Circles in the Dust (29 page)

He sobered up and looked at David with that alarming conviction.

“Okay, David, tell me what’s going on.”

David explained about how he had gone to the Base (though he left out the fact that he had followed the lumberjacks after Mitch had spoken to them; rather he told him only that he noticed that happening while attempting to get over the wall) and about all he had overheard through the windows and what Elizabeth had told him.

“So they’re coming out here to finish us off, once and for all?” Mitch summarized in a weary voice. “All we’ve done, all this time we’ve spent. These aren’t the same people I brought out here, David. I molded them, shaped them into good human beings. At least I tried to. With some it was impossible, they were too far gone. But I did everything I could. Everything I could, and it wasn’t enough.” His face was locked in a grimace, his eyes hard and his mouth twisted, all of it framed in the black thundercloud of his beard, which at this moment seemed to be emanating from within.

“Mitch, they’re coming in the morning. We can get away, or—”

“And go where?” Mitch interrupted with a sour grin. “Where would we go? This is plan B. No, this is plan Z. There’s no back-up. This is the end of the line. It’s over,” he said. He lowered his eyes to the ground. A startling noise slipped from his lips, a chuckle, bubbling laughter, rising to an insane cackling, a sinister sound in the otherwise silent woods.

“Mitch, there’s another way,” David started, when Mitch spoke again. “It’s my fault, you know,” he said, oblivious to David’s words.

“Mitch, you did everything you could,” David said.

“I did everything I had to,” he corrected. “Remember when I told you I just let the bad apples go ahead and try their hand at getting into the Base and stealing what they could? I just let them go, pointed them in the wrong direction so they wouldn’t ruin everything for the rest of us, and washed my hands of it?”

“What else could you have done?” David said. Elizabeth was looking between the two men warily, he noticed. “It might not have been ideal, but it was… practical.”

“Yeah,” Mitch guffawed. “That would have been ideal, actually. Try to stop them then send them on when there was no other way. Maybe I did too good a job at softening them up in the first place. David, no one wanted to raid the Base, at least not for a long time.” He had been speaking to the trees to his left, but now he turned back to face David and Elizabeth and dark gray trails ran down his face, cut through the grime of the wilderness by salty tears.

“I told them to go, David. Someone raised their voice against mine, and I convinced them to go. I wanted everyone out here to listen to me. I knew best, after all, didn’t I?” He was choking back sobs now, sucking snot back into his nose as it ran out onto his unchecked oily moustache. “We needed a leader, and it was me. It had to be me, it just made sense. People listened to me, they always have. But I remember that first time someone started cutting me down, trying to pull the Outliers into an all-out siege that would have just killed everyone and doomed us all.” Mitch’s voice lowered and his brow dipped in anger. “He had to go,” he said, pointing a finger at David, as if he had spoken against it. “It would have been the end of all of us, and you,” he said, pointing this time at Elizabeth.

“Mitch, you sent them?” David said. “You sent your own people out to their deaths?”

“What is wrong with you?” Elizabeth spoke up at last. David looked over and saw fire in her eyes, and feared an outburst that would swallow up the conversation. “You sent your own people out to die? You’re a monster, a murderer,” she spat with venom. “You’re no better than the man who wanted to fight; you’re no better than the old leaders that started the war, you know that?”

Mitch looked like he was going to strike her, but refrained.

“You think I wanted to?” he said, his voice grown almost pleading, his face softening as they escaped his lips. “You think it felt good, knowing that I was condemning my own? It was either condemn a few, or condemn everyone. If we had fought, we would have died. If we had remained the same, we would have been denied absolutely. My only chance was to teach them to be civil and weed out the ones who wouldn’t change.” Mitch looked drained, his face paler than ever, his eyes lidded and listless, his mouth drooping. He hung his head.

“Mitch, you never told me—”David began.

“I know.” Mitch’s voice dragged ponderously over every word. “When I saw you again, David, I was so happy. We were such a great team, and now we would team up again for the biggest score of our lives, and this one for the greater good. We’d be Robin Hood,” he pointed at himself, “and little John,” and he gestured at David, which made David crack a small grin despite himself. “And then I got ready to tell you my plan, and I realized you would hate it. You would tell me how awful it was, how evil, and we’d be right back to the old argument, the one that tore us apart in the first place.”

David thought about the last time he had seen Mitch. They had indeed argued, and it was not so different than their situation now. David held no grief with living as they had, taking what they needed and killing those they had to, until the day came that they had a way out. When they found those seeds, Mitch had wanted to throw them away. He said they were useless, that no one had gotten anything to grow for years. How would they? His argument made sense, even at the time David knew that. But he just couldn’t stomach throwing away the opportunity of a better future, more stable and sure than the one they had been facing, one less bloody.

That was what split them in the end. Mitch was not about to give up his way of life and settle down to coddle a seed that he knew would never grow, and David refused to continue to plunder and kill if there was even a chance that living that way was unnecessary.

It struck David now, as he looked at Mitch, hunched over, eyes wet and bloodshot, swaying in the still air, looking crumpled and defeated, that Mitch had never been a killer in the first place. He had always been the scout, the man on the scene, shooting the breeze with travelers while discovering if they had anything of value. When things turned sour, it was always David who would pull the trigger, loose the arrow, from a distance, but he had never avoided seeing the evidence of his handiwork up close. Mitch had exchanged blows a few times, but David could not remember him ever taking a life himself.

Just now the weight of murder was coming crashing down on his shoulders. To be the judge of life and death; is there anything harder? He had stepped up and made the decision, he had sentenced men to death, even sent them to their death crimeless, and now he was realizing that he had made the wrong choice. He had killed innocent men. He had not the wounds of a savior on his hands, but the blood of the innocent.

