Coyote Rising (40 page)

“No, go on. Let’s have it now.” I looked around, spotted the well
behind which I’d taken cover an impossible amount of time ago. Strange that I would find myself there again; I sat down on the wall, bunching the hood of my parka around my neck.

Robert took a seat beside me. “First off,” he began, “I want to tell you what a fine job you’ve done today. We would have lost more people if it hadn’t been for you and Kuniko.”

He was trying to say the right things, but only a couple of hours ago I’d pronounced Jean Swenson dead. Doctors might get used to the fact that they occasionally lose patients, but I barely qualified as a paramedic. Jean’s death made me sick to my soul, and I wasn’t ready to handle any well-meaning words of gratitude.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, and there was an uncomfortable silence. Not far away, the ruins of the Geary house smoldered upon the ground. The tree in which it had been built was still standing; blackwoods are as tough as they are large, and it takes a lot to destroy them. If only human flesh were as resilient . . .

“So what happened at the meeting?” I asked again, trying to change the subject.

Robert straightened his back, gave me the full rundown. Two houses were destroyed by enemy fire. The Geary and Sullivan families were moving in with friends until new homes could be built for them, but the Construction Committee informed the Council that it was unlikely that new tree houses could be erected within the next two months—i.e., the end of Machidiel, the last month of winter. A grain silo had also been destroyed; like the cabins, it could be rebuilt, but one-third of the autumn harvest saved for the feeding of livestock had been lost. The Farm Committee had been instructed to put the goats and chickens on half rations and look toward culling their numbers by slaughtering the older animals. That in turn, meant a reduction of food; we could only hope that we’d be able to hold out until we could plant new crops next spring.

Finger-pointing was inevitable. Some of the Council members were inclined to blame Rigil Kent—that is, Carlos and his brigade—for bringing the Union down upon us, yet Robert refused to hear any of it. He pointed out that the Union had been looking for Defiance for over two Coyote years now, and, despite all our precautions, it was only a matter
of time before they managed to locate our position. Luisa Hernandez would have ordered a raid even if there hadn’t been a resistance movement, he said, and in fact we should be thankful that Rigil Kent had captured a patrol skimmer last month; otherwise, we probably wouldn’t have been able to beat off the attack.

There was one bright point. Lew Geary had inspected the missile carrier—hearing that, I had to wonder; though his house had been destroyed, the man was still capable of examining the machine that did it—and determined that it could be salvaged. Even though its cockpit was riddled with bullet holes and one of its engines had been shot up, its launchers still worked, with eight rockets remaining in their magazines. Lew already had his people working on it, and they hoped that the skimmer could be restored to operating condition. To defend the town if—or, more likely, when—the Union returned.

And that was the question. When would they attack again? And what could we do about it?

“This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.” Robert idly tapped at the ground with a stick he’d picked up. “They know where we are. Sooner or later they’ll try again.”

“We need to fortify the town.”

“We discussed that. Sandbag emplacements, tiger traps. And now that we’ve got enough guns to go around, everyone is going to be armed.” He shrugged. “But I’ve got a feeling that they were just testing our defenses. Seeing how much we could take.”

“You don’t think they were serious?”

“Oh, they were serious, all right . . . to a certain extent.” He turned his head to gaze across the field where only a few hours earlier we’d fought for our lives. “But we know that they’ve received several hundred troops from the ship that arrived last month, along with heavy equipment like that missile carrier. So why didn’t they throw everything at us at once?”

“They were taking a poke at us. Seeing what we’re made of.” I remembered the bullies I used to have to deal with when I was in the youth hostel. The dumb ones came straight at you with their fists; if you could take them down the first time, then they’d leave you alone,
knowing that you’d fight back and it wasn’t worth getting a bloody nose. The guys you really had to watch out for, though, were the ones who prodded and needled you, seeing how much you could take, observing your weaknesses. Only then would they attack—late at night, when you weren’t ready for a pillowcase over your head and sawed-off baseball bat to your stomach. “I think I understand.”

