“Oh, shit,” the man said softly.
Slowly the green landscape faded, thinning away like smoke from a smothered fire. Nita clutched the hiccoughing Rachel to her, watching the buildings of the riverbed base reappear. She looked up at the blond man. “What did you do?” she said numbly.
“Listen, I’m sorry.” He squatted beside her, radiating anxiety. “It’s just . . . a fancy holo projector. I was testing it. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You’re lying.” Nita scrambled to her feet, hearing hysteria in her voice. “You made it happen. You made me see water in the riverbed. It was so . . . huge.”
“No.” His distress flowered in Nita’s head. “It’s just a holo. I’ll show you how it works.” He held out a small gray box.
“That’s all right,” she said quickly. Because he was afraid. “I won’t tell anyone,” she answered his fear. “It’s all right. Really. How did you do that?”
He opened his mouth to protest, then shrugged. “I’m . . . not sure.” His eyes were sharp and wary on her face. “I think . . . it’s a vision of the past. I just see it. Sometimes other people see it, too.”
“It was so real,” Nita whispered. “All those flowers, and the water . . . it looked miles across.”
“You saw that much?” His eyes narrowed. “Most people just catch a glimpse, and that’s if I’m standing right beside them. I was clear over near the culvert when you started running.” He gave her a wary, measuring smile. “I’m Jeremy Barlow.”
“I’m Nita Montoya. This is Rachel.” His wariness rubbed at her. Remembering Seth, she nodded, understanding suddenly. “It really is all right. I don’t think you’re a freak or a demon or whatever people guess when you scare them. And I really won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m relieved,” he said wryly.
He didn’t particularly believe her. “How can you see the past?” she asked softly. “How can that be?”
“I don’t know. Here.” He offered a hand to help her up.
His hand was crippled, the joints thick and ugly. She noticed the stick he had dropped on the ground. His knees hurt him, now that the fear had faded. He was looking at her thoughtfully, deciding whether or not she was a serious threat.
“I could always make things appear,” he said, probably deciding that it was too late to matter. “Like this.” He held out his palm and a brilliant green insect blinked into life above it, settling delicately onto his fingers. “The . . . visions came later.” He shrugged. “I do magic shows at local markets.”
“Were you in Tygh Valley?” Nita’s eyes widened. “This farmer told me about someone who did magic. He said it was a fake.”
“Tygh Valley.” The wariness had come back, stronger than before. “Yeah, I went through there. They weren’t a very good crowd.”
“They hate anything strange.” Nita shivered with the memory of Seth’s thin, molten ugliness. Rachel whimpered and she hugged her close. “They hate anything they don’t understand, like the boy they stoned. You’re right to be scared of them.” She jumped as Jeremy’s had closed hard on her wrist.
“You know I’m scared of them, don’t you?” His voice was hushed, but excitement blazed behind his eyes. “You’re reading my thoughts. That’s how you knew I was lying about the projector. That’s why you saw the river like that. You’re a telepath.”
“No. I don’t know.” His intensity frightened her and his fingers were bruising her arm. “I — I know what you’re feeling,” she faltered. “Scared, or angry, or whatever. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“An empath. That’s the word for it.” He looked down at his hand and let go of her abruptly. “Sorry. It just surprised me . . . meeting someone else who’s different.”
Nita rubbed the marks his fingers had left. He wasn’t dark inside the way the trader had been dark. His excitement had a desperate feel, like someone lost in the Dry who had finally sighted a house. A feel like thirst and hope balled up in a knot.
“I didn’t hear any gossip about empaths at the market.” He was watching her face. “You don’t tell people, either. Do you?”
“No.” Nita shook her head, trying to banish Carter from her thoughts. “I don’t. Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked bitterly. “That I knew you were afraid? That I know you’re excited now?”
“No.”He tugged thoughtfully at his tail of hair. “But it might bother some, I guess. Probably not a whole lot.” He shrugged. “You can usually look at someone and tell if they’re scared or mad or what have you. Most of the time.”
