False Dawn Read online

  “She’s… She’s…”

  “I know. Come with me. There’s very little time.”

  The woman’s trowel connected fatally at last and the man fell away from her, his head strangely askew, blood and other things staining his face.

  In the flickering light of the spreading fire, Thea and Evan could count more than a dozen dead. Two of the farmers, trapped in the second barn as the fire consumed it, were screaming, but the sound was lost in the rest of the fight. More of the cyclists came through the wall, sure of their victory now and eager for the pillage Seeing them the women fled to the main house but few of them made it to safety. Three of the cyclists fell upon one woman, two holding her down as the third pulled and tore at her trousers.

  One of the farmers attacked the three marauders clubbing them with his empty rifle until the other cyclists saw what was happening and ran the farmer down slashing him with long knives. Bleeding from the deep gash in his stomach, the farmer fell across the woman. She shrieked out, a sound that destroyed her voice. Then she was still as the farmer bled out his life on top of her.

  Three of the buildings were afire when the first barn fell in, sending out cascades of sparks and the stench of burned flesh. The few remaining cyclists outside the wall put themselves between the houses and the river, knowing that if the farmers were to save their buildings from the fires, they would have to come for water. The cyclists waited, certain of winning, needing only the last four defending men to have the rest of the holding and the women to themselves.

  Sunlight was staining the tops of the mountains, throwing long shadows down the canyon to take the place of night. More farmers fell, one with a baling hook in his neck, another crushed by a burning beam dropping from the second barn. The few farmers left bolted for the central house, calling to the women to bring rifles from the other houses. As soon as they were secure in the central building, some of the cyclists brought flaming boards from the outer compound wall and laid them against the house, laughing as they saw the fire take hold of the wood.

  Thea and Evan were nearing the second barn, coming as close to the wall as the flames would let them, keeping as much to the leaping shadows as they could. So long as the confusion held, they might be able to raid the barn and get away with precious meat before they were suspected or discovered.

  The marauding cyclists let out a cheer to the sound of splintering wood, and this was followed by the crinkling of chain.

  “That’s the door going,” Evan said quietly. “We’ll have to be fast. This will be over soon.”

  Thea nodded numbly, shading her face against the glare of the fire. “I know,” she said after a moment. She had seen similar battles many times before and had watched them to their end. She felt the rhythm of this conflict shift toward its end. Already she could hear the sounds of the men in the house as the cyclists sought them out. Mercifully the fire and the barn blocked out the sight.

  Evan pulled her around the corner of the wall and beyond the fire. There were paddocks and a couple of pigpens on this side. The paddocks were empty, but for a few hysterical chickens and a dog with a maimed leg. In the largest pigpen one angry sow guarded her litter.

  “Piglets. They’re about eight weeks old, from the look of them. We can get a couple of piglets,” Thea suggested, watching the sow warily. “We might have to kill her, though.” The sound and knowledge of the slaughter behind them were fading as she thought of having food again.

  “There’s a pitchfork on the wall,” Evan said as he ran his eyes expertly over the outbuildings. “We can hold her off with that and grab a couple of the piglets. And maybe a couple of chickens,” he added, looking over his shoulder to the hens squawking in the paddock.

  Thea had already taken the pitchfork off its hook and was climbing cautiously over the wall of the pen. The sow made a rumbling noise and started forward. She was a large white Dorchester with close to three hundred pounds behind her threat. Thea knew enough about pigs to respect their strength, their intelligence, and their cunning. Holding her pitchfork at the ready, she called out, “You’ll have to be fast, Evan. She’s not going to be fooled for very long.”

  Without taking time to answer, Evan vaulted over the gate into the pen, moving carefully to the squirming pile of piglets that lay near the empty water trough. He flexed his half-formed fingers carefully, feeling them still weak with their untried newness.

  At their backs the fire ate steadily down the wall like invincible locusts, masking the stillness that fell suddenly inside the compound. A last wail of agony rose into the morning and then only the fire crackled and chuckled evilly.

