After the Shift: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  Elm’s voice was now full of all the authority he needed to completely take control of the situation, especially as there was a puddle of urine splashing over Brett’s shoes and he was whispering “I’m sorry, please don’t kill me” like a lover into Elm’s ear.

  Elm patted the knife against the exposed skin on the back of Brett’s neck. “You don’t want to die, do you, boys? Because I can assure you, I could kill you all before you hit me behind your lieutenant, and I’ll have separated his head from his shoulders before the first of you hit the ground. So, why don’t you all drop your weapons and we’ll start this conversation again, alright?”

  18

  Elm had let Brett and the National Guardsmen live, on the condition that they never trouble him again.

  He wouldn’t want to have to explain to Hollister how five of his National Guardsmen had been tricked by an old injun who had made their lieutenant pee his pants. Elm also assured them that if he could move as fast as he had with four guns pointing at him, he could get word to Hollister before they’d had a chance to get their boots on to come after him.

  “You guys go back and fight your stupid little war. When it’s over, come find me, and we’ll drink and laugh about this, I’m sure, but I don’t want to see you till then. Well, we might. I’m not sure about Brett.”

  Just to stop any hotheaded double-cross, Elm had taken their pistols and MP4s, as well as their walkie-talkies. It was a good haul, and he thought it might be good trading material in the future when people started traveling through Brookdale again.

  Nathan liked his optimism, but his feeling this way was the first time he thought the older man was wide of the mark.

  Thing is, Nathan thought to himself, we’re never getting anywhere near normal again. It was this, how things were, or it was going to get worse, and the lure of side-stepping some of the winter in Casper, from that moment on, got a firmer pull on him.

  The weather was turning not just the land cold, but the hearts of men. War, death, near famine, and too many people scrabbling for too few supplies. It was a recipe for even greater anarchy.

  He didn’t say that to Elm, though. The man was convinced that staying put would, in the end, be the right decision. “They’ll leave something behind. I know they will. Some for me, some for you if you want it.”

  Nathan shook his head as they reached the dogs and sled at the top of the rise. “I’m still going on to Casper, Elm. You’ve got the smarts and the skills to live here, and you only have yourself to look after right now. That’s not a luxury I have. You said Chicago was death and graves last night.”

  “That was whiskey talking. Brings on the blues. You know that. Today… well, you saw how it was.”

  Nathan held onto the handles of the sled as Elm climbed aboard and wrapped himself in furs. “Yes, I saw how it was. You taught me a valuable lesson today.”

  The dogs were growing impatient, already pulling at their tack, eager to be away.

  “And what was that?”

  “I’ll never be as fast as I need to be. Hike!”

  Nathan worked on the Ram while Cyndi spent time with Elm in the gloomy apothecary’s lair in the room off the Lakota’s kitchen.

  The operation to get the Dodge back in working order took a little over two hours, with Freeson helping out where he could. It wasn’t that the work was difficult, but it was intricate, and it couldn’t be done with gloves on. Nathan would have used neoprene over gloves if he’d had it. That may have made his fingers a little warmer, but as it was, he and Freeson had to keep swapping over, putting their hands in their pockets while the other worked, or wrapping their fingers around the hot, but rapidly cooling, mugs of coffee laced with bourbon that Lucy brought out to them from time to time.

  “Seems like a good guy to have around in a fight,” Freeson said as he tightened two fixing screws on the thermostat.

  “I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. I have no idea how it happened. I don’t know if I was in a street fight or a magic show. It was incredible.” Nathan took his hands out of his pockets and blew on his fingers, watching Freeson struggling to keep the screwdriver straight in the cold.

  Nathan took over after another moment and Freeson sipped at his coffee, fingers interlocked. The weather still held, as it had been a few days since there’d been heavy snowfall, and it was on both their minds. Freeson looked up out of Elm’s garage at a sky that was still mercifully free of clouds. “I guess this is the height of summer now. The best we could expect.”

