As wind, As water, As fire, As life, God
Is both creative and destructive, Demanding and yielding, Sculptor and clay.
God is Infinite Potential:
God is Change.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2027
WE’VE HAD OVER A week of weary, frightening, nerve-wracking walking. We’ve reached and passed through the city of Sacramento without real trouble. We’ve been able to buy enough food and water, been able to find plenty of empty places in the hills where we could make camp. Yet none of us have had any feelings of comfort or well-being along the stretch of Interstate- 5 that we’ve just traveled.
I-5 is much less traveled than U.S. 101, in spite of the earthquake chaos. There were times when the only people we could see were each other. Those times never lasted long, but they did happen.
On the other hand, there were more trucks on I-5. We had to be careful because trucks traveled during the day as well as at night. Also, there were more human bones on I-5. It was nothing to run across skulls, lower jaws, or bones of the pelvis and torso. Arm and leg bones were rarer, but now and then, we spotted them, too.
“I think it’s the trucks,” Bankole told us. “If they hit someone along here, they wouldn’t stop. They wouldn’t dare. And the junkies and alcoholics
wouldn’t be that careful where they walked.”
I suppose he’s right, although along that whole empty stretch of road, we saw only four people whom I believed were either not sober or not sane.
But we saw other things. On Tuesday we camped in a little hollow back in the hills to the west of the road, and a big black and white dog came wandering down toward our camp with the fresh-looking, bloody hand and forearm of a child in its mouth.
The dog spotted us, froze, turned, and ran back the way it had come. But we all got a good look before it went, and we all saw the same thing. That night, we posted a double watch. Two watchers, two guns, no unnecessary conversation, no sex.
The next day we decided not to take another rest day until we had passed through Sacramento. There was no guarantee that anything would be better on the other side of Sacramento, but we wanted to get away from this grim land.
That night, looking for a place to camp, we stumbled across four ragged, filthy kids huddled around a campfire. The picture of them is still clear in my mind. Kids the age of my brothers—twelve, thirteen, maybe fourteen years old, three boys and a girl. The girl was pregnant, and so huge it was obvious she would be giving birth any day. We rounded a bend in a dry stream bed, and there these kids were, roasting a severed human leg, maneuvering it where it lay in the middle of their fire atop the burning wood by twisting its foot. As we watched, the girl pulled a sliver of charred flesh from the thigh and stuffed it into her mouth.
They never saw us. I was in the lead, and I stopped the others before they all rounded the bend. Harry and Zahra, who were just behind me, saw all that I saw. We turned the others back and away, not telling them why until we were far from those kids and their cannibal feast.
No one attacked us. No one bothered us at all. The country we walked through was even beautiful in some places—green trees and rolling hills; golden dried grasses and tiny communities; farms, many overgrown and abandoned, and abandoned houses. Nice country, and compared to Southern California, rich country. More water, more food, more room…
So why were the people eating one another?
There were several burned out buildings. It was obvious that there had been trouble here, too, but much less than on the coast. Yet we couldn’t wait to get back to the coast.
Sacramento was all right to resupply in and hurry through. Water and food were cheap there compared to what you could buy along the roadside, of course. Cities were always a relief as far as prices went. But cities were also dangerous. More gangs, more cops, more suspicious, nervous people with
guns. You tiptoe through cities. You keep up a steady pace, keep your eyes open, and try to look both too intimidating to bother and invisible. Neat trick. Bankole says cities have been like that for a long time.
Speaking of Bankole, I haven’t let him get much rest on this rest day. He doesn’t seem to mind. He did say something that I should make note of, though. He said he wanted me to leave the group with him. He has, as I suspected, a safe haven—or as safe as any haven can be that isn’t surrounded by high-tech security devices and armed guards. It’s in the hills on the coast near Cape Mendocino maybe two weeks from here.
“My sister and her family have been living there,” he said. “But the property belongs to me. There’s room on it for you.”
I could imagine how delighted his sister would be to see me. Would she try to be polite, or would she stare at me, then at him, then demand to know whether he was in his right mind?
“Did you hear what I said?” he demanded.
I looked at him, interested in the anger I heard in his voice. Why anger? “What am I doing? Boring you?” he demanded.
I took his hand and kissed it. “You introduce me to your sister and she’ll measure you for a straitjacket.”
After a while, he laughed. “Yes.” And then, “I don’t care.” “You might, sooner or later.”
