Parable of the Sower (27 page)

One house down the hill from the road smoked from several of its windows. Already people from the highway had begun to drift down toward it. Trouble. The people who owned the house might manage to put out their fire and still be overwhelmed by scavengers.

“Let’s get away from here,” I said. “The people down there are still strong, and they’re going to feel besieged soon. They’ll fight back.”

“We might find something we can use,” Zahra argued.

“There’s nothing down there worth our getting shot over,” I said. “Let’s go!” I led the way past the small community and we were almost clear of it when the gunfire began.

There were people still on the road with us, but many had flooded down into the small community to steal. The crowd would not confine its attention to the one burning house, and all the households would have to resist.

There were more shots behind us—first single shots, then an uneven crackling of exchanged fire, then the unmistakable chatter of automatic weapons fire. We walked faster, hoping that we were beyond the range of anything aimed in our direction.

“Shit!” Zahra whispered, keeping up with me. “I should have known that was going to happen. People out here in the middle of nowhere gotta be tough.”

“I don’t think their toughness will get them through this day, though,” I said, looking back. There was much more smoke rising now, and it was rising from more than one place. Distant shouts and screams mixed with the gunfire. Stupid place to put a naked little community. They should have hidden their homes away in the mountains where few strangers would ever see them. That was something for me to keep in mind. All the people of this community could do now was take a few of their tormentors with them. Tomorrow the survivors of this place would be on the road with scraps of their belongings on their backs.

It’s odd, but I don’t think anyone on the road would have thought of attacking that community en masse like that if the earthquake—or something—had not started a fire. One small fire was the weakness that gave scavengers permission to devastate the community—which they were no doubt doing now. The shooting could scare away some, kill or wound others, and make the remainder very angry. If the people of the community chose to live in such a dangerous place, they should have set up overwhelming defenses—a line of explosive charges and incendiaries, that kind of thing. Only power that strong, that destructive, that sudden would scare attackers off, would drive them away in a panic more overwhelming than the greed and the need that had drawn them in the first place. If the people of the community were without explosives, they should have grabbed their money and their kids and run like crazy the moment they saw the horde coming. They knew the hills better than migrating scavengers could. They should have had hiding places already prepared or at least been able to lose themselves among the hills while scavengers were ransacking their homes. But they had done none of this. And now vast thick clouds of smoke rose behind us, drawing even more scavengers.

“Whole world’s gone crazy,” a voice near me said, and I knew before I looked that it was the man with the saddlebagged cart. We’d slowed down a little, looking back, and he had caught up. He too had had the sense not to try to go scavenging in the little community. He didn’t look like a man who scavenged. His clothes were dirty and ordinary, but they fit him well and they looked almost new. His jeans were still dark blue, and still creased down the legs. His red, short-sleeved shirt still had all its buttons. He wore expensive walking shoes and had had, not too long ago, an expensive professional haircut. What was he doing out here on the road, pushing a cart? A rich pauper—or at least, a once-rich pauper. He had a short, full, salt and pepper beard. I decided that I liked his looks as much as I had before. What a handsome old man.

Had the world gone crazy?

“From what I’ve read,” I said to him, “the world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.” I was showing off my education and background; I admit it. But the old man seemed unimpressed.

“The nineteen nineties were crazy,” he said, “but they were rich. Nothing like this bad. I don’t think it’s ever been this bad. Those people, those animals back there…”

“I don’t see how they can act that way,” Natividad said. “I wish we could call the police—whoever the police are around here. The householders back there should call.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” I said. “Even if the cops came today instead of tomorrow, they’d just add to the death toll.”

We walked on, the stranger walking with us. He seemed content to walk with us. He could have dropped back or walked on ahead since he didn’t have to carry his load. As long as he stayed on the road, he could speed along. But he stuck with us. I talked to him, introduced myself and learned that his name was Bankole—Taylor Franklin Bankole. Our last names were an instant bond between us. We’re both descended from men who assumed African surnames back during the 1960s. His father and my grandfather had had their names legally changed, and both had chosen Yoruba replacement names.

