Behind the Ruins (Stories of the Fall) (14 page)

It
was dusk when a single horseman trotted up to the cabin as Sowter was starting
to serve supper. Josie had been on the porch and stuck her head in with a
quizzical look.

“Grey,
there’s a strange looking guy headed this way. Are you expecting someone?”

“Maybe.
I’ll come out.” Grey pulled his boots on and excused himself.

The
rider had come to a halt about thirty yards from the cabin, but dismounted and
walked his horse forward when Grey emerged. The newcomer was wrapped in a
serape made of an old tan blanket. His exposed arms were covered with the
cracked gray leather of an ancient motorcycle jacket, and he wore greasy black
jeans tucked into a pair of scuffed engineer’s boots. His face was hidden by
snarl of wool scarves. Josie saw the wink of steel under the serape when he
dismounted.

“This
where the party is?” he asked, pulling at the scarves and exposing a narrow,
whiskered face lined with years and weather. His eyes were a pale green, like a
cat’s, Josie saw. Grey stepped past her, held out a hand and the man shook it.

“Mal.
Malcolm Barnes. I expect you got my message,” Grey said.

“I
did. It said you were offering one a week and loot?” His voice was mellow and
slow, with a hint of an accent, but his eyes moved rapidly, taking in the
cabin, the windows facing him and the faces therein.

“Yep,”
Grey agreed. “We’ll be eight against a lot more if things go poorly. That a
problem?”

Mal
shook his head, mouth set in a line.

“The
pasture gate’s around back. You can put your horse in there with the others and
come in, meet everyone. Get some food.”

“All
right.” Mal said, catching his horse’s reins and heading around the corner of
the cabin.

Grey
turned and went back inside, Josie following.

The
cabin had three rooms, side-by-side, each about twenty feet square. The center
room had a woodstove made of an old steel drum and a plank table. The chairs
were a mix of rickety wooden ones and equally shaky aluminum lawn chairs. Most
of the windows still had glass in them. Those that didn’t had oiled hide that
passed a tired yellow light. It smelled of mice. Over a dinner of chili and
bannock, Grey invited questions.

“Who’s
he?” Clay asked, eyeing Mal.

“He’s
an old partner. He does this kind of work and he was available,” Grey said.
“You can trust him, Clay.”

“Are
you a gunfighter?” Ronald asked. Grey thought he’d tried for nonchalant but the
boy just sounded nervous. Mal chuckled and muttered through a mouthful of
chili.

“No
such thing. I fight for pay, yes. That doesn’t make me a gunfighter. They are
for stories.”

Sowter
cut in.

“Pardon
my asking, but why bother yourself? Who’s paying?”

Mal
gestured at Grey with a fork and took a bite of bannock.

“Why
are you paying for a gun?” Josie asked.

“Because
it’s Mal’s job,” Grey said.

“Grey’s
a funny guy,” Mal said, swallowing. “He’d have thought it was rude if he didn’t
hire me, and just asked an old friend to ride off and get shot at.”

“Pretty
much,” Grey said. For a while there was only the clink of utensils.

Doc
was watching the window. Wind-driven rain was pattering against the glass and
zigzagging down in silver trails.

“When
do we leave?” he asked.

“Tomorrow.
We can talk all we want on the road, and I’m tired of talking,” Grey said.
Harmon grunted and twitched a smile. Ronald looked surprised but stayed quiet.

Maggie
came by just before dawn, looking older. She’d been sick with a dry cough
nearly all winter, but refused to let Doc have a look at her. Clay told Grey he
figured she would either get better or die on her own. She spoke privately to
Clay and Sowter, gave Ronald a stern bit of advice, and eyed the quarterhorse
Georgia had supplied Grey.

“You
should shoe it,” she said. “If it comes up lame you’re going to be walking
back.”

“He’s
got feet like iron, Maggie. He’ll be fine.”

