Horizon (03)

by Sophie Littlefield

  Pulling the barbed wire, like hauling trash or tilling the earth, was a job for the brawny, but not one that was prized. Such jobs were never given to council members. Despite New Eden’s insistence on a cooperative society, it was clear that some job assignments were more coveted than others and distributed according to the council’s whims. And Dor had started at the bottom. He didn’t have the same reputation in New Eden as he had in the Box.

  “Ahhh…hell.” Dor’s hands sought hers and drew them together, holding them tightly. “Come on, girl, don’t go soft on me now.”

  Blinking, Cass took a chance and peeked at him. His dark, scarred face was shadowed with concern. His brows were lowered. He’d cut his silver-tinged black hair since coming to this settlement, and it now cleared the collar of his work shirt, though the front still fell in his eyes. The thin wire loops in his ears and the tattoos that wound up both arms—things that had never looked out of place in the Box—seemed a little too edgy here, a little provocative. Maybe that was why he sat alone, a fact Cass hadn’t bothered to consider until just this minute.

  Neither one of them fit in here.

  “Sammi’s making friends,” Cass said lamely, after Dor finally relaxed his grip on her hands.

  “Ruthie too.”

  Just like that, they acknowledged what neither had said aloud: New Eden was a good place for children. And that had to be enough.

  “I just…I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that the others all knew each other already. I mean, Ingrid and Suzanne and Jasmine and all. They’re nice to me, but sometimes…”

  “Don’t let them get to you,” Dor said. “They’re jealous. I mean, look at you.”

  Cass looked up in surprise, found Dor’s eyes intent on her. They were the near-ebony that always signaled intensity, the shade of Dor’s strong emotion, and he stared without blinking into her eyes, and then let his gaze travel down to her mouth, and it was almost a physical sensation, as though he were touching her instead of just watching her, and Cass felt the stirring that she thought had not followed her to this place, the hunger for touch that had been driven from her by the terror of almost losing Smoke.

  And thinking of Dor touching her lips led to memories of him kissing her. They’d made love twice on the journey that took them from the Box to Colima. No. That wasn’t right—they’d fucked twice. They’d seized on each other out of desperation, terror, need, hopelessness, anger, slammed their bodies into each other as death threatened and the world yawed crazily on its axis. They’d kept each other going, no more and no less, and wasn’t that over when it was over? Wasn’t that the nature of the deal they’d never discussed out loud—to get each other through, and then leave it, then never speak of it again?

  “You’re beautiful, Cass,” Dor said, and only then did Cass realize that he’d only loosened his grip on her hands, not released them, and he laced his fingers through hers and caressed her palms with his thumbs. The sensation went straight to her core, searing, ignited from a spark to a roaring flame with no slow build. “Every woman, every man, that’s the first thing they think when they see you.”

  His words were a buzz in her ear, confirmation of things she didn’t want to hear. These were things she didn’t want to know. They were a crushing rejection of the fragile hope she’d nurtured, that she could be just another mom in just another town, raising a nice girl and having nice friends.

  Dor must have seen her expression slip, because his hands went still, he stopped touching her, pulled away. “What did I say?” he asked urgently, not unkindly.

  Nothing, only don’t stop touching me. Nothing, only—please—make me forget again.

  “Tonight—” Cass swallowed, nearly lost her nerve. “Tonight, after Ruthie goes down…”

  “What? What do you need?”

  “Take me somewhere,” Cass said miserably. “Alone.”

  And he did.

  Chapter 18

  THERE EXISTED ON the survivors’ islands one pickup and one panel van, a motorcycle, a small ATV with a trailer for hauling fuel, Nathan’s little hybrid and a dented Accord, all of which were maintained by Sharon and Elsa, two women who’d met at WyoTech and worked at a Toyota dealership in Sonora until riots and crashes decimated most of the vehicles on the road. A hasty midnight session of the New Eden council divided the vehicles’ cargo and passenger space among the eligible citizens, following a very specific set of improvised guidelines. Communal supplies would receive top priority: medicine, water, prepared food. Mothers and children would ride at least some of the time, as would the elderly, the sick, the disabled.

