Cold Allies

by Patricia Anthony

  NEAR CALHAN, COLORADO

  That morning the supply truck had traveled the twenty miles from Calhan out to the camp, bringing just enough food to make people hungrier. The cops had strutted around, as if the delivery was the next best trick to the loaves and fishes.

  There had been a lot of cops with semiautomatic rifles, and when two men fought over a packet, the cops pulled them out to the road and shot them down in front of God and everybody, just like that.

  Nobody said a word.

  Jerry had seen people die before. Hell, his own Pa had sat in the truck dead an hour before Jerry finally figured out he wasn’t mad or just not in a talkative mood. But the way Jerry had been raised, it was right that there should be a respectful silence when someone passed on. Jerry had always believed death made people thoughty, like they were considering their own road to glory and worrying about sin.

  One man just stood there, as though he thought the cops were kidding. The other one fell to his knees and started crawling—Jesus, crawling—toward them. Jerry would never forget the expressionless look on the cop’s face, and the way the top of the man’s head disappeared in blood and brain, like a watermelon hit with a hammer.

  And he’d never forget the way the people had just stood around, looked at the bodies and then walked off, eating and passing the time of day.

  Things weren’t right in the camp. It was a place where people weren’t people anymore.

  As dark fell, he counted his supplies again. It didn’t take him long. Six crackers in a neat little package, and a carton of water the size of the servings of milk he used to get in school.

  When it was full night, he set out into the desert, keeping his pace slow, his eyes on the Rockies. After a few minutes he came to a dry creek bed. As soon as he was over the lip of the ravine, a light hit him in the face. Blinded, squinting, he froze.

  “Look what we have here,” a man said. Another man: “More Texas trash.”

  Blinking in the glare, he watched two state troopers get out of their jeep and walk toward him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the first cop asked.

  The second didn’t wait for an answer. “Sneaking west.

  Hey! Don’t you know by now that Colorado doesn’t want you?”

  Jerry bolted, but the cops were faster. A hand grabbed a fistful of his hair. The pain brought him to his knees.

  “Hey, boy.” Laughter behind him. “You know what we do to assholes who try to sneak west?”

  A boot hit Jerry’s thigh, toppling him the rest of the way to the dirt. Another kick in the small of his back. He sucked up powdery dust.

  “Texas trash,” a cop giggled, a startlingly feminine sound, something that could have come from a teenage girl. Had the cops been drinking? When men were drunk, they pushed too hard, they hit too hard. Jerry knew what whiskey blows felt like.

  Something touched him between the shoulder blades. A zzzzt knifed through him, front to back. It felt as though the hand of God had reached out and tried to jerk his soul from his body.

  “Do it again,” one of the cops said.

  Jerry tried to squirm away, but the muscles in his chest and arms were twitching. His lungs quivered. His breaths came in gulps, so that his screams emerged as slapstick ah-ahs,

  “What are you saying, boy?” a voice asked. “Are you back-sassing us? Len, I think he’s back-sassing us. I think he’s resisting arrest.”

  A touch, and another jolt snapped his head back, compressed the air in his lungs.

  A cop laughed.

  The touch of the stun gun clipped the end of Jerry’s cry.

  His knees shot up to his stomach. His arms, out of control, flailed in the sand. The violence of his convulsion sent him tumbling into the ravine.

  His face smacked rocks as he rolled. When he hit bottom, a gravel slide came with him, pattering on his eyes, his open mouth.

  Lying there, helpless, he saw the beam of a flashlight play around the ravine. It came to rest on his face. A soft chuckle drifted down with the light. Then the beam clicked off, and Jerry was alone in the dark.

  When he heard the clatter, he tried to get up and failed. But the clatter, he realized, wasn’t stone against stone. It was cooler and smoother than that.

  The ravine was awash in blue. The knife-edged creases of the arroyo were blue. The rocks were blue. In his mind he heard the soothing tap of rain.

