Belling Martha
by Leigh Kennedy

 
Martha was looking for her daddy. 

By the time she saw the lights of the cabins on the stark hillsides outside the gates of Austin, she'd nearly forgotten her goal. Especially as she knew not to travel by road, it had been enough to survive one hill, the next, and then another … 

She sniffed the frigid wind blowing toward her from the notorious stove vents of those who lived just outside the city. 

Someone was roasting human flesh in their fire. 

The thin leather boots issued by the Central Texas Christian Reform Camp were scant protection for slogging through two feet of snow. Breaking the icy crust had made her shins sore, even through her jeans. Wind flapped her sleeves and collar and battered her ears until a dull ache throbbed through her skull. She'd stopped three times on the way from Smithville to build a fire and revive her feet, and sleep a bit. 

The aroma quickened her progress. It had been a long time since Martha had smelled that particular odor. The biscuits and apples she'd carried with her—stolen from the camp kitchen—had long ago been eaten. 

The closer she struggled toward home and warmth, the more stinging the dry snow felt. Gradually, she could discern details of the cabin she'd spent most of her life in—the heavy drapes at the window, the flat boulder that she used to perch on while she watched her father chop wood, the daub patches on the east wall. 

Wise enough not to approach the house from the road, where stray travelers, legal or not, were watched with interest, she came upon the rear door. She pushed it open and stepped inside. 

"Daddy?" 

The house had changed only a little—different colors and smells; she noticed that her small bed was gone from beside the fireplace. On the stone of the hearth, a cracked head and shoulder lay with its hair stiff and awry. Strips of flesh hung from hooks above the fireplace, and a kettle bubbled on the high grate above the fire. The meat smelled old. It was apparently not a kill, but probably a body tossed out the gates because there was no one to pay for a burial inside the city. 

She heard a sound behind her. 

"Dad …" she said, turning. 

A woman was poised toward Martha, holding a garrotting wire in her hands. Martha stepped back and knew as she spoke that she was imitating the cool of her father's manner. "Hey, neighbor," she said. 

The woman's eyes narrowed. She was still ready to strike. Martha would have to work fast to get out of the situation if the woman was a Crazy. 

"Neighbor?" the woman repeated. 

"What are you doing in my house?" Martha said. 

The woman smiled wryly. "Like hell yours, kid. I live here." 

Now Martha speculated. It had been over a year since her father's last letter had reached her at the camp. Could it be that he'd found himself a companion? "With my daddy?" she asked. 

"Don't think so," the woman said. Her hands lowered a bit. "Not unless the old fella hasn't told me all." 

"My daddy's Harry Jim Skill." 

"Well, then, your daddy ain't here," the woman said irritably. "What are you doing out here anyway?" 

'Looking for my—" 

"Yeah, okay," the woman said. She unwound the wire from her hands and stuffed it into her pocket. "He didn't teach you a bit of sense, did he? If you're really neighbors with folks like us, I'll let you go. Go on now!" 

Martha wasn't ready to have the decision made for her. She couldn't believe her father was not nearby. She shouted, "Harry Jim!" 

"You little fish, I'll stew you.…" the woman said, walking toward her again. 

The back door swung open. Martha swiveled to look. The face could have been handsome or beetle-like, she didn't notice, but it was wrong, all wrong, and that made it horrible. 

"Git!" the woman shouted, and Martha hesitated only long enough to shake the uncertainty of terror out of her bones, then pushed through the front door. 

As soon as she came in sight of the city gates, she knew she'd lost her caution. She stopped. Before her was the battered sign on a brick wall just outside the gates: 


WELCOME TO AUSTIN, TEXAS STATE CAPITAL 
Above her, the sentry leaned out of his watch booth, sighting her down his gun barrel. "Don't move," he said through a loudspeaker. 

Martha stood completely still. For the first thirteen years of her life—until she'd been taken to the camp—she had seen the walls of Austin, but she'd never been so close as now. 

"Drop that bag." 

Martha let her bag of possessions slip from her hand onto the frosty mud. 

Still, the guard kept his weapon on her. "Do you have a pass?" 

She started to say no, but thought better of it. "I got jumped in the back of a government truck. They stole my pass, then shoved me out. Been walking for three days." 

The sentry paused. After a moment, the box that he stood in eased down the wall on a track. When it was about a meter from the ground, it stopped with a mechanical bounce. One of the spotlights atop the wall swiveled until it shone directly on her. She raised her hand to shield her eyes. 

"Throw your bag over here." 

