Parable of the Sower (35 page)

“So we become the crew of a modern underground railroad,” I said. Slavery again—even worse than my father thought, or at least sooner. He thought it would take a while.

“None of this is new.” Bankole made himself comfortable against me. “In the early 1990s while I was in college, I heard about cases of growers doing some of this—holding people against their wills and forcing them to work without pay. Latins in California, blacks and Latins in the south… Now and then, someone would go to jail for it.”

“But Emery says there’s a new law—that forcing people or their children to work off debt that they can’t help running up is legal.”

“Maybe. It’s hard to know what to believe. I suppose the politicians may have passed a law that could be used to support debt slavery. But I’ve heard nothing about it. Anyone dirty enough to be a slaver is dirty enough to tell a pack of lies. You realize that that woman’s children were sold like cattle—and no doubt sold into prostitution.”

I nodded. “She knows, too.”

“Yes. My God.”

“Things are breaking down more and more.” I paused. “I’ll tell you, though, if we can convince ex-slaves that they can have freedom with us, no one will fight harder to keep it. We need better guns, though. And we need to be so careful… It keeps getting more dangerous out here. It will be especially dangerous with those little girls around.”

“Those two know how to be quiet,” Bankole said. “They’re little rabbits, fast and silent. That’s why they’re still alive.”

❏ ❏ ❏

EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

F
RIDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
17, 2027

W
E READ SOME VERSES
and talked about Earthseed for a while this morning. It was a calming thing to do—almost like church. We needed something calming and reassuring. Even the new people joined in, asking questions, thinking aloud, applying the verses to their experiences.

God
is
Change, and in the end, God
does
prevail. But we have something to say about the whens and the whys of that end.

Yeah.

It’s been a horrible week.

We’ve taken both today and yesterday as rest days. We might take tomorrow as well. I need it whether the others do or not. We’re all sore and sick, in mourning and exhausted—yet triumphant. Odd to be triumphant. I think it’s because most of us are still alive. We are a harvest of survivors. But then, that’s what we’ve always been.

This is what happened.

At our noon stop on Tuesday, Tori and Doe, the two little girls, went away from the group to urinate. Emery went with them. She had kind of taken charge of Doe as well as her own daughter. The night before, she and Grayson Mora had slipped away from the group and stayed away for over an hour. Harry and I were on watch, and we saw them go. Now they were a couple—all over each other, but at arm’s length from everyone else. Strange people.

So Emery took the girls off to pee—not far away. Just across the hill face and out of sight behind a patch of dead bushes and tall, dry grass. The rest of us sat eating, drinking, and sweating in what shade we could get from a copse of oak trees that looked only half dead. The trees had been robbed of a great number of branches, no doubt by people needing firewood. I was looking at their many jagged wounds when the screaming began.

First there were the high, needle thin, needle sharp shrieks of the little girls, then we heard Emery shouting for help. Then we heard a man’s voice, cursing.

Most of us jumped up without thinking and ran toward the noise. In midstride, I grabbed Harry and Zahra by the arms to get their attention. Then I gestured them back to guard our packs and Natividad and Allie who had stayed with the babies. Harry had the rifle and Zahra had one of the Berettas, and in that moment, they both resented the hell out of me. No matter. For the moment, I was just glad to see them go back. They could cover us if necessary, and keep us from being overwhelmed.

We found Emery fighting with a big bald man who had grabbed Tori. Doe was already running back to us, screaming. She ran straight into her father’s arms. He swept her up and ran off toward the highway, then he veered back toward the oaks and our people. There were other bald people coming up from the highway. Like us, they ran toward the screams. I saw metal gleaming among them—perhaps only knives. Perhaps guns. Travis spotted the group, too, and yelled a warning before I could.

