The Land of the Shadow (15 page)

She plunked the puppy into the child seat and pushed the cart back to her building. It took three trips to carry up all the bags up to her apartment one-handed, but she found she didn’t want to put the puppy down. She even held on to him as she put the food away into the cupboards.

She also talked to him while she worked, though she knew he could not understand. It didn’t matter if he didn’t understand. It felt good to let the words pour out of her, to tell someone else about what had happened. When her voice broke, he looked up at her with a curious tilt of his head.

“I’ll be okay,” she told him. She had to be okay now. She had another life depending on her.

Her mind already on the things she’d need to get from the grocery store for him, Carly took her backpack from the closet and folded a towel in the bottom and zipped it up so he could poke his head out.

Back at the store, she felt no hesitation at entering, her mind on the supplies she needed: puppy food, flea and tick repellant, dewormer. She took almost as many supplies for the dog as she had for herself, she reflected with a grin as she carried her bags back to the apartment.

She spooned some of the mushy meat into the little plastic dog bowl she’d bought, and he attacked it. He was so small, he should probably still be drinking his mother’s milk, but this was the best she could do. He ate until his tummy bulged and then crawled over to curl up on Carly’s lap. He slept so soundly, he didn’t wake when she moved him over to the sofa where she could be more comfortable. She was surprised at how soothing she found petting the puppy.

The sun was setting when he opened his eyes and looked up at her with a little wag of his tiny tail. His expression was so sweet, so warm, hopeful, and trusting. It reminded her of Sam’s earnest expression in
The Lord of the Rings
, the last movie she and her father had watched together.

“Sam,” Carly said. She picked up the puppy to rub her cheek against his fur, and quoted Frodo’s words to him. “I’m glad you could be here with me, Sam. Here at the end of all things.”

Carly held up her hand to indicate Kaden should wait. He nodded. She motioned for him to crouch and pause a few seconds before he followed her. He held up an okay sign to show he understood. To her right, Pearl crept forward, her steps as silent as a cat’s.

Carly took deep breaths to slow and steady her breathing. She forced her muscles to relax and tried to find that cool, calm center. Justin had helped her to learn meditation over the winter, and she used its techniques now. She was ready.

She pushed the door open and scanned the large room, her eyes darting around to take in the gloomy interior of the warehouse. She listened carefully, hearing silence save the sound of her own slow, deep breaths.

Inching forward, Carly picked her way from object to object, staying behind cover, clearing the room bit by bit. She heard Kaden’s soft steps behind her, Pearl on their right flank, silent but visible from the corner of her eye, and then the rest of her team, one by one. At the tail end of the group was Veronica. Carly had objected to it at first, but Justin grumbled that the kid was going to get herself killed if they didn’t include her.

The doorway at the end of the room led to a catwalk that rimmed the sides of a three-story machine room. Cautious, Carly stepped onto the metal frame and scanned the room below before motioning her team forward. Far too late, her eye caught movement on the catwalk above her, and the gun went off before she could even call out a warning.

“Youch!” Carly yelped as the paintball exploded against her arm. Kaden and the others fell back, taking cover behind the crates as Justin’s team swarmed them from the stairs.

“Damn it,” Carly muttered.

“You didn’t look up,” Justin said as he vaulted over the railing and swung down to land beside her.

“Yeah, I sort of realize that.” Carly rubbed her arm. “Am I out?”

“Yeah.” He looked at the orange splatter on her black shirt. “That shot would have taken off half your arm, and you’d be too busy trying not to bleed out to join the fight. But we can play it with you as a hostage if you want.”

“No, I think we’re done.” She heard Kaden yowl as a paintball hit him and the clatter of the guns as they fell from her surrendering team’s hands.

Justin’s team always won, but every player was improving. And he alternated teams so everyone got to be on the winning side once in a while as they learned defense and attack strategies. Last week, they had tried to take the Wall. It had ended in a “paint-bath” as Justin called it. Carly still hadn’t gotten all the orange dye out of her hair.

Her team shuffled forward, all of them scowling. They all wore black shirts, like Carly’s, splotched with paint splatters. Justin’s team wore pristine white, trying to smother victorious grins.

Everyone wore goggles or eyeglasses with plain lenses, taken from the local optometrist’s sample wall, and a helmet. Carly wore the blue bicycle helmet Justin had given her when they first started out from Juneau, but the others were alternately wearing football helmets, hard hats, and a couple bicycle helmets of their own, scavenged from town. The only one Kaden could find that fit him had Hello Kitty on it, so Justin had traded it for his blue one, plunking the pink and white thing on his own head without a word. Kaden hadn’t said anything, but he’d looked very grateful. Later, when Carly mentioned it, he simply shrugged and said, “You know how kids are.”

Yes, she knew how kids were, but at this point, she’d almost welcome teasing. It would be a sign the kids were adjusting, returning to normal. After more than a year on the road, being settled for a few months in Colby hadn’t given them back their equilibrium. Most of them had an aged solemnity, miniature adults with too-wise eyes.

Pearl’s motorcycle helmet had the Harley-Davidson logo on it, and Carly shook her head with a wry twist of her lips when she saw it. Of course it did. But then again, Pearl could wear the Hello Kitty helmet and make it look badassed.

“Great job, everyone,” Justin said, clapping both teams on the back as he headed into the center of their group. “All right, let’s go over the mission . . .”

Before dispersing, they discussed what had gone right and wrong with the attack and what they had learned from it. Afterward, Kaden went off with a small group of young men who were going to try to use the slingshots Justin had introduced to them to catch frogs. Kaden loved fried frog legs, but they were often too fast for the unskilled hunter to catch with nets and Justin wouldn’t waste ammo on them.

Carly lingered with Justin until everyone had gone and helped pick up the rest of the stray equipment left behind. Justin headed for the door and she just couldn’t help herself.

“Ouch!” Justin jumped and whirled around, clapping a hand to his backside. He drew it away, covered in orange paint. “Did you just
shoot
me?”

Carly nodded, fighting to keep a grin off her face and failing.

Justin grinned, too, but he lowered his head and stared up at her with those dark eyes sparkling with wicked intentions. “I’ll give you a ten second head start.”

Her heart pounding already in anticipation, Carly spun around and took off. She had learned a lot in the last two years, and she was fast. It took a while for Justin to catch her, but oh, when he did . . .

Tired, happy, and more than a little sore, Carly and Justin began preparing dinner. Justin was on the back porch, grinding corn using an aluminum baseball bat for a pestle and a metal pail as the mortar. Carly was inside, chopping up cattail roots for soup, Dagny strapped in the baby carrier on her back. She snoozed with her head pillowed on Carly’s shoulder. There was no doubt the baby was spoiled for her parents’ attention, but this was such an uncertain world. Carly felt better having her baby with her as much as possible, and she knew Dagny preferred it as well.

“Carly?”

“Mm?”

Justin brought the bucket of corn inside. It was broken up; he just had to grind it now. He glanced at the baby and then at the grinder.

“Dead to the world,” Carly said. “You won’t wake her.”

He took the old-fashioned crank coffee grinder from the wall. It was one of the things he’d brought with them from the house in North Dakota, which had been furnished with things he’d scavenged from a local museum. There hadn’t been coffee beans for a long time, but it worked great for corn meal. He poured in a handful and began to crank. He had to speak up over the racket, but as promised, Dagny never stirred.

“We’re heading for Brewster again in the morning.”

He’d delayed the trip to get to know Pearl a little better, and he was still in favor of taking her along. He was convinced she’d be an asset, and her cool, efficient behavior today at the war games had strengthened that opinion.

“Are you taking Stan or Kaden?”

“Kaden, if you’re comfortable with it.”

She sighed but nodded. She had to trust his judgment, despite how she worried. She took Dagny from her back and laid her down in her playpen before she turned to him.

 
He took her in his arms and looked down into her face, his eyes saying all the things that didn’t need to be said. After a moment, he lowered his head, his lips so soft and sweet and warm. She should be sated, she thought, after the romp in the warehouse, but her heart always slammed against her ribs when he kissed her like this. Twining her arms around his neck, she kissed him back with equal heat.

Kaden cleared his throat. “Uh, should I come back later?”

Justin chuckled. “Nah, come in. We’ll behave. What have you got there?”

Kaden held up two large blackbirds. “Dinner, I think. We can eat these, right?”

“That we can,” Justin replied. “You got those with your slingshot? Good job!”

Kaden grinned with pride and headed back out to the front porch to start cleaning them.

“And here I always thought eating crow was just an expression,” Carly said.

“Tastes like chicken,” Justin promised.

“That’s what you always say.”

“Because it’s always true.” Justin winked at her and said in a stage whisper, “Wanna sneak in a quick make-out before the kid gets back?”

“I heard that,” Kaden called.

Justin laid a smacking kiss on Carly’s cheek and went back to grinding corn.

“Crow and cattail soup.” Carly laughed to herself. Her menus had certainly become more exotic over the last year, but they were fed, and that was the important part. She glanced over at her baby and prayed they would always find a way to keep her from hunger. Justin was very resourceful, she assured herself, and the swamp offered many food sources. She took the chopped meat from Kaden when he brought it in and put it in a pan to brown before adding it to the stew. She had to have faith. Fate would not have brought them this far to abandon them to a grim desperation.