  Seventy of them and four passenger vehicles. Everyone knew that meant they would be able to take very little. Cass looked around the room, knowing that the few sentimental things she clung to would only weigh them down. Elsewhere in the house, she could hear Ingrid and Suzanne and Jasmine, throwing what they could into backpacks.

  “Ruthie, Babygirl, we’re going exploring,” she said, as she sorted through their clothes, choosing lightweight things that could be layered. Some of Ruthie’s clothes were getting tight; she had hit a growth spurt and had outgrown most of her pants. Her turtlenecks no longer pulled easily over her head. Even her nightgown’s sleeves didn’t cover her wrists.

  Her little girl sat cross-legged on the mattress and pouted. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Oh, honey, it’ll be an adventure.” Cass didn’t have the heart to put any energy into the lie. She’d be found out soon enough; horrors awaited around every corner.

  “Is Twyla going?”

  “Yes, of course. We can walk together.”

  Except that Suzanne had told her not to speak to her until she’d cooled down. Don’t call me, I’ll call you, she’d said over a week ago, a faint attempt at humor on a day when humor had no place. By now Ingrid would have told her the latest, and Suzanne was bound to be angrier still.

  Cass packed the large-framed pack that she used to haul a day’s worth of water and her tools every day. It was good she’d become accustomed to carrying forty pounds on her back. She could not count on much help on the road and she already needed to ask a very big favor that would exhaust any goodwill she had left.

  Into the pack went her meager supplies of soap, aspirin, lanolin and dried rabbit jerky. Then hers and Ruthie’s clothes, with extra coats and scarves wrapped around her bottle of wine. It was about half-full, a fact she did not allow herself to dwell on. The box decorated with the circus bear she left on the shelf, along with the bowl of earrings.

  Into Ruthie’s Tinkerbell backpack, a gift from Twyla on her birthday, Cass packed a soft baby blanket that she liked to sleep with, a few stuffed animals and the veterinarian play set. She added a stack of books and then, reconsidering, took out all but two.

  “Okay, sugar?” she asked Ruthie, helping her try it on for weight.

  “Okay,” Ruthie answered through a yawn.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry, it’s bedtime, isn’t it? And we’ll go to bed soon.”

  A lie. Cass would not sleep this night. The entire settlement was leaving at dawn, and she had to make sure that Smoke was with them. How, she did not yet know, and her anxiety over that fact curdled in her stomach.

  She descended the stairs with Ruthie, using the flashlight she kept for emergencies. Its beam was still strong, but she had no spare batteries, and she was aware of every second that ticked by.

  The house was empty. The women had left without her, just as she feared. She swept the flashlight’s beam over the kitchen table, the counter, the living room—everything as it had been before, about to become part of a ghost town.

  She stepped out on the porch and stopped for a moment, caught up short by the scene in front of her. Flashlight beams and candles bobbed along the paths as people hurried about. Someone had built a bonfire in the yard and piled on firewood with abandon. They couldn’t take it with them, so Cass supposed it made sense to burn it. The air was filled with people calling to each other, and along the shor
e she could make out a growing pile of bags and boxes.

  The island’s vehicles were parked in a neat row in front of the bridge, and men were milling around close by. From this distance Cass could not tell who was in the crowd, but she suspected it was the council members and their trusted friends. People connected to them would decide what went and what stayed. Already the mound of belongings at the shore was more than would fit into cargo.

  “Cass.”

  The deep voice in the darkness startled her. She spun around and pointed her flashlight straight at the speaker, who’d been standing under the overhang next to the house.

  It was Red. He winced in the sudden light and held his hands up to his face; they were empty. “Hey, easy there.”

  “I was just. Ah, going,” Cass said, backing away from him. In the flickering light she saw how he braced himself against the wall, his muscles stiff from waiting.