I fell back, dropped to one knee, aimed my .45 two-handed, and waited for a clear shot at Emery’s attacker. The man was much taller than Emery, and his head and shoulders were exposed except where he held Tori against him. The little girl looked like a doll that he was clutching in one arm. Emery was the problem. She, small and quick, was darting at the man, tearing at his face, trying to reach his eyes. He was trying to protect his eyes and to knock or throw her away from him. With both hands free, he might have been quick enough to bat her aside, but he wouldn’t let go of the struggling Tori, and Emery wouldn’t be beaten off.

For an instant, he did knock Emery back from him. In that brief window of time, my own ears ringing from his blow, I shot him.

I knew at once that I’d hit him. He didn’t fall, but I felt his pain, and I wasn’t good for anything else for a while. Then he toppled, and I collapsed with him. But I could still see and hear, and I still had the gun.

I heard shouting. The bald gang from the highway was almost on us—six, seven, eight people. I couldn’t do anything while I was dealing with the pain, but I saw them. Instants later when the man I had shot lost consciousness or died, I was free—and needed.

Bankole had our only other gun away from camp.

I got up before I should have, almost fell down again, then shot a second attacker off Travis who was carrying Emery.

I went down again, but didn’t lose consciousness. I saw Bankole grab Tori and all but throw her to Jill. Jill caught her, turned, and ran back toward camp with her.

Bankole reached me, and I was able to get up and help him cover our retreat.

We had only the scarred trees to retreat to, but they had thick, solid-looking trunks. An attacker fired several bullets into them as we reached them.

It took me several seconds to understand that someone was shooting at us. Once I did, I dropped behind the trees with the others and looked for the opposing gun.

Our rifle thundered behind me before I could spot anything. Harry, on the job. He fired twice more. I fired twice myself, barely aiming, barely in control. I believe Bankole fired. Then I was lost, no more good for anything. I died with someone. The shooting stopped.

I died with someone else. Someone laid hands on me and I came within a fingers twitch of squeezing the trigger once more.

Bankole.

“You stupid asshole!” I whimpered. “I almost killed you.”

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

I was surprised. I tried to remember whether I’d been shot. Maybe I had just come down on a sharp piece of wood. I had no sense of my own body. I hurt, but I couldn’t have said where—or even whether the pain was mine or someone else’s. The pain was intense, yet defuse somehow. I felt…disembodied.

“Is everyone else all right?” I asked.

“Be still,” he said.

“Is it over, Bankole?”

“Yes. The survivors have run away.”

“Take my gun, then, and give it to Natividad—in case they decide to come back.”

I think I felt him take the gun from my hand. I heard muffled talk that I didn’t quite understand. That was when I realized I was losing consciousness. All right then. At least I had held on long enough to do some good.

Jill Gilchrist is dead.

She was shot in the back as she ran toward the trees carrying Tori. Bankole didn’t tell me, didn’t want me to know before I had to because, as it turned out, I was wounded myself. I was lucky. My wound was minor. It hurt, but other than that, it didn’t matter much. Jill was unlucky. I found out about her death when I came to and heard Allie’s hoarse screaming grief.

Jill had gotten Tori back to the trees, put her down, then, without a sound, folded to the ground as though taking cover. Emery had grabbed Tori and huddled, crying with her in terror and relief. Everyone else had been busy, first taking cover, then firing or directing fire. Travis was the first to see the blood pooling around Jill. He shouted for Bankole, then turned Jill onto her back and saw blood welling from what turned out to be an exit wound in her chest. Bankole says she died before he reached her. No last words, no last sight of her sister, not even the assurance that she had saved the little girl. She had. Tori was bruised, but fine. Everyone was fine except Jill.

My own wound, to be honest, was a big scratch. A bullet had plowed a furrow straight through the flesh of my left side, leaving little damage, a lot of blood, a couple of holes in my shirt, and a lot of pain. The wound throbbed worse than a burn, but it wasn’t disabling.