  Evan had grabbed two of the piglets by their hind legs, then swung them expertly into the wall to stun them. But the sound of the impact caught the attention of the sow, and she wheeled about with surprising speed, rushing at Evan in full maternal rage Thea cried out throwing the pitchfork at the sow. She had the satisfaction of seeing the tines sink deep into the sow’s rump but aside from making the animal even angrier, the wounds did little to halt her rush at Evan.

  Quickly Evan grabbed the edge of the trough and with all his strength he pulled one end of it free of the mud and heaved it at the charging sow. He caught her full across the front and she staggered before collapsing under its weight making a grunt like metal on metal.

  From the burning wall there came a shout and Thea looked up to see three of the cyclists pointing at them from the stock gate.

  “Evan!” she shouted, frightened.

  “I see them,” he called back motioning to her to move toward the outer road. “This way, Thea. Keep out of sight,” he ordered, waving toward the brush that lined the farm track leading to the crossroad beyond. Looping a rabbit-hide thong around the piglets, he scrambled over the fence and set out at a run.

  As she raced toward the brush, Thea sensed Evan’s nearness. He still had the piglets and held the thong tight, running with the force of panic. Wordlessly he guided her toward the first bushes, nudging her to bend low. The gravel of the road tore at their feet as they went, making her stumble, lurching his body against her.

  “Steady,” he panted. “You can, Thea, you can.” When she faltered, he dragged her to her feet. The answer she gave was a sob, but his words were strength to her, for she dived into the scrub with him, making new rents in her jeans as the stiff thorn-like branches pulled at her. They blundered through the brush until they were sure they had not been followed, and then they sank onto the ground sucking air into their lungs in long, shuddering gulps.

  “What now?” she asked when she could speak again.

  “We wait. They might not come after us with all that loot down there. I wouldn’t let the Pirates waste their time on scavengers like us.”

  Thea nodded, recalling three times when the Pirates had left her alone in exchange for pillaging a few old houses, or seizing valuable food stores. It was one of the reasons she had traveled alone until now. “They might.”

  “So long as we’re out of sight and quiet, they’ll leave us alone. Unless they want to come after us on foot, and that takes time they don’t have to spare. They haven’t enough ammunition to waste it by shooting at random.”

  “Unless they find more ammunition in the houses. Then it might be good sport, hunting us.”

  He nodded acknowledgment, but said nothing. Some minutes later he rolled onto his side. “At least we can start on these,” he said as he took the paring knife from his belt, drawing it with difficulty across the piglets’ throats. “They should dress out at about eight pounds each, maybe a little more.” As soon as the bleeding started, he efficiently gutted the two carcasses and tied their hind legs together to let them hang as they bled. The rabbit fur on the thongs was matted with blood, and sticky, but it held the piglets firmly.

  “Smoke them?” Thea asked as Evan finished his work.

  “Probably the best way; otherwise we’ll have to gorge on them before the meat turns,” he agreed. “As soon as we can get out of here—” />
  There was a roar from three of the cycles that interrupted them and made Thea jump. “They’re coming. I guess they found that ammunition?’

  “But they aren’t going to catch us,” Evan promised. He slung the piglets on his belt and pointed up the hill. “We can cross the road up there and make our way back to the ridge. We’ll go quietly, and they won’t be able to find us.”

  “You do think they have more ammunition, don’t you?” she asked as they started the grueling crawl up the slope.

  For an answer, buckshot sprayed into the brush behind them. “I guess so,” Evan said dryly. “We’ll have to zigzag to keep them confused.”

  It was slow going, and the advancing light made it worse. The tight branches and flat leaves offered good protection; their jeans and neutral-colored shirts provided some concealment as well, but once in full sunlight they would not match the shadows and it would be an easy matter for the cyclists to pick them off as they emerged from the brush.

  Another round of buckshot crashed through the brush, but not as close as the first had been. Thea glanced over her shoulder. “I think they’ve found the guts,” she whispered.

