Horizon (03) (31 page)

Cass drank in the sun and dug her fingers into the earth and breathed the good air and allowed herself to wonder if maybe she was more than the sum of her addiction and her sobriety, more than just Ruthie’s mother, if maybe she’d done her penance and suffered enough and deserved something only for herself. Even with the scars and the regrets, some of her spirit remained, and some of it was good, and some of it was worthy, and at least some tiny part of her bid to live came from these depths, from this place that had been there when she was born and hung in there during all the terrible years and survived the addictions and the bad decisions and the self-punishment.

And this part of her, this part that was not mother and that was not pilgrim or penitent or servant, this part wanted Dor. Wanted him savagely.

Smoke had been her lover, her salve, as she had been his.

Dor was her fire. And as long as she lived, she would burn for him.

“Dor…” She spoke his name softly, testing it, tasting it, as though for the first time, erasing for a moment all the history they’d shared, the chaos in which they’d first come together. Her heart raced with the thrill of recognition, and suddenly it was all so clear.

It seemed as though the earth itself trembled in response to Cass’s new knowledge, but then she realized it was the approaching horses pounding the earth with their hooves.

They crashed around the bend in a cloud of dust, Dor in the lead. When he saw Cass he reined in his horse, and Rocket reared and snorted to a stop. The others circled around, Nadir in the rear, and it took a second for Cass to realize that the bundle he had slung over the saddle in front of him was a body.

“Cass, what are you doing?”

“I just came to—”

“There’s no time, get up here with me.” Smoke made room for her in front of him. “We’ve got to get back to the others
now.
”

Cass stood frozen to the spot, searching their faces. “What? What happened?”

Dor guided his horse forward, in between the others. He leaned down and seized her hand, pulling her up as if she was weightless, and she scrambled onto the horse’s heaving, warm back, sliding into the saddle, pressed close against Dor’s body. She caught Smoke’s expression, his hand slowly falling to his side. He saw. He knew.

“They’re coming,” he said numbly. “Renegades, from the East. Like Nadir was telling us. They picked the same settlement Mayhew did.”

“We have to get there first,” Nadir said grimly.

“We’re going to help defend them?”

Dor wrapped his arms around her and spurred his horse into motion.

“There’s no one to help,” he said into her ear, his breath hot on her neck. “The renegades sent a team ahead. They burned the settlement and killed everyone inside.”

Chapter 46

THE RENEGADES’ ADVANCE team had actually killed all the settlers but one. As the Edenites scrambled to gather their belongings, Dor summoned Sun-hi to examine the woman Nadir carried on his horse. Sun-hi declared that she would probably live. The blow to the head that had knocked her unconscious had saved her; she’d been dragged to the center of the settlement and piled with the other bodies as the four men who attacked them soon after dawn lined up the people eight at a time and shot them, execution-style.

The woman moaned when Sun-hi probed the wound on her scalp, and winced when she wrapped it in bandages made from a torn shirt. “Janet almost got away,” she said listlessly. “She made it to the trees before they got her.”

Smoke and Nadir stood on the porch of the sturdiest cabin and Smoke whistled for attention. He described the horror that lay up the trail, the mismatched battle they faced.

“I know who these men are,” Nadir said, barely controlling the anger in his voice. “They were trouble back home. There are stories of things they have done, bad things. I do not know who they have convinced to come with them here, if they recruited others like themselves, but we must plan for the worst. They have already killed dozens of innocent people. They will not hesitate to kill more of them.”

“We could turn around,” Smoke said. “We could retreat down the mountain, reach our cars and be safely out of the area by the time these people arrive. We could keep looking for shelter elsewhere....

“But we will not do that.”

He waited a moment for his words to sink in, for everyone to grasp the scenario he painted. Cass knew she was seeing evidence of the talent that had made him such a good coach, his conviction and charisma.

“We will not retreat,” he repeated, and there was silence among the gathering. Everyone was riveted. “If we do not take this settlement for our home, odds are we won’t survive the spring. We’ve lost half our number so far, and conditions here are nearly intolerable for those who aren’t prepared. Yes, we will be living off the hard work of the slaughtered—at first. But I am not afraid to tell you that it is better for us to seize the spoils than for them to fall to murderers.