  He closed his eyes and listened. Autumn rain, like the showers that used to drum on the corrugated roof of their shed. It was a silver sound, and secretive, like minnows flashing underwater. On his cheeks, on his eyelids, on the exposed skin of his arms he could feel a chill prickle of mist, a touch light as imagination.

  When he finally dared open his eyes, he saw that the entire world was blue, horizon to horizon, and the air smelled of rainy October, a scent of promises.

  He opened his mouth and drank life in, filling his lungs with it. He drank the blue even as the light was going away.

  Jerry lay under the stars, and the mist slowly evaporated into the desert air. After a long while he got up. Afraid to attempt the mountains, he limped, strangely satisfied, back to camp.

  NEAR TOPEKA, KANSAS

  Mrs. Parisi first noticed the change in Kansas City. She’d visited the place as a child and had thought then that it was a presentable enough town, if somewhat provincial. Now all sorts of undesirables huddled around the Kansas City stores.

  And the lawns. For heaven’s goodness sakes. The lawns were all brown.

  Of course she’d heard about the Greenhouse Effect, and that was all well and good; but one had to have a sense of pride. Perhaps if the citizens of Kansas City had taken care of their lawns, none of this Greenhouse thing would have happened. The highway from Kansas City to Topeka was a mess, with cars every which way and people wandering around with knapsacks. Some even had the poor taste to bring their children with them. When she passed the children. Mrs. Parisi waved, but they never seemed to want to wave back.

  She refused to let her optimism be hampered. “Ca-ca on -you!” she shouted merrily as she passed. The windows on the van were rolled up, keeping in both the air-conditioning and her words. She waved, “Ca-ca, you little worthless runts.”

  On the highway out of Topeka a roadblock was set up. For some odd reason there were a great many people wanting to get in. She was one of only two cars wanting to leave.

  “West?” the highway patrolman at the roadblock asked in surprise. To either side of the highway, Mrs. Parisi noticed, careless fanners had let their fields go untended.

  “Yes, dear. West. Out to Colorado Springs.”

  “Ma’am? Are you absolutely sure you want to do that?”

  The policeman was nice enough, but his solicitousness was beginning to wear.

  “Of course I am certain. I’m a writer, you know.”

  Mrs. Parisi used her credentials as a writer both often and well; but the trooper didn’t seem impressed. He wandered to the back of the van and opened the rear door. Turning around in her seat to peer at him testily, she noticed that he was studying her supplies.

  “Colorado Springs,” he said, his voice echoing in the steel confines of the van.

  “Yes, Would you care to arrest me for that?”

  The trooper shot her a look. “Stupidity is no misdemeanor, ma’am,” he replied, slamming the door so hard, she jumped.

  She drove past the long line of filthy people waiting to get into Topeka. They stared at her with hollow eyes. And even though she waved at them, waved until her arm was sore, no one as much as lifted a hand to cheer her on her way.

  NEAR LUBLIN, POLAND

  Michów, Baranyk’s new center of operations, consisted of a handful of houses lined up along an asphalt road. ‘There were no chickens pecking in yards, no women walking t
heir way to market. Although there were soldiers there, plenty of soldiers, Michów had a sad, abandoned look.

  Baranyk, who lost his driver two weeks before and still hadn’t the heart to replace him, drove the borrowed American Humvee to the end of the pockmarked road. At the church a group of Germans and four new tanks were waiting. He got out and returned the German captain’s salute.

  “It is, ah, pleasant to see you again, general,” the German said in halting Polish.

  Baranyk nodded vaguely in Reiter’s direction, his eyes on the Mercedes tanks. They were short, he saw with surprise. Tough-looking. Fast-looking.

  Captain Georg Reiter must have noticed the direction of Baranyk’s gaze. When the general turned, he saw the German was gloating. “Ausgezeichnet, ja?”

  “Pretty,” Baranyk said indifferently and was pleased to see the German’s smile fade. The captain seemed to be trying to decide whether the indifference was insulting or had merely sprung from Baranyk’s own incomplete grasp of Polish.

  Reiter’s mouth moved indecisively before he spoke, as though he were searching for vocabulary, syntax. “It is good ... a good weapon,” he finally blurted. “It will serve you.”