Martha picked up her bag and flung it toward the box. The sentry moved cautiously, watching her, and stepped sideways to pick the bag up with a hook. He examined it inside his box. "Take your clothes off." 

"It's too cold!" 

"Do you want inside the city?" 

She peeled everything off, including her boots, shivering so hard that she could barely throw the heap toward him. After a few moments, the voice in the loudspeaker said, "Come in." The gate opened just a bit; Martha squeezed through the opening. Someone grabbed her arm as she entered. Peripherally, she saw the sentry box rising up the wall again. 

She stood naked inside the gates of the city—for the first time. Trampled pathways glittered coldly under the bowed heads of street lamps. Small houses shouldered one another as if for comfort, their windows dark. The wind whined eerily through broken panes of glass. The sound of loose metal clanged in the wind. 

She'd imagined cities to be clean havens for good folk but it looked more miserable than outside to her. Still, she thought, surveying all the possible places for residence, there must be a lot of food here.… 

The solider who held her arm stared hard at her face. "What's your name?" 

Martha blinked, "Uh … Martha …" 

"Hey, Carrie," called the sentry above. "Take my post a while." 

"Shit," the solider with Martha muttered. "Come on down," she said impatiently. As the other hurried down a metal stairway, she took on a warning tone. "You're going to get caught one of these days, you horny dog. Someday the governor's daughter will come through WP." 

"This isn't the governor's daughter," he said, taking Martha's hand. "Come on, now, I got to check you in. You want in the city, right? You got relatives?" 

As he pushed her toward a metal shed, Martha said, "Don't know if they're still in the city." She was getting hazy from the cold and from being shoved around. 

"We'll just find out in a little while." He opened the door. In the shed was a table with tools, greasy notices pinned on a board, and the kind of radio she'd seen in Brother Guy's office at the camp. Against one wall, a cot listed in a mended way. 

"Lay down, spread your thighs. Ever done this before?" he asked, unbuckling his coat. 

Martha tested the cot and figured it would hold her. "Do I have to?" 

"Sure would make things easier for you, sweetie." 

She shrugged. 




· · · · ·  


The jeep shot through the city, sometimes leaping off crevasses in the streets, sometimes jerking to avoid potholes, sometimes dipping one wheel in a hole with a thump. Martha sat beside the policeman driving, hunched over the bag in her lap. 
They'd found her Aunt Jenny Skill in the directory. Martha couldn't remember much about what her father's sister had become, except she'd married in the city and either left or lost her husband. The check-in police told her that if her Aunt Jenny couldn't (or wouldn't) take her in, she would have to go to the WP camp. 

Martha knew vaguely about WP camps. Sometimes they kept people doing construction or working in government janitorial jobs for years. One could get out by playing political or buying a bureaucrat's attention. Martha figured her aunt might know where her father was; even if he'd gotten stuck in a camp himself, she could find him. He would help her. Wouldn't he? 

She thought about the last time she'd seen him … "Renounce your ways!" 

She'd run outside to see the battered truck with a chicken wire cage on the back. Standing inside the cage was an old woman with two apples in one hand and a potato in the other. Though she was grey and fragile, when she spoke to Martha straight through the cage, she had a strong voice. 

"Renounce your ways!" she shouted, then pointed to Martha's father standing just behind her. "Come with us to the Lord's commune. We have food, we have warmth. Don't let your child be damned by your sinning ways!" 

"Martha," her father said, but then was silent. 

"Look at all the food," Martha said, noticing the lumpy bags of potatoes, apples, beans, and cheeses with heavy rinds in boxes, loaves of bread wrapped in paper. 

"Forty miles to happiness," the woman shouted. "Forty miles to regular meals, a warm bed, and God-given peace of mind." She beckoned to Martha with an apple, unlatching the door of the cage. "You won't have to eat the flesh of your brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters in God's eyes! Renounce your ways! We understand! We forgive! We will save you!" 

"Martha," her father said again with a voice as soft as snowfall, "do you want to go?" 

Martha looked at more food than she'd ever seen at once in her life. She thought of the nights that her father wept and sighed after an especially trying capture and kill. She was still young enough to believe that a different life meant a better life, and if her father was willing … 

"Yes!" 

"Come, child," the woman said, "come with us to pray with thanks for salvation." 

Martha caught hold of the tailgate of the truck and boosted herself up to the cage door. Then she looked over her shoulder and saw that her father was standing still, just watching. 

"Daddy!" 

The woman grabbed her shoulders and pulled her headlong into the truck, shouting, "Take off, Brother Guy!" 

