Circles in the Dust (22 page)

“Not at all,” David said. “It looked like it at first, but I’m no farmer, or gardener even, and after that first year I was totally lost. I didn’t think ahead and keep any seeds, at least not enough, and it was all over. Kept me going for a while, but…” David hung his head. Even the dirt beneath his feet had abandoned him.

“Imagine, you might have had the same problem they’ve got on their hands if it had worked,” Mitch joked, nudging his arm. “Maybe that was for the best?”

“I guess.”

“Anyway, we’ll get ourselves in there, don’t you worry about that. It’s just a matter of time.” Mitch seemed confident, the aggressive light in his eyes, the same one that had kept him alive after having countless guns pulled on him, shone brighter than ever, brighter than David remembered. Once again, David would have to save him before he got himself killed.

“How, though? Why not just move on and try somewhere else?” David asked, though he knew the answer to that.

“There is nowhere else, David. Believe me. This is our one hope. But if we can’t get them to let us in before winter, I don’t think we’ll make it to spring.” He didn’t seem terribly worried about this. He was confident they were going to get in, but how?

“What’s your plan?” David asked again, taking a challenging bite of the leathery morsel.

Mitch chewed thoughtfully, looking up at the tops of the trees. “They kept you locked up in the cellar for three days, huh?” he said through a mouthful of food and skepticism.

“Yeah. The door was locked and I’m pretty sure someone was guarding it the whole time.”

“No one else got locked up while they voted on whether or not to let them in.”

“Really?” he responded, pouring all the incredulity he could into the word.

“Yeah. You must just be pretty special.” Mitch smiled, but there was no humor there. It was a cold, calculated expression, and David realized he was going to have to work for every ounce of trust he garnered.

David spluttered, not knowing what to say. Mitch spoke again before he managed to put a coherent thought together.

“But I knew that already.” His mouth still said I’m so glad you’re back, old friend, but something in his eyes kept the words from giving David any comfort. “Why don’t we introduce you to the gang, huh? I’m sure they’ll love you, being my oldest friend and all.”

Mitch led him out of the cabin. David wanted to be comforted by this alliance that should have made his introduction easier, but fear crept into his heart, fear that he had just met a new enemy rather than an old friend.

chapter 28

There were only a handful of people in the Outliers’ camp when Mitch led David around. There was Mort, who David learned was Mitch’s right-hand man, and the boy tending the fire and preparing some foraged victuals for winter. His name was Jason, and he didn’t say a word to David or accept the proffered handshake. A man who had injured his ankle was resting on a bed of pine in one of the cabins, and a few more were dropping off some of their scavenged spoils. Mitch promised to introduce him properly when all were present that night.

Mitch asked no more about David’s internment, though David had a few more answers ready to go. He showed David around the rest of the cabins, the latrine set a ways away in the woods, and where they went to get water from a small stream almost invisible under a blanket of brush. There was precious little to look at, though what was there was impressively organized. David realized as they were peeking in the windows of some of the vacant cabins that these people had been traveling, and had not carried very much with them. Most of the dwellings had little or no more than a crude bed and a few tattered scraps of clothing. David had only the sparse contents of a backpack himself. Everything else was back at his cabin in a valley a few days’ walk away. There was a good chance he would never return to that place.

Mitch took him into one cabin where they stored what food they had. It followed the mold of the rest, with rough shelves lining the walls, covered with a variety of green and brown roughage. It looked like no way to live, no canned goods or meat. This many people, though; it was no wonder even the rare animal stayed away.

“It’s not enough,” Mitch said from behind as David surveyed the cache.

“There’s more than I thought there would be,” David replied.

Mitch chuckled. “There are forty-two of us, David. Well, forty-three now, I guess. We’ve got a couple months’ worth of food maybe.”

“So what are you going to do?” David asked.

“We’re going to get into the Base,” Mitch replied matter-of-factly.

“How?”

Mitch was silent for a minute more, and David thought he was going to ignore his question again.

“They won’t let all of us die out here.”

David turned and looked at his old friend, the one who had spent his days scouting the valley for travelers the two of them could ambush and loot to keep themselves alive. His plan was to bow to the mercy of others?

“Counting on their humanity?” he said with disbelief. Mitch looked at him like he had not heard.

“Walk with me, David.”

