The Seeds of Man (31 page)

The howitzers were capable of firing four or even five rounds per minute in experienced hands. But that wasn’t the case here. Voss figured the guns were putting out one round per minute on average. Most of the shells were on target, and the barrage was taking a toll. One tractor was a smoking wreck, another was badly damaged, and it was only a matter of time before the rest took hits. He was winning!

“Drones are attacking the guns,” Kovo announced. “But the missiles brought two of them down.”

Voss looked west but couldn’t see anything. That was when Sara spoke. “Look left!”

The warning came just in time. A dozen Ronin had been able to work their way through the maze on foot. And now, with the enemy leader in sight, they swarmed up out of a brushy ravine, firing as they came.

Kovo was snatched out of the saddle, and a second merc fell. Voss fired his pistol as a Ronin charged him. The bullet smashed into the mercenary’s face but failed to kill him. He fell, but his right boot was caught in a stirrup. The Ronin’s horse dragged him away.

Meanwhile Sara grabbed hold of the lead that controlled her horse, gave a jerk, and felt the rope come free as the merc assigned to guard her took a slug in the chest. Sara kicked her horse into motion and rode straight out into the area where the artillery shells had been falling. But the guns were out of ammo by then.

Voss caught up with Sara, grabbed her reins, and brought the roan under control. Only then did he turn to look south. The area in front of him looked like a moonscape. Craters overlapped one another and a carpet of black-clad bodies littered the battlefield. Beyond that, what remained of Hashi’s army was in full retreat, the irony being that the guns were out of ammo, and had the Ronin pressed forward they would have been able to clear the maze and enter the valley beyond. “What will you do now?” Sara wanted to know.

“Chase them,” Voss said grimly, “all the way to Sage. I need a buffer.”

“So,” he said, as their eyes met. “You were wrong. You said I would win, and you said I would lose. I won.”

Sara smiled. “Ah, but it isn’t over yet.”

Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA

I
t had been raining on and off all morning, and Tre could sense that the all-too-brief summer was coming to an end as he stood at the edge of the pit and peered down into the muddy depths. Two weeks had passed since the garbage mine had been liberated, and a great deal had changed, not the least of which was the fact that all the mine’s diggers, sorters, and haulers were employees rather than slaves and free to leave whenever they wanted to go. And hundreds had. That was a loss in a way, but an advantage too, since every one of them would be singing Crow’s praises. And word of mouth was very important in post apocalyptic America.

But some, about three hundred in all, had elected to stay and work for Crow. He had promised to feed them and pay a bullet a day in exchange for their labor. More than that, Crow planned to use whatever profits there might be to further what he called the New Revolution.

That sounded good to Tre.
Real
good. But as with so many things Crow came up with, very little thought had been given to how things would work. The mine was valuable—so who would defend it? Now Crow had employees to feed. Where would the food come from? Which food lord should he form an alliance with? Once the word began to spread,
more
people would come. How many was too many? Tre was troubled by those questions and many more.

Crow had a tendency to become annoyed when Tre mentioned such problems, but that was the nature of their relationship. And, because Crow had a tendency to assign Tre responsibility for any issue he raised, the younger man was fast becoming the de facto second in command—a position he hadn’t asked for, didn’t want, and was seemingly stuck with.

Meanwhile, rather than focus on the mine the way Tre wanted him to, Crow was talking about a return to Star Valley. And that, Tre had decided, was something he would object to. So he turned away from the pit, walked the short distance to the headquarters building, and went inside. The lobby had been colonized by Knife, Bones, Smoke, and the others, so it was a mess. The only person present was Freak, who rushed over to take Tre’s arm. “Berry patch,” she said brightly, and beamed up at him.

“Same to you,” Tre said as he freed himself. “Where’s your bow? Someone should guard Crow.”

“Milk cans,” Freak replied, and left to get her bow.

During the weeks since the bandits had taken control of the mine, Kimble’s extremely tidy office had been transformed into what Bones called the Crow’s nest. It was an untidy jumble of papers, weapons, and filthy clothing. Tre entered to find Crow looking his way. “There you are. Henry, this is Tre . . . He thinks it would be crazy to attack Voss right now. Tell him why he’s wrong.”

