Canis
Latrans
© Copyright
2004, Canis Latrans
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without written permission from the author.
Prologue
California
Dreamin'
You never know how dirty
something is until you try to clean it.
If you
were one of those who had any curiosity as to what had gone wrong 19 years
before, the view from the southern terraces of the Palos Verdes Hills offered
an excellent starting point. On a clear
day, of which there were many now that the smoke-chugging machinery of Greater
Los Angeles stood silent, one could gaze south and east at the receding
coastline and see fully a dozen large tankers and freighters, half-sunk and
grounded. There were many more you
could not see, here and elsewhere, as well.
In fact, the only ship that looked remotely seaworthy from this vantage
point was the old Queen Mary. Nestled
in its slot in Long Beach Harbor, she still rose majestically out of the water,
looking much as she had decades ago.
Any evidence of the rust that was surely dissolving her aged hull was
tenderly fogged by distance. This was
the view that the demon beheld from his place of capture.
The
demon, limbs spread and tied, mouth taped, was not so much concerned with the
view as with his own deteriorating condition.
Bordering on unconsciousness, he had not been allowed food or water
since his capture, and in the heat of that late September afternoon, he was
mightily thirsty. That was pretty much
all he could focus on after several hours in his current predicament. However, in the half-light of
semiconsciousness, the demon perceived that his situation was about to change,
as a large man in a stunningly gorgeous robe strode purposefully toward him
across the encampment. Indeed he was
correct. This was to be the demon’s last
afternoon.
The
slopes visible below the camp had a barren look, as if burned sometime in the
recent past. Blackened timbers
identified the remains of a Junior College that once teemed with students. Beyond that, the ghostly form of San Pedro
persisted, dark from fire, and fuzzy from the onslaught of weeds. All residents of the city were gone now, and
the intervening years had erased all memories of what the place had once been
like to the current occupants of the camp.
Time, distance, and state of mind all contributed to this erasure of the
region’s history. San Pedro was merely
one more graveyard in a region which had cemeteries to spare – just another set
of headstones in a self-made field of Bermuda grass.
Even
so, any man who had lived here not so long ago might still recognize this
place. He could stand on this very
hillside, and identify most features within his eyes’ gaze. “Here is the main channel, there are the
ship basins…” All familiar except for
one thing: Beyond the Queen Mary stood
an apparition that defied recognition.
An immense white levee stretched from the bay northward and out of sight
beyond the obstructing hills. If this
hypothetical fellow were standing at the highest point of the Palos Verdes
Hills, he would be able to see this wall curve completely around the hills and
to the sea again at King Harbor in Redondo Beach. It was a vast construct.
In terms of size, it could be compared to the Great Wall of China, and
it was completely unexpected here.
The large
man motioned for all those nearby to step back, and they obeyed instantly. There was a fear among the people of the
camp that the demon could have used his voice to control them if they stood too
close to the action. With the crowd a
respectable distance away, the large man moved forward and removed the tape
from the demon’s mouth.
“Water…
Please…” the demon rasped.
“Hold
your tongue, vile thing!” The man
interrupted. “We will not be swayed by
your voice! Speak only when spoken to.”
The
demon regarded the man in front of him.
He did not hold out much hope for his situation, but just in case he was
wrong about his assessment, he chose to cooperate. He nodded his head in assent.
The
demon’s request for water seemed normal enough for any human. Indeed this one certainly considered himself
human. Though bound and stressed, there
were no obvious distinguishing characteristics that would drive a normal human
being to suspect this person of being possessed by some evil spirit. The demon’s mission was certainly
commonplace: he was merely trying to establish communications between what
remained of the United States and the people of California.
But
these watchers were hardly normal. They
maintained what they considered to be a safe distance, holding close enough to
witness the interactions of their leader with this thing.
"Confess
your sins now, and be saved." The
large man spoke more gently. "Tell
us your name."
"I
am Sam MacDonnell," the Demon replied as loudly as he could. There was a tickle in his throat that he
couldn't shake, which caused him to cough uncontrollably at the end of his
short speech.
"Speak
only to us! Not the others." The large man rapped the demon's forehead
with the knob of his wooden staff. Not
gently. Not enough to bruise, but hard
enough to feel. "Now
continue. Where did you come
from?"
"I
come from New Washington," the demon said. "A place you probably once knew as Denver. I came here in peace, and I mean you
no…"
The
large man turned his back to the demon, addressing the encampment. "He has risen from the depths of
Hell! He comes to infiltrate and spy
upon us from beyond our border! He is
the eyes and ears of the Evil One!"
The
watchers raised their fisted hands, and jeered almost as one.
"No,"
the demon shouted. "I'm from the
United States! You don't
understand!"
The
pain came almost instantaneously as the large man spun around and struck the
demon on the side of the head with his staff.
There was fleeting recognition of surprise, followed by unconsciousness. When the demon again became aware of his
surroundings, he was stretched out horizontally across the top of a large pile
of wood. The pain on the side of his
head was massive. At first, he was
afraid to move, for fear he might have a broken jaw. Had his hands been free, the demon might have raised them to feel
for swelling or blood, but he was bound and could not. He found he could move his jaw, and felt
some relief at that.
The people of the camp were dousing him and
the wood with some fluid. It smelled
like petroleum and benzene, and felt cool as it evaporated from his skin. When the people saw the demon awake and
moving, they again moved rapidly away.
