کتاب 05-05

5

“Speak of the devil,” Renée said, wiping at her eyes with one thumb.

The hens are clucking. Harper thought it would be a toss-up, which term for women she hated more: bitch or hen. A hen was something you kept in a cage, and her sole worth was in her eggs. A bitch, at least, had teeth.

If there was irritation on her face, Ben didn’t see it or didn’t want to. He paced halfway to Father Storey’s cot, considering the tube filled with amber-colored juice, the mostly empty plastic bag hanging from the lamp by the bed.

“Is that ideal?” Ben asked.

“Feeding him out of a Ziploc bag? Or the hole in his skull that I sealed with a cork and candle wax? Totally ideal. Just like they’d do it at the Mayo Clinic.”

“Okay, okay. You don’t need to snip at me. I’m not snipping at you. I’m a fan, Harper! You’ve done amazing things here.” He sat on the edge of Father Storey’s bed, across from her. Springs creaked. He looked at the old man’s grave, resting face. “I wish he had told you more about this woman he planned to send into exile. He didn’t say anything except he thought he was going to have to send her away and maybe he’d go with her?”

“No. He did say one other thing.”

“What?”

“He said if he left he wanted John to be in charge of the camp.”

“John. The Fireman.” His voice flat.

“Yes.”

“That’s a fascinating piece of information to be hearing at this late date. Why would—the Fireman’s not even part of the camp. That’s ridiculous. Why not Carol? Why wouldn’t he want his own daughter for the job?”

“Maybe because he knew she was the type of nervous paranoid who would think it’s a good idea to hand out rifles to children,” Harper said.

Ben glanced quickly at the curtain into the waiting room, as if worried someone might be standing just on the other side, eavesdropping on them.

“I’m the one who decided to distribute the firearms, and no one under the age of sixteen got one. And I’ll tell you something else. I require the Lookouts to walk around with the bolt open at all times, to prove their rifle is unloaded. I ever see the bolt closed on any of those guns, they’ll be sucking on a rock until . . .” His voice trailed off and he left the sentence unfinished. A rose hue suffused his cheeks. “And you might not want to run around camp calling Carol ‘paranoid.’ You’re in enough trouble as it is. In fact, that’s why I’m here. You strayed from camp two days ago, went home, and nearly walked right into a Cremation Crew. Then, after slipping away—thank God—instead of returning to your post you went across to see the Fireman and stayed there most of the night.”

“My post?”

“Mother Carol made it clear she expects you to remain by her father’s side, night and day, until the crisis passes. One way or another.”

“The immediate crisis did pass, and I have other patients.”

“Not as far as Mother Carol is concerned.” Ben lowered his head, thought a moment, then looked up. “Is that when the Fireman plans to make his move? When his busted ribs are healed up?”

“Make what move? Move where?”

“Here. To take over.”

“He doesn’t want to take anything over.” It crossed Harper’s mind that she might’ve made a tactical mistake, telling Carol’s first lieutenant that Father Storey had wanted someone else for Carol’s job. Then she thought, Fuck it. If the notion of a power struggle with the Fireman made Ben squirm, all to the good. Let him feel harassed and threatened for once. “But I suppose he’ll do whatever is best for the camp in the end. John always has.”

Renée coughed in a way that seemed to mean Shut up.

Ben took a moment to compose himself. He laced his fingers together in his lap and looked down into the bowl made of his palms. “Let’s go back to when you wandered out of camp. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about that. I think I know how to fix it.”

“What do you mean—fix it? There’s nothing to fix. I went, I came back, everything is fine, and it’s over.”

“It’s not that simple, Harper. We’re trying to protect a hundred and sixty-three people here. A hundred and sixty-four if we count that baby you’ve got on the way. We have to take steps to keep people safe. If people do things that aren’t safe, well, there have to be consequences. If people steal. If they hoard. If they go wandering and potentially get themselves captured by the people who want to kill us. Harp, I know why you went back. I know you had the best intentions. But every kid who ever went to Sunday school knows where good intentions get you. You weren’t just risking your life and the life of that precious cargo you’re carrying—”

Harper could not say why the phrase precious cargo made her feel ill. It wasn’t the precious part, it was the cargo bit. Possibly it was also an aversion to cliché. When it came to speaking in clichés, Ben Patchett left no stone unturned.

