by Lou Cadle
“Well, he’s right, isn’t he?”
“Yeah?”
“If I could go back and talk to the teenage me, I’d say that she should have learned the bow then. And that we should have stockpiled manufactured bows and arrows, dozens of them, back when I was thirteen or fourteen. And I could have taken a class on flintknapping. And learned martial arts.”
“Your teenage self would have only been confused at that.”
“I know. She would have been more worried about what to wear to some stupid party. And thought it was all important, that nonsense. Parties and who was mad at who and if so-and-so’s new tattoo was too risqué or not, and all that stuff we had in our heads before survival was the only thing our heads had room for.”
“We’ve managed to have good times too,” Dev said.
“We have.” She bit both her lips and frowned. She was starting to look middle-aged, particularly when she frowned.
Dev supposed he was too. Hard work in the sun wasn’t a great beauty regimen. He remembered those sorts of headlines on magazines in grocery stores. Beauty articles. Whether low-fat diets could keep you young. Answer: no. They kept you lean, but in this world, that was far too lean. Lean, on the verge of starving, should there be any major crop failure. They’d barely survived the death of the rabbits, the sickness that had gone through their flocks, and the loss of the apple trees. Now the damned rodents were gnawing away at one of their two prime calorie sources. And he knew they’d been damned lucky at that. A plague of locusts would be the end of them.
“What are you thinking? Worried about Zoe?”
“No. Just thinking how a plague of locusts or grasshoppers would kill us.”
“Or a plague of men with rifles. That might be the thing that finally does it.”
“Try not to worry. It just wastes energy we could spend on practicing on our weapons, or on focusing on coming up with a better strategy.”
“I know. Do you not worry?”
“If I could take a break from it, I’d have Arch reminding me to worry all evening long. It’s like having Zoe when she was really young. Some days, I push his bedtime up as early as I can.”
“I doubt you ever did that with Zoe.”
“Rarely. But she was full of energy. There were days I couldn’t keep up.”
“You’ll have a baby around here soon enough.”
“You will. She’s on your sofa now.”
“True. Maybe I should give Brandie and Troy my bedroom and let them be a couple. I probably would have already, thinking about the next generation, had it not been for those guys showing up. Now the future seems....”
“What? Confused?”
“Unlikely,” she said. “And on that depressing note, I have to get to work. Life goes on. I’m going to be canning tomatoes today, and setting up others to dry.”
ROD AND MISHA WERE still gone when Vargas and his men returned.
By then, they were no longer split. Dev couldn’t say who had swayed the most minds—Arch, himself, Sierra, or Troy, who was worried about his pregnant girlfriend—but they had decided to attack the military men the moment the opportunity came. And Joan had grown so worried about the delay in her children’s return, even she had quit worrying over the morality of a preemptive strike.
The instant Zoe heard the hoof beats coming up the road, she gave a signal, and everyone flew into action. They had assigned roles. Yasmin ran to find Curt, who was sticking closer to home than was his usual habit, for this exact reason.
Dev knew what was happening at every house. Curt was gathering his crossbow and quarrels and circling around the grain fields to come up on the men on the road from a direction they might not anticipate. C.J. would trail his father and be used as a runner of messages. Sierra hadn’t liked that at first, but Curt had quietly said something to her that had swayed her.
Emily was scurrying with Nina past Curt’s cabin and to the hidden henhouse, to guard the hens and the chicks that had hatched from the first clutch of eggs. No one resented this. Emily wouldn’t be good in a fight, she had a good reason to want to avoid strange men, and no one resented protecting the youngest and most vulnerable of them.
Joan was on her way here. So was Pilar’s household, except for Brandie, who would stay there and guard the place. She hadn’t wanted to be protected because of her pregnancy, but Troy had begged her, and she had relented.
Arch was hiding the bows and arrows in two places, Zoe’s in the compost pile, and Dev’s in the woodpile several yards away. Both of them would stay close to their bows until it was time to use them.
They had decided to, despite the risk of possible retaliation, kill the men today, for they had no doubt their demands would increase. Had the men not shot the chicken, maybe this would not have been their decision. Had Vargas not smashed his own man in the head, maybe they’d have waited longer to judge the kind of men these were. But here they were, planning an ambush, and if this was morally wrong, may God forgive them.
Curt had the hardest job, killing the men who guarded the wagon and guns. Besides the personal cost of killing another human by firing first, he had other challenges. First, he had to move quickly enough from the first man to the next so that the surviving man didn’t have a chance to get off a shot to alert the men up here. Second, he had to gather guns and get them to Dev or someone else who could use them.
But once Curt did that, the burden was on Dev, gun or no. His father too, who he believed would go for the bow himself, but with his father’s hand tremor, Dev didn’t trust his father’s accuracy. Dev had told Zoe she might need to be firm with her grandfather. “Act fast if you need to, and shut out whatever he says,” he had told her. “You can apologize later. Grab the bow.”
He was sick with worry for his daughter, but Dev had to prepare for his own role. When Curt gave the signal, or if one of the guards out there got a shot off, he needed to grab the bow and hit Vargas cleanly with his first arrow. If there was a second armed man, that man was to be Zoe’s. If there were more than two armed men, their chance of success was not good. One rifle could do a lot of damage before a second arrow was nocked.
