Prairie Fire (18 page)

THEIR LIAISON

I was lonely with Owen and the other squads gone. It was so strange. There were only four of us in the barracks now, which meant more than half the beds were empty. Courtney took advantage of the space to requisition a large drafting board to sketch on. I had no idea what she was designing, but I gathered pretty quickly that she sketched things the way I sketched music, which is to say she did it all the time. But having paper handy made it much easier to remember what she had already done. Annie and Laura had work constantly. And I had nothing. Just endless days in the comm office, listening to radio chatter and feeling like I wasn't contributing anything to the Oil Watch at all, let alone to Owen.

The fire crew was sent out of Fort Calgary on a regular basis for that first week, putting out the fires the Chinook had started and treating the ground with chemicals in the hope that next planting season something would be able to grow on the razed ground. They told us what they saw outside the walls, and it was pretty grim. There were four small satellite farming communities that sheltered under the Fort's totem poles when the dragons came, and though three of them had escaped with minor damage, the fourth had been nearly leveled. That, of course, was the town where there was also an oil refinery. The cleanup crews our team worked with said that they had seen worse, but not by much. The only mercy was that, thanks to the Chinook's extreme visibility, the evacuation had prevented a death toll.

The thousand or so people who had lived in this unlucky town were now semi-permanent residents of the fort. They would live here at least for the winter—because we couldn't start reconstruction until the ground thawed in spring—unless they had somewhere else to go. By the time the first week wore down, almost all of the children had been sent to relatives back east, and only the adults remained.

It was an odd Thanksgiving and a colder one than I was used to, but that's par for the course for October in Alberta. We didn't have real turkeys, at least not the kind that you can carve, but there was enough food for everyone. When the train left the next morning with the last of the departing children on it, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that this winter was going to be entirely stranger than any I had ever experienced.

Emily, who was rather morbidly pleased to learn that I had been serving under
the
Lieutenant Declan Porter, sent a flurry of e-mails detailing her most recent ventures into perceived government conspiracy. The wave of Filipino workers had begun in the late eighties when it became apparent that the number of dragons slayed in Alberta (and Saskatchewan) was about to increase exponentially. They were brought in as experts in those days: Due to the number of dragon species on the islands in comparison to their relatively small land mass, the Filipinos were by necessity very good at cleaning up. Soon enough, though, wages had been cut, and before long the cleanup crews handled the worst jobs with no guarantee of long-term security.

The government of Alberta had been sanctioned by the UN twice, yet no one had ever recommended that the cleanup crews be incorporated into the Oil Watch, which made Emily think the sanctions were more a formality than anything. She also noted that Filipino dragon slayers were never posted to Canada, which meant that they never witnessed the conditions their compatriots worked under. Owen and I might tease Emily quite regularly for her ability to see conspiracies where there weren't any, but even I had to admit that this whole situation smelled pretty lousy.

Emily had no solution, though, which was unusual for her. She said that there were a few groups, both in and outside of Alberta, that were trying to get things changed, but they weren't making any progress. She thought this was largely because Alberta kept electing Conservative governments both nationally and provincially. This meant that the few members of the New Dragon Slayer Party who managed to get elected tried to make inroads, but their bills were always shot down on the floor. She did say that she would keep an eye out, and mentioned that the NDP had managed to get a member of Parliament elected in Strathcona, so perhaps there was hope. For now, though, it looked like we were at a dead end.

I was used to problems I could solve. I was used to support. Instead I monitored the chatter of the cleanup crews while they were out in the field and tried to ignore the impractical little voice in my head that insisted on whispering, “What would Lottie Thorskard do?” This was, I was pretty sure, a situation where she couldn't help.

As the cleanup operations wound down and the fire crews returned to their regular drills, it became apparent that someone was going to have to deal with the oil workers and farmers who would be staying with us for the winter. General Speed—who didn't really trouble himself with the small details, I'd noticed—flagged me down at breakfast one morning not long after the last trains departed with family members aboard.

“Bard McQuaid,” he said, spitting the words out like gristle. “You will report to the mess assigned to the refugees.”

“Sir?” I said, shifting my tray in my hands. I could hold it, just, but if my muscles spasmed, we'd both end up with egg on our faces. Literally.

“As their liaison, McQuaid,” he said. “You will ensure that lines of communication remain open between them and the Fort quartermasters, and you will deal with their problems, unless they are so large that you cannot handle them.”

He looked down at my tray, which was shaking slightly despite my best efforts, and made no effort to conceal his scorn.

“You have your orders, bard,” he told me. “Go sit down.”

I did, as quickly as I could, my milk carton listing dangerously close to the curled edge of the plastic before I managed to set the whole thing down on the table. I was very well aware that General Speed thought he was insulting me by giving me this assignment. He hadn't even bothered to speak quietly about it, so the entire mess had heard my orders. I didn't really care. I wanted something to do, and this was better than the comm office.

Since they'd been out in the field aiding the cleanup crews, I had yet to manage a proper conversation with any of the refugees. They didn't even eat with us, which annoyed me to no end, and I wasn't sure where they billeted either, though I assumed that if I followed the orange line painted on the floor in the hallways, I would find them soon enough.

“And then we had the dragon over for tea and scones, and it agreed to pay for my PhD,” Courtney concluded, and I realized she had probably been talking to me for a while. “Earth to Siobhan! We're starting to feel all neglected here.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking.”

