A long silence ensued. All eyes were on David, until Tina spoke up, “I want to go to Kansas City with you, Penelope. I want to learn how to be a doctor. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
David closed his eyes for a moment, remembering her tiny hand in his, her matted hair in those weeks and months that had followed the deaths of their parents. The feel of her tiny body nestled against his. He remembered farther back, the first time he had seen her in the hospital, a tiny red face, impossibly small, mewling cries that sounded like a tiny, sad kitten. They had never fought; with nearly eight years between them he had always been the oldest, the one she looked up to. And when they had been alone, lost in the rubble of a dead and broken town, she had depended on him for everything.
It was only here, in Belton, that she had come into her own, as young as she was, defining her future, writing it on the wall with nothing short of indelible marker. Her abilities, her intuitive understanding and curiosity of the healing arts had given her this opportunity. And who was he to say no? How could he? David thought of her being absent, not someone he saw every day, not in the garden or walking into town with freshly picked herbs for Dr. Ridley, and something deep in his chest twisted and pulled. She was all that he had of their former life. The only evidence he could show of the parents that he had lost. The words to say all that seemed to elude him.
In the end, he simply stared at Jess’s hand, still on his knee, and said, “If Tina wants to go, then, I guess that’s what she should do.”
But if you find this, know that she died surrounded by people who loved her. She was at peace and I miss her dreadfully.
Yours, Jess
Jess, David, and the kids stood there for a long time the next morning and watched Tina walk away, her tiny hand in Penelope’s, Kip alongside her. They watched until all three became dark specks that simply disappeared over the horizon.
Ascension
“Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good” – W.H. Auden
Sulwyn leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed in front of him, and shook his head. His gray hair had been cropped close—there was an outbreak of lice going around the camp—and even some of the women had chosen to cut most of their hair off rather than scratch all day. “Slaves? I just don’t see how it’s gonna work. Slaves have to eat.”
Cooper had surprised everyone by returning with three black women from the last raid. He had insisted on putting them in a half-burned cabin where they huddled, tight-lipped and bloody, under armed guard. The raid had been quick, brutal in its efficiency.
The cabin had belonged to one of Sulwyn’s chief lieutenants. Two weeks before, deep in the night, a fire had sparked, and others woke to the cabin fully engulfed in flames. The man had burned to death while the rest of the camp had concentrated on making sure the fire didn’t spread to the rest of the nearby cabins and tents.
Despite part of the roof missing and some gaps in the charred timbers, the body of the cabin was intact. They threw a tarp over it, chained the captives, and attached a lock that opened only from the outside. Situated in the middle of the clearing, the captives would have to run by scores of armed Amerika Reborn soldiers in order to escape.
Cooper shrugged in response to Sulwyn’s question. “Who says we need to feed them well? Slaves are for working, and if one or two dies,” he shrugged again, “oh well, there’s more out there.” Sulwyn thought about this for a few moments and while he did, Delwen came to the door of the cabin.
In her arms she held a small baby. Cooper felt a wave of disgust wash over him. He didn’t know who he despised more, the mewling brat that was his daughter or the unattractive woman who held her. He found himself wondering how his life had gone so wrong. In the Western Front, he could have had any woman he wanted, he could have ordered any man’s death, or done it himself with impunity. And here, he closed his eyes; here he was bound by Sulwyn’s rules.
It had been hard to break into the upper echelon of leadership—there was Sulwyn, his wretched daughter Delwen, and several others that had been with Sulwyn from the beginning. Albus had been as close to Sulwyn’s right hand man as you could get, and Cooper had made sure to get rid of him when the short-sighted man had refused to align with him.
Albus had been the one Sulwyn listened to the most and Cooper had gone to him with the idea of capturing slaves and eventually using them for drug production. Plenty of people wanted an escape from what they saw as a dark new world. Cooper would never understand that thinking, but he was certain he could benefit from it. Manufacturing the drugs that gave them those ways to escape could be very profitable.