  “They’re welcome to them,” Evan laughed softly. Tugging at her sleeve he pulled her farther away from the path of the buckshot.

  “There are more of them,” Thea said, pausing long enough to peer down at the track. “They’ve got help. There’s five or six of them now.”

  “Shit!” Evan’s fingers sank into her arm. “Look there.”

  Ahead of them, where the dirt road crossed the old highway, dust was rising. The sound of wagons coming, drawn possibly by oxen or other heavy, slow animals, grew steadily louder, increasing with the sun.

  Dismayed, Thea looked at Evan. “Now what?” she asked, looking from the coiling dust over the road to the armed cyclists on the gravel track.

  But Evan motioned her to be silent, squinting impatiently at the road ahead. “I wonder who’s coming?” he murmured aloud, rubbing at his unkempt beard.

  The noise on the road grew loud enough for the cyclists to hear it, and there were shouts as the men changed direction, their engines whining as the thick wheels tore into the gravel. With shouts of malicious joy the cyclists rode forward to meet the strangers on the road.

  But their delight was short-lived, for as they rounded the bend, Thea and Evan heard a cry of horror go up from the marauders and the words, “Untouchables! Monsters! Monsters!”

  Gingerly Evan crawled through the brush, motioning Thea to stay where she was so she could keep an eye on the cyclists. She nodded her quick understanding and positioned herself between Evan and the burning buildings, lying flat on the ground with her sharpened file clutched firmly in her hand.

  The cyclists careened back to the burning farm, shouting to one another. In their moment of panic, they had dropped one of their shotguns at the crossroad, hut none came to retrieve it.

  Slowly the caravan that had frightened the cyclists drew into view; a pathetic band of men and women traveling in rough carts drawn by emaciated cattle. That they could use such livestock and go unmolested by the starving and desperate people who roamed the mountains attested more eloquently than any other thing about them to the horror they carried in their wagons.

  Evan beckoned Thea to come nearer, and she made her way in cautious silence through the underbrush to his side.

  “Poor bastards,” Evan muttered as he moved closer to the road. His eyes dwelled for a moment on the cart with the children, then he turned away. Even in the years when he had led the Pirates, he had not got used to the terrible deformities that were appearing more and more in the diminishing number of live births of the few surviving men and women. These children in the carts were no exception: only one looked close to normal, all the other seven had defects ranging from a few extra fingers on each hand to hideously stunted bodies, to limbless trunks, to hornlike growths on lead-colored skin. Evan saw that two of the women were pregnant, and wondered, as he had often done before, what could drive them to bear children, with the hopeless testimony of the children riding in the cart.

  Thea seemed aware of his thoughts. “What choice is there?” she said to him. “At least they’re fertile. They have that value.” She felt bitterness burn in her. The worth of a female was determined by her fecundity. She had seen women bought and paid for on the merit of a successful pregnancy; never mind that less than half the children survived, or that many of the women died in childbirth.

  Behind them the cyclists were loading their loot onto their machines as fast as they could, leaving behind the burning buildings and the women they had fought so determinedly to possess. Ash from the burned-out barns drifted lazily on the air above them as they rushed to escape, and one lonely cock crowed for morning.

  “They’re fools. They can’t catch it,” Thea said softly. “They’ve already got it inside of them. We all do.”

  Just short of the crossroads the carts stopped and three of the men gathered at the head of the pathetic little band and talked. One of them indicated the smoke overhead with an impatient wave of his hand, and the oldest of the three looked about uneasily, gesturing nervously. Eventually one of the younger men was sent ahead to the crossroad to act as scout. He came back quickly enough and after a few moments of consultation, the carts moved forward again, turning at the crossroad onto the gravel track, toward the burning farm.

  Thea and Evan watched in silence, keeping very still as the group of wagons rattled by them, the wheels crunching loudly as they rolled onto the gravel.