The truck lurched. Martha skinned her knees falling forward. She crawled up to look out at the figure standing down the road and screamed, "Let me out, let me out, you old bitch!" 

And far away, her father yelled her name through cupped hands. "Martha, I love you!" 




· · · · ·  


From the jeep she could see broken-down houses. To her left, she noticed the tall outline of buildings she'd seen distantly for years. They seemed close and large, and yet still a coherent shape. 
A wish came to Martha—perhaps if she couldn't find her father, maybe her aunt could take his place. 

After she'd first been taken to the Christian camp, she'd been bitter and angry, feeling deserted by the only person that had ever meant anything to her. His few letters to her there had eventually made her realize that he had thought it was the best thing for her. During the numb years at the camp, Martha mouthed the phrases and sang the verses, but they hadn't touched her. She'd made adequate, tentative friendships, but none so profound that she would grieve at separation. 

She leaned back and slid down the seat, face turned outward passively to watch the scenery. She'd seen picture in old books of cities, but all this seemed a ruined imitation. Dried weeds poked out of the thin crust of snow. Parts of houses had been hacked away, probably for firewood or to patch other houses. Fleetingly, she saw someone prying a window frame from an abandoned garage. She saw one tree enclosed within a fence. 

Slowing down, the driver spoke for the first time to Martha. "Is this it?" 

Martha looked at the house beyond the posts of what had once been a chain-link fence. The house was a square two-story with symmetrical windows. "I don't know," she said. 

She followed the policeman up the path to the house. The roof overhung the door a bit, but looked chopped away. A layer of gritty snow covered the boxes and other odd shapes on the porch. The policeman pounded on the door and turned toward the street uneasily. 

When the door opened, four people stood behind a heavy mesh. Others looked through the parted drapes. The policeman unfolded a piece of paper and held it out. "Is there a Jennifer Skill here?" 

It reminded Martha of the time she'd first arrived at the camp. Faces, faces, looking back at her. 

A woman came forward out of the other room and stood behind the mesh. "What do you want?" 

Martha couldn't superimpose her father's stories of his childhood companion on this tight-lipped, thin woman. 

"This girl claims you'll take her in." 

Jenny Skill looked at Martha speculatively. "Who is she?" 

"Martha Gail Skill, she says," said the policeman. 

"Where's my daddy?" Martha asked her. 

No answers came for a moment. The policeman and Martha stared inward and the others stared outward and no one said anything. Jenny reached above her head and there were sounds of metal locks slipping as her hands crept down the side of the mesh. 

The door opened. Martha stepped inside and stood behind her aunt. The policeman thrust his notebook in the door. "Sign this," he said. "She has no papers. You'll have to get them for her in ten days or pay the fines." 

Jenny only nodded as she signed the paper. 

After the policeman left, Jenny took Martha's coat collar between her thumb and forefinger and guided her into the living room. Furniture crowded the room, as if several households' worth of things had to be arranged in a single place. 

Fifteen or so people came into the room, some sitting on the sofas or chairs, but most stood around them. Jenny lifted her chin. "She's kin to me and I'll take responsibility for her. You know that she's my brother Harry's kid, but she won't pull anything here." Then Jenny took Martha's jaw in her hand and jerked her face around so that Martha stared straight into Jenny's eyes. "Will you?" she said. 

"Where's my daddy?" Martha whispered. She felt a cramping in her lower gut. The bright electric bulb overhead, the strangers all intent on her presence, and Jenny's roughness confused her. 

"Poor thing," one of the grannies whispered. 

"You just forget about your daddy," Jenny said. "He's not here." 

"But where is he?" 

"No use worrying about it." 

"Now, wait a minute," a man said. 

Jenny let go of Martha and for the first time she was able to focus on the people around her. There were two old grannies sitting together. There were several men about her father's age, and even more women. Younger people nearer her own age numbered only about five. Later, she discovered that six children had been put to bed. 

The large man who'd spoken shouldered closer. He had an aggressive, troubled kind of look that Martha had seen on some of the Crazies at the camp. "I don't feel safe about having your brother's kid here. Nothing against you, Jenny, but we all know what your brother was, and what's to say—" 

"Tell 'em where you've been," Jenny said, nudging Martha. 

Martha stood dumbly. She'd heard the word was referring to her father. Was? What did it mean? 

"She's been in the Christian Reform Camp," Jenny said. "Okay, look, Darren, we'll move Terry out of the closet under the stairs and hang that big brass bell over the door. Anyone will hear her coming out at night. Send her out with the kids to scavenge. If she gets fed like the rest of us, she won't be looking to carve anyone up." 

