Runner Boy | Book 2 | Rider Kid Read online

  “So you shot him?”

  “No. I didn’t shoot him. I took the medicine back. And then his friends, who were shooting up the town, they came after me. Some old guy saved my butt, and then a bunch of volunteer fire department guys saved everybody. I was just trying to stay alive.”

  “Maybe if you’d got the hell out of there when they started shooting up the town, you wouldn’t have had to have your butt saved.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Just think, Brady. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way. You should know better after all you’ve been through.” He steps forward and grabs my shoulder. Gives it a squeeze. I take it as a father’s hug. From a father who doesn’t give hugs.

  “Go out to the barn and talk to your mother. She needs to know you’re all right.”

  I head out to the barn, thinking that it’s hard to please Dad. He’s pissed because I stood my ground, but if I’d actually hightailed it when those thugs came roaring into town, he’d be pissed because I ran and left everyone at their mercy.

  I don’t know that Mom is any more understanding, but at least she’s happy to see me and gives me some real hugs.

  My brother, who’s thirteen and thinks he’s going to be the world’s greatest soldier just as soon as I stop stealing all the glory that should be his, won’t leave me alone when we get down to the room we share in the unfinished basement. His eyes are as big as grapefruits, or at least what I remember as grapefruits, as he quizzes me on what happened in Juniper. He thinks it is so cool that I got involved in a gunfight. I try to downplay my role, and emphasize how scary it was, how frightened I was, how dangerous it was. But he keeps asking questions. “How many shots did you take? How many guys did you shoot, really? What’s it like to shoot somebody when they’re that close to you? Do you see blood and brains splatter all over?”

  He’s still got a big bump on his collarbone from when he broke it when he was shot out of a tree trying to be a soldier, but he clearly didn’t learn his lesson.

  I try to dampen his enthusiasm by saying, “I’m telling you, if you ever have to go through something like this, you’ll have nightmares. I dream about people getting killed. It’s awful.”

  It doesn’t work. “Naw. I dream about flying,” he says. “I’ll just have more dreams like that.” He stares at me for a minute, shrugs his shoulders and walks off.

  For the next few days I make my rounds, staying local. I don’t want to go to Lafayette, because then I’d feel obligated to report to Major Williams. But I can’t put it off forever; I’ve got a couple customers who want me to take some stuff in, so at the end of the week I go to Lafayette. I make my deliveries, including a hog quarter that goes to the Purdue cafeteria in West Lafayette, and take the chits I get to the bank in downtown Lafayette to deposit in my customers’ accounts, with a few going into my account. I don’t like to carry money on my trips back and forth.

  I look for Dad at the bank, but he’s not around, so I reluctantly drag myself over to City Hall to find Major Williams. It takes a while, because the building I thought was City Hall turns out to be the county courthouse. City Hall is just a couple blocks away. It’s a modern, glass and concrete building, unlike the county courthouse, which is one of those old domed buildings with columns and all that.

  Anyway, by asking a few people, I find Major Williams’ office on the second floor. It would be nice if it had electricity, but now it’s dark and hot, with one big window that lets in light and air, and not enough of either.

  He’s friendly enough when he sees me standing at the door. He waves me in and motions for me to sit at the chair that faces his big desk.

  “Hey, how’s it hanging, kid?” he says. “Brady, right?” He’s wearing his camo uniform again, I notice.

  I nod.

  “You got anything juicy for me? Any strange goings on out there?”

  “No. Nothing I noticed.” I’ve decided that I’m not going to snitch on anyone unless it’s something really bad. Like a gang shooting up a town.

  “No? Well, that’s good, I guess. As long as everyone’s safe. That’s the thing.” His smile doesn’t look real. “But, you know, things don’t seem so safe around here. We’ve had kids stealing food. Adults stealing food. A woman was attacked the other day, not two blocks from where we sit. Can you believe that?”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “We’ve got to get the militia organized. That’s what I’ve been doing. Not as easy as it might seem.” He nods at the papers on his desk. He’s handwriting something. No computers or printers, of course. He looks at me, narrows his eyes, like he’s getting serious now. “You don’t see anything? No one out after curfew even?”

