Morgan Nyberg

SINCE TOMORROW

A Novel

1

They stopped — the three wagons and their drivers, the guards, the four dogs — at the cusp of the bridge. Already the noise of the market reached them. Shouts. Shrieking. The workhorse that was harnessed to the lead wagon turned its head and looked back at the driver. Noor said to it “No, we’re goin’. You know damn well we’re goin’.” She set her mouth and twitched the reins and gripped the handbrake. They started down the long slope of Frost’s Bridge.

Dunsmuir, Airport and Lansdowne were guarding the Town end of the bridge with three dogs. Lansdowne was requesting a little toll from an old man who had a plastic basin full of knobby carrots. Noor stopped the wagon. “Aren’t you Jacob?” she said to the man.

“That’s me. I know you, Noor. I know your grampa.” He did not have any teeth.

The guards hauled the dogs out of the way and the other wagons passed. These wagons were smaller, and each was pulled by a Holstein steer.

“You’re from South, aren’t you?” Noor said.

“I was a long time ago, but I moved across. Too hard to get into Town, tradin’ to cross on the raft every time. I’m this side of the South Arm now.”

“Alone?”

He nodded.

She said “Come to Frost’s. We’ll make a place for you.”

He waited, then said “I can’t think of any reason not to. Except that I’m too stupid and I’m too stubborn.” He produced a squeaking laugh. “Tell your grampa you saw me.”

Noor smiled and said to Lansdowne “Let him pass.”

At the foot of the bridge they swung left and hooked back toward the river. They followed a wide trail between a few decrepit three-storey apartment buildings, among overgrown foundations, among humped ruins covered by blackberry and across the weedy asphalt remains of streets. There was a smell of human excrement. Town smell. A few people ran or limped toward the Frost wagons, flourishing their loot.

The market sprawled along the bank of the river, nothing but a mess of people hollering at one another and waving lengths of electrical wiring or a sleeve of a red coat or a rusty can of forty-year-old soup or whatever else they had managed to strip from the corpse of the city. The guards took a tighter grip on the leashes of the dogs, who added their nervous whines and yelps to the general melee. The party found a place for the wagons at the lip of the riverbank.

The boat of the Park Crew was tied at the river’s edge with a load of cordwood. Noor gazed across the river as she filled a bucket with spuds. In the water near the far bank stood two high piles of stones. On the bank itself lay Daniel Charlie’s half-built water wheel. Beyond rose the concrete storeys of her home, “the domicile” as her grandfather called it, leaning toward the river at a dangerous slant. Between the market and Frost’s Farm the late morning tide surged up the north arm of the river.

The crowd was forced to stay back a few paces on account of the dogs. People carved out personal space with curses and slashing elbows while still managing to advertise a shoelace or a six-inch bolt complete with nut, or even some Town-grown vegetables, calling in their ragged Town voices “Lookit. Lookit what I got.” The drivers, Marpole and Hastings, each beckoned someone forward and set to haggling. The owner of the six-inch bolt went away with thirty potatoes.

Noor held the bucket with her left hand and with her right took the leash of Puppy from one of the guards and headed cautiously into the throng. She let the bucket rest against the sword in her belt, so as not to injure those she passed. Behind her a one-legged woman with a crutch made from a chunk of black plastic pipe bartered an eight-foot length of eaves-trough and went away with enough food for two weeks.

Lookit. Lookit what I got.

Ten feet of garden hose bought a week of root starch.

A dozen matches bought a month’s worth.

Now there was something new for Noor to smell: the dull stench of bodies long unwashed. Puppy lifted her head, snuffing it in keenly. They wore ponchos of rough grey wool and nothing else, these Town people, if they were lucky enough to have come by the wool. Or they wore patchwork robes of whatever could be stitched, tied or pinned together: bits of wool, bits of old shirts, bigger bits of black, white or transparent polyethylene. If they wore shoes the shoes were makeshift, poly wraparound, every variety of bendable plastic, sponge rubber. They leaned over the dog and shouted “Lookit. Lookit here.” A dirty sheet of foolscap. The handle of a table knife. Styrofoam cups beyond counting, some of them whole. A wizened and scabbed apple.

Noor stopped, allowed the apple to be placed in her bucket, allowed three potatoes to be removed, nodded, went on. Noor’s sandals were tire tread soles with leather straps. Her top was a patched and colourless flannel shirt with no sleeves, her bottom shapeless canvas trousers secured at the waist with yellow nylon twine. A way opened for the tall woman and the animal. Someone held up a shard of mirror. Lookit. For a second Noor saw what these others saw. Hair dark and tied back. Eyes green. Cinnamon skin. A long neck. The calm and imperious features of an Arab princess.

She traded for a pair of large hard zucchini, then traded the zucchini and some spuds for a thin book, Principles of War by Carl von Clausewitz. It was almost intact, missing only the back cover and part of the front one. The deck of the bridge was above her now. Nearby, screams erupted and there was a thrashing of plastic, and two women grappled and bit and spat and rolled among feet on the hard-packed earth. The hair on Puppy’s back stood on end. Noor stepped away.

A man was selling fire-makers. He sat cross-legged behind a tidy pile of his devices. He was prosperous enough to own a sword, the uneven blade of which he rested on his pyramid of merchandise. When people squatted down to trade he generally shook his head. He was maybe fifty, bearded and long-haired like the other men, but cleaner. He wore a leather bomber jacket, whole, mostly colourless but still black across the shoulders, and trousers made from varicoloured cloth. Noor had not seen him before. She said “How’s business?”

“If someone would come up with somethin’ worth tradin’ for it would be fine. Could you use a fire-maker?”

“We make our own. Come and visit us. We’re the other side of the bridge. Tell the guards you’re a friend of Noor’s.”

“I will. My name is Kits.” He scratched Puppy behind the ear. The dog licked his hand.

Noor went on. She saw Town Ranch trading their wool. She saw Wing in the distance, with guards and a wagon. Suddenly Puppy growled. The bucket was jerked from Noor’s grip. She gave a cry, stumbled sideways and let go of the leash. When she found her balance she drew her sword but the thief was already on his back, with Puppy’s forepaws on his chest, and her bared teeth and curled lip four inches from his eyes, which he closed carefully.

The bucket had spilled, but no one tried to snatch the rolling potatoes. Noor gathered them as Puppy continued to snarl into the face of the thief. She found the book but could not spot the apple. A boy came forward with it. “Thanks” said Noor. “What’s your name?” The boy said nothing. “Who’s your dad? Which side of the bridge do you live on?” He started to back away. “Here” she said. “You keep it.” The boy ran off to find a safe place to eat the apple.

“Enough now, Puppy.” Noor pulled the dog off the man’s chest, but Puppy continued to glare at him, not blinking, still. The man opened his eyes, waited, scraped away on his back, slow as a snail. “Don’t come back here again” said Noor. He got up and ran. People kicked out at him as he dodged through the crowd. If they were holding something hard, a plastic bowl, a car aerial, they tried to hit him with it.

Lookit.

A half-panel of crushed drywall. Five empty tin cans with no labels. A Christmas tree ornament — this was a shock, the simple splendour of it almost painful in all the drabness. Noor acquired it.

She made her way to old Wing’s party. He had only one wagon, with potatoes and carrots.

Wing said “That’s a good dog. Which one is that?”

“This is Puppy. Yeah, she’s a good dog. Sit, Puppy.” The dog sat. Noor patted its shoulder.

Wing said “The Parts Gang are puttin’ together a new wagon for me. It’s on a big car chassis, Chrysler or somethin’. A bit heavy for a steer. When you going to have a colt for me?”

“Soon as we find a stallion. You seen anybody tradin’ for a stallion?”

“No, but I seen a woman tryin’ to trade the best part of a tricycle.” Noor and Wing laughed, but the guards did not.

“Your men don’t know what a tricycle is” she said. “I had one when I was a kid. My dad made it from bits and pieces.”

“Yeah, Steveston was good at things like that. Speakin’ of tricycles and stuff, it looks like our friends have got themselves some new toys.”

“The Skag Crew?”

Wing tilted the white wisp of his beard toward the area under the bridge. Noor spotted the skagger right away even though the only signs of his allegiance were a pair of hard eyes and the fact that he was not frantically trying to barter. “What is that he’s got?” she asked.

“It’s a crossbow. Made from a leaf of an old car spring. I saw some others too. The Parts Gang must’ve put them together for them. I can’t see a skagger havin’ enough brains to build one of them things.”

People came forward to barter. A roll of nylon fishing line, brown and brittle. A warped two-by-four with a single bent and rusted nail.

Noor wandered off. A young man in a plastic poncho leaned over the dog and waggled something in front of her face. He did not bother saying Lookit, but just smiled a sly and toothless smile. It was a lens from a magnifying glass. Faces and shapes swam in the glass as he twisted it. She took it to examine. It was three inches across, perfect except for a small chip at the edge. Soon, with only the von Clausewitz, the Christmas bauble and the lens in the bottom of her bucket she moved forward to deal with Skagger Langley.

He stood near the Frost wagons, watching the transactions with his big guard, Freeway. “You want to deal for skag you better save some of them spuds” said Langley. “You got any meat?” He was thin, clean-shaven and short-haired. His had a pointed nose and receding chin. The skin of his face was scaly and blotched red. He scratched at it habitually. He wore a pair of blue jeans and a black T-shirt with words on it. Pink Floyd. His eyes were like Noor’s — they gave away nothing. He wore real boots and had a pair of unused black leather shoes draped over a shoulder by the laces.

Noor said “What’ll you take for the shoes?”

“They’re for me” he said. He had a high-pitched voice that had a whine to it.

“They’re not your size. They’re too big for you and they’re too small for your fat-ass guard.”

The guard, Freeway, wore a long wool poncho and cut-off rubber boots. He and the dog were trying to stare each other down. Puppy’s lip quivered slightly. As did Freeway’s.

“Got any meat?” said Langley again.

“No meat. What’ll you take for the shoes?”

“You don’t want shoes. You want skag.”

Noor said “Don’t tell me what I want. I know what I want.” They both looked away. They both spat. Freeway and Puppy continued their eyeball combat until Noor turned to Freeway and said “Would you like to hold her?” She offered him the leash. Freeway stepped back, smiled weakly and shook his head. Langley stepped between Freeway and the dog and punched Freeway in the face. Noor pulled Puppy back. Blood streamed from Freeway’s nose, and tears ran down his cheeks, but he did not move. Puppy barked at Langley.

Langley looked at the river for a minute, until his face became less red and the dog stopped barking. Then he said “You need skag for your medic.”

“You got big ears.”

“I’ll take all the spuds you got left.”

“I’ll give you half a wagon.”

They were quiet again for a while, watching the transactions at the wagons. A sewing needle earned a month of food.

“One wagon” said Langley. “The big one.”

“Throw in the shoes.”

“You deliver.”

“Deliver?”

“Deliver the spuds.”

“Give me the skag now. And the shoes. We’ll deliver.”

“When? I got a hungry crew.”

“In a few days. The workers are busy harvestin’. Grampa will be visitin’ the squatters.”

“Everybody busy makin’ the world a better place. Hey, why don’t you bring the spuds? You never seen my house. I got stuff you ain’t even dreamed about.” He reached to touch her arm. She drew it away. His face reddened again and his eyes narrowed. He gave a little snort and an ugly smile. ‘Well then, maybe I’ll just have to come to your place. I hear you got a nice farm. I like farms.” He pulled a plastic bag from his jeans pocket. It was half full of dark flakes and powder, a couple of ounces. He tossed it to Noor.

“Don’t burn me, Noor” he said. “I don’t care who your granddaddy is.”

She stepped forward through the semicircle of guards and dogs and told Marpole not to trade the produce in her wagon. The pair of shoes looped through the air past her shoulder and landed on the heaped potatoes. Soon she saw Langley and Freeway make their way down the riverbank to the Park boat to trade for cordwood.

When she turned away from the river a woman was trying to come forward. The woman appeared to have nothing to trade. She was carrying a baby. It was wrapped in blue poly. “Please.” she wailed. “She’s going to die.”

Noor motioned her up to her wagon.

“She’s going to die” the woman said again, more quietly. She had a torn wool poncho but no shoes. The skin of her face was flabby and yellow. Her eyes were yellow too. Most of her lank brown hair had fallen out. The baby was thin. Its eyes were half open, but there was little life in them. It did not move or make any kind of sound. It did not look at Noor or at anything else. “Are you tryin’ to trade your child? We don’t trade for children.”

“No” said the woman. “Just take her. She’ll die if you don’t.” Her cheeks were wet.

Just then there was a yell from down the riverbank, and Noor looked away from the woman. Langley’s guard, Freeway, was pointing up toward the part of the market that was near the bridge. Noor heard the word jacket. Langley and Freeway hustled up the bank and bulled into the crowd. In a minute there were shouts. Noor saw a skagger pushing through the crowd, with his crossbow held above his head. Further away she caught a glimpse of a raised sword. They were converging toward Langley and Freeway. Noor saw people rushing away from that point. There were more shouts. The Frost dogs all started barking. There was a man’s scream.

A few seconds later Freeway stepped back into view on the riverbank and stumbled down it. He was dragging a man’s body toward the water. Langley emerged from the crowd and walked part way down the bank. Freeway had his right hand wrapped around the man’s hair braid. The body, naked from the waist up, showed no resistance nor any kind of movement. It left a sketchy trail of red on the rocks and on the shards of culvert scattered on the bank. It was the man who had the fire makers, Kits.

Freeway took a wrist and an ankle and heaved the body into the river. It floated at the river’s edge for a while. Then the current slowly took control, and the racing grey-brown tide claimed Kits’ body. It bobbed upriver, gaining speed, and soon appeared to be nothing but a peeled scrap of driftwood.

Noor looked away. The woman had gone. The child was lying on the mound of potatoes in her wagon, beside the shoes. Noor carefully picked her up. There was hardly any weight to her. She held the child close. She put her face against her.

“Let’s go home” she said. Her voice was quiet and broken and she had to repeat the order.

Behind her, on the riverbank, Langley stood facing the market in his new black leather jacket, his arms spread wide in victory.

2

The sun sat half a hand’s breadth above the horizon. It appeared to have paused in its descent. An old man sat on a workhorse, plodding southwest along the River Trail. In front of him sat a boy.

The man had a mass of curly white hair and a white beard. He wore canvas trousers and a patched and sleeveless pullover shirt. On his feet were a pair of shiny black leather shoes with square toes. He wore wire-rim glasses, the lenses of which were crazed with scratches. Behind the lenses blue eyes caught a little of the weak light of the sun. The boy had on a poncho and patched blue sweatpants with a green stripe but was shoeless. He held the reins of yellow twine loosely in his right hand and leaned back against the old man.

Frost gazed at the sun. It was going down after all. “Will it come up again?” he said.

The boy had been almost sleeping. “’Course it will” he answered.

“Good” said Frost. “I’m glad.”

“There’s King” said the boy, pointing. A dog came out of a patch of thistles. There was a rabbit in its mouth. The rabbit’s legs hung limp. Puppy burst out of the thistles and made a move to grab King’s catch, but King growled and pranced on ahead with the rabbit. The workhorse stopped and looked toward the dog, and King let the horse have a sniff. The horse snorted and tossed its head. The boy clucked and said “C’mon, Beauty” and the horse tramped forward again, swinging its great feet. King stopped to try to eat his rabbit. Puppy lay watching a few feet away.

“Lot of rabbits this year” said Frost. “Aren’t the squatters eating them?”

“Maybe they don’t have snares.”

“Could you make some snares?”

“’Course I could.”

“Trade them, don’t give them away. That way they won’t be offended.”

The boy lay forward with his face against the horse’s collar. A purple Christmas ornament was tied into the mane. Frost studied the thing. The sun was reflected in it. “God” he said. ‘That is pretty. Isn’t that pretty?” But he looked as if there was something terribly sad in its beauty.

The boy was asleep.

They crossed a side channel of the river over Little Bridge. A few hundred yards to the north a bridge as big as Frost’s crossed the main channel at a slant, running southwest to northeast. The knocking of Beauty’s hoofs on the surface of Little Bridge woke the boy. He sat up and looked back. “They’re comin’” he said, and then the dogs were beside them, King toting what remained of the rabbit carcass.

They veered right, off the road. Beauty picked her way down an overgrown slope, and they skirted the angled slabs of a collapsed overpass. Beauty stepped carefully across a holed and buckled boulevard. Soon Frost motioned, and the boy directed the horse toward an alder stump near the trail. The boy swung his leg over the horse’s head and jumped off. Frost slid carefully down to the stump. Then he bent and stepped off it. He handed the boy two lengths of twine, and the boy called the dogs and leashed them. The dogs sat, and leaned against his legs.

Frost said “Now, what’s the man’s name?”

“Bundy. Mr. Bundy.”

“Not what?”

“Not Fundy. Why does everyone call him Fundy if that’s not his name?”

“He’s a fundamentalist Christian. A fundy. He believes everything that’s written in the bible. He’s not a very civilized man in that respect. But we are, aren’t we?”

“Yes, Grampa.”

A bank of cloud on the horizon was preparing to erase what was left of the sun. The boy said “Looks like it’s going to rain. Maybe it will put out the fire on Grouse Mountain.”

“Yes” said the old man. “It could. But it’s too late. The mountain’s all burnt off.”

“It’ll grow back.”

The old man said nothing.

The boy said “Will there be snow this year?”

“Hard to say, Will. What do you think?”

“It’s gettin’ colder. I think it could snow. So I guess everythin’ is all covered in white?”

“It is.”

“And if you go out in the middle of the night you can still see, because the snow reflects the light?”

“That’s right.”

“And it’s so quiet.”

“Yes. Quiet and peaceful.”

“Hushed” said the boy. “It’s hushed.”

King gave a whine. The boy took a wrap of the twine with each hand. Across the field there was a shout. Two men were coming. One of them waved. The other man, younger, held two dogs, who were pulling him forward. Frost walked toward them a few paces. Then he waited, studying his new shoes. When he looked up he saw that the two men were hurrying. The older man, who was tall and bald, called “Frost! Frost!”

Frost sighed and put together a smile and said “Abraham, what’s got you worked up this time? Don’t tell me you’re….”

But the younger man cut him off. “Where’s Noor? Is Noor comin’?” He had a real shirt, blue and clean. He had dark hair, tied back. It had been wetted. He took long ungainly strides behind the dogs. There was an expression of panic on his face. “But where’s Noor? Noor never comes. It’s not fair.” He stopped and jerked the dogs back roughly. He clenched his teeth and moaned with rage.

Fundy caught up and, as he passed the younger man, gave him a hard backhand slap on the ear. “Shut up, Solomon.”

The younger man started to weep. His head flopped forward. He let go of the dogs. His arms hung limp. The dogs bounded away. Frost turned and nodded to Will, who released King and Puppy. The four dogs raced off to frolic. With head hanging, Solomon trudged back across the field.

Frost extended his hand, but Fundy just threw up his arms and yelled “They took my bridge! They that sow wickedness reap the same. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.”

“Hold, on, Abraham. What do you mean they took your bridge?”

“They took it! They took it, Frost. They just took it. Behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind.” Fundy shook both fists.

Frost nodded and folded his arms and waited.

“He will render his rebuke with flames of fire.” Fundy glared at Frost.

“I’m not arguing with you, Abraham.”

“They took my bridge.”

“Your big bridge?”

“And the Lord…”

“The one commonly referred to as Fundy’s Bridge?”

“Yes, yes, yes. What’s the matter with you, man — haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

“Someone took over your bridge — is that what you’re saying?”

“For the slain of the Lord shall be many. Woe unto those who….”

“Abraham, shut up. Just shut up.”

Fundy took a deep shuddering breath and folded his arms and looked at the ground. After a few seconds he said “Skaggers. The skaggers took it over. A bunch of them come with weapons and drove my people back to this end. They want toll. Big toll.”

“Noor says you weren’t at the market this morning.”

“I ain’t payin’ toll on my own bridge. And the Lord… And the Lord…”

“You can use my bridge to get to market, Abraham. No toll. It’s best to stay away from the skaggers.”

“I already got a bridge, Frost. No bunch of scabby drug dealers is going to take what the Lord God put in my hands.”

“Now, don’t go do anything stupid, Abraham. Why don’t you and your family come and stay with us for a while? It’ll be safer for you. Your workers can run the farm. Until we can figure out what to do about your bridge.”

“I ain’t stayin’ at your place, Frost.”

Frost did not speak for a few seconds. Then he frowned and nodded wearily and said “I see. Well, I didn’t think you would, actually.”

“You got that nigger.”

Frost put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. He turned and walked back to the horse. King and Puppy were soon there. Frost and Will grabbed their collars. Fundy chased his dogs and tried to get hold of the leashes. Soon he gave up and headed back across his field. The dogs followed. Frost released his own dogs, who waited, wagging their tails. He set Will on Beauty, stepped up onto the alder stump and mounted the horse himself.

“Getting dark” he said.

3

Blackie loped on ahead, veered into a patch of scrub, appeared again in the distance, sniffing at the ground in his zigzag way, then disappeared once more behind a mound of blackberry. He was at the dwelling when they arrived, taking in the smells of the place.

A woman sat beside Frost on the wagon seat. She was a woman of late middle age, with sad grey eyes.

Frost got off the wagon. The woman did not. “Is this all toll?” she said, nodding toward the load of produce behind her.

“Yes, it is, most of it. Not the eggs.” said Frost. “The bridge brings in a lot.”

The house was a corner of a fallen concrete building. A complete panel of quarter-inch plywood leaned against a wall, covering a hole. Its layers had separated and spread, so that it resembled a blossom of rotted and soggy veneer. There was a door hole, over which hung various fragments of plastic. Blackie stood staring at a particular point in the plastic. The plastic moved. Blackie stepped back and set to barking.

“Quiet, Blackie.” ordered Frost.

A man crawled out under the plastic. “Arf, yourself” he said to the dog as he slowly stood. Blackie wagged his tail and went forward to sniff at the man and have his head scratched.

“I could use a dog” said the man to Frost. “Could you get me a dog?”

He was old, thin and bald. But the white hair that grew above his ears hung down to his waist, as did his stringy beard. He had a wool poncho and a wool kilt but no shoes. His odour was primal and aggressive.

Frost said “I can’t get you a dog, Christopher. Dogs can fall into the wrong hands. We have to be careful about that. It seems to me I have told you this before. You couldn’t feed a dog, anyway. But I can get you some shoes. Can I send you a pair of sandals?”

“You can send ’em. But I can’t promise that I’ll wear ’em.”

“Why the hell don’t you come and live on the farm? We can keep you warm and safe and fed. This is no way to live. Out here alone.”

“I seen your farm, Frost. Too many people. Just send me a dog.”

“No dog, Christopher. Have you got something to put your produce in?”

The old man squatted and reached under the plastic flap and pulled out a dirty yellow plastic bowl. He came to the wagon.

“This is Grace” said Frost. “She’s our medic.”

“I know. You ain’t gettin’ me to no clinic, either.” He took two heads of cabbage. “No squash?”

“Not yet.” Frost filled a bucket with potatoes and carrots and turnips and dumped it on the ground near the shack, then filled the bucket again and dumped it again. He set the bucket in the wagon. He reached under the seat and took out three eggs and laid them on the ground near the produce.

“I got no fire” said the old man.

“I’ll send you a fire-maker.”

“I got no wood.”

“Look around. There’s wood. Sticks at least. Have you got a pot?”

“Of course I got a pot. What do you take me for?”

Frost climbed up beside Grace and flicked the reins, and the steer started out.

Soon they found the remnants of a road and turned north beside it, in the direction of the farm. In a while, back off the road they saw a garden and another ruined building. A man was working in the garden. He called “Hello Frost.”

Frost called back “Need anything, Chow?”

“No, I’m okay. The rain come in time.”

It was a chill day. Although it was overcast the cloud was high and the air had a deep clarity to it. The rain had put out the fire on Grouse Mountain. To the north a stack of white smoke leaned east above the burnt forest.

Grace rhythmically twisted the fabric of her poncho where it lay on her lap. She said “Are you worried about Fundy’s Bridge?”

“Yes I am.”

“What can we do?”

“I’m just afraid Langley wants Fundy’s farm. But Fundy is strong. As long as he doesn’t do something stupid. Anyway, Fundy doesn’t want our help. You know how he is.”

“Langley is unpredictable” she said, twisting the cloth.

They turned off onto a grassy trail that was almost too narrow for the wagon. Frost said “What’s wrong?”

“We should get more opium.”

“It’s not opium. It’s skag.”

“I hate that word. Langley could cut us off. We have to be prepared.”

“What you got cost me a whole load of potatoes. What — you don’t think it will last through the winter? Are we going to have a war or what? That bastard — come spring I plant my own poppies.”

They came to a building, smaller than the previous ones, but apparently whole. It was almost invisible under a burden of blackberry. Two girls were working in the garden, pulling up turnips. They were naked and were daubed with wet earth. When Blackie looked in their direction and pricked up his ears they held their turnips closer and leaned toward one another and were very still. When the wagon stopped, Grace closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths and gripped Frost’s hand tightly. Then she climbed down from the wagon, as did Frost.

A weak, ragged scream came from the darkened door. Frost lifted aside the several layers of clear plastic. They went in. There were no windows in this corner of the building, but sufficient light came through the door. There was a fire pit circled by concrete building blocks. There was a car seat on which lay a woman covered by a fragment of wool blanket and an abundance of rags. A man squatted beside her, holding her hand.

Frost placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. The man laid the woman’s hand at her side on the torn car seat and stood and turned to Frost and Grace. Frost nodded slightly. The man looked down at the floor. The earth was covered with plastic sheets, and on top of the plastic between the fire pit and the car seat was a small red rug with a pattern of flowers. The man shook his head slowly.

Frost said “We’ve brought something, Edmonds.”

Without looking up the man whispered “I know.”

The woman moaned. The man started to turn to her but Frost urged the man toward the door. He said “Take the girls for a walk. Take them down to the trail.” When the woman moaned again, more loudly, the man ducked through his door in a rattle of polyethylene and went out. Frost watched the man and his daughters walk through the wet grass, past the wagon. The girls were each holding a hand.

He turned to Grace. “Okay” he said.

Grace squatted beside the woman, who looked at her with eyes that were all but extinguished. Grace said “I’ve brought medicine.” She had a plastic bottle containing two inches of murky liquid. She shook the bottle with a swirling motion, watching for all the dark flakes in it to dissolve, but many of the flakes only settled again to the bottom of the bottle. She unscrewed the lid and lifted the woman’s head and trickled some of the liquid between the woman’s lips. The woman managed to swallow. Grace gave her some more, then laid her head back down and stood.

The woman was quiet. Frost and Grace watched her in the dimness and said nothing. After a few minutes the woman’s face grew soft. She unclenched her fists. She closed her eyes and breathed with a slow easy rhythm. But soon she opened her eyes again. There was no more life in them now than there had been. She looked at Grace and said something, a syllable, too low for Grace or Frost to hear. Grace bent closer, and the woman said it again, clearly.

“More.”

Grace stood there stooped, looking down at the woman, and seemed paralyzed. Then she started to tremble. She put a hand over her mouth.

Frost took the bottle from her. Grace stepped away and stood looking out through the door, weeping quietly.

Frost bent down and raised the woman’s head and did as Grace had done, trickling the liquid between the woman’s lips. He waited for her to swallow and then to open her lips again. In a few minutes the bottle was empty. He eased her head down and stroked her forehead until she stopped breathing.

He stood and with a choked curse flung the empty bottle away. But then he found it again and took the lid from Grace and screwed it on. They went out.

Frost tried not to trample the garden, but there was not much room to get the wagon turned around. He left two deep tracks in the soft soil. The man and his daughters were down the road a few hundred yards. When he came up beside them Frost said quietly “I’ll… I’ll send someone to….” Then he drove on.

4

Noor said “You’re tired. Let me deliver the spuds.”

“No. I want to see his farm. Maybe I can get some pods.”

“He won’t let you have any pods.”

“I wasn’t planning to ask him. Let me read.”

Frost was reclining in a twine hammock that was hung on a framework in front of the fireplace. His knees were raised, and he had several feather pillows behind his back. He held his book at an angle so as to use the light of the fire to read. The peat burned reluctantly, and a contrary wind blew smoke back down the pieced-together and battered stovepipe. Frost’s folded glasses were hooked into the neck of his shirt. He resumed reading, saying “This is a great thing, Noor.”

“The lens or the book?” she asked.

“The lens. I’m not sure about von Clausewitz yet. War. Do I want to read about the principles of war?”

“I’m happy to see you usin’ it.”

“What — war?”

“No, the lens.”

When she did not laugh Frost lowered the book and looked at her. She sat at the foot of the hammock, on a mat of rabbit skins, sharpening a sword with a triangular file. She rested the tip of the sword on the floor near the fireplace and ran the file along its edge with long slow strokes.

Frost said “There any teeth left on that file?”

Noor lifted the blade and sighted along its edge toward the fire, lowered it and addressed her efforts to a particular two inches. “No, it’s pretty well had it. But it’s all we’ve got.”

“That sound could get on a person’s nerves.”

“You ought to sharpen yours once in a while. Then I wouldn’t have to do it for you.” A second sword lay beside her.

“I don’t need a weapon. The dogs look after me.”

Noor shook her head, then turned to him.

He said “You’re the one that looks tired.”

She said “I want to see you wearin’ this in the mornin’.”

Frost watched the peat flicker and glow. The fireplace was glassed in but there were cracks, and the top corner of one of the panes was smashed. There were vents at the side that admitted heated air into the room. The book had half a front cover. Soldiers with tall fur hats and long rifles with bayonets were fighting for possession of a bridge.

“A dog can’t defend against a crossbow” said Noor.

“Neither can a sword. But yes, yes, I’ll wear it. God, you can be a nag sometimes.”

Will sat at a table a few feet away, at the darker end of the room. He said “When do I get a sword?”

Frost watched for a minute as Will looped and twisted lengths of wire. He said “How can you see to do that?”

“I can see. It’s only snares” answered he boy.

“Doesn’t it hurt your fingers? Why don’t you ask Daniel Charlie if he’s got some pliers in the workshop?”

The Christmas bauble sat on the table near the half dozen completed snares. Its colour was muted in the dimness, but occasionally it sparked with reflections from the fireplace. The boy said “What if the skaggers came after me and I didn’t have a sword?”

“God almighty.”

Noor turned away from the fire to look at her brother. She said “Are you afraid?”

Frost said “The skaggers aren’t going to come after you. No one’s coming after you.”

Noor said “How do you know that?”

Frost closed the book and reached down and set it on the floor and said “Thank you, Noor. We all feel safer now.” He fell back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling and waited. Noor picked up the other sword and felt its edge and sighted down its length. She set the tip on the floor and pushed the file firmly along the edge. Finally she said “No one is safe. Let’s not pretend.”

Will left his snares and crawled under the hammock and took the book and sat at the other side of the fireplace from Noor. “Principles of War” he read aloud.

“Try this” said Frost and held out the lens.

Will took it and held it close to the page and gave a little laugh.

After a while, when Frost spoke again his voice was soft and sleepy. “Noor, I’m happy you brought the baby. She’ll have a good chance with us. Grace says she’s improving already. When she’s better, when she’s a little bigger, she can stay with us. I’ve been thinking — but I wanted to ask you first since you brought her — I would like to give her an Arabic name. Like yours. Like your mother’s. I was thinking of Aisha.”

The hypnotic rasping of the file stopped.

Will read “We can triumph over such obstacles only with very great exertion, and to accomplish this the leader must show a severity bordering on cruelty.”

Noor said “Go to bed, Will.”

“What’s severity?”

“Now.”

“But it’s still early.”

She dropped the file and grabbed his arm and gave him a shake. “I said go to bed.”

Will’s face contorted. He stood and placed the book and the lens on his grandfather’s stomach. He walked around the hammock and left the room through a door at the dark end. Before he could close the door there was the sound of a single sob.

Frost stared at the back of Noor’s head. “What the hell was that?” he said.

Noor laid the sword beside the other one and wrapped her arms around her knees and began to rock slowly from side to side.

Frost lay back again, waiting. His breathing became tight and shallow.

Noor said “You didn’t see Grace this afternoon?”

“No” said Frost in a hurt whisper. It was not a reply to her question. “No, no no…”

“The baby died.”

Frost made a small sound, a whimper. He struggled to leave the hammock. He stepped across the small room like a man made of lead, letting the slope of the floor carry him. A sudden flare of the fire shot Noor’s shadow and his against the walls. Frost bent and opened a cupboard door and slid out a green plastic bottle and slowly twisted the lid off and took three swallows.

He stood there holding the bottle of potato hooch and said “No one’s buried her?”

“No.”

“I’ll do it.”

“I know.”

5

“That’s the last one” said Tyrell.

Frost did not respond.

“Grouse Mountain” said Tyrell. He turned his head in a slow arc from northwest to northeast. “Hollyburn, Grouse, Seymour.”

The mountain still smoked a little. A blanket of low cloud was sliding in from the southwest, gradually hiding the mountains and the smoke.

“No green at all now” said Tyrell.

Frost did not look away from the trail ahead. He said “Please, Tyrell.”

“I was just…”

“I know.”

Beauty pulled the wagon with its heaped potatoes. Frost held the reins. Tyrell sat beside him, holding upright between his feet a six foot length of black plastic pipe with a slender blade set and tied into the end. Below the blade a crude pennant made from a few strands of wool stirred in a cool breeze.

The trail ran beside an old asphalt road, which was potholed, fissured, buckled and grown over. A second wagon followed Frost’s, drawn by two steers. In it lounged five men. Marpole drove. Six spears rested with their blades projecting over the sides of the wagon, their pennants a stronger green than the weeds that from time to time stroked the dangling wool.

Frost said “The dogs are going to scare the squatters. We’d better tie them.” They stopped and he whistled the dogs in and the men leashed them to the backs of the wagons. They continued along the trail.

In a while, not turning to face Tyrell, as if in fact addressing Beauty’s tail, Frost said flatly “I know Grouse Mountain is burnt. I also know there is no green now on those mountains.” Beauty plodded eastward. Not far to the left of the wagons the water of the north arm swirled restlessly, waiting for a tide change. Frost said “I know a mother died yesterday, and I know a baby girl also died yesterday. I know we’re on our way to do business with an ugly customer. I know we’ll be lucky to survive the winter.” He was silent for a while. Then he said. “I don’t need to be reminded.”

They passed squatters’ digs in half-collapsed concrete structures, mounded with blackberry vine. A man approached carrying an armful of twiggy branches. He stepped between a pair of bushes onto the old road to let the wagons pass. Wing’s Bridge was not far ahead. Frost said “I’m a grouchy old man.”

“True” said Tyrell, and then “Ugly customer — haven’t heard that for a while.”

Frost produced a weak chuckle.

A staccato laugh burst from Tyrell. “Ugly customer” he said again, and laughed again, like a jackhammer. Tyrell wore a dirty polyester eye patch of an unidentifiable pale hue. A thick scar ran at an angle from his hair to the eye patch and emerged below the patch to fade among the spiraled dots of his beard. His grey hair was cropped close. His skin was the brown of melted chocolate. His right hand, which loosely held the spear, was missing the index finger. He was a small man with the precise, negligent movements of a cat.

Frost said “Why does he have the crossbows?”

“Because he’s a cockroach.”

“I’m no killer, Tyrell.”

“I am.”

Frost said “That is not the world we’re building.”

“Does the world we’re buildin’ have skaggers in it?”

Frost gazed southeast through a sprawl of collapsed and grown-over warehouses and across the scrubby plain to the desolate enormity of Nobody’s Bridge and to the bald ridge beyond it.

They were soon on a rutted track among Wing’s rows of wilted potato plants.

Tyrell said. “We need real weapons.”

“Bull.”

“We need bows.”

“Crossbows? So we can be like them?”

“No. We need longbows. So we can kill them. You can shoot a longbow ten times before a skagger can reload once.”

There was Wing’s plain home, a warehouse with one of the concrete wall slabs leaning out, and his barn of concrete block and fibreglass panels. There was old Wing himself, bent over a half-handled shovel, digging up spuds with his crew. His dogs saw Frost’s wagons and came running.

“God almighty, Tyrell” said Frost. “Like Robin Hood?”

“Who’s Robin Hood?”

Frost shook his head. “I never wanted to be a general.”

Tyrell said “I always did.”

Wing saw them and unbent himself slowly and waved his shovel.

Wing’s crew, led by half a dozen young women whose arms were dirty up to the elbows, approached to talk with the guards. The women were barefoot and wore sleeveless rag-stitched dresses and had gap-toothed smiles. There were a few children among them, including an adolescent girl. Marpole and Hastings unhitched Beauty and the steers and led them away to be watered. Tyrell let the dogs loose. With Wing’s dogs they raced off toward the river in a pack. Frost and Wing walked side by side, Tyrell a little distance away.

Wing said “I think my girls like your boys.”

“Some things at least endure” said Frost. “Would you let any of them come to my farm to stay, if it came to that?”

“Let them? You think I would have a say in the matter?”

“Well, they would be welcome. How’s your water?”

“That rain come none too soon. It’s a bitch haulin’ it up from the river. How is that water wheel comin’ along?”

“Good. It’s coming good. Daniel Charlie will get back to work on it as soon as the harvest is over.”

Dead leaves of potato plants formed a mottled carpet through which rose a ragged stubble of weeds.

“I like them shoes” said Wing. “Gucci?” He threw his head back and laughed.

Frost managed a tight smile.

Tyrell called, his words like a series of gunshots “Who’s Gucci? Friend of Robin Hood’s?”

“Yep” said Wing. “One of the Merry Men.”

They came to the riverbank. There was a wide pool at the water’s edge, ringed with rocks. The horse and the steers drank. The dogs had already finished and were playing or scrutinizing smells.

“You going to stay and visit?” asked Wing.

“No, we’ve got business farther east. It’s a good hike. We better keep going.”

“Skag business?”

Frost nodded. “There’s no use wishing we had real medicine, because we don’t.”

“He kilt someone at the market.”

“Noor told me. This is new. It bothers me. I don’t want to have to…”

“It ain’t new.”

Frost looked at him.

Wing said “What do you think he does with his workers when they get too addicted and messed up to work?”

“You’re saying…?”

“I told you.” called Tyrell.

“He sent me a message” said Wing

“Langley?”

“Hemlock the Messenger come yesterday. He says, ‘Langley sends you a message. This is the message. “I hear you got a nice farm. I like farms.”’”

Frost said “You know he took over Fundy’s Bridge?”

“I know.”

6

The day grew dark. A frigid wind blew. They crossed an area of ruined asphalt grown over with brush and thistle. A quarter-mile to the east, between the tops of the scrub they could see Skaggers’ Bridge. They could not find a trail. The wagons bumped and tottered over bulges and through dips and sharp-edged holes. The guards cursed and protested and finally jumped down from the wagon and walked, carrying their spears and each holding the twine leash of a dog. Tyrell sprang down and took the leash of King and walked out in front of his men. The group went ahead of Frost and called out if they found a clear way for Beauty and the wagon. Marpole’s steers hesitated, lurched and made slow progress.

Boundary shouted “Look at this. Do we want it?”

When Frost came up beside him he saw that it was a car wheel half hidden under blackberry vine. It still had the tire. Frost nodded. Boundary and Newton dug it out, and when Marpole caught up they heaved it into his wagon.

They angled south. They passed the remains of an industrial building. Parts of the roof and a wall were intact but there was no sign of habitation. Frost said “No one wants to live here, not even squatters.”

The brush thinned. They could see the raised approach to the bridge. “The dogs smell somethin’” said Tyrell. Indeed, the animals all pulled their handlers forward. Ahead a single crow flew up. King barked at it, once, then strained forward again.

Frost stopped his wagon and got down. The men and dogs stood looking at some bones. Almost all the flesh was gone but vegetation had not yet completely grown over the bones, which were wildly askew. A shin had come loose but rested nearby with its foot. The bones were human. Tyrell made a motion with his head and handed King’s leash to Frost, and Frost and the guards pulled the dogs back. Tyrell squatted down and bent his face close to the bones but did not touch them. Soon he stood. “Throat cut” he said.

They went on and came to an old road and crossed it and passed several more derelict structures and then crossed the approach to the bridge itself where it curved west at ground level. There was a trail beside the road. On this trail they stopped. Beyond was Langley’s poppy field.

It was only an odd-shaped few acres, merging at the edges into brown grass, fireweed, thistles and scrub. The poppy plants were short and sickly, the leaves browning. Three quarters of the field was only stems, with weeds between. At the far end a handful of men and women moved from plant to plant, breaking off the pods. They dropped the pods into plastic basins or black plastic bags on the ground. The workers were as thin as the stems they left behind. One of the women had a skirt of rags. One of the men had a torn poncho. The rest had nothing.

The wind picked up. There were spits of rain. Frost and his men stood looking at Langley’s poppy field, silent. The dogs sat at their feet.

Finally Tyrell spoke. “Second crop, must be.”

Beyond, there was brush, thinner at regular intervals where foundations and old basement floors restrained its growth. A few chimneys or fragments of chimneys rose above the desolation.

Frost shook his head. “Let’s get this done.” The guards lifted the dogs into their wagon and climbed up themselves. Tyrell climbed up beside Frost, and the wagons started along the trail toward Langley’s driveway.

Langley’s house was square, box-shaped, two storeys, with white vinyl siding. The roof had a shallow slope and was covered in asphalt shingles of pale green with a few irregular patches of darker green and some individual black shingles. All the windows had glass. At the top of some concrete steps was a warped and faded door of cedar panels.

But there were five or six sprawling one-storey additions. The tilting walls of these additions were covered mostly by crooked sheets of rotting fibreboard. There were glass windows but with dark skewed gaps around the window frames. On some of the walls strips of vinyl siding overlapped haphazardly or hung loose, twisting in the cold wind.

There was a carport. In the carport was a two-wheeled vehicle, a kind of rickshaw, with its shafts resting on the ground. Frost recognized other items stored in the carport: a white upright piano, on top of which sat a rusted toaster, a laptop computer and a black ceramic table lamp with no shade.

There was a zone of weedy gravel all around the house.

A path ran down the edge of the field to a second house. This was a single-storey structure, with walls of disintegrating corrugated fibreglass, concrete blocks, rotted fibreboard, some vinyl siding, some black asphalt shingles. The single window was clear polyethylene. The roof appeared to be boards covered with bits of poly held down with stones and broken concrete blocks.

Between that structure and Langley’s house was an open-ended A-frame of corrugated fibreglass and concrete block, six feet wide. Inside the A-frame was an ancient wood stove with two large aluminum pots on it. Steam and smoke from the stove blew out the far end of the A-frame. A man squatted near the stove. He had a carpenter’s hammer and with it was smashing poppy pods on a flat sheet of metal on the ground. He worked slowly, straining to raise the hammer, letting it fall. He was as skinny as the other workers. He wore a wool kilt. Stringy grey-brown hair lay against his back. Near the A-frame there was a soggy mound of poppy dross, and beside that a pile of split cordwood covered in plastic.

Marpole stopped his wagon, and he and the guards and dogs got out. They followed Frost’s wagon as he turned down the driveway. Tyrell said “Hold them dogs.” Frost felt for his sword. It was not there.

The workers in the field turned and stared.

A door on the house side of Langley’s carport opened. Five guards came out of the house. Two of them had spears and swords. Three had crossbows. The bowstrings had already been pulled back and fixed in place.

“Those are leafs from old car springs” said Frost.

“Longbows” said Tyrell. “We need longbows.”

The guards formed a line in front of the carport. Frost swung his wagon so that they had to step back out of his way. He turned Beauty again. The back of the wagon was now lined up with the concrete steps below the front door. Frost got off the wagon. Tyrell came around and stood beside him, with his spear gripped for throwing.

Marpole stopped his wagon on the trail. The dogs jumped down, with Frost’s guards holding their leashes. Marpole and Hastings and the guards — Boundary, Newton, Oak and Richmond — lined up facing Langley’s guards twenty feet away. Each held his spear upright in his right hand. Each took another wrap of his dog’s leash with his left.

At the top of the steps the cedar door opened. Langley’s big guard Freeway stepped out and stood there for a few seconds, looking puzzled. He had his poncho and his cut-down rubber boots and a drawn sword. Tyrell snickered loudly. Freeway came down the steps and stood at the back of the wagon, and started his eyeball battle with Tyrell, who only nodded and smiled benignly.

Frost looked over toward the dogs and shouted “Speak up.”

The dogs leapt forward snarling and roaring, but Frost’s guards held them back. Langley’s guards stumbled backward, cursing. One of them tripped over a shaft of the rickshaw and sat heavily. Another accidentally fired off his crossbow. The bolt sailed high over Frost’s guards and came down in distant scrub.

Frost shouted “Settle down.” and the dogs fell silent but remained ready. Frost’s guards and the dogs took a step forward.

“I hope that was an accident” said Hastings.

The guard who had fired his crossbow tried to say something but could not. He nodded. The guard who had fallen stood up.

Langley stepped out of the door at the top of the steps. He was wearing a leather jacket, mostly colourless but black around the shoulders.

Frost took off his glasses and held them up to the light and wiped the few specks of rain off with the hem of his shirt and put them on again.

“Frost” said Langley. “What the hell is all this?”

Frost walked to the back of the wagon. There was a tailgate from a pickup truck. It said, very faintly, Toyota. Frost undid a catch and lowered the tailgate. A dozen potatoes rolled off the wagon.

Langley said “Just have your men take the spuds in downstairs.”

On one side of the wagon was a car’s steering wheel. Frost started turning it. The front of the wagon bed rose slightly. Frost kept turning the wheel. The wagon bed creaked loudly and kept rising. Potatoes spilled out the back. Potatoes at the front of the load tumbled toward the rear. Frost turned the wheel more. With a roar the whole load of spuds slid from his wagon. Freeway had not moved. He stood there holding his sword, up to his knees in root vegetables.

Tyrell doubled over blasting out his ear-splitting laugh. Frost lowered the wagon bed and closed the tailgate. He picked up a potato and wiped the dirt off and went and let Beauty eat it from his hand.

Langley remained at the top of his steps. He said “You bring an army to deliver potatoes. I always heard you was nuts, now I know it. Now get your goddamn crew off my property.” He turned to go back inside.

Frost looked in Langley’s direction at last. He said “Why’d you take Fundy’s bridge?”

Langley came halfway down the steps. His voice grew high pitched. His face grew red. “That there Fundy is a cranky old bastard, ain’t he. I’m stayin’ out of his way till he calms down. Then I’m going to tell him he ought to shift his crew over to your place. You got room. You also got the milk of human kindness. He’ll see reason.”

“So you want his farm. I thought so. Well, Fundy’s not interested in moving.”

“He better get interested. You tell him that, Frost. That trip to Town ain’t getting’ any shorter. I got better ways to spend my time than travelin’ all day.” He came all the way down the steps, gritted his teeth and punched Freeway hard in the kidney. Freeway cried out and dropped his sword. Langley picked it up. His face was blood-bright. He screamed “Get out of them potatoes. Get out or I’ll skewer your gizzard.”

Freeway pulled a foot out and stepped to the side of the pile. He pulled the other foot out. His cut-down rubber boot stayed behind. Tyrell laughed again. Langley glared at Tyrell, who hefted his spear and smiled back.

Frost strolled between his guards and Langley’s and stood looking into Langley’s poppy field. He said “You’ve got your own town.”

Langley walked behind Frost’s guards. Tyrell followed Langley. Langley still had Freeway’s sword. He walked past Frost and turned and faced him.

“Town?” he said. His voice had an angry whine to it. “You call Wesminister a town? It’s not a town, it’s a hole, and the hole is empty. Nothing left that I could use. All gone. Just a lot of drug addicts scrounging around for something to trade and not finding it.” He spat between his feet and Frost’s. He turned and faced his field. “Just like these sad losers.”

The workers, who had been watching the events up by the house, went back to work. They moved mechanically but very slowly, bending to grasp a pod with one hand, working to break it free, dropping the pod into a container.

Langley said bitterly “You’re lookin’ at more residents of the famous town of Wesminister, as soon as the crop is all in. More useless scroungers for the famous town.” Frost and he watched the workers for another minute. “There’s a whole other town full of stuff and full of people lookin’ for work just across Fundy’s bridge. No way I can stay here. Tell Fundy that.”

Frost said “You killed someone at the market.”

Langley shrugged, and did not turn when he spoke. “I did. True. That tall one-shoed lump of meat I got that looks somethin’ like a man ain’t completely useless. What do you think of my jacket? Real leather. When’s the last time you seen a real leather jacket, old man?” Suddenly he turned to Frost. “Speakin’ of meat, have you got any? You’ve got a farm — you must have some meat.”

Frost said “Show me your field” and took a step forward.

Langley blocked his path. “No way, farmer. You stay the hell away from my crop.”

Over Langley’s shoulder Frost was watching one of the female workers come up the path, carrying a basin heaped with pods. She was naked and walked very slowly. Her skin was brown from the weather and was shrunken against her ribs. Her arms and legs were sticks. She dumped her basin in the A-frame, near the man who was crushing pods, and started back to the field.

Langley turned to see what Frost was looking at. He smiled. He called to the woman “Hey. Come here.” The woman turned. “Yeah, you. Get up here. Move it.”

The woman came up the path. She held her grimy blue basin by its edge and let it hang at her side. There was no expression on her face. “I said move it.” She managed a slow trot and soon stood before the two men. Langley said to Frost “I will trade all of my horses for that one of yours.” He pushed the woman toward the rickshaw, wiped the hand that had touched her on his jeans, walked behind his guards and climbed up onto the seat. The woman stood between the shafts. “Let’s go, horsy.” She bent, gripped the shafts and stood. She leaned forward, straining. “Off to town, horsy.” Langley leaned forward and with the point of the sword jabbed her in a buttock. The hard wheels ground on the gravel. The woman pulled the rickshaw out of the carport.

Langley’s guards stepped out of the way. Newton and Richmond also stepped aside. The dogs started a confused barking. The woman pulled the rickshaw up the driveway.

Frost commanded “Settle down.” and the dogs were quiet again.

Although he was holding his bruised kidney, Freeway laughed, a deep and helpless haw haw haw. At the top of the driveway the rickshaw turned and came back. Langley got out and walked over to Freeway. The woman fell to her knees, gasping. Langley said to Freeway “Guess who the horse is next time we go to Town.”

Freeway stopped laughing and said “Aw, Langley.”

Langley handed Freeway his sword and took a potato and went and held it out to the woman. He said “Have a spud.” She took the potato and bit into it. Langley went and stood near Frost again and said “Trade me that workhorse. I’ll give you skag forever.”

Frost said “What would it take for you to give Fundy back his bridge?”

Langley scratched his head. “Now that’s a question. Jeez, Frost, a bridge is expensive. I mean, what would you trade your bridge for? But I’m a businessman, ain’t I. So, let’s see…. Well, as you might have noticed, there’s not a hell of a lot of healthy, good-lookin’ women around. But that Noor of yours…. I would say that Noor of yours is definitely bridge material.”

Frost said “Let’s go home, boys.”

Langley shrugged and said “Whatever” and turned and called down to the man in the A-frame “Stevie. Give her a taste.”

The woman got up and ran. She pushed Boundary aside. His dog snapped at her. Langley’s guards got out of her way, as did Frost, who watched her run down the path to the A-frame.

As she neared, the man in the A-frame stood and turned. For a few seconds, Frost froze. Then he took off his glasses and held them six inches in front of his eyes and squinted. He put the glasses back on and turned to his guards and dogs and said “Speak up.” The dogs roared and snarled and strained at their leashes. Frost stepped through the dogs and up beside Marpole and said to him “I need one minute.” Then he backed away.

Marpole gave King some slack. The dog lunged at Langley. Langley backed toward the rickshaw. Frost’s other guards also let the dogs tug them forward. Langley’s guards all took a step back. Langley said “What the hell? Kill this dog, will you!” But Langley’s guards faced six dogs and six spears. They hesitated. They backed up. The guard who had tripped over the shaft tripped over it again. Tyrell ran down the path, behind Frost.

The woman had received her pinch of skag and was walking toward the other workers through the stems, with her basin and her potato. The man Langley had called Stevie stood in the entrance of the A-frame, with the hammer dangling at his side. He was tall. His long matted beard was brown like his hair but had more grey in it. The moustache drooped over his mouth. The skin of his face looked dead, as if it could be peeled away like wallpaper. One of his eyes was blue. The other one was green.

Hardly slowing, Frost collided with the man, throwing his arms around him. They almost stumbled against the stove. Frost hugged the man and said into his bare shoulder “You’re alive, Steveston. We all thought….” He stepped back and looked into the man’s eyes and gripped the man’s shoulders and gave him a little shake. The man stood there with his arms hanging. Frost took the man’s free hand and pulled him out of the A-frame. He said “Let’s go. You’re coming home.”

The man jerked his hand free. He said “Don’t talk to me.”

Frost hesitated, said “Don’t you remember me? You can’t have forgotten. Does the skag do that?”

“Don’t talk to me. He won’t like it.”

Frost reached for the man’s hand again. “No, Steveston. You’re coming. I’ll protect you. I won’t let him hurt you.”

The man raised the hammer. “Can’t you see what I am?” he hissed. “I have to stay. Go away. Go away quick or he’ll kill me.”

Frost looked over his shoulder. King had backed Langley up against the rickshaw, but Langley was watching Frost and the man. Frost looked down at the pile of pods the woman had dumped. Then he pushed the man, who stumbled back against the stove. Some water slopped over the top of the two pots and hissed on the hot surface. The man spun to steady the pots. Frost bent and snatched three of the driest-looking pods. He backed away a few paces, then turned and walked with Tyrell up the path. In the A-frame the man squatted, took a pod, set it on the metal plate and hit it with the hammer. He turned his head to watch Frost walk away. Then he took another pod.

As Frost passed, Langley cried amid the dogs’ uproar “Give me them pods, god damn you. You god damn thief! You ain’t gettin’ no more skag off me.”

Tyrell took King’s leash. Marpole walked with Frost to the wagon. They climbed up, Marpole took the reins and they started up the driveway. When Frost’s wagon was on the trail Tyrell hushed the dogs, and he and his men and the dogs backed up the driveway to the other wagon as Langley screamed curses.

Marpole did not go back through the area of brush and asphalt but headed over Skaggers’ Bridge. For a while Frost stared at the slope of the erosion-scarred hill of Wesminister where it plunged down to the river, the few makeshift dwellings amid broom and blackberry vine, the deserted concrete towers further up the river. North of the river a line of burnt-off mountains receded to the east. Frost set the three poppy pods on the seat beside him, and placed his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands and did not look up for some time.

At the north end of the bridge they passed three guards with swords and spears. A half dozen filthy, thin, ragged or naked people waited their turn to barter. They had dirty plastic bags with the names of stores, a knob for a cupboard door, a few feet of electrical wiring. The guards let Frost’s wagons pass.

They unhitched the wagons and watered the animals at the river, then headed west along Marine Trail. Frost sat slumped, silent. After about ten miles they crossed over Wing’s Bridge and watered the animals again and turned west on the River Trail.

As his bridge drew close, Frost said “Don’t tell her.”

7

Frost and Will left the domicile. Frost said “Today’s the day it goes over.”

Will said “You always say that” and turned to look back and up at the tilting domicile.

“Hey, don’t look at it.”

“Why not?”

“That could be what does it.”

“Lookin’ at it? Could make it fall over?”

“The destructive effect of looking. Never heard of that? I knew your education was deficient.”

First they passed the piles of inventory, as Frost called it. Concrete building blocks stacked six high, ten across, ten deep. Ten or twelve such piles with corridors between them six feet wide. Near the last edge of the last pile, under plastic weighted with three of those blocks, lay one and a half bags of cement powder. Frost stopped and stared down at the bags and the weeds growing around the plastic and shook his head and sighed.

Will said “You sigh a lot. Noor says so too” and a while later, as they passed a stack of two-by-fours, which was more or less squared off and was under weighted plastic as well “Grampa, there’s no such thing. You can’t make somethin’ happen just by lookin’ at it.”

Frost extended his hand and the boy took it and they walked on. There was more lumber, sorted by size. There were coils of electrical wire. Pyramids of white plastic gas pipe a palm’s width in diameter, piles of copper plumbing gone green. There were fibreglass panels. There was vinyl siding. There was an exposed stack of asphalt shingles, the top layer growing a mane of dense moss.

It was cloudy and chilly and the ground was dry again.

A ways to the south, beyond the old highway, house foundations — some with rows of steel studs, a few with one or two whole walls — were ranged in a receding perspective. In some of the nearer rectangles workers were harvesting fall vegetables. “Welcome to the burbs” muttered Frost. And sighed. They walked past Daniel Charlie’s workshop, a small one-storey building with a wide crack on one wall that plunged among the concrete blocks in the shape of a dark lightning bolt. The building still had part of a sign with the word Collision.

The rapid transit bridge swooped southwest across the river and attached itself to Frost’s land like a pale and stubborn growth. Frost and Will stopped to pee against a pillar. “The destructive power of urine” said Frost.

Far ahead they heard a woman’s angry voice. Will stopped. Frost said “Fire won’t hurt you.”

“She shouts at me. She throws rocks at me.”

“She shouts at everyone. She throws rocks at everyone. What can I do, tell her to go away? She was here before you were born. Come on, we’ll make a wide circle.”

They walked into the farm’s fields, which were haphazard patches of delta soil among mounds of collapsed and overgrown buildings, among foundations of wooden structures gone decades before for firewood, among irrigation ditches dug willy-nilly. The fields ran up to a hay-stubble slope beside the old highway where it rose to meet Little Bridge, and continued south beyond the highway.

Frost and Will walked on the uneven dug-up earth, on the sparse carpet of dead leaves, through the widespread workers and the several wagons with their black and white steers. Everyone was out, the guards, the old folks, the few children, none of them near Will’s age.

Fire worked alone. No one within fifty yards. Her voice was shrill. “I know what you’re up to” she hollered. “You can’t fool me. The spuds tell me everythin’.” She bent and put a hand to her ear and cocked her head like a robin. “Oh, is that so?” she said loudly. “Evil plans, is it? Well, don’t worry, spuds, I got my own plans.”

Will would not turn in her direction. Frost called “Good morning, Fire.”

Fire was silent for a few seconds as she stood with her dirty hands on her hips, watching Frost and Will pass. She was a pretty woman, although many of her teeth were missing. She had reddish hair in loose tangled waves gone mostly to grey and wore a short rag dress. She picked up a potato and threw it, but it landed far short.

Frost spotted Daniel Charlie, and he and Will walked on toward him.

Fire started up again. “I know what you’re plannin’, Frost. The spuds tell me everythin’.”

Frost tried not to walk faster.

“Frost, Frost, I seen Zahra.”

Frost stopped. Will said “Never mind, Grampa. Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s just crazy.”

Fire called “She come to tell me what you’re up to. She come down the river on the midnight tide from the farm of the Ghost Crew.”

They moved on, and now it was Frost who would not look at Fire. Will picked up a stone and threw it at her.

“No, no, Will. She can’t help it. She sees things.”

Fire called “She said it was you kilt her. She said I better move in with the Ghost Crew before it’s too late. She said listen to the spuds.”

They walked on.

She called to their backs “Will, you shot up like a weed. When you going to visit me? I got somethin’ to show you. Lookit, Will, look what I got to show you.”

“Don’t turn, Will.”

“I know. She’s always tryin’ to show it to me.”

Daniel Charlie was talking to the field boss, Deas, who was sitting on the seat of the big wagon behind Beauty. Frost stopped a good distance away and pulled Will toward him and hugged him briefly and kissed him on the head, and Will went off to work with the others beyond the wagon. Deas got off the wagon and walked along beside Will with a hand on his shoulder.

Daniel Charlie came over to Frost. He was tall, almost as tall as Frost, and his hair was as white. He had a wispy white moustache but was otherwise beardless. He was darker skinned than Frost and wore his hair in a braid. He had an eagle feather tied into it, but almost all the barbs had worn away so that only a triangle remained at the end.

Frost said “When you going to get a new feather?”

“As soon as the eagles come back.”

“That may be a while. You better pluck a tail feather from one of the chickens.”

“You grow a chicken big enough and I just might do that.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile, I’ve got a job for you.”

“If I can stop pickin’ spuds, I’m your man. What is it, the waterwheel? We won’t need to water the fields till next summer.”

“No, it’s something else. Do you think you could make some bows?”

“Bows? Like that?” He nodded down at Frost’s dusty shoes. “You want me to tie your new shoes for you? What, you getting’ too old to bend down?” Daniel Charlie laughed.

Frost stood there nodding for a few seconds, appearing to wait for a comeback that never came. “Different kind of bow” he said.

“Tyrell’s been talkin’ to you.”

“Can you?”

“Bows with an s. As in more than one. Damn it, Frost, I never thought it would come to this.”

Frost sighed. “I know. Me neither. It may not come to anything, Daniel. But skagger Langley’s been acting weird.”

“So I heard. Yes, I can make some bows.”

“You’ve got the right wood?”

“If the bows are going to have any kind of power they’ll have to be laminated. Two kinds of wood, one kind for the front and a different kind for the back. I’ve got some maple floorin’, and I’ve got some oak floorin’. I’ve got tons of fir.”

“Glue?”

“I made some a while back. If it hasn’t dried up. What do you plan to shoot in these bows? You’re not going to ask me to make the arrows too, are you? Because…”

“No, I’ve got an idea for the arrows. I’ll have them ready as soon as you’re done with the first bow.”

“Come on, I’ll show you my floorin’.”

“I doubt if I could stand the excitement. I think I’ll pick some spuds.”

8

Many years before, a young man sits in the backseat of a taxi in a traffic jam in Dubai. His dark curly hair grazes the roof. He wears a pressed short-sleeved blue shirt, a yellow tie with a picture of Karl Marx, and wire-rim glasses. Beside him on the seat lies a black canvas shoulder bag with the logo Mountain Equipment Co-op. The taxi has not moved for thirty minutes. The driver, who has a neat moustache and a white shirt and tie, turns and says something that the young man cannot hear because of the din of blaring car horns. The young man leans closer. The driver says “The time has come to take care of yourself, sir.”

“What? Sorry, what do you mean?”

“You must take care of yourself now, sir. I cannot take you any farther.”

“I have to walk?”

“Yes, I am sorry, sir.”

The young man reaches for his wallet.

The driver says “I am walking too. Could you help me? I am going to Pakistan.”

The young man falls back in his seat. He looks out the window. The sidewalk is as jammed as the street. People stand there looking anxious and confused, holding their hands above their eyes against the sun. Many talk into mobile phones. A blond European man in a cream-coloured linen suit, carrying a leather briefcase, walks past the young man’s cab. A few seconds later he passes in the other direction. Ten seconds after that he passes again, running, knocking people aside. The young man says to the driver “You are going to leave your taxi?”

“Yes sir.”

“And you are going to go home to Pakistan?”

“I am, sir.”

“Why?”

“There is no point in staying here. It is finished. There is no food in the stores. There is no petrol. That is why we have this traffic jam. Everybody is leaving. If I can’t get a plane I will get a boat. Can you help me, please?”

The young man looks out the window some more. Then he opens his wallet. He does not have air fare to Pakistan. But neither does he have enough to worry about keeping. He gives what he has to the driver, who says “Thank you, sir. You should go too. Can I ask, where is your home, sir?”

“Canada.”

“It is all finished. All finished.” The driver turns off the engine but leaves the keys in the ignition. He gets out of the taxi and heads down the street between the jammed cars. He makes better time than the people on the sidewalk.

The young man sits there for a minute, but it becomes unbearably hot with the air conditioning off. He sighs and takes his shoulder bag and gets out. The honking is a wall of sound so solid it seems to be an aspect of the day itself, like the smell of exhaust fumes carried on the hot wind, like the sky murky with dust, like the blasting heat. He loosens his tie and stands like many of the others, looking equally anxious, equally confused. Above the level of the car roofs in the street move the heads of hundreds of drivers or passengers who have now left their cars. The sidewalk is crammed with more and more people, Arabs, Indians, Philippinos, Europeans, some wanting to go one way, some wanting to go another, many seeming not to know what they want.

He looks around. Almost invisible in the hot grey sky, above office towers, he sees the pointed top of a building, monstrously tall, fading as it rises in the dust of the atmosphere. For a few seconds he stares at it and fingers his Karl Marx tie. The corners of his mouth turn down in sadness or anger or confusion. Nearby, well back from the road, beyond waving palms and colour-coordinated plantings he sees the half-completed sinews and curves of playful architecture. He sees building cranes, unmoving, sleeping like real cranes in the heat and dust. People are now pouring out the doors. A few workers are coming down off scaffolds. As far as he can see in either direction the many-laned road is crusted with stopped cars. He sees gusts of sand sliding between the cars and the sidewalk, piling up against wheels and against the curb. He wipes blown grit from his eye. He takes his mobile from his bag and calls a number.

“Susan? What? I can’t hear you. Sorry…what? Listen, I’m…” Someone crashes into him. He is pushed along. His phone is knocked from his hand.

The AC is still working in the school. The young man goes into the bathroom off the admin area and sets his shoulder bag and his glasses on the counter and washes his face with cold water and undoes his shirt and washes the sweat from his chest and neck and armpits with damp paper towels. He dries himself and puts on his glasses and does up his shirt and snugs up his Karl Marx tie and goes out.

Tony Walsh, one of the Science teachers, is screaming at Muna, the secretary. “I don’t care if the accountant’s not here! I want my pay and I want it now! Call the principal! Call her at home! Call her in Denver or wherever the hell she’s run away to! I’m leaving, don’t you get it? The school owes me money!”

