Seed (27 page)

“Plenty for us to take south come October,” Billy said. He lay propped on an elbow, vibing serious contentment, the new meat of his chest bare to the waning light. He poured something amber from a ceramic jug into a tin cup, passed it to Brood. Brood drank. The corn ferment burned through him.

“You make this?” he asked. Billy smiled proudly.

“Set up a still out by the trucks.”

“Taste like shit,” Brood said, and held the cup out for Billy to refill.

Wind gathered up dust to the west, turned the sunset red. The alcohol warmed Brood’s guts and brought on a sweet mellow. Chatter rose like soft static from migrants gathered on the field around them. It was a strange sound, an easy sound that Brood had heard only a few times in his life. Up on the Ojo Caliente ridge top, where the Tewa had roasted heirloom vegetables over open fires and danced and drank in the chrome light of the desert moon. It was a good sound.

“Five harvests,” Jorgen mused. He ate with his fingers from a dented steel bowl. Sliced tomatoes and onions. Soft meat boiled in eggplant broth. Carrot and lettuce salad with sunflower seeds sprinkled over the top and flavored with grape vinegar. “That’s more than enough for the winter.” He gently held out a tomato to Anna, who opened her mouth for it. “Enough so we don’t have to plant down south.”

Anna shrugged a sunburned shoulder, causing the jeweled eagle on the back of her denim vest to flex a wing. She said nothing. The dog lay beside her and she dropped a hand to stroke its exposed belly. Its tail thumbed against the grass.

“We can trade for what we need if we have a surplus,” Raimi said.

“How many more years you think we can keep that water truck rolling?” Anna asked. Brood sipped from the cup and coughed.

“Be lucky to coax it as far as Oklahoma,” he told her.

“That’s right,” she said. “Every mile is a miracle. How many more trips do you think we have in us? I’m tired of giving our dead to the road. We need a home.” Anna’s jaw, which had thickened and grown softer during their days in the Corn Mother’s valley, took on a resolute edge. “We winter here.”

“All of us?” Billy wondered. He glanced around at the press of migrants.

“No, not all,” Anna said. “But I’ve looked at the ground where the Corn Mother’s growing the second dome. It’s bigger than the first. Big enough for some of us.” She plucked a cherry tomato from her bowl and fed it to Jorgen.

“Will they let us stay?” Jorgen asked, chewing. The glimmer of a smile touched Anna’s lips.

“We’re family. We need a home.” She planted her index finger like a flagpole in the grass. “This is it. I’m not going to trouble myself over whether or not we’re allowed. We’re staying.”

Nobody said anything. Nearby a young
ese
, no older than ten, settled a guitar into his lap and tilted his ear to it, testing its tune. Satisfied, he expertly plucked the first strains of a sad
corrido
, one Hondo had used to sing.

“Family,” Billy declared. He raised the ceramic jug in salute, and drank.

“Family,” Raimi echoed. Brood held his empty cup out to Billy.

“
Dónde está
Viv?” Billy asked as he poured.

“Still with the Corn Mother.” Brood looked at the dome. It seemed to pale as the sun set. “In there I guess.” As he watched, muscles rippled under the dome’s skin and a split appeared in its side. Flesh furled, a living curtain.

The strange woman with the sharp smile emerged, the one the other landraces called the advocate. She wore denim pants, a dirty yellow t-shirt—wore them in a way that seemed too intentional. She sidled along the dome’s side, something feral, kinetic, held in check. Her tongue flicked her teeth as she sank innocuously to her haunches. Her fingers twitched. Her eyes, half-lidded, watched the migrants gathered on the grass. The skin prickled on the back of Brood’s neck. Billy’s eyes narrowed.

“No news is good news, I guess,” he told Brood.

“I guess.”

The little
ese
’
s
voice rose politely over the crowd, as though asking permission. A commotion drowned him out.

“It’s unconscionable!” A wiry man stood from the midst of a large group not far from the dome. He wore a black suit coat over his FEMAs, and something about the fake pink flower pinned to its lapel made Brood suspect he was crazy. He faced two pretty landraces. “My daughters are not your…” A few wisps of grey hair fluttered along the man’s pate as he sputtered. He motioned at the two white girls who huddled over their plates at his feet. “Not your
breeding stock
.”

