Keepers

by Brenda Cooper

  “It’s complicated, you know,” Eloise mused. “You need the city.”

  “Not more than the city needs the wild,” Lou snapped.

  Eloise held up a hand, and her smile had a tiny bit of condescension in it. “Still.”

  Lou’s hand tightened on the side of the boat. Did the world really need all those people? But she kept that thought to herself, and simply replied, “I know. When Julianna and I were doing research during the attack, we learned the NGO’s board wasn’t all evil either. Two or three at the top were, though—they were all about money and power. Liars who were already so rich they didn’t need anything else, but still they stole from the land, from the future.” She tensed, remembering the endless waiting and begging for supplies. “They shorted us over and over, killed some of us by doing that.”

  A spark of anger flashed in Eloise’s eyes, and her jaw tightened. But otherwise she sat as still as the deer standing on the shore.

  Lou took a few deep breaths, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. “But beyond them, beyond the greed, there was something else. Julianna and I both felt it, even though we couldn’t prove a thing. Just like my strings were pulled, someone else pulled the board’s strings.”

  Eloise didn’t even look surprised. “Any ideas?”

  “You know how the Returners always seem crazy? Like they want the past back, but we all know it’s not coming back, and they have to know it as well?”

  Eloise shook her head. “I know more about the evils in the city than out here. I know a little. The Returners want to own the land again, and most of them came from it. They’re the people the great taking displaced.”

  “Yes. They’re angry people. They hate Wilders. They believe lies, and they hate science. Kind of like the people who didn’t believe the sea would rise or that we were killing off the animals. They want to go back to a world that can’t exist anymore, and they’ll kill us to do it. But that’s just stupid. After all that’s happened, it’s hard to imagine people being so simple that they think they can remake the world by wishing it back a hundred years. Julianna and I both felt there was more organization behind them, more resources. Someone molding their thoughts and aiming them at the city. It’s not just crazy people, like I had to deal with on the farm. It’s a crazy army.” She shivered. “I hope we’re wrong.”

  “Julianna doesn’t think you are.” Eloise moved them a few feet farther away from the bank. “Someone keeps the Returners alive, feeding them lines about a better world. We both hope you will help us look for this army.”

  That was a rather long speech for Eloise. “What should I look for?”

  Eloise gave the boat enough power to leave the deer behind. “They’re organized, and they have good communications. Maybe dedicated satellites or something. Remember all the dead Listeners?”

  Lou nodded. “Coryn made friends with some, before the people I hired to help us hack the ecobots killed them.” She wasn’t proud of that. The admission made her shiver.

  Eloise narrowed her eyes. “That’s complex.”

  “Coryn’s lucky she wasn’t killed, too.” She glanced upriver, eyes stinging. They’d all been lucky.

  Eloise pushed her damp hair away from her face. “We’re looking for a nest of Returners. We think they have a whole city hidden somewhere, someplace fully off the grid. The people who built that city killed the Listeners to be sure they didn’t get caught.”

  “Because the Listeners know everything?” It was a common refrain on the farms. They’d always fed the Listeners well, and plied them for information.

  “Yeah. And because—mostly—they weren’t trained fighters. They were do-gooders.”

  There was that. The Listeners had wanted the grand dream as much as Lou had. A land with real wild places, a land with the interstate and the mansions and even the farms scraped off of it. Returners wanted the old world back, the one where they could do whatever they wanted, strip the land if they wanted, hunt whatever animal they wanted, throw down fences or even just signs, and own things that shouldn’t be owned. “They’re the assholes who kill the wolves and grizzlies and shoot at the ecobots. I’ve killed more than one Returner.” She glanced at Eloise, who had probably also killed people. “In the line of duty. As part of my job.”

  “I know.”

  Lou refrained from asking how she knew. Coryn must have told Julianna, who must have told Eloise. “So you want me to help you find them. What will you do if you succeed?”

  “That depends on what we find.”

