Saving Grace

by Merry Farmer

  She turned back to the governor and Kutrosky. “Does it truly embody the spirit of humanity to condemn this man to conditions which some of the ship’s doctors have just testified would stretch the limits of physical and mental endurance? Is it right to sacrifice one person for the benefit of the whole or is it just easier?”

  She paused, glancing to Sean. He sat with his hands steepled, staring at the floor. She felt a twinge of regret as she continued.

  “Yes, it’s easy to keep this man locked up far from the rest of the people destined for Terra. It’s easy to keep him where the roar of the engine will drown out what he has to say. But is it right? Should we allow him to suffer because we don’t want to deal with him or should we find a different solution? Maybe he makes a valid point. Maybe the settlements of Terra should reexamine their dependence on modern technology and their governmental structure. That is what this is about, right?”

  An odd tension filled the room. She knew the debate ran deeper than she was aware, into darker territory than technology, but all she could focus on was what was within her ability to control.

  “We need to find a better way forward, even if it is not an easy way. I advocate mercy. In the long run no one is served by writing off one man, misguided as he may be. No one deserves to be shunned or excluded because their ideals are different and their methods are ill-advised. We need to set the example of humanity, begin this new world with compassion rather than raw justice. If we have to swallow a certain amount of pride to do it, then so be it. If we are serious about building a new world then we should be equally as serious about abandoning our individual prejudices to take the course that will create the society we want our children to have. We need every man and women, including those we disagree with, to build a new world.”

  She took a breath. Sean’s face was a hard mask staring at the floor. Danny watched her with half-closed eyes and a lop-sided grin. Carrie looked as though she might jump to her feet and call for a revolution at any moment.

  She smiled. “That’s all I have to say.”

  The room burst into applause again as she shuffled back to her seat, face crimson with modesty as so many people showed their approval of what she had said. It was oddly exhilarating to be heard like that, especially when she meant what she said. She believed in peace, she believed in mercy and the inherent goodness of all people, even misguided men like Brian Kutrosky. It would take something cataclysmic to change that.

  By the time Grace and Heather crossed the bridge to her side of the river, Grace was ready to collapse with exhaustion. She had listened to Heather’s complaining for more than an hour, responding with a nod here, a yes or no there, but she hadn’t really paid attention. Her fuming anger had worked its way to hollow depression as reality caved in around her.

  When they rounded a bend in the forest that took them just out of view of the soldiers guarding the bridge, she was surprised to find Danny waiting. He rushed to her, pulling her into his arms and hugging her close.

  “Thank God,” he whispered against her hair before letting her go and holding her at arm’s length. “I tried to follow you across the bridge, but I was stopped.”

  She could feel in the hardness of his body against hers how frustrated he was that she’d been right. It was fear of his reaction to how wrong she’d been about everything else that kept her from meeting his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, laying a hand on the side of her face. “Did he hurt you?”

  She met his eyes, unable to admit the truth, unable to hide it.

  The air between them flashed with tension. Danny’s jaw hardened. Fury burned in his eyes. His fingers dug bruises in her arms.

  “I’m exhausted,” she told him. “I just want to sleep.”

  “How the hell did she get here?”

  Carrie’s voice shocked Grace out of her defeat. She stood straight, looking past Danny’s shoulder to find Carrie standing with her arms crossed, frowning at Heather.

  “Carrie, what are you doing here?” Grace fought the wave of mortification that threatened to drown her.

  “I was talking to Danny. The real question is what she’s doing here?”

  “This is Heather,” Grace explained.

  She stepped back to make introductions only to find Heather staring at Danny. The teen’s face had lost its color and her attitude had evaporated. She ground her toe into the loose rocks, avoiding Danny’s eyes, and seemed every bit her age.

  Danny bristled. “Where is Caitlyn?”

  “There is no Caitlyn,” Grace choked on her words. “He lied.”

  The fury rippling from Danny was enough to make even Carrie take a step back.

  “No Caitlyn,” he said. “Just you.”

  “Yeah.” Heather’s attitude slammed back into place over her trepidation. She tipped her chin back and stepped closer. “You can’t get me in trouble here, Dr. Thorne. You can’t do anything to me.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Danny turned to Grace, his large eyes telling her they had just gotten the short end of the stick.

  “What the hell?” Carrie grumbled. She planted her hands on her hips and looked from Danny to Heather, at Grace, and then back to Danny. “You let Grace go across the river to rescue this brat?”

  “Rescue?” Heather barked. “Kinn made me come over here.”

  “This is bullshit,” Carrie shouted, her tone not that different from Heather’s. She rounded on Danny. “What about all that ‘we have to protect Grace’ crap that you’re always throwing at me? How is letting her go across the river keeping her safe?”

  Danny met Carrie’s accusations with rigid silence. For a heartbeat none of them moved.

  At last Danny sucked in a breath and took Grace’s hand. He led her along the path that would take them to their camp.

  “Let’s get you home,” he muttered, ignoring the others. “Let’s get you a bath, something to eat, and then you can sleep.”

  Carrie and Heather scrambled to keep a few steps behind them.

