Frost said “I know. Shut up.” He went down the stairs one by one, with Joshua folded over his left shoulder. As he went he leaned with his right shoulder scraping against the wall of the stairwell.
Farther down there was a distant wavering light and the faint smell of smoke. The light grew stronger, as did the smell. Someone came up the next flight of stairs, rounded the landing and started up the flight down which Frost was struggling. The person was holding a cattail by the stem. The fluff, burst out of its dark skin, was burning weakly, sputtering. Frost looked down the stairs into the face of Brandon. He said “Get out of my way.”
Without looking, Brandon stepped backward down the stairs, keeping pace with Frost. He said “I come to light you down.”
Frost said “I don’t need any light.”
“I ain’t talkin’ to you.”
In the shadows squirming on it, Joshua’s face seemed to move, to dodge, thrust forward and retreat. In addition to this flutter of shadows, the face and the torch and the smoke were spinning in front of Frost’s eyes. But at the next landing he did not stop to rest. He said “Drunk. Already.”
Brandon continued backward down the steps, keeping pace with Frost. He said “I seen you was near the end.”
Frost said “You talking to me now?” He gave in to a kind of weak-kneed momentum, moving fast while he still could.
Brandon also increased his pace, stepping blindly backwards. He said “So I come to light you down.”
Through his own gasping breaths and the blood pounding in his ears Frost heard someone coughing. He heard a child crying. He plunged on down the stairs.
At the bottom Brandon dropped his torch on the tiled floor. There was a glass door. Brandon held it open, and Frost stumbled out through it into the cold dawn air, weaving, knees buckling. He turned his head and vomited a splash of yellow bile.
Jessica and Grace rushed past Brandon and helped Frost to sit on the top step. Frost slid the corpse down onto his lap so that Joshua again lay with his head flung back, mouth gaping, with the back of the free hand resting on the wet of a lower concrete step. Frost’s head hung down against the pelts of Joshua’s poncho.
When Frost looked up Will was standing waiting in front of him with a shovel. Frost said faintly. “I’ll be fine. Just dizzy.” He slid his right arm from under Joshua and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. Grace squatted behind him and put her hands on his shoulders and laid her face against his back.
Frost straightened. His breath was still heaving. He peered off toward the graveyard, as if he were trying to gauge how far away it was. He made no effort to rise yet, but sat there in the rain with the corpse of Joshua on his lap.
Will looked as if he were about to cry. Jessica went down the steps and stood beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. This started him blubbering.
Brandon walked off eastward toward the bridge. He walked not in a straight line but in long narrow curves. He had a bottle now.
Frost set his mouth and gathered himself.
Grace said “No, Frost" and “Will, get a wheelbarrow.” But Will just stood there beside Jessica, crying and watching his grandfather.
Frost raised his head, squinted westward, suddenly alert and birdlike in the burgundy-rimmed glasses. Grace rose and stared in the same direction. Then Jessica also did so, and finally Will, who spluttered “It’s Beast and Sorrow.” The two dogs were trotting at a good pace. Beast barked once at about a hundred yards distance. Sorrow barked, and then they ran. Wing and Daniel Charlie were standing by the building blocks. Sorrow jumped up against Wing, wagging her tail. Beast ran on to be greeted by Frost.
Frost slid carefully out from under Joshua and left him sprawled on his back there on the steps. He walked quickly past the others. The dog jumped up against him, whining and barking. Will dropped the shovel and ran forward and grabbed the dragging leash. Wing and Daniel Charlie watched Frost and the others approach. Then they turned suddenly. Far beyond them a figure was approaching.
Frost eased into a jog, and Will and Beast followed. But soon Frost stopped and looked back. In a scattered group his guards came around the far corner of the domicile. They were running. Marpole, Dunsmuir, Hastings, Airport, Newton, Boundary, Richmond, Lansdowne, Oak. Tyrell was at the front. Most of Wing’s men were there too - Nordel, Bridgeport, Burnaby. They had their spears. They had their bows slung over their backs, and also, by cords, their plastic bags of arrows. In the hands that did not hold their spears six of the men each gripped the leash of a dog that ran beside him.
