Of Starlight and Plague

by Beth Hersant

  Benjamin Franklin

  “One doesn’t have to play well, it’s enough to play better than your opponent.”

  Siegbert Tarrasch

  “God, I am so sorry.” Levi looked like he might cry. “I had the damn thing in my hands and then, I don’t know…”

  “I know what happened,” Patience shrugged. “Fletch got hurt and we all dropped what we were doing to help him.”

  “The minute I heard him scream I forgot all about the rasp bar,” Sam added.

  “And so,” a hoarse voice said quietly, “we need to go back for it. Whereabouts did you drop it?”

  Louella sat in an old rocking chair in the corner of the kitchen. She had visibly aged in the last few days. It pained Peg to see it, but it didn’t surprise her. She’d once read an article on U.S. presidents. It featured before and after pictures of men like Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt. The difference in their faces was startling. They entered office so bright-eyed, so fresh-faced and vibrant; and then the weight of their responsibilities etched furrows in their brows and grayed their hair. The most notable change, however, had been the alteration to their eyes. So many of them had had smiling, quite innocent eyes. Yet by the end of their term, their eyes looked tired, in some cases infinitely sad, and most of all knowing. Some terrible knowledge had come to them during their time as leader. And it haunted them. That is how her mother looked now.

  “I dropped it outside,” Levi was saying. “Fletch stumbled and I needed both hands to help him.”

  Patience nodded as she formulated her plan. “So it’s right there on the forecourt. That’s good. We grab the part and get out of there. But I still want us covered head to toe — no gaps. Josie…”

  “No problem,” she said. She was already sorting through their hazmat gear.

  They approached Hackett’s in two cars. When they were about a hundred yards out, Patience radioed for them to stop. From there she could see the forecourt through her binoculars and wanted a quick look before they drew near. At first glance, the place looked exactly as they had left it. The gate stood open and there on the pavement lay the rasp bar. But then a flash of metallic brown caught her eye and she nudged the focus wheel to get a better look at it. Among the junkers parked to the right of the main entrance, there was a pickup truck, and not just any old pickup. It had once been Mayor Albitz’s pride and joy: a fully customized Ford F-150 with a deep mahogany paint job that the manufacturer had dubbed “Caribou.” It had not been there before. She was sure. Patience had helped carry the mayor’s body to the pyre after the attack on North Star. So who was driving the truck now?

  “Huddle,” she said into her radio.

  She gathered them together. “All right, guys. New plan…”

  Fifteen minutes later, Patience drove up to Hackett’s and parked outside the fence. From his place behind a stack of old tires, Roger Silsbee crept over to where Blake Turner sat eating what was probably his ninth Milky Way bar.

  “It’s time,” he whispered and the big man shoved the rest of the candy hurriedly into his mouth.

  They watched the woman approach, knowing that Wilford had taken up a flanking position across the forecourt. Shaw would be maneuvering around behind her. And in front of her there was only the main garage … and the bats. They had her boxed in. When she reached the bait (the odd looking part they dropped days ago), Leon gave the signal. They were supposed to surround and capture her without firing a shot. She was, after all, their ticket into that farm and hence they needed her alive. But then Blake got carried away. He’d been thinking this was some wonderful game of “Cops and Robbers” and so he started shooting. He fired the gun the way he’d seen gangsters do it on TV, moving his hand as if he was almost trying to throw the bullets. Consequently, he came nowhere near to hitting his target. However, Levi didn’t know that. He knew only that his daughter was under fire and in another breathless moment he appeared behind Silsbee and Turner. He had James’s Beretta semi-automatic in his hands and shot Blake three times before he could even turn around. As the big man slumped face-first into the tires, Silsbee dove to the side and managed to fire one round. It went wide and Levi didn’t give him the chance to squeeze off another.

