The Rift

by Walter Jon Williams

  When she turned around to face him, her smile was brighter than the gems he’d given her.

  “Very pretty, young lady,” Garb said, and suddenly Nick was aware of the other people watching, Garb and Jason, other young girls and nursing mothers and a large number of children, all of whom had nothing better to do than watch Nick’s reunion with his daughter. Nick turned to Jason, feeling suddenly awkward.

  “Arlette,” Nick said. “This is my friend Jason. He got me down out of a tree the morning after the earthquake.”

  “Hi,” Arlette said. “Thanks for rescuing my daddy.”

  Jason mumbled something and shook Arlette’s hand.

  Arlette turned back to Nick. “Did you come from Toussaint? Did you see Gros-Papa and Penelope?” Nick felt his exhilaration die like a moth shriveled by flame. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, but I should talk to your momma.”

  “She’s working in the kitchens,” Arlette said. She turned to Garb. “Could you spare me for a little while?” she said.

  “Ask Mrs. Perkins,” Garb said.

  Arlette bounced away, spoke to an elderly black lady—Mrs. Perkins took a moment to admire the necklace and earrings—and then returned.

  “She says I can fold the diapers later,” she said.

  “Got you working already, huh?” Nick said.

  Arlette looked serious. “Diapers are going to be a problem. You can only reuse the Pampers so many times, and there aren’t a lot of old-fashioned diapers around. So some of the ladies are making them out of old clothes.”

  “Nick,” Garb said, “I’ll leave you with Arlette, all right? Come look for me after you’ve talked to your family, and we’ll get you a place to sleep and a place to stash your stuff, okay?” Jason was standing there looking like he didn’t know what to do, so Nick put an arm around him as they followed Arlette from the church. Their route took them over a four-foot-wide chasm. Its banks had partly fallen in, which made it even more of a hazard, but the fissure had been spanned by a wooden bridge, stoutly built of fresh lumber and complete with handrails.

  Nick had to conclude that the camp was very well organized.

  “Seven angels!” shouted the voice over the loudspeaker. “Seven angels with seven plagues!” Nick’s stomach rumbled to the scent of baking bread. The kitchen area was shaded by bright picnic awnings, and featured a number of mismatched gas ranges that looked as if they’d been scavenged from wrecked buildings—mobile homes or RVs, possibly, since they were being run off containers of LP gas. There were also grills that could burn charcoal or gas, and a large black smoker so big that it might have once been the boiler of a steam locomotive. Nearby was the dining area, more awnings sheltering long folding tables and benches that looked as if they’d been taken from the nearby grade school.

  “Momma?” Arlette called.

  In the shade beneath the awning, Nick could see Manon only in silhouette, and she was among other women, but he knew her at once—knew the way her chin lifted at the sound of Arlette’s voice, knew the arch of her back, knew her familiar pose, one hand resting on her hip. Knew the contralto voice that cried from the shadows.

  “Nick! My God!”

  Manon rushed from beneath the awning and threw her arms around him. He held her to him and welcomed the moment of bliss before the memory of the house at Toussaint returned to darken his mind. Manon drew back, held him at the length of her smooth mocha arms. “You don’t look too bad,” she judged.

  Which was the sort of phrase that she, and her whole family, used instead of compliments.

  “This is Jason,” Nick said. “He pulled me out of a tree.” Manon turned to Jason and smiled, pink gum showing beneath her upper lip, the familiar little imperfection that sent a shiver up Nick’s spine. “Welcome,” she said in her regal way, as if the whole camp belonged to her.

  “Ma’am,” said Jason.

  She looked from Jason to Nick. “Have you eaten? I can sneak you a little food, I think.”

  “We had some canned stuff,” Jason said.

  “If you’ve actually eaten,” Manon said, “I guess I shouldn’t give you something till mealtime. Food isn’t—it’s kind of scarce, to tell the truth.”

  “Unclean spirits like frogs!” called the loudspeakers. “Frogs from the mouth of the dragon!”

  “Manon,” Nick said, and then a lump came up in his throat, and he had to start again. “Manon, are there any more of your family around? Because I need to talk to them. I’ve come from Toussaint and… there are things you need to know.”

