Orleans

by Sherri L. Smith

  Introductions done, Lydia relax and lead O-Neg Davis to our cook fire as she offer food and rest to his people as our guests. The real talk, about uniting our tribes, won’t start ’til after the meal.

  I stay close to Lydia, arms crossed so I look relaxed, but I can still reach the knife in my belt fast if need be. Lydia be the dreamer, but I be the fighter. She got a good dream, too, bringing together not just the Os, but all the tribes. Not for us all to live in one camp—the Fever be what’s preventing that. But she say maybe we can live in peace. No more blood hunting. Freesteader and tribe living in the city without fear. It a big dream, a crazy one, I think. But Lydia done saved me. Maybe she can save the rest of Orleans, too.

  Lydia offer the O-Negs a spot to sit beside her on rugs and cushions made of homespun cloth stuffed with feathers. Davis drop down in front of the fire, cross-legged and easy. Natasha take a moment to decide if the seating be to her liking before she join him. I kneel behind Lydia, ready to stand if need be. Caroline and some of the girls bring around a big wood plank piled high with roast pig and mirliton squash stewed with shrimp from the Market, boiled crawfish and slow-roasted wild sweet potatoes. Lydia serve up the food in bowls for the O-Negs and hand them out herself. It be tradition for the head of a household to serve guests. She continue dishing up the bowls ’til the whole tribe been served. Lydia will eat last.

  Not every night be a feast like this. The rich smell of pork fat and sweet smell of stew make my mouth water, but I’ll eat when Lydia do.

  The air be growing cooler as the evening settles in, but the fire be warm and friendly. It make me proud to see our tribe so strong. I hope the O-Negs see it, too. They don’t got to join us, but they should think twice before crossing us, too.

  Our storyteller, Cinnamon Jones, stand up now on the far side of the fire. “In the early days, before the sky got so angry at the sea and went to war, there was a piece of land between them, and they called her New Orleans. She was a beautiful place, a city that sparkled like diamonds, sang like songbirds, and danced a two-step to stop men’s hearts.”

  He sway his hips as he speak, and though he a beanpole of a man, the way he wear his robes, made special for times like this, you’d think he the most beautiful woman in the world. The grace of a dancer, Lydia call it. And he can pitch his voice to sound like girl, woman, baby, or man. His daddy name him for the color of his skin, ruddy brown and smooth, and it stick because his stories be like cinnamon, too—sweet, savory, and rare. Uncle Romulus say when he been a kid, folks came running when they smelled cinnamon in the kitchen ’cause it meant something sweet baking in the oven, like it Christmastime. Well, Cinnamon Jones be in the kitchen tonight, and Lydia be hoping he spin a tale sweet enough to make them O-Negs take a bite.

  “And the people,” he say. “Lord, the people. They was black, and white, and yellow, and brown, and pink as a lobster sometimes, too, but they was beautiful. Because they could dance like the city, and sing like the city, and love like the city was loved by the sky and the sea. It was the people who made the city of New Orleans.”

  The rest of the camp be sitting around the cook fire, tamped down now so the flames don’t give us away, just enough light and heat to make it cozy. The O-Negs look satisfied, O-Neg Davis leaning back on a log like he own the place. Natasha sitting next to him, looking even more like a lioness. They be family, all right. I can see it in they lines, the way they both be draping so lazylike in front of someone else’s fire. Brave fools, I think. And that mess run in the family.

  “Did you eat yet?” Lydia ask me quietly. I shake my head and she hand me a bowl. She take the last bowl for herself before Caroline take the serving board away. The leftover wild boar and sweet potato will fry up into cakes for breakfast. Lydia eat slow, and I know she be studying Davis as much as she be listening to Cinnamon’s story.

  I bolt down my food, push my bowl away, and whisper into Lydia’s ear. “Got to check on them boys around the perimeter, make sure they be working like they should.” Lydia nod and squeeze my hand when I rise. She look real tired tonight. That baby be weighing down on her something awful. If we ain’t lucky, she be giving birth before we move camp again. But there be no profit in worrying like that now, so I squeeze her hand back and head to the edge of the light.

