A third flare went off and Sammi dropped the tote, spilling tiny tubes and bottles onto the floor. A round eyeshadow rolled across the carpet and bumped into Kyra’s leg. “Shit,” she whispered. “Fucking shitballs with lint.”
But she looked like she was about to cry. Sammi crab walked over to her and pulled her into a hug on the carpet, realizing too late she was sitting on the water spot. Oh, well. That probably wasn’t the worst thing that was going to happen today. Or tonight or tomorrow or whatever it was.
“What time is it, anyway?” she asked Zihna.
Zihna, who wore a watch all the time, an old-fashioned one with tiny delicate hands that pointed to the numerals, squinted at her wrist. “Nearly three. Three hours until dawn. Think you girls can catch a little sleep once you get down to the shore? I promise, we won’t leave without you.”
“Are you sure? I mean, don’t you want one of us to keep you company or take turns or something?”
“Aw, no, honey,” Zihna said. “Red and me, we’ve got it covered. We’re a team, right? I mean…Sammi, you know we want you if you want to join us.”
Sammi realized what she was half asking: if she planned to walk with her dad—or stay with Zihna and Red and her friends.
“A team,” she repeated quickly, before she could change her mind.
Chapter 21
CASS HAD THE foresight to go back for the stroller, hoping she’d get to it before Suzanne or Ingrid and then feeling guilty about the thought. The stroller was exactly where she’d left it earlier in the evening, abandoned in the middle of the yard, and Cass realized how lucky she was that no one had taken it. It would make a great little cart, for someone who wanted to transport food, belongings, anything at all—up to seventy pounds, according to the government label engraved on the side, something she’d never given much thought to before because Ruthie didn’t weigh a fraction of that.
Ruthie had settled down after the encounter with Red, a lot more than Cass anyway, whose nerves were still jangling.
I’m your dad, Cassie
She was in a state of shock and denial, but there would be plenty of time to sort it all out on the journey. More than enough time.
Out of nowhere, Cass thought of a picture book a babysitter had once given Ruthie—a children’s Bible, illustrated with watercolors in pale, weak colors. Moses crossing the Red Sea looked more like Moses wading through a forest of camellia blooms, his placid smile making him and the Israelites all appear stoned. Still, Ruthie had loved the story and liked to point to the people in the pictures and try to repeat the names Cass read to her.
Moses, Pharaoh, Jethro, Zipporah
And now her dad, Red whoever-the-fuck he was calling himself these days, wanted to come and lead them to a promised land. Hell, he wanted to be her dad again all of a sudden. But it was too late for that, too late by a long shot. And if Cass had to make some harsh decisions to protect Ruthie the way Mim ought to have protected her, well, so be it—she had fought harder for less. Twenty years was a long time, and her father was a stranger to her, and she would not trust her daughter with him. All she had to do now was keep saying no, and she figured she could more than handle that.
She settled Ruthie into the stroller after wiping the chilly dew from its interior with her bare hands, then wiping her hands on her pants. Her pants were not clean, her laundry day was Tuesday; if the Beaters had waited a few more days to come fuck with them at least Cass would have started the odyssey with clean pants. Oh well.
Cass pushed the stroller toward the hospital, trying to narrow and focus her thoughts. If Smoke had made it out of the hospital building, all the way up the path to the yard, halfway down to the water—then surely she could convince the council that he was healing quickly enough to justify bringing him along. She would be responsible for him. All they needed was one seat in one of the cars, Cass would walk alongside, she would push Ruthie and carry their belongings and it would all work out fine.
But when she got to the hospital it was dark. She parked the stroller, behind a rain barrel, and picked Ruthie up before she went inside, but she knew the minute she set foot in the place that it was deserted. And sure enough—there, in the light coming through the windows, the light of the hundreds of candles and flashlights being squandered tonight—there was Smoke’s empty bed, the covers clumsily folded, the pillow on top.
Cass went into the other room. There—in that narrow bed with the crayon drawings that Ruthie and Twyla and Dane had made, pinned up on the walls behind the headboard—there was where Charles had suffered through his waning and finally unconscious days.
Cass would be hard-pressed to denounce the men who dragged him to the southern end of Garden Island and did what needed to be done. In fact, maybe it was a heroic act, stopping his suffering a little prematurely so he did not have to endure one more horror.
But not for a body on the mend, like Smoke. Sun-hi must have found passage for him, must have gotten him down to the vehicles somehow. She and Ruthie would ask around, find out where they were, maybe even get a little sleep before dawn; perhaps they could pass the night in the car with him, or barring that, at least they could bed down close by and be there at his side when the group rolled out at sunrise.
Cass came out of the hospital and deposited Ruthie back in the stroller—she whimpered, no doubt tired of all the repeated resettling—and when she stood back up, she was startled to see Suzanne standing several paces away, her arms folded across her chest.
“Oh, Suzanne…” Cass’s heart fell. Not now, she was not prepared to deal with this now. “I took a few things from the house, for Ruthie. Just things she had in her room. I would have checked with you guys first, but—”
“Do you honestly think I care about a few toys now? When we’re about to…” Suzanne’s face crumpled in on itself but with a tremendous effort she righted it, her jaw working and worry lines appearing between her eyebrows. “I just… I have been very angry at you, Cass, and I resent everything you’ve—all the risk you’ve brought us and the children.”