  The men, it turned out, were all away from the camp, assigned to gangs scavenging for supplies or looking for refugees. The women were present, either in the kitchens or working elsewhere, and Manon brought them together under the awnings, at one of the dining tables. Nick looked at the faces of the women that circled him, saw the queenly bearing of the three David women, and the less assured faces of the two others, born into less exalted circles, who had married David men.

  “It’s bad news,” Nick said, and for a moment he hesitated. “The people at Toussaint,” he said finally.

  “Gros-Papa, Penelope, Gilly—they’ve been killed.”

  He looked at them, saw the shock and pain move in waves across their faces. Saw tears tremble in Arlette’s eyes. He took his daughter’s hand.

  He and Gros-Papa hadn’t been friends—the old man had made it clear from the start that Nick wasn’t good enough to marry his youngest daughter—but Gilly and Penelope had been kind to him when he and Manon traveled to Toussaint for the obligatory David family reunion every August. But the old man was such a fixture, a kind of immovable pillar of firmness and probity and old-fashioned righteousness. A world without Gros-Papa was a different world, even for Nick.

  “What happened?” Manon asked. “Was it the big quake the other night?”

  “No.” He looked at her. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said. “They were killed. Murderers, robbers—I don’t know.”

  The women looked at him in horror. “No!” Manon’s sister turned away with a sob.

  “It looked like the—the killers were following you down the bayou,” Nick went on. “I was trying to catch up—either to protect you or—or fight them off, somehow.”

  My God, Nick thought to his own immense astonishment, he had been chasing after murderers, in an open boat, armed with guns he’d swiped from the general store. Now that he’d actually spoken his intentions aloud, it sounded like the most insane thing in the world.

  “That was good of you, Nick,” Manon said. Then her eyes brimmed over with tears, and she reached for the stunned Arlette, drew her daughter’s head to her shoulder.

  And then the wailing and crying began, the spontaneous flood of grief and mourning that swept over the David women and their kin. Nick watched helplessly, unable to think of anything that would help, anything that would com-fort them—anything except to hang onto Arlette’s hand, to let his daughter know that she mattered to him.

  At least they were together, he thought. At least they were a family again, even if they were a family in mourning.

  Jason was surprised by the intensity of the grief, by the way that Nick’s family—or ex-family, he supposed—gave way to tears and cries and utter misery. After a while he began to feel uncomfortable. He wanted to be sympathetic, but he didn’t know these people, and it looked as if they weren’t going to stop anytime soon. He quietly told Nick he would go check out their belongings, and slipped away. Jason crossed the chasm on the wooden bridge. The Reverend Frankland’s voice bellowed out of loudspeakers, but between the loudspeakers’ distortion and Jason’s ignorance of the subject matter, he couldn’t make out what the reverend was talking about. Whatever it was, Jason wished Frankland would save it for Sunday.

  He returned to the highway to find that Conroy and his truck were gone. The guns had been taken to wherever guns were taken here, and the food had been added to the food store. The rest of their belongings, such as they were, had been laid on the grass by the side of
the road. The two armed men at the entrance, loafing under their picnic umbrella, were presumably standing guard over their possessions. The earth shivered with an aftershock. Jason balanced warily, then began to breathe again.

  “The Reverend’s assigned you to the young men’s camp,” one of the men said. He rose from his lawn chair. “I’ll take you there when you’re ready.”

  Jason shrugged. “Might as well go now,” he said. All he had to take with him was the Astroscan, a blanket, and some mess gear. He took the spare bottle of sunscreen and left behind other medical supplies like aspirin and bandages, figuring that Captain Joe had given them to Nick. He slung the Astroscan over one shoulder.

  “Son?” the man asked. “I’ve been meaning to ask. What is that thing?”

  “A telescope.”

  “It don’t look like a telescope.”

  Jason sighed. “I know.”

  He followed the man over some planks thrown across a pair of fissures—not the elaborate plank bridges he’d used before, but then these fissures weren’t as impressive, either—and to an area marked off with string. Inside were rows of tents and awnings, and one large awning, with a plastic ground cover beneath it, where bedrolls, blankets, mattresses, sheets of plastic, and pillows had been piled.

