Morgan Nyberg - Since Tomorrow

The mountain still smoked a little. A blanket of low cloud was sliding in from the southwest, gradually hiding the mountains and the smoke.

“No green at all now” said Tyrell.

Frost did not look away from the trail ahead. He said “Please, Tyrell.”

“I was just…”

“I know.”

Beauty pulled the wagon with its heaped potatoes. Frost held the reins. Tyrell sat beside him, holding upright between his feet a six foot length of black plastic pipe with a slender blade set and tied into the end. Below the blade a crude pennant made from a few strands of wool stirred in a cool breeze.

The trail ran beside an old asphalt road, which was potholed, fissured, buckled and grown over. A second wagon followed Frost’s, drawn by two steers. In it lounged five men. Marpole drove. Six spears rested with their blades projecting over the sides of the wagon, their pennants a stronger green than the weeds that from time to time stroked the dangling wool.

Frost said “The dogs are going to scare the squatters. We’d better tie them.” They stopped and he whistled the dogs in and the men leashed them to the backs of the wagons. They continued along the trail.

In a while, not turning to face Tyrell, as if in fact addressing Beauty’s tail, Frost said flatly “I know Grouse Mountain is burnt. I also know there is no green now on those mountains.” Beauty plodded eastward. Not far to the left of the wagons the water of the north arm swirled restlessly, waiting for a tide change. Frost said “I know a mother died yesterday, and I know a baby girl also died yesterday. I know we’re on our way to do business with an ugly customer. I know we’ll be lucky to survive the winter.” He was silent for a while. Then he said. “I don’t need to be reminded.”

They passed squatters’ digs in half-collapsed concrete structures, mounded with blackberry vine. A man approached carrying an armful of twiggy branches. He stepped between a pair of bushes onto the old road to let the wagons pass. Wing’s Bridge was not far ahead. Frost said “I’m a grouchy old man.”

“True” said Tyrell, and then “ Ugly customer — haven’t heard that for a while.”

Frost produced a weak chuckle.

A staccato laugh burst from Tyrell. “Ugly customer” he said again, and laughed again, like a jackhammer. Tyrell wore a dirty polyester eye patch of an unidentifiable pale hue. A thick scar ran at an angle from his hair to the eye patch and emerged below the patch to fade among the spiraled dots of his beard. His grey hair was cropped close. His skin was the brown of melted chocolate. His right hand, which loosely held the spear, was missing the index finger. He was a small man with the precise, negligent movements of a cat.

Frost said “Why does he have the crossbows?”

“Because he’s a cockroach.”

“I’m no killer, Tyrell.”

“I am.”

Frost said “That is not the world we’re building.”

“Does the world we’re buildin’ have skaggers in it?”

Frost gazed southeast through a sprawl of collapsed and grown-over warehouses and across the scrubby plain to the desolate enormity of Nobody’s Bridge and to the bald ridge beyond it.

They were soon on a rutted track among Wing’s rows of wilted potato plants.

Tyrell said. “We need real weapons.”

“Bull.”

“We need bows.”

“Crossbows? So we can be like them?”

“No. We need longbows. So we can kill them. You can shoot a longbow ten times before a skagger can reload once.”

There was Wing’s plain home, a warehouse with one of the concrete wall slabs leaning out, and his barn of concrete block and fibreglass panels. There was old Wing himself, bent over a half-handled shovel, digging up spuds with his crew. His dogs saw Frost’s wagons and came running.

“God almighty, Tyrell” said Frost. “Like Robin Hood?”

“Who’s Robin Hood?”

Frost shook his head. “I never wanted to be a general.”

Tyrell said “I always did.”

Wing saw them and unbent himself slowly and waved his shovel.

Wing’s crew, led by half a dozen young women whose arms were dirty up to the elbows, approached to talk with the guards. The women were barefoot and wore sleeveless rag-stitched dresses and had gap-toothed smiles. There were a few children among them, including an adolescent girl. Marpole and Hastings unhitched Beauty and the steers and led them away to be watered. Tyrell let the dogs loose. With Wing’s dogs they raced off toward the river in a pack. Frost and Wing walked side by side, Tyrell a little distance away.

Wing said “I think my girls like your boys.”

“Some things at least endure” said Frost. “Would you let any of them come to my farm to stay, if it came to that?”

“Let them? You think I would have a say in the matter?”

“Well, they would be welcome. How’s your water?”

“That rain come none too soon. It’s a bitch haulin’ it up from the river. How is that water wheel comin’ along?”

“Good. It’s coming good. Daniel Charlie will get back to work on it as soon as the harvest is over.”

Dead leaves of potato plants formed a mottled carpet through which rose a ragged stubble of weeds.

“I like them shoes” said Wing. “Gucci?” He threw his head back and laughed.

Frost managed a tight smile.

Tyrell called, his words like a series of gunshots “Who’s Gucci? Friend of Robin Hood’s?”

“Yep” said Wing. “One of the Merry Men.”

They came to the riverbank. There was a wide pool at the water’s edge, ringed with rocks. The horse and the steers drank. The dogs had already finished and were playing or scrutinizing smells.

“You going to stay and visit?” asked Wing.

“No, we’ve got business farther east. It’s a good hike. We better keep going.”

“Skag business?”

Frost nodded. “There’s no use wishing we had real medicine, because we don’t.”

“He kilt someone at the market.”

“Noor told me. This is new. It bothers me. I don’t want to have to…”

“It ain’t new.”

Frost looked at him.

Wing said “What do you think he does with his workers when they get too addicted and messed up to work?”

“You’re saying…?”

“I told you.” called Tyrell.

“He sent me a message” said Wing

“Langley?”

“Hemlock the Messenger come yesterday. He says, ‘Langley sends you a message. This is the message. “I hear you got a nice farm. I like farms.”’”

Frost said “You know he took over Fundy’s Bridge?”

“I know.”

The day grew dark. A frigid wind blew. They crossed an area of ruined asphalt grown over with brush and thistle. A quarter-mile to the east, between the tops of the scrub they could see Skaggers’ Bridge. They could not find a trail. The wagons bumped and tottered over bulges and through dips and sharp-edged holes. The guards cursed and protested and finally jumped down from the wagon and walked, carrying their spears and each holding the twine leash of a dog. Tyrell sprang down and took the leash of King and walked out in front of his men. The group went ahead of Frost and called out if they found a clear way for Beauty and the wagon. Marpole’s steers hesitated, lurched and made slow progress.

Boundary shouted “Look at this. Do we want it?”

When Frost came up beside him he saw that it was a car wheel half hidden under blackberry vine. It still had the tire. Frost nodded. Boundary and Newton dug it out, and when Marpole caught up they heaved it into his wagon.

They angled south. They passed the remains of an industrial building. Parts of the roof and a wall were intact but there was no sign of habitation. Frost said “No one wants to live here, not even squatters.”