Keepers

by Brenda Cooper

  “Where?”

  “In a town by a lake. In the hills.”

  That could be a lot of places in Promise. Including Chelan. “Do you know the name?”

  She shook her head. “Every place is named home.”

  The boys had shouldered up to the edge of the conversation. The brother’s face looked alarmed that his sister was saying so much. He took her arm. “Paulette. We should go.”

  There. A name. At least it would be easy to remember. It was like Coryn’s old robotic protector. Lou had all of the information she really needed, and they didn’t want to stand here until the father caught up. “Do you have any water?”

  They showed her two bottles, both half-empty. She dug in her pocket for her container of water purification pills. She was a fanatic about them, so she had hundreds. She spilled about twenty into a napkin and folded it over. “Put one of these in every bit of water you drink. That’ll keep you well until you get south.”

  “We boil it at home,” the girl offered.

  “Do you have a pot or stove with you?”

  “No.”

  Lou did her best to look sternly parental. “You’d better start thinking. Going after our horse wasn’t thinking and, frankly, neither was taking off without more provisions. We’re a little short ourselves or we’d give you more. But look for orchards and pick apples. They’ll help keep you going.”

  The girl quivered. “Can we go with you?”

  And bring down the wrath of a Returner father on their heads? “We’re not going anywhere near Los Angeles.”

  The girl swallowed. Her face had gone quite pale and she looked a little ill.

  Oh, crap. “Are you pregnant?” Lou asked, and immediately wished she hadn’t. There was nothing for it, except maybe getting into the city or the underground medical system, which was expensive and bad. Hopefully the girl wanted the baby, even though she wasn’t old enough for it.

  The girl looked down at the ground, but her husband looked Lou in the eye for the first time. “We are.”

  Good. He had some spunk. “Good luck,” she said. “You’d best go.”

  They scrambled up. Shuska held the boy’s gun out and he took it. His hand shook when he took it, just like it had earlier. She was willing to bet he’d never even fired it. He looked so resolute and so frightened that Lou felt sorry for him.

  As they started walking away, Scott had the presence of mind to turn around. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Matchiko spoke from Buster’s broad back. “Be well.”

  “We will.”

  They watched until all three were gone. “What do you think their chances are?” Lou asked.

  “Small,” Matchiko said. “Pretty damned small. We should have done more.”

  “What more?” Shuska asked.

  No one answered.

  The encounter left Lou in a sour mood. Before her first job out here, she’d believed the great Outside would be fair and sweet and that everyone would be working together on the grand design of saving the earth. The city was intrinsically vapid and deeply striated by class, but Outside people starved to death and killed each other.

  She hoped they would find somewhere safe.

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  The sun sank so low that the trees they walked between threw shadows longer than the trees were tall. Lou spotted two does, and a little later a one-prong buck. The deer made Lou smile, but they also served as a reminder that dark was coming.

  No barn.

  Matchiko pointed toward a copse of trees a little off the path and near a thin streambed, and led them there.

  Lou nodded. They could put Buster on a lead between two of the trees and then camp a little above him so they didn’t get stepped on in the night. “No fires,” Shuska said.

  “I know,” Lou and Matchiko answered exactly together.

  “It’s good to be home,” Lou said. “The city was too damned comfortable.”

  Shuska went and stood by Buster, looking up at Matchiko. “Slide down.”

  Lou held his head while Matchiko swung her left leg over the horse’s butt and slid, giving a little gasp of pain as Shuska caught her. “You all right?” Shuska whispered.

  “You try sitting on a draft horse all day sometime.”

  “I’ll be happy to. As soon as you can walk.” Shuska swooped Matchiko up in her arms, carrying her like a child even though it was an uphill climb to a rock big enough to set her down on easily.

  Lou took Buster to drink in the stream. She led him to a spot where she could stand uphill of him and on a rock in order to loosen the cinch on the saddle and pull it off. “Good thing he’s docile.”

