Earthblood

“Must’ve been the last one before the lemmings left for the high cliffs,” said Pete, staring thoughtfully at it.

The warning was taken from the seventh chapter of Ecclesiastes, beginning with the first verse:

The day of death is better than the day of birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. For that is the end of all men and women. Sorrow is truly better than laughter. Better is the end of a thing, than the beginning thereof.

“Cheerful,” said Mac.

They redoubled their steps, then sat down on the sidewalk by their bikes, neither of them speaking.

Mac was tossing a rounded sandstone pebble from hand to hand, whistling quietly to himself. Pete was cross-legged, palms flat on his thighs, in a version of the lotus position. His eyes were closed, and he hadn’t spoken for fifteen minutes.

The voice came from above them. “You guys want some gas for them hogs? That why you stopped here in Hustonville?”

Pete didn’t respond at all. Mac replied over his shoulder.

“You got some for sale, lady?”

“Maybe.”

He was trying to judge the voice. Female, aged around fifty. Redneck kind of voice. Tough.

“All right if we turn around?”

The woman sounded surprised. “Course. Why not, mister. You got to look someone plumb in the face if’n you want to do a deal.”

There were two women, standing on the rickety balcony above Ma’s Diner. The one doing the speaking was closer to sixty. Gray hair under a swallow’s-eye bandanna, thick glasses. The other was around twenty, also wearing spectacles. Short brown hair. Mac couldn’t see from down in the street if either of them was carrying a gun.

“You got gas to sell?”

“Sell?”

“Sure.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket for a fistful of dollars. Two hundred dollars in tens and fives from his locker at Stevenson Base. Pete was finally taking notice, starting to stand up, coming out of his meditation.

The younger woman said something, and the older one laughed.

“What’s funny?” called Mac.

Pete’s voice at his shoulder hardly even reached a whisper. “Two across the street. One in a hardware store, other in alley beyond.”

The older woman answered him. “Daughter says we don’t lack paper to wipe our asses, mister. Money don’t buy happiness, my mother used to say. Now, after Earthblood, it doesn’t buy you a damn thing. What else you got to trade?”

“Food?” called the younger one.

Mac glanced at Pete. The sharp eyes beyond the thick lenses didn’t miss the movement.

“We’re honest, mister. Two rifles trained on you across the way. We could easy have taken you both within two minutes of reaching town. Me and my three daughters. Laid you in the dirt.”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Pete.

“Not our way. That the way you two like to deal with folks?”

“No.”

“Since Earthblood come out of the north like Sherman on his way to the coast, we seen plenty of folks at first—a real flood of them. Most died. We hid out at a place out in the hills. Had us plenty of food then. The flood became a summer trickle, then the trickle turned drought dry.”

The daughter chimed in. “You the first in six days. Or seven?”

“We’ll trade some hi-concentrate food in our packs for gas.”

“Sure you will.”

A third voice came from over the street. “They don’t have guns, Ma. Unless they’re hideaways. Checked them with the scope. Both got knives is all.”

The mother clucked. “Big motorbikes and no guns. You boys come from Greengrass Halt, Stupid County? If we weren’t honest, you’d be dead and we’d have the Kawasaki that needs plugs cleaning proper and that lovely old Norton, too.”

“Can we deal?” shouted Mac. “We got us a long ways to go.”

“Sure.”

THE OLD WOMAN DROVE a hard bargain, but both Pete and McGill were painfully aware that they didn’t have many cards in their hands. No guns, no cards.

One of the daughters, who had an empty, uncomprehending look on her face, stripped the Kawasaki while they bartered some of their remaining packs of food for gas. She kicked it into healthy roaring life after less than fifteen minutes with a set of wrenches.

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