Behind the Ruins (Stories of the Fall)

by Michael Lane

  Grey rubbed his nose. “It’s a fair question. I look kind of like an outlaw. I’m just a regular person, Maria.”

  “Why do you have so many guns?” Wendy asked.

  “It’s dangerous in places in the world nowadays. Also, I hunt a lot.”

  “What do you hunt?” Maria tag-teamed.

  “Deer, sometimes birds like pheasant or grouse.”

  “Daddy says bullets are like gold any more, how do you get any so you can hunt?” Wendy asked.

  “Girls, let Grey have his after-dinner smoke in peace. You can pester him all day tomorrow,” Tomas said. Kirsten ushered the two, protesting, from the dining room to their bedroom. Grey took a deep drag and felt the THC beginning to work, unknotting tension in his back, in his mind.

  “Thanks, those two would make great lawyers,” he said. The men smoked in silence for a minute or two.

  Kirsten returned, dropping into the seat opposite. “They’re supposed to be going to bed, but I imagine they’ll be up for an hour. They don’t meet new people very often.”

  “Not much chance to, any more,” Tomas offered with a wry grin. “Not since the Orion belt.”

  “The what?” Grey asked.

  “That’s what they ended up calling it. All these meteors. Before the last radio went dead, they were talking about it - said it was a belt of crap the solar system had wandered into.”

  “I never heard,” Grey said. “Everyone I talk to just calls it the Fall.”

  “There wasn’t much to hear,” Tomas replied, shrugging. “It was mostly people blaming each other for not being ready for something like this. The government was trying to get old technology in place, fifties stuff, and then the second wave of rocks hit and fried everything again.”

  “We needed old USSR shit,” Jerry said. “Like their old MiGs in the seventies, the ones with vacuum tubes that would fly after a nuke went off. All we had was chips and solid state. Pfft. Instantly fried.”

  “I miss the internet,” Trigger mumbled.

  “You just miss the porn,” Jerry said with a smirk.

  “I miss electricity,” Kirsten said. “Being able to turn stuff on when I need it.”

  Grey felt a foot slide along his calf when Kirsten spoke, and he saw her eyes on him, bright and amused. Slightly stoned, he wondered if he was imagining things.

  “It’s like the old west, now,” Tomas said. “With hand-pumps, people taking up blacksmithing, making candles, like that. Dumb people robbed banks when it happened; smart ones robbed museums.” His bushy eyebrows rose and he sighed. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I ask a few impolite questions?”

  Grey nodded.

  “You’re here with my wife, with my daughters. So I have to ask. Are you on the run? Are you bringing trouble here? If you are, well, you got a good dinner but you need to move on. If you lie and trouble finds you, I’ll hold you responsible for it.”

  Grey shook his head. “Nothing’s following me.”

  Ramirez nodded. “Good. Are you following anything that’ll bring trouble?”

  “No, not for a long time. My trouble got away from me.”

  “If you go after it again, will it come back on me?” Ramirez asked.

  “No. It’ll sort itself out.”

  “That’s good,” Ramirez said, standing up. Kirsten stood as well, moving to his side. “It’s an early start tomorrow, you three get some rest. And see that Bobby doesn’t sleep in the barn, again, okay?”

  Grey started out feeding and shoveling. Cows, he discovered, can make a ton of shit from a quarter-ton of hay. Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, Grey built huge manure piles that local farmers would use on their fields. They bartered some fodder for the manure, he discovered, and vegetables for milk and cheese.

  It turned out that there were thirty or forty households within ten miles that had survived the initial chaos intact. They’d survived the long winters that followed the Fall, and they traded amongst themselves and a few trade caravans, watched the area and formed a tightknit group dedicated to survival. They were friendly but cautious and could defend themselves violently if need be. Grey noted the line of six graves, unmarked, that lay in a line behind the Ramirez barn. The freshest had perhaps three months of grass growing on it.

  It was hot work, and by the end of his first week Grey had passed through sunburnt to tan. His wool travelling clothes were washed and stored and he wore a pair of off-white raw linen trousers and matching shirt that Trigger had traded him for a pocketknife. He wore a straw hat in the sun, and felt like Tom Sawyer. He discovered he liked the work, and he liked the Ramirez family. Trusting people was a luxury he had missed.

