After The Fires Went Out: Coyote atfwo-1

by Regan Wolfrom

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Justin said. “That was out of line.”

  “I’m thirty seconds away from kicking your ass,” I said.

  “Just get her boots off…”

  “I’m not going to do it.”

  “She’ll come around…she just needs some time to think on it.”

  “I’m not tying her up,. That’s final.”

  “Then this whole plan is dead in the water.”

  “It is.”

  “I won’t accept that.”

  “You will.”

  He tried to stare me down. It felt like hours.

  “Fuck this shit,” he said.

  He threw the pink keychain to the ground and then he walked away.

  Lisa almost laughed at me. “It’s a terrible deal,” she said as she checked out the supplies in the back of the truck.

  “And a breach of trust,” Katie said.

  Sky and Graham didn’t add anything, but I could tell they agreed.

  “I didn’t know what else to try,” I said. “We’re out of options.”

  I looked over to Kayla. She looked down at her feet.

  She was keeping her promise.

  “Whoever wants to go should be allowed to go,” Lisa said. “Honestly, Kayla, I’m surprised you got involved with this waste of time. You know me better than this.”

  Kayla didn’t answer.

  “It wouldn’t matter if you offered us both Mossbergs and all three sets of armour,” Graham said. “We’re not leaving anyone behind. Well, anyone who doesn’t want to be left.”

  “Anyone who goes with you is signing their life away,” I said. “I don’t feel bad for trying to save lives.”

  “So self-righteous,” Lisa said. “It’s not attractive, Baptiste.”

  “Just be careful, guys.”

  I turned to leave.

  “You’re going?” Graham asked.

  “You don’t need me to supervise,” I said. “You get one vest, one helmet, and one shotgun. I don’t care about the rest. Just take what you can carry.”

  “Wait, Baptiste,” Katie said. She walked up to me and held out her hand. She was holding a small box. “Laneradine, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s not much…maybe a month’s worth…but it’s all I could find in our stores.” She handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I managed to say. “I hope I can keep me and my people alive long enough to use these.”

  “Thank you, Katie,” Kayla said.

  She gave Katie a hug.

  And then Sky. And Graham. And finally Lisa.

  “I love you,” Kayla said.

  “I love you, too,” Lisa said. “That means something.”

  “I know it does.”

  Kayla walked over to me and reached for my hand.

  I hoped it wasn’t just for show.

  They left just before sunset. Nineteen people total, seventeen of them from McCartney Lake.

  They took Tremblay’s truck and the plow, one of the Mossbergs, and one set of body armour and riot gear. They took some supplies, but on the whole we’re left with more per person now that they’ve gone.

  Kayla stayed with me as we’d waited for them to leave, and she’s still with me now.

  Every so often I run my fingers along her back and she gently moans.

  I’m finding it hard to believe that she’s moved on from what I tried to do.

  Maybe she just doesn’t know what to do with me.

  11

  Today is Thursday, January 17th.

  Justin showed up before sunrise with his phone in his hand.

  Kayla and I were in the living room.

  “Alain left me a message with Marc’s old phone,” he said. “It’s for you, I’d say.”

  “They need help,” I said.

  “They need help. The Souls have them trapped on 101. Said by the time he saw the roadblock they’d dropped another one in behind them.”

  “Let me see.”

  He handed me the phone.

  “You tried calling him?”

  “Signal’s too weak right now. Too much snow.”

  “This came through ten minutes ago…now there’s too much snow?”

  “Try it yourself. Call him.”

  I pressed for Marc’s phone.

  “Won’t even ring,” Justin said.

  “What will make it ring?”

  “Higher ground, maybe.”

  “We don’t have any of that.”

  “We might,” Kayla said. “And it’s further east…by Norembega…that helps, right?”

  Justin shook his head. “So you two want us to waste fuel trying to get a signal from a guy who willingly split from us?”

  “That sums it up,” I said. “Isn’t that what your electric shitbox is for?”

  “They’ll be dead before we get there.”

  “Then we won’t have to feel like we didn’t try.”

  The three of us went together toward Norembega, driving in the ruts we’d carved on our cart trips to Helena, with Kayla crammed in the tiny back seat even though she was the navigator. I appreciated the sentiment, as I’m not sure I could have fit back there.

  We reached the junction to Norembega and Helena.

  “Turn left,” Kayla said.

  “We can’t cut through that much snow,” Justin said. “No one’s driven there since the snow fell.”

  “We’ll have to walk,” I said. “How far, Kayla?”

  “Not far,” she said. “You can see it from here.” She pointed to a rocky outcrop covered in snow.

  “You won’t get a signal,” Justin said.

  “Just give me the phone,” I said.

  “I’m coming with you,” Kayla said.

  Together we jogged up the road toward the little mountain.

  The road curved to the left. We moved off into the snow and made our way through the trees.

  At some points the ground became so steep that we had to grip the pine trees like handrails.

  We didn’t stop until we’d climbed to the top.

