The Seeds of Man

by William C. Dietz

Smoke began to shout as her horse skidded to a halt. “They got Fade! Come on . . . We need to save her.”

  Crow reached out to grab hold of the horse’s bridle. “They? Who?“

  Smoke was frantic and the words seemed to tumble out of her mouth. “There’s a civil war battlefield on the other side of the pass. Tanks, armored personnel carriers, you name it. They’re scattered all over the place. There wasn’t any activity, none that we could see, so we rode in. That was when one of the tank people popped out of an armored personnel carrier and threw himself at Fade. They hit the ground together, and I was going to help, when two of them ran out in front of me. I shot one in the face and kicked the other. By then a couple of them had hold of Fade and were taking her away. That’s why I came for help.”

  “You did the right thing,” Crow assured her. “Don’t worry, we’ll get Fade back. Do you know where she is?”

  “No, but they were taking her west. So it will be over that way.”

  “Okay. Knife, Sticks, listen up. Here’s what I want you to do.”

  As Tre listened to the plan, his heart began to beat faster. Could he do it? Crow thought so . . . And if Knife had doubts, he was keeping them to himself.

  The key, according to Crow, was stealth. He, along with the rest of the group, would follow the highway to the edge of the battlefield, where they would try to make contact with the tank people. Meanwhile, Smoke would lead Knife and Tre over the mist-shrouded hill on the right. Once on the other side, they would be at the northern edge of the battlefield. Then, after securing their horses, they would slip into the maze of shot-up vehicles and find Fade.

  Knife and Tre followed Smoke south, up onto the nearly featureless hill, and into the mist. They were traveling fast—too fast for Tre, who feared that he would fall and his break his neck. But old Willie was sure-footed if nothing else, and he survived the journey. “Remember,” Smoke said as they tied their horses to a bush. “Keep it quiet. Don’t use guns unless you have to.”

  Knife was wearing his Samurai sword slung across his back and had half a dozen other blades stashed about his person. Tre had a couple of improvised fighting sticks that he’d been working on for the last week or so, plus a knife and the nine-shot .22 Magnum revolver that had been recovered from Brute’s body.

  Smoke led the way and Tre was impressed. She was fast and graceful and seemed to flow from place to place, much like the substance she was named for. Knife came second. His movements were quick, precise, and carefully calculated.

  Visibility was limited, but Tre could tell that the terrain on the south side of the hill was flat, the perfect place for armored vehicles to clash. He didn’t realize they were in among the wrecks until a rain-shrouded hulk appeared on his right. The battle tank was huge, but judging from the fire-blackened hole in its turret, something had been powerful enough to penetrate even its thick armor.

  Rain rattled on metal and gravel crunched under their boots as the bandits dashed from wreck to wreck, pausing every now and then to look and listen. It was during one of those moments that two tank people rounded a truck and ran into them. There was a moment of confusion and Tre found himself face-to-face with what looked like a cave man. Except that the caves he lived in were made of steel. The tank man’s face registered surprise as Tre shoved a stick up a nostril and rammed the other rod into a mouth full of rotting teeth. He was choking on it when Smoke jerked his head back and slit his throat. “Enough screwing around. Let’s find Fade.”

  Tre looked for Knife and saw him standing over a headless corpse, sword in hand. He wiped the blade clean. Then they were off again, zigzagging from one vehicle to the next, when the fake negotiations broke down and the firefight began. Neither side wanted to use any more ammo than necessary, so what Tre heard was a flurry of single shots. That was when a witchlike creature dropped off a tanker truck onto Knife’s back. She had her legs wrapped around his waist and was about to claw his eyes when Tre jerked her loose.

  Water splashed as she hit a puddle, made a screeching sound, and was silenced as both sticks struck her head. “Come on!” Smoke shouted. “Follow me!“

  They ran side by side toward a boxy vehicle that was fronted by a fire pit and a sitting area protected by an old tarp. Poles of various lengths had been stuck into the ground, each topped by a human skull.