“Obviously,” said Aarons. Now that the dragon slayers were gone, I sat with the fire crew again. That helped stave off my loneliness, at least when they were in the mess for meals. I had missed them, though I didn't miss the way Davis's fingers itched towards my knife and fork every time I struggled with something. I didn't really blame him, though. Some people were just born to help.

“I asked if you were ready for your big meeting,” Courtney repeated.

I grimaced as I wrestled with the carton of milk before Wilkinson just reached over and took it from me. He didn't make a big production of it, and he didn't seem to expect acknowledgment, the way that some of the others might. I missed milk bags, though. With large-handled scissors, I could open those.

“I'm trying not to worry about it,” I replied, pouring milk as deftly as I could. “I mean, it's me and a room full of grown-up farmers and oil workers. What could possibly go wrong?”

They stared at me for a second before they realized that I was actually concerned. Without meaning to, I had become the reliable one. The one who was always self-assured. And now that I had no idea what to do, now that I had remembered that I was the youngest and the least likely to be taken seriously, they were spooked and didn't know how to offer help. The silence stretched uncomfortably between us for the first time since the early days in Gagetown, until Aarons finally elbowed Annie and she leaned forward.

“Just make sure they don't get bored,” Annie suggested. For something she was making up on the fly, it was actually pretty good advice. “I mean, we're probably going to go stark-staring bonkers in here all winter, and we don't spend quite as much time outside as they do.”

“They do still have jobs,” Parker pointed out. “Courtney managed to get the rigs back in shape, and what else do farmers do in the winter anyway?”

“You have clearly never experienced a prairie winter,” Laura said.

“I'm from Northern Ontario,” Parker reminded her. “I'm not sure how much worse it can get.”

“You guys are really not helping,” I told them.

“Hey, a lot of them are from Ontario anyway,” Gratton pointed out. “Maybe they're already fans of yours.”

I hadn't even thought of that. Suddenly I really wanted to throw up. But I didn't, because General Speed was on his feet to dismiss us, and we had to move. Porter had been much more relaxed about that sort of thing, leaving it to the bells and calls to remind us when it was time to go. Speed liked us to be halfway there before the signal was given. Fortunately he didn't jump the gun by too much, and I was able to finish eating without rushing like a fool.

“Have a good day,” I said as the fire crew, already carrying their outerwear, headed to the caravan.

“Shut up,” Anderson said, but he was smiling.

“At least we're not going to get rickets,” Dorsey pointed out. “Or whatever it is you get when you don't get any air or sunlight.”

“Thanks,” I said, and they were gone.

Courtney and I walked towards the forges, where she'd been spending her days with Aarons and the other smiths. I wondered how much that pissed off her dad, but a few nights ago, Aarons had caught a glimpse of her drafting board and declared that it was time they both starting cross-training. Courtney had been making nails ever since, which she hated, and which we didn't even need, but Aarons assured her it was a time-honoured tradition.

“Nails,” he said, “are where you start. They are what hold the whole craft together. Like a house.”

“Aarons, you are so full of shit,” Courtney said, but she went every day, and every night she passed him the drafting board and made him design something so that she could point out its flaws in a loud voice.

After Courtney turned off down the hall that led to the forges, I continued on my own to where the refugees were living. I hoped that none of us would be too disappointed with this arrangement. I stopped outside their mess and took a deep breath. Then I pushed through the door.

The mess was more than half empty, thank goodness, since all of the oil workers had gone for the day, and even some of the farmers had left to finish what late harvest the Chinook hadn't burned. But there were still a lot of people.

“Imagine them in their underwear,” I heard Sadie whisper. That did not help. “Imagine they're the Guard,” Emily suggested. That made much more sense.

“Good morning!” I said, not quite shouting, but definitely louder than usual. Once I had their attention, I quieted a bit. “My name is Siobhan McQuaid. I am part of the Thorskard squad, and I am going to be your liaison for the winter, or until you leave us.”

I paused, and there was no general outrage at my presence, so I took heart and kept going. If this was a story, I could do it with no problems. And it kind of was: This was the first time I'd done something useful as a member of the Oil Watch. This Siobhan didn't exist yet, and I could make her be whatever I wanted her to be. I made her taller and as authoritative as possible.

“If you have any issues or requirements that are not being met, please feel free to approach me,” I continued. “I know that circumstances aren't exactly ideal, but I think we should be able to do all right for ourselves this winter, as long as we talk about it. I will come down every morning after breakfast, and if you need me outside of that time, you can leave a message in the main communications office.”

Another pause. This one slightly more awkward. I dropped into parade rest and did my best to look unthreatening, though I couldn't imagine that I had been threatening at all.

“Any questions?” I said.

“Just one,” said a voice from the back. I couldn't see him, but he sounded young.

When I'd entered the room, before I called for attention, I had heard them talking among themselves. For the most part, they were exactly what I had expected: low brass and the odd bassoon. Common sense and hard work, and a fear of nothing except fire from the mountains. They were flexible, and they were willing to rebuild. They were exactly the sorts of people I liked to work with. They reminded me of home and of the people I wanted to protect when our time in the Oil Watch was done. Suddenly, I wanted to win them over, not just cohabitate. I wanted them to see me as home too, even if it was just something that reminded them of how life should be, not how it was.