  And there I found a signal.

  I pushed for Marc’s phone.

  And Alain answered.

  “They’re just waiting by the junction with 572,” he said. “They know we’re stuck. I guess they figure we’ll just give ourselves up if they wait long enough. They’re probably right.”

  “Are you sure it’s The Souls?” I said.

  “I’m sure. There’s at least twenty of them at the roadblock now.”

  “At both roadblocks? Total?”

  “No. In front of us. Twenty in front and I don’t know how many behind.”

  “You need to find out.”

  “We need your help, Baptiste.”

  “I’m at least two hours away.”

  “We’ll try to hold out.”

  “Do that.”

  I ended the call.

  I looked over to Kayla.

  “They’re all going to die,” I said.

  “We’ve got to try to reach them.”

  “I know.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  She started back down the little mountain.

  I struggled to keep up.

  “I’m coming with you,” Kayla said as Justin rushed us back to McCartney Lake.

  “I can’t let you do that,” I said.

  “Well, I’m not going,” Justin said, “so there’s a slot available.”

  “You’d turn their back on them?” Kayla asked.

  “They turned first. I’m not risking my family’s life on people who chose how they’d die.”

  “I think that’s valid,” I said. “I’m not sure I want to die for these people either.”

  “So we just leave them there?” Kayla asked.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Hopefully before we get down there.”

  When we got back to McCartney Lake I started collecting the gear. Riot suits, vests, helmets…snowshoes t
o deliver our surprise to The Souls…I’d made sure to include my trusty guitar case; I still had rounds enough to cause some damage.

  Kayla went to grab some food and water for the trip.

  Once we were packed she asked me to drive over to the shed by Fiona and Gwyneth’s cottage.

  We went inside the shed and she started pulling out the tackle boxes.

  “Might as well bring all of the explosives,” she said. “If we don’t make it back, it’s not like Fiona’s going to find a use for this crap.”

  “I had some of this earmarked for Detour Lake,” I said.

  “We’ll worry about that later.”

  I nodded.

  And I started loading the tackle boxes into the truck.

  Fiona came out to see what was happening.

  “They need our help,” I said.

  “You’re really going?” she asked.

  “We are.”

  “Both of you?”

  “I think I can be of use,” Kayla said.

  Fiona walked over to her. “Be careful, Kayla,” she said. She gave her a hug. “I don’t want to lose my arch nemesis.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Kayla said. “We won’t do anything stupid.”

  “This whole trip is something stupid,” I said.

  Fiona walked over to me. “Don’t let anything happen to her,” she said. “Or to you.” She reached up and kissed me on the cheek.

  I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close to me. “I love you, Fiona,” I said. “Don’t ever forget that.”

  “Then make sure you get your butt back here to remind me.”

  We put on our riot suits and vests and then we went up to Hwy 652, the fuel gauge getting so close to empty that I knew we might get the warning light before we even reached Hwy 101. If that happened, the only way we’d get home would be if we could take some of Katie and Sky’s biodiesel.

  If we didn’t reach them in time, there was a chance we’d be stranded in Souls of Flesh territory with just enough food for a picnic lunch.

  That would be a long and hungry walk back to McCartney Lake.

  From 652 we took the road that led to Iroquois Falls, following in the ruts that our former lakemates had made.

  I’d seen from the map that we needed to turn just before the steel bridge over the upper Abitibi, but I decided that I needed to see if that bridge was still there.

  And from the turnoff I couldn’t tell.

  I drove up a little further, through untracked snow that made me a little nervous of getting stuck. But we had weight on our side, as long as I didn’t get sucked into the ditch.

  The gray steel truss bridge started at the riverbank, but didn’t make it across. It looked like whatever they’d used to blow it up had been planted at the base of a pier just off the far side of the bank. The span had fallen there, landing on the bank.

  In theory, you could climb across if you weren’t afraid of heights or drowning, but there was no way to get a car across.

  I guess that’s all that mattered to the ones who blew it up.

  We backtracked to Twin Falls road, heading southeast to the hydro dam along the same ruts in the snow. No one had bothered to blow that crossing up, and I didn’t even have to slow down as we drove across the long tail of Lake Abitibi.

  We reached the concession roads outside of the town of Matheson, and we started counting.

  We turned left onto the third road, heading due east, following the tracks.

  As we passed the next road junction I noticed more tracks heading south.

  “There’s other traffic here,” I said. “Probably The Souls. Helmets.”

  Kayla passed me a helmet before she put hers on. “I hope you’re just being paranoid.”

  “I’m not sure you can be paranoid when the whole world’s out to get you.”

  We reached the end of the road. The tracks stopped.

  I stopped the truck.

  “Looks like they turned around,” I said. “But there’s supposed to be a turnoff.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “Check the map.”

  “The map is wrong.”

  “What?”

  She handed me the tablet.

  “There’s no road here,” she said. “Maybe there was a road at one point, like a couple of ruts or something…but it’s long gone.”