  “Good thing we didn’t need him to run today,” Shuska replied.

  “There is that.” Lou handed Matchiko the lead and pulled the long line off of where it was tied to the back of Buster’s saddle. She started stringing it between two sturdy trees. “So, does the kids’ story tell us anything about whether to go to Spokane or Chelan?”

  Shuska pulled a flask of wine out of the saddlebags. “Chelan makes sense to me because it’s pretty private. But could you hide there? From satellites?”

  “I don’t know if the old buildings have been taken down,” Matchiko said.

  Lou poured some grain into her open palm for Buster. “Are there utilities?”

  “We won’t know until we get there,” Shuska said.

  “Think there’s anything for three Wilders to do?” Buster’s lips tickled Lou’s open palm as he snuffled up the last of the grain. She took his lead from Matchiko and tied the end of it to a carabiner on a long line. As soon as she was done she sat by Matchiko. “How’s it feel?”

  “Like I’ll be glad when I can walk instead of ride a board with a spine.”

  “Can I see?”

  Matchiko lifted her right leg into Lou’s lap and let her roll up the bottom of her pant leg. Shuska came and bent over to look, whistling. “It’s twice as big as yesterday.”

  “It’s been hanging over a horse belly all day. I’ll keep it elevated.”

  None of them was a doctor, but Matchiko was a biologist, which counted for something. “All right. We’ll look then.” Lou touched the biggest part of the ankle, which was angry red and hot enough that her first instinct was to draw her fingers away from it. “We need a cold stream to stick it into.”

  “It’s going to be cold in an hour or so.”

  Shuska started opening packs and pulling sandwiches back out. “So eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Shuska got her to eat half a sandwich, and Lou had a whole one, glad to be sitting down.

  The light fled after the sun fell all the way down. There were too few clouds for much sunset, but darkness pulled the light of the stars and Milky Way into being above them.

  Shuska passed the wine flask around and they were all three quiet together, the soft grinding of Buster’s teeth as he cropped grass and the croaks of frogs someplace below them the only sounds. Eventually, a pack of coyotes started howling on a far hill, the howls interspersed with haunting yips and yowls.

  “Hear the babies?” Matchiko asked.

  Lou cocked her head. “Yes.” This year’s cubs would be half-grown by now. “It’s still warm, but we’d better find housing before winter.”

  Shuska grunted in assent and put a finger to her lips. She liked quiet, especially when there was a summer night’s worth of natural symphony.

  A perfect night, Lou thought. A perfect moment. It didn’t even matter that one of them was hurt and that the world was still deeply damaged. They were together and full and the stars were out and the coyotes calling. The only possible improvement would have been a wolf howl.

  Shuska leaned forward, alert. She tapped Lou’s shoulder.

  Flashlights bobbed on the trail they’d been on a little bit ago. Two of them. Lou held her breath, watching. “Maybe it’s our teenager’s father,” Matchiko whispered.

  “Let’s hope not.” Lou rolled Matchiko�
��s pants leg back down and started planning the fastest route to get Buster untied and saddled. It wouldn’t be easy. “Maybe they’ll just go on by.”

  Matchiko swung her leg down slowly, her face taut with pain. “If it’s the father, we should delay him.”

  Buster whinnied.

  One of the lights turned toward them. It didn’t quite reach them, but it illuminated the rocky hill they’d climbed up, and showed whoever held the flashlight that there were fresh hoof prints.

  “I’ll go,” Lou whispered. She took a light and her stunner, but she kept the light off and her stunner in her pocket. She scrambled down, placing each foot carefully to keep from knocking rocks loose. A small, flat rock gave way under her heel, and a large rock slid free and knocked into two others, and dirt and small rocks shushed even further down the trail.

  The light slid toward her.

  She snapped her own light on full, trying to blind them before they blinded her.

  An arm waved. “Hello the hill.”

