“Well,” the stranger added, “maybe you should get your hands on some seeds and grow a whole field of wheat, so long as you’re careful.” It was the last phrase - “so long as you’re careful” - that hung in the air, darkening the morning, a whisper from the world beyond the tumbling stone walls and serpentine backroads that surrounded the brothers’ remote cabin. There was a reason they had abandoned that world for this one. It was the same reason Victor did not welcome the sight of unfamiliar faces.
“Yeah,” Victor answered quietly. “Maybe we’ll do that.”
“Of course,” the stranger continued, failing to notice the unspoken message in Victor’s voice, “how much do you need to grow when you have a fine animal like this?” He bent to pat the shoulder of the dead buck. As he did so, he noticed the blood on his hands and began cleaning them in the deer’s fur. The gesture disgusted Victor, fueling an anger that had begun building the moment Victor laid eyes on the man. He couldn’t have put his finger on why he felt that anger, only that it was there and didn’t seem in any hurry to leave.
The man finished cleaning his hands and turned back to the brothers. “I’m Walker, by the way.”
Dante gave his name, then glanced at Victor. When Victor remained silent, Dante finished the introductions for him. Victor was remotely aware that things were slipping beyond his control. The more they talked, the more human this Walker would seem, and the more difficult it would become to dismiss him. Already he could see his brother warming to the idea of having someone to speak with other than Victor.
Maybe we will start singing “Kumbaya,” Victor thought.
“You live nearby?” Walker said, lowering his eyes as he folded his knife, blood and all. The gesture reminded Victor of the kind of signals undercover cops worked out in movies while meeting with the criminals they were investigating. Stand down, boys, no threat here.
Before Victor could answer, before he could explain why it was in Walker’s best interest to walk down that dirt road and let it carry him wherever it wished, Dante intervened again.
“What do you say to some breakfast, Walker?” he said.
Victor’s head snapped toward his brother. “A word, Dante?”
While Walker stood with his hands deep in the pockets of his coat, the brothers retreated a few steps so they could speak privately.
“What are you doing?” Victor demanded.
“You know what I’m doing.”
“I know it’s stupid. I know I’m not going to sign off on this.”
Dante’s expression made it clear he had expected Victor’s objection. He paused, as if picking up some line of argument he had set aside for this very occasion. “Do you remember what you said to me when you got me out of Rayburn?”
Victor remembered that sequence of events with yesterday’s clarity—the soup kitchens, the protesters in the streets, the camouflaged trucks enforcing curfew at night. He had found Dante in the apartment he shared with two of his buddies (the “enablers” as Victor dubbed them), sitting on the bathroom floor with a Christmas tie wrapped around his forearm and his head against the wall, his eyes vacant as if they possessed a supernatural double-vision, seeing half this world and half another.
Dante spoke while Victor was still thinking about the memory. “When I asked why we were leaving the city, you told me we needed to help ourselves before we could help anyone else.” He glanced over at Walker. “We have food, water, fire. If we’re not ready to help anyone now, when will we be?”
Victor could see it would not be easy to dislodge Dante from the position he had taken. “Alright,” he said. “But we do it my way. That means we keep tabs on him. I don’t want him sneaking around without our knowing.” He took a step toward Walker, then paused and turned back to Dante. “Oh, and when I say we, I mean you. Just think of him as a stray dog you decided to adopt. If he pisses on the carpet, you get to clean it up.”
Victor approached Walker, holding the Winchester casually at his waist. “Knife,” he said.
Walker’s eyes ping-ponged between the two brothers. Then, maybe realizing he didn’t have much choice, he pulled the knife from his pocket and handed it to Victor.
Victor wagged the knife in the air. “You should keep your tools clean.”
As Victor started back toward the cabin, Dante called, “Hey, what about the buck?”
Victor lowered his backpack to the ground, unzipped the compartment, and tossed Dante a coil of rope. “It’s your trophy. That means you get to bring it back.”
Chapter 3: Pocket Cards
Victor watched Dante struggle with the deer. He could have offered to help his brother (the animal probably weighed over two hundred pounds, after all), but he wanted Dante to feel the weight of the animal so he could understand the significance of what he had done. Victor’s father had given him the same task the first time he killed an animal, and though that deer had been smaller than this one, Victor still remembered the impression it had made on him. Feeling the weight of the animal at the end of the rope, like an anchor holding a ship at port, had brought home to him the fact that he had reduced a living animal to a heap of hide and meat.
Victor did not enjoy being hard on his brother. It was just his way of preparing Dante for the real world, the same way their father had prepared Victor. Better to make mistakes while Victor was nearby than to do so alone, when he would be forced to face the consequences on his own.
The trees gave way to timothy grass and milkweed, and then they were close to the shed that stood a stone’s throw from the cabin. The morning was changing before their eyes. The fog was breaking before a wave of sunlight that slanted golden through the forest, tinting the colors of the leaves and gilding the trees like the pillars of a palace, a morning as fragile as it was beautiful, as much a sign of what was passing as what was to come.