And whoever had the bows in hand would be their first targets. That meant the two people he loved most in this world were in the greatest danger.
If something went wrong up here, and it looked as if they wouldn’t be able to subdue the men for whatever reason—the most likely being that they might all carry a rifle—they had arranged a signal to call off the attack so that Curt didn’t start executing the plan.
Trouble was, he might be too far away to hear it.
Arch had said, as they were finalizing the plan, “Plans seldom survive contact with the enemy. Stay flexible.”
Dev rubbed his hands on his shirt, drying them. He waited at his post, standing near the table with a file and a hoe, sharpening the blade, watching everyone else get into position. He was aware of running feet and saw Sierra and the boys arrive. They spread out to their positions.
Time stretched. A squeak from the wagon reached his ears. But then he heard nothing, for his ears began to ring from the river of adrenaline pumping through him. He was almost quivering by the time Vargas and his men arrived.
Except it wasn’t the men as they’d come up the driveway before. It was Vargas himself, on horseback, and a line of his men, all on horseback.
Ten of them. All were armed. Vargas’s rifle was visible, held in a sling that went across his chest. But the rest of the men had their rifles out, cradled in their arms, ready to use.
Their planning had all been for nothing.
Vargas said, “Our horses haven’t had water in quite some time. One of you—” he pointed to Sierra “—you. You lead us to the well here. And a couple of you others bring that big tub for the horses at the wagon to drink out of.”
Zoe exchanged a glance with Dev, who gave a little shrug, meaning, “What can we do?”
Curt must have watched the armed men ride by without stopping. Or Dev hoped
he had, or that he counted the rifles left in the wagon. Because if he killed the men out there, and the rest of them were up here with rifles, all today would be was a slaughter.
As the military men passed him, he looked at their faces. They were unsmiling. It seemed the same group as before, to a man, but there was little of the friendly demeanor from Vargas that he’d displayed at the dinner table.
When the men had passed, he looked around at his friends and neighbors. Arch’s face was stormy. Dev, afraid his father’s frustration was going to boil over, walked across to him. “You can’t lose control,” he said.
“It’s blown. All the way to hell and back.”
“Shh. Quieter. I know. Remember, you were the one who said to stay flexible. Things changed. We have to accept it. Next time is different. This time, we can’t give the game away.”
“I know, I know,” his father said. He was still fuming.
“Dad,” Dev said sharply. “Get control of yourself, or go inside.”
Zoe came up. “C’mon, Gramps. Let’s sit on the porch together.”
“The porch is too far—” Then he seemed to accept the situation, and the fight drained out of him. He turned without a word and made for the house.
Zoe looked at Dev, a question on her face.
“I don’t know,” he said—then, without a pause, “No, go with him.” It wasn’t that he believed his father needed watching but he realized it was a chance to get Zoe out of the line of fire.
He took the moment to let out the signal that called off Curt’s role. Curt might already know, but there was no reason to omit this safety step.
He had a bad feeling about what was going to happen once the horses had drunk water. It had been their faces, as much as the rifles in hand, that told him he wasn’t going to like what they had to say.
The well head wasn’t far, but it was far enough that quiet voices might not be heard. Troy came toward him and Dev pointed to a spot where they’d meet halfway. Joan aimed for it as well, but Dev held his hands up to stop everyone else from bunching together.
Troy said, “What do we do?”
“Nothing we can do,” Dev said. “Play it by ear, and hope that Curt doesn’t act without knowing they are armed up here.”
Joan said, “He’d see the extra horses weren’t there, and the guns. He won’t.”
“Right,” Dev said, at least that one worry easing. Curt was smart. He’d surely know he should hold back.
“Dammit,” Troy said. “I hoped we’d end this.”
“Everyone did,” Joan said, which wasn’t quite true. She had held out the longest against the idea of killing men who hadn’t yet aimed a gun at them. “Dev, any instructions?”
Dev shook his head. All they could do was react as events unfolded. “Stay calm.” He knew Joan was, of all of them, the most self-possessed. He was intending the message for Troy. “At least Brandie isn’t here.”
Vargas was the first one back. He looked around. “Where’s the old man?”
Joan said, “He isn’t well. He went inside to rest.”
“Huh,” Vargas said to her. “So who’s in charge? You?”
She pointed to Dev.
It was news to him. “Right,” he said anyway. “I am. What can we do for you today? We’re pretty busy, so I hope it’s short.”
Vargas gave him a cold smile. “You don’t look busy. Everybody is just standing here.”
“Because you’re here. Otherwise, it’s a big work day for us. I hope you don’t expect us to feed you again.”
Vargas’s eyebrows shot up. He obviously wasn’t used to people making demands of him. “As luck would have it—your luck—we ate at the last place. We won’t stay long.”
The other men rode up, one by one. The two boys who had carried the galvanized tub out were lagging behind, carrying the full tub of water between them. Sierra jogged past him, grabbed the Quinn wheelbarrow, and pulled it out to meet them. The boys headed down the driveway with the wheelbarrow.