They left the cabin and headed out into the woods, Mitch leading the way, David following close behind.

“When I arrived, I was one of the first. I know some of the people in the Base, and they would sure as hell recognize my face. I was so excited, as I’m sure you can imagine, when I found this miracle of a place. I was so excited, in fact, that I couldn’t keep it all a secret. I had to go back to the valley, had to go and find everyone I knew and tell them of this place where they were making a stand, digging in, and making a living. They were not content to live just another day, they wanted to rebuild the human race, they want to live forever.”

David could see the awe that Mitch felt plain on his face, as if he were just seeing the Base for the first time. His eyes were distant and David was sure that, in his mind, he was back in that first day.

“I told them it wouldn’t be more than ten or twenty people that came back with me. They said that was fine, they would find room for them, put them to work. Everything was great, David. It was a dream come true.”

Rage blotted out the euphoria that had painted his features a moment before.

“But when I got back, with the few survivors that were even left in the valley, just a handful, not even as many as I said I would bring back, by the way, they wouldn’t open the gate. They didn’t even have a gate when I left. Keeping us out had become important enough for them to build a wall. They said they had taken in everyone they could, said they would starve if they let any more people in. Not to mention they’d have to deal with the ones they had already turned away, those camping out in the woods, watching no doubt, ready to run in if they saw the Base make an exception for others. I had met the guard that came out to shoo us away when I spent a few days there, and he offered to take me around the corner and hoist me over the wall, alone. At least they offered me that much.

“But I couldn’t do it, David. You know me, or at least the man I was; I would have been ecstatic to get back in there, should have hopped over the wall then and there. Sometimes I wonder at how I refrained. But I just couldn’t look into the eyes of old Marge, and Mel, and Gus, the guys I had grown up with, shared laughs and fought alongside when we had to. We survived together, and they were the ones that were always off limits. We were all on the same team, all of us that lived in the valley. You know what I’m talking about. Even though you were a hermit and you had a garden, no one came to raid it, at least none of us. We stuck together even when we lived apart, and that’s how we made it. But now…”

He shook his head. They had walked out of sight of the cabins. David began to turn around, expecting them to simply walk in circles while they talked, but Mitch leapt into the woods and threw himself up a tree and onto a boulder that towered over them. David followed, clumsily, having to swing himself over the lip of the rock. When he reached the summit, Mitch was standing with his back to him, still as the stone he stood on, except for his hair blowing in the chilly autumn breeze.

             
Advancing to stand beside Mitch, David caught his breath as the forest melted away and a perfect view of the Base opened up before him. It was framed by thick trunks on either side, short, waving grass below, the gray sky above. There were mountains in the distance, rising up to tower over the farmhouse and outbuildings. Smoke curled up from chimneys and a few tiny people could be seen scurrying to and fro. It was a beautiful sight.

             
“Now it’s us versus them, David.”

             
“There has to be a way to work togethe
r
—”

             
“Ha!” Mitch barked. “I guess you are new here, but you’ll get it. We’ve tried, man. They wouldn’t let us in; when we asked them for seeds they said they couldn’t spare any. They told us to go away, to try and make it on our own somewhere else. When we made it clear we were here to stay, they told us they didn’t want us to die, that they could take in more people as soon as they had the food supply to sustain them. They can’t risk the lives of their own people for us, can they now?”

             
David wondered how this could be true. They can’t have tried everything.

             
“Mitch, while I was in the Base, I overheard a few things…” David hesitated, not knowing what to reveal, what might seem too good to be true for him to have ‘overheard.’

             
“Yeah?” Mitch was still facing the view of the Base while he spoke.

             
“Mitch, the people of the Base, they’re good people. There are those who argue for you constantly. They want to let you in, but I really don’t think they have enough. More than anything, though, they’re afraid. They are afraid that the Outlier
s
—”

             
“The Outliers.” Mitch snorted. “Doesn’t that sum up the way they look at us?”

             
David momentarily questioned Mitch’s bipolar feelings toward the Base, but continued.  “They’re afraid that you will go to war, to forcibly take a place among them.”

             
Mitch was silent.

             
“Is that your plan, Mitch? Underneath all the niceties, under the mask. You’re planning one final battle, aren’t you?”