None dared risk being mesmerized by his words. As awareness came to him, the demon saw the firebrands, and
realized what was in store. He began to
struggle against his bonds as he beseeched his captors.
"Please
let me go! I mean you no harm!” His voice was raspy, and his throat
unbearably dry. His jaw complained at any
attempt to speak.
"Listen
not to the demon's cries!" The
large man came to stand between the demon and the camp. "His only purpose is to sway your
hearts and steal your souls."
Motioning with his staff, he urged his audience to action. "Quickly now! Burn this tortured creature, and send his corrupted soul back
beyond the wall!"
Turning
back to the woodpile, the large man’s face was fully visible to the demon, and
for one instant the demon saw that he was smiling. In that moment, the demon knew with certainty that he was in the
hands of a madman, and there was truly no hope.
Without
hesitation the firebrands were placed at the base of the wood. Flames shot up dramatically around the
demon. It was as if the entire pyre had
burst into flame all at once. For the
demon, despite resignation to his fate, the sudden rise of flames brought a
final moment of clarity. All the
messages the demon came with for these people, all the questions unasked,
welled up and outward as a foaming cascade of words. Through the roar of the flames, and the crackling as the wood
caught fire, the demon's shouts could be heard by all the watchers. But they could not be understood. The sounds rapidly became screams of agony,
and were just as suddenly silenced.
Fire again, it seemed, had had its way with the demon spirit of
civilization. Cheers from the crowd
rose up, but the demon could no longer hear them. His soul had left the vicinity - possibly to join the other
demons residing somewhere on the far side of the great white wall.
Chapter 1
Stories in the
Stone
War is the
political state offering a refuge from introspection.
Hot as
it was in the seaside villages of the Los Angeles basin, the Mojave was even
hotter that same September day. There wasn't
a spot of natural shade along old route 395.
As the old Power Wagon rolled casually south, there was no cooling
effect from the breeze slipping by the open cab windows, indicating an air
temperature hotter than blood. The road
ahead, almost hidden by drifting sand, still melted in the distance into a
shimmering lake, just as it had when it was maintained.
There
was no way the two occupants of the vehicle could have known how much the
weather had changed here from years past.
Youthfully accepting whatever the day had to offer, they squinted into
the dazzling brightness as if it was the only world they had ever known. Desert is desert, and summer is summer. But the years were much dryer than they had
been in previous decades. The storm
track kept largely to the north, even in the winter. The large forests of Ponderosa Pine, once flourishing in the now
looming San Gabriel Mountains, were all but gone.
Both
Taine and Joanne kept a sharp eye out for any indication of rough travel. Experience was their not-so-gentle
teacher: A few miles before they had
hit a half-foot berm of sand, and they both had bumps on the tops of their
heads from hitting the roof. They had
rapidly discovered the value of seat belts.
“I
heard a lot about Barstow back in Las Vegas,” Taine remarked. His words drifted with the air.
“Oh
really? What’s there?”
“There’s
people there. I can’t imagine what they
are living on. The way Big Mikey talked
about them, they were barely more than dirt. They must have hated Mikey and his
convoys. They blew up a highway to keep
him from going through their town.”
“Why
would they do that? That sounds kind of
drastic. Mikey going by seems a lot
safer than Mikey stopping in to say ‘Hi’.”
“And I
think he would have, too. He kept
talking about going in there to kill everyone in Barstow, even though it was
clear they would lose a lot of the gang if they did. I think it was probably Milton that kept him from going.”
“You
mean ‘Mendekek’,” Joanne corrected.
“Right…”
Taine, riding in the passenger side, propped both his legs up on the dashboard
and leaned back. Reminded of the trauma
they had experienced barely a week before, he was suddenly silenced. Experimentally, he rubbed the bruise on his
face where Big Mikey’s hammer-like hand had connected the night he and Veronica
had fled. Briefly, Taine wondered how
Veronica was doing. It seemed like a
miracle that the two of them had escaped, but Coyoteman had known all along how
things would go. Or rather, how they
might go. Coyoteman was a stickler for
believing in free will. Mikey could
just as easily have gone to Barstow after all.
“Maybe
he did stop in Barstow to say… Hey, are we getting close here?”
“I’m
watching the miles. Coyoteman said the
turnoff was 24 miles south of that other highway. What was it? “
“It
was 58. The one that went to
Barstow. Remember? There is a hill off to the right.”
“That’s
probably it. One mile to go,” she said,
glancing at the odometer.
Though
the desert in this area was criss-crossed with roads, they were hard to see,
and the travelers almost missed the unmarked turnoff. Neither Joanne nor Taine had much experience behind the wheel.
Turning was slow, careful, and measured, because the truck’s power steering was
non-functional. Though their truck had
been well-maintained by the Resistance forces, time has its way with every
device. The truck was left behind in
Independence, along with several other vehicles after the battle with King
Peter’s forces. There were simply not
enough combatants left alive to return with all the trucks. With the former rebels now in charge of Las
Vegas, maintenance might be even better with access to Peter’s motor pool. This truck was in the best shape of all
vehicles left from the foray out to Independence. But it was unlikely to be missed in Las Vegas, and the two new
owners had a date with Coyoteman that they didn’t want to pass up.
They
drove the truck passed an old airport – wreckage of both cars and airplanes
littered the east end. Empty buildings lined
the road. Then things started to get
really rough. Joanne turned the truck
over to Taine, to see if he could wrestle the beast any better. But after they passed a side-road leading
south, with signs indicating the way to the ‘Princess Patti Mine’, the road was
all but washed out, and they had to stop.
