The Gatherer Series, Book 1

by Colleen Winter

  The woman slowly counted out Maria’s change as the announcer moved onto a new story. When she turned from the cash register, the woman laid a newspaper face up on the counter. Storm’s face filled the front page under the headline, “Freeman Comes out of Hiding.”

  The woman held her hand above it, waiting for Maria to take the change.

  Breathe.

  Maria extended her hand as casually as she could manage. The woman’s soft warm fingers briefly touched Maria’s as she laid a wad of twenty-dollar bills into her palm.

  “Have a nice day.”

  Maria looked up in surprise at the woman’s calm, determined gaze, making contact for only an instant before she turned away and opened a second cupboard of cigarettes that would block the view of Maria’s path to the door. Maria jammed the money and the paper into her bag and lifted her pack.

  “You too.”

  She ran, across the horrible openness of the tarmac, and the meagre bushes on the flats that led to the base of the hill. The store fell behind her, but no matter how far she went, she felt a long tether clipped to her back, reeling her in. The pack bounced heavily, its weight a reminder of what that visit could have cost them. The food and adrenaline spurred her on, so she climbed the hill where Storm waited sooner than she expected.

  “You came back.”

  The relief on Storm’s face was blatant, her pale waxiness making her look all the more vulnerable.

  “Of course I did.”

  Maria didn’t bother to hide her irritation. Storm’s look of vulnerability closed in and Storm nodded, her show of fear tucked away. Storm made to open the bag.

  “What did you get?”

  “Lucky. We need to keep moving.”

  Storm’s fingers stopped where she’d undone the pack’s knot, her hunger turning to alarm.

  Maria pulled the paper from the top of the bag and shoved it at her. A hard veneer slid over Storm’s features as she read the article.

  “They’re looking for both of us. Not just me.”

  A sudden spike of adrenaline and Maria checked the valley below them. It had been a huge risk going into the station. Storm was rising to her feet, already tucking the paper into the bag.

  “You knew, didn’t you? When you ran from the jet? That it wasn’t just me they wanted.”

  The question didn’t need an answer. Maria loaded the pack onto her back, feeling the sting of the raw places where it rested on her hips and shoulders.

  “What else does it say?”

  “There are riots in the streets. That they’ve had to put armed guards around some of the Gatherers in larger cities.”

  Maria’s shoulders rose, feeling the pressure of the escalating situation, aware of how lucky they had been to make it this far.

  “Where do they think we are?”

  Storm stared down into the river valley with the intensity of a commander about to launch an attack. Maria had a breath of hope, for the energy that enervated Storm’s frame reminded her of the force that Storm had once been, for whom nothing had been impossible.

  “On the run. And that we’re dangerous.”

  Maria felt a strengthening in her core, that someone had recognized the damage that they could do if everything went right.

  “We are dangerous.”

  Storm smiled suddenly, then laughed. A sound that did more for both of them than any food or water.

  “I guess they’d better watch out then.”

  Storm moved faster than she had since they left the cabin, keeping up even though Maria would be jogging if she moved any faster. They kept the road to their right, watching for flashes of metal and waiting for the low vibrations that traveled through the earth when the larger vehicles passed. There wasn’t much traffic, and if they timed it right they would be able to cross without being seen.

  “Are you sure she recognized you?”

  “She gave me two hundred dollars in cash. Showed me the cover of the paper.”

  Storm had returned to a paler version of who she had been at her peak, her presence always seeming to draw more light to it than anything else within view.

  “I gave her forty dollars. She recognized me. I’m sure of it.”

  They were climbing a small slope, dislodging small stones that fell behind them. The sun had risen higher, and with no signs of pursuit Maria allowed herself a moment of celebration. The station had been a risk and they had gotten away. Storm slowed to navigate a section of uneven ground, and for a moment they walked side by side, the valley and the river bed below them.

  “The paper says you’re wanted for murder.”

  Storm’s calmness startled her, showing such faith in Maria that she assumed it wasn’t true.

  “Who?”

  Please don’t let it be Havernal.

  “Something to do with a train?”

  She couldn’t be sure but she thought Storm was amused. That it was somehow humorous that Maria had been accused.

  “I didn’t—”

  But then she remembered stepping over Coulter’s lifeless body. The driver had been alive and cursing her when she’d abandoned the train at the track’s northern peak. But Coulter’s death would have been all too easy to pin on her, giving them evidence of the violent radical who had gotten away with their train.

  The thought of bars holding her in made her surge forward, Storm’s breathing falling behind her until she came to the top of a rise, the sudden shock of a cold, damp wind and a full view of the mass of clouds gathered on the western horizon. A solid line of darkness inched its way east, consuming the tops of low mountains, sucking light out of the sky.

  Storm stopped below her, her face tilted up towards Maria. A hint of colour had appeared on her white cheeks, the food and the walk chasing away the grayness that had arrived after her seizure. Maria wondered if that cabin had been the best place for Storm, as much of a cage for her as a jail cell would be for Maria.

