“And that’s that?”
“No, not really. Jorgensen told me that some farmers in Brookings got wind of what was going on, and some folks came down to the silos and threatened the Guard. Imagine that!”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, I guess. The train came and went. It left loaded. But Jorgensen said things got pretty tense down there for a while.”
Harland reflected on Bottomly’s remarks. If he and Eda were on the verge of going hungry now, then everyone in the county was living hand to mouth. What would happen in a month if things didn’t improve? What would be the food situation in Sweetly then? The feds wanted to ship the grain out, but what would come back in return, and at what cost?
Harland paced the worn floor of the coop office. Bottomly watched the farmer striding to and fro.
“What’s eating you, Harland?” Bottomly asked.
“Suppose it takes a month before the Guard can get anywhere near close to here. That means people in this county will probably be eating their own shoe leather.”
“That’s a fact.”
“With all this ash on the ground from the Rockies to the Mississippi, there ain’t going to be a crop come fall. What then?”
“I don’t know, Harland. I suspect most of the neighbors will quit the area once and for all when the Guard gets the rail line open.”
“Goodness sakes, Jim, we’re sitting on a 50,000 bushels right now. Folks here are going to need that food if they open up the line or not. They’re going to need it soon and they’ll probably need it for some time to come.”
Bottomly sighed. “You know, I was hoping nobody would come to that conclusion.”
“Well, it’s obvious, ain’t it?”
“Of course it is, old buddy. But what are we going to do about it, huh?”
“Jim, this is our grain,” Harland said emphatically. “It hasn’t been sold off to anyone.”
“There’s an emergency, farmer!” Bottomly belted out the words. “The Guard’s got orders to take the grain.”
Harland scowled and shook his head. “Listen to what I’ve got to say, Jim. We can’t let the grain go, you understand. That grain may be our very lives. We’re going to need it to feed our families. They ain’t going to take it, Jim. You hear me. They ain’t going to take one damn kernel.”
There was a long silence and it hung in the room like the odor of dead mouse in the wall.
“Well, it’s an army that’s coming, Harland,” Bottomly said, the steam going out of him. ”What are you going to do, fight an army?”
“Tell the coop members that we’ve got to stop the Guard. Stop them with bullets, if we have to.”
“You’re crazy!”
“No, I’m not crazy. I’m dead set on this and you better be, too. We’re not going to starve to death when we have our own food supply right here in our own town. We let it go and no one on the outside is going to come in here to look after us.”
“That’s for damn sure, Harland.”
“So you tell everyone, Jim, that the grain stays. You tell them that if they want to protect their lives and their families, then we better draw a line in the sand right here in ol’ Sweetly.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
A rocking chair creaked by a corner window, the occupant of the chair a black silhouette against a moonlit ocean of frost-laden grasses and prairie brush. Liz detected the gentle swaying motion from her bed tucked into a small dark room with other beds. Who was this companion backlit by lunar reflection, she puzzled, and why was someone keeping a vigil while she slept?
“Who are you there?”
The creaking stopped. The form leaned forward and placed something on a small stand, a cup of tea, perhaps.
“I thought you might pay us a visit tonight,” said the silhouette. “You have been talking in your sleep a great deal.”
“I have?”
“Yes. You have been talking to someone. Your daughter, I believe.”
Lucidity flooded Liz’s brain at once. “My daughter? Where is my daughter?”
“I don’t know. She is not here.”
“Where is here?” The woman in bed tried lifting her head to survey the moonlit room, but her cranium seemed to weigh as much as her body. There were cots, eight of them, stuffed into a small space. Two other people occupied beds. The room reminded Liz of photographs of makeshift hospital wards set up in U.S. cities during the height of the 1918 influenza pandemic.
“You are outside the village of Stand-off Creek.”
“Where?”
“You are on the Blackfoot lands in Alberta.”
“Alberta?”
“In Canada.”
“My daughter is in Minnesota. How can I be in Canada?”
“You have been here for many many weeks.”
“What? I left Yellowstone….” Liz stopped in mid-sentence. Ice water drained through her tissues. “Yellowstone!”
“Yes, a terrible thing.”
“I was on a plane to Denver.” Chills were replaced by rising anxiety. “The plane flew into ash.”
“You survived the emergency landing of your plane several miles from this place, Elizabeth, and you have been with us in body but not spirit since that time.”
“You know my name. How do you know that?”
“You spoke your name the night we rescued you and the others. We talked then, but you have spoken only a little since.”
Liz threw the covers from her body, but moving them took great effort. She tried to sit up. A heavy rigid object on her left leg would not budge. Liz ran a hand over it; the feel of a full-length leg cast filled her with alarm.
“What happened to me?”
“You have had surgery to repair the bones in your leg. I removed a cast from your arm the other day.”
“I feel weak.”
“Your muscles have not had much work for many weeks.”
“Weeks? How long?”
“You have been in confinement for six weeks now.”
The revelation overwhelmed the scientist. She settled back onto her pillow, falling heavily as if she had received a punch.
“You had fractures of many bones on your left side,” Liz’s caregiver explained. “The breaks are knitting well now, but you need to begin therapy to build your strength. It will take time. I was worried about your mental condition, though. You suffered a head injury, a severe concussion and brain swelling, some facial trauma and bleeding. You have been in a coma.”
“Your voice is familiar,” said Liz.
“I have spoken to you often.”
“Who are you?”
“Sinopa.”
“Sinopa. Are you a nurse?”
“A doctor.”
“You have been caring for me?”
“After emergency surgery in Calgary, we had you brought here. There is no room in the city hospitals. There is great suffering on the eastern end of the province and across Saskatchewan. Medical facilities can’t handle the influx of the sick and injured.”
“It has to do with Yellowstone, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. The plains to the east are covered with a heavy burden. Ash is spawning respiratory illness and fostering much disease. I can’t reach my own daughter and the South Piegan people to the south, in Montana. Ash is heavy on the borderlands. It is impossible to go there.”
“You have a daughter? I do, too.”
“I know, you have been talking to her in your sleep. My daughter is Petah; I call her Petah. She is twenty years of age.”
“Huh. You know, my daughter’s name is something like that. Her name is Pelee.”
“That is very nice.”
“Thank you. Have you been in touch with your daughter to let her know where you are?”
“Communication is difficult. The eruption disrupted everything. There is no way to communicate with the South Piegan village, with her. But you must try to reach your daughter in the morning.”