Unknown - The_Growing_589064

“His feet are tired, too,” Kirsten says with a smile. “Let’s let him rest.”

A smaller room leads off the lobby to one side of the hearth. Bottles still line the wall

Behind the antique walnut bar, but half the shelves stand empty. Attrition has set in among the glassware, too; the stems for alexanders and whisky sours that hang above the bar show chips on some of the rims, and here, too, many seem to be missing. “Family dining room’s this way,” Kriegesmann says, turning to open a door carved with a line of quail, the young ones strung out between their parents as they make their way through a jungle of columbine and lupines. A discreet sign beside the jamb names it The Covey. “This used to be the VIP club. Still is, so to speak.”

The room is brightly lit by lamps and candles. Seven people sit at a long table in the center, staring at them as they enter. Tanya crosses the small room to a sideboard and begins to set two more places, while her brother introduces them. “My dad, Julius Kriegesmann.” The man seated at the head of the table, his white beard and hair impeccably trimmed, nods in greeting. “My mother, Harriet.” Harriet looks decades younger than her husband; not, in fact, much older than her son. Kirsten smiles at her, murmuring “Beaucoup Botox,” under her breath so quietly that even Koda barely hears her. Another sister, Diotima, who is evidently the mother of the two children lately afflicted with spots, waves and gives a blinding smile when introduced; neither offspring, however, can be coaxed to look up from their mashed potatoes long enough to greet the visitors. “Errolllll,” their mother whispers. “Vanesssa. Manners. Please.” Humphrey Smith, Diotima’s husband, and a black haired woman with uptilted black eyes, introduced merely as Elaine, round out the company. Tension hums around the room, running a three-pointed current among Harriet and the two daughters, between Julius and Elaine, between Tanya and Ariel.

Gods. We’ve gone through the rabbit hole and landed in a Faulkner novel. Or maybe Flannery O’Connor. Good country people, for sure.

Koda acknowledges the introductions politely, slipping into a seat across from Elaine, Kirsten beside her. Ariel, standing with his hand on the back of one of two chairs to the right of his mother, shrugs and accepts his plate without comment. Julius serves both Dakota and Kirsten with thick slices of the meat from the platter, and Koda is pleased to find that it is venison, excellently prepared with red wine and bay leaves. A helping of mashed potatoes follows, together with disappointingly insipid pea-green peas from a can. Beside her, Kirsten tucks into her supper with enthusiasm, leaving Koda to make conversation with their hosts. It is as much tactics as hunger, Koda realizes; while no one here has apparently heard of the battle of the Cheyenne, these are precisely the sort of people who might well recognize Kirsten despite her lengthening hair and bronzed skin. A turn of phrase, a tone of voice, could give her away as easily as her face.

So Dakota is left to answer the inevitable questions. They are traveling west from Minnesota, aiming for Salt Lake and Annie’s family there, if they’re still alive. Medical school? Sorry, vet school, at U Penn. Yes, she has some experience with human medicine, too; veterinarians dissect human cadavers along with animal corpses as part of their training, studying human infections right along with distemper and feline leukemia. At this, Harriet winces and reaches for her wine glass with fingers that still show traces of a professional manicure. The children’s eyes, in contrast, grow large as their plates, and Errol pronounces his approval. “Hey, that’s cool. I bet it’s really, really, gross.” This last is aimed at his sister, who smiles sweetly and rubs a handful of her potatoes into his face.

Koda aims a sharp glance at their uncle, two seats further up the table. “Looks to me like they’re making a normal recovery.”

“Yeah,” Kriegesmann answers shortly. “Pass the gravy, would you?”

“Recovery?” says Diotima, at the same time, frowning. “Oh, those spots.” She turns to Koda. “They have allergies, that’s all. They got into some poison ivy or something awhile back, and now it’s sniffles. Nothing serious.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Koda says thoughtfully. “They’re not used to the mountains in summer?”

“No, we usually go to the beach in June. We come here in winter, just like we did last year. And now—” Diotima shoots a resentful glance around the table—“we’re stuck. We can’t get out. We can’t go back. We’ll die out here in the middle of nowhere, all because of some stupid, stupid robots. The government never should have allowed Peter Westerhaus to make those things. He’s rich, but he’s crazy, you know?” She makes a circular motion around one ear with a forefinger. “If Clinton had stopped him, we wouldn’t be here now—”

“Dio,” her father says repressively, setting his fork down beside his plate. “We’ve been through all this. Make the best of it.”

“And how many droids did you have, Dio, dear?” Tanya looks up with a bite of meat halfway to her mouth. “At least your children were here with you. And your husband.” Her smile is pure acid as she gazes at Humphrey. “Such a comfort, I’m sure.”

“So many comforts,” Elaine sniggers. “A comfortable masseur, a comfortable tennis pro, a comfortable ski instructor. . ..”

“Like you’d know,” Dio shoots back at her. “At least I’ve got kids.”

“And how about you, Humph?” Elaine asks. “Are you comforted that she has kids? At least you have a chance to have some of your own now.”

Smith, arrested in the act of cutting his venison, slowly turns the color of old brick, the blood rising under his tan from neck to receding hairline. “I have,” he says, biting off each word as if it were the texture of pemmican, “fulfilled my obligations to this family and to the corporation. I will continue to do so.”

“There isn’t any corporation any more, you idiot!” Dio wads her napkin into a knot and throws it, violently, into her plate. “It’s over. It’s gone! There’s nothing left but this—” the sweep of her arm encompasses the lodge, the mountain, the empty months and valleys between this spot and an urban existence as dead now as Babylon— this hellhole! I want out! I want out now!” She swings around on Kirsten and Koda. “When you leave in the morning, I’m going with you. The rest of you can stay here and rot!”

With a sob, Dio pushes her chair back so violently it rocks on its back legs and stumbles across the room, both hands over her face. She jerks the door open and slams it behind her; hanging upside down in its rails above the bar, the crystal chimes gently. Julius Kriegesmann’s face, stony pale where his son-in-law’s is a shade just short of purple, half rises from his own seat. His wife lays one hand over his, clenched around his wineglass. “Well,” says Kirsten calmly, “now we know what happened to the glassware.”

Julius turns his gaze on her, his face still thunderous. Then Ariel’s head comes up from what has seemed to be an earnest contemplation of his meal. He stares at Kirsten in the silence, then begins to laugh, a chuckle that begins somewhere around the middle of his chest and gathers force as it rises, shaking his shoulders. “Dr. Annie Rivers,” he says between spasms, “you’re okay.”

The tension in the room snaps, and Julius carefully sets down his Burgundy. The two children return to their suppers with only perfunctory mayhem, overseen by Smith. Julius rises to offer after-dinner brandy to the adults, pouring Courvoisier into the bottoms of ample snifters. He hands Koda hers with a smile, half rueful. “Sorry about the fireworks. It’s been stressful since the uprising, especially for a city girl like Dio who’s used to all the luxuries. She’ll be fine in the morning.”