Chapter 16 Cora
Day twenty-three was the last full day of the road.
We had made the final cache at the Pasadena salvage corridor in the morning, dropped off the bandit-bike with the LA-aligned cohort there for storage (we did not need it on the final twenty-mile run to Mojave, and the LA cohort wanted it for their patrol), and were now in the foothill range, three miles from the southern approach to the Mojave camp.
The road was the road.
The road was the road I had been on a thousand times.
The road was the road I had been planning, mapping, pre-caching, and not allowed to travel for four months.
The road was the road I was now on.
Drew was beside me.
Deedee was on the bench seat with the Polaroid in her hand.
The Polaroid had a deeper crease now from the twenty days of holding.
I drove.
We were going to arrive at the gate at sunset on day twenty-four.
Crystal would be at the gate. Mark would be beside her.
Cassi would be at the wall with her arm around Crystal.
Loren would be on the watchtower with Kiera.
Brecca would be at the medical tent door with Sebastian on her shoulder.
Tess would be at the kitchen tent with Auriel on her hip.
Kal would be beside her. Elena. Elena would be at her own tent door with Cassi, or on her own at the second walking-path from the kitchen, depending on where her morning had been.
The whole camp would be at the gate. The whole camp would be at the gate because the radio had been on every morning at oh-five-hundred for twenty-four days, and the camp had been counting.
I had been counting.
I had been counting the people we had at the camp and the people we were bringing home and the people we had lost and the people who were waiting and the people who had said I love you on the back of a Ford truck at sunset on the Mojave high desert two days ago.
The people had become the count and the count had become the people.
The numbers had stopped having to be in stacks of seven. The numbers were the numbers.
I was thinking about Mara.
Mara was in the truck-bed of the second truck, behind us, with Renn driving.
Mara had been in the truck-bed for ten days.
The body had been wrapped in three tarps and packed in salt from the Vegas barter market for the preservation, and Sylvia had been doing the salt-refresh every two days for the entire return, and the body would be ready for burial by Easter Sunday in three days.
Crystal had told me on the radio yesterday: I want to bury her under the rosemary by the kitchen tent.
The rosemary has been growing for four years.
The rosemary is the right place. Mara liked rosemary.
Mara liked rosemary the way some people liked particular plants for no reason they could explain.
Mara had liked rosemary since the first salvage run in year three when she had found a small pot of it at an abandoned restaurant in Pasadena and had carried it back to Urbana on her lap for three days.
The rosemary at Mojave had been propagated from Mara's pot.
The rosemary at Mojave was Mara's rosemary. The rosemary was the right place.
I drove.
Drew said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"You are thinking about Mara."
"Yes."
"The radio just crackled."
I had not heard the radio crackle. Drew's hearing was the half-Vampyren hearing. The radio was on but the volume was low because Deedee was sleeping and I had not wanted the cab to be loud. Drew had heard the crackle from the small low volume.
I keyed the radio.
"Mojave?" Crystal.
"Cora."
"Crystal."
"Three miles."
"Three miles."
"Cora. Cora, Elena wants to be at the gate."
"Then she will be at the gate."
"Cora. She is going to walk the whole gate distance from her tent.
Not just the perimeter walk. The whole gate.
The two hundred yards. She has not walked the gate distance in three years.
She wants to walk it. She is going to walk it.
Cassi is with her. She is going to walk it.
I am going to walk with her. She will be at the gate. "
"Crystal."
"Yes."
"Mark."
"Beside me."
"Loren."
"Watchtower."
"Brecca."
"Medical tent door. Sebastian on her shoulder. Rael at her elbow."
"Tess."
"Kitchen tent. Auriel on hip. Kal beside her. Sebastian and Auriel are both fed and clean and quiet. Tess scrubbed Auriel's face this morning. Auriel has been saying eh since dawn. Tess thinks Auriel is going to say Drew when Drew arrives. I am not going to argue."
"Crystal."
"Yes."
"We are three miles out. We will be at the gate in forty minutes."
"Yes."
"Drew is beside me."
"I know."
"Deedee is on the bench."
"I know."
"Crystal."
"Yes."
"Deedee."
"Cora."
"She is holding the Polaroid. She has been holding it for twenty days.
She is going to want to hold it when she comes out of the truck.
I am going to let her keep it until she sees you and she wants you to hold her.