Nita shook her head. He was so wrong.
“I didn’t mean to corner you. Oh hell, yes I did.” He tossed his hair back over his shoulder with an impatient jerk of his head. “I’ve heard all kinds of stories about kids who get born in the Dry with . . . different powers. They’re always dead or over in the next town. But you’re the first person I’ve met who’s like me.” He grinned suddenly. “More like me than most people, anyway. Don’t you ever wonder? Why we are? Don’t you want to know?”
“I wasn’t born in the Dry.” Nita shrugged the sling higher on her shoulder, looking away from his intensity. “I was born right here. I’m not sure I know . . . who I am. I haven’t gotten to the why yet. I’ve got to go.” She hesitated then nodded at the truck. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”
“No, thanks. I’m camping in that culvert. Some of the highway kids told me it was a good place. I’ve been doing the market in town.”
“I haven’t been down there for awhile. When you were on the road, did you ever meet a David Ascher, by any chance?” Nita asked as they walked back to the truck. Because she had to. “Forties, curly gray hair? He’s about a head taller than you and lanky.”
Jeremy shook his head.
“Oh, well.” She pulled the truck door open, boosted Rachel onto the patched seat.
“I figured it was time to move on — when you guessed.” Jeremy leaned on the open door. “But I think I’ll stick around. I want to talk to you some more. About what we are. And maybe why.” Hunger flickered in his eyes like heat lightening. “Will you come down to the market and look me up?”
“I . . . I’ll try,” Nita said, trapped by that heat lightning hunger. “But I don’t understand. What you are trying to find?”
“Why we are.” His eyes held hers, dry and blue as the sky. “I want it to matter,” he said softly. “All our loneliness, everything we lose by being what we are. I want it to count. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. For herself. For Rachel. It was his hunger, but it seized her suddenly, shook her to the core of her being. “I’ll look for you,” she said. “I promise. And I won’t tell anyone that it’s not your projector.”
“Thanks.” His brief smile lit his eyes like a shaft of sunlight and he stepped back to close the truck’s door.
She had seen water in the riverbed. Nita remembered the pictures on Dan’s wall as she backed the truck around in the narrow road. She had seen that river. That yesterday. Jeremy lifted a hand as she drove past him; a small figure limping back along the dusty road. I want it to matter, he had said. And now she wanted it too, and the intensity of that wanting frightened her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Glad I could pry you away from The Dalles.” Johnny lifted his glass of wine in a toast. “I don’t think I dare take a uniform out to lunch up there. I could get lynched.”
“It’s not funny.” Carter sipped at his own wine, then set it down. “I’ve had to declare the town off limits to all Corps personnel.” He poked at the slices of cooling meat on his plate. This Bonneville restaurant was as good as any in Portland. He hadn’t eaten real beef in weeks. He set his fork down.
“It’s that bad?” Johnny asked quietly.
“You’re my boss. You see the reports.” He picked up his wineglass and glowered into its ruby depths. “You tell me.”
“By the reports, you’re doing a great job. I came out here to find out what wasn’t included.”
“Of course. But not soon.” Johnny speared a leaf of blanched endive.
Of course. Of course more water cuts would happen, unless the rain came back and the whole global warming freight train reversed. Carter watched Johnny finish his salad. People around The Dalles ate mostly the high protein soybean clones. That’s what they grew. And a few kitchen veggies watered with what came out of the house too dirty to reuse. A lot of ‘em ended up with chronic vitamin deficiencies. The battalion’s surgeon had told him it was endemic, out in the Dry. It caused a lot of birth defects, she had said. “So how are you doing?” he asked Johnny.
“Everybody loves us since Mexico backed down.” Johnny grinned. “Your water-cut blues weren’t in vain. Listen, I didn’t come out here just to visit,” he said slowly. “I heard a little . . . tidbit from my senator buddy, Paul Targass.” He wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin onto his empty plate. “There’s a rumor going around that Pacific Bio’s in bed with the Corps.”