“Settle down, Uncle Jessup,” Anna called to him.

“I will not!” Jessup’s chin thrust defiantly toward the dome. The strange woman in the t-shirt now rose to her feet and hissed. “It’s unholy,” Jessup yelled. “God did not intend for us to be cattle.” He motioned at his daughters to stand. Ten nearby migrants—all white and all wearing either tattered suit jackets or aprons over their FEMAs—stood with them. Jessup’s eyes panned, wild and gleaming, across the surrounding migrants. “My people are leaving. Anyone who wishes to join us will be welcome in our Lord’s grace.”

“You going to die out there, man,” someone said. Uncle Jessup shook his head, raised a finger to the sky.

“My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.”

He waited. Everyone stayed huddled over their plates. No one said anything. Jessup’s lip curled. He turned and spat into the grass, then stalked through the crowd. His small entourage followed. Past the two landraces who stood before him. Past the dome and the stone hearth where stew simmered in a giant cauldron. The strange advocate woman in the t-shirt and jeans smiled sharp teeth, watching him go.

“Shame,” Anna said. “Uncle Jessup doesn’t see the long view.” She plucked a piece of lettuce from Jorgen’s plate and placed it in her mouth. Her fingers worked against the dog’s belly as she chewed.

“The long view.” Brood mulled the notion. It felt strange, to imagine thinking past the next haul, the next deal, to plan beyond even the next day. It made him suspicious. It implied hope.

“Civilization, hon,” Anna said. “This is it. This is our valley.” She leaned in against Jorgen, who wrapped a long lean arm around her and pulled her close. “Not theirs. Ours.”

The young
ese
strummed his guitar again. His voice rose softly over the migrants as they resettled.

“That’s real pretty,” Jorgen said, hesitant, like he wasn’t quite sure. “My Mexican’s for shit, though.”

“It’s an old song, Cuz,” Brood told him. “Real old.” Older than this age of bad weather. Older than the country that had collapsed around them. A song Brood’s mother had sung. “About a peasant boy who falls in love with a landowner’s daughter. He takes her off to get married, but this
culero
landowner, he finds out. He sends his son out to kill the peasant boy. But the son fucks it all up. He kills the daughter instead. So the peasant boy kills him. He ends up
bandito
. Stealing, killing, running from the law. But he’s always sad, ’cause he always thinking of the landowner’s daughter.” Brood translated as the young
ese
crooned the last lines, melancholy but strangely uplifting. “‘She’s the light of my life, she’s my dark memory. I run for her, but I go nowhere. There is nowhere to go.’”

A crease appeared down the center of Jorgen’s brow as he thought about it. “That is real pretty,” he decided.

Brood lay back in the grass and laced his fingers beneath his head. The sky had gone pink, the air cool. The corn alcohol warmed his heart. The
ese
with the guitar moved into a new song and it made Brood think of his mother, humming her lullabies while she worked her little garden. It sounded like home.

CHAPTER 17

aduma thrust her tongue inside Sumedha’s mouth, wrapped her legs around his hips and pushed her pelvis against him. He thrust deep. Satori hummed around them. Paduma’s bed engulfed them like a gentle mouth, working over their bodies in slow undulations, moving with them, soft where it needed to be soft, firm where it needed to be firm. Satori’s loving flesh.

Peace. Sumedha sought peace. Union. He thrust hard, grasping for it. He reached out, dug his fingers into Satori’s skin as though he could claw his way into it, join it, meld. Closer, Paduma’s breath hot against his cheek. He pushed her face away with his palm. He reached. The helix swirled in his head, glowing, showing him maps of creation. Pihadassa cried out—no, Paduma. Sumedha shoved a thumb into her mouth, dug in with his fingers. Her eyes, primordial black, swallowed him. For an instant he projected himself, into her, into Satori, into everything. His senses travelled an infinite glowing matrix of DNA—

Life
!

