Pickers 3: The Valley

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Part 1: The Find

Following up leads, the pickers found directions to a seed bank in the French Alps. They have resolved to travel there and find blight resistant grain for the home they left ten years previously.

Along the way, they have picked up a passenger, Chloe, who needs a lift to another town.

Part 2: The Trip

Travelling through the bad lands, and encountering recently abandoned farms, Maxine and Chloe start a brief, fun affair.

After leaving Chloe in her new home, the family head for the Goat Track, a tough road over the Pyrrennees into France. Once over it, they begin to see the effects of the blight on crops and communities.

Trekking up France to the Northeast, they finally approach The Valley, the community they ran from a decade earlier. Before they can get there, however, they become involved in a running fight to defend three trucks carrying orphans to the same destination.

The child curled up on Veronique's lap had gone to sleep, and now she didn't know what to do with it.

It, she reminded herself, was a he, though she didn't know his name. They had found him trying to reach up to the steps into wagon two's cabin. The other kids were being rounded up and loaded back into their trucks, but this little one was determined to go somewhere else. He stretched out chubby fingers and was still a long way away from the hanging steps. Then he tried a clumsy little hop, but he didn't get very far off the ground.

Tony and Veronique had watched him for a while, trying not to laugh. They must have made some noise, because he turned to them. Serious little blue eyes stared from the mucky face under matted hair, and studied them. He turned back to the wagon and pointed up at the open door.

"Yeah, why not." Tony said, and scooped the child up, depositing him in the cab of the wagon.

"Really? What about the folks in those trucks? Won't they be looking for him?" Veronique asked.

"Just please don't leave him anywhere." said a voice from behind them. One of the women from the middle truck, Veronique realised when she turned. "I know where he is now, so we won't panic when he's not in the truck."

"Oh, okay."

"Problem solved." Said Tony, as he clambered into the cab.

When Veronique climbed into the cab, she found Tony looking around, confused. "You've lost the child, haven't you?" she said.

"He can't have gone far. Can he?"

There was light bump from somewhere in the rear of the cabin. They turned slowly, but couldn't locate the source of the sound. After a moment, a mop of untidy dark hair started to appear from behind the weapons rack. Those serious blue eyes looked them up and down again, then he squeezed out of the narrow space he had found to hide in. He studied the rest of the cabin, looking for other places he might fit into.

Veronique knelt down and held out her arms. "If you're going to ride with us, we'll need to know where you are. Come here and ride up front with us."

The little boy looked at her, and she wondered if he understood a single word she was saying. Perhaps he did, or maybe her body language was welcoming, because he waddled over and held out his arms to be picked up.

The little boy had sat on Veronique's lap as the trucks were refilled with children and refugees and the militia vehicles turned around. He had watched as the convoy crawled up the road, travelling as fast as the nearly dead motor in the middle truck would allow. Then he had studied Tony's driving, almost as if he were memorising how the machine worked. But, when they entered the long, dark tunnel through the mountain, he had curled up and closed his eyes. Even the swaying as they worked their way around the chicanes of barricades and demolition charges hadn't roused him.

Up ahead was an inverted U of light. The end of the tunnel. Veronique had a strange sharp, burning feeling at the top of her throat, and the pin pricks of heat around her eyes that signalled the possibility of tears. When they drove out of the tunnel, she would see the Valley again for the first time in a decade. She wouldn't quite see where she was born, not immediately. The town itself was still several kilometres away. She was nervous and emotional in ways she couldn't put into words.

Maybe she should wake the kid up, so he could share the first view with her. Not that he was old enough to understand its importance, but it might distract her. She turned matted strands of hair over and revealed the peaceful sleeping face. With a clean up and a hair cut, the little man might be cute, she decided. He was certainly too settled to wake. She tried to sit up in her seat without waking him, and braced herself for whatever emotions hit her as they entered the light.

