Humanaty's Blight

CHAPTER SIX

“That was amazing,” Sue told me, her face flushed from excitement and windburn. She sounded like a cheerleader at a local high school after a football game. She punched my upper arm. “You were a stud!”

“Me?” I laughed with relief and humor. At the same time, the idea of a fourteen-year-old girl calling me a stud was not missed. I’d be careful to keep any personal feelings of romance between us shut down. But even that stray thought couldn’t interfere with my elation. “What about you? I saw three of the motorcycle gang after us and didn’t know what to do. But you were like a cowboy in an old-time western that spun around on his horse and began firing at the posse.”

“Did you see that first one dump his bike?” Her laughter tinkled like the sound of the water rushing past.

My question was more serious. “Did you see any evidence you hit him or his bike?”

“He reacted to being shot at, I think.”

I thought so, too. I undid the flap on the leather saddlebag nearest to me. We hadn’t had time to see what we had stolen. Inside were dirty tee-shirts, hats, scratched sunglasses, and three pairs of heavy gloves for riding motorcycles. The other saddle-bag held two bottles of red wine, a few rolled-up girlie magazines and a pair of heavy boots that wouldn’t fit either of us.

I tossed the boots aside. The wine looked good. There was no cork-remover and breaking the neck of the bottle and chugging was not my style. Instead, I decided to save it for later and said, “You still got the maps?”

Sue pulled them from inside her jacket, where she had stuffed them safely away. She hadn’t had time to examine them in her snatch-and-grab at the garage. The first was a highway map of Colorado. The next was a street map for Salt Lake City. The last was a recreational map for Washington State, showing all the campgrounds, boat launches, and fishing lakes. It also showed the cities and towns, and we quickly found approximately where we were.

My finger traced possible routes to reach Everett and I thought about the quickest ways to reach it. It didn’t look good, despite us having traveled about half the distance. Everett was on the coast of Puget Sound, but to get there from our location, we had two choices. One way was to travel across several miles of swampy land to the north, with only two roads. Any lookout posted would see us long before we reached him, and both roads were natural choke-points, sure to be watched.

Another way was to come from the east and cross the flat Snohomish River Valley and the wide river Sue had mentioned. That way presented much the same problem as the other routes to the north. Traveling off the main roads was possible until reaching the river. It was not a small one like the Sauk that we could wade across, but one that steamships had probably used in the old days. There was no way to get the motorcycle across except for using one of the few bridges, something local gangs would recognize instantly as a place to ambush travelers. All roads and bridges into the city were probably blockaded by now.

Traveling south of Everett to enter from that side took us into more densely populated areas, guaranteed to be at least as dangerous. I said, “Well, I can get us to the edge of the city, but still have no idea of how to get through it unless you have a pilot’s license and know where to get a plane.”

Her finger traced another possible route through the center of the city. “This way, we could use the bike to go a hundred miles an hour and be down to the docks in a few minutes.”

It was my turn to point. “If I was there and wanted to rob or block people, I’d set it up at the bridge here… and here.” My finger moved around the map. “Maybe overturn a semi to block it totally. Side to side. Put a few guards with rifles there.” My finger continued to slide over the map. “And here. And here. And on the main streets in the city roadblocks, snipers, and ambushes can be anywhere. Nobody is going to come to their neighborhoods and take their food and women—but they are also searching for easy access to weapons, women, and food.”

Her face was paler than normal. “Maybe we should just wait here until they fight some more and kill each other off.”

“In a month, there will probably a single victor or gang ruling over each area with hundreds of soldiers reporting to him or her, all armed with the best weapons they can find and ready to fight the neighboring armies. Only the most dangerous fighters will still be alive. Those less skilled or careless will die. It will be worse than the chaos there now because it will be organized chaos. I don’t think we want to meet that person or group.”

She carefully folded the map and placed it in the saddlebag where it would remain dry. A glanced at the sky told us rain was probable. She pulled the shirt, hats, and gloves from the saddlebags. “It’s going to be cold sleeping out here.”