  Grey was forking hay into the barn’s cavernous loft when Kirsten came in. It was during his second month at the farm. He’d see her in passing on most days, but she was kept busy with the girls. He leaned on the pitchfork, breathing heavily, and wiped sweat from his face with a hand.

  She was dressed in jeans and a loose blue t-shirt, and carried two bottles with red and white labels.

  “Is that Coke, Mrs. Ramirez?” Grey asked. “Holy shit, where’d you find that?”

  “I have a stash,” she said. “Call me Kirsten, Grey.” She smiled and offered a bottle. “They’re cold. I had them in the spring box.”

  “Thank you,” Grey said. He was painfully aware of the way her breasts tented the fabric of the oversized shirt, of how full her lips looked, and her long hair. He sat down on the loft steps, hiding the sudden stir and swell he felt at his groin.

  “The girls are having a nap. Trigger and Jerry took Tomas and the wagon to Hurley’s,” she said. “And Bobby’s down on the lower pasture.”

  Grey felt blood hammering in his ears and his face felt strange. Maybe he hadn’t been as stoned as he thought.

  “So you’re on your own this afternoon?” It sounded inane but he couldn’t think of anything clever. He told himself he should get up, leave, make some excuse and stop this now.

  “Grey, I love my husband dearly, don’t get that wrong. But he’s not always able to do what I want. And the only other men I see aren’t what I’d call attractive.” She took a long swallow of pop, and he watched her breasts rise as she tilted her head back.

  “So, if you don’t make a thing of it,” she raised an eyebrow. Grey stood and Kirsten glanced down. “Well, that’s a good sign,” she grinned. Her hand squeezed him through the thin cloth.

  It was a mistake, and he knew it was a bad one, but he didn’t stop, then or the times that followed.

  It was good sex. Animal and hard and sweaty, and with nothing emotional attached, at least at first. If there had been time, it might have grown into something. And as bad as it ended, it would have been worse if it had happened later.

  Of course Trigger saw them. Someone was bound to. They didn’t know it, but he’d come back from whatever he’d been doing early one day and had gone into the woodlot behind the farm looking after his weed. He’d heard them, followed the noise, and had watched from the brush.

  Trigger shared his information with Jerry, and the two confronted Grey one evening not long after. They’d tried to act hard. Grey had wanted to smile, even as his gut knotted.

  “Yeah, I got an eyeful,” Trigger said, leering. “When you had her bent over, holding that tree? Oh man, hells yeah. I thought you were going to knock her brains out, you were pumping so hard. Not that I blame you,” he’d continued cheerily. “Those big tits of hers bouncing like that? That sweet ass grinding on you? Shit, I had to rub one out while I was watching.” Jerry had the grace to look embarrassed, Grey noted, but he was Trigger’s buddy and stayed quiet.

  In the end they said they wanted Grey’s guns for their silence, or the money his guns would bring. Grey had said he’d think about it, and had simply packed up and moved on that night. They’d tried to stay awake and keep an eye on him, but after their usual evening smoke, they’d both nodded off. He liked Tomas, and he could spare him pain this way. He’d just assume Grey had drifted on. A cowardly par
t of him was glad. It was a way out without having to face either Kirsten or Tomas.

  Grey rode north that night, taking his time, and camped one day out on a flat bench thickly wooded with birch. He searched for a while, and found a little spring that he dug out until a gallon or two of clear water collected. He shot a whitetail doe that evening in a cottonwood grove; he’d left without taking any food but what he could scavenge in the bunkhouse.

  He whittled two points on a heavy, straight piece of branch, punched each end through the deer’s hocks just behind the big tendon, and hoisted her to hang head-down from a forked tree. He skinned the doe, peeling the hide with occasional help from his knife, and then set about removing the meat in thin strips. He festooned the limbs of a red alder with the meat, watching it go black as it dried. The flies weren’t bad, the weather was too dry, but he built a smoky fire that kept them from laying eggs while the meat desiccated. He cut out the liver and heart. Grey took a cast iron skillet from his gear and melted a chunk of deer fat in it over one of the smoke-fires. He fried a slice of liver and then laid slices of the tough heart in the fat to cook while he ate it. He kept the fire burning all night, and packed the meat the next day in the afternoon. He rolled the raw hide after scraping it down, and was tying it with rawhide strips when Tomas walked out of the trees.

