Morgan Nyberg - Since Tomorrow

As he approached the scene of the fight he stepped from the sidewalk and walked alongside the lane divider so as to avoid the pairs of men, or man and woman, or woman and woman who were carrying bodies to the railing and struggling them over and letting them drop. King was lying beside the divider. He raised his head and whined as Will drew near. He managed to stand unsteadily and to take three or four halting steps as he wagged his tail. Will fell to his knees and let King lick his face. As he hugged the dog he felt the slick wetness seeping and spreading over the fur. He lifted the animal, who weighed as much as he did, and walked with him cradled in his arms through the sprawl of corpses.

In the main room of Frost’s apartment, by the poor light of a peat fire, the wounded were tended. Daniel Charlie sat on the narrow plastic-covered mattress under the window. One leg was extended and resting on a concrete building block. The ankle was splinted with a length of one-by-two and wrapped in white cloth. Against his upper arm a dark circle stained the wool of his poncho. One hand lay limp, palm upward, on the mattress. His braid hung forward over his shoulder, and the other hand loosely gripped the threadbare eagle feather. His chin rested on his chest. His eyes were closed.

Deas lay in front of the fire. His poncho was hitched above the thigh, which was wrapped in the same cloth as Daniel Charlie’s ankle. His the face was bandaged, and the bandages were blotched red. Jessica was holding his head up and was letting him drink some skag in water.

For a minute Frost stared at the small bag Jessica held in the same hand as the bottle, as the weak light winked against the plastic. It was the bag he had found under Grace’s mattress. Then he continued helping Will administer to King, who stood swaying as they wrapped his wounds. Frost carried King to the fireplace and laid him beside Deas.

Salmon sat against the edge of the table, holding a plastic bottle of alcohol in her single hand. She seemed stunned. She stared blankly. Old Brandon stood in the doorway with his bow held loose at his side. Like Salmon he appeared rooted, mute and incapable of action, although his lips worked, perhaps feeling through his battered memory for a song. When the bow dropped from his fingers he did not seem to notice. A few residents muttered out in the hallway. Someone had looked after the addicts. The rest of the residents were elsewhere, in their rooms or walking the dark farm, sickened by what they had been capable of.

Frost left the apartment. He passed Marpole, Hastings and Oak. They looked at Frost as if he might be able to fix what they were feeling. Frost touched each of them lightly and continued on to the hooch room. For a few minutes he tried to guess where the numbers of the combination were on the dial of the lock. Then Hastings came with a burning cattail to help him see. Marpole carried the heavy white plastic container of hooch back to Frost’s apartment, and the guards rooted through cupboards for containers.

Will was kneeling beside King, stroking his head. Frost motioned for him to stand. As Will did so Frost gripped him beneath the arms as if he were a toddler and lifted him, and Will wrapped his legs around Frost’s waist. Carrying his grandson, pausing to close the door to the smaller room where Brittany lay dead, Frost walked from his apartment.

He walked out and down the steps and to the graveyard. The overcast had torn in places, and there was a tossed handful of stars. A paleness in the remaining cloud-cover indicated the position of the moon. It was too dark to make out any of the markers, but Frost stepped surely among the graves.

Will’s head rested on his shoulder. The boy’s warm breath touched his neck. Frost said “Soon spring.” He felt the slight movement as Will nodded. “It’s been a wet winter. There’ll be a good crop.” He set Will down, and they walked hand in hand to the river bank. He said “Do you think Daniel will ever finish the water wheel?”

Will tried to speak, could not at first find his voice, then said simply “Mm hm.”

“That’ll be good for the spuds. Especially if we have a dry year.” Suddenly the moon slid full and powerful into a gash in the cloud-cover. He looked over Will’s head and saw a dark form caught against a bush at the edge of the water. The pale shafts of three cane arrows glowed in the moonlight. By the bulk of the body it could be no one else but Freeway.

Frost led Will slowly back again through the graves, among the markers made visible but ghostly by the moon. He said “You can go and sleep at Arthurlaing’s tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Just for tonight.”

“Where’s Noor?”

“She’ll be along. She’s fine.”

They walked back to the domicile. At the steps Frost squatted and held both of Will’s hands. He said “You’re a brave boy, Will. I’m proud of you. Very proud.” He stood and kissed Will on the head and said “You go in now.”

He crossed the muddy ground to the barns and took down Beauty’s rope halter. Beauty snorted as he approached her, and he could smell the sweet breath. He led her out and beside the fence and stepped up onto a two-by-four and sat onto the broad back.

Will had gone in. Frost did not stop to look into the window of his apartment. He did not even turn toward it. He rode up onto the bridge.

There were no bodies now, but Beauty tossed her head, and Frost felt her shiver as she trod through the sheets of blood. Noor and Tyrell stood together on the eastern sidewalk. Frost stopped beside them.

Tyrell said “The cockroach got away.”

Frost said nothing. He looked at Noor for a long time, as his granddaughter looked back. Finally he nodded, and she did as well. Then he looked down at his hands and seemed startled that they were empty. Tyrell handed him his sword. Noor stepped forward and held her spear for him to take. But as he reached for it she took his hand in her free hand and kissed the calloused palm and held it against her wet cheek. Then she let him take the spear, and Frost clucked and twitched the reins.

He did not pause by the rickshaw. But at the bottom of the bridge people were approaching, and Frost stopped and waited and said “Don’t be afraid. It’s only me. Frost.”

A woman’s voice replied “We want to go to your farm.”

“Didn’t they leave guards?”

“They ran away.”

“Yes, go.”

And they passed, young Snow and the other women of Wing’s farm. Having stopped, Frost looked back up the bridge. There was only one figure now at the top of the bridge. He could not tell if it was Tyrell or Noor.

He rode east along Marine Trail, well above the river. He passed the pale rectangular facades of vanished commerce that at first lined the way. In the intervals when the moon revealed the river below he sometimes saw outlined against the water the chimneys of houses whose wood had long ago been burned for fuel. He saw rows of steel wall studs like the plainest of skeletons. In the obscure parking lots from time to time he caught a glimmer of windshield glass through a mound of blackberry. He let Beauty find the trail, and he let her plod eastward at her own slow pace, swinging and planting the immense hooves.

From the north, from the easternmost wilderness of Town, came a constant high-pitched wailing of coyotes. He heard also the ceaseless flow of water in creeks and ravines eroded into the slopes north of the trail. He crossed long stretches of mud lying on the old road, and three times he had to dismount and lead Beauty over wide mud hills, as both the man and the horse sank to their knees. Once Frost heard a portion of earth let go and grumble slowly down the slope to his right. A little further on he stopped and looked back and waited for the moon. When it slipped for half a minute into a slash in the clouds he glimpsed a figure a few hundred yards behind. Perhaps someone following. He sniffed, rubbed his cold nose and continued.