  “I’m not out after curfew. Assuming curfew is dark. I’m home by then. The only people I see out after dark is my brother going to get wood for the cook fire, or someone out working in the barn, taking care of the animals. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Next week when you come in here I’m going to give you a list of some of the rules and regulations, the laws that we’re going to be enforcing once I get the militia in shape. Like the curfew, and a few others. Not the obvious, not stealing and killing and dealing drugs, but some of the basics. Okay?”

  “Sure.” I’m not sure I want to see these new laws. Who knows what they might include?

  “So, kid, keep your eyes open, okay? See you next week.”

  As I ride over to Rachel’s place, I think to myself that wasn’t so bad.

  10

  87 days until the Pulse Anniversary

  The next week I wait until Friday again to meet with Major Williams. This time I run into Governor General Wayne in the hall outside Williams office. He’s wearing camo gear today, so I’m guessing he’s thinking more like a general than a governor. He nods as we pass in the hall. I’m not sure he knows who I am, and that’s okay with me.

  I give Williams the same report that I gave him last week—I didn’t see anything. He gives me a look like he knows I’m not really trying, but doesn’t give me a hard time about it. He hands me a stack of papers and says, “Read this.”

  It’s titled “Recently Enacted Laws of the Republic of North America.” Below that, in red, it says “Strictly Enforced.”

  The rest is a list of laws. The first is about curfews, which start at dusk. Unaccompanied women of any age, and males and females under the age of eighteen are prohibited from being out in public after curfew.

  The second says abortion is prohibited.

  Third, sexual acts between humans and animals or humans of the same sex are prohibited.

  Fourth, marriage is defined as between a man and a woman. No others will be sanctioned or recognized.

  Fifth, vandals and thieves will be severely punished. “Severely” is in red and is underlined.

  As I’m reading, I try to keep my cool, imagining how my family, and especially my friends, will react. I look up after I finish and say, “What do you mean by ‘severely’?”

  He cocks his head and says, “Some want to chop off hands, or at least fingers. But I think we’ll be looking at mandatory prison, working their time off by picking up garbage and repairing roads, shit like that.”

  That one at least makes sense. But I’m still feeling heat in the pit of my stomach. I should keep my mouth shut, but I say, “I don’t get the fourth one. Why do you care who’s married?”

  Williams smirks and says, “I don’t give a shit. But they do.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “The president and his supporters. They think that if the gays and lesbians get married, it somehow makes them legit, equal to all the normal people. But they can’t accept that, since, in their eyes, these people are violating God’s laws. That’s a big thing to the president. He’s big on God’s laws.”

  I don’t even know what to say, so I don’t say anything more. I take the papers and shove them into my backpack. Williams tells me to post them where people can see them. He doesn’t want anyone to complain that they didn
’t know about these if they get arrested.

  “Next week,” he adds, “I don’t want you coming in here telling me you didn’t see anything. Maybe somebody takes somebody’s water at the community well, or picks apples from a neighbor’s tree. I don’t care if it’s just an old lady walking around in the dark. A couple gay guys holding hands. Shit’s going on. Prove to me who’s side you’re on, kid. Or—I don’t know—we may find that transporting goods more than five miles requires a license. You know what I’m saying?”

  I nod and stumble out with my backpack full of the papers, the papers that spell out the kind of society we’ve found ourselves in. By the time I get to Rachel’s I’m steaming, the hot ball in my stomach having spread. I’m mad beyond reason when I find no one home. I need to vent, to talk to someone about this.

  Wilson is the first one home, and he’s probably the least able to keep a level head when faced with something that he sees as wrong. It’s not long before he’s pacing and literally screaming about the laws and President Pounds.

