knew, maybe over time Doctor Happy would drive its hosts insane.
“Isn’t it also important for people to remain human in the full sense of the word?” Jeannie asked .“Being human means experiencing both the good and the bad, feeling both happiness and sorrow.”
Rumor laughed. “The fundamental human experience has led to ruin. Yes, humanity is both good and bad, but the good has not adequately balanced the bad, and probably cannot. The bad must go.”
The more I considered it, the more it seemed like giving up. Maybe one day I would be ready to give up, but not today. “You’re a good salesman,” I said, “but I don’t think we’re your target audience.” I put my hands on my knees and leaned forward. “Now, is that your patter? Are we free to go?”
Rumor sighed. “Jasper, your wings can carry you wherever you like, after my patter or before. You are a free bird.” He came over to me, put his hand over mine, his rough palm touching me gently. I resisted the urge to pull away. “We mean well. I hope you believe that.”
I pulled my hand away and stood. “We do, too. We appreciate the meal, and the offer.” The others gathered up their stuff.
“Where are you going to go?” Rumor asked. “You’re not going to survive anywhere but in Athens, I promise you.”
We looked at each other. “We’ll do the nomad thing for a few more months, then go back to Savannah and see if things have settled down,” I said.
Rumor shook his head. “There is nothing for you in Savannah. The Jumpy-Jumps cut off the federal army’s supply route. Their push collapsed quickly after that. The soldiers who aren’t dead are thirsty like everyone else. And don’t head northwest from here, whatever you do.”
“Why’s that?” Cortez asked.
Rumor frowned. “You haven’t heard about Redstone?”
“What’s Redstone?” Jean Paul asked, impatient.
“Redstone Arsenal, outside Huntsville, Alabama,” Rumor answered. “Millions of rifles are stored there— literally millions. The governor of Alabama conscripted the unorganized militia, which means that every male between the ages of eighteen and forty-five was to report for military duty to restore peace and quiet. The problem was, no one told the Jumpy-Jumps, the Civil Defenders, the city-block warlords that they should stay home when the rifles were passed out.”
We digested this little nugget. There were a million rifles running around northwest of us.
“Well, we’ll figure something out,” Colin said.
With that, we left the Doctor Happy recruiting station.
There was a path of sorts through the bamboo—we squeezed around three people heading toward their free meal and patter.
“Good luck,” Jean Paul said as they passed.
I woke from a dream in which I was walking on cookies. Lots of cookies—enough to carpet the ground. That’s it, not much of a dream, not very profound or insightful. Dreams become less insightful, less draped in deep symbolism, when you’re hungry.
Ange rolled onto her stomach. Her eyes had that bleary just-awake look, where dread was still raw and refused to be closeted.
“Morning,” I said.
“Hungry,” she said sleepily.
I wondered what she’d dreamed. Maybe popcorn falling from the sky like snow.
The Doctor Happy cult recruitment meal we’d had ten days earlier had been our last decent one. Since then there had been days when we ate nothing at all. We gave Jeannie much of what food we could find so baby Joel could be nourished.
Something had to give, and last night as I was drifting to sleep, I’d gotten an idea. There was another Young Mozarts song that I liked better than the one the Doctor Happy recruiters had been playing. One of the lines in it was
“Where are you going, exactly?” Cortez asked.
“I won’t go far,” I said. “I spotted a place that looks like a good spot to find wild mushrooms. I may be a while if I find a bunch.”
“I’m coming with,” Ange said.
“No,” I said. “You’ll be bored.”
“Of course I’ll be bored. I’ll also be bored if I stay here.” She shrugged on her pack. I tried to think of a better reason why she couldn’t come, but drew a blank.
“Ready?”Ange asked. Cortez handed me a pistol. I couldn’t get over how much the guy had changed since I’d first met him. Back then he’d been one of those guys who had an exaggerated tough-guy walk that he’d clearly rehearsed in his bedroom mirror. Now he seemed so comfortable in his own skin, and in this world.
As soon as we were out of hearing distance of the others, I turned to Ange and said, “I’m not really going to look for herbs.”
“I kind of sensed that. So where are we going?”
“We passed a farm on the way in, about a mile back down the tracks. I want to try to steal some food.”
I looked at Ange, gauging her reaction. She nodded tightly. “Okay.”
“I don’t like stealing,” I said.
“I know you don’t. You just realized that the rules have to change if we’re going to stay alive. The rest of us need to get our heads out of our asses and realize that, too.”
And that was that. Ange and I moved quickly. She had a knack for finding the path of least resistance through the bamboo. Once we hit the railroad tracks we made better time.
The farm was just a few acres of cleared land, a house, silo, a few animal pens, all surrounded by a rhizome barrier. There were a couple of dogs asleep in the shade of the house.
I handed Ange the pistol. “We’re less likely to get caught if there’s just one of us. I’ll be right back.” My heart racing, I sprinted through a clearing before Ange could argue. I stopped behind the silo, scanned the yard for signs of people, then went around to the front of the silo and ducked inside.
It was empty.
I’d been picturing it filled with grain of some sort—I had a shopping bag in my pack that I’d been planning to fill. I didn’t know anything about farms, about where the food might be.
Outside, a pig screeched.
I snuck back around behind the silo and eyed the animal pens. Crap, I didn’t want to kill a little pig or a chicken. But what else was there that wasn’t actually in the house itself?
“Put your hands in the air.” The first thing I saw was the rifle. The guy holding it was about twenty. He was a big guy—big calves, big neck, had a big guy’s swagger as he came out of a pecan grove. I put my hands up.
“I’m sick of you thieves.” The tone in his voice, the disdain, was so familiar. I was a gypsy again.
“I’m sorry, we’re just very hungry,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean you can steal from people!”
“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” I said.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. He wiped his mouth with one hand. It was shaking badly. “If there were police, we’d let them take care of you, but the way things stand we shoot looters on sight.”
He lifted the rifle and pointed it at me.
“No!” I threw out my hands as if I could ward off the bullet, clenched my eyes shut as if I could hide. I shrieked as the gun fired once, twice. I was gone for a moment, my ears buzzing, the world spinning away.
I opened my eyes, looked down at my chest. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t on the ground, why there was no blood.
The guy with the gun was on the ground.
Shouts rose from the house. People came running out. They had more guns.
“Run!” Ange said. I was grateful for any guidance, given how confused I was. We broke into the bamboo. It