Henry was probably in his thirties but looked twenty years older. He had beady eyes and leathery skin. The combination was reminiscent of a snake. And when he spoke it was with a voice so hoarse there was clearly something wrong with him. “Half of Lord Voss’s mercenaries are escorting food caravans east,” Henry said. “That was before Lord Hashi attacked him from the south. Voss had no choice but to take three hundred militiamen and ride south.”

Tre looked to Crow and back to Henry. “And the rest of the mercs?”

Henry’s eyes blinked rapidly. “About a quarter of them followed the militiamen. A backstop, so to speak. The rest were left behind to keep the slaves in line.”

“And you know these things because?” Tre inquired skeptically.

“He knows those things because I pay him to know those things,” Crow interjected.

Tre looked into Crow’s eyes and saw the challenge there. Crow wasn’t the best planner in the world, but he was an excellent strategist. The attack on the garbage mine had been his idea, not Tre’s. Nor was the younger man privy to all of Crow’s machinations. Henry was a good example of that. “Got it.”

Crow’s expression softened. “Thanks, Henry. Here’s your pay. Stay safe and I’ll see you soon.” Tre saw a full box of ammo change hands and realized that Henry was more than he appeared to be. The scarecrow look was a carefully calculated ruse, and the spy probably had a large stash of ammo somewhere.

Henry took the box, said, “Thanks,” and left. Freak blew him a kiss on the way out. “You’ve got that look again,” Crow said as he sat in what had been Kimble’s chair.

“What look?”

“The ‘I have a stick up my butt’ look. You heard Henry . . . This is the perfect time to attack.”

“No,” Tre said firmly, “it isn’t. We need more fighters.”

“I recruited fifty of them. Twenty-five for Knife and twenty-five for this mission. You know that.”

“I also know that they aren’t trained,” Tre responded.

“Oh, yeah? Well, you weren’t trained either,” Crow replied. “These people are survivors. They know how to fight.”

“But will they follow orders?”

“We’ll train them on the way.”

There was a moment of silence as both men stared at each other. Tre spoke first. “You’re right. Voss is gone. That constitutes an opening. But for
what
? You can’t take Star Valley and hold it with thirty people, and you know that. So level with me. Why now?”

Crow looked away for a moment as if to maintain his composure. When his eyes returned, they were as steely as ever. “Voss has my sister.”

Tre thought he had misunderstood. “He has your
what?”

“He has my sister, Sara. He keeps her in his house.”

Tre stared. “So this is about your sister. That’s why we fought for this mine?”

“No. I wanted to attack the mine for all the reasons we discussed in the past. But the raid would put the hurts to Voss, provide us with food for the winter,
and
free my sister.”

Tre nodded. “Thank you. I’m in.”

They left the next morning. The rain had stopped by then, but a cold wind was trying to find its way in through the duster Tre was wearing. The band included Crow, Tre, Fade, Smoke, and Freak, plus a force of twenty-five recruits. That added up to thirty people, a ridiculously small army for the job at hand. But Crow believed that good intelligence plus the element of surprise and superior weaponry would be sufficient. Tre hoped he was correct.

The recruits were mounted on horses that had been captured along with the garbage mine, and all of them were unarmed. There were two reasons for that. First, the overseers’ best weapons had been given to Knife’s newly created security force because it was important to protect the mine.

But there was a second reason as well. Crow wanted to spend a few days with the newbies before giving them guns, especially in light of the fact that there were so many of them, a very sensible precaution to Tre’s way of thinking.

The training that Crow subjected the recruits to was invented on the spot but effective nevertheless. Individuals were dispatched to find a common everyday item, such as a hammer, and given six hours to not only accomplish it, but also catch up with the rest of the group. The exercise tested their resourcefulness, navigation skills, and level of commitment—because they could take their horse and run if they chose to, which Crow thought was preferable to harboring a person he couldn’t depend on.

Another exercise involved appointing a leader and sending a group of six people ahead to construct the camp that the entire group would stay in that night. After Crow caught up with them, he would wander through the encampment, pausing every once in a while to discuss the finer points of camouflage and defense.

