The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (184 page)

Candace followed his eyes.

Ron had watched Rain from the seat he
shared at the fire with some other hunters. He excused himself, and
followed her to the back of the cave where they made their own
winter quarters.

“
Rain?” he asked as he came
to her and placed one massive hand on her shoulder.

“
He is stepping down... He
wanted me to know he would have already given the leadership to
us.” She turned and buried her face in his shoulder and wept. The
baby fussed for a second, upset at the confinement and emotion, and
then went back to nursing, sniffling as she did.

Ron smoothed her hair with his
roughened hands. He turned her slowly, and then pulled her and the
baby down to the floor where he held her silently for a few
moments.

“
What do you want, Rain.
What do
you
want?”

“
I can't leave now. I
can't. We can lead here. We can make it bigger. Rebuild it even
more from the wars. It could be good,” Rain said as she looked at
him with her tear reddened eyes.

“
Trade the sea for the
snow?” he asked with a smile.

“
Leaders can visit.” She
shifted around. “I think all the people that caused the wars are
dead now. Just the ones who worked so hard to end it are still
going, except Beth. Bear, Mike, Candace, Patty, Billy, Pearl. They
are still here. They still want it all back together. We should try
to get this all as one again, as Leaders we could do it. I could
accept leadership here, you could accept it there. It could work.”
Her eyes pleaded with his own.

“
They would turn both of us
out if we tried that,” Ron told her.

“
Not if we were straight
forward. Accept leadership here and take the proposal to them next
spring. We will already be leaders here. They can only say no, but
I do not believe they will say no. I think it is time to put us all
back together,” Rain said softly. The baby let go of her nipple and
began to fuss. “Poor, baby,” she soothed as she put her over her
shoulder and patted her back softly, rubbing for short periods. Her
eyes met Ron's own.

“
Tell Bear. Tell Bear and
see what Bear says about it,” Ron said after a few
moments.

~

Bear watched the heavy flakes fall. He
had not known what to make of Rain jumping up and leaving so
quickly as she had. He only hoped it was because she wanted time to
talk to Ron about what he had said. What he had essentially
offered.

He had shocked himself. While it was
true that he had been sitting here thinking about turning
leadership over, he had not thought it would be so soon. He had
hoped that when Rain and Ron came back from their trip to Alabama
Island he could approach the subject with them. Now he could see
that it would have been far too late then. They would have left and
they would never have come back.

It saddened him to think of passing
leadership to someone else, but in another way the responsibilities
were too heavy. He was too old. Candace and Mike were both younger,
Mike's health was poor, but Candace was strong. He couldn't
understand why she would give up leadership. A position she had
held in one capacity or another for all the years since the end had
come. She was a natural. What would make her consider stepping
down, he wondered as he stared out over the valley.

He had been on the verge of rising,
going to find Rain, when Ron dropped down beside him.

Bear held his eyes when he turned to
him. “She spoke to you?”

“
She did, grandfather.” He
laughed. “She would never leave you now.”

“
It wasn't meant to make
you stay... It was time,” Bear said. He turned his eyes back out to
the valley. In the far distance a herd of bison grazed. Whether
their own or a wild herd he could not tell. At one time the entire
valley had been closed. No longer. A smaller valley on the opposite
side of the mountain held the winter herd. Small. What they could
afford to keep and feed through the cold months, and the cold
months were lasting longer and longer now. The rest were turned
loose. They mingled with the wild herds, but they never forgot the
valley was their home, and so they could be depended upon to come
back in the spring.

Ron followed his eyes and watched the
herd of Bison in the distance through the blowing snow. “Big
herd.”

Bear nodded and then turned. “You will
stay?”

“
She will stay...” he
paused and let his words sink in. Concern mounted in Bear's eyes.
“She seems to think that I should take the leadership being offered
by the Fold... Bring us all together as a people again.”

Bear smiled. “She
is
like my own blood.” He
laughed. A small laugh, but then he let it roll out of his huge
chest. “Might give Mike a reason to live after all. I can see it. I
can see it.” He fell quiet, watching the bison as they moved more
fully into the protection the walls of the valley offered. Their
coats were already snowy, carrying the weight of the snow as it hid
them from the eyes of predators. Ron watched with him.

“
Almost gone already... If
I didn't know exactly where to look...”

“
Yeah. I never get tired of
it,” Bear agreed. “I'm older than all of them, you know. It's so
unfair. Beth was so young, should have outlived us all. Here I am
in my late seventies, almost eighty now... Soon I will be...” He
sighed. “Mike is barely fifty, Candace a little younger than that.”
He shook his head. “Where did it all go to?” He turned and met
Ron's eyes, but Ron only shrugged as he held his eyes. Both men
turned back to the valley, but just that fast the Bison, who had
been moving nearer, had disappeared under their walking blankets of
white.

“
Insulates them too. Hard
for me to believe that but it is true,” Bear said. He turned back
to Ron. “She's right... It's what should have been done long ago.”
He stood and turned back into the cave where Candace stood talking
to several other OutRunners. The only vehicles they still had were
the OutRunner vehicles. Everything else had long been given back to
rust and age. The OutRunner vehicles had only gotten better. Built
from scratch and modified with more and more technology as they
came across it in the old, hidden military bases they sought out on
their missions.

Bear stood to his full height and
raised his arms high above him. “People,” Bear's voice boomed out
and the people in the cave stopped what they were doing and looked
to him. He may have been closing in on eighty, but there was still
a great deal of fight in that voice. Power. At one time there had
been several thousand people here. Now there were slightly more
than two thousand, still a great responsibility, and a growing one,
even with the world on the brink of extinction. He waited until he
had everyone's attention, at least those that were inside. Most
were working at this time, but it didn't matter. The news would
find them.