“Might does not make right, my friends.” Smoke paused again and searched the crowd, making eye contact with each of them. When he got to Cass he lingered for a moment, and the look they exchanged was tinged with a wistful sort of pain that she knew would only be cured by the passage of time.

And then he moved on. “But sometimes, the right can be mighty. We are in the right here. I have not known you long, but I think I have known you well. I’ve fought beside you, grieved with you, and now I have the audacity to hope with you.”

The applause started with a single pair of hands, echoing across the camp. Cass was surprised to see that it was Valerie. She had not returned to her headbands and her tentative smiles. She stood apart in her black clothes and her dark glasses and slick-backed hair, and a scowl so fierce Cass didn’t doubt she was looking forward to a fight.

When the applause died down, Smoke outlined the plan, such as it was. Get there first. Dig in deep. Shoot like hell and hold nothing back.

If the Edenites were disappointed with this bare-bones strategy, they didn’t let on. The procession set out, grim-faced and silent. The Easterners led the horses at the front. Steve and Fat Mike carried Dane and Dirk, and Twyla squeezed into the jogger stroller with Ruthie, Red and Zihna pushing it up the incline. Ingrid strapped Rosie to her chest in a papoose Valerie had rigged from a blanket.

Cass waited to take her place in the procession. People filed past until finally it was just her and Dor. She fell in step next to him, but they’d only gone a few feet when Sammi came racing back down the trail.

She was out of breath, unslinging her backpack and digging around inside it.

“Don’t say anything, Dad, because I don’t want to hear it. Only I thought you should have this.”

Cass knew the taped-together package of plastic bricks and wires was the real thing because of the way Dor’s face went utterly white.

“Where in the name of everything holy did you get this, Sammi?”

Sammi’s face looked like it was going to crumple. “I said don’t—”

“You don’t want to talk about it? That would be fine if you were late coming home from the movies, but this—shit, Sammi, this could have killed us all. There’s enough here to blow up this entire camp.”

“This was Owen’s,” Cass said. “Wasn’t it, Sammi?”

For a second Sammi looked confused, and then her eyes met Cass’s and cleared. Cass had no doubt Sammi had gotten the explosives from Colton, but whatever poor decisions the boy had made in the past, Cass felt that the time for punishing him for them was over.

“Yes,” the girl said shyly.

“But how—” Cass knew it was fear that raised Dor’s voice—not for the dangers ahead, but fear for his daughter, for the fact that she’d been ferrying this terrible load in her backpack. But Sammi would only hear the anger, and the fragile peace between them was not strong enough yet to withstand such a test.

“It’s not the time,” she said, taking Dor’s arm. “Look at me. Please.”

He did. She saw the indigo sparks in his narrowed eyes, the scars that started at his hairline and bisected an eyebrow. The fine lines that had appeared at his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

“Sammi did the right thing,” she said softly. “She was brave, and strong, and you are so lucky to have her.”

“All of that is true, and I wasn’t saying—”

“So thank her.”

Dor frowned at her for a moment, then turned back to his daughter.

“You’re—” He stopped, his voice cracking. “You’re my world, Sammi, I couldn’t stand if anything happened to you. Thank you for bringing this to me.”

“Oh—Dad.” Now she did cry, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and splashing to the ground.

“Go, go. Find your friends, and stay with them. Stay with them, no matter what, Sammi, you promise me?”

“I promise,” she mumbled, and kissed him on the cheek before dashing back up the trail after the others.

“For God’s sake, put that thing away,” Cass said, and she held his pack for him while he settled it into the outermost compartment. Then set it down and grabbed her hand, pulling her close. He circled his arms around her waist, but his touch was not gentle.

“Cass.” His voice was low and rough and he made her name sound like a threat. “You’re…”

He shook his head, and Cass understood that words eluded him, because her own thoughts were in disarray. Declarations of love were not for them. Gentle endearments would never pass between them. There would be no private names, no anniversaries. He would not sing her love songs or write her letters, and she would not be his helpmate, she would never wear his ring.

