Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (18 page)

Late in the afternoon, John came into the house. He pulled
something out of his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was a newspaper, just
like the ones from before the Plague.

We all went to the kitchen and sat down at the table. The
front page had a picture of Jane. Walking on either side of her were two big
soldiers. There were shackles around her wrists, and her hair was longer and
wilder than I remembered it. She looked right at the camera. There was no fear
in her eyes.

It was so good to see her, even this way. She was alive.

Next to the picture, was an article, “Terrorist Goes On
Trial.
” I read the first part aloud for Riley.

Jane Darcy, leader of the “Hillbilly Terrorists,” will
go on trial today at the Western North Carolina Military District Headquarters,
near Asheville. Darcy, 18, who
claims to be the “Messenger of God,” is charged with multiple counts of murder,
terrorism, using explosive devices, and destruction of federal property. If
convicted, Darcy will be executed.

“This self-styled prophetess, this terrorist, will get
her day in court,” said James Corcoran, head of the Federal prosecution team,
“but justice will be done.”

I stopped reading. It was just what Hobbes told me they
would do.

“What do they mean by terrorist?” Riley said. “That was on
the government signs about Jane.
Never understood that.”

Mary said, “It used to mean someone who attacked innocent
people for some political cause.
To frighten them.
To terrorize them.
But now, anyone who fights the Government
is ‘a terrorist.’ John’s a terrorist. I’m a terrorist. So are you.”

“But they attacked us,” Riley said.

“You’ve got to understand,” John said, “facts don’t matter.
Even the Government’s own laws don’t matter. They’ll find her guilty, no matter
what.”

“There will be a trial with judges, testimony, and
evidence,” Mary said. “They might even let her have a defense attorney. It
might look like a fair trial. But they will convict her. And they will execute
her. They always do.”

“So it’s all just a big show,” I said.

“Yes,” Mary said. She was looking at me, hard, and I had the
feeling she wanted to say more, but couldn’t.

“There’ll be more about Jane on the evening radio
broadcast,” John said.

“Radio broadcast?” Riley said.

“Yes,” Mary said, “it’ll start in an hour.”

John went out to do some chores before dinner. Riley went
downstairs. I lingered at the table with the newspaper. My eyes looked at the
words and pictures, but I didn’t really see. I could only think about Jane. I
thought of Jane chained up in some dark room, Jane’s fearless gaze in the
newspaper picture, Jane closing the eyes of that dead soldier, Jane’s touch on
my arm, Jane shouting and shaking her head at me, telling me not to do this.

The hour passed and John brought the radio, a black box,
into the kitchen and put it on a table. He worked the crank on the side for a
minute and then turned a knob on the front of it. After a “click” sound, a
man’s voice came out of the box. The voice said, “. . . tonight’s low will be
52 degrees with partly cloudy skies and a 20 percent chance of rain . . .” The
voice went on about the weather, what it would be tomorrow, and the next day.

Riley came upstairs and walked into the room. He gave me an
uneasy look. Now, people our age knew about radios. I mean, we had heard
old-timers talk about getting music from a radio, but I had only heard the
radio Jackson had played for Jane,
and that was just for a minute. Riley looked at this one with suspicion, as if
he thought it might do something else, like explode.

“Relax,” I said, “all it does is make noise.”

He motioned me away from the radio. When I was next to him,
he said in a whisper, “If we can hear that feller’s voice, can he hear us too?”
He cast a wary look over his shoulder at the radio.

“There’re radios like that,” I said. “But this ain’t one.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

He gave the radio another suspicious look and said, “OK.”

We sat down and began to listen.

The radio-voice stopped talking about the weather and
started talking about factories and food harvests, about tons of corn and
wheat, about percentages, records, quotas, and so on. I didn’t understand much,
but from the sound of the voice, I guessed all this was good news.

