by Clary, LeRoy
Mayfield had convinced me to attempt to help others in our situation, otherwise, I’d already be traveling with Adam and Mitch on the other side of the Cascades by now. I owed Mayfield in a way that was hard to understand, even for me. Explaining it might make me feel better but would not cause me to lessen my obligation to her.
Thinking of the other “her,” Tess might have different plans than going to Montana. Especially with me. We were not a couple. She was deeply affected by the death of her mate, Cap, in probably more ways than I was by Mayfield’s death. We’d talked about Montana, but as I remembered the conversation, I’d sort of pushed the idea on her and she’d reluctantly agreed. She had no obligation to go with me and needed to know that.
Along the way over the mountains that I intended to take, there were more sanctuaries depending on the exact route I traveled. Two basic mountain passes paralleled each other. I might stop at one or two sanctuaries—or none. There were choices Tess and I had to make, and it was up to me to broach the subject.
We found a quiet place a few hundred yards from the nearest road. A large stream flowed along a gully that it had dug out over the years, probably during floods. At a wide bend, a gravel sandbar had formed.
The location had several advantages. Flowing water to drink, for one. The depression would keep the flames of fire from being seen because it was lower than the surrounding ground. And at the bend of the stream, trees, branches, and sticks had accumulated in a tangled pile and dried in the sun.
At dusk, we unrolled our sleeping bags on the soft gravel bar and built a warm fire. No need for a tent. The fire was kept low and the conversation minimal.
Then, while both of us were settled, I began. “You do not have to escort me to Everett. Chances are, I’ll never get there alive, with or without you. Sir Wilson’s men will kill me. If I do arrive alive, and the sanctuary is gone, I’ll head for Montana because I have nowhere else to go. You should feel free to do what you want.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want me to go along? Or, are you scared I might die?”
“No. But you have to decide what’s best for you. You have no reason to go to Everett. Not like me.”
“Only to try and stop thousands of people from being killed. That’s reason enough, don’t you think?”
“They are not your people.”
She sat up, pulling the sleeping bag up to her chest as she did. The nine-millimeter pistol that had been Mayfield’s was on the gravel near where her head had been. “They are not your people, either.”
That was not true. Or was it?
She continued, “You have never met a single one of them, yet you’re risking your life to help them.”
That was accurate if looked at in a certain way. On a sudden hunch, I decided to change the subject. I called softly, “Bream, come on in here and warm yourself by the fire.”
After a startled look from Tess, a voice responded from nearby, “How did you know?”
“Just get over here. Are you hungry?”
“Always.” He shuffled from the nearby trees and sat close to the fire. He wore the blue pants and shirt of Sir Wilson’s army and carried two pistols in his belt. He’d taken everything on him from the dead.
Tess passed him jerky and an apple as she explained he had to get rid of the clothes in case any real soldiers saw him.
“Don’t have any,” he said.
I had a shirt and vest, both had belonged to Cap and it occurred to my dull mind that every time Tess looked at me, she recognized them. I would find a way to get other clothing as soon as possible. In the meantime, I gave him the vest with the sleeves torn off. Tess cut his pants at the knees and rolled the bottoms into tight balls and placed them in her bedroll for possible later use.
She never threw anything away.
Bream had a blanket. No, two. He spread one and climbed under the other, too close to the fire for my liking.
He said, “Friends?”
Tess and I answered at the same time, “Friends.”
“You don’t send me away?”
Tess said, “It would be better for you if you left, but from now on, you’re welcome to stay with us.”
“I helped you?”
“That warning probably saved our lives. Thank you,” she said.
The rippling of the water, along with the crackling of the fire put me to sleep. When I woke just after sunrise, Tess was washing in the creek and Bream was not in sight. As I glanced around, neither were his few things.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He was gone when I woke up.”
I gave it a few moment’s consideration. Either he had gone off on his own, which probably meant his chances of survival were better, or he was off exploring. Since neither of us had any awareness of him following us for more than a day, he was good at it. He had survived for years without our help.
It was one of those things you don’t waste time on. Either way, there was nothing I could do about it. I said, “Tess before we go, I’d like to have you help me study my maps again. Then, I want you to reconsider what you’re going to do.”
“I know what you’re going to say. This is your mission, your purpose in life to appease your beliefs that you owe a dead girl. Well, understand this. I have mine too. Cap would have gone with you if I’d have died back there. I can do no less, so don’t you try to take this from me.”
“And after?”
She smiled wanly as if hearing a poorly spoken joke. “Don’t be silly. You’re talking like we are going to live through this. Do you have any idea of the chances that happens?”
I didn’t argue. I did have an idea—and the odds were not good. The two of us, or three if Bream remained, were going to take on an army. Anyone betting wouldn’t take our side, even with long odds.
Or maybe not. If there were no people left down in the Everett Sanctuary, I wouldn’t stay and fight Sir Wilson. Others could do that, or not. We’d rehidden the entrance to Deep Hole, and the best thing I could do for the people remaining down there was to either die so Sir Wilson couldn’t torture me into revealing the location or get hundreds of miles away where he wouldn’t find me.
