by Lou Cadle
“They’ll learn to defend themselves,” Dev’s father said.
“Do I have anything to say about that?” Joan said.
“Well, say it then.”
“I was actually asking. Do you want to hear what I have to say about my daughters?”
Kelly said, “Go on.”
Joan said, “I think Misha is a little young. Not just in years. She is young for her age. You should think of her as a nine-year-old, not ten and a half, which is what she is. So it might be better to teach her to hide for now. I’m saying that I wouldn’t trust her with a gun yet. Maybe in a year, if we’re still alive in a year. Or maybe she’ll grow up faster now and it will be sooner.”
Sierra said, “Is she a fast runner?”
“Pretty fast, yeah.” Joan half-pointed at the girl, who was still at it. “She has good stamina, but when she crashes, it’s quick and hard.”
Dev said, “They hiked a long way yesterday.”
Joan nodded agreement and went on. “I’m not sure about Emily. Not this version of Emily. She hasn’t spoken for nearly two weeks, not since the first time they took her.”
There was an awkward silence. Then Pilar said, his sympathy obvious, “They’ve been raping her all along?”
“Rape, no, not technically. But forced oral sex, which is every bit as bad for a thirteen-year-old.”
Sierra said, “Why? Why not pick on girls my age?”
“They did at first. Some ran. Some got shot running. Many of their families got shot defending them. Two hung themselves, I heard, or maybe it was just one and I heard about it twice. One or two, rumor has it, seem to have gone over to the group. Survival strategy, I think. If it’s going to happen, try to win favors from the people who are going to abuse you—that must be their thinking.”
“What did you do to stop them?” Dev’s dad said.
Dev cringed at the directness of question, the tone of accusation. Though he’d wondered the same thing himself, he would never have asked her why she didn’t stop it.
“I fought. I threatened. I begged. Here.” She was wearing a T-shirt with sleeves that ended just above her elbow, and she pushed them up. Her upper arms were covered with bruises. “And my neck.” She pushed back her hair, cut blunt at her shoulder, to show the fading fingerprint bruises on either side of her neck. “I was kicked in the back. One of them shoved a handgun between my legs and threatened to pull the trigger.”
“Good God,” Pilar said, and he glanced at Sierra. Dev imagined he was thinking what he’d do to protect her, and how he’d feel if he could not. To Joan he said, “I’m sorry. I know it’s a useless thing to say, but I am.”
She didn’t respond to that. “And they had found my church’s membership records, and they threatened to shoot every man from my congregation if I kept fighting them.” She shook her head. “I didn’t know what else to do. I failed my child, and I know it. But they had guns, and I was just one person. They said they’d shoot me. And then who would take care of Misha? I was still willing to fight. But then.” She stopped and closed her eyes. A deep sigh. “They said it was one or the other. Misha or Emily.” She glanced at Dev’s mom. “That’s when I stopped believing in God, at that moment. ‘This one?’ they asked me, holding on to Emily.” She dropped her head. “I nodded. I wonder if Emily quit talking to me, not to everyone. Maybe she’ll talk to someone who didn’t betray her like her mother did.”
Another long, uncomfortable silence descended.
“How many times?” Sierra said. “Did they take her?”
“Six. Exactly six times.” She looked up. Her face was a study in horror and regret and guilt.
“Maybe she’ll forget one day,” Dev said, wanting to say something to comfort her
Joan looked at him. “No. She’ll never forget. Nor will I.”
Dev’s mom said, “There was nothing else you could have done. Don’t blame yourself.”
“Of course I blame myself. I could have—I don’t know. Something. Ran, I suppose. Taken them and left at night after the first time, the way we ended up doing last night. No weapons, little food, no gas in my car, no destination in mind, but we could have walked, early one day before they had us all cowed and settled into their routine.” She grimaced. “Accustomed to their version of order.”
“Why were you out of gas?” Dev’s father said.