  “We all knew how homophobic he was, even back when he was in Bowers’ cabinet. He tried to get that constitutional amendment passed to ban gay marriage. You know that, right?”

  I start to say something, but Wilson doesn’t wait for a reply.

  “Who made him king, anyway?” he says, throwing his arms in the air. Wilson isn’t a big guy. He’s shorter than my brother Clark, actually, despite being seven or eight years older. But he’s wiry, athletic. He looks like he could be a bike racer, which is appropriate since he runs the bike shop that he found abandoned a couple months after the pulse. He doesn’t know if the previous owners left town, died in the confusion and violence that followed the pulse, were victims of the Pulse Flu, or what. But they haven’t shown up, so he keeps the thing going.

  “You know he was going to be the next President of the US,” I say. “He was leading all the polls.”

  “Maybe, but the election never happened. Nobody voted for him. He just appointed himself,” he says, answering his own question.

  Rachel is the next to get home. She’s almost as upset about situation as Wilson, though not as demonstrative. As I tell her about the meeting with Williams, she picks up on what he said about me reporting guys holding hands.

  “So holding hands is against the law now?” she says. “I don’t see anything about that in here.” She grabs the sheet with the laws and jams her finger into it, tearing a small hole in the center.

  “No, see,” says Wilson. “It’s not just gay sex and gay marriage that’s the problem. They’re trying to say that being gay at all is against the law.” He looks at us with a little smirk on his face. “I said that, didn’t I. At the big speech that day. When he started talking about God’s laws and natural laws, I said it was code for being against gays.”

  Rob is next to appear, walking through the door and taking off a red beret and tossing it, nearly knocking a lamp from its position on the table next to the big wing chair in the living room. For some reason, that struck me in that moment: a lamp, sitting in the living room in a house, in a country that has no electricity. And I leap over to catch it before it falls to the floor and breaks. I’m saving something that’s useless, when I should be using my energy to do something important. Like . . . like . . . I don’t know.

  Rob is oblivious to what’s going on with the rest of us. “Say hello to your local constable. County Mountie DuBonnette, reporting for duty.” He salutes, and the look on his face tells me immediately he’s pissed.

  I ask what’s up with the beret. He says that all militia will get a red beret. “We’ll all continue to wear our own uniforms,” he says. “Army, navy, city cop or county sheriff, it doesn’t matter. But we all wear the red hat, so you know we’re all militia.” He flops onto the couch. “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

  He tells us about how the militia will be in charge of everything from border protection to writing parking tickets, from fighting foreign wars, including wars with “foreigners” who might be Americans who happen to be living in a different state, to arresting thieves and solving murders.

  He rattles all this off without a break to let one of us tell him about the new law thing. Rachel jumps in while he’s taking a breath and asks him what he’s going to be doing.

  “Oh, that’s the best thing,” he says, sporting a sardonic smile. “I’m going to be patrolling the streets. All the ROTC guys are. We’re basically beat cops. With no fucking training in law enforcement. Reporting to some ass who was a sheriff somewhere, or deputy sheriff, I’m not sure. Who knows nothing about the military.”

  I’m fingering one of the “Laws” sheets, thinking about showing it to Rob, but instead I ask him, “What about the guys that used to be cops? Why can’t they still be cops?”

  “They’re not that many of them around, I guess,” he says. “They’re either gone, or dead, or farming. I don’t know.”

  I flash the “Laws” sheet in his face. Before I can say anything he sees it and says, “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen that. It’s nothing. You should see what they showed us.” He’s pacing around the room, looking at us in turn, like he’s expecting us to react. We all make faces when he looks at us. I shake my head so he knows I’m really understanding his pain. Which I am, I guess.

  “The worst thing,” he continues, “is the penalties. Like, if we catch a guy stealing something, and he runs from us, we’re supposed to shoot him.” He’s looking at me now, so I shake my head again. “Shoot him. Can you imagine? Shoot some kid for stealing a bicycle?”