“Looks
like we walk from here,” was all Taine could say.
The
way up the mine road was rocky and uneven.
Loose rock slipped underfoot, and sharp rock was there to cut the
unwary. Taine and Joanne walked the
three remaining miles to the meeting place with their sleeping gear, intending
to spend the night at whatever place this was that Coyoteman had sent them
to. The mine itself appeared to be a
large, deep ditch in the bedrock. Clear
signs of limestone were present in the walls of the ditch, hard and resistant
in the dry desert, but showing signs of the chemical erosion that comes with
wetter times. The two moved on, without
trail now, to the top of the hill.
“We’re
close now,” Taine breathed hopefully.
“We’re
looking for a hole?”
“That’s
what he said.”
”How are we going to find anything up here?”
“Coyoteman
said that if we stand on the highest point, and look toward the afternoon sun,
we will see a shadow that is too long.
That will be our path.”
“Which
is the highest point? There are several
little peaks. Any one of them could be
it.”
“Yeah. You’re right, Joanne. Let’s pick one that looks right, and just
see.”
”Well, I don’t see any other way.
Okay.”
They
scrambled up a tall, rocky hill and looked around. One point looked a shade higher.
“That
one.”
“Okay.”
They
climbed back down, traversed the hundred or so yards intervening, and toiled up
the next peak. The afternoon sun was
relentless, and sweat drizzled uselessly from the two bodies. They scanned the landscape again.
“I
don’t know. Joanne. What do you think?”
“Siddies! How should I know! I feel like I’m baking.”
Joanne swung her head around in frustration. What about that one over there.
It may be higher.”
“That’s
the one we were just on.”
“Oh
yeah.” Joanne looked down in
embarrassment.
“What
about that one?”
“Taine. Look down.”
“Huh?”
“Look. Right there.” Joanne pointed.
Down
in front of them was a shadow that should not have been there. To a casual observer, it was a shadow. And indeed it was a shadow, but it was also
a hole in the ground. Taine climbed
down to it.
“It
goes way in!”
Joanne
climbed down to join Taine.
“This
is it. I’m sure of it,” he said.
“Now
this is getting more interesting!”
Taine
lit the propane lantern he was carrying, and the two crab-walked forward into
the cavern.
The
hole was narrow, and dropped steeply into the darkness. Scree dribbled downward in front of them,
and removed all trace of their travel behind as well. Quickly leaving the light behind, they were 50 feet down before
stepwise landings of bedrock were well exposed. Cooler now, the ground then became damp and slick. But the two were better able to stand.
Joanne
took a slug of water anyway. “This is
the kind of place that Coyoteman is so fond of. You know, like that circle of stones back in the sierras. He likes a dramatic backdrop for his actions.”
“Last
time, he battled Mendekek. I wonder
what’s in store now.”
“Probably
something a little less life-threatening – I hope.”
The
descent became a series of steps, spaced between short horizontal
traverses. At last, the tunnel appeared
to open into a long, horizontal fracture that canted slightly from vertical,
and opened both above and below them.
The bottom of the next step was not visible. Ahead, the view was blocked by a low-hanging brow of rock, but
the hint of a chamber seemed to open up beyond.
Taine
tossed a pebble into the darkness. Five
seconds later they heard a splash. It
was a long way down.
“What
next?” Joanne said.
“I
don’t know.”
The
two doffed their packs and sat down, hanging their feet over the ledge.
“Maybe
we’re supposed to meet him here,” she offered.
“This
doesn’t seem right. Coyoteman promised
something dramatic, and I don’t see anything here.”
Joanne
glanced around the chamber. “Wait a
second. There are markings on some of
the walls.”
Sure
enough, there were at least two figures chipped into the stone walls. The wet stone did not provide much contrast,
and the figures were very faint. There
might have been more.
“Maybe
this is what we’re here for,” Taine answered.
“Coyoteman isn’t here now, but we could wait for him here for a
while. But let’s turn off the lamp. We may need to conserve the gas.”
“Can
you light it later?”
“Yeah. I can strike a match by feel. It’s no problem for me.”
“Well
if nothing else, we can listen to the cave noises once that burner stops
hissing. Okay.”
Taine shut
the lamp off, and the globe quickly faded into a red ember. Then nothing. Not much could be heard, and the two began tossing pebbles down
into the slot below them. One of
Joann’s shots went askew, and she heard it ping and come to rest almost immediately.
“Hey
Mountain Boy! One of my pebbles landed
on something.”
“I
heard that.”
“If
only I could see… You know…” She glanced back and upward in the direction
from which they had come, but could see no light source. “It’s almost as if I can see. But there’s no light from above.”
“There
is a faint light though. You’re
right! But it must be coming from
ahead.”
“Turn
on that lamp again, and let’s take a closer look below.”
When
the lamp was on, Taine hung it carefully over the edge, and Joanne looked
beyond into the slot. A six-inch ledge
on the lower wall led outward below the rock brow. It was almost 10 feet down.
They could easily slide down to it, but getting up would be a
chore. Joanne had 15 feet of rope in
her pack, and when one end was secured around a firm stone in the chamber, the
other end dangled three feet short of the ledge. Joanne went down first, while Taine made sure the rope did not
slip.
