Sherwood Nation (51 page)

He stood where he was as the crowd pulled away. He was alone in the street, far from home. His hands hurt from the feverish clutch. He put the screwdrivers in his coat pocket next to the wig. Across his front was the pressure-memory of her embrace, her shoulders against his chest, her breasts against his solar plexus. He felt weak and bewildered and began the long walk home.

Cora wept at the sight of Sherwood Rangers and citizens streaming into her street. She stood with a hand on each of her child’s heads, fe
eling like they’d made it home safe. She’d steered her family through the disaster until help had come. And boy, had it come. Faced with an overwhelming number of forces from Sherwood, their city police border patrol quickly surrendered.

They watched cautiously out their window as the city police were marched westward along the old border of Fremont in a great line. They were pushed out without their vehicles and weapons onto the corner of Fremont and Martin Luther King Boulevard, ejected back into the city.

When the police were gone, Nevel and Cora and Jason and Luisa sat on the porch and watched. They waved to their neighbors and received ecstatic waves back. Nevel struggled for how to record this, the feeling of time rushing into the point of a pin. Like a moon landing, he thought, or some deliverance from disaster—everyone held their breath in the collective excitement and trepidation, united by its momentousness.

Jason wanted to know if the policemen being marched out would get shot. He sat halfway down the steps and banged his cast against the top stair to relieve some of the itch within. Nevel had heard Sherwood enter their play—whether it was cars or spaceships or dress-up, Sherwoodians were the good guys and their powers, were you to take it from Jason, were enormous and unstoppable.

“Oh heck no, they’ll be fine. But we’ll have to get fancy green outfits like these people,” he said.

“Really, can we?”

“I don’t see why not.”

The main contingent of frontline Rangers moved on and they watched as people from both countries eyed the border that was. Sherwood citizens worked on it now. They removed items that had blocked the way, cleaned up trash, and shooed away the border bloodsuckers that always lingered on the city side—bewildered vendors and smugglers and coyotes that did not know to which country they belonged now. The Sherwooders looked up at Nevel and his family on their porch and waved, stepping lively as they rolled up the cyclone fencing and removed the wood structures that held it in place.

“Well. The tunnel is—” Nevel said.

Cora patted his shoulder. “It’s all yours again, deary. You were a hero there for a little bit. I liked that.”

“Really, you did?”

“Yeah, it was funny.”

“Funny?”

“In a good way.”

“Like an action comedy? With the quips?”

“Yes, you were funny with the quips. You were quippy. And very dramatic.” Cora leaned in close and wrapped her arms around her children, and then pulled Nevel into the circle too.

They sat and watched the goings-on, as a steady stream of workers from Sherwood crossed over the border.

“Look.” Cora pointed as four bicycles rode by their house. They were water carriers. Each pulled a wagon behind with a stack of thirty or forty unit gallons. It was a truly glorious thing to see, those translucent bottles trailing behind them, the most precious of cargoes out in the open and out for delivery.

“They’re going to get robbed,” Cora said. “I don’t think the people here are ready for that yet.”

Nevel followed their progress down the street and saw all of his neighbors on their porches, like foreign exchange students at some function in their honor. Hesitant and out of their element, certain they’d confused some vital message. Some wandered off their porches and followed along, trailing the Rangers or water carriers to see what happened.

“What do you think the city will do?” Cora said.

“Will we get bombed?” Jason said and made a whistling sound and subsequent explosion.

“Would you like that, buddy?”

“Nevel,” Cora said.

“No! Of course not!” Jason said.

“Sorry—I really have no idea, but the important thing is that we’ll be safe. This is forcing the city’s hand. They’ll have to become even more like Sherwood. And that’s a good thing.” Nevel thought of the mayor, his already-enraged heart pumping angrily away in his chest. “I would not want to be running things in either place.”

“What? Why?” Jason said earnestly, wanting to dip into par with the conversation. Nevel grinned at the boy and thought how someday, provided they all lived through this, he would make a fine person.

“Remember everything Princess Leia had to do? With telling people where to be and in charge of things? And how people were always shooting at her? Well, I wouldn’t want to be Princess Leia right now.”

“I’d be Luke Skywalker!” Jason said. “Who would you be, Mom?”

“Luke’s mom.”

