When Valeria began to play, it surprised her more. Each note rose by itself on the air, crisp and resonant.
Matchiko settled on a rock, took off her shoe and sock, and dipped her foot in the creek. A sigh of happiness escaped from her.
The music lifted Lou’s mood. So did the creek and the fresh air. All of it. The wolves would come in time.
Matchiko pointed upstream.
A doe and a spike had stopped to drink. They looked curiously toward the women but continued to the water, the doe watching while the spike drank. They traded places. After both finished, they backed up carefully and turned, twitching white tails, then walked away as if nothing about the strange sounds or the three visitors disturbed them.
Valeria stopped playing and folded her hands over her knees. “That was beautiful.”
“Did you call them?” Matchiko asked.
Valeria smiled. “Do you believe that a flute could call a deer?”
“Not really.”
“Then I did not.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lou stood outside on the lawn. She tapped her foot, standing with her arms crossed while she waited for Valeria. A dry, cold week had passed, with no time to go into the hills looking for wolves again. The bright green had died back, the hills again russet and tan. A few hard frosts had pushed the deciduous trees to declare fall in unison, and to become simultaneously busy dropping fat brown and yellow leaves.
Valeria came through the front door, followed by Astrid and Alondra. Together like this, they looked like versions of the same woman at different ages. With no apology at all for being fifteen minutes late, they started the long walk to town. Each carried a bag of produce.
Valeria began to sing, and her daughter and granddaughter joined her, and after a bit Lou sang as well, her voice soft since she neither knew the songs nor sang as boldly as the other three. They sang in English and then in Spanish, and the Spanish was sweeter. Lilting. Maybe it just sounded better because she only knew about a third of the words, so it seemed mysterious.
They wound down and down, passing among wrecks of houses and, here and there, houses that had been painted or newly fenced. Once, a dog ran out to greet them. Valeria called it by name, JoeJoe. It jumped up and put its big paws on her shoulders and she let it lick her face. It followed them for a quarter mile before turning back.
The singing and the dog and the carefree walk lifted Lou’s spirits.
As they came into the outskirts of town, Valeria made a sudden left turn and led them into a large warehouse with white paint peeling from the walls. A pair of young white women guarded the door, although they merely nodded at Valeria and watched Lou with naked curiosity.
Inside, light filtered through high windows to illuminate tables full of goods, each with one or more tenders nearby. Here and there, would-be barterers wandered between tables. Boxes lay stacked against the short walls. Small locked rooms that appeared to have been built from scavenged doors and garage walls lined the longest wall.
While the other three headed to tables to sell their cucumbers and squash and late-season carrots, Lou walked slowly down the two wide aisles, looking at the merchandise. Scavenge, mostly. Old clothes. A pile of leashes and dented dog bowls. Shoes, tied together in pairs by the laces or thin scraps of material. Glassware and dishes, some chipped. All of it useful in some way, none of it new, and very little printed. Two tables of homemade crafts for Thanksgiving, all clearly made by children. She bought a rock painted like a turkey.
She had been in the city a few months ago. The contrast looked stark. In the city, almost everything was made and recycled in days, always fresh, never old, never stained. The things Outside were mostly old, except the children’s crafts, and those had been crafted from recycled junk. Outside enjoyed more freedom, but the poverty depressed her.
A few of the proprietors looked hopeful as she approached.
She stopped in front of a table that held knives and machetes. The visibly pregnant girl behind it was cleaning the rust from a long blade with a soft stone, her stringy black hair hanging over her eyes. Lou’s heart raced, and she cleared her throat.
The girl looked up, and her eyes widened.
Sadness softened Lou, almost made her dizzy. “Paulette.”
The girl set the machete down and swallowed. “Yes.”
For a moment Lou felt tongue-tied, but she tried a few sentences in her head before she spoke. “I’m sorry you didn’t make it to California.”
