The chupacabras weren’t interested in us. We were too big, or the steam engine was too noisy. They kept their distance while they hunted for rodents and after nearly a day, they moved on, flowing up the side of the train tracks to parts unknown.
“Why didn’t you talk to them?” Craig asked as we watched them move off.
“They weren’t talking,” I said. “They’re not like some of the other new animals. They’re not all sentient.”
“You mean you can’t talk to everything?” Landers asked from behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder at the irritating man. Somehow he had quietly approached, and I had been none the wiser. “Obviously,” I said pertly, “not everything is clever enough to be understood.”
There was a moment of stinging silence before Craig and Stephen both barked with laughter. As I clambered back over the tender, I heard Craig say, “She got you there, Landers.”
* * *
We came into the District of Columbia on a bright winter’s day. I didn’t know what the date was, but I knew that I was seeing something I had never seen before. The nation’s capital was at its winter best. It looked like a normal place. People had fallen silent on the train and most crowded onto the open platforms to better see the District as we moved into the metroplex.
There was the occasional person with horses or wagon or both. There was a man riding a burro, and the poor burro looked overloaded. There was a woman riding something that I thought might be related to a llama, but it wasn’t like any llama I’d ever seen. I should have been used to that, but it never seemed to get easier.
The really freaky part was that everyone waved. And we waved back like we knew each other, and we were really happy to see each other. A big, happy, fun family all coming together.
Craig expertly directed the train into Union Station with all the ease of a man who had been driving steam locomotives for a month or two. The train hit the bumper a little hard, and three people were knocked to the ground with a grunt and a laugh.
I glanced at Lulu. “We made it.”
The firefly pixies were peeking out of the material of the gerbil cage. Flowers sang, “The sisters are not impressed.”
It was true. The roads were covered with snow with only a few trails to indicate anyone had passed. The houses were a great variety, ranging from mansion-like to row houses that were only a step above the poverty line. Union Station itself wasn’t impressive until we disembarked the train and came into the grand vaulted interior with its classic façades. Scalloped octagonal shapes dotted the huge ceiling and were covered with gold leaf or something like gold leaf. There was a tremendous half-moon-shaped window in the front of the building, allowing light from the day to stream inside, revealing that the black and white floors were made from marble. It could have been a typical lull in traffic, and people were just waiting for the next rush.
Spring’s only comment was, “Why do the humans need such a large hut?”
I didn’t respond but followed some of the others out the front of the building and looked at the expansive architecture. The arches in the front were Classic Greek Revival. Flags from the United States of America flew proudly from three flag poles aligned with the statue in front of Union Station. The replica of the Liberty Bell sat in front of that.
I stopped to read the information on the statue. It was a memorial to Christopher Columbus. I wondered what he would think of the Americas now.
Stephen touched my arm, and I glanced away from the cold marble façade of a man who had been dead over five hundred years, a half a millennium. What the world had undergone in five hundred years; what would the world undergo in the next five hundred?
Beyond Stephen I could see the enormous white dome of the Capitol building. I hadn’t realized we would be so close to the place where our government had operated in all its infinite wisdom. (And sometimes a lack of, or at least, according to my parents.)
“There’s transport waiting for us. The President wants to see you right away,” Stephen said and jerked his thumb toward a group of people headed for the roadway. Lulu hesitated, but I jerked my head at her. She was going with me until she didn’t want to go with me anymore.
“Great,” I said, “I always wanted to see the White House.”
Stephen chuckled. “Oh, the Prez isn’t in the White House. He’s at the Naval Observatory. You’ll see.”
I frowned in the direction of the grand white dome. Later, I promised myself. However, it was like that mountain I never climbed in Oregon. I never got to it.
