by Alice Sabo
“I wonder why,” Jace whispered back.
“She’s so thin. Maybe her body couldn’t do it.” Bridget rubbed the bump on her forearm again. If she got pregnant, could that happen to her? If there was a problem, they only had a pair of paramedics and a dentist back at the Depository. Aside from the pregnancy and all its possible complications, there was the birth and all the risks. After surviving all that, she couldn’t imagine the horror of not being able to keep the child alive.
“What about formula?” Jace asked.
“What are you going to make it out of?” Bridget asked sharply. “Crunch porridge?”
Jace shrugged, but she could tell that she’d been a little too hard on him.
After she’d gotten a good feel for the interior set up, they went out to check the grounds. The gardens were well tended. Chickens wandered the paths among the vegetable plots. She saw a kitten and heard a dog bark. There was a young orchard planted where a parking lot had been. When they went back across the campus, she saw horses in a field.
“It’s like a little piece of normal,” Jace said as he leaned on the fence around the field.
“We don’t use that word,” said a stern voice.
Bridget turned to see an old man walking down the fence line. “Why not?” she asked.
“Harlan,” he said holding out his hand. “I take care of the horses.”
She shook his hand but didn’t offer her name. “Please don’t tell me they’re for the stew pot.”
Harlan cackled. “They wouldn’t dare. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Tilly hasn’t considered it.” He leaned on the fence, mirroring Jace. “No ma’am, we don’t say normal around here because it ain’t.”
“Closest I’ve seen,” Jace grumbled.
“Closest you’ll ever see,” Harlan snapped back. “And I hope we get to stay this way.”
His anger tweaked Bridget’s curiosity. “Why do you say that?”
“Washburn,” Harlan growled. “The press gangs. The raiders.” He snorted. “Ain’t safe out there.” He glanced at them. “But you folks must know that.”
Bridget didn’t want to offer him any information to make him think otherwise. “We keep our heads down,” she said.
“Tried that,” Harlan said with a knowing nod. “Didn’t work. Time comes when ya need some help. Or some stupid bully tries to take what ain’t his. If Angus hadn’t sent half the Watch down to Creamery, they woulda lost all their cows. And we’re up here hopin’ it ain’t a two-prong attack.” Harlan sighed. “It’s a good thing we got more people in. We been stretched mighty thin.”
“So it’s pretty safe here?” Jace asked.
Harlan turned to squint at him. “You better not be up to no good boy, ‘cause the Watch’ll have you out on your ass faster than you can spit.”
Jace raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then you’ll do okay.”
“What would we have to do?” Bridget asked
“Angus likes to get people doing whatever they’re good at. But he don’t realize some people ain’t good at anything. Martin’s smart. He takes most of ‘em. You got a skill, you’ll have no trouble setting something up. Teaching, cooking, farming, hunting, we need all sorts. Always odd jobs around. Or you go work for Martin.”
“Who’s he?” Jace asked.
“He’s head of our Watch. Well, actually it’s bigger than that now. We got the Rovers and the Sentinels. But he’s always looking for men.” Harlan blinked at her. “Women, too, once you get some meat on your bones.”
Chapter 41
The remaining fragments of the military run the gamut from good to evil. Men trained to fight don’t always have the flexibility to be farmers or shepherds in their spare time.
History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss
WISP WAS SORTING OUT the bad feeling when Nick slowed the jeep.
“Is that a llama?” Nick asked pointing to a hill in the distance.
“Better pull over,” Wisp said. He had been feeling off-kilter for awhile but wasn’t sure of the source.
As Nick negotiated a bare spot on the shoulder, a stampede of animals joined the llama. A great lumbering ox followed three cows and a litter of pigs across the hill and down the backside. A woman with a baby strapped to her back rode a horse after them.
“Ark Farm’s under attack,” Wisp reported. He wasn’t sure of the real name of the place. It was the farm that had taken in all the cows from the slaughterhouse. Because of the variety of livestock, Nick had called it the Ark.