Tess was still sitting and watching me closely. She leaned closer and said, “I’m joining you. After? Who knows? My family is dead, as so are my friends. My farm was probably burned, and the cattle were stolen or butchered. There is nothing but sadness for me to stay here. Besides, Sir Wilson will still be looking for me.”
“Montana?”
“Or Idaho, or Utah, or Florida. Who knows, but when this is done, I’ll start over somewhere else.”
“Fair enough.” Montana was just a name to me. I had no idea of what it looked like, and no reason to go there besides an invitation from a man I’d known less than a day. If Tess went elsewhere, maybe I’d tag along with her. I pulled the maps and knelt in front of her and spread them out.
She got to her knees and looked at them with me. Her finger jabbed between the two hills, touching the stem of the rose where the dead sanctuary was. “We’re here.”
I pointed. “Everett is there.”
Her finger traced a winding line until it came to the waterfront where the map indicated the navy base was located. She hesitated, then moved her finger back a few inches to the downtown area and paused. Her fingertip pointed to the rose. Her eyes shifted to meet mine.
So much for the secret icons. With scant information, she’d figured out the key.
I didn’t try to be deceptive. “I think that entrance is in the basement of a large building.”
“Makes sense,” she said. “A good place to hide it, right where a lot of people went in and out. A few more wouldn’t be noticed.”
I hastily added, “If there are no people down there, we might sneak out the same way we get in. Killing Sir Wilson is a side-issue with me, but you may feel differently. If so, I’ll help you.”
She smiled that soft smile again as if her mind was hundreds of miles away. “If we get th
ere. I guess, we both sort of hope there is nobody down there in that hole in the ground because if there are, it gets complicated, right?”
“I honestly don’t know what it means. I have a security code that will let them recognize me as a friend, but they might not even talk to me. If that happens, what can I do?”
“I see.”
She looked back at the map. “We can skirt the edge of the forest for most of the way, but Everett is uniquely situated. There are estuaries and wetlands to the north with only a few roads in. A single guard could watch that approach from the Everett side where it’s a hundred feet higher on a hill. There is no way to sneak in from there without being seen.”
“So, we have to go another way?”
“The entire east side of the city is a flat river valley, overgrown with briars and trees, and a river far too deep and wide to wade. It runs down the middle.”
“South?”
“Almost as populated as Everett, with its version of Sir Wilson ruling it. There will be extra guards, scouts, and patrols, especially along the border, from both armies. We won’t go in that way.”
“West is the water. They’ll guard the shore,” I said. “Won’t take many of them to do that. A few sitting up high with binoculars will see anyone in a boat.”
We looked at each other and suddenly laughed.
There were no other directions to consider.
I said, “North is like a funnel. Too few roads and only a couple of ways into the city, both over bridges easily guarded. That leaves east and that wide valley and river. By the way, I can’t swim.”
“East, it is. Look here.” She traced her finger along the entire eastern side of Everett. “Anywhere along here will get us into the old part of the city where your sanctuary is. We just have to cross a mile or two of thick forest, swim a wide river, and climb a small mountain, all while remaining unseen.”
My gut was roiling. I swallowed and said, “Mayfield was my friend, competitor, and probably destined to be my wife. I have obligations to her. Debts.”
“But not to commit suicide,” Tess said. “Here’s what I propose. We go take a look and if we think we can do it, we will. If it’s impossible, you have to understand that, and agree we’ll leave.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“And I won’t go with you unless you leave that door open a crack.”
I sat and let it all swirl around in my head. Finally, I said, “Who decides?”
“You do.”
She had me.
“What about Bream?” I asked.
“If he comes back, if we live, if he wants to stay with us, he goes. Or he goes with me. Or you.”
“Us,” I confirmed. “If we ever find him.”
“He’ll find us.”
She was right. Around mid-morning, Bream strode into view a different person. He grinned and made a spin as he walked showing off his new clothing. He wore different pants, shirt, and had a bulky roll of blankets on his back that appeared much like ours. He still wore the wide belt with a pistol stuffed in each side.
He fell into step with us. “Where?” he asked without wasting words.
“Everett,” I said. “We have to sneak in and check on some friends of mine.”
“Then we go away?”
Tess said, “Yes. The three of us.”
His smile couldn’t have been wider.
Before crossing any roads, we paused and watched for long minutes, only darting across when we were certain nobody was there to see us. Our travel was slow and our food running low. We slept two more nights without fires, the three of us talked deep into the early morning.
Bream had little to say, and when he did, it was generally only a few direct words. He didn’t hold back when disagreeing, which surprised me.
Tess was becoming more talkative in most ways, although neither she nor I spoke of the deaths of Cap and Mayfield except in the most indirect ways. We grieved but held off many emotions until our tasks were completed.
During the days, Bream slipped off and usually returned from the direction ahead of us, although once he came from behind and talked long enough to let us know that we were not being followed.