Muna just sits there and weeps. Tony says. “Useless bitch” and walks away past the young man but then turns around and pushes the young man aside and goes back and starts screaming at Muna again.

The halls are empty. The young man goes into his classroom. There is one student, Oleg.

He sits down at his desk and stares at Oleg for a minute. Oleg says “You are late, sir.”

“Do you have your mobile phone?” asks the young man.

“We are not supposed to have our mobiles at school, sir.”

“Do you have it?”

Oleg nodded.

“Can I borrow it?

“It does not work. No service.”

“Where are the other students?”

Oleg shrugs.

“I guess you’d better go.”

“I am waiting for my driver. I called when there was still service.”

“Where do you live?”

“Not too far.”

“Does the metro go there?”

“The metro is not working.”

The young man waits, then says “I don’t think your driver will be coming. You can walk home or you can stay here. The advantage of staying here is that there is air conditioning. But it may not be working for long. The advantage of walking home is that your family might still be there.” The young man rises from his desk and goes to the door of the classroom and turns and nods to Oleg and goes out.

Madame Bourguiba, the French teacher, is sitting on the floor, leaning back against the lockers. She is pale and shaking. The young man tries to help her up but she jerks her arm away. He walks toward the staff room. He opens the door to each classroom he passes and looks in. Most are empty. Two of them have a few students. In another, Janet McPherson, the drama teacher, is comforting a single female student. He can still hear Tony Walsh shrieking, and he can hear the car horns.

He goes into the staff room. It is empty except for Mohammed Al Massoud. There is coffee in the urn. He takes a mug and sits down at a coffee table, across from Mohammed, who says “Good morning, Frost.”

For some reason this is funny. They both laugh for a minute.

Mohammed wears a white Arab robe and sandals but no head covering. He is clean shaven. A substantial belly bulges under the loose robe. He is well jowled and has hooded eyes and massive grey eyebrows. A circle of amber worry beads crawls sedately over the fingers of his right hand.

The young man says “Fatima Bourguiba is sitting on the floor.”

Mohammad only nods.

The young man says “The classrooms are empty. No students, no teachers.”

Mohammed says “You came to Dubai too late, young Frost. Bad timing. You should have seen.”

“I know.” There is a minute of silence. “And what about you, Mohammed? Shouldn’t you have seen?”

“Oh well, what could I do? God’s will.”

“Such a useful excuse.”

“Tremendously useful.”

“As always.”

They smile.

“I don’t suppose there’s a newspaper.”

“Frost, really.”

“Radio? News?”

“Try the internet.”

Frost half rises, but just then the lights in the staff room go out, and the air conditioning stops. Subdued light enters through a tinted window.

“Damn” says Frost and sits again. “Is it really that serious?”

“Young Frost, it is as serious as it can possibly get. Well, no — it’s the beginning of things being as serious as they can possibly get. Things will, I think, continue to deteriorate for some time to come. But anyway, here we are at work. What used to be work. I am surprised that you came. Very surprised.”

“Why? You came.”

“Actually, you have an excuse, being an English teacher. Head in the clouds and so forth. Me, I’m an economist. Hard-headed sort, supposedly. Whatever happens, serves me right.”

Frost sits for a while, frowning at his mug of coffee the way he frowned at the tall building. Without looking up he sighs and says “Yes, I knew it was coming. Of course I did. It didn’t take a genius. What have we been talking about here in the staff room for the last year? Even before that, long before I came to Dubai, I knew. Natural resources were used up. People were already starving because the world couldn’t produce enough food. Too many people, too much prosperity for a few including us, starvation for the rest. I read about the wars, the riots. I knew one day soon it would probably just all collapse.”

“We were all gambling, weren’t we, Frost — gambling on getting out before it fell apart.” Mohammad slides the beads steadily, nodding. He says “I guess you’re a bigger gambler than most. Most teachers knew better than you or I and hightailed it — is that the word? — …”

“Yes.”

“…hightailed it while the hightailing was good.”

“The pay was ridiculous, Mohammed. The worse things got, the better the pay.”

“The sheikhs were desperate to hold it together.” Mohammad gives a low, bitter chuckle.

“I just wanted enough to go home and build my boat and sail around for a while.” Frost sighs again.

“Ah, Frost, still full of naive dreams.” With difficulty on account of his paunch he reaches across the table. He takes Frost’s hand, pats it. He releases the hand and sits back again. “Let me tell you about boats. Do you know the army is deployed along the beach to drive back the thousands of Iranians and Pakistanis in boats who are trying to get away from starvation and epidemics in their own countries? Soon the soldiers will get fed up with not being paid, and they will walk away. Then the hordes will descend on the city, and the looting will start. The chaos. Of course the foreign labourers will want their share too, and who can blame them? They built this city — why shouldn’t they have a piece of it?” He takes a sip of his coffee, grimaces, sets the mug down. “Blame me for the coffee. There was no one else to make it. Anyway, Frost, things aren’t actually very bad yet. Not for us. But perhaps we shouldn’t linger too long over this disgusting coffee.”

“What about you, Mohammad? What will you do?”

“Me? Oh, I will go home to Al Ain. Somehow. My family has a big farm there. It’s a good place to survive. Lots of water. I’m looking forward to it, actually.” But he sounds resigned, worried. He says with quiet amusement “The joy has gone out of living in Dubai.”

“No kidding.”

“Gone forever now. This magnificent and hideous shrine to money. I suppose the desert will take it all back. Our farm will have to be protected, of course. That is the part I am not crazy about. Like a generation ago, before law and order. If the world economy hasn’t collapsed completely, maybe I can locate a few light machine guns, inshallah. Ammunition — that will be the problem.”

Frost stares again at his mug of coffee, untouched on the table. “Well, it appears the time has come at last to go home and build my boat. I hope.” He manages a sardonic grin. He stands up.

Mohammed looks up at Frost. There is no amusement now in his face. The amber beads freeze in his hand.” He says “If the planes are still flying. If there is fuel. If there is wood for your boat. If there is steel for the nails. If there are factories to make the nails, and power for the factories. If there is food for you to eat while you are building it. If money still has meaning.” He stands up slowly, with a grunt. “Never mind. Goodbye, young Frost. Please remember me and remember that I liked you very much. Go home now and get your wife and go to the airport.”

“Will we get out, do you think? Everybody must be trying to leave.”

“This is a country of foreigners, and of course lots of people suddenly think things will be better at home. Wherever that may be.” Mohammed shrugs. “Well, maybe they’re right. Don’t worry, my brother is well placed at the airport.” He takes his mobile phone from a pocket of his robe.

“There’s no service” says Frost.

Mohammed puts the phone away. “I will write you a note.”

Frost gives him a pad of foolscap from his shoulder bag, and a pen. They both sit again. Then there is a noise. It is like the car horns but different, closer, getting louder. Janet McPherson comes through the staff room door. She is carrying a bundle in her arms. This is the source of the noise. She walks quickly to the coffee table and sets the bundle down near Frost’s coffee mug. In a gap in a pink blanket Frost sees the face of a very young baby, red, wailing. He and Mohammed stare at it with stunned and fearful expressions. Janet McPherson says “Someone left it in an empty classroom.” She turns and runs from the staff room.

Frost leaps up and runs after her. At the door he calls “Janet! Janet!” She does not answer or look back but continues running down the darkened hallway. The sound of her heels fades. She passes Madame Bourguiba, and in the weak light of the distant admin area she turns and is gone.

When Frost comes back into the staff room Mohammed is standing near the door, holding the baby. It has stopped crying. There is a slight smell of fresh urine and of sour milk. Mohammed carefully turns the baby so that they can see its face. Frost sees that the black eyes can focus.

Mohammed says “She is a Muslim, so it is only right that I should take her.”

“Good God, Mohammed!”

“It is my duty, actually. But the truth is that she will have a better chance with you. May Allah forgive me.”

Frost’s eyes grow wide. He tries to say something but chokes on the words. Then he finds himself holding the child. The black eyes clutch his face like a pair of tongs. Mohammed sees that Frost feels faint and steadies both Frost and the child. Finally frost says “Mohammed, no… How can I…? I mean…”

“Don’t worry about getting her out. I will add another sentence to the note. They won’t keep her out of Canada, not in these circumstances. Speaking of notes…”

There is a wrinkled piece of paper pinned to the baby’s blanket. Frost turns the child more so that they can read what is written on it. He sees jagged English letters printed in red. ZAHRA. There is also some Arabic script. As Mohammed straightens the paper to translate, his amber beads slip off his fingers and clatter on the floor.

“It says, Allah protect our child.”

9

Frost stood looking out his ground floor window at rain that fell steadily. “It takes so much light from the world” he said. “That’s the problem. And the whole winter ahead of us.” He watched the water trailing down the window. He touched the pane. “This is one of the few pieces of glass that survived the quake.”

“Rain gives us the opportunity to appreciate such things” said Noor behind him. She was feeding chopped vegetable into a pot in the fireplace.

Frost said “I wish we could get hold of a wood stove. That fireplace sucks all the heat out of the place when its doors are open. Is there rabbit in that?”

“Yes. Rain gives us the opportunity to stay indoors and cook somethin’ good.”

“You’re telling me I should be more positive. Subtle, as always.”

Will was lying in the hammock, reading Principles of War. He said “We should raise them, not just catch them.”

Frost said “Of course. Why did I never think of that? Could you make a trap?”

Will said “I think so. You know who has glass? Kingsway and Night have glass. Arthurlaing’s mom and dad also have glass.”

Noor said “Where did they ever get such a name for their child?”

Will said “Arthurlaing says it was the name of a bridge in the good times.”

Frost turned from the window and said “Can you smell that stink? There must be something dead.”

“A pigeon in one of the empty rooms” said Will.

“No, it’s stronger than that.” Frost went to the door and stepped out into the hallway. Because of the rain, only meagre daylight seeped from the entrance into the long corridor. “It’s stronger out here. I think it’s on this floor.”

Noor came out into the hallway, and Will came too. There was the sound of slow footsteps from the perpetual dark of the stairwell. Daniel Charlie and his woman Jessica emerged. Daniel Charlie said “What’s that stink?” Airport stepped out behind them and sniffed the air. Old Brittany called down the stairwell “Frost. Somethin’ smells.”

Frost said “Noor, stay here with Will.”

He walked down the corridor, through the light at the entrance and on to the end. The others followed. He turned to Daniel Charlie and found only a look of defeat and resignation. Frost opened the door to the spud room. The stink swept out into the corridor. He said “Someone go out and open the shutters.”

It was very dark in the spud room because the single window was covered over by wooden shutters. Frost stepped into the room. Potatoes filled most of it, but there was space to stand against the wall. Frost bent and began clawing potatoes out into the corridor. There was a small scrape of metal, the shutters swung open and the spud room was washed with the insipid light of the day.

There were feet sticking out from under the pile. They were very dirty, and the nails were stunted and ragged. Frost straightened and looked down at the feet. He leaned forward again, but not to bend to the task of clearing away the potatoes. There appeared to be a weight on his shoulders, forcing him downward. Airport stepped into the room and touched Frost on the arm and Frost stepped further into the room and Airport set to clawing potatoes away from the body.

Frost stepped sideways over to the window and leaned against the sill, staring out at the rain. In the corridor there was a loud woman’s cry. There were words barked fearfully, words choked forth in pain. Dead? Who is it? There was a distressed echoing din of voices as the residents of the domicile filled the hallway. Old Brittany still shrieked down from above “Frost. Somethin’ smells.”

Tyrell and Richmond joined Airport, and soon the edge of a short rag dress was revealed, and voices said, It is, yes, and It’s her. A woman started to wail. A man called out “What the hell are we going to eat now? We can’t eat them spuds after a rotten body’s been in them.” Someone else: “It ain’t rotten. It only stinks a little.” There was further high-pitched debate, and new voices joined the wailing and weeping.

The pile was not deep where Fire had wormed into it, or where she had gathered the potatoes over herself. But it was difficult to uncover her face because potatoes kept rolling down from the pile. Airport and Richmond stood and left the spud room. There was brief silence as they passed down the corridor. Tyrell put his hands around the ankles and slid the body out as much as he could. Frost turned now and looked down at it. His blank expression did not change. Tyrell stepped over the body, into the space it had occupied, and knelt and dug among the spuds on either side. He turned to Frost and said “Nothin’.”

There was no blood on the body or on the floor, and no marks that could be seen. Someone said “The poison mushrooms are up.” Someone said “Skag.” Someone said “She decided to die, that’s all.” Someone else: “The spuds told her.” Oak stepped forward, and the voices stopped while he and Tyrell carried the body out of the spud room and down the hallway. Frost returned to the window.

“Frost. What’re we going to eat now?”

“We’ll starve, Frost.”

“We can’t eat them spuds.”

“They stink of a rotten body.”

Frost stepped up the slope of potatoes, holding on to the window sill as they rolled under his feet. He swung a leg over and pushed himself out the window and onto the ground.

There was a new commotion in the hallway. Noor’s voice ordered “Move. Move. Move.” A rusted wheelbarrow filled the doorway. There were three plastic buckets in it. Noor stepped over it and into the room. Her clothes and hair were wet. She filled a bucket with potatoes and handed it to someone without looking, and took another bucket and started filling it. Someone dumped the bucket into the wheelbarrow. Noor said “We put the spuds outside to get washed. We bring them in to dry somewhere. We wash the spud room. We bring the spuds back in. We eat them.”

She pushed the full wheelbarrow down the hallway and out. Daniel Charlie was coming through the rain with another wheelbarrow and more buckets. She dumped the potatoes and spread them out with her feet. Frost was standing nearby, as was Will. Nobody was saying anything. Daniel Charlie came and stood beside Frost and put a hand on his shoulder. Noor went back in for another load. Fire lay a few feet away, appearing to stare up into the rain.

Frost said “I’ll get a shovel.”

Daniel Charlie looked as if he wanted to stop Frost. He looked as if he wanted to say, Not now. Later, when the rain has finished. She’s not goin’ nowhere. But then he shrugged and went and gripped the handles of the wheelbarrow and stood upright and pushed it up the plank walk into the building.

10

As far as he could see in any direction, nothing moved. The water below the bridge was flat. There were no ripples around the wreckage of Fallen Bridge just down the side channel. The cattails at the edge seemed rigid. There was a high layer of cloud. The day was silent and cold. Frost stood alone on Little Bridge. He turned in a slow circle. Through the scratched lenses of his glasses he looked out at his world. Across the river to the north: Fundy’s Bridge and then the slope of Town, barren, treeless, pocked by the remains of houses and cut by erosion gullies. Northwest, the scrubby acres of Fundy’s farm and further west the remains of the airport. South, past the old highway, the ruins of the burbs, a treeless sweep of foundations and small irregular fields and broom and blackberry and thistle and scrub.

Frost came down off the bridge. Beside the old road his shoes crunched the scythed stubble of hay. He saw the empty potato fields, silver in this light, pooled here and there with rain. Upon these fields the silence of the day pressed like a weight. Frost laid a hand against his chest, as if he could feel that burden, and the corners of his mouth turned down. Farther on there were squashes and pumpkins in their sprawling patch. For a while Frost stood and observed these, waiting, as if their colour might in some way improve the silence. But soon he sighed and went on.

He stepped over irrigation ditches.

He walked for a ways beside the rapid transit track. Then he turned north, toward the river. At the water he stood above the old marina and, as he always did for some reason, looked for the rotted shapes of sunken boats that had been washed out to sea decades before. Then he left the river and walked past the graveyard. He did not turn his head toward the graves.

He passed the small barns of dirty concrete block, surrounded by mud. He passed Daniel Charlie’s workshop.

He crossed through the shadow of the domicile. Above him smoke spilled from homemade stovepipes that protruded like spines. The building seemed to lean even more than usual, as if the silence were a burden upon it as well as upon him. The smoke from the stovepipes rose in columns as straight as strings.

He walked on.

Fixed to the side of the clinic was a cross made of red polyethylene. There was no blackberry on this building. The concrete blocks looked new, and the window had glass. As Frost approached the clinic Blackie whined. The dog was tied to a big staple set into the mortar between blocks. Blackie rose up on his hind legs and strained against the twine.

Frost said “You fool, you’ll choke yourself.” He untied Blackie and made the dog stay down, and he opened the door and he and the dog went into the clinic.

There was a concrete block fireplace but it did not work well, and the clinic smelled of peat smoke. Grace sat in a plastic chair at a table made of two-by-fours, in front of a window. Frost said “Should I leave the door open for a minute?”

“What about Blackie?”

“He won’t run.”

There was a sagging couch covered with a patched white sheet. Frost folded this and laid it on the table. He wore a rabbit skin poncho, which he removed and dropped over the back of the couch. He sat. Blackie lay at his feet. Frost said “I wish we had a lock. This close to the trail.”

“The dogs do a good job.”

“I don’t like to tie them. The problem with a lock though, is you have to find one with a key. Fat chance.”

Grace came and sat beside him on the couch and leaned against him. He slid his hands under her shirt. She flinched but did not move away. “Do you know how cold your hands are? Go warm them at the fire.”

“You warm them for me.”

They were quiet for a while. The peat burned with a slight sizzle. When the room felt cold Frost got up and closed the door. When he turned, Grace had also stood. She was leaning on the table, looking out the window.

Frost said “Another god damn winter.” He took five steps to the fireplace, where he squatted and finally did warm his hands.

Grace said “It’s sad about Fire. I’m really sorry.” She spoke in an uneven rhythm, as if she had to plan her sentences while she spoke them. The voice itself was quiet and velvety.

Frost held his hands to the struggling flames.

Grace said “You knew her for so long. She was not an easy person to like, but…”

Frost said “Don’t.”

Grace stood silent for a minute. She sorted some of her things on a shelf. Plastic bags of the dried leaves of blackberry, kinnikinnick, Oregon grape. Pliers. Several needles and some coils of blue and yellow nylon thread. Two litres of alcohol. A few rolls of cloth bandage in a plastic bag. A knife. A plastic pouch of skag. A half-litre of skag-in-water.

She said “Has anyone seen another willow tree?”

Frost replied in a low, tired voice “That was the last one. Someone took it for firewood. Maybe it will send up shoots in the spring. The only thing we have now for pain is the skag.”

She stood silent again for a time and then went and crouched behind Frost and put her arms around him and laid her cheek against his back.

Frost said in the same tired croak “I wanted things to get better before I died.”

She waited, then said “Things are better. You made them better.”

“We are this close to disaster.” Grace lifted her head and looked. The space between Frost’s thumb and index finger was as thin as the page of a book. “We were always close. But this winter could be the end. There’ll be flu. There’ll be pneumonia.”

Grace said “There’s always flu. There’s always pneumonia. We’ll survive. Most of us will.”

“I’ve dug more than a hundred graves.” He lifted his calloused palms for her to see. “Susan was the first. Fire was the last. That’s my accomplishment. My world.”

“Come to the couch. I’ll rub your back. You’re thinking too much.” The pitch of her voice was soothing. But she seemed to have to force the words out.

Frost said “I’m tired. Tired of it all.”

“Let’s walk the farm” she said, as if suddenly inspired. She stood. “Then you’ll see how things are better.”

“I just finished doing that. That’s not what I saw.” Frost stared into the flickering peat. He said “People trusted me.”

For a few minutes there was no sound but the hissing of the peat. Frost got up and stepped past Grace and took his poncho from the couch. Blackie scrambled to his feet. Frost opened the door but did not leave. He stared out at the empty day.

There was a sound behind him. He closed his eyes. His forehead furrowed as if he were in pain. His shoulders sagged. His hands hung limp. The poncho dropped to the floor. The sound was a ragged sobbing. Frost shook his head. Grace stuttered “I… I… I…” but could not make a sentence through her crying. Frost bent and picked up the poncho and wearily closed the door. He turned and dropped the poncho again on the couch. He sat.

Grace threw herself onto his lap. She held him tight, in a quivering grip. She pressed her face into his chest. Frost wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her grey head. He felt the wet of her tears through his shirt.

“I can’t stand it” she managed to say. “I can’t stand it.” She heaved with sobs.

Frost held her. He rocked her. He said “Shh, shh.”

Soon she was quiet. She said, without looking up “I can’t do it anymore. It’s all I can do to get through the day. You should find someone strong to do this work. I just want to rest. I just want to be taken care of.”

After a minute Frost said “I wish it could be like that. I wish it could be easy. I’ve been wishing that for the last forty years.”

“But you see, I can’t” she said. “I just can’t. It’s that simple.” She lifted her head and looked at him finally. Her grey eyes were as naked and empty as the day from which he had sought shelter. She said “What else?”

Frost waited. A strange flame flickered deep in the pale eyes. Almost a smile.

She said “What else besides flu and pneumonia?”

Her breath was as pure as a child’s.

She said “War.” She started to shake.

Frost eased her off his lap and onto the couch. He took her face in both hands and kissed her forehead. She lay on her side on the couch, with her knees drawn up. He covered her with his poncho. She said “I just can’t.”

Frost rose. “I’ve got some hooch at my place. I think you’d better have some.”

Grace appeared not to have heard him.

As he reached for his poncho Blackie barked once, then again, and scratched at the door. Frost listened. He held Blackie by his leash and opened the door and stepped outside. Blackie set to barking in earnest and strained at the twine. Frost tied him again to the staple. Then he started toward the trail by the foot of bridge, not quite running.

Two people were coming. One of them was a dark-haired girl of about ten. She wore a crude shift of woven wool and was barefoot. The other, a thin, dark-haired woman similarly dressed, walked beside her. The woman hunched forward slightly as she walked, and her eyes were fixed on Frost. Each step seemed to be a separate operation requiring an act of will. Yet she did not walk slowly. Her left hand gripped the left shoulder of the girl, and the girl, with her right arm, held the woman around the waist. The woman’s right arm hung limp. As he came near, Frost saw that two bones, bloody and sharp, were protruding from the forearm. And he heard the moan that was produced with each exhalation of her breath.

Frost looked for a way to assist the woman, but there was none. He let them continue toward the clinic, and walked beside them. Blood dripped slowly but steadily from the ends of the woman’s fingers. Grace appeared briefly in the doorway, then went back inside.

There were other dogs now, first around the clinic, sniffing at Blackie and prancing around him, then barking at the approaching group, then racing toward Frost and the girl and the woman. “Get out of the way, god damn it” said Frost. The woman ignored the animals and walked grimly forward.

At the clinic Frost said “Let your momma walk through the door by herself. It’s not wide enough for you both.” The woman stepped through the door, then the girl, then Frost. The sheet was on the couch again. With a white cloth, Grace was wiping alcohol on the table of two-by-fours, and the smell was strong. She looked at the woman and nodded to her and the girl but said nothing. Frost put a knee on the couch and a hand behind the woman’s back. With her good hand the woman took Frost’s free hand. He eased her onto the couch. But the woman wanted to lean forward so that the damaged arm could hang without touching anything. She sat there moaning.

Frost said “Sit here by your momma. Sit on this side.” The girl did so, and the woman put her good hand again on the girl’s shoulder. Then she bent the girl’s head toward her and turned her own head and kissed the girl’s hair. Then she looked at the table.

Frost said “How’d it happen?”

The woman’s thin dark hair hung in strings. Frost reached and cleared some strands from her face. The face was weathered and dirty. There was a strong nose and thin lips. The small blue eyes were wholly exhausted, and underneath the dirt the skin was drained and white. She closed her eyes and swallowed, and then opened her eyes and said “Fell. Rocks.” Although thin and trembling, the voice was clear, the voice of a young woman. She asked “You can save it can’t you?” Grace looked away from what she was doing only long enough to shake her head.

There was another, wider, shelf, on the end wall, above the table. On this shelf was an upturned orange plastic basin. The two litres of alcohol now stood on the floor. Grace poured some of it onto the rag and wiped the bottle itself and then set the bottle on the table. She took the basin from the shelf and wiped the outside of it with alcohol and set this also on the table. Now revealed on the shelf were the instruments of amputation. There was a length of plastic twine. There was a knife with a blade about eight inches long. Another pair of pliers. A hacksaw. An extra blade for the hacksaw. Grace laid the instruments, except for the spare blade, in the basin.

She came and took the bag of cloth bandaging and a coil of thread from the first shelf. While she sterilized lengths of these, Frost went to the other shelf and took from it a torn page. On the shelf there were several such pages, parts of pages really, brown, stained, ragged and brittle. And there were sections of books, a dozen pages, twenty. At the top of the torn page that Frost held, part of a heading read …vil War. He stood there and read from the page.

“Apply a tourniquet over the brachial artery three fingerbreadths above the internal condyle of the humerus, at the inner edge of the biceps muscle.” He looked up. Grace was pouring alcohol into the basin, over the instruments. She nodded. Frost read “If possible, cut about one third of the way down the forearm. After the amputating knife has been carried around the limb, the skin is to be detached from the fascia, a little way upward. Ligate the radial, ulnar and interosseus arteries.” Grace nodded again. Frost read “The muscles are then to be divided obliquely upward. Then the bones are to be…”

Grace said “I know.”

Frost put the page back and went to the other shelf and took the half-litre bottle of skag-in-water and a clear plastic glass that had been resting there mouth downward.

Grace said, sharply “No.”

He turned and looked at her. She was facing him, with the bottle of alcohol in her hand. There was no expression on her face, just a slight trembling of the chin. She seemed to be working to keep her face blank. Frost looked at the woman and her daughter on the couch. He looked at the half-litre bottle in his hand, two-thirds full. He turned slightly and looked at the plastic bag of dry skag on the shelf. He said “There’s plenty.”

Grace said “We’ve got to save it.”

“For something worse than this? Like what?”

After a moment she said “Just a little, then” and went back to her preparations. There had been something like resentment in her eyes.

“Grace” said Frost, but she did not turn again. He poured a half-inch of liquid into the glass and set the bottle back on the shelf. Then he squatted in front of the woman and held the glass to her lips. He said “Drink it quickly. It’s bitter.” She tilted her head back and Frost cupped his other hand under her chin, and she drank the liquid in two swallows.

Frost set the glass mouth upward on the shelf and quickly left the clinic.

He went to the domicile, again not quite running. Once there, he called up the stairwell for Daniel Charlie, and he found Noor in their apartment, and the two of them followed Frost back to the clinic.

When they arrived, the girl was alone on the couch. She looked like she wanted to cry but was afraid to. The woman was seated on the chair, which was sideways to the table. She was facing away from Frost and Noor and Daniel Charlie and her daughter. Her ruined arm rested outstretched on the table, with the wrist supported by the edge of the basin. The arm drooped at the point of the fracture, but the protruding bones did not touch the table. Blood dripped from the sharp ends of the bones onto the table, on which the alcohol had now dried.

Grace acknowledged Noor and Daniel Charlie with a glance and said “Daniel, you just have to hold her from moving. Noor, you’d better sterilize your hands.”

Frost squatted in front of the girl. She looked down at her dirty knees. Frost said “You and your momma are going to stay here on our farm. At least until your momma feels better.” He took a hand. She did not pull it away, but did not look at him either. “There are some girls here who you could play with. Come, and I’ll show you where they live. You’ll like their room.” Frost let go of the hand and gripped the girl under the arms. The girl gave a cry. “Momma.”

The woman said, from the chair, without turning “Go, Cloud.”

Frost said to the girl “We have to go out so these people can fix your momma’s arm.” He stood, lifting the girl. She put her legs around him because it was the easiest thing to do, but she would not hold on with her arms, and she would not look at him. Frost carried Cloud out of the clinic.

Because the girl would not hold on, Frost was panting by the time he reached the domicile. Will was standing at the door. The girl was a year or two younger than Will. Frost said “Her momma is at the clinic. I’ll take her up to Rain’s.” Will followed them down the half-dark corridor to the entrance of the stairwell. There was no door on it. The only light inside the stairwell came from here in the corridor. Frost started up the stairs.

He went up slowly, balancing the awkward weight of the girl, stopping every few stairs to adjust the load and to catch his breath. When he reached the complete blackness between the floors the first distant scream came. He muttered “Damn” and tried to move a little faster. But then the second scream came, and the third. The girl cried “Momma!” and started to thrash. Frost held on. There was another scream. The girl pushed at him and threw herself from side to side and shrieked “Momma! Momma!” and then started screaming herself. She scratched at Frost’s face. His glasses fell off. He closed his eyes and held on and felt with a foot for the next stair.

“Help” he hollered. “Someone help me.”

He felt Will’s hands at his back.

11

It was raining hard, and the day was dark, and the only sound was the far-flung hiss of rain on pavement. Frost stood at the summit of his bridge, on the sidewalk. He had on his rabbit skin poncho and a rabbit skin hat. A length of twine held the poncho closed. There was a sword at his side. Water spotted the lenses of his wire-rim glasses as he leaned on the railing and stared westward out over the river. King stood beside him on a twine leash, head and tail drooping. Beside the dog, among stunted grass that grew in cracks in the concrete, a large black plastic bag rested.

On Frost’s right, to the northwest, running down to the river, stretched the same long treeless slope he had seen from Little Bridge, a panorama of mud cut by ravines, splotched by mounds of blackberry and low brush and dotted with collapsed or grown-over buildings. Below him was the old railroad bridge, its open span hanging parallel to the roiling current. To the south of the river was his own farm, bleak and still except for the smoke that spilled from the stovepipes of the domicile. Farther downriver to the left sprawled the vast unkempt plain of Fundy’s farm and the ruins of the airport. Closer, directly to the west, Fundy’s Bridge sat slantwise across the river. There were men on it. It looked to Frost like they had crossbows. Three of them stood at the railing, looking back at him through a quarter-mile of rain.

At the Town end of his bridge three guards and their three dogs watched Frost come down toward them, with the bag slung over a shoulder. When he got close the dogs wagged their tails, and then they all sniffed King and he sniffed them, and there was a little half-hearted prancing. Then they just stood there hang-dog and miserable in the downpour.

Frost set down his bag and said “If Langley’s men come, don’t think about fighting them. They’ve got crossbows and can kill you from the end of the bridge. Just turn the dogs loose on them and run back to the farm. I’m sorry to have to send you out here on a day like this when no one’s crossing the bridge. But you know why. When I go back I’m going to send out four men with two dogs each, and you can all go home and get dry.” He threw the bag over his shoulder, and he and King walked on.

After a while Airport called “You shouldn’t be goin alone.” But Frost neither turned nor replied.

There were maybe two hundred people at the market, collected under the narrow shelter of the span. They crowded the dry packed earth close to the river. As he came near, Frost heard some of them speak his name, more like a ritual utterance than a greeting. Frost. Frost. Like something heard at a grave or a birth. And he heard, already, Lookit. Lookit what I got.

There was a widespread clatter of plastic garments and a tumult of voices raised in desperate negotiation. There was a stink of dirty flesh, of sick flesh and its excretions. King stopped for a second. His eyes were bright, and his fur stood up a little. He made a low noise that was both a whine and a growl. Frost took an extra wrap on the leash.

A dozen people ran out into the rain, thin as ghosts, waving bent nails, bent chunks of aluminum window sash, a foot-wide triangular shard of glass, a rotted and broken board. They had wool ponchos that did not adequately cover their private parts. They had polyethylene slickers, layered for winter insulation. They had poly over wool. They waved their loot like weapons, screaming Lookit lookit lookit!.

Frost said “Speak up” and King dashed left and right on his leash, barking and snarling. The dozen veered away with shouts of fear, or they threw up their arms and tried to stop, flailing, clubbing one another with their miserable loot. They skidded in the mud and collided. The shard of glass fell. Frost led King around the shattered pile as the woman who had dropped it tore at her hair and wailed as if a son had died. Frost said “Settle down” and King was quiet and looked at Frost, and Frost said “Good dog.” Frost stopped and set the bag down and opened it with one hand and reached in and took out a wedge of squash and held it out. The woman came forward, stepping barefoot on the glass, took the squash and walked away into the rain, trying to bite the vegetable with her few teeth.

As Frost walked in under the bridge people made way for him and King. He scanned the crowd as he moved through it to the far edge, where he was faced again with a wall of rain. He turned left and skirted the mob, peering into it. He was a head taller than anyone else, and he could see that many were watching him and that a few were following, calling quietly, Frost. Frost. Lookit.

Where the crowd petered out three men in sheepskin ponchos stood around two bags like Frost’s. They had swords and two of them had spears. Frost said “Getting rid of any wool, Bailey?” and the man who did not have a spear — grey haired, grey bearded, one eyed and hunched, holding a mass of raw wool in one hand and a skein of spun wool in the other — said “There’s nothin’ that I want.” Frost said “What are you looking for?” and Bailey said “Hardware. Tools.” Frost said “I’ll keep my eyes open” and turned back into the crowd, moving through it lengthways now.

People held up whole bowls made of plastic and fractured bowls made of pottery, the white shell of a mechanical pencil, a brick scabbed with mortar. They held up bunches of Town carrots, pairs of scabby Town spuds, a plastic bowl of blackberries. Frost, lookit. It was a white light bulb. Frost stopped and took it and turned it in his hand. There was a half-melted bulge. He handed it back.

Frost saw a skagger. He was almost as tall as Frost. He had a neat brown beard, his hair was tied into a tail, and he wore a torn, sleeveless, buttonless tweed overcoat. The nose of his crossbow rested on the packed earth at his feet as he haggled with an emaciated man with shoulders like axe blades, who wore only a layered plastic kilt. The man was offering a bone-handled hunting knife and a compact disk. As the skagger examined the disc rainbow winks leapt from it. There were low gasps from those nearby. The skagger put the disk into a nylon backpack. He took the knife and put that in too. Then he handed the man a twist of clear plastic with grey powder inside.

As the man hustled toward the edge of the crowd, a woman shouted “That’s him. That’s the one stole my knife.” The man ran, shoving people aside, out into the rain. The skagger picked up his crossbow and looked toward Frost and mouthed through the noise “None for you” and looked away again and then stood there, waiting, smiling slightly.

In front of Frost people stepped away from King, but Frost checked behind himself often. This time when he turned, there was a new face among the followers, among those whispering, Frost, Frost, lookit. It was an old man, a man his age, wearing a wool kilt. Frost stopped, and King sat at his feet. “Do I know you?” said Frost. The man shook his head and just stood there.

He was barefoot. He was bald except for a fringe of white hair that stood out a foot from his head in filthy matted chunks. His mane of chest hair was also white, but his beard was soiled to the colour of the ground. He rested in a half-crouch, leaning on one knee. He had a lump on his side the size of a large potato. He was wearing glasses with burgundy rims and narrow lenses. He took them off and held them out to Frost.

Frost set down his bag of squash and took his own glasses off and handed them to the man. The man put on Frost’s glasses, and Frost put on the man’s glasses and looked around. He inhaled sharply and jerked back his head. He said “God, I can see. Everything is clear.” The plastic capes and skirts and pullovers were suddenly like sheets of moving light. Every face a live carving. The murky daylight now hard and crisp. He saw Wing at the far end of the crowd, his wisp of beard a twist of pure light, the eyes looking back at him, welcoming from even this far away. Frost closed one eye, opened it, closed the other one, opened it.

“Both eyes. Everything is clear in both eyes. I couldn’t see before and didn’t even know it.”

In an empty space not far from Wing there was a carrot on the ground, bright as a flame. Frost watched a rat heading toward it, dodging around feet. The rat sparkled with drops of rain. A woman was also charging for the carrot, reaching forward with a hand, taking long fast barefoot strides. There were colours in her wool poncho, half a dozen kinds of dirt grey. She had a long jagged mole on the back of her right calf. The rat beat her but was slowed in its escape by the weight of the prize. The woman stomped the rat. Then she picked up the carrot and the rat and clutched them both to her chest and walked away into the rain.

Frost turned back to the old man. He said “What do you want for the glasses? Do you want some squash? I’ll give you the whole bag. Look, I’ve got a lot.” But before he could open the bag to show him, the man shook his head. Frost said “Come and live at the farm. We’ll keep you warm and safe and fed.” The man stood there, bent, one hand braced on a knee, goggling back through the fog of scratches on Frost’s lenses. He gave an upward twitch of the chin and lifted his eyes to Frost’s hat.

Frost took his hat off and placed it on the man’s head. The man smiled. He had no teeth. Frost also smiled and said “Okay?” The man looked down at Frost’s shoes. “You want my shoes?” The man nodded. “My new shoes?” Frost stopped smiling. The man waited. Frost said to King “Stay” and dropped the leash. King lay down as Frost untied his shoes and stood there barefoot, holding the shoes out for the man to take.

The man’s eyes narrowed. A deep line of worry formed between his brows. Frost said “You don’t know how to tie them. Fine.” Frost knelt. The man put his free hand on Frost’s head for balance as Frost helped him slip one and then the other dirt-caked foot into the shoes. “Watch” said Frost as he slowly looped and tied the laces. Frost stood. The man looked down at the shoes and wiggled them around and looked up and smiled again. “Okay?” said Frost. The man reached and took a pinching grip of Frost’s poncho.

Frost stood staring soberly back at the man. Then he turned away and looked around for a minute through the narrow flawless lenses. Then he turned back and drew his sword and laid it on the ground. He untied the length of yellow twine around his waist and handed it to the man. He took off his poncho and helped the man put it on and tied the twine around the man’s waist.

Frost held out his hand to seal the transaction. The man looked down at Frost’s sword. Frost said “No way.” The man shrugged and shook Frost’s hand and turned and tossed Frost’s old glasses away. There were grunts and squeals and a rattling blast of plastic as people dove for the glasses. King stood up and barked but did not move. The old man hobbled out of the market.

Frost walked on in his rough sleeveless shirt and shapeless trousers, watching where he put his feet, holding the sword in one hand and King’s leash and the black bag in the other. He scanned the mob even more keenly now. The dark frames of the glasses made him look like a tall thin bird. Frost, stop, lookit. He was confronted by an old woman.

“Hello, Megan” he said.

“I never showed you this, Frost.” Megan had some weight on her, and some colour to her face. Her weathered skin and her white hair were clean. She had a long, well-made wool poncho and an animal skin hat and leather sandals and a sword. She handed Frost a folded square of paper, glossy and coloured. Megan took King’s leash and said “I like your specs.” She squatted beside King, who rolled over and had his tummy scratched.

Frost unfolded the paper. It was a sheet from a magazine, a full page colour photograph. It showed a sunny day. A young woman wearing a white blouse and shorts was sitting on mown grass. She had blond hair that hung loose over her shoulders. A young man in a red singlet and jeans lounged near the woman, leaning back on his elbows. Both of them appeared to be laughing. Above them spread the canopy of some deciduous tree with a thick trunk. Beyond the tree there was blue water and a section of beach with people in bathing suits. Beyond the beach rose tall buildings, with sunlight reflecting from some of the hundreds of glass windows. And far beyond the buildings, reaching high above them, there were mountains dark with a dense blanket of forest, and near the tops of the mountains there were patches of snow.

Megan rose and held out King’s leash to Frost. But Frost just stood there gaping at the picture as if he were in a trance. Megan dropped the leash and threw the bag of squash over a shoulder and gave Frost’s arm a squeeze and headed out into the rain.

As Frost approached, Wing called “I was lookin’ forward to seein’ your Guccis again. It gave me somethin to live for. Now I’m disappointed. But those glasses almost make up for it.”

They shook hands. Frost said “I can see.”

Wing said “I can too. I can see you getting’ pneumonia.”

Like Bailey, Wing had two guards, who nodded greetings to Frost. One of them laid his spear against the wagon and grabbed out some hay and tossed it down for the steer, who nosed it around a little before taking some and chewing it lazily.

Frost said “I can get another poncho. But I know I’ll never find another pair of glasses that can make me see. Now, what on earth are you doing here with your wagon?”

Wing shrugged, looked down and nudged a flake of plastic with a sandal. “I know. We should be home playing parlour games and getting drunk and enjoying the fruits of the harvest. Just like you should. But look at these folks. Damn, Frost, I can’t see half of them survivin’ the winter. So I…”

“You brought them food.”

“We’ve got plenty.”

Frost looked in the wagon. There was about a quarter-load of potatoes. There was more straw for the steer. And there were styrofoam cups. A broken concrete building block. Half of a pair of scissors. The head and neck of a small black plaster swan. A plastic ice cream bucket split down the side. Electrical wiring. Nylon twine. Plastic bags.

Nor far away several people stood watching them, eating potatoes.

Frost said “You came all this way for charity.”

Wing shrugged.

“Through the rain.”

Wing said “It wasn’t rainin’ when we left.” And after a long pause “Also, I guess I wanted to get away.”

Frost waited.

Wing said “One of my men died. Young Fraser. A fever hit him and he went in three days. Had a woman expectin a kid’. I thought I’d feel better here, but…. You lost someone too, I hear.”

“Fire.”

“Fire was famous” said Wing. “She was with you a long time. I’m sorry.”

They watched the steer chewing for a minute. Then Frost nodded for Wing to follow him. He left King sitting loose by the wagon, and he and Wing walked down to the edge of the water, away from the crowd. Frost said “I didn’t come to trade either. These glasses were just luck.” He looked around. Although no one was near he dropped his voice. “I saw Steveston.”

“Steveston? What Steveston? You don’t mean….”

Frost nodded.

Wing said “Noor’s dad? I thought he was dead.”

“We all did. But he’s not. I saw him when I went to Langley’s place. He’s working for Langley. He makes the skag. I managed to talk to him, tried to get him to come home, but he wouldn’t come. I think he’s addicted. Langley pays him with skag, like the other workers.”

“Does Noor know?”

Frost shook his head. “I don’t want her to know. Not unless I can get him back.”

Wing said “Do you think he’s still there?”

“I doubt it. After the harvest Langley sends them away so he doesn’t have to feed them. I saw one of them just now. He stole something and traded it for skag.”

“Did you think Steveston might show up here?”

“I was hoping.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open. And my ears.”

“But don’t say anything. Where do these skaggers stay, any idea?”

“Some of them took over that buildin’ at the Town end of Fundy’s Bridge. One of my boys followed them a couple times. They live well, courtesy of Langley. There are others who hang out around the downtown market. And then there’s the bunch at his place — you saw them.”

“He told me he doesn’t want to stay out at Wesminister anymore. He wants Fundy’s farm”

Wing suddenly looked grim. He spat, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He wants more than Fundy’s farm.”

They watched the water, but soon turned away, and it was as if the river had marked their faces with its single cargo of despair and resignation. Frost shook his head. He said “Megan traded me… You might as well see it.” He still held the magazine page, folded again into a small square. He handed it to Wing and they looked at it together.

Wing said, with a shudder in his voice “Damn, Frost. Why’d you have to show this to me. I’d pretty well forgotten, which is good. God, where is it? It’s Kits Beach, isn’t it? And that’s the West End.”

“And that’s Grouse Mountain.”

“And that’s Mount Seymour. Jesus. There’s snow. Are you going to show this to…?”

“To Will? No. It’s best if he doesn’t see how it was. He has a better chance to be happy if he doesn’t know too much. I’m not even going to show Noor.” Frost folded the sheet. There was a pocket stitched onto his trousers. He stuffed the picture into it. They started back toward the wagon. King stood up and wagged his tail.

And suddenly Frost was running. He ran past Wing’s wagon and headed right into the crowd. Those who saw him coming leapt aside if they could. He managed to dodge almost everyone, but a woman in a poncho made from a real blanket was struck, and those nearby were peppered with her bowlful of overripe blackberries. King was on Frost’s heels, the leash whipping and bouncing behind.

Ahead another man was running. He had a poly kilt that rustled madly as he tried to make it out from under the bridge and into the open. But Frost had started while the man was still standing quietly behind an old woman, while the man was still reaching for the spirit level that she held at her side.

King dashed past Frost and leapt at the man’s back, and the man sprawled forward into mud, still holding the spirit level. While King snarled and roared, Frost drew his sword. He placed a foot on the man’s back and tapped an ear with the point of the sword. The man let his face sink into the mud. Frost said “Settle down” and King was more or less quiet.

The old woman came and took her spirit level. Frost said to her “I could use one of those, but I’ve got nothing to trade. Take it down to Bailey. He’s at the far end.”

There was no muscle on the man’s back. There was yellowish skin and there were ribs. He had hair that looked as if it could be red, but almost all of it had fallen out. The rest fanned out in the mud from a few patches at the top of his head.

Wing was there now with one of his guards, who stood in the rain with his spear ready. Frost stepped back and said “Get up.” King growled as the man stirred. Frost pulled King back by his leash. The man tried to heave himself up but could not. Wing and his guard helped him up. Frost said “Let’s go out where we can talk.” They walked out into the rain, away from onlookers. The man turned unsteadily to face Frost. He was young and would have been handsome if his mud-covered face did not look so much like a skull.

Frost said “What’s your name?”

Understanding the question seemed to take a long time. Then the man blinked, and his eyes brightened slightly. “Gra…” — he cleared his throat — “Granville.”

“Did I see you at Langley’s?”

The man glanced past Frost into the crowd. Frost looked over his shoulder. The tall skagger in the tweed overcoat was watching. His crossbow rested on a shoulder, pointing upward.

Frost said “Don’t worry about him. He’s nothing. Tell me. I’ll pay you good.”

The man nodded.

“You were in the field, harvesting the pods.”

The man nodded again.

“And now he’s let you go because he doesn’t need you anymore. And you’ve got to steal to feed your habit. Just like your friend who stole the hunting knife.”

The man said nothing, but kept glancing toward the skagger. Frost gave Wing a look and Wing motioned for his guard to leave them, and the guard went back to the wagon. Then Frost said “Where’s Steveston? Stevie– where’s Stevie?” The man shrugged and looked down at the mud. “Does he come here? Or is he still at Langley’s? Maybe Langley needs him. Does Langley need him?”

Still looking down, the man said “You said you’d pay me.”

Frost said to Wing “Just a minute.” He left King there and walked back through the crowd, who were all watching in silence. He found the woman he had crashed into. He led her by the elbow to Wing’s wagon and filled her blackberry-stained bowl with potatoes. Wing hurried over and added the half-pair of scissors and the broken swan.

Frost gave Wing a pat on the shoulder and went back through the crowd and out into the rain. He said to the man “I’m going to give you a better price than you ever imagined. I’m going to give you back your health. Let’s go.”

The man stiffened and his eyes widened. He suddenly looked capable of running fast and far. But Frost indicated the direction with his sword, and King growled, and they started walking.

Frost looked back into the mob under the bridge. He saw Bailey open one of his black plastic bags and reach in with both hands and lift out the carcasses of two sheep and hold them up and then set them back in. He saw the skagger hand Bailey the bone-handled hunting knife and take the bag. The woman with the spirit level was there too. After haggling a moment she gave it to Bailey and took his bag of wool. The woman the knife had been stolen from stood nearby. She looked as broken as the half of Frost’s wire-rim glasses that she held in her hand.

Frost and King and the man followed the wide muddy trail north toward the foot of the bridge.

12

It was cold and clear and quiet, and there was no smell except the smell of the river. The pale dead grass was wet with dew. The thistles drooped dark and soggy. Will had his own poncho, and he had sweatpants and sandals. Shaughnessy wore two ripped and dirty pullover shirts and a wool kilt and shoe-like things of plastic that Will tried not to look at. They were heading in the direction of the river.

Shaughnessy said “Someone died at your place.”

“Fire” said Will, and after a while “I never liked her. But I never wanted her to….” He looked away. Then he looked up at the empty blue sky and said “I bet it snows this winter.”

“Snows? You crazy?” answered Shaughnessy.

“It’s pretty cold.”

“Not cold enough.”

Will said dreamily “Everythin’ is all covered in white. Kind of like a big soft white blanket. And my grampa says if you go out in the middle of the night you can still see, because the snow reflects the light.”

“There ain’t been snow since my dad was young. You’re crazy.”

“And it’s all calm and peaceful and quiet.”

Will’s coarse black hair was trimmed to above his ears. He was thin and swarthy. Shaughnessy was taller and sturdier and had a heap of almost white hair that hung in tangles over blue eyes in which there was a fleeting cast of pain or of anger. He said “It ain’t going to snow, and you know it.”

“Hushed” said Will. “It’s hushed.” He shook his head sharply, as if putting an end to the reverie, then said “You really ought to come to my place. I’ve got some real books. There’s one about war.”

Shaughnessy said “Why don’t you say somethin’ that makes sense. You know I can’t go to your place.”

“I know, but you ought to.”

“Well I can’t.”

“But how come you can’t?”

“This again? You know why. My dad says so.” He sounded both bored and exasperated.

Will said “But I don’t understand why not.”

“Yes you do. We talked about this already. A hundred times.”

“Explain it to me again. Maybe I’ll understand this time.”

As they walked, sunlight played on some lengths of looped copper wire that each boy held in his right hand.

Shaughnessy said “It’s because your grampa is a liberal.”

A rabbit darted away. It had been invisible in the dead grass. It bounded and dodged toward a blackberry patch.

“I know” said Will “but what is that? What is a liberal? That’s the part I don’t get. Why does it keep you from comin’ to my place?”

“I don’t get it either. Like I said a hundred times. All’s I know is I can’t go to your place because your grandfather is a liberal.”

They were silent for a while, each boy appearing to think aggressively about the matter. Then Will said “I’ve got an idea. If you came to my place you could see for yourself that my grampa isn’t a liberal. Also, I could show you how to read. Then you could go home and tell your dad my grampa isn’t a liberal, and you could show him that you could read, and he’d let you come and play whenever you feel like it so you can get an education.”

Shaughnessy stopped to glare down at Will. “I thought you were smart.”

“Well, I am.”

“If I don’t know what a liberal is, how would I know if your grampa isn’t one?”

They walked on. In the grass near the path Shaughnessy saw a piece of a branch, thick as an arm. He kicked it. It crumbled. He said “Rotten. I thought maybe we could burn it.”

Will said “You could come to my place and not tell your dad.”

“Naw, he’s pretty sick. I’d feel bad lyin’ to him.”

“I wonder why your dad thinks grampa is a liberal. Do you think someone told him?”

“Oh, I know someone told him.”

They stopped. “Who? Who told him?”

“Bundy told him. When he come to pray for my dad to get better.”

“Damn” said Will as they started walking again. “That Bundy. First he wrecks it so you can’t come to my place. Then he lets the skaggers take his bridge. Did you know he’s a bundamentalist?”

“I’m not surprised” said Shaughnessy.

Both boys laughed. Shaughnessy said “Whatever that is. It must be the opposite of a liberal. And Solomon is in love with your sister.”

“I know” said Will gloomily. “That’s another damn thing.”

Something touched Will’s hand, and looking down he saw that Blackie was now walking beside him. Shaughnessy said “How come the dogs don’t get caught in the snares?”

“Grampa teaches them to smell the wire.”

“Your grampa’s smart.”

“He’s real smart.”

Just at the river’s edge was a garden. There were sections of carrots and turnips still in the soil. The garden was edged with concrete building blocks or pieces of blocks. A path led through the garden toward the river, through the dark soil and the potato leaves left there to decay. The path was also lined with blocks.

A wooden barge floated near the bank. The boys stood admiring it for a minute. It was about sixty feet long and was moored sideways to the shore. The wood above the waterline was well rotted, and there were deep ragged holes where chunks had fallen out. The near side of the barge rested on the riverbed ten feet out. From each of the near corners a rusted cable ran to the bank and disappeared in blackberry vines. A walkway of two-by-fours ran at an angle from the bank up to the deck of the barge.

“Daniel Charlie made that for her” said Will. “It’s called a gangplank.”

Will went first up the walkway, then Shaughnessy. Blackie refused to attempt it and sat on the bank with his ears erect, looking worried, whining a little.

The deck of the barge sloped away slightly. A dozen large plastic flower pots lined its edges, and in each pot there was a rose plant. On a few of the plants there were still some blossoms, red and orange. In the middle of the deck sat a ragged-looking shack of corrugated fibreglass panels, concrete blocks, vinyl siding and sheets of polyethylene. An old woman emerged.

She had on rubber boots and very baggy trousers of undyed canvas tied with nylon cord. She wore a flannel logger’s shirt on which the red and black plaid was just visible. Her white hair hung long and loose. She was badly stooped, and she used a length of rusted reinforcing bar to help her as she hobbled toward the boys. One of her eyes was clouded. The other was as blue as the winter sky.

She said “Want a cookie?”

Will waited, then turned to Shaughnessy and said “Want a cookie?”

Shaughnessy shrugged and looked away.

Will said to the old woman “What is it? What’s a cookie?”

The woman cackled shrilly. There was not a tooth in her mouth. “What’s a cookie!” She thumped her rebar on the deck. Then she was suddenly serious. She put a hand on Will’s shoulder and leaned close. Her breath smelled muddy, like the river. She whispered “I saw a fish.”

Shaughnessy said “There ain’t no fish.” He seemed angry.

The old woman turned and motioned with her head for them to follow. They stood between rose plants and stared down at the river. The grey-green current was running fast. She pointed with her rebar. “Right there.” They watched the spot for a minute, but the fish did not appear.

Will cleared his throat. “Would you like to trade for a rabbit snare?” He held up one of the copper loops.

The woman said “And look at them bastards.” She was glaring up toward Fundy’s Bridge. She shook her rebar at the small figures of the men standing there.

Will said “There’s a lot of rabbits. They’re easy to catch. The meat is real good.”

The woman yelled up at the bridge “Filthy rotten bastards!”

Will said “Well, I guess we’ll be goin’, then.”

She turned to him. “What do you want for a snare?”

“I don’t know. What have you got?”

“Let’s see. I don’t have much to spare. I’ll give you a kiss.” She cackled.

Will tried to smile but could not reply.

“A kiss not good enough? How about I let both of you see me in the altogether? That ought to be worth a snare.”

“Well… What is that? What’s the altogether?” said Will. Shaughnessy nudged him and signaled for an escape. The woman cackled again. Will said “Here. Just take one. I’d like you to have it.”

She took the snare. “If you wanted to give it to me, why didn’t you just give it to me?”

“Bye, Amber.”

“What I need is a fish net. Make me a fish net and I’ll make your dreams come true.”

As the boys backed away she waved her bar at Fundy’s Bridge again and screeched up at the distant men “Bastards! You’re a bunch of filthy rotten bastards!”

13

He saw Noor sitting at the end of the railroad bridge, more than halfway across the river. He walked out along the bridge through light cold rain. He had a wool poncho and no hat. It was a swing bridge and ran level over the water. The old car bridge, his bridge, loomed massive and dark above him on his right. Soon he could see that she sat with her feet dangling over the end where the railroad bridge stood forever open. And he could see that she was staring down into the river. He called softly “Noor.”

She did not react, but when he was very close she held up her right hand without turning, just to the shoulder, and he saw that there was something, a folded page, pinched between the thumb and index finger. He stopped briefly and slipped a hand under his poncho and probed the pocket of his shirt, which he found to be empty. He came close and wrapped his hand around hers and then slid the page from her fingers. She let her hand fall and said, very quietly “I’m sorry. I took it.”

Now Frost too looked down, past his granddaughter, over the end of the bridge. He heard the rush of the water and saw the confused swirl of mud-green eddies. He said “I should not have brought it home.” He touched her head. There was rain beaded in her hair.

She said “Just leave me.”

Frost went back along the railroad bridge. Before he got to the point where the tracks ran onto his farm he tore the folded page in half and then tore those pieces in half and flung the handful of paper toward the edge of the bridge. But a random gust of air rising off the water caught the bits of paper, and a fragment snagged in a curl of his hair. He walked on, head down, and soon another chance breeze snatched away the torn image of forest and snow.

The River Trail ran east and west along the water’s edge. Here it crossed under the south end of Frost’s Bridge and passed onto Frost’s Farm. Where the rusted and grown-over tracks crossed the Trail Frost looked up and stopped. An old man was standing there waiting. He had neither poncho nor hat in the cold drizzle. He had a sleeveless pullover shirt and canvas trousers and sandals. His hair was thin and white and hung in wet strings over his shoulders. He had a wispy white beard. His eyes showed nothing but defeat and exhaustion.

“Damn” said Frost.

Without another word they started toward the domicile, with Wing leaning on Frost’s shoulder. Not far ahead Wing’s men and a child or two and Wing’s dogs were moving in a straggly group in the same direction. Farther on, people were flooding out of the domicile. Frost’s dogs raced to meet Wing’s.

The door of the clinic opened. Grace stepped out and stood there with a hand over her mouth. Then she untied the dog that was guarding the clinic, and it came racing too. She stood beside the open door, leaning back against the wall, with her hands hanging loose at her sides, looking down at the ground as Wing’s people trudged past.

Noor was beside Wing now, on the other side from Frost. She said nothing, but laid a hand on Wing’s shoulder for a minute and then ran ahead. She passed Will, who was coming from the domicile. Frost held out his hand and Will took it and held it tight.

“What happened, Grampa?”

“Run back and make sure the fire is going. Build it up if it’s not.”

“Why? What happened? Are they comin’ to our place?”

“Just go back and see to the fire. Quickly now.”

Frost’s people jammed the hallway outside his open door as Frost and Noor and Will and Daniel Charlie and his woman Jessica did what they could for Wing and his men and the children. Will took down his grandfather’s hammock so that everyone could come close to the fire. They sat on the floor. Will had not managed to build the fire up much, but the apartment was warm. Noor called out into the hallway for hot soup, and she set her own pot on the fire. Wing sat on the floor, closest to the fire, with his men huddled close around him. A baby girl and a young boy soon fell asleep on their fathers’ laps.

Frost stood looking out the window. From time to time he shook his head and sighed. Grace came into the apartment, stepping among the men, and stood beside Frost..

It was quiet for a few minutes. Then Wing started crying. He sat with his knees up and his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, and he sobbed loudly. Frost did not look away from the window, but his own shoulders also shook. After a while Wing was quiet, and Frost turned from the rain-filled window and said “Who can tell it?”

For a minute no one said anything. Then a young man called Nordel spoke up. “I can tell it.” He was sitting on the opposite side of the group from Frost, leaning back against the wall. He had a wool poncho and a long wool kilt, which were still wet. He had been one of Wing’s guards at the market the day Frost had got his new glasses and came home with the skag addict. He had a plain, handsome Chinese face and was bald, with the remaining fringe of black hair cut short. He had a strong voice but marked his story with frequent hesitations, as if he were reluctant to recall any more of what had happened.

“I was on the bridge” he said “ in the middle of the bridge — me and Bridgeport and Pender. We were guardin’ it with three dogs. No one was crossin’ — we were just there to guard it, not to get toll. We had swords and spears, and we had the dogs. We’d been there since dawn. We were waitin’ for Wing to send someone up to take our place. Then one of our dogs, Buddy I think it was — he barked.

“Then, ‘Look,’ says Bridgeport, and points down the bridge toward the Town end. So I look, and Christ, the bridge is full of people. I never seen so many people on the bridge. They were spread right across it, and they were walkin’ up towards us. They were Langley’s men, I knew that right away. They were Langley’s men and they all had them crossbows. Then all the dogs start barkin’. It wasn’t that kind of barkin’ like when the dogs want to you to let them loose so they can take after somethin. It was more a scared kind of barkin’. But when they’re scared, that’s when they make the most noise. And while they were goin crazy barkin’ they were backin’ away a little, and the leashes went slack.”

Will had been sitting beside a boy who was near his own age. Now he rose and went to his grandfather and leaned against him. His thumb was in his mouth.

Nordel went on “There must of been fifty of them, and every one had a crossbow. They just come up the bridge without a sound. And out in front was a wagon sort of thing, except that it just had two wheels. And it had long shafts, and two men on each shaft were pullin’ it up the bridge.”

There was muttering from the listeners in the hallway, and from the hallway came Tyrell’s voice like a sudden crackle of gunfire. “That’s his rickshaw. I knew we should of killed that son of a bitch when we had the chance.”

Nordel said “We didn’t know what to do. We knew we should stay and protect the farm…” He paused. When he resumed there was a momentary break in his voice. “But we knew we didn’t have a chance. While we were talkin’ over what to do they were getting’ pretty close. Then somethin’ bounces off the pavement in front of us. It come low and straight, so none of us saw it comin’. Digger gives a loud yelp and don’t stop yelpin’, and I see he’s got somethin stickin’ out of his chest. Pender, you still got that?”

One of the men held something up. He said “I hid this under my poncho.” It was a six-inch length of reinforcing bar, sharpened at one end, with three hard plastic vanes like arrow feathers attached at the other end. Daniel Charlie had been standing near the door. Now he stepped carefully in among Wing’s men and took the crossbow bolt from Pender. He said “Someone’s got a grindstone. And someone’s got a hacksaw. This ain’t skagger work.” He went back to his place by the door and stood there examining the bolt, turning it in his hands.

Nordel continued “Pender picked up Digger, and we took off back to the farm. I guess everybody must’ve heard the barkin’ and yelpin’, ’cause they were all outside waitin’ for us.”

The boy who had been sitting beside Will said “We saw them comin’ down the bridge behind you.”

Nordel said “We held down Digger and pulled that thing out of him. But he was bleedin’ too much. We could see he wasn’t going to make it.”

Wing muttered toward the fire “I should’ve been ready for them. Why the hell wasn’t I ready?”

Frost said “Wing, there’s no way you could’ve known what they were up to. But now we know. They’re not taking any more farms after this.”

“You’re god damn right they’re not.” It was Tyrell.

Nordel went on “We couldn’t fight them — not with just swords and spears — I guess our dogs could of messed up two or three of them , but what’s the point? — they probably would of killed all of us then. And we couldn’t run away and leave the farm. So we just waited. They come down our trail, with that there rickshaw at the front. Sure enough it was Langley sittin’ in it. We could see him clear now. The rickshaw had a roof to keep the rain off, and he was wrapped up in a heavy blanket…”

“A quilt” said someone.

“…a quilt. A pink quilt” Nordel went on. “He stopped when he got close, but still out of spear-throwin’ distance. His men spread out in a line on both sides with their crossbows pointed at us. The four men set down the shafts of the rickshaw, and Langley pushes that pink quilt off and steps out and comes forward a couple steps. He’s wearin’ a real leather jacket.

“He just stands there a minute, lookin’ at us, smilin’ a little. Then he stretches out his arms and gives a big loud yawn. He says — he’s got this whiny voice — he says, ‘Ain’t this weather a bitch? I hate to come out on such a nasty day, but I knew you’d be at home eatin’ spuds and havin’ a nice a rest after your outstandin harvest.’ He’s got some red sores or somethin’ on his face, and he’s scratchin’ at these while he’s talkin’.”

Some plastic bowls and some spoons were passed in from the hallway. Using one of the bowls as a ladle, Noor dished out soup. The young boy woke up and was given a bowl, but the baby kept sleeping. Noor had far from enough, but before she was finished, pots of more hot soup started arriving. She closed the doors of the fireplace.

Nordel ate for a few minutes, then set his bowl down and continued his account. “‘Anyway,’ says Langley, ‘first things first. Chuck them weapons over this way. Just chuck them on the ground.” We waited. We knew we had to give up our weapons, but no one wanted to be the first. ‘Don’t go makin’ me mad!’ shouts Langley. Wing had his sword with him. He throws it out about twenty feet. Then we all did the same — swords and spears on the ground. And we all stood there, men at the front, women and kids behind, and we knew he could do whatever he wants with us now. What choice did we have? I guess we could of chose to die. But we didn’t. I guess we should of.” Nordel looked down at the floor.

Frost said quietly “No, you did the right thing” and when Nordel did not continue he said “What happened after that?”

The room was heating up. There was a strong smell of wet wool and wet hair. Nordel took a breath and went on, but without looking up from the floor. “When all our swords and spears were out there on the ground, Langley says, ‘Now keep aholt of them dogs. Or we have dog for supper. Sound good, Freeway?’ He meant that big bastard we see at the market sometimes. He was standin’ behind Langley a little and off to one side. He had a sword but no crossbow. Freeway says, ‘Yum,’ and Langley’s soldiers all laughed.

“Langley says, ‘You got a nice farm here. I like farms. You like this here farm, Wing? You put a lot of work into this place. Shame to lose it. Well, I tell you what. You got the milk of human kindness. I like that too. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. So I’m going to let you keep this farm. Why? Why am I going to let you keep this nice farm? ’Cause I got it too. I got the milk of human kindness. Ain’t I, boys?’ And his soldiers are all laughin’ and shoutin’ out how Langley’s got the milk of human kindness.

“And when his men settle down he says, ‘Here’s the deal. This is what they call a proposal. I propose that you can stay here on your farm, Wing — how does that sound?’ Wing didn’t answer, of course. So Langley says “And you can grow potatoes and carrots, and milk your cows just like always. Come on — it sounds great — admit it. I get the bridge though. You knew that. It don’t take a genius. I like bridges even more than farms, see. You pay a tax every time you want to cross, but that’s a small price for getting’ to keep your farm.’ He shrugged. ‘A tiny price. Eeny weeny. Ain’t it?’ No one said nothin’. We knew he wasn’t finished. He was just entertainin’ his soldiers and showin’ us who’s the boss. Then he says, ‘Oh, I also get your women.’”

There was a stirring among the men seated on the floor. The small boy started to cry. The father rose and left the apartment with his child. The crying faded in the corridor and then was heard echoing in the stairwell. Wing stared grimly into the fire.

Nordel said “We all hollered when we heard that. We hollered No, you ain’t takin’ our women. And we cussed. And the women started wailin’. And we waved our fists. And we made to charge forward. A few of us even took a step. But none of us did charge forward. ’Cause them crossbows was still pointed at us.

