“More than fair,” Luke replied. Amy was thrilled. They had completed the mission.
As they returned to the feasting hall, Amy sought out the faces of the expedition members. She felt no great love for any of them, but the sea of strange faces was disconcerting. Then it hit her. How many old people were there here? Everywhere she looked, she saw graying hair and lined faces. Maybe a dozen or less young people could be seen anywhere. Was the human race truly dying?
“So much for a discreet mission,” Luke groused.
The expedition had been placed at a central table near the bar. A whole crowd was milling around plying them with questions. The boys, still drinking, were happily telling everyone stories about ranch members and describing the place in great detail.
“An ox-drawn plow?” Kurt was saying incredulously. “At the ranch, we have a tractor.”
“Yeah, it was a very long hike, I’ll tell you that,” Mark was telling someone else. “About three weeks.”
Luke pushed through the crowd and drew everyone’s attention. He quickly explained the deal to his team.
“A whole week?” Mark groaned. “I didn’t know the mission would take so long.”
“It’s going to take a lot longer than that,” Luke replied, irritated. “That’s just how long we work for the villagers. Then we have to go to the Cyclers.”
“How long will that take?” Kurt asked.
“Most of the summer, by the sound of it,” Luke answered. “We’re going to be cutting it very fine, I’m afraid. It is quite a trip on foot. They haven’t been there themselves in many years. That’s why they are so eager to help us. We’ll be able to pick up a few things for them as well.”
There were groans around the table. “All summer?” Shawn gasped.
“At least from here on out, it will be more civilized,” Amy put in. “There will be regular roads and places to re-supply.”
“What about Jacob and the others?” Patrick asked. “They don’t have the supplies to last that long.”
“The villagers will send a party out looking for them,” Luke said.
“You told them where Liberty Farm is?” Patrick hissed.
“It was that or leave Jacob to starve,” Luke replied. “Besides, it’s abandoned. It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you think Jacob will agree?” Patrick asked.
“He’ll have to understand.”
“Down here all stinking summer,” Mark muttered.
The bad mood left almost as fast as it came. The reason was easy enough to spot. Their mugs were filled again and again. Villagers regularly thought up yet another toast, and the whole hall drank.
Except for Mark, they were all still considered “boys” at the ranch and were not allowed beer. Some of them had a drink or two, when they managed to steal a bottle. Now, they were being given it freely.
It was not just that. Here they were accepted as the men they wished to be. They were heroes of a sort. They were being treated as adults and were reveling in it.
They all drank deeply and long. Mark, it was well known, was rapidly following his father down the well-worn path of alcoholism. Today it seemed that the whole expedition was hell bent on catching up.
The strong brew was having its effect on the boys. A heavyset man with a gray beard was leading Patrick and Mark in the chorus of a rather bawdy song that Amy was sure the folks at the ranch would not approve of.
Amy noticed Shawn, mug at his lips, looking around darkly as if to challenge anyone to try to talk to him. A quick look in the direction of his glances was enough to reveal the cause of his foul mood. Wren sat a few tables away, with her arms around a young man. Again, Amy felt an unaccustomed pang of sorrow for the man she had hated for so long.
Food was served shortly, and to Amy’s great relief, water was offered as well as beer. The feast went on for what seemed like ages, building slowly up from salads and vegetables to a main dish of roast beef. After a long, hard day, it was delicious.
Afterward, they were led to an unused cottage at the edge of the village, big enough to accommodate them all. Amy collapsed in her bed almost immediately. She fell asleep to the sounds of the others still drinking and laughing in the other room.
When she woke up the next morning she found Mark, Patrick, and Daniel passed out in the main room. Shawn was puking noisily in the bathroom. Luke’s eyes shot daggers at the sleeping forms as he shuffled through, but it was obvious that he too was hung over.
“Can’t take your drink?” Amy shouted into the bathroom. Shawn winced and growled angrily as he dragged himself out and flopped onto a couch.
Mr. Quimby strode in. “Good morning, Lady and Gentlemen,” he declared happily. There was a chorus of groans. “Don’t get much beer up in the mountains, I take it?”