  Since leaving Detroit, the nights had been getting a little shorter overall, and there’d been more daylight to travel in—not a lot more, but there’d been an appreciable difference. It was still bone cold, and the wind smashed across the plains and sculpted the snow, but the extra daylight helped to keep spirits up.

  The fuel line finished and the thermostat locked in place, Freeson jumped up into the cab and started the engine. The Ram fired up immediately, with merely a belch of smoke and the rumble of a well-maintained engine. The metal under the hood got up to operating temperature then, and soon Nathan and Freeson were warming their hands as the heat radiated outward. It was a terrible waste of fuel, but they figured they needed to run the fuel line in properly and make sure the thermostat was doing the job is was supposed to. Elm had indicated he had access to more than enough fuel when he needed it, so they enjoyed the luxury while they could.

  The smells and the sound of the Ram made Nathan more than a little nostalgic for his own Dodge wrecker, left behind many months ago with the Amish. It had been his daddy’s truck before Nathan’s, and he’d been unconscionably sad to leave it behind. But it had been out of gas, with no fuel to be gotten any time soon, so it would be back there still, Nathan figured, entombed in snow and ice, gently rusting. A tombstone to another life marking the grave end of one phase of Nathan’s journey and the start of another.

  Freeson turned the engine of the Ram off and Nathan released the hood to drop down over the ticking engine. Maybe leaving another vehicle behind was the end of yet another phase. The run to Casper, the knowledge that wars were breaking out in the cities where people were still trying to eke out a living. He hoped Casper would be different. Out of the cold, maybe all men’s hearts would be thawing.

  “Nathan, this man is an incredible resource.” Cyndi had finished with Elm and joined Nathan with Brandon on her arm as Nathan loaded up the sleds, even as Tony got Rapier and the other dogs in their team harnessed up. Her face was fizzing with possibilities, her eyes alight and her free hand trembling with energy as she spoke.

  “He knows so much; it’s not just Lakota medicine and plant knowledge, it’s across the spectrum. I thought I was pretty okay with remedies and concoctions, but he’s off the chart.”

  She patted the pocket of her anorak. “I’ve got enough Rooibos and Sumac for Tony’s asthma here to last a year. Prophylaxis rather than emergency treatment. This stuff is a superb bronchodilator. Elm makes pills and tinctures himself; he’s put together a ledger of plants and products we should be growing in hydroponic units to provide medicines for the future—because, let’s face it, we’re not going to be making our own! This is just… man, I just can’t even.”

  Nathan enjoyed seeing Cyndi this excited, this committed to the craft of survival. He didn’t need telling twice how important this information was, but it delighted him more to see his wife so animated.

  “Here, take Brandon.” Cyndi put the baby in Nathan’s arms, giving him little time to protest, and reached into her rucksack.

  The baby was pink-cheeked, healthy, and looked well settled. His eyes were open and looking around with interest. The change in the child since the dog days in Detroit was as pleasing as it was relieving. Nathan chucked the baby’s nose as Cyndi, rummaging in the bag, pulled out a thick leatherbound journal. The cover, bible-black and shiny with use, revealed pages of thinly copied text, diagrams, instructions, and notes. All in meticulously precise handwriting. “It’s an instruction manual; a c
omplete herbal, folk medicine text and knowledge base. It’s unique. This man, Nathan, this man…”

  Her eyes were brimmed with tears.

  “Hey, baby, come on…” Nathan reached out to pull her into a hug.

  “These aren’t tears of sadness, you lunk,” she laughed, wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hand. “These are tears of joy. He’s let us have the ledger! We can take it with us to Casper. If Dave and Donie can get a scanner and a printer working somewhere, we can distribute it to people—it’s better than anything I’ve seen on the internet. This man, Nate… this man is a godsend to this world as it is now.” She held up the book. “People need to see this book. Need to learn from Elm. It’s essential until we get ourselves back on an even keel. Which, looking at how quickly things have broken down, isn’t going to be in our lifetime, or our kids’ lives, either.”