“You’ll come with me, then.” “No. I’d like to, but no.”
He smiled. “Yes. You’ll come.”
I watched him. I tried to read the smile, but it’s hard to read a bearded face. It’s easier to say what I didn’t see—or didn’t recognize. I didn’t see condescension or that particular kind of disregard that some men reserve for women. He wasn’t deciding that my “no” was a secret “yes.” Something else was going on.
“I own three hundred acres,” he said. “I bought the property years ago as an investment. There was going to be a big housing development up there, and speculators like me were going to make tons of money, selling our land to the developers. The project fell through for some reason, and I was stuck with land that I could either sell at a loss or keep. I kept it. Most of it is good for farming. It’s got some trees on it, and some big tree stumps. My sister and her husband have built a house and a few outbuildings.”
“You might have dozens or hundreds of squatters on that land now,” I said.
“I don’t think so. Access is a problem. It’s not convenient to any real road, and it’s well away from the big highways. It’s a great place to hide.”
“Water?”
“There are wells. My sister says the area is getting dryer, warmer. That’s no surprise. But the ground water seems dependable so far.”
I thought I could see where he was headed now, but he was going to have to get there all by himself. His land; his choice.
“There aren’t many black people up that way, are there?” I asked. “Not many,” he agreed. “My sister hasn’t had much trouble, though.” “What does she do for a living? Farm the land?”
“Yes, and her husband does odd jobs for cash—which is dangerous because it leaves her and the children alone for days, weeks, even months at a time. If we can manage to support ourselves without becoming a drain on her few resources, we might be useful to her. We might give her more security.”
“How many kids?”
“Three. Let’s see…eleven, thirteen, and fifteen years old by now. She’s only forty herself.” His mouth twitched. Only. Yeah. Even his little sister was old enough to be my mother. “Her name’s Alex. Alexandra. Married to Don Casey. They both hate cities. They thought my land was a godsend. They could raise children who might live to grow up.” He nodded. “And their children have done all right.”
“How have you kept in touch?” I asked. “Phone?”
“That was part of our agreement,” he said. “They don’t have a phone, but when Don goes to one of the towns to get work, he phones me and lets me know how everyone is. He won’t know what’s happened to me. He won’t be expecting me. If he’s tried to phone, both he and Alex will be worried.”
“You should have flown up,” I said. “But I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Are you? So am I. Listen, you are coming with me. I can’t think of anything I want as much as I want you. I haven’t wanted anything at all for a long time. Too long.”
I leaned back against a tree. Our campsite wasn’t as completely private as the one at San Luis had been, but there were trees, and the couples could get away from each other. Each couple had one gun, and the Gilchrist sisters were babysitting Dominic as well as Justin. We had put them in the middle of a rough triangle and given them my gun. On I-5 they and Travis had had a chance to do a little target practice. It was all of our duty to look around now and then and make sure no strangers wandered into the area. I looked around.
Sitting up I could see Justin running around, chasing pigeons. Jill was keeping an eye on him, but not trying to keep up with him.
Bankole took me by the shoulder and turned me to face him. “I’m not boring you, am I?” he asked for the second time.
I had been trying not to look at him. I looked now, but he had not yet said
what he had to say if he wanted to keep me with him. Did he know? I thought he did.
“I want to go with you,” I said. “But I’m serious about Earthseed. I couldn’t be more serious. You have to understand that.” Why did this sound strange to me? It was the absolute truth, but I felt odd telling it.
“I know my rival,” he said.
Maybe that’s why it sounded strange. I was telling him there was someone else—something else. Maybe it would have sounded less strange if the something were another man.
“You could help me,” I said.
“Help you what? Do you have any real idea what you want to do?” “Begin the first Earthseed Community.”
He sighed.
“You could help me,” I repeated. “This world is falling apart. You could help me begin something purposeful and constructive.”
“Going to fix the world, are you?” he said with quiet amusement.
I looked at him. For a moment I was too angry to let myself speak. When I could control my voice, I said, “It’s all right if you don’t believe, but don’t laugh. Do you know what it means to have something to believe in? Don’t laugh.”
After a while he said, “All right.”
After a longer while, I said, “Fixing the world is not what Earthseed is about.”
“The stars. I know.” He lay flat on his back, but turned his head to look at me instead of looking up.
