The bad news sank in fast. Curiosity turned to anger. “But how did they do it?” Del Ketch demanded. “Did anybody see anything? We got people guarding anything bigger than a marble in this camp.”
“Mr. Ketcham, are you familiar with the idiom involving the fox guarding the hen house?” Roethke asked.
“Say what?” Del asked.
“He’s telling you that the guards you’re talking about were probably in on it,” said Jim Crowley, the elderly de facto leader of the Lockworth survivors.
“Yeah,” Miguel Cantos snapped. “We were loco to trust you outsiders,” he said, glaring at Jim. “We shouldn’t have even let you come here in the first place,” he declared in his usual heavily-accented English.
“That’s rich,” Mark Roman said angrily. “Half the camp was saying the same thing about you when we found you out in the woods. You’re lucky one of us stuck with you when nobody else would. It didn’t work out so bad that time, did it?”
‘He’s right, though,” Del said. “What in the world were we thinkin’?”
Nick appreciated the bone Mark had just thrown his way, even if nobody else picked up on it, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the argument again boiled down to the original idea of inviting the Lockwood refugees to Tabernacle. Enough people knew about his passionate arguments at Committee meetings that it wasn’t a secret. As more and more attendees accepted it as fact, eyes in the room would turn to him. He considered shouting everybody down long enough to accept the blame once and for all, to get it over with. Maybe he should even volunteer to leave Tabernacle.
But before he could, Grover spoke again. “Whatever you’re feeling, get it all out of your systems right now. Because after we’re done here, we’ll be looking forward, not backward. There’s a lesson to be learned here, but none of us know what that lesson is yet.”
“You gotta’ be kidding,” whispered somebody near Nick. “We all know what it is.” Whoever it was knew enough not to say it loud enough to cross Grover. But even though it was undetectable, it was the first act of defiance toward Grover that Nick had ever witnessed in camp. That’s how bad this was.
“We’ll meet again tomorrow,” Grover said. “We’ll work out some plans on how we’ll get through this after we’ve had some time to think about it. But one thing’s for certain. We’ll be tightening our belts. All of us.” He looked at members of The Committee to make sure none had anything to say, and then told everybody goodnight. The meeting was over.
~~~
“Now’s as good a time as any to bring this up,” Carlo Moriarty said to Grover, Roethke and Crystal Monroe after everybody else had left. “If this meeting is any indication, Tabernacle is ready to explode. There could be fights and riots over this. Somebody needs to be the law.” Carlo had kept a low profile during the meeting. There was no reason not to. Nothing discussed at the meeting involved him directly. “Even before tonight, I already knew that we’re going to want to think seriously about setting some type of police department.”
“Police?” Crystal asked. “For what?”
“For what?” Carlo asked. “Every day there’s more law enforcement work to be done around here, and it’s all falling on the Sec Forces. That’s not what we’re here for. It’s taking away from what we’re really supposed to be doing.”
“Cut to the chase,” Roethke said. “You’re worried that the roofer’s going to be tarred and feathered tonight, right? You want to keep him around a little longer, so you want us to assign bodyguards.”
“No,” Carlo retorted. “Cool story, though, bro.”
“I’ve heard of a few incidents,” Grover said. “Looking into it has been on my to-do list. Tell us more.”
“Well, the way I see it, when we got here, people were still shell-shocked,” Carlo said. “And they were thankful to be here at all. They knew how lucky they were. Nobody ever thought about breaking the rules or taking advantage of anybody. There wasn’t any need for law enforcement, if you want to call it that. But things have changed. Everybody’s in their comfort zone now, and starting to take our situation here for granted. First they started bending the rules when it benefited them. Now they’re breaking them. And since there’s nobody else to call, the victims call us.”
“Give us some examples,” Crystal said. “I’m sorry to say I don’t know about any of this.”
“It’s mostly little stuff,” Carlo said. “One cabin stealing firewood or food from another. There’s usually a fistfight a week now, over trivial stuff. The kind of things that nobody had time to worry about when we first got here. We just take them in and hold them until everybody cools down. That’s most of it. But not all of it.”
“What else?” Grover asked. “I know there was incident over by the Crop Fields last week.”
“Yep, that was the tipping point,” Carlo said. “That’s why I’m speaking up. We’ve officially had our first sexual assault. Or our first accusation, at least. Nothing’s proven, but we’re pretty sure it happened. Some guy attacked his coworker’s wife. Everybody involved is from Lockworth. Somebody intervened before it got too far, but it was brutal while it lasted. She got beat up a bit.”
“Yeah, I guess I did hear something about that,” Crystal said. “Where are they now?”
“The woman’s back in her cabin with her family,” Carlo said. “She’s gone back to work on Farming. We have the guy locked in the Armory, with guards taking shifts. We don’t really know what to do with him. Keep him there forever? Have a trial? Banish him? I don’t know what to do with him, and I don’t think I’m the one who should be deciding. That’s partly why I’m here.”
“You’re not just talking about a police force,” Crystal pointed out. “It sounds like you’re talking about a full legal system.”
