Reapers (39 page)

"Because you're still young enough to think the world revolves around you."

Hobson chuckled. "Whereas I am old enough to think that Ellie was talking to herself most of all."

"It's for all of us." Ellie hiked her pack up her shoulders and walked through the trail they'd flattened in the snow on their way down. "Let's move."

They faced a five-mile walk back to the Upper East Side. Their snowshoes chuffed through the snow, which was largely free of tracks. By the time the park's trees sprouted darkly behind its concrete walls, it was early afternoon and Ellie had resolved that, if and when they got back home, she would stay seated in her chair by the fire until next July.

She led them down the sidewalk, keeping the street between them and the park's barbed wire-topped walls. Many of the lawns were clearer than they'd been before the Panhandler. Trees had been cut down for cabins and farmland. Some old growth had been replaced by young trees—apples, cherries, and other fruiting varieties, presumably. Post-apocalypse, the New Yorkers had made Central Park every bit as space-efficient as the gridded skyscrapers had once been.

But many trees had been left in place to block the wind, delineate borders, and break up the chimney smoke of the cabins dotting the fields. She could smell the smoke as soon as they'd gotten within a block of the park, but rather than rising in many separate fingers, it hung over the greenery in a dispersed gray pall. Clever stuff. You'd never guess you were looking at the city's breadbasket.

They followed 72nd into the park. The lanes were bordered by snowed-in grass and leafless trees. As with every settlement Ellie had seen, there were no homes directly fronting the road. Instead, log cabins peeked from copses of trees, hidden by shrubs and ivy. After a quarter mile, the road went past a red terrace overlooking a lake. They climbed down the steps, passed a fountain, and followed the trail to the northeast. Ducks honked from the water. A couple of men sat on the banks with fishing poles and fingerless gloves. Each watched until Ellie and the others disappeared behind the trees.

The boathouse was hard to miss. A long structure with an expansive patio, roof held up by columns. Banks of windows looked over the lake. Ellie walked around front and knocked.

The door opened six inches. Through the gap, a young man stared back. "No room for strangers."

"Is your mom Nora Ryan?" Ellie said. "We're friends of a friend. It's important to speak to her."

He closed the door. The glass panels had been boarded over. Ellie heard his bare feet thump off. A minute later, steps advanced with adult weight.

The woman who reopened the front door had short dark hair and the build of a person who did their own grunt-work. "Sheriff Monroe sent you?"

"We're looking for my daughter's fiancé," Ellie said. "We have reason to believe he was brought to Central Park."

The woman nodded knowingly. "Come on in."

The front of the boathouse was a former restaurant dining room, now partitioned with sheets and tapestries. Nora brought the three of them to a partition hidden from the windows and poured them bitter tea. Shreds of garden weeds floated in the greenish liquid.

Ellie explained the broad strokes. Nora listened patiently until the end. "I'm sympathetic. Just because God's given us hard times doesn't mean He's taken away a person's right to be free." She tapped her nail against her mug. "But times are harder than ever. There's fighting in the city. And one of the fighters runs the trade that brought you here."

Ellie sipped her drink. The taste was awful, but it felt nice to have something warm in her stomach. "You've got kids. You're worried about blowback."

"Not to mention blizzards, ergot, and a rat population that thinks it's got more right to the rye than the person that grew it."

"Ah, but we aren't looking for trouble." Hobson smiled and settled his elbows on the table, leaning in conspiratorially. "To the contrary, we are a family—patriarch, wife, and daughter—looking to begin a new life here in the spring. As we're starting from scratch, we think it's prudent to explore all opportunities to hasten the construction of our homestead."

"You might pass," Nora said. "But I can't vouch for you. The locals know my stance on their not-so-hired help."

"We'll keep you out of it," Ellie said. "We don't need a place to stay. Just information."

"And food," Dee said.

"Dee."

"What? Like I haven't noticed lunch keeps getting smaller?"

Ellie turned back to Nora. "And food, if you can spare it. I've brought trade."