  Two tank men were stationed in front of a tracked command post and raised their weapons as the bandits charged them. A shot rang out, a geyser of mud shot up, and Tre threw one of the fighting sticks like a spear. It hit the rifleman in the chest but did no harm. It was enough to prevent a follow-up shot, however, and gave Tre time to close with him. They collided, and as Tre grappled with his opponent, he could smell the other man’s rank body odor.

  Wiry fingers wrapped themselves around Tre’s neck and began to choke off his air supply. Tre brought both forearms straight up to break the hold, kneed the other man in the groin, and snapped his head forward. The fight was over. All the strength went out of the tank man’s knees and he collapsed.

  Tre stepped back, looked to the left, and saw a body lying on the ground. A muddy head lay nearby. It was faceup, staring at the sky. Knife nodded. “Nice job, Sticks . . . but try some cold steel next time.”

  “She’s alive!” Smoke announced as she escorted Fade out of the command vehicle. “They were planning to eat her.”

  Tre was thrilled to see the scout but went for his pistol as a man appeared behind her. “Don’t shoot!” Fade said. “That’s the Deacon . . . He was a prisoner as well.”

  Tre took his hand off the .22 as all three of them made their way down a wooden ramp. Fade was disheveled and thirsty but otherwise okay. The Deacon had stringy hair, a bald pate, and bright blue eyes. An upside-down cross had been tattooed on the center of his forehead, and when he spoke he touched the symbol as if doing so would testify to the veracity of what he said. “Thank you! Thank you, Lord!” he said fervently. “For you have delivered me from the hands of evil into the arms of the good.”

  Crow arrived at that point, along with the rest of the gang. They were on horseback. A rare smile appeared on the bandit’s face when he saw Fade. “Are you okay?”

  Fade nodded. “Sorry, I feel stupid.”

  Crow shook his head. “It could have happened to anybody. All right, let’s collect anything worth collecting and get out of here. This place reeks.”

  The next two days passed without major incident. The rain stopped by the time they passed Soda Springs, a fortified town similar to Afton. Armed riders emerged to challenge the gang and continued to dog them all the way to the Bancroft turnoff. The night was spent at the Lava Hot Springs. The resort lay in ruins, but there were still plenty of pools to choose from, and the bandits took hot baths, a truly wondrous luxury.

  They passed through the bombed-out ruins of Pocatello the next day. At some point during the civil war, the once proud city had been reduced to a lunar landscape of overlapping craters, gaping basements, and rubble-filled streets. Tre wondered why but knew the people who could tell him were dead.

  The scouts located Interstate 86 without too much difficulty and led the group south. There was some traffic, but not much, and what there was consisted of hikers and travelers on bicycles and in horse-drawn carts, any of which could have been theirs for the taking. But Crow insisted that they be left untouched, and that gave Tre reason to hope. Maybe, just maybe, Crow would deliver on his promises.

  It was late afternoon by the time they arrived at what was, according to a dilapidated sign, “MASSACRE ROCKS STATE PARK.” The land was dry and arid in spite of the fact that the Snake River bordered the park. What growth there was consisted of grass, scrub, and clumps of trees. If one looked closely, it was still possible to make out the foundation of what had been the visitor center, parking lots that were drifted with windblown soil, and the well-trod path that led to the distinctive pile of rocks. “Well, there they are,” Crow said matter-of-factly as the group led their horses up to the formation. “So w
here do we dig?”

  That, Tre realized, was a very good question. More than fifty years of weather had erased any signs that Marley and her MPs might have left. But it seemed reasonable to make certain assumptions. The soldiers had been in a hurry, so that suggested a reasonably accessible spot. And since level ground would make it easier to dig, Tre figured they could ignore any sort of slope. Finally given the time constraint the troops had been working under, it seemed safe to assume that the cache wouldn’t be more than four or five feet deep. He looked at Crow. “I’ll take a look around, mark what I think are the most likely spots, and bring you back to take a look.”

  Crow nodded. “Let’s pick a site before sunset. We’ll start digging first thing in the morning.”