The radio-voice started talking about how the Government
army was fighting against “terrorists” and “separatist forces” in places like Ohio,
Maine, and Miami.
Then there was the voice of some General saying it was “just a matter of time,”
until these places were “fully secure.” There was also a report from New
York City about the arrest of forty-two “high-ranking
members of the terrorist ‘Underground.’”

This went on for a while. Riley said, “I don’t know much
about much, but I think this is all bullshit.” Then he apologized to Mary for
saying bullshit.

She laughed. “They say this kind of stuff all the time. No
one believes it.”

I was beginning to wonder whether there would be anything
about Jane, when the radio-voice started talking about her. It said pretty much
the same things as the newspaper had and listed all the crimes she was accused
of committing. Then the voice told us about “recorded excerpts” from the trial.

Then a new voice came out of the radio. I guessed it was the
voice of a judge. It said, “Jane Darcy, you have heard the charges against you.
If convicted, you may be executed.” The voice paused for a moment, and then
said. “Jane Darcy, how do you answer? Are you guilty or not guilty of these
crimes?”

“Not guilty.”

It was her voice. It was Jane. She was alive. I had a
picture of her in my mind. She was looking straight at that judge. I was happy,
and yet I was full of grief and shame. She was alive, yet she stood before men
who would kill her. And they had this chance because I had failed her.

Riley put a hand on my shoulder. Only then did I realize my
cheeks were wet.
Tears.

“Come on,” Riley said.

John and Mary were watching me. I didn’t care. I wiped my
eyes on my sleeve and tried to concentrate.

The radio-voice came back and talked for a while about how
terrible Jane was. The voice made it seem Jane had started the war against the
Government because she was a religious fanatic out to destroy all that was
decent and good.

Then we heard Jane again.

Another voice asked Jane a question. “You claim to get
messages from God. Tell us, does God hate the Government of the United
States?”

Jane said, “I don’t know if God hates your Government. But I
know its soldiers will be driven from our land, except those that leave their
bones here.”

The first radio-voice came back and called this “a chilling
statement by the defendant,” and said the trial would continue tomorrow. John
got up and turned the knob. A click and the radio went silent. Mary said she
would call us for dinner.

Riley and I went downstairs and sat on our bedding without
talking. I thought about Jane’s voice on the radio.
So clear
and strong.
I wondered what else she had said.
Probably
a lot.
Jane was never one to hold back.

I wondered too, if I would ever hear her voice again. Riley
and I might die trying and still do her no good. When I thought about this, a
sorrow came on me. It wasn’t a sorrow for
myself
,
although I wanted to live. It was a sorrow for Jane, whom I had failed. It was
sorrow for Riley, who wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. And it was a
sorrow for my people. They needed Jane. But all they had were fools like
Winslow and Jackson.

That’s what I was feeling when I heard footsteps, heavy
ones, coming down the stairs. It was John. He told us to come on up to dinner.

At the start, we were quiet. I sure didn’t feel like
talking. Mary got out a jug of red wine and poured some for each of us. Then
she asked Riley about some story he had told her about his kin. That started
Riley telling his funny stories.

I knew the stories, of course, and laughed some, but John
laughed very hard. His face got almost as red as the wine. Mary drank only a
little wine and smiled at Riley’s stories.

After dinner, Mary asked if we would like some music. John
and Riley said they would and drank a toast to the violin. I just nodded.

We sat in the front room, and Mary stood to play. Her eyes
were closed as she made the strange music. At first, I thought she was playing
as if on a stage, playing for many people, people who loved this music. I
realized she was alone with the music. The music carried her away from our
world of dark and narrow choices.

Her long fingers moved over the strings, and I recalled how
those fingers had closed around a pistol aimed at me. Watching her, I knew,
knew for a fact, she would have pulled the trigger. She would do what was
necessary. For some reason that made me feel better.

When she was done, we clapped and thanked her. She put away
the violin and went into the kitchen to clean the dishes and do other chores.
Riley and John had one last drink together. Then John went out back to check on
his horse. Riley, a little unsteady, went down to the cellar. I went into the
kitchen to help Mary.