  Grace shook her head. “Not yet. I still have to plan for the meeting with Brian tomorrow. I need—”

  “It can wait.”

  It was an order.

  The four of them walked through the woods in as close to silence as Heather would let them. She continued to ask questions, about their wreck, about this section of the forest and this side of the river, about Kutrosky, and everything else she could think of. Carrie gave her sharp answers laced with profanity until Heather gave up trying to converse at all.

  When they reached the camp Heather stopped and stared, slack-jawed, unimpressed.

  “You have got to be kidding. Tents?” She sniffed.

  Danny frowned, eyes narrowing.

  Carrie looked like she would punch the girl. “You got a problem with that, kid? Too good for you?”

  Grace sighed and lifted a hand to rub her forehead. “They live in log cabins,” she revealed. “They have a well and a giant oven and….” She couldn’t go on.

  “They have what?” Carrie asked.

  “He expects me to live here?” Heather huffed. “Asshole. I’m going home.”

  She turned to leave. Danny lashed out and clamped a hand around her arm, yanking Heather to face him so fast that Grace jumped.

  “You will do what you’re told, young lady.”

  Heather’s eyes flared wide with fear. She tried to squirm out of his grip. Danny didn’t let go.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Danny was unmoved. He stared her down with such intensity that Heather stopped struggling and stood still. Her gaze dropped to the ground.

  Grace held her breath as she watched the confrontation. She’d never seen anger so intense from Danny.

  “That’s better.” Danny let Heather go as soon as she was still, leaving behind a red handprint on her bare forearm. “Now, you will keep your mouth shut and take your things to that large campfire over there.” He pointed to the center of the camp. “You will
talk to that woman with the curly hair. Her name is Marjorie. She’ll find a place for you. You will help her with dinner if she needs it and you will not talk back to her. Do I make myself clear?”

  Heather blinked. “Yes, sir,” she answered at length.

  Danny nodded. Heather scurried off toward the campfire.

  Without watching to be sure Heather obeyed or to see what Carrie thought, Danny took Grace’s hand again and led her toward the path that would take them to the river, bypassing the camp.

  “I’m not in a mood to be welcoming,” he growled before Grace could ask.

  “Neither am I,” she responded with a sigh.

  The river was wider and slower near the site of their camp than it was by Kinn’s bridge. There were fewer hills for it to wind around and none of the rocky jetties that existed upriver. The trees grew all the way down to the water’s edge and the course of the river curved, creating natural pools that they had been using to bathe. Beth had even hung a rope swing from one of the huge trees that spread over the water. She’d also organized the building of a small lean-to which held racks for people to drape their clothes on when they swam or bathed.

  Danny walked her to the lean-to and helped her to take off her dress, shedding his own clothes as well. She waded into the placid water, feet squishing in the muddy bottom among smooth rocks, trying her best not to think. As soon as the water was thigh-deep, she sank to her shoulders. Danny was right behind her. He swam a few more yards out then drew her into the shelter of his arms.

  “Now,” he began with barely controlled anger. “Tell me honestly. Did he hurt you?”

  The frustration and heartache of the day hit Grace all at once. The tears she had refused to shed burst out. She nodded, throwing her arms around his shoulders and burying her face against his neck. His embrace tightened, tense, coiled, and furious.

  “He lied, Danny,” she moaned. “He lied about Caitlyn, about everything.”

  “Dammit, Grace,” Danny growled. “I never should have let you go.”

  “As soon as I saw his village I knew it was hopeless. Our colony, the colony we want, is on the other side of the river. He has it all and he rules it without question. What we’ve built is laughable.”

  “I refuse to believe that.” His voice shook. “I refuse to believe that it was all for nothing.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” she lied. She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “I can handle it.”

  He blinked, as if they weren’t talking about the same miserable act. She laid her hand on the side of his face and stole a kiss for comfort. Understanding lit his eyes, twisting his expression to bitter grief.

  “If it wasn’t that bad, then why are you covered in dirt?”

  “The floors of their cabins are dirt. There wasn’t any furniture.” She couldn’t tell him about the mattress and its layers of furs. She didn’t even want to tell herself what had happened there. “They have cabins, Danny, cabins! With walls and chimneys.”

  “How?”

  “Some of the soldiers with them are army engineers. The first thing they did when they landed was to build solid shelters. And a well. Danny, you should see that well. No wonder we see so few of them at the river.”

  “I don’t want to see them or the well, I just want to know that you’re all right.” His voice shook and he brushed the side of her face.

  “I’m so tired.” Her tears flowed freely again. “But there’s still so much to do.”

  “Forget it,” he ordered her.

  She shook her head. “I have to go speak to Brian tomorrow. I know it’s impossible, but I have to convince him to let more than just a few women move across the river with Kinn. They all should move. Before it’s too late. Kinn aside, that camp is perfect. Even we should—”

  “No, we should not.” He came close to shouting.

  Grace took a breath, her heart fighting with what reason told her was best.