“Okay,” Dev said. Again, he noticed the men with their hands on the rifles. Couldn’t help but notice.
“Let me tell you about yourselves,” Vargas said. “There are seventeen of you in three big homesteads.”
Dev nodded, as if agreeing. There were twenty of them. The men had never seen Curt’s cabin, or Curt, Emily, or Nina.
“A couple of you are missing. And you may have young children you are hiding from us. Happens. But we don’t care about young children.”
“Okay,” Dev said. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You have seventeen people, three big gardens, hen houses, and a grain field.”
They’d not yet found the second field across the highway. Also good.
“Three places, five each place should do it to keep you going. We’re going to draft two of you for highway work.”
Dev could feel the shocked expression hit his face before he could school himself against it. “You can’t take our people.”
“Not take. Borrow. Employ. It’s your trade route. You’re going to benefit from it. So you help build it.”
“But—”
“No buts. I’m doing you the kindness of telling you beforehand so you can say your goodbyes. We’re headed down the hill, and on the way back up, we’re going to collect people at every point. There’ll be twenty or twenty-five in the work crew. You’re only contributing two, so you should be grateful.”
Joan said, “We can hardly be grateful when you threaten to tear our families apart.”
“These aren’t your families. That one there isn’t even white.” He pointed at Yasmin. “She looks young and healthy. We’ll take her. And a man. Not you,” he said to Dev. “One of the young ones. But not the little kid. Where is he?”
“Working,” Dev said. His mind went to the bow and arrows, hidden in the woodpile. His hands itched to have it. But that was crazy. Against a dozen rifles? May as well take out his pocket knife and slit his own throat. “You can’t expect me to pick one of my people to hand over to you.”
“You choose. Usually there’s a troublemaker people are glad to be rid of. Or a shirker. We won’t let him shirk. If you can’t pick, when we come back tomorrow, we will.”
The one called Scooter spoke up. “Food.”
“Right. And they need to pack enough food for themselves plus one other person to last two weeks.”
“And when the two weeks is over?”
“If they work hard, we’ll have the highway cleared. There’s a mess of it uphill. That wouldn’t be your doing, would it?”
Dev said, “I don’t even know what you mean. We stay at home. Except for Payson—and we haven’t been there in years—we don’t travel.”
“There is a bunch of highway destroyed up there several miles. TNT maybe. And old junker cars, gas cars, blocking the road. We’ll move the cars, clear the highway—there and elsewhere—and fill in with rocks and dirt. Your people on the crew will need a pickax if you have it, buckets or that wheelbarrow to move debris, and a shovel.”
Dev wanted to protest, but as he looked around at the men on horseback, the words died in his throat. They were all looking more military than they had before, serious, keeping an eye out in every direction, rifles at the ready.
They’d done this before. Many times. They knew exactly when and how to draft people, what to say. Dev caught up to his new reality, and quickly.
“What about two men?” Dev said. “Not the girl. Two of the young men.” He didn’t want any of the women with these men. Not Zoe, not Yasmin, not any of them.
“One of each,” Vargas said.
Joan said, “How will we know they’ll be taken care of? That you won’t work them to death? Or beat them? Or starve them?”
“You trust us. The first time is hard. I know that. But when your people are returned to you unharmed, you’ll know that the next time you can expect them to come back to you.”
Joan was feeling braver than Dev, apparently. “Entirely the sam
e? You can swear to that? Especially with Yasmin. You won’t touch her?”
“If your people cooperate, they won’t get hurt. If they refuse to do the assigned work, they may be punished. So you need to tell them to cooperate. That simple.”
The wheelbarrow with water had been out of sight down the driveway for a few minutes. In a few minutes more, their horses would be ready to go. Dev had only that time to come up with something—a plan, words to say—something, to make this all go away.
“And if you were thinking of taking all your people and hiding in the woods between now and the time we come back, I suggest you don’t,” Vargas said. “We’ll be back. And while you’re gone, we’ll assume that everything here is free for the taking if there’s no one here to protest that.”
Sierra said, “You’ll take it all anyway, won’t you? Eventually. You’ll bleed us dry.”
“You’ll come to trust us,” Vargas said.
“Never,” said Sierra, fierce and angry.
Now Dev wished he’d sent her in with his father. Not that she’d have gone at his order. They weren’t a military unit where one of them could order the others around, just a neighborhood where everyone had an equal say. He said, “Anyone who wants to, chime in.”
Pilar said, “We don’t want a trade route. We don’t want your help. We don’t want any part of it. What if we promise to never trade, to never use the highway at all?”
“You’ll never cross it to go hunting?”
“Well, that. There doesn’t need to be an even surface between here and there. We need to access our land. All our land.”
“The only land anyone owns anymore,” said Vargas, “is what they can farm. That’s a law now. You hold what you can hold, what you can use for production. But everything else is the government’s, if and when we need it. The highway is ours, and everything across the highway is ours. Got it?”
Without the rifles, Dev knew, there’d be a lot more noise responding to this nonsense. His people were standing alone, looking as lost and confused as he felt, or they were clinging to each other in pairs.