“—but you were also risking Father Storey’s life and the life of everyone in camp. It was dangerous and thoughtless and violated rules that exist for good reason and it can’t go without consequences. Not even for you. And believe me: there do have to be consequences for unsafe behavior. There has to be a way to keep order. Everyone wants that. They won’t stay without it. They want to know we’re taking steps to keep this shelter safe. People need law. They need to know someone is looking out for them. They may even feel better if they know a few hard-asses are in charge. Strength breeds confidence. Father Storey, God bless him”—casting a halfhearted look over his shoulder at the sleepless sleeper behind him—“never seemed to understand that. His answer to everything was to hug it out. His reaction to someone stealing was to say possessions are overrated. Things were going to hell even before we brought the convicts back to camp. So.”

“So,” Harper said.

He lifted his shoulders and then dropped them in a great sigh. “So we at least have to make a show of punishing you. And that’s what we’re going to do. Carol wants to see you tomorrow, to get an update on her father. I’ll take you over and we’ll stick around, have tea with her. When we come back, I’ll pass the word you made amends at the House of the Black Star, that you spent most of the time there with a stone in your mouth. In a lot of ways, that’s the fairest way to handle the situation. In my field, we say ignorance of the law is no excuse—”

“Ignorantia juris non excusat,” Renée said. “But considering punishments in this camp are handed out on the spot, without an opportunity to appeal to an impartial judge or present a fair—”

“Renée,” Ben said wearily. “Just because you’ve read a couple of John Grisham novels doesn’t make you a Supreme Court justice. I’m giving Harper a way out, so will you lay off my ass?”

“Ben, thank you,” Harper said softly.

He was silent for a moment, then lifted his gaze and offered her a tentative, wan smile.

“Don’t mention it. If anyone in this camp deserves a little slack—” he began.

“But there’s no fucking way,” Harper said.

He stared at her, his mouth partly open. It took him a while to come up with a response, and when he did, his voice was thin and hoarse. “What?”

“No,” Harper said. “I’m not going to put a stone in my mouth in some moronic self-abasing act of contrition when I don’t have anything to feel contrite about. And I’m also not going to let you lie to people and tell them I went along with this hysterical bullshit, either.”

“Will you stop swearing at me?” he asked.

“Why, is swearing against the rules, too? Will it get me another hour with a stone in my mouth? Ben: no. I say no. Absolutely no. I am a fucking nurse, and it is my job to say when something is sick, and this is sick.”

“I’m trying to make things easier here, for cripes’ sake.”

“Easier for who? Me? Or you? Or maybe Carol? Is she worried it might undermine her authority if I don’t bow and scrape with the rest of you? If I don’t play along, maybe other people will make trouble, is that it?”

“Ben,” Renée said, “isn’t keeping secrets also against one of the rules? You aren’t going to get in trouble for plotting to get Harper out of a punishment, are you? I’d hate to see our head of security walking around with a rock in his mouth. That might cost him something in terms of respect.”

“Jeeeshus,” he said. “Jeeesum Crow. Listen to you two. Harper—they’re gonna make you—you can’t just—I can’t protect you if you won’t let me.”

“Your impulse to protect me conflicts with my need to protect my self-respect. Sorry. Besides. I have this vaguely uneasy feeling you’re offering to protect me from you. That’s not doing me a kindness—that’s coercion.”

He sat there for a time. At last, in a wooden, stilted tone, he said, “Carol still needs to see you tomorrow.”

“Good, because I need to see her. Going to my house to get a first aid kit was a decent start to restocking the infirmary, but it isn’t nearly enough, and next time I go hunting for supplies, I will need help. Yours, and maybe a few other men. I’m sure Carol will want to weigh in. I appreciate you making the arrangements for my audience with her eminence.”

Ben stood, twisting his wool cap in his hands. Muscles bunched and unbunched in his jaw.

“I tried,” he said.

He almost tore the curtain down on his way out.