“Cowboy wound,” Harry said when he and Zahra came to look me over. They looked dirty and miserable, but Harry tried to be upbeat for me. They had just helped to bury Jill. The group had, with hands, sticks, and our hatchet, dug a shallow grave for her while I was unconscious. They put her among the trees’ roots, covered her, and rolled big rocks atop her grave. The trees were to have her, but the dogs and the cannibals were not.

The group had decided to bed down for the night where we were, even though our oak copse should have been rejected as an overnight camp because it was too close to the highway.

“You’re a goddamn fool and too big to carry” Zahra told me. “So just rest there and let Bankole take care of you. Not that anyone could stop him.”

“You’ve just got a cowboy wound,” Harry repeated. “In that book I bought, people are always getting shot in the side or the arm or the shoulder, and it’s nothing—although Bankole says a good percentage of them would have died of tetanus or some other infection.”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” I said.

Zahra gave him a look, then patted my arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “No germ will get past that old man. He’s mad as hell at you for getting yourself shot. Says if you had any sense, you would have stayed back here with the babies.”

“What?”

“Hey, he’s old,” Harry said. “What do you expect.”

I sighed. “How’s Allie?”

“Crying.” He shook his head. “She won’t let anyone near her except Justin. Even he keeps trying to comfort her. It upsets him that she’s crying.”

“Emery and Tori are kind of beaten up, too,” Zahra said. “They’re the other reason we’re not moving.” She paused. “Hey, Lauren, you ever notice anything funny about those two—Emery and Tori, I mean? And about that guy Mora, too.”

Something clicked into place for me, and I sighed again. “They’re sharers, aren’t they?”

“Yes, all of them—both adults and both kids. You knew?”

“Not until now. I did notice something odd: that tentativeness and touchiness—not wanting to be touched, I mean. And they were all slaves. My brother Marcus once said what good slaves sharers would make.”

“That Mora guy wants to leave,” Harry said.

“So let him go,” I answered. “He tried to run out on us just before the shooting.”

“He came back. He even helped dig Jill’s grave. I mean he wants us all to leave. He says that gang we beat will come back when it’s dark.”

“He’s sure?”

“Yeah. He’s going crazy, wanting to get his kid out of here.”

“Can Emery and Tori make it?”

“I’ll carry Tori,” a new voice said. “Emery can make it.” Grayson Mora, of course. Last seen abandoning ship.

I got up slowly. My side hurt. Bankole had cleaned and bandaged the wound while I was unconscious, and that was a piece of luck. Now, though, I felt half-conscious, half-detached from my body. I felt everything except pain as though through a thick layer of cotton. Only the pain was sharp and real. I was almost grateful for it.

“I can walk,” I said after trying a few steps. “But I feel like I’m walking on stilts. I don’t know if I can keep the usual pace.”

Grayson Mora stepped close to me. He glanced at Harry as though he wished Harry would go away. Harry just stared back at him.

“How many times did you die?” Mora asked me.

“Three at least,” I answered, as though this were a sane conversation. “Maybe four. I never did it like that before—over and over. Insane. But you look well enough.”

His expression hardened as though I’d slapped him. Of course, I had insulted him. I’d said,
Where were you, man and fellow sharer, while your woman and your group were in danger.
Funny. There I was, speaking a language I hadn’t realized I knew.

“I had to get Doe out of danger,” he said. “I had no gun, anyway.”

“Can you shoot?”

He hesitated. “Never shot before,” he admitted, dropping his voice to a mumble. Again I’d shamed him—this time without meaning to.

“When we teach you to shoot, will you, to protect the group?”

“Yeah!” Though at that moment, I think he would have preferred to shoot me.

“It hurts like hell,” I warned.

He shrugged. “Most things do.”

I looked into his thin, angry face. Were all slaves so thin—underfed, overworked, and taught that most things hurt? “Are you from this area?”

“Born in Sacramento.”

“Then we need all the information you can give us. Even without a gun, we need you to help us survive here.”

“My information is to get out of here before those things up the hill throw paint on themselves and start shooting people and setting fires.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “So that’s what they are.”