An Introduction to Interdimensional VIllainy

Friday, February 12, 2016

Exodus Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve
The Wild Hunts

The snow that had begun when Owl's mom died had not stopped. The whole world had disappeared beneath a layer of winter. All sound and movement was muffled or curtailed by the huge drifts of snow. A heavy white net was draped across the whole town and everyone was affected by it.

The only constant sound with the crunch crunch crunch of booted feet pushing through the snow. This was the dead of winter now, and everything was crushed beneath the weight of the season.

I've never lost a parent. I know Wolf lost his mom years ago. But I've never felt it myself and watching Owl go through it was odd, like looking through a window.

Owl had to stay with his dad at the trailer park. Owl didn't want to, but when you're thirteen adults make you do what they want.

They cleaned out Owl's house. Owl got to collect a bunch of stuff and then watch as everything else was loaded into trucks and confiscated by the Provisional Council. They took his mom's hunting rifles and bows and the food they had stored. They took her camping gear and the big containers of stored water. They dug up the root vegetables that she had kept in the ground to help keep them fresh longer and put them with the other stored food supplies.

I helped Owl move his stuff over. His Dad looked really apologetic the whole time.

"I know that this ain't ideal boy. But this is how it is. We should have run. I told you, but I should have done it myself. I didn't, and we didn't and now we've lost her. And so its just us. We got to pull together to get through this."

"Are you going to stay sober?"

"I'm going try for while, and then I ain't gonna have a choice. I don't see anyone making new booze for a while at this point. And with any luck, by the time that hits I'll be dry and can tell the booze I don't need it anymore."

"It's been so long since I've seen you sober, I don't even know if I know what you're like sober."

"I was a lot like you."

"that scares me Dad."

"Scared me too. You can't imagine looking at your son, and seeing him be so much like you, and knowing that you just aren't built to live in the world you got to live in. It's like reading some old time fairy tale where you know everyone is gonna die."

"I do know what it's like dad. Because I watched my dad fall apart, and had to sit there wondering every day if that was what would happen to me."

"Well, now that ain't gonna happen. We have a different problem. We lost your mom, because we weren't able to get a handle on things. We don't have to lose anything else."

“Well,” I ventured quietly. “It isn’t just you guys. Its us too.”

Owl’s Dad looked up, surprised. Like I said, people forget that I’m around, “I forgot you were here. That was rude. What were you saying?”

“I was saying it isn’t just the two of you. Before things got bad, a friend of ours, well more of a, well, somebody we listen to, said that we were a warrior tribe. The six of us, I mean. And now Russell is gone, and your mom is gone and nothing is like it was before. But we’re still here, and you know. If we ever needed to be a warrior tribe, we kind of need to be a warrior tribe now.”

Owl's father shook his head, “Big city folks don't take too kindly to tribes. They run different, you know. They're like a different game altogether.”

Both Owl and I looked up surprise.

“What do you mean dad?” Owl asked, “How are they a different game?”

“Everything they do is different. Tribes use a different rule book and play a different game. They operate on a smaller scale you know? A human scale, one hundred to two hundred people. Even a little town like Safehope Bluff is too big to be a tribe, its full of lots of little groups about the same size a tribe would be. And because they're all human sized they got a tribal loyalty- like the union boys do. But size is only part of being a tribe.”

“Tribes have a really interesting rule- I don't know that its official anywhere, but the guys who study tribes and write about them call it something fancy; radical equality, no that ain't right. I think it's radical egalitarianism. Either way, summed up real simple, it means nobody starves unless everybody starves. ”

“So, tribes have rules against hoarding as well?” owl asked.

“More like they understand how things work. If everyone hunts and only one person gets anything, the not sharing means that the others aren't going to share on the days when you have a bag hunt or a poor harvest or whatever.”

“Okay, but how is that different that this?”

“The difference between what's going on now and this is that no one person or group is enforcing it, and nobody gets to decide that some people are worth more. And in most cases people have their own hunts and often their own gardens. They share as needed, you know? They don't do it, 'cause its nice or because somebody with a gun is making them. They do it because a tribe is all about human scale- everyone in the tribe is invested, committed like, to everyone else's success. So if you aren't getting enough food to work or hunt effectively, then they're going to help you. And you know that if you don't help them on their bad days, then it hurts you in both the short run and the long run. No guns- just understanding of how things work. But it doesn't work if it's not on a human scale. Bigger than two hundred people and you start to lose it. That's why this town is all factions, its too big.”