Her eyes darted around the warehouse, and when she was satisfied that no one was near she spoke softly, her voice filled with a deep emptiness. “They killed my husband. Rick. Henrietta made Scott help them beat him. My brother? You remember.”
“I do.”
“She made me watch.”
Anger drove Lou to look around. She wanted to stare, but that would draw attention. Who had done this? She remembered how earnest the boy had been, and how desperate. How young. She shivered and made herself look briefly down the aisle. She wasn’t going to be cowed by the evil in this town. The room was mostly women and children. The children played quietly, the women talked quietly, and a few glanced at her from time, or toward Valeria. She glanced back down, forcing her body to look relaxed. Paulette didn’t need the attention. She turned back to her and whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Your big horse, is it still alive?”
“Yes. We live here now.”
The girl’s eyes widened again, and she flinched. All of the fight that Lou had admired had been stripped from her. Did she think Lou had given her away? That she would put up with such evil. It was still sinking in, the evil. They made me watch. “Not with your people,” Lou replied. “Never that. We are not them. Not like them. We live in an old vineyard up in the hills.”
“I thought you were Wilders?”
“We are. Even Wilders need a place to sleep at night. We’re sharing a house with Valeria.” Surely the girl knew who Valeria was?
Apparently. Her eyes grew even wider and her lips thinned into a slight smile. “Valeria is good,” she pronounced as she looked around. “Please move on before anybody notices you talking to me.”
“Is your family here?” Lou asked.
Paulette ran a finger along the dull edge of a blade. “Some.”
“Are you related to John Smith?”
She hesitated a moment. “He’s my uncle.”
Lou picked up a machete, feeling the heft and balance of it. Not too bad. She made her hand into a knife-edge and balanced the weapon just below the hilt. A finger identified the blade as sharp. “Did you have to marry the man you don’t like?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t want me now. Maybe after I have the baby.”
Lou stiffened. She hissed, “I hope he never wants you.”
“I don’t get to choose.”
Lou handed the machete across the table, her arm still and her muscles tense. “Can I buy this?”
Paulette nodded briefly. “For what?”
Lou held her hand out, full of old jewelry and coins.
Paulette’s fingers moved birdlike across her palm picking up five items, looking up at Lou furtively, and adding a small cross.
“I hope you’re okay,” Lou whispered. “I’d like to talk to you more. Can you ever get away?”
Her right hand curled around her belly. “No.”
But she had gotten away once. “If you can, if you need to talk, or you need help, we’re up there. You can even get me a message.”
Paulette put the money into a metal box and nodded. “Go, now,” she said. “Please.”
Lou wanted to know why, but Valeria and her offspring were two tables away and headed toward her, so she gave Paulette a last look that she hoped the girl would interpret as caring.
Paulette was looking toward the door, her gaze slightly vacant. Her eyes looked damp.
Lou headed for Valeria, machete swinging at her side. It was all she could do not to grip it tightly and swing it
at something. Who could do such a thing to their own child?
As soon as she came near, Valeria pulled her aside and whispered, “Are you okay?”
“No.” She glanced at Alondra. What if she ended up with these people? “No. But I will be. I can’t talk about it right now.”
Valeria nodded. “Okay.”
Alondra said, “Come see our bar?”
‡ ‡ ‡
The storefront was one of ten or twelve that lined the road north out of town. It looked abandoned. Old show posters covered the windows, making it impossible to see inside. There were also handbills and signs that might have come from protests. Bits of history.
STOP illegal Taking!
LAND RIGHTS are HUMAN RIGHTS
Keep your cities off our land!
The graphics were rather beautiful, if faded. Two notes had been pinned to a board by the door, and Valeria grabbed them and then held her palm up to the lock.
The door clicked.