“I thought you would.” Robert nodded appreciatively; he knew my life story. “Then you know our situation. Even if we arm everyone in town, we’re still on the defensive. That isn’t where you want to be if you have any hope of winning. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to take the fight to them.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got a plan?”

“Sort of.” His voice became quiet. “Nothing I’ve told anyone yet . . . or at least, no one who’s still with us. Tom knew, but . . .”

Robert stopped, looked away. Before his hand came up to rub his face, I saw tears in his eyes. As long as I’d known Captain Lee, this was one of the few times I glimpsed even a trace of deep emotion. Perhaps Dana, his mate and the
Alabama
’s former chief engineer, saw a side to him that we didn’t. To most of us Robert was intensely private, even enigmatic. Tom Shapiro had not only been one of his senior officers, but also a close friend. Losing him hit closer to home than he was willing to admit.

“I’ve got an idea, yes,” he said, looking back at me again with dry eyes. “If it’s going to work, though, I’ve got to know that we’ve got little to lose. As it is now, there’s too much in our way.”

“What are you saying?”

He let out his breath. “We’ve got to do something about the kids.”

As soon as he spoke, I knew he was right. I’d charged into battle, barefoot and with little more than a rifle to defend myself, only because I was afraid for Susan. If Carlos and I had been killed today, then our daughter would have been left an orphan, just as both he and I had been left without parents the first few days after the
Alabama
reached Coyote.

Susan had been the first child born on the new world, but now there were nine other children in Defiance. Among them was Tom’s son, Donald, born only a few months later; his wife Kim was not only a widow now but also a single mother. I’d tried my best to protect my daughter,
but taking out a couple of soldiers doesn’t count for much when a missile carrier is lobbing rockets at your home. And the neighborhood bully likes it when you’ve got one hand tied behind your back.

“You want to get them out of here?” I asked, and he nodded. “Got any suggestions?”

“In fact, I do,” Robert said. And then he told me all about it.

I went home and slept for a few hours. Night had fallen by the
time I woke up, and Carlos and Susan already had made dinner. Carlos warmed up some of the leftover stew; while I ate at the table, he took Susie to bed and read her a story. We’d been making our way through
The Chronicles of Prince Rupurt
—a generation of Coyote children were growing up with Leslie Gillis’s fantasy—yet I noticed that he skipped the scene where Rupurt fights the skeleton army. Susie had been very quiet all evening; she was ten years old by Gregorian reckoning, so she was very much aware that several of her parents’ friends had lost their lives that day, and she didn’t need to be frightened any more than she already was. When story time was over, I gave her a good night kiss while Carlos turned the lamps down, then we put on our coats and slipped out onto the porch to have a talk.

We could see lights glowing in tree house windows, hear muted conversations, and yet the paths and crosswalks were empty. There was a certain stillness I’d never seen before, as if Defiance was an injured animal, licking its wounds as it curled in upon itself. Not far away, we could see Lew and Carrie picking through the ruins of their home, their flashlight beams roaming across the wreckage as they searched for any belongings they might be able to salvage. From somewhere nearby, there was the sound of two flutes: Allegra DiSilvio and her companion Sissy Levin, playing “Amazing Grace” in duet as night closed in on town.

Carlos unfolded a couple of camp chairs and set them up on the narrow porch, and we kept our voices low so as not to wake Susan. I told him about what Robert and I had discussed a few hours earlier, how he thought it was wise to send the children away in case there was another
attack. I wasn’t surprised when Carlos told me that Robert had already broached the subject with him as well.

“I think it’s a good idea. If Susan had been killed, it would have been . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked at me sharply. “That’s why you went out there, wasn’t it? You were trying to protect her.”

“I know. That wasn’t part of the agreement.” I looked away. “It was either that, or . . .”