“In a minute we settled down a little. Then Freeway comes forward, to one side of the group of us. He nudges Burnaby here away from the group with his sword.” As he said that, Nordel reached out and touched the arm of a grey-haired man seated near him. “Moves him maybe fifty feet away. Then he comes back and stands in front of us and points at us one by one with his sword. And soon we are all off in a group with Burnaby, and the women and kids are there in their own group, with nothin’ between them and Langley’s soldiers but forty feet of muddy ground.

“Langley says, ‘Send the kids over.’ The women were quiet by now. It’s like they had made up their minds, like they knew the best thing was to stay calm and do what they were told. For the time bein’, anyway. So little Skytrain comes runnin’ over and his dad scoops him up. That’s them that went out just now. And Willow brings her baby over and hands it to Mitchell. Her and Mitchell just look at each other for a second, then she walks back. But she don’t get half way before she starts to collapse. Two of the women run out and help her. It’s lucky the soldiers didn’t shoot the three of them.”

Nordel paused and said “Frost, could someone find a place for Surrey here to lay down. He’s more wore out than he looks.” Nordel gestured toward the boy who Will had been sitting beside.

Jessica made her way to the boy. She was big, like her man Daniel Charlie. Her hair hung down her back in a thick white braid. Surrey took her hand, and they went out. Nordel waited a minute before resuming. “There was one more child. But I guess Langley didn’t think she was a child. Her name was Snow.”

Frost looked down at Will, who still had his thumb in his mouth and seemed to want to bury his head in his grandfather’s side. Frost bent and whispered “Why don’t you go and see if Surrey is getting on all right.” But Will just shook his head, a single quick motion.

Nordel had been watching them. Now he said “She was — I mean she is — twelve or thirteen. Her mom give her a little push, and she starts over towards her dad. She’s lookin’ down at the ground and walkin’ fast. Annacis — that’s her dad — he says, ‘Come on, Snow.’ He says it quiet and in as calm of a voice as he could manage. We’re not watchin’ Snow, though. We’re watchin’ Langley. And Langley shakes his head. And Freeway sticks out his sword to block her way. And he says, ‘Nope.’ And he pushes her back with his sword. And now Snow is walkin’ backward, with Freeway pushin’ her along with the side of his sword. And she just stops. And she’s still lookin’ down at the ground. And she screams, ‘Daddy.’”

Nordel sighed heavily. He waited, then said “Can someone else tell this?” There was no sound but the rain driven in gusts against the glass, and the hissing of the peat in the fireplace. So Nordel cleared his throat and went on “When Snow screamed that out — when she screamed, ‘Daddy,’ there was some bumpin’ and wrestlin’ behind me, and someone shouted ‘No!’ and ‘Grab him!’ But Annacis busted loose. He heads straight toward Langley. He’s got his head down and he’s roarin’ and he’s movin’ fast. For a second I thought he’d make it. I thought he would wring that bastard’s neck before they got him.

“But some crossbows went off. I don’t know how many. Three or four. Maybe more. They went off with kind of a snappin’ sound. There was arrows flyin’ everywhere. We heard them zippin’ past us, and we tried to duck. But they didn’t shoot no more. Annacis is on the ground on his back, and he’s screamin’, and he’s got hold of an arrow that’s stickin’ out of his side.

“Langley shouts, ‘Hang on to them dogs.’ Freeway drops his sword and grabs Snow and holds her ’cause she’s gone wild and is screamin’. Some of the soldiers put down their crossbows and take out their swords and come forward and make a circle round the women. They’re all screamin’ too now, and we’re cussin and callin’ out to Annacis. And young Surrey, he’s in our group and he’s screamin’, ‘Daddy, Daddy’.

“The rest of the soldiers make a circle around us. There’s nothin’ we can do. A soldier grabs Snow from Freeway and pushes her in with the women. Our dogs have gone crazy, and we’re havin’ trouble holdin’ them.

“Then Langley walks over and looks down at Annacis. Langley’s face is all red, and I never seen no one look so mad. He gives Annacis a hell of a kick in the side, and Annacis shouts out. Then he kicks him again. Then he turns his back on Annacis and all the rest of us and he walks back to where he was before. And he stands there in the rain, lookin’ away toward the bridge and pickin’ at his face. Then… Then Freeway picks up his sword and goes over to where Annacis is layin’. And he takes his sword in two hands… He takes his sword and he….”

“Never mind” said Frost.

The rain beat steadily against the window now. The wind blew smoke back down the stovepipe and through the gap in the glass of the fireplace and into the room. Will released his hold on his grandfather and stepped through the men seated on the floor and he crouched at the fireplace. He pulled open the fireplace doors, and the fire drew air from the room, and it glowed a little brighter, and the smoke was sucked up the stovepipe again. Will sat down beside Wing and put his hand on his shoulder.

Nordel said “I’ll tell you somethin’, if ever you have to fight Langley.”

Tyrell’s voice burst again in the hallway, as if the very concrete of the building were cracking. “Oh, we’re going to fight him. Don’t you worry about that.”

Nordel continued “Well, it takes ages to load them crossbows up again. If they’d of all shot at Annacis we could of grabbed our swords and spears and turned the dogs loose while they were loadin’ up again, and might of drove them off or might or at least killed Langley. But most of them didn’t shoot. So we had to stand there and watch Annacis dyin’ on the ground in front of us.

“The soldiers with the bunch of women started off with them toward the bridge. Langley climbs into his wagon thing. He calls out — I could just hear him over the wailin’ of the women — he calls out, ‘The deal’s off, Wing. I don’t like the way you do business.’ Four soldiers sling their crossbows on their backs — they got twine for that — and they pick up the shafts of the wagon thing and start out too. Then one of the soldiers keepin’ guard on us points this way, down the river. ‘Get movin’,’ he says. What could we do?

“They followed us for a ways. Langley called out again in the distance — his voice is even higher and whinier than before — he says, ‘Tell Frost I’ll swap this farm for his one. I like his location. So close to Town. I like his farm better than Fundy’s. I like his house with all them stovepipes. It’s cozy. Then you and his lot can all come back here and grow spuds till you’re blue in the face. And I’ll grow what I’m good at growin’. I think a cash crop is what they called it. When there used to be cash. Tell Frost that’s my business deal. Tell him that’s Langley’s proposal.’

“We kept lookin’ back. Langley and the women and the soldiers were still headin’ toward the bridge. The rest of the soldiers were standin’ there watchin’ us, blockin’ the way back. Two soldiers were out tryin’ to find the arrows that they’d shot off. Annacis and Digger were layin’ alone there on the ground.”

14

Frost stood in the graveyard, in morning fog, alone, like a ghost risen from that population of his dead. He glanced up at his bridge, at the concrete columns muted by the mist, at the span that was a mere darkening of the fog itself. The river also was more than half erased. But the markers that were ranged in front of him and to his left and to his right were clear enough.

They were T-shaped, low to the ground, wooden — each a length of two-by-four driven into the earth, with a crosspiece nailed flatways on top. The crosspieces were wrapped in clear polyethylene. Rainwater had collected in folds of this protecting material, so that the whole expanse of the graveyard shimmered slightly as Frost turned his head.

He squatted at one of the markers not far from the south edge. With both hands he pressed and smoothed flat the plastic so that he could read the name. He remained like that for some time, with his wet hands wrapped around the crosspiece, leaning forward slightly to let the marker bear his weight. Then he placed the tips of the fingers of his right hand at the left end of the crosspiece and slid them slowly toward the other end so that he could feel the letters of the name carved there. Zahra. He tried to say the name but could not.

He rose stiffly and moved through the graves toward the river. He glanced down at the grave markers of Daniel Charlie’s daughter and Tyrell’s woman and his baby son and Joshua’s wife and children. The grass was short and wet and green, like a ragged lawn. There were no thistles or blackberry.

From the graveyard it was a short walk to the riverbank. He heard someone coming and turned. It was Will. Frost said “I should’ve hauled her out. It didn’t seem important then.”

Will said “I wish I could’ve seen her. You called her Bye-bye Dubai.”

“She’s rotted now. I don’t even know where to look. Busted all apart, I suppose. Swept away.” They looked downriver into the fog. He said “We went to the Galapagos Islands.”

“I know.”

“Your mom and your grandma and me. Your mom was just a baby.”

“And you and my grandma were young.”

“Not much older than Noor. I wonder if those islands have changed. The Galapagos Islands are famous for changing. The animals, I mean. You remember Darwin?”

“Sort of. Are we changin’ here, Grampa?”

Frost said nothing for a minute. “Maybe. Maybe it’s started up again. Survival of the fittest. Maybe.”

They turned from the river and walked the short distance to the nearest graves. Frost squatted at a grave and smoothed the plastic to read the name. “Susan” he said.

Will repeated the name. “Susan.”

Frost stood. “I remember her, of course. Some things. But how true are those memories?”

“I don’t know. You’ve got a good memory as far as I can tell.”

“She had gold-coloured hair with a little red in it. She had trouble with her hair. It didn’t want to behave. She was small. We must have looked strange together. She had blue eyes and freckles.”

They walked back through the graves. A billow of fog slid off the river. They could see nothing now but the grave markers. They stopped at the grave of Will’s mother. Will squatted and ran his fingers over the word Zahra as his grandfather had. He said “I’m going to try and not forget, Grampa.”

Frost walked on a few paces to the two newest graves. There was no grass on these. The soil was dark and soft-looking and almost flat. Through the plastic Frost could read the name carved on one of the markers. It said, Baby Aisha. The other grave had no marker. Frost said “Sorry, Fire. I’ll do that now.”

He sighed and walked beyond the graves to wait for Will in the fragile light.

15

A young man reaches up through the small dark doorway of a sailboat and sets an infant on the deck. The child is dressed in bulky winter clothes. It stands there unsteadily, its dark face turned upward, blinking into falling snow. The man climbs up onto the deck himself. He wears a padded jacket and a toque, and he has wire-rim glasses. He picks up the child again and steps across onto the dock beside the boat and sets the child down and says “Stay there.” The child sits on the planks and continues to stare up into the snow. The man goes back down inside the sailboat.

After a minute the man emerges again but only partially, to check on the child. After another minute he comes on deck again. He has to struggle this time because he is carrying a body wrapped in a white sheet. It takes him several tries to get through the little doorway. He steps carefully onto the dock.

He says “Let’s go. Can you walk?”

The child grips a pant leg of the man. Then it reaches up and takes hold of the lip of his pants pocket. They proceed slowly along the dock. The man at first carries the body in his arms, but soon he has to fold it over a shoulder so that he can give the child one of his hands.

Other than the rushing of the river there is no sound but the occasional slap of rigging against aluminum masts. They pass cruisers and sailing yachts that are tied to the dock. There are no people. The man stares straight ahead. It is late afternoon and the light is weak. The child keeps looking up into the snow. They come to a ramp. The man lets go of the child’s hand. The child grips the hem of the man’s jacket at the back. The man climbs the ramp slowly, so that the child will not fall. With his free hand he holds the railing.

At the top the man says “I guess I have to carry you.” Balancing his burden, he squats and put his free forearm under the child’s bottom, and the child holds on and, grimacing from the effort, the man slowly stands. Then he goes on, more quickly, carrying the child in one arm and the body in its white sheet over his other shoulder.

There is no traffic on the high bridge just east of the marina. No planes are landing or taking off at the airport to the west. There is no movement anywhere, and no sound but the slap of rigging, which grows faint behind him. Ahead are a few small commercial buildings — janitorial supplies, collision repairs — but there is no sign of activity and there are no cars parked outside these shops.

There is also one tall building, which looks as if it could have people in it. It appears to be a hotel. He stops for a minute and shifts the body to his other shoulder and gives the child his other hand. He goes on. It is not far.

He helps the child struggle up the few steps. He says “Sit there a minute. I’ll be right back. Okay?”

“’Kay” says the child and sits on the top step and tilts its face up to the falling snow and closes its eyes.

The man pushes open the door to the hotel and goes in and stands there listening. He turns down a corridor and finds a door that stands open. In the room the curtains are closed and it is dark. The bed is made up. Gently he lays his burden on the bed. He tries the light switch, but nothing happens. He opens the curtains. He looks in a little refrigerator. There is a pair of large cookies in a plastic wrapper. He tears off the wrapper and puts one of the cookies in his jacket pocket. Then he goes out and gives the other cookie to the child.

He goes back into the building and turns in the other direction and opens another door. It does not lead into a room but into an apartment. He goes down a short hallway into a living room. The curtains on a big window are open, and there is a fair amount of light. He carries on into a bedroom. This room is dark. A man and a woman are lying dead in the bed.

He goes close but does not touch either of the bodies. They are grey haired and are wearing pyjamas and are covered by a thick patchwork quilt. There is no smell. He does not open the curtains but backs away and goes into the kitchen. There is no food in the refrigerator. He tries the taps — there is no water. There is an empty pot on the stove. Under the sink he finds a plastic bottle of bleach, which he sets on the counter. One of the bottom drawers is full of potatoes. In another drawer he finds a cigarette lighter. It lights on the first try. He puts it in his jeans pocket.

Outside, the child is still working on her cookie. He sits her on his shoulders and walks along the street in front of the hotel. He eats his own cookie as they go. At the collision repair shop he tries the door but it is locked. He walks on a little farther and comes to an area in which there is a pile of gravel and some scattered concrete culvert pipes. He sets the child down to crawl on the gravel pile. Inside one of the pipes he finds two shovels, a small red jerrican that is a third full of gasoline, and a pair of twisted and dirty and hardened leather work gloves. A rusty wheelbarrow rests upside down against the culvert.

He stuffs the gloves in a back pocket of his jeans and takes a shovel. He puts the child on his shoulders again and goes back to the hotel. He leaves the shovel at the door but takes the child in with him this time.

He looks in all the rooms on all the floors. All the doors stand open, and all the beds are made up and all the curtains are closed. There are no more people, alive or dead. He finds no further packages of cookies but finds two miniature bottles of vodka and a half-bottle of red wine. These he leaves at the door of the hotel.

He takes the shovel and carries the child back toward the river. At a point where the ground looks soft but also where his sailboat can be seen he begins work on the graves. He does not dig them deep, but nevertheless it is well dark by the time he finishes.

There are no lights anywhere. The snow has turned to rain. The mass of the hotel stands out dimly against the clouds. Wearing the work gloves, he brings the man first, wrapped in the patchwork quilt. He uses the quilt again for the woman. He has to manage the child each time. He transports his own burden in the same sheet he used to bring her from the boat. Heaving with sobs, he carries his daughter and his wife through the near-total darkness and the cold rain toward the last grave.

Back at the hotel he tears up a sheet and makes a diaper and changes his daughter in the dark. They sleep in a bed in one of the rooms near the entrance. At dawn the child wakes crying with hunger. In the ground floor corridor the man finds a plastic bucket in a closet. It smells of cleaning liquid. He goes into the kitchen of the apartment and pours a little bleach into the bucket.

It is a cold morning, but the sky is clear. He takes the child and goes past the graves in the growing light and down to the river and fills the bucket. He lets it sit for a minute. Then he rinses it several times in the flowing water. Finally he fills it to a level at which it will not be too heavy to carry.

He makes another trip to bring the can of gas from the culvert. Then he leaves the child in the room and goes into the apartment. In the living room, beside the couch, there is a wooden end-table. It is stained sage green and looks like a high-school student’s woodworking project. He manages to knock it apart easily. In a closet he finds a pile of old newspapers. The one on top is the most recent. It is six months old. It has only two pages. The headline reads, Pandemic Confirmed.

At the hotel’s steps he breaks up the narrower pieces of the table. With the wood and the newspaper and a little of the gasoline he makes a fire and boils a few potatoes in the pot from the kitchen. He sterilizes a bowl and a spoon with bleach and rinses them with river water.

When the potatoes are done the man sits on the steps with his daughter and waits for their breakfast to cool. His daughter climbs on his lap and looks up into his eyes. There is a questioning expression on her face. She says “Momma?” The man picks her up and stands looking down into the fire. With a foot he nudges some unburned fragments onto the embers. He wipes tears from his face. Soon he sits down again and takes a bit of potato with the spoon and blows on it and tastes it. The child accepts it and opens her mouth for more.

When they have eaten, the child toddles around the parking lot while the man sits on the steps in the early sun. But soon he says “Come on, Zahra” and once more sets the child on his shoulders. They go back to the culverts. He sits the child in the wheelbarrow. “Can you hang on to this?” He lays the remaining shovel across her lap.

They go southwards and cross a main road. The only sound is from a slight breeze. Ahead he can see houses. In a few minutes he stops in the paved driveway of a ranch-style house. There is a large window, and he can see through it into a living room. He watches the window for a minute but sees no movement. The grass of the lawn is tall and wet and winter-dead. A pair of sparrows flutter among the stalks of this grass, but there are no birds at the empty feeder that hangs in front of the window. The lots in the area are small, and there are many houses of an almost identical design. But this house has wooden siding along the bottom part of the walls.

He puts the child into the grass, and she starts stumbling through it and laughing. He inserts the blade of the shovel under one of the wide overlapping boards of the brown-stained siding and tries to pry it loose. The board will not come loose, but it splits. He puts on the gloves and takes hold of the pointed end of the split-off part of the board and puts a foot against the wall and heaves. With a ripping sound the board splits along its entire length. Nails come out and the split-off part drops to the ground. At the far end it is almost as wide as an intact board. The man gives a grunt of triumph. He says “We’ve got firewood, Za-Za.” But he steps back as the door of the house opens. An old woman steps out.

She is Chinese. She is short and thin and has small brilliant black eyes. Straggly white hair hangs down about six inches below a blue baseball cap that says Vancouver 2010. She is wearing a baggy olive-green cardigan over flowered pink pyjamas. She has leather slippers with borders of fur. The bottoms of long underwear are visible between the slippers and the pyjama pants. She is holding a meat cleaver.

She says, in a clear and strong voice, ‘Go way. I cut your head off.” And she waves the cleaver.

The man steps into the grass to retrieve his daughter, who stands gaping at the woman.

The woman shouts “What you want?”

The man clears his throat and says “I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone here. I thought everyone was… I was just trying to get some firewood so we can cook and stay warm.”

“My house not firewood. Go way”

“All right. We’re going. I’m sorry.” He sits the child in the wheelbarrow with the shovel and they start down the driveway, with the child leaning out to look back at the woman.

The woman calls “Where you live?”

The man sets the wheelbarrow down and points. “There. At the hotel.”

‘You all alone?”

“You’re the only person I’ve seen.”

They stand looking at each other for a while. The man goes to the wheelbarrow and picks his daughter up.

The woman says “Where mummy?”

‘She died.” Having said that, he waits a few seconds. “It’s just us. Are you all alone here?”

“No, I got big family. You come here try take house we kill you.”

“I don’t want your house. I want to stay at the hotel. It’s close to the river. For water.”

“You got food?”

“I found some potatoes. That’s all. I know you’re alone here. I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to take your house. We’ll go now. If you want help with anything, just come to the hotel.”

Again they stand looking at each other. She says “Husband dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I bury.” She steps onto the driveway and waves the cleaver in a sweeping arc. “All dead” she says.

“But you survived.”

“I survive. You survive. She survive.” With the cleaver she indicates the child.

“You have food?” he asks.

“Soon gone.”

“I will bring you some potatoes.”

“Yes, bring” she says, and then “No, no bring. Wait.” She goes in but turns in the open doorway to say again “Wait.” In a few minutes she comes back with a handsaw in one hand and a crowbar in the other and no cleaver. She has a down-filled jacket over the cardigan. She gives the cedar siding a whack with the crowbar and says “For take wood. For cut wood.” She holds up the tools. “I come hotel. I stay hotel.”

He takes the crowbar. “Yes, come” he says. “I will look after you. Could you gather up any food you have in the house?”

But the old woman is staring past him. She has a fearful expression. He turns. A man and a woman and a boy of seven or eight are standing at the foot of the driveway. They are dark-skinned, African. They just stand there looking at him and the old woman.

He says to them “Are you hungry?”

16

Will stood hunched on the eastern sidewalk, forearms flat on the railing, hands overlapping, chin on hands, facing east, the direction of Wing’s farm. Frost touched him on the back. He turned slowly. Frost said “Don’t fall asleep.”

Some of the dogs were tied to the railing. Others, including King and Puppy, were free but lay sleepily on the warm pavement, twitching an ear whenever someone spoke. When Frost arrived they rose and wagged their tails and went to him. Those tied to the railing whined.

Will said “Could I do somethin’ else? I’m tired of this.” He sounded unhappy. “I’ve been watchin’ for hours. All I ever saw was a squatter lookin’ for brush to burn. And I saw a million rabbits and one or two crows.”

“Yes, you can do something else. You’ve been a good lookout. Now you can go back and help bring the soup. And Jessica’s cut up some rabbits for the dogs.” Frost watched Will trot down the middle of the roadway toward his farm. King started off after Will, but Frost whistled him back.

The sky was cloudless. In the east the sun sat low over the airport. It was already getting colder. All seven of the guards were lounging on the opposite, western sidewalk with their spears and swords. Deas, the field boss, was there too, and a couple of Frost’s younger men who had no other duties, and three of Wing’s men. All of these except Wing’s men had rabbit skin ponchos. Some of them leaned back against the railing, now and then exchanging a word or two. Wing’s men all faced the other direction, downriver, where in the distance a crowd of equal size occupied the centre of Fundy’s Bridge.

Tyrell and Oak sat at the edge of the sidewalk, watching Frost. Oak got up and stepped over the lane divider to take Will’s place, looking down on the River Trail.

Along the western railing a dozen strange shapes of rusted metal were lined. Frost gestured toward these. Tyrell stirred, looked around, rose tiredly and said “Hastins,…”

“Keep your voice down” said Frost.

“Hastins, hide them shields so’s our friends downriver can’t see them.”

Hastings and Newton leaned their spears against the railing and started laying the shields on the roadway, where they would be hidden below the edge of the sidewalk. Nordel helped them. The shields were automobile sheet metal — doors, hoods and trunk lids. On some of these, traces of ancient paint remained, like islands in a sea of corrosion. Most had holes rusted through. As the men lifted the shields away from the railing, crumbling pieces sometimes came away in their hands.

Tyrell stretched and ambled to the middle of the roadway to join Frost. He was wearing canvas trousers, like Frost. With the sun behind him his pale eye patch stood out against his dark face. He shrugged and said “I know, but they’re solid enough. Those skaggers won’t be able to shoot straight, anyhow. Not with armed men and dogs charging at them. How’s Daniel Charlie comin’ along with them bows?”

“Good. He’s working hard.”

“You got anybody over at Little Bridge?”

“If they come they won’t come over Little Bridge. They’d have to go through Fundy first. Wing’s man Pender is there just in case.”

Tyrell stepped closer. With what appeared to be an intense effort he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Frost, it’s about these spears.” He hefted the length of rigid plastic pipe. “I never said nothin’ before, but I am pretty damn sure they’d be useless in a fight. They’re way too light.”

“What would you like instead?”

“Maybe wood. Seein’ Daniel Charlie’s sawin’ wood for the bows, he might as well saw up some for new spears. Maybe he’s already got some the right size in that there inventory. What does Claws Wits say? In his book. Does he like wood or does he like plastic?”

“Clausewitz doesn’t talk about spears. He talks about tactics. He talks about terrain.”

“What the hell’s that?”

“Tactics — what to do, when to do it. Terrain — how to use the land.”

“Bridges?”

“Definitely.”

“Would you read it out for me?”

“Yes. But all you have to do is ask Will. Ask him when he’s here on guard next time. He knows the whole book.”

“Frost, I can’t ask a kid about war.” Tyrell’s voice had crept up to its usual volume. All the men had stopped what they were doing and were standing and listening.

“You would make him happy” said Frost. “He wants to be useful.”

Tyrell thought for a minute, and nodded. “Fine, I will. I’ll ask him. Now what about them spears?”

“I’ll ask Daniel Charlie.”

On the eastern sidewalk lay a few large stuffed plastic bags. Frost gestured toward these and said “You got enough of everything for sleeping?”

“Uh huh.”

“Keeping dry when it rains?”

Tyrell shrugged. “More or less.”

“Staying comfortable?”

“Could you send up that there hammock of yours and them pillows?”

“You mean to tell me the pavement is too hard? I’ll have a word with City Hall.”

“Who the hell is that?” said Tyrell.

One of the men at the railing, Richmond, called “Frost.”

Frost went to the railing. Richmond pointed toward Fundy’s Bridge and said “I think that’s him. That looks like his leather jacket.”

Frost said “Bastard. He’s waving.”

Tyrell said “Here’s a tactic. Or maybe it’s a terrain. Langley ain’t going to stay on that bridge overnight. He’s going to go down and stay with his soldiers somewhere at the north end. I go alone. I find a place to hide. I wait till he comes along in his Ricketyshaw and I give him a little surprise.”

“With that?” Frost glanced at Tyrell’s spear.

“They’re okay for throwin’. I throw, he’s dead, I run. We go home and get drunk.”

“I can’t risk losing you, Tyrell. Anyway, you think he doesn’t have guards all over the north approach?”

Frost looked down at the river itself. Here and there a ripple picked up a touch of the setting sun . “There’s Amber.” Although Amber’s barge was closer to Fundy’s Bridge than to Frost’s, she could be seen clearly. She was moving from plant to plant, fiddling with her roses, leaning on her length of reinforcing bar. She went into her shack and came out with a dark box-shape in one hand. With difficulty she sat on the beam that ran around the edge of the barge, with her back to the river. She laid her bar on the deck and took the box-shape in both hands. The thin, sad sound of a concertina drifted up on the twilight.

The men all moved to the railing. A quarter-mile away Langley’s men moved to their own railing. The air was still, and there was no other sound. There was My Wild Irish Rose, and there was the twilight, and that was all.

Then the dogs started howling. One by one, their song beginning as a low moan, they lifted their snouts to the darkening sky. Soon they worked themselves up, and the noise became high-pitched and frenzied. The men turned from the railing. They were angry. They looked as if they wanted to stride out into the roadway and start kicking left and right.

But suddenly the dogs stopped howling and started to bark. There was something at the north end of the bridge. The men who had set their spears aside picked them up. The guards formed a line across the bridge. Five people were coming up the north slope, three women and two men. Two of the women and one of the men were old, and the remaining man walked with a limp, but they were approaching quickly. Each carried a large black plastic bag. The old woman at the front had a sword.

“It’s Megan” said Frost.

King stopped barking first, then the other dogs. My Wild Irish Rose was also done. Frost let King trot down the bridge to greet Megan, who patted his back soundly. When the group drew close Frost said “It’s late to be traveling south, Megan. It’s late to be traveling anywhere.”

She said “I enjoyed that bag of squash, Frost. What did you think of that picture?”

Oak said “What picture?”

Newton said “You got a picture, Frost?”

Frost said “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Megan said “We don’t want to stay in Town no more. It’s too hard. Hard to get food, hard to get fuel. And that Langley’s got his men prowlin’ around everywhere. Me and these folks want to come and live on your farm. We’re all fit and we can all pull our weight.”

Tyrell was standing beside Frost. He turned from Megan and looked at Frost and said “We got Wing’s crew already. Where we going to get the extra food?”

Frost did not acknowledge him. He said “Marpole will take you down.”

Megan said “No, you need all your men here in case. We’ll find your farm. Your farm ain’t hard to find. Thank you, Frost.” She extended her hand, and Frost shook it. The others in the group also shook his hand. Megan cast a hard glance at Tyrell, but Tyrell had walked away to spit over the railing. The arrivals headed down the south slope.

The sun had gone down. There was a dense orange sunset, and a cold evening was taking shape. Tyrell turned suddenly and took a few quick strides to where Frost was. He made no attempt to damper his voice. “We don’t got enough spuds, Frost. What the hell are you doin’? The domicile is full. If we try to help everybody, nobody ain’t going to make it to next harvest.”

Frost said “People will double up in the rooms. There’s lots of rabbits. We’ll kill a cow if we have to. We don’t turn people away.” He was not looking at Tyrell but toward the south end of the bridge. He waved.

In the thickening dusk four people were walking up the bridge from that end. They stopped to converse briefly with Megan’s group, then came on again. Noor, Will and Wing were carrying pots by wire handles. Granville had a black bag slung over his shoulder. Frost smiled and walked down to meet them.

He said to Noor “Did you send soup for Pender over at Little Bridge?”

She answered “It’s done.”

“Rabbit for his dog?”

“Shit.”

“Better take some from the bag.”

The loose dogs suddenly raced toward them.

The sparse patches of Granville’s hair had been cut short. His face was less skull-like, and he had gained a little weight. He wore wool, not polyethylene. But as the dogs yapped and leapt up and clawed at his black bag and snapped at one another Granville hollered in fear and danced around the roadway with the dogs rioting all around him. There was distant laughter from Frost’s men.

Frost walked along with the group but waited until he was back at the crest of the bridge before he said to Noor, more loudly than necessary “When you go back take Amber some soup. And see if she’s all right alone there on that barge. There’s room with us if she wants to come.”

17

A frigid breeze rushed up the stairwell, moaning faintly. At the first floor landing Frost set down a bucket of water and flexed and shook his right arm and then transferred a near-empty pot of soup and a burning cattail from his left to his right hand and picked up the bucket in his left hand and continued up the stairs. A quirk of the moving air twisted the smoke from his torch into his eyes, and he had to blink and look away, but he did not change the steady pace of his ascent.

He stopped again at the next landing. There was no door in the entrance to the corridor. Someone was singing. Old Brandon. Somewhere out there in the pitch black corridor old Brandon was crooning “…and I say to myself…” He was coming closer. Frost slid the bucket of water away from the doorway and stepped back. “…it’s a wonderful world….”

A man lurched into the stairwell. There was a torn wool garment, flying white hair and clotted beard, a nose like a mangled spud, and a blast of hooch breath. He acknowledged Frost only with a glance of bloodshot eyes. Frost said “I’m taking your hooch off you, Brandon. I’m getting it on the way down.”

“No you ain’t. ‘Cause it’s all in my gut.”

“God damn you. Here, take my torch. You’ll fall and break your neck.”

But Brandon was already hurtling down the pitch black stairs with loose, weaving steps, fading out of Frost’s light. “I see trees of green, red roses too….”

Grace was waiting for him in her doorway. With both hands she took the pail of water from him and turned and set it inside the door of her bathroom. Frost took the soup pot with his free hand and stepped quickly across the room, which was lit only by a tiny fire in a metal bucket that sat below the window on some concrete blocks. An inverted white plastic basin above the bucket caught most of the smoke, and a length of four-inch plastic pipe led the smoke out under the sheet of polyethylene that covered her window. Frost dumped his torch into the bucket. There was a length of aluminum scrap beside the fire bucket. With this Frost jabbed at the cattail until most of the fluff was freed. It caught and flared, and the room grew brighter.

Frost said “Better eat it while it’s still warm.”

Grace came with a bowl and a spoon. He said “Just eat it from the pot. Don’t get your bowl dirty.” But she set the bowl on the floor and poured and scraped her soup into it.

The floor of the room was bare concrete. It sloped toward the corridor. There was a mattress by the fire, covered by a large rabbit skin rug, and spread neatly on this was a blanket of sewn-together rags. Grace sat on the mattress, facing down the slope, and ate her soup. Frost eased himself down and sat behind her, leaning sideways and uphill, and held out his hands to warm from the metal fire bucket.

Well before Grace had finished her soup the cattail fluff had burnt up. She set her bowl aside and turned and leaned against Frost. He put an arm around her shoulders. He said “Come down and get warm by the fireplace.”

“I’d rather stay here with you.”

“Bloody peat. Maybe I should’ve got cordwood from the Park Crew.”

“No. Leave the trees.”

They were quiet for some time. He said “That woman who had the amputation — is she all right?”

“Yes. She and her daughter have got Fire’s room. Her name is Salmon.”

“Like the fish.”

“Yes. Did you ever see a salmon?”

“Oh yes. I’ve caught them. I’ve seen many different…. When we were sailing I….” But he stopped and sighed and shook his head slowly and stared at the glow in the bucket.

Grace rocked him a little and went “Shh, shh.”

He sighed again and whispered. “I just wish I could go to sleep and wake up in the spring.”

She said in her halting, unsure way “Think of something else. ”

He continued to stare into the fading glow. He said “It doesn’t matter what I think. Winter comes around, thinking or no thinking. I would get drunk and stay drunk, but I’ve got to be sharp. Langley could come any time.”

Grace stopped rocking him. She stiffened. He took his arm from her shoulder.

In a while she said “Do you ever wish you were someone else?” It seemed as if the whole cold and lightless night beyond her window had entered the room and inhabited her voice.

He turned to her and said “Grace, don’t.”

“Do you ever wish you could be anyone except who you are?”

Somewhere a baby was crying, Mitchell’s child. Frost went onto his knees and leaned toward the fire. There was a pile of peat near the window. He placed a chunk into the bucket. With the scrap of aluminum he delicately poked at the fire. He cleared his throat and said “In the spring I want to travel up the valley. I want to have a look at it in case we have to leave here. Which I think might be best. I know the soil is good up there. I’ve heard there are a lot of trees. Would you like to come to see it with me? I would like you to.”

Some dogs on the bridge started barking. Others close by joined in. It took them a few minutes to settle down. In the quiet he could hear coyotes yipping far away to the south and now, through the wall, a woman sobbing. And again, somewhere, Brandon, outside in the drizzle. “…and I think to myself….”

He looked over his shoulder, saw that Grace was trembling. He said “You’d better come down for a little hooch.”

“Bring it up to me. Would you bring it up to me, Frost? And stay with me tonight. Please?”

18

There was a workbench in front of a plastic-covered window. A two-by-four was clamped vertically in a woodworking vise that was fixed to the bench. Daniel Charlie climbed onto a low platform of concrete blocks. He said “Saw.”

Frost handed it to him.

A straight line running the length of the two-by-four had been scored near one edge. Daniel Charlie started sawing along it. He held the two-by-four steady with his other hand and moved the saw in purposeful strokes. After a minute he stopped and got down from the platform. He left the saw in the groove. There were grains of sawdust in his hair. “My arm’s had it. Need a break.”

Frost said “Want me to have a go?”

“When’s the last time you ever sawed anythin’?”

Frost appeared to be thinking. He looked tired and slumped and haggard.

Daniel Charlie said “Is it bad again? I know it’s that time of year.”

Frost inhaled sharply and drew himself upright but said nothing.

Daniel Charlie said “Try one.”

There was a pile of finished bows, perhaps ten, on the bench. Daniel Charlie took the top one. Its string of yellow twine was loose. Daniel Charlie flexed the bow against the floor and slipped the loose loop of the twine into its notch and handed the strung bow to Frost, who pulled the twine back. “It’s strong.”

“It’ll shoot far.”

Frost slowly released the tension. “You’re a genius, Daniel.” His voice was worn and sandy.

Light came into the shop both from the window that faced the river and from the wide, jagged, plastic-covered crack that ran down the opposite wall.

Daniel Charlie said “We could take Langley up on his offer, you know. We could move over to Wing’s. Nobody dies that way. Not his people. Not our people. You must be worried about Noor and Will.”

Frost shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. He’d just find another way to screw us. My wife and my daughter are buried on this land. If he wants my farm he’ll have to take it.”

“I heard you were thinkin’ about maybe movin’ upriver.”

Frost shook his head. Daniel Charlie reached out and squeezed his arm. He sat on his little platform and said “Do you ever wonder what made him the way he is, where he came from? He just seemed to show up.”

“Langley? No. No more than I wonder where the rats come from that turn up in the spud room, and what made them the way they are.” The venom of the declaration seemed to animate him a little.

Daniel Charlie said “Could you shoot someone, Frost?”

Again Frost seemed to be thinking. He said “Tyrell wants heavier spears. Wooden ones.”

“Fine. Send him over to Town to pick up another vise and another ripsaw. Shouldn’t take him more than a lifetime or two. Then teach him how to use the saw and away we go. Spears up the ass. Spear city.”

“Spear city?” Frost smiled briefly.

Daniel Charlie shrugged. “You choose, Frost. Spears or more bows.”

“Bows. Lots of bows. But I’m sure I saw some smaller lumber. One by twos.”

“I’ll look at it. It could be warped all to hell and probably rotten. But you never answered my question. Could you shoot someone? I’m not sure I could. I’m not even sure I could shoot Langley.”

“I think about that a lot, Daniel. I could kill, yes. I’m almost sure of it. I believe it’s only a matter of choosing to do it beforehand, and then you can do it. Making the choice first.”

There was a rattling of the plastic that hung over the workshop entrance. Frost held the plastic back, and Will pushed in. He was carrying a black plastic bag. He set the bag down at Daniel Charlie’s feet. He said “That’s what Clausewitz says too, Grampa. We must have blind faith in the results of our own earlier reflections, in order to strengthen ourselves against the weakening impressions of the moment.”

Daniel Charlie gaped. He said “God damn. You want to see a real genius, Frost, just take a look at your grandson. He’s got that whole book memorized.”

Will’s dusky face flushed.

Frost said “I’d better make an effort to find more books. Ones not about war.”

Daniel Charlie reached into the bag and slid out a stick about two feet long. He said “I see you’ve already cut the cattail parts off.”

Will said “They took up too much room.”

Frost said “How many did you get?”

“I got two hundred.”

“You must be tired.”

Will nodded and came and leaned against his grandfather.

Daniel Charlie said “They’ll have to dry a little so they’ll be lighter and harder.” He spun the cane in his fingers. He pushed at the bigger end with a fingernail. “The pith is still soft.” There was a papery covering, which he shredded off and let fall among the sawdust on the floor. He stood. “Let’s try it. Bring a few more.”

He took the strung bow, and the three of them went out. It was a crisp, clear day. There was no wind. They walked down to the river. Daniel Charlie said to Will “You got the arrows, so you can have the honour.”

Frost gave Daniel Charlie a look. Daniel Charlie shrugged. “It’s only a stick still, Frost. A cattail stalk. It won’t kill anyone. Let her rip, Will. There are people at the Market, so you’d better aim left a bit.”

Will let out a shrill guffaw. “That’s way the other side of the river.” He took the bow, and Daniel Charlie showed him how to set the arrow on his hand and how to place the thin end on the twine.

Will shook with the effort of drawing the bow.

“Aim high” said Daniel Charlie. “Higher. Watch the string doesn’t snap against your arm. Pull it back more. More.” With a slight hiss the arrow was gone. It darted in a wide erratic spiral. It danced wildly on the air before it veered and dove into the river like a kingfisher.

“Try this one. It’s straighter” said Daniel Charlie.

“Me again?” said Will.

“Go ahead, you’re the expert now.”

This time the cane flew in a narrower spiral and cleared the three hundred yards of the river and appeared to come down in a blackberry patch.

“Whoa” went Will “did you see that!”

“I’ve got an idea” said Daniel Charlie. They went back into his workshop. He had a few plastic buckets of bent and rusty nails. He got his hammer and took a three-inch nail and straightened it on a concrete block. Then he flattened the head to make a half-moon shape, with the curved edge at the top. He found a cane that was straight. He pushed the nail into the pith in the larger end of the cane, with the flattened head protruding. He tapped it softly twice with the hammer. “They need weight at the front. We’ll get a little less distance but more accuracy. We don’t have time to add feathers.”

Frost said “It’s more than a stick now. With that nail.”

They went back to the river. Daniel Charlie looked to Frost for permission. Frost hesitated, then nodded. Daniel Charlie gave the nail-tipped arrow to Will, and Will shot again. This time the arrow only dodged and jogged a foot or two off its trajectory. It cleared the river but did not make it to the blackberries.

“It’s fine” said Frost. “It’s perfect. We don’t need accuracy. We need distance.”

Daniel Charlie said “They’ll fly farther when they’re dry.”

“And we need quantity. Better get a few hundred more.”

Will sagged. “I’m tired, Grampa.”

“I’ll send a someone to help” said Frost. “But you’ve got to show them where the best picking is.”

Daniel Charlie said “Can you send someone here to do the nails?”

“I’ll send Granville” said Frost.

“The addict? Is he up and runnin’?”

“Pretty well” he said tiredly. “He wants to be useful.”

19

When Grace entered the apartment Frost did not look toward her but shifted in his hammock and turned his back. It was almost noon. From outside drifted the distant, excited sound of men’s voices. Frost stared into the fire, where a battered and blackened aluminum pot simmered on embers.

Grace said “Are you ready, Will?”

Will sat on a narrow plastic-covered mattress under the window, leaning back against the wall, with his knees up, reading Principles of War. He put the book down and got up, glancing at his grandfather as he stepped past the hammock. He went to Grace. She bent her head, and Will whispered “Grampa’s not feelin’ well. He needs to rest. Maybe we should go without him.”

Noor was seated at the table. With a single curling yellow thread from a length of twine, she was stitching a cloth patch onto a pair of canvas trousers. The two women exchanged a look. Noor said “Up you get, Grampa. Will needs your help. So does Grace.”

Grace whispered to Will “He’ll feel better if he comes.”

She went around the hammock and crouched between Frost and the fire. She stroked his hair and laid her hand on his cheek and said “Come on. Come with me. It will be good. Come on now.”

Frost’s dull eyes had not moved. They had not been looking at the fire, and now they were not looking at her. She stood and lifted Frost’s legs over the edge of the hammock. “Will” she called. She and the boy managed to hoist the old man to a sitting position. Will handed Frost his glasses.

Frost said, barely audibly “Okay.” He let Grace and Will help him to stand.

Noor now stood by the door. In one hand she held three pairs of oiled scissors, which she put in a small plastic bag and handed to Grace.

King was waiting outside the door. Frost ignored him, but the dog wagged his tail and touched Frost’s hand with his nose. It was a cloudy day but it had not started to rain yet. Frost went down the steps and headed west, hatless, in his wool poncho, dragging a large empty plastic bag . He had olive green rubber boots. He did not hurry but did not wait for Grace or Will, and did not turn to see if they were following.

Grace had a rabbit skin poncho and hat and a wool kilt and black rubber boots with red soles. Will had his sweatpants and wool poncho and one black rubber boot and one olive, which was bigger than the black one and had a tear down the side. He and Grace walked behind Frost without talking, carrying their own empty bags.

A wheeze of sawing came from Daniel Charlie’s workshop, and the tap of a hammer on metal.

In the mud near the barns eight or ten men and three or four women were standing around a steer that had a rope around its neck, and a blindfold. There was a tall tripod of doubled two-by-fours, with a block and tackle. Among the crowd flowed a loud, formless and animated exchange of opinions. Except for Deas the field boss, the men were white haired or grey haired, but the women were younger. The one-armed woman, Salmon, was there but not her daughter. Wing was there. Old Brandon was there. Old Ryan. Old Justin. Old Joshua.

Grace said to Will “They all think they’re needed to kill a cow.”

“A steer” said Will.

“To kill a steer. Gathering cattails is beneath them.”

“I don’t think Grampa would want them around, anyway.” Suddenly Will stopped. He said “I should watch.”

Grace also stopped. “Watch…? What…?”

“I should watch them kill the steer.”

For a few seconds Grace paled. She stuttered “Why… Why do you want… I don’t think…”

“It will help me to be ready. For when the battle comes.”

“Battle? Oh lord, Will.”

Grace reached to pull him to her but he backed away a step. He said “I’ll catch up. I need to see the blood. I need to be ready.”

Grace made a sound, a brief low moan, and turned toward Frost, but Frost was walking steadily away from them. Grace closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Finally she said evenly “Your Grampa needs you, Will. It would make him sad if you stayed behind. He wouldn’t want you to watch. I think you know that. Come along now.” She stepped forward and reached toward him again, but once more he stepped back.

Grace looked again toward Frost. Seeing her do so Will also looked. Frost had stopped and turned. He was waiting. He had a hand near his face, palm outward, as if to shield his eyes from a bright light. But there was no light. There was just the business with the steer, and he seemed not to want to see it. Will shrugged unhappily, and they walked on.

When they got to the bed of cattails, not far from Fallen Bridge, King did not want to go into it. Grace handed Will and Frost a pair of scissors each, and King watched anxiously as the three people headed in among the plants, each in a separate direction, and were lost among the pale, bent and disordered winter leaves. The plants were taller than Will. He watched his grandfather disappear, the white hair and beard resembling the fluff that adhered in stubborn uneven clumps to the old tails. Will’s feet sank a little in the soggy ground, and an inch of water oozed up around his rubbers. He listened to the dry scraping of leaves as Grace and Frost proceeded in opposite directions, deeper into the patch. He felt a drop of rain on his wrist.

He studied the canes that surrounded him. There were several straight ones. He snipped the burst tail off one and let it fall. Then he bent down and cut the cane off near the base. He held it up to the dark sky and sighted along it. He put it in his bag. He cut the tail off another one. He heard the snick of Grace’s scissors, maybe fifty feet away. He said “They have to be straight.”

Grace answered “Yes. I see that many of them are not.”

A gust of wind roused the leaves of the cattail bed to a sudden hiss. Will said “We should work fast. It’s startin’ to rain. Right, Grampa?”

There was no reply. He could hear neither Frost’s scissors nor the scrape of leaves that would mark his passage through the dry, spent plants. Will left the crooked canes standing and stepped forward to search out more straight ones. He squatted and sighted through the plants in the direction he thought his grandfather had taken. He moved his head left and right, but there was no sightline through the leaves. All he saw was more plants.

He had no hat. Three, four drops of rain splashed on his head. He set to cutting more canes, working quickly as the rain increased. After a few minutes he said loudly “I know you’re worried about Langley, Grampa. But don’t worry, ’cause we know the terrain. Von Clausewitz says the terrain offers two advantages in warfare. The first is that it presents obstacles to the enemy’s approach.” Will stopped working. He stood still, listening.

What he heard was Grace. “Will, not now. Not that.” Her scissors had also fallen silent. There was a steady whisper of rain.

Will said “Grampa? Are you there?” He waited, then cut a few more canes, then stopped again. He said “I can help you figure out what to do. I know the whole book. You know what else about terrain? The second advantage is that obstacles in the terrain enable us to place our troops under cover. Like these cattails, for example. If we were troops…”

Grace said “Will, can you come over here? Come and look at these plants and tell me if I should take them. I need your advice.”

There was silence, and soon the snick of Grace’s scissors. Will cleared his throat and said, louder “From all this it follows that we should use such obstacles on one flank to put up a relatively strong resistance with few troops, while executing our planned offensive on the other flank.”

“Will!” Grace said his name sharply but quietly.

Will cut a few more canes and then stepped forward into the pale tangle. He pushed the canes aside with the hand holding the scissors and dragged the quarter-full bag behind him. “Grampa” he called “where are you?”

Back at the edge of the cattail bed King whined.

Will stopped to listen. Grace was moving toward him. He said “You know what else, Grampa? Keep our troops covered as long as possible. That’s what von Clausewitz says. So, for example, if you were our troops and I was the enemy…”

“Will!” Grace’s cry was this time both sharp and loud.

Will stopped, looked around, looked back at the trampled plants, started left, stopped, stepped back, started right, stopped. He began to cry, but managed to stutter “Only pursuit of the beaten enemy gives the fruits of victory.”

Then Grace was there. She laid a hand on his shoulder. She said softly “Will, Will, Will.” He did not try to evade her. She said “King is worried. Let’s go back for a minute and see him. Your grampa isn’t lost. It’s just that sometimes he doesn’t hear too well. I see you’ve got a lot of canes. More than me. Come on, let’s go count them.”

They weaved back along the rough path Will had made. When they emerged from the bed of cattails King rose and put his front paws on Will’s shoulders and licked at his face, but Will pushed him down. Grace dumped her canes onto the wet grass. “Let’s count them” she said. But Will just let his bag fall, and tossed the scissors on top of it and stood looking back into the cattail bed.

Grace said “Will, don’t bother your grandfather about war. Not today. Don’t make him think about… well, death. He’s already…”

Will had stopped crying. He said, without turning to face her “He’s old. I need to help him.”

“I know you do. And you should. Only, sometimes we think we’re helping someone but really we’re…”

Will spun and shouted into her face, shouted in his shrill boy’s voice “He’s my grampa! Don’t you tell me what to say to him! Don’t you ever do that!”

Now Grace was weeping, suddenly, wildly, with her hand over her mouth. She turned and walked away a few paces and stood there sobbing. She let one hand hang limp. King went to her and nudged the hand with his nose. Grace sat on the sodden ground, wiping at her face with her hand.

When Will approached and squatted beside Grace he saw that from somewhere she had produced a half-full green plastic bottle of the potato hooch that his grandfather kept in the bottom cupboard. She gave a last shuddering sob, and he watched her unscrew the cap, take a deep swallow and screw the cap on again. She set the bottle on the ground. King lay down on the grass beside them. Will waited.

Grace said “You don’t know what day this is.”

Will shook his head.

“I guess it’s time you knew. I don’t think he’d want me to tell you, but I’m going to anyways. You know he keeps a calendar?”

Will nodded.

“He knows the year. He knows the month. He knows the day.”

Will said “Christmas is comin’. That’s all I know.” He put a hand on Grace’s shoulder.

“Yes” said Grace. “Christmas. Bonfires and singing and the men getting drunk. Have you ever noticed how your grandfather is never happy around Christmas?”

“No, I never noticed. He’s not? Every year?”

“Every year. Only, this year it’s worse. Because of… well… the way things are. In the past he’s always tried not to show it. He didn’t want to upset you.”

“People are supposed to be happy at Christmas. Because it’s the darkest day and winter will soon be over.”

Grace said nothing for some time. She appeared to want to speak, and several times made a sound or two. Finally she closed her eyes and said “This is the day your grandmother died. Forty years ago.”

Will said “Oh.”

Grace said “He never told me. Daniel Charlie did. And… oh Will…” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “It’s also the day your mother died. Five years ago. And the earthquake too. The earthquake was at Christmas. That’s why he’s… That’s why Christmas… That’s why you shouldn’t…”

Will leapt up and ran to the edge of the cattails. He called “Grampa! Grampa! Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”

“No, Will” warned Grace “It’s best to…”

Far along the edge of the cattail bed there was a rustling. King rose and pricked up his ears and then wagged his tail and finally saw Frost emerge and ran to meet him. Frost strode rapidly toward Will and Grace, with King prancing at his side. Frost was dragging his plastic bag, empty.

Will waited, then ran to his grandfather. Without slowing, Frost ruffled Will’s hair and said very cheerfully “Hey, what’s all the noise? I thought there was a riot. Thought I’d better come and investigate.” His face was luminous against the rain clouds.

Will’s face was as bright as Frost’s. He said “What’s a riot?”

“You don’t know what a riot is? I knew your education was deficient. A riot is a crowd of troublemakers. But it turned out to be only one boy. Imagine my surprise.”

Will laughed, turned to Grace. For some reason she looked desolate, ready for more tears. Frost said heartily “Yes, if I need a general in a few years I’ll know where to look, Will von Clausewitz von Terrain von Otherflank.”

Will laughed, an abrupt shriek. Grace shook her head and looked down at the ground but smiled slightly.

Frost said “Here. I thought of something. A little change from Clausewitz. Enough Clausewitz. Would you like to hear something about the principles of peace?”

Will nodded and leaned against Frost and almost put his thumb in his mouth. Frost placed a hand on Will’s shoulder and faced Grace. He said “Grandson, you’re not the only one who can fire off quotations. This is Shakespeare.” And he recited. “Sweet are the uses of adversity… da-da da-da da-da… and this our life, finds tongues in trees, books in the brooks, sermons in stones, and blood in everything.”

Grace again clapped her hand to her mouth. Will looked up, frowning. Like a snuffed candle the light went from Frost’s face. “Did I say blood?”

Grace nodded, trying to choke back her tears.

“Not blood” said Frost. “Not blood. Good. Good in everything.”

Will lifted his grandfather’s hand from his shoulder and tugged. “Come on, Grampa, let’s go home.”

Frost looked weak and baffled. He looked as if his knees could give out. He pulled his hand loose from Will’s grip. He glanced around, as if he had misplaced something. “Oh dear” he said in his small, sandy voice. “Scissors.” Still dragging the empty bag, he started back quickly, like a man needing shelter, toward the point where he had emerged from the cattails, with Will tugging at his poncho and saying “Grampa, Grampa” as the rain came down hard at last.

20

Tyrell drew the bowstring back. At the same time he raised the bow. It was another cold, foggy day. There was no wind. The arrow streaked away, and there were exclamations from those who stood behind Tyrell. Two hundred paces to the west, in an empty potato field near the old railroad tracks, a row of six faintly visible black shapes hung on supports. The arrow, in its tight spiral, was almost impossible to track in the mist, but Tyrell said “Close. Not bad. So that’s the range. Them bags are Langley’s soldiers, okay? Try and put an arrow in them.”

Five people with bows stepped forward. Frost was one of them. Each plucked a nail-tipped cane from one of the several piles on the ground. Frost hesitated before touching his arrow. But then he placed it on the string, drew the bow and released the arrow. He said “These glasses are magic. I got a soldier.”

Tyrell said “Them glasses are bullshit. You got a rotten spud.”

Wing, who stood next to Frost, said “Tyrell, that ain’t no spud. That’s a pile of horse shit. If I ever want any horseshit killed I’ll just holler for Frost to get his bow.”

Tyrell said “Wing, you shot good. Megan, you got about half way. Ryan, you shot too far. Noor, you got a soldier.”

There were cheers and clapping. Except for Frost’s and Wing’s guards, all the residents of the domicile were there. About twenty had bows.

Noor said “That arrow had a life of its own. It’s all just luck.”

Tyrell said “No, it’s all about getting’ the right range. That and shootin’ a hell of a lot of arrows. Daniel, you got a soldier too.”

Daniel Charlie said “My ancestors would be proud.” He reached back over his shoulder and hauled his white braid forward and kissed the remaining triangle at the tip of his eagle feather. He said to Tyrell “You teach good, paleface.”

“Paleface, my ass!” said chocolate-skinned Tyrell, and there was laughter.

Old Joshua said “If we just wait for a clear day we could see for ourselves where our arrows go.”

Frost said quietly “They’d see our targets from Fundy’s Bridge, Joshua. And they’d see us collecting the arrows.”

More people stepped forward with bows and took their shots, and Tyrell told them whether they’d shot well or not. Most of them could draw the bows all the way back. When old Brittany’s turn came she could only pull the bow an inch, and her arrow spun off the bow and fell at her feet, but she did not seem to notice. Tyrell said “You got two soldiers with one arrow, Brittany. Now, that’s shootin’.”

Brittany shouted in a voice like a girl’s. “Take that, you dirty drug bastards! I’ll teach you to mess with Frost’s people.” Then she stepped on the arrow and snapped it.

More people came forward with bows and took their shots. Old Burnaby. Kingsway. Night. Granville. The old man and the younger one who had come with Megan from Town to live at the farm.

They were gathered almost under the foot of the bridge, near a portion of the south wall of a building. The other walls had fallen, forming a vast ruin of concrete slabs grown over by blackberry. This section alone remained standing. It blocked the view of Fundy’s Bridge.

“Okay, Will” said Tyrell.

Will and Arthurlaing and Surrey and Salmon’s girl Cloud, and Rain’s two girls ran forward beside the railroad tracks, toward the six black shapes. Little Skytrain wanted to run with them, but he was not much more than a toddler, so his father scooped him up. Arthurlaing was smaller than Will. His blond hair was long and dirty. He had a knee-length wool shift and limped as he ran. Will stopped a few times to wait for him, and then jogged along beside him. Cloud and Rain’s girls and Surrey ran ahead and started shouting as they spotted arrows and headed toward them. Their shapes grew faint as they approached the targets.

Frost said “I doubt if they’ll find them all.”

Daniel Charlie said “They can look again stomorrow, after we take the bags down. Anyways, there’s lots more cattails and lots more nails.”

On the other side of the standing wall, among the bushes, weeds and vines that thrust up through the fissures of the buckled concrete floor, there was a commotion, a sudden rustle of leaves. Now a shout, a “God damn!” a “Watch out!” and old Brandon stumbled out around the end of the wall.

He stopped abruptly when he saw the crowd. He thrust out a plastic bottle with some clear liquid in it. He wagged the bottle and said “I got hooch, Frost. I’m too smart for you.” He laughed and attempted a little dance but lost his balance and stumbled forward, then backward, then stood there wobbling.

People watched Brandon for a while, but soon looked away. Waving the bottle, Brandon began to sing. “Frosty the snowman….” Nobody turned toward him. He could not seem to recall the next words of the song. He set his bottle on the ground very carefully. He watched it for a few seconds, urging it, with a patting motion in the air, not to move.

Several bows lay together on the ground. Brandon picked one up. He took an arrow and placed the end of the arrow against the bowstring. He heaved the bow up and drew back the bowstring and bellowed “Robin Hood!”

Suddenly everyone saw what he was doing. There were shouts of “Brandon, no!” and “The kids!” and “Stop him!” Daniel Charlie, who was closest, snatched the bow away, but the arrow had already gone.

There was not a sound, not a movement from anybody as the arrow climbed, began to fall, and finally became invisible in the mist. Near the six black targets the silhouettes of the children darted unpredictably.

Tyrell said “It’s down. They’re safe.”

Now there was a grunt of fear from Brandon. Frost swung hard and slapped him, knocking him back. As Brandon waved his arms for balance Frost slapped him again, and Brandon fell, begging “Don’t kill me, Frost!” Blood was flowing from his nose and from a split in his lower lip.

Frost knelt on Brandon’s chest with one knee and gripped his wild and matted white hair with both hands and thumped his head on the ground, then again, and again. Then he stood, looming over him, jabbing a finger down at the bleeding face. He yelled “Once more… once more… any little thing.. and you’re gone, you’re off this farm!”

They had knocked over Brandon’s hooch. Frost picked up the bottle and turned and jogged away toward the children, shaking out the remaining liquid as he went.

An excited gabble of voices faded behind him. He slowed to a walk, noticed that he was still holding the bottle, tossed it aside. Soon he heard the children. Here’s another one and I got the most and You don’t got more than me. In the fog they did not look quite real. Near the six black shapes of the targets they dashed first one way, then another in an aimless angular dance of phantoms.

Frost stopped. He turned and looked back at his people. The jabbering mass of them. From here, through the fog, they were more phantoms. He turned toward the river, which he could neither see nor hear. He bowed his head and closed his eyes and drew a long breath of winter air. He opened his eyes and looked at his hands. Blood. This he studied for a full minute. Then he found some grass where he could wipe off most of it.

He walked on, and there were welcoming calls of, Hi Grampa and Frost, Frost, lookit all the arrows I got. They came and showed him their fistfuls of canes. Cloud and the two other girls cradled theirs in their arms. Arthurlaing said “Frost, lookit mine!”

Frost said “Do you think you got most of them?”

“I think so” said Will.

“Take them back, then. Don’t run, though. You might fall and stab yourself.”

Will and Arthurlaing walked. The others ran.

Frost watched them for a few seconds, then went on slowly to the row of targets. The plastic bags were simply draped over warped one-by-twos that were driven into the earth. About ten feet separated each target. Frost stood looking at them, almost as if he expected them to speak. He examined his hands again, detected a remaining streak of blood, wiped it against his poncho. He turned his head slightly to the right. Fundy’s Bridge was half visible, ghostly.

He went up to one of the bags. An arrow was dangling from it. He freed the arrow and turned and started back. Then he heard something behind him, a voice calling his name. From the west two silhouettes were approaching through the fog, two men.

“Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.”

Frost sighed. He watched the silhouettes take on three-dimensional form as they came closer. The tall, bald man. The young man, black haired and handsome, with his awkward lunging strides, in his real blue shirt and real trousers. No dogs today.

“And the people shall be as the burnins of lime. As thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.”

Frost stood there with his arrow.

“Frost! Frost!”

“You don’t have to shout, Abraham.”

And then they had stopped, each an arm’s length away, both of their faces aimed at Frost, the older man’s face aggrieved and outraged, the younger man’s eager, desperate.

“Where’s Noor? Is Noor here?”

Fundy cocked his wrist for a backhand slap, but Solomon detected the motion and stepped away before Fundy could deliver.

“When the enemy shall come like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” Frost glanced at the fist Fundy was waving. But there was no bible gripped in it.

“Where is she?’ said Solomon. “Is that her there? I see her! I see Noor!”

Frost sighed again and gave his attention to the arrow in his right hand, Noor’s arrow or Daniel Charlie’s. Tyrell had not lied. His eyesight had after all been remarkable.

“Will you help me, Frost? Will you help me lift up a flag against my enemies? Against your enemies?”

Solomon started off at a trot toward the crowd of people gathered near the foot of the bridge. His father ignored him, but Frost frowned as he watched Solomon grow faint in the mist.

“Will you, Frost? Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak. For your work shall be rewarded.” With the same hand that Fundy had used to threaten Solomon he reached out and seized Frost by the shoulder, and he glared with an expression both terrible and imploring.

Frost turned away from Fundy and started back, walking quickly. Fundy strode beside him, still glaring.

“Abraham, you have an irritating way of getting worked up without saying exactly what it is you’re worked up about.”

“Worked up? Why, man, what do you think I’m worked up about?” He gripped Frost’s upper arm with the hand again, a hand the size of a shovel blade, and forced him to stop walking. He lowered his voice to a powerful whisper and put his face close to Frost’s. “I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. Yes? Yes, Frost?”

Frost neither looked into the fiery face nor replied to the plea. He walked on, watching Solomon with his lunging gait draw near to the crowd. He said “You want to talk about the bridge. You want to talk about Langley.”

“They’re down at my end now, Frost. They’re not up in the middle. I have waited for them to go away and they have not gone away. I have been patient. Behold, we count them happy which endure. But I have come to the end of my patience. I have come to the end of what I can endure. They stand there watchin’ us. They stand there laughin’. I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.” He shook his fists again, both of them now, and addressed his glare to the fog above his head. He tried to stop Frost again, but Frost would not stop. “You’ll help me, Frost. I know you will.”

Frost said “Yes, Abraham, I will help you. I will help you by telling you to wait.”

“Are you blind, man?”

“I will not spill blood unless I have to. And neither will you.”

“We would be strong, all of us together. Don’t you see that? And now I heard that you got Wing’s men too. We’d be strong. You going to wait till he takes over my place like he took over Wing’s?”

“You’re ready, Abraham, you’re prepared. Wing wasn’t. If you let him provoke you, you will be putting all your people in danger. You could all be slaughtered. He’s up to it. I’m telling you to wait.”

Close ahead the assembly of archers and watchers was shifting, losing whatever organization it had possessed. Tyrell and Daniel Charlie had placed themselves between Solomon and Noor. Solomon was trying to dodge around them, scattering the piles of arrows, calling “Noor! Noor!” People backed away with their bows. Loose bows were snatched off the ground to save them from damage. Behind the crowd, in the gloom under the bridge, Brandon was steadily cursing Frost.

Fundy passed Frost as if they were in a footrace. But a few paces from the gathering he stopped. He threw up his hands and bellowed “Frost’s people! Frost’s people! Listen!” Everyone stopped moving, even Solomon for a few seconds. They waited for Fundy to say what he was going to say.

He said “If you wait he will take this farm. He will take my farm, and then he will take this farm. He took Wing’s farm, and I don’t know why you think he’s going to set there on my bridge forever and a day. ’Cause he ain’t.”

“Noor!” Solomon resumed his attempts. No matter how nimbly he dodged, his way was blocked by either Tyrell or Daniel Charlie. In a sudden flare of anger he stomped a foot and shrieked like a child and pushed out with both hands. He caught Tyrell square in the chest. Tyrell stumbled backwards and sat on the ground.

Fundy ignored the business with his son. He said “Frost’s people, I am askin’ you to join me. I am askin’ you to stop waitin’ and to rise up. To rise up before it is too late.”

But no one was listening to him. With a snarl Tyrell hurled himself toward Solomon. Frost rushed forward to help Daniel Charlie restrain Tyrell. Solomon backed away and was for a moment still and quiet.

Now Noor walked around the edge of the crowd to where Solomon stood cowering. She took Solomon’s hand and led him to stand near his father. Still holding his hand, she said “Hello, Solomon. How are you?” The mist had left a veil of droplets on her coarse, tied-back hair, and the skin of her face was soft from the moisture. She smiled.

Solomon said “I’m fine, thank you, and the Lord’s blessins on you.”

“It’s nice of you to come and visit me.”

Tyrell was taking deep breaths and looking at the ground. He nodded. Frost and Daniel Charlie let him go.

Everyone except Fundy was now watching Noor and Solomon. Through narrowed eyes Fundy was glaring at Tyrell.

Solomon said to Noor “I came to say I love you. I love you, Noor.” There was a warped, quacking character to his speech. From somewhere among Frost’s people came snickers. Noor ignored a speck of spittle which had landed on her cheek. Solomon lifted his free hand to pull her to him, but she took the wrist and placed the hand at his side, and he kept it there.

She said “I know, Solomon. Didn’t you bring Wolf and Ring?”

Solomon dropped Noor’s hand and started to bounce and to wave his arms. “Ring’s going to have puppies! Puppies! Do you want a puppy, Noor? Daddy, can Noor have a puppy?”

Noor turned to Fundy, still smiling, and with the little finger of her left hand wiped away the droplet of spit. But Fundy seemed not to have heard. He was still glaring at Tyrell. He said “Did you touch my son, nigger?”

There were murmurs of outrage. Someone said, more disgusted than angry “Go on home, Fundy.”

Fundy appeared to be restraining himself with difficulty. He said, trembling “Noah put his curse on the sons of Ham. This means all niggers. Now, I come here to offer to fight together. I come to be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. But a son of Ham has touched my son, see. A nigger has lifted his black hand against my Solomon. Who is a just a poor simple retarded boy. Frost” Fundy called with passion “cast this nigger out into the wilderness. Cast him out now. Cast him out from this farm, so we can make a common cause. For he is a blight on your community and a hindrance to our salvation.”

