Coyote Rising

by Allen Steele

  Providing cheap thrills, though, was the farthest thing from Garcia’s mind; he also had a quick means of getting people over to Midland. By First Landing Day, Uriel 47, Garcia and Klon had recruited nearly three hundred men and women they knew they could trust; two and three at a time, they were transferred across the channel to Forest Camp, where they switched jobs with people who had been working on the timber crews and at the mill. Since it was all part of the job-rotation system Garcia had set up, the Proctors took little notice; only a few foremen were keeping track of who was where at any one time, and most of them had already been enlisted by Garcia.

  The arches weren’t long enough to support the roadway by themselves; to make up for the distance, and also to relieve the bridge from stress in the event of high winds, Garcia designed bolt-hinged suspension spans that would be laid between them. The hundred-foot spans—four in all, practically small bridges in themselves—were built as single-piece units on the wharves beneath the Midland Rise; once completed, they would be floated on barges out into the channel, then carefully hoisted into place by the tower derricks.

  No one noticed the extra care that was being taken, by mill workers in the Forest Camp, to carve small cavities within the cross braces of the suspension spans. Each cavity was large enough to contain a one-pound plastique charge, and was hidden by a thin panel through which a tiny hole had been drilled.

  The suspension spans were raised during mid-Adnachiel, two weeks after the trusswork for the arches was completed. All that was left to be done was the laying of rough-barked planks for the roadway and rigging solar-powered lights on lampposts. For all intents and purposes, the bridge was nearly finished.

  Even while preparations were being made for the dedication ceremony, Chris Levin kept a wary eye upon the construction site. Although there had been no further sign of Rigil Kent, the Chief Proctor was unconvinced that his nemesis had lost interest in the bridge. He pulled the guards out of Forest Camp and posted a twenty-seven-hour watch on the bridge itself, with Proctors stationed on the roadway and at the entrances and more patrolling the channel itself. Because they were alert for trouble onshore or on the water, they weren’t closely observing the workmen wiring the electrical fixtures, and thus failed to notice where some of the wires were leading.

  On the evening of Raphael, Adnachiel 65, in the cool twilight as the sun setting behind the Eastern Divide, James Alonzo Garcia inspected the bridge one last time. Although there were soldiers every few hundred feet, for the first time in months he walked alone. Hands clasped behind his back, wearing the frock coat that had become increasingly frayed and dirty over the past several months, the architect strolled down the entire length of the bridge, taking the moment to admire his work. Of all the things he’d built, this was his greatest achievement. Aquarius might have been more revolutionary in design, the Stanley Bridge taller and more ambitious, yet this edifice—as yet unchristened, or at least nameless until the next day—was the thing of which he was the most proud.

  But he heard no poetry in its arches, felt no music in its towers. He had long since stopped thinking in abstract terms; too many lives had been lost, too many injustices had been committed, for him to find any beauty in his accomplishment. The symphony was almost finished; all that remained for him to do was to write the coda.

  When he reached the Midland end of the bridge, he found Klon Newall waiting for him. He shook hands with his chief foreman, exchanged a few pleasantries. A meaningful look passed between them, and Klon nodded once. Everything was ready.

  Garcia nodded in return. Then he began to walk back toward New Florida, as alone as he ever had been.

  So now it’s the following morning, and he stands before the red ribbon stretched across the entrance, the gold shears in his hands poised before the bow. On either side of him, there’s an expectant silence. The architect hesitates, then he begins to speak:

  “This bridge . . .” Garcia coughs, clearing his dry throat. His voice, picked up by the mike under his left ear, is carried to the crowd behind him by the loudspeakers and reverberates ten seconds later off the Midland Rise. “Pardon me . . . this bridge is the result of months of effort by hundreds of men and women. They’ve suffered long and hard to bring it into existence. Some of them sacrificed their lives. Nothing I can say will ever make up for this. I just . . . I just . . .”