  “Fair enough.” Lou reached into her pack and took out her coat, pulling it on and zipping it against the cooling night air. “Try not to get this wet. Any idea where to look?”

  “North. Somewhere near the border. But we don’t know any more than that. They might try to take the city again before winter.”

  Lou glanced toward the bald hump of Mount Adams. “I don’t think so. The vine maples are already starting to turn, even down here. There’s no more than a few weeks of real summer left, and they won’t want to chance the fall storm season.”

  “I hope you’re right. We’ll tell you if we learn different. Will you tell us anything you find?”

  “Well, the first thing I need to come across is a job.” And her friends. She could feel the full day that had passed since Shuska messaged her. It was going to be too dark to get to Yakima tonight. “Do you want anything else?”

  Eloise shook her head. “Will you help, though?”

  “I’ll help. But I won’t work for Julianna. I’m a Wilder, not a city girl.”

  Eloise flinched. “I predict you’ll change your mind. We’re creating a new foundation.”

  “Do you know what its goals are?”

  “We will.”

  She hesitated. They would need to eat. “Maybe talk to me then. We need work now.” She had some money saved, but it wouldn’t last more than a few months.

  “We can pay you,” Eloise stated. “To look.”

  “I don’t need money to hunt down Returners.” She smiled. “I do that for fun.”

  Eloise laughed, and Lou thought she saw a flash of respect in the reticent woman’s eyes. Good. Lou liked her, in spite of the fact that she worked for Julianna. Well, maybe Julianna was a little okay, too. But Lou wouldn’t have thought that a month ago. A month ago she would have cursed anyone from the city except for Coryn.

  To her relief, Eloise stroked the console again, and once more they sped closer to Matchiko and Shuska.

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Yakima was eighty miles from Kennewick. After Eloise dropped her off, Lou made a sheltered spot to sleep in the woods. When she woke, she found a ride to town on the back of a truck carrying workers for the orchards. So she stood outside of Hotel Shamiana by just before noon.

  The hotel looked like a place for itinerant workers as much as for tourists. It had been built before the taking. Its roof sagged on one side, and the glass in two of the big windows in the entrance had cracked. Still, as she walked in, Lou approved. A fireplace was filled with wood ready to light for the evening, and comfortable chairs made the lobby look like a great place for a conversation and a beer.

  A real person stood behind the desk, a short man with a pleasant smile and an eight-inch-long graying beard that looked fluffy enough to hide small animals. As soon as he saw her, he asked, “Are you Lou?”

  “Yes.”

  “Room 143.” He threw something shiny at her. “Here’s a key.”

  She caught it, shoving it in her pocket. A physical key, brass, hooked to a plastic fob.

  He pointed down the hallway to her right. “Near the end.”

  She stopped long enough to pour half a cup of overcooked black coffee into a disposable cup. In spite of having the key, she knocked.

  No answer.

  She opened the door to find Matchiko sound asleep and bundled under blankets, her pale face as white as the bottom of summer clouds on a burning hot day. Sweat beaded her forehead. Lou stood in silence, her
body flooding with happiness and worry.

  Matchiko looked beautiful even in her sleep, even injured. Her round face had mostly Asian features, although her lips were fuller and her chin a little sharper than most of the Asians Lou knew. Her dark hair had been pulled into a ponytail. At rest like this, she looked younger than usual, but it would still be easy for anyone to guess she was at least ten years older than Lou. The real answer was almost twenty years older; Matchiko was forty-three.

  Matchiko was their brains, Shuska their muscle, and Lou the planner and risk-taker. All of them together were heart.

  A note rested on the round table. I’m in town finding a doctor had been scrawled in Shuska’s precise print.

  Too bad she hadn’t bothered to note how long ago she’d left. Medical care was very different Outside than Inside, although here in a sanctioned city it shouldn’t be as bad as they’d had it on RiversEnd Ranch.