“And Luisa can be Darth Vader,” Jason said charitably.

“Douf Vado!” Luisa hollered with a pitch and proximity that made Nevel’s ears ring.

A woman biked up to the bottom of their steps, a great load of water bottles stacked up behind her, and wished them a good morning.

Nevel and Cora stood, wondering if there was some protocol or secret handshake they should know. This was their moment, that which they’d talked about for months. The iconic water carrier.

Cora descended the stairs and shook the woman’s hand. She had a pretty face and black hair and tattoos of what appeared to be gears and bicycle wheels and ships’ helms up both muscular arms. Jason and Luisa followed Cora down and stood, awed and interested, openly inspecting the woman as she chatted, looking for signs of her foreign Sherwood-ness.

“It all happened so fast, right? Here—” She pulled a sheet of paper from the back of her trailer “—this is the Sherwood welcome letter.” She handed the sheet to Cora. Nevel could see his wife wanted to devour it on the spot, to hug and kiss this alien woman, to hop on the back of the trailer and begin delivering water.

The woman ruffled the kids’ heads and said to Jason, “Hey, chico, how many people in your family.”

“There used to be five but our cat died.”

She made a sympathetic noise and encouraged them to come look at the Sherwood chickens. Then she handed each of the kids a unit gallon from her trailer. “These are for you. Careful getting up those steps.”

“There’s lots in there.” The woman gestured to the paper clutched tightly in Cora’s hands. “But for us, you and me—” She wiped her brow. “Phew, going to be a beautiful day. For you and me the most important part is the note system. You’ve got a sick kid, you tell me, you need some help or have some concerns or have an idea, you tell me. It’s not a democracy, Maid Marian is in control, but you’ve got a voice, and participation is recommended.”

“So I can write, so say I write I want to work on the farms?” Cora said.

“Great, yes—though here, I need you to fill this out to catalog your skills and interests.”

They took the skills sheet and Nevel had a moment of anxiety over how many blanks were under the question:
Skills in which you have some proficiency.
“Can I send a note now? To tell her—” Nevel said, “uh, write ‘tunnel’ question mark.”

“Maid Marian herself won’t necessarily read it.”

“That’s OK,” Nevel said, “let’s try it out.”

She shook their hands. “I hope you like Sherwood as much as I do. See you tomorrow.”

Cora and Nevel bickered about who got to read the welcome sheet first. They sat at the top of the stairs, each clutching a side, and read it together. Nevel admired the logo—a bow leaning against a unit gallon quiver, full of water vial arrows. Even in the use of whitespace and formatting, he knew they had someone competent running what he supposed was their marketing department. Perhaps he could work again, he thought. And then, with clarity, he realized that Zach would be a big part of that marketing engine.

He skimmed through the various headings, which included items from farms to outhouses, water ceremonies to weapon exchange, and finally he paused on “what system of government is this?”

Sherwood is a non-democratic temporary micro-government whose intent is to dissolve upon the cessation of the drought and drought conditions. It is a rational, intelligent, fast-acting emergency government for extreme times. We felt we could do better than the existing power structures and we believe that we have been proven right. Our citizens enjoy a substantially lower crime rate, more active government participation, and higher levels of health. Our children receive better schooling and our volunteer-run public works projects have no equal. While currently you cannot choose who is in control or what programs are run, we actively solicit your advice. Pending less severe circumstances we will continue to evaluate our philosophy. Why not enlist as a Green Ranger, water carrier, or in one of our many other positions and take an active role in this historic government?

The mayor paced the living room, circling the couch where Christopher sat, like a shark around a boat.

“What’s to stop Sherwood from expanding again tomorrow?” Christopher said.

The mayor went to the window and stared, Sherwood’s front line stood radically closer to him now. He could clearly see it,
like a tidal wave, consuming everything before it. “The Southeast is making a plea for her to take over there. They’re throwing a rally today in order to get on the news. Fucking
asking
for a dictatorship!” The mayor wanted to crush her, to kill her. Without her, Sherwood would die. Governments need leaders, dictatorships need them absolutely. “I can’t take control here. I need people loyal to me. Herr Commander, in his infinite wisdom, could go in there now and stop her, maybe, but who knows what he wants. Who do I have loyal to me?”

“You have me.”

