by Lou Cadle
“Too early for dusk.” The solstice wasn’t far past.
“But we’ll want to be hidden outside of Payson before nightfall, right? I don’t want to pick out a place to park when it’s dark, only to discover I’m parked in someone’s front yard when they come out to shoot me.”
“Yeah. Makes sense. But it’s still full daylight at six. If we go at six, you’ll need to drive fast past that road in case they’ve put someone on guard next to the highway.” Luckily the car ran silently except for the noise of its tires on the pavement.
“Absolutely,” she said.
They ate a snack of boiled eggs and then she slipped into the woods to relieve herself. He heard her whistle and felt a shot of adrenaline from it before realizing it wasn’t a signal. She was whistling as she once did to call Bodhi home, before invaders had shot him six or seven weeks ago.
The dog from the other neighborhood? He exited the car, intending to make sure she was okay. When he caught sight of her, she signaled him to stay where he was and then squatted down and talked softly, trying to entice the dog to her. Dev couldn’t see the animal. When Sierra gave up and came back, he said, “Is it the dog from the burned-out houses?” He described it.
“Yeah, same one, or a close relative. I’m going to leave it a peanut butter sandwich. Or a bite of one, at least. It looks pretty scrawny. If we can get it to associate us with food, we’ll have a better chance of attracting it.”
When she had done that, leaving the quarter-sandwich at the side of the road, she came back and fiddled with the sack of produce she’d harvested earlier, leaving it on the back seat.
“You’re not thinking of taking that with us when we’re on foot, I hope. The water and food we packed will weigh enough.”
“No,” she said. “Okay, you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Maybe you should scooch down.”
“I’d rather see trouble coming,” he said. He wondered if it was something his father said. He found himself echoing his father more and more these days.
“Buckle up.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Look,” he began, but then she trounced on the accelerator and he was flung back in the seat. The little car had some get up and go, that was for sure. He hung on to the dash with one hand and kept the other on his rifle barrel.
They zoomed around the first curve, feeling barely in control, and he said, “You can slow down a little.”
But she was focused on what she was doing and he wasn’t sure she had registered his words. He swayed one way then the other as she drove into the last curve, switching his left hand to her seat back to keep from sliding into her.
The good news was, they were moving fast enough that if the defenders of the neighborhood were waiting for them, they’d only have time for one shot. The bad news was, they might not survive her driving.
As the forest road drew near on their left, Dev wished he could take hold of the rifle with both hands, but there was no way he was going to let go. He wished he had put on his seat belt, as she had told him. He looked at her face, intense with concentration, and realized she wasn’t wearing hers.
That’s when she slammed on the brakes.
Dev slid forward on the seat and had to let go of his rifle to keep from smashing into the dash. By the time he had a hint of her intention, she had flung her door open.
He grabbed for her as she jumped from the car but was too late. “Sierra!” he yelled as his hands closed over empty air.
She didn’t answer. She yanked open the rear car door, hauled out the feed sack stuffed with vegetables and ran with it to the beginning of the forest road. She dropped the sack and as he was opening his door—for he wasn’t sure what—to cover her, defend her, die with her?—then she ran back, leapt into the car, and disengaged the brake, jamming on the accelerator again without bothering to close either door.
Two miles down the road she stopped. “Nobody after us.”
“Jesus Christ, Sierra!” Dev wanted to shake her. “What were you—? Did you stop and think that—? I—” He finished with “Jesus Christ!” again, a curse he did not use lightly.
“Gotta get that back door closed better,” she said. The idiot was grinning.
Dev’s mind started working better in that few seconds it took her to get out, close the door, and get back in. She buckled her seat belt. “Sorry. I knew you were going to say no, so I just did it.”
“What’s the point? You risked your life to deliver a bag of vegetables? Seriously?”
“I wrote them a note.”
“A note?”
“The note said that we’re neighbors up the hill. Friends, allies, if you want us to be. No intent to harm you or take what’s yours, just dropping by to discuss the situation in Payson.” She said, “Seemed a good use of the food. It’s a peace offering.”
“It was crazy.”
“But I’m still alive.”
“Lucky to be.” His hands were trembling a tiny bit.
“I know there was a risk. But I’m fine. You’re fine. Quit nagging, would you?”
“Look. Next time you have an idea like that, talk to me about it, would you?”
“You’d have just said no.”
“Exactly!”
“Dev.” Her voice was more gentle, and her grin had faded, as if her adrenaline rush was wearing off. “It worked out fine.”
In any case, Dev realized, it was over with. He didn’t want them arguing the next three or four days while they reconnoitered. So he let it drop. And he tried not to imagine what Pilar would say to him if he found out about this.
Dev wasn’t going to be the one to mention the incident to him, that was for sure.
She drove the car down the hill another four miles, and she found a place to park where they could hide the car. In silence, they removed the battery and hid it a good distance away from the car to discourage theft, should anyone find the car and want to steal the battery. The car was gray, luckily, and not that noticeable, but charged batteries would be attractive to a thief in this world. They leaned some downed limbs against the car and flung dead pine needles over the hood to make it even less noticeable.