“I know, I know, I wish I could. I wish—I’ve just been so—”
“Shut up, shut up just for a minute. I’m here because—well, I don’t know why I’m here, only I thought you should know.” Suzanne took a deep breath and hugged herself tighter against the chill. “They took Smoke. After they took Charles down there and, you know, and drowned him, they came back for Smoke. About ten minutes ago. I saw you over on the porch talking to Red. I should have come then. I just—I just want you to understand, I—”
“Where?” Adrenaline surged through Cass’s veins, clutching at her heart. “Which way?”
“Down the east way.” Suzanne pointed, her tone still defiant. “I would have told you right away, but after everything you’ve put the rest of us through—”
But Cass was already gone, careening down the path, pushing the stroller with its big rubber wheels absorbing the bumps. Ruthie sputtered as she bounced along, but Cass had secured the straps and she was held tight in place.
How could they justify this? Charles had been as good as dead anyway; they’d only hastened the end, saved the poor man from a final battle that he’d be the first casualty of anyway. But Smoke—he was getting better. He’d made it across the lawn, hadn’t he? He’d spoken her name, touched her, talked to her.
Cass swung the arc of the flashlight back and forth wildly. So they’d know she was coming—so what? She might surprise them before they began their task, and then they’d have to deal with her before they finished him off.
There—up in the gray sedge growing along the bank. Cass had transplanted it herself in an effort to stem erosion and the plants had thrived, and they were thigh-high now, so it took her a minute to make out the figure of a man struggling with another on the ground. When the flashlight beam hit him, he wheeled around and held up a han
d to shield his eyes. Cass stumbled over a clump of reeds and nearly went down, but the stroller’s weight steadied her and she found her footing and stared in shock at the scene in front of her.
Smoke clutched the shirtfront of a man who was kneeling in the dirt. The man’s chin bobbed against his chest and blood saturated his tan shirt and fleece vest. More blood coursed over Smoke’s hand and fell to the earth.
Milt. Oh God, it was Milt Secco and if he wasn’t dead already he would be soon. All that blood…Cass put a hand to her mouth.
“What happened?”
“Cass,” he said, and dropped the limp body. It fell gracelessly, facedown, legs splayed.
Smoke stood painfully and hobbled toward her. He looked at his hands and seemed surprised to see all the blood there, and stood awkwardly holding them at his sides.
That’s when Cass noticed the other body, half-submerged in the river, also facedown, its head at an angle that suggested a neck broken. But Cass knew that red parka. It belonged to Jack.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You killed them both?”
“They were going to kill me. Drown me. They told me—I had to.” Smoke’s leg buckled as though it would go out under him and Cass rushed to help him, draping his arm over her shoulder. He was warm, even through his bloody clothes, so warm. “They said I ought to thank them. What the hell is going on in this place?”
“Oh, Smoke,” Cass said softly. “What are we going to do…”
Behind them—across the fields she’d so carefully tended, the kaysev that both nourished them all and hid a traitorous poison within its cells—there was frantic activity, fear, the shadow of death waiting for them and gnashing hungry teeth. But here in this moment it was just the two of them.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” Smoke said, his words slurred against her neck.
Cass could not find her voice to respond. There was so much to tell him, and no time at all to do it.
“What day is it?” he asked.
“February sixteenth.”
“I’ve been gone for…”
“Almost three months. We came a few days after you left the Box. After…what happened to you. Do you remember?”
He was silent for a moment, and then he pulled back and stared down into her eyes. He touched her cheek with the hand that was missing part of his fingers, but his touch was as gentle as ever.
“I remember most of it. I remember…the ones who burned the school, I think I got at least one of them, maybe two.”
“Two. And one died later.” His mission of vengeance, completed before he fell. “You killed them all, Smoke.”
The bitterness she’d felt at the trade he had made—risking his life for the momentary sweetness of revenge—was lifting. She’d hated Smoke the day he left the Box with nothing on his mind but finding and killing those who had murdered his old lover and the rest of his old community. At the time, Cass thought his wrath was proof that he loved them all more than he loved her and Ruthie. Now, in his arms, she understood that the truth was far more complicated than that—that his hatred had not been more powerful after all.
“I don’t remember after, though,” he said. “I’ve tried. A million times, in that place. That jail. Where are we, Cass?”
There was no way to explain it all to him now. And far off in the east, a thin line of azure tinged with pink signaled the coming of dawn. There was blood on their clothes, and two men lay dead at their feet.
“We’re at a place we have to leave. I’ll tell you everything,” she promised. “But for now, we’ve got to get back and get ready.”
“Ready for what?”
Cass looked across the inky waters, to the shore where the beach was choked with matted dead weeds. Not so long ago, people had anchored their boats there, set up their pop tents and their portable grills, their coolers and their lawn chairs, and whiled away long afternoons scented with sunscreen and charcoal. Children waded and splashed, teens swam across to the island, old folks watched the scene from under the shade of their sun hats.