Maggie
examined his face. Grey saw the whites of her eyes had taken on a yellow cast
that he didn’t like.

“Are
you going to be okay, Maggie?”

She
laughed. “You should spend your worry on yourself.” She glanced away, eyes
settling on Ronald as he finished tacking up his horse. His breath steamed in
the cold air and he cursed as his horse circled, eager to be off and tired of
waiting.

“Try
to bring them back, Grey.”

“I
will.”

“You’ll
bring them back?”

“I’ll
try.”

She
turned and studied Mal for a long time, and shivered in the cold. She coughed;
three hard wheezing hacks into a closed fist. She wiped her hand and pat Grey
on the back. Maggie mounted her little Arab, who tossed his head fractiously as
she turned him and set off east into the rising sun.

Grey
watched her go, then went inside to say goodbye to Josie. The others waited.
She came out with Grey after a minute, her eyes red, and watched them leave
from the cabin’s porch. They headed south, their shadows stretching over the
matted brown grass on their right, elongate and writhing as they flowed across
the uneven ground.

Grey
chose the path, and he stayed high on the western rim of the hills flanking the
lake. They avoided settlements and traveled the old highway route at first. Far
below, on their left in midmorning they passed the long line of the bridge,
stretching across the waist of the lake to the Port. Boats were already at
work, fishermen moving in slow formation along the water. They kept on.

The
country was hilly, rocky and rough, equally split between tussocks of
bunchgrass and basalt outcrops and stands of big, red-barked ponderosa pine on
the south-facing slopes. Those that faced north were brushy with saskatoon
berries, thorny alders and the early green of thimbleberries. The trees here
tended to be fir or spruce, with cedars and aspens in the moist clefts of the
valleys.

They
were forced higher and off the highway as they headed south, where the
mountains flanking the lake pressed in and the slopes fell away in rust-brown
cliffs for hundreds of feet. Tan mountain sheep ran and hopped across the faces
of the cliffs like goats at play in a pasture. From time to time they could glimpse
the line of the old road at the base of the cliff, or the plumes of smoke from
cabins in the rare clumps of trees near the shore.

They
stopped and watered the horses at a creek in the afternoon. Early grasses and
weeds cloaked its banks, and they let the horses graze for an hour. The riders
ate smoked fish and a handful of parched corn, and set off again. There was
little talk.

They
camped that night on the high bench west of the crater that marked the south
end of the lake. The crater was perfectly round and nearly a hundred yards
across, the bottom filled with bright green water dotted with geese. A
devastated jumble of masonry and steel surrounded it, all that remained of the
little city of Penticton. Cottonwoods had spent decades reclaiming the area,
and their green-budding branches, still a week or two from unfurling leaves,
lent the wreckage a tinge of spring.

Ronald
spent a long time looking at it through Clay’s binoculars.

Sowter
turned out to have a knack for stories, and that evening he told one about a
cowboy and a bobcat that helped relax the group. Even Mal cracked a smile while
disassembling and cleaning the collection of pistols he carried. Georgia
watched him with a crease between her brows.

Grey
assigned watches.

“I
doubt there’s any chance of us being bothered until we get farther south, but
let’s not take that for granted,” he said as a few groans issued at the news.
Doc insisted he needed his beauty sleep, and that he couldn’t shoot anything
anyway. Clay pointed out he could see just fine, and Doc wound up on first
watch.

It
took Grey a while to get to sleep. He wasn’t the most natural rider, and he was
out of practice and feeling his age in stray twinges. When he did sleep, it was
dreamless.

The
Castle’s ground floor featured a huge cafeteria. The facility had been intact
and undamaged when Creedy had taken possession and with a few adjustments it
still fulfilled the same role it had for its builders.

