by Lou Cadle
When she was dressed, she went to the kitchen. Her father was there, and he had hot tea and a pile of sliced fruit on the table. When he saw her hesitate at the doorway, he walked up and pulled her into a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
If she didn’t pull away, she’d start crying again. So she disengaged from him, saying, “I’m starved.”
“You want eggs?”
She really wasn’t hungry at all, and for some reason the thought of eggs turned her stomach. “The fruit looks great. It’s shiny.”
“I heated up strawberry jelly and poured it over.”
“You’re a great cook. I’ll never be the cook you are.” Or the person.
“With practice, you’ll get there. So tell me how it went.”
Sierra tried to imagine herself a journalist, not a participant in the battle. So she gave him statistics. “No one here is badly hurt. Oh, no, wait. Joan might be, but I haven’t seen it and they say it’s not a big deal.”
“What happened?”
“Curt said she accidentally shot herself, here.” She raised her hand and pointed at the webbing between thumb and forefinger.
“Ouch. But she’s okay?”
“I didn’t talk to her. She was in the other group all night, and then she rode home in the other car. But Curt said she was. I talked to him.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t lie.”
No, but Sierra would. Lies of omission were still lies. “Eight men were released from jail, which went pretty well, after a hard start to that, and—”
“What hard start?”
She backed up. “We made it into town without incident. No enemy fire. And then we broke into the jail. But the men in there went a bit crazy with the idea of being let out. We had to just leave them in there because at one point, they couldn’t be reasoned with. You couldn’t even be heard.”
“How many were in jail?”
“I don’t know for sure. There were four big holding cells and some smaller ones I never checked out. Two or three hundred, I think.”
“Out of thousands of men who lived there before?”
“I’m afraid so. And three of them died last night. Anyway,” she said, wanting to rush over that part, “eventually they calmed down and we let eight out, and we took a city or county building, I’m not sure which. Killed some of the invaders in there, and some got away. At the same time, the other group was clearing the city from the north side of town.” She went on and told about Dev’s injury and the attack on the apartment building in general terms.
“Did you talk to a lot of the Payson men?”
“Quite a few.” Again, she forced her mind away from Roy. “My science teacher was in jail. Dev and Kelly knew another guy in there. He seemed nice. A guy I recognized from the grocery store. I fought with some good guys.” Her voice caught.
Pilar heard it. Damned parental hearing. “What?” he said, leaning toward her.
“We lost good men, is all. I’m sorry anyone had to die. They’ve already lost so many. Anyway, people from here and the other neighborhood are going back tomorrow to negotiate peace or make arrangements for trade or whatever. Maybe you’ll go.”
“Maybe I will. How about you?”
“No, I think I’ve had my fill of Payson for a bit. I might go down again one day when everything is settled.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She nodded, but she was definitely not okay. That simple recitation of facts had drained her.
“Eat. You’ve been talking and not eating.”
She began to push slices of fruit into her mouth. They tasted like sand. Too-sweet sand. But she kept shoveling. Better than talking, and better than worrying Pilar. “Good,” she said, as she picked up another slice of pear.
“You tired?”
“I am. I caught a little nap this morning before dawn.”
“Don’t worry about the hens or garden. I can take care of all that today.” He frowned at her.
“You’re worried about me,” she said. “Don’t be. I’m fine.”
“Your leg is hurt.”
She had put on shorts, and she had slapped a Band-Aid over her shin wound. Also, her knees were scratched up from when she’d landed on them. “That’s nothing at all, really.”
“Not a bullet wound under that bandage?”
“Nope. A scratch.” She leaned back, hoping she’d eaten enough to seem normal. For some strange reason, she had no idea what a normal amount might be. “I’m tired.”
“Go on to bed then if you want to sleep. I won’t keep you. We’ll talk more at supper, okay?”
“Okay, thanks,” she said. “I’m going to run out to the barn for a second, and then to bed.”
“Why?”
“There’s something I want to hunt for. I won’t be a minute.”
She felt his eyes on her back as she went out the door. She walked to the barn, opened the door and used the daylight to see inside. She had seen it when she’d given Bodhi’s leash to Misha. There. A stuffed rabbit of Bodhi’s, a faded pink. It was rabbit-shaped but had no eyes or mouth, a toy made for a dog without little bits they could choke on. He’d liked to play fetch with tennis balls the most, but that hadn’t worked so well indoors. This had been his indoor toy, and it was as much of him as she could have right now. She stuffed it into the back waistband of her shorts and went back inside.
“Sleep well,” her father said.
“Thanks,” she said, rushing past him so he wouldn’t notice the lump of the plush toy under her shirt.
In the bedroom, she took it out and sniffed it. It still smelled vaguely of her dog, and that made her eyes fill with tears again. She crawled into bed and hugged it, wishing it were bigger. Crazy thought. Had it been bigger, Bodhi wouldn’t have been able to play fetch with it. But she wanted something more substantial to hug. She wanted her dog, is what she wanted, to be a girl again, a teenager with a dog and friends and dates, and not a killer.
