The Conformity (26 page)

I look around the yard for something—anything—to manipulate, but this farmer keeps a very tidy farm. There's a bench, with a bucket nearby, and a curry comb. But none of those have the dramatic element I need. So I settle on the farmer himself.

“I'm not going to hurt you, do you understand?”

A smile curls his lips. His eyes are merry. “That's good news,” he says.

“Stay calm, okay?”

He nods again, grinning fully now. “I've had some coffee but not too much.”

I take a large breath and reach out with the ghosthand, expanding it in my mind to encompass the whole of the farmer's big, blocky body, and grasp him in my hand. His smile fails and his eyes widen as I set my feet and hoist him up high. His pitchfork falls to the sodden earth, and I lift him up near the apex of the barn roof, right where the classic rooster weather vane sits. It's a strain—I'm reminded of how light Shreve was when I lifted him to the top of the water tower—but I can manage it. I'll be hungry later. Very hungry.

He hangs in midair for a good long while but doesn't struggle or thrash, and I'm careful not to crush him.

“Okay, miss,” he calls from above. “That's one doozy of an arm. You can set me down now, if you're of a mind.”

For a split second I'm tempted to call out, “So you'll give us the horses?” before releasing him, but that would seem too much like extortion. So I set him down.

He bows his head, scratches his pate. Looks at me again closely. “Don't know what to think of that. It was …” He clears his throat. “Unexpected. Didn't think I could be surprised anymore …” He gestures with his thick hands feebly. He looks pained. “Come on to the house and break bread with me, and we'll figure out the best route for you to take.”

“You mean you're giving us the horses?” I ask.

He smiles, but it's more pained now. “I don't understand how all of that works,”—he gestures at the weather vane—“but since it
is
beyond my understanding, I figure you'll have a chance at stopping the aliens, since
they're
beyond my understanding too. Like to like and like versus like, the missus always said.”

Like to like and like versus like. It feels almost prophetic.

“After all, what's a few ponies for the war effort?”

After a breakfast of eggs and cured pork, the farmer—he tells us his name is Nelson—takes us out and chooses the six hardiest ponies for us. He drills Shreve and Negata on riding basics for a long while. Eventually, they get it to Nelson's satisfaction and we spend another hour or so rigging our “luggage,” as the farmer calls it. We're riding western saddles, and all the long leather straps and things that seemed so foreign to me as an English saddle rider make more sense now—straps and ties for saddlebags and bedrolls and even a holster for a long carbine. The M14 fits poorly inside it, but it'll do.

“It seems like a lot, but believe me, miss,” Nelson says, tying down a bag of oats on one of the ponies along with a couple jugs of water, a pan, and a bag of pinto beans. “You're going out there in a pitiful state. I wish I had more to give you.”

At breakfast we discuss our route. Nelson retrieves a relatively new atlas, opens the book to Idaho, and jabs his finger at the map. “You're here, and you're gonna want to follow highways. Might be more dangerous that way—I'm sure there'll be more and more nutjobs the closer you get to cities—but there's no way you'll make it cross-country. So …” He rubs the stubble on his chin and then traces a line north. “I'm gonna lead you out of here, east, to 95. Then your best bet is to go north until you hit Highway 12 and then take it north all the way to Missoula. Once you're there, go east on Interstate 90. That alone will take a couple of weeks, understand? Horses can only travel in this weather around twenty miles a day, and you'll need to switch horses once a day or at least every other day. Horses get tired, they'll put their heads down and start heaving air. They'll stagger about like they're drunk, so keep a lookout. I imagine you'll see it soon enough on our trip to 95.” He sucks his teeth. Thinking. “Damn, folks. It's gonna be a long ride. My ponies aren't shod, so keep their hooves clean. Stick to the grassy medians, don't be wearing out their feet on the asphalt.” Nelson looks as if he is overwhelmed. He stares at his home, a nice, small farmhouse decorated with photos of him with a lovely woman—strained and thin but lovely—and photos of young men in military uniforms. His sons, I imagine. But none of us ask, and he doesn't offer. “I should go with you, but all my livestock … my home.”

Negata, who has remained silent in all of our dealings, places his hand on Nelson's shoulder and says, “We will manage. Do not abandon everything you've loved and worked for. It is a long journey, and we cannot see what help we'll find on the way.”

“You can't know that. And you're not horse people,” he says. “It's a good ninety miles to Missoula. It's thousands of miles to the east coast!”

“We will have to take it slowly. But surely. And we will make it. Do not fear for us.”