That’s something I was learning about tracking others. We once followed the footprints of two men for over an hour. When our course veered away from theirs, Tess mentioned that I hadn’t once looked behind us. There could have been a hundred followers back there, tracking us as we’d followed those in front.
Our travel was almost becoming routine when we saw the first of the city from a distance. I pulled the binoculars and scanned what there was. Fires had destroyed most buildings. Some structures had burned to the ground and only piles of blackened remains were left. Whole neighborhoods had burned or been razed.
More than that was the vegetation that had all but taken over. Much of the city had already reverted to forest. Trees, bushes, vines, and creepers had grown where buildings once stood, as well as up the sides and over the roofs of those still standing, making them appear as large plants.
Tess said their roots uplifted concrete, that dirt gathered in any low spot and plants inevitably followed, sinking their roots. In nine years, the plants had almost reclaimed the part of the city I could see. In another nine the city would almost disappear.
The downtown area was beyond the swell of a hill between us and it, so we didn’t know what had happened to it.
We were standing on the rear side of a slope where we could watch everything in front without being seen. To our surprise, one of the roads leading to the city was fairly busy. Carts filled with melons, corn, apples, pears, and other items rolled into Everett to sell in what we would later find had become a series of small outdoor markets, Tess said. Money was not used. It was all barter, with a few IOUs mixed in between friends or business partners.
Part of a load of corn might be traded for a good kitchen knife and a dozen bullets made locally. The rest of the corn bartered for other food items or tools that had been forged before the bombs fell. There was a brisk market for pre-war farm items, especially tools of any type.
It was odd to me that all of us spoke in terms of before the bombs and after. That was the dividing line in modern history, in the sanctuaries as well as on the surface. We all marked time by the same occurrence.
Even odder, was that whoever had dropped them didn’t seem important. Not anymore. The deed was done, and people who survived had to eat, keep warm, and relearn a thousand skills lost in the last hundred years, and old grudges didn’t matter.
The three of us talked about those things and more at night. None tried to justify or criticize what had happened, we simply accepted. It was hard enough to get by without complicating things.
Bream often left abruptly and went “wandering” which was what we’d started calling his ventures. He looked much the same as others in his replacement clothing, and Tess said the coloring on my skin was fading and being replaced by a tan from the sun. Although she was quick to point out that I still appeared ill from the walnut coloring. I hadn’t burnt from the sun again, so I was pleased.
My hair had grown longer, hanging slightly over my ears, and my beard was now a stubble everywhere, giving me the appearance of other men. The daily depilatory used for my young life was long gone. My clothing now imitated the locals.
Even Bream had changed. He’d washed, including his tangled hair one day, and when he returned, he looked and smelled far better. His new stolen clothing allowed him to fit right in.
Tess still watched the city through binoculars for a while and said, “There are a lot of people going in and out which is a surprise but shouldn’t be. People there have to eat, and the food is grown in the valley. I may have an idea. Instead of trying to sneak in past all the guards, maybe we should consider walking in right out in the open like those people on the road are doing.”
“We don’t have a cart or farm goods to sell,” I explained. “I don’t see other people going in without som
ething to trade.”
“Good point,” she said as if I’d had a good idea she approved of. If I had, it wasn’t there anymore, so I turned and looked expectantly at her and waited for her to explain. She continued, “We simply need a cart and something to sell.”
I was willing to go along with her, but the idea was almost silly-sounding. “How do we do that?”
“Wait for Bream. He may have an idea.”
She turned away and watched the road again. “I think there’s some sort of military checkpoint at the far end. Soldiers. They look at everyone entering or leaving.”
Without looking through the binoculars to confirm, it made sense. They would keep track of people. Probably the same to the north. The southern was a border heavily guarded by both sides. There would be little traffic between the two.
In the late afternoon, Bream appeared. We settled down and without preamble, Tess said to Bream, “We want to find a farm where the soldiers have mistreated the people. One where they might help us.”
He nodded.
“Do you know of a place like that?”
Another nod.
“Tell us about it,” she said.
He pointed to the east. “There. Not far. Farmers hide things. Soldiers find them. Beat him. And wife.”
“When?” Tess asked.
“Yesterday.”
Tess said to me, “Tomorrow we’ll go visiting.”
We talked deep into the night, building fake identities for us all. When she said that we would be brothers and sisters, including Bream, he sat up and said, “Like my brother?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And now you also have a sister,” Tess added.
Bream took to the idea as if it was the truth. As we talked, he often slipped in the words, brother or sister. He understood we were going to pretend to be related. For him, it was not pretending, it was his new family, and we let that go. He desperately wanted to be our brother. We were honored.
Just after sunrise, we gathered our things and Bream took us by a back route that avoided roads and paths, arriving at the rear of a farm without animals grazing in the pasture. The garden had been ripped open, a fruit tree chopped down, and there were signs of breakage and destruction everywhere. An outbuilding had been burned and smoke still rose from the ashes.