  “We’ll have to get that much closer to Matheson.”

  “Do we know what’s there?”

  “Can’t be anything good. It’s too close to Timmins to be left alone. It’s no wonder The Souls seemed to know they were coming.”

  “If that’s true, they’ll see us coming.”

  “We’ll find another way.”

  I switched the aerial view, and zoomed in.

  “Machinery road,” I said. “Right there.” I pointed to a small line of brown the led all the way to 101.

  “We don’t have a plow anymore. We’ll get stuck.”

  “We might. Better than getting seen.”

  “This truck weighs like a ton.”

  “Well…it’s a one ton truck, but it probably clocks in at almost five thousand kilos.”

  “If it gets stuck we can’t just push it out.”

  “That’s true.”

  If we got stuck, we’d be stuck. The only way to pull a one-ton truck out of trouble was with another truck. And we only had the one.

  “We’re going to have to risk it,” I said.

  “The machinery road?”

  “Getting seen. For all we know, we’ve already been seen. Or no one was seen, and they keep that roadblock ready 24/7.”

  I carefully turned the truck around and we headed back.

  We took the other road heading south, following the tracks which now seemed to have belonged to the Marchands and Tremblays et. al.

  We reached 101. I could see that The Fires had burned every tree and building along the well-plowed two-lane highway. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved, if scorched earth and skeletons of pine and birch was a sign that there was no one there to spot us.

  We turned left and headed toward the blockade.

  It would be less than ten minutes before we met the first roadblock.

  “We’ll need to surprise them,” I said. “Do you see a way to get close to 572 without being seen?”

  Kayla peered over the tablet. “Another machinery road. I doubt they’re even guarding it.”

  “They might not have to, depending on if there are any trees left over there.”

  “No good?”

  “I didn’t say that. Where do I go?”

  “Turn right on Birch Road.”

  “Where’s Birch Road?” I asked. We couldn’t rely on a legible sign still standing, not when everything else had burned away.

  “Not this next one…the one after it.”

  I kept driving to the next junction.

  “This one’s plowed,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  I took the gravel road toward the south.

  “Now turn left,” she said at the next intersection.

  The plow had turned left, too, leaving the other two directions to the snow.

  I could see the green of living trees pushing through the black and gray stalks of dead pine.

  Then I saw a yardsite.

  “See any smoke coming from those buildings?” I asked.

  “Yeah…I see some…”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Goddammit. That’s why they’ve plowed.”

  The road curved up ahead, around what looked to be a lake.

  “There’s a couple houses on this lake,” Kayla said with her gaze on the tablet. “Looks nice.”

  “Looks like the perfect place for murderers to kick back and relax.”

  “Oh…crap…”

  “I need you to be honest with me, Kayla. Do you know how to shoot?”

  She nodded. “My ex used to take me hunting. Want
ed me to learn how…I never did hit anything.”

  I stopped the truck. “Your turn to drive.”

  As Kayla took the wheel I checked the Mossberg; I was saving the C12 for the roadblock. Or I was hoping to save it.

  “We’ll drive right on by, like we belong here,” I said. “Speed up a little so it looks like we’re used to the road.”

  “What if they start shooting?”

  “We keep going. It’s not that easy to hit a moving truck from a good ways away.”

  “But they’ll come after us.”

  “They might. We’ll keep with the plan. We reach the machinery road, ditch the truck, and head toward the junction. Believe me, Kayla, there are enough Souls at the roadblocks that a couple more on our tail shouldn’t make that much of a difference.”

  “You’re just oozing with confidence right now…”

  “I’m expecting the worst and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.”

  Kayla took us past the first yardsite. There was one pickup truck in the yard.

  Nothing stirred.

  We drove past the second yardsite. Smoke in the chimney, but no vehicles out front.

  I had a feeling that the residents had rushed up to the roadblocks when they heard there was a big fish in the net.

  The fact that they hadn’t come back yet meant that there was a chance the shooting hadn’t started.

  We rode the bend around the lake and the road started to straighten out.

  And then I saw the pit.

  We’d arrested a man for scavenging back in the days of the Protection Committee, back when we’d considered scavenging illegal and not the only way to stay alive.

  He’d told me about the big pit; he hadn’t been the first to mention it. He’d said that he and and the rest of his work crew had been ambushed on Highway 11 that November, on their attempt to make it home to North Bay. He’d said that Souls of Flesh had taken them out to an open mine.

  To a pit that was filled with the rotting remains of other men.

  “This is where you’ll die,” the Sergeant-of-Arms had told the men. “The only question is how long it will take.”

  They were surveyors, the prisoner had told me, but that had been enough for them to be considered agents of a foreign government in the eyes of the Sergeant-of-Arms. One by one the men were interrogated, and one by one they had given nothing that had satisfied The Souls.

  All three surveyors were chained up in the pit, he’d told me, chained by the ankle to eye screws, drilled and epoxied into the bedrock.