  “He was a civilian. I wouldn’t kill—”

  “I didn’t say you did. I was just telling you what it said in the paper.”

  Storm held out her hand, asking for help over the final knee-high ledge up to the flat crown of the hill.

  “We’ll be able to cross down there.”

  The highway crossed the river that flowed smooth and brown, enough of a space along its edge that they could pass under the bridge without being seen. A car bumped up onto the bridge, going north, the sound of its tires the only noise but for the faintest of whines from the electric drive.

  It was a steep climb down to the river bed and Maria slowed her pace, offering her hand to Storm through the trickier footing. At the river’s edge, Maria waited for Storm to catch up, staring into the fast flowing silt of yet another body of water. Once they rounded the bend they would be in plain sight to anyone crossing the bridge. Maria listened for the hum of a vehicle or the bump of tires, cursing the silence of electric vehicles.

  “I would have no reason to kill Coulter. He wasn’t even a threat.”

  Storm had brightened the further they descended into the river valley.

  “It won’t matter to them what really happened. It just makes a good story.”

  Maria understood that. She had seen it happen countless times with the coverage of Storm, many of the actions and motivations attributed to her blatantly wrong. It was different when it was you being maligned, the injustice of it so much sharper.

  The water downstream ran sleek and fast. A boat could find them as easily as a car. They moved forward, Maria aware of every sound, the shift of the air, placing her feet carefully. When she could see the bridge and anyone on it could see her, she ran, her eyes darting from the bridge to the sloped bank, her attention hopping from every possible viewpoint to the sloped path under her feet with the water waiting below it. No sound but their footsteps hitting the muddy bank.
She wanted to help Storm, pull her faster, but there was no room on the narrow path and she focused on reaching the shelter of the bridge.

  Maria reached the bridge first and turned back to check Storm when wheels bumped on the opposite side of the bridge. Storm was ten metres out and, if the driver was watching, in plain sight.

  “Run!”

  A surge of speed and Storm fell into Maria. Maria steadied her as the vehicle slowed above them and the tires pulled onto the gravel. There was a moment when their gazes met, an understanding of what would happen if they were caught, the thump of a door, and footsteps on the gravel. Their chests rose and fell in the utter stillness, all of their awareness on the crunch of the footsteps.

  A frozen stillness hung as they half held each other, gazes lifted to the underside of the bridge. She could win a fight against a civilian, but there was no point in killing him. The vehicle, the body. There would be no time to cover their tracks.

  A man cleared his throat and a zipper opened. A faint moan of relief. Maria took a deeper breath as the sound of water hitting the earth reached them with the acrid stench of piss.

  Storm’s eyebrows shot up as Maria pressed her finger to her lips.

  A stream of urine ran down the bank, spreading and absorbing into the earth before it reached the water.

  Storm leaned in close to Maria’s ear.

  “His truck.”

  Storm released her grip and moved away from Maria, towards the bank, straining her neck for a better view of the man.

  Maria pulled her back. Storm tried to shake her off and Maria held on, trying not to dislodge any earth or stones that would give them away.

  She squeezed Storm’s arm and Storm whirled on her, the shock of pain on her face. Maria mouthed the word, ‘No.’

  Storm tried to pull her arm away and Maria squeezed harder.

  The man did up his zipper, cleared his throat and spit into the dirt.

  “Okay.”

  Storm mouthed the word, pulling her arm back when Maria let go and cradling it next to her chest. The footsteps retreated, a door opened and the whir of the engine sounded as it continued north.

  “Why not?”

  Anger added real colour to Storm’s cheeks, her body vibrating with a new energy.

  “A stolen vehicle is too easy to find up here. There aren’t enough places to hide.”

  She had considered the same idea a dozen times on her way up, when her blisters had seeped and bled.

  “We can’t walk all the way.”

  Maria understood Storm was saying she couldn’t walk all the way. That she wouldn’t make it.

  “You can’t drive in a car anyways.”

  Storm’s feet scraped on the gravel as she walked to the water’s edge, her illness another kind of cage.

  “It was a pickup. I could have ridden in the back away from the battery.”

  She ran an agitated hand through her hair.

  “With the suit.”

  Maria made a note of Storm’s desperation, and the urgency that would make her even consider this. At their current pace they would be traveling over rough terrain for well over a week before they reached Rima. Probably more.

  “We’ll figure something out. But that’s not it.”

  The river flowed behind Storm’s straight, solitary figure in its quiet, relentless push towards the ocean. Maria gave her the time, knowing that soldiers in the field needed a few moments to collect themselves after the action. Maria looked up the river, towards its source, wondering how far they would make it before something gave: Storm’s body, their cover, or the resolve of those who knew where they were.

  SIXTEEN

  Storm braced herself on the faded hull of the canoe, the muscles in her arm pulling as Maria lowered her to the ground. A foot above the cracked pavement Maria lost her grip and Storm hit the asphalt hard.

