“Will, can I help you into the house?” She had no love for him, but human decency said she should offer him at least a little compassion. “Can I get you your dog?” It was tied up as usual near the shed, but it was friendly and might give him comfort.
“No! Just leave me alone!”
“Okay.” Arguing wouldn’t change anything.
“Sooner or later,” he hissed, “it’s going to get us. I hate it all. Everyone.”
So much for compassion.
Will climbed to his feet unsteadily. “Dad was spreading it to everyone, and now we’re all going to die. He got what he deserved.” He stumbled to the house and slammed the door behind him.
Spreading it? Yes, to his family and from there, maybe beyond. She walked back to Nimkii. His head was down defensively, his trunk curled, his ears spread wide.
She put a lilt in her voice she didn’t mean. “Hey, Nimkii, you big pedazo. What do you think of all this drama? This isn’t good at all, that’s what I think. Would you like some food? I have some alfalfa.”
She sent him a bale over the fence. Then she called a friend in Madison. She got through this time. Her friend spoke with hushed shock. Students were being shot on campus, and people were getting sick all over. The whole city had risen up in mutiny, and they were about to try to free the campus.
This was worse than she thought. “I haven’t heard much up here.”
“It’s going to be a war. We better win.”
“How about my mother? Do you know where she is? She was arrested yesterday.”
“At City Hall? That protest? I know a lot of people are trying to find out. I’ll pass on anything we learn.”
“Can you tell them there’s a prison here? I know exactly where. Here’s the coordinates.”
“Okay. Here’s where you can get some news. I gotta go.”
Irene checked the site, and the news left her confused: mutiny everywhere, and the delta cold, and people dying. Reports contradicted each other. The Prez hadn’t been seen all day. She looked at Nimkii.
“If it wasn’t for you, I’d leave right now.” But if she left, he’d die one way or another. “I love you.” She needed to decide how much, and soon.
Something banged inside the house. Nimkii stretched his trunk toward it and growled. Had Will broken something big?
She ran to the house and nervously opened the back door. “Will?” No answer. She walked in, at first cautious, sneaking, and then she remembered that she lived there, too, even if she wasn’t fully welcome. “Hey, Will, how are you?” No answer. “Where are you?”
The air smelled wrong, sort of smoky. Around a corner, she saw Will’s legs on the floor, near Ruby’s desk.
“Will?” He didn’t move. She came closer. “Will?”
He was lying on the floor. Half his head was gone, spattered across the rug.
Who did that? She looked around. No, wait, that made no sense. She forced herself to look again. A gun lay next to him. He’d done it to himself.
Will, why?
She couldn’t breathe anymore. She turned and ran out of the house and stood on the back stoop, gasping.
Will, why? Because he was going to get sick and die. His father had been contagious. And Will … he hated everything and everyone. Including himself.
She paced in the backyard, for a while thinking about nothing, wishing she could forget what she’d seen and what had happened. Everything kept getting worse. She paced a while longer. Some problems she couldn’t solve. They were too big. And they weren’t her problems. She could … what, leave? No. That was what Will had done. The ultimate escape. She … she had responsibilities. She would try to do the right thing.
What should she do? The house had two dead bodies in it, and—she needed to tell Ruby. She’d practice more human decency, even for people who didn’t deserve it. Would Ruby come back? She hoped so. This was a problem for Ruby to solve, not her. She could call—if she had her number. Who would? Will’s phone, Alan’s phone, the house computer? They’d be locked to a retinal scan, probably. Would dead eyes work? She wasn’t even going to try.
She told Nimkii, “I’ll be back.”
Ruby had taken the truck, so she had to walk, and the walk seemed longer than ever. She trudged up the road trying to decide if she was a traitor, a martyr, or just a decent human being. Ruby deserved to know that her son had died, but Irene deserved to know a means of contact so she didn’t have to hoof to the prison farm and risk her own life just to be a decent human being for people who were not decent and treated her like a tool that talked. Maybe she’d go back, grab her stuff, and walk away—leading Nimkii.
As she came close, she slowed and looked hard at the prison. Maybe she’d see something useful this time to help liberate it. There had to be a mutiny in Wausau. She spotted Ruby’s truck and a few of the same vehicles as last time, but most of them had left. A group of guards stood far away from the prison building. Irene raised her hands even before she was in shouting distance.
“Hello!”
They turned.
“I’m here to see Ruby Hobbard! Her son died!”
Someone motioned for her to stop. She did, and she slowly looked around, hoping she seemed to be trying to find Ruby. One of the guards lifted their wrist to their mouth and had a brief conversation.
“She can’t come.”
“But her son just died.”
“I told her that.”
Wow. “She should know that he shot himself.” It hurt to say that, but it had to be said.
After another conversation, they said, “Are you Irene?”
“Yes.”
“Go back home. She’ll take care of it later.”
The other guards seemed to be talking about it among themselves.
“All right.” She began to walk away. Either Ruby was