But they would continue to find each other as long as the fire burned within them, and Cass knew the fire was at the very heart of her, that it would not dim until her life was at its end.

“You’re mine,” he said, and then he kissed her, hard. His hands slid down to pull her against him and she felt her body respond, the heat inside her unfurling as she returned his kiss.

It was over in seconds. It was not the time—and yet it was always the time, and as they headed up the trail, late-afternoon sun filtering through the trees to dapple everything with enchantment, Cass wondered how she could have ever not known.

Chapter
47

THEY RESTED AT the same
clearing where Cass had stopped earlier. Ingrid nursed Rosie, while the
children played tag and Bart watered the horses.

When they started out again, the
broad plain was a welcome change from the steep climb. The sound of the
waterfall grew louder as they drew closer, and the air was chilly with mist.
The cold seeped into their clothes, and by the time they reached the bridge
they were thoroughly damp and miserable.

But the bridge itself was
nothing short of miraculous. It had never endured automobile traffic, since
the roads from the highway to the resort had never been built. The asphalt
here was smooth and pristine, the yellow striping fresh. Other than bird
guano and the litter of workmen’s lunches from long ago, nothing sullied the
surface.

Kalyan gave a whoop when he set
foot on the bridge, and the mood brightened perceptibly. There, on the other
side, was their future. They were so close now that it was tempting to
forget the battle they would have to fight to keep it.

Smoke and Dor and Nadir had
decided their best bet was to travel past the cleared space through the
thick forest to the steep face of the mountain, and make camp there for the
night. Only those who were armed—a dozen of them—would spend the night in
the settlement, hiding behind the framed structures, ready to defend their
claim to it when the renegades came back in the morning. Depending on how
many were in the renegades’ party, they would either capture them, kill them
or fight them. In the event that there were enough of the enemy to prevail,
even after being ambushed, then at least the other Edenites would have a
chance to escape down the mountain, circling back along the path that
bisected the falls. There was no guarantee the falls were passable, though
the snowmelt had barely begun; that was a chance they would have to
take.

The bridge was almost a
quarter-mile long, according to Mayhew’s notes, and as they walked Cass
alternated between staring over the edge at the breathtaking drop to the
boulder-strewn river rushing below, and the falls. As they drew closer the
falls’ force and volume seemed to grow and Cass became increasingly doubtful
about whether anyone could find solid enough footing behind the wall of
water to cross to the other side—especially a person carrying a
child.

She did not share these fears.
The crowd had fallen silent except for the gentle snorting of the horses and
the sound of their hooves; the children rested in the arms of those carrying
them. Sammi and her friends held hands near the front, all of them except
for Shane, who walked by himself off to the side. The girls tossed the
occasional pebble into the chasm beneath them, but otherwise they were
silent and serious.

When they had nearly reached the
other side, a sharp crack sounded all around them, bouncing off the canyon
walls and echoing back. Then there was another, and another—a bullet flying
a few feet from the crowd, and people screamed and ran for shelter along the
bridge’s sides, where a small overhang on the waist-high concrete walls
offered almost no protection.

“Where are they shooting from?”
Nadir demanded, frantically sighting along the forest in front of them,
which was dense and dark in the late afternoon. There was nobody there, but
another shot was followed by screaming, and Tanner Mobley fell to the ground
with a bloody hole ripped in his side.

“Cass, look,” Dor muttered, and
she turned to look back the way they’d come.

There, emerging from the
clearing on the other side, were men. A dozen of them, eighteen, twenty,
wearing camouflage and hunting jackets, all of them armed. They were racing
toward the bridge, and a couple of them with long-distance scopes were
shooting as they ran. Tanner moaned and spasmed as more bullets struck the
walls of the bridge.

Cass felt her entire body go
cold with terror. If the Edenites continued ahead onto the point, they would
draw the battle into the settlement. Running might delay the inevitable, but
the fact was that they were mostly unarmed, weighed down with children and
pregnant women.