Frost said “Will, stay here with Beast. Stay by the domicile.” He called “Jessica, get out all the bows and all the arrows. Grace, be ready.”
When Frost turned again Wing and Daniel Charlie were running westward. He jogged after them, with the world swimming in his vision.
Solomon’s eyes were wild, like the eyes of a terrorized horse, and his beardless face was ashen beneath a mane of tangled black hair. Until Wing and Daniel Charlie reached him he made not a sound, but when Daniel Charlie tried to calm him by patting his back he howled. He stomped side to side in a frantic dance and flapped his right arm. His left hung limp. The khaki shirt sleeve was torn and reddened, and blood dripped from his fingers. His faded and patched blue jeans were wet around the crotch. He screamed “Frost! Frost!”
Frost leaned on his knees, catching his breath. When he straightened, the world was still spinning. He spoke anyway. “Solomon, what happened?”
Solomon wagged his head from side to side. “Frost! Frost! Frost!”
Frost slapped him. Solomon froze, staring.
Frost said again “What happened?”
Solomon said “The bad men are hurtin’ everybody.”
Then Grace was there. She took Solomon’s right hand, and he went with her toward the domicile, howling again.
The running men surrounded Frost and Wing and Daniel Charlie. The dogs were barking and snapping at one another. Frost shouted “Settle down!” He shouted it again, and they were quieter. Tyrell said “We heard screamin’ from up there. Looks like Fundy tried to get his bridge back.”
Frost nodded in the direction Solomon had come from. He said “Go on.” And Tyrell and the men and the dogs continued running toward Little Bridge and Fundy’s farm beyond.
32
As he approached Little Bridge Frost started to hear the screams of women. He also heard men yelling and he heard dogs barking frantically and the piercing yelps of dogs in pain. He could not run anymore. In heavy rain he walked gasping over Little Bridge. He had no poncho and no weapon.
Fundy’s Bridge rose three hundred yards to his right. One of Langley’s men was limping backward up the wide, empty span, swinging his sword wildly at a small black dog that dodged and feinted in front of him. Frost saw, standing alone halfway to the crest of the bridge, the tall bald form of Abraham Bundy. As the soldier and the dog passed him on the other side of the lane divider, Bundy turned to watch them. He did not raise his hands from his sides. He turned back and stood looking out over his field.
Frost left the road on the south side, away from the bridge, and let gravity impel him running down a sloping concrete embankment. He had caught his breath to a degree, and he continued running across the fractured and bush-grown asphalt of an approach ramp, across a stretch of boggy grass, over another ramp and then across the main road. His men were crouched in a line with their dogs behind the near verge of a further ramp. Wing’s man, Pender, was among them, apparently unharmed.
Frost threw himself down on his back behind Tyrell. He looked up into the rain, letting it beat into his face. Water slid from the lenses of his glasses as he waited for the world to become more solid. In a minute he rose to his knees and turned and leaned on Tyrell’s back and peered across the roadway, through the winter weeds and the leafless brush. He took his glasses off and ran the lenses once across his wet shirt and put them back on.
Fundy’s house, a long, rectangular two-storey concrete structure, l
ay off to the left, back beyond the main road. But up on the west end of the overpass, just at the point where it had collapsed, stood a half-dozen of Fundy’s people, those still unharmed. They were women in long dresses of cloth. Two of them held infants. It was from this group that the wailing and shrieking came, as they looked down into the part of the field that was near the foot of Fundy’s Bridge. Over a chunk of the overpass that had fallen flat to the ground Frost could see what they saw.
On the black soil and rotted leaves of the potato field about fifteen of Langley’s men milled in a disordered, widespread group among the bodies of men, women and dogs. A dog and a dead or wounded soldier lay in a kind of embrace. The milling soldiers all had their crossbows slung over their backs, and they had their swords out. They paid no attention to the screams of the women watching them from the stub of the overpass. Some of the soldiers appeared to be searching the ground for crossbow bolts. One of them bent and jerked one from the body of a man. He crouched and wiped it carefully on the man’s poncho. He picked up the man’s bent sword, examined it, turning it in his hand, let it fall.