Albus had been fine with the slavery part, but the drugs? “No way,” he had said, “what kind of an idiot are you, Cooper?” Drugs had killed his wife and young daughter over a decade before, something he said little about, but the images of the crumpled car and blood haunted him even now. He warned Cooper that if he persisted in his plan, that he would push Sulwyn to throw him out, whether he was married to Delwen or not. Cooper held himself back from doing violence to the man. A week later he made sure that Albus would never bend Sulwyn’s ear again. The flames had destroyed all evidence of the crime.
Delwen’s hard-edged voice broke through his reverie. “I ain’t seen you around much these days.” Her tone leaked resentment in every syllable. Her face and body was heavier now; she had put on a few pounds with the brat that hadn’t come off. Perhaps if she actually did something besides sit around and feed her fat face she’d get back her body, which would be some improvement, but not much, to her looks.
He stared at her, wondering if there was any way he could get away with killing her in some handy accident. “I’ve been sleeping in the hammock outside. I thought that would be better than disturbing you when I got back late.” The raiders, led by Cooper, had returned late the night before. It was September, and the nights were still quite warm. Sleeping outside in the hammock had meant he didn’t have to listen to the squalling baby, or to his wife’s snores, both of which disturbed his sleep and peace of mind.
They reminded him all too often of his new disturbingly domestic life, which he didn’t want and certainly hadn’t asked for. A few wordless meetings in the dark, the only ever instigated by a woman instead of him, and he had ended up facing Sulwyn, and a quietly smug Delwen, one cold March morning. “My daughter tells me she’s pregnant, and you are the father.”
Cooper hadn’t known what to say. Scuttling through his brain had been the question he’d wanted to ask but didn’t. How do I know she’s just slept with me? But he knew Sulwyn well enough by now not to ask a question like that. In another time and place, this man would have been a baron. He was a good leader, yet he was definitely removed from the others. And after four years with the Amerika Reborn, dealing with Sulwyn nearly every day, Cooper knew that questioning whether the man’s only child was sleeping with multiple men would have been a mortal mistake.
Sulwyn had given Cooper a minute or two to realize how badly he was hosed before saying, “We don’t have a preacher, so I guess I’ll have to do. We’ll have some kind of ceremony tomorrow.” And with that, Cooper’s fate was sealed. Once the leader of a hundred plus faction of the Western Front, and now a lackey of Sulwyn’s. With every caterwaul that came from the brat he had sired, he thought of where he had been, and where he was now, and regretted it. Somehow he needed to take back his life—and that meant that Sulwyn had to die. But before he could just kill the man, without question or retribution, he had to make this group into a fighting power that the region had not seen before. They had to see him as a leader in his own right—then, and only then, would the men follow him. When that day came, he could and would kill Sulwyn with impunity.
Delwen just glared at him and jiggled the infant. From the sour, scrunched-up look on the baby’s face it appeared as if she was getting ready to begin howling any moment. Cooper hadn’t had any say in what the child was named, not that he particularly cared anyway, and Delwen had announced
that the baby’s name was Sulwen, the feminine version of Sulwyn, which meant white sun in Welsh.
Once she had come out, Cooper had been convinced she was his kid, but it hadn’t changed his mind about children in general. He despised the mewling brat. At least Armando had been quiet, but this creature screamed all day and all night, given the opportunity. Sulwen’s name was quickly shortened to Sully, in order to differentiate her from her grandfather more easily.
“Well, I want one of those women you rounded up to help with Sully,” Delwen said, “I can’t get any sleep and you sure aren’t any help.” And with that input, it was decided. The slaves would be put to use, and the first part of Cooper’s plan fell into place. First slaves, then drug production and sale, and then he would find a way to get rid of Sulwyn, along with Sulwyn’s daughter and grandchild. It all felt perfect.
