The rider who had first greeted them returned, accompanied by a tall woman in a straw-colored cowboy hat-Ruppert guess this was the woman called Violet, the owner of the ranch. Her gray hair was gathered into loose, thick braids punctuated with bits of turquoise. She looked over the three strangers in the Bronto, then leaned in at Lucia’s window.
“Kipp tells me you’re travelers in trouble.” She studied Lucia’s face for a second, then looked towards Nando in the back seat. “What’s your name?”
“Private Cadet George Liberty, sir,” the boy replied. “I mean, ma’am.”
“That is surely an interesting name.” She lifted an eyebrow at Lucia. “He is your son.”
“His name is Fernando,” Lucia said.
“Child and Family Services?” Violet asked.
“We only just recovered him.”
“That must be an interesting tale. I’d love to hear how you managed it.”
“I doubt anyone could repeat it. We nearly died.”
“It’s always good to learn.”
Lucia leaned out and whispered into the woman’s ear. Violet nodded, looking to Ruppert and Nando. Ruppert didn’t know if she was explaining their story, or passing information, or using some sort of code to indicate she was a trustworthy resister. Whatever she said, it worked, because the woman hugged her and invited the three of them inside for a “late breakfast.” It was a few minutes past six in the morning.
The kitchen was clearly the biggest room in the house, arranged around an unevenly built stone fireplace at the center of the room. Violet directed them to a big picnic table that could seat twenty people at once, though none of them would be sitting in matching chairs-there were chairs of wood, wicker, bamboo, and a couple of folding aluminum seats. Two adolescent girls, one white and one Guatemalan, hurried to dish them out breakfast from an array of skillets on the brick counters flanking the stove.
Before eating, Nando said a prayer aloud: “Our Almighty King, Commander of the Legions of Heaven, Let us eat grain from the fields of our enemies, that we may grow strong on their hunger, and let our swords find their bellies empty. Amen.” Then he tore into his food, loudly proclaiming it the best he’d ever eaten.
Lucia cast a gloomy look at Ruppert.
They learned what it meant to eat like a ranch hand-the girls brought fried steak, fried eggs, fresh tomatoes, and biscuits yellow with butter. They drank hot coffee and cold milk thick with cream. After days of crackers and nuts and watery juice mix, it was a feast.
Afterward, Violet and the teenage Guatemalan girl, whose name was Ana, led Ruppert, Lucia and Nando behind the house to the long, ramshackle horse stable. They carried their luggage-Ruppert’s suitcase, Lucia’s duffle bag, and Nando empty-handed-up a narrow staircase of wooden slats into the dark loft, which was illuminated by a wide, narrow slit of a window. Violet crossed the length of the building to the rear wall, reached through the clutter of saddles, harnesses and horse blankets that hung upon it, and opened a concealed door that folded back into a dark, hidden room.
The interior of the room stank of old sweat and musty, hot air, though a little light and fresh air trickled in through a constellation of nail-holes in one wall. Fresh straw lined the floor, and on top of that people huddled together on blankets and sleeping bags in the shadows. They stirred as the door opened, but said nothing.
As Ruppert’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see the room’s occupants consisted of two families with small children, plus a few lone individuals scattered along the rear wall.
“We have a few extra guests,” Violet announced to the people in the room, who didn’t exactly applaud the news. She turned to Lucia. “We were just about to wake the children anyhow. We let them work around the farm during the day-it ends up better for everyone.”
“Can I feed the elks and the horses?” Nando asked.
“We don’t have any elk, but we have cows,” Violet said.
Ana collected the three other children in the room, who were already awake and ready to get busy.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Lucia asked.
“Of course,” Violet said. “Ana will keep an eye on them. We have workers’ kids running all over the farm, and everyone will assume they belong to someone else.”
“That’s not what concerns me.”
“If the police come, they usually want to question me, or my sister, or one of the workers. They don’t care about the kids. And anyway the kids aren’t always good at keeping quiet when you need them to, so everyone’s safer this way. Speaking of that…” Violet pointed to a small light bulb wired to a roof beam. “If that lights up, everyone must lay low and be quiet. It’s for emergencies. Follow me?”
“When do we cross the border?” Ruppert whispered his question, which drew scowls from both Lucia and Violet.
“You’ll cross when it’s time, with everyone else,” Violet said. “And I will thank you not to ask more of those kinds of questions. There’s a washroom downstairs if you need it, but otherwise please stay up here unless somebody comes for you. Are you going to be all right? I have a lot of work this morning.”
“We’re fine,” Lucia said. “Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure.” Violet closed the concealed door after her.
Ruppert looked among the others in the crowded room, smiling awkwardly, thinking of how nobody liked to talk in an elevator. He saw a lot of dull eyes and blank faces, the signs of people who’d experienced unspeakable things. A man in the back corner looked familiar to him, but it took Ruppert a minute to place him. Then he ran over to the man.
“Sully?” he asked.
Sullivan Stone barely resembled the man he’d been a few months earlier. His head was shaved, and scars twisted across his exposed scalp. Splotches of bruised purple and sickly yellow marred his face and arms. A hashwork of scars tattooed the left side of his face, and the eyelid there drooped over a staring, bloodshot eye.
Ruppert recalled what Archer had told him, that it was likely Sully had been sent to a behavior modification clinic.
“Sully, are you okay?”
Sully blinked at him, showing no sign of recognition.
“You know him?” Lucia asked Ruppert.
“Sully. He was the one who was going to…do what I did. It should have been him that you extracted, his house’s memory you deleted instead of mine.”
“That’s Sullivan Stone?” Lucia knelt on the other side of Sully. “Oh. Wow. I see it. How are you?” She took his hand, but Sully pulled it back and folded his arms around himself.
“Sully, look at me close,” Ruppert said.
Sully did look at him, mouth open, appearing to comprehend nothing. Then he said, “Daniel?”
“That’s right. It’s Daniel Ruppert.”
“Oh.” Sully’s gaze drifted away for a few seconds, then fixed back on him. “Is it time to…do a show?”
“No, Sully, no more shows. We’re down to reality now.”
“Yeah.” Sully stared at his own dirty shoes, where the tips of the laces looked chewed. He’d lost a significant amount of muscle mass, leaving him shriveled inside clothes that were too large for him. The clothes themselves were odd choices for Sully: corduroy pants that didn’t reach his ankles, a big t-shirt featuring characters from the kids’ cartoon Dog Soldiers.
“Jesus, Sully,” Ruppert whispered. “What happened to you?”
“Re…programmed.” Sully took a breath and made an effort to speak up. “You were my friend.”
“I am your friend, Sully. It’s good to see you again. I'm sorry you’re hurt like this.”
“Reprogrammed,” Sully said again, “I’m deviant. They made us…they injected us, and they made us do…bad things…"
“I’m sorry,” Ruppert said.
“They asked about you,” Sully said. “They asked if you were, you know, disloyal to the state, and I said no, but then they burned me more, and I said yes. They made me say that about a lot of people. They had cameras recording it. I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t worry, they’re after me for worse than that. Your friend Archer came and found me. You remember him, don’t you?”