Nora waved her hand. "This is one charity my wallet—and larder—are always open to. The man you want to see is Hank Kroger. He runs the big farm on the north side of the reservoir. Most people here are small-timers who don't find it worth their while to feed and handle slaves they only need come planting and harvest. Kroger owns a few dozen. Rents them out for a cut of the crop. If your boy's here, chances are Kroger's seen him."

"He sounds like quite the entrepreneur," Hobson said.

"His money's stained with blood," the woman said. "And everyone's eager to get their taste."

She provided them with meat pies, baked potatoes, and bread, along with some dried food that would last longer. Ellie insisted on paying with some of her instant coffee and gold, which Nora said a few of her neighbors still valued.

"Stop by if it doesn't pan out," she said. "But be careful. These people deal in stealing lives. You give them trouble, and they won't think twice about taking yours."

Ellie thought about exiting the park and taking Fifth Avenue all the way to Kroger's farm, but there was no guarantee the man would have Quinn. With another long walk ahead of them, it would serve them best to put it to use to get a feel for the park and find other leads should Kroger fall through.

For the most part, the trip was more of the same. Cabins, trees, fields. A few people walked dogs around the paths. One woman even picked up her shiba's excrement in a crinkly blue baggie. Axes thunked monotonously. Winter wheat poked from the sheets of snow. Other fields were blank white patches waiting to be seeded. After a long, winding march, a vast reservoir opened before them. They followed the path around it to a compound of log cabins and tin sheds surrounded by cut crops and metal fences, behind which cows and pigs pawed at the snow.

A man sat on one of the fences. Maybe he was taking a breather, or maybe it was his job to watch the path all day, including during the dead of winter, but as they walked up, he hopped down, discharged a brown gout of chaw-spit into the snow, and blocked the way forward.

"You know where you are?"

"I'm hoping this is the establishment of Mr. Hank Kroger," Hobson said, managing to sound politely affronted.

"On what business?"

"Just that—business. We're looking to move here this spring. Naturally, we'll need a house. I've been told Mr. Kroger can provide enough labor to ensure the timeliness of its completion."

The man just stared. "Come on up, Fancy Dan."

He brought them past the fence to the largest of log buildings, which was more like one of the vacation "cabins" on the Saranacs than something from the frontier. The man told them to wait, then entered the iron-banded front door. It took five minutes before he returned.

"Mr. Kroger will be out to see you shortly." He held out his palm. "First, your firearms."

Ellie complied. The man set their guns on a table inside a tool shed beside the home. He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and didn't bother to say a word until the door opened and disgorged a tall blond man, late middle age, with deep, kindly wrinkles around his eyes and teeth so strong and straight they could open a can.

"Hank Kroger." He strode through the snow, hand extended. Hobson met it and shook. The man nodded at Ellie and Dee. "Call me Hank. My man says we might be neighbors some day."

"Indeed," Hobson said. "We're from upstate. Very scenic, but there's very little of what you might call society. My daughter will want to marry someday and my wife and I don't find the mountains especially stimulating, either."

Kroger nodded soberly. "After the plague, people killed themselves to get away from everyone else. Now they're remembering there's nothing more important than family, friends, and neighbors."

"That is precisely our experience. And that is why we've come all this way in the dead of winter—to ensure that, come
next
winter, we'll be snug inside our new home, enjoying the smell of fresh pine timbers and toasting our foresight."

Kroger maintained a smile through Hobson's speech. "Want a little help, do you? Looking to rent? Or buy?"

Hobson stroked his chin. "If the right candidate were to present itself, I'm inclined to buy. The house is just the beginning of our work."

"Gonna run you a penny or three more than renting, naturally. Let's have a look and see what you think."

He crunched through the snow deeper into the park, shadowed by his man. Ellie, in turn, shadowed Hobson. She hadn't been treated as such a nonentity since her stint as a junior agent and she bristled at Kroger's every word. But there were advantages to being ignored. She couldn't afford to waste her attention on annoyance. It was time to keep her eyes open.

She had expected squalor. Flagrant, foul evidence of man's inhumanity to man. But the barn-like structure where they housed the slaves was clean and whitewashed and even had windows—albeit narrow things that were more like arrow-slits than portals of light. Kroger unlocked the door and smiled at Hobson.