We stood side by side. She washed, and I dried the dishes. I
could see our reflections in the glass window over the sink. For a time,
neither of us spoke. Finally, I said, “How did you learn to play music like
that?”

She kept washing and said, “Oh that’s a long story. If you
don’t mind, I’m too tired to tell it now.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, but I had the feeling being tired
had nothing to do with it. The story was private, like talking about her son.

We washed and dried in silence, except for a few words about
where I should put the plates and such.

We finished up. I thanked her for dinner and turned to go.

“Wait,” she said and went into another room. I heard her
move things around. After a minute, she came back carrying a small book that
looked very old. She held it out to me with both hands. I had the feeling it
was special to her.

I read the words on the spine.
“The Old
Man and the Sea.”

“Have you read this?” she said.

“No. What’s it about?”

“A man who didn’t give up.”

“Is it a made-up story?”

She smiled. “Yes, but made-up stories can be true.”

I didn’t know what she meant but was embarrassed to ask. So
I just thanked her, wished her a good night, and went downstairs.

Riley was asleep. He had left the lamp burning just enough
for me not to trip on him. I was tired, but also curious about the book. So I
stepped over Riley, turned up the lamp, and sat down on a crate to read.

In the morning, Riley had to wake me. For a while, I just
sat on my bedroll, weary from the night and thought about my dream.

I had been in a boat, like the one in the book, but there
was no water. Instead, I sailed skimming the treetops, riding the waves of
mountains and ridges, dipping down into the hollows and riding up again on the
wind.

This would have been wonderful, but I felt confused and
lost, not knowing which way to steer, thinking my destination was one thing,
then another, then something else. I was also afraid, because I knew the
black-clad soldiers were out there, amid the trees, down in the hollows, over
the next ridge, waiting for me in the dark.

Sometimes, Maggie was in the boat with me. I didn’t see her
directly but only in a reflection from the water around us, which wasn’t water,
but trees. Yet I could see her, and she was trying to tell me something,
something I couldn’t understand.

“Feeling poorly?” Riley said.

I must have been sitting there a long time remembering the
dream, turning it over, thinking about it.

“No,” I said.
“Didn’t sleep well.”

Upstairs, Mary gave us some tea and bread. As we were
finishing up, John came in from working outside. He bustled about putting away
freshly chopped wood. When he sat down across the table from us, I could see
all the good cheer of last night was gone.

“Got a message,” he said. “Tonight I take you to your next
contact. Be ready to go at dark. Bring your pistols and any ammunition you
have.
Nothing else.”

“Why not my rifle?”
Riley said.

“Just do as you’re told,” John said.

“A rifle will attract attention from soldiers or informers,”
Mary said.

I could tell Riley didn’t want to leave his rifle. It had
been in his family a long time, but he nodded.

“We’ll be ready,” I said.

John got up and went over to his coat. From the inside
pocket, he pulled out another newspaper.
“More about Jane.”

He put it on the table. There was another picture of Jane on
the front. Because of her clothes, I guessed it had been made soon after her
capture. She sat hunched and chained to a chair. She had the desperate look of
a trapped animal, a wildcat.

I read it to Riley. There was some about Jane’s trial.
Mostly, the newspaper talked about all the terrible things Jane had done. It
included what Jane had said about soldiers “leaving their bones here.” I
guessed they liked that because it made her sound mean and crazy.

“Damn,” Riley said. “I didn’t know we
was
mixed up with such a bloodthirsty woman. Lucky Jane didn’t cut us up for a
thrill.” He got up, stretched, and went down to the cellar. He would get his
gear ready and then go to sleep. I should have done the same, but for a while,
I kept trying to read the newspaper. But my head was too full of Jane to read
about factories, harvests, and such. It was all lies anyway.

The day passed slowly. Down in the basement, I checked and
rechecked my pistol. For a long time, I lay in the cellar listening to Riley
snore, thinking about what might happen tonight.