Valeria motioned them through, and only as the door shut behind them did lights bloom on, letting Lou see the interior. Tables and chairs were strewn artfully in front of a big wooden bar, the colors a mash of dark greens and browns and blacks that somehow went together. The floor was polished concrete. When Lou turned back toward the door, she spotted a plywood wall, acting to block the light more effectively than the posters outside would by themselves. It had been hand-painted with a mural of mountains and animals. Alondra watched her admire it, curious.
Lou nodded. “I like it.” She pointed. “There’s a wolf.”
Sure enough, a stylized wolf howled from the top of a mountain on the far side of the mural. “Felipe drew that,” Alondra said.
Lou nodded, stepping closer to the image to look up a little at it. Not realistic, but good. Even though it was only three colors—a white, a brown, and a gray—the wolf looked alive. Her estimation of Felipe rose another notch.
If she wasn’t careful, this entire usurping illegal family were going to be her new heroes.
“It’s from memory,” Alondra said. “From when Akita was young.”
“Akita?” She knew that name. A legendary name, from an old story. The Jungle Book. “It’s a real wolf?”
Alondra nodded. “Felipe knows how to find him.”
Wolves usually traveled in pairs or packs. “Is he a lone wolf?”
“He has an alpha female.”
“Does she have a name?”
Alondra hesitated, and then whispered, “Ghost.”
Had Felipe really been trying to find the wolves when he led them into the hills? “Do you know how to find wolves?”
Alondra nodded. “Sometimes Felipe takes me with him.”
The girl looked hesitant, and Lou decided this wasn’t the time to press.
Lou turned to look at the rest of the room. A full kitchen took up the back, and shelves held books and papers and a few goods that might be for sale. She had expected vegetables and the like, but if so, they weren’t here now. Fresh air coming in through the door diluted the slightly sour smell of old alcohol and rotting wood that permeated the place. Valeria must have noticed it as well; she threw open two other windows, letting natural light in with the air. “At night,” she told Lou, “we have discipline about the light. We have to. So anytime we’re here during the day, we air it out.”
“It’s so quiet,” Lou said.
Astrid laughed. “Not on Saturday. You should come down. They let us serve from Saturday before dusk and stay open until dawn on Sunday. Some other days we open for poetry and singing, but mostly when the weather is bad. Those days they only allow us to serve a single glass of beer or wine to each person.”
“Who is they? John Smith?”
Astrid nodded. “He leads the enforcers, Outside. His sister runs the town. I suspect that’s why there’s only one night of alcohol. If the men were in charge it would be more.”
“Why do they get to tell you what to do?”
The slightest cloud passed across Valeria’s dark eyes. “We negotiated. Everything out here is barter. They leave us alone outside of town, we follow their rules inside of town, and negotiate the rules in here. They will let us keep Saturday night. You’ll see what it’s like if you come. They’d have to fight their own people as well as us.” Valeria slid into a seat, gesturing for Lou to do the same. “I just wanted you to see this, to know where it was. You should come down some Saturday.”
Lou sat across the table from her. “I’d like that. But you don’t sell the produce from here?”
“You told us we couldn’t.”
Lou filed that away. She had told them that, but she’d only half-expected to be obeyed. A sign of how much Valeria thought she might need Lou? Or at least the ecobots? She had finally calmed down enough to talk. “The girl I got the machete from? Do you know her?”
Alondra nodded. “Paulette. She ran away.”
Lou wondered what Alondra knew. “Why?”
Valeria stepped in before the girl could answer. “She didn’t do what she was asked in a family where the women behave.”
“Isn’t that disturbing?”
“Young girls get little say in things. It wasn’t always like this, and these people weren’t always like this.” Valeria steepled her hands and looked lost in thought for a bit. When she looked back up she glanced at each of them, gathering attention. “I once fought side by side with some of them.” She gestured toward the door, a reference to the posters outside. “But now I mostly avoid them.”
Lou nodded. “It feels like a patriarchy.”
Valeria smiled. “There are powerful women.”
“Henrietta?” Lou asked.
“And her daughter, and her daughter’s daughter.”