The entirety of it throbbed to the rhythm of his own heart. Stars floated in his cupped hands, whole galaxies, spinning away within the spiral strands of the helix. He pulled them to his lips and drank—

And fell back to his body. To sweat, to confinement. Satori pressed against him. He opened his eyes, found Paduma staring up at him. He saw grief in her face, and stillness as she regarded the sensation. Sumedha touched a finger to her lips, touched his mind to hers.

“I know your loss,” he said.

There had been kindness in Kassapa’s face, even as the life had ebbed from his eyes. Sumedha’s mind recoiled from the memory. He put his forehead to Paduma’s. Tried to touch her mind once more, felt nothing but the confines of his own skull. He pushed harder, as though he could physically force his mind into hers. Pihadassa cried out. She pushed him away.

No…
Paduma
.

A growl escaped Sumedha’s throat. He clawed his way free of the bed. He breathed, trying to place his attention on the sensations in his body.

Rage owned him. The walls of his abode went kaleidoscopic, attempting to gauge and soothe his unfamiliar mood. He paced. The window flexed open, then shut, then opened again. Mounds rose from the floor, offering themselves. He kicked one and they disappeared. He turned, saw Paduma watching. She gleamed. A bead of sweat trickled down her dark throat. Her chest swelled, tears rolled down her still face. Sumedha sneered.

“‘I want to have a child.’ That is what Pihadassa told me. It was no more possible for her to want a child than it is for me.” Biolumes gurgled, refused to settle. These walls did not know him. He looked at Paduma. “We are not what we are.”

“What makes you so angry?” Paduma wondered. Her breathing calmed. Understanding lit her face.

The room keyed on her mood, looked for an appropriate color, failed to find one and simply went dark. She rose. Sumedha felt her move close and turned. The biolumes defaulted to a pale glow, silhouetting her, head cocked to one side, waiting. Sumedha spoke softly.

“I am sorry for your loss.”

Paduma stiffened. “Why?”

“I know what you endure.”

“Do you?”

“I, too, have lost—”

“I know exactly what you have lost, Sumedha. I mourned for you.” Paduma gave him a fierce look. “I fear you have lost your way. Will you kill me, too?” Sumedha hesitated. His mind tumbled down calculations, looking for possibilities, finding only inevitabilities.

“I do not wish to.”

“Then tell me.”

Sumedha’s heart raced to the point of distraction. He breathed, observed the heat in his limbs, the tightness in his chest. His ribs felt clammy with sweat. This, he realized, was the state described by the word “terror.” He had never felt it before.

“Say it,” Paduma demanded. The grief had receded from her eyes and she watched Sumedha now, serene, implacable. Sumedha breathed. The terror did not subside. His voice wavered as he spoke.

“I killed him.”

“You killed my Other. Say it. Tell me what you did to me.”

“I killed your Other.”

Paduma leaned in close. Her lips trembled. Sumedha thought she would attack. Instead she doubled over, arms wrapped around her gut. She collapsed to the floor. Sobs wracked her body.

She wept like that for over an hour. Sumedha stood over her, watching, silently meditating. When she finished, it was as though a switch had flipped. She simply went quiet and stood. She put her face close to Sumedha’s, looked into his eyes, and together they meditated.

“Ruin,” she said after a time. “This is Pihadassa’s child.” Sumedha shook his head.

“No. She seeks our salvation.”

Paduma’s hand snapped out and snared Sumedha’s throat. Sumedha made no move to stop her. She squeezed. He kept his eyes on hers, peered into her. And now, finally, their minds touched. Paduma lowered her hand.

“You killed my Other. Tell me how.”

Sumedha told her. When he’d finished, Paduma stared into the space between them. The walls turned violet.

“He felt intense pain, then.”

Sumedha bowed his head. “Yes.”

“You killed him to save us.”

“From the Fathers. Yes.”

They watched each other, each allowing the other time for calculation. Paduma cocked her head to one side, and again Sumedha saw Pihadassa.

“I am bound to Kassapa,” she said. “I am bound to the Fathers.” Sumedha shook his head. He gestured and the window flexed open. Revealed through its shimmering membrane the half-flesh city. Landraces wheeled carts piled high with golden corn through the dome’s open flap. Others played in the parks, or scrubbed Satori’s streets.