Surviving the Fog (41 page)

From a different direction, a plastic bottle
was tossed into the clearing.  The smaller teenager picked it
up and opened it.  He sniffed, and then he drank, just as his
mother yelled, “Leave it alone!  It might be poisoned.”

"It's Kool-Aid," he announced.  "Mom
they have food!"

Up in the trees, Jacob was talking to
Corporal Carson and the Rangers who had advanced to find Jacobs’s
squad.

"The Lieutenant was shot," the Corporal
whispered. "But not seriously.  The nurse is tending to him.
 We left the archers there.  How are you doing here?"

"Two rifles," Jacob said.  "Taking it
slow."

"Your call," responded Carson with a nod.

Down below, the boys and their mother were
arguing.  The three were obviously in charge.  The other
women and the other kids kept silent.

"When's Dad coming back?" the older teen
asked, but the woman didn't answer.

She was wondering what had happened.
 The shots had unnerved her.  She had expected her
husband to be back by now.

"I'm hungry," a little boy whined, almost
oblivious to the tension.  "When are we gonna eat?"

"Keep your brat quiet," the woman in charge
snarled.

The mother of the small child gathered him
into her arms, as the little boy began to sniffle.

"Mom, we don't have anything more to eat,"
the younger teenager said, desperation in his voice. “Where’s
Dad?”

"Shut up!" his mother yelled. "Let me
think."

Then she called, "One of you, come down here
and bring us some food, and I'll let a couple of these kids
go."

"Alright," Jacob said.

He moved forward to the edge of the trees, so
they could see him.  He held up a large bag and shook it.

"I hope you like egg and lettuce sandwiches,"
he said.

The woman in charge caught
her breath, and her mouth began to water.
These people have fresh food.
 She turned from side to side, trying to see how many
people were hidden in the trees, wondering again where her husband
was, starting to fear the worst had happened.

"Let that lady and her kid leave," Jacob
said.

The woman’s brow wrinkled with indecision,
and then she nodded.  The mother of the small child quickly
stood, grabbed the hungry child and another child by the hand, and
started hobbling towards the trees.

"Just one brat," the woman in charge
said.

"Both of them," Jacob responded, and the
woman and her children hurried into the trees.

"Now give us the food," the woman in charge
said.

Jacob motioned to the younger boy.  The
teen shuffled over to Jacob, afraid to come close to this stranger,
but too hungry to balk.  Jacob handed him the bag.

"Give me your rifle," Jacob said quietly.

After a moment’s hesitation, the young man
did so.  "We don't have any bullets anyway," the boy
whispered, his mouth watering as he clutched the bag of food.

Jacob quickly slipped back into the trees, as
the woman in charge began to squawk angrily at her son.

Jacob returned to his group and handed the
rifle to Carson, and then he turned to watch the people below eat.
 He saw how the woman in charge took the lion’s share for
herself and for her two boys, leaving little for the other women
and children, and when he saw this, his anger overcame his
caution.

"That's enough of that," he said.

He strode back into the clearing and went
directly to the older teenager.  The older boy was larger and
heavier than Jacob, and when he saw Jacob coming, he pointed his
rifle, but Jacob ignored him.  The Petersburg scout reached
the boy and snatched the rifle away with contemptuous ease.
 The boy’s mother sprang to her feet blocking Jacob's retreat,
but the Rangers and the Spears rushed into the clearing, as angry
now as Jacob.  The woman and her sons sat down, subdued by the
sight of the rifles and the sharp spears.

The Eagle’s Nest group was herded down to the
glen where the bodies of the men had been placed, side by side.
 When the woman in charge saw her husband’s body, she emitted
a cry of anguish and knelt by his side, as did her boys.  The
other women ignored her and the other bodies.  They were
overjoyed to see Diana and to be reunited with the nurse.
 They hugged each other, and cried, and profusely thanked the
people of Petersburg for their deliverance.

The Lieutenant was lying on the ground.
 His upper clothing had been removed, and he had a bandage
around his torso.  Yuie sat next to him watching Lincoln
anxiously and repeatedly questioning Diana.