  “No, wait. Wait, Cassie.”

  Cass looked up sharply. No one called her that, not for a very long time. She didn’t like it—it brought back memories of times and places that she couldn’t reclaim even if she wanted to.

  “What do you want?”

  “To help. Just to help.”

  “Help me?” The absurdity of the request made Cass laugh. “And how are you going to do that? You got a key to some underground bunker no one knows about? A ten-year supply of Rice-A-Roni?”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” In the light of Cass’s flashlight, which she directed at the ground, Red’s face looked ghostly, his beard obscuring all his features except those soft eyes nested in sun-weathered wrinkles. He lifted a hand and then cut the gesture short. His shoulder drooped. “I wish I—we—could offer more. But, well, I just thought Zihna and I, we could watch the little one. So you—I mean, Smoke’s gonna need you to advocate for him. They’re over there right now…and it looks bad. No way they’re taking all the patients along, and Dana and a couple of the others want to leave them all.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cass’s voice went shrill with fear. “Leave who?”

  Only, before Red even answered, she knew what he was going to say, and was surprised she hadn’t already thought of it.

  Four cars. All that gear. The water. Decisions were going to have to be made, and a full-grown man was a lot of cargo. She knew they wouldn’t necessarily help her, but to leave Smoke, who’d been a hero to so many when the Rebuilders threatened all… But of course: Dor, Smoke, herself—none of them were recognized for what they had been prior to their arrival, for better or worse.

  “Oh my God…” she breathed, and the enormity of the truth finally sank all the way in. “Oh no.”

  What had she been thinking, that she could save them all? It would be a miracle if she could even make it through the journey with Ruthie. An injured man—barely walking, barely returned from the edge he’d walked with Death. She felt the porch floor tilt underneath her.

  Strong hands steadied her as she struggled to hold on to Ruthie. “Let me,” Red said, and he eased Ruthie out of her arms with surprising tenderness, and hitched her up over one shoulder. Her little head lolled in the crook of his neck, her eyelashes fluttering and her sweet mouth in a sleepy pout.

  Red put a hand at her elbow to steady her. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

  Cass took a deep breath. “No, I’m all right. I need—I just need—oh God.” She needed to get to Smoke—but she needed to stay here with Ruthie. She needed to get their things down to the pile and hope there was a chance they might be loaded. Otherwise, it was only a matter of time before the packs became too heavy and they had to start leaving things behind, leaving them at the edge of the road like people did in the impossible early days of the Siege, back when families tried to take everything with them. You’d come across abandoned pillowcases stuffed with silver, paintings, photographs; suitcases bulging with clothes; bicycles and chain saws and radios and clocks and dolls and things that defied logic; vases and puzzles and garden hoses.

  Would their things end up like that? And then—a half mile down the road, a mile, two—would they themselves lie down, too?

  “Cassie.” Red spoke urgently. “You can’t give up now, girl. Me and Zihna, we talked it over. We have the trailer. We think we can rig it so Smoke can ride. I’ve got Steve helping me out right now. He owes me one. We’ll have to take turns with Ruthie, but I don’t expect that’ll be a problem, not with so many of us. We’ve got the girls—well, Sage, anyway. Can’t be putting too much strain on Kyra, not with her goin’ on her sixth month. And Sammi…well, she’ll come around. You’ll see. She just needs to cool off a little, is all.”

  Cass’s mind swam with what he was proposing. All those people—all the favors he was willing to trade on her behalf. She wanted to know why. What she asked instead was, “What trailer?”

  “It’s a little old flatbed three-wheeler. It was the one Zihna and me came in here with. Came from her place, to be fair, but I expect she won’t mind sharing with her old man,” he said, smiling.

  What other choice did she have? Smoke wouldn’t make it four steps down the road, despite his amazing journey across the island. Still, maybe there was another way; maybe she could convince them to give him passage in one of the vehicles. She had to find out who was in charge and could make decisions.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been planning,” Red began, “but there are some things you should know. Milt and Jack already took Charles down to the end of the island, about forty-five minutes ago. Charles didn’t make the trip back with them.”