“No sir, we don’t,” Luke replied.
“No mind,” Mr. Quimby went on amiably. “We get that reaction quite a bit, to be honest. Those buck-skinners over the hill are fine people, but they have never been quite the brewers we are. A lot of our visitors comment on the quality and potency of our brew. I trust it will not interfere with working today?”
“No sir,” Luke replied, kicking Shawn, who had drifted off again. Shawn glared at him.
Mr. Quimby turned to Amy. “We’ve got the Greenbowes on satellite hookup this morning. They want to know if they still need to send someone out.”
“I’m ready to take a look whenever,” she replied.
“Good, good,” he replied. “The sooner the better.” To Luke he added, “Michael will be around in about fifteen minutes to pick you up, okay?”
Amy snagged an apple and a roll on her way out the door. She’d have to ask later who’d provided them. She munched as she followed Quimby across the village.
“Do you know the Quiet Earth Society?” she asked.
“The Quiet Earth Society?” he said. “What a strange question, child. Of course. I was part of the society, or I am, I guess. We never officially disbanded, even though nothing has been done in years. Why do you ask?”
“These people we met on the way in told us about them—about you, I suppose. They said you had fought the government.”
“The military,” he corrected. “Yes, we did.” He gave her a shrewd look. “Wondering how a bunch of old coots like us took on America’s finest?”
Amy shrugged.
“Well, for one thing we weren’t old then. We were young men and women in our prime.”
“It’s not that,” Amy said. “It’s just, well, bows and arrows against guns? It seems improbable.”
He laughed. “Yes it does, and it did. They never could quite believe it. I think that’s part of why we won; they never could believe we were actually going to stand up to them, so they weren’t prepared when we did. But it’s not as insane as it sounds, anyway. Our motto was ‘never rely on anything you can’t replace.’ Our enemies made that mistake, not once but many times. Assault rifles are deadly weapons, until you run out of ammo. Then they are just lopsided clubs.
“I’ll tell you a secret, though,” he leaned in conspiratorially, “mostly we avoided fighting. We were locals, and they were mostly soldiers shipped in from god knows where. We used our knowledge of the area and the terrain to our advantage. We led them on a merry cat and mouse chase all over this region. After they had used up their ammo and their supplies, we would move in.
“Our real weapon was always food. The early military dictators were a stupid lot. They fought over politics. We went straight for the food supply. Once the countryside was on our side, it was over. They just didn’t know it until winter hit.”
He chuckled. “I remember this one time, I was on a lone scouting mission when a squadron of KC militia spotted me. They pursued me for miles, doggedly. They finally cornered me in a valley not far from here. I thought my number was up for sure. You know what? They wanted to surrender. They had heard that we had food, and they were starving.”
“What did you do?” Amy asked, eyes wide.
“I traded them my pack for their guns. I had to scavenge for a couple of days to make it back, but it was worth it. It was quite a coup.”
“I thought you didn’t use guns?”
“We didn’t, but we liked to get them away from those who did. They were running out of ammo, and the parts factories were shutting down, but each one we destroyed sped the process up. That was important to us; people were dying from the damn things every day.”
“So you destroyed the guns?” Amy asked.
“Gave them to the cult,” he said.
“The cult?”
“Cult of the Iron Mother.”
“Like that statue!” Amy gasped, remembering the inscription.
“You must mean the one up on Bull Creek,” he said. “That’s the only one in our region.”
Amy shrugged.
“Big statue of a woman giving birth to a bull? Arnie Maus did that himself,” he said proudly, “to commemorate the battle we fought up there. I was there, and I can tell you it was quite a fight. We’d been chased most of the summer by nearly a thousand soldiers. Regular troops too, not the usual conscripts. They gave us a run for our money. Nearly caught us several times.
“They had vehicles, big armored troop carriers, and even a couple of tanks. Luckily, we’d been operating in the region for a couple of years already. One of the first things we did was to cut up the roads, sabotage them in critical places to slow down anyone in vehicles. That stopped most cars, but the transports they had were merely slowed down. Despite their superior speed and communications, we stayed one step ahead of them. It often meant splitting up and backtracking, but we were used to that.