"Are you sure he's all right?" she kept
asking, ignoring Kennedy's reassurances.

“It’s just a scratch, Yuie,” Kennedy gasped
out.

“It’s not just a scratch,” Diana retorted.
“But he will be alright.”  There were already ten stitches
along his left side.

The troop from Petersburg stayed in the glen
until they buried the bodies, and then they started their journey
back to the river and from there, down to Petersburg.  They
made the woman and her two boys trail behind, but they fed
them.

Someone seeing them eat muttered, "Why
bother?"

Jean replied, "Because that's what the Chief
would do."

At Petersburg, the residents were waiting
anxiously for news of their troop.  Mike returned two days
after they left.  He was surprised to hear about the people
from the Retreat, but he didn't offer any opinions, or any advice
for that matter.

Howard offered to let Mike sleep in the loft
until Jean returned, but Mike turned him down.  Mike moved
into the Lodge and took a bunk in the boys' cave.  One night,
Imee sent for him.  He found her in John’s and Desi's room.
 He and John waited in terrified suspense most of the night,
and then in the early morning hours, they heard a small high
pitched voice wailing.  Imee called them into the room.
 The newborn lay on Desi's chest.

"John, come say hello to your son,” said Desi
wearily.  “Hey, Mike, come say hello to Michael."

After a time, while Desi and the baby slept,
Mike and John took a long walk and climbed the slope next to the
cave.  Amid the trees, they found a private place to talk.
 Later, before they left that place, they laughingly promised
each other that neither would ever tell anyone that they had held
each other and had bawled like John’s son.

Days later, the happy community rejoiced as
they welcomed Kennedy and the other defenders back.  If there
had been any doubt about the Rangers integration into the
community, it was forgotten.  Together with the villagers, at
the risk of their lives, they had protected their community.
 And the Rangers, too, saw this village they had defended as
their village, and when they walked once more into the valley, it
was as if they were home.

Lieutenant Kennedy and Yuie were often
observed hand in hand, to everyone’s relief.  Their arguments
seemed unimportant to them now, and they began to speak about who
they really were and where they were from.  Kennedy laughed
when he found out that Yuie was from Berkeley, California.
 Her grandparents, she told him, had been political activists
in the nineteen-sixties.

“That figures,” he said, grinning at her.

Yuie was not surprised to
learn that Kennedy was a second generation soldier.  She was
surprised to learn that he was from Lubbock, Texas.
 
He doesn’t have much of an
accent
, she thought.  Yuie was
delighted to hear of the birth of Desi's baby, and she and everyone
chuckled when they saw Mike carrying the child as if he had done so
all his life.  But when he changed the baby's diaper in the
dining hall one day, there was some grumbling about the
smell.

"Tough," was his one word reaction.

Most of them were happy to hold the baby for
a few moments, except for Jacob who broke out in a terrified sweat
when John handed baby Michael to the scout.  Standing next to
the scout, Lily assured him that the baby would not suddenly
explode or grow wings and fly away.

Now that Jacob was back, Lily wanted to go
and see the edge of the Fog, so she could check on its progress.
 Jacob packed their things, and they set out.  After the
three day journey, they came to the Fog and verified that it was,
indeed, much lower.  This time, Jacob placed a small boulder
in the road to mark the spot.  They moved away from the Fog
and found a place to camp for the night.

It was warm that night, with just a light
breeze, and Lily wanted to talk.  She managed to get Jacob
speaking about his life before the Fog.  She discovered that
his father had owned a gas station in Oakdale.  She in turn,
talked about her life growing up in the coastal city of
Watsonville.

“Artichokes,” he said, and she nodded pleased
that he knew something of her home town.

But though he had mentioned his father and
his mother, after a while Lily felt Jacob withdrawing, and he
became tight lipped even for him, so she finally asked, “Jacob,
what's wrong?"

She sensed his sudden tenseness, and she
wondered if he would answer, and then he said, “It's my birthday
today.  I'm seventeen."

"Oh, happy birthday, Jacob," Lily
responded.

“Thanks.”

