“And this rifle is going to save us?” Zahra demanded.
“I doubt that it would save us,” I said. “But with a decent shot behind it, it might give us a chance.” I looked at Bankole. “You hit any of those deer?”
He smiled. “One or two.”
I did not return the smile. “Why don’t you buy the rifle for yourself?”
“I can’t afford it,” he said. “I’ve got enough money to keep me going and take care of necessities for a while. Everything else that I had was stolen from me or burned.”
I didn’t quite believe him. But then, no one knew how much money I had either. In a way, I suppose he was asking about our solvency. Did we have enough money to spend an unexpected windfall on an old rifle? And what did he intend to do if we did? I hoped, not for the first time, that he wasn’t just a handsome thief. Yet I did like the gun, and we do need it.
“Harry and I are decent shots, too,” I said to the group. “I like the feel of this gun, and it’s the best we can afford right now. Has anyone seen any real trouble with it?”
They looked at one another. No one answered.
“It just needs a cleaning and some 30-06 ammunition,” Bankole said. “It’s been stored for a while, but it appears to have been well maintained. If you buy it, I think I can manage to buy a cleaning kit and some ammunition.”
At that, I spoke up before anyone else could. “If we buy, that’s a deal. Who else can handle the rifle?”
“I can,” Natividad said. And when that won her a few surprised looks, she smiled. “I had no brothers. My father needed to teach someone.”
“We never had a chance to do any shooting,” Allie said. “But we can learn.”
Jill nodded. “I always wanted to learn,” she said.
“I’ll have to learn, too,” Travis admitted. “Where I grew up, guns were either locked away or carried by hired guards.”
“Let’s go buy it, then,” I said. “And let’s get out of here. The sun will be down soon.”
Bankole kept his word, bought cleaning things and plenty of ammunition—insisted on buying them before we left town, because, as he said, “Who knows when we’ll need it, or when we’ll find other people willing to sell it to us.”
Once that was settled, we left town.
As we left, Harry carried the new rifle and Zahra carried the Beretta, both empty and in need of attention before we loaded them. Only Bankole and I carried fully loaded guns. I led the group and he brought up the rear. It was getting dark. Behind us in the distance, we could hear gunfire and the dull thunder of small explosions.
20
❏ ❏ ❏
God is neither good
nor evil,
neither loving
nor hating.
God is Power.
God is Change.
We must find the rest of what we need
within ourselves,
in one another,
in our Destiny.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 2027
(from notes expanded TUESDAY, AUGUST 31)
TODAY OR TOMORROW SHOULD be a rest day, but we’ve agreed not to rest. Last night was full of distant shooting, explosions and fire. We could see fire behind us, though not in front. Moving on seems sensible, in spite of our weariness.
Then, this morning, I cleaned the little black earring radio with alcohol from my pack, turned the thing on, and put it in my ear. I had to relay what it said since its sound could not reach the others.
What it said told us we should not only forget about resting, but change our plans.
We had intended to follow U.S. 101 up through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge. But the radio warned us to stay away from the Bay Area. From San Jose up through San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, there is chaos. The quake hit hard up there, and the scavengers, predators, cops, and private armies of security guards seem bent on destroying what’s left, Also, of course, pyro is doing its part. This far north, the radio reporters shorten the name to “pro” or “ro” and they say there are plenty of addicts.
Addicts are running wild, setting fires in areas that the earthquake didn’t damage. Bands of the street poor precede or follow them, grabbing whatever they can from stores and from the walled enclaves of the rich and what’s left of the middle class. Yeah.
In some places, the rich are escaping by flying out in helicopters. The bridges that are still intact—and most of them are—are guarded either by the police or by gangs. Both groups are there to rob desperate, fleeing people of their weapons, money, food, and water—at the least. The penalty for being too poor to be worth robbing is a beating, a rape, and/or death. The National Guard has been activated to restore order, and I suppose it might. But I suspect that in the short term, it will only add to the chaos. What else could another group of well-armed people do in such an insane situation. The thoughtful ones might take their guns and other equipment and vanish to help their families. Others might find themselves at war with their own people. They’ll be confused and scared and dangerous. Of course, some will discover that they enjoy their new power—the power to make others submit, the power to take what they want—property, sex, life…
Bad situation. The Bay Area will be a good place to avoid for a long time.
We spread maps on the ground, studied them as we ate breakfast, and decided to turn off U.S. 101 this morning. We’ll follow a smaller, no doubt emptier road inland to the little town of San Juan Bautista, then east along State Route 156. From 156 to 152 to Interstate 5. We’ll use I-5 to circle around the Bay Area. For a time we’ll walk up the center of the state instead of along the coast. We might have to bypass I-5 and go farther east to State 33 or 99. I like the emptiness around much of I-5. Cities are dangerous. Even small towns can be deadly. Yet we have to be able to re-supply. In particular, we have to be able to get water. If that means going into the more populated areas around one of the other highways, we’ll do it. Meanwhile we’ll be careful, resupply every time we get a chance, never pass up a chance to top off our water and food, waste nothing. But, hell, the maps are old. Maybe the area around I-5 is more settled now.