His man stalked inside ahead of them, swinging his arm like a club. "After
noon
, gentlemen!"

"No need for that." Kroger brushed past, giving his man a pat on the shoulder. "Howdy, people. Got some folks who'd like a look at you. Mind lining up for me?"

The inside was a single high-raftered room. Single beds were set perpendicular to the walls. It was on the cool side but habitable. At the other end of the room, twelve men got up from the tables where they'd been playing cards and dominoes and stood abreast in the center of the room. Quinn wasn't among them.

"Nice digs, huh?" Kroger grinned, flashing his white teeth. "I like my people to be fit. Healthy. And not for the reasons you'd think. Hey Denver, what do you think of life here?"

A thin man with long brown hair shrugged his broad shoulders. "Before the ranch, I was a highwayman. Not a good one, either." The others laughed huskily. He craned his neck to look between them. "It's true! I was so thin you could have used me to darn your socks. Here, I've got work. I get meals and a roof. I wish I'd been picked up years ago."

"I'm not naive enough to think we're friends," Kroger said. "But I believe that if I offer these men clean beds, a hot meal, and my
respect
, they'll work not because they have to, but because they want to."

"I see." Hands folded behind his back, Hobson prowled down the line, inspecting. "And for a man like this, your compensation..?"

"Now, these are my professionals. Men I trust to clean my kids' rooms while the youngsters are still in bed. Rental-only. But for the work they'll give you, they're worth triple the cost."

"Hmm," Hobson said. He headed for the doorway.

Kroger moved ahead to show him out. Out in the snow, he smiled knowingly. "I know, it's awkward to talk business in front of them. Trust me, they're used to it."

"Here's the thing," the sheriff said, gazing at the pines beyond the barn. "Do you have anything more...traditional?"

"I'm not catching what you're throwing."

Hobson coughed delicately. "Your setup is quite humane, which is very comforting, but I retain certain...qualms. I wonder if these might be lessened if I owned a slave of a different race."

Kroger gave him a look of puzzled disgust. "First off, they're not slaves. They're assistant labor providers. Second, on the Kroger Ranch, we're an equal opportunity employer. I've seen men and women of all kinds. Age, size, build, and spirit, that's what makes a difference. But if you've got the notion a black man makes a better ALP than a white man—well, let me disabuse you of that idea here and now."

"Progressive," Hobson muttered. "Regardless, they seemed a tad on the old side. For assistant labor providers, I mean; obviously I am not one to cast stones when it comes to age. If I'm going to invest, I'd like to be sure that investment is for the long term."

"Prudent." He smiled at Ellie. "Your husband's got a good head on him. Let me show you something more your style."

He showed them to another barn of mostly younger men, but Quinn wasn't among its residents, either. Nor at the barn after that.

"That's the extent of my male inventory," Kroger said once they were out in the snow again. He was smiling like usual, but his eyes had the impatient look of a salesman who knows the buyer's too skittish to close. "Seen anything that rings your bell?"

"Oh, several," Hobson said seriously, breath wisping from his mouth. "But with a commitment of this magnitude, I want to be perfectly certain of my decision. Do you expect to have more stock soon? Or know others who might be selling? You would, of course, be entitled to a commission."

Kroger shrugged, turning away. "Just got our newest a couple weeks ago. I don't expect more till spring. As for other vendors, selection will be very limited. I'm the only one with a proper lot. At another farm, the only ALPs they'll be looking to part with will be the ones they don't think are good enough for themselves."

"Whereas you possess such abundance it's no matter to part with a piece of it."

"Hit it on the head."

"You've given me much to think about," Hobson said. "May I return after I've had a couple days to process?"

"Take all the time you need."

They shook. Kroger grinned and bobbed his head at Ellie and Dee. His hired man returned with the guns. Ellie donned her snowshoes. The three of them walked east from the park.

"He wasn't there," Dee said.

Gray clouds mounted in the sky. Ellie skidded over a patch of ice. "I know."

"What if he's not here at all? What if he's just getting farther and farther away?"