Veronique had never been through the tunnel before, though she had been up to the Valley side entrance several times. The barricades they passed had been made of wrecked vehicles piled high and welded to a framework. In years past, those structures had blocked the width and height of the tunnel, and been loaded with booby traps against any incursion. The new frames could still be tumbled or moved for defence, but it was a sign that the Valley had opened up that there was a route around them. Was this all her uncle Julien's doing, Veronique wondered. One of the pickups stayed behind after the last of the barricades, no doubt to reset defences.

There was enough light now to see the rectangular panelling on the walls, or, more often, the beams that had held it in place. The lights that had been embedded in the ceiling were long gone, along with their cabling, taken to be reused down in the town. Veronique squinted as the sunlight grew brighter.

Wagon two exited the tunnel and followed the road as it almost immediately turned right. Veronique blinked in the sunshine, not yet able to see her old home for the moisture in her eyes. The distance between their seats was too great for Tony to reach across and offer a comforting hand, but he looked over and offered a supportive smile as she wiped her eyes.

They were going slowly. Even heading downhill, the battered old truck couldn't manage much speed. So they both had time to look around. To their right, as they headed up the valley, the hillside was steep, but not all cliff and rocks. Large patches of deep green were dotted with bright flowers of all hues, and goats of brown and mucky white. Below, and to their left, a crystal clear river flowed over pale grey rocks, occasionally interrupted by man made obstacles to create pools to supply the irrigation. Further down, the Valley was almost completely blocked by a man-made lake.

The sun was low, and the pattern of the waves in the river reflected up and into the cab. On the other side of the river, carefully tended fields were rich with crops. The slopes on the far side of the valley were also marked by meadows for sheep, goats, and the occasional cow. There were windmills, of various shapes, on some of the ridge lines where rock protruded from the grass land.

"It's so green." Tony said. He had seen plenty of farm land flush green, and then, often, gold, over the years, and patches of meadow around springs. But never before had he witnessed somewhere where every patch that wasn't rock was growing something. "This is incredible."

Veronique tried to remember what she had been taught, all those years ago, about how the Valley was farmed. "The valley is naturally cooler than an open plain. And all those dams hold back the water and let more of the land get it. It's a lot more complicated than that, of course, but that's the basics of it."

Tony had heard Veronique speak of how lush the Valley was, and how much grew there. But it was obvious that he hadn't completely believed her until now. "Don't run into Papa and Max, now. They'll never let you forget it." she said, teasing him to distract herself from the emotions the view of home brought on.

They had drawn close to wagon one as Tony looked around, but were going so slowly it hardly took anything to stop them. Veronique looked down at the child again. He would have years to learn the beauties of this place, she would resist the temptation to wake him.

They trundled down a well kept road, under avalanche roofs and past outlying buildings, until Veronique knew the town was just over the next rise. All the years, and the geography of the valley was still clear to her.

They crested the hill, and were on a level with the town, passing the battered name sign. It still called itself Nix, not going back to its old name for long forgotten reasons. The taller buildings of the centre poked over the clutter of roofs, but the overall layout wasn't revealed to them. They could travel up the valley and look down on the town some day, but for now, they would be introduced to it street by street.

The first houses they encountered were newer, simple constructions built for insulation and low energy use. Nix had recovered more rapidly than Zaragoza from the disease that killed so many of its inhabitants. Including her mother, Veronique remembered. She looked back, but there was no window to give a view in the direction she wanted to see. She had forgotten to look for the communal grave marker that stood over the spot where so many people she had known had been cremated en masse. Later, when she was ready, she would visit it.

The heart of the town was on the other side of the river, but they were directed to pull up on a large open spot beside the road bridge. The middle truck made some terrible noises as its engine was turned off for probably the last time. It rattled and coughed, then made a sad little grinding wheeze and expired, leaving the vehicle wreathed in black smoke.

There wasn't enough room for the wagons on the parking space, so Tony followed wagon one, as Remy took it down the street to park looking down on the river. "We're here." said Veronique.

Tony slid from his seat and stood by Veronique's seat so he could kiss her forehead. "How does it feel?"

"Very strange."

