Rootless (3 page)

Before I had the chance to hammer at the steel door, it came flying open at me. I was on the back porch already and the fat kid could see I was all kinds of pissed.

“What are you doing?” he squeaked, and I was about ready to thump him for no reason except for how mad I was. I stared past him into the house.

“Where’s your sister?” I whispered.

“She ain’t my sister, tree boy.” The kid cracked himself up and I pushed him aside, ready to just sneak in the back door and see what happened. But then Zee came rushing out, cutting me off. Her eyes stretched wide with fear.

“Not here,” she said. “He’s back.” Her voice was hushed as she wrestled me across the porch. But when we reached the top of the steps, I quit shuffling. Stood my ground.

“Sal,” she hissed at the fat kid. “Go inside.” The kid’s mouth hung and quivered like he was about to start crying. “Please,” Zee added, softening her tone. “You got to keep your daddy in there.”

“You’re going to run away again,” he said, glaring at her. “Without me.”

“But we look out for each other now. Remember?”

The kid ducked away, still bugging out by the look of things, but he closed the door and left us alone.

Zee stared at the house. She watched the windows. “You can’t be here,” she whispered. “Frost won’t like it.”

“I don’t give a damn,” I shot back, though it wasn’t really true. The sun had sunk like a stone and with it my resolve had faded.

Stay away from the house, Frost had told me. The rich get spooked if you go spying on their shit.

Still, I pulled the picture from my back pocket and held it up. “Where the hell did you get this?”

“We can’t talk here.” She shook her head at me, her hands trembling on my chest.

“I ain’t leaving till you tell me what this is.”

A door slammed in the house behind us, and Zee jumped at the sound.

“It’s trees,” she spat, her head bent around at the house again, her hands trying to shove me off the porch. “Real trees. I thought you’d like them.”

“Like them? You know who this is?” My voice had gotten louder now. I jabbed at the photograph.

She stared at me, confused. “Some guy in trouble.”

“Some guy, huh?” I shoved her hands off my chest, leaned in close. There was another thud in the house, then the sound of someone shouting. “Where’d you get this?” I said.

“Zee?” the voice moaned inside the house. Frost’s voice.

She pleaded at me with her eyes, begging for me to do the right thing. “It came with the camera,” she whispered, frantic now. Steps
inside the house. Frost yelling. Closer. “From Crow,” Zee said. Then the steel door began opening behind her. I could hear it, see the light splitting out from inside.

“The ocean.” Zee fixed me with a look. “Take me and I’ll show you every picture I’ve got.”

I went to speak, but my feet were yanked from under me. I was dragged down off the porch.

“What the hell are you doing?” Frost yelled as he stomped out of the house. I heard Zee scream as he came toward her. But the old bastard hadn’t seen me in the darkness.

“I told you,” Frost bellowed. “You don’t go outside the house.” There was a struggle and Zee screamed again. I felt awful for it. I should have shouted something. Done something. But I was too busy now. Too busy being dragged off toward my wagon with Crow’s hands around my neck.

Crow thumped me once in the gut then left me on the rubber floor of the forest. I didn’t dare get up. I just waited as the watcher spun the wheels on my flowers, stepping carefully about the understory and flicking a switch to set the LEDs blinking. One of the wheels was squeaky as it spun and Crow shook his head. “Needs oil,” he said, as if he was talking to himself. “But you do good work.”

Crow had his dreads wound inside a hat that looked about a hundred years old, and I spotted the scar burned on the back of his neck — a red lion. The mark of a Soljah. Me and Pop had built for those Rastas, up in Niagara. It’s as good a spot as any and prettier than most. And I had no idea how you’d go from being a warrior in Waterfall City to being a watcher for a bastard like Frost.

“You heard of Zion, little man?” Crow said, and he spun at the wheels again.

I just nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me so I went ahead and tried speaking. “Yeah,” I muttered. “Of course.”

“You reckon the trees there are made of metal? The flowers got squeaky wheels?” Crow squatted next to me.

“Doubt it,” I said, wondering if he’d hit me again.

“Me too.” The watcher smiled. “So you believe what they say? Build a boat big enough and you’ll see Zion?”

“A boat?” I hadn’t figured Crow for the religious type, and it pissed me off for some reason, him questioning me like that. Either he could beat me or turn me in, or he could just go right on to hell. “I seen the Surge,” I said. “Ain’t no boat big enough.”

“No boat big enough. But that don’t mean the place don’t exist.”

I tried sitting up and my ribs ached.

“So where’d you get the picture?”

Crow laughed that deep rumble of his. “Miss Zee likes you, I think. She likes you.”

“The photograph. Where’d you get it?”

“What she show you? Trees?” Crow smiled when I stayed silent. “Course she did. Look familiar?” He drew a shape across his torso. “Like the tattoo, no? Spooky. Right?”

I didn’t know what to say. The son of a bitch was just toying with me and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

“Look,” he said, standing tall. “You’re cool, little man. Crazy cool. But mess with Frost or Miss Zee or any of mine, I gotta break you. Understand? Just keep to building. Or I’ll break your ass in two.”

I understood, all right. But for good measure, Crow kicked me so hard in the balls that I howled my guts out and smashed at the dirt. Then he just left me there, sniveling on the ground as the LEDs twinkled. And in the house, I could hear Zee wailing as that mean junky bastard went grunting and shouting and slapping his fists.