If those who were armed took up
positions at the edge of the forest, sheltered by trees, they could pick off
their attackers as they approached. Cass had no doubt that between her and
Smoke and Dor and the others, they would manage to kill a few of them. But
what then? They had only the ammunition that they carried, and most of them
were barely adequate shots. Even if they took out half their attackers, that
left ten more who would make it into the clearing where the rest of the
Edenites would be waiting like sitting ducks. The inescapable truth was the
Edenites were insufficiently armed, unskilled and mostly untrained—mothers
with children, teenagers, ordinary citizens with the perplexing luck to have
survived more than most.

By contrast, the men racing
toward them looked as though they had been training for survival, as though
they were handpicked to kill: deadly, fit, lean and determined. Their shouts
carried across the expanse of bridge, guttural cries, terrifyingly
close.

Dor was unshouldering his
backpack. He lowered it gently to the ground, then knelt and started
unzipping it. “Smoke. Cass. Nadir. Take everyone with you—now.
Go.
”

“What are you going to
do?”

He pulled out the brick of
plastic explosive and set it on the ground with great care. He looked up at
Cass and for a second he went still, his eyes wide with emotion.

Then he looked away. “Go, damn
it, Cass, get the fuck out of here.”

“You heard him,” Smoke said.
“It’s the only way, Cass. Go.”

Nadir was already gone, shouting
ahead to the others, who were running as fast as they could, some of them
already off the bridge, scrambling up onto the grassy bank of the point. He
ran behind them, shouting encouragement, urging them to go faster. More
bullets flew around them, and ahead, a bright bloom of red appeared on a
woman’s back and she went stiff, falling slowly to the ground on her face.
The terrified screaming crescendoed.

“Come
on,
” Smoke yelled. It
was only the three of them on the bridge now, Dor working frantically at the
mass of wires and the pale doughy bricks. Cass looked beyond him, searched
out Red and Zihna, Ruthie in her father’s arms. There were the kids, Sammi
and the rest of them, and the young mothers.

The seeds of a new
community.

“No,” she said, the decision
made before she even considered the alternative. She would not leave him.
She would not leave Dor. “You go. Go on ahead. I’ll be right behind
you.”

“Go, Cass, I don’t need you,”
Dor muttered, but the wires slipped from his fingers and he cursed.
Frantically he picked them up again, pressing the ends between his finger
and thumb.

“Cass—” Smoke’s voice broke.
“Goddamn it. I’ll stay here with him. We’ve got it taken care of. Please,
for the love of God, just get the hell off this bridge.”

The men’s eyes met and Cass knew
they had come to an unspoken agreement, that they were both willing to
sacrifice themselves for her, for the others, for the future.

“Leads came out of the igniter,”
Dor said tightly, and Smoke nodded and took hold of the loose piece. Dor
twisted something and pulled, the two of them anticipating each other’s
moves. “Hold that—here. Steady…”

“No!”
she shouted, because without them…without Dor…there was no future for her.
“No, look, I can—”

More shots, and Cass looked up
to see that the men were terrifyingly close, close enough to make out the
red logos on their jackets, the muzzles of their guns. She dropped to the
concrete, saw that the wires were back in place, but the minute Smoke took
his hand away they slipped out again. Someone had to hold them in
place.

Smoke made a sound next to her,
a soft exhalation, and when she looked into his face it had gone completely
pale. “Cass,” he whispered. “Please.”

Something warm dripped onto her
hand, and she looked down and saw the blood, an enormous round splotch on
the back of her hand, slowly dripping down through her fingers.
No.
She looked back up
at his face and saw how his eyelids fluttered, how his mouth was twisted in
pain.

Smoke, whose face she’d first
seen on the broken pavement of a school parking lot in Silva. She’d been
broken, stinking, terrified, a thing of need, driven only to find her
daughter. But Smoke had loved her. He had helped her save Ruthie, but he had
also loved her back to life, his great gift to her, and if in the end it had
not been enough, it was not his fault, he had given her more than he gave
anyone in this world, more than he could ever give himself, and she would
never forget.

