Skeletons (42 page)

"Yes," my father said.

The stout man scratched his stubble. "So anyway, here's what we do. Tomorrow I burn you up." He waddled closer. "Only you don't get burned. We put a big show, everybody cheers. Margaret Gray thinks you're dead, and we all do what has to be done. My name's Earl, by the way."

Again he stared at me.

"Dreams," he said.

So the next morning, as the sun was rising with a glow, we were burned at the stake.

There was a great show made of it. Earl had dressed himself in a robe and black hood. His eyes stared dully ahead. We were led from our tree to the shore of Malheur Lake. The tall masts of our pyres stood straight, their platforms on rolled logs waiting to be slid into the water after being set afire.

Margaret Gray watched dispassionately while we were led to the rafts. We were made to climb the tall ladders, to the top of the masts above a pyramid of kindling.

Earl followed me up the ladder, lashed my hands loosely behind me.

"Look down quickly," he said.

I looked down, saw the tunneled hole through the kindling he had fashioned, the hole through the raft beneath it.

"Remember what I told you," he said, squeezing my hand as he climbed down to repeat the procedure with my father.

When he was finished, he stood back. Margaret Gray mounted my pyre and held her hands up. All became quiet.

'This day," Margaret said, "begins the flowering of the new human race!" She gestured at me. "This child, who would have led us into death at the hand of this man, "—pointing now to my father, lashed atop his pyre—"will now be removed from us! They will be burned! Their bones will be burned!" Her voice rose up in a screech. "My visions have told me that it is I who will lead you to victory and salvation!"

A cheer rose. It swept out and back over the army.

Rifles were held aloft, fired. In the rear cannons boomed in salute.

"Let them burn!" Margaret Gray screamed, stepping down.

Earl scrambled onto my pyre with a lit taper. He touched it to the bottom of the kindling pile, looked up at me briefly.

He scrambled onto my father's pyre. He lit it, then jumped off as soldiers moved forward and pushed the pyres on their log rolls into the lake.

My pyre splashed into water and drifted lazily away from the shore.

The flames below licked out and around the base of wood. A wash of smoke drifted up over me. When it cleared away, I saw the shoreline choked with cheering soldiers, Margaret Gray among them, watching, arms folded. Earl stood beside her.

As smoke drifted over me again, I watched Earl turn away into the crowd.

My father shouted over to me, "Remember what he told you!"

Flames kicked up the pyre. Billows of smoke rolled up across me. The shrinking shore blinked into vision, was lost in haze. I checked my bonds.

I slipped one hand from the rope, then the other. My feet were loose enough to kick their bonds away. I stood holding the mast, supported by the sticks below my feet. The smoke made me cough.

"Wait until the flames climb high enough to feel the heat!" my father said, choking the words out.

I looked down. Fire had crept halfway up the pyre, jumping from one crackling stick to the next. The hole below me was now filled with rolling smoke. For a horrible instant I had the feeling that the hole was gone, that when I dropped them, sticks would hold me in place while fire trapped me.

"Soon!" my father coughed.

The smoke cleared in front of me. The shore was far off. I heard distant shouts of "Burn! Burn!"

A fire tongue licked at my feet.

"Now, Claire!" my father shouted.

I let go of the mast behind me. I kicked my feet out, covered my face with my hands, closed my eyes, and dropped.

Sticks scraped at my arms and legs. I gagged on smoke.

For a moment I felt suspended.

Then the water hit me. I dropped down below the surface of the lake.

I opened my eyes. Above me the raft bobbed. I kicked out and away from it.

My lungs aching for air, I rose to the surface, put my head up.

I was behind the raft, where I should be. The shore was far away.

To one side I watched my father kick to the surface, wave, and dive back into the water.

I followed.

We swam, leaving the shore far behind, and headed for the distant shore.

Listening to the faint, far sounds of cheering, we watched our pyres burn in the middle of the lake.

Black roils of smoke corkscrewed into the sky. The pyres burned furiously, the masts wrapped in fire and smoke.

"Just about now, we should be dying for the second time," my father said. "Are you all right, Claire?"

We lay on the distant bank. My father examined me for cuts and bruises. I had scrapes on my arms, but nothing more. My father had a gash on one leg, and a bruise where he had hit the edge of the hole going into the water. Other than that, he was unhurt.

My father got up. I followed him into the woods, where, back in the trees, marked near the shore where Earl had told us it would be, we found clothing, packs filled with food and supplies, and two bedrolls.

"Earl did his work well," my father said.

After mounting his pack and helping me with mine, my father gave a last look to the Army of Humanity across the lake.

'They'll be destroyed, you know," he said sadly. Then we turned away, heading north.

A skeleton patrol, possibly another group of deserters from Lee's army, crossed our path in late afternoon. They had taken control of a small town nestled between two stands of pine forest. All were obviously drunk. A line of cars stood at the entrance to the town, and two by two, drunken skeletons were racing them up the town's single street. A single stoplight was their starting line. As we watched, a Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager were on the starting line, waiting for the light to turn green. When it did so, amid whoops and laughter, the two vans sped off. They slowly gained speed. At the opposite end of the street, a pile of junked cars attested to finished races. The two cars were even, then the Dodge van pulled ahead. Suddenly, the Voyager began to swerve. It slapped into the side of the Dodge. The two cars separated. The sliding door in the side of the Dodge flew back. A skeleton was thrown out. He spun, hit the ground, flew into dust.

