Horizon

“I wouldn’t be here without him. I would have given up.”

They walked in companionable silence for a while.

“Where did he get the name Red?” Cass asked. She could see him up ahead walking with Earl and Old Mike, talking. She recognized his gestures, now that she knew it was him; perhaps she’d noticed them all along, somewhere deep down. There it was-the way he rubbed the back of his neck when he was considering something, the way he stabbed the air with a finger when he was making a point.

“I was the one who gave him that name,” Zihna said. “Actually, we named each other. Once we decided to make a go of it, and we were on the road, on the way to New Eden though we didn’t know it at the time, we had plenty of time to talk. And it turns out neither one of us much liked the names we’d been saddled with.”

“What was yours?”

Zihna grimaced. “Mary Chastity.”

“Oh, no.” Cass laughed and then Zihna was laughing too.

“Your dad said that didn’t fit me at all. And then he told me that Zihna means ‘spinning’ in Hopi. And, well, I thought it was pretty.”

“And what about Dad? Was he still going by Silver Dollar?”

“Yeah, he was. Showed me this old band flyer he used to carry around-‘Hammerdown, featuring Silver Dollar Haverford.’”

“You know…I took his name when I turned eighteen. Cass Dollar, it’s legal and everything. Mostly I think I just did it to piss off my mom.”

“Well, how about that.” Zihna grinned. “Save that up, maybe tell your dad the story one day when he needs a lift. I think he’d get a kick out of it.”

“So…how did you come up with Red?”

“Well, I asked him if I should just call him Tom, but your dad said it brought back memories he’d rather forget, that he wasn’t proud of being that man and he’d just as soon start over with something brand-new. And I said, anything I want? and he said, yes, anything, and I was going to tease him and maybe call him Skeeter or something but he was so…serious.”

Her voice went soft and dreamy and Cass felt like she was intruding on a private moment.

“Your dad can be a very serious man, for someone who makes me laugh every damn day,” Zihna said, smiling, but Cass didn’t miss the way she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Anyway, when I was a little girl, my grandfather used to listen to this old comedian named Red Skelton. We kids thought that was such a funny name. It made me think of a red skeleton, you know, the bones…anyway, your dad has this amazing thick hair for a guy his age, and when the sun hits it just right, I swear there’s these glints of red.”

Cass laughed. “I think you’re just a little dazzled. He’s pretty much gray all over.”

But secretly she was having a hard time keeping her emotions reined in. It shouldn’t matter to her, what her father did, who he was, after all this time.

But then again, why not let it matter?

“But that’s just it. Everyone has their own reality, right? I mean, we see the same things, but the thoughts in our head and the experiences we’ve had, all of that changes things, so the pictures we carry around with us are all different. Like, look up there…lot of folks would say that’s a ruin, a junk heap.”

Cass had been walking and thinking, not focusing on the horizon, but up ahead the torn flags and hulking wings of the mall stood out against the steely, damp clouds.

“But for a lot of folks, that’s home now. I imagine it’s got a certain kind of beauty when you think about how it couldn’t be much more secure, how it’s probably got a pretty good stockpile of necessaries, plenty of room to spread out.”

Cass tried to see what Zihna saw, but instead she got a deep foreboding, a tightening in her gut that could not be entirely explained by the bad architecture and gloomy weather.

“We shouldn’t go to the mall,” she breathed.

“What’s that, honey?”

“I have a bad feeling about the mall.”

“Well, let’s just send these East Coast yokels in, then.” Zihna laughed. “I don’t much care for them, they’re kind of uppity.”

Cass forced herself to brush the feeling off. It was true that they all needed a rest and a chance to dry out, as well as to restock their supplies, if possible. There was the unspoken but very real hope there might be room for at least some of them to live in the mall too, at least for a while. But the idea of all that concrete, so few windows… She wished she’d appreciated the freedom of the island more, the ability to step outside her home without worrying about Beaters, to walk in her garden without looking over her shoulder every second.

So many days and nights on the island, she worked so hard to forget that she failed to take notice of the good things-the beauty of the moon reflected in the river, the wind riffling the reeds that grew along the bank, the laughter of the children playing in the yard. The only time she let go of the tension lodged inside her was when she was with Dor. It was no wonder they came together with a passion that was almost violent: they both had so much loss to obliterate. And that’s what it had been, wasn’t it-tearing holes in their dreary and painful reality and letting in sensation, longing, even joy, if only until the tears skimmed over and their lives were shut tight again.

And now even that was lost to her. But she shouldn’t need him anymore-Cass berated herself; she had Smoke now, her heart, her love. Dor was in the past, just a phase she’d gone through, a crutch she’d relied on. As soon as Smoke was well, as soon as they were settled, it would be as before, the two of them together, being everything to each other.

Only…Smoke had been spending all his time with the new council. Reunited only days, he was already strategizing and planning, eager-maybe too eager-to work with the Easterners. It wasn’t glory he was after, Cass was sure of that. But something else…something familiar, something she had thought, had hoped, he had left behind on the battleground where he killed the Rebuilders.

He was still avenging. Even after the Rebuilders were no longer a threat, he was seeking…something. Maybe not vengeance, exactly, but atonement.

And still she didn’t know what he was atoning for. The thing that had always been between them was still there. He cherished his self-punishment more than anything else in the world, and nothing could banish it, nothing could ever be enough. He’d almost given his life as trade, but even that was not enough-as his strength came back he was already seeking ways to matter, ways to give, give of himself. And there would never be enough left over for her.

Knowing that had chilled Cass’s feelings. No longer did her heart race at the sight of him. No longer did the brush of his hand against hers excite her. He kept his distance and she, if she was truly honest with herself, kept hers.

Maybe the mall would be a fresh start. Maybe she needed time to be alone, without any man at all. She had a lot more in her life than she had a few weeks ago. There was Red, for starters, a father she’d given up for dead, for lost. There were the moms, the fragile peace between them. There was Zihna and Sammi and the other kids. And always, always, there was Ruthie.

It would be work, all the complicated messy relationships she’d damaged and scorned, learning to trust and to earn trust, to take risks and take deep breaths, try again and again, until she got it right. But God willing there would be time for that too.

“You’re right,” she said to Zihna, as cheerfully as she could. Fake it till you make it. “It’s going to be fine.”

Chapter 34

SOMEONE HAD BEEN working on the mall parking lot. The cars had been dragged away from the innermost spaces around the central entrance, and an area had been walled off with chain-link that looked like it had been scavenged piecemeal and then welded together. Inside the fencing were mismatched outdoor chairs and tables that looked like they had been taken from several different restaurants. A fire pit in the center made from stacked brick