Frost said “You better go home now, Abraham.”

Tyrell said “You want to see me lift my black hand? All right. But the next time you see me lift my hand, it will be the last thing you see in this life.”

Daniel Charlie placed a hand on Tyrell’s arm.

Solomon said “Can she, Daddy? Can she have a puppy?”

Fundy sagged. He looked beaten, old. He stood there blinking, as if he had forgotten why he had come. Then he gave a twitch, and a light returned to his eyes. He said “Are those bows and arrows? Frost, are you getting’ ready to fight?”

Noor took Fundy’s arm and turned him. She said “Tell me, Abraham. Tell me while I walk you back to your place. Exactly what do you want? I’m listenin’. I’m a good listener. Not like the others.” She said “No, Solomon, you walk on the other side of your daddy. That’s right. That’s a good boy.”

Fundy half turned once and called “Are you, Frost? Are you gettin’ ready?”

The three of them walked into the fog, toward the black targets, Noor holding Fundy’s arm, Solomon on the other side of his father, twisting and craning to see around him, finally lunging a few steps ahead and turning to walk backwards.

Frost heard “…puppies!” He heard “…enemies… sons of Ham…” He saw Fundy shake his head sadly. Above the renewed clamour of his people he also heard a slurred but heated voice, from behind him, under the bridge “I’ll get you, Frost! You ain’t… You ain’t… big as you think. Give me my god damn hooch back. Bastard! Where’s my bottle? Where’d I put my bottle? Frost, did you take…? God damn you, Frost!”

Frost went to Tyrell and patted a shoulder and said “Never mind, Tyrell, never mind.”

The voice under the bridge was quiet for a minute. Then it was singing “…was a jolly, happy soul….”

21

Wing said “The smell of freshwater is the loneliest smell in the world. I’ve smelled it all my life.”

They were squatting in drizzle on the narrow bank of the river, a few feet from the skeleton of the half-finished water wheel. The tide was running, and the current was swollen and fast.

Wing said “My grandfather’s grandfather caught a sturgeon upriver from here. Hundred and fifty pounds.”

Frost said “Daniel Charlie has told me similar stories. Maybe they’ll come back.”

“Naw, the water’s changed. Nothin’ lives in it now.”

“Amber says she saw a fish beside her barge.”

Wing snorted “I wonder what kind of fish that would be.”

There was a whistle. They looked up and saw Will on the bridge. Puppy was beside him, with her front paws on the railing. Will waved, and they waved back, and the boy and the dog moved out of sight away from the railing. Frost and Wing both looked downriver. Only two soldiers were to be seen on the crest of Fundy’s Bridge.

Wing said “It must be like Fundy said. They’re down at his end.” He stood and said “Jesus, here comes a big branch.” Frost stood too, but the branch, thick and forked, swept past twenty feet out. It caught against one of the piers of piled stones, but then spun away. Wing said “Could’ve had some firewood. Or at least somethin’ for the Christmas bonfire. But you don’t like Christmas, do you?”

Frost looked down and kicked at the dirt of the bank with a sandal. He said “I like a fire, though.”

Wing said “I’m kind of off the holiday season too. After what’s happened. But once we’re rid of Langley I could become a Christmas person again. Once we’ve made him see the error of his ways. With a sword through his liver. Hopefully my sword. Yes, a sword through the liver could definitely lead to Deck the Halls and mulled wine.”

The grey heavy water rushed on without a sound. The branch was already out of sight. The drizzle made a far-flung whisper. The men squatted again and watched the river. In a while Frost said “We better go in.”

“Yeah.”

They rose and had gone a few steps when another whistle, louder, came from the bridge. This time it was Deas. He signaled that they should look east. There was a noise, a clank of metal. From the shadow of the bridge, where the River Trail passed under it, two people emerged. They were tall and thin. They wore identical wool ponchos and kilts and leather sandals. They were bareheaded, and their dark hair hung to their waists. At this distance the only difference between them was the beard of one. They each had hold of a shaft of a two-wheeled cart and were straining to pull it forward along the uneven trail.

Wing said “The Parts Gang has arrived. Mr. and Mrs. at least. What are they doin’ out on a day like this?”

Frost said “They must need food.”

Frost and Wing walked toward the pair, who looked up and saw them coming but kept pulling their load forward. When they were close they set the shafts down and waited.

Frost and Wing shook the hands of the man and woman and each of them said “Hello BC. Hello Wind.”

BC nodded a greeting. The woman looked at the ground and showed no expression. This close, there was no longer much resemblance between the two, other than their height and the wet dark hair. The woman was gaunt and had tired, resigned eyes, but there was a little colour in her cheeks, and she had full lips. One of those lips was split and swollen, and she had a bruise around one eye. Although there was no grey in his thin hair the man seemed much older than the woman. He was not wrinkled, but above his beard the yellowish skin of his face hugged his skull. It was as if the skin had shrunk. His moustache, soaked with rain and snot, hung over his lips. When he finally opened his slit of a mouth to speak, there were no teeth.

“I brung your sheet metal, Frost. Where do you want it?”

“Here’s good.”

Without looking, BC gave the woman a push with one hand. She stepped over her shaft and began unloading.

BC said “I got eight pieces. Hoods, trunk lids and doors. Like you ordered. Not much rust.” He had a weak, hoarse voice. He made eye contact with neither Frost nor Wing.

Wing said “You look like shit, BC. What are you doin’ out in the rain?”

BC shrugged, sniffed, spat.

Frost’s eyes narrowed slightly. He studied the man’s face.

There was a crash of metal. One half of a car door fell from the woman’s hands. She grabbed the thin, rust-eaten edge of the other half before it hit the ground. She placed the rescued half-door carefully on the growing pile of sheet metal.

BC stepped over the shaft on the woman’s side. She ducked her head and threw up an arm in defence. BC said nothing. He just punched her hard in the shoulder. She tripped over the split door and fell. But she scrambled up and darted away a few steps and stood there watching him, crouched, ready to run in any direction.

BC came back to Frost and Wing. Looking away, he said “Okay, that there piece had a little rust.”

Frost said “If you touch her again I’ll throw you in the river.” He glared at BC.

Wing said “And I’ll be there to make sure you don’t come up.”

BC continued looking away. Wind went back to unloading the rest of the pieces.

Frost said “We’re building a water wheel. We can’t work with metal that’s falling apart.”

BC shrugged, said “It’s forty years old. Fifty.”

Frost said “Come up to the domicile, and I’ll give you your spuds.” He lifted from the wagon the trunk lid of a car. It had a corroded licence plate with the words Beautiful British Columbia. He laid it on the ground.

Wing also stepped forward to help, but BC said “Your wagon is done, Wing. You can come and get it any time.”

Frost came back from the cart. Wing was shaking his head and saying nothing.

BC said “Buick chassis. Toyota wheels. Hand brake. We made good thick rubber tires. It’ll haul anythin’ anywhere. Just come and get it.”

Wing sighed and said “BC, are you going to tell me you didn’t hear what happened to my farm?”

BC tried to put a little strength into his voice. “I heard. Why wouldn’t I hear? ’Course I heard. It got took over. Anyway, just bring your steers and take it home.”

“Home?”

“Well….”

Frost stood beside Wing, looking concerned. The woman had finished unloading and was standing near the wagon, listening.

Wing said “If you heard my farm got took over, why didn’t you come and ask me if I still wanted the wagon?” Now Wing was shouting. “Why the hell would I need a god damn huge wagon if I’m livin’ over here in one of Frost’s rooms?”

Frost glanced up. Half a dozen guards were standing at the bridge railing, looking down at them.

BC spat. He stood there watching the river. His weak voice was steady, not loud. “You want to cancel a job, you got to tell me. Then you got to pay me for what I already done. Now, that there wagon is finished. You didn’t say nothin’, so you got to pay up.”

Frost was watching Wing. He looked worried. Wing did not seem to know what to say.

BC said “Fair’s fair.”

Frost said to Wing “What was the deal?”

Wing turned his back and walked away a few steps. He spat, shrugged and said quietly “Six months of food.”

Frost said to BC “How many in your crew?”

“Me and Wind and three more.” Now he did look at Frost. The eyes were dead. The whites were the same colour as the river. “Fair’s fair” he repeated.

Frost looked down and scratched his beard. He nodded to himself a few times. Then he said brightly “I’ll tell you what.”

On BC’s lipless face there appeared the slightest hint of a smile.

Frost said “Could you make me a crossbow?”

BC’s smile disappeared.

Behind the narrow lenses of his glasses Frost’s eyes were eager, fresh and boy-like. He said “I’ve always wanted a crossbow.”

The woman lifted a hand to cover her mouth, then dropped it.

Now BC’s eyes were locked on Frost’s. With an obvious effort he glanced at Wing, who now had the same expression of excited anticipation. BC tried to say something, had to clear his throat, managed to croak “What’s a crossbow?”

Frost said “What’s a crossbow! You don’t know what a crossbow is? I thought you were supposed to be a mechanical genius!”

Wing said “Even I know what a crossbow is. And I’m just a farmer. Or was. You must know — a guy like you — buildin’ stuff all your life — travelin’ around with that there cart.”

Frost said “You must have seen them.”

Wing said “There’s plenty of them around.”

BC said “Crossbows.”

Wing said “Yeah. They’re used for, you know….”

He and Frost aimed two invisible weapons at BC’s face.

For the first time, Wind spoke. Her voice was clear. The words came out fast and loud. “He don’t know nothin’ about crossbows. He don’t know what a crossbow is and I don’t neither. We build wagons and we trade metal. So just give us them spuds you said. And quit tryin’ to get out of payin’ for the wagon. We got a long trail home.”

Frost took a short punch at the air in disappointment. He said to Wing “Damn! I really wanted a crossbow.”

Wing patted Frost’s shoulder. “There, there, Frost. Maybe we can find you a crossbow somewhere else.”

Frost looked hopeful. “You think so?”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we talk to that there guy who took over my farm? He’s got a whole bunch of them. What the hell was his name?”

“Langtree? Lamebee? Something like that?”

Wind grasped the shafts of the cart and started pulling it toward the domicile. She said “Come on, baby. We got a long trail home.”

BC said “Oh, you mean them things that are used for, like…” He aimed his own invisible weapon at Frost, and Frost and Wing aimed theirs back at him.

Frost said, as eagerly as before “Can you make me one?”

BC managed to create a frail and momentary smile. “I never seen one up close. I doubt if I got the parts.”

“What!” said Wing. “The Parts Gang don’t got the parts?”

Frost said “No leaf springs? No metal for the arrows? I’m disappointed, I truly am. I was sure if anybody could make me a crossbow it would be you. See, I thought maybe it was you who made those crossbows for… Lameflea?”

“Lungtea?” said Wing.

BC turned and walked after Wind. He said “Long trail home.”

Frost and Wing did not move. They waited. Then Frost called “So, about payment for that wagon you built….”

BC stopped. He stood immobile for a few seconds. Frost and Wing watched him. He turned and came back, looking down at the ground. He said nothing. He seemed very weak, as if he wanted to lie down there in the drizzle.

Frost said “I will pay you for Wing’s wagon.”

BC nodded, not looking at either of them.

“But I can’t spare six months of food for five people.”

BC muttered “I’ll take a cow.”

“A cow” said Frost.

“You’ll take a cow?” said Wing. “Where you going to pasture a cow? In that muddy junkyard of yours? Is it going to eat fenders?”

BC said “I’ll take the meat.”

Frost said “That’s a lot of meat. How you going to keep it?”

BC shrugged.

Frost said “Langley’s got Wing’s cows. And I can’t spare one. I’ll give you my next calf, how’s that? I’ll raise it and slaughter it and salt the meat for you.”

BC nodded and shook hands with Frost on the deal. The three men started toward the domicile. But soon BC cleared his throat and said “I need some today.”

They stopped. “Some what?” said Frost.

“Some meat. For down payment.”

“You want meat for down payment on Wing’s wagon?”

BC nodded. “Give me twenty-five kilos.”

Frost said “We just killed a cow, but it’s not salted yet.”

BC said “I’ll take it fresh.”

“There’s no way you and your crew are going to eat twenty-five kilos of meat before it goes off. Anyway, I can’t spare twenty-five. I’ve got extra mouths to feed. I’ll give you ten for now.”

BC shrugged, stared into the distance the way he had stared at the river.

When their business was done, BC and Wind did not go back along the River Trail. Instead they headed south along the foot of Frost’s Bridge, then swung up an exit ramp and onto the bridge itself.

Frost and Wing stood against the east wall of the domicile, where less rain fell. They watched the couple pull their two-wheeled wagon up the slope of the bridge, with their new cargo of bloody meat in a plastic bag.

Wing said “They’re headin’ into Town to trade that meat for his skag.”

Frost said “I know.”

22

Daniel Charlie said “This is called a fish hook.”

Surrey said “You made it too small. Fishes are bigger than that.” He was a sturdy, dark haired, dark eyed boy. He had a wool shift but was barefoot. He sounded as if he were accusing Daniel Charlie of stupidity.

Daniel Charlie said “Will, couldn’t you find some kind of shoes for this guy?”

Surrey said “My feet ain’t cold. You couldn’t even eat a fish that small. One bite.”

Daniel Charlie said “How big is a fish?”

Surrey threw his hands as wide apart as he could.

Will and Shaughnessy snickered. Surrey glared at them with menace. He was shorter than either of them.

They were on Amber’s barge. The tide was changing, and the river was as still as it ever could be, with eddies forming and fading across its surface. The three boys stood around Daniel Charlie, who was sitting at the edge of the barge with his feet dangling over the water. Behind him at the end of his braid his ruined eagle feather brushed the weathered planks. Ten feet to either side of him stood a plastic flower pot with a rose plant. On the plant to his right there were the remnants of a single wilted blossom. He said “You don’t grab the fish with the fish hook. You get the fish to bite on it. The hook gets stuck in his mouth.”

The boys gazed with reverence and fear at the thing Daniel Charlie was pinching between a thumb and a forefinger. He said “It’s hard makin’ somethin’ this small. Hard to get it sharp enough. Fish have tough mouths. It has to be really sharp.”

Shaughnessy said “How do you get the fish to bite on it?”

“Now that’s an intelligent question.”

Shaughnessy stuck his tongue out at Surrey.

A small white plastic bag that said Delta Pharmacy sat to the right of Daniel Charlie near Surrey’s dirty feet. Daniel Charlie reached back into it. He said “I’m always happy when I see a worm. Worms behave like everythin’ is fine and always has been and always will be. Worms are dependable. Not like fish. If I had another daughter I would call her Worm.”

The boys bent close to watch him thread the creature onto the hook. He left a half-inch free to wiggle.

Will said “Fish eat worms?”

“If there’s a fish anywhere in this river it will smell this worm and come runnin’.” A six-foot length of plastic pipe lay across Daniel Charlie’s lap. The line was a blue strand of nylon twine. The float was a small plastic bottle. The weight was a flake of concrete. He called “Amber, where exactly did you see that fish?”

The ancient woman stood near the entrance of her decrepit shack, in her washed-out logger’s shirt and canvas pants and rubber boots. She was hunched over a large orange plastic bag that she was holding open with one hand while trying to stuff a blackened aluminum pot into it with the other. This hand also held her rebar walking stick. Her loose white hair dangled around the opening of the bag. She finally managed to shove the pot in.

The boys moved away as she hurried toward them with short choppy steps. She was bent as if she were expecting flying objects. With every step she punched the deck with the rusted rod. She seemed to be looking out of both her blue eye and her whitened one. She leaned on Daniel Charlie’s head with her left hand and pointed with the rebar to a spot in the water about twenty feet out and slightly downriver.

Daniel Charlie said “Then that’s where I’m fishin’. Watch out, there, Surrey. Watch out, Amber.” Surrey moved back from the edge of the barge. Amber said in her crone’s voice “I’m watchin’” but kept leaning on his head. Daniel Charlie tossed the chip of concrete back onto the deck, and the bottle and baited hook and the line went with it. He cast gracefully, and the float landed where she had indicated, but then drifted on the slow current until all the line was taken up, and then it swung a little toward the shore. “Close enough” he said. “Close enough to smell that worm.”

“And come runnin’” said Surrey.

Shaughnessy laughed. Surrey stared at him till he looked away. It was hard to know whether Surrey was angry or hurt or was simply studying the other boy. Some kind of change was happening in his face.

Slowly the little plastic bottle swung in until it rested in shadow a few feet away from the barge, with the nylon strand taut to the end of the plastic pipe. They all leaned out and stared at it.

Amber said “That ain’t where I saw it.”

Daniel Charlie said “Well I can’t make it stay put.”

“The fish? Of course you can’t make it stay put. It’s a fish.”

“The line. I can’t make the line stay put. Go finish your packin’.”

“I seen you people pull salmon out of this river by the ton. In your fishin’ boats.”

“Who is you people?”

“You Natives. That’s why you want to catch this fish, ain’t it? You want the old days.”

“Don’t forget your squeezebox.”

For a while they all watched the plastic bottle making its little adjustments to the movement of the water, slipping sideways an inch or even a foot before sliding back again. But soon they all must have understood that no fish was involved in these movements, because Amber returned to her packing, and the three boys moved back a ways from the edge.

Surrey still stood a little apart from Will and Shaughnessy. He spat on the silver-weathered deck and said to Shaughnessy “So, is your daddy dead yet?”

Daniel Charlie said “What the hell?” and looked over his shoulder at Surrey.

Shaughnessy paled and said nothing. He glared at the smaller boy. He seemed afraid.

“Or is he just sick? Is he just gettin’ ready to die?” There was, on Surrey’s dark, round, dirt-smudged face, an expression of hostile glee. His eyes were wide and agitated. He shouted “My daddy’s dead! Shot by an arrow!” With a finger he mimicked the crossbow bolt striking his father in the side. He made a noise like something flying fast through the air. “Oh, did he scream!” Surrey hopped around the deck, throwing his arms around and screaming.

“Jesus Christ!” said Daniel Charlie. He scrambled to his feet, still holding the plastic fishing pipe. Amber came out of her shack wearing a yellow rubberized rain hat that covered the back of her neck. Her concertina hung from one hand, making a wheezing sound. She stared at Surrey.

Shaughnessy was white. He turned and walked quickly past Surrey, across the sloping deck and down the gangplank.

Now Surrey was holding an invisible sword with both hands and was thrusting it downwards again and again, and he was screaming “And then they stabbed him! Stab! Stab! Stab!”

Shaughnessy ran up the path that led through Amber’s garden. Surrey stood at the top of the gangplank and yelled “You should’ve seen the blood!”

Daniel Charlie shouted “Hey! Shut up!” He tossed the pole out into the stream. He hustled across the deck, snatched up Surrey and strode down the gangplank, declaring “There’s no god damn fish in this river.”

Will upended the pharmacy bag and sprinkled the bait on the water. He watched the worms drift and sink. After they were out of sight he continued to stare at the water for a while. Then he helped Amber set her concertina in the orange bag. She was shaking her head and moving her lips as if there were something she did not want to believe. Will had tears in his eyes as he swung the bag over his shoulder. She took his arm and they moved with small steps toward the gangplank.

23

In another room Frost could hear someone coughing.

The light of a cloudy winter day sifted through the polyethylene that covered the window. It lit the room poorly. Frost lay on the rabbit skin rug that covered the mattress, on his back with his elbows out and his hands behind his head. The room was cold, but Frost had no poncho, and he had not covered himself with the spread of stitched-together rags. His sandals sat on the concrete near him, paired neatly. His glasses lay on his chest. He was staring up at the faded and smoke-grimed paint of the ceiling.

His white hair circled his head like a tattered halo. At the corners of his eyes and on the cheekbones where the beard did not cover, there was a web of deep wrinkles. The skin looked slack. The eyes did not reveal their blue colour in the feeble light of the room, but they did appear to be deeply sad. The sound of Amber’s concertina drifted from somewhere in the building. I’ll Take You Home Again, Cathleen.

Frost reached out and touched the metal fire bucket. It was cold, but he kept his hand against it anyway.

The door of the room opened. Frost got up onto his elbows. His glasses tumbled down his chest. He sat up and put them on. It was Noor. They did not speak for a few seconds. She stood by the door, looking at him. She had on her fur poncho, and she had her sword.

He said “Going somewhere?”

Noor said “Where’s Grace?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t at the clinic, so I thought she’d be here. What’s wrong?”

“You tell me.”

“What?”

Frost looked up at her. She was very tall and looked very strong. A whiff of cold outdoor air drifted to Frost from her clothes. No, it was not strong she looked, it was angry. She said “Is he dead? You said he was dead.”

“What are you mad at?”

“You said he was dead.”

Frost began to stand, but Noor charged toward him and stood over him, and he had to sit again. He rolled away from her and snatched his glasses and got clumsily to his feet. It took him a second to find his balance. He said “Who?”

“You know who.”

Frost hesitated, as if he were deciding what to say. “No I don’t know who. If you told me, then I would know who. Why are you mad?”

“My father. Is he dead or not? You said he was.”

“Oh. okay.” He reached to touch her, but she stepped back. He looked down and rubbed his beard. “I heard Steveston had died. That’s all I know.”

“Who told you?”

“Don’t interrogate me. I don’t remember. It was years ago. It’s best if you don’t think about him anymore.”

“I shouldn’t think about my own father?”

“You’ve got enough to think about. We all have.”

“Enough to think about. I see. So, you don’t think about my mother.”

“Yes, I think about her often. But I shouldn’t. Not now.”

“Well then, don’t tell me not to think about him.” Her voice had risen.

Frost sighed. “No. No, fine, I won’t. But, listen. He left when Zahra died. He couldn’t stand to be here anymore, and he left. He took off. Even if he was alive he wouldn’t come back. So there’s no point….”

She interrupted him. “But you heard he’s dead.”

“I did, yes.”

Frost was managing to keep his voice level. Noor was not. She said “Someone told you.”

“Yes. I don’t remember who.” Frost stepped around her, not looking at her, and went past the fire bucket and stood apparently staring out at his farm and the distant ruins of the suburb. The plastic over the window made the scene murky and dull. “I don’t feel good, Noor. I can’t carry it all on my shoulders. I’m too old. I need you to support me.”

“But he’s not. Is he?”

Frost did not answer. Noor said “He’s alive, god damn you. Why didn’t you tell me!”

Frost refused to turn from the window. He said weakly “Why do you say he’s alive?”

“Oh, give it up! Stop pretendin’ you don’t know what I’m talkin about.” She sounded disgusted. “You’ve been lyin’ to me all this time!”

“Not all this time.” Frost sounded weary now. Still he would not face her.

She screamed at his back “He’s my father!” Frost flinched but would not turn. She was moving away as she cursed him. “You bastard! You bastard! If I can’t even trust you…! I’ve had enough. I’m takin’ off.”

Frost spun around at last. Again he reached out. There was something like terror on his face. But the room was empty, and he was alone.

The concertina and the distant coughing went on and on.

24

Frost descended the dark stairwell and got his poncho. Outside Jessica and Night and Salmon were sitting on the steps at the entrance, and old Ryan was standing at the bottom. They all were smiling. He heard Ryan say “…Christmas.” Frost glanced down at the raw-looking stump of Salmon’s arm. She smiled up at him. He nodded and went down the steps. Behind him Jessica said “Where was Noor goin’ in such a hurry?”

Frost walked on a few paces, then turned and cleared his throat. “Has anyone seen Grace?”

Ryan said “I seen her yesterday comin’ out of the clinic.”

Jessica said “What’s wrong, Frost?”

Frost continued toward the clinic. Up on the bridge someone was leaning back on the railing — he couldn’t tell who. He stopped and watched for a minute. The figure moved away. He walked on. The air was moist and there was a cold wind. King came up behind him and nudged his hand with his nose, but Frost pulled his hand away. As they approached the clinic King ran on to greet Beast, who was tied to the staple by the door. Beast tried to leap up against Frost, but he pushed her down.

The clinic was empty and cold. Frost sat on the couch for a minute, with both dogs lying in the open door, watching him. Then Frost and King left Beast whining and lunging against her cord as they walked down to the river.

Daniel Charlie and Granville were working on one of the spokes of the water wheel. A whiff of sawdust mingled with the smell of the river. Frost stood on the bank, and they looked up at him, waiting for him to speak. He said “Have you seen Grace?”

Daniel Charlie said “Nope. You going to come and give us a hand?”

Granville’s head was covered in a stubble of orange-red hair. He observed Frost with an eager and fearful smile.

Frost said to him “How’s life treating you?”

“Good, Frost. Thanks to you, Frost.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

“No, that’s right too. You can say that again.”

As Frost walked away Daniel Charlie called “What’s wrong?”

He had not gone far when he heard fast, limping footsteps behind him. He turned and waited.

“Frost, Frost.”

Old Brittany was as tall as Frost’s chest, and she was as thin as a snake. Her small, sharp features were difficult to locate among wrinkles. “Frost, I seen her. I seen Grace.” She had a child’s voice.

“Good. Who told you I was looking for her?”

“What? No, Frost, I seen Grace.”

Frost opened his mouth to answer, closed it, said. “Where did you see Grace?”

“I seen her over there at the domicile. She gets along good with that one arm, don’t she?”

“That’s not Grace, Brittany. That’s Salmon.”

“No, no, Frost, Grace is a woman. Fish don’t got arms. Jesus, Frost, are you crazy! Anyway, there’s no god damn salmon no more.”

“Fine, Brittany, thanks for telling me.” He reached and touched a shoulder, felt the sharp-edged bone through her poncho. He walked on.

“Get your head on straight, Frost” she yelled after him in her voice of a nine-year-old. “There’s drug addicts and all kinds of weirdoes.”

A drop of rain touched his face. King had gone off. He looked back at the domicile. Jessica and Night and Salmon were rising from the steps where they had been seated. He heard from their direction a ripple of female laughter.

He passed the tall and skeletal ruin of an industrial plant. The rusted hoppers and chutes were still mostly intact. Here the ground was gravel and hard, grown over with broom, blackberry and horsetail that the winter could not kill. Farther on he saw Amber’s barge. She was in her garden, working with Deas and Will. On the dark earth there were three piles of carrots, as bright as fire.

He heard the voices of children and headed down to the water again. Arthurlaing and Cloud and Rain’s two girls were chucking rocks at something in the water, close to the shore. They all quit throwing at the same time and started searching the ground frantically. Frost stopped a short distance from them.

“I got somethin’!” yelled one of Rain’s girls. She had a length of rotting weed with a few limp leaves.

Skytrain was sitting on the ground. His bare legs and feet stuck straight out of his woollen shift. They were streaked with mud. He was banging the ground with a plastic bottle. He threw his head back and shouted “Got sumpin’! Got sumpin’!” His fine blond hair was wet from the drizzle. A cord of snot sat on his upper lip.

Rain’s girl cocked her hand back over her shoulder and threw the weed. It landed in the water two feet out. The children yelled and blasted it with rocks and handfuls of dirt and then started furiously searching again. Skytrain yelled too and pounded the ground harder. Arthurlaing came over to him and leaned close and spoke to him gently. Skytrain stopped pounding. Arthurlaing pointed to the river and continued speaking. He put his hand on Skytrain’s shoulder. The three girls were watching.

Frost heard “Okay?”

Arthurlaing helped Skytrain get up. Skytrain ran in a sort of fast stumble to the water’s edge. He cocked his hand as Rain’s girl had and threw the bottle. It bounced off his bare foot. Skytrain snatched up the bottle and tossed it out about ten feet. The children found rocks or grabbed some mud. They threw whatever they had, yelling and screaming. Soon they were silent as they watched the bottle bob and slide away on the current. Then Skytrain shrieked “Bottle! Bottle!” and turned and threw himself face down on the ground, bawling and kicking his feet.

Frost watched the bottle pick up speed. By the time he had taken a half-dozen breaths it was out of sight. He said “Has anybody seen Grace?”

Arthurlaing and Cloud and Rain’s girls whirled around, surprised and afraid. Skytrain stopped wailing and scrambled to his feet. They gaped at Frost. None of them spoke. Frost said “Arthurlaing, you keep Skytrain back from the water. It’s dangerous. Can you do that?”

Arthurlaing nodded and said “’Kay, Frost.”

“So what is it you’re going to do?”

“I’m going to keep him back from the water.”

Frost nodded and left them. As he passed Amber’s garden Will looked up and hollered “Hi Grampa!” Deas waved, but Amber was occupied with a particular carrot and only gave him a glance. Frost waved but did not stop.

He walked until he came to Little Bridge. Fundy’s Bridge was close now. There was only one soldier up on top. He could not see Fundy’s end. He turned left toward Fallen Bridge.

Near the bed of cattails he stopped on a slight slope and stood staring down at the expanse of grey and twisted leaves. But it must have been something else that he was seeing, because behind his rain-spotted lenses his eyes did not appear to be focused on anything. He stood like that for three or four minutes, as the rain increased. He had no hat. When a rivulet rolled under his poncho and down his back he shivered and sighed and turned away and took a step. But there was a sudden rustling, and from out of the wall of dead leaves stepped old Brandon.

“Hello Frost, you bastard.”

In his bleached and torn poncho and kilt, with his white beard and white hair bent at clumped angles, he looked as if he were constructed of the cattails that had hidden him. His eyes, however, were like black marbles. He stood there with legs spread. In one hand he held a half-litre plastic bottle with some liquid. He jogged it a little, showing Frost.

Frost said “What the hell are you doing in there?”

Brandon barked his reply “Lookin’ for arrows. I’m a hell of a shot with my Robin Hood bow.” He unscrewed the top of the bottle, lifted the bottle to toast Frost, said “Up yours” took a swallow, and screwed the cap on again.

Frost said “Where are you getting your hooch from? I cut you off.”

Brandon waved his free hand in dismissal and half-turned to go back into the cattails. He said “You think you know what’s goin’ on on this farm? You think you know what’s goin’ on around here? Bah, you don’t know nothin’. You ain’t the only game in town.”

And then Frost was staring again at the wall of winter-dead leaves.

25

Tyrell alone occupied the middle of the roadway. The rest of the guards shuffled unsurely near the sidewalks. They looked embarrassed and confused, and glanced at Tyrell every second or two, as if they were waiting for instructions, which he did not give. He said to Noor “Where you off to?” He held loosely at his side a spear made of one-by-two. His sword was slipped through a belt of blue twine. He stood directly in Beauty’s path.

The leashed dogs were all prancing and wagging their tails, and some of them were yapping. Beauty veered to the left and touched noses with King, who was held by Will. Then she snorted and tossed her head.

Noor clucked and kicked with her heels, but Beauty was reluctant to move on. Noor did not look at Will.

Will seemed worried. He said “Where you goin’?”

Finally Noor got the horse to start up again. She said, still without looking at Will “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” Her eyes were hard. Her mouth was set.

Tyrell stayed in front of the horse, walking backwards. ‘Noor, are you crazy? You can’t go into Town on your own. Not with things the way they are.”

Noor clucked twice and flicked the reins, and Beauty picked up her pace a little. Tyrell stepped aside. He said “Take a dog at least. We can spare one.” Then he stepped farther aside, first to get out of the way of the spear that Noor held crossways in front of her, and then to get out of the way of the two-wheeled cart that Beauty was pulling. Noor in no way acknowledged him. “God damn it, Noor!” he called after her. Then he swore for a while. Then he said “Shit. Well, say hello to Robson for me.”

Behind Noor some of the dogs whined as she progressed down the bridge.

The cart was low and rode at a backward slant. It carried two big open black plastic bags stuffed with hay, three plastic buckets covered tightly with plastic and sitting in circles of slopped water, and a tied bag that revealed through a rip the mottled orange skin of a squash. A pair of leather sandals sat loose on the dirty and weathered bed of the cart, and a litre bottle of liquid had rolled back against a water bucket. There were no sides to the cart, but a back of spaced horizontal two-by-fours kept the load from sliding off.

When the bridge was behind her and she faced the long scrubby slope in which Town Trail was more or less hidden she let the reins droop, and Beauty picked her own way along the footpath that ran down the centre of the old road. The trail was clear enough. But the edges of the cart caught often on brush, and sometimes a wheel would jolt against a bulge or foot-wide crack or the elevated edge of a fracture. When this happened Noor would turn, and her eyes would slide from item to item, hay to squash to water to sandals to hooch.

The sidewalks were less grown over, but their heaved or fractured slabs of concrete prevented passage. Here fewer buildings had fallen than on the peaty delta soil across the river. The buildings lining the sidewalks were more bent than collapsed. Walls leaned away from other walls. Where concrete blocks had separated Noor saw sinews of rusted rebar. Through glassless windows she sometimes saw the wet winter sky or the edges of sunken roofs. Weeds reached out through some of the openings. Through others blackberry vine spilled in a mass onto the sidewalk. From time to time she smelled smoke. Once she heard distant voices but saw no one.

Soon the trail swung sharply westward and became earth where it ran close to the fronts of a few more or less intact concrete apartment buildings. There was a pervasive stink of excrement. A man leaned out of a window and watched Noor pass a few feet below. He had no shirt, and his skin was as white as paper, but he wore a fluorescent green toque. His eyes were blank, and his mouth hung open a little. Behind him a baby wailed. Noor did not look up.

The trail swung northward again. Where it did so it merged with a trail that continued south, down to Fundy’s Bridge. Here Noor let Beauty rest. On her left rose a massive building several storeys tall. She heard, faintly, the laughter of men. She smelled meat cooking. Down the trail a little, on the shattered sidewalk beside the building, rested a cart not much different from the one she was pulling. It had a roof, however, and a padded seat, on which was tossed a pink quilt.

The drizzle eased off. She continued to follow Town Trail northward. Here the trail again ran down the middle of the old street. Every hundred yards or so someone leaned against a wall or sat in an empty window or on a slab of the broken sidewalk, watching her pass. Noor’s eyes were a little softer now. She examined each face, and recognized some of them from the market. If these watchers met her gaze she would acknowledge them with an upward nod of her chin, but they seldom returned the greeting. One old man standing in the obscurity of an interior behind a display window sheeted in plastic raised a hand and said something that might have been “Frost.”

The shops ran out. Noor stopped and set one of the buckets on the ground and untied the plastic covering and let Beauty drink. She looked southwest and saw that the clouds were broken by uneven swatches of blue.

At a point where one of the many overgrown streets intersected her route the trail took a slight jog and became earth. The going was easier now for Beauty. The only interruptions in the smooth path were the concrete walks that crossed it. These led from the street to steps and foundations and the occasional standing row of rusted metal studs. The scrappy growth of brush and bracken and grass was littered with asphalt shingles and grey patches of rotted and weedy gypsum from old drywall. In the enclosure of one foundation stood a white hot water heater, like a squat idol presiding over the desolation. As Noor studied the heater a crow landed on it. It watched her go by. When she was well past, it bobbed its head and shrugged its wings and it made its abrasive call.

Beauty plodded on, sweating a little in spite of the cold. Noor rocked on the broad back and was soothed by the motion and the horse smell and the rhythm of the hooves. Ahead, faintly, she heard sheep. The scrub thinned out. Among the foundations there were scattered stretches of short grass. Ahead, not far from the trail she saw the flock, spread wide among the brush, and she saw Bailey and one of his men and a dog.

When she came even with the flock she slid down and let Beauty rest. She laid her spear and her sword across the stuffed bags in the cart. The dog barked while Bailey picked his way among bushes and stepped over the low wall of a foundation and walked through the rectangular enclosure and stepped up onto the front porch and came down the three steps and along the walk. He had a long, hooded wool poncho over an ankle-length shift, and leather sandals and knitted socks. The wool, the leather, the beard, the man himself — it was all grey, grey as a winter storm cloud. He was badly bent but moved aggressively. The poncho bulged where it covered a sword. He had one eye, which darted like a bird’s.

He said “I hope you’re not headin’ downtown.”

Noor said “You better add a few more layers. You might catch cold.”

Bailey looked at her sharply. When a slight smile touched her eyes a trace of colour passed over the negligible region of Bailey’s cheeks that was visible above his beard. He shook his head, as if Noor’s joke were exactly what was to be expected from an insolent child. He said “You better go on back.”

Noor said “How’s life on Town Ranch?”

He nodded meaninglessly. Noor waited. Bailey said “Young Flower died. She got the pneumonia.”

“I’m sorry. She was Will’s age.”

“Yes, same age as Will.”

“She was your granddaughter.”

Bailey nodded.

Noor said “I’m sorry.”

Bailey nodded some more, not looking at her. He said “Now her mom is sick.”

“Can I send someone up to help?”

“No, it’s best your people stay away. So as not to catch it.” Bailey’s voice was as rough as the wool he wore. “There’s not many of us left now.”

Noor said “Times will get better.”

“You remember Langara? He run off. He got addicted somehow. Hemlock the Messenger saw him with a pack of them.”

“Addicts?”

Bailey nodded.

“They run in packs?”

He nodded again. “You better head on back, Noor. The skaggers are getting pushy. You never know who they’re making deals with.”

“Are your sheep safe?”

“Depends how hungry people get.”

“Then I would say you better put some more guards on.” She walked back to the horse.

Bailey said “I can spare some animals if you need them. I hear you got extra mouths to feed.”

Noor took two quick steps and vaulted onto Beauty’s back. Bailey handed her up the spear and the sword. Noor nodded a goodbye.

The trail began a long downward slope. On the opposite side of the old street the land was gouged by wide ragged ditches. Some of these merged like tributaries. From their mouths trivial but steady streams of water flowed onto the street. Before long the middle of the paved street had sunk into a narrow brush-filled depression. In a hundred yards this had deepened and broadened into a ragged, steep walled erosion gully that replaced the old road entirely. Warped sheets of torn asphalt lay where they had collapsed against the sides of the gully, along with shards and rectangles of sidewalk and sections of storm drain that had been weathered loose and rolled down.

The trail was lined with tree stumps. Most of them were rotted to brown punk, but some still showed the chewed surfaces left by whatever tools had been used to fell them. Their dead roots reached into the empty space of the gully. At a narrow point in the channel there was a jam of stumps, with their roots splayed out like a mass of stubby nerves.

The trail continued across old front yards. Gradually the foundations became bigger, farther apart, farther back from the trail, and the cart bumped across paved and overgrown driveways. Suddenly the gully widened. There was only a narrow space for the cart to pass between the steep fall-off and a foundation wall. Noor got down and led Beauty carefully through this space, watching that a wheel did not slip over the edge.

When the horse and the cart had passed safely through she glanced over the wall. There was a deep basement. It was full to half its depth with clear water. The body of a young woman was floating face down, naked, with the arms spread wide. Long dark hair floated out around the head. Noor scanned the bushes and the trail behind her and ahead. There was no one but her and the woman in the water. Then she noticed, on the far side of the foundation, a single rat, leaning as far over the edge as possible without falling in.

She remounted and continued down Town Trail. In the distance, to the east and to the west of the trail, concrete buildings of three storeys rose here and there above the low scrub. Ahead were more of these, and also taller, more substantial buildings.

The erosion channel widened even more and deepened. Sixty feet down, a sheet of water slid along silently. Like the stumps, a half-mile of buildings had been undermined. Some had toppled or slid sideways into the gully. One of the buildings was many storeys tall. Whatever had filled the spaces between the girders of the top floors had fallen out. From her higher vantage point Noor looked northward through the skeleton of naked beams toward the bridge over Salt Creek. This was the end of Town Trail.

A less traveled path led along other streets, proceeding zigzag fashion toward the water. There were many buildings now, all concrete, whole or only partially wrecked. The smell of excrement was present again, but beyond this and the fact that most of the brush around the buildings had been crudely cut back there was little evidence of life.

Ahead the land fell steeply. Noor caught glimpses of Salt Creek. Beyond the Creek ranged the profuse and tall and melancholy towers. She stopped for a minute and gazed at these. Unlike the domicile, they stood perfectly straight. There was even glass in many of the windows. Staring at the lonely, looming towers, Noor appeared to be both puzzled and hurt. But she clucked twice, and Beauty moved on.

The path swung westward toward the foot of the bridge. There were three-storey buildings on either side, with erosion channels running between them. In a few places these had undermined the road, and the asphalt had sunk, and Noor had to lead Beauty across the depressions before remounting. A few of the buildings had slid down and forward and rested at angles over the old street.

Here and there faces appeared at dark windows, but Noor did not acknowledge them. She sat up very straight and held her spear upright. It had a triangular blade the size of a hand. Smoke was rising from one of the buildings. As she passed that building, she saw without turning her head that a man with a crossbow was standing behind a glass window. Where the path ran smoothly she urged Beauty to move a little faster.

She came to a place where the road had been washed out, and the path dipped into a wide and deep gully with sloping sides. She got down and again laid her spear and sword across the bags and held the cargo in place as best she could as Beauty inched down the slope. Beauty had to struggle a little to make it up and out of the gully as Noor pushed the cart. They came out of the gully into a circle of six people.

There were three men and three women. Only one of them was not naked, a woman with a layered loincloth of blue and white plastic. They had grey skin that hung flabby against bone, and patches of sparse stringy hair. Their eyes were deathly tired but full of fear and determination. They stood well away from Noor, weaving and feinting like wrestlers, making noises of either aggression or terror. One of them, a man taller than the rest but with no more meat on his bones, blocked Beauty’s path. He was holding a warped eight-foot length of two-by-four, which he gripped like a baseball bat.

Noor snatched up her weapons, and the addicts stumbled back. Two of them fell. She shouted “Don’t!” But the man swung the two-by-four at Beauty’s head. He was weak and slow. Beauty reared up, and the two-by-four hit the bottom of a hoof and spun out of the man’s hands. His momentum carried him forward, and one of Beauty’s hooves pawed down on a shoulder. The man cried out and fell. Another man, on Noor’s left, darted in, but Noor jabbed her spear in his direction. His feet skidded out from under him, and he crab-walked backward out of range. A woman on her right made a grab for the bag of squash. Noor slashed her across the wrist. The woman screamed and ran.

Noor skipped up onto the bag of squash and shouted “Hah!”, but Beauty was already running. A squash in the bag rolled under Noor’s foot, but she leapt anyway and came down off balance on the wide target of Beauty’s rump. One wheel bounced over the man who had tried to brain Beauty. The other wheel bounced over the fallen two-by-four. There was a dull crash of buckets in the cart.

The way was almost smooth, and Noor let Beauty run. After a hundred yards she managed to slow her down and to sooth her and finally to get her to stop. She talked to her and patted her for a few seconds and then checked the cart. One of the buckets had fallen over and lost its plastic covering and the water. One of the sandals was gone. The full bucket and the other empty one and the squash and the hay and the hooch were still there.

She looked back. The man that Beauty had stomped was crawling slowly toward the side of the road. He was dragging one arm. Off among the buildings and the rain gullies and the stubble of brush, below the road, toward Salt Creek somewhere, the woman she had cut was still screaming.

Soon the path turned onto Town Bridge. Just to the east she saw again the huge gully that had swallowed the Town end of Town Trail. Here it was shallow but very wide. Water flowed steadily into Salt Creek.

There were perhaps a dozen people spaced along on the south slope of Town Bridge. Of these a few had wool garments. One had a sword that he carried in his hand. They all stopped and watched the woman and the horse and cart pass. The man with the sword raised his free arm in a kind of salute. Noor nodded. A man in a plastic shift held up a small stereo speaker. A woman called “Lookit.” She had a light bulb. Noor steered Beauty over to her and stopped and leaned and took the bulb and examined it and handed it back and continued up the bridge.

At the cusp of the bridge a man with a crossbow stood on the west sidewalk. He rested against the railing and idly watched the few people passing up and down the bridge, all of whom moved to the far sidewalk as they drew near. Noor also directed Beauty as far away from the man as she could. The man was clothed thickly in rabbit skin and had rubber boots. He was stocky and had a bushy brown beard. Near him on the sidewalk was a pile of split cordwood. A small fire was burning at his feet. Noor smelled the smoke that the breeze carried to her side of the bridge.

The man called “Nice day for a horse ride.” He had a deep raspy voice.

Noor kept moving.

“Going to give me a ride on your horse?”

Noor leaned toward him and spat.

“Come and get warm at my fire. You look cold.”

Noor was past him, but she did not move away from the eastern sidewalk.

“Really cold.”

She edged out a ways into the roadway.

“I think I’ll just shoot you and take your horsy. They say horse meat is good.”

Noor stopped and slid off Beauty. She walked briskly in the man’s direction. She held her sword in her left hand and in her right the spear, in throwing position. The man stopped leaning on the railing and started trying to load his crossbow. Noor stopped about thirty-five yards away. She said “Go ahead. I’ll give you time to load up. Then I’ll let you take a shot, which will miss. Then I’ll come and stick this sword through your fat gut and throw you and your fire off the bridge.”

The man finished loading his crossbow. He aimed it at Noor. The expression on his face was not very different from the expressions on the faces of the addicts Noor had left behind ten minutes earlier. The crossbow was trembling.

Noor said “Can you swim?” She waited a few seconds, then walked backwards down the bridge to Beauty and mounted and went on.

To the northwest, beginning at the north end of the bridge, rose a vast sprawl of towers, a desolate world of looming ruins. Between these she sometimes glimpsed fragments of the charred mountains. Finally the sun sank below the western edge of the broken cloud cover. It struck a pane of glass somewhere and made a point of gold until another hulking ruin got in the way. Noor checked her load — hay, water, squash, hooch, one sandal — and continued down the bridge.

26

It is a clear night, crackling cold. The light of a full moon is increased by a sheet of snow on the ground. The mountains gleam pale in the northern distance. The eerie light exposes the whitened wastes of the south slope of Town across the river, the crouched masses of Frost’s Bridge and the rapid transit bridge and Fundy’s Bridge and the perfectly vertical bulk of the domicile. It reveals the empty fields and ruins and foundations of Frost’s Farm, the beams and hoppers of the industrial plant, the dozen silhouettes of half-dismantled frame houses in the burbs to the south and the few leafless trees scattered among them.

Near the domicile a small fire blazes, with people milling around it, whose shadows flutter against the base of the building. A substantial deposit of embers has formed, and around the fire there is a wide circle of trampled mud. Conversation flares up in a short loud burst and two or three ejaculations of laughter, and then it fades. In the resulting silence Frost hears children, far away from the fire, stomping the frozen surface of the one-inch snowfall to make it crunch, yelling from time to time. Frost and the other men hold plastic half-litre bottles of hooch.

There is now another sound, something being dragged across the frozen crust. Frost lifts his head to see what it is, and then Tyrell and his woman Emma, and Jessica and Zahra. Daniel Charlie stands there weaving, staring slack-jawed into the fire, but finally turns as the sound comes closer. He has a head of dense black hair, and a wispy black moustache, His daughter Star is holding his arm to keep him from pitching into the fire.

Joshua says “It’s Steveston.”

Brittany cries out in her voice of a nine-year-old “He’s got a board.”

There is cheering and waving of bottles. Steveston progresses from the chill moonlight into the light of the fire, dragging the board with one hand and holding his hooch with the other. “Merry Christmas” he says, and lets the end of the board fall onto the fire.

Spark fly up, and there are laughing exclamations of annoyance or approval, accompanied by jets of frosty breath. Even Daniel Charlie gives a start. His eyes grow wide and he decides to do a jig, but he loses his balance. He is rescued by Star as he leans over the flames, waving his free arm for balance. He spills a dollop of hooch that flares when it hits the embers. His braid hangs over the fire, with the eagle feather dangling. A finger’s length of barbs is missing at the fat end of the feather.

Jessica reaches and draws the black braid aside. “Jesus, don’t barbecue your feather.” There is laughter.

The end of the board catches and burns with strong yellow flames. Frost watches a spark land on his fur poncho and scorch a few hairs before it dies. The firelight dazzles on the scratched lenses of his wire-rim glasses. He is not wearing a hat. His greying hair is as unruly as the flames dancing near his feet. Frost has not cheered or laughed. He takes a sip from his bottle.

Tyrell says “You drug that all the way from the burbs.”

Steveston says “I wanted to walk. I might never get to see snow again. Probably never at night.”

Daniel Charlie snaps upright. “Huh? Snow?” He turns from the fire. “What the hell!” He stumbles away from the fire and the laughter, toward the white fields, muttering baffled exclamations, with Star still holding his arm.

They watch the board burn. Two protruding nails glow red. Zahra is holding Noor, wrapped in a small wool blanket. Steveston takes the baby from her, and Zahra takes his bottle and drinks from it and winces and shivers. She leans against Steveston and puts an arm around him.

Frost studies his daughter’s man. Steveston is as tall as Frost but much sturdier. Steveston kisses Zahra on her bare head, then glances with slight embarrassment at Frost, who manages a smile. For an instant he can see the difference in the colours of Steveston’s eyes, one green, the other blue. Steveston wobbles a little. Zahra takes the baby back, and Steveston takes his bottle back.

In the distance Daniel Charlie is heard, proclaiming “Snow! Holy Jesus!” and they all laugh, even Frost.

Soon the end of the board has burnt away. There is not much left of the fire. With the edge of his sandal Tyrell scrapes a few unburnt scraps onto the embers — bits of branches, lengths of blackberry vine, chunks of peat, clumps of cattail fluff. He is frowning, weaving a little. He takes a long drink, grasps Emma’s forearm for balance and squats. He and the others look up as the board slides forward into the new flames.

“I know what you’re up to. The spuds told me.” Having come forward to push the board, Fire now steps back. But as the board catches and flares she is coloured by the increased light. The wild reddish hair. Below her poncho the dress of multi-coloured rags, the shapely calves. She backs away into the moonlight. She says “The spuds say watch out for Christmas. Give me a drink, Frost.”

Frost says “You shouldn’t drink, Fire.”

“Give me a Christmas drink.”

Tyrell says, slurred “Go on, Frost, for Christ sake. It’s Christmas.”

Frost moves the few steps to where she is waiting. She takes a drink, waits a few seconds, takes another and returns the bottle to Frost, who comes back to his place among the others.

Steveston says “What else have the spuds got to say?”

Fire says nothing.

Steveston says “Come on Fire, tell us about our evil plans. We’re curious. Tell us what our evil plans are, and we’ll tell you if you’re right.”

There are chuckles.

Tyrell, who is squatting by the fire, says “Leave her alone.”

Brittany and Jessica and Joshua stare fixedly into the flames. Steveston and Tyrell glare at each other. Frost’s eyes tick between the two men. Zahra looks up at her man, says “Hey, don’t. It’s Christmas.” She secures her grip on the bundle of their sleeping child and lays her free hand against Steveston’s cheek and smiles. Emma squats beside Tyrell and tries gently to take his bottle, but he moves it away and elbows her aside and glowers at the flames.

Steveston shrugs and smiles and says “Never mind, Fire. Merry Christmas.” He lifts his bottle to salute her. Fire steps farther back into the moonlight.

The end of the board is blazing now. Suddenly Brittany spins and takes three strides away from the fire, counting “One. Two. Three.”

Someone calls “Go, Brittany!”

Brittany has a poncho and a wool kilt. Below the kilt her bare legs are as skinny as pencils. She has a head of tight brown curls, a sharply rectangular face and thin lips, which she compresses as she turns back to the fire. She is four and a half feet tall. On the opposite side of the fire Steveston and Zahra and Jessica move aside. Brittany darts forward and leaps over the fire, calling “Happy times!” Her girl’s voice cuts through the night. Around the fire there are cheers. From several points far out in the moonlight voices of children and men and women call back “Happy times!”

But Brittany’s charge has caused Tyrell to lose his balance. He flails, then sits in the mud. There is laughter, in which Tyrell does not join. Emma helps him to stand. Then she leaves his side and counts off three steps and turns. This time everyone except Frost and Fire and Tyrell shouts with her as she clears the flames. “Happy times!”

There is a continuous noise of frozen snow crunched under rapidly moving feet as children race in from the fields, laughing and shouting. The sound grows louder. Richmond and Newton jump the fire at full speed to the cheers and applause of the adults. “Happy times!” they cry in their little boy voices. “Happy times!” cry little Dawn and Night.

The few adults who had been wandering in the moonlight are now drawn to the fire. The cheers grow louder as the shouted toasts of Happy times! multiply, and bottles rise more frequently to lips.

“Dad, hold Noor.” Zahra jumps the fire. Jessica jumps, and Emma and Joshua. Tyrell and Steveston jump. Brittany jumps again. Even Fire darts in quickly and jumps but does not call Happy times! and as quickly races away into moonlight.

Those gathered around the fire, including the arrivals from the fields, have backed away to make room for the jumpers. But Frost backs away farther. He has given Noor back to Zahra. He does not jump and does not manage to wish Happy times!

The children keep jumping until they grow silly and weak-kneed and are told to stop before they fall into the fire. With the adults who had come in with them they drift away like ghosts into the moonlight and snow.

Except for the diminishing footsteps of the children it is silent. People move in close to the fire once more. The end burns off the board. The flames shrink, leaving mostly glowing embers, into which every person stares blankly, as if the foretaste of happy times has faded with the flames. No one pushes the board forward.

Now there is a voice, faint but very clear, from the direction of the burbs. People lift their faces, as they did when Steveston appeared with the board. The voice is singing.

I’ll have a blue Christmas…

Frost produces a frown of mild disgust. He sighs and utters the first words he has spoken in hours. “It’s Brandon.”

…without you.

The voice is small but every syllable is as clear and penetrating as the moonlight. Zahra and Tyrell and Steveston and Emma appear to listen intently. Perhaps they have not heard these words before. Frost just shakes his head. Then, suddenly, he looks terribly forlorn.

I’ll be so blue just thinkin’…

Frost sags, as if a weight has been placed on his shoulders.

…about you.

The singer leaves long gaps between phrases, and is louder and closer each time he resumes.

…blue snowflakes start fallin’…

No one around the fire looks very happy. Tyrell and Steveston and Brittany weave on their feet. Joshua burps. Tyrell spits into the embers.

…blue memories start callin’.

Zahra is staring forlornly across the fire at the glint of moonlight on a tear that has pooled on the rim of her father’s right eye.

Brandon comes around the corner of the domicile. Like the other men, he has a bottle in his right hand. His wild, dark hair hangs over his shoulders. He walks with a purposeful stagger toward the fire, wearing a self-satisfied expression, as if he has a surprise that he might deign to share with the others. In his left hand he is carrying a thin flat box about six inches wide. He stops, spreads his arms, and sings, deafeningly, perfectly on pitch, with vibrato,

You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white…

He takes a drink. Then, focusing only on the dying fire, ignoring his audience, he determinedly proceeds. At the fire Brandon hands his bottle to Steveston, because he needs both hands to open the box above the embers. A quantity of small ornate figures tumble from the box. Immediately, small flames lick around the figures.

Brandon sings, but quietly now, distracted by the sight of his offering catching fire,

But I’ll have a blue, blue…

One of the objects has bounced away from the embers. Steveston manages to hold both his own bottle and Brandon’s in one hand. He bends and picks the object up, turning it in the light of the increasing flames. He says “This is a beautiful thing. We shouldn’t burn these. What are they, Frost?”

Frost says hoarsely “They’re chess pieces. It’s a game we used to have.”

Steveston cries, angered “Jesus Christ, Brandon, you’ve burned up a game! You’re burnin’ up a beautiful game! We could’ve played it! We could’ve used it!”

Brandon does not seem to hear Steveston. He snaps the box in half over a knee and drops the halves. Steveston stoops as if to rescue the pieces of the box or perhaps the burning figures, but his hands are full. He scrapes at one part of the box with a foot, but he loses his balance and stumbles sideways into Zahra, who almost drops the baby.

“Happy times!” shouts Brandon. Then he extends a hand and says “Give me my hooch.”

The halves of the pale oak and teak chess board are now burning brightly. Steveston stares down at the flames, which light his brown beard and his bicoloured eyes and his furious and drunken and grief-stricken face. He gives Brandon a short, hard look and then takes his own bottle into his right hand along with the chess piece, and with his left pours the few ounces remaining in Brandon’s bottle onto the fire. The hooch hisses but causes the fire to flare up for a few seconds.

“You dumped my hooch! God damn you! Frost, he dumped my hooch!”

But Frost has turned his back on the gathering and is walking away toward his bridge, into the soothing expanse of the moonlight and the snow. Behind him he hears Tyrell’s taunting voice. “Yeah, that’s just like you, Steveston. Ruin everybody’s fun. Ruin everybody’s Christmas. What the hell do you know about games? You wouldn’t know a game if it bit you on the ass.”

Frost stops, turns, sees Steveston hurl his bottle at Tyrell, hitting him in the face. The chess piece also flies from Steveston’s hand, but into the flames. Tyrell staggers backward. Steveston charges toward him. Zahra manages to grab his poncho with one hand and divert him for a moment, but again she almost drops the child, and has to let go. Emma and Joshua are trying desperately to restrain Tyrell, who is snarling, and whose nose is leaking a stream of blood that reflects the firelight. Brittany rushes around the fire and wraps her arms around Steveston from behind, causing him to fall forward with her on his back.

Brandon slumps to the ground and sits there sobbing. He slaps handfuls of mud against his face and chest. He whines “Frost, Frost, he dumped my hooch.”

Frost starts back.

Tyrell stops snarling and cursing and thrashing, dabs at his blood, examines his fingers, turns from the fire and stands there squeezing his nose. Zahra manages to squat while holding the baby. She pats Steveston on a shoulder. She goes “Shh, shh.” Steveston just lies there with Brittany on his back, her arms trapped underneath him.

Frost is halfway back to the fire. Zahra stops making her soothing sounds. Brandon gives up his weeping and falls slowly onto his side. Frost stops, waits. He hears only Brandon’s snoring and the distant sounds of the children. He turns and walks away again.

But he stops once more. He has heard a new sound, heavy footsteps breaking the snow’s crust, coming closer. Someone is running slowly, heavily, unevenly. Drunkenly. He hears an urgent girl’s voice, farther away. “Daddy!” Because of the moon and the snow Frost is able to see who is approaching with such vigour. He darts forward. But is too late.

“Happy times!” hollers Daniel Charlie, waving his hooch, hurtling toward the fire. Then he trips over the extended legs of Brittany and crashes in a spray of embers and ash chest-first down onto the flames. Daniel Charlie bellows in terror. The others, even Tyrell, squeezing his nose, cry out and rush to help Daniel Charlie. Only Brandon, who merely twitches and stops snoring for a few seconds, does not offer assistance.

Daniel Charlie himself does most of the work, scrambling away, helped by Joshua, at whose feet he had fallen, and then by Frost. Many hands beat at Daniel Charlie’s poncho, where a half-dozen embers have snagged and are smouldering. Emma bats away a burning shard of the chess board that has caught by a slivery edge in the wool.

Daniel Charlie has not been burned. He stands there, shocked, baffled, wide-eyed, with his poncho smoking.

And then everyone is laughing. Everyone but Daniel Charlie and Brandon and Frost. Everyone but these three are doubled over or have had to sit on the ground and pound it with their fists and shriek with delight. Tyrell’s jackhammer stutter of a laugh batters through the crisp air.

Daniel Charlie gives a start and says “What’s that smell? Somethin’s on fire.” Louder laughter erupts. Some of Daniel Charlie’s hair has come unbraided. After three attempts, Frost manages to pluck from that hanging swatch of hair a small burning object in the shape of a horse’s head.

Daniel Charlie says, very slurred “Is my feather okay?”

“It’s okay” says Jessica.

The laughter starts to die down. People rise, assume more dignified postures, wipe their eyes.

Then the earth bucks.

Under the feet of the residents of Frost’s Farm the land blasts upward like a solid trampoline. Those who have risen fall, hollering in panic. Only Frost and Daniel somehow remain on their feet. Daniel Charlie staggers backward and steps into the fire. But immediately the earth heaves again and he steps out and lurches to hands and knees.

For a few seconds, before he turns a leg and cries out in pain and falls, Frost can see the far snow-covered fields twisting as if they were floating on a stormy ocean. He glimpses panicked eyes and open mouths nearby but can hardly hear the screaming because of a roaring like a tremendous rockslide below him in the ground. Lying on his back, tossed on the pitching earth, he is forced to witness a moon that seems to swirl in the sky, while the domicile sways above him like a reed. The roaring fills his head. It is pierced by faint sprinkles of shattering glass and by the sharp keening of baby Noor.

27

“My turn.”

Will handed Surrey the bow. Surrey slid a nail-tipped cattail stem from the plastic bag and set the small end against the bowstring. Because he was short he had to turn the bow sideways so the bottom end of it would not catch on the ground. He grunted from the effort but could only draw the bow a few inches back. The arrow, dry, straight, light as straw, zipped away and stuck in a rotted stump.

“Good shot” said Will.

“Whoa, dead” said Shaughnessy.

“Killed” said Surrey.

“My turn. Give me the bow” said Shaughnessy.

Will went to fetch the arrow. The nail had penetrated to some firm layer beneath the punk, and when Will pulled the arrow, the nail came loose and remained stuck. Will wiggled the nail free and turned from the stump, the shaft in one hand and the nail with its flattened head in the other. He started back. As he pushed the nail back into the dry pith of the stem something flashed past his face. There was a tick as the arrow hit the stump.

“Killed you” said Shaughnessy. He was speaking to the stump.

Surrey was also squinting narrowly past Will, at the arrow dangling by its tip. He said “A nail in your guts.”

The two boys were trying not to smile.

Surrey said “My turn.”

Will looked back at the arrow. He looked at the two boys. Shaughnessy stood with an arrow ready, but with the bow lowered. Will went and stood beside the boys.

Surrey said “Get the arrow, Will.”

Will did not respond or look at him. He put the arrow he was carrying back in the bag.

Surrey shot.

“You’re dead” said Shaughnessy.

“Two nails in your rotten guts” said Surrey.

“Get the arrows, Will” said Shaughnessy.

Neither Surrey nor Shaughnessy had an arrow now. Will picked up the plastic bag of arrows and took it with him to the stump and carefully extracted the two arrows they had shot and put them in the bag. When he turned, Surrey and Shaughnessy were staring at him coldly, with narrowed eyes.

Will said “Come on, let’s find somethin’ else to shoot.” He slung the bag over his shoulder and turned away from the other two boys and walked past the stump and past a foundation. The soil within the square of the foundation was laced with dark, limp vines and leaves of dead squash plants. Ahead there were more foundations, and there was brush. Will chose a way among the brush. He stepped around a white toilet bowl on its side. He stepped on a low compact mound of drywall gypsum. He did not see anything they could shoot at. Shaughnessy and Surrey were following. He could hear them whispering.

“Coyotes” said Will. He stopped, and when the other two boys came even with him they also stopped. The coyotes were yipping not far to the south, the direction they were heading. Will said “They’re happy ’cause there’s lots of rabbits.”

“Yum, rabbits!” shouted Surrey, and he and Shaughnessy threw back their heads and started yipping and howling. Will reached to take the bow from Shaughnessy, but Shaughnessy, without stopping howling, moved the bow away. When the boys stopped their noise the coyotes had fallen silent.

Will twisted the bag closed and led the way deeper into the burbs. It was not very cold. The ground was wet. Ragged clouds crawled toward the northeast. He said “Thousands of people lived here once. These were all houses.”

“Thousands of people” said Shaughnessy.

“Houses” said Surrey.

Someone choked back a laugh.

Shaughnessy’s shaggy white-blond hair hung over his eyes and was very dirty. He had his two ragged shirts and wool kilt. His feet were wrapped in layered plastic socks. Surrey wore his long wool shift, and today also wore foot-wrappings. Will had his patched sweat pants and poncho and sandals.

Shaughnessy said “What happened to all the people? Did your grampa kill them?”

Surrey guffawed. His boy’s voice cut the air like a blade.

Will looked back. He could see the domicile because it rose above everything, but it was small and far away. He did not walk any farther. The coyotes started up again. He said “First the good times finished. Then almost everyone got sick and died. The ones that were left burned up the trees for firewood. Then they burned the wood from the empty houses. Then they moved into the concrete buildins and burned up the rest of the houses. What’s left is the burbs.”

“Sick and died” said Shaughnessy.

“Burbs” said Surrey.

Will said nothing. He glanced at the distant domicile again. He glanced at the bow that Shaughnessy held. He said “I have to go back.”

Shaughnessy said “Your grampa’s old. I guess pretty soon he’ll get sick and die.”

Surrey said “Or else Langley will shoot him in his rotten old guts.”

Will said “I have to go back. Can I please have the bow?”

Surrey shook his head in amused disbelief at some memory and said “You should’ve heard my daddy howl when they stabbed him.” He held his side and screamed and then laughed, bending over. His face went red from laughing. When he stopped, the coyotes were quiet again.

Shaughnessy said brightly, as if he had a brilliant idea “My daddy got sick and died. I know all about it. I could come and show your grampa.”

Surrey doubled over laughing again.

Shaughnessy said “Where’s your sister?”

Will paled. His breathing became rapid and shallow.

Surrey said “Maybe she’s dead.”

“Dead in Town.”

“Maybe Langley shot her in her rotten guts.”

The boys waited for him to respond.

Will started back toward the domicile. He did not walk quickly. He looked straight ahead.

Shaughnessy said “Don’t you want your bow?”

Will did not turn. Then, twenty feet ahead, a rabbit darted out from the shelter of a bush, saw Will and froze. Will stopped. Shaughnessy and Surrey came up quietly beside him. The rabbit remained absolutely still. Shaughnessy moved the bow slowly toward Will, offering it. He whispered “Your turn.”

Above the brush Will could see his grandfather’s bridge, the rapid transit bridge, the domicile and Fundy’s Bridge. He could see all these things without moving his eyes, because they were so far away. Shaughnessy wagged the bow slowly in front of Will. Without turning his head Will accepted it. Shaughnessy took the plastic bag from Will and quietly opened it and slid out an arrow. This Will also accepted.

