Stranger (7 page)

“She picked me up and ran me all the way here, didn't she? How long did it take her to beat him?”

This was clearly one of Mia's favorite memories. “However long one jump takes. She slammed him down on the ground, and pinned him so all he could move was his left hand to tap out.”

“Wish I'd seen it.”

The path was lined with pocket gardens overflowing with thriving vegetables and pungent herbs, surrounding the rows of low adobe buildings. There was no way Las Anclas was maintaining all these lush green gardens by squeezing water out of cactuses.

“Where do you get your water?” he asked.

“Off the hills.” Mia pointed eastward. “It took generations to build the pipes. There's a couple of lakes at the highest point, and underneath us we've got a water table that fills every winter.”

“But it was desert outside your walls.”

“If you'd gone west instead of south, you'd have walked right into our cornfields.”

The thought that he could have easily saved himself and hadn't disturbed him more than the fact that he'd nearly died. “All I had to do was go west?”

“Well, up a slope and west. You were walking along the bottom of a ridge. You can't see the fields from where you were.”

“No,” Ross said slowly. “I wouldn't have gone uphill. Not unless I'd known something was there.”

Animals tended to drift downhill when they were wounded or exhausted, instinctively taking the easiest course. Ross had often used that knowledge while hunting mule deer and javelinas and bighorn sheep. No doubt the bounty hunter had used it to track him.

Though he was sure he'd lost the man, he couldn't help glancing around. He was reassured by the sight of the sentry wall rising above the jumble of buildings. “Did you say you have cornfields outside the walls?”

“And beans and squash and lots of other things,” Mia said proudly. “For ten years now. I keep having to repair the irrigation. But it's a marvelous engineering project.”

Ross could see from the houses and fences how everything in Las Anclas was repaired and reused, but those luxurious gardens made it look prosperous.

“Don't you get attacked for your crops? Don't you worry about someone trying to take the town for himself?”

“Sure, we worry. King Voske tried before I was born. He tried again ten years ago too, but not with a full army. We've been attacked by bandit gangs and outlaws, but no one's ever gotten inside the gates.”

Voske! Ross wished he'd never hear that name again.

Jennie

JENNIE WATCHED MOTES OF CHALK DUST SWIRL IN
rays of morning light over the pale wood of the new teacher's desk, incongruous before the battered desks that had been old when the present students' great-grandparents had been children.

If she didn't have to teach, she'd be on a Ranger mission now, side by side with Indra.

Jennie stretched out her hand and pulled with her mind. The worn slate that used to be Mia's spun through the air and smacked into her hand.

I'm here.

There was no use wasting time thinking about what she wasn't doing when she had plenty to do right now.

Beautifully articulated black cat claws pulled the door ajar, and Laura Hernandez poked her head in. “Hi, Jennie. Congratulations on your promotion.” Before Jennie could thank her, Laura added anxiously, “You're still going to teach, aren't you?”

“Don't worry—this just means that now I can patrol with the Rangers on weekends.”

“Good.” Laura let out her breath. “I'll put out the practice mats.”

The door closed. Jennie gazed out the window, rubbing her thumb over the diagrams Mia had carved into the frame of the slate, back when they'd been students themselves.

As if summoned, Mia appeared from around the bell tower, her glasses winking in the sunlight, with a guy Jennie had never seen before. The mysterious stranger!

He stopped at the edge of the schoolyard. Mia kept walking, then noticed that he was hanging back and beckoned. He hesitated before following her. The way he moved, wary and light on his feet, reminded Jennie of a wild creature: not a herd or pack animal, but something solitary—maybe the bobcats she occasionally spotted on early patrols, with their watchful readiness to either fight or flee.

The students crowded around, and Alfonso Medina scurried halfway up a wall to get a better view. Jennie stepped onto the porch, hoping the school's welcome wouldn't scare the skittish boy.

The girls at the forefront had broken out their best clothes for the occasion of a stranger in town. Felicité was in the lead, wearing a particularly elegant sapphire dress. At her side was Sujata Vardam, in wine-red dimity and golden lace. Becky Callahan's pink-and-white linen, trimmed with leaf-green ribbons, was her mother's latest creation. Matching ribbons tied the bonnet she wore so she wouldn't burn in the sun.

But it was tiny compared to Felicité's broad-brimmed sun hat. Her skin was the same sun-friendly brown as her father's, but she was obsessed with protecting her precious hair (and, Jennie suspected, her precious hair dye).

Jennie recalled her ma saying, “Felicité is a law unto herself.”

Her pa had added, “Her great-grandmother, the mayor before Brad Gutierrez, was a snappy dresser. I remember her from when I was a kid. She set a fashion for Chinese-style embroidery. My own pa had a waistcoat with dragons on it.”