“At least somebody to babysit the prisoners,” Carlo said. “It’s not just our own people in there. Every week or so we grab somebody out in the woods. Either they’re attacking us, or they look like they’re thinking about it. What do we do with them?”
“Well, what are we doing with them?” Crystal asked. “Putting them in the Armory?”
“For the most part,” Carlo said. “I know of at least one time when the guards went out in the woods and just mowed down a little colony of beggars because it looked like they were trying to sneak into the camp. And let’s face it. That probably is what they were doing. Massacring them is wrong, but what’s right? I don’t know what to do about it. But if we’re just going to capture them and house them as prisoners, I don’t think that should be the job of the Sec Forces.”
“That’s a separate issue,” Grover said. “But an important one. As time goes on, more and more people will know we’re out here. The colder and hungrier they get, the faster they’ll arrive. We’ll be their only hope.” He stared directly at Carlo. “But we can’t afford to give them hope. Welcoming them with open arms isn’t the answer. If they overrun us, peacefully or not, we’ll starve to death right alongside them. The same goes for locking them up and feeding them. We can’t afford to do that, either. Especially after what’s just happened to us.”
“So you’re saying you’re okay with massacring them?” Carlo asked. “It’ll have to be with spears and swords now. We don’t have enough bullets to shoot them.”
“I’m saying that’s a different discussion from what you started with,” Grover said, this time more forcefully. “It’s a discussion we must have. But there’s no place for emotion and pity in that discussion. We’re succeeding here because we don’t let ourselves think that way. Not at the top, anyway.”
“Okay,” Carlo said in defeat. “You’re not wrong, I’ll give you that.”
“Now, back to the topic at hand. A police force is a maybe,” Grover said. “Courts and a judicial system is a no-go. We don’t want to build bureaucracies here. Better to cast out criminals than build a bureaucracy to handle them.”
“The less riff-raff we have here, the better,” agreed Roethke.
&nbs
p; “But aren’t they just going to gather their own little army and come back at us? And who’s to say who is a criminal?” Carlo argued. “Take the assault case, for example. I talked with the guy we have locked up. He says the woman started it and then her husband walked in on it. And he says he didn’t beat her up. According to him, she got roughed up during the scuffle, and probably later by her husband to punish her. I’m not saying I believe all that, but I don’t know that it isn’t true. Who decides who the criminal is? I don’t want it to be the Sec Forces.”
“We could just bring them all in front of The Committee,” Roethke suggested. “We decide everything, anyway. Why complicate things?”
“Yes, I’m leaning that way myself,” said Grover. “But that’s not really what Carlo’s asking about. What should happen when there’s an incident? The Sec Forces are already doing important work. Do we really want somebody pulled from a guard shack to stop somebody from stealing a log from somebody else’s woodpile? It’s a valid question.”
“Thank you,” Carlo said.
“I’m convinced,” Crystal said. “I agree that we need a separate police force. So how do we make that happen?”
“Let’s pick a police chief, bring him or her in to set up some guidelines, and turn our new chief loose,” Grover said. “The rest will take care of itself. We’ll see where it goes and reevaluate it later.”
Six
Exiting the Meetinghouse after the emotionally charged meeting was a carefully-choreographed exercise for Nick. He was determined to get out without rubbing shoulders with anybody who’d want to grill him about the seemingly disastrous results of the expedition to Lockwood, which many had just heard for the first time was his brainchild. It was easier once he pushed through the mass of attendees, ignoring everybody and anybody, and got outside where it was dark. He heard his name called several times, but didn’t even think of slowing down. Knowing the crowd would go to the right, in the general direction of the Village, he went left.
Once he’d separated himself he stopped in the shadows and waited for the area to clear out. It didn’t take much to hide once the sun went down anymore, thanks to the absence of light pollution. Dark was dark, and nobody more than fifteen feet away was going to see him where he was lurking. For the moment, he was safe from view.
Or was he? A pair of headlights suddenly appeared on the road from the camp entrance. Whoever was driving that vehicle had obviously flicked the lights on after pulling into Tabernacle from Route 206. Knowing he was in its probable path, Nick moved to the side and slipped behind a tree.
When the truck rolled slowly past he recognized it immediately as the purple pickup he’d brought back from Lockwood, loaded at the time with the newly-liberated daughters of many of the refugees. It reminded him that he’d been a hero that day. At the time it had been the icing on the cake after what was widely perceived as a successful mission in Lockwood. That had been the prevailing view in the months since then. But in the last hour, that had all come crashing down.
~~~
There were a few campers milling about the cabins when Nick made it back to the Village, but most were already indoors. There was absolutely nobody he wanted to talk to. As far as he was concerned, there were only two kinds of people in Tabernacle anymore; those who already knew what had been said at the meeting, and those who would soon know. He didn’t have anything to say to either group at the moment. All he wanted to do was hunker down.
“What happened?” Dewey asked when Nick came inside and closed the door behind him. “Like, what was the meeting about?”