Once
Joanne was standing on the ledge, Taine took the rope and lowered the lamp to
her. She placed it on a level
outcropping and waited for Taine’s descent.
He was nimble on the rocks, and put almost no weight on the rope. In seconds, he was next to Joanne. Both were able to stand, balanced on the
ledge; with their hands outstretched, they could touch the lower wall. In this fashion, they walked beneath the
overhanging rock. The ledge widened,
and after 50 feet, the ceiling opened up.
The chamber they entered was dimly backlit by flickering yellow light;
the ledge widened further as it merged with the chamber floor. The chamber itself was graced with columnar
limestone pillars along the walls, and a huge pair of stalactites hanging from
the ceiling. Two matching layer-cake
stalagmites grew from the chamber floor.
Beyond the ridge generated by the limestone constructs, was a blazing
campfire.
Coyoteman
sat behind the fire, eyes closed, in a lotus position. It was distinctively cool in the cave, and
the two adventurers were more than happy to join Coyoteman by the fire.
Coyoteman
was a bizarre figure, with his coyote head and human body, and Joanne still
found his looks discomforting. Taine,
however, had known him for years, and was completely at home in his presence. They walked into the circle and sat
down. For a while, no one spoke.
“Not
too long ago,” Coyoteman began, eyes still closed, “the water level in the cave
was much higher. When the people who
lived in this area came here, the waterline came up very close to the ledge you
walked in on. It was profoundly more
comforting to walk along the water’s edge than it is now.”
“Yes,”
Taine answered.
“Mieko,
you are the first woman to set foot in this cave.” Coyoteman opened his eyes
and stood.
“I’m
sure that there is a reason why you mention it,” Joanne answered. Her cheeks reddened at the mention of her
birth-name.
Coyoteman
went on, unconcerned. “Yes. For all their wisdom, the natives here were
a sexist, male-dominated society. We
cannot necessarily turn to the past for answers to all problems.”
“My father
always said that if you ignored history, you were doomed to repeat it,” Taine
said.
“You
can just chop out the first part,” Coyoteman responded. “Human history is and always will be a
series of repeats.”
“I
don’t want to believe that,” Joanne snapped.
Coyoteman’s bluntness bothered her, partly because he was so
intimidating, and partly because she knew he was probably right.
“Human
society cycles between control and chaos – between cooperation and competition
– between construction and destruction.
Individual people can learn from their mistakes, but the collective
voice of society cannot be changed.
People die, lessons go unlearned by the balance of other’s ignorance. When you look at society as a whole, it
becomes a quest for external power and the refusal to delve inside. These power struggles can only have one
end. Only the arena has changed.”
“If
that is true, then why bring us here?
Your words hurt me. Why tell us
anything?” Joanne was crying now. “There must be some reason why you cared
enough to help raise Taine, to choose us, to set us apart. What’s going on in that mind of yours?”
“I’m
talking of evolution. I’m talking about
a change of allegiance.”
“You
mean, not be human anymore? How could
we do that?”
“In a
sense, you already have taken the first step.”
”So you’re saying,” Taine said, “that it’s possible to change what we are?”
“Of
course. Regardless of human society,
individual change is always possible.
Some Buddhists have been doing it for centuries. You have always had the potential to change
certain aspects of yourself. Passing
them on to succeeding generations – now that’s a different story.”
“Why did
you bring us here?” Joanne’s tone was
only a tad short of demanding.
“Why,
to show you this…” Coyoteman swept his
arm around the room. The walls behind
Taine and Joanne were covered in petroglyphs.
Some of the drawings were clearly of people and animals. Others were more geometric, ranging from
simple, hand-sized circles to larger abstractions.
Taine’s
eyes followed Coyoteman’s hand. “That’s
incredible! We saw a few of these at
the other end of the chamber. What do
they mean?”
“What
do they mean for us?” Joanne duplicated
Taine’s wonder, but her question was entirely different.
“These
represent over one thousand years of thinking.
People came to this cave for at least that long. No one knows of it now, save for
myself. And now you.” Coyoteman then pointed to a particular
set. “What I thought would be
particularly poignant are these here.”
“What’s
so special about them?”
“There
are times, and places, where minds from all ages come together. A place and a time, without measure. If you could measure time with a ruler,
these special places are not on the line.
You can move right past them, never knowing. And yet,” Coyoteman ran
his hand across the wall, “They are there.
They are right there, and you can touch them.”
Neither
Taine nor Joanne spoke. They waited for
Coyoteman to continue. As he spoke again, he moved slowly toward the rock face.
“I see
these places. These times. And they are full of minds that were not
afraid to journey beyond what they thought they knew. If you can find your way, to that place away from all other
places, then, for an instant, you will be among your peers. All those, through the ages, and all those
yet to come, will be there. It’s an
amazing experience.”
The
fire snapped and popped. A flurry of
sparks and ash plumed upward. For a
moment, the room seemed crowded with the inscribers of the messages in
stone. Then the moment passed.
“What
this one says, in essence is: ‘My inspiration becomes the doom of my people.’”
“So
it… I get it,” Taine said.
“Would
someone like to spell it out for me?”
Joanne asked.
“If I
could only have preserved this mind,” Coyoteman said, almost to himself, as he
moved his hand over the drawings.
“It’s
like this,” Taine said to Joanne. “One
man’s inspiration, mindlessly followed by his people, became their tragedy,
because it’s the inspiration that counts, not the words. Thought becomes thoughtless stone.”