“So it wouldn't work for the whole town?” I asked.

“Not all together. You look at the great tribes of the plains, like the Sioux. Those big groups were collections of tribes connected by alliance and stuff. A tribe is kind of like a town, only a different scale and purpose, and you know, that bigger grouping is more like a nation. If it was going to work like a tribe for the town, it would need to be a bunch of tribes. What's happening right now is one group- is controlling the others and keeping them weak so that they can hold the best resources.”

“So how to make a tribe?”

“I've no idea on that one. Generally you're born into it. It's not so easy to join a tribe, and I think it'd be even harder to make one.”

We were thinking about this, when Raven and Viper came running up to us. They stopped and Viper put her hands on her knees and bet over catching her breath. Raven looked at Owl and then pointed at Frisk as the dog lay on the steps to the trailer.

“Mr. Wolf is doing a sweep for animals that haven't been put down. He's noticed that you never applied to have Frisk listed as a working dog. He mentioned it to Viper and Me when we were helping with food rations. He said he owed to you to deal with it personally after what happened to your mom.”

Owl's dad looked at his son, “You got any ideas boy?”

“I do,” Owl said with a nodd. “Everyone else, get in the tool shed with Frisk and keep him quiet. Dad and me will handle this. Dad I need a hammer, nails, some small boards and a shovel.”

I ran over and picked Frisk up. Terriers are big, but Airdale Terriers are the biggest of the terriers. And Frisk thought this was a game and he wiggled something fierce as he waggedhis tail and tried to lick me. I managed to carry him to the tool shed and the three of us scrambled in. I looked back and saw Owl's dad digging in the garden while Owl hammered something together on the lawn.

We hunkered down and waited. After several minutes of shushing and calming Frisk I saw Mr. Wolf walking up the road with a hunting rifle over his shoulder. Owl and his dad had finished just before Mr. Wolf came around the corner. And as he got close, the three of them began to talk. Inside the tool shed, we huddled with Frisk, watching and listening to the conversation. Frisk was wiggling. I don't know if he knew what was going on, but he could definitely sense the energy and the tension in the air, and it was making him antsy as well.

“We should have left him at the cabin.” I whispered.

“His mom is dead, it was comforting for him to have Frisk around.” Viper whispered back.

“Let's hope that comfort doesn't cost Owl another family member.” I whispered.

I just kept hoping that he wouldn't bark or make any noise would give us away.

"I know this isn't pleasant,” Mr. Wolf said. “But you're a man now and I know that you can handle it. Your dog, it isn't a working dog- it can't pull its weight. We're going to have put it down."

Owl didn't say anything. He looked at the ground and clenched his fists white.

"I can do it. Where is the dog?" Mr. Wolf said.

Owl didn't look up, he just pointed over to his father's garden. Mr. Wolf looked where Owl pointed, taking in a ragged wooden cross pushed into a pile of freshly turned earth that stood out against the snow that lay everywhere else.

Mr. Wolf looked back at Owl after a long minute.

"You handled it yourself."

"Yes, sir." Owl said and nodded. "My dog, I should do it."

Mr. Wolf nodded.

"Well said, and well done."

He paused and then continued, “Things are going to get tougher. It's clear from... recent events, that simple appeals to common good and even common sense won't work to keep the social fabric together. The Council will be declaring Martial Law for the duration of the crisis. Things will became difficult, choices will become difficult. This is a good sign. You're able to make difficult decisions, good job.”

Owl nodded, and Mr. Wolf nodded to them both and headed out. I noticed that he hadn't even said 'hello' to Owl's dad.

Just like Mr. Wolf warned us, the next day the council declared Martial Law. It was a meaningless statement looking back. We had been under martial law since the Raven's parents led the protest, maybe earlier. But with food running out, and people getting sick, I think they wanted to make their authority official to prevent further riots. That much worked, their weren't any more riots, but rumors began to run rampant. I heard rumors of people from Sumter’s Ridge who have killed and eaten people. I heard rumors of the Ogre Lady come out to hunt, which was a really weird thought after the incident in the woods. And of course the rumor that food rations were our dead pets being fed back to us was the rumor that refused to go away. The Dissenting Voice told us that national governments everywhere had become powerless, governments in name only. Bart's articles talked about corporations acting like governments in places where they had corporate headquarters. Big services were apparently getting spotty. Bart's articles wondered aloud how much longer we would have electricity at all.

