The Eleventh Plague

THIRTY-THREE

Jenny, Jackson, and I moved the younger kids back into the woods with Derrick and the others.

“Should we go get Mom and Dad?” Jackson asked.

Jenny shook her head. “There’s too much to do down there. Looks like it’s just us.”

The three of us made our way through the carnage, our boots sliding on the muddy and blood-soaked snow. As soon as the others saw us coming, they unslung their rifles and lifted them. The three of us slowed.

“Just stay calm,” I whispered. “Don’t make any sudden moves and keep your hands where they can see them.”

It was a ragged group, a mix of old and young. They weren’t clothed or fed as well as those in Settler’s Landing, but we couldn’t mistake that for weakness. Some looked just as scared as I imagined Jenny and Jackson and I did, but some also looked hard and ready for whatever might happen. They would use their weapons, no doubt about it.

This looked especially true of the one I took for their leader. He was a tall, rail-thin man with a scraggly black-and-white beard and a patch over one eye. He had a chrome revolver attached to his hip but was so calm he hadn’t even drawn it yet, just moved across the field with his hand resting on the pistol’s grip.

We kept our approach slow and easy until there was only about ten feet separating us. Everything around us stank of blood and fire. Jenny and Jackson and I stopped where we were; the man with the patch lifted one hand, and his people stopped too. Gun barrels dipped slightly but did not drop.

No one said anything for a moment as we took a measure of one another. I looked back over my shoulder. No one in sight. Everyone was still in town fighting the fires. A shot of nerves quaked through me. I’d have given anything for Marcus and the others to appear, but we were on our own.

I took a step forward. My mouth felt full of cotton. My hands shook.

“You’re from Fort Leonard,” I said.

The man nodded slowly. “Looks like you all had a bit of trouble here.”

“Yes sir.”

The man appraised the field around us and spit on the ground. “Slavers. We passed a bunch of them retreating on the way over. No coincidence they were here, I guess.”

“No sir.”

“You all hired them to take care of us.”

I looked over at Jenny and Jackson. I could tell both of them were scared, but they were putting on stony faces. I felt their strength bleed into me, straightening my spine, making me even more sure of what I had to do.

“Yes sir,” I said. “We did.”

“Guess it didn’t go as planned.”

“Some of us thought the folks who hired them shouldn’t be running things anymore,” Jenny said from beside me. “When we told them and the slavers to take off, they went after us.”

“You think I’m going to thank you for deciding not to turn all of me and mine into slaves?”

“No sir,” Jenny said.

It went quiet again and I had to fight to keep still. This wasn’t going right. What were we thinking, coming up here?

“Stephen, Jenny, Jackson — step away from there!”

The three of us whipped around to see Marcus and Sam and about ten others appear on the field behind us. Each of them had a gun trained on the people from Fort Leonard, who in turn raised theirs with a metallic clatter. The man with the patch had his gun out now and was pointing it right in Marcus’s face. The chrome hammer was drawn all the way back.

“Stephen,” Marcus said slowly, “take Jenny and Jackson and move out of the way.”

I swallowed hard. “They’re not here to fight,” I said.

“Stephen.”

I turned to the man with the patch. “Are you?”

The man tightened his grip on the revolver.

“They killed two friends of ours. We will fight if we need to, son.”

“Tell them it was an accident,” Jenny pleaded.

“Just get out of the way!”

I turned away from Marcus and back to Fort Leonard’s leader.

“It was my fault,” I said. “Okay? It was a dumb prank. I made everyone here think your people were attacking us and that’s why they sent the group that shot your friends. So if you want to shoot someone, then shoot me, but we’re telling you the truth. The ones who sent the people who killed your friends, the ones who hired the slavers, are not in charge anymore. I swear they’re not.”

The man with the patch considered this as we all held our breath.

“Look,” I said, as steady as I could, “the people who came before us nearly destroyed the whole world, but that was yesterday. This is today, and today we’ve got a choice, right?”

The group from Fort Leonard gripped the stocks of their guns like they were trying to keep their heads above water. If the wind blew wrong, they’d fire. And if they did, Marcus and his people would too.

“Marcus,” I said, “have everybody put their guns down.”

“Them first,” Marcus said. “We’re not —”

“Just do it,” Jackson commanded, turning around to face his father. “You’ve come this far. Just go one step further.”

Marcus gripped the rifle to his shoulder, sweat cutting channels through the soot on his face.

Jenny took a step toward him. “Please, Dad,” she said, and reached out to lay her palm over his rifle’s sight.

Painfully slow, Marcus lowered the barrel of his rifle, keeping his eyes on the people from Fort Leonard the entire time, looking for any hint they were about to take advantage. When they didn’t, he lowered his gun all the way and then motioned for Sam and the others to do the same.

Jenny turned to the man with the patch. “Now you.”

The man looked back at his people and gave a slight nod. All around us gun barrels wilted and fell until we stood there, two divided fronts without a war to fight.

Marcus took a tentative step forward and held out his hand.

“Marcus Green,” he said.

The man holstered his revolver, then lifted his own hand to take Marcus’s.

“Stan Allison.”

The two stood silently for a moment. Marcus looked back over his shoulder at the smoke rising above the trees.

“If you all could spare it,” he said, “we could really use some help.”

Stan nodded, then waved his people forward. Marcus and Sam and the others from Settler’s Landing led the way, but soon the people from Fort Leonard had caught up. They all mixed together, one side indistinguishable from the other as they marched toward the fires.

We watched them go, then Jenny took my hand and Jackson’s, and once we gathered up the little ones, we followed them back to town, all of us hoping there would be something left.