“How far are we?” Nick gunned the engine, kicking up dirt as he veered back onto the road.
“Not very.” Wisp crawled between the seats, into the back to get larger weapons. He checked the ammunition on both. The jeep bounced through a pothole, and he whacked his head on the ceiling.
“Sorry,” Nick grunted.
“Hurry.” Wisp directed Nick to the cluster of anger and fear that he knew would be the fighting. As they got closer, the big knot of emotions unraveled into individuals. He could feel desperation on one side and greed on the other. A flock of honking geese flapped past them. A young girl ran down the lane not far behind, shooing them along. She staggered back at their approach.
“Where do you need us?” Nick barked at her.
She did a two-step of indecision, before pointing behind her. “They’re trying to hold at the house.”
Nick sped past her kicking up dust in their wake. Wisp glanced back, hoping that the dust would hide her from discovery. As emotions became more defined, he could tell this was a very bad bunch. There was a dark twist of sadism and an unhealthy hunger in these men. He needed to block against the bleakness of their minds.
Up ahead a barn and outbuilding rose out of the pervading dust. A long roofline to an old fashioned ranch house lay just beyond. The jeep bounced across the lane into the graveled back lot. Near the house, two men were wrestling on the ground, fighting over a knife. Wisp leaped out of the jeep before it skidded to a halt. He could feel the difference between the two. One was fearful and angry, the other burned with sheer cruelty.
Three more horses bolted out of the barn, a couple of boys clinging to their backs. A wounded calf bawled on the other side of the yard. In a heartbeat, Wisp knew this bastard had hurt it for entertainment. Wisp jogged across the yard to lend a hand as Nick repositioned the jeep. The combatants rolled over the ground struggling for a long bladed knife. Wisp assessed the movement, the timing and kicked, clipping the attacker behind the ears. It stunned him long enough for the other to claim the knife and stab him. The victor stumbled to his feet, waving the bloody knife at Wisp.
“We’re from High Meadow,” Nick called from the jeep. “Where do you need us?”
“What do you want?” the man growled. His face was battered, mouth bleeding.
“We’re here to help,” Wisp said. “No strings.”
It took a high pitched scream from the front of the house to change the man’s mind. He ran toward the jeep calling directions to Nick. Wisp took a seat in the back. He pulled out a handgun for the rancher.
They careened around the side of the house in a cloud of dust, spraying gravel. It caused enough of a distraction to give a couple of ranchers time to regroup. A wide driveway separated the long house from a field. There were knives and guns and bare-knuckle fights going on all across the front of the ranch house. Wisp dropped out of the jeep hidden in the dust. Nick continued on with the man they’d just rescued.
Wisp aimed the gun by sense, rather than eye, taking out the attackers one by one. There were a lot more men here than he’d realized. Their focus was combined in an appalling intertwining of lust, greed, and brutality. A spike of a woman’s terror made him realize that they might not be attacking for just the animals. He dashed across the front toward the screaming to find a rape in progress. Three men had two teenage girls backed against the wall of the barn, tearing at their clothing. A woman, who was probably their mother, was
being held on her knees by a fourth man, a knife at her throat.
Wisp shot the man with the knife first, then took out two of the three men. It took the third one a moment to realize what was going on. He fled as the second man dropped to the ground, dead. Wisp pulled the woman to her feet and pushed her toward the sobbing girls. “Get inside. Lock the doors,” he shouted.
Gunshots off to his right. Nick drove by in the jeep raising more dust. The rancher was leaning out the window of the jeep shooting at random. Wisp waited until he heard the house’s door slam and a bolt clank before he went back into the fray.
Wisp searched for the leader. Cut off the head, and this bunch might retreat. It took him precious minutes to find him and when he did, he had to pull back quickly. The man was violently insane. Wisp’s senses swirled as he sought his own equilibrium. Touching a mind that deranged was more than painful, it was disorienting. He slipped into the shadow of the house and leaned against the solid strength of the building to steady himself.