“I’m not in the mood, Dewey,” Nick said as he made his way to his bunk. Then he caught himself. Despite the differences in age and background, he didn’t have a better friend in the world than Dewey, who was as loyal as they came. He’d always been there for Nick, and even put his own life on the line at least once in Lockwood. For Sarah, too, when they’d ventured to Medford together. He deserved to know. For the next few minutes Nick told him exactly what the meeting had been about, leaving out nothing. Then, without waiting for a response, he went for what he’d come for. As close and he and Dewey had become, he needed to be alone.
Somehow that last bottle of cranberry wine was still in the sack where he’d left it. He’d been expecting for months that Matt or Sarah would slip in to confiscate it. He knew it was on their to-do lists, and deep down, maybe he was even hoping they’d get it done. But it hadn’t happened. And now he was going to make the most of that oversight.
~~~
Locked into one of the empty cabins at the edge of the Village, Nick was on the floor, tucked into the corner, the bottle between his thighs. He’d been there less than an hour, and he guessed that only a third of the bottle was gone. Since it was pitch black, however, he couldn’t see for sure, and he didn’t care. Before long it all would be gone. The memory of the meeting was still sharp, but it wasn’t as painful for him now. The deeper he got into that bottle, the truer that would be.
Then the knock came. “Nick? Are you in there?”
He knew immediately that it was Sarah. How does that woman always know? He tried to ignore her, even though she obviously knew he was there. But how? He hadn’t even told Dewey where he was going. After a minute of listening to the knocking and hearing his name called, he pulled himself to his feet without putting down the bottle and opened the door.
“Nick, don’t do this,” she said as she stepped inside, the flickering light from her candle casting ghostly shadows in the room. “I know what happened. It wasn’t your fault.”
He lifted the bottle for another drink, but she stopped him with a gentle grasp of his wrist. “What do you mean, you know what happened?” he asked.
“I was at the meeting, too,” she said.
That hadn’t occurred to Nick. He’d stared at the floor the entire time in the Armory. He really had no idea who’d been there. But of course she’d come, now that he thought it through. There was somebody from every cabin. “So you heard it all. Everything they said about me.” He walked across the room and flopped onto the makeshift bed that he hadn’t even known was there until Sarah arrived with her candle.
Sarah followed and sat next to him. “There’s no ‘they’ about it,” she countered. “The only one trying to blame anything on you is Roethke. That man hates you, Nick. Before this happened, he was blaming you for something else. And before that, something different. He probably blames you every time it snows. Nobody cares what he thinks, and you shouldn’t, either.”
“He hates me all right,” Nick agreed. “But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong, at least this time. And it doesn’t mean everybody isn’t thinking the same thing.”
“The people in charge all agreed on the plan for Lockwood,” said Sarah. “Or it would never have happened. You know that better than I do.”
“Well, none of that matters anymore,” Nick said. “Roethke’s gonna’ make sure everybody knows it was me behind the whole thing. And me alone. He already started tonight.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why he has it in for me, that guy.”
“I do,” Sarah said. “You’re not perfect, but you’ve got something that he’ll never have. He knows it, and it kills him.”
Nick stared at her in the dim light of the candle, before raising the bottle and taking another long drink. He wanted to ask what she meant by that, but at the same time he was afraid to find out. In the meantime, Sarah took the bottle from his hand and had a long pull of her own. “Hope you don’t mind,” she said.
“Nope,” he answered, hiding his surprise. “I’m glad to share.” He reached for the bottle, ready for his next swig, but froze when he felt Sarah’s resistance. She wasn’t letting him have it back? Was that what this visit was about?
“Let’s make a deal,” she said, ending all suspense. “You let me take this bottle outside and dump it, and I’ll stay with you all night. What do you say?”
Nick shook his head in the dim light of the candle. “You’re welcome
to stay, Sarah. And you’re welcome to share the wine. But why do you have to go there? Leave this alone, at least for tonight.”
“You know why, Nick,” she answered. “We both know what’s going on here. Don’t do it. Don’t let everybody down this way. Don’t let me down. Okay?”
Nick slammed his fist into the timber wall of the cabin after pulling himself to his feet. “Not this again! Who sent you over here? I know it wasn’t Matt this time. I’m public enemy number one around here now. Isn’t that enough? Can’t you all just get off my back? If you came here to convince me to leave Tabernacle, you’re doing a good job.”
“That’s not why I came here. Nobody wants that.”
He massaged his throbbing fist without answering. There just wasn’t anything left to say.
“What about my offer?” Sarah asked. “You game?”
Nick blew out a breath. “About staying? I guess so. That way I won’t have a hangover in the morning. But can you do me a favor? Just jam the cork into the bottle instead of pouring it out?”
Sarah walked toward the door, her candle in front of her to light the way, and put the bottle down on the floor rather than taking it outside. Then she returned to the bed and stood in front of Nick.
“It’s so cold,” Nick said. “It always is. Did you ever realize how bad that could feel before all this happened? I feel like I haven’t been warm in months. It just wears you down. My fingers are so frozen that I don’t think I could make a fire even if there was any wood in here. I was just going to find a place to sleep after this and hope I don’t wake up until spring.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sarah said. “There are two blankets on this bed. I’m surprised nobody came for them already.”
Super Pulse (Book 4): Defect Page 5