             
“David,” Mitch finally turned away from the view to look into David’s eyes. The light of passion burned so brilliantly there David nearly had to squint to gaze back into them, “I don’t want that. I need you to understand that war with the Base would be a mistake. People would die, and even a few dead are too many when there are only a couple hundred of us left, if that? We need every man, and they can’t see that or they would tear down their walls. Those are the last things the world needs now.

             
“But I can’t guarantee there won’t be bloodshed. We are survivors. We will do what we must to live another day. They’re growing restless, David. More and more they are realizing that we are doomed without the sustainable resources of the Base. I can’t convince them all to stop their raids, and the Base has already cut us off because of that. They used to bring us what extra food they could spare, though it was mostly scraps to be honest. They didn’t let us in but they shared what they could. But that was when they thought this would be temporary, and before we on the outside got a real sense of what they had.

             
“I can’t hold the Outliers back forever. When the food runs out, they will attack. They may be weak and they may have to crawl through the mud and snow to reach the gate, but they will not die out here in the dirt. I feared the Base would come out to exterminate us, but that is not their plan. Not if they are afraid of us. They can wait us out, starve us. Then they can always say they did what they could, but it was inevitable. They will let us in, or before the winter is through there will be war.”

             
This was more what David was expecting of Mitch. Maybe he suspected that David was a double agent. Maybe this itself was an act.

             
“Mitch, we will solve this. Together. You and I.”

             
“As always, David. As always.”

             
Mitch clasped David’s hand and held it in a vice-like grip, his face bright with the victory he saw ahead. David returned the confidence, but it took all his strength to mean it. Mitch was not easy to read. There was a plan in there somewhere, but David could see it would not come out easily.

He had just two weeks.

chapter 29

The fire crackled, casting a bright, sharp light across the faces of the Outliers. This was as complete a gathering as they could assemble; a few were on watch, patrolling the forest, but that left almost forty faces surrounding the tall bonfire. They were the faces of suffering. Every one of them was too thin, with skeletal legs and sunken eyes. Even Mitch, the obvious leader, had skin stretched tightly over his bones.

              “I want all of you to accept David. He is one of us now, and he will walk with us through the gate into the Base. Treat him with respect. Or answer to me.”

             
Mort growled at this, and David glanced in his direction. Mort was on the right side of Mitch, David on his left, standing while all others were seated. Mort was not directing this primal threat at him, but at those gathered around the fire. Or so David hoped. Mitch placed a hand on his shoulder, and he was silent once more.

             
David did not know if he should say something. He had planned to use Mitch as his mouthpiece to communicate his plan to the Outliers, but was thinking now, with all eyes on him, that this would be a good time to set himself apart and make himself known to all of them as a leader himself, one with things to say.

             
“I know you have all been waiting here to enter the Base for a long time,” he began. “I know that you have survived this long, and you are not ones who give up. Those who were are all dead. You, we,” he corrected himself, “are the ones who will keep the wheel of the world turning, who will not rest until we have what we need.”

             
Mitch looked at him curiously. Mitch had always been the speaker, the people person, and David knew this must be a surprise for him; as much as it was for David himself.

             
“I was in the Base, and I learned a little about their current situation. Mitch and I,” here he put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder, and the curious smile faded, “we will work together to secure our place in the Base, in history, in the future. We will live on, and we will do it together. Every one of us.”

             
Out of things to say, David sat back down, his face red and his skin crawling. There was no applause, no recognizable response to his words, just more blank stares. From before him, and to his right.

             
“Well said, David,” Mitch said in a raised voice so that all could hear him. “We fought side by side for years, and I trust him with my life. I expect you will all find yourselves willing to do the same.”

             
“You’re gonna help us out, huh?” came a voice from across the fire. A man with spider-thin legs crossed in front of him held a cynical, amused expression. He was holding a tin mug in one hand, the other stroking his thin moustache

underneath a hulking nose. “What makes you think there’s still any hope? Look at us.”

              “David is a smart man, Ralph,” Mitch shot back. “I would not be so quick to disregard a potential lifeline, my friend.”

             
“Yeah, took him this long to make it out here. Must have been on tour, solving everyone else’s problems. This magnificent problem solver.” His words were harsh, punctuated by his taking quaffs of whatever liquid his mug contained.

