Esther walked to the car and raised the hood, careful not to exert herself too suddenly: Don’t want to pop another blood vessel, she thought. The sun shone full on the battery. If the phone still didn’t work in an hour, she thought she would drive in and see what was going on. Little backwaters on the creek held a thin skim of ice, crystal patterns radiating artfully. A fat ground squirrel scooted past. Esther walked thirty or forty yards along the bank of the creek. Then she heard a scrabbling sound.
Esther looked among the winter-bare brush. Why, there were the chickens! She hadn’t seen them in days. Descended from fighting stock, they looked like banties. She had originally gotten them to keep the scorpions down. Skunks, coyotes, and who knows what-all had done in every attempt Esther had made to keep a penned laying flock. These, loose and wild, managed to survive and perpetuate themselves. She wondered if she were just sleeping too soundly to notice, or if they were roosting so far off that she wasn’t hearing the roosters.
Esther got half a coffee can of cracked com from the shed and tossed it about. The chickens scrambled for it. There were at least twenty, including six roosters and two chicks she didn’t recall seeing before, only now feathered out; their mother must have hidden them in the woods while they were smaller. One of the roosters crowed, ruffling his rich red neck and iridescent green tail feathers.
Thanksgiving’s coming up, Esther thought. I’ll invite Prabaht and have him catch us a young rooster. Even a young rooster would have to be boiled all day before she roasted it, or it would be too tough to eat, but the flavor was the best. The things one doesn’t expect, Esther thought, like still having my own teeth at eighty-two!
Depending on the direction of the wind, Esther could sometimes hear vehicles on the two-lane highway a mile away down the canyon, sometimes not. A logging truck slowing for the curve just south of the turnoff was the sound she heard most regularly. She hadn’t noticed any this morning. She looked down the canyon now at the sound of something approaching. A tangy whiff of juniper smoke from her stovepipe wafted by as a modest-sized but snappy motorcycle pulled into view.
The rider was almost to the house before Esther recognized her six-teen-year-old great-grandson, Peter. Peter’s mother, Esther’s granddaughter Sylvia, was, last Esther knew, in the midst of yet another catastrophic relationship. Peter lived with his grandmother, Jennifer, in Socorro—a hundred and fifty miles away. Esther felt sorry for Peter, having to be a boy with an unmarried mother, unknown father, and a divorced grandmother and great-grandmother. Still, that was no excuse to cut school.
Peter rounded the final curve. Then, instead of slowing down to ford the creek, he sped up, and roared across in a cloud of spray. Esther shook her head and smiled. Peter parked his bike by Esther’s car and hopped off. “Car broke?” he asked.
“I’m just letting the sun warm the battery.” Esther gave Peter a big hug. “Isn’t it a school day?”
“I tried to call; the phones are out.”
“Oh. I thought it was just mine.”
“Ma Jen figured I better get here while I could.”
Esther recalled Prabaht’s ranting. She had not felt up to paying much attention. A lot of Prabaht’s talk was paranoid fantasy anyhow.
“Bring your things in the house,” Esther said. “Then explain. Have you had breakfast?”
“Nope.” Peter grinned and jumped to unsnap the bungies holding the pack on the back of his bike. Whatever was happening, Esther could see that the teenager considered it a great adventure.
Peter followed Esther into the house. The refrigerator was humming.
“Wow!” Peter said, “you’ve got electricity!”
“Of course,” said Esther.
“It’s out in town.”
“Oh?” This was far from the first time Esther had been blissfully unaware of a power outage. Between photovoltaics and the little hydro system on the creek, she had more electricity than she knew what to do with. She had heard computers on such a home system had difficulty with voltage irregularities, but none of the few appliances Esther ran seemed to mind.
“Damn, it’s a good thing I got here,” Peter said.
Esther felt a flash of irritation. Her daughter wasn’t trying to run her life again, was she? She also noticed Peter’s use of profanity. Well, so long as he didn’t become really foul-mouthed, she could hardly object. She said more than an occasional “damn” herself. Still, it was disconcerting having a great grandson a head taller than oneself. “What do you mean?” Esther asked, keeping her voice neutral. “Bacon and eggs sound good?”
“Sounds great. You really haven’t heard? The shit hit the fan!”
“That’s what Prabaht said, but…” Esther did not want the boy to know why she had no idea what else her neighbor may have told her. “…I haven’t heard the details yet.”
Peter didn’t notice his great grandmother’s evasion. He told her what he knew, which was not altogether clear: Someone had ordered surprise mass arrests yesterday, before dawn. Only, of course, that didn’t work. Lots of cops warned their families and friends. Information leaked to radio and television stations. Some officials balked. Police records did seem to affect who got raided. If drug-related police records had any special part in it, as Prabaht had said, Peter didn’t mention it. Thousands of people were taken by surprise, but what started as a mass police raid degenerated, within hours, into mass chaos.
Peter had set out about one yesterday afternoon. His grandmother reasoned that his petty infractions, all still juvenile, might not be listed beyond the county. Esther had her doubts about this reasoning, but she didn’t say anything. It had taken Peter twenty hours to come one hundred and fifty miles. He had evaded four roadblocks, half a dozen places where he heard gunfire, though he didn’t know what any of them were about, and stolen a gallon of gasoline. Normally, his great-grandmother would object strenuously to this last, but under the circumstances…. He had not eaten since yesterday morning.
So far as Esther could tell, Peter was having the time of his life.
Esther had started to fry Peter three slices of bacon. She doubled that and got out a third egg. He ate four slices of toast while the bacon and eggs cooked.
“Um, do you have coffee?” Peter asked.
“When did you start drinking coffee?” Esther snapped back.
Peter mumbled something unintelligible.
All unbidden, an image flew into Esther’s mind of herself at fourteen, smoking a cigarette in her room by an open window. She’d heard her mother’s step on the stairs. Out the window went the cigarette, where it landed on the awning of the window below. Thank heavens a neighbor noticed the fire before the whole house went up! After that, her mother told her that if she was going to do anything so disgusting as smoke, she might as well do it in the open where at least she wouldn’t burn the house down. She did, too; she didn't quit till she was sixty-one and nearly died of pneumonia for the third time.
Esther set the kettle on the stove, rinsed the glass coffee pot, and scooped coffee into a fresh paper towel in the funnel.
After he was done eating, Peter washed the dishes, which Esther thought extraordinarily considerate. As he dried his hands, he smiled and asked, “Got any smoke?”
Peter had been smoking pot, that Esther knew of, since he was eight. She still wasn’t sure if she approved, but she was sure there was less harm to it than alcohol or cigarettes. “Oh, yes.”
“Let’s boke a smole.”
The little green stone pipe still sat on the table by Esther’s chair. She never had put it away last night. “In the drawer,” she said.
Peter got out the tin of mixed leaf and bud and filled the pipe. “This all you’ve got?”