David Robbins - Thief River Falls Run

“Get me a live Watcher,” Joshua recommended.

“What?”

“My particular emphatic talent involves receiving impressions from objects and people, living people. I tried to imprint information from the bodies of the Watchers you killed, but I wasn’t successful. Curious paradox. I can receive impressions from animate beings and inanimate objects, but not from inanimate beings. Interesting.”

Hickok lazily stretched. “Any other items on our agenda this morning?”

“We’ve covered the essential points,” Blade said. “We’ll stay put until Bertha decides to come with us, if she does. Each of us will pull six-hour guard shifts, including you, Joshua. I realize you’re not a Warrior, but everyone must participate.”

“I understand,” Joshua remarked.

“Hickok will provide you with one of the confiscated arms,” Blade instructed.

“I will not bear arms,” Joshua indignantly asserted.

“You will carry a gun on guard duty.”

“It is against my personal philosophy to use a firearm.” Joshua refused to budge.

“Using it is up to you,” Blade countered. “But you will carry one, and that is final. If we’re attacked, and you decide not to fire, at least shout a warning to alert us.”

Joshua started to speak, then thought better of it.

“Geronimo,” Blade went on, “you’ll pull the first shift, so sleepyhead here,” he nodded at Hickok, “can catch up on his beauty rest. The Spirit knows he needs it!”

“Thanks, pard,” Hickok grumbled.

“When six hours are up, wake Hickok. Joshua, you’re after Hickok. I’ll pull the final shift. Any questions?”

“I have one,” Hickok mentioned.

“Shoot.”

Hickok grinned. “You keep mentioning six-hour shifts. How in the blazes are we supposed to know when six hours have gone by? We left our hourglasses back at the Home, and the sundial was just too plain big to tote along.”

Blade removed an item from his right front pocket. “I think this will suffice.”

“I don’t believe it!” Hickok gaped.

“Where’d you get that? I didn’t see it when I stripped the bodies,” Geronimo said.

“Is that a watch?” Joshua asked.

Blade nodded. “That’s what they were called. It was on the guy called Joe. I removed it before you searched their clothes,” he answered Geronimo. “It’s making a sound, like a scratching, and the black pointers are moving, so I assume it’s still working.”

“May I?” Joshua reached over and took the watch. “I remember reading something about these things in the library. These pointers were called hands, I believe. If I recall correctly, this watch is indicating it’s seven in the morning.”

“Thank the Founder for the library,” Geronimo stated.

Blade mentally agreed. Kurt Carpenter had stocked almost five hundred thousand books in E Block, shelf after shelf of the greatest literature mankind had produced, the classics, interspersed with sections devoted to specific topics or themes. One of the largest sections was exclusively devoted to survival skills. Reference books on every conceivable subject were at the Family’s fingertips. Books on military tactics and strategies.

Gardening. Hunting and fishing. Woodworking. Metalsmithing. Natural medicine. Weaving and sewing. History books. Geography books. Volumes on religion and philosophy. Dictionaries. Encyclopedias. Fiction for entertainment. Humorous books, like the Peanuts and Garfield cartoon collections. And on and on. Carpenter had tried to envision the challenges the Family would face, and to stock books instructing the Family on how to cope with those obstacles. How-to books were present in abundance.

Carpenter never realized it, but his library would become the Family’s prime source of amusement as well as tutelage. With the demise of electricity, most contemporary diversions faded into oblivion. Not so with the books. Family children were taught to read at an early age, and reading became a primarily Family pursuit. Everyone read. Most read avidly. Photographic books were especially prized, many of the photos of prewar culture and technology evoking awe and wonder. Reading and music were the Family’s recreation. Plato had once mentioned to Blade that he preferred it that way. Blade had inquired as to why. “These pastimes sharpen the intellect. Most of those before the war atrophied the brain,” Plato had said.

“How do you tell what time it is?” Hickok leaned toward Joshua.

Joshua held the watch so Hickok could see. “The big pointer, or hand, tells you the minute. The smaller hand tells you the hour.”

“What’s that third hand do?” Hickok asked. “The thin one.”

Joshua reflected a moment. “I think that tells you about the seconds.”

Hickok sadly shook his head. “I never would have made it,” he dryly commented.

“Made what?” Joshua inquired.

“Made it before the Big Blast. First the SEAL. Now this watch.

Everything back then was so blasted complicated!”

“All it takes is practice,” Geronimo said, disagreeing. “You’ll change your mind once you get the hang of things.”

“Bet me,” Hickok quipped.

“Here.” Joshua gave the watch to Geronimo.

“You have the first shift and you’ll need this.”

Geronimo studied the time. “So if I understand you, I wake up Hickok at one to pull his shift.”

“You got it,” Blade told him and pushed back from the table. “I think I’m going to search some of the other buildings, see what I can find.”

“Probably nothing,” Hickok predicted. “There’s just us and the dead Watchers and that’s it, folks.” The scream, a terrified, penetrating shriek, punctuated Hickok’s statement. “That came from upstairs!” Joshua shouted. Hickok was already in motion, scooping up his Henry from where he had placed it against his chair and bounding up the steps. Blade, Geronimo, and Joshua quickly followed. The petrified cry was just fading when the four men piled into Bertha’s room.

“What is it?” Hickok asked, glancing at the window, which was still closed.

Bertha was sitting up, the blanket clutched in front of her body, covering her to the chin. She was staring, wide-eyed, at an opening at the base of the room’s south wall, a former vent, the cover since removed by a previous tenant.

“Kill it!” she beseeched them, her voice shrill. “Kill the damn thing!”

Perched on its rear legs in the vent opening stood a large rat, its whiskers twitching, defiantly gazing at them.

“It’s just a rat,” Hickok said, amazed. He stared down at Bertha.

“You’re afraid of one measly old rat?”

“Kill it!” She frantically clutched his left leg. “For God’s sake, kill it before it can bring the rest back here!”

“Whatever you say.” Hickok began to bring the Henry up, but stopped when Blade grabbed his arm.

“Not in here,” Blade nodded at the rifle. “Think of our ears.” He was holding his Commando in his left hand, his right slowly sneaking around his back, to the Solingen throwing knifes.

“Oh, get it, please!” Bertha whispered.

The rat dropped to all fours and began to turn, to leave.

Blade crouched, sweeping his right hand forward, gripping the Solingen by the tip of the blade. He threw overhand, the knife turning end over end as it crossed the six feet between them and imbedded itself to the hilt in the rat’s fat, squat body.

The rat reared back, screeching and chittering, clawing at the knife.

The furry body was racked with intense spasms. It squealed one final time, tottered on the edge of the vent, and toppled over, disappearing down the shaft.

“My knife!” Blade lunged for the opening, too late. His fingers clutched empty air. “Damn!” He knelt and peered down the vent. “Can’t see a thing! I’ll never get that knife back.”