  Uncertain of what to say next, he hesitates. From the corner of his eye, he sees Luisa Hernandez staring at him. This isn’t what she expected: a few words extolling the virtues of social collectivism, perhaps, or promises of the riches to be found in the mountains of Midland.

  “Others would like to claim this bridge for themselves,” he continues, steadfastly refusing to meet the Matriarch’s angry gaze. “They would claim credit for the work of others, but they must be told that all this wasn’t done in their name. We didn’t build this for them . . . we built it for ourselves, for our own future.” He hesitates. “What we’ll call this is not for me to decide, but for you. Let history give it a name. My work is done.”

  Then he turns to look at the Matriarch. “But this . . . this is for you, ma’am.” And then he cuts the ribbon.

  A thin wire was concealed within the fabric of the ribbon, which led to a detonator hidden beneath Tower One. When Garcia severed it, he tripped the detonator, which in turn caused an electrical charge to be sent to charges concealed within the crossbeams of the suspension spans. A quick succession of thunderous explosions echoed off the limestone walls of the Eastern Divide and the Midland Rise, and the spans toppled into the channel.

  On the New Florida side of the Narrows, there is a collective gasp of horror from the officials standing nearby. On the Midland side, though, a loud cheer rises from the hundreds of people whose freedom Garcia had secretly arranged over the past few months as they watch the spans crash into the channel, leaving behind only a series of towers and arches unconnected to one another. The few Proctors and Union Guard soldiers remaining on the eastern side of the channel are caught unprepared for the mob that descends upon them; a couple of them try to resist, but they are quickly brought down, with the rest forced to flee for boats anchored beneath the bluffs.

  The bridge could be repaired, of course . . . but not until the following spring, when it would become possible to replace the suspension spans. The seasonal currents within East Channel would not permit restoration work before next year. New beams would have to be harvested from the few remaining stands of blackwood on the western side of New Florida. By then, the men and women of Forest Camp had escaped into the Midland wilderness, where they were met by Rigil Kent’s compatriots, eager to enlist those ready to defy the Western Hemisphere Union.

  Garcia was not among them.

  To this day, no one knows why he didn’t take the chance to escape. The cable car had been left intact for that very purpose; the moment he severed the ribbon, the plan called for him to run over to it, jump aboard, and race across the Narrows, going from tower to tower until he made his way to Midland.

  Instead, Garcia kept his back turned toward the bridge even as it was being ruined by his own hand and calmly waited for a couple of soldiers to put him under arrest and take him away. Perhaps he realized that any attempt to escape was futile, that he would have been shot before he made it to the first tower. Or perhaps, as others have speculated, there was only one way this particular poem could end.

  Whatever the reason, Garcia spent the next two days in the Liberty stockade, a windowless log cabin built by the original settlers. He was doubtless interrogated, and equally without doubt he told his interrogators everything that he knew, even though there was little useful information that he could have revealed; the bridge was ruined, his accomplices already vanished. Eyewitnesses would later say that the last time he was known to be alive was when the Matriarch and two Union Guards soldiers paid him a visit. A gunshot was heard, and the following morning it was announced that Garcia had hanged himself.

  James Alonzo Garcia
was buried in the Shuttlefield graveyard, beneath a tombstone that bore only his name. The bridge he built was eventually repaired, but it never bore the name of the Matriarch Luisa Hernandez, as she had intended. The locals know it as the Garcia Narrows Bridge.

  They also claim that, in the twilight hours just after the sun goes down behind the Eastern Divide, you can sometimes see him walking across it, as if admiring his creation one more time.

  Part 4

  THOMPSON’S FERRY

  “They’re coming.”

  Lars’s voice came to him as a whisper, carried by the subcutaneous implant within his left ear. Clark Thompson looked away from the windswept waters of the channel to peer up at the Eastern Divide. The limestone bluffs were slick with the rain that fell from the lead sky; he couldn’t see his nephew, but he knew Lars was hiding somewhere up there, watching the entrance to the Monroe Pass, the narrow river gorge that led through the Divide. Good. If he couldn’t see him, then no one else would either.

