We fall into single file on a narrow path that leads across another meadow and up a slight rise. Adam and I duck each time the lights swoop down, one time a vast skin that looked as though it would encase us. Both babies are asleep. Adam refuses to trade me a baby for the
suitcase. He is ever more sure-footed; the dog, too, which trots on three legs beside him with the same kind of confidence.
That fishy smell I detected when we first drove away from the silo is strongest here. I now see the source. Mushrooms. They are strewn across the path and have claimed every inch of available ground in the clearing to our right. The smaller ones are the size of volleyballs, the bigger ones boulders. Adam kicks one and the dog chases after it. He brings it back to Adam and lays it on his shoe.
“What’s the deal with all these mushrooms?” I ask Marcus.
“This is nothing. Some colonies are the size of counties. Especially where the blood rains fall.”
“Blood rains?” Adam asks.
“Some say it’s dust from up north where the deserts are, and some say it’s iron oxide. With everything rusting, the powder gets blown up into the clouds and comes back down red. Most folks are superstitious now; they’ll tell you it’s the blood of all them people who died. Don’t worry; we don’t get much of it here anymore.”
My head starts filling up with pictures of corroding cities and deserts where Canada ought to be until a high-pitched howl is broadcast from the ridge above us.
“Come on,” Marcus urges. “Not much farther.”
When another howl rings out in reply from the edge of forest in reply, we break into a light trot.
“See if she won’t take your finger again.”
I know I have taken a testy tone with Adam when he snaps back that it’s not her fault we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. He sets the baby against his shoulder and tells her what Marcus has been telling us for miles: not much longer now.
Through a stand of buckled trees, I see a pair of lights approach from the opposite direction. The ATVs have found us. No point in stifling the babies’ cries now. I can’t decide if it’s better to run into the woods and take our chances with the wolves or surrender. The lights slow down just ahead of us and turn off the street. I notice it is a car, not an ATV. We are only a few yards from a road.
Marcus nudges me. “You gonna just stand there?”
“That’s not them?” I whisper.
“How can you be sure?”
“Hear that sound? That’s a bad axle. Can’t tell you how often I’ve worked on that old Ford. I know it like it’s my own flesh and blood.”
Marcus leads us across the street to where it turned.
Thanks to a rising moon, there’s enough light to see the mailbox, the flagstone paving, the appearance of normal. At the end of the driveway is a house. Each of its windows is lit by an orange glow. We can smell the smoke coming from the chimney. Family is what this scene spells, and the longing hits me hard.
Sunflower will keep up the search for a day or two, Marcus explains as he leads us through the front yard. After that, they’ll count Adam and me dead, or good as. We are to stay here until then, and afterward Marcus will either escort us to Eudora or help us with arrangements to rendezvous with a caravan.
But for the old pine standing guard at the front porch, every tree around the house has been cleared. Nothing is left of those pests except for a woodpile almost as high as the roof. Parked beside it are two trail motorbikes and the car, which can’t possibly be roadworthy. We take two steps up onto the broad wooden porch. Four rocking chairs are swaying, recently vacated. Inside, voices quiet down as soon as Marcus raps on the door. There is a braided doormat at our feet, and someone has gone to the trouble of making and hanging a pine-cone wreath.
“The Bowerses are good people. You don’t have to worry. They’ll hide you if anyone comes.”
A woman on the downswing of middle age opens the door. She is stocky, a feature she makes no attempt to hide with a man’s chambray shirt and grubby jeans. Her white hair is cropped close. Everything else about her is feminine—the way she holds herself; her soft, gray eyes; her fuzzy pink house slippers. She smiles broadly when she sees Marcus and keeps her smile in place despite seeing two complete strangers, a couple of squalling babies, and an injured, hairless dog. She reaches up to accept Marcus’s one-armed embrace.
“Any room at the inn?” he asks.
She replies with that same wide smile and waves us in.
“The dog will have to stay outside, Adam,” I say.
“You said we could feed him if he came all the way.”