Felicité was saying in her caramel tones, “Oh, you're the new boy! I'm glad to see you out of the infirmary. Welcome to Las Anclas. I am Felicité Wolfe.” Had Jennie imagined the faintest emphasis on “Wolfe”?

Mia's voice rose to a nervous squeak. “This is Ross Juarez. Our guest.”

“Hello, Ross.” Sujata's sleek black hair shone as she stepped out of the shadow of Felicité's hat. “I'm Sujata Vardam. If you're getting a tour, be sure to stop at our orchards. You might meet my grandmother. She's a judge and a member of the town council.”

Jennie listened in amusement, wondering if some rivalry had developed between the two school leaders.

Meredith Lowenstein elbowed between them, unconcerned with social hierarchies. She and Mia had always been small for their age, but while Mia had hidden behind schoolwork or Jennie, Meredith had learned to push back.

She smiled at Ross. “I saw Sheriff Crow bring you in. Where did you come from?”

Yuki Nakamura appeared behind his sister, his long ponytail like a fall of black silk against his unbleached cotton shirt. It was odd how tiny Meredith, with her challenging saunter, took up so much more space than tall, powerful Yuki, who moved so economically.

The prince.
Jennie had trained herself not to think of Yuki's old title. But sometimes he got angry, or needed to get people's attention. And then—still without making a single unnecessary movement—he seemed to tower over everyone. That was when she remembered that he'd been raised to rule.

“Is it true that you're a prospector?” he asked, his expression not giving anything away.

Before Ross could speak, everybody was jostling to be heard.

“Were you in a gunfight? Pow!” Will Preston made a shooting gesture. “That's so cool!”

“Wasn't it a knife fight? Even cooler!” Jennie's sister Dee squealed.

“I rang the bell for you!” exclaimed little Hattie Salazar.

“Did you meet anyone on the road?” called Alfonso, ten feet off the ground.

“Where's your family?” asked Carlos Garcia.

Felicité raised her hand to adjust a fluttering ribbon. Ross sidled away as if he thought she would hit him. He reminded Jennie of a colt unused to the training rope.

Mia touched Ross's arm. He flinched, and she pulled back. “That's the schoolhouse,” she said, her voice calm. “And here's Jennie.”

Ross followed Mia onto the porch, pursued by a swarm of little kids.

Now was the time to interfere, thought Jennie. Before Ross either got pulled into pieces or smacked someone in sheer self-defense.

She raised her voice. “I see a lot of eager volunteers to clean the windows.”

The kids stampeded. Felicité obligingly beckoned the older students away, giving Ross space.

To Jennie's surprise, Becky Callahan stayed. Her voice was so soft, it was almost inaudible. “They're only crowding you because you're new. Once they get used to you, they'll stop.” It was fascinating how a stranger could stir people up. Becky rarely spoke, much less to anyone she didn't know well.

Ross nodded cautiously, and Becky darted away, almost colliding with Brisa Preciado.

“What did you say to him?” Brisa asked curiously. Becky's lips moved, but Jennie didn't hear her answer. “Oh, is he shy?” Brisa sounded disappointed. “Are you sure? I won't bother him then.” She patted Becky's pale arm. “It was sweet of you to notice.”

On the other end of the porch, Felicité seemed to have missed this entire exchange. “Shall I throw a party to welcome Ross? Paco, when is your band playing?”

Paco Diaz was drumming on the railing. His eyes were closed, and his hands moved so fast that the sticks left blurry trails in the air. It seemed impossible that such an intricate piece of music could be created by one boy with two sticks and a fence post.

“Paco?” Felicité called.

“He's gone,” Henry said. “Just forgot to take his body.”

As everyone laughed, Jennie spoke. “Come inside, Ross.” She stood back so she wouldn't seem like yet another threat.

He surveyed the ceiling as if enemies might be lurking in the support beams, then examined the rest of the room. Finally, he came in. That was odd. Even the older Rangers, who tended to check any room they entered, didn't often look up at the ceiling.

“Ross,” Mia said, “this is Jennie Riley, the teacher.”

His eyes were on the floor, the windows, the chalkboard, anywhere but on Jennie. Though he was terribly thin, he was also one of those boys who made girls jealous with their foot-long eyelashes. His hair was black as soot, and his broad shoulders made her wonder how much muscle he'd put on if he ever got enough to eat.

“I thought you'd be older,” he said, then blushed.

She spoke quickly, so he wouldn't feel awkward. “I'm not that young—I'm eighteen. In some towns, I've heard, teachers start at sixteen. How old are you?”

That seemed to make him a hundred times more awkward. He hunched his shoulders and muttered, “Don't know exactly. About eighteen. I think.”

Jennie couldn't think of a reply other than “I'm sorry,” which she suspected he would hate. She was trying to think of a better response when Mia took her by surprise.

“Jennie, Ross wants to come to school.”