  Thompson touched the side of his jaw. “On foot?”

  “Skimmer. Too large to get through the pass, so they’re hiking the rest of the way in.”

  “How many?”

  “Ten . . . no, twelve. Wait a sec . . . make that fifteen.” A pause, marred by a thin ripple of carrier-wave static. “We’ve got a clear shot. Want us to drop ’em?”

  Fifteen Union Guard soldiers, arriving on an armored skimmer from Liberty. From their vantage point on the ridgeline, Lars and the four men with him could easily pick them off, no doubt about that. But the skimmer was doubtless equipped with a 30mm artillery gun, and the patrol was still on the other side of the Divide, well within radio range of Liberty; if Lars attacked too soon, the squad would have enough time to call for reinforcements while they turned the gun upon the ridge. Better to let them feel safe, at least until they made their way through the pass.

  “Hold your fire,” Thompson murmured, “but keep ’em in sight. Whatever you do, don’t let ’em see you.”

  “Got it. Out.” A thin beep as Lars disconnected.

  Cold rain pattered against the wide brim of his hat and seeped into his thick beard; it pelted the waters of the East Channel, raising a thin mist that obscured the figures standing on the pier next to the anchored ferry. It seemed as if everything had been cast in monochrome hues of black and grey: the colors of early Hanael, with summer a distant memory and winter only a few weeks away.

  Pulling his catskin poncho closer around himself, Thompson walked away from the town lodge, his boots crunching against sand and pebbles. The people gathered on the pier looked up as he marched down the wet planks toward them: four men and three women, with his younger nephew Garth standing nearby. Everyone looked wet and miserable, yet it wasn’t discomfort that he saw in their eyes, but fear.

  A tall young woman turned to him. “They’re after us, aren’t they?”

  Thompson nodded. “There’s a squad on the other side of the Divide. Guess the Matriarch doesn’t want to be deprived of her dinner music.”

  A couple of wan smiles. This wasn’t just another group of refugees from Shuttlefield, but the Coyote Wood Ensemble. Until a few days ago, they had been eight woodwind musicians, practicing their art together in peace, sometimes performing in public at the behest of the colonial governor. Then one of their group had made the mistake of composing a ribald song about Luisa Hernandez; someone had overheard the ensemble rehearsing it, with him singing the lyrics, and the following day he disappeared.

  So now the remaining members were on the run, and when you’re wanted by the Union Guard, there’s only one place to go, and only one way to get there. Many people had come before them, yet the moment they arrived in town and told him their story, Clark knew that this time would be different.

  Allegra DiSilvio shook her head within the hood of her waterlogged serape. “It’s not us they want,” the ensemble’s leader said quietly. “It’s her.”

  The older woman beside her didn’t seem to hear. Frail and grey-haired, her thin arms crossed tightly against her patched secondhand parka, she stared at the channel with blank eyes. A bamboo flute was clutched within her left hand; it seemed to Thompson that she was holding it for comfort, a shield against a cold and threatening world.

  “Sissy is . . .” Allegra hesitated, uncertain of herself. “Her son is Chris Levin, the Chief Proctor. If it weren’t for her, they probably wouldn’t care less, but . . .”

  Thompson held up a hand. “We don’t have time for this. My lookout says they’re on the way. It won’t take ’em long to get through the pass.”

  A small pile of duffel bags were bundled together on the raft next to the rotary winch. A canvas tarp had been laid across them; he stepped onto the ferry, knelt to tug at the rope that lashed them together. This was everything the group had with them when had they arrived in town early that morning, the sum total of their possessions. Stepping back onto the pier, Thompson looked at Garth. “Better get moving,” he said, then pointed to the biggest man in the group. “You got a strong back?” He nodded. “Good. Then help my boy with the winch. Four arms are better than two. Everyone else, climb aboard. Stay close to the middle and don’t rock the boat. Anyone who falls overboard is on their own . . . once you get going, he won’t have time to stop and pick up anyone.”