Carter opened his mouth to protest, but closed it without speaking. “Who?” he asked softly. “Someone at the top?”
“Don’t know.” Johnny shrugged. “But Pacific Bio’s concentrating on their West Coast operations, so keep your eyes open.” He finished his wine and emptied the bottle into his glass.
“I’m not sure I’d catch it unless someone yelled in my ear.” Carter grimaced. “You’re good at politics. I’m not.”
“Yes, I am good at it. That’s partly how I ended up where I am, and we both know it.”
Yeah, Johnny had always been on top — no one had ever doubted that he belonged there. “What does Morissy have on you?” Carter asked abruptly.
“What kind of crack is that?” Johnny flushed. ‘Whatever you thought you picked up at that party, you didn’t. That was a matter of bedroom politics and nothing more.”
“I’m sorry. I was out of line.” Carter leaned back, uneasy. Johnny was drunk. He’d had most of that bottle of wine. “Take it easy. I’m on your side, remember?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Good old Carter, always there to back me up. Until you decided that the damn Corps was more important.”
“Oh come on, Johnny.” Carter shook his head. “I wouldn’t have been any use to you in politics. Moral support I can give you from inside a uniform.”
“You’d have been there to watch my back.” Johnny drained his glass. “It used to bug you, didn’t it? When I made fun of how you hated to break the rules.”
He couldn’t afford to break rules. His had known that without a pricey education you went nowhere. She had paid for it on her back, never mind that old man Warrington had written the checks.
“I’m on top, Carter.” The naked hunger in Johnny’s eyes made Carter look away. “No one’s bigger than Water Policy. And no one is going to fuck that up for me. No one.”
“I don’t see how they can.” Carter flinched as his cell phone went off. The food he had eaten turned to stone in his belly. “Yes?”
“Colonel?” The voice on the phone sounded tinny and distant. “This is Captain Moreno, in Communications. I’ve got Chief of Police Durer on the line. He says it’s an emergency and he won’t talk to anyone but you, sir.” The captain sounded nervous. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir but you said . . .”
“It’s all right.” Carter sat on his irritation. God, what now? “Patch him through.”
“Hello?” A new voice boomed in Carter’s ear. “This is Chief of Police Durer calling from The Dalles. It seems that I have a couple of your boys locked up down here.”
“On what charges?” Carter growled. “And why didn’t you talk to Major Delgado?”
“The charge is assault. And we both know there’s no point in a local talking to Robert Delgado. We picked up your boys on the interstate, Colonel. They busted a kid’s head with a tire iron. I think you’d better send a batch of MPs down here to collect these guys and do it quick. Before word gets around.”
A kid. Great. Carter clenched his teeth. If the soldiers had committed a crime in town, they were Durer’s meat. If he wanted them out of his jail, the situation was bad. “I’ll send some people down right away,” he snapped.
“You do that, son.” Durer hung up.
Shit. Carter called Security and ordered a detail of MPs out to pick up the soldiers. By the time he got off the phone, the table had been cleared. “You sound so good when you’re giving orders.” Johnny grinned. “Very official.”
“I’m sorry.” Carter ignored the needling edge to Johnny’s tone. “I’ve got to get back.” Durer didn’t like uniforms much. It might be a good idea for him to talk to the police chief in person.
“So go be an officer.” Johnny flashed him a mock salute and rose. “I’ll call you next time I’m in town.
Carter looked after him as Johnny walked away. Johnny was pissed. Carter stood. The restaurant had kept their water glasses filled during the meal — a touch of old-days custom that had doubtless been reflected on the bill. Carter touched the rim of Johnny’s full glass. That small amount of water would matter to a lot of people. He wondered what the waiter would do with it.
*
From Durer’s tone, Carter had half expected a mob at City Hall, but it was quiet. Carter saw to the transfer of the two bruised and sullen NCOs. They claimed that the kids had started it — that it was the bunch who hung out near the truck plaza. They’d had baseball bats, the men claimed, and they looked battered enough for it to be true.