“Most people chose Swahili names in the ’60s,” Bankole told me. He wanted to be called Bankole. “My father had to do something different. All his life he had to be different.”

“I don’t know my grandfather’s reasons,” I said. “His last name was Broome before he changed it, and that was no loss. But why he chose Olamina…? Even my father didn’t know. He made the change before my father was born, so my father was always Olamina, and so were we.”

Bankole was one year older than my father. He had been born in 1970, and he was, according to him, too damn old to be tramping along a highway with everything he owned in a couple of saddlebags. He was 57. I caught myself wishing he were younger so he would live longer.

Old or not, he heard the two girls calling for help sooner than we did.

There was a road, more dirt than asphalt, running below and alongside the highway, then veering away from the highway into the hills. Up that road was a half-collapsed house, the dust of its collapse still hanging over it. It couldn’t have been much of a house before it fell in. Now it was rubble. And once Bankole alerted us, we could hear faint shouts from it.

“Sounds like women,” Harry said.

I sighed. “Let’s go see. It might just be a matter of pushing some wood off them or something.”

Harry caught me by the shoulder. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” I took the gun out and gave it to him in case someone else’s pain made me useless. “Watch our backs,” I said.

We went in wary and tentative, knowing that a call for help could be false, could lure people to their attackers. A few other people followed us off the road, and Harry hung back, staying between them and us. Bankole shoved his cart along, keeping up with me.

There were two voices calling from the rubble. Both sounded like women. One was pleading, the other cursing. We located them by the sound of their voices, then Zahra, Travis and I began throwing off rubble—dry, broken wood, plaster, plastic, and brick from an ancient chimney. Bankole stood with Harry, watching, and looking formidable. Did he have a gun? I hoped he did. We were drawing a small audience of hungry-eyed scavengers. Most people looked to see what we were doing, and went on. A few stayed and stared. If the women had been trapped since the earthquake, it was surprising that no one had come already to steal their belongings and set fire to the rubble, leaving them in it. I hoped we would be able to get the women out and get back on the highway before someone decided to rush us. No doubt they already would have if there had been anything of value in sight.

Natividad spoke to Bankole, then put Dominic in one of his saddlebags and felt to see that her knife was still in her pocket. I didn’t like that much. Better she should keep wearing the baby so we could leave at a run if she had to.

We found a pale leg, bruised and bleeding but unbroken, pinned under a beam. A whole section of wall and ceiling plus some of the chimney had fallen on these women. We moved the loose stuff then worked together to lift heavier pieces. At last we dragged the women out by their exposed limbs—an arm and a leg for one, both legs for the other. I didn’t enjoy it any more than they did.

On the other hand, it wasn’t that bad. The women had lost some skin here and there, and one was bleeding from the nose and mouth. She spat out blood and a couple of teeth and cursed and tried to get up. I let Zahra help her up. All I wanted to do now was get away from here.

The other one, face wet with tears, just sat and stared at us. She was quiet now in a blank, unnatural way. Too quiet. When Travis tried to help her up, she cringed and cried out. Travis let her alone. She didn’t seem to be hurt beyond a few scratches, but she might have hit her head. She might be in shock.

“Where’s your stuff?” Zahra was asking the bloody one. “We’re going to have to get away from here fast.”

I rubbed my mouth, trying to get past an irrational certainty that two of my own teeth were gone. I felt horrible—scraped and bruised and throbbing, yet whole and unbroken, undamaged in any major way I just wanted to huddle somewhere until I felt less miserable. I took a deep breath and went to the frightened, cringing woman.

“Can you understand me?” I asked.

She looked at me, then looked around, saw her companion wiping away blood with a grimy hand, and tried to get up and run to her. She tripped, started to fall, and I caught her, grateful that she wasn’t every big.