Dante finished dragging the buck to the front of the shed, then lowered its head to the ground. He turned to Victor. “Happy?”
“Very,” Victor answered. “Why don’t you go inside and get breakfast started? Walker and I will finish here.” He glanced at Walker as he said this, noting the unease on his face.
Dante studied Victor for a moment, hands on hips as he took deep breaths of the cool morning air. “Thought you said he was my problem,” Dante said.
“I won’t keep him long. Just need his help for a minute.”
“Alright,” Dante replied slowly, still watching Victor. “Gonna bring some steaks for breakfast?”
“You bet.” Victor held the Winchester toward him. “Mind taking the rifle back? Don’t forget to clean it.”
As Dante crossed the yard, Walker stood with his hands in his pockets and surveyed the property—the edge of the forest, dark and punctured with shafts of gold; the weeds that hissed and rattled in the breeze, sending milkweed seeds, soft as down, drifting on an unseen current; the cabin, an island of care in a sea of neglect, with a long porch that, though the wood was bleached by the sun and some of the nails had worked themselves out to stand like tiny soldiers, commanded all before it the way the bridge of a large vessel commands the sea.
They could not see the garden growing on the far side of the cabin. Victor thought this was just as well. There was something of the tourist in the way Walker was studying the property, as if imagining how he would have kept things if he were living there, and Victor was not inclined to give the full tour.
Victor lifted the rope that was still tied to the buck’s antlers. “Want to give me a hand?” The words were not really a question. Walker, who had been standing uncertainly between Victor and the retreating Dante, cleared his throat and held his hand out for the rope.
They dragged the deer into the shed, and after looping the rope over one of the rafters, Victor hoisted the carcass into the air. Blood began to run from the animal’s gutted chest, leaving dark streaks in the fur before dripping to the dirt floor with a quiet patter. Just a few hours ago that fur had been a beautiful gray-brown, long and textured and soft.
Now it was sullied with its own blood.
Victor turned to the wall of the shed, where an assortment of tools hung from pegs: screwdrivers, hammers, ratchets, ax heads. An old-fashioned steel press perched on the corner of the table. The room smelled of oil, leather, and now blood.
“You can’t choose your family,” he said, looking through the tools with deliberate slowness. “Even if sometimes you want to.”
Walker did not answer. It was dim in the interior of the shed. Other than the glow of light that spilled at Walker’s shoes, there was nothing but stripes of sunlight through the weathered boards to read each other’s faces by. Walker was watching Victor closely.
“He’s not like me,” Victor added, lifting a hacksaw from the wall. “He thinks more about the way things could be than the way they are.” He held the saw up to a band of light, studying the blade. The metal cast a finger of light up among the rafters. Suddenly Victor knew he had been here before. It was not deja vu, not exactly. It was more like slipping into a familiar habit one has practiced over and over, like playing an instrument or driving a car. He felt a part of his mind he had not used in a long time kick into gear.
“But family is family,” Victor said, flicking his thumb against the teeth of the saw. He could feel the weight of Walker’s knife drooping in his pocket, just as he could sense the tension of Walker’s shoulders as he stood silent in the half-darkness.
“Family is family,” Victor said again, “and I would kill for him.” He laughed softly. “It’s funny how sometimes the strongest expression of loyalty is a readiness to kill someone else.”
Walker licked his lips before he spoke. “Listen, I’m not trying to harm anyone here. If I’m not welcome—” He left the sentence unfinished, as if hoping for Victor to protest such an idea, to say, Of course you’re welcome, and won’t you stay for dessert?
“Do you know how easy it is to cut through bone?” Victor asked. He raised the hacksaw to the buck’s ribcage, grabbing a handful of fur with his left hand to keep the carcass from swinging. “It’s not,” he continued. “But with the right tools—” The saw began to whine as the teeth cut back and forth, a macabre violin playing a familiar tune. And Victor was the violinist in this strange performance.
After separating all the ribs, Victor stepped back and gestured at a piece of 2x4 block of wood resting on a bench nearby. “Hand me that block, would you?”
Victor used the block to prop open the buck’s chest. “The easy part’s done,” Victor said, “believe it or not. The rest requires a more delicate tool.” He set the saw on the edge of the table, where he could find it later for cleaning, and drew a knife from its hanging place along the wall. The blade was long and narrow, a precise cutting implement.
He returned to the buck and began cutting back the hide, guiding the knife with deft, certain movements. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t have come back with us from the woods,” he said. “The morning would have gone…a little different. But it’s been a long time since my brother has seen a face other than mine, which makes him quite ready to have a little company.” He turned, and in one step and pivot - stepping wide, his knees bent, a fighter’s stance - he held the knife in front of Walker as the blood dribbled down the blade, rolled across his knuckles, and gathered at the bottom of his hand.
