After the Shift: The Complete Series
Page 42
Nathan’s little pirate.
Tony, of course, had taken the absence of Syd and Saber the hardest. In their own ways, all of them missed the teen, her jutting-chinned attitude and her enormous heart. But she was gone now, and so was Saber.
Nathan doubted anyone missed Stryker less than he did. He’d found himself wishing Cyndi hadn’t bothered with the first aid, and instead let the SOB bleed out on the floor of the Greenhouse concourse. But she hadn’t. Because Cyndi wasn’t that kind of person.
She wouldn’t leave anyone behind.
The pang of cold self-loathing that shot through Nathan’s heart at that thought—that at the moment when it had counted, he had been willing to leave one of his own behind—hurt much worse than the occasional twinges he felt these days from the aching rib and the healed gunshot wound in his arm.
No one knew, of course, because he hadn’t told them he’d slowed the Ski-Doo down to allow Danny to escape. It was a secret he kept locked up. One day, he might be able to confide in Cyndi or the others, but he felt he couldn’t risk them losing faith in him now. Not since he’d made them leave Detroit and head west.
Perhaps it was shame holding the secret down.
Or more likely it was because he hadn’t had to tell anyone what had happened. Not even Syd.
As the Ski-Doo had begun to decelerate, Nathan had looked up from his biting shame just in time to see Danny’s machine turn over in a cloud of ice, tumbling end over end so that his AK-47 skittered out of the exploding snow and smacked down into the ice some twenty yards away on the surface of the frozen river.
Nathan had twisted the accelerator on the handlebar and his Ski-Doo had shot forward, chewing up the snow and pushing the blustery wind straight into his face, almost cold enough to freeze his eyes in their sockets.
By the time he’d reached Danny’s totaled Ski-Doo, Syd had finished strangling the young man, and his blue face had clearly been dead, half in and half out of the snow.
Syd hadn’t said anything as she got off her knees and pounced on Nathan, hugging him tighter and harder than ever, her sobs echoing across the ice.
Two people alone in a big, white, terrible world.
It had almost been more of a surprise that Syd had wanted to stay with Stryker in Detroit, as opposed to her assault on Danny on the Ski-Doo.
She’d been awoken on the Ski-Doo, she’d told them, her arms lashed across Danny’s midriff. He’d been firing back at Nathan, one-handed, his arm resting on her shoulder.
She’d bitten him on the soft flesh of his underarm through Danny’s coat. The material had saved him from damage but the shock and pain meant he’d screamed, then hit her with his elbow. Concentrating on that meant he hadn’t seen the snowdrift ahead or the crumpled ice within it.
The Ski-Doo had turned over, the machine tumbling sideways, and as it had rolled over them both, part of the engine casing had hit Danny in the face, stunning him.
The leather belt he’d used to tie Syd to his back around his stomach had torn apart and Syd’s hands had been freed. As they’d come to a rest, her hands had already come around his throat, and she’d choked the life out of him before Nathan could get there.
Syd had made sure the boy was dead before she’d gotten her knees off his chest and hurled herself at Nathan.
The next day, after they’d slept in the Greenhouse, its wide concourses now glutted with snow and smashed hydroponics, she’d taken Nathan aside to explain why she wouldn’t be leaving Detroit with him and the others.
“I only ran from New York because of Danny. I only joined up with you because of Danny. I only came here because of Danny. I tried to kill myself because of Danny. Danny is no longer making me run, Nathan. I need to stand still. Rose needs people like me, and someone needs to keep Stryker in line. I kinda forgive him anyway. He was only doing what he did because they had the woman he loved. We’d probably all the do the same.”
Nathan had nodded, and his hollowing shame at giving up on Syd was misinterpreted by the girl as sadness at leaving her behind.
But if there’d been enough motivation for Syd to stay in Detroit, there’d been more than enough to make Nathan leave it. To stay would mean being reminded daily of his failure to stay true to Syd, and his willingness to be duped by Stryker.
And anyway, his boys and his wife deserved something better than trying to eke a life out in Detroit. Especially once Donie had told them about Casper.
Before Donie had been taken from the Masonic by Brant’s men, she’d managed to find a satellite-enabled laptop in a scavenging mission to the suburbs, grabbing it from an out of the way tech store, and she’d gotten the uplink working. There hadn’t been much fresh information to speak of, but there’d at least been reports that Casper, the second biggest city in Wyoming before the Big Winter, was now on the fringes of the new Arctic Circle, and because of nearby oil reserves and a more temperate climate than what could be found in cities like Detroit, it was making a go at getting back on its feet. “It’s thirteen hundred miles, but it’s the nearest place I can see that might offer us something approaching safety, as well as sustainable resources.”
Nathan had leapt at the idea when it had been presented, and even Cyndi, who’d said, “I have a very bad taste in my mouth for Detroit.” had agreed that getting out of Detroit seemed like a better idea than staying. “It’s always better to travel hopefully.”
Freeson and Lucy had nodded along, Lucy herself ready for better weather and the chance to “feel like a human again.”