Chapter 11
History is Never Really
Forgotten, Only Misplaced…
There wasn’t a wagon waiting for us as I was expecting. It could have been a full-sized dragon with a coach mounted on its back, and I probably wouldn’t have been too surprised. But what was waiting did surprise me. Not a wagon at all. No, it was a car. A car! It was two-toned in blood red and gleaming deepest black. It was wonderfully sleek and looked like it had been built in the teens or twenties of the 19th century. This was a car that was about a hundred years old. What it really needed was to be in a parade or a museum, and I nearly giggled at the notion.
I looked at Lulu, and Lulu looked at me. It was clear from her expression that she felt the same as I did. We felt like the world was going to cave in. After all, it wasn’t the first time.
A man in a military uniform waited by the car. He adjusted his soft cap and smiled at Stephen. “Glad to see you back, Steve,” he said. As I got closer, I saw one side of his camouflaged overcoat had a tag that said U.S. Navy. The other side had a tag that said McCurdy. I didn’t know what the naval insignia meant, but I guessed he was an officer of some kind because it had two connected silver bars. They were shiny! (That was my reasoning, and I was sticking with it.)
“Oh, that’s great! You managed to get it to work!” Stephen exclaimed at the sight of the car. “Wait until Craig sees that!” Craig had remained with the steam locomotive, saying he had to power it down properly. I assumed Stephen was talking about the car. No other car had worked that I had seen, but this one was so old that I knew it had to be something different. For all I knew, they intended on hooking the car up to a set of horses.
It had great wheel wells with white-walled tires that went with the spoke rims. The headlights were the size of pizza pies and pointed ahead like they were suggesting a course. The engine compartment seemed as long as an aircraft carrier and had slits like gills on the sides. It resembled a coffin on wheels, for lack of a better comparison. There were two sets of bench seats that one could sleep on. Lastly, it was a convertible, although the cold wind whistling down the street didn’t lend itself to having the top down.
Stephen looked at me with a great grin. “Bet you’re confused.” I was.
“Ma’am,” the man in the uniform said to me. His eyes rested on my cheek where the firefly pixies’ mark was located and then he nodded at Lulu. I glanced around, unused to being called ma’am by anyone. The last months had seen Soophee, SOPHIE!, Hey you, and a few that were obviously thinking FREAKJOB! (I couldn’t read their thoughts, but I had a very good idea of the general nature of the descriptors.)
The remainder of the group was herded into some other wagons. (Real wagons with real horses. I was getting special treatment, and it made me distinctly nervous. I didn’t like being singled out.) Clora called to us, “They’re putting us up in a hotel by the Capitol, Sophie! Come see us later. There’s a restaurant on the first floor that someone’s got running.”
Maybe we could stay at the Watergate. I once wrote a paper on Richard Nixon.
I noticed Landers was climbing into one of the wagons. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he sat on a bench seat and glared in our direction. I guess he didn’t need to speak directly to the President since he already had Miss Cleo’s psychic hotline, but he didn’t look very happy.
“It’s a steam-powered car,” Stephen said proudly. “We got it out of the Smithsonian. It’s called
a Stanley Steamer. I think this one is a 1923. This model had a condenser for the steam so that it wouldn’t use as much water.”
“I already put the water in,” McCurdy said. He opened the door for us, and I was frozen for a moment. I held onto the gerbil cage, and Spring peered out suspiciously, checking out the state of affairs. The navy guy’s pixilated uniform confused her for a moment. The clothing’s pattern was constructed of a series of blue and gray squares in order to obscure one’s self from the enemy. “How did that one get so many shades of blue on one set of clothing?” she sang.
“It’s a uniform for when he goes into a battle,” I sang back, and McCurdy looked sharply at me. He glanced at the cage and snapped, “How many of those things are there?” His hand went to the handle of the knife in the sheath at the belt around his waist.
“Nine of them,” I snapped back. “They don’t like questions either. Is there a problem?”
“They won’t be allowed at the Naval Observatory,” McCurdy said curtly, as if I was suggesting bringing a bomb with me.
Lulu sighed. “They’re not harmful, unless you’re threatening Sophie.”