  So while the rest of them made camp, Tre walked the ground. Even with the parameters he had set for himself, it was a daunting task. Finally, after a good deal of wandering about, Tre drove three stakes into the ground. Site one was directly below the rock formation and the point from which the photo in the history book had been taken.

  Site two was a little farther away but would have been easy to reach with a vehicle. Marley had been in a hurry, so why carry heavy boxes if they didn’t have to?

  Site three was flat and easy to get to, but it had another virtue as well, and that was the fact that the ground was bare of vegetation, even though grass grew all around. Was something buried just under the surface? Tre thought so. But, having probed the ground with a steel rod, he was pretty sure that the object was a large rock formation rather than a cache of weapons.

  Crow took the tour just before sunset and approved Tre’s choices. Then it was time for dinner and, due to the Deacon’s presence, there was another mouth to feed. He was free to leave but didn’t want to—and no wonder. Without weapons or gear, he wouldn’t last long. So Crow had allowed the Deac to stay, with the understanding that he would have to prove himself if he wanted to join the gang.

  The night passed peacefully, and by the time the sun rose, Hog had breakfast ready. Smoke, Fade, and Freak were slated to act as lookouts. The rest of them took their tools and trooped to site one. Crow insisted on taking the first swing with a pick and did so with the fury of someone attacking an enemy. He was bushed ten minutes later and happy to surrender the tool to Bones.

  The medic was more methodical, and as he broke ground, Tre and Knife were there to shove the loose dirt out of the way. They were making progress, but there were lots of rocks to contend with, and Tre was frustrated by how long the process took.

  Finally, with Hog on the pick and Deacon wielding a shovel, they had a four-foot-deep hole and nothing to show for it. “We’ll dig side trenches,” Crow said bleakly. “There and there.”

  Three hours of backbreaking work followed and the results were no better. All of them felt disappointed as they made their way back to camp, but Tre most of all. The whole exercise seemed stupid now, and he wanted to break it off. But they had come a long way and he was determined to see the process through.

  It seemed as if every muscle in Tre’s body was sore when he got up to stand guard duty in the middle of the night and when he rose the following morning. And judging from the way other people moved, they felt the same way.

  In marked contrast to the day before, most of the bandits were silent as they trudged to site number two and began to dig. And dig and dig. But just as Tre was beginning to think that site two was going to be just like site one, the Deacon made an interesting observation. “No rocks today,” he said as he wiped the sheen of sweat off his forehead. “Thank the Lord.”

  Tre heard the words, realized what they might mean, and went over to inspect the pile of excavated dirt. That was when he realized that the Deacon was right. There were lots of small stones, but there were none of the larger rocks they had been dealing with the day before. Was that a matter of chance? Or had someone dug there before and heaved the big stuff off to one side? There were some sizable rocks lying around on the surface. “Let’s keep digging,” Tre said. “I have a good feeling about this one.”

  About twenty minutes later the pick struck half-rotten wood and broke through. “We found it!” Bones enthused. “Come on . . . Let’s dig it out.”

  There was a flurry of activity as everyone tried to help, got in one another’s way, and eventually sorted themselves out. As Tre watched, he felt a pleasant tightness in his chest. He’d been right! The trip was a success. But what sort of weapons did they have? And how about ammo? He could hardly wait to find out.

  Wood splintered and nails screeched as they were removed. As the lid came off people crowded in to see. Bones was the first person to react. “What the hell?”

  Tre was rendered speechless as he looked down at the skeleton. There were some scraps of leathery skin, but the rest of the person’s flesh had rotted away, leaving nothing but white bone. A few remnants of a uniform were visible, but most of that was gone too. “Somebody shot him in the head,” Crow observed dispassionately. “Dead center.”

  “May God have mercy on his soul,” the Deacon said as he touched the cross on his forehead.

  “It was an execution,” Knife said. “That’s my theory.”

  “Could be,” Crow agreed. “What if they captured one of Marley’s men and he led them here?”

  “Not that it matters,” Hog put in. “He’s dead and the weapons are gone.”