  Charles—Cass’s heart lurched at the memory of the frail, scabbed man who was in the late stages of AIDS, which he had controlled Before but which ravaged his body now that the steady stream of medicine was gone.

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you, Cass?”

  She stared out at the scene unfolding in front of her. The bonfire was growing, wood stacked high and sparks flying. Collette and her friends, waving their hands at the pile of burning belongings. Luddy had his longboard under his arm; for once it didn’t seem like a ridiculous thing for a grown man to own. Two of the guys worked on upended bicycles. What did they think they were going to do with those—outrun the rest of them? Then they would be traveling alone come daylight, with no defense against the Beaters’ speed.

  Not odds that Cass would take. But still, at least they had plans of some sort.

  “But.” She swallowed, raking her hair with her hands. “Why? Why do you want to help us?”

  Red hesitated, and then searched her face with his intense gaze, the one she’d noticed so many times before. It seemed like he was about to confide or confess something; then the moment passed, and he shrugged. “Zihna and I…we like kids. We like helping people. And Ruthie…well, we’ve always thought she was special.”

  His voice broke oddly on the last word, and Cass saw that he rocked Ruthie in his arms. It was true that he and Zihna had always been kind to Ruthie—in the days following the chill that formed between Cass and the other women, hadn’t they been extra solicitous, always talking to her at mealtimes, taking the time to chat when Cass and she walked around the island?

  Still, Cass was uncomfortable with Red’s suggestion. Hell, she wouldn’t be the first to raise an eyebrow at the two older people taking such an interest in the kids, especially the teens, even though no one had ever picked up on anything inappropriate going on with the couple.

  Cass had taken risks with Ruthie’s safety that she never should have. She’d left her daughter with strangers so she could work, or drink, or date. She wanted to trust her instincts. Sometimes it seemed like they were all she had left to navigate with. But right now, as the island descended into chaos all around her, was not the time.

  “Thank you,” she said formally. “But as generous as your offer of help is, I’ll take my chances—mine and Ruthie’s—alone.”

  Red’s face sagged, the sadness in his eyes reflected in the eerie glow of the flashlight
, and he went still.

  “I can’t let you do that, Cassie,” he said softly.

  A strange premonition snaked up Cass’s spine, something so familiar and yet just out of reach. “Why?”

  “Because this is too important. Because she’s my granddaughter. Cass…listen to me. It’s me…your dad.”

  Chapter 19

  THIS TIME WHEN Cass felt the breath leave her, the ground rushing up to meet her and cave her in, she did not yield to it.

  No no no he’s not

  The man—her dad—because of course it was him. It was wily old Silver Dollar Haverford, shape-shifted anew, more worn but no less crafty and elusive. How could she not have recognized that voice—the one that had once sung her lullabies? The one that called from the road with ever-diminishing frequency, always a new number, a borrowed phone when times were tough, as they nearly always were. Sometimes she heard a woman in the background; other times the din of Greyhound stations or taverns.

  And always, always, she asked him the same question: “When are you coming home, Daddy?”

  How long did it take until she figured out that he never would? Oh, but that was the genius of old Silver Dollar—he could make you believe. He waited until you’d just about given up hope and then he’d show up, all smiles and hugs and trinkets in his pockets, embroidered blouses and clay whistles from Tijuana, bags of apples from Washington. A dress for her mother. Promises to stay, this time and the next. The two of them would go out for dinner, come home laughing and loud, then whispering in the living room, him singing and her dancing, and Cass in her bed would be happy because surely this time it would last, surely this time he’d see that they all belonged together?

  The last time he ever came home was her eighth birthday. Well, a week later, anyway—the delay broke his heart but was unavoidable, of course, and stupid, stupid Cass, she believed him. He took her to a baseball game, called her his little lady, said maybe they could go skiing that winter once it got cold enough.