“Anyway, winter was coming on. We had to get home to get the harvest in, or we’d starve. We knew that, but they didn’t think that way yet. So we knew we had to make a stand, end the offensive one way or another.”
“Bows and arrows against guns is one thing; now you are going to tell me you took on tanks?” Amy asked. She put her hands on her hips and scowled doubtfully.
He laughed. “That’s where knowledge of the terrain comes in handy. We burned out the bridge over Bull Creek and waited on the far side. The river was just deep enough to hold the tanks and transports back. They knew we were gathered in force on the other side, so they risked sending the men across on a smaller bridge, just as we planned.
“The far side was heavily wooded. The thing about thick woods is this: a gun has a longer range than an arrow, but in the woods, your range is as far as your line of sight. It’s the same if you have a gun, a bow, or a knife. Also, in deep woods, arrows have a surprising advantage over guns: they are quieter.” He laughed again at Amy’s expression. “When a gunshot goes off everyone looks in that direction. An arrow, on the other hand, makes no sound until it hits. If the archer is good, and we were, he or she shoots from a distance and is long gone before the arrow lands. The effect is that it appears the arrows just come out of nowhere. Quite unnerving for the enemy.
“It was a bloody battle, and the outcome was far from certain. We lost many good people.” He stopped and stared off into the dawn. “We fought well into the night. Just after moonrise, we heard a loud explosion. The far side of the river was lit up, flames leaping high into the air. A friend of mine named Peter Wales had swum across the river under the cover of darkness. He got close enough to drop a grenade into one of the transports, the one carrying the extra fuel. He lost his life, but it turned the tide.
“The enemy withdrew, and by morning, they raised the white flag. Their transports were disabled, and their tanks had virtually no fuel. They didn’t have the supplies for the long hike back to civilization. They wanted to barter food for leaving us in peace. So once again, food was the real weapon.”
After a moment’s pause, they continued on their way. Up ahead, another man awaited them with a large trunk. He was introduced, but Amy promptly forgot his name. He wore the now-familiar tunic and leggings. He hoisted the trunk and followed them.
Amy craned her neck to see the wind generator. It was a small tower, maybe thirty feet high, with a modest unit on top. That was enough out here on the plains. It ran two community buildings; the villagers did without in their houses.
Right now, the unit spun feebly in the breeze. “No good.” Amy told them. “I can’t see what’s wrong from here.”
Mr. Quimby nodded to the man, who sat his trunk down. He opened the lid, and Amy saw, chagrined, that she needn’t have carted her tools with her all this way. They had everything she could possibly need or want right there.
“The Greenbowes insist that we keep a full set available at all times. It saves their people having to carry very much,” Quimby told her.
“It looks pretty bleak up there,” Amy said a half an hour later as she descended the tower. Her worst fear, at least, had been avoided. She had been afraid that she would have no idea; wind generators could be very different. However, this one looked almost exactly like the Burgey XP they had at home, except its logo read, in a cursive scrawl, Greenbowes Tech. “It looks like lightning in the last storm fried the whole unit. The lightning rod is down, and there are smoke stains everywhere. I think the whole unit is fried.”
The men tsked sadly as they led her back toward the community center. “They’ll have to bring a new unit,” Quimby said. “Gods know how long that will take.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault; you did your best,” Quimby reassured her. “Besides, look at it this way, you’ve saved us months. They’d have sent the repairwoman out and then she’d have had to go all the way back for a new one anyway. Now she only has to make one trip.”
Back in the main hall, she was led to another back room. There she found something her dad had talked about all her life, but she never dreamed she’d see. They had two computers. One was even operational; Mr. Quimby sat down at the glowing screen and began typing at the keyboard.
“I’ll try to get the Greenbowes on satellite hookup and see what they have to say,” he said. Amy watched over his shoulder but could not make any sense of the changing screens.
“You can do that? Talk to them from here?”
“Sure. We have a half dozen or so communication satellites we can access,” he said. “They were all launched before the collapse, of course. What happens when they give out is anyone’s guess. Maybe we will have the capacity to replace them by then, and maybe not. Maybe it will all be a moot point.”