A dog was sitting and yelping. A soldier walked up behind it and thrust his sword deep into its back. The dog gave a final sharp squeal and collapsed, and the soldier pulled the sword out and wiped the blade on the dog’s fur.
Frost said “That’s Wolf.”
The soldiers killed two more yelping dogs.
There were only two or three women among the fallen, but one of them was moving. Her dress was no more brightly coloured than the dirt over which she was attempting to crawl, but as she drew a knee forward her lower legs flashed like scribbles of chalk against the delta soil. There was a big soldier in a long poncho and cut-down rubber boots. He walked quickly forward and held his sword with two hands and plunged it through the woman and deep into the ground. A new wave of screams rose from the watchers on the overpass.
Tyrell said “There’s our friend.”
Frost choked back a surge of nausea. He said “Freeway.”
Another dog was standing between the soldiers and the river, barking furiously, afraid to come nearer. Freeway slid his sword through his twine belt and swung his crossbow from his back. He lowered the nose of the crossbow to the ground and slipped a foot through a loop attached there. He pulled the twine smoothly back and hooked it on a catch. He took a short metal bolt from a bag at his side, leveled the crossbow and set the bolt on it. He aimed at the dog. There was a snap. The dog executed a rapid back-flip and lay still. Freeway went to retrieve his bolt.
Tyrell said “We can drive them away before they can load.”
Frost said “Yes.”
“We’ll probably hit some of Fundy’s people.”
Frost said “Christ.” He waited, said “They’re past feeling it.”
“We shoot. The son of a butches run. We chase after them with our spears.”
Frost glanced at Tyrell’s spear lying on the ground: the sturdy six-foot length of straight-grained one-by-two; the wide heart-shaped blade sharpened and gleaming at the edges. “Don’t follow them up the bridge. Just stay and block this end so they can’t come back. We’ll bring these two bows.”
Tyrell said “Do we let the dogs go?”
“I think we better. Once the bastards are on the run. To make sure they keep going. But don’t let the dogs go up the bridge. Too dangerous for them.”
Tyrell crawled back along the crouching line of his men, whispering his orders. Each man lifted a fistful of arrows from his bag, but they spun in fear as there was a quick pounding of feet behind them. Daniel Charlie threw himself down behind Frost.
He had two bows and a bag of arrows, which he dropped. He knelt on hands and knees, gasping for breath. Frost was cursing quietly and shaking his head and did not greet him.
Tyrell crouched beside Daniel Charlie. “Get out some arrows, Daniel.” Daniel Charlie rose from his hands and did so. The canes rattled as he dropped them near his knees. He took his bow in his left hand.
Tyrell edged along beside Frost and laid Daniel Charlie’s second bow and a handful of arrows near his hand. He touched Frost on the shoulder and said “We’re about ready.”
Frost nodded and removed his glasses and wiped a sleeve across his eyes and put the glasses back on and picked up the bow. He plucked an arrow from his pile and rested the shaft on his left fist, which held the bow. He placed the thin end of the arrow against the twine. He turned to wait for Tyrell’s orders.
But Tyrell shook his head. Marpole and Oak were creeping forward with three dogs each. They were whispering to the dogs and making soothing sounds, for the dogs were prancing and throwing their heads around, ready to make a din. Frost set the bow down, and Marpole handed him his three leashes and crept back to his bow. Oak passed his leashes to Daniel Charlie.
Tyrell stood. His men rose and moved away from the verge of the roadway and lined up facing the widespread milling soldiers near the foot of the bridge a hundred and fifty yards away. They laid their spears on the ground at their feet and their batches of nail-tipped cattail canes beside the spears, and they each plucked a single arrow and set it against the bowstring and drew the bow back and raised it.
Frost and Daniel Charlie also stood.
Tyrell said “Okay.”