  Nathan knew Cyndi was on the button with her summation. However optimistic this phase of their journey might be in terms of how fast they were moving, and however enticing Casper sounded, there was still the underlying truth that the world was going to be screwed for the foreseeable future. Whatever they did, however hard they fought, they’d not be making any kind of impression on the situation. But perhaps spreading the information in Elm’s ledger might make a dent. Nathan’s heart swelled with love for this woman, who had taken on a mission to help her fellow survivors rather than hurt or hinder them.

  “Sometimes I forget…” he said.

  Cyndi looked up at him. “Forget what?”

  Nathan grinned. “How damn good you are. How outside your own skin you are. Let’s save the world with Elm’s book; sure, I can get on board with that. No problem. But make sure there’s some energy left for Cyndi, yeah? That’s all I ask.”

  Cyndi smiled salaciously and playfully nudged Nathan in the side with her elbow. “I know exactly what you want me to save my energy for…” She started to thumb through the book. “Now, let me see… con… contra… contraception.”

  They were still laughing when Elm and the others came out to join them.

  When everyone was ready with their sleds and the dogs were raring to go, Nathan took one last opportunity to attempt to persuade Elm to come with them. “Thanks for the book. Cyndi’s ecstatic about it, but if you came with us, you could carry on your work in Casper.”

  Elm smiled. “And if I did, what of Chicago, or all the other cities where our fellows are scratching out their lives between the falling snows above and freezing ice below? No, Nathan, when things settle down in Chicago, as I know they will, I can start trading again, copy out my ledger again, and pass it on to the right people. You’re the right people. There will be others, too; just because you’re the first, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be the last.”

  Elm clapped Nathan on the shoulder. “I like you, son. I really do. You look after this family of yours, ya hear? Make sure they make it. We’ll need a lot more like you before this thing is over. Bring your sons up to be like you. They’re the future, not old codgers like me, or even young ones like you!”

  The smile in Elm’s eyes was warming and welcome. It had been a long time since anyone had made Nathan feel like this—not since his daddy had been up and around. There was a lot of him in Elm, and if Elm was anything like Nathan’s father, there would be a stubborn streak a mile wide running through him that would stick him to his decision to stay and trade with the people in Chicago like rivets through iron.

  “Well, if you change your mind, come find me in Casper; there’ll always be a space for you at my table.”

  Elm grinned. “I may well come visit. Been a while since I had a vacation!”

  And with another round of hugs, and a final check of the gear, Nathan’s team led the way along the trail, heading westwards again.

  “Do you think he knew?”

  Nathan was wiping the tears from his face, as Freeson had let him go now. There was no point in holding onto him—he wasn’t going to rush back now. There was nothing he could do to affect things and he knew it.

  The smoke rose into the air three miles away. They’d crested a ridge with the dog teams, and that was when Nathan had heard the first of the explosions blowing apart Elm’s home and trading post.

  Through the binoculars, Nathan had seen the billowing bubble of fire, and heard the clatter of small arms’ fire coming quickly across the frosty air.

  “We gotta go back! We gotta help him!”

  Freeson had put an arm across his chest and been ready to dump him on his backside if needed. “You go back there, they’ll kill you just as soon as look at you. You know that!”

  So, Nathan had sat down on the sled with is head in his hands, listening to Elm’s home and resources being destroyed because he’d made a lieutenant in a petty, stupid little pointless conflict pee his pants.

  Through the trees, they could see green Humvees trundling back up the snowy highway to Chicago. Their destruction complete.

  “Did he know what?” Cyndi asked, holding the baby as she sat down next to Nathan.

  “That they were gonna come for him. Do this to him? Is that why he gave you the book? Because he knew?”

  “I think Elm knew a lot of things, love, so maybe he knew they wouldn’t let what happened lie, or maybe they weren’t the first group of fighters he’d humiliated. I dunno.”

  The tears were still hot and fresh in Nathan’s eyes. “Every step we take forward, every single one, has this at its back. Has this as a consequence. Elm was a good man. One of the best. I am so sick of the best of us getting chewed up and spat out by this crazy world. Sick of it.”