Carter could believe it. He sent them back with Security and went inside to do his talking.
“The kid’s thirteen.” Durer hunched his thick shoulders, elbows planted firmly on his desk. “Look, Colonel, I’ll level with you — he’s one of those highway kids, yes. Anyone else could probably shoot him in broad daylight, and only a few of our upstanding citizens would give a damn. But a uniform did it. Do you get my drift?”
Durer didn’t like uniforms much, but he liked the prospect of facing a lynch mob even less. “Is the kid going to live?” Carter asked.
“He’s got a concussion.” Durer shrugged. “I don’t think the doc’s too worried. You keep your tough-guys out of town, Colonel. We don’t need this.”
“We have to use the highway,” Carter snapped. “Caught any of those rock-throwers who’ve been busting our windshields yet? They’re using powerful homemade slingshots.”
“Hey, I’m doing my best.” Durer shoved a handful of papers into a battered metal filing cabinet. “I’m real short-handed.”
“Yeah.” Like hell. Carter turned on his heel and left the stifling office, remembering the blond kid’s feral eyes in the culvert.
There was blame enough to go around here. More than enough. Carter paused outside, breathing deeply, struggling with anger. By tonight, everyone in The Dalles would know that uniforms had tried to kill a thirteen-year-old kid. And when he had the company CO Article 15 the NCOs for the tire iron, his own people would bitch because he was being soft on the locals. And Johnny was pissed at him.
He was damn tired of being everyone’s enemy. Carter yanked the Chevy’s door open.
“Hello, Carter.” Greely sat in the passenger seat. “How come you won’t see me?”
Carter hesitated for a moment, half tempted to tell Greely to get the hell out of his car and drive away. With a jerky shrug, he dropped onto the seat. “Hastings ordered me to break off all relations with the Coalition.”
“Crap on that.” Greely shook his head. “We need to talk, orders or no orders. It’s getting worse, Carter.”
“Tell me about it.” Carter stared through the windshield, seeing Nita’s face in the reflection of the sun on the glass. Is Nita
Montoya your lover? “I don’t think I can talk to you,” he said out loud. “Even if I was willing to disobey Hastings’ direct order. I keep wondering about that protest. Nice, that it happened in one place. Convenient for the media. It was convenient for whoever holed the Pipe while it was going on. We were all busy, and that leak cost me an official reprimand.”
“So you think I set you up.” Greely sighed. “Why?”
“Let’s just say that I don’t know that you didn’t.” Carter pounded his clenched fist very lightly on the steering wheel. “I can’t stick my neck out for you any more.”
“You’re not sticking it out for me, damn it.” Greely was angry now, too. “I thought we were doing it to keep people from dying around here —uniforms and locals.”
“Did you ever find out the name of that red-haired agitator?”
“Bill, with no last name.” Greely frowned. “He disappeared after the Shunt and no one’s seen him since. I never did catch up with him. Maybe a troublemaker moving through.”
“I want to believe you,” Carter said softly. “I can’t afford to.”
“You can’t afford not to.”
Carter twisted the key and pumped the gas as the engine stuttered and caught. “I’m keeping an open mind. That’s all I can do right now.”
Greely looked at him for a long moment, then climbed stiffly out of the car. “You’re shooting yourself in the foot. We need to work together more than ever. If you change your mind, leave a message with Bob, at the government store.”
Carter slammed the car door and gunned the engine. Part of him agreed with Dan — it would be a hell of a lot easier if he had some kind of local cooperation. Nita might not even be there anymore. She might have moved on. What the hell did it matter anyway? Teeth clenched, Carter took the corner onto the street too fast. A middle-aged woman carrying a plastic pail had to jump for the curb and the pail tilted, spilling dark-red beet roots across the sidewalk. Carter caught her raised fist and shouting mouth in the rearview as he turned onto Second. Guiltily, he slowed the car. At the next intersection he braked to let a teenage kid push a rusty wheelbarrow across the intersection. It was full of firewood — salvaged bits of weathered lumber from some ruined building or other.
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