Remy and Maxine were out of wagon one. Remy was stood in the street, staring along it, over the roofs at the end and up to the mountains at the head of the valley. Maxine had clambered onto the railing separating the street from the drop down to the river, and was looking all around, trying to take in all the details of the town she had last seen aged ten.

"We should see if your uncle, or anyone else important, will talk to us, I suppose." Tony said. "And get this little person back to his family."

Veronique bounced the child in her arms when she had stood up. She had hoped this would rouse him. It woke him just enough to grasp the material of her shirt and snuggle his head under her chin. "Come on, you, time to get up." Veronique said, quietly. Maybe that was too soothing a tone, because he didn't stir at all.

Only as Veronique was clambering, one handed, from the cab- with Tony standing below her to catch them if she slipped, did the boy show signs of waking. He squirmed in her arms as he looked around, at the street and buildings and the side of the wagon, then up at the woman carrying him. He made a sound that could have been a question, but was no recognisable word. "We're here." Veronique told him. "Of course, you don't know where here is, so that means nothing to you, does it. Here, let me...." She twisted him around so he was facing forwards, then she pointed at the growing group of, mostly, children spilling from the car park onto the road to look over the railings at the river and town. "Let's go and talk to your friends and see if you've got a name, shall we?"

The woman who had talked to them earlier separated from the group of excited children and walked toward them. "He wasn't any trouble, was he? He's.... Inquisitive, is Luke."

"He is good at hiding." Tony said. "But quiet as a lamb once we found him again."

"We thought he should get back to his family." Veronique shifted Luke's weight, ready to hand him over.

The woman's smile was brittle. "Luke, like most of our lost children, doesn't have family. Well, he has us, but mother, father, brothers, sisters, no. He's an incredibly lucky one, sort of. He was found wandering near a farm. No clothes, no identification, and no clues what happened to his family. Wherever he came from, they hadn't taught him any language, so he couldn't tell us anything, not even baby speak that might hint at his story."

The woman reached out for Luke and Veronique handed him over. He didn't fight the exchange, but did twist in the woman's arms to reach back to Veronique. She let him have her finger to comfort himself with for a while. "We picked him up as we passed through." the woman continued. "He can't talk, but he is very clever. Seems to learn a new trick every day. I think that, one day, he's just going to start speaking in whole sentences, like he's been storing it all up."

"Well, we have to go and see what we're going to do now we're here." said Tony, gesturing toward wagon one.

"They've told us they have clean clothes and food for us." the woman said. "And a bath for all of this lot. They've got a bit smelly cramped up in the trucks."

"I'd be interested in what this one looks like, cleaned up and with a hair cut." Veronique said. She had locked eyes with Luke, and there was the hint that he might, just, be about to smile.

"Well...." The woman hinted at a move, but Luke wasn't letting go of Veronique. The brewing smile disappeared, and there was worry in the set of his brow. His mouth turned down, ready to start sobbing.

The stand off was resolved by Tony, who stepped up and rubbed Luke's head. Distracted, the child looked around at him. Tony had pulled an oddment from his pocket, a short tube with a domed cap over one end and a lanyard dangling from the other. Tony clicked the cap, and it glowed. Luke watched it, fascinated. Tony clicked the cap again, and the light went out. Luke glanced from the tube to Tony's face, and then back again, until Tony clicked the light on again.

"Now," Tony said, "I'm going to want this back. But for now, you should look after it." He held it out, and guided Luke's free hand to wrap around it. "Want to see how to turn it off and on?" He turned the light off. Luke gave him a serious stare, waiting for him to put the light on again. "Oh no, you get to turn it on. Here, give me your hand." Tony tapped the chubby fingers wrapped around Veronique's. Luke looked around, at the adults about him and the light in his hand, then let go of Veronique and allowed Tony to guide his hand over the light's cap. Tony pressed the little fist down onto the cap until there was a click, then let go. The hint of a smile was back on Luke's face as the cap lit up again. He hit it, and the light went out, then hit it again to turn it back on. Now he grinned.