The Council designated the Community Center as a 'Relocation Center', and anyone who wasn't able to manage on their own under the new restrictions was assigned a folding metal bed or cot there. Large numbers of elderly people were moved into a relocation center to help conserve electricity, heating, and distribute food more easily. But I couldn't help but notice that it also helped to more easily control people.

Owl hunted pretty much every day now, so did his dad. They didn't generally hunt together, the idea was to maximize their range and their chances of finding something. Normally we went with Owl. And normally he used his rifle if he was hunting big game, and the throwing sticks if we were after rabbits. This time he had the rabbit sticks out as we began our sweep of the mountain woods.

"We're hunting rabbits?" Viper asked.

"We're hunting pretty much any small game."

As we were talking, Frisk's ears went back and he wuffed softly then charged a nearby rock outcropping. Owl turned immediately to look at Frisk's  target, and as Frisk closed with the rocky area a bird looking a lot like a white chicken speckled in brown exploded out of brush in a rush of beating wings.

Owl was already moving, hurling the the stick with a side arm throw kind of like a frisbee. The bird was going up surprisingly fast; but Owl must have known that, because the rabbit stick whirled up and caught the bird hard across the back of its wings. The bird crumpled in the air and dropped back to the rocks. Frisk immediately grabbed the bird by its neck and trotted back to Owl as though it had been his kill.

"Wow! Did you guys see that?" Owl grabbed my shoulder, "I knocked that Ptarmigan right out of the the sky. That was awesome!"

"Ptarmigan?" Viper asked.

"It's a grouse. They're related to chickens and turkeys and pheasants." Wolf said, "My dad hunts them, but normally with a rifle."

"And that's hard to do with a throwing stick?"

"It's really hard to do!" Owl said excitedly, as he knelt by Frisk and quickly began to dress the bird. He grabbed the back of the bird and then pushed two fingers into the a soft spot in the neck area and held the front of the bird from there. I noticed Viper make a face, but she didn't look away. Raven looked sad, but not creeped out. Wolf on the other hand, looked a little creeped out.

Owl braced himself and pulled, and I watched as the ptarmigan tore into two surprisingly neat pieces. Owl immediately pulled out the innards and organs from the bird and put them into a separate bag. Viper gave him a weird look.

"Are we eating those?" She asked.

"Frisk is, once I get rid of any bones that could hurt him"

Owl continued working. He pulled the legs from the back of the bird and removed the feathers. The feathers came off a lot easier than I was expecting. Owl pulled his knife out to cut of the feet, which went into Frisk's bag. Owl peeled feather off the breast meat. he put the leg meat and breast meat into a separate bag, and the feathers and remaining corpse into a third bag.

"Nothing wasted." He said to Wolf's puzzled look as he stowed the last remains.

"So now what?" I asked.

"We see what else we can get"

What we got turned out to be two eastern cottontail rabbits, one squirrel, and two pigeons on the road leading back to town.

As we headed back along the road, a series of snapping twigs startled us. We crouched down low and listened.

Everything was silent.

“Should we go investigate?” Wolf asked.

“I don’t know where it came from, too many echoes.” Raven said.

"No, we are not going to split up and investigate noises in the dark. That is asking for the villain or the monster to pick us off one by one." I said in a whisper as we listened to the sounds in the forest.

A second set of snapping sounds erupted in our ears. And we waited. After five more minutes, and with no more sounds, we straightened back to our feet. Owl scanned around, looking through the trees. Finally we continued on through the cold air with Owl’s kills.

Owl suddenly went very still. His breathing slowed. Frisk tensed and dropped low to the ground. The rest of us kind of stumbled to a halt as gracefully as we could. I looked in the direction Owl was looking.

For a moment I couldn't tell what Owl was looking at, and then I saw the deer. I didn't really know about deer, even after the hunt with Owl’s Dad, but it looked big. It was maybe fifty feet away, standing as still as owl, almost hidden in a pile of dry dead brush. It's antler swept back from its head with two point on each antler.