Joanne
was silent now, as the words sunk in.
Coyoteman continued. “What I
have for you is a journey without expectation.
Perhaps you can see why. I am
the thinker, but will my thoughts become your gravestones? I want more than that from you. But if I say what I want – what may lie
ahead – then I doom you to failure. If
I seem to not be forthcoming, this is the reason. Even now, I think I might be meddling too much, but I want so
very badly for you to succeed.”
“How
do you measure success?” Joanne
wondered aloud.
“Never
mind about that now,” Coyoteman said as he sat down again. “What have you brought me to eat? I’m famished!”
Chapter 2
Morongo Camp
A spotted dog is
still a dog.
Next day
Taine and Joanne hiked back to the truck early, and quietly drove off to the
east. Leaving the deceptively plain
Shadow Mountains behind, they picked up Highway 395 again and headed south. Cutting over on an eastbound road marked as
Highway 18, they slipped through the northern outskirts of a city named
Victorville. Trees lined the course of
a dry riverbed in the center of their crossing. Bridges were intact, and there were the distinct signs of recent
human habitation.
“How
much gas do we have left?”
“The
first tank is almost empty. Tank 2
looks, oh, about half full. Maybe a
little less.”
“It
would be nice if we didn’t have to walk much to get to Morongo Valley.”
“I’m
guessing we’ll get there. Not much to
spare though.”
Fire
had clearly ravaged the east part of the city.
Large tracts of neighborhood homes were windblown blackened
timbers. And tumbleweed.
“I
much prefer the desert landscape to that city stuff,” Joanne remarked. “It’s so depressing.”
Very soon
they were back within the lonely desert architecture, and the mood of the two
began to improve. But for a long
stretch, neither of them spoke. The
trip to the cavern had given them plenty to think about, and neither had come
to an understanding of what Coyoteman was asking them to do. They both had the perception that they were
on some kind of mission, but Coyoteman had given them no clear purpose or
goal. They were free to do whatever
they chose to do. They chose to go on
to Morongo Valley, ostensibly to help Taine keep the promise he had made to
Chief Doeskins when he came with the Las Vegas gang a fortnight ago.
Morning
gave way to afternoon, and the sun was almost unbearably hot. Joanne drove, and Taine merely reflected,
looking occasionally at the map to verify where they were. Presently he found himself looking more at
Joanne than at either the map or the road.
Finally
she glanced his way. “What’re you
looking at?”
“You.”
More
silence, then: “Well, that’s not fair.
I don’t get to do that.”
“You
could stop driving. Just find us some
shade.”
“I’ll
do that.”
As
they topped a rise, the roadway led the couple gently down toward the course of
a dry riverbed. There, a stand of
Mesquite trees offered a semblance of shade by the side of the road. Joanne pulled the truck over and parked it
so that they could get back on the road without too much wheel-twisting.
The
back of the truck, covered by a rusty camper shell, contained a wealth of
materials and supplies scavenged from the battle at Independence. Blankets, sleeping rolls, containers of
water, dried food, all stashed away.
Some was for their use, and some was to be presented as gifts to the
Morongo Valley tribe. A blanket was
called for now, along with some water and food. And after the two had doffed their clothes, they sat naked in the
half-shade offered by the mesquites, eating crackers and deviled ham. A couple of almost-ripe apples from
Independence topped off the meal.
Happily
full, Joanne gave Taine a flirtatious look, which he picked up on immediately.
“Want
to make love?” he asked.
“Maybe,
“ she responded, putting on her shoes.
“What
are you doing?”
“We
can have sex,” she said, “if you catch me.”
With that,
she sprang to her feet and took off running down the roadway. Taine got up to run after her.
And
there they were, two naked humans, running down a deserted stretch of highway,
in the middle of the desert. Very
quickly, Taine discovered two things:
Joanne was an expert runner, and the desert pavement is quite hot in the
September sun. Soon she was a hundred
yards farther than Taine, and he was hot-footing it back to the shade. It was excruciatingly far, but as he hopped,
he managed to yell in Joanne’s direction.
“If
you catch ME, we can have sex.”
Taine
was about to step onto the welcome coolness of the blanket, when Joanne tackled
him, and the two went sprawling. Their
love-making was furious, and it exhausted them both. Afterward, they lay back, just breathing. The desert heat was stifling, and they were
quiet for several minutes, trying to recapture a balance in their body
temperatures.
“What are
you doing?” Joanne asked suddenly.
“What
do you mean? I’m just laying here
sweating.”
“Something
is moving under my butt.”
“Let’s
see,” Taine said rolling over on his side.
He could see the blanket was moving slightly. “Better get up,” he warned her.
Joanne
rolled away from the movement. They got
off the blanket and pulled it up. A
sinuous form was roughly outlined in the sand.
Then a head popped up.
“Holy
Cow! It’s a snake,” Taine said.
“Not
just any snake either,” Joanne remarked.
“It’s a rattler.”
“Wow,
you’re right. It’s kind of small.”
As if
in response, the snake scrunched itself into a coil, and began to rattle, as if
to say: Small, maybe. But dangerous,
yes.
“Looks
like we have worn out our welcome here,” Joanne said.
“I
would say.”
They
collected their clothes, and dragged the blanket away a respectable distance from
the agitated viper. In moments, they
were on their way again. Taine was at
the wheel this time, moving a little faster, in hopes that the passing air
would cool them some.
