Ill Wind (45 page)

“There’s game, firewood . . . and water for God’s sake! At least they’ve got the basics to keep them alive. Down here, all you have is desert—and your dammed microwave
farm
that can’t even transmit power more than twenty miles. Hell, we’d be better off in Albuquerque—at least General Bayclock is doing the sensible thing, feeding the people, keeping the law. He’s a hell of a lot more realistic than anyone around here.”

Spencer bristled at the criticism. He really didn’t need this; maybe it was time to do what a leader was supposed to do, and toss the bugger out! He’d put up with Lance for too long, hoping he’d change his ways.

“We ought to feel pretty lucky, Lance. From what Lieutenant Carron here has been telling us, things are ten times as bad in Albuquerque. I can’t buy any of this ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ survival talk. I think it’s about time we start all pulling together.”

Spencer nodded to the three scientists who had accompanied Bobby Carron and Sergeant Morris down from Albuquerque. “Ask those three what it means to have hope, where somebody’s actually trying to make things better.”

Lance stared at Spencer. “What are you saying?”

Spencer felt lightheaded—in the past he had tried to avoid direct confrontation, but these were new times, new ways. “This job is tough enough without being second guessed on everything I do, Lance. It’s time for you to either pitch in or get out.”

“Second guessed? What, are you afraid to get a little valid criticism? Come on, Spencer—every science project in the book debates the issues.”

“That’s just it—this
isn’t
a science project anymore. It’s survival. We’ve debated things long enough. Either throw your hat in the ring or get out.” Spencer breathed heavily, his face flushed.

The smile on Lance’s face tightened. “So it’s put up or shut up? I didn’t think you had it in you, Spencer.”

“If you’re going to Cloudcroft, I want you on the wagon when it heads back. You can have your pick of supplies before you go and a horse.” Spencer paused. “Lieutenant
Carron’s heading
back to Albuquerque if you’d rather go there. It’s your choice.”

Lance’s mouth twisted up. He turned to Bobby Carron. “When are you heading back, Lieutenant? Mind if I come with you?”

Bobby turned away; his massive hand opened and closed.

Sergeant Morris looked to Bobby, but when he still didn’t answer, she said, “I’d like to get back as soon as possible, sir. The general was quite explicit in his orders.”

Bobby kept staring out in the distance. Lance turned to him. “Lieutenant? Is it okay if I ride along?”

“Do what you want.” It took Bobby an effort to speak. “I’m staying here.” He looked to Spencer. “That is, if Dr. Lockwood needs another hand getting this microwave farm to work.”

Spencer blinked. “Sure, uh, we can always use someone who wants to help. Same for you, Sergeant Morris.” He hesitated. “And that goes for you, too, Lance, if you change your mind.”

Lance Nedermyer shook his head; his entire gaunt body moved with the movement. “I’ve made up my mind. Sergeant . .
. ?
”

The woman’s mouth was drawn tight; she looked at Bobby as if he had become the lowest form of slime. Her deep voice sounded harsh. “The Lieutenant is old enough to know what he’s
doing.
. . and knows the consequences for disobeying an order, deserting during martial law. They hang people for less than that.”

Bobby nodded, still looking at the horizon. His hand continued to open and close. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve seen Bayclock do it.”

Chapter 58

With pillars of steam and dark smoke, the train announced its presence in the morning calm. The whistle, thin and tinny in the distance, was loud enough that the people in the Altamont commune dropped their work and ran to hilltops to see what was coming down the Central Valley.

“It’s a train,” Todd Severyn said in disbelief, shielding his eyes with the palm of his hand and craning forward. “It’s a friggin’ train! Can you believe it?”

Jackson Harris stood next to him, his dark skin glistening with sweat. His beard and hair stuck out in all directions, as if he had wrestled with a hurricane. “An old steam train,” Harris said. “How did they ever get it running?”

“How do they
keep
it running!
”

The distant locomotive hauled four cars behind it, a passenger car, dining car, and two
box cars
, as well as a car filled with wood mounded high behind the engineer’s cab.

“This is great news,” Todd said. “I’ll check it out. Looks like he’s heading toward Tracy.”

When Todd whistled, both horses trotted over, eager for a ride. He patted Stimpy on the neck. “Next time, girl. It’s Ren’s turn.”

Todd saddled Ren and made ready to swing himself up, then ran back toward the small house trailer. Though Todd got up at dawn, Iris was never an early riser. And although they shared the trailer for convenience, Todd was careful to respect her privacy. He banged on the side. “Hey, Iris—come on out!”

She stepped out the swinging door, bleary-eyed and blinking at the commotion.

“It’s a train, Iris! I’m going to check it out. I’ll be back as soon as I have some information.”

“A
train
? Impossible.” She folded her arms. “How does is it work? They couldn’t have found a way to neutralize the petroplague.”

“Do you want come with me?”

She ran a hand through her unkempt black hair and seemed to think about it. “No, go on. Just let me know what you find out.”

Todd had already turned for Stimpy, too excited to reply.

#

The locomotive sat ticking and hissing, at a standstill in the Tracy railyards. Sleek like a giant black caterpillar, its wheels and
cow-catcher
were blazoned in bright scarlet. The ornate hand rail running along the boiler, the hinges, the bell and steam-whistle all shone bright gold. The sooty smokestack flared out in a wide black cone, and all its rivets glittered like brass buttons. In gold-painted letters under the two windows in the engineer’s cab was the name
Steam Roller
.

Todd led his horse in among the people crowding the tracks. Iris was right—what was the catch? If this one train works, then where are the rest of them?

Other people arrived, walking along the railroad tracks, stepping between the ties. They had seen the locomotive approaching for miles, and they had walked from their homes and their work out in the produce fields. Todd sensed a childish excitement, as if Santa Claus had appeared to them long after they had stopped believing in him.

The locomotive steam whistle blew with a screech that set them all jumping. Todd grabbed Ren’s bridle to keep the horse from rearing in panic. The crowd fell silent as someone stirred in the locomotive’s engine cab and stepped out, squinting in the bright sunlight and looking at his audience. Three other men stayed inside the cab, watching the crowd and allowing their spokesman to meet the spectators alone.

The man wasn’t tall, but his build was massive and bearlike. He had broad shoulders and a muscular chest stuffed inside a cotton engineer’s coveralls. His dark and splotchy complexion hinted at a mixed race; his skin glistened with sweat.

But the most striking feature was that his completely hairless head sat on his shoulders like a bowling ball: no beard, no mustache—even his eyebrows had been shaved away. As the bald man gripped the
door frame
with one hand, Todd noticed dark hair sprouting from his knuckles.
What would make a man want to shave his entire head like that
?

The engineer bellowed at them in a voice that seemed used to giving orders and shouting long distances. “Civilization isn’t dead if you don’t
let
it die! We can’t give up! With human perseverance, we can bring it all back.”

The man’s words seemed rehearsed, as if he had shouted the same thing at every stop along the track. Still, the speech reflected Todd’s own thoughts. “As more and more of us pitch in, we can make a miracle happen.”

The people standing on each side of the train murmured, as if they didn’t believe him. But at least they listened to the man—he had impressed them just by arriving in his train.

“What’s your name?” Todd shouted.

The dark man looked at him. “Call me . . . Casey Jones.”

Some of the people snickered
,
others didn’t get the joke
. “Listen to me,” said the man claiming to be Casey Jones. “We got this train running again. Wood-burning locomotives were used long before we became dependent on plastics and fossil fuels. We had to refit some parts, but it was nothing that a little know-how and persistence couldn’t do.

“We’re traveling through central California to collect your extra food, the stuff that’ll decay in your fields. We intend to take this train down to Los Angeles and bring relief to the starving people there.”

“Boo!” someone shouted. “What about ourselves, man? LA deserves what they got—polluting the air, squandering water!”

Casey Jones glared at the audience from his high position on the
Steam Roller
’s steps and began to speak with the fervor of a revivalist preacher. “They’re cut off down there! They need the supplies. They’re starving.
Starving
. You’ve got too much here. You can’t use everything in your fields, and you know it.” He held his hands out, pleading, as if he needed this mission to succeed more than the people in Los Angeles did.

“Give me your surplus. We’ll take it down to feed the people. It’s the least we can do. Consider it the first step to reconnecting the United States. How can you argue against that?”

“Screw the U.S! What have they done for us?”

“What will they give in exchange?” the mayor of Tracy asked.

“Who knows?” Casey Jones said, as if angry at the suggestion. “What’s important is we’ll be
helping
them. On my trip back up, we can haul industrial supplies, things they can’t use. We’ll try to barter as best as we can. How would you like new pieces of sheet glass, or metal, clothes, ceramic parts
,?
”

“How do we know you’ll bring anything back?” the mayor said.

“You don’t! You’re missing the whole point.”

“I’ll give you some,” a tall, thin man said. Todd recognized him as Marvin Esteban, one of the local farmers. “I’ve got cabbages. I’m already sick of cabbages. We’re going to be eating sauerkraut all winter.” People chuckled.

As a few others chimed in with offers to donate bushels of almonds or tomatoes or fruit, Todd found his mind wandering. This train was making a
bee-line
down the Central Valley toward Los Angeles . . . toward Pasadena and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

And the solar satellites.

Todd leaned over to pat Ren’s neck, his face burning with excitement. This just might be a chance to do something worthwhile, something that could really make a difference—besides acting as a technical liaison for Doog’s commune. He didn’t know if that crackpot solar-power scheme would work, but just having the chance made it worth the trip. And the fact that it seemed so impossible made it all the more desirable to do. Anything was better than sitting around and growing sprouts.

He grinned and yanked on Ren’s bridle as the horse began to sniff the ground. Todd wondered what he would have to do to talk Iris into going with him.

#

Back at the Altamont commune, Todd and Iris’s trailer sat on
four wheel
rims, leveled with concrete blocks. Todd had meant to move out as soon as he found another place, but he never seemed to get around to it.

The trailer had once been hauled around the country by a retired couple from Alexandria, Louisiana. Abandoned in the Altamont and scavenged by Doog, the trailer had begun falling apart long before the petroplague hit. Its sides were white aluminum, bent in places, stained with green traces of moss.

After Todd and Iris had patched the cracks and stuffed rags into the holes left by dissolving insulation, the trailer remained cozy even in the evening chill. Remembering that first night together by the campfire, Todd had suggested they sleep in separate beds. Iris had shrugged, not pushing the issue—and Todd kicked himself, too embarrassed to raise the issue again.

Now, snug inside their trailer with the door closed and the windows shut, Todd and Iris argued far into the night.

Iris talked, her words growing sharper. “Todd, you’re just excited. You’re like a little kid in a toy store and you’re going off
half cocked
. You can’t save the world by yourself. And all you’d be doing is running away when we need you here.”

“But we’re not
doing
anything here,” he said in exasperation. “We’re like a bunch of old soldiers who never saw battle, sitting around talking about the war. You worked so hard at Stanford, trying to stop the spread of the petroplague. And now that the world has changed, you just want to roll over and play dead. There’s still a lot more things we can do, and this is one of them! Casey Jones and his train are proof that it’s not as hopeless as we thought. Let’s at least try it.” He hesitated, and said almost as in afterthought, “We can always come back here if it doesn’t work.”