No doubt these two girls have been taught to be terrified of strangers. Then, with their parents and brother out of action, they had been left on their own to defend their family and their home. In their blind fear, they had, they must have, shot at us and shot and hit three men who gave no sign of being anything worse than wanderers, perhaps salvagers. Michael and Natividad did go out to check on these men before we left while Jorge and I loaded our handcart and its contents onto the truck.
The three men were dead. They had hard currency and holstered guns—which Michael and Natividad collected. We covered them with rocks and left them. But they had been even less of a danger to the housetruck than we were. If they had walked right up to the truck, a locked door would have kept them out. Their old nine-millimeter semi-automatics would have had no chance against the truck's armor. But the little girls hadn't realized that.
We got them home to Acorn, and they're getting baths, food, comfort, and rest. Bankole is working on their mother and brother. He was not happy to have new patients. Our clinic has never been so full, and he has all his students and some volunteers helping him. He says he doesn't know whether he'll be able to save this new mother and son. He has a few simple instruments and an intricate little diagnostic unit that he saved when he fled his home in San Diego five years ago. And he has a few medicines—drugs to ease pain, fight infection, and otherwise keep us healthy. If the boy lives, Bankole doesn't know whether he'll walk again.
Bankole will do his best for them. And Allie Gilchrist and May are taking care of the little girls. The girls have been lucky, at least, in having us find them. They'll be safe with us.
And now, at last, we have something we've needed for years. We have a truck.
wednesday, september 29, 2032
With all the work that my Bankole has had to do to help the wounded woman and boy and the wounded Dovetrees, he didn't get around to shouting at me over the truck incident until last night. And, of course, he didn't shout. He tends not to. It's a pity. His disapproval might be easier to take if it were quick and loud. It was, as usual, quiet and intense.
"It's a shame that so many of your unnecessary risks pay off so well," he said to me as we lay in bed last night. "You're a fool, you know. It's as though you think you can't be killed. My god, girl, you're old enough to know better."
"I wanted the housetruck," I said. "And I realized we might be able to get it. And we might be able to help a child. We kept hearing one of them crying."
He turned his head to look at me for several seconds, his mouth set. "You've seen children led down the road in convict collars or chains," he said. "You've seen them displayed as enticements before houses of prostitution. Are you going to tell me you did this because you heard one crying?"
"I do what I can," I said. "When I can do more, I will. You know that."
He just looked at me. If I didn't love him, I might not like him much at times like these. I took his hand and kissed it, and held it. "I do what I can." I repeated, "And I wanted the housetruck."
"Enough to risk not only yourself, but your whole team— four people?"
"The risk in running away empty-handed was at least as great as the risk of going for the truck."
He made a sound of disgust and withdrew his hand. "So now you've got a battered old housetruck," he muttered.
I nodded. "So now we have it. We need it. You know we do. It's a beginning."
"It's not worth anyone's life!"
"It didn't cost any of our lives!" I sat up and looked down at him. I needed to have him see me as well as he could in the dim light from the window. I wanted to have him know that I meant what I was saying. "If I had to die," I said, "if I had to get shot by strangers, shouldn't it be while I was trying to help the community, and not just while I was trying to run away?"
He raised his hands and gave me an ironic round of applause. "I knew you would say something like that, Well, I never thought you were stupid. Obsessed, perhaps, but not stupid. That being the case, I have a proposition for you."
He sat up and I moved close to him and pulled the blankets up around us. I leaned against him and sat, waiting. Whatever he had to say, I felt that I'd gotten my point across. If he wanted to call my thinking obsessive, I didn't care.
“I’ve been looking at some of the towns in the area," he said. "Saylorville, Halstead, Coy—towns that are a few miles off the highway. None of them need a doctor now, but one probably will someday soon. How would you feel about living in one of those towns?"
I sat still, surprised. He meant it. Saylorville? Halstead? Coy? These are communities so small that I'm not sure they qualify as towns. Each has no more than a few families and businesses huddled together between the highway—U.S. 101—and the sea. We trade at their street markets, but they're closed societies, these towns. They tolerate "foreign" visitors, but they don't like us. They've been burned too many times by strangers passing through—people who turned out to be thieves or worse. They trust only their own and long-established neighboring farmers. Did Bankole think that they would welcome us? Except for a larger town called Prata, the nearest towns are almost all White. Prata is White and Latino with a sprinkling of Asians. We're you name it: Black, White, Latino, Asian, and any mixture at all—the kind of thing you'd expect to find in a city. The kids we've adopted and the ones who have been born to us think of all the mixing and matching as normal. Imagine that.
Bankole and I both Black, have managed to mix things up agewise. He's always being mistaken for my father. When he corrects people, they wink at him or frown or grin. Here in Acorn, if people don't understand us, at least they accept us.
"I'm content here," I said. "The land is yours. The community is ours. With our work, and with Earthseed to guide us, we're building something good here. It will grow and spread. We'll see that it does. But for now, nothing in any of those towns is ours."
"It can be," he said. "You don't realize how valuable a physician is to an isolated community."
"Oh, don't I? I know how valuable you are to us."
He turned his head toward me. "More valuable than a truck?"
"Idiot," I said. "You want to hear praise? Fine. Consider yourself praised. You know how many of our lives you've saved—including mine."
He seemed to think about that for a moment. "This is a healthy young group of people," he said. "Except for the Dovetree woman, even your most recent adoptees are healthy people who've been injured, not sick people. We have no old people." He grinned. "Except me. No chronic problems except for Katrina Dovetree's heart. Not even a problem pregnancy or a child with worms. Almost any town in the area needs a doctor more than Acorn does."
"They need any doctor. We need you. Besides, they have what they need."
"As I've said, they won't always."
"I don't care." I moved against him. "You belong here. Don't even think about going away."
“Thinking is all I can do about it right now. I'm thinking about a safe place for us, a safe place for you when I'm dead."
I winced.
"I'm an old man, girl. I don't kid myself about that."
"Bankole—"
"I have to think about it. I want you to think about it too. Do that for me. Just think about it."
Chapter 3
□ □ □
From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
God is Change,
And in the end,
God prevails.
But meanwhile ...
Kindness eases Change.
Love quiets fear.
And a sweet and powerful