By
late afternoon, with the sun at their backs, the air cooled just enough to make
the drive pleasantly warm. They dropped
into Yucca Valley, which was mostly deserted.
But not completely. Dim lights
illuminated a few of the small, patchwork houses there. As they turned westward again, to head down
into Morongo Valley, their path was quickly blocked.
They
weren’t precisely ‘expected,’ but there was a large number of guards manning
the blockade erected across the road.
In short order, they were surrounded by faces that were decidedly
unfriendly.
“What
is your business here?”
Taine’s
reply was to the point. “I’ve come to
fulfill a promise I made to your chief.”
“What
promise? No strangers have made any
promises to us. Leave now!”
“But I
was here a couple of weeks ago, with another group. Your chief and his men invited us down here. You must remember that.” Taine tried to pick out a familiar face
among the gate guards, but to no avail.
“Where
are your friends now?” a guard asked.
“I am
no longer with them.” The behavior of
the guards was a shock to Taine, who had expected almost instant recognition
from whoever was in charge.
“Where
are they? Are they coming behind you?”
“No. They’re dead. Isn’t there anyone here who recognizes me?” Taine was growing desperate. No one came forward.
“Turn
around and go. You are not welcome
here.”
“Okay…” Taine proceeded to turn the truck, which was
a laborious process without power steering.
He could only turn the truck a little at a time, and the guards made no
effort to help by backing away. It took
all of five minutes to turn the truck completely around. The guards watched them go until they were
out of sight.
“Wow. That sucks big time.” Joanne sensed the full measure of his
disappointment.
“I’m
not giving up yet,” Taine said between his teeth. “Let’s camp for the night on the overlook where I stayed with
Mikey’s crew. Maybe we stirred the nest
enough for someone to pay us a visit. I
have a hunch…”
It was
just a couple of miles to the turnoff, and they pulled over. They weren’t going much further anyway. The truck’s gas tanks were almost bone dry.
But
Taine was right. After dinner, just as
the red was leaving the western sky, the chief appeared at the edge of their
camp.
“Behold! Here is the great warrior, and his soldiers,
come to repair our power grid!” The
ringing of the chief’s voice and the way the firelight played on his face made
a dramatic impression. Even so, Taine
suspected the chief was joking with him.
“I’m
minus a few soldiers, Chief. Will you
share our fire?”
“I
will, thanks. So where are your
friends?”
“Chief,
to be honest, they proved not to be friends.
As you suspected before, they were pirates. I’m very lucky to still be alive.”
“So
they had no interest in trade?”
“I was
the only one, apparently. Chief, let me
introduce you to Joanne Hatakayama. She
is my friend, and as much a warrior as I.
Perhaps more.”
“That
is impressive. Would you like to tell
me how you became a warrior, Joanne?”
“Oh, I
don’t know if I could call myself a warrior.
But I did fight a battle for a good cause. It is a long story, but it is worth telling.”
“I
have some time. And I do love a good
story. Would you be kind enough to come
tell it in my camp? I’m sure others
would like to hear it.”
According
to Taine’s descriptions, Morongo Camp was much better equipped than their truck
camp. “Yes, of course!” She said.
“In
that case, my company will escort you.”
The chief turned to go, then stopped, turned his head, and said, “Oh,
Taine, you are welcome too.”
Taine
had suspected that the chief had a sense of humor. Now he had proof.
Chapter 3
Trippin’
Systems increase in
complexity to the point of exhaustion.
As narrator, I hesitate to spell out details of this
one possible future history. No one wants
to belabor bad news. Certainly not
me! But it might help some readers to
get a little background on exactly what happened to take the world into this
future where so few of us survived. So
if you have made it this far, I’ll share a bit of it with you. But from this chapter on, the reader is
required to fill in the gaps with their own mythology.
‘The Change’ acted as a winnowing – a filtering out
– of those who, for one reason or another, needed society to survive. It wasn’t fair: the nice old poet in the wheelchair downstairs probably didn’t
make it through, but the jerk who cut you off the road to buy the last gallon
of gas most likely did. There wasn’t
even a war, to speak of. It was more of
a ‘Rube Goldberg’ effect. We created
the contraption and inadvertently turned it on. Or off, as the case may be.
And it’s not really fair to say that humans were the
cause of their own destruction. Rather
one could say that humans were surprisingly powerless to collectively stop
doing what had always worked in the past.
No one could know for certain that the weather was going to change, or
that the global economy was shrinking.
All they could know was that, typical for humans, it certainly wasn’t
going to be them sliding toward oblivion – until it actually happened, of
source.
But the weather was changing, and the global
economy was shrinking. Fuels
were in constant short supply. The
oceans were rising, and almost devoid of fish. The forests were depleted, and
soils were blowing away under strong dry winds. Everywhere, people were competing for shrinking resources. The tinder was dry, plenty of hot air to go
around, and all that was needed was that magic flame to start it up.
The real spark of the matter, the ‘Camel-breaking’ straw,
came on a nameless day in a nameless year, when a nameless accountant working
in Sacramento was looking at a horrendous budgetary issue, and decided to
postpone funding into an entitlement account.
Those who work strictly with numbers have a tendency to view numbers as
simply numbers. They are limited by the
math of the problem. But as a result of
this mathematically logical conclusion, thousands of paychecks didn’t go out on
time to many residents of the major population centers of California. No great surprise there, as California was
in the throes of a vast budgetary crisis, made worse by the constant flow of
businesses leaving California. The
economy of the Golden State was, unfortunately, in a downward decline,
accentuated by little bumps and slumps.