“I had filled up with the last delivery, but then I was running around helping, like a good priest should. Helping get single older people set up with families in my church who would take them. Helping with big garden projects. I was doing my job in my community, hoping I could help save it.” She shook her head and looked right at Dev’s dad. “You’re judging me, I know. But there’s no judgment you could make of me that is half as harsh as how I judge myself.” She looked to Pilar. “I’ve had to keep it together for my girls, however I could. Do you understand that?”
Pilar nodded. “I really can’t imagine, and I’m not judging you. None of us were prepared for this. Well, maybe the Quinns were physically, but I think none of us were at an emotional level. I’ve killed, I’ve watched my teenager daughter turn into a killer of men.” When Sierra looked at him, he said, “I’m not complaining. You were keeping yourself alive, and that’s a good thing. But it has hurt me to see. A lot. I’m sure Kelly knows what I mean. And that’s not half of what you went through, Joan.”
“It certainly has had its challenges,” Dev’s mom said. “But we’ve met them. And you’ll meet yours, Joan. And find your faith again. We none of us knows all of God’s plan for us. Terrible, disgusting, and unforgivable as that was, what happened to your daughter yesterday happened when my son and Sierra were there to witness it. That led to your being here and all of you being much safer today. No one living here will touch your children in violence. That I can promise you.”
Joan nodded, accepting the promise.
Dev’s father said, “You know, we’ve had one suicide in this house. I’d rather not stumble onto another.”
She gave him a piercing stare. “My daughters need me.”
“Okay,” he said. “Just saying.”
“I read you,” she said. “That much I can promise you. As long as either of my children are alive, I’m alive. And fighting.” She gave Dev’s father a sharp nod. “And I’m willing to get trained to shoot. And to stand guard. I’ll work hard to get good at it as fast as possible.”
“Well, at least Mitch’s firearms should be enough for you,” Dev’s dad said. “And when your kids want to learn, I’ll figure something else out for them.”
“That’s generous of you,” she said.
“Now,” his father said, “we need to decide. Do we do anything about Payson? Forty-five or so men, you say?”
“Plus people who have gone over, or collaborated,” Joan said.
“How many of those are there?”
“I don’t know. They don’t want us to communicate with each other. There’s over-the-back-fence rumor, and little of that. A dozen or two, I imagine. Not a lot.”
“So call it fifty or sixty people. Should we be thinking about doing something?”
Pilar said, “I don’t know that we can afford to. We were lucky that no trouble came our way while Sierra and Dev were gone, especially if that other neighborhood’s residents are thinking about who might have left that food for them. We still need to stand watch day and night. And tend our gardens. And I still haven’t gotten that middle turbine working as I’d like, and we need to repair Mitch’s. Sorry, Joan’s now. We replaced the cable while you two were gone,” he said to Dev and Sierra, “but they don’t have much power without the turbine. They aren’t going to be able to use the refrigerator and freezer both.”
“The turbine looked pretty wrecked to me,” Dev said. “I’m not sure any of us have the skill to get it back to where it was. They must be pretty sensitive devices. You know, like they need to be perfect? So they can turn right.”
“We can try,” Pilar said. “But anyway
, gardens, repair, and now you tell us there’s these other gardens still bearing food by the burned houses that we should go down and harvest at least twice a week, so we can preserve that. It was a challenge for me managing those days without Sierra. I didn’t do any target practice and feel I should. I think our plates are full—too full to organize a raid or several of them.”
Dev’s mom said, “Also, if the neighborhood where Sierra left that bag of food comes up in force, we don’t want to be caught shorthanded.”
Sierra said, “I’m sorry if I messed up with that. It seemed the right thing to do then. Now, I admit, I don’t know.”
Her father said, “We can’t know what their response will be either way. Maybe they just ignored it. If they’re happy with their defenses, they might be saying just what we are now—that they can’t afford the personnel to go on raids that might gain them nothing.”