"You'll have to feed her better than that," one of the grannies said. 

"Well, where am I going to sleep?" one of the young ones asked. She was kind of pretty, but she kept narrowing her eyes at Martha. 

Martha listened vaguely as sleeping places were rearranged. Someone was sent to lock up the knives in the kitchen. Jenny searched Martha's pockets. Sweat formed on Martha's upper lip; she clenched her teeth as her bowels churned nervously. 

"Jenny," she said, "what happened to Daddy?" 

Jenny turned quickly. "He's dead! Now I don't want to hear another word about it." 

Martha nodded slowly. She had expected her to say exactly that, but somehow she couldn't believe that she really had. Her ears buzzed and she felt weak. "I need to go to the john." 

"Kaye, take her out back," Jenny said. 

A young dark-haired woman shuddered melodramatically. "Me?" 

"All right, all right," Jenny replied impatiently. "Switzer." 

A blond, rosy-cheeked young man motioned to Martha. She followed him through the kitchen, which was clean, but dishes, boxes, cans, and bottles were crammed together on narrow shelves and utensils and pots hung everywhere there was room. Switzer unbolted the back door. She saw the john and ran for it. 

She stayed longer than she needed to, in spite of the cold, rocking back and forth, sobbing. She thought of the last time she'd seen her father, the words he'd written to her about how they would go south together someday when he had money to pass the boundary. She revived old memories of him telling her stories, the little jokes they had with each other, songs he would sing while cooking or sewing, the way he looked when he was "just thinking." 

She didn't want to go back inside with those people. At the camp, everyone had done their best to act nice, though the feelings were usually at odds with their behavior. 

She stopped crying. She felt dry and cold and used up. 

On the way back into the house, Switzer said, "I'm sorry about your father." There was a sort of anger in his voice. 

Jenny met her in the kitchen and led her to a dim room lined with several mats. Two small forms lay under blankets, but the rest were flat. "Here. We're giving you a warm place. Keep that in mind." Jenny opened a closet door. A bell jangled. One of the sleeping children sat up. Martha saw that the dark closet was the inverse shape of a stairway, lined with boxes and tools, all of which seemed to lean dangerously inward. Jenny urged Martha forward. 

The door shut behind her with another jangle, then a bolt slipped into place. 

She sank down, only then realizing her weariness. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the ghost of her hand against a rough blanket. Voices and footsteps scattered randomly around her. Someone went up the stairs above her. 

She was hungry—awfully hungry—now. Beyond her door were so many people. 

She knew her own ribs and hip bones and spine as hard places on her body. But there were those in the house who were not so lean. She could crawl from mat to mat and search for their hip bones and find none so sharp as her own. 

"People are not food," Brother Guy had said to her on her second day in the camp. "When God gave Moses the laws, he said, 'Thou shalt not kill.' It's better to die of hunger than to kill your fellow man. It is wrong, Martha, wrong. You will pay for doing wrong by torment of eternal fire, eternal pain, eternal sorrow in the depths of lonely Hell if you don't get on your knees right this moment and swear—swear!—to God that you were wrong. That you will no longer eat the flesh of humans. That you were an innocent child of circumstances. That you beg His forgiveness. That you repent with a soul full of anguish and remorse. That you will face hunger with a heartful of love for Him! On your knees and pray, Martha! Pray for your soul!" 

And Martha had gotten to her knees and prayed, hoping that would relieve all the fear. But over the years, she'd come to recognize that Brother Guy didn't see the world the way she did. In fact, he saw things differently from almost everyone else. Her hope of salvation and fear of an infinite Hell broke little by little, until she behaved the way they expected her to merely out of custom—and respect for the supper table. 

Now she was free of that. 

When Aunt Jenny fetched her from the closet in the morning, she dragged Martha to a tiny room with a disconnected bathtub. Tepid water still stood from probably two or three others' baths. Martha didn't relish wallowing in scummy water, or that dampness after washing. They hadn't made her wash but once a week at the camp. 

"Wash your hair, too," Jenny said, closing the door. 

She obeyed out of habit. Halfway through her bath, someone tossed in a shirt and pair of pants for her, which were slightly large when she dressed. Outside the room, Switzer sat on the floor, apparently waiting for her. "Hungry?" he asked. 

Martha knew that her face changed with the suggestion of food. Switzer led the way back to the kitchen. Six or seven people crowded the room, fixing their breakfasts, washing up, or passing through and chatting. 