Will drew back the bow and finally lowered his eyes from the distant panorama. He stepped very slowly forward until he was ten feet from the rabbit. He held his aim for many seconds, but the rabbit did not move.

When the arrow struck, the rabbit did not fall over dead. It ran. It made no sound. It left behind no blood. The arrow was about three feet long. It had pierced the abdomen of the rabbit to half its length. The rest of the arrow protruded from the other side.

Shaughnessy and Surrey took off after it, hollering hysterically. Whenever the rabbit snagged one end of the arrow on a bush they would give a piercing laugh and one of them would make a dive for it. They were wild with joy. But the rabbit kept just ahead of them, dodging, scrambling madly whenever the arrow caught on something.

Will heard the shouts and laughter of the boys grow faint. He picked up the bag of arrows and began walking quickly toward home. He was looking at the ground, and tears were dripping from the tip of his nose. As he passed the toilet bowl he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a second later the rabbit was in front of him again. The arrow still protruded on either side. There was still no blood. The rabbit took off as Will came near, but both ends of the arrow caught on bushes.

Will heard Shaughnessy and Surrey crashing toward him. They were calling “Will! Will! It’s comin’! Get it!” The animal was so light that it weighed almost nothing, but still the cattail stem snapped when Will tried to use it to lift the rabbit. He held the rabbit down with his left hand and took hold of a rear leg with his right. The nail in the protruding end of the arrow narrowly missed his own face as he swung the rabbit hard against the toilet bowl. Finally there was blood, a small smear on the porcelain. He dropped the dead rabbit and slid the broken shaft out and tossed it away. He picked up the bow and the bag and continued toward home. He did not turn.

“Whoa, blood!” said Shaughnessy behind him.

“Smashed its rotten brains” said Surrey.

Will walked quickly on. The boys were silent. Then Shaughnessy said “I bet they got your sister.”

Surrey said “I bet they smashed her rotten brains.”

The bow and bag dropped from Will’s hands. He whirled and charged, head down, shrieking. Wide-eyed, Surrey threw up his arms and stepped backward onto the rabbit and tripped over the toilet and fell. Shaughnessy also tried to get out of the way, but without looking up Will rammed him in the stomach with his head. Shaughnessy folded, and his feet left the ground. He sailed a little distance before landing in a sitting posture.

For a few seconds he simply sat there, with his legs straight out in front and his hands flat on the ground, looking dazed. Then he began making desperate gasping sounds, like a dry pump. He was so concerned with trying to draw breath that he did not even look at Will, who had also fallen but now stood above him. Will had stopped shrieking. With his fists clenched he faced his friend. He shook his head bitterly. His shoulders quaked with sobs.

Will turned and took a fast step toward Surrey. But then he stopped and watched the boy scramble away into the bushes on hands and knees, whimpering with fear. Will picked up the bow and the bag and ran toward his home.

28

“Take it from me.”

“Take it from you.”

“No, I mean… She’s Noor — she’s got to be safe.” Granville shrugged, as if no further comment were possible.

“I am reassured” said Frost dryly, without turning to Granville. The two men trudged up an exit ramp. He said “No one has got to be safe.”

“No, that’s right too. You can say that again.”

They headed up the bridge. It was late afternoon, getting dark, and foggy. When Frost ran a hand over his beard he felt droplets of mist. He could not see as far as the middle of the bridge. He could not see if his men were there. He said “Have you seen my graveyard?”

Granville said “I didn’t mean… I only meant…”

Granville had no hat. His red hair had grown in to form a thin mat, but his beard was only sparse threads of copper, hardly visible in the weak light. He had a long wool shift and sandals. He carried a black bag over his shoulder.

Frost said “You did good work for Daniel Charlie.”

“No problem, Frost.”

“Flattening those nails. Working on the water wheel.”

“Anythin’ to help out.”

Frost stopped and listened. Granville also stopped. But no sound from up ahead penetrated the fog. They started again. Frost said “Now you’re a good citizen.”

Granville swiveled his face sharply toward Frost, but Frost looked straight ahead with no expression. Granville tried a small, tentative laugh. Then he also faced forward. He wrinkled his brow. Soon he said “That’s right, Frost.”

In the fog, on the more or less uniform roadway, there was no sense of progress. They seemed to be walking in place. Granville said “Frost, can I ask a question?”

“You just did.”

Granville thought for a while, then said “What?”

“You just did ask a question.”

Granville produced his half-laugh again.

Frost said “Jesus, if you’re going to ask, ask. Don’t ask if you can ask.”

“Sorry, Frost, sorry. I didn’t mean… I mean… I just…”

Frost stopped and looked squarely at Granville. “Do you have a question for me?”

“I do, Frost. If it’s okay with you. What is a citizen?”

They walked on. Frost said “A citizen, Granville, is a person who helps out.”

Granville mulled this over. He said “You mean, like I did?”

“I mean, like you do.”

Granville stood up a little straighter. He raised his chin. His narrowed eyes expressed a sense of purpose.

Frost said “Not like before.”

Granville hunched, as if the bag had suddenly grown heavier. He stared morosely down at the concrete of the roadway and was careful not to glance toward Frost. After a while he mumbled without looking up “No, that’s true too” and then “You can say that again.”

Frost said “Do you still get the urge?”

Invited to converse further with Frost, Granville brightened. “Urge? What’s that?”

“Do you ever want skag?”

“Oh no, Frost. I’m done with skag. I’m a citizen now.” He nodded earnestly, then smiled. He retained several teeth, well rotted.

“I don’t believe you. I think you have a struggle every day.”

“What’s a struggle?”

“A fight. You have to fight the urge.”

“No, well, that’s true too. You can say that again. I mean…”

They walked without talking for a while. It was getting dark quickly, but as they proceeded farther up the bridge the fog was thinning. Frost said “What kind of a man is Langley?”

Granville tensed. For a few seconds he peered back into the mist. His hand tightened on the neck of the bag. He shrugged. He walked on with a creased brow. He shrugged again.

Frost said “I know he’s a bad man. You don’t have to tell me that.”

Granville said “You can say that again. Take it from me.” He shook his head once for emphasis.

“But what kind of things did he like to do? What made him happy?”

“I never seen him happy, Frost.” But he seemed worried by his own answer. “I mean…”

“What did he like to do?”

Granville thought for a while. “He liked to watch us pickin’ the pods.”

“What else?”

“He liked to hire soldiers to work for him.”

“What else?”

“He liked to get stuff.”

“What kind of stuff.”

“Nice clothes. From before. From the good times. Shirts. Shoes.”

“Anything else?”

“Stuff for his house. Stuff that nobody else has.”

“Like what?”

“Like things from before. From the good times. I don’t know what the names of them are. Food in cans too. Hooch in glass bottles. Wait, I did see him happy a few times.”

“When was that” asked Frost.

“When one of us couldn’t work no more. Whenever one of us laid down in the poppies and couldn’t get up. Then I seen him up by his house, smilin’, sort of.”

“Why would he smile if one of you couldn’t work? I thought he needed you to work to get more skag.”

“Well that’s true too. You can say that again. But what I think, Frost, I think he was happy because he could haul one of us, whoever it was that laid down — he could get that big Freeway and haul the one of us that laid down over into the bush.” Granville’s burst of conversation stopped abruptly.

Frost said “And what happened in the bush?”

Granville blinked anxiously at his feet or at the concrete. He said “Frost, can I… I mean… Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have to talk about Langley?”

Frost said “What about Steveston — Stevie? How long has he been at Langley’s place?”

“He was there when I come.”

“When was that? When did you come?”

Granville shrugged, shook his head, shrugged again “Maybe two winters.”

“Is he addicted.”

Granville turned his face to Frost, puzzled. “What does that mean, Frost? I heard that word before.”

Frost sighed. “Never mind, Granville.” It was a clear twilight. A few stars were visible. The fog now lay below in a thick quilt on the length of the river. The guards had a small peat fire in the middle of the roadway. “One more thing.”

“No problem, Frost.”

“What if Langley attacks? What do you think we should do?”

Granville shivered briefly, convulsively. Pieces of rabbit rustled against the inside of the bag. It was as if someone had taken him by the shoulders and shaken him violently for one second.

Frost said “Jesus!”

Granville looked at Frost sternly. His voice was assertive. “Run, Frost” he said. “Just run.”

There must have been a hole in the bottom of the bag. Frost saw that every few steps a drop of blood dripped onto the calf of Granville’s right leg. Frost said “I don’t run.”

Granville shrugged, shook his head once emphatically. “No, that’s right too. I didn’t mean…”

Up ahead the dogs started barking insanely.

Frost said “I wonder if they can smell the blood.”

“You can say that again.”

29

Robson said “Tomorrow the windows will come alive. Even if it’s cloudy. Even if it rains.”

Noor said “I didn’t come to see your coloured windows.”

101 said “She come to see your big bright eyes” and giggled in a choking sort of way, kng kng kng, until Powell, who was also giggling, slapped him on the arm.

It was night, and only occasionally did a panel of one of the tall stained glass windows catch a beam from the fire or the candle flame.

Noor said “Maybe I come to see your big bright eyes, 101” and 101 went silent and stared at his knees while Powell, who was laughing with everyone else, gave 101 a solid punch on the shoulder. Without looking up, 101 struck out and knocked Powell’s ceramic mug of blackberry wine from his hand. The cup smashed on the concrete floor.

Robson said evenly “You owe one cup, Powell.”

“Me!” Powell was stunned. Ice and Spring laughed louder, and 101 joined them eagerly, going ha ha and poking Powell in the arm.

They were sitting near the altar end of a church, in a semicircle of wheeled office chairs. As the revelers gesticulated the chairs swiveled and rolled back and forth. Emptied bowls sat on the floor, around a wax candle as tall and thick as an artillery shell, and a plastic bottle that said Coca Cola, similar in size, a third full of dark wine. The chairs faced a red metal fireplace with a corroded conical top that caught the smoke and funneled it into a stovepipe. It produced little perceptible heat. There was a small pile of split cordwood. Beyond the firelight heaps of various heights as well as undefined shapes were barely visible in the gloom.

Noor said “This is nice, this wine. We should make some instead of potato hooch.”

Ice said “Hooch has got more alcohol.”

101 said “Let’s get at the hooch that Noor brung. I ain’t had hooch in a coon’s age.”

Powell said “Coon’s age? What the hell is that?”

101 said “You’re showin’ your ignorance in front of our guest. You cup buster.”

The two men sat there swiveling their chairs, smirking at each other in a challenging way as their voices echoed in the darkness of the high empty hall.

Robson said “We got all night.”

They were quiet for a while, watching the candle burn. Then Noor said “So, what’s new with the Church Gang?”

Powell said “We got a visit from a farmer girl.”

101 said “She come in search of big bright eyes” and he and Powell giggled again.

Powell said “She brung one sandal. So’s she’ll get invited back to bring the other one.”

The two women, Ice and Spring, and the other man, Hollyburn, joined voices in telling the two jokers to shut up. Spring said to Noor “Don’t pay no attention to them two. They weren’t brung up good.”

None of them except Noor wore homemade. They all, even Spring and Ice, wore pleated dress pants and work shirts. Powell had an olive green sleeveless padded jacket. 101 had a blue plaid cap with fuzzy flaps hiding his ears. Hollyburn had a camel hair overcoat. Robson had an ornate waistcoat whose embroidery caught flickers from the fire. The two women each wore several beaded necklaces over their shirts. They all had shoes abraded down to pale rough leather.

Noor said “I see you’ve all come by leather shoes since I was here last. So there’s no need for sandals.”

Robson said “No, but I could’ve traded them.”

“Can you trade one?”

“There’s a barefoot one-legged woman who’s got a thing made of ropes and wheels, for liftin’.”

Hollyburn said “That there is a broken tickle.”

His contribution was greeted by a roar of laughter that echoed thunderously in the church. As it died down Hollyburn rose from his office chair like a member of parliament and said “It is, god damn it. It’s a broken tickle.”

Ice jumped up and proclaimed “I’ll show you a broken tickle.” Both she and Hollyburn were tall and ungainly. She chased him into the darkness, with Hollyburn going “No, no, no, no!” and trying to fend her off. There was a crash of some object falling, and then Hollyburn going “No, no, please, stop, stop” and laughing helplessly and almost silently.

Robson muttered “That would be our espresso maker that just got knocked over.” He shouted “Hey, you two!”

Hollyburn and Ice shuffled back into the circle of light, with Hollyburn brushing dust from his overcoat and then using a sleeve to wipe a tear from his cheek.

Noor said “What’s an espresso maker?”

Robson said “You don’t know what an espresso maker is? Girl, you been on that farm too long. An espresso maker is in fact a beautiful shiny thing that has the words espresso maker on it. I’m pretty sure that’s what it says. And now these drunk ticklers have probably busted it.”

Noor shook her head. “A beautiful shiny thing. Could it be that those coloured windows are affectin’ your brain?”

Spring said “His brain went beautiful and shiny a long time ago, and just as useless as his espresso maker.”

101 rose from his chair and stood there teetering for a few seconds, with Powell and Spring, who were seated on either side, reaching up to catch him if he fell. 101 found his balance, bent for the bottle, and stepped sideways around the semicircle, holding the bottle with both hands, filling cups, attending first to Noor’s. This pretty well finished off the wine.

Noor said “It’s called a block and tackle. We’ve got one. We use it to hang up cows when we gut them.”

Robson waved a finger and said “Now, you see — if you’d a brung the block and tackle instead of the sandal, we could’ve skipped the barefoot, one-legged woman.”

“True, but then she’d have to continue goin’ around with one cold foot.”

Robson sat next to Noor with elbows on knees. He looked at her and said quietly “I would never trade a gift that you give me.” He sat up, leaned, kissed Noor lightly on the lips. He took her hand and resumed looking into the fire. “You asked what the Church Gang has been up to? Scavengin’, tradin’, tryin’ to stay out of the rain. Hollyburn had the brilliant idea to climb the stairs right to the top floor of some tower.”

Hollyburn said “Down near the water. Them stairs was dark. I mean black dark. But my mind was made up. I was goin’ to the top.”

Robson said “In a room at the top he found a skeleton wearin’ that coat.”

Hollyburn said “Perfect fit. Don’t stink at all. Finished stinkin’ forty years ago”

“So after that we all started climbin’ stairs in the dark.”

Noor said “These clothes you’re wearin’ are from skeletons?”

“No, just Hollyburn’s coat. The rest are from closets.”

“Should I believe you?” When Robson did not answer she said “No squatters in those towers?”

“Just on the bottom floors. Only the Church Gang is crazy enough to climb twenty floors in black darkness. Ice found six glass bottles full of brown hooch. It’s called whisky. We should’ve saved some for you. I will if we get any more. Powell, show what you found. Powell’s a scavengin’ fool.”

Powell went behind the fireplace and came back with a rifle. He said “It’s called a 22. I know ’cause my daddy had one. But he didn’t have no bullets.” He showed a small cardboard box that he held in one hand. “We got bullets.”

Spring said “He kilt a rat with it. Scared the shit out of me.”

Powell took a bullet out of the box to show Noor. “See, when you pull the trigger — that’s this here thing — this part of the bullet goes flyin’.”

Noor said “Is that what you use it for, to kill rats?”

Robson said “We don’t use it. See, we don’t know if we’ll ever get any more bullets. We clean it. We keep it ready.”

“In case” said Noor.”

Robson nodded “In case”

She said “You know Langley took Wing’s farm?”

Robson nodded again.

“Now he’s lookin’ at Fundy’s. And maybe ours.”

“Take the 22 when you go. Kill that son of a bitch. Take Powell with you.”

Powell said “I’ll be happy to do it for you.”

Noor said “No, I’m sure Langley knows all about your church full of treasures and is just waitin’ for his chance to help himself.”

They chuckled, but Robson said “I got to say you’re right. Now, what did 101 do recently that’s worth mentionin’? Well, 101 pried open the back of a car and found….”

From a pocket of his sleeveless jacket 101 extracted a compact pair of binoculars. He said “It’s for lookin’ at things far away. It makes them look close.”

Noor took and examined the binoculars. She said “Lenses. Like Grampa’s glasses.” She looked through the tubes, toward Spring’s face. She saw only full lips surmounted by a fringe of very fine pale down, random hairs of which caught blinks of light from the fire. The lips bent into a smile.

Hollyburn said “It’s called a block-your-door.”

101 cried “Damn, would you stop givin’ names to things you don’t know nothin’ about! It’s no god damn block-your-door!”

“Well, what is it, then?” Hollyburn cried in high-pitched irritability.

They all looked at Noor. She shrugged and shook her head.

Robson said “Take it for Frost. A gift from the Church Gang. He’ll know what it’s called.” Robson glanced at 101, who nodded his permission.

Robson said “As for Spring… Spring don’t care much for stairs.”

Spring said “I stay home and cook. Me and the 22. I’m too fat to climb twenty floors or two floors, in pitch dark or broad daylight. I have the honour of bein’ the only fat person in Town.” Spring slouched habitually but was pretty. She was pale-skinned and had wavy blond hair that hung loose. She wore a contented smile most of the time. “How do I stay fat when we hardly got nothin’ to eat?” She shrugged her thick shoulders. “Looks like Ash is going to be fat too. He’s got the fat magic, like me. We’re just lucky.”

Powell said “Where’d he get to, anyway?”

Spring said “He’s just there behind the fireplace, sleepin’.”

They were quiet for a while. Robson rose and took a piece of cordwood from the pile and laid it on the fading fire. When he sat again he said to Noor “If you had a boat you could come around the point by water. Like the Park Crew. We’re not far from the beach. That’s a dangerous trip you made with your horse.”

Noor said “Sure. Find me a boat in one of your towers, and I’ll sail it around the point.”

“Or you could stay here with us.”

101 and Powell went “Oo” and made smooching noises and giggled.

Ice said “You was just offered the big offer, girl.”

Noor said “I’ve got to take care of my grampa.” They all watched her, waiting. She said “You could come to the farm.”

Now they watched Robson. He looked down at the floor, shaking his head a little. “I’m a Town boy.”

The reply seemed to sadden everyone except Noor. She smiled and laid a hand on Robson’s forearm and said “Well, maybe you’ll find that boat for me. Maybe I’ll get Daniel Charlie to make one.”

Even seated in the office chairs it was obvious that Robson was much shorter than Noor. He was broad-shouldered and heavily muscled. His skin was cinnamon-coloured like hers. He had hair as curly and wild as her grandfather’s but thick and black and shiny, and he had a dense trimmed beard. He wore a headband made from a silk necktie with stripes of gold and green. He leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows on knees, looking into the fire. The piece of wood caught, and the small flames reflected in his black eyes, which were large and round and liquid. He said “It’s good what you’re doin’ with your grampa. Your grampa’s got the idea that things could be better. He’s a good man. He’s the best kind of man. The rest of us are just goin’ from day to day.”

“Collectin’ and tradin’” said Powell.

“Climbin stairs” said Ice.

“Hopin’ to stay healthy” said Spring.

“Waitin’ for the wine to get ready” said Hollyburn.

“Waitin’ for the girl from the farm to drop by” said Robson, and turned slowly to Noor.

101 reached inside his shirt and slid out a length of white plastic pipe with a few evenly spaced holes. He covered the holes with his fingertips and placed the end of the pipe to his lips and closed his eyes. The melody that he fashioned was both heartbreaking and whimsical, both dance and dirge. It was offered back as echo by the stone walls and by the looming darkness of the church.

Ice and Hollyburn rose. They joined hands. Facing each other they swayed and dipped. They took small, shuffling but graceful steps. They moved away from the fire to the border of the darkness. Powell stood and helped Spring, who struggled out of her chair with a grunt and a laugh. They waited a few seconds, hands joined, swaying, and then the same restless but sensual movements carried them away from the light.

Noor rose and joined hands with Robson. She looked into the black moist depth of his eyes. She was dizzy from the wine. She laughed and let the circling, off-kilter sounds of the flute instruct her feet.

From behind the fireplace a chubby young boy emerged in a man’s brown cardigan that hung to his feet. He had pale hair that was cut like a helmet. He stood there for a minute, rubbing his eyes and observing the dancers. Then he knelt and leaned his chin on 101’s knee, watching him make his music.

Robson and Noor stepped and dipped and swayed to the edge of the light and then farther, into the darkness at the end of the church, slipping without effort among the treasures piled there, and then farther, toward a quiet room waiting beyond the altar.

30

Frost said “It’s no use. I’ll have to let the smoke out.” He tied back the sheet of plastic that covered old Joshua’s doorway, and smoke began to slide swiftly out of the room. It was dawn. In the hallway, in the weak light near the doorway, he saw old Ryan and Brittany and Jessica. They watched him without expression. He nodded to them. Then he went to the fire bucket and flicked the embers aside, but they continued to give off thin streams of smoke. He said “I didn’t know his stovepipe was in such bad shape.”

Grace said “Never mind. The fire doesn’t matter. He’s too hot already from the fever. Or he was too hot. He’s past that now.”

Old Joshua lay on his back on a mat of rabbit skins. He was covered up to his chest with the sheet from the clinic, which was twisted and limp from his night of thrashing. But now he lay still and straight. His only struggles were the heaving of his narrow white-haired chest and the desperate gasps of his breathing. His eyes were open, slightly clouded, unfocussed. Slowly his breathing became less laboured. He made a sound, a kind of brief humming, as if he were trying out his voice or setting the pitch for a song. Then he said “…two-sailin’ wait for Schwartz Bay…”

Frost turned away and sighed and rubbed his forehead. He said “Joshua was a real-estate salesman. He and his wife arrived pulling their two kids in a wagon. She had lovely blond hair.” He stood in front of the fogged plastic of the window, as if outside in the rain and the dim light he could see that scene from the past. He said “You don’t have to stay, Grace. It’s Christmas day.”

“I’ll stay. But you should go and rest.” She was sitting sideways on the mat, beside the dying man.

“Yes, I know. Thanks to staying up with Joshua I might be able to sleep through the day. I hope so.” Without turning from the window, he cleared his throat slightly and said “I was looking for you. Two days ago. I couldn’t find you.”

As Grace hesitated, he stiffened. She said in her halting way “What did you want?”

Frost went to the door of the room. He said evenly to Ryan and Brittany and Jessica “I need you to go away for a while. We’ll call you if… if there’s a change.” Ryan and Brittany hesitated, but Jessica urged them down the dark hallway.

Frost stood above the still-smoking fire bucket and looked down at Grace and said “There’s only so many places you could be.”

Grace said, looking nervously up at him “I was a lot of places. You must have just missed me.” She looked haggard.

“You’re not sick, are you?”

She shook her head, looked away.

“Nobody else saw you either. I needed to talk to you. Noor had just taken off and…” He looked back to the window’s frail light. “I saw Brandon. He said I didn’t know what was going on. He said I wasn’t the only game in town.”

“What does that mean? Was he talkin’ about me?”

“I don’t know. Was he?”

Joshua said again “…two-sailin’ wait…” He was bald, with his white fringe of hair and his beard trimmed close. He did not look afraid. In spite of his struggle to breathe he looked calm and trustworthy, as if he were still selling real-estate. He muttered a string of incoherent syllables.

“Grampa.”

Frost turned, stared in surprise for a second. Will was standing in the doorway in his dripping poncho. “Will, not now.”

“Grampa, there’s a bunch of people. They want to live here.”

Frost went down. A dozen people stood in the rain in front of the entrance to the domicile. Twice that number stood at the top of the front steps, still disheveled from sleep, silently observing the newcomers. Beyond the new arrivals stood Tyrell, leaning on his spear, shaking his head in disgust.

Frost hurried out the entrance. He stopped and exhaled sharply, as if to expel not only the smoke, the stuffy air and the human reek that had accumulated in the domicile through the winter, but his own heavy thoughts. He closed his eyes, drew a long breath and stepped carefully forward through the crowd of residents. He touched Salmon on the stump of her cut-off arm, and she moved aside. He caught her look of pity for the refugees. He saw her nod to him, a gesture not of affirmation but of pleading. Her daughter, Cloud, plucked at his poncho. He had heard the hysterical screams of this girl as he tried to carry her up the stairwell that day of the amputation, and he had heard her carousing with the other children on the riverbank that day he had gone looking for Grace, but he heard now her first words. “Please let them stay, Frost.” She meant the children.

Frost knew the two girls. Today they wore long filthy shifts made from a multitude of rags. The last time he had seen them they had been naked, walking hand in hand with their father away from the ruin of a building where Frost had laid their mother’s almost lifeless head on a bed made from a car seat. Today they held their father’s hands as well, and the three of them, thin and soaked, looked as miserable as they had that other day. A black garbage bag of their possessions rested at the father’s feet.

There was no spokesman for the arrivals. There was not even any unity. Town-dwellers formed their own group on the left, three men and two women, each holding a bag, watching Frost. One of these women Frost had last seen at the market, under the bridge, grasping a dead rat. Twenty feet away on the right were the man and his girls.

Between them and back a little two men stood separate and alone. One was old Christopher, from south of the farm. The other man crouched slightly, leaning on a knee as if he were in pain. He wore a rabbit-skin hat, a rabbit-skin poncho and the square-toed leather shoes that had once belonged to Frost, tied with double loops.

In front, as if they were on display, stood a man and a woman in ragged kilts of layered plastic. They had only scraps of hair. Their ribs pressed like blades against grey skin. They shivered and hugged themselves against the cold. They looked at the ground and would not meet the eyes of the other newcomers or Frost or most of the other residents. But every few seconds their eyes darted to Granville, who stood on the top step in a wool poncho and sandals, milky skinned, well fleshed, his hair like a thick red cap.

Frost went down the steps. He stopped beside the two addicts and waited for them to look at him. They would not. He walked past them and turned and stood between Christopher and the hunched man whose burgundy-rimmed glasses Frost was wearing. He looked up at his people spread on the porch and steps of the domicile. He said “Jessica, there are no more empty rooms, are there?”

Jessica said “No, and a bunch are doubled up already with Wing’s people and the others who come a while back.”

From somewhere, Brittany’s little girl voice: “You know that, Frost. Get your head on straight.”

There were mutters of annoyance as Amber nudged people aside with her length of rebar and stepped slowly and carefully down to the muddy ground. She said “I’ll go back to my barge.”

Daniel Charlie, standing at the back, taller than the rest, said “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, Amber. Get back up here out of the rain before that walkin’ stick of yours gets any rustier.” Amber looked at Frost, who nodded. She turned and was helped back up the steps.

Wing’s white hair and wisp of beard flashed briefly between bodies at the back of the porch. He said “Most of my crew is up on the bridge, so I guess I have to speak for them. It’s not up to them or me to say if we should take in more people or not, ’cause we’re here on the generosity of you people who took us in when Langley run us off our farm. But if people come to me beggin’ for help I would not turn them away.”

From behind Frost came the loud crack of Tyrell’s voice. “Fine, there, Wing. Let’s go and get rid of Langley and his crew like we should’ve done when all this started. Then you can have your farm back, and you can help as many god damn refugees as you want.”

Frost did not turn, and no voices were raised in support of Tyrell.

A few more residents straggled out the door, scratching themselves and muttering about the noise and blinking their way out of sleep.

Old Ryan said “There’s room on my floor.”

Someone else said “Mine too.”

Frost turned to old Christopher. His sparse white hair and beard hung in wet tangles to his waist. But the rain had not washed away his rank and belligerent odour. He was very skinny. He looked at Frost defiantly with his head thrown back and his eyes wide and said “You ain’t gettin’ me into no god damn domicile. I just come to get my squash. You said you was bringin’ me some squash. And I could use some spuds. How come you didn’t bring no more spuds? What the hell’s wrong with you, Frost? And you said you was going to bring me a fire lighter. I been waitin’ all this time to cook them eggs you brung.”

Among the residents there was a giggle or two.

Frost said “You don’t have to stay in the domicile. You can sleep in the clinic.”

“Oh, no way, Frost.” Christopher shook his head wildly and stepped back, out of grabbing distance. “You ain’t getting’ me into no god damn clinic. Just give me my vegetables and my fire lighter and I’ll be on my way. And maybe you’ve got a dog to spare. You got a dog?”

There was a guffaw from the residents.

Frost said “You can go back if you want. But if you want me to feed you you’ve got to stay here. Make up your mind.”

Christopher turned one way, then another, as if he were looking for a way to run.

Daniel Charlie spoke up. “Christopher, calm down. It ain’t the end of the world. You can sleep in the workshop.” He came forward, down the steps and out beside Frost. He said to Christopher “But you got to wash first.” There was more laughter. When it died Daniel Charlie said to the gathering “It’s time we used up some of those concrete blocks and that bag-and-a-half of cement powder and some of those two-by-fours. We’ll build somethin’. We’ll put roofs over heads. For now we can sleep three in a room in the domicile. Four. Whatever. It’ll just be temporary.”

But then Tyrell spoke again. “What are we going to eat, Daniel? Already we don’t have enough to last till next harvest. We can’t afford to kill any more cows, and the meat don’t go far anyways. It’s like this… Frost, are you listenin’! It’s like this — if we try to feed everyone, we’re all going to starve. It’s a bitch, but that’s the way it is. And you know it, Frost. It’s time to stop pretendin’. Me and my men ain’t sleepin’ in the rain up on that bridge and waitin’ for a crossbow arrow in the gizzard just so’s we can starve along with everybody else.”

Wing shouted “My men are up there too, Tyrell. These are men who’ve had their women and daughters took away. And I know they would never turn back anyone who asks for help. Food or no food.”

Tyrell shot back “Well, come up and spend a night with your men in the freezin’ rain. Then you might find out you don’t know shit.”

Now from among the residents came a volley of declarations and objections.

“He’s right, Frost. Them spuds won’t go far.”

“Don’t be so god damn selfish.”

“Tell me that when we’ve all starved to death.”

“What kind of world are we tryin’ to build here!”

“Go put the soup on. We got hungry people here.”

Frost looked on worriedly. But there were no blows except when Amber got upset by all the shouting and took a whack at Kingsway with her rebar.

“Ow! You bloody old fool!”

Jessica guided Amber back into the domicile, and soon there was silence again, with the refugees and the residents regarding each other through the few feet of rain. Even the addicts had looked up to see whether they were finally to be sheltered or turned away.

Frost said “You’ve all got to wash. But first come into my place and get warm. And we’ll get you something to eat.”

Some people came down from the steps to welcome the newcomers. Others spat and turned away.

Daniel Charlie and Wing walked side by side toward the ranked piles of lumber. Daniel Charlie said “You ever build anythin’?”

Wing answered “I built a lot of castles in the air.”

“Well, that`s a start. I hope you saved the plans.”

Tyrell walked back toward the bridge, with his spear on his shoulder.

Most of the residents and all of the refugees had filed through the door of the domicile, even old Christopher and the two skag addicts. Frost and Will stood behind on the bottom step like shepherds guiding a flock. Brittany waited near the door for the crowd to clear, calling “Go on, go on, you bunch of roughnecks. You tryin’ to crush me, or what?”

Grace materialized from the darkness beyond the doorway. She stepped out into the dismal dawn light and stood there, head hanging. Frost looked worried — she was so drawn, so faded. She lifted her head and tried to say something, but had to clear her throat and try again. “Joshua’s room is free now.”

Brittany was furious. “No it ain’t! He’s in there! He’s sick and he needs to stay there!”

Frost said “Joshua’s dead, Brittany.”

Brittany started wailing. She ran down the steps and off into the rain, shaking her fists, screaming.

Frost stepped up onto the porch. “I’ll bring him down.”

Will said “I’ll help you, Grampa.”

Grace said “I’ll help too.”

Frost said “No, I’ll do it myself. Will, can you find a shovel?”

31

Frost stood facing the stairwell doorway, holding in his arms the limp corpse of Joshua, which was wrapped for most of its length in a rabbit skin poncho. Joshua’s head hung sharply back. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was half open. The arm that was not constrained against Frost’s chest hung down at an angle, as if Joshua were reaching to open the stairwell door, which was not there. Here in the corridor there was more daylight than before. But ahead in the stairwell Frost saw only blackness. A steady current of frigid air streamed out of that blackness and over his feet.

A form emerged from the darkness. It was Jessica. She stopped in the gloom at the top of the stairs and stared at Frost and his burden. She looked down and shook her head. She said quietly “They’re all in your place. The soup’ll be hot soon.” She was broad shouldered and only a couple of inches shorter than Frost. She stepped forward into the watery light and sighed and said firmly “Give me his feet.”

Frost ticked his head sideways and said “Move.”

She said with both exasperation and resignation “For Christ sake, Frost, don’t. Don’t do this. It’s five floors.”

He waited, inhaled impatiently. Jessica stepped past him out into the corridor.

Even at the top where there was a little light, he did not try to see the stairs but stared straight ahead as a blind man might. Standing very upright he lowered his right foot to a stair. He lowered his left to the next, then continued.

At the landing he gave the corpse a heft to improve his grip. His heavy exhalations echoed in the stairwell. He took the next flight more cautiously. Right foot to a stair. Left foot to the same stair. Now there was a desperate quality to his breathing, almost a groan. He stood at the landing for ten or fifteen seconds.

Invisible in the darkness above him, but close, Jessica said “At least put him down and rest. He’s not in a hurry to get nowhere.”

Frost gave Joshua a mighty heave and doubled him over his left shoulder. But he was too weak for such a maneuver and stumbled backward. Joshua’s head thumped into the wall.

Jessica said “Jesus, Frost, don’t kill him twice.”

Frost was breathing a little better. He said “Mind your own business.”

“It’s my business as much as yours. You stubborn son of a bitch.”

Further up the stairwell Frost heard Grace pleading. “Please, Frost. You’re not as strong as you think.”

Frost said “I know. Shut up.” He went down the stairs one by one, with Joshua folded over his left shoulder. As he went he leaned with his right shoulder scraping against the wall of the stairwell.

Farther down there was a distant wavering light and the faint smell of smoke. The light grew stronger, as did the smell. Someone came up the next flight of stairs, rounded the landing and started up the flight down which Frost was struggling. The person was holding a cattail by the stem. The fluff, burst out of its dark skin, was burning weakly, sputtering. Frost looked down the stairs into the face of Brandon. He said “Get out of my way.”

Without looking, Brandon stepped backward down the stairs, keeping pace with Frost. He said “I come to light you down.”

Frost said “I don’t need any light.”

“I ain’t talkin’ to you.”

In the shadows squirming on it, Joshua’s face seemed to move, to dodge, thrust forward and retreat. In addition to this flutter of shadows, the face and the torch and the smoke were spinning in front of Frost’s eyes. But at the next landing he did not stop to rest. He said “Drunk. Already.”

Brandon continued backward down the steps, keeping pace with Frost. He said “I seen you was near the end.”

Frost said “You talking to me now?” He gave in to a kind of weak-kneed momentum, moving fast while he still could.

Brandon also increased his pace, stepping blindly backwards. He said “So I come to light you down.”

Through his own gasping breaths and the blood pounding in his ears Frost heard someone coughing. He heard a child crying. He plunged on down the stairs.

At the bottom Brandon dropped his torch on the tiled floor. There was a glass door. Brandon held it open, and Frost stumbled out through it into the cold dawn air, weaving, knees buckling. He turned his head and vomited a splash of yellow bile.

Jessica and Grace rushed past Brandon and helped Frost to sit on the top step. Frost slid the corpse down onto his lap so that Joshua again lay with his head flung back, mouth gaping, with the back of the free hand resting on the wet of a lower concrete step. Frost’s head hung down against the pelts of Joshua’s poncho.

When Frost looked up Will was standing waiting in front of him with a shovel. Frost said faintly. “I’ll be fine. Just dizzy.” He slid his right arm from under Joshua and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. Grace squatted behind him and put her hands on his shoulders and laid her face against his back.

Frost straightened. His breath was still heaving. He peered off toward the graveyard, as if he were trying to gauge how far away it was. He made no effort to rise yet, but sat there in the rain with the corpse of Joshua on his lap.

Will looked as if he were about to cry. Jessica went down the steps and stood beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. This started him blubbering.

Brandon walked off eastward toward the bridge. He walked not in a straight line but in long narrow curves. He had a bottle now.

Frost set his mouth and gathered himself.

Grace said “No, Frost” and “Will, get a wheelbarrow.” But Will just stood there beside Jessica, crying and watching his grandfather.

Frost raised his head, squinted westward, suddenly alert and birdlike in the burgundy-rimmed glasses. Grace rose and stared in the same direction. Then Jessica also did so, and finally Will, who spluttered “It’s Beast and Sorrow.” The two dogs were trotting at a good pace. Beast barked once at about a hundred yards distance. Sorrow barked, and then they ran. Wing and Daniel Charlie were standing by the building blocks. Sorrow jumped up against Wing, wagging her tail. Beast ran on to be greeted by Frost.

Frost slid carefully out from under Joshua and left him sprawled on his back there on the steps. He walked quickly past the others. The dog jumped up against him, whining and barking. Will dropped the shovel and ran forward and grabbed the dragging leash. Wing and Daniel Charlie watched Frost and the others approach. Then they turned suddenly. Far beyond them a figure was approaching.

Frost eased into a jog, and Will and Beast followed. But soon Frost stopped and looked back. In a scattered group his guards came around the far corner of the domicile. They were running. Marpole, Dunsmuir, Hastings, Airport, Newton, Boundary, Richmond, Lansdowne, Oak. Tyrell was at the front. Most of Wing’s men were there too — Nordel, Bridgeport, Burnaby. They had their spears. They had their bows slung over their backs, and also, by cords, their plastic bags of arrows. In the hands that did not hold their spears six of the men each gripped the leash of a dog that ran beside him.

Frost said “Will, stay here with Beast. Stay by the domicile.” He called “Jessica, get out all the bows and all the arrows. Grace, be ready.”

When Frost turned again Wing and Daniel Charlie were running westward. He jogged after them, with the world swimming in his vision.

Solomon’s eyes were wild, like the eyes of a terrorized horse, and his beardless face was ashen beneath a mane of tangled black hair. Until Wing and Daniel Charlie reached him he made not a sound, but when Daniel Charlie tried to calm him by patting his back he howled. He stomped side to side in a frantic dance and flapped his right arm. His left hung limp. The khaki shirt sleeve was torn and reddened, and blood dripped from his fingers. His faded and patched blue jeans were wet around the crotch. He screamed “Frost! Frost!”

Frost leaned on his knees, catching his breath. When he straightened, the world was still spinning. He spoke anyway. “Solomon, what happened?”

Solomon wagged his head from side to side. “Frost! Frost! Frost!”

Frost slapped him. Solomon froze, staring.

Frost said again “What happened?”

Solomon said “The bad men are hurtin’ everybody.”

Then Grace was there. She took Solomon’s right hand, and he went with her toward the domicile, howling again.

The running men surrounded Frost and Wing and Daniel Charlie. The dogs were barking and snapping at one another. Frost shouted “Settle down!” He shouted it again, and they were quieter. Tyrell said “We heard screamin’ from up there. Looks like Fundy tried to get his bridge back.”

Frost nodded in the direction Solomon had come from. He said “Go on.” And Tyrell and the men and the dogs continued running toward Little Bridge and Fundy’s farm beyond.

32

As he approached Little Bridge Frost started to hear the screams of women. He also heard men yelling and he heard dogs barking frantically and the piercing yelps of dogs in pain. He could not run anymore. In heavy rain he walked gasping over Little Bridge. He had no poncho and no weapon.

Fundy’s Bridge rose three hundred yards to his right. One of Langley’s men was limping backward up the wide, empty span, swinging his sword wildly at a small black dog that dodged and feinted in front of him. Frost saw, standing alone halfway to the crest of the bridge, the tall bald form of Abraham Bundy. As the soldier and the dog passed him on the other side of the lane divider, Bundy turned to watch them. He did not raise his hands from his sides. He turned back and stood looking out over his field.

Frost left the road on the south side, away from the bridge, and let gravity impel him running down a sloping concrete embankment. He had caught his breath to a degree, and he continued running across the fractured and bush-grown asphalt of an approach ramp, across a stretch of boggy grass, over another ramp and then across the main road. His men were crouched in a line with their dogs behind the near verge of a further ramp. Wing’s man, Pender, was among them, apparently unharmed.

Frost threw himself down on his back behind Tyrell. He looked up into the rain, letting it beat into his face. Water slid from the lenses of his glasses as he waited for the world to become more solid. In a minute he rose to his knees and turned and leaned on Tyrell’s back and peered across the roadway, through the winter weeds and the leafless brush. He took his glasses off and ran the lenses once across his wet shirt and put them back on.

Fundy’s house, a long, rectangular two-storey concrete structure, lay off to the left, back beyond the main road. But up on the west end of the overpass, just at the point where it had collapsed, stood a half-dozen of Fundy’s people, those still unharmed. They were women in long dresses of cloth. Two of them held infants. It was from this group that the wailing and shrieking came, as they looked down into the part of the field that was near the foot of Fundy’s Bridge. Over a chunk of the overpass that had fallen flat to the ground Frost could see what they saw.

On the black soil and rotted leaves of the potato field about fifteen of Langley’s men milled in a disordered, widespread group among the bodies of men, women and dogs. A dog and a dead or wounded soldier lay in a kind of embrace. The milling soldiers all had their crossbows slung over their backs, and they had their swords out. They paid no attention to the screams of the women watching them from the stub of the overpass. Some of the soldiers appeared to be searching the ground for crossbow bolts. One of them bent and jerked one from the body of a man. He crouched and wiped it carefully on the man’s poncho. He picked up the man’s bent sword, examined it, turning it in his hand, let it fall.

A dog was sitting and yelping. A soldier walked up behind it and thrust his sword deep into its back. The dog gave a final sharp squeal and collapsed, and the soldier pulled the sword out and wiped the blade on the dog’s fur.

Frost said “That’s Wolf.”

The soldiers killed two more yelping dogs.

There were only two or three women among the fallen, but one of them was moving. Her dress was no more brightly coloured than the dirt over which she was attempting to crawl, but as she drew a knee forward her lower legs flashed like scribbles of chalk against the delta soil. There was a big soldier in a long poncho and cut-down rubber boots. He walked quickly forward and held his sword with two hands and plunged it through the woman and deep into the ground. A new wave of screams rose from the watchers on the overpass.

Tyrell said “There’s our friend.”

Frost choked back a surge of nausea. He said “Freeway.”

Another dog was standing between the soldiers and the river, barking furiously, afraid to come nearer. Freeway slid his sword through his twine belt and swung his crossbow from his back. He lowered the nose of the crossbow to the ground and slipped a foot through a loop attached there. He pulled the twine smoothly back and hooked it on a catch. He took a short metal bolt from a bag at his side, leveled the crossbow and set the bolt on it. He aimed at the dog. There was a snap. The dog executed a rapid back-flip and lay still. Freeway went to retrieve his bolt.

Tyrell said “We can drive them away before they can load.”

Frost said “Yes.”

“We’ll probably hit some of Fundy’s people.”

Frost said “Christ.” He waited, said “They’re past feeling it.”

“We shoot. The son of a butches run. We chase after them with our spears.”

Frost glanced at Tyrell’s spear lying on the ground: the sturdy six-foot length of straight-grained one-by-two; the wide heart-shaped blade sharpened and gleaming at the edges. “Don’t follow them up the bridge. Just stay and block this end so they can’t come back. We’ll bring these two bows.”

Tyrell said “Do we let the dogs go?”

“I think we better. Once the bastards are on the run. To make sure they keep going. But don’t let the dogs go up the bridge. Too dangerous for them.”

Tyrell crawled back along the crouching line of his men, whispering his orders. Each man lifted a fistful of arrows from his bag, but they spun in fear as there was a quick pounding of feet behind them. Daniel Charlie threw himself down behind Frost.

He had two bows and a bag of arrows, which he dropped. He knelt on hands and knees, gasping for breath. Frost was cursing quietly and shaking his head and did not greet him.

Tyrell crouched beside Daniel Charlie. “Get out some arrows, Daniel.” Daniel Charlie rose from his hands and did so. The canes rattled as he dropped them near his knees. He took his bow in his left hand.

Tyrell edged along beside Frost and laid Daniel Charlie’s second bow and a handful of arrows near his hand. He touched Frost on the shoulder and said “We’re about ready.”

Frost nodded and removed his glasses and wiped a sleeve across his eyes and put the glasses back on and picked up the bow. He plucked an arrow from his pile and rested the shaft on his left fist, which held the bow. He placed the thin end of the arrow against the twine. He turned to wait for Tyrell’s orders.

But Tyrell shook his head. Marpole and Oak were creeping forward with three dogs each. They were whispering to the dogs and making soothing sounds, for the dogs were prancing and throwing their heads around, ready to make a din. Frost set the bow down, and Marpole handed him his three leashes and crept back to his bow. Oak passed his leashes to Daniel Charlie.

Tyrell stood. His men rose and moved away from the verge of the roadway and lined up facing the widespread milling soldiers near the foot of the bridge a hundred and fifty yards away. They laid their spears on the ground at their feet and their batches of nail-tipped cattail canes beside the spears, and they each plucked a single arrow and set it against the bowstring and drew the bow back and raised it.

Frost and Daniel Charlie also stood.

Tyrell said “Okay.”

Before the eleven arrows landed another eleven were in the air, and before those struck, eleven more.

The women on the stub end of overpass fell silent, so that the only sounds were the anxious whines of the dogs, the dull snap of the bowstrings and the whisper of the pounding rain.

For a few seconds, until the second flight of arrows bristled the ground around them, the soldiers simply stood gaping back at the row of archers. Then one of them cried out. He had a red baseball cap and a blazer that looked as if it might once have been mustard yellow, and he had blond hair that hung wet and straight down over his chest. His cap flew off. He stumbled backwards and fell but scrambled instantly to his feet. An arrow was wagging from his right leg just above the knee. Hopping wildly he grabbed the arrow, which appeared to come loose from its tip. He limped at a good speed off toward the bridge.

The other soldiers looked left, right. They ducked. Each threw an arm over his head. They stepped backwards. They shied away from any of the landed arrows that brushed their legs.

Frost’s guards cheered. The dogs finally brayed and roared and surged against the leashes. More arrows flew. The ground began to look as if a crop of canes had magically sprung up, slantwise, already windblown. Two of the soldiers started to load their crossbows. But they stopped when there was a scream. One of the other men, tall and cloaked in skins, dropped his weapon and clapped his hands to his face. An arrow was hanging from his eye. He stumbled and sat and continued screaming. Another soldier looped his crossbow over his back and hurried to help. He got him to his feet but could not make him run or even move. A second soldier came to assist. They each took and arm and moved awkwardly with the casualty toward the bridge.

Freeway ran to the soldier who lay beside the dead dog, just at the foot of the bridge. He bent and was about to heave him up onto his shoulder when an arrow struck his backside. Freeway bellowed, shot upright, stepped on the fallen colleague and commenced limping very quickly toward the sloping embankment. The shaft projected like the stinger of a wasp. He shouted something, and the rest of his men slung their crossbows onto their backs and ran.

Tyrell glanced at Frost, who nodded.

Tyrell called “Let’s go!”

The guards dropped their bows and snatched up their spears and charged, sprinting full speed, shouting.

Langley’s warriors glanced over their shoulders and kept running. The two who were helping the man who had been shot in the eye were the only ones who were not going to make it to the bridge.

Frost and Daniel Charlie were tugged forward by the raging dogs. Frost called “There are slip knots” and Daniel Charlie called back “All right.” They hauled the dogs back and each lunged for one, then the next and then the last knot. One by one, as if they also had been propelled from a weapon, the dogs flew off across the potato field, as silent now as ghosts.

The two soldiers dropped their blinded companion, who fell to his knees, still screaming. They struggled up the embankment, scrambling desperately after the others, who were now running as well as they could up the span.

On the bridge Freeway reached behind and jerked the arrow out of himself, the shaft at least. He let it fall and ran on, limping .

The six dogs shot past Tyrell and his men and a few seconds later they all fell wild and snarling on the blinded soldier.

Frost and Daniel Charlie grabbed their two bows and a bag of arrows and ran across the muddy field dragging the leashes. As he passed the dogs Frost yelled “Settle down!” but the dogs were a seething mass, tearing at the blinded man and snapping at one another, and would not be stopped by words, so Frost continued at a run toward his men. Newton and Airport sprinted back to meet him and Daniel Charlie. They took the bows and the arrows and returned to the other men, and arrows sailed up the span, skipping off the concrete roadway around the legs of the retreating soldiers.

Some of the men ran back with the leashes and set to hauling the dogs off the blinded man bodily, jerking their hands away from the snapping, bloody jaws, leashing the maddened animals one by one.

On the bridge no one else was hit, but a few arrows dangled loosely from the edges of ponchos. Frost said “Hold it. You’ll hit Fundy.”

For there at the crest of the bridge he stood. Abraham Bundy. He wore a dark suit coat that was short in the sleeves, and grey sweat pants and sandals. He stood near the sidewalk. Without expression he watched the soldiers running up the span toward him. They were on the same side of the lane divider as he was.

There were no more arrows coming, so the soldiers slowed to a walk, looking back every few seconds, but none made a move to load his crossbow. Heads bowed, shoulders slumped, they trudged past Bundy with hardly a glance. But Freeway stopped in front of Bundy. The two men stared at one another. They were of equal height.

Frost yelled “Abraham! Come on!” and motioned violently with his arm. But Bundy appeared not to hear. He just stood there staring back at Freeway. Finally Bundy raised his fist and shook it and shouted “They that sow wickedness reap the same.”

Freeway slid out his sword.

The dogs were quiet at last, and the women on the stub of the overpass had stopped wailing and screaming. Fundy’s powerful baritone voice floated over the bridge and the river and the field. “By the blast of God they perish….”

Freeway lunged. Before Bundy could fall Freeway jerked the sword free and dropped it. He spun Bundy’s limp form, squatted, lifted him high above his head, stepped up onto the sidewalk. Bundy’s long arms hung out wide. His head was flung back. Freeway threw him from the bridge.

The morning tide was running upriver, not fast, but steadily. Some dark portion of Abraham Bundy bobbed two or three times above the murky water, but soon the current had borne him under the bridge and out of sight.

Freeway followed his men over the crest of the bridge.

Frost and Daniel Charlie and the archers turned to face the field. Six men held six dogs that whined and rose lunging on their hind legs. For a minute the men stood there in the rain, motionless, taking in the scene of butchery. Two men walked away a short distance and retched.

Frost shook his head. He said “Jesus Christ, Daniel.”

Daniel Charlie said “Yeah.”

“God damn.”

“I know.”

They were silent for a while. Then Frost said “Grace was right. What she said.”

“What was that?”

“War. She said war.”

Then one of the bodies stirred. It was the soldier in whose embrace the dead dog was lying. He rolled onto his back and struggled up onto an elbow. One arm was still trapped under the dog. He looked at Frost’s men nearby. His face was torn and bloody. He raised his free arm. He reached out. Wing’s man, Pender, walked toward him. Pender had his spear, with a metal head as wide as a saucer. Frost turned away, fixed his eyes on the women heading back down the overpass, determined to hear only their wailing. But Pender’s grunt as he struck was loud.

On the overpass some of the women were running now. Their keening rose like a wind, a howling gale. Frost walked to meet them at the point where they would be able to leave the roadway. But behind him one of his men called “Frost.” He turned.

A body stirred, lifted a hand, scraped a foot against the soil. Frost knew the face, It was Fundy’s field boss. Frost scanned the fallen bodies. He listened for cries of pain.

A boy sprang up from the ground and ran toward him. He was smaller than Will. He was barefoot but had a wool poncho. His heap of dark hair was caked with mud. His eyes were wide and staring, and his face was as white as paper.

Then three figures emerged from the darkness under the bridge, where they had been hidden behind the sheer end of the concrete embankment. A man in skins and a woman in a long brown cloth dress were helping another man to walk. With their aid he hopped, holding one leg off the ground. The bare skin of the calf was dark with blood. “Frost! Frost!” screamed the woman. All this before the boy reached him.

On the bridge the small black dog came racing back.

33

“This here is for Frost.”

Along the walk leading from the church Robson pushed an office chair. The rolling wheels purred and rattled.

It was morning, not very early. The rain had let up only an hour before. The walk and the street were wet, and the tall grey-ochre grass at the front of the church drooped or lay flattened. On blackberry vines heaped over the sidewalk, drops of water hanging from the thorns caught some brilliance from the sky. High clouds were coasting north-eastwards, torn by infrequent patches of blue.

101 helped Robson tie the chair onto Noor’s cart. Noor and Ice and Powell stood on the sidewalk watching.

Noor said “Gifts like that, Grampa’s likely to send me to visit the Church Gang every day.”

Beauty snorted. Her breath plumed in the cold air. She stamped once. They all laughed.

101 said “She don’t like the sound of that.”

Noor said “She wants to get back, is all.”

Powell said, more loudly then necessary “What kind of knot do you call that?”

101 said “This here is called a mind-your-own-business knot.” He looked up and nodded severely in Powell’s direction. The flaps of his thick peaked cap hung over his ears. He was skinny and had a pointed nose.

Powell said “Looks to me more like a lose-the-chair knot. A fall-off-at-the-first-bump knot.”

Robson and 101 ignored him for a minute. Then 101 said “It’s a stick-your-neck-in-here knot. Come closer and I’ll show you.”

Ice stood beside Noor, with her arm around her shoulders and the collar of her navy blue pinstripe suit coat turned up. She was three inches taller than Noor. She said “I’ll show the both of yous, if yous don’t shut up.”

Noor stepped forward and tugged a handful of hay from the single garbage bag on the cart. She dropped it in front of Beauty, who nosed it around, snorted again and tossed her head. Noor gathered it and stuffed it back into the bag. She stood in the road looking up at the hulking and silent ruins in whose shadow the church squatted. For a second the sun flashed through eastern clouds. A gust of fresh, chill wind shook water from some high ledge, and there was a sprinkle of minute rainbows, brief as an eye-blink. Then a deep gloom moved like a hand over the street, and those gathered around the workhorse and the cart lifted their faces toward the skating clouds.

Spring came out of the church. She had no coat, just her faded red-and-black plaid logger’s shirt with her strings of beads, her grey flannel dress-pants held up by wide, striped braces, her battered leather shoes. Like the others, she wore what she had been wearing when Noor arrived. She was very fat and walked with a waddle. Her dirty-blond hair spilled over her shoulders in disordered waves. She was smiling. She had a small white plastic bag.

Noor walked to meet her. She accepted the bag, opened it, reached in, said “What are these?” She drew out a squared-off object wrapped tightly in smooth, shiny paper. It sat in her hand as if it belonged there. She studied the writing on the paper.

Spring was still smiling.

Noor said “Camay.”

Spring said “Smell it.”

Noor brought the bar up to her nose. She said “God.”

“It’s soap.”

Noor gave a short exhalation of wonder. “Soap. I haven’t seen soap since I was small. We used to make our own with fat from the chickens and cows. But you need wood ash. Peat ash is no good. And I’ve never seen soap that had a beautiful smell.”

From the street Hollyburn said “It’s called store-bought.”

Noor slipped the bar back into the bag and hugged Spring and kissed her on her soft cheek. As she stepped away 101 rushed past her toward the church door. He said “Wait till you see what I got for yous.”

Hollyburn followed him in.

Robson took the bag from Noor and found the binoculars on the cart and put them into the bag with the Camay hand soap and tucked the bag under the half-full garbage bag of hay and slid one of the sealed buckets of water up against it.

Powell stepped out into the street to talk to Beauty. He stood beside her, running his hand along her shoulder. She turned her head slightly toward him and watched him from her dark eye.

Ice said “Powell was meant to be a farm boy.”

Noor said “Come and visit us, Powell. You and Spring and Ash. Come and stay.” But Powell had not heard her, and continued talking to the horse.

Ice said “The city’s not so rich anymore. Especially for food. The rest we don’t really need. You seen all our wonderful trash. Useless. I suspect once we get hungry enough you’ll see all of us comin’ over that bridge.”

Noor said “In that case I hope your grub runs out tomorrow.”

101 came out of the church, almost running. He was waving a book. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Noor as Spring and Robson and Ice and Powell gathered to inspect the gift. It was a paperback book, whole, perfect, with a picture on the cover of a man, a woman and, in front of them, a boy. Just their faces and torsos. Looking out at the world. Smiling, content, clean. Wearing coloured Tshirts.

The bottom half of the cover was given over to the title. It said EMOTIONOMICS. Below that word, in smaller print, it said, Spiritual Wellness in the Age of Anxiety. And it said, Michael F. Weiner, PhD.

No one spoke. Except for 101, they gaped in awe and puzzlement at the thing in Noor’s hand. Ice reached out and touched the glossy faces. Finally 101 said “That’s how they looked then, I guess.”

Powell said “Can you read them words?”

Noor said “I can read them. But I don’t understand them. This one says wellness. This one says spiritual.”

Powell said “What the hell is that?”

Noor shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”

Just then Hollyburn came out of the church. He was toting two stuffed garbage bags. He said “Clothes. For yous at the farm.” He laid the bag on the cart. He said “Store bought.”

Noor said “Thank you, Hollyburn. Were any of those keepin’ skeletons warm when you found them?”

Hollyburn joined the group. He said “Spear-ritual. That there’s when you take your spear and you…”

He could not complete his definition because 101 was hitting him with the book. Noor cried “You’re going to bust it!”

101 gave the book back to Noor and said “Sorry, there, Noor. It just makes me so god damn mad when he starts goin’ on about things he don’t know nothin’ about.”

Hollyburn replied with calm superiority “You’re just jealous ’cause you’re so ignorant.”

Noor said “Come here. Thanks for the book.” She hugged 101.

101 went “Mmm” and said “Come into the back room with me. I might have more books.”

But Ice twisted his ear, and 101 went “Ow “ and let go of Noor.

Young Ash came out next. The brown cardigan hung down to his ankles. It was wool and had a raised pattern of ropes or braids. The sleeves had been cut to length. Like the others, he wore decrepit leather shoes. His blond hair hung in its helmet shape, straight and fine.

He was carrying the enormous candle that had sat in front of the fireplace. He was struggling under its weight. Robson stepped forward to help, but Ash twisted away and approached Noor, grimacing with effort. When Noor took it from him he exhaled loudly and made a gesture of collapse, and everyone laughed.

Noor said “Are you sure…?” and glanced at Robson, who nodded.

Ash said “It’s for Will. So’s he can read the book if it’s dark.” He had the excited, shrill voice of all boys.

Noor said “But you never even met Will.”

“Tell him it’s from me.”

She bent to kiss Ash on the head, but he lifted his face. She kissed him on the lips. When she straightened, her eyes were moist. She wiped them with a finger as Powell took the red candle to the cart.

They all stood there a moment, not speaking, not looking at one another. Then Ice made a slight gesture with her chin, and except for Noor and Robson they filed into the church.

Noor leaned against Robson as they walked very slowly toward the street. At the cart they faced each other and stood holding both hands. He said “I got nothin’ to say. I thought I would but I don’t.” He held her to him. She heaved with quiet sobs. He said “I know. I know.” Finally she stepped back and wiped her cheeks with the palm of her hand.

He said “It’s made all the difference to me. You comin’. I get lonely. Even 101 don’t get lonely like me. I said I’m a Town boy. It ain’t true. I’m just a man. The only difference is, I’m lonelier than most.”

She laid a hand against his deep chest, the dazzling embroidery of his waistcoat. The end of the green and gold necktie that was wrapped once around his head hung down over the red and green and blue threads. Behind him the stained glass of the windows echoed the colours, but weakly. Nor was the building’s empty entrance as dark as his eyes and his wild hair.

She sniffed, said “You don’t have to be lonely.”

“I know. I’m thinkin’ on it.”

“You know where I live.”

He nodded. He slid his waistcoat off and held it for her. She slipped her arms through the armholes and stood there smiling and crying. They hugged again. She took two strides and vaulted up onto Beauty’s back. Robson handed her up her spear and her sword.

He said “Merry Christmas.”

She said “Happy times” and clucked, and tapped beauty with her heels, and Beauty leaned into the slight weight of her load, and they started off along the street.

The dead towers loomed above, excluding even the poor light of the day. She looked straight ahead, down the long, deserted, uneven, bush-grown street, refusing to acknowledge the silent ruins of the buildings. But soon she turned, looked back. The Church Gang were all there at the end of the walk, waving, shouting their goodbyes. In the silence that followed, the sound of a flute floated between the echoing walls like the call of a lost bird.

34

Fundy’s house was low — two storeys — but long. The earthquake had cracked it in half. The two sections stood a yard and a half apart, at a slight angle. The north half ended at a wall from which the drywall had long been rotted away, leaving rusted steel studs with sheets of plastic on the interior side. The south half of the house terminated in a room with no end wall, cluttered with rusted wheelbarrows, shovels, a blade from a plough, a car wheel that had lost its rubber, innumerable garbage bags and a scattering of decomposing potatoes.

The crevasse that had split the house ran for a ways toward the road but was now no more than a shallow dip. Yet it was a hazard for those carrying the dead and the wounded toward the main room of Fundy’s house.

Grace passed Newton and Richmond as they stepped carefully through the depression. She looked down at the man they were carrying. The face was white. The blue eyes were half open, unblinking. She stopped, looked away toward the river for a few seconds, took a long breath, continued, passing Newton and Richmond again, who had now negotiated the hollow. She said “Don’t bring him in.” The two men stood looking at each other for a few seconds, holding the drooping body by the knees and underarms. Then they walked sideways toward the house and lowered the body to the ground next to the wall, where there was less mud.

Grace stood for a moment facing the sheets of heavy plastic that covered the doorway. She set her black bag on the ground. She heard the moaning and the prolonged cries of men and women. She heard sobbing, wild shrieking. She closed her eyes, felt the rain falling on her head.

She looked back the way she had come. Newton and Richmond were returning to the potato field. The body of the man lay on its back alongside the house. Other men were coming with more bodies. Jessica and Salmon were hurrying toward the house. Grace started when the plastic over the doorway was torn aside. Frost stood there, tall, gaunt, stricken. For a second he stared at Grace. He seemed not to recognize her. But then he reached and took her bag and turned back into the room, and she followed.

The room was about twenty feet square, lit only by the doorway and a small window, which was also covered with plastic. Against the exterior wall squatted a small square fireplace of mortared building blocks, but the fire had not been lit. The bottom stairs of a staircase were visible through a doorway. The room swarmed with the same women who had watched the slaughter from the overpass. They sat or lay on the floor, keening over the dead men sprawled from wall to wall. Or they stood among the corpses, weeping and trying to comfort one another. Near the far wall was one old man, the only upright man in the room besides Frost. He was barefoot, long haired, stubble-faced, and he wore the matching jacket and trousers of a patched dark grey suit. The man turned in a slow circle, then turned again, unable apparently to make sense of any of it. He held in one hand a black-covered book.

There was a brown couch, a Hide-a-Bed, which had been folded out. Here lay the man with the damaged leg, whom Frost had seen emerge from under the bridge. There was a blue sheet on the bed, patched with other colours. The area of the sheet around the wound was stained dark with blood. The boy from the field sat beside the man, holding his hand and crying. Fundy’s field boss lay on the other side of the man, moaning weakly, and a woman sat on the edge of the bed, stroking his hair. Among the dead and dying on the floor was a thin plastic-covered mattress. On this lay a woman. Her faint cries were heard only in gaps in the din of lamentation and pain.

Grace stood in the middle of the room. A trance seemed to have settled on her, making it impossible to move any farther. But then behind her the plastic sheets over the doorway rattled. Two women came in. They were carrying the body of the dead man who had been left outside. Grace stepped out of the way and looked down at the floor. The floor was white tile, mostly worn down to the concrete beneath. She saw the prints of her sandals in a film of blood. The women laid the body where she had been standing.

When Grace looked up, Frost was waiting beside the old man, who was now staring blankly. She saw that the man was not much older than Frost. She heard Frost ask clearly “Which one first?”

Jessica and Salmon came through the doorway.

Grace took another lengthy breath, made a slight motion of her hand toward the man with the shattered leg. Frost left the black bag and went to the bed and helped the man to sit up and swivel, and he helped the man lift the damaged leg over the edge of the bed as the man cried out. Jessica pushed through the women, and she and Frost stood the man up on his good foot. He wrapped his arms around their shoulders. They were both taller than him. They shuffled carefully through a door into a smaller room.

Frost and Jessica and Grace and Salmon laid the man on a narrow cloth-covered mattress that was dirty and ripped. The boy held the man’s leg free until the man was down. Then Grace helped to place the leg also on the mattress as the man again cried out. Six inches below the knee the shattered, blood-smeared end of the tibia seemed to glow in the poor light.

Salmon went out and got Grace’s black bag. She set it down and with her left hand, her only hand, she took out the orange plastic basin and set it on the floor, for there was no table in the room. In the basin she placed a folded pink rag, a roll of faded yellow cotton bandage that was printed with abstract slashes of other colours. She also put in a darning needle, a coil of yellow nylon thread and another of blue, the needle-nose pliers, the eight-inch knife, the hacksaw. She took out two one-litre bottles of alcohol, one full, the other half full. These she set on the floor, for she had no way to open them with her single hand. Beside them she set the half-litre bottle of skag-in-water, half full.

Frost said to the boy. “You have to go out now.” He had to repeat it because of the noise of the women outside.

The boy said “Are you going to cut off his leg?”

“Yes.”

The boy looked faint, wobbled. But he nodded and let Salmon lead him by the hand to the door.