  Cinnamon’s story be reaching the point where the sky and the sea can’t live without New Orleans being they own, so they start to fight over her, sending they daughters and they sons to wreak havoc. I be too far away to hear him naming the storms that tore the city down, but I know the names: Rita, Katrina, Isaiah, Lorenzo, all the way up to Jesus, or Hayseus, like Cinnamon say. And that be the end of New Orleans. She love that last storm so much, she run off with him and leave only Orleans behind.

  The woods be dark and deep tonight. I smell pine needles, fresh after yesterday’s storm, musty and sharp at the same time. The air be cooler here, away from people and the fire. I look behind me and be glad to see we built this place right. Ain’t no fire seen from here, the way we shaped the hogans, wove them tight, blocked the view. It been Romulus who taught us to build camp in a spiral so there be rows enough to block the light, but it be my daddy who show me how to dig a fire hole deep enough to cover real quick. Uncle Rom be surviving in a group, but Daddy show me how to survive on my own.

  I reach the edge of the clearing and wait for my eyes to adjust. To my right I hear an owl screech. I hoot soft and the owl don’t answer, but some of our boys do, off to the left.

  Then the wind pick up from another direction and I hear something else. Rustling from deep in the woods. I hoot again. This time there be no response. Whoever it be, it ain’t our boys.

  Then I see torches. Headed toward camp.

  “Allez! Allez!” I scream the alarm, warn everyone to flee. I pull my knife and run back to camp. To Lydia.

  4

  WHEN I GET TO CAMP, EVERYTHING BURNING, like the sky be on fire. But I run into it. I got to find Lydia.

  The smell tell me they be blood hunters, come to harvest our camp. But they ain’t just taking, they killing, too. It don’t make sense. I keep running, looking for Lydia.

  A shadow move in the light and I see the crazed eyes of an AB in front of me. ABs got it bad when it come to Delta Fever. It kill off all they good blood, so they need more. Now they trying to take it from us. This one rise up in front of me, six feet tall and wiry like the green trees we use for tent poles. He grin real wide and I smell blood on his breath, see scars on his arms in the firelight, thick like mine, but made from needles, tubes, reeds. He got a sling in one hand, loaded with a rock, but I be too close for that, so he pull a short, ugly club out his waistband and swing at me.

  ABs need what blood they got, so they use blunt instruments, no blades or arrows—nothing that cuts a body, ’less it be for one of they transfusions. But I can dodge a club. And throw a knife. My cuts heal.

  My knife catch him in the gut and he go down. I take the AB’s club, wipe the knife on his pant leg, and keep going.

  Lydia ain’t at the fire, but I see Uncle Rom done gave the O-Negs they arrows back. I hear them split the wind like giant mosquitoes and I flinch. In the light of the fire, I see my people go down, hit by clubs and bolos—rocks tied to rope that wrap around they legs and drop them to the ground to be taken by drug-fueled ABs. Peyote, cannabis, scavenged drugs from before the Wall—the ABs shoot, swallow, and smoke anything to forget the pain of living with, but not dying from, the Fever. Lydia been trying to stop all that, but that ain’t nothing but a fool’s dream now.

  I dump nearby buckets of sand on the fire to give the hunters less to see by. We OPs know our camp, we can run it just as well in the dark. But the ABs been busy. Our hogans be on fire, burning thick with smoke as the green leaves catch light. It hard to see much without burning my eyes.

  I got to find Lydia. I swing the club at shadows I don’t recognize and move on.

  She not in her tent. Not in the talking circle. I run to the latrine. Not there, ei
ther. Everyone be running and running. Children brush past me, getting snatched up by strangers and parents alike. My vision gone narrow as I hunt for Lydia.

  I finally find her, crouched like a possum, behind the scrap heap where we collect things for trade on Market Day. She look beyond me when I say her name. Proud, beautiful Lydia. She so tall and calm most days. But not now. I take her arm and she shake her head, moaning. I look down and see why: She squatting in water. Her own baby water. She been betrayed by that baby. It coming right now, whether she ready or not.