  She recognized the voice. Blessing. “Hello the trail!” She pointed her light toward the ground and let Blessing and Day come to her. “It’s fabulous to see you.”

  Blessing hugged her, kissing the top of her head, smelling of clean sweat and laughter.

  Day held back. She directed her light at his chest and looked at his face in the edges of it, and he was smiling as much as Day ever did. “It’s so good to see you,” she said. “How did you find us?”

  “Three scared kids down the path told us about three old women who fed them.”

  “Ah. Being a good Samaritan does pay off.”

  Blessing had already started up the hill to find the others. She cocked her head at Day. “Wine and food?”

  “Food.”

  He was always too serious to drink. But Blessing would share their wine, and now they were a bigger—and thus safer—group. Things might be better than she thought.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Coryn felt like her lungs were being pulled apart by glass. As she crossed the finish line, the announcer called out, “Second place, eighteen to twenty, Coryn Williams.” The crowd clapped. News-bots dove around her feet, and she shied away from one, nearly falling.

  Adam met her at the end of the exit chute, an open bottle of water in his hand. He managed to look handsome while dripping with sweat. She nodded thanks, took the bottle, and gulped from it between gasping breaths. She was never this starved for air after a training run; she must have really pushed herself.

  Adam stuck with her, letting her release the heat of the run in a steady walk.

  After she could talk, she asked, “How far behind was I?”

  “Five minutes, fifteen seconds.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Loraine is fast,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to beat her. I didn’t expect you to take second.”

  She punched him lightly in the side. His clothes were a cool, sweaty damp. “How much did you beat me by?”

  “Ten minutes, twelve seconds, and one one-hundredth.”

  “Your legs are too long.”

  “Your legs are perfect.”

  He was flirting. As usual, she both liked it and didn’t. Sort of like Blessing. Shouldn’t she feel enchanted with someone? “Can you see who came in third?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let’s go look.”

  Before they could turn around, Eloise was there with bananas and juice and squeeze tubes of freshly ground almond butter. While Eloise didn’t wear her usual scarf, she did have on outsized neon sunglasses, a black sweatband, and a black running outfit that showed off her heavily muscled calves under a multicolored short skirt. She leaned in to whisper in Coryn’s ear, “Don’t dawdle. There’s a meeting in three hours. Salish Conference Room.”

  “Okay.” She’d expected the day off. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d been promised the rest of the day off. Still, she nodded at Eloise. “Thanks.”

  Eloise faded into the crowd. Coryn turned to Adam. “Have you ever seen her train? She looks like a runner crossed with a bodybuilder.”

  He shook his head. “She must work out somewhere. I’ve seen her lift rocks as if they were paper.”

  “I usually think of her as Julianna’s enforcer. I wonder why we have a surprise meeting?”

  They stood in the clapping crowd, eating the bananas and cheering their competition coming in over the line. Coryn’s second-place finish was solid. They’d missed seeing the third-place runner in her age-group, but she had finished two minutes and change behind Coryn.

  Even though she’d been on multiple race podiums before, Coryn felt awed by this podium. This was her first time in the top three in an elite city-wide race, and hundreds of faces and almost as many hovering news-bots watched the medal fall around her neck and the race official lean over and hand her the pin.

  After the announcements, she and the other winners, including Adam, attended a party designed to give the media easy access to the runners. Even though they could only stay half an hour, two news-bots and one human reporter interviewed her, the news-bots working together to crowd her away from people so they could get the shots they wanted. She managed not to give in to the temptation to stick her tongue out at the fist-sized bot that got right in her face. What did it want a picture of? Her pores? When she caught up with Adam near the end of the party, he reported four interviews.

  The city was crazy about sports and entertainment, a side effect of almost everyone having time and no one being hungry. Football, hockey, and soccer drew huge crowds. Winning at endurance running wouldn’t make her a household name, but elite runners attracted invitations to art openings and films and parties, which led to social contacts. They got sponsorships, and fame in some circles. And she could do it. All the days and weekends of running for the last years of high school after Lou abandoned her to become a Wilder were paying off. She hadn’t started running to win anything. She’d run to stay sane.