"Whoa!" The drunk spectators laughed. The Voyager roared ahead. The Dodge braked wildly, hitting and jumping the curb. It crashed into the front of a country store.

The Voyager passed the finish line, and braked to a screeching halt. The driver jumped out, climbed atop his van and threw his hands into the air.

The spectators shouted, laughing, and then two more cars, station wagons, pulled up to the starting line. We skirted the town, walked on.

That night we stayed in an abandoned motel, near a deserted highway. The keys were all neatly hung on a pegboard in the open office. We picked the second-to-last cabin. My father took all the keys, threw them in a drawer except for the one we were using.

"Doesn't look like anyone's been here for a while, but we won't take any chances with someone checking up on us," he said.

It felt good to lie in a bed. My father tried the television in the motel room; only one channel was on, showing cartoons. Later on, before we slept, there was a short news program, a skeletal announcer talking about reports of imminent action against the humans in the northwest.

"It is believed," the announcer said, "that the last large human army is massing for battle. President Lincoln has stated that if this battle is won, the war will, effectively, be over, except for mop-up operations in Alaska. Now in sports . . ."

My father turned off the television.

We slept.

Early the next morning we moved on. In the next small town, two miles north of the motel, we found what we wanted. In a Jeep showroom, partially wrecked, its front window caved in, sat a 4x4, its tank half-filled with fuel.

"With this we can stay off the roads," my father said.

The keys were in a cubicle desk near the front of the showroom. We climbed in. The truck started up immediately.

My father smiled, putting the Jeep into gear.

We climbed over broken glass, through the front window, and out onto the street.

A skeleton patrol pulled out onto the street in front of us.

My father killed the engine.

"Down, Claire," he said, pushing me down into the seat and crouching beside me.

We heard the trucks roll past, moving east, for what seemed like an hour.

Finally it was quiet outside.

We put our heads up. The last of the patrol was pulling away from us.

"They're heading for Margaret Gray . . ." my father began.

I heard a sound. When I turned, there was a skeleton soldier, just stepping out of a store, a bag of food clutched in his hand. An open package of cupcakes was held halfway to his mouth.

He stopped, stared straight at me.

Next to me my father had vanished.

I froze, looked at the soldier. Slowly, he put the food down. He stood up straight. Behind him I saw his truck parked next to the store.

"Well, well," he said. "I ain't seen one of you people in weeks," he said. He put his hand to his gun belt. "Might even come in handy."

My father appeared behind him. He caught the soldier from behind in a choke hold.

In a moment there was dust where the soldier had been.

"We've got to be a little more careful," my father said.

We checked the soldier's truck. We found a store-house of weapons. My father took rifles, a mortar, an antitank weapon, ammunition, loaded them into the 4x4, and we drove off.

At a gasoline station at the edge of town we found four large drums, filled them with gas, and added them to our supplies.

"Into the woods we go, Claire," my father said, pulling off the road.

It was hard riding. There were trails, though, and occasionally a dirt road that felt like smooth pavement in comparison.

In late afternoon we broke out of the woods on a high ridge. My father killed the engine and we got out. There, in a valley below us, was a huge army of skeletons, breaking camp.

"There must be fifty thousand of them," my father said.

Long caissons were rolling out of the valley eastward. The rest of the camp was packing up. It was an awesome sight, rows of tanks grinding into gear, hundreds of trucks, howitzers, cannons.

"That explains it," my father said. "That group we met before was an advance party. They must have found Margaret Gray."

Below, in the largest tent, a tall figure stepped out to survey the scene. We were not close. But his shroud of features showed a white beard, trimmed close.

"That's Lee," my father said.

A squadron of fighter planes roared overhead in salute, followed by five helicopters cutting the sky. Lee watched them. He turned to look at the snaking line of trucks heading out. Then he ducked back into his tent.

"We've got to get as far away from here as possible, Claire," my father said.

We went back to our 4x4 and turned north.

That night, two hundred miles farther north, just over the Columbia River into the state of Washington, we found another motel to stay in.

"Kind of getting used to this good living, you know, Claire?" my father said, smiling. Another abandoned town sat nearby. The television showed Lincoln ending a meeting with his cabinet, an unresponsive secretary of war refusing to answer reporters' questions.

On the way out of the room Lincoln said simply, "Soon, God willing, we will know."

After that the station went off the air.

I slept badly. In the middle of the night I awoke. My father was sitting by the window, staring out. He had such a sad, lonely look on his face that I climbed out of bed, walked to him, and put my hand on his shoulder.

He looked around at me. "It's a sad world now, isn't it, Claire?" he said.

I nodded.

He turned to look outside again.

Abruptly, the world outside flashed to brilliance.

My father cursed. He put his hand over my eyes, threw me to the floor. I had just seen a hint of its outline: a huge cloud, climbing and spreading, roiling out at its head, caught in flashbulb light.

My father held me down. He counted seconds. At twenty there was a boom. The walls of the motel shook. A wave of trembling thunder passed over us.

"My God, that bitch did it," my father said.

Ten minutes later there came another brilliant flash of light. Again my father counted, and at twenty there was a boom and rush of air.

"Sixty miles away," my father said. "Thank God, we can see it and feel it, but it won't hurt us."

A half hour later, there came a third.

Then, silence.