“I understand. It was just that . . .” He shook his head. “Look, when Rigil Kent has gone out, I’ve never had to worry about you and Susie, because I knew you were safe back here. But when I saw you today, I couldn’t do what I had to do, because I had to look out after you as well.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Let me finish.” He held up a hand. “I realize all that. You did what you thought had to be done. But you know, and I know, that the next time this happens . . . and there probably will be a next time . . . we can’t afford to worry about mothers and children being caught in the cross fire. If we have to . . .”

“You’re not listening to me. You think I’m against the idea. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Robert’s right. I think it’s time to get the kids out of here.”

“You do?” He peered at me through the darkness. “How much has he told you? I mean, about where we’d go . . . ?”

“He mentioned a new settlement up north along the Gillis Range. Shady Grove, near Mt. Bonestell. The Union doesn’t know about it yet, so . . .” Suddenly, I realized what he’d just said. “What do you mean, ‘we’? He asked if I’d be interested in taking the children up there, and I told him I would, but he said nothing about . . .”

“Robert’s playing both ends against the middle. Typical politician.” Carlos chuckled, then became serious again. “No one expects you to go off into the wilderness all by yourself. It’s almost eight hundred miles to Shady Grove. He asked me to go with you, and I told him that I would.”

“But . . .” This caught me by surprise. “What about everything else? Like, defending the town?”

“We’ve got plenty of people here for that. They don’t need my help.” He hesitated. “There’s more to this than you know,” he added. “I need to talk to some people up there.”

I was about to ask about that before I remembered something Robert had said earlier:
Sooner or later, we’re going to have to take the fight to them.
For the past two years, Rigil Kent had been waging guerrilla warfare against the Union. Occasional raids on Liberty and Shuttlefield to steal weapons and destroy shuttles, the sabotage of the Garcia Narrows Bridge . . . hit-and-run tactics, without any clear purpose except to encourage hope that the Union would surrender New Florida and leave those who’d fled to Midland alone.

For a while, it seemed as if our side was winning. Then the Union Guard raid on Thompson’s Ferry ended in the settlement’s destruction and the loss of many lives. Shortly afterward, the Union had established a military base on Hammerhead and an attempt was made to capture Carlos. Though the mission was unsuccessful, they managed to figure out where Defiance was located. Since then, reports had come in about Union attacks upon settlements along the Gillis Range: Forest Camp, on the Midland side of East Channel, was assaulted, and New Boston, near the Medsylvania Channel, had been hit as well. Shady Grove was one of the few towns that had remained untouched.

A few weeks ago, though, our satphone link to the new colonies had been severed, indicating that someone had boarded the
Alabama
, still in high orbit above Coyote, and pulled the plug on the transceiver. So now all contact with the other towns was either done by shortwave radio—itself a risky business, since those transmissions could be monitored from space and triangulated to their source—or through word of mouth, which was more reliable but much slower.

Carlos had assumed the name Rigil Kent in order to protect his identity if any of his small group of resistance fighters was ever captured. There weren’t many to begin with—Carlos, Barry, Ted LeMare, and a few others—but as their numbers expanded to include second-wave immigrants who’d fled from New Florida, his alias came to be attached to the group as a whole, and Carlos found himself in the role of a military
leader. Warlord of Coyote . . . almost sounded like a twentieth-century fantasy novel. Didn’t seem so funny now.

“Robert told me you’ve got something planned,” I said quietly. “What is it?”

Carlos didn’t respond for a few moments. I knew that silence: he was wrestling between a choice of how much he wanted to tell me and revealing no more than I needed to know. “We’re working on something,” he said at last. “It’s pretty big, and there’s going to be a lot of people involved. But more than that . . .” He shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t talk about it.”

Of course, there were good reasons why he couldn’t take me into his confidence. Nonetheless, we’d journeyed down the Great Equatorial River together, split up, patched things together again, had a child, gotten married . . . a lot of water under the bridge, and it stung that he couldn’t trust me. “Yeah, okay, sure . . .”