“Lulu, they’re not happy if someone’s threatening you either,” I said promptly.
Lulu smiled. “I’m sure the lieutenant just has to think about security issues, Sophie. I can stay with the girls. I don’t think they’ll mind much.”
But there was a little warning flag that went up in my head. The days of the old regime were past. If someone wanted to kill the President, then it would be done by hand or not at all. If these people were watching out for risks, what had happened to make them cautious? Or was it simply a carryover from the old world?
I stared at the military guy. How did Lulu know about ranks? “Are you sure he isn’t a sergeant?” He could have been a general for all I knew. I didn’t need to do the odds in my head to comprehend that he was likely one of a select few who had survived who had been in the military. If he had been in the military before the change.
“The two bars means he’s an O-3 or a lieutenant in the navy,” Lulu said. “My dad was retired navy.”
Another little tidbit about Lulu that I didn’t know before. Sometimes I had to chastise myself for not remembering that she had lost just as much as any of us.
“So lieutenant, the firefly pixies allowed in the car, or are we walking?” I asked.
McCurdy looked at my mutinous face and then at the gerbil cage. I didn’t follow his gaze, but I knew that Spring and several other of the firefly pixies were actively glaring at him from the cage. He nodded reluctantly and said, “The car.” His hand left the handle of the knife. I also noticed that on the opposite side of the knife was a holstered pistol.
What was he going to do with that? Club someone or use it as a hammer?
McCurdy said to Stephen, “So you want to crank or pump? This antiquated behemoth doesn’t have an electric starter.” He left the door open for Lulu, and I and went around to listen to how the vehicle was started. Stephen asked a few questions and then took the crank handle that McCurdy handed to him.
I waited a moment and motioned Lulu inside. She glanced at me sharply, and I shook my head. When had I started trusting her so implicitly? I didn’t know. I thought of when she had folded a hand of three kings in order to defend me, and it made some inordinate amount of sense. Furthermore, the girls trusted her now. Sometimes Spring still called her by an insulting name, but it was generally done with a smidgeon of affection. If nothing else, I had to trust the firefly pixies’ judgment.
Surprisingly enough, the car started up with a roar. Steam came pouring out of the sides, and Stephen jumped away with the starter handle still in his hand. The people in the wagons looked on with amazement and some outright resentment. I couldn’t blame them. No one had ridden in a car for coming on a half a year, except maybe Lieutenant McCurdy. I even wanted to drive, and I wasn’t very good with a manual transmission, much less an antique one.
Once everyone was inside, I sang to Spring, “Going for another ride. This is like the steam locomotive.”
“The sisters like the boat better,” Spring sang back. (Once they had gotten used to the motion of the boat.) In fact, they had relaxed enough to taunt the ice imps through a porthole from the safety of the cabin.
McCurdy slid on some brass-lined goggles that made him look like a man-shaped insect and got the car into gear. It jerked and jumped, but he seemed to know what he was doing. The Stanley Steamer turned onto Massachusetts Avenue and went northwest. I had no idea of the layout of D.C. and consequently, didn’t have a clue where the Naval Observatory was located. All I knew about it was that it was where the Vice President had a residence. “Why doesn’t the President use the White House?” I asked McCurdy.
Lulu and I sat in the back bench seat with the gerbil cage and our packs between us. I stared at the set of the lieutenant’s shoulders and knew I’d asked something he didn’t want or care to answer. Maybe I didn’t have a high enough rank to suit him.
“The President felt that a new start to his administration was necessary. There’s room at the observatory for what needs to be seen. Plus, they’re planning a series of gardens up there for the staff.” McCurdy’s voice was smooth and practiced.
Yes, I was naïve. But I was less naïve these days. “Is there something wrong with the White House?”