There were other exercises too, including a hide-and-seek challenge that involved trying to hide from Smoke and Fade, a stick-fighting duel with Tre, and a series of archery competitions with Freak, all of which gave Crow ample opportunity to assess skills, force people to get acquainted, and forge a unified group.

They had been traveling in circles up until then, so by end of the fourth day the group was still on the west side of the Caribou Mountains. And, knowing that Voss could return to Star Valley at any time, Crow couldn’t afford to use any additional time. So without revealing where the cache of weapons was, he paid two recruits and let them go—one because she lacked sufficient skills and one because he couldn’t follow orders.

After they left, Fade followed one and Smoke followed the other to make sure that they didn’t circle back. And since neither one of them knew about the raid, there was no reason to worry about security.

Having purged the team, Crow led the group to the farm where roughly half of the special operations weapons cache was buried. The hiding spot was well away from the old house, the stand-alone garage, and the barn, all of which were magnets for people who happened to be passing through.

Once the cache was uncovered and the contents removed, the business of distributing weapons and equipment began. It was a process Crow showed very little interest in. Was he thinking about Star Valley? And his sister? Probably. But Crow was moody at the best of times, so there was no way to be certain.

Whatever the reason, Tre was left to supervise the process, rebury the arms that were left over, and divide the force into small groups for weapons training, tasks he had orders to accomplish by nightfall. Then, as the sun rose in the morning, they would ride. But to what? Victory? Or defeat? Tre hoped for the first but feared the second. He ordered the recruits in his group to field strip their weapons. Only one of them knew how. It was going to be a long afternoon.

• • •

Afton, Wyoming, USA

L
ora was working in the hot, steamy kitchen and had been for more than a week now. It was hard, sweaty work, but preferable to the hole. Even if Mr. Oliver was a drunken tyrant.

She was a dishwasher, the lowest position in the kitchen’s hierarchy. That meant she was subject to abuse from Mr. Oliver and the more senior slaves as well. Tongue-lashings were common, as were corporal punishments, which consisted of being struck with a variety of kitchen implements. The results were bruises on her back since she spent most of the day facing the sink.

Making a bad situation worse was the fact that Voss and Miss Silverton were down south fighting Lord Hashi. The meant Mr. Oliver could begin drinking earlier in the day, and the more he drank, the meaner he became. All the staff could do was keep their heads down and hope that he would pass out, something he did with a great deal of regularity.

Meanwhile, Lora was working to remove some burned meat from the inside of a large pot and thinking about what she always thought about, which was the need to escape—not just for her sake, but in order to warn the people in the Sanctuary and to do so before Voss could attack them. If she failed, the food lord would enslave or kill them.

But
how
? It would have been difficult back when she was a maid. Now, after being tagged as a troublemaker, she had even less freedom. She had a plan, though . . . or the beginnings of one. And it involved the horse-drawn dairy wagon that stopped by the house once a day.

The routine was always the same. Mr. Perkins would guide his horses up to the back door, get down from the wagon, and lower the tailgate. At that point Lora would be sent out to fetch the containers of fresh milk, cream, and butter.

Meanwhile Mr. Perkins would go inside, sit down, and have a cup of tea. That meant there was a period of time during which the wagon was unsupervised. Could Lora take the last load of dairy products into the kitchen, return outside, and slip under the wagon unobserved? And could she squeeze her body into the cargo box mounted under the wagon bed? There was seldom anything in it, so that wasn’t likely to be a problem.

No, the main threat was that she would be missed before Mr. Perkins returned to the wagon. If so, the kitchen staff would be ordered to search for her.
But,
Lora thought,
that’s the chance you’ll have to take. The alternative is to let Voss take control of the Sanctuary.

So the question was when, not if, and Lora knew she would have to make a split-second decision when the right opportunity came along. The problem was that a long succession of days had passed without producing the kind of conditions she needed. So there she was, scrubbing the big pot, when she heard a thump followed by a chorus of laughter. “He’ll feel that when he wakes up,” somebody said.