Switzer motioned for her to sit. Taking the edge of the bench at the table, she noticed the lull in the conversation. A boy stared at her, but the weak-chinned man resumed eating, and the woman stared out of the window. Switzer returned with two bowls of white mealy soup and a chunk of bread. He tore the bread, gave her half, and began to eat rapidly. 

As she began to spoon in the cereal, the man glanced toward her with a studied casualness, as if curious about the table manners of her kind. 

She didn't waste time on manners. 

As she stuffed the last of the bread in her mouth, Switzer said, "Let's go." 

"Go?" 

"C'mon." He strode across the room. In the entry hall, he put on a coat and knitted cap; his fair hair stuck out around his collar. He wrapped his throat with a cloth sack. Martha found her own coat on a peg. 

"Where are we going?" she asked as they walked away from the house. The day was clear but for a few grey clouds in the south, but the sunlight was dulled by a persistent chill breeze. 

"Scavenging," he said. He looked at her sidelong. "You've gone scavenging, haven't you? Yesterday I brought home a whole door." He sensed Martha's skepticism and touched the bag around his neck. "I chopped it up first, of course." And then he opened his coat and showed her a small axe hanging in the lining of the coat. 

They walked without conversation for a long while. All the uninhabited houses she saw had been plundered. Inedible and non-fuel trash hugged chain-link fences. Ahead was the tall yellow tower she'd often seen in the distance. 

"This used to be the University," Switzer said. 

They passed into an open area which was crowded with hand-built shacks. 

"There used to be trees everywhere," he continued. "I've seen pictures of this place where all this was green grass except for the walkways, and there were trees.…" 

Martha had seen an area covered with trees outside of Smithville once. 

"Maybe it will warm up before we have to ruin everything." Switzer said. 

"Warm up?" Martha said. "Hah." 

"It might." Switzer slowed down. "I've read that this is a temporary thing, not an actual climatic change. An aberration because of those three volcanoes and a fluctuation in the sun. If it goes on for another twenty years or so, then it might really be a permanent change, but it could warm up." He was straightforward, not fanatical like the Christians; Martha could see that it meant a lot to him. 

But she didn't understand what he was saying. "Oh," she said, and squinted. 

He smiled vaguely, as if knowing that she didn't follow. 

"I don't know any different from now or the good times, anyway," she said. "My daddy told me a little about how it used to be, though. It just sounded like stuff he made up. You know how they talk." 

"We'd be happier." 

They were walking through the shacks. Martha saw faces listlessly watching from windows that had once been in automobiles. Even inside the scrap metal and cardboard huts with makeshift stovepipes, the occupants' breath condensed in little puffs. Only a few moved around outside their shanties, hands and feet and heads wrapped in rags, nostrils frosty. Martha thought they looked dulled somehow. She'd seen more people inside the city who looked like they belonged in the Other Yard at the camp than she imagined possible. 

Even Switzer was subdued as they quietly walked the edge of the village-within-a-city. He glanced uneasily over his shoulder as two, then three men trailed them as they moved toward the street. Martha flinched when Switzer took her arm, but he held on. 

"It's slippery here," he said, indicating the steps ahead. Martha figured that was an excuse. 

When they had descended, Switzer walked at a faster pace. Martha saw that those who'd been following stood like sentries at the edge of what used to be the campus 

"I thought you should know this place," he said. "And now you know where not to go." 

Martha shrugged. "What would they do to me?" 

He didn't answer. 

They walked for a long time. Martha's feet began to grow numb and she had chills between her shoulder blades from the wind. The buildings around them were taller and closer to the street as they moved forward. Fractured glass, abandoned brick and concrete—she realized that was the insides of the city she'd only viewed from afar—not the spun-sugar she used to imagine. 

"Pigeons," Switzer said, pointing to the roof of a three-story building. "Right in my favorite place, too." He took a slingshot out of his pocket. Martha wondered how many weapons and tools he carried. They scrounged the ground for chunks of concrete and rocks, or chips of metal. 

He let loose with a rock. A burst of pigeons came outward in a wave. He loaded and reloaded with dexterity but out of the ten or so birds only one dropped. They both ran to retrieve it from the middle of the street. 

Martha saw that the bird still fluttered and twisted its neck. "Let me," she said, holding her hand out for the slingshot. 

Switzer handed it over. She looked up at the ridge just below the roof where the pigeons were settling again. The sky was a flat grey now, the clouds having moved in partway over the city, but it was still bright enough to make her squint. Switzer flushed them again, then she shot with the same speed he had, only this time three pigeons dropped. 

"Damn lot of birds here," she said simply, as they walked toward the kill. 

"You do all right," he said with admiration. 