  He rested his head on Cyndi’s shoulder and watched the smoke rise into the morning sky. Watched the future burn.

  They made camp that evening another ten miles on from Elm’s burnt-out house. Nathan had initially wanted to go back and see what they could salvage from Elm’s store, if not see if he’d managed to keep himself alive before the onslaught. But Cyndi and Freeson had vetoed the idea almost immediately.

  If it had indeed been Brett and his crew who’d come back to avenge their humiliation, then they would have known about Nathan. They might have been curious to know who he was and where he might have gone. They may have left lookouts or sentries to keep an eye on the place, but they wouldn’t have left Elm alive. And so they’d driven the dogs on, not taking their usual midday break, and carried on until the teams were panting hard, barking wearily, and steaming in the cold.

  They’d followed a river valley southwest, the maps showing them it was the best route if they were going to stay off the highways. That was the sensible thing to do until they got very many more miles between them and Chicago.

  The others left Nathan to put his family’s tent up alone and in silence. He was grateful for that. He didn’t want to talk. Didn’t know what to say anyway. What could he say that he hadn’t already? He felt like the last bit of stuffing had been knocked out of him.

  It was ironic, he thought, how fragile his optimism had turned out to be in the final analysis. It had drained almost completely from him with the whump of that first explosion echoing across the land, and had been finally eradicated as he’d looked back through the binoculars and had the initial terrible thought that brutal reality had confirmed.

  Once the tent was put up, and Donie and Dave had made the campfire, they sat around the fire in the hollow where they’d made camp, still without anyone knowing how to kick off any conversation.

  The trees around them were black and without foliage, but the hollow was protected from the wind, and a few days without heavy snow had made the place a good place to spend the night. The dogs, tied up, but near enough to the fire to gain some of its warmth, were glad of the rest and the food.

  Lucy and Freeson had gone out to hunt, but had returned with nothing, so they’d been sustained with salted beef and warm tea. They still had plenty of supplies, and wouldn’t go hungry for many days yet, and Lucy and Free would catch something tomorrow.

&nb
sp; In the end, it was Tony who broke the silence around the crackling fire as full dark came over them and smoke rose up through the trees, hanging around the frosted branches like wreaths. “Don’t worry, Dad. It’s gonna be okay. Mom and I and Brandon know you’re sad, but I reckon you’ll feel better in time. It’s like me and Syd and Saber. I’m getting over it. Slowly, but I am.” Tony finished up by squeezing Nathan’s arm, setting his chin and nodding wisely.

  Tony’s words sucked all the sound out of the hollow. All eyes were on him. Cyndi’s were full of tears, Dave was smiling broadly, and even Lucy, who could be a cynical so-and-so at times, had a melted expression and a crooked grin that made her even more attractive. She put her head on Freeson’s shoulder.

  Nathan sucked in a breath and looked at his boy, finding the first words in his mouth for many hours. “Thank you, son. You’re absolutely right. It’s all going to be okay.”

  He took the boy’s hand and pressed it against his own heart, and then leaned in and touched his forehead against his son’s, breathing in the aroma of his boy and the smell of the fire. No one else in the circle, even Cyndi, could have made Nathan feel as okay as Tony had in that moment. Elm was right—Tony and Brandon were the future now. It hadn’t died in the trading post with the Wolf of the Elm; it had been transferred, instilled… a seed planted. A tree to be grown.

  Nathan slept well that night. Before Tony had comforted him, he hadn’t imagined he would sleep at all. But he did, soundly and without dreams. Even Brandon slept right through, snuggled with Cyndi and Tony, Nathan’s arm across the three of them in the tent, and when the morning came, the sun warming the side of the tent with yellow light, it felt like a thaw was coming.

  Not in the land, but in Nathan.

  Yes, Elm was lost to them as a man, but the ledger meant that his knowledge would live on, and Nathan and his family would have to make sure they played the fullest part in disseminating it that they could.