It was late afternoon and while I felt we could continue and reach the suburbs of Everett today, I saw no way to get through it to reach the docks, even if we managed to enter the city. Sleeping on our indecision seemed the best idea. Maybe a solution would come in a dream.

A voice in the direction of the river softly called to us, “Hey, you in there on the motorcycle.”

I pulled my twenty-two, thinking that if there was only one person, a softer shot might prevent him from warning others in the nearby area of where we were. If he wanted to fight, I was ready for that too. With the gun in hand, I moved a few steps closer to the voice in the thick underbrush and answered with a growl that I hoped made me sound big and mean, “What do you want?”

“No trouble. I live across the river on the hillside. I saw you two come in here.”

“What do you want?” I repeated, lowering my voice even more while thinking that if he intended to do us harm, alerting us to him being close was not the best way.

He answered in a friendly sort of way, if a little cautious, “I fished the river this morning and caught a small salmon. I cooked it a while ago and am setting the pan out here with half the fish in it. It’s too much for me and no sense in letting it spoil.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

“Too much murdering and killing going on. As if the flu wasn’t enough, it’s like everyone is intent on killing the few still healthy and alive. Just leave the pan and I’ll get it in the morning if you please.” The accent was faintly Norwegian or Swedish, like most of the people of the northwest. The voice also sounded old and opinionated.

Nobody had so much as offered me a crumb since the flu struck, but I’d had maybe ten guns pointed at me in the last two weeks, most in the last few days, so I understood his comment and agreed with it. There was too much killing happening. Even Sue had centered a rifle on my chest, and there may have been others I hadn’t even seen. Now, from nowhere, a man offered food and asked for nothing in return.

Sue said, “I’ll go get it.”

“No. Leave it sit for a while. Just to be safe. It may be bait.”

“Flies will get it. And ants and God knows what else.”

“That old man might have a partner sitting on the side of the hill with a scope on a rifle. He could put a bullet through your left eye if he wanted from that distance.”

“He sounded sincere. And nice.”

I scowled at her. “Are you willing to bet your life for a piece of fish for dinner?”

The twenty-two remained in my hand as I worked my way to the left, where a stand of vines and thorns hid me. The sun was setting, and the pan was in the open. There was no sight of him. Apparently, the man hadn’t wanted to get too close to us, either. It was fifty steps away. Only a madman would try to get it and he’d used the higher brush at the edge of the river to cover his retreat. However, I was hungry.

I sprinted from cover, moving most of the distance in a few seconds, zigged, and snatched the handle of the pan as I raced past where it sat. A zag and then another zig carried me safely into the dense foliage.

Sue was panting and her face stark white. She hissed at me like an angry snake, “I thought you said it was too dangerous.”

“You were hungry,” I said lamely.

“And what would have happened to me if you’d died out there?”

I averted my eyes as my hand reached for the fish, a slab that filled the frying pan from side to side. It was not hot but had been cooked with a few spices and tasted as good as any fish in history. Sue accepted a piece of fish and continued to stare daggers at me that I couldn’t avoid, especially since I knew she was not only pissed at me but correct for doing so. It had been a stupid reaction on my part.

Stupid is a word I found myself using a lot lately. Not only for me but for others. If people didn’t die from the flu, they do for something that was generally stupid—like delivering a pan full of fish to travelers armed with guns. Or travelers who took the bait from traps shaped like frying pans. Talking to strangers had become a life-threatening choice. Not talking to them, the same. Silence or avoidance could be taken as secretiveness and passive aggression.

A man or woman killing another human for a pan of salmon should be unthinkable. Maybe cavemen fought over a meal, but not for a long time, especially in America. Any perceived slight could bright out the knives, guns, or clubs.

Sue seemed to relax as she ate and wiped greasy her hands on her thighs. She said, “There must have been fifty motorcycles back there in Darrington. They were all better riders; it was easy to see you barely knew what to do. Why didn’t they come after us?”