Tears filled her eyes even as
Dor cursed and wrapped the wires tightly around Smoke’s fingers and then
gently pushed the ends back into place. He knew. He
knew.
“Hang on, buddy,”
he said softly, and Smoke nodded, and then his eyes closed and Cass knew he
was beyond speech, but still his grip held. He held on.

“Oh God, oh no,” Cass sobbed,
and she kissed his face, his eyelids, his lips, and then Dor pushed her and
she got to her feet, already running, her legs moving like they’d never
moved before, Dor right behind her, pushing her still, his hand at her back,
making her faster, getting her there, saving her, and all the while she
whispered Smoke’s name and remembered that she had loved him once and would
always love him for what he’d given her, for the gift of loving her
first.

Cass’s muscles burned and her
lungs screamed and then it came,
then
it came—

The explosion was all sound and
blast and then a great shuddering quake below her feet, heat at her back and
grit pounded against her neck, her wrists, her face. But the end of the
bridge was still too far away. They were not going to make it, Cass saw the
truth reflected in the horrified faces of the people waiting, she heard the
ripping steel and crumpling asphalt behind her, the screams of their
pursuers, the blast of debris hurled against the rock walls of the
canyon.

And then the ground shifted
beneath her as the bridge split and canted toward earth. The sound was
deafening, the sound of hell itself, the air swallowed by the echoing blast,
and she fell, her knees cracking against the concrete.

So it was here she would die,
broken on the rocks next to the bodies of her enemies, only the very last of
the many deadly threats since the Siege, but at least it would be instant
and she would be washed clean in the freezing water of the river before her
body was deposited, lifeless and pale, on a gravel spit far downstream. It
would be consumed by animals, picked to the bones, dried to nothing while
far above, the new community took hold, Ruthie and Dor and Sammi and her
father and all the others she’d known, the imperfect people she’d loved,
sometimes badly but always with all of her heart.

And then she felt herself being
dragged again, her arm nearly pulled from its socket. Dor bellowed her name
and she scrabbled on the crumbling asphalt as a huge chunk of the bridge
split off a few yards away from her and fell toward the water.

She slipped back a foot,
another, and then miraculously her boots found purchase and she propelled
herself forward, holding tightly to the hands reaching for her, climbing
with bloodied fingers up the sloping, tearing edifice. Above them, the
bridge’s concrete footings began to separate from the earth into which
they’d been poured, like tree roots after a storm, tearing off chunks of
dirt and saplings with them.

She realized Dor was trying to
help her, even though he was about to lose his own grip, somehow he’d
managed to climb ahead and had one arm wrapped around an exposed root, his
feet kicking against the gaping earth, and still he was reaching for her.
Above him people screamed and reached for him, but he did not take his eyes
off her. She slid another few inches, nails scraping and breaking on the
crumbling surface, before she found her footing again and pushed herself
upward toward the rough poured concrete. It provided a handhold but too
late, too late, as the footings separated from the earth and seemed to hang
in the air for a moment before the entire bridge half slammed down into the
gorge.

Cass screamed and flailed
wildly, her hand brushing the feathery leaves of a wild honeysuckle vine.
She seized it and held on with all her strength, getting her other hand
around the branch as the bridge fell away beneath her feet and she was
suspended in the air.

She looked down, and knew it was
a mistake when she saw the bridge span split into pieces on the rocks, the
water frothing and geysering around the detritus. She thought a body bobbed
on the surface of the water for a second before disappearing beneath.
Smoke—oh God,
Smoke was down there Smoke was
dead he had died saving them.
Her hands
slipped on the vine and she realized the shrill screaming was coming from
her. Desperately she tried to pull herself up, her arms quivering with the
effort, but the vine tore away from the earth, flinging clots of dirt into
her face.

A thin network of roots was all
that held, the woody vine beginning to splinter at the base. And then strong
hands closed over hers and she let herself be lifted, dragged across the
muddy outcropping to safety. She lay facedown, heaving for air, exhausted
and aching, using the last of her strength to lift her chin and search for
Dor and there he was, on his knees in the dirt, he’d made it, they’d lifted
him to safety too, and she was weak with gratitude as he crawled to her and
took her in his arms and she lay there, cradled in his safety while he
kissed her hair and whispered her name.