  “No,” I tell her. “You got to walk.” But she don’t move. “Stay there, then,” I whisper. I run back to my hut and it be burning. I duck inside anyway to grab my emergency pack—but it already on fire. Instead, I grab the sheet off my cot. At least it still in one piece. Then I hear voices. I freeze, even though the fire be rising around me. I hear a woman cry out for O-Neg Davis, and I think it must be Natasha.

  Suddenly the leaves of my hut flare up. The voices move away. I slip out and ’round to the salvage bin, trying not to look at what be happening to our homes. I got Lydia to care for, and her baby, too.

  I come around the salvage heap and thank the Ursulines’ God Lydia still there. She be moaning again, but now the fire be roaring so loud, you can’t tell. “Low and quick,” I hiss at her and grab her hand. She pull back, but I pull harder. We stumble forward and now she be moving with me as I steer her left and right, around the groups of men, none of them our own. We lucky they ain’t got hounds. Hounds can sniff out blood, round folks up by type. Small blessing, but I’ll take it.

  Lydia groan and fall to the ground. I do my best to hook my arms around her and drag her to the brush. It slow going, and seem like we gonna be caught, but they ain’t coming for us, and I wonder if this hunt be for the O-Negatives. It don’t matter to me as long as the Devil ain’t come for the two of us today.

  • • •

  “It gonna be all right,” I say to Lydia. I been pulling her along, wrapped in the sheet I thought I’d be using for the baby. But there ain’t gonna be no baby if we ain’t safe. “It gonna be all right,” I say again. Lydia nod, her forehead beaded with sweat, and I worry again about them dogs. O-Neg hunt or not, they’d be after us. Because now there be blood on the sheet coming from between Lydia’s legs. We still not safe enough. I slide her through the woods ’til we get to a protected place. Protected as can be in these thin trees, with a little pond of water and enough moonlight to see by.

  I lay her out on the cleanest part of the sheet, and she look so weak lying there. She don’t even be moaning and crying anymore, just calm, like she asleep. “Fen.” She try to sit up, eyes wide. “Are we there yet?” she ask.

  “We here. We at the hospital. We gonna have your baby now,” I tell her. She smile at me. Ain’t been a real hospital in the Delta since before I been born. They all been turned into crypts or tribe houses, and the Ursulines’ tent be more like a morgue than a place where babies be born. Not everybody live in the open like us OPs. We a big enough tribe to care for ourselves, watch our own backs.

  Used to be, anyway.

  “I’m going to push now,” Lydia say suddenly, and she grip my hand like she gonna break it. She take in a sharp breath and push down.

  “Okay, okay, breathe easy,” I tell her, and wish I had a blanket or something to pillow her head with. Instead, I make sure there be no rocks under her head or back. She lie there with no complaint and the contractions hit again. When they come a third time, I let go of her hand and go down to see where the baby be at. Lydia bleeding real bad, and I can’t help but listen for dogs. It too soon for all that blood. All that OP blood.

  She reach for me again and I take her hand. I won’t need both hands ’til the baby start to show. I count with her and sing when I remember a song, and tell her them stories she used to be telling me when I been little and scared.

  “Once upon a time, there was a magical place called New Orleans . . . There you go. Breathe, two, three, wait. Push. There was magic in the water, magic in the trees, and magic in the people. Two, three, there, I see a head!”

  I forget the story ’cause the baby’s head seem so big. It look like a melon pushing out, or a full moon, pale blue in the moonlight and bald. I let go of Lydia’s hand.

  “Keep talking,” Lydia whisper. “Please.”

  “Um . . . but most magical of all was a woman named Jeanne Marie. Jeanne Marie was—”

  “Clever as a clock and pretty as a sunset,” Lydia say. She be smiling, and I smile, too. That always been my favorite part, describing Jeanne Marie.

  “She was smart as a whip and pretty as a new moon,” I say. Lydia chuckle, then groan and push again. I hear a gushing sound and the baby come free in my hands, like a storm surge, but the water be mixed with blood and Lydia’s life be tied to the other end, gushing out.

  “Wait, Lydia, wait,” I beg, and wipe the baby’s mouth clean, and suck its little nose clear. I hold it up to her so she can see it, but Lydia be looking at me.