Then they checked their backpacks and set off cross-country toward Payson and whatever dangers it held.
Chapter 4
On the second day of reconnoitering the town, Dev glimpsed the dog again, lying fifty yards uphill, keeping low on its belly and watching them. “Dog,” he said to Sierra, who was almost invisible behind a patch of bushes.
“Same one?” she said, not looking back. She had the binoculars and was looking down onto the streets of Payson.
“Yeah. He’s tenacious, you gotta give him that.” He didn’t know how the dog had found them either time. He’d traveled miles to follow them, and if it could track the scent of an automobile that was the first time Dev had ever heard about that canine talent. But the dog wouldn’t travel that last hundred yards to come and make friends. He wasn’t a barker. That made him less than ideal for a watchdog, but considering what they were doing, it was a good thing he was the quiet type.
Behind the bushes, Sierra shifted. “Okay, still not a lot of regular activity on the street. But the patrol is coming around again. Two men. One white, one probably Latino. The white guy I think I’ve seen before.”
Dev was looking in the other direction, protecting their backs. “So that makes what, eight we’ve seen in two days?”
“Nine. All men. None I recognize, though I don’t know everyone in town.”
“You know more than I do. And it’s defensive, what they’re doing?”
“No, they’re looking around in town more than out here.”
Same as he’d seen yesterday. “Occupation force then, policing the streets. Keeping people in line.”
“Good for us. Bad for people in the town.”
“Anyone else on the streets?”
“Just them.”
“We need to get a better idea of—”
“I know. How many invaders. How many regular people are left in town. I’m trying.”
“Right.” He knew she knew that. He was growing frustrated with what they’d been able to see. A town occupied. Some people working small gardens in their yards, sneaking bites of garden food as they worked, which told part of the story. A daily collection of food from armed invaders, a pair of guards who carried their firearms casually, suggesting that they had cowed the people into obeying some days ago. Now it was routine.
Nine men couldn’t accomplish that. Not against twenty thousand. They’d already discussed this but Dev said again, “We have to figure at least ten thousand survived.”
“But Mia left, so maybe others did too,” she said. “Whoever is there is not necessarily on our side, but maybe they’re closer to friends than these guys with guns would be.”
“And we might know a few of them.”
“Not that that helped at all the first time we were attacked.”
“Second time.” The first time had been a single man looking for food, a stranger. Dev’s father had shot him dead. Second time had included people they did business with in town.
“Whatever. Either they’ve cowed the population with superior weapons down there, or they have another means of control over them.”
He’d tried to work it out. Maybe one person from every household was being held somewhere. The town jail couldn’t be that big. “You could turn the high school gym into a jail, couldn’t you?” There were parts of town they couldn’t see, not even with the binoculars, and part of the story might only be revealed there.
“You think they have hostages?” It was amazing how sometimes she seemed to read his mind.
“Nine against ten thousand. Doesn’t add up.”
“They could have a lot more than nine. I wish I had quizzed Mia better.”
“She might not have known either. She seemed pretty upset.” Dev had overheard part of their conversation.
“No wonder. Her parents both died, plus her boyfriend. If we took that as typical for a family, maybe there are only five thousand left alive down there.”
“But we’re back to no way that nine or even two dozen men could have killed that many. Not even trained, and not even with military assault rifles.”
“Which you say they don’t have.”
“Not that we’ve seen so far.” Dev stared at the dog that was sitting and watching them. “Maybe thousands did escape, like your friend.”
“We would have noticed that, thousands walking up the hill past our road. They can’t all have gone up the other way.”
“Flagstaff might be more appealing to a townsperson. I can imagine most of them going that way.”
“A few would have come our way. And we’ve had watches since before Mia.”
“That’s so. No way for us to find out the population or the invaders’ numbers or who left or anything else. Not safely, not by doing anything other than what we’re doing. And that’s all we should do.”
The dog watched him as if listening to his words. It hadn’t moved in several minutes. They needed a dog for protection in the neighborhood, for an early warning system, and it would be worth making friends with this one, but it had apparently learned some hard lesson about strangers. Still, that it was following them gave him hope that it could be tamed again. It wanted humans. He need only convince it that he or Sierra was the human it wanted.
“Okay,” Sierra said. “They’ve turned west again. We should give it five minutes to see if anyone comes out of their houses after the guards have left, and then we should move. We still have at least two-thirds of the town to cover.”
“Okay. I’ll go first. Give me fifteen and follow.”
“Will do.”
When the five minutes had passed, Dev stood and brushed pine needles off his jeans. The dog slipped away into the forest.
“Go on,” Sierra said. “All clear.”
Following the contours of the hill, keeping out of sight of anyone in town with a scope or binoculars, he found a path. It was a hot day, the kind you could feel in your lips and taste in the air among the pines. Either the monsoon rain was late or wasn’t coming at all this year. The forest was dry, ready to explode into a wildfire. Again, he sent a quick prayer of thanks that the fire in the empty neighborhood hadn’t blown up into a real disaster. Whoever had put it out deserved his gratitude, but he knew he was unlikely to ever find them to express it.