I look at Marcus, who turns to the woman. She lifts an index finger and hurries into the house. A man joins us in the foyer. He is stoop-shouldered in the way very tall men are and has a face the color of eggplant. Where his nose ought to be are two slit-shaped holes, and because he has no lips, he appears to be grimacing. With a bloated, scarred hand, he shakes Marcus’s hand, then mine, and finally Adam’s. “Bill Bowers, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Bill Bowers and Adam are equally dumbstruck at the sight of each other. I am about to make an excuse for Adam, about his being shy around strangers so the man won’t assume Adam thinks him a monster, when Adam says breathily, “Are you a cowboy?” Adam, who has always dreamed of meeting a cowboy, is riveted by the man’s large silver belt buckle and pointy boots.
You’d swear this was the funniest thing Bill Bowers ever heard.
“Outlaw’s more like it,” Marcus says.
Nodding in agreement, the returning woman puts down two bowls, one with water, one with pellets. Bill places one hand protectively around her shoulders, and says, “This lovely lady is my wife, Ginny.” Because of his disfigurement, he makes lots of hissing sounds. He and his wife commence staring at Adam. And then they stare at me, too.
They must notice my embarrassment because the woman makes hand signals that her husband is quick to translate. “She says you’ve got such beautiful skin. Like a porcelain doll.”
I can’t think what my response ought to be.
Adam is the one to speak. He gives our names. “And this is Angel. Say hi, Angel.”
The baby responds with a full-throttled shriek.
“She’s a cutie, isn’t she, Gin?” Bill responds.
Ginny smiles. Adam is flustered now on account of his ill-tempered companion, but Ginny does not race to remedy the situation by taking the child. Instead, she takes the other baby and motions for Adam to
accompany her down the hallway. He gives the dog the command to stay and follows the woman into the warm house.
Bill offers to take the backpack and suitcase, but I hold them tightly. Marcus and I follow him into the living room, where half a dozen people are gathered. There is enough light from various oil lamps to notice that they are all disfigured. Most of them look burned, although not as badly as our host, and I can’t tell if it’s my imagination or if they really do smell of smoke. Names and how-dos are exchanged. The shriveled woman in the wheelchair who wheels herself up to me gives me an unabashed once-over. Why, she wants to know, am I not burned or disfigured? Who has that much hair anymore? How is it a boy can be fifteen and not be confined to a bed? Marcus does my explaining for me. Only because he promises that Adam will soon be in to meet her does she not make a mad dash down the hall to find him.
A bearded man goes around covering the windows with horse blankets, while I take quick stock of the room. Walls covered with paintings, potted plants in hanging macramé baskets, cushions, clocks that run. In one corner is a small stand with electronic equipment. Marcus asks that the CB radio be turned on in case anyone’s broadcasting.
“What kind of nonsense is this?” huffs an elderly man. “We don’t want to get mixed up in your skullduggery, Hill. Sunflower’s not going to take kindly to those caught aidin’ and abettin’ fugitives. Remember what happened to the Pattersons—”
“Oh, hush up, Sheldon,” the woman in the wheelchair hisses. “Can’t you see the poor woman’s scared half to death?”
Bill clarifies that Adam and I are not fugitives but guests. Indicating that we are to be treated as such, he hands me a glass.
The bearded man who was talking when we first entered now resumes his speech. As he begins to tell of a study done on soybeans, I take a sip and wheeze.
Marcus whispers in my ear, “Bill makes a mean rosé. Best go easy.”
The storyteller is standing beside the fireplace with his elbow on the mantel. The others seem to find his story fascinating, but I am easily distracted. Facial expressions, how loud things are said, how they lean
forward to listen, draw back to ponder, glance at one another. From some shuttered part of my mind come memories of youth meetings at church, of being part of a group that behaved like this. I was once part of a community. Belonging—it’s what I envy these people. I take another sip and am waylaid again, this time by how sharp everything tastes.
“The seeds were taken from the Inola Exclusion Zone fifteen years ago, about four months after Diablo,” the storyteller continues. “They were planted in uncontaminated soil, and now they are no longer producing mutant strains; they are becoming more genetically stable.”
“Which means?” Bill asks.
“Which means the plants have made adaptations at the cellular level to radiation. What’s true for plants may be true for humans.”
The elderly man puffs out his chest. “Sunflower just came out with their findings on barn swallows. They put it just the opposite.”
“Is it not in their interest to display the odd mutant specimen? And bear in mind, they don’t let any independent researchers verify their findings. We don’t know what their methodology is. For all we know, their research is based on one corrupted nest. Let me ask you this, Sheldon: What do you think would happen to Sunflower’s funding if their findings were to corroborate those of our researchers?”