David’s thoughts drifted briefly to all the men he had killed over the years, but he shook his head, trying to physically rid himself of such reveries. Now is not the time, he thought, though he didn’t know if a good time for that would ever come.

             
Mitch’s face was invisible now, hidden behind fingers glistening with sweat. David realized that he could see them glistening, and that dawn was approaching. The sky was still black but a grayness was vying for dominion over the Earth, and it was coming too fast.

I should have so much more time.

“Mitch, you need to keep it together. There will be time for this later, time for sorrow and grief, but you need to get a hold of yourself. You can undo some of your wrongs—”

“Wrongs?” Mitch cried. His eyes were as full of fire as they had been but it was now unchecked, and David feared it would consume his friend if allowed to burn. “No, David. I did what I had to. Someone had to.” The back of his hand rose to paw at the tears on his cheeks. “It was awful, but it had to be done. I won’t say I regret it. It just wasn’t enough. That’s all. I tried, and I failed. He lifted his voice to the sky. “We all failed,” he yelled. “It’s over. We’re all dead.”

He returned his attention to David. “Call me the bad guy. It wouldn’t be the first time. I can take that. The world’s not all black and white. Forget about right and wrong. There’s only life and death.” He sniffed and ran a hand through his beard. “I never should have gone off in the first place. Life and death. I can’t believe I ever did. Maybe I wanted to do something to redeem myself, to earn my survival. I don’t know. Maybe at first, but I think I get it now. That’s all fucked. It’s all pointless.” He wrapped his arms around himself, sobbing and laughing, and refused to hear anything David said to try and bring him out of it.

David shot a glance at Elizabeth, hoping she wouldn’t listen to Mitch, not in the condition he was in now. She couldn’t know too much about his life before her, before everything had changed. She was the safeguard of humanity, keeping the snake from devouring its own tail once more, for the last time. Would she welcome a murderer into her life? That seemed quite a far cry.

David watched as she leaned in close to Mitch and placed a hand on his shoulder. He gave no sign that he was aware she was touching him, nor did he react when she brought her mouth close to his ear and whispered something to him. One minute she was chastising the murderer, the next she was consoling the desolate. Fully perplexed by the girl, David stood up as a noise pricked at his ears. There was something stirring, some movement behind the trees, coming from the camp. Leaving Mitch to Elizabeth’s care, he headed back to investigate.

As he broke out of the trees, he stopped short, caught off guard by what he saw. They were survivors, after all. These were the best of the best. And when you survived in the forest that often meant being the quietest of the quiet. The whole body of the Outliers stood before him, circled around the embers of the fire, every face turning to him as he emerged from the arms of the pines.

“What’s going on?” he asked, though it felt like a stupid question.

“You tell us,” growled a low voice from a mouth unseen.

David peered around shoulders and between bodies, looking for the man he dreaded it was, hoping it was anyone else who had spoken up.

“I said, you tell us,” the voice repeated.

Mort rose from where he had been crouched low by the flames and began marching toward David. “Where’s Mitch, and where’s my gun, and what the fuck are you up to?”

David raised his hands in submission and stuttered to utter a coherent thought. He was close, too, it was just on the tip of his tongue, when a fist collided with his cheek and sent him sprawling to the ground.

“I said, what the fuck is going on here?” he roared again as David felt his tender face. He wiggled a tooth around with his tongue, and spat out the blood that was pooling in his mouth.

“Mort, wait
—”

“We’ve waited long enough!” he raged as he raised a boot. “You better start talking, or you won’t be able to for much longer.”

“Don’t hurt me,” David managed to get out. It felt like it really needed to be said. “Just listen to me for a minute.”

“Where’s my gun?” the muscled man asked.

“Maybe I can explain first, before you have a gun again,” David said, spitting out the tooth Mort’s fist had loosened.

“I’m listening.”

“I’m sorry I had to take your gun, and leave you in the woods. We were in a hurry. The Mayor is coming, and all the men from the Base.”

There was only a guttural response to this, and it didn’t sound particularly friendly. He took it as a sign to continue.

“The Base knows that our numbers are low, that we have been dying. People have been going missing—”

“We know where they’re going,” a voice called out from beside the fire.

“All right,” David relented, “but nonetheless, the Mayor knows that there are fewer of us than ever. And he means to come wipe us off the face of the Earth for good.”

The rumble that rippled through the crowd, the angered shouts and calls to arms, the battle cries and drawing of weapons—never came. The Outliers stared at him, with the same blank expressions they had been wearing since they first saw David. All except Mort, though his callous scowl remained unchanged.

“They’ll be here at the first light of morning, with all the weapons they have, and they won’t leave until every one of us is dead,” David reiterated.

“‘Us,’ huh?” Mort drawled. “They might be on their way to kill us, but I seriously doubt they’ll lift a hand against their little pet, who told them all this.”

“You think it was me?” David was incredulous.

“Things were looking up when it was just us,” Mort explained, “and then you showed up and now our heads are all on the chopping block. What a coincidence.”

“I mean to help you, I promise,” David said, though he quickly corrected himself. “Us, I mean. There’s nowhere to run, I know you know that. Our only choice is to stay here and fight. But we need a plan, because I’m sure there are a lot more of them than there are of us.”

“And why should we trust that you’re not just gonna set us up like chess pieces and go running off to the Mayor to let him know just where we are when he gets here?” Mort asked.

“Because we’ve got a secret weapon,” Elizabeth said as she strode out of the wood. David turned his head and peered up at her. She looked calm, fearless, wearing a scowl that dared to be doubted. But closer to his face where he remained in the dirt, he could see her fingers shake and twitch, the light of the fire glinting off a sheen of sweat coating her palm. She was brave, he had to admit, or at least played the part well.