As we all stood deadly still, I realized that Owl had drawn his hunting rifle slowly up to his shoulder.

The gun shot sounded like somebody had taken the sky and broken it over their knee. The deer hit the ground and kicked once and then was still.

"I did it," Owl breathed softly.

"You've shot deer before." Viper said.

"Yeah, but I put that shot right between the tear ducts, like pros do. That was the best shot that I've ever made."

"No way." Wolf said, impressed.

"Yeah way." Owl said. “ And right after that throw for the Ptarmigan, it’s like today is my day.”

"Let's go see." I added.

Raven looked unhappy, "I hate having to watch something go from a living animal into meat. I'm okay with it being meat. and I'm okay with it being an animal. But, I feel like a monster if I'm watching or helping with the middle part."

"Wouldn't it be worse if we wasted it?" Owl asked.

"I didn't say it made sense. I just don't like it."

"So did you want to stay back here?"

"No, I'm coming."

As we approached the deer, we heard the snapping of branches in the bushes again, and three men pushed through the trees. All three were big men. They were dressed in dirty overalls and plaid, practically wearing a uniform to designate them from Sumter's Ridge. The man in from had a huge drooped moustache, a shaved head and a large beer belly. Despite the extra fat, he looked strong with arms that had seen a lot of hard work. The second man was tall and thin, but had a look like a hungry coyote that made me think he was stronger than this thin arms suggested. His hair was long in back and greasy and his eyes watered. He looked like he was ready to infect us all with something unpleasant. The last guy was short, about a head shorter than the other two men, but broad across the shoulders and with big frightening hands. He had short blonde hair and uneven stubble and an unpleasant grin.

Frisk was on high alert, with teeth barred and I could tell from body language that everyone else was tense as well.

The man in front addressed Owl, "Good shot kid, right between the eyes."

"Thanks," Owl said slowly, his eyes darting back and forth between the fallen deer and the men in front of us.

"You did a good job bringing him down, so I think we can take it from here.

"That's okay," Owl said with a very deliberate dead pan voice, "I don't need any help."

"Well you're going to get it either way. And you're going to like it." The skinny man said.

"Earnest, show the kid the way home." The Man with the moustache said.

The short broad shouldered man nodded and stepped forward. Owl dropped his gun into the snow, I assumed, not wanting to shoot a human being. He reached behind his back, but the man got there first and punched him hard in the stomach. Owl doubled over, and then dropped to his knees. He made a choking noise and then leaned forward and threw up.

Wolf was moving before the rest of us could react. He shouldered into the smaller man and the two of them went tumbling into the snow. The skinny man stepped forward while the rest of us were frozen and kicked Owl in face, knocking him backwards. Owl landed on his back with blood on his face.

Frisk snarled and launched himself at the skinny man. The airdale terrier covered the distance in less time than it took the skinny man to realize Frisk was moving. Frisk didn't bite the leg, or even the arm like a police dog. Owl had trained Frisk, and Frisk sank his teeth into the skinny man's groin and bit down hard. The skinnny man sank to his knees screaming in pain.

I watched the scene like it was happening somewhere else, maybe on television on the new channel. The man with the moustache looked at the skinny man screaming on his knees, and then looked over to see Wolf on top of the smaller man raining punches on the man's face, and then back to frisk and the skinny man.

Owl struggled to his stomach, a crimson star painted across his face. He pulled his arms and legs under him and wobbled to his feet. The big man with the moustache shook his head, and stormed over to Frisk and the skinny man. The big man grabbed Frisk by the skin at the back of the dog's neck and pulled him into the air, forcing Frisk to let go of the skinny man's groin.

"Stupid vermin dog," He said, and then twisted his body and flung Frisk under hand over the edge of the nearby embankment. I could hear Frisk's yelps of pain, and then they stopped and could only hear the sound of Wolf battering the smaller man.

Owl was staring over the embankment in disbelief when the big man picked up Owl's Rifle. He pointed it into the air and fired a shot.

Wolf stopped and rolled off the smaller man, who didn't move.

"We're taking the deer, and we're taking your rifle. Because we're gentleman, that's all we're doing. Be really really grateful we're gentlemen. Earl, get your brother and carry him. I've got the deer."