Rain came from the back. The baby gone.
Most likely sleeping on a pile of furs with a few others, Bear
thought. She came to Ron. Her face tense. Unsure what was about to
be said.

“
You all know me. You all,
I hope, know that I am not pretentious. I pray to God I never have
been or will be. I am just a man.” He paused. “There is no easy way
to say this, for I love you all. You mean something to me. Every
one of you. And if you can look at this in that light you will
realize it is past the time I stepped down.” A few gasps punctuated
the silence and a very low buzz of hushed, surprised
conversation.

“
It has never been
concealed from you that I have looked at Rain as my blood. That is
why I hope and pray that you will accept her leadership of this
Nation.” Bear fell silent and the silence in the cave held for a
few moments before the cheers began. With a few seconds the crowds
around himself and Rain were so thick they found them self pushed
together and herded back into the central area of the cave.
Questions. They would have them. He had to answer some of them at
least.

Bear raised his arms and waited for the
quiet. “I give you your leader... Will you accept her?”

The cave reverberated with the shouts
of yes.

“
It's finished then,” Bear
said softly. He said it softly on purpose to hold their attention
for a moment longer. “Before the celebration begins I will explain
why it had to be now. When Candace and her OutRunner team leaves I
will be going with them to Alabama Island. I will leave tonight
with them, and I do not know if I will return. My wish will be to
return, but that old dog age is nipping at my heels, and who knows,
maybe I will reach the warmth of the sea and wish to stay there.”
He waited for the laughter to die down. “You needed a leader now. A
leader that can take you to the next place the Nation needs to be.
The same place we have all worked to attain, togetherness, healing,
advancement. A man or a woman grows, or they die. The Nation is the
same way. We forgot that back in the wars. I have remembered it
now. Rain has never forgotten it,” his voice fell even lower.
“Something I only wish I could claim. Something I am proud of to
see living within her.” He met as many eyes as he could.

“
God willing I will see you
all again,” Bear told them. He turned and embraced Rain as her
tears fell and then his eyes fell on Candace where she awaited him.
He kissed Rain's eyelids, told her he loved her and wished her all
the best there could be, and then he joined Candace. A moment later
they were making their way through the tunnel to the Eastern side
of the mountain where the OutRunners had their own quarters. The
laughter and cheers of congratulation falling away behind
them.

“
You surprised me,” Candace
said as they walked.

“
I surprised me,” Bear
agreed.

The OutRunners were ten all in all. He
found that impressive. The first group he himself had formed had
been only four. And what they had then was nothing compared to what
they had now. Weapons, vehicles, armor and more bags of tricks,
some Bear was sure he himself didn't fully understand the
implications of.

They turned from the main tunnel way
into a wide open area filled with large trucks and bustling with
activity.

“
Ten minutes...” Candace
faltered, unsure how to address him. For so long she had addressed
him as Leader, grandfather, when she had been younger, she didn't
know what to do now that he had turned his reigns of leadership
over so quickly.

“
Bear will do,” he told her
as her face colored. “Or grandfather.”

“
Ten minutes...
Grandfather,” she said at last. Bear nodded and turned his
attention to his own preparations for leaving as he waited. He
pulled his pouch from one wide pocket and rolled a
cigarette.

“
Roll me one,” Billy Jingo
said as he walked up. “That was so fast, Bear.” Billy told him.
Behind Billy, leaning against the wall from the tunnel, Pearl gave
a hand wave and Bear smiled and waved back before turning his
attention to Billy.

“
Shit will kill you,” Bear
said as he rolled a second smoke and passed it to Billy.

“
So I hear, yet I'm still
alive.” He studied Bear for a few moments. “Took me completely by
surprise. I thought it would be this... The easy life right to the
end, Bear.”

Bear sighed. “So did I, to be honest.
Things sometimes do change fast though. And that is what happened
here. I had a chance to do the right thing, and I did it. Doesn't
make up for all of my life... A bit though.”

“
I have always liked Rain,”
Billy said. “She'll make a good leader.”

“
You'll support
her?”

“
With everything I am,”
Billy agreed. “Pearl, Dani too.”

“
Bear,” Candace said as she
approached. “We need to get going.”

Bear took the hand Billy offered, and
then bear hugged him, pulling him to him. “Been a long road,” Bear
said huskily.

“
It has. I for one believe
you will be coming back. Don't make me wrong,” Billy told him as he
followed Candace to one of the huge trucks. Bear stepped inside and
then turned back. “Give Rain a big hug for me... I will be back if
I can, Billy. If I can.” He turned back, the door hummed and then
disappeared. Billy stepped back as a moment later the truck came to
life, and began to roll near silently across the floor to a huge
metal door set into the wall. A second later that metal door began
to lift, revealing the swirling snow outside. A few seconds later
and the truck was gone. The door down, the floor wet and steaming.
Billy turned and found Pearl behind him, she took his hand and
together they walked back to the long tunnel that lead back to the
main cave.

On The Road: Bear

The snow swirled and leapt on the wind
as it fell. The flakes blowing this way and then the other. Bear
stood in the center of the road, the wind swirled around him,
carrying the snow onward. He was not dressed for the cold, but it
didn't matter. The cold was of no concern to him
anymore.

He looked down at his hands. A young
mans hands, not the old, scared and bent hands he had come to know
in the last several years. There was no mystery here. He had always
thought there would be, but there wasn't. He had stepped from that
world to this one effortlessly and in complete possession of
himself, where he was, what he was.