Stryker hadn’t said anything, not until Syd had made her feelings known about staying. She’d wanted to find Saber, too—who she still felt was out there somewhere in Detroit, making a living for herself. Saber needed Syd as much as Syd needed Saber, she’d insisted. “When my leg’s better, we can search together… if you want?” Stryker had offered.
All Syd had done was nod, but Nathan had been able to see the relief in Stryker’s face at knowing that not everyone hated him now. Just mostly everyone.
Rose had given Nathan and his crew all the supplies they would need for weeks of hard travel, and had arranged for the extra sleds and dogs with John. “Gonna miss you, pretty boy, but I get it. Man not feel good here. Man want to go. Felt de same when I left Jamaica. Sometimes, the only way to stay is a walk out de door.”
Rose had cuddled Nathan and kissed him on the lips, and winked with a wicked smile as she’d disengaged. “You know there will always be welcome for you here, if you want it.”
“Thank you, Rose. You never know. Way the world is going, we might meet again. Somewhere warmer.”
“I likes the cold, pretty boy. Makes me find something pretty to warm my heart an’ my bed. You take care of yourself. And promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Dat you stay pretty.”
They’d left Detroit behind on a morning of wan sun and stilled snow. The sky had been pink with dust and the tails of tattered clouds. The air would never feel clean until the volcanoes stopped their belching along the Pacific Rim, but the day had at least promised some good traveling, putting the miles between them and the city where they’d fought so hard to stay alive.
Three weeks of dogsled travel had offered the best feeling Nathan had experienced in the whole time since they’d left Glens Falls. The supplies Rose had given them meant they could go without catching and killing anything for a couple of days and still not have to begin to ration. There were cans of meat, dried beef, and pickled vegetables from the hydroponics in Detroit. They had weapons, ammo, and warm furs. The weather had even held, giving them a sense of buoyancy and of hopeful travel.
And Lucy had proved herself as a fine huntress. She’d been taught by the best as a girl on her father’s estate, and could track deer, bear, or fowl with great success. Freeson and Cyndi were both adept at butchery, and for these twenty-one days, they’d been warm and fed against the cold, and the sense of progress had made them all feel more relaxed and happy.
They camped when the brief twilight before dark encroached. They had propane for camping stoves, warm tents from Rose’s stall in Trash Town, and a tented corral for the dogs to stay out of the weather and recuperate from their days of slogging through the snow. They took turns cooking, hunting, and seeing to the dogs, and life, after Detroit, offered excitement without attendant anxiety.
Nathan’s shame was still a present reminder of his sense of failure over Syd, but as the days went on, the feeling had been littered away downwind. It would still occasionally grab at his heart and he’d find himself grimacing behind his scarf in the parka hood, but it had become more manageable.
Tony was the only fly in an otherwise smooth and chilly ointment. Without Syd or Saber to occupy him during their nightly camps, the boy was more than a little withdrawn. Halfway through their second week, Nathan took the boy to the dog’s corral, thinking it was time he spoke to him.
Together, they poured water from canteens into bowls for the dogs and put out meat and slops for them. The malamutes needed a lot of food, and most of the hunting kills Lucy and the others brought back to camp on those nights went in their direction once good eating for the humans had been taken care of. The dogs were young, delighted to be pulling sleds, and happy around humans. However, Tony, Nathan had noticed, had not been getting involved with the dogs as much as he would have expected.
“So. You got a favorite, sport?”
“Huh?” Tony asked, looking up at Nathan, the firelight from the camp flickering in his eyes.
Nathan pointed at the dogs. “Favorite dog? I know how much you’re missing Saber…”
“And Syd,” Tony said earnestly. Nathan couldn’t tell if the boy was deliberately trying to take the focus away from the dogs, or if his head was just so messed up he couldn’t stay on one subject for long.
“And Syd,” Nathan acknowledged, patting the boy on the shoulder. “We’re all missing her.”
“I don’t get why she wanted to stay in Detroit.”
Nathan didn’t want to go into details about Danny and his history with Syd, and for obvious reasons, but conversely, he wasn’t going to gloss over it.
“I have trouble getting it, too.”
“I thought it was something I said or did.”
Nathan crouched down so he was eye to eye with Tony. “No, come on, Tony, that’s not…”
“But I went to the Greenhouse, and Saber got lost. Maybe if I’d stayed, she wouldn’t have got lost in the fire.” Tony’s eyes were big and brokenhearted, and suddenly Nathan saw all of himself in the boy. The one who takes it all on, who doesn’t know whether or not he does the right thing or how. The shame over possibly doing the wrong thing, when there were other options he felt he should have tried harder to take. Tony was absolutely his father’s son, alright.
Nathan knew there were no words to take away his feelings about doing the wrong things for the right reasons—it would take time to heal, and while that was happening, he and Tony would just have to wait. There was nothing he could say. It wouldn’t matter how many times he told the boy that it wasn’t his fault; it would still feel like it did. Nathan was the same. Only time moved him on.
Only time would heal them both.