  The passengers glanced nervously at one another, but no one objected; one by one, they stepped off the pier onto the raft, finding seats upon the wet stack of duffel bags, with the man Thompson had picked as copilot taking a position next to the upright wheel of the winch. Allegra was the next-to-last person aboard; she helped Sissy step onto the raft, then she paused to look back at Thompson.

  “You still haven’t told us what the fare is,” she said.

  For the last two years, Thompson had charged everyone who used his ferry. Colonial scrip was useless because no one ever went back to Liberty or Shuttlefield; you paid with whatever you brought with you that could be spared, whether it be hand tools or guns, sleeping bags or spare clothes. The barter trade of outcasts.

  This time, though, Thompson shook his head. “Free ride,” he said quietly. “Next time I see you, we’ll work something out.”

  Allegra gazed back at him. “Is because we don’t have anything you want,” she replied, “or is it because we don’t have anything you need?”

  Thompson didn’t answer that question. He impatiently cocked his thumb toward the raft; without another word, she climbed aboard, settling in next to Sissy Levin.

  Garth was astonished. He’d never seen his uncle refuse payment. Before he could say anything, though, Thompson pulled his nephew aside, put his face next to the teenager’s ear. “Whatever you see or hear,” he whispered, “don’t turn back. Just keep going, and don’t turn back unless I tell you to.”

  The boy’s eyes went wide. “But what if they . . . ?”

  “You heard me. Rigil Kent will meet up with you on the other side. They know you’re coming. Leave the raft and go with them.”

  “But what about you and . . . ?”

  “We’ll be along soon enough. Don’t worry, we’ll find you.” Thompson clasped Garth’s elbow. “We always knew it would eventually come down to this. Now get along, and don’t come back unless you hear from me.”

  Garth’s mouth trembled; there was wetness against his face that might have been tears or only rain. He knew better than to argue, though, so he nodded once, then stepped onto the raft, taking his place on the other side of the wheel. Thompson slipped the loops of the mooring lines off the pier cleats, then planted the sole of his right foot against the raft and kicked it off. Garth and the other man grabbed the wheel handle and began to turn it hand over hand.

  Rainwater sluiced off the cable suspended six feet above the surface as it fed through the winch. A few seconds later, the raft was clear of the pier, slowly making its way across the channel toward the distant bluffs of the Midland Rise, half-seen through the rain and mist. The distance between New Florida and Midland was little m
ore than two miles; with luck, the ferry would get across before the soldiers arrived.

  Thompson didn’t watch it go. Instead, he quickly walked down the pier, then broke into a run once he reached the beach.

  He jogged up the back stairs of the lodge and pushed open the door. The main room was warm, a fire crackling within the stone hearth. It could have been lunchtime, with bowls of Molly’s redfish chowder laid out across the long blackwood table that ran down the center of the room.

  Yet there was no food today, only guns. On either side of the table, men and women were loading rifles they had taken from the hidden closet behind the bedroom where he and Molly slept. A few of the townspeople looked up as he came in, then they went back to fitting cartridges into the stocks and checking the sights of their scopes. No one said anything to him as he strode over to the storeroom that he’d made into his office.

  As he expected, Molly was there. Calm as ever, she was selecting ceramic jars of pickled fish from the shelves, packing them into crates. “I don’t know about these,” she said, as her husband came in. “I mean, they’re marked last April, but I opened one and it smells like it might have spoiled.” She picked up a jar, held it out to him. “What do you think . . . good or bad?”

  Molly. Good old Aunt Molly. She had never quite become accustomed to the LeMarean calendar, preferring to use the old Gregorian system. Yet nothing had ever spoiled while she was in charge of the community food supply, although she kept records only on strips of tape and within her own head.