"War?" she said, bewildered.
"I was looking north towards Portland from the mountainside when I saw the flash," he said. "And then everything went dark-lights out good and proper, none since, and everything electronic in my gear was buggered for fair. I was staying high, working my way south and waiting out the fallout, until I ran too hard and looked too little after a buck and landed down here."
She looked at him with pity. "Oh, you poor man!" she exclaimed. "You thought it was World War Three? It's much worse than that, I'm afraid!"
A day later Juniper finished adding the column of figures, wishing for one of the old mechanical crank-worked adding machines as she did, and putting it on a mental list for scavenging or swapping.
All the adults were present, including a near-silent Sam Aylward propped up on the couch with his wrenched leg and sore shoulder; Sally Quinn could sit well enough now, and move without a crutch if she was careful. The children were up in the loft with Eilir, who was the eldest, minding them-learning Sign had become a mark of status with the youngsters, since Eilir made up one hundred percent of their adolescent reference-figures. None of the other adults had teenagers, and Juniper did only because she'd started so early.
The adults of: she supposed she couldn't just say the Singing Moon Coven; half the people weren't coveners at all. Though to be sure they weren't exactly cowan, either.
Well, I may have suggested we call it a clan, she thought. But it was Dennis who suggested Clan Mackenzie, the black-hearted rapparee!
He'd been ribbing her for years about her musician's Celt-persona; she supposed this was either revenge, or a streak of buried romanticism coming out.
Most of the front of the cabin. was a big living room, with the stone-built fireplace dominating the north wall. A fire crackled and spat in it now, casting a welcome warmth and filling the room with the delicate flower scent of burning applewood-she was still using the salvage from clearing out the old orchard last summer. A kerosene lantern on the plank table gave acceptable reading light-you could use gasoline, if you were extremely careful. Firelight ruddy and yellow brought out the grain of the big logs that made up the walls. Rain beat like gentle drums on the strake roof above them, and the windows looked out on the veranda like caves of night.
She'd always liked the great room; she remembered winter days, with Eilir sprawled on the rug and her school-books before her, Cuchulain curled before the hearth, Juniper strumming at her guitar as she worked on a tune and listened for the whistle of her teakettle, and snow patting feather-paws against the windowpanes.
Now it had rolled-up bedding tied in neat bundles stacked around the walls; the children slept in the loft and her own former bedroom was assigned to the handfasted couples on a roster, so that they could all have a chance at some privacy.
The Hall of the Mackenzies was stuffed to the bursting point. The crowding would have been tolerable for a week or so at a pagan festival, but the prospect of living like this all her life:
She shook her head and got up to throw another log on the fire. Aylward spoke:
"Wait a minute, lass-Lady. That's yew, isn't it? Could I have a look?"
Everyone glanced over at the Englishman; he'd seemed a friendly enough sort, but on short acquaintance not given to inconsequential chat.
"To be sure, it is," Juniper said. "It's an understory weed tree here."
She put the billet in his big spade-shaped hands; it was four inches thick and a little over four feet long, with thin smooth purplish bark scattered with red-brown papery scales.
"Nicely seasoned," Aylward said, running a critical eye over it. "Is there any more like this?"
"A ton or so; the whole bottom half of my woodpile, out in the shed. The loggers cleared out a lot of it last year and I salvaged it for firewood; hadn't worked my way down through the applewood yet. Do you have a use for it?"
Aylward grinned. "We all do! If you let me at a drawknife and spokeshave, and a bit of hardwood for the risers, and a little glue."
Sally Quinn looked at him sharply. "You're a bowyer?"
Aylward nodded. "A hobby; I make and fletch me own shafts, too. Longbows are simple enough, even with a separate riser; I could do two or three a day, and anyone who's handy with wood could learn the trick."
Dennis grinned enormously; he was handy with wood, and loved learning a new way to work it. There was a pleased murmur all around the table. They had the three crossbows, which were irreplaceable once they broke down, and Sally's fiberglass target weapon, but that was it.
"Threefold return indeed!" Juniper said happily, resuming her seat and tapping the pile of figures Andy and Diana had worked up. "Now, people, we have just enough food to get everyone here"- And how we've grown! -"through to harvest. At a minimum diet for people working hard."
There were groans at that. Her own hands itched where the blisters never quite had time to heal. She'd had a big garden every year since she inherited this place, and now knew the difference between that and growing all your own food.
"Over to you, Chuck. Tell us what we can expect to get, for all the sweat we've been investing."
"Chuck, Lord of the Harvest," Judy said, grinning, leaning into his shoulder with her arm around his waist.
A laugh went around the table; it was a title of the High Priest of a coven, and Chuck had been the only candidate for that post, as well as farm manager. It also meant the Great Rite would be symbolic rather than actual from now on, with the High Priest not Juniper's man.
Rudy:
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then forced a smile.
He took up the story, with a pad of his own. "OK, we've got all the acreage we need turned and fitted, and most of the potatoes planted-we'll keep the rest to put in between now and June, to stretch the harvesting season out, same with the veggies. Seven acres so far all up, here and down by the Fairfax place, counting what Frank Fairfax had in before the Change."
He paused to glare at Dorothy and Diana and Andy, who were organic-produce fanatics: or had been, before direct personal experience of hunger, which tended to make one less finicky.
"I presume nobody's going to object to using fungicides if we have to? 'Cause those potatoes are the margin between living and dying, and anyway, they came treated."
"If we have to, Chuck," Juniper said soothingly. "If we have to. We've got them on hand, haven't we?"
He nodded, and the three made unwilling gestures of assent as well.
I'm Chief Soother, that's what I am! Juniper thought. Un-ruffler of Feathers! Dennis should have taken to calling me the Clan Facilitator, not the Chief.
"The Fairfaxes had four and a half acres of fall-planted oats, which should come ripe in June; English hulled variety, good stuff. And I think we got that barley Alex found for us sown in time for some sort of yield. We've got a deal with the Carsons to help harvest some of their wheat on half-shares come summer; enough to really help and for seed grain of our own this autumn too. We might do the same elsewhere, but I'm not counting on it: "
He took a deep breath. "Let's put it this way, Mackenzies; it'll be tight until June, and after that we're going to get awful sick of potatoes boiled and mashed and oatmeal and carrots and turnips and cabbage and beans and barley soup and whatnot, but we'll have enough to last through until the next crop year. More than enough, if we're reasonably lucky. In fact, we may not have enough people to harvest it all!
"Of course," he went on, amid the cheers, "that brings up the question of storage. Potatoes take a lot of space, and we'll be storing by the ton, and we're going to have a fair amount of grain as well. I think more root cellars should be the first priority now that we've got some time to spare-"
"Oh, no you don't," Judy said. "We need a better bathhouse and laundry system for heath reasons-"
"Hey, wait a minute," Dennis cut in. "There's that old gristmill east of Lebanon, we could put it in below the waterfall with only a short sluice gate to build. Nobody's claimed it yet, and we could charge to grind other people's grain come summer-"