by Robert Reed
Science Fiction Stories
Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science
Fiction Stories
Whodunit?—The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery
Stories
More Whodunits—The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and
Mystery Stories
X is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries
The MEGAPACK™ Ebook Series | 14
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed
Originally published in The Mammoth
Book of Apocalyptic SF (2003).
Lola agrees with me, we’ve never seen a colder winter . Most
nights drop below freezing, sometimes a long ways below, and if
the stoves don’t get fed, mornings are painful . Better to lie under the
heavy covers and fool around, we joke . But eleven years together
and two swollen bladders usually put the brakes on too much friski-
ness . Besides, we’ve got a dozen dogs howling to be fed . For the
last few weeks, our habit has been to leap out of bed and dress in a
rush, then sprint outside—she has her outhouse, I’ve got mine—and
then with all of the mutts on our heels, we hurry indoors, throwing
logs into the kitchen stove so at least one room is habitable before
we attack the new day .
The cold is bad, but there hasn’t been any snow either . Not a
dusting . Last year’s drought hasn’t shown any signs of surrender,
leafless trees and sorry brown grass bending under a slicing north
wind . With my big important voice, I announce, “Winter is Death .”
Lola thinks that’s a bit much, but I believe what I say . If you can’t
migrate or hibernate, there’s nothing to eat here but leftovers from
last summer and fall . If this cold didn’t pass, we would eventually
perish . But of course winter is just a season, and not a very big one
at that . My wife smiles and promises me another spring followed by
a long hot summer. “Because the air is still filled with…what is that
stuff called…?”
“Carbon dioxide .”
“I don’t know why I can’t remember that,” she says .
Lola’s a simple, practical girl . That’s why .
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed | 18
“Carbon what?” she asks .
With my important voice, I repeat the words .
“I love you,” she says .
“I love you,” I say .
Lola stands at the warming stove, wearing two sweaters and stir-
ring our oatmeal . In ways I could never be, she is happy . Smiling for
no obvious reason, she asks what I’m planning for my day .
“You remember,” I say .
“Tell me again .”
“Run the meat into town .”
“I forgot,” she claims, her stirring picking up speed .
But really, she isn’t that simple . What she forgets can be a mes-
sage, not a mistake . Like here: Butcher Jack wants the meat . But
he has three daughters too, all in their teens . Some nights Lola lies
awake, scared that I’ll leave her for some young gal who gives me
babies . If not Butcher Jack’s kids, then there’s dozens of single la-
dies living in that hated town—fertile sluts talking about Christ but
not meaning it, their spoiled easy lives giving them time to paint
their faces and cover their bodies with fancy clothes meant to do
nothing but draw a man’s eyes . She hates my trips to town . We need
them, and she doesn’t dare stop me . But even an insensitive husband
would pick up on these feelings, and I’m not the insensitive type .
Eating breakfast, I ask what we need . What can I bring her?
Two different questions, those are .
Her wish list is shorter than usual . She mentions dried apples and
bug-free flour and oats and maybe cloth that she can use to make
new clothes and wool yarn if I can manage it . Then she pauses, star-
ing at the table between us, saying nothing but in a very important
way .“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head . But instead of lying, she admits that she
gets scared when I leave for long .
“Scared of what?”
Lola looks at me .
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed | 19
“I always come home,” I remind her . Of course maybe I won’t
make it tonight, but by tomorrow I’ll be sitting here again . And
she’ll have me until spring, if we get enough supplies for all our
smoked meat .
“I know you’ll be back,” she claims . Then a moment later, she
mentions, “The butcher shouldn’t take long .”
“I have old friends to see,” I remind her .
She nods .
“Rituals,” I add .
One ritual makes her smile .
“Come with me,” I tell her .
But that will never happen . Even the suggestion brings up old
feelings, and as her face stiffens, she says, “I wouldn’t be welcome .”
“It’s been years .”
“And what’s changed?”
“Well,” I say . “It’s not like people will talk ugly to your face .”
Heat flows into those gorgeous eyes. The sources of pain aren’t
worth repeating . We know the history, and just by bringing it up, I
make certain that she’ll stay behind . With a nod, Lola admits that
we need supplies, but at least I won’t be doing this chore again next
month . “Get everything you can today,” she implores . “Whatever
we need, and maybe a present for me . All right? Then come home
as fast as possible .”
Maybe my wife doesn’t know the ingredients of the air . But bet-
ter than me, she remembers why we even bother to breathe .