"But what about my balls, Ed?" the skinny man, Earl, asked as he clutched his groin.

"You weren't using them anyways, now get your brother."

As soon as they were out of sight Owl threw his backpack to the ground and charged over to the edge of the embankment and began to pick his way down. The snow collapsed underneath his feet and his legs flipped up and he careened down about ten feet until his leg caught on a fallen tree branch, which gave Owl enough time to grasp and hold onto a pair fallen logs.

Viper grabbed a length of rope from Owl's backpack and looped it around a tree and then lowered one end to Owl so we could pull him up. It wasn't too hard with Wolf helping. Owl shook his leg and rubbed the spot where he had hung as he stared over the embankment.

"We have to go down there." He said.

"Bud, that is too steep and the snow is hiding all kinds of nasty. There is no way we make it to the bottom in one piece."

"But Frisk..."

"Don't think about it. If Frisk is alive, he'll find us."

"And if he's hurt?"

“We can’t help him. Because we’ll end up hurt going down after him. Look at that slop, look at the rocks.”

“But he’s my dog.”

“And he fought for you bud, and he fought hard. But we can’t help him.”

Owl's dad had got several fish by ice fishing at the lake that day. So the loss of Owl's deer didn't mean they had both come up empty.  But the loss of Frisk drove the wind out of both of them. Out of all of us really. But we kept pushing on.

I wondered about the relocation center, and how they were deciding who needed to go there. Everyday new people were sent there. Nobody was given reasons beyond being told that the council had assigned them a bed. It was impossible not to see it coming. One by one every person who lived alone was assigned a bed at the relocation center. Elderly first. But eventually I didn't know any people who still lived alone- they all bunked at the relocation center. Then single parent families were assigned the beds. And by the time my mother told us that we were being assigned beds at the relocation center, I almost wanted to ask what took so long. But of course I knew what took so long. People loyal to the Council were the last people to be sent.

When we arrived at the center with our one backpack of possessions each we found a huge crowd of people. It looked like most of the remaining people in the town were all being assigned beds at the same time. I saw the others and we formed up with our families. The whole thing felt like something out of the wrong sort of history book, and familiar faces helped.

As we entered the parking lot, Owl tried to look around the mod of people to get a look at what was happening up near the front. The guard with the Hello Kitty sticker saw Owl craning his neck around and stepping back and forth trying to see. The guard stepped up and pushed Owl back into the mass of people without a word. Owl stumbled and his foot fell into a huge pot hole near the entrance to the parking lot and he almost fell. His dad grabbed him at last minute, stopping his fall.

"Thanks dad," Owl muttered.

"I ain't going to let you fall, not anymore, not if I can help it." his dad answered.

Mrs. Winter was standing on a small podium and once we had quieted down, she made a brief speech.

"They thought that they could bring the world down a manageable number by way of this crisis. But I think the conspirators have failed. I suspect that in the chaos, many small pockets of truth have appeared, and many strong leaders have seized the moment, just as we have. This will, I think mark the end of the New World Order." Mrs. Winter said as we began to form a line.

"Her crazy is showing." I whispered.

"The scary part is that people are starting to believe her crazy," Owl said.

"Hungry people are a lot easier to convince." Raven added.

As we filed one by one into the Community Center I realized that people were being handed a strip of cloth with a clip on it. The people were attaching the clip to a loop of their belt. As I got closer I noticed a number written in heavy black felt marker on the cloth.

When it was my turn I was informed that the number was my identification number, to be used for rations and finding my designated sleeping area.

I was told that my number entitled me to rations, which were available twice a day, in military 'MRE' Meals ready to eat bags or from the cafeteria cooks. I was told that only adults were allowed outside the relocation center without special permission. Children, I was informed, were to be restricted to the 'public areas' of the relocation center for their own protection.

The whole thing was mechanical and automatic feeling. I felt like an android on an assembly line. The whole process was lulling me into a stupor, when an incident involving Skunk caught my attention several rows ahead.

Skunk was right at the entrance to the main sports hall in the community center, which seemed to be where everyone was being ushered.

I hadn't really been paying much attention to anyone outside the group, but I heard the order clearly.

"Please surrender any weapons on your person before proceeding."

