“You never said where you’re from,” Jeryl said to Banner as he stabbed the meat with his fork.
“Rainbow Lake, Alberta. Though no one’s really from anywhere anymore.” Banner smiled.
“We’re from Eagle, Alaska.” I said it like a challenge. Jeryl gave me a look.
“So, how’s the game around here? You folks don’t look to be starving,” Banner said.
“We do all right.” Jeryl wiped his mustache with his hand.
“See many people come through here?”
“Nope,” Jeryl said. I looked at Jax. He kept his head down.
“It’s a tough life these days, huh?” Banner said.
Jeryl nodded.
“Yeah.” Banner didn’t seem to like silence. “Taking care of the horses has been the bitch of it. If you’ll excuse my language, ma’am.” He looked over at Mom. “Can’t grow crops when we’re on the road, so we have to give the horses what we can kill. They don’t like the meat all that much, but they’ll eat it. We traded for a barrel of grain a while back with some farmers, and they gobbled that down like candy.”
The phrase with some farmers simmered in the air. Any mention of more people, more settlements, got all our ears twitching. A world out there, full of other communities, living, eating, surviving. I wanted to go to them, see what there was to see. I could always come back if I wanted to. The cabin suddenly seemed too small.
“Many towns near here?” Jeryl asked, nonchalant.
Banner shook his head. “Not really. A week south, there’s a group living in a small abandoned town, doing their best to farm. Not much there. Maybe, oh, what? Twenty people?” Banner said, turning to Nayan, the East Indian.
“At least,” Nayan said.
“Yeah, well, they didn’t have much to do business with.”
“Suppose we don’t either,” Jeryl said. “We can give you a bit of elk to replace what we’ve eaten of your deer.”
“That’s kind of you, but we don’t really hurt for food. Nayan’s one hell of a hunter, and people, when we can find them, tend to give us free meals just for telling them about the world. Information is valuable these days.”
“Well, thank you then,” Jeryl said.
“We would, however, not mind a roof over our heads for the night.” My eyes jumped to Jax. I’m not sure why. For the first time, he wasn’t watching Banner or the men. He was looking at the door.
Silverware on plates. Coals hissing in the hearth. Jeryl looked up from the table. “Mind if I think on it? You can stay until then.”
“Not at all. That’d be just fine.”
After lunch, Jax, Jeryl, Ken, and I went outside with Banner and his crew so they could show us more of their wares. Turned out, they had more goodies in the cab. A few golden necklaces, rings, a watch that still worked, a compass, bug spray, bear spray, and a few porcelain ducks. Jeryl was interested in none of it, though he watched as if he were thinking about something.
“Nice to spice up your little cabins here,” Banner said, holding up one of the ducks. “In times like this, you gotta do everything you can to make your place feel like a home.” His eyes searched us, a thin smile bending his beard. “What about you?” he asked Jax.
Jax didn’t say anything.
“What can I tempt you with?”
“Don’t want anything.”
“Oh, everyone wants something. What was your name again?”
For a second, it seemed like he wasn’t going to respond. “Jax.”
“Jax? Huh. Think I knew a Jax once.” Banner’s smile turned strange. Too many teeth, not enough eyes. Nayan, Michael, and Johnson—the man with the red bandanna—came around from behind the bed of the truck and stood on either side of the horses. “You have family in Alberta?” Banner asked.
“Nope,” Jax said. Wolf sat next to him, snow and mud on his muzzle.
“You don’t happen to have a tattoo on your arm, do you?” Banner asked. He did have a tattoo. The numbers.
Something in the air shifted then. Something about the silence. Like the moment when the deer you’re hunting pauses and raises its ears in your direction. You didn’t make a sound, but the deer knows something is up. Like it can sense you.
“Sorry, just . . . I think the Jax that I’ve heard of was short for Jackson. I think he had a tattoo on his arm.”
Johnson put his hand on one of the horses while Ken rifled through the back of the truck.