* * * *
There’s no telling how many vehicles went into making my freight
truck . I lost count of the places where I found the little valves and
bolts and brackets and gaskets . But the body belonged to a military
Hummer and the engine to a second Hummer—a big eight-cylinder
reconfigured to burn even our lousy homemade alcohol. No two
tires have the same lineage . I can make most repairs using the tools
on hand and the junkyard behind our last outbuilding . But one of
these days, this truck is going to stop running . It’ll probably happen
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed | 20
at the bottom of a gully and miles from home, and the part I need
won’t be in my inventory, or more likely I’ll hike all the way home
and find ten replacements, every last one of them rusted and useless.
Water and time are two demons steadily erasing what remains
from before . But that very bad day still sits somewhere in the future .
Today we have a fleet of Jeeps and little trucks and tractors and
powered carts, plus the one big Hummer . With Lola’s help, I load
the truck and both trailers, tying down the choicest parts of elk and
whitetail and wild pigs, plus that one idiot black bear that decided
to visit us last October, mauling our dogs when he wasn’t making a
mess of our smokehouse . Balancing the load is critical, and it takes
a lot of pushing and dragging until everything is just right . Suddenly
it’s mid-morning . Lola thinks it’s too late to go and wants me to
delay, although she won’t say it . I give her a kiss, and she does noth-
ing . I step away, and she pulls me close and kisses me, lifting her
face and whole body against me . I have to laugh . Then she slaps my
face and storms away . I climb into the cab and take the usual deep
breath, for luck. The engine catches on the first try, and I wave and
she waves and smiles, and I roll across our yard and down onto the
narrow, grass-choked road to town .
The dogs follow, but not too far .
In good shoes and motivated, a fit person could run to Salvation
in ninety minutes . Every road between home and the highway is
my responsibility . Nobody else lives out here . Spring and summer,
I use our biggest tractor to pull the mower, keeping the weeds and
volunteer trees off the once-graveled roadbeds . I also blade over the
ruts and any gullies made by cloudbursts, and eventually I’m going
to have to brace the bridge at the seven-mile mark .
The bridge creaks and moans, but it holds as always . My roads
end at the highway, and sitting beside the intersection, happy in the
sun, is a tiger—a great yellow and white and black beast staring at
this noisy contraption and the stubborn, half-deaf man clinging to
its steering wheel .
The local tigers are beauties . Their ancestors lived in a city
zoo or maybe somebody’s private collection, and instead of being
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed | 21
mercy-killed the big cats were set free . Siberian blood runs in this
fellow . He is enormous and warm inside that rich winter coat . A fur
like that would command a huge price in town . Or even better, it
would be the perfect surprise for a woman who biggest hope is for a
sack of bug-free flour.
But this tiger proves to be a wise soul . Reading my mind, he van-
ishes into the grass before I can get hold of my favorite rifle, much
less put the scope to my eye or push a big bullet into the chamber .
Oh, well .
Salvation stands along this highway and the adjacent ribbon
of clear, drought-starved water . Turning left, I head downstream .
Rectangular foundations show where homes once stood, pipe and
wire scavenged long ago, the wood and gypsum burnt off by the
spring fires. Side roads and driveways are nearly invisible under the
pale dead weeds . A factory was only half-built when work stopped,
and while the roof caved in years ago, the concrete walls and paved
parking lot are putting on worthy battles against roots and the surge
of the frosts. After that ruin comes the first tended fields. Families
have claimed different patches of bottomland . People who might
be four generations removed from farming have figured out how to
plow and irrigate, how to fight off the weeds and pests, saving seed
and canning their produce and trading for new seeds that will do
better or do worse this coming year .
It has been weeks since I saw any new human face. Today’s first
face belongs to a boy . Standing in the trees between the cold water
and me, he looks wild and very happy . Curious about this man and
his enormous truck, he lifts his arms, yelling something important .
I can’t hear a word over the screaming of the engine . Rolling past
him, I wave like any friendly neighbor .
He runs after me . And because he is a boy, he picks up a piece of
the broken pavement, flinging it into the last trailer.
New houses mark the outskirts of Salvation . Standing back from
the river, they are built from packed earth and straw bales, roughly
hewed wood and salvaged sheets of random metal . Beauty and ele-
gance don’t matter . Being tight in the winter and cool in the summer
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed | 22
is what counts . The town grows every year, and this is the look of
the…what’s that word? Oh, yeah . The suburbs .