I watched as Skunk's pocket knife was confiscated. And then, I watched as Skunk looked around and spotting us, pointed Owl out to the guard who had confiscated the knife. The guard walked immediately over to Owl.

"I have been informed that you have a concealed weapon on your person. Surrender it immediately."

Owl grimaced, and then rolled his eyes, "It's not concealed. It's in a belt sheath."

"You will surrender the weapon immediately."

"I am, I have to unhook it from my belt."

Owl was wrestling with the clasps that attached the sheath to his belt. The guard however, clearly wasn't interested in waiting. He grabbed Owl by the shoulders and twisted him around so Owl's back was towards the guard.

"Ow! Come on! I'm doing what you said!"

The guard slapped Owl's hands away from the sheath. He grasped the sheath and pulled it sharply loose, and I could see that he had damaged the clasped by pulling as he had.

"Thank you for you cooperation. A note will appear on your file." The guard said, and turned and marched off

Owl picked up a bit of the broken clasp from the ground and put in into his pocket.

"Clearly, they don't want us able to defend ourselves." He said.

The first time I woke up in the relocation center, I gagged on the smell of sweaty people and baby diapers, and winced at the sound of people and people and people talking crying arguing and screaming. I didn't want to open my eyes, but I didn't feel comfortable in the relocation center if couldn't see. I didn't feel comfortable here when I could see, it was unbearable when I couldn't. Too many thing could go wrong around me when I was here.

I could hear the flies circling the snoring adults and the whining of the dogs that had been allowed to stay at the relocation center.

I opened my eyes. The whole center looked beige and ugly and broken hearted. People were milling around aimlessly. Some people walked around as though they needed to feel like they had somehwere to go. Other people were leaning on table or stacks of folding chairs and talking as though they were sitting on a porch watching the sunset- like they were tring to force things to be normal. Other people hugged themselves as though attempting to alternately comfort themselves or shield themselves from the reality around them. The room buzzed with crowd sound, like the people were flies over a dog skunk on the highway.

I sat up and stretched. The metal folding bed was not comfortable to sleep on and the blanket was not warm in the large laregly unheated room.

The Relocation Center was in the gymnasium at the Community center and spilled into the iceless hockey rink. Tables were set up with letters of the alphabet on them and little folding metal beds on wheels were everywhere. People slept or sat on the beds and cried quietly for the most part, while other people in reflective orange vests handed out rations and other people in black armored vests watched like everyone were criminals.

The high ceilings made everything echo and meant that people were only able to sleep once exhaustion was stronger than the constant sound of people crying echoing off the ceiling. Staying in the Relocation Center felt like waiting to die.

One of the first things I noticed, once I got used to the movement of people in the Relocation Center, was Skunk. He was wearing a reflective vest that indicated he was working. And as I watched, I realized that he was responsible for handing out food cards necessary to get your daily rations.

And as I watched further, I realized that he wasn't giving everybody food cards. Kids who came up alone were being denied cards. Skunk had found a new way to be mean, he was the gatekeeper of the food now.

Mrs. Winter had a desk set up in the front on the podium with a set of cabinets and big white boards on rollers with maps and notes. It looked like a stage or movie set: something fake that existed only to look convincing. I noticed that there was a little stone paperweight on Mrs. Winter's desk. It was of a wall with ancient drawings of people and snake headed things. It looked kind of like Ancient Egyptian stuff, but not quite.

"The annunaki, the source of the divine right of kings, our secret rulers, and my ancient enemy." Mrs. Winter said, noticing my gaze.

I didn't say anything. What did you say to that? It weirded me out, that she wasn't hiding this stuff anymore. I gues she felt that she was in control now and didn't have to hide. It weirded me out more that it seemed like she was right.

The center had a big projection screen television set up in one corner. I immediately wondered why they were spending electricity on something like that. I watched the TV, and saw that it was playing news footage.

The footage looked as though it bits of news from the last several months, and it was creepy. I saw riots in Eastern Europe over oil and food shortages. I saw footage talking about a bunch of countries whose governments had been kicked out or overthrown, or simply disappeared, as the army or rebels or rioters took over of just kicked everything down. I saw footage of war, with lots of burned dead bodies in lots of different deserts. I saw food lines, again and again. I saw articles about nobody being able to afford to drive. I saw and I saw and I saw.

