Page 64 of Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One 2)

“Didn’t you figure that out during one of your midnight rambles?” When she said nothing, he tapped her chin with his finger. “We know where our children are. More or less.”

They went together.

The settlement had once been a small mountain town that ran under a single steep mile from end to end. Before the Doom, the houses, two churches, a single bar, and a tiny general store had been home to less than two hundred people.

Now about eighty made the best of things. No community gardens or greenhouses, Fallon noted, but individual ones. No organized security, either, as she saw no posted guards. Just a few people who stepped out of houses or walked across sloping lawns with long guns.

She heard a baby cry, the mournful lowing of a cow, watched a young boy chase a hen who flapped wildly across the road.

From a distance she heard the quick crack of a bullet.

She looked to her father, knowing strangers would expect the man to take the lead.

“We’re not looking for trouble,” Simon began.

A man stepped forward, a little grimy around the edges despite the lack of beard and close-cropped hair. “What are you looking for?”

“Maybe a chance to stretch our legs for a bit. Simon Swift. My wife, Lana, our daughter, Fallon, our sons, Colin, Travis, and Ethan.”

Smart, Fallon thought. The names made them people and a family.

“Don’t have any supplies to spare.”

“We’re not looking for supplies, either. Are you in charge?”

“Don’t need no in charge.”

“Tim, don’t be such an asshole.” A woman moved up. Wide hips, rawboned face, a mass of graying hair. She wore jeans that carried as many patches as they did the original denim. “Mae Pickett,” she said, and, resting her rifle on her shoulder, offered Simon a hand to shake. “This here’s Tim Shelby. Where y’all from?”

“A few miles south of Cumberland.”

“That so? I had a cousin lived up there. Bobby Morrison.”

“Sorry. I don’t think I know him.”

“Well, he’s likely dead now anyway, and always was an idiot. Those are some fine-looking horses.” She held up her hand. “We don’t steal from strangers here. We ain’t got much to steal back.”

“That works out nice for both of us,” Simon said, making her laugh.

“You’ve got some poison ivy,” Lana commented. Mae reached down to scrub at the rash that ranged angry from wrist to elbows on both arms.

“Yeah, driving me crazy. I didn’t look before I reached.”

“I’ve got something that will help.”

But when Lana started to dismount, Fallon signaled her back. She got off Laoch, walked back to one of the packhorses, and dug out the balm.

She saw Mae’s eyes cut down to the sword, but up again as she approached with the little jar. “It’ll ease the itching,” Fallon told her as she opened the jar, “give you relief, and start the healing.”

She coated Mae’s left arm.

“Praise Jesus, that works quick as a rabbit. First relief I’ve had in a week.” She shifted her rifle, offered her gun arm. “I’m grateful.”

Fallon offered the jar. “Put on another coat tonight. That should do it.”

“Thank you kindly. What do I owe you?”

“Conversation.”

Mae’s eyebrows shot up. “That comes cheap enough. You a doctor, cutie?” Her lips curved as she asked, then sobered when she looked up at Lana. “You a doctor?”

“Healers.”

“There’s a boy lives right over there. About your middle boy’s age, I’d say. He’s been feeling poorly. Maybe you could take a look at him, maybe you got something to help him.”

“I’d be happy to.”

“Tim, you take Miss Lana on over to Sarah’s place so she can see about Pete. Go on now, before I see if she can heal up your sour disposition. Mr. Swift, you can take your horses and boys right over that way, to the shade. We got that old well working a few years back. The water’s clean and cold. Nobody’s going to bother your ladies. I promise you.”

She turned to Fallon. “I owe you a conversation. That’s my porch right there. We can sit a spell.”

“I guess Mr. Shelby doesn’t know you’re in charge.”

Mae let out a bark of laughter that ended on a hoot as she walked Fallon to her porch and the two spindly rockers on it. “He’s not all the way wrong about no in charge. Mostly it’s take care of your own first around here.”

“More hands working together get more done.”