Grace squatted and screwed the lid off the half-full bottle of alcohol. She poured a little alcohol on the pink rag and wiped the three plastic bottles. There was no sterile place to put them, so she stood the full bottle of alcohol and the bottle of skag-in-water again on the floor. She held one hand at a time over the basin and with the remaining bottle she sterilized her hands, and she poured alcohol over all the items in the basin. She wiped the sides and rim of the basin with the alcohol-soaked rag. She fished out the needle and threaded it and stuck it vertically into the rim of the basin. Salmon came forward and had her one hand sterilized. Grace motioned with her head to Frost, who came and squatted and held his hands over the basin and rubbed them all over with the alcohol she poured. Then he stood.

Grace handed him the knife and then the hacksaw, dripping. “Hold these till they dry.” He took them and stood there with the knife in his right hand and the hacksaw in his left.

He said “Where’s the powdered skag?”

Grace did not reply. She took the rag from the basin and squeezed out some of the alcohol and turned and knelt on the floor and studied the bloody mess of the shattered leg.

Frost said “You two go out for a minute. We’ll call you.” Salmon and Jessica left, Salmon holding her sterile hand away from the plastic over the door.

Grace wiped the blood from the skin above the wound. She folded the cloth and wiped the area again. She said, without looking up “I need something to put underneath to raise the leg up.”

Still holding the knife and the hacksaw, Frost went to the doorway and pushed the covering of thick transparent plastic back with a shoulder. He looked into the main room. It was as before, but the woman who had been lying on the mattress on the floor was now lying on the Hide-a-Bed beside the field boss. Another man lay on the mattress on the floor. Two women were trying to remove his blood-soaked poncho. As they slid it up his torso Frost saw the wound and the slight but steady flow of blood over the corrugations of the ribs. He saw the shallow white chest rising and falling. Beyond the women, he saw the face of Daniel Charlie, troubled, silent as a moon above the tumult. Jessica and Salmon stood near the doorway to the room from which Frost looked out.

He said to Salmon “If no ribs are broken, press on the wound to slow the bleeding.” Salmon turned and stepped between women toward the man on the mattress.

He saw nothing out there that could be used to support the man’s leg. He let the plastic curtain fall and turned back into the room and set the saw and the knife back into the basin. He said to the man “Bend your good leg.” The man did so. “Help him lift his other leg.”

The man, pale, eyes squeezed shut, brow creased, groaning loudly, raised the leg while Grace supported the lower part. Frost doubled the end of the mattress over on itself. The man lowered his good leg to rest on and hold in place the folded mattress, and Grace supported the wounded lower leg while he lowered the thigh to the mattress. The heels of both sandals rested on the floor. There was room to cut now.

Grace and Frost sterilized their hands again, and Grace wiped the back of the upper calf, where she had not been able to before, and Frost crouched near the man’s feet, holding the saw and knife again. He said “We’ll need more skag.”

Grace said nothing.

He said “I’ll send someone back to get the powder.” He waited. She did not reply. He rose, turned toward the doorway.

Grace said “Wait. There may be enough.”

“There’s four people need it. So far.”

“Come back.”

He stood staring down at her.

She said, wiping the skin again “There is no powdered skag.”

Frost stood there gaping.

Grace did not look at him. She dipped the rag into the basin and wrung it out over the floor. She spread the rag on the man’s leg above the knee. She unscrewed the cap of the skag bottle.

Frost exclaimed softly “What!”

Grace said “Can you lift your head?”

The man managed to boost himself partway up on his elbows. Grace tilted the bottle, and he took a good swallow of the liquid. She gave him a little more, then put the lid back on and set the bottle down as the man lay back again.

Frost said “What happened to it? You haven’t had to use any of it since Salmon.”

Grace said nothing. After a while the man’s face went slack and dreamy. She turned and gave Frost a hard and fearful glance and blurted “It’s gone, that’s all.”

He said “Someone stole it.”

Grace shrugged, watched the man’s face.

“Jesus Christ, Grace!”

He took the saw and knife in one hand. He picked up the bottle of skag-in-water and went to the doorway and pushed the plastic aside with his back. “Salmon.” She was kneeling beside the man on the mattress, pressing her hand against the wound. She rose and came to Frost. Blood began trickling from the wound again. Frost said “Give them all one swallow each. There should be enough.” She held up her hand to show him that it was bloody. Frost said “It doesn’t matter.” She took the bottle.

Frost let the curtain fall, turned. He said “So someone stole it.”

Grace shrugged again. “It’s gone. It’s just gone.”

“Damn!”

She held out her hand to him, looked up at him steadily. He turned the knife, and she took it from him by the handle. Again she watched the face of the man as he sank deeper into his trance. She said “We need more.”

“He won’t give us any more. Not after today. And I won’t ask him for any more.”

“Bundy should never have attacked.”

“You’re saying you want me to talk to Langley.”

“We need more. You’ve got to do something.”

“I’m finished talking. We’re way past talking now. Anyway, I’ve got nothing he needs. He’s got all of Wing’s spuds. His cows. He’d just laugh at me.”

“Take it.” She slashed the air with the knife.

“Take Langley’s skag!”

“We need it, Frost!”

“Jesus Christ, Grace. I don’t even know where he’s got it. But even if I had an army there’s no way I could get near it. It’s what he’s about. It’s his heart and soul. Nobody’s going to get near Langley’s skag. But what the hell happened to it? Nobody could get past my dogs. Was it someone on the farm?”

Grace again watched the man’s face. She said “Get Jessica. Get Daniel if he’s there.”

Frost closed his eyes, let the saw hang at his side, released a long sigh. “One of my own people took it.”

Grace said “He wants land. You said he wants to trade. He’ll leave us alone if we go to Wing’s. And he’ll give us skag.” Her voice had lost its hesitancy. There was a metallic edge to it.

He said fearfully, almost pleading “Grace, don’t say that. Please. I can’t stand to hear you say that.”

“It’s war, Frost. He’ll take your farm. Talk to him.”

“What are you saying? Is it you saying this? Give him my farm…?”

“He’ll take it.”

Frost just shook his head.

Grace said “Then it’s gone anyway. And we’re all dead.”

Frost went on shaking his head, looking down at the floor.

“Dead, Frost. You, me, Will, Daniel, Jessica. I guess that’s what you want.”

He said softly “Quiet now, Grace. Be quiet now.”

“Talk to him, Frost.”

Frost said nothing for a while, then “Are we ready?”

“The farm gone. All of us dead. You’ve got to lead, Frost.”

“Grace, please….”

She said “Okay.”

Frost backed the plastic curtain open again. He called Daniel Charlie and nodded to Jessica, and they came into the room. Daniel held the man’s shoulders down, and Jessica crouched opposite Grace and leaned on both thighs. The knife work was fast and did not bother the man much. But from the depths of his trance he screamed as blood sprayed from the blade of the hacksaw. And soon Frost stood there looking down at the severed leg he held in both hands, a thing heavier than stone.

35

Noor gazed down the trail, waiting while Beauty drank. The rain had let up a little, but the light had not improved — the day had turned dark with thick low clouds, and it was late afternoon as well, with the dusk gathering quickly. In the distance the rickshaw rested again on the fractured sidewalk in front of the big building, among leafless scrub. It was perhaps in a different position, the shafts pointing now toward the street whereas before they had pointed toward the building. In the monochrome of the sinking day the quilt on the seat seemed to glow with a threatening light, the light of a dream, pink as a dog’s tongue.

Noor saw no one, heard nothing but the drizzle. Beauty lifted her head, and Noor poured out the remaining inch of water and set the bucket on the cart. She looked up, and in a glassless display window fifty feet away she saw a man.

Behind him the interior of the old shop was dark, and he was standing a few feet back from the window. He was barely a silhouette. Noor stared at him. Finally the man lifted a hand. He said “Frost’s Farm.” It was an old man’s voice, powdery and broken.

Noor said “Yes.”

The man let his hand fall. He waited. He said “Be careful.”

Over the window there was a broken, faded and dirty sign, with painted letters behind a hard sheet of transparent plastic. There was enough light to read the single remaining word.

Meats.

The man stepped back and merged with the darkness.

When Noor looked again down the trail the light was almost gone.

She swung east at the big building. Even this close there were no human sounds, no smell of food, only the thin background stench of excrement, of Town. There was also the soothing smell of the wet horse, who moved steadily along the dirt trail under the empty black windows of apartment blocks.

Then Noor heard something. She whispered “Whoa” and Beauty stopped. She listened. It had been like the cry of a nighthawk in summer twilight. But there were no nighthawks in this cold dusk and rain. It had been the brief scream of a woman, distant, muffled by walls.

She clucked, and Beauty moved on. She kept listening but heard only the soft thuds of the hooves of the workhorse, the small rattles of the cart, and the hushed patter of drizzle on her own shoulders and on Beauty’s back. Fifty yards ahead was the point where the trail turned south again, down to Frost’s Bridge. The dark faces of three-storey apartment buildings with blackberry vines sprawling among them like a range of low hills kept her from seeing down that stretch of the trail.

She whispered part of a song. “The water is wide, I cannot cross o’er. But neither have I the wings to fly. Give me a boat, that can carry two, and both shall row, my love and…”

Ahead, Langley came around the curve of the trail. He was walking fast. He had the leather jacket, the tight jeans. His soldiers followed close behind, crossbows slung on their backs. They were silent, but she heard a few sounds now, murmurs, crossbow bolts clinking in their bags. She swung Beauty hard, and the horse reared. But twenty-five yards behind, two soldiers stood on the trail, with their crossbows raised. Noor soothed the horse and went forward again.

Langley stood waiting. The soldiers, about twenty, took their swords out and moved past Langley and formed a circle around Noor and Beauty and the cart. The two with the crossbows joined them.

Langley said “Toss your spear down.”

She took the spear with her left hand and let it fall.

“Now your sword.”

She dropped the sword beside the spear.

“Get down.”

She swung her right leg forward and over Beauty’s back and sprang lightly to the ground. She said “You were down at Frost’s Bridge.”

Langley said “Is that so?”

“How come?”

“She wants to know why we were down at her granddaddy’s bridge.” Langley smiled at his men. He looked at her again, and there was no smile. He stood three feet away, scratching at one scabrous cheek. He said, still quietly “Well Noor, what’s your guess? What do you think we were down there for?”

“You’re never going to take it.”

“You been in Town?”

She did not answer.

“You missed all the fun. Didn’t she, boys?”

One of the soldiers, a squat, muscular fellow with a pale face that was bright in the dusk, said “Your men kilt Broadway. And your dogs kilt Jericho.”

Noor glanced down. Langley had one foot on the spear. He bent and picked up the sword by the blade and handed it to the man who had spoken.

Freeway, towering behind Langley, said in his throbbing bass. “And yous shot me in the ass.”

Langley clenched his fists, appeared to deliberate, unclenched them, said evenly, without turning “Shut up.” He waited. Freeway was silent. Langley said to Noor “That goddamn Fundy and his crew tried to get his bridge back. Ain’t that somethin’!” His voice had risen. The whine was there. His eyes widened. He produced a choked chuckle. He shook his head. “It’s been a long day for these men, Noor. Killin’ all them fools. Runnin’ from the dogs. Gettin’ shot…”

“In the ass.” It was Freeway.

Again Langley seemed to grapple for self-control.

One of the men said “Give her to us, Langley. For what they done. It’s only right.”

Langley said “Does that sound fair, Noor? Sounds fair to me.”

Noor said “Is Grampa all right?”

“Grampa?” The word seemed to delight him. “Nice old Grampa. No, he’s not all right. He’s a fool like Fundy, and he’s going to end up like Fundy, takin’ that long swim in the river. We thought maybe he’d have all his dogs over on Fundy’s Bridge, but he’s got a few here on this one too, so we decided to call it a day. Hell of a day, right men?”

The same man spoke again. “We deserve a treat, Langley. We worked hard. We got shot at. Let us have her.”

Another man said “For Broadway and Jericho.”

Langley said “Yeah. Maybe. But what about me, you selfish bastards. Doesn’t Langley get a treat?” He reached and touched Noor’s cheek with a fingertip. The hand smelled like soap, like the Camay in the bag on the cart. She moved her head away. He slid the fingertip down over the swell of a breast. He said “That’s a nice vest. You been to see Robson? Robson’s going to find out a thing or two. Him and that Church Gang. He’s on my list. For some reason you people don’t understand what’s happenin’. Which is why I say you’re fools. Fools do learn, see, but they learn the hard way. The way Fundy learned.” He said to the soldier “My treat first. If I like it I keep it. If I don’t it’s all yours.”

Someone said “You won’t like her, Langley. Look how ugly she is.” A couple of the men laughed.

Langley ignored him. He said “Dogs. I guess I better get some dogs of my own. Then we can have a great big dog fight.” He leaned forward slightly toward Noor, lowered his voice as if to confide. “But did you know… Did you know I got my own dogs?”

There was the smell of meat on his breath. Noor could see the shine of a droplet of blood where had gouged his cheek with a fingernail.

The men looked at one another, puzzled.

Without turning, with his face still near Noor’s, Langley said “Don’t I, Freeway?”

“Don’t you what, Langley?”

“Don’t I got dogs?”

“You do? I never seen no dogs.”

Langley turned and punched Freeway in the face. Freeway cried out and threw up his hands and stumbled backwards and sat. He had his hand over his right eye. He said “Ow! Oh! That’s my eye!” Blood ran from his right nostril.

Langley shook his right hand, winced, looked at the back of it, gingerly formed a fist. He said “You got a hard eye, doggy.”

Freeway slid the hand from his eye, which he kept closed. He tried to wipe away the blood, smeared it into his moustache and beard. He said “What? I ain’t no dog.” He moved to get up, but Langley drove him in the forehead with the heel of his boot. Freeway sprawled onto his back.

Langley set about kicking him in the thigh with the toe of his low-cut leather dress boot. He screamed “Bark, doggy! Bark, god damn you!”

Freeway bellowed “Ow, that’s my sore ass!”

“You couldn’t even beat old Frost! Frost’s dogs was better than you! Bark, I said!”

“Arf!”

Langley kept kicking him.

“Arf! Arf! Don’t! Ow! Arf!”

Freeway pushed himself backwards off the trail, flattening a swathe of wet grass, breaking shards of fallen stucco, snapping the bare twigs of bushes. He crossed the warped sidewalk, into a mound of blackberry. Langley kept ordering him to bark, and Freeway kept barking.

Without moving her head Noor looked down at her spear. She glanced sideways. But the men were not watching Langley punish Freeway. They were watching her. The man who held her sword had his other hand on his crotch, against the wool of his shift, slowly rubbing. In his moonlike face the eyes were dark holes. He took a step toward her. The men on either side of him also took a step. Noor turned her head. The soldiers on the other side of the cart were shifting, sliding gradually behind the cart toward her side, and edging around in front of Beauty.

The man with her sword laid its blade on her shoulder. The tip touched her throat.

“Please! Please! Arf! Arf! Ow! No! Arf!”

Then Langley was among the soldiers, screaming. “You run away from Frost! You run away from an old man!” He was swinging indiscriminately. There was the sound of his fists smacking flesh, thumping into shoulders and chests. “What do I feed yous for! What do I get yous women for! Yous can’t even beat an old man!” The soldiers had thrown up arms for protection, were ducking, backing away.

But the man with the sword had not moved, had not even turned his head. He stood there with the sword on Noor’s shoulder, licking his lips, massaging his crotch. Langley snatched the sword from him. He grabbed it by the blade, flipped it, caught the handle. As the man leapt backward Langley swung twice, slashing an X across the man’s shift. The man screamed and ran, hunched, arms clasped over his chest.

Langley dropped the sword, stared at his hand, which was lacerated on the knuckles and bleeding freely from the palm. He turned to Noor. He showed her the hand. He said “Look what you done.” He slapped her.

She staggered but did not blink. She stared back at him. She wiped his blood from her cheek.

The men were well scattered now. It was dark. The rain was coming down harder. Noor and Langley stood face to face beside the trail, under empty windows much blacker than the sky. Beauty had bolted a few steps. She was tossing her head and snorting. In the blackberry vines Freeway was sobbing loudly. The slashed man was whimpering.

Langley said “You know that big buildin’ back there the way you come?”

Noor said nothing.

“It’s a nice buildin’. Nicer than that place of yours. That dump. You know what a dump was? We got meat in our buildin’. We got cordwood. We got real hooch. I keep that buildin’ for my soldiers. That’s where Wing’s women are at. Did you know that?”

He watched for a reaction. He looked down at his bleeding hand, pressed the thumb of his other hand against the wound. He said casually “So here’s your choice, Noor. You can stay in that there buildin’ with Wing’s women and help them keep my men warm at night. Or you can come with me to my place at Skaggers’ Bridge. It’s a nice place. You’ll like it. I got stuff you ain’t even dreamed about.”

Noor said “Grampa’s waitin’ for me.”

“I got medicine. Did you know that pills keep forever? Maybe I could send some to your grampa.”

She said nothing.

Langley was silent for a long time, staring down at the hand, pressing the wound. Finally he said, very quietly “If you was on my side we could own this world.”

She answered less quietly. “I don’t want to own this world.”

“Frost will give me everythin’ to get you back.”

“He’ll give you to the dogs.”

Langley’s reddened cheeks paled instantly. The change was obvious even in the failing light. It was as if he was the one who had been slapped. He walked rapidly away, past Beauty. He called “Get back here! What the hell kind of soldiers are you! You got a prisoner to watch!”

Warily the men began to return. Freeway had stopped sobbing. He was trying to rise, but the blackberry vines would not let go of his poncho.

Langley walked back, stopped at the cart. He found the book under the bag of straw, came back to Noor. He said loudly “Did you know I can read?” He read from the cover. “Emo… Emo… That one’s too big for me. But I got this here one. Wellness. What the hell is wellness? The age of anxiety. That’s a nice word. I like that word. And look at these pretty people. You think that’s what people were like then?”

The soldiers had again encircled them and the horse and the cart. He tossed the book to one of his soldiers. He said, without looking directly at Noor “Tell Frost my proposal is still on. But he’s got to throw in Fundy’s farm now too. I get his place and Fundy’s place, and he gets Wing’s farm. I ain’t going to wait much longer. And if he don’t like the deal, here’s what’s going to happen. Wing’s women are going to start comin’ to visit yous. If you know what I mean.”

Noor stepped away and murmured a few words to Beauty and patted her shoulder. She swung up onto the horse. She held out a hand to receive the spear and the sword, but Langley did not bend to pick them up.

He said “I been patient till now.”

The woman and the horse moved forward.

36

Noor’s grandfather stood in his graveyard, looking across the river with the binoculars. It was a cold sunny morning. On the crudely trimmed grass a film of frost lay on the hundred T-shaped shadows of the grave markers. He said “Yes. I see a woman. She’s in one of the windows on the second floor.” He handed the binoculars to Noor.

She looked, said “That’s not a woman. That’s a girl. It’s Snow. One of Langley’s men is with her.”

Frost looked again, but the window was empty. He lowered the binoculars and put his glasses on and stood there staring across the river. His sword was at his side. At his feet the blade-end of a spear rested on the marker that said Susan.

Noor observed her grandfather. Today he stood more erect than usual and seemed much taller than her. His worried eyes had grown hard and grim. The deep wrinkles around them looked as if they had been carved into cedar.

He said without turning “Wing and his men and kids are moving over to Fundy’s today. They’ll be welcome there. Under the circumstances. Fundy’s women will be willing to forget about religion. The newcomers are going too. Fundy’s got plenty of spuds. The addicts have got to stay here, at least for a while.”

“What about the bridges? Langley said the reason he didn’t attack over our bridge is on account of dogs.”

“And there’s going to keep on being dogs. We’ve got Wing’s dogs now, and Fundy’s got one or two left. We’ll take them up on the bridges too. And we’ll move Pender and his dog up onto a bridge.”

“Fundy’s dead, Grampa.”

Frost waited, said “You know what I mean.”

“Yes.”

“You can help out guarding. You won’t mind sleeping up there?”

“No.”

“Among the men?”

“No, I won’t mind.”

“Daniel is going up. Jessica wants to help too. I hope to be able to work in shifts, but I don’t know if we have enough men. Enough people. Don’t let Jessica sleep up there. She won’t listen to Daniel.”

“I’ll try.”

Frost still had not turned toward his granddaughter. He said “I would attack the building. Smoke them out and kill them. Or maybe set up a siege. Their food is bound to run out some time. But Wing’s women are there. We can’t hurt the soldiers without hurting the women.”

“There are soldiers all over Town anyway. And back at Wing’s farm. They’re not all at the buildin’. And there’s no guarantee Langley would be there.”

Across the river the south slope of Town rose for two miles, becoming more barren near the top, where the old streets and house foundations were hidden under scrub and blackberry, from which scattered concrete buildings protruded like blemishes. Nearer the bottom the three-story concrete apartment blocks were separated by expanses of mud or by eroded ravines that carried run-off into the river. The pillars of Frost’s Bridge looked solid and ageless in the sunlight.

He said “I wonder what von Clausewitz would say.”

“Von Clausewitz lived three hundred years ago.”

“I’m sorry to say, this is three hundred years ago. Maybe a thousand years ago. Von Clausewitz had muskets and cannons and cavalry. We’ve got dogs and spears.”

“And bows that don’t shoot straight. Grampa?”

He looked at her finally, turned to face her.

She said “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken off like that.”

Frost nodded. “Okay.” He touched her shoulder.

“It was selfish and stupid. He could’ve killed me. Tortured me. He could’ve thrown me in with Wing’s women. He could’ve used me against you. Against everyone.” She looked away. Tears pooled in her eyes.

Frost let the binoculars hang from his neck. With both hands he turned her face toward his. Near the eye her left cheek was reddened and slightly swollen. He said “But he didn’t do any of those things. He didn’t do them because he’s afraid of you. He knew, whatever he did, he’d come out on the losing end. And he’s right. Listen, I want you to know two things. I was wrong not to tell you I saw Steveston out at Langley’s place by Skagger’s Bridge. It was my fault. I was trying to keep things from getting complicated. I was trying to find the easy way out, and as a result everything got a lot harder and a lot more complicated. So don’t feel bad about taking off. And the second thing is, I don’t want you ever to stop being who you are. You’re the best of any of us.”

For a few moments the grimness was not in his eyes. But then he turned away and picked up his spear. Still, he took her hand, and they walked westward, parallel to the river, through the frost-marked graves.

He could see some of his men on Fundy’s Bridge. They were small, like ciphers, hardly real on the long sweep of the span, which seemed to spring with its own mindless energy across the water.

Frost said “You will be the leader when I’m gone.”

Noor’s hand tightened involuntarily on his. She said “That’s a long way off. Let’s not talk about it now. You’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“I told Daniel and Jessica and Tyrell. Years ago. They all think it’s right.”

She said, in a pleading way “Grampa…”

Grace was standing alone beside the water. She was staring across it, as Frost had stared. He released Noor’s hand and went to Grace. As he came beside her she turned. The early sun made deep shadows in the wrinkles of her face. She looked like an old woman, weary and hopeless. She conjured a brief and self-pitying smile. Frost hugged her and kissed the side of her head.

She said as he rocked her “It’s all gone.”

He said “I’ll get some more.”

She stepped back. “Will you, Frost? How?”

“I don’t know. But we need it. So I’ll get some more. You have to stop worrying now.”

“I will.”

“You promise? We need you to be in good shape.”

“Yes, I promise.” Her smile now had more life in it.

Frost walked back to Noor. The two women observed one another for a second, and each lifted a hand in greeting.

Noor said to her grandfather “Will she be all right?”

Ahead Wing and young Surrey and Fundy’s son Solomon, who had a bandaged arm, and the newcomers to the domicile, and a couple of loose dogs were walking toward Little Bridge. Frost said “I don’t know if anyone will be all right. But she’s stronger then she thinks she is.”

“Are you sure?”

Frost did not answer. Ahead, Wing stopped and let the others go on while he waited on the path for Frost and Noor. He was wearing a shiny red warm-up jacket and black pleated chalk-stripe dress pants. He was carrying the baby girl from his farm, wrapped in a poncho.

Frost said to Noor “What did Langley mean when he said Wing’s women were going to start visiting us?”

Noor shook her head. “Nothin’ good. That’s all I know.”

37

Frost stood alone on the steps of the domicile, with a bucket of water at his feet. A golden but heatless light painted his face. There was a wind that tossed his long and twisted hair. He studied the afternoon sky. To the north the mountains were invisible behind a black curtain. To the east a dazzling and muscular thunderhead towered. It had passed a half-hour earlier.

Then, in an instant, the sun was gone, and the day went dark. Frost heard more crows. A flock of them, fifteen or twenty, materialized above the far bank. With disordered flapping and angry cries they flew up to shelter under the bridge.

Frost picked up the bucket of water and turned and entered the domicile and went up the dark stairwell. On the third floor he stopped in front of a door and called through the plastic. “Brittany?”

‘That you, Frost?”

He set the bucket down and went in. Her room was like the others. There was a metal bucket for a fire, a ramshackle stovepipe, plastic over the window, a concave mattress under rabbit skins. The floor was sloped. Beside the bed stood a small framed photo of a young man with spiky black hair and a triangle of whiskers under his lip. Brittany sat on the mattress with her back against the wall, hugging her knees.

Frost said “Are you all right?”

“I’m not so good, Frost. I’m scared.”

She was wearing green and red argyle socks, navy blue pyjama bottoms and a boy’s blue dress shirt with the right side faded to near white. Her tight white curls stuck out like a shelf below a green and blue peaked cap.

Frost said “I know. Everyone is scared. But we’re not going to let anyone hurt you.”

She asked in her child’s voice “Are you scared, Frost?”

Frost deliberated for a moment. “No. I’m not scared.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I should be, but I’m not.”

“Kill them bastards, Frost. Them hordes.”

He nodded.

She said “Joshua’s room is empty again. That guy with the lump was there. The guy with your shoes. But he’s gone now.”

“I know. I saw him heading over to Fundy’s with the others.”

“I guess Joshua can move back in. Did you see where he got to?”

Frost did not remind her that Joshua was dead.

“I liked it the way it was, Frost. We were a family, all of us here. We worked, we ate good, we talked.”

“We’re talking now.”

“I know. Thanks for comin’ to talk to me, Frost. It’s good to talk. Jeff is going to come and visit me soon.” She picked up the framed portrait, showed it to Frost, kissed the image, set it back.

Frost said “Spring’s not that far off. We’ll plant spuds. Times will be good again.”

“You promise, Frost?”

“I promise.”

“Kill them bastards.”

He nodded, turned to leave.

“Frost.”

He waited. There was a word on her cap. Canucks.

She said “You look different.”

He went out and let the plastic curtain fall behind him and picked up the bucket.

“You look mean.”

Frost went up a floor. He heard voices in a room and set the bucket down and went in. Kingsway and his woman Night and old Ryan were lounging on the mattress. Like Brittany they wore factory-made clothes from the garbage bags of the Church Gang. Brandon stood apart, with his bottle.

Frost said “You all right?”

Kingsway and Ryan nodded, but Night started crying quietly. Kingsway stroked her hair.

Frost said “Kingsway, I want you to go up on Fundy’s Bridge this afternoon. You’ll stay there overnight with some of the others. I’m trying to work out shifts. You’ll get a spear and a bow. You’ve got a sword?”

Kingsway nodded.

Brandon said “I can do guard duty. Send me up, Frost. You ought to see me fight. I can fight like a son of a bitch.” With the hand not holding the bottle he punched the air. His clotted and soiled white hair hung over his shoulders. His nose was swollen and purple. He gave off a heavy smell. He swayed slightly as he scowled at Frost. When Frost did not reply he took a drink. Over his torn wool shift he wore a woman’s black cardigan. The sleeves reached six inches past his elbows.

As Frost left, Brandon called “You ain’t as big as you think.”

Frost picked up the bucket and went up another floor. In the corridor he set the bucket down and rested for a minute. Then he picked it up again and went along the corridor. In a room someone was coughing. He elbowed the plastic aside and went into this room. The air had a dense animal sweetness to it, a bad smell. Frost set the bucket of water in the bathroom. He tied back the plastic over the door with a length of twine that was tied to a nail.

The man in the bed coughed weakly for a few seconds. His thick black hair was cut short. He had no beard. Stubble covered sunken cheeks. Frost bent and took a rag that lay by the man’s head and wiped a fleck of sputum from the corner of his lips.

Frost said “You all right, Dunbar?”

The man said in a low wheeze “Am I all right. What a question.” He managed a slight smile. He said “Don’t let them take the farm.”

“No one’s taking the farm.’

“I wish I could help.”

“You’ve helped enough. There’s no one who’s helped more than you.” Frost took the man’s hand and lifted it and turned it so the man could see the palm. “Look at this skin.” The palm was brown, and dirt was ground deep into the hardened skin. “This is the farm.” Frost ran his finger across the calluses. He laid the hand back on the rabbit skins. “You just rest. And don’t worry. Is there anything else you need?”

Dunbar shook his head.

Frost left and continued down the corridor. Behind him Dunbar resumed his coughing. Frost passed a room where there was a low muttering. He passed a room where a man wept. He went into the room at the end of the corridor.

The two addicts lay curled up head to head on the mattress. They each were covered by a poncho, but below these coverings a ragged fringe of polyethylene was visible. Although it was a cold day there was a film of sweat on the faces of both the woman and the man.

Granville was crouching in the middle of the room. He stood when Frost entered. He said “The worst part is over.”

Frost said “You’re a hard man to find.”

“Sorry, there, Frost. I been here. And I been on the bridge. And I been takin’ rabbits to the dogs.” He smiled his ingratiating smile of five rotted teeth. When Frost continued to look at him sternly he said “I mean, that’s true too. I’m hard to find. You can say that again.” He shrugged, gave a fragment of a laugh, waited.

“Someone stole our skag.”

The addicts lifted their heads and looked at Frost. Granville said to them “The worst part is over.” He said to Frost. “Who done that, Frost?”

“You’re still using it, aren’t you?”

“Skag? Oh, no, Frost. I’m a citizen. Like you said.” Granville stepped past Frost and left the room, saying “Tyrell wants me on the bridge. I mean, if that’s okay. Is that okay, Frost?” He went quickly down the corridor.

Frost followed. He said “It was gone from the clinic. We had people who needed it. We have people who need it now.”

Granville started down the stairs. Frost followed.

“You think I don’t know you took it?”

“No, Frost… I mean… What?”

Their voices echoed in the dark stairwell.

“There’s no lock on the clinic.”

“You should get a lock, Frost. Ask Langley. He’s got some. No… I mean….”

“The dogs know you. They wouldn’t bark.”

“They know me. I’m Granville the food guy. They bark a lot, though. You can say that again. I mean, sometimes. But no, that’s right too… What you said.”

At the bottom Frost watched him hurriedly leave the domicile. Then Frost went into his own apartment. Will lay curled up under the window on his narrow plastic-covered mattress. He was wearing blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse. His thumb was in his mouth. The enormous red candle rested nearby on the floor. It was burning. Principles of War lay closed beside it. The hammock had been taken down. In its place the wheeled office chair sat in front of the fireplace.

Will took the thumb out and sat up and said “Do you want me to help out on one of the bridges?”

“Not right now, Will. I’m keeping you in reserve. Have you been out today?”

“Yes. I was studyin’ the terrain.”

“Studying the terrain.”

Will nodded.

“From now on I don’t want you to go out without telling me or Noor or Daniel or Jessica. Did you see Grace?”

“She’s at Fundy’s, helpin’ the… helpin’ the people who…”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Have you eaten today?”

Will did not answer.

“You better eat.”

“Grampa?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t sigh anymore.”

“Don’t I? I guess I’m through with sighing.”

“Grampa?”

“Yes?”

“It’s lonely without the dogs here. Could we keep one here? Could we keep King?”

“I’ve been thinking about keeping one here anyway, to guard the domicile. I’ll bring King down.”

Frost found his sword and his spear and left the apartment. But a man was waiting outside his door. The man was tall and broad shouldered and stood with a slouch. He was scraggle-bearded, bareheaded, bald and dull-eyed. He thrust his face forward like a turtle’s. He had a nylon backpack and a rubberized rain slicker and a rabbit skin kilt but was barefoot. A shit-brindle wire-haired pug-nosed mutt the size of a rabbit jumped up against Frost’s leg, yapping until Frost scooped it up. It then tried desperately to lick Frost’s face, but Frost tilted his face away.

While avoiding the mutt’s tongue Frost said “Hemlock.”

“Hullo Frost.”

Frost shook the man’s hand and led him into the apartment. He said “Are you hungry?”

“I’m starved to death. So’s Margaret.” He had a five-foot length of rusty rebar, which he leaned against the wall.

Frost said “Hemlock the Messenger is here.”

Margaret squirmed out of Frost’s arms and raced to Will and gave him a dozen licks before he could cover his face.

Hemlock set the backpack down and said “Help me out of this, Will.”

Will helped slide the rain slicker over Hemlock’s head. Underneath he had a faded and patched blue plaid logger’s shirt. His odour now spread through the apartment. It was the odour of a large mammal, bear odour.

Frost indicated the office chair. “Sit here, Hemlock.”

He sat, said “This here’s one of them there orifice chairs. ” He swiveled and wheeled it a little. “The Church Gang give it to you?”

“That’s right.”

“I seen these before. They haul them out of them there orifices they’re always gettin’ into.”

Frost got three bowls and three spoons and a ladle. He opened the doors of the fireplace and ladled soup from the big pot. He gave the first bowl to Hemlock. He gave the next one to Will, and Will sat again on his mattress. Frost set the last bowl at Hemlock’s feet.

Frost waited while they ate. Hemlock said “Can yous spare a little more?” Frost refilled his bowl.

Margaret sniffed at her bowl every few seconds. Her master was halfway through his second bowl before she ventured a grab at the hot soup. She swallowed the single piece of beef first. Then she snatched out the chunks of potato. She waited for a minute with her face in the bowl. Then, first tentatively and then furiously, she licked up the broth. She left the carrots and the onions.

Frost sat against the window sill and waited.

When Hemlock had finished his soup he set the bowl on the floor. Margaret inspected it thoroughly, gave it three or four licks and then curled up at her master’s bare feet.

Frost said “I suppose Langley sent you with a message.”

“Nope. I ain’t carryin’ no more messages for Langley. I ain’t goin’ near him. I’m ascared of that son of a bitch.” He had a loud baritone voice. His words were slow and dolorous.

“Well, you’re right to be. Did you know he killed Fundy and eleven of his people?”

“Yep. And all but one of his dogs. And I know he killed all Wing’s milk cows for meat. And I know he’s got Wing’s women. And I know you give him a bad whippin’.” Pools of saliva had collected at the corners of his lips.

Frost said “You’d better stay out of Town, Hemlock. Don’t go over the bridges. Noor ran into Langley the other night just the other side of my bridge. She’s lucky he let her go.”

“I know. And you’re lucky he didn’t make sisterbobs out of that there workhorse.”

“Sisterbobs.”

“You ain’t never heard of sisterbobs? That’s what they used to call meat on a stick. Anyways, maybe the Park Crew will take me into town on their boat. But I doubt if they’ll want to come out this way anymore. They’ll be ascared too. They’ll want to stay away from Langley. And Fundy won’t be tradin’ with them anymore. And you never did.”

“We ought to leave the trees standing. The ones that are left.”

“Anyways, Frost, I got two messages for yous. Here’s the first one. We are five good lookin’ women in a brick house and a third of an acre of good ground close to Salt Creek. We are healthy and can still have kids. We are nice women and wouldn’t never scream at our men. We are lookin’ for five good men that won’t whip us. All’s they got to do is get here. We was going to come to Frost’s Farm, but now we’re ascared to.”

The pools at the corners of Hemlock’s lips had overflowed into his beard.

Frost said “I’ll tell my men. But no one’s going to be leaving the farm for a while. Any other messages?” Frost’s tone was courteous but businesslike.

“No, just the one.”

“Will you deliver a message for me?”

“Tell me.” Hemlock closed his eyes and listened.

“It’s for BC out at the Parts Gang. Tell him I need a truck flywheel for the water wheel. Tell him I also want an alternator.”

Hemlock opened his eyes. “What’s a alternator?”

“It’s for making electricity.”

“You plannin’ to make electricity? There ain’t been electricity since I was a boy.”

“And tell him I’ll pick up Wing’s wagon when the weather is better.”

“You want a truck flywheel. You want a alternator. You’ll pick up Wing’s wagon when the weather gets better.”

“That’s right. Now, why don’t you stay over? We’ve got some empty rooms. It’s pretty mean looking out there. It could hail.”

“I got to be goin’, Frost. I got to walk.” Margaret scrambled to her feet, suddenly alert.

Frost said “I know. I thought I’d ask anyway. We’ll get some vegetables and eggs and salt meat together for you. Will, go and see if you can find Jessica.”

Will went out.

Hemlock stood. He said “There’s one more thing. Two more. It’s good Will went out. It’s easier to tell this without him here. They’re not messages, they’re news. Well, one of them’s news. Bailey got wiped out.”

“What! Bailey at the sheep farm?”

“It wasn’t Langley. It was addicts. I seen two of them dead. And I seen Bailey dead and all of his people. Dogs too. It must’ve been a slew of addicts. They took some of his sheep and killed the rest. Ate them, looks like. Raw I guess. They could’ve used Bailey’s fire maker, but I guess they was too hungry. There was a lot of guts and bones around.”

“Jesus Christ.” Frost slumped into the office chair.

“Frost?”

It took Frost a long time to look up. When he did it was with an expression of mortal weariness.

“Frost, I been thinkin’. I known you a long time.” Hemlock seemed to run out of steam. He looked away from Frost’s troubled face, exhaled heavily, wiped the spit from his chin.

Frost waited.

“I mean, I ain’t gettin’ no younger. You know what I’m talkin’ about, Frost?” He looked hopefully at his host, but Frost had no encouragement to offer. “I mean… What I’m tryin’… What I want to ask you is… is this. Noor’s all growed up now. She ought to be lookin’ for a man.” He nodded happily, relieved. Took a deep breath. Waited for a reply. Margaret wagged her tail.

Frost stared blankly at Hemlock. He did not take his eyes from him. The bear odour in the room grew denser. Frost said quietly “Jesus Christ, Hemlock, you don’t even have a house.”

“I got lots of places where I sleep. Me and Margaret.”

“You don’t have any possessions.”

Hemlock gestured toward his backpack on the floor. “I got a fire maker. I got a pot. Want to see them?”

Frost said “Noor’s already got a man. Robson at the Church Gang.”

Hemlock looked wounded, pierced. His baritone turned high pitched, which caused Margaret to look at him curiously. “I didn’t know that.”

“I thought you knew everything.”

“I do” he squeaked. “But I didn’t know that.”

Frost rose with effort from the chair. “Go ahead and ask her. She’s a free person. Jessica will bring your stuff if Will’s managed to find her. Just wait here.”

Without a glance Frost went past Hemlock and out of the apartment and the domicile. The day was dark and it had started to hail. He walked across to the clinic. There was no dog tied there. Inside, almost everything was gone, even the sheet from the couch. Grace had taken it all to Fundy’s. Just the bags of dried leaves remained on a shelf, and on another shelf the brittle pages and the meagre scraps of medical books. He sat on the couch for a while, thinking. Soon the hail was a roar on the roof. He went to the open door and looked out.

Noor, carrying her spear, was going into the domicile as Hemlock was coming out. He was wearing now a pink toque with a pom-pom. Noor paused briefly to shake his hand as the dog jumped up against her. Then she passed on into the building. Hemlock picked up Margaret and tucked her under his slicker and walked off toward the old road and faded in the torrent.

38

Sunset the next day was a cold, brief and bitter orange. Frost was running. Further up the bridge Hastings had pulled well ahead. Frost stopped and walked, breathing hard. Then he ran again. Hastings had now reached the top and joined the others. Noor was among them. In a cluster they watched Frost approach. He was walking again because he saw finally there was no need to hurry.

The dogs lay scattered across the roadway, some on one side of the lane divider, some on the other, among vomited pieces of half-digested meat and pools of diarrhea. Frost stood watching for a minute, but there was no movement from any of the animals. He bent and laid his hand on each one, but there was no breath and no heartbeat. Each time as he stood he said the name of the dog. He said it quietly but clearly, as if this were a newly created but necessary rite.

And also as if it were necessary those watching him repeated the names, muttered them raggedly, in no kind of union. Blackie. Beast. Puppy.

Frost knelt beside Puppy and looked closely into her eyes, but they were still. He sniffed near her mouth, the lolling tongue. Stronger than the vomit, there was a smell of garlic. He stood. He said “Puppy.”

Some of his people repeated the name.

Then he said “Arsenic.” He turned and looked down the bridge. Granville was already halfway down, his hair like a muted ember, receding in the twilight. The men and Noor came and stood near Frost.

Tyrell said “What’s that?”

Daniel Charlie said “It’s a kind of poison.”

Frost said “They used to use it to kill slugs. It gives off a smell like garlic.” His voice was broken and weary. He walked away and stood on the east sidewalk, facing upriver, with his back to his people.

Tyrell said “Do we bury them?”

Frost didn’t even look at him.

Noor was pale and shaken. In a voice hoarse from crying she said “I’ll go and get a wheelbarrow.” She started down the bridge.

Frost turned finally, wiped tears from his cheeks and walked across to the other sidewalk. On the other bridge, Fundy’s Bridge, even against the western glow, he could make out Wing’s red jacket. He said “Tyrell, call over and ask.”

Tyrell stepped up beside Frost and cupped his hands around his mouth. His shout cracked the windless silence. “How’s your dogs?”

A few seconds later a man’s small voice came back.

“All dead.”

The men shuffled a few paces away from the dogs and from each other. They stood shaking their heads or staring at nothing. But Daniel Charlie and Tyrell remained near Frost.

Daniel Charlie said “It was an awful thing to see, Frost. Awful. I’m glad you weren’t here.”

Frost turned from the railing. “I should’ve seen it coming. It’s obvious. So obvious. Did Granville bring the meat?”

Tyrell and Daniel Charlie both nodded.

“Who took the meat to the other bridge?”

Daniel Charlie said “I think Jessica did.”

Frost said “Someone put the poison in at the farm. Did Jessica cut up the rabbits?”

Daniel Charlie said “Probably. Jessica didn’t do this, Frost.”

“I know. Where was Granville going? Why did he take off like that?”

Neither man had an answer.

39

She waits on the dike, sitting where the grass has been worn down. She is the only one waiting. She loosely holds the twine leash of a dog who lies with his chin resting on her bare foot. It is a warm afternoon in late spring, with some cloud. Perhaps the wind has shifted, for there is a tiny smell of new leaves, a smell like honey, and the only trees are far to the north on the slopes of the mountains.

At the river’s edge the raftsman lies sprawled on his back on his raft. An arm is thrown over his eyes. He lifts the arm, waits, as if he is listening to the river through the timbers of the craft. He sits up, waits another minute, then stands and steps off the raft onto the bank. He walks to her up the slight incline. He is about her age. He has a knee-length kilt but wears no shirt and is tanned chestnut brown. His grey beard and hair are like a cloud that envelopes his upper body.

The dog rises and stares at him.

He says “You ready?”

The woman stands.

He says “We better talk about how you plan to pay.”

“I brought spuds.” She lifts a large plastic bag from the ground beside her. It is less than a quarter full, for she lifts it easily.

He smiles with a slight bitterness and shakes his head and says “I got too many spuds already. They’ll go rotten before I can eat them all. Do you got any tools?”

“They took my tools when my dad died.”

“Who took them?”

“Neighbours. Friends.”

“Your dog didn’t chase them off?”

“He thought they had come to visit. He’s not very smart.”

The dog stands looking up at the raftsman, wagging his tail.

“He looks smart to me.”

The man turns and walks down to his raft. The woman and her dog follow. At the edge of the water the man says “The tide is good now. We better go.”

“Well, how am I going to pay?”

He steps onto the raft. It bobs slightly. “I’ll take your dog.”

She stops, steps back. “You can’t have my dog.”

“Why not? What do you need a dog for? Where you headed?”

“I’m going to Frost’s Farm.”

“Frost? He already gots plenty of dogs. He don’t need another one.”

“Well you can’t have my dog. There might be coyotes up ahead. Anyway, I can’t give him up. What do you need a dog for?” There is a kind of quaver in her voice, a sense of persistent unsureness.

He spits into the water. “There are people who would like to smash my head in with a rock and dump me in the river and take over my business. They’ll think twice if I got a dog. Any coyotes come along, you can chuck them spuds at ’em.” He smiles.

She walks away with the dog. She stops, waits, turns, comes back. “I can’t stay there anymore. I just can’t.”

“What’s his name?”

A pair of tears spill down her cheeks. “Shadow. His name’s Shadow.”

At the far side the woman steps off the raft. In spite of the animal’s frantic barking she has not looked back. But now she does. The dog is sitting there tied to a bush at the top of the dike, watching, quiet at last.

She says “Do you know the way?”

“Just stay on the trail. You’ll see his bridge at the north arm. They live in a tall buildin’ that looks like it’s goin’ to fall over.”

“They?”

“Frost and his people. They’ll have room for you.”

She walks through the afternoon beside the old highway. Although she is barefoot it is easy going on the delta soil. If there are any birds they are quiet. She hears only her own footsteps. Once she sees a man a few hundred yards away, working in his garden. There is a half-collapsed building that could once have been a church. Faintly she hears him singing.

She sees nothing ahead but more of the same flat brushy landscape. The mountains seem no closer. Far off to her right the tips of the superstructure of Nobody’s Bridge catch the last of the day’s sun. The coyotes begin their yipping. She walks faster.

The upper slopes of the mountains are still lit. Where fires have killed the forests the sunlight itself has an ashen hue. The light slides farther up the faces of the mountains, disappears, the dusk thickens. The coyotes are closer. They are keeping pace with her on either side. After a while they are silent, and the only sounds are her own soft footfalls and the tiny shrieks of nighthawks. But from time to time she catches some hint of movement, some wink of the twilight a hundred yards away between yellow broom blossoms. She is very tired, but she picks up her pace.

She starts to see a few silhouettes of chimneys above the brush not far from the trail on either side, like the snapped-off trunks of dead trees. She passes a tall building on the east side of the trail. There is a flicker of light in a lower window. She looks back. There is nothing following her, no person, no animals, only the gathering darkness. Soon she stops and listens. She squats, twists, trying to see farther into the brush on either side. She gasps. Fifty yards away she sees the face of a coyote. It does not move, it just stares back, for it is merely an arrangement of branches and shadow. She walks again, faster.

She sees the bridge a mile ahead. In light reflected from the river it seems brighter than it should be. There is a glow to it. She begins to run, not fast, pacing herself. She waits a minute, a minute-and-a-half, then looks over her shoulder. She sees a single coyote dodge off the trail.

Now she makes out the domicile, a dark, uninviting mass, suddenly close. She hears the barking of a lot of dogs. She dares to run faster. When she looks back again she sees the pack of coyotes, five or six animals, trotting away from her, back along the trail the way she has come. She slows to a walk but continues to check behind her and into the brush as far as she can see. Her breathing becomes normal again.

The path bends onto the old highway, and the going is rough for a ways. At the foot of the bridge she leaves the road at an old exit ramp, down which she continues until she reaches a place where the railing has been removed. There she turns down a path, past the fallen slab walls of some vast structure, across a space of trampled dirt, toward the tilted building, in which now can be made out a tiny glow in a few of the windows. The dogs come pouring around the corner of the building and surround her, roaring and snarling and showing their teeth. She stands, waits, careful not to look directly at any of them.

When a man comes around the corner of the domicile the dogs stop barking but continue to growl. They stop growling and stand watching him when he starts singing in a voice that has its own doglike quality “In your Easter bonnet…” — he sees the woman, comes toward her — “…with all the frills upon it.” His path is not direct but involves several long curves. When he is close she sees that he holds a bottle, and that he has matted white hair. He sings again. “You’ll be the grandest lady in the….”

She smells his hooch breath. She says “Is this Frost’s Farm?”

“What, that son of a bitch! He don’t know shit. Hey, I bet you don’t even know what a bonnet is. What is it? See! Nobody knows shit but me.” He puts a hand on her arm, pushes her aside and continues on his way. She watches him go toward the bridge. Her jaw trembles as she tries not to cry. The dogs are more or less quiet, but wary. The man becomes indistinct in the dusk. The distant voice sings “The photographers will snap us….”

Another man comes around the corner of the building. He is tall and young and broad-shouldered and holds a drawn sword in his hand. He says to the dogs “Settle down!”

She says “Is this Frost’s Farm?”

The man looks at her bag. “What’s in there?”

“Potatoes.”

“You brung potatoes to Frost’s Farm?” He laughs briefly, then slides the sword under his twine belt. “I’m Airport. Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

The apartment is very dim, lit only by a small fire. Airport fills a bowl and sets it and a spoon on the table. She sits on a chair made of two-by-fours but before she can begin eating, a tall young woman emerges from another room. The young woman nods to the newcomer. Then she goes to a hammock that is strung in front of the fireplace and sits facing the fire. She places her face in her hands and begins crying.

The woman rises from the table and goes into the room the young woman has come out of. It is even darker than the first room. A tallow candle stuck to a flat stone gives off more smoke than light. A boy of about eight is lying on his back on a narrow mattress near the door. He is shirtless but wears sweatpants. His eyes are open, but he does not look at her as she enters.

A man is kneeling beside the mattress, stroking the boy’s head. He looks up. He has glasses and his hair and beard are white and curly. It is hard to see the man’s eyes in the dimness. She leans down, holds her hand above the boy’s head. The man moves his own hand away. She lays hers on the boy’s forehead. She says “His fever is very high. We’ve got to bring it down.”

The man says “I’m afraid. I’m so afraid.”

“We’ve got to cool him off. Have you got cold water?”

Behind her in the doorway she hears the voice of the young woman. “I’ll bring it. And I’ll bring some rags.”

The woman says “Have you got any willow bark?”

The man shakes his head.

“Have you got a willow tree?”

He studies her for a few seconds. He clears his throat. “One left. By the river.”

“Cut three switches. We’ve got to boil the bark for him to drink.”

There is a different voice behind her, Airport in the doorway now. “I know where it is. I’ll get them. Three?”

“Three. Don’t take bark from the trunk. It’s bad for the tree.” She looks at the old man, says to him “He’ll be fine. You should stop worrying now. Are you his grandfather?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Grace.”

40

Wing sat on Daniel Charlie’s workbench, sharpening the edges of an arrowhead. He held the metal point by its wide base and pushed a file along one edge. Between each rasping stroke the rain could be heard falling on the flat roof of the workshop.

Daniel Charlie stood before his vise, in which was clamped a cattail cane. At the top of the cane a stroke of glue gleamed slightly in the dim light of the shop. Very carefully he set a shaped triangle of brown chicken feather against the glue. A mound of identical feather shapes lay on the bench beside a pile of a few dozen finished arrows with both feathers and arrowheads. A similar pile had feathers but no tips. Daniel Charlie slacked off the vise, turned the cane, tightened the vise, pinched another piece of feather with his thick fingers.

Frost sat on a low pile of concrete blocks with his back to the other two, so that the car door resting on his lap would not be in anybody’s way. He made a final cut with tin snips, and an arrowhead fell free. He set the snips down, picked up the metal triangle and, without looking, handed it over his shoulder to Wing. He flexed both hands. The knuckles and the backs of the fingers were crisscrossed with cuts.

Daniel Charlie said flatly “What we need is two pairs of tin snips.”

Neither Wing nor Frost replied or even indicated that they had heard.

Wing slid the shaft of his sharpened arrowhead part way into the end of a cane, tapped the point against the bench to drive it the rest of the way in, laid the arrow on the bench with the other completed ones, and started sharpening the point he had just received from Frost.

Daniel Charlie said “I’ll snip for a while. Frost, you can come and glue.”

Frost stood, laid the snips on the seat of blocks, and turned to the others.

Wing said “Jesus, Frost, your hands look like hamburger.”

Daniel Charlie said “When’s the last time you saw hamburger, Wing?”

“Recently, for your information. It was last night. In a dream. It looked just like Frost’s hands.”

Daniel Charlie said “Just glue them at a bit of an angle. So’s the arrow will spin. That’s to….”

“I know” said Frost, stretching his back. “So it will fly straight.”

The men were still and silent for some time. There seemed to be an unseen weight in the gloom of the shop, against which each of them had to struggle. As if at a signal, they shook their heads wearily.

Daniel Charlie said “I guess Granville done it.”

Wing said “If he didn’t he wouldn’t of run off.”

The men were silent. The rain whispered above them on the roof. There was a noise beyond the door. Wing slid off the bench. The men’s eyes widened. They turned to the door and reached for their swords, which none of them was wearing. A dog burst through the plastic curtain and trotted to Frost and reared up and put its front paws against his chest and licked desperately at his face. Its tail beat against Wing’s leg.

Frost did not push the animal down. He lowered his chin for the dog to lick, while he thumped its sides with both hands. Will came through the door. He said “Down, King. You’re going to knock Grampa over.” At this, Frost did step back so that the dog had to get down.

But King was still excited. He tried the same business with Daniel Charlie, who would not let him jump up. “Stay down, now” he said. “You’re a good dog. But stay down.”

Finally King sat at Will’s feet. Will said “He doesn’t have any friends now but us.” Will looked small and frail and deeply sad.

Frost sat again on the pile of blocks. He motioned to King and whispered “Come on.” The dog went and sat by Frost and laid his head in Frost’s lap. Frost held the dog’s ears and spoke to it, a long stream of nonsense endearments. It was a while before Frost could look up. He said to Will “We’ll get some more dogs.”

Will went to his grandfather. King moved his head away so that Will could sit in Frost’s lap. Will put his thumb in his mouth and leaned his head against Frost’s shoulder. Frost held him and kissed his head.

Will said “What’s going to happen, Grampa?”

Daniel Charlie turned and clamped a new cane in his vise. Wing picked up the arrowhead he had been working on. He leaned back against the bench and examined the edges and started filing it again.

Frost said “Well, good things are going to happen. We’re going to build a good world. We’re going to build a happy world. We’ve just got some things we have to fix first.”

“Is there going to be a war?”

Frost waited. Daniel Charlie looked toward him. Wing looked up from his filing. The rain fell steadily on the roof and pattered occasionally against the plastic that covered the door and the lightning-shaped crack and the window. King lay with his head on his front paws. He seemed not to like the silence. He gave a small whine.

Frost said “Some kind of war, yes.”

Will said “And it will be all right after that?”

“Yes. Then things will be a lot better.”

The scrape of the file resumed.

Will said “Are you going to die in the war?”

The filing stopped.

Frost said “I’ve got to fight. I didn’t want to before, but I’ve got to. I’ll try not to die. But I will die sometime. I’m old. We’ve talked about that.”

Slowly, with no expression, like a lost boy encountered in a dream, Will got off his grandfather’s lap. He stepped to the bench and picked up one of the finished arrows. He brought the tip close to his face. He turned the arrow, examining the sharpened and shining edges of the rusty metal. He moved his index finger slowly toward the point. He touched it. He jumped when King suddenly scrambled to his feet.

For a second the dog stood there with his ears erect. Then he started barking furiously and shot out the door, blasting the plastic aside. Frost and Wing and Daniel Charlie each grabbed a handful of the finished arrows. They snatched their bows, which were leaning in a corner. They ran from the workshop.

Near the bank of the river, where the River Trail emerged from the shadow of the bridge, four figures were standing around a cart. Two of them held spears and had bows slung over their backs. King raced on, barking, until he reached the group, then stood silent and alert. Frost, Wing and Daniel Charlie slowed to a walk. Will followed at a distance. Frost gave a signal, and the two men with spears jogged away toward the ramp that led onto the bridge.

The shafts of the two-wheeled cart rested on the ground. A woman stood beside it, staring toward the river. She was thin like her man and equally tall. Like the last time Frost had seen them, water dripped from their garments, their hair and the man’s beard.

BC said “I brung them two things you wanted.” His voice was weak and rough and slurred. He held an edge of the cart with one hand, near where a small black plastic bag hung from a nail. He weaved a little.

Frost and Wing traded glances. Frost slung his bow over his back and stepped past BC and looked in the cart. There was a thick rusted metal disk a yard across, with gear teeth around the edge. And there was an object the size of a cantaloupe, in an aluminum housing. With his free hand Frost lifted this from the cart. Then he nodded to Wing and Daniel Charlie. The two men slung their bows and laid their arrows on the ground. They hoisted the shafts until the flywheel slid off the back of the cart and thudded on the sodden soil. BC did not let go of the side of the cart, so that his arm went up, then down, like a barricade at a level crossing of the old railway near which they stood.

Frost stood close to BC and looked into the eyes the colour of silty river water. He said “Your pupils are the size of pinholes.”

BC lowered his gaze, which Frost followed to the heads of the arrows he still held in one hand. BC said “I see yous had some other ideas for that sheet metal I brung.”

Wind turned from the river and stepped between the shafts, as if she were about to haul the cart back the way they had come. Today her face was not bruised. Her gaunt cheeks were coloured either from anger or from pulling the cart fifteen miles through the rain. There was life in her eyes as well, some spark of determination.

She said to BC “Just shut up.”

BC did not react. He stared at Frost, weaving slightly, like a fir tree in a storm. His hand rested on the side of the cart near the black bag. His eyes were as empty of emotion as the muddy water they resembled.

Frost walked away a few paces. He turned, spat, waited.

Will now stood beside Daniel Charlie, who had his hand on his shoulder. King stood by Will, watching the proceedings.

Wind said “We brung the flywheel and the alternator.”

Frost showed her the alternator in his hand, said “I see that.”

“So, what’re you plannin’ to pay us with?”

“What do you need?”

“We need meat.”

“That’s what I thought. Well, I won’t give you meat.”

She glared at Frost.

After a few seconds BC gave an angry twitch and said “You won’t what!”

Wind said to him “I said shut up” and to Frost “You owe us meat, Frost. Fair’s fair.”

Frost said “I owe you a cow, which is to pay for Wing’s wagon. When my next calf is grown up you’ll get it. That was the deal. I’ll raise it and slaughter it and salt the meat. I gave you a down payment last time you came. You only get one down payment. For the flywheel and the alternator I’ll give you spuds and carrots and squashes and cabbage. I’ll give you some eggs.”

Finally BC took his hand from the cart. He threw up his arms. “We need meat, Frost!”

Wind said to BC “God damn you! I said shut up!” She made fists and stepped over the shaft.

BC skipped backward awkwardly and stood in a crouch, with his own fists up. “I’ll bust your nose!” he slurred.

Wind spun toward Frost. “We didn’t come all this way for vegetables.”

“Fine. I’ll give you some milk too.”

“Milk don’t keep.”

“Neither does meat.”

She stood there, with no answer. She said “We come a long ways.”

Frost said “I’ll be generous with the spuds.”

“We come all the way from the parts yard. ’Cause we thought we was gettin’ meat.”

“Well, I guess you better start back.”

“You son of a bitch! You ain’t gettin’ no wagon! You ain’t gettin’ nothin’!” She jabbed her finger at Frost, took a step toward him. King growled.

Frost said “Fine. You keep it. I didn’t want it in the first place. Daniel, give me a hand to throw the flywheel back on.” But Daniel Charlie did not move. He and Frost waited.

Wind sighed, shook her head, explained to BC “We got to take vegetables.” She sounded defeated. “There’s eggs. And milk. You like milk.”

Everyone watched BC. After a few seconds he said “What!” It was like someone pretending to be enraged. He threw up is arms again, and his eyes widened around the nail-hole pupils. Perhaps he thought he was shouting, but his voice was hardly louder than a whisper. “I can’t trade vegetables. You got to give us meat. Fair’s fair.”

Wind nodded to Frost, said “Okay. Give us what you said. It’s a long trail home.”

Daniel Charlie said “I’ll take care of it” and started toward the domicile.

BC turned carefully and went and stood over the flywheel. He bent and tried to lift one edge but could not budge it. He straightened, squinted back along the River Trail and started walking back the way he had come, with his arms flopping loosely.

Wind called “Where the hell you goin’!”

Frost handed the alternator to Will and the arrows to Wing. He went to the cart. Although the woman lunged she was too late. Frost stepped away with the black plastic bag. He called “BC! Hey! You forgot something.”

BC stopped. He turned and came back. He had a foolish grin. He said “Forgot my food.”

Frost said “This is food in here?”

Wind said “Food. For the long trail home.” She held out her hand. A hopeless smile stirred for a second on her lips.

BC also held out his hand. Frost stepped backward away from him. He reached into the bag and took out a half-litre plastic bottle that was a quarter full of murky liquid. He let the bag fall.

BC said “That there’s mine.”

Frost kept walking backwards away from him. King growled again, stepped forward a few feet.

Wind clasped her hands and bent her knees, beaten. She pleaded “No, Frost. He needs it. Don’t take it. Please.”

With the hand that was holding the bottle, Frost punched BC hard in the face. BC took half a step back and fell. As if he had practised the procedure many times, he drew his knees up and tucked his chin in and covered his head with his arms. Frost kicked him in the back. BC cried out but stayed curled up. Frost was wearing sandals. He hurt his toe and also cried out, but kicked BC again. King leapt in silently, bit BC on the buttock and leapt away. BC shrieked. Frost bellowed “You made the crossbows that killed Fundy’s men! You traded for skag!” He kicked him again. King darted in and bit him again in the same place, and BC shrieked again. Frost hollered “Don’t come around here asking for meat!”

Wing turned away and stood there with his handful of arrows, staring off toward the river. Will dropped the alternator and watched, with his hands clasped to his face.

Wind rushed forward and pushed Frost away from her man, but Frost got in another kick before he stumbled back. King faced Wind, snarling wildly and flashing his teeth.

Wind turned cautiously from the dog. She helped BC up onto hands and knees. BC tried to get up but finally found it easier to proceed on all fours. Wind walked beside him to the cart. A ribbon of blood and mucous dangled from BC’s nose. She hoisted the shafts so that the back end of the cart was close to the ground. BC sprawled onto the cart. His bare feet hung off the back. He held his backside, where the kilt was torn and bloody. Wind pulled the shafts down and turned the cart. Without a look at anyone she leaned into her load and gave a grunt and started back along the River Trail.

Will took two steps backward, away from Frost, as if this tall man limping toward him were a stranger wearing his grandfather’s face. But then he stopped and lowered his hands, and Frost saw that Will’s face was also streaked with blood, from a cut finger the arrowhead had given him in the workshop. Frost ran his hand — the one that was not holding the skag — over Will’s hair, and with the rainwater that collected on his fingers he wiped the blood away.

41

The rains had washed the bridge, but King could still smell the dead dogs. He would stand almost motionless with his nose an inch from the pavement, then move quickly to another point and stand there sniffing, and then, after a minute, to another. Not even Will could dissuade him from this dismal and endless fact-gathering.

It was an afternoon of high slow-moving cloud, not very cold. A small fire of damp brush and peat smouldered beside the lane divider. It was ignored by everyone except Will, who squatted by it, feeding in twigs and blowing on embers.

Among those on Frost’s Bridge there was no conversation, just an aimless pacing, an empty staring at the weed-grown roadway, glances toward Town, glances across to Fundy’s Bridge. Most of them had bows, and they had bags of arrows at their sides, with the points uppermost so as not to pierce the bags. They had swords as well, but the spears leaned against the western railing. Even Will had a bow and a bag of arrows, both of which lay beside him as he perfected his adjustments to the fire.

Tyrell was there, and Airport and Marpole and Hastings and Deas. Frost paced as aimlessly and as worriedly as the others. Daniel Charlie and Jessica and Noor leaned on the eastern railing, looking down at the water. Only Noor and Jessica did not have bows or arrows. Noor was wearing the embroidered waistcoat, which added no more joy to the afternoon than Will’s fire. Some of the shields that had not been turned into arrowheads were ranged along the western curb.

King was so absorbed in his endless sniffing that he was not the first to notice a figure approaching from the Town end of the bridge. In fact everyone, even Will, was now watching the man trudge up the slope toward them. No one fitted arrow to bowstring or snatched up a shield. Only when Tyrell said “It’s Hemlock” did King look up and bark. Then he wagged his tail and took off down the bridge to meet Margaret, who was racing up toward him.

While the dogs frolicked Hemlock the Messenger plodded onwards with his long lunging barefoot stride. Under the pink toque he thrust his face out like a tortoise. He carried his length of rebar in his right hand.

He squatted by Will’s smoky little fire and laid down the rebar and warmed his hands. Jessica handed him a bowl of cold boiled potatoes. Everyone hovered over him while he ate. The dogs were tearing in circles around the group, but when Margaret saw the food she jumped up against Jessica’s legs until she was given a potato. When Hemlock was done he handed the bowl back to Jessica, wiped his hands on his fur kilt and stood. When he found he was facing Noor he turned away.

Frost said “You made it into Town.”

“And I made it back safe.”

Hemlock walked over to the western sidewalk and stepped up onto it and stood there tall and slouched. He faced his listeners. He spoke loudly. His voice was deep and mournful.

“I took a chance on goin’ to the market. The Park Crew was there tradin’ cordwood to Langley’s men. When they was done they took me back to the Park on their boat. So that’s how I got into Town. Well, close to it. The Park ain’t exactly Town.”

Frost said “Any news from the Park Crew?”

“Ladner’s woman got a fever and died. But the rest is all right. They’re livin’ on rabbits and traded food. There’s a cougar in the Park, but it’s stayed away so far.”

Daniel Charlie said “Do they send a message?”

Hemlock found he was facing Noor again. Again he turned away. “No, the Park Crew don’t send no message.” He was obviously not finished, but he did not continue.

