Republic of the Living (Novella): Vengeance by Taz Gallaher

 
 
    The fog rose up over the mountains like a pompadour
of smoke combed into the sky.  Beneath it, canyons furrowed the dusty
brown hillsides in long, shadowed scars. On the flatlands, empty buildings and
crumbling houses poked their heads above a sea of oaks and pines.   A
flock of birds wheeled across the sky, swept across the tracks, and disappeared
into the streets below.
    The morning sun bounced off the pale concrete bed
of the elevated railway.  It should have been raining but the seasons were
out of joint.  Instead, a warm, dry wind gusted from the west, herding
brittle leaves across the rails.  
    Chewy and the girl trudged along the flume that
cradled the tracks.  They had left Fruitvale late Wednesday night, headed
north and then east, hurrying to outrun their pursuers.   When dusk
fell, they had broken into a platform booth and shared a can of beans.  In
the morning’s gray light, she curled against the corner of the booth and slept.
 Chewy dozed on the chair in front of a console studded with buttons and
switches.  He prodded her awake just as dawn broke and they set off again
for the hills.
                She
was tiny.  As they walked together, the top of her short, dark hair barely
reached his chest.  Her black t-shirt billowed below her waist.
 Before they left the small settlement on the edge of the dead city, she
had traded her heavy over-sized boots for a pair of children’s sneakers - -
bright pink and tattooed with cartoon images of cats and dogs.  The
machete belted around her waist bounced against her right knee.
    She slipped away from him toward the edge of the
rail bed.  “Over there,” she said, pointing her arm back in the direction
they had come from.
    He stopped and shaded his eyes.  A line of
inky smoke wriggled into view above the tree line.  He breathed deeply and
the wind brought him the taste of burning wood.
    “ Happens when it’s dry,” he
said.  “Somebody does something stupid and things start to burn.”
    She arched her eyebrows and the corner of her
mouth tilted upward.  “You serious?”  She put her hands on her hips.
 “You think I’m still that stupid?”
    He shrugged and turned back up the track bed.
    “ It’s them,” she shouted.
 
    He stopped.
    “ Fire must be around 20th
Street.  Means they’re close.  Real close.”
    “ Well then.” He turned to
her.  “Better get your ass in gear, hermana. Tunnel’s up ahead and we
wasting time.”
    He trudged forward and she jogged up to him, her
pink sneakers slapping against the concrete.
    “ Come on, old man,” she said
as she passed him by.  “Better get your hustle on.”
    He laughed and tightened his fingers around his
pack straps as he shifted into a fast walk.
    She was tiny, but she was tough.  He’d seen
that right away.  The night she raced across the hard sand at the mouth of
the river and pounded on his door.  The dog barked twice to interrupt his
pen as it scratched across the long sheet of yellow paper.  He twisted the
wick of the old kerosene lamp, shoved the knife into his back pocket, and
opened the door. Her cheeks were flushed and her black eyes glittered in the
faint moonlight.  He’d seen her a couple of times before outside Auntie’s
house up on the bluffs.   He nodded once and words exploded out of
her mouth.  
    By the time they’d climbed back up the narrow
trail, the State militia had taken Auntie.  The other girl lay in a
crumpled pile next to the old woman’s big table.  Her cold fingers
clutched the shank of a kitchen knife.
    “ She told me to get you,” the
girl whispered into the silent room.  “She told me to get you.”
    They buried the red-haired girl just beyond the
haphazard columns of Auntie’s beehives.  She helped without saying a word.
 The sun was rising when he returned the shovels to the old woman’s
rickety shed.   He dropped to his hands and knees and peered under
the ancient cart Auntie used to haul her honey and