To reach I-5, we’ll pass a big freshwater lake—San Luis Reservoir. It might be dry now. Over the past few years a lot of things had gone dry. But there will be trees, cool shade, a place to rest and be comfortable. Perhaps there will at least be a water station. If so, we’ll camp there and rest for a day or even two days. After hiking up and over a lot of hills, we’ll need the extra rest.
For now, I suspect that we’ll soon have scavengers being driven north toward us from Salinas, and refugees being driven south toward us from the Bay Area. The best thing we can do is get out of the way.
We got an early start, fortified by the good food we had bought at Salinas—some extra stuff that Bankole had wheeled in his cart, though we all chipped in to buy it. We made sandwiches—dried beef, cheese, sliced tomatoes—all on bread made from wheat flour. And we ate grapes. It was a shame we had to hurry. We hadn’t had anything that good tasting for a long time.
The highway north was emptier today than I’ve ever seen it. We were the biggest crowd around—eight adults and a baby—and other people kept away from us. Several of the other walkers were individuals and couples with children. They all seemed in a hurry—as though they, too, knew what might be coming behind them. Did they also know what might be ahead—what was ahead if they stayed on 101. Before we left 101 I tried to warn a couple of women traveling alone with kids to avoid the Bay Area. I told them I’d heard there was a lot of trouble up there—fires, riots, bad quake damage. They just held on to their kids and edged away from me.
Then we left 101 and took our small, hilly road, our short cut to San Juan Bautista. The road was paved and not too badly broken up. It was lonely. For long stretches we saw no one at all. No one had followed us from 101. We passed farms, small communities, and shanties, and the people living in these came out with
their guns to stare at us. But they let us alone. The shortcut worked. We managed to reach and pass through San Juan Bautista before dark. We’ve camped just east of the town. We’re all exhausted, footsore, full of aches and pains and blisters. I long for a rest day, but not yet. Not yet.
I put my sleepsack next to Bankole’s and lay down, already half asleep. We had drawn straws for the watch schedule, and my watch wasn’t until the early morning. I ate nuts and raisins, bread and cheese, and I slept like a corpse.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 29, 2027
(from notes expanded TUESDAY, AUGUST 31)
Early this morning I awoke to the sound of gunfire, nearby and loud. Short bursts of automatic weapons fire. And there was light from somewhere.
“Be still,” someone said. “Stay down and keep quiet.” Zahra’s voice. She had the watch just before mine.
“What is it?” one of the Gilchrists demanded. And then, “We’ve got to get away!”
“Stay!” I whispered. “Be still, and it will pass.”
I could see now that two groups were running from the highway—the 156—one group chasing the other, both firing their guns as though they and their enemies were the only people in the world. We could only stay down and hope they didn’t shoot us by accident. If nobody moved, accidents were less likely.
The light came from a fire burning some distance from us. Not buildings. We hadn’t camped near buildings. Yet something was burning. It was, I decided, a big truck of some kind. Perhaps that was the reason for the shooting. Someone, some group had tried to hijack a truck on the highway and things had gone wrong. Now, whatever the truck was carrying—food, I suspected—the fire would get it. Neither the hijackers nor the defenders would win.
We would win if we could just keep out of the fighting.
I reached over to feel for Bankole, wanting assurance that he was all right.
He wasn’t there.
His sleepsack and his things were still there, but he was gone.
Moving as little as I could, I looked toward our designated toilet area. He must be there. I couldn’t see him, but where else could he be? Bad timing. I squinted, trying to pick him out, not knowing whether to be glad or afraid because I couldn’t. After all, if I could see him, so could other people.
The shooting went on and on while we lay still and quiet and scared. One of the trees we’d camped under was hit twice, but well above our heads.
Then the truck exploded. I don’t know what exploded in it. It hadn’t looked like an old truck—one of those that used diesel fuel, but it might have been. Would diesel fuel explode? I didn’t know.
The explosion seemed to end the gunfight. A few more shots were exchanged, then nothing. I saw people, visible in the firelight, walking back toward the truck. Sometime later, I saw others—several together in a bunch—moving away toward the town. Both groups were moving away from us, and that was good.
Now. Where was Bankole? In as low a voice as I could manage, I spoke to the others. “Can anyone see Bankole?”
No answer.
“Zahra, did you see him go?”
“Yeah, a couple of minutes before the shooting started,” she answered.
All right. If he didn’t come out soon, we would have to go looking for him. I swallowed, tried not to think about finding him hurt or dead. “Is everyone else all right?” I asked. “Zahra?”
“I’m fine.”
“Harry?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay.”
“Travis? Natividad?”
“We’re all right,” Travis said.
“What about Dominic?”
“Didn’t even wake up.”
That was good. If he had, his crying could have gotten us killed. “Allie? Jill?”
“We’re okay,” Allie said.
I sat up, keeping my movements slow and cautious. I couldn’t see anyone or hear anything beyond insects and the distant fire. When no one shot me, others sat up, too. Where noise and light had not awakened Dominic, his mother’s movement did the trick. He awoke and began to whimper, but Natividad held him and he quieted.