“It's not you I'm worried about so much,” he says, glancing at me. “It's the horses.”

“We'll take good care of them, Mr. Nelson,” I say. “I promise.”

He sits down at the table, the atlas open before him. “I believe you mean that, or I wouldn't be giving them to you. But, again, it's not you. It's everything out there.” He waves at the window. “If you're really going up against … against the aliens, there'll be danger.”

“Of course,” says Negata. “As you said outside, this is the war effort. And there will be war.”

Nelson glances at one of the pictures of the young men in uniform. He stills.

“Okay. So you got the plan. Once you're on I-90 heading east, at some point you'll start passing rivers. The Missouri. The Mississippi, if you get far enough east. I suggest you trade the ponies for a boat and float downriver when you can. There'll be dams, but you can always portage whatever boat you get or find another on the other side.”

It's now that the enormity of what we're setting out to do hits me like a cartoon anvil. I look at Shreve, and he has a sick expression spreading across his face. “We've gone back in time, Casey.”

Nelson nods. “That's right. Two hundred years or more. And you'll be backtracking Lewis and Clark, believe it or not.”

It is Shreve's turn to whistle. “This is impossible,” he says. “I should just face it.”

I don't know if Shreve is referring to facing the impossible truth or the Conformity itself.

“Nothing is impossible,” Negata says gently. “You and Casey and the rest of the extranaturals are proof of that.”

We sit there staring at each other, thinking about what lies before us, until Nelson clears his throat. “We've got to get a move on before the morning's gone. Long way to 95. Got some of my boys' old winter clothes for you all. You're gonna need them.”

With the horses packed and tied, us sitting in the saddles while the snow comes down softly all around, everything seems far off and dreamlike. We're in a line, and I can tell—what with the new winter coats and heavy underwear and down pants Nelson has given us—Shreve's having a hard time staying in his saddle. But when I come alongside him, leading my second pony, he gives me such a fierce look that I decide it might be better if I didn't give him any pointers on riding.

Nelson waves a big gloved hand, whistles, and hollers, “Ho!” And he spurs his horse forward, down the road from his farm.

I feel like I'm rising and falling all at once, in slow motion. My heart feels too big for my chest. When I was a girl, I dreamed of riding a horse in the snow, of being on an adventure. Now that it's here, it's such a hard road in front of us, and these few steps are just the beginning.

“The others are out there,” Shreve says. “When I was in prison …” His face clouds. “When I was unconscious, I had a moment of awareness and I sensed almost everyone I'd ever touched. There are others out there, working to survive. Some even working to fight back.” He looks stricken and lost for a moment, his Adam's apple working up and down in his throat, but says nothing. Then, “I'm afraid—”

“You're afraid?” I say, not liking this. “You've never been afraid in your life.”

He stares off into the trees and snow and mountains. “I've never
not
been afraid. And never as afraid as I am now.”

My pony nickers and chucks its head, blowing white air in a plume.

Shreve turns in his seat, gripping the saddle horn tightly, and looks back at me. He smiles, trying to reassure me that it will be all right. We don't have to be in mind-to-mind connection for me to know that. And then Shreve's pony gives a stagger step, Shreve's face gets this terrified, surprised look, and he's gripping the horse's neck for dear life. The horse seems unfazed.

Barely, just barely, I restrain the laughter.

We disappear down the road, among the snow-covered trees.

thirty

EMBER

Flying takes effort, any jock will tell you that after a long day at the lower airfield. The energy you expend pulling some extranatural stunt burns calories just like if you were doing it with your body, because
you are
.

After fifteen minutes of flying, Tap's gasping and losing altitude and we have to land in the middle of a switchback trail, far from any road or home. Deep in the firs and piney woods.

“Get her off me! Get her off!” he yells.

Madelyn looks chagrined as Jack and I begin working on the knots. “I'm getting thicker with age, it's true, but I don't weigh that much. Some Superman you turned out to be.”

When the knots come free, Tap falls over to lie faceup in the snow, panting.

When he regains his breath, Tap says, “This isn't a comic book, Grandma!” He pushes himself up on his elbows and then rises, slowly. “You'd think you'd be impressed by the fact that
a fucking human can fly
. But no.” He walks over to Jack. “Your turn.”

“What?”

“Your turn to carry her. And we've got thirty or forty miles to go to get back to the lodge. Let's get a move on, or this will take all day.”

Jack looks at Madelyn like a butcher sizing up a side of beef. “I don't know …”

“Share and share alike,” Tap grumbles, and then he launches himself into the air, leaving me to tie Madelyn to Jack.