So, instead of speaking, he just hugged his boy tight and kissed the top of his head. To Nathan, it seemed that Tony instinctively knew what he was transmitting in the hug—that his daddy understood how he was feeling, but wasn’t going to just combat it with platitudes and try to blithely fix it. Nathan would just be there to hug him when he needed it, and trust Tony to deal with his feelings until he was in a better place. Perhaps one day Tony would even hear Nathan’s voice in his head when his father was long gone, telling him things, making him focus on what was important, giving him the strength to cut through the crap to what gave meaning to your life. Your family, your friends, and trying to do right by them.
Despite the fact that there was no easy fix, Nathan loved that an unspoken bond had been strengthened between father and son.
“So, how about these dogs, sport? Which one’s your favorite, mmm?”
Tony smiled, raised his hand, and pointed at the lead malamute of their team. A hulking gentle giant of a dog with a patch over one eye, like a pirate, with four gray legs ending in white socks.
“What’s he called?” Nathan asked, knowing full well that the dogs hadn’t been given names, or if they had, John hadn’t passed them on. They were workers, not pets. It didn’t do to get too close to them, John had said.
“I don’t know. What do you think we should call him, Dad?”
“Your shout, sport. Call him what you like.”
Tony thought for a moment. “He’s fast, and he’s strong, and he could run all day, but he’s also really smart. I’ve seen him in the team, like he knows what command you’re gonna make before you even make it. He’s sharp and true.”
“So, what’re you gonna call him?”
“How about… Rapier?”
It couldn’t have been a more perfect tribute to Saber, to name another dog after a sword, and one matching that kind of blade so brilliantly, too. The boy was becoming a man. Maybe a few years too early, but there it was in him. A strength and a core to the boy. It was growing before Nathan’s eyes, and he felt incredibly proud.
Nathan’s thoughts drifted from Tony. He could at least look back on his own time in Detroit as a period when he’d been growing and learning to be the person he was now. Changed in many ways, but still, at the root of it all, sure that Cyndi and the boys must be the lodestone he hove towards. It felt very primal, that notion, out here under a black, dark sky, the snow in all directions, the breath streaming from his mouth and the campfire burning.
This was how it had been for men and woman for hundreds of thousands of years. Just them and the elements. Just them living a hair’s breadth from survival or doom. The Big Winter had turned back the clock significantly; yes, they had some tech and weapons, and could scavenge much of what they needed, but now the world was a harsher, darker, and weirder place. Humanity had been made soft by its appliances and niceties, its comforts and its labor-saving devices. Nathan was closer now to that time when pioneers left the east to head west for land, farming, gold, or for whatever reason they needed to make a new life. There was no safety net now. Like back then, all Nathan had was his wits, his skills, and the binds he shared with those around him. How it would pan out, he had no idea, but for the first time in a long while, Nathan left the feeling of grief over losing his former world behind. It didn’t do to dwell on things he could no longer change; there was only today and tomorrow. Good riddance to yesterday.
Going onwards was all that mattered.
“Rapier…”
“Do you like it, Daddy? Is it good?”
“Son, it couldn’t be better, and neither could you.”
It wasn’t the road signs that told them they’d made it from Detroit to the southern edge of Chicago. It was the fires in the distance.
Through binoculars, again donated by Rose, Nathan could, even at this far distance, still see that the downtown skyscrapers were on fire.
It must have been a recent burning because the familiar shape of the Sears Tower, black and blocky, was raging hard. This was a fresh fire. Unlike Windsor, as seen from the Masonic Temple in Detroit, this was not low-level burning or ashes steaming and belching old fire out, waiting for the snow to extinguish it. This was what seemed to be a deliberate act by people who were intent on destruction. The Sears tower was the tallest of the burning structures in sight, but the other towers nearby were burning, too. Nathan passed the glasses to Freeson, who look
ed on and whistled through his teeth.
Nathan took back the binoculars and looking intently through them again. As he watched, a ball of fire burst from a tower and a huge billow of black smoke powered into the air like the mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion.
“They been fighting a month.”
Nathan started at the voice he didn’t recognize and turned.
Lucy had already raised her rifle, and Freeson and Cyndi, still holding Brandon in one crook of her arm, did the same now with their pistols.
The man before them was tall, dark-haired, and had a broad face, suggesting Native American heritage. A hook for a nose; brown eyes that were soulful and intense. His face was lined deeply from obvious exposure to living much of his life outside, and he was perhaps fifty, but could have been either forty or sixty just as easily. He wore a red and black checked sheepskin-lined jacket, thick brown boots, and jeans. On his head, a white Stetson rested, and in his hands was a set crossbow that was pointing at the earth.
“You move quietly,” Nathan said, trying to keep all edges of provocation from his voice until this unknown quality turned out to be anything other than friendly.
“It pays to. But you can put down your guns. I’m not black hat.”
Nathan, who hadn’t raised a gun, took a step towards the man. There was an earnestness and authenticity to the interloper’s voice which didn’t give off any sparks of threat. “Nathan,” he offered as he held out his hand, after taking the mitten off.
The man looked from the guns to the hand. And smiled.
He took Nathan’s hand and gripped it hard.
“You can call me Elm.”
Lucy, Cyndi, and Free relaxed their weapons.
“Who’s been fighting, and why are they fighting?”
Elm smirked, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “You must be new around here, son. Don’cha know there’s a war on?”