"I've had to." She remembered her father's coaching—"Right here," he had said, tapping his temple, "hard as you can." 

"At the camp?" 

"Yeah." She handed him one of her birds so that they each carried two. "They took care of us so that we could hunt, farm and chop wood for 'em. They've got one of those greenhouses the government gives out to folks they like." 

"Why did you leave the camp?" 

Martha shrugged. "Just seemed like the right time." 

"Were they mean to you?" 

Martha looked at the sky. A bleak day altogether. The only vivid color was the pink weather-pinch in Switzer's cheeks. "I don't know … naw. They just didn't pay much attention unless you got out of the line." 

"Did you?" he asked, smiling conspiratorially. 

"Sometimes." 




· · · · ·  


Martha had been standing in the short-season garden with three others when old Randall fell. He'd had attacks before, but they'd been mild and a few days of resting had usually put him back on his feet 
This time he pitched face forward into the mud, scattering the basket of asparagus he'd gathered at the fence's edge. The four of them watched, and each of them knew the thoughts of the others without so much as an exchange of words or glances. 

They waited. 

Summer, Martha remembered, and the sky was cloudy without thunderheads, threatening only to blow over without rain. A mockingbird made a sound like a dry wooden wheel squeaking. Martha stood, not even waving away the gnats. 

Old Randall made no move. 

At first they walked calmly, then more rapidly toward the fallen man. The dry grass shushed under their bare feet as they ran. 

No one ever found the bones of old Randall. God moved Brother Guy to leave twenty children without food (only two of whom had the memory of fat sizzling on the fire and a full stomach) just in case they'd forgotten that they lived in His mercy. 




· · · · ·  


They swung their pigeons in tandem as they wandered the city. Switzer talked about things that she couldn't really understand. Like trying to imagine the shape of the city if she'd only seen the ruins they'd passed through, she couldn't follow his words. 
"We're driven to excesses," he said. "If we have food, we eat it until it's gone. If there's more than we can eat at once, we eat until we're sick, and go back for the rest before we're hungry. If we have enough fuel, we burn it until we're hot, even if the next day we have to be cold again. People are stupid and greedy when they're hungry and cold. If the government hadn't deserted us, they would try to fix things. But everyone with money and power moved to the equator. We've been deserted. After the Tropical War, they took all the people who could help away from the situation, and now they've forgotten." 

"What about the governor?" Martha asked, trying to take part. 

"Oh, he's greedy, too," Switzer said with disgust. 

As they crawled through empty structures, overturned heaps of trash, opened cans and boxes and wrecked cars, he talked about scientific farming in cold weather, building places to live in space, and the lack of research in fission, solar power, and other energy sources. 

"They were working on all those things before the weather changed. But it was all so halfhearted because they never really believed we would need it. By the time we did, everything was too ruined to make any constructive moves. My parents owned a company that designed solar homes." 

Martha wondered if his parents lived at the house, and what "solar homes" were, but didn't ask. 

He was quiet as they headed back. The kind of quiet that sounded like he was trying to think of something to say. Finally, he asked, "Can I sleep with you tonight?" 

"I guess so," Martha said. "But …" 

"I'll fix the bell. Don't like it anyway." 

The longer she was with him, the more peculiar he seemed, but she thought it would be nice to have someone to play with anyway. 




· · · · ·  


Jenny greeted them at the door when they arrived just after dark. She stared at Switzer a long time, then rifled through their bag and nodded at the pigeons with approval. 
"Martha got most of them." 

"Maybe she'll earn her keep then," Jenny said. 

It hadn't been such a good day for the others. For dinner they each ate a few spoonfuls of pigeon and potato in a paste of water, flour, and lard. Martha ate the sparse amount, hoping there would be seconds. There were none. She scarcely spoke a word, but conversation was limited to general comments about the events of the day or the assignment of chores. Martha noticed for the first time that even though her Aunt Jenny said little, most of the conversation was addressed to her, or in her direction, or with an eye for her approval or amusement. It had been exactly the same with Brother Guy at the camp. 

Jenny was the head of the house, no doubt. 

Martha didn't like her. Simply, without wondering why, she didn't like Jenny's silent appraisal of all that occurred around her. She didn't like the way she held her fork, or tilted her head and half-closed her eyes when someone asked her a direct question. Even the clothes she wore were crisp and characterless. Jenny was neither relaxed nor tense, neither cheerful nor irritable. She was obscure and remote. Martha didn't think of people in intimate enough ways to realize it was this obscurity that bothered her, she only felt that Jenny didn't care for her. In return she didn't like Jenny and that was that. 