“Yes. Yes, love.” The mayor turned to see if there was any facetiousness in Christopher’s expression, but he stared toward the dark TV. “We implemented some of her programs and some of our own, but we’re losing the popular war. And now we’re losing the land war.” He wondered how long it would be before some crazy fuck slipped past his faltering police force and put a bullet in him. Some fanatical Sherwoodian acolyte who wanted to prove himself to
her
.

Christopher remembered his original suggestion from when she had just come to power. That they should pull up with a couple of tanks and take her out. He feared the mayor was thinking this now, letting the options and possibilities of it rattle around his mind. He grimaced and knew that if he didn’t say it out loud it would turn and rot and fester there, the violence replaying in a hundred different fashions, the mayor hitting this game’s virtual reset button so that he could play it out again and again.

“So?” Christopher said. “What will you do?”

The mayor made a sound like a bear and slammed his fist on the sliding glass door, pulling the punch at the last second. The door thudded satisfyingly.

Christopher knew the unsaid topic was already in discussion between them then. They were discussing it and the irony pained him, that the mayor had taken up his early, naive suggestion while he now loathed the idea. There was a time some years ago where the roles of Maid Marian and Mayor Bartlett could have been switched. When the mayor was idealistic and charming and ambitious, when he could have run his own country and the people would have loved him. Before running a city had stifled him and tempered the idealism and made them both soft. Christopher knew that once the mayor had come to power he’d immediately begun to worry about losing it. It had altered them both. Power being that which wraps one in a blanket of security and specialness, boosting ego and privilege, pride and desire. He knew at times it became all consuming for the mayor, constantly reevaluating his position, seeing where he stood in relation to others. They could be happy without it, he thought, they could go back, but he wasn’t sure he could convince the mayor of such. The mayor continually made micro-adjustments to guarantee his position; favors granted to those with means, deals arranged with those with sway.

“What if,” Christopher said, “what if you offered to join her? What if the city combined with Sherwood? With the borders down you could joint rule. Perhaps she could—” Christopher was unsure how power could be shared and this, he thought, was the crux of it. “You could adopt her working policies, and obviously your working policies, and the entire city could be run that way. You’re not that different, right?” He searched his mind for some formation that made sense and finally an example from history came to him. “The Romans, they had two consuls, one for east and one for west? Similar policies and shared power?”

For a long time the mayor stood with his hands pressed against the glass door looking out over their balcony and the city beyond and did not move.

“She would not have me. They would not have me. She invaded! I was elected and she invaded.”

“What will you do then?”

“I will go in and get her,” the mayor said. “The Guard and I will. I have talked to Commander Aachen. She is a terrorist and a criminal. She will go to jail and there will be a trial.”

“If she is not killed.”

“We will try not to kill her.”

“Don’t you think it’s too late? To call her a criminal? She’s been operating for what, nine weeks? Three months? In the minds of the citizens of this city, there would be few that think of her as a criminal now.”

“Nevertheless.” The mayor stood still, his head pressed against the glass, pointed toward Sherwood.

“And how do you expect it to play out?”

“I expect to assume control of the entire city. She’ll go to prison. There will be chaos until we clarify the history of Sherwood, call out her crimes. Then favor will come back to us. After we have told our story and reestablished control, most will remember it only as a bad dream. They’ll remember what we tell them to remember. That it was a sad, desperate period in the history of our city.”

“If you do not kill her.”

“We will try not to kill her.”

“You want her to die.”

“I will not let my feelings get in the way of what must be done.”

“She’d become a martyr. There would be riots. The idea of her would become even more powerful.”

“I’m willing to take that risk. But you overestimate her, Christopher. She’s a coffee barista–cum-dictator. Besides, I don’t care about martyrs. I care about running the city.”

She felt sore from biking the entire day, up and down nearly every street in her new territory. Bea and her Rangers had followed along doggedly and Bea had been anxious with the tension of traveling through uncatalogued neighborhoods where they had no sense of the danger level. But these were her people now, and Renee wanted them to know she was theirs. Maid Marian belonged to everybod
y. She was their prize, their hope. She was their own personal army. Girls and boys between the ages of six and sixteen fell in behind her all day and followed along. People pumped her hand and gushed. She was bringing water and peace and a new way of life, she was welcoming them as citizens to the promised land.