  “I have to at least convince Brian to give up the women Kinn’s soldiers need. I have to…I have to figure out some way to negotiate. I have to…to…there has to be something that they need, that we can bargain for…make him see reason.”

  It was progressively harder to think now that Danny held her and the river slipped around them. Her mind was turning off like so much modern technology as it ran out of power forever.

  He sighed, adjusting the way he held her so that her legs wrapped around his waist and she didn’t have to support any of her own weight. He pressed her head to rest on his shoulder again and she closed her eyes.

  “It can wait.” He soothed her. “It can all wait. Kutrosky can go to hell. They all can. You’re not doing anything in this condition. I’m not ever letting you leave this camp again.”

  His fierce command brought on another flood of tears.

  “I have to go back,” she confessed.

  “What?”

  She could feel the heat of anger in his skin, even with the cool water all around them.

  “Kinn said he would send his men to build cabins for us, teach us how to build, if…if I went back, if I continued to go back. He wants me to move over there with him.”

  “No,” Danny seethed. “You’re never going back.”

  The effort it took to raise her head and meet his eyes was exhausting. “We need to have cabins like that, Danny. They’re permanent and will be warm through the winter. They are the key to all of our survival, and Kinn has them.”

  “It’s not worth the sacrifice,” he insisted.

  “I can’t let my people suffer because I took the easy way out.”

  “We won’t suffer, Grace. We’ll find a way. We’ve got the caves. We can fortify the tents with furs and skins. The things in the treasure chests will help, that’s why they were put there. And who’s to say we couldn’t devise our own way to build houses?”

  She wanted to believe him, to agree with him, more than anything in the world, but her heart was too sick to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

  “There are only thirty-eight of us,” she admitted defeat. “Do we take people away from working in the fields to build houses? If we do that will the crops fail and will we have enough to eat? Do we try to merge camps with Kutrosky’s people? You know what he would do if we did. Do we even have time to cut down all the trees, figure out how to make the mortar for the walls, find stones for the chimneys? How long will that take starting from scratch, without knowledge or manpower? We can’t force our friends to begin this life at a disadvantage, ages behind in development, when one small sacrifice will change the world.”

  “Not a small sacrifice.” He protested in vain.

  She shook her head. “Can you really justify the consequences of not making that sacrifice?”

  He didn’t have an answer. Neither did she.

  She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. “I don’t want to think about it right now. I have to think about Brian first.”

  “No,” he corrected her, voice calmer. “You have to rest first. We’ll deal with everything else later.”

  She nodded against the warm, wet skin of his shoulder, closing her eyes and coming close to falling asleep in the water. Even without soap or a washcloth he found a way to bathe her, rubbing her skin to wipe the dirt and the memories away. Her mind flickered to a section of their survival book that discussed how to make soap. A thousand greater worries pressed down on her but all she could think about was tallow and ash.

  When he was done washing away every outward trace of Kinn that he could, Danny carried her back to the bank and helped her to dry off and dress. She wanted to tell him she felt better, but there were still too many troubles on her mind.

  “Grace, I’m not sure that we should be negotiating with Kutrosky at all,” Danny said as they walked back up to the camp side-by-side.

  “We have to.” She shook her head, too tired to form an argument.

  “I don’t think so and neither does Carrie.”

  “Carrie
?”

  He paused at the edge of their camp and turned to face her, taking her hands. “Look, Grace, I know you want to handle this delicately, but Kutrosky doesn’t understand delicacy. He only understands power. Everything that he’s done has been one elaborate show of power. We have to meet him with equal power.”

  “That’s just it, Danny,” she argued with him. “We’re powerless.”

  “We aren’t. Carrie seems to think we’ve got something he needs more than food or tools.”

  “What?”

  His face pinched. “She didn’t have a chance to tell me before Kinn’s bridge guards found us.”

  Grace opened her mouth to ask more questions, but was interrupted by Stacey’s shout of, “There you are, Boss. Where have you been?”

  Stacey strode toward Grace and Danny from a cluster of people eating dinner near the central campfire. More than a few of them glanced up, as interested in an explanation as Stacey was.

  Grace let go of Danny’s hands. It was time to put aside her concerns for herself, to be the leader her people needed. He would argue, but ultimately Danny would understand she was doing this for him as much as anyone else.

  “I had something I needed to do.” She stood straighter, battling exhaustion.

  Stacey reached her and studied her face, her eyes glowing with concern. She glanced questioningly to Danny. Grace continued walking with Danny to the campfire and the assembly of their people. Carrie stood on the far side of the fire pit, her head together with Sean’s. They both watched her, all of her people watched her.

  “I went across the river, to Kinn’s settlement, to bring Heather back,” she explained.

  Several sets of eyes glanced to where Heather sat on a log, sullenly eating the drumstick of one of the wild geese that Lauren had become an expert at catching. She swallowed her bite, nearly choking as her eyes met Danny’s. When she realized people were staring at her she attempted to smile and wave to her new community.

  “No offense,” Stacey held out a hand to Heather, then turned back to Grace, “but why? She hasn’t stopped complaining since she showed up.”

  Grace sighed. “It’s a long story.”