  She clutched her second-place pin and silver medal tightly as they left, resolving to train harder. Five minutes was a lot to make up, and she’d have to do better to survive the next age bracket anyway. Twenty to twenty-four had even fiercer competition.

  “You can taste it now, can’t you,” Adam said.

  “Taste what?”

  “Fame. You don’t have it yet, but this might be the beginning.”

  She didn’t like the way he said “might.” “I want to run harder tomorrow.”

  “The day after a race is always a day off.”

  She frowned. But that made sense. She’d just run her fastest time ever, and surely she would feel it tomorrow. But right now, she felt awesome. But as usual, there was no time to rest in Julianna’s carefully planned day. “Our meeting is in an hour.”

  They’d partied too long. She started to jog home, but her muscles complained, so she settled for forcing them into a fast walk, and chose the tram and then the elevator instead of the spiraling uphill skyway.

  Her hair was still damp from her short, scalding shower when she entered the conference room on the same floor where she and Adam and a number of other staff lived. It was an interior room with no views to distract participants or windows for news-bots to hover at. The cherry table was big enough for twelve to sit around, but the only two people in the room when she arrived were Blessing and Day. They’d clearly been back at least since this morning, since they were clean and dressed in city clothes that fit them perfectly. They were both odd sizes; Blessing tall and lanky and Day short and broad.

  She could feel her smile in her bones. “Did you find her? Is she okay? Do you have news?” She drifted toward Blessing of her own accord.

  He folded her in his arms and kissed her on the cheek. “Nice. I watched you finish this morning.”

  Something inside her demanded more than a kiss on the cheek, and her hands trembled. “I was on the news?”

  He grinned, his voice teasing. “Only for a moment. But a glorious one.”

  It
had been almost nine weeks since he left to get messages to Lou. That felt like forever in city time, but it wasn’t long to be Outside, where travel times were slow and hard.

  Someone cleared his throat, and she turned around to find Adam watching her closely, a slightly injured look in his eyes. She took one step back from Blessing but kept looking at him. It was so good to see him. He looked great. No new scars. He’d eaten well enough. He was alive.

  Julianna and Jake came in, and Eloise as well, clutching one of the disconnected slates they used for secure note taking. As soon as Julianna and Jake sat, everyone else searched for seats.

  Coryn ended up between Blessing and Day and opposite Adam. In spite of her rubbery limbs after the run, excitement and worry burned through her. It was hard to wait for Julianna to convene the meeting and ask Blessing and Day, “Can you tell us what you found? Did you see Lou?”

  Blessing nodded. “They’re fine. Matchiko almost destroyed her ankle, but she’s healing. We settled the three of them in a small house on a hill, a place they can probably defend. There’s no working sewer, but we helped them dig a latrine. They have a good fireplace and two cords of wood. It won’t be a great place to winter though, and we promised we’d come back.”

  Julianna looked slightly amused at Blessing’s firehose of disconnected information. “Day?”

  “They’re fine for now. We bought them a second horse and forced Lou to take it.” He glanced at Coryn.

  She asked, “Don’t they need three?”

  “One’s a big as a house. Lou and Matchiko can share him.” Day almost smiled. “Safety aside, they have been gathering information. There appear to be a lot more Returners than there were before they slaughtered the Listeners last year. They’ve only seen a few, but they’ve gotten a lot of reports of them.”

  Jake held a hand up. “Do you have proof the Returners were behind the killings?”

  “It’s common understanding Outside now.” Day twisted his hands together, a sign of slight frustration in this man of few emotions. “But I have no idea how we’d prove it. We also heard rumors they’re planning something big for next spring or early summer, but we can’t tell what. There’s rumors the feds are behind the Returners. They’ve got no taxing authority left, and they want some.”