Jax took a deep breath. I could see his shoulders rise and fall like something heavy was resting on his back. Wolf sprang to his feet. Then Jax jerked in a flurry of motion. An arm raised, a flash of silver. It was so quick, you would have missed it if you looked away for a second. Wolf barked, a single piercing echo.
Banner opened his mouth, but nothing came out. In the space between his chest and neck, a knife blossomed like a red flower. He staggered back and placed a hand on the hood of the truck, then folded over and slid to the ground.
For a moment, stillness—that emptiness before the deer decides to bolt.
Then all fucking hell broke loose.
* * *
Fear is a powerful thing.
I used to be afraid of the Yukon River, which ran through Eagle. Amanda from school—her dad drowned in the river when I was thirteen, a year after we left Chicago. He’d been drunk, so I supposed it was his fault, but in my mind, the river was now an enemy. A thing that took life. It looked so calm, so peaceful, flowing against the bank. But it wasn’t. It was angry and greedy and wanted to pull you under.
Ken made fun of me for being scared of water after that—“Grow some balls”—but Dad coaxed me into his truck and took me to the river. “You don’t have to go in,” he said. “Just watch it. You can learn a lot just by observing.” We threw sticks in it from afar and watched them float away. The next time he took me, we walked up to the bank. “How ’bout we just put our boots in this time, just a bit.” I held his hand tight. After a few more times, we put on fishing waders and waded out into a shallow section.
“That a girl,” he said. “You’ve got this.”
“I think that’s far enough.”
“That’s fine. But I know you can go farther.”
He believed in me. I didn’t want to let him down.
“Dad, I’m gonna drown.”
“No. No, you aren’t. Just take a deep breath. Don’t let the fear have control. You’re strong. Like me. And I won’t let you go under.”
“Promise?”
“Why don’t you promise me. Tell me you’re strong.”
“I’m strong,” I said, my voice a whisper.
“I’m not going to drown.” He held out his hand, and I took it. “Say it.”
“I’m not going to drown.”
“Promise?” he said.
“I promise.”
* * *
Jax ran at Jeryl. Jeryl started to bring his gun up, but Jax was too fast. There was a shuffle of bodies that ended with Jeryl’s gun in Jax’s hands. He planted his feet and raised the gun, and a shot echoed. The bullet slammed into Johnson’s head. Blood erupted behind him, landing in the snow like paint on a white canvas. The horse next to Johnson jumped up on its hind legs while the other attempted to spin away but got caught in its tethers. Nayan dove for the cab.
Jax was moving forward, firing again. This time, the bullet hit the side of the truck with a hollow clank. Then shots came from inside the cab. A spray of snow jumped up too close to my feet. That’s when I realized I needed to move, needed my bow. I ran toward the cabin just as Jeryl’s hand snapped around my wrist, pulling me with him in the same direction. More shots, bullets sinking into metal, into the ground, hollow thuds. Then something grabbed my other arm. No, not something. Someone. Jeryl’s fingers tore away, and I felt another man’s grip hold me tight, an arm wrapping around my body. I pulled out my knife and tried to swing, but the man twisted my wrist, and I dropped it. He drew his own knife and held it to my throat.
Jeryl was in front of me, his face
a mix of panic and anger; Ken emerged from his house, rifle in hand, pointing at the man over my shoulder. I saw Nayan cut the horses loose. One was thrashing on the ground, making a bloody mess of the snow. The other was still standing, stomping its hooves, a red stream flowing from its flank. While Jax was on the other side of the truck, the East Indian jumped on the still-standing horse and rode off as fast as he could, snow kicking up behind him. The cold blade pressed against me, and I could feel a single teardrop of blood slide down my neck.
“Dammit,” Jax said, running around from the side of the truck and taking aim at the fleeing horse. He pulled the trigger but there was only a metallic click. No ammo. Cursing again, he threw the gun in the snow, then turned to me. There was ice in his eyes.
