace asked.

  "The thought that's been eluding me for days. Can I...I need to be alone. Please?"

  The girl literally vanished. Nothing was left where she had been other than half a bare footprint. Maybe she had retained something of what she had learned as a wild animal, to be so good at that stuff.

  No one true way. That had to be how it started. Every child had to have the right to choose, the city, the village, or the wild. For the city would be rebuilt; the Recovered would ensure that. Not the same city, but a city. Making things, providing them to the villages. That was what cities did, they made things, they brought people together. They controlled the villages.

  Cities were a bad idea in her mind. Too many people to catch the next disease, too much control, but they were an idea that was not going away. So, okay, there would be a city, and they would have a Mayor. There would be the villagers, who had their elected council. Maybe the city needed a council too.

  Oh, what was she doing? She was a teenaged girl, not yet married. Nobody would listen to her if she tried to plan out society.

  But they might listen to the old Mayor. He had been Mayor before. By some miracle, he had survived. If she could find him, if she could get to him, and if she could get through his barrier of willful ignorance. There might be others, but he was the man they needed to reach.

  But that would not be easy, either physically or mentally. She had no clue where to even start.

  -#-

  Betty was in no position to act on that plan right away. She had more pressing concerns.

  The wildlings took charge, using their skills to guide the group on a wide circuit that would allow them to come into the village from the city side where they could maximize their element of surprise.

  Or at least, that was the hope. Hope was something Betty was somewhat short of. The enthusiasm that had kept her awake half the night had faded with morning. Now, she was literally on the verge of giving up altogether. What difference did it make whether they were out here or in the village? They should surrender and take their lumps.

  Maybe somebody could fix it all from the inside, get the v
illage free, get things resolved. Make things better by working with them, not against them. Maybe that was what they should have done in the first place. No, Betty thought. That was just surrendering, just giving in to these outsiders.

  They would have to leave the horses outside the perimeter, for their hooves made too much noise. She did not look forward to that. Maybe Spot could get away if things went bad. Join some wild herd, have a few foals. The alternative was for her to be beaten and broken. She would be lucky if they chose to use her as a broodmare.

  They might use Betty as a broodmare. No, these people didn't seem that type. Some men had tried that shit in the early days. In some places, they might have succeeded, but here the women had pointed guns and laid down the law it would be much harder to pull that sort of nonsense. Sure, there was pressure to get married and have babies, but the pressure was even for both men and women. Everyone knew why it was there.

  She slipped down, trying to force that thought away. She did not to worry about the future. She only time to focus on the here and now. She checked her ammo and her gun. Slung the gun over her back. Took all the ammo off the saddle. She might need it and she certainly wasn't leaving it here.

  She picketed Spot loosely. Eventually, the mare would get free. She would probably follow them. Betty removed the saddle. If it wasn't stolen, she would come back for it. They had people who knew how to make saddles, anyway. Saddles were easier to replace than the horse.

  Betty would not be so easily replaced, and she risked herself more than any of it. She patted Spot's nose, then followed the wildlings.

  Not for the first time, she was struck by how silent they were. She almost lost her own guide more than once in the trees and buildings. They even went through some of the houses, long since looted of anything that could be used. Electronics lay scattered around, and she even saw broken mugs, as if the previous owners had been struck down while enjoying tea.

  She knew that wasn’t true; the onset of the plague had not been sudden. More likely, looters had broken the cups. People weren't as careful to start with as they had become once it became clear that the time before was not coming back.

  As silent as if the plague had struck them, wildlings and villagers alike moved through the woods; Betty entirely too aware of the noise of her own footsteps.

  They had a plan. Once they got there, they would take the outsiders hostage, sit them down and make them negotiate with the council. They hoped for as few casualties as possible on both sides, but there would be some.

  Then it might be over. No, this conflict would probably stick around for years.

  And then, there was a patrol. With no more Silents, the two riders were probably looking for them. Two was not enough. In moments, wildlings had their bridles held and were demanding they dismount.

  One obeyed, the other tried to get a shot off...and hit his own horse in the head.

  Betty clapped one hand over her mouth as the animal went down. At least it would have died quickly. It had the good taste to land on its rider's leg.

  He screamed. It was a bad injury. She'd seen people lose their feet that way. She felt absolutely nothing for the man. The world was moving slowly and it felt as if her emotions were frozen in a block of ice, one that would not soon melt.

  The wildling picked up the gun. "Lousy shot," the young woman informed him. No doubt he had been aiming at her, but that was truly bad shooting.

  That gave Betty some hope. Half of the Recovered could not ride, and this wasn't the first evidence that quite a few could not shoot either. Unfortunately, some could.

  The man who had surrendered was a problem. Betty heard a discussion break out debating whether to kill him now, tie him up and come back later, or bring him along. The second option won. They secured him to a tree and picketed the living horse a good distance away.

  They'd come back for the dead horse, too. No sense wasting good meat. Betty half hoped the poor guy would get loose in an hour or so, late enough not to be able to warn anyone, but not stuck there all night.