  “The better to die for you and your soft-bellied country,” Baranyk muttered in Ukrainian. His eyes lifted to the group of Germans, and he saw Zgursky standing among them. The young, peach-faced sergeant had slapped his hand over his mouth to suppress a laugh.

  With a conspiratorial wink to Zgursky, Baranyk turned back to the German captain. “So,” he said. “We will try them out.”

  “Yes. Gut,” Reiter agreed. “We have four Ukrainian teams. I will be, uh, glad for you to see how they—perform.”

  “No,” Baranyk said. “You and two of your men. Myself and the sergeant there.” With his head he indicated the startled Zgursky. “And one other Ukrainian. We will take two tanks out. You have promised me the tanks are easy to manage. If my men are to fight in them, I wish to know their simplicity firsthand.”

  Reiter seemed to be struggling for translation. Finally his face uncreased. “You are joking,” he said with a smile. ‘I am quite serious. Call your men.”

  Dispiritedly, Reiter turned and motioned two Germans out: a stocky, pink-faced lieutenant and a dark-headed noncom.

  Baranyk laughed and called out to Zgursky. “Come, sergeant,” he said in boisterous Ukrainian. “Come show me I was right to give you your stripes. I have always wanted to be chauffeured in a Mercedes.” -

  Zgursky shuffled forward like a shy crab.

  “Call the lieutenant with the German father,” Baranyk said softly. “Maybe he can translate for us. What’s his name? Goose?”

  “Gutzman. Pavel Gutzman, sir,” Zgursky said.

  “Gutzman!” Baranyk called with a rumbling laugh. “Step forward and enter destiny!”

  A tall, blond-haired man in Ukrainian uniform threaded his way through the knot of Germans.

  “Yes, sir?” Gutzman asked, drawing himself up into a snappy salute.

  “At ease,” Baranyk told him with a jovial smile. “And come tell me all about this miracle of a tank.”

  The two told him. They told him at length. As they got into their lecture, they seemed to forget the differences of rank. Their voices grew more assured. Their eyes were bright with pleasure, the eyes of children with new toys.

  “It goes fast. Very fast, sir,” Zgursky was saying.

  Gutzman blurted, “And the nuclear motor is very quiet. There is some material they use which mutes the sprockets.”

  The two were grinning at Baranyk; eager, effervescent grins.

  “A miracle,” Baranyk said, smiling back.

  “Yes, sir. A miracle,” Gutzman laughed.

  Baranyk climbed onto the deck of the German miracle and stepped through the hatch—not onto the utilitarian seat he had been expecting but a padded captain’s chair. The inside of the tank was spacious. No colliding noses and butts, as sometimes happened in the T-80s. The driver’s cubbyhole was fully open to the gunnery compartment.

  There were buttons and dials and gauges everywhere. Digital read-outs, computer screens.

  Zgursky pointed to one of the computers. “A small onboard radar.”

  Gutzman explained brightly, “So the tanks will not run into each other.”

  “As the 1st Armored did at Kiev,” Baranyk said.

  The comment threw a pall over the pair’s enthusiasm. Zgursky met Gutzman’s eye, then looked quickly away.

  “Yes, sir,” Gutzman whispered. ‘The radar will prevent some of what happened at Kiev.”

  Zgursky bent over the computer and brought up two helmets. He handed one to Baranyk. The sergeant was grinning again. “Put it on, sir. You will be our weapons officer for the run.”

  Goggles were built into the helmet, Baranyk noticed, and a thick cable ran from it into the wall of the tank. He slipped the helmet on and opened his eyes to blackness. Zgursky fiddled with something, and suddenly the world came to life.

  It was as though he were sticking his head out the turret.

  There was Michów: the short stretch of paved road and the church. Disoriented, he flung out his arm and bumped into a chair.

  A hand grabbed him. “Sit down, sir,” Zgursky said. “The first view through the goggles is unsettling.”