It took a long time for her to get to sleep.
* * *
When she rose at midday, she hunted for Arch and asked for a watch assignment that evening after supper.
“It may be that we don’t need to keep watch as carefully. Kelly only went out every half hour on her watch today and walked the perimeter.”
“Until we know more about how things will go with Payson, I think it’s a good idea, especially at night,” she said. “And at dusk.”
“Okay, if you want to take a normal watch, you certainly can. And thank you. You sure you’re up to it?”
“I’m sure,” she said, but that wasn’t entirely true. She was afraid she might hesitate to shoot someone. Still, being on watch was preferable because she didn’t want to spend the evening under the watchful eye of her father. He’d know something was bothering her.
* * *
The next morning, a car full of their people made ready to go to Payson. Joan was going, of course, though she was leaving her girls here. She was crucial to the negotiations, knowing firsthand what life was like both in the neighborhoods and the town. Pilar was going because he knew a few people down there and because he was even-tempered. Kelly was going, and Arch.
Before he left the house, Pilar said to Sierra, “I hope she can keep him in line.”
“She usually can.”
“I don’t want him to blurt out something that angers someone. There are still more of them than there are of us.”
“And they’re armed again. We left them the rifles and ammunition.”
“I’ll remind Arch of that. That we armed them. If we armed them, they might remember that and never turn them on us.”
Sierra had read enough military history by now that she knew that was a hope that might not come true. Arming the enemy of your enemy seldom turned out well in the long run. But she didn’t say anything. They needed peace in the short-term more than they needed to think about two or five years from now.
Or maybe only she needed that.
In any
case, she was happy to be skipping that trip into Payson.
They had met about the meeting as a group soon after dawn. Arch had asked her to go, several times saying, “You’re sure you don’t want to?”
“I’m sure,” she’d said.
“You’re known now. Something of a hero to them, I imagine. It might be useful to have you there, even if you just stood and said nothing.”
Curt had been in on that discussion, and he had said, “I can imagine a news picture, the stoic, unsmiling but beautiful girl hero, hair blowing in the breeze, rifle held port arms.”
“Don’t,” Sierra had said. “I’m none of those things.”
He had looked strangely at her, but she hadn’t met his eyes.
When it had all been hashed out, Curt was staying behind, and Sierra and Dev. They’d tend their homes and share watches. Rudy was staying behind with the children for now. He had asked Joan to find his aunt and uncle and had given her their names and address.
Kelly said, “We’ll bring the Payson kids back tonight, when we have everything settled.”
Pilar had frowned at that. “We’re not holding them back as hostages?”
“No, of course not,” Kelly said. “It’s only a few hours’ delay, but I want to make sure everything is okay down there before sending them back into it. What if there’s total social unrest when we drive in? If I have to fight my way back out, I don’t want to be worried about protecting children while I do it.”
So they were going armed, but with handguns, concealed, ready for trouble but hoping there’d be none. Now, almost ready to go, Pilar patted his waist where his own gun was, in a belt holster borrowed from Arch. “Can you see it?”
“No,” she said. “Your shirt covers it. It’s oversized on you.”
“I’ve lost a few pounds.”
“We all have.”
“You’ll be okay here?”
“I think I’m the one who should be worried about you.” Though she wasn’t. All her normal emotions were flattened out. It was like her feelings over shooting Roy had pushed out everything else. If she was worried about Pilar’s safety, it was a distant thing, like the flapping of bird wings far away.
“You think there will be problems there?”
“No. You know how to talk with people. How to listen.”
Only after they left did she have the thought that it could get bad down there if Jackson had remembered the details of last night and talked about them. If the Paysonites knew she’d killed Roy, they might want her there for her punishment.
Again, the stench and filth of the jail returned to her. She didn’t want to be put in there. But if it came to that, she’d go. She wouldn’t run away to the woods or try and escape her fate or anything so foolish. She’d take her punishment, whatever it was. Though she worried what it would do to Pilar.
He’d be heartbroken. And so disappointed in her.
Chapter 20
It was full dark, and Sierra was getting worried. Curt had done his guard duty and was back at his house, but Sierra and Dev were waiting at the end of their road for the sound of an approaching car.
“You don’t think it all went to hell, do you?” Dev said.
“I hope not.”
“But what do you think?”
Sierra tried to think it through from an optimistic perspective. “Maybe it went okay, but they had a lot of details to talk about.”
“Maybe my father said something rude and it took an hour to calm everybody down.”
“Also possible.”
They stood in silence for a time. Dev cleared his throat a couple of times.
“You getting sick?” she asked. Maybe he’d caught something in Payson being around all those strangers.
“No. I just.” He cleared his throat and started again. “About what I said the other night.”
She did not want to talk about it right now. She needed more—more something. More time. More of her old, confident self to draw upon before she could have a big emotional showdown with Dev over his crush on her. She heard a very distant grinding sound, tires on pavement. “Shh. Listen.”