  Leon found that he was taking fire from the rear and hence, dove into Pat’s truck for cover. But Arnold was close now — close enough for his Colt .45 to punch through the car door and hit the man inside. Leon screamed, a high-pitched keening sound that caused Wilford Bishop to bolt back through the scrapyard, hoping to hide there among the derelict cars. What he didn’t know was that Sam had climbed the fence on that side. Man and boy met next to the rusted-out hulk of a 1958 Plymouth Fury and Wilford dropped his gun and put his hands up. Sam had never shot a man in his life and this wasn’t just some random guy; this was Mr. Bishop, his old teacher. He could not bring himself to pull the trigger and so accepted the man’s surrender. Patience, in a panic over the one member of her team unaccounted for, raced through the yard and eventually found them. For the first time since the fall, she slapped a pair of handcuffs on a man, although for the life of her she couldn’t imagine just what the hell they were going to do with Wilf once they got him home.

  As the team swept the area to make sure there were no others laying in wait, Patience returned with Sam and the men gawked at their prisoner.

  “Wilford?” Levi looked at him wide-eyed. “You were with them? With Shaw?”

  “I … I got injured and … and needed help. They took me in.” Bishop looked from one to the other, searching for some sign that they believed him, that they understood.

  Ignoring him Patience asked, “Was that Leon Shaw who came up behind me?”

  “Yeah,” Arnold nodded. “He’s dead. Bled out all over your car,” he grimaced apologetically.

  Patience shook her head and gave a low whistle. It was then that they heard a dull thudding coming from the mayor’s pickup.

  “Open it up, Wilford,” she said quietly.

  “I don’t have the key.”

  She dug through Shaw’s pockets, found the key and threw it to Wilf. “Open it the fuck up.”

  With his hands cuffed in front of him, he was able to unlock the Tonneau cover over the truck bed. “Listen: this was Shaw. I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t…” He raised the cover and stepped back.

  There, tied up and lying in a fetal position, was Catherine Bishop.

  Louella sat at her kitchen table, massaging her temples. “How is she?”

  Wyn shook his head. “She’s been badly beaten. They broke her arm, her collar bone, three ribs and her nose. I’m worried about internal injuries and …” He shifted awkwardly on his feet. “There seems to be signs, I mean I’m no expert, but…”

  Niamh spoke up. “There are signs of sexual trauma.”

  “She was raped.” Louella stared down at her hands.

  “Yes.”

  The chief looked up. “What does she say?”

  “Nothing,” Wyn shook his head again. “She’s been unconscious since Pat brought her in.”

  Louella looked at Patience now. “And what does he say about all this?”

  “That he was a prisoner too. That he was forced to work for the gang and that he took no part in the assault on Catherine.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “No. You don’t give a prisoner a gun. Besides, he had the strongest motive of any of them. His wife leaves him for another man and then suddenly all law and order evaporates. I can’t believe he didn’t take the opportunity to get some payback.”

  “Besides,” Peg said, “why the beating? Why would they risk it?”

  “I don’t follow,” Bib said.

  “The world’s gone to hell and we’re all competing for limited resources. That’s not only food and water. To an all-male group surely women would be a commodity, a resource that you don’t waste. They could have incapacitated
her a dozen different ways, but instead they beat her to within an inch of her life? Why risk the one female body you’ve got?”

  “Because the beating had nothing to do with any of that,” Patience said quietly. “It was an act of rage.”

  “Guys, I understand everything you’re saying. I agree with you.” Owen shifted awkwardly in his seat. He had to play devil’s advocate and he knew that no one wanted to hear it. “But we have to decide what to do with him. And right now, all we have is supposition to go on. What if he didn’t lay a finger on her?”

  There was a general muttering over this. Louella put her hand up. “Enough. Owen’s right. We don’t know anything for sure.” She thought for a moment. “I want someone in with Catherine 24/7. The minute she wakes up, ask her about Wilford’s involvement.”

  “But Lou,” Wyn said, “what if she doesn’t wake up?”

  “That’s why we try plan B.”

  “Which is?” Peg asked.

  Louella’s head throbbed and she automatically reached into her pocket for the bottle of Aleve that was no longer there. Frick. “I’m going to have a little talk with our guest.”

  She took Owen, Patience and Peg with her to the barn. Bishop was handcuffed to the bars of the calving pen and it took an act of sheer will for Louella just to approach it. The cleanup crew had done their job well. The quarantine pen reeked of bleach and there was not one sign of the violence that had occurred there. She could still see him, though — Fletcher, foaming at the mouth, eyes wide and insane as he scrabbled at the bars to reach her. With a few deep breaths, she managed to get hold of herself and walk up to the pen.

  “Hello, Wilford.”

  “Louella, I’m glad to see you. You can tell them.”

  “Tell them what?”

  “That I didn’t hurt Catherine. And I didn’t shoot at Patience either.” In a move that reminded her again of Fletcher, he clasped desperately at the bars. “Come on, you know me. I was raised in your father’s church. I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Catherine is awake,” Louella said. “And she’s talking.”

  She watched him carefully. His eyes widened and before even one accusation could be made, he started shaking his head furiously. Wilford let go of the bars and backed up as far as the cuffs would allow.

  “She said,” the chief continued, “that you took part in the attacks on her.”

  “No.”

  “That you beat her.”

  “No.”

  “And raped her.”

  “No.”

  “Because you hated her for making a fool out of you with that Jeff from the high school.”

  “No!”

  “We all heard it!” Lou yelled. Wilf opened his mouth but she gave him no chance to speak. “And do not say to me that it’s her word against yours!”

  “Mr. Bishop,” Pat said quietly. “I have an assault victim with multiple broken bones and internal bleeding that we can’t stop. You understand what that means? Everyone here is gonna believe a deathbed testimony.” She held her gaze steady, but internally recoiled. In the old world she never would have lied during a suspect interview.

  “I know.” Louella sounded almost sympathetic. “It must have been awful to be thrown over for Jeff Burgess. Of course you’d hate her. She hurt you so badly, how natural to want to hurt her back. And I’m sure there must have been a lot of pressure from Shaw to join in, right?” When he didn’t answer she cried, “Say something!”

  Bishop looked at her with hollow eyes. “I was so scared. And with Shaw you have to play along to be one of the gang, ’cause if you’re weak, they cast you out.” He was weeping now. “You don’t know what it was like. I had to!”

  “Had to what?”

  “Join in.”

  “You could have refused…”

  “I’ll say it again, he would have cast me out! I was injured and terrified and everything I’ve done, I’ve done to survive.”

  Louella nodded but her eyes had gone stony now. “So you raped and beat your ex-wife in order to survive.”

  “Yes.”

  “To be part of the gang.”

  Bishop nodded.

  “What else?”

  “Huh?”

  “What else did you do to be part of the gang? Where’s Jeff? Was he with Catherine when you found her?”

  Again his eyes went wide. He looked desperate and panicked and the denials came thick and fast. “No! I didn’t do anything else. I swear!”

  There’s bullshit in this barn and it’s not from my cows, Louella thought. Aloud she said, “Thank you, Mr. Bishop, that’ll be all.”

  As she walked away, he yelled after her, “What else could I have done? You tell me! You sit here in this cushy little haven — you have no idea what it was like back there!”

  She spun around to face him. “I was in Midwood when it fell. I know exactly what it was like.”

  “Well yippee for you. You were able to get back here. I was stuck there in that hell and I did what I had to do. What choice did I have?”

  She thought this over for a moment, then shrugged. “You could have died as a good man, Mr. Bishop.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that? It’s Wilford! It’s always been Wilford for as long as you’ve known me.” But she was walking away … and didn’t bother looking back.

  Owen sighed, “Well there’s no doubt as to his guilt, so the question is what do we do with him?”