He wondered again about a fire department in town. Martial law was in place, so there was no legitimate government down there. He didn’t know if there was a national government any more either. July 4, America’s Independence Day, had come and gone, but he didn’t know if there was even an America. They hadn’t seen any sign there was one.
After fifteen minutes of cross-country hiking, he stopped to let Sierra catch up to him. She was getting better at reading his trail, and she appeared in good time. “Hungry yet?” he asked her.
“Sort of. Let’s hike another half-hour and then we’ll rest.”
“I’m getting sick of peanut butter and boiled eggs.”
“We’re lucky to have the peanut butter. It won’t last forever.”
“We have quite a bit stashed away. A couple cases, I’m pretty sure. But yeah, one day we’ll be eating nothing other than rabbit, eggs, and our own vegetables.”
“And whatever we can hunt. Or you can hunt. I still need to learn those skills.”
“You will. You’re a much better shot than you were.”
“I’ll go first this time.” They had decided yesterday it might be smarter to move one at a time. If the person leading ran into trouble, the person following might be able to bail the other one out.
He trailed Sierra to the west and as she made a turn west-southwest, stopping every few minutes to listen. A distant coyote yip was all he heard, an adolescent, he believed. The sound made him worry about the dog. A lone dog wouldn’t stand a chance against a pack of coyotes.
He caught up. She had spread out her sleeping bag—just a thin plastic one, not a real one—as a tablecloth. It was warm enough at night that they didn’t need anything more. He carried a light blanket and had spent the night lying on top of it. Only at dawn had he felt in the least chilly, and that went away in minutes once he started moving. It had to be ninety degrees now, maybe more. He slipped off his pack and sat across from her. Dev rooted through his pack. “At least as we drink water, it’s getting lighter.”
“I hope we find another stream.” They had passed one and had refilled their empty bottles late yesterday afternoon.
“I think there are none. Otherwise, only dry washes.”
“Then I guess we should conserve what we have. Unless you’re willing to try for a raid on one of the lakes in town tomorrow night.” She drew a map with her finger, tracing a circle for the town, an X through the circle for the major crossroad, and then tapping just off the center. “There’s a park here with a pretty good-sized one.”
“No. Too risky. If there were something out at the edge of town we might.”
She thought about it. “None I can remember. We might come across a house with a well out here.”
“I’m not sure we should risk that either.”
“There’s the dog again. He must be finding water.”
“He’s willing to drink things that you and I aren’t.” Dev made himself a peanut butter sandwich. “How do you think it would taste if I sliced eggs onto it?”
“Disgusting.”
“I used up all the jam this morning for breakfast.” They’d probably run out of food before they made it back to the car. Wouldn’t kill him to skip a day of food, but he was already hungry all the time. He remembered the package of jerky Mitch Morrow had given him right before this all started. Too bad he hadn’t seen the future. He would have saved it for now. Of course, if he had seen the future, he’d have seen Mr. Morrow’s sui
cide. And he’d have been able to prevent it.
“What are you thinking about? You have a funny look on your face.”
“The Morrows.”
“Oh,” she said. “Yeah. I try not to think of them too much.”
He chewed on his food.
“It must have been hard, finding them.”
He shrugged. It had been, but he didn’t want to dwell on it.
“I think I’ll work on the dog again.” She spread a quarter slice of bread with a thin layer of peanut butter.
“I don’t want to give up any more food.”
“I don’t either, but I want that dog.” Moving on hands and knees, she started talking baby talk to the dog. “Hi, sweetie. I have more peanut butter for you.” She made kissing sounds.
Dev ignored her and tended to his sandwich. It wasn’t nearly enough to drive off the burning in his belly, so he made another one, open faced. He hoped the neighborhood that had gotten the sack of produce appreciated it.
As Sierra tried to coax the dog to her, he wondered about the future. His family—three of them—could live on the rabbits and eggs, the young cockerels they killed and the garden and orchard, just barely, he thought. That was if there wasn’t an outbreak of pests, disease in the rabbits or hens, a clever fox who got some hens, or any other trouble. For now, they were more than okay because of the amount of food his parents had been storing—rice and flour, sugar and raisins and barley and beans. They hadn’t ever stored MREs, which would have been useful for this trip.
After that food supply was gone, then what? They’d eat a more comfortable amount if they had smoked fish and venison in the smokehouse, but what they’d had there had been stolen or ruined. He would have to hunt more often, that was the solution. Or set traps for small game, like Curt did.
But to do that, they needed more people to share the guard duties. They needed more people, period. Though he hadn’t mentioned it to Sierra yet, he had woken with a new worry about her spontaneous act yesterday. What if leaving the bag of food had reminded that group of their existence, and they went hunting for the source of the food? If all they found was the burned-out neighborhood and the gardens, and decided it had come from there, no harm done. If they went farther up the hill and found their own little road, especially when only four people were there to defend it, that would be a disaster.