Dev shifted the grip on his rifle and tensed up. She heard that more than saw it. Full night was almost here, and there were clouds overhead again.
“It’s them,” she said. “Our folks.”
“How do you know?”
“One vehicle. If it were bad news—an attack from Payson—it’d be more. Or they’d be attacking on foot.”
“Good point.”
A diffuse light came into view down at the last curve, and then the headlights appeared. She recognized their shape. It was the Morrow electric. Good. Everything must have gone okay.
The car pulled up and Dev started to get the winch out. “No, son, leave it,” Arch said, emerging from the driver’s seat. “Joan’s going right back with the kids.”
“All of them?” Dev said. “There’s nine. They won’t fit.”
“Six of them tonight. The ones who have parents alive. The others will go down tomorrow, and she’ll try to get them placed with relatives or neighbors or good Samaritans.”
Sierra gave Pilar a hand getting around the log.
“Thanks,” he said. “Everything okay here?”
“Fine.”
“How’d it go?” Dev asked his mother as he helped her over.
“As well as could be hoped. Let’s wait until tomorrow and have a neighborhood meeting first thing. We’re all beat—it was emotionally draining down there—and need a good night’s rest.” She turned to Sierra and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Come with me to get the six kids, would you?”
“You know which ones?”
“I do. I have a list.” She pulled out a piece of paper.
“See you in a few minutes,” Pilar said to her. “I’m starved.”
“I made soup,” Sierra said. “From a cookbook recipe. Go ahead if you want and start eating without me.”
As she walked up the road with Kelly, she said, “Are the other three kids’ parents dead?”
“Yes, or fled, though how a parent could flee without a child, I can’t explain. It was confusing, how the children were—whatever. Captured. When they were taken. There were conflicting stories, and I’m not sure we’ll ever know the truth.”
“Maybe the truth doesn’t matter,” Sierra said. “Maybe what matters is the future.” If only that were true.
They made it to the Kershaw house and found Rudy entertaining the children by reading to them. Everyone turned to look as the two women entered.
“Well?” Rudy said.
Kelly said, “We’re taking some of you home today and some tomorrow. Isn’t that good news?”
The children’s faces suggested it was not entirely good news. Only one jumped up and said, “Yay!” But when she saw the other children weren’t responding similarly, that one sat back down.
Sierra was able to quit worrying about herself and worry about someone else. These poor children were going to be screwed up forever, weren’t they? She saw Emily standing in the doorway to the bedroom, ready to bolt. Yes, another child ruined by all this.
It was too awful to think about. Her situation was too awful to think about. Everything was. She wanted to run home, throw her blanket over her head, and shut the whole world out.
But there was work to do. So she stood her ground.
Kelly took out the list and read the names. The excited girl was the fourth one, and she jumped up and nearly vibrated with excitement. One other boy raised his hand when his name was called.
“Sierra,” Rudy said, “please raise your hand.”
Obediently, she did.
“Okay, you two go with Sierra,” he said, naming the two responsive ones.
Sierra held out her hands, and the girl ran to her. The boy looked at the other children, then back at Sierra, hesitant.
Rudy said, “It’s okay. You’ll all be home by tomorrow and see each other again. You probably will all go to school again in t
he fall. Everything will be okay.”
The boy came to Sierra but refused to take her extended hand. “I’m too old for that,” he said.
“Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s go to the car.”
In the dark, they walked together down the road, the little girl swinging their arms and chattering on. Okay, not every child was ruined by it. This one girl seemed pretty resilient. And so was Misha.
The boy said, “I can’t see.”
“I can,” Sierra said. “I’ve been outside longer. Take my hand. Not because you’re too young. But because I can see a little better.”
He did, and a couple minutes later they were in the splash of light from the headlights. The boy dropped her hand. She lifted the children over the log to Dev on the other side, and he got them situated in the back seat. He was very kind to them, gentle. For a moment she wished she could return his feelings. But she couldn’t. Didn’t.
Kelly appeared next with two children, and then a minute later Rudy arrived with the last two. Sierra and Dev worked together to get those four children situated in the car. It was not meant for more than four people, but they managed.
“My aunt and uncle?” Rudy said.
Kelly said, “Joan will be home later and talk to you about that.”
“That sounds bad,” Rudy said.
Kelly hesitated. “Your uncle is fine. And he wants to see you. Very much wants to see you.”
“My aunt?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head.
The car backed up and then drove away, taking the light it had provided with it.
After a long moment of silence in the dark, Rudy said, “Does my uncle know about Oliver?”
“He does. I told him.”
“I have to get back to the others,” Rudy said. “They’ll be scared.” And he turned and left for the Kershaw house, his footsteps crunching down the gravel road.
“Nice kid,” Kelly said.
“Not a great soldier,” Dev said, a few seconds later, when the footsteps had faded. “But yeah, a good-hearted person.”