It was a question I’d debated with myself because there were so many possible answers. It could have been because they were scared of me but that wasn’t it. The men were new to each other and probably didn’t even know each other’s names yet. They hadn’t bonded. Why would they risk their lives for people they didn’t know? Besides, most were drinking heavily, others were on drugs, some were probably passed out, and others were like the three who came after us. Pretenders. If one of the real bad-asses had jumped on a bike and called for the others to follow him, most would have joined in the chase like a wild roundup of mustangs a hundred years earlier.

Yes, they rode the big bikes and decked themselves out like the riders in those old movies. Freedom of the open road. Bands of brothers. But most of them were like my cousin who worked nine to five jobs and rode their hogs when their wives let them escape into fantasyland an hour or two before hauling the kids to a birthday party in the family minivan.

Not that the ones in Darrington were any better or worse than others. And certainly not that they couldn’t morph into genuine bad-asses in a matter of days, those that survived. But loyalty to each other hadn’t developed yet. Besides, we’d taken them by surprise.

From what little I saw, they had taken control of the entire town, probably had killed many locals, and sent others into hiding. The weak bikers wouldn’t last long. They’d say or do something and one of the others would knock him down. Maybe shoot him. Others would arrive in town on their hogs and with each passing day, the gang would weed out the weak and replace them with stronger, more vicious members.

Then another gang, or perhaps a group of veterans, or ex-police officers, would move in. Maybe a drug lord or minor CEO of a lumber company with lumberjacks to enforce their orders. The stronger groups would kill off the weaker ones and, in a year, only the strongest would be alive, maybe ten percent of those alive today. I’d made up the ten percent statistic, I think, but may have heard or read it somewhere. It sounded accurate.

To Sue, I said in answer to her question, “They didn’t care enough about us to chase us on slick streets, I guess. Too much trouble to run us down but you’re right, they could easily have caught up with us because this is the first big bike I’ve ever been on and couldn’t get it out of third gear for twenty minutes.”

She gave me a vexed look of disapproval. “We risked our lives so you could steal a motorcycle you didn’t know how to drive?”

“If you put it that way, yes.” I didn’t look away or flinch. It was important to me for her to understand my reasoning.

“Why? I’m just asking, not saying you shouldn’t have.”

She deserved the truth. “They would have followed our tracks in the snow back to the mine tunnel and killed us. If we had run somewhere else, they would have followed on their bikes ten times as fast as we could run and caught up with us in no time. At the moment, stealing the bike seemed the right thing to do.”

“You’ve never ridden one?”

“A little one my cousin had. It was a small dirt bike. This one is different, but not that much when you get right down to it.”

“Tomorrow, you need to teach me how to drive it.”

I barked a laugh and cut it off when I realized that not only was she serious, it was a good idea. Being fourteen didn’t mean she couldn’t drive. The world had changed. Any skill she learned might help her survive—and maybe me. I said, “Okay.”

“And shoot,” she added.

Darkness had fallen with light rain. We attempted to make a tent out of extra clothing, then decided to keep it dry for the morning. With our backs to a cedar tree trunk, we watched the down-sloped branches shed almost all the drizzle and we remained fairly dry. We fell asleep, our guns at our sides, ready for action.

In the morning, we ate the rest of the fish and placed the pan out in the open so the old man could locate it. A note of thanks or a small gift was in order, but we couldn’t think of what to leave. We put the bottles of wine inside the pan and hoped he had a corkscrew.

The drizzle had quit. Sue pulled the map of Washington out again. She spread it on the ground and stared at it as if the squiggly lines had shifted or changed. I scouted around the campsite, more to be alone and think than to find anything of value. When I arrived back, Sue was still kneeling and looking at it intently, her total attention focused on one area where her finger touched.

“See something of interest?” I asked, more for conversation than expecting an answer.

“Maybe.”

