False Dawn (10 page)

“But you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t care. I didn’t think it was important. I reckoned that when the time came, the men would be on the side of survival. What an arrogant son of a bitch I was, thinking I could convince men like Cox to value mutants.” He gave a crack of jeering laughter and then was silent.

Thea lay awake long after Evan’s regular breathing told her he was asleep. Alone, softly, to herself, she sang over and over again, those few fragments of music, trying to understand them, to learn what Evan had known when he heard those notes, where his pain had come from, and why it could reach out over so many years to wound him again.

The days with the families in Quincy faded into weeks. The air grew chill and the last of the crops were brought in and stored against the coming of winter. It was a pleasant life, warm, industrious, friendly, which made its Spartan simplicity easy to bear.

The children, what few there were, wore their deformities without shame and their parents took pride in them and were pleased by their accomplishments. Evan found a strange comfort in this, for it proved him right, if only to himself.

“This is what I should have done,” Evan remarked to Rudy Zimmermann as they walked back from the former community college building where they had been trying to tune the old pianos.

“What do you mean?” The air was still wet from recently fallen rain and their breath made ghosts as they walked briskly toward Rudy’s house.

“I mean that here you’ve got what I was trying to build with the Pirates. You have homes, families; you’ve got…hope.” He looked away, feeling awkward. “It’s too bad about the big Baldwin. I wish there were more strings for it. We could make real music, if we had better strings.” He tried to flex his new hand, aware that its stiffness was part of his problem when he had tried to play.

Rudy accepted this turn of conversation. “There’s still the Chickering. We haven’t tried that one yet; the case is in good condition, and the frame isn’t cracked. I liked the idea of trying the
Mother Goose Suite
next.”

“I’m too rusty for that.” Evan blew on his hands, and held up the regenerated one. “This isn’t ready for anything so ambitious. Besides, it’s colder.

My joints get stiff.”

“There will be snow soon.”

Evan nodded absently, his mind elsewhere. Then he stopped, motioning to Rudy to do the same.

“What is—?”

“Shush!” He held up his hand for silence, his face intent while he listened: above the whisper of the trees there was another, buzzing noise, distant but distinct. Evan’s face set in hard lines. “Methane-powered vans,” he said softly.

“I don’t hear them,” Rudy said, straining to hear.

“Listen!” His blue eyes were ice cold. “Six, maybe seven of them. We’ve got to hurry!” He slapped Rudy on the arm and began to run, not waiting for the German to keep up.

“But what is it?”

“It’s Pirates, Rudy!” Evan called back over his shoulder. “They’ve found you!”

Only four of the townspeople had been hurt, and now they were being tended expertly in the little infirmary on the north side of town.

“It could have been worse.” Honey Hobart was cleaning his shotgun in the middle of the town hall.

“Tell me how?” Evan asked. He was sitting at one of the broad tables, sketches around him and a map spread out for the other men to see.

“They didn’t kill any of us, and we wiped out four of them. I say that was a good result.” He put his shotgun down and picked up a rifle.

“Yes, and eight got away. One of them was Joel Mackley, Cox’s pet killer. He’ll tell Cox what he’s found, and they’ll be back.” He pointed to the map, “Look, Honey, even if that canyon road is in bad shape, there’s the railroad bed, and you said yourself that it’s being used by Untouchables all the time. If they can follow it, so can Cox’s Pirates. And they will. They want your town and they want Thea and me.”

Simon shook his head. “All we have to do is lie low, they’ll leave us alone. We’re off the beaten path. The Pirates have stayed in the Valley all these years—”

Evan cut him short. “I know these men, Simon. I led them. Now that they know you’re here, they won’t stop trying to—If you have what they want, they’ll take it. You’ve got to build fortifications, right now. Real walls and strong gates, high enough to make climbing them difficult, with high walkways for the defenders to fight from. You need to do it now. Not later, not tomorrow, now. Start tonight. Get every firearm in town, put it in working order, mount a guard, build watchtowers. You don’t have much time.”

Honey Hobart stopped his work and held out the oiled rag in his hand. “You said that one of them recognized you. You sure that it’s not just your own skin you’re protecting?” He paused. “You don’t got the right to ask us to ruin our town for you, Montague.”

“I’m not asking you to, Honey.” Evan had risen, his face desperate. “I’m trying to help you save yourselves. If you won’t arm yourselves, protect yourselves, you’ll be wiped out.”

“Is that a threat, Montague?”

The room was suddenly very still. Evan met Honey Hobart’s steady eyes, and when he spoke, there was despair in his voice. “It is, but not from me. What do I have to do, Hobart? Bleed? Martyr myself? Tell me.”

Hobart turned away. “We’ll have to vote on it.”

It was Simon who told Evan of the decision in the Quincy Council. “We don’t really want to, Evan, not even Honey. But you understand,” he pleaded, spreading out his hands to demonstrate his helplessness. “You’ll have to leave. And Thea, too; they must know she’s with you. It’s for your own good as much as ours. You’ve got to understand. It’s too dangerous for you here.”

Evan watched Simon and saw the dull hurt in the man’s eyes. “I hear you,” he said, acknowledging the trouble. “And it isn’t just us they want, no matter what Hobart thinks. You realize that, don’t you? They won’t leave you alone now that they know you’re here. You have things they want. You have livestock, you have shelter, you have food reserves, all the things the Pirates look for. But it’s not only your food and your livestock which attracts them—Cox is fighting a Holy War against Mutes. And it was Mackley who led the scouts. He hates Mutes, too. “He’s fanatical. He’ll bring Cox for the mutants alone.”

Simon looked miserable as he drank some of Katherine Zimmermann’s herb tea. “We realize that, of course. That’s why we’re going to send the kids away. Just for the time being. We know a couple of places they’ll be welcome, not too far from here. I think maybe we can negotiate about the food. We can explain things to him. We’ll work out terms.”

“If you pay the Danegeld, you’ll never be rid of the Dane,” Evan reminded him without rancor.

“But we’ll explain all that. We’ll arrange to grow more next year, and if they’ll co-operate with us, then we’ll be able to share. Cox should understand that. You understand it.”

“I’m not Cox,” Evan said. He knew that Simon was trying to convince himself, but he could not contain himself. “You think Cox is sure to be reasonable? Understand your point of view? Cox only understands the things that enrich him. The things that bring him power and notoriety.”

At that Simon flared up. “We have to try it, Evan. Otherwise we might as well lie down and die right here and now.” He got to his feet, upsetting the mug, watching unhappily as the green stain spread over Katherine’s worn linen tablecloth. “Fuck it, Evan, we’re not cruel. We’re not going to send you away naked. We’ll give you and Thea clothes and supplies. And tools. We’ll make sure you have two pair of strong shoes. We aren’t monsters, Evan. We know what winter is like, We’ll do everything we can to make sure you get through it.”

“Except let us stay here.”

“Except let you stay here.”

Rudy Zimmermann had come to stand in the door, watching.

“Is this what you want, Rudy?” Evan asked, wondering where Thea was, and if she knew what was about to happen to them.

“It is not what I want. You have become my friend, and together we remember the good things which are lost. But this is my home. I must defend it, protect it, no matter what. I have run as far as I’m going to. If you had lived with us, one, two years, perhaps it would be different.” He did not meet Evan’s eyes, and so did not see the compassion there. “No one here wants to live in an armed camp. We’ll work something out, something reasonable for all of us.”

Slowly Evan stood up, looking toward the kitchen where Katherine was making supper. He thought idly that he wanted to stay with these people in this little pocket where there was still a semblance of civilization and life could be pleasant. But he knew that so long as the people living here were unprepared to do what they had to to preserve what they had built, there was no chance to save Quincy now that the Pirates had seen it and wanted it. Quincy was doomed, no matter what he did.

“I’ll talk it over with Thea. I promise I will go. I cannot speak for her.” He rose and left the dining room, going to the room off the kitchen where he and Thea had slept together and apart, for the nine weeks they had been in Quincy. He looked over the small pile of belongings they had and thought wistfully of the joy of houses where it was possible to have more than what you could carry on your back. Kneeling, he touched the shoes Rudy Zimmermann had made for him. Those shoes would have to take him a long, long way, he thought.

“Evan?” Thea had come into the room behind him, silently.

“They’ve asked us to leave. They say we make it too dangerous for them, now that the Pirates are coming. They think they can bargain with Cox.”

“But there are Mutes here…

The Pirates won’t—”

He cut her off. “I know. And who knows? Perhaps they realize what they’re up against.” Turning to her, he saw her dark eyes grow distant under her straight dark brows. “What is it, Thea?”

“Nothing. I thought this might happen. We can go to Gold Lake now. We don’t have to stay here.”

“I’d forgotten Gold Lake,” he said sadly. He did not want to pin his hopes on so little, for he felt that Gold Lake was as remote as the Land of Oz.

But Thea did not hear him. “Here. It’s yours, like I promised you.” With those jumbled words she thrust a crossbow into his hands, then turned abruptly and went into the kitchen, reaching for one of the muffins that had been set out for them.

Evan was still, turning the crossbow over in his hands. It was made from a rifle stock, with the crank from an old coffee mill scavenged from the abandoned houses on the south side of town. The trigger release was better made than the one on Thea’s own crossbow. He touched the metal groove; it had been painstakingly fashioned from the barrel of a 30-gauge shotgun. The wood that held it was polished and carved in clumsy designs of leaves and animals. There was a small sack tied to it containing a dozen quarrels formed from garden tools. “Thea.”

He came and stood in the kitchen, wondering what to say to her.

Without facing him, she said, “I won’t stay here if you don’t. I’m going with you.”

4

Hobart advised them to stay away from the roads and to seek the high country. “I know it’s tough up there, what with the rocks and snow and all, but the water is pretty pure and no one goes up there, except maybe to hunt. The Pirates won’t follow you. They’ll stick to the river and follow the highways. You’ll be okay up there.”

“And you?” Evan asked, adjusting the pack Zimmermann had given him. It was a large affair, holding several pounds of supplies and attached to a sturdy frame that fastened, harness style, to his back.

“I’ve got a job here still.”

“After that, Honey? What if the Pirates come? They will come, you know. They won’t negotiate, they’ll attack.”

“You’re probably right,” he allowed, rubbing at his nose.

“You can go into the high country. Join us at Gold Lake.”

“Well, I might. If we can’t hold out here, Winter’s almost on us, and it looks to be a long one, judging from the signs. There’s lots of berries where the berries still grow.” He stepped back from Thea and Evan. “Take care of yourselves. And maybe you can come back in the spring, if you like, when things are better,” he said rather foolishly. “Well, good-by.” And he turned to walk back into his town.

Evan buckled his jacket tighter as he looked toward the rising mountains south and west of them. “It’s a climb,” he said.

“I’m ready.” Saying that she came as close as she ever did to smiling.

So they backtracked westward into the Sierra Nevada, to the spin of the range, to its rocky summit and safety. They followed the old Buck’s Lake Road, bypassing the two burned-out towns they found on the way. The road was steep, and in some places, entirely washed out. They went slowly upward, fighting the mountains, the elevation, and the gathering cold. Soon they would strike south, they told themselves, along the crest to Gold Lake and the community where they would be welcome, where they could help guard the residents from harm. The Gold Lake community was famous for taking in people with special knowledge, who wanted to rebuild the world without making the old mistakes. It would be good to be at Gold Lake. It would be worth the long, agonizing trek.

The third day out they knew they would not reach Gold Lake before the snows came, for the first light snow had already fallen, and the skies promised another fall in a little while.

There had been strip mining at Buck’s Pass. Great slices of mountain had been washed away leaving raw scars against the precarious line of pines. Many of the trees had fallen, their roots exposed and dead where the sluicing had robbed them of their precious topsoil.

To avoid the muddy wreckage of the mining, Thea and Evan took to the trees that flanked the cut in the earth, but found even this was uncertain going. The ground shifted underfoot and they got too near the exposed earth too often. Many of the trees around them, though standing, were dead, habit alone keeping them vertical. As the new snow weighted their branches, they would fall as the others had fallen, widening the swath of destruction across the front of the ancient mountains.

When they reached the crest of the range the air was biting, taking life from their faces and finger tips. Thea pulled her hood closer about her face and wished for heavier mittens and a more substantial sweater. Evan tugged their tarpaulin from his pack and with branches rigged a kind of umbrella against the snow for their night shelter, and wished for some means to carry more of the ruined wood with them as they went on in the morning.