Another mile, and I’m in the original town . The houses here are
taller and far prettier than the dirt mounds, and they’re five thousand
years fancier . Corkscrew windmills turn on the peaked roofs while
solar panels face the cold bright sun, the day’s wealth turned into
heat and LEDs and electricity stored in banks of refurbished bat-
teries . I can’t say what people want with so much juice . How many
lamps do you need to read an old book at midnight? But power is
power, prestige never changes, and if I can’t remember who lives in
which house, at least I can be certain that only the best citizens are
living behind those insulated front doors .
Salvation has always been Salvation . But the people who built it
were different from today’s good citizens . Worried about their fu-
ture, they purchased hundreds of acres of farmland . They created a
town square and a host of little businesses and streets filled with effi-
cient, luxurious homes . Being forward-looking souls, they powered
their world with wind and sunlight . They devised a community and
a life style that demanded little from the overpopulated, overheated
world. But wealthy people are smugly confident. They will always
do what looks smart, and being smart was what killed them . That’s
why Salvation became a ghost town . But these beautiful homes
weren’t empty for long, because up in heaven a benevolent God
sent His chosen people to a place with that perfect name, and among
the blessed where my mother and my father, and me .
* * * *
In a town that often chews up its own, Butcher Jack is considered
a fair trader, a gentleman unencumbered by enemies or old grudges .
And he’s glad to see me, but only because we’re friends and because
we think the world of each other . After the usual greetings and hand-
shakes, he turns quiet, throwing a sour look at the truck and trailers
loaded high with sweet wild meat .
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing you’ve done .”
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed | 23
I can’t guess what he means .
“It’s the Martin brothers,” he begins .
Identical twins, the Martins are a few years older than me, prone
to drinking homemade whiskey and starting fights with whoever is
closest . They were barely men when they were shunned, and when
their behaviors didn’t change the mayor took the unusual step of
forcing them out of town . The brothers live on the National Guard
base several days’ west, sharing at least four wives and a platoon of
kids who call both of them “Dad” . Why that clan means anything to
me is a mystery, right up until Jack admits, “They just brought in a
load of cured buffalo and wild cattle .”
“Since when do they share?”
“Since this winter . Too many bored kids underfoot, too much
energy causing mischief. They figured it was time to put the crew to
work, maybe barter for toys and the like .”
“But how’s their meat?”
He answers my question with a hard stare .
“Do they match my stuff?” I ask .
“No, and that’s why you’ll always have customers, Noah . Least
as far as I’m concerned .”
Why doesn’t this feel like good news?
“Drunks or not, the Martins did a respectable
job. Not the flavor
you manage, and the meat demands chewing . But people are pretty
satisfied.”
“How much did they bring?”
Jack considers my load before saying, “Twice yours .”
“Damn .”
“There’s the problem’s heart,” he says . “Our local market is just
about saturated .”
I used to worry about my neighbors turning into hunters, particu-
larly as the elk and buffalo grew common . But killing is easy work .
Gutting the beasts is hard, and smoking that lean flesh is an art form.
If I hadn’t come to town today, I’d still feel like a wealthy man . But
now I’m destitute, wrestling with my terrors, wondering if weeks of
PALLBEARER, by Robert Reed | 24
labor are going to count for nothing . And worst of all, my best friend
in Salvation is delivering the deathblow .
“You’ve still got your loyal customers,” Jack repeats .
I nod .
“And remember, we’ve got more mouths in town . Twenty more
than last year, nearly .”
I wait .
He offers a sum . It’s half what I expected, but I know it’s more
than he has to pay me . This is charity, and I have to smile . Then he
calls out his four sons to help unload the meat, and I catch myself
watching for his notorious daughters . I don’t see them anywhere .
Once his boys are working, he turns back to me, saying, “Things
won’t get any better, Noah .”
“You mean with the Martins?”
“No, it’s the darn Mennonites,” he says, waving toward the south-
east . “Those hill families are clearing pastures, putting up fences
and breeding with some quality bulls .”
“Tigers like beef,” I point out .
And Jack nods, wanting to believe that too . “But they may have
solved the predator problem,” he warns . “Big dogs trained to watch
the herds, and when there’s trouble, the dogs bark . Cougars, wolves,
even tigers…they’re all going to think twice when those bearded
men start firing their big rifles.”
I laugh sadly .
Jack shrugs . “Next year, in a small scale, they’ll be putting do-
mesticated beef on our tables .”
And I curse .
Which he expects . And with his own sense of impending loss,
he adds, “Mennonites are smart businessmen . Always have been .