The
gas ovens in the kitchens had been pulled out. Their never-rusting remains sat
in a heap in the weeds outside. Charcoal and wood grills and ovens - some
scavenged, most made from sheet metal - had replaced them. The rear door,
opening onto a concrete stair that lead up to daylight, remained open when the
kitchen was in use to exchange air and let smoke escape. The ceiling and walls
were stained yellow from years of greasy smoke, but there was no built-up soot.
Creedy insisted the kitchen staff keep the room as clean as possible and
punished the staff as a whole for the mistakes of any one. This evening a
spitted calf occupied the largest barbeque, built in the concrete foundation of
the old grill. It was turned by hand, and had been since that morning. A
half-dozen cooks scurried, making platters of meat, baskets of buns, fried
potatoes cooked in lard. There was no fresh fruit. It was too early in the
year, even for the traders who packed in from the coast, where a few ships
called year-round from southern ports. Jars of canned peaches from Castle
stores stood ready for dessert, though.

Oil
lamps and candles lit the dining hall, an L-shaped expanse with a raised
speaker’s dais in the corner where the two arms met. Red and white bunting had
been hung in loops on the walls backing the platform. There were seven long steel
tables with attached benches in each arm of the room. The tables were filled
with Creedy’s officers and representatives from his townships, along with their
entourages. Tonight, each table carried four tall candles, adding to the
illumination. Tablecloths of pale blue linen made from Oregon flax and woven on
handlooms at Salem covered every table.

The
crowd was mixed. Some wore thirty-year-old suits and ties, and escorted ladies
ranging from the prim and elderly to the barely pubescent, attired in dresses
hand-made or scavenged. Others wore reeking furs stained with smoke and blood
and grease and were unaccompanied but for their sidearms. Most looked like
farmers at a grange meeting, with white shirts, broad hats and dungarees.

Creedy
sat at the head table, dressed in his usual khakis, his hair neatly combed,
with Sam at his side in a slinky red dress. He watched his people with interest
as they interacted with the headmen, mayors or town elders of his little
kingdom.

The
dynamics appeared simple at first, but he enjoyed the subtlety of the real
dance beneath the obvious one. Bear Jackson, garrison commander near Walla
Walla, bulked hugely over a smaller man, speaking down into his face, frowning
thunderously. Creedy imagined the smaller man was a townie in Bear’s zone.
Smaller men were always at a disadvantage in discussion, Creedy mused. It could
be overcome, of course. Several of his commanders were women - often the best
of his troops - but they always had to overcome the disadvantage of size and
strength. Simple men postured and threatened and struck if balked. They made
decent sergeants; women, and complex men, found ways to apply pressure with a
word. He valued that far more. A case in point was Stephanie Hollis, diminutive
in her formal black slacks and short suit-jacket, pale hair in a tight braid.
Hollis was currently sitting one table over, flanked by her husband William and
her aide, whose name escaped Creedy. She ran the important wheat and oat
territories south of Spokane, and the representatives from her towns sat
quietly at her table, attentive and polite. Simple men like Bear would never
reach that level of control over their charges, which was why he would never
advance.

Of
course, if he thought he was about to, he’d be better suited for what Creedy
had in mind for him and his ilk.

Samantha
glanced at Creedy as he rose, and then turned her attention back to her dinner.
Bruising shadowed her right cheek despite her makeup.

Creedy
climbed the three steps and took a central position on the platform, clasping
his hand behind his back, head slightly lowered. He waited until conversation
stopped. It didn’t take long. He raised his head and smiled broadly.

“Good
evening, friends,” he said. There were a few good-natured responses. The crowd
had been well-fed and left to its own devices, and was in a good mood.

“This
is our eleventh annual meeting. I’m glad to see you all here, and I trust your
journeys were safe. I’ve always prided myself on supplying a safe environment
for travel and trade.”

There
was an approving murmur. Anyone who had argued that point with Creedy over the
years wasn’t present to say otherwise.

“While
we’ve made a civilization where wilderness held sway, most of you are aware
that there are changes coming; great changes. New players are arriving and we
may find our lives altered.”

That
had their attention. Even the whisperers stopped to listen.