Camelia didn’t just handle the doctoring; she had also been put in charge of bodies and burials. Two weeks before, Armando had watched with grim fascination as his mother gave the grisly burned remains a cursory examination, her focus honing in on the skull for just a second longer than normal, and then turned back to the business of digging the hole. Later that night, when the others were gone and Armando was alone to snuggle next to his mother he asked her in a tiny whisper, “Why did you look at his head, Mamá?”
Camelia pulled him close, “Promise you won’t ask again? I’ll answer, but you must promise not to speak of it to anyone.”
Armando wondered who she thought he might talk to, since he had been ostracized from anyone his age due to his ‘color’ and nodded, “I promise, Mamá.”
“Someone killed him,” she said flatly.
“Why?”
“Because he was in the other man’s way—then he burned the cabin to hide what he had done.”
“It was Cooper, wasn’t it, Mamá?”
The conversation had been conducted in whispers, and all of it in Spanish, but Camelia had flinched at the name and pulled her son even closer. “Shhh, do not say his name.”
“Well, was it?”
“Yes, I think so. Now go to sleep.”
Morning
“Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter.” – Jean Paul Richter
Light peeked in through the boarded-up window in Jess’s bedroom and she opened her eyes instinctively, knowing that the daylight was wasting and there was much to be done today. Becka lay curled up next to her, hair sticky and moist with sweat from the fever she had been fighting for days. A small hand fisted the covers, and one leg lay over Jess.
She slowly slid from the bed, quietly cursing the bitter cold that cut into her as soon as she left the warm layers of bedcovers. Becka murmured and shifted, curling into a small ball. Jess pulled on a thick sweater and slid her socked feet into tattered and taped-over work boots.
Her feet guided the way to the hall where the light did not, for the years spent in this house were many and she knew each squeaky floorboard, each corner of furniture and doorway within it. Her hand was reaching for the doorknob of the door of the bedroom at the end of the hall when it opened and nine-year-old Jacob spoke quietly in the darkness, “Mornin’, Mom. How’s Becka?”
Jess sighed, “No change. I left her sleeping. Breakfast or barn?”
“Breakfast...eggs okay?” he replied.
“Sounds fine,” Jess reached out through the gloom and smoothed his hair with her hand, “Wake up the others, but tell them to be quiet and let Becka sleep.”
She walked through the living room and on through the kitchen and small pantry next to it. Next was the door leading to the barn. In a former life it had been an attached two-car garage, but now it was a shelter for the family’s two goats, a large rabbit hutch, and feed supplies.
Sounds of the others moving about in the house could be heard dimly through the walls as Jess set about feeding each of the animals. Later she would let the goats out into a corral to stretch their legs. After feeding came cleaning, and after that came her daily war with Satan, their female goat, for her meager pitcher of milk. Satan, as her name implied, came straight from hell and was meaner than any goat had any business being. Jess once again resolved to finish off the wretched creature as soon as she produced female offspring. Satan was also resolved not to ever produce anything but males. Consequently, her life and future seemed safely assured. Apple, the male goat, kept out of Satan’s way and always seemed to have a henpecked, desperate look about his whiskered face.
“Damn it, Satan,” Jess exclaimed as she wrestled the goat into place only to be sprayed by the first drops of milk she squeezed out. The goat had moved suddenly. As she wiped her boot off, the goat took the opportunity to swiftly nip the unprotected finger.
“Sonuva...aw jeezsus!” Jess held her bleeding digit to her lips. “Goat curry! That’s what I’m gonna make you!” She waved her fist at the goat half-heartedly, knowing the threat was empty.
The door to the garage swung open and Erin stepped through, shutting it quickly so as not to let out what small amount of heat was emanating from the kitchen. Erin was now six years old. There was a quiet maturity about the child that belied her tender age. Without a word she took hold of Satan’s head and offered the beast a withered crabapple. She was the only one in the family who could coax the blasted goat to stay still, and she also was the only one of them to never have been nipped, stepped on, or even so much as butted by Satan.