  “Matchiko?” Lou whispered.

  Nothing.

  She said it a little louder. “Matchiko!”

  Matchiko lifted a finger and grunted, but didn’t move her head or acknowledge for sure that she’d even heard her name or noticed Lou had returned.

  Lou chose one of two chairs, an orange square that squeaked when she sat down. She finished her coffee quickly, watching Matchiko sleep. From time to time, Matchiko let out a small moan that echoed in Lou’s chest.

  What had happened?

  After Lou finished the last sip of coffee, she went into the bathroom and took a hot shower, washing the scent of the city off of her. She pulled her last set of clean clothes out of her pack, and was just tucking in her shirt when Shuska trundled through the door, followed by a tall man with a neat brown mustache and brown eyes that almost matched his hair.

  At the sight of Lou, Shuska’s whole face lit with a broad smile. “Good to see you!”

  “Good to be here.”

  Shuska nodded at the man. “This is David. He’s a paramedic.”

  Good. “I’m Lou.”

  David smiled. He said, “Pleased to meet you.” He bent over Matchiko. “Let me look at your friend.”

  Shuska said, “I gave her painkillers.”

  That explained the deep sleep. “What happened?”

  “She broke an ankle. Maybe more. Badly. I couldn’t splint it well enough for it to heal.” Shuska looked a little guilty at that. “I had to carry her here from the river.”

  Lou could picture the tall, broad Shuska walking with slender Matchiko draped across her arms, legs dangling. It was kind of a sweet picture, other than the part about Matchiko being hurt. Or the part about how long the walk had to be. Days? “How did it happen?”

  David drew back the blankets.

  Matchiko stirred and flopped onto her back. Her eyes opened for just a moment but then closed again.

  The paramedic murmured, “I see why you drugged her.”

  Matchiko’s right ankle was three times its normal size, and the foot below it was black and blue. David bent down and gingerly touched her ankle.

  Matchiko’s eyes opened wide. “D . . . don’t touch me!”

  “It’s okay,” Shuska said. “He’s trained.”

  “Doctor?”

  “Paramedic. Lou’s here.”

  Matchiko turned her head, and when she saw Lou she smiled widely and extended one arm.

  By the time Lou got to her side, her eyes had closed again. “What did you drug her with?”

  “Morphine.”

  Wow. Lou took Matchiko’s hand, now flopped over the side of the bed, and sat stroking it while she watched the paramedic work.

  David ran a portable device over Matchiko’s ankle slowly, just a few inches above it. Some kind of imaging machine. It hummed softly and then clicked. He let out a low whistle. “Good news and bad news.”

  “All right,” Lou said. “Give us both.”

  “It’s not infected. Yet. There’s a break that I might be able to straighten by hand, but it’s not in her ankle. It’s above it. It’s going to hurt. A lot.”

  “And the bad news?”

  He smiled tightly, as if knowing how unwelcome his news would be. “Her ankle is twisted and some of the small bones in the top of her feet are fractured. I can get her on the list in the hospital, but there’s a five-month wait for surgery table space. You’ll have to take her to Portland Metro.”

  If she went to Portland Metro she’d be arrested. Lou didn’t say that out loud. Instead, she asked, “Will she be able to walk before it gets fixed?”

  “If the bone heals well, a little. But with pain.”

  Good thing Matchiko liked to ride horses. This was grim indeed. It was never good to be seriously injured Outside.

  Shuska almost growled at the poor paramedic, her underlying stress audible. “Go ahead and set the long bone.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good thing she’s drugged.” He glanced at Shuska. “Hold her.”

  Shuska placed her big hands on Matchiko’s tiny, birdlike shoulders. “Go on.”

  Since Shuska was blocking her view, Lou couldn’t see what the paramedic did, but she heard a bone crack.

  Matchiko screamed.

  Shuska put her lips close to Matchiko’s small ear and whispered at her. “Shhhhhh . . . shhhh . . . it’s done.”