  “That’s where the boys put their stuff in the daytime,” the guard said. “You can put your gear there, and it’ll be all right. When people get back, you’ll be given a place to sleep.” Jason looked at the site, at the trampled grass and orderly rows of tents. Welcome to your future, he thought.

  “Thanks.”

  “Ain’t any boys here right now,” the man said, looking around. “They’re out on a work party.” Jason frowned. “What kind of work party are we talking about, exactly?”

  “The boys your age mostly work at salvage. Sorting through rubble, getting food and other useful stuff out of ruins. Some are working with livestock or at planting food crops.” The guard rubbed his chin, looked down at Jason. “I don’t suppose you know much about farming?”

  “I’m a city boy,” Jason said. “You want an Internet connection, or a computer upgraded, you talk to me.”

  “Uh-huh.” The man looked blank, as if he’d never heard the word “computer” in his life. He hawked and spat onto the grassy ground. “Well,” he said, “I’ll do that. In the meantime, you just make yourself at home till the other boys come back.”

  “Right. Thanks again.”

  The guard made his way back to the gate. Jason walked under the big awning, plastic crinkling under his feet, and he found a place for his belongings in the shade. Then he went for a walk along the lines of empty tents. Frankland’s voice boomed out from loudspeakers. Large wooden crosses were set out at intervals in case of earthquake.

  There was nothing to do and no one to talk to. During a moment when the reverend paused in his address, Jason heard a girl’s laugh on the breeze, and he remembered that even if there were no boys here, he could maybe talk to a girl or two. He walked toward the borders of the camp, then thought about his telescope. He didn’t want to leave it behind in an unguarded place. So he picked it up by its sling, then headed toward the church.

  There were a series of camps, he found, laid out along the highway, each with posts and string as boundaries, with wide grassy lanes between them. He passed through another camp, also deserted, that was much like his own, then entered the one with women and children, around the church. The other camps, Jason thought, were set out as if to protect this one.

  He wondered if Arlette was back to folding laundry, and looked into the church by one of the side exits. There she was, at the end of the aisle, her eyes focused on her work. The smell of ammonia and the cries of children almost sent Jason back to the camp, but Arlette looked up at that moment and saw him. She gave him a smile, though it was clearly an effort, and Jason stepped into the church, and put his telescope under the table where she was folding laundry.

  “I’m sorry about your grandfather,” he said. “And the others.”

  “Thank you.” Her eyes were puffy with weeping. “It was a surprise.”

  “My mother died,” Jason said, “in the first quake.”

  Arlette pressed her lips together, smoothed a child’s T-shirt on the table. “Daddy said you’d had a bad time.”

  “Shall I help you with the folding?”

  “If you like.”

  He folded a pair of blue jeans, added it to the pile. Arlette picked another shirt from a plastic laundry basket, laid it out on the ironing board. Jason looked up at her, at the necklace and earrings she still wore, the strange contrast to her plaid shirt, blue jeans, and kerchief.

  “Your dad’s been great,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d have made it without him.”

  “He said the same about you.”

  “He did?” Jason felt a rush of pleasure. “Sometimes he seemed to get pretty impatient with me.” Arlette nodded, her lips set in a private smile. “Yes,” she said. “He does that.” The voice on the loudspeaker rose to a chorus of “Amens,” and then there was a click and the sound died away. Arlette gave a sigh of relief.

  “Sermon’s over?” Jason said.

  Arlette leaned close to Jason, a conspiratorial glint in her eyes, and lowered her voice so that no one could overhear. “The mothers here convinced Brother Frankland that the loudspeakers had to be turned off for an hour in the mornings, and in the afternoons, so that the children could have their naps.” Jason leaned closer to join Arlette’s conspiracy, lowered his own voice. “So.” he said, “what’s it really like here?”

  Arlette hesitated. “Well,” she said finally, “it’s Brother Frankland’s camp. Brother Frankland’s food. So we play by his rules.”

  “And what are they, exactly?”