Lou swallowed, thinking of the line of women right in front of her. “Like you?”
“I do not have such a tight hold on my family as they do.”
“Then they must be formidable.”
Astrid giggled.
Alondra brought a pitcher of water around and filled their glasses.
Lou savored the cool water, noting they had the wherewithal to make ice. “But still, it seems like the men run things.”
“They like to think they do. Maybe that is how patriarchy has always worked.”
Lou sat back, thoughtful. “I have a friend named Bartholomew who makes all the decisions for his band.”
“The hacker?”
Lou wasn’t quite able to hide her surprise that Valeria knew him.
“It’s a small world,” the old woman said. “I know most people who ride through here from time to time.”
Surely Bartholomew was locked up in Seacouver somewhere after his attack there. It had only been what—a few months? He wouldn’t be at trial yet, would he? “Bartholomew is trouble.”
Valeria nodded, her eyes a little wary.
“Why would people like Bartholomew come here?”
“Because there are powerful people hiding here. Why do you think the feds allow Chelan to exist?”
She had heard this idea before, that the feds might be behind the attacks on the cities. “Why not Wenatchee? There are fewer ways in and out of Chelan, and strangers would be noticed more here, wouldn’t they?”
“Wenatchee used to be overrun with Listeners. And there was a Wilders recruiting station, as well. Too many people go through Wenatchee, and an increase in population would be impossible to hide.”
Maybe she should have spent a few extra days there. “I might go to Wenatchee to recruit in a few weeks. I need a few more biologists.”
“I can go with you,” Valeria offered. “Make it a trade trip.”
“That might be helpful. How fast has the population grown here?”
Astrid shook her head. “We aren’t sure. Strings of people walk or ride down from Canada from time to time. Some have federal insignia. Most don’t stay. Some do. No one tells us these things, and to stay safe we don’t come to town except to trade and to do our business here on the weeken
ds. We try to be necessary and not to be targets.”
Lou blew out a long breath and stood up, wishing this would all go away and that she could just go into the hills and count birds and deer and wolf. Who would have thought Valeria would submit to being bossed around by people who would kill a young girl’s young husband? She shivered. Maybe even their own daughter’s husband?
For just a moment, she contemplated ordering her ecobots to strip all of the houses downtown to their foundations. But that would make her as bad as these people, wouldn’t it? That realization turned some of her anger to contemplation, but enough remained to drive her fingers to tap on the table and make her body to feel a need to move.
Alondra came by and collected the glasses, taking them to the sink to wash by hand.
Valeria rose. “We should start back.”
“Where does Henrietta live?”
“Wherever she wants to.” Astrid stepped aside to let Alondra out of the door first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Coryn stared over the seawall railing at the dark shifting Sound. The great wheel’s reflection glittered with fall colors. The baskets were lined in orange and the circle shone a deep red-orange that reminded her of Imke’s lips.
Blessing had been beside her the last time she was here, and they’d kissed at the top of the wheel. But Blessing hadn’t kissed her properly since, and he wasn’t here. He’d asked her for nothing.
She had no idea if this qualified as a date or if she wanted it to, but it was certainly the first time she had met someone outside of Julianna’s circle for a meal. Nerves goaded her into walking while a desire to look calm kept her pace slow.
The waterfront seemed overcrowded, filled with people showing off new coats and boots. People who weren’t Imke. She stopped by the railing where she’d asked Namina to wait for her, and asked her if she’d seen Imke. The robot shook her head, and Coryn went back to walking.
She spotted Imke before they saw her. They looked older off stage. Their black pants and pale blue T-shirt seemed printed to an exact fit. Their face was an amazing palette of blues and browns, even their hair was blue tonight, pulled up in a braid, with long strands of jeweled string or chain glittering along their neck and shoulders and swinging with every stride. Their lips were the same enchanting russet, and immediately, Coryn wanted a kiss.
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