  The laws he’d drafted had been collected into a ring binder that Sam used to use for trigonometry. Every member of the group over sixteen years of age had signed the last page, hence ratifying the law and pledging to uphold it. But now it lay open to a short section entitled, Outsiders. These were the laws that governed their actions toward anyone who did not belong to Camp North Star…

  Violence is permissible only in cases of self-defense, or during those incidents when you are called upon to defend the family or the farm.

  Violence is strictly prohibited toward noncombatants.

  It is forbidden to attack a peaceful group.

  It is forbidden to steal from a peaceful group.

  It is forbidden to commit acts of torture, rape or sexual assault even against hostile strangers.

  And that was it. They had not foreseen the surrender of a hostile enemy or the need to place one on trial for his crimes. So what were they going to do?

  Everyone seemed to have an opinion and they were all talking at once. It wasn’t anything like a proper debate, it was just a bunch of upset people simultaneously venting their frustrations. Modern feminist fury advocating everything from castration to the death penalty clashed with old time religion that insisted thou shalt not kill. Pragmatism that identified Bishop as a threat to be neutralized butted heads with sentiment that wanted the group to preserve their compassion and their humanity. There were protracted debates about the collective soul of the group and how this was a defining moment for Camp North Star. Louella sat back and let them get it out of their systems. But all the while her head pounded and she thought: Wait for it… wait for it…

  And then it came. Owen asked, “What do you think, Lou?”

  She sighed. “It is a moral question, but it’s also a practical one and we might as well deal with the two together.” She sighed again. “I can only see three options open to us: imprison, exile or execute. Am I missing any?” She looked around the room, but no one had anything to add. “So let’s look at option number one; let’s say we keep him prisoner. That would answer both the moral dilemma and your safety concerns. We’d feel like justice had been done without having to string him up. And, if he’s locked up, he can’t hurt anybody. But there’s a problem.”

  “Which is?” Levi asked.

  “It would be a logistical nightmare. We’re already overcrowded and yeah, we can keep him in the barn but it s
till leaves the question: what do we do with him?”

  “He could work,” Bib ventured. “He’d be an extra set of hands to help.”

  Lou shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t. If we put him to work, someone would have to guard him. That’s two people – two mouths to feed and nothing extra gets accomplished. There are no appreciable benefits to having him work for us.”

  “And we’d have to feed and cloth him, and treat his illnesses,” Peg frowned. “That means diverting resources from the rest of the group.”

  “We are doing well in terms of supplies,” the chief nodded. “But that won’t always be the case. Sooner or later we are going to have a lean year. Then what? You gonna take food away from yourself or the kids to keep him alive?”

  “I just … ,” Patience sighed, “I think that running a civilized penitentiary requires more than we can manage right now. And we’d be responsible for him for the rest of his life. It would have to be a life sentence because we could never trust him. And if we’re not prepared to do it for that long…”

  “Then why do it at all?” Levi asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “And then, of course, there’s Catherine. All logistics aside,” Louella said, “we cannot ask her to live here with him in such close proximity. Seeing him everyday…”

  “I really don’t know, Lou, if that’s going to be an issue,” Niamh said.

  Ginny’s quiet voice asked the next question: “Maybe it won’t, but do you really want him around the kids?”

  This was met with a heavy silence that Louella eventually broke. “We wanted this place to be our sanctuary. How much does that change if he becomes a part of it? How safe, how good, will it feel?”

  “Ok,” Bib nodded, “so we drive him off.”

  A lot of people nodded at this including the chief. “Exile is another option and the most convenient. It gets rid of him and we don’t have to do anything … unpleasant.”

  But even as they nodded along, people could see flaws in the idea. One person worried that “He knows our location. He could lead the infected here. Or sit outside with a rifle and a scope and pick us off.” Another carried the logic even further, “Or mess with the well or wind turbine.” That was their paranoia talking, but paranoia is persuasive.