  Arlette looked uncomfortable. “I’ve only been here for two days. I really shouldn’t judge, but I think he and the others are doing their best.”

  Jason considered. “I suppose it beats being out in the wilderness in a boat,” he said. Arlette looked up at him, nodded. But her eyes, he saw, were troubled.

  “Brought you some more clothes,” a voice intruded. Two more girls entered, both white, both in their mid-teens. They carried a plastic laundry hamper between the two of them, and set it next to Arlette. They looked at Jason, then at Arlette.

  “Throw him back, girl,” one of them advised. “He’s too small.” Jason flushed. The girls, laughing, bounced back to their work. Arlette tried to conceal her smile.

  “Well,” she said, turning to the pile of laundry, “looks like we’ve got our work cut out.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  At half past 6 o’clock in the morning it cleared up, and believing the danger over I left home, to see what injury my neighbours had sustained. A few minutes after my departure there was another shock, extremely violent—I hurried home as fast as I could, but the agitation of the earth was so great that it was with much difficulty I kept my balance—the motion of the earth was about twelve inches to and fro. I cannot give you an accurate description of this moment; the earth seemed convulsed—the houses shook very much—chimnies falling in every direction. —The loud hoarse roaring which attended the earthquake, together with the cries, screams, and yells of the people, seems still ringing in my ears.

  Extract from a letter to a gentleman in Lexington, from his friend at New Madrid, dated 16 December, 1811

  The radio calls were confused. Officer in trouble. Shots fired. But it was David calling. Omar recognized his voice.

  Omar spun the wheel of his cruiser and mashed the accelerator to the floor. Turned on the flashing lights as acceleration punched him back into his seat. There was a jar and a cry of metal as the car bottomed out on a partly-filled-in crevasse. Omar didn’t slow down.

  In front of the A.M.E. campground he found a half-dozen vehicles with flashing lights, all casting long evening shadows across the highway. A big car, an old 1972 Oldsmobile with one primer-gray fender, had crossed the highway and was nose-dow
n in the bar ditch. There were bullets stars in the windows. The driver’s door was open and a body lay by the door.

  David stood nearby, his arms akimbo and his cap tipped forward over his eyes. There was a smile on his face. Omar saw him unharmed and felt his racing heart begin to ease.

  A knot of deputies, some of them Omar’s specials in civilian clothes, stood around him in a knot. One skinny black man was seated on the asphalt at the rear of the car, his hands cuffed behind his back. Omar parked and almost vaulted from his car. He ran to his son.

  “Are you all right?” Omar called.

  David looked at him, his smile broadening. “I’m okay, Dad. Just shot a guy, is all.” He gave a little laugh.

  “It’s martial law, right? It’s okay.”

  Omar looked at the dead driver, saw a young black man, maybe twenty, with splashes of bright Technicolor blood all over him. Then he glanced at the camp, saw the wall of men, the hostile black faces, the stony eyes.

  The smell of food floated on the air. The camp had been served their supper just before this happened, and Omar saw plates being carried by some of the onlookers, but nobody seemed to be eating. Reverend Morris stood among them, his face long, a brooding in his eyes. And for some reason the calm sorrow on Morris’s face seemed more frightening than fury on the dozens of faces that surrounded him. Omar looked at David again. David, standing easy, smiling among his friends, among the neighbors who’d known him since he was a boy.

  “Okay,” he said. “We take pictures of the scene. Then bag the deceased and send him to Tree Simpson.” He took David’s arm, drew him aside. “And you tell me what happened.” And then we work out what to tell everyone else, he thought to himself.

  An amateur cop, son of the King Kleagle of Louisiana, had just killed some black kid. Omar knew that there would be consequences to a story like that, whether David was justified or not, whether there was martial law or not.

  In fact, he couldn’t think of any good consequences at all. Which was why it was important why David’s story had to cover all the bases, and why everyone else had to tell the same story as David. Omar was relieved when David’s story sounded okay. A couple bad boys had got stir-crazy in the camp, decided to go for a joy ride even though there was no place to go. Were in their car before anyone knew they’d got into the parking lot. And then ignored shouted orders to stop, until David drew his firearm and shot the driver.