I went to her side. She moved her hand across everything east and south of Everett and the river. “No way across without being ambushed. It’s the same approaching Everett from the north.” She wiped her hand across part of the map north of Marysville where we were headed if we continued on the same road.

I agreed. No way to enter the city looked safe.

She moved her hand west of Marysville, across the bay from Everett. “We could travel through here. Right?”

It wouldn’t get us to Everett, but it was probably safe enough to ride on the motorcycle, especially if we went fast. I mused, “Not much out there. Not a lot of towns or people.”

“Why isn’t there more?”

“Indian reservation,” I pointed out the colored area and the map key in the corner.

“Well, there’s still not many buildings. But look at the coastline just to the west of Marysville where the reservation begins.”

I looked and saw a few small indications of houses, a marked boat ramp, and some camping. Nothing else. Sue was focusing on that part of the map, and in her concentration, she was ignoring me. “What do you see that I don’t?”

“There are beach communities along here.” Her finger moved along the coastline. “There are houses at Priest Point because of the roads the map shows. Not many, maybe, but some.”

“So?”

“If we could cut across Marysville to the north and get onto the reservation, riding fast on the motorcycle, we could reach the coast where the beach houses are in a half-hour or less from here. If a street is blocked, we can turn around, or ride the bike around it, or turn back, but seriously, I wouldn’t expect streets to be blocked out there in the country. Not yet. Not there, so we could reach the coast about here.” Her finger pointed at the place. I saw no reason to go there. We wanted to go to Everett and the marina, not the coast of an Indian reservation.

My eyes looked to where she pointed, her destination. Still puzzled, I asked, “Why do we want to do all that? Ride through the perimeter of the reservation, I mean?”

“To get to the beach communities, silly.”

I still didn’t understand.

She rolled her eyes and spoke as if I was a doddering old man, “Look at the map, silly. Really look at it. Beach houses have kayaks. You know, those plastic two-ended ones you see everywhere. People leave them outside on their patios and inside garages at beach houses. We could snatch two.”

“And?” I asked, still not understanding her intentions. Stealing kayaks and paddling for fun was not in my future. Besides, we had a motorcycle.

She tapped her map with her finger near a place on the coast called Priest Point, then with a smug smile in place, she slowly moved it due south across the map until reaching the Everett yacht harbor from the water.

Sue was a genius. If we used small boats like kayaks, we could slip right up to where the sailboats were moored without ever going into, or trying to travel across, the dangerous city. We could go around it and enter from the waterfront, like a backdoor.

The map made it clear how easy it would be and avoid the major obstacle holding us back. At a guess, the distance by water was five miles, maybe a little more. I started calculating, which is my way. Walking fast, a person can easily go three miles in one hour on flat ground. I’d never been in a kayak but had seen them scooting by much faster than I can walk. But being conservative, considering possible opposing tides and winds, even if we paddled half that fast, it was only a three- or four-hour trip.

Two hours if we only paddled as fast as we walk, or if the currents carried us in that direction. It was early spring, so the nights were not much longer than in the winter. Ten or twelve hours of darkness, easily. My mind was planning all the details again. The map made it clear she had found a way to get us there. The distance was doable, the time was probably less than using the motorcycle and going around, and we wouldn’t face any of the hundreds of problems we might encounter passing through a city.

Without electricity, most people were probably asleep by nine or ten at night. Many were sleeping by eight because they didn’t want to use candles or lamps and attract enemies and the sun was down even earlier than that. No lights after dark meant they might as well go to sleep. Of course, others were using the darkness to do their dirty deeds or hunt for food and supplies.

By midnight, few would be awake.

If two kayaks arrived at the harbor after midnight and the sun didn’t come up until seven in the morning, there was plenty of time to locate the right boat and use it to slip out of the harbor. On impulse, I turned and gave Sue a hug. No words were required. She had solved our major problems. We could avoid approaching Everett completely, and the same for navigating our sneaking through a city filled with unknown traps and enemies.

There would be other problems that would arise, and we would deal with them as they came.