That left Michael. The skullcap. He was the one holding me. I could feel his thick stomach pressing against my back, his beard scratching the side of my forehead. He smelled like sweat and mud and venison.
“Drop the gun, kid,” he said to Ken. “Drop it or I’ll fucking kill her.”
A sick, penetrating fear spread over every inch of my skin. With a simple decision, a moment of panic or desperation, and a flick of the wrist, this man could slit my throat as easy as opening a ziplock bag. My pinned arms started to shake. But there was a part of me that felt removed. Like I knew there was no way he could kill me, like it couldn’t possibly end like this, like maybe it wasn’t really happening. Things like this didn’t happen in the real world. I wasn’t being held captive. I wasn’t about to die. Take a breath. God, please, I wasn’t about to die. Then Jax started walking toward us.
“Stop it right there,” Michael said. “One more step and I cut her.” Jax took one more step, then another. His eyes never left Michael’s. He crouched down and picked up my knife I’d dropped in the snow, my Hän knife. “Drop it, drop the fucking knife!”
Jax didn’t drop it. He straightened and stilled, standing like he had no intention of ever moving again. Then he threw the knife. It spun. Who knew how many times or for how long. An eternity. A second. It landed in Michael’s eye. His head jerked back, like he was staring up at the sky, looking for clouds, the sun, the moon, falling snowflakes. Then his body dropped, lifeless. The white powder parted as if it had been expecting him. Red streams flowed from his eye into the white, white snow. Wolf panted somewhere nearby.
Jax looked at me, a hard, blue-eyed gaze. “He was never going to kill you,” he said. He was a stranger all over again. He’d taken three lives as if it were nothing. I thought he was about to say something more, but he turned in the direction Nayan had disappeared with the horse. And that’s when Jeryl slammed the butt of his gun into Jax’s face, knocking him instantly to the ground.
– Part II –
The Great White North
* * *
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise.
—WALT WHITMAN
12
The first time I heard about Immunity was on TV. I was sixteen. Just before we left Eagle. The flu had started to spread that year. It quickly went from a small-town concern to a country epidemic to a worldwide pandemic. Eagle, Alaska, hadn’t been touched yet, but people were starting to talk around town, which is weird because Eagle is so far removed, the rest of the world feels like something you read about in stories or hear about on the news.
But I remember seeing them on TV. Men in suits with a white star pinned to their jackets. Immunity. They were talking about the flu, vaccinations, cures, the end of the world. I watched my dad’s face. He was so quiet, eyes on the screen, not blinking.
That’s when it started to happen. At least, the first I remember of it.
Dad staring off into space.
Dad in the basement.
Dad disappearing for long periods of time.
* * *
What the hell are you doing? That’s what I was thinking as I watched Jeryl strike Jax. He just saved my life! But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. I couldn’t summon the energy or anger—not yet anyway—as Jeryl stepped over Jax, surveying his motionless body.
I think I was in shock. Why? I was numb. Gray. Foggy. I wasn’t even shaking. My hands always trembled after something traumatic. It was a curse. They weren’t now, but I could feel the shakes coming. Like they were bubbling under my skin, just looking for a way out.
I knelt in the snow next to Michael’s body. My knife sheathed in his eye. It made a sucking sound as I pulled it out. Pllllllllluck. Then a single purple bubble of blood popped and spilled down the side of his head. I cleaned the blade in the snow, pressing it against the tiny, frozen granules—the sound of a thousand pebbles rolling down an endless glass window.
My knife had been bloody before. Countless times. Cutting into animal flesh, guts, and even small bones. I’d wipe it off in the snow, leaving trails of bright, bright red against the powdery white. But every time, it had been an animal’s blood. The kill had meant food. Meat. Nothing more. Sorry, elk; sorry, deer; sorry, moose, squirrel, crow, marten. A girl’s gotta eat.
My knife had never been smeared with human blood before.
I heard Jeryl order Ken and Ramsey to help him with Jax, but it barely registered. I was listening to my blade sliding, watching the red marks it made in the snow. I was afraid that if I looked up, the brittle world would shatter. Then Mom was in front of me, a concerned look on her face. She’d asked me something, I had no idea what.