  “Sorry.”

  Storm’s body shook with the beat of her heart and breath, each trying to recover from the new pace of their flight, their notoriety pushing them faster than her body wanted to go.

  Maria walked the row of canoes, yanking on the rusted chain that locked them together. The chain rattled and clanked each time she pulled it. The boat launch sloped down to the river, the twisting, curling disturbance on its surface evidence of the powerful current running beneath.

  Storm closed her eyes against the burn but opened them immediately at the intensity of fatigue and dizziness that waited there. She should have gone down to the river, splashed her face with icy water, and drank frigid gulps. Yet she stayed sitting at the end of the row of old canoes, her feet splayed before her where they had fallen when Maria dropped her. A row of single room cabins sat back from the river, with a larger, abandoned house at the top of the hill. Weeds grew around the porches and the dull light reflected off streaked windows. She lay down onto the split asphalt, crushing the weeds that pushed up through the cracks. Tiny blades of grass grew out of the sand accumulated at the edge of the launch, the larger weeds like tree trunks next to them.

  Maria swore to herself in time with the rattling of the chain, the rustle and swirl of the river providing the constant, unsettled background. The chains clinked close to Storm’s head.

  “Who’s going to steal these things way out here?”

  Maria dug into the pack and placed a handful of crackers into Storm’s curled, upturned hand.

  “We are.”

  Storm nibbled on the crackers, the edges sharp inside her cheek. She’d had trouble matching Maria’s pace since the gas station, Maria almost running now that she knew she was being chased. She had mostly carried Storm the last several kilometres, her frenetic energy enough for both of them.

  If anything, Storm was calmer than Maria now, used to being pursued and the world taking notice. Maria had likely spent most of her time in obscurity, hidden behind her uniform and her unit, outside even the norms of society. The full glare of the world’s attention on her had her running hard away from its beam. Storm couldn’t blame her. There had been many times when she would have given anything for its beam to be focussed somewhere else.

  Maria set off towards the river, in the direction of the collapsing boat house, the side facing the current buckled under its ceaseless push. Storm closed her eyes again, the dizziness better, the fatigue calmer after a few moments of rest. She let it come, floating in its current, the sleep it brought deep and complete.

  She woke to the shadow of a man leaning over her, his outline darker than the heavy clouds pushing down around him. She pulled her feet in and sat up, away from his steel-toed boot that was kicking her shin. The day was darker than it should have been, an artificial dusk having arrived while she’d slept.

  “Did you think you’d be able to get past me?”

  She pushed back against the smooth side of the canoe. His work boots were worn, a gut hung over faded blue work pants, and he glared at her with a pinched, small face distorted by a loathing that felt personal.

  “I heard the chains clanking. That’s how I knew you’d come back.”

  He held a rifle with both hands.

  “I’ve never been here before.”

  Unshaven, gray whiskers surrounded the mean slit of his mouth. She tried to draw back but there was nowhere to go. He jabbed the gun into her thigh, the skin still tender after the hydro line.

  “Get up!”

  She stood, all weakness in her legs having vanished at the sight of the gun. He made a great show of brandishing it, as if they were a party of three. Without turning her head, she tried to search for Maria, the open area as void of life as when they had watched from the trees. He pushed her towards the larger cabin higher above the river. The yellowed backs of curtains blocked every window, the wood bleached by wind and sun.

  “I knew you’d come today. With that business up north.”

  She
slowed for a chance to look for Maria but moved faster at a push from the rifle. The mountains rose high and steep behind them, funnelling anyone who had to go anywhere down to the river.

  They followed a faint path, leading from the boat house to the large cabin. She was unable to shake the feeling that the place was abandoned. They had watched the old camp for over an hour and there had been no telltale clothing hung on the clothesline or any of the care taken by people for where they lived. A large fender truck that looked as untended as the house was parked behind it, next to an overturned garbage can and hundreds of pizza boxes stacked in disturbingly tidy rows. They were from the same pizza place—Anthony’s Italian—and the logos lined up.

  “They can’t tell me it’s not happening, now that I’ve caught you.”

  A wooden screen door was slightly ajar, dim shadows and dark spaces all that were visible through the torn screen. A rank smell of boarded-up life and closed-in death drifted from it. The kind of place thousands of women had gone into and never come out of. She lifted up her hands and faced him.

  “I only stopped for a rest.”

  He lifted the gun higher, his face pinched with unhinged frustration.

  “I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

  She could barely breathe for the force of her heart in her throat.

  “I’ll leave.”

  She stepped sideways.

  He laughed, a high pitched bark. He backed her towards the door.

  The stench of rotting pizza caught in her nostrils and her throat thickened as if it meant to close. The outline of a hawk circled on the currents that fell off the sides of the mountain. If she went in that cabin, she would never come out.

  “I can help you.”

  “You’re a thief.”

  “I haven’t stolen anything.”

  His hands were shaking, the face behind the gun flushed so red it was almost purple.