  Wilson stands up and grabs the “Laws” sheet. “Do you shoot guys for this?” He jabs his finger at the law about gay sex. “For holding hands?”

  “Holding hands?” says Rob. He’s tall and dark, like his sister, and looks menacing as he glares at his thin, pale-skinned partner.

  Wilson points to me. “Ask him.”

  “Yeah,” I say, standing up from where I’d been sitting on the couch. “So, if I see you two holding hands, I’m supposed to report it to Major Williams.”

  Rob takes a step toward me and pushes me back down onto the couch. “That’s not funny, Brady,” he says, looking pissed. “Not even a little bit funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny,” I say. “It’s the truth.” I give him a shortened version of my meeting with Williams, mostly about what he told me to report—guys holding hands, little old ladies out after dark.

  So now we all have reasons to be pissed. I’m mostly pissed because I have to come up with something to report next week. It’s not going to be guys holding hands, but I need something.

  We all rant and rave until we can’t think of anything new to rant about. Rob and Wilson don’t even eat before they disappear into their room, they’re so upset. But I’m hungry, so Rachel and I eat some of the bread she brought home from the hospital—a gift from a former patient—along with a tomato and a cucumber that a neighbor has given them.

  Rachel’s mother never shows up. Apparently, she has a new boyfriend.

  Rachel’s and my lovemaking is fierce, again. It’s as if we’re hanging on as long as we can while we’re still able.

  11

  86 days until the Pulse Anniversary

  When I get home I find that my friends and I are not the only ones who are pissed off. Dad is ranting to my mother in the kitchen when I walk in. He’s just back from spending three days in Lafayette, meeting with some people who work for President Pounds on currency and financial issues, which I do not understand at all.

  Dad is downing a big glass of milk, fresh this morning from one of the three cows that we have on the farm. Two give milk, and the other is old, destined to be eaten some time in the not too distant future. Dad is a big guy, although he’s lost a lot of weight from what he was before the pulse, what with the restricted diet we live with and the constant exercise we get with our work on the farm and then walking or riding bikes to get anywhere. Dad still doesn’t do much long distance walking, since he has a
leg that never healed properly after he broke it trying to get here after the pulse.

  I guess the meetings he’s been having are a lot about the “chit,” and whatever other people are using for currency.

  “Can you believe one of those asshats actually said, ‘We don’t need your version of wampum here in the RNA’?” He slams his now empty glass on the table and looks at me.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what wampum is, so . . .” I say.

  “It’s a term that goes back to the colonists and the Indians. Christ, so not only are they insulting us and all the work we’ve put in to create a means of exchange, but they’re insulting all the Native Americans, too.”

  I pull one of the “Laws” sheets out of my backpack and hand it to him. “Have you seen this?”

  “What now?” he says, taking it and wandering out the back door, looking down at it.

  “What’s that?” asks Mom. She holds her hand out, so I give her one of the sheets.

  “Rachel and her brother and Wilson are really ticked off,” I say. “Mostly about the gay sex stuff.”

  “Well, that’s not a surprise. President Pounds has always had a thing about gays.”

  “Wilson says he bets Pounds is secretly gay, and feels guilty about it, since he’s been preaching against it for so long.”

  Mom laughs. She’s got a deep laugh that always makes me smile when I hear it. Her mom bod hasn’t really changed much since the pulse, but her hair has a lot of gray now that I never noticed before. But she’s still in pretty good shape, at least for someone her age.

  She gives me a big glass of milk. It’s surprising what real milk will do for you, even when it’s a bit warm. Just what I need after my ride back from Lafayette.

  I go out that afternoon to check on my regular customers and to put up some of the “Law” sheets around town. I nail some up on some telephone poles along the main road—will we ever actually need telephone poles again—when I hear someone yelling out behind a farmhouse not far from the road.