McCurdy didn’t say anything for a moment. We came to a spot where Massachusetts Avenue took a brief break to go around a block. “That’s the Convention Center. Over there is the City Museum. I need to tell you that the President has declared looting for food and weapons illegal in the District. The Convention Center is being used as the basis for storage of canned and dried goods until such a time as we get the agricultural society going again.”
He drove around the block so that we could properly appreciate the City Museum. There was a statue of a pointing hand. One finger pointed upward, and I didn’t really appreciate it. McCurdy continued to speak. “That means no helping yourself to items out of the Smithsonian or any other site of cultural or historical distinction.”
“Gee, I thought I’d try out the Wright Brothers plane,” I said. Lulu snorted.
McCurdy glanced over his shoulder sharply.
“Kidding. Everything here belongs to the government of the U.S.A., right?” I reiterated. “So what do we eat?”
“You’ll get to eat at the restaurants or the cafeterias that are open. We’ll brief you on those later. There’s no charge right now.” McCurdy’s fierce gaze went back to the road. “Although weapons are permitted in the District, we may need to confiscate them later for the needs of the government.”
I smiled grimly. Oh, no one was taking my Japanese broadsword, and I’d be damned before someone thought to take the silver toothpicks away from the firefly pixies. Lulu’s hand rested lightly on mine. I don’t know what I had been visualizing, but it hadn’t been this. The U.S. had been a democracy before. Now the District of Columbia seemed like a place where laws had been laid down in order to facilitate dominance. The Burned Man would like it here a lot. Maybe he would run for President in the next election.
Lulu squeezed my hand, but I didn’t stop frowning.
We passed a park with a big bronze statue in it. McCurdy said the name and said something about a labor leader, but my mind was elsewhere. Then there was another park and another statue. McCurdy was good at naming statues. “Edmund Burke was an Irishman who supported the American Revolution,” he said.
“Peachy,” I muttered, and only Lulu heard me.
Spring sang, “I could stab the human male in the blue dots through his eye, easily reaching his emaciated brain. The sisters and Soophee can take the steam-powered monster back to home. It will be another great adventure.”
I nearly smiled. Then I wondered how Spring and the girls had figured out how they could best kill a human being. Huh, that would teach me to underestimate them.
The Steamer went through another traffic circle with
a statue in the middle of it. McCurdy said, “Slow Trot Thompson, a Union general from Virginia who had decisive commands in Stones River, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga. He wasn’t one of the most famous generals of the Civil War, but he got a statue.”
I wanted to blow a raspberry at the back of McCurdy’s head.
There was another traffic circle and another statue. McCurdy said, “General Winfield Scott, the longest serving general in U.S. military history. He spent 47 years as a general and served in three major wars, including the Civil War. He was also the individual who orchestrated the Cherokee’s removal from the trans-Mississippi region in the middle part of the 19th century.”
“You mean the Trail of Tears,” I said.
Stephen looked over his shoulder at me. I met his brown eyes, and there was a message in them I deliberated ignored.
“The politically correct era of the last half-century of our country has rewritten that segment of history,” McCurdy commented.
“You mean thousands of Native Americans didn’t die on a forced march out of a region that they were originally promised?” Somewhere Bansi was probably clapping for me, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. McCurdy spoke about the statues in terms of historical heroism. I didn’t like it much. Perhaps it was the fatigue that assailed me after the culmination of a long journey and perhaps it was the figurative stick up McCurdy’s tushie, but I was annoyed either way.
McCurdy didn’t answer me. The next traffic circle was larger and had a big pretty fountain in the middle. A group of people had a bonfire next to the fountain and watched us go putt-putting past. I reckoned that there was nothing historically significant about the fountain or nothing that had interested the navy lieutenant.
We passed that quickly, and McCurdy said something about various embassies.
Stephen said, “This was called Embassy Row because of all the foreign embassies. All that’s left is an ambassador from Sudan. He still here, McCurdy?”
“Went to find a boat to take him back home,” McCurdy said sharply. “Haven’t seen him since.”
Mountains of Dreams Page 11