Jess smiled and quickly began milking the goat, stopping only after the last drops of milk were squeezed out. Satan had long since finished the apple and was standing still patiently, as Erin stroked the recalcitrant beast’s head and whiskered chin. The girl’s eyes held the goat’s gaze steadily and it was as if they were speaking a silent language, telling secrets and exchanging memories with each other.
“All done,” Jess broke the silence, Erin let go of Satan, and the goat instantly left to graze on the fresh feed set out for her. Jess reached over and smoothed the child’s tangled hair with her hand and smiled down at Erin. “Any words for me today, sweet Erin?” she asked the girl, cupping her chin in her hand.
The fey child only smiled and shook her head, saying nothing at all, and instead she held out her arms to be picked up and hugged. As always, Jess took Erin in her arms and hugged her gently against her, marveling at how such a small creature could so silently charm all those around her—man and beast alike.
Erin had appeared on the doorstep over two years ago. Jess had rounded the front of the house, saw her crouched there and instantly drew near, crouched down, and gathered her in her arms. The trembling creature had wrapped her arms and legs around Jess and buried her face in Jess’s neck. She had not uttered a word then, or in the two long years since. But where her voice failed, her eyes and hands spoke volumes, and she had instantly become a part of their family, without question or reservation.
The spring following Erin’s arrival, a body was discovered a mile to the east, along the creek bank. It was the remains of a man with red hair much like Erin’s. He had been shot. There had been a well-loved teddy bear tucked inside a child-size knapsack lying nearby.
Thurman Banks had found the body and told Jess about it the following day as he brought by some potatoes in exchange for fresh eggs from the chicken coop Jess and the kids kept in back of the house.
He had buried the body where it lay, he said, and put up a rough cross for the unknown man. He looked over at the small, silent child sitting in the garden patch, placed the bear in her lap and went away quietly with his eggs. He visited often, and never failed to bring by something special for Erin when he did, for the child had enchanted him.
Jess gave Erin another quick hug before setting her back on the ground. “Go help Jacob, sweetheart, he’s in the chicken coop and surely having trouble with Maude and Beulah by now,” she directed the child, envisioning he
r son struggling to get the eggs from two of the older, more aggressive hens.
Maude and Beulah, like Satan, were destined for the stockpot one of these days. But they were still quite reliable layers, so Jess held off from ending them, despite the inevitable pecks and scratches they handed out so liberally. Erin slipped away silently and headed out the side door toward the back of the house.
Jess headed back inside the house and promptly ran into David, who was still rubbing his eyes, trying desperately to wake up. “Mornin’ Jess,” he said yawning, wincing as he saw her bloody finger, “Satan git you again?”
Jess nodded and headed for the medicine cabinet to dose her injured finger with iodine, leaning in first for a peck on the cheek from the young man as she passed by. David was now twenty years old, and his hair was nearly shoulder length, dark brown, and tousled, his eyes a soft, friendly brown. Like the rest of their hodgepodge family, he was of slender build—obesity had all but disappeared in the past decade when food was scarce and most lived at bare subsistence level. Though harvests were better now, they were still far from being safe from starvation if a winter came early enough or lasted too long.
“So what’s on tap for today? Lessons, huntin’, or washin’?” David asked as Jess busied herself lighting a small fire under one burner.
“Well, we could use some meat, or even fish if you could get them to bite. Take Jake; he’s itching to get out there and do ‘manly’ things.” Jess winked at him and David snorted and nodded. “I’ll see how far Erin and I can get with the wash, but make sure and gather it up for me, okay? Then maybe some lessons for Jake tonight if you two don’t get back too late.”
Jacob slipped in as she was talking. “Huntin’? Really? Right on!” Then his face managed to twitch into a somewhat serious expression, “But Mom, you know how far we have to go out to get anything; it might be real late when we get back. We might not have time for lessons tonight.” He tried unsuccessfully to look disappointed.
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