“They should shut the place down!” says the woman in the wheelchair. It’s a wonder a figure so frail can fuel so much fire.
Sheldon shoots her a look, but she raises her chin defiantly.
“Not going to happen, Maude. Not after the council got so many different parties vested in the project.” The storyteller checks off his fingers. “You’ve got the administrators of these programs who have pretty much been granted tribal chief status; you’ve got the medical suppliers, the merchants who are running the candidate shipping lanes from Alaska, and let’s not forget our dear Castro who keeps trumping up promises of an untainted generation born during his tenure.”
Everyone takes a sip of their drinks, so I do, too.
“Some might argue that the candidates and their families, the surrogates and support staff have a source of livelihood,” Bill adds.
Sheldon, who has been muttering to himself, now chimes in. “It’s the defectives we should be worried about!”
Maude looks fit to be tied. “Pay him no never mind,” she says to the three on the couch who thus far have contributed to the discussion only with nods. Turning an icy stare on the old man, she says, “We are all defective, Sheldon.”
Sheldon shakes his cane at the storyteller. “Won’t matter none if the soybeans done come out right when them defectives start breedin’. Before you know it, they’ll be runnin’ the place!”
The rest of the group shifts uncomfortably.
“You’re just repeating what you hear on Republic Radio. If you actually gave some thought—”
The old lady’s accusation only makes Sheldon more excitable. “Haverty’s laying out what others are too dern cowardly to say,” he insists. “We should’ve had the whole lot sterilized when we had the chance! Mandatory, ’stead of giving people a choice. Haverty’s right, and you lot know it!”
“About as right as two left turns!” Maude replies.
People find other places to look. Togetherness seems to be wearing thin in places.
“Anyone care for more wine?” Bill’s flask provides the interruption the storyteller needs to steer the conversation back on track.
“Even if public opinion turned and you had more people calling for these kinds of places to shut down, does anyone for one minute think the Confederacy is going to let that happen?”
I only notice the child-size man in the shadows when he addresses the storyteller. “You said it all along, Ned. You said we’d be in trouble if we made this a political issue.”
There is some discussion along the lines of who predicted what until Maude raises her hand and proceeds with her question as if she’d been called on. “What I’d like to know is if humans are more like soybeans or barn swallows?”
“There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth!”
“Oh, put a spoon in it, Sheldon, and let the man finish!”
The storyteller holds up his hand. “It is going to be a while before we know for sure, but in my opinion, yes, we will continue to see a decrease in radiation-induced mutations in humans. Nature finds a way.”
“I’ll drink to that,” says Bill.
Everyone drains their glasses. I do, too.
The conversation takes a turn to the life expectancy rate, and I pick up my bags and hurry down the hallway to see what’s taking Adam so long. At the farthest end is a brightly lit room. I can’t hear the babies crying or Adam chattering away. It is too quiet. How stupid of me to let Adam out of my sight. What if the woman has led him out of the house and down the path and into the night? What do I know of these people? They all sound like lunatics.
I rush toward the room, which turns out to be a kitchen, a kitchen where my son is sitting in a rocking chair beside a woodstove, giving the baby a bottle. Ginny, holding the other child on her hip, is putting a burp cloth over Adam’s shoulder. She offers me the baby.
“No, that’s okay,” I tell her.
Ginny insists by nodding at the stove where three large pots are simmering. She wants to attend to dinner.
“Oh, okay.” I take my backpack off my shoulder, put the suitcase down, and set my empty glass on the table.
I take the baby and the bottle. Feeling a little light-headed, I sit at the table. The baby draws hard on the bottle teat, her eyes fixed on me. “Better now?” I’ve forgotten how easily babies are satisfied, how trusting they are. There is about them an otherworldliness. I look at this baby the way I used to look at Adam—with delight, but also with the vaguely unsettling feeling she knows more about the universe than I do.
While she nurses, I take stock of my surroundings. Stationed in the corners of the kitchen are high chairs. There is a diaper pail next to the
back door, and hanging from the light fixture is a mobile. The windowsill is lined with baby bottles. Marcus brings the children from the compound here, I immediately realize.