Lily waited, and as she waited, her thoughts
turned to the previous year when she had first met him.  She
sighed, remembering their conversations, and then she leaned toward
him and put her arms around his shoulders, and then lifted them to
his neck.

"Happy birthday, Jacob," she whispered again,
tenderly, and then for the first time, she kissed him.

The villagers were pleased when Jacob and
Lily reported that the Fog was still receding.  There was a
new confidence among the community that one day their world would
be normal again.  There was a sense that, as the seasons
passed, this community would become stronger.  Some of the
older girls looked at Desi’s child and thought about the
possibility of their own children.

Summer was passing.  The grain was high,
and it needed to be cut.  Mary was due to arrive in the
village any day to start the combine.  Eric was trying to
build a working bicycle.  Ahmad’s position as Admin was making
life easier for Howard.  Most of the people from the Retreat
were adjusting to life in Petersburg.  The women and the small
children had suffered trauma that would take a long time to
overcome.

Life for Lieutenant Kennedy would have been
just fine, except for the fact that Yuie was depressed.  She
hid it, but Lincoln had come to know her well, and, one day he
coaxed into speaking about what was wrong.  Gradually,
haltingly, she began to talk about that day in the glen.  She
was feeling guilty about her part in the fight.

Staring straight ahead, Yuie said, "I didn't
want to kill again, Linc."  She turned her head and looked at
Lincoln. "I didn't want to kill anyone ever again."  Lincoln
pulled her head against his shoulder.  He put his arms around
her, and he held her as she began to cry.

"I know, Yu," he whispered quietly.  "I
know, Yu."  Eventually, Yuie’s emotional health began to mend,
and so did Lincoln’s.

When September arrived, Howard announced a
four-day Labor Day celebration, and this year he turned it into a
fair of sorts.  Everyone was encouraged to make something to
trade for something else.  The Brown Farm community came for
the fair, and Mary started the combine.

"I'm not going to cut yet, but this is a good
opportunity to power up and check it," she explained.

Ralph got a chance to talk to Howard about
who should be chosen to live in the Solar Apartments.  There
were more applications than apartments, so the young men debated
over whether or not to use a lottery, or to choose the inhabitants
based on what skills they would bring to the farm.  Ralph was
not looking forward to the possibility of kicking someone out of
their apartment, because they refused to work.

While they were throwing tiny spears at a
target set up in a booth, Lincoln suggested a deal to Yuie.

"I'll trade you my last four pieces of
chocolate for four kisses.  My choice of time and place," he
said.

Yuie laughed and agreed to the deal, so
Lincoln gave her the chocolate.  Then Yuie surprised him by
taking the sweets to Comet and Star.  She gave them each one
piece.  Star was seven years old now, and she could barely
remember chocolate.  Comet didn't remember chocolate at all,
and he looked suspiciously at the brown sweet.

“It looks like poop.”

Carefully, he took a tiny bite.  His
eyes lit up, and he popped the whole piece into his mouth, as older
teens looked on enviously.  He and Star hugged Yuie.

As Lincoln watched Yuie give
the children the precious chocolate, he shook his head.
 
I’m in love with a peacenik from
Berkeley,
he mused.  He asked Yuie to
take a walk around the track with him.  When they were away
from everyone else, down where the river left the valley and
entered the woods, they turned to look back toward the village.
 He pulled her back against his chest, and she lifted her arms
above her head, so she could lean backwards and place them behind
his head. Lincoln laid his chin on her head, reveling in the aroma
of her long, silky black hair, and they stood there together down
at the far end of the meadow.

Then Lincoln said, "Yuie, I have another deal
to offer you.  Here it is.  I promise to teach our
children to respect and to honor people like you.  People who
question the government.  People who demand accountability
from our representatives.  People who protest against the
government when they think it’s wrong, especially when the
government is sending our people to fight and die.

"In return, I would like you to promise to
teach our children to respect the people who wear the uniform of
our country.  I want you to promise to teach our kids that it
isn't the military who make the choices of when to fight and die;
that it’s the civilian government that makes those choices, and
that the men and women in the military have a duty to faithfully
carry out the orders of those civilians.  Will you accept this
deal?"