“So here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, speaking quietly in the dimness of the shed. “You’re going to come back with me to breakfast, because Dante would hate me otherwise. But after that…” He shrugged. “Make up any excuse you like—I don’t care.” He pushed the knife forward until the tip was nearly touching Walker’s throat. “But you give my brother a reason why you can’t stay. As soon as breakfast is over, you leave—and if you ever come back, if I ever see you again—”
“Okay,” Walker said, his voice catching, his eyes as wide as quarters. “I get it. I won’t cause any trouble.”
Victor regarded him a long time before turning the knife back to the buck. “Good,” he said, nodding. “Now go on outside so I can finish my work in peace.”
But as Walker moved toward the door, their eyes met for a brief moment. It was not fear Victor saw, not even apprehension, but a kind of veiled satisfaction, like a poker player whose bluff has just been called when he possesses a strong hand.
_____
As soon as the two men entered the cabin, Dante knew something had happened.
He saw it in Walker’s face—a tension brimming just beneath the surface, like water approaching its boiling point. But when he looked at Victor, his eyes registered only that imperturbable calm he knew so well. Dante had never known another person who could so comfortably conceal his thoughts behind whatever mask he chose to wear. Sometimes Dante felt as though he hardly knew his own brother.
Victor had brought the deer’s heart and liver, along with a few steaks. While he fried the meat, Dante grabbed a wicker basket and led Walker behind the cabin to the garden.
The bulk of their garden was dominated by the wheat field, a large rectangle occupying much of what had previously been the cabin’s yard. In a week or two they would begin the process of cutting the stalks with scythes, bundling them where they could dry in the sunlight, threshing them once the seeds were crunchy, and then finally milling them as necessary. It was a laborious process, but one Dante had learned to enjoy over the past two harvests. The garden had become his province, just as the forest had become Victor’s. Like Cain and Abel, they had each learned what kind of tasks they liked most, which was why Dante had never gone hunting before that morning.
Dante had nothing against killing animals. Anyone who thought the act was evil had not lived in circumstances like theirs. But he preferred the garden because it allowed him to harvest something he had grown, something he had taken care of and tended through the summer. Hunting, in his opinion, was more like gathering apples from a neighbor’s orchard.
“Would you look at that,” Walker murmured, staring at the wheat that shone golden in the sunlight.
“What, never seen wheat before?”
“Usually it’s behind four walls. You were smart to choose such a remote location.”
Dante turned to the patch of vegetables growing beside the field of wheat. The effort had seemed pitiful to him when he planted the garden, tapping the seeds into the palm of his hand from the small paper envelopes. The garden held nothing but radishes, lettuce, rhubarb, and asparagus, because that was all the earth would give them. They had planted carrots and potatoes before, but they only lasted one year before rotting in the ground. Still, he was proud of his little patch of vegetables. It was one of the few things he truly considered his own.
Dante began to move among the rows, uprooting weeds and checking vegetables. “That’s why we left the city,” he said. “It’s safer out here.”
“Don’t you ever wonder what you’re missing?”
Dante laughed. “Hunger? Running from people who want to take the little we have?”
Walker frowned. “Ah, maybe you’re right. Must get lonely sometimes, though. Living out here, just you and your brother, wondering how many other survivors there might be. Thousands? Millions? Who knows, there could be a government set up a hundred miles away and you’d have no idea.”
Dante had been tearing lettuce and dropping it into the basket. Now he stopped, wondering how far Walker had traveled and how much he had seen of the world. The premises of all the sci-fi movies he had ever seen came to mind, and just about any one of them could be real without his knowing. Hell, there could be alien spaceships patrolling the skies from New York City to San Francisco for all he knew.
“What’s it like out there?” Dante asked, his voice low and uncertain. “What have you seen?”
Walker squinted up at the early sun as it passed behind a cloud, tracing it in gold. The rest of the sky was a light, distant blue that looked more like the coming winter than the passing summer. Before the sun emerged from behind the cloud, something changed on Walker’s face. His
eyes became like two fires smoldering in a deep forest on a dark night.
“You’re not safe here,” Walker said. There was nothing light in his tone any more.
“What do you mean?” Dante said. He bent and set the basket on the ground, even though it hardly weighed a pound. He sensed Walker had something important to say.
Walker blinked a few times. Then he became like a man at confession who knows he has only a few minutes left to live. He spoke rapidly in a way that convinced Dante he had not rehearsed this speech. And the fear in his eyes…Dante doubted whether that could be faked.
“They found me at the cow farm,” Walker said. “That’s why I was in your woods. They came last night, there must have been a dozen of them, with torches and guns. They were on horseback. That’s how I got away—I heard the horses. I don’t know how I knew, but I was sure if they found me they would—” He came to a full stop, closing his mouth on the words. He was staring at the ground now.
Brothers (The Last Colony Book 1) Page 2