  “The City takes, Fen,” she say. “I can’t stay here. It’s too much. Too much to change.” She look around at the swamp and the ring of trees that hold out the rest of Orleans. “You’re a fighter. You’ll survive. Promise me you will look after my baby. Give him a better life than this. Teach him to be strong.”

  “But—”

  “Promise me. Promise.” She grip my arm so hard, I almost drop the baby, all slick and wet with Lydia’s blood.

  I cry out with pain. “I promise.” She let go, and I hold out the baby and say, “But Lydia, she a girl. A baby girl.”

  Lydia look and her eyes light up like the midday sun. “A girl. I was so sure it was a boy.”

  And then she dead. Like that. Eyes dull and staring. The baby, cold in the October night, start to cry like she know she at her mama’s funeral. I stare at Lydia and feel like that baby crying for her mama. Only I had something this baby never will. I had Lydia.

  I wrap Baby Girl up in the edge of the sheet and cut a section of cloth and the umbilical cord with my cleanest knife. I swaddle her the best I can in her mama’s shroud and take off my shirt to make a sling to carry her. My skin be covered in goose bumps, but I been naked in these woods before. Only a matter of time before what happen once happen again.

  I close Lydia’s eyes, roll her up in the sheet, and sit down beside her, waiting for the sun to rise.

  5

  THE SMELL OF GASOLINE FILLED THE AIR, sharp and noxious over the deeper stink of diesel fuel. Daniel unplugged the rental truck from the fueling station’s bank of electric chargers. Across from the kiosk of dark green outlets, eighteen-wheelers and cargo trucks idled, waiting to refuel at the fossil tanks. A few old jalopies waited behind the trucks, families crammed in ancient cars, moving east, west, wherever they had heard things were better. Freeways throughout the country were filled with cars like these, broken down on the side of the road, families huddled under blankets, waiting for help that was slow to come. What was so wrong with their homes that they traveled north so many years after the hurricanes had blown away?

  Overhead, black clouds threatened more than the current sprinkling of rain. Daniel hurried, dropping the cord to reel itself back into the charger stand. He clambered back into the cab of his pickup just as the rain began in earnest. He turned on his headlights and checked the tarp over the truck bed through his rear window. Everything was secure. Turning back around, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He looked young, like a teenager, instead of his twenty-four years. He looked like his little brother, Charlie. He ran a hand through his dark hair, wiping back the dampness on his forehead that he knew was more than just rain.

  “Pull it together, Danny.” He tore his eyes from the mirror. Daniel tried to remember the boy his brother Charlie had been before the Delta Fever set in. The happy kid with a snaggletooth and a love of banana-flavored candy, comic books, and, surprisingly, movies about horses. Danny and Charlie. A nine-year age difference, yet somehow the
y’d still always been a team. Daniel had been off at school when the Fever swept through Charlie’s class. They never traced the route of the disease. But it didn’t matter how it had arrived, just that it was there.

  Daniel had returned home to find his little brother in quarantine, sealed in a white room at a hospital, where he scratched at the floor with bloodied fingers, his scarecrow-thin shoulders shaking, unable to stand. Daniel had asked if he could bring him anything, candy, comics. Charlie had barely been able to speak, but he’d asked for one thing: dirt. He was so hungry and it was the only thing that sounded good anymore.

  Daniel knew Charlie hadn’t been hungry for dirt, but for the minerals it could provide, minerals being stripped from his own blood by the Fever. Anemia had ravaged him and iron was only a temporary solution. Daniel had given blood, there had been transfusions, but it would never be enough.

  Charlie had died before his eleventh birthday. And Daniel immediately went to work on a cure. How many other Charlies had died since? The Fever seemed unstoppable, but so was he.

  He changed his thesis to target Delta Fever specifically. After graduating with multiple degrees, he went to work for the military. They had the best laboratories and access to viral cultures of Delta Fever. Daniel started adapting methods used for cancer therapies at the turn of the century. Retargeted viruses, they were called. A way of invading a disease and altering it so that it attacked itself, or alerted the body to fight back before it could take hold.