“Are you hurt?” She said it louder the second time. Her hands were on my shoulders, my face, making sure I was still in one piece.
“I’m fine,” I said, suddenly tired. I felt like I could have dropped back in the snow and fallen asleep right then and there. I didn’t even have the energy to push her hands away.
“You’re bleeding.” She pointed to my neck. “Let’s put something on it.” Her voice was a little shaky. The boys had tied up Jax and were now dragging his body into Jeryl’s cabin.
“Where are they taking him?” I asked, starting to come back to the world.
“Come on, Gwendolynn, let’s get you inside.”
“He saved me,” I said, letting Mom put her arms around my shoulders and help me to my feet.
My legs wobbled, my head spun, and I almost fell. Mom held me upright. We walked back to the cabin, one step at a time, avoiding the bloody patches of snow.
* * *
There was the problem of the bodies.
Three of them and a horse. Large, fleshy masses filled with meat and blood and bone, growing harder by the second.
We couldn’t bury them, of course. The ground was too hard.
We could burn them, but we’d have to do it a fair distance away and with a big enough and hot enough fire. That would cost us a lot of effort, a lot of firewood, and would make a smoke signal the size of the Eiffel Tower. Not that I’ve ever seen the Eiffel Tower, but I’ve seen pictures—I get it. And after everything, Jeryl didn’t want to draw any more attention to our location. Which was just as well. Have you ever smelled burning flesh and hair?
There was also the river. Easy. But the current wasn’t strong enough this time of year and there was too much ice. So likely they’d sit, fester. Who knows what a dead body does to a river’s ecosystem. We needed that ecosystem and that water.
That left the obvious choice. The gorge. The gorge was half a mile west of us, between the jutting limestone ridges. A deep crevice at the base of a large hill, it was where we threw the leftovers from our kills. Bones, guts, hooves, hides. It was a regular vulture, crow, and wolverine wonderland. Ken and I called it the wasteland, the cemetery, or the badlands. The snow froze most of the smell in the winter, but during the spring, if we got a good westerly wind—and if we’d made a fresh kill—we could smell it from our cabins.
We left the horse to be butchered later—meat was meat, after all—and we used my sled to carry the bodies to the gorge. It felt a little wrong. Whether they deserved a burial or not, these dead traders—or whatever they were—had once been some
one’s sons. But it was our best option. It was a weird sight, watching the bodies crash down the more-than-thirty-foot slope, rolling and gathering snow as they went.
We pushed the truck out of the way too. Jeryl said he’d figure out a use for it, maybe tear it apart and build something. It didn’t get far, but at least it wasn’t sitting in the middle of our camp. Still, we had to look at it. A reminder.
We were shoveling bloody snow out from between the cabins when we saw Conrad’s large, dark form coming from the south.
“Well, shit,” Ken said.
I bit my tongue, felt a fire in my stomach.
Jeryl stepped in front of us and raised a hand at the big man.
Conrad had his rifle slung over his shoulder, walking toward us with his fat belly leading the way.
“Goddamn,” he said, looking down at the smattering of bloody snow. “What the hell happened? I heard the shots.”
Jeryl wiped at his mustache with his arm. His gloves were covered in blood. Whatever had passed between the two of them regarding my deer, it didn’t show on their faces now. “Had a bad run-in with some travelers.”
“No shit. What’d they do?” There wasn’t anything accusatory in his deep voice, but still, I didn’t like him prying. Leave us alone, jackass. Go rot away in your little cabin.
“Got pushy about selling us their goods,” Jeryl said. “They had guns and, well, things escalated.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“And you killed them all?” Conrad asked, eyebrows arching.
“Yeah,” Jeryl said. I waited for him to say something about Jax and was relieved when he didn’t.
Conrad locked eyes with me for a second. I saw his mouth split into the hint of a smile. “Where they come from?”
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