“Ready to travel,” Cass said sadly. “Again.”
Happiness had once dwelled in that humble little strip of land. In the morning, the Beaters would be back, and perhaps they would trudge across that sand in their fetid rotting shoes, into the water they’d only yesterday learned to navigate, and follow the yearning that was the only emotion they had left. If any of them had been to this place before they turned, if they’d water-skied these waters or drunk pitchers of icy lemonade or read the latest romance novel or stolen a kiss under an umbrella, that memory was as lost to them as the ability to speak or love.
Chapter 22
RED SAW THEM coming, the man limping along with his arm around his daughter, who was somehow managing to push one of those funny-looking three-wheeled strollers at the same time. The man walked like he was about to collapse, leaning on Cass for support.
So this is how they were to meet. Red had imagined this day a hundred different ways, but never like this. Red would call for Zihna. She was good at this sort of thing. He knew the only reason Cassie had come to him was that she had no other choice, and he accepted that. But this was a start.
The trailer, a little single-axle flatbed utility model with a handle he’d rigged from an old ski rope, was as comfortable as he could make it. Earlier, Craig Switzer and a few of his friends had come by and tried to talk him out of it, and when he didn’t budge, the talk had turned ugly.
“What are you fixin’ to do, haul your guitars and shit along when there’s people to be fed? We could get a hell of a lot of water and supplies on that thing,” Craig said, eyeing the trailer with a calculating expression. What brave Craig didn’t know was that Zihna was in the next room, cleaning their guns. He didn’t know what a good shot Zihna was. Well, there was a reason Red had taught her in private. A man would have to be a fool not to see that a day like this was coming—and he’d have to be a coward not to take precautions to protect the ones he loved.
Red had been exactly such a coward for most of his life. But no more.
No more.
“And who’s going to decide that, brother?” he asked softly, hand on his belt, where a holster he’d carefully modified over several long winter afternoons hid not one but two blades, each of them specialized, each of them very, very comfortable in his hand. “You? Because last I heard, no one had nominated any of you clowns for council.”
An ugly grin spread across Craig’s face. Behind him, his friends giggled and shuffled. Red knew that Mario had been caught trying to break into the storehouse at least once. No formal punishment had been meted out, since there was no proof to contradict his story that he’d been simply seeking a Band-Aid for a woman who had cut herself on a paring knife. But a lingering pall of suspicion had followed him ever since.
“Council’s in for some changes, I bet,” Craig said. “Give it a week or two, there’ll be all manner of staff changes, resignations…attrition…what have you.”
“I imagine you’re right,” Red said, his mild tone hiding a growing anger. “Why don’t we wait until then and reconvene this discussion again. Meantime, my wife and I have our own plans for our property, and I’ll thank you to respect that, and be on your way.”
The men stayed only for a moment more, looking around the garage, no doubt trying to see if there was anything worth taking. There was not—Zihna had helped the girls pack and sent them on ahead to the docks, where everyone was assembling.
“Wife, huh,” the dullest of the three, Tanner Mobley, said over his shoulder as they sauntered away. “You all have you a proper wedding I didn’t get invited to?”
“Indeed,” Red said, folding his arms over his chest and watching them go.
No, he and Zihna had never had a ceremony. They’d met after Red ha
d nearly given up on life, seven months ago. Red had in mind to hang himself in a neatly tended trilevel house on the outskirts of Bakersfield. Who knew why he chose that house from the dozen on that block—but when he went inside looking for a rope or a belt or even a sheet he could rip into strips, instead he found Zihna sitting calmly at the kitchen table, shelling kaysev beans.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. He had been wandering for days, and he hadn’t bothered to eat or drink much since survival had ceased to be a goal. He wondered if she was an angel, sent to welcome him to the next world, the one where he could start forgetting all the things that he’d done wrong in this one.
But she wasn’t an angel. And she had no plans to allow him to forget or escape anything at all. Instead, she guided him back. He owed her everything, and had pledged her everything. Where before there had been a broken man and a proud woman, now there was a union that meant more to Red than anything on this earth, aside from his daughter.
If that didn’t make Zihna his wife, no vow or ceremony or holy man on this earth would either.
Now, as dawn waited just over the horizon, he waited with an old wool blanket over his lap and watched his daughter slowly approach. When they were within a few yards of his front door, Red cleared his throat.
“Cassie, I’m glad to see you. And your friend.”
Cass saw him then, and the door opened behind him and Zihna came out, carrying a lantern. The porch was lit up and they could see the wounded man clearly. Zihna saw him every day, of course, but it was not Red’s habit to come inside the hospital where she worked. Red couldn’t abide hospitals, not even now. So the face of the man his daughter loved was new to him.
He knew the stories, of course. Well, maybe the man was a hero. Maybe not. Time would tell. For now, though, Red owed him courtesy. He’d watch him like a hawk, and if Smoke made his daughter happy, then he could stay.
He stood up with his hand extended. Smoke regarded him with unfocused eyes and it took him three tries to lift his hand high enough to shake. He looked like he was about to pass out on the spot.
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