Switzer was as quiet as herself through the meal. Guessing his anticipation for the night, she smiled a few times. 

Jenny gave her choices for evening entertainment: she could read in one of the upstairs bedrooms until it was time for the children to go to sleep, or play cards in the living room, or just chat in the kitchen and dining room. Martha heard mention of a fiddle, but heard no music that evening. 

She wanted to play cards when she heard there would be a game. Not since she'd lived with her father had she played. Switzer mumbled something about reading and left the room with a disappointed look on his face. 

"Here you go, little Martha," said one of the grandads, indicating a chair for her. Martha would have felt friendly towards him, but she saw his quick glance at her aunt and felt the politics of the situation. She sat down. One of the other players was Darren, the man who'd spoken against her the night before. 

They played rummy for a few rounds without much talk. Martha did all right, but it was obvious that the others played just about every night. She got bored with losing and stood. 

"Where are you going?" one woman asked, alarmed. She'd been sitting in a nearby chair the whole time, chatting with the players while she sewed rags together. 

Martha just stared at her. 

"Where are you going?" the woman repeated in a higher voice. 

"I don't know." 

"You just sit back down then," Darren said. 

"Honey, go get Jenny," the woman said. 

They all stared at Martha. Martha stared back. At first, she meant to hold Darren's gaze without flinching, knowing that a straight look was the best way to deal with anger. But something wavered within her and she began to study his throat, his meaty forearm and measured the breadth of his shoulders. 

"Jenny!" he shouted. "Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked Martha, eyes narrowed. 

Martha turned away from him. When Jenny came into the room, each oriented toward her. "What's going on here?' 

"Are you going to let her wander around loose?" 

Jenny sighed. "Come with me." She took Martha into the dining room and guided her to a straight-backed chair. "Sit here and just keep away from Patricia and Darren." And then she was gone again. 

Martha watched the children play with jacks and miniature houses built from welded tin cans. They begged attention from adults and older children. The elderly women sat together, as if they could only find interest in each other, occasionally patting a child. The room smelled of damp diapers and old, flaking skin. The women chattered about the people they used to know. 

Martha sighed and wiggled in her chair. 

"So you're Harry's?" one of the grannies said, noticing Martha's presence. 

Martha nodded. 

"You look a lot like him, yes," she said. "But last time I saw him, he was so changed, you know. It was the first time in …" She calculated. "… eighteen years.' 

Martha had not dared speak about her daddy. But she found her restlessness disappearing as she leaned toward the granny. "When did you see him?" 

"Oh, it was just last summer. I remember because I was thinking the weather wouldn't be too bad for him at first." 

"Weather?" 

"At that prison. In Dakota." She lowered her voice and peered around the room as if she were about to tell Martha every confidence she'd stored up for several years. "I think myself that people eatin' people ain't so bad—maybe killin' 'em is. We tried to tell 'em years ago that there were too many people, and that things were going to be bad one way or another. They thought we were just anti-Establishment, you know? Well, we didn't know that the weather—" 

"Then he's not dead?" 

"Last I heard he was alive. I used to know him a long time ago. I was a friend of Jenny and Harry's father a long time ago." The granny smiled. 

"Jenny told me he was dead," Martha said slowly. It was easy for her to believe it had been a lie. 

"Oh, I don't think so," the granny replied helpfully. "She probably didn't want you running off after him. He talked about you a lot." 

"Sharon," said the other old woman. 

The granny continued in a cheerful way. "Jenny just knows that you can't go see him. These days family doesn't count for much. It never used to, I thought, but it's even worse now. Why, half the folks that live here don't know if their relatives are dead or alive, and most of 'em probably don't care. Just another mouth, another bed. They'd take a stranger sooner, if he was useful. When I was young, we all believed in love and peace and helping each other.…" 

"Sharon," said the other again, resting her bony hands on the sagging flesh of her companion's arm. "These people here, they're like rats. You can't turn your back on any of 'em, and they're still better than some. Remember that." 

"Watch me, Sharon and Candy!" shouted one of the children. "Watch me!" 

Just as the conversation had involved her, it left her again. Martha began to shiver. She turned her head slowly, gazing intently, as if to see through the walls of the house the bell that imprisoned her. 




· · · · ·  


She stirred, hearing a muffled tap at her door. It was an inadvertent sound, followed by more movement brushing against her door. Then the bolt-lock slid. 
"It's me." Switzer's voice. 