  The dairyman was holding an old lever-action rifle and it was aimed at the center of Grey’s chest. His own guns were yards away, leaning against a tree.

  “You killed her. Why?” Tomas asked. His voice wavered, but the gun never did.

  “What happened?” Grey asked.

  “You know. I want to know why. She was a good girl.”

  Grey felt a floating, dreamy unreality settle over him.

  “I don’t know. I left because Trigger and Jerry decided to see if they could blackmail me. Everyone was fine when I left.”

  “You’re a fucking liar,” Tomas said in a dead voice. ”I let you into my house and you killed my girl.”

  “Oh my fuck,” Grey felt dizzy. “Maria’s dead? Wendy?”

  “Kirsten, you sick fuck. You killed my wife.” Tomas’s voice hitched.

  “No I didn’t,” Grey said. “But I want to know who did.”

  “Sit down where you are.”

  Grey did, with a thump. His knees were weak with shock and adrenaline. Tomas circled the clearing and took Grey’s guns.

  “Blackmail? What the hell are you talking about?” Tomas was behind Grey. “Tell me, and if you move, I’ll put a bullet in you.”

  “I was having sex with your wife,” Grey said, very slowly and clearly. He could feel the spot on his spine where the bullet would hit. “Trigger saw me and told Jerry. They wanted my gear or they’d tell you, so I left.”

  Grey waited. His mouth was dry. Tomas took a long time to respond. Grey finally broke the silence.

  “I’m not a good man, but I liked you and Kirsten, and I figured I should just leave because I’d done enough harm. If I’d killed anyone, I wouldn’t have stopped here to jerk venison.”

  “You were fucking my wife? Pendejo. I should kill you for that on its own.”

  “Someone figured I’d be blamed and took advantage. Someone who knew I was leaving.”

  “Jerry or Trigger. Bobby?”

  “Not Bobby, he couldn’t make the connection. Besides he’s a good guy. He loved Kirsten.”

  Tomas was quiet for a long time. Grey stared at a clump of moss on the ground in front of him. It was as green as jade, and made of tiny star-shaped leaves. He wondered how long moss lived.

  “Did my wife seduce you? Did you go after her?”

  “It wasn’t like that. She loved you. I was just a toy.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Tomas said after a long pause. It sounded like he was weeping. “I can’t do this, it’s too much.”

  “I can, if you’ll let me,” Grey said, still staring at the moss and feeling a familiar cold weight in his gut. “Take my guns in. Tell them you killed me. I’ll follow after dark.”

  The moss really was beautiful when you looked closely enough, he thought.

  He waited to see if he’d die.

  Tomas rode in before dark, carrying Grey’s guns. Grey followed him once it was fully dark. The hands usually went to sleep early. He had shared the bunkhouse with them and knew where they slept. Each man had an old footlocker, a short shelf and a few personal items. He’d deal with that if he had to, but he didn’t think he would.

  Grey had asked only one question of Tomas before they parted: Had there been blood? There had been a lot of blood, Tomas said, his face ashen. Grey couldn’t make himself ask if the girls had seen. He didn’t want to know.

  He circled the farm in the summer dark and sat his horse in the edge of the woodlot, listening to the creak of crickets and the musical lowing of the cattle in their pasture. From here he could see the spring box in its little cleft behind the barn. The water welled out of the rock there, pooling in the old concrete box before trickling down to be lost in the pasturage below. There was a low-riding moon, and Grey watched it wester until it sat. In the full dark that followed he dismounted and descended the hill, taking a seat in the tall grass near the spring box.

  He was almost asleep when he heard the wooden lid of the box rattle. He sat up, listening as someone stirred in the water. He heard sloshing, then pattering noises, then more sloshing. He stood. Grey could just make out the back of a figure hunched over the box, facing away, watching the farm down the hill.

  The sound of washing covered his footsteps. The figure stiffened but did not turn when Grey cleared his throat.