After a minute Frost said “Does someone else send a message?”

Hemlock nodded. “Someone else.”

“You going to tell us?”

“I am. I’m goin’ to tell you.” He stood there nodding for a while. They all waited. Even King and Margaret sat near the curb and stared up at the Messenger.

Hemlock said “I got a message for all of yous from two women. These two women is stayin’ with the Park Crew. They give me the message when I was there. Their names is Ice and Spring.”

Hastings said “Do we know them?”

Jessica said “They’re with the Church Gang.”

Everyone except Hemlock turned and looked at Noor, who held her breath, stared at Hemlock and returned nobody’s glance.

He continued “This here is the message of Ice and Spring. Langley and his soldiers come one night to the Church when we was sleepin’. Hollyburn was on guard, and he shouted plenty, but there was too many of them, and they just walked right into the Church. They lit a torch. Powell got out the 22, but they kilt him with their crossbows. Langley said, ‘All this stuff is too good for the likes of yous.’ They took their swords and they kilt Hollyburn and they kilt 101. We run out the back. We thought Ash was with us, but he wasn’t.”

Jessica was standing behind Noor. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her.

“They kilt Robson too.”

Noor screamed.

But Hemlock seemed determined to deliver the message he had been entrusted with. He attempted to raised his voice above the scream. “…too terrible…” could be heard, and “…don’t know if we can go on….”

Noor’s scream faded to a loud, ragged sobbing.

Hemlock swung his backpack halfway off and dug something out of it. It was a short piece of plastic pipe with a few evenly spaced holes bored in it. “They sent this here for Noor.” He had to turn to her now to present the memento.

But Noor had torn free of Jessica, grabbed a spear and was already thirty yards down the bridge. She was sprinting full out toward Town.

Frost and Tyrell and Daniel Charlie shouted her name, but she did not slow down. Frost said “Jesus Christ. They’ll kill her for sure this time. Marpole, see if you can catch her.”

Marpole dropped his arrows and threw off his bow. But as he dashed down the bridge with the floating strides of a young man the distance between him and Noor only increased.

Again there was shouting from the group at the top of the bridge. It was even more frantic this time, and included Jessica’s shriek, which was as much a lament as a warning.

Will! No! Will!

Will passed Marpole halfway down the slope.

Marpole slowed, stopped and turned to wait for the others, all of whom except for Hemlock the Messenger were jogging toward him with their bows on their backs and their spears in their hands.

At the bottom of the bridge Noor veered westward off the trail into an expanse of scrub, weeds, blackberry vine and mud, out of which rose a few three-storey apartment blocks. She had to slow a little as she dodged among the obstacles that lay between her and the taller building that stood to the northwest beyond the others. She did not use any of the abundant cover to hide her approach. She ran more or less directly toward Langley’s building, with the spear held low in her right hand.

Suddenly she stopped, whirled. Somehow the point of the spear missed her brother as he leapt. She fell backward under him into a leafless salmonberry bush. There was a loud crackling as several of the canes splintered. She pushed him away and took off again toward the building. She still had the spear. But Will dove and caught a foot, and she sprawled on the ground. He flung himself on her back, but she easily threw him off. She hissed “Go home!”

He had hold of the embroidered vest with both hands and would not let go. He had enough breath to whisper “You got to come back. You’re not thinkin’ straight.”

She tried again to break away. They struggled for a few seconds but then stopped. A person was standing above them. As she tried to rise to her knees in order to get a good thrust at the man he stepped forward, kicked the spear out of her hand and then stepped back again. He had a sword. Noor scrambled up, leapt back a pace and reached for her own sword. The man dropped the tip of his weapon, took two quick steps and with his free hand punched Noor in the face. She cried out, and her feet flew from under her, and she crashed onto her back and lay there stunned.

Will pushed himself backward a little.

The man said to him “Nope. You stay right there.” He tapped him on the head with the tip of his sword.

The man waited. In a minute Noor rose up onto her elbows. Her cheek was split near her eye. A thin sheet of blood flowed down onto her long neck. She looked at the man.

He said “Langley cut me ’cause of you. Remember? I got a scar now on my front. It’s shaped like a X.”

It was the stocky, moon-faced man who had been among the soldiers when Langley detained her on her way back from visiting the Church Gang. Noor could see two long diagonal slices in the wool of the man’s shift, poorly repaired.

“It’s still sore. ’Cause of you. Now let’s see yours. Let’s see your front. Take off that pretty vest and that shirt. You might as well take of them pants too.”

Noor rose to a sitting position. There was no point trying to draw her sword. She looked around. Her spear was a dozen feet away in a clump of wilted bracken. Will was still trying to edge backward on his stomach. His face was white.

The man said “It’s going to happen don’t matter if you’re alive or if you’re dead. Don’t make no difference to me. Long as you’re halfways warm.” He said to Will “Lay down on your face and put your hands behind your back and keep them there.” Will did so. His hands trembled. The man said “If you keep still and shut up, me and your sister are going to show you what’s called the facts of life.”

Suddenly Noor was on her feet. But she was groggy. She stumbled as she grabbed at her sword.

The man roared and lunged. But before his blade touched Noor the man’s eyes widened, and the thrust went wide. Sailing above the blade, King hit him like a battering ram. The man hollered and toppled backward, and the sword fell free. As the dog and the man struck the ground King was already tearing at his throat.

Noor managed to run, but had to steady herself on her brother’s shoulder. They headed back toward Frost’s Bridge. Behind them King’s snarling grew faint. When Will looked back he saw two figures closer to Langley’s building moving through the brush toward King and the soldier. He stopped, called “King! King, come on!” but Noor forced him to continue running. They made it to Town Trail and saw Frost and the others hurrying toward them.

As they walked quickly and silently up the bridge Will turned often to check for King. But the old apartment buildings always blocked his view of the area.

At the crest of the bridge Noor did not stop. Jessica offered to go on with her, but Noor shook her head. Jessica said “You better let me wash that cut for you.” Noor shook her head again and kept walking.

Frost lowered himself onto the sidewalk with his back against the railing, and Will fell into his lap sobbing loudly. Frost rocked and soothed him as he watched Noor walk alone down toward the farm.

In a loose huddle the guards and Daniel Charlie and Jessica speculated among themselves in low and secretive tones as to what might have gone on back there in the brush near Langley’s building.

Margaret lay near the remains of Will’s fire, watching for King to return.

Hemlock the Messenger sat down on the curb near Frost’s feet. He did not turn toward Frost. After a while Will stopped crying. Hemlock cleared his throat and said in his sad and throbbing baritone. “Too bad about the Church Gang.”

Frost continued to stroke Will’s hair and said nothing.

In the middle of the roadway Margaret rose. She looked down the bridge toward Town and wagged her tail. Standing above her, Daniel Charlie called “Come on, King! Come on, boy!” He squatted to greet the dog.

Hemlock cleared his throat again. He said “What you said, Frost? Last time I saw yous? How Noor already gots herself a man? How she already gots Robson at the Church Gang?”

Frost stopped stroking Will’s hair. He stared at the back of Hemlock’s head, at the twists of filthy brown hair hanging over the top of the nylon backpack, at the crescent of bald and sunburnt skin between the hair and the pink toque. He said in a pained whisper “Christ sake, Hemlock.”

“I mean, I ain’t getting’ any younger. And like I says, Noor is all growed up now. I mean… That ain’t exactly what I mean…”

Now Frost cleared his throat. He said “Thanks for the messages. Daniel will get you some grub. I won’t keep you. I know you’ve got to walk.”

At last Hemlock turned and looked squarely at Frost. There was a soft light in the dull eyes, almost a smile. He said quietly, eagerly “Maybe I done enough walkin’. I was thinkin’ maybe I’d give up walkin’ and stay on Frost’s Farm.”

Frost gently eased Will from his lap. The boy stood, wiped the drying tears from his cheeks. Frost also stood. He leaned on the railing and stared away toward Fundy’s bridge and beyond.

Hemlock said “I can work. I picked spuds before. I ain’t just good for walkin’ and rememberin’.”

Frost said evenly “Thanks for the offer, Hemlock, but I know you’ve got to walk.”

“Last time you said Noor was a growed woman. You said I ought to ask her myself. But I thought I better ask you first, seeing as…”

Frost spun around. Both fists were clenched. He screamed “Get off my god damn bridge!”

When Margaret saw that Hemlock had departed and was well down the span she stopped trying to lick the blood from King’s muzzle and took off after her master. King watched her for a few seconds, then went to Will.

42

The moon had already set. The sky blazed with a sprawl of stars, but between his fur hat and his fur poncho Tyrell’s dark face was invisible against the night. He stood at the east railing, looking out over the river, which was imperceptible except for the low sound of its flow and an occasional spark where a star was reflected. He looked also over the empty flatland south of the river, which was black completely.

On the western side of the lane divider a pale thread of smoke rose from an all but extinguished fire. Around this the guards were trying to sleep. A couple of them snored under skin throws. The rest were curled up like cats because of the cold. King lay against Noor, with his tail spread over his head. On the Town side of the fire Frost paced slowly from one side of his bridge to the other. As he stepped over the lane divider he looked briefly down the bridge toward Town.

Beside Tyrell at the railing he stared with him for a minute into the eastern darkness. Tyrell muttered “See where the Big Dipper is? We’ll get some light in an hour.” Frost turned and paced back in the other direction. He stepped over the divider and looked briefly again toward Town. He stood above the sleepers for a minute, observing them in the insipid glow of the embers. Then he walked to the western railing and leaned on the freezing metal. In the starlight he could make out Fundy’s Bridge, its darker mass against the dark sky. He could see no fire on that bridge. He listened, heard only a random splash of the river, the snoring of his guards.

Then he spun around, because King was on the far sidewalk beside Tyrell, barking into the darkness. Among the confused exclamations of the waking guards Frost leapt the lane divider. But Tyrell was already running toward the south end of the bridge, away from Town, toward Frost’s Farm. His voice boomed “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” Somewhere ahead of him down the bridge King’s barking was growing fainter.

They grabbed weapons and raced down the span. Frost ran on the sidewalk, where there was less clumped grass to trip over. He could not keep up. At the bottom he jogged down the exit and onto his farm. His heart was crashing, and he was gasping for breath. He followed King’s barking and kept on until he got to the point where the River Trail passed under the bridge. He made out the blur of the skin ponchos of his guards, slightly paler than the surrounding darkness. Behind them he stopped. His breath came in shrill wheezes. He wavered on his feet. But he stood straight and peered over the heads of the guards into the space under the bridge, where he saw nothing.

When Frost could speak he said “Settle down.” King stopped barking.

Soon Frost was able to make out some shapes under the bridge, fur ponchos like smudges in the dark. He detected also the paler shapes of store-bought synthetics. He heard the clink of crossbow bolts. Someone hawked, spat.

A match flared. Frost saw Langley’s clean-shaven and blotched face. Frost’s guards had maneuvered into a single line. They stood with arrows on their bows, ready to draw them. Frost stepped between the guards to the front. King had a leash on now. Frost took it from Tyrell.

Langley said “We got matches, Frost. You got matches? You guys ever seen a match? Noor, you ever seen a match? This here is a match.” Next to Langley Freeway could now be seen in the light from the flame, which was motionless in the windless night. Its light reflected from an aluminum baseball bat that Freeway held toward Langley. A wad of rags was wrapped around the end of the bat. Langley said “We got torches. You got torches?” He held the match to the wad of rags. The rags caught slowly, but in a few seconds they were burning with a steady strength. Langley said “Oil, Frost. You ever heard of oil? We got it.” He flicked the match toward Frost, but it fell well short and lay burning on the ground for a few seconds.

Freeway turned and moved among the soldiers, lighting six more rag torches from his own. Black smoke rose. The smell of the burning oil was strong. There were about thirty soldiers. They held drawn crossbows. Those who had the torches held their crossbows with their free hands.

Freeway came back with the torch and stood again beside Langley, who had no crossbow, just a sword in his belt, and the baseball bat torch. Langley said “You can get it out of cars. BC got it for us. He said you took his skag. You short on skag, Frost?”

Frost said “Get off my farm.”

A few of the guards spoke up as well. Frost took another wrap of the leash as King pulled forward.

Langley hawked, spat in Frost’s direction, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his leather jacket. He said “Nice to see your men again. Your men and Noor. I thought there was more of yous. Where’s the rest? Over on Fundy’s Bridge, I guess. Right, Frost? ’Cause this is just sad. Five men. Five men and Noor and old Frost. And one dog. Where’s the rest of your dogs, Frost? I thought you had a lot of dogs. A whole bunch of nasty killer dogs to protect your farm. They run away or what?”

Frost said “Get off my farm.”

Langley stretched his arm out and behind. One of his men placed a rifle in his hand. Langley aimed the rifle at Frost’s face. He held the aim for a few seconds.

Frost said “Go ahead. Before I hit the ground you’ll be dead.”

Langley gave a little laugh and lowered the rifle.

For a minute it was quiet except for King’s low, eager whines. A breeze slid off the river. The smoke from the torches twisted into dense curls. Above, the light wavered on the underside of the span.

Langley cleared his throat. “It’s not your time yet, Frost. I didn’t come to kill you this time. When I come to kill you I’m just going to kill you. I’m not going to stand around talkin’. And I’m not going to light up my men with torches so’s yous can shoot at us easier. With them little arrows of yours. With the new points on them made out of the car doors BC give you for your waterwheel. Them points could give a guy a nasty cut. You think, Freeway?”

Freeway said “Naw. A scratch maybe.” He held the torch above his head, so that the light threw jagged shadows across his and Langley’s faces.

“It don’t matter. I got bandages. I got medicine.” He stood with his arms folded. He said “Jeez, ain’t it cold.” He hawked, spat, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket.

Frost said “Say what you’ve come to say.”

Langley said with restrained annoyance “Don’t tell me what to do, Frost. It aggravates me. I’m tryin’ to be patient, here. I’m tryin’ to do you a favour. I’m tryin’ to do all of yous a favour. You think I like comin’ out in the middle of a cold night? You think these here soldiers like walkin’ for miles in the dark and cold? Just so’s you and me can have a nice talk? No, Frost, the reason I come like this, takin’ all of yous completely by surprise, even takin’ the one dog you got left by surprise, is I want to do you a favour. I want to be nice to you. Ain’t that right, Freeway?”

“You got the milk of human kindness, Langley.”

“You hear that, Frost? Even though you keep killin’ my men, I come out on this cold night to extend a helpin’ hand. Ain’t that right, Freeway?”

“I don’t know, Langley. What’s a helpin’ hand?”

Langley looked down at his boots for a minute, scuffed at the ground, ran a hand over his face. He cleared his throat again. He said “I got twenty-eight soldiers here, Frost. How many do you think I got over on Fundy’s Bridge right now, cuttin’ the throats of your men while they’re sleepin’? How many soldiers do you think I got slippin’ onto the south edge of your farm, quiet as mice? Slippin’ out of the burbs. How many do you think are climbin’ up the stairs of your buildin’ right now?”

He aimed the rifle over the heads of Frost’s men, toward the domicile. There was a sharp crack, a wink of flame at the muzzle, and the tick of the bullet hitting distant concrete.

Tyrell said “Just say the word, Frost.”

Langley laughed, said “That’s funny, Tyrell. I heard yous black sons of bitches like to joke around and sing and dance. Well, Frost, there’s no soldiers. None on Fundy’s Bridge, none comin’ out of the burbs, none in your buildin’. Not tonight. Not yet. But there could be. That’s the point, ain’t it, Frost? There could be. The only reason yous ain’t all dead on both bridges is I’m eager to do yous a favour. The only reason I ain’t sittin’ in front of that nice fireplace I hear you got is I don’t want to kill no one. I’m a man of peace, see.”

Tyrell said “You’re a cockroach. And you’re going to be a dead cockroach any second now.” Tyrell drew his bow and aimed it across the few yards that separated him from Langley. The arrow was pointed toward Langley’s chest. The rest of Frost’s men also drew their bows, but Noor did not.

Langley shrugged. He said “Jeez, Tyrell, I liked it better when you were bein’ funny.” Langley’s soldiers laughed, but uneasily. One of the torches went out, then another. “Well, Frost, it’s cold, and I already made my point. Which is I can take your farm any time I feel like it. So maybe we’ll head on back. We had a nice full moon, didn’t we, before it set? You got till the next full moon to move your people over to Wing’s farm. I’ll clear my men out of there for you. Just come and knock on my door to let me know. I’ll be at my buildin’. Or else I’ll be out at my place at Skagger’s Bridge. Now I think I’ll be getting’ back home. I got to choose which one of Wing’s honeys is going to keep me warm tonight.”

Freeway’s torch faded and went out. His form and Langley’s were silhouettes against the light behind them. Two of the remaining four torches went out. Langley said “We’re goin’ to the buildin’ now. You know where it is — over near the foot of Fundy’s Bridge. It’s a long way back the way we come, back over Wing’s Bridge. So yous won’t mind steppin’ out of the way so’s we can take the short way across your bridge.”

Frost said “I told you to get off my farm.”

‘I done you a favour, Frost. I come out on a cold night to explain how things are. ’Cause I figured you might not completely understand. I wanted to save the both of us a lot of fightin’ and killin’. I said you could have till the next full moon. Most people would call that generous. So I think you owe me a favour. We just want to walk across your god damn bridge.”

Frost did not reply. One of the two remaining torches went out. Langley said to Frost’s guards “Your arms must be getting’ tired, pullin’ on them bow strings. You better put your bows down before someone lets go by accident. So’s we can talk over this favour I’m askin’.”

No one slacked off their bow.

Langley said “Hah! I thought yous were a civilized crew over here.” His voice had acquired a high-pitched whine. “That’s a word you don’t hear no more, ain’t it? Civilized. I thought that was what you were all about, Frost. Civilization. Which means getting’ along with people. And here I am tryin’ to do things in a civilized way, tryin’ to get along with you. And you tell me to clear off your farm. I’m tryin’ to save lives, see. I’m tryin’ to set up a swap, a simple business deal — your farm for Wing’s farm. By your farm I mean Fundy’s too, of course. But you’re tryin’ to get people killed. And that ain’t necessary. And it ain’t civilized.”

For a while it was quiet again. The only sounds were the nervous shifting of men trying to hold an aim, and a few clinks of crossbow bolts. Langley said firmly “Watch your men don’t let go of them bow strings.” Then he said, with the whine more pronounced “Why won’t you let us walk over your bridge?”

Frost said “Speak up.” King started barking and snarling. Frost let the dog pull him a step closer to Langley.

Langley stepped back. He shouted “Do we got to kill yous, then? Is that what you want, Frost?”

The last torch went out. In the solid dark below the bridge there were murmurs of confusion among both Langley’s soldiers and Frosts guards.

Frost took another step forward. King kept pulling and snarling.

Langley shouted “I got this here gun pointed right at you, Frost.”

Frost said “Settle down.” Except for occasional whines King fell silent. Frost said “Get off my farm.”

From behind Frost someone ran forward. Guards and soldiers both shouted, but no one shot. Frost hollered “Noor, don’t!”

Then Langley appeared to be on the ground. Noor appeared to be on top of him. There was a lot of scuffling. Langley called out “Ow! God damn it!” With another crack and another spit of flame the 22 went off. Langley’s men dodged back from the struggling pair. Langley croaked “She’s chokin’ me! Kill her, Freeway!”

Noor did not make a sound.

Frost said “Get her, Tyrell.”

Freeway’s bat made a pale, swift arc. There was the sound of a small bone cracking. Langley screamed hoarsely. Freeway said “Shit. Was that your finger, Langley?”

Langley thrashed. Noor was thrown stumbling backward past King and came to rest sitting against her grandfather’s legs. Tyrell grabbed her. Another guard helped him. She was still silent as she struggled to free herself from the two men.

Freeway said “Sorry, Langley. I was tryin’ to kill Noor.”

Langley got to his feet. He said “You busted my god damn finger.” His voice was raw.

“I’m sorry, Langley. I was…”

“Shut up!” Langley was moving away, through his soldiers. The soldiers followed, with their crossbow bolts clinking freely in their bags. They left behind them on the ground the smouldering torches, including the baseball bat.

43

Noor sat on the floor in front of the fire. She was hugging her knees, rocking slightly from side to side. She had been there a long time, resting a cheek on one knee and rocking.

Will was pushing himself backwards in the wheeled office chair, to every accessible corner of the apartment. He did figure eights and circles and spirals.

Noor stopped rocking for a moment but did not raise her voice. “Will?”

Will stopped scooting the chair.

“Will, could you stop that? It’s awful noisy.” She waited. There was no further sound of rolling. She started rocking again.

Will said “It’s not raining.”

Noor did not reply.

Will said “Can I go outside?”

Noor shrugged. She said “Where?”

“Just out to the barns. Maybe down to the river.”

“Stay where they can see you from the bridge. Take your bow.”

“I don’t like carryin’ that bow all the time. It gets in the way.”

Noor turned sideways to the fire. She leaned back on her hands and looked at Will. She said “Could you shoot someone with it?”

He sat slouched in the office chair, looking back at her. Then he lowered his eyes.

Noor said “Take it anyway.”

Will scooted the chair back and forth a few inches. “I wish I could be alone some time. With nobody watchin me. I wish I could just be alone someplace peaceful. Like I always used to do.”

“There’s no place like that.” The bruise on the right side of her face where Langley’s man had hit her had faded to yellow. The scab of the split was dark across her cheekbone. There were now also three long red scratches on the other cheek from her tussle with Langley.

Will put his poncho and sandals on and got his bow and slung his bag of arrows over a shoulder by its long twine. Then he took a potato and went out. It was a cloudy forenoon. He walked to the barns. When Beauty saw him coming she stretched her head over the spaced two-by-fours of her fence and snorted. Two frosty plumes shot from her nostrils. Will stroked her neck and leaned his face close, to get the horse smell, but she nodded him aside. She wanted what was in his hand. He let her take the potato. Then he turned south, toward the burbs.

He crossed the limp winter stubble of the hay field that ran along the old road. He crossed the road itself, and the black soil of a carrot patch where a few rotten carrots were scattered. He passed a couple of foundations, inside which squash vines and leaves were turning to earth. He entered the expanse of scrub that ran for miles to the South Arm.

He passed the toilet bowl and the pile of drywall gypsum near the place where he had fought with Shaughnessy and where he had shot the rabbit. There was a thick mossy log, too rotten for anyone to burn. He sat on it. Today there were no coyotes yipping. The only sound was a breeze moving through the blackberry vines and through the bare twigs of salmonberry and thimbleberry and huckleberry.

Will set his bow and his arrows on the ground and lay back on the log. He watched the uneven layer of cloud crawl from the southwest. He pulled out a handful of moss and studied it. A small brown worm was wriggling among the roots. He inhaled the smell of the decayed log. He dropped the moss and closed his eyes and lay there listening to the breeze and feeling the way it touched his cheek. He opened his eyes when he heard twigs snapping. Then he heard a man’s voice.

About a hundred feet away someone was moving through the brush. Will lay still. He reached down and grasped his bow. He rolled off the log and crouched behind it. Over the log he could see the indistinct form of a man passing through the brush. The man had something draped over his shoulder. He was headed toward the farm.

The man muttered as he walked, in a deep but quiet voice “That’s it, Langley. You think you can give me all the dirty work? Well, I’ve had it. You touch me again and I’ll break your neck. You little rat. You little rat, Langley. You think I won’t? Just try me. Just try me, you little rat.” In spite of the brush, Will could tell that the man was enormous. He disappeared in the scrub, and his muttering faded.

Will lay on his back on the ground, hidden by the log. He fitted an arrow to the bowstring. He waited. After a few minutes he rose to his knees and peered over the log. He was about to stand, when he again heard a twig crack. He crouched down again and saw the man pass back in the direction he had come from. He was moving fast, no longer muttering, but making a lot of noise as he crashed through the brush. He did not appear to be carrying anything now.

Will ran toward the farm. His steps were light and precise. He did not make a sound. As he came to the carrot patch it started to rain. He crossed the old road. Just at the top edge of the hay field, where it sloped up to the road, he found the body. The woman was lying on her back with her arms thrown out to the side. She was naked, and her throat had been cut. On her neck and chest there was dried blood that the rain could not wash off.

Will stared. He was unable to move or even to blink. Finally he managed to close his eyes and turn away. He wavered on his feet and reached out for support, but there was nothing there to hold on to. He dropped his bow and knelt, panting, with his head down and both hands flat on the ground. After a minute he retrieved his bow and rose and began walking toward the domicile, but when he had gone nine or ten steps he had to throw up.

Wing slid off the back of the two-wheeled cart. He was holding a folded throw of rabbit skins. He joined Frost, who had walked up the slope of the hayfield. Frost said “It’s Mitchell’s woman, isn’t it? From your place.”

Wing said “Yes, it’s Willow. She’s the mother of the baby. Little Pigeon.”

As they tucked the throw around the body Frost said “I’ll tell Mitchell.”

Wing said “No, that’s up to me.”

Beauty watched them coming as they lugged the body toward the cart. She shuffled a little and looked fearful.

The moon was full in a cloudless sky. Frost stood hidden by a squared-off stack of concrete blocks, watching Brandon. Among the “inventory” there was a messy pile of reinforcing bar. From this pile Brandon was trying to pull out some straight pieces. The metal made only a little noise as he slid three lengths free. He placed these on his shoulder and headed south. He walked at a steady pace and in a straight line. Frost watched him in the bright moonlight. He waited until Brandon had gone about seventy-five yards before following him.

Crossing the old road Brandon began to sing, but not loudly. Frost could only make out some of the words. …song I wrote… and, as Brandon reached the carrot patch, Don’t worry. Be happy.

Frost crouched at the edge of the road, hidden by the slope leading up to it. He saw two men waiting for Brandon in the carrot patch. One of them took the rebar from him. The other one handed him something. Frost heard their voices, but they were too far away for him to understand what they were saying. The two men headed off with the farm’s rebar, and Brandon started back toward the domicile.

Frost saw that Brandon was going to cross the road a ways from his own position. He lay on his back. He looked up at the stars and for a few seconds his face lost a little of its tension.

Brandon crossed the road, singing, …if you worry you make it double…. He had a bottle now. He took a swig from it and sang some more. When Brandon reached the far edge of the hay field, Frost stood and started after him, toward home. But at the bottom of the slope, he stopped.

He had seen something. Farther along the road, a few yards to the east, among some bushes that had grown up through the asphalt, there was a pale shape. Frost walked toward it. He stepped carefully over the broken lumps of pavement. Not far to the south the coyotes had started up.

Frost looked down at the naked body of a man lying on his back. His eyes — the one blue, the other green — were open. But if Frost thought he could see the colour of Steveston’s eyes he was imagining it. The moonlight was nowhere near that powerful.

Noor ran past the domicile and on toward the graveyard. Frost stopped digging and watched her approach. He was up to his knees in the hole. There was a pile of fresh earth on one side. Steveston lay a few feet away on the other side, wrapped in a shroud of blue polyethylene. Beyond Steveston there was another hole and another pile of dirt and the wrapped body of Willow.

Noor leaned on her knees and stared down at the grass, panting. Frost said “Not there?”

Noor shook her head. “Unless he’s hiding.”

“If he’s hiding we won’t find him. You already checked at Fundy’s.”

She nodded.

“And he’s not in the domicile.”

She shook her head.

“The workshop? The clinic? The barns?”

She did not bother to signify the negative. Having caught her breath a little she stood upright. For a few seconds Frost studied her damaged face and the weariness and anxiety marked upon it. He said “Go up on the bridge and get King. Tell them I said it’s all right.” He looked down and placed his foot on the blade of the shovel and forced it into the soft earth.

When she brought King back the hole was up to Frost’s thighs. He climbed out of it. For a few moments he simply stared down at the dog, who wagged his tail and bounced a little on his front Paws. Frost knelt in front of the dog and whispered endearments. He ran King’s ears through his hands. He put his cheek against King’s face. Then he stood. He looked in one direction and then another, as if bewildered. He said “Where’s Will?” and kept looking around. Noor did the same. King became alert. His ears stood erect.

Frost called “Will? Will, where are you?”

Noor called “Will? Will?”

King darted off toward the foot of the bridge. But after twenty feet he stopped. Then he darted toward the burbs, but again he stopped. Frost and Noor started moving aimlessly in a mock search, still calling for Will. King joined them. He put his nose to the ground and trotted in quick zigzags. He stopped near the domicile and sniffed at one spot for a few seconds. Then he wagged his tail and turned back the way he had come. He did not lift his nose from the ground.

Noor followed him toward the point where the River Trail crossed under the bridge. Frost watched her and the dog go off in search of his grandson. Then he stepped back into the grave and took hold of the shovel again.

As she walked along the overgrown railroad bridge, toward the end, where the swing span stood forever open she said “Oh no. Oh god no.” King already stood at the end, peering down into the river. She came beside the dog. Below, the grey-green mass of the river slid past. She and King looked down to where the water eddied around a concrete abutment. She said “Oh Will.” Then she sat among the unhealthy clumps of grass and cried. Her sobs were like yells. It sounded as if she were trying to sob her insides out, and it sounded as if she would never stop.

But when King looked over the edge of the railroad bridge and wagged his tail she did stop. On another abutment further back along the bridge Will stood a few feet above the water. He was holding on to a sloping cross-brace with one hand and was leaning out and looking up at her. His poncho and jeans were dry. His face was empty and remote. He started climbing back up on the angled cross-braces.

44

Above, up on Frost’s Bridge the guards leaned on the railing, looking down at the graveyard. The plastic on the many grave markers winked in the sun. It was noon on a warm day of false spring, and Daniel Charlie was not wearing a poncho. Noor and Will and King got there from the railroad bridge as he was driving the first grave marker into the ground. He was kneeling. With one hand he was holding a six-inch chunk of two-by-four against the plastic-covered crosspiece. He was hitting that chunk with another three-foot length he held in his other hand. When he had finished he stood. The marker was set at one end of an open hole. The word carved on it said Willow.

He picked up the second marker and glanced at Noor and Will, who stood back behind Kingsway and Night and Salmon, with King sitting at Will’s feet. Daniel Charlie knelt by the second grave and drove in the second marker. He dropped a little dirt into each grave and picked up his spear and his bow and his arrows and sword and went and touched Noor on the shoulder and laid his hand for a second on Will’s head. A crumb of the grave dirt caught in Will’s hair. Then Daniel Charlie headed back to the bridge.

As Daniel Charlie left, Tyrell arrived. He set his weapons down and stood next to Frost, who was looking down into Steveston’s grave. Tyrell said nothing.

Of Wing’s crew there was only Wing himself and Mitchell. The rest of his men could be seen lined at the distant railing of Fundy’s Bridge. Wing stood on one side of Willow’s grave and Mitchell on the other. Mitchell was weeping. His son, Skytrain, and his baby girl were not there. The old man from Fundy’s crew had come over, in his patched suit. His name was Moses. He had a bible.

Wing went to the head of the grave and stood above the marker. He did not lift his head or raise his voice. He said “Willow was born on my farm around the time of the quake. Her father run off” — he glanced at the other grave — “like Steveston done. Her mother died the same year my Sarah died. Me and my crew, we all brung her up together. She was a sweet girl. She liked to sing. She asked me to teach her the old songs. Rock and roll.” He paused and seemed to be lost in remembering. He opened his mouth two or three times, as if to sing. Then he stepped away from the grave.

Moses went to the head of the grave. He had a bad limp. His white hair hung over his shoulders, and his white beard stubble was growing out. When he opened his bible he had to grab a section of pages that came loose. He placed the loose pages back in position. He found the place in the book he wanted. He looked up from the text and said “For God so loved the world, that he gave….”

Mitchell said “No.”

There was silence. The grass rustled in a breeze. The river murmured, and a crow called on the other side. Moses glared at Mitchell. In his eyes and in the set of his mouth there was a stony fury. Standing at the grave of his woman, with his wet cheeks, Mitchell glared back. Moses closed the book and held it clasped in both hands and for a few seconds closed his eyes and bowed his head. Then he turned his back and limped quickly away westward toward Fundy’s.

Tyrell cleared his throat. He looked up, but at no one, staring slightly over all their heads. He said “He was younger than me, but we were friends. Best friends. We fought a good bit, but that was because we were friends and could get away with it. He hit me in the face one Christmas with a bottle of hooch. Steveston.” Tyrell shook his head, as if the grave at his feet had to be a mistake. He had his hat off. His tight grey curls were cropped close and tidy. The beard was whorls of silver against his chocolate skin. The eye patch had grown dark and grubby from his life on the bridge. He looked very tired. His voice was croaky and had lost much of its boom.

“Steveston used to work with the Parts Gang until he got fed up with them and come to live on Frost’s farm. So he was good at fixin stuff and buildin stuff. Zahra was Frost’s daughter, and Steveston was Zahra’s man. And he was Noor’s dad and Will’s dad. He was good to his kids. He liked to laugh and horse around. He liked to go off down the river and talk to the squatters and take them stuff and fix stuff for them. Yeah. Steveston. My good friend.” He shook his head again. “Then Zahra died and he pretty much came apart. He was into the hooch quite a bit. And he wasn’t so nice to people. But nobody blamed him, ’cause he lost Zahra, and we thought he’d get over it in a while. Like most of us do.”

Tyrell was quiet for a minute as he looked down into the hole. “But then one day he was gone. And now he’s come back. I’m glad he’s come back. But I’m not glad he’s come back like this. Most of us here knew Steveston. We won’t forget him. And we won’t forget who done this.” He dropped a handful of dirt into each grave and put his hat on and picked up his bow and spear and arrows and sword and hurried back toward the bridge.

A belly of thick cloud had slid over the sun. The day had cooled, and the wind had picked up. Jessica stepped around a few of those gathered in the graveyard. She came forward and stood beside Frost.

She said “One time, Steveston rigged up the big potato wagon so that as soon as Frost hitched up Beauty and tried to pull it, all four wheels come off.”

Someone guffawed. Old Ryan. Frost nodded solemnly.

“Another time, he built a jack-in-the box out of boards and a spring and a toy snake he traded for at the market. He put it in Brittany’s room. Deas said he heard her scream all the way out at Little Bridge.”

Old Joshua laughed and said to Brittany, who stood near him “I remember. That’s when you stopped growin’.”

Brittany said “I stopped growin’ when I was ten.”

“No, I remember — you were shootin’ up like a weed until the jack-in-the-box.”

“Idiot.”

Jessica went on “It’s an awful time. It’s been awful for a long time, but now it’s even worse. It’s worse than I’ve ever seen it since I come to this farm. Willow and Steveston murdered. It’s harder for Frost and me and the rest of us old ones, because we remember when it wasn’t awful. We remember when things were so different from the way they are now you can’t even imagine it. I don’t just mean cars and planes and electricity. We remember when there was law, and everybody lived by the law and got along. Not like this awful time.”

She was more than six feet tall and broad-shouldered and had a heavy and powerful face. The tanned skin was dark against the white hair that framed it. She scanned every face. She said “We’re going to make a better time. We are. That’s what this farm is about. So we’re not going to stop thinking about what happened to Steveston. I know we all would like to, but we’re not going to. We’re going to keep thinking about what happened to him so’s we never forget what’s got to change. We’re going to make sure Steveston and Willow didn’t die for nothing. Like Tyrell said, Steveston’s come back. He’s come back and he’s put this awful time right in our faces. He’s come back to help us do what we got to do.” She stepped back from the grave. It was silent for some time. A few spits of rain fell.

Frost said “In the days when there was law Steveston would have been called my son-in-law.”

Noor was finally crying, but not loudly. She was wearing Robson’s vest. Will did not cry. His face was blank and empty. He looked down at the ground and put his thumb in his mouth.

Frost said “The woman of this man who lies here learned to walk on a boat anchored near a city called Valparaiso. I wanted to take her into the city so she could practise her walking on a real sidewalk, and also so we could get some food. But we could hear the sound of gunshots all day long and all night long, so we were scared to go into Valparaiso or into any of the other cities we passed. So Zahra practised her walking on deserted beaches. And I found food in villages where every person was dead — not dead from gunshots but dead from something else.

“My woman, Susan — wife was the word we used in those days — she died on that same boat not far south of here. We were sailing along a coast covered in forest. There were eagles in the sky. There were seals in the water. Here grave is… Well, you all know where it is.

“The first people who moved into the domicile with me were Tyrell and his mom and dad and old Mrs. Chow. That first winter we lived on food we found in houses where the people had died. We made our fires outdoors and burned wood we tore out of the houses, or dead branches off the trees. There were a lot of trees then. We drank water from the river. In the spring we planted spuds. More people came. Brittany. Daniel. Jessica. Others, who are sleeping here now.” Without turning he swept his arm to indicate the sprawl of graves. As if that were a signal the rain fell harder.

“My daughter, Zahra, was born halfway round the world in a place called Dubai, a place that was the worst of the good times. In the good times we wanted too much, you see, and Dubai wanted more than too much. I came home and built my boat, and for a while Zahra floated with Susan and me on an ocean that doesn’t seem to know much about change, while on land the good times were falling apart. She grew up here on this farm, a child of this fertile ground. And time went on, and we tried to make something good out of what was left to us.

“One day Steveston came, with something from the Parts Crew. It was four wheels for a wagon that Daniel had built for us. Steveston was pulling the same cart you see BC and Wind pulling when they come by this way — when they used to come by this way — they won’t be coming any more. Zahra was pretty well grown by that time, and I’ve never seen a handsomer young man than Steveston was. And they saw each other, and… well. Next day Steveston came back without the cart. He says, ‘You finished that wagon yet?’ I said, ‘No, Daniel is still working on it.’ He says, ‘Maybe I’ll give Daniel a hand.’ I just smiled and nodded.”

Frost was quiet for a minute. The rain hissed on the grass and splashed on the grave markers. Noor’s soft crying blended with the whisper of the wind as it rose and fell.

“That was my welcome for Steveston. And this is my goodbye.”

Now the rain fell in straight heavy shafts.

“I want to say to all of you — I especially want to say to you, Steveston -” he looked down into the grave, where a half-inch of water had pooled around the plastic-wrapped corpse — “that I’m sorry. In spite of everything, in spite of life being awful, like Jessica says, life was at the same time good for quite a long time. But now….” He tried again. “But now….”

Frost went to the pile of earth beside the grave of Willow and took a large handful of dirt and stood and stretched out his arm and let the dirt trickle from his hand. It rattled loudly on the polyethylene. He said “Goodbye Willow.” He looked at his hand and brushed some remaining mud into the grave. He went to Steveston’s grave and repeated the rite.

People turned to look at Noor and Will. But Will did not go forward to drop earth on his father, and Noor remained beside her brother. So one by one the other residents of Frost’s farm dropped their offerings of earth into the graves. Then they wandered away from the graveyard.

Noor wiped her eyes and kissed her brother on the head and found her weapons and trotted toward the bridge.

Soon Will went closer to watch his grandfather filling the first grave. But he stood far enough away that he could not see where the dirt landed. King stood at the lip of Willow’s grave, keenly watching shovelfuls of earth splash on the plastic. Of the others only Grace now remained. Like someone who felt she did not belong she had been standing back from the rest. She had not come forward to offer earth to the dead. Frost stopped shoveling for a few seconds and watched her until she walked away in the direction of the clinic. Of her and Frost and Will and the dog, she seemed to be the only one who knew it was pouring rain.

45

Frost said “Do you think you could make it so it can scoop water when the tide is going in either direction?”

Daniel Charlie said “That’s a bit of a design problem. I’ll think about it.”

“The water won’t have any salt in it?”

“No, the salt water is heavier, so it sinks. By the time the tide gets this far up the river the salt water is on the bottom.”

“Can you attach the flywheel?”

“No problem.”

They were standing on the riverbank near the unfinished water wheel.

“Could we have it working by the summer?”

“Sure. When all this is over.”

Frost nodded. “Yes, when it’s…. Daniel?”

“What?”

“That day the dogs were poisoned — who all was with Jessica when she cut up the rabbits?”

“Granville.”

“Anyone else? Was Brandon there?”

“I think Jessica said he was there. Being a pest. Watching her work. Singing some stupid song.”

“No one else?”

“Grace. Grace was helping cut them up. Jessica said she was good at it.” After a second he looked sharply at Frost, but Frost turned away and walked down to the water’s edge. Daniel Charlie followed him.

Frost was staring across at the big building near the foot of Fundy’s Bridge. He said “I think we’d better attack. We could surprise them. They’d never expect us to attack.”

“They’d use Wing’s women for shields.”

“There aren’t that many women.”

“They’d kill them, then.”

“Then they wouldn’t have any shields.”

Daniel Charlie said “Either way Wing’s women die.”

“Tyrell would say attack.”

“Tyrell would always say attack. He’d say we could rescue the women. But we couldn’t. They would die.”

Frost nodded again, said “I wonder if there’s another way.”

There was a sound somewhere behind them, grass bending under a foot, an exhalation of breath. They turned. It was Granville. He was trying to smile, showing his five rotted teeth.

Daniel Charlie said “Where the hell did you come from?”

Granville cleared his throat and said “I can be quiet when I have to.”

Nothing about him had changed since that evening when Frost and Daniel Charlie and the guards stood among dead dogs and vomit and diarrhea, watching Granville disappear down the bridge. His mat of red hair was a little longer now, as was his sparse golden beard.

Frost said, ” “Did Langley send you?”

Before Frost finished the question Granville was already shaking his head. He looked afraid. He said “I ain’t seen Langley.”

“You been with his men?”

Granville shook his head vigorously.

Frost and Daniel Charlie stood looking at him. After a minute Frost said “Well?”

“Yeah, I know, Frost. I mean…. I mean….”

“It was you poisoned my dogs, wasn’t it?”

“No, Frost, no.”

“Stop shaking your god damn head. Why’d you run off?”

Granville cowered, looked down. He was trembling.

Frost said, more softly “Just tell me where you went. Come on, we’ll walk.”

Frost and Daniel Charlie, with Granville between them, walked slowly toward the domicile. No one spoke for a few minutes. Then Granville said “I know you think it was me. ’Cause I brung the meat. You think Langley give me skag and I poisoned your dogs for him.”

Frost said “Yes, that’s right. You brought the meat. And you were there when it was cut up.”

“That’s true too. But it wasn’t me.” Granville stopped, looked at Frost, gripped his arm. “I’m a citizen, Frost. You helped me. I wouldn’t do nothin’ to hurt you.”

Frost seemed affected by the claim. “Well then, where were you?”

“I was in the burbs. I made a little house out of branches and that green stuff.”

“Moss?”

“And I come back and snuck into the spud room to get spuds to eat.”

“King didn’t bark?”

“King knows me. I’m the guy who brings the meat.”

Daniel Charlie said “Jesus Christ. It must’ve been cold.”

“Cold. You can say that again.”

Frost said “Why’d you come back if you were scared?”

“No, that’s right, too. But I’m a citizen, Frost. I come to help.”

“Help.”

“Yeah, Frost. I can help.”

“You look like you’ve been thinking about this.”

“I been thinkin’, Frost. I can help. I got an idea.”

“You?”

“I got an idea, Frost.”

“Well, tell me.”

“I can get into Langley’s buildin’ where Wing’s women are.”

Granville waited for a response, but both Frost and Daniel Charlie just gaped. He continued “I can find out stuff. Maybe I can even get them women out.”

Frost and Daniel Charlie exchanged glances. Daniel Charlie said “Do you know how dangerous that would be?”

Granville shrugged, said “Yeah, that’s true too. You can say that again.” He shrugged once more.

Frost said “I have to discuss your idea with Daniel. Right now I want you to go over to Fundy’s. Those other two addicts will be thinking you ran off to get skag. Tell them you didn’t. Tell them you came back because you want to help out. But don’t tell them your idea. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Oh, no way, Frost. You can say that again.”

Granville headed off toward Fundy’s. Frost and Daniel Charlie circled the domicile eight times, walking slowly, discussing Granville’s proposal. Then Daniel Charlie headed back toward the river, and Frost went to the clinic.

He closed the door behind him and stood for a minute looking around the interior. The white sheet still covered the couch. There was a litre bottle half full of alcohol. The hacksaw, the knife and the pliers were on a shelf, and on another shelf the plastic basin and the pages from medical books. There was no skag powder and no bottle of skag-in-water. There was no plastic bag of bandages.

Grace was crouching by the fireplace, where embers glowed and flickered.

Frost said “I’ll distil some more alcohol for you. You ought to find some cloth for more bandages. Why don’t you cut up this sheet?”

Grace stood. The light from the window in the north wall made her wrinkles conspicuous. The skin seemed to adhere to the bone beneath, revealing the shape of her skull.

Frost said “You’ve lost weight. Are you all right?”

She smiled and came to Frost and hugged him, with her face turned away. She said “I should eat more. I know. I’ll try.” Her shaky voice was weak. She pulled the sheet from the couch, which was a dull olive green with a raised pattern. The cushions were collapsed but not torn. “Yes. I’ll wash this and cut it up. We don’t need it on the couch.” She dropped the sheet on the table and sat beside Frost on the couch.

Frost said “We’ve got to be ready. Alcohol, bandages, whatever else we might need.”

“I know, Frost. We’ll be ready. I promise.”

She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her.

He said “If we lose you’ve got to run away. Go back to South.”

“We won’t lose. You’re too smart. Anyway, I won’t leave you.”

“You would die for me?” He pulled away from her slightly so he could look at her. But again she turned her face away.

“I would, Frost. We all would. We all love you. What would this farm be without you? What would any of us be without you?” Now she looked at him. Her smile was trembling. She rubbed his chest, kissed it. “You can win, Frost. You can do it.”

He said “Granville came back.”

She stiffened. She stopped rubbing. She did not look up. She rose, went to the table, started folding the sheet. She said “Did he poison the dogs?”

“Yes.”

She paused, then finished folding the sheet. She laid it again on the table. She leaned on it. She looked out the window at the sallow light. “That’s what everyone thought. But why did he come back?”

Frost stood. “He thought he could lie.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ve already sent him away. I had to, or the others might have killed him when they found out.”

She turned to him. She was beaming. The smile was firm and real. “I’ll need some scissors.”

Frost nodded. She stepped quickly to him and kissed him on the lips. He went out.

As he entered the domicile he looked back. Grace was standing half hidden by a corner of the clinic, watching him.

Slowly he climbed the dark stairs to her floor. He stood for a long time in the dim corridor outside her door. His thumbs were hooked in the twine belt of his trousers. He appeared to be looking down at the floor, or perhaps listening to the sounds of the domicile. A child crying. Voices. Coughing. Jessica came from somewhere and stood beside him. She said “What’s wrong, Frost?” He did not answer or look at her, even when she laid a hand on his shoulder. So she went away. The sound of her footsteps faded in the stairwell. Frost pushed aside the plastic curtain and entered Grace’s room.

He lifted an edge of the mattress and bent and picked up a small black plastic bag. He dropped the mattress and peered into the bag and saw a fistful of powder.

46

When Frost came out of the domicile it was raining. He stopped on the steps and sighed and hung his head for a minute. Then he went and harnessed Beauty and hitched her to a small wagon. He climbed onto the seat and drove to the clinic and waited. Grace came out. She said “Please, Frost.” Frost did not look at her. Then he did. He saw an expression on her face he had never seen before. It was the expression of someone he did not know. He looked away. They were silent for quite a long time, she standing there looking up at him, he staring straight ahead. The rain pattered on the boards of the wagon’s box. Without turning he nodded slightly, and she came around and climbed up and sat on his right. He twitched the reins, and they started out.

They went up onto the trail that ran beside the old freeway. They headed south through the rain. They saw nobody. There were no birds and no rabbits. The coyotes were quiet. The wet brush and mounds of blackberry vine stretched away as far as they could see, punctuated here and there by chimneys. Occasionally there was a small meadow. Beauty’s hooves fell like a pulse on earth softened by rain. Grace was quiet. Frost did not look at her.

They passed the tall building just east of the trail. It leaned but not as much as the domicile. Now there was nothing but the desolate scrub-grown plain of the delta. To the east rose the towers and span of Nobody’s Bridge. Frost felt the wagon seat trembling, but he did not turn to Grace. She said in her torn voice, almost screaming “Frost, I’m sorry!” She gripped his arm so hard that he winced. With his free, left hand he seized her wrist and pulled her hand loose. “I’m sorry! Please!” Without putting her hands to her face she sobbed. It sounded like she was shouting. Beauty looked back and snorted.

After a few minutes Grace was quiet. She hissed “It’s your fault, Frost. You shouldn’t have put me in the clinic. You knew I wasn’t strong.” She glared at him, but he did not turn. “It’s your fault, and now I’m going to die alone out here.”

Frost said nothing, and Grace began to cry again, but more quietly. Finally she quit, and like Frost she stared straight ahead.

Frost said “Whoa” and Beauty stopped. Frost and Grace sat there on the wagon seat staring ahead into the rain for several minutes. Then Frost nodded. After another minute Grace climbed down from the wagon.

Frost turned the wagon and headed north, the way they had come. He had gone perhaps a hundred yards when he heard Grace calling behind him. “Frost, I’m sorry! Please don’t hate me!”

He did not turn.

“Frost, I love you!”

Frost’s face contorted, and his shoulders shook. He snapped the reins to make Beauty go a little faster.

47

The rain had stopped. Daniel Charlie was standing at the top of the old exit, where the trail swung down onto Frost’s farm. Solemnly he watched Frost pass. Frost did not look at him, and neither of them spoke. Daniel Charlie followed the wagon toward the domicile. At the front of the building Frost got down and went in the entrance. Daniel Charlie led Beauty away with the wagon.

Will was waiting outside the door of their apartment. Frost said nothing to him. Will followed him in and said “Is Grace gone?” Frost went and opened a cupboard and took out a green plastic bottle, almost empty. He left the apartment. As he passed Will he said “Yes, she’s gone.”

“Was it her who poisoned the dogs?”

Frost nodded. He went down the dim corridor to the end, where the spud room was. Across from the spud room there was a wooden door with a lock on it. It was a corroded combination lock with the numbers almost worn away. He opened the lock and slipped it into the pocket of his tunic and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked loudly.

The window in the far wall was shuttered like the one in the spud room. Frost opened one of the shutters. Then he went back and pushed the door shut. Below the window sat the still in its mortared fire-pit. Nearby on the floor sat a large white plastic container. It had a wide red lid upon which rested a blue funnel. TOMATO KETCHUP was on the side in faint red letters.

Frost set the funnel into his own bottle and knelt and unscrewed the lid of the big container. He lifted it and held it against his side and poured in the hooch and set the container down. He did not put the lid back on. He went and sat against the wall opposite the still. He drank, winced, stared out the window at the flat grey sky. The room was musty, but cold air spilled in the window and across Frost’s feet. He drank again. When the door hinges squawked he turned. Brandon came in.

Brandon had his own bottle, almost empty. He stood looking down at Frost for a minute. He said “Is that you, Frost?” Then he gave a kind of growl and went and filled his bottle exactly as Frost had done. He came and sat beside Frost. Their shoulders were touching. His smell was musky and strong. He lifted his bottle in a toast, said “Up yours” and drank.

After a while Brandon said “What’s the combination, Frost?”

They drank in silence.

Soon Brandon sang, quietly. “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…”

After an hour Will came in and closed the shutter and helped his grandfather up and out of the hooch room. Brandon filled his bottle again and also went out and down the corridor, bumping from wall to wall. As his grandfather leaned on him Will closed the door, took the lock from Frost’s pocket, hooked it over the staple, clicked it shut and spun the dial.

48

In the dilute dark of predawn King rose from where he had been curled beside a circle of dead embers. He stretched, wagged his tail and went forward to receive a scratch behind the ear from the man who was passing among the sleeping guards. The man, Granville, said nothing, but lifted his hand to the two guards on duty, who nodded back to him.

Granville walked down the bridge and into Town. He stayed on the trail that ran up the middle of the ravaged street, and continued on it where it veered westward. He passed a few low apartment blocks. If there was life inside these buildings there was no sign of it. They were dark and silent. There was no sound but his own careful footsteps along the uneven path, and his own breathing. Before the trail again swung perpendicular to the river he turned off and picked his way cross-country at an angle on a smaller mud path and crossed a scrub-grown lane and then a street and met Town Trail again two blocks north. Here he stopped and waited.

It was going to be a cloudy day, not very cold. Because of thick overcast the morning light was slow in coming. Granville stood looking southward down the street, toward the river. When he could make out the pink of the quilt on the seat of Langley’s rickshaw he backed away until the big building was hidden from view by a two-storey structure that was buried under a heap of blackberry vine.

He squatted and held his head in his hands and rocked from side to side for a few minutes. Then he rose and walked back to the street from which he had withdrawn. He stared again at the rickshaw. He took a breath and walked out into the middle of the street and turned left and started down the trail.

Half a block from the building he stopped and looked up. On the roof, dark against slightly paler clouds, a guard with a crossbow was watching him. Granville lifted a hand to the level of his shoulder and gave a small wave and tried to smile. It started to rain.

He stopped and waited a dozen paces from the street door. No one came out of the building, but he did not go forward to knock or call. From here he could not see if the guard was still on the roof. He closed his eyes and let the drizzle fall on his face, as if it might be the last chance in his life to do so. A small noise came from inside the building.

There were double glass doors. One of these opened without a sound, and Freeway came out. Leaving the door open he glanced at Granville, hawked, spat, came down the building’s three steps, turned, hoisted his long poncho and urinated powerfully against the building’s scabby paint. He dropped the poncho and drew his sword and came toward Granville. He said “God damn you.”

Granville took a step backwards.

Freeway said “You woke me up.” His basso voice was ragged with sleep, like a cement mixer loaded with boulders. He swatted Granville on the arm with the flat of his sword.

Granville winced and said “Ow, don’t!” but did not move.

Freeway looked at him for a few seconds, then said “Frost send you?”

Granville shook his head rapidly, kept shaking it.

“You want skag?”

Granville nodded, again at length.

Freeway said “We trade at the market. Not before breakfast in the god damn rain.” He swatted Granville again. This time Granville managed not to react. Freeway said “Well? Where’s your stuff? You think skag is free? Hey, maybe you can be my breakfast. I give you skag, you let me eat your leg. Yeah.” He poked Granville with the point of his sword. Granville whimpered. “But addicts taste like shit. Well?”

Granville was shaking. He nodded his chin toward the river and Frost’s farm beyond it.

Freeway half turned. What he saw was rain. What he saw was the wet road, with patches of half rotted stems of fireweed in the twisted asphalt, and white-berried leafless bushes. What he did not see was stuff. He looked back to Granville, who said “I’ll give you Frost.”

Freeway observed him for a minute. He sniffed, hawked, spat, walked away. At the glass doors he motioned with his head. He went in and held the door open until Granville had passed him. Then he closed it and slipped his sword under his belt.

Freeway led Granville through a vestibule with a floor of hard tiles. There were two doorways. One led to stairs. Freeway continued through the other, a doorless entry into a large room that smelled of wood smoke. Here there was a carpet. Where it was not worn through to concrete it was as hard as the tiles of the vestibule. There was no furniture. Some of the dawn’s dismal light entered from glassed windows in two walls. In the corner between the two windows stood a heating stove, with split wood heaped near it. A real stovepipe ran through a jagged hole in the wall. From cracks in the stove’s metal, and from the damper near the bottom, orange light leaked. These were the only sources of light within the room itself.

Two soldiers squatted by the stove, one on either side. Each wore a wool poncho and a wool kilt. One had leather sandals, and other had laced work boots. Their matted hair hung loose over their shoulders. They stared at Granville, who had stopped two steps in from the vestibule. Freeway stood over the stove, with his back to Granville, warming his hands. Using a fold of his poncho he opened the lid of the stove. Light from the fire played on the high ceiling. He went to the heap of split wood and took a chunk and dropped it into the stove and closed the lid. He said “I brung breakfast.”

One of the soldiers said “I ain’t eatin’ no more addicts.”

The other one said “They taste like shit.”

Behind Granville someone said in high-pitched irritability “It’s you.”

Granville turned toward the voice. Then he backed a few steps further into the room.

Under his open leather jacket Langley wore a ski sweater with a bright Scandinavian pattern. Long underwear hung down under his jeans, to the tops of furry slippers. He went to the stove and opened it using his sweater. He looked down into the stove for a minute, as the tips of flames licked up into the room. Then, using the sole of his right foot, he kicked one of the soldiers. The man, who had been squatting, crashed onto a shoulder. His kilt slid up, and a pale leg flailed briefly, until he scampered away. The sound of Freeway’s laugh filled the room like a volley of cannons. Langley slammed the stove lid shut and glared at Freeway, who stopped laughing. The other soldier rose, made a wide circle past Langley, and stood leaning in a dark corner.

Langley said “How’s life at Frost’s?”

Although Langley was not looking in his direction, Granville shrugged.

“How come you come so early? I’m grouchy before I eat. You were at my farm –you ought to know that.”

“That’s true too. I mean…. So’s Frost don’t see me. If it’s daylight he can see stuff far away. He’s got one of them things that can make it look close.”

“Frost’s got a block-your-door? Hell, I could use one of them! What else has he got?”

“He’s got bows.”

“I knew that. You snuck here in the dark to tell me he’s got bows?”

“And sharp points on the arrows.”

“Not nails?”

“They made them out of car metal.”

Langley paced in front of the stove. “What else has he got?”

“I know everythin’. I can help you beat him. If you…I mean…”

“If I what? You want to trade, let’s trade.”

Freeway said “He wants skag.”

Langley said “You want skag? You get tired of makin’ the world a better place?” He scratched at his face. “Well, I got skag till the cows come home. You tell me what’s happenin’ at Frost’s, and I’ll keep you so skagged up you can give up walkin’, and just float around like a… like a cloud. You want to float like a cloud? You want to float over that bridge every day or two and tell me what’s happenin’ at Frost’s?”

Granville said “Yeah. That’s what… I mean, you can say that again. But I don’t want skag. I mean, thanks, but…”

Freeway said “You said you wanted skag. God damn you.” He sounded offended. He put his hand on his sword handle.

Langley said to Freeway “Will you shut up?” and to Granville “Okay. Don’t worry. It ain’t time to worry yet. I could still be willin’ to trade. What is it you want, if you don’t want skag? You want to visit one of them women I got upstairs? Or two? Three? Is that what you want? You want to spend some time with that there Snow? She’s worth everythin’ you got to tell about Frost’s Farm and then some. Ain’t that right, Freeway?”

“I don’t know, Langley. You never let me…”

“Didn’t I say shut up?” Then, to Granville “What do you say? What do you say, Planville? Ain’t that your name?”

“It’s Granville. I mean, that’s true too. What you said. But I thought, like, maybe I could stay here. Maybe I could join up with you guys. I mean…”

Langley turned back to the stove and slid the lid aside again and stared at the fire, scratching his face. Without turning he said “You want to be a soldier.”

Granville said nothing.

Langley gently closed the stove lid and turned and said “What if I give you a crossbow? And what if you come up close to Frost? If we were in a fight. What would you do?”

“If I come up close to Frost?”

“That guy who put all that meat on your bones. All that pretty hair on your head.”

“I’d kill him.”

Langley walked across the room and leaned close to Granville’s face. He looked into Granville’s eyes as Granville stood there blinking. Langley said “You would kill Frost, who done so much for you?”

“I would. Just like that.”

“Just like what?”

Granville tried to snap his fingers, could not do it. He said “I mean…”

Langley nodded and went to a window and stood looking out at the miserable dawn. He said quietly “Sounds good to me. I could use a good soldier. Since Frost’s dogs kilt Jericho. Hey, how’d you get past them guards up on the bridge? And that dog they got left.”

Granville said nothing. Langley turned toward him and said “Hm?”

“I snuck.”

“You snuck through Frost’s guards.”

Granville nodded.

“That’s a hell of a sneak.”

“Oh yeah. You can say that…”

Langley stretched, yawned. “Well, come on soldier, let’s see if we can find some breakfast.”

Granville followed him out the door, and Freeway and the two soldiers fell in behind Granville. There was no light in the stairwell. Langley climbed the stairs quickly. Granville managed to keep up, managed not to trip or get trampled by the three men behind him. They came out into a hallway, into which a hint of light emerged from a doorway. They passed through this doorway. Langley said “Go and find this soldier and me some breakfast.” The footsteps of Freeway and the two men faded up the stairwell.

They were in another large room. This one also had windows, but there was glass in only one of them. The other was covered by plastic. There was no stove nor any kind of fire. It was very cold. Against the windowless wall to the left six women were huddled in a tight group. In the poor light there was no colour to their sleeveless rag dresses, their faces or their hair. Without taking their eyes from Langley and Granville they slid closer together. One of them was pregnant. One of them was very young. She pushed herself back against another woman, who put both arms around her and held her close.

Langley said “Here they are. My women-folk. Ain’t they a pretty bunch? Shit, they ain’t even worth feedin’. Only reason they’re alive is to keep Frost from chargin’ in here. With them pointed arrows you say he’s got. Except for Snow. She’s worth feedin’. Worth skaggin’ too. Which I suppose I shouldn’t of started her on. Gettin’ kind of skinny. Don’t want food no more. Just skag.”

At the sound of the word the girl lifted her head, straightened a little. The woman holding the girl wrapped her arms more fully around her.

“I ought to cut her off.” Langley scratched at his face. “Jesus it’s cold in here. But that would be a problem, and I already got enough problems. Think I’ll just send her over to Frost’s. The way I sent that other one. That Willow. What do you think? Is that a good idea, Planville? To cut her throat and dump her somewhere where Frost is likely to trip over her?”

“What? I mean….”

“I said…. What the hell you shakin’ for? Didn’t I already say you could be a soldier? You ain’t scared, are you? A soldier can’t be scared, you know. Especially when there ain’t nothing to be scared of. What I was askin’ was, I was askin’ if you think it’s a good idea to cut that pretty little throat and dump that pretty little throat where Frost is going to for sure stumble over it and fall down and bruise his skinny old ass?”

“It is. It’s a good idea, Langley. I guess. Unless…. I mean….”

“’Cause I believe Frost needs more encouragement, Planville. To get off that farm. That`s my opinion. But I need your advice, soldier. That’s what you come here for, ain’t it — to give me advice about Frost? Well, I’m askin’ for it, so start doin’ your job. What I’m askin’ is, would it help to speed things along if you cut her throat for me so`s I could send her across the river for Frost to trip over? I wouldn’t ask you to do that — carry her over there. You’d have to haul her the long way round, see, over Wing’s Bridge, and I can tell you ain’t got the muscle for that. But it don’t take much muscle to run a sharp knife through young skin. And I got a knife so sharp I use it to shave this god damn itchy face. So, what do you say, Planville? Would that do the trick with Frost? Are you shakin’ again or are you just shakin’ your head? Is that a no?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. That wouldn’t do the trick? No way.”

Langley looked at Granville with surprise and delight. “Hey! There we are! I got some advice from my new soldier! Jesus it’s cold in here. Where the hell’s my breakfast? Them guys were just jokin’ about eatin’ addicts. We’re still eatin’ Wing’s cows. So you think I ought to cut her off.”

“I don’t know, Langley. I mean, that’s true too. What you said. You can say that again. I just know about Frost. Not girls. I mean….”

Langley patted Granville’s shoulder three times. “There’s an honest answer. You’re going to be a good soldier. Maybe I’ll send her to Frost’s, and maybe I won’t. But I ain’t going to cut her off. Hell, I got skag till the cows come home. Maybe she’s skinny, but she’s still better than anything else you can find around here. ’Except that Noor. And we’ll talk about that Noor after breakfast. That okay with you, soldier?”

“Yeah. That’s okay. I mean…. Yeah. We’ll talk about Noor after breakfast. I know all kinds of stuff.” He had stopped shaking.

“You do? Well, that’s wonderful. So, you ready for breakfast?”

Granville nodded. “You can say that again. I mean…”

“I wasn’t talkin’ to you. I was talkin’ to her. You ready for breakfast, Snow?” Langley slid a hand into his jeans pocket. He tugged out a clear plastic bag. The room had lightened slightly — some powder was visible in the bottom of the bag. Using two hands Langley carefully opened the bag, lifted it to his face, peered into it. He nodded, then turned to Granville. “You want to feed her?”

Langley just stared at him.

“You used to be an addict. You know how it goes. Just lick your finger and get a little skag, and she’ll take it from you. She’s trained good.” He held the bag out.

With two fingers of his right hand Granville accepted the bag. The fingers did not tremble. He looked at the girl.

She shrugged away from the woman who was holding her and crawled toward Granville on her hands and knees. The sleeveless dress slid off one shoulder, and a tiny breast appeared. Compared to the arms and face, whose colour was now discernable, the breast was very white. She looked up at Granville as she crawled toward him. There were dark bags below her eyes, but the eyes were wide and eager in the skull shape of her face. Her long hair dragged on the floor. Her hands and knees thumped softly against the hardened carpet. But yet she was so pretty.

Granville transferred the plastic bag from his right hand to his left. He looked at Langley. Langley nodded, smiled. Granville licked his right index finger and inserted it cautiously into the bag. When he took it out there was a smudge of powder stuck to its tip. He looked at Langley again. Langley nodded again, smiled again.

The girl took hold of Granville’s poncho and used it to pull herself up onto her knees. The hands and the nails were clean. There was a strong and beautiful smell of flowers. The pubescent breast was there like a moon in the half-dark. The nipple nudged the wool of Granville’s poncho as she tilted her head back and opened her mouth. She did not take her eyes from his. He could see the pink of her tongue. He held his finger down to her. She closed rough lips around it. He felt her tongue run over and over the tip of the finger.