Martha sat up and drew her knees to her chest. He crawled onto the mattress and pulled the door closed quietly. "Waring may have heard me. I couldn't tell if he woke up." He spoke softly and put his fingers on her thigh. "I brought something." 

She couldn't see him in the darkness, but sensed that he reached within his shirt. She felt something smooth and hard on her arm. "What is it?" 

"An apple. We can share it. I could only get one this time." 

She took a couple of eager bites and realized that she had eaten her half already. Reluctantly, she passed it over. Her mouth felt rough and dry from its tartness. 

"What did you do to the bell?" she asked. 

"I tied the clapper with cloth." He searched for her hand with his. Finding it, he put the apple core in her palm. Martha ate it. He rubbed small circles on her thigh. 

She pulled her shirt off over her head, elbows knocking against the boxes around her. "Hey, Switzer." 

"What?" It sounded as though he were undressing, too. 

"Did you know that my daddy was sent to Dakota?" 

"Yes." 

"Why didn't you tell me?" 

He was silent. 

"Is he dead or not?" 

"I don't know," he said. "The first I heard of that was what Jenny said to you last night. I was going to find out for you. We can't ask Jenny, of course. She knows that you'll try to leave." 

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked. Her voice rose. 

"Shh." He was quiet for a moment. "I wanted to wait until I knew for sure, so you wouldn't get your hopes up. And then I thought we could save up some supplies and … well, I want to go with you." 

"With me! To Dakota? Why?" 

"Because I want to." 

"Yeah, sure," she said, "everybody wants to go to Dakota." 

"You'll see. You remember that I got you an apple? I can do even better than that. We can have everything we need in just a few days, or a week." He paused. "I knew you would want to go. I really was going to tell you." 

She believed him. He had an eager sound in his voice. He'd told her before that he'd done a bit of traveling; that would make him a good companion for the road. He gradually moved closer to her and she adjusted with his moves until they were parallel shapes on the shallow mattress. 

She could figure the route to Dakota; she'd heard talk about it all her life. It was wretched, even though spring was coming on. Glassy snow covered even the most traveled areas. Open stretches of land made it difficult to travel without goods to exchange for safe passage from those who made their living off highway traffic. 

I will need food, she thought, feeling Switzer's skin touch hers. He was warm. 

She saw him by her side as they trudged through the snow, talking of times when technology would take care of misery, and everyone would have food and shelter. He was serene and calm, looking forward to things she couldn't see. And vulnerable because she had him in the white light of snow and sun at a casual moment. She drew out of her coat the axe he had lent her. 

She dug her fingertips into his shoulders. He was not lean. Everywhere he touched her, she blazed. Never before had she been so warm that sweat was like a mist hovering over her pores. Their breathing, kisses, and suppressed voices became a secret between them. 

She sliced his carotid easily with the axe and hardened herself against the look of betrayal that became his death mask. Her fingers clamped the wound as he fell, so that the blood flowed into the tissues rather that spilling wastefully on the ground. 

Never before had her body been so confusing to her. A feeling overcame her that would have been soothing had it not been so urgent, had it not been pushing her to something further.… 

When the pulsing stopped completely, she dragged him by his coat collar off the road under a clump of shrubs where she quickly gathered stones and built a fire. She heated the axe in the flames until it sizzled when tested in the snow. With one stroke, it would cauterize the flesh it hacked through. First—the arms, cut through until she could disengage the ball and socket. Then, the knee joints, then the thigh from the hip … 

Her breathing spurted from her uncontrolled. Switzer made a sound that was like weeping, but she felt his face against hers and it was dry. 

"Martha," he said softly. He didn't speak to reproach her, to call her attention, or to order her. She hadn't heard her name said that way for a long, long time, and only by one other person. 

As she dozed, she thought of her father. 




· · · · ·  


She woke, but with the feeling that she'd been coming awake for a long time. 
The night was not hers; it belonged to the people whose sleeping presences oppressed her. Something obliged her to remain in the position dreams had shaped for her until the sound of someone muttering in their sleep freed her from the silence. 

With stealth natural to her, she disentangled Switzer's fingers from her hair, dressed, and carefully opened the door. 

The bell made a muffled clunk. 

She stood for a moment, listening. No one moved. She made her way to the front hall and found Switzer's coat. In the pocket, the sling; in the lining, the axe. 

She was hungry. She held the axe and stood in the darkness. 

"People are stupid and greedy when they're hungry," Switzer had said earlier. She thought of the way he'd said her name, and she knew what hunger would drive her to. He was something warm in her life, but she would not consume it to extinction. 

Quietly, she unlatched the door and left, wearing his coat. 


The End  



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