Dr. Wilkins said, “Why didn’t you Net us that you were coming?”
Mike didn’t answer. After a moment the girl who had given Taneesha the finger said defiantly, “We were afraid you wouldn’t take us in.”
Uncle Jody said, “We will. My mother would have wanted it.”
Lillie added, “If we didn’t want you, why would Rafe have posted that message? You’re welcome, all of you, as long as you’re willing to work. Times are tougher than they were—but I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
The old woman, “Robin,” said bitterly, “Lillie, you don’t know about tough times. You missed the war. Don’t try to tell me about tough times.”
Lillie looked startled, and then her eyes met Mike’s, and something passed between them. All Cord saw was a tiny smile and an even tinier shake of his head, but once more his mother—his mother!—blushed. And then she looked at the younger woman, Hannah, and looked away.
Mike said, “These are Sophie’s children, Roy, Patty, and Ashley.” Ashley and Taneesha stared each other down. Trouble, Taneesha had said, and Cord believed it. Ashley was as skinny as the rest but taller and muscled. Her insolent look around the cluttered great room said she didn’t think much of it. As if she was used to better.
Hannah said in a high, strained voice, “These are my children. Frank and Bruce and Loni.”
“Hi,” a few of the farm kids said shyly. The rest of the introductions were made. The new people would never remember all the names, Cord thought. He couldn’t even remember all of theirs, and there were only nine. Which one was Bruce?
Aunt Sajelle said, “Let’s get you all fed and settled.” Since Grandma’s death, Aunt Sajelle had taken over running the big house, with Aunt Carolina’s help.
Clari, at Cord’s elbow said, “They look so hungry.”
“They probably are,” Cord said. Clari was always kind, so sweet. The other boys, especially his brother Keith, teased Cord about having a girl for a best friend, but he didn’t care. There was no one like Clari.
CHAPTER 20
Ashley Vogel was the only kid at the farm who hated the pribir. “They wrecked my life,” she said. “Fuck them.”
“No,” Taneesha said, “they gave you your life. They wrecked our lives by sending you here. Why don’t you just go back where you came from.”
“Fuck you,” Ashley said.
A ring of kids surrounded the two at Dead Men’s Arroyo. Ashley had wanted to see where the refugees who once attacked the farm were buried, because Dolly had told her it was haunted. Nine of them had hiked out in the late afternoon, when the sun wasn’t too dangerous, on the half-day a week they were allowed off from chores and studies. The hike out was tense. Dolly, the only person who liked Ashley, walked ahead with her, whispering together and jeering over their shoulders at the others.
Cord had gone because he was both bored and strangely keyed up. The new kids had upset the balance at the farm. New friendships formed, old alliances shifted, among both children and adults. No one liked Aunt Robin. She was the same age as Uncle DeWayne and Dr. Wilkins, but she seemed older, nastier. Her hip hurt her, her gut ached, she was always complaining. Aunt Hannah was all right and her kids didn’t cause any trouble, but something wasn’t right there, either. Something about Aunt Hannah and Cord’s mother. He didn’t like to think about it. It was partly to avoid thinking about it that he’d hiked down to the arroyo with Dolly, Ashley, Taneesha, Jason, Keith, Kella, Gavin, Dakota, and Bobby. Clari had another one of her colds and her mother made her stay in bed.
Walking over the land, following his own lengthening shadow, Cord remembered how it used to be. Greener, with bushes and little low flowers everywhere and even some cottonwood saplings starting to take growth. Now, except where the farm irrigated with windpower, the ground stretched gray and bleached, dust devils rising in yellow funnels on the wind. The new saplings had all withered. Tumbleweed rolled across his path.
At the arroyo, studying the marker stone for the mass grave, Ashley said, “Let’s dig them up.”
Kella was shocked. “You can’t do that! You’re not supposed to disturb the dead. Besides, what if some of the micros from the bioweapon are still active? We could die!”
“The micros aren’t still active,” Dakota said authoritatively. He was one of the kids that studied with Dr. Wilkins. “They had a terminator gene built in for only twelve replications.”
“Too bad,” Ashley said coolly. “We could all die. That would be so bonus.”
Cord gaped at her. He knew that Ashley was showing off, but something about her disturbed him. Not just her meanness… something else he couldn’t name.
Kella said, “But you don’t want to die, Ashley!”
“Why not? End this misery.”
Cord found himself saying, “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk.”
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “And anyway, what misery? You’re here now, the farm is going to take care of you, what’s so miserable?”
“We are,” Ashley said. “All of us. Miserable abominations because that what the fucking pribir made us.”
“Stop it, Ashley,” Kella said. “I know you’re just showing off.”
“I was never more serious in my life,” Ashley said, and again Cord glimpsed that something he couldn’t name. It was almost as if Ashley… meant it.
“The pribir did an incredible job of creating us,” Dakota said, and began a technical recital of genetic engineering. Dakota, Cord saw, was also showing off.
“Fuck that,” Ashley said. “The pribir made us so we’re not human and regular humans spit on us and hate us, and I hate the pribir for doing that. If they come back the way they said, I’ll kill them myself. Personally.”
Complete silence.
“I’ll sneak up on them from behind with the scythe in the barn,” Ashley embellished, “and one smack to the head will cut them in two. I’ll dance in the blood. I’ll—”
“That’s enough,” Taneesha said. Until now she’d been quiet, sitting expressionless on a boulder. Now she stood, and Cord saw that she was outraged, and afraid, and eager. “Shut your mouth, Ashley.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, you bitch.”
The two girls started to circle each other. Everyone else drew back. Cord suddenly realized that this was why Ashley and Taneesha had come to the dry arroyo, and maybe the others, too, or at least some of them. This fight that had been building for weeks now, for reasons he couldn’t begin to state.
Cord didn’t want to see it. He wanted Taneesha to win, of course. Ashley’s words had genuinely sickened him. The pribir were heroes, Cord couldn’t wait for their promised return, and for Ashley to say what she had was like… well, like pissing on food. Nonetheless, he still didn’t want to see the fight.
Taneesha, taller and better nourished, got in the first punch, hard and quick to Ashley’s stomach. Ashley bent over in pain and Cord thought the fight had ended right there. But Ashley straightened up and after that she attacked like a wounded bear. Cord had never seen this sort of fight. Ashley screamed, she gouged at Taneesha’s eyes, she kicked and scratched and bit. Was that the way kids fought in the city?
After a stunned moment, four people rushed forward to pull the girls apart. Ashley would not let go. Cord stayed only long enough to make sure that the others had the wildcat under control and that Taneesha was being taken care of. Then he turned and started back to the farm. He was disgusted.