  Baranyk knew where he was: he was in the tank. Yet he was out in the open, too, His mind told him he should be feeling the breeze on his face, should be smelling the heady scent of spring grass. Yet his nostrils brought in only the smell of rubber and new plastics.

  Someone gently guided him to his seat. He groped for the armrest.

  “A network of fiber optics, sir,” Gutzman was explaining. “It produces a sort of holographic image in the brain, much like the eyes themselves.”

  Across the way Baranyk could see the Germans crawling into’ their own tank, Reiter looking disgruntled. He watched a sparrow flutter across the sky and land on the church roof.

  “Ready?” Reiter said quietly into the left ear of Baranyk’ s receiver.

  “Ready,” Zgursky countered in Baranyk’s right. “We will take lead position.”

  Gutzman told him, “We will be moving now, General Baranyk. The sensation will be strange. If it bothers you too much, take off the helmet.”

  Zgursky forgot enough about rank to add a small anecdote: “The lieutenant threw up the first time the tank moved, and the Germans got very angry.”

  The sergeant laughed; Gutzman didn’t. “Eight degrees at ten kilometers per hour,” he said.

  In Baranyk’s left ear, Reiter repeated in his crude Polish, “Eight degrees at ten.”

  There was no rumble of diesels, no whine of turbines. The tank simply moved. Baranyk could feel the tickle in the soles of his feet as it crept from the side of the road into a meadow. At the edge of his peripheral vision a flock of birds leaped skyward. He turned to watch their flight, heard the slight rumble as the turret turned with him.

  A miracle. The tank was a miracle.

  “Increase speed to twenty,” Zgursky said.

  The tinny voice of Reiter replied, ‘‘Twenty, ja.”

  They passed through an open gate, and Baranyk swiveled his head to see that the second tank was following.

  “Will you fire on us, Hammer One?” Reiter laughed. “Or do you sightsee?”

  Quickly Baranyk moved his head back, the turret turning with him.

  “Hammer One?” the German called. “We will be—” Reiter let off a string of German, apparently searching for vocabulary from someone else in the tank. “Ja, ja. We will be entering a plain ahead. Would it be good to show the general our speed?”

  After a pause Zgursky replied, “Increase to fifty.”

  “You are not courageous, sergeant?” Reiter challenged.

 
“Seventy-five,” Zgursky muttered.

  Baranyk gasped as the tank shot forward. He put his hands out, hit something. Red lines sprang up in his vision.

  “Achtung, achtung!” a woman’s calm recorded voice was saying into his left ear.

  “General!” Gutzman’s tone was tense.

  The woman was saying something else, but it was in German and Baranyk couldn’t understand. He felt the lieutenant fumbling at him. A hand clutched his.

  “Here,” Gutzman said. “Here is the stick. No, no, sir. Not that thin one. That is the remote-control machine gun. This thick one here to your right.”

  Baranyk gripped it. Short. A knob on top and a rounded stud.

  The rocking of the tank sent Gutzman’s shoulder into his. “You have activated the fire controls. Here. Here is the lever to shut them off.”

  The lever was a ribbed thing on the side of the stick.

  Baranyk depressed it, and the red lights went away. The jostling at Baranyk’s shoulder ceased: Gutzman had evidently decided that the general was not about to destroy the tank and felt safe enough to return to his own post.

  The Hammer zipped over a tree-shaded bridge at a speed that took Baranyk’s breath away. He should be feeling the wind in his hair; but there was nothing but dizzying exhilaration.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other tank draw abreast. They were running over the soft loam of a field now, and he could see the treads of the second Hammer kicking up mud.

  “A race, Sergeant Zgursky?” Reiter asked, his voice clear and diamond-sharp in Baranyk’s ear.

  “A race, then,” Zgursky agreed.

  Baranyk would have thought the tanks could not go any faster. He was wrong. The force of the acceleration pushed -him back into soft upholstery. They lunged across the field, clattered over an asphalt road, and into the flower-dotted meadow beyond.

  Ahead of them birds burst from a tree and flew, a shower of black sparks, “Beautiful,” he said in awe.

  “What, sir?” Gutzman asked.