“Your legs are all right,” I said, “but take it easy. We have to get out of here soon, and you’ve got to be able to walk.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A total stranger,” I said. “Try to walk.”

“There was an earthquake.”

“Yeah. Walk!”

She took a shaky step away from me, then another. She staggered over to her friend. “Allie?” she said.

Her friend saw her, stumbled to her, hugged her, smeared her with blood. “Jill! Thank God!”

“Here’s their stuff,” Travis said. “Let’s get them out of here while we still can.”

We made them walk a little more, tried to make them see and understand the danger of staying where we were. We couldn’t drag them with us, and what would have been the point of digging them out, then leaving them at the mercy of scavengers. They had to walk along with us until they were stronger and able to take care of themselves.

“Okay” the bloody one said. She was the smaller and tougher of the two, not that there was that much physical difference between them. Two medium-size, brown-haired white women in their twenties. They might be sisters.

“Okay,” the bloody one repeated. “Let’s get out of here.” She was walking without limping or staggering now, though her companion was less steady.

“Give me my stuff,” she said.

Travis waved her toward two dusty sleepsack packs. She put one on her back, then looked at the other and at her companion.

“I can carry it,” the other woman said. “I’m all right.”

She wasn’t, but she had to carry her own things. No one could carry a double pack for long. No one could fight while carrying a double pack.

There were a dozen people standing around staring as we brought the two women out. Harry walked ahead of us, gun in hand. Something about him said with great clarity that he would kill. If he were pushed even a little, he would kill. I hadn’t seen him that way before. It was impressive and frightening and wrong. Right for the situation and the moment, but wrong for Harry. He wasn’t the kind of man who ought ever to look that way.

When had I begun thinking of him as a man rather than a boy? What the hell. We’re all men and women now, not kids anymore. Shit.

Bankole walked behind, looking even more formidable than Harry in spite of his graying hair and beard. He had a gun in his hand. I had gotten a look at it as I walked past him. Another automatic—perhaps a nine millimeter. I hoped he was good with it.

Natividad pushed his cart along just ahead of him with Dominic still in one of the bags. Travis walked beside her, guarding her and the baby.

I walked with the two women, fearful that one of them might fall or that some fool might grab one. The one called Allie was still bleeding, spitting blood and wiping her bloody nose with a bloody arm. And the one called Jill still looked dull and shaky. Allie and I kept Jill between us.

Before the attack began, I knew it would happen. Helping the two trapped women had made us targets. We might already have been attacked if the community down the road had not drawn off so many of the most violent, desperate people. The weak would be attacked today. The quake had set the mood. And one attack could trigger others.

We could only try to be ready.

Out of the blue, a man grabbed Zahra. She’s small, and must have looked weak as well as beautiful.

An instant later, someone grabbed me. I was spun around, and I tripped and started to fall. It was that stupid. Before anyone could hit me, I tripped and fell. But because my attacker had pulled me toward him, I fell against him. I dragged him down with me. Somehow, I managed to get my knife out. I flicked it open. I jabbed it upward into my attacker’s body.

The six inch blade went in to the hilt. Then, in empathic agony, I jerked it out again.

I can’t describe the pain.

The others told me later that I screamed as they’d never heard anyone scream. I’m not surprised. Nothing has ever hurt me that much before.

After a while, the agony in my chest ebbed and died. That is, the man on top of me bled and died. Not until then could I begin to be aware of something other than pain.

The first thing I heard was Dominic, crying.

I understood then that I had also heard shots fired—several shots. Where was everyone? Were they wounded?

Dead? Being held prisoner?

I kept my body still beneath the dead man. He was painfully heavy as deadweight, and his body odor was nauseating. He had bled all over my chest, and, if my nose was any judge, in death, he had urinated on me. Yet I didn’t dare move until I understood the situation.

I opened my eyes just a little.

Before I could understand what I was seeing, someone hauled the stinking dead man off me. I found myself looking into two worried faces: Harry and Bankole.