Frost railed on for another half hour and then the house fell silent. I watched until the lights blinked out of the windows. And by then I’d decided what I was going to do.

Just didn’t see any other option. Sure, I was scared of Crow. And Frost. Scared of being caught and beat. Scared of being thrown out. No job meant no money and not enough juice to go finding more work. But I had a picture in my pocket of my father — wrapped in chains but still breathing, and somehow surrounded by what looked like a stand of real trees. That image burned through every thought in my head. It was damn near all I could see. I knew there’d be no calm without answers. And Zee was the only one who might give them to me.

I went round and round, thinking about Pop, thinking about the photograph. And then thinking about that skinny lass who’d dumped all this on my lap.

Now don’t be a damn idiot, I tried to tell myself as I stared at the house. But I figured if I could sneak Zee out while the others were sleeping, I just might get her to the ocean and back before sunup. And if she showed me the rest of the photographs, I’d start getting some answers. Find out where that camera had been.

I put the wagon in neutral and rolled it silently to the street then halfway down the block, parking it against an iron fence. I stood in the dirt road and studied the steel buildings all bulky in the blackness. Rich-freak homes grown out of the rubble of whatever had gone before.

I hugged the side of Frost’s house when I scooted alongside it. And when I got around back, I hopped onto the porch and waited in the dark.

Nothing. No sound. No action anywhere.

Wasn’t till I started creeping up to the door that the damn thing opened and Crow stepped out on the porch.

I ducked back, pressed down flat in the darkness as the watcher strolled to the steps. He had his headphones on and I could hear the music leaking from his ears. He stopped and stood there, just a few feet from me, humming along to some tune.

I didn’t breathe or move or do anything. I just waited. Frozen. Until finally Crow drifted down the steps and disappeared into the lot.

I wondered if he might look for me in the forest. I wondered if he’d notice the wagon was gone. But then I crouched up and darted across the porch and I slipped right on into the house.

The hot metal walls amped every sound as I groped my way through the gloom. I cut down the hall in one direction and found a room that was full of pots and pans and boxes of corn. Fresh corn, still on the cob.

I spun back the other way, searching for stairs, figuring Zee would be sleeping on the top story. That’s where I’d first seen her anyway, staring at me out the window. But I was starting to realize I’d no idea where the girl would actually be.

A silvery light was spilling into the hall at the far end and I made my way toward it. The silver glow was leaching from under a plastic door, and the door creaked as I pushed it wide. I peered into the room.

My heart thought twice about beating.

It was Frost. Not six feet from me. But he was passed out. Asleep. His face was planted on a desk full of binders and books and I’d never seen that much paper. On one side of the desk was an empty pipe and on the other was a pouch full of crystal, and I wondered if Frost ever went a whole day clean.

The silver light was oozing out of an old television set, and for a moment I watched the gray chips swirling on the screen. But then I saw the maps.

They were huge and crinkled, plastered on the wall. And there was a ton of them. Marked up in ink and labeled. Big chunks of green pointing at each other across patches of blue. Someone had drawn a crude picture of the tattoo tree and taped it in the middle of the wall. I inched closer, straining for a better look. But I heard a door squeaking shut and I froze.

Footsteps. A voice singing.

Crow. Back inside the house.

I left Frost drooling in his pile of paper and I backed up into the hall. I stopped. Listened. I tried to focus myself. Breathe. But it was like my brain wasn’t working. My thoughts were all stuck in the same gear.

I tried the next door. The last door. And there, spiraling up into the shadows, was a tower of metal stairs. I yanked my shoes off and laced them together, and then I slung them around my neck as I ran upward, soft and quick.

The top floor was even hotter and I was sweating now, wiping my hands on my shirt. I found a room with a tub, another with an unmade bed. Three more rooms. All empty. Bare steel walls shiny in the dark. But then I found a room that wasn’t empty.

Jackpot.

Zee was curled up and her momma was stretched out beside her. Neither of them had much on, it being so hot and all, and right away I could see Frost had bruised Zee up pretty good. But there was something else wrong with her. I watched as her chest rose and with each breath she made I could hear the gurgling sound of things growing tight inside.

I could hardly believe it.

She was cooped up in this house. Out of the dust. But that wheezing sound, there’s no mistaking it. Only crusted lungs make a noise like that.

I spotted the momma’s tattoo sticking out, like a flame of color. I crept closer and studied the roots and branches bending across the woman’s belly. And as I looked, I noticed something about the leaves I’d not seen before. Each leaf had a number on it. A long number, printed in tiny black ink.

Zee blinked herself awake and stared at me, a big grin on her face as her eyes grew wide. She grabbed a bag off the floor and crept over to join me, and she was beaming at me the whole time like I wasn’t in the worst place on earth I could be.

We tiptoed down the stairs and crept along the hall, listening to Frost snore and sputter. Crow was down the far end, still singing, rattling at the pots and pans. But then we were out the door, on the porch, bolting around the house and out on the street.

Zee was still grinning as she sprinted toward the wagon, though I could hear her broke lungs all straining and squeezed. I still had my shoes around my neck and they were bouncing and jiggling, whacking me in the face. And I kept thinking about Crow checking each room in the house and him finding Zee missing.

And how, if that happened, there’d be no going back.