“This world would be a better place if people lived according to Earthseed,” I said. “But then, this world would be better if people lived according to the teachings of almost any religion.”
“That’s true. Why do you think they’ll live according to the teaching of yours?”
“A few will. Several thousand? Several hundred thousand? Millions? I don’t know. But when I have a home base, I’ll begin the first community. In fact, I’ve already begun it.”
“Is that what you need me for?” He didn’t bother to smile or pretend it was a joke. It wasn’t. I moved over closer to him and sat next to him so that I could look down into his face.
“I need you to understand me,” I said. “I need you to take me the way I am or go off to your land by yourself.”
“You need me to take you and all your friends off the street so you can start a church.” Again, he was altogether serious.
“That or nothing,” I said with equal seriousness. He gave me a humorless smile. “So now we know where we stand.”
I smoothed his beard, and saw that he wanted to move away from my hand, but that he did not move. “Are you all that sure you want God as your rival?” I asked.
“I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?” He covered my caressing hand with one of his own. “Tell me, do you ever lose your temper and scream and cry?”
“Sure.”
“I can’t picture it. In all honesty, I can’t.”
And that reminded me of something that I hadn’t told him, had better tell him before he found out and felt cheated or decided that I didn’t trust him— which I still didn’t, quite. But I didn’t want to lose him to stupidity or cowardice. I didn’t want to lose him at all.
“Still want me with you?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I intend to marry you once we’ve settled.”
He had managed to surprise me. I stared at him with my mouth open.
“A genuine spur-of-the-moment reaction,” he said. I’ll have to remember it. Will you marry me, by the way?”
“Listen to me first.”
“No more. Bring your church. Bring your congregation. I doubt they care any more about the stars than I do, but bring them. I like them, and there’s room for them.”
If they would come. My next effort would be to convince them. But this effort wasn’t over yet.
“That isn’t all,” I said. “Let me tell you one more thing. Then, if you still want me, I’ll marry you anytime you say. I want to. You must know I want to.”
He waited.
“My mother was taking—abusing—a prescription drug when she got pregnant with me. The drug was Paracetco. As a result, I have hyperempathy syndrome.”
He took that in with no sign of how he felt about it. He sat up and looked at me—looked at me with great curiosity, as though he hoped to see some sign of my hyperempathy on my face or body. “You feel other people’s pain?” he asked.
“I share other people’s pain and pleasure,” I said. “There hasn’t been much pleasure to share lately, except with you.”
“Do you share bleeding?”
“No more. I did when I was little.”
“But you… I saw you kill a man.”
“Yes.” I shook my head, remembering what he had seen. “I had to, or he would have killed me.”
“I know that. It’s just that… I’m surprised you were able to do it.” “I told you, I had to.”
He shook his head. “I’ve read about the syndrome, of course, although I’ve never seen a case. I remember thinking that it might not be so bad a thing if most people had to endure all the pain they caused. Not doctors or other medical people, of course, but most people.”
“Bad idea,” I said. “I’m not sure.”
“Take my word for it. Bad, bad idea. Self-defense shouldn’t have to be an agony or a killing or both. I can be crippled by the pain of a wounded person. I’m a very good shot because I’ve never felt that I could afford just to wound someone. Also…” I stopped, looked past him for a moment and drew a deep breath, then focused on him again. “The worst of it is, if you got hurt, I might not be able to help you. I might be as crippled by your injury—by your pain, I mean—as you are.”
“I suspect you’d find a way.” He smiled a little.
“Don’t suspect that, Bankole.” I stopped and hunted for words that would make him understand. “I’m not looking for compliments or even reassurance. I want you to understand: If you broke your leg badly, if you were shot, if anything serious and disabling happened to you, I might be disabled, too. You must know how disabling real pain can be.”
“Yes. I know a little about you, too. No, don’t tell me again that you aren’t fishing for compliments. I know. Let’s go back to camp. I’ve got some pain medications in my bag. I’ll teach you how and when to use them on me or whoever needs them. If you can just hold on and be yourself long enough to use them, you can do whatever else may be necessary.”
“…okay. So…do you still want to marry me?” It surprised me how much I didn’t want to ask the question. I knew he still wanted me. Yet there I was, asking him, almost begging him to say it. I needed to hear it.
He laughed. Big, full laughter that sounded so real, I couldn’t take offense. “I’ll have to remember this,” he said. “Do you imagine for one minute, girl, that I would let you get away?”