Before the eleven arrows landed another eleven were in the air, and before those struck, eleven more.
The women on the stub end of overpass fell silent, so that the only sounds were the anxious whines of the dogs, the dull snap of the bowstrings and the whisper of the pounding rain.
For a few seconds, until the second flight of arrows bristled the ground around them, the soldiers simply stood gaping back at the row of archers. Then one of them cried out. He had a red baseball cap and a blazer that looked as if it might once have been mustard yellow, and he had blond hair that hung wet and straight down over his chest. His cap flew off. He stumbled backwards and fell but scrambled instantly to his feet. An arrow was wagging from his right leg just above the knee. Hopping wildly he grabbed the arrow, which appeared to come loose from its tip. He limped at a good speed off toward the bridge.
The other soldiers looked left, right. They ducked. Each threw an arm over his head. They stepped backwards. They shied away from any of the landed arrows that brushed their legs.
Frost’s guards cheered. The dogs finally brayed and roared and surged against the leashes. More arrows flew. The ground began to look as if a crop of canes had magically sprung up, slantwise, already windblown. Two of the soldiers started to load their crossbows. But they stopped when there was a scream. One of the other men, tall and cloaked in skins, dropped his weapon and clapped his hands to his face. An arrow was hanging from his eye. He stumbled and sat and continued screaming. Another soldier looped his crossbow over his back and hurried to help. He got him to his feet but could not make him run or even move. A second soldier came to assist. They each took and arm and moved awkwardly with the casualty toward the bridge.
Freeway ran to the soldier who lay beside the dead dog, just at the foot of the bridge. He bent and was about to heave him up onto his shoulder when an arrow struck his backside. Freeway bellowed, shot upright, stepped on the fallen colleague and commenced limping very quickly toward the sloping embankment. The shaft projected like the stinger of a wasp. He shouted something, and the rest of his men slung their crossbows onto their backs and ran.
Tyrell glanced at Frost, who nodded.
Tyrell called “Let’s go!”
The guards dropped their bows and snatched up their spears and charged, sprinting full speed, shouting.
Langley’s warriors glanced over their shoulders and kept running. The two who were helping the man who had been shot in the eye were the only ones who were not going to make it to the bridge.
Frost and Daniel Charlie were tugged forward by the raging dogs. Frost called “There are slip knots" and Daniel Charlie called back “All right.” They hauled the dogs back and each lunged for one, then the next and
then the last knot. One by one, as if they also had been propelled from a weapon, the dogs flew off across the potato field, as silent now as ghosts.
The two soldiers dropped their blinded companion, who fell to his knees, still screaming. They struggled up the embankment, scrambling desperately after the others, who were now running as well as they could up the span.
On the bridge Freeway reached behind and jerked the arrow out of himself, the shaft at least. He let it fall and ran on, limping .
The six dogs shot past Tyrell and his men and a few seconds later they all fell wild and snarling on the blinded soldier.
Frost and Daniel Charlie grabbed their two bows and a bag of arrows and ran across the muddy field dragging the leashes. As he passed the dogs Frost yelled “Settle down!” but the dogs were a seething mass, tearing at the blinded man and snapping at one another, and would not be stopped by words, so Frost continued at a run toward his men. Newton and Airport sprinted back to meet him and Daniel Charlie. They took the bows and the arrows and returned to the other men, and arrows sailed up the span, skipping off the concrete roadway around the legs of the retreating soldiers.
Some of the men ran back with the leashes and set to hauling the dogs off the blinded man bodily, jerking their hands away from the snapping, bloody jaws, leashing the maddened animals one by one.
On the bridge no one else was hit, but a few arrows dangled loosely from the edges of ponchos. Frost said “Hold it. You’ll hit Fundy.”
For there at the crest of the bridge he stood. Abraham Bundy. He wore a dark suit coat that was short in the sleeves, and grey sweat pants and sandals. He stood near the sidewalk. Without expression he watched the soldiers running up the span toward him. They were on the same side of the lane divider as he was.
Since Tomorrow Page 21