Nobody was coming to help us from the outside world. We were alone. The spiderwebs Professor Tuttle talked about had broken, and everyone was trapped in their own little world, in their own little war, in their own little hell.

Time passed horribly slowly in the center. There was nothing to do except get your food rations and occasionally get assigned to some sort of labor detail to strip something useful out of this house or that shop. I discovered, weirdest of all, that the union had restarted the Pulp and Paper Mill's gas generator. That was where they had got the electricity to continue running the parts of town that were still running. There was no electricity coming in anymore. The mill's generator had been hastily converted to run on a broader range of fuel- pretty much anything that could burn. It was apparently very inefficient, but it kept the lights on. They were apparently feeding the wood from whole houses into the factory to keep things going. It was like making sacrifices to some horrible monster.

I don't know what everyone else did to pass the time. Mr. Wolf kept taking us kids with us, mostly Wolf, Owl and myself, to show us how he was managing things. The girls stayed quiet, and I think were trying to keep under the radar. Parents were a lot more unsettled by everything I noticed. a lot of the little kids cried pretty bad the first first nights, but then they adapted.

I remember coming back from a run to the mill with Mr. Wolf and Owl to find Owl's Dad standing out back of the ice rink. Owl looked at his father cautiously. The man was crying gently with a bottle in his left hand and can of beer in the right.

"How did you get alcohol dad? They ration that stuff worse than food."

"I hid it crazy good. This is mine, and I needed it what with everything that's been happening. This stuff helps me deal with this stupid broken place."

“You promised you’d stay sober dad.”

“I promised, I’d try until there wasn’t any left to get me drunk with. I couldn’t manage. I wasn’t a very good husband all things considered, but I should have smartened up and got her out. But I didn’t and sometimes that’s a little hard to handle sober.”

"Does it really help with the pain dad?" Owl sounded scornful, but also a little curious. And that worried me.

"No, you don't boy. You don't get to imitate your old man on this thing. I fit too many stereotypes boy, you know that. I'm why you don't show any pride in your heritage. I know that. But this is the last of what cities have to offer me. I'm all dry after this. I wish you had listened closer to me about your mother, but I'm your father and I should have been there myself. And I wasn't. And it breaks me open that I wasn't. And I wish so bad I could keep hiding in a bottle, but I'm almost dry now and I'm going to have to do things alone. But no, the alcohol doesn't make the pain go away, just hides it for a while and let's it gather strength while yours falls away. Hiding only works for so long, and then you have to act."

“So what am I supposed to do, Dad?” Owl asked, “I’ve lost mom and I’ve lost Frisk. And I’m stuck here. What am I supposed to do?”

Owl’s dad pulled himself up and looked his son in the eyes, “You run. I told you this before, and I’ll tell you again. You see this? They’ve done this before and they’ll do it again. We didn’t see much of the Residential Schools up here, because we were so isolated. But I got relatives, you got relatives in other areas who got sent away and starved and beaten. They actually said that they wanted to kill the Indian in us, but what they really mean- and I don’t think they knew it- is that they needed to kill the wild part of us.”

“What you mean dad?”

“Why do you think when people in charge say good, they mean people don’t ask questions? Why do you think being good means being obedient.  And why do you think the people in charge now, like you principal and your friend’s dad, why do you think they want control of the resources? Because if people were all asking questions and all had their own stuff, the people in control wouldn’t be in control. If you want to control people, you got to make them helpless, take away their ability to ignore you, to defy you. They did that to us, tribe by tribe, pushing their way west until their feet touched water. But I think, you know, that it was done to them too.”

“What was done to them? Dad you aren’t making much sense.”

“Them early civilizations, always empires, always conquering across the land. I think I know why. Way back then, people knew how to live- by themselves in little groups, they didn’t need no big city or no marketplace to get their food. And so the only way the cities could spread was by marching around conquering. And so all them early civilizations were conquerors. And now there aren’t many of people left who know how to live without a supermarket, and that’s how the people in charge like it. But this is what it leads to, because everything runs out eventually and then you have to face the hard cold sober reality you’ve been hiding from.”

“Are you talking about governments or yourself Dad?”

“It’s the same problem either way. We both are running out of something that we used even though we knew it would run out one day, and neither of us have a back up plan. It’s the same thing.”