With a deep breath, he shook off the toxic mental fog and headed back in. Blocking out the physical—men yelling, gunshots, the jeep roaring back and forth across the property—he worked his way through the dust cloud into sparse vegetation at the side of the house until he was close enough to shoot. Dust blew in ragged streamers across the yard. Wisp closed his outer senses and trusted to his inner ones. A moiling rage of emotions emanated from a point in front of him. More than simple danger, this was an enemy with chaos as his goal. He doubted even Angus would mourn the loss of this one. Wisp targeted that insane mind, then disconnected the minute he pulled the trigger.
A howl went up. He’d miscalculated. A dozen men pulled out of the firefight and headed for him, burning with revenge. Wisp sprinted around the side of the house thinking he’d lose them in the woods. Too late he remembered he was on a ranch. The land fell away in gentle slopes, not a tree closer than a mile. But he felt Nick very close. The jeep peeled around the opposite corner, spraying gravel and spitting dirt. He ran into the plume with the mob on his heels. The woman he’d freed came out the back door with a shotgun roaring. A handful of ranchers came around the far side of the barn at almost the same time.
A bullet grazed his arm. He wasn’t sure if it was from friend or foe. Wisp vaulted behind the jeep. Nick burst out of the vehicle to take cover next to him. Wisp felt a group trying to flank them. He moved over to stand back to back with Nick. “Flanking,” he shouted, hoping the ranchers would understand.
A couple of the ranchers came to the Jeep to join him. The woman with the shotgun reloaded. In the barrage of gunfire, the attackers scatter toward what little cover they could find by the barn. For a brief moment, there was silence. As the dust settled, an old pickup truck, with armed raiders standing in the back of it sped into the yard. The attackers had regrouped. Wisp fired at the driver. The truck veered toward a drainage ditch. Ranchers ran after firing, but Wisp knew there wasn’t any more danger.
The noise and the dust and the burden of emotions made him dizzy. A cloud of anger and pain burst into the smothering numbness of death. He tried to get his back against something solid. He needed to pull himself back, build up his barriers. Someone grabbed his arm. Nick. He could feel Nick’s concern through the contact. The world spun as his knees gave way.
Chapter 42
I foresee a point when we reach the end of our ability to forage our resources and must start mining for metals and ores.
History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss
TILLY RESTED HER WOUNDED hand in her lap, but it didn’t help the throbbing pain. She wanted to act like she was fine, but apparently her face was giving her away. Eunice sat across from her in the office, a frown on her usually jovial face.
“You should be resting,” Eunice said.
Tilly sighed. “I can’t.” She lifted her aching hand. “It hurts.”
“Get some of that poppy syrup they brewed up. I heard it works really well.”
“Distract me,” Tilly said. “What’s the next problem?”
“I may have given away too many carrots,” Eunice said with a guilty look.
“Not to the horses,” Tilly snapped.
“No. To people. It’s just that it’s so normal. Like the potatoes. You give someone a bag of root vegetables, and they feel safer somehow. They have food in hand. Anybody could cook up a stew with that.” Eunice fussed with the paperwork in her lap. “Martin wanted a lot for his men. He said the Rovers are finding more people, and that food is the best way to get them to listen.”
“Do we have a delivery schedule from Golden Oaks?”
“Mm.” Eunice flipped through a few sheets of paper to find the right one. She handed it over to Tilly. “It looks like we’ll have a lot more coming. Those were from a spring planting. And they’ve asked for a shipment of manure.” Eunice snickered. “Who knew that would be something we could barter?”
That made Tilly feel a little better about the horses. They were beautiful creatures, but everything needed to pull its own weight. The pups were being trained as guard dogs. The kittens took care of vermin. The chickens were the most valuable in her estimation. The piglets would be valuable in the future. But she worried about finding a boar that wasn’t related for breeding them. The negotiation with Ark Farm hadn’t gotten beyond a couple of polite letters. She hoped someone was keeping track of what animals came from where. With the populations barely coming back, they needed to be especially careful of inbreeding.