  “Put the clothes down on the ground and step away,” Grey said. The figure didn’t move. “Do it now.” There was a wet thump and the figure stood, stepped to the side and turned. It was too dark to make out his features, but Grey knew him by voice.

  “Why’d you come back? You weren’t supposed to come back. Tomas said he killed you,” Trigger said. He sounded sad.

  “Two more steps to your right, keep your hands where I can see them.” Grey realized his lips had pulled back from his teeth in a skull’s grin.

  Trigger shuffled right.

  “How’d you know where I’d be?”

  “Takes a lot of soaking to get blood out. The box made sense. You couldn’t put your clothes in a pond where they could be found. You wouldn’t want to just bury the clothes and then have to explain where they went.”

  Crickets called in falling staccato runs and a nightjar swooped past overhead, or maybe a big bat chasing mosquitos. Trigger waited for more but Grey didn’t speak. At last, Grey took three strides so the two men stood close, facing each other. He could hear Trigger panting and smell his sweat. He couldn’t stop grinning his horrible grin, and part of him didn’t want to.

  “Don’t you want to know why?” The question had a soft, greasy eagerness to it when it finally came. The grinning part of him did want to know, at least a little, and that made Grey angry.

  “I know why. You’re broken. I just wanted you clear of those clothes before I killed you.”

  The knife went under and up behind Trigger’s ribs in three quick thrusts. He gave a breathy moan with each strike. Grey stepped aside to avoid the blood as he withdrew the blade, twisting it savagely after the last blow. The farmhand swayed for a moment, then fell over backward and moved weakly in the dry grass, making bubbling noises. Grey wiped his knife on Trigger’s pant leg, then sat down and waited for him to die. It took a while.

  He washed his hands before he went to the farmhouse to collect his guns.

  In the morning Georgia and a tired-looking Grey on a borrowed quarterhorse rode for an hour back into the hills. The weather was cold, a little breezy, and the sky was streaked with thin clouds that threatened late snow. They climbed a ridge, the trees opening out before them, and found themselves overlooking a wide valley through which a stream wound in serpentine curves bordered by snowcapped boulders and tangled logjams, some as high as thirty feet.


  Grey rode down the hill, counting paces. From one hundred yards to three hundred he stopped at intervals and clambered off the horse. He set wrist-thick sticks of firewood atop rocks and logs, eight in all, and then folded the bag he had used to bring them. He rode back, the horse feeling its way through the snow, wary of downed trees and buried rocks.

  Georgia had dismounted and unfolded a faded green tarp. She lay prone on it, the rifle propped on its bipod, peering down into the valley.

  Grey dismounted and tethered his horse next to Geogia’s fjord pony.

  “You only brought eight?” Georgia asked as he took a seat on the tarp and readied his binoculars.

  “That’s all that would fit in the bag. You need more?”

  “No, eight should do. Call them out when you’re ready.” Georgia worked the action of the gun, chambering the first round, and dropped her cheek to the stock.

  “Furthest left,” Grey said.

  The rifle boomed, the empty shell case glittering as the weapon ejected it on a spinning arc into the snow. The target, at one hundred and fifty yards, spun end-over-end into the snow.

  “Nearest.” The log exploded into splinters.

  “Middle right.” Again.

  “Farthest.” Again.

  “Next farthest. Far right. Nearest. Last one.”

  Echoes rumbled and growled back and forth as the final piece of wood spun away. The horses blew and snorted, but calmed rapidly. Georgia stood, stretching. Her eyes were distant.

  “So?” she asked.

  Grey smiled thinly.

  “I assume there is a lot on my plate, then?”

  “Yes. Lots,” Grey said, eyeing the splintered wood scattered across the width of the vale. “What’s your maximum range?”

  “If I take my time? With this, depending on the situation, six or seven hundred yards. For fast shooting, about three hundred.”

  Georgia refused to follow Grey at a walking pace and loaned him the quarterhorse when they set off the following day. The trail was slushy and muddy in parts, and it was four days before they reached the Port. Grey shared what he knew as they rode.

  Georgia spoke little and watched constantly. Her rifle stayed in its case, riding across her bedroll behind her saddle, and she wore an old revolver belted over her buckskin jacket. Grey rode with his rifle slung across his back.