  Tre surprised all of them by jumping down into the grave. Then, having straddled the skeleton, he drew his knife. A bit of poking around turned up part of a collar with a silver bar on it, a belt buckle, and a few coins.

  But then, as Tre sought to reposition himself, he felt something give. Further investigation revealed a camo-covered military knapsack, which he tossed up to Knife. After climbing out of the hole, he went over to watch as Crow removed the contents. There was a laptop computer, a binder full of plastic-covered sheets of paper, and a handful of personal items. “This stuff is worthless,” Crow said disgustedly as he opened the computer and tapped on the keyboard. “We’ll leave in the morning.” Then, having left everything on a slab of rock, he walked away.

  The rest of them followed. And even though they didn’t say anything, Tre knew they blamed him. Was that fair? No, of course not. But that was how things were.

  “Lieutenant Greg Nulty.” That was, according to the name on the binder, the dead man’s name. And since no one else was going to do it, Tre assigned himself the job of refilling the grave. It was the least he could do.

  Once that task was complete, Tre sat down to look at the contents of the three-ring binder. He could see why the people who shot Nulty had thrown it away. The operations manual was thick, filled with jargon, and the definition of boring.

  So he turned his attention to the computer. Predictably enough, it was dead. But the Samsung NC215S was equipped with a solar panel, so there was a chance that Tre could bring it back to life later on. And, even if he couldn’t, the machine was packed with valuable parts.

  The pack wasn’t worth keeping, so Tre left that and took the rest back to a very subdued encampment. Crow was off by himself somewhere, and the rest of them were taking care of chores, napping, or playing cards. So with nothing else to do, Tre sat down and began to page through the binder. The contents were boring, and Tre was about to put the notebook down, when he came across a section titled “SUPPLY CHAIN CONTINGENCY PLANNING: PRE-POSITIONED SUPPLY MODULES.”

  Tre had never been in the military and found it difficult to wade through some of the mumbo jumbo, but he stuck to it and was eventually glad that he had. It seemed that back in 2014 there had been plans to drop special operations teams into wilderness areas. Once in place, they were to launch hit-and-run attacks against Republican targets. But first, before the teams went in, each “operating area” was to be presupplied with a so-called Wolverine Package, meaning everything the group would need for ninety days.

  All of which was interesting. But the real so-what was on a much-folded road map that had been inserted
into the binder. Once Tre spread it out, he saw that the letters “WPs” had been added to top of the page. “WP” as in “Wolverine Package”? He thought so. And there were five dots on the map with coordinates scrawled next to them. As Tre eyed the map, he saw that the closest supply module was located in a blank spot near Pauline, Idaho, a community located southeast of Massacre Rocks.

  Tre felt his heart beat just a little bit faster. Had the supply modules been delivered and used? Or were they still there waiting for special ops troops who never arrived? If so, even one Wolverine Package could yield enough supplies to keep the gang going for months. But how likely was that? The odds against finding such a package were exceedingly long. So what to do? Take the information to Crow or save himself further embarrassment?

  Tre thought about it for a long time before closing the binder and getting to his feet. He found Crow sitting on the ground leaning against a boulder. He was cleaning a pistol. He looked up. “What do you want?”

  “I’ve been going through the binder,” Tre replied, “and I found something.”

  Crow frowned. “What is it this time? A rainbow and a pot of gold?”

  “No. A container filled with military supplies.”

  Crow sighed. “Look, Sticks, I know you mean well, but we’re up against some hard realities. Hog says we’re running out of food. And not just here. Back at the mine too. That’s our first priority . . . finding food. We can’t afford to chase possibilities.”

  “These aren’t possibilities,” Tre insisted stubbornly. “They’re real.”

  “Okay,” Crow said wearily, “make your pitch.”

  So Tre did, being careful to go over all the documentation, including the map. “The odds suck,” Crow said once the presentation was over. “You know that.”

  “Yes. But have you got a better plan?”

  The direct challenge came as a surprise to both of them. Anger flared in Crow’s eyes. “Watch your mouth, boy . . . and don’t give me that ‘I’m twenty years old’ crap. This conversation is over.”