“Can I get you some tea?” Eunice asked gently.
Tilly realized she’d been staring into space. “I’d love a cup.”
While Eunice was away, she took the time to scrutinize the schedule from Golden Oaks. The things they were planting were entirely different than Holly Hill. It occurred to her that there would be a number of farms designated to grow crops specifically for the Stew-goo or Crunch factories. Holly Hill could probably supply all the grain they would need, but could they get Golden Oaks to give them all the vegetables?
Eunice returned with a cup of black tea for Tilly. She inhaled the fragrant steam. “I didn’t realize that tea could be grown here.”
“Maybe they have greenhouses,” Eunice said.
Tilly put the tea to one side to cool before handing the paper back to Eunice. “It looks like they’re growing a lot of beans.” She wasn’t sure how they should process them all. “I guess we can freeze some. Probably need to can most of them.”
“These are all drying beans, Tilly,” Eunice said brightly. “Pinto, lima, cannelloni, they’re easy to store. And it’ll make a big difference in the winter. Bean soup can be very hearty.”
“I didn’t catch that,” she said sourly. “I hope Nick can sort out a way to keep them happy. We’re going to need the whole harvest.”
Eunice tipped her head to the side, thoughtfully. “I don’t know about that. Now that the warehouse has started up, there are people who would prefer to be one their own. Like the Hunters. They come in when they need to, but they’d be happy to be paid in carrots and potatoes instead of cooked meals.”
Tilly had to bite her lips to keep the groan from bursting out of her. Things were changing before she could even get new systems into play. “Then how do we get food?”
“Tithe,” Eunice said. “Angus is the government. It’d be like a tax for security and road repair.”
“And you think that people would pay it?”
“Why not?”
Eunice’s thinking was overly optimistic. Tilly suddenly had a whole new set of worries. When people were spread out in the surrounding neighborhoods, would they still feel connected enough to want to pay for Angus and Tilly to do their jobs?
Chapter 43
For true freedom, we must be able to protect the weakest among us with the most lethal of force.
History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss
NICK WASHED THE DUST off his face at the sink in the big country kitchen. Two of the ranchers had helped him carry Wisp in and
put him on a couch in the next room. He was out cold, and Nick worried that he was still having trouble from the concussion.
“Nick, this is our head man, Marvin,” said Elaina, the woman Wisp had rescued. She pointed to an older man, broad shouldered with a weathered face and close-cropped black hair.
Nick shook the hand offered. “Sorry to meet under these circumstances.”
“What brings you out this way?” Marvin asked, suspicion dark in his brown eyes.
“We’re looking for a friend that got lost,” Nick said, giving them a reasonable half-truth. “We can be on our way right now. If someone would give me a hand getting Wisp in the jeep?”
“No.” Marvin’s mouth thinned to a flat line. “We aren’t that ungrateful. Please join us for a meal.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“Do you just jump in anywhere for a fight?” Elaina asked. She was slender, but not starvation-thin. Her dark hair was pulled up in a bun. Her plain face was pinched in a puzzled frown.
Nick glanced at the door to the living room. He didn’t like to leave Wisp on his own. When they carried him in, it would have been obvious what he was, and if they had a problem with biobots, it would have surfaced by now. “Wisp can feel stuff,” he said vaguely.
“He’s the Finder.” One of the other ranchers joined them. He was a sharp contrast to the dark-haired Elaina and swarthy Marvin with his pale blond hair and light green eyes.
“Yes.” Nick didn’t elaborate.
“Who’s he looking for?”
“A friend.”
The blond stepped closer and offered his hand in a sturdy shake. “Brendan,” he introduced himself. “Appreciate the help.”
“We gotta be there for each other if we’re going to survive,” Nick said somberly. “Can’t let bastards like that take what you’ve built with hard work.”
Marvin grunted a reluctant agreement.