This appeared to be one of the slumps.
Now, you know what happens when you don’t pay
people. They are largely unable to pay
others. Utility bills don’t get paid,
prostitutes get short-changed, wagers don’t get resolved, groceries get stolen.
You basically have a lot of pissed-off
people.
The folks in San Diego took it in stride, as they
usually did. The weather was good. Heck, there was fruit on the trees. There were ways to get by. But in San Jose, things got a bit more
caustic. People from the ghetto areas
south of downtown were out on the street in protest, and things got a little
out of hand. Looting broke out. There were fires, and the National Guard was
called in to settle things down, in addition to police squads from several neighboring
cities.
In a way, things looked as though they might turn
out okay. If it had occurred in some
other state, a lot of the ‘Guard’ might have been off fighting forest fires, or
battling the separatists in the southeast and northwest. Instead, they were available.
But during the rioting, a certain resident, feeling
he had nothing to lose or live for, strapped some high explosives to his waist,
walked into the center of a group of soldiers, and blew himself up. Twenty-five Guardsmen died, and nearly
hundred others wounded – most of who would be out of commission for the
duration of the struggle. The looting
continued unabated. More help was
requested, and other teams were called in from southern California.
Which was a mistake…
In their efforts to bring a quick end to the
problems in San Jose, the authorities weren’t aware of problems that were
developing in and around Los Angeles.
Rioting broke out in several areas there the following day, possibly sparked
by the images coming through on the televisions, (when the electricity was
working.) From East LA, looting on a
scale never seen before moved into the downtown areas and south toward Long
Beach. Whole skyscrapers were
ransacked. Homes were destroyed in
Beverly Hills. Emboldened by their
successes, many of the gangs, now better armed than the police, began to wipe
out entire neighborhoods. Fires were
set, and when the firemen came to put them out, they were shot. Eventually the firemen stopped coming, and
the fires grew to measure in acres, then square miles.
The wealthy slipped away as they could, to the
airports, and from there to places perceived as safer. Off they went to destinations like Cape Cod,
or Boulder, or Santa Fe, to wait out what they perceived as the worst of the
riots.
Meanwhile, the keepers of the peace, hampered by
lack of numbers, were further inhibited by low fuel levels. Sorties by helicopters had to be short, and
were limited in capacity by the now-pervasive smoke. Fires burned out of control all over the region, and no one could
do anything about them. It began to
appear as though the area would just have to burn itself out. Police wavered as
they fought for control of smaller areas of high importance. In some cases, their own families were out
to be in the crowds they were holding back.
There was a slight hope even then that the gangs would eventually turn
on each other, fighting their numbers down to a manageable problem over
time. Backing away from total control,
the police assumed a new strategy: the disaster might be managed one small step
at a time.
And that strategy might even have worked, had it not
been for a certain issue that was fomenting, virtually unseen, alongside the
riots. That issue was water.
Water pressure had been dropping steadily during the
fires and looting, and the various water management districts had plans to deal
with emergencies. Timing was
everything, and the plans called for shutting down the main valves when the
reserves reached a certain level. That
point came, and the engineers shut them off.
All over the metropolitan area, water stopped flowing. The result was insanity.
Once people realized they had no water, they were
boiling out of their houses like hoards of angry bees, on the streets, and
desperately searching for a way out. Panic has a way of changing personalities,
and people once calmly waiting out the fighting were now completely out of
control. The fires channeled people’s
movements much like a stampede of cattle might be channeled in a canyon. Nothing stood in the way of their flight,
and no usable square of turf was left untrampled in the frenzy. Casualties mounted into the thousands, then
hundreds of thousands. Initially, most
of the dead and wounded were children; though adults weren’t immune to the pounding
feet either.
In their now desperate search for basic needs, the
crowds overwhelmed the remaining defenses in the city. In the space of five days, there was very
little worth defending in the LA Basin.
When the riots finally began to wane in intensity, the engineers who had
turned off the water supplies were no longer able to turn them back on. They weren’t alive anymore. And no one left alive even knew where the critical
valves were; let alone what to do with them.
So what water remained sat and evaporated in the retention reservoirs,
while millions of people searched frantically for their next drink.
Without imported water, Los Angeles is a very dry
place. Left to its own devices, the
region might be able to support 10,000 people.
With wells adequately spaced to capitalize on the underground water
supplies, that number might be expanded to 200,000. This number depended on certain efficiencies of organization that
the area by itself could not offer. In
order to make use of those resources, people needed to know how to drill and
develop a well. The resources necessary for well-drilling and development
needed to be available to make it happen.
At this stage of the events known collectively as ‘The Change’,
well-development resources may have been available somewhere, but the know-how
was in very short supply. There was no
time for planning or implementing plans.
Most of the million or so of people still left alive grabbed their
precious plastic water bottles and headed north or south. The rest stayed and wrestled with each other
over their water bottles.
The very basic philosophy of ‘Every man for himself’
reigned supreme. There were, however,
some notable exceptions. Gang members stuck
together, and however badly they treated everyone else, they still had respect
for the group they belonged to. When
the guards and staff at Chino State Prison failed to show up for work,
prisoners reacted with predictable fashion: they rioted. But this time there was no one to stop them,
and eventually they found a way to escape.