Dev’s mom said, “And Arch, remember, they’re closer to Payson. If they know what’s happening down there—and we have to assume they have some idea—they’ll be less inclined to leave themselves shorthanded because they fear the invaders coming up to attack them. In my opinion, we’re just as much in danger from random raiders, like the ones we’ve seen so far.”
Dev said, “Hard to move from Phoenix through Payson with the current situation, night patrols and so on. And I bet you that Phoenix is pretty empty by now. No rain, so it has to be a hundred thirty-five degrees there. No food. Even with electricity, and there’s no guarantee of that, who’d stay there? So an attack might even come from uphill next time.”
“Or across country,” his mom said. “I’m not very worried about them stumbling across us, but with a good map, a topographic map with all the streams marked? Anyone could find us. Anyone looking for a year-round stream might stumble on ours.”
Pilar said, “You know, workers have to be able to commute to the nuclear power plants outside of town. Without gas, that’s an issue. A government could organize something, an electric car fleet or whatever, but then, is there a government?”
Dev’s father said, “Not here. And not in Payson any longer, unless you count the invaders.”
Pilar said, “I guess that counts as a coup. A police state. But anyway, without something like that, surely they’d have shut down the nukes in Phoenix. So no electricity, 135 degrees—yeah, I can’t imagine a lot of people are still there.”
Misha had finally worn herself out. She was sitting by the Morrow dahlia bed, her back against the chain link fence. The setter was lying by her, happily panting, while she pulled the dog’s ears over her head again and again. The patient dog seemed not to mind.
Dev said, “Dad, you going to try hunting the dog? See if you’re right about her?”
“Not until my arm is better. Eventually, yeah. She might come in useful that way, even if she doesn’t know how to bark.”
Misha rose and approached the deck. “Can I name her now?” She looked to her mom and then to Sierra. “It’s silly to keep calling her ‘dog.’”
Sierra shrugged. “Fine by me.”
Joan said, “What were you thinking of?”
“Jasper.”
Joan managed a small smile, the first Dev had seen from her. “That’s usually a boy’s name.”
“I don’t care. Her hair looks just like that jasper rock in my rock collection.” She frowned. “Did you bring my rock collection? I forgot it.”
“No, sweetie. It seemed a little heavy to carry. We can go down and get it later.”
“When?”
“In a while. We’re going to stay here for now. So you want her to be named Jasper? Do you think she’ll understand that word means her?”
“I’ll try!” Misha said, distracted for now about favorite things left behind.
Joan watched her go back out to the dog. “The rock collection was her father’s. It’s something she actually remembers about him, him showing her the rocks.”
“When did he leave?” Pilar asked.
“He died. Melanoma. Misha was four and Emily seven. Emily’s memories of him are much clearer.”
“I’m sorry,” Dev’s mom said.
“Had he lived, he’d certainly have died anyway in the past month, fighting off those men. I keep thinking that. Especially at night when I can’t get to sleep. It sounds awful, but I’m glad he didn’t live to see this. He always thought the best of people. This would have broken his heart.”
“It doesn’t sound awful for you to feel that way,” Pilar said. “Sounds normal. I thought the same thing about my parents, tell you the truth.”
Joan said, “‘Normal’ is not a word I’d apply to anything that’s happened since the grocery shelves were emptied.”
“This is still normal,” Dev’s mom said, waving her arm to indicate all of them at the table. “Us sitting here, having a nice time with neighbors, and picking at the last of our lunch. Speaking of which, I have dessert.”
“Knew we could count on you for that, Kelly,” Pilar said.
Joan and his mom cleared the table, refusing all offers of help.
Out in the yard, Misha was trying to teach the dog its new name. “Jasper, come here. Jasper, sit down. Jasper, fetch.”
Dev’s father said, “I hope that poor dog isn’t trained. She’ll be confusing the heck out of him.”
“Her,” Sierra said.
“That’s going to take some effort to remember now that it has that silly name.”
“It’s not silly!” called Misha.