“Won’t say you’re wrong, either. Me and Tim, we lived right here, went to school together. We’re the only ones who didn’t get sick when it came through. Came through so fast we didn’t know we were dying until we were dead. Lost my husband, my ma and pa, too. Didn’t have any kids, and I count that as a blessing now though it caused me grief in my younger days. I don’t know if I could’ve lived burying a child. Anyway, that’s past. You want conversation, so what do you want to talk about?”

“You don’t have any Uncannys in your community.”

“Community’s a stretch. We had a few come through, a few stay awhile. We don’t have problems with them. There’s a settlement of them about five miles on.”

“I know. We’re heading there next.”

“We mind ours, they mind theirs.” Mae lifted her wide shoulders. “We trade with them, and I can tell you, I was thinking of going to them about Pete. Boy’s feverish and been running at both ends two days now. You one of them?”

“Yes.”

“Your family?”

“My mother, two of my brothers.”

“Then I’ll be grateful again Pete’s in good hands. He’s a nice boy. Likes to help people. You didn’t come for supplies, and there are lots of places to stretch your legs where nobody’s going to hold a gun on you. Why’d you come?”

The woman had sharp eyes, Fallon thought, and from the way Tim had listened to her—from the way people with guns had melted away again—she was clearly respected if not technically in charge.

“Mrs. Pickett—”

“Mae.”

“Mae, the Doom’s finished, but the trouble isn’t over.”

“We don’t get much of it here. Nothing worth stealing, too far off the road for Raiders to bother themselves. Government likely doesn’t know or care we’re here.”

“They will. Do you have communications?”

As if it was just another lazy spring afternoon, Mae set her rocker creaking. “That we don’t, unless you count somebody coming through with stories, but that doesn’t happen often. Like I said, we’re off the beaten path, and we’re good with that. No communications, no electricity, no running water. We make do. Most of the young ones leave when they get your age or a bit older. Those who stay? They tend to have somebody they’re taking care of. Sooner or later, there’ll be nobody left but the ghosts.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. You’ve got a good location.” Strategic, Fallon thought. A good place for billeting troops. “There’s a field going to waste over there that could be planted with crops. You’ve got houses that need repair. Electric lines waiting to be powered up.”

“How we gonna manage all that, cutie? No plow, no tractor, no lumber, no electric company to throw the switch.”

“I can help with that.”

“That makes you damn handy.” Those sharp eyes on Fallon’s face, Mae drummed her index and middle fingers on the arm of the rickety chair. “What’s the charge?”

“A trade. The use of some of the houses, one of the churches—or both if they’re not in use. Some of the land. As a base.”

“A base for what?”

“Soldiers. Training them, housing them, deploying them.”

“Whose soldiers?”

“Mine.”

Mae sat back, making the chair groan at the shifting weight. “You got soldiers?”

“Some, and I’ll have more, because the trouble’s not over. The next

phase of it? It’s just beginning. It’ll swallow boys like Pete, and the little guy I saw chasing a chicken that should be in a coop so you don’t have to hunt for the eggs or lose them to foxes. Have you seen the black lightning, ma’am?”

“In the distance.”

“Crows circling, smoke rising?”

“In the distance.”

“They’ll come closer.”

“Well, if you want to give me nightmares…” She trailed off, rose, walked to the end of the porch.

The owl had glided down to perch on a branch over the men in her family. The wolf trotted up to bump flanks with the dogs, and take water from the bowl Ethan set down for him.

“You see that big white owl?”

“Yes, he’s mine. Taibhse. The wolf is Faol Ban.”

“That horse got wings, girl? The white one you’re riding?”

“When he wants them.”

Slowly, Mae came back to sit. “I like conversations.” Still, her voice came out raw before she cleared her throat. “I’ve had more than a few with some who live a few miles down. That’s some sword you got there. A big sword for a young girl. How’d you get it?”

Fallon answered without hesitation. “In the Well of Light when I lifted it from the eternal fire, along with the shield.”

---