“So, I should run?”

“You should grab anyone who will listen and run. Get away, get out. Go.”

“What about you?”

“I’m still a drunk boy. I’d just be a hindrance.”

“You’re also still my dad.”

“Not yet I'm not. Hang in there boy. With any luck, you’ll see your dad again soon.”

Back inside the center, we hooked up with the girls and Wolf and did the only thing left besides watching television, talk about what was happening.

"Have you noticed that a lot of people don't leave their cots anymore?" Viper asked.

Raven and I nodded.

"Mostly older folks." Owl said, "I notice that most of the grandparents aren't getting full rations either."

"I heard a few kids who think that their grandparents have died. The guards take them into 'private care' and nobody is allowed to see them ever again. It's been weeks for some of them."

"They don't want people to see other people starving."

"We're all starving, even the people getting better rationing that they other. They can't hide that."

"I think they're trying to keep from looking too bad"

"I can't find my grandmother." Viper said quietly. "They didn't put her in that private care thing, at least not as I can tell. Nobody seems to know where she's gone."

"Have you asked your parents?"

"They told me that she's out for a walk. Which is stupid, Grandma never left the rocking chair for anything besides bed time and meal time."

"So you don't think she went for a walk?"

"Not unless somebody took her for one. And she wouldn't want to go."

"Have you noticed how few old people we see around these days?"

I nodded. Nobody talked about it. But it was true. Every day there were fewer old folks who weren't in 'private care'. The elderly had slowly become invisible. And nobody wanted to talk about it, in case our worst fears were true.

They aren't adults,” Owl said, shaking his head, “An adult is somebody who can stand alone, stand up for himself, and know what he believes.”

Almost on cue, I heard several shouts of alarm and several more whoops of victory coming from a side entrance. We glanced at each other.

“That is either very good or very bad.” I said.

Owl shook his head, “When was that time something very good happened?”

“Well let's go see what fate is kicking us with this time.” Viper said.

We headed towards the noise, and discovered that They had managed to capture Safehope Bluff's Public Enemy number one: David Bartholemew.

Two of Them held Bart like Federal Agents holding a terrorist. Bart was thin as a stalk of corn, and pale as bleached flour. I don't know how he had the strength to stay standing, let alone grin the cocky contemptuous grin that he had plastered on his face as he looked at Mr. Wolf.

"So, do you have some fall guy to beat me up in the back room?" Bart asked.

"Oh, I can manage my own discipline," Mr. Wolf said, and then in one smooth motion drew the nightstick from his utility belt and brought it across Bart's jaw with a sharp cracking sound. I think Bart would have fallen over there, but They kept him upright. And that meant that Bart couldn't even avoid the hits by falling.

Mr. Wolf delivered blow after devastating blow. Bart's face was a mass of bruises right from the first hit. By the third hit, the nightstick had broken the skin on Bart's face and blood was spattering across the visors of the two of Them holding him in place. Somewhere around the fifth hit, Bart’s feet went slack and he stopped holding his head up.

Mr. Wolf continued to rain down blows.

Finally Raven screamed, "You're going to kill him!"

Mr. Wolf paused, nightstick hanging in the air like a horrifying promise. He turned and looked back at the people watching him.

"It'd be an improvement." He said, "But you'd like that wouldn't you?"

He looked back at the slack unconscious figure in front of him. And I was struck by how much it reminded me of the mule deer, skinned and gutted, hanging from the tree. I shuddered and shook my head to clear the image.

"Put him in confinement."

Owl leaned in, "We didn't give up Bart, so who did?"

We moved away from the scene where none of Them would hear us. Viper was the first to speak. She looked angry.

"Well. Everything is falling apart. Just like you wanted. Doesn't it feel great? No white picket fences for anyone anymore. Even if we last the winter, nothing will ever be the same. The world we know is gone. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I didn't want everything to break. I didn't want this. I just didn't want to be part of their world."

"Well. Now nobody will. Probably ever again."

"Dad was right. He saw what coming. Not just the fact that things would fall. He saw what the fall would do to us. I wish I had listened to him."

"Bruce Lee always said that if you spend too much time thinking about something you won't get it done. I don't think we can afford not to get this done. So maybe we should just stop thinking and do it." Raven said.

No comments:

Post a Comment