Sierra, voice low, said, “I wonder how much of our discussion before she overheard.”
Pilar said, “We were talking quietly.” But he frowned as he looked at the girl.
Dev didn’t know why they cared what she’d heard. To survive, these little girls needed to know as much as they could about the world around them. Even if it was terrible stuff to know. They’d have to deal with it somehow.
Chapter 11
Three days later, Dev stood guard at the burned-out neighborhood while his mom and Sierra harvested vegetables. They’d brought along plenty of sacks and baskets. First, they had checked the three houses to make sure no one had come home or taken up residence during the past week, but they were all still empty. His mom had found a few supplies inside the kitchens that she wanted and said eventually, she’d like to clean some of the clothing out, if no one came back. Dev’s job was to keep watch as they worked in the garden. Later, he’d haul the harvest to the electric car.
The gardens were drying out without people around to water them. The afternoons had begun to cloud up, but no drop of rain had fallen yet. His mom had told him that once, years ago, the monsoon had been a more reliable bringer of rain. It came on Independence Day and it rained most afternoons from then until early September.
His father stood watch back home despite his injuries, and his mother had insisted he help Joan learn the ways of the house, electricity management and the water system. “But don’t try to teach her about canning. Let me. I don’t want them dying of botulism.”
That had made his father laugh, and Dev thought it was the first time he had laughed since he had been shot. Last night he had come home from Joan’s and said, “That Emily, the older one, she spends hours locked in a closet. Not much use.”
“Give her time, Arch,” his mother had said. “Poor child.”
“At least that dog isn’t running from me now. Still hasn’t made a noise except for whining when it’s time to be fed.”
Dev was thinking about the Kershaws as he walked down the short road of the burned-out neighborhood, through the woods, and back up to the gardens, walking the same route over and over, not expecting trouble but watching for it nevertheless.
So when trouble came as he was making the turn back toward the first house, he was startled out of his wits.
A crunch in the forest duff alerted him, not far away. He spun to face it, and two seconds later, a kid about his age stepped out of the woods. “Halt!” he said. “Hands up.”
The kid’s hands shot up.
“You alone?”
“My cousin is with me, Oliver.”
“Have him come out, hands up.”
“He’s, uh, taking a leak.”
“Now!”
“Oliver!” the kid shouted. “Hurry up!”
A distant voice said, “Hold on. Gosh, you’d think that you were on fire.” The voice was growing louder. “Did you ever notice when you piss in the woods that—” And then he stepped out.
“Hands up,” Dev said again.
More slowly than the other, he complied, looking more irritated than frightened.
“How many more of you are there?”
“Just us,” the first one said.
Dev knew not to trust the answer. “Any weapons?”
The first one looked at the second one, who glared back at him. He figured out quickly that he had been forced to tell the truth. “I have a Colt in the back of my jeans,” he said.
“Turn around, slowly.”
He did, but all Dev could see was the bright blue backpack he wore.
“Okay, slowly, with your left hand, take two fingers and pull it out. Let it drop on the ground the second it clears your belt.”
The first one said, “Please don’t shoot us. We didn’t know we were trespassing or anything.”
Dev was still worried that they were the vanguard of a larger group. “Where are you from? Who’s with you?”
“I lived in Houston Mesa. My cousin is from Payson. It’s just us.”
“How did you get away from Payson?” Dev asked the other one. “See that yard to your left? Turn that way and get moving. No, wait, drop your packs first. They’ll be right here. Nobody is going to bother them.” He wanted to get them back to the others so more eyes could be on them. His mom and Sierra both had brought their rifles. He wanted them to hold onto these two while he went looking for anyone else who might be coming through the woods in their wake.
The one who’d had the gun said, “I went to my aunt’s house when there were food riots. My father said it’d be safer.”
“You didn’t go back?”
“No. We heard that no one should go there. I tried once anyway but saw these guys with guns.” They were both moving, hands elevated. The first one tripped but caught himself before he fell down.