But still no Bankole. I wanted to get up and go looking for him. I had two mental images of him: One of him lying wounded or dead, and one of him crouching behind a tree holding his own Beretta nine millimeter. If the latter was true, I could scare him into shooting me. There might also be other people out there with ready guns and frayed nerves.
“What time is it?” I asked Zahra who had Harry’s watch.
“Three-forty,” she said.
“Let me have the gun,” I said. “Your watch is almost over anyway.”
“What about Bankole?” She passed both the watch and the gun over.
“If he isn’t back in five minutes I’m going to go look for him.”
“Wait a minute,” Harry said. “You aren’t going to do that by yourself. I’ll go with you.”
I almost said no. I don’t think he would have paid any attention if I had, but I never spoke the word. If Bankole were injured and conscious, I would be useless the moment I saw him. I would be lucky to drag myself back to camp. Someone else would have to drag him back.
“Thank you,” I said to Harry.
Five minutes later, he and I went first to the toilet area, then around it, searching. There was no one, or rather, we could see no one. Still, there might be other people around—others camping overnight, others involved in the shooting, others prowling… Still, I called Bankole’s name once, aloud. I touched Harry as a kind of warning and he jumped, settled, then jumped again as I said the name. We both listened in absolute silence.
There was a rustling off to our right where there were several trees blotting out the stars, creating a space of impenetrable darkness. Anything could be there.
The rustling came again, and with it a whimper—a child’s whimper. Then Bankole’s voice:
“Olamina!”
“Yes,” I answered, almost limp with relief. “Here!”
He came out of the pool of darkness, a tall, broad shadow that seemed bulkier than it should have been. He was carrying something.
“I have an orphaned child,” he said. “The mother was hit by a stray bullet. She just died.”
I sighed. “Is the child hurt?”
“No, just scared. I’ll carry him back to our camp. Will one of you get his things?”
“Take us to his camp,” I said.
Harry collected the child’s things, and I collected the mother’s and searched her body. Between us, we gathered everything. By the time we finished, the little boy, perhaps three years old, was crying. That scared me. I left Harry to push the dead woman’s pack along in her baby carriage and Bankole to carry the whimpering child. All I carried was the gun, drawn and ready. Even when we got back to our own camp, I couldn’t relax. The little boy wouldn’t be quiet and Dominic joined him with even louder cries. Zahra and Jill worked to comfort the new child, but he was surrounded by strangers in the middle of the night, and he wanted his mother!
I saw movement over near the burned out carcass of the truck. The fire was still burning, but it was smaller now, burning itself out. There were still people near it. They had lost their truck. Would they care about a crying child? And if they did care, would they want to help the kid or just shut its mouth?
A lone, dark figure came away from the truck and took several steps toward us. At that moment, Natividad took the new child, and in spite of his age, gave him one breast and Dominic the other.
It worked. Both children were comforted almost at once. They made a few more small sounds, then settled down to nursing.
The shadow figure from the truck stood still, perhaps confused now that it was no longer guided by noise. After a moment, it turned and went back past the truck and out of sight. Gone. It couldn’t have seen us. We could look out of the darkness under the trees that sheltered our campsite and see by firelight, by starlight. But others could only follow the baby noise to us.
“We ought to move,”
Allie whispered. “Even if they can’t see us, they know we’re here.”
“Watch with me,” I said.
“What?”
“Stay awake and watch with me. Let the others get a little more rest. Trying to move in the dark is more dangerous than staying put.”
“…all right. But I don’t have a gun.”
“Do you have a knife?”
“Yeah.”
“That will have to be enough until we get the other guns clean and ready.” We’ve been too tired and in too much of a hurry to do that so far. Also, I don’t want Allie or Jill to have guns yet. Not yet. “Just keep your eyes open.” The only real defense against automatic rifles is concealment and silence.
“A knife is better than a gun now,” Zahra said. “If you have to use it, it will be quiet.”
I nodded. “The rest of you, try to get a little more rest. I’ll wake you at dawn.”
Most of them lay down to sleep, or at least to rest. Natividad kept both children with her. Tomorrow, though, one of us would have to take charge of the little boy. We didn’t need the burden of such a big child—one who had reached the “run around and grab everything” stage. But we had the little boy, and there was no one to hand him off to. No woman camping alongside a highway with her child would have other relatives handy.
“Olamina,” Bankole said into my ear. His voice was low and soft and only I reacted to it. I turned, and he was so close that I felt his beard brush my face. Soft, thick beard. This morning he combed it more carefully than he combed the hair on his head. He has the only mirror among us. Vain, vain old man. I moved almost by reflex toward him.
I kissed him, wondering what it would feel like to kiss so much beard. I did kiss the beard at first, missing his mouth by a little in the dark. Then I found it and he moved a little and slipped his arms around me and we settled to it for a little while.
It was hard for me to make myself push him away. I didn’t want to. He didn’t want to let me.
Parable of the Sower Page 23