  “Almost,” David said. “Keep holding her.”

  Whatever he did this time didn’t produce a crack. Nor did Matchiko scream, although her eyes and mouth stretched wide, every muscle in her face taut with pain.

  “There.”

  “Are you done?” Shuska asked him.

  He took the machine out again, scanning with quiet competence. “It’ll be okay.”

  Lou let out a sigh of relief.

  “I’ll splint it. You can watch me. I can give her a shot to help her make new bone. But you’ll have to stay put a week before you risk putting any weight on it.”

  “I can carry her,” Shuska said.

  David stared at her. After a few moments, he nodded. “After the week, you probably should. But for now, she needs to heal in a bed and have exactly zero movement of that leg. I’ve got plaster for some casting but we’ll need to find materials to splint it.”

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Matchiko fell sound asleep again, her entire right leg wrapped in a splint that started above her knee and ended in thin air below her wrecked foot. The foot itself was encased in what amounted to a bubble of plastic and plaster wrapped around wood. “That’s quite a splint,” Lou said.

  “It was cheap.” Shuska raised a bushy eyebrow toward Matchiko’s foot. “I expect it will also be quite effective.”

  Lou shook her head in something that wasn’t quite laughter. There was nothing funny about having Matchiko badly hurt. If they’d been in a megacity, a new ankle might have taken hours. But they weren’t. They were here, where a shot of cells to knit the bone would have to do. Worse, they were probably stuck in this room, with the one bed taken up almost entirely by the smallest of them and her enormous cast. But they were together. “How much did you pay him?”

  “One bottle of recently expired morphine pills.”

  Now she did laugh. “Where did you get that?”

  “Remember how the foundation stabled our horses just outside Camas? By the time we left, I figured our bosses owed us a few things. Between me and Matchiko, we managed to steal quite a few supplies from their dispensary, three horses, and a few good coats.”

  Lou’s mood elevated instantly. “Mouse?”

  Shuska shook her head. “We lost the horses. Didn’t have Mouse anyway. Someone had already taken her.”

  “Dammit.”

  Shuska gave a long, slow smile. “I know. I looked for her.”

  “I know you did.” Lou felt a sharp ache, just then realizing how much she missed her horse. She and Mouse made a good team. One more loss she could chalk up to being stupid. She got up and stood behind Shuska, opening her palms and rubbing Shuska’s shoulders. />
  Shuska groaned with happiness. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you. What happened to the horses? And to Matchiko?”

  “We got ambushed. Five men. I stunned one, and we left him. The others got away after one of them pushed Matchiko over a cliff. Rode the horses away, the bastards.” She glanced at Matchiko. “At least she didn’t go all the way into the water. Her foot got caught in a tree root on her way down. It slowed her fall, maybe kept her from rolling into the river and drowning. Luckily there was a beach down that cliff, and even a way down to where she fell. You can’t see it, but her backside is pretty bruised, too.”

  Lou kneaded harder, taking her frustration at the story and the lost horses out on the knots in Shuska’s upper back. “You couldn’t take out five men all by yourself?” she teased.

  “They had better guns.”

  If she’d been with them, this might not have happened. They might be riding north even now, no one hurt, everyone happy. “You’d think we lived in the Wild West.”

  “Don’t we?”

  “At least we have access to handheld x-ray machines.”

  Shuska drew a ball in the air with her hands. “It made a whole 3-D image. That’s only the second time I’ve seen one. Pretty cool.”

  “You should see what they have in the city.” Of all of them, Shuska was the one with no history in cities. “A robot would fix her in the city.”

  “She left the cities on purpose.”

  “I know.” Lou dug deeper into Shuska’s right shoulder, making her groan. “Your muscles are as tight as a steel rod. I have a little money, but it won’t last until she’s better. We’ll need work.”

  “That knot’s from carrying Matchiko. Tell me about your week. What did you leave us for?”