  When the road was empty once more, Thea asked, “Do you think the fires will spread into the brush?” She did not want to talk about the Untouchables who had gone by. She had experienced for herself the unreasoning fear that mutations engendered in those who felt themselves normal.

  “Not if they give the women some help, if the women are still alive,” Evan replied, carefully avoiding the mention of Untouchables as well. He listened intently for a moment, then crawled toward the road. Nothing; no one was in sight. He got to his feet and started toward the crossroad, the piglets tied to his belt flapping against his leg as he ran, smearing his pants with the last of their blood.

  “Evan,” Thea called after him, alarmed. But her concern turned to surprise as she watched him search the bushes and the crossing and emerge with the shotgun one of the cyclists had dropped. She climbed out of the brush eagerly and was standing waiting for him as he came back with it. “Is it loaded?”

  “Both barrels. It won’t take us very far, but we might find some cartridges for it somewhere. Maybe farther upstream.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t count on it. But, Evan, we can make a crossbow,” she said with more enthusiasm than she had shown for weeks. “And we can make quarrels from the barrels.”

  “Is that how you made the other one?” he asked, starting the long climb back to the ridge. “Come on. We’ve got to smoke these things before the meat turns bad.” He jiggled the rabbit skin thong and the piglets twitched like puppets.

  She fell in beside him, her greedy eyes on the piglets and the shotgun. At their backs the smoke diminished, mixing with steam as the Untouchables carried water to the farm compound, working alongside the few women who were alive after the raid. The echo of motorcycles had faded from the canyon, leaving the soft sound of voices and the lowing of cattle to fill the narrow gorge.

  Higher up the canyon they crossed the river on the remnants of a railroad bridge and climbed at last to the far rim to a burned-over plateau which hung over the river like a double chin. Knowing that they had food gave them a reserve strength they had not tapped until then and when they found a sheltered outcropping of rock, Thea surprised them both by locating a small, cold spring that dribbled a thin, pure trickle from the rocks.

  Against the boulders they made a small lean-to for smoking one the piglets. The Manzanita that covered the old scars from the burning gave them enough dry wood for a fire; while one of the piglets hung in the lean
-to in the slow pungent smoke, the other was roasted in the coals of the fire. Evan had found some wild garlic and had smeared the roasting piglet with it, and the steam that rose from the crackling skin put a sharp edge on their hunger.

  As they waited for their food to cook, Thea toyed with the shotgun. “It would be more practical to make a crossbow’ she said to Evan when she had been silent for some minutes. “We can’t he sure of finding shot for this, but we can always make quarrels out of scrap metal. There’s all kinds of things that can make good quarrels. Nails. Bits of cars. All kinds of things.”

  Looking across the banked fire, he remembered his first sight of her in the deserted silo above Chico. She had had her crossbow strapped to her wrist then, and had hated to leave it behind when Cox and the Pirates got too close. “You’d rather have the crossbow, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course. It’s a good weapon. It doesn’t make a lot of noise and it packs a lot of power. You can put a quarrel through almost anything if the tension is tight enough in the bow, and if you’re close enough to your target.” Her chin had gone up defiantly. showing the clean angles of her face, and lighting her dark, intelligent eyes. She hated being challenged like this, and her cheeks grew bright.

  “And can you make this into a crossbow? Quickly?” He hefted the shotgun, balancing it in his hand for a moment, as if weighing its potentials.

  Her eyes lit with excitement. “I could. Truly, Evan. I could.” She reached out for it, her hand almost trembling. “I’ll show you.”

  He put the shotgun down. “If we found another, could you make one for me as well?”

  She nodded happily. Evan handed her the gun, watching as she touched it. “But save the shells for me. We can still use them. Buckshot is a good weapon, too.” He laughed at her absent reply before reaching to pull the roasted piglet from the ashes.

  The warm smell spread itself between them like water. Thea tore herself away from the beautiful, deadly shine of the gun barrels, looking feverishly at the piglet. The skin was shiny and crisp, cracked in places with juices running out, and the aroma was sublime.