They pounced like a flock of predatory birds on the streets of LA, and
had their great, bloody party, eventually settling in to either self-destruct
or continue to prey upon the remaining inhabitants.
And though it never appeared in any news report,
someone acting on his own single-handedly let out all the animals in the Los
Angeles Zoo. Griffith Park was not
burning, and for a while, large groups of people congregated on the hill in
relative safety. When lions and tigers
and bears began showing up, the people fled.
Griffith Park emptied out of all save a hearty few.
Without flowing water, there wasn’t functioning
sanitation anywhere in the city.
Imagine a million people suddenly unable to find toilet paper. For a time, the Los Angeles River stank from
urine and shit.
Months later, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit the
Pasadena area. No one cared. What could be wrecked in a place that was
already razed to the ground? Who was
there to tell about it?
Like a column of falling dominoes, the communities
along the central California coast and in the interior valley were quickly
overrun by refugees from the LA disaster.
San Diego itself put up a valiant struggle, and to some degree, isolated
itself from the disaster. But the
inland communities in southern California became awash in blood. For those who survived, the battles in
defense of what remained of Southern California would live in their memories,
and through songs and stories for generations to come. ‘Oceanside’, and the ‘Defense at Del Mar’
would one day become more famous battles than Gettysburg.
The reason for that fading memory is that yet
another more insidious effect was making its presence known - one that would
eventually, over the succeeding generations, wipe out all memories of the
earlier struggles. While all the people
in the west were fighting and dying, the great economic engine that was
California had come to a screeching halt.
The place that produced so much of what the rest of the country needed
was essentially down for the count. And
the vast network of interdependence throughout the country, which was already
stretched to the limit, began to collapse.
Trade ceased completely, and the shock waves of the
sixth largest economy suddenly disappearing from the map were felt
worldwide. Ships at anchor waited in
vain for their turn to load or unload goods and fuel. Some steamed away. Others
were assaulted, burned, or even scuttled.
Trains sat empty on the tracks, their cargo evicted or destroyed. Wine, gasoline, cotton, and food, all
desired or needed in other parts of the country, rotted in California rail
yards. Money, in electronic or material
form, that lifeblood of the economy, failed to materialize when expected.
Slowly, in time measured by weeks, rather than the
days it took for the California economy to crumble, the perception of the
United States as an indivisible entity was replaced by more localized
self-interest. The country fractured;
peacefully in some areas, bloodily in others.
And in all cases, the separation was followed by a season of surprises,
where locals inevitably discovered there was something some other place
provided that they could not do without.
An entire nation of people suddenly found themselves without coffee,
among other things. The hangovers began
immediately.
Six months later came the epidemics.
A radical new strain of influenza found its way to
the eastern seaboard, quickly moving south as far as Atlanta, and west into the
most populous areas, like the Chicago Metropolis. With inadequate medical facilities, and no vaccines, another
terrible wave of death decimated eastern populations. Certain previously unknown diseases sprang up in pockets of
populations, coincidently close to bio-warfare labs. The western region was largely spared this pandemic due to the
isolating effect of the Rocky Mountains.
But westerners had their own troubles.
Regions where there had been too many deaths for adequate health measures
to be taken found themselves with enormous sanitation problems, and hugely
swelling vermin populations. Cholera
and Bubonic plague struck in several metropolitan areas, from San Diego to
Seattle, and even in smaller cities like Boise and Flagstaff. Population levels were winnowed further.
The Midwest and Plains States, the heartland of
America, found themselves largely intact.
Yes, people were dying there too, but in far fewer numbers. Denver and Kansas City were still functional
population centers. Here in the ‘Bread
Basket’ of the former great nation, some semblance of the Unites States
survived. But there was fear of moving
beyond the now restricted borders.
Death and disease awaited those who journeyed south or east. The Mormons to the west were anything but
friendly to outsiders, and no one knew what lay beyond Utah’s western border
anymore. People stayed at home,
perpetually fearful of marauders who could bring destruction or death from any
direction at any time.
Uncertain were the fates of Washington, Arizona, New
Mexico, and Nevada to these folk.
Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming were known to be in the hands of
separatists. Rumors and bodies were
perpetually floating down the Missouri river.
Texas and the southeastern states were in a perpetual civil war between
the major colors of the skin.
Everywhere, among the survivors, the gloves were off in the struggle to
get what was needed. Once the great
economic engine shut down, there wasn’t enough to go around.
In the west, survival of certain cities meant
survival of those within, and quite a few communities did survive, for one
reason or another. Most of Arizona, San
Diego County, and Las Vegas remained viable places for many. But communication lines were down all over,
and people were fearful of travel outside of what they were familiar with. Knowledge of the fate of the west remained
in the west, except for the few hardy souls who ventured out. For most, that knowledge came at a high
price, as Sam MacDonnell found out.
In spite of all that, the Plains States stood
together, and found they could make do with what they had. Colorado had oil, and coal enough to fuel
the local economy. States to the east, as
far as the Mississippi River, bought the petroleum, and in turn provided food
to the Rocky Mountain State. Over the
next two decades, a semblance of the old republic began to re-emerge. You couldn’t buy insurance, and you still
couldn’t get coffee, but at least there was an economy. Your kids got fed, and schooled. There were jobs. And a certain level of protection against invaders was
assumed. People felt reasonably safe.
And if you couldn’t find satisfaction in Kansas City or wherever, you
could pack up and move – north, south, east, or west. It didn’t matter. No one
was stopping you.