When she lets go of the Polaroid, she lets go because she has you.
The Polaroid is not the substitute. The Polaroid was the carrying.
You are the having. You are at the gate.
She is going to give the Polaroid to me before she gets out. She is going to run to you."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"Tell her her mother is at the gate."
"Crystal."
"Yes."
"You are the gate."
"Cora."
"You have been the gate for two hundred and seventy-three days.
The radio at oh-five-hundred has been the gate.
The egg you have been not eating has been the gate.
The blanket folded under the cot has been the gate.
The six-fold has been the gate. You have been the gate, Crystal. The gate has been holding."
"Cora."
"I am going to give the radio to Deedee. She is awake. Talk to her."
I gave the radio to Deedee.
Deedee held the radio. She was small in the bench seat.
She had not been small in the picture in the Polaroid.
She had been five and the Polaroid had been the picture of the five-year-old, but the six-year-old in the truck cab was smaller than the five-year-old had been, because the six-year-old was a child who had spent four days running a fever in a boiler room and twenty days on the road in a truck cab, and the body was the body the road had made.
She held the radio the way the kids at Mojave held the radio at the schoolhouse when Cora taught radio-protocol. Two hands. Thumb at the keying-button. The careful posture.
She said in the quiet little voice that was hers, fully hers, the voice that had been hers since she was three: "Mama."
The radio was silent.
Then Crystal's voice, also small:
"Hi, baby."
"Mama. I'm coming home."
"I know."
"I have the Polaroid."
"I know, baby."
"I'm going to give it to Cora at the gate. So I can hold you."
The radio cracked. It was Crystal crying. The radio caught the crying.
Deedee did not flinch.
She said: "Don't cry, Mama. We're three miles."
"I know."
"Mama. I love you."
"I love you, baby."
"Mama. Drew is here."
"I know."
"Drew brought Cora home."
"I know, baby."
"Drew gave Cora his blood. Cora gave Drew her blood. They are the same blood now. They are okay. They are coming home."
The radio was silent.
Then Crystal said:
"I know, baby. Drew is the best."
Deedee said: "Yes."
She handed the radio back to me.
I said: "Crystal."
"Cora."
"Forty minutes."
"Yes."
I closed the radio.
I drove.
Drew was beside me.
Deedee was on the bench with the Polaroid.
The Mojave foothills rolled past the windshield.
Three miles became two and a half. Two and a half became two. Two became one and three quarters.
The Mojave camp came into view on the ridge ahead.
The camp at three-quarter-mile distance was the small cluster of solar panels glinting and the smoke from the kitchen tent and the chain-link perimeter and the welded steel plates and the gate I had walked out of at oh-six-thirty on day one and had been planning to walk back through for four months.
The gate was open.
The gate was open and Crystal was standing at it.
Mark was beside her.
Elena was on Cassi's arm, walking from her tent toward the gate, walking the two-hundred-yard distance for the first time since she had come home.
I could see Elena from half a mile out. She was wearing the long pale-gray coat Cassi had patched at the shoulder last winter.
She was walking slowly. Cassi's arm was through hers but most of the weight was on Elena's own feet.
Elena was walking at her own pace. The pace was slow. The pace was a pace.
The whole camp was at the gate.
I had not been able to see the whole camp at the gate before.
The camp at the gate was the small cluster of people I had thought about every morning for twenty days, and the cluster was now the actual cluster.
The cluster had faces. The cluster had Tomas at the corner of the perimeter holding back from the gate-line because Tomas was on perimeter duty and would be on perimeter duty even today.
The cluster had Marta at her tent door with her arms crossed because Marta was the senior council member and was going to be at her tent door watching the gate the way she had been at her tent door watching me leave.
The cluster had Brecca at the medical tent door with the small bundle of Sebastian on her shoulder and Rael next to her holding her elbow the way Lucian-bonded partners held the elbow when something large was happening that the bond needed to keep up with.
The cluster had Tess at the kitchen tent with Auriel on her hip.
Auriel was waving.
Auriel was waving in the small uncoordinated way six-month-olds waved.
Tess had her hand on Auriel's wrist and was guiding the wave.
The wave was for the lead truck. The wave was for Drew, mostly, because Tess had told the whole camp on the morning of the team's departure that Auriel had said eh for Drew and was going to say it again when Drew arrived.
I drove.
The camp had been counting.
The camp had stopped counting at zero.