Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

“Chicken shit’s the worst-smelling shit in the world,” Red said. “Oh, sweetheart, you should have seen the look on your little face. What were you, eight? And your mom was so pissed at me…”

“But everything grew that year,” Cass remembered, smiling. It was becoming a little more okay, talking about things like this with her dad. Everything-every story-was tinged with a little sadness, a little anger over the fact that it had all come to an end when he left. But it still felt right to talk.

“Yeah, you remember the carnations?”

Carnations, for her birthday. Every month had a birth flower. January was hers. They’d planted larkspur for her mother and narcissus for her dad. When Ruthie was born, Cass looked it up-the September flower was aster. Nobody really cared about things like birth flowers anymore, but Cass decided that-maybe, if they ever found a place to settle again, if she ever had a garden again, if Red and Zihna wanted to-they could grow a little patch of asters for Ruthie.

The laying sheds were unusable, layered with desiccated shit and straw, a few chicken carcasses they’d somehow missed collecting and burning. But the ranch house was pretty, an old rambling square wood-sided edifice with a wraparound porch. Whoever had built it had situated it well; the back porch looked out over fields to the mountains miles beyond.

It was in the field that they had the service. The sun was sinking behind the house when they gathered in its long shadow.

Shannon had assembled a list of the lost. There were thirty-two names on it, including the two Easterners who’d died-nineteen from the Beaters’ attack in the river and the day of their departure, thirteen more at the mall.

Sh’rae Bellamy had done the services on New Eden since the Methodist minister died, and she did so now. She opened her Bible to a page that she had marked, and began to read, but she made it through only a few words before she stopped and went very still. She raised her eyes to the mountains in the distance and the evening wind whipped her long cape around her, and the silence was deeper than Cass could remember in a very long time. There was only the wind and the mewling of the baby, the soft sounds of crying from somewhere deep in the gathering.

After a while Sh’rae found her place and began again. “From the Book of Isaiah,” she repeated.

“‘Do you not know? Have you not heard?’

“‘The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.’

“‘He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.’”

THE EVENING MEAL was a somber affair. There was little conversation as the bedding was laid out in the various rooms of the house. Sentries were chosen, four to a shift-it was not a particularly secure house with its front and back doors, ground-floor windows, screened crawl space below-but no one seemed especially concerned about what might come in the night. After the horrors of the day, perhaps they were numb to fear.

She found Smoke sitting on the steps of the porch as the sky deepened to indigo, talking to Nadir. There were others on the porch; Red and Zihna sat in rockers with blankets over their laps, and a few people sat alone or in pairs, staring off at the mountains disappearing into the night. Sammi and Colton sat at the far end of the porch, their legs dangling, eating tender young kaysev pods and tossing the beans out into the darkness. It was an evening for reflection. Tomorrow would be another day of travel, and while they would not forget the losses and tragedies of today, they would have to store them carefully and well so that they could go on.

Cass had hoped to find Smoke alone. She asked awkwardly if she could join them, and sat on the top step, so that they made a triangle. Nadir had set up a small tripod flashlight that illuminated the papers that were spread out between them with a soft yellow glow.

“You need to hear this,” Smoke said without preamble. “Mayhew lied to us.”

Nadir winced and shook his head. “We all did.”

“What do you mean?”

“The shelters they’ve built up north? They’re not meant for us. Definitely not meant for anyone from the West.”

“But what-then who-”

“There are four new settlements, that much is true,” Nadir said. “Two months ago, the first wave went north. They had the resources to build communities that could sustain three hundred people each for a year or more. Only thirty were in each party, though, enough to build, and stock, and secure the settlements. Men and women, all of them strong and healthy, so that if for some reason the others never made it, they would have the seeds of a new civilization to build on.”

“It was all decided very democratically,” Smoke said, a trace of contempt in his voice. “They practice concordance in the East.”

Cass was surprised at his bitterness. “But you’ve always believed in cooperative government. That’s what we did in the library.”

Smoke stared into the space between them, his eyes unfocused. “And what happened to the library? Burned, and everyone dead or worse.”

“Concordance was not the problem in our community,” Nadir interrupted. “If I may be so bold as to share my opinion. We had a good government, a well-meaning government. The plan was a good one. But when all of these good people went north, who is left behind-the ones who are not so good, yes? The ones who are not so idealistic. Who are thinking maybe about themselves, not about abstract values.”

“They had a lottery to figure out who would come in the second wave,” Dor explained. “Twelve hundred people, that’s all that would be allowed. Four groups of three hundred, minus the hundred and twenty who went first. That was less than half of the people living in their town.”

“Mayhew was not chosen,” Nadir said heavily. “Nor was I. Nor Bart, nor Davis.”

Cass was beginning to understand. “And those who were left behind…”

“There was an agreement, one we all voted on. The unlucky ones would stay, and deal with what was to come. We had reinforced our shelters, much as you have here. After today I can appreciate how small our efforts were against the threat of the fever. We would have been caught unawares. We would have made mistakes.”

“It would be just like here,” Smoke said. “Just like the West, all over again. They just knew what they were in for, that was the only difference. They knew what was coming.”

“The stories we heard, from the border-they did not prepare us, not for what I have seen. I could not imagine…”

His words hung in the air. Cass understood. Until you’d seen a Beater, they way they moved, their childlike hungers and rages, their sheer determination, you could not imagine the terror.

“And Mayhew?” Cass asked, though she had a feeling she knew the rest.

“He sought us out. He went to Davis first because of the horses. Davis owned many horses and he had given many away, for people to ride, but he had kept his finest for himself. Me and Bart, he chose us because we had weapons, and we are strong and young. Mayhew said to us, there is no reason we cannot go to this settlement. Let the others build it. Four more people, that is not a lot-once we arrive, they will not turn us away. These are good people, compassionate people.

“Davis taught us to ride. We stayed out on his ranch, and no one knew what we were doing. We gathered the things we would need. I taught Davis to shoot. The rest of us practiced. We were biding our time, to give the first group time to reach the destination and make everything ready. We thought our chances were best if we arrived around the time of the second wave, when everything was still confusing.