  They decided to shoot him; they could not risk him warning his companions. Betty looked away, but that too was part of the harsh and necessary calculations.

  This was war.

  Chapter Twelve

  It had started to snow again when they reached the village, large fluffy flakes covering their tracks and chasing everyone indoors.

  Betty had never been so glad to see snow. Her feet crunched through it, but as she looked back, those depressions faded away under the fresh coat. The wildling guide just ahead of her seemed unconcerned, despite only wearing light leather moccasins.

  Well, that too was the way of things. They were tougher than settled folk, and likely to become even more so as time went on.

  Unless the Recovered had their way, and the wildlings were hunted down and forced into the city. Betty knew that would not happen. There was no way the Recovered could even find most of the wildings.

  They reached the park muffled under a blanket of snow, the windows around it shuttered where they were not glazed. Every door was closed and there was no sign of anyone out on the street.

  Could it be that simple? Could they just walk in?

  No. There were patrols out, and none of them people Betty knew...five men walking around the park, three more in the streets, moving house to house.

  Eight. If that was all, then this would be easy. Well, no, there would be more around here somewhere.

  Betty glanced at her guide. He was about her age, but seemed older somehow, aged by the wildling life. She'd caught his name somewhere in it. Gary.

  Two of the patrolmen were coming her way and she tensed.

  Shooting them was a last resort. They were on foot, trudging through the snow. No horses. That might be an advantage in these conditions.

  "Who's there?"

  That voice was not familiar. She remained still.

  "Dammit, kid, this isn't funny. Come out."

  Kid? Had Grace decided to pull a distraction, or were these foot patrols actually looking for a lost kid? Anything was possible.

  She stayed absolutely still. If the patrolman thought she was a lost kid, he wouldn't shoot, but she didn't have the confidence to try mimicking a younger girl...besides, it could be a boy. Then she heard a sound near her. Both members of the patrol turned, momentarily exposing their backs.

  It was now or never. She moved, trying to take both men down in one tackle.

  It did not quite work. She ended up on top of one of them, but heard the sound of a pistol being cocked.

  "What the heck?" said the man underneath her. "Get off me!"

  "No!" Thwang. The other man yelped and dropped the gun. She did not look up.

  Two down, she realized. This might be easy after all.

  -#-

  They frog-marched the men into the park. Neither resisted once they had been relieved of their guns and their knives. The uninjured one almost seemed glad to have been caught.

  Maybe he was as tired of all of this as she was. She would not exactly blame him for feeling that way. Hopefully, it could be brought to an end soon.

  "Hola!" That was Winston, from a different direction. He had a prisoner too; this one had his wrists tied and gave Betty a killer glare. "Where's the Mayor? We know he's here somewhere."

  "He's...I'll find him."

  "We just want a little talk."

  It was some time before the man returned, the Mayor at his side. Betty saw the man's eyes widen at the crowd of wildlings and villagers. All of them were young. Teens, twenties. Little more than children, no doubt, to the eyes of an old man. Betty glanced around at them.

  "We want no more violence. We want to live our way, the wildlings theirs, and you yours. We can do that."

  Slowly, he nodded. "I didn't order them to start hunting down those kids. You have to believe me."

  "I do," Winston said. "But we have to deal with the real problem, and that's keeping this crap from happening again."

  B
etty wanted to voice all of her ideas, but felt this was not the time.

  "Do any of you remember America? Or is it just a word to you?"

  Now she did speak. "The old-timers remember. I just remember cars and Barbie dolls."

  He laughed shortly. "It was supposed to be a land of equality, of freedom, of respect for everyone. Truth is: you can't run civilization without inequality. Some people have to do the dirty jobs. Some people have to be unequal, because without that, people don't try."

  Betty flicked her hand. "I might just be a kid, but we don't have inequality here."

  "You also don't have civilization."

  "Define it. Until your goons showed up, we'd had one murder in five years. No rapes...hard to rape a girl who's armed and as good a shot as you." Maybe they had needed the Silents, the threat, to be the way they were. But that was an inequality of its own, she realized. They might have thought them beasts, but... "Not much theft, because people don't need to steal when they have their needs met. I call that pretty damn civilized."

  "We..."

  "Can and will move forward from that, not your America. America doesn't exist. There's only what we have, and maybe we'll come up with a new name."

  "You kids are..." Whatever he was going to say they were was silenced. The shot came from somewhere behind Betty. It caught the Mayor and spun him around.

  She did not need to check to be sure and certain that he was dead.

  -#-

  "What have you done?"

  "We didn't," Winston grumbled.

  He was right, Betty realized. The only people they thought were back there were wildlings. With bows. The Mayor had been shot with a pistol.

  "Somebody didn't like the idea that he was willing to talk." Her shoulder was aching fiercely, and only adrenalin was keeping her on her feet, keeping her able to act, perhaps even to fight.

  "Take them."

  Take them? They hadn't made any kind of a threat. Nobody seemed willing to actually take on the wildlings, standing there, clad in mud and furs and whatever clothes they could trade for. Their bows dipped, but went nowhere. Nobody was going to be the next to fire.