             
“Take it easy,” Mitch responded with a genial smile. “Let’s just see what he’s capable of before making judgments, eh?”

             
Ralph nodded his head and remained silent, placated for now. David realized he might just have had a good deal of luck, finding Mitch here.

             
Mitch went on to conduct what must be the regular business of the Outliers. They all acknowledged Mitch as their leader. He was their emissary to the Base, and seemed to inspire loyalty in all the men and women before him.

             
There was a reckoning of the food supply, done quickly, and objectives for the next few days. A few disagreements were settled between members of the camp, with all uninvolved parties acting as a large jury. Most accused a handful of men sitting together at the edge of the firelight. They all had blond hair and sharp jawlines; David assumed they were related. They were accused of brawling, though nothing had been broken or anyone seriously injured so no punishments were doled out. The more serious issue of theft was raised, though no one could be sure who was responsible. David learned that anyone caught stealing would be whipped. By Mort. Naturally, no one spoke up.

             
Mitch opened up the gathering to the rest of the Outliers to voice their concerns. There was a man with a large, bald head who insisted they needed to all join together in one camp, build cabins enough to hold everyone as some were currently scattered elsewhere in the woods, to appear unified before the delegate that was sure to come from the Base.

             
“There is no one coming, you fool,” said one of the blond men with a black bandana covering his scalp. He wore only a thin shirt, a layer of sweat  spreading across his bony chest even in the chilly twilight.

             
“Speak up, Dmitri,” Mitch shouted. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

             
“I said there is no one coming!” he cried. “All this sitting around and waiting for them to come see how nice we are and how nice our camp is so they will tell us our wait is over and we can enter their precious Base is useless. They know who we are, what we are like. Words have not worked. It is time to act.”

             
Mitch’s face hardened and David knew that rage was boiling just under the surface. “You know we can’t do that,” Mitch responded. “We number too few, and they would shoot us like deer on our way to their wall
s
—”

             
“Deer,” a man seated on crossed legs next to David trilled with dreamy eyes, licking his lips. He looked like a demon, sickly and slightly hunched with clouded eyes. David shifted away slightly.

             
“Then we will die here,” Dmitri allowed. “We will sit in the snow and we will starve. We know there is not enough food, Mitch.” He spat the name is if it were a hair on his tongue. “We can go in with what guns we have left and take our rightful place among them, or turn them out, see how they like it.”

             
“You are dreaming,” Mitch responded, a strained smile turning up one side of his mouth. “If we attacked them outright, we would die. We have to come to a peaceful agreement or nothing.”

             
“Your peace has not worked, oh fearless leader.” David glanced at Mitch, wondering how long he would allow this to go on. That smile was no longer strained; it had transformed into a knowing, cruel twist of the lips.

             
“Give it time, comrade. If we are going to find a place among them, we want to come in as friends, not as conquerors. That would not last. We would have to watch our backs constantl
y
—”

             
“Bah!” Dmitri stood up and stalked into the night, followed by the other bandanas.

              Mitch watched them go, saying nothing as their forms became dark shapes and then disappeared. He swept his gaze around the circle of dirty faces when they were gone. “Dmitri wants to attack. I know you all are tired of this waiting game, but know this. There is a plan in place, a plan between myself and the Mayor of the Base. We will have our day. I will not let you die out here, I promise you that. Do you trust me?”

              There was a murmur in the small crowd then a wave of nods swept through them. Mitch was losing them; it was not hard to see. His face spoke of disappointment at their reaction. “You will see. I think that is enough for tonight. Stay strong, friends.”

             
Mitch stood up and sighed. David caught his eye and Mitch motioned for him to rise as well. He helped David off the ground and led him to his cabin.

             
“I figured you wouldn’t mind staying with me,” Mitch said as he opened the door. Firelight poured in the open window and David saw a second pine mattress in the corner opposite the original.

             
David had a thousand questions buzzing around his brain. Mitch had some plan with the Mayor? Why hadn’t he told him? Was Mitch’s confidence warranted? He wanted to ask Mitch these things and more, but when he turned from his bed Mitch was already settling into his, looking exhausted. David decided his interrogation could wait for the morning. He flopped down on the springy bows and spread his blankets over himself, wishing he had brought along his pillow, dirty and smelly as it was, as he drifted into unconsciousness.