She slid her lips down and off the finger. Then she turned and crawled back to the women. They made a space, and she curled on her side among them. While never looking away from the two men, the five women each laid a hand on the child.

Langley closed his hand around the bag and took it away from Granville with a small tug. He said “Ain’t she somethin’?”

Granville cleared his throat. “You can say that again. I mean….”

“So, you like my house?”

Granville nodded enthusiastically.

“Think you could live here?”

“Oh yeah. I could live here.”

“What Frost wouldn’t give to know the secrets of this building, eh, soldier?”

“That’s true too. I mean, what he wouldn’t give.”

“I’m sure he’d like to know where I keep the women. In case he wanted to try and get them out of here. I bet he’d like to know where my soldiers sleep too. In case he decided to attack. How much food we got. So’s he could decide to try and starve us out or not. Whether this place could burn. You think this place could burn, Planville?”

“It’s not made of wood. But Frost already knows that. So…. I mean….”

“There you go! More important information about Frost — Frost ain’t going to try and burn me out!” With his free hand he slapped Granville on the shoulder. Then he slid the skag back into his pocket. “But it’s plain as day that bitch ain’t good for nothin’.” He reached under his sweater and drew out a long hunting knife. “Only thing she’s good for is sending a message to Frost.”

The women all started whimpering, except for Snow, who lay quiet among them.

Langley pivoted the knife so that the handle was toward Granville. The handle was made of antler. One side of it was dark and rough, the other paler and smooth. Granville said “Go on, take it. I trust you. I trust all my soldiers.”

Granville put his hand behind his back.

Langley jabbed the handle toward Granville. “It’s sharp as a god damn razor. You know what a razor is? Just grab hold of her hair, and pull her head back, and one slice and it’s over. Hey, you all right, soldier? You look kind of white.”

Granville smiled weakly, gave a little groan. He did not move his hand toward the knife.

“It’s the air in here, ain’t it? It’s the smell comin’ off of that disgustin bunch. Or is it that smell comin’ off of Snow? It’s got your head spinnin’, ain’t it? It’s called perfume. Dior. Never mind, I don’t want no blood in here anyways. Which would smell even worse. You can take her outside and do it.” Langley stood there for a minute, holding the knife for Granville to take, looking straight into his eyes. Then he said “After breakfast.”

He winked and put the knife away under his sweater. “Come on.” He started toward the doorway and signalled with his head for Granville to follow. “I got a few things I want to show you before we eat. Things a new soldier ought to know. I want to show you where my soldiers sleep. I want to show you how much food we got. Some parts of this building would burn, did you know that? If someone shot a burnin’ arrow through a window? I’ll show you what I’m talkin’ about. There’s other ways to get out of this place too. Emergency exits they used to call them. In case any of us ever wants to make a quick escape. I’ll show you the roof too. It’s astoundin’ what a person can see from up there.”

“It was a bad idea. Bad idea” said Frost. He shook his head. He looked very tired.

“Maybe” said Daniel Charlie. “But it was his idea. Nobody forced him.”

Frost, Daniel Charlie and Wing stood in light rain at the cusp of Fundy’s Bridge. They had spears and bows. Wing’s men, Nordel, Bridgeport, Pender, Mitchell and Burnaby stood in a group nearby. Like Frost and Daniel Charlie and Wing they were looking northward, toward the big building near the foot of the bridge.

Wing said “He done somethin’ good. He can be proud of himself now. Not like before. Bad idea, good idea — it don’t matter.” From under his rabbit skin hat his fine white hair hung down to the soaked fabric of his red warm-up jacket.

Frost and Daniel Charlie turned and looked at him for a minute. Finding no rejoinder to his philosophy, they gave their attention again to the big building. Frost took off his glasses and slipped them into a pocket under his poncho. He raised the binoculars. “I can see into his windows from here. If it wasn’t dark inside I could see what they were doing.”

Daniel Charlie said “If we had any ham we could have ham and eggs if we had any eggs.”

Frost lowered the binoculars, said in a low and weary voice “Tell me that again in a few days. After we’re done with this business. If I’m still alive I’ll laugh.”

Wing scratched his chin. The wisp of white beard trembled.

Frost said “What?”

Wing said “I’m just thinkin’ — have I ever seen you laugh?”

Frost raised the binoculars again. He saw Langley and Granville on the roof. They were standing at the edge. He said “Can you see them?”

Daniel Charlie said “From here I can even tell the colour of Granville’s hair. What do you think’s goin’ on?”

Frost said nothing.

Langley stepped behind Granville. With his thumbs and index fingers he made circles around his eyes. He looked toward Frost and the others and held that pose for a few seconds. Then he spread his arms, raised a foot and rammed it into Granville’s back. Frost closed his eyes, but he heard Granville’s scream as he fell, sharp as a the cry of a gull.

49

It finished on a dark and windy afternoon of late winter.

Frost stood with Tyrell halfway down his bridge toward Town, looking through the binoculars and making low sounds of disgust and anger. He said “You still want to be a general?”

“The only thing I want to do is what you tell me to do.”

“You were never one for diplomacy. So I know you’re not lying.”

“What the hell is diplomacy?”

“Answered like a true general.” Frost looked down at Tyrell, who was more than a head shorter. Frost’s curly beard was matted and disordered. Wrinkles had grown deep on his forehead and around his blue eyes, into which pain was set finally like a lens of ice. And yet he smiled.

In what appeared to be a ceremonial gesture they slowly swept their bows aside. They embraced. Frost kissed Tyrell’s hair and let his cheek rest for a few seconds against the cropped grey curls. Then he stood back and slipped the binoculars from around his neck. “Here, General. Your work is cut out for you.”

But Tyrell shook his head. “Even with the one eye I got I can see what the cockroach is up to.”

At the bottom about fifty soldiers were arranged in rows across the full width of the bridge. In front of the soldiers stood a mass of emaciated men and women, naked or wrapped or partially wrapped in torn sheets of plastic. As if it were an aspect of the wind that was increasing as the day darkened, a general moaning rose from this crowd, punctuated by occasional braying cries. The addicts scuffled in place and moved their arms in cramped gesticulations of confusion and terror and turned again and again to look behind them, where the soldiers stood with crossbows raised.

Tyrell walked to the western railing and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Stay there” he called. “They`ll go your way if you leave it clear.” His voice was like a volley of cannon shots. The crowd of addicts was silent for a second, then started up again. There was no reply from Fundy’s Bridge except for Wing waving his red warm-up jacket. Then there was a clang on the railing a yard away from where Tyrell stood, followed by the whine of a ricochet and then a noise like a twig snapping.

Tyrell walked unhurriedly, very erect, back to Frost. Together they turned and jogged up the bridge.

Three of the guards and Noor and Jessica and Daniel Charlie stood watching from the cusp of the bridge. Will was there too, with King. Frost and Tyrell crouched behind Richmond and Airport, who had spears and shields as well as bows and swords. Frost said “Better stay down. He’s got the gun.”

Airport said “Is that what we heard? Can it shoot through rusty car-metal?”

Frost did not answer.

Noor stepped forward. She said “Those are addicts.”

Frost nodded and said “Get down.” He reached up, but she shook his hand from her shoulder. She stood there staring coldly down the bridge. She was now the tallest shape in the crowd of defenders. The wind picked up. It bore sharp spits of rain.

Frost crept back to Will. “Run back to the domicile. If anybody wants to fight, tell them to bring their bows.”

Will said “Let’s go, King!”

King had been lying with his head on his paws. He now leapt up, barking and mouthing at Will’s arm.

But Tyrell said “King gots to stay here. He’s our best fighter.”

Will said “But he could get hurt.”

Both Frost and Tyrell nodded.

Will thumped to his knees and hugged the dog, who twisted his head to lick Will’s cheek. Will said “Stay, King.” Then he turned and sprinted down the slope toward Frost’s farm. King stood there whining after him.

Frost watched Will go. Then he went back to his position behind Airport.

Langley’s soldiers were moving up the bridge. The addicts were making more noise now. They went forward only because the soldiers were shoving and kicking them or prodding them with swords and crossbows. The progress was ragged. Shouts of frustration from the soldiers blended with the wailing of the addicts, who dodged the blows of the soldiers when they could and tried to dance sideways or even backwards.

Behind the troops Langley’s rickshaw was visible, approaching at the same laborious rate. From time to time, between the jostling bodies, there was a flicker of his pink quilt.

Daniel Charlie climbed over the lane divider and crept beside Frost. He said “He’s a smart son of a bitch. He knows we won’t shoot on account of the addicts. What’s our plan?”

Frost just shook his head. “Ask the general.”

Daniel Charlie looked at Tyrell, who said “We wait till they get closer. Then we back up.”

“You’re sayin’ we give up? We let them have the farm?”

Tyrell looked at Daniel Charlie with disgust.

“What, then?”

Tyrell said “Once they’re on the farm we can spread out around them. They won’t be able to put the addicts in front.”

“They’ll put the addicts in a circle around the soldiers.”

“They’ll be thinned out. We’ll shoot between them.”

The guards — Airport, Boundary and Richmond — now simultaneously and loudly offered affirming or dissenting opinions. Noor appeared to have heard none of the discussion. She remained tall and upright, with her face wet from the stinging rain. She stared down the slope toward the soldiers. With their agitated human shield, they were two-thirds of the way up the bridge.

Noor stepped forward past Airport’s shield and turned her back on Langley and his men. She shouted “Stand up! Aim your bows and start screamin’!”

Tyrell said “What the hell?”

Noor said “Just do it! Do it now!”

Frost rose first. He shook an arrow from his bag. He fitted it to his bowstring and drew the bow. Noor did the same. Airport, Richmond and Boundary let their shields clatter to the pavement as they stood. Daniel Charlie and Jessica also stood and drew their bows. Tyrell rose last, but it was his roar that caused the addicts to freeze and then to panic.

The soldiers slapped with their swords at the naked or half-naked figures, who refused to go forward toward the raised bows and the war-shrieks. Afraid of advancing but unable to retreat, they darted over the lane divider in both directions. In the generally sideways course of the commotion they fell over one another. One of them dodged around one side of the pack of soldiers and escaped down the sidewalk toward Town. Another, a woman, tried to follow.

Behind the soldiers, above them, Langley rose in his rickshaw. There was no room for him to stand. He slashed at the frame of the rickshaw’s roof with the rifle. It tore free and hung by a shred of fabric against his shoulder. He elbowed the dangling roof aside and aimed the rifle. As the woman bumped past a soldier on the sidewalk and bolted for freedom he shot her.

She flung up an arm and stumbled into the railing. She dropped to her knees for a moment but then rose again and continued running, although not fast. A big man — it was Freeway — jogged up behind her. With the hand not holding his crossbow he jerked her backward by a strand of her stringy hair. Without breaking stride he released her hair and clamped her arm in the same hand. He half-spun and tossed the woman over the railing.

Noor turned to her grandfather and the others. She had stopped screaming. She lowered her bow. The others, Tyrell first this time, also fell silent and lowered their bows. Noor motioned for them to move to the sides of the bridge. Airport and Richmond dragged their shields to the west sidewalk. Boundary dragged his to the east. The others, except for Noor, crouched behind the guards. King whined until Frost called him over and held him by his side.

Noor remained in the middle of the bridge. She raised her bow above her head. Then she slowly laid it on the pavement. She stepped up onto the lane divider and balanced there with her arms spread wide.

But her gesture of welcome was unnecessary. The addicts had already covered half the distance between Langley’s soldiers and Frost’s people. No crossbow was fired. There was a rifle shot, but no one was hit. Then Richmond’s shield gave a twitch. Daniel Charlie, who was crouched behind Richmond, cried “Ow! God damn it!” as they heard the crack of this new shot.

Daniel Charlie tugged his poncho up over his right shoulder. Blood was trickling down his upper arm. He looked at the wound angrily. With a fingernail he hooked the slug out of the shallow depression it had made.

Richmond was trying to pick a flake of rust out of his eye.

Frost said “You OKAY, Daniel?”

“Yeah. I’m wearing my eagle feather. Nothing can kill me.”

“Richmond?”

“I’m OKAY now.” He rose on his knees and heaved the shield over the railing.

The skag addicts ran past with faces of animal terror. One or two managed a glance at their saviours. One held up her hand to touch Noor’s as she passed. There was a swooshing of plastic. There was a smell of sick and filthy bodies.

Noor jumped down from the lane divider.

Tyrell walked back out into the roadway. He fitted an arrow and let it fly. The wind caught the light cattail cane and carried it wide of the bridge.

The others starting shooting arrows. There was the sound of a shot. No one was hit. A crossbow bolt skipped off the pavement and bounced past Noor and after the addicts. Several more sailed over the heads of Frost’s people.

Frost turned and saw one of the addicts fall. Beyond, he also saw Newton, Hastings, Oak and Marpole. He saw Deas. Well behind them he saw Kingsway and Night and Brittany and Rain and half-a-dozen others from the domicile. They had bows and were running up the bridge. One-armed Salmon held a spear. He saw old Joshua. He saw old Christopher, with his waist-length fringe of white hair flying. He saw Brandon. Far behind them Amber was hobbling as fast as she could, leaning on a bow instead of her rebar. They all moved aside and proceeded along the sidewalks to let the addicts pass.

Frost turned back toward the Town end of his bridge. The soldiers had stopped advancing. Frost raised his bow. He aimed low, so the arrow would bounce and continue if it landed short. He tried to allow for the wind.

King stood beside Frost, barking like mad.

50

To the north Will saw Wing and the others on Fundy’s Bridge. But he turned in the opposite direction and sailed down a concrete embankment with his arms thrown wide for balance and carried on running across boggy ground toward Fundy’s house.

So that his bow would not get in the way he backed through the layers of heavy plastic covering the doorway. There was a woman’s shout of fear as he burst backward into the room. He stopped and lifted his bow to begin to say what he had to say, but he found he could not speak. He had no breath. He leaned on his knees and rasped air into his lungs.

A woman in a long dress came and helped him toward a couch, from which rose two women holding babies. But once there he shook his head and would not sit. He turned to the people in the dim room. He held his bow up again, but still could not speak.

The room was full of women. Most of them wore dark floor-length dresses and had their hair hidden under headscarves. There was also a woman in camouflage trousers and a man’s dirty dress shirt. She was one of the addicts who had stayed at the domicile. She smiled tentatively. Little Skytrain sat in the middle of the floor among the bare feet of the women. Like the others, he watched Will.

Among the women there was one man, who sat on a skin rug near the fireplace. He wore Will’s grandfather’s old gold-rimmed glasses and his grandfather’s square-toed leather shoes. Another man now entered from an adjoining room. It was old Moses, in his patched suit, clutching his bible. He gave Will an angry stare. Behind him Solomon came in. He pushed past Moses and went to Will. “Where’s Noor?” he said. “Is Noor coming?”

Young Surrey now stood in the door to the stairwell. He seemed reluctant to come any closer.

Will could finally say to the room at large “Get your bows. Hurry.”

Moses took a quick step toward Will. He said “What?” and held his bible as if he might strike Will with it. Solomon poked Will and said “Where’s Noor? Where’s Noor?”

The plastic over the door to outside parted. A one-legged man with a T-shaped crutch made out of two-by-two came in. He nodded briefly to Will and said “Langley’s attacking!”

Will shouted “Get your bows! You can all help!” But there was now such a commotion that he was ignored.

The man with the crutch came close to Will. “Is that what Frost says? Does Frost say come with our bows?”

Will looked back silently for a second before saying to the man “You can all help.”

The man gave Solomon a swat with his crutch and nodded toward the door that led to another room. Solomon said “No! I want to see Noor!” The man swatted him again. Moaning loudly, Solomon went through the plastic that covered the door. A few seconds later he came back, struggling under a messy armful of Daniel Charlie’s bows. He dropped these at the feet of the man with the crutch, whom he regarded with an expression of fear and fury.

The man with the crutch shouted to the room “Listen! Listen! We’ve got to help. If we don’t help, they’ll kill the rest of us.”

The first to come forward and slide a bow from the tangled pile was the woman in the camouflage trousers.

Will gripped Solomon’s arm. He said “Noor says she wants you to help.”

Will ran full out, but Solomon kept pace with him. In the rain and the fading light Wing and his men watched them race toward them up the shallow slope of Fundy’s Bridge. Wing ran a ways down the bridge to meet them. “What does Frost want us to do, Will? Tyrell says stay here, but…”

Solomon continued past Wing to a man from Fundy’s crew, one of the survivors of Langley’s attack on Fundy’s farm. In his quacking voice Solomon shouted “Noor says we got to fight! We got to fight! We got to fight!”

Wing laid a hand on Will’s shoulder. They walked the short distance to the others as Will caught his breath. The men all watched him. There were only three of Fundy’s crew. Among them was a boy near his age. Wing’s men were there too — Nordel, Bridgeport, Pender and Mitchell.

Solomon was still haranguing Fundy’s man. “Let’s fight! Noor says!”

Will was unhurried now. He said loudly to Solomon “Noor says Solomon has to be quiet and listen.”

And so Solomon could do nothing but try to convey his message with flapping hand signals and by waving his bow, and with body-feints toward the Town end of the bridge. Except for his low whines and the scrape of his sandals on the pavement and the hiss of the rain and wind, it was almost quiet. But when the wind dropped for a few seconds there were shouts from Frost’s Bridge a quarter-mile away. There were screams that caused the men to stiffen as they tried not to look in that direction.

Will cleared his throat. He said “One of the strongest weapons of offensive warfare is the surprise attack.”

For a few seconds no one said anything. Then Wing said “What?”

Will said “Von Clausewitz.”

“What? Will, please. Just tell us what Frost wants us to do. Do we stay here or what?”

One of Fundy’s men pointed down the bridge the way Will and Solomon had come. He said “What the hell?”

The women had reached the foot of the bridge. They all carried bows. The young woman in the camouflage trousers was well out in front of the rest.

Will said “Only when we cut off the enemy’s line of retreat are we assured of great success in victory.”

Wing thought for a moment, said “That don’t sound like Frost.”

Will stood there looking at Wing. He turned for a second to watch the pack of women in their long dresses running up the bridge through the rain. He turned back to Wing, stood there looking at him again. He said “Grampa says follow me.”

Then he was running toward the Town end of the bridge with Solomon and the boy at his side. The wind and the slap of their steps and the clatter of arrows in the plastic bags at their sides drowned out the distant screams.

The wind was like a hand in the air that batted the lengths of cattail cane toward the upriver edge of the bridge. Deas said “Langley’s even talked the wind into working for him.” Then he shouted and fell, and there was the crack of the 22. But he rose again and took his weight on one foot and did not even look down at the red blotch on his poncho at the thigh. He fitted an arrow and let it fly and then fitted another. Like the others, he aimed downriver, off the side of the bridge. And now, like the arrows of the others, his arrows bounced upriver on the wind and swooped into the midst of the soldiers.

As they fitted their arrows Frost’s people crouched in two files behind the car-metal shields of Airport and Boundary. They stood, shot and crouched again. Airport and Boundary rested their shields at an angle on the pavement. There were deafening crashes as crossbow bolts struck the shields and ricocheted upward.

Airport and Boundary could not support the shields and use their bows at the same time. Airport reached behind him and dragged Salmon around to take his place. Her one arm was enough to hold the shield. She sat there with her head ducked, holding the shield at the necessary angle. Boundary swapped places with Brittany, who fit easily behind the car trunk lid. He and Airport stood and stepped away from the shields. They reached mechanically for arrow after arrow in the bags at their sides. There was not a second when the air between Frost’s people and the soldiers was not swarming with cattail canes tipped with sharpened metal.

Frost and Tyrell and Noor and Daniel Charlie and Richmond, who had pitched his shield off the bridge, stood in the open with Airport and Boundary. Crossbow bolts hissed past their shoulders, or bounced on the pavement between them and went skittering along the bridge, or caught some wrinkle or clump of winter weeds in the pavement and buzzed toward them end over end. Frost hauled King behind him and ordered him to stay. The occasional cracks of the 22 were barely heard among the noise of the bolts whirring past or striking pavement or corroded metal or sometimes clanging off the bridge railing or a support.

Frost could see that a hundred and fifty yards down the bridge Langley’s men were a bleeding mess. He could hear the screams of the badly wounded. He saw two or three bodies among the feet of the soldiers. He saw that the bolts were flying toward his people with less frequency as cut soldiers had trouble loading their crossbows. Behind the soldiers he saw that Langley was not in his rickshaw.

Deas slid out from the file of Frost’s people behind Salmon’s shield. He gave up trying to stand on his wounded leg. He sat on the wet pavement and dumped his bag of arrows out beside him and held his bow horizontally and continued shooting arrows down the bridge. Then he dropped his bow and clapped his hands to his face and shouted, and there was the report of the 22 like a twig snapping. Holding his face, he struggled to his feet and hobbled down the bridge back toward Frost’s farm.

Then a cartwheeling bolt knocked Daniel Charlie’s feet from under him, and he slammed to the pavement full length on his side. Frost tried to help him up, but Daniel Charlie shook his head. Still sitting, he held his bow horizontally as Deas had, and fitted an arrow.

Frost wrapped a hand around his bag of arrows. He could feel that there were not many left. He turned and told King to settle down, but King would not be silenced. Then there was a muted pop, and Brittany’s shield fell back on top of her. Frost saw the clean hole where the bolt had penetrated. Jessica crawled forward and hauled Brittany out from under the shield. There was a crossbow bolt protruding at an angle from Brittany’s forehead. Jessica scooped up her limp body and raced away down the bridge, wailing “No, no, no.”

In the confusion of other sounds Frost faintly heard what sounded like Langley’s voice. It was a few words, maybe a command, but the whine was unmistakeable. Frost looked away from Jessica, from the dangling stick-like legs of the body in her arms, and he saw Langley’s men drop their crossbows and draw their swords and charge up the bridge shouting. For the bleeding bunch that they were they moved fast. Frost’s people did not stop shooting arrows, but the range was different now. Arrows sailed over the heads of the soldiers. And when King took off full speed toward the soldiers some of Frost’s people stopped shooting completely so as not to hit the dog.

A heavier layer of raincloud had moved in with the dying day, so that now it was almost dark. But Will could see well enough what was happening up ahead on the Town-side slope of his grandfather’s bridge. At the crest, against a strip of southern sky paler than the rest of the overcast, he saw Frost’s tall thin form. He saw his sister, almost as tall. He saw the nameless silhouettes of the others. They were shooting arrows at close range into a confused mass of men. There were screams from these men.

Will and Solomon and the boy stood among a jumble of crossbows. A kind of two-wheeled cart stood empty except for a rifle that lay on a tangled pink quilt. Two men lay among the crossbows. They twisted from side to side and moaned with each exhalation. Another sat leaning back on his hands. He said “Give me a hand, eh?” An arrow protruded from his stomach. “Jesus Christ, give me a hand, will you?”

There was the barely audible tick of something skipping off the pavement up ahead, then another, closer, tick, and an arrow skidded and caught under a crossbow.

The man said “Please.”

Will felt around for something to hang on to. There was nothing. He heard running footsteps behind him. He turned and stood there wavering. It was young Surrey. The boy did not have a bow. He ignored Will and Solomon and the other boy. He ran to the wounded man who was leaning back on his hands. The man said “Give me a hand, will you, kid?” The man’s sword was lying beside him on the pavement. Surrey snatched it up and set to slashing at the man and shrieking. The man screamed and tried to protect himself with his arms.

Bent, with his hands reaching weakly toward the bloody pavement, Will shuffled a few feet back down the bridge. He half turned. Surrey was still slashing and screaming. The man was on his side with his arms around his head. Solomon had a sword now too. He was repeatedly stabbing one of the other wounded men. He shouted “You hurt my daddy! I hate you!” The other boy was standing there watching.

Will also dimly saw the battle near the crest of the bridge. The cloud had thinned a little, permitting the last light of the day to reveal that the soldiers had advanced no further. More of them had fallen. Many of the others were dancing away from a low form that dodged silently and rapidly among them.

In a mass the soldiers turned and ran. King pursued them. Soldiers cried out and stumbled as he bit, but most of them kept running free and fast toward Will and the others. They had not dropped their swords.

Surrey was still slashing at the man, who was still screaming with every stroke. Solomon had moved on to the third wounded man and was holding the sword with both hands and was stabbing him deeply and repeatedly. With each thrust he shouted “I hate you!”

A feeble cry of warning came from Will, but neither Surrey nor Solomon nor the boy appeared to hear him. The running soldiers were close. Will could see their panicked faces. With one hand outstretched, he headed for Surrey, still making his weak cries of warning.

Then behind him he heard two sounds. He stopped and looked back down the bridge. The first sound was the clattering of several pairs of sandals. It was Nordel, Bridgeport, Pender, Mitchell and the young woman in camouflage. They were racing up from the Town end of the bridge. They were about the same distance away as the approaching soldiers.

The second sound, a background to the racket of the sandals, resembled a keen wind, as if a concentrated storm had formed at the Town end of the bridge. Will shivered and stood upright and gaped. Well behind Bridgeport, Pender, Mitchell and the young woman in camouflage the bows of Fundy’s women were like pale stitches flashing in the fabric of the single dark shape they made as they howled toward Will up both lanes of the bridge. In the centre of that shape Wing’s scarlet warm-up jacket pulsed erratically.

51

Will leaned on the eastern railing, holding his bow and staring blankly down at the river. He had finished crying. The rain had stopped. It was too dark to discern colour, but the water gathered a little light from somewhere. With its manic eddies invisible in the growing darkness the river, the wide slouched form of it, seemed to brood between its darker banks. There was a splash, not loud. Will saw the spray toward the middle of the river, hardly visible. There was a scream up the bridge. There was another splash, of a soldier leaping or a body thrown.

Will closed his eyes and laid his forehead against the wet metal railing. The screams continued. The splashes. After a while there were no more screams, only the splashes at almost regular intervals.

Will stood upright and turned away from the river. The three men lay twisted and still among the jumbled crossbows. The rickshaw stood there empty, with its roof hanging loose, its rain-soaked comforter, the rifle slantwise across the seat. Someone passed on the other side of the bridge, on the western sidewalk, a man in a dark jacket and trousers walking purposefully toward Town. The man carried a sword but did not turn toward Will. For a minute Will watched him continue down the bridge. The man neither glanced back nor altered his pace. The one-legged man from Fundy’s house was labouring up the middle of the bridge on his crutch. He stopped and also turned to watch the man pass and merge step by step with the night. Will looked up the bridge, dimly made out the quiet and slowly shifting forms of people. He dropped his bow and started up the sidewalk.

As he approached the scene of the fight he stepped from the sidewalk and walked alongside the lane divider so as to avoid the pairs of men, or man and woman, or woman and woman who were carrying bodies to the railing and struggling them over and letting them drop. King was lying beside the divider. He raised his head and whined as Will drew near. He managed to stand unsteadily and to take three or four halting steps as he wagged his tail. Will fell to his knees and let King lick his face. As he hugged the dog he felt the slick wetness seeping and spreading over the fur. He lifted the animal, who weighed as much as he did, and walked with him cradled in his arms through the sprawl of corpses.

In the main room of Frost’s apartment, by the poor light of a peat fire, the wounded were tended. Daniel Charlie sat on the narrow plastic-covered mattress under the window. One leg was extended and resting on a concrete building block. The ankle was splinted with a length of one-by-two and wrapped in white cloth. Against his upper arm a dark circle stained the wool of his poncho. One hand lay limp, palm upward, on the mattress. His braid hung forward over his shoulder, and the other hand loosely gripped the threadbare eagle feather. His chin rested on his chest. His eyes were closed.

Deas lay in front of the fire. His poncho was hitched above the thigh, which was wrapped in the same cloth as Daniel Charlie’s ankle. His the face was bandaged, and the bandages were blotched red. Jessica was holding his head up and was letting him drink some skag in water.

For a minute Frost stared at the small bag Jessica held in the same hand as the bottle, as the weak light winked against the plastic. It was the bag he had found under Grace’s mattress. Then he continued helping Will administer to King, who stood swaying as they wrapped his wounds. Frost carried King to the fireplace and laid him beside Deas.

Salmon sat against the edge of the table, holding a plastic bottle of alcohol in her single hand. She seemed stunned. She stared blankly. Old Brandon stood in the doorway with his bow held loose at his side. Like Salmon he appeared rooted, mute and incapable of action, although his lips worked, perhaps feeling through his battered memory for a song. When the bow dropped from his fingers he did not seem to notice. A few residents muttered out in the hallway. Someone had looked after the addicts. The rest of the residents were elsewhere, in their rooms or walking the dark farm, sickened by what they had been capable of.

Frost left the apartment. He passed Marpole, Hastings and Oak. They looked at Frost as if he might be able to fix what they were feeling. Frost touched each of them lightly and continued on to the hooch room. For a few minutes he tried to guess where the numbers of the combination were on the dial of the lock. Then Hastings came with a burning cattail to help him see. Marpole carried the heavy white plastic container of hooch back to Frost’s apartment, and the guards rooted through cupboards for containers.

Will was kneeling beside King, stroking his head. Frost motioned for him to stand. As Will did so Frost gripped him beneath the arms as if he were a toddler and lifted him, and Will wrapped his legs around Frost’s waist. Carrying his grandson, pausing to close the door to the smaller room where Brittany lay dead, Frost walked from his apartment.

He walked out and down the steps and to the graveyard. The overcast had torn in places, and there was a tossed handful of stars. A paleness in the remaining cloud-cover indicated the position of the moon. It was too dark to make out any of the markers, but Frost stepped surely among the graves.

Will’s head rested on his shoulder. The boy’s warm breath touched his neck. Frost said “Soon spring.” He felt the slight movement as Will nodded. “It’s been a wet winter. There’ll be a good crop.” He set Will down, and they walked hand in hand to the river bank. He said “Do you think Daniel will ever finish the water wheel?”

Will tried to speak, could not at first find his voice, then said simply “Mm hm.”

“That’ll be good for the spuds. Especially if we have a dry year.” Suddenly the moon slid full and powerful into a gash in the cloud-cover. He looked over Will’s head and saw a dark form caught against a bush at the edge of the water. The pale shafts of three cane arrows glowed in the moonlight. By the bulk of the body it could be no one else but Freeway.

Frost led Will slowly back again through the graves, among the markers made visible but ghostly by the moon. He said “You can go and sleep at Arthurlaing’s tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Just for tonight.”

“Where’s Noor?”

“She’ll be along. She’s fine.”

They walked back to the domicile. At the steps Frost squatted and held both of Will’s hands. He said “You’re a brave boy, Will. I’m proud of you. Very proud.” He stood and kissed Will on the head and said “You go in now.”

He crossed the muddy ground to the barns and took down Beauty’s rope halter. Beauty snorted as he approached her, and he could smell the sweet breath. He led her out and beside the fence and stepped up onto a two-by-four and sat onto the broad back.

Will had gone in. Frost did not stop to look into the window of his apartment. He did not even turn toward it. He rode up onto the bridge.

There were no bodies now, but Beauty tossed her head, and Frost felt her shiver as she trod through the sheets of blood. Noor and Tyrell stood together on the eastern sidewalk. Frost stopped beside them.

Tyrell said “The cockroach got away.”

Frost said nothing. He looked at Noor for a long time, as his granddaughter looked back. Finally he nodded, and she did as well. Then he looked down at his hands and seemed startled that they were empty. Tyrell handed him his sword. Noor stepped forward and held her spear for him to take. But as he reached for it she took his hand in her free hand and kissed the calloused palm and held it against her wet cheek. Then she let him take the spear, and Frost clucked and twitched the reins.

He did not pause by the rickshaw. But at the bottom of the bridge people were approaching, and Frost stopped and waited and said “Don’t be afraid. It’s only me. Frost.”

A woman’s voice replied “We want to go to your farm.”

“Didn’t they leave guards?”

“They ran away.”

“Yes, go.”

And they passed, young Snow and the other women of Wing’s farm. Having stopped, Frost looked back up the bridge. There was only one figure now at the top of the bridge. He could not tell if it was Tyrell or Noor.

He rode east along Marine Trail, well above the river. He passed the pale rectangular facades of vanished commerce that at first lined the way. In the intervals when the moon revealed the river below he sometimes saw outlined against the water the chimneys of houses whose wood had long ago been burned for fuel. He saw rows of steel wall studs like the plainest of skeletons. In the obscure parking lots from time to time he caught a glimmer of windshield glass through a mound of blackberry. He let Beauty find the trail, and he let her plod eastward at her own slow pace, swinging and planting the immense hooves.

From the north, from the easternmost wilderness of Town, came a constant high-pitched wailing of coyotes. He heard also the ceaseless flow of water in creeks and ravines eroded into the slopes north of the trail. He crossed long stretches of mud lying on the old road, and three times he had to dismount and lead Beauty over wide mud hills, as both the man and the horse sank to their knees. Once Frost heard a portion of earth let go and grumble slowly down the slope to his right. A little further on he stopped and looked back and waited for the moon. When it slipped for half a minute into a slash in the clouds he glimpsed a figure a few hundred yards behind. Perhaps someone following. He sniffed, rubbed his cold nose and continued.

He slipped one hand under his poncho as he rode, to warm against his stomach. In the other he gripped the reins and the sword and the spear. He passed Wing’s Bridge with the rain starting up again and eventually came to Skaggers’ Bridge and recrossed the river in the dark.

52

Frost studied the house from the top of the driveway. The two-storey building from the good times was dark. But to the left, in two of the low sprawling additions, windows were lit. The larger of the two additions was joined to the rear of the smaller one and protruded beyond it. In the single window of the part that protruded there was a strong but wavering light of candles. The much weaker light in the window of the closer and smaller addition seemed to originate from those same candles. There was a smell of wood smoke.

Frost let Beauty pick her way down the weed-grown drive but then had to urge her on until she stood beside the tall set of front door concrete steps. He slipped off her back onto one of the steps and went stiffly down and turned toward the carport and left the horse standing there. At the back end of the carport the white piano was dimly visible. The door from the carport into the basement opened quietly, as if the hinges had been oiled regularly. For a minute Frost stood staring into the dark of the basement. Then he leaned his spear against the wall outside and, holding only his sword, stepped through the door.

The darkness was not complete. A ragged hole in in the far wall was lit by weak light from the first addition. The illumination was not strong enough to show Frost a way across the sixty feet of basement. He stepped carefully, feeling ahead with his feet and with the sword. There was a skittering of rodents’ feet nearby, above the floor, perhaps on a table. There was a lingering smell of dirty bodies and garments. The hole in the wall was covered with a sheet of clear poly that twisted the light as Frost came closer. He reached, touched the poly, waited, listened. He heard the distant rain and the whoosh of his own blood in his ears, nothing else. With the back of his hand he slowly pushed the plastic aside. It was very loud. He stepped over the concrete foundation and let the plastic fall closed behind him.

He now stood on an earth path that led erratically between heaps of objects piled shoulder high. Here, there was enough light for him to move steadily forward. He did not turn his head to observe the skewed silhouettes of wide-screen televisions. He ignored the laptop computers stacked like bricks, and the armchairs tumbled together like wrestlers unable to budge. He stepped past a tangle of coffee tables giving off a smell of rot, past floor lamps and lawnmowers spaced like sentinels, past fishing rods reaching into the poor light, past washers, driers, electric ranges, leaf blowers, vacuum cleaners, table saws.

The path turned sharply to the right. Twenty feet ahead was the entrance to the second addition. There was no doorway, just an open space in the wall, and the stronger light. Frost stopped. The rain was loud above his head, with drops falling regularly and with varying sounds on the expanse of commodities all about. He went to the opening in the wall and stopped again. Ahead the earth path was lined every four feet or so with burning candles, large free-standing ones, Christmas candles. Among the mounds of goods there was now a lot of chrome: toasters, bathtub taps, century-old antique bread boxes, tables and chairs with chromed legs; and the light of the candles danced upon these objects. The air was suddenly very warm.

Frost crept forward. At the third candle the path turned left. Here Frost waited again and listened. There were fewer drops splashing upon the commodities. He heard a crackle of burning wood.

“Is that you, Frost? Come on around here so’s we can talk.”

Langley’s anxious and aggressive whine.

“No point in hidin’ back there. None at all.”

On Frost’s left, split cordwood was stacked head high, with a dozen mobile phones heaped on a protruding chunk of fir. He leaned forward, looked past the wood. He pulled his head back. He gave a small grunt. He leaned back against the piled wood and closed his eyes. A mobile phone dislodged and fell against a piece of cordwood and burst open, and the battery bounced from Frost’s muddy sandal.

Langley said “Come on, Frost, for Christ sake. It’s only us.”

Frost pushed himself away from the cordwood and transferred the sword to his left hand and wiped his right hand against his shirt under his poncho and took the sword in his right hand again. He shook his head. He stepped forward.

Langley said “Well, there you are. Welcome to my place.”

He was seated in a stuffed black leather armchair, in jeans and the T-shirt that said Pink Floyd. Blood stained the entire left shoulder and sleeve of the shirt, and Langley’s arm, resting on an arm of the chair, was streaked with blood that had been partially wiped or washed away but was now dried. His legs were spread wide, and Grace was seated on the floor between them, with her back against his crotch.

Grace’s legs were stretched straight out on the earth. She wore a green silk dress with a low neckline. The light of the candles and light escaping from the butterfly-shaped damper of an airtight heating stove that stood a few feet to Langley’s left made the fabric of the dress seem to move, although Grace was as still as a stone. She wore three strands of pearls. She had no shoes. The bottoms of her feet were dirty. Her hands rested flat beside her.

Langley said “You can see how it is, Frost.”

In his right hand he held a knife, the blade of which was pressed against Grace’s throat. It was a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade that seemed to reflect more light than was possible.

He said “My god damn soldiers that were here took off on me. Ain’t that somethin’? Unless Grace here chased them off.” He closed his legs a little and jostled Grace and said “Did you chase them off, darlin’?” But he did not look away from Frost.

The three were silent for a minute as Frost stared at Grace. Her grey hair had been pulled straight back in an attempt to match the refinement of the green dress. But the face had gone entirely to skull and a slack covering of skin. She let her head droop forward over the blade. Lifted it. Looked again at Frost. Let it fall. Lifted it. There was no expression on her face beyond the weight of drowsiness. The only life in the eyes was from the candle flames. On her throat, along the edge of the knife, there was a thin line of blood.

Frost sighed. His shoulders slumped. He shrugged, shook his head a little. He stood there with rainwater trickling from his poncho, down his wrists and dripping from his fingertips and from the tip of his sword. He looked away from Langley and Grace, looked down at the worn earth floor dotted with a few tiny puddles. He stepped forward.

Langley said “That’ll do, Frost. You best stay back a bit. That’s a long sword you got in your hand.”

Frost stopped, lifted his head, looked around. A wide circle of piled artefacts surrounded Langley’s stuffed armchair and the stove. To Frost’s left, on top of the stacked cordwood, sat a device with a metallic finish. It had a prominent black handle that protruded below a row of buttons and the word Cuisinart. Frost reached with his left hand, touched it.

Langley said “Yeah. That’s my espresso maker. Ain’t it somethin’? It come from the Church Gang.”

Frost tugged very slowly on the black handle until the device fell at his feet. The handle popped loose. It was attached to a sort of cup.

Langley called “Hey! Don’t you go bustin’ my stuff!” He sat up straight in his chair. The knife must have slipped a little against Grace’s throat, because a narrow film of blood crawled down behind the pearls and between her breasts. Yet she did not move, and her empty expression did not change.

Langley said “Shit, I don’t care about that stuff anyway. I’ve decided to leave it all behind. You want my stuff, Frost? You can have it. I got stuff you ain’t even dreamed of. What about this woman? What about Grace? You want Grace? You want Grace alive? That’s fine by me. If I can leave my stuff behind I can leave this woman. She’s nothin’ to me anyway. In business she’s what we call a bargainin’ chip. But I do like that dress. And them pearls.”

Frost bent, picked up the black handle of the espresso-maker, sniffed the cup-like end of it, let it fall. He still did not look at Langley. Sticking to the edge of the empty circle of earth, he walked slowly along the perimeter formed by the piled commodities, the appliances, the furniture, the electronic gadgets.

“Anyway, it’s all yours, Frost. Stuff, woman, dress, pearls, the whole kit and caboodle. All’s you got to do is hand over that there sword. That’s more than a fair trade, sounds like to me. I’ll say goodbye to Grace down the trail a piece and head off in search of a new business venture. We’ll be done with each other once and for all.”

Frost stopped at the stove. Using a fold of his poncho he pinched the handle of the lid and pivoted it open. He stared down into the flames, which painted the dripping white beard and the creased skin and the rain-specked glasses with an intense light.

“That there’s my airtight. You feel how warm it makes a place?”

Without closing the lid Frost stepped back and kicked the stove. It rocked on its feet. The light of the flames shook against the ceiling of crisscrossed boards and tarpaper and roofing shingles. The stovepipe came noisily apart. From the section that was still attached to the stove smoke poured into the room.

Langley said “Now don’t go burnin’ this place down! You ain’t goin’ crazy here, are you? I hear you go crazy sometimes. Well, if you want this here woman to stay alive you better start thinkin’ a little clearer and stop wreckin’ my stuff!” His voice had the angry whine of a wasp. “Jesus, look what you done! We’re going to choke on smoke. I know what you’re doin’. You’re tryin’ to shake me up. Bustin’ my stuff. But I’m past getting’ shook up. I’m, past it, Frost. So let’s get this here deal done so’s we can both hit the road. Just give me your god damn sword.”

Frost spoke at last. He looked directly at Langley. His voice was tired and rough. “I should’ve done this a long time ago.”

“What? You should’ve done what?”

“Done what I’m going to do. Good people would still be alive. It’s my fault they’re not.”

“Hey! Hey, listen! You ain’t going to do nothin. You want to talk about fault — well, listen to this. It’s goin’ to be your fault when this here woman’s throat is cut open! That’s what’s going to be your fault. And it’s going to be your doin’ if she lives! Ain’t that clear? What the hell could ever be clearer than that?”

Frost stared at Grace. She had turned her head to watch the business at the stove. This must have caused Langley’s knife to bite, because the ribbon of blood crawling down her chest was an inch wider.

But the dead eyes had changed. They had come to life. She smiled fully, openly. She said “Frost.”

Frost started, as if from an electric shock. He let out a ragged sob. He waited another minute, watching Grace, watching the eyes and the smile, which did not change. Then he looked away and took the blade of his sword in his left hand and let go of the handle with his right. He waited again, staring at the ground. He coughed from the smoke. He stepped forward, holding the weapon out, offering it. He nodded to Langley.

“That’s better, Frost. Now we’ll be done with this business.”

Frost stepped closer. Langley leaned to take the sword.

Grace lifted her hands from the earth floor. Frost looked puzzled, then afraid. Grace stopped smiling. She closed her eyes. She pushed both hands hard against the blade of the knife. She twisted her head, once left, once right.

Blood sprayed across Frost’s legs and hissed against the stove. He shouted “No!” and reached toward Grace. But Langley pulled the knife away and drew back his foot and pushed Grace with it, and she fell sideways and lay there looking with fading eyes into her own pooling blood.

Langley stood. He gaped at his bloodied jeans and hiking boots. He said “Jesus!”

Frost reached toward Grace, bent his knees to kneel, but Langley hacked at him with the knife. Frost dropped the sword. He stumbled away and fell to his knees but rose again and staggered backward. His left arm hung limp at his side. His poncho was sliced open and there was a deep gash below his shoulder, with blood pulsing from it. As Frost glanced at the wound, blood started dripping from his fingertips.

Langley said “I guess we got to do this the messy way.” His own left arm also hung useless. He ignored the sword at his feet, stepped past it. He coughed from the thickening smoke and blinked his eyes and wiped them with the back of the hand that held the knife.

Frost moved along the wall of goods to a place beside the stove. There was a chrome-edged table with a matching chair lying on it. Frost tugged at a leg of the chair, but it was snagged firmly on something and would not come loose.

Langley stepped rapidly toward Frost.

Frost grabbed a leg of the table itself and pulled viciously, and it slid out from under the things heaped on it, which crashed one upon the other. Frost dragged the table between him and Langley, but Langley kicked it against Frost and leaned and hacked with the knife again and opened a profound gash across his chest. Frost moved to his right, but Langley stepped sideways and stood in Grace’s blood and blocked the way. Frost went back behind the table and searched again among the commodities, but there was nothing he could grip with his one working hand.

With a foot Langley found a leg of the table and nudged it out of his way. Frost held the opposite leg. Then he heaved his end of the table upward and threw himself against it between the legs. But the table twisted and did not hit Langley squarely. Frost`s glasses flew from his face. Langley elbowed the table aside and lunged and sank the length of the blade into Frost`s abdomen and jerked it out.

Frost gave a long choked cry. He doubled over and twisted and hobbled away.

Langley said “You’re old, Frost. That’s your whole problem. You’re old and you’re a farmer.”

Frost held his good arm across his gut and turned his back on Langley and leaned on the stove. A smell of burning wool mixed with the dense smoke. Langley took a long step forward and swept back the bloodied knife. Frost reached into the open stove and reared up with a blazing piece of cordwood and turned back to Langley, who hesitated at the sight of the flames curling among Frost’s fingers. Frost smashed him in the face with the wood.

Langley cried out “Ow! God! Damn!” and stepped backward and tripped over Grace and sat, with blood gushing from his nose, and an ember flickering in his hair. Frost came forward on his knees, with his face already pale from the blood that had left him, pale in the light of the burning thing in his raised hand. Langley managed to poke the knife forward and into Frost’s chest again, but still Frost leaned over Langley’s outstretched feet and smashed him once more with the wood.

Langley hollered hoarsely. He got up and rose twisting to his feet and stepped away from Frost. He sat in his chair, with both arms hanging and the knife gripped loosely. His face was charred and well bloodied, and bits of his hair were burning. Frost came forward another six inches on his knees. He teetered. He raised the burning wood and threw it weakly. It landed in Langley’s lap.

Frost folded slowly forward and came to rest with his forehead against the earth.

One of Langley’s eyes was ruined. He squinted out of the other one at the man bowed at his feet and at the woman lying near him and at the wide pool of blood sinking slowly into the hardened earth. He coughed and gave a long exclamation of pain. He said “Frost, you son of a bitch.” He looked down at the piece of cordwood burning in his lap and set the blade of the knife against it and began to push it away.

There was a sound. Running footsteps. Langley looked up. He said “Not you.”

She came at full speed around the corner from the first addition. The flames of the Christmas candles fluttered as she passed. She had a long spear and was holding it like a lance. Langley sat and watched as Noor leapt the hunched form of her grandfather.

The wide blade and the thick end of the shaft passed through the base of Langley’s throat and through the leather and stuffing of the chair as well. But even as the chair toppled backward Noor held the spear tightly, and her weight drove it down into the earth, and her momentum propelled her over Langley and into the heaped commodities, which tumbled upon and around her. A case burst open and silver cutlery spilled over her dark hair and lay there for a moment like a fool’s crown, sparkling in the firelight, knives and forks and spoons, until she rose and went to her grandfather.

She turned him gently onto his back. The fronts of his poncho and his trousers were soaked with blood. He looked at her. He was as pale as a sheet. She said. “It’s finished, Grampa.”

Frost said “Noor.” Or perhaps it was only a gasp.

“You’ll be fine now. I’ll get you home.”

But he was dead even before she managed to load him onto Beauty, who stood waiting in the rain.

53

“It’s in there.”

Snow nodded toward a door and then turned away, as if there were some shame involved in witnessing what she knew would emerge.

Jessica carried the black garbage bag slung over a shoulder, and she and Snow and Boundary and Oak descended the stairs of the big building and walked in silence along the south end of Town trail and up onto Frost’s Bridge.

It was a mild day, with high clouds coasting from the southwest. They stopped at the crest of the bridge. Without ceremony Jessica held the black bag over the eastern railing and let the contents slip free. The breeze took the finer powder, but most of the skag plummeted like a ragged mass of ash.

Jessica and Boundary and Oak moved to the other side of the bridge and looked down. But all they saw was grey-green water surging westward past the railroad swing bridge that stood eternally open.

Oak said “What did we expect? Don’t make no difference to the river.”

Behind them, in the middle of the roadway, Snow sat on the lane divider, weeping.

Tyrell and Daniel Charlie carried the airtight heating stove out to a wagon. It was still warm, a fact which seemed to deepen the desolation that made their faces resemble awkwardly carved masks of shadow and tired skin. Tyrell said “Let’s drop this off at Wing’s. He should be home with his crew by now.” Then he went back in and collected the silverware that had spilled near Langley, who was still in the upended chair, his blemished face now additionally gnawed by rodents. He was pinned to the earth like an insect by Noor’s spear. Tyrell set the knives and forks and spoons carefully into their case and brought it out to the wagon.

Down the path, beside the pile of skag dross Marpole, Newton and Richmond managed to struggle the ancient wood stove out of the A-frame and onto the big wagon, while Beauty stood watching nervously.

They all went into the main house, where they found books and medicine and matches and plastic jerricans of oil and gasoline. Tyrell and Daniel Charlie stood at open kitchen cupboards and squinted at decades-old print and said to one another the words ibuprofen and Lipitor and Immodium and Benylin and Prozac and tetracycline and Pure Milk Thistle Extract and Gravol and filled their grocery bags. Tyrell found a box of slug bait. He opened it and held the box to his nose and let Daniel Charlie sniff it as well. Daniel Charlie nodded and said “Yeah, that’s what he gave Grace to kill the dogs.”

In the main room there was a brick fireplace. On the slate hearth boxes of matches were stacked. Books were lined on the wood mantel-piece. Except for one they were hardcover. Building Construction Cost Data 2008. Nontechnical Guide To Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production. The Collected Works of Shakespeare. Encyclopaedia Americana Volume 4. Mike Huckabee — Do the Right Thing. Digital Photography Masterclass — the men stood around Daniel Charlie while he flipped through this one — Revenge of the Sith. A Manual of Style. Except for The Collected Works of Shakespeare, the pages of which were brown and brittle and smelled stale, and Emotionomics, whose paper cover of healthy and smiling faces seemed to offend him, Daniel Charlie put all the books into his bag. He took the matches too.

When the wagons were loaded Newton and Richmond brought Grace’s body out and found a place for it in the wagon pulled by Beauty, and covered it with a plastic tarp.

Tyrell and Daniel Charlie walked among the mildewed and rotting furniture, among the nameless electronic wonders, among labour-saving devices as beautiful and useless as modernist sculptures, among chrome-plated objects that reflected and distorted the forms of the men as they spilled gasoline and oil from the jerricans.

They stood at the top of the driveway for a long time, watching the place burn. The roofs of the several additions and the makeshift house down the path collapsed even before the glass in the windows of the main house shattered and hands of flame clawed out into the drab daylight. Emaciated men and women dressed in shreds of plastic came from somewhere and stood nearby and without expression watched the fire rage. When the wagons pulled out they followed a hundred yards back, like timid and desperate dogs.

54

There were daffodils blooming all among the graves, even among the dozen new mounds of bare earth, and there was a honey smell of cottonwood and alder buds from some distant place where trees still grew. Noor stood looking over the river toward the mountains. Her hair hung loose and dirty, the eyes were stricken in her drawn face, and her cheeks were marked with the dried salt of tears.

It was warm and oppressively still. A high sheet of cloud the colour of oyster shell lay over the day. But against the mountains a lower stratum had flowed and gathered. It was as if a pair of hands had wrapped the peaks tightly in a thin white quilt. Noor pushed a veil of hair from her eyes. She rubbed at the salt on her cheeks. Then she turned and walked to the domicile. She washed her face and tied her hair back.

Will lay where she had left him, on the mattress below the big window. King lay on the floor beside him. Will’s thin body, half covered by a throw of rabbit skins, was locked into a posture of struggle. His face was as grey as concrete except for a red patch on each cheek. He did not look like Will now but like a tortured and cadaverous twin. His lips gaped in a snarl of strangulation as he wheezed a filament of air into his lungs.

Noor gave a ragged sigh and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She set her lips and squatted beside him. King lifted his head and licked her hand once, then laid his head on his paws again. Noor stroked Will’s forehead and said “Do you want to see something?”

Will opened his eyes and seized her wrists and looked wildly around. In a few seconds he managed to say, between rapid, rasping breaths “Noor?”

“Yes, it’s me, Will.”

He let go of her wrists but kept looking at her in terror as he fought for air.

“Will, do you want to see something?”

She lifted him and got him onto his knees facing the window and supported him under the arms and around the chest, holding him against her breasts. She whispered into his ear “Look at the mountains.”

King rose and watched anxiously.

Will continued his loud, frantic gasping. In a minute he said “Take me out.”

She gathered him into the skin throw and carried him to the wheeled office chair, which sat near the fireplace, and gently sat him in it, making sure he was covered, and wheeled him out of the apartment and down the corridor and out onto the wide top step at the entrance of the domicile. King padded after them.

Noor squatted beside the chair. She pointed to the north and said “See?”

Will’s breathing relaxed slightly. He said “Snow.”

Noor looked sharply away. She wiped at her eyes again. She said “Is it?”

“Snow. I knew it would.”

Noor shuffled close and lay her head against his shoulder.

He said again “I knew it would” and then “Has Grampa seen it?”

A sob leapt from Noor, and she sat on the step and covered her mouth. Will appeared not to notice.

Noor rose again and took his hand and kissed it and said “No, he hasn’t seen it. Not yet.”

Will said “Listen.”

Noor listened. There was nothing to hear but his violent gasping. She said “What? What do you hear?”

“Hushed” he said. “It’s hushed.”

The next day Noor knelt in wet grass and reached down into Will’s grave and placed on his chest the Christmas ornament she had acquired half a year before at the market, and the residents of the domicile came forward one by one and dropped their handfuls of earth upon the boy.

55

The mother, father and child have found a place not far from an uninhabited warehouse, a little upriver from the bridge, where the grass grows close to the edge of the water, and where there are patches nearby of blooming vetch and lupine. There is a tiny inlet where the water is still. The little girl has the bottom half of what could be a white plastic bleach bottle and is squatting naked in the mud at the edge of the little inlet, scooping and spilling water and singing a formless song. The sun is mellow. There is a muted breeze.

The mother and father are also naked. They lie face to face, leaning on their elbows. As the child plays and sings she often bumps against their feet.

The man says “The thing is, see, I’m the boss of the bumblebees. That’s why everyone calls me honey.”

The woman says “Ah, I was wondering about that. And how long have you been the boss of the bumblebees, honey?”

“Not long, only since I stopped being the king of the caterpillars. I had to give that up because people started calling me creepy.”

“Well! I didn’t know you were so important. Have you always been a king or a boss?”

“No, only since the day I was born.”

The child stops singing. She doesn`t bump their toes. The man and the woman look toward her. She stands up and turns.

“Daddy?”

“What’s wrong, my princess?”

“My bottle goed away.”

“It did? What happened?”

“I fulled it up and it sanked and sappeared.” She is about to cry.

The man says “Noor?”

The child only looks at him.

He says “Come here. I’ve got some important questions to ask.”

She walks solemnly up the corridor formed by their legs. The man sits up and takes her by the waist and lays her on her back on the grass. She is smiling now. She says “Jus don’t giggle me.”

“But what if I feel like it?”

“Jus don’t!”

“We’ll see. Anyway, so here’s the first question. What’s this?”

“My nose.”

“Correct. And what are these?”

“My footsies. I mean my feetsies.”

“Right again. Harder questions now. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I ready.”

“First question. Are you going to be beautiful like your mommy?”

“Yeah, I going to!”

“Are you going to be smart like your grampa?

“Yeah!”

“Are you going to be brave?”

The child is silent.

“You don’t know what brave means?”

She shakes her head.

“Brave means you’re not afraid of anything.”

“Yeah, brave!” She kicks her heels against the earth. Then she is serious. “Daddy?”

“Yes, my princess?”

“Can people sappear?”

A ripple on the complicated face of the river beyond Noor’s wee bay throws a spark of more intense light upon Steveston’s features. Noor sees the green eye and the blue eye and the impish grin above her blend with the sky, and for an instant her father vanishes into the day itself.

Steveston says “Can people disappear! That’s the silliest thing I`ve heard since… since…”

“Since tomorrow?”

“Yeah, since tomorrow.”

He wiggles his fingers above her ribs.

She shrieks and thrashes. “Daddy! I said don’t giggle me!”

56

Wing said “You know what this is? It’s a revolution. It’s called domestication. Domestication of the wild rabbit.”

Noor said “It was Will’s idea. We plan to trade breeding pairs at the market — with people we can trust to breed them and not just eat them. Can you take a pair home today?”

“Damn right! I’ll keep them in the barn so’s the coyotes can’t get at them.”

“They multiply so quickly — pretty soon no one around here should have to be hungry.”

It was a clear winter day. Here and there to the east and the west and the south, and over Town as well, threads of smoke rose as straight as reeds. Noor and Wing were standing at the open door of a shed made of concrete blocks. Noor wore a long cloak of rabbit skins. Wing had the blood-red warm-up jacket and a skin hat. There was a smell of old straw and manure. It was as gloomy as a cave inside the shed, but the dark was dotted with glowing points of pink from the eyes of rabbits.

Noor closed the door of the shed. She waited as Wing walked over to Beauty’s yard. As Wing approached, the horse thrust her head over the top railing and snorted, and spears of vapour shot toward Wing. He stood for a minute talking to the animal and stroking her thick neck.

When he returned to Noor’s side she said “What about that wagon the Parts Crew made for you?”

Wing shrugged. “It’s still there I guess.”

“We could go and get it with Beauty.”

“No point. I couldn’t use it ’cause my steers wouldn’t be able to pull it. I need that colt you been promising.”

Noor said “Well….”

They walked toward the domicile.

Wing said “Brandon died, I hear.”

“Yeah. Couldn’t make it without the hooch he was getting from Langley.”

“Used to trade your inventory.”

“He did, yeah.”

He said “Night. Rain. Ryan. Jessica. If anyone was going to live forever I thought it was Jessica.”

Noor shook her head, sighed. “Langley’s medicine wasn’t much help. But more people keep coming from Town. The domicile is full. People died over at Fundy’s place too. You remember old Christopher?”

“I do.”

“Old Moses, the bible thumper. That guy who got Grampa’s shoes. Solomon.”

“Fundy’s boy?”

“It’s been a bad year. But your crew has been okay?”

“Yeah. Lucky so far.”

Two dogs came around a corner of the domicile. One of them was King. The other was a brown wire-haired creature no bigger than the rabbits in the shed. It had a swollen belly.

Wing said “That mutt looks familiar.”

“That’s Margaret. Hemlock the Messenger’s dog.”

“So I guess Hemlock must be….”

“Yeah. Must be. Or his dog wouldn’t have come.”

“I see she’s going to give you some pups.”

“Would you like one of them?”

“I would, Noor. We have none. Grace killed them all.”

King leapt up against Wing, and he staggered from the force. Noor pushed the dog down. The other dog danced on its hind legs until Wing bent and patted it. It then rolled over, and Wing rubbed its bulging belly and crooned about how wonderfully ugly it was.

But suddenly Margaret scrambled to her feet, and she and King raced past the domicile and toward the old exit ramp. Their barking and yapping grew faint. Behind Noor and Wing Beauty produced a prolonged and operatic whinny.

Wing said “Jesus Christ! I think you may have a visitor.”

The barking now got louder. A horse came around the corner of the domicile, tossing its head and kicking at the raucous dogs. It was not a workhorse but a riding horse, a tall stallion of a coppery hue that gleamed in the cold sunlight. On the horse sat a man draped thickly in skins. A mass of pale hair hung over his shoulders, and a voluminous blond beard hid most of his face.

Noor shouted “King! Settle down!”

The dogs fell silent, but Beauty’s excited squealing rang out like a siren. The stallion threw its head up. Its black eyes flared. It burst into a gallop. The rider rocked backward, and his heels flew up. As the horse passed Noor and Wing it slowed enough to perform a series of stiff-legged jumps that sent the rider flying.

He landed on his feet but off balance, and careened forward into Noor and tumbled on top of her. They both grunted as they hit the ground. His hat flew off, and his hair fell around her face. A warm current of breath burst over her cheeks. As the stranger pushed himself up, Noor looked into a pair of humiliated eyes as blue as the sky that framed his head. He cast around for spots in the muddy grass on which he could place his hands, so as not to place them on Noor. With stiff elbows and a stilted awkwardness he got to his knees.

Although Wing helped him to rise, Wing was ignored. The man bent and held out both hands to Noor. She pushed her fur garment down over her knees. Then she grasped the hands and rose stumbling and laughed and brushed hair from her face.

The man said “God! I’m sorry!” It was the voice of a young man, reticent but lively. “That horse…! Are you all right?”

Noor laughed again. “Perfect! I’m perfect.”

The man said, turning momentarily to acknowledge Wing “I’m from South. That god damn horse…! I had to swim him across beside the raft. I knew he’d try to get even. This is Frost’s farm, ain’t it?”

“It is” said Wing.

“I heard there might be someone here could use the services of a stallion.”

The three turned toward Beauty’s yard. The horses stood face to face over the fence. Their heads bobbed in a frenzy of excitement, their eyes bulged, and the day was filled with their wild pealing.

Wing said “Maybe I’ll get my colt after all.”

The man said to Noor “I’m Blaine.”

Noor shook his hand. It was calloused and strong.

She nodded her chin toward his face. She said “You split your lip.”

He touched it, observed the smudge of blood on his fingertip. “On your forehead, I think.” He smiled slightly, which must have hurt, for he said “Ow.”

She smiled.

He said “Are you Noor?”

She nodded.

“I thought you must be.”

57

Another winter came.

Noor sat near the woodstove, in the wheeled office chair. The apartment was not absolutely dark. A thick wax candle burned on the table, and some light escaped from the damper of the stove. She had a little more flesh on her face now, but on this night it hung flaccid from weariness. She swung the chair from side to side, but the baby continued to cry. She rose and walked the length of the apartment, bouncing the child and making gentle sounds of “sh-sh-sh”. She laid the baby over her shoulder and rubbed its back. The child went on crying.

She tried feeding it again, and this time it worked, and Noor stood at the big window as she let the infant suckle. There was so little light in the apartment that her own reflection was no more than a feeble suggestion on the glass. She gazed out, as if there might be things in the darkness visible to her alone.

Now that the baby had stopped crying, the only sounds were the wind in the stovepipe and the low hissing of the damp peat in the stove. But then there was a sound of running footsteps. Noor smiled. The footsteps grew louder and finally slapped on the concrete steps of the domicile, along with the scrabbling of dogs’ feet.

Blaine said “No, you can’t come in.” And in a few seconds the door of the apartment opened, and he was saying excitedly “It’s ready.”

Noor said “Close the door.”

But Blaine left it open and took the candle from the table and went into the adjoining room. Cold air flowed in from the corridor. He called “Get your poncho on. Bring Aisha. She should see this.” There was a rustling of plastic. He came out of the room gripping the heavy candle in one hand and the lip of a large black plastic bag with the other. He set the candle back on the table and eased the bulging bag to the floor. He opened it gingerly and reached in and withdrew a light bulb and laid it beside the candle on the table.

He came across to where Noor was standing at the window. He touched her face with his cold fingers. Noor coaxed Aisha from the nipple. Blaine took the baby. She was quiet and smiled up at him in the dimness of the apartment as he made silly noises and wrapped her in a rabbit skin blanket. Noor put on her long cloak and took the baby again.

The other dogs pranced and played as they made their way toward the river, but King walked calmly at Noor’s side. There was a path through the graveyard, visible as a darker track against the dark grass. Noor looked down as she walked with the baby, careful of where she placed her feet. Although it was a cloudy and moonless night there were hints of reflected light from the plastic on some of the grave markers.

Noor stopped among the graves closest to the river, but Blaine went on a little farther.

The river beat a quiet and steady rhythm against the paddles of the water wheel.

Blaine called “Ready?”

Daniel Charlie answered “Try it.”

A spot in the darkness between Noor and the river produced a sputter of dull flashes. Blaine’s face flickered there, with the light sieving for an instant through the curls of his beard.

Noor said “Oh!”

The bulb went out.

Daniel Charlie called “Is it screwed in tight?”

Blaine answered “Just a second.”

The light came on and stayed on. It was a feeble radiance, pulsing like a fragile heart in time to the beating of the water wheel.

Daniel Charlie whooped.

Blaine let out a shriek that startled Aisha and caused her to wail, until Noor soothed her.

A muffled exclamation burst from one of the windows of the domicile.

From up on the bridge, Tyrell’s cannon blast of a shout cracked the night.

More shouts welcomed the creation of electric light. There were outcries from across the river. The dogs all howled and were soon joined by coyotes somewhere off in the delta.

In the tiny, wavering pool of light Daniel Charlie and Blaine danced a frenzied mazurka and laughed like fiends.

Careful to keep her balance as she held her daughter, Noor lowered herself to her knees on a mound of earth. She held Aisha in her left arm. With her right hand she reached down and touched a grave marker. Her own tear splashed between her fingers. She smoothed it away with the rainwater that had collected in wrinkles of the plastic. She ran a fingertip along the contours of the letters carved into the wood underneath. The light was so weak. Yet, with each pulse the name blossomed momentarily.

Frost.

Copyright

Copyright Morgan Nyberg 2011

Some features of Greater Vancouver have been altered, removed or exaggerated.

ALSO BY Morgan Nyberg:

Novels

Mr Millennium

El Dorado Shuffle

For children

Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army

Bad Day in Gladland

Poetry

The Crazy Horse Suite

Content

Morgan Nyberg
SINCE TOMORROW
A Novel

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Copyright

ALSO BY Morgan Nyberg: