Behind the Ruins (Stories of the Fall) (10 page)

It
took him six days to travel from Kelowna to the valley. He smelled chimney
smoke long before he saw the first house.

The
Dell was laid out in a simple cross, with most buildings flanking the highway
route and a few off to either side along the old secondary road that
intersected it. It had survived with little change since the middle of the
previous century. It had been a small town, dying slowly like most small towns,
before the Fall, with the nearest gas station thirty miles away. The end of the
world hadn’t been that big of a deal in the Dell. People already grew
vegetables and hunted or poached as needed. The defunct mill had been running a
few years after the Fall, powered by an old steam engine that had lain rusting
in the ferns since the early 1900s, a relic of the old mill. Much of the lumber
was used locally, and the Dell had grown as raw-plank houses and businesses had
replaced or expanded old single-wide mobile homes and rotting houses from the
1950s. As the Okanagan and Kootenays recovered in the decade that followed,
wagons would make the trip to buy lumber, and the old mill town returned to its
roots, with mule teams and oxen skidding logs down the main drag to the mill, and
millhands fighting Saturday night at the saloon. It was well-placed, on the
route from Alberta to the coast, and as traffic slowly picked up in the
aftermath, the armed convoys brought in money and trade.

Grey
stopped at the Dell’s trading post – an expansive storefront run by a fat man
with a ferocious moustache and a Dutch accent. The shop was crowded with axe
handles, bags of salt from the mines by Edmonton, wax blocks, lamp oil in old
wine bottles, hammers, bolts of raw wool cloth and unbleached linen, blankets,
and a multitude of knickknacks that predated the new world. Grey turned over a
straight-bladed dagger in his hands, one of six on display. The shopkeeper
informed him it was from Japan, and had come aboard one of the merchantmen that
docked now and then in Vancouver. When he heard what the merchant wanted for
it, he sat it down.

The
mustachioed tradesman argued for a bit in a good-natured way, and Grey
eventually traded eight mink hides he’d packed along for two pounds of salt, a
serviceable No. 2 Victor trap that was probably a hundred years old and ten
rough-milled silver coins about the size of a nickel. Outside the larger trade
centers coins were sometimes not accepted, but they were portable, and that
made them necessary. He thanked the man and left.

At
the drygoods store he traded one of the coins for four pounds of dried beans, a
new steel striker and flint and a stick of rock candy that he sucked on for the
next hour, while he looked for Georgia.

He
found her at the blacksmith’s. She had Josie’s eyes, but was thinner and much
harder, with a face that showed little of what she thought. She was trading a
set of old horseshoes in and bargaining for a new set. Grey waited while she
shaved the blacksmith down. She ignored the newcomer until she had shaken on
the deal, and then gestured for him to follow as she went outside. The two
walked to the street’s far side, wading through a mix of snow and mud, and
Georgia sat down on a bench on the porch of a closed-up hall of some sort.

“Georgia
Dunn, I presume?” Grey asked, shrugging out of his pack and sitting.

“And
you’d be Grey?” Her voice was deeper than Josie’s, and very controlled.

“I
would. Did Josie get word to you?”

“She
did. She sent a letter with a trapper named Willis.”

“Joe
Willis? I didn’t know he was still around.”

“He
is. He’s moved up by Gemside now but he still makes runs to the Port. Roads
have gotten to be safe enough for that.”

They
sat a minute. Grey looked at her. Georgia was about five-three he thought,
maybe one-hundred and ten pounds – though her fur jacket made that hard to
gauge. She had a gnarled stippling of white scars on her left cheek and throat,
as well as a slight squint on that side. Her ears were pierced, and she wore a
small rhinestone in each.

“You
finished examining me?” she asked.

“It’s
funny, you look like Josie but you don’t remind me of her at all.”

“We
lived different lives. Get to what you came to talk about.”

Grey
leaned back on the bench and stared across the street. The blacksmith was
making nails from scrap, his hammer ringing in a perfect rhythm.

“The
Valley’s going to see raiders this summer. I ran across their scouts last fall.
I need a few good guns that can go south with me in a month or so and convince
them to go somewhere else.”

That
got a faint smile from Georgia.

“You
make it sound so simple.”

“Well,
the goal is simple. Getting it done may require more work.”

“What’s
it paying?”

“An
ounce of silver a week from the Port, and loot, I suppose. You can keep a share
of whatever we come across while we’re working them. I expect those that return
will have a lot more guns, if nothing else. I don’t get the feeling this is
about money for you. Am I wrong?”

Georgia
didn’t react. Her face indicated almost nothing of her thoughts. After a while,
she spoke, her voice musing.

“I
have a ranch now. I have cattle, horses and three hands to run them. People in
the Dell ask my advice and listen to it. They remember the early days and what
we did to make this place.”

“Well,
Josie just thought you’d be interested, but I can understand if you don’t want
to involve yourself in our troubles,” Grey said.

“No.
I’ll come,” Georgia said. “I was just thinking I’d be a fool to do it.”

Grey
glanced at her and then went back to watching the blacksmith work.

“So
why do it?” he asked as the smith stopped his hammering to fuel his forge.

“Why
do you do it?” Georgia asked.

She
waited, but Grey couldn’t find an answer.

Georgia
invited him to her place for supper. Grey refused once for the sake of
politeness and then accepted. Her ranch was four or five miles north, and Grey
walked while she rode a surefooted little fjord pony.

Georgia’s
ranch house was a survivor from before the Fall, with polished hardwood floors
and thick walls of mortared stone. The windows were glazed and several
fireplaces kept the rooms comfortably warm. The furnishings were simple but
tasteful, and made by a local carpenter, she said.

Dinner
was beef stewed until it was as tender as butter, with flour gravy and
potatoes. There was salted butter, too, and wine from an earthenware bottle.
What little talk there was centered on Josie and how she was doing in her job
at the Longliner. After the wine was finished, Georgia moved to the living room
and asked to see Grey’s guns. He fetched his rifle from the entryway where he’d
left it, and took a revolver from his belt. He didn’t present the little
automatic that rode tucked in his boot top.

Georgia
looked them over, nodded.

“The
pistol is in good shape; that .270 as well.” She picked up the rifle and
examined it more closely. “That’s an interesting barrel. Extended by what, six
inches? It must be good for distance work.” She lay the rifle down again and
sat back. “I just wanted to see if you took care of your gear.”

“It’s
important,” Grey said.

She
rose and opened a cabinet built into the wall beside the living room fireplace
and withdrew a battered black plastic rifle case nearly at tall as she was. She
sat it on the floor and unlatched it.

“I
don’t carry this around here. No need to,” she said, opening it and taking an
evil-looking black rifle from the eggshell foam that lined the case. It had a
massive telescopic sight and a long box magazine. Every inch was black metal or
matte synthetic and it had a built-in bipod folded against the forestock.

“I’ve
never seen one of those,” Grey said. “It’s an ugly piece of work. What is it?”

“It’s
German; an MSG90. I came across it almost twenty years ago. It holds twenty
rounds in that clip and I have a couple of spares. I imagine it’s the only one
in western Canada in this condition.” She pulled the slide back, checked the
chamber and handed it to Grey, who shouldered it briefly and then sat it back
on its foam.

“It’s
heavy, isn’t it? You any good with it?”

“Very,”
Georgia said, looking at the rifle without emotion.

“What’s
it shoot?”

“Seven-six-two
NATO. I have plenty, before you ask.”

Grey
looked at Georgia, who met his eye with and smiled a paper-thin smile.

“I’ll
take you out shooting tomorrow. You need to see, I can tell.”

Grey
nodded.

“It’s
not anything stupid, like you’re a woman or whatever. I have to know how much I
can put on your plate is all.”

“Get
some sleep, we’ll go at sunup,” Georgia said.

In
the summer of the fifth year after the fall, Grey stayed for a season with a
family in Liberty, a small village that had survived and was beginning to build
a beef and dairy industry supplying nearby settlements.

Tomas
Ramirez was a limping, smiling man of fifty or so with a young wife named
Kirsten and two daughters, Wendy, ten, and Maria, eight. Grey rode up to the
Ramirez gate one morning, surprised to see a pair of tall, long-necked animals
wandering the fields beyond with a dozen black-and-white cows. He later learned
they were llamas, and kept predators off the stock. The house sat on a low hill
beyond the field. It was single-storied, low and long, with an attached barn. A
second, higher hill rose behind it, cloaked in spindly lodgepole pines. He saw
two men near the house doing chores. They paused as they saw Grey, and one went
into the house.

Grey
waited, and after a few minutes a man in white pants too short for him and a
checked shirt exited the house and began walking to the gate. When he was within
earshot he yelled for Grey to come up and to close the gate behind him.

Leading
his horse, Grey did. He had been riding constantly for years, and looked it.
He’d made hide boots for his rifle and shotgun, and they slanted back from the
saddle of his horse. His clothing was a hodgepodge of wool gear - wool because
it stayed warm no matter how wet it was - and he knew he smelled.

“Morning.
I’m Tomas Ramirez. You look like trouble, but you waited at the gate, so what
are you?”

Grey
smiled.

“Trouble
looking for work, maybe? People call me Grey.”

“You
know cows?” Ramirez asked. He had bushy black eyebrows that hopped expressively
when he spoke.

“Not
so much. I know horses, though.”

“Feed
it, water it and make sure it doesn’t do stupid shit - same thing. Cows are
just slower and shit more. You look like an outlaw, why you want to shovel cow
shit?”

“I’m
tired, and I need to settle down for a while,” Grey said after a moment’s
thought. “Which is funny. I didn’t know until you asked.”

“That’s
a good reason. I pay in bed and board, and you get some of the milk; you can
drink it or sell it or whatever. Come winter you’ll have to go, though, I got
three men we keep all year already, and in winter there’s not as much work.”

“That
sounds good to me.”

And
it was good. Grey worked hard, and there was a lot of shit-shoveling, as
promised, but he had people to talk to. He’d been mute for months, and it was
almost sensual to have conversations - even with Bobby, the feed boy, who was
thirty-something, retarded and only interested in beetles. Trigger and Jerry,
the other two hands, told stories about women and pot. The pair reminded Grey
of Shaggy from the old Scooby-Doo cartoons.

Grey
would eat with the hands, but on his first night Kirsten Ramirez invited Grey
and the other hands to a family dinner. Grey, hair still damp from a cold bath
at the barn’s water trough, sat between Bobby and Jerry, and tried not to stare
at Mrs. Ramirez. It wasn’t easy. Kirsten looked twenty years younger than
Tomas, and she had straight brown hair and large brown eyes. She was pretty,
humorous, smart and big-breasted. The top buttons of her flannel shirt were
open in the heat of the evening, and the full swell of her breasts winked at
Grey as she served. Grey spent the dinner trying to keep his eyes at an
appropriate level and ignoring an iron erection that refused to go away.

There
wasn’t much conversation until the mashed potatoes, beef stew and cornbread
were gone. Dessert turned out to be custard, something Grey hadn’t eaten in
years. There was milk, of course, and soft cheese, and butter in huge
quantities.

“That
was delicious, thank you, Mrs. Ramirez,” Grey said.

“You’re
very welcome. You’ll want to eat lots, Tomas expects hard work,” she said with
a smile. “We have to keep you in shape.”

Grey
pulled his eyes away and focused on Tomas, who had produced rolling papers and
a jar of bud.