He stared down as if his shabby boots had his future written on them. Behind him, Mia flapped her hands and mouthed some words that Jennie couldn't figure out.

She was dying to ask him for any news he'd picked up—maybe she could put it in
El Heraldo!
—but she could see how tense he was. She kept her voice friendly and casual. “So, where'd you leave off when you were last in school?”

Ross glanced up for half a second before mumbling, “Never really started.” He gave her an even briefer look. “Where do the little kids sit?”

Jennie had always thought “heart-wringing” was merely an expression, but she actually felt something twist inside her chest. And she suspected that half of what was making him so self-conscious was the thought that people were pitying him. “I'll bet you know more than you think you do.” She was rewarded by a glance of a full two seconds. His eyes were very dark brown, almost black. “A prospector is a kind of engineer, like Mia.”

Mia blinked. “You're right. I hadn't thought of it that way before.”

Ross's expression eased into genuine interest. Encouraged, Jennie went on. “Mia designs and builds things, and prospectors . . . what do you do? How do you get into those ruins? How do you even find them?”

“Maps. Old stories.” He spoke slowly, but with a tentative confidence. “If you get up high, you can see ruins, sometimes.”

“Go on,” Jennie said, smiling.

Ross flicked a glance at Mia, who nodded encouragingly. “But even if they're buried, the way the plants are growing can show you there's something underneath. As for getting in, you can dig if they're not too deep. If it's a collapsed structure, you have to shore it up so it won't fall on you. Sometimes you have to blast your way in.”

“How do you do that without blowing up the whole thing, or making the collapse even worse?” she asked.

Behind Ross, Mia automatically raised her hand, then quickly lowered it, embarrassed.

“See what the structure is made of,” said Ross. “Look for a wall that isn't the sole support of anything. To figure out how much explosive you'll need, you have to calculate the overpressure.”

As Jennie had suspected, however spotty the guy's overall knowledge was, he knew a lot about his own field. “How do you do that?”

Mia caught her hand halfway up, then sat down abruptly on the little kids' bench, trapping both hands under her thighs.

“With a slide rule,” he replied.

“I see,” said Jennie. “Ross, there're only three or four people in town who know how to do that, and two of them are here in the room with you.”

Mia extracted her hand to tap the slide rule dangling from her waist.

“How much can you read?” Jennie asked.

Ross ducked his head. “Only numbers. Well, a couple letters you use in math.”

“What about history?”

“I don't know anything. I just wonder. How the things I find got there. What people used them for. Why all the cities were destroyed.”

“I know that one!” exclaimed Mia before Jennie could answer. “According to the accounts we've found, it was a natural disaster. There was a storm on the sun, and it released radiation. Do you know what that is?”

“No,” Ross muttered, embarrassed.

Jennie wished she could tell him that she'd never heard Mia this eager to talk to anyone but her father, her old master, Mr. Rodriguez, and Jennie herself. However had Ross gotten Mia to trust him so quickly?

“It's a sort of energy,” Mia went on. “Like light. It changes living things. Some animals and plants died, and some mutated. Some people died, and others got the Change. Also, the solar storm caused a geomagnetic storm on the Earth. Not a storm with rain. It was a change in the Earth's magnetic field.”

Ross glanced up. “That's what makes a compass work, right?”

Mia's head bobbed enthusiastically. “Yes! Exactly. And back then, nearly everything was mechanical. When the magnetic field changed, most machines stopped working. People had to leave the cities and start farming, and eventually the cities got overgrown and knocked down in earthquakes and storms. And then singing trees started growing around them, so no one could get back in.”

Ross pulled his left arm in across his chest, rubbing it as if it hurt. “The books. Tell me what happened to the books.”

Under his direct gaze, she fiddled nervously with her glasses. “Maybe Jennie could explain it better.”

“You go on. You're doing great.” Jennie winced inwardly once the words were out. She sounded like she was talking to a little kid.

But Mia didn't look insulted. “Back then, most books were machines. I don't understand how that worked. But all the book-machines were destroyed in the geomagnetic storm. That's why so much knowledge was lost.”

“Were they destroyed, like smashed to bits?” Ross asked. “Or did they stop working?”

“Stopped working,” said Mia with a sigh. “And never started again. We're not even sure what they looked like.”

Ross indicated Mia's old slate. “Can I draw on that?”

“Yes!” She shoved a piece of chalk at him. “Do you know what the book-machines are?”

“No, but there's some artifacts I find a lot. They're made of black glass and plastic.” As he spoke, he sketched rectangles and squares and ovals, using shading to give them dimension. He was no artist, but, like Mia, could draw accurately.

“If you take them apart, there's more plastic and metal parts inside.” He drew some of those parts as he went on. “They're the right size to hold in your hands